Let's try that again. Ezekiel 28, session 87, take 2. Yeah, close all that down please, Beth. All righty, let's pray, shall we? Ask for the Lord to help us and just bless the time. Heavenly Father, we do thank you and praise you for all that you've done for us. Pray, my Lord, that as we gather around your word now, that you would speak to our hearts, you'd guide us and direct us. My Lord, I pray that you'd help me to teach clearly and plainly through your word. I ask, my Lord, that your Holy Spirit would keep us very close and we would rightly divide and we would correctly understand and you would guide us into all truth. We give the time to you, Lord, pray you'd help in Jesus' name. Amen. All righty. So we're simply back in Ezekiel 28 to get our key text and then we'll be moving on from there. Ezekiel 28 verse 15, speaking of Lucifer in this description of him, thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created till iniquity was found in thee. I didn't really give you the title of the thought but that really is what this study is about, iniquity found in thee. and so we have considered it in Lucifer, we've considered it in the angels, we've considered it in Adam and now in Genesis 3 we will consider it in mankind as a whole. Genesis 3 and verse 6 and 7 is where we'll We will take up the reading and we'll move from there and look through some other references. Genesis three and verse six. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, 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 the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. What we're looking at is the iniquity that is found in God's creatures. Looking first at Lucifer, the angels, specifically Adam. And here, considering Eve's part, and we will look in upcoming session at that it is by one man's sin, being Adam's, that sin passed upon all men for that all have sinned. And so it's at Adam's hand that sin passed upon all mankind. But what we see here is, I guess, a glimpse, we can look and see some truths about iniquity in mankind as we look at Eve and her approach to it. And we'll be going over some of the things that we looked at in the previous session that are just evident in Eve and on through mankind. And we see at first, In that word saw, S-A-W. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food. The specific instruction of the Lord was, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Eve looked and she saw and she decided contrary. This is an interesting thing. I think we can look at this and not go, Eve saw something that wasn't there. She wasn't seeing phantoms or I don't think she was even misjudging the way this fruit looked. I think the Lord had placed a fruit there in the midst of the Garden of Eden that according to the Scriptures here, it looked good for food. Well, what does it mean by good for food? What's the whole purpose of food? It was good for the physical sustenance of the body, that it would keep the body running. It wasn't like putting molasses into your petrol tank. it would actually work. It was actually good for food. And she saw that it was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and that it was to be desired to make one wise. I want you to see here in Eve, mankind sees all of these things that were true. And looking at all of those things that were true, she took of the fruit and did eat, gave it also to her husband. Considering we're looking at iniquity, there's a great amount that's missing. Because when she saw and she looked and she went, well, that is good for food. I can see that that's, fruit that will sustain life. And it's pleasant to the eyes. It's good-looking food. Aren't we funny with food? Do you know what it looks like doesn't make a scrap of difference as to its profitability to you. Food can look disgusting and still be very, very sustaining. But if it looks disgusting, you're like, no, thank you. I'll pass. Presentation is important, right? It's gotta smell good if it looks disgusting, right? It's gotta have something else alluring about it. Well, she saw it was good for food. She saw it was pleasant to the eyes. And she saw that it was desired to make one wise. The devil pointed that out to her. But the Lord confirmed it and said they have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And they now know that. And now they've become like us with that knowledge of good and evil. And therefore they were driven out of the garden lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever. You know what, it's an interesting combination. There's two trees, there's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and there's the tree of life. And there was one tree they couldn't eat of, so they could eat of the tree of life. But once they had partaken of the tree that they couldn't eat of, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God said, I'll drive them out of the garden unless they eat of the tree of life and become as one of us. They couldn't have both. There was one or the other. And in it, it's good for food, pleasant to the eyes, desired to make one wise, so she took it and she ate. But what was missing? Whilst it was good for food, it wasn't provided for food. The purpose of that tree, God didn't put it there for food. You can use something contrary to its purpose. You think about modern medicine, think about Opioids, opioids, opiates, however you speak of those things. And you know, if you're going in for major surgery and you're going through serious recovery of some major injury, you're gonna be very appreciative of the proper usage of some opioids to lessen the pain. That doesn't mean that you should go and get an opium