The Depravity of the Wicked

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. (Rom 3:10-18)
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There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked. ​Isa 48:22
A great Deficit

"There may be a surplus of privilege, and a deficit of conduct—plenty of light from heaven, and yet such depravity that, in the midst of light, we are still in darkness. The Jews a people favored of Heaven, and this favor not without some good results; but from time to time how dark their state, how deplorable their condition! A dark picture is by the apostle here presented to our view—a correct representation in its general aspect. How much light in England! And yet what a dark picture must be drawn! Notwithstanding our Christianity and our civilization, we have often hard work in keeping the forces of evil at bay. Let us not too easily lay the flattering unction to our souls that we are better than the Jew. We have all the light God will shed upon our race, and yet how morally dark is our condition! We may still mournfully cry that both Jews and Gentiles, both Christians and “heathen” (we mean by the term the peoples born in a Christian country and raised under Christian influences), are all under sin. As it is written, “There is none righteous; no, not one.” Here, then, is the doctrine of universal depravity, which shows itself by:

Practical atheism “There is none that seeketh after God.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” The avowed atheist says, “There is no God”; the practical atheist acts as if there were no God. So that both characters come to the same practical result, and both are the outcome of a degenerate nature. In our darker moods, how often rise to our lips the words, “There is none that seeketh after God”! Where are those who seek after God as the soul’s true and only good? Where are those who can legitimately use the language of the sacred poet, “My soul thirsteth for God”? We thirst for the material benefits a God may be supposed to confer. We thirst for a material God, for a God that we can presume to put to serviceable uses, and not for a God who shall put us to serviceable uses. Each man seeks for his own God, who is thus a being subject to human imperfections and limitations. In fact, the modern Christian says God is not wisely trusted when declared unintelligible. And yet can a God of perfect rectitude be fully knowable to a creature who is all imperfect? “Canst thou by searching find out God?” Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? Who is there that seeks after the unknowable God—unknowable in His perfections, and yet so far knowable in the manifestation made by the God-man that we may feel it is no vain search? Is not the fear of man stronger than the fear of God, so that the words have a very wide application, “There is no fear of God before their eyes”? If God were a detective dogging each man’s steps, there would be a change in society. Do we fear God as a judge? Do we fear God as a father? Have we the loving fear that prompts to holy action and sweet deeds of divine charity?

A depraved understanding.—There is a depravity of morals which works depravity of intellect. In these days we pride ourselves on our intellectual greatness. Some mental philosophers affirm that mind is sublimated matter. They are materialists. They are so far correct that our modern tendencies are materialistic. Morally it may be said “there is none that understandeth.” We understand science, literature, art, commerce, creeds, an outside religion. Where is the man who touches the core and heart of the spiritual sphere? “There is none that understandeth.”

 A depraved physical nature  We are so far materialists that we believe the elevation of the moral is the elevation of the physical, and that the depravation of the former is the depravation of the latter. The throat becomes sepulchral. Instead of the sweet odor of gracious words flowing through the portals of the lips, there comes the death-producing miasma of profane thoughts in the vehicle of ribald language. Honeyed lips cover the secreted poison. Thought touches speech. Evil thoughts and evil speech defile the organs of utterance. These, unrestrained, terminate in the climax of brutality. “Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways.” Thank God, there is a force of good stronger than the force of evil. As we see men restrained from extreme violence, we the more firmly believe in an overruling good force. If it were not so, the feet would run so swiftly to shed blood that soon on this bloodstained earth there would be no blood to shed—the last man, gloated in human blood, would perish a victim of his own vile doings. Wars and rumors of wars have been many. Wild beasts in human form have fought like fiends. Modern skill and science have made the shedding of human blood one of the fine arts. Adored be the great Peace-bringer that the way of peace is not unknown! Give peace in our time, O Lord—national peace, individual peace; harmony amongst the nations—harmonious adjustment and working of all the soul’s powers.

