Turn again tonight, if you would,
to that sixth chapter of Romans. Romans chapter 6. We finished up the sixth chapter
last week with the exception of the last verse. I suppose I would have to say
that this last verse of Romans 6 is pretty much a summary of
the whole book of Romans. And not only that, but surely
for the most part a summary of the Bible. and certainly a summary
of the Gospel. Paul says in that last verse,
verse 23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. There are many what I call butts
of grace in the Scriptures, and they are put by the Spirit of
God in the midst of such verses as these to contrast on the one
hand what we deserve and what God has given to His
people in Christ. If you look back at verse 17,
he said, but God be thanked. You were the servants of sin,
he says, but God bethanked that ye were the servants of sin,
but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was
delivered you. When Paul writes to the Corinthians,
he says this, As it is written, I have not seen nor e'er heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. But, but God hath revealed
them unto us by His For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God." And then I'm sure you will remember
what he says there in Ephesians 2. He writes to those Ephesians. He said, you were dead in trespasses
and sins. And you walked according to the
course of this world. You were the subjects of Satan
himself, but God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith
He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened
us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved." There is no greater contrast
in all of time or eternity than the one we find in verse 23. All people, without exception,
will face the first part. But only those who are the objects
of the free and sovereign grace of God in Christ will receive
the latter part. There are two things that are
distinguished, one ahead of that but and the other behind the
but. They are entirely different and
they are those things in which all people, every person born
in this world from Adam's day until Christ comes, with the
exclusion of Christ himself, will be found in one or the other
of these categories. Now, look first of all at what
he says in the first part. for the wages of sin is death."
And you know, oddly enough, that word wages there is used in other
places to speak of a soldier's pay. In other words, a soldier
After he had been a long time in a military campaign for his
king, he would receive at the end of it a ration, or his pay,
so that the apostle writes in Luke 3, And the soldiers likewise
demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said
unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely,
and be content with your wages." You see what the Apostle is saying
here is he has been likening sin to a king or to a master,
and he now says that the wages of the soldier of sin will be
death. That thing that men fear the
most, and yet they fear natural death, not even knowing about
the real death that he's talking about here. But he's saying that
that which a man or a woman earns or deserves, that which is their
proper pay, or what they merit because of sin, is death. That's exactly what he's saying. With regard to sin, it means
that this particular death is what sin deserves, and that will
surely be its proper reward. There's no getting by that. There's
no making that better. There's no covering that up. There's no dressing that up. It is simply that death is what
we deserve as sinners. Now, my thought was, when I read
that again today, my thought was, do I really believe that? Do you really believe what the
Apostle is led by the Spirit of God to say to us that the
wages of sin, or what our sins deserve and shall have, is death? Do we understand this? You see, I don't think many people
really understand this because they can be content with a religion,
with a gospel that glosses over the greatest problem of all our
race, the matter of sin. Not only do we believe this,
do we confess this. You see, what the Bible shows
us is that not only is this a fact, this is just. This is the justice
of God. This is what is deserved, and
this is what God promised and what He threatened. all the way back with our father
Adam, when he said in so many words to Adam, in the day that
you sin, in the day that you eat of that tree in the midst
of the garden, which is simply evidence of what sin is, rebellion
against God, in the day that you sin, you will surely die." And die He did. He died to God. He died to truth and light. And so God says to us in the
book of Ezekiel, He says, Behold, all souls are mine. You see, we have a notion a kind
of a feeling, and it's fostered by false religion that somehow
we're in possession of ourselves and of our souls. He says, all
souls are mine. And what he means by that is
not only that he possesses all souls, but he has, as the possessor
of them, the right to do with them what He will. God can do with your soul what
He will. He can do with me what He will. And the only thing that confines
Him or restricts Him is that He must be just. He says, all souls are Mine. as the soul of the Father, so
also the soul of the Son is mine, and the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Now, we can do everything we
want not to face that reality. We can imagine that we have more
problems greater difficulties than that, but we have nothing
greater than that problem. The soul that sins shall surely
die. Have you ever sinned? I suspect
you have. Have I ever sinned? I surely
have. As a matter of fact, the Bible
says that sin is not simply what we do, it's what we are in the
sight of God. The natural mind, the natural
man, what we are as men and women come into this world, he says,
is enmity against God. James says it like this, when
lust hath conceived it brings forth sin, and sin when it is
finished brings forth death. Legal death? like the death we
died when we died according to that fifth chapter in Adam. In Adam, he says, all died. Physical death, that death that
this body meets, is the consequence of sin. And then he describes
it also as an eternal death. We died in Adam. We will all
die physically. And without the Lord Jesus Christ,
we will die eternally, which is to be separated from God forever. Hold your place here and turn
over to Revelation, the twentieth chapter. Revelation and chapter 20, where
John is given in this revelation the very sight or vision of how
everything will be throughout all of the history of these last
days, right down to the final hour on this earth. Listen to him in Revelation 20
and verse 6. He says, blessed and holy is
he that hath part in the first resurrection. What is that? That's the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. God raised Him from the dead. He says, blessed and holy is
he that hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second
death. hath no power." I don't know
about you, but that really interests me. There's something about having
a part in the first resurrection, he says, which is none other
than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He says those who have
a part in that resurrection, the second death, hath no power
on them. But they'll be priests of God
and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. They reign with Christ. Look
on down also in verse 14, or verse 13. He says, after seeing the dead,
