Total Depravity Part 1
Tom Shrader teaches the doctrine of total depravity, arguing that fallen humanity is not merely 'mostly dead' but completely spiritually dead and unable to respond to God without divine intervention. Using Scripture passages like Romans 3 and Ephesians 2, he explains that all people are born separated from God and incapable of doing spiritual good, establishing the foundation for understanding God's sovereign grace in salvation.
“We sin because we're sinners, not that we are sinners because we sin.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (EVBC) (2002)
Recorded: June 02, 2002
Duration: 55 min
Themes: salvation, sin, grace, depravity, death, redemption, hope, transformation, feeling hopeless, struggling with sin, questioning salvation, new believer, doubting worthiness, seeking purpose, spiritual seeker, wrestling with faith
Scripture: Ephesians 1:4-5, Ephesians 1:11, Genesis 2:16-17, Genesis 3, Romans 5:12, Romans 3:23, Romans 6:23, 2 Chronicles 6:36, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:10-12, Ephesians 2:1-3, John 8:44
Theological Themes: total depravity, original sin, spiritual death, fallen nature, divine sovereignty, unconditional election, biblical authority, reformed theology
Full Transcript
Introduction to God's Plan for Salvation
This is the second session of a series titled "God's Plan for Salvation." We're taking eight weeks to look at this topic because it is so important to us. We have tried to provide you even extra ways to enhance the opportunity you have for God to speak to you through this series.
All of the notes will be on the website by at least Friday before, so you can come in with those notes with you. They'll be in a rough draft and may be changed, but you'll have the majority of them. On Monday night, we'll be available starting at 7 o'clock for a time of questions and answers and discussion. We encourage you, if you would like to talk to us and have questions about this, to join us.
If you have believing friends who are at other churches, and they think you are full of nonsense for believing this, bring them over. Maybe God will get their attention. It's not a debate forum, but it is an opportunity to have an open discussion about this topic.
Ground Rules for Our Discussion
Here are the ground rules that we'll follow for our discussion. First of all, the Bible's our final authority. We will quote all sorts of authors, and indeed the first 30 minutes of our 45 today, we'll talk about all sorts of different things before we get to the Scripture, but the Bible itself is our final authority. Probably there's no topic that we could tackle that generates more emotion and more feeling and more passion than this idea of God's plan for salvation. So while we find experience interesting and feelings fascinating, it's the Bible that will be our final authority.
Here's the second thing, and it's almost contrary to the world we live in now. We'll proceed in a logical fashion. There may even be some frustrating points for you because you want to jump ahead. Halfway through tonight, you'll already have questions, and you'll want to jump ahead. We'll answer your questions at the appropriate time. Legitimate questions deserve legitimate answers, and we'll give them to you at the appropriate time.
We will not chase rabbit trails. This discussion, maybe more than any we can have, is just prone to rabbit trails all over the place. We're not going to do that. We're going to go slow and steady. That's why it's so important for you to commit to be with us for the next seven or eight weeks. If you miss a week, grab the message off the website. It's so important for us to build one week on the next.
Setting Aside Your Background
We're going to ask you to, in many cases, set aside your background. You come with all sorts of different perspectives and at all sorts of different levels. For some of you, what I'm going to say just isn't deep at all. You've plumbed the depths on your own. For others of you, this is all new stuff. You've never heard anything like this before.
Some of you come with extensive church backgrounds. What's going to happen to you shortly into this, you're going to say, "How could I have been in church all these years and never heard this? How come I've never heard this before?" Some of you are going to come from denominations that think what we're going to talk to you about is absolutely wrong. So you're going to have all sorts of struggles. You're going to be fighting on the inside.
That's okay. I'm going to tell you this, and I'll tell you again at the end: hang in there. This is worth it. This is not just some purely academic study. This has enormous practical ramification to your life. My sense is, if you hang in there, if you're steady, if you genuinely ask the Lord to open your eyes, you're going to have a revelation. It may take a week. It may take a month. It may take a year, but God will show you the truth.
