Terminal!

Is the head of the human race. Paul is saying that we all send in Adam are representative since you were in Adam, the head of the human race. When he sent you also can be in Christ, haven't you wondered why say I am crucified with Christ. I was raised with him to say that because in the mind of God just as we were all in Adam, the head of our fallen race week by faith become part of that body in Christ.

Now having been raised from the dead, killed, until you understand all that you lost in the Garden of Eden in fact, people can't even respond to the gospel message without first admitting that they have a problem of sin from which they need to be saved. The story of the gospel is really a story of two different atoms. The one who obeyed God and the one who didn't today on wisdom for the heart Stephen debut begins a series from Romans five and six called the first and second Adam will begin this series next with this message called terminal. The first epidemic recorded in human history was called the Black death are known as the bubonic plague. It started in China around the year 1334 and it quickly spread to India and Persia places in Russia and ultimately into Europe before was over millions of people died their symptoms involved, the swelling of their throats and these black blotches that would peer on their bodies and faces, and after a few days of high fever and pain. They would die 60 million people died. If you can imagine the panic during these days. One out of every four Europeans died that affected every family and every home every individual according to the Bible that wasn't the first epidemic to affect mankind, and it would not be the worst. There is a plague of a different sort. It is a far more deadly epidemic that has spread throughout the world.

It has infected now, some 5 billion people. It is a plague called sin and it is fatal in the statistics are consistent one out of one dies.

There are many people who want to talk about death.

While there are many people who would stare death in the face and want to talk about it.

Some are. It's interesting Christianity today recently carried excerpts of interviews with very old people and humorous interviews. They were like Jeannie Kalmanson 120 years of age. Imagine born in 1883 she was interviewed and asked to describe her vision for the future.

She responded very brief. Another woman was as the benefits of living to the age of 102, she answered.

There's no peer pressure like this lady's spunk. She had never married. She literally made a request in writing to her pastor named John Fetterman he shared it with Christianity today to make sure there would be no male pallbearers at her funeral. She explained that they wouldn't take me out while I was alive, can you let them take that death was a subject once when I was in middle school. We were traveling as a family and we were all packed into one hotel room.

Two boys on the floor to sharing a bed, my mom, dad and the other and she was still awake for some reason we were all asleep and she told me that, suddenly, without any reason or provocation. I sat up in bed and I looked at the wall across the room and I shouted out one word death and I lay back down and went to sleep course it ruined the night for my mother she would check on constant interesting thing in and how scary would be for parody your child suddenly wake up in our path is that some sign. I have no idea what I was thinking or dreaming.

Perhaps I was calling for the end of my brothers who knows. Frankly, the world is a really want to think about the issue of death would like to skirted. There are number of philosophies that have helped men deny it or ignore it give you some of them. One is fatalism. This could be called the doctrine of despair. This is the belief that events are fixed in advance. Man is not responsibility people are like leaves blown about the wind, there's nothing you can do but see what fate brings you skepticism is another philosophy and endorses the view that nothing can be known for certain. We can't know God personally.

There is no absolute answer regarding life or death in any view that is dogmatic regarding death is presumptuous, the philosophy of Epicureanism or hedonism would be another name says life is all you get to get all you can while you're alive right there no moral restraints because your desires are sovereign, don't listen to that little voice called conscience. Forget about tomorrow and any consequences certainly don't think about eternal consequences. Today is all you have. So get all that you can get what you're alive, breeds great, selfish, Jerry Deluca told the story about a man who lived this way is teeth and in life is get as much money as he could he love money more than anything, but he hoarded it to he would let his poor wife Artie spend any of it back. He selfishly told her that when he died he wanted her to put all of his money in the casket with him. He wanted he would offer himself, even a death. His wife promised she would dutifully she said she what he made a repeat the promise many times over in his declining years. Every time she would promise. Sometime later he died enormously wealthy. Chernoff at the funeral just before the casket was closed, his wife in a box in there with them whites) send a look, I know you are foolish enough to put all the money in there with them where you she said no. I promised him that I would put all of that money in the casket with a friend protested and Seth.

Surely you can't mean that that you gave that selfish man, this demand of his and you actually put all of that money in the casket with them and she said I did.

I wrote them a check. Another philosophy is evolutionism. This is the logical philosophy of a generation sort of training consider themselves nothing more than an animal you're just in the process of living and dying. Why worry about death when you're no better off than a dog in life or death. You're just a part of some circle of life. Your bones nourish some plant which feeds some animal which perhaps will move and evolve into something better, and there is universalism.

Universalism was created by people intuitively knew that there was a God didn't, and they probably would meet him one day so they simply created a God who existed in their form and thinking some God who would want to make them happy.

Above all, God that would never ask you to believe in him because he believes in you wonderful, he will eventually embrace all people, no matter what they believe. Just be sincere and you make it a God. Well that's all will deal with here but you bind all of the philosophies of man together and you get one main idea we don't like the idea of death and we don't want to discuss it so will come up with some way to deny it or ignore it or re-create it or simply refuse to believe it's gonna happen. I think that's our culture more than any other philosophy living in this kind of state of denial where words gonna live forever. When I got to think about death, philosophy of life that are cultures and races best expressed by this advertising slogan for face cream that says quote you probably heard it. I don't intend to grow old gracefully.

