Better Off Dead

I'm not going to have a long introduction for this

man of God. That's just the bottom line. We have

a common friend in our experience.

HM.

Miss Richards Junior, Ahmsus Richards Junior brought me into ministry.

He gave me the same speech about my kids he's

given you. And I've heard this Elder Bradshaw from you.

He would mentor young men who he felt needed to

be in Adventist ministry. And one of these days we

can compare notes. I spoke at i'm a Missouri conference

in the afternoon at a camp meeting years ago when

Elder Bradshaw was there, and also at Michigan conference when

he was the evening speaker. And I know also from

my son, who's a good gauge on the youth of

our church, that John Michael, my son has been strengthened

in the message by the godly witness of this man.

So I would ask you all to pray for him.

Lift him up. Elder Bradshaw, you come up here and

lift up the word of God and God be praised.

Thank you, thank you very much. Yeah, Well, good morning everyone.

It is a special privilege I feel for me to

be here with you today. I don't know what had

to happen for the regular preacher to step aside this week.

I know that when he preaches, you are blessed and

fared and encouraged. So this is a there's a certain

responsibility for me to step in. Right here, a couple

of things I'll share with you. I'm just so encouraged

to see you participating in evangelism. I know because I've

heard Pastor oxent Tenko say with his own voice, outreach

is the reason we are here. I've heard him say that,

So therefore you practice what you preach, and I'm encouraged

by that. I believe that Jesus is coming back soon.

I think there's nothing more important than we could do

than share the gospel. Nothing more. After receiving Jesus, you

got to share Jesus. So thank God for what's taking

place here. Pray for us up in Baltimore Towson in particular.

We got some people coming out who are being very

blessed and they're encouraged, and they're hearing and they're learning,

and we're grateful for that. Never enough, you know, I

gotta have half of Baltimore come out to a meeting,

and I would go back to my abode bemoaning the

fact that the other half of Baltimore didn't come. I

guess that's an occupational hazard. But we are thankful for

all the Lord has brought out. I have the privilege

of co preaching with the North American Division President, doctor

Alex Bryant, and if you'd spare a thought for him.

It's the General Conference's Fall council right now, and Elder

Bryant is obviously there as the president of North American Division.

And other words, he's really really busy, and yet he's

finding time to come out and co preach an evangelistic

series with me. It tells me something about the hearts

of the man who is the leader of the work

in the North American Division. I am greatly encouraged by that.

A couple of things that you may or may not

know about. It is written every so often, somebody says

to me, so it is written independent ministry, and I

have to respond by saying, no, we are not. I

have no acts to grind with independent ministries. You understand

that not at all, But it is written is not one.

We are a ministry of the North American Division. We're

not funded by the North American Division. We are donor funded.

So if you are somebody who prays for or financially

supports it is written, please know I am exceedingly grateful.

Exciting things are happening as we're enlarging our footprint. We

are a media evangelism ministry, so our programs are broadcast

in more places right now than ever before in English,

e Espanol, and we're on more networks. We're broadcasting our

own channel. We have our own channel. It has written TV.

I hope you'll check it out. You can find it online.

It is written dot TV. So I would be very

grateful if you would say a prayer for it has written.

We don't exist just for fun. We exist so that

we can share the Gospel with people. Just the other

day we heard from a young woman. She said, I

was about to give up. I have been thinking very

dark thoughts. I found it is written. You have given

me hope. I have found the Lord. I am now

growing in my faith. My life has turned around. And

so that's why we exist to share the gospel with

producing resources in television programs. We're airing them around the world.

We do lots and lots and lots of training to

help people share their faith and so forth. Anyway, it's

all good fun. I have my friend and colleague here

with me today is Eddie Gonzalez, So if you get

a chance to say hi to him, I hope you will.

He's one of the nice guys. So that's a little

bit about us. If you don't have our app, I

hope you get our app. You just get it a year.

Every wherever you get app, it is written with an

app and one other thing I'll mention to you. I

do a daily devotional and I'd love for you to

get it. If you go to the front page of

our website, it is written dot com. You can sign

up to get it. And when you sign up to

get it, you don't sign over your children or no

social Security number is needed. You just get You just

get the daily devotional and it's usually one minute long,

sometimes two minutes long. And here's what I think is

the big blessing to you. You'll be blessed if you

see it. I think you will. But it's something you

can share with others. Someone says to you at work,

like you heard, you can say, hey, I thought of

you when I saw this. Tell me what you think.

Or somebody has been to Uzbekistan and you saw me

mention Uzbekistan, which I did recently. Go hey, check this out,

tell me what you think, and it may well be

that they'll sign up to receive the devotion. It'll be

an entering wedge for you anyway, something i'd encourage you to.

By the way, if you're a teacher or a preacher,

about forty five percent of the devotionals contain sermon illustrations. Now,

if you are a magpie like me, and you collect

shiny objects wherever you go, that is sermon illustrations wherever

you go, then this will be a gold mine for you,

a gold mine, lots of sermon illustrations. All right, greetings

from our team. It has written Greetings from my wife Melissa,

who isn't with me right now, but will be with

me for a couple of days coming up. We have

between us one son, one daughter, one daughter in law,

and a granddaughter. And she's special. Some of you are

not moved by that. I don't care. She's special. She's

more special than your granddaughter. Although I hope you don't agree.

I hope you don't agree. Anyway, that's that let's pray

and anticipate that God will speak to us. You know what,

before I speak, I didn't choose a subject today designed

to puff you up. I didn't do that. I'm not

swinging for the fences today. This isn't a sermon designed

to have you stand back and say, ooh, what a sermon. Ooh.

