Let's open our Bibles again to
Romans chapter 5. Now every time that we preach, every
message is vital. If it's not a matter of life
and death, we ought not be preaching it. So every message, if we're
going to preach Christ, every message has got to be vital,
doesn't it? But I hope you'll pay very, very close attention
to the message this morning. It's vital to our spiritual understanding. We can't understand any spiritual
truth. We can't begin to understand
how it is that God's saving sinners until we understand how we became
sinners. And how can a sinner be made
righteous? That's what our text teaches
us this morning. There's only one way any of us were made sinners. And there's only one way any
of us can be made righteous. It's through a representative.
That's the title this morning. This is the gospel of representation. God looks at the human race.
His all-seeing eye only sees two men. It only sees two men.
Two representative men. And God sees the rest of the
human race. one of those two men. They're
the representatives of the entire race. And God says, and so this
is all that matters because this is what God says. This is the
way it is because this is what God said. God says that all of
us have done exactly what our representative did. Every son
and daughter of Adam, every man, woman, boy and girl that's ever
lived, came from Adam's loins, was made a sinner. The moment
Adam Not when they first lied to their mama. Adam sinned. Adam is our representative. We
did what our representative did. And everyone who's in Christ,
everyone who's been born again with his nature, they were made
righteous. Not the moment they made a decision
for Jesus. They were made righteous when
the Lord Jesus Christ as a man obeyed God's law for them as
their representative. Now that's so simple. It's impossible
to misunderstand it. I pray the Lord give us the heart
to believe it this morning. Let's begin here, Romans 5 verse
11. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we've now received
the atonement. Now we begin with mighty good
news here. Paul tells us somebody's received
the atonement. That word atonement is reconciled.
Somebody's been reconciled to God. That's good news. But now
we got to go back. Why do we need to be reconciled
to God? What happened that caused this
need for reconciliation, the need for atonement was because
of what Adam our representative did to us. God created Adam in
the garden and Adam was upright, but he lost it. He fell into
sin. Adam had a righteous standing before God, but he lost that
standing in sin. Adam was a friend of God. Imagine at the end of the day,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the person of Christ, that's the only revelation
God will ever see. He came and walked with Adam
as a friend. They took a walk together. Adam
lost that friendship with God. Through his sin, Adam hated God. Oh boy. And when Adam lost all
those things, everybody he would ever descend from Adam's loins
lost indeed. We're born into this world having
never been a friend of God. We're born into this world never
having a righteous standing before God, never being upright. We
don't have the slightest clue what the experience of that is
in this flesh. We don't know. We lost it in
Adam. That's how we became sinners
that need an atonement. That's what Paul tells us in
verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man's sin entered into the world,
and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned. Now you know the story of the
garden. God created Adam, put him in
the garden. He took Eve out of his rib, put them in the garden,
gave them this beautiful, perfect place to live. And God told Adam,
you've got to run to the place. Everything is in subjection to
you. All the animals, all creatures, it's all animals and plants.
Everything is in subjection to you. A free run of this place.
Adam, of all the trees of the garden, you may eat freely. You
don't have to worry about eating too much, taking something from
God. It's all yours. It's all for you to eat. Except
for one tree, Adam. You can't eat of the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All the rest of
them. How many ever there were. You can eat all of them you want.
Except that one. Adam, The moment you eat that
fruit, dying thou shalt die. The moment you eat that fruit,
you're going to die spiritually. Eventually, you'll die physically.
And in absolutely no time at all, we don't know how long,
but it seems like in a very, very short time, Adam ate that
fruit. Willful disobedience against
God. When he did, he instantly died
spiritually. Because he died spiritually,
about 900 years later, he died physically. Sin entered the world
by Adam. Because of what he did, death
entered into the world because Adam brought sin into it. Sin
and death entered this world, and sin and death entered you
and me. Not just the world out there,
the world in here. It entered us because we sinned
in Adam. At the end of verse 12 there
where it says, for that all have sinned, literally translated
that is, in whom all sinned. All of us sinned in Adam. We all broke God's law in Adam. We became sinners, guilty of
breaking God's law because of what Adam, our representative,
did to us. Adam's guilt was imputed to us.
