An unregenerated world does not have God, making it wicked. This devotional reading looks at how it is bound by sin and disobedience.
Nuggets
- The unregenerated world is bound by sin.
- The unregenerated world, in many ways, is ignorant of its sin.
- The unregenerated world is dead to God’s saving grace because of disobedience.
An unregenerated world is a hopeless case. Boston said that it shows in three ways.
Let’s dive in.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the On the Day of the Lord theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the A World without God series
The foundation of this series is Boston’s sermon The Unregenerate World Described.
Resource
Bound in It
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted (Isa. 61: 1 ESV)
The unregenerated world is bound by sin.
I know. We just said that an unregenerated world is hopeless.
Isaiah wrote that there is hope, so we will have to look at this as from what they are being released.
A poor person can be someone who is weary. “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught” (Isa. 50: 4 ESV).
This weariness can feel like an emptiness.
A poor person is someone who is in despair. “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice” (Isa. 42: 3 ESV).
They are sinful, and this sinfulness causes misery. This is the hopelessness in full force. Everything is crashing down on them.
The worst part is they don’t see a way out. They can’t help themselves, no matter how hard they try.
A poor person is someone who is in the darkness of prison. “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Isa. 42: 7 ESV).
Most of all, a poor person is someone who is unrighteous. They feel so unworthy.
But Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5: 3 ESV).
That is the hope the unregenerated world has. Through Jesus, we can become righteous by gaining His righteousness.
Sin makes us feel guilty because we are breaking God’s laws.
The purpose of God’s laws is to show us the need of a Savior when we don’t follow them. Sin is the exact opposite of those laws.
Unfortunately for the unregenerated world, sin can deaden our guilt.
Probably worse yet, it is hard to shake off the guilt. This is especially true when we backslide.
We’ve said in a previous devotion that the purpose of the law was to show that we needed a Savior. When we see that the law can’t save us, it feels like we are crushed by a hammer.
We have to be broken in the knowledge that we are oppressed by sin. That is the only way in which we can turn to Christ.
Asleep in It
“But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you’” (Eph. 5: 13-14 ESV)
The unregenerated world, in many ways, is ignorant of its sin.
Death is referred to, at times in God’s Word, as sleep. Yes, there are some similarities but also some differences.
Really, being asleep to our sin is being ignorant to it.
Lathrop gave us a good list of what spiritual sleep looks like. He wrote, “
- “If you allow yourself in the practice of known wickedness, your conscience is asleep.
- “If you live in the customary neglect of self-examination, you are in a state of slumber.
- “If you have never been in any degree affected with a sense of your guilt, and of your dependence on the mercy of God in Christ, you are among those who are asleep.
- “If you have no conflicts with sin and temptation, you are in a state of slumber.
- “The prevalence of a sensual and carnal disposition is a sign of spiritual death.”
Resource
Luckily for us, while spiritual sleep isn’t a healing sleep, it can be temporary. That is why the verse says awake. We can choose to wake up from our spiritual sleep and submit our lives to God.
That is called ABCDing. We change from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Ooo, baby. We don’t like to examine ourselves. We don’t want to say something is wrong with us.
But God wants to make sure things are right with Him.
Satan doesn’t go after us if we aren’t following God. He already has us right where he wants us. We are living in a life that gratifies our physical nature.
You know, I’ve always said that if we aren’t spiritually alive, we are spiritually dead. While that is true, it doesn’t allow for us to choose God.
We are only totally spiritually dead when we are physically dead, or we have refused to come to Him while He is near. “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near” (Isa. 55: 6 ESV).
Maybe we are spiritually asleep when we are physically alive, and spiritually dead when we are physically dead.
The problem is worldview people can’t see that they are spiritually asleep. Spurgeon had a good discussion on that. We aren’t spiritually asleep if we know we are spiritually dead, let alone spiritually asleep.
I know. The unregenerated world doesn’t think that they are innately bad. It would be wrong.
When we think being a good person is what God wants, we don’t know we are spiritually asleep. We may even be trying to get others to live a good life.
But it isn’t our physical actions that God wants. It is our spiritual obedience.
Spurgeon is right — we do a lot of things in our sleep. We walk and talk. I grew up screaming in my sleep — still do.
What saddens me is when Spurgeon said we purposefully try to prevent Jesus from awakening us. We make a conscious decision to remain spiritually asleep, therefore spiritually dead.
We only gain salvation through Jesus. God is the One to call us to salvation. “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Ac. 4: 12 ESV).
But an unregenerated world pushes Jesus away. They refuse to acknowledge God’s sovereignty.
In other words, we are good with our spiritual condition and don’t want to fight, as Spurgeon wrote, “… the chloroform of bad doctrine.”
Resource
We think the reasons are valid. Sin is shiny and fulfilling. It bolsters our pride. We are just following our hopes and desires.
Wrong reasons all around. They lead to an eternity of torment.
Jesus offers us love. He personally comes to offer us hope.
Our greatest hope through Jesus is that, on the Day of the Lord, we will found to be faithful and get to spend eternity with Him.
Dead in It
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience — among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2: 1-3 ESV)
The unregenerated world is dead to God’s saving grace because of disobedience.
