I please God to bless us together
this morning as we meditate in his word. Let's turn to the epistle
of Paul to the Romans and chapter five and we'll read verses 18
and 19. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Even so,
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Many years ago, I had traveled
from London to the capital city of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, and
I'd got off the plane and got my luggage and I was waiting
in an extremely long line to be checked over by the customs
before I was able to come out of the airport. And as I stood
in this long line, waiting, there was a man right at the far end
who suddenly signalled that he wanted to see someone. And he
seemed to be pointing to me. And he was waving his hand and
I couldn't think why he should want me at all. And I looked
round and no, there was no one else behind me that he was really
waving at. And he continued doing this and
eventually I kind of pointed and I said, is it me? And he
said, yes, you. And I went up to him and he said, oh, you have
a British passport, you can come straight through. So that was
quite an amazing scene. So I was just, out of all that
great number, I was the only person who was actually selected
to get through very quickly. Well, that's just one illustration
I'd like to give. Another is this. If you children were at
school, perhaps in your classroom or perhaps in an assembly, And
somebody came in and looked around the class or perhaps looked around
the assembly and suddenly pointed to you and said, well, come to
the front. You came to the front and the person presented you
with a million pounds. You'd be very surprised, wouldn't
you? And you'll say, well, why have I been selected? There's
all these other children in the class or all these other students
in the room or in the hall, why should I be selected? And the person would just say,
well, I decided that you were the person that I would give
this million pounds to. Well, I expect if that was true,
naturally, we'd all be very pleased, wouldn't we? A million pounds
would last us quite a long time. probably last us all our life. Well, what would it be? It wouldn't
be something that you and I would have worked for, we wouldn't
have earned, would we? We couldn't say, well I'm a much
nicer person than everyone else, and really I'm a much better
looking person than everyone else, and I really deserve this
million pounds. That's like I didn't deserve
any favour when I was in that Saudi Arabian city. Yet you see
it was so. Now why do I speak like this? Well it's just that in this chapter
we read very much about a free gift. A free gift. But the free gift that is spoken
of in this chapter is a much greater free gift than those
things that I've spoken about. You may think a million pounds
would be wonderful, but you know, if you were young, you'd soon
spend a million pounds, you'd soon get rid of it, and when
it had been gone, it's all disappeared and there it is, it's finished. But the Bible speaks to us of
the free gift of eternal life. And you know, if you and I are
given this free gift, we'll never lose it, because it's given by
God. And God doesn't take back that
which he gives. And if you think of the free
gift of eternal life, it doesn't last for just a few years like
our life does. It is what it says. It is eternal. It is never removed from us. In terms of value, I'm sure we
can understand, it's worth so much more than a mere million
pounds. And so we naturally perhaps think,
well, if we were given the opportunity, which would you want? A free
gift of a million pounds or the free gift of eternal life? You might be tempted to say,
well, I think I really like the million pounds. But let me tell
you, you make a big mistake. It'll be the greatest mistake
you've made. Because there's nothing more
valuable than the free gift of eternal life. And so as we read
down this chapter, you might like to go home perhaps and just
find how many times it's spoken about, this gift. And this free
gift, it might be quite surprising. how many times it is spoken about. And it's spoken about in this
18th verse which we read. And we're told it's therefore
as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon
all men unto justification of life. Now if I was to ask you
this morning, Tell me, who it was that caused this offence
to come into the earth? Well, I hope you could tell me
that it was really Adam and Eve that actually caused this great
offence, because they disobeyed God. And if I asked you then,
well, what's the answer to the second question? How did this
free gift come? Who was it who gave this? Well
I hope you might be able to say it was and is Jesus Christ. So what a blessing that we today
have the Bible to explain to us about ourselves and what we
are, how we've failed because of the sin which came into the
world through that sin of Adam and Eve, all those very many
years ago. And I expect you remember what
happened. And we have a record of it in
the book of Genesis. New young people, I hope you
can remember or at least listen, because God came and he took
the man, this is in the second chapter of Genesis, verse 15,
Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to
dress it and to keep it and the Lord commanded the man saying
of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of
it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Now after this God made a woman. Do you remember how God made
a woman? Do you young children know how
God made a woman? He caused the deep sleep to fall
upon Adam and he slept. He took one of his ribs, closed
up the flesh instead thereof and the rib which the Lord God
had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because
she was taken out of man. So we now have two people on
the earth. We now have Adam and now we have Eve. And what happened
then in the third chapter, we're told what happened. And along
comes the devil and he was in the form of a serpent. And he came and he was very clever,
and still he's very clever today. And what did he say? He said
to Adam and Eve, he said, well he said that to Eve actually,
unto Eve, he said, yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of
every tree of the garden. You see what he did, he asked
a question of Eve, Now we might say, well Eve, she may not know
the answer. Well she did know the answer,
and clearly Adam had told her what God had told Adam. And the
woman said, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden,
but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the
garden, God has said you should not eat of it, neither should
you touch it, lest you die. That was a very clear statement. And the Bible gives us, all of
us, very clear statements. But you see, the serpent, the
devil said, he said, you won't die, you shall not die. He was speaking against the word
of God. And you young people especially,
remember, this is So today the devil speaks against the word
of God. He says, that's all right, you
can do that. Don't listen to what God has
said. You can do what you want to do. And the devil said, you
will not die, for God does know that in the day you eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing
good and evil. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit
thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband, and he
did eat. So, what happened? God had said,
you will die. The devil had said, you will
not die. What do you think happened? You think Adam and Eve fell down
dead in that day? They've been told at that time
they would die. In actual fact, they didn't die
physically. That means they didn't lose their
actual physical life. But do you know what happened?