It was charged to us in Adam because of what we did in Adam.
Adam's guilt is our guilt. Adam's sin is my sin. Even though we were not there
to personally take that fruit and eat it. Adam's guilt is our guilt. That's
how we became guilty before God. Adam's sin, God imputed it to
us. He had charged it to everybody Adam represented. And worse yet,
Adam's guilt and sin was imparted to us, too. It was put into us.
We received Adam's nature of sin the very moment we were conceived
in our mother's womb. A sinful seed is the only seed
our father had to conceive us with, so we received his nature. That's what David meant when
he said, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin Did my mother conceive
him? He wasn't saying his mother did
something sinful to conceive him. He was saying in sin, did
my mother conceive me? Because that's the only nature
my parents had to pass on to me. Now that's how we became
sinners. It's through Adam our representative.
He did a mighty poor job of representing his people, didn't he? What a
bad head of a family. Well, look what he did to them.
Look what he did to all of us. He made us guilty. He made us
guilty of breaking the law, and he gave us a sinful nature, even
though we were not there personally to do it. And here's the proof
of it. Here's the proof of what I'm
saying. Eve took the fruit and ate it first, didn't she? What
happened when Eve ate the fruit? Not one blessed thing. Not one
thing. Her eyes weren't open. She thought
it was good. Thought it was so good, she gave it to her husband,
Eve. Why didn't Eve become guilty?
Why weren't Eve's eyes open when she ate the fruit? Because she's
an Adam. Adam is her representative. And
when Adam ate the fruit, Eve became a sinner. Her eyes were
open. And they weren't open to anything
good. They were open to sin and darkness and death. We became
guilty. our Father Adam, our representative.
Now, the natural man will say, that's not fair. I can understand. I mean, we ought not to say that,
but I can understand it. I spent a lot of years saying
that's not fair. If I was Adam, I wouldn't have
done that. Why won't God give me a chance? Well, that shows
you how wrong I am about myself and my flesh. I'm going to show
you from God's word why this matter of representation, us
becoming guilty in Adam, why not only is it fair, it's cause
for rejoicing. The good news of the gospel is
this. We were made sinners by representation. Thank God sinners
can be made righteous by representation too. I was made a sinner, not
by something I personally did, I can be made righteous by something
I didn't personally do either through the righteousness of
another representative. Now we're going to skip this
parenthetical phrase. It begins in verse 13. Come back
to it in a minute. Let's keep up with Paul's thought.
That parenthetical phrase goes through verse 17, so we'll skip
that. Read in verse 12, so we get this whole thought here.
Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world and death
by sin. So death passed upon all men
for that all have sinned, verse 18. 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
under justification of life. Now this is what scripture teaches.
Since all men were made guilty, all men were put under the condemnation
of the law by what our representative did. Then sinners can now be
made righteous by what another representative did for everyone
he represented. And that second representative
is our Lord Jesus Christ. Adam made everyone he represented
guilty. Who did Adam represent? Absolutely
everyone. Christ justified everybody he
represented and Christ gives them this great undeserved gift
of God's grace freely. You can't do anything to get
it. You can't do anything to earn it. You can't do anything
to deserve it. He gives that gift freely. Now, our text says
all men. Adam represented all men. Christ
represented all men. This is talking about two completely
different natures. They both didn't represent the
exact same people. Who does this all men mean? I think everybody, I don't think
you can reasonably argue that Adam did not represent all men,
the whole human race. Of course he did. Look at us,
we're all just like him. Well, who is this all men that
Christ represented? Now this cannot mean every son
of Adam. It cannot mean all of the human
race. Because you have to interpret
scripture, Can't just take this and say, well, that's what all
man means to me. I mean, we have to interpret scripture of scripture.
