The Doctrine of Original Sin

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 5th chapter of Romans, and hold your place at verse 18.
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It is my custom every summer to take a few weeks away from our normal exposition of the Scriptures and address a subject, a different subject every year.
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Every year I try to make it a systematic approach to theology and to preach from the pulpit systematically over the summer, and I was asked by one of our elders this year if I would consider preaching on the subject of soteriology.
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Now before you get too concerned, that's just a big word for the doctrine of salvation.
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Within the realm of soteriology, there are subjects such as election, justification, propitiation, adoption, redemption, sanctification, and glorification.
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And seminary students spend semesters, years, going over each of these particular doctrines, spending time learning about their importance in the ministry of the church.
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And we don't have years.
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We've only got a few weeks.
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So we're going to be limiting ourselves to just a few topics in the realm of soteriology, and perhaps we will revisit it some other time in the future to flesh it out more fully.
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And we are going to combine a few topics in the weeks to come.
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Certain messages we may deal with one or two different subjects at a time.
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But the goal is simple.
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We need to understand and be able to articulate what the Bible teaches about how a person is made right with God.
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How is a person saved? Some of these things you will already know.
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In fact, would it be that you already knew all of them? That would be wonderful.
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A lesson like this is encouraging you to remember things that you've been taught, to apply things that you've been taught, to call them to your memory bank, to bring them back to the forefront of your mind.
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On Friday of this past week, Mike and Ashley and Mike Ward and I, Mike Collier, a few of us went down to the Jehovah Witness Convention and had an opportunity to preach openly to them and to share with some of them about the gospel.
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And I was listening to Mike Collier as he engaged, I hope you don't mind me telling this story.
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It doesn't matter because I'm already doing it.
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You'll have to tell me later if you mind.
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Engaging with one of their leaders who had come over to talk.
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One, it was a blessing to hear a brother in Christ who could articulate his faith.
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But two, just to hear the person throwing out everything, everything, everything.
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It was like throwing mud against the wall to see what would stick.
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And he was trying everything he could to try to throw Mike off and just get his mind going elsewhere.
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And if he was not rooted in his understanding of the doctrine of salvation, that conversation could have easily went right off into a rabbit trail never to return.
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We have to understand what we believe, why we believe it, what the Bible says, so that when we are confronted, we will be able to give a defense for the hope that is within us, that the Scripture calls us to do.
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And it's good to be reminded about things that we already know.
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2 Peter 1, Peter is addressing the people to whom he is speaking, and he says, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.
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I think it is right as long as I am in this body to stir you up by way of reminder.
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So what Peter was saying, he said, I know you know this stuff.
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I've already taught you this stuff.
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But you need to be reminded often.
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Because how easy it is to forget this stuff.
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How easy it is to let this stuff seep down into the recesses of our minds, and to forget these things.
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We need to constantly be stirred up in our memory of these things, so as to not forget.
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So as when we are confronted at 8 a.m.
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on a Saturday morning by that person who comes to us, and wants to talk to us about a false gospel, we can present to them the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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So to begin this series on soteriology, we are going to begin with that which makes salvation necessary.
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And that is sin.
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In particular, we are going to address the very nature of man as a sinner, and the reason why sin is universal.
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You ever wonder about that? You ever wonder why everybody sins? I mean, we all kind of accept it as just nobody's perfect.
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You know, we all say that.
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Oh, everybody's a sinner.
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Why? You ever wonder why no one has ever beaten, of course, other than Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh, but I mean, no one else has ever beaten the hundred percentile mark.
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Every person you know is a sinner.
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You don't know anybody who doesn't sin.
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You ever wonder why? You ever wonder why there is a universality in sin? Well, today we are going to look at the reason why.
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We are going to look at the doctrine typically referred to as original sin.
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Now, when you hear that term original sin, you might think that original sin is talking about the sin of Adam, the first sin.
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But the doctrine of original sin is not his sin, but the effects of his sin.
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How does what Adam did affect you? So let's stand together.
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We are going to read Romans 5.
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We are going to read verses 18 and 19.
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This is part of a much larger context that we will not be able to fully flesh out, but I am going to try to at least establish a context in a moment.
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But we are going to read verses 18 and 19 because that is what we are going to deal with.
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Romans 5 verse 18.
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Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.
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For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
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Father in heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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Father, I am thankful for Your Holy Spirit.
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I pray that He will guide me in my preaching, that He will rescue me from error, and that He will, for the sake of Your people, guide me in all truth.
