I hope to be able to show you
in Genesis chapter 4 before we leave the chapter. Tonight was
a part of it. Last week's message was a part
of it. And this following week, the Lord willing, will be another
part of it. But I want to show you here in
this chapter before we leave it that this is the place where
public worship first began. This is where it was established. You see the very last verse of
the chapter. It says, And to Seth, to him
also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos. Then
began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Then began men to
publicly gather and call upon the name of the Lord. This is
the beginning of what we call public worship. But tonight I
want us to focus our attention on verses 5 through 7 concerning
what our Lord said to Cain about his rejection and the rejection
of his sacrifice and his attitude of heart by which it was offered.
I titled the message tonight, Sin Lieth at the Door, because
I believe that's the heart of the message. I want to say this and continue
to say this as clearly as I know how to say it, that what took
place at these two altars establishes a precedence that is followed
throughout the scriptures and throughout the history of men
and is manifested in our day when men approach God as clearly
as it was all the way back yonder. when they met here in Genesis
chapter 4 and approached God. That same thing that was manifested
then is manifested now. These two boys and their two
comings before God set forth an example and a picture of all
the religions that will ever be formed on the earth. And all
of these religions will fall under one of these two categories,
works or grace. That's the way it's going to
be. That's the way it was. It was established, the precedence
was set, and you can just go all the way through the scriptures,
and I don't care if they worshipped Buddha or Mohammed or Baal or
who it was, they worshipped all religions. Every last religion
of the earth is based on one of these two things, works or
grace. It just falls in that category.
Abel was instructed as to his offering as was Cain. They both
heard the truth. They both were told about the
fall, about the curse, about the promise, and about the means
which God demonstrated to them in the garden. I'm confident
that both of these boys were instructed equally by their father
and mother, and that they knew the way of truth. It had been
declared to them. Abel bowed to it, submitted himself
to God. Submitted himself to God's testimony,
believed what his father told him. Cain heard the same message,
but would not submit, would not receive his father's testimony. He took the message he heard
and he mixed it with his own reason and he mixed it with his
own logic. He mixed it with his own fallen
affections. He mixed it with his own ideas
and notions. And maybe his pride was stirred
by his being the eldest of the two boys or his mother's favoritism,
believing him to be the promised seed. I don't know what all the
mixtures was, all the ingredients that went into it. I just know
the end of it. He took what he heard and he
mixed it. And that's what happens. That's
what man does. Man wouldn't even know to offer
a sacrifice if it wasn't established back here. Why would man offer
a sacrifice? Because it was told and passed
down from generation to generation to generation to generation.
And even these bone-in-the-nose natives over
in Africa who don't know which end is up, they still offer sacrifices
to God. They still come and they still
bring sacrifices, no matter who it is they call their God. And I don't know what all the
ingredients were, but he took of the works of his hands and
in pride and self-righteousness and self-will, he laid his sacrifices
on the altar and assumed that God would be in some way obligated
to reward him with his favor and blessing. Abel, on the other
hand, he brought by faith exactly what he was instructed to bring.
He brought a sin offering because he knew he was a sinner. He brought
a substitute because he understood that there was nothing in himself
to merit salvation and because he saw the promised seed to be
the Lamb's flame. He understood that. He brought what God said he required
and believed that God would accept both him and his offering because
God said he would. That's why I tell folks to trust
in Christ because that's what God said to do. I'm not appealing to men's logic
when I stand up here and tell you to submit yourself to the
Lord Jesus Christ, to bow to Him, to rest completely in Him. I'm telling you the testimony
of God. And when a person comes in here
and sits down and bows up and says, I ain't going to do it,
I don't believe it, I'm rejecting it, they're calling God a liar
and they're rebelling against God. I'm just the middle man.
