The sermon by Jason Dohm explores the nature of the human heart and the Gospel, beginning with the fall of humanity in Genesis 3. It highlights the cunning of the serpent and the resulting sin of Adam and Eve, which fundamentally altered human nature towards sinfulness. This inherent sinfulness is depicted throughout Scripture, as seen in Genesis 6, Jeremiah 17, and Isaiah 64, which describe humanity's wickedness and deceitful hearts. The sermon emphasizes that understanding our natural state is crucial before embracing the Gospel, which offers hope through the grace and mercy of God, especially through Jesus Christ. The story of Noah exemplifies undeserved grace, showing that salvation is not based on human goodness but on God's mercy. The sermon stresses the importance of accepting the Bible's truth about our sinful nature to fully appreciate the Gospel's transformative power, which cleanses and redeems through Jesus' sacrifice, offering a path from being 'children of wrath' to recipients of divine blessing.

Verses one through six. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat, nor shall you touch it lest you die? Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.

For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. God, of all the history in scripture, This doomed us all. You stop here at verse six and we have zero hope.

Zero hope for all of humanity. But there is hope. Because your grace and mercy, especially through the work of Christ, there is hope. May we hear clearly, give us ears to hear clearly through the preaching of your word through Jason. Give it power through your spirit.

May we hear clearly our state, our natural state without you and the hope that we have with you. We see the Gospel is even more precious than we walked in this morning. Please bless this time for Your glory. Amen. The title of the message this morning is The Nature of the Human Heart and the Gospel.

Until you understand the nature of the human heart, you're not ready for the Gospel. We started in Genesis chapter 3 because although God made mankind very good, he made mankind upright, not inclined towards sin. The sin of Adam and Eve changed, fundamentally changed our natures, corrupted our natures, so that we do now have a very natural inclination towards sin. Natural meaning it's really normal now for us to find ourselves slow towards the things that God loves or even hating those things and quick in the things that dishonor the Lord. The Bible disagrees with us about us.

Did you know that? The Bible says things about us that We're happy to attribute to other people the bad people, but we can hardly be brought to believe that those things that the Bible describes about the human race are really true of us. It's true of the bad people, but not of me. And what you do with that fact, the fact that the Bible disagrees with you about you, is profound. It really is the difference between heaven and hell.

Will you humble yourself and accept the truth of God is just that? Truth from heaven revealed to mankind and right no matter what your personal sense of it is? Or will you cling to your personal sense from it and have that hold you back from the mercy that God offers to you? I'm going to begin our time with four sections of scripture which teach us about our natural state. There are two reasons that I'm going to four different places.

The first is so that you don't think that I'm cherry picking. You don't think that I've just grabbed a hold of one place that is an outlier, an isolated place in the Bible. We really don't find it anywhere else, and I'm trying to make a case that is disproportionate to what the Bible actually teaches. No, Gary's already taken us to some of those places. I'm going to take you through four more.

I could throw out all of those and just replace them with another set, is the argument that I'm making today. It's actually the teaching of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. So I'm not cherry picking at all. That's why I'm taking you to four places. Secondly, because each of the four, I think, adds an additional element of truth.

So it gives us more of a full-orbed, a complete picture than any one of the four by themselves. So they all help each other in the way that they give you the full picture. Once we've done that I'll take you to two sections of scripture which tie in the Gospel. But you don't want to start there. If you start there, you minimize what the Bible says about us, and it makes you not ready to run to God for the remedy.

So we want to start gospel preaching really in the right place. By confronting ourselves with what the Bible says about us to see whether that is a pill that we can swallow. And I want to say this, if you can't swallow that pill, the gospel has nothing to offer you. And that is the most pitiable position to be in, to have the truth of God pressed upon you, but say no and recoil from His truth, and thereby pass over the mercy that is offered to you. Let's pray.

Our God, these things are so foundational. There's no way to build. There's nothing to build until this foundation is laid. We see that in the Gospel preaching of the New Testament so clearly. And so I pray that you would help me and I pray that you would help these people who are gathered to hear the Word of God today, and that you would give them eyes to see and ears to hear.