We know from scripture there are some people in hell. We know
that, don't we? Christ did not justify those
people. Christ did not justify anybody in hell. If they didn't
have any sin, God would never condemn them. Christ did not
die for those people. He couldn't have. If Christ died
for them, God's holy justice would never demand that they
die too. That would be unjust. So the
phrase all men, what it means is all men that each one of these
two different federal heads represented. Adam represented all of his race. He represented everybody who
would come out of his loins with his nature. And Christ represented
all of his race, all of his people. He represented everyone who would
be born again with his nature, with the nature of Christ. Now
that's who the all men mean. And Christ, this is the good
news of the gospel. Christ made his people righteous
in the exact same manner that Adam made his people unrighteous. Not through what they did, but
through what their representative did for them. Verse 19. For as
by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Now Adam's single
disobedience made all men sinners. It made us guilty of sin. It
gave us a sinful nature. Adam did that to everybody he
represented. We were made guilty of sin and we were given a sinful
nature. How? Why is it? How is it that
we're born? We come forth from the womb speaking
lies. How is that? It's by imputation. We did exactly what Adam our
representative did. And by, in the same manner, by
Christ's perfect obedience to the law. Many, a number no man
can number. And it's not all of the human
race, but it's many, many. Can you fit in many? Huh? Can you fit in that many? By
Christ's perfect obedience, many were made righteous. Everyone
Christ represented is made righteous. The obedience of Christ makes
his people not guilty. It makes them holy, makes them
sinless. How'd that happen? By imputation. God says we did
exactly what Christ, our representative, did. When Christ, the Lord Jesus,
as a man, when he did every thou shalt of the law, And when Christ did not, every
thou shalt not of the law. His people didn't do him evil.
We did just exactly what our representative did. That's the
way it is. That's the way God says it is. God's elect are made
righteous, even though they had, they were not there personally
to obey God's law. They're just as innocent. I hate
to use just as, but hang on. They're just as innocent as if
they had been there to obey God's law. Just tell me they did. They did obey God's law in the
person of their representative. Just like we weren't there to
personally eat that fruit, we did in the representative, in
Adam. That's how we became guilty.
And that's how sinners made righteous. Now, the key word here in verse
19 is made, made. In Adam, we were made to be what
we really are. We're made to be sinners. We
weren't made so that someday we might sin. Like, well, we
might not sin, or we might sin. We weren't made so that we might,
or even that it's probable that we fall into sin. No, we were
made sinners. Real, guilty sinners. In Christ, we're made what we
really are. Righteous. We weren't given a
righteous standing before God like Adam in the garden. We were
made righteous so that we haven't sinned, so that we can never
sin. That's what 2 Corinthians 5.21 is all about. He hath made
him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made what we
really are. Christ was made to really be
what he was not so that we might be made to be what we are not. Righteous. Made righteous. Now, can anybody here deny that
you are a sinner? I mean, can you really deny that?
We're made real sinners because of what Adam did. You just can't
deny that. Well, every believer is made
righteous. And if you're in Christ, you
can't deny that either. He's made you what you are. righteous
because he's made us exactly what our representative is. Righteousness
in Christ is just as real as sin is in Adam, because God says
we have done just exactly what our representative did. I told
you representation is fair. That's a fair way for God to
look at all men. I'll tell you what else. It's cause for Joyce, I have
been anxious to preach this message because it thrills my heart. You can say if you want to. Somebody
can say, I don't like being made guilty in Adam. I just don't
like that. I don't like being made guilty
because of what somebody did when I wasn't there. I don't
like that. Well, all right. Let me ask you a question. How
are you doing on your own? Huh? Have you done something,
thought something, said something that has made you guilty? If
it was up to you to keep yourself righteous or fall into debt,
how have you done on your own? Of course you have. Of course
we've sinned. Of course we've done whatever it would have taken
to make ourselves guilty. Then, if it's up to you to keep
yourself righteous or make yourself a sinner, now that you personally
sinned against God, you have to personally do something to
pay it back. You've got to personally do something
to make yourself righteous. But you can't do that, can you?
I mean, just try for the next second not to sin. You can't
do it. And we can't do anything to make
ourselves righteous. If your representative didn't
make you guilty, then another representative can't make you
not guilty. See, this is good news. God makes sinners righteous
through our representative, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. If your representative Adam made
you guilty, then another representative can come along and make you not
guilty by what he did. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for his people. That's cause for rejoicing,
isn't it? The gospel of representation
ought to thrill our souls. It's the only way a dead, guilty,
stinking, rotten sinner can ever be made holy. It's through our
representative, through what Christ did for his people. Now,
let's go back to verse 13 and look at this parenthetical phrase.
