Let us look in Romans, again, chapter 5.
We'll finish Romans 5 tonight, at least one
aspect of it anyway.
We're going to refer to some passages in
the book of Genesis in connection with this,
but we'll read first of all Romans 5,
commencing at verse 12, down through the remainder
of the chapter.
Verse 12, Romans 5.
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.
For until the law, sin was in the
world, but sin is not imputed where there
is no law.
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure
of him that was to come.
But not as the offense, so also is
the free gift.
For if through the offense of one many
be dead, much more the grace of God
and the gift of God which is by
one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift, for the judgment
was by one to condemnation.
But the free gift is of many offenses
unto justification.
For if by one man's offense death reigned
by one, much more they which receive abundance
of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment
came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one the free gift
came upon all men unto justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, and so by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous.
Moreover, the law entered that the offense might
abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound.
That as sin hath reigned unto death, even
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord."
Now, I'm going to ask you to turn
to the book of Genesis, and I think
that it would be good to read just
a few verses.
In Genesis 1, let's read from verse 24
of Genesis 1.
God said, Let the earth bring forth a
living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping
things, and beasts of the earth after his
kind.
And it was so.
And God made the beasts of the earth
after his kind, and cattle after their kind,
and everything that creepeth upon the earth after
his kind, and God saw that it was
good.
And God said, Let us make man in
our image after our likeness, and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon
the earth.
So God created man in his own image,
and in the image of God created he
him, male and female created he them.
And now in the 2nd chapter of Genesis,
verse 8, And the Lord God planted a
garden eastward in Eden, and there he put
the man whom he had formed.
And out of the ground made the Lord
God to grow every tree that is pleasant
to the sight and good for food.
The tree of life also in the midst
of the garden, and the tree of knowledge
of good and evil.
And now verse 18, And the Lord God
said, It is not good that the man
should be alone.
I will make him, and help me for
him.
And out of the ground the Lord God
formed every beast of the field, and every
fowl of the air, and brought him unto
Adam to see what he was called.
And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that
was the name thereof.
And Adam gave names to all the cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and
to every beast of the field.
But for Adam there was not found, and
help me for him.
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam, and he slept.
And he took one of his ribs, and
closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And the rib which the Lord God had
taken from the man made he a woman,
and brought her unto the man.
And Adam said, This is now bone of
my bones, and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman, because she was
taken out of man.
Therefore shall a man lead his father and
his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife,
and they shall be one flesh."
Now, in Chapter 3, I'm reading this with
purpose, and I think you will see it
in just a moment.
Chapter 3, verse 1, Now the serpent was
more subtle than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had made.
And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath
God said, ye shall not eat of every
tree of the garden.
And the woman said unto the serpent, We
may eat of the fruit of the trees
of the garden, but of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of
the garden, God hath said, Ye shall need
it, not eat of it, neither shall ye
touch it, lest ye die.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye
shall not surely die, for God doth know
that in the day ye eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And when the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, and that it was
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to
be desired to make one wise, she took
of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and
gave also unto her husband with her, and
he did eat.
And the eyes of them both were opened,
and they knew that they were naked.
And they sowed fig leaves together, and made
themselves aphids.
Now verse 14, And the Lord God said
unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this,
thou art cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field, and upon thy
belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou
eat all the days of thy life.
And I will put enmity between thee and
the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt
bruise his heel.
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly
multiply thy sorrows and thy conception.
In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and
thy desire shall be to thy husband, and
shall rule over thee.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast
hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and
has eaten of the tree of which I
commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of
it, cursed is the ground for thy sake.
In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life.
Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth
to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb
of the field.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread, till thou return unto the ground,
for out of it wast thou taken.
For dust thou art, and unto dust thou
shalt return.
Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she
was the mother of all living.
Unto Adam also and to his wife did
the Lord God make coats of skin and
clothes.
The Lord God said, Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good
and evil, now lest he put forth his
hand, and take also the tree of life,
and eat, and live forever.
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from
the Garden of Eden to till the ground
from whence he was taken.
