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Bro. Otis Fisher
We're in third chapter of Romans, and we pick it up at the fifth verse. Paul says, but if our unrighteousness commend or brings out the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who taketh vengeance?
I speak as a man. He's saying if God uses, or if the Lord God uses sin to get glory to himself, then he should not punish the sinner. Now that's the argument that the lost have had ever since Paul was here.
But God forbids such a thing. I speak as a man speaks. In other words, Paul speaks this, and this is what people were saying, and they still say the same thing today. Well, I grant you it's rather difficult to understand unless he has revealed it to you.
The death of Christ on the cross, it did more than just save us. So I want to express some of your views. We start with Byron. What did the death of Christ, well the death of Jesus Christ, on the cross, what's one thing that it provided?
All right, provided atoning. We could not have had atoning if he had not died. Greg, name something else. Freedom. All right, we wouldn't have been free if he had not died. Marianne, can you think of a reason that he died?
All right, it was ordained of the Father that he die on the cross. David, another reason. All right, he died to reconcile the entire cosmos. Byron, give me another reason. David said what? Oh, all right, it pleased the Heavenly Father.
Greg? Well, there is another one that is rather outstanding. And when I realized it, it just blew my mind, and that was a small explosion. Don't laugh. It saved us, but what did it do, David, to the lost?
No, he didn't die for the lost. That's right. The word for means substitution, and he did not die for the lost. He died for the saved, the elect. But if he had not died, Byron, there would have been no judgment.
Jesus would never have been able to condemn anybody. So you see, he not only sent us to heaven, but he sends them to hell. Is there any discussion? In Romans 6, God forbid, for then how shall God judge the world?
And that's where it shows up. How can Jesus Christ judge the world unless he had died? Can you put that together, Greg? If he had not died, could he have judged the world, the world of lost people? No.
No way. What if there had been no God? What if we just appeared on this earth and we disappear from this earth? It's ridiculous, isn't it? He put it in the heart of man to worship. So the most unheathen heathen does worship something.
He has an innate desire to worship. For then how shall God judge the world? We talk all the time about the judgments coming. We talk about the salvation of you and I. We talk about our place in heaven, and we never say any very much about the world.
Other than they're lost and they're going to hell. This is why they're going to hell, because he died. David, can you add something? That's right. That's right. I didn't look up that word world, but I'm sure it's not cosmos.
Yes. And this could mean the cosmos, just like it says. Because he died, he has judged the cosmos, and it's got to be replaced. What are you all mumbling about? That's exactly right. Well, to help explain that verse, let me say this.
Man does not, well, man does that he wants to do. Is that a true statement? Man does that that he wants to do. Now, Brandon and I have done some things because our father wanted us to do it, but I didn't want the consequences far greater than I didn't want to do it.
So in reality, I wanted to do it. Well, he does that that he wants to do, not knowing, and he doesn't know this, that it was ordained that he would do exactly that which he does. Therefore, God is perfectly judged, just in judging man.
The foreordained part is hid from us. As sure as God liveth, as sure as the Holy One of Israel is the Lord of hosts. The Almighty. Right is might, and ever was, and ever shall be. Holiness is might. Meekness is might.
Patience is might. Humility is might. Self-denial and self-sacrifice is might. Faith is might. Love is might. Every gift of the Spirit is might. Powerful. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but no pure holy deed or word or thought ever will.
I wonder how many among you can look in an infant's face and not see a power in it mightier than all the armies of the world. An innocent child. Well, moving along, for if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
Well, let's talk for a while about how can God judge the human race, since all things are ordained of him. We'll have to go back to the garden to do this. We come on the scene as the Lord is instructing Adam that he may eat of the trees, all of the trees except one.
Of this one you must not eat, for in the day that you eat, you will die. Now I caution you again to always look for what the Bible does not say as well as what it says. That which he does not say is, but you will eat of that tree.
Myron, the Lord was communicating with Adam, and I don't know how, since he had the mind of the Lord, it could have been mental, but that's another subject. And he tells Adam that you can eat of every tree except one, and notice what he says, in the day that you shall eat of it, you'll die.
Now why didn't he say if you might eat of it? He knew. Well, if he had told Adam that, if he'd said now there's a tree here and you can't eat of it, but you're going to eat of it, I know that. What would that have done for Adam?
Yes, he would have had no responsibility in the matter whatsoever. Now, Greg, why did Adam eat of that tree? Well, it wasn't because he wanted, that he had to, because he didn't have to. Do you have to sin, David?
No, he wanted to turn his back on the Lord. Now, Myron, what took place when he did that? What else took place? Anything? All right. Anything else? Is that all that took place? Just, it was all in Adam?
