Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able, please remain standing
and let's give our attention to Romans Chapter
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Five, verses twelve through twenty one. Let us continue to hear God's word
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in this particular book, the Book
of Romans, Paul's letter, now Chapter
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Five, verses twelve through twenty one. Therefore, just as sin came into
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the world through one man and death
through sin, and so death spread to
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all men because all sinned, for
sin indeed was in the world before the
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law was given. But sin is
not counted where there is no law.
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Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not
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like the transgression of Adam, who
was a type of the one who was
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to come. But the free gift
is not like the trespass, for if
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many died through one man's trespass,
much more have the grace of God and
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the Free Gift, by the grace
of that one man, Jesus Christ,
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abounded for many. And the free
gift is not like the result of that
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one man sin, for the judgment
following one trespass brought condemnation, but the
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free gift following Menne trespasses brought justification. For if because of one man's trespass,
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death reigned through that one man.
Much more will those who receive the
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abundance of grace and the Free Gift
of the Righteousness, of righteousness reign in
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life through the one man, Jesus
Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led
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to condemnation for all men, so
one act of righteousness leads to justification and
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life for all men. For as
by the one man's disobedience the many were
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made sinners, so by the one
man's obedience, the many will be made
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righteous. Now the law came in
to increase the trespass. But where sin
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increased, grace abounded, all the
more so that as sin reigned in death,
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grace also might reign through righteousness,
leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ,
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our Lord, Ay God bless his
word to us. Please be seated
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well. This passage in Romans,
Romans five twelve through twenty one, presents
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us with a number of different challenges. One of them is simply reading it.
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I'm there is a kind of syntax
here, a sentence structure, the
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way that Paul speaks that is a
little bit difficult to follow. I think
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a lot of people tend to get
discouraged right from the very beginning because Paul
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begins by setting up this contrast.
He says just as and then you're sort
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of waiting for the other shoe,
but it doesn't happen. Instead he moves
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into a parenthesis comment and verses thirteen
through fourteen, then gets into a little
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discussion and then doesn't really come back
to that contrast until the final verses.
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So you start out and you say
okay, I'm tracking and then all of
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a sudden it's that I'm not tracking
and you feel a little bit lost.
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So if you felt a little bit
lost as we went through the passage,
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don't worry, you're not alone.
But also don't worry because it is internally
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coherent. Though Paul doesn't follow all
the strict rules of simple syntax and he's
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free to use Greek as he pleases
her, so to speak, he does
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ultimately use it to communicate to us
very clear and important truths. It's one
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reason I didn't break up this passage
into smaller units, because the clarity really
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comes when you take it as a
whole. There a problem. So,
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speaker, not the problem, but
the challenge of verse twelve and other smaller
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issues like possible universalism in verse eighteen. These issues are not really challenges,
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are problems at all if we approach
the passage in the way that it is
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written, with the context and with
the emphasis where Paul places it. So
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that's a brief and perhaps overly technical
introduction, so forgive me for that,
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but I say it to assure you
that there will be clarity here, that
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there is clarity here, and I
can prove that right away by just pointing
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out what I think you'll immediately recognize
on the surface of this passage. At
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there is a great contrast and connection
going on between two men, between Adam
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and Christ. That's very clear,
isn't it? That's where these contrasts and
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comparisons come throughout the passage, for
as this one, this one, as
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this one, this one like this, not like this. There's this back
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and forth that is going on all
throughout, verse after verse, sometimes repeatedly,
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in right in a row. We
have two people, Adam and Christ.
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Adam's sin led to two things,
condemnation and then death. Christ's righteousness
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leads to two things, justification and
life. We have an action done by
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one person and an action done by
another. There are similar in that way,
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but they lead in total opposite directions. So let's look at each one
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of those as Paul gives it to
us. First Adam and then Christ.
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So we read of Adam's sin and
are reminded of that in Verse Twelve,
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just as sin came into the world
through one man and death through sin.
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This kind of the same ideas picked
up then in similarly, in Verse Sixteen
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For the Judgment Following the one trespass
brought condemnation. Look at verse seventeen.
