The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, as explained through the lens of Romans 6:23. The sermon unpacks this verse by exploring the tragedy of sin's entrance into the world and its inevitable consequence of death, contrasting this with the certainty and immense value of eternal life as a gift from God. It emphasizes that salvation is not earned through good deeds but is freely received through faith in Jesus Christ. The message concludes by urging listeners to make the crucial choice to accept this gift of life by trusting in Christ as their Savior and Lord.
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places, small towns, large towns, big cities, and most of the places. I was thinking of who you had speaking last week and who you have speaking week after next, and I was thinking how I felt, and I'm going to tell you how I feel. I feel like a hummingbird trying to sit on an eagle's neck. I hold in very, very high esteem. My brother Dychman, who's been here the last week, and, well, Harold McKay is just one of my precious brothers in the Lord that I can sit and hear him talk five hours at a time.
And I don't even consider myself to be a Bible teacher. But I do trust that in the ten messages that we will have again in the Tuesday morning, that the Lord will help us to understand some of the practical outworking of the Christian life. You see, our God is very, very practical and down the earth. He not only made this body, which is the most wonderful instrument in all the world, but he knows what will make it go. And he knows what will make the Christian life go because he has come to and dwell our hearts in our lives.
And there's some very, very simple, practical aspects of the outworking of the Christian life, which many Christians never seem to get onto. And so I hope that we're just going to open our Bibles and see what the Lord has for us in a very, very practical way. I try to use illustrations. And, you know, I've even been to places where they accuse me of using human illustrations. Have you ever heard of any language? Read the life of the Lord Jesus and read his sermons. Where do you find? One after another. So, we're going to have a good time, I'm sure.
And there's one special prayer request I have. Now, this is the third time I've been here. And I want to give something that's fresh to me, that's fresh to you. And as I said, beginning Tuesday morning, we have only ten services. Eight services. Eight services. Yeah, right. You know, you can tell my master was bad. That's right. I had difficulty with it in college. Alright, eight times beginning June. Now, there are many, many more thoughts and themes and messages than that eight.
And I'd like to share with you, beginning June the morning. But, as we have only eight times, we need to know a few things. Number one, what does the Lord want us to share? Number two, in what order? Does he want it yet? Because you see, he want one that's right in behind the mouth. And I'm sure that if the Lord meets us, that he will give us just what he wants to have. Even though I don't know what it is, until the Lord gives it to me and somebody will come up to me, I trust and say, the Lord met a real need in my heart. And that's what we want to see. Will you turn, please, to Romans.
Romans chapter five. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this race, wherein we stand in the joy and hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation will get patience and experience and patience experience. and experience hope, and hope make it not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given under us.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For a castle for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Now look at the last verse of chapter six, a verse that I am sure that by and large most of us should quote by heart, for the wages of sin is debt, but the guilt of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
I feel constrained to share with you this morning a very, I trust, simple gospel message. Tonight, we will try to continue along that vein and talk something, unless the Lord leads very definitely otherwise, along the subject of sin. And what is sin? What are the characteristics of sin? What are some of the wiles of the devil? And what is God's remedy for sin? What happens if sin is not dealt with? In this wonderful book of Romans, in the chapters which have preceded this verse in chapter six, the twenty-third verse, Paul has been talking about the righteousness of God by faith.
And in this short verse, we have some wonderful, tremendous truths, and I'd like to spend a few moments with about five or six of these great truths and great principles that are here listed in this very, very familiar verse. Now, you might like to tie what I'm going to say onto some strings or some headings, and so we're going to have five or six great things Five or six great things here in the twenty-third verse of the sixth chapter of Romans. The first is life's greatest tragedy. Now, if you don't believe in tragedy, read your newspaper.