So he drove out the man, and he
placed at the east of the Garden of
Eden chariots and a flaming sword, which turned
every way to keep the way of the
tree of life.
Shall we look to the Lord in a
word of prayer?
Our Heavenly Father, tonight our thoughts from thy
holy word are to find for ourselves that
which would fulfill in our own hearts that
which we need to sustain and strengthen us
in our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
God grant that what we have read will
prove to be profitable to each one of
us.
May each one of us in a greater
measure appreciate your wonderful righteousness, appreciate the wonderful
position of being justified and counted righteous in
the presence of God, and to understand more
clearly that this wonderful righteousness can only be
found in a wonderful person, Jesus Christ our
Lord.
Amen.
Now, in this passage that we've read tonight,
I hope that you are acquainted with it,
and in case in days past you've been
inclined to blame someone else for your situation
in life and the fact that sometimes you
do things that you can't account for, and
you wonder why you do them, tonight I
think we've pinpointed the source of your problem.
It's because of your identification with a man,
and that man is asked, and how often
have you heard this when someone looked at
some little toddler and he begins to express
himself in a way that's not complementary to
the human race, and someone says, the little
Adam.
You see Adam in him.
You see Adam expressing himself, speaking, and accurately
so, of what we are by nature, members
of Adam's race.
That's exactly what we have said before here
tonight.
Two men, what we are in Adam and
what we can be in Christ.
I've read for you, you read it with
me from the book of Genesis, exactly what
took place.
Man created in the image and likeness of
God, dwelling in a situation that was sublime.
It was everything that we seek for today.
And you can read this and search it
out for yourself, but he had everything that
you are working for today.
He had security in every sense of the
word.
He didn't label with his hands.
God fed him, God nourished him in that
garden.
God had created him, man, in his image,
in his likeness.
And it doesn't necessarily mean physical likeness.
In fact, it doesn't mean physical likeness, but
it means that man in the likeness and
image of God had a capacity for fellowship
and communion with God.
He was possessed with a spirit that God
had implanted in his humanity, and he could
appreciate God.
He could love God, and he could express
love through his own life.
This made him uniquely different from all of
the other things that God had created, the
animal life, the bird life, and so forth.
Man was different.
He was God-like.
God said he was.
And in that wonderful situation, he didn't have
to have any worries about an energy crisis.
There was just the right temperature in that
garden where he lived, day and night.
No one had to touch the thermostat.
Everything there was perfect.
The food, the best you could get.
Couldn't make any complaints about anything there because
God provided it.
You say, why would a person ever leave
something like that?
Why would a person ever make a choice
that would jeopardize a situation like that?
I've been striving, I've been working all my
life for a situation like that.
I'm thinking about one day retiring.
I'm thinking about one day I'm going to
find that little cottage, that little place somewhere
where I can just live, be secure.
The check comes in every month, and I've
got everything that I need.
Then I'm just going to sit down and
just rest a little and take it easy.
Well, Adam beat you to it.
He had it, and he surrendered it all.
You know, if you had that today, and
you didn't have God's provision for that peace
with God that we mentioned last week, you
still wouldn't be happy.
There'd be a vacuum within that heart of
yours, because God created you in a certain
way so that the only thing that would
ever satisfy that heart of yours and this
heart of mine was himself.
And he's given us someone, a person, that
can truly satisfy the longings of the human
heart.
But you have to appropriate it, you have
to want it, you have to yield and
submit to his way.
And then the happiness and the joy is
yours.
But Adam had it all.
I don't know exactly what Adam looked like
in that garden.
I'm convinced of this when he left that
garden when he was driven out of a
remarkable change to place.
Living in that garden, created in the image
and likeness of God, never having labored with
his hands, there were no calluses on his
hands, everything provided.
One day, because of those subtle endeavors of
Satan to tempt and deceive Eve, she eats
of that forbidden fruit, the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
and rebellion has found its way into the
hearts of men and women, because Adam joined,
and he did it with his eyes wide
open.
And having done this, God says, lest they
continue to eat of the fruit of the
tree of life which could preserve and sustain
life forever but in a sinful state, he
says, we'll have to drive them out.