I'm just the guy in the middle. That's all I am. A representative
of God, just a voice. But he believed God. And when he shed his blood in
fear and trembling, he thought about that Lamb of God that would
one day be born of a virgin and offer himself without spot to
God. Abel was instructed. Cain was
instructed. But they came different. They
thought different. They acted different. And Cain
came with a sinful attitude of heart, and Abel came with an
attitude of grace. Cain rested all his hope on his
own wisdom and works and ways, and Abel rested all his hopes
on the free grace of God and the promised Redeemer. And so
it was by one or the other to this day that men come and come
before God and are rejected or respected. They bring one of
these two things. And that's how they do it, and
that's how they bring it. And upon the respect of his younger
brother's offering, Cain got mad. Now, he got mad. And I want to take these verses,
and I want you to look at them close and see if we can see the
way to worship and see the way of God that he establishes here.
Because God doesn't change. However, God acted in Genesis
chapter 4. He acts all the way through time.
God doesn't change. We change every day, but God
doesn't change. Sin doesn't change. Sin is the
same. It has the same goal, the same
reasons, manifests itself the same throughout history. But
let's look at these things here in Genesis chapter 4 verse 5. They brought these offerings.
But it says, unto Cain and to his offering he had no respect. Now, I want you to notice here,
I touched on this last week, that both his person and his
offering is mentioned, and they are not separated. He says one
and the same thing of his offering that he says of his person. Cain
and his offering, God had no respect, neither one. And I say
that for a reason, because preachers and people in our day speak of
one as though it had nothing to do with the other. In the
churches I grew up in, they taught that if you did the best you
could do, God would be satisfied. He'd be satisfied no matter what
it was you did, if you did your best. Whatever it was you brought
and what you believed about a certain thing made no difference. As
long as you brought the best you could produce, God would
accept it. And if you didn't bring your
best but slipped up somewhere along the way, God would not
accept the work, but he still loved and favored the person.
And one of their favorite sayings was this, God loves the sinner
and hates the sin. But you can't separate the sinner
from his sin, because the sinner is sin. His heart is sin. His mind is enmity against God. He is sin. Sin has saturated
his being. Sin is a nature, and it's consumed
him, and you can't separate him from his sin. And so what happens
here is you have two sinners approaching God. You don't have
one good guy and one bad guy. You have two sinners approaching
God. And God has respect to the one,
and he has no respect to the other. Why? We need to know why. Why? Because you're a sinner
and so am I. And we have to approach God.
We've gathered in here tonight to worship God. We're approaching
God just the same as these two men did. How shall we approach
Him? I don't want to be rejected.
I don't want to wind up at the end of the day and God say, well,
he had no respect to mine at all. Just spit on the service
tonight. Spit on the songs and the prayers and the gathering.
I don't want that. I don't want that. I want to
understand why. Why did he turn him away? Why?
Why did he have no respect to his offering? And what I find
out is that it's both why he offered it and what he offered. He offered a mixture of what
his daddy told him to bring and what he thought would be the
best. And his daddy told him he had to come. He had to come
to an altar. He had to come before God. Something had to be done. He could not just come in his
person before God. A sacrifice had to be offered.
He believed that. But a lamb slit in its throat
and all that, he was a vegetable farmer. He didn't want any part
of that. And so he thought, well, what I'll do is I'll just...
Abel can bring that lamb if he wants to. But I'm going to bring
the works in my hands. I'm going to bring what I know
how to do. I'm going to bring what I'm the best at. I'm going
to bring I, I, I. That's what it is. That's all
it is. That's what man sees. And he takes that clear instruction
of God and mixes it with his own thing. But I want you to
see here that God makes no distinction between Cain and his offspring,
saying that he had no respect to either. Now look at the last
part of verse 5. It says, And Cain was very wroth,
and his countenance fell. Now, wroth is not a word we use
in our day. I haven't heard anybody, as long
as I've been able to communicate with people, ever use the word
wroth. It's the only place I ever was confronted with it is in
the Scriptures. But here God says that he was
wroth. And so I looked it up to see
what that word meant. And what it means is to blaze
up, to blaze up and be flushed in the face, to be red. His blood boiled. He was hot. His countenance fell. Them eyebrows
went down, and that smile turned into a frown, and that face flushed
up red. And he set that jaw and them
teeth, and he was hot. He was mad. And he's talking
to God. He's not talking to Abel here.
