? Come to the waters ? ? Whoever
is thirsty ? ? Drink from the fountain ? ? That never runs
dry ? Jesus, the living one, gives
you his mercy. Fly, you abundant in boundless
supply. Come to the river that flows
through the city. ? Forth from the throne of the
Father and Son ? ? Jesus our Savior says come and drink deeply
? ? Drink from the pure inexhaustible wine ? ? Come to the fountain
? ? Without any money ? ? By what
is given ? ? Without any cause ? ? Jesus, the gracious one ?
? Welcomes the weary ? ? Jesus, the selfless one ? ? Died for
the Lord ? ? Come to the well of unmerited
faithful ? ? Stretch out your hand, dear, look up to the grill
? ? Jesus is such a compassionate
Savior ? ? Draw from the grace that flows freely from Him ?
? Come to the Savior, the God of salvation ? God has provided an intrusive
strife. Why will he suffer the law's
condemnation? Take the free gift of the water
of life. I invite you to turn in your
Bibles this morning to the book of Romans. Romans 6 and hopefully Romans 7. The title of my message this
morning is when dead is good. When dead is good. I know that's somewhat unusual
because we don't usually think of dead as being good. I know we're born spiritually
dead, and that's not good. And then if we were to have to
face eternal death, which the Bible speaks of, that's not good. And physical death, we don't
view that as good. The death of our loved ones and
even our own selves we don't view as good. But there is a death that is
not only good, but it's a basis and a motivation
to the good works that God talks about. And we read about it here in
Romans chapter 6, where Paul anticipates the response
of the natural mind to the notion that salvation is all of grace
without works. He anticipates what our natural
response is to this. And he says, what shall we say
then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? That's what we are accused of
in our day. That's what we are accused of
by those who preach, in one way or another, salvation by human
works or goodness. They say, you're just saying,
continue in sin that grace might abound. Or if I believe that,
I just sin all I wanted to. But you see, that's the problem.
The Lord's people sin more than they want to. And to this, Paul responds in
verse 2 by saying, God forbid, or that be far from us, or that
would be so inconsistent. And the reason, he says, how
shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? The reason, he says, God forbid,
the reason that we cannot in any way consider that to be true
is because of a fact. Not a feeling, not a theory,
but a fact. A fact that is revealed here
in the Word of God. It's because of a state or class
that we are already in. We that are dead to sin. Dead to sin. That isn't some idea that I have
or some opinion or theory or anything. That is the plain instruction
from God's Word. He says, How shall they that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? All that believers are commanded
to do or to cease from doing is from this position, I guess
you'd call it. It's because of who we are, those
that are dead to sin, those who have died to sin. When did we die to sin? We died to sin, all of God's
people died to sin when Christ died. We died with him and we
died in him and this is an absolute reality. We died to sin when
he died. And it's all based upon what
Paul is talking about in Romans 5, about the federal headship
of Christ, in that God views us as having done what Christ
did, and we did that in Him. Let me read you something in
II Timothy. In II Timothy, chapter 2, And
verse 11, it says, if is a faithful saying, for if or since we be
dead with him, we shall also live with him. We are dead with him and dead
in him. And a great illustration of that
is to be found in the men that are hanging on those three crosses
outside of Jerusalem. One of the thieves on that one
cross is there, and according to the Bible, he is dying in
sin. He is dying unpardoned, unforgiven,
unwashed. He's just dying in his sins. And then there on the middle
cross is another man. He's dying for sin. He's dying for all the sins of
all his people of all the ages. He's there dying as their substitute
for sins. But then there is one more. And
he also is a thief by nature, by birth, by action. He's a sovereign
object of God's grace though, and he is there as one who has
died to sin. He dies to sin because of Christ
who is dying for sin. and the one dying there to sin. He's dying to sin, and he is
just like all believers. He represents, in a way, every
child of God, everyone who has trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ,
all of God's elect. An old writer said, justified
persons are dead to sin, inasmuch as that is not imputed to them
to condemnation and death, they are discharged from it. It cannot
hurt them or exert its damning power over them. It is crucified,
abolished, and made an end of by the Lord Jesus Christ. They are dead to sin. Hold your place here and look
at the book of Colossians. In Colossians chapter 2 and verse
20, Paul writes here, wherefore,
If you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why,
as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances
such as touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to
perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of
men? Would you believe that people
have often gone to this verse of Scripture, to this 21st verse,
and based their religion of works upon it, saying, the Bible says,
touch not, taste not, handle not. But Paul says, they will perish
who follow that. They will die because it is the
doctrine and command of men, and it has no effect, such a
principle has no effect or no regard to those who are dead
with Christ. Look on down in chapter 3. He says, if ye then be risen with
Christ, Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth
on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things of the earth, for ye are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. Your life is hid with Christ
in God, but you are to count yourself in Christ as dead. Listen to Paul in Galatians chapter
2. For I, through the law, am dead
to the law, that I might live under God, I am crucified with
Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Now there's something that we
need to understand. He doesn't call upon believers
to die to sin, but he says and he tells us that they already
have died to sin. They are not and cannot die for
it, but in the Lord Jesus Christ, they die to it. This is the basis
for all that he says in this chapter. And he gives that as
the motivating factor in our ceasing from sin. We are admonished
as those who are free from sin. To be dead to sin and to be dead
to sin, one must be dead to the law and believers are both. He says we are dead to sin and
we are dead to the law. We are free from the law and