I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. So the first place that I'd like to take us is Genesis chapter 6 and 8. So I'm doing a little cheating on the counting and lumping two in here. Hopefully you'll let me do that. Genesis chapter 6 and then we'll look at Genesis chapter 8.

You'll see in a minute why I picked two spots here and not just one. The first is Genesis chapter 6 verses 5 through 8. We started in Genesis 3 and now there has been a dramatic increase of the population, and a dramatic increase of sin and wickedness in the world. And this is coming into when God is going to wipe everyone off the face of the earth except for eight people because He's merciful. And so this is the lead in to that.

God describes the condition of earth in Genesis chapter 6 verses 5 through 8. So follow along as I read Genesis chapter 6 verses 5 through 8. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth. He was grieved in his heart.

So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. That I had made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. What a sweeping statement of the condition of mankind at that time. A universal condition without exception.

Look again in verse 5. Every intent, some intents, no. Every intent of the thoughts of his heart, so scandalous sin everywhere, well maybe, but even with the people who can't be convicted of scandalous sin, the thoughts of their heart that no one else sees are described this way. So it's possible to be without the outward things that people recoil from, and yet have your heart in this condition. Was only evil continually.

Continually. Oh, so Noah is a good guy with some of his family who are good guys and gals. And So he's going to save the good guys. No, that is not what's being said here. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Grace is undeserved favor. Noah doesn't deserve to be rescued when everyone else is lost. God raising up Noah to this is the evidence of God's grace on him, not the cause of God's grace on him. It's so important that you understand that. It's not God saving the few good guys and wiping the bad guys off the earth.

It's God recognizing this is the universal condition of mankind, but because I am a God of grace, and have determined to save a little tiny remnant of the population of planet earth, even though they can all accurately be described this way, I'm going to raise up this man who doesn't deserve it, and make him the object of my grace. And so what you see in the life of Moses is the result of the grace, not the cause of the grace. Don't you dare come to this and say, well God was gracious towards Noah because he was good. That's not what grace is. You have to find a different word for that.

That's not grace. Grace is undeserved favor. The flood happens. Turn to Genesis 8. The flood happens.

The waters recede. The ark comes to rest. They come out of the ark. Genesis 8 verses 20 and 21. Follow along as I read Genesis 8 verses 20 and 21.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done." What's so clear in this portion of Genesis chapter 8 is that the population has changed. Everyone's dead except for 8, but the hearts of the populace are the same." It's practically the same words.

So, God has judged the wickedness of the earth, and he has paid the wages of sin, which is death, to all but eight who found grace in a sight. But there's no change in the fundamental nature of mankind. The imagination of man's heart is evil, still evil, from his youth, from the very beginning of the life of this race of mankind, can still be described this way, before the flood, after the flood. A change in the population, No change in the hearts of the populace. Still evil.

The imagination of man's heart is still evil from his youth. Turn to Jeremiah 17. That's the second place I'll take us. Jeremiah 17. So the prophets start with the major prophets.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Those are the four major prophets. That's where you find Jeremiah. All after Psalms and Proverbs. Jeremiah 17.

Jeremiah 17 verses 9 and 10. Follow along. This is the voice of God. The heart is deceitful, above all things, desperately wicked. Who can know it?

I the Lord search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of His doings. What is God saying here? You can't know your heart, and you don't know your heart. This is why, Although we can freely attribute what the Bible says to other people, we recoil when we think that God is speaking of us.

Well, why is that? Because you can't know your heart, and you don't know your heart. But God knows your heart. Your spouse might know your heart, might not know your heart. Children might not know your heart, your neighbors might not know your heart.

Your co-workers might know your heart. God sees it all. He searches the heart. He tests the mind. But this heart is deceitful above all things.

And so I don't know my own heart. God perfectly knows it, but I don't really know it. It's desperately wicked. You say, that isn't my experience. My heart's not like that.

I mean I know I've got my problems. This is how we talk about it to ourselves. I know I've got my problems, but desperately wicked, deceitful above all things, we recoil from thinking of ourselves in that terms. Here's what I would say, that doesn't invalidate the point, That proves the point. Your heart is deceitful above all things.

