If you turn in your Bibles please
to Romans and chapter 5. We commence to read at verse
6. Romans 5 verse 6. When we were
yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward
us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if
when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death
of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life.
And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For
until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed
when 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. But not as the offence, so also
is the free gift. For if through the offence of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by
grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, have 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 offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence 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. Therefore as by the offence of
one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the
righteousness of one, or by one righteousness as the margin says,
even so by one righteousness the free gift came upon all men
unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. That as sin have reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. verse 12 Paul says, Wherefore
as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and
so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned as by
one man. And this phrase by one man is
what I want to draw your attention to this morning because this
phrase is repeated by Paul in this passage several times. Verse
12, by one man, sin entered into the world and death by sin. He
then says in verse 15, 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, have abounded unto many. And
in verse 19 he says, for as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one, or so by one man's obedience,
many shall be made righteous. So Paul repeats this phrase,
by one man. He contrasts the one man, Adam,
who sinned and was disobedient. with the one man Jesus Christ,
who was obedient unto his Father, and by laying down his life in
obedience to that covenant which he made with his Father before
the foundation of the earth, by laying down his life in the
place of his people, he saved many, he brought in
righteousness for many, where Adam, had brought in sin, death
and condemnation. There's two men in this passage,
two men and their deeds are contrasted. Two men whose deeds have a tremendous
effect on multitudes who follow. Two men whose deeds have a huge
impact upon their offspring. For by one man, Adam, sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, and that death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned. When Adam disobeyed God in the
dawn of time in the garden of Eden, the impact of his disobedience
was felt not just by him, not just by his wife, not just by
their immediate children, but by all men, women and children
who have ever been born, lived and died in this world since,
all their offspring throughout time until the end of time. The
sin that entered when Adam disobeyed, was passed by natural generation
onto all his descendants, you and me included. And the death
that came upon him as a consequence of that sin and disobedience
and rebellion against God passed through to all men. Death. We all die because one man rebelled
against God. Sin entered the world. Sin passed
upon all of us by natural generation. Sin corrupts us. We're born sinners. And we, in consequence, like
Adam, rebel against our God, disobey our God. and plunge ourselves
into sin and death anew. Because what Adam did, we would
have done in his place. And what Adam did, we have done
in our life, in our time, in our days continually. He in innocence
heard the word of God, heard the commands of God. Heard God
command him in the garden that he could eat of every tree in
that garden freely, every tree, including the tree of life. But
there was one command that he should not eat of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. Just one tree that he was commanded
not to eat of. And yet it was that tree of which
he ate in rebellion against the one commander God. God gave him
no other restrictions. He had the freedom to live with
God. He had the freedom of life and
innocence in that paradise in which he was made. He could eat
of all these trees. He had no sin, no sickness, no
illness, no frailty to prevent his wonderful enjoyment of the
world in which he was created and of the God with whom he had
fellowship, with whom he walked and talked in the garden. and
yet when he was commanded not to eat of one tree and when Satan
the serpent the tempter came unto Adam's wife and through
her came upon Adam Adam plunged his offspring into sin until
the end of time One man. One man who is typical of all
men. For what he did we would do.