That's not the point. I don't know exactly why God

laid this on my heart. I hope he did. I

think he did. But this is a sermon that I

pray will cause you to stop and think and search

and grow and reach out after the Lord and ask

God to do a great thing. There we go. Let's pray, gracious,

Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you.

This must be really the high point of the week.

This is your day, the Sabbath. And now we're at

that special hour of the worship service, and we're at

that part of the worship service where we gather around

the Bible. You don't have time to waste. We've been

blessed already. The scripture reading so beautifully read, the music

so beautifully delivered, the opportunity to give in offering the

Children's Story, which is always an adult story in disguise.

We heard your voice, and all of that we're thankful,

and so now we are praying that you'd speak to

us as we open up the Bible. We are praying

that you would encourage us. We are praying that our

hearts and your heart would be joined together, inextricably bound

up together. We want your life to flow through our

own thoughts, to motivate our own. Please do bless Dear Lord,

we ask you, and we pray in Jesus' name, please

say with me amen. The medical people at the hospital

did everything they could. They did CPR desperately, They performed

numerous other procedures, but the man in his early seventies

didn't make it. No fault of the medical team. They

employed their expertise, they put their training into practice. They

followed every procedure which it would have been reasonable for

them to utilize. But it was not enough, and the

man did not pull through. Although as sorry as they

were that he did not live, the doctors and the

nurses agreed that this was a good death. The man

had recently been through some significant health challenges in addition

to his immediate and pressing concerns. The medical team declared,

after doing all they could to save him, that as

sorry as they were for his demise, as sorry as

they were for his surviving family, that this was a

good death. Now, the idea of a good death might

leave you feeling ever so slightly uncomfortable. It might, I

would understand that if you're medical, then you might be

more greatly disposed to understand this idea a good death.

Give you another example of a good death. My mother

died in her nineties. Now, she was a wonderful mother.

She was a wonderful woman. The day before she died,

she was visited by a granddaughter and a great granddaughter

who were not mother and daughter. They were from different lines,

as it were. They spent the day together. They had

a wonderful time. They took her out. Oh she was,

she lit up. She had a great time. While it

was sad that she was gone, very sad, you'd have

to call hers a good death. She had family nearby.

She had lived a long, happy life filled with a

company wishments. Although time had done its work and she

was no longer vital, vibrance and energetic. After her granddaughter

and great granddaughter dropped her off at home, she pretty

quickly declined, went to sleep, and then went to sleep.

You'd have to say a good death sad, not tragic.

She was in her nineties, if she was in her teens,

sad and tragic. But for my mum, a good death.

There are bad deaths. I have a physician friend who

told me, in the course of a conversation that he

had been present at the death of many people, many patients.

Now why that was, I don't know, but you can

imagine that physicians might be there in a time of desperation.

They rushed to the bedside. It's too late to do much,

I asked him. I asked him if he saw a difference,

an observable difference between the death of a Christian believer

and an atheist. Now, I don't know if this is

empirical data. I don't know of his experience as normative

for all physicians. I don't know, but I do know

what he told me. He told me that he had

been present at the deaths of many people. Never had

he seen an atheist die in peace. Well, then he

backed up just a little, He said, maybe one. I said,

have you been present at many atheist debts? He said many?

None of them die in peace, he said. Well, with

the exception of the one, I have never seen them

die in peace, he said. By contrast, committed firm believers

in Jesus tended to pass away with a certain amount

of serenity about them. Not the bitterness, not the anger

that he viewed atheists dying with, but serenity and some

considerable peace. Now, I don't mean to tell you that

every atheist dies angry, that every atheist dies, butter, I

don't mean to tell you that I'm certain that's not

the case. But I am sharing with you the lived

experience of a physician friend of mine who takes careful

notes and very careful mental notes, and that's what he observes.

Some deaths, in his estimation, are better than others. Christians,

we can thank God that we need not live in

fear of death. The Bible says that Jesus said that

he came into this world that we might have You

tell me life, life, How tell me again more abundantly?

That's right, Jesus came that we might have life, John ten,

verse ten. The same Bible writer John and one John

five and verse twelve says that he or she that

hath the son hath you tell me life. If we

have Jesus, we have life. Writing to the church in

coloss A, which is not very far from Lao Deicia,

the apostle Paul wrote, when Christ, who is our life, appears,

then you also will appear with him in glory. In fact,

in that verse Colossians three and verse four, there are

a couple of supplied words that really ought not be there,

given to us as a gift by the translator. If

you take those words out, that verse says, when Christ

our life appears. Now that's a powerful thought. Christ our life,

not Christ, from whom we get life, not Christ in

whom is life. Although those things are true, Christ our life.

We have life because of the life giver. And we

are grateful that death, described in First Corinthians, chapter fifteen

as an enemy, will be destroyed Verse Corinthians fifteen and

verse twenty six, Revelation twenty one and verse four. God

shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there

shall be no more you tell me death. Now, if

you were to think about this, you would realize it's

a curious thing that we are talking about death at all,

in as much as when in the beginning. God created.

He did not create assuming that there would be death.

Death was not part of the equation. It was not

part of God's plan. God never intended that there would

be a single funeral. God never intended that you should

ever drive past a funeral home. It was not God's

idea that there would be headstones or even headaches. Sin

is an intruder, like a hijacker. Satan hijack this world. Now,

if you're old enough to remember, you remember there was

a time that hijackings were common. In the early seventies.

