He can arouse us from our lethargy, he can warm us out of our lukewarmness, he can enable us when we are on our knees to rise above the ordinary routine of prayer into that victorious importunity against which nothing can stand. Read Joo 15:7 bible commentary from Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible by Charles Haddon Spurgeon FREE on BiblePortal.com. This is just what is forgotten in these days. You must endure persecution; but then, remember, he will be joint heir with you. There is in the carnal mind of an infant, enmity against God; it is not developed, but it lieth there. "We have not an High Priest that cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities." I do really think I should be impatient to speak for myself. I. Is he glorious? 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. This is not fearful fatalism and determinism. Oh! Art thou so estranged that thou givest enmity for love? O my soul! If it sinks, I am lost; but it will not sink, for the Plot of the Galilean Lake is on board. Ah! Then, too, a worse than Herod sought to kill us. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" 1009, 978, 400. Can ye say, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I desire to keep all thy commandments, and to walk blamelessly in thy sight. Brotherhood has its ties of debt, and to my brother I owe what I shall not yet pay him. "My beloved," said he, "thou shalt be the model by which I will fashion my noblest creature, I will for thy sake make men able to converse with thee, and bound to thee by bands of love, who shall be next akin to myself, and in all things like to thee." Now, you have heard your Father's will read, and you find that you are joint heirs with Christ. We have believed in Jesus, and it is written, "as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on his name.". If he were an uneducated man he would be in a poor plight. He stands to us in the relationship of a Maker and Creator; and from that fact he claims to be our King. "All things work together for good." Let me say now, before I turn from this point, that it is possible for a man to know whether God has called him or not, and he may know it too beyond a doubt. Thou Church of God, surely it must survive in thee; for to whom should it more belong to die and sacrifice all, than to those who are the sons of God. Close beside the bottomless pit of our iniquity stands the cross whereon Christ has made recompense for all our faults; and when we set Christ over against the gulf of our sin, we see that he far transcends it. "Who is he that condemneth? let thy waves and thy billows roll over me better an ocean of trouble than a drop of sin, I would rather have thy rod a thousand times upon my shoulders, O my God, than I would once put out my hand to touch that which is forbidden, or allow my foot to run in the way of gainsayers." I have once more preached the gospel to you as plainly and as simply as I can. May the sweet Spirit lead you to Jesus, cause you to look to him upon the cross, and trust in him; then you will have something worth hearing, for you will have a love that changeth never, a love that shall never be separated from you nor you from it. If he says, "Let there be light," the impenetrable darkness gives way to light; if he says, "Let there be grace," unutterable sin gives way, and the hardest-hearted sinner melts before the fire of effectual calling. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of low, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. The surety paid the debt." The apostle tells us that not only is there a groan from creation, but this is shared in by God's people. "So he bringeth them to their desired haven," said the Psalmist by storm and tempest, flood and hurricane. But how! As a further test, keeping close to scripture this morning, for when we are dealing with our own state before God there is nothing like giving the very words of scripture, we are told in the first epistle of Peter, the second chapter, and the ninth verse, that God hath called us out of darkness into marvelous light. But yonder is the Saviour,, and he is called Jesus, "For he shall save his people from their sins." The next argument for making us sure that they will speed is this that they are "the mind of the Spirit." There is no flaw in God's will with regard to Christ. So it must be, "If so be that we suffer with him that we also may be glorified together." He might have sent you to hell; but you are here. Yet at that selfsame moment, where human eyes saw nothing seraphic eyes beheld marvels of grace, and angels in heaven rejoiced over one sinner that repented, singing once again "glory to God in the highest." Has it lifted up your tastes, so that they are no longer grovelling, but you choose the things that are of God? True believers love God as their Father; they have "the spirit of adoption, whereby they cry Abba, Father." There is great sin; that we know only too well: but we also rejoice in the knowledge that there is a great atonement to cover all our sin, "For it is Christ that died. It is as when a man doth marry. These prayers are sometimes "groanings that cannot be uttered," because they concern such great things that they cannot be spoken. If it be possible that by some decree in heaven's high court, it should be certified and determined that the inheritance is not rightly ours, because some one part of the covenant was left in a precarious state so that it became void and of no effect, then, thine inheritance, O thou King of kings, has failed thee in the very day when it hath failed us. Having thus, as far as I can, established my point, that the privilege of our text is a special one, let me dwell upon it for a moment and remark that, as a special one, it is an act of pure unmistakeable grace. All these terrible things in righteousness, the awful proofs of holy vengeance in the judge of all the earth, and successfully neutralized in their arousing effect, by being quietly written among the loving