pipe and get on whatever other drugs. So many of my old workmates, they'd be like, ah, if God didn't want us to drink, he wouldn't have allowed there to be beer and alcohol and strong drink. I tell you what, there is alcohol. And real good case in point is, you've probably got some alcohol in your house, right, of some sort. But, you know, that doesn't mean you should drink the meth, though, right? It's not what it's there for. It's a different purpose. It's got its place, it has a purpose. But just because it can do something else doesn't mean it should. And here, it was good for food, but it wasn't provided for food. It was pleasant to the eyes, but it wasn't pleasing to the Lord. She looked at it and she went, I would be pleased to eat that. But she didn't look at it how God looked at it. When we look at the iniquity in mankind, mankind goes, well, I can see the goodness in this, and I can see that it's pleasant to me, and I can see some wisdom in this. I've gained some wisdom since I was moved from childhood to adulthood. I got some knowledge and some wisdom now. And to be honest, some of that knowledge and wisdom causes me more harm than good. You know, there was a day, there was a day, and if you're raising kids or if you're trying to establish in your head how to raise kids or prepare yourself for raising kids, something you want to bear in mind is you want to teach them to deal with their lasciviousness when it's opening a bag of lollies and finishing it in one sitting, as opposed to when they get a girlfriend or a boyfriend. because it's the same driver in that sense. It's that same what's pleasing to me. It's that same this seems good to me. This makes sense to me. This will make me wise. There's some things you ought not have knowledge about. There's some things that we should just go, I'd be better off not knowing that. I've never had to take someone's life. that seems like a pretty mediocre thing to say in a room full of us I don't know everybody's history but as best I know no one's had to take anybody's life but you know there's plenty of good men and women in the world that have that due to their course of their duties and the military or the police or some other realm of work they've had to take somebody's life and I actually don't know how to do that. I mean, I've got some ideas, but I don't know how to, it's an area I don't have knowledge on. And when you talk to people who do have knowledge in that area that they have had to conduct themselves and have the blood of many people on their hands because of warfare or something else, it's a knowledge they would rather not have. They became wise in that area. and now it's a burden to them. It's a wisdom they would rather not have. She looked at it and she went, it'll make me wise. And so she saw all the things, and mankind does, we see all the things that are the arguments as to why. Try and teach our kids, When you're looking to go and make a big decision, don't just look at all the reasons of why to do it. Look at the reasons of why not to. You see, she's running one-sided argument. She's running the argument that'll give her what she wants. It's good for food, it's pleasant to the eyes, desire to make one wise. What if she had a stopped and said, well, why shouldn't I? What are the reasons to not? What are the reasons, what is, because the minute she stopped, instead of looking at it and going, what about what I like, what do I think, if she had of stopped and gone, what does God say on this? What does God say about this? And that's a critical point of the difference between righteousness and iniquity. of whose will is it that's out in front? Whose will is it that we're walking in? Are we walking in the will of God, or are we walking in the will of man? What God will, or what man will? And here, they clearly walk in what man's will is, because God's will is that you will not eat of it, because in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Straight up, it wasn't a physical death, it was a spiritual death the Lord was speaking of, that great loss that happened when man fell, that great change that came over mankind when we drew back from God, when we stepped to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and we stepped away from the tree of life. when we went from having a place in eternal fellowship with God to a place fallen in sin before God. In Isaiah, have a look in Isaiah 43, and verse 25 is where we'll pick up our reading. Isaiah 43, verse 25, just trying to look in general at man's iniquity, at the iniquity that is in man. Isaiah 43, and down in verse 25, And I, even I, am he that blotteth out the transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put me in remembrance, let us plead together, declare thou that thou mayest be justified, thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me. Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches. Verse 26, put me in remembrance, let us plead together, declare thou that thou mayest be justified. Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me. We will look at the imparted sin, the sin nature at a later time, but what I want you to see here is is not just the inherent sin that we're in, not just the sin nature, we will probably spend some time on that at the next training day, but here I want you to see the actual iniquity, the actual thing that was missing. If we look at it as the stepping the wrong way and here in Isaiah, well into human history. Israel's established the laws being given. Much of Isaiah's ministry is preparing for the coming Messiah and laying down prophecy for the Christ that will come and redeem man from sin. And as he's prophesying through all that, we step into this passage and he says, I wanna point you right the way back to your first father. to your first teacher, to where you learnt. There's some things that you have and you didn't learn them, you inherited them. You have a mannerism about you, you have an appearance about you, you have some looks about you, you have some things about you that if you had never ever known your parents, you would still have that because you've just inherited it. It's the way, your walk is as much attached to your skeletal structure that you got from your parents as it is to how you watched them walk. Your handwriting, you write the way someone taught you. If you grew up in Queensland and you write in Queensland cursive, you'll write slightly different to someone that grew up in New South Wales. Victoria and if you were born in the you know 90s or 2000s you probably don't know how to write, you're probably tired. Sorry Beth. But someone teaches that, apart from anything else you write in English and Whereas someone in another part of the world, they'll write in Spanish. Oh, they use the same letters, they just put them in a different order with different grammatical rules to write their language. But then someone else will write in Chinese or Arabic or Hebrew. And even the pen stroke, like nothing's similar. Everything's different. There's no structure to the same as the Latin alphabet. There's no tie back there. Everything is markedly different. What's the difference? It's their teachers. It's who taught them to hold the pen and write that way and mark in that manner. It's the person that sat them down and instructed them that this, is how you form those things. This is how you conduct your hand on the page for this form of communication. Here, Isaiah is saying, thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against thee. And he points back and he says, he says of Israel effectively, but he says, he says, mankind's issue is that you are learning from mankind and your first father sinned and they imparted to you sinful teaching. They taught you transgression as much as your parents taught you, right? He's taught you how to sin somewhere. Have a look for it girls, you'll find it. Make a list. Listen. Because there's this iniquity that we walk in. And so this iniquity, there is a sinful nature and we will spend some time on the sinful nature. There is also learnt sinfulness. There is sinfulness that is passed down from generation to generation. You can see it culturally. You can see sins that are common in Australia that are not common in other parts of the world. Have a look at how the Western world treats their elderly, who are worthy of honor, compared to how the Eastern world treats their elderly, who are worthy of honor. Right? Does that mean that they're more righteous than we? No, there's just some different, there's just sins that easily beset us. And there's wickedness that we walk in as Australians, as Westerners, that has been handed to us. There's sins that we've been taught to walk in that has been passed on because it seems good to us. I won't get all too political. But we live in a society that praises politics and praises democracy as the epitome of political freedom. And I think it was Churchill, I'm not much on his old quotes, but I think it was Churchill that said something along the lines of democracy is a horrible and terrible and painful and all these negative things about governance, but it's the best we've got. and pointed out all its failings, but hey, it's good, but yet, when the Lord, he established a monarchy, or at first it was a theocracy under Moses, directly led by God through his prophets, but then he allowed a monarchy, and like, we boohoo these things. Why? Because of what we've been taught, because of the culture we've been grown up in, because of what's been passed to us, Is one better than the other? Guaranteed there will be. I just want you to see the things that we walk in and here, here Isaiah points back and he doesn't just say because there's a sin nature. He says because there's a sinful teacher. Because you've been taught by people who have said, well, this is good for this outcome. It's good for food. Well, this is pleasant to what I like. It's pleasant to the eyes. Well, this is desired to make one wise. I can see some wisdom in it, in these things. And through reasoning of goodness and pleasantness and wisdom, sin is taught, iniquity is taught, transgression is passed on. thy first father hath sinned. And so we need to recognize that, we need to see the sinfulness of mankind as a whole. Go to Romans 5, and we'll slow down here in the New Testament. Oh, sorry, no, I missed one. Go to Genesis 6. If you hit Romans 5 already, you're super quick, hold your place, but Genesis 6 is where we'll be momentarily. If we consider Isaiah 43, thy teachers have transgressed. Just hold on to that thought, thy teachers, and we'll drop back to Genesis 6 and in verse 5, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. catch this, "...and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Here we are on the days of Noah and God's judgment and God looks not at a man, but mankind. We started at Eve, we moved from Eve over to Isaiah, speaking about a people. We're now here in Genesis, speaking about mankind as a whole. And mankind as a whole is summed up here by the Lord. And it's that the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. There was a continual evil in the heart of man that was just manifest and evident in Noah's day. And in Isaiah, Isaiah pointed back past that. He didn't point to Noah's day. He pointed back past Noah's day to Adam's