Part II: You're a wicked, vile, ungodly, totally depraved sinner!

Yes...yes you are...

And that, in a nutshell, is your problem.

You may think you're a good person. You're friends may think you're a good person. But sadly, God doesn't agree. In His Bible, God tells us the following facts:

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

"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. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3: 10-18)

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8)

Even when you do things that are good in your eyes, or in other people's eyes, this is how God sees it:

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." (Isaiah 64:6)

Why does God see you this way? Because He is holy. Not just a little holy, he is completely holy. And our God could not be perfectly holy if he accepted any measure of sin in His presence.

"Thou God art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity" (Habakuk 1: 13a)

Now this is where things get nasty: YOUR SIN SEPERATES YOU FROM GOD NOW, AND IT WILL SEPERATE YOU FROM GOD FOREVER. No amount of time will get you off the hook. If, at the end of your life, you stand before the Living God guilty of ONE, SOME or MANY sins, God will NOT receive you. Your soul will be cast to the Lake of Fire, and there it will remain forever.

You don't believe it? Check out what the Bible says:

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not 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." (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8)

Now as far as problems go, you have to admit, this is a somewhat large problem. Before you ever had the chance to consider your spiritual end point, you were toast. You are a sinner by choice, you are a sinner by birth. Yes, by birth. All of us are born into this world spiritually dead sinners. Again, the Bible says:

"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." (Psalm 51:5)

"Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were BY NATURE the children of wrath, even as others." (Ephesians 2:3)

Why were you born a sinner? Blame your great-great-great-great...grand-parents, Adam and Eve. They took of the forbidden fruit and because of this, became sinners. And sadly, when two sinners come together and have children, they have children who are sinners.

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12)

Not exactly an uplifting post huh? Basically, the summary of it all is we are born bad, we love to be bad, and we're going to spiritual condemnation because we are bad. It would be cause for us to adopt the philosophy of "let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die", but God in His infinite love, grace and mercy has given a great gift to the world.

This gift is...(to be continued...)