Understanding Calvinism
Here's the full title of this series: "God's Plan for Salvation, Understanding the Five Points of Calvinism." One could even question the wisdom of bringing in that subtitle. Why do we cloud the issue with the term Calvinism? I'll tell you why. Everywhere I go in this valley, and as I hear from you as you go out and talk to others, I keep hearing that East Valley Bible Church is a Calvinistic church. I always hear this in some sort of a disparaging way, like, "I can't even believe that anybody would believe this, that they're a Calvinistic church."
Rather than run from that, let's understand what it means, and we'll go ahead and embrace that. You've got no problem if that's what you want to say. If we're Calvinistic in our belief, I want you to understand what that means and how we would define and embrace that title.
Here's how Webster defines it, and it's a partially accurate view: "A group of Christian doctrines of John Calvin and his followers, especially relating to the idea of predestination and the idea of salvation of the elect solely by God's grace." One very important point here: we embrace the teachings of Calvin only to the extent that they're the teachings of the Scripture. John Calvin didn't invent predestination. John Calvin didn't just come down one day from the mount with the tablet that said, "You are elect."
Election and Predestination in Scripture
Turn to Ephesians chapter 1, if you would, just by way of introduction. Virtually every Christian faith denomination has some view on predestination and election, and the reason is it's in the Scripture.
Paul writes this in Ephesians 1:1: "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Verse 3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according..."
to the kind intention of His will. Verse 11, "In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will."
That is why every faith has to deal with this idea of predestination and election. What I'm telling you is over the next few months, I don't care where you turn in your private study or in your quiet time or in your reading, you're just going to see this stuff popping off the page at you because it's everywhere.
The Biblical Foundation of These Doctrines
Get this: John Calvin didn't invent predestination and election. This isn't something that Martin Luther came up with. It wasn't Aquinas who put it together. It wasn't Augustine. It was the authors of the Old and New Testament. It's the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. It's what Paul taught and Peter taught. It's dominant in Scripture.
The reason every denomination has some view on predestination and election is because predestination and election are biblical terms. So why don't we try to understand what they say? Let me say it to you again: we're not following Calvin because Calvin came up with some cool new idea.
R.C. Sproul does, however, point this out. If you got together a hundred theologians and you said, "Pick the top five theologians of all times," when you were done and you evaluated and you graded it out, here's what you're going to hear: Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Edwards. Those would pretty much be the top five. There are others who would hit the list, but almost everyone, I think, would put them in a lower ranking. All five of these would agree with the doctrines that we call Calvinistic.
Now that in and of itself doesn't make it right. Just because Calvin or Luther, Edwards or Augustine or Aquinas says it, that doesn't make it right. But it ought to at least cause us to stop and look. With all due respect, who do you think you are to just categorically blow these things off?
What is more alarming to me is that what we call Calvinism has been the dominant teaching of the church for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. It isn't something new. It's as old as the Scripture itself. That's why we accept these doctrines.
The Five Points Framework
If we try to put a framework around them, here are the five points of Calvinism that historically were identified this way, across the TULIP: Total depravity or total inability. Those terms may or may not mean anything to you; they will five or six weeks from now, and that's okay. But those speak in their essence to God saves man.
Remember, the doctrines that we identify as Calvinism are the conclusions of the Synod of Dort. They were conclusions released in 1618 as the church stopped and looked at some teaching that was popularized by a guy by the name of Arminius. It was then codified and presented in the Remonstrance documents in 1610.
The church stopped to review these, and here's what they said: that man chooses God, that God doesn't choose, and here's how God chooses. He looks down the corridors of time. He sees who's going to choose Him, and then God chooses. When Christ died on the cross, He died for everybody. God's trying to woo everybody to Himself equally in all lives, and man can resist that. And they also said that you may lose your salvation.
The Church's Response to These Teachings
The church got together, and here's what—and again, this gets a little dicey, and I know these are explosive terms—but the church got together and said, "Let me tell you what that is: heresy." Now what makes this explosive is that's the dominant thought process in the Christian world today.