We'll have to prevent them from eating of
the fruit of that tree.
It was available to them up until that
point, but now it's forbidden.
When you get to the last book in
the Bible, Revelation 22, that tree is found
again, the tree of life, in the midst
of the city of Jerusalem, and its leaves
are for the healing of the nation.
You know they had access to that tree,
but because of sin they lost it all.
God drove them out.
The reason I say that a remarkable change
took place...have you ever seen someone who goes
out into the countryside, the wilds, and ruts
it for a while?
See some fellow and he says, I'm going
off on a fishing trip, or a hunting
trip, and he goes and stays about a
week, ten days, two weeks, he doesn't shave,
and he just lives it and ruts it
out, and when you see him you'll hardly
recognize him.
Who is this fellow?
Well, just think of someone.
He didn't have an axe, he didn't have
any of the implements of modern-day man,
he didn't have a gun, he didn't have
anything.
He went out and he had to suffer
the heat of the sun by day and
the cold of the night.
He had to battle the elements, the soil
that now he would have to tend and
earn his own bread by the sweat of
his face.
Everything was going to be hostile toward him.
He was going to live in a hostile
environment, all because of sin.
Do you think that changed him?
I believe it did.
I believe a remarkable change took place.
All of the beauty and the freshness and
the flower of youth that had been seen
in his face before was gone, and suddenly
you see a tired, haggard old man and
a woman that are just doing everything that
they can to keep body and soul together.
It's all because of sin.
Bearing the image and the likeness of God,
they sacrificed all of this because they listened
to that subtle voice that said, "'Eat of
that tree that God has forbidden you to
eat in God.
You'll be like God, and it'll bring you
happiness.'" How many have believed that lie?
How many have made a choice in life
and said, "'I'll listen to that subtle voice,
the voice of the deceiver, and it'll bring
me happiness,' and have discovered to their own
hurt that it doesn't bring happiness?
It really inflicts hurt upon the individual, and
a change is wrought in the life of
that individual.
The marks of sin are upon so many
people in the world today because they've listened
to that subtle voice, the voice of Satan
that says, "'I'll make you happy,' and he
asks you to disobey God in the face
of divine directive, asks you to follow him,
and he'll bring you happiness.
And what a change is wrought in the
physical image of men and women today because
of sin in their life."
You know, if we were to stop at
that point and say, you know, it's just
a hopeless situation.
Say it all ended there, and that was
all the information that you had.
That man, and you recognize that you're a
member of the human race, and because of
your identification with Adam as the federal head
of mankind, that you are part of this
whole system that seems so futile, and that
ultimately you will die just as he does,
and through the course of your life struggle,
struggle, struggle.
You know, you could look at him and
you could say in a rather hateful sort
of way, "'Man, what did you do the
day that you acted in disobedience to the
divine directive that was given to you in
that garden?
Look where he brought us to!
Look how far down we've come since that
day!' You know, the axiom of the world
today is that we are climbing higher and
higher and higher, and that we're going to
achieve utopia one day.
But the Bible doesn't say that.
You read the word of God, and if
you look at history itself, it tells you
that we're going down, step by step.
And some have even said today, now we're
on the roller coaster, and we're headed for
the bottom.
We're not getting back.
We haven't improved life situation, per se.
Oh, we have technological advancement, we've made things
more conquerable, but we've compounded our problems.
There's never been a day in the history
of man where he's been faced with more
problems than we have today, and no one
around to solve them.
No man on the scene today can solve
the problems that we're faced with.
And it all stems from this one thing,
rebellion against a directive from God not to
eat of the fruit of that tree.
Well, if we left it there, we'd still
be pointing our finger at poor Adam and
saying, It's your fault, it's your fault, it's
your fault, you've just done us an injustice!
Look what you've brought upon all of us!
You know, God would be just if he
did leave us there, but he didn't choose
to do that.
Did you notice that Adam and Eve were
provided with some clothing, that some skins from
innocent animals were provided for them to cover
their nakedness?