In this parenthetical phrase, Paul gives us two proofs that
all men sinned in Adam, that we became guilty in Adam. And
then he gives us reasons for rejoicing in Christ. Verse 13. Run till the law. Sin was in
the world, but sin's not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure
of him that was to come." Now, what Paul's saying here is before
God gave the law to Moses at Sinai, sin was in the world. I mean, it's obvious. One of
the first things we read about, I don't know how many years it
was, but one of the first things we read about happening after
God thrust Adam out of the garden is what? Cain killing his brother,
his own brother. Why did he do that? Adam's nature
was imparted to him. Adam's guilt was imputed to him.
That's why he killed his brother. Cain didn't have the law of Moses
saying, thou shalt not kill, but God judged him for it. See,
all that happened more than two thousand years before God gave
the law to Moses. Then breaking the law of Moses
is not what makes us a sinner, is it? Cain killing his brother
is not what made Cain a sinner. When was Cain made a sinner?
When his daddy took that fruit. You and I weren't made sinners
the first time that Henry said we stole a watermelon. No. When
were we made sinners? The first time Adam took that
fruit. When he took that fruit and ate it, we became That's
what is called original sin. We became sinners in Adam's sin. Now, here's the good news of
the gospel. I hope you'll get a hold of this. I have been feasting
on this all week. I love it. The good news of the
gospel is this. If we were not made sinners because
we broke the law of Moses, then we can't make ourselves righteous
by keeping the law of Moses either. Is that right? I didn't come
up with that on my own. I got that from Matthew. If we
didn't become sinners by breaking the law of Moses, we can't make
ourselves righteous by keeping the law of Moses either. Quit
looking to the law. Quit! Look to Christ. Look to that second representative.
We were made sinners when Adam disobeyed God. And we're made
righteous through the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Made
unrighteous through Adam's disobedience? made righteous through Christ's
obedience. And that applies to every one
of us. And Paul proves that. All of
us sinned in Adam. That's when we became sinners.
And that is why we die. Now you know this is true. If
you're perfect, if you've never sinned, if you're holy, you can
never die. Isn't that right? The only people who can die are
people who are guilty of sin. The wages of sin, the just desserts
of sin is death. Now, God's holy. God's not going
to charge somebody with sin if he's not given them the law.
Does that make sense? He's not going to say, well,
you broke the law and that's why you're guilty of sin. God's
holy. He's not going to do that. But God didn't give the law to
Moses for 2,000 years. Well, if nobody who lived from
Adam to Moses, if they never broke the law of Moses, why'd they die? You read about
all those patriarchs that lived, from Adam to Moses. Go back and
read their genealogy. You know how it ended for every
one of them except for Enoch? And he died. He was born, he
begat sons and daughters, and he died. And the next one, and
he died, and he died. Why did they all die? They didn't
break the law of Moses. They died because they sinned
in Adam. They became guilty when Adam disobeyed God. Everyone
who lived before Moses died because they're sinners in heaven. So
that's the first proof. It didn't have anything to do
with breaking the law of Moses. Here's the second proof, and this applies
to both before Moses and after Moses. Babies died. Babies died. They died before
the law of Moses was given, and they died after the law of Moses
was given. Now, baby hadn't had the opportunity to willfully
sin against God, have they? They haven't had the ability
to, their mind to develop and hear God's law and decide, I'm
gonna break that. A baby has not had that opportunity. Then why do babies die? Why? Because they were made guilty
of sinning. God wouldn't let somebody die
and never sin. A baby dies because that baby was made guilty in
Adam. That baby has a sin nature that he received from his daddy,
even if he hasn't had the opportunity to willfully act upon it yet.
Only the guilty can die. And death reigns, doesn't it?