There was at least a hijacking a month. There were

times that there was a hijacking a week for a

given period of time. Somebody gets on board a plane,

and we wonder how in the world people were ever

allowed on board planes with weapons. How in the world

anybody was able to get on board a plane with

sticks of dynamite. I mean, what were we thinking? We

were very trusting in those days, weren't we? We were

very trusting. I just went through a security checkpoint in

another country. In fact, there wasn't a checkpoint. There was

about seven checkpoints. There was this one, and then there

was this one. Then there was this place where we

get the stamp and the passport, and then there was

this one, and then there was that mercy, just let

me in the country, haven't you scanned me already, checked

me out already? We used to be very trusting, Remember

the days that you could see somebody off by walking

all the way through the departure gate at the airport.

I explained this to my son when he was very little.

I said, son, you know, there was a time we

didn't have everything X ray and we'd have to go

through these scans. And my son, who as I said,

was very little at the time, he said to me, Daddy,

do you think we'll ever have it like that again?

That's a question of child would ask. I had to

explain to him that, no, son, it will never be

that way again, hi, Jackson. In the US and Canada

and Japan and the Middle East and all of that,

these people who inveigled their way onto aircraft with bad

motives and then before you know what's going on, something

bad is going on. That's that's how Sin came into

this universe. Satan inveigled his way into the garden of Eden,

and then he beguiled Eve and Adam. Well, Adam decided

where he would cast his vote, and he cast his

vote on the side of Eve. And before long, through

treachery and dishonesty, the devil had captured the hearts of

our original grandparents. Sin came and as a consequence of

sin death. Now I know that you know that we

have become far too comfortable with sin in this world.

And I know that you know that preachers don't preach

about sin today like they used to long ago. You

know why we want you to like us. We don't

want to offend you. We don't want you to think

that we are too conservative. We don't want to talk

about these things because we would hate you to think

that we're fuddy duddy that were behind the times, that

we're intolerant. But then there are some of us who

don't care, and we're willing to talk about what needs

to be talked about and let you think what you

want to think, because that's up to you. I have

been asked by God to tell you the truth. I

have not been asked by God to make sure you

like the truth. That's between you and God. Jesus spoke

about sin, and when he did so, he did so

in a radical way. I don't mean all the time,

but at least on this instance of which we read

in Matthew chapter eighteen, sin came into the world sin

broad death, and now we are kind of cozy with sin.

It doesn't offend us like it ought to, because as

as though we have been inoculated against it, we see

it everywhere. We watch it, everywhere we go on a Facebook,

we scroll through have mercy. I didn't ask for that.

It just assaults you. It'll come at you from out

of the blue. You'll watch your television program and you'll

watch things that you'd never discuss in church. You listen

to music, you'll even sing along, you sing lyrics that

you never sing from the front of church. Oh it's

only a song. No, it ain't only a song. It's sin.

It's not only a movie. It's wicked. And I'm not

characterizing every song and every movie like that. We've become

comfortable with sin, even though the Bible says the wages

of sin is death. And so Jesus speaks to some

of this in Matthew chapter eighteen. Verse one is where

I'll begin. And Jesus, the Bible says, came to his

disciples saying, no, I beg your pardon. The disciples came

to Jesus saying who is the greatest in the kingdom

of heaven. Luke wrote that there arose a reasoning or

a dispute among them, which of them should be the greatest.

Now that sounds like a very human thing, to strive

for the mastery. We want to promote ourselves. We want

the best seats. We want people looking at us with admiration.

There are people who will sell their soul just so

people will look at them and ooh and ah, Who's

going to be the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.

Seems like a human thing. But then there are the

real Bible heroes. Moses, the meekest man on earth, Joseph

who was imprisoned and just went about serving God without

any malice in his heart. Daniel, who was taken from

his own people to a foreign country, subjected to humiliation,

but yet he served God. And there was Hannah and

Mary and so many others. It's a natural thing to

court fightery, to seek admiration. It's natural, but it's not Christian.

It's the antithesis of Christianity. In fact, the Bible says

Jesus came to this world not to be ministered too,

but to minister and to give his life as a

ransom for many. That's what the Bible says. Striving to

be the greatest is indicative that all is not right spiritually.

These were church folks. Who among us is going to

be the greatest. We are striving for the supremacy. We

are one to elevate ourselves and in so doing push

somebody else down. Tell us about this, oh, rabbi, a

friend of God, of God calls you to be the

head elder, or the head deacon, or the president of

this or that. If he does, then he does. Someone's

got to do those roles. But if you covet position,

if you seek applause or praise or approbation, you are

not well spiritually. But as we'll find out, there is

hope for you. Don't worry if you're not well. You

go to the doctor when you're not well, and you

believe you're going to get well. So don't worry if

you're not well. Don't be distressed. If you find some

thing about you spiritually that isn't all it ought to be.

We are growing down here. We are on a journey.

We are growing in God's grace, and the Lord is

going to get it right. Can you say, men today,

it's going to get it right. So to answer their

very self centered question, Jesus placed the child in their

midst and he said that unless a person is converted

and becomes like a little child, that person cannot see

the Kingdom of God. He used the simplicity, the innocence,

the dial less ness of a child to indicate the

kind of person that a follower of Jesus really ought

to be, not claiming for position, not wanting to be

the greatest, but there's something about that. I was in Paris,

France some years ago, and I went to the Palace

of Versailles. It's splendid. Well. I knew someone who knew someone,

and the person that was known worked at the Palace

of Versailles. Was an insider. One of them people had

a key to everything inside the Palace of Versailles. My

friend contacted his friend. He said, give these people, if

you can, the experience of a lifetime. So I went

to the Palace of Versailles and they're it's a museum,

and it's it's a whole lot of things really And

have you ever been to a museum and there's an

area that's roped off, and man, I wish I could

get in there. We got in there. We were the

people behind the rope walking around. I'm looking at the

peasants on the outside of the rope, those who are

looking and things. I'd like to be in there. And

I'm thinking to myself, Man, look at me for once

I'm on the inside. I'm seeing the stuff that people

aren't allowed to get up closer. Ooh, and you can't

and I can. This feels pretty good. And then the

tour guide said, would you like to see the opera house?