The revelation of the law When the law speaks in its awful majesty, the sad doom of universal guilt is pronounced. The law is a revealing force; the law condemns; the law renders speechless when its voice is properly heard and felt in the secret chambers of imagery. When the man is so oppressed with the sense of his guilt that he can frame no words of apology, and stands self-confessed a sinner in the presence of the infinite Justice, then the light of redeeming love and mercy breaks through the oppressive gloom, the clouds are scattered, the shadows flee away, the morning light glints the mountain tops, the voice of merry singing is heard in the land, the soul glows with the gladness of the upper sphere, the spirit soars to unite itself with the spirit of the Eternal, and the redeemed man wonders at the marvel of divine grace, and humbly asks himself if it be indeed true that he is a member of that race which has shown itself capable of a depravity so appalling." (Preacher's Homiletical)

Depravity of Human Nature Shown From its Ruins

Mans Fall and Apostasy

"A dark picture of humanity, and yet it has two aspects. In one view it is the picture of weakness and shame; in the other it presents a fearfully great being. I propose to call your attention to:
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The dignity of man as revealed by the ruin he makes in his fall and apostasy from God.—It has been the way of many in our time to magnify humanity; but I undertake to show the essential greatness of man from the ruin itself which he becomes. As from the ruins of ancient dynasties and cities we tell their former greatness, so it is with man. Our most veritable though saddest impressions of his greatness as a creature we shall derive from the magnificent ruin he displays. And exactly this, I conceive, is the legitimate impression of the Scripture representations of man as apostate from duty and God. Thoughtfully regarded, all exaggerations and contending theories apart, it is as if they were showing us the original dignity of man from the magnificence of the ruin in which he lies. How sublime a creature must that be, call him either man or demon, who is able to confront the Almighty and tear himself away from His throne! So of the remarkable picture given by Paul in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. In one view we are disgusted, in another shocked, doubting whether it presents a creature most foolish and vile or most sublimely impious and wicked. And the picture of the text corresponds, yielding no impression of a merely feeble and vile creature, but of a creature rather most terrible and swift—destructive, fierce, and fearless—miserable in his greatness—great as in evil. But we come to the ruin as it is, and receive the true impression for ourselves. We look, first of all, upon the false religions of the world—pompous and costly rites transacted before crocodiles and onions, magnificent temples built over all monkeyish and monstrous creatures carved by men’s hands, children offered up by their mothers in fire or in water, kings offered on the altars by their people to propitiate a wooden image, gorgeous palaces and trappings of barbaric majesty studded all over with beetles in gold or precious stones to serve as a protection against pestilences, poisons, and accidents. I cannot fill out a picture that so nearly fills the world. The wars of the world yield a similar impression. These are men such as history in all past ages shows them to be—swift to shed blood, swifter than the tiger race, and more terrible. Cities and empires are swept by their terrible marches, and become a desolation in their path. Destruction and misery are in their ways—oh, what destruction, misery! how deep and long! And what shall we think of any creature of God displayed in signs like these? Plainly enough he is a creature in ruins; but how magnificent a creature! Consider again the persecutions of the good. What does it mean? Man hates with a diabolical hatred. Feeling “how awful goodness is,” the sight of it rouses him to madness, and he will not stop till he has tasted blood. And what a being is this that can be stung with so great madness by the spectacle of a good and holy life! The great characters of the world furnish another striking proof of the transcendent quality of human nature by the dignity they are able to connect even with their littleness. But we must look more directly into the contents of human nature and the internal ruin by which they are displayed. And here you may notice, first of all, the sublime vehemence of the passions. Consider again the wild mixture of thought displayed both in the waking life and the dreams of mankind. How grand! how mean! how sudden the leap from one to the other! how inscrutable the succession! how defiant of orderly control! Notice also the significance of remorse. How great a creature must that be that, looking down upon itself from some high summit, in itself withers in condemnation of itself! So again you may conceive the greatness of man by the ruin he makes if you advert to the dissonance and obstinacy of his evil will. How great a creature is it that, knowing God, can set itself off from God, and maintain a persistent rebellion even against its own convictions, fears, and aspirations. Consider once more the religious aspirations and capabilities of religious attraction that are garnered up and still live in the ruins of humanity. Regarding man, then, as immersed in evil—a spiritual intelligence in a state of ruin—we derogate nothing from his dignity. O Thou Prince of life! come in Thy great salvation. Breathe on these majestic ruins, and rouse to life again, though it be but for one hour, the forgotten sense of their eternity."— (Bushnell-The consciousness of evil)

