Sermons
“Original Sin”
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Reading will be from Ezekiel chapter 18.
Verses 003 through 20, Ezekiel 18:1 through 20, we'll be reading from the New King James Version.
The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, what do you mean when you're using the proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge.
As I live, says the Lord God, you shall no longer use this proverb in Israel.
Behold, all souls are mine.
The soul of the Father, as well as the soul of the Son is mine.
The soul who sins shall die.
But if a man is just and does what is lawful and right, if he has not eaten on the mountains nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, nor defiled his neighbor's wife.
Nor approached a woman during her impurity if he has not oppressed any one but has restored to the debtor his pledge, has robbed no one by violence but has given his bread to the hungry, uncovered the naked with clothing.
If he has not exacted usury nor taken any increase, but has withdrawn his hand from iniquity and executed true judgment between man and man.
If he has walked in my statutes and kept my judgments faithfully, he is just.
He shall surely live, says the Lord God.
If he begets a son who is a robber or a shedder of blood who does any of these things and has none of those duties.
But has eaten on the mountains or defiled his neighbor's wife if he has oppressed the poor and needy, robbed by violence, not restored the pledge, lifted his eyes to the idols, or committed abominations, if he has exacted usury or taken increase, shall he then live?
He shall not live.
If he has done any of these abominations, he shall surely die.
His blood shall be upon him.
If, however, he begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done and considers but does not do likewise, who has not eaten on the mountains nor lifted his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, nor defiled his neighbor's wife, has not oppressed any one, nor with withheld a pledge nor robbed by violence, but has given his bread to the hungry.
And covered the naked with clothing who has withdrawn his hand from the poor and not received usury or increase, but has has executed my judgments and walked in my statutes, he shall not die for the iniquity of his father.
He shall surely live.
As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, robbed his brother by violence, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.
Yet you say, why should the son not bear the guilt of the Father?
because the Son has done what is lawful and right and has kept all my statutes and observed them.
He shall surely live.
The soul who sins shall die.
The son shall not bear the guilt of the Father, nor the Father bear the guilt of the Sons.
The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
Several of you have asked about my eyes, and I would tell you that they are doing well.
I'm still in the process of getting this.
Uh, artificial lens in my right eye, uh.
Fixed, I guess, in the prescription that it's supposed to have.
And so my eyes are still tearing.
And I promise I'm not crying over the sermon.
It's not that good.
Um But I, I'm gonna have to kind of wipe my eyes every once in a while and As a result, my glasses don't work anymore.
They're, they're not the right prescription.
And so things are a little blurry.
Um, so we'll, we'll do the best we can.
At some point, I may just have to pull the glasses off and go without them, see what happens.
I might preach anything, who knows.
Let me ask you a question this morning, just how much control do you really have over your life?
You know, there are some of us, myself included, we really like to have control.
We like to think that we are masters of our own faith.
But the fact of the matter is, you and I don't control the actions of people around us.
People whose actions actually affect our lives a great deal.
We don't control the environment around us, the physical environment around us.
I'm talking about temperature, rain, snow, wind, storms.
Those things happen and We can try to protect ourselves or adapt to those things.
We don't control them.
We don't even completely control our physical health.
We can pursue good health habits.
But genetics and some environmental factors are out of our control.
More and more we're learning that a lot of the food that we eat is not particularly good for us.
And maybe we weren't even aware of that.
We've ingested toxins.
Uh, that are involved in the production of food and the preservation of food, the processing of food.
We don't control those things.
We can try to eat healthy, but the fact of the matter is, we don't even control that entirely.
What we do control is how we react in each of these areas.
As people behave in certain ways around us, we can control how we respond to their behavior, to their actions, as it as they affect us.
We can react to weather conditions.
We can react to health difficulties that we have, even though we can't entirely control those.
Now, the reason I bring all this up is to suggest to you that we really do have some control because we can respond by choice to all of these things.
But there is A systematic theology known as Calvinism.
That basically affirms that we do not control our spiritual condition.
In fact, hardly at all.
On February the 23rd, I preached a sermon here entitled Out of My Hands.
It was the beginning of a series of sermons that I intend to present over this year that deal with Calvinism.
