The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. For more information about the seminary, visit us online at GPTS.edu. Let's pray again. Our Father, as a servant looks to his master and a handmaiden to her mistress, we lift our eyes unto you. We open wide our mouths that you will fill them. Oh, Holy Spirit, who inspired these words, now illumine our understanding, grant they be preached in the demonstration of your own glorious power and that Christ will be lifted up. We ask this for his sake. Amen. Perhaps some of you boys and girls know what a reading primer is. Even if you don't know what a reading primer is, if you are learning or have learned to read, you have used a reading primer. Because a reading primer is simply your first book in reading. It's the book that introduces you to the ABCs and then your phonics and the blending of sounds and eventually learning to recognize words. Well, boys and girls in the American colonies in the 1700s used a very special primer called the New England Primer. It was published by a man named Benjamin Harris in 1690. And Mr. Harris was teaching about over 100 years, 5 million children to read from his primer. But he didn't want them simply to learn their ABCs. Mr. Harris wanted the children to become godly, God-fearers. And so his reading primer, his first book in reading, was full of biblical instruction. And as the words became more advanced, the instruction became more advanced, but he actually started the instruction with the ABCs. And as he introduced each letter to the children, He then would give a rhyme that introduced them to a very important biblical truth. So when he gave them the letter A, he wanted them to learn one of the most important truths in the Bible, and that is, in Adam's fall, we sinned all. He illustrated A with that rhyme. In Adam's fall, we sinned all. Now, you know, that is a very simply stated but profound truth, isn't it? It's a truth that many of us are experiencing today. It might be the slightest thing like a headache, upset stomach. Perhaps somebody is at home or recently even a child been in the hospital. We all have in our families, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children that have died. And all these things have and are happening because In Adam's fall, we send all. We've wrestled today with our own sins, our corruptions, our wrong motivations. Why have we done so? Because in Adam's fall, we send all. And some of you tonight, as many of your neighbors and those around the world are very afraid of death. And you're afraid of death because the Bible says it's important that a man wants to die. And after that, the judgment. You're afraid of death because your conscience is testifying to you that you're soon going to stand in the presence of a holy, pure judge and give an answer for all the deeds done in this body. In Adam's fall, we sinned all. This is the truth that we are considering tonight. And for our text, I want us to look at Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through 14. Dr. Waters tried to scare me off the text, and I almost did run away from it, but I didn't have time. No, the text is indeed one of the most densely argued things that I think the Apostle Paul ever wrote. At times, dealing with it, I felt like I was out duck hunting and making my way through thick Mississippi gumbo mud, or waist-high weeds just struggling for each step. And yet it is indeed a beautiful text of Scripture that sets this truth before us. In Adam's fall we send awe. If you look at the verses, you'll see that they begin with three very interesting words. Therefore, just as well, let me go ahead and read the three together. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin. So 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 offensive Adam, who is a type. of him to come. Notice the first three words of the text as we lay the background for it. Therefore, just as the first word points backwards, doesn't it? Therefore, you know, little diddy, you have a therefore in the Bible, you ask, why is it therefore it's pointing back, it's picking up an argument. And you remember that in verses one through 11, the apostle has developed the, the glorious privileges of justification by faith alone. Lay that out on the basis of the perfect work of Christ death and his life by which we are reconciled. And we should be asking the question, how can that be? How can the death of a man? How can the life of a man reconcile me to God? Well, Paul says, I'm going to answer that with this little word. Therefore, he says, I'm going to show you how. Now the next two little words, just as they point forward, you'll notice that verse 12 is something of an incomplete thought. In some Bibles, there's a dasher, a parenthesis of some sort after it actually. Verses 13 through 17 are a large parenthesis. And the words, just as, really are not completed until we get to verse 18, so then. There's the completed thought. That's what just as is pointing forward to. You can read it like this. Just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men, so then. As through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification to all men. For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the disobedience of the one, the many, the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous. That's the thought. That's where the just as is pointing. So our text