You turn with me to Genesis chapter
5 this morning. Genesis chapter 5. And I'm also going to confess
to you that this message has been much on my mind concerning
you, and I trust that our Lord intends to meet a particular
and peculiar need of his people this morning. I do sincerely
hope that this is the message that God Almighty would have
you hear in this hour. I feel particularly led in this
direction. I want you to look at several
verses with me in chapter 5 of Genesis and see if a certain
phrase reverberates over and over again to you. as it has
to me. Look first with me at Genesis
5, verse 8. And all the days of Seth were
nine hundred and twelve years, and he died. And verse 11 reads,
And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years,
and he died. And verse 14, And all the days
of Cainan were nine hundred and ten and he died. Verse seventeen, And all the
days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years,
and he died. Verse twenty, And all the days
of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years, and he died. Verse twenty-seven, And all the
days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years,
and he died. And verse thirty-one, and all
the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy-seven years,
and he died." Now look back at verse 5, and we'll see the first
time this is recorded in the Scriptures. In Genesis 5, verse
5, "...and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred
and thirty years, and he died." Now, I know that this is not
a subject that you like hearing about. I know it's a subject
that you don't like to talk about. But, folks, we need to hear about
this. I need to hear about this. And
the only way I know to make this personal, I can make this personal
for me. You want to know Listen to this.
I'll make it personal for me and see if you can make it personal
for you. Archilas Rudolfus Umbel, that was my great-great-grandfather. All the days of Archilas Rudolfus
Umbel were eighty and five years, and he died. And all the days
of George Washington Stevens, that was my great-grandfather,
were ninety and nine years. and he died. And all the days
of Coleman Columbus Coffey, my grandfather, were ninety and
one years, and he died. And all the days of A.R. Coffey
were sixty and seven years, and he died. And do you know what
someone's going to say real soon? All the days of Robert A. Coffey. And they may say eighty
and two, or like my great-great-grandfather, ninety and nine. So they may say this year, 40
and 8, that they will soon say, and he died. That part you can
count on. And we need to hear about this. Now, turn to Hebrews 9 with me,
and let me show you three reasons why we don't want to hear about
this. There are at least three reasons.
You and I don't want to deal with death in general, but we
don't want to deal with our own death in particular. There's
three reasons. The first of which is simple
unpleasantness. It's just an unpleasant topic.
Somebody I know, when certain topics come up, you know what
they say? I don't want to talk about that.
And I've heard it often enough now to know it goes like this.
I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. If a certain subject comes up,
I don't want to talk about it. And there's no talk about it. It's
just not talked about. But let me tell you, to simply
ignore something because it's unpleasant, it won't change the
reality of the facts. And listen to this, the truth
is never changed into a lie simply because we find the truth unpleasant. Did you hear that? The truth
is never changed into a lie just because we find the truth unpleasant.
What is the truth concerning death? Look here in Hebrews 9,
and here is the truth. Verse 27 reads, As it is appointed
unto men once to die. It's appointed unto men once
to die. That's the truth. And no matter
how unpleasant this may seem to us, the truth of this scripture
won't be changed. It's appointed for you and me
to die. The second reason that we don't want to talk about death
is first unpleasantness, but second is uncertainty. Because
the time of our appointment, and this appointment here, that
word is reservation. It's appointed unto men once
to die. It's reserved unto men once to
die. Because the time of that appointment
is unknown to us, we choose to act like we've got no appointment
at all. I know somebody who's made an appointment with a dentist,
oh, probably five or six times in the last year. When the time
comes, they just don't go. They just go on an appointment
and they just don't go. Well, you see, just because of
the uncertainty doesn't mean it's not going to happen. Let
me illustrate this. I travel a lot. And, you know,
they have a great thing now, because I mean, I'm going to
leave here tonight after services and I have to be in Fredericksburg,
Virginia, in the morning at nine o'clock. So I've got to get up
there and stay over there. Well, they got this great thing.
I can call Econolodge or Days Inn or one of those places and
look at my little book and find the cheapest room and call up
there and say, reserve me that room. And I give them a credit
card number. The reservation is guaranteed.