If you don't believe in tragedy, listen to NBC News or for that matter, any of these national news kits. If you don't believe in tragedy, talk to people that are traveling today around the world and find out what's happening. Life is still a good tragedy. And today... Perhaps more so than in days of the past, at least because of the news media, we have a way of knowing about it soon and pushing. And I'm sure that as we mention that word, great tragedy, and if we think back for a few moments or a few weeks or a few years, each of us can think of terrible tragedies that we can think about.
that have occurred, that have happened. I remember approximately twenty or a few more years ago, there was a huge plane that would have been a globe master back in those days because they were not flying the big jets then, at least for troop carriers, I don't think. There was a plane load of Vietnam veterans who had fought in some of those terrible battles in the Korean War. They were all battle-weary, but very fortunate to be alive, and they had stopped in Tacoma or Seattle or somewhere for their first stop on the mainland, and they were taken off again, and they claimed Christ, and every man on board that swim had snuck into eternity.
And I thought that was one of the most terrible things I've ever heard of. I think of a boatload of young men. They were in basic training in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on a lake, and they had all of that gear on that person. And something happened. I don't know what happened, but something very unusual happened. The boat sank, and nearly every man to a man on that big boat. Thank you. And as I say, any day, pick up the paper or look at the news, tragedy. But I'm going to tell you about a tragedy that falls to passage any of these that we've imagined or even could think about. And it's recorded in the third chapter of the book of James.
And it's a record of how sin entered this world. Now, you stop and think about what life and what the world would have been like had not sin entered the world. It's hard for us to comprehend because we've known what the world is like with sin. See, as we all know, without sin entering the world, we wouldn't have had this, this, this, this to plague us. But I must say that God knows what He's doing. And I thought of this and how sweet it was just this morning, even as I came to the platform, as we were singing one of the hymns, one of the verses in the hymns, brought this to my attention and how sweet it was.
Isn't it wonderful when the Lord gives you something sweet like that? Had there been no sin, we wouldn't know the joy of being redeemed. a human being. So read your papers, listen to the news, but most of all read the Bible and you'll read words like these. Behold, incended, my mother conceived me, and in iniquity was I born. You know there's a false impression that the world has and the people in the world have that in order to need salvation you have to go out and do something terribly wrong.
No, they say they don't know. We need to be saved because we are born sinners, and because we are born sinners, and because we are sinners, we do things that are wrong. One of the greatest gospel preachers that I ever had the joy of knowing personally by his first name was ATV. And I never shall forget an illustration that I've heard him tell and don't expect me to talk like APG because I can't do it. But I never shall forget probably one of the first or second times I ever heard him preach. He was telling about a little boys and girls meeting he had in Miami, Florida.
Now, he's the only man that I ever knew that could preach to adults and boys and girls all at the same time. But he could do it. But he was telling about this meeting for boys and girls in Myanmar. Probably was what we called Kevin's Creed or something like that. Because back in those days, there wasn't one or two down there. And he was having this meeting. And he was trying to get across this point of the fact of sin. About the fact that every one of us have sinned. And he said, now boys and girls, I want all of you that have sinned. knew you've sinned, and if you've sinned, what's this kind of death?
And they all stood up, except about a ten-year-old little girl. But unfortunately, she had a queer-year-old brother there. He looked over there and said, Alice, stand up! I heard something happen. At least I heard of this happening with some people here from Foxtown, and I heard, I believe it was our brother Wilkie from Foxtown. I heard him use this illustration. This had happened to him. He was having a meeting. Perhaps I was even sharing this illustration with him. And he told us having some meetings with boys and girls one night. And he was trying to drive home this point about all of us being senators.
And he was using this same technique. And there were some boys there that knew each other pretty well, and one or two of them stood up, but one of them didn't. And one boy nudged the other one and said, what about them drink? He stood up. Yes? Because anybody that would have the audacity to say, well, I've done some things that are not very good, but I don't really know of any times that I have really sinned. I still would like to talk to your wife or your husband. or your son, or your daughter, or your mother, or your father. Beloved, men and women and boys and girls sin because it's their nature to sin.
You see, a tree produces the kind of fruit that it is. A couple months ago, some friends of ours who have a cottage in the mountains that live near us were going to the mountains for probably one of the last times in the fall, and we hadn't gotten to get real good mountain apples, so we picked up the corn and said, listen, we should bring us some mountain apples. So my friend, Ben Kirby, got up there and he got in the car one day and drove out to a farm of apple orchard and said, listen, we've got some friends, we only take some apples to. So he went out in the backyard of this man and he saw some beautiful orange trees and he went and he began to pick apples off of those orange trees.
No, he didn't. He picked those apples off of apple trees. Many women sin because they have a sinful heart. In this verse, we have not only the tragedy of sin and its entrance into the human race, but we have something else. We have the certainty of sin being paid for. Now here it says, it's a third word, it says, For the wages! Now, there are a lot of things that we're not sure of.
Yesterday morning, about nine, forty-five in the morning, I wasn't sure I was going to make it here. I just happened to have gotten caught in a little town in South Carolina that didn't have any gasoline. And I didn't have much and much to tell you what. And we haven't had any trouble in Columbia. I mean, case review is facing out a guest, but you go to the next one and get some guests. But I got caught in a little town called Barnwell South Carolina. And I had about a gallon or two left. I shouldn't have waited that long. I'm sure I'll learn the lesson. Because I went to seven states. before I found forgiveness. I wasn't sure I'd make it here by my schedule.
And as some of you know, I like to have a schedule, you know, and I had it picked up. I missed it by three minutes, by the way. Probably because I was looking for gases. But I wasn't sure that I was going to make it on time. The weight of sin is death. Now, I'm sure, looking out over the audience, many of the men, especially in this audience, have been in business in your life. And I've been told by some people that know that one of the reasons why we are having shortages today is because there's so much red tape to have in a business now and so many taxes and records that you have to keep from Uncle Sam.
But that's one reason we have shortages. There are a lot of companies that could expand. They said, if there's too much trouble, I'm not going to do it. One of the reasons I have a lot less to do in Columbia is the part of my little book show is concerned is because the Lord's Son, I hold his son in, and he's just taking all of it off my shoulders. And man, he is wonderful. I don't even have to write today. Keep the record. Pay the taxes and all like that. He's doing all of that. It's wonderful because I tell you, it's a lot of learning. Every Friday we've got to figure out how many hours of humans. Tucker, how many hours of humans this week.
David, how many hours of humans, so-and-so. We've got to figure this and this and this and this. Wages! The greatest haymaster in all the world is the devil. And the wages of sin is death. The Word of God says in Hebrews nine twenty seven, And as it is appointed unto men, once to die, but after this. And back in the Old Testament times, we have some records of some people living to be very, very old.
But they all died. Mr. Seth lived to be nine hundred and twelve years old, but he died. Adam lived to be nine-thirty, but he died. Methuselah lived to be nine hundred and sixty-nine years old, but he died. One of the unusual things about death is that sometimes we don't have any warning. Now, praise the Lord, many of us do. And many have, but we know of. I'm going to be telling you someday this week, it'll take fifteen to twenty minutes, I'm going to tell you about the home going of one of our elders in Columbia. I suppose, Brother Geithman, you did know that Dr. Giles wanted to do with the Lord, one of our elders.
I'm sorry if someone didn't let you know. But it was a triumphant interest But, oh, and because, see, we had some warning, we had some premonition, we had knowledge of the fact that he was going, see, and he was able to make a lot of plans. But sometimes it's not that way. Many times it's very pleasant. Brother Ray Flack, who I believe came down to Augustine and brought a doctor and was there on a Friday night evening. One of his neighbors had a heart attack. They threw him into the back of a car and rushed him to the hospital, but before they got there, It's gone.
We never know. Isn't it interesting that most of the time we always expect the other person, you know, on that plane crash, you know. That boat accident, yes. This freak accident, yes. It's always the other fellow. So many times we forget to take into consideration the fact that this next accident, this next unexpected death, is the moment of God. That's all the more reasons why Christians, as well as unconverted, should live in such a way that's the next moment that we live. Because we know not when our hour...