I said yes. I mean, I'm not an opera buff.

I wouldn't know one opera from another, but I said, sure,

let's go. And they took us to the opera house.

And this thing was splendid. It was built by Louis

the fifteenth and it was inaugurated by the wedding of

Louis the sixteen, who was the child of the king

at the time, and Marie Antoinette. And at the time

Louis the sixteenth, or he wasn't Louis the sixteenth, he

was the defint Louis was fifteen and Marie Antoinette was fourteen.

So there's something a little bit weird about that, but

we'll just leave that and move right on. And so

we get to this opera house. The thing there's a

work of art. There's painting on the ceiling which is magnificent,

and they had a sculpture, make sculptures and stuff and

put all around the walls. It was beautiful. They said,

would you like to sit in the royal box? Oh? Yeah,

I like to sit in the royal box. So we

got one of these spiral staircases. Memory tells me it

was made out of stone. And we get up there

and we're in the Royal box and he said, go

ahead and sit down. And I'm imagining, of course, that

this is the seat in which the King sat. It's

not they've they've they you know, the King is not

a three hundred year old seat. This thing was built

in the seventeen hundreds. But I sat there and I

looked down and I looked at the picture on the ceiling,

and there's some American kids down there rehearsing for something

on the stage, and the thing looked so splendid, and

I thought man. This was the property of one man

once and I said to myself, it must be good

to be the king. And as I thought that, what

Bible verse came into my mind, I will ascend above

the heights of the clouds. I will be like the

most high lucifer in heaven. Had everything he needed, really

everything he could have wanted. But he was right there

in the sanctuary in heaven, the temple in heaven, and

he said to himself, it must be good to be

the king. He wanted to elevate himself. He wanted to

be something that he was not created to be. He

wanted all of the power and all of the glory.

And hearing the same disciples asking the question, how can

I be great in the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus said,

the one who humbles himself or herself like a child

is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. While those

who receive such a child receive him. Okay, But then

he said, but whoso shall offend one of those little

ones which believe in me, it were better for him

that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that

he were drowned in the depth of the sea. He said,

you'd be better off dead then carrying on like that.

Now I looked into that millstone. They were these little

millstones ahead for hand mills, and then there were these

big old millstones that they had an ox or a

donkey had to drive. It was one of those big millstones.

Jesus said, you'd be better off dead then dragging someone

into sind you'd be better off dead than setting a

stumbling block before a person's path. Now, I think, and

I think you'll agree, that Jesus was not saying if

you do that will kill you. He's not saying that.

He's saying, it's better that your life ends. Then you

would go on and trip up an innocent one and

lead that one into sin. Better off not alive, then

be alive and carry on like that. He went on,

whoe unto the world because of offenses, for it must

needs be that offenses come. But whoa to that man

by whom the offense comes the idea of causing another

person to stumble this offended Jesus. The thought that you

might be responsible for someone else being lost. That is

a solemn thought. Now I don't need to go there,

but I will. Where does that lead those wicked men

and women who harm children and scar them and lead

them almost irretrievably broken. Where does this Parents who are

old enough to sort out their troubles but instead act

like children and harm the children. I spoke to somebody

and I said, how will your children be? I understand

you're going through a divorce. How will your children be?

She said, the children will be fine. And when she

said it, and how she said it, I knew they

weren't going to be. And it wasn't long, and two

of those four kids were in therapy and another one

was just drifting aimlessly through life, And to this day,

to a greater or lesser degree, still is. Jesus says,

don't harm the little ones. Jesus then went on to

underscore the abhorrent nature of sin. When you said, it

off your hand or your foot causes you to sin,

you'd be better off going to heaven without that hand,

or without that foot. You'd be better off without a hand.

Here even when I said, if your eye causes you

to stumble, you'd be better off plucking out that eye

and go to heaven with one eye. Then go to

the Lake of Fire with twenty twenty vision In two eyes. Now,

that's a radical thing to say. It's a strong thing

to say, and Jesus was not advocating chopping off your

hand or your foot or plucking out your eye. I

don't want anybody to think, well, maybe I need to

go into harm myself in order to not go in

a sinful direction. No, no, no, it's a point. It's

a descriptive thing. There's something in your life now that's

causing you to stumble. Get rid of that thing. You

don't need it, no matter what it is. Might be

some friends you're better off without that. Might be some

lousy boyfriend or girlfriend for that matter, you're better off

without them. Might be a job for which you are

compromising your faith. Jesus says, you'd be better off without

that thing. Better pick you can food out of trash cans.

Then being paid two hundred thousand dollars a year and

compromising your faith and being a hypocrite and being set

up for everlasting destruction. You don't want that. What Jesus

is saying is that sin is best put away. Whatever

the sacrifice, or the perceived sacrifice, Sin can't benefit you

in any way. You may crave it, you might desire it.

You might be fascinated by it. You may fail to

understand the importance of it. You might be attracted to it.

But sin cannot help you. It will hurt you, and

through you, it will drag others to perdition. You'd be

better off without that thing that'll drag you down. You know,

during COVID, you saw how people acted. And I'm not

against this. People say, I don't want to get COVID,

I could get sick. Now, the fact of the matter

is the majority of people were only going to get sick.

It was a minority of COVID suffers who were going

to die. That doesn't mean it's not important. I'm just

laying this thing out here for you. Most people who

got COVID just blew right through it, some of course

very badly affected. No one wanted that. You see, people said,

the chances of me dying of COVID are slim. The

chances of me getting really sick not so slim, but slim.