introduces this thought and then introduces the parenthesis. Verses 13 and 14 of the parenthesis prove the statement of verse 12. Verses 15 through 17 of the parenthesis explain to us then exactly how it is that Adam, as the covenant head, was the type of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is infinitely superior to Adam. Well, with that little bit of background, We look then at what Paul is teaching us in verses 12 through 14. And I want to show you tonight that because Adam is our covenant head, all of those who proceed from him by ordinary generation are conceived under condemnation and in corruption. Because Adam is the covenant head, All those proceeding from him by ordinary generation are conceived under condemnation and in corruption. It's a little statement. In Adam's fall, we sinned all. We're going to consider two things, the principle stated and the principle proven. Paul states the principle in verse 12. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. Here's the principle in Adam's fall. We send all Adam as the covenant head is the source of our condemnation, our guilt, our corruption. Paul begins this discussion by showing us that it is through Adam that sin enters the human race. God has drawn a great veil across the origin of sin. It's one of the most awesome mysteries of the Bible, isn't it? How a perfect or how holy and perfect angels who beheld God in all of his beauty and glory could ever rebel against him. It's unimaginable and is shrouded in great mystery. God begins to part the veil a little bit As we see how sin was born in the heart of Adam, that's still a great mystery. This man who walks with God, who is upright, who has the law of God written on his heart, who loves God. But it was so wonderfully spelled out last night when the evil one comes with craft and guile and worms his way into the affections and will of Eve and then to Adam. Sin is born in their rebellion because God took away his hand. He didn't uphold them by His grace. But with respect to our sin, with respect to sin in the human race, the mystery is removed here in verse 12. Paul tells us very clearly that by the sin of one man, Sin entered the race as through one man, sin entered into the world. The one man is Adam spelled out in verses 14. His name is mentioned there twice. He is the one man by whom and through whom sin entered into the world world here. It's not the cosmos. It's not the universe. It's not the material fabric of the creation. World is here for human beings. And Paul says that sin entered into the world. He's saying that sin entered into the human race through the sin of Adam. With Adam's sin, Paul then says, came death is through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin. And you remember in chapter two, we reminded last night in verses 16 and 17 of Genesis chapter two, the Lord God commanded the man saying from any tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for the day you eat from it. You will surely die dying. You will die. That was the threat to Adam. If he disobeyed when Adam rebelled in sin, Adam died. That death is summarized, I think, quite well in our Shorter Catechism, question and answer 19. What is the misery of that estate wherein to man fell? All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. The death that Adam died is first summarized here as a spiritual death. He lost communion with God. He was guilty upon his transgression, and he immediately had all of the proper subjective feelings of guilt. His conscience bore witness to him of his guilt, just as your conscience bears witness to you when you violate the law of God. So he tried to hide from God. He tried to cover over his shame. He felt shame, which was merely an expression of this guilt. And and in this guilt, the communion was broken. This glorious God with whom he walked and talked, who tutored him, who promised him everything upon simple obedience. He now is broken off from this God. He hides from this God. He's alienated from this God. And he will be expelled from the garden of this God. This spiritual death then entailed in him the loss of that original knowledge, righteousness, and holiness that he had as the crowning aspect of being made in the image of God. He now was spiritually blind, dead in sins and trespasses, unable to understand in a saving way anything about God. And so he thought he could cover over his shame with thick leaves. And then he thought he could hide from God. How many times you and I have sinned in secret or in darkness thinking we can hide from God? He was blind. hide from God, but he'd lost his knowledge. He lost his righteousness. He was guilty, but he was alienated not only from God, but within himself. Now he lost his, his equilibrium. He was alienated as we saw last night from his wife. He could not live by the standard of God's law. He was in no fellowship with God or with himself or with his wife. And he died. He lost his holiness. He became corrupt through and through. Every nook and cranny of his being now permeated with the reality of sin. And he was corrupt, spiritually dead, loving sin, hating God. With this spiritual death came that physical death, the part that maybe at first he thought he had cheated. God said you should surely die, but he didn't feel any different after he said, until he heard the voice, the sound of God coming. But he had begun to die. The simple switch