Our scripture reading this day is from Job, the record of Job. This is the oldest writing in the Bible. Job would have been a contemporary of Abraham. And Job was going to ask the question of all questions. If you're familiar with the record of Job, God declared him to be the most righteous man on the face of the planet. And he unleashed the powers of the evil one in Job's life to take away everything but his life. Took away all of his possessions, took away all of his children. In one afternoon, one foul swoop, took everything from Job. Then he afflicted him with boils from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. The record says that even so, Job did not blaspheme God. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of God. Then Job's friends arrive. And they find him in the ash heap covered in boils, and they sit with him in silence for seven days. Then they opened their mouths and wisdom fled. Maybe you have friends like that. And then these friends of his began to interject and to tell him what they thought of the situation, and to tell him how he needed to view the situation, and they began to speak for God. Maybe you have friends like that, too. In the middle of chapter 8, the shortest man in the Bible is speaking. I know that you all have been taught that Zacchaeus was the shortest man in the Bible, because the Bible says that he was a wee little man, But Bildad the Shuhite was the shortest man in the Bible. You get that for free just for showing up. We begin in the middle of chapter 8. Bildad is speaking to Job and he is laying out for Job that God would not do this to a righteous man, Job. We're going to see the beginning of Job's response in the first 12 verses of chapter 9. Bildad speaking, can the papyrus grow up without a marsh? Can the rushes grow without water? While it is still green and not cut down, yet it dries up before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God. and the hope of the godless will perish. Whose confidence is fragile and whose trust a spider's web? He relies on his house, but it does not stand. He holds fast to it, but it is not established. He thrives before the sun, and his shoots go forth over his garden. His roots wrap around a rock pile. He looks upon a house of stone, If he swallows him up from his place, then he will deny him, saying, I never saw you. Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the dust others will spring. Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor will he strengthen the hand of the evildoers. He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouting. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame and the tent of the wicked will be no longer. ' Then Job answered and said, In truth, I know that this is so. But how can a man be in the right before God? If this was a psalm, that verse would be followed by Selah. Pause and reflect. That is the question of questions in your life. How can a man be in the right before God if one desired to contend with Him, he could not answer Him once in a thousand times? Wise in heart and mighty in power, who has stiffened his neck against Him and been at peace? God is the One who removes the mountains. They know not how, when He overturns them in His anger. The One who shakes the earth out of its place and its pillars tremble. The One who says for the sun not to shine and sets a seal upon the waters. Who alone stretches out the heavens and tramples down the waves of the sea. Who makes the bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. who does great things unsearchable and wondrous works innumerable. Were he to sweep by me, I would not see him. Were he to move past me, I would not perceive him. Were he to snatch away, who could turn him back? Who could say to him, what are you doing? And he goes on to describe this God that is impossible to address. He's impossible to approach. Yes, it makes sense to a man that this God would not do things like what I have experienced to a righteous and blameless man, but who could be that man before God? We're gonna answer that today. Father, thank you for bringing us here this Lord's Day. Thank you for giving us the opportunity and place to meet, Lord, that your church would come and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior. And pray that you will move in your people this day, Lord, as you only do on these Lord's Day services, Lord, and make this an eternally profitable time for us. that we will see the glory of our God, the holiness of the one in heaven, and the destitution of those that are on the earth, and the great chasm that you have crossed, and the sinning of your son, and the death, and burial, and resurrection, and his ever-standing place before you, interceding on our behalf. May we see the glory of those truths like never before as we realize what great grace and mercy have been shed abroad in the earth and in the hearts of every one of your people that have flowed from the great mercy and great love with which you have for your people. May we exalt you. May we extol the glories of the gospel and the glories of the Savior of that gospel. May we leave here ready and able to declare what a great God we serve. It is in the name of our soon coming Savior, the Lord of the church, the Lord of glory, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in his name that we pray. Amen. I would invite you to take your copy of the scripture and open it with me to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter five, where we will spend the majority of our time together this morning. We are continuing our look, possibly, hopefully, purportedly, going to conclude our look at the total depravity and radical corruption, the absolute inability of natural born man in regard to all things, Gospel. We've looked at the poisonous introduction of total depravity, the perpetual infection of radical corruption, how it entered the world and the garden, how it continued immediately and continually through throughout history, even down till today. And two weeks ago, we began looking at the present implication of total depravity, the present implication of radical corruption. What does it mean today? How does it apply? How does it impact life today? And we've looked at how radical corruption, total