Well, we miss you when you're
gone, Miss Debbie. Invite your attention back to
Romans, the fifth chapter. As I said, the title of my message
is paying attention. Yesterday on the news, there
was a short video of Bernie Sanders making a speech. And while he
was doing so, he saw a sparrow light near to where his podium
was and mentioned it to the audience. And as if on cue, when he said
the word birdie, talking about the little birdie, the little
sparrow flew up to his podium and landed there on his podium
looking at him. And the audience went nuts. They began to laugh and smile
and burst into applause. Now, I don't know what political
significance would be placed on that incident, but I'm sure
something will be. Those who are for Bernie will
probably say that even the little creatures of the forest love
Bernie, while those who are against him will probably say that Bernie
is for the birds. I don't know. But when we saw
this little amazing snippet on the air, Debbie looked at me
and said, God did that. God did that. That's not a political
statement. That's just a statement of fact.
And I replied, yep, he sure did. My mind, however, did not go
to the political thought, but to the words of our Lord as he
spoke to his disciples, telling them that not a sparrow falls
without the father, and that they were more important than
the sparrows. and their death would be more
significant than a sparrow that falls. Twice this week, three times
I preached at funerals and sitting ups this week, each time I mentioned the resurrection.
I come from a city in Western Salem, North Carolina, which
is called the Resurrection City, believe it or not. It really
is. That's one of the names. I saw
it, I actually saw it in print this week. And the reason it
is is because they have a large Moravian graveyard there. And
the Moravians are known for their brass bands, and they can play
some fine hymns on those brass bands. And at sunrise on Easter
Sunday, which is actually bail worship, but we won't comment
on that. One band gets at one end of God's
little acre, they call it. That's the big graveyard. Another
band gets at the other end of the graveyard. One band starts playing up from
the great heroes, the first few bars. Then on the other end of the
graveyard, the other band plays the second few bars. And it's
quite impressive. I've been there several times.
It's called the Sunrise Service at Moravian Church. They usually have pancake breakfast
with sausage, too, to feed the firemen, so I like that. I always
enjoyed that. But today, many will go to church,
and we never go to church except one other time a year, and that's
at Christmas, and they'll celebrate what they think to be the resurrection.
And I talked about the resurrection this week three times already. Now, I did so because people
died this week, three times. In the space of a week, our Lord
visited our little congregation with death. Sam and Wanda traveled
to West Virginia to bury his mother. Gary Vance preached the
message up there. I preached the funerals and the
sitting up for peanut French. And yesterday, I preached the
funeral of Wilda Buchanan, who is Araleen's sister. And if you
remember Araleen Carver, you remember when Wilda came with
her, sat beside her, and they were like two peas in a pod. of being a preacher of the gospel
and given the privilege to operate in the arena of life and death, given the quintessential message
that illuminates life and death, it seemed as if the Lord was
saying with these three deaths and even this flight of this
little sparrow, maybe you ought to stop and pay
attention. No small thing. No small thing. As I lay in bed
last night, mulling and pondering these things, I remembered an
incident that Henry Mann told me about when he visited a hospital
bed of a dying brother. But the man asked his dear friend
if he was ready to meet God. The dying brother said, I am. if you told me the truth. I am if you told me the truth. As I pondered that some more,
this passage came to my mind. The entrance of death into this
world by sin. The reason for it. Paul said, Wherefore by one man,
that is Adam, sin entered into this world, and death by sin. And so, death passed upon all
men. As I said, the English translation
is weak here. The marginal reading is better.
