This will be a in-depth Biblical study of Gods salvation plan. There will be no definate time schedule for this study and more material and pages will be added from time to time. If you have any questions or wish to make any comment regarding this study please feel free to either post your message on the church bulletin board, E Mail me or contact me at my IRQ. number. The material for this study has been taken from the book "Gods Magnificent Salvation Plan" by Harold Camping.

This is Page 2 of our Bible Study. On this page we will discuss the total depravity of man.......Brother Frank

The matter of total depravity is a ugly concept, and it is this doctrine that divides the church as no other teaching concerning salvation. Many people in the church can agree, that God draws us to himself: and that once we are saved, we are always saved. But they have difficulty crossing that line where they would acknowledge that man is depraved, and spiritually dead that he is incapable of taking that first step toward God. They insist on the possibility of free choice or free will on the part of man to choose for Christ. They conclude that God has done all that he can do, and now it is up to man to take the next action.

If we examine the Bible very carefully in regard to this matter we can let the Bible speak to us. We are interested in knowing God's truth on this. Some of the verses we will look at will be a repetition of what we have already covered on Page 1 of this study, but they bear repeating because they are very important. In Ephesians 2:1-5 we read:

And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation (conduct, behavior) in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved...in these verses God is talking about someone who has become saved. He is not talking about the desperately wicked of the world who remain in their wickedness and end up in Hell, but he is talking about someone who actually has become a child of God.

What does he say about him? He was dead. He was spiritually a corpse, without any spiritual life of any kind. Notice the description, "walked according to the course of this world." In other words, he had been living exactly like the world that remains in unbelief.

Then God adds, "according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." By these words God is declaring that this person was a slave of Satan, walking after the ways of Satan. Remember that Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Ye are of your father the devil."

Ve 3 Of Ephesians declares he was living "in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath even as others." This is the terribly rebellious condition in which God finds us when he saves us. The description fits any unsaved in the world, even the most wicked. This is the way we are, the way God sees us before we are saved.

How can this person exercise free will? How can he decide to come to God? He is spiritually dead, his will sold out to Satan. He is a corpse. He might argue that he has the freedom to choose God, in actuality he will never choose to come to God through Christ. In the freedom of his will he will always choose against God because in his depraved nature he is altogether in rebellion against God.

The terribly rebellious state of man's heart is further described by the language of Jeremiah 17:9, where God declares, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jesus pointed out the awful depravity of man's heart by the language of Mark 7:21,22:

Far from within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

No wonder Jesus said of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:27:

Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

In these words our Savior was pointing out the unsaved condition of these church rulers. But the description of their hearts fits the heart of every unsaved person.

In Romans 3:10-18 God emphasizes and underscores the sorry state of mankind when measured by the standard of God's holiness. In verse 10 God declares, "As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one." Thus we are made to realize there is no one in the world who is righteous, not a single individual. God has in view here the whole human race, including those who will become believers. The Bible continues, beginning with verse 11:

There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

This is an awful indictment of the human race. God is showing us what miserable sinners we really are compared with holiness of God. This language shuts the door on any possibility that anyone of his own free will would turn to God..."There is none that seeketh after God..." The language is that of a desperate sinner, one who is spiritually dead. His throat is an open sepulchre. All the words of his mouth proceed from a grave of decaying flesh. What an ugly statement declaring our spiritual deadness. How can we say that any person would turn to God of his own free will? We have to absorb this terrible truth. It is God's truth, that we are spiritually dead before we are saved. We are so depraved in our nature that we would never seek Him of ourselves.

Our spiritual deadness is further emphasized in John 5:24, where God says,

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my Word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life."

We are dead in our sins. Only God can give us life.

In I Peter 4:6, we read,

"For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead."Of course we don't preach to the physical corpses; we don't go into a cemetery and preach to the bodies that are in the graves. We preach to someone who has life and breath, who has conscious existence. But God says here that the Gospel is preached to those who are dead. We are spiritually dead before we are saved. Therefore, we of our own volition will never come to God.

This verse tells what happens to those who do respond to the Gospel as they are experienceing God's salvation love. Verse 6 goes on, "...that they might be judged according to men in the flesh." That is, they still will experience physical death. But then the next phrase declares, "...but live according to God in the spirit." In their spirit or soul existence, where they have experienced the resurrection at the time they were saved, they will live to God.

Earlier in our study we mentioned Lazarus. Lazarus was in the tomb, and he had been dead for 4 days. He was a stinking corpse. Yet Jesus spoke to that dead man just as we speak to the spiritually dead, according to (I Peter 4:6.) Jesus said to Lazarus, "Lazarus, come forth." Did Lazarus have the ability to come forth? Could he come forth because he heard the voice of Jesus? No, he couldn't even hear the voice of Jesus. He was dead. He could never come forth. One might go to a cemetery and call for a thousand years for people to come forth. But not one person will come forth because all in the cemetery are dead. That is how dead we are spiritually.

