But he's out of the hospital
next day, and I'm going to work this week. He's a heavy equipment
operator, and I guess you don't have to use a clutch anymore
in those things, everything's electronic on those. So. Also. And my cousin, he's
taller than Steven, and maybe as big, but he head-planted into
the wall, and practiced school, and Broke this bone. What's his
name? Split it in two. Split it in
two. Alan Lee. Bad fall. Allen Lee at what? That's it? Yeah. Allen Lee. Allen. Okay. Sorry. Allen Lee, Sheila Shepard,
Gary's wife, is contracted with COVID and pneumonia. So remember
her in your prayers. They're down in Florida. And remember them. Also Randy
Davis. recommended hospice for him to
at least come out to the house and help him and his wife as
they go through these. So remember them in your prayers,
if you will. And the others also, remember
those who have been added to the prayer list. Let's see. Any other houses? Watch out for
the flies. Did you see any flies? I killed 10 this morning. I'm
looking for the Lord of the flies. I ain't found any yet. Those things, when they hatch,
they hatch in groups. Let's begin our worship service
tomorrow with hymn number 258, The Height of the Apostle. How wonderful Savior, who is
my Lord! How wonderful Savior to me! He lies my soul in the left of
the wrong, where is the pleasure I seek? Behind my soul, in the
glint of a rock, that shadows of thy thirsting land. Behind my life, in the depths
of His love, that covers me there in His hand. Jesus, my Lord, He gave my burden
away! Behold Him, and I shall not be
moved! He filled me with strength as
my day! Behind my soul, in the desert
of God, let shadows of darkness be planned. Behind my life, in the depths
of His love, let courage be there. I see in the land of His love, and come to them
with His hand, and come to them with His hand. When all your divisions, bifurcations,
and spoil your minds, you'll be in the clouds of the sky. ? Wonderful love of child, what
amazing power ? ? Behind my soul in the depths of water ? ? And
shadows of my thirsting hand ? ? Behind my life in the depths
of water ? in the depths of his love. And God was prepared with his
hand. And God was prepared with his
hand. That's a good yearning prayer. Let's sing, Hand Down Christ
at the Cross. Romans, chapter 5. verse 20 and 21. Moreover, the
law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That as sin has reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ. Our Father, We thank you for
great grace and great mercy, for sovereign grace and sovereign
mercy, which was absolutely what we
needed in order to stand in a righteous standing before Him. We know
that He, in and But in these verses, that which
applies to us personally is that sin has reigned unto death. And
the law came in to make us know that our offense abounded. And we are thankful that where
sin abounded, grace did much more abound, abounded above the
power of reigning sin. and brought it down and saved
our soul. Father, we pray this day for
those who are sick, those who've been added to the prayer list,
those who are suffering and lost, loved ones, those who are struggling
with different temptations and testings in this world. We ask
your help for them. You might bring them to the feet
of Jesus Christ. where if they ever get there,
by Your grace, they will realize their great need of Him. We ask, Lord, that this day You'd
help us to worship You. And we know we worship You when
we consider the great things that You have done, things that
we could not do or could not even imagine. We know that in this world, People
move about thinking that they direct their steps, but thou
art God. A man thinketh in his heart,
but it's you who direct his steps. We know that you are the sovereign
Lord, and you rule and reign in this world with absolute power
and sway. And at one time in our life we
didn't care for that thought, but now it consumes our hearts
in thanksgiving. Troubles will come our way, trials
indeed, but they come at your sovereign hand. And everything
moves and walks and talks and thrives and wriggles and breathes
upon this earth. Every rock and every grain of
sand and every wave in the ocean works together for good to them
who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. May God be for us and who can
be against us. Help us, Lord, to worship You. You are worthy of all praise
and all glory. We ask it in the name of Christ. Amen. Christ of the Cross. and before the world Oh he is you. And before His throne I'll bow
down I will cling to the price of the cross For He is the King
I must crown I'll share And before His throne I'll bow
down, I will pay to the Christ of the cross, For He is the King
I must crown. Let us pray. Father, again, we
approach in your precious name, the cause of the shed blood and
perfect death of the Lord Jesus Christ, which through him has
given us all things that pertain to godliness in life, all support
in this world. Let us as we return to thee that
which you have given us, that which rightfully belongs to you.