He's talking to God. And he was mad. God was talking
to him, and he was reacting to God. His blood boiled, and his
face turned red, and his eyebrows went down. And he set that jaw. He was angry with God, and angry
with his father, and angry with his brother, and angry with everybody
associated with this thing. He was upset. He brought the
best he could produce, and God stood on it and snubbed his nose
to it, wouldn't even recognize it. Left him and his sacrifice
to themselves. Just left him sitting there.
Look here in verse 6 now. Here's the third thing I want
you to see. The Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou
not be accepted? Now, the first signs of the fall
was in man's attempt to hide himself from God. That's the
first sign. Man attempted, he recognized
that he was naked. to whatever degree he recognized
that he had done something contrary to God, and he felt like God
would be upset and he wanted to hide from God. And so he hid
himself among the trees of the garden. And the second evidence
was upon their sins being recognized, they made excuses and found the
fault to be in God. Now, that's what's taking place
here. When the man was confronted,
he told God the woman that you gave me. He confronted the woman. She said, Satan, beguile me. That's what man does. When man's
confronted with his sins, he wants to throw that back at God. Well, God is sovereign. You tell
me God is sovereign. Why did he let me sin? Why did
he do this? Why did he do that? And as I told you Sunday over
in Romans 9, Paul said, Who art thou, old man, that replies against
God? Now, that's what God is reasoning
here with Cain. Who are you to reply against
me? Why are you upset? Why are you
upset? If you did well, do you believe
I wouldn't recognize you? Do you believe I wouldn't have
respect to you? Do you see anything in my character to warrant my
rejection of your sacrifice if it was acceptable." Now, that's
what God's telling him. You find some fault in me, in
my character, in my person, in my rule? If thou doest well,
shalt thou not be accepted? Men blame providence, creation,
circumstance. Catastrophe, all these things,
poverty, riches, and what they're really doing is blaming the God
of both. Cain is rejected, his pride has
been wounded, his ignorance has been exposed, and his heart set
on fire by God's disrespect. We always hunt somewhere else
for the cause, don't we? Job said in Job 19, 28, the root
of the matter, he said, is found in me. That's where it's at.
It's found in me. It's not chance and circumstance
that determines you fall, but the sin in you. Sin reigns under
death. The scripture said lust, when
it is finished, bringeth forth sin, and sin, when it is finished,
bringeth forth death. The cause of our problems is
in us. It's not in our brothers, it's
not in our sisters, it's not in our families, and it's not
in the pulpit, and it's not in our God. The problem is in us. That's where the problem is.
The believer, when the Lord said, If not I chosen you twelve, and
one of you is a devil, everybody in there said, Is it I? Is it
I? That's what a believer says.
That's the first thing he says. Is it I? Nobody there thought
it was Judas. I wonder if Judah said, is it
I? Don't you? I don't believe he did, but everybody
else did. If you brought what you were
told, if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? If you
brought what you were told and brought it how you were told
and presented it to the living God in submission of heart and
will, embodied in faith, understanding what it meant, you would have
been accepted. And he would have been accepted
right then, had he done it. But he wouldn't. He wouldn't. Now, watch this. Verse 7, the
last part. If thou doest not well, sin lieth
at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him." If when we come together in this
assembly to worship God, and we sit out here and we're unstirred,
we're not stirred. We hear the gospel presented
as best I can present it to you. And I talk about that blood,
that precious blood of Christ as of a lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. who came into this world and
become a man, God incarnate in the flesh, came down here and
humbled himself and become a man, a substitute, a representative
for sinners, and submitted himself to spitting and slapping and
nails gripping in his hands and spears in his side and men standing
around laughing at him while he died. And we're not stirred by that. I'm not stirred. My heart's not
stirred. I sat in the bench as though
somebody just read a financial report. I'm not moved by it. I'm not moved by it. I feel no
stirring within. I feel no worship within. We
come together and we sit and we hear it and we're unstirred.