In whom all sinned. That means when Adam sinned in
the Garden of Eden, You and I and every other human being sinned
with Adam. We are guilty of Adam's transgression. That's called imputation. Adam,
as our federal head and representative, imputed, his sin was imputed
to us. We were charged with that sin. It was as if we were in the garden,
and we did willfully eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. There are two undeniable facts
that are ever before us in this world. One is the result of the
other. Sin has entered into this world,
and death entered because of it. And the proof that sin entered
this world is patently manifest in this. People die. Why? Because there's sin in the
world. That's what our Lord is saying
here. And not only are these two things obvious to any who
will pause for a moment and take notice. They are said to be reigning
principles in the realm of human existence. sin hath reigned unto
death. It says in this chapter, and
in verse 14 it says, death has reigned in this world. These are not things of secondary
importance, nor are they things of nominal influence. They loom as sovereigns all over
humanity. not ruled by men, but the rulers of men. And they
cannot be dethroned till one greater than them unseat them
and rescues those who are held captive by sin and death. Sin reigns over us. Death reigns
over us. Ask those who've lost loved ones
this week and put them in the ground and you'll find out that
they finally came to the place where they realize they can't
do anything. There's nothing they can do to
change what occurred. Why? Because sin has reigned
in this world. And death has reigned in this
world. And I lay in bed last night and
I thought, am I paying attention? God visits three times in His
power. Am I paying attention? I ought
to be. This is my area, after all. This
is what I'm called to do, to pay attention to these things. I thought of old Baxter, who
said, I am a dying man, preaching to dying men and women. And this is every true preacher's
lot in this life. And if I could hear but one message, knowing that I am a dying man,
what would I want to hear if the pangs of death were upon
my brow and upon my heart? Would I desire to hear about
the present state of politics? I think not. Or the manifold
social and moral evils that surround us all? I don't think so. Would I desire the accolades
of man? Would I want men to say, well, there was a swell fellow
well met? I think not. Here's the truth about it, and
I want you to just ponder and stop for just a moment and consider
this fact. Though it may seem like it's
going to be a long time from now, it may not be. You and I are going to meet God. You and I, everyone here, young
people and old people, smart people and not so smart people,
handsome people and not so handsome people, we're going to meet God. Think
about that. And brethren, You may be as young
as this sweet young thing here on the front row sitting on her
mother's lap, but it'll be soon. God has made me pay attention. If I were about to meet God, and we all are, in a flash of
breath, a disappearing vapor. What would I really want to hear? I watched this morning on CBS,
Sunday morning, one of my favorite shows. I just like it because
it has a whole lot of various things on it. Joel Osteen was
on there. They interviewed him. And he's
such a likable fellow. And it was a 15-minute interview
and he never mentioned the name of Jesus Christ. He said the
word God a few times. But it was all about positive
thinking, making people feel better about their life and handling
tough situations. And when the announcer said,
you don't ever mention things like punishment Hell, do you? He said, no. He said, people
have it tough enough on earth as it is. I'll tell you, if I was on my
deathbed, that message wouldn't do me a bit of good. I was going out to meet the God
of this Bible, not the God of his imagination, and he's now
preaching to 40,000 people every Sunday, three times on Sunday. He bought a stadium and turned
it into a church. 40,000 people are listening to that,
and they love him. And it will give approximately
$90 million this year, that organization. And he has nothing to say that would prepare men to die,
because that's the sure thing. That's what's really going to
happen to every one of us. He has nothing for them. He has
a lot about living in this world and being happy with your circumstance,
but you ain't going to be living long. You're going to die, and you're
going to meet God, the one that's spoken of in this book, and me
too. What would I want to hear? if this was the last message
I ever heard. First thing I'd want to hear,
and there's just three things. I'd want to know the truth about
God, because I'm getting ready to meet Him. I'd want to know the truth about
God. The Bible describes Him as the
Holy God, the Holy One. What does that mean? It means
he's separate from us. He's not like us. His thoughts
are not our thoughts, neither his ways are our ways. We can't
figure him out. Canst thou by searching figure
out God? Canst thou find God by searching?
No, we can't. There was a preacher up in Canada
named T.T. Shields who said we'd sooner
empty the Atlantic with a teaspoon as we would to find out God. Holy. Too holy not to punish sin. And sin and death reigns over
us. Scripture says the sun, the moon,
and the stars are not pure in His sight. much less man that's
born of a woman. I'd want to know the truth about
God if I was going to meet him. I wonder how surprising it's
going to be for those who meet him who've been told he can't
do nothing unless you let him, or his hands are tied, or he's
very solicitous and won't overcome your will. I wonder what it's
going to be like for folks to meet the one that's in the Bible.
