Man’s Sinful Condition

“The evangelist who preaches for eternity is never great on numbers. He is not apt to count hundreds of converts where there is no restitution, no confession, and no glad cry which proclaims, ‘The lost is found, the dead is made alive again!’”

E.M. BOUNDS

Kirk Cameron’s Comment

Unless a man sees himself as “not good,” as truly filthy and sinful, he will never thirst for the righteousness that is in Christ. A man who is content with his own filthy rags will not see the infinite value of the robe of righteousness God extends to him. It is not until we see ourselves as God sees us that we can recognize our need for the Savior and come to Him in repentance and faith.

Questions & Objections

Lesson

The majority of humanity believes that some amount of good works is sufficient to gain them entrance into heaven. This belief is due to a faulty concept of man’s true condition. Helping people understand the concept of “original sin” will enable them to see their need for the Savior.

Two things are meant by the expression “original sin”: the first sin of Adam, and the sinful nature possessed by every person since Adam, due to Adam’s first transgression. This sinful nature is called “depravity.” Depravity consists of four things, which are true of every individual when he is born:

1. He is completely void of original righteousness. “Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). 2. He does not possess any holy affection toward God. “They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever” (Romans 1:25). “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God” (Romans 3:10, 11). “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, ... lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:2–4). 3. There is nothing from without a man, that can defile him; but the things which come out of him, these are they that defile the man. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:15, 21–23). 4. He has a continual bias toward evil. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagining of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5).

Lest the term “depravity” be misunderstood, it is well to note the following, quoted from Lectures in Systematic Theology by Henry C. Thiessen:

From the negative standpoint, it does not mean that every sinner is devoid of all qualities pleasing to men; that he commits, or is prone to commit every form of sin; that he is as bitterly opposed to God as it is possible for him to be ... Jesus recognized the existence of pleasing qualities in some individuals (Mark 10:21; Matt. 23:23).

...From the positive standpoint, it does mean that every sinner is totally destitute of that love to God which is the fundamental requirement of the law: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD. And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Dt. 6:4, 5). See Matt. 22:35–38; that he is supremely given to a preference of himself to God (2 Tim. 3:2–4); that he has an aversion to God which on occasion becomes active enmity to Him: “because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7); that his every faculty is disordered and corrupted: “having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart” (Eph. 4:18); that he has no thought, feeling, or deed of which God can fully approve: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not” (Rom. 7:18); and that he has entered upon a line of constant progress in depravity from which he can in no wise turn away in his own strength.

The result of man’s depravity, or sin nature, is his willful rebellion against God. Such an attitude cannot but bring forth evil results. The awful results of sin are obvious. It is not possible for men to continue sinning and receive anything but a harvest of sorrows of the worst kind. Paul states in Galatians 6:8, “For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.” Hosea said concerning Israel, “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). He also declared, “You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped iniquity; you have eaten the fruit of lies” (Hosea 10:13).

One would have to be blind not to see the result of sinful depravity in the minds and bodies of the human race today. Superstition, barbarity, and the grossest iniquity are seen in every land where the gospel has not yet gone. Where the message of salvation from sin has been preached and rejected, the condition is almost worse, for here is added the condemnation of light that has been rejected. In the United States, probably the richest Christian nation in the world, every institution of correction, every prison of punishment, every sanitarium and asylum is bulging with the results of sin. Every policeman in the country is a silent tribute to the reality of sin.

So devastating is its influence upon the human consciousness that now sin is glamorized until it is being recognized in society as the thing to do. A great man once said, “Our greatest defense against sin is to be shocked at it”; and when this attitude ceases, sin has accomplished its direst results. Paul, in that terrible list of gross iniquities in Romans 1:24–32, climaxed the whole dread situation when he said, “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (v.32). When sin loses its sinfulness, and men take pleasure in the grossest of sinful practices, there is little hope left ... but for the grace of God.

Feathers for Arrows

A true story was told of a young soldier in the Civil War. After an explosion left him seriously injured, he lay on the battlefield covered in blood. A male nurse sat beside the helpless trooper, holding his thumb on the man’s neck to stop the bleeding.

In the heat of battle, a doctor came alongside the two men. He looked closely at the wound and told the soldier that he was very fortunate. The damage was very close to a main artery, and if that had been severed he would have died almost immediately.

The doctor carefully stitched the small veins over which the nurse had applied pressure.

A few minutes later, he was called back. The terrified nurse was holding his thumb over a main artery, which had suddenly burst. The good doctor explained that he could now do nothing for the soldier. As soon as the nurse removed his thumb, blood would gush out rapidly, and there was no way he could contain its flow.

Over the next three hours, the brave young soldier thanked the nurse for what he had done for him, wrote farewells to his loved ones, put his affairs in order, then told the nurse to remove his thumb. The horrified nurse turned his face away from the young warrior as he removed his thumb; the soldier was dead within minutes.

Whether we are enlightened to understand it or not, the eternal God of creation holds our life in His hands. When the preserving presence of His hand is removed, we die. We are but mortal human beings, and “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Every breath we take, and every heartbeat that follows, comes only because He keeps His gracious hand upon our lives.

He alone is the origin of human life, the One who sustains our very existence.

Words of Comfort

My lovely wife is very conservative in nature. After a meal at a mall, she bought an ice cream, held it out, and said, “Here you are ... handsome.” My heart skipped a beat. I was about to blush when I realized that I had misheard what she had said. She actually said, “Here you are ... have some.” A similar thing happened about two weeks later. I was speaking to her long-distance when she said, “I will see you tomorrow morning ... baby.” Baby! Wow! I was excited, until I asked her to repeat what she had said. She said, “I will see you tomorrow morning ... maybe.”

Questions

1. What two things are meant by the expression “original sin”?
2. What is the sinful nature called?
3. In what four ways are all individuals “depraved” when they are born?
4. Some individuals claim that people are basically good. How does that fit with the concept of depravity?
5. What is the greatest defense against sin?
6. Based on that, how do you think the U.S. is faring?

Answers to these review questions are provided in the back of the printed book / source PDF.

Memory Verse

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one.”

Romans 3:10-12

Last Words

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), the seventh President of the U.S., loved to read the Bible, and heaven was near and dear to him. Shortly before he died, he gathered his family and servants to his bedside and told them: “I have suffered much bodily pain, but my sufferings are but as nothing compared with that which our blessed Redeemer endured upon the accursed cross, that all might be saved who put their trust in Him.”

Andrew Jackson