The sermon presents sin as a deep, universal hostility toward God affecting the whole person, rooted in humanity’s fallen nature inherited from Adam. Human beings cannot overcome this condition through morality, religious effort, or works. Salvation therefore depends on God’s grace, Christ’s substitutionary atonement, and the regeneration of the sinner. Hearers are urgently called to confess their guilt and look to Jesus Christ alone in faith for deliverance.
Theological center: Because humanity is radically corrupted and unable to reconcile itself to God, salvation must be entirely by grace through Christ’s atonement and the regeneration of the sinner.
Applications: Confess your guilt before God · Look to Jesus for salvation · Seek a changed nature · Consider human depravity
Primary texts: Romans 8:7 · Psalm 51:5 · Romans 7:24
“The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Romans 8:7 THIS is a very solemn indictment which the apostle Paul here speaks against the carnal mind. He declares it to be enmity against God. When we consider what man once was, only second to the angels, the companion of God, who walked with Him in the garden of Eden in the cool of the day, when we think of him as being made in the very image of his Creator, pure, spotless, and unblemished, we cannot but feel bitterly grieved to find such an accusation as this preferred against us as a race. We may well hang our harps upon the willows while we listen to the voice of JEHOVAH, solemnly speaking to His rebellious creature, “How art thou fallen from heaven, thou son of the morning!” “Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. T…