Let us do with joy our hearts, we pray in Christ's name. He is worthy. He is worthy. He is worthy. The fifth Romans is a tremendous
book or a tremendous chapter in this wondrous book. It's a
wondrous epistle. It sets forth the glory of the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ and offers it in opposition to what
happened in the Garden of Eden. The part that I read to you is
about imputation. Imputation is God charging someone
with something that was not theirs, but is accounted as theirs. Jesus Christ on the cross of
Calvary, which we just sang about, was charged with the sin of his
elect. What does that mean? When our
Lord went to the cross to bury the sins of His people, Isaiah
said, our sins were laid on Him, or made to meet on Him. What does that mean? That means
God accounted Jesus Christ with the responsibility of carrying
our sins. bearing our sins by imputation. He was charged with that. Christ
was not a sinner. He never was a sinner. He never
sinned. He never had an evil thought. He never did an evil deed. He was the spotless Lamb of God. And yet in that hour, In that three hours of darkness
when sin was made to meet on the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord
shut down the lights of heaven. No man should see, no man ever
has but him, what the wrath of God is against sin. But in those
three hours of darkness, our Lord Jesus Christ suffered what
would be for us if we had to suffer an eternity. of punishment
from God. He sewed all that up in a bag,
it says in one passage in Scripture, and did it for his people in
three hours time. Then, having suffered for the
sin of his people, He died. He gave up his life
freely because that was what we ultimately owed God. Not only
a punishment for sin for eternity, but we owe God a death. Hell,
nobody dies in hell. They suffer forever. But sin,
the law requires death for sin. paid that debt that we owe by
imputation. And as a result of that, God
imputed righteousness to us, to his people, those for whom
Christ died. That is to say, we are not righteous. We have no righteousness of our
own. We can produce no righteousness
of our own that is acceptable before God. But God, because of what Christ
did, in paying our sin debt and putting away our sin and suffering
for our sin, charged us with HIS righteousness. And He was made to be, according
to 1 Corinthians 1.30, our righteousness. And His name shall be called,
the LORD our righteousness, Jehovah Zedekiah, the LORD our righteousness. Do you have a righteousness as
a child of God? Yes, you have one. And it was
imputed to you and accounted as yours because you know and
I know that we're sinners. And when we come across a verse,
like this verse, chapter 5 and verse 20 in the last phrase,
when it says where sin abounded, that's us. Grace did much more
about or super about or abound more than sin did. Sin abounded. There's no doubt about it. It
brought more death into this world. And so that verse has
become for many a motto like a motto of thanksgiving because
they have been made to realize by God the Spirit and through
the preaching of the word and through the reading of the word
that they are indeed impotent, incapable, wretched sinners.
Not only do they have it in that knowledge, they feel it in their
souls and in their minds. And in their hearts, they know
what they are. So when they think about their sin abounding, and to think this, that where
their sin abounds, where my sin abounds, grace, there's much
more now, over and above. That's the language of this verse,
but this verse is not really talking about our personal experience
with sin, though it may be used and applied that way. This verse
is a synopsis. A synopsis of what he said, beginning
in verse 12 up to this point. And that synopsis is about the
federal headship, or the representative character, of the first Adam
and the last Adam, Adam the Garden of Eden, and Adam the second
Adam, the last Adam on the cross of Calvary. Adam the first man,
Jesus Christ the last man. Adam the sinner, Christ the Savior. These are representative things. Adam did something, and you and
I inherited that. We pass from His loins, and everybody
who is here today, regardless of race, creed, color, or religion,
everybody that walks upon the face of the earth were in Adam's
loins when he sinned. We all come from one character.
One character, Adam, who made it with his wife, Eve, and we
were born into this world as sinners. Eve was a sinner, but
she was not accounted as such. She was accounted as one who
was deceived. Adam was not. When Adam's seen in the Garden
of Eden, it is simply stated in four words in the scripture,
and so he ate, or so did he eat. That's his record. The fruit
of the knowledge of good and evil, whatever that was, whether
it was metaphorical or it was an actual fruit, I don't know.
for whatever it was that brought evil into this world. Now, evil
was already here. But men didn't have anything
to do with it when Adam was just the one man. He didn't have anything
to do with evil. God created evil. He created light. He created darkness. He created
it all. This third chapter says sin was
in the world before there was a law. Sin was in the world. When was it? It was there. It
was in a man named Adam. He didn't even know it. Adam
did not lose spiritual life when he sinned in the Garden of Eden.
He couldn't have had spiritual life because that's eternal life.
Whatever Adam had was an understanding that he was God's creature and
that God had made him and given dominion over the Garden and
also over all the beasts of the field. Given him dominion. But
he was a mutable character just like all of us are because he
was mutable. One thing about mutation It's
never upward. When something mutates, it loses
something and goes downward. What we count on when we have
viral infections in this world is that mutation. Over a period
of time, it mutates and gets smaller and smaller. It's always
a downward thing. When Adam sinned in this world,
he sinned because he was a sinner. Sinned because he was a sinner.