But I don't want to fool with that because I

don't want to take my chances with it. Right, that's

good thinking. And so people said, give me a shot,

and then their second one, and then the third run

and then the booster, and people said, I don't want

to wear a mask. I want to wear two masks.

And they said no, not coming over, not going to church,

not going to church because of COVID. By the way,

you can come back now. It's okay, you can come back,

or it's over now you can come back to church.

Can't go to work, won't walk in my neighborhood. If

I go to trade to Joe's, I will observe the

thing will be at least six feet away from you.

You know, people took measures. I'm going to use the

word extreme, but it don't mean that in the majorative sense.

Extreme measures because we didn't want to get that sickness.

We didn't want long COVID even when we didn't know

about it. We didn't want to die, we didn't want anything.

We didn't want to take COVID to grandma's house. And

Grandma died because we brought COVID over to her house.

So we took measures, extreme measures again, I'm not using

that word negatively. To avoid We shut down the country

man close down our churches. Some of them were closed

for a year. I don't know what happened around here,

don't matter longer than a year. Why, of course we

didn't want to get sick, and yet we'll get close

to sin. You know, not a single person who got

COVID is going to go to hell because of COVID.

Did you know that not a single person is going

to be lost because of COVID? Might have got sick,

might have died, perish the thought. I'm not being light

about that. I have to believe that we took that

thing seriously, and yet Sin would dally with it, would

pile with it, we hang out with it, we get

close to it, we'll act. I get any problem when

the Bible says that sin causes death, sin separates a

person from God. We got to get serious about this,

ladies and gentlemen. You got serious about COVID, and you

and sin got some kind of settled day taunt going on.

What in the world Sin is the enemy here? Lady

and gentlemen. Yeah, you ought to look after your health,

of course you should, but you need to be looking

after your spiritual health as though your eternity depend upon it,

because we know it does. Too many people worrying about

this and worrying about that. Not so worried about sin

when sin nailed Jesus to a cross us and sin

will snuff out your eternal life. All right, we painted

that picture. But as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, Ah, there's

the rub. You can talk about sin until the sun

goes down. You can talk about letting go of sin

until you're blue in the face. Most would agree that

sin must go. Not all. Some have performed theological gymnastics

in some way to try to excuse sin, as though

holy living isn't really holy. Don't know what we can

do about those folks. Some of I advioleanced the idea

that sin doesn't matter so much. Of course it does.

But the question is this. It's one thing to come

to church and tell folks that sin isn't good. You

knew that. The question is what do we do about it? Huh? Okay,

I know the easy answer. Jesus all right, that's a

good answer. That's a good answer, an answer that leaves

out some of the detail. Were you ever in math

class and a math teacher said, okay, do the thing

and hand it in, and you hand it in and

you got You didn't get one hundred percent, even though

all the answers were right. The teacher said, you didn't

show your working. I don't want to show my working.

I just want to give you the answer. You got

to show the working. So we want to take a

look at some of the working today. Sin will drag

us down. You saw the answer for my sin is Jesus.

That's a good answer. But we want to show the

working here. Turn with me in your Bible to Romans

chapter six. Romans chapter six. I want to tell you

why we're going there. The news is all good. The

news is good. It's really good news. We're in church.

We're not gonna go away from here feeling defeated or deflated.

We're not gonna go away from here feeling disappointed. We

will not leave here feeling as though there's no way

forward or there's a way forward. Let's find the way

forward right now. So Romans six and verse one. Now,

the challenge of dive bombing into Romans is that we

didn't get the lead up to Romans. The Romans is

a very sequential book, but pardon me, we're going to

dive bomb right in here. We're going to land in

Romans chapter six and verse one, where the apostle writes

what shall we say, then, shall we continue in sin

so that grace may abound? Now this is a question

that he's really posed in different words earlier in the

Book of Romans. There's a lot of repetition in Romans,

a lot of repetition and enlargement in Romans, even though

it's not a prophetic book. So it says, do we

continue in sin so that grace mamber? Why would he

write that, because in just a few verses earlier Romans

five and verse twenty, Paul said, where sin abounds, you

tell me grace does much more abound. So the idea is,

if sin causes grace, maybe we should sin show that

there's more grace. That's not an illogical question. And Paul

answers the thing. He says, God forbid. Now, in the

original he never uttered the word god. I don't know

why the translators wrote God forbid. It really is something

like certainly, not absolutely, not, no way in the world.

Shall we continue in sin so that grace may bound?

Paul said, not happening. If he lifted there, you might

have said, oh okay. But he didn't just leave it there.

Paul told us why it ain't happening. He said, how

shall we here? It comes? How shall Here's a frustrating

thing with the Lord for a lot of people. You're

told I shouldn't do that. You're told be good. Don't

tell your kids to be good. You're asking him to

make water run up hill. Don't tell them to be good.

Dumb idea. We know that sin is wrong, we know

that certain things ain't right. We've got the Ten Commandments

and all of that, But often we approach that without this.

And if you approach that without this, you're going to

be miserable. You're going to be trying to pull a

rabbit out of a hat when there's no rabbit in

the hat. So here we go, God forbid. How shall

we that are dead to sin live any longer? Therein

are you with me today? How shall we that are

dead to sin live any longer? There? What does he

mean by that? Don't you know that as many of

us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into

his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism

into death. That, like as Christ was raised up from

the dead by the glory of the Father, even so

we also should walk in newness of life. When we

understand this thing correctly, understand that our baptism was really

the funeral service for the old sinner that we used

to be. That's what it is. This is why we

bear baptized by immersion. We put you all around it,

like someone who is buried is put all around it.

