We've got bulletins back there
now, so if you want to grab one during the break, they're on
the table back there. Let's turn to Romans chapter
5. Last time we were here, we saw
that Adam was a figure, a picture of Christ by headship. They both
were federal heads, seminal heads. That means that as all Adam's
family was in Adam, and all Adam's family did what Adam did when
he sinned, and so God, for that reason, imputed sin to all men
who Adam represented, which with Adam, that's all men. With Christ, our Lord Jesus made
His people righteous. All His people were in Him. And
what He did, we did. And He put away our sin. And
through faith, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us.
Now, it's true that in Adam we fell. We had a terrible fall
in Adam. And Adam, all died. All became
guilty of sin under the curse and condemnation of the law.
That's one way we died. We became guilty under the curse
and condemnation of the law. And then in Adam all died because
we're born of his corrupt seed so we come forth spiritually
dead in sins. Cannot receive the Word of God,
can't believe on the Word of God. God has to give us life
to make us come to Him. God placed Adam in a green garden
and God turned it into a dry, wild, desert wilderness with
no life. Look over at Genesis 3 real quick.
I want to show you something. Genesis chapter 3. Look at verse 16. I'm sorry, let's look at verse
15. God said to the serpent, which is, he's talking to the
devil here. He says, I will put, God said, I will, I will put
enmity, hatred between thee and the woman. That woman represents
the church, all God's people. And between thy seed, between
the devil's children and the woman's seed, her seed. And that seed is Christ. That
seed is Christ our head. Look, it shall bruise thy head
and thou shalt bruise his heel. The only woman who had a seed
without knowing a man was Mary. Christ Jesus the Lord is the
seed of woman. He had his heel bruised by Satan
but he, in the process, crushed Satan's head. Now look, verse
16, unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and
thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth
children. That's why Childbirth is so painful
because we fell in Adam. We fell in sin. That's a picture
too of how hard and difficult it is to bring forth a living
child of God. A quick and regenerated child
of God. The devil is trying to stop that.
He's trying to prevent that. How's the woman going to be saved? Thy desire shall be to thy husband
and he shall rule over thee. Through the ages the church submitted
to Christ. And that's the only way she was
saved. The bride was saved by submitting to her husband. That's
the only way she brought forth children. That's the only way
we still bring forth children, submitting to Christ. That's
why you see in this nation, in the world, the devil would love
for women to think it's just totally unjust to submit to their
husband. That's just unfair. That's unjust. Don't do that whatsoever. And
that way, when you hear this word that the only way you can
be saved is for the bride, Christ select to submit to Christ, when
you hear that, you'll say, oh, that's old. That's out of date.
We don't preach that anymore. See, that's the goal is to get
you to think this word is out of date so you don't submit to
Christ. That's the goal. Christ is the
husband. We're the bride. We submit to
Him. There's a church in this world
that's called Free Will Works Religion and they teach that
the husband, Christ can't do anything unless you let Him do
it. That's a hen-pecked husband. He can't do anything but what
his wife lets him do. That's another Jesus. That's
not the God of the Bible. He does what He will. And he
brings his wife in his love and grace toward her. It makes her
willing to submit to him. She wants to. So look at this. He said, verse 17, unto Adam,
he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife. That's
how we got in this mess. And you've eaten of the tree
of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed
is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall
it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return
unto the ground. For out of it was thou taken,
for thus thou art, unto thus shalt thou return." That's the
shape that we were left in, this desert, wild wilderness desert
now that we live in. Even the ground's cursed because
of our sin. And though Adam is a type of
Christ in headship now, and we see how Adam represented all
his family, Christ represented all his family. And though Adam's
a type of Christ in headship, there's a great difference between
Adam and Christ. and what they accomplished for
their family. Let me show you that now in Romans 5 verse 15. But not as the offense, see this
is in the parentheses, now we're talking about some differences
between the two. But not as the offense, not as
the fall, so also is God's free gift. For if through the offense
of one many be dead, much more, much more, The grace of God and
the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded
unto many. What he's saying to us there
is, he's saying, though we lost everything in Adam, God's elect
gained much more in Christ. We gain much more in Christ. I've titled this, Grace Much
More Abounds. Look down at verse 20. Moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound. That's the one
reason God gave the law. He didn't give it for you and
me to try to come to God by our obedience to it. He gave it so
that we could see how offensive we are to God, how guilty we
are before God. That's why He gave it. But watch
this, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. Grace did much more. We gained
more in Christ than we lost in Adam. That's what we're going
to see. Alright, first of all, Christ's work abounds much more
toward His people because it's by the grace of God. It's the
gift of God. Look here in verse 15, he said,
If through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace
of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ
hath abounded unto many. We sing, and I think we're going
to sing it today at the close of the service. We sing, Amazing
Grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. Do you know what grace is? Scriptures everywhere declare
that salvation is by God's unmerited favor. That's what grace is. We didn't merit it. We had nothing
in us to merit it. We had nothing in us whereby
to make God give His grace to us, grace is unmerited favor,
and God bestows it, now get this, on whomsoever He will. We have no claims on God. God made one man, made him upright,
put him in the garden, gave him everything that a man could desire,
and gave him one law, and we broke it. And so we all broke
it in Adam. So we have no claims on God.