We're unexcited. We're unmoved. And we bow our
heads sometimes in prayer, and the heavens seem as brass, and
it's like praying in a cave, and our words just come back
to us like an echo. They go out and they come back.
When we hear the gospel proclaimed, it has no effect on our hearts,
and we go out grumbling instead of rejoicing, and we go out angry
instead of being at peace. Here's the reason. Sin lies at
the door. Now that's what God's telling
came. They both came before Him to worship. They came to approach
Him as their God. And they brought their sacrifices.
And they were to bring them in faith. And they were to bring
them in submission with a humble heart and offer them up before
God. And God had respect to one and
had no respect to the other. And in defense, of his reaction
to Cain, here's what he told him, sin, life at the door. Now that's where it's at. Sin,
life at the door. And I'm telling you this, sin
is unbelief. That's what it is. That's that
sin. That's that boulder that stands
between you and God, unbelief. Because it tells us over in Hebrews
chapter 11, by faith Abel offered excellent sacrifice than Cain.
That's why he offered it in faith. He came before God believing
in that sacrifice, trusting in that sacrifice. Faith is an attitude
of heart. It's not just giving consent
to a bunch of doctrines. It's an attitude of heart. And
through that faith is conveyed to us love and mercy and joy. All those things, all those virtues
that come through faith to the believer. Turn with me to 1 John
chapter 1. I tell you this, Abel came with
a sin offering. He came with a sin offering because
he saw himself a sinner. A sinner. Abel came with a substitute,
and he understood what that substitute was all about. He knew that there
was nothing in him or about him that was sufficient to satisfy
God. Abel came with a representative
willing to be accepted or rejected in him, one or the other. He had one hope, John Belano. That's it. He didn't have any
other hope. He came with what God required,
believing that what God required would be sufficient to accomplish
its cause. Now, watch this here in 1 John,
chapter 5. 1 John 1, verse 5. He said, This then is the message
which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is
light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say," and I'm going
to add something to that, if we say, or if we think, or if
we hope, we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we
lie and do not the truth. Ain't that what he said? That's
a powerful statement. We lie and we do not the truth.
And some that's going to listen to this message, either in here
tonight or on the internet or by disk, whoever it might be,
somebody's going to listen to this message and they're going
to have no joy and they're going to have no peace and they're
going to have no stirring of heart in worship, no stirring
of the heart in prayer. And I'll tell you why. Because
sin lies at the door. That's why. That's why. You're attempting to have fellowship
with God and walk in darkness, and it ain't going to happen.
It ain't going to happen. You're hardening. We're hardened
inside. Henry used to use the term gospel
hardened. You can come and sit. And that
work of grace not be done on you, and you can sit and sit
and sit and sit, and you'll be hardened to it. It has no effect
on you. You just hear it and sit there
and hear it. Nothing. Nothing happens. That's
gospel hardening. That's what that is. Oh, ill will. Some point of disagreement. Some experience in your past. Manage to hide from everybody
but yourself. And you can't hide it from God.
Verse 7, But if we walk in the light, as he is the light, we
have, look at this, we have, there's no doubt about it, we
have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Now, just hold your place
there for a minute, and let me talk to you. Abel walked in the light of the
promised Redeemer. That's what Abel was doing. He
walked in the light of his grace and mercy to sinners. He walked
in the light of his righteousness and shed blood for sinners. He
walked in the light of his revelation and wisdom. Understanding how
a holy God could be just and yet justify a guilty, condemned,
practicing sinner. He understood that when he brought
that lamb. When he brought that lamb. And
walking so, he found fellowship with God. And fellowship, my
friend, is fellers in the same ship. That's what that means.
