Many years ago, John Bunyan,
who is best known for his book, Pilgrim's Progress, if you haven't
read it, I urge you to do so, also published a book titled
Grace Abounding. In that book, Bunyan describes
his own experience of God's saving grace, how that God, by his mighty
grace, brought him from a life of profanity and blasphemy into
a life of grace and righteousness and faith in Jesus Christ the
Lord. And it is my prayer that God
will be pleased to grant that same grace to each of you. That He will give you life, a
life of righteousness. peace and joy in the Holy Ghost
by His Spirit, by faith in His Son, that He will satiate your
soul with His grace. Oh, how sweet to live with satisfaction Satisfied with God. Satisfied with God's grace. Satisfied with God's righteousness. Satisfied with God's wisdom. Satisfied with God's works. Satisfied
with God's providence. He promised in Jeremiah 31 that
he would satiate the weary soul. And talking to you is a sinner
who knows what it is to be weary with life, and now knows what it is to be
satiated with grace. Turn with me to Romans chapter
5, verses 20 and 21, and I'm going to try to preach to you,
taking Bunyan's title for my own title. My subject is grace
abounding. Grace abounded. Romans chapter
5 verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound. The law came in to make the offense
abound. But where sin abounded, sin being
the offense of the law, where sin abounded, Grace did much
more abound. Wherever God causes sin to abound
in the sinner, wherever God causes a man or a woman, wherever God
causes anyone to have a sense of his sin abounding in him,
he causes his grace to abound. You see that? Where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. Sin doesn't abound in many people. Most people, most people do not
think of themselves as horribly evil people, but rather good
people who have to put up with some evil quirks of personality.
But oh, I pray God will cause you to know in your heart the
abounding evil that you are. Sin. Wherever sin abounds, grace
much more abounds. Look at verse 21. That as grace
hath reigned under righteousness, Even so, our sin hath reigned,
I'm sorry, sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. The law spoken of here specifically
refers to the Ten Commandments, what's commonly called the moral
law. The law intervened between the
fall of our father Adam and the coming and redemptive work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. But Paul is specifically talking
to us about the entrance of the law into a person's conscience. The entrance of the law into
you. When God saves a sinner, when
God saves a sinner, he first performs a work. One of the first
works he performs is to make that sinner know his sin. The heart described in the gospel
by our Redeemer as the heart that receives the good seed of
the word is good ground. Good ground. How can that be? The heart of man is hard. Hard
as steel, barren, a desolate, empty desert. How can this heart
be made good ground? It has to be plowed. It has to
be plowed. broken up, harrowed. It must
be made good by God's work and the heart made good first by
the plowing work of God's law, turning up what's underneath
the surface. Turning up what's underneath
the surface. You go out here and stick a plow
in the ground, folks who've never done it before, would be a little
surprised at all the things that you see turned up when the plow
is set deep and turns the ground over. And you will be very surprised
what you see in you if God ever breaks up the fallow ground of
your heart. This is what Paul describes in
Romans chapter 7 verse 9. He says, I was alive without
the law once. He was a Pharisee, a good man. Just the kind of man his mama
and daddy hoped he would be when he grew up. He was a Pharisee,
raised to be a Pharisee, taught to be a Pharisee, and loved to
be a Pharisee. He was a self-righteous moralist,
clean as a hound's tooth. A man that everyone admired for
his integrity and his uprightness and his honesty. He was a Pharisee. He was a Pharisee and he was
out perfectly happy. I was alive without the law once. But when the commandment came,
when God stood his word in my heart, when God put the sharp
edge of the plow of His holy law in my heart and turned it
up. I saw that the law had to do
not with just my outward behavior, but with what I am. And sin revived. Look at it. He said, when the
commandment came, sin revived it. It stirred up sin in me. It stirred up corruption in me. It exposed to me evil I never
knew resided in me. And when it did, then all my
life withered away and I died. I had no hope. I was lost. I was a guilty sinner before
God. You see, the law of God was never
