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Is there a more influential chapter in all the Bible? Sin enters but there is grace.
Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Havencroft and this is Time to Put You to Sleep. No, it's not. I'm glad to be here. Hope you are as well. Glad you listen. I've been getting quite a few encouraging emails and I appreciate that.
And I'm just thankful that someone listens, yes, I know, I know. You can email me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com, and we've been playing some episodes from when I was down in Tennessee. I don't have a whole lot of travel plans for 2024.
I have to be at the hospital once a month, every 28 days, so I kind of have to plan around.
That.
Treatment's going well. Thanks for your prayers.
I appreciate it.
I will be, Lord willing, in Beloit, Ohio in April, preaching Christ, or seeing Christ in the Old Testament, something like that, with Pat Abendroth and John A. Tucker, Esquire. And then I hope to be in Omaha in October for the second Pactam Conference with Van Drunen, Fesco, Patrick Abendroth, Patrick James Abendroth, and Michael Lee Abendroth.
So there you have it. Luke, my son's wife, is expecting, so it took me a long time to be a grandfather. Now they're just, here we go. I'm sure some of you can identify, I have a friend named Dave, and I was talking to Dave a while ago, and I was just catching up with the family.
He has since moved to Texas, he used to live here in Massachusetts, and I said, well, tell me about your children, and then your grandchildren, and he said, well, this was a big year. This was in 2023, he told me this.
It was a big year. I said, well, what do you mean? He said, we went from three grandchildren to eight grandchildren, and I thought, wow. And I think two of his four children, of course, they're all older, in their 30s, probably by now, two aren't married, only two are.
So I said, how'd that all work out? What happens? He has quintuplets, and I think his son married some lady that had previously been married and had five children. So they go from three to eight, but I wouldn't even remember their names.
You can always write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. Tell your friends, what am I supposed to say? Give me five-star rating, give me some applause, give me some love. Tell me something good, tell me something good.
What else is happening in the world? I listened to Alistair Begg today say that you should go to gay weddings and buy people.
Gifts.
I think he's getting taken to task on that online. What else is in the news? I don't know. You can follow me on X, at nocoradio, and I think that's about it. Preaching through the gospel of Jesus according to Luke on Sunday mornings.
I don't really get a whole lot done beside that. There's a few things. We are starting up a Bible Institute again. We had one for years, and we're going to start it up again. So if you live in the area here in Worcester, Mass, and you are not a member of the church, but you want to come to the Bible Institute, the first one is in March of this year, 2024, and Dr. T. Locke is going to be teaching Christian ethics.
So there you have it.
All right.
Today, I'd like to ask a question. Can I ask a question, people say to me? Well, isn't that a question? Yes, it is. But I'd like to ask you a question. If you had to pick the most important chapter of the Bible, what would you pick?
Now, I know what you're saying. You are saying, that's not fair. We're not supposed to do that? Mike, are you trying to get me to go to 1 Corinthians 15? Because something about the gospel there, and it's most important, of first importance,.
Paul said.
Are you trying to get me to think? Yes, of course. This is no compromise radio. We're trying to get you to work through these issues so you can think clearly, right? That's what we're after. Of course.
I see that.
I see lots of questions. So, I could answer your question, Mike Cappendroth with Psalm 23, John 10, Matthew 11. I mean, how many wonderful chapters are there in the scriptures? Well, I guess they're all wonderful, aren't they?
But sometimes people have favorites. Today though, I'd like to talk about a chapter in the Bible that really helps you understand Christianity. And the lead up to this chapter is, if you can understand Adam and what he did, and those he affected by what he did, and you can understand Jesus and what he did, and who he affected by what he did, I didn't say effected, I didn't say infected, I said affected, then you can understand the Bible.
If you can understand the two men, Adam and Jesus, if you can grasp the first Adam, in the garden, and the last Adam, Jesus, you can understand all of Christianity. Therefore, the chapter we want to look at today, to introduce our show and our series, everything has to be a series, right?
Oh, this is a special series, Romans chapter 5. Romans 5, that's what we're after today. Let me read you Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through 19, and you can just listen a little bit to Paul as he discusses one Adam, two Adams, one man, another man.
One man's actions negatively affected all those who were in Adam, and another man's actions positively affected all those who were in the last Adam. Therefore, Romans 5, 12, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.
And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made or constituted sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made or constituted righteous.".
Romans chapter 5. I'm in a chair, and I just keep sinking down. I want to start singing that song when I was sinking down, sinking down. Two Adams. If you can understand two Adams, you can understand the biblical doctrine of salvation.
