Now this morning I want to speak
to you from Romans 5.12. The preacher has been preaching
for some weeks about things of the scripture. Do you really
believe that are one of his slogans? Romans 5.12 is a very wonderful
passage and I would like to thank this morning that Romans 5.12
is one of the most important passages in all of the Bible
when it comes to understanding the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Without an understanding of this
particular verse, you'll never understand what sin is and how
sin has affected the human race. So this morning, I want us to
spend our time just for a moment in looking at Romans 5.12. Now, I have three questions this
morning that I want to speak to you about, three questions
that I'll ask, and then I will attempt to answer those questions. My first question concerning
Romans 5.12, which says, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all
men, for all have sinned. About 40 years ago, the pastor
and I were in a bookstore and that's when we really began to
get into the doctrines of grace and we went in this bookstore
and we pulled every book they had in that store out on Romans
and we checked this verse to see if that book taught that
Adam was our federal head and that we all fell in him. Some of them did, some of them
didn't. didn't even think it was even
interesting enough to even bring that part out. Well, that's what
we're talking about this morning. My first question is this. What
happened in the garden? All heresies arise from a misunderstanding
of what happened in the Garden of Eden. If we go wrong here,
we go wrong everywhere. If we get this right, we will
not likely fall in grave era elsewhere. We have the idea,
man does today, that what happened in the garden has little or no
effect upon us, that salvation is really based upon your believing
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a choice, like pro-choice,
it is a choice of whether or not you are going to serve the
living God. But as we look at what happened
in the garden, we will see that it is not up to you to whether
or not you're going to serve a living God or a Lord Jesus
Christ. It has been determined by your
very nature that you will not serve God because you will not
have the capacity to. Not only you will not have the
capacity to serve God, you will have no will to serve God. Man has no inclination to come
to the grace of God or to seek after the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ because he has nothing within his nature to gravitate
toward God. This is what we're talking about. when we're talking about what
happened in the Garden. When Adam fell, the entire human
race fell with him. This is the teaching of the Word
of God. Yes, it's true. God, in His wisdom,
in the Garden of Eden, when Adam disobeyed God, his family, his
prosperity, all of those that came after him fell into a state
which they could not come to God. I would like to think that
the Garden of Eden before the fall was a time of innocence.
But after the sin of Adam, the world fell, the nature of man
fell, and there was no possibility of arising and going to the Father. Like that parable in the New
Testament of the good shepherd and that even of the prodigal
son, where the prodigal son came to the father. Remember in that
story that he came to himself while he was yet in the hog pen. He came to himself and he said,
I will go unto my father. For every person in this world
that has come to God, there has been a time that we came to ourselves. And as our pastor has preached
for some years, and even in recent times now, that we come to God
because God overpowers us and comes to us and reveals Christ
Jesus to our heart. Without this supernatural power,
Man has no knowledge, no desire to come to our Lord Jesus Christ. There was a time that we sat
in churches and they gave an altar call and they would invite
people to come forward and come to the front and kneel at a martyr's
bench and kneel and cry and ask God to come into their heart.
Well, so much so. Regardless of what we do, walking
down an aisle, doing any deeds that you might think about, that
will not issue you the entrance into the grace of God. God has
to open the heart, as He spoke of this morning in the message.
Lydia's heart was open, and when her heart was open, she received
the Spirit of God, knowledge and truth came to her, and her
desires which were dead in trespasses and sins are now open to the
grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. If God leaves
us alone, if God fails to awaken our hearts to the knowledge of
our Lord Jesus Christ, dying for our sins, we will perish
and go to hell. This is the teaching, I believe,
in the Word of God. Our salvation this morning is
of the Lord. It is that the Lord Himself saves
us. He died for us and He is the
one that will awaken us out of our sleep and bring us to a saving
knowledge. And that word is important. A
saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Man is totally
ruined by the fall. And he is not, as has spoken
of in this day and time, partially handicapped. You know, a person
who is handicapped, we have difficulties. We have difficulties in walking.