It's why, at least in our church, we have a

person laid back like that, just like they're going into

a grave. Not every church does it that way. I

don't know that it matters too much, but that's how

we do it. It's symbolic of burying the old you.

You know what, I guarantee you there are people here

right now. It's impossible to have a collection of people

this large without people someone feeling this way, feeling miserable

about themselves because they know they've got something going on

in their life. They know they've got some sin bubbling

away under the surface. Every and in it blows out.

So people see it and they know that, and they

know that Christian, and yet they can't stop it, and

they feel terrible, they feel like a hypocrite. In fact,

it is not uncommon for people to say, oh sin

is as bad as the pastors say, and I just can't,

so I might as well quit. No, you are in

the right place. You ain't gonna quit on Jesus because

there's some sin in your life for which He died.

You ain't gonna give up. Now we are finding the

solution right here. The Bible says we're buried with him

by baptism and the death verse five. If we've been

planted put the seed under the ground together in the

likeness of his death, we shall be also in the

likeness of Oh look at that. If you've died to

the old life and you were buried in a watery grave,

you are gonna come out of that thing in the

likeness of His resurrection. So what this is telling us

is there's a provision in the Gospel for you to

pass from death to life, to leave the old life

behind and live a new life in Jesus. Look in

verse six. Maybe, maybe maybe I'm the only one here

who gets fired up by this, because I know what

a sinner I was and am with out Jesus and mine.

Maybe maybe i'm looking out here. You all do look

very holy. Maybe you never had a battle with sinn

in your life, and this is only academic for you.

Maybe I think that's probably what it is. But this

excites the sinner like me verse six, knowing this that

our old man is crucified with him, that the body

of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we

should not serve sin. Come on now, I don't care

how dirty your mind is, how angry you are. I

don't care how twisted some of your ideas are. I

don't care about your track record. I am telling you

that through faith in Christ, you need not serve sin. Oh.

Look in verse seven, the one who is dead is

freed from sin. Come on, somebody and say man verse eight. Now,

if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we

shall live also with him. What a thing to be

free from sin? What is some someone? We carrying it

around like Christian and Pilgrim's progress with that massive burden

on his back undoubtedly representative of the big, heavy anvil

that the author John Bunyan used to carry around with

him when he was an itinerant worker. And we carry

this thing around and we struggle sometimes to summon the

energy to stand up straight. But the Bible says we

can be freed from sin knowing that Christ being raised

from the dead, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead,

dies no more. Death has no more dominion over him.

For in that he died, he died this sin once.

But in that he lived, he lived under God, all right,

knowing that verse eleven. Likewise, in the same way, reckon.

Now we are north of the Mason Dixon line up here. Well,

I'm from people reckon nice day. Yeah, I reckon. It

looks like in my brain, I reckon. I shall we

talking New Zealand as well, my homegun. Yeah, I reckon,

I reckon. It's pretty good reckon. We kind of have

this idea I believe. I think that's what I reckon.

But you look at that word, it has a connotation

of accounting. Reckon. It's like you do the books and

then you recognize that the balance is one hundred dollars

and ten cents. You reckon that that's the balance. The

reckoning is the result of your accounting methodology. So Paul

Diden saying, oh, yeah, yeah, I just choose to believe

that I'm free. He's saying, you weigh up the evidence,

you do the working, you read what's written here in

the Bible, you consider what Jesus has done, and then

you can only come to the conclusion that you are

dead indeed under sin, but a lie under God through

Jesus Christ, our Lord. Jesus died so we might live.

We believe that, and then we say, I'm gonna follow

Jesus into the water of baptism. I will leave my

sin behind. I'm gonna come up a new person. Now

I know, I know what you're thinking. I'll get to that,

and you won't let me forget it. Verse twelve. Do

not let sin therefore rein in your mortal body that

you should obey it. In the last seal, you get

that right. We choose to obey sin. Now you might say, man,

I'm on autopiloty I put my foot in my mouth

without even thinking that's right. It's still a choice. Sin

is a choice you don't have. Or the devil made me. No,

he didn't. The devil tempted you. You made you nobody else.

Don't lie. Don't hide behind that. The Bible says, I'm

gonna read that same verse again. Don't let sin rain

in your mortal body that you should obey it. In

the last ser of neither yield ye your members as

instruments of unripe don't surrender yourself to be an instrument

of unrighteousness, but yield yourself under God as those that

are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments

of unrighteousness under God. That would yield it means to surrender.

So temptation comes and you want to honk and shake

your fist and wind the window down and screech at somebody.

And God says, don't do that, surrender it to me,

and you're ah, and you surrender. You're at home and

your spouse is doing something, oh, something terrible. Ant are

chewing too loudly. It's the end of the world. And

you want to push back from the table and say,

how many times have I told you I can't stand it? Well,

maybe you can't stand it, and I would advise any

spouse to be polite at the dining room table. But

before you haul off at somebody, God will speak to you,

and you say, all right, I'm gonna surrender that to you.

You tempted to on your taxes, You surrender to the

Lord and he will bring you through. You're tempted to

open that web page that you know you should stay

away from, and instead you go, oh, Lord, I'm going

to surrender that to you, and God will move in

with a power that you may never have experienced before.

And you get to the end of that thing and

you say, well, look what God did ordinarily out of

being with that like a pig in the strawberries. But

God brought me through and he'll do it again and again.

You're around at that work of function and they offer

you wine and you think, what are some sophisticated people

at church who drink wine? And then the Lord says, yeah,

but they're not your example. Jesus is your example. You go, oh,

that's right. And they said, come on, man, I know

you want of these Christians, but don't be so uptight.

It's very nice. And you say, in that moment, dear Jesus,

I'm struggling here. The temptation is real. Make a way

of escape, and he will because you're surrendered to God.