No it isn't. You haven't contradicted the point. You proved the point. You're recoiling from that truth is proof positive that God is right and you are wrong. You don't even see it.

It's deceitful above all things and it's done its work so that when God says your hearts deceitful above all things you say no it isn't that's not my experience you're desperately wicked no I'm not that's not my experience listen to Proverbs 28 verse Listen to Proverbs 28 verse 26. Proverbs 28 verse 26. He who trusts in his own heart is a fool. But whoever walks wisely will be delivered. Can I offer a restatement of that?

My restatement would be this. I need to be delivered from trusting in my own heart. Oh God deliver me from trusting in my own heart. Let me read the verse again. You decide whether that's a faithful restatement.

Proverbs 28, 26, he who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered from trusting his own heart. Turn to Isaiah 64. It's a few chapters earlier, Isaiah 64. I'm going to start at about the halfway point of Isaiah 64 verse 5. So I'm not starting at the beginning of verse 5, I'll start halfway.

Isaiah 64 verse 5b into the verse, and then I'll read through into 7a. I won't read the whole verse 7. Isaiah 64 verse 5 starting about halfway. You are indeed angry. You're angry, God.

For we have sinned. In these ways we continue. And we need to be saved. God about covers it. We're sinners.

We continue in sin. We need to be saved. Verse 6. But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away and there is no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you.

You can see what Genesis says, Jeremiah confirms. What Jeremiah says, Isaiah confirms. We'll go to Ephesians 2 next. What Isaiah says, Ephesians 2 confirms. The Old Testament teaches it.

The New Testament teaches it. All using many of the same words. Here in Isaiah 64, All means all. We are all like an unclean thing. The holy man, the prophet, doesn't exempt himself.

You all are like an unclean thing. No, no, no. We all are like an unclean thing. The holy man, the prophet, knows that he's not different, knows that the things that God says about mankind are true of him too. He's been able to swallow this pill, And so he can speak in this way.

And all of our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. So it's true of all of us, what's true of all of us, that all of our best things are as filthy rags. And no one calls on God. No one stirs himself to take up, to take hold of God. Now, this is tricky.

We see this. We are all like an unclean thing and All of our righteousnesses are like filthy rags, and we do an unhelpful translation in our minds. And we turn it into something we can live with. What is that? No one's perfect.

We're all sinners. Wow, that's what it says here in Isaiah 64. I know that's true. I knew that when I walked in here that I wasn't perfect, that we're all sinners. You know how unthreatening that is to the man on the street, to the woman on the street?

You can walk up to any one of them and say, hey, you know what? No one's perfect. Say, how true. So true. Like we're all sinners.

So true. And they'll be happy to comfort you in your imperfectness and in your sins. They'll approve of you in your imperfections in your sins and The deal is that you comfort them in theirs, approve of them in theirs, and we all just sort of, like our arm in arm, hey, it's just true of all of us. That is not what God is saying here. God is not saying, well none of you are perfect.

All of you are sinners. He's inviting you into a thought experiment where you're invited to take everything that you're even remotely ashamed of, and hide it behind your back. God sees everything, but in his thought experiment, he says, I'll let you hide it all from me. Anything that you're ashamed of, in the minutest way, hide it from me and then take the best of the best of the best of anything that you've ever done and those few things, make sure you're taking the very best and then offer them to me and I will render my judgment filthiness filthiness all of your righteousness is not the things that you're ashamed of All of your individual best of the best of the best that are your righteousnesses that you think I must accept, that you think I'm pleased with, I look upon that and I see filth. Wow.

Wow. The Bible does disagree with me about me. We're singing a new song. Here's a line from that new song. The best of my works pierced your hands and your feet.

We've sung that. Have you thought about it? It's really saying what Isaiah is saying. Not the things that I'm ashamed of sent Jesus to the cross, But even the best of my best of my best are tainted with pride and self-love and self-sufficiency. Those Few things that I'm proud of and thought that God must accept.

