(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Great singing, let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much. Just that we get to be members of the Lord's Army and fight for you, Lord. Thank you for giving your son to die for us. Pray that you please bless this service and bless our pastor as he preaches to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, our second song is going to be 397. Couple to the left there. Little is much when God is in it. 397. Little is much when God is in it. Song 397. Little is much when God is in it. In the harvest field now ripened, there's a work for all to do. Hark, the voice of God is calling to the harvest calling you. Little is much when God is in it. Labor not for wealth or fame, there's a crown and you can win it if you'll go in Jesus' name. Does the place you're called to labor seem so small and little known? It is great if God is in it and he'll not forget his own. Little is much when God is in it. Labor not for wealth or fame, there's a crown and you can win it if you'll go in Jesus' name. Are you laid aside from service, body worn from toil and care? You can still be in the battle, in the sacred place of prayer. Little is much when God is in it. Labor not for wealth or fame, there's a crown and you can win it if you'll go in Jesus' name. When the conflict here is ended and our race on earth is run, he will say to all the faithful, welcome home my child well done. Little is much when God is in it. Labor not for wealth or fame, there's a crown and you can win it if you'll go in Jesus' name. Revelation chapter 1, anyone that's able to quote the entire chapter is able to receive a prize for that. Also on the inside we have our service times and our soul winning times, our church stats. Please continue to report that. Also turn your maps to our bin that we have over here. If you've completed any maps or even if you haven't completed it, especially make sure we can get that put back in there if you have any questions. Brother Dylan is usually a good help on that. I can also help you if you need so. Also our list of expecting ladies. We have several here for you to be in prayer for. Also if you'd add Tina Galasso to the list as well who's expecting. Also we have our prayer list where we've been going over. Continue to pray for the Negeras for health. Pray for Miss Lucy for her mother's tumors. Continue to pray for Brother Hall. Continue to pray for Brother Wallach's daughter Haley. We've been praying for her pregnancy as well. We've been praying for the Cooley Stepdad for his cancer treatment. We've been praying for Miss Holden for health. We've been praying for Brother Nate for a job. We've been praying for Brother Brian for his friend's sister who has cancer. We've also been praying for the Naim family for them to get better. Also for the Good Winds. We've been praying for work help there. We've been praying for the Stewarts for his friend's son, specifically Charles, healing from a car crash. So a lot of prayer requests there. We can go ahead and say a quick word of prayer as a church family this evening. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for expecting ladies. Please be with them. Please help them during their pregnancies. I pray that you would just give them favor. Please help their children in their development. I pray that you would also give them a timely birth. And I thank you so much for those blessings. I pray that you would also help our church family that has been on our list with chronic illness, chronic health issues. I pray, Father, please give them favor. Please, if possible, give them a miracle. Please be with them during their affliction. I pray that you would also help our church family that's needing jobs, that's needing help with their financial matters. I pray that you would please just bless them, help give them wisdom to make good decisions. And I pray that you would also be with our friends from afar, people that we care about, our coworkers, and those who also have sick loved ones. I pray that you would be with them. I pray that you would also give us opportunities to minister to them, to preach the gospel. I pray that you would give us boldness to preach the gospel to those that are our family members and friends. As we know, it's sometimes more difficult to approach them. I pray that you would just strengthen us. And I pray that you would continue to use this church to do great works in your name. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Also in the back, church reminders. Continue to pay attention to those upcoming events. Pastor Anderson is coming July 12th, and he's really excited about coming out here and preaching for us. Also, August 17th to the 19th is our men's conference. There's a sign-up sheet. Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship is October 12th through the 15th. And so that's something you want to put on the calendar. That's pretty much all I really have as far as announcements are concerned. We're going to go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week. Psalm 146. Psalm 146. All right. Psalm 146 in your white handouts. This one's pretty easy to follow along in your Bible, too. Psalm 146. Praise ye the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the Lord, I will sing praises unto my God. While I have any being, put not your trust in princes, or in the Son of Man, in whom there is no help, whom there is no help. Praise ye the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. His breath going forth, he returneth to his earth in that very day. His palms perish, happy is he that hath loved God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord, the Lord his God. Praise ye the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. Which made heaven and earth the sea, and all that therein is, which keepeth truth for ever, which excuteth judgment for the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry, the poor, lucid the prisoners. Praise ye the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind, the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous, the Lord preserveth the strangers, he relieveth the fatherless and widows. Praise ye the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down, the Lord shall reign forever, even thy God, O Zion. Unto all generations, praise ye the Lord, praise ye the Lord. Great singing. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Romans chapter five, Romans chapter number five. Romans chapter five. Romans chapter five, the Bible reads, 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 grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, 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 through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have 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 to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for this beautiful chapter in your word. I pray that you would now fill Pastor Shelley with the Holy Spirit and give us ears to hear and pay attention to that which you've laid on his heart. We love you and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Romans chapter 5 is continuing the thought that we have established in the first four chapters of the book of Romans. And really it's kind of a concluding chapter in essence of when we're talking about salvation and specifically being saved. But I think it has a little bit more application beyond just how to be saved or what it takes to be saved. Really if I were to kind of summarize this chapter, I believe what it's really trying to articulate is that we can endure anything because once you're saved you're always saved. And in fact I would argue that this chapter gives us so much proof of the fact that once you're saved you're always saved. I even kind of highlighted while I was reading through this chapter or making notes of this that there's seven different ways that this chapter is describing that you cannot lose your salvation. There's like seven, at least seven, there's possibly even more, but seven specific words that are all unique words that are talking about the fact that we are saved permanently. And that's really important to understand when you get into chapter number six and some of the later portions of the scripture. But also being saved is important because it motivates us to live our lives to the fullest in this life. And I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but I want to at least kind of give you that idea as we go through this chapter to think about and then we'll talk about it a little bit more when we finish. But verse number one says, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, the word therefore is trying to connect the previous ideas that we've already established and conclude on them. Give a further assessment as far as what we've already established. We've already established that we were justified by faith. That's what he's bringing up. Therefore, being justified by faith, so he's saying we've already established that point, what else? We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So right here in the verse one, we already have two different words proving that once you're saved, you're always saved. The first word is justified. We are justified in the sense that we have been declared righteous in God's sight because of what Jesus has done for us. When you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you become justified in God's sight because you have his righteousness put on your account. In fact, chapters three really hammered that point. Look at verse 26. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. So notice we were justified by Jesus when we put faith in his righteousness. By putting faith in Jesus Christ's righteousness, he justifies you with his righteousness. So we were justified by our faith in whom in Jesus, not ourselves, not our willingness to surrender, not in some work that we did, not in some baptism, not in some sacrament, not in some willingness to give up sin, but rather by putting our faith in Jesus, we were justified by our faith. So justification is clearly only by faith. But once you've been justified, not only do you have that justification, notice in verse one, it's saying that you have peace. You have peace with God. And the only way to have peace, if you think about it, is the fact that all of our future sins have also already been covered, have already been taken care of. And so from the point of salvation, you always have peace with God. Just like other things in the Bible, and it's not in this chapter, other chapters like Romans 8 will get there, but it talks about how the love of God will never be taken away from us as well. So we've been justified and will never not be justified. You have peace with God and you'll never not have peace. Now of course this peace, of course when we're talking about this context, is in the context of the fact that we are saved. Of course God could still be upset with you. God could still punish you. God could even technically be an enemy with you in some senses. We have King Saul became an enemy of the Lord at one point in his life. But the peace is still the sense that I don't have to worry about my sins taking me to hell, I have peace there. And that peace will never be taken away whatsoever. I have that constant peace. That doesn't mean that my life itself is just going to only be peaceful. This is not describing your daily emotion. Your daily emotion is not going to always be peace. Of course peace is a fruit of the Spirit and we want to have that in our lives. And God has not given us the spirit of fear but of love. And of course we want to have peace on a daily basis. But sometimes in our life we're not going to have peace. We could have conflict, tribulation, we could have worry and distress and sadness and all the other emotions that are out there. But when it comes to if I'm going to go to hell or not, I just always have peace. And we have that peace because we've been justified by our faith. And that peace with God is through our Lord Jesus Christ and we become his children. Notice in verse 2 it says this, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. So not only are we justified, not only do we have peace, but here's another thing. We are in grace. We are in grace. And of course liberals love to say this, we're not under the law, we're under grace. That's true. That's not like that's not true. Of course a lot of false doctrine uses biblical phraseology. Of course false doctrine would love, of course what is the biggest proof text for work salvation? Faith that works is dead. It's not like that verse isn't in the Bible. People love to quote that verse. It's that the context or the way that they're using it is inappropriate. So when we talk about the fact that we're under grace, when we talk about the fact that we're in grace, what does that mean? That means that any future sins, God's grace is still going to cover that and you're still going to heaven. That we live in a quote unquote dispensation or a time period in which when we sin there is no animal sacrifice we have to perform. There's no type of duty or obligation we have in order to escape hell. We're just under grace. So no matter what happens, we're going to still go to heaven. And we stand in grace. You know, one day we'll get to go to heaven and we'll be able to be in God's presence only by his grace. Not because we deserve it, not because we're worthy enough, but rather because of his grace. Just like going to heaven itself. I don't deserve heaven. But by grace I get to go there. I would venture to argue this, that none of us even deserve to live another day because we've already sinned, which is worthy of death and hell. But by God's grace we still have life, we still have breath, and we still have opportunity to serve him. You know, honestly as many transgressions as we have against God, it's only by his grace that he allows us to continue and to serve him. And to be used by him despite our failures, despite our weakness, and despite our infirmities. And so we're standing in grace. Our church is by grace. Everything is really by the grace of God. And you see this theme by the apostle Paul. He constantly, just almost every other sentence is talking about how it's by the grace of God and that he's wanting grace to be bestowed upon them on a regular basis. And so we, in a context of salvation, we are in grace and that's how we stand. And we had access to that through faith. Notice it also says this, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Here's another thing that we have, is hope. Now, hope is really only available or only a real thing until something's been realized. So hope is kind of a in-between, from a point of a promise being made to a promise being fulfilled. You have this period of time which is called hope. Or potentially you're hoping, you're wishing for something good to happen. That time period of waiting is kind of what we consider hope. And we have hope in God in the sense that we haven't technically been resurrected yet. We haven't died. I mean, think about this. We haven't died. We haven't been resurrected physically. And we haven't gone through all of the future events, but we have hope of those things in the future. We have our hope in heaven. We have our hope in the new Jerusalem. We have our hope in our new resurrected bodies. But they just haven't happened yet. It doesn't mean that, you know, sometimes when I hear the word hope, it sounds like there's a possibility that it won't happen or that there's failure. But of course, that's not necessarily always true. In the context of my hope in God, I don't have any doubt I'm going to go to hell. Or have any doubt that I would go to hell because I know I'm going to heaven. Sorry, I phrased that a little awkward. But I have my hope in Jesus Christ and I know that I'm going to go and be with the Lord. And He's where my hope is. Of course, even just in this daily life, you know, I don't know how many days I'm going to have, how many more minutes the Lord's going to give me, how much more breath I have. But all of the hope that I have in my life is and should be placed on God. This is another word that ultimately proves that once you're saved, you're always saved. And why do I say that? Because number one, we've been justified. Number one, we have peace. Number three, we have grace. But number four, we have hope. And we have hope because we are saved. If you weren't saved, you would have no hope. The Bible even talks about the unsaved that are without God and have no hope. So think about someone that's an atheist. They don't have anything to hope for for dying. That's why they want to stay alive as long as possible. This is why they want to upload their consciousness to a computer and to try to live forever. Because from an atheistic viewpoint, they look at our body as just simply a mode of transportation. And that, well, maybe what I can do is I can take my consciousness and I can transport that into a machine that's like a body, you know, has all the same characteristics but maybe a better body, and then I'll continue to live because this body is for sure going to die. I think everyone agrees, even the transhumanist agrees, hey, this body can't last forever. So the only way to continue living on from a transhumanist perspective or an atheistic perspective is either replace all of these body parts or to get a new body. Now here's the thing. That's true. It is true that the only way to live is to basically replace your body parts or to get a new body. But guess what? The only way to get that new body is put faith in Jesus Christ. And he's going to give us that new body. And we're going to transport our consciousness. In the moment of twinkling of eye, we're going to be changed. And we're going to have that eternal state. But look, why