At the very moment that he cast them
out of that paradise, he provided for them
something that would shelter them, in a sense,
from all of that hostile environment.
The blood of an innocent victim was slain,
to provide for them a covering that God
himself had provided.
That's just a picture and a sense of
what God has done in the person of
his son.
And the very moment that man and woman
were cast out of that garden, there was
initiated a plan that had been formed from
the eternal ages past.
A wonderful divine plan was again set in
motion, and it would ultimately find its conclusion
in the day that we had that announcement
from heaven that, My beloved Son has come
into this world to provide for you a
way of righteousness, a way that is pleasing
to me, whereby you may have restored to
you the divine image that was lost by
the first Adam there in the garden.
What we lost in the first Adam can
only be regained in the person of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
He's the only one that can restore that
divine likeness to a poor, fallen humanity.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into
the world by Adam, and death by sin,
and so death passed upon all men for
that all hath sinned.
You can't help it that you're a sinner.
The fact that the Word of God calls
you a sinner.
You can't help it.
You could face it back, historically speaking, and
say, It's Adam's fault.
Okay, blame it on Adam.
But what are you doing about the provision
that's made by God when he says, For
by one man's disobedience, Adam's disobedience, many were
made sinners.
You and I are characterized as being sinners.
So by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous.
What does the Lord Jesus Christ say when
you hear from the earth?
You know, it's happiness and joy to me
to do the will of him that sent
me.
Divine obedience, submission to the will of God,
was paramount in the life of Jesus Christ.
He ever sought to do the will of
the Father, and it was the will of
the Father that he might undo, in a
sense, all the damage that was done by
Adam and Eve in that garden.
And so he sends his beloved son into
the world to accomplish on our behalf that
which we should never do for ourselves.
We couldn't obtain to his righteousness.
It's beyond our reach.
We're sinners, we're defiled.
Everything that we touch, we defile.
And it's only by his divine grace and
the giving to us of his righteousness, through
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and our faith
in that sacrifice, that we can have restored
the divine image.
You know, how do you reflect the glory
of God in your own personal life?
The Word of God says those that are
in Christ Jesus are new creation.
Those that are in Christ are new creation.
We are new people, in a sense.
We're living in a new dimension.
The Word of God mentions in 1 Corinthians
2 at least four classes of people.
The natural man, that when he hears about
things spiritual, he says they're foolishness.
They have no real meaning to him.
And we have mentioned the spiritual man who
has spiritual discernment.
He understands these things.
To him, they have meaning, they have value.
And then we have the carnal man, and
we have babes in Christ.
Well, in Adam we're natural men.
In Christ we can be new creatures.
We can be men that possess spiritual power,
indwelt by the Spirit of God, or because
of our identification and our relationship with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Whereas by one man, condemnation comes upon the
world.
Through the other man, our Lord Jesus Christ
blesses, and men and women can be new
creatures in Christ Jesus.
Someone may raise the question about that interim
of time in between the day that Adam
and Eve left that garden and the day
that Jesus Christ appeared upon the scene.
What about all of those things that transpired
in between?
We have mentioned here from the time of
Adam up to the time of Moses and
the beginning of the law, and we're told
that death reigned as a king.
Men died.
Everything that God had said would happen did
happen.
Men died, and they're still dying.
They have the mark of Adam upon them.
They have the curse of Adam upon them.
Everything in this earth is defiled because God
said it would be defiled.
God said that death would reign as a
king, and it did reign as a king.
And its power was never really throttled until
Jesus Christ took his place upon the cross,
and he died.
He died personally for you and me, so
that death would never have the power, be
able to exercise the power over a human
life that it had up until that day.
Men no longer need to live in the
dread of dying and going out into eternity
without God.
Today, men and women with fresh assurance in
their souls because of believing God and accepting
the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior can
have life, and they are spiritually alive.
They are no longer dead spiritually, but they
are alive in Christ.
During that interim of time, from Adam to
Moses, death reigned as a king.
And you know, there wasn't any specific law
that said that there were certain prohibitions and
you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do
that.
