Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 905 Yadkin Street in Kingsport, Tennessee, would
like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. And now, Pastor Gabe Stoniker. We are going to look at one verse
of scripture today from Romans chapter 6. It's verse 23. Romans 6 verse 23. It says, For the wages of sin
is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Everything that needs to be said
is said in that one verse. everything that needs to be said.
The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Years ago a very dear preacher
of the gospel, a man who preached the truth of the word of God,
he opened his message from this verse with these comments. I want to give them to you. I
just want to repeat to you what He said, and the reason is because
they're so clear. They're so clear. This is a clear
summary of what's being said right here. This is the conclusion
of the whole matter. If you want to get down to the
heart of the whole matter, here it is. He said, If I die in my
sin, then my condemnation is a condition
that I deserve. It's something that I have earned. It's something that is owed to
me. The wages of sin is death." He said, but if I live eternally,
if I end up receiving eternal life, If I am admitted into the
presence of God, then that is something that has been freely
given to me. It is the free gift of God, he
said. I have not earned it. It is not
owed to me. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. What this means is, he continues,
what this means is death in and because of sin, death, condemnation,
separation from God is the result of a willing, deliberate effort
on my part. That's what he said, death because
of sin. That condemnation, that separation
from God, he said, that's the result of a willing, deliberate
effort on my part. He said, but life, life in Christ,
regeneration, union with Him, that is the result of a willing,
deliberate effort on God's part. If death comes, that originated
with me. But if life comes, that originated
with God. He just decided to give a gift.
An unspeakable gift. A gift that cost Him everything. It was completely free to His
people, but it cost Him everything. He had to give everything in
order to give this gift. to us. He had to give His life. He had to give His life in order
to give us life. He had to lay down His life in
order to give that very life to us. So it was a willing, conscious
effort on His part. Therefore, it all boils down
to this. This is how he closed. He ended
his opening comments. And these are these are very
stark comments. All right. These are very, very
clear, very truthful comments. And we need to really understand
this. He said, here's what it all boils down to. He said, if
I go to hell, it's my fault. But if I go to heaven, it's God's
fault. It all boils down to that. That's
what verse 23 means. We just read Romans 6 verse 23
which says the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I want to divide this
message into three parts. From these three parts, I'd like
for us to see the reality of what we have done. That's the
first part. And I want us to see the reality
of what Christ has done. And this is going to be the theme
of each part in this. This is the title of the message,
our theme and our title, Once and Done. In these three parts,
we're gonna see the reality of what we've done and the reality
of what Christ has done. And for all three of them, it's
gonna be once and done. That's what I want us to see,
once and done. Now here's the first part. Verse
23 says, for the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is
death. Back in Genesis chapter 1, the
very first book in the Bible, in Genesis 1 verse 1, it says,
in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. God
did it. And then it says in Genesis 1
verse 26, God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness,
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over
the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of
God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God
said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth
and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that
moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have
given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face
of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of
a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And then
in verse 31, God saw everything that he had made, and behold,
it was very good. That's what he said, very good. Chapter 2, verse 7 says, And
the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living
soul. And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the
Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and
good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." And it says in
verse 16, The Lord God 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. Genesis chapter 3
verse 6, It says, 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 with her, and he did
eat. And the eyes of them both were
opened, and they knew that they were naked. and they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves aprons. Verse 23 says, I'm sorry,
verse 17 says, And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast 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 wast thou taken, for dust thou
art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Now verse 23, Therefore
the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the
ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man and he
placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming
sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
life. Now this is what we just witnessed
once and done. That's what we just read. Once
and done. By one man committing one sin,
the entire world became ruined. It was once and done. Do we see that? Do we see that? Once and done. It's not that
that one sin right there opened the door to ruin. It's not that
that one sin started man down the path toward ruin. It was
once and done. Once and done. Man was ruined.
That's it. Man was ruined. Man died in that
very moment. Man was severed from God. He was cast out, separated from
God in that very moment. There is no three strikes and
you're out with God. I want us to see that there is
no three strikes and you're out. It's once and done. Relatively speaking, think about
this also. Relatively speaking, think about
how small that sin was. God did not say to Adam, he didn't
say in the day that you commit murder. It's not what he said. He didn't say, Adam, in the day
that you lie to me to my face, in the day that you look me straight
into my eyes and point blank lie to me. He didn't say that.
He didn't say, Adam, in the day that you hate this wife that
I've given you and you abuse her and you mistreat her. He
didn't say that. Didn't say any of those things.
He said, Adam, in the day that you eat this piece of fruit,
I'm telling you not to touch this piece of fruit. In the day
that you eat this piece of fruit, you're going to die. Disobeying
me in just eating this piece of fruit that I've commanded
you not to eat is sinning against me. And the wages for that sin
against me is certain physical, spiritual, eternal death. Eve said, Adam, here's that piece
of fruit that God told us not to eat. Adam said, let me have
it. And he ate it. One bite. It was once and done. Once and
done. All right, now let's go to part
two. Here's part two. Turn with me, if you would, to
Psalm 51. In Psalm 51, verse one says,
have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according
unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions,
wash me throughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for
I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest?
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me." Me. David said, I was shapen, I was
formed in the belly in iniquity. Iniquity. I was conceived in
sin. Conceived in it. Job said, who
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. He said, man drinks water like
iniquity. He comes forth from the womb
that way. He comes out of the womb that
way. If you look at Psalm 58, Verse 3, it says, The wicked
are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born, speaking lies. And we all know that that's so.
We all know that that is the truth. Is there anyone who could
honestly say that they've never told a lie? I can't. Can you? We know we can't. We've been doing that since we
were children. You don't have to teach a child
how to lie. You don't have to sit a child
down and say, OK, honey, I know that you've only been telling
the truth up to this point. Let me teach you how to lie.