And it doesn't matter when I get there. It's guaranteed. And the
only problem with that is that after six o'clock, I say I changed
my mind. I got to pay anyway. I've got
to pay for the reservation because it's guaranteed. Well. It says
here that it is appointed or reserved. Let me tell you, every
one of us, you know, we have we got a guaranteed reservation.
We've got a guaranteed reservation. And no matter what plans we make,
no matter when we think we'll arrive, no matter the uncertainty
of our plans in our mind, whether we think it's going to be ninety
and nine or eighty and two or seventy and one, sixty and five,
you've got a guaranteed reservation and we're going to have to keep
it. We're going to have to keep it. Our account will be called
and payment will be required because it's reserved unto men
once they die. And the uncertainty, after all,
is all ours. It's not God's. It's not God, the number of our
days is measured with him. And if this word once means conclusively
or absolutely, it's appointed, it's reserved on us absolutely
to die. But now let me give you the third
thing and listen here. Our real problem is not really
so much unpleasantness and uncertainty. Do you know what it really is?
It's unbelief. It's unbelief. No doubt somebody here this morning,
turn to Genesis 2 with me. No doubt somebody here this morning,
or somebody who may hear the tape of this message, somebody,
do you know what they'll be thinking at this point? Hey, maybe, Bob,
maybe you made yourself some guaranteed reservation, but I
didn't make any reservations. I didn't make that reservation.
No siree. Well, you know, on a few occasions
I've used what's called a travel agent. If I have to make airline
reservations, I just found it easier to use those guys. It
costs the same. And occasionally I have to leave town in a hurry
and I'll call that guy and say, get me a room at the Econolodge
in D.C. or wherever it may be. And he
makes it for me. You know what he's called? My
representative. He makes the reservations for
me. I tell you what, if I don't show up, he doesn't have to pay
for them. I do. I do. It's my guaranteed reservation. Folks, you may think you didn't
make a reservation. Let me tell you, your representative
made one for you. You want to know who he was?
Look right here in Genesis 2, Genesis 2, verse 15. Do you see
this? And the Lord God took the man,
that's Adam, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it. And 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." Adam ate and made himself and us in him, all his children. He made us a reservation right
there. When he ate, he reserved us a
part. Does your Bible have a center
reference here that says, Thou shalt surely die? Mine does,
and it might be better translated to say, Dying thou shalt die. There's a double death here.
There's two deaths involved with Adam's eating of the fruit, disobeying
God. The dying part means this. Did
Adam eat the fruit and fall over dead physically? Did he? No,
we just read he lived, what was it, 930 years after? Huh? No,
he didn't die right there. So you see, when Adam ate of
the fruit, he started dying physically, didn't he? And so many years
later, he died. But there's a second part of
that. It says, dying thou shalt die. The die part of that has
nothing to do with Adam physically, but it had everything to do with
him spiritually. The instant Adam ate that fruit,
Spiritually, he died. He died. And that's why that
phrase is interpreted that way, dying thou shalt die. You see,
our problem is unbelief. The reason we don't believe we're
going to have to keep this reservation with death is that by nature
we don't believe we made one. We don't believe we were in In
fact, that's what got us in trouble in the first place. Eve, what
did she believe? You know what she believed? This
wily, subtle serpent came to her, and what was his argument? He said, Thou shalt not surely
die. And we're just like Eve. We prefer
to believe the lie rather than the truth, which God said, In
the day you eat, you shall surely die. Our problem is unbelief. Do we see that? That's the reason
we don't want to talk about death. We don't believe the Word of
God. And that's why we ought not get
mad with folks who don't believe it. Plus, their hearts are just
dead, spiritually. You know, how else, if it weren't
unbelief, how else could we read the obituaries, bury our parents
and children and our loved ones and not really believe that it
is appointed unto us once to die. How could we do that if
it weren't unbelieved? The truth is, when Adam died,
I died spiritually. See, physically, we're born alive
and we start dying, don't we? Spiritually, we're born dead,
and we stay dead unless God... That's what being born again
means. Unless God Almighty makes us born again spiritually, we're
dead spiritually all our lives. We come into this world that
way and we go out that way. And all of this has no meaning. It makes no sense to men by nature
who were born spiritually dead. I'll illustrate it this way.
