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IN
ADAM ALL DIE
When
the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:22, “...in Adam all die...in Christ shall all be
made alive,” it doesn’t mean that because all men die physically, all are going
to be made alive spiritually.
All
of us by natural birth inherit Adam’s nature and physical characteristics.
We are so inseparably linked with him that the Bible says we are in
Adam, and because of that all die. In
this we have no choice. As descendants
of Adam we are born with sinful natures. We
can’t help sinning any more than an apple tree can help producing apples.
We can no more produce righteousness than can an apple tree produce oranges.
And because of sin we are all condemned in the sight of God Who has declared,
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).
The
end result of sin is that we are unfit for heaven; and at death, unless having
trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior, our souls must first enter hell, and later, the
lake of fire, to exist in torment for ever (Revelation 20:15).
“A
cruel and unfair decision on God’s part, since I have no choice as to the kind of
nature with which I’m born,” you say; and were it not for one circumstance, I
would have to endorse your assertion. That
circumstance is that while we have no control over the fact that we are born with a
sinful nature, born to sin, condemnation,
and death, we do have control over whether to remain in that condition.
Adam
brought himself, and all his posterity, into that state by an act of disobedience;
and each man can take himself out of it by an equally simple means: obedience.
Adam incurred the sentence of death by one disobedient act, and man can obtain
the gift of eternal life by one act of obedience.
The
test of Adam’s obedience was in regard to God’s command not to eat the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The
test of man’s obedience today is equally simple: “...but now (God) commandeth all
men every where to repent” (Acts 17:30), and to “believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ” (Acts 16:31). God cannot
be charged with injustice when he makes
redemption available by the very same means as brought the original condemnation.
To refuse to believe on Christ is to be just as disobedient as Adam, and
therefore worthy of the same condemnation, for the Creator has the right to require
obedience of the creature. And this is
not mere caprice on God’s part. Disobedience
on the part of any creature mars the perfection of His creation, and none can dispute
that God has the right not to permit the desecration of what He has made for His own
glory, and man’s enjoyment.
Someone
may object, “Why, then, did God allow man to sin?”
The
answer is very simple. God has made man
in His own image, so that man might live for ever in the enjoyment of fellowship with
the Creator. But that required Him to
give man a free will, without which man is reduced to the level of the beast, and
therefore unfit for companionship with God. Without
a free will man is a mere automaton.
That
free will however entails responsibility. Man
must choose whether he will exist for ever in the torment of the lake of fire, or in
the eternal bliss of heaven, sharing the rule of the universe with Christ (2 Timothy
2:12; Revelation 22:5).
It
seems incredible that man should hesitate in regard to such a choice, but the truth
is that in his fallen state he has become a fool (Romans 1:22), who deems it better
to continue in a rebellion that will end in his own destruction, rather than to save
himself by obeying the command of God to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior,
and in that saved state to be restored to an even higher place of privilege and
blessing than that from which the disobedience of Adam had removed him.
Simply
stated, man, refusing to believe in Christ as Savior, binds himself to the ruin
chosen for him by Adam, instead of using his own free will to save his soul from
eternal torment, by believing that when Christ died on Calvary’s cross it was for
him.
Where
do you stand today? Bound to the eternal
misery and death chosen for you by Adam, and without your consent; or in the eternal
blessing and peace chosen by your own free-willed acceptance of Jesus Christ as your
Savior? He died the death incurred by
the disobedience of Adam, so that all who are in Adam might end that deadly
association, and become a new creation in Him (2 Corinthians 5:17), for as natural
birth gave us Adam’s fallen nature and guilt, so does the new birth give us
Christ’s holy nature and righteousness, without which no man can enter heaven.
That’s why Christ has declared the imperative of that new birth, “Except a
man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God....Ye must be born
again” (John 3:3-7).
“In
Adam all die...in Christ shall all be made alive.”
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THE
NECKLACE
In
Guy DeMaupassant’s famous short story The Necklace the tale is told of a
proud young woman who was invited to a ball. Lacking
expensive jewellery of her own, she went to a wealthy friend and borrowed a beautiful
necklace for the occasion.
As
she laughed and danced, she little dreamed that in a few short hours the glitter of
the ballroom would give place to ten long years of poverty and toil.
That
night she lost the necklace!
A
week’s frantic search failed to reveal a trace of it, so she and her husband then
began an equally frantic search of the jewellery shops in an effort to find a
duplicate so that her friend wouldn’t learn of the loss.