We can't say, well that's not fair God that you don't save
everybody. God doesn't have to save anybody. God gives His grace
on whosoever He will. See, we got to be brought down
and quit thinking so highly of ourselves and understand this
thing is of grace, it's of mercy. We don't deserve anything. Can
you imagine? Can you imagine if a president
pardoned one prisoner in prison and all the rest of the prisoners
and all the world stood up and said, that's not fair that you
pardoned that one and didn't pardon the rest. He didn't have to pardon the
one. They didn't earn anything. He
didn't have to pardon the one. And that's us, brethren. He didn't
have to pardon anybody. But God chose to do so. To show
us grace. And everywhere in Scripture we
find this. Just in Ephesians. I just looked
at two chapters in Ephesians. In Ephesians 1, in verse 6, he's
told us, he's spoken of God's election of grace, he's spoken
of God's all spiritual blessings upon His people, he's talking
about predestinating His people unto the adoption of children,
and then he said, he talked of being accepted of God, and then
he said every bit of this is to the praise of the glory of
His grace. Free? Free grace. Sovereign grace. Then in verse 7, right after
that verse, it says, Ephesians 1, 7, it says, In whom, in Christ,
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of His grace. And then in Ephesians
2, we were spiritually dead. We were dead in sin. Though Christ
had worked this work for His people, none of His people could
believe it. We were dead. A dead man can't
do anything. And then we read in Ephesians
2 verse 4, 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 together with Christ. By grace are you saved. By grace. And then a few verses
later, Ephesians 2.8, he says, For by grace you're saved through
faith, and that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. I heard a preacher not long ago.
He said, God's grace is free. God's grace is not based on any
merit in us whatsoever. And I got my attention. I thought,
let's hear what he's going to say about this. And then he said,
God only gives that grace to those who accept Jesus. That
ain't grace. Ain't nobody mad at that message.
That message puts it all in the sinner's hand, exalts him, giving
him some ability, and no sinner is going to get upset about that.
And that's why that preacher preaches that. So he can keep
his salary and his car house and all that. Because if you
preach the truth, we're not going to have that. No, grace is from
beginning to end. God even has to give you faith
to believe Him, and then through faith God accepts you. That's the true order in Scripture.
But that's only two chapters in Ephesians, brethren, and there's
grace, grace, grace, grace. It's on every page of this book.
And if a man tries to deny that salvation is entirely of God's
prerogative, by God's grace to give to whomsoever He will, the
only thing that man does to a believer is betray his own ignorance.
Because it's everywhere. We see it everywhere. It's everywhere
in the Scripture. Now, grace means that all blessings,
including righteousness and justification unto eternal life, everything
God gives us, salvation, eternal life, righteousness, justification.
It's all the gift of God. It's a gift. Now let me ask you
a question. When is the last time you went
out and bought a gift and just set it up on a shelf and said,
I hope somebody will receive that gift? I hope somebody will
come and claim it. When's the last time you did
that? I'm talking about your hard-earned
money. I paid a huge price and bought
a gift. But you didn't buy it for anybody,
you just bought a gift. Wrapped it up, set it up on the
shelf. Boy, I hope somebody gets that, takes that. Why do we attribute something
to God that ignorant sinners like us are smart enough not
to do? We wouldn't do something that
foolish. Why would we say God would do something that foolish?
