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By reading in the Epistles of the Romans, chapter five and verse twelve. Epistle to the Romans, chapter five and verse twelve. Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come. But not as the trespass, so also is the free gift. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many. And not as through one that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment came of one unto condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses unto justification. For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one, much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through one, even Jesus Christ. So then, as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation, even so, through one act of righteousness, the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so, through the obedience of the one shall many be made righteous. And the law came in beside, that the trespass might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly, in order that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? God forbid. We who die to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or are you ignorant that also we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the death through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of love. The Lord lead us into the secrets of his blessing as we think about his word this evening. Tonight we must attempt to move on, and perhaps a little bit more quickly than heretofore. We were thinking last week that God's salvation does two major things for us. In the first place, it releases us from the guilt of our sins, saves us from being exposed to the wrath of God, and puts us in the clear with God, makes us right with God, declares us just before God. But it does not only, we found, release us from the wrath of God, but it then proceeds to make us like God, to make us holy. To sanctify us, and not merely justify us. So that last week we began to see- think about that second operation of God upon our souls, that lovely task that he has put in hand to make us holy like himself. We didn't get very far with our thinking. Because studying the text of the New Testament, we found this, that before God proceeds to tell us how he proposes to make us holy, and what practical steps he intends to take to make us like himself. God delays a moment to assure our hearts of one fundamental thing. To assure us that every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is utterly secure in the love of God. To assure every believer in the Lord Jesus that his security does not depend on his spiritual progress, but that God has, for Christ's sake, received him and never will cast him out, never abandon him. We spent the whole of last week, in fact, thinking about this lovely argument that the Holy Spirit engages in with all who belong to Christ, pouring out God's love for them in their hearts, and arguing that if God loved you while you were yet a sinner, so much that he gave his son for you while you were yet a sinner, it is all the more certain that God will never abandon you, now that you have become his child. And therefore, we may confidently exult. We shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. We shall be saved by his life. What is even more glorious? We shall attain the glory of God. Personally, I like that phrase. The glory of God. God is here talking about what we one day shall be when he has made us perfectly holy. Only sometimes, you know, we think of holiness as a kind of a negative thing, not doing that, not doing the other, and not going there, and not doing that. Holiness seems to us to be a kind of a refrigerator. A state next to death, when we don't, uh, so many things that we don't do that there's scarce anything we do at all. That is not the biblical idea of holiness. Here God describes perfect holiness as the very glory of God. All the wonder of his life, the beauty of his life, the majesty and glory of that positive, pulsating, eternal life of God. That is the state to which God is determined to bring us. Before we start the long and lengthy course in holiness, in the school of Christ, God gives us courage to know we shall attain it one day. We shall attain the glory of God. And in the meantime, we are to know it, that if we are truly Christ's, then our acceptance with God does not depend on our progress, even in holiness. Now, we enjoyed it, of course, last week, letting God's Holy Spirit thus argue our security in Christ. We enjoyed it. Whether we realized it or not, God was doing it very deliberately. For he not only wants to make us feel comfortable and secure, he really wants to begin this practical job of making us holy. And that can, on times, be decidedly uncomfortable. You see, if we're ever going to be holy, we shall have to be released from, delivered from our wrong attitudes, as well as our sinful deeds. It will mean that from time to time, God's Holy Spirit will have to probe into our hearts, deep into our