If we really wanted to get the terms where we could get our arms around them, they would look like this: radical depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, those kinds of things. The problem is RUPEP doesn't work. That's why.
Now this might help us get it, especially in the area of depravity. Total depravity has with it the idea of utter depravity, and when we think of utter depravity, we think that man is as bad as he can possibly be. No man is as bad as he can possibly be. Hitler didn't kill his mother. Radical depravity, or total inability, maybe captures the idea a little bit better.
Understanding Total Depravity
It's the idea that all men in their natural state—let me define that word for you, because we'll use these interchangeably: fallen man and natural man. It speaks of a man or woman as they come into this world as a baby. What's the state? What's the condition of their soul? Not are they alive physically, are they alive spiritually?
What the Calvinistic doctrine says, and they say this, by the way, because the Bible teaches it, is that man is totally depraved, or man is totally unable of doing any good thing. So that's what we're going to look at today.
Why This Matters
Is this important? Look at what Steele and Thomas write: "The view one takes concerning salvation will be determined to a large extent by the view one takes concerning sin and its effect on human nature."
When we talk about salvation, and I would assume that we would all agree that there couldn't be a topic that's more important to us as Christians than how do I go to heaven, how do I know that I'm saved, how do I know I'm delivered from the consequence and the bondage of my sin—when I look at salvation, that view is going to be largely molded by how I see man in his natural state.
J.M. Stifler says this: "It cannot be said too often that a false theology finds its source in an inadequate view of depravity."
The Reality of Human Nature
We did a baby dedication this morning, and they start to fall into a little pattern, as you can imagine. The kid comes up, and I'll say, especially if it's a girl, because I'm a little more prone to the girls than the guys. I know what the guys are going to grow up to be. The girls are just easier to deal with. So I get a hold of the girl, and I'll just say, "Can I hold her?" and they'll say, "Yeah, okay."
The minute I take it, everyone goes, "Awww." Well, let's stop a second. What's
Four Views of Human Nature
The condition of this little girl? There are basically four views that I can think of. Here's the first one. When I was in high school, I had to take three years of Latin. I took three years of it in college. We had a term. The term was this, tabula rasa, that we come into the world a blank slate, that this little child that we hold is essentially neutral, no propensity for good or for evil. That will be determined, really, to some extent by genetics, but beyond that, by the world around Him and the experience we have.
The second view is what I would think is the dominant view in our pagan culture today, and that is man is basically good, that man at His core is good. So that when a mother puts her kids in the back of a car and drives it into the lakes and drowns them, we don't vilify the mom. We try to understand what went wrong here. Here's the phrase when you have man basically good: man is always a victim, never a villain.
Here's the third possibility. This is the dominant view among most Christians, and that is man has certainly got some effects of sin and is certainly to some degree, and even a large degree, impacted by sin. He certainly has an inclination towards sin, but he does have some capacity to do good things, at least the capacity to respond to a good thing like the gospel when he hears it.
Here's the fourth view. It would be our view. I think it's the biblical view, and that is that man is spiritually dead, that man is unable, doesn't have the ability, doesn't have the capacity, even if he had the desire which he does not have to do good, he cannot do it.
The Biblical View: Total Inability
In fact, here's what I would say when we talk about totally unable, that as a result of Adam's sin, all mankind is spiritually dead and unable to either comprehend or believe spiritual truths. That man is blind and man is deaf to the message of salvation. Man is spiritually dead. The consequences of Adam's sin are such that we cannot respond, we'll never get it if it's spiritual, we'll never understand it, we'll never believe it.
When we look at the condition of man, this is really important, and I'm sure I'm going to say it to you two or three more times: what we need to do is to see man from God's position, not from ours. What's God's view of man? I know when I stand here with that little baby and we go, oh, isn't she sweet? But what does God see?
