Address—C. Hendricks
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The father's face.
Of radiant grace.
Shines now in light on me.
I'd like to.
With the Lord's help.
Look into a portion of God's precious Word.
Which magnifies his grace.
The Father's face of radiant grace.
Shines now and light on me.
I want to read a verse in Romans 5 to start with.
Verse 20.
Moreover, the law entered.
That the offense might abound.
But where sin abounded?
Grace.
Did much more abound?
And I want to look today with together with us.
At the abounding grace of God.
Let's turn back to the third chapter of Romans.
We all know, I believe, that this epistle.
Is the Gospel of God.
The good news?
Of God.
He's the source of it.
It flows from his heart.
Comes from him.
The Gospel of God.
Probably the most wondrous expression.
When it connects with the gospel, it's the gospel of God. It's his gospel. It's his good news. He's the one that has done it all, done it all.
In the 3rd chapter, the first 3 chapters I should say, the guilt of man is taken up and he deals with the gentiles.
The Barbarians, and then the moralists, the Greeks, and then he deals with the Jews and his sentences in verse 19 of chapter 3. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law.
That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God, now that having been established.
It the the door is now open for the unfolding of these wonderful truths.
Connected with our blessings.
But now verse 21.
The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference.
For all of sin and come short of the glory of God.
And then the first mention here of Grace being justified freely by His grace.
Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation or a mercy seat through faith in His blood.
To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Well, as the Apostle Paul begins to unfold this wonderful gospel of God.
He talks about the righteousness of God being manifested.
But it's now manifested in an altogether new way.
The righteousness of God is God's consistency with Himself in all his dealings with His creatures.
He must be perfectly consistent with himself, with what he is in himself. His Holiness, His Truth, His Majesty.
It must be consistent.
And the wonder of this is that through the propitiation of Christ.
Who's being set forth?
Before us as the one who has answered to God.
For the sin question.
Who has made propitiation to God, rendered satisfaction to God?
What is propitiation? It's that aspect of the work of Christ which is Godward. Substitution is the aspect of the work of Christ which is man Word. We enter into that much more readily than we do the aspect of propitiation.
But propitiation is the meeting all the claims of God's holiness with respect to sin, so as to maintain untarnished that holiness while acting in grace.
Propitiation is the work of Christ by which God has been glorified as to the whole question of good and evil, the whole question of sin.
And now his righteousness acts in a new way.
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It acts not in condemning the Sinner.
At the great White Throne, when the Lord says, Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting fire.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That will be the righteousness of God which does that. It's that attribute of His nature which is consistent with all His Holiness and majesty.
But in the Gospel.
Marvel of the Gospel is that same attribute is now acting in a new way. It's acting in the way of justifying the Sinner which believes in Jesus.
And bringing that soul into blessing, it says in verse 25.
God has set him forth to be a propitiation or a mercy seat.
The one who's rendered full set Christ is that mercy seat. He's the one who has rendered full satisfaction to God as to our sins, and now God sets him forth as the mercy seat, as the basis for His.
Acting righteously so in justifying the Sinner which believes in Jesus.
Through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness. Now there's two groups that he's talking about in verse 25. He's talking about the Old Testament believers, all those that died in faith and God forbore with them and he passed over their sins, didn't bring them into judgment, though a work by which their sins were put away had not yet been accomplished at that time, but God looked forward to the cross.
Knowing that He would send His Son to put our sins away, to put sin away. And so He bore with their sins, and now He's shown to be righteous. And having done that, now that redemption is an accomplished fact. And in verse 26, to declare at this time His righteousness that He might be just.
And the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
That he might be just. Let's just pause and meditate on that. It's God's being just in the act of justifying, in the act of declaring righteous the soul that believes in the Lord Jesus.
God in.
Righteousness acting because of the propitiation that Christ has made because of the mercy seat.
Because of the blood on that mercy seat which has met the eye of God and glorified God as to sin. Now God acts in the way of justifying, not in the way of condemning the Sinner that dies in unbelief, but in the way of justifying the one that believes in Jesus. And he's just in so doing, He hasn't compromised any part of his being.
But He is absolutely just. He's consistent with all that. He is in all His Holiness and majesty and truth and righteousness in justifying the Sinner which believes in Jesus. And that's because Christ has been set forth as a propitiation.
And we can meet him there.