of decay had been turned on. Now it took a long time. It showed again the beauty of the creation. The beauty of these men and women made in the image of God, it took 900 years for death to eat away at them. But it did, didn't it? You've got that remarkable section in Romans chapter five, where it's actually the covenant seed, the church of God. And yet, as you read this account, there's a refrain. If you listen, there's a funeral bell that's tolling the life of each man. Verse five, Adam lived 930 years and he died. Verse eight, all the days of Seth for 912 years and he died. The days of Enish were 905 years and he died. Days of Kenan, 910 years and he died. You hear the bell. back and forth the refrain. And he died and he died with that physical death came what our catechism refers to as the misery of this life. And we heard of those last night as well. And in other lectures this week, pain and childbearing strife in the family ground cursed because of Adam's sin, laboring by the sweat of his brow, toiling in that which would have been perfect delight. all then of the illnesses and the pains and the brokenness that accompanies the declension of life. And then, of course, there is that judicial death. He was, though redeemed by God, he momentarily was under God's wrath and curse and he was expelled from the garden. under that wrath of God. And as it says in the catechism, that he was subject to the pains of hell forever. That's the penalty. That is the due punishment of sin, eternal damnation. This is what happened to Adam. This is what Paul is summarizing very simply for us, and yet with such profundity. that by the sin of the one man, sin entered into the world and death with sin. But all Paul is doing here is laying a foundation for the subsequent. Results, he goes on to say, and so death spread to all men. Because all sinned. Death didn't stop with Adam, did it? Spiritual death didn't stop there, did it? You know, well, the reality of it. You know, your spiritual ignorance, your blindness, your spiritual deadness, corruption, of course, is through your body. Nobody taught you boys and girls to tell a lie, did they? Did your daddy sit you down and say, now, here's how you lie. And here's how you can really lie convincingly. And no one taught you to be angry and throw temper tantrums, did they? To be impatient, to cheat or steal. No one taught us as we got older to cultivate lust in our hearts, to cheat on husbands and wives. And they sure didn't teach us to be murderers. Talking to a friend, he's here tonight, and I was telling him after the stuff in Newtown, society's got it all wrong. It's not crazy people that murder, it's simply sinners. And every one of us is capable of committing murder. Corruption through and through, and so all as sin enters the world's death, enters the world, and we're born dead in sins and trespasses, vile and corrupt, hating God. Unwilling and unable. To come to God does not fear him. There's not a do good. No, not one. We all are by conception, thoroughly corrupt. And of course, that. Funeral bell. It's tolling for you and me, isn't it? It's no longer 900 years. Moses said 70 or 80. kind of the average time that we have now, and those are years full of pain and anguish and trouble as sparks fly upward. A life that is accompanied with the miseries of pain, debilitating illnesses, chronic diseases, surgeries, amputations, diabetes, heart attacks, blood pressure problems, Cancer, it's no respecter of persons. Children die, die of disease, die of terrible, tragic accidents. Young people die, those six young people in Ohio reaping the wages of their sin, never thinking that they were going to die. But death entered the world and came to all people. And not one of us shall escape it. Enoch escaped it, but we shall not escape it unless Christ returns. And then, of course, judicial death, pangs of hell forevermore, the inheritance of every natural-born child of Adam, the reality of eternal condemnation. The figures are unable adequately to describe it. It's both fire and utter darkness. It is a constant falling. It's being chained in prison. The worst part of it is separation from all that is good and gracious and kind and patient about God with his wrath daily, moment by moment poured out upon the ones in hell. And in this life, that judicial judgment is beginning. We saw it in the flood. We saw it in Sodom and Gomorrah. We see it now when God manifest his anger against sin and against sinful cultures and societies as a reminder. It's appointed and a man wants to die, and after that, the judgment. I don't need to convince you, your conscience is bare testimony with me that we all are dead, conceived dead. And apart from Christ, we remain spiritually dead, judicially dead, and even in Christ, we shall die physically unless he returns. But why? How is it? Well, that's what Paul answers now in the end of verse 12. Death spread to all men because all sinned. When did I sin? When did you sin? What did I do to bring this on myself? You didn't. Adam did. The word sin here is a simple past tense, referring to an event that happened in the past. All men sinned. When did all men sin? We've heard it. We've heard it in the music. We've heard it in the other lectures this week. All men sinned in Adam because Adam was appointed by God to be their covenant head. Short of catechism, 16 did all mankind following Adam's first