Sermon Tone Analysis

God’s View Of The Human Race

/Text: Ephesians 2:1-7/

 

Place Preached - (Mississauga International Baptist Church)

Date Preached - (07~/08~/01)

 

Introduction:   

 

Remember that when God looks at our life, God looks on the heart.

A man's heart is so deceitful that a man on his own cannot even know his own heart (*Jer.

17:9*).

So if you want to know how God sees things, you are going to have to come to God's Word.

One day, we will all stand before God and give answer for our life.

God will judge us according to truth.

The Bible is that truth.

Therefore we are looking at our lives in light of the Word of God.

There are 613 laws in the Old Testament, but the whole law is summed up in the Ten commandments.

1.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. Honor thy father and thy mother.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not lie.

10.

Thou shalt not covet.

As we look at the law of God we must say that we are guilty, condemned before God.

Some people pride themselves in doing the best they can and hoping God will overlook the rest.

*James 2: 10* tells us that if a man offends in one point of the law, he is guilty of all.

NO RELATIONSHIP OR RELATED

When God looks at the world, He sees two different groups of people.

Some who belong to God, and some who do not belong to God.

The Bible uses many different terms to talk about these two groups of people.

We are going to look at a few of those terms.

I.

LOST OR SAVED

*Luke 19:10* "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

That term “LOST” is a rather interesting term.

There are very few connotations in which you can use the word lost in a good sense.

If a man loses his health or his wealth it is not a good thing.

If a man loses his family or parents lose a child it is not good.

The Bible says the way God looks at people who have no relationship to Him, is that they are lost.

ILLUS: It is the picture of a child going out into the woods, forgetting to mark his trail, and getting lost.

He doesn't know where he is and he doesn't know how to get out.

He is in the middle of a large, vast forest, thousands of acres with no hope of finding his way out on his own.

If you are lost, you can't get out of where you are.

If you are lost, you can't find your way out.

If you are lost, you need someone on the outside to come and give you the assistance you need to get out of the condition you are in.

Lost.

SAVED

In *Romans 10:13*, the Bible says, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Most of the world thinks something like this.

"Saved.

What do you mean, saved?

I don't need to be saved."

Not until they see themselves as God sees them and realize that indeed they are lost.

If a child was lost in the woods and someone came along to rescue them, that child isn't going to be particular about what they look like.

The child will just be glad to be rescued.

Suppose you go out in an ocean liner and fall overboard in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and the ocean liner keeps right on sailing.

Now you are out there, bobbing in the water, good shark bait.

Finally a rescue craft appears and is ready to throw a lifering to you.

Would you say, "Excuse me, but I don't like white life preservers.

I want a red one please."

No, you are going to be willing to grab hold of anything that will rescue you.

Why?

Because you can't save yourself.

You need someone to rescue you.

That is exactly what saved means.

It means to be rescued.

For a person to be rescued, there had to be a place and a time when they were lost.

You are born lost, in the trash heap, apart from God, in need of being rescued.

A rescued person is someone who had been in danger, but was pulled from danger.

II.

UNRIGHTEOUS OR RIGHTEOUS

I Corinthians 6:9-10  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall nor inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

 

Who are the unrighteous?

They are people who are not right in God's eyes.

The term unrighteous means not right, not having the quality of rightness in your life.

*Psalm 58:3*  "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies."

The Bible says we are not right before God.

The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Let's take those verses apart (I Cor.

6:9-10) and see what God is talking about.

“/Be not deceived/.”

But that is where people are in our world today.

They think because they go to church and are religious, or because they are a good person that God will make an exception for them.

But God says, Be not deceived.

Don't tell yourself a lie.

“/Neither fornicators:/” Fornication involves all sexual sin;  the sin of the mind, sexual lust, thinking wrong thoughts.

“/Nor idolaters/”, Did you ever make a god to your own image, a god which you thought this is how God ought to be like, instead of letting God be God?

 

“/Nor adulterers/”:  Did you ever commit adultery?

Since you have been married, have you ever been sexually active with someone besides your spouse?

Have you ever even had a wrong lustful thought about someone of the opposite sex.

“/Nor effeminate/”: There is a tough one in our generation.

We talk about Sodom and Gomorrah of the Bible days, but today Homosexuality is everywhere you turn.

“/Nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God/.”

These people whom God has listed for us here in these two verses are not going to make it to heaven because they are not right with God.

We are all in trouble.

*Romans 3:10* says, "There is none righteous; no, not one."

One day you and I are going to stand there before God who says, "You are not right before me."

I think we better get concerned.

RIGHTEOUS

*1 Corinthians 6:11* "And such were some of you; but ye are washed"