And then he asked the question, where is boasting then?
It is excluded by what law of works, nay, but by the law of faith. We have no party in this except our sins, and except in believing the gospel, and being brought into blessing. God's part is in justifying us. The grand truth of Romans 3.
Is that God is now setting forth His righteousness.
In the way of justifying the Sinner that believes in Jesus.
And he's just in doing that. It's God acting from himself and consistent with himself in the act of justifying.
I'll never forget the thrill that came to my soul when I entered into that truth. It was like being saved all over again.
When I realized the truth of what we're talking about. And that totally eliminates all boasting man's efforts. Man's works have no place in this.
He simply comes and believes in Jesus and God says you're righteous, you're righteous.
And it goes out not only to the Jew, but also to the Gentile.
He says, do we make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yeah, we establish the law. The one that makes void the law is the one that puts himself under it, then breaks it and then says it doesn't condemn him.
But the Christian who trusts the Lord Jesus as his only hope is the one that establishes the law, all the claims of God's holy law.
It held out blessing for the obedient soul. It promised curse, condemnation and death for the disobedient.
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And so we have.
The law established by faith.
By faith.
And then he goes on. We want to continue here.
What should we say then, that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Abraham is brought forward to show us the kind of faith, the character of faith.
That.
Leads to justification.
If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God.
What saith the scripture? Abraham believed God.
And it was counted to him for righteousness.
He had no children.
God took him out, and he showed him the stars of heaven in multitude, and he said, So shall thy seed be.
And Abraham believed God, and his faith was counted for righteousness. That is, God held him to be righteous because he believed him.
The principle of faith.
Is that by which we are justified and made righteous?
And then he goes on to say now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of death.
But to him, that worketh not. Well, now we know that principle. When you serve an employer, he owes you your wages. You've served him, you've worked for him, you've done certain work, and he has to pay you for that.
But to him that worketh not.
Verse 5 But believeth on him, that's on God that justifieth the ungodly.
His faith is counted for righteousness in chapter 3 of Romans. It's it's the stupendous truth that God's righteousness is acting now in the way of justifying the Sinner that believes in Jesus tremendous truth and he's just in so doing that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Now here we have the added truth that he justifies the ungodly.
It's not good people, but it's ungodly souls, those that have left him out of their lives and lived just as though he didn't exist.
God who justifies the ungodly to him that worketh not, but believeth on him. Now in Romans 4, the faith is on the God who justifies the ungodly.
It's on God in Romans 3. It's believing in Jesus.
And then God holds that soul to be righteous.
And here it's the character of the one that is justified ungodly.
And it's God justifying the ungodly. Later in Romans 8, he says if God be for us, who can be against us? He's the one that has taken up our 'cause when there wasn't anything in us to respond, anything in us to respond to him.
His faith is counted for righteousness. And then he cites, now we were talking in our readings a little bit, one of the readings, especially a little bit about restoration.
Now here he cites words from David, from the 32nd Psalm, where he had fallen and sinned grievously.
And he quotes from him here he says, even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Is that not instructive, beloved, that here he is using?
The very words of David for his.
Condition as a restored soul, and he's applying it to the Sinner who believes in Jesus.
Blessed is the man.
Whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered?
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Well, that was a St. that said that restored by the grace of God, but he is applying it here. The apostle is to a Sinner who has come under the benefit of the grace of God, the saving grace of God.
Wonderful.
Marvelous, whether we're talking about the saving grace of God or the restoring grace of God.
It's indescribably blessed and wonderful. And if you're away from the Lord.
These things that we're reading about coming into the blessing initially.
You can come into the blessing again as a restored soul.
If you allow the grace of God.
To so flood your conscious being.
That you'll come into the good of these things.
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Oh, Brother Hayhoe used to say all our failure stems from unbelief of the goodness that is in the heart of God.
I'd like to add 1 to that.
All our failure.
Stems from.
Losing the sense in our souls of the grace of God.
All our failure.
Stems from losing a sense in our souls of the unlimited, matchless, infinite grace of God.
Grace makes nothing of me.
Makes nothing of you. It makes everything of God.
There is nothing so humbling as grace.
Because it makes nothing of us.
And the soul that has a sense of the grace of God is we're going to look at these things as they're developed.
In this epistle that unfolds the matchless grace of God.
In the saving of his soul.
If we have a sense in our souls of grace.