Spiritual Zombies
The term spiritually dead is a term that we see all through Scripture. John MacArthur writes this: man apart from God is a spiritual zombie. They're walking dead who do not know they're dead. They go through the motions of life, but they don't possess life. You've seen those movies, The Land of the Living Dead. Here are these things, these zombies. They're dead. They have attributes that make them look alive, but in fact they're dead.
That's what we're talking about. And this is why it becomes so confusing, because we can look... I can bring somebody up here, and they're a strapping young lad, they're going to the gym, they're working out, bench pressing 300 pounds, 120 over 70, 98.6. They've got all the moves, they got it all figured out. You look at Him and you say, man, he's alive, and God says, no, he's dead. He may look alive to you physically, but he's dead spiritually.
Within the church, that's the battle. What's the condition of man? The majority view that people take is that man is not dead, that man is very, very, very, very, very sick, but still has the capacity, still has the ability, when presented with good, to respond. In other words, what we would say is man is not dead. Man is mostly dead.
Mostly Dead vs. All Dead
So just to be reminded, let's take a look at this film clip:
[Film clip dialogue from The Princess Bride]
Now, there's the heart of the issue right there. Here's what Miracle Max says. He says this: "It just so happens your friend here is mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive." And then he adds, I don't know if you caught it, "All dead, well, with all dead, there's usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change."
I want to focus on that middle statement because it speaks so clearly to what we're talking about. There is a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. If man is mostly dead, he's slightly alive.
Have you heard illustrations that people use when they try to acknowledge that man is dead? But they put it this way, that man is at the bottom of the sea, and the gospel comes...
along and down comes this rope, and all man has to do, he's laying there helpless, all he's got to do is grab that rope and he will be pulled up out of this and he'll be saved. Or that man is very, very, very sick, paralyzingly so, as he lays there very close to death, and along comes the serum that will save him, the gospel, and the mouth is open and down it goes, and you rub the throat and man swallows.
Here's the problem with those two illustrations. Those two illustrations require man to be mostly dead, therefore, slightly alive. Man is not laying at the bottom of the ocean, helpless and hopeless, waiting for a rope to come. He's laying there dead and decaying and the sharks are picking his bones clean. He's not laying there waiting for serum, even if he could, and this is what I'm saying to you, even if he was conscious and had that ability and there was the serum, man in his natural state would go, pfft! He's repulsed by anything that is good.
This is so important. This is the core of what we're trying to communicate to you today. Man is not mostly dead. Man is absolutely dead in his sin and trespassing. There is nothing that man can do. There's no desire for good that man has. And even if he did see and hear the gospel, he couldn't comprehend it because he's unable in his natural state to comprehend spiritual truths. That's what we're going to talk about in the next 15 minutes and that's what we're going to talk about all from Scripture next week.
The Nature of Original Sin
What we're talking about really here is original sin. Again, virtually every Christian denomination has their version of original sin. When we talk about original sin, it's not the exact act of Adam and Eve, it's the effect of what Adam and Eve did.
It struck me after teaching this three times that we need to go back and make sure you understand we believe in Adam and Eve. We believe literally that's how the human race began, that there was an Adam and that there was an Eve, that we didn't just evolve from this, but the creation story in the Scripture is absolutely accurate. That when Adam and Eve sinned, specifically when Adam sinned, it had great consequence on the entire body of all people who would ever be born.
When I said every denomination has some version of original sin, it doesn't mean that they're the same, although they may look the same. I was raised Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, Catholic college. Our Bible was the Baltimore Catechism. Here's what the Baltimore Catechism said about original sin: Our inherited condition from the sin of Adam and Eve by which we are born without grace and inclined to love ourselves more than God.
The Problem with Partial Views
Here's the problem with that definition. It gives man way too much credit. It says we're inclined to love ourselves, but there's a duality there, and under certain conditions we'll overcome that. While our yearning may be for ourselves, given the right set of circumstances, we will love God.
The Westminster Confession of Faith talks about original sin this way, and it seems to me that they've got it right biblically. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. So as a natural man, being altogether adverse or opposed from good and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself for conversion.