Death reigns over this race. Death reigns over us in a bloody
rule of terror. We can't escape that reign because
we're guilty. We're guilty. were made guilty
in Adam, so you can't escape death. God told Adam, you're
going to surely die. God's the one who made death
reign. He's the one who said it's going to reign because sin
demands death. I don't think, I thought about
this, maybe there is, but I can't think of one. I can't think of
anything more sad than a baby dying. You have a horrible day
at work when a baby dies, don't you? What a horrible day for
all those nurses and NICU. They all get together and you
have chocolate or you do something. It's just a, it's a horrible
day. Adam's sin. Every one of those. Scripture does not teach. Please understand this. Don't
say, oh, they're over there preaching babies go to hell. No, we're
not. God's Word does not teach that. It teaches just the opposite,
as a matter of fact. Now you listen to me, this is
so. Babies who die and go to heaven, God doesn't take them
to glory because they're innocent. Well, actually He does, we'll
get to that in just a second. God doesn't take them to glory
because they're cute or we love them. God takes them to glory
because another paid for their sin and another made them right. Not through anything they did,
but through what their representative did for them. That's where Christ,
the second Adam comes in. In this darkest of hours, when
we're talking about babies dying in this darkest, most sad of
hours, there's light and hope found in God's word by looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ, the second representative. When he
talks here about him that is the figure, Adam was a figure
of him that was to come. That one who's coming is Christ.
That's what the whole Testament kept telling us. Somebody's coming.
There's another representative coming. And Adam's a type of
him. Now, mostly Adam is an anti-type
of Christ. Now, Adam is a type of Christ
in this sense. Adam is a representative of his
people. It's like Christ is a representative of his people. every other way. Adam is an anti-type of Christ
because Adam did the opposite of what Christ accomplished for
his people. Adam brought in sin. Christ brought in righteousness.
He didn't just bring righteousness into... Adam didn't just bring
sin into the world, did he? He brought it into us. Christ
brought in righteousness. He didn't just bring in righteousness
where it's possible in the world. He brought righteousness into
his people. and made them righteous. Adam brought death into this
world. Christ brings eternal life. Adam brought separation
from God. Christ brings in reconciliation
with God. Adam and Christ, they're both
representatives of their race, aren't they? But they're two
completely, totally different races, different nations. And
you can't compare them. That's what Paul says beginning
in verse 15. Not as the offense, so also as
the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift of
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Now, it might be kind of hard
for us the way this is written for us to understand what it's
saying, but let me tell you what this verse is saying. You cannot
compare Adam and Christ. You can't compare the first Adam
and the second Adam. They're just beyond compare. You can't
compare anyone or anything to Christ. You can't compare the
effect of free grace to the effect of sin. They're just not comparable.
What Adam did to the people he represented, you just cannot
compare that to the glorious things Christ accomplished for
his people. The glory of Christ, it can't be compared to the same
thing. What Adam did is offensive. Christ gives a glorious gift
of free grace to his people. Christ gives to his people much
more, much more than Adam took away from him. Paul goes on with
that thought here in verse 16. 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. You see, Adam, he just can't
be compared to Christ, the second representative man, through just
one sin. Just one sin. Adam brought judgment
on every body he represented. And the judgment can only be
given. And the verdict, the sentence
for that verdict is eternal death. That's the only sentence that
can be rendered. But Christ comes. He gives to
His people freedom, not just from one sin, but from all the
offenses that come from our sin nature. He gives us justification
from all those sins. He justifies His people by taking
their sin away from Him, paying for it with His precious blood.
And the sentence to those people, Christ died for them. Christ
took their sin, He died for them. He paid for their sin with his
precious blood. The only sentence God can justly give them is eternal
life. And that's exactly what they'll
receive. Because that's what they earned in Christ their representative. I mean, now this is good news.
Oh, what good news this is. Adam brought in condemnation
to everybody he represented. Christ made everybody he represented
to be not guilty. The law cannot condemn them.
There is therefore now no condemnation. To whom? To them which are in
Christ Jesus. To those that he represented.
There can't be any condemnation to him. The representative made
him not guilty by his perfect obedience. You can't compare
these two Adams, these two representatives. What Christ gives to his people
is so great and it's so glorious. And what Adam did for his people
is ugly and shameful. You can't compare ugly and shameful
to beautiful and glorious. They're just beyond compare.
You can't compare Adam to Christ because Christ undid everything
that Adam did for his people. And more. Adam had a righteous
standing before God. He could lose it. It's obvious
he did. Righteousness and life in Christ can never be lost no
matter what you do. It can never be lost because
it depends upon the obedience of another, the obedience of
our representative, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his obedience
is perfect. Verse 17, for if by one man's
offense, death reigned by one, much more, they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one, Jesus Christ. There's death in Adam and there's
life in Christ. I try to think of a way to illustrate
that. You can't compare life and death.