is it that everybody's wanting to do that? There's this innate desire in every person to have eternal life. There's this innate desire for everyone to want to live forever. Even the most God-hating Satanist reprobate out there, he wants to live forever and not in a state of hell. He thinks that this is hell. He doesn't even know yet. He doesn't even understand the worst version of statehood. And so we as being saved have hope. If you were to tell me, if I were to be convinced of atheistic beliefs, which is impossible, just hypothetically speaking, if I were to be convinced of this and think, okay, so we're going to have to replace my physical body with some kind of machine for me to have hope to keep living, I would have no hope. I have zero hope in Elon Musk or Bill Gates or any of these individuals into creating such a machine or into some kind of contraption or getting enough money to buy enough body parts to replace them all. Look, it's not going to happen. So they just have no hope. We actually have hope because we are saved. And if I was not saved, I would have no hope. If I think I could lose my salvation, well, now I don't have the same kind of hope. Now I'm essentially just in a constant state of fear. I'm in a constant state of I don't know if I'm going to lose this. And I'm really putting all this pressure on myself. I'm worrying myself. I'm trusting in myself. I'm not putting my hope in God. So once I have all of my hope in God, we already know he's going to deliver. Therefore, it's another essence, a proof of the fact that you can't lose your salvation. Because guess what? If I have my hope in something that's fail-proof, I'm good. If my hope is in God to give me resurrection and to take me to heaven, and for me to have glory with him, well, then guess what? I can just rejoice in that because I know he's going to deliver. Because he can't lie. If my hope was in Bill Gates, well, you know what? Then I'll have a lot of hope. If my hope is in me, well, you know what? It sounds like I'm doomed. If my hope is in my sacrament following or my works or whatever, then I don't really have hope and I can't really rejoice. But you know what? I can rejoice because my hope is in God and I know he's going to deliver and I know he's going to take me to heaven when I die. And so I rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Of course, this gives glory to God when he resurrects us. It's going to give glory to God when we're all saved and we're rejoicing with him and we're all singing praises unto him. That is what we're looking forward to and this is the way we can rejoice. We already sing about it. I mean, if you look at our hymnal, many of our songs, when we all get to heaven, how can people that are going to lose their salvation sing that song? When some of us might get to heaven, we'll be sad for the ones that couldn't stay saved because they didn't repent of all their sins. They're burning in hell for all eternity. I mean, that's their song. It just doesn't sound as good, does it? It sounds a lot better when we can all sing when we all get to heaven. I mean, right. And I mean, some of the people in here will probably be backslidden, but we're all going to make it to heaven. Whereas, you know, these other churches, they can't even sing these songs, so they just have to sing like, I surrender. I surrender. It's like, this is silly. Why do they have to sing that? Because they have to do that in order to get to heaven, don't they? Too bad they're just never going to surrender enough, will they? But we that actually have hope, and we know that that's where we're headed, think about this. If I already just know for a fact I'm going to heaven, fact I have hope in my home in heaven, fact I have hope in my new body, fact I have hope in all these, you know what? Then I don't have to care about this body as much, do I? I don't have to care about this house that I have in this life. I don't have to care about everything that's going on here, because all of my hope is in heaven. So if someone says, hey, if you preach the gospel, we'll beat you. It's like, okay, but you know what? You can't beat up my new body. Well, we can kill this body. Yeah, but you can't kill my next body. Hey, we can burn your house down. Yeah, but you can't burn my mansion in heaven down. So where's my hope? My hope is not in the things of this life. My hope is in heaven. And because I know that I'm saved, I have that hope. If I thought I could lose my salvation, well, then I think, well, don't burn my house down. Well, don't beat me up, because I don't even know what's going to happen later. But when you just know for a fact, you just know with absolute certainty, when God has already promised to you, hey, you already got a home in heaven, you already got a place reserved for you, then you know what? You can endure anything in this life. It helps motivate you to actually say nuts to this world, nuts to the difficulties, to the tribulation, to the things they say or do to me, because you cannot affect my home in heaven. You can steal my money here, but you can't steal my money in heaven. There's not a thief up there. You know what? I don't see any disputes over who owns my mansion. You know what? In fact, I'll have a new name, too. I don't even know what that is, but you can't take it away from me. You know, you can't take any of these things away, and I have all that hope, so then I know that I have eternal life to look forward to, and that gives me strength and courage to do something difficult, like walk through a fiery furnace, like be cast in the lion's den, like, I don't know, build an ark. Just anything that God asks you to do that's really difficult, some kind of big challenge, be beaten for the cause of Christ, go to jail for the cause of Christ, travel all over the world to try and preach the gospel. You know, I've had a lot of people tell me things like, oh, you don't want to go to Mexico. It's dangerous. And I'm thinking, like, have you been to Houston? You know, first of all. But I'm thinking, like, well, okay, maybe it is dangerous, but am I really terrified? Like, should I be more terrified of, like, driving somewhere to preach the gospel or driving to some concert? It's like, which one do you think God is more concerned with preserving my life when I'm doing such an activity? Now, again, I'm not saying, like, let's go to the most Muslim nation ever wearing, like, an I hate Mohammed shirt and trying to just be obnoxious about it. You know, that's kind of silly, right? In the safety of America, I'll make some memes and some videos about it. But, you know, obviously I'm not trying to or just begging for me to just get decapitated. But at the same time, we shouldn't be afraid to preach the truth. We shouldn't be afraid to criticize false religion. We shouldn't be afraid to go out into the dark places of this world and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ because, you know what, Jesus Christ is with us when we go out. And, of course, my hope is not that I'm just going to be smart enough or strong enough to avoid these situations or the police are going to save me or something. No, no, no, my hope is that no matter what happens, I go to heaven anyways. Right? I mean, it's just like you got that car that's beat up, but you just know in a couple of months you're getting a brand new one, you're just like, pfft, whatever. You know, I'm just going to drive it like Jihoo and then, you know, I don't really care because I'm getting a new one later. Right? And that's the kind of attitude that God wants Christians to have and that's the only kind of attitude you can have if you know you're saved. If you already know you're saved and you have that hope in him. Look at verse number six here. I think I need to read a little bit more. Look at what it says in verse number four. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation work of patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. So we kind of have this pattern and of course this is describing again the essence of what I've said that whenever you go through difficulty, what is tribulation? It's suffering any kind of evil, harm. Obviously in this context it would be for the cause of Christ. You can suffer tribulation and it's not for a righteous purpose. The Bible uses the word tribulation talking about how God is gonna recompense on the evil people tribulation. Okay, so the word tribulation is just simply trouble, evil, harm, problems, issues. But when we go through difficulty for the cause of Christ, we can glory in that. And we can glory in God for the fact that he's giving us an opportunity to be a better person and it gives God more glory for someone to continue to profess his name and serve him through adversity than through peace and comfort. Perfect example is Job. You know God is kind of debating as it were with the devil in heaven and the devil is just kind of saying like well of course Job gives you lip service because look how great his life is. And you know sometimes you just never really know. You never really know about your friends, your employee, your spouse, your family. Hey when everything's great, they're just like we love you, you're so wonderful. But the question's more like what happens when it's not great? Then how do they respond? And what it's kind of illustrating is that you get a lot more glory when people still like you even though you're not very good. So it's kind of like hey if the football stadium is filled with fans even when they've lost every single game in the season, it's kind of like wow this team's really liked though. Like people really still appreciate this team or you know it kind of gives glory to the end of the team that people are willing to support them and cheer for them even though they're not very good. It kind of reminds me of our, you know we've been playing like some team athletics as a church and boy we have the best, the best crowd. I mean we have people that are cheering us when we are terrible, okay? And losing horribly. But you know what? It's like I would still rather be that team because I get to go home with all these people that still like me anyways, you know? I mean if they like me in that environment, how much more when I'm actually doing something good, right? Or having a good day. But again it makes you feel good when people are still on your side even when there's no reason to be on your side. It's like wow, I'm surprised you could still cheer for me. But you know what? Of course that's not equivalent to God because God's always faithful, God's always good, God's always doing right. But for us individually we could be going through adversity and then still glorifying God. You know Job saying you know I'm not gonna curse God even though look at all the adversity I'm facing. That gives a lot of glory. That shows wow, God is worthy to be praised even through adversity. Whereas who's gonna praise the devil through adversity? Obviously very few even want to praise him but there are out there Satanists and things like that how many Satanists are gonna want to praise their God whenever they're going through adversity? In fact many times when you look at the false religions of this world they're quick to drop it like a bad habit when things are going bad for them when they're suffering. And how many people want to die for their particular religion? Think of it this way. You know you say well what about Islam? Islam has people that are willing to die for its religion, true right? I mean you've heard of the jihad and of course 9-11 is not a good example because that wasn't a jihad. That was George Bush. But of course we hear about it. I'm sure it's happened where there's been Islamic terrorists that genuinely died quote unquote for their faith. You know what? They didn't die for Allah. They died for 72 virgins. So you know what? You know what they're actually glorifying? Virginity. That's what they were glorifying. They weren't glorifying Allah. What Islamic terrorist is going out there to die just so that Allah gets glory? No one. Because he's not a God worthy of glory. Whereas the God of the Bible he's not promising 72 virgins on a platter which is sick and perverted anyways. You know what? I'm not even promised anything. They want to do it so that God could be glorified. And the disciples and the apostles they're just suffering for God. Not for some kind of promise necessarily. Of course God will reward us and we understand that. But we don't even know what the rewards are. We're doing it blind. Because simply we just want God to be glorified. And of course that is what gives a lot of glory to God. Is that we're going through tribulations and we can glory in those tribulations because we realize it's giving glory to God. Also when you go through this it gives you patience. Sometimes you go through difficulty for a very long time. And it kind of has this cycle. You have tribulation which will give you patience and then that patience gives you the experience because you've already gone through that. And then God delivers you which will give you hope for the next experience. So then you get a new tribulation and well, you know what? I've been through this before. So I'm going to be patient. And that patient will then build another experience and then the more experience you have the more hope you're going to have in the next cycle. So it just kind of builds on itself where you go through difficulty but that gives you some patience. And then after you get that patience you'll have the experience and then when you have that experience it'll give you hope in the future. Just like anything. Even your secular job goes through this cycle. You know the first time you do a job maybe it's really difficult to do it or it takes longer to do a particular task. But having gone through that you end up finally go through the whole cycle. You say, wow, I now know that, hey, I can do this so I can be more patient next time. I won't get as frustrated as easily. And then when you have the experience you know, hey, I can get through this. And then you have the hope so then the next time you walk into a difficult situation you're just better equipped for it. Especially, you know, I think there's lots of jobs that have these type of situations. You know, repair work often kind of goes through this kind of a cycle where you step into a job, you don't know what to expect. You could see or experience things you haven't had to go through before and that could be intimidating. But if you've already had this cycle many other times before it helps you to go through it again. You know, software development's a lot like that. Almost every time you're having to fix something you don't necessarily know what to do but having gone through it before hey, I'm gonna revisit all those processes again. You know, people that do plumbing or electrical work they could come into a rat's nest and be like I don't know what's going on with this. But you know, having gone through a similar situation will help them in the future. And the same could be with our church where we go through difficulty as a church where you say, hey, here's a protester situation but you know what? I can be patient because, you know what? If you were really honest with yourself you'd realize that a lot of the protesters that are protesters at our church are gone. Like it's, they're just new ones, right? And then, you know, of course you go through that you get a little more patient like hey, you'll be in hell soon enough. You know, it's like bye. Right, and then that experience of them leaving and being gone and God delivering you through that then just gives you hope for the next one. And then it's just like, who cares? You know, and you just keep cycling through them. Eventually you just get to a point where you're like it doesn't even matter anymore. You just don't even care anymore. And this just happens in the Christian life. You start serving God, you'll go through difficulties and it might be stressful, you could be fearful, you know, you don't like it. But having gone through all the way through the cycle it just keeps giving you more and more hope. Hey, God just keeps delivering me out of all these scenarios. God just keeps, you know, helping me and blessing me through all these scenarios. So then when I get to the next event, the next tribulation in my life, instead of approaching with fear and anxiety and worry and being stressed about it all I do is just experience hope because I just know, hey, he already got me through all that, he's gonna get me through this too. And it's kind of based on the same logic of the fact that hey, I already know whatever sin I commit, I'm still going to heaven. And I just have the hope and I trust in the Lord and I know he's gonna deliver and he wants what's best for me and it just helps me to endure all the difficulties that I could have in this life. Now it says in verse six, when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. I want to make it clear, this chapter is still mostly just concerned with salvation itself. We kind of had a little bit of a break here where it emphasized how we also glory in tribulations and that helps us get through patience, experience and hope. That's connected, but in this main context we're talking about salvation itself and there was a point when we were unsaved and it's described as being without strength. And it says in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. A lot of doctrine here that's pretty interesting. Number one, when you're without, it doesn't say like you have a little strength, it says you're without strength. So this just means you have zero strength. What is that picturing? The fact that you have zero capability of saving yourself. You have no option. It's not like well, I have a little bit of strength, God will supply 99% of