And you get to the end of the evening, you said, man,

my conscience is clear. I honored God in that moment

instead of dishonoring God. Verse fourteen. The Lord wanted you

to hear this today. Sin shall not have dominion over

you because you are not under the law. But you

are under grace. What a beautiful thing to know that

we live in a sinful world. But sin does not

have to have dominion over us. To know that every

way we turn this sin. But it doesn't have to

govern us to know that there's temptation at every turn.

But it doesn't have to govern us. Why because we

have chosen to die to sin and to live for Jesus. Now,

it's common for preachers to use the church board meeting

as an example of people who lose their caul. I

gotta tell you, I've never been to a church board

meeting where people got ugly. But can you imagine sitting

in a meeting, whether it's a church board meeting or

a PTA meeting, anything else, and somebody is about to

say something cutting, but they go, I'm gonna surrender that

to you, Lord. Or somebody says something you're gonna rear

up on your hind legs and lash out, and you say,

I'm gonna surrender that to you. Lord. There's somebody a

church who offended you, and maybe they really did, but

there's a bitter way of going about it than going

after them like that. And you say, Lord, as much

as I like to stangle that person. I surrender it

to you, and I ask you to give me love.

This will change your life. That person at Wegman's got

snippy with you, and I'm gonna take that lady, But no,

Jesus give me grace. And you can say, hey, God,

bless you have a great day and walk out of there,

maintaining your equilibrium, retaining your Christian experience. And you are

a light who shone for Jesus, not a self righteous

goat who only acted that way to make the other

person feel bad. But you let Jesus work in your

life in that moment. And somebody somewhere said, man, that

person must have something serious going on. You see, when

Jesus died on the cross, he died to give us victory.

What does the Bible say, The son of Man came

to seek and save that which was lost. You shall

call his name Jesus, for he will save his people

from their sins. Amen. None of us are damned to

be addicts to this or that. Now, by the way,

I need to come back around here. I'm not saying.

Just believe in Jesus and you'll be delivered from the

addiction that may happen but you may need to support group,

You may need people around you. I'm not down on that.

But none of us must be addicts. None of us

must have corrupt minds, none of us must be prideful,

none of us must be seeking. Who's going to be

the great, who's gonna be greatest at reaching hearts in

the national Surely me else need to be that person,

not a single one. Why Because Jesus came to this

earth and he said, a new heart, also will I

give you? And I'm caught in the old Testament, and

a new spirit will I put within you? And I

will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh,

and I will give you a heart of flesh. There

is a way forward for the sinner. There is a

way forward for the boorish husband who doesn't seem to

be able to manifest respect for his wife. God can

change your heart if you will surrender that heart to

him and choose to die to self. Self wants expression.

I want to tell you how crazy you make me.

I want to tell you how badly you park your

car out there. I want to tell you how rude

you are. I want to tell you that people don't

like the way you carry yourself. I mean I don't,

but you understand. But God says, no, that ain't no.

You don't want to do that. That's not love, that's

not Christian, that's not right. And I'm praying, Lord, give

me a new heart today, give me a fresh baptism

with the Holy Spirit. Today. Allow my heart to beat

in harmony with yours. That old person that I was,

let that person be dead, and let's not practice spiritualism

and somehow drag that person back to life. We don't

need to do that. The Lord is able to change

your life. Now here's the next sermon. I know I'm

out of time already. What I ought to do is

quit write here. But if I do, someone's gonna say, so,

let me give you the next sermon and a half

in about three minutes. What's gonna happen. I'm not sure

what the amen was four exactly, but I'll proceed. What's

gonna happen is you're gonna go home and you gonna say, yeah,

you know he's right. The Bible says that I'm not

being taken that seriously, and I have not been living

in a way dead to sin. And you're gonna say yep,

I pray, thank you Jesus, dead to Sin. I consider myself.

I see what you've done for me on the cross,

Dead to Sin. And then at about ten o'clock tomorrow morning,

your neighbor's cutting the grass and you told him to

keep away from them shrubs, and he gets too closer,

right over top of two little plants that you be nurturing,

and you say that is it, and you storm out

of the house and you shriek and you yell. You

put on some old sweat pantsom a T shirt, what

holes because you don't even care how you look, and

you and his face, Larry buddy eye, lie hm. I

mean it's so bad your husband has to run out

and hold you back, and he brings you in the house,

give you a cup of ice tea or something. And

then you say, after that sermon yesterday, and after the

way I prayed last night, I really thought I had it.

I really thought I did well. I really think you

did too, And I really think you do. The one

thing that I do need to tell you is that Paul,

after Romans six, goes to Romans seven. It's a reality check,

and he says, there are times I don't want to

do what's right, and I don't. And there are times

I don't want to do what's wrong, and I do,

and he calls himself a wretched first six chapters of

Romans the theory, and it's good theory too. And then

you get a Romans chapter seven. It's the reality chap.

You can have all the theory you want, but you're

still fighting against a hard and sinful heart. But then,

who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

I thank God through Jesus Christ, my Lord, Jesus a deliverer.

And then Romans eight and verse one, there's your key.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are

in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but

after the spirit, but after the Spirit. So, ladies and gentlemen,

we have the privilege of bringing to Jesus our sin

heartened hearts, receiving a new heart, and being filled with

the spirit of God. Yep, we're gonna have some growing

to do. You got some unlearning to do. Those old

habits don't immediately die the minute you name the name

of Jesus. But you've got to be relentless about this.