You cannot compare life and death. We've all had a loved one die.
And they take the body, and they prepare the body at the funeral
home. And we go to the funeral home to have a final viewing,
to pay our respects, and say our final goodbyes to our loved
one. What's in that casket? does not
compare to the person you knew and loved, does it? You can't
compare death and life. You can't compare death and Adam
to the glorious eternal life that we have in our Lord Jesus
Christ. That's good news to a dead sinner.
Now, this is what somebody's gonna ask. You know, if you're
a reasonably thinking person, you'll ask this question. All
right. I can't become a sinner by breaking
the law of Moses and I can't make myself righteous or I can't
even make myself better so that God will accept me by keeping
the law of Moses. Then why God give the law in
the first place? It looks like it's just a distraction. God gave the law of Moses for
this purpose to make the glory of Christ and the gift of God's
grace in Christ all the more glorious to our understanding,
verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. God gave the law so that both
sin and God's grace would abound to our understanding. God gave
the law so we'd see our sin more clearly. So we'd see our sin
really is a mount that we can't do anything about, we can't surpass
it. All the law does is hold up a mirror and show us our sin. And the more we look at the law,
the more we see everything I do is sin. The law tells me I'm
a great sinner. My sin has abounded. But thank
God he sends his gospel to tell us, not to tell us, oh, you're
not that bad. You're that bad. We're sin abounded.
Grace did much more about it. God's grace is greater than all
of our sin. The blood of Christ is greater
than all of our sin. You can never out sin the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you dare. Don't you dare
sit there in that seat and say, I'm not coming to Christ because
I'm too great of a sinner. I've got to do something better
for him to come. He'll never love me. He'll never save me.
I'm too great of a sinner. Don't you dare. is greater than
all of our sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, our
Savior, cleanses us from all sin. I don't care how much you
think your sin abounds. The blood of Christ is greater.
The blood of Christ goes deeper than condemnation and Adam. His
blood goes deeper than the stain that's gone. Cleanses us, white
as snow, inside and out. So because you can't compare
these two Adams, these two representatives, Christ reigns. He's the king. He reigns. And his reign is much
greater. You can't compare the reign of
Christ to the reign of death over the human race. Verse 21,
that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so my grace reign
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, death reigns over these
mortal bodies. I mean, we can fight it all we
want, you know, and we ought to take care of these bodies.
I'm not saying don't go exercise and don't eat right. We ought
to take care of these bodies. God gave them to us. We ought
to take care of them. But no matter how much we take
care of them, this is what we can't stave off. Death. We can't stave it off. Death
reigns over these bodies because sin demands death. But everyone
who Christ represents, They've already escaped eternal death. They already have eternal life. Life-giving grace reigns because
of the righteousness and the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It reigns by Him. So that reign can never be broken. Nobody can ever take eternal
life away from you, and you can't do anything to lose it. It reigns
by One. Not by us keeping it, not by
us doing good enough to keep it. It reigns by one, by the
obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. His righteousness demands, his
perfect obedience demands eternal life for everyone he represents. That's the reason for rejoicing
in him, to rejoice in one, the Lord Jesus Christ the Savior. I pray. God had caused us to
run to him. I need him. I need him. I pray
God give us the heart to run to him. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
for this glorious gospel that you've given to us to preach
and to believe. Father, how we thank you for
the Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank you for the second
Adam. who undid everything our father Adam did to your people. Father, how we thank you. How
we thank you for his obedience. That in him, your people are
perfect. In him, we can never die because
of his perfect obedience. Not because of what we've done.
Father, while we beg of thee, you don't look at us, but see
us in Christ, our representative. Father, we're thankful for this
blessed portion of your word. And I pray that you'd apply it
to our hearts, that you'd apply it to every heart here this morning. Don't let us leave here trusting
in ourselves, thinking we can improve the situation or ever
get any better. We can do something to make you,
you know, want to do something good for us. But cause us to
leave here this morning completely and totally looking away from
ourselves and relying wholly on the Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
for His glory and the good of His people, we pray.