personalities. Because we shall not find that, uh, we wake up one of these mornings and, hey, presto, we've become holy. Well, fancy that. We, we hadn't been thinking about it much lately, but goodness me, what is this? Wednesday morning, and goodness me, if I haven't woken up and I'm completely holy. Well, what a miracle. No, it doesn't happen that way. It doesn't even happen with us as it does with motor cars. Sometimes motor cars get afflicted with sundry ills. Who doesn't know it? You know that place where the pistons go up and down, cylinders, I think they're called, they get all choked up. And instead of pulling strongly, it puffs and groans and wheezes and bangs. So if your car does that, you take it along to the garage. My knee under bottles and bars here and nuts and whatnots and whatnots, and he gets a thing and screws around in it, well, more or less like that. And, uh, hey, presto, before the car knows what's happened, without its consent, of course. The thing's done. Well, that's all right for cars, but that won't do for human personalities, will it? You're going to make a human being holy. You'll find you are in for a very, very delicate task. God could, of course, if he chose, God could come in like a tank and override our free will, override our choice, override our consent, and stop us sinning. What good would that be? He might get us something that didn't sin, but it wouldn't be a human being, would he? God would have reduced us to machines, and that God will never do, never do. It is a solemn, though majestic thing. God, having given us a free will, a human personality, God will never destroy that free will or personality. So much so that if we choose to say no to God, and continue in saying no, and go out into eternity saying no, even then God will not destroy our free will in order to save us. God respects human personality so much. If we take our human personality and free will and say no to God, then in the end God will put up with that eternally. Not even to save us would he destroy our free will? And that means that though God proceeds to make us holy, he's got to carry us with us, with him all the time, hasn't he? To never become holy automatically. I shall become holy as I am made to face my sin, my wrong attitude. Recognize and confess them that, yes, I have been wrong. These things are wrong, and repent of them. Let's that get, let us, let us get that settled from the start. Sometimes we think that repenting is a thing that the unconverted have to do before they get saved, and that's very true, but it's a something that the child of God has to do every day of the week, almost and all the way home to glory. Allow God's Holy Spirit to point out what is wrong, and then to agree with God it is wrong, and to seek God's grace, that it be put away and overcome. And I say that process, let's not deceive ourselves, can on times be painful. You see, when it's over, then when we shall find how pleasant it is. After the chastening is over, after the bitter lessons are learned, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. But you see, we're like a lot of kids, aren't we? Huh. Here's Tommy. He's having such a lovely time painting on the wallpaper. Why does mother say it can't be done? He scribbled and scribbled and scribbled and scribbled. It's marvellous. And he doesn't at all enjoy the process when it is pointed out to him that people shouldn't scribble on the wallpaper. Because one day he'll grow up and say how stupid it was anyway. So for the moment, Tommy is kicking wildly at the being restrained and told it's wrong. And alas, we're often like that, aren't we? God's holy spirit begins by this means or another to point out to us that we are wrong. Then instead of welcoming it, we outgo the old defenses. We've every reason in the sun why, um, uh, people want to criticize us like this, or why we should do it, and thus and thus and thus, you know the old story. When God insists, and we begin to feel sore. It is for this very reason that before we start, God assures us of our eternal security in the love of God. He loves us. He loved us while we were yet sinners. Oh, remember it, my brother. You know, God will never be disappointed in you. You know that, don't you? God will never be disappointed in you. For he always did know everything about you. He may oftentimes be sorrowful about you, as he is about me. Never will he be disappointed. He's under no illusions. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows us through and through. He knows how deceitful our hearts are and desperately wicked. The amazing thing is that he loved us while we were yet sinners. Being under no illusions, knowing the worst about us, he loves us just the same. Therefore, he wants us to know we're secure, so that when his spirit begins exposing ourselves to ourselves, we find out that we're not necessarily the charming people that we thought we were. We discover that we're not the important people that we thought we were. And we discover that God has no intention of letting us remain spoiled boys and girls. So that in those moments we may realize that God isn't rejecting us. He loves us still. I don't know about you, but I find criticism hard to take. But when anybody starts criticizing me, I sort of instinctively, stupidly enough, I feel they're rejecting me. It is hard to take criticism, isn't it? We shall have to learn it, or God's going to do a lot of it. He wants us to know that he doesn't reject us when he criticizes. It is his love that makes it impossible for him to allow us to go on unchecked, uncriticized. For his mother, and Tommy's gone out into the street. Her Tommy. Hm. He's forgotten to blow his nose this last, uh, quarter of an hour. Well, I mean, he's the other woman's Johnny, well, he is like that, but, but her Tommy isn't gonna be like that. Oh, what you getting all upset for? Well, that's because that's her Tommy. Yes. But he really loves him. And because God loves us, he's not going to let us go on in our foolish and sinful ways, creating trouble for ourselves and other folks and displeasing him. And his love to us, they're going to teach us better. And therefore I say, let me repeat it, God wants us to get hold of this, that we are secure in his love. He loved us while we were yet sinners. Because I tell you something else. Even when we discover this or that about ourselves that is wrong and sinful, and we realize we've got to face it and put it right, it doesn't always happen that it goes right the very next day, or that we get the victory the very next hour. There will come times in our battle against sin that we feel we're making so very little progress, and we come to lament with Paul, wretched man that I am. The very thing I want to do, I don't do, and the thing I don't want to do, I do. And in those moments, my good friend, if you thought your acceptance with God depended on your spiritual progress, then you would be distraught indeed, wouldn't you? And it does happen, folks, folks fall into that, don't they? Sometimes when they are under the impression that you trust Christ tonight and that thereafter life is going to be a marvelous, unbroken sunshine. All goes well until they find that life with Christ isn't an un- a marvelous unbroken sunshine. And life with Christ can be quite tough. And then because they find themselves, uh, saddened and perplexed by the own naughtiness of their own hearts and its wickedness. Then they begin to doubt their salvation. So, shall we get it straight? Says God, I want you to be absolutely sure. Allow please my spirit to pour out my love in your hearts. I want you to know that I loved you not after you began to be holy, but while you were yet sinners. And I gave Christ for you while you were at your very worst. And having loved you like that, now that you've trusted my son, I shall not abandon you ever until I've made you completely like him. All right, well, if that's how God loves us, we may turn and face ourselves, shakily perhaps. But realistically, I hope to ask the question, well then, what is all the fuss about? And what is wrong with me? And why am I not holy? And why do I find becoming holy so difficult? What is wrong? Well, now we, we're in for a gloomy time now, if you ask, go and ask questions like that. Why you're in for a gloomy time. You're wronger than you think, if I might use such a word in English. The And pro- how trouble trouble goes. goes deeper than you may imagine. And if we mean business with God, we are wanting now, we're saying, going to say to God, all right, God, yes, we're in for it one hundred percent. Thank you for forgiveness, but we're not content with just forgiveness. I want to be holy, God. Now we're in for it. Tell us what is wrong. Well, you must be prepared to find out. But this is no little thing. We are very wrong. Very bad. Badder than we think. To ask you to notice these verses then that follow. I'm not encouraging you to think that, uh, sin doesn't matter, and you oughtn't to be upset when you sin. Of course, we all ought to be upset when we sin, but I want you to get hold of it, that your heart is more wicked than you think it is. Sometimes you find believers, when they have fallen into some sin, they can scarce believe it. They say, you know, but I, I, I wasn't that kind of a fellow. Well, of course they were. How do they get it into their heads they weren't? It is part indeed of our defense to know how bad we are. To be brought to face the terrible potential of our own deceitful hearts. So we can listen to Jeremiah and and be content that Jeremiah is not exaggerating. Said he, the heart is deceitful. Well, the modern psychologists have told us a bit what that means, haven't they? The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Oh, how impure many of my motives are, even in my holiest moment, because my subconscious is very deceitful. Anyway, let's be realistic and face the trouble. We found in chapters one, two, and three of this letter that we were guilty sinners. Guilty. But now we're going a