At
last they found one - but, the price was 36,000 francs.
They borrowed everywhere, bought the necklace, returned it to her friend, and
then began the ten-year long task of scrimping, living in poverty, working day and
night, both growing prematurely old and worn, to repay the borrowed money.
Ten
years later the last franc was repaid, and shortly afterwards the woman, no longer
young, no longer proud, chanced to meet her friend on the street.
In response to the friend’s amazed inquiry regarding her drastically altered
appearance, the woman, now no longer caring, related the story of the replacement
necklace, only to learn that the original had been an imitation worth less than 500
francs!
Pride
and deception resulted in ten years of misery. Pride
led the woman to borrow the necklace, and had she not borrowed it, she wouldn’t
have lost it. Had she confessed the loss
instead of trying to hide it, the cost would have been a paltry 500 francs instead of
36,000.
There
may be a moral in this story relative to the life of the reader, for it is possible
that pride and deception may cost you, not just ten years of misery, but an eternity
of torment.
Pride
keeps men and women from admitting that they are sinners, and they deceive themselves
by assuming that there are other ways of escaping hell and entering heaven, other
than repentance, and faith in Jesus Christ as the One Who died in their guilty place
for their sins, when He Himself warns that there is no other way, declaring, “I am the
way ... no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (John 14:6), God adding the
further warning, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts
4:12).
How
much more terrible will be the eternal torment of the unbeliever when he discovers,
too late, that confession of sin to God, and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, would
have brought his soul into the eternal bliss of heaven instead of the eternal torment
of hell and the lake of fire!
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INTERRUPTED
PLANS
Have
you ever had your plans suddenly interrupted by an accident, illness, death of a
loved one, unexpected unemployment, etc., and did it occur to you that it might have
been God’s way of trying to get your attention?
He warns, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day
may bring forth” (Pr 27:1), and in Job 33:14 it is written, “For God speaketh
once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.”
Suppose
one of those sudden interruptions to your plans had been your death, where would your
soul be now? You say, I’m not sure.
Your very uncertainty declares that it would be in hell, for the Bible assures
those who trust Christ as Savior that they are going to heaven, “These things have
I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know
that ye have eternal life (1 Jn 513). The
unbeliever however, is warned, “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life;
but the wrath of God abideth on him” (Jn 3:36).
“But,”
you protest, “I do believe in Christ.”
So do the demons, but it doesn’t save them, “The demons also believe, and
tremble” (Jas 2:19). You see,
believing about Christ isn’t the same as believing in
Him as your Savior, as the One Who died in your guilty place at Calvary.
Many believe about Him, but they wouldn’t confess publicly that they have
been saved from hell and fitted for heaven by believing in Him as their personal
Savior, but unless that public confession is made you are going to hell and not
heaven, for it is written, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved” (Ro 10:9).
I
repeat, What if the next sudden interruption to your plans were your death, where
would your soul be?
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TOMORROW WAS TOO LATE
On April 8, 1996 John McSherry, while umpiring a baseball game, dropped dead
of a heart attack in front of thousands of fans.
He was scheduled for a medical checkup the next day!
Suddenly, without warning, he went from time into eternity, as do countless
others every day. One day, perhaps sooner than you think, you too must go into
eternity - to heaven or hell, depending on whether you have been born again through
faith in Jesus Christ as the One Who died in your place, for your sins, He Himself
warning, "Ye must be born again" Jn 3:7.
Without that new birth, your place in eternity will be first hell, and then
for ever the lake of fire, Rev 20:15. God
warns, "Now is the accepted time" 2 Cor 6:2, for, "Ye know not what
shall be tomorrow" James 4:14. For
you too, tomorrow could be too late.
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YOU
HAVE A CHOICE
You
have no choice in regard to the fact that your lineage goes back to Adam, which means
that also without choice you are a sinner, excluded from heaven, and condemned to
eternal death, for Adam’s sin is imputed to all men, because he was the federal
head and representative of the human race, and “In Adam all die” 1 Co 15:22.
But
you do have a choice as to whether to remain in that state!
By accepting the fact of your bad parentage, and by believing that Jesus
Christ loved you enough to die in your place, you have God’s assurance that that
faith takes you out of Adam and into Christ, and “in Christ shall all (who believe)
be made alive” 1 Co 15:22.