And barring these trumps of God, barring the fact that Christ will rapture us to be with Him, every one of us will someday be death, at least physically death. We will not be spiritual death because we have this kind of life now, in and through and by our Lord Jesus Christ. Life, greatest certainty. There are a lot of things we're not certain of. I was beginning to wonder the first four or five days that reached up in Columbia of nineteen seventy four if we were going to have any sunshine in nineteen seventy four because the first six days we didn't have any.
Of course, you got in Cunningham, Florida. I don't see that today. You don't even have fog, but it is. All right? Now, but I was wondering the first few days of the nineteenth, would we have any sunshine and finally it peaked through and we saw it and it's been all right since then. No, you can't be sure of a lot of things. But there's one thing you need to be sure of. You can write it down and you can believe it and you can be aware of it, but the wishes of sin and death. Well, I'm glad we're going to stop right there. Life's greatest tragedy. Life's greatest certainty. Now, life's greatest awful, if you want to change that, it's life's greatest gift.
Eternal life. A gift. And it's a wonderful, marvelous gift because not only think of who the gift comes from, but think of to whom the gift is offered. Not the good people, not the holy people, not the righteous people, not the pure people, not the clean people, but the unrighteous people, to godless people, to unregenerate people, to ungrateful people. We read this. The reason I read Romans five, finishing with Romans eight. God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
For the Son of Man, Luke, is come to speak and to say that which was lost. First Timothy, verse number one, fifteen. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am seen. A gift. A gift. Now, most of us are very familiar with gifts. The Word of God is the greatest of all, rather than the God our Father. Heaven, the Father, is the greatest of all gift givers, however. Because listen to what he says in his words. Perhaps the most famous, everyone here can quote it backwards or almost.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The Lutheran believer that him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And the verse that we're using as a text this morning, the wages of sin is death, but the gifts. God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord and the verse that the Lord used to bring me to himself Ephesians two eighty nine for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the youth of God two weeks ago today I was in Bethany Chapel Augusta Georgia I did not use this message, but I rarely preached without using Ephesians two, eight and nine.
And I was reminded that right there in that city, perhaps twenty-three or four or five years earlier, I had the joy of assisting in leading a young Air Force cadet to the Lord Jesus. And we use verse after verse after verse. He just was not able to comprehend what it meant to receive eternal life from God. He was from another background entirely. He'd never heard the gospel preached or proclaimed in his life. But for two years, we found out later, he'd been under real conviction of sin. He didn't know what it was. but he's been under real condition. And Brother Osma Kaplan, who some of you know, who is now in a nursing home in Roanoke, and I hope to see him, by the way, a month from today.
Brother Osmond McCausen had picked him up on the highway, had brought him to his house, had been dealing with him for three hours, and called me where I was visiting on a Christian brother's home. And we went over to his house and about nine-thirty at night, we said, well, we aren't making any headway. Let's do what we should have done to begin with. Let's get on our knees and pray and ask the Lord to give us the wisdom as to what verse to use with this young man. And so the Lord brought us up the evening, two, eight, nine. And we read it. And we read it slowly. For by grace, we explain what grace meant. All you say is through faith. We tried to illustrate what faith meant. And that not of yourselves. We explained to him that it wasn't my word.
And we offered him a little new testament. He said, Now this is a new testament. And that's just how you receive forgiveness of your sins. Just as you put your hand out and receive that testament, that is the way you're going to receive eternal life and experience and life. And like a son of Rick, It's a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift. Oh, I don't have to work for it. I don't have to go to confession. I don't have to do this. I don't have to do this. No, no, no, no. All you have to do is say, God, I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king.
I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. I'm a king. Well, we had two hours before his train left for Atlanta and then he transferred all into Detroit. And he got on the train. He gave him gospel tracks. He booked it and he put it in Texas and Texas and Detroit. He went to his home and they tracked him and threw him out of the home. He came back to Miami, Florida, finished his train in the airport, went on somewhere and learned how to fly planes. But he was the pilot of a big V-Twenty-four liberator in Houston. Somewhere out over the fluester, Romania, I believe it was, oil fields. The flag got turned, and the flame went down in the flames.