Man isn't mostly dead. Man is dead and decaying. He doesn't have the ability in himself to change his situation, and he has no desire to see that situation changed, and unless something changes first in him, he will never respond to this gospel. He's entirely enslaved and in bondage to sin, and he's repulsed by good.
How Did We Get This Way?
How'd we get this way? How'd the world get this way? You identify yourself as a Christian, and you go to work, and you're talking to friends, and they say, I don't buy that whole thing. Why would a loving God create a world where babies die, where people suffer, where hardship dominates? Why would God create that kind of a world?
Well, the next time they ask you that question, you can say this: He didn't. He created paradise, and we chose this kind of world. The explanation for so much of what we see around us lies in Genesis chapter 3.
If you read Genesis chapter 1 and 2, and then skip Genesis 3, and go to Genesis 4, you're left scratching your head saying, what happened? Genesis 2 ends with man and woman in the garden naked, rejoicing peace, harmony. Genesis chapter 4 begins, and shortly we've got suffering and pain and sickness and hardship and murder and strife and conflict. What happened? The answer to the problems of this world lie in Genesis chapter 3. It was there that man sinned, and when man sinned, he brought on himself and all of his descendants the curses.
The Warning and the Rebellion
Here's the story very quickly. There was a warning that God gave. Genesis chapter 2, verse 16: "The Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that you eat from it, you will die." There's God's direct command.
Some time passes, and all of a sudden, there is rebellion. All of a sudden, there's sin. "The woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, and she took its fruit and ate it, and she gave it also to her husband, and he ate it." They directly disobeyed the express command of God.
It's what happens to us and what we say every time we sin. Every time we sin, we say, Not thy will, but my will be done. We'll do it my way. It was rebellion. God says, Listen, here's the warning. If you do it, you'll die, and here's the punishment. We see it in Genesis chapter 3, beginning in verse 14, and then through the end of the chapter as God pronounces the curse on man and woman, and you're familiar with all of those, and then summarizes it this way. So God drives man out of the garden,
The Result of the Fall
At the east of the garden of Eden, He stationed a cherub and a flaming sword, which turned in every direction to guard the way of the tree of life. That becomes the punishment to man for his rebellion.
Here's the result, and this is what we're concerned about today. Romans chapter 5, verse 12: "Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, thus death spread to all men, because all man sinned."
We—and I can say this with great confidence—we, all of us in this room, are sinners, and we are sinners by nature. This is not just some clever, pithy little phrase. It's not that we are sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. Get it? It's not that we're declared sinners because of an act that we did or our sin. We sin because we are sinners.
The Universal Nature of Sin
David says it this way: "In my mother's womb, I was conceived in sin." Paul continues here in Romans, Romans chapter 3, he says this: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
When God said, "The day you eat from this, you'll surely die," He meant physically, and they began the process of dying right there, that day. But death means literally separation, and what happened is Adam and Eve at that moment separated from God spiritually. Their communion and union with God were broken, and consequently the communion and union of every boy and girl born since has been broken. We come into the world adverse to God, opposing God.
Scripture's Assessment of Mankind
Here's the effect that's everywhere. It's all through Scripture. Let me give you a couple of passages. 2 Chronicles 6:36: "For there is no man who does not sin." Ecclesiastes 7:20: "For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin."
Here's the effect, and we have two passages of Scripture we'll look at as we close. Romans chapter 3. This is Paul's assessment of mankind: "There is none righteous, no not one. There's none who understands. There's none who seek after God. They all turn aside." Here you go: "There is none who does good, no not one."
Let me say it—it'll be the second time tonight. We're looking at God's view of man, not man's view of man.
Our Natural Resistance to This Truth
The minute you see this, you naturally, instinctively want to flinch against it. You want to say, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, that's way too strong."
