Heidelminicast: How Did We Come to Faith? (Part Two)

0:00It's a Hyde O'Mini cast, and now, Scott Clark. How did we come to faith? Part 2 If the Hyde O'Kast helped you, won't you help us keep enjoying? Please make the call for a clinic, like clicking on the PayPal page, or by sending a check to Hyde World Reformation Association, 1637 East Darling Parkway number 391, S.K.D.O. Level 419-2027 Hyde O'Kast News Flash Dinesh D'Souza is still wrong. Sin What is it? What does it mean? Understanding what the Bible says about sin is essential to understanding what the Bible says about salvation. If you don't get the doctrine of sin, right? And you won't get the doctrine of salvation, right? After all, from what are we being saved?

1:01Are we merely wounded? Or are we dead in sins and trespasses? By nature, by virtue of our union with Adam. If you don't get that right, nothing else makes sense. And for a lot of the history of the church, it was thought. In fact, it's still thought and taught in many quarters that the consequences of the sin were in some ways very serious, but they weren't fatal. It was common by that. It just mean frequently taught. And as I say, still taught that by virtue of the fall we are ill, after all, the man lying by the side of the road who was eventually helped by the good Samaritan wasn't dead. He just needed a little assistance. And that's what a lot of people think. That's what I thought at one time as a young Christian. But it's really faithful to what the word of God says. And St. Augustine and the Augustinian tradition, and even before him, right?

2:07There are fathers before Augustine saying these things. And all the Reformation churches, and I think particularly the reformed churches are known for this, came to a very different conclusion. And that is that sin leads to death. 1 John 3, 4 says everyone who does sin does lawlessness because sin is lawlessness. That's the biblical definition of sin. James says that we break one law. We have broken them all. Sin is the violation of God's holy requirements. God's law is an expression of his holiness. Sin is an offense against God and against his law and against his holiness. And Paul says, therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law, rather through the law we became conscious of sin. God's word is equally clear that every human being is born in sin. That's the biblical expression.

3:08There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. No one who seeks God all have turned away. The Scripture goes on to say they have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's God's word. Contrary to the generally accepted modern view of man, Paul says that by nature, we are not seekers after righteousness or God. We are by nature at war with God. The results of sin are accurately described as total inability. This is how Paul put it in Romans 8.7. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It doesn't submit to God's law nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. That's Romans 8.7. That's God's word. And I was one of those.

4:08There was a time in my life before God graced me with new life and true faith when my mind was at enmity with God at war with God. It didn't submit to God's law. I couldn't submit to God's law. I could not please God. I was dead in sins and trespasses. If you're outside of Christ and you're hearing this right now, for some reason, somebody is laying this for you or you stumbled onto it and you've not yet trusted in Christ that you're dead in your sins and trespasses. You need to repent and believe and put your trust in Jesus. Have you ever believed or you didn't come to faith because you're smarter than other people, more clever than other people? You figured out things that they didn't figure out. It's because God loved you from all eternity and He showered His grace on you and He raised you from spiritual death to spiritual life. Right? The wages of sin are death. That's what God's word says. The day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. That's what God said to Adam.

5:09The day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. The wages of sin are death. The wages of sin are death. We are by nature. Dead Paul says in Ephesians 2.4 in sins and trespasses. Not that we loved God, Scripture says, but that He loved us and sent His Son and atoning sacrifice for our sins. He says that to believers, as I mentioned, Genesis 2.17 says that God commanded our first parents, Adam and Eve, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The command to avoid one tree in the garden was God's standard of holiness or Adam and Eve. It's a summary of the moral law. Our Lord Jesus summarized the moral law, the Ten Commandments, but that's one expression of the moral law. But He summarized the whole moral law in two commandments. Let's love God with all your faculties and your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets. That's what Jesus says in Matthew 22, 37 through 40. And the commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil summarized

6:12that moral law. We were to love God by abstaining from that tree where to love our neighbors. That's what Adam was to love us and to love Eve by abstaining from that and by obeying. And thereby by his righteous obedience enter into fellowship, eternal fellowship and communion with God instead tragically. He chose something else. God's word says that Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. And the text gives every indication that they had the power and the ability by virtue of God's creation of them in his image and endowing them with all that they needed, all the gifts that they needed, but they freely chose not to obey God. The narrative of Genesis chapter 3 certainly seems to confirm Augustine's conclusion that before the fall we were able not to sin. After the fall, however, we were not able not to sin. Ladies and gentlemen, God's word.