free from sin because we died in Christ. Look at verse 3 of Romans 6. He says, There know ye not that
so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death. We were baptized into his death. Now what is this baptism? Well,
it is death in Christ which was a baptism. He says in one place,
I have a baptism that you cannot be baptized with. He's talking
about his cross death. And while we cannot be baptized
with that death, we're baptized in him into that death. And water baptism is a picture
and a confession of what Paul is saying here, that we died
in Jesus Christ and are raised in him. Notice verse four. Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life. That is, we were buried with
him through baptism in death and therefore raised again. We walk in newness of life. Why do we walk in newness of
life? Because we were dead to that
old life, which was not life at all, we died to it in Christ,
that in Him we might walk in newness of life, because, as
Paul said, He is our life. He is our life. Notice verse 5. For if we have
been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall
also be also in the likeness of his resurrection. We became
united with him in the likeness of his death, and we're united
with him in the likeness of his resurrection. Verse 6. Knowing this, I don't know how many people,
how many commentaries that there are written by men who do not
know this. Paul says, knowing this, that
our old man was crucified. Now, if you think I'm wrong on
this, you go and look in your Greek concordance, you go and
look at Strong's or whoever you use, you go back to the old Greek
scholars, you go back to some translations other than the King
James, and you will find that it is always in the past tense. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. Our old man. What is our old man? He's not
talking here about old nature. He's talking about here old man. And I fully believe that when
you hear those terms in the New Testament spoken by Paul of being
old man and the new man, he is talking about the old man that
we are in Adam as opposed to the new man that we are in Christ. You turn over to II Corinthians
5. Paul says, if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creation. And so that we know he is not
talking about regeneration, But he's talking about reconciliation,
that God was in Christ reconciling us unto himself. He says this,
all things are passed away. Behold, all things are become
new. Our old man, we know this, our
old man was crucified in him. or with Him. When He died, all
of our associations, all that concerned us as old men and women
died, came to an end, of in Christ, that we might be raised in Christ. Verse 7, For he that is dead
is freed from sin. He that is dead, he that was
crucified, all that we are separated from sin, he that is justified
is free from sin. Now, Paul, I mean, Peter, in the book of Acts, he says
this in chapter 13. Be it known unto you, therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins. There is no forgiveness of sin
by any person, by any man, by any priest, by any preacher.
There is no forgiveness of sin. because for the forgiveness of
sin is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he says this, and by him
all that believe are justified from all things from which you
could not be justified by the law of Moses. The law can only demand. The
law cannot give. The law can only curse and condemn. The law cannot justify or sanctify. And Peter's saying this in his
first epistle, who his own self who his own self bear our sins
in his own body on that tree, that we, being dead to sins,
should live under righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. That's a state and a standing
that all of God's elect were brought to and brought from in
the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bear our
sins in His own body that we, in order that we Therefore, being
dead to sins should live unto righteousness. And he doesn't
just stop there. He continues hammering that thought
in verse 8. Now, if we be dead with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him. In other words,
those who are dead in Christ, or dead with Christ, they also,
at the same time, live. Knowing that Christ, being raised
from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over
him, For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that
he liveth, he liveth unto God." Well, Christ didn't have any
sin, did he? No, but the sins of all of God's
people were imputed to him. They were laid on Him. He was
made responsible for them. And when He went to the cross,
bearing their sins in His own body, and He died on that cross, the law has no more dominion
over Him. Why? Because He put them all
away. And if it doesn't have any more
dominion over Him because He put them all away, it doesn't
have any dominion over us because we were in Him. God viewed us
as being in Christ. And this is the motivating factor
all the time, always, of living and doing what God says. We live
in Christ because we died in Christ. And look at what he says
in verse 11. Now, Paul's not just a Southerner
here. We say a lot of, I reckon. We
just, we're saying, I hope so, I think so, I reckon it's that
way. No, when he says reckon, he means to count. Count it so. He says, likewise reckon ye also
yourselves as Christ, and those in Christ likewise count ye also
yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Why, how in the world could such
sinners as we are ever by any way be considered to be alive
unto God, viewed as living ones by God, viewed as those who are
alive and accepted by God? It's only because we're dead. dead in the Lord Jesus Christ
as far as sin and ungodliness and unrighteousness is concerned. Dead. So he says in verse 12, let not
sin therefore reign in your mortal body. He's not saying that sin is not
present in our mortal bodies. But this is always the admonition
based on what we are in Christ. He says, therefore, let not sin
reign or have the upper hand or the dominion over you in your
mortal bodies. Neither yield yourselves, ye
your members, as instruments of righteousness unto sin, but
yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the
dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Everywhere. Nowhere to be found
is such an idea as go ahead and sin because we're saved by grace. That is simply the notion of
men and women preachers who are trying to make salvation to be
by works, by law, and not by grace and by gospel. He says, because you died, because you're free from sin,
because you're free from the law, as liberated, as living
persons, don't let sin reign in your mortal bodies. Well, does that mean when we
believe we don't sin anymore? No. Doesn't mean anything like
that, because he says when any man sins, we have a righteousness
before God, the righteous one, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our
advocate. But there's always this admonition.