Calvinism is a very prominent Uh, very widespread doctrine, and we need to know how to respond to it.
We need to be able to identify it as false doctrine.
Calvinism takes our salvation.
Completely out of our hands.
We do not control our spiritual condition.
And this morning, our study of total inherited depravity, that's another term for original sin.
is going to demonstrate the truth of that statement, that we do not control our spiritual condition according to Calvinism, the teaching of Calvinism.
I want to spend just a moment or two reviewing a little bit of what we've said.
We've got too much to say this morning to, to spend too much time on that, but I think it's worth at least looking at the main tenets of Calvinism.
We presented them in kind of an overview fashion uh in that February sermon, and I suggested to you at the time that, the acronym Tulip is a handy way.
Of remembering these tenants.
That's not original with me by any means, but I think it is a good way to remember the five main tenets of Calvinism, total inherited depravity, and unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of saints.
And I'm not going to try to describe those doctrines.
We did that in the last lesson.
Instead, what I want to do is focus on Total inherited depravity.
I would suggest to you that the five points of Calvinism, as they're sometimes called, are not stand-alone doctrines.
By then, I simply mean that they are related to one another.
In fact, Essentially, all of these 5 doctrines, I should say the other 4 that you look, those 4 doctrines stem from total inherited depravity.
If you accept that doctrine, then the other doctrines make perfect sense.
If man is born with a depraved nature and cannot make an effort to, to achieve salvation.
Then God has to do that for him.
An unconditional election says God did that before the foundation of the world, not based on anything that any of us did.
And if God did not choose to save everyone, then it doesn't make sense for Jesus to die for all.
That's limited atonement.
The atonement that was offered on the cross was limited only to those that God had decided would be saved.
And once again, if man is possessing a corrupted nature, and he cannot act of his own volition to do good, that is to respond to the gospel invitation, then irresistible grace must Act upon him so that he can respond to the gospel.
To inherited depravity.
is at the bottom of these things, these doctrines, as you can see.
Total inherited depravity is often referred to as original sin.
And I want to talk about it from the standpoint of how it was described by, for instance, John Calvin.
And others, it is a misunderstanding to say that John Calvin invented Calvinism because actually what we call Calvinism and particularly original sin.
was believed by a number of the early church fathers, men like Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and origin, even Augustine, who is uh sometimes uh Credited with inventing original sin.
He just made it popular.
He was very influential in its acceptance, but it existed before Augustine, who lived in the latter part of the 4th century, uh, even came along.
And so the doctrine of original sentence didn't originate with Augustine.
It didn't originate with John Calvin either.
Although John Calvin is the one who systematized these five tenants, put them together in a work that he published in 513 or 1934.
In 1534, uh, he didn't publish it posthumously.
Humorously It was called the Institutes of the Christian religion.
I'm going to spend just a moment looking at some quotations from that.
I'm gonna try not to be tedious this morning, although that's my nature.
But I'm going to just pick out some comments and I've highlighted them so that we don't have to read all of these things.
But I wanted you to see the comments in the context in which they originally appeared, but I'm going to highlight them in text, color, so that you can pick out the salient points of this doctrine of original sin.
So, this is what Calvin wrote, at least some of it.
It's a rather extensive document, this uh institutes.
He writes that What Adam lost when he and Eve sinned.
Essentially we lost as well.
He involved his posterity, that's all of us, we're all descended from Adam and plunged them in the same wretchedness.
corrupted evil nature that he then inherited.
This is the hereditary corruption to which early Christian writers gave the name of original sin.
He says that we are not corrupted by acquired wickedness, but bring an innate corruption from the very womb.
So this is not something that we develop over life.
We are born with a corrupted nature according to uh John Calvin and others before him.
All of us, therefore, descending from an impure seed come into the world tainted with the contagion of sin.
Uh, even before the light of the sun, we behold the light of the sun, we're already considered by God, defiled and polluted.
We thus see that the impurity of parents is transmitted to their children, so that all, without exception are originally depraved.
Not only that, but supposedly, we become guilty of Adam's sin.
Now, Calvin argued a little differently than some Calvinists do today, and I'll point that out as we come to it.