We will.
Have a conscious sense that we are nothing.
And that he is everything.
I am nothing, He is everything. This is what Grace teaches us, because Grace picks up a nothing like you and me and brings that person into such immense blessing that the heart just overflows in adoration and praise.
The matchless grace of God.
So David A restored St.
Describes the blessedness.
Of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.
Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, and then he establishes, we must proceed rapidly. That was this faith, was this righteousness reckoned to Abraham when he was circumcised, when he had some sign in the flesh that he could boast in, when there was something that he could take pride in in the flesh. No, he was not circumcised cometh this blessedness, and upon the.
Decision only, or upon the uncircumcision also. We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned when he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision, And he received the sign of circumcision, which is the sign of death upon the flesh.
Circumcision was put upon all the Israelites as the sign of God's covenant relationship with them, and the significance of it is very clear that if God is going to be in covenant relationship with the people on earth, it must be on the ground of death to the flesh, the judgment applied to the flesh.
And so he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised.
That he might be the father of all them that believe.
Though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.
Last night about the elder son.
He didn't like it when Grace was shown to the younger son.
A picture of the Jew dispensationally, but it's a picture of my heart.
It's a picture of your heart.
It's a picture of the pride of the Pharisee. Every one of us has it.
Every one of us has that self love, that self esteem that thinks of ourselves just a little bit better than the other fellow.
That was the Pharisee.
I thank thee that I'm not his other men.
That's inbred in us. That's part of the old nature.
That's part of the flesh.
And a sense of grace in our souls, beloved Saints, the sense of grace in our souls will deliver us from that.
Deliver us from that.
You know how we need to get so, so immersed in the grace of God?
That God has come out and blessed us when there wasn't one single thing to draw it out, in fact, when we deserved.
The very worst.
God has blessed us.
Because that's what he is in himself.
Well, let's go on in chapter 4, Abraham, he believed God, not when he was circumcised, not when he had anything that he could boast in, in the flesh.
He was just an uncircumcised Gentile, so to speak, and he was brought into blessing.
Now at the end of this chapter, what he's doing is bringing out the character of Abraham's faith. It says in verse 19, not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but he was strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was able also to perform.
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Therefore.
It was imputed to Abraham for righteousness, that is righteous, that is Abraham believing God. When God took him out and said, so shall thy seed be showed him the stars of heaven. Abraham believed him. He didn't start to reason, he said, but.
My wife can't have children.
Her womb is dead, my body is dead. It's absolutely impossible to nature. But he didn't stagger at the promise of God through unbelief. But he was strong in faith, strengthened by his faith, and he believed God.
That's really the only thing that a Sinner can do to glorify God is to believe him when he speaks, to submit to the testimony of God.
When he speaks.
Therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
He got hit because he justified God. He believed him.
And God now holds him to be righteous.
By faith.
Now it was not written for His sake alone that it was imputed to him, that righteousness was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him, that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Notice the character of the faith here. It's believing on the God who has come into that scene of death. The Lord Jesus was dead in the grave, and God raised him from the dead. God, the God of resurrection, came in, and it's that character of faith. That's why Abraham is cited here.
He believed in the God that could bring life out of death. That was the character of Abraham's faith. And so he says, righteousness will be imputed to us also if we believe on him.
That raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Believer, I'm the razor up Him who is the razor up of the Lord Jesus, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.
Now on the Day of Atonement, there were two goats. The first goat was the blood was shed and carried into the Holy of Holies. We saw that in Romans 3 when Christ was presented as a mercy seat. There's the first goat. The first two aspects of the Day of Atonement are here, and here we have the second goat. He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification.
All the sins of the people were confessed upon that second goat and then Azazel.
And then he was sent into the wilderness, into a land uninhabited as far as the east is from the West. So far has he removed our transgressions from us. So we have the two goats on the Day of Atonement in chapter 3 and chapter 4.
Therefore.
Being justified by faith.
We have peace with God.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, do you have that?
I know most of you do.
Peace with God.
What a tremendous blessing.
Peace with God, my sins so great, so many are gone.
He's born them. He was delivered on the cross for my offenses. He's raised again for my justification. He went into prison for me, laden with all my sins. But now he is free. He's out. He's delivered. He's cleared. He's justified. And if he's justified, so am I. That's Paul's reasoning here. Raised again for my justification.