And that brought him death. to all. Why? All of Adam's sin
was imputed to you. It was as if when you were born
into the world you were charged as if you were in Eden when Adam
sinned. You were in his loins. That's
imputation. You say, well that's harsh. But
the real truth of the fact is when it comes down to the final
judgment of things You stand in your representative. You stand
in the one who represents your race, if you will. The human race is Adam. The spiritual race is Jesus Christ. And you stand in them. You're
judged in Adam or you're judged in Christ. Now those of you who
are the elect of God, who God has chosen and given you faith
to believe the gospel, The wonder of it is that you're part of
that human race. You're also part of that spiritual
race. What a wondrous thing. But this is synopsis of this
representation. Adam did something and that's
accounted as you doing it. Christ did something and that's
accounted as you having done it. That's what the beauty of
representation is. Have you ever done anything really
good in your life? We tried, and I hope we continue
to try, to be good people, to live in this world with rectitude
and honor and integrity. I hope we try to do that. Those
words seem to be lost in today's vocabulary. But nonetheless,
they're important words. And I hope you try to be a good
person, try to do for others, try to get outside yourself.
I hope you do that. But everything you do and I do
is tainted with us. And so nothing we do, ever do,
even the best things we do, can ever have a meritorious standing
before God because of sin. Because of sin. So this synopsis
is this. Where sinneth reign unto death, Even so, my grace reigns through
righteousness unto eternal life to them that believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and it's through Christ our Lord. But it begins
in verse 12 this way. Matters of sin. Wherefore, as
while one man, sin entered the world, and death, nicely, So
death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. That last phrase
is a weak English translation. It actually reads, in whom all
sin. So when Adam sinned before God,
he was sinned. Now the result of sin being in
the world is death. Now people die all the time.
And some crazy people say, well, if it hadn't been such a sin,
they wouldn't have died. No, they would have died because sin is
in this world. This is the truth of the fact.
And it cannot be denied. Why do men die? Why do we have
death in the world? We have death in the world because
sin is in the world. Everything's touched by it. Everything's
tainted by it. Everything's ruined by it. That's
why it's going to have to be made all new again by one man. When Adam took that fruit, and
he gained the knowledge of evil along with the knowledge of good,
because everything he saw after that point was good. So how is that a bad thing to
have the knowledge of evil and good? Because human beings don't
know how to handle it. God created evil and good, and
he handles it perfectly, just as it's supposed to be handled.
Using evil when it's necessary isn't good. And he alone has
that capability. What man did at that point was
that if there was any good thing present with him, as Paul said
in Romans 7, evil was there too. When I would do good, Paul said,
evil is present with me. Now it says in verse 13, for
until the law, sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed
where there is no law. sin imputed to us by the law. By the law. What law? Well, if
there was sin in the world before the law, that could be talking
about before the Ten Commandments, I suppose. But sin was in the
world before the law in Eden. It says you cannot eat of this
truth. Sin was already in the world.
Sin was already in the world. Nevertheless, death by sin Death
by sin reigned from Adam unto Moses even over them that sin
not after the similitude of Adam's transgression. What does that
mean? Babies are sinners. All you have to do is wait around
until they start walking and talking. You'll find out that
to be the truth. But Adam was a figure. Here we have the first mention
of Jesus Christ. He was a figure of Him who was
to come. Now if an Adam all died, if an
Adam sin and death were brought into this world, and if an Adam
all sinned, how is Christ a figure of that? Christ is a figure as
the same kind of representative. What Adam did is accounted as
us doing it. Then what Christ did is accounted
as us doing it. Now Paul goes on to explain that
in the verses that follow. He said this, but not as defense,
so as to forgive. He says there's a difference, a contrast if you will, between
what Christ did as our representative and what Adam did as our representative. There's a difference, though
they both were representative. He says this, but not as the
offense, so is also as the free gift. The free gift is not like
the offense. Sometimes the old English is
hard to get hold of. We read that. He says, for if
through the offense of one many were made dead, that's Adam,
much more, you'll find that phrase often used in the book of Romans,
much more the grace of God which is about one man, Jesus
Christ, has abounded to many. So as the representative, Adam,
sinned and we sinned in him, and by Jesus Christ, the grace
of God has abounded toward us, and it's brought about something.
It's changed us. And it says this in verse 16,
but not as not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift."