given to be a rule of life by which we rule other people's
lives or by which we measure our own righteousness. The law
of God was given to be a ministration of death. It was given to identify
sin, to expose sin, to condemn sin. That's the only purpose
of the law. It ministers death and man can't
stand it. The law of God disposes or discovers
and exposes my sin to me and takes away all excuses for it. Leaves me speechless. But don't
you know how that boy was raised? What could you expect? That's
no excuse for what this boy turned out to be. That's no excuse. There's no excuse for how you
live. There's no excuse for how you
conduct yourself. But I had such a bad upbringing. So did everybody
else. So did everybody else. There's
no excuse for sin. You will keep making it. You
will keep making excuses until God empties you of the excuse,
exposing that what you are on the outside is only a very slight
picture. of what you are on the inside. Paul asserts over and over again
throughout this epistle and throughout his writings as it is asserted
throughout all the book of God the utter impossibility of justification
of salvation by law obedience. The law of God can't save, never
was intended to save. The law can't sanctify, never
was intended to sanctify. All the law can do is bring forth
death and condemnation. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. The law exposes sin. Grace comes
and takes it away. The law condemns. Grace declares
there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
The law renders us guilty, guilty before God. Grace makes us not
guilty. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. Where did sin abound? Sin abounded
in our nature. Sin abounds in humanity. From Adam's fall to this day,
all around the world, through every son and daughter of Adam,
through every child, through every boy, through every girl,
through every man, through every woman in the universe. Sin abounds. Our history books are history
books full of sin. Our daily newspapers are daily
records of sin. If you keep a diary and keep
it accurately, nobody does. Your diary is a record of sin. That's all. That's all. Nothing
else. Just sin. Just sin. Sin abounded
in humanity. And God sent His Son into this
world in our humanity. And grace abounded in humanity. He came into this world full
of grace and truth. He walked on this earth full
of grace and truth. He spoke on this earth full of
grace and truth. All that he did on this earth
was full of grace and truth. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. Oh, behold the God-man, our mediator. Read the four Gospels, not just
as narratives of the historic facts of the life of Jesus of
Nazareth. Read the four Gospels, as you
were telling us this morning, Lindsay, to behold the man. And behold in that man, in that
human man, in that human body, in that human flesh, where sin
abounded in humanity, now grace abounded in Christ Jesus our
Lord. Sin has abounded in all the powers
and faculties of humanity so that our understanding, our will,
our affections, all our life long are under the dominion of
sin. But in regeneration, in the new birth, the grace of God
much more abounds, enlightening the mind, turning our hearts
to God in faith and love, subduing our wills. Sin abounded in the
world. All over the world, sin abounds.
But God sends His gospel into all the world. And He gathers
out His elect out of the four corners of the earth. And when
He calls out His elect here and there, there's a place, there's
a place, this day, tomorrow, He calls out His elect and wherever
sin abounded and grace comes, grace abounds. Oh, when God comes
to sinners in grace, how his grace abounds, turning men, turning
women from their idols and their sins to serve the living and
true God. And each individual believer,
in his sweet experience of grace, testifying by the grace of God,
I am what I am, will tell you that we're sin abounded. Oh,
how grace has much more abounded. There's a woman in the scripture
by the name of Mary Magdalene in whom sin abounded until Christ came. And from that
day on, in that woman out of whom the Lord cast seven devils,
grace did much more abound. There was an old hardened Philippian
jailer hardened Roman soldier to whom God sent his word of
grace and how grace abounded to that man, abounded to him
and to his household. I mentioned John Bunyan earlier
by his own description of his life. Bunyan will tell you that
he was raised by the vilest of men in the vilest family upon
the earth. Some have supposed that he was
raised a gypsy. Perhaps, perhaps. But they settled
in Bedford, England. Bunyan became a tinker, just
a mender of pots and pans. Just ordinary, unlearned, illiterate
man, full of blasphemy and cursing. Until God snatched him from the
