20231008 Are We Basically Good or Basically Evil?
Genesis: Looking Back in Order to Move Ahead Spiritually • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The Holy Bible is not one book but a divinely gahtered and preserved collection of 66 books The Book of Genesis, written by Moses under the guidance, influence, and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, breathed out by God, is not a collection of random stories. it is divinely recorded truth, with events from actual history written to reveal the one true God, to reveal the one true salvation, a salvation that produces a righteousness that is by grace alone through faith alone.
And this raises the question: why do we need salvation? Our scripture reading reveals this in graphic detail:
1 Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. 2 And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. 3 And his soul was drawn to Dinah the daughter of Jacob. He loved the young woman and spoke tenderly to her. 4 So Shechem spoke to his father Hamor, saying, “Get me this girl for my wife.” 5 Now Jacob heard that he had defiled his daughter Dinah. But his sons were with his livestock in the field, so Jacob held his peace until they came. 6 And Hamor the father of Shechem went out to Jacob to speak with him. 7 The sons of Jacob had come in from the field as soon as they heard of it, and the men were indignant and very angry, because he had done an outrageous thing in Israel by lying with Jacob’s daughter, for such a thing must not be done. 8 But Hamor spoke with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem longs for your daughter. Please give her to him to be his wife. 9 Make marriages with us. Give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. 10 You shall dwell with us, and the land shall be open to you. Dwell and trade in it, and get property in it.” 11 Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers, “Let me find favor in your eyes, and whatever you say to me I will give. 12 Ask me for as great a bride-price and gift as you will, and I will give whatever you say to me. Only give me the young woman to be my wife.” 13 The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah. 14 They said to them, “We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised, for that would be a disgrace to us. 15 Only on this condition will we agree with you—that you will become as we are by every male among you being circumcised. 16 Then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to ourselves, and we will dwell with you and become one people. 17 But if you will not listen to us and be circumcised, then we will take our daughter, and we will be gone.” 18 Their words pleased Hamor and Hamor’s son Shechem. 19 And the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. Now he was the most honored of all his father’s house. 20 So Hamor and his son Shechem came to the gate of their city and spoke to the men of their city, saying, 21 “These men are at peace with us; let them dwell in the land and trade in it, for behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them our daughters. 22 Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us to become one people—when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised. 23 Will not their livestock, their property and all their beasts be ours? Only let us agree with them, and they will dwell with us.” 24 And all who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city. 25 On the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, took their swords and came against the city while it felt secure and killed all the males. 26 They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house and went away. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister. 28 They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field. 29 All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and plundered. 30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites. My numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.” 31 But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”
Introduction:
The invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023 by the Hamas rulers of Gaza.
New York Post and London Daily Mail
This is our 9/11,' Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan said in an appearance on Fox News Saturday. 'Babies, women, the elderly were dragged outside of their homes, were taken hostage.'
'These animals will pay a heavy price and they will learn that these atrocities cannot be committed again against our civilians,' he said.
Notice that he described the as animals. But they are not animals. They were men. A christian world view does not categorize some people, some human beings as being non human. The most evil of all people are always human. A sometimes humans can exhibit great evil, despicable evil.
There are two main points to this chapter - one is obvious, the other is subtle but more important. Let’s begin with the obvious
(1) We live in a world of evil because we are all radically corrupt
the doctrine of original sin defines the consequences to the human race because of that first sin.
The consequence of the first sin: radical corruption: sometimes called total depravity.
Total depravity is not utter depravity. We are not as bad as we are capable of being. We can be kind, we can do good things.
We use the term radically corrupt because every part of our being has been corrupted: physically, mentally, emotionally. Our will, our moral reasoning. We are corrupt to the core.
Every aspect of our being is affected in infected by the power of sin. The fall of Adam and Eve penetrate to the core of our being. Coronary - the affects of sin goes to the very heart of the person
If I was Adam, I would have fallen
If I was Abraham, Isaac or Jacob and afraid for my life, I would have lied
If I was as angry as Cain, I am capable of murder, or as Jesus said
And the truth of Genesis 34 is that we are capable of not just outright evil but the ability to rationalize and justify that evil.
(2) A covenant people in peril
Moses continually takes us back to the garden, back to Adam and Eve’s rebellion, back to the days of Noah and the Tower of Babel, back to other events of disobedience and rebellion. Look at these verses and see if you can see what Moses wanted the nation of Israel to see:
16 Then we will give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters to ourselves, and we will dwell with you and become one people.