He's cleared.
He's paid the penalty.
And when he cried, it is finished.
That could be reworded.
Paid in full.
The debt paid.
And His resurrection is the proof of it raised for our justification. Does that mean that everyone is justified? No, it means that everyone who believes is justified. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace. Peace has been made. This in question is settled.
You'll never be called to account for one of your sins. This is all the matchless grace of God.
God is just, and He's the justifier. He's acting in the way of justifying the Sinner that believes in Jesus, not in condemning the Sinner to a lost eternity in the lake of fire in the outer darkness, but in sending the Sinner that comes by way of the cross into the glory.
Delivered for our offenses, raised again for our justification, we can see all our sins placed upon Him, and He bearing them away into a land of forgetfulness.
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What a gospel. Therefore, being justified, being accounted righteous by faith. That's how we get it. That's how we come into the good of it. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
By whom also we have access, by faith into this grace wherein we stand.
We're standing in grace. We're justified by grace. Romans 3. We're standing in grace. We have peace with God. We're justified by faith.
Justified by grace.
Justified by faith.
Comes to us from the grace of God. It's a gift. We haven't earned it. We deserve none of it. It's all the grace of God, and we're standing in that favor. The Father's face of radiant grace shines now in light on me.
During the cross.
He cried. It was those words of abandonment. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And now, as a result of that, he emerges out of the darkness.
Cries, that wondrous cry finished.
He emerges out of the darkness, and now he bestows blessing upon blessing upon blessing to you and to me.
Grace of God.
And we're standing in grace. We're standing in favor.
You can't do one thing in your Christian life to change that. You can't.
You can sin against the grace of God, but that won't change the favor in which you stand, because that's based upon the work of Christ. It's not based upon anything that you do.
Your enjoyment of it is based upon your walk.
Your enjoyment of it is based upon your walk.
But your position?
The truth of it is unchanging.
And unchangeable.
Because that's based upon the finished work of Christ.
Standing in grace.
And then it says, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.
I'll never forget when I used to think of the righteousness of God, it used to make me tremble.
I used to love to think of the mercy of God, the love of God, the grace of God, but oh, to think of Him, righteousness. In righteousness, I was uncomfortable. If He dealt with me in strict righteousness, he'd have to send me to hell. And that would be absolutely true if it weren't for the cross.
But now, because of the cross, He can deal with me in righteousness and send me to heaven.
Because another has been there for me.
Borne the penalty.
And he's cleared me.
Cleared you?
Rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.
The man in Romans 3 had to say all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Now is this marvelous change that's come in.
Rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.
The very glory that we were all short of.
Could never possibly think of standing in.
Now we're rejoicing in the hope of it.
I want to be there.
Want to be in His presence?
I want to be in that scene of glory where he's going to unfold throughout all the countless ages of eternity, the riches of His grace to you and to me.
All to be in a sense of that.
Not only so, he says, but we also glory in tribulations.
Knowing that tribulation worketh patience.
Patients experience and experience hope.
He sends tribulation to the one that is so blessed, so favored.
Justified, accounted, righteous peace with God, standing in present favor, rejoicing in hope of this glory. And then the very next thing you read is tribulation.
Endurance.
Trial.
Patience and then hope.
And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. The Holy Ghost given to us, What an immense blessing.
Your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost.
Every one of us believers indwelt of the Spirit of God, and he sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts.
For when we were yet without strength, totally helpless, weak, unable to deliver ourselves from our awful condition, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
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Enrollments for God is the justifier of the ungodly. In Romans 5, Christ dies for the ungodly.
Scarcely for a righteous man will one die at peradventure for a Goodman. Some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us sinners.
He died for us when we were actively engaged in things that are hateful to him.
There's something more, it says in verse 10, when we were enemies.
We were reconciled to God.
By the death of his son.
Reconciled to God how?
How did he win our hearts?
How did he turn your heart back to himself? By the death of his son. His son, His beloved son, the darling of his bosom, the son of his love. He couldn't have given more. He wouldn't have given Lassie, gave the son of his love.
And he's reconciled this to himself. He's brought us back into right relationship with himself by the death of his son.
Doesn't say by his blood.
Were justified by his blood.
But here we're reconciled.
Everything has been set right according to God, and He's brought us back into suitability to Himself.
So that he can delight in us.
Delighting us, we had Luke 15 last night.
Luke 15 you see the gain of reconciliation.
You see the God that said let us make man.
Now he says, let us make merry.
Let's rejoice.
I want you to sit down at my feast, and I want you to enjoy my merriment and my heart of love. I've brought you into all that.
Reconciliation.
That's what we have here.
When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God, the very source of it all. That's why it's the Gospel of God. It leads us right up into joy in the God who's the source of it all, the giver of it all. It flows from God's heart.
With joy in God Himself, through our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not just rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God, but rejoicing in God Himself. This is an apex beyond which you cannot go.
By whom we have now received that ought to read the reconciliation, not the atonement, but the reconciliation.
Enjoying in the God who is the author and the source of it all. And it says in Colossians 1.
That we've been reconciled.
In the body of his flesh through death, to present us holy and unblameable and irreproachable in his sight.
We're going to be perfectly suitable to himself, just like Christ in that scene of glory. It's all the grace of God that's provided this. We couldn't have done one thing to gain it.
The gain of reconciliation is all the product of the grace of God.
Beloved Saints, oh, how can we bring this across? I feel I'm doing so poorly.
It's it's the sense in our souls, we need it to realize that everything that we have that is worthwhile comes to us from the God of all grace. We haven't merited anything, we haven't earned anything, we haven't gained anything by our own self efforts. It's all the grace of God and it's that which acts powerfully now upon us to cause us to want to live.
For him.
The one who doesn't understand grace says let us do evil, that good may come.
The one that doesn't understand, Grace says.
Let's continue in sin.
That grace may abound.
Well, let's get into those verses.
The latter part of Romans 5.
We have sin coming in through Adam verse 12.
Death by sin.
The effect of the law.
Adam being a figure of him that was to come, which is Christ in verse 14.
And then he says, not as the offense, so also as the free gift. That is God's grace is not just a reversing of the consequences of the fall, but it's far more, It's a much more. This whole chapter is much more, much more, much more over and over again, the grace of God abounding.
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God has brought us into a state of judicial righteousness. Notice verse 16. Not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment was of 1 to condemnation.
Adam committed one sin and it plunged his whole race into condemnation. But the free gift is of many offenses, millions of offenses committed by all the the race of Adam unto justification, judicial righteousness. We're not brought back into innocency. We can lose it again.
We're brought into righteousness. We're brought into a state that is incapable of sinning.
We're brought into that which is just like Christ himself.
Verse 17 by one man's offense, death reigned by 1 much more. They which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by 1 Jesus Christ. It isn't life that's going to rain. It's we're going to reign in life. It's not just a reversal of what was lost. Oh, the gain, the gain from the grace of God goes far beyond what was lost through the fall.
We haven't been put back into innocence, no, we've been put into a state of holiness and righteousness created in holiness and righteousness of truth, it says.
And then in verse 18, and I have to read that in the new translation. Therefore, as by one offense towards all men to condemnation, the bearing of the ACT, so by 1 righteousness towards all men, the justification of life, we have a new life in Christ risen and righteousness attaches to that life. It's a justified life. It's a life which can't sin. It's a life which delights in the will of God. And that's what everyone of us has.
The law entered that the offense might abound. The law was never given.
To for man to gain acceptance before God on that ground, it was only to show man how unable he was incapable he was of gaining God's favor on that ground.
Where sin abounded.
Grace did much more abound.
Now let's get into Chapter 6.
What should we say then?
Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
That's the.
That's the thought of the natural man that doesn't understand grace.
Doesn't understand the matchless, wondrous grace of God.
Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? He answers it.
He says, God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? You see, at the cross, not only did he put our sins away, He put us away.
In the body of his flesh, through death, we've been totally cleared from the old order of things.
Delivered from all that we were as well as all that we've done.
And now you're no longer under that old master.
You've died in the death of Christ. We sang that for me. Lord Jesus, thou hast died, and I have died in thee. In the death of Christ we have died, died with him, and his was a death to sin. And so we've died to sin. How shall we live any longer therein? He says.
How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
He brings in baptism.
That baptism is the sign of death.
Which separates us.
From the world, it's a change of position. Doesn't affect anything as to our state at all. The soul that's baptized when he comes out of the water, his state is no different than when he went in, but his position is entirely changed.
The sign of death has been placed upon him, and now he's been severed from the world.