pit of destruction by his grace. And thus he wrote the book, Grace
Abounded. The man talking to you speaks
to you from experience. I will say no more than to tell
you that all my life long sinned about death. And worked nothing but destruction
and misery and death. until God stepped into my life
by His almighty grace. And from that day to this, oh,
how grace has much more abounded. Now look at verse 21. Paul shows
us the reason for all this. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness. unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin is a monarch. Sin reigns as an uncontested
monarch in the hearts and lives of every son and daughter of
Adam. Sin is a monarch reigning over
everything we are and everything we do. The inspiration and back
of everything. The motive in back of everything,
the foundation of everything with regard to our humanity is
sin. Sin rules and governs. We're under the dominion of sin,
universally under the dominion of sin. I mean by that not only
that all men are under the dominion of sin, I mean by that that every
man, woman, and child outside Jesus Christ, without life and
faith in Jesus Christ, apart from the union of life in Christ
Jesus, every one of them, from the top of their heads to the
sole of their feet, are under the constant rule of this horrid
monarch called sin. Sin, when it is finished, brings
forth death, spiritual death. physical death, eternal death. Death is the fruit and the result,
the just wage of sin. The wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. There are multitudes who have
the idea that somehow That's just not possible. How could
God send anybody to hell? How could a good God send my
daddy to hell? How could a good God send your
mama to hell? How could a good God send your
son or your daughter to hell? If you go to hell, you go to
hell because that's exactly what that which is right demands. That's exactly what justice demands. That's true of you and of me.
of your mom and dad and of mine, of your husband or wife and mine,
of your sons and daughters and mine. Those who perish in their
sins do but reap their wages and that wage is death, everlasting
damnation. Even so, that is in just the
same manner, God has determined that grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace too is a monarch, a universal monarch. Grace reigns
in the lives of God's elect, certainly that's so. God's people
are a people who are ruled, governed, motivated, constrained by the
love of Christ, by the grace, mercy, and love of God shed abroad
in their hearts in the knowledge of Jesus Christ the Lord. So
that the lives of God's saints are the lives of saints. They're
ruled by the reign of this sovereign called grace. The throne from
which grace reigns is called the throne of grace. The throne
God establishes in our hearts is the throne of grace. The throne
we petition in our prayers is the throne of grace. The throne
on which Christ sits as monarch of the universe is the throne
of grace. That means that grace not only
reigns in the lives of God's saints. Grace reigns in all the
universe. I get sick of reading the news
and then I turn around and read it some more. And I get sick
of watching the news and listening to all the blather. And then
I turn around and watch some more of it and get sick again.
But I think I need to be somewhat abreast of what's going on around
me. Somewhat abreast of it. Oh God
give me grace not to let any of it bother me. Bother me in
the sense of disturbing my peace, or shaking my faith, or turning
my heart to this world. What's going on in this world? What's going on in this world?
What's going on around us? Why all the stuff, all the ungodliness,
all the murder of babies, all the division and strife and war
and famine and hunger and pestilence and earthquake and destruction
and crime and murder and rape. What's going on? Something that no eye can see
and no mind can comprehend. except the eye of God and the
mind of God and those whose eyes have been enlightened, whose
understandings have been enlightened, who see as God sees. Grace rains everywhere. God is gathering those whom he
has scattered out of the four corners of the earth exactly
according to His purpose, exactly as He will, to the praise of
the glory of His grace. Now that's the doctrine of our
text. Let me spend a little time on
this statement in verse 20. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. About a year ago, I preached
to you from this passage of scripture demonstrating God's manifold
wisdom in it. Because the superabundance of
God's grace over man's sin is one of many revelations of the
manifold wisdom of God set forth in the gospel of our Savior.
