Let's take our Bibles tonight and turn to Romans chapter 5. Romans 5 and we'll read only verse 20. And the law came in that the transgression might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Let's pray together. Lord, we've sung and we've prayed that You would speak. And we pray that we would hear Your voice through the unpacking of Your Word. So give us Your Spirit. Give us a solid rock of promises on which we can plant our feet. Give us hope in our hearts and faith that we might grasp firmly the height and the breadth and the depth of the love of Christ that is ours in the promises of this table. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. I read from the National Geographic Society, quote, on the afternoon of February 20, 1943, Dominicio Palido, a farmer in the Mexican state of Mocoacan, was readying his fields for spring sowing when the ground nearby opened up in a large fissure crack about a hundred and fifty feet long. Now quoting D'Amicio, I then felt a thunder he recalled later, the trees trembled. And it was when I saw how in the hole the ground swelled and raised itself two or two and a half meters high, and a kind of smoke or fine dust, gray like ashes, began to rise with a hiss or whistle, loud and continuous, and there was a smell of sulfur. I then became greatly frightened and tried to help unyoke one of my ox teams. Virtually under the farmer's feet, a volcano was being born. And by the next morning, when Pulido returned, the cone had grown to a height of 30 feet, And now a quote from Pulido, hurling out rocks with great violence. And during the day the cone grew another 120 feet high. And that night incandescent bombs blew more than 1,000 feet up into the darkness and a scalding mass of lava rolled over Pulido's cornfields. and Pelido and his family fled for their lives. Now, this account of volcanic devastation well illustrates the effects of sin in the life of a man who's been awakened by the Holy Spirit regarding his need of a Savior. When that spiritually happens, sin, which previously seemed to be a harmless underground kind of a thing, now is seen not to be harmless, causing little disturbance, but by the work of the Spirit, it rises to the surface in the life and becomes a devastating, painful principle in the life of the spiritually awakened sinner. And this terrifying experience makes him very afraid, and he realizes, I am in big trouble. and I must flee for my life." See, Romans 5.20 speaks of this phenomenon. The law came in that the transgression might increase But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Let's discuss this passage under three main headings and we'll use this as a communion meditation to lead us to the table. The first and the biggest main heading is the entrance of law. The entrance of law and that's in the first part of verse 20, "...and the law came in that transgression might increase." This is the entrance of the law. We're in Romans 5 now. And the Apostle is discussing Adam's sin, how the sin of one man, Adam, unleashed the principle of sin into the entire world. He's instructing the Jew. He's referring to the Law's arrival with Moses in redemptive history. And he's describing to the Jew that the coming of the Ten Commandments was no remedy for sin that came through Adam, but rather the Law came as a revealer of sin. And those are two completely distinct things. Wilson comments this way, It's as though the Jews imagine the law to be the very citadel of sanctity, makes them pure, the law. Paul argues it is in fact the divine searchlight. that not only shows up sin for what it is, but that it also arouses the enmity of the heart so that it actually promotes further sin. That's what Moses and his commandments does in the life of an unbeliever, in the life of the nation itself, in redemptive history. So, let's consider the law's experiential effects when it enters convicting and then personally we see how it really destroys the life of the previously carefree sinner. Everything was well until the law came. It's like that swelling boil that comes to the surface and fills with pus exposing the poison. That was long-term within. So we're looking at the entrance of the law. Consider four elements here. First, It rapidly develops sin. It, the law, rapidly develops sin. And we can move from 520 to, really, Romans 7, where it's personally applied in the life of the Apostle Paul. The law came that transgression might increase. Look at 7.7. Paul is speaking not redemptive historically for the jews and the people of the race as a whole but he's speaking personally himself when the law came to him seven seven What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, You shall not covet. That's the tenth commandment. And when it came to my heart, I discovered the reality of sin within my soul. You see, there is this deeply inset instinct we have because we're sinners to do that which is forbidden. Let me just test you physiologically. Don't swallow. I forbid it. Don't swallow. Don't you swallow. You may not have swallowed for 15 minutes here. You never thought much about it, but now, because I told you don't swallow, you have this desperate urge right now to swallow the saliva. It is building up in your mouth. You feel like you're drowning. You see what the commandment does physiologically. Well, the same takes place morally. You tell the little child in the living room, don't touch these flowers. He hadn't thought much about the flowers, but now that is the forbidden fruit. If he wants to do anything in the whole world, it is to touch those flowers. You shall not covet. The fruit is forbidden. And the instinct, the urge of a depraved sinner is aroused. Don't lust. Don't, don't lust. You see, when the law forbids, we see the impure