the strength and I'll put my 1% and we'll lift it together. No, you have zero strength. Both arms are broken. You don't have any option to lift anything and God is just to lift it for you completely. So when we were without strength and it says in due time, I think this is an important phrase because think about it, in the course of human history did Christ die closer to the beginning or closer to the end? Well, according to scripture, it's closer to the end and it often will describe the latter times or in the end of the world. If we understand kind of generally the age of the earth, it's about 6,300 years old. When did Christ die? Less than 2,000 years ago, okay? And so it's kind of in the second half even a little bit later in that period of history, it's in the latter two thirds of human history up to this point. Now, I don't know how far we're gonna stretch that, how long we're gonna go. It's probably gonna be at least another 7, 10 years, okay? I mean, we probably have at least 5, 10 years minimum and it could even be 100 years, folks. It could be more than that. I have no idea. You have no idea. Obviously, this world's super wicked but if you study history, there's been plenty of times where it's even worse. People say, oh, well, it seems like it's the end times more than ever before. Yeah, but when people were in World War II with Hitler, I mean, they really thought it and you could even see why for a lot of reasons. Now, I think as Christians, we can see the signs of the times and we can see kind of things lining up and frankly speaking, a lot of prophecy makes sense today based on our technology, the fact that we can travel to and fro, the fact that we have global currency as being discussed and basically already in effect in some ways. We see people having ships that could potentially be planted in human bodies that could just be scanned to limit purchases and everything like that but frankly speaking, I still think technology has a little way to go and I still think implementation has a ways to go and we don't know how long God's gonna kinda keep that at bay. It could still be kept at bay for a very long time. It could be escalated very quickly and honestly, my idea is that our response is gonna have an impact. You know, typically when you study the Bible and you study these days of the Lord or times when God comes in and just brings under destruction, it's when basically no Christians wanna do anything anymore, when it's just basically whittled down to like one or a few or basically no one. So as long as there's a large group of people still serving the Lord and doing work, it seems like the most likely scenario of delaying such cataclysmic events and evil being poured out on this world. So we need to continue to be as bright a light as we can. I believe that you look at when God destroyed the entire earth with a flood, what was God describing the world? He said that every thought of every man was only evil continually. I mean, that's bad. But you know what? We can be different. We can decide to serve God. He was looking to find one man to make up the hedge and he couldn't find one. That's sad when you can't even find one guy in the book of Ezekiel. It's sad when you can't find anyone that wants to serve the Lord or to step up. I mean, think about in David and Goliath. You have Goliath to find the armies of Israel and if it weren't for David, no one was gonna step up. No one wanted to go to the bath. But you know, when one guy did, notice thousands ended up standing up together. So sometimes the impact even one is really, really important and we wanna realize that from a timeline perspective, Christ ended up dying in due time for the ungodly and I don't know when that is, but we're probably in the back nine. We're probably towards the end and I think this is a context clue of the fact that hey, Christ was obviously delayed. It was a longer period of time and when we study the other portions of scripture, it kind of indicates hey, we're kind of in the latter days. We're kind of in the last times and the Bible doesn't give us any event to look forward to really before the Antichrist. I mean, it's kind of like the next thing we're looking forward to. Whereas Malachi was talking about John the Baptist coming. That's what they're kind of looking forward to. We're looking for a different kind of person, the Antichrist coming and so it makes sense that it would probably be on the horizon. Now of course, in due time, Christ died for us. He died for the ungodly. Notice he didn't die for the elect. Now again, he did die for the elect, but notice he described us all as ungodly. Verse seven, for scarcely, for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die. Now, think about it this way. Why did I bring up ungodly and the elect? Calvinists believe that Jesus only died for the elect, whereas the Bible teaches that Jesus died for everyone. Even, or specifically, the ungodly. Jesus Christ literally died for everyone. And it brings up this point of a differentiation between us and Jesus Christ. What is this differentiation? It says that almost never could you find somebody who would be willing to lay down his life for just another person, just be willing to just take a bullet for another person. But he said, in some cases you could find it, yet peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die, saying there's probably some people out there that love Trump so much that they would literally take a bullet for him. Now, I'm not saying he's a good man, but I'm just saying he pays people for his Secret Service and everything like that. There's probably people out there that would, I think a lot of people in here, hopefully, that you might take a bullet for your dad or for your wife, for your children. There's some people out there that are just, they're godly enough, there's people on the battlefield that have literally laid down their lives for other men on the battlefield, and it's saying that it's possible. But someone really, like, who's gonna wanna really take a bullet for Joe Biden? Who's gonna wanna take a bullet for Adolf Hitler? Who's gonna wanna take a bullet for the ADL president, Jonathan Greenblatt? You know, who wants to take a bullet for, you know, one of these sodomite protesters? Like, no one wants to take a bullet for these people, okay? But we understand that Jesus Christ literally took a bullet for everyone in the sense that he died on the cross. Obviously not literally, folks, but he died on the cross for every single person. He died for the ungodly. And it's showing there's a difference between his love, his willingness to die, and even just the best of men. Even just the best of men would not be willing to do what Jesus Christ did for us. And it says in verse eight, but God commendeth his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So God's showing us that his love is greater than any kind of love that we could have in the sense that he's showing that his love toward us is that he was willing to die for us when we were sinners, not when we were righteous, not when we were good, not when we deserved it, not, and in fact, not even for everyone that would believe in him, people that would even reject him, he died for us while we were yet sinners. So we see that the love that God has is greater than any love any man has or ever will have. And of course, the love, you can't take away the gospel away from love because love itself is exemplified through the gospel. The greatest picture of love that's ever been shown or ever will be shown is the gospel. You know, our world wants to revert what love means. Love is love. You know, that's a meaningless statement, number one. Of course it is. Two is two. Oh, okay, wow, amazing. Here's one, men are men. Do y'all believe that one? Women are women, you know? Fags are reprobates, there. There's, I'll fix your slogan, right? But at the end of the day, the greatest picture of love was that Jesus Christ was willing to lay down his life for others, not some pervert, not some disgusting filth that's out there. That's not love. Those people don't even love each other anyways. They have a trillion different partners. They give each other aids on purpose without even telling the other person. That's not love. There's nothing loving about that. Love is that Jesus Christ laid down his life for sinners. And that's the greatest love that Jesus could show, and the greatest love the father could show is that he was willing to sacrifice his son for those people. Wow, show me a better love than this. You can't. And the Bible even tells us specifically that the greatest love is for that a man would lay down his life for his friend. And so Jesus Christ is the ultimate picture of love. God the Father is the ultimate picture that a father could have of love. And love is modeled for us and taught to us by God. God tells us what love really is. When people end up committing fornication, the