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I pray that You would open hearts to hear the Word, that the Gospel will be truly proclaimed, that sinners will be saved, and that saved folks will be rebuked and exhorted through Your Word today.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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A couple of weeks ago it was reported that yet another famous minister has had a very public and grievous fall into sin.
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This has resulted in cries of hypocrisy from the world outside the church, and tears of pain from the members of his church who supported him and listened to his words.
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And it's sad to see that happen, and times like this often make us sit back and take stock of our own battles with sin.
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And they can cause us to ask the question, at least they cause me sometimes to ask the question, why is sin so pervasive? Why is it that everyone in the world sins, and even more perplexing, why do Christians sin even after having been regenerated by the Spirit of God and given the gift of the Holy Spirit? There's got to be something wrong with us.
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There's something wrong at the root of who we are.
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And you know there was a time in history where that was generally accepted.
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People understood.
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Man's got a problem.
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There's something wrong with him.
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In fact, there was a recognition of the sinful condition of man that helped establish our nation.
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Do you know why our nation was founded on three separate branches of government? Because you can't trust one.
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That's the danger of where we are now, because one seems to have all the authority.
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But the problem is this establishment of, you've got to have checks and balances.
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You know, they say power corrupts, but that's not true.
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Power simply allows the natural corruption of the heart to exercise itself freely.
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You don't need power to be corrupt.
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You just need power to exercise your already corrupt nature.
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That's why communism doesn't work.
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The idea of a shared society where everyone's needs are met, no one goes without, sounds like a utopian dream.
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However, in every place where communism has been enforced, death and poverty have been the result.
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Why? Because communism requires a truly righteous overseer for it to function with proper equity.
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But none exists.
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Instead, the world is governed by sinners.
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Communistic governments are governed by sinners.
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Our government is governed by sinners.
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Every man, every person is a sinner.
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But why? Where did this naturally corrupt heart come from? We know that God is not evil.
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Scripture tells us that God is not evil.
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We know that He also is not the author of evil.
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Scripture tells us that.
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Yet He created all people.
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We are all individually created by Him.
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And the Bible says we all bear the imago Dei, which is the Latin term for the image of God.
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We're all image bearers of God.
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So if we're all God's creation and we're all image bearers of God, from where does the corruptness in our nature come? Well, the Bible teaches that we are sinners by nature because we are born as inheritors of a corrupt nature.
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We are born as inheritors of a corrupt nature.
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In our text today, Paul tells us where this corrupt nature originated.
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He also shows us the only solution to that corrupt nature, which is a new nature in Christ.
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Not adding something, but exchanging something.
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And so we're going to see how those things work out in this text.
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And you have your outline in your bulletin.
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I have four realities about original sin.
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Remember we said what is original sin? Original sin is the effect of Adam's sin.
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And there are four things from this passage I want us to note.
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Number one, the historical reality of Adam.
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Now that seems like it should go without saying, but anymore it can't.
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Look at verse 18.
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It says, therefore, as one trespass...
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Just stop there.
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This trespass is referring specifically to the trespass or the sin of Adam in the garden.
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It tells us this in verse 12, if you go back up to verse 12.
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Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
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That expression there is telling us what sin and who sinned that we're talking about.
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The person who sinned was Adam.
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He's the one man through whom sin came into the world.
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And he's the one man who passed sin on to everyone through whom everyone became a sinner.
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Adam's sin is the one trespass in verse 18 which brought death into the world.
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The narrative of Adam as the first man has been all but dismissed by the secular world.
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You go into a secular high school.
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You go into a secular college.
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You go into a secular science room.
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You talk about Adam and Eve and you will be laughed out of the room.
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You will be mocked out of the room.
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And this is understandable because there is no desire in those places for God's truth.
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But what is amazing to me and what hurts my heart is not that the schools deny that Adam and Eve existed.
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Not that the colleges deny that Adam and Eve existed.
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But this has now made its way into the church.
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And there are many churches that are now saying, No, there was no Adam.
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There was no Eve.
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We all came about through Darwinian evolution.
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Dennis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation, A Christian Approach to Evolution, Quote, My central conclusion in this book is clear.
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Adam never existed and this fact has no impact whatsoever on the foundational beliefs of Christianity.
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Really? Your conclusion in the book, you're a Christian evolutionist, which is an oxymoron.
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He says, My conclusion is this.
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Adam never existed.
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Jesus believed he existed.
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Paul believed he existed.