They had a never-dying soul and that became, as it were, dead. That means it couldn't feel anything.
No longer. And that's the condition. They
died spiritually. They would die naturally now,
but not that actual day. But that very day, they died
spiritually. So it was a very, very sad day. You may think, well, had God
noticed? Of course he'd noticed. God knew
what they'd done. And he came in the evening of
that day and he said to Adam, Adam, where are you? Sometimes you and I might go
into bad places, wrong places. And perhaps the Holy Spirit may
say, where are you? What are you doing? Where have
you got to? Well, Adam was afraid. And he said, I heard thy voice
in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid
myself. You see, before they had sinned,
they were naked and they were not ashamed. Nothing to be ashamed
of. But now, because they had sinned,
they realized they were naked and therefore they hid. And God
said to Adam, who told you that you're naked? Have you eaten
the tree that I told, I commanded you should not? And then you see what happened. The man, Adam, he wanted to pass
the buck. So he said, oh no, the woman
who now gave us to be with me, She gave me of the tree that
I did eat. He didn't want to be responsible. He wanted to
pass it off, not my fault, someone else's fault. And then the Lord
said to the woman, what is this that thou hast done? And the
woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat. She wanted
to make an excuse as well. And naturally we try and make
excuses. But we cannot make an excuse
to God, because God looks at our heart. And say, therefore,
the Lord said to the devil, to the serpent, because thou hast
done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast
of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go,
and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will
put enmity between thee and the woman And between thy seed and
her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his
heel. That is a prophecy that years
to come there would be a person who would bruise, who would crush
the head of the devil, the serpent. And who was that? The Lord Jesus
Christ. And so it was many years afterwards,
some 4,000 years, people had to wait for the time when the
Lord Jesus Christ was to come into the world. And here it was
that would then come and crush the serpent's head. He would
destroy the power of sin and he would come and save his people,
all those who trusted in him, he would save. And so these words
that the apostle writes here to the Romans, and of course
the Romans weren't Jewish people, but they were what we call Gentiles. And yet God had graciously, gloriously
come and sent the apostle Paul to speak to them and to teach
them about the great truth of God. and to tell them what had
happened. And this is what he said, for
by one man's offense, that means one man's sin, death reigned
by one. It came by Adam. It came into
the world. What a tragic, tragic day that
was. To think that the whole of God's
perfect creation which was without sin, suddenly came under the
curse of God. What a tragic day it was by just
one man's offense. Now, just think of that. What had happened? Eve had just
taken a bite of that fruit. Wouldn't think it was very great,
was it? But what had happened was she
had disobeyed God. And that's the tragic statement.