day, thy first father hath sinned and thy teachers have transgressed against thee. And those teachers came through Noah's day. And granted there was a great revival in Noah's day, it was a backdoor revival, biggest backdoor revival that's ever happened. God just cleared out the wickedness and left the faithful. If you're in a church and God brings a backdoor revival, that's not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing when God comes in and lets judgment begin first at the house of Israel. I've seen great peace established in homes because a dad stood up and said, no, that's not happening here. If you're gonna do that, you're not doing it under my roof. And brought peace and stability to his home because he said that sin won't happen here. We're not doing that in my house. If you're going to do that, go get your own house and dwell in your own pigsty. Here, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Well, that's what happened in Noah's day. God saw the evil of their imagination of their heart, and he dealt with that. But the thoughts of his heart, Do you know what the problem is? I'm just gonna stay there because it was fun. Do you know what the problem is? Is he's not perfect. And the thoughts and intents of his heart are not perfect. It doesn't matter how good your teacher is. It doesn't matter how godly they are. There's things that mankind passes down in instruction that isn't godly. And do you know what, if you can't find them in you, just go and ask someone that knows you. Go ask, they'll tell you. Because I know most of yous, and I'm having trouble picking mine, but I've picked yours. I mean, I know where they are. Couple of yous, give me a year or so, we'll get there, and then a little longer, we'll get to know each other. But we do, we've got to recognize that what we hand on There is a sinfulness that is actively passed on, not passive. It's actively passed on. You may not want to, but you're actively passing it on. And it's been actively passed on to you because your first father hath sinned and thy teachers have transgressed against God because the thoughts of his heart. Perhaps was not as it was in Noah's day, only evil continually. but there is a heart issue and out of the heart the mouth speaketh. And so we put into language these things. Romans 5 then, we'll consider Romans 5. And verse six is where we'll pick up our reading, Romans five and verse six. And we start with some good news. About time we got some good news. That's the problem with a study on sin. It just gets all sorts of heavy, right? It's all bad news. Romans 5 verse 6. For when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet, peradventure, for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. 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. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so is also the free gift. For if through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded under many. And not, as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. For judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men under justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners. so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous moreover the law entered that the offense might abound but where sin abounded grace did much more abound as we read through this passage We see in an overview that it's back and forth between Adam and Christ, between sin and forgiveness, between the inheritance of a sin nature and the inheritance of Christ's nature by the imparting of sin and by the imparting of righteousness, back and forth the passage goes. For our purposes, for our studies. There's great benefit in just going through and just looking at the one side. Just looking at the sin. The purpose of this passage is that we might see the sin and God's solution, the sin and God's solution, the sin and God's solution. And as we're trying to grasp an understanding of the problem, then just like anything, when you're trying to grasp an understanding of something, best thing to do is dwell on it for a while. Spend some time on it for a while. Just consider it. In verse six, it starts here. I said it starts with good news, right? But it doesn't really. The very start of verse six is for when we were yet without strength. when we're yet without strength. Oh, how often as we start to look at iniquity, as we start to look at sin, if we look at the way the Lord specifically talks about it, we often find that it's not an accusation of what we are, but rather what we aren't. It's not you are this and you are that and you are something else, but you are without strength. It's what you don't have. When were we yet without strength? In due time, Christ died for who? The ungodly. Looking at iniquity, looking at man's state, looking at at Lucifer there was this absence. Here, talking about mankind and everything mankind is, even as we consider it, looking at what we're taught and what's passed down and that inherited teaching, where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves ungodly. without strength and ungodly. And you know what we cry? We cry, look at our might. Every nation, every people points to its strengths, its mights, its powers, and how good we are, and how strong we are. Yet the Bible says, no, you're weak and you're ungodly. Verse eight, while we're yet sinners, it points out the accumulative nature of mankind. You're a sinner, but we are sinners. Verse 10, when we were enemies. The opposition it puts us at. Here, as you look through these verses, we see the weakness, we see the ungodliness, we see the sinners, we see the enemies we are against God. And verse 12 is the same as Isaiah 43. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, thy first father hath sinned. There's a sin nature here that's spoken of, but there's also just the imparting of what's handed down generation to generation. by one man, by one man's sin entered into the world. Just think generational. Actually, no, let's just talk church. You know what happened about, I'm gonna go six, maybe eight years ago, is in the middle of us singing, We'd be singing, I can't remember the name of the song now, you'll know what it is. We'd be singing away, and as we're singing away, someone would yell out, sold! I'm like, where'd that come from? Something entered into our church. What else gets yelled out? Praise God. That's right. What name's the song? It is victory in Jesus. I had the words before and after, but I was like, is it victory in Jesus? And do you know what happened? Someone taught us that. Some Western Australian bandit. And it's become part of our church now. It gets sung in our church. But by one man. It entered in. I can trace it back to the man. And so, yes, there's an imparting. Yes, there's a sin nature. But you know what Adam did? Adam taught, this is how you rebel against God. Eve taught, this is how you focus on yourself. This is how you worry about what you want. you do things your way. By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. In verse 13 it says, for until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. We didn't have a law, and we're gonna spend some time on this in the next, yeah, probably in the next study, but you get to Exodus 20, and a law is put in place, and we often look at sin in relation to that law. Oh, adultery, you're a sinner. lied, you're a sinner, you are a liar, you are an adulterer, you are a fornicator, you are a false witness, you are covetous and by it we identify the specific sin but if we stop there and identify sin solely at that point of here's the law and here's the specific transgression of it, then you are something you're not supposed to be, you have become something, you've become this, you've become that. Whereas when we get looking at sin prior to the law and spend some time there and we touch on it here, we find that our sinful state is that we've been taught to be less than what God has for us, not more than what God has for us. Drunkenness, That's not, someone didn't invent alcohol and come up with drunkenness and now mankind has something that God didn't give them. No, now mankind has lost something God did give them, a sound mind. Fornication. Someone stepped outside of the bounds of marriage. Now mankind has a liberty that God didn't give them. No, now mankind has lost a sanctuary that God did give them. As we come to these laws, and as we step to them, there is a sin outside of them. Until the law, sin was in the world. From Adam to Moses, death reigned. even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." From Adam to Moses, there was a people that sinned and it wasn't similar to Adam's sin, it wasn't in the same similitude, it wasn't the same similarity to Adam's sin. Well, how did Adam sin? Adam had a commandment, He had a clear understanding of that commandment. He was not deceived. And he went against that commandment. He deliberately and defiantly broke the commandment of God. Well, that's where we understand sin, with the law. Here I deliberately defied and broke the commandments of God. But from Adam to Moses, there was a people that sinned, not after the similitude of Adam, not to the same way. There was still iniquity, there was still great wickedness, so much so that God wiped them out. But there wasn't the clear command. There wasn't the clear law that they had. They had the clear law of God and they defied it. But yet there was just as much sin and just as much accountability for sin. When was the last time God drowned you for your sins? Yet He wiped out the whole earth when they didn't have the command. Yet they were exceedingly sinful. They were exceedingly wicked. This sinfulness This sinfulness, verse 15 says, for if through the offense of one, many be dead. Through the offense of one, many be dead. I look at this and there's a balance that I'm not sure I know how to even preach the balance or get the balance right here. But if you walk away from God and go and live for yourself, And many that have sat in classrooms like this have the year later decided, I'm done, I'm gone, I'm gonna live for myself. Saved or lost, if you go and do that, and you raise your children in that, you probably condemn your children to hell in that. What are you saying, God can't save lost parents' kids? No, God can, God can. God can save kids out of saved families and God can save kids out of lost families. But you know what? There's a whole lot more people going to heaven from Australia in the last 200 years than they were going to heaven from Australia in the 4,000 years prior to that. Because in the hull of those ships came the gospel. that had the power to make them wise under salvation. And a teacher imparts that teaching unto the next, and unto the next, and unto the next. But mankind imparts a teaching of sin unto the next, unto the next, and unto the next. The people of Papua New Guinea the people of Australia, the people of New Zealand, those tribal people that lived here before the gospel arrived, before the scriptures arrived, came from no one. Came from a heritage that knew the God of all creation. So what happened? Their legends tie into it with their flood stories and their legendary occurrences that hint at this and shadow at that. But what fell? The sin nature is the same. It's just the teaching that's different. It's