small and great, stand before God They're being judged out
of the books. The verse 13 says, And the sea
gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered
up the dead which were in them. And they were judged every man
according to their works, and death and hell were cast into
the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written
in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. He says that is the second death. So he's talking here in such
plain language. And he's telling us in all these
places that this is the separation of the soul and body from the
very presence of God and to be cast into this eternal prison
with devils and fallen angels and God-hating rebels for eternity
without end. no prospect of ever getting out
because of sin, all sin, any sin. And it is a foolish thing
for any of us to imagine that we can categorize sin into big
sin and little sin There are no little sins, as someone said,
because there's no little God to sin against. And the wages of sin are, and
they always have been, and they shall be, because God determines
that judgment for sin which is against Him as death. In other words, all who are in
hell will be there, and some already are there because they
earned it. They deserve it for sure. They merited it without a doubt. But all who are in heaven, All
who enter into His holy presence, they will be there, not because
they earned it, but because of the gift of God's grace. As a matter of fact, that's what
He's doing. He's showing and contrasting
on one side what men can merit and deserve And then he's showing
the opposite of that, which is what men are given as the gift
of God. That's what he says. For the
wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord. In other words, Eternal life
is not what is deserved, but it issues from the grace of God. I wonder in this world today
how many times the word grace was used in relationship to God. Many people, most people do not
have any understanding of what the grace of God is. It is literally the unmerited,
the undeserved, and apart from grace, even the unwanted favor
of God. Somebody described it in this
way. This is the grace bestowal of
God. He's talking about something
here that is freely given of God. And while religion in our
day sets forth before men and women all these things to do,
if you want to go to heaven, you do this. If you want to go
to heaven, you do that. And men and women by nature take
their very children from their knee and they spread this lie
into their hearts and minds by telling them in order to get
them to do what they want to, if you want to go to heaven,
you better be a good boy. Did your parents ever tell you that?
Mine did before they found out something about the gospel. You see, the gospel that men
in our day have is so contrary to this book because their gospel
says, do. You do this, and you do that,
and God will bless you. You do this, or you do that,
or you stop doing this, and God will favor you. They say God has a wonderful
plan for your life. He doesn't want you to be unhappy.
He doesn't want you to be unhealthy. He doesn't want you to be unwealthy.
That's a lie. You can read in this very book
and see where some of the most choiced children of God, they
were blessed with the grace of God and yet they suffered trial
and tribulation and hardship and poverty and persecution. And that didn't mean God didn't
love them. You see, but eternal life, this
which is spoken of here, eternal life is never given nor is it
spoken of apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Why is that? Because He said,
I am the way, the truth, and what? The life. And what that simply means is
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm talking about the one
of this book, everything is death. That's all
it is, is death. Why? Because He's the life. He is the life. And God's gift
of grace brings in this eternal life through Jesus Christ through
his justifying righteous death. In other words, this life comes
to those to whom it is given through a death. And that's the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Look back here in Romans 5. Romans chapter 5 and look down
in verse 15. Here's the same basic thing that
the Apostle spoke of. Romans 5 and verse 15. He says, But not as the offense,
so also is the free gift." Now, what is he saying there? Well,
he's been talking and contrasting, just like he does in verse 23,
about an offense on the one hand and a gift on the other hand. And he says that the gift and
the offense, the way they came about, they have very similar
principles, but they are at the same time very different. Where do they come from? One
comes from the first Adam, and the other comes through the one
who is called the last Adam, Jesus Christ. Now listen in verse
15, But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if
through the offense of one many be dead, That's all Adam's people, which
is all of us regardless of who we are, where we came from, whatever
it is. 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, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to
condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death
reign by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life." by one, Jesus Christ. 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, to boil that down to as
simple a way as I know how to explain it is, in Adam there
is nothing but death. And in Christ, there's nothing
but life. In Adam, we would get what we
exactly deserve. In Christ, we receive this grace
bestowed. And this is the case with everyone
who is in Adam. How many are in Adam? of all
the people who've ever lived on this earth, excluding the
man Christ Jesus, how many of them are in Adam? All of them. But not all of them are in Jesus
Christ. Oh, no. You see, I said all people. will
face the wages of sin, but only those given this grace in Christ
would receive eternal life. But how can that be? Well, did
he not say, the soul that sinneth shall surely die? If you sinned, You'll die. If I sin, I'll die. The soul
that sinneth, irregardless of who, when, or where they are,
they shall surely die." Well, if they all have to die,
how does anyone ever receive this life, this eternal life
that's in Christ? Because all of His people They all died in Him. You see, the death of Jesus Christ
is not merely a symbol of a cross. As a matter of fact, the Scriptures
teach us that we are not to involve ourselves in that kind of symbolism. He says, Thou shalt not make
unto me any graven images. Well, what's the cross about
then? The cross that Paul speaks of in all his epistles is the
dying of Jesus Christ. It's not that piece of wood he
hung on, not that simple that men take in our day and false
religion. It's what did he accomplish in
his death? Well, he satisfied the very justice
of God in the matter of sin. He received in Himself the full
wages of sin for all of His people, and He suffered under the hand
of God's justice the wages. Now, nobody is going to get by
in the matter of sin, and God's people, they haven't gotten by
in the matter of sin either. Because God describes Himself
in this way. He says a person or an individual,
He doesn't exclude Himself. One who justifies the guilty
is an abomination to God. And those who condemn the righteous
are an abomination to God. Well, you and me are sinners.