If you took us and placed us in the garden in innocence, never
having sinned, told us the same thing, we would all do it. and
in our experience in our lives we're born we grow up as children
we have parents who provide and care for us and give us all we
need and as soon as they tell us not to do something we rebel
and we will go our own way we will do our own thing we won't
have these restrictions and we sin from a very early age and
continue onwards. We are born speaking lies. We are conceived in iniquity. We are sinners from the womb. The actions of that one man Adam
were catastrophic in consequence. Catastrophic. It can't be described
fully. The impact and the scale his
disobedience quite what it brought in it brought in utter destruction
and ruin into a world which God created of which God repeatedly
said when he created it it is good There was no sin in this
world when God made it. There was no sickness, there
was no illness, there was no poverty, there was no ruin, there
was no hatred, there was no selfishness. There was no wars, no famine,
no earthquakes, no evil, no enmity, no impatience, no anger, no violence. This world was good and man who
was made in this world was made good, he was made innocent, there
was no sin in him. And yet when Adam disobeyed the
one command of God, all this changed. All this changed. There was no death in this world. Man was not made to die. It was
not natural to the condition in which he was created. It was
not natural to the animals that were created when God made this
world. They were not made to die. They
would have lived forever if it was not for the impact of sin
and death which entered by Adam, by one man. It's an unnatural
thing in that sense. It's natural to us in our state
now, since the Fall. But it was unnatural in the realm
in which God created this world. This world, in its created state,
would have continued forever had not sin and death tarnished
it. The consequences of the Fall
are catastrophic. Adam was made in innocence, made
to live endlessly. Yet by sinning, death entered. Death immediately entered into
the cells of his physical body. He began to die physically from
that day on. His days as a man physically
were numbered. But death spiritually entered
immediately. All his thoughts, all his motives,
all his thinking became corrupt. What was once innocent and pure,
made by God, without spot or blemish, became utterly defiled. Like taking a drop of ink and
dropping it into a pure glass of water, the whole thing became
black. It may have been just one disobedience
at the beginning, but the consequence was that the heart of man became
black through and through, utterly. And all Adam's thinking and all
the thinking and motivation of all who followed him became corrupt
from that day on. The paradise in which he was
created, he was locked out of. As a consequence, God said, I
will put enmity between the serpent and the woman, between his seed
and her seed. He said of the woman that I will
greatly multiply her sorrow, and her conception. In sorrow
she shall bring forth children, and her desire shall be to her
husband, and he shall rule over her. And to Adam he said, Because
thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten
of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow thou
shalt eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and
thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the
herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground. For out of it
was thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return. And Adam called his wife's name
Eve because she was the mother of all living. The thistles and
the fawns and the trouble in this world and its agriculture
came in because of Adam's disobedience. And from this day forth, rather
than walking freely and happily in the garden, eating fruit which
freely grew upon the trees, now Adam would have to labor, hard
labor in the sweat of his face, just to exist, just to stay alive,
to hold off death. Because if he did not, he would
have no food and no water. And he would die in days. And
so it has been ever since. Man labours and works to stay
alive, to exist. Because he is dying. And he lives
in a world of death. The consequences were huge. Huge. And they're here today.
They're here today. They have set a great gulf between
God and man. Man was made in the garden in
communion with God. He walked with him, he talked
with him. And when Adam disobeyed, he turned
his back on his maker. By his disobedience he said,
I will not have thee to rule over me. In his heart he was
despising God, shaking his fist at God, saying, I will not bow
down and worship thee, I will worship me. And so every man
and child woman has acted since. We're born despising and hating
God, hating His truth, hating His gospel, hating His Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, shaking our fist at Him, saying, we will
go our way. We don't want Thee. We will not
bow down our knees unto the true and the living God. And as a
consequence of this action, this hatred of God that entered into
Adam's heart, God thrust him out of the garden. He thrust
him out, he drove out the man from the garden. And he placed
at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming
sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
life. There was that in the garden
in which Adam was placed when he was made, which would have
given him everlasting eternal life, which would have given
him eternal life as it is in Christ Jesus. There was that
tree, figurative of Christ, of which if he had eaten he would
have been one with Christ, he would have had the righteousness
of God in Christ, not just the innocence in which he was made,
which left room for him to fall, left room for him to be tempted,
but he would have had that righteousness in Christ, which cannot be tempted,
cannot fall, cannot fail. He would have been not simply
as the first man, but as the second man, the last Adam. And
yet he didn't eat of that tree. And when he ate of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, he brought him death. And God
barred his way back to that garden and barred his way to simply
go and eat of that tree of life. No Adam. The consequence now,
you have chosen. You have chosen to go your way. You have chosen to sin. You have
freely chosen to shake your fist at me, the Lord God said unto
him. And you will not simply walk into this garden and take
of eternal life and righteousness. It was there before you, but
you would not. It was there right in front of
you but you had no interest. You would go to that other tree.