And that's what you and I need to be very aware of. We should
never think of something being not very important. We should
never think, well, I can just do that. No one will notice anyway. And anyway, it looks rather nice
and rather pleasant, and I think I'll enjoy doing it. We should
never listen to the temptation of Satan. We should always turn
away from that which is wrong. And so it is an offence carried
out by Adam and Eve all those years ago, which caused sin to
enter in. And it's because of that offence,
judgment came upon all men to condemnation. That means every
person is guilty before God. Every person. Because what occurred
through Adam's sin was this. His sin was placed upon us. All of his generation, all of
the people that emanated and came from Adam and Eve, were
all affected by that sin. It was imputed to them, put upon
them. They couldn't get rid of it,
of themselves. We are all guilty because of
that sin. And so the Apostle tells us,
for by one man's offence, death reigned by one. And then he says,
and it's very interesting, he says, much more. they which received
abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one Jesus Christ. What a great blessing that is
to receive this abundance of grace. Grace of course as I've
often told you is the free unmerited favour from God. It's not anything
that you and I can expect to receive by our own work. It's
that which God gloriously and wonderfully gives. And so he
comes and says, Therefore, as by the offence of one, judgement
came upon all men to condemnation, condemnation, even so by the
righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification
of life. That means that we are all condemned before
God. We all stand guilty before God. We all deserve punishment from
God. We all deserve to be punished
eternally by God. We all deserve to spend eternity
in hell. What a terrible position. And
yet that is that which is due to us if we are condemned by
the law of God, which we are, we're condemned by the sin of
man, which we are, the sin of Adam and Eve, and therefore we
all stand condemned before a holy God. And yet we're told this
great truth, even so by the righteousness of one. Who is that one? That one is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only righteous person
who has ever lived. And it's good if you young people
especially realise there is only one righteous person who has
ever lived and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's by
his righteousness that his people received this free gift which
came upon them which was justification. That means they were made just
before God. That means they were made righteous
before God. And nobody can make themselves
righteous. Nobody can justify themselves. Sometimes if we do wrong things,
and we want to try and prove that in actual fact we didn't
really do them, and we try and what we say is to justify doing
those things. We try to clear ourselves of
doing wrong things and we try to justify ourselves. Well, we can never justify ourselves
because of the sin which we received through the sin of Adam and Eve
all those years ago. We are under the curse of God. We are under that sin. And therefore
we need to be made righteous from that sin. And the only way
that is to be done is through the Lord Jesus Christ who gives
us this glorious free gift of justification. And so the apostle
sums up this tremendous position by saying, For as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Well, we are all under the first
part. We are all under this statement. One man's disobedience, we are
sinners. We are all under that. Every
single person born into this world are under that position. None are free from it. Indeed, as the Apostle, when
he wrote to the Corinthians, and in the 15th chapter, the
22nd verse, we read this, for as in Adam, all die. So, even so, in Christ shall
all be made alive. Death we are under. The great
blessing is if we are made spiritually alive through the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore we should be thankful
today that we have this statement, so by the Obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Adam and Eve were not obedient. If they had been, if they'd never
sinned, then they would have remained living in that perfect
condition in the Garden of Eden. But no, they disobeyed God. And so it's a very important
position to realise that if we disobey God, You know, it's nothing
to be lightly thought about. In the eye of God, sin is sin. Nothing to be passed over. And
so he tells us here, as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Now what did that obedience entail? Well, it caused God the Father
to send his only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this
world and to live that sinless life, that perfect life. And because he lived that sinless
and perfect life, then you see he was in a position to pay the
price required for the sins of all his people. You and I could
not do it ourselves because we were not righteous. But the Lord
Jesus Christ, because he was righteous, he could do it, he
could pay the price. And the price that the Lord God
demanded was the blood, the death of his only begotten Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. It was a tremendous price to
pay, but of course there was tremendous sin to be paid for. Sins so great you and I cannot
anywhere near understand the greatness of it. And yet the
Lord Jesus Christ because, and this is the glory of the gospel,
because he loved a people that his father had given to him in
eternity past. And he loved them so much that
he desired they should be with him in heaven forever. And they could not be with him
in heaven forever in their sinful condition. They needed to be
cleansed, needed to be washed from all their sin. So the Lord
Jesus Christ came into this world in order to cleanse them from
their sin, to free them from their sin, that in that just
condition, they would be able then to be found with him in
glory forever. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ then,
willingly came. And he came, of course, in the
most humble of circumstances, born in that manger in Bethlehem. No great pomp, no great wonderful
sound of trumpets. He came very humbly. And again, I've said sometimes,
and I'm sure you may remember it, if not, He had to come, very
humbly, so that no one could say, well, of course, he was
born in a much better condition than I was. He was born in the
very lowest of conditions, placed in a cattle trough, as it were,
just a manger, and nothing wonderful for him to be placed in. And he lived that life in great
difficulty, with much to face opposition every day. And yet, you see, he didn't bow
to the temptations of Satan. And we have it spelled out perhaps
most clearly when he was revealed as the Son of God to John the
Baptist when he was 30 years old and John the Baptist said,
Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.