Bible tells us that's not loving. There's nothing loving about fornication. There's nothing loving about sodomy. There's nothing loving about perversion. There's nothing loving about bestiality. There's nothing loving about pedophilia. There's nothing loving about all this sick, abominable filth in our country today. What's loving is that God's son would die for the sins of the world. That's what's loving. It's taking someone else's burden and taking their punishment when they don't deserve it and still offering grace unto people that don't deserve it. This is the real picture of love. Verse number nine, much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. So here's two other words that we've kind of looked at. Let's read one more verse, and I'll get to that. Verse 10. For if, 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. So number one, we were justified. Number two, we have peace. Number three, we're in grace. Number four, we have hope. Number five, we've been reconciled. We've been reconciled, meaning that we had a problem with God. We were sinners. God doesn't like sinners, okay, in the sense that, obviously, he loved them enough to die for them. He sent his son to die for them, but he doesn't love them in their current state. He doesn't love their sin, and he doesn't love the fact that they're still a sinner. He's gonna send every single sinner to hell. But those that have been sanctified and been reborn who actually are not sinners, he's gonna have them go into heaven. So the love that God has towards sinners is Jesus dying. But guess what? He hates the sinner. He doesn't want the sinner to be with him in heaven. He's gonna send every single sinner into hell. How could you then tell me he loves that person? He doesn't. That's why it very clearly says in John 3.16, for God so loved, there's a D at the end of that. It doesn't say that God just loves everyone, period. No, he loved them. And notice that it's past tense, meaning that it already happened. What was the love that God already had towards them? Jesus dying on the cross. But their current active state of being, and this is confirmed by the Psalms, God is angry with the wicked every single day. It doesn't say God still is just super cool with their lifestyle. God is hanging out with them at the bar and drinking a tranny light with them. No, God is angry with them, and God has wrath on them. What does John 3, I'm sorry, John 3.36 say? It says that the wrath of God abideth on him. It does not say that the love of God is abiding on him. The love of God is only abiding on those who have already believed in Jesus Christ and are already saved. Now, of course, that doesn't mean that God isn't long-suffering with sinners, that he isn't, you know, have forbearance towards sinners. That doesn't mean that his love and grace isn't being offered to them, but they don't have it yet. We have it. We are the sons of God. We have peace. We have been justified. We have been reconciled. They're not reconciled. Not only that, we're also saved. Notice in verse 10, we're not only reconciled, we're also saved. Both of these prove that once you're saved, you're always saved because it's already been done. I've already been reconciled. I've already been saved, and I like this. I was saved by his life. You know, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is what gives me salvation, not just his death. Yeah, he died for us, but what gave me salvation was his life. And it says in verse number 11, not only so, but we also join God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. So number one, we've been justified. Number two, we have peace. Number three, we're in grace. Number four, we have hope. Number five, we've been reconciled. Number six, we're saved. And number seven, we're atoned. We've been atoned. Now, the word atone, atonement, any variation of that, is only found one time in the New Testament, and it's right here. This is your one atonement. And notice, you know, again, notice what's kind of like mentioned right prior to this. Isn't the, isn't what is mentioned is we shall be saved by his life. So we were saved by his life resurrection. And then it brings up the fact that we've received the atonement. Yeah, I've heard some people, they'll say, oh, well, actually what happened is Jesus died on the cross and you received the atonement just from the death, the blood atonement. That is a poor understanding of the blood atonement, or atonement in general. Because the only way for us to have been atoned was for Jesus Christ, not only for his blood to be shed, but for him to rise again from the dead and to take that blood into heaven and sprinkle that blood on the mercy seat. So, and that's what the true blood atonement is. I believe in the blood atonement, but, you know, some people get so hung up on this phrase, blood atonement, that they'll literally deny the resurrection. And I'm thinking like, okay, in the New Testament, you know how many times it mentions blood atonement? Zero. You know how many times it mentions resurrection? A lot. You know it's when I'm going to emphasize the resurrection. Now again, does that mean I won't talk about the blood atonement? No, hey, blood atonement, let's talk about it, let's preach on it. You know what's more emphasized? The resurrection of Jesus Christ and that we're also saved by his life. And I have received the atonement because of what he did for me. He has, and so I have joy in God and I've received it already. Notice I've already received it. How can I go to hell when I've already been reconciled, saved, had the atonement, had peace, been justified? I mean, it's just, you can't. Once you're saved, you're always saved. I'm already in grace and I have hope in the Lord. Verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all of sin. So again, this is talking about Adam. Adam sinned, one man, Adam sinned, and that's what brought sin into the world. And not only sin, death too. Because they come together, they're a package deal. Sin brings death. So the only way to not have death is to not have sin. You cannot have one without the other. They are part of the same package. It is the end of sin. It is the wages of sin as described in another chapter. And so the death passed upon every single man. Every single man has died up to this point that we know of. I guess there's a couple exceptions when we talk about people being translated and I'm not gonna get into that. But generally speaking, all mankind has died. Why? Because we all sinned, okay? Verse 13, for until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Now, I want you to, you know, you have to think about what it's kinda trying to say here. It is not saying that there was no laws until Moses, but the word law here is sometimes just referring to what was given to Moses. Okay? That's just sometimes just called the law. But of course, there was already commandments because Adam and Eve were already told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden. So by being told not to do that, if they violated that law, that would have been a sin. So there was already still law and sin and there was already these issues prior to the law being given unto Moses. Just like, think about it this way. The Gentiles, they didn't have the law given to them, but they still understood the law because it was written on their hearts, wasn't it? And so they already knew things like you shouldn't be killing and stealing and doing all these different things, and they're still gonna be punished by that same law even though it wasn't necessarily been handed down to them. But it says this, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Meaning, if there's not a specific rule in effect, then you can't be in violation of that particular law. So let me give you a couple examples of this that we have today. I am not in sin by eating bacon today because there is not a law in effect right now prohibiting me from eating bacon. However, in the Old Testament, there was a law in effect that if I violated, that would be a sin. Here, there's other violations or laws, like if you're married, you're not allowed to then get remarried to another woman. That would be a form of what's called bigamy, I believe, is the term for today, but also it's a sin because you're not staying one flesh, you're bound by that particular relationship, and it even changes the definition of sin for you because if you are married and you end up committing a relationship with another person, it's no longer fornication, it's adultery, and that adultery is punished with the death penalty, whereas if you just committed fornication, it has different rules. So your context, your situation, everything like that determines what is sin. If you were to be married to a woman, everything in the marriage bed is honorable. Marriage is honorable and all on the bed undefiled. But if you were to do all the exact same things physically, but