depravity. We have looked at how it impacts the totality of religiosity. We looked at Romans chapter one, that man is a being created to worship and every ounce of his worship is infected and affected and impacted by and brought to nothing by the reality of total depravity. We looked the last time we were together at the present impact of total depravity and how it impacts the totality of personality, that it affects not just the outward actions of a man, but it impacts a man, it impacts mankind from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and every word and every thought, everything that he does is irreparably impacted, humanly speaking, irreparably impacted by the total depravity of his heart, the radical corruption of his heart. Today, we're going to look at how total depravity impacts the totality of humanity. Not just one group of people, not one epoch of time, not one race of people, not one group, not most groups, but every single person that has ever been born of man is impacted by total depravity. The present implication of radical corruption is that everyone is infected. And today we're going to answer Job's question that we read in our scripture reading. How? How? I know that what you are saying is right, that he will not punish the blameless and he will have nothing good for the wicked. But how can man be right with God? In Romans chapter 5, Paul is going to outline that and spell that out for us. We began in chapter 1 of Romans, and Paul begins his indictment of the whole earth in verse 18. The rest of the chapter, all of chapter 2, chapter 3, comes to the conclusion in verse 23 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And all that are justified are justified as a gift from him. All that come to salvation have a salvation that has been provided for them by another. And he lays out that it is by faith, by faith Abraham was saved. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. And David believed that God would forgive on the basis of faith. And he said, how blessed is the man to whom his iniquity will not be counted to him. In chapter 5, Paul begins to outline the doctrine of imputation. And he's going to use the sin in the Garden of Eden as his illustration of how the righteousness of Christ can come to those who have never done what Christ did. by showing us that those of us that never did exactly what Adam did have been affected and impacted from a human perspective in an irreparable way. There's nothing that we can do about it. He's going to make that statement, he's going to establish that principle, then he's going to prove that principle, and he's going to tell us about the provision that God has made because of it. You are in Romans chapter five, meet me at verse 12. We're going to begin reading here and we're gonna read to the end of the chapter. Capture all of the flow of Paul's thought. This is on the heels of one of the great comforting verses in the scripture, Romans chapter five and verse eight, says that God demonstrates His own love, His personal love that belongs to Him, that He exercises as He chooses, His own love for us is demonstrated in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And in opening up and fleshing out that idea, we begin in verse 12, and he's going to tell us how it is that Christ could die for us, and it be for us. Therefore, verse 12, just as through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin so that death spread to all men because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam. who is a type of him who was to come. But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by that grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. And the gift 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 gracious gift arose from many transgressions, resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, Much more, those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men, For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be appointed righteous. Now the law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Friends, this is an exaltational passage. This exalts the work of Christ to a place that should cause every heart to flutter with joy. Because in the face of the reality of total depravity, there has been a provision that overcomes it. And it comes to you the same way that the sin came to you through the act of another. And just as in Adam we are absolutely hopeless and helpless, in Christ we are filled to the brim with hope and we are covered and showered in the help of the grace of God. Let's look at the principle of depravity established in verse 12. We see the origin of sin. If you're going to study the doctrine of original sin, this is where you are going to need, not necessarily to start, but you must come here. This tells us of the origin of sin. The reality of sin in the world is not hard to understand, it's not hard to see, it's not hard to communicate. But where did it begin? How did we get to where we are? Why is there so much sin in the world? What was the first thing that brought sin into the world? Where did it begin? Because that must have been the worst sin ever to be perpetrated on the planet had to be the first one because it ushered in all of the rest. It was the forest contained in one acorn of sin. The origin of sin is through a man. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, that one man is Adam, the first man in the garden, Sin technically entered through Eve. The first human act of rebellion was Eve, but sin entered the world through Adam. Because Adam is the one that had been given the chief responsibility and the chief authority, therefore he had the chief amount of responsibility and accountability. It says that sin entered the world through one man. And Paul here is not speaking of the one act of sin. This is not something that is limited to the act. Because that is an act that could never and has never been perpetrated since. That act of eating that fruit from that tree happened one time. He's not speaking of the act because there's no one in this room that could ever do what Adam did in the garden because that option and opportunity no longer exists. He is speaking here of the principle of sin and the practice of sin. Adam went from being a totally innocent moral agent to being an eternally guilty moral agent in an instant. He could never go back. He could never undo it. He now lives with a new reality in his life. The consequences of his sin will never leave. He has to learn to live under it. But that sin did not affect Adam alone, it affected all of the cosmos, all of the world. Romans chapter eight will say that the entire world and the entire cosmos is groaning with birth pains, awaiting the reconciliation of God's people so that things can be put back to the way they were, that sin will be removed from the entire universe. And when Adam sinned, he brought that principle of sin into the world. Adam was not the author of sin. The author of sin was the evil one in heaven, and he brought sin to the world, but Adam opened the door and brought it into the world. And when that sin entered the world, it devastated everything. That's the origin of sin. But the origin of sin opened the door for the infection of sin. Look at the wording. Just as through one man sin entered the world, the principle of sin, the practice of sin has been led into the world, and death through sin. It wasn't just that he did things wrong, but when God told him that in the eating of it, in your dying you will die, there will be death entering the world through sin, Adam. spiritual death that happened immediately, physical death that would come in its time, and spiritual death for all of those that die in unbelief outside of Jesus Christ. That came with this one sin, this original sin, one time perpetrated by one man. And death spread to all men. You mean this one guy did one thing one time and all of us suffer from it? Yes, that's exactly what it says. You say, well how is it? Because we were in, to use biblical language, we were in the loins of Adam when he sinned, therefore we all sin because of that? That's part of it, yes. But it's not just that. Because if that were the reality, then every sin that was ever committed by any ancestor that you could ever remember, all of their sin would have become a problem for you. All of their sin would be something that is credited to your account. That is not the case. So this does become something of a difficult issue. This is referred to by some as one of the most difficult doctrines in the scripture. I don't have a big problem with it because God said it, and when I get to the next verse, I'm gonna show you the proof of it that you just see and say, okay, there's no way around it. This didn't even take a capital A Apostle to understand this, a child can understand this, with the proof that we're going to look at in a moment. The origin of sin, that sin entered through a man, the infection of sin, it spread like gangrene to every person, everyone that was ever born after that, and we see it immediately when Cain and Abel are born. His firstborn son murdered his secondborn son and did not regret it. He just didn't want the consequence. He was unconcerned about regret over his sin. The punishment is too much. I don't want the punishment. What is the extent of sin? How far does it go? Well, it's attached to the infection of sin at the end of verse 12. because all sinned. And this is where we want to run quickly to say that in Adam we all sinned. Well, that technically is true, but you don't come out of the womb needing to be taught how to sin. You come out of the womb only awaiting an opportunity to sin. Because of this original sin and this infection of sin, in Adam, We all fell, and through Adam, sin that was in him is passed down to us. Not the acts of Adam, but the principle of sin. His act is credited to us, because we are born in Adam. And you say, oh, now I'm starting to get dizzy. Well, you're in good company, because I'm dizzy. when I start thinking about some of this stuff. But this is what it says. Not hard to understand. Let us move to the proof. That's the principle that this principle of sin entered the world and death came through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned. And you say, well, I don't know that one guy did one thing and it spread to everybody. You need that to be true. Because when you come to the gospel, you're looking at what one man did one time. It is given to all that will come to him in repentance and faith. In one, the many became sinners, and in one, the many become righteous. That is the point of this, but he is setting the stage here and he's putting the ducks in the right road that you understand that you are hopeless, helpless, altogether defiled, and desperately in need of someone to do something about that for you. The proof. The proof of total depravity is epitomized here in verses 13 and 14. It's manifested. It is shown to be true by practice. It is epitomized, beginning in verse 13, by the reign of death. You will see that word reigned multiple times in this passage. Death came in and death reigned. This is where we begin to see the proof of total depravity being epitomized or manifested. Verse 13, for until the law, sin was in the world. What is the law? It is what Moses received from God at Mount Sinai in Exodus chapter 20, 21, 22, and 23. The Ten Commandments, the Book of the Covenant, the law of God comes through Moses. He's going to reference Moses in a moment. When he references Moses, Moses and the law are synonymous here in this discussion. For until the law, sin was in the world. It means that men were sinners, but there was no law given there. And he said, but sin is not imputed. Where there is no law. And we look at this and say, so you're telling me that although they were sinning against God, that God didn't count it against them because they didn't have the Ten Commandments? No, I'm not telling you that. What I am telling you is that God held them accountable for being sinners even though they did not have the codified law of God from the pen of Moses. You need to lean heavily on this word, imputed. Many of your translations probably say counted or counted it. What does ESV say there? Counted. The idea is that it is imputed. The idea of imputed is to be accounted to or credited to. There was a transaction made that sin has been imputed to you because you have crossed the line of God's law. You have missed God's mark. But the importance of this word imputed is not that it means counted or accredited, or later in verse 19, he will use the word appointed. I like that expression as well. The intention of this is that it is given from another. It is accounted or credited through another or by another. There's another involved, not you alone. It is imputed to you from another, through another, by another. Sin was passed from one man to another, but God did not impute sin to them according to the written law of Moses before Moses wrote it. And they say, oh, so they were okay before the law of Moses. No, they were not okay before the law of Moses. Look at the beginning of verse 14. Nevertheless, that's another one of those connecting words that cause you to look back. When you see therefore, you ask, what is it therefore? Nevertheless, he's saying in spite of this being the reality, guilt is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, here's the proof. of total depravity. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. In the previous verse, he said that death passed through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Death, the power of death, the sting of sin is death and the power of sin is death. It brings death as the king that no one can beat. You realize that's still true. The death rate is still one per person. The old preacher said death's batting average is a thousand. It never misses. No one gets out of this life alive. Why? Death reigned from Adam to Moses. When you begin to read through the genealogies in the early chapters of Genesis, you read that this one lived to be three or four hundred years old and had four or five sons and then he lived another four hundred years and this guy was born and he lived two hundred years and he began to have sons and daughters and He lived another X amount of years, and some of them lived a few hundred years, some of them lived several hundred years before they had children, and then they lived a few hundred years after that, and those things varied. When they got married, when they had children, how many children they had, all those are variables. They all had interesting and variable lives, but they had one thing in common, and then he died. And then he died. And then he died. All the way to Moses. And then he died. Abraham died. Isaac died. Jacob died. Joseph died. All of them died. So we see the proof of total depravity and original sin being passed on from Adam to men, whether they had the law of God to sin against or not. In fact, not just the reign of death, but the recipients of death. Death reigned from Adam until Moses. And we could look at that and say, well, if he didn't destroy the Garden of Eden, they could still go back and still eat from the tree. So they know we have this one rule not to break, and we're not supposed to eat from this tree, but we're always trying to get to that tree. You got a problem. God closed the door on one end and he put a flaming sword and a cherubim on the other. You couldn't get to that tree. And then after the flood, there was no longer that tree. Yet from Adam to Noah and from Noah to Moses, death reigned. Who were the recipients of death? Even those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam. Their death wasn't based upon them breaking the same rule that Adam broke. They were born sinners, whether they had the law of God or not, and they were guilty before God because they were born of Adam. Adam's sin was imputed to them, and the reign of death proves that. The recipients of death being every man, whether they sinned in the course and likeness of Adam or not. No one could have, but all of them died. And then he gives us this clue. Adam, who is a type of him who was to come. We see the proof that every man has the sin of Adam imputed to him. Every man has the principle of sin in him that causes him to be guilty before God regardless of what he does. What he does in his life is only the proof of who he is in his heart. You don't become a sinner the day that you sin. The day that you sin, you're just beginning to be able to enact what you've always been. You don't become a sinner when you sin, you sin because you were born a sinner. That is why those that are born without the law, those that never hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, are as guilty before God as those who have rejected the gospel a hundred times. Because man is born under original sin as an enemy of God. Let me see the result of sin in the remainder of this chapter. We see universal imputation. It's not just imputed to a few it's universal in its application universe 12 beginning of verse 12 Just as through one man sin entered the world beginning of verse 13 Until law sin was in the world. It's everywhere You can't get away from it verse 15 By the transgression of the one the many died and One transgressed and the many died. Everyone dies because one transgressed the law. Verse 16, the one who sinned, the gift 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. The judgment of God on one man's sin resulted in condemnation for all men. We begin to look at it and say, well, this isn't fair. I don't care if you think it's fair. It's what God has declared. And it is an undeniable reality that you must be rescued from. It is an undeniable, a humanly unalterable state that you were born into. You cannot get out of it. And you've never known anyone that could get out of it. You've never seen anyone get out of it. You've never heard of anyone that got out of it. The only way out of this life is for this thing to die, this thing that we're stuck in. Verse 17, by the transgression of one, death reigned through the one. You see that word reigned again. When a monarch reigns, there is no hope. for you when you cross him. There is no one above him. There is no one stronger than him. When something or someone reigns, everyone answers to them, and everyone answers death. You may be able to prolong your life for a few years, but death is not satiated until you are gone. Then it moves on to the next, and the next, and the next. Verse 18. So then, as through one transgression, their result of condemnation to all men. He's still making this point. One man transgressed, all men were condemned, and the proof is that all men die. And they die, and they die, and