steam, volcano-like, rising up from the soul, and we sense this reality of who we really are, utterly sinful. Sin becomes utterly sinful. It's like the man who has the fatal disease in his body. He seemed like he was feeling real well. In fact, I was even reading of a man who had it. He had pancreatic cancer, but when he took a blood test, it was discovered. that he had this fatal disease. And when a physician would begin to try to deal with a disease like that, he may prescribe medicine. And the medicine is taken in. And the medicine may begin to deal with the previously hidden disorder. And let's say the man's complexion used to be beautiful and clean. But now, because of the medicine that's being taken, his face is filled with blotches. What is that? It's the poison. It's the disease within that is being drawn out and exposed. That which was previously concealed is now a visible killing plague. He sees it in the mirror. His friends view it. He thought he was actually healthy, but now he finds himself to be very diseased and sometimes we think we're quite good, thank you. But then we find that the law comes and we realize we're quite evil. We need cleansing. We need healing. We need a physician. We need the great. physician. This is what the law does when it says, you shall not covet, you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery, which means even, Jesus says, the lusting in the heart. You shall not murder, which even means the angering in the soul. And so, for the awakened sinner, when the law comes, the experience is that the man sees his heart full of wickedness. He was fine before this. But now he sees he's at enmity against God. And he can no longer think, I am a moral man. I am a good man. I shall not lust. Oh, I'm a vile cesspool of impurity. That's what I am. And that's the effect of the entrance of the law. It rapidly develops sin. Secondly, of four elements, it clearly displays sin. It clearly displays sin. Look at Romans 7 there. I would not have come to know sin except through the law. Sin is displayed when you put it before the pure backdrop of the law. Let's say you had been walking around here on a Saturday, and off in one of the rooms downstairs, off in the corner, you found there a handkerchief. You thought to yourself, well, I've got kind of a cold, and I've been using tissue, but now I can just use this handkerchief. What a provision! House of God! I get blessed with something I can blow my nose into. It seems quite clean, seems quite white, and you're confident to use it until maybe you have it in your pocket, you take it outside and you compare it with the newly fallen snow and you look and you say, I thought that this white handkerchief was clean, but when I put it up against the newly fallen snow in the sun, I see it's a dull brown, and I now shudder at the thought of ever using it to scrub the interior of my nostrils. It's a matter of the pure backdrop shows the filthiness of that cloth. And so the pure law opens our eyes. We see the purity of God's demands. And up against that backdrop, we see the blackness of our own sins. It's like Isaiah there in Isaiah 6. He sees the Seraphim hiding their face, and he thought he was a mighty man of God in Israel, but before the throne of the Holy, Holy, holy God! He sees himself as vile and undone. Woe is me! I'm an unclean man, unclean lips among an unclean people. So when the law experientially comes, maybe for you it was back in 1970s, Maybe for you it was back in the 80s. Maybe it was in the 90s. Maybe for you it was just a short time ago that that law came for the first time and awakened you as a sinner. And you began to see, I thought I was a pretty good guy. I thought I was an all-American boy. I thought I was clearly better than most, maybe the best among many. And then the law comes, oh, my motives in what I do are so selfish. And the words I speak, I thought they were so sweet, but in reality they're so caustic. And, oh, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes are a roving eyes. I never noticed before how my eyes would rove and there's that passage in the Bible somewhere. I don't even know the address, you may say, at that point. Something about eyes full of adultery. And that's me looking up and down. Oh, what is it with me? And then just attitudes, attitudes that are so hateful. See, when there is the entrance of the law, it clearly displays sin. If you're awakened, if the Spirit of God is working in your life. But thirdly, regarding the entrance of the law, it deeply pains the sinner. And if you're a Christian now, you can resonate with this. You can say, yeah, I know. For me, it was back in the 90s that this whole thing dawned on me. The law deeply pains the sinner. The law comes. It's a cause of great soul anguish. That's why in 711, look what Paul says, "...for sin, taking the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through the law it killed me." You ever hear someone say, that just kills me. this it kills us we realize that we are dead in transgressions and sin when the law comes. You can say, yeah, I remember for me when this first dawned, I could read my sentence of death. The idea of the handwriting on the wall in the book of Daniel 5, mene tekel parson, that Belshazzar looked at it and knew he was doomed and undone. That's what I read when that law came to me. I'm in big, big trouble. the heavy whip of God's wrath was on my shoulders. And every time I considered my soul and my eternity, there was a sharp sting in my conscience because I knew that my sins would surely lead me to hell." The Christian will say, you know, I know what that's like. Spurgeon comments this way about a man under conviction. Speaking like this, suppose I live to be 80 years old. Oh, yet how short a