Full text of preacher Paul Washer’s sermon titled “The Depravity of Man”.
Related Bible verses:
“Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.”
Ecclesiastes 7:20, NIV
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:23, NIV
Listen to the MP3 Audio here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Paul Washer – Bible teacher and preacher
Let’s open up our Bibles to Romans Chapter One. I appreciate many of the things that have been said.
The fact of the matter is, if you hear from a speaker tonight, you wasted your time, especially from this one. There are no great men of God. It’s a preposterous language spoken by those who need to be a little bit more refined in their theology. There are only weak and pitiful and faithless men of a great and merciful God.
Anyone who has been used by God in any degree is almost ashamed of the fact that he or she has been used. It almost seems as though it’s not right.
When I look at my own life, and I look at many of the shortcomings that are there, I can only be amazed at the grace of a very very gracious and compassionate God.
You see, to preach to an auditorium like this or to one much larger or to stand out in the street and to share the gospel while people are throwing things, that does not take a great deal of godliness or Christ-likeness or purity of heart.
The way you know that a person is truly Christian is by the way that they live with those who have the closest relationship to them. The great discerning point or the great point of discernment regarding whether or not a man is a man of God is not his speaking. The devil speaks well.
It is his relationship to his wife, to his children, to his brothers and sisters in Christ, it is his personal piety in the secret place when no one is watching. And we all fail in those areas, and that is why we are all in need of the grace of God.
I remember when I first read of Peter, and Jesus told him to cast his net. And Peter obeyed, but then when the net was filled with fish, Peter collapsed. On the boat he just seemed to fall to pieces and he said, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” He saw Christ do something magnificent, and his response was “depart from me, get away from me, I’m a sinful man.”
And I think that what Peter was seeing is this: “Christ, I should not be allowed to see what I am seeing. Maybe you don’t understand, let me explain to you, I’m not the man maybe you think I am, Lord, it’s not even right that I should see something this great with my own eyes.”
Every man of God, every woman of God who has been used by God will have the same thought in their heart.
As I stand here today, or I preach in Nepal or India or Peru or anywhere else in America, I’m constantly amazed that God would have such mercy on a man like me. I hope that I’m not a hypocrite. I hope that I’m something of an honest man, but the best of men of sinners are sinners,
And we constantly need to be told that, because as John Calvin said,
“You and I, our heart is like an idol factory.”
We want to make someone, put someone in front of us that we can see, when in fact the one we need in front of us is the one at this moment we cannot see, and that is Jesus Christ.
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