In Eric Bechler's sermon on the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession, Chapter 9, Paragraph 3, he examines the concept of free will in the context of man's fallen state. The sermon explains that humanity, due to the fall, has lost the ability to will any spiritual good towards salvation. Bechler explores the interaction between human free will and God's sovereignty, asserting that human freedom is derived from God's supreme will and is not in conflict with it. The sermon discusses the four states of man as introduced by Augustine: innocence, sin, grace, and glory. Bechler delves into doctrines of total depravity, which affects every aspect of human nature, and total inability, which prevents man from choosing salvation without divine intervention. The sermon emphasizes that only God's grace can bring a fallen man to faith. Bechler concludes by encouraging reflection on God's love and the importance of loving one another as outlined in 1 John 4 and 1 Corinthians 13.

Our reading this morning from the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 comes again from chapter 9 of free will paragraph 3. Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. So as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto. We continue in our review of chapter nine of free will. Last week we discussed God's sovereignty and man's free will, his freedom, and how they interact or fit together.

We started to discuss how our will is affected by our spiritual state. We will continue with that discussion today and over the next few weeks. I will reiterate some terms that we've been using, free will, natural ability, freedom. Free will is the faculty or ability to choose one thing over another. Through freedom, natural liberty, or free agency, Our will is determined by the strongest motive of our heart.

The will is not determined to necessarily do good or evil. It is only a faculty or ability. The will is determined again by the condition of the heart. Whatever is the strongest motive of that particular moment is your will. It can change with time and circumstances.

If at a particular moment we prefer to sin, we sin. If at a particular moment we prefer to obey God, we will obey God. Again, our will is determined by the strongest motive of our heart at that moment. So, does our free will conflict with God's sovereignty? The quick answer is no, it does not.

Dr. Samuel Waldron states, human freedom is not ultimate. It was under the control of God's sovereign will, even in the state of innocence. Divine freedom and human freedom are not in conflict. Rather, it is only because our wills are made in the image of the freedom of God's supreme will that our derivative wills are free.

Human freedom is rooted in God's sovereign freedom. And God in his sovereignty gives us choices. God does not coerce or force us to act. How can we be held responsible for actions by just God if they're not our actions? We saw this in scripture last week in Deuteronomy 30, 15 and 19, life and death, blessings and curses, and in Joshua 24 or 15, choose this day whom you will serve.

He gives us the freedom to make a choice, which will be determined by the strongest motive of our heart at that moment. Last week I introduced something from Augustine of Hippo regarding the state of man and his ability to sin or not to sin. I only introduced part of it which may be led to a little bit of confusion, but I'd like to present the full description based on all four states that we are covering in last week, and this week, and two more. The four states of man here introduced by Augustine are man and his inocency. So this is a man before the fall.

Natural man after the fall. This is a state of sin. Regenerate man is a state of grace. And glorified man, this is the state of glory. If we look at what capabilities man has in these states, in the state of innocency, which we talked about last week, man is able to sin, and man is able not to sin.

There was a choice before Adam and Eve, and they sinned. And thus, we had the fall moving to the next state of man, the state of sin. As natural man, we are able to sin, but now we are not able not to sin, which means we just sin. We're able to sin, we're not able not to sin, so we can't keep ourselves from sinning. Regenerate man in the state of grace, The regenerate man is both able to sin and he's able not to sin.

So this is similar to the state before the fall, but there's a difference being that Adam was righteous up into the fall. The regenerate, although having the ability not to sin still has a sin nature and a corruption. In our final paragraph as we go through this chapter we'll look at man in the state of glory, glorified man. In this he's able not to sin and he's not able to sin. RC Sproul notes, in heaven when we are in glory we will be free only to obey.

That is what we call royal freedom, the most wonderful freedom, where our choices will only be good. We will have no inclination whatsoever to do anything wicked or evil in this state of glory. As I mentioned this week, our paragraph is about man after the fall in the state of sin. In this condition, man is able to sin and not able to not sin. Basically, he's only able to sin.

This touches on the doctrines of total depravity and total inability. I'd like to clarify these particular doctrines real quickly. GotQuestions.com of all places has a nice description. The doctrine of total depravity is an acknowledgement that the Bible teaches that as a result of the fall of man, we see this in Genesis 3 6, every part of man, his will, his mind, his emotions and flesh have been corrupted by sin. In other words, sin affects all areas of our being, including who we are and what we do.

It penetrates to the very core of our being so that everything is tainted by sin. And as it says in Isaiah 64, 6, all our righteous acts are like filthy rags before a holy God. Totality in this sense, so total depravity, has the meaning of wholeness, every part of our being, not a degree, meaning that we're not as bad as we actually could be. Total inability, although total depravity implies, to some extent, total inability, there's a distinction between the two. Again, Dr.