time it will be before I must be enduring the infinite wrath of God. Because that's what raw law does when it comes before a sinner and is pressed to his conscience. All the raw law can do is taunt the sinner about his just dessert. That raw law is not a ten-rung ladder that enables us to climb to heaven. Oh, the opposite is true. We realize how far you might as well climb to heaven on a rope of sand. It's impossible to get to the moon that way. Ah, the law, it shows me the impossibility of my ever being right with God. My sentence, it kills me. It makes me realize I'm dead. I heard a man talking this week about Luther. And the way Luther had this sense, like many of his contemporaries, of the wrath of God on him, but different than us. We live in the year 2008. And if someone has had this flu, this high fever and this weakness, you realize if it gets so bad, well, we can go off and get antibiotics and we can give it a jolt and we can take care of this. But you realize in Luther's day, they always walked along on a narrow rail. realizing that the next wave of providence could blow them off the edge into a sea of eternity. And Luther knew he was under the wrath of God. He knew at any moment that the next sneeze could, within 48 hours, have him in hell, burning, weeping, and wailing, and gnashing his teeth. And the law killed him, it did. It just killed him, living under the wrath of God. It's not a terrible thing to be under the wrath of God and to know it, and to read your sentence on the wall. It's a terrible thing! Think of that Scott Peterson, that deplorable excuse of a human being who murdered his wife Lacey and then his unborn child, and now he's on death row at San Quentin. Just imagine if the guards would And even other prisoners would just slip under his bars pictures and descriptions of what it's like to die in the electric chair. And the horror of it, the description of it, the eyes blaring out and the singeing. And for that man to ponder the realities and the horrors of what awaits him as he sits there on death row, That's what the law does. It kills us. The grisly thoughts of enduring God's wrath. And so that's what the law does. It awakens a sinner and it haunts his waking hours and his sleeping hours. And there may be even nightmares of his own execution in hell, waking up in cold sweat, not being able to go to sleep even. Not everybody doesn't experience all of this. At one particular time I gave the description of that farmer in Mexico. It all happened in a constricted short period of time that his flat, pleasant field became a horrific lava-spewing volcano. Sometimes it takes a season of life, weeks and months, where this begins to burgeon up the sense of our sin, the mountain range of it. But we know, we know what it's like. The law of God once gets inside a man's heart, the man no longer protests against God's wrath. It shuts its mouth and all a man can do sometimes is just groan and sigh. As one man writes, the sharp needle of the law must make the way for the scarlet thread of the gospel. And we can say, you know, I can relate to that in some way and I bless God for such piercing experiences. It, the law, deeply pains the sinner. And then fourthly, regarding the entrance of the law, it despairingly drives the sinner. It despairingly drives the sinner. It drives the sinner to despair of himself. I, who thought I was once a good man, Now look at 7.13, I'm utterly sinful. Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be. Rather it was sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my death through that which is good, the law. that through the commandment, sin might become utterly sinful. You may even sit here in the burgundy chairs and you can say, you know, there was a time when I did think I was better than most. And I thought just with a little help and a little polish, I could win favor with God and go to heaven. But then the law came and smashed all of those hopes to bits. and the Dagon of my self-righteousness fell on its face and smashed before the Ten Commandments of God." Remember that picture that was found in the book of Judges when they thought they had captured the Ark of the Covenant and they put the Ark of the Covenant before Dagon? Well, what was in the Ark of the Covenant? Well, it would be the ten words And so, for us, the Ten Commandments, they come before us and they smash all of our self-righteousness. There is no hope. We try to set it back up again, don't we? And they smash again down to the ground. There is no righteousness in myself. Now, some might sit here and say, oh boy, Pastor Chansky, come on now. People have come here tonight and we don't want to to have people leave with a complex, to have a really bad opinion about themselves that we think we have the bad opinion of them. But the reality is that unless you leave here with a bad opinion of yourself, you leave this place in a very bad condition. You are an adulterer, you are. Just like I am. You are a murderer, you are! You are offended by this! Unless you come to that conviction, you leave here in a very dangerous condition. Very dangerous condition. a pornographer, a hypocrite, wicked, and vile. We need to have our self-image damaged, we do. The problem is there's a self-idolatry. It needs to be smashed by the hammer of the law of God. And that is the greatest blessing that could ever come to a visitor or a long-term attender or member here tonight. Because it's only when we despair of ourselves Realize how pathetically sick we are. Only then will we run to the great physician who hosts us at this table tonight. You come to the table and you think, well, I'll come for a little hors d'oeuvre. It may make me feel a little bit better. You're lost. You need to come and find everything