And in so doing you brought in death. And he said a great gulf
between him and God. A chasm opened up. A chasm that
exists between man and God today. We can't see God, we can't get
to him. We have the Word of God, the
Scriptures which He has left with us from the dawn of time
and recorded as the books have been written and preserved it
to our very day. In which God's speech unto man
and God's truth and God's account of these historical events and
God's revelation of the Gospel and the coming of His Son as
promised in the Old Testament Scriptures, all these things
are recorded for us. And yet mankind in the death
and sin which he has inherited from Adam can see nothing in
it. He picks up a Bible and he cannot
understand it. He cannot see God. He hears of
God. He hears of these very events
at the beginning. He hears of this need to be saved,
to be cleansed from the sin which entered in. He reads that he
is dead. He reads that he is dead in trespasses
and sins. He reads that Christ, the other
man, by one man he reads that Christ brought in everlasting
righteousness for his people by his death on the cross as
their substitute But the natural man hears these things and they're
meaningless, they're irrelevant. He despises them, he treads them
underfoot, he as it were takes the blood of Christ, the death
of Christ, the message of the death of Christ, the gospel,
and tramples it underfoot and says it's nothing. I don't need
it. And he goes off scampering around
in the sweat of his face trying to stave off death in this dying
world in which he lives. Trying to raise up the fruit
from the weak trees that he grows which he survives on. Trying
to build up his riches which he cannot take beyond the grave.
He is a fool. And as a fool, he says in his
heart, there is no God. Even though God has spoken unto
him, God has recorded his words unto him, God has preserved these
words to the end, and God has sent forth preachers, many throughout
the ages, prophets and preachers to sound out, to herald unto
men, lost in trespasses and sins, that there is salvation, there
is made in Christ, in his gospel. away unto the tree of life, which
man's own sin and man's own rebellion had barred. And yet man in the
blindness and folly of his natural condition shuts his ears, shuts
his eyes, and rejects every message of truth which comes his way.
He's blind. despite the huge, calamitous,
catastrophic scale of what the fall of man, of what the rebellion
of Adam in the garden brought in, the world today is entirely,
totally complacent, unaware, unknowing, disinterested, careless,
dead and blind to these things. That includes you and me by nature. We don't care, we're blind, we're
disinterested. The here and the now of the physical
realm that we can see is what matters to us. There is a vast,
vast gulf between us and God that has opened. And as I've
said, it wasn't just because Adam in the beginning sinned.
and that we fell in him. But we have all done the same
since. We are as guilty as he is. When
we're born and we live, we're born speaking lies, we fall each
and every day. Put any of us on probation and
we fall in an instant. Yet we just don't know it. Oh,
what a gulf this brought in between us and God. What a chasm divides
us. How unpassable, how impossible
for mankind to reach unto God again. It's vast. He was driven out of Eden. He
was driven out from the presence of God as a consequence of his
own sin and the death which entered by sin. We have a huge need,
a huge need, for left there, left in that state, all that
awaits us is the second death. We've already died in the fall. We already are born spiritually
dead. We're already born dead in trespasses
and sins. Our bodies are already dying
physically. we will pass from this life into
eternity in a day that fast approaches and we will come to stand before
God the judge of heaven and earth to give an account for ourselves
and we will have nothing which we complete by nature for we
have all willingly despised and rejected him And we will, left
in such a state, enter into that which is the second death, eternal
destruction forevermore. We have a huge need to be reconciled
with that God which we have offended. A huge need to be brought to
peace with Him. A huge need to have that death
which entered in removed and be granted life again. A huge
need to have the sin which entered in by one man destroyed, blotted
out, taken away. A huge need to have our sins,
our evil deeds that we have committed as sinners blotted out and forgiven. We have a huge need to be made
right again before a holy and a righteous God whom we have
offended. We have a huge need righteousness
righteousness that is what separated God and man that is what man
lacked what Adam lacked when sin entered and death by sin
he had no righteousness and God is righteous he is pure he is
perfect in character There is no sin, no corruption in God. And we must have such a righteousness. A righteousness comparable to
the righteousness of God. We must have the righteousness
of God. If we are to stand before Him.