Death still reigned, and with the giving of
the law, we find that sin could be
brought to life for just exactly what it
was, because we've already studied in the book
of Romans that the law served that specific
purpose of exposing, helping men to see just
how dreadful sin really is, and exposing sin
in the individual life and showing us that
we could never measure up to that divine
standard of righteousness.
But death still reigned.
Men died.
You know, it's with a wonderful, wonderful expression
of hope that we can say tonight that
men and women that are in Jesus Christ
our Lord are alive, that because of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, you and I live
in the power of an endless life.
You say, I can't see it.
You look like anyone else to me, and
when we look face to face, we say,
You're getting older and you're going to be
sick and ultimately going to die if the
Lord doesn't come.
Well, that's because you don't have spiritual discernment.
If you fail to see that in the
life of a believer there's something there that's
eternal, because Christ is there.
And Paul announced that because he said, You
know, I am crucified with Christ, but nevertheless
I live.
Yet not I, but Christ lives in me.
Christ lives in me.
He lives within the heart of every believer.
So we possess eternal life.
We are fitted for eternity.
God wants us to be conformed to the
image of his Son.
He wants us to reflect the glory of
his Son.
And you know, no woman, no man has
ever creamed their bodies, dressed in regal attire,
adorned their bodies with jewels and everything else
that you have that are counted as costly
and of value to men and women as
far as making them attractive outwardly, can compare
with what we will one day be when
we see him.
Do you know what it says in 1
John 3?
It says, When we see him, we shall
be like him, because we shall see him
as he is.
And you know, time and time again, perhaps
in our Christian experience, we've reflected upon what
Jesus Christ really looks like.
We've never been satisfied.
We don't know exactly what he looks like,
physically speaking.
We don't know.
We know some wonderful things about him.
We know that in his person, and he's
the only one that it was ever perfectly
displayed, you could see the image and the
likeness of a likeness God displayed in the
person of his beloved Son.
One day I'm going to see him, and
I'm going to see all of the beauty
that's in the person of God's Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Wonder, wonder, I'm going to be just like
him.
When I see him, I'll be like him
because I'll see him as he is.
You know, if I wanted to make a
real recommendation to anyone here tonight that seeks
after true beauty that will last forever, I
couldn't make the one recommendation.
It would have to be, be more Christ
-like.
Be more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ultimately, you will be likened as the believer.
All of that identification with Adam, all that
was lost, all that has been regained in
the person of the Savior is something that
we should aspire to, something that we could
seek after.
We could endeavor to make our lives conformed
more to the likeness of the beauty of
our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
One man's disobedience brought us all that to
a level that we're not too apt to
applaud ourselves about what we are in Adam,
because we're ashamed of it too often, and
we recognize that there's nothing to boast about
as far as being in Adam.
The natural man, foolishness, vanity, despises of God,
and that whole list of things that are
mentioned in the earlier chapter, telling us the
lengths to which men will do when their
own motivation, the only motivation that they have,
is that old man Adam.
But when we are new creatures in Christ
Jesus, then we can be deformed to his
likeness.
Then we can get a taste of glory,
this side of glory.
We can see what it's going to be
like later on when we're in his presence
with the likeness, and serve him with supreme
joy all the days of our lives.
You know, looking upon this and thinking about
men hopelessly lost and without Christ reminds me
of something that's going on in the world
today.
If men fail to respond to what this
passage teaches us concerning what we are by
nature, identified with Adam and refusing to identify
ourselves with Jesus Christ as the Savior of
sinners, men will endeavor to create a God
in their own image.
And in their likeness, they'll bring God down,
they'll deify man, and they'll make for themselves
their own God to suit their own purposes,
and one that pleases them.
What a tragedy.
And do it all in the name of
serving the living God.
What a tragedy.
It seems so simple to say, Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll
be a new creature in Christ Jesus.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll
be able to shake off the shackles that
bind you as a poor sinner in Adam,
and release you to new freedom in our
Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, the choice is still out.
We can be confronted with proof that can
hit us, it can knock us down, it
can run over us, and we can still
refuse to obey.