in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Spurgeon says this, when the last crust is gone from the sinner's cupboard, He will cry to the great giver of the bread of life, whereof if a man eat he shall live forever. You must starve the sinner's self-righteousness to make him willing to feed on Christ. And I hope you come with a real poverty of spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Such alone shall be satisfied in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because it's only from the depths of despair, a man thinking he's lost forever, can he ever appreciate and ascend to the heights of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that is the entrance of the law. So you're sitting here in your burgundy chair and how do you view yourself? Do you view yourself as quite a good person? Quite a delightful person? Quite a righteous person? Pretty good? Better than most? You say, you're right. I am wicked and vile. And Pastor Chansky, you don't know the half of it. And you haven't even told a fraction of it. My sin has abounded within me. I'm like a volcanic mountain of iniquity. And for me, I look at my testimony and my pilgrimage in life, and for some you may say, yeah, it was back in the summer of 1990, fill in the blank. That's when this happened. And some may say, I can't really point to any particular summary, but I tell you what, I'm sitting here and I realize that I am a mountain range of iniquity before God. If He would count iniquity, who could stand but with Him? And we get to the back end of the verse a little later here. So that is the entrance of the law. Second main heading. And we're through the big part. One man said, if I were to have an hour preaching to a man the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'd take the first 50 minutes talking to him about the horrors of his sin. The second main heading is the experience of saints, having seen the entrance of the law. Before fleeing to Christ, typically, sin does abound. But you know, sin abounds afterwards as well. And this is the experience of saved Christians. Maybe for you, the realities of your sin and the greatness of your sin burgeoned and expanded in your eyes even after you were converted. Because once we get saved, I wish I could report and tell you that once you're saved, you will, upon falling at the foot of the cross, find pardon and forgiveness and justification for your sins. And immediately that all the Philistines of indwelling sin that are within your soul, they will run in a mass retreat and they will never appear again. And you will be able to live the Christian life going from triumph to triumph. I'd love to tell you that's the experience of the Christian life. But truth be told, as Paul tells it in 7.19 of Romans, indwelling sin in a Christian's life is a continual reality. Look at 7.19. For the good that I wish to do. He's speaking as a Christian man. I do not do. But I practice the evil that I do not wish. But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin that dwells in me. Oh, I find this principle that evil is present in the one who wishes to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in my inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, this miserable experience in some way of the Christian life. Galatians 5 and verse 17, the flesh lusts after the spirit, the spirit after the flesh. They are within opposition. There is a civil war going on within the soul. Or Peter says in 1 Peter 2.11, abstain from those lusts which war against your soul. I remember back in the seventies, in the early days of my Christian life, I had been persuaded during a season of my pilgrimage there by what are called higher lifers. These were people who would say, if you, you're saved now. And you've been born again, but now if you would just get this second blessing. If you would just surrender your life to Jesus. Seek that Christ experience. Be crucified with Christ. I can still remember, I've told you before, laying in my bed with my arms outstretched. Oh crucify me! So that I can have this experience of getting above the turbulence of sin and conflict. But I discovered upon reading my Bible that Such an experience is neither, on the one hand, a practical reality. I tried to live it. I pretended it. It was a self-deceived sham, pretending the victorious life. It's neither a practical reality, nor is it a biblical promise. That we're ever going to get above the turbulence and above the warfare. The Word of God promises warfare in the Christian life. This battle with sin. In fact, when a believer advances in Christian maturity, isn't it true that we become more and more aware of our sinfulness, instead of less so as we advance in the faith? It may be that the next summer, a woman puts on an outfit that she wore last summer, and she looks at it in the mirror, and she looks at the immodest exposure, and she's ashamed of herself. But what she wore the last summer, and she realized how sinful she is. Or the man, he used to watch that situation comedy, but now he turns down again. I can't believe I watch that stuff, and I claim to be a child of God. or this in the house, these children relating to one another. And there was one of the siblings that used to treat his other sibling like a dog, or like a beast, or like dirt, and on and on in total callousness. But then just realizing upon a certain occasion or situation, you're right. I treat my brother who I'm to love. The Word of God says you cannot claim to love God whom you've not seen unless you love your brother whom you had seen. There's this dagger to the heart. That knife has been in my soul all this time, and I never even noticed it. With an attitude of pride and speech, oh, I can't believe I've talked like