stage deeper. We're going to ask ourselves, why do we sin? What's wrong with us? You'll see, if we don't get hold of this, perhaps you'll be coming along to me one of these days and to tell me, look here, old boy, pull your spiritual socks up and behave a bit better. All right. Yeah, my spiritual socks go down, yes, and I want to pull them up, yeah. Well, that's pretty shallow advice, isn't it? Try a bit harder, you say. Why, did you suppose I left into sin because I wasn't trying then or something? Is it your notion that if I try a bit harder, that will do? Alas, that's how the world talks, doesn't it? That's how religion talks. Try a bit harder and you'll be all right, old chap. Oh, how pathetically unrealistic it is. It wasn't for lack of trying that we became sinners. What's wrong with me? Well, yes, I have done, and alas, I do wrong thing. Many of them are my fault. I know they're wrong. Ah, but that's only part of the story. The other part is this. I was born of parents that were sinful. God bless them. In glory now, they did their best. But for all that, they were sinful. And that meant that they didn't always handle me as a baby as they ought to have done. Got impatient with me when I yelled and shouted, you know, babes have a way of doing. Perhaps neglected me when I was tired. They did their best. But they weren't perfect. And my little infant brain, when it was laying down its old psychological patterns, reacted stupidly. Yeah, I didn't know I was doing it. Reacted stupidly and built in a lot of old silly old complexes that, uh, chase me and haunt me to this present. Whose fault was that? Do be aware of it, won't you, when you, when you're laying out your program of spiritual advance for me, do be aware of what a complicated past I've had. And then it wasn't only my parents. I'm not making excuses, I'm just telling you the facts. That was all the other folks in the town where I was born. You see, I come from a town where everybody, every single person I ever met in all that town, in school, in shop, in home, every single person without exception was a sinner. What chance had I got? Growing up in a world like that. Why, you only got to the infant school five minutes and somebody swiped your duster. Wasn't all my fault, was it? Why, is it that everybody here in Belfast too, without exception, is a sinner? Ah, because a whole lot of us descend from a race ruined at its source. Born sinners, in fact. You'll be chasing the moon in your attempts at holiness if you don't face this. For the way to make the likes of us holy, with all the complications of thousands of generations of sinners behind us, and all the complicated heredity we have, uh, received and built into ourselves. To cope with it, there will have to be a system of salvation that is as basic and thoroughgoing as the fault was. Let's hear it stated in more formal terms, shall we? Second paragraph of Romans chapter five is a very difficult paragraph, and if I don't get it all right to your satisfaction, then please have mercy on me. I try to get it right. But it's a difficult paragraph, isn't it? It talks about profound matters. But it is observing this in verse twelve, that through one man, sin entered into the world. And death through sin. Martin Freys, inspired apostle, is talking very circumspectly. Through one man, sin entered into the world. It was like one of those big dikes in Holland that the Dutch engineers have built to make their land of Holland safe against the great sea that rolls outside. And the dike stands there, defying all the elements and keeping the land safe, until at one place, one little place, the water saps its strength, and presently a hole is opened, no bigger than a fist. But in that hole comes the great rushing tide of the North Sea, and before you know where you are, the tide has entered Holland. Acres are devastated. So Adam stood on this little planet, guardian because he had within him the seeds of the whole human race. And through one man, sin entered like a vast flood, like a miasm, like a, like, like a, like a poison, like some gigantic virus. Through one man, sin entered. Like a vast blight. With its inevitable consequence, and through sin, death. Having entered into one man, watch it, uh, watch it extend. So death passed unto all men, for that all sinned. You say, what does that mean? Well, it means the same as it means in chapter three and verse twenty three. where the same word is used and the very same tense is used. All sinned. All have sinned, says Romans three twenty three, All have sinned. What do you take that to mean? Well, you say simple enough, all have sinned. Oh, jolly good. Well, this means the same then. So death passed to all men, for the all have sinned. Well, you say, now that's, that's curious because, you know, Adam sinned by breaking a commandment that he had. God had said to Adam, thou shalt not eat of that tree. So he had a positive, explicit commandment. And he sinned by deliberately transgressing an explicit commandment. But you