How does He justify us? Because he punishes the sins
of his people, everyone in Jesus Christ, when he hung on that
tree. That's why he's alive. Paul says
to the Lord's people, to these who believe the truth, he says,
we died in him, and when we died in him, we died to sin. Why? Because the debt paid is
no more. If you had a debt down at the
local store and you owed $50 and you walked in there one day
and you handed them $50 and you got a receipt for it and you
left and a little while later you got a bill in the mail that
said you owed $50, you'd be full of indignation. Why? Because that debt was paid,
that debt was satisfied. And what you are to receive as
a result of a debt being paid is this receipt which claims
the debt paid and shows it paid and shows us a free person from
that debt. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
is doing on that cross outside of Jerusalem. He's come, He said,
to lay down His life for His sheep. He's come to give Himself a ransom
for their sins. And all believers in Christ faced
that death for sin in Christ when He died for them. He's not waiting for you or me
to do something to make what he did effectual. If you go down to the store and
you pay that $50 dent in my behalf, then that debt is paid and there
is nothing left for me to do in order to make it pay. All
you'd have to do is come back to me and announce the good news
to me that my debt is paid in full. And that's what the gospel is. He says the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God. Well, you say, I'm just, I'm
looking for something to do. I'm trying to do something for
God. I'm trying to live right for God. All these things, well,
you ought to, but you'll still die in your sins apart from this gift. And what I found is that men
and women would rather have any and every kind of gift but this
one. This is the gift of God. This comes from the offended
one. This comes from the one we sinned
against. This comes to the one that we
could not deserve His help or favor at all, at any time. But He bestows it on some people
by His grace. You see, every one of His people
He sent His Son to die in their place, suffer their death as
their substitute. And dying that just death in
Him and being raised in Him, we have eternal life as a consequence. Outside of Him, all we have is
death. Paul says in that fifth chapter,
but God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. And we have eternal life, he
says, everyone who looks to Christ. I'm not saying everyone who joined
a church, everyone who got baptized, or everyone who quit some immoral
act or something like that. I'm talking about a gift. You remember that Samaritan woman
down by the well? She was talking about one thing
and the other thing, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who knew her
situation, she'd had five husbands, I believe, or something like
that, and the one she was living with wasn't her husband. He said,
if you knew the gift of God, you're here to get a pot of water. But if you knew the gift of God
and who it was standing before you right now, you'd ask of Him. And He'd give you that river
of living water that you'd never have to go to a well for and
drink again. Well, how can He favor such a
wretched woman? How can He favor somebody like
Simon Peter or Saul of Tarsus. How can he do that? Only in Christ. Only by bestowing
it on them as the free gift of His grace. This eternal life. But you see, eternal life is more than length of time. As far as length of time, the
time for the wages of sin is as long as the time of eternal
life. I hear people sometimes saying,
I wish I could just die and be over it. My friend, that's just
the beginning of it. In Hebrews it tells us that it
is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment. Eternal life is more than length
of days. It's more than life in a different
place. It's more than just life as we
are able to comprehend it in our natural selves. Eternal life. is to know the true God. Is that right? Well, hold your
place, if you would, and turn back over to John's Gospel. The Gospel of John and chapter
17. Now, if you were to overhear
a couple of authorities on a matter that happened or
a subject, and you heard, as we say from the horse's mouth,
how things really were, we'd believe it, wouldn't we? Well,
let me tell you where this conversation takes place. It takes place between
God the Father and His only begotten Son. John 17. Verse 1, These words spake Jesus,
and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is
come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee, as
thou hast given him power over all flesh. The Lord Jesus Christ here speaks
of the Father having given Him power, authority over all flesh,
your flesh, my flesh, everybody's flesh. But now listen to this
next statement, that He should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him." Now, listen to this next statement
Christ makes, "...and this is life eternal, that they might
know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent." What is eternal life? is to know the true and living
God in Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. Is that really right? We'll turn over to 1 John and
the 5th chapter. 1 John, the epistle of 1 John and
the 5th chapter. Listen to what he says in verse 11. And this is the record that God
hath given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. That's pretty simple, isn't it? He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto
you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may
know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God." Where is eternal life? It is
in Christ. And that simply means it is in
Him and in what He actually came into this world and accomplished
in His life and death. All right, look down in verse
20. And we know that the Son of God
is come and hath given us an understanding. Do we have this understanding?