you're not married, it's sin. Now all of a sudden, why? Because there's a specific rule and a specific law in place that's in effect for that particular individual, whereas that law has been taken off once you get married, so things change. When you're 15, by law you can't drive by yourself. When you turn 16, now you can. So the law changes based on your particular circumstance. So this is what it's trying to illustrate is the fact that, hey, when sin is not imputed, when there is no law, in the sense that there can't be some kind of a sin that you have when there's no law determining that that is wrong. Just like I can't make arbitrary rules up and you're in violation of sin for not following them because I'm not God. And you know what? The United States government is not God. And husbands are not God. If they're telling people things that are not necessarily scriptural or they don't have the authority, then you know what? It's not a sin. I've heard this dumb idea that all women are supposed to obey all men. That is not biblical. And you know what? If some random dude walks up to my wife and says, make me a sandwich, she can say no. And that's not a sin. But me as her husband, if I say, hey, make me a sandwich, she has to be like, yes, sir. And she has to make that. Otherwise, it'd be a sin. But you know what? Hey, there's no sin imputed when there is no law, in the sense that, hey, she doesn't have to obey this guy because there is no law, so there's no sin, and her saying no to that particular individual. So again, this is kind of helping us understand just some basic elements of how law and how sin work, right? So what's sin? It's breaking God's law. This also helps you understand in the New Testament when it says we're not under the law but under grace, that doesn't mean that sin went away. It just means that when I sin, I can't go to hell for it because I'm under grace. I'm not going to get the punishment of the law. But you know what? If it really meant that the law is gone, that would mean that it was impossible to sin in the New Testament. What person believes that? What person literally thinks that there is no such thing as sin anymore now that we're in the New Testament? What a foolish attitude. Of course there is. And of course there was a change of the law, so therefore there's a change of what sin is and what sin is not. But hey, let me tell you something. You can still sin. And the apostle Paul tells us all about it in Romans chapter number seven, the fact that he still struggles with sin. How can he struggle with sin when he's under grace? Because there's still laws in effect in the New Testament and we're still responsible to God for the things that he's told us yes and no to do. Look at verse 14. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. So I believe what it's trying to articulate here is that it's trying to say, even though it wasn't spelled out yet, even though it didn't say thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife and all this other stuff until Moses literally got those commandments, people were still dying for stealing. People were still a sinner and they still died and it wasn't that, oh, well, they didn't do what Adam did. That wasn't the only sin on the table necessarily. It's saying, look, they're still dying and they're still sinners even though they didn't do only Adam's sin. Because it wasn't like, hey, if you eat of the tree of the midst of the garden, that'll kill you. No, no, it was any sin. It was any sin. So it wasn't just Adam's sin, it was any sin and we learned that through kind of inference because we take people to, what, Revelation 21 eight and we show them that all liars are gonna go to hell? Why do we bring up that point? Isn't the point to try and show to somebody, hey, all sin takes you to hell? That's the point we're kind of trying to make, that we all have sinned and that we're all guilty of hell. Because some people think, well, I haven't done anything bad enough to deserve hell. Here's the problem. One sin, the wages is death and that death is talking about hell. And so, of course, we learn through inference when reading the Bible that all sin will take you to the same place. It has the same punishment. For the wages of sin is death, that's kind of our clearest verse but some people might not fully understand that. Verse 15, but not as the offense, so also is the free gift for through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ had abounded unto many. So it's kind of making some comparisons here. Adam was a figure of him that was to come and how does he picture Jesus? Well, think about it this way. Eve sinned in the sense that she took of the tree and yet somehow the Bible talks about only Adam being the sinner and bringing the sin into the world. Have you kind of noticed that? It's like she's kind of the partaker but then it's almost like he gets the blame for it. Well, it's like Adam is a picture of Jesus Christ and the woman is a picture of mankind. And mankind is constantly symbolized as a woman. Think about Revelation chapter 12. It talks about how mankind is kind of pictured or symbolized through the woman. The woman sinned but then she gave the fruit to who? To her husband. So it's like we give our sin to Jesus just like she gave it to Adam and then Adam takes her blame and takes her punishment just like Jesus kind of took our blame and Jesus took our punishment. He's kind of the husband of the church. We're kind of the bride of Christ. And so there's a lot of symbolism there of Adam being the figure of him that was going to come and to take the sin away from the woman just like he took the sin away. Adam's kind of taking the sin for Eve and just like Jesus is taking away the sin for us. There's a lot of interesting parallels there. And it's saying, though, but it's not as the offense in the sense that it's not condemning. It's actually positive. It's like it has the same elements but one's positive and one's negative, right? The sin was negative, brought in by one person, but the free gift, because it says this, for if through the offense of one, many be dead, so it's like one sin caused us all to die, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ at the bound of the many. So just like sin by one guy damned us all, it's like the free gift by one saves us all. And it's saying in verse 16, and not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses and justification. So in one way they're similar in that it only took one person to bring both elements in. And one way they're the opposite in the sense that one sin ends up multiplying into all kinds of sin and then it's saying many offenses boil down into just one sacrifice for one moment of justification. It says in verse 17, for if by one man's offense death reign by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men and the justification of life. These two verses are amazing, 17 and 18, because notice it tells us that the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one. The only person's life that matters is Jesus. In the context of salvation, it's just his life that gives, there's only one righteous life, righteousness is only because of one life, and I love that just phrase by one, by one life, in life by one, Jesus Christ. Then it also says in verse 18, it gets even more clear, it says even so by the righteousness of one. How much righteousness gets everybody in heaven? One person's, that's it. It wasn't my repenting of sin, giving up sin, getting baptized, my works, no. It was the righteousness of one, and notice this, the free gift. You know why it's a free gift? Because it was only his righteousness that counted. Only his righteousness paid for it. He's the only credit card that gets accepted. Your credit card's no good. You don't have any cash. You don't have any way to pay, and sometimes I even bring this up in Soul Winning. I say, look, salvation is a free gift because for whatever reason, some people get confused on a gift. You're like, what about a free gift? How much does that cost? It's like, it's free. Why? Because it was the righteousness of one. People wanna think I have to do my part. Nope, it was the righteousness of one. That's why we only celebrate Jesus. That's why Jesus paid it all. That's why our invitation says on the front, Jesus paid it all because it was the righteousness of one, and the free gift came upon all men in the justification of life. Verse 19, for as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offense might abound, but were sin-abounded, grace did much more abound that is sin at the reign of the death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. So the law came in, when? With Moses, okay? So it did change things a little bit in the sense that it caused people to realize how bad they really were. And in some ways, that's what the Bible tells us is the whole point of the law. The point of the law was to just make it