And we come with our offerings and we come as one. We come,
all of us, fallen, depraved, sons of Adam. We come together
with one another as an assembly or as a church. And we come to
the same God, the same way, by the same means, or we cannot
hope to be blessed of God. That's how we must come. We walk
believing that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us
from all sin. Now look here in verse 8, 1 John
chapter 1. If we say we had no sin, what does that say? We deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say we had no sin, we deceive
ourselves. Verse 10. I'm going to skip verse
9 for this second. Verse 10. If we say we had not
sinned, We make him a liar and his word is not innocent. We
don't understand the word of God. We don't understand what
this thing is all about. We don't understand the fall.
We don't understand the power of sin. If we say we had not
sinned, we make God a liar. If we say we had no sin, are
not indwelt by it. Do not have it in our natures
and minds and hearts, denying the fall, denying man's ruin,
and God's judgment on man. The truth isn't in us. It's not
in us. If we deny the practice of it,
the presence of it, the power of it, continually in our lives,
every time, the best prayer you ever pray, filthy rags. If we
deny that, all our righteousness is filthy
rags. This sin bringing us into captivity,
Paul said, having its way in us with lust and desires. We
make God a liar and His Word is not in us. We do sin. Yes, we do, every day. But we have a high priest. Look
here in verse 9, 1 John 1 verse 9. Now, here is the only way
it is going to happen right here. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. You've got to dig up those things. Don't hide them from God. Don't
hide them and try to bring the second best. You come as you
are. Abel came as a sinner. His very
name said that he was vanity. That's what his name means, vanity.
Nobody respected him. Nobody had any faith in him. He was just Abel. He was just
there. He was just a kid that probably
wasn't even playing. He'd just come along. And here's
Cain, and everybody's fussing over him. And God has no respect
to him. But, oh, Abel came as he was. He came a sinner. And he bowed
down before God, and he brought that sacrifice. That was everything
to him, that sacrifice, that length. That's how you have to
come. That's why we can't pray. We just want to rush into the
presence of God as though we had no sin, as though we were
clean and smart and knew everything and just come in after that little
wish list. God bless everything I do. Amen. God's not going to hear
you. He's not going to bless you. You're going to come before Him
and bow down and confess what you are and tell Him, I don't
even know how to pray. I don't know what to pray. I
don't know when to pray. I need Your grace. I need Your
mercy. I need You. Then He'll hear you. Then He'll stir your heart. And
you'll be able to worship the same thing we come in here to
worship. I'll tell you what I got against this offering, sticking
it back there in the box. The other day I passed out bread
and wine to you, and you took that bread in your hand, and
I called your attention to what it was. I said, look at that
bread. That bread is his broken body.
That bread is his body which was broken for you that endured
that suffering and all those things that you might have the
liberty and freedom and grace that you have. And that wine,
that's his blood. And you looked at it and your
heart was raised up in memory of what it did. And you took
it and you ate it as the food it is by faith. And that wine,
and you drank it. The same thing goes for that
offering, brothers and sisters. If it's just donating money,
then we just need to stick it in an envelope like a phone bill
and mail it to Glenn and he can get it and pay the bills. But
if it's a part of worship, you need to hold it in your hand
and you need to look at it and you need to remember what it's
for and who you're giving it to and think about it and be
stirred to worship. Who cares what somebody else
thinks? Who cares what that unbeliever
thinks? We come in here as children of God to worship God. And everything
we do, our prayers and songs and everything we do, has to
be towed this in for worship. And, old Cain, I know without
being there, without having the words in this book, I know by
my own experience, Cain just gathered that stuff up, and brought
it up there and laid it down, and he was proud of it. And he
knew, he knew in his soul, he knew God was going to accept
that and be proud of it. And God spit on it. And he got
mad. He got mad. And God told him,
He said, I'll tell you why you're upset. Sin lies at the door. It lies at the door. I'll tell
you how we're going to get along in this church. We're going to
get along because of Him. Because we stand in Him and we
stand by grace and we stand in the same blood and by that same
grace and that same sacrifice. We stand in Him being taught
by one Spirit. And we're going to be in fellowship
with one another because we're in the same ship. I'm not going
to look down my nose at a black man, a yellow man, a red man,
or a white man. I'm not going to look down my
nose at a poor man. A man comes in here with stinking
clothes on, ain't had a bath in two weeks. I can't look down
my nose at him because God's already got me down to the ashes. All I can do is look up. Just
look up. That's how we get along. It's
when you get up here looking down, that's where the trouble
starts. And I tell you, when you get up there looking down,
you can forget approaching God. You can forget seeing life at
the door. Now look here, Genesis 4, verse
7. If thou doest not well seeing
life at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou
shalt rule over him. Now this is a very controversial
verse of Scripture. I was talking with the men about
it before the service. Some of them believe that God
is here assuring Cain that his spiritual rejection has not altered
his family status. Just because God didn't accept
him in worship, he wasn't going to take away his right to be
heir. And I see some things wrong with
that. Number one, he was driven. He was driven out into the world.
