Chewing on Truth Part 2

Step One: Realizing our Depravity and Need for a Savior
The word depravity, the whole idea, refers to our condition apart from God's grace. Man being depraved could be more evil then he/she is, but our condition must be compared to God not to other men and women. Our rebellion against the creator God is total in that there is no desire for holiness or submission to a perfect GOd. Even though fallen man can be "religious", Jesus himself in Matthew 6:1-18 expressed the reality that religion, unless coming from a childlike heart of faith, is pride and self-reliance. We must realize, especially those of us who have been saved should be able to recognize and remember that prior to our coming to life in Him, we didn't seek after God. And for those of you who might say that you did, what were your motives? Self preservation? Romans 3 makes it clear that nobody does good, nobody seeks God.

Our depravity is the result of the fact that we sin because we are sinners not sinners because we sin. Romans 14:23 says that "Anything not from faith is sin". Paul himself said earlier in the book, Romans 7:18, that no good dwells within him. Our depravity causes us to be UNABLE to submit to God and do good. Romans 8:7-8 says "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God".

Need some more verses on depravity?
- Ephesians 2:1 "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins."
-Ezekiel 36:36 " I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
-2 Corinthians 4:4-6 "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

And we must remember that as James 2:10 says, "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." That means that well here think about this illustration for a moment; you have two PERFECT mirrors (just imagine). Then you take a pebble and throw it at the top right corner of one, and there is a tiny scratch, is the mirror perfect? No. And then you take a large rock and throw it at mirror number two and it shatters into hundreds of pieces. Is that mirror perfect? Obviously not. Both mirrors, although one way worse then the other, are imperfect. It is the same with fallen humanity. The standard is holiness aka perfection and nobody, not Mother Teresa, not the missionary who gave his life in China, not Paul, not Peter, not John the Baptist, not Mary the mother of Jesus, not Moses, Abraham or Job...NOBODY is perfect apart from Jesus Christ.

So what then? What does our depravity deserve? All of us would believe the following (just a few examples):

- 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9 "God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power"
- Matthew 10:18 "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
- Matthew 13:49 "This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous"
-Revelation 14:9-11 "A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name"

HELL! We deserve hell. Our depravity as Piper says, "means that our rebellion against God is total, everything we do is in rebellion is sin and our inability to submit to God or reform ourselves, save ourselves, is TOTAL, and we therefore totally deserve eternal punishment"...it just makes sense. There is no way that we can find even a single verse in Scripture that would teach the opposite, that would show that in someway, some of us or even all of us have even a pinch of "good" in us apart from the grace of God. I challenge you to seek to find even one verse. If we can humble ourselves to this Truth, when we can really understand the bad news, we will be able to see the awe and amazement of the Truth in a whole new light, the good news will be amazingly glorious.