(not to be confused with the concept of "Total Depravity," which properly means the fact that the whole man was corrupted by the sin of Adam. I will address this in separate posts).
THE JOURNEY INTO TOTAL CORRUPTION
People start out in life, unaware of the presence of sin in their lives. Then they become aware that they may have sin, such as anger, lust, deceit, greed, but in fact they do not have sin, rather, sin has them.
They cannot shake themselves free of their sin. They may curb their outward practice of sin, but inward rebellion and evil desire are present. If people do not confront their sin in some way, it will get stronger and stronger until the sin that served their evil desires will eventually become a ruthless tyrant, enslaving the sinner and taking him into darker and bolder acts of sin.
If the sinner accepts unrestrained sin in his life, he will become the willing tool of more numerous and more repugnant sins, and he will become less ashamed, less remorseful, less honest about his blatant resistance and rejection of God, God's love, God's displeasure, God's warnings.
Most people, because of the influence of God's Spirit and God's word, will recognize the danger of sin, even if they do not flee from its insidious clutches. They will be unable to escape the power of sin, but they will choose not to let sin remove all evidence of common grace (the grace of God given to all sinners, which keeps them from becoming unfettered monsters) from their lives.
However, there are those people who are so filled with pride (as was Lucifer) that they allow one sin to morph into a cluster of sins, which shamelessly embraces the whole gamut of sin. Seldom do we see a person so surrendered to Satan and sin that all vestiges of good are purged from their lives and all of sin runs freely and wantonly in their lives. Occasionally we see such a face of evil. It may be in the life of a social or political monster, or in the life of a social misfit, as they commit the most horrendous of crimes against their fellow man.
It does not happen overnight. It does not happen in the absence of Divine intervention. It happens over time, in disobedience to Divine warnings and offers of deliverance. The final outcome is a life that is filled with all manner of sin. From such a poisoned pit oozes hatred, anger, deceit, pride, meanness, selfishness, violence, perversion, blasphemy, all the while justifying self and condemning all others.
BE WARNED, Satan is a cruel taskmaster, and sin is a creeping corruption that will take as much of you as you allow and will take you further from God than you can ever imagine.
The answer to such a hopeless condition is not the limiting of sinful actions in your life, but the elimination of sin from your life, by surrendering to the Lordship of Christ, through faith in His redemptive work.
Romans 1:28-31
(28) And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
(29) Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
(30) Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
(31) Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Galatians 5:19-21
(19) Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
(20) Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
(21) Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
James 1:12-15
(12) Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
(13) Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
(14) But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
(15) Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