Samuel Waldron explains, total depravity is the corruption of every faculty or ability of man, the depravity of man in his totality as compared to total inability, meaning that man is unable to will anything spiritually good. Because of man's fallen state, tainted by sin in all parts of his being, and inability to come to God of his own free will, there must be an action outside of man to bring him to God. God himself must act in order for anyone to be saved. Okay, let's move on to our paragraph from this morning to look at the proof text and to make sure we understand all that it is saying. In the first part, man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

Why has man completely lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation? Because of the fall. By his fall into the state of sin. Scripture in Genesis 2, 17 tells us that God commanded Adam to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And we read in Genesis 3 6 that he did eat.

In Genesis 3 6, and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And from this we see that through Adam's sin we are all made sinners. From Romans 512, Wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men For that all have sinned Now man in this state of sin Again, he's able to sin and he's not able not to sin, hath wholly or completely lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. Now it does not say man has lost his free will. Man still has free will and at some level can discern the difference between good and evil.

Yet he lacks the ability to choose rightly. He will freely choose what is contrary to God. Does not say a man cannot do any good. Fallen man can do good in a moral, social, or cultural sense. We show love to our spouses and children.

We help those in need. We can be kind and uplifting to others. We can obey the traffic laws and other laws of our nation. Much good has been done by fallen man. What it says is that fallen man has lost, wholly lost, all ability of will to do any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

And we read directly from Paul's letter to the Romans in chapter 3 verses 10 through 12. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. And in Romans 7, 18, for I know that in me, that is my flesh, dwelleth no good thing, for to will is present with me. But how to perform that which is good I find not. We have free will in the state of sin, but the strongest motive in our heart is not Godward. Fallen man not only will not choose to come to God, to believe in Him, but cannot choose to have faith in Christ and to believe on his name.

We read this from Jesus's own words recorded in the gospel of John. In John 540, and he will not come to me, ye that might have life. And in John 3, 3, Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, He cannot see the kingdom of God. In John 644, no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. We see here man's inability to come to Christ on his own.

We see that man in the state of sin after the fall is able to sin and is not able not to sin. Continuing, so as natural man, first let's talk about what does it mean here when it states what is natural man. Let's look at Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2, 14, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." So Paul here uses the word natural, natural man, to indicate someone still in a sinful state. The natural man cannot discern spiritual things.

He's occupied with the things of the material world, not the things of God. The confession then mentions three qualities of natural man. Being altogether averse from that good, dead to sin, and unable to convert himself in any way. We'll look at those one at a time. Being altogether averse from that good, what does it mean to be averse?

Noah Webster's dictionary describes it as disliking or having a repugnance of mind. If we look at scripture in Romans 8-7, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And in Titus 3-3, for we ourselves are also, we're sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. The natural man being dead in sin, We turn to Ephesians and Romans for this. Ephesians 2, 1, and you, Hathi-Quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.

And the first part of Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is death. The natural man is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself there unto. We can turn to Jeremiah in 1323. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil.

They're not able to do that. In Acts 7, 51, he stick-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did. So do ye. In John 6, 65, and he said, therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my father.

John 3 5, Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, accept a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." In Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. You are not saved by your works, it's only by grace. I found a statement in a document called The Form of Concord that summarizes what we just covered. I'd like to read. Form, operate, or cooperate in anything, in things divine and spiritual.

But man is so far dead and corrupt in respect to good, that in the nature of man since the fall and before regeneration there is not even a scintilla of spiritual strength remaining whereby he can prepare himself for the grace of God or apprehend that grace when offered or is able in whole or in half or in the least part to apply or accommodate himself to that grace or to confer or to act or to operate or to co-operate anything for his own conversion. R.C. Sproul concludes that fallen man is still free to choose what he desires. But because his desires are only wicked, he lacks the moral ability to come to Christ. As long as he remains in the flesh, unregenerate, he will never choose Christ.

He cannot choose Christ precisely because he cannot act against his own will. He has no desire for Christ. He cannot choose what he does not desire. His fall is great. It is so great that the only effectual grace of God working in his heart can bring him to faith.

So to bring it back to our table of four states of man, a natural man after the fall, a state of sin, he is able to sin and not able to not sin. It sounds pretty hopeless, pretty discouraging to say the least, but this isn't the end of the matter. We read from 1 John chapter 4 verses 10 through 14. Here in his love, Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation of our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he hath given us his Spirit. And he has seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. We can read that but what is our response to this?

How should we react? My thought is with love. God loved us so much that he sent his one and only Son to redeem us. And verse 11 that we read here answers the question for us. We ought also to love one another.

How are we doing with that? 1 Corinthians 13 helps us understand better what it means to love and gives us examples so we can check how we are doing. In 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast, is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the Truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Are we doing these things? Are we really, really loving one another? I know I could do better.

I'm sure all of us can do better. So perhaps this week you could take some time and reflect on this verse and reflect on how well you are loving one another. Are you patient? Are you kind? Are you prideful or covetous?

Are you being arrogant or rude? Are you always wanting your own way? Are you irritated? Are you being resentful? It's a good thing to think about this week.

Amen.