Jesus had to go to the cross to make those things right. To purge the guilt from those things. How can this be that God sees things so radically different? It is because we are very comfortable with sin in every form of compromise. Sin is Sin is like breathing to us.

Self-sufficiency and pride and self-love come to us like drinking water. So naturally. So that we become so desensitized and comfortable with our sin through the repetition of self-sufficiency and pride and self-love. Notice I didn't say adultery and murder I know you don't Externally engage in adultery and murder this is not the standard If if we knew how God standard, if we knew how God hated our self-sufficiency and our pride and our self-love, we wouldn't think in those terms anymore. 1 John 1 verse 5, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

At best we're a mixture. At best we're a mixture. John is saying in 1 John 1, verse 5, God is no mixture. From eternity past through eternity future, He is only light. And light is truth and good.

When you see light spoken of figuratively in the scripture, it's talking about truth and goodness. Good. From eternity past through eternity future, he is completely truth and goodness. 100% absent any hint of falsehood or wickedness. So we're comfortable with falsehood and wickedness because it's so natural to us, but God is never comfortable for a nanosecond with any of that.

You've lost any sense of it, but God senses all of it. Because He's perfectly good. Ephesians chapter 2. It's our final stop before we get to some good news. Ephesians chapter 2.

I want to submit to you that what I'm doing today is New Testament gospel preaching. How different it is from the gospel preaching that you normally hear. Are you in trouble? God can bail you out of your troubles. Is that true?

Yes. Troubles. Is that true? Yes. But it doesn't send people to be saved by Christ at this most fundamental level.

Ephesians chapter 2, let me read verses 1 through 3. I want to put you on alert to notice this as I read through it. The Apostle Paul who wrote the letter to the Ephesians that we're reading now is just like Isaiah the prophet. He doesn't put himself in a different category. He says, we're all like this.

So Paul also has swallowed the pill. Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3. Verses 1-3, and you he God made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, just as the others." Paul is describing people not who are sick in sin, dead in sin. There is no self remedy for the dead. They are dead.

Paul says, we all once conducted ourselves this way, according to our lust, driven by our natural inclinations, driven by the desires of our minds, our thoughts. I want to dwell on this phrase, by nature, children of wrath. What is a child of wrath? A child of wrath is part of this body of people who deserve the anger of God. That's what children of wrath are.

The body of people deserving the anger of God. God's right to be angry with them. So Paul says, you sin, sin, so God's angry. No, that's not what Paul is saying. What is Paul saying?

Paul is saying before you ever sin the sin, God is angry not simply because of the things that you do, think, say, but because of what you're like. Nature is right at the core. Before you've thought things, said things, done things, you are a certain way. That's your nature, the core. There's nothing more central than the core.

So it is bad news that I've thought things I shouldn't have thought, said things I shouldn't have said, done things I shouldn't have said, but Paul is saying it's deeper than that, it's worse than that. You thought those things, said those things, did those things, because that's who you are. God is angry with who you are. Seven billion people, something like that, on planet Earth. So someone's being born in Franklin County, now.

Today, someone's being born in Franklin County. I'm sure that's true. Will that little boy or little girl be a sinner? We already know the answer. How can we already know the answer?

Because they share the nature we have, and of the seven billion or whatever people on earth they're all the same way. They just need time and opportunity And this little boy or little girl being born in Franklin County right now will join us in self sufficiency and pride and self love. Wanting to displace God, wanting to be God. Maybe it will be in really outward ways and we'll say, what a terrible person. Or maybe they'll be as respectable as some of us have been.

But at the core, they will be by nature children of wrath. God will be angry at what they're like before they even are thinking things, saying things, doing things, to prove that that's what they're like. You know, the sins are just the proof of what you're like. I thank God for verse 4. But God who is rich in mercy.

The good news is that understanding this correctly, how bad it actually is, makes salvation in Jesus Christ so precious. I fear for our children. Why do I fear for our children? Because we have discipline in the home. Why would that make me afraid?