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But I know better than the Lord of the universe and one of the apostles.
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Sure.
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That's his conclusion.
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Adam never existed.
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Brian McLaren, how many of you have ever heard that name? Brian McLaren is a leader in the quote, unquote, emergent church movement.
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Very influential movement.
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Has made many inroads through music, pop culture, and different cultural artifacts that have made their way into the church.
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Brian McLaren says this regarding Adam and Eve and the story of the creation.
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He says, quote, It is patently obvious to me that these stories aren't intended to be taken literally.
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End quote.
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Can't take it literally.
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It's not true.
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It's just a story.
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Creation's just a story.
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Again, he's one of the leaders of the new, quote, unquote, emerging church.
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While the existence of Adam is not taken literally by some in the modern church, Paul's arguments for man's condition depends on the historicity of Adam.
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Paul's argument is that you're a sinner.
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Because of your relationship to Adam.
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So if Adam doesn't exist, guess what you don't have? A reason for the nature that you all carry.
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Jesus believed in Adam and Eve.
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If you want to just mark a verse, Matthew 19, 4 and 5, when He was asked about marriage and divorce, Jesus said this, Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? He's quoting Genesis.
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And He's quoting the creation account.
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And He said, He who made them from the beginning made them male and female.
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The doctrine of original sin depends upon Adam being a true historical figure, the father of us all, not a fairy tale.
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Not a myth.
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And not a monkey.
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Or an ape.
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Or anything else.
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He is a special creation of God made in His image who bore the image of God, who is our first father, who gave birth to the entire world, giving to them His sinful nature, and passing it along to them.
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So we see the historicity of Adam is the first thing, the historical reality of Adam.
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The second thing is the legal reality of our relationship to Adam.
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Look again at verse 18.
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Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, when Adam sinned, it did not affect him alone.
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Adam's sin led to a legal declaration of condemnation for all mankind.
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I want you to just hold your place in Romans and turn to 1 Corinthians.
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Turn to chapter 15.
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And look with me at verse 21.
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1 Corinthians 15, 21.
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Paul is making almost the exact same argument here, but in a little different context.
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And he says in verse 21, For as by a man, that is by Adam, came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.
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That's Jesus.
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Verse 22.
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For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
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What happens if we're in Adam? We die.
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Why do we die? Because we're in Adam.
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Well, what is it about Adam that causes us to die? This is a very important concept and I want to focus on what I'm saying because this is huge.
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This is very important in theology.
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Adam, when he sinned, was acting as the representative head of all mankind.
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This is why Adam, it says, that through him we sinned and not Eve.
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You realize Eve sinned first.
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Eve was the first one to give in to sin.
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Why, though, does it not say we sinned in Eve? Because Eve was not the representative head of mankind.
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Eve was not the one created.
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In fact, in 1 Timothy, Paul tells us Eve was deceived.
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Adam did it willingly.
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There's also that.
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But the reality is Adam is the federal head.
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And by the way, do you know what federal means? You're in a federal government, you should know what it means.
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Federal means representative.
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That's what the word federal means.
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Most Americans understand this concept.
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We elect men and women to represent us in government.
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And we understand that when the president goes and does something in the world, he does it representing us, often to our shame.
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But he does it as our representative.
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The federal head represents everyone who is under him.
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And we elect leaders to serve as our representatives.
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But the first representative we did not elect.
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The first representative was created by God, and his name was Adam.
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And God created Adam as the first man who became the head of all of the human race.
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And so when Adam sinned, he so brought us all into that sin with him as his progeny.
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Some argue, well, that's not fair.
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Ask me sometime what I think about your concept of fairness.
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Because we always say, oh, that's not fair.
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As if God has to hold to our standards of fairness, number one, because that's dumb.
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But the second thing, like you really understand fair.
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You really want to talk about fairness.
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You realize there's kids born today that will not have enough food to survive next week? And you live in a place where your dishwasher eats better than a large portion of this world? Talk to me about fair.
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Tell me about fair.
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I love what John Sampson said.
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John Sampson said this, To those who decry the fairness of the federal headship of Adam, consider that we see everyday examples of this principle all around us.
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Your country of birth was not your choice.
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But because of where your parents lived when they gave you birth.
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In many countries, children are born into poverty, have disease, die in infancy, solely because of who their parents were.
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Did God not decide who their parents were? Adam's posterity are under a curse.
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We live in a world of sin and we all die because of his rebellion.
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Not fair.
