Thank you. The Bible makes it clear that every single one of us is, by nature, spiritually dead, enslaved to sin, and condemned.

That's a pretty grave diagnosis.

But today on Truth for Life weekend

we'll discover the difference

that two little words can make.

Those words are, but God.

Alistair Begg is teaching from Ephesians chapter 2.

We're looking at verses 4 through 6.

Well, of course, humanity, as it confronts the predicament of the human condition,

has all kinds of suggestions as to how it can be fixed.

But that is in large measure because contemporary notions of the state of man

are frankly unprepared to give any credence at all to this diagnosis,

which is not only here in Ephesians, but runs throughout the Bible,

whereby the Bible tells us that outside of Christ, we are dead, we are enslaved, and we are condemned. It doesn't sound very good,

and it isn't good, in fact, it is dreadful. And it speaks to the issues of our state,

every day that we live our lives, every newspaper that unfolds before us, every broadcast that

comes across our screen, confirms the reality of what G.K. Chesterton observed that whatever else may be in doubt, man is not what God

intended for him to be. And so the explanations that are given are fairly routine. The trouble

is that man is simply sad, or perhaps he is dysfunctional, or we may be prepared to acknowledge that he is sick,

that's why he does these dreadful things, why he kills and maims and rapes and turns in

upon himself. This is explained in terms of sickness. The one thing that is almost wholesaling rejected is the diagnosis that the Bible

gives here, namely that man is sinful. And the reason that this is so crucial is because a superficial

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