really clear that you're actually sinful. Because think about who struggled with this the most. Who struggles with identifying that they're a sinner the most? The Pharisees and the children of Israel. You go around to the Gentiles, they're not really debating that they're sinners. But of course, the Pharisees, they're literally just calling other groups of people just sinners, as if they're not or something. It's like, oh, Jesus is eating with sinners. It's like, yeah, that's everybody, right? I mean, that's just eating with people. But people are literally just called sinners as a classification of people. Because from the Pharisees' perspective, they're not sinners. We're not sinners of the Gentiles. That's what they even say in some of their phraseology. What was the point of the law? Hey, you can't even keep this. And then think about this. You kind of have like, you should realize you're a sinner, but then the law came to show actually you're not as hot as you think. And then Jesus showed up to even go a step further in Matthew chapter number five and be like, oh, yeah, you think you keep the law? How about the spirit of the law, buddy? Oh, you didn't commit adultery? How about just looking at women and lusting after them? And it was just like, oh, I'm gonna fail. It was like every normal straight guy was just like, fail, okay. And so he was there to make it even more clear that they're sinners. And why is it so important? Because when you realize that you're without strength, when you realize you're a sinner, when you realize you're doomed to hell, then your only hope is in Jesus Christ. And that's what he wants for us. And so the law entered, notice this, that the offense might abound, meaning that the law actually made sin increase. And of course it did, because there are certain things that weren't even a sin before that. Yes, there was. Yes, there was. There were things that they were eating bacon before that that wasn't a sin. So by bringing in the law, what happened? Sin increased. There was more sin than ever before when the law came in. But here's what happens. But where sin abounded, grace did much more about it. So no matter how much sin is in this world, God's grace still covers it. And what Jesus did still covers it. And even when you continue to sin or do wrong, God's grace continues to cover it. And it says that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ the Lord. So sin always leads to death. Sin always leads to death. That is the inconclusion of sin. But grace always leads to eternal life. And of course death is hell. Sin always leads to hell, and grace always leads to heaven. And so once you're in grace, you're locked into heaven. But those who never get grace, they're locked into hell. And you know, that's why it's so important to get people saved and understand these concepts. I just want to kind of revisit quickly. I'm not going to turn anywhere else in the Bible, but I just want to revisit kind of what I brought up earlier. Because if we think about it, what we've learned so far, and stick with me on this point, chapter one, it's kind of like salvation has been revealed. Salvation has been revealed by faith to faith. That's what it tells us. In chapter two, we're all going to be judged. In chapter three, we've all sinned. In chapter four, we're saved by faith. And what is chapter five? Once you're saved, you're always saved. So you kind of have this nice little package of, hey, salvation's been revealed, that we're all going to be judged, and we're all sinners, but we're saved by faith, and once you're saved, you're always saved. Why is that so important? Because we will be empowered to endure anything in the future. You know, the apostles are initially confronted with prison for preaching the gospel, but Peter and John, they glorify God that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name. And so they go away rejoicing after having been beaten for preaching the gospel. What are they doing? They're glorying in tribulation. And why would you be so excited that you just got beaten? Because your hope is in eternal life. Because you're saved. And once you're saved, you're always saved. And this body doesn't even matter, and it's going to age and decay and rot anyways. And so you might as well just get it beaten for the cause of Christ along the way. There's no joy in just continuing to just live for yourself. Why not live for the Lord Jesus Christ? The apostle Paul said that he bare in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he was a partaker of his sufferings. And the only way you can have such confidence, the only way you can really do such great exploits is because your hope is in Jesus. Your hope is in eternal life, that you know that you're saved. If you don't know that you're saved, you're going to only care about one person. You. Those who are not saved, or think that they're not saved, or think they can lose their salvation, who is the only person that they're concerned with? Themselves. And, you know, of course that makes sense, because it's kind of like on the airplane, when they give you all the instructions, they say, first secure the oxygen bag on yourself, and then assist others. And so it's like you've got to get saved yourself before you can assist others. Judas wasn't, you know, putting air bags on anybody, okay? Judas just flew out of the plane, you know, before it started. He hit the ejection seat through the toilet or something. But, you know, it's important to know that you're saved, obviously just to even be saved in almost every single case, but then beyond that, having that assurance and knowledge of salvation and knowing you're saved will embolden you to keep serving God, and to care about other people, to not be so selfish with your life, but rather to live for others and to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, whereas those who believe they can lose their salvation, they're so obsessed with their works, aren't they? Oh, I'm doing all these works to prove that I'm saved, even though they're not even saved. And so let us, you know, continue to encourage our family and friends and everybody in our lives the importance of eternal security. And look, I think obviously it's part of the gospel, and we preach that, but sometimes people get saved and they haven't really heard much or a lot of preaching, and then they get kind of confused. They maybe doubt a little bit, or they get a little bit uncertain. It's good to shore those people up, because they're not going to serve God when they're just confused and wishy-washy. What motivates people to serve God is knowing that they're saved and having that hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and not being so temporal and carnal. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us this assurance, for giving us so much hope and joy and the fact that we're already saved and reconciled and justified and that you were willing to send your son to show us the ultimate picture of love, sacrifice for others. I pray that we'd also be emboldened and empowered and motivated and encouraged to serve you with our lives and to lay down our lives for the brethren and to be willing to glory in tribulations, not look at it as some extra burden or some evil just for evil's sake, but rather we look at it as an opportunity to give you glory, to suffer for your name's sake, to grow in patience and experience and hope. And I pray that you would just help our church as we go through difficulties to get more hope for the future and to be able to overcome even greater difficulties. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Alright, we have a very fitting song to end the service this evening. 377, Rescue the Perishing. Let's think about these words as we sing them. 377, Rescue the Perishing. 377, watch me at the end of that chorus for the timing, Rescue the Perishing. 301, Rescue the Perishing. rescue the perishing care for the dying snatch them in pity from sin and the grave weep o'er the erring ones lift up the fallen tell them of Jesus the mighty to save rescue the perishing care for the dying Jesus is merciful Jesus will save though they are sliding him still he is waiting waiting the penitent child to receive plead with them earnestly plead with them gently he will forgive if they only believe rescue the perishing care for the dying Jesus is merciful Jesus will save down in the human heart crushed by the tender feelings lie buried that graves can restore touched by a loving heart wakened by kindness cords that are broken will vibrate once more rescue the perishing care for the dying Jesus is merciful Jesus will save rescue the perishing duty demands it strength for thy labor the Lord will provide back to the narrow way patiently win them tell the poor wanderer a Savior has died rescue the perishing care for the dying Jesus is merciful Jesus will save God bless. You are dismissed. You are dismissed.