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Because of one man's trespass, death
reigned through that one man. Verse Eighteen,
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one trespass led to condemnation for all
men. So you see this connection.
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But with this one man something happened. He sinned, he sinned the
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particular sin, he disobeyed the law
of God and as a result several things
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happened. Death spread to all men, condemnation came to him and all men.
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Death reigned through sin, reigned over
them. There was this powerful influence
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under which Adam and his posterity came, namely death. You remember the story
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right in Genesis. God makes Adam, he places him into the garden,
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he gives him this perfect setting,
a very clear command. You can eat
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of all the trees that I have
given you, except this one you shall
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not eat. And God says to
Adam very clearly. He says to him
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if you eat of this tree,
you shall surely die. And it was
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on that point that Satan brought God
under question. Did God really say you
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shall surely die if you eat the
fruit? Adam did sin. Adam did
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die. We when we look at
rich at genesis, it's true he doesn't
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die and immediate death, but the
genealogies that follow those passages make it very
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clear, Leer, that him and
his children, one after another after another,
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died. They're powerful if you read
them. So and so lived for
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so many years, he fathered so
many children and he died. And then
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his son lived. Son So many
years and fathered so many children and he
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died and he died and he died. This is the story of Man.
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Adam sinned, fell under condemnation for
that sin and died. Contrasted to this
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is Jesus. We read of Jesus
is obedience in many places. I'm all
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read to you just one place that
sums up his life well and points out
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his obedience. From Philippians, Chapter
Two, Philippians two, we read in
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verse six that Jesus, though he
was in the form of God, did
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not count equality with God a thing
to be grasped, but made himself nothing,
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taking the form of a servant.
Being born in the likeness of men
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and being found in human form,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the
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point of death, even death on
a cross. Therefore, God is highly
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exalted in Him and bestowed on him
the name that is above of every name.
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So you see how different it was. Jesus was also born as a
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man, he took on human form, he became and was made a servant,
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much like Adam was. But at
that point their lives take two totally
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different directions. Where Adam grasped at
the things of God by taking that Forbidden
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Fruit and seeking to be like God, Jesus instead did not grasp for the
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very things that were already his,
but instead, as a man, was
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obedient. He was not only obedience
under the point of life, in gaining
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the glory and majesty that was his
for his obedience, but that obedience,
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Paul says, was even unto death. Adams Obedience, and many ways wasn't
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so hard don't eat of the tree. Jesus, however, suffered many and
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strong temptations from Satan himself and had
to even undergo the death of the Adam
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earned for all humanity. Will Return
back to that when we consider how much
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better grace is and how good the
free gift is. But I want to
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point out these two stories of these
two men so that you can see very
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clearly the similarities in the differences.
The similarity is is that both were called
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to obedience. The difference is that
only one of them obeyed. Jesus obeyed
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and in doing so he brought life, but Adam and his disobedience brought death.
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So this is the story of these
two men, but it's a story
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that's not disconnected from us in any
way. This is one of the other
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major points in this passage. Paul
wants us to understand that it's not just
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something that happened to Adam a long
time ago and something that happened to Jesus
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a long time ago and they're obedience
is good. There's something much more,
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something much bigger, going on.
As it turns out, we are wrapped
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up in this story. We belong
to it, and not by pushing ourselves
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into it, not by making ourselves
a part of it, but that is
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simply the nature of things, because
that's how God has ordered it. Let
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me point out some of the connections
that Paul makes between us and these men
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in this passage. Look again at
verse twelve. Just as sin came into
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the world through one man and death
through sin, and so death spread to
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all men because all sinned. Paul
in a sense says two things. They're
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not opposite things, but they are
two things. On the one hand,
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he says very clearly that death came
into the world through one man, through
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the one sin of the one man, death came into the world. That's
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a that's a point that is corroborated
in many places, like in Verse Fifteen,
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many died through the one man's trespass, or in Verse Sixteen, the
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Judgment Following one trespass bought condemnation for
all men, or verse I'm seventeen,
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because of the one man's trespass,
death reign through that one man, or
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verse eighteen, as one trespass led
to condemnation for all men. So you
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see the connection between us and Adam. Because of Adam, because of this
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one man, because of his one
trespass, death spread to all, condemnation
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spread to all, judgment and death
would reign. And yet at the same
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time we read in verse twelve that
death spread to all men because all sinned.