say the men that lived after Adam, they didn't have any commandments like that, and you're perfectly true. Search your Bible, you won't find any commandments. So yet they died. Yes, they died. Even though they had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. Or they died, even though they had broken no explicit positive commandment. What a chapter that is that records it in the book of Genesis. It's chapter five of Genesis. Just let me read you bits and pieces from it. Seth, he died. Enosh, he died. Kenan, he died. Well, here comes Mahalalel, perhaps we should do better. No, and he died as well. What about Jared? No, he died. Oh. And uh, Methuselah, he died. Noah, he died. What a long story it was, and even though they had no particular commandment that they broke, yet they died. What does that show? That they were sinners, that they had sinned, even though you can't point to any particular transgression. Let me illustrate it to you. You have been motoring from, uh, Inneskill, coming down one of those great, uh, motorway things there, doing, you know, eighty, eighty-five, occasional ninety, uh, years. And you come to Ockel or Clochol or Five Mile Town or some other such establishment, you see. And you got so used to doing eighty-five that, uh, Five Mile Town scarce sees you. Ooh, going through Five Mile Town. I wanna. Despite the fact, some notice up to the effect that thou shalt not do any more than thirty. Do you know, I can remember the days when there weren't any thirty signs. What a paradise it was. There weren't any thirty signs anywhere. Life was free. Yes, you could come through Five Mile Town at ninety if you liked. And nobody could have accused you in those days of transgressing any law, for there wasn't any law that said thou shalt not do more than thirty. So they couldn't have you up for breaking the speed limit in those days. But you know, even in nineteen twenty six, if you'd have come with your Austin um seven at ninety, suppose it were possible, through Five Mile Town, you would have been sinning, wouldn't you? What a stupid thing to do to come through five mile town at ninety, where the grocer, without looking, can step out of his shop and you knock him into eternity, what ho, or a little child gets knocked down in the street, or... That would have been an inconsiderate, selfish, irresponsible thing to do in itself. Even though there was no law that said thou shalt not go over thirty. And Paul is observing here that for many years in this earth, God laid down no specific prohibition, and therefore nobody could have been charged with having broken those commandments, and yet they died. Although they hadn't transgressed, yet they sinned. So now we're faced with another problem. Why does everybody sin? Why? Why aren't there occasional exceptions now and again? Better ask the old evolutionist, that'd be. He doesn't know though. If everything is by chance, goodness me, why doesn't old Bill Dame Chance throw up a perfect human being one of these days? She has long enough to do it, hasn't she? Why does everybody sin? But everybody has sinned except one, their great notable exception. How will you account for me? God's answer is this. And by one man's disobedience, the men were constituted sinners. So that he can then go on and tell you how you can be saved. And to put it in a nutshell, it is, as the verse, uh, nineteen tells us, that you were made a sinner, constituted a sinner by Adam's one disobedience. You were constituted a sinner by what somebody else did. In that very same way, you can be constituted righteous by what somebody else did. Yeah. Oh, I know that you had no choice in the matter that you were born human. You had no choice of being a member of the human race. And on the other side, you do have a choice as to whether you choose to receive Christ and become a member of his race, or you don't. Yes, you have a choice. And you say, well, that isn't fair then, because I was automatically born a sinner without doing anything about it. I was born a sinner automatically. Why can't I become a saint automatically? You know, that that sounds, that sounds logical, doesn't it? It ain't so logical as it sounds. That's like, uh, getting a turnip in a field saying, turnip, turnip, I see you're not very high in this world. And the turnip says, you know, I was automatically born a turnip. I don't see why I shouldn't automatically grow into a pussycat. Well, I wouldn't. Of course not. We were born automatically without our will, our consent. We found ourselves born into this world, human beings. Why aren't we automatically saved? Well, have you any idea what being saved is? It's to be not kind, some kind of glorified computer, you know, with God pushing the buttons here and there like that, making us do as he has programmed and designed we shall do. Being saved is to be made a child of God. To have the very life of God. To reign with a will that's free. To be an angel or something far bigger and more significant than an angel. You can't become