We have difficulties in getting into our cars. We have difficulties
in getting into maybe a bathtub or taking care of ourselves.
Those are difficulties of this life. When we talk about the
grace of God, it is far beyond having a difficulty of having
an impairment to come to God. We must be redone. We must be regenerated. We must be renewed by the Spirit
of God. Not through preaching as a person
renewed. Not by the preaching of the gospel
is a person renewed. We preach the gospel which is
the truth of God to those who have heard from God already. Those must be enlightened before
they can hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the fall
has ruined us, made it impossible for us to come before God. Romans 5.12 again, Wherefore,
as by one man's sin entered the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. And then
I'd like to bring up 1 Corinthians 15.21 and 22. For since by man
came death, by man came also the resurrection of death. For
as in Adam all die, even so Christ shall make alive." Our hope this
morning, our hope of eternal life, is based on what God will
do for us, not what we might do for ourselves. That means
that all of the sons and daughters of Adam are spiritually and they
have no ability to come unto God. All of our transgressions
from the wounds is Isaiah 48, 8. No mother ever had to teach
a child how to lie, to cheat, or deceive. This is something
that is built in to every child when he comes into this world.
Why is that? It's because of the nature that
we share with Adam. Because man is born spiritually
dead and depraved, he cannot see, much less enter the kingdom
of God unless he is born again. Romans in John chapter 3. Repentance and faith are gifts
of God's grace brought to the heart of the chosen and redeemed
sinners of God by the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 1 in verse 19. Salvation
cannot be of the will of man because he is dead. Salvation
is of the will of God. Romans 9 verse 16. Salvation,
again, is of the Lord. It is a working of the Lord.
It is a preparation of the Lord. And it is the instillment of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, my second question is this. What happened on the cross? What
happened in the garden? And now, what happened on the
cross? That's the second question. Did
our Lord Jesus Christ, by substitutional sacrifice and atonement, make
redemption possible, or did it actually accomplish the redemption
on the cross? This is a question that is relevant
in this day and time. There's never been a time in
my life that is not more relevant today. Fifty years ago, I heard
this preached, and I thought it was relevant in that day.
But when you think that fifty years now has passed, and men
are no more educated today in the things of God than they were
fifty years ago. Man's heart is just as dead as
it was then. We still need the enlightenment
of Almighty God lest we perish. We find in Galatians 3 and verse
13 the Bible says Christ has redeemed us. He has obtained
eternal redemption for the elect. He did not just make it possible
for sin to be put away but he actually could get away. All
that we do here in this place, all that Christ has done is determined
by what he did upon the cross. If Christ's death is not effectual
to our life, then we are out of hope this afternoon for eternal
life. What Christ did on the cross
is the determining factor of, may I say it this way, it determines
who goes to heaven. If Christ died for you on Calvary,
then you go to heaven. If Christ did not die for you
on Calvary's cross, then you do not go to heaven. The general
impression of this day and time is that Christ has died all men
have an opportunity to go to heaven and most people believe
that everyone will go. There was a famous athlete who
died recently and it was said yesterday that he was a good
man and that we should pray for him. Pray for him. When we leave this life no prayers,
no candles will ever help us in influencing God to whether
or not we will be welcome into the gates of heaven. Our salvation
was based upon the eternity of God before the foundation of
the world and secured by the death of our Lord Jesus Christ
upon the cross and there's nothing more than that. And this verse
brings that out this afternoon. There is a song that we sang
and we don't sing it this way. We do not sing redeemed because
I believe it. But we do sing this song and
it goes like this, redeemed how I love to proclaim it, redeemed
by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed through His infinite mercy, His
child and forever I am. It's not whether I believe it
or not. The security of our salvation
is determined by the Redeemer. I am redeemed, yes, but I am
redeemed by the Redeemer. If we have the Redeemer, then
we have life and we have it more abundantly. Now, my third question
this afternoon is this. How is salvation accomplished? How is salvation accomplished? What happens when God saves a
sinner? Is salvation accomplished by
the will of man or by the will of God? John 1.13 says, Not of
the will of man, but of God. Not by the will of man, but of
God. I remember a few years ago, 40
I guess, There was this family that came to the church, and
they said to me, we're retired now, and we've decided to get
in church. We're 65, and it's time for us
to get in church. Because you see, as their retirement
programs, they had work, they had their social security, and
they have their pension, and they may even had a burial plan. And this is one thing that they
still lacked. They lacked a church. They lacked
a church home. They had to go to a church and
prepare and do what I would call penance in order to finish out
their life. These people were very sincere
when they told me this. It is time for us to go to church. We might have a will like that. We may have a desire to do that. But like this particular couple,
their desire didn't last very long. They came a few services,
but then they stopped coming after that. Their desire immediately
was to find a church and to get right with God because They thought
their time was close, and that's something they need to do before
they die. Best intentions in this world
is wonderful. And you might think of your children
sometimes, and your children come to you, and they might say,
Daddy, I've decided not to do those things anymore. Or I've
decided that I'm not going to run with that particular crowd
of kids. anymore and I've decided that
I'm not going to be involved in that social activity that
you know that I've done before. I'm not going to do that anymore. Well that makes a father happy.