Spiritually asleep/spiritually dead. Whatever state we want to call ourselves while we are alive without Christ, the foundation is the same.
Physical death is the absence of life. Spiritual death is the absence of God.
Darkness
An unregenerated world is languishing in the darkness of sin. This is our natural state when we do not have Jesus in our lives as our Savior and Redeemer. “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (Jn. 8: 12 ESV).
Since Jesus is the light, darkness is the absence of Jesus. This is another way of saying we are spiritually dead without the life-giving presence of Christ.
Satan is a powerful adversary. He blinds us to the Light. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (II Cor. 4: 4 ESV).
The darkness doesn’t destroy the light. Instead, Satan makes us turn away from God. He wrecks our witness.
Darkness and being spiritually dead is our natural state because, without Jesus in our lives, we have already been condemned. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (Jn. 3: 18 ESV).
We are spiritually dead because we are condemned. We have been since the original sin.
Glossary
But don’t blame it solely on Adam and Eve. Yes, they may have sinned first, but we continue to sin. We are not totally pure.
Death
I know. The unregenerated world asks how it can be dead when it is living and functioning.
Their bodies are alive. Their souls are dead.
It is all about, as Mackenzie said, spiritual perception, understanding, desires, spiritual strength, and enjoyment. We must look at all of those through God’s viewpoint, not our own.
Resource
A dead spiritual soul is totally corrupt. In a previous devotion, we said this put it under the curse of God.
There is a big reminder that we have to keep in mind. We can’t resurrect ourselves. Nope, there are no number of self-help programs that will fix the separation from God.
The separation was all about us and our disobedience. Salvation is all about God and His grace.
In fact, once dead, there won’t be a resuscitation.
True, God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus raised Lazarus. The prophets and apostles did, too. That was physical.
This isn’t going to happen to the spiritually dead. Dead is dead in this case.
God isn’t going to turn to Jesus and say, “You know, I told You that the only way to salvation was through their accepting Your death as payment. If they didn’t, they would be sent to hell. I can’t do it.”
God will not change the Plan of Salvation at the last minute because He has a tender heart or because He sees some redeeming quality in us.
The wrath of God will be poured out on all those who have not accepted His Son as their Savior and lived a life of obedience to His laws and commandments.
Once we are physically dead, our location for eternity is set in stone. There won’t be any do-overs, no last-minute Hail Mary’s to finally reach the end zone of Heaven – nothing.
The cause of death is unbelief.
But our statements of belief have to be genuine. We have to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
If we say we love God yet willfully break His commandments, we need to take a good, hard look at what we really believe.
If we are willfully breaking God’s laws and commandments, we are still under the influence of Satan. Yes, it will be hard to break free of his influence, but we have to be serving God, not Satan.
Sibbes had an interesting comment on spiritual death. He wrote, “We are dead in law as well as in disposition. This death in law is called guilt, a binding over to eternal death.”
Resource
Let’s unpack that. The law shows us the character of God – His disposition. We don’t have it. Once we receive regeneration and become a new creation, we start on the Sanctification Road to get it.
The Jews thought they could get it by obeying the law. However, the law won’t save us. Its purpose was to show us our need of the Savior. Until we accept the Savior, we are spiritually asleep.
Sibbes had another great nugget. In Elaine-speak, sin is a cause of death, but it is not the only one.
It is an inherent one. Some of the synonyms are very descriptive: essential, integral, innate, natural, and fundamental.
Why are all of these overarching words used? Because the root is the separation from God.
God withdrew from mankind when Adam and Eve sinned. He no longer came to visit them as He did in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3: 8). He not only withdrew physically, but He also withdrew from our souls.
Once a vacuum was created, sin rushed to fill the hole. Sin is disease and death.
That withdrawal remains until we commit to being obedient to God because the hole remains until we take actions to restore the relationship.
Yes, God was probably walking in the Garden so Adam and Eve could worship Him. Most of all, He wanted to spend time with them and love on them.
If God turned His back on His love for us, we would not be spiritually asleep. We would truly be spiritually dead with no avenue to wake up.
Thanks be to God that He didn’t choose that route. He designed the Plan of Salvation so that our relationships with Him may be restored.
Making the Connections #1
We are so bound by sin that we become brokenhearted. But that is a good thing.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51: 17 ESV).
We can only come to God when we are brokenhearted. It is only then that we show remorse for our sins.
It is then that we humbly come to Him, asking for forgiveness.
It has to be a total, aching heart. We have to “’… rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster” (Joel 2: 13 ESV).
Doing that is the only hope an unregenerated world has.
Making the Connections #2
We can awake from our sinfulness. It isn’t an impossible feat.
It is only impossible when we try to do it ourselves our way. Only God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit can wake us up from sin.
God isn’t going to call us to wakefulness, and then go play hide and seek while we are waking up. He will be there from the beginning to eternity.
How Do We Apply This?
- Acknowledge the conviction of our sins and repent by ABCDing.
- Walk in the Spirit and live holy lives.
- Enjoy our relationship with God.
- Never forget that we are only saved by grace.
- Thank God for His mercy.
Resources
Father God. Without You, this world is wicked. We need You. Thank You for designing the Plan of Salvation to restore us to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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