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There is a way in which not
only is Adam responsible for his sin,
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but we all are responsible for Usin
one. The one and the many
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come together here in verse twelve.
Now Paul doesn't explain why that is here.
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We have to look at other portions
of scripture to understand that and I
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won't get into it now, but
the point is very clear. There is
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a kind of federal solidity that we
have with this man. When God created
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Adam, he didn't just make a
man and have a particular relationship with him.
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He had a particular relationship with him
and his children, which includes us,
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which means that we, when Adam
sinned, we also sinned in him.
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This is what Paul says in First
Corinthians twenty two. In Adam all
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die. So while we consider Adam
in the consequences that his sin brought,
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we are right to take on this, take the sin and understand it from
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our own perspective as being our problem. We can't just distance our ourselves from
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Adam and say, man, he
really screwed up. This is us,
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this is our problem. We have
sin and condemnation and death to deal with.
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This is one of the great misconceptions
about the Bible. Many people will
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believe that the Bible is simply a
bunch of kind of positive teaching and Nice
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truths to encourage you. And while
there are many nice truths to encourage you,
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many great things that help, the
Bible also takes so seriously sin,
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and that's a good thing, because
you know sin. You deal with it
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each day. Every day you feel
it in your heart, you feel the
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weight of it. You know what
it means to ignore sin, to not
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pay attention to it, to let
it go untended to. You know what
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it is to feed sin and the
way it clings to you and grabs you
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and pulls you down. You understand
in your own experience and in the things
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you see in this world how connected
sin and death are. The Bible does
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not ignore that reality. The Bible
doesn't whitewash it and pretend it all went
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away. The Bible takes us and
makes us look at it directly in the
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eyes and say this is what the
situation is. Death is reigning through sin
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because of this great fall, not
only sin, as we confessed earlier,
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but all the miseries that are connected
to it. But, of course,
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we call the Bible the Gospel,
we call the Bible the good news,
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because it doesn't only speak to that
part of reality, it also speaks to
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the reality that God has come into
the world to deal with that problem,
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to take people, as Paul said
in Ephesians, who were dead in their
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trespasses and sins and raise them to
life, to wash away our sins,
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to cleanse us from unrighteousness, to
make us reign in life, as he
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says, instead of reign in death. Our Unity With Adam is a unity
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that is also parallel to our unity
with Jesus. In the same way that
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Adams disobedience was for him and his
children, Jesus is obedience is for him
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and his children, who are brought
to life by the new birth of the
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spirit. We aren't Jesus is,
a genetic ancestors, but, even more
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importantly, we are his spiritual ones, bound and connected to him, even
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like a head and a body,
even like a branch and a vine,
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we are connected to him in such
a way that his life is our life,
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that his obedience is our obedience.
That kind of solidity that we have
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with Adam is also a unity,
a solid unity that we have in Jesus.
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In Adam All die, but in
Christ all live. This kind of
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immunity that I'm talking about in these
parallel ways is so clear in this passage,
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also with Christ. I read you
the passages on Adam. Here are
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the ones about Jesus Verse Fifteen.
If many have died through one man's Trestpass,
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much more have the grace of God
and the Free Gift, by that
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grace of that one man, Jesus
Christ, abounded for many? or verse
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seventeen. Much more will those who
receive the abundance of grace and the Free
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Gift of righteousness reign in life through
that one man, Jesus Christ? Verse
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Eighteen. So one act of righteousness
leads to justification and life for all men.
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Verse Nineteen. As by the one
man's disobedience the many were made sinners,
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so by the one man's obedience the
many will be made righteous. You
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see this glorious truth? Then we
don't have just these two stories, two
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interesting stories about two men. We
have these stories that describe for us the
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whole world they describe for us all
men. We all are eat each and
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every one of us, each and
every one of you, either is in
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atom or you are in Christ.