He was no longer considered the heir. He no longer had a family
status there. He was driven out. God put a
mark on him and sent him out. And another thing I see wrong
with that is that God is not here speaking to a man he respects. He is speaking to a man he rejected
and to whom he had no respect. He is not talking here today
about civil or family matters. He is talking to him about his
rejection and God's disrespect of his sacrifice. And if you
will remember what I told you this a couple of times in our
studies, that when you see words italicized, that sometimes they
do, they do help a text to read clear. Sometimes they hide the
true meaning of the text. It's the translator's added these
words, and your Bible, if you'll just look up in the front in
the instructions in your Bible, it'll tell you that, most Bibles
will, that you can lift those words out and read them without
it. If it don't make any sense, put them back in. But sometimes
just lifting those words out helps you to find out what this
text is saying. So let's read the text again
and take out those two words that are italicized. He said,
If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee his
desire. Sin lieth at the door, and unto
thee his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Until this word
lies, Winston knew this. He answered it. I didn't think
he'd know it. He surprised me. He did know it. That word lies
is the same word that's translated in other places as crouching. He's talking about a predator,
a lion crouching at the door. And what he's talking about is
if any enemy, if anything tries to enter that door, this lion
is going to pounce on it. He's going to pounce on it, and
he's going to destroy it. He's going to tear it to pieces.
And you go through the prophets, and you'll find over and over
and over in their spiritual dreams and visions that they prophesied
of, you'll find them talking about those lions ripping and
tearing, and that's what they're talking about. They're talking
about this predator that lives in your heart, seeing life at
the door like a lion, and he's ready. He's ready to pounce,
God said. He's ready to pounce. And he's
telling Cain that the reason you're red and flushed in the
face, and the reason you're upset and broken hearted, and the reason
that you're jealous over your brother, and the reason all these
things are flaring up in you is because that lion is crouched
and he's ready. No matter what's told you, no
matter how much grace comes your way, that lion ain't going to
let it in. He's going to pounce on it as soon as it comes through
the door. He's going to pounce on it. It's a mighty predator,
and it lies at the door of your heart, ready and willing to pounce
and devour anything that attempts to come in. Our Lord said, The
strong manned arm keepeth his talus, and his goods are at peace. But when a stronger than he,
Luke 11, 22, shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh
from him his armor, wherein he trusteth, and divideth his foes. Sin has a secret rule in the
hearts of men, and it's not easily seen or recognized, but lays
crouching at the door. That's where it's at. Ready to
take advantage of any situation. Before you can put your finger
on it, before you can put your foot on it, out it comes. Out
it comes. Comes right out of your mouth.