All right. So all of mankind has been born in sin, state of sin, since then. What else? That's a very good point. We don't know how the Lord communicated with Adam. We can suppose that he did this or that, but definitely he had to use the language afterwards.
But one other great thing occurred. Can you think? All right. What I'm after is the, all that you said is true. But the entire cosmos, how can God judge the world? Why, would he have to judge the world?
Myron? All right. At that instant, without making any noise, the entire cosmos reversed in time. And we've been traveling down that road in time backwards ever since. You got it. That's exactly right.
Is he trying to puff you up, David? All right. Before he sinned, there was no death, no decay, no rot, nothing deteriorated. There was no rust, no, there was nothing that would detract from anything. The moment he sinned, the entire cosmos, all of the universe began to travel downhill.
He chose to turn his back on God. What? That's right. And I suppose to them, it is normal, but I'm going back before that sin and it was not normal. Well, we do the same thing today. All that we do is done simply because Greg and I want to, believe it or not.
We do it because we want to do it. If you give your child an apple, Myron, your child is sitting here and you give him an apple and you tell him not to eat of it because in the day that he does, bad consequences are going to follow.
And at the same time, you know that he's going to eat of it. Would you be wrong to punish him for eating of it? That's right. The Lord knew what was ordained for Adam long before this. But in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.
Greg, did Adam know what death was? He understood the words and he knew that he should not eat of that tree. They knew there was good and evil because the tree was there for them to look at, but he had not experienced it.
Romans 3, 8, and not rather as we be slanderously charged, reported, and as some affirmed that we say, let us do evil that good may come. Now those damn nations is just those that say that. Let us go out here and we'll do evil so we can see the glory of God.
Is that the way to look at that, David? That's right. Yes. Yes. Now, is that person going to do what they want to do? Did God know it ahead of time? He didn't surprise him, did he? Had God taken it into account?
Did God knew what was going to happen and man turned his back on him and has been sinning ever since. Did God take that into account? Can't trick him, David. Myron, does God forgive our confessed sins?
God the Father, does he forgive all of our confessed sins? God the Father. God the Father doesn't see sin. We're in Christ. He sees us in Christ and that's not sinful person. But God the Father does not see our sins.
He cannot forgive our sins. The Lord Jesus is the one who forgives. But, well, think about it. Well, this was their doctrine. Theology, the doctrine or belief that the gospel frees Christians from required obedience to any law, whether scriptural, civil, moral, and that salvation is attained solely through faith and the gift of the divine.
The end does not justify the means. This is a Catholic belief and is beginning to be taught in the Baptist churches. They, some of them, practice the doctrine of salvation by forcification injection. Forcification injection.
What is that, David? Well, they're now practicing the following, quote, we must get the church so they, get them in the church so they can hear and accept and be saved so we can have a larger church than all the rest.
And by the way, you can use any type of gimmick you want to get them here. Remember the difference between accept and receive? What is it, Greg? An accept is an excuse. Receive is a reason. Plays a great part in our salvation.
We never accept salvation. We just receive it. You see the difference, Myron? Accept comes from within and accept, let me say it again, accept comes from within and receive comes from without. God is as true in his threatenings as he is in his promise.
Is that right? Absolutely. What then, verse 9, are we better than they? No, and no wise. For we have before proved both Jew and Gentile that they are all under sin. As it is written, it has been written before with a present result that it is on record.
There is none righteous, no, not one, except Jesus Christ. No man seeks God, for man is totally depraved. He is forever looking where God is not. In Ephesians 2, 1, and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.
David, can a dead cow eat green grass? Dead cow can't eat. Next verse, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. There is no way you can refuse that which you do not seek.
No, I don't. It's true if you look at it from man's view, but not from God's view. That's right. If it were not for God, we would not exist. If it were not for the Father setting up everything that he has ordained, you wouldn't be saved.
It was ordained, if there was a beginning, way back eons, millenniums, ages ago, and as far back as I can go as the great counsel, you were ordained at that time. Your life was ordained. Everybody's life was ordained.
Now, everybody doesn't know that. You're a privileged few. Yes, that's right. That's what I was coming to in, where is it, Philippians, yes, turn to it. Philippians 2, 13. There it is. The belief that you believe to gain is given to you.
Now, he not only gave us the belief, he gave us the suffering with it, one just as powerful as the other. So, that's right. No, not if you know who you're talking to, but I would not leave it there. I would try to, maybe over a period of years, to bring them up to the belief that the belief you have was given to you.
You cannot believe if you're dead. You cannot make up your mind to a spiritual fact if you're dead. That's right. That's right. There is nothing that come from me. God did not see in me, as me, something worthy to be saved.
I'm lax a few minutes of being gone. Greg, dismiss us, please.