By
refusing to trust in Christ as your Savior, you are choosing to remain in Adam, and
therefore to remain condemned to eternal torment in the lake of fire (Rev 20:15).
Isn’t it madness to remain condemned by Adam’s foolish choice, when by
your own choice to trust in Christ as Savior you can save yourself from that
condemnation?
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FIG
LEAVES
The
counterpart of Adam and Eve’s attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves, is
man’s futile attempt to fit himself for heaven by good works, but God warns that,
“all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” Isa 64:6.
Church membership, prayer, Bible study, moral reformation, philanthropy,
self-denial, or anything else man might do, won’t save him from hell, and fit him
for heaven. To be acceptable to God “Ye must be born again” Jn
3:3,7, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, God’s assurance being,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” Ac 16:31, for, “To
him who worketh not, but believeth on Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
counted for righteousness” Ro 4:5, “By grace are ye saved through faith,
not of works, lest any man should boast” Eph 2:8-9.
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WHAT
IS THE SINNER’S PRAYER?
It
is a relatively new religious phenomenon, and a far cry from the prayer of the
penitent publican, “God be merciful to me a sinner” Lk 18:13.
This
new “sinner’s prayer” is an inherent part of the new false “gospel” that
ignores man’s ruined state, the reality of hell, the need of conviction of sin,
repentance and an obedient life. It
simply invites men to “ask Jesus into your heart,” not to cleanse from sin, save
from hell and fit for heaven, and be Lord of the life, but to improve the lifestyle,
and be the panacea for life’s problems. No such gospel is found in Scripture, but the very opposite,
Christ Himself warning true converts, “In the world ye shall have tribulation” Jn
16:33. This new deadly “gospel”
deludes its dupes into believing that they’re saved when they aren’t, that
they’re going to heaven, when they’re still on the road to hell.
If your hope of heaven is based on your having repeated this popular
“sinner’s prayer” to some would-be-evangelist, then you have no hope!
Genuine conversion results from conviction produced by the Holy Spirit,
resulting in repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, not as Savior from life’s
problems, but from hell.
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THE
DAYS OF LOT
Relative
to His return, Jesus Christ warned that, “As it was in the days of Lot, thus shall
it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” Lk 17:28.
The rampant homosexuality of today marked those days also, and brought God’s
judgment, and he who doubts that AIDS is God’s judgment on this sin should read Ro
1:27. This, however, is only the precursor of more terrible judgments
yet to envelope the world, but prior to those judgments Christ will remove all
believers to heaven, and warns that those left, who had rejected the Gospel, will
have no further chance to be saved, but will be banished into hell when He returns to
establish His millennial kingdom, 1 Co 15; 1 Thes 4; 2 Thes 2.
If
He were to remove believers to heaven today (and He could), would you be included?
To be ready for His coming, admit that you are a sinner without righteousness,
believe that He died as your Substitute at Calvary, and that in response to that
faith, God will pardon all your sin and receive you into heaven.
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TEKEL
Tekel,
meaning “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting” Dan 5:27, was
written of one who was feasting and drinking, knowing not he had but a few hours left
to live. He is typical of many today.
He had ignored God, but now, about to die, he trembled. What if you were to learn that you had but a few more hours
to live? Are you prepared to meet God,
certain beyond doubt that you’d be in heaven? Some day, perhaps today, you will die, and God warns,
“Prepare to meet thy God .... For it is appointed unto men once to die, but after
this the judgment.” If you can’t
remember a time when, and a place where, you were born again by confessing yourself a
sinner, and accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior, God’s warning to you is, “Thou
art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”
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TODAY
or TONIGHT?
“Thou
fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Lk 12:20) was
the announcement of God to a rich man making plans for a future he didn’t have,
though he didn’t know it.
Do
your plans presume a long future? What
if, without knowing it, you too have entered your last few hours?
Will your soul be in heaven? You
don’t know? Then God says, “Thou
fool”, for not to know is to admit that you have never been born again (Jn 3:3,7),
and will therefore be in hell.
“Today
shalt thou be with Me in paradise” (Lk 23: 43) was the assurance of Christ to a man
who, like the other, had also entered his last few hours of earthly life, but he knew
it, and had prepared for eternity. He
had been born again. He had trusted
Christ as his Savior, and was therefore certain of being in heaven.
You
have either the assurance of Christ’s today, or of God’s tonight.
Prepare now to meet God. You
may not have a tomorrow.
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