It's a wonderful revelation. You think about that. John the
Baptist there given that glorious view of the Lord Jesus as the
one who would take away the sin of the world, would take away
his sin. He knew he needed his sin to be taken away. And so
the Lord Jesus Christ came. And on that time he was baptised
and there was that glorious voice from heaven, this is my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. God the Father speaking, so that
there was that audible voice that could be heard. And then
you see the Lord Jesus Christ, the devil tempted him. He tempted
him so much, but he didn't submit. He wasn't beguiled. No, he stood
firm. And he was able to speak about
what God has spoken. in the Bible, so that he did
not disobey God like Adam and Eve had all those years ago.
No, he stood firm. But what a life, and he lived
three further years on this earth. All because the divine plan was
to save his people from their sins. The divine plan was that
he should suffer. And he should bear all that which
the Father determined to place upon him. It was no easy life. He didn't have anything. He didn't
live in a palace. He only had the clothes he stood
up in. He didn't have a nice bed to lay upon. He laid on the
ground, had a pillow of stone for his head. No easy life was
it. No money to spend and go and
buy himself special food or anything. He had a most difficult life.
And all the people, of course, spoke against him, condemned
him. He carried on doing his father's
will. And you and I, my friends today,
look back, look back upon the glorious life of the Saviour
who came to give us this great and glorious free gift of eternal
life. Realise the truth of it. So by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
fail. We have failed. We have sinned. We have inherited. the sin of
our forefather Adam. We are guilty before God. We need to be saved. We need
to be redeemed. We need to know that our sins
are forever taken away. And so we have this great and
wonderful statement here, by the obedience of one, the Lord
Jesus Christ was obedient to his father's will. And we see
indeed when he was arrested, having instituted the Lord's
Supper, you may remember, he was arrested in the Garden of
Gethsemane and he prayed to his father knowing what was before
him, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless
not my will, but thine be done. It's a wonderful picture. It's
a wonderful submission that the blessed Saviour sets before us. submission to the will of His
Father. My friends, may you and I today
have a humble submission to the will of our God. You see, the
Lord had to submit. If He hadn't submitted, the whole
plan of salvation would have failed. The Lord Jesus Christ
did not fail. He gave Himself and He submitted
to the will of His Father. And he was in such an agony that
he, it was as it were, great drops of blood fall into the
ground. What an agony it was. But you
see, he still pursued that position his father had given him to carry
out. And of course we know he went
into the judgment hall, he was misjudged, misjudged, he bore
the sins of his people. He carried the condemnation due
to his people. He was not guilty of any sin,
but he carried the condemnation due to you and due to me. The offence which we had caused
to come, the offence, the judgement came upon us which condemned
us. So the Lord Jesus Christ carried
out His Father's will. Not only did He bear all that
agony in the judgment hall, but also of course He was then crucified
in that ignominious fashion, without any clothes on, nailed
to that cross, and fulfilled then the submission to His Father's
will. And he cried out to his father,
my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? And then you see
those three hours, darkness came upon the earth and he endured
hell for his people. Do we not say today, well, what
a savior. What a great God who endured
all that opposition in order for me to receive this great
and glorious free gift. By one man's disobedience, many
were made sinners, but by the obedience of one, shall many
be made righteous. What a glorious truth it is to
believe today that we are made righteous through the death of
our Lord Jesus Christ, through his shed blood upon that cross
at Calvary, we have been reconciled. Indeed, as we read earlier in
this chapter, much more than being now justified by his blood,
we shall be saved from wrath through him, If we're not saved,
we should endure the eternal wrath of God. But oh, bless God,
if we are saved, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. Much more than being 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. But not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement, being made one with God. It's a great truth,
isn't it? It's a wonderful fact. The Word
of God is true. And so may all of us today have
this good hope, through grace, that it is indeed well with our
soul. And so, as the Apostle concludes
this chapter by saying, Moreover, the law entered that the offence
might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more about, that
as sinneth reign unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. So we see here, so very clearly,
our salvation, the forgiveness of all our sins, depends upon
the great and blessed work completed by the Savior on that cross at
Calvary when he finished the work that his father gave him
to do. And then, of course, on the third
day, he rose from the dead. Oh, yes, death could not hold
him. He rose from the dead, a conqueror
over sin, death, hell and the grave. Satan was conquered. Oh, praise God. Bless God for
such a Savior. and to think that one day, by
his grace, we shall physically view the Saviour in glory, if
we are amongst those who have received this wonderful free
gift of eternal life. It is a wonderful thought. It is a glorious prospect for
the Church of God. And so today, may we indeed rejoice
what has been done and rejoice if we have the evidence that
our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life and we are
amongst those who have been made righteous through the sin atoning
death of the Lord Jesus Christ.