7:12As I've been saying, it's important to note that the penalty attached to the law was death. Scripture says, for when you eat of it, you will surely die. Paul says, as I've been telling you, the wages of sin is death. Death in God's word stands as the absolute opposite of life. I don't know if you ever had this experience. In high school, I had a physiology teacher who took the class to see cadavers at the University Medical School or the dental school. I think it was actually. And we were allowed to put our beloved hands into corpses to learn how the human body works. And these bodies in life in them, I assure you I would not have had my hands in their chest cavities. But these people were dead. Dead people don't revive themselves. They don't call the ambulance. They don't cooperate. They don't do anything without God's power. Dead people simply stay the way they are. Dead. In Romans 5, 12-21, Paul explains, how we die?

8:15He says that Adam stood before God in the garden as the representative of the entire human race. When Adam sinned, we all sinned. His sin was imputed. It was put on. It was credited, accounted to us. We were in him both really and legally. We have this all the time, do we? We have legislators who act on our behalf, people for whom perhaps you didn't even vote. And you still have to live under the laws and with the consequences of the actions taken by a representative. Well, that's the way it was with Adam. Adam's sin offended God and brought physical and spiritual death and corruption to the entire human race. This is what God's word says. Again, this is Romans 5, 12-21. Therefore, just as sin entered the world, through one man and death through sin. And in this way, death came to all men because all have sinned.

9:15And he goes on to say, for if the many died by the trespass of the one man, the one man was Adam, of course. And then he says, the judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation. And he adds, for if by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man. And then he says, consequently, just as the result of one man's trespass was condemnation for all men. And he also said, for just as through the disobedience of the one man, many were made sinners. This is the doctrine of Adam's federal or representative headship. He was the head and the first head of all humanity. And the good news is that Scripture says that Jesus is the last head, the last Adam, the last representative of redeemed humanity. If you've not put your trust in Jesus, then you're still in Adam. He's your representative. And you are suffering the consequences of his decision, but you don't have to remain

10:21there. You can put your trust in Jesus. You can repent, recognize the greatness of your sin and misery, turn away from it and embrace Christ in true faith to trust him as your representative, as your obedient representative. Or Savior who was born for sinners, obeyed in their place, was put to death, was buried, was raised on the third day, is ascended, and is at the right head of the Father, and who is coming again. That's the good news. But the original sin of Adam had, of course, radical effects for our lives. We sin because we're sinners by nature. We don't become sinners after we sin for the first time. We are born sinful. We're not each of us, Adam. That was the heresy of Pelagius. Way back in the late fourth century, he said that each one of us is Adam, and each one of us has the opportunity to do what Adam did. And that's not true. He just ignored and sort of defined out of existence what Paul said in Romans 5 that

11:24I just read for you. I know this because I've read Pelagius' commentary on Romans. When he gets to passage just that he doesn't like, he just explains them away. The truth is that you and I were born sinful, and by nature we act accordingly. Paul explains the relationship between our sin and our sinfulness this way. And I've already alluded to this passage. As for you, this is Ephesians 2, verse 4, you are dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air. The old colonial Puritan rhyme is right. And I've modified it a little bit. In Adam's fall, sinned we all. The result of our sin is that we are all spiritually dead. Because we are spiritually dead, we have no natural desire to know God or to be saved. We're prone by the way we are from birth to hate God and our neighbor.

12:27In spite of Christ we would be lost without any hope. God's word says that, as I say, lost and dead, we're not merely confused or ill. Because we are such a sad state, God alone can save and does save by his free favor alone through faith alone. God's word gives no indication that we are by nature in any position to cooperate with God, to cooperate with his grace. We're totally dependent on him. God isn't waiting helplessly for us to come to him. There's nothing in us that makes us worthy before God. All human beings stand before God as hell deserving sinners. Thanks for listening to me tomorrow for more from the title cast. Watch you by HeidelbergReformationassociation.org. Don't forget when the client of the coffer clinks the cost of bandwidth trinks. The HeidelbergReformationassociation always reserved.

13:27This is a Heidel media production.