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Every time you sin, you give your yes and amen to what Adam did.
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Think about that.
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Every time you sin, you say amen to what Adam did.
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I'll continue.
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We have such solidarity with Adam as fallen creatures that he federally represented us, such that what he did counts as what we did.
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End quote.
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I love that quote and if you want a copy, I'll be happy to email it to you.
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If you want to talk about fairness, know this.
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Everyone who complains about the representative relationship they have with Adam deceives himself into thinking that he would have done better.
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Every man who argues about the representative nature of Adam deceives himself to think that he would have not done what Adam did.
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Also, when we decry representative headship, we also decry the relationship with Christ, which we're going to see in a minute, because he becomes our representative head.
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We move from one head to another.
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If you don't like Adam being your representative, what about Christ? I hope you like that.
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And that ain't fair either, by the way.
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He took your sins in himself.
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He was beaten, bloodied, hated, tortured, and he absorbed the wrath of God for you.
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Was that fair? No, but it was love.
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Talk to me about fair.
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Fair is something you go to and ride on a merry-go-round.
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That's fair.
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And we'll talk about everything.
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I've got to move on.
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So we have a legal relationship to Adam.
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He was the representative.
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He was the head.
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In him we sinned legally.
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But now we go to the third thing.
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There's a practical reality of the condition in Adam.
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Because not only do we have a legal standing in Adam, we also have a practical standing.
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Because Paul says in verse 19, For by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners.
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You see, we were all made sinners in Adam legally, but we were all made sinners also practically.
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Which is why we all sin practically.
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Is there anybody here who hasn't sinned this year? Be careful because you might sin now by lying.
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Anybody not sin this week? Anybody not sin today? Have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbors yourself perfectly? No, then you've sinned today.
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Listen to what Ephesians 2, Brian read it earlier.
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And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air.
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There was a time when we were all Satan worshippers.
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How do you like that? You followed the prince of the power of the air.
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That's Satan.
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That's euphemistic for Satan.
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Well, I never burned a 666 into my forehead like Ozzy Osbourne or one of these other guys.
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No, you don't have to.
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You followed the prince of the power of the air.
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And it goes on to say, and were by nature children of wrath.
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By nature.
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Why by nature? Because that's the nature we inherited from Adam.
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As Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul says, we don't become sinners when we sin.
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We sin because we're sinners by nature.
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Sin is a universal condition and stands as testimony to the doctrine of original sin.
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There is no man in this world who has never sinned.
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G.K.
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Chesterton said this, he said, certain new theologians dispute original sin which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.
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End quote.
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He said, people dispute the only one that's provable.
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How is it provable? Jonathan Edwards tells us.
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He said, even if the doctrine of original sin were not in Scripture, we would have to come to it by simple logic because no man is good, no man is righteous, every man is a sinner.
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There is something that we would have to come to logically to tell us that something is wrong.
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The Scripture testifies to our experience.
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How is original sin proven? By the necessary inference that no man is without it.
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Every man sins and demonstrates that there is something wrong with every man and we see sin even in the youngest of children.
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Babies are beautiful, but don't tell me they ain't sinners.
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Don't tell...
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Come on now.
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I like...
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What does it say? They're a viper in a diaper.
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God made them small so they won't kill you and He made them cute so you won't kill them.
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They are a viper in a diaper.
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You know, I think it was MacArthur who said...
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He was reading about how children operate mentally.
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He said if a baby was the size of a full grown man, they would be considered crazy and they would hurt people because they have no impulse control.
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And so everything becomes a now.
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And I got one coming, so I'm all excited to know that we're going to get to experience that yet again.
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But you know what? We see sin in old people too.
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We see sin to the very youngest and we see sin to the very oldest.
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How many of you have outgrown sin? You might have outgrown certain sins.
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Your body chemistry might have changed and you might no longer desire certain things that you desired in your youth.
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But there ain't no one of you who is so old that sin no longer is a problem.
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It's just changed.
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Martin Lloyd-Jones said this.
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He said, Every day I must remind myself of God and His character and of my position as a human being, an inheritor of the original sin in Adam, the remnants of which the pollution of sin still remains.
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This is Lloyd-Jones.
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Powerful, gifted preacher of the gospel.
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He said, Every day I have to remind myself the holiness of God just so that I'll remember who I am.
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It's easy to fall in that trap of pride.
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Lloyd-Jones said, If I remember who God is, I won't fall into that trap because I'll continue to see myself as I am and in desperate need of Him every single day.