The men and women that are wise in
the world today are those who respond and
say, You know, I looked in the mirror
the other day, the mirror of my life,
and I didn't like what I saw.
I was displeased.
And I could see there what I am
in Adam.
I could see there what I am by
nature, and I didn't like it.
And I've discovered that I can be something
different by trusting Jesus Christ as my Savior.
I understand that this all can be changed,
and I can be a new creature in
Christ Jesus.
The divine image can be restored, and then
I can enter into that new dimension of
living that we've been talking about.
Then I can go on to serve with
purpose and gladness in my heart the true
and the living God, and do it with
an eternal reward waiting me one day when
I shall see him as he is, and
I'll be like him for all eternity.
So why wouldn't a man respond to an
offer like that?
There can only be one reason.
The same one that deceived Eve in that
garden is still around, and he's still deceiving.
Still telling men and women, just as long
as the outward appearance is all right, forget
the rest.
How are you getting along in the world
today?
You say, I'm doing pretty good.
You looked in the mirror later.
Yeah, I looked in there and I liked
what I saw.
It looked pretty good.
I tell you what, look in there about
a hundred years from now and see what
you see.
Take a look a hundred years from now
and what will you see?
You say, that's silly because I'll be dead.
Exactly.
A hundred years from now, there's not likely
to be anybody in this room living.
My Lord, do not come.
That carcass of yours will be out in
the cemetery somewhere.
Death has reigned as a king.
The only person that can break the power
of spiritual death over an individual life and
restore the divine image and the likeness of
God to you as an individual is the
person of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save
you and me.
You know, it's with great joy in my
heart tonight that I tell you I know
Christ as my Savior.
You say, you don't look any different than
me.
You look just like I've seen you all
of your life, if you've known me, and
a few do.
And I don't see much change in your
physical appearance.
You're getting older.
That's true.
But if you know a person and you
know them intimately and they know Jesus Christ,
soon you discover something in that person that's
different.
You know, you begin to see Christ in
that life.
My, oh my, he makes a difference.
I've seen Christ in your lives, many of
you.
I know you personally, and I've seen Christ
in your life, and I thank God for
it.
The divine image has been restored, and you're
going to be like him for all eternity.
What we lost in Adam can be regained
in Christ.
I invite anyone here tonight who never made
a decision for Jesus Christ, you're in Adam.
You bear all the resemblance of his fall
and his condemnation upon your person.
God hasn't left you there without hope.
He's provided for you a Savior, and that
Savior is Jesus Christ our Lord.
Receive him, and you'll be a new creature
in Christ Jesus.
Shall we pray?
Our Heavenly Father, tonight we think upon all
that transpired the day that Adam and Eve
made that decision.
We know that was a sad day, and
we know from our own personal experience how
sad it is to be despondent and to
have no joy within one's soul.
We just thank you for the day that
you revealed to us that your Beloved Son
could bring joy and peace to our hearts.
Your Beloved Son, the one that shed his
own precious blood to pay for our sin
and its penalty, you revealed him to us,
and we personally have accepted him as our
Savior.
Oh, our God, what a glad day, and
we thank you for it.
We thank you for what we are right
now in our Lord Jesus.
We thank you for what we're going to
be in him one day.
Oh, to be changed into his perfect likeness.
Oh, to be with him and to be
like him forever.
How comforting these words are to our hearts
tonight.
Oh, God, we pray that if there's any
person in this room that has never received
Jesus Christ as Savior, may the Spirit of
God strike home to their hearts the need
and the conviction that will bring them to
a place of decision for our Savior.
We ask this in his name, for his
praise and glory.
Amen.
I bet O.C. is going to lead
us in the verse of the hymn.
If you're here tonight and you're not saved
and you'd like to come and talk further
about this, we'll be at the front.
And if you've never made a public confession
of Jesus Christ as your Savior, come forward
while we're singing and publicly declare that you
have personally received the Lord Jesus as your
Savior.
We'll stand and sing number 251, a couple
of verses, the first and the last verse,
perhaps.
Number 251, there is life in the Lord.