Adam, a real man, Jesus, a real man, truly human, perfectly human, the Lord Jesus. And of course, as we walk through Jesus's life and his death, we notice differences between he and Adam. So I've been preaching through Luke 4, and Luke 4 shows Jesus in the wilderness, and I've been talking a lot about the last Adam and how Satan's accusations, Satan's temptations from what we know in Scripture didn't start until Jesus is in public ministry as a public man.
When Jesus is younger, of course, Satan tried to kill Jesus through Herod, Herod's decree, but we don't see in Scripture temptations of Jesus until he's the public man, that he's the public. I mean, Jesus is the public man, I know he's a public person, but public ministry, inaugurated into public ministry by the Father, ordaining him with the Holy Spirit.
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Lots of talk about first Adam, last Adam. We have discussed before from the pulpit of this church building and on No Compromise that there's some differences between Adam the first and the last or final Adam, and Adam was in a garden, was he not?
And it was lush, probably warm, but not too warm, probably some humidity, it was just Edenic, and you have Jesus tempted in the wilderness, dry, barren. There's another difference, and that difference is that Adam had a helper, a sinless helper, to help him withstand temptation, and that person's name was Eve.
Adam was in an Edenic place and he was also with a helper to help him say no to sin and withstand Satan's temptations, unlike Jesus who's in the wilderness and Jesus has no helper. He's by himself. And then the last one we'll talk about today, the last difference, is Adam was tempted with food so was Jesus, but Adam had all the food he needed.
He could eat out of any tree he wanted, minus one, and Jesus has no food for 40 days. And we see that something's happening in Luke 4 because we pray, lead us not into temptation, but the Spirit of God leads Jesus into temptation, because Jesus is going to have to stand up and be the true Adam, the true Israel, right?
You think about how Israel is tempted in the wilderness. You move to Sinai and the temptation there, and then the tabernacle. Similarly with Jesus, as we have the temptations of Israel recapitulated, Jesus tempted in the wilderness, Jesus tempted on a mountain, and Jesus tempted on top of the temple wall.
So you should be able to read that thinking, oh, I see all these pointers, these helpers as I try to understand Scripture. That is a long introduction for me to say, I'd like to talk a little bit about Genesis chapter 3 so we can grasp that first Adam a little bit more, so we can see what happens with the last Adam, the Lord Jesus, and how Jesus undoes and more positively than Adam ever did negatively.
Genesis chapter 3, one man called this the pivot of the Bible. He said, with the exception of the fact of creation, we have here the record of the most important and far-reaching event in the world's history, the entrance of sin.
When I was at the cancer hospital the other day, I think I told you on a previous show, just the deadly effects of sin. And of course, all of us will die one day short of the Lord's return, or unless your name's Enoch or Elijah, then is all these wrongs ever going to be made right?
Will Mike Cavendroth ever learn how to talk on a show? I could probably sing, that's probably what I could do. Anyway, we have Genesis chapter 3, and it is very, very critical for our understanding. It's like a seed plot, and we need to understand this sin of Adam, this cosmic treason, as R .C. Sproul calls it, the sinfulness of sin.
We need to understand this in a way that the Lord wants us to understand it. It has been said by John Calvin, no one knows the 100th part of the sin that clings to his.
Soul.
And you're going to see sin enter into the universe, or into humankind at least, in this passage in Genesis 3. But the good news is you're going to see grace as well. You're going to see some wonderful things, and I just hope I can enthusiastically tell you about those things.
How did men and women become sinful? How did they become sinners? How did all that nasty sickness and disease and cancer get into the human race? And is there hope for us? Is sin greater than grace? How do we explain the fall of mankind?
And I don't mean autumn weather here in New England, I mean the problem of evil. Now, to contrast how bad Genesis 3 gets, remember the bliss and the joy and the awesomeness, can I say awesomeness, in Genesis 2?
And God gives Adam a helper fit for him. God causes a deep sleep to fall upon man, and God makes the woman, and Adam is just singing and saying poetry, and bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, and everything seems wonderful.
It's Edenic, it's ideal. They are naked, Adam and Eve, and they're not ashamed. And all Adam had to do was obey, to stay that way, to stay in Eden. I think there wasn't, I don't think he had to just forever obey.
I think there was a probationary period, I don't know how long that was. But that's all theoretical now, because we know he sinned. But Adam was to obey. And sometimes we'll use the language of covenant of works.
Now it doesn't necessarily say covenant of works here in Genesis 3, but it doesn't say Satan either, right, it doesn't say sin either. So don't fall prey to this theology that says you can't use anything later to help you interpret what was before.
Kind of a Walt Kaiser type of thing. I think it's very, very difficult to take that approach and remain faithful to Scripture. So when we say covenant of works, it looks like a covenant, acts like a covenant, seems like a covenant, but doesn't say covenant, I have no problem.
