If you wish to follow along,
I want to begin reading in Romans 5 verse 18 again this morning. Romans 5 verse 18, I will try
not to keep you too long, but that only means that it will
be less than an hour. Verse 18, therefore, as by the
offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation.
In other words, that means everyone Adam represented, when he fail,
they fail all the way to condemnation. We are totally depraved. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men under justification of
life. And this all men is all that
Jesus Christ represented. These two numbers in the final
total are not the same. Now I know religionists despises
someone like me to stand up and say that. But remember, Paul
has established substitution by Jesus Christ. He did that
in verses six all the way through verse 11. And he says this, when
Christ died on that tree, he reconciled to God everyone for
whom he died when he died on that tree. And because he is
now still living, he's raised from the dead, seated at God
the Father's right hand, everyone that he died for and reconciled
to God, when he died for them, they shall be saved by his life. So let's move on. For as by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners, we were not asked
our thought about the matter. So by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Therefore this does not depend
upon any man's will. Moreover, the law entered, and
Paul ably gave us some words on that. Moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound, and it does abound. All God has
to do is open our eyes just a wee little bit, and we'll begin to
see the corrupt state of our condition in Adam. And I don't
think any of us has really seen it like it really is yet. I think it would frighten this
door to go crawl up in a ball somewhere in a corner. Moreover,
the law entered that the offense might abound, and it does. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. Grace, God Almighty's grace,
God Almighty's powerful sovereign grace, has the authority over
sin. that as sin hath reigned unto
death, and it did. It did. Even so might grace reign. The might here is not maybe it
will, maybe it won't, but it's based upon this. Even so might
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. Now here is my text for this
morning. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that
are dead to sin live any longer therein? And I will stop there
for this day's message. Now I have attempted to read
from God's book distinctly I now want to, as in the days of Ezra,
I want to give the sense and cause us to understand the reading
thereof. You'll find that in Nehemiah
8. Romans 6, this is my text. Romans 6, one and two. Romans
6, one. What is our response then to
the truth that grace superabounds where sin abounded? even where it abounded. What's
our response then to this truth? And what's our response then
to the truth that grace reigns as sin reigned? What shall we
say? Is this to be our response, Paul's
saying? I'm giving you the sense of what
he's saying there. Is this to be our response? Well,
let's continue to be sinful and let's just sin as we so desire
in order that grace may abound. What is Paul's answer? Give you
the sense, Romans two. There's the sense, absolutely
not. Never, never, never. Reject the thought. The KJV translates
it, God forbid. Now, the word theos, the Greek
word for God is not in that phrase. This phrase, God forbid, is an
old English phrase. meant to describe the sense of
what the Greek was portraying. The word God is not in there. But it's this, it is this, as
I said, absolutely not. Never, never, never reject the
thought, here is the Greek word for word, Greek to English. And
I'm not trying to be coy and I'm not trying to find some deeper
meaning. Because often I think we look
for deeper meanings. What's this really mean? It means
exactly what it says. And if it causes me pain, or
fear, or doubt, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Religion, false
religion, humanistic religion, free will religion, anti-Christ
religion, that still calls itself Christian, Antichrist religion
wants everything in the Bible to soothe me, make me feel good
about myself and my profession and my Christianity. The words
of God are designed to awaken us to our true condition. And when we're caused pain, if
we're truly converted by the gospel of Christ, it will force
us anew and again to run to the feet of Jesus Christ. So here it is, word for word,
Greek to English. We who died to sin, how still
shall we live in it? Simple enough, ain't it? If you
take the Greek words and just put it, you know, the Greek,
translate it, we who died to sin, how shall we live in it?
Here's the Amplified Bible. And there, I'm giving you the,
certainly not. How can we who died to sin live
in it, that is sin, any longer? Now, I would also venture to
say this. Maybe this is not true of everyone
here, or even others who are hearing me right now live stream,
or maybe, as I say in another venue somewhere, hear this message.
I was so steeped in humanistic, man-centered, free will, anti-Christ
religion, that my mind has trouble realizing and understanding that
Jesus Christ is the sum and substance of all the truth of God. Paul has not left. He's asking
a question because of that as sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign, not us reign. But grace reign through
righteousness and not our righteousness. unto eternal life by, and here's
the key to everything that we will continue to read throughout
this book, by Jesus Christ our Lord. But I was so steeped in
this false religion that still wants to call to itself the name
of Christianity that my mind still has a hard time shedding
all that rubbish. Still has a hard time shedding
all that rubbish. I'm reminded, was it Nehemiah?