Because they've never actually been given free reign to just chase their inclinations because we say nope you're not doing that, not in this house. And so they've never had the freedom to prove that this is true to themselves. I'm not suggesting that we change our parenting in ways that harm our children. Just know this, children, please know this, if your parents just had from the beginning just let you do what you want, no constraints and you just followed your inclination and no one ever intervened, God didn't reach down into that, all of us, all of us would plunge ourselves into destruction, 100%. It is only the mercy of God, only the mercy of God, Reaching into deadness, not sickness, deadness.

To raise the dead. That is the reason that he has a people. Turn to Matthew 26. This is Gethsemane. This is the night that Jesus was betrayed.

The next day, He'll die on the cross. Matthew 26, I'll be reading verses 36-39. Matthew 26, 36-39. Then Jesus came with them, with the disciples, to a place called Gethsemane. He said to the disciples, sit here while I go and pray over there.

He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. That's James and John. And he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then he said to them, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Stay here and watch with me.

He went a little further and fell on his face and prayed saying, Oh my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. Jesus doesn't have a physical cup in His hand, so it's a figurative cup. What is the cup? You go back to the prophets.

And many times in the prophets, God sends a prophet to different peoples. Sometimes it's Egypt, sometimes it's Assyria, sometimes it's Judah. God says, tell them, You will drink this cup. I am furious at your rebellion and your wickedness. And I will place the cup of my fury against your wickedness into your hand, and you will drink every drop." He's decreeing the destruction of these people for their wickedness.

And, I will not be done until you drink every drop. That is the cup. We are by nature children of wrath. God is furious at our self-sufficiency and our pride and our self-love. And it works its way out into these other things.

But let's just stay at the heart so sophisticated people don't try to dodge what the Bible is teaching. That you're sophisticated about your self-sufficiency and pride and self-love doesn't make it better, it makes it worse, It just adds hypocrisy on top. You're not better than the rest. You're worse than the rest. Because you put up a front as if you need nothing from God.

How do you think God thinks about that? Jesus, in perfect love, in perfect fellowship with His Father from eternity past, is facing being handed the cup of God's anger against sin with the requirement that he be separated from his Father, say this reverently, that Trinity is a great mystery, I don't understand it all, and That he drank the last drop of God's Over the sins of his people leaving not a drop left Jesus isn't afraid to die Jesus is the bravest person who ever lived. Many people have died bravely. Jesus isn't Anguishing even over the agony of his death. He is anguishing over being the object of God's fury for my Self-sufficiency and my pride and my self-love and not mine alone.

Turn to 2 Corinthians 5. We'll end there. 2 Corinthians 5 2 Corinthians 5. Verses 20 and 22. 2 Corinthians 5.

20 and 22. Paul writes, now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God were pleading through us, we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He, God the Father, made Him, God the Son, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. In 1 Corinthians 10, when Paul is beginning to teach about the Lord's Supper, there's this precious phrase, the cup of blessing, which we bless.

Jesus Christ takes the cup of God's fury against our self-sufficiency and our pride and our self-love and He drinks it down. He drinks the last drop, the last bitter drop, so that there's not one drop left for me. And having completed the work, he hands a cup of blessing. This is the Gospel. That there's not one thing left for the sinner to do who will swallow the pill and believe what the Bible says about you.

And If you really do swallow the pill, it will terrify you, and it will send you to the one place that the Bible sets forth as a hope. There's only one place that the Bible sets forth as a hope. It is Jesus Christ and His blood that cleanses away every last sin so there's no fury left for you. And He hands you the cup of blessing. God, every time I preach any sort of version of this, I end up thinking the same thing.

Who am I that I would have the privilege to say these things? To say these things. I do thank you for showing me that everything that's said in Genesis 6 and 8, everything that's said in Jeremiah 17, everything that's said in Isaiah 64, everything that's said in Ephesians chapter 2 and so many other places are true of me. I do recoil at them. I want to think that it's not true, but you brought me to swallow that pill and know every bit of that is true of me and that there is no hope except one.

I thank you for that one hope. And this mighty person and work that can purge away every last hint of stain of sin. And leave me as if I had lived his life, completely in your favor. We marvel. If your word didn't say it, we would say, it's too good to be true.

But on your word, we take it up as our hope. And thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen.