He intercedes, and he must be heard. We see, on the other hand, the truest heroism for the right, and the greatest devotion to the truth in hearts that God has touched. When the Emperor Charles the Fifth went to war with Francis the First, King of Naples, he sent a herald to him, declaring war in the name of the Emperor of Germany, King of Castille, King of Aragon, King of Naples, King of Sicily, and he went on with many more titles, giving his sovereign all the honours that were his due. But, again, there is another point in which the saint is deficient as yet, namely, in the manifestation of our adoption. I can see black storms that have lowered o'er my head, and torrents of opposition that have run across my path, but I can thank God for every incident that ever occurred to me from my cradle up to now, and do not desire a better pilot for the rest of my days, than he who has steered me from obscurity and scorn, to this place to preach his word and feed this great congregation. "He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself," so that he can with his brethren say plainly "we know that we have passed from death unto life." This he does by arousing our desires. This deep ground-swell of desire, this tidal motion of the life-floods is caused by the Holy Spirit. Paul had been persuaded of this truth by his own experience. As surely as Jesus is a son, so surely are we, for the same Spirit bears witness to both, as it is written "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." It there be a touch of our finger anywhere upon the vessel, it mars and does not beautify. The words which Jesus uses are various in different cases. The heathen may rage, and the kings of the earth take counsel together, but God saith, "I will declare the decree, yet have I set my Son upon any holy hill of Zion." He gave to us his heaven, for "where I am, there shall my people be." Yes; but I set over against that the fact that he always would have me. Grace links mankind in a common brotherhood; grace makes the great man give his hand to the poor, and confess a heavenly relationship; grace constrains the intellectual, the learned, the polite, to stoop from their dignity to take hold of the ignorant and unlettered, and call them friends; grace weaves the threads of our separate individualities into one undivided unity. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. By three figures I will endeavour to describe the work of the Spirit of God in this matter, though they all fall short, and indeed all that I can say must fall infinitely short of the glory of his work. But here we have a more uncommon and a sublimer theme. Hearken ye to this passage in the 9th of Romans! If so, why doth God promise them what they have already. You have heard of Regulus the Roman general; he was taken prisoner by Carthagenians, who anxiously wished for peace. III. Be the property much or little, we are co-heirs; if there be infinite treasures, Christ hath them, and we have them; but if there be no treasure whatever, and faith should end in disappointment, and hope in despair, the calamity which impoverishes us must also impoverish our great co-heir. He did not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax; neither should we. Here is an argument which hath much more power, much more strength, much more force than even Christ's death. Now the Spirit never did work effectually in any but the children of God; and inasmuch as the Spirit works in you, he doth by that very working give his own infallible testimony to the fact that you are a child of God. Rowland Hill. The trumpet of the gospel sounds aloud to every man in our congregations "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." "All things work together," for that kind of good to God's people. Paul's Desire to Depart Philippians 1:23 And now as a matter of EXAMINATION let each man judge himself by certain characteristics of heavenly calling which I am about to mention. IV. The whole "carnal mind is enmity against God. Though they could not entirely rid their souls of the idea of the Godhead, did they not wish that there might not be a God? Now, this is not my assertion, it is the declaration of God's word, and you must leave it if you do not believe it; but quarrel not with me, it is my Master's message; and it is true of every one of you men, women, and children, and myself too that if we have not been regenerated and converted, if we have not experienced a change of heart, our carnal mind is still at enmity against God. Here we have in the text conformity to Christ spoken of as the aim of predestination; we have, secondly, predestination as the impelling force by which this conformity is to be achieved; and we have, thirdly, the firstborn himself set before us as the ultimate end of the predestinations and of the conformity. To use another figure, Christ's death was as it were the digging out of the gold of grace out of the deep mines of Jesus' sufferings. Now God has never promised that "all things shall work together" for such good as that to his people. A little more than he said about the others. Here comes in this blessed word taken out of the Greek litany, "By thine unknown sufferings." Here is A CHALLENGE TO ALL COMERS. Do not you recollect how, in your schoolboy days, you used to