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A WOLF IN A FIELD OF WHEAT
If you fence a wolf in a wheat field he will eventually starve and die. While other animals might survive and perhaps even thrive, wolves will not. Why? Because it is not their nature to eat wheat. And animals act according to their respective natures. It is also the case that we human beings act according to our natures. A person who is what the Bible calls a “natural man” acts according to the nature he inherited at birth. He or she seeks the things that give him or her pleasure. Such persons are servants to their natures acting in accordance with their fallen or depraved nature. Such people, “cannot cease from sin,” (2 Peter 2:14). They may exchange one sin for another when they tire of the one or perceive that its results are harmful to them, but natural or unregenerate persons continue in sin. It is not God who makes them sin nor is it the devil. God says, “...every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed,” (James 1:14). Every person has “his own lust” or his own passions and desires within himself. Such a nature is ours because we inherited it from our father Adam. While Adam and Eve were created in a state of untested holiness they willfully fell from that holy estate and plunged the race into ruin: into depravity. That this depravity is total is seen in that the whole personality of each person – intellect, will and emotions – have been evilly affected by the fall. Men think evil thoughts, will to do evil things and love evil so that all the three things that make up personality are ruined. Because men love to sin – it is their nature to do so – and chose to do so because of the pleasure they find in sin they think they are free and even boast that they have freewill. But in reality their will is not free. It acts in accordance with their sin nature and they sin because they want to sin. God does not make them sin nor does the devil. It is as the verse last quoted says, each natural man has “his own lust” that draws him away. The only person who has the ability to please God is one whom He has regenerated. That is because in regeneration, called also the new birth, the Holy Spirit enters and indwells the individual. Consider Paul's teaching: “Because the carnal [natural fleshy] mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his,” (Romans 8:7-9). Have you the Spirit of Christ – the Holy Spirit – permanently indwelling in you?
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