You don't do that. From the moment we learn to talk,
that ability is in us. And here's the reason why. Sin
is in us. We come forth that way. In Psalm
139, Psalm 139, verse one, David said,
O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my
down sitting and my uprising. Thou understandest my thought
afar off. David said, you know my thoughts. You know my thoughts. How many
times does it say in the scriptures, as you read Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, how many times do we read where it says, and Jesus
knowing their thoughts. reading their minds, seeing the
motive and the intent of their heart. Just seeing it, watching
it, looking at it. What does our Lord see in our
minds? He can read our minds. He sees
our thoughts. What does He see? He sees all of them. All of them. His all-seeing eye sees every
thought that passes through. Every thought. Are we proud of
what he sees? Over in Psalm 24, it says in
Psalm 24 verse 3, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or
who shall stand in his holy place. He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and
righteousness from the God of his salvation. Here's what all
this means. Once and done. once and done. It takes perfectly clean hands,
a totally pure heart, never lifting up our soul one time unto vanity,
not one time swearing deceitfully. That's what it takes to stand
in the holy place. That's what it takes to stand in God's presence. And all of us have ruined that
for ourselves. All of us. All of us have defiled
our hands, we've defiled our hearts, we've defiled our souls,
we've defiled our thoughts through our own vanity, our own
deceit. And this is the reality that we need to face. Here it
is right here, for me, for you. Once and done. Once and done. It doesn't matter how great the
sin is. It doesn't matter how small the
sin is. With God, it's once and done. People hear about Adam's fall
condemning us. Adam fell roughly 6,000 years
ago and people hear about him doing that 6,000 years ago condemning
us. And this is the natural response
of the flesh. People say, well, that's not
fair. That's not fair. Why should I be condemned for
what Adam did? That's not right. That's not
fair. Everybody ought to have their own choice in their own
way. Everybody ought to have their
own chance. I want my own chance. That's
what people say. I want my own chance. Well, here's
the fact of the matter. Every soul that has ever been
born into this world had his or her own chance before God.
Every soul. And we sinned just like Adam
did. We sinned just like Adam did.
And God dealt with us based on what we did before Him. The moment that first sin issued
forth, that first rebellion from an infant, crying out in anger,
it was once and done. It was once and done. Man gets
religion thinking he can start over. Sometimes men and women
see that they've ruined themselves and so they think they can start
over. Man thinks that if he'll decide
to straighten up his act God will give him a do over. God does not give do overs. There
are no do overs with God. It is once and done. Once and done. Adam laying hold
of that fruit, the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, that
represents man trying to lay hold of the law to redeem himself. That knowledge of good and evil,
that's what the law is, it's the knowledge of good and evil,
but God said it's never going to redeem you. It's too late,
you've already committed the sin, it's too late, it's once
and done. All right, here comes the third
part. Here's the good news of the gospel in this. If we look
back at Romans 6, it says in Romans 6, verse 23,
for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Because God's people that
he dearly loved, because they could not redeem themselves,
because they were lost and they were ruined with nothing to pay,
nothing to offer. Because there was no hope for
them after that first sin issued, because all hope was gone as
soon as that first sin was issued, Christ said, I'll go down to
them where they are. I'll go down to them in their
sin, in their ruined state, in their hopelessness. and I'll
remove their sin from them. From the last sin that they're
ever gonna commit all the way back to the very first sin that
they ever committed. I will make it so that sin never
touched them. I will remove it all. I'll give
them clean hands. I'll give them a pure heart.
I'll give them a spotless soul. I will redeem them from ruin. And I'm going to do that by laying
all that ruin on myself. That ruin has to be dealt with.
Christ said, I will bear their ruin. I'll bear their judgment. I'll pay the wages. The wages
of sin is death. I'll pay their wages. I'll die
for them. I'll die for the sin they committed.
I'll separate myself from God my Father for them. I'll cast
myself out of His presence. I'll suffer all the wages that
will ever be owed to them." And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did. And it was once and done. When he did it, it was once and
done. Right here in Romans 6 verse
9, it says, 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 once. once. Over in Hebrews 7 verse
25 says, Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost
that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them. For such an high priest became
us. That's what Christ did. He became
us. who is holy and harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners and made higher than the heavens, who
needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice
for his own sins and then for the people's, for this he did
once when he offered up himself." Once. One time. Hebrews chapter 9. It says in
Hebrews 9 verse 11, But Christ being come and high priest of
good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. once. His sin offering was so
powerful, and it was so effectual, and it was so sufficiently complete,
it was so complete, it was once and done. He entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. And
it says in verse 24, Christ is not entered into the holy places
made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into
heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest
entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others,
for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.
But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed
unto man once to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto
salvation." What does that mean? What will he appear the second
time for? What is he coming back for? Us, if we belong to him. us the many that he bore the
sin for. He is coming back to gather to
himself every soul that he accomplished eternal life for. Freedom from
sin, redemption from death. He's coming back the second time
to appear to them that look for him. I mean to them that are
truly looking for Him, those whose only hope is in this free
gift that He has given to His people, to all those who are
looking for Him, to all those who see Him to be the gift, that
free gift of God, to all those that see Him to be eternal life,
Him, Him, to all those He shall appear the second time without
sin unto salvation. It truly is once and done. May the Lord bless His word to
our hearts. You have been listening to a
message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign Grace
Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message or to hear other messages of Sovereign Grace, log on to
our website at ksgctn.org. If you would like to come and
worship with us, our service times are Sunday morning Bible
study at 10 o'clock a.m., worship at 1045 a.m., and 6 o'clock p.m.,
Wednesday evening at 730 p.m. Please tune in next week for
another message of God's free and sovereign grace.