That's exactly what's being preached in churches. God's bought this
gift. He's purchased this gift. If
you just come and claim it... You think God would purchase
this gift and just leave it up to sinners to... I hope somebody
would come and get it. Of course not, brethren. Scripture
says God ordered everything in the salvation of His people.
He ordered it all. David said, God's made with me
an everlasting covenant and here's what that covenant is. Every
single requirement in that covenant that had to be fulfilled, David
said, it's ordered in all things and it's already made sure for
me. It's already accomplished for me. It's ordered in all things. That means God chose who He was
going to purchase this gift for, and He gave them to Christ. And
our Lord Jesus Christ came forth and He paid the purchase price
to redeem that particular people from the curse of the law, to
pay the debt we owe, the purchase price, His precious blood. He
paid that and He accomplished paying the price. If you read
through Hebrews, all through Hebrews, it will tell you He
accomplished it. Everything He accomplished is
in the past tense. He purged our sin. He accomplished
our eternal redemption. He perfected forever them that
are sanctified. He did it! He accomplished it!
Because God said He wouldn't fail, and He didn't. And then
God sends the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit gives life and
faith, making His people able to receive the gift that God
bought for us. And then God keeps us looking
only to Christ to make certain that everyone He bought this
gift for has it. And not one of His people are
lost and not one goes without having this free gift of righteousness
in Christ and eternal life with God. That's the gift He purchased
and He's going to make certain all His people have it. That's
what it means that it's ordered in all things. And sure, salvation
is God's free gift to the believer. Now listen to this. Hosea 14.4,
you can just jot these down and look them up when you get home. Hosea 14.4, God said, I'll heal
their backsliding, I will love them freely. Romans 3.24 says,
we're justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus. Romans 8.32 says, He that spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Remember who
that all we talked about last time? It means all who Christ
represented. When you talk about Adam, it
means all who Adam represented. That's all men, because we all
came from Adam. When he talks about Christ, it
means all who Christ represented. All who shall be born of Christ.
All who this God makes certain they get this gift. That's who
Christ died for. And God, he says, God spared
not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. How shall
He not with Christ also freely give us all things? That means
everybody Christ died for, God's going to seek to it. They get
freely everything Christ bought for them. That tells us right
there that he didn't die for everybody because if he did,
everybody would have this gift because it's God who gives it.
He's going to freely give it to everybody that Christ died
for. See, if I say Christ died for everybody, But some perish
in hell and some were already in hell when he went to the cross. Then I'm saying Christ didn't
succeed in what he did. I'm saying the sinner has to
do something to make it successful. That's salvation by works. That's
salvation by the will of man. That makes our God to be a failure.
No, we preach that Christ succeeded at the cross and accomplished
the redemption of His people and so God comes and gives the
Holy Spirit and gives us life and faith and makes certain we
get this free gift. Listen to this, 1 Corinthians
2.12, Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but
the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that
are freely given to us of God. The only way we even know that
these things are free and that we have all this salvation is
in Christ. Because God freely gave us the
Holy Spirit and freely gave us life and freely gave us an understanding. And so he says in Revelation
21.6, it's done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. I will give. freely unto him
that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. It's a gift. That means, from
beginning to end, it is not of works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. You see how that gives God all
the glory? And that doesn't give man any
glory? That's how God says it is. He that glorieth, let him
glory in the Lord. God said, I will not share my
glory with another. So seeing that our justification
and our eternal life is free, brethren, let us freely declare
this gospel to anybody that appears interested. Seeing how freely
God gave to us, you freely give this gospel to whoever. Now don't
try to push it on people that aren't interested. It does no
use to do that. But if somebody appears interested,
hopefully God's given them an interest and he's at work there,
freely give them this gospel. Or if you don't feel comfortable
doing it, just invite them to come here to hear the gospel
preachers. And brethren, let us take every
avenue God's made available to send this gospel forth into the
world freely. This is why This is why you see
when faithful pastors that write books and sell them, they don't
sell them for above what it costs to print the book. They're not
trying to make money on it. It's free to you. It's free to
you. They're just covering the cost
of it. This is why we don't stand up and beg people for money and
try to have programs to raise money. We're not about that.
