08 Mar

3/10/19    Romans 5:12-19          “Cured by Jesus”

I think that I have mentioned this before.  I always have a hard time reading Paul because he is so detailed and theological.  My mind isn’t that brilliant that I can just casually follow along with him.  Hopefully, I can help to shed some light on today’s reading as we look at how Adam started all sin and death, how life comes through Jesus Christ, and how does this affect you today.  Hopefully I can unpack what Paul says.

Eyriche Cortez tells a story of a slave in the 1800’s.  His name was Jack and it was his job to chop wood for the master every day.  It was tremendously hard work.  His hands would bleed and he would be really sore at the end of every day.  He had done this ever since he was a child and that was pretty much all he did.

One particularly hard day, he got to thinking about how he got in such a terrible situation.  Who’s to blame for him being a slave?  His grandparents were slaves so it wasn’t their fault.  Finally it donned on him that it was Adam’s fault that he was a slave.  It was because Old Adam ate of the forbidden fruit that he had become a slave.  This embroiled Jack to swing too hard at the wood.

His master saw this and asked what the problem was.  He told the master.  The master replied, “If it is Adam’s fault you are a slave, then you shouldn’t suffer for it.  From now on you will no longer chop wood.  You will come into the house and enjoy it as you eat and drink.  There is only one condition.  Don’t open the box that is on top of the table.”

Jack went to the house and enjoyed a huge meal.  Now that he was full he got to looking at the box.  He picked it up and shook it a little.  It was awfully light and almost seemed empty.  Finally his curiosity got the best of him and he opened it and found a note inside.  It said, “Dear Jack.  See?  Don’t you ever blame Adam again!  If you were in his place, you would do the same thing.  Go chop some wood!”

I don’t think that Jack is any different than us.  We are constantly looking for people and things to blame for our predicaments.  Some of us may even say that we wouldn’t be in this bad spot if it weren’t for Adam.  We have to be very careful when we point fingers elsewhere because usually most of the blame should go to our own shoulders.

And we cannot be pointing to Adam either.  Adam sinned for all of us.  Through him sin entered the world.  Adam and Eve had it made because they had eternal life and they gave it away just like Jack gave away his era in the house.  They may have allowed sin to enter the world but they are not responsible for your sin.  You are responsible for that.

I think that it is real sad that we seem to think that no one is really responsible for anything anymore especially me.  The first thing that a criminal says is that he had a bad childhood and he is not responsible for what he did.  Maybe a bad childhood or a history of drugs or alcohol had some bearing on what he did, but the fact remains that he did it and he is responsible.  And Adam is not responsible for that criminal act, nor is George Washington or anybody else.  You are responsible for what you do and not someone else.

I think that every generation has seen tragedies.  Some of us have seen some of the worst in history.  Some of us are might be old enough to remember the execution of the Jews during WWII.  We all remember the world trade center terrorist act.  And we remember when the tsunami hit in the Indonesia area that killed hundreds of thousands of people.  But as terrible as these were and as any others that we can remember, they pale in comparison to when Adam ate of the forbidden tree.  Sin entered the world and we are all guilty.  Billions of people became guilty.  Now we need to find a way out of this or we are condemned!

Keep this in mind as we move ahead.  We have been fighting a dreaded disease ever since Adam.  The disease is called death.  There is no earthly cure for it as it still plagues everyone.  Death came upon us when Adam sinned.  Since then we have had both physical and spiritual death.  The death rate in China is the same as it is here.  It is 100%.  We will all die.  It doesn’t matter what you do, death will come.

Death came when Adam sinned.  He represents us in sin.  Our sin is not his sin but the sin he committed has represented us all as sinners ever since.  It is like when President Trump signs a bill for 1 trillion dollars of debt.  This debt is everyone’s and not just his or yours.  We are all in this together and Adam is representative of our race.

There is also the race of angels.  Fallen angels were dealt with on an individual basis.  There is no going back for Satan and there is no going back to heaven for any of the fallen angels.  This has been decided and it is a done deal.  We however are made in God’s image and He loves us beyond anything that we can comprehend.  Through one man, Adam, this terrible curse of sin entered the world and it will be through one man, Jesus that we are saved from spiritual death.

Don Schultz uses this analogy that may help us to get a little clearer picture of what is going on.  Suppose you are in your living room and you get a package marked Ebola.  Now you really don’t want to open it because you know that if it actually is Ebola your whole family and many more will die.  But you get to thinking that who would send you such a package anyway.  So you figure that this must be a hoax.

So you go ahead and open the package.  There really is Ebola in the box and it spills out everywhere and everybody near you dies including your family.  You would be ultimately responsible for this just as Jack was when he opened his box.  You are responsible for your own actions.

It is now years later and you are once again in a room, only this room has all the Ebola in the world in it.  All you have to do is inhale it all and then no one will ever have to die from this again.  And this is exactly what Jesus did for us when he went to the cross.  He died for our sins so that we never have to worry about them again.