Let me show you four things very briefly. First, our great God
in superabounding grace found a way to make guilty sinners
completely innocent. Not just to declare them innocent,
to make them innocent. Now there's a huge, huge weight
in those words. Almost everyone who speaks in
any way about God's salvation, free justification and all those
things, God declares us innocent. God looks on us as innocent. God doesn't play pretend. God doesn't just declare sinners
innocent. God found a way to make sinners
innocent before Him. He found a way to make the guilty
not guilty. He contrived a way to make sinful
men and women not guilty before Him. To men, that seems impossible. It seems another contradiction.
How can anyone who's guilty become not guilty? How can sinners become
totally innocent? There's only one way. And that
way is substitution. Turn back to John chapter 11.
John the 11th chapter. I want you to see this. As I was turning to this, I was
reminded of what I just said. We see things as, how can the
wickedness of men, how can the ungodliness of men, how can the
vile behavior of men be in any way a display of the reign of
God's grace? Men by their wicked will and
with their wicked hands crucified the Lord of glory. That's how
he redeemed you. Had it not been for their wicked
will and their wicked hand and their vile hatred of the Son
of God, the Jews and Romans crucifying the Lord of glory and throwing
a hellish party while He died. Had it not been for that, there
would have been no redemption for our souls. Look here in John
chapter 11. I'll give you another picture.
Here are the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together in
council, verse 47. Then gathered the chief priests
and the Pharisees of counsel and said, what do we, what are
we going to do? What are we going to do about
this Jesus of Nazareth? This man some folks are calling
a prophet. Some folks even say he's the Messiah, the Christ.
For if this man doeth many miracles, if we let him thus alone, all
men will believe on him. And the Romans shall come and
take away both our place in the nation. And then one of them,
not because he was a believer, he didn't know God from a bit
ago. One of them, Caiaphas, being the chief priest, the high priest
that same year, said to them, he said, boys, y'all don't know
a thing. You don't understand how to take care of this. You
know nothing at all. Nor consider that it is expedient
for us that one man should die for the people. and that the
whole nation perish not. Well, this just makes good sense.
Kill him, we'll save ourselves. This just makes good sense. We'll
throw him under the bus, as they put it these days. Get rid of
him, everything's going to be all right. That just makes good
sense. Verse 51, And this spake he, not of himself, he didn't
have a clue what he was saying. He didn't have any idea what
he was saying. But being high priest that year, he prophesied
that Jesus should die for that nation. And not for that nation
only. But that also he should gather
together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. God accomplished this. He made guilty sinners innocent
when he sent his son to the cursed tree. to die the just for the
unjust, that He might redeem us and purify unto Himself a
peculiar people, zealous of good works. Those men and women who
are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, those sinners
who believe on the Son of God are pure, without spot, without
blemish, without blame, pure before God. Pure in the sight
of God. Listen to how our Lord describes
them in the Song of Solomon. Nobody who knows me could describe
me like this. Nobody. Nobody who knows me could
describe me like this, except he who knows me best. who knows me as I really am. Are you listening? God says,
my Savior says, behold thou art fair my love. Behold thou art
fair, thou art fair my love. There is no spot in thee. Here I am a man innocent before
God. innocent before God because Christ
being made sin for me took my sin away. He by himself, what
does the book say, purged away our sins. By the sacrifice of
himself he put away sin. Would you be completely innocent
of all sin before God? Does that interest you? Innocent
of all sin before God? Do you crave such innocence before
God? Not pretend innocence! Real innocence! Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and this is God's promise. This is God's promise. The blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us. from all sin. If you ever experience that,
I promise you, you will know what the prophet meant when he