For that one, this one, the true God, the living God, is the sovereign
God. The absolute sovereign. What does that mean? He does
as He pleases. He's always done exactly what
He wanted to do. Now preachers may tell you that
He wants to do this for you and wants to do that for you. Unless
He's done that for you, don't believe the preacher. Because
what He does, what He wants to do, that's exactly what He does. He does as he pleases. What does
that mean? That if a person is saved, it
was because God was pleased to save him. And if a person is damned to
eternal hell, it means God was pleased to damn him to eternal
hell. That's the God you're going to
meet. The God who's not even going
to give you account of why He does anything. When a man reviled against God's
sovereignty in Romans chapter 9 and says, well, if He's sovereign
and He's made me this way, and He's my Creator and He's made
me like I am, how can He find fault with me? And the answer
was, shut up, you don't have a right to ask. You don't have
that right to ask God about things. He's not going to tell you why
he does stuff, and I'm convinced we don't want to know. But he's not going to give account
of his matters. I'm glad that the Bible says he's merciful.
That's a good message for someone whose carnal is sold into sin,
and sin and death reign over. Scripture says He's gracious.
He shows merit to folks who can never merit it. Or He shows favor to those who
can never merit it. Unmerited favor. The Bible says
He's plenteous in mercy, but will in no wise clear the guilty.
Uh-oh. I'm in a fix. Because sin and
death reigns over me. And He won't clear the guilty.
He won't clear the guilty. Scripture declares him as holding
the keys to death and hell. Viewing all humanity as dead
in trespasses and sins, and dead in a representative man. He clearly
declared us dead before we existed. We died in Adam, and Adam all
died, and Christ shall all be made alive. We died in Adam. And we're judged in Adam. Or
we're judged in the last Adam. the Lord Jesus Christ according
to 1 Corinthians 15. He's just. That means he never does anything
unjust. He never does anything wrong.
Everything he does is always equitable and right and righteous. And he demands and gets death
for sin. Nobody's going to get by. God
demands and gets death for sin. The second thing I want to know
is this. If that's the God I'm going to meet, If that's the
God I'm going to meet. Point your finger at yourself.
If that's the God I'm going to meet, I would want to know the
truth about me. If I'm going to meet Him, I want
to know the truth about me. Now we all have an opinion of
ourselves and it's generally overrated. We hold ourselves
in very high esteem. Even our Lord said to love our
neighbors, we love ourselves, because he knows how much we
love ourselves. That's not an admonition to love ourselves.
It's just a statement of fact. It's a given. You love yourself.
You ought to love your neighbor just like that. We don't. But
we love ourselves. And we defend ourselves. But the truth about me is important. Because I'm going to meet God.
And I would like to be accepted by Him. I would like to be welcomed into
His presence. What's the truth about me? What's
the truth about you? I'm guilty. By birth, by nature,
and by practice. And He will in no wise clear
the guilt. You're guilty. According to Scripture, I'm dead
in trespasses and sins. I am a pawn, a servant to sin,
and the sovereigns of sin and death rule over me. Scripture says I'm not to be
accounted of. I'm not even worth counting. Because I have breath
in my nostrils and I can only hold one at a time. Scripture
says I'm vain. I know that's true and you know
that's true also. Scripture also says I'm vanity
itself. And it also says I'm lighter
than vanity and I can't imagine anything that's lighter than
nothing. But that's what he said. Scripture says He abused the
whole inhabitants of the earth. There's nothing. He abused the
nations. There's nothing. He abused the world. There's
nothing before Him. He sits upon the circle of the
earth and abused all His inhabitants as grasshoppers. I'm a liar. Let all men be true. Let God
be true. Let all men be liars. And we all are. Well, I'm honest. No, you're not. Not really. You'll try your best. You're
a child of God. You'll want to be honest. But
you're a liar like a dog to protect yourself. You know it and I know
it. But not only are we a liar, and I've thought about this a
long time and I still ain't got an answer to it fully in my own
mind. Scripture said I'm a liar. What you see is not what I am. I'm a liar. Scott Richard used to say, I
just hope I can die before all these people I preach to find
out what a fraud I am. And I fully understand what he
meant. I'm a liar. I'm not just a liar. Whatever I see in you, you ain't.