Let me tell you what happened in our office. One of the secretaries in our office, she had a little boy, and that little boy was killed, and you should have seen the way the office came together. We raised money, and we took care of the funeral costs, and we were there to support the body. You're telling me we didn't do good there? You should hear what happens to my guys at the club. We heard that there were some starving people, and we were out there with blankets and turkeys. We're doing good.
God Looks at the Heart, Not Just Actions
Here's the problem we have. We look at the action. God looks at the heart of the actor.
When Jesus is speaking in the Sermon on the Mount, He says, "Here's the scribes and the Pharisees," the ones the people called the holiest of people. Remember what they said? If only two people could go to heaven, one would be a scribe and one would be a Pharisee. These were the ones that everybody looked up to. They stood in awe of them as they prayed, as they gave, as they fasted. And Jesus comes along and says, "Listen, when you pray and you fast and you give, don't do it like these guys. They're doing it for you. They're not doing it for Me."
See, Jesus has an extraordinary advantage. He looks at their heart. We're limited to look at the action. When God looks at the heart, His conclusion is this: No one does good. No one.
The Impossibility of True Good Without Christ
Don't be deceived. Just because somebody's here tonight, or they're teaching in a Sunday school class, or maybe they're in a pulpit, or they're singing in a praise team, or they're doing something we see as good—and it may have merit, and it may have virtue, and it may, in a temporary sense, relieve some anxiety or anxiousness or pain here in this church, or here in this world—don't be deceived to think that act in and of itself is good. What about the heart of the actor?
If I am not a Christian, if I have not been born again, if I do not have an intimate personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, I can't do anything that's good. That's what the Scripture teaches.
Dead in Trespasses and Sins
Paul writes this in Ephesians 2. Remember, we started with Ephesians 1, talking about our being chosen before the foundations of the earth and being predestined, being elected. He writes to them, and he says this: "You were made alive." This is very important. You were dead, but you were made alive. You were dead in your trespasses and sins.
The word trespass means to slip or to misstep. The word sin means to miss the mark. Sin means to miss the mark. All of us miss the mark. All of us fall short.
We All Miss the Mark
Here's what we have a tendency to do. We have a tendency to play a game that's relative. "Well, I don't miss it as far as they do." Listen, if you go into the prison and you talk to them in the prison, they're going to say, "Watch out for that guy over there. You should hear what he did. Boy, what he did was really bad," and "that's nothing compared to this guy." We miss the mark. That's the point. Every person misses the mark.
If I take 20 of you down to Tempe Town Lake, and I put you on the south side of the lake, and I said, "All right, I'm going to count to three. When I count to three, I want you to jump to the north side. Okay? One, two, three." Some of you will jump a foot, and some of you will be real clever—you have a pole, you get out there 15 feet. It doesn't matter. You didn't get to the other side. You missed the mark. Some of us may miss it by this much, some by this much, but all by at least this much. That's His point.
You're dead in your sin and trespasses. Your behavior, in terms of the depth of that sin, may vary in the way it manifests itself externally.
But internally, we're God-haters. That's what He says. See the end of verse 3? By nature, we're children of wrath. The great lie in the world today is that we're all children of God. We are not children of God.
I wrote this, and I think it's true, that in our natural state, we're actually Satan's co-workers. We join with him, consciously or subconsciously, to advance his agenda in this world. Jesus comes across the Scribes and the Pharisees in John chapter 8, and He says, "You are of your father, the devil."
Man, in his natural state, has a love and affection for anything but the one true God, for anything but biblical, sound, spiritual truth. Man, in his natural state, loves every substitution that can come along and disguise itself as true religion, and man, in his natural state, is opposed to what is really good.
Dead or Mostly Dead?
Here's the question that we close with. So what's the condition of fallen man? Is he dead, or is he mostly dead? And what's so important to understand is that there is a very, very big difference. If you get nothing else out of tonight, get this. Fallen man is dead. Fallen man is not mostly dead. Fallen man is dead.
Now, let me ask you this, and this will set up next week. What does a dead man need? There's only one thing a dead man needs, and that's life. That's why Jesus said, "You must be born again." There's only one thing a dead man needs.