No Fear of God Before Their Eyes

Fear of God “If,” says Cartwright, “the prophet and apostle had laid their heads together to have found out the most forcible words, and most significative, to shut all men, born of the seed of men, from righteousness, and to shut them under sin, they could not have used more effectual speeches than these.” Clause is piled upon clause to the effect that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” The passages which are quoted in continuation are tacked on to the quotation from the fourteenth Psalm, and not as containing additional Scripture evidence of the universality of sin, but as exhibiting in graphic touches, and distributively, as Zwinger remarks, representative specimens of the very varied forms into which the essential principle of sin has in its universal range developed itself. The reference more particularly is, as Melancthon observed, to breaches of the second table of the law. (Annot)

“It is a grand and magnificent thing,” says Origen, “always to have before the eyes of the heart the fear of God.” Such fear is “the beginning of wisdom,” and it is not far removed from the end of it. There is a fear indeed which “hath torment”—the fear of the lash, the dread foreboding of final woe. It is well when this fear is “cast out,” and supplanted by perfect confidence in the propitious favor of God. And it is ousted from the soul when the soul is filled with love; and the soul is filled with love when “we have known and believed the love that God hath to us.” Nevertheless there is always an element of sensitive fear in man’s love to God and in man’s love to man. There is a fear of doing anything to offend or to wound. This fear is inseparable from a consciousness of imperfection, and it is at once a self-imposed rein to restrain and a self-appointed watch to keep guard. When it is said that “there is not the fear of God before the eyes,” “there” is objectively ascribed to a condition which is psychologically subjective. But the subjective may become objective when it is made the mark of reflective thought. The wicked not only do not feel as a general rule “the fear of God”—they do not even think of it as a feeling which they should cherish. It is not “kept in view” by them as an object to be realised in emotion. (Morrison)

Corrupt in thought, abominable in deed “They are corrupt, they have done abominable things; there is none that doeth good.” “Men,” says Bernand, “because they are corrupt in their minds, become abominable in their doings—corrupt before God, abominable before men. There are three sorts of men of which none doeth good. There are those who neither understand nor seek God, and they are the dead. There are others who understand Him, but seek Him not, and they are the wicked. There are others who seek Him, but understand Him not, and they are the fools.” “O God!” cries a writer of the Middle Ages, “how many are here at this day who, under the name of Christianity, worship idols, and are abominable both to Thee and to men! For every man worships that which he most loves. The proud man bows down before the idol of worldly power, the covetous man before the idol of money, the adulterer before the idol of beauty, and so of the rest.” And of such saith the apostle, “They profess that they know God, but in works deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every work reprobate” (Tit_1:16). “There is none that doeth good.” Notice how Paul avails himself of this testimony of the Psalmist, among those which he heaps together in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, where he is proving concerning “both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin.”
(John Mason Neale)

​Their Throat is an Open Sepulchre
The Throat of an Ungodly Man Compared to an Opened Sepulcher

"Some particulars in which the throat of man is “an open sepulcher” in regard to that which it receives: I mean, in regard to the air we breathe, and the food and beverage we eat and drink.

This is true universally of every unregenerate man. Every breath of air that is breathed by a man who is not born of God, and every morsel of food that he eats, is but like the carrying a putrid corpse into a vault. He is supporting his body for the dishonor of God. It is not in the service of his heavenly Father, but in the service of his Father’s enemies, that he uses all his strength and health, and all his bodily powers; he is guilty of abusing God’s gracious gifts; he is steadily going forward into increased corruption.

But if in this way it holds good of all who are not restored to God, even the most abstemious, that “their throat is no better than an opened sepulcher,” how much more does it give us a striking view of the wretched state of the intemperate: the gluttonous and the drunkard? Well does the wisdom of God compare the throats of all such wretched sinners to an opened sepulcher, corrupt in themselves, infectious to others, and offensive to God. Can such a man expect to dwell with God in holiness and glory? Would you yourselves consent to have an “opened sepulcher,” with all its abominations, in your house? Would you tolerate anything so offensive? Much less can you suppose that God will suffer a drunkard to be anywhere but in the depths of hell.