there's no, the best person that you've ever met, the best person you've ever known, they still died. In verse 19. For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were appointed sinners. I like that word, were appointed sinners. And who did the appointment? God appointed them sinners. God declares you to be a sinner. You are, there is inescapable. You can dislike it. You can try to reword it. You can try to think you're gonna negotiate your way out of it. There is nothing left to be said. The judge in the court of heaven has appointed all to be sinners. And as we look around, we realize that there is no denial of that fact that is even possible. So we come to the only conclusion possible. What hope does man have? We've established the depravity of man. He is radically corrupt to his core, nothing good in him, surrounded by nothing that is good. He has no good thought, no good desire, no good act, nothing. He is to his core depraved of anything good. From Genesis to Revelation, we see one thing is common in every area of man's life. It's sin and sin and sin and sin. Depravity coming out at every moment and in every situation. Just oozing depravity from every place in his life. So what hope does he have? This is not a new concept. Job asked the same question. How can a man be right with God? What can a man do to be right with God? What can I do? Okay, preacher, you've made the point, what can I do? Because you're making it sound like there's nothing that I can do. Friends, if that's true, then I've told you exactly what I'm trying to tell you. You need to know there is nothing that you can do. The world needs to know there's nothing that you can do. There is no rock to turn over, there is no hole to be digged, there is no way to get past this. There is no hope for you. Try as you may, men have been trying since the beginning of time to find their own way to God and all of them come up short and find death at the end and separation from God because all men are born sinners. And all men are desperately, desperately, desperately in need of one thing. It's the most important thing in your life, what is it? his grace the unmerited favor of God how can a man get there a man cannot get there God must do it well why would God do that because God is gracious because of his grace he is allowed sin to corrupt the entire universe because without that though the universe would never know the graciousness of God you know that the holy elect angels are in heaven they will never know God's grace they will never know God's mercy the fallen Angels of the evil one that are going to be the chief captives of hell. They will never know the mercy of God. They will only know the justice of God. It is mankind and mankind alone that come to God on his terms that will ever know the grace of God. The unmerited favor. What can I do? There's nothing you can do. There's no hope for you. Except in two words. Two words I hope you leave out of here this day with them on your lips. There's no hope for you, but God has made a way. We see the principle of depravity established, the proof of total depravity epitomized. And Paul is not done here in chapter 5, friends. We see the provision for total depravity extolled. We see it exalted and cast in its most glorious light against the pitch-dark black backdrop of the sinful heart of man. Right here in this chapter. We see it in four words. Really, we see it in three words that lead up to a fourth word. Three big words. You're going to want to write down, you're going to want to know what these words mean. You're going to use them in your vocabulary as you talk to one another as believers. You need to know this word that we've already pointed to multiple times in this series already. It's the word propitiation. Propitiation. Romans chapter five, look at verse six. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for the ungodly. What did the ungodly need? What do the ungodly need? The ungodly need something that will satisfy the wrath of God against their ungodliness and unrighteousness that they use to suppress the truth in Romans chapter one. Christ died for the ungodly. He became that satisfactory remedy, that satisfactory payment to take care of this sin that we cannot stop living in, this sin that we can do nothing about, this sin that has plagued us from the moment of conception. We need something to propitiate the wrath of God to pay for the debt that we owe because the only thing that we can do is continue to add to this debt. The reason that hell will be eternal is because you will be a sinner in hell continuing to sin and deserve the full outpouring of the wrath of God for all of eternity. Some of you fellas talking about annihilationism Friday morning at the men's Bible study, that's dumb. And Kirk Cameron needs to repent of that stupidity if that's what he believes. Because it robs the gospel of its glory! If you go to a sinner and say you've got two options, either the bliss of heaven if you give your life to Christ and suffer for him the rest of your life, or live however you want and be annihilated at the end. What is a lost man gonna do, Johnny? I'll take my chances. Man, that's good news. At the end, it just ends. I'm gonna live it up. Friends, if that's true, Christ died for nothing. But he didn't die for nothing. Christ died for the ungodly. Look at verse 8. But God demonstrates his own love toward us. Toward who? Toward us. Those declared guilty from the Garden of Eden. The ungodly. He demonstrates his own love for us. People think that, well, you see the love of God and how he does things for you in this life. No, you don't. No, you don't. Don't demand that God show you something right now in your life to prove that he loves you. He doesn't need to do that. That's the idea of the devil. Go and tell them that God will give them stuff. No, the devil will give you stuff. I'll tell you this, the devil pays his people well in this life, because this is all he got. God shows his own love toward us. Why are we yet sinners? Christ died for us. How does God express his love? How do you know that God is love? You're in a situation as a believer, and it seems like God has abandoned you. Maybe your sin has had you in a far country for a long time, and you're just reaping