Whatever I see about you, you're not. Whatever you see about me,
I'm not. God says I'm a liar. I'm a liar. Scripture says I'm impotent.
That means I'm powerless. Scripture says I'm corrupt. I'm
corrupt and corruption. Scripture described me as a carcass,
a maggot on a dunghill, a worm and no man, a grasshopper who
drinks iniquity like water. How can I meet God? I've got to meet God. And this
is what I am? The third thing is this. I would
want to know, and please somebody tell me, if there is hope for someone
like me. Is there hope? God is holy. Cannot look upon sin. I am sin
and cannot communicate with God. Meet God? You're going to meet God. In that book of Romans, there's
some good news before He sets forth that we sinneth reign unto
death, and death and sin reigns over men. He speaks of Jesus
Christ coming into this world to die. He says in verse 6 of that chapter,
for when we were yet without strength, and that means having
no strength, in due time, or according to the time, Christ
died for the ungodly. Well, that's me. I certainly
fit that mode. The ungodly. You mean Christ
died for ungodly men? That's the only kind of men He
died for. Ungodly men. Not godly men. Not upright men.
The upright godly men that talked to Him on earth. He despised
and cast aside and discounted as having anything to do with
God whatsoever. Called them children of devils.
And they couldn't possibly understand what he said because he told
the truth. He died for the ungodly. That gives me a glimmer of hope because I certainly fit
that characteristic. In verse 8 it says this, But
God commended His love toward us that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Amazing! While we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. How were we sinners? We didn't
even exist. We were sinners in Adam. When Adam sinned, we sinned. When Adam sinned, God imputed
His sin to us. And here it says, Christ went
to the cross and died for sinners. What is a sinner? I know people
have ideas about this and I hear people talk about it. They're
pretty sure that a sinner is someone who drinks too much or
takes dope or fools around or runs around on their wives or
their husbands or visits bordellos or smokes cigarettes or or goes
to the movie show, or everything that people are naturally opposed
to, or somewhat opposed to, and that's a matter of personal conviction.
Old Jack Shanks used to call it regional sanctification. Back where I was from, there
was churches that actually had signs on their, words on their
sign that said, no smokers attend this church. Well, you know I
didn't attend there for sure. But you go some places where
I was growing up and if you danced, certain churches says you're
going to hell if you danced. And man, I danced all the time.
I didn't go to them churches. When I was a boy, they told me
if I drank one beer and got one-tenth drunk, that means I was a sinner.
And I wonder, well, is that one-tenth of a sin, or do I have to pretend
to be a whole sinner? But there in Winston-Salem, you
couldn't drink alcohol. You never seen such a thing raised
up in that city. When Schlitz Brewery came to
Winston-Salem, oh my soul, them Christians was up in arms. And
they even had, the church I belonged to had one of them church covenants
on the line, and it said don't take alcoholic beverages, alcohol
as a beverage. on them church covenants. And
a man in our church actually had to leave the church because
he didn't have no money, he was out of work, and he took a job
at Schlitz making good money so he could support his family.
They told him, you can't stay here because you're working at
Schlitz. Now you go down to Texas, some
of them people in Texas think if you drink a cup of coffee
you're going to hell, but you better have a Lone Star for lunch. Regional sanctification. What
is a sinner? What is it? What does the Bible
say a sinner is? The Bible says a sinner is an
enemy. Ungodly. An enemy of God. Now the God
that's being preached in this world today, everybody likes
because He's just a sweet fella. Oh, put a rocking chair up on
a cloud. Nice old fella that just wants the best for everybody.
Nice old gentleman. Everybody likes Him. And He loves
everybody. That God, listen, is not the
God you're going to meet. rebels against God. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. Know what that means? That means
you count God as your enemy from the day you're born. What do
you do to an enemy? You kill them. That's what you do to an enemy.
And whether you want to realize it or not, sin is not as men
say it is. Sin is murder in your heart toward
Almighty God. Get him out of it. We'll not
have this man reign over us. Put him out of business. Jerk
him off his throne and set yourself in his place. That's what enmity
is. And that's your mind and our
mind as we're born. We say, well, I never felt that
way about God. That's because He ain't crossed your path yet.