I now proceed to enumerate a few particulars in which the throat of every unregenerate man is also like “an open sepulcher” in that which proceeds out of it.
1. But let me first say a word generally to those who are Christians in name only. As in regard to what goes in, so in regard to what comes forth from your throat, it is still but an “open sepulcher.”
2. In descending to particulars, I must be content to mention only one of the multitude of sins that make the “throat of sinners an open sepulcher”; and that is, the sin of blasphemy, and swearing, and profaneness. And if an opened sepulcher is odious because it sends forth the smell of death, well may we say that the mouth of the profane is like it, for it breathes the breath of spiritual and eternal death." (John Tucker, B. D.)

The poison of the tongue:
​Poison concealed in a bag under a loose tooth or fang: the fang pressing the bag, the poison is emitted with the bite. Honey on the lips, poison under them. Poison conveyed--
1. In ordinary conversation.
2. In wanton and licentious songs.
3. In profane and blasphemous expressions.
4. In infidel and unscriptural teaching.
5. In corrupting works of fiction-talebearing, slander, idle gossip
6. In the language of the drama- exaggerations, false information spread as truth (T. Robinson, D. D.)
A comparison to this conduct- Once a bag of serpents are let out-it is impossible to retrieve them, and return them to the bag, so it is impossible to return the poison from the mouth that has uttered the venom-it spreads to untold reaches, and ears.

Jesus Christ-the Cure and Savior of the Depraved Sinner

​Man under sin-inasmuch as--

He is under the imputation of sin. And whose sin? Adam’s; for he had been placed by his Maker in the situation of head and representative of all his descendants. And because he rendered himself guilty, therefore we, being in him and identified with him, were made sharers of his guilt. This, of course, is a statement against which the pride of human reason will rebel. But if you will listen to the Word of God, turn to Rom_5:12, etc. And what puts this matter beyond all doubt is the way in which all through that passage Paul represents our sin and condemnation in Adam, as parallel and as correspondent to our righteousness and salvation by Christ. He tells you here, that just as believers are accounted righteous in Christ’s righteousness, so they were held as sinners on account of Adam’s sin. As Christ’s obedience now justifies them, because accounted theirs, so was Adam’s disobedience.

His nature is under the degrading and polluting influence of sin. Now this also he inherits from Adam. “Original sin is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil” (Art. 9; Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21; Psa_51:5; Rom 7:18; Rom 8:7). In support of this we may appeal--
1. To the individual conscience.
2. To the page of history.
3. To the witness of travelers.
4. To the reports of newspapers.

He is held in bondage by the tyranny of sin. This is more than being depraved and corrupt: it is a positive enslaving of the will. Man cannot of himself turn from evil to God. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will” (Art. 10; Rom_5:6; Eph_2:1; 1Co_2:14).

1. Well may this thought stir us earnestly to cry to God to send down His Spirit, and give us the strength He only can communicate.
2. Sin, indeed, would whisper, “You can do nothing, and therefore you need not care; the fault is not your own.” Perish the thought! No, rather say, “I can do nothing; therefore, O God, create Thou a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.”

He is under the condemnation and the curse of sin.
1. As a partaker of Adam’s guilt, he is included in the sentence of Adam’s punishment.
2. As he is corrupt, he incurs the wrath due to his own iniquity.
3. As one sold under sin, he must, if left to himself, be consigned to a hopeless state of misery (Eph_2:3; Rom 7:5; Rom 6:23).

Conclusion:
1. Have we felt these truths so as to cry, “What must I do to be saved”? That is the question which constitutes the first step in the way of salvation.
2. The gospel brings us instead of Adam’s guilt, Christ’s righteousness; instead of inherent corruption, the counteracting balm of the Holy Spirit; instead of the bondage of sin, “the glorious liberty of the children of God”; instead of “the wages of sin,” which “is death,” the “gift of God, eternal life.”
​(J. Harding, M. A.)