that. This is the experience of the Christian life, isn't it? You see, we sense that we're deeply indwelled with sin. We're in desperate need of God's sanctifying and persevering grace, and we've got to keep mortifying it. This is the Christian life. Spurgeon says this, Are we not obliged to be always upon our guard against ourselves in the Christian life, to watch ourselves as a garrison of soldiers would have to watch the natives of a country whom they had subdued but were anxious to throw off the yoke of the foreigners who had overcome them? And if we were honest with each other, we would say, yes, there's this rebellion against God that still lurks in my heart and I have to hold it down. by the grace of God. This is what Paul is saying in verse 24. What a wretched man that I am, having described that conflict within. Who will set me free from this body of death? It's the kind of thing that made Jonathan Edwards, who was a Christian man, and had been a Christian man for decades, to write about the condition of his heart and his sinfulness, and to write, my sinfulness is infinite upon infinite. That wasn't just before he was converted. That was long after he was converted. His sin had become a veritable mountain range of iniquity before God. So we've seen the entrance of the law. The law came, that transgression might increase. Then we've seen the experience of saints. It's not just pre-conversion that happens. We know the multiplication of our sin, but third main heading, that is, the abounding of grace, that's in 520B, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. The law shows sin, which at one time in our lives appeared to be anthill-like, and now it is mountain-like. Mountain-like, yes. Yes, my sin is Mount Vesuvius-like. That's the mountain that buried Pompeii under the lava. My sin is Mount St. Helens-like. The top was blown off and a whole forest for miles was knocked down, scorched, now appearing as toothpicks, these massive trees. That's my sin and the belching of it. My heart is as a spewing volcano of impurity. My sins abound The stench of the sulfur of my wicked soul goes up like a column into the nostrils of God, and he is in holy hatred for me because he has a detestation for sin. His eyes are too pure to look upon iniquity." So there is this abounding of sin, and we realize that our sins are mountain-like. But turn with me to Genesis 7, 19 and 20. where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. 7, 19 and 20. It says, and the water prevailed, these are the floodwaters, and the water prevailed more and more upon the earth. so that all the high mountains, everywhere under the heavens, were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered." Where sin abounds. I can tell you tonight, you're a sinner, you're apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, there's great hope for you. You're a sinner who's known the Lord Jesus Christ for a long time, and even since the last time that you've been at the table, which has only been like three weeks now, since the last time you have sensed the vileness of your sin, there is hope for you, because where sin has abounded, grace abounds all the more. As it says in Micah 7.19, that picture of mountains being covered, He will have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Yes, He will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. all of your sins, every sin, every iniquity, every violation, rebellion against the law of God, all covered over by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, the love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free. This is the new covenant in my blood for the forgiveness of sins, as Joe said, do this in remembrance of me. All of your sins, all of your iniquities, where your sin, my sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. So sinner, don't allow the greatness of your sin to keep you from running to Christ tonight for pardon. Don't you allow it. For where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Oh, but my moral cupboards are pathetically bare. I'm a moral beggar. Nothing in my hands I bring. That's exactly where you need to be, where I need to be. Nothing in our hands we bring. We come to the table poor in spirit. Don't allow the greatness of your shame to keep you from this table. We need to reason, all of us tonight, need to reason like the prodigal. Oh, he was vile. Oh, he was filthy. What a stench he would bring in the presence of his Father. But he reasoned this way, There is bread enough in my Father's house. and you come tonight, your cupboards are bare. There is bread enough at the table here to satisfy all of your needs, to fill you. And though you've sinned greatly even since the last time you were at the table, the grace of Christ abounds all the more. So come on to the table, sinner, apart from... you hell-deserving, vile, wicked person. Sin has abounded in you. In Christ's grace abounds all the more. I trumpet you who are in the far country. Nobody else knows it. It's been a virtual trip to the far country you've been on. You've been here all the time. You may have been sitting here, sitting in your house. No one has known about where you've been. But there's this call from the Lord Jesus to the far country. Come on, get yourself to this table. There's bread enough even for you. in the Father's house. Reason like the prodigal, there is bread enough in my Father's house. There is grace enough to cover the mountain range of your sin and even my sin in the Lord Jesus. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for the table and all of the promises that it speaks. May we drink deeply. May we immerse ourselves fully in the abounding grace of the Lord Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.