But someday when I get to heaven, I'm going to visit Mason Metz. I'm going to say, you remember that night on John's Road in Augusta, Georgia? about nine forty five when the Holy Spirit enabled you to understand what was involved in receiving the gift. I feel so sorry for people that are hung up on this thing of having to help God save them. I don't know what to do because you see that's right the way I want. That's the predicament that I was in. I was active in the church and I was moral and I wasn't drinking whiskey and I wasn't committing adultery and I wasn't playing cards and I wasn't hanging there with those that did.
And I was expecting all the things that I didn't do that didn't do. Finally, the Holy Spirit pulled these scales from my eyes and taught me to see that there's only one way to have eternal life. And that was through God's Son, Jesus Christ. And I didn't have to work for it. All I had to do was receive him as a person into my heart and into my life. Oh, beloved friend, if you're here today and you're not still beyond the shadow of a doubt that you're saved, it's covered by cars. You're still hung up on the fact that you've got to help God save you and you can't do it quick. Fine. The only way you'll ever be saved is by receiving the gift.
Oh. You folks get from Baltimore. You've had some good times from Baltimore. I was down there one day speaking at the Christian Woman's Club. Been there several times. And I was actually ministering in York, but I borrowed, if you remember the brother's name, doesn't matter, I borrowed his car and drove down to Baltimore and spoke to the Woman's Club and was back about fifty-nine and there was some lady there that was earning a trip all the way to the West Coast and back by selling artificial offerings. And I've been around my wife so long that I like everything she likes. You know what I mean? Pretty thing. And they had these orchids all over and they were beautiful and I just couldn't help but admire them, you know.
And so the hostess or the chairman or whoever it was, she walked with me out to the parking lot. That big department store where my car was and she said, Brother, if you got something for you, I could give you a wife. And we said, that's a pretty little box. Oh, no, you should have done it. Oh, yes, I should. Oh, let me pay you. Oh, no. It's like what you're preaching about, Joshua. You can't pay me for it because I'm giving you. It's so giving. Beautiful. That's the wonderful thing about eternal life in God's own Jesus Christ. He freely gives you eternal life.
And yet people sometimes will turn their face and say, I'm not having an angry one. When they do, they are continuing their walk on the way to the devil's house. Eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. He said, well, how do I know that I can have life and forgiveness? How do I know that God gave His Son to die for me because the Word of God says so? Right here. This is one of my favorite verses. Every preacher has a favorite verse. He has one of mine right here. For he has made him to be sinned for us, and you know sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
And I suppose if I have a second favorite verse, here it is right here, in the fifth chapter of first John. And this is the record that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in the church. And this life is in ordinances. and this life is in keeping the law. No. It says, and this life is in him. Jesus Christ. Life's greatest tragedy, life's greatest certainty, life's greatest offer or gift, It never comes to life's greatest story.
Now I must admit that in life, the choices that men and women and boys and girls have to make are very, very important. And today I declare I believe they're more important than they were twenty years ago. Because if you just make the slightest slip, you have to. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live." The choice involved in becoming a Christian is very similar to the choice made when one married.
You take one person and that person takes you and you become one. life and death. If you've ever written on the California Zephyr, it still runs three days a week, by the way. You cross what they call the Continental Divide. It doesn't look very auspicious or important, but you can toss a piece of bark this way and they'll end up in the Atlantic. Toss it this way and they'll end up in the Pacific. Doesn't seem important, but just the simple flick of the ribs will determine whether or not that little piece of heart will be enough.
It may not seem important to you whether or not you allow Jesus Christ to come into your heart and life and save you and rule you and make of you a happy, radiant person, but whether or not you receive Christ as your Savior and Lord will determine whether or not you sinned or sinned. Choose Christ to have life. ignore him, do nothing about him, and continue to live as a dead person and to be separated from him for all eternity. Life's greatest choice, yes, but praise God, life's greatest person.