If we are to be reconciled to Him. If we are to have peace
with Him. if we are to ever see him if
we are to ever behold him if we are to ever dwell with him
we have a great need for the disastrous effects of the fall
to be undone to be taken away to be removed we have a great
need of salvation of salvation but we cannot be saved without
righteousness Because that is what Adam lost any measure of. When sin entered, his innocence
was gone and he needed righteousness. Salvation is not merely God looking
upon people and setting his love upon them. Salvation is not simply
God forgiving their sins, turning a blind eye to their sins, as
we forgive sins of people. We don't block their sins out
when we forgive them. We just, we forgive them, we
choose not to dwell on what they have done anymore. We choose
not to hold any hard feelings against them, but God's forgiveness
is not on such a ground. He doesn't just turn from remembering
their sins. But His salvation stands in making
that people righteous. His salvation stands in blotting
out those sins, in taking them away. His righteousness is such
that sins must be dealt with, they must be judged, their price
must be paid for them. They must be answered and they
must be destroyed. and his righteousness is such
that the character of sin, that sin which entered into the world,
that sin, that quality of sin, that character, that evil that
entered into Adam when he disobeyed God, that which stains him, that
which passes from him unto every other man that is born, that
which causes death to pass unto all of us, that which causes
us to die, because sin and death are inextricably linked, that
sin and that death must be taken away. If we're left as we are,
simply having God forgive us, or say he will no longer judge
us, we'll not save, because we remain as we are. We remain as
those who have sin in their flesh, in their character, in their
being, in their state. But for God to have man dwell
with him again, as man once walked with him in the garden, sin itself
must be destroyed. And the wonderful truth that
Paul brings out here in Romans 5 is that it has been. The wonderful
truths that Paul brings out here in Romans 5 is that salvation
and righteousness is not something that must be wrought by multitudes
by their own efforts. It's not something which we all
must attain to in our natural state. For if it was, we would
have lost the battle before we'd begun. Because we begin as those
who from Adam have inherited sin and death, we begin dead. Then how can the dead ever attain
unto life? And how can sinners ever attain
unto righteousness? They cannot. They're dead to
begin with. Then their only hope is if one
changes them. their only hope is if one brings
them to life their only hope is if one gives them righteousness
takes away their sin and makes them anew creates them again
creates them again and the wonderful picture in this passage is that
there is one who creates them again there is one in whom there
is righteousness there is one in whom there is life and he
is Jesus Christ By one man, Jesus Christ, the gift of God by grace,
have abounded unto many. If through the offence of one
Adam many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift
by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, have abounded unto
many. Yes, Adam's sin was catastrophic. It plunged all his offspring
into sin, rebellion and death and condemnation, from which
they had no escape, out of which they had no natural hope or ability,
in which they had no strength, no wisdom. They were captive
to their own character, their own state. They were lost, trapped. People speak of free will as
though you can make a decision to change, but we're restricted
by our character. As men and women, we can look
at the birds above who have wings who can fly and we can wish to
be as they are. We can wish to flap our arms
to fly and we stay firmly on the ground. There's nothing we
can do. Birds fly, men don't. They may
make machines to, but they can't naturally. And by nature, as
sinners, we can wish to be righteous. We can wish to be with God. We
can wish to go to heaven when we die. But we can do what we
like, we can flap our arms, we can do this, we can do that,
we can try to live a holy life, we can try not to go there and
to go there, but we can't change what we are, we are still sinners.