I intend to fight it every step of the way people are frantic today about defying age, whether it is the defying age creams. The wrinkle erasing shots. The facelifts and the health spas in the exercise regimes and that health foods and the vitamins in the Krispy Kreme. I don't have I gotten my list. I'm not against exercise and healthy diet and age defying creams and maybe even a little Rogaine for men not work a miracle on me as a rumor. I don't use it. The tragedy is that someone can do all of the above for no other reason than to try and drown out the message that grows louder the older they get.

You are going to work tragically is the hope of people like this recent baseball Hall of Famer died. They planned his body was handed over to a cryogenic center where his family show that $120,000 that was body frozen in hopes that eventually medical science will discover the answers to physical regeneration and mortality and bring him back to life. Why all the philosophies and denials and speculations because the law of God that is written on the heart of man whispers. It is appointed on the man wants to what to die and after that judgment, mankind is terminally ill. He has been infected with the scourge of the plague of sin has an appointment with death which sin brings ladies and gentlemen. Christianity is the only explanation for universal sin and universal death. And Christianity is the solution for both of them.

I want you to turn in your Bibles to the explanation and solution. It's found in Romans five verse 12 as we travel along this particular interstate highway of divine truth. I want to give you 3 mile markers to notice. We travel the first one is this Adam initiated universal epidemic of sin. Paul writes in Romans chapter 5 verse 12. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, stop. You might notice that Paul did not say that sin came into existence through Adam that it was in the first center was a you and then well for her. Satan. Satan had already rebelled against God before the creation of Adam and Eve. So he comes to attempt, but it would be Adam who is held responsible for introducing sin into the realm of humankind. Maybe you're thinking, but no, wait a second, why would he be responsible was even weight the fruit of the tree first. It's true, but as the head of the woman he was responsible but also it was to demand that God commanded in Genesis 216 God says, commanded the man saying from any tree of the garden he made freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely what you will surely die in the Lord God said after that it is not good for the man to be alone I will make a helper suitable for him. In other words, God gave Adam the responsibility to obey him and to subjugate the earth and cultivate the garden and nourish this one that he will now create for him. Eve had not been formed yet. It was after God communicated this one prohibition to Adam that God then created for Adam. His lifelong partner to not only keep him from being lonely but keep him out of trouble.

She was his helpmeet, that is, among other things, she would help him obey the will of God and glorify God together with him. First Timothy tells us more details about that singular time to turn me just tell you Paul informs us that Eve was deceived, but not Adam. That is, Eve literally believed the serpent who came along and said God really didn't mean that if you ate that frigate God, did God really say that he's really keeping something from you that is precious.

It's going to make you wise and it will make you like God you want to take a bite of this how bad could it be she did. She was deceived into believing that what she was doing was a good thing.

Now Adam comes along and the Bible tells us back in the account in Genesis. She gave it to her husband, and he ate it is no serpent around. There's no deceiving message Adam wasn't deceived, he was fully cognizant of the fact that if he aided he would be rebelling against the command of God. He was not deceived into believing it would make him wise it would make him a little God.

He wasn't deceived.

In other words, he was fully aware that he was choosing to violate the word of God, and he aided in order rebellion against God.

So he is held responsible for introducing them sin when he disobeyed God.

Sin entered into his life. Theologians summarize it this way. Sin generated a constitutional change in his nature, he went from innocence to sinfulness. He now had an innate sinfulness that would be transmitted to every one of his descendents, including sinners like you and me to go back and look at verse 12, just as through one man sin entered into the world. You notice that that's a singular word in the plural. He is not talking about one particular act of disobedience is actually talking about this fundamental propensity to do unrighteous things so that we never had to have a lesson in how to tell a lie right but how to be honest, this propensity to evil would become the nature of man and David would write in Psalm 51 in the sin did my mother conceive me that language and grammar is confusing. He is in saying that when his mother conceived him. She was sitting what is actually saying there is that he was a sinner at conception. One of the strongest text by the way, for the fact that life begins at conception. David is saying here that there is never a time. Even at conception and from that point forward. You do not possess.

Adam's nature. You're a sinner from conception on let me move you to the next mile marker number two. The epidemic that Adam initiated is not only universal but it is terminal. Paul writes in verse 12 looks like they're just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, so death spread to some men know to all. Why did Jesus have to die.

He became sin for us. Therefore he had to face, and bear the penalty of sin and the wages of sin is what is death. What eventually happened to Adam he died and our forefathers except for those two men who were given to us as a foretaste of resurrection were taken to heaven without dying. You read the record of Genesis chapter 6 and you read over and over again and he died and he died. Now Paul anticipates the Jew saying he brings up the argument in verses 13 and 14 now the law wasn't given until Moses, therefore how can a person be considered a sinner without the law of Moses being given any answers by in effect saying this, the law wasn't given, but man was still transgressing you read the story of Noah and what is God call generation of man wicked right transgressors you read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. All these things happen before the law of God declared thou shalt not kill.