gave us God's Word. He will satiate the weary. He will satiate the weary. Where
sin abounded, grace did much more about. Not only has God
found a way to make guilty sinners innocent, He has, in the second
place, found a way to make sinful men and women perfectly righteous. Again, I don't mean to declare
them righteous. I mean make them righteous. It's
not enough that we be free of guilt. If we would be accepted
with God, we must be perfectly righteous. You and I must be
perfectly, absolutely holy in the eyes of God himself, so that
as God looks at us and looks through us, he says,
I find no spot in you. You're perfect. Holy. This is what the book says. Without
holiness, no man shall see the Lord. That's talking about holiness
on the inside. God says, walk before me and
be thou perfect. God commands again and again
and again in scripture, be ye holy for I the Lord your God
am holy. Turn back to Matthew chapter
5, Matthew the 5th chapter. Listen to the Savior's word. I say unto you, verse 20, that
except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom
of heaven. Picture in your mind try to think
right now try to think of the most righteous person You've
ever known we talk like that as if righteousness were relative
Try to think about the best person you have ever known I'm talking
about the very best you've ever known The very best you've ever
known Our Savior said unless you're better than that you can't
enter the glory The best you've ever known not
fit for heaven and you sure aren't You've got to have a better righteousness
than that in Psalm 24 Listen to these words Who shall ascend
to the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place
who's going to heaven who's gonna go? he that hath clean hands
and a pure heart and not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully." Turn over to Revelation 21. Now I want
you to see this. I want you to see what it says
in the book of God. It doesn't matter what I think
or you think, what does God say? That's the only thing that matters.
Revelation 21 verse 27, There shall in no wise enter
into it. There shall in no wise enter
into the city of God. There shall in no wise enter
into the gates of pearl. There shall in no wise enter
into the heavenly Jerusalem. Anything that defileth, neither
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but they which
are written in the Lamb's book of life. It's utterly impossible
for a sinner to make himself righteous. That just can't be
done. That just cannot be done. If
I put my thumb on the screen of that tablet right there, you
pick it up and look at it right like you're going to see a smudge
because I've dirtied it. I can't touch something without
dirtying it. Neither can you. And I'm not
just talking about physical soil on these fingers, the oil in
your skin. I'm talking about the filth,
the oil of corruption that's in you. You can't touch anything
without soiling it. So if you touch God's laws, I
want to keep the commandments. All you do is dirty the law.
That's all you do. You try to make yourself a robe
of righteousness. When you put your fingers on
the robe, you've made it a robe of sin. You can't make yourself
righteous. That can't be done. How then
can a sinner be made righteous? God has to do it. Who can bring
a clean thing out of the unclean? Nobody. Nobody. Wap, if I remember
correctly, you were raised a papist. Is that right? And been taught
all your life by doing stuff. You make yourself righteous.
It ain't possible. And now you know it. Not possible. Not possible. Oh, but he didn't try hard enough. Those who tried real hard can't
either. Not possible. Well, who then can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean? Only God. God sent his son into this world
to live in perfect righteousness, to weave a robe of Perfect righteousness,
in which the saints in heaven arose. It's called, the white
linen garments, the righteousness of the saints. A perfect righteousness,
by perfect obedience, as a representative man for his people. So that as
we sin in Adam, we became sinners. When we obeyed in Christ, we
became righteous. Righteousness was made ours and
we were made the righteousness of God in him. As Abraham believed
God, we're told in Romans 4, and it was imputed to him for
righteousness. Now, that's not written for his sake alone, but
for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him
that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Righteousness
imputed, however, is not just God pretending that we're righteous.
