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| Photo taken from B Smith's Window |
208 - DO YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR FATHER?
September 20, 1964
Pastor Henry F. Kulp
Romans 5: 12 - 15. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all mane, for that all have sinned: 13 For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
This chapter has many hard things to say…things that you have to think through. But, the important ingredient in this chapter is that you must have faith in what God has to say. God wants you above all else to believe His Word, to believe what He has said. He doesn’t want you to call Him a liar. Let us show you in the Old Testament what God thinks of a man who believes what He has to say –has faith in His Word.
Exodus 13: 18 But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt.
Now when Joseph was sold into Egypt, he became ruler in Egypt, and he brought his father Jacob and his brethren down. Joseph lived for some years after his family was there with him. But when he came to die he called his family about him and said, you are in Egypt, but God has given you Palestine, the Promised Land, and God is going to take you out of Egypt and put you into the Promised Land. That was faith –there was absolutely no evidence of it, but Joseph said, when you go, dig up my bones. Most folks don’t like to talk about disposing of their bones after they are dead. God noticed that and He was pleased, and God put it in the New Testament.
Hebrews 11: 22 By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
Joseph when he was dying gave commandment concerning his bones. That is one thing in the life of Joseph that God put His finger on. Remember he was a mighty ruler, he saved the world from famine, he did great things, but God didn’t take notice of that in the New Testament, but rather in the New Testament He said when he was dying, he had faith. That is precious to God, and that is one thing that God has recorded in the 11th chapter of Hebrews.
1/ Then there is another example of faith that always stands out in my mind when I read my Bible.
Exodus 14: 6 And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him: Here, it is talking about Pharaoh, and it said he made ready and took people with him. And the 8th verse says, And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel: and the children went with an high hand. And the 10th vs. And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children Israel cried out unto the Lord. Then notice the 13th vs. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will shew to you today: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever.
That was faith – it was the faith of a man named Moses. Here he had the mountains to the left, the right. He had the Red Sea in front of him, and he had the Egyptians pursuing after him. Humanly speaking, there was no answer, but he was not afraid. He knew that God was going to deliver them. In the midst of the awful trial he was not afraid. We are told when he led the people out of Egypt, he was not afraid of the king’s commandment. So, you see, he had faith. He wasn’t afraid of Pharaoh anymore. My, how the modernists; the liberalists who claim to be Christians, are afraid of the miracles of the Bible. They don’t want to accept God’s Word.
Exodus 15: 8 And with the blast of their nostrils the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. Here where Moses is singing the song of deliverance from the Red Sea, he has this in his song --- and with the blast of Thy nostrils, the waters were gathered together, the floods stood upright as a heap.
I am sure you will recognize that you can’t possibly pile up water as you pile up bricks. But God can, God can pile up water as a heap, and I don’t have any trouble believing that. I like what Paul Rader said about the crossing of the Red Sea. He said that day many a fish bumped his nose into the wall and had to go back. It certainly was real to that fish. But modernist like to say there was a great wind and the wind drove the sea back and the wind parted the sea and there was a shallow place where the Children of Israel went over. But God said it was on dry ground, and He piled the water in a heap. There is no trouble for me to believe this ---God said it and I accept it by faith.
2/ God said He created man male and female, He created them Adam and Eve and put them in the garden. Just as man refuses to accept that Adam and Eve were the first man and we all have come from Adam; just so human man does not want to accept the story of the fall of man. Did you ever hear the foolish opinions that modernists put forth about the fall of man? In the middle ages, in the dark ages, the notion of celibacy was introduced into the church. And the natural union of man and woman was consequently regarded as evil, and out of this teaching came the thought that the forbidden fruit was the sex act. But God told the original pair to be fruitful and multiply the earth. As a matter of fact, it was required of God, not forbidden by God.
3/ Others have alleged the fruit was the grape, and that the original sin was drinking wine, which made man drunk. Again, this is foolish, for since the fruit was eaten before the curse was passed upon the earth, before the flood, there was no fermentation, and there could be no wine. So, the original sin was not drinking wine. Then others have talked about eating an apple, but God doesn’t say anything about an apple here. How men have distorted the fall of man.
4/ The easiest way to understand a passage of Scripture is to accept it literally, just what it says. This is true of many difficult passages in the Bible. God placed man in the Garden of Eden and gave him dominion over everything except a few square yards of ground in the midst of the garden, where one tree was growing. The fruit of this tree was forbidden to man, but to be absolutely technical, he was not forbidden to work around the ground on which the tree grew. He was not forbidden to bask in its shade. He was not told he couldn’t look at the fruit nor he couldn’t touch. He was simply told he could not eat it. This prohibition was a symbol of man’s creature-hood that he was dependent upon God, and that he was in subjection to God.
5/ Here lies the nature of the acts which man committed and by which sin entered into the world. It was not enough for man to have everything with just one exception. He immediately wanted that thing that was the exception. It was as though he said, I know that I have everything north, south, east and west of this tree, but as long as I cannot eat the fruit of this tree, something is withheld from me. Do you know who I am? I’m Adam, I’m Eve, and I’m superior to the animals which I have named, there is real injustice here, God is keeping something back from me. But I shall right that wrong. I will eat of the fruit of the tree, actually, it all came down to one thing --- disobedience to God, and comes down to one thing --- the rejection of God’s Word. And, so, salvation, then, is the acceptance of God’s Word. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
6/ All in Adam have sinned. Adam is the federal head of the Race. He represents us all, and we have all come from him. How man loves to trace his ancestry...back a few generations, but we cannot trace them back too far. But we should remember, all of us go all the way back to Adam who was created by God. People like to say, John gets his blue eyes from his mother’s side, or Mary gets her red hair from her father, and some people will even go so far to say, He inherited that terrible, sour, mean disposition from his grandfather --- and, of course, it is on the other individual’s side. Then you hear the expression, he is a chip off the old block. We really are---we are a chip off the old block, and we are just like Adam. For we are born in Adam; and Adam sinned, and we have Adam’s sin nature.
