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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/scott-macleod/so-great-salvation/
Romans chapter 5, that's going to be in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and then comes the book of Romans. Just going to read one verse, more than likely, here anyway, more than likely a very familiar verse, probably memorized by many, if you ever went to Sunday school.
Romans 5 and verse 12, and this is a reference to Adam, back in the book of Genesis, in the garden. Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
It's really that last expression, last two expressions, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Now, finally, let's go to the book of Hebrews and chapter 2, where we were just before supper.
Hebrews chapter 2, right before the book of James, 1 and 2 Peter. Hebrews chapter 2, we'll read one verse, verse number 3. And the Word of God says, Hebrews 2 and verse 3, How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?
So, read that verse again. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord? Now, that's all we're going to read, and we will look to the Lord for help in the preaching of the gospel.
Why is God's salvation called so great? He could have called it salvation, but there are, of course, many reasons. One of the reasons why God's salvation is so great is because of the problem that it meets.
That's why I read in Romans 5 and verse 12, tremendous words. Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world. Now, if you have a proper understanding of the Word of God, everyone likes to blame the devil for sin.
But all the devil could do was bring sin, as it were, to the edge of the world. And then he tempted a woman and a man in the garden. And as a result of those people refusing to listen to the Word of God and responding to the temptation of the devil, Adam and Eve, Adam brought sin from the edge into the human family and into this world.
And what I tried to emphasize in Romans 5 and verse 12 is this. And so sin, death, passed upon all men. Very interesting to do a little study on those words, passed upon. It's the idea of something, well, I should say it this way.
It's not just the idea of taking something from here and passing it over to here. It's much deeper than that. It is also the idea that something is passed down upon. But once it gets there, it permeates.
It infects. It destroys everything that has been passed to. So what the Word of God teaches, brings before us is this. Sin is not something that is just dormant. It's in a little box, so to speak. And as long as I don't get too close to it, nothing will happen to me.
No, friend. What we have inherited, the human race, what we have inherited from Adam and Eve, what you and I have inherited from our mother and father is something that has permeated our entire being.
That's why God's salvation is so great. Because the problem is so immense. Something that I was just listening to recently, there was a scientist, he studied genetics, and he's been studying genetics for the last 13 years.
And this is because of all of our study, what we're able to learn. Now, this happened to be a Christian scientist, and he's just verifying what the Word of God says to us. And he made this comment, he's been studying genetics.
It's really the entropy of genetics for the last 13 years. The fact that things are deteriorating. You don't really need a whole lot of intelligence to look around that world and see that people younger and younger and younger are getting sick.
And cancer is getting more of a grip. And there's more disease everywhere you look. And really, doctors are running out of ideas. How do we combat all of this disease? It's because of sin. Sin is affecting the generations more and more as time advances.
And what this man has come to discover in the study of genetics is this. Every time a cell divides in your body, which happens millions of times a day, there's three mutations. The ratio is one to three.
One good, three bad. That's why you age. Because eventually there comes a point where the bad outweighs the good. Some people it happens a lot quicker. You notice the hair is going. That's because of sin.
It's not because I'm growing old, it's because of sin. That's why I've got to wear these glasses. It's because of sin. Now, the frightening thing that they've discovered is this. As those mutations build in me, and then I have a child, I pass a certain number of those mutations down to my child.
And then that child is now at a more disadvantage because it has inherited from me more mutations. It adds more mutations to the pool. Then it has a child, it passes more. And what happens is this. As the generations continue to move, the pool of mutations increases in the offspring.
And really, what they're coming to is this. Even evolutionary people, geneticists, you know what they say? They can't understand why the human race is extinct by now. That's sin. Do not listen to these people today that say that society is getting better.
Humanity is getting smarter. We are living longer. There's just more disease. There's more problems to deal with. And there will eventually come a time, if God allows it to continue, where the human race will just go extinct because of sin.