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Just because you're older doesn't mean you're not a sinner.
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Just because you're a child doesn't mean you're not a sinner.
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Sin is universal.
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And just because we are born having inherited a sinful nature does not mean we're no longer image bearers of God.
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We still bear God's image.
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We still have the law ingrained on our conscience.
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This is why even unbelievers can feel things like guilt when they do evil.
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This is also why men seek to sear their consciences as they begin to get older.
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There's a natural progression.
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Drugs and alcohol start typically in the teenage to older adolescence, younger adult years because it's easier to access, but also those are the times when we're beginning to experience the desires for things which are unwholesome and against the conscience that God has given to us.
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And to sear and quiet that conscience, we use things like alcohol, drugs, and everything else.
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Because we got that thing inside of us that's telling us not to do that.
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The Bible tells us it's there, and it says we suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
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How do we suppress it? Any way we can.
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We suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
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There was a pirate, and I don't mean like our Vashti mateys, a real pirate who was captured, and he was taken and condemned to be executed in New York.
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And while he was being examined for his execution, while he was being questioned about his many things that he had done wrong, and as a pirate he had done many things wrong.
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He had overtaken vessels, killed hundreds of people.
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He was a terrible human being as far as how he operated his life.
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And he acknowledged before his death that when he committed his first murder, he plundered his first ship.
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He said this, he said, Compunctions were severe.
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Conscience was on the rack and made a hell within my bosom.
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But after I sailed for years under the black flag, my conscience became so hardened and blunted that I could rob a vessel, murder its entire crew, and lie down and sleep as sweetly at night as an infant in its cradle.
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See, that's what happens.
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We have this seed of evil within us.
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God gives us this conscience.
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If we suppress that to the point that we press it all the way down, that seed grows and there's nothing left.
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The image of God is distorted in the fallen nature, but it's not removed.
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We're God's creatures, but we're Adam's children.
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And that's where the problem comes.
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We're God's creatures, but we're Adam's children.
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And through Adam we're sinners legally.
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Through Adam we're sinners practically.
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Even though we bear that image of God, we are sinners practically.
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So now I want to move to number four, the last thing, the beautiful thing, the wonderful thing, the thing I wish I could have just talked about the whole time, and that is the wonderful reality of salvation in the last Adam.
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You see, in counter distinction to the work of Adam, Paul points to the work of Christ.
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He tells us that one trespass led to condemnation for all men, but one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.
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He said by one man's disobedience many became sinners, but by one man's obedience many became righteous.
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Or made righteous is actually what it says.
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And he compares the work of Adam to the work of Christ.
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Why? Because both of them are federal heads.
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Adam is the federal head of all of fallen humanity.
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He represents us.
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He represented us in His sin, and we sinned in Him.
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But Jesus represents all redeemed humanity.
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And this is why He's called in 1 Corinthians 15, 45, the last Adam.
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Do you know Jesus is called the last Adam? Why? Because what Adam did in bringing the world down, Jesus does in bringing His people up.
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What Adam did in destroying life, Jesus does in saving life.
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Adam represents us in death.
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Christ represents us in life.
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And being in Christ does not mean that we are no longer sinners.
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We still bear the flesh which has been born in sin and craves disobedience.
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But as believers we are no longer slaves to sin.
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Hear that.
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Hear it again.
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As believers we are no longer slaves to sin.
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We have the Holy Spirit of God who lives within us, and God has equipped us for victory over sin.
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In fact, I want you to just read with me.
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Go to 1 Corinthians 10.
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Many of you have heard this verse taken out of context.
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Many people say that the Bible says that God will not give you more than you can handle.
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That's not true.
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God often gives you a lot more than you can handle so that He will handle it for you, and you'll learn to trust in Him.
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So when people say God won't give you more than you can handle, that's not what this verse says.
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But what this verse does say is that every single sin that we're confronted with, God provides us a way of escape.
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Listen to it.
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This is in the context of sin, temptation.
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And He says in verse 13, No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
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That means simply this.
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All of the sins that you desire are desired by everybody in one sense or another.
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Maybe not the exact same sin, but you are not especially tempted.
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You can't say, well, I just have a special proclivity to my sin.
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Well, everybody's got a special proclivity to something.
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Might not be what you are, but there's no temptation.
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When you face God, you're not going to say, well, God, I was especially tempted.
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He's going to look at you and say, there is no temptation that's overtaking you that's not common to man.
