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
because he sees himself as not standing alone but as one part of a bigger whole.
• Where do we find this principle in the NT?
1) Jesus speaking of wanting us to be one as He and the Father are One.
Stressing how much difference it makes when 2 or 3 are gathered together.
2) Paul in Philippians wanting us to be of ONE MIND.
Describing the church as ONE BODY with many members.
3) Acts 1-2 where the church did things in response to others who were hurting because if
one hurt it mattered to all.
4) Ministry is not done alone: Paul stated that evangelism is accomplished by one
planting, another watering and a third harvesting.
I may preach but are you praying and encouraging others to make decisions. Are you sharing your faith, inviting your friends to church, praying for myself and other teachers as they serve each week. No one operates alone. That is a powerful, powerful truth to understand and apply.
Some of my most prideful and exciting moments have been while watching the Olympics. I can get very excited watching a track event, a boxing or wrestling match…even sports I would never otherwise watch because someone in the contest has the letters USA printed on their uniform. I see myself as standing with them as they compete. If they win I feel the victory as well. I am identifying with them as one together.
THE ORIGIN OF SIN
THE OFFENSE OF SIN: (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.
• Jesus said ‘Thy will be done’ but beginning with Adam man has said ‘My will by done’. Adam and Eve sinned when they chose to do what they wanted instead of what God wanted….
1) All sin has a basic principle at work. Disobedience. Making a choice for self at the cost
of a choice for God’s will.
2) Verse 14 talks about sin which is not in the likeness of Adam’s sin.
We all have our own favorite types of sin.
Lynne has not come up to me lately and told me she talked to a snake about eating some fruit from a forbidden tree and wanted to take a bite. BUT I have got enough of my own selfish choices to answer for.
3) We all sin in our own different ways that is only a byproduct of us all being identified in
Adam’s sin.
We are part of the human stream of sin which began with Adam. It may have been only a small trickle then but it has grown into a mighty torrent of murders, rapes, robberies, prisons, slums, drug addiction…
You may be like the man I saw in a reality show who was caught in a raging flood in an overflowing drainage ditch. Rescuers from every direction are throwing ropes, helicopters are buzzing overhead. That is the situation into which you and I were born into the world. You did not come along and make a decision to jump in or not but you were born there because of Adam’s sin. God is trying to rescue you out of that terrible situation.
• My condemnation stems from being condemned in Adam’s sin. Does that bother you? Do you feel like saying to God, ‘THAT IS NOT FAIR’! ‘I was not there, was not born when Adam did this, and it should be his problem and not mine!’ If you and I were not condemned in Adam’s sin we would have had our own point of rejection of the will of God to occur.
1) It is the greatest blessing you can imagine that God chose to condemn us all in Adam’s
sin.. By condemning us all by one man’s sin God set the stage to also deliver us all by
One Man’s death on the cross.
• Fair is not the issue but what God did was of tremendous wisdom. The God Who chose to condemn us all in one man can now justify us all through one Man. By the same principle that condemned us we can now be rescued by.
You look in your Bible and see in the OT it describes the Generations of Adam in Genesis 5:1-2. When you get to the end of the OT in the book of Malachi you see the word ‘cursed’.
You turn to the NT and it begins in Matthew with the Generations of Jesus the Messiah. You make your way to the Book of Revelation and chapter 22:3 state, ‘No more curse’.
• The OT introduces us to ourselves and God’s holiness and condemns us in the First Adam. The NT introduces us to Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, and describes our deliverance that comes through Him.
Sam Ducanannan was a simple man with very few talents, but he had a great desire to do something for the Lord. So he made it his practice to cut out pictures from cards and magazines and to paste onto these pictures appropriate verses and poems. He would then give them as simple gifts to those whom he felt would be blessed by them.
One day, Sam came across a picture of Niagra Falls, but for a long time he could not find and appropriate poem for this picture. Then he heard a hymn and the moment he heard it, he knew he had found the poem for which he had looked so long.
Have you on the Lord believed? Still there more to follow.
Of His grace have you received? Still, there’s more to follow.
Oh, the grace the Father shows, still there’s more to follow.
Freely He His grace bestows, still there’s more to follow.
More and more and more and more, always more to follow;
Oh, the matchless , boundless low, still there’s more to follow!
Underneath the picture of Niagra Falls Sam wrote these lines and titled the picture with the word, ‘MORE TO FOLLOW’.
What better illustration could there be of the abundant supply of God’s grace through One man, the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.
Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