7/ The next thing we want to see is in Romans. 5:14 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.
What we see is that Adam did not sin after the manner we sin, and he is a figure of Him that was to come. What does all of this mean? How was Adam a figure of Christ who was to come? To understand what it means that Adam is a figure of Christ, or a type of Christ, for that is exactly what the word means, we have to go back to the first family.
Genesis 2: 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Here Adam is speaking, telling what a husband should do for his wife. Notice, the most important thing we want to see in our study is that the husband is to cleave to his wife. In other words, he is to love her, watch over her and cleave to her. The husband should be the clinging vine.
8/ But soon after Adam had promised to cleave unto his wife, the tempter came into the Garden of Eden, and tempted the woman in the absence of her husband, Adam. The question immediately rises, why did the devil not tempt Adam first, and why did he begin with the woman, for remember, Adam was the federal head of the race, and the whole earthly creation therefore would fall, if he would fall. But the devil started out on Eve. Eve was an individual and not a federal head when she fell. She fell as an individual, and did not bring the rest of creation down with her. Therefore, it would have been more logical to tempt Adam first, but Satan tempted Eve first.
9/ There are two reasons why Eve was tempted first. The first one is Eve never heard God’s command concerning the forbidden tree from the mouth of God. Genesis 2: 16, 17 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
What information she had received, she had received second-hand from Adam, because God gave this commandment to Adam before Eve was created. Secondly, and more important was the reason why Satan tempted the woman first. Satan must have had his doubts as to whether he would have been able to cause Adam to fall directly. There is reason to believe that Adam would not have succumbed to the temptation. The tempter than seeks to get at Adam through his love for his wife. Remember Adam loved his wife with a pure undefiled love. He wasn’t a sinner. His love was free from all unholy passion and fleshly lust. Therefore, he loved his wife far more than any husband since that day. This love could not stand to have any separation come between him and his wife.
10/ But more than that, Adam also knew God and His nature and the will of God better than we do. And, so, he deliberately gave his life and fell into sin that Eve might be saved.
11/ Let us get Scripture for this. I Timothy 2: 14, 15 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
Notice, Adam was not deceived, and Eve was deceived. She believed the lie of the devil, but Adam did not. He knew better, so when he sinned, he didn’t sin because he was deceived. He did it with his eyes wide open.
12/ The moment Eve ate, she fell and was under the sentence of death and would have been lost forever, unless a way was provided for her deliverance, and he knew the only way she could be saved was through the bearing of a seed. But she couldn’t have seed from Adam unless Adam was a fallen creature as well. And so he deliberately, with his eyes wide open, with great love in his heart, for his wife, sinned.
Now let us go back to I Timothy 2:14, 15 and notice, it says Adam was not deceived and Eve will be saved in in child-bearing. In the original it reads—THROUGH BEARING OF A CHILD and then after they had both sinned you have Genesis. 3: 15, that great wonderful verse. 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.
So Adam, in giving himself, is a picture of Christ giving himself for us. But the sad part Adam giving himself plunged the whole human race and the creation of this world into sin. But in Christ, as He gave Himself for us, we have life. We are saved.
13/ Ephesians 5: 31, 32 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Here it says Christ gave Himself for the church, and Adam is a picture of Christ and Adam is a picture of Christ and he gave himself for Eve. The great thing to see here is the fact of love. A husband is to love his wife give himself for her. This is exactly what Adam did.
14/ Romans 5: 15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if though the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is y one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
I want you to notice in the 15th vs. God is talking about a gift. The word, free, isn’t needed, for a gift is always free. But God has to emphasize something here in order that we might understand, so He puts in the word, free. This is a free gift. God emphasizes that. Everything that God has or God gives to us is free.
15/ And the gift by grace. Of course, grace is in that chapter. All, is by grace. Let us for a few moments go to Ephesians 3: 2 and there we read, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: That’s what this is. This is the dispensation of the grace of God. There was never an age like this. People do not understand the Old Testament, because they do not understand that it was not an age of grace. People were saved by grace, absolutely, but it was not an age of grace. In the Old Testament, God had a nation and He kept it under the law. There is a difference between the Old Testament message and this message of grace for today.
David was famous for the number of men he killed. David’s mighty men were famous for the number of men they killed, and if you go to the Old Testament, you’ll it is killing in the Old Testament. David, to get his wife, had to go out and kill 200 Philistines, he boasted about it. What is the message that Paul has for us? It is how a man can get saved, and that is the difference, isn’t it? In the Old Testament, God had a nation and He was protecting that nation, in order that we might have salvation by grace. He took that nation and gave them His word, gave them His covenants, and He said to other nations, don’t you dare touch Israel. If you touch Israel, I’ll bring judgement down upon you.
So, God told Israel, you kill these people if they interfere, if they try to touch you, so the Old Testament is a story of killing. But the New Testament, God doesn’t do that. He tells us how we might be saved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Did you ever see a vehicle coming down the road with its sirens wide open, its big red light on the top, flashing? You will notice everybody gets out of the way. That was Israel. God said to other nations, stand aside, My, nation is coming along, and they have the covenants and they have My work, don’t you dare touch them. Praise God, today we are living in the age of grace, the age of the free gift, plus nothing.
Ref: 9/20/1964 / 208 - DO YOU LOOK LIKE YOUR FATHER? / 2020
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