That makes a mother happy too. But most likely your will and
your desire today will not be matched by future desire and
will. Because of outside influence
of other kids, that child will probably be pulled back into
the same old circle that you have been watching him to be
in for so long. So much it is in the nature of
man. We may have a desire temporarily
to go to church, We may have a desire to come and hear the
gospel. And so many people do. They come
and they say, I just want to hear the gospel. That's all I
want. I just want to hear the gospel. Well, they hear the gospel
a couple of times and they go away. Why is that? Because it
was their temporary choice. But the choice that God makes
for His people is a permanent one. It's one that will continue
on throughout your life because God is going to do something
that you will never be able to do. He'll do something for you
that you can accomplish for your children. You can take your children
and you can move to a better neighborhood. You can put them
into a better school. You can get them involved in
sports. And you can do this for them.
You can do that for them. But the outcome generally goes
right back to where you started from, from the beginning. But
when it comes to the child of God, the person who God comes
down and speaks life into, like he did Lydia's heart, that is
a work that's permanent and true and lasts throughout that life
and throughout eternity. We're talking about eternal security. We're talking about something
that will not fall apart or dissipate because of the trials and the
tribulations in this life. The fact is the trials and the
tribulations of this life will make our faith even stronger
instead of weaker. This morning, the work of God
brings to the heart of the, to the person. He brings, first
of all, regeneration. He makes that person alive in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He awakens him from a dark and
gloomy sleep. And then God resurrects that
person to a person, a corpse, spiritual corpse, and makes him
alive unto God, gives him an ear to hear, a heart to believe,
and to trust in something far greater than he is. And then God brings forth in
that person a new creation. Where God, where that person
was a man of this world, he makes that person a man of God. He instills into his soul and
he unites with that person. And that's the difference between
what we do for ourself and the self-help books and the glurals
that we have in this world. They are trying to influence
people to follow God. Regeneration and salvation is
something that does not influence us, it renews us from within. And then lastly, Christ. is in us. The work of God permeates
all of our consciousness. It permeates all of our will. Our minds and hearts are turned
toward God. And how is it that we will be
successful in this venture that God has come upon us? Because
it is not up to us. It's not up to us to will and
to do and to act and to perform this faith that is in God. Because our faith is Christ living
within us. God would not trust us to live
alone and to trust Him. He lives within us and acts through
us. And then one more thing, and
I'm going to let you go. We become partakers of a divine
nature. We become partakers. We become
Christ within us. We become a disciple of our Lord
Jesus Christ. We don't just take upon a form
of godliness. Godliness has overtaken us and
we now have become a partaker of a divine nature, which is
all opposite of what is taught and preached in this day and
time. I pray that as we continue to
study and as our pastor continues to preach to us, that our hearts
will be enlightened more and more to the understanding of
the graciousness and the mercy that is brought to us through
our Lord Jesus Christ.