If we were having a funeral this morning and we had the coffin
up here. And there was someone in the coffin and we came up
and raised the lid. Well, let me ask, you know, we
got all these little children back here and I'll bet the youngest
one here understands this physical truth. Now, you children pay
attention. Y'all look up here a minute. If I got two apples
right here. And I got two apples right here.
Now, if I take these two apples and put them over here with these
two apples, put up how many fingers, how many apples have I got over
here? You know, everyone else holding up four fingers. They
understand this physical truth, right? They're physically alive. They have spiritual. I mean,
they have physical life in them. If we came up here this morning
and opened the lid of this coffin and looked in and said. Two and
two is how much? Are you expecting any result?
This body has no physical life in it. It has no comprehension
of physical truth in it anymore. Same is true spiritually. Don't
get distressed with people out here in the community who have
no interest in the gospel. Folks, they're dead. You're not
going to get mad at this man up here because he doesn't know
two and two is four anymore. He's physically dead. And folks
out here in the community are spiritually dead. God Almighty
is going to have to make them born again. You're going to have
to give them a new birth, spiritual life, or there'll be no understanding. Do we see that? So don't get
distressed with them. Let's just preach. Keep preaching
the gospel to them. And if God Almighty is pleased
to give them life, he will, just like he gave us life. Do you
remember when you were dead? Yeah, I remember being dead.
It just went right over my head, just like I didn't hear it. Look at Romans 7 with me. Turn to Romans 7. And I want
to ask you this question. Is anybody here this morning
interested in being born again spiritually and what that means? As it's been revealed to me,
let me give you just three simple, the three simplest things that
I found, according to Scriptures, all spiritually alive folks,
there's three things about them that are understood by them.
And here in Romans 7, verse 9, the Apostle Paul writes, look
at verse 9 of Romans 7, and we read that he said, For I was
alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin
revived, and I died." The first thing spiritually born-again
people understand is that when Adam died, I died. Nobody's made
alive again until they realize there was a time at which they
were dead. It's like the Lady Barnard asked some lady, she
said, When did you believe on Christ? She said, I've always
believed on him. He said, That's too long, honey. That's too long. You see, if you've never been
dead, I guarantee you're not alive. You're not alive. So we've
got to come to understand that when Adam died, I did die. I
died spiritually. Paul says, when the gospel came,
he said, Henry died and I died. I knew I was dead. And this,
too, must be personal. Let me illustrate this, how it
gets to be personal. And I know it's easy for one
of us to look at the other and say, I can tell old Sam's a sinner. I can look at Henry and tell
he's a sinner. It's easy back and forth. But
the question is, am I a sinner? And it's easy to look at the
other person and say, oh, poor Violet, I can tell she's born
dead. Well, you know, am I born dead? When Adam died, did I die? And
it's got to be personal. And here's how it comes to you.
When God Almighty reveals that we're born dead, it comes someone
like this. We get a glimpse of the law.
Paul said, I saw the commandments. And he said, sin revived. You
see, as an example, I see the commandment that thou shalt not
kill. And I come to understand and see that, except for the
grace of God, I'd have killed more people than Charles Manson
did. Because when Adam died, God removed all the restraints.
All my restraints on my sinful nature
were removed. I'd have done anything except for the grace of God.
And we hear the commandment, Thou shalt not kill, and we get
spiritual life. We consider some of the people
we have killed. He said, wait a minute, I've
never killed anybody. I've never pulled out a gun and shot him,
but maybe not. Maybe not. The issue is, have you ever done
this? You ever been driving down the highway? Some guy comes in,
boy, he cuts you off, and you go, you blow your car over. I tell you what, it's a good
thing we're not in 007 with one of those cars where the headlights
come up and rockets fire out, right? We'd have blown him and
that car clean off the highway, wouldn't we, huh? Yeah, we'd
kill him if we could. Now listen, now listen, we would.