make a little almanack with a square for every day, and how you always crossed off the day as soon as ever it began, as though you would try and make the distance from your joy as short as possible? I have wished I might indulge in folly; I have wished there were no laws to restrain me; I have wished, as the fool, that there were no God." Remember the bloody day of St. Bartholomew, the valleys of Piedmont, and the mountains of Switzerland. Some of them who were rather heavy and sad of spirit in their days of health have grown joyous and glad as they have neared the eternal kingdom. What says Christ? all his wisdom is engaged in our behalf. Amen. William Nicoll Sermon Bible Commentary - Romans 8:28-30. And now my hearers, let me just utter this personal appeal to you. 12:1-21. A dying Saviour brings more glory to the love of God, ay, and to the justice of God, than any mortal sinner could have done; more than any perfect man, though he lived throughout eternity, could have done. A Christian's experience is like a rainbow, made up of drops of the griefs of earth, and beams of the bliss of heaven. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.". So that though I said the drift of the text was spiritual good, yet sometimes in the main current there may be carried some rich and rare temporal benefits for God's children as well as the richer spiritual blessings. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." 14:1 - 15:14. Listen at that door on the left, there is a deep, hollow, awful groan. Now, to-day, seeing we are here taught the object of his predestination, it will be our business to labor after it, to bless God that he has set such an object before him, and pray that we may be partakers in it. And let me further remark, that the right hand is the place of power. === Sample: Romans 8:1-3 === Romans 8 Some people talk about "getting out of the 7th chapter, into the 8th." Oh, what a glorious doctrine is that of election, when a man can see himself to be elect. Now Secondly, we are called upon to notice the universality of this evil. Thou in thy poverty art as a sparkling jewel in the darkness of the mine. Tell me, oh, tell me, if ye know, seers and prophets, is my name recorded in that book of life? If Christ owed anything to the justice of God by reason of his suretyship engagements, he would not be at God's right hand: but he owes nothing whatever. Now, the first groan which you heard was deep and dreadful, as though it were fetched from the abyss of hell; that is the groan of the ungodly man as he perishes, and leaves all his dear delights; but the second groan is so softened and sweetened, that it is rather the note of desire than of distress. He became a partaker of our infirmities and sicknesses that we might be partakers of the divine nature in all its excellence and purity. In Romans 11:2 , we read, "God hath not cast away his people which he foreknow," where the sense evidently has the idea of fore-love; and it is so to be understood here. Or look you at Cincinnatus. There is another test. The doctrine must be stated in its naked truth. III. Their anchor goes within the veil of the waters into the deeps of the sea; ours goes within the veil of glory, into the heights of heaven, where Jesus sits at the right hand of God: "within the veil;". It is more than some men think to have been rocked in the same cradle and dandled on the same knee. Tell the men of the world that it is right that they condemn you for all your past life, for doubtless you have been what they say you are, you will not dispute that fact; but tell them also that what Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth is true of you, "Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Are you intelligently persuaded not only that God is love, but that God loves you? Come, I know as you look down the inventory, you are apt to look a little askance on that cross, and you think, "Well, the crown is glorious, but I love not the spittle, I care not to be despised and rejected of men." The affliction was, as it were, in your very bones, but the promise was also in your very heart. Sometimes the accusing whisper comes to your ear, "You have sinned against a great God. You know that every sinner is guilty of the murder of Christ." A mother can translate baby-talk: she comprehends incomprehensible noises. "All things are yours, for ye are Christ's and Christ is God's.". Now that which God reads in the heart and approves of for the word to "know" in this case includes approval as well as the mere act of omniscience what God sees and approves of in the heart must succeed. Now, there are many things in which the worldly and the godly do agree, but on this point there IS a vital difference. Mark then, with care, that OUR CONFORMITY TO CHRIST IS THE SACRED OBJECT OF PREDESTINATION. And so, my friends, the wish that there were no God, proves that we dislike God. All manner of evil things we commit in our thoughts; sin runs to riot in our spirit. R.C. Some groan continually under the troubles of life; they are merely impatient there is no virtue in that. I utter them not in the spirit of controversy, but the reverse. When we feel that we have power with God and can obtain anything we ask for at his hands, then our difficulties cease to oppress us. I. He draws