Now, into that mess, God sent His Son. That's why salvation is so great. Because what men and women are unable to conquer in their own energies, what they're unable to conquer by all of these institutions of men, all that men and women can do when it comes to vices and sin, is they just put a band-aid on it.
But eventually, the sore spreads beyond the band-aid. That's why God's salvation, friend, is so great. It's because of the problem. Now, that's why we preach the gospel night after night. Because we are trying to get people to identify, you have that sin.
That's why there's issues in your life. That's why there's problems in your life. People try to blame it on the society. They try to blame it on friends. Friend, listen. The blame falls at your heart.
You and I are sinners. That's what the Word of God says. We have inherited that. There's nothing we can do about the way we started in this world. But there's everything that we can do with the way we exit this world.
Now, friend, have you ever faced that tremendous truth that before God, I'm just a sinner? I'm a helpless sinner. I can't do anything about my sin. That's why, friend, God's salvation is so great. Not only because of the tremendous problem, the greatness of the problem, but it's also great because of the person that came to deal with our sin.
If you've been here for this day, and if you've been following what the Bible teaches about Jesus Christ, God's Son, it's absolutely phenomenal for me to take the Word of God and to think upon the greatness and the majesty of God.
I try to imagine way back before the book of Genesis, Genesis 1 and 1, in the beginning, I try to let my mind go way back, and there was absolutely nothing. Nothing. There was no air. There were no planets.
There was no earth. There was no soil. There was no birds. There was nothing. There was no universe. Nothing. All there was was God in all of His fullness. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit dwelling in nothingness.
It's hard for the mind to comprehend because everything we look at and touch and feel is something. It's material. It had a beginning and it will have an end. But God dwells in nothingness. And then all of a sudden, God spoke.
And out of nothing, there came everything. It's tremendous to think of the power and the might. And if we only had the Old Testament, we would understand that that is God bringing into creation just by His spoken word.
But when we come to the New Testament, we understand that it was Jesus Christ. God's Son. He was the One through whom and by whom. Everything that we see and that we can't see, things visible and things invisible, just simply came into existence.
Like it literally baffles scientists today to think. I've heard of individuals refer to it this. Our existence is literally on the edge of a knife with the balances that are in creation. The chemical balances.
The physical balance. Just the distance from the sun. The rotation of the earth. The thickness of the crust. Everything is so perfectly timed. And it's hard to imagine that here we are spinning on our axes at a thousand miles an hour.
And while we're spinning, we're going around the sun. And then while we're going around the sun, they actually know the sun is going around something. And the whole entire universe is spiraling around something.
Who's keeping it all together? The Word of God falls it all at the feet of Jesus Christ. Not only did He bring it all into existence. Not only did He set up all of the laws of nature that we're able to observe and duplicate.
Yes, they're all there. But everything is being held together by Him. Those of you that study the nucleus and the electron and the proton, and there they are. It's amazing to think of the smallest and the distance at which there is from the center to the edge.
And there's that little electron just constantly spinning around. What holds it? I mean, if you take a ball and put a string on it and swing that around your head, do you know what holds the ball? The string does.
What happens if you let go of the string? It's gone. You understand that when you look at this, most of it is empty. Most of it's empty. But that's things that we can't even understand. Who's holding it all together?
God's Son. God Himself. And friend, that is the one who stepped from heaven and came down into this world to die for your sin and mine. That's the one. So you understand why God now refers to His salvation as being so great?
Not only because of the greatness of the problem of sin, but because of the greatness of the Person that came into this world to deal with our sin. It's tremendous to think that's what makes salvation so different from every other religious system and method or whatever you want to call it of men.
There's nothing like it on the face of the earth in thousands and thousands of years of humanity. There's nothing like the story of the Creator God willingly stepping from heaven down into this world to die for your sin and for mine.
I just marvel at that. You would think right away that that would just cause people to stop dead in their tracks and just realize, what, I don't have to do nothing? No, it's all been done. You take all the religions of the world.