transgression, the covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation. That's to accept the Lord Jesus Christ. Sinned in him, fell with him in his first transgression. That's what Paul is saying when he says, all men sinned. He's reminding us of the covenant of works. That transaction which we read in Genesis 2, 16. When Adam is in this probationary period, The law of God is written on his heart. He's got the revelation of God. He's got the Sabbath of God. He's got clear commandments of God. He's got the fellowship of God. But God is to test his will. He can't test him in terms of of the moral law because that's part of his very nature. So he takes this this test of his will. Will he submit to the will of God? Will he bow to the word of God? Or will he rebel? And so it was a simple test, just one tree. Don't eat of the fruit of this tree. With a promise that Adam, if you go through this period of time and you obey me, I then will confirm you in all of your righteousness and exalt you to a state of glory and splendor and spiritual maturity. And not only you, Adam, but every single man and woman, every boy and girl who comes from you will be born perfect. Enjoying me forevermore. That was the covenant of works made with Adam and for all of his descendants in him. So he acted as a public person. He acted as the representative, both naturally and covenantally. It is important to understand that the race genetically comes from Adam. And because we come from Adam, we do have Adam's corruption. But we have it justly because Adam acted for us as our federal representative. Which means he was the head, the one, as Paul explains more clearly in the parenthesis, acting on behalf of the all, all those given to him in covenant, all those for whom he acted in covenant. Now, that's not a strange principle to people who live in this country. We live with a representative government, a federal government. I don't imagine probably none of you here tonight like the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, do you? But when your president signed that bill, it legally obligated you to all of its mess. Or if this president tomorrow declared war on North Korea, Whether you wanted to be at war with North Korea or not, and whether you like the president or not, you as the citizen of this country would be at war with North Korea. It is the principle that God uses in every level of life. It is the principle of God's moral government. God governs through representation. It's true in our families. becomes a very serious obligation to those of us who are husbands and fathers to realize that our actions don't just recoil on us. Our actions recoil on our wives and they particularly recoil on our children. Beethoven went deaf. Why? Because his father had syphilis. And when you men act, you act for your families. Dabney took this point of the representation of fathers in particular to challenge us with the reality that particularly men need to feel the weight of the fact that our children are corrupt through us. weight then lies upon us to do all we can with prayers and discipline and instruction and love to see them come to Christ and to be reared in a wise and proper and biblical manner. For you know that if you were responsible for some terrible injury to your child, your child would go through life with burn scars or a deformed limb or a loss of an eye because of your carelessness or of a decision that you made. I know a lot of you have watched Downton Abbey. You remember how Sybil's father felt when he thought it was his decision that caused her to die. We understand that feeling and that should be a great motivation to us. to pour ourselves into our families, into our children, for we are responsible for who they are and before God for what they become. And so to this principle of representation, when Adam picked the fruit in rebellion against God, and broke the covenant, he became guilty, and we covenantally acted in him, and we became guilty. And so again, referring to the catechism, and I give you these questions because they're the clearest summary of so many of the truths that we have discussed this week. In 18, wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell. The sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. The guilt of Adam's first sin, not in some indirect manner, But because he acted for us, we acted in him and in God's just system of moral government, we are guilty. And because we're guilty, we then have all the punishment. We have the spiritual death. We have the want of original righteousness. We lost our knowledge, righteousness, and holiness because we're guilty. We deserve to lose it. And with that, the corruption of our entire nature, as we've seen, and out of that, all actual transgressions, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life, all of our sinful fantasies, all of our sinful motives, all of the filth that flows through our hearts and our minds and breaks out in our words and in our actions, all because of original sin. We're born dead in sins and trespasses. vile, contemptible and corrupt. Now, this is not a truth that most people want to hear. We would think, well, surely it's just we sin happens because of Adam's example. Or I'm a little weakened by what happened to Adam. I'm not guilty for what he did. That would be right. But I'm I'm a little weak. But surely God cannot hold me accountable for