one of those things automatically. To do that, you'll have to take the free will God has given you and use it. For God is wanting and designing not that you shall be a machine, but that you shall be a king. Not that you shall be a cogwheel in a computer, but a free personality, a prince, a princess, to reign and command. You can't do that without your consent. That's why on God's side, on salvation side, glorious advantage. Adam sinned, and the whole race was spoiled, we included. But let me trust Christ, and I shall find, as the verse put it, puts it, that his gift abounds, the excess of benefit is all on the side of Christ. Listen to some of the excess. Not as through one that sins, so is the gift. For the judgment came of one unto condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses unto justification. Look at it this way. Adam only had to do one trespass. There was enough poison in that one trespass to poison the whole race. What about you? How many trespasses have you committed? I'm not thinking now of the things you couldn't help. I'm thinking of the things you did deliberately, knowing they were wrong. How many of those have you done? One of them would have been enough to ruin the whole human race. How many have I done? Yes, though I stand in myself guilty of a thousand, thousand trespasses, God is prepared freely to give me pardon and salvation. Or think of it this way, says Paul. Through one man's trespass, death reigned. What a word it is. Death reigned. Sometimes we imagine we're free, don't we? Oh dear. What slaves we are. Death reigned. He's been utterly irresistible hitherto, hasn't he? Oh yes, our learned medics, thank God for the learned medics. By dint of hard research and wearisome thinking and endless experiments, they've managed to push back the kingdom of death a few centimeters of time. Sometimes. For some human beings. But after these multi-thousand years of human existence, it remains as true as ever it was. Death reign. Or you may put up your little hands, try and keep it off. Death comes like some great juggernaut. Slowly but utterly irresistibly it comes. Death. Rain. Does, doesn't it? Oh, won't you let God tell you? What a future he has for you, if only you'd trust Christ. Think of that irresistible march of death, and then remember that God tells us that by the time he is finished with those who trust Christ, they shall much more reign in life. Gone the frustrations. Gone those crippling inhibitions. Gone the enfeebled brain. Gone the old complexes. Gone the limitations. They shall reign in life through one man, Jesus Christ. Oh, what a day it will be. Holiness. When God delivered Israel out of Egypt and began to talk about being holy, yes, he told them don't do this and don't do that. But he put it like this. He says, I called you out of Egypt to make you go upright. No longer bondman, free. God is going to have us reign in life through Jesus Christ. So that's the problem. By one man's disobedience, we were constituted sinners. It's as basic as that. God's answer is equally basic through Christ's obedience as the beginner of a new race. Having met all that you shall ever meet, and himself been utterly victorious by his obedience. He has become the head of a new race to all who trust him. What Adam did wrong, Christ has put right. Adam chose self. Christ voluntarily took his sinless self, and faced with that most hideous task of being made sin for us. And he surrendered self and chose God. The Bible tells us that that one act has a power that will infiltrate and one day transform all who are joined to Christ. And to get it all in the clear. Oh, watch it, please. Verse twenty tells us this. God isn't skidding over the trouble. He isn't trying to brush it under the carpet. No, in order to make us aware of how deep our, our, our trouble is, God spent some centuries giving people the law. What for, you say? The law came in beside that the trespass might be cut out. Not indeed. Not indeed. The law came in beside that the trespass might abound. That isn't, if I might recur to my illustration, the reason why Five Mile Town chur- uh, uh, city fathers put up that thirty sign at the entrance to their town, so that the trespass might abound. No, indeed not. They were putting it up to cut the trespass out. But, you know, it had an effect. You wouldn't have thought Mr. So-and-so was such a... such a person, would you? You know, all these days he's been driving quite a decent job. If you don't stick the old thirty up, you'll find out something about Mr. So-and-so, that he doesn't always regard the law. You say that's a minor thing, uh. You know, I think thirty limits are stupid when the road is clear. You know, I have a funny feeling when I'm behind the wheel of a car, just like you. But it's different with God's holy law about moral things, isn't it? God gave that law so that the trespass might abound, to bring it out into the open. To show us what is inside. Oh, my good fellow Christian, do allow God to use his law on you, won't