He's disassociated from the world by that which is the sign of death, the death of Christ.
And it's the death of Christ which delivers us from this world.
It's death.
His death, How did he get out of this world? He went through death and came out in resurrection. How do we get out of this world? Well.
We're delivered from it by the death of Christ. We're going to leave it physically if we die, unless the Lord comes and we'll get out of it that way.
But that's the way of exit from this world, death, and that's the teaching here. How shall we that have died to sin live any longer therein?
There was a master and his slave.
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And one day that slave died.
And the master was very angry. He wanted him to do some work for him, and he was very sick. And the master came into the room and he shouted command after command after command, thinking that he was still alive, but he was dead.
Could he respond to those commands?
Could he ever serve that master again? Was he not totally delivered from that former master by death? Yes, he was. He was outside of the sphere altogether at the Master's commands had any application at all. And that's what he's teaching here. We've died to sin. Sin is personified. It's the old Master that had control over us. It's what we served. We served sin.
And in the death of Christ, we've died clear out of that, and we're now in an altogether new position.
Paul talks about it in Titus Three. It says he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. It's a change of position. He's taken us out of Adam and put us in Christ. He's taken us out of the flesh and put us in the Spirit. We are now new creatures. All things have passed away. All things have become new.
We belong to a new creation. We belong to a new world. We've passed out of the old scene by death and the old master that had control over us, sin.
No longer has to say to us, we have no longer any allegiance to that master.
Knowing this, verse 6 that our old man is crucified with him.
That the body of sin might be destroyed. The old man, all that we were in Adam and in the flesh, has come to its judicial end at the cross, crucified with Christ.
That this body of sin, this body which only could do sinful acts, which was the vessel and the vehicle for the sinful nature within to express itself, that it might be destroyed, annulled.
Rendered useless.
No longer is this body to be used for Satan. No longer is it to be in the servitude of sin.
Young brother, young sister, older one too, we have died in the death of Christ to sin. We no longer have to say to that Master, to to live in newness of life, and our very baptism is a testimony to that. The very sign of death to this world, death to sin has been placed upon us when we were baptized that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, Even so we also should walk in newness of life, a new life.
New life. When you're a Christian, you're living a new life altogether. You're not the old man anymore that's been put to death at the cross. You are a new person.
And grace has made that tremendous change. The source of it all is the grace of God.
The grace of God.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin, this body which.
Used to just serve that old master that resides within sin.
Do whatever it said.
Might be destroyed or annulled, but henceforth we should not serve sin. He that is dead is freed from sin, justified from sin, cleared from sin. There's that slave on the on the floor. He's dead and the master is shouting command after command. Get up and do this for me and so on. He can't respond because he's dead.
The claims of the old master are gone. Death has severed.
The bond.
The relationship.
Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. There's a resurrection coming, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more death, hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, He died unto sin. Once He had to say to sin his whole life long the effects of it, sickness, misery, sorrow, suffering, rebellion.
All the evils that sin produced, he had to say to it, and especially there at the cross when he put it away. But in that he liveth. He liveth unto God. He lives in the presence of God. He lives to God, and we live of his resurrection life, a new life, a new creature, a new position. We're no longer in the world. We're no longer of the world.
We're no longer a part of that world system.
Galatians 6.
Crucified to the world, and the world to me.
Let's go on here.
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Likewise verse 11.
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.
But alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That word reckoned means consider it to be so. Think it so. Learn to think God's thoughts. You can't possibly get victory over sin in your life if you don't think.
According to Scripture, God says you're dead to sin.
The word of God says that now reckon yourself to be dead to sin.
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead to sin. Think it so. Consider it so. Think God's thoughts.
But alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So that's the next step in deliverance is to think the way God tells us to think. In Scripture. God says that we are crucified with Christ.
We're living now of a new life.
Now consider it so.
And then he says in verse 12, here comes the practical result. Now let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body. It doesn't say let it not dwell because it's there. It's there. We can't get rid of it until we leave this scene. Then we'll get rid of it forever, for all eternity. We'll be rid of the flesh, rid of that old sinful nature, but we can prevent it from raining there.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God. We have a new Master. We have changed masters. We once served sin.
And our members were the instruments of sin did his bidding.
Now we've changed masters, yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members, your members, your eyes, what you look at.
What you read, the pictures you view?
Your feet where they carry you.