For one thing, even before then before they had the tablets of stone. They knew, having had the law written on their heart that killing was wrong and the proof Paul will make here that they had the law of God written on their heart that they were transgressing is that mankind was still between Adam and Moses, what were they doing. They were dying. They were dying.

Death is proof of sin.

The Greek words here are chilling in their description, Paul writes through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin.

Let me put it to you this way. Here's what he saying he saying Adam opened the door to sin and invited him and and sin came in, but then stopped in the doorway and held it open and said the death come to some might argue, listen, I would learn the garden. Why does God hold me responsible, and Adam for having sin to good question. If you're not sure that that's exactly what Paul is saying, you will look at how he tightens the news of the under verse 12 so death spread to all men because all what all sin, all sin. Now he isn't saying that everybody eventually sends so they're gonna die. This bird is actually in attendance. The refers to a past event that creates a present state. He is saying that everybody send in the past, and Adam.

This is where it's going to challenge everything I'm set up to this point easy. This is where he gets to go to look to the person next to him to say. Stay alert, going stay some of your saying more than that, Adam is the head of the human race. Paul is saying that we all sinned in Adam are representative since we sinned in Adam, the head of the human race. The good news is we can be sin. Alas, if we are in Christ, the head of a new race since you were in Adam, head of the human race. When he sent you also can be in Christ, you can say with Paul. Haven't you wondered why he could say I am crucified with Christ in Romans six were talked about.

I was buried with him.

I was raised with him. How can he say that because in the mind of God just as we were all in Adam, the head of our fallen race. We by faith become part of that body in Christ. Now having been raised from the dead. So here's the contrast in Romans five Adam is the head of the human race into which we were born and we will die as sinners and go to hell. Jesus Christ is the head of a new race into which we were born again by faith and we will die as saints and go to heaven. The word saying in the Bible the New Testament is never referred to somebody died is referred to somebody is living.

How can we be called saints. We are in Christ who is the head of our new race and he is sinless and we are viewed as sinless.

Leave me the last mile mark Jesus Christ as the candidate for terminal humanity verse 15 but the free gift you want to underline that phrase will see it a few times, but the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one Adam. Many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man the second Adam, Jesus Christ, abounded the many and the gifts. There is, is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one that death reigned mark that death reigned. He's king through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ three times. We are told that the antidote is free. We have the reigned of death in Adam we have the reign of life in Christ and that Lorraine is given to us as a gift, a perfect get the free gift for sifting the beginning of verse 16 the gift again under verse 16. The free gift is ours by faith.

So what about death. The enemy would all like to talk about mystery we resist death is now simply for the believer.

The hand turns the latch and opens the door for us in the heaven death for us is a defeated tyrant. He no longer reigns over the believer. Yes, he's king in this world and everybody will bow to him physically, but he is nothing more for us than a hired hand like a bellhop who opens the door upon death and says to you and your king is waiting for you. It's always to us because of sin, was the first Adam the cure for sin is the second Adam, the first race of Adam is terminally infected the race of the second Adam is forever healed. Isaiah the prophet said by his stripes we are healed. That means the awful effects of the vulva. Putrid poison of sinfulness has been dealt with by Christ in our case is no longer permanent death, but passing death into permanent life. A man my friend because of Adam.

You were born into a funeral procession is no lasting joy in anything this world can offer. That's why every promotion or thrill you get wears out, no amount of money satisfies you, you are in a funeral procession, but through faith in Christ. You've left it you seen the emptiness of would you ever think of riding in a hearse and saying this is the car for me know you have left by faith in Christ.

The funeral procession and I want to tell you something you have joined the wedding procession you are now the bride of Christ. You know that means that means you have stepped out of the funeral March and you have gone and joined the wedding party, dear.

What I said you have left the funeral procession and you are now headed for a wedding reception and it's gonna be one of those northern ones that sit down and all the fixings and all the expenses have been paid by Christ time the living Lord who will take his bride to himself. For those of Adam's race alone. There's no hope. Queen Elizabeth I said it on her deathbed is over, I have come to the end of it.

This is the end she lamented. Thomas Carlisle said I am without hope that your fear as well my friend you are not ready to live until you are ready to die until you are ready to keep that appointment with God.

You are not able to really live to where you today a child of Adam or child of God you were not born into the family of God you were born into the family of Adam and the right to your life is Satan. Jesus Christ told the religious leaders in John 844. Your father is the devil, that is, he has the right over you and he will take you to hell, as it were. You have to be born out of that family. That's going to hell and you have to be born again into another family, another race a new race with a new head, Jesus Christ. The second when you do that you receive this gift.

John recorded the promise that those who receive him, living Lord.

Then he gives the right. The power to become children of God, and I want to tell you that the epidemic of sin has been sure eternal family of God. You've been reminded of an Portland theological truth today.

The cause of sin was the first Adam, he rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden and brought sin into the world.

The cure for sin is the second Adam, Jesus Christ defeated the power of sin and made salvation possible working to continue examining this over the next two messages in this series called the first and second Adam, thanks for joining us today.

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