May it please God to bless us
together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let us turn to the
epistle of Paul to the Romans, chapter 5, and we'll read the
last three verses. The epistle of Paul to the Romans,
chapter 5, and reading verses 19, 20, and 21. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. that as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans
is a very instructive book. It's not an easy book to understand,
but there are many wonderful truths that it contains that
we should do well to think upon and to not just pass over it
and think, well, that's just a bit too difficult for me, I
really can't understand it. We should pray over it and seek
that the Lord would guide us and direct us. Really the the word which is
upon my Spirit this morning is just a simple word, which I'm
sure we're all very familiar with And that is the simple word
called grace Now I'm sure we're familiar with that It occurs
in the Bible many times. I think it's about 60 times in
the Old Testament and 170 times in the New Testament And often, people speak about
grace and they don't really understand what it means. Well, let me give
you, very simply, a definition of grace in the biblical context. I have given it to you many times
before, but just especially for our younger people today. What
is grace? Well, it is the free, unmerited
favour of God. remember that it's God gives
this it's free it's not anything that you and I merit and it's
a favor from God and you might say what does favor mean well
favor really means it's approved or it is accepted now I hope
you may remember that as we Think upon grace this morning that
it is the free unmerited favour of God. Remember approved and
accepted. Now you may say well why did
you read that chapter this morning about Noah and the coming and
the flood and everything that pertains to it at that time?
I really read it for very one simple small statement which
occurred in that 6th chapter and the 8th verse. And that very
simple statement was this. Let me just turn to it. That's the 6th chapter and it's
the 8th verse and this is what it says. But Noah found grace
in the eyes of the Lord. Now, we read that chapter, and
we all read it together, and we have a description there of
what the world was like in those days. And we don't know how many
people lived at that time, but there were many millions, and
it could have been billions, because in those early days of
the history of the world, many people lived a lot longer. And
they often had quite large families, So there could have been very
many millions if not billions of people in the world at that
time. And the Bible describes the situation
in verse 5. And this is what it says. And
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually." Just ponder that and think about that. He
says here that every imagination, that's not what you and I speak
with our tongues, not anything that we do physically. It's that
which we think. We think. You see, I don't know
what you're thinking this morning. You don't know what I've been
thinking. But God knows. And God says here that he saw
all those many, many people living on the earth and their condition
was that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. Well, that
was a pretty sad condition, wasn't it? It was a pretty wicked condition. And therefore, as we read in
the next verse, and it repented the Lord that he had made man
on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart. And so the
result was that he said he would flood the earth. And of course,
when the earth was flooded, and we read the verses, it wasn't
only, of course, because it rained. It did, of course, rain. But
as I have sometimes reminded you, and we read it in the 11th
verse, and in the second month, the 17th day of the month, the
same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up.
So that wasn't just the rain coming down from heaven, it was
all the fountains underneath, all those vast volumes of water
under the surface of the earth, they were all broken up. There
would have been many, many tsunamis, rushing around. Hence the reason
why we can see that the world now is a different form to what
it was before the flood. See, the Lord brought about this
flood to destroy man, but amazingly, this one man and his sons and
daughters, or daughters-in-law, were just saved. And we read,
and Noah found grace. in the eyes of the Lord. So let's
go back to the definition. He was blessed with that free,
wonderful, unmerited favour from God. There were millions. Noah was the one that God chose. Noah was the one that God blessed
with His grace. Now then, just following on then,
or coming back then, to these verses, verses 19 and 20, 21. Well, we are told here, verse
19, and it's good to just reflect on this also. For as by one man's
disobedience, I'm sure most of us know what that is. We go back
to Genesis, we go back to chapter 3, and we see in chapter 3 what
happened was that Satan, in the form of a serpent, came and convinced
Eve and then Adam that they could eat of the forbidden fruit of
that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They
could eat everything else, but they were told they must not
eat of that. And of course, the devil came
and he talked to Eve and Eve said, well, we've been told that. And the question was, the devil
said, hath God said? What did he do? He sowed a seed
of doubt in her mind. The devil doesn't change, he
hasn't changed. He does that still today. He
says to us, as we might read the Bible, and we might believe
the Bible, and the devil says, well, is that true? No, it's
not true. You needn't believe the truth
of the Bible. You see, he hasn't changed his
skill. He still uses the same technique to deceive people today
as he did Adam and Eve all those years ago, and it was by That
one sin, that one act of disobedience, you see that sin entered into
the world and that came upon all men for we're told all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. So every one of
us, everyone who's ever been born has been born a sinner. That's very clear from the word
of God. So here we have this statement.