But he basically said, Adam, therefore, when he corrupted himself, transmitted the contagion to all his posterity.
And so by physical generation, We inherit the depraved nature that came to be Adams after he sinned.
The religious groups that grew out of the Reformation movement, and John Calvin was a leading voice in the Reformation movement of the 16th century.
Religious groups that came out of that movement.
Adopted statements of doctrine called confessions.
And those confessions reiterated this doctrine, this idea of original sin.
I'm just gonna give you two examples.
They're commonly cited as good examples.
The first one is the Westminster Confession of faith.
This is the creed of Presbyterian churches in the United States.
I'm not going to belabor these, but I want you to see that it says that our first parents, uh, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit.
By this sin, they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.
Adam and Eve weren't created with the depraved nature.
They were created in this and and pure.
But once they sin, that sin changed their nature.
And then they passed that same nature on to all of their posterity, that would include us.
Continuing with the same confession.
They being the root of mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed and the same death and sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity.
And that's why we sin now because we are born with this corrupted, depraved nature.
Total inherited depravity is the doctrine as it is represented by the tea of Tulip.
The Philadelphia confession of faith.
is the first creed that was adopted by Baptist churches in the United States.
And I would suggest to you that a number of other Protestant mainline denominations basically adopt or believe much the same thing.
And a lot of this is very similar to the Westminster Creed, so I'll not belabor the point, but again, they talk about uh Adam and Eve becoming wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.
And because they were the first human beings, Calvinism suggests that they acted as our federal head, Adam did.
And so what he did affects us to the extent that the guilt of the sin that Adam committed and the corrupted nature that was conveyed by that sin has passed to us.
And so two things are true in this doctrine of original sin.
One is that every one of us is born with the guilt of Adam's sin imputed to him.
We've been showing pictures of babies on the screen that have been born recently to members of this congregation.
There's hardly anything as innocent looking, as pure as an infant.
But to the Calvinist, that child has a depraved nature.
That child's already guilty of sin before he actually is born into the world.
Calvin, I think in an effort to try to avoid the strength of Ezekiel chapter 18.
Calvin suggested that no one Has the guilt of Adam's sin imputed to him?
Because you can't impute sin of one person to another.
That's essentially what Ezekiel 18 says.
So he argued that when Adam sinned, all mankind participated in that sin.
So we die or we're dead in sin because of our own guilt.
So it says, what?
That's what I said when I read all this. What?
So you're telling me that I don't, I don't get the uh the guilt of Adams imputed or reckoned to me, but before I was ever born, millennia before I was born, Adamson and I, I participated.
Now, if you can figure out how that works.
Uh, I'd like for you to explain it to me because it doesn't make any sense to me.
I think that's religious gobbledygook.
But that's the idea, and that's the way that some try to avoid this idea of having the guilt of one person's sin attributed to somebody else.
We'll say more about that as we go along here, uh, just in a moment.
The second thing, the second key idea is that every person is born with a corrupted nature, and we inherit that from our physical parents and as a result of that depraved or corrupted nature that we inherited via Adam and all of his posterity, we are unable to do good to.
Please God and for His glory.
Now you have to understand that the Calvinists are not saying that a person who's not one of the elect can ever do any good thing.
It is that they cannot respond to the offer of the invitation of God in the gospel.
They cannot please God with that depraved nature.
That nature has to be regenerated by the irresistible spirit, work of the spirit.
Well, You probably are well aware that that's contrary to what the scriptures teach.
In fact, the principle that was read to you this morning from Ezekiel 18.
An Old Testament passage which presents the principle that we are individually responsible for our conduct.
I'm not going to reread Ezekiel 18.
I appreciate Hans uh reading that rather lengthy reading.
But in that passage, Ezekiel bookends a description of three generations.
He begins in verse 4 by saying, all souls are mine, the soul of the Father as well as the soul of the Son is mine.
The soul who sins shall die.
God says, I'm in control of that and the soul who sins shall die.
And then there's an explanation, or rather an illustration of 3 generations, a father, and then his son, and then the grandson.
And the father is a righteous man.
You can see these passages up there that described the uh the periccopes where those men are described.
The father is, is a righteous man, but he has an unrighteous son.