It's that black and white, it's that
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simple. You belong to Adam and
the condemnation and the death in the judgment,
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or you belong to Jesus, with
justification, righteousness and life. You
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either go through life and experience life
under the power of sin and misery and
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under the wrath of God, finally
ending with your own death, the separation
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of your body and your soul,
the dissolution of these things and ultimately your
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resurrection to judgment and Wrath and hell
forever, or you experience your life as
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being in Jesus Christ, of knowing
life in Him and knowing that, even
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though you will die, if the
Lord doesn't return before you do, you
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will be raised, and raised to
eternal life, forever and ever, reigning
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in the blessedness of God. These
are the two realities that scripture presents before
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us now. This it should be
obvious, but just to clear up a
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little confusion, or possible confusion as
a side note, there's sometimes some question
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as to whether verse eighteen teaches a
kind of universalism because of this strong parallel.
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As one trespass led to condemnation for
all men, so one act of
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righteousness leads to justification and life for
all men. So by universalism I simply
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mean does the Bible teach here in
Romans Five, verse eighteen, that every
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single person is saved, that every
single person in the world dies under Adam
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and that every single person in the
world lives in Jesus? Well, you
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may know the answer to that question
already, but let me see if we
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can explain it here from Romans Five. Well, the answer should be I'm
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if you know your Bible at all, I'm should be very easy. Well,
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of course the Bible doesn't teach universalism. There would be no Romans if
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there was. If that was true. Or we have passages like second thessalonians
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one, eight and nine that when
the Lord Jesus is revealed on the last
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day with his mighty mighty angels,
mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting on those
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who do not know God and on
those who do not obey the gospel of
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our Lord Jesus, Paul says they
will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction,
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away from the presence of the Lord
and from the glory of his might.
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So Paul is very clear and tells
us that exactly what it is to be
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an adom and he says that there
will be those on the last day who,
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being found in Adam, will die
in Adam, and the description is
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terrifying, suffering punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord
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and from the glory of his might. So the Bible doesn't teach that every
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single person will reign in life,
that there are some who disobey, some
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who do not know the Lord,
some who will suffer and punishment for their
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sins. So if that's true and
clear, is there another way to understand
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verse eighteen other than Jesus has that
Jesus is death was effectual for all men?
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There is another way and it's consistent
with the passage. Paul teaches that
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there are particularly Paul's Focus, I
should say, is not on the number
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of people in this passage. He's
not sort of the great contrast here is
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not look at this number of people. Compared to this number of people.
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What's Paul's focus? Paul's focus is
on the mode. How are people saved,
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how are those who are under Adam
saved? Or, I'm sorry,
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how are those under Adam condemned?
How are those who are under Christ saved
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and brought to life? Consider also
the justification that is held out in Jesus.
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First of all, in Verse Sixteen, we read that that justification considers
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their many sins really all their sins. When God forgives us, he doesn't
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sort of wash part of the dirt
away, he cleanses at all. Remember
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the psalms. As far as the
East is from the West. That kind
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of degree of separation is the degree
which God cleanses us and separates us from
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our sins. Justification, verse Seventeen, says we reign in life. It's
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not a part way kind of salvation, it's a complete salvation. It cons
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justification constitutes us as righteous people.
Verse Nineteen says if we go back to
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verse one and two of this chapter, we read that since we have been
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justified by faith, we have peace
with God. We're no longer his enemies
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but his friends. And if we
have any question about the permanent benefit of
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justification, consider the last verse,
Verse Twenty One. We have been given
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grace that we might reign through righteousness
leading to eternal life. The point,
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then, is that the justification that
Jesus gives us is not a halfway justification
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or a part way justification or a
possibly effectual justification, but it's justification.
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He justifies, he calls people righteous, he imputes to them his righteousness,
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he makes peace with them and he
gives them eternal life. Because of these
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considerations, we see that the people
that Jesus has saved, he has really
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saved. The people that are under
Adam, that died on him, really
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died. That's the parallel that's being
made here, and so the answer to
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these all questions here is that the
focus is on these mediators, so to
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speak, these representatives. All who
die in Adam die. All who are
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saved in Christ are saved. But
those numbers are not exactly parallel, because
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we know what the Bible has been
teaching us, what Paul has been teaching
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us in Romans. In Adam,
we are born under him simply by virtue
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of being born. But how is
it that we come to be borne by
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the spirit, only by the grace
of God working in us? How is
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it that we come to receive this
justification that's offered to Jesus by faith,
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by believing in him repenting of our
sins. This is important to bring up
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and it is not just a side
doctrinal issue because, as I said,
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each of us have to make a
choice. We have to examine our own
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hearts and say where am I at? Am I in Adam, my ray
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at them being ruled and reigned by
death, or am I under Christ,
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reigning in life? As we conclude, I want to point out one last
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thing from this from this passage.