One of the first things they had to do before they could even
begin to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem was what? They had
to remove the rubbish. And I'm still dealing with the
rubbish of my old self and my old religion. Are you? Are you? Now if you're not, I'm
glad for you. If you've got all your rubbish
cleaned up, I'm glad for you. But I'm not here to argue with
you, yay or nay on those things, I'm just proposing, trying to
be honest as I can. The questions to be considered
then are these three. Now there are more questions,
I understand that, but I want to try to get to the nitty gritty,
and I won't do it this morning, this is gonna be preliminary.
And before I go any further, before I give you the question,
here's my title, here's my subject. What shall we say then? Paul's asking for a response.
The answer to a question, right? Here are three questions that
I have derived from this. Number one, who then is dead
to sin? Isn't that a question? It's a
valid question based upon the context, correct? Who then is
dead to sin? And let me stop. When I talk
about sin, yes I mean, hold on, yes I mean things like this. Unrighteousness, fornication,
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, deceit,
debate, malignity, whispers. Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful. I'm talking about those things,
that's sin. That's sin, but sin is also this, telling someone
else, verse 19 of chapter two, are thou confident that thou
thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which sit in
darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes,
which has the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law?
Thou therefore which teacheth another, don't steal. Do you
steal? And there's a whole lot more
ways to steal than to pick something off, pickpocket something off
the shelf at the grocery store, stick it in your pocket and not
pay for it. Men try to rob God's glory. Men
try to gain and get to themselves the glory that's due to God alone. especially when it comes to the
person and work of God's Son. They will make statements. They are bold enough to make
this kind of statement, and it's sin, just like all these other
things. This list I've just read to you. God's done all he can
do. Now it's up to you. That's a
sin. That's a sin even to contemplate.
God's never done all he can do. God, and this may not be the
best way to put this, folks, so if there's a better way, I
understand you're feeling against the words here, but God is long,
this will be, God is long-suffering with this world. And He's so much so that He says
that even the wrath of man shall praise Him. But anything else,
He's gonna do what with it? If it's not gonna praise Him,
what's He gonna do? Even wrath, He'll restrain it. So God can
do a whole lot more than he does. He could have put us all in hell
as soon as we began to take our first breaths. Or maybe later
as we begin to become conscious of self and self-will and religion
and false religion at that. I'm saying sin can still be this.
Here you got somebody that believes in creation. Creation. Here you got somebody that believes
in the 10 plagues that God brought upon Egypt. Here you got somebody
that believes that God dried up the Red Sea, and the Israelites
walked through on dirt, dust, and then when the Egyptians came
through after, God moved the walls back in. Here's some people
that believe that Jesus of Nazareth actually was born into this world, and was born of a virgin. And
here's some people that believed he lived a righteous life, died
the death of the cross, was buried, rose again, and went back to
glory. But they believe he just gave it his best shot at saving
sinners. He has, as the proverbial phrase,
Christ has done all he can do, now it's up to you. That's sin. A form of the truth. Just enough
Bible, just enough scripture, just enough truth to soothe the
conscience. but if I could put myself at
least up near God's throne, I feel a little better about myself.
You realize that one of the first sins we're ever told of is when
Satan tried that very thing? I will, I will, I will. And man has been caught up with
I will ever since our daddy Adam sinned in the garden, we've been
caught up with I will. Men pronounce man's will as his
hope of acceptance before God. Do they not? Am I building a
straw man and beating a straw man? They'll tell you free will's
your ticket to glory. I'm telling you your will is
your ticket to hell. My will is my ticket to hell.
So, who then is dead to sin? More than just a bunch of immoral
stuff. Now, don't you dare misunderstand
me. I'm not poo-pooing, as we say,
the immoral stuff. False self-righteousness is a
sin. As a matter of fact, in such
a way that here you had, Christ illustrated it by two men, one
a Pharisee and one a publican. And one refused to even lift
up his eyes to heaven and he cried out for God's mercy. The
other one bragged about what he did. And he was doing what
he was bragging about he did. Christ said that bragger on himself
did not go to his house justified. That old sinner that cried out
for mercy, he went down to his house justified. Justified. So who then is dead to sin? We
better start getting a little idea of what sin really is. It
ain't just adultery. It ain't just stepping out on
your spouse. It ain't just child molestation. It ain't just murder. It's trying to get the glory
of God to yourself. What's the one thing God hates?