Don't sin. I write unto you little children
that you sin not. You will, but don't sin. strive against sin, and then
based on this truth, dead with Christ, in Christ, and risen
alive unto God, in Christ, he says what he says in these next
verses. For sin shall not have dominion
over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. When Paul said, Christ is the
end of the law to everyone that believeth, I'm left to understand,
I'm forced to believe that those who linger with the law, who
mix law and grace, who insist upon the law as a rule of life,
or the law for sanctification, or the law for anything, they
have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sorry. Because He's the end of the law
for everyone that believes. Why? Because we're dead to the
law. Not to say that the Ten Commandments
and that Mosaic Law was never given to a Gentile to start with,
but in any case, all that principle of salvation or obedience by
doing? No. Well, you say, what about for
sanctification? Well, what does the Bible say? It says Christ is made unto us
wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We have it all in Him. We have
it all through His life and death. Now look at the rest of it. What
then shall we sin? Because we are not under the
law, but under grace. Just so you understand, Paul
says, God forbid. Know ye not that to whom you
yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to
whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto
righteousness? But God be thanked that you were
the servants of sin. But you have obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Now what form
of, Paul attributes this deliverance. Them being brought to experience
what it is to be free from sin and free from the law and this
delivered, he attributes it in some way to have come to pass
through some kind of doctrine. Most people don't even want to
hear doctrine. They say things like this, well, we don't want
to talk about doctrine, let's just talk about Jesus. Fools. They've never read the
Bible. They've never been brought to
an understanding of the Bible. Because John tells us, if any
man comes to us and has not the doctrine of Christ, don't bid
him Godspeed. Don't welcome him into your house. God says, My doctrine shall drop
as the dew. It'll fall refreshing on my people
and give them hope. He says, you've obeyed from the
heart, not just your mind, but you have with mind and heart,
your whole being obeyed, believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. They say, well, I believe in
Jesus, so the devil. So does the devil. He believes
in fears and tremble. When do I believe? In light of this text, when does
somebody believe? When they know and believe what
God says that in Jesus Christ they are dead to sin, they have
died to sin, they are free from the law, and they experience
in their heart that liberty wherewith Christ has made them free. Well, what do they want to do next? They want to pray, God, give
me grace to keep me from sinning. Give me grace to live to your
glory, to your honor, to help my brothers and sisters, to love
them and to do what I can for the cause of Christ and the advancement
of this gospel. I just want to give me grace
and strength to not be what I was. He says, this doctrine was delivered
to you. You didn't go looking for it.
You didn't make a search and seek. God delivered it to you
in whatever providential means he used. He brought you in your
life under the sound of His gospel, under the sound of this good
news, and He told you that your old man was crucified, died to
sin, died to the law when Christ died. He says in verse 18, being then
made free from sin, it just keeps coming. Being then made free from sin,
you became the servants of righteousness. You became the witness of that
righteousness of God that is revealed in the gospel. You became
the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He
says, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity
of your flesh, for as ye have yielded your members servants
unto uncleanness and to iniquity, even so now yield your members
servants of righteousness unto holiness. You were once zealous in the
cause of sin. Be zealous in the cause of righteousness. For when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. When you were trying to please
God by your doing, by your quitting things, and all your religious
activities, and your giving, and when you were serving sin
in that respect, and that's all it is, is sin, you didn't have any righteousness.