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Well, I hope
you know who that was. The obedience of one was, of
course, our glorious Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He did no sin. He lived a perfect
life. He kept the holy law of God and
made it honourable. What a wonderful example we have. And yet how glorious it is to
think that because the Lord Jesus did keep the holy law of God,
then the sacrifice of himself was acceptable to the Father
as that which took away sin. You and I could not remove sin
ourselves. We could not make ourselves just.
We could not make ourselves righteous. We are sinners. We are unjust. We are unrighteous. And because
of that, in and of ourselves, we cannot bring ourselves to
a condition which is acceptable to God. But what a wonderful,
glorious blessing it is that we have the Saviour, the second
person in the Trinity. Just think for a moment. He was God. He was equal with
the Father and the Holy Spirit. He it was, who willingly came
into this world to save sinners. There's a very wonderful verse
in the next chapter in Romans, the last verse in the sixth chapter,
and this is what it tells us. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Now, every one of us need to
receive this great blessing of eternal life. And let's just
read that again. The gift of God. It's not something
that you and I earned by being good. It's something that you
and I are given. God gives this great and glorious
gift of eternal life. And so it's through, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Well, this morning,
as we think upon these great truths, and as I said, I want
to really concentrate on this word grace, because it is through
God's grace that you and I receive the wonderful gift of eternal
life. Remember, grace is a free, unmerited
favour of God. And the Apostle Paul knew this
himself. And the reality is that every
true believer, everyone who is born again by the Spirit of God,
receives this great, wonderful blessing of grace. And the Apostle
Paul, he speaks very specifically when he wrote his letter to the
Ephesians. And it starts off with the wonderful
words, new hath he quickened, or it means made alive. That means you and I have been
made alive spiritually because naturally we are spiritually
dead. We are naturally alive physically
but born into this world because of sin we are spiritually dead. So what a great, glorious truth
it is to read a word like this. And you, Happy Quickened, who
were dead, all of us were dead, perhaps some of us are dead today.
What a blessing if we can come in with the next verse where
it says, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the devil, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,
among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in
the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath even as
others. All of us were like that. Perhaps some of us are still
like it. But you see here, we have this
great statement. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us, made us alive, Together with
Christ, then we come to this beautiful statement, by grace,
ye are saved. By grace, we are saved. And as we go on, we're told in
the verse eight, for by grace are you saved. Through faith,
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. None of us will be able to boast
about receiving this grace of God because of some good thing
that we've done, because of our good life, because of our good
thoughts, because of our good conversation. No, we all need
to receive this wonderful gift of God. For by grace are you
saved. Remember, through faith in that
not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. What a blessing
for us today if you and I have the evidence that God has saved
our souls, that God has redeemed our souls. That means he paid
the price required by the law of God on account of our sinful
condition, so that our sins would be taken away, the Lord Jesus
Christ, he paid the price for our redemption. And therefore,
can we then this morning rejoice in this great truth, that it's
by his grace that you and I have been saved. Saved from what?
Saved from eternal damnation. Saved from spending eternity
in hell. That's what we're saved from. It's a tremendous thought, isn't
it? And the Word of God makes it very, very clear. And what's
the result? Surely the result is that you
and I today, and every day, should desire to praise God and to exalt
His name for His great grace toward us. What a blessing! What a favour! What a mercy it
is then! And here we have it spelt out
so very clearly in this Word. The Apostle wrote to the Church
at Corinth. He wrote two letters to the Church
at Corinth. But in the first letter in chapter
15 this is what we read. This is the Apostle. Paul was
talking. Now just let's remember what
Paul was like. He was anti-Christian. He hated
the Christians. He went about condemning them,
getting them cast in the prison, losing their lives. He was full
of enmity to God. But there came a time in his
life when he was on a journey. Yes, he was on a journey. He
was going to Damascus. And that was a never to be forgotten
day in the life of the Apostle Paul. It was a day in his life
when he was converted. What does that mean? That means
he was changed. He was changed from being spiritually
dead to being spiritually alive. It was a wonderful day in the
life of the Apostle Paul. And that's why, as he writes
to the Corinthians, this is what he says, but by the grace of
God, realize that is the free, unmerited favor of God. But by
the grace of God, I am what I am. He wasn't anything other than
by the grace of God. It was God's mercy. It was God's
love. It was God's compassion towards
the Apostle Paul. He was walking in an opposite
way. He hated the things of God. He hated people speaking about
Christ. But now, he was changed by God's
grace. Well, isn't that wonderful? And
isn't it wonderful today? if you and I can find in our
lives perhaps in a similar way we were against God we hated
the things of God we didn't want them but to be able to say but
by the grace of God I am as I am and his grace which was bestowed
upon me was not in vain but I laboured more abundantly than they all.