Jesus save me God, do that work. Fill me with

your Holy spirit, keep us front and center, and more

and more and more the life of Jesus will be

manifest in your life. I read a book called The

Desire of Ages, and on page six hundred and sixty

eight I found a quote that said this, all true

obedience comes from the heart. It was hearts work with Christ,

and if we consent, he will so identify our thoughts

and aims with his, so blend our hearts and minds

into conformity to his will, that when obeying him we

shall be but carrying out our own impulses. The will,

refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing

his service through an appreciation of the character of Christ.

Through communion with him, sin will become hateful to us.

Now that sounds radical, right, You can't imagine hating some

of the stuff that right now you love. But if

you let God do the work, that's what will happen

in your life. Jesus came to this world not to

give you a half baked victory, not to get you

close to the finished line, not to get you nearly there,

not to clean you up, not to renovate you. He

came to this world to recreation, to make you new,

to allow you to be an example to the world

of what the grace of God can do. And his

victory for you was total and complete. Now, if you

want to go to Alexandria in Egypt, that's about one

hundred miles north and a little bit west of Cairo,

and you looked out into the water that way, you'd

be looking out over Abukia Bay. That's a fascinating bay.

Recent times archaeologists have found submerged ancient cities there. They

found two thousand year old ships there. It's quite the place.

But in seventeen ninety eight, and that's a year for us,

Horatio Nelson, Admiral Nelson of the British Fleet, led the

British Navy in a battle against the navy of France.

It was called the Battle of the Nile. The English

were spectacularly successful. To commemorate this, the ruler of Egypt,

a man at the time, his name was Muhammad Ali,

interestingly enough, gave the British an obelist Cleopatra's needle. If

you go down by the River Thames in London today,

you can see it. It's right there, right now. Cleopatra's needle.

Thank you for delivering us from this scourge of the French.

If you go to Trafalgar's at Trafalgar Square in London,

great big tall thing, Nelson's column in honor of this

man who won the Battle of the Nile and other

battles as well. Now that Victoria the Battle of the

Nile in Aboukia Bay total domination. It was an absolute

route utter defeat for the French. Nelson said this afterward. Listen,

victory is not a strong enough name for such a scene,

as I have passed long ago. Adam and Eve were

out there in the gard ne Eden and Eve did

the unthinkable and ate the fruit. The planet was plunged

into sin. And shortly after, shortly after, God promised our

original grandparents, those rebels, He promised them that Jesus was

gonna come to this world. You, Satan will bruises heal,

He will bruise your head. This was gonna be complete victory.

Jesus came to this earth when the planet was in

a desperate place. God's people were servants in their own lands.

A pagan empire ruled the better part of the globe.

But then Jesus Jesus came and lived a life of

commitment to God. Jesus came and lived a life of

obedience to God. Jesus came and lived a life of

surrender to God. Betrayed by Judas, sentenced by pilot, delivered

up by his own people, nailed to a cross by

Roman soldiers, Jesus bled and suffered and died. They laid

him in Ship's new tomb. And then on Sunday morning,

Mary Magdalen is there? Where have they taken him? John

goes running down there with Peter. What in the world,

where is our savior? The angel said, he is not here,

He is resin this friend. Was victory, victory over the grave,

victory over the forces of darkness, victory over the powers

of hell, victory over sin. It was victory for you

and me, and anyone who chooses to believe in Jesus

and surrender their life to him. We might say, as

Nelson said, victory is not a strong enough name for

such as seen as Jesus passed, it was total domination.

He came out that grave on Sunday morning and ascended

to heaven, seated in God's right hand. And soon he's

coming back for you. Can you say, man, victory Today

through Jesus, are we discovered sin Us no good? But

I'll save us very good. Sin will drag you down,

Jesus will lift you up. You can't beat it in

your own strength. But if you'll die that death to

self and let the spirit failure and Jesus live his

life in you, you are looking forward to the return

of Jesus, that day when gravity cannot hold you down,

that day when there's an innumeral company of angels crowding

the sky, that day when the dead in Christ shall rise.

We say, with John who wrote Revelation. Even so, come

Lord Jesus, victory is not a strong enough name. Can

you say, Amen, We're gonna claim that victory, friend of

this hope. We aren't leaving here today defeated. We're not

leaving here disconsolate. We're not leaving here discouraged. We are

not leaving it depressed. We're gonna leave here elevated. We're

gonna leave here ignited. We will leave here encouraged because

Jesus is here, is our savior, Here is our Lord.

Here's our victory. He has changed everything, and he's coming

back to take us. So come on and say man,

pray with me. Pray with me. Friend, Father in heaven,

we thank you today that in spite of sin, there

is a savior. In spite of our weakness, you are strong.

In spite of our failure, You can make us right.

In spite of the ghastly, grotesque nature of sin. We

can say today that we don't want it. There's not

one here today who's impetuous enough to make you a

promise or give you a pledge and tell you that

we're going to get it right. We're going to tell

you today as we have got it wrong. But we're

willing to allow you to take our hearts. We are

willing that you fill us with your spirit. We are

willing to receive the righteousness of Christ. We are willing

to die to self that sin might not have dominion

over us. Now I have assumed. I have presumed something, Friend,

I said, we are willing. I must ask your forgiveness.

I spoke for you. The only one who can speak

for you is you. I want to give you a

chance to silently speak. If it is your desire that

Jesus fill you with his presence, if it is your

desire to be dead, to self, but alive under God.

Would you raise your hand right now? Would you? No? No, no,

not not ask you to promise God, nothing but leed.

God know that you are willing to be made, and

you willing to be transformed, willing to be kept by

His grace? Are you willing today? Father? The only one

looking around right now is you. You can see the hands.

More importantly, you can see the hearts. So keep us now.

Would you please fill us with your spirit. Let us

be dead to sin and alive under God through Jesus Christ,

our Lord. This is our prayer. We pray in faith

in Jesus' name. Please say amen,