Fast, quick, devouring. And here in Genesis chapter 4,
the Lord is telling Cain that this is his problem. The problem is the sin that he's
not willing to confess as a rule. It rules over him. It always
will until that rule is changed. And he tells him, and thou shalt
rule over it. It must be ruled over. Now, I
believe this is the truth of that text, Winston. I believe
what he's telling Cain is that sin lies at the door and you
must rule over it. But you can't in yourself. You
cannot rule over it yourself. It counts as a line. It's more
powerful than you, and you can't put it down. But if he would
have came the way Abel did, God would have set up in his heart
that authority, and he would have been able to rule over it
the same way Abel did. I shall rule over him." I wish
I had the words to express the experience in my own heart when
it comes to this. When grace and truth set up their
rule in the heart and Christ is revealed to you in power and
demonstration of the Spirit, you're delivered from the power
of sin. You're delivered from its dominion. Sin, he said, has no more dominion
over you. It's still there. It goes about
as a roaring lion, but all he can do is roar. You have dominion. He doesn't have dominion anymore.
Christ sits on the throne. Grace rules. Grace rules. So he is no longer the king.
His rule has been put down by the king of glory. And the king
of glory, his rule now governs the house. Sin is still in us,
and we're no longer under its dominion. Now, turn with me to
Romans chapter 6. I'll read this to you, and then
we'll wind it up. In the last verse of Romans chapter
5, and you all know what Romans chapter 5 is about. It's about
by one man, sin entered into the world. That's what was going
on here. Sin had entered into the world. And death by sin,
and so this death passed upon all men. Here is the first living
proof of it, Cain and Abel. And they come before God. And
here is the issue. Sin is reigning. It is reigning
in both of the hearts. But one of them heard the gospel.
One of them was born of God. One of them, the Spirit of God,
came in with that mediator king in knowledge and set up his rule
in his heart. And he took that lamb and by
faith brought it and slit its throat and worshiped God. And
he defeated that sin. Here comes the other, sin's ruling
in his heart, and he brings a mixture. He brings by his own works and
by his own hands, and God won't have anything to do with it.
Spits on it. He just overlooks it, rejects
it altogether. And then God tells him, he follows,
sin reigns in your heart. And then in the last verse here
of Romans chapter 5, he said that as sin hath reigned unto
death, and it has, even so might grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Chapter 6, what shall
we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we who
are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know you not that so
many of us as were baptized in Jesus Christ were baptized into
his death? In other words, that when God
killed him, he killed you. When he buried him, he buried
you. When he condemned him, he condemned you. Therefore, he
said, verse 4, we're buried with him in baptism into death, that
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of
the Father, even so we should also walk in newness of life.
being justified, accepted, released from that legal obligation. God
treated him with favor and blessing and reverence and seated him
at his own right hand, gave him all that he requested, all that
he asked, gave it to him freely. For if we have been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall also be risen in the
likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.
that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead
is freed from sin." Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe
we also should live with him. In other words, God is not going
to give you half a salvation and half a redemption. If he
considers you to have died in his Son, he will also consider
you to have those promises and things which he promised in Christ,
and he will give you the benefits of his resurrection. Verse 9,
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more,
death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he
died once unto sin, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise, reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Sin is the enemy. That's what
God-telling came. He said, You're upset at Me,
and all I've done is manifest grace to you. You're angry with
Me, and all I've done is manifest mercy. I didn't have to leave
you with a promise. I could have condemned this world
and sent it up in smoke in the garden if I wanted to. Everything
that I've done to you and for you has been an act of grace
and mercy. Why are you upset? You're looking
in the wrong place for the problem. You're looking at your brother,
and you're looking at your father, and you're looking at me. He
said, look at yourself. Look in here. Sin lies at the
door. That's where it's at. And I tell
you, I don't care what it is. I don't care what it is we go
to do, where it is our problem lies. That's the problem. That's
the problem. Sin lies at the door. Find it. Confess it. Bring it before God. And watch it be cleansed under
the blood. And then you'll have freedom.
And your heart will be stirred to worship. And we'll bow down
with thanksgiving. Our Father, we come to you tonight, gathered
in this place, and confess our sins. presumptuous, proud, walking most of our day with
no thought for the living God. No thought of that grace and
mercy and that precious blood that's washed our sins away.
What foolish, foolish men we are.