what you've sown. You've sown to the wind. You're reaping the whirlwind, and you think, well, God has turned his back on me. He's forgotten about me. Maybe he doesn't love me anymore. Friends, God could not love his people more and express his love more clearly. He could not. If you gave a thousand lifetimes to a man, he could not concoct an idea that would show the love of God with greater clarity and greater depth and greater unmistakability than the cross of Jesus Christ. No man would have had the audacity to suggest such a thing. But it's what God declared the necessary thing to do from before the foundation of the earth. And he sent the most precious person in the universe to be the one to provide it. Because it's what we need. Because it's the only thing that would satisfy God. Look at verse nine. Much more, much more, much more. How do you get any more, much less, much more, super abundantly more than, having now been justified by his blood and his death, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him while he lives? Where is Jesus right now? He's in my heart, that's not what I mean. Where is he right now? The Bible says that he is at the right hand of the Father, where he ever lives to intercede on our behalf. Why does he have to intercede on my behalf? Because I still sin. Because I'm still me. Oh, when I get to heaven, when I get to heaven, he'll have something else to occupy his time with. He won't have to occupy his time interceding for me. Oh, what a day. Repetition, the first big word. Second big word, reconciliation. You know what it is to reconcile. You take two groups of people that have been at odds with one another, you bring them together. Sometimes you'll have an arbitrator in a court case get together with these two, these two entities that are at odds with one another. They work out a plan of reconciliation, a truce between countries. And we see reconciliation this time of year. Sometimes families that have kind of been at odds with one another will reconcile and come together for family meetings and then kind of put away some of the things that have been dividing them and reconcile. And that's an idea of reconciliation. But at the end of verse 11, Paul refers here to THE reconciliation. Friends, there's a reconciliation above every other reconciliation. There's a reconciliation that you need more than any other! It's not a reconciliation between one man and another man, a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, two groups of people. It's not a reconciliation between two countries, friends. The reconciliation is the reconciliation between God and man. And it's a reconciliation that only God can bring. And praise be to him that he has done it unsolicited. Unsolicited, no one asked for it. He planned it and he brought it to fruition. He completed it. Like he always completes what he sets out to do. Nothing stays his hand. As Job said this morning, who can say to him, what have you done? You can't even understand it. Why do you want to know what I've done? Why do you want to know why I've done this? Why do you want to know how? Job was going to start asking, well, why? And he said, OK, I got a question for you, Job. How does this happen in life? Dude, I don't know. Why does the water stop right there by Grand Isle? I have no idea. Maybe Grand Isle's too dirty. The water doesn't want to water. I don't know. Because God told it to stop there. Why does the earth sit just like it sits? Why does it spin just like it spins? Why is the sun just so far away? No further, no closer. We don't freeze, we don't burn up. Why? It's what God chose to do. And friends, when God chooses to do something, the only thing you can do is stand back in absolute, complete awe at what he has done. And when it comes to salvation, when it comes to this reconciliation between God and man, he gets all of the credit. He didn't say, all right, I made it here. If you can get over here, I'll let you in. No, he went all the way and he transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. And Jesus said, no one snatches my people out of the father's hand because no one put them there, brother Charles. numbers five in verse one therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ friends that is reconciliation he has brought peace between god and man between man and god and he didn't need to bring peace because you got a problem he had to bring peace because god has a problem there's a problem with you because you're a sinner and someone has to bridge the gap the gap that you could never begin to bridge a gap that you're not even are aware or concerned about until he invade your life with that truth Verse 10, while we were enemies, friends, that's not reconciliation, that's enmity, that's separation. While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. And here's that term again, much more. Having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. If his death reconciled us to God, what is his life gonna do for us? Friends, I'll tell you what Jesus is doing for you right now is more important than what he did on the cross. You say, preacher, that's blasphemy. I just read it to you. What does much more mean? What does much more mean? We're right to look back at the cross. We're right. We need to look back and remember. But friends, he didn't stop there. He hasn't stopped since. If Peter and John would have known what he was going to heaven to do, they wouldn't have been upset that he left. Look, man, what you doing? Get out of here. We got this. Spirit's coming. Go. We need you there, we don't need you, the Spirit's coming, we need you there. They didn't have any idea of that at the time, of course. But what he's doing for you today is more than he ever did for you in his death. And what he did for you in his death is so wonderful and magnanimous and marvelous that you can't even quantify it or describe it in adequate terms. And Paul says that in comparison to that, what he's doing now is even much more. Reconciling and holding us there. It would be one thing if he reconciled and said, okay, here. All right, we're burying a hatchet. Don't blow it now. But he didn't do that. He brought us together and he's put us in the bosom of the Father and he stands there and he says, yes, but