you? There are some folks that think that, uh, Christians have nothing to do with the law. No wonder their spirituality is feeble. I'll get you to Moses and his law, if you can stand it, get you alongside of Christ and his interpretation of that law in the Sermon on the Mount, it won't make you feel comfortable. It won't in itself save you. You'll find that what it will do is to expose you to yourself. You will find transgressions within that you had never thought were there. You'll find pockets of resistance, you'll find self-will, you'll find self-centeredness that you never realized were there. You will find that half of that self-pity you have is really pride and self-centeredness. The law is given that the trespass may abound. Trouble be brought out into the open. For this deliberate reason that God is confident, that however much the trespass abound and be shown to be as bad as it is, God has grace enough to more than above. God has the answer. You say, well, then we can continue sinning then. No, no, you've got it wrong there. God's reason for bringing out the old disease to showing, show how full of transgression and self-will our heart is, is not to leave us there. It is to bring us to face the trouble and repent, and then to realize that in ourselves we cannot cope. So then we lay hold upon God's salvation. Let's spend our last five minutes. You know we customarily go on to court fast, don't we? Let's spend our last five minutes just preparing our minds for next week's lesson. It's got some hard things in this next Wednesday's lesson, so let's just inoculate ourselves a little, shall we? Look, says God, when I say that I've got grace enough to overcome all your transgression, that isn't giving you permission to transgress. Continue in sin, how shall you? Don't you know that as many of us as were baptized, were baptized into Christ's death? We were buried with him. So now let's come back to what you did. Well, let's hope you did it. You were meant to. When you trusted Christ. God commands, you know, all believers, doesn't he, to be baptized. Doesn't leave it optional. Goodness me, wouldn't you be a proud woman if you had been led to Christ by Peter himself? But please remember, if you think like that, that if Peter had led you to Christ, he wouldn't have left baptism optional. He would have commanded you to be baptized, and you would have been a bold Christian to defy Peter himself, wouldn't you? What else? The Lord commands us to be baptized. What for? And what is it anyway? Baptism is a burial, you know. Not a washing, a burial. That's important. For when I get baptized, I'm not saying, look at me, what a marvelous boy I am. Don't you think I progressed? What a paragon of virtue. What I'm saying when I get baptized is that at last I've come to see myself as God sees me. I am so fallen, so guilty, I deserve to be executed, dead, and buried. Is that true of you? How bad are you? You think the diagnosis too severe? That in and of yourself you are so hopelessly bad that you deserve only to be executed and buried? You think you're not as bad as that? I see. Well, tell me something. You tell me why was Christ called upon to die and be buried? It was all about sin, wasn't it? Whose sin? Is it your opinion that Christ was so bad that he deserved to die? Was it for his own sin he hung on that tree, died, and was buried? Well, no, of course it wasn't. Well, whose sin was it then? Let's tell you whose it was. Drastic as it may sound, it was my sin. Do you know, when Christ my Lord hung upon that tree, the world went by and they said, look at him, there you are, we all said it. Look what a sinner he has been. Now it's coming out. Now God has abandoned him. There you are, he trusted in God. Ha, now we know the truth about this Jesus, this carpenter from Nazareth. Now at last we know the truth. Now he's on a cross. He trusted in God, but God doesn't want anything to do with him. God has abandoned him. What, he admits it himself? Listen. He's crying, my God, why didst thou forsake me? There we are, said the high priest. Now you can see the truth about it. Jesus is dying because of Jesus's sins. Yes. You know, when I heard that, I had to do something about that. I had to come and tell the world, half a minute, no, that is not true. Dying he was, and dying for sins, but not his own sins. It was David Gooding's sins that held him there. I want to show the world that, I want to put the record straight. All right, says God, Gooding, old boy, you can do it. You will now come and be buried in water. For testimony to the world of what the facts are. I speak to a believer here and you're not yet baptized? All come. All come. But you allow Christ to die for your sins on cross. Publicly. Do you not be prepared to do what God tells you to do, to come and identify yourself with Christ by being buried with him in baptism. Now, that's not the only thing that baptism will do. It does more things than that, happier things too, but we shall have to leave that for another occasion.