the action of some man that lived over 6,000 years ago. Well, Paul goes on, having stated the principle, summarized in our little rhyme in Adam's fall, we sinned all, to prove the principle in verses 13 and 14, to demonstrate from the history of the human race and the moral character of God, the necessity of this principle. For until the law, sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed, for there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned, in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him to come." has been set up here already. This is a difficult line of argument to try to unpack, but let me just give you a simple man's approach to this. Paul lays down a moral principle at the end of verse 13. Sin is not imputed where there is no law. In order for someone to be guilty, there has to have been a law transgressed And the basis of the transgression of that law, guilt then is established and imputed. Imagine that there was someplace out west where there is a highway that has no speed limit. Now, they don't need to have speed limits because there's nothing else on them. But anyway, there's no speed limit on this highway. So you're going down this highway about 100 miles an hour and you get pulled over. And the patrolman says, do you know how fast you were going? Now, I don't know how I know this dialogue, but anyway, well, yeah, I was going a hundred miles an hour. Well, you were speedy. You're guilty of speeding. How can I be speeding? There's no speed limit. Well, I know there's no speed limit, but I've said you're guilty of sinning. Of speeding. You see, it doesn't work. If there's no law, the guilt of sin cannot be imputed. That's God's moral standard, that's man's moral standard, reflecting God's moral standard. But Paul says, until the law, sin was in the world. And by law there, he's talking about the Mosaic legislation. He takes that because that is the great corpus of written, revealed law of God, canonized, and God has said that the soul who lives by this shall live. There's a standard. You fall away from this and you die. It's clear. What Paul is saying is that sin, and by this he means the imputation of the guilt of sin, which we can see from verse 14, because death reigned from Adam until Moses. Death is the punishment due to guilty sinners. Death reigned in this period of time, this What was it? 30, 2600 years or so between, um, Adam and Moses death was raining. There were other words. All the people on the earth were guilty of sin. That's what Paul is asserting in verse 13 until the law sin was in the world. There was an imputation of the guilt of sin to men and women. Because death, the punishment for sin, reigned from Adam until Moses. But circling back, reigned over a people who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam. Adam's offense was a deliberate rebellion against a revealed commandment of God. And Paul is saying there's not been another such covenant transaction in the history of the human race from Adam until Moses. And so the only way that death would have reigned in all men when there was no such law was through the sin of Adam. Paul is saying is that, uh, there was no revealed law against which men would reveal. rebel, particularly babies, infants, no law of conscience, but babies were dying all the time. Babies were dying. Babies were killed in the flood. Weren't they? They had not sinned in the pattern of their parents. Had they, was that just for God to destroy babies and infants in the womb, in the flood? Paul is saying the only way it could be just was that they didn't commit a sin like Adam's. No, they sinned in Adam. They're guilty because of Adam's sin, that one transgression. And so he's proving the point. The only way that God justly could impute the guilt of sin to men and women in the world. as if they sinned in Adam, because they've not sinned in the likeness of Adam's sin. Babies that die, babies that are destroyed in judgments, they've not rebelled against the revealed law of God. And so he circles back, he further establishes the point, in Adam's fall we sinned all. And sets before us then the great transaction of the first covenant as a type of the more wonderful transaction of the second covenant. With the very simple phrase at the end of verse 14, Adam who is a type of him who was to come. And what he's saying here is that Adam, God's moral government through Adam, the imputation of Adam's guilt to us is a picture of the greater work as he spells out then in verses 15 through 17, the greater work that God does through Christ imputing to his people, all those for whom he acted righteousness. a basis of perfect obedience, constituted, righteous in the sight of God, and holy with the spirit of Christ now indwelling us because we've been delivered from the guilt and condemnation of sin. God now by his spirit indwells us and begins to transform us. We're being delivered from the consequences of the death and the punishment of sin. And that's the great purpose of this section then, is to set before us God's moral government as it comes to its most beautiful display in the transaction with the God-man. But I want you to marvel the goodness and wisdom of God and his moral government by representation. I want you to I want you to sit here tonight and admit the goodness and the wisdom of God and having Adam act for you. Can you do that? Hmm. Let me tell you why