This thing's free to His people. It's free to His people. He makes
His people willing to support it and send it forth so it can
be free to other sinners. But now understand this, just
because salvation is free to us, never think it was free without
a price, a precious price having to be paid. There was a precious
price that had to be paid. Now here's the second thing.
Grace is abounded much more because of what Christ paid concerning
our offenses. And it's different concerning
the result He accomplished. Look at Romans 5.16. And not
as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. He's saying,
and the gift's different in this way also from the fall. For the
judgment, the fall, was by one to condemnation. Let me help
you here. After the word one, add offense. Write in offense
right there. The judgment was by one offense
to condemnation. But the free gift is of many
offenses unto justification. The judgment That means the sin
and the guilt that was imputed to all men that Adam represented,
the judgment, the sin and guilt imputed to all who Adam represented
was imputed because Adam committed one transgression. He sinned
one time in the garden, broke one law, one offense. And so
that resulted in the condemnation of all men. We came under the
wrath and condemnation of God because of that. But the free
gift's not like that. Listen to this. The free gift
is of many offenses unto justification. Christ didn't bear just that
one sin of that one man Adam only. He did bear Adam's sin. That's why God slew an animal
and covered him with coats of skins. He's showing us that he
saved Adam. That's how come the gospel continued
in the earth because he taught Adam the gospel and Adam taught
it to his sons and God saved Abel. He understood the gospel. He came in the blood of a lamb. But he didn't just die for the
one offense, for that one sin of that one man Adam. When we
came forth, brethren, the reason you and I sin is because we were
conceived in sin. Our nature is sinful. So we come
forth from our mother's womb speaking lies, Scripture said,
and every single sin of His people Christ bore and paid the wages
we owe to justice because of all those sins. I want you to
think for a minute. of how many offenses, if you're
honest, I want you to think how many offenses you've committed
only in thought. We'll just say in thought only.
Only in the time we've been in here. Only in the time we've
been in here. Think how many offenses you've
committed. Realize God's elect is a people
that He said is more than the stars of heaven, more than the
sands of the sea. Now you think about all the sins
of all those people. When it says, He hath made him
sin, who knew no sin, that's what Christ was made to bear. Scripture says this, listen.
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his
own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That's a lot of iniquity. Scripture
says man drinks iniquity like water. Scripture says every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually. That's a lot of sin. And our
Lord was made to experience the shame of it, the guilt of
it, and knew it, and bore it, and owned it to be His own. God constituted Him guilty and
saw Him alone as guilty for His people. That's why God turned
His back on His Son. That's why He forsook Him. Christ
said that. He said, Why hast thou forsaken
Me? He said, It's because you're
holy! And He said in Psalm 22, I'm
a worm and no man. That's why scripture says, is
it nothing to you? Christ says, is it nothing to
you? All ye that pass by. Behold and
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done
unto me. Wherewith the Lord hath afflicted
me in the day of his fierce anger. There's never been any sorrow
like his sorrow. Never been anybody suffer anything
like He suffered. And the result is not the condemnation
of His people, the result is the free justification of His
people. God says, they're righteous.
They're all righteous. Christ prayed every sin of every
child of God and put away our sins from God's record book. God said, I'll be merciful to
their unrighteousness, their sins and their iniquities. I
will remember no more. Even I, I am he that has blotted
out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember
thy sins. God did this, brethren. He said,
in that day, in that time, the iniquity of Israel, that's talking
about all His people, all who Christ died for, their iniquity
shall be sought for and there shall be none. The sins of Judah,
that's God's spiritual Judah, His elect, they shall not be
found. Their sins shall not be found.
I'll cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. See, He's
not depending on you and me to make that effectual. He accomplished that for everybody
He died for. When He said, it is finished,
that's what He meant. It's finished. And so when He
brings His child to believe on Christ, Scripture says, there's
therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,
to them who walk after the Spirit, not after the flesh. There's
no more condemnation. Isn't that wonderful, believer?