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God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.
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But with the temptation, He will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
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One ancient writer actually argued that temptation itself is a testimony to our conversion.
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I thought this was interesting.
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Temptation is a testimony to your conversion.
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Sirius of Alexandria wrote this.
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He said, if you're not tempted, you have no hope.
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For if you are not tempted, it is because you are used to sinning.
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If you're not tempted to do evil, it's because you're already doing it with impunity.
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I was like, man, that's harsh, but true.
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I'm either tempted by it or I'm living in it.
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If I don't have any temptation at all, it's because I've already given in.
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I thought that was pretty powerful.
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He goes on to say, he said, the man who does not fight sin at the stage of temptation sins in his body, and the man who sins in his body has no trouble from temptation.
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I say it like this and a lot less eloquent, but I've said it over the years.
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If you battle sin, that's good.
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Because unbelievers don't.
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If you live in sin, that's the problem.
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And that's what unbelievers do.
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They live every single day in perpetual sin, and they don't care.
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That's how you know if you're an unbeliever.
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That's the ultimate test.
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If you can live in perpetual, habitual, unrepentant sin, and look God in the face every day and say, we're alright, right? No, you ain't alright.
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You're not alright.
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Don't worry if you battle sin.
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Worry if you don't.
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Because if you don't, that means you're living in it.
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That's the problem.
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Jesus came to save sinners.
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And because of our relationship to Adam, we all qualify.
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And you continue to qualify.
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And when we come to Christ in repentance and faith, we receive a new federal head, and the lost are represented by Adam, and the redeemed are represented by Christ.
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And on Judgment Day, that is how the sheep will be separated from the goats.
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It will be a very easy separation.
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Those who are in Adam die, and those who are in Christ will be alive.
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Eternity will be determined by who is our representative on the last day.
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And it's really just that simple.
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The Gospel can be simplified to who are you under.
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Are you under Adam or are you under Christ? Are you in Adam or are you in Christ? One representative comes to you at birth, but the other comes to you at rebirth.
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So the question that we should ask maybe is, have you been born again? And has that new birth led you to repentance and faith? Because that's what the new birth does.
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I want to end with a quick thought about the sin that continues to abide.
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Because I've already said this, I've already said that believers will still battle sin, we still sin, but let me tell you something, there's a difference in battling sin and loving sin, and this is what I see in our culture today.
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The Bible says if we love Jesus, the Bible says if we love God, then we hate sin.
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Not just the sin of others, because that's easy to hate.
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It's easy to hate the sin of others.
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But in hating our sin, the problem is believers, people who call themselves believers, will live their entire lives dedicated to their sins, and yet say, but I have Jesus as my Savior.
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It cannot be the case.
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Just because we're born with a sinful nature doesn't give us a right to continue in sin that grace might abound.
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Sin should be battled with every part of our being, and if we're not battling sin, if we're living in sin, are we really in Christ? That's the question of the day.
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Billy Sunday, an old evangelist, said this.
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I put this in your bulletin, I just thought it was funny.
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He said, I'm against sin.
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Somebody said one time, Billy, what do you think about sin? He said, I'm against it.
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What do you want to know? What do I think about sin? I'm against sin.
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And he goes on to say, he said, I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot, I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist, I'll butt it as long as I've got a head, I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth, and when I'm old and fistless and footless and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to glory.
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Do you fight and hate your sin, beloved? Or do you love it? It's there.
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The original sin has not been eradicated.
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But how do we respond to it? With love and acceptance? Or with our fists held high? That will tell us what banner we stand under today.
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The banner of Adam.
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Or the banner of Christ.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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I thank You, Lord, for giving us the power to battle sin.
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We thank You that there is no temptation that has overtaken us that is not common to man.
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And that with every temptation, You give us a way of escape.
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And I pray, Father, that as we go from this place, we will look at our temptations not with love and affection and welcome, but with our hands up, ready to do battle.
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Spiritually, on our knees, pray, Lord, give us strength for the day.
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Father, I know that there are those under the sound of my voice who come into this place today maybe having never heard the Gospel.
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And I pray that they understand now the simple Gospel that we are all sinners.
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That we're born sinners and we continue to be sinners by choice because we love our sin.
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But Jesus Christ died and took the punishment for everyone who would believe on Him, who would trust in Him through repentance and faith.
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And we pray today that that repentance and faith would be shown forth in this place.
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Through the name of Jesus Christ and for His sake we pray, Amen.