God has a plan for your salvation and it is a plan that has been in place since the beginning of time.  Adam had it very nice in Eden until he sinned and ate the fruit.  Through him sin entered the world.

And just as through one man sinned entered the world, it would be that through one man that many will be made righteous.  Have you ever seen the movie called ‘The Last Emperor’?  In it a young child is anointed the last Emperor of China.  He lives the life of luxury and has 1000 servants at his beckoning.  One day, his brother asked him, “What happens when you do something wrong?”  The child emperor said, “When I do wrong someone else is punished.”  Then he broke a jar and one of the servants was taken away and beaten.  This is exactly the opposite of what happens with Jesus.  One of his servants makes a mistake and the king is punished.  So instead of us being condemned as we might think it should be, Jesus is condemned in our place.  Because Jesus has taken our place, God takes one look at our filthy lives and declares us “Not guilty!”  This is a God that truly loves you and this is the God that I pray everyone will follow.

So if we have this wonderful plan all laid out for us, why is it that people won’t follow it?  The main reason has to be that Satan has control of this world and he uses this to make us think that we are happy.  This happiness is only an illusion!  We were born into sin through Adam.  So by the time you get to my age, if you don’t know Jesus, then you pretty much like your sin.  It is all you have ever known.

I read another story by Eyriche Cortez that shows us just what this is like.  Before he became a pastor, he was in Culion, Palawan.  This is in the Philippines area.  He got there on a news assignment and found that the place used to be a leper colony.  It isn’t that many years ago that they still sent lepers to special places like this so that they wouldn’t contaminate other areas.  This isn’t a lot different than in Biblical times.

Anyway he went to the huge archway that separated the island.  The people on one side had leprosy or Hansen’s disease and the on the other they didn’t.  These two groups never mixed.  I don’t know how this worked but maybe the healthy people took care of the lepers and they had to do it from a distance.  They might have helped them with supplies and medical attention for example.  Eyriche learned that when a leper woman gave birth, the baby was immediately taken away from her.  The only way she ever could see the baby was through the glass of the nursery.  Leprosy was and is a tough disease.  Most if not all people who were quarantined there died and never left the island.  Leprosy was a life-long disease and once exiled they were never allowed to leave.

But then they found a cure for the disease by using a multi-drug therapy.  Today we no longer have to exile people like this.  Once they start to take this therapy, they are no longer contagious.  This is of course great news for the people who suffer from this and everyone else also.

I think that this history of leprosy parallels our own history of sin.  After Adam sinned we have been all exiled out of the Garden of Eden.  We have been banished because we have a disease for which there is no cure.  And no matter how well we live our lives, there is no way that we can ever get off this island and back to the garden.  The only hope for a cure is found through Jesus Christ.  If you believe in Him, then you will be reunited with God once again.

But Eyriche saw a sad sight there in Culion.  There were still lepers there and they would come and line up every day for their medicine.  There was an organization that saw to it that everyone with the disease had medicine.  He noticed that they would take the medicine in their mouths and then walk away and soon spit it out.  They liked their disease.

He then found out that this island gets lots of money from donations and often times this money went directly to the people.  This money was a way of life for these people.  If they took the medicine, they would be cured but they would also lose all their money.  They would lose their livelihood.  Wow!  What kind of crazy thinking is this!

As crazy as this is, we can see this all over our country today.  We have people that are engaged in all kinds of jobs that are detestable in the eyes of God.  I think of people who run the gambling business, the abortion industry, the alcohol industry, the drug dealers, and the slave traders.  These people like what they have and don’t want to lose it.  They keep on spitting out the medicine that can help them.  The really sad part is that they don’t even realize they are sick!

I have known people like this and so have you.  Jesus has given us the cure for sin or our leprosy.  But these people will say that they are so bad that Jesus would never take them.  They have a million excuses for not following Jesus.  And all they are is just plain very poor excuses!  They know nothing about the loving nature of God.  Others will say that they will be with all my friends in hell.  Well, as hell is the total absence of light, they could be right beside their friends for eternity and never see them.  Anyway, the cure is right in front of them as it is for you.  Jesus Christ wants to be a part of everyone.  He wants it so that you can spend an eternity with him.  He is the cure for sin.

Most of us here today have taken the cure for sin already.  But if you haven’t, please accept Jesus into your hearts today.  Invite Him to live in you as your Lord and Savior.  He can and will cure you also.  He would love to do that.  He died to do that for you.

The rest of us need to be looking for ways to teach people about Jesus.  This might be part of the prayer we have been praying, “Holy Spirit empower me to give as Jesus did.”  Jesus loves the world and He wants you to help Him with the lost.  I know from experience that there is no better feeling than when you have helped someone to find their way to Jesus.

So as you go about your life this week, reach out to someone.  Or let me know if there is someone I should be talking to.  Help to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.  By doing this you will be growing better and stronger in your own life with Jesus as well as helping others.  He loves you and wants to grow with you as you grow with Him.  I praise Him for His presence among us.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.