Our hearts are still corrupt, we're the same. We can reform
our outer conduct, we can put a show and an appearance on before
men and women. We can try to avoid doing this
sin or that sin outwardly but our hearts are just sewers inside. We remain restricted by our character
and our character is stained, is corrupted by sin. We need
a new character and that character that we need is righteousness,
is righteous. Righteousness regards the character. It's not simply about the deeds
we do or don't do. It's about that quality of person,
that character which we are from which deeds spring. We need righteousness. We need that character, that
quality, that purity with which God can find no fault. That oneness
with Him in His very being. That oneness with His holiness
and perfection. We need all that sin which entered
in to be taken out. We need to be one with God. We need our sins to be washed
away. We need His righteousness to
be made ours. And we can't do it. But just
as one man sinned in the beginning and the effects of one man's
actions was brought upon all men, women and children ever
since. So thank God, praise God, there is another man, one man. who did the very opposite. One
man whose actions bring righteousness and life and salvation to a countless
multitude who follow. There was one who sinned and
all his offspring became sinners, dead by nature. And there was
one who lived righteously, who obeyed God. There was one who
was righteous, who by one act One act of obedience made many
righteous. One act made all his offspring,
all his children, all his descendants righteous, holy, perfect and
pure with God. That one man is Jesus Christ
the Son of God. And that people are all His children,
all the children of God, all those who come to hear His gospel,
all those who hear the Spirit of God speak through His gospel
and declare what He did when He died on a cross. and shed
his blood in their place when he was made a man God made man
when he walked through this earth when he went to that cross when
he was nailed to that cross and when he died as one righteous
act as that one righteousness or the righteousness of one as
that one act of righteousness of which verse 18 in chapter
5 speaks when he died The free gift of God's grace came upon
all men in him, all his descendants, all his children, came upon all
those who know him and believe upon him, unto justification
of life. Adam did one act of disobedience. He ate of the tree of which God
said no, and he plunged all his descendants into sin and death.
Christ did one act of obedience in being nailed to a tree pictured
by that tree of which Adam ate for that tree was a picture of
the law which stirs up sin and rebellion and brings in death
and that law condemned Christ because Christ was nailed to
it as a substitute of his people having committed no sin himself,
but taking upon him their sins, their breaking of that law. And
as such he was nailed to that tree, and slain by the commandment
of the law, by the penalty, and slain by the very righteous character
of God, as he looked upon the sins of those people and their
sin, and slew his son as he stood in their place. Well by that
act, by standing in their place, by dying as their substitute,
by taking the judgment that they deserved upon himself, by one
act, He took away all their sins, all their sin, all the death,
all the rebellion, all the sickness, all the violence, all the disobedience,
all the evil, all the consequences of the fall which was in them. He took it all away and brought
in the righteousness of God for them. As by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience, in laying
down his life upon the cross, shall many be made righteous. One man, another man, the second
man, the last Adam, Christ came and died and made his people
righteous. Moreover, Paul says, the law
entered that the offense might abound. Man in this world was
dead a sinner and God gave a law to him not to make him righteous
but to tell him something of the righteousness that is required
before God to show him that he was not righteous and he gave
that law and the effect of that law was that the offense the
sin in man abounded it condemned him more the more he turned to
it the more he sinned but where sin abounded grace did much more
about because where man fell and where man strived at the
law and founded a sinking pathway that the more he worked to be
holy the more sinful he became and the more he despaired under
it God's grace abounded and said of those convicted under sin,
convicted under that law, those who came to hear the gospel and
came to realize that nothing they could do could save themselves,
not even their best keeping of that law could make themselves
any better. When they found themselves in that state, grace abounded. It abounded, even though their
sin increased and increased in mountains, God looked upon them
in grace. and the grace was overwhelming
overwhelming The consequences of Adam's sin was huge and passed
on to a huge multitude, but Christ's death was greater, and the righteousness
wrought was greater, and the grace shown is greater and abounds
unto multitudes. That our sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life. Christ has undone all that Adam
did in disobeying in the garden. But he's not simply undone it,
he's undone it a million miles beyond. He's not simply undone
what Adam did to bring Adam back to where he was, but he's taken
him to a place that he never was. He's not simply brought
him back to the garden in innocence for how he was created, but he's
given him that fruit from the tree of life which Adam never
ate of. He's given him that grace, that
tree which once he was barred to return to. God in grace, in
the fullness of time, when he said, now is the time, he sent
his son, the tree of life, back into this evil world. And that
tree was slain by wicked men. But that tree rose again in power
and majesty and glory. And that tree is there to be
freely eaten of, of all who are brought to call upon his name. and that tree brings in righteousness
and that righteousness leads unto eternal life. eternal life
it covers the nakedness of man's condition as a sinner when adam
and eve sinned they soon realized that they were naked why did
they realize that because they had eaten of that tree of the
knowledge of good and evil they had eaten of that figure of the
law and the law exposed their nakedness it taught them that
they were sinners it condemned them And they knew they were
naked before a holy God and they knew they needed to cover this.
