The Jason DeMars Podcast
The Jason DeMars Podcast
Mysteries Revealed - ETMH - Section 46 - The Bondage of the Will
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Support the show & get subscriber-only content.The profound mystery of human will and divine sovereignty lies at the heart of salvation. While we acknowledge free will exists in everyday choices, when it comes to salvation, our will is hopelessly bound in chains of sin.
Scripture paints a stark picture of humanity's condition. Romans declares "none seek after God" and describes our natural state as loving darkness rather than light. The sobering truth is we aren't neutral toward God—we're actively hostile. The carnal mind, Paul explains, "is enmity against God" and "cannot submit to God's law." This isn't mere stubbornness but a fundamental inability, like a bucket drawing water from a contaminated well, unable to produce anything clean.
When Jesus said, "No man can come to me except the Father draw him," He used a Greek word literally meaning "to drag." This reveals the nature of divine grace—not merely offering salvation but actively overcoming our resistance. This doesn't make us passive participants, however. We "work out our salvation with fear and trembling," yet even this working is "God working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure."
This teaching liberates us from the burden of self-salvation. If you've experienced transformation, it wasn't your superior wisdom or willpower but God's sovereign grace. Every good desire, every righteous action flows from His Spirit working through you. The glory belongs entirely to Him. Have you tried to earn God's favor through your own efforts, or have you surrendered to His gracious work within you?
Mysteries Revealed. The End Time Message Handbook, section 46, the Bondage of the Will. I do acknowledge that mankind has free will and, as such, the right to choose his actions. However, I reject the notion that man can make his choice to listen to and or obey God Having anything to do with salvation and good works. We, both men and women, are under complete bondage to sin. That is, our will is in bondage to sin, and we cannot choose good or seek after God. Regarding salvation and good works, it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we have any part in salvation and good works. The good we do is not us, but rather the Spirit of God in us and through us. All glory, wisdom and righteousness belong to God and not to men. Let's review several scriptures on this subject Romans 3, 9-18. What then, are we better than they? No one know wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. 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.
Speaker 1:I want to unpack this verse by verse. In verse 9, the Apostle Paul reminds us of his previous conclusion that Jews and Gentiles are equally under the dominion of sin. Then he goes on to give us a list of that condition all of us are in. No one is righteous, no one understands, no one seeks after God. We're all gone out of the way. We're all unprofitable. No one does good. Our throat is an open grave. Our tongues are used for lying. Our tongues are filled with deadly venom. Our mouth is filled with cursing and bitterness. Our feet are quick to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in our ways. We have not known the ways of peace. We do not fear God. Oh the depths of the sinfulness of mankind. This applies to Jews and Gentiles, all people that ever existed on planet earth. All are deserving and worthy of condemnation. It is very clear that none of us seek God or does good. Therefore, we understand that we would never choose Christ and salvation through our own will. We would never obey God from our own will. Brother Branham said this. As I've said, no man seeks after God. God seeks after man. Man in his nature is in rebellion against God.
Speaker 1:Romans 3.19,. Now we know that, what things soever the law saith, that saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. The whole world is guilty in the presence of God. They're in bondage to sin, in chains, being held in prison until the day of execution, when God pours out his wrath upon each and every sinner. All the world is in bondage, waiting until the guilty are executed. John 3, 19 through 21.
Speaker 1:And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hates the light. Neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved, but he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. It is not merely a matter that we don't have any light, but that in fact we love darkness and hate the light. Our will is to love darkness.
Speaker 1:Romans 8, 6, and 7. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The word minded above speaks more of a disposition or attitude. It is the mindset of the flesh. This is the mindset we are born with selfishness, sinfulness and enmity against God. The mindset of the flesh is animosity towards God. Paul says the mindset of the flesh cannot submit to the law of God.
Speaker 1:Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. And you hath he quickened who are dead in trespasses and sins, wherein, in time past, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath. Even as others, we were dead. We followed the devil in his ways, followed the lust of our flesh and were by nature the children of wrath. This is our condition total bondage to the flesh and the devil. There is no desire within us to please or to serve and trust God. Corinthians 2.14,.
Speaker 1:But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are. 1 Corinthians 2.14. The word receiveth in the Greek is dekomai and it means to receive or accept. So the natural man, any person without the Spirit of God does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Such complete and entire bondage to sin, this is utter and total blindness to the manifestation and working of the Spirit of God. Such complete and entire bondage to sin, this is utter and total blindness to the manifestation and working of the Spirit of God, both in the Bible and through preaching and miracles.
Speaker 1:Brother Branham teaches us first, we reckon ourselves sinners and worthy of condemnation. We're all born in sin and shaped in iniquity. There's not a sound parcel of us. Our minds are bad and our soul is corruptible. Our constant thinking is evil. Every imaginary thought of a man's mind is evil, a sinner Also, that our body is weak, our spirit is no good and we're just full of corruption. And how could one corruptible thing bring another good thing out of a corruptible? Let me say this that in Job, 14th chapter, he said seeing that man is born of a woman is full of sorrow and trouble.
Speaker 1:Yet he cometh forth like a flower, he fadeth away. And on, as the prophet goes on speaking, he said who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. You stick your bucket down into the well and pull out a buck of water and it's stagnant. It stinks. You look in it and it's muddy and little worms in that water. There's no way at all to put your bucket back and get a clean bucket. The whole well is contaminated. The whole soul, mind and body of man is contaminated with sin. He's born in sin, physically shaped in iniquity and come to the world speaking lies so that his own soul is contaminated. Nothing good. One cannot redeem the other because it's all wrong. And you can't take a bucket full of water here that's contaminated, another bucket full that's contaminated and mix them together. You've got more contamination. There's no purification to it.
Speaker 1:Let's look at something Jesus said, john 6, 44,. No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. The first phrase is very revealing no man can come to me. We cannot approach Jesus of our own will in salvation. We would not listen to him, we would not desire him and neither would we accept him. We don't seek after God from our own will. It's utterly and entirely impossible. We seek after sin and evil.
Speaker 1:However, jesus gave us an exception. He said except the Father draw him. The word that is translated, draw is helkouo in the Greek and it literally means to drag. We cannot come except the Father drags us to Christ. We do not accept Jesus of our own free will. Rather, the Father, according to His eternal election and sovereign grace, drags us to Jesus Christ. He literally works within us to make us willing to accept Jesus. We come to Jesus because the Father drags us to Him. We are not completely passive in the work of trusting and obeying Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:I want to show you what the Apostle Paul writes in another place Philippians 2, 12-13, wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. We are called to work out our salvation and we are then informed. It is God working in us, both to his will and good pleasure. Therefore we understand our working is God's working. Whatever we do that pleases God is wrought by God, first within us.