A Slave to Our Wills



Our Lord said to the Jewish leaders of His day, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. And YE WILL NOT come to Me that ye might have life” (John 5:39-40). “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:44). It is a well-known fact that many are quick to defend the freedom of man’s will, but our Lord, in these few words, forevermore dashed that heresy to pieces. The Word of God is clear that no man has the natural willingness or ability to come to God and be content to be saved by grace alone through the bloody sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Rather than man’s will being free, it is enslaved.

The will is in bondage to our sinful nature. Instead of speaking of the freedom of the will, it would be more accurate to say that man’s will is imprisoned to sin and Satan (John 8:34). The sinner, therefore, if uninfluenced by effectual grace, will never have the desire nor the ability to draw near to Christ for everlasting salvation. I suppose there is a sense in which you may say that man is free, if by that you mean he is free in the same way a prisoner in a jail cell is free. He has the liberty to do within that cubicle whatever he may desire, but he has no ability to release himself.

The dilemma of the spiritually dead sinner, however, is even worse than a person in prison; not only does he lack the will and the power to liberate himself, he does not want to be free for he does not even realize he is in bondage. He has no awareness of captivity and no knowledge of the damnation that awaits him if he continues on his current path. The will of man is controlled by sinful and wicked self, that is, a depraved heart which is said to be stony (Ezekiel 11:19), foolish (Ephesians 4:18) and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). The only way any sinner will want salvation and come to Christ to be washed in His sin-atoning blood is because of the gift of a new heart of faith and being made “willing in the day of Thy power” (Psalm 110:3).

-Gospel report by preacher Jim Byrd

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OUTSTANDING GOSPEL SERMON: “God’s Free Grace”

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