Not the true one. Enemies. Look at verse 10. 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. God is holy and requires death
for sin. We're dead already, but that
ain't good enough. It's a death that must satisfy
His law and His justice, and we can't do that. We can't come
up with that kind of death, so hell is eternal of dying and
dying and dying and never satisfying God. How can it be? That he died for
sinners, that he died for enemies, that he reconciled the enemies
to God. He reconciled, according to Colossians 1, by the blood
of his cross. Not made reconciliation possible,
he made reconciliation. Period. How did he do it? He did it by substitution. A
grand old gospel word. Words you don't hear much today,
unless you're hearing a grace preacher, but if you hear a grace
preacher, you'll hear that word. He can't hardly preach a message
without saying substitution. Because that means when Jesus
Christ died for the ungodly, when Jesus Christ died without
strength for us, when Jesus Christ reconciled our enemy selves to
God, When He did that, He did that by dying in our room and
step. He died the death that we owe
God for the soul that said it shall die. The wages of sin is
death. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And by Him, as the mediator between
men and God, the Savior, the Redeemer, He put Himself in between
us and God's wrath. He put himself between us and
God's justice. Between us and God's demand for
death. And God got our death in Him. The death we owed God, He paid. We owed a debt we could not pay.
He paid a debt He did not owe. Jesus paid it all, all the debt
I owe. Sin had left the crimson stain,
but He washed it white as snow. Imputation. Just as our sin was
imputed to Adam, or Adam's sin was imputed to us, our sin was
imputed to Jesus Christ. He was made to be sin for us.
All our sins were made to meet on Him. It says in Isaiah chapter
53 verse 6. And with His stripes that He
bore, because when He was made sin, God punished Him for our
sin. with his stripes, we are, state of being, present tense,
we are healed. That's how we're reconciled to
God, by substitution, by imputation, by satisfaction of propitiation. Somehow, the death that we owed,
our own criminality that brought us to hate God, The fact that
the law holds us in contempt and can find every cell and nucleus
of every cell in our body as sinful and reason to condemn
us to death, the law then must be satisfied for us. And that's
what he did when he died on the tree. He satisfied justice. Satisfied justice. So much so
that if you're a child of God today, even though you know those
things, I just spoke to you about what we are. It's never seen
by God. Like a dark cloud, He hath blotted
out our transgressions, He said. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as stone. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. Why? Because God was satisfied
with the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, completely and perfectly
sated. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. Does that mean God took pleasure
in pouring out our sin on His Son? No, it meant it satisfied
God to do that. It satisfied God to do that.
He finished salvation. That's what he said, it is finished
and salvation was finished on Calvary Street. Is there hope
for someone like me? If I'm in Jesus Christ, there's
plenty of hope. The election. I couldn't choose
God. "'Twas not I that did choose
thee, Lord, that could not be, for I would still refuse thee
had thou not chosen me.' Think about it. God chose me
from the foundation of the world and he chose me while I was a
sinner and an enemy and ungodly to show his mercy and his grace. Predestination to be adopted
by Jesus Christ, predestinated to be conformed to the image
of His Son, predestinated to hear the Gospel, predestinated
to believe, predestinated to be an heir according to promise. The privilege to hear the truth. The privilege to hear the truth. And if you're
hearing it, my friends, it's a privilege. A lot of people
ain't. A lot of people going to church. A lot of people religious. But
I'm talking about the truth of God. Talking about the truth
of God. It's sweet. These last seven days have been
full of wonder. I buried some people I loved
and another was buried out of sight for me up in West Virginia. And I mean to pay attention. This is our destiny, my friend. The grave is our future home
for this body. Our spirit will leave this body
and go out to meet God. I want to know who He is. I want to
know what I am. And I want to know there's hope. And I know those things. And that hope is in Jesus Christ
alone. The poet said, I entered once
a home of care, where age and poverty were there, yet peace reigned with all. I asked the lonely widow whence her aged widow's true defense
She answered, Christ is all. Father bless us to our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name. Amen.