It teaches this. You have to try to appease that angry God. You have got to do something to work your way up to that God so that He will look favorably upon you. God's salvation is so different, friend.
I'm able to tell you about a Savior. His name is Lord Jesus Christ. And He stepped from heaven. Do you know what? He did everything to take away your sin. He did. And that leads me to the next point. The greatness of the provision that He provided.
It's not sort of a do plan. You do half and He'll do half. Do you understand, friend, what God Almighty, because of His Son, is offering you tonight? He has got a gift that He's holding out to sinners, to this world.
The gift is the complete forgiveness of sins. Complete acceptance before a holy God. A complete forgiveness. A passport to heaven. A home in heaven. That is what God is trying to offer you, friend. Do you understand, friend, the tremendous privilege?
Not a wonder I can't help but smile sometimes when I preach the Gospel because I have experienced it in my life and I know it works. I've met millions, not millions, hundreds of people, thousands of people, and they will attest to the same thing.
God's salvation works. It brings satisfaction. It breaks the bondage of sin. It brings me into a relationship with God. Friend, it's wonderful to be able to speak to God. It's wonderful to be able to read His Word and understand it.
It's wonderful to put your head on the pillow at night, turn out the light, just start praying to God. Just going over a verse of Scripture. Just drift off to sleep. And the Psalms tells me, when I awake, God says, I'm still with you.
To have a promise that I will never leave you, nor forsake you. Friend, that is what you are rejecting by staying in your sins. Do you know what else makes God's salvation so great? It's the greatness of the penalty if you refuse it.
I could never, if I had years to preach to you, I could never describe to you what those words mean in Luke 16 and in hell. He lift up his eyes being in torment. I couldn't even touch the surface of it to try to comprehend what it must be to be totally cut off from God.
You have no idea, dear sinner, just the benefits that you're enjoying because you're still in life. When I come to the cross of Calvary, sometimes we get taken up with, and it's true, it's terrible what men did to Him.
And sometimes we might get all taken up with the pain and the suffering. But you know what the Lord Jesus does for me in Psalm 22? If you want to get a little tiny picture of what hell is like, you just visit Calvary.
And you know what is the ultimate of suffering? My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? To be cut off from God, isolated from God. This idea that people talk in hell, oh, there's just a big party in hell.
I read in my Bible that Judas, he went to his own place. Even mankind knows this, that you and I can't handle solitary confinement all the time. And I have read stories of people that were in solitary confinement held in countries where they tortured people.
I remember what one man said. He said, I knew that man was coming to torture me, but I just wanted someone to talk to. I couldn't handle the silence. I couldn't handle being alone for so long. Do you understand, friend, that if you die in your sins rejecting Christ, you're not going to enjoy your friends in hell.
You won't have your mom or dad. You'll be all alone. You won't even have God. The only thing you'll hear will be the wail of your voice. That's what Calvary teaches me. When the Lord Jesus was forsaken of his God, the only thing he heard was his cries waiting for his God to return.
Friend, that's why God's salvation is so great. Don't turn away from such a tremendous provision for your sin. Don't take it lightly. Don't think that this is just something that the gospel hall people believe.
Thank God we believe it in the gospel hall. And thank God for a place where I can preach the message of God's great salvation. But friend, listen. Heed the warning. It's a rhetorical question. There's no answer to it.
How shall we escape if we neglect? It doesn't say if we shake our fist at God and stamp our feet. It just simply means I'm just not going to pay attention to it. Oh, I respect God, yeah. Oh, I'll be careful with this Bible, yeah.
But friend, listen. The gospel is a call to repentance. It is a call for you to acknowledge your sin and your helplessness before God and just simply to call it and accept God's great salvation. So I trust as I end that you'll go home and you'll think about this.
God's great, so great salvation. Great because of the problem. Great because of the person. Great because of the provision. Great because of the penalty that it delivers from. I trust that you will trust the Savior tonight.