near to teach us how to pray, and in this way he helps our infirmity, relieves our suffering, and enables us to bear the heavy burden without fainting under the load. Dost thou love God, not with lip-language, but with heart-service? And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according the to will of God." We do not ask for these persecutions, but their might do us great good if they came. AP&A-c1970 lfpb. This is called the first-fruit because it comes first. He was content with them for what they were, but the first-fruits enlarged his desires for the harvest. Spurgeon, Charles H. Owen, John; Ferguson, Sinclair B. Sproul, R.C. God could not withdraw from Paul his embrace of love, and Paul felt that, by divine grace, he could not withdraw his embrace of love from his God; but he must have been first of all persuaded that both those embraces were there. Ye are of God, little children, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one. Go to the greatest stranger, and he shall help thee; go to thy brother, and he shall oft upbraid thee. Now why call Zaccheus? Expect not, then, that all things shall work together as for thy good. Well, if not in this text, there is in another. They said of Achilles, the greatest of the Grecian heroes, that when he was a child they fed him upon lion's marrow, and so made him brave; feed upon Christ and be Christlike. Brethren, we are debtors to the past. This will appear in two ways. Then, I shall leave off these plebeian garments, and be robed as becomes my senatorial rank." The first is the general call, which is in the gospel sincerely given to everyone that heareth the word. Then again I say to you, "Tell it not in Gath and publish it not in Askelon, then has a heathen eclipsed a Christian." "God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." It is upon Psalms 105:37 ; and, if the Lord will, it will be published next week. Did I not say that we have not received the whole of our portion, and that what we have received is to the whole no more than one handful of wheat is to the whole harvest, a very gracious pledge, but nothing more? I do believe that there is a supernatural way in which apart from means, the Spirit of God communicates with the spirit of man. No hint is given in the text of foreseen virtue any more than of foreseen sin, and, therefore, we are driven to find another meaning for the word. "There be moments," says one, "when I feel rebellious; at times my passions lead me astray; but surely there are other favorable seasons when I really am friendly to God, and offer true devotion. He felt within him affinities with all the blood-bought race, and loved them all. It is a traveller lost in the deep snow on the mountain pass. Do not expect to get thanked at last for doing much, for after all you have done, you will only have done what is your duty. The finite cannot grasp the infinite. ), then it follows that God must be over all things and must control all things. You drank it down like sweet wine, and you could not have too much of it." Once more I will appeal to his advocacy 'Who maketh intercession for us.' And are we not debtors to them? The second reason a believer hath, is that CHRIST HAS RISEN AGAIN. Moreover, the Holy Spirit's intercession creates prayers offered in a proper manner. There is nothing about death that the believer should construe it into a fear that it will separate him from the love of Christ. All things work together for the Christian's eternal and spiritual good. Then, next, it is the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. He loves Christ so much that he loves us notwithstanding our unloveliness, because Jesus Christ has covered us with his robe of righteousness, and he has said, "My Father, consider them as lost in me, hidden in me, made one with me." says yet another accuser; "but you have sinned with delight. They tell me, that they of old maintained the truth, and preached it, in the midst of fire and sword that they bore death in defence of the cause of God, that they might hand down his holy word inviolate to us! I tell thee No; Christ never called the righteous; and if he has not called thee, and if he never does call thee, thou art not elect, and thou and thy self-righteousness must be subject to the wrath of God, and cast away eternally. There is nothing new in the book; no, for "the old is better," it tells of ancient covenants, and everlasting love, and full atonement, and final perseverance, grand old doctrines on which a soul may stand without fear when heaven and earth are passing away, and the Son of Man comes in His glory. Yet our heavenly Father, who looks immediately upon the heart, reads what the Spirit of God has indited there, and does not need even our groans to explain the meaning. Romans 8:2. The greatest piety cannot preserve a man from growing old, and although in grace, he may be "like a young cedar, fresh and green," yet the body will have its grey hairs, and the strong man will be brought to totter on the staff. Ever let humility bow thee to the very earth while thine adoption lifts thee up to the third heaven. Is it not a wonderful thing that God loved me, and loved you, (let us individualize it,) that God so loved us that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life? Lecture 2: On