I died for that too and I died for that and they belong to me and they are in your kingdom. Yes, he did it again, but I'm the one that paid the price. Let the devil arrive and begin to suggest to God that he bring judgment to your life. God will not say to him, do all but spare his life, because there is an advocate to his right. This is not today, Satan. He's the only one that can say that, by the way. I don't know why you want to talk to the devil. Propitiation, reconciliation, imputation. We've already addressed this some. It means an accreditation. It means to be declared or counted. It's a legal declaration. It's a stamp of approval. It's a stamp of of declaration, of description. This is now stamped and appointed for thus and such. When you get a delivery in the mail, you see there's stamps all over them, different places. You stamp it, it goes there, it's been destined for this place, it's going there, it belongs to this truck, it belongs to that person. When we're speaking of the imputation of righteousness and the imputation of sin, what that means is that we were guilty. We are now righteous. And you say preacher. I understand exactly why I was guilty because I know what I was doing, but I don't understand how I'm now righteous because I still know what I'm doing. Second Corinthians five. Ends the motorboat. But, but, but, but, but. Romans 8, there is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ. He has already given the best that he has for you, how will he not along with him give you all things? Those are the bookends of that chapter. 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 17, he says, therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things passed away, behold, new things have come. And you say, preacher, I don't look any different. I'm still getting these gray hairs. My eyeballs just decided to give up. Don't feel all that new. The old is gone, the new has come, something has happened. There was an old you that has been done away with, there's a new you that has been put in place. And you realize that you're talking about something that is a spiritual transaction that has been declared to be so, and it is why we await that glorified body in heaven. Move down to verse 21. New is gone, the old is gone, the new has come, in Christ a new creation. Verse 21, how did that happen? because God made Jesus Christ, him who knew no sin. God made Jesus Christ to be sin on our behalf. Let me ask you, was Jesus a sinner? I know there are people, heretical, horrendous, demonic people on television say that Jesus became a sinner on the cross. Friends, God cannot become a sinner. You can have the dumb debate about, can he create a rock too big for him to pick up? That's infantile. What God cannot do is anything that is against His nature. And friends, He is holy. He cannot sin. And Jesus Christ did not become a sinner on that cross. What this says is that God treated Him as though He had sinned every sin that every person that would ever put their faith in Him had, were, and would commit. God laid the penalty of sin on Christ and treated Him like He was sin. You say, oh yeah, man, that crucifixion was horrible. The crucifixion is where we see that picture with great clarity. We see it physically. But friends, when the sun went black and Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? You know what's gonna be the worst part of hell? It's gonna be the absence of the goodness of God. The wrath of God on full display with nothing to interfere. God treated him as sin, and in this language, from the intellect and the mind and the heart of the apostle to the Gentiles, empowered by the Holy Spirit of God, through the pen of Paul, giving us the very words of God, says that he made Christ to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Not the righteousness of God in heaven, We become the righteousness of God in Christ. That means if you are in Christ right now, you have been declared to be as righteous as Jesus Christ in God's eyes. You say, preacher, how can that be? That is imputation, my friend. God has declared it to be so. He has appointed it to be so. Look at verse 19 of chapter 5 in Romans 5. through the one man's disobedience many were appointed sinners even so through the obedience of the one the many will be appointed righteous that's true that's imputation appointed righteous yes every person has been Declared and and and appointed a sinner because of the transgression of one in the garden and it's it's impossible to deny It is very difficult to understand but the the reality of it is impossible to deny You cannot miss the fact that people are born sinners because there are graves everywhere And it's going to be some more if you and I live long enough And in that same way The legal declaration of God that you are righteous before him is appointed to you in Jesus Christ. He takes the ungodly, the unlovely, the unlovable, the undesirable, the undesiring. It's not just that we're undesirable to him. We have no desire for him. He has no reason to look to us. We have no desire to look to him. While we were yet sinners, he sent Christ to die for us. You're a believer, he sent Jesus Christ to die for you. That he might be the propitiation for your sin and become the agent of reconciliation. And that God would impute to you the very righteousness of Christ because he has already imputed to Christ your sin. Your sin is paid for, believer. I didn't hear any hallelujahs. Chad warmed you all up in the song service this morning. Praise be to God, I will never answer for my sin. Preacher, you don't know what I did. I don't, God does. The wrath of God is no longer, no longer an option for a believer. Wrath of God was satiated, propitiated at the cross of Christ. These three words, propitiation, reconciliation, and imputation could be all put together, have the letters rearranged, and come out with this one great word that contains all of these truths and more. I've just given you three facets of this one diamond that we call salvation. Meet me in Ephesians chapter 2. Knowing myself and knowing that I don't get as far in my notes as fast as I would like, I wrote in my notes, next to this passage, read it. Just read it. Don't stop, just read it. I'm gonna halfway do that, I'm gonna read it. But I'm gonna stop a couple of times. Paul here is going to outline in clear and joy-filled terms, I want you to understand, Paul is extolling the virtue of the provision that Christ has made for the totally depraved men on the earth that he is saving through the gospel. We have so many days that we just need to walk around hunched over and Christ died for me, I've gotta serve him. He died for me, I've gotta serve him. You don't see Quasimodo in Ephesians chapter two. You see a man with his hands held high. You see a man that wants to get up and run around the room. Because this is what God did for me. Can you believe it? He begins the letter that way. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And then he starts trying to explain it, then he gives up. There's no way to even enumerate the blessings that we have in Christ. Ephesians 2 and verse 1. I want you to notice about halfway through this, you get to those two words I want you to never forget. Because friends, there are some of you that have been testifying to family members for a very long time. There's some of you that wonder how you can still be saved with the things that you think you've done in your life. And all of the focus is in on the human side of this. There's no hope for man. You are absolutely right. If you ever say those words, there's no hope. You're right. There's no hope for man. A man cannot be right with God. A man can be made right with God by another, but he cannot get there on his own. And these two words hang in the balance. I see no hope for my family member. I see no hope for my coworker. I see no hope for the world. I see no hope anywhere. God Someone said that to me this this week I've been testifying to this family member doesn't want to hear it not just just openly rejects the gospel But God so he said to me, but God and he grins. That's right. That's right And you whoever you are as a believer Speaking in the past tense for believers, this is the present tense for every unbeliever outside of Christ. You were, or you are, you were dead in your transgression and sins. That's what we've been discussing this entire time. That's total depravity. In about seven words, you were dead in your transgression and sins. Transgressions, you stepped over the line. Sins, you never hit the target. What you did try to do was so off target, it didn't miss the bullseye, it missed the target. And what you knew you shouldn't do, you couldn't wait to run across that line, dead in transgressions and sins. You can't get there from here. And not only was that something that happened in your life, it is the way in which you formally walk. It was the pattern of your life, walking according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air. What your flesh, what the world system, what the devil said is what you ran to do. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formally conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even like the rest, putting everyone in the same boat. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All men find themselves outside of any reconcilable place with God. They're all enemies of God. Verse four, but God, hopeless man in verses one through three, run across the gospel of Jesus Christ that God declared, that God has sent, that God has accomplished, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. and he just can't contain himself. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come, that's eternity, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Jesus Christ. You know what that means? You're gonna be a trophy of grace for eternity. You believe that, Matt? Hey, Gabriel, there's Chad. You know what I did for him? So what are we going to do in heaven? We're going to praise God all the time. Why? Because of what he's done for us. We're not going to run out of reason. We're going to extol the glorious riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ. Why? For by grace you have been saved through faith. this not from yourselves it is the gift of God not of works so that no one may boast at first you look at that and say well if you would just give me a list to keep it would be great I would like that yeah you would like that because then you can claim credit for it that's why I tell you that rules are useless rules make rules make arrogant hypocrites because the flesh wants to boast about Verse 10, this tells us that from the beginning to the end and all points in between, this is all God. This would not be possible but for God. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. This is God from start to finish. Friends, the sin in the Garden of Eden was not a surprise to God. The sin in your life has not been a surprise to God. He sent a Savior that He knew from the very beginning we would need. But He didn't just merely send a Savior to keep us from having to suffer the pains of hell. He sent the Savior to save us for Himself, that we would become His servants. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to please and serve Him. And I ask you, why would you need anyone to prod you to serve this God? Why do you need anybody to come behind you and say, well, if you don't, you're gonna be mad? Friends, a God that would do this for me, I'm not concerned about Him being mad. I can't wait to go and give Him all of my life. When I read this, I want to serve Him more after I read it than I did before. This is what He did for me. I'm just sorry that I can't get it right. I'm sorry that I have to keep struggling through it. I want to get it right. I want to get it right all of the time. That's why I want to be in heaven, because I'll never get it wrong again. And I'll be there. To see that one that has interceded for me every moment of my existence, at the right hand of the Father, who didn't just come and say, well, that'll save some, I've got other business to tend to. He has been involved in my life from before my life began, and His providence bringing all things together for my good. Why would I hold anything back from a God like that? I've closed the book and I've closed my Bible and I have a lot more to say, so you better stand up so we can pray. Friends, we serve a great God. Brother Chad, would you close for us in prayer, please?