Purpose of  lesson:  To demonstrate that without Christ our wills are in bondage to sin.  The nature of the dead is that they are lifeless entombed by their sin and unable to do anything to raise themselves to life.  Christ is the only one who can raise to life the dead.

Quote:  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 body and soul. -- Westminster Confession of Faith

Before salvation sinners are in the slave market of sin, children of the devil, and under his control.  John 8:44  The devil is the father of lies, with his lie in the garden of Eden he caused both Adam and Eve to spiritually die thus committing spiritual murder.  Due to sin’s penalty of physical death, he is the father of physical murder as well. John 8:34-36 Before Christ we are a slave to sin, after Christ, He sets us free.  I John 5: 11, 12

The unregenerate love this world and the things of it.  I John 2:15, 16 Habitual sin and the desire to continue therein is the nature of the lost.  I John 3:8-10.   Verse 9a from the Amplified, “No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately and knowingly] habitually practices sin. for God’s nature abides in him”  Verse 9 from the NIV, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed  remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.”  A true Christian can backslide, but he can not remain backslidden.

I John 5:17-19.  All unrighteousness is sin.  Verse 18 from the NIV, “We know that anyone born of God does not continue in sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.”  The continual habitual practice of sin is a characteristic of the lost.  The reason that this is so, is because they are enslaved to sin. Their will is not their own.  The devil has the in the slave market of sin, chained to the posts of unrighteousness. In the days of slavery, a slave could not purchase himself and set himself free.  Why?  Because he had no possessions.  His master owned everything and he was not able to own any possessions.  Thus he never could purchase himself from the slave market.   The same is true in the spiritual realm.  The unbeliever has no funds or ability to buy himself out of the slave market of sin.  He is totally depraved, chained to unrighteousness and bound to the will of his master the devil.  The only one who has the power to purchase him is the Lord Jesus Christ.

By their fruits ye shall know them.  Matthew 12:33, 7:16-18.  Christians produce good fruit.

In the resurrection from this dead estate it is God who does the work and not man.  Man is totally depraved, unable to save himself.  Jesus paid the price for sin on the cross and He alone has the ability to save.  His blood is the ransom for sin.  John 6: 44, 65  God draws us to salvation.   Salvation is all of God and not of ourselves. Ephesians 2:8,9

Extra Verses to look up at home -- Ephesians 4:17-19, Ecclesiastes 7:20, 29, Isaiah 53:6, 64:6, Romans 3:9-12, James 3:2-8, I John 1:8-10, Jeremiah 13:23, Romans 6:20, Titus 3:3, Job 15:14-16, Romans 11:35, 36, I Corinthians 2:14, 4:7, II Corinthians 3:5