Commenting. If in your Bible you turn to 2 Timothy 1:9 , you will read these words "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling." I heard of one who sat up at the end of last year to groan last year out; it was ill done, but in truth it was a year of groaning, and the present one opens amid turbulence and distress. That was on the Sunday, mark you; on the Wednesday, he was at Gravesend, there was a collision, and he and five others were drowned. He uses the word "likewise" to intimate that in the same manner as hope sustains the soul, so does the Holy Spirit strengthen us under trial. No, there must be something done more than we can accomplish. He instructs us as to our need, and as to the promises of God which refer to that need. Our first birth gave us humanity; our second birth allies us with Deity. We are to be conformed to the image of his Son, fifthly, as to our inheritance for he is heir of all things, and what less are we heirs of, since all things are ours? As to our spirits, we have liberty to soar into the third heaven, and sit in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus; but as for our bodies, we can only roam about this narrow cell of earth, and feel that it is not the place for us. And now a little capful of wind blows on you and the tears run down your cheeks, and you say, "Lord, let me die; I am no better than my fathers." I, for my part, take only one objection to it, which is that it is perfectly untrue and utterly unfounded, having not the lightest shadow of a pretence of being proved by the Word of God. All fine language in prayer, and especially all intoning or performing of prayers, must be abhorrent to God; it is little short of profanity to offer solemn supplication to God after the manner called "intoning." They are blessed, but they have not had their public entrance. People have said there is no faith in heaven, and no hope; they know not what they say in heaven it is that faith and hope have their fullest swing and their brightest sphere, for glorified saints believe in God's promise, and hope for the resurrection of the body. "Ah!" While we have an Almighty Saviour, the redeemed must be saved; until omnipotence can fail, and the Almighty can be overcome, every blood-bought redeemed child of God is safe and secure for ever. They told him to go home to Rome, and see if he could not make peace. I feel that to the knee that dandled me and the breast that gave me sustenance, I owe more than I can ever pay; and to him who taught me, and led me in the paths of truth I owe so much, that I dare not speak of the tremendous weight of obligation due to him. I will count it to be my highest glory if I may be made a knight of the cross, and may carry that cross upon my shoulder: to the world a badge of dishonor, but to me the ensign of glory, the escutcheon of honor. He rose again, I must rise, and though I die yet shall I live again. Renewed men are made fit companions for the Son of God. His interpretation of it is a groan, and that is all. To hate the all-lovely to despise the essentially good to abhor the constantly merciful to spurn the ever beneficent to scorn the kind, the gracious one; above all, to hate the God who sent his son to die for man! We have seen that Christ's death enables us to conquer our foes, and frees us from our sins. Commentary on Romans 8:10-17 (Read Romans 8:10-17) If the Spirit be in us, Christ is in us. The dreariest thing you can read is the newspaper. Romans 1:7-8. I think I need not remind you of your condition here below; you are too conversant with it, being hourly fretted with troubles, vexed with your own infirmities, with the temptations of Satan, and with all the allurements of this world. But it may be, beloved, that we groan because we are conscious of the littleness of our desire, and the narrowness of our faith. "If so be that we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified together.". If not, I beseech thee, stop and consider! In this way "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Thou didst for awhile leave the Firstborn when he was made a curse for us, so that he cried in agony, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" Adam in this world was in liberty, perfect liberty; nothing confined him; paradise was exactly fitted to be his seat. To God's cause you are debtors. Home; Shop. 2. He gave to us hi inmost heart; he loved us even to the death. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Another thought concerning the universality of this statement. Do you feel the longings, the loves, the confidences of a child? Thus we are sighing that our entire manhood, in its trinity of spirit, soul, and body, may be set free from the last vestige of the fall; we long to put off corruption, weakness, and dishonour, and to wrap ourselves in incorruption, in immortality, in glory, in the spiritual body which the Lord Jesus Christ will bestow upon all his people. Your being sick very probably might not be for your good only God has something to follow your sickness, some blessed deliverance to follow your poverty, and he knows that when he has mixed the different experiences of your life together, they shall produce good for your soul and eternal good for your spirit. 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