Do you see this? You come into this world dead, separated from God. There's nothing that you can do. You have no good dwelling in you. You have no desire for good. Do you begin to see how awful your sin really is? It just isn't something that offends the big guy upstairs. You're dead, and what you need is life.
A Lesson from My Grandfather
I was 12 years old when my grandfather died, and we went to Beardsley Funeral Home in Sheldon, Iowa. I remember going in with my mom. It was the first time I saw a dead body, and we walked up, and there was my grandpa, and we looked, and I remember studying him pretty closely.
We walked out, and we were on the porch of this house, and my mom said to my aunt, her sister, "Didn't dad look good?" And I thought, I better go check this out. I must admit, he was a warehouse foreman, a tough old bird, and on his best suit—I think it was his only suit—and a white shirt, and tie straight, glasses right, little smile. He looked really pretty good, but I remember thinking at age 12, he nonetheless has one overriding problem. He's dead, and there's only one thing a dead man needs, and that's life.
The Deception of Thinking We Just Need Change
Some of you are dead, and what you think is, you just need a little change of pace. "If I can get rid of her, and get her, that'll work. After all, she's a little older now, starting to bag, and sag, and drag, and I don't think I want that." Don't be offended, ladies. The only reason it's that way, is because he's too cheap to pop for the surgery. So all of a sudden, that's what I say, "I'll get one of those 2002 models." Let me tell you something, gentlemen, I've seen the 2002 models, and they are very expensive.
But that's what they think. Why would a guy who's got a great wife and kids, why would he go mess around? Why would an athlete who's making five, six million dollars a year, why would he do this? The answer is, he's dead. There is a sense in which he can't help himself.
There is the problem, because we want more. No matter how much we have, no matter how well we hit, we want more. No matter what job we got, we want more. No matter what God gives us in our family, we want more. And what we think is life is really death.
Here's what you need. You need Jesus. Jesus says, "I am the way, and I am the truth, and I am the life."
Four Critical Questions for Next Week
So here are the four questions we're going to answer next week. Number one, how can a dead man come back to life? How can a dead man be born again? Number two, can he be born again? Can he do this on his own power?
Number three, does natural man or fallen man even have the ability to come to Christ? When we say, "Come to Jesus," does natural man have the ability to do that? Number four, and it's kind of the summary of all this, can natural man or fallen man do anything that has any spiritual value at all? This is absolutely critical.
Please Don't Give Up
Let me remind you again, we will be here tomorrow night at 7 o'clock. We would love the opportunity to dialogue with you in a controlled fashion the best we can. Also, let me remind you that after the service, there will be guys up front that are here to talk to you about anything. We are here to meet with you, to be available to you, to pray with you. That's why these guys are here.
Listen, hang in there, will you? Many of you are familiar with this. Some of you, this is new stuff. Some of you are already starting to recoil from this. Don't do it. Don't run from this.
I'll just tell you, and I hope it isn't too strong and it's not hyperbole, I plead with you to hang in there. This is not some mere academic exercise. This is the process by which God becomes God in your life. Can you see that?
Father, help us see this truth. I pray for those, especially those that are struggling with this. Maybe they're just struggling, and they just can't come to grips with it. Or maybe, Father, they realize that in fact this is true. They don't want to wait until next week. They want to know, what can I do to be born again? God, would You move them forward to talk to these guys?
Let the people here know that we love them, and we care for them, and we are here to do anything we can to help them. God, we want to praise You and worship You and glorify You, allowing You to be who You are, recognizing You for what You've done. Father, thank You for that. We worship You in Christ's name. Amen.
I apologize, but the transcript you've provided appears to be corrupted or incomplete. It consists mainly of repeated words like "Cymru" and "Snapfying" along with ellipses, which don't appear to be actual sermon content about "God's Plan for Salvation 2 - Total Depravity."
To properly edit this sermon transcript, I would need the actual spoken content from the sermon. Could you please provide the correct transcript that contains Tom's teaching on total depravity?