21 “These men are at peace with us; let them dwell in the land and trade in it, for behold, the land is large enough for them. Let us take their daughters as wives, and let us give them our daughters.
22 Only on this condition will the men agree to dwell with us to become one people—when every male among us is circumcised as they are circumcised.
Do you see it?
Let’s goo back to Genesis 6:1-2
1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
Do you see it?
Let’s go to Leviticus
11 Depart, depart, go out from there; touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the Lord.
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
We are to be faithful to the Lord
We are to be in the world and not of the world
We are to be completely devoted to the Lord
We cannot live with one foot in the church and one foot in the world
As parents we are to train up our children in the nurture and admonition OF THE LORD
We are not to allow our worship to devolve into entertainment
We are not to allow our preaching to devolve into a moralistic lecture that preaches a salvation without repentance, a forgiveness without a recognition of the sinfulness that makes forgiveness necessary, a preaching that says teaches that you can get to heaven by living a good life.
We are to understand that friendship with the world is to be an enemy of God
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Moses is saying to the nation of Israel - do not assimilate, do not compromise, do not intermarry, do not love the things of the world
Moses is saying to us:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the one I love. Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it, sea it for thy courts above
Benediction
RC Sproul - a common point of debate among theologians focuses on the question, are human beings basically good or basically evil? The hinge upon which the argument turns is the word "basically." It is a virtual universal consensus that nobody is perfect. We accept the maxim: "To err is human."
The doctrine of total depravity reflects the Reformed viewpoint of original sin. That term—original sin—is often misunderstood in the popular arena. Some people assume that the term original sin must refer to the first sin—the original transgression that we’ve all copied in many different ways in our own lives, that is, the first sin of Adam and Eve. But that’s not what original sin has referred to historically in the church. Rather, the doctrine of original sin defines the consequences to the human race because of that first sin.
Virtually every church historically that has a creed or a confession has agreed that something very serious happened to the human race as a result of the first sin—that first sin resulted in original sin. That is, as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, the entire human race fell, and our nature as human beings since the fall has been influenced by the power of evil. As David declared in the Old Testament, “Oh, God, I was born in sin, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5). He was not saying that it was sinful for his mother to have borne children; neither was he saying that he had done something evil by being born. Rather, he was acknowledging the human condition of fallenness—that condition that was part of the experience of his parents, a condition that he himself brought into this world. Therefore, original sin has to do with the fallen nature of mankind. The idea is that we are not sinners because we sin, but that we sin because we are sinners.
In the Reformed tradition, total depravity does not mean utter depravity. We often use the term total as a synonym for utter or for completely, so the notion of total depravity conjures up the idea that every human being is as bad as that person could possibly be. You might think of an archfiend of history such as Adolf Hitler and say there was absolutely no redeeming virtue in the man, but I suspect that he had some affection for his mother. As wicked as Hitler was, we can still conceive of ways in which he could have been even more wicked than he actually was. So the idea of total total depravity doesn’t mean that all human beings are as wicked as they can possibly be. It means that the fall was so serious that it affects the whole person. The fallenness that captures and grips our human nature affects our bodies; that’s why we become ill and die. It affects our minds and our thinking; we still have the capacity to think, but the Bible says the mind has become darkened and weakened. The will of man is no longer in its pristine state of moral power. The will, according to the New Testament, is now in bondage. We are enslaved to the evil impulses and desires of our hearts. The body, the mind, the will, the spirit—indeed, the whole person—have been infected by the power of sin.
I like to replace the term total depravity with my favorite designation, which is radical corruption. Ironically, the word radical has its roots in the Latin word for “root,” which is radix, and it can be translated root or core. The term radical has to do with something that permeates to the core of a thing. It’s not something that is tangential or superficial, lying on the surface. The Reformed view is that the effects of the fall extend or penetrate to the core of our being. Even the English word core actually comes from the Latin word cor, which means “heart.” That is, our sin is something that comes from our hearts. In biblical terms, that means it’s from the core or very center of our existence.
So what is required for us to be conformed to the image of Christ is not simply some small adjustments or behavioral modifications, but nothing less than renovation from the inside. We need to be regenerated, to be made over again, to be quickened by the power of the Spirit. The only way in which a person can escape this radical situation is by the Holy Spirit’s changing the core, the heart. However, even that change does not instantly vanquish sin. The complete elimination of sin awaits our glorification in heaven.