I mean, Hosea 6, 7, I think the easiest, plainest reading is, but they have, like Adam transgressed the covenant, Hosea 6, 7. And here we have these conditions that God, the sovereign, gives to Adam, and that is perfect obedience.
And he needs to do everything that God says, including not eating from the one tree, not partaking of that fruit. Adam is called by Puritans a public person, a federal head. Feudus means covenant. Some people, the dispensationalists, don't really like this because when we say federal, we mean covenant head.
And so Adam is not just acting for himself, but he is the representative that we just learned about in Romans chapter 5 of the human race. He was their legal agent, the human race's legal agent, standing in their stead, having a relationship to all people as covenant head, Westminster Conficient, Conficient.
And how long had you been on that medication?
Well, Judge, I've been on that medication for about nine weeks. One medication I take in the morning and at night, and I take two other medications throughout the day to counteract some of their side effects, the leukemia-killing drugs, the side effects.
It's not technically chemo, but there are side effects to these drugs. And I also take four pills in the morning. I'm supposed to eat a fatty breakfast. It's like, where are the sausages?
You know, what do you do?
I'm supposed to not have a certain kind of fat in the morning, so my cholesterol goes down, but then I'm supposed to have a certain kind of fat because otherwise this medicine wreaks havoc with your GI system.
And then I just take, I don't know, another 10 kind of pills throughout the day that just tend to be things like zinc and fish oil and all that other stuff. The Westminster Confession says, "...the first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.".
There you have it. Do this and live. Adam, the federal head. And I'm really, really glad that Adam was a federal head because otherwise each of us would have to go someplace like in the garden and be on probation, as Arthur Pink says, on probation separately and on probation successively.
And so it pleases God to have Adam as the head. And he is young chronologically. That is, he hasn't been alive for very long, but God makes him as a man. And so we have an adult. We have... What we don't have is a teenager.
I don't think we don't have a toddler. We don't have an infant. We don't have a two-day-old baby that's going to have to try to obey. One writer said, "...the race must either have stood in full-grown man with a full-orbed intellect, or stood as babies, each entering his probation in the twilight of self-consciousness, each deciding his destiny before his eyes, were half-open to all it meant.
How much better would that have been? How much more just? Could it not have been some other way? There was no other way. It was either the baby, or it was the perfect, well-equipped, all-calculating man.
The man who saw and comprehended everything, that man was Adam.". The same writer goes on to say, "...had we been present, had we and all the human race been brought into existence at once, and had God proposed to us that we should choose one who was to be our representative, that he might enter into covenant with him on our behalf, should not we with one voice have chosen our first parent for this responsible office?
Should we not have said, he is a perfect man and bears the image and likeness of God? If anyone is to stand for us, let this man be Adam. Since the angels which stood for themselves fell, why should we stand for ourselves?
And if it be reasonable that one stands for us, why should we complain when God has chosen the same person for this office that we should have chosen had we been in existence and capable of choosing ourselves?".
In other words, well, I don't like God's choice in who he chose to represent us. I mean, that is fraught with problems. But we also like imputation and federal headship because there's the last Adam, right?
Do you still dislike federal headship when you think about the Lord Jesus? Here's Adam, perfect environment, sinless companion. As it was Johnson said, I'm happy that Adam was my representative because if I had been my own representative, I know that I should have failed.
This is God's arrangement. And of course, Adam did not obey. And in one sense, that is, I want to say good, but I don't know if I should say good or not because we would be praising Adam's actions, praise Adam from whom all blessings flow if he had perfectly, entirely, exactly, perpetually obeyed.
Note to self, Adam must have been real. As real as Jesus is real, Adam had to be real. Therefore, when people like N .T. Wright say that Adam and Eve had some kind of mythical, metaphorical dimensions to the story, kind of Paul believed that they were real, then I'm wondering what's going through their minds.
Are Tremper Longmans? You know, we go back and there's like 5 ,000, 10 ,000 people and God picks, you know, a single pair for the breeding population, in the breeding population. Or James Dunn, we don't have historical man, Adam.
I like Martin Luther's quote better, trust that the Holy Spirit is more learned than you, N .T. Wright, James Dunn, and Tremper Longman. And for me, for that regard, Acts 17, 26, And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling place.
This is real. This is not mythical. This is historical. This is the language of history. And just because other stories kind of sound like Genesis has nothing to do with any of this. Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth.
This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And I have not even got to Genesis 3, 1 yet about the serpent, Crafty. And did God actually say? So I guess this is just all introduction. That's all this is. I'm looking at my message Bible, but I only have the New Testament.
So how does that actually work? Let's see. Did you know the saying, drink water from your own rain barrel? Oh, Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. That's got to be enough for today. Who listens to this?