you should be able to. In the first place, if God and I entered into a covenant with Adam, with this probation, with a particular period of time that Adam could complete the test and be confirmed, then we all would be on our own. And what does that mean? What happened to angels? They were all on their own. They had no covenant head. And thus, when they sinned, they had no hope. You understand that they didn't sin under this form of moral government, they didn't sin under a representative, they followed willfully Satan in his rebellion and incurred the same damnation and corruption, but each one acted on his own. And thus, no hope. no hope of salvation for any angel that rebelled. But because we're in Adam, there was first hope that we could have life through him. We could have perfection and glory and beauty and God through him. But when he rebelled, the system of moral government continues. And God is telling us that by that same system we can be delivered. He said, well, I still think I would rather done it myself. You recognize you would have lived in kind of a limbo all of your life. The one slightest sin and you would be damned. Well, yeah, but you know, I could do better? You think so? You're really not that foolish, are you? Here's Adam, a perfect man, with a perfect wife, in a perfect place, with communion with God. If he could not withstand the tempter, You could? You know better. It's a glorious and wise plan. In God's wisdom, it was a plan that he intended to fail. Because he was going to bring greater glory to himself in the second Adam. Because already in eternity, he had made this covenant, the triune God, with God the son and prospect of incarnation. that he would come in the fullness of time, he would take to himself a human nature, and he would obey, and he would accomplish what the first Adam could not accomplish. You know, he was, I want you to appreciate all that he did. He, like you, is a genetic descendant of Adam, not in an ordinary way, born by virgin conception, but there are certain things that he did inherit from Adam because of sin. That's what Paul is alluding to in Romans 8 when he says he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. No sin, not an ardent savior, but weakness. Tiredness, hunger. So tired that he could sleep through a hurricane, almost a hurricane. He could sprain an ankle, could get the flu. We know that he could have his joints torn apart. He was susceptible to all of the miseries of this life. For you, Christian, for you. And then it wasn't simply, and what Paul shows in the contrast, when he shows the abundance of what Christ did, it wasn't simply by one act of obedience. It was a lifetime of testing. Probation, beginning in the wilderness, not in a garden, in a wilderness. Surrounded by covenant curses and wild beast and and Satan. And there he goes through his first probation. But he has three years of test and trial. Humiliation, which were reminded in in the song. Do you appreciate the humiliation of the savior to what really helped me was when I went down to Haiti a couple of times and I just was miserable, uncomfortable the entire time. Just the squalor, the filth, physically and morally. I was thinking, this is nothing. Comparison to what our Savior experienced when he came and lived amongst us. We think of ourselves as is pretty good, you know, but no, we're vile, corrupt, more filthy, immorally, physically, in every way, than the people in the most impoverished, backward, corrupt, immoral country. He did that. He obeyed the law of God perfectly. So Paul would tell us, he then was constituted righteous on our behalf. We're constituted righteous on his behalf. And then, He paid for all of our transgressions. So as he was nailed to Calvary's cross and the lash of God's wrath came across his back and the fury of the satisfaction of God's justice. And he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He satisfied the wrath of God. So that we may be by his obedience constituted righteous. by his satisfactory death, pardoned of all our sins, but only because of this perfect standard of God's moral government. You must revel in it. If you revel in Christ, you must revel in his wisdom and what he did in Adam. Praise him for it and honor him because he's God. He's the one who reveals what is good and true and just. Let every man be a liar, but God, God is true. So the beauty and glory of our Savior is seen against the very backdrop of our despicable sin, our original sin. our subsequent transgressions in Adam so that we are dead in sins and trespasses. In Adam's fall, we sinned all because he is our covenant head. We were conceived under condemnation, guilt in corruption. Now you've heard it many times in these two days. You need, I need, we need to understand the extent of our depravity. the extent of our corruption, the awfulness of who we are morally and spiritually in the sight of God. Because as Dr. Wilburn said, you'll never understand grace if you don't understand your sin. And this is why Jesus would say then to Nicodemus, this self-righteous Pharisee who comes to him and wants to discuss eternal life, And Jesus very rudely cuts him off. He says, man, we can't talk. You can't understand what I have to say unless you've been born again. You can have no saving spiritual understanding of salvation, and you surely cannot enter into salvation until you've been born from above by