Because all your righteousness were as filthy rags. He says, what fruit had you then
in those things where of now you're ashamed? For the end of
those things is death. If God had left us to carry on
in our false religions, in our self-righteous works and all
such as that, the end of those things is death. I'm ashamed of some of the things
I preached when I was first started. I didn't know the truth. I didn't
know the gospel. I'm ashamed of the thought that
I once thought in myself that I was a good fella. I'm ashamed
of trying to present to God what was just filth and violence and
corruption instead of the righteousness of Christ. I'm ashamed of that now. He says in verse 22, but now
being made free from sin. I could read this all day. But
now being made free from sin, free from sin, free from sin, and become servants to God, you
have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. This life isn't going to end
because this life is in Christ. For the wages of sin is death. If you got what you'd earn, if
we'd have got what we'd earn, it'd be death. But the gift of
God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, Paul goes to the Old Testament
to give us an example of what this is all about. He says, know ye not, brethren,
for I speak to them that know the law. He was talking especially to
the Jews here. They claimed to know the law.
They knew the law, the letter of the law. He says, how that
the law hath dominion over a man as long as he lives. And here's the illustration.
For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she
is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her
husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be
called an adulteress. If her husband be dead, she is
free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she
be married to another man." Now here's the picture. There
was a woman. I still think that God gave the
illustrations first. I still think that the best illustrations
are the ones he gave. There was a woman by the name
of Abigail. And she had, as we would say
in the South, a sorry husband. He was a sorry man. He was a
churlish man. He was a mean man. He was a stingy
man. And when David came near his
property and protected all his sheep herders and goat herders
and all of his property, and David sent that he might get
a few supplies from this man, he wouldn't give them to him. Stingy, greedy. But the Bible says, that God killed him. He didn't
just die what we would call a natural death. There is no such thing
as a natural death. God killed him. Heart turned to stone. He killed
him. Guess what happened? She was free. from the law of
her husband, and she married David. Can you imagine that? Going from
Nabal, who was just an absolute wicked man, to David, the man
after God's own heart, sweet psalmist of Israel, king, That's the picture here, because... Verse 4, Romans 7, Wherefore,
my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ, that ye should be married to
another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should
bring forth fruit unto God. We're not married to Adam anymore. We're married to Christ. That not unjustly or illegally,
according to the law, because we died. We died. that we might be raised up in
Christ, that we might be married to Christ, be the bride of Christ,
and live forever and bring forth fruit unto God. Now you can read
about that fruit in Galatians 5, but I'm just telling you it's
to God. It's of God, and it's to God. When we live as servants of sin
under the law, we always boasted in our obedience to the law. But when it comes to being married
to Christ, when it comes to being dead in
Christ and dead to sin and freed from sin and dead to the law,
we're raised up and we give all the glory to Christ. all the glory, every bit of it. We glorify His
grace. We tell people that we were brought
out of this awful state of sin because we died to the Lord Jesus Christ. So then one sense, As far as
our whole being is concerned, we are both dead and alive. We're
dead in Christ. Dead to sin. Suppose the judge would issue
an order and say of some historical figure,
Well, let's say John Wilkes Booth shot Abe Lincoln. The judge would say, I'm issuing
an order that this man is to be taken, sentenced, hanged,
sentenced to life in prison, whatever it is. Wouldn't be any good. He's already
dead. So let the law say what it will
about me. It will all be true. We sang that song. I sang it
with a special heartiness this morning. Christ receiveth sinful
men. That's me. The law can say everything about
me. It'll be true. Anybody else can say anything
about me, it'll probably be true. But it doesn't matter, because
I'm already dead. Dead in Christ. Old things are
now passed away. Behold, all things have become
new, because they're new in Christ. That's the gospel. That's the
truth. That's what God says here in
this book. And men might spend their whole
sermons, and I just caught two brief parts of some preacher
preaching on TV, on the radio this morning on my way to church.
And both passages they've made reference to were totally out
of context and totally wrong in the light of the gospel. They
were trying to get people to do things. One man talked about the preacher,
how can he preach except to be sent? He said, the preacher has
to be sent. You people have to send him.
No, he's talking about sin of God there. So they could say, well, you
need to mortify your body. You need to be dying to sin daily. No. Already did. Already dead. And being dead
to sin, being dead to the law, live unto righteousness. Seek
to glorify God, bring forth fruit unto God, giving Him the praise
and the glory and the honor, bearing that fruit of the Spirit,
love and joy and meekness and because there's a sense. This sense in Romans 6 and 7
that dead is good. Dead is good. You're not really
alive until you're dead. That makes sense. God bless you. Our Father, we pray this morning that all the honor and all the
glory and salvation and in everything
be to you. We thank you that as Abigail,
we were married to the law, condemned and justly so. But we died. We died in Christ. And we are
alive as those risen from the dead in him that we might live
unto you. Bring forth fruit. Do all for your glory and honor.
Thank you. Thank you so much. We pray in
our Lord's name. Amen.