He's given it to somebody. He's given us an understanding
that we may know Him that is true, even in His Son, Jesus
Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. You see, eternal life is to know
the true God, which is to know. That means to have knowledge
and understanding of and faith in and love for the true God
in the true Christ. And all these folks running around
here, they believe in Jesus. They believe in that one that
Paul warned against when he said, he said, I fear that if somebody
comes along preaching another Jesus or another gospel and another spirit, You'd quickly
believe on that one. But there's only one. And the
only way to know the one is from this book. Not what somebody
says about this book, but by what he himself says about himself
in this book. Christ said there in John 10,
I lay down my life for the sheep. I give unto them eternal life
and they'll never perish. Well, how do you know the sheep? He
said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow. me." They won't hear the voice of
a stranger. And this life that he is speaking
of finds its manifestation in those who receive it, in the demonstration of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't get eternal life as
a result of believing on Christ. You believe on Christ because
He has given you eternal life and the life, spiritual life,
that characterizes it. In John 5, our Lord says, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. Who has everlasting life? He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me. And that person will never come
into condemnation. As a matter of fact, they've
already passed from death unto life. Then he says in John 6, And this
is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth
the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and
I will raise him up at the last day." You see, eternal life is what
God promised to His people in that everlasting covenant before
the world began. John said in I John 2, and this
is the promise, that He hath promised us even eternal life. Believers, Paul says to Titus,
are in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised
before the world began. So he sends out, as he did in
Paul's day, his servants to preach the gospel,
the good news of life in Christ. And the Bible says that when
he preached, in Acts 13, when the Gentiles
heard the gospel of Christ, they were glad. and glorified the
word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life
believed." Who believed what Paul preached?
As many as are ordained to eternal life. Did they get eternal life by
an act of their will or by making a decision or something? No.
As many as were ordained, ordained by God to eternal life, they
believe. They may not believe at the first
when they hear it. And some may even, as that dying
thief, believe in what we might call the eleventh hour. But mark
it down, all of his sheep, that people out of every nation, kindred,
tribe, and tongue scattered throughout the earth, whoever they might
be, that he has fixed his love and choice on. He has marked
the time. And they shall believe, as he
says, unto eternal life. I can say that from Genesis to
Revelation, whether it's in the book of Moses
or the gospel of John, whether it's by an Old Testament prophet
or whether it's by a priest or a New Testament gospel preacher, it always says the same thing.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. God help us to look to Him who
paid the sin debt of His people And may we by his grace be found
numbered with that people and believe him. Our Father tonight, it is in
that high and holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are
gathered in this place. Lord, were it not for your promised
presence around the true gospel, it would be no other and no more
than any other place. But that which makes it sacred,
unique, is that the gospel of the glory
of Christ is proclaimed. And you are called, your people,
to gather around that gospel to worship you in spirit and
in truth. Lord, we reach out in our days
for those things that are passing and fading when that which we truly need
is the gift of your grace. that which you give in Jesus
Christ and Him crucified, that eternal life. Lord, we know that in our days
such as call themselves churches, who speak of the name of Jesus,
talk about God. They offer anything and everything. except the one thing most needful,
and that is to know God, to know you in Jesus Christ whom you
have sent, to know Him as God manifest in
the flesh, to know Him as the only Savior of sinners, to know
Him in His accomplished redemptive to know the one who died, to
know the one who put him to death, to know the ones he died for,
that they might have eternal life in him. We pray that you would help us,
have mercy upon us, receive our thanks and our praise tonight
for your goodness and mercy to the souls of your people. And
for all things we receive at your gracious hand, may we live
for your glory. May we acknowledge you as the
giver of every good and perfect gift. For we thank you and we
pray in Jesus Christ's name and by his blood alone. Amen.