How Dead Are You

How we answer the following question would determine much in regard to what we think about salvation. How bad was Adam's fall? Did he really fall or did he merely skin his knee? If he only skinned his knee, then we can save ourselves anytime we want to by coming to Jesus and we can do it now or when we're good and ready. In other words, is salvation in the hands of man or in the hands of God? Our subject today, friends, is how dead are you? When the Bible speaks about our natural corruption, just how corrupt are we? Ephesians 2, 1 gives us a pretty good idea.

And you, hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins? A man is either saved or unsaved. He's either dead to sin or still dead in sin. I believe when Adam fell, he fell headlong.

And man in his natural estate is represented in Scripture as utterly depraved, dead in trespasses and sins. He is blind and in darkness. Man in his natural condition is at enmity against God and all things holy.

Oh, he's okay with having a form of religion that he can derive some satisfaction from, make him sleep a little better at night and ease his guilty conscience some. Men want to be saved from the torments of an eternal hell, but it stops there with most religious folks. They don't mind being saved from the penalty of sin, but they sure as shootin' don't want to be saved from their sins.

They're in love with them too much. They want a heaven so long as they can still sit on the throne of their life and rule there. They're okay with a God who they can serve so long as he doesn't get in the way of their daily living.

So the modern church took notice of this and decided about 60 years ago to accommodate this brand of thinking. So the church diluted the gospel of all its rights and claims on a person. Our evangelists began to parade a butchered Jesus to the masses who was a savior from hell, but not a savior from sin.

Because if Jesus is a savior from sin, then he must be Lord in a person's life. Salvation means self is dethroned and another enthroned there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has rights and claims on all followers of his. But most folks only want to go so far with Jesus, and they'll gladly accept him as savior, but it stops there.

You can go into a jail and do some evangelism, and all the prostitutes locked up in there will raise their hand to accept Jesus as savior, but it'll stop there. They don't want him as a Lord. If they take him as Lord, then they need to quit their job at the massage parlor or strip club and make a break from their life of sin.

And so will you, friend, if you ever get saved. And to do that means a radical change must take place in the sinner's heart. I believe our churches today are full of nice-looking, hard-working, honest church folk who somewhere back yonder made a profession for Jesus, and it stopped there.

It didn't go any deeper than that. They wanted a savior, but they didn't want to be saved from sin. That's why so many deacons like to throw their weight around and strut their stuff to let you know who's in charge and who really holds the reins of power at a church.

Most church members live a self-ruled life on a religious road to hell. They're baptized and on a church roll, and that's as far as it went. They're strangers to a work of grace upon the heart and never been quickened like our text in Ephesians says, but they maintain a pretty good opinion of themselves.

Proverbs 30.12 pretty much sums them up when it says, there is a generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness. They're strangers to repentance, strangers to regeneration. They just made an empty religious profession one day, and they've never been changed.

How dead are you? I'm reminded of a story about a traveling Englishman who lived about 200 years ago, and he loved to go to Scotland to hear good preaching. He'd ride his horse and inclement weather to go hear what he considered to be the best preachers of his day. Well, the first church he came to, the old minister spoke on the majesty of God and for two hours held up the glory of God in his majesty and power and authority.

The next day he traveled to another church where the Scottish pastor spoke plainly of the blackness and deceit of the human heart. That man was in a blind, dead, ruined, lost and helpless state as every mother's son is utterly corrupt in nature and dead in sin. Then on his last day he traveled to a distant church where a preacher fixed his hearer's gaze on the loveliness of Christ Jesus and for two solid hours preached up the loveliness and desirableness of a pearl of great price, so inestimable in value that it was worth selling off for so it could be gained.

Well, that Englishman got saved that week as he saw a high and lofty God lifted up, and then he got a glimpse of the blackness and wickedness of his own human heart and his utter helplessness, and going from that he was ready to behold the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and fix his gaze on the loveliness of Christ as he passed from death to life and became a new creation in Christ Jesus. I believe a man is one or two ways. He's either in a kingdom of darkness, dead in sin, or he is a regenerate individual who is dead to sin.

How dead are you, friend? Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Here Jesus answers the three greatest questions of the human heart.

How can I be saved? Jesus said, I am the way. How can I be sure? Jesus said, I am the truth. How can I be satisfied? Jesus said, I am the life.

Have you gotten to him, friend? Jesus is the friend of sinners. He can not only save you, but he can change you. Are you ready for change? Are you weary of your sins? Are you thirsty for him? He invites poor sinners to come to him and believe on him.

The duty required is to come. Let us pray.