We can't break the law. If we would have not fallen in
Adam, yes, we would have been upright. We would have been born
upright. But there would have always been that possibility
that we would sin and fall. But in Christ, that's not even
a possibility. We can't. We can't fall. Isn't that wonderful? That's
far more than we lost. Now let me show you this one
last thing. I'll do it quickly. Christ's work is greater because
by Him we're guaranteed to reign in eternal life now and forever. All His people are guaranteed
to reign in eternal life now and forever. Look at verse 17.
He says, For if by one man's offense, death reigned by one,
death reigned by that one offense, much more, they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one, Jesus Christ. Christ. And you can read those
next few verses and it says it's because Christ by His obedience
made His people righteous. Alright, look at verse 20. Moreover
the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might, and the word there is shall, Even so
shall grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Now get this, if you don't get
anything else, get this. Adam's sin did not put us in
a condemnable state. Adam's sin didn't put us in a
condemnable state if we would just do something to make ourselves
be condemned. No. By Adam's disobedience, we
were made sinners. Everybody he represented. And
Christ's righteous obedience didn't put his people in a savable
state. If we'll just do something to
make it apply to us. No. It says there, by one man's
obedience, by one man's righteousness, his righteousness, everybody
he represented was made He did it. He accomplished it. That's
the much more of this thing, brethren. The grace of God reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Because He accomplished making
every one of His people righteous by shedding His blood at Calvary's
cross, He shall send the gospel and send the Holy Spirit and
regenerate each one of them to eternal life. When He gives you
life and faith and brings you to believe on Him, He says right
now you are the sons of God. Right now you have eternal life. It's not something we're looking
for to come into play. We have it now. He said those
that believe on Me, if they die, they're not going to die. They're
going to live. And that's true of every believer.
He'll keep us alive, who He redeemed. And He'll bring all who He redeemed
to reign with Him in heaven in glory forever. Forever. Grace of God reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. If you're not able
to be here brethren on Thursday nights, please tune in and watch
the broadcast. We're going through 1 John and
the whole epistle is to assure God's people. John was seeing
all these people go out from the church and leave the church
in apostasy. and unbelief, and turning their
back on the gospel, turning their back on their brethren, and embracing
lies, and promoting lies, and preaching lies. And so John writes
this letter to give assurance and comfort to every true believer,
to God's people. And he tells every one of us
because Christ redeemed us and made us righteous. That's how
this spirit of adoption was sent to us. That's how we were regenerated
and born again. That's how come we have faith
to believe. And what he says there when he
says those who are born of God does not commit sin, he's saying
those that are born of God cannot apostatize from the gospel because
Christ's incorruptible seed abides in us and we cannot stop believing. We can't. He won't let you. Nor
can you forsake your brethren and cease loving your brethren.
He's going to make you a symbol with His people and continue
to the end. And God's people are going to
do it by His grace. You believe on Christ, you believe
He's your only righteousness, you believe He's all your eternal
life. Look back up at Romans 5.8. God
commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if
when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved
by His life. It's a guarantee, brethren. It's
a guarantee. If we had never fallen in Adam,
there'd always be a chance we would. But because we've fallen
and his people have been redeemed by Christ, you that have been
called and you trust Christ only, He's your only hope, all your
eggs are in one basket. He says you can never ever fall
and be lost. He's going to keep you. That's
the much more that we that we were freely given by the grace
of God. All right, let's stand together. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. We thank You for Your grace, for Your free gift, for Your
mercy, for Christ's blood, for Your Son, for His perfection. We thank You, Lord, that You
trusted this work to Him, that You left nothing in our hands.
We thank You, Lord, that He's reigning now at Your right hand,
that He's bringing this Gospel to His people, that He's going
to bring His people to Him, and He's not going to lose any. Lord,
we look forward to that day when He's going to present us all
to God, unblameable, unreprovable in Your sight, and we'll be able
to bow down before Him and praise Him and sing praises to His glorious
name for all eternity. Help us to do that right now,
Lord. We ask it in His precious name. Amen.