Yet, not I, but the grace of God which was with me. He desires to give the glory
to God. And may you and I desire to give
the glory to God. If God has come and changed us
so that we are new creature. We're no longer spiritually dead
but we're spiritually alive. What's happened? Our eyes, our
spiritual eyes have been opened and we see the glorious truths
of God displayed throughout the Word of God right from Genesis
to Revelation and whereas The Bible was not attractive to us.
Perhaps we never read it. We never wanted to. We thought
it was all rubbish. We thought it was all fairy tales.
But now, has there been a wonderful change? And if it is, are we
able to come and say this morning, but by the grace of God, I am
What I am, if it wasn't for God's grace, if it wasn't for His free,
unmerited favor, I would still be walking contrary to God, against
God. Well, let us look, let us trace,
let us find in our lives the evidence of it. My friends, if
we haven't, then pray mightily to God. that he will bless us
with his grace. Now then, let's just be clear,
we know that we have this amazing case of the Apostle Paul, which
you can read in the Knights of the Acts of the Apostles, but
also we have another case of conversion, and that's a woman
called Lydia. And she was a merchant. She sold
purple clothing. And she went about and she came
down once to the riverside where the women used to assemble together
to pray. On this occasion, Paul was there
and he preached to them. And what we're told is this.
The Lord opened her heart. to receive the truth of God. There wasn't any amazing demonstration,
but it was a powerful work of the Spirit of God. And it's wonderful
that the Bible gives us two, we might say, extreme cases.
The Apostle Paul struck down by that heavenly light on Damascus
Road, so that he fell down and He asked the question of God
who it was, and the Lord said, it is Jesus whom thou have persecuted. And on the other hand, the simple
case of Lydia, whose heart the Lord, the Spirit of God opened
to receive the truth that Paul was preaching. Well, it's good
if you and I can come into one or other of those cases or anywhere
in between. But the great thing is that God's
grace produces a change. And that change brings us to
that condition where we realise we've sinned against God. That
we don't deserve any mercy. We don't deserve any blessing.
And that's why God's grace is very real and very wonderful
and very precious to us. So by the obedience of one, shall
many be made righteous. And then it goes on to say in
verse 20, moreover, the law entered. that the offence might abound.
Well, the law here could be the law of God. It could be the ceremonial
law which was brought about in Moses' time. But whatever it
is and whatever it was, the law as such was used to convince
of sin. And so it is still today. God's
law His holy law convinces us of sin. We realize that we have
sinned against God. We're not perfect. Sometimes
you may think, well, I'm not very much of a sinner. I've only
done this or that. Don't forget, one sin, one sin
is enough to condemn us eternally. Just one sin. If you think you've
only got one sin, you still need God's grace. You still need God's
mercy. And if you've got many, many
sins, if you look at yourself and you see yourself to be virtually
covered in sin, and we've got examples of those people. King
Manasseh in the Old Testament, He was an exceedingly wicked
king. Exceedingly wicked. And we're
told no one was as bad as him. But we're also told that when
God came to him and caused him to pray to God, God heard his
prayer and God forgave all his sins, every sin. So let us realize
we have a God who is so kind and so gracious. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Well, what a mercy when God gives
us grace to confess our sins. his grace to come and to confess
our sins what a blessing that is what is it? it's the work
of the Holy Spirit we come back to that first verse in the second
of Ephesians and you hath he quickened and you hath he made
alive who were dead my friends you stand before God I don't
know what you think, I don't know God knows God knows where
you are God knows whether you have received the blessed work
of the Spirit of God which has brought you to this condition
that you realise God's holy law has entered into your heart and
it's condemned you it's condemned you Whereas you thought you were
quite a good person and you were going on quite nicely. The Spirit
of God condemns us and brings us to that situation. We have an example, a very wonderful
example the Lord gave us when he was on the earth of two people. Two people, one was a Pharisee
and one was a publican. A publican, of course, was a
debt collector. Somebody used to collect... a
tax collector, rather. Someone used to collect tax.