And you know who he is because we've been talking about him all along. Life's greatest person. The Word of God says, Neither is thou salvation any other, for there is none other name unto heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Oh, it's a wonderful thing to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is your living Lord and Savior. Why continue to wonder when you can know that he lives in your heart and in your life? I've already read that verse in first John five. He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. And that's as simple as ABC. If we have Jesus Christ, we have life. If we have him not, we do not have life. A number of years ago was my privilege to speak in Glen Head, Long Island. Some of you are from that area. And there was a lady there who knew a man that didn't know the Lord, and she was interested in seeing him come to the Savior. The problem was that this man had a job in New York At night, he was a engineer, I suppose you'd call him, of one of the large buildings.
And he had to get into work about ten o'clock at night. And he was afraid that if he stayed behind at the meeting house in Glen Head, that I'd get to talking to him and it would take too long. And he'd be late for work. So this lady convinced him that Mr. Few wouldn't talk to him a long time. Can he just stay behind? We could deal with it. and he might come to know the Lord because the man was really serious and anxious about his soul's salvation. Well, to make a long story short, we went over to a brother's house, sat down with a brother of this man, opened up the Word of God, and in about ten minutes, the man had found the Lord.
His name was Jim McGuire. He had a large family. Unfortunately, he had a bad case of ulcers. He'd had trouble with them for years. But he went along pretty well for a while, four, five, six months. I came back through New York about six months later. It was in the summertime. He was in St. Vincent Hospital, I believe it was, in Lower Manhattan. I want to see him. He was very, very weak, but he had a smile on his face and he said, I'm glad to see you, Brother Shockley. What a joy it is to know the Lord Jesus Christ. This was on a Friday. Good morning. I got in my car and drove south, probably as far as Washington or Baltimore.
Got home Saturday afternoon. And Sunday morning, the phone rang. Shockley? Jim was in heaven. I was shocked. The funeral is going to be Monday night. Could you fly up and conduct the funeral? The family, even though none of them are Christians, they have allowed me to make arrangements for the funeral with me coming. I said, well, let me look on the schedule. I had one, two free days, Monday and Tuesday. So I got on a plane and flew up there and they met me at the airport and they went to the funeral home.
In practice, we had a large family, and there wasn't a seat, hardly in the place. I can honestly say that it was one of the greatest joys to preach the gospel I've ever had in my life. And all I did was to reach the Christian and to tell those people how I knew that Jim Maguire was not in that room. He was in heaven. or if we had made that important decision of ceasing to trust in anything you've ever done and trust solely in the grace of God as it is in Christ Jesus Christ who died on the cross that you might have life and have life more abundantly Now, I'm sure that a large majority of the people here this morning, perhaps ninety-nine percent, really do know Jesus Christ, and that's wonderful.
But what about the one who might be out there under the sound of my voice this morning, and you're not absolutely sure that Jesus Christ is your Savior and your Lord. I'd love to see you come to know him right now. Right now as we bow our heads and close our eyes and pray in a moment, you may pass from death and delight by placing your trust not in what you've done or what you haven't done, but in upon the person of God's Son, Jesus Christ, who bore your sin and his body on this earth. Shall we pray? Now, if you're here without the Lord Jesus, why don't you ask the Lord Jesus right now to come into your heart?
Why don't you pray this little prayer? O God, I'm a sinner. I cannot save myself. I believe that Jesus died for me. Save me in the name of Jesus. Did you pray that prayer? If you did, thank God for saving us and asking us to make you a strong, useful Christian and to give you the courage and the grace to speak to one of us and tell us of your decision. Our Father, we've tried by your grace with your health and strength to give you a simple message of eternal life in Jesus Christ.
Meet the needs of everyone here. especially the need of that one who may be out of Christ. And if there's one who has trusted the Savior, we pray that you give that one strength and courage to tell us about it. In Jesus' name, Amen.