They knew they needed righteousness. So they went about trying to
make their own righteousness with fig leaves in the picture.
But the righteousness they needed was that in Christ. And that
righteousness would only be possible to be made theirs if His blood
was shed. Because their sin needed to be
dealt with and it could only be dealt with if it was judged.
and it could only be judged in a substitute slain in their stead. So in Genesis we read that God
did clothe them, he clothed them with coats of skins because he
would show them in a figure that they would be clothed, they would
be covered in the gospel in Christ to come. He would clothe them
and he would clothe them through the death of one in their stead. in the figure it was animals
but in reality it is Christ and his death which brought in that
cover by which these people could be covered that cover of righteousness
that was their need that's your need that's my need righteousness
we need righteousness to take away that which we have indulge
in that sin which we have indulged in from our birth. When mankind
was tried, when he was tempted by Satan, he fell. He could not
stand in the face of this temptation. He was created in innocence,
yes, but not in the righteousness of God which would withstand
it. But there's another man, one man, who was made without
sin, who had no sin, who did no sin, who knew no sin, who
was righteous. And when Satan tried and tempted
him, as recorded in the Gospels, Satan could find nothing in him. He did not turn to the left hand
or the right hand. He said, get thee behind me Satan. He would not fall, he could not
fall because he was God and he had the righteousness of God.
Well it's this righteousness in which you will never fall.
from which you will never fall, which is made ours in the gospel
when Christ clothes us in his blood, when he clothes us in
his righteousness, he clothes us in the righteousness of God,
and from such a state you will never fall, no matter what temptation
is brought your way. When you're saved in Christ,
when you've eaten of this tree, it's forever. It is righteousness
which reigns unto eternal life. in Christ. How we need this,
not just to hear of it, not just to read of it, not just to hear
the gospel in word only, but how we need this gospel to come
in power in the Holy Ghost, in much assurance. We need this
blood, we need this righteousness, this covering to be applied and
we need to know it. We need to know it. The fall
was terrible. Sin and death that is in us is
terrible. But in God's Son, in his sovereign
will, he brought in that which is wonderful. The fall was according
to God's knowledge and God's purpose from the beginning of
the world. He knew it would happen. He ultimately is behind all these
things, however terrible it is, because he has a greater purpose
in the gospel in the last Adam, in Christ. What Adam fell in. He would undo in Christ, that
death He would take away, that sin He would destroy and blot
out, and in Christ there would be more wondrous glory shown,
of a free grace, of free salvation, of free righteousness, made known,
made known in Christ, made known in His Gospel, in His Gospel,
and made known unto His people as that gift which is given them
freely forever. forever. Have you tasted it?
Have you got it? Have you sought it? Do you long
for it? Do you rejoice in it? Do you
rejoice that where your sin reigned unto death, even so in Christ
by grace, grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. by Jesus Christ our Lord is that
your rejoicing is that your joy is that your hope today today
listen today where are you looking what are you hoping for what
are you hoping for tomorrow what are you seeking for are you looking
unto Christ and his righteousness because the only hope in this
world for any the only hope the only escape from the disasters
and the ruins and the famines and the violence which we see
all around us is Christ and his righteousness the righteousness
of God in Christ man looks upon the storms and the famines and
the tsunamis and the disasters and says how can how can there
be a god how can a god of love bring these things upon us but
in his blind stupidity he doesn't realize that he brought them
all upon himself through his sin which brought him death he
caused it and the only escape from these things which will
multiply to the last day as a consequence of man's rebellion, the only
escape for you is in Christ and His Gospel. Oh, look unto Christ
at the cross, look unto Him, look unto His righteousness,
and may you know as you look to have your eyes opened. May
you know that faith put in your heart by the Spirit. May you
know that grace, that grace which reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.