Being Is Believing-2 Series

November 2006, a study led by David Martin (an oncologist at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California) tested whether a mouse’s diet alone can affect its descendants.

The researchers fed meals high in minerals and vitamins – such as B12 – to pregnant mice that have a gene that… increases the likelihood that they will grow obese and develop diabetes and cancer. On the new diet, the mice produced offspring that were less vulnerable to disease.”

• This morning we began looking at one of the most important concepts in understanding the gospel. Some of the fine print on the contract through which grace is made available to us.

1) Why it matters that Jesus died on the cross

2) Why it matters that we were all condemned in Adam.

There was once a movie called the Last Emperor. A young child was anointed as the last emperor of China and lived a life of luxury with 1,000 servants at his command.

He was once asked by his brother, ‘What happens when you do wrong?’

‘When I do wrong, someone else is punished’. Then he demonstrated by breaking a jar and one of his servants was beaten.

In Christianity, Jesus reverses that ancient pattern so that when the servant(us) makes a mistake the king is punished.

Instead of being condemned eternally for our sin nature Jesus is condemned instead.

S.F. Rescue Mission: Statement made that sin was not inherent in man’s heart.

(12) Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-

(13) for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is not law.

(14) Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him Who was to come.

• Verse 13 describes how sin has always been in the world: Before the Law it was a simple rebellion while under the Law it was transgression. The proof that sin has always been in the world since Adam is that death, the consequence, has always been there.

1) Genesis 5 is the first obituary in the Bible: and he died… and he died…and he died..

2) The Law brought sin into sharp focus although sin was still present before the Law.

Swindoll describes it this way: Imagine you are 10 years old and enjoying your new bike. Your path to school runs through the neighborhood and on one particular corner is an open yard through which it is much easier to cut across than to ride around by the sidewalk. You give into your urge and cut across time after time until you see that a small path is developing.

One day as you are riding and come to that same spot there is something new there.

A sign on the edge of the yard saying, ‘DO NOT RIDE BIKES ON THE GRASS’. What you knew in your conscience was wrong you are now seeing in bold print. The Law has been added.

You decide to proceed as normal across the yard and suddenly at the edge of the house the owner jumps out and grabs your handlebars and looks you face to face. JUDGMENT DAY

What you knew before written on your heart is now written in the Law

Before the Law sin was in operation and the consequence was the same: Death

• Bible describes the days of Noah as being very wicked. Men were so evil that God eventually destroyed most all of mankind thru the flood. Not one of those people sinned against any written law because they had yet to be written down. All were considered by God to be in rebellion against Him.

1) Person today that has never heard is held accountable because of the lights described

in Roman 1: creation & conscience (preaching of Noah added extra light)

2) 100 year revival service with no converts

• People are condemned because they have rejected one or many of the evidences God has given and they have refused to subject their lives to the living God. Death is the consequence

1) Death bringing separation from God in our daily lives

2) Death ending our physical existence on this earth

3) Second death bringing eternal separation and punishment

• This principle of being condemned by another’s act is especially confusing to we who are Americans. We are so tuned into the idea of individualism that we see ourselves as always standing alone and not one part of a bigger organism.

1) Jews thought very differently. Saw themselves as part of a bigger whole.

2) Australian Aboriginal: Ask him his name and he will give you the name of his tribe