But then that unrighteous son has a son in turn, and the grandson of the first man, he sees the wickedness of his father and he lives differently.
He lives like his grandfather.
So you have 13 generations there.
And then Ezekiel closes that illustration by saying in verse 20, the soul whose sins shall die reiterates what he said in verse 4.
The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the Father, nor the Father suffer for the iniquity of the Son.
The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
I want you to notice the ESV in verse 20.
Because I specifically asked for the reading to be from the New King James version.
Because I don't think that the the translation of verse 20.
is a good translation as it appears in the ESV.
The ESV says that the son doesn't suffer for the iniquity of the Father, and yet we know from common experience that sometimes that is true.
That's why the New King James version translates that the son shall not bear the guilt of the Father, nor the Father, the guilt of the Son.
What we're talking about in this passage, and it becomes clear from verse 4, and the whole context here.
What we're talking about is not just physical suffering, we're talking about the imputation of guilt.
The reason that souls will die is for the guilt of their sins.
And Ezekiel says, God says to Ezekiel, the soul that sins shall die.
And of course, you understand that that's contrary to what Calvinism says.
Calvinism, Calvinism says that you are dead in sin.
When you're born, Because imputed to you, Is the guilt of Adam's sin.
The creeds are more specific about that and differ a little bit from Calvin's original thinking.
But this isn't just an Old Testament principle.
I'm gonna suggest several passages to you that seem to emphasize that we will be judged for our own sins, that in fact, if we are dead in sin, it's because of our sins.
It is strikingly absent any mention of us being dead because of Adam's sin.
In any of these passages.
I'm just gonna give you some examples, we could uh multiply them a great deal.
2 Corinthians 5:10 talks about the final judgment, and each 1 may receive what is due for what he has done in the body.
That's an interesting phrase, in light of what Calvinism says about the guilt of Adam's sin being imputed to you or even you participating in Adam's sin before you were even born.
23 Corinthians 5:10 says, we'll give account or we'll receive what is due for what he has done in the body.
Moving along to Romans 14, verse 12 says, so then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
No mention of giving account for Adam's sin attributed to us the guilt of his sin.
One of the passages that is appealed to by uh Calvinist is Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.
The new King James version says, and you, he made alive, the, the verb there is actually borrowed from chapter one, where God's in his power raised Jesus from the dead.
And in chapter two, Paul says, and you, There's no verb there and you dead in your trespa.
You were made alive by that same power.
Go back and read chapter one, the end of the chapter, you'll see the connection.
And you, he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we We also all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature, children of wrath and that's the phrase that people focus on when they want to suggest that we actually are born with this depraved nature.
But I want you to pay attention to the, the parts of the text that I put in red font.
We're dead in trespasses and sins in which we walked.
We were conducting ourselves in the lust of our flesh.
Paul, of course, is talking about uh the Ephesians and others, but it applies to us as well, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
The word that's translated nature there by nature, children of wrath is a word that can refer to our physical nature, but it also can refer to our customary habitual practice.
That's our nature, the way that we walk or we live.
The word walk there typically talks about one's general conduct in life.
Ephesians 2:13 does not talk about us.
Being dead because of Adam's sin, or even for that matter having a corrupted nature.
Just a few other examples.
Matthew 33:21, uh, the prediction of Jesus' redemptive work.
He will save His people from their sins, not from Adam's sin.
Repent, therefore, and turn back the apostles preached that your sins may be blotted out.
And it just keeps going on.
This is Uh, First Corinthians 2, I'm sorry, uh Colossians 2 and verse 216, I don't know what happened to the reference there.
And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our transgressions.
Again, no mention.
Of Adam.
215 Corinthians 200:251, that passage where Paul talks about the certainty of the resurrection of Christ and the consequence if one denies that resurrection, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in.
Your sins, not Adam's sin, your sins.
One of the other passages that is often referred to, to support this idea that we, we were participating in Adam's sin.
is Romans chapter 21 and verse 22.
Now, the Dreams version, which is the translation you see on the screen, is the Bible that has been produced by the Roman Catholic Church.
You may be aware of the fact that the Reformation movement One of the big things was to get the scriptures into the common vernacular of the people, the, the languages that people could understand, not Greek and Latin.
