Few acknowledge the fact of man’s total ruin and depravity; and fewer, I fear, have any real understanding of it. The scriptures tell us that all of fallen Adam’s descendants are “dead” to God and all true good. We are “dead in trespasses and sins.” We “come forth from the womb speaking lies.” We are “born in sin and shapen in iniquity.” The “heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.” There is “none good, no not one.” This is true of every one of us, of all our children and of everyone else in the world. What a frightening thought that is for many reasons.
How we respond to this fact and how we deal with it reveals what we really understand about it. Some say that man’s condition can be remedied by education. We simply need more information they say. But the “carnal mind is enmity against God” and all that is true and good. Some say the way to deal with the problem is isolation. They isolate themselves and their own from what they call “the world.” Men have built monasteries for this isolation and many more have made their homes and lives such, yet, men “wax worse and worse.” Some promote separation. Separate the good apples from the bad apples. They imagine sin to be caused by contact with sinners. Their “separation” bears no resemblance to the separation that God’s people are called to. The call of God to His people is “come ye out from among them and be ye separate.” It is a call for His people to separate themselves from “idolatry.” Many join themselves to idolatry to try and deal with the effects of man’s depravity in the world. But the biggest effort to deal with man’s depravity is legislation. No, not so much by laws passed by elected officials, but laws, rules and restraints adopted and enforced by false religion. The apostle Paul tells us what this legal principle produces in fallen man. “For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.” (Rom 7:5) Those in the flesh being controlled by the evil nature through a body dead to God find all outward, legal restraint intolerable! The rules and rigors of legalism may restrain for a time but sooner or later the fallen nature rears its ugly head and shows itself openly.
The only real hope for ourselves, our families and all around us is the almighty grace of God. Even in those who are unconverted, the evil that is restrained and the wickedness that they are kept from doing is all because of God’s prevenient grace! I pray for God’s restraining grace for our children and all those in the world around us. Then, the only hope that we as believers have for ourselves is the grace of God. It is that sin shall not have dominion over us because we are not under the law but under grace! (Read Romans 6) Our deliverance from the power of the nature of sin is on the same ground that our deliverance from the penalty of sin is on. That is our union with Christ in His death! “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” The only remedy for fallen sinners is a heart work performed by the God of almighty grace! You see, Christ said, “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 7:21-23) This heart work is a work that God alone can perform. This is His pledge in the everlasting covenant of His grace toward His people: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” (Heb. 10:16,17) Our hope is not in education, isolation, separation or legislation but in regeneration! The regenerating work of the Spirit of grace giving a new heart! The products of man’s failure to know his true case and his exercises to deal with the effects of depravity are all around us. On the one hand there are the self-righteous Pharisees and on the other, the absolute moral reprobates. Then there is a multitude somewhere between. All condemned by God and all dangerous.
The only hope, the only true remedy for man’s desperate case is
the omnipotent grace of God. Paul said that the grace of God has both saved us
and taught us “that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” Oh for grace that
restrains and regenerates in this present hour!