And they were usually immoral people. And the Lord tells us there were
those two people and they prayed. He tells us first what the Pharisee
was like. Well, he prayed with himself. He didn't really pray to God.
He stood in an eminent place and everybody could see him.
What a great person he was. And he thanked God that he wasn't
like other people were. And he was very pleased with
himself. Well, that was a Pharisee. And
then there was a case of the Publican. And he was a far off and he wasn't
proud of his position. And we're told he smote upon
his breast, his eyes were cast down, and he prayed very differently. And his prayer was very simple. And this is what it was. God,
be merciful to me, a sinner. He realized he was a sinner. He realized he needed mercy. And Jesus comments on those two
people. And he says this, regard to the publican, I tell you,
this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. What did he receive? He'd received
the grace of God. What a blessing. How important. How good for us today. Sometimes
people despise simple prayers. That's a prayer which is a prayer
I believe that every born again child of God prays, can pray
and does pray. God be merciful to me, a sinner. Well, moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound. you can't get rid of the offence
to God there it is in your heart you realise you're a guilty sinner
but he goes on where sin abounded a realisation of our sin before
God it abounds you can't shake it off as you
might want to and the Holy Spirit's working in our hearts it convinces
us sin and we do stand guilty before God but the good news
is this moreover the law entered that
the offense might abound but where sin abounded grace did
much more abound yes the free unmerited favor of Almighty God
abounded more what a blessing that is How comforting to us
to realise this wonderful, wonderful favour of Almighty God. So, if sin has suddenly become
very real in your life, thank God, grace will be greater. His love, His mercy toward you,
to be able to thank and praise God for His wonderful favour
and His wonderful blessing toward you. The Apostle Peter, in his
first letter, he wrote some many glorious words, but in the fifth
chapter, it's the last chapter, he tells us this, verse 10 in
the fifth chapter, but the God of all grace, it's God who gives
grace, no one else, no one else can give this free and merited
favor, but the God of all grace, listen to this, who has called
us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you
have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen,
settle you, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. What a truth that is. And
what a wonderful blessing it is to have the evidence that
God has called us. The Apostle Paul tells us, God
who called him by his grace, The Lord's grace that it's the
same for every one of us. God calls us. That means he makes
us spiritually alive. He calls us. Who hath called
us unto his eternal glory. We as sinners of the earth are
traveling through life. What a blessing it is if we have
our sights on heaven at last. that place of eternal glory that
place of wonderful happiness where there is no sin no sorrow
no sickness no illness but eternal happiness God calls us but the
God of all grace calls us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus
well today May you and I have some evidence of that in our
hearts. And so we have these wonderful
words. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And then the final verse in chapter
five is this. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ, our Lord. We receive this grace through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Surely we should then have that
question put to us, what think ye of Christ? Is the test to
try, to test both your work and your schemes. What today, what
today do we think of the Lord Jesus Christ? In Jeremiah's book of the Lamentations,
he makes this statement. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? We have the glorious word of
God. we have the glorious statement with regard to our Saviour dying
upon the cross at Calvary to redeem our souls is it nothing
to us? does it mean anything to us?
well if we have received the grace of God it will mean something
to us you may say what does it mean? it will mean this our hope
of salvation is centered upon what we term the sin atoning
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. He died upon Calvary to take
away the sins of all his people. Remember those glorious final
words that he spoke on the cross. Have you been there for those
three hours and the He then came and we're told he gave up the
ghost, but prior to that, he said these words, just three
words, it is finished. The work his father had given
him to do, he'd finished. The way of salvation is now open. The glorious prospect was set
before the Church of God. The Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,
had done it all. He satisfied the law of God. He'd given his life as that glorious
sacrifice for sin. As sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign Grace doesn't die. Grace reigns. Grace continues through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Well, my friends, the
grace of God. Rejoice in it. I hope you do. If you don't, I hope you will. We all need to rejoice. in the grace of God. Remember
the free unmerited favour, because if we are the recipients of that
grace, then it will be eternally well with our souls and by His
grace, one day we shall be in heaven with the Saviour and the
whole Church of God, who have all been benefited by this great
blessing of the grace of God. Well, may we go home today, meditate,
and think, and praise God for his grace. Amen.