The corpse of Lazarus in the tomb is a picture of our spiritually dead condition before we are saved. God is using this particular historical event to teach us the spiritual truth of the nature of salvation.

The death and resurrection of Lazarus is a picture of salvation that is shown by the language describing this miraculous event.

As Jesus is talking to Martha and Mary about the dead Lazarus, he said to them in verse 25 of John 11, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall live." This beautiful promise relates altogether to salvation. Jesus is going to raise Lazarus to prove that this promise is trustworthty. Even as Lazurus was raised physically, we who believe in Christ are to be raised spiritually. Lazarus had no power in himself. He was dead, so that he of his own will could not rise physically. Yet he did rise physically. So also we are spiritually dead before we are saved. We have no power whatsoever. Therefore we cannot rise spiritually. Nevertheless, as the Gospel comes to us, we will rise if it is God's will to raise us, even as Lazarus was raised from the dead.

This is the teaching of the Bible. We are dead, and our actions cannot contribute toward our salvation. There is no such thing as free will insofar as the Bible is concerned.

I am afraid that the idea of free will is clung to so tenaciously by some because it affords them a little bit of credit for their salvation. We know that it is by grace that we are saved. We are ready to admit that. But oh, how we want to receive a little credit at least. Can't we have a little bit of recognition that we have contributed something toward our salvation? This is our nature.

Suppose we have baked a beautiful decorated cake, or done something else that displays our handiwork. We have slaved over this, and our work is very lovely. We then are very disappointed if our friends fail to commend us on the work of our hands. This is the way we are designed; we want some kind of commendation. And so we also want some kind of commendation with regard to our salvation.

If it was my free will that caused me to turn to Christ, then somehow I am a little bit better than my unsaved neigthbor. After all, somehow I responded to the Gospel while he didn't, and therefore I can receive a tiny bit of credit, even though I know that basically my salvation depends upon what Christ has done.

But the Bible says no. We are dead in our sins, and there is no way that we can be saved except that God will draw us. It is God's work altogether. Therefore, God declares, "A broken and a contrite heart I will not despise."

I might point out something very ominous in connection with this doctrice of free will. It is a very serious matter that we are discussing. The Bible shows why. In Numbers 15:32-34 we read about a person who picked up some sticks on the Sabbath Day:

And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath Day; and they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation, and they put him in ward because it was not declared what should be done to him.

This man apparently has committed a very incidental sin. He has picked up a few sticks. As near as we can tell, he has kept the Sabbath Day as was commanded, but he just picked up a few sticks. Certainly that isn't a very grievous crime, is it? But God indicates in verse 35...

And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp; and all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died as the Lord commanded Moses.

What a horrible penalty for such an incidental sin! Why is this? Why did God put this in the Bible? You see, this is a dramatic warning to us not to mix work with God's grace.

The Old Testament Sabbath Day was a picture of our salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. When the nation of Israel rested on the seventh day from all its labors, they were not to do any kind of work at all. So, too, when we are saved, we are to rest altogether in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has done all the work required to bring us to salvation. The Old Testament Sabbath Day therefore was a figure of the salvation that God would provide through our Savior. Until we are saved, we are working so that in some way we might obtain entrance into Heaven by our own actions. But once we are saved, we rest from our labors altogether and simply trust in Christ, who has done all the work. It is by resting in God's grace that we have been saved, just like the children of Israel who rested on the Sabbath Day.

Therefore, when this man picked up a few sticks, his action paralleled the action of someone who is saying, "Yes, I am saved by grace, but my work has contributed just a tiny bit. I can do a little bit of work toward my salvation." God ordained that the man who picked up sticks was to be stoned to death. To be stoned to death in the Old Testament was the equivalent of coming under the damnation of Hell. This is the grievous thing that happened to those who were sinful. Their death was a picture of God's wrath that comes upon sin, that results in damnation in Hell. Thus by this account of the man picking up sticks God is really teaching that if we have a salvation program that is mostly grace, but also requires a little bit of our own work, then we still are under damnation.

This is an ominous thought. This is a terrible thing. But we don't have to worry about this if we'll just follow the scriptures, if we'll accept what we read in Ephesians 2 and Romans 3 and John 5:24 and these other passages, that we are dead and we don't have free will. It is God Himself who does the saving altogether. Only He is to receive all the glory for our salvation.

I know there are passages that seem to indicate that we do have free will. For example, in Revelation 22:17 God declares,

"Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

But this verse isn't indicating that anybody will of himself turn to the Gospel, which is the water of life. This verse is indicating that God's gracious offer of salvation is available to the entire human race. If any person does turn to Him, God will save him. When we read this verse in the light of the rest of the Bible, we know that no one of his own volition will turn to Christ. There is none that seeketh after God. Thus, while Revelation 22:17 stands as a promise of God, it will never prompt a response in anyone unless God Himself is drawing him.