We actually obeyed God perfectly in real humanity in the person
of our Savior. But God requires more than righteous
obedience. He requires righteousness only
inside. He requires that you be holy,
holy, holy. and holy I can't be and I can't
become by anything I do or anything any human being does for me or
anything anybody wants for me. Holiness I can't become. That
takes a work that only God can perform. It's called the new
birth. It's called the forming of Christ
in you. It's called making us partakers
of the divine nature. It's having a new man created
in us in righteousness. Skip, do you have any idea what
the book says after that? And in true holiness. In the new birth, God makes sinners
new creatures in righteousness and true holiness. So that God's
church is called a habitation of justice and a mountain of
holiness. A habitation of justice and a
mountain of holiness. Jesus Christ is the Lord our
righteousness in justification. And he is the Lord our righteousness
in sanctification, in regeneration. making us new creatures in Him
by His omnipotent grace. Just as Christ was made sin for
us, we are made the righteousness
of God in Him. The righteousness of Christ imputed
to us in free justification and imparted to us in regeneration
and sanctification. And this righteousness of Christ
shall be brought to its perfection in experience, in the resurrection
of the body, when this mortal shall be put on immortality,
and this corruption in corruption. Would you be perfectly righteous
in the sight of God? Perfectly righteous. Rex, when you were growing up,
did you often find yourself, like I did, you'd do something,
and you just were sure nobody saw it, nobody was aware of it
but you, and mama or daddy looked at you and you'd think, uh-oh,
she knows. He knows. They may have been totally ignorant
of it, but you're just, your guilty conscience torments you. Uh-oh, they know. This thing's
not here. This thing not it. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. That's how folks live before
God all the time until they're made righteous. Peter appealed to the Lord Jesus
in the teeth of his own bitter experience
of sin. And he said, Lord, thou knowest
all things. You know what nobody knows except
you and me. You know what is not in any way
evident by the way I behave. You know all things. You know
that I love you. You see, there was in Peter another
man than Adam. man Christ Jesus, made partaker
of the divine nature, born again, Peter stood before God and before
the Savior righteous, righteous, righteous. Grace abounds, making
sinners righteous. Would you be righteous before
God so that you have no guilt and you And you have no fear,
no fear, no dread, no apprehension of God, but rather utter, complete
cessation of soul. I'm satisfied that I give God
everything God requires of me because I give God what God's
given me. son, the Lord my righteousness. Believe on the Son of God and
righteousness is yours. Now look at Romans chapter 6
for just a minute. Romans chapter 6. And I'll wrap it up with this. Our great God in great grace has made our sin and misery the occasion of our greatest
possible blessedness. Some folks like to debate and
argue about sin and the fall of our father Adam and all those
things and they tell us that This just kind of took God by
surprise, and God had to work out a plan to get things done,
get things corrected, because He had to make such a mess of
stuff. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. A thousand
times no. We make no excuse for our sin,
and we're not so foolishly blasphemous as to suggest an indication that
God is to be charged with sin. This is a fact beyond, I said
beyond, any reason of humanity, beyond the grasp of any system
of logic. God Almighty ordained the sin
and fall of our father Adam and the sin of all his elect in Adam,
that he might scatter them in judgment and gather them in mercy,
that we might know him in a way that we could know him only through
redemption. The angels who fell not know
God, but they don't know Him like I do. They know the love
of God, but they don't know the love of God like I do. They attend
these meetings and listen to me preach and hear you sing and
pray to learn, to learn, to learn from safe centers the wonders
of God's grace abounding to sinners. Paul tells us in Romans 6, beginning
at verse 17, we have a great reason to give thanks. Now, read
what he says. Read what he says. But God be
thanked that ye were the servants of sin. Oscar, that does not read God
be thanked that you who were the servants of sin it reads
just like I read it God be thanked you were the servants of sin
that ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which
was delivered unto you being then made free from sin you became
the servants of righteousness I speak after the manner of men
because of the infirmity of your flesh For as ye have yielded
yourselves, your members, servants, to uncleanness, and to iniquity,
unto iniquity, even so now yield your members, servants, to righteousness,
unto holiness. For when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those
things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death. But now being made free from sin, Being made free from
sin. Being made free from sin. You
couldn't have this had you never been made free from sin. You
couldn't have had this had you not at one time been the servants
of sin. You become servants to God and
you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God, that's eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. And now, this sinner, snatched from the pit by omnipotent
grace, knows both the darkness of the pit and the blessed light of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ by omnipotent grace. God make it yours for Christ's
sake. Amen.