Pride. Pride in man. But here's a second
question. What does dead to sin mean? That's a good question. What does dead to sin mean? Now
just a foretaste. Even now today as a believer,
that's true for me and for you, you are not dead to the presence
of sin. You are not dead to the existence of sin. You are not
dead to the influence of sin. And you are not even dead to
being caught up in a sin. None of us are. As a matter of
fact, John puts it this way. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves. If we say we have not sinned,
or maybe it's the other. But anyway, sin and sin. None
of us can say we don't have that. Here's the third question. and
how do we not live in sin? You wanna know the answers to
those questions? They're right here, yeah, they're right here.
Now, Paul answers the who then is dead to sin in verses three
through seven. Paul answers what does dead to
sin mean, verses eight through 11. And Paul then deals with
the reality of sin still existing in those dead to it, and the
means of not living in it in verses 12 through 23. God willing,
we'll deal with that in some detail in the weeks to come. God willing, but I wanna give
you just something. If you think about this for the
rest of the message, that's fine too. If the spirit of God, I
mean, who am I to tell you what you gotta listen to in this message?
I wanna give you a word. It's referred to twice. Actually more, but actually referred
to twice. The word is actually mentioned
in a couple forms five times in this one chapter. You know
what the key to all this is? When it comes to, I'm talking
about not living in sin? Yield. Yield. Yield. Yield. Or, not yielding. Not yielding. Both apply. Now us good old Calvinists
have best realized that Calvinism don't save us, it's Jesus Christ
that saves us. And he saved us for a purpose,
to honor and glorify him. Now, not just when we get to
glory. To live for him now, not just
when we get to glory. To yield our will now, not just
when we get to glory. Well, my flesh is so strong,
it ain't stronger than God's grace. Now, if you got any of
that in you, you can not yield when you shouldn't yield, and
you can yield when you should yield. Greater is he that's in
you than he that's in the world. And it's God that works in us
both to will to do of his good pleasure, and if you can't, you
just cannot find it in you to will to do his good pleasure,
then that means he ain't working in you. Hmm? Salvation ain't just getting
to miss hell and getting to go to heaven. It's actually, we
were predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's son. And that begins when he first
regenerates us and converts us. And it begins there, not just
in glory one day. So as I said, Paul answers that
question. Keep that in your mind. Keep
this truth, yield. I wanna stop and preach on that
so much right now, but I know I've got more to write down concerning
that. Hear me now, listen to me. We'll
try to be brief through this. We'll give you seven things and
then summarize it. And I'll not say a lot about
these seven things. Grace superabounds. It's nothing
new now, folks. But we, oh God, help us just
to believe God in his word. to trust him in this matter and
not think, well, there's some secret that I can figure out
and everything will be better. No, it won't be better. You will
still be crying out the rest of your life on this side of
the grave or the rapture, one or the other, old wretched man
that I am. But then you can also say, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. As a believer, you will always
have both of those things. If you ever grow above either
one of them, you're in trouble. You hear what I said? If you
ever grow above or out of or beyond either one of those things,
you are in trouble. So again, grace super abounds
where sin abounds. And where does sin abound? Anybody
know the right place to point to? Where does sin abound? I
can't point out here. Right here. That's where it abounds. Now yeah, it abounds in you too,
but if I'm just pointing my finger at you, I'm nothing but a self-righteous
hypocrite. Grace super abounds where sin
abounds, so that grace reigns not sin, if the grace of God
is in you. Number two, sin never abounded
so grace could abound. Now I was often taught that way.
Sin abounded so, that's what they're saying. God's done all
he can do, now it's up to you. And God's grace will work for
you if you kind of take the initiative. Well, folks, if he don't take
the initiative, I could never not live in sin. Never, ever,
ever. There was a time when I was free
from righteousness. Verse 20, for when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. You had no ability to righteousness.
You didn't even know what real righteousness was. Oh, you thought
you did, but you didn't. Sin never abounded, so grace
could abound. Here's the third one. Sin never
abounded in order that grace could abound. It's not what Paul
says here anywhere, does it? Fourthly, God's reigning grace
preceded even sin, yea, even abounding sin through the law
being manifested and given. God's grace existed before sin
ever existed because God's grace is a quality, a characteristic,
a perfection in the eternal God. When only God, there was some
kind of time or whatever, I don't even know how to say it, but
there was when only God was. No sin existed except that which
God knew would come to pass. You understand what I'm saying?
No sin actually exists. The angels are even created beings
and the angels are the first creatures that we're told in
this book that fail. God was gracious then and his
reigning grace reigned then. How can I say such a thing? Because
Christ was as a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Grace is not what God had to
come up with because sin happened. Now let me read one, verse 17. But God bethanked that ye were
the servants of sin. What? But ain't that what that
says? Now I know the religionists will
say, well, but you need to explain it. What does it say? But God
bethanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from
the heart. We would not have known, God
knew his grace. God's full of grace. He's the
God of all grace. But we could not have known the
glory and magnificence of God's grace apart from our sin. The angels don't understand.