what was taught. It was what was passed on generation to generation. I don't see any evidence in the scriptures to suggest that my sin nature, that your sin nature is worse than Cain's sin nature. But why is it that the Amorites got so far away from God? Why is it that the Egyptians got so far away from God? Why is it that so many out of the heart of Africa were destined for hell for so many years? It wasn't a more wicked sin nature. The head-hunting cannibals of the South Pacific did not have a greater sin nature than the civilized lords and ladies of the Victorian era England. So what was the difference? By one man sin entered into the world, if through the offense of one, many be dead. It comes back to what was taught, what was passed on, and man passes on teachings of death, teachings of damnation, teachings of sin, teachings of iniquity. And we leave off what Eve left off. Where's God in this? What is this fruit in God's eyes? And so, through the offense of one, many be dead. And there is a truth about the sin nature. But there's also a truth about what is actively passed on. For the judgment was by one to condemnation. What are you teaching? What is it that we're passing on? What is it that mankind passes on? Is it a teaching of life or is it a teaching of condemnation? For if by one man's offense, death reigned by one, therefore as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. As the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. And then the law entered, that the offense might abound. By Adam, by Adam, one man, his sin and he passed it on, his sin and he passed it on. His offense and we're all offenders, his sin and we're all sinners. The condemnation that was rightly upon him and that condemnation upon us, passed on and passed on and passed on. What is it that sin is? What is it that iniquity is? This constant, ongoing, falling short, removing God, falling back from God. And all the law does is makes the offense abound. I don't want to differentiate between iniquity and sin too much, but for the purpose of explanation, prior to the law, there was iniquity. There was wickedness and there was evil, and we'll do a good study on that in our next session after Caleb, after lunch. But with that, the law came, and the law said these are your sins. And the law took the wicked, the evil, the iniquity, and it abounded it into all the specifics. There's this sin, there's this sin, there's this sin. But all of it comes back to that same absence of being where God wants us to be, of not being what God would have us be. Go with me to Job chapter 15. Job chapter 15. And I'll only touch on this, because it'll give us a good launch pad into our next, and I've got two minutes, otherwise I'm gonna be over time. And we'll try and get back on time. Job 15, verse 14. Job 15, we'll pick up the reading in verse 14. If a man dies, shall he live again? That's Job 14. Let's try this again. Job 15, good question though, good question. Job 15, verse 14. What is man that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous. Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints, yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man! I want you to see the argument he's running here. I deliberately stopped short. We'll come to the conclusion in a minute. What is man that he should be clean? Look at mankind and what is it that he should be clean? He which is born of a woman that he should be righteous, equating cleanliness to righteousness, behold, he putteth no trust in his saints. The Lord has reason to not have confidence in the righteousness and the cleanliness of his saints. He compares to the heavens that they are not clean in his sight, how much more abominable and filthy is man, and here is his justification for his whole argument, which drinketh iniquity like water. It's not because you have a sin nature. That's a cop-out. It's reality, it's true, and you've gotta understand that, but you can't look at it and go, oh, well, I've got a sin nature, there's nothing I can do about it. God, see, He doesn't point to the sin nature. He says, you know why I can't trust them? You know why they're not clean? You know why they're not righteous? Because they drink iniquity like water. And I know most of you, most of you have been tapping into that coffee pot. But there's at least one amongst us that counts it as an unclean thing and will not touch it. Hey Steve. There may be others, but there's at least one. Two. makes a conscious decision that no I won't touch it. Now they have the advantage of not liking it and when you don't like something it's easy to avoid it and here's the truth, your sin nature means you and I like sin but here is your unrighteousness, you drink it. The temptation's not the sin. Jesus was tempted in like passions as we are, yet without sin. The uncleanliness is in the drinking of it. You take that right back to Eve, and there is evidence of iniquity, there's evidence of an issue in the heart with the decision, with the reaching, with all of that. But we've been tempted of the devil, there was no sin there. But with the drinking iniquity like water, that's why God said, no, I'm done. Let's close with a word of prayer and you can go get yourself a glass of water. Heavenly Father, I do thank you. I pray you'd help us, Lord, to understand these things. Help us, Lord, to comprehend the truth of sin, of what it is, of the iniquity that it is. Help us, Lord, that we might see wickedness for the great wickedness that it is help us lord as we look to live for you help us as we understand and give our mind to these things pray your holy spirit to guide us in jesus name amen all righty 10