Latin was the language of the Bible at that point for the Roman Catholic Church.
But in Europe, to get that Bible into the language of people where they could read it for themselves, and the Roman Catholic Church worked hard, worked hard to try to defeat that process.
We'll go into all of that.
But they eventually ended up putting out their own version in English, the Dreams version.
I want you to listen to this.
This is Romans 43:24 in that translation.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin, death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned.
In whom?
Who do you think the whom is?
Well, that's Adam, of course.
In Adam, we all sin.
That's the translation that the Roman Catholics use in the, that translation.
This is the ESV.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men. Why?
Because all sin, but that passage does not say that we all sinned, all men sinned in Adam.
In fact, take a look at verses 214 and 212, same passage, uh, the ESV, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, that is the law of Moses, but sin is not counted where there's no law.
Yet, death reigned from Adam to Moses.
Now listen to this, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was the type of the one who was to come.
Who would that be?
Who is it that died spiritually?
Whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam because according to Calvinism, we all sinned when Adam sinned.
That's not, somebody just said, wow.
That's right, wow.
That doesn't, there would be nobody who fits that category.
And so even Romans 5 verses 13 and 14 deny the conclusion.
That all men sinned in the transgression of Adam.
Well, is this just some sort of esoteric doctrinal point, you know, Scholars, Bible scholars argue over these kinds of things and write papers about it.
Is there any practical import to any of this?
And the answer is, oh yes.
There are consequences to this doctrine of original sin.
I'm gonna just suggest 5 to you, and then I want to tell you why I think this is so important.
First of all, God becomes responsible for those lost.
In fact, he becomes a respecter of persons.
Now, not directly through total inherited depravity, but total inherited depravity necessitates the unconditional election of God.
Just a refresher on that.
That's the idea that before the foundation of the world.
God decided whether Douglas Broadwell was going to be saved or lost.
Independent of anything that Douglas would do, say, or think, God just said yay or nay.
And when God does that, Douglas cannot break that decision.
If it went bad for him.
There's nothing he can do to be saved.
Of course, on the other hand, if God chose him to be saved, there's nothing he can do to be lost.
Perseverance of the Saints, we'll talk about that later.
So God, because of this total inherited depravity doctrine, God becomes A respecter of persons, he becomes responsible for those who are lost.
Because God did not choose everyone to be saved, according to Calvinism.
However, First Timothy 2:3-143 says, this is good and it's pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
What is that, how does that work with the idea of God choosing some to be saved and by implication, choosing others to be lost?
Or how about Romans 2 and verse 11 that says God doesn't show partiality.
That would be a matter of partiality since it is an unconditional election.
Didn't depend on anything that Douglas or anybody else would do.
Second consequence is that one man's judged guilty for another man's sin.
As I said, John Calvin tried to kind of work around that by suggesting that we all participated in the sin.
But when we read those two confessions, the Westminster and the Philadelphia confession, they basically say, you get the guilt of Adam's sin, jurors.
By physical birth.
And yet Ezekiel 18 clearly says, no, that's not the way God works.
If original sin is true, then the gospel invitation is somewhat meaningless, maybe even.
A mockery According to Calvinism, God's gonna save those whom he chose.
Nothing is going to prevent them from being saved, and those who will be lost by God's choice, nothing can be done to save them.
So explain to me why God would say Jesus would send out his apostles to preach the gospel to every creature, when in fact, God's gonna make sure that you're saved because of his choice, or you're going to be lost because God didn't choose you to be saved, and there's nothing you can do about that.
That's like setting a dessert on the table.
And telling your children, hey, y'all come and have some dessert, and then punishing them when they come to the dessert.
Or not allowing them to come to the desert.
Very similar.
Jesus commanded the apostles to preach the gospel to the whole creation.
Mark 16:15 says, knowing that most could not respond even if they wanted to.
Come to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden.
00, not you.
Cause you weren't chosen Before the foundation of the world.
We're robbed of any certainty about our spiritual future.
Cause you see, it doesn't really depend on us.
I've had some interesting discussions with Calvinist about this particular point.