They know he's gracious, but they can't relate to it. The
angels that didn't fall and the angels that fail, they can't
relate to it either because they didn't get none of it. They didn't
get any of God's grace. The only thing that I could say
is even close to grace, but I'm not gonna call it grace, is he
didn't send them all right to hell to start with. You understand
what I'm saying? God's reigning grace preceded
even sin, yea, even abounding sin. Number five, God's grace
never abounds because sin abounds, but rather where sin abounds. Sian never had the upper hand
on God. That's what I'm trying to say.
Sian never caught God off guard, so he had to come up with some
alternative plan. Even man's failure under law,
past, present, and future, did not catch God off guard, and
Jesus Christ was his last ditch attempt. He had planned redemption
through Jesus Christ before the first sinner ever even existed. Somebody says, well, my preacher
don't preach like that. It's because your preacher's
lost and he doesn't know God. Number six, God's grace preempts
sin. It came before sin. It reigns
over sin. It, now God's grace, not you,
not me. God's grace reigns. Number seven,
the power of grace is not in sin. but rather in grace overpowering
sin, so that grace reigns. That's where it's at. Just a
little example. Do you remember, do you recall,
now maybe as you get older, I know it's kind of a distant thing,
but do you remember when God first began to open your eyes,
and your ears, and your heart, and you began to realize how
corrupt, how much lack of spiritual understanding you had, it was
starting to seep in, if I could put it that way. And it's like,
even though it may have been just a speck of spiritual light,
it felt like the heat and brightness of the noonday sun. When God
first began to open your eyes and your ears and your heart,
and the truth began to dawn on you about who you are. and who
Jesus Christ is, and God by his power brought you from one place
to the other. From darkness and translated
you into the kingdom of his dear son. That's the power of grace. Now after he saves it, is it
any less powerful? If the grace you got back then
don't have the power to keep you going now, what you got back
then ain't worth spit. We don't keep ourselves, we are
kept by him. We're kept in the way by him.
Not just kept so I go to heaven, but kept in the way. Even when
I fall flat on my face, I will not utterly perish because God
will not let me perish if I'm one of his. That song we sang,
I know a lot of people can't relate to it. The first three
or four verses are just, They're just morbid. Are they not? But
that's what I am down in here, morbid. Folks, the last two or
three verses ain't that morbid. They're filled with hope. Hope. I at least got some love of being
with God's people. I care about joining with God's
people in spite of what I see when I look down in the air.
So let me sum it up. God help us to always be reminded
of this. Verse 21 of our present chapter,
chapter six. What fruit had ye then in those
things whereof you're now ashamed? Where did it get you? Oh, how often, why do you think
we get, why do you think he mentions that shit? Don't we always know
that? We always know it, but we lose sight of it. Especially
when we've been doing pretty good for a while. Next thing
you know, the bottom falls out, huh? What fruit had you then
in those things where of now you're, now if you're not ashamed
of them, you ain't never been delivered from them, right? But what fruit, what gain was
it? What fruit had you in those things where of you're now ashamed?
For the end of those things is what? Death. You know, living
in sin makes you miserable. Though for a time it has great
pleasure, but its end game is shame and guilt and corruption
and ruin and just sometimes total despair. But now being made free
from sin, you see it? and become the servants to God,
and become servants to God. Ye have your fruit unto holiness. And the end, not in the end,
the end of that. Now, there's an end even now.
Everlasting life, for the wages of sin is death. But look at
it. It's still the gift of God. You
see it? Even going on, still what? It's
a gift of God. But the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Martin Luther, and it's
not an exact quote, I didn't write it down, I heard it quoted,
I probably should have wrote it down, but I'll give you the
gist of it. Martin Luther said this thing about living in sin,
and that some don't live in sin. Isn't that what he says? Man's
dead to sin, doesn't live any longer therein. He said, I cannot
keep the birds from flocking. but I can sure keep them from
nesting. Now you think about that for a little bit. Why? Not
because I'm powerful, but because I have the grace of God upon
me and within me. I can't keep them from flocking,
but I can sure, when I see that nest starting to be good, I flip
it off. Brush it off. Father, oh God, teach us, lead
us, guide us, strengthen us, enable us, and keep us under
your heavenly kingdom. In Christ's name, amen.