And we get that we get to come to understand how to kill that
man. If I could have, we come to understand that we murdered. Did you ever do this? Did you
ever somebody say something to you and they turn their head
and you go? You look at him so that that's
what they say, boy, it looks could kill. That's exactly what
it means. I could kill you. I would. Or
have you ever done this? Have we ever simply kill someone
murdered someone by refusing to speak to them. I'm put out
with you about so. I just want to speak to you this
week, maybe next week, maybe not again ever. You know what
I'm saying? I'm saying I wish he was dead. That's murder, folks,
and when the law comes, sins revived, and I understand I'm
dead. I'm dead. I've murdered, when
the law says thou shalt not kill, I understand, I've murdered untold
thousands with my looks. How many reputations have I killed
with my tongue? Said things that were unnecessary
or untrue or unkind. I killed them. And do you know
what the feeling we get is when we come to that understanding?
We go, oh God Almighty, what I did to them, it just It kills
me what I did, what I thought, what I said. It kills me? Yeah,
it does. When Adam died, I understand
I died. I got killed there, too. You see that? When we read the
Word, we understand that we've not loved God with all our heart,
soul, and mind. I'm dead. That we've not loved
our neighbors as ourselves. I died. we see. Blessed are your eyes if they
see that the reservations Adam made for us, we deserve them. We deserve the reservations.
When Adam died, I died. It's no wonder at the end of
this chapter 7, Romans, Paul said, O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from this body of what? Body of death. Body of death. Paul came to understand
he was dead. When Adam died, he died. Now,
the second thing, turn over to Romans Here's the second simple
thing that born-again folks come to understand. Number one is
that when Adam died, I died. Secondly, they come to understand
that those who have spiritual life realize that when Christ
died, I died. That's the second thing. Now,
this is good news, folks. Look at Romans 5, verse 6. For
when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet for adventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
That means when he died, I died. You say, I wasn't even there.
That's right. That's right. But when he, in
God's sight, when Christ died, I died. And this has to get personal,
too. We reach a point where we understand
when we read in the Scriptures that a man came up to the Lord
Jesus Christ and took the palm of his hand and just smacked
him in the face just as hard as he could, he smacked me in
the face. When that guy came up with that
cat of nine tails and just tore the flesh off the back of our
Lord, he's tearing off my back. When they got him up on that
hill and they drove nails through his hands and feet, they were
driving them in my hands and feet. I tell you what, I could
get some real empathy with the Lord Jesus Christ if somebody
ever really drove a nail through my hand. And we've got to understand,
When Christ died, I died, that's what they did to me. It's just
like they did it to me. When he cried out, Oh God, why
hast thou forsaken me? That's me crying out, Oh God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And I'll tell you what, folks,
if we can't get to that point where we understand that when
Christ died at Calvary, I died, you know what's going to happen?
God Almighty's going to make me realize what that death was
like someday in me. I'm going to have to either have
died in Him, or I'm going to have to die like that myself.
Do we realize that? This punishment must be given
out to me, and it's either given to me really someday, or it'll
be given to me in Christ. I think I'll take my punishment
in here. And that's what born-again people come to understand. Number
one is that when Adam died, I died. Number two, when Christ died,
I died. And then thirdly, here's the third thing. Turn to 1 Corinthians
15 with me. The third simple thing that spiritually
alive folks understand is that the Lord Jesus Christ did not
stay dead. He arose from the dead. He lives
now. He lives now. And here's the
third thing. As he lives, I live. Look here
in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 22. For as in Adam all die, even
so in Christ shall all be made alive. Now, let's not misunderstand
this verse. A lot of men take this verse
and twist it to their own destruction. It does not say here that everybody
who dies is in Christ, that they have life in Christ, and then
it's up to you or some such foolishness. Get it in the context of what
we've said and in how it's written here. Here's what this means.