Revelation 3:20 is frequently used by those who want to retain some aspect of free will. There God declares,

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me."

This verse seems to indicate, when we read it quickly, that the action by the one responding to Christ is doing so of his own free will. But when we read this verse very carefully, we'll notice it says, "He who heareth My voice..." Can a dead man hear the voice of God? Could Lazarus hear the voice of Jesus? And the answer is, "Of course he couldn't hear the Savior's voice. He was dead." But he did hear the voice of Christ, didn't he? He did hear Christ's voice, and he did come forth.

There are those who are spiritually dead who of themselves cannot hear with understanding the Gospel call. Those who respond do so only because God gives them spiritual ears to hear. Even as He gave the dead Lazarus physical ears to hear so that he could respond, and gave him the strength to respond, so God gives us spiritual ears if He is drawing us to Himself. Revelation 3:20 is not teaching free will in any way. It is simply indicating that if we have ears to hear, then we will respond. But we know that those ears to hear must come from God himself.

It is very significant that repeatedly in Revelation God declares, as He does in Revelation 3:22, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." Only those whom God is drawing, those whom God is saving, will have that kind of ear. We see therefore that this verse also gives Biblical corroboration to the historical treaching to total depravity.

We must conclude that the principle of total depravity is altogther Biblical. It is a teaching that will stand the closest scrutiny of the scriptures. But it is absolutely antithetical to the idea of free will. Any Gospel program that promotes the idea that I have a free will to choose God is contrary to the Bible.

When we are unsaved, our will is sold out to sin and to Satan. We might insist our will is free, but in our unsaved condition our will is always contrary to the will of God. We shall never will of ourselves to come to God because "there is none that seeketh after God." This is what the Bible insists. If you want to call that free will, that we shall always of ourselves go against the will of God, so be it. Call that free will if you like, but that is not the meaning ascribed to free will when people say, "I, because of my free will, decided to become saved." Their meaning is that by an act of their will, which is under no constraint of God, they can come to Christ; and indeed those who are saved did become saved because of an action of their will. Likewise those who remain lost of their own free will reject Christ, and God will never impose His will upon them to make them want to come to Christ. But that idea or doctrine is a Biblical impossibility. Moreover, it is a very dangerous doctrine, But doesn't the Bible teach that we are to choose for Christ, that we are faced with the choice of believing or rejecting Christ? And doesn't this imply free will on the part of those who do make the right choice?

When Joshua commanded ancient Israel to "choose you this day whom ye will serve" (Joshua 24:15), was Joshua suggesting that man has a free will? When we read Joshua 24:15 carefully we discover that Joshua's command to choose was not to make a choice between God and Baal. Rather it was a choice between one false religion and another. This verse reads:

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

God does not give us a choice to believe in Christ or not. He commands the human race to believe in Christ. We read in I John 3:23:

And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the Name of His Son Jesus Christ...

If any verses in the Bible do imply a choice is to be made, God always commands what that choice is to be. It is always that we should turn back to God. As we faithfully bring the Gospel, we should present this command of God that should be obeyed.

However, as we bring this command to believe on Christ, we must fully realize that the only ones who will obey this command are those whom God is drawing--those whom God has chosen to salvation. They alone will respond to the Gospel offer. We must fully realize that we have been commissioned by God to make this Gospel offer so that God's salvation program will come to fruition in the lives of those whose wills are being inclined by God to respond to the command to believe.

We must never add to that Gospel presentation the statements that are so frequently made to the effect that the final choice is man's rather than God's.? Too many preachers add such concepts as, "God has done His part and now it's up to you;" or "God by His grace has paid for your sins but it's up to you to accept His pardon;" or "God has done all that He must do; the rest is up to you;" or God is a gentleman. While He has provided for your salvation, He will not force you to accept."

All these statements imply that our salvation is based on God's work plus our work, that God's work will never be complete without our work. These statements are part and parcel with the concept that man has a free will. They do not recognize at all that our salvation is "not of works" (Ephesians 2:9). They do not recognize that man is dead in his sins. They do not recognize the awful import of a works (grace) gospel.

I am afraid that the common assertion of many today that man must "accept" the Lord Jesus as his Savior is based on the premise that man has a free will. The fact is, we receive Christ because God has given us him as a gift. God inclines our will, God draws us, God gives us salvation. We receive this gift of salvation without any work or effort on our part.

Now then, which of these two hymns are you ready to sing?

'Twas not that I did choose Thee, For Lord That could not be; This heart would still refuse Thee, Hadst Thou not chosen me.

'Twas not that you did choose me, For Lord that could not be; Your heart would still refuse me, Hadst I not chosen Thee.

The first of the two verses is the Biblical one. When "we have decided to follow Jesus," it is actually God's action moving us. We can take no credit whatsoever. The phrase accrues to the precious Lord Jesus Christ. God gives repentance! To God be the glory!

We will continue our study soon on page 3 and talk about unconditional election

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