They're not yours now. They belong to him. You're serving another master.
Your hands, what you do?
Your heart, what you think?
They all belong to him.
Yield your members, he says.
Unto God.
Yield not your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.
But yield yourselves unto God, I remember.
The Story of.
A man that finally was martyred.
He recanted when he had pressure put on him from the Church of Rome and he wrote a recantation.
And shortly after that.
He was so smitten in his conscience that he had denied the Lord in what he had written.
That he.
Went and stood before the counsel.
Where all the bishops and Cardinals were.
And he made a clear confession of the truth.
And they were very irate and.
He was finally condemned as a heretic and as he was being burned.
That hand which had written that recantation, he held it out and he said, let the flames devour this wicked hand, this member which denied my blessed Savior.
He repented.
We'll meet him in the glory, a real child of God. But he had used that member to deny the one he loved.
And he said, let the fire consume that member first.
Yield yourselves to God. You belong to a new master, you're not your own.
Oh, that we might.
Get a hold of this verse 14 Very important verse. Sin shall not have dominion over you. Why?
For you're not under the law.
But under grace.
You cannot produce obedience.
By insisting on it.
I've made that mistake as a father.
Maybe you've made it.
But you can't get it that way.
But Grace produces it.
Grace taught my wandering feet to tread the heavenly Rd.
And it's the sense of grace in our soul.
That that God.
Against whom I had sinned.
He's acting towards me now and he's justified me. He's made me righteous.
He's given me a righteous standing before himself.
Forgiven all my sins.
He's reconciled me to himself. He's given all he could possibly give. It cost him such an infinite cost, he had to send his son to do it.
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He's given me all that is in his heart of love for me. Can I sin against that grace?
Can you sin against that grace?
And yet we do.
You're not under the law, but under grace. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
All our failure stems from.
Not having a sense of grace in our souls.
We get under law.
And we try to put others under law.
What I see is right for me. I try to impose that as a rule for you.
Put you under law.
Oh, to raise our children.
So that they understand the grace of God.
That they learn to obey.
Because they love us.
True obedience flows from love.
And from a sense of grace.
I'm never afraid of preaching on grace because grace is the strength of holiness.
And the only way we're going to secure holiness amongst the Saints of God and in our assemblies and in our private lives is in a sense of grace in our souls.
You're not going to do it by putting one another under law. Law is the strength of sin, it says in First Corinthians 15, and all you do is drive the soul away. You're never going to restore anyone either by using the law principle. It will only drive them away.
It's only grace, the grace that saves, the grace that restores whatever it might be.
Sin shall not have dominion over you.
For you're not under the law.
But under grace.
Aren't you glad you're under grace?
That we stand in present favor. That the Father's face of radiant grace shines now and light on me.
That makes me want to please him now.
Time is up.
I just want to make a comment on Romans 7 where you have the law mentioned. You have two husbands. The woman has two husbands and that first husband ** *** gets married to him, he brings her home after the marriage brings her into the house at first husband's a picture of the law.
The second husband's a picture of Christ in the teaching of the chapter. So the first husband brings her home, brings her into the house, goes into the bedroom, comes out and hands her a piece of paper. He says these are the rules and regulations of this household. From now on, you're to make my breakfast and make my supper at these times, do my wash, do my laundry, and if you just do all these things, I've outlined them all here, we'll have a nice relationship.
Young ladies, how would you like to have that as a husband?
Then that husband dies.
She gets married to another husband.
He's a very wealthy man.
Brings her to the house, doesn't let her walk in.
Whisks her up in his arms, Carries her into the house. Walks through all the rooms. He says this is ours. All mine is thine. Thine is mine and we're going to enjoy it together. It's all yours. It's all yours.
Maybe she was one that came from poverty, had nothing. She marries this wealthy man.
Who do you think she's going to obey?
The husband or the first one?
The one that compelled her and forced her.
The one that put her under law, that laid the law down to.
And here's one that never, never never give her a commandment in.
Didn't have to.
Just let her know what his heart was.
Desire for her was.
And the very expression of his.
The very expression of his heart.
Was taken by her as equivalent to a command.
Because she loved him.
It says in Romans 7 verse 4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Fruit unto God.
We're not under law.
We're under grace. The mighty grace of God has changed our position. No longer under sin, no longer serving that old Master clean delivered from that.