The first part of the verse says, For as in Adam all die. How many
of us were in Adam? All of us were in it. Everybody
in this town was in Adam. Everybody in this state, in this
country, in this world was in Adam. And therefore, all in Adam
died, spiritually, didn't they? The second part of this verse
is, all who are in Christ are made alive. Now, doesn't that
make sense? That's just, I mean, why twist
that? That's what it means, is that
those who are in Christ are made alive. Turn back a few pages
to Romans chapter 5. Not only do I need something
done about the sinful way I've lived, that's why Christ had
to die in my place. is that some had to be done with
my sin, had to be punished, and therefore when Christ died, I
died. My sin's taken care of, but that's not enough. The other
thing I need if I'm going to go into God's presence someday
is I've got to have a righteousness. I've got to be able to go into
his presence as if I were perfect. I'd live the perfect life. Well,
the only way that's going to happen, look here in Romans 5,
verse 15, but not As the offense, so also is the
free gift. For if, through the offense of
one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift
by grace, which is by one man, that's Christ Jesus, hath abounded
unto many. Look at verse 17. For if by one
man's offense death reigned, that's Adam, much more they which
receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness,
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. In verse 19. For as by
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, So by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous." The truth of the situation is
that if God Almighty looks at me the way I've lived, I'm a
dead duck. I'll have to die. I'll have to
die. I'm already dead spiritually,
but I'll have to die physically forever. I can't pay the price.
But if God Almighty looks at me the way I've lived and sees
the way Christ lives, all He can then say, My beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased. Do you see that? That's the issue. When Adam died, I died. When
Christ died, I died. And as Christ lives, I live.
As He lives. And this, too, becomes personal.
You say, What's the proof that this is all all right? Here's
the proof. You see, the proof that the Lord
Jesus Christ was righteous and holy in all He did, listen to
this now, is that He never in thought or deed He never stole,
like I have. He never stole. In fact, he fed
5,000 with a couple of fish and five loaves. Do you know, he
never committed adultery in thought or deed, but rather redeemed
a woman who was taken in the very act of adultery. He never
murdered, but rather gave himself to be murdered, crucified for
his own. He never ran from or pointed
to the sick and the infirm. He touched the lepers and made
them whole. He didn't covet or envy. He never
even had a pillow to sleep on, or a pillow to lay his head on. He was never proud, but had himself
born in a cow stall, worked in a carpenter's shop. You see,
he was obedient in all things. At the age of eight, he said,
I've got to be about my father's business. He loved the Lord God,
his Father with all his heart, soul, and mind, and his neighbor
as himself. And do you know what the proof
of that is? He lives. He lives. He lives. He went in the tomb, but he rose
again. That's because he's perfect.
There was no unrighteousness in his life. Do we see that?
And what he lives for now is to give that life to his people. As he lives, I live. Now those
are the three simple truths. They're so easy to understand.
I want you to turn to turn over to John fourteen, and I'm just
about finished. But as you're finding John fourteen,
I want you to listen. Listen to this scripture, I'm
going to quote you a scripture from First Peter. This scripture says is written
to the elect according to the foreknowledge of God. So if you're
one of God's people, you can rejoice in what this says. Now
listen to what this says. We have an inheritance that's
incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away. It's reserved
in heaven for you. Oh, there's another set of reservations.
Isn't that what the word says? You have an inheritance. It's
incorruptible, it's undefiled, and it's reserved in heaven for
you. There's another set of reservations besides those that Adam made.
And let me illustrate it to you this way. It's been over a year ago. In
the summer months my children were out of school and I had
a business trip to Washington. And I told Becky, I said, come
on, y'all go with me. And we all did. We took off and
they went to Washington with me. And we were leaving pretty
suddenly and I thought, you know, coming home I've heard about
that place called the Greenbrier. And I believe I'll call that
travel guy I use sometimes and have him make a reservation for
us coming home on that Friday. And I'll surprise Becky and the
kids and we'll go in there and have a big time. And we were
leaving in too big a hurry and I finally said, maybe it won't
work out that way so we'll forget it. So we got to D.C. and we
were coming down I-64, coming home, and it was getting late
in the day, and I told Becky, I had one of those AAA guides,
you know, and it's helpful to me at times. I said, I didn't
want, I was going to surprise you, but I said, you get the
book there and look up Greenbrier so I can call and see if they
got a room tonight. And she said, oh, I've heard that's a nice
place. And she gets and opens up. She read a minute and she
said, I think you may want to look this over before we stop
there. I said, OK. And I looked at it. Y'all know what? You may know
this. Do you know what the cheapest room at the Greenbrier for my
wife and two children and I would be a night? Hang on to your pew. Five hundred and nineteen dollars. Now, folks. That's a reservation
I'm glad I didn't make. It wouldn't take a whole lot
of that to bankrupt me. Hmm.