Paul presents this great contrast, these great
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parallels, but they are not equal. They're not equal like a like a
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two great warriors coming against one another
and you kind of wonder who's going to
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win. Will it be a draw? Notice the great emphasis in this passage.
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Paul sets all of this up to
make this particular point, that the
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grace of God is more, it
abounds more, it covers more, it
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does much, much more than the
condemnation Adam gives us. Ever did you
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see it in so many ways,
like verse sixteen. The free gift is
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not like the result of that one
man sin. It's not like Adams Sin,
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because the judgment following one trespass brought
condemnation, but the free gift,
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following many trespasses, brought justification.
See that Adam did one thing. I
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was terrible enough, but he did
one thing. God revealed his law to
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him and he said, Adam,
if you disobey this, you will die.
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And that's what happened to us all. But in Christ, not only
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did we die in Adam, but
then we pile on top of that all
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of our sins, more and more
and more, so that when Jesus comes
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to bring justification, he doesn't just
cover Adams one failure, he covers all
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of our failures, all of them. Many trespass us, and that makes
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gray as the grace of justification,
much, much greater, doesn't it?
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Then then the rat than the than
the penalty of condemnation, or consider verse
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seventeen. For if, because of
one man's trespass, death reigned through that
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one man, much more will those
who receive the abundance of grace and the
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Free Gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man, Jesus Christ.
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Verse Twenty. Now, the law
came in to increase the trespass. But
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where Sin Increase, grace abounded all
the more. You see what happens.
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What God is reminding you here.
When Jesus saves US, when we receive
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that gift that he's offering to us, we don't just get a clean slate.
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We don't just say, okay,
I don't I'm not condemned anymore.
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It's not just you're condemned, you're
not condemned, it's that you're not condemned,
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your pardoned of your sins, but
you also receive this positive righteousness.
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You receive this positive righteousness of Jesus
in such a way that your eternal life
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is secured forever. You don't just
get to start over again. You don't
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get put back in the garden.
All right now, let's see if we
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can get this right this time.
Don't disobey. No, instead, God
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gives us the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is perfect, which is complete,
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and which gives us the very glory
that Jesus earned that we read of
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in Philippians. Two. These are
not equals, Adam and Jesus. There
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are similarities, there are things to
be connected there in those two stories,
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but Jesus, as the second Adam, is supreme. His grace super abounds,
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and in it we have eternal life. So if you look and examine
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your heart and you examine your life
and you say, I do not believe
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in Jesus Christ, if you are
not trusting in Jesus, then know who
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you are under know that the sin
that has its clause in you, the
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death that reigns in you, will
not go away. There is only one
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solution that God has provided to this
problem and it is Jesus. You have
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already died and you will die forever. Eternal death is yours. But if
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you feel those sins and you know
them in your heart and you hear what
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God is saying in his Gospel and
he's sang to you, repent and believe,
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because here is a salvation that can
do what Adam failed to do,
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it can do what you failed to
do, and it's simply given to you.
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It's given to you freely, it's
given to you by His grace,
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it's given to you by his love. If you believe that, if you
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turn away from your sins and trust
in Jesus Christ alone, then what do
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you have? Super Abounding Grace,
the amazing love of God, eternal life
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and reigning in it forever. And
as Christians who know that and if experienced
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that, let's cling to it,
let's remember it often and remember that,
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as the flesh and the spirit wage
war against us, we have a battle
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that is not of equals. Grace
is super abounding. God, in His
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mercy to us, is super abounding. The Holy Spirit within you is super
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abounding and one day will result even
in your glorification and heaven forever. Let
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us pray