the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit. And that's what your depravity teaches you. the necessity of sovereign grace in your conversion. A person in the funeral home could sooner get out of his casket than a sinner on his own could believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So God has done this great work for us tied into the work of Christ. He not only did his work of obedience, and his death on the cross to deliver us from the guilt and bondage and corruption of sin. But he's purchased for us every single thing that we need. He's purchased for us. Regeneration. He's purchased for you faith and repentance. He's purchased for you the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He's purchased for you sanctification, adoption, preservation, security, and glory. And he's done it all. And it begins with this great work. Sovereign regeneration. I love to meditate on regeneration. I hope you do. The most delightful truths in the Bible. And it's what enables me as a Christian to witness, to preach. They should do the same for each one of you because it's God who saves sinners while we pray. It's God who saves sinners. And this doctrine of original sin and depravity tells us that it must be God who saves sinners. Not men, not themselves, not our families. You children have great privileges of being born into and reared in covenant households and baptized and part of the church. None of that saves you. Now it's a great privilege because God has moved you into a very safe place. He's put you legally in this covenant with Christ. He has adopted you covenantally into his family and you are being reared in a home and a church now where you're constantly under all of the means of grace and the love calls of the Savior to come to him. But you must come to him. You must not presume that because you were born in a Christian home or you're baptized in a Christian church, that that dealt with the depravity of your heart. No, you must be born again. Maybe it happened in the womb, maybe as an infant, but whenever it is you come to Christ, you must be born again. You cannot bring yourself. It's not by the will of man or the will of the flesh. When we understand the grace of God against our depravity, then again, Dr. Beek reminded us this last night, it fills us with gratitude and motivates us to holiness. I have a dear friend who, when I went to do my doctoral studies, gave me, I thought, a loan. It wasn't a loan, it was a gift to pay off college debts, to buy a little house when we got to Philadelphia that rolled over into houses after houses. I love that man. I couldn't have done it. If he had not done that and I would do anything for him. Wonderful gift that he gave to me, but it's also a great motivation. When I was in the pastor trying to write a dissertation and pastor a growing church, I would get very discouraged and I often wanted to quit. And one of the things that God used. to keep me going was that gift, that man. He did that for me. So I could earn that doctorate. I could not stop. Now that's nothing in comparison to what the Savior's done for us, is it? We were reminded last night of the gratitude that we should have. What love. Love, praise, beyond all understanding. What sacrifice. What motivation for holiness and godliness? Some of you here tonight are yet on the dark side. You're here tonight in the bondage of your sin. You're here tonight spiritually dead. Your conscience bears witness to you of that fact. You know you're alienated from God, from men. You know the corruption of your heart. Your conscience is pounding on you about your guilt. And you know the clock is ticking down. This breath could be your last breath. But one more time, God in his providence has left you under the call of the gospel. One more time you hear Christ calling to you in the preaching of his word coming to me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you peace and rest. But you say, no, you love your vile condition. You love your corruption. You'll put up with the pounding conscience because you love your sin and you hate God. And yet he persists. He continues to hold out his arms. He continues to call you. And I call you now to flee to Christ. You say, I can't flee to Christ. That's right. But you flee to Christ. In him is all you need. You don't figure out the theology of it. No, it's true. You can't come if he doesn't give you a heart. But he doesn't tell you to make yourself the heart. He says, come, come right now. You come. You don't wait. a night longer, a day longer. You let go of the sin that you are clinging to so jealously. You take hold of Christ in the cross and the empty tomb. Take hold of him by faith. Be delivered from the death of this life and the life to come. Our Father, we bless your name and thank you for your word. its realistic depiction of us, of our need and the great depiction of the Savior and what he's done. We pray your spirit will bless these things to us now that as we're in Christ, it will glory and grace that we will be all the more motivated to serve and love and obey. It will cling to him and rejoice in him that will praise you for your moral government. Lord, for those here tonight who yet are outside of Christ, would your spirit even now take frail words and make them spiritually powerful, effective words in bringing them to Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.