Again, there's the comparison. The one that sinned is different
from the one that didn't. Well, the judgment was by one
under condemnation. What Adam did in the Garden of
Eden, affecting all that flowed from him and his progeny, were
condemned. Condemned already. You say, well
ain't there an age of accountability? Yeah, it's called birth. That's
the age of accountability. Day one, you're condemned before
God. You're condemned before God by
nature. By nature. But the free gift, that is the
gift of grace, is of many offenses. What's he saying? One offense
created the condemnation. But the grace of God covers many
offenses. That's the difference. Many offenses. Many offenses. Just one offense
caused the death. But the grace of God covers many
offenses under justification. That means this grace of God
covering these many offenses brings about a thing called justification. Christ is our justification.
We know that from Scripture. What is justification? One fellow
said it this way, just as if I never sinned. That simply means
if a record exists with your name on it, a record of sins,
and your name is pulled and you're a child of God, that is a blank
sheet of paper. Never will you be counted as
a sinner before God. Now we know what we are. Then he says this, for if by
one man's offense death reigned by one, so one man's offense,
Adam's offense brought in death to this world. One man did that,
one offense. Much more, they which receive
abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign
by one, reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. So one man's sin
brought about death. brought about life. That's kind
of a difference between those two, isn't it? And it's talking
about death, both natural and spiritual, and eternal life,
both natural and spiritual. Therefore, in verse 18, as the
offense of one judgment came upon all men under condemnation,
everybody was condemned by Adam's deed. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, The free gift came upon all men under justification of
life. All men under justification of
life. Then in verse 19, For as one man's disobedience, or by
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous. So here we have Adam's sin and
Christ's righteousness set forth. over against each other, the
representative. Who stands for us in heaven today?
Do we stand in our own merit? Are we there? Does God honor
us because we're here on a Sunday morning in the winds of night?
Does God honor us because we give money for the support of
the gospel here and in other places? Who stands for us? What's my
assurance of heaven? The one who stands for me is
the one who's spoken of as our representative. Paul said it
this way to him, in Adam all died. So in Christ you'll all
be made alive. Now does that mean everybody's
going to be made alive? No, it means everybody whom Adam
represented died, and everybody whom Christ represents lives.
Everybody. He is our representative. He
said, moreover, the wall entered, that the offense might have bound.
If you want to know why the law is here in this world, it's to
define and show how simple sin is. It shows that the offense
might have bound. What does that mean? The law
shows us how sinful we really are. That's all it does. It doesn't straighten us out.
It doesn't cause us to live better. It waits patiently for us to
screw up and then jumps on us. That's what it does. That's what
the law does. It's lying in wait. This law,
it entered, it's lying in wait for you to mess up. And the law
pounces on you and says, you have sinned. You have broken
the law. Your sin abounds. You didn't
know how bad your sin was until the law came along and showed
you it was an abounding thing. But, and remember when you see
the word but, What before and what comes after the word but
are in opposition to each other. They're opposites. So whereas
the law entered that the offense might abound, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. Did much more abound. This is
a synopsis of holy sin between verse 12 through verse 19 when
he's talking about the difference between the gift and the offense. This is the synopsis of it. This
is where it all comes down to. This is the crux of the matter,
if you will. Where sin hath abounded in Adam,
it abounded. It abounded to the point that
apart from a work of grace, you must perish eternally in hellfire. That's how much it abounded.
Where sin abounded in Adam, grace free, unmerited, favor, kindness,
forgiveness, abounded in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace did
much more about it. I'm a sinner. Wasn't nothing
I could do about that. I kind of liked that life all
my life. Never had any problem with myself
being what I was. Senator. No hope for me. I can't change that. So what do I need? who is all powerful, to show me favor. Not because
of what I did, or what I will do, or what I can do. Favor. Before the world began,
before I existed, the Lord chose me. If you were
one of the elect, the Lord chose you before the world began. He
knew what you are. He knew you'd come into this
world by nature, condemned it out of you. But he said, I favor that one.
Why? Because of will. Because he's
God. He can do that sort of thing.
And we have no reply against it. Shall the thing form, say
to him that form it? Why has not made me that? And
not the part of the power over the plague that make one of us
one of honor and another of dishonor? What if God has that power? He
does have that power. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That's about the representation.
of Adam and the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's also the glad experience
and thankful heart of every sinner saved by grace. And I wake up in the morning,
praying in my first thoughts of God. I try to make them my last thoughts
before I go to bed at night, but even while I'm praying sometimes
I fall asleep. or sometimes my mind wanders
into a whole different scenario. While I'm praying to God, God
help me. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Father,
bless this understanding. Pray for us.