Because their argument concerning the perseverance of the sciences, if that the only people who can be saved are the ones that God chose, the elect.
And so if somebody, and those people are going to be saved, they're gonna persevere, they're not gonna be lost.
So if somebody appears to be saved, they're doing the, the things that Christians should do, and then they fall away.
Calvinism says there is no such thing as the elect falling away.
So that guy was never elect. Really?
Because he thought he was elect.
You thought he was elect.
You just found out later that he wasn't one of the elect.
So how, how can you and I be certain that we are saved according to Calvinism, if in fact, at some point in the future, we may discover we're not the elect, not one of them.
And so, this doctrine robs us of any certainty about our spiritual future, and Calvinists admit that some who were thought to be saved actually were not saved.
Because as it turned out, They didn't persevere.
They didn't persevere, they're not elect.
That's kind of circular reasoning.
And then finally, this false doctrine necessitates some other false doctrines.
You probably already thought of this.
If all of us are inheriting a depraved, corrupted nature by physical generation, where does that put Jesus?
I mean, the very essence of his sacrifice is that he was a pure unblemished lamb.
But, but how could he be that if he inherit, oh, but see, he didn't.
The Roman Catholic Church fixed that by coming up with the doctrine of the immaculate conception.
Of Mary, not Jesus, Mary.
Mary was conceived and didn't receive this corrupted nature and so therefore, she didn't pass it on to Jesus.
Jesus is the second person who didn't receive a corrupted nature.
OK. Does the Bible say anything about that, about Mary?
Immaculate conception?
How about infant baptism?
You, you're probably already thinking if babies are born guilty of sin, then you got to do something about that.
And the answer is baptism.
Well, The scriptures teach that water baptism is for the remission of sins.
What the Roman Catholic Church practices is not water baptism.
It's not New Testament baptism, but they call it baptism and the reason they do what they do is because they believe that child is lost in sin when that child is born.
We ought to do something about that.
The interesting thing about it is the Roman Catholic Church has had different views about what the situation is for a child who wasn't baptized.
And died.
Calvinism, well, actually, the church fathers and Roman Catholic Church believe in original sin.
They believe that child is guilty of sin.
Guilty of Adams sin, got a corrupted nature, died before the child was baptized.
And some said, well, that child is gonna go straight to hell.
Others said, well, that child is going to be in some sort of a limbo state.
So, so as soon as you adopt one false doctrine, then you got to, you got to accommodate that doctrine by making other false doctrines.
And so on.
These consequences that you see on the screen, they demonstrate that the doctrine of original sin is contrary to the teaching of scripture.
And it's important that we understand that.
Because it's at the foundation of so much.
That is called Calvinism.
Well, let me conclude by saying the Catholics hold to the idea of inherited total depravity and nearly every mainline Protestant body denomination holds to Calvin's concept of total inherited depravity or some variation of that same concept.
But the truth is we're not born with a corrupted nature.
We're born into a world that is full of sin.
I think that's what David's talking about in Psalm 51.
But we're not born with the guilt of Adam's sin and we're not born with a corrupted nature.
We are all born with free will.
The ability to choose for ourselves whether we will obey God or serve Satan.
And God wants everyone here to be saved.
That's what we read in 1 Timothy 2 verses 3 and 4, and that's what Jesus says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, not just some, all are invited. Why?
Because you have the right to choose.
You have the ability to choose to do good, to obey God.
We're to serve Satan, that is, of course, our choice, what we can do.
And God wants you to make the right choice.
Calvinism allows us to push responsibility for our spiritual condition off to Adam.
Off to a depraved nature.
I'm not really responsible for any of that.
But the Bible says we'll be judged, we'll give account of ourselves to God.
Romans 14 and 12.
And so each of us here, responsible before God, those who are old enough to know and to understand the right and wrong.
We're gonna have to answer for our own sins, for our own choices.
And if you need to make the right choice this morning, To become a Christian, to be washed in the blood of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.
Then we want to encourage you, in fact, we're going to stand and sing to invite you to come forward, we'll assist you in obeying the gospel.
Come if the invitation applies to you as we stand and sing.
- 2025.04.13A-OriginalSin.mp3 (13.68 MB)