acts and words of the Universal Father. There is in the death of Christ enough and more than enough. When he died for them they had rest; when he rose again for them, they had liberty; when he was received into his Father's favour, yet again, and sat at his own right hand, then had they favour, and honour, and dignity. Come, men, put your face against all weathers; be ready to come up hill, with the snow blowing in your face, be ready to march on when the tempest howls, and the lightnings flash over head, and the snow becomes knee-deep; nay, be ready to go into the crevasse with him, and perish, if need be. So is it with the Spirit, it is free from corruption and death; but the poor body is still under the bondage of corruption, and therefore the soul groans until the body itself shall be set free. What will the father do? saith he, "I do not call gold good, but I call faith good! Our first birth gave us humanity; our second birth allies us with Deity. Here comes in this blessed word taken out of the Greek litany, "By thine unknown sufferings." Now, dear brethren, if I could extend the time for this service to four-and-twenty hours, I might give you all the arguments, or the most of the arguments, which support the blessed truth of the nonseparation of believers from the love of Christ. Now, as long as he was in prison, although there might be ground of hope, it was but as light sown for the righteous; but when the hostage came out, behold the first fruit of the harvest! An adversary in the court might plead against him, and overthrow him, for he could not answer him. THE APOSTLE PAUL was writing to a tried and afflicted people, and one of his objects was to remind them of the rivers of comfort which were flowing near at hand. You long rejected Christ." It is written, "When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Again, cries Paul, "Who shall lay anything to my charge?" Methinks I see the fathers at their midnight lamps, the ancient saints in their much-frequented closets, the thrice brave preachers in their pulpits denouncing error, and the faithful pastors reproving wrong. At such times we should thank God for direction and give our desire a clear road: the Holy Spirit is granting us inward direction as to how we should reckon upon good success in our pleadings. ", I. Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, March 24th, 1872, by. And then he adds this blessed argument, "Father those for whom I plead are thine own children, and thou lovest them as much as I do," yea, "thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me." He decrees that Christ Jesus, the Well-Beloved, even his own other self, who is one with him, should come into the world and bear the sin of man, make amends to the injured honour of God, and magnify the law before the eyes of the whole universe. Ask them whether they would have loved God if left to themselves, and to a man, whatever their doctrines, they will confess, I never heard a Christian yet who said that he came to God of himself, left to his own free-will. the mind of that Spirit who arranged all the order which now pervades this earth! Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? There is not a star though it seemeth to sleep in the deep blue firmament, which doth not travel its myriads of miles and work; there is not an ocean, or a river, which is not ever working, either clapping its thousand hands with storms, or bearing on its bosom the freight of nations. Our third and last point is THE SURE SUCCESS OF ALL SUCH PRAYERS. Now, we also, though we at our conversion are new creatures, are also said to be "begotten again into a lively hope." That man is God's child, but though he is a prince of the blood royal, his garments are those of toil, the smock frock or the fustian jacket. my brethren, let us revel with delight for a moment in the contrast which I might present to you. I am in this boat myself. Is then your calling a high calling, has it lifted up your heart, and set it upon heavenly things? So, when we get the first works of the Spirit of God, we are not to say, "I have attained, I am already perfect, there is nothing further for me to do, or to desire." This is an instructive emblem of a great fact. They are well put together by that master of eloquence, Paul, and they were moreover, dictated by the Holy Spirit, who telleth man how to speak aright. When we are poor, and in eternity have no shelter; when we in the next world shall find no heaven and no bliss, then, wandering as outcast orphans, we shall see our Elder Brother an outcast orphan too; if we be portionless and penniless, the Firstborn among many brethren must be portionless and penniless also, for with him we stand or we fall. Yet, further, to illustrate the full meaning of the joint heirship suppose, after the via had been proved and acknowledged to be right, it shall be found in winding up the affairs of the testator, that nothing is left to distribute suppose, after all this boast and talk about being heirs, the property should be nil, or there should even be found a debt against the estate what then? Certainly, this wondrous ship of Christ's Church, when she ploughs her way through waves of blood, makes swifter headway to the heavenly haven than she does in times of calm. A carnal man draws the inference that if God has ordained an event we need not pray about it, but faith obediently draws the inference that the God who secretly ordained to give the blessing has openly commanded that we should pray for it, and therefore faith obediently prays. what can destroy thee if omnipotence is thy helper? He shall be joyful when he declares the Lord's name unto his brethren. And now standing in the midst of men who mock, and boast, and jeer, he cries "Who can lay anything to my charge?" You will observe that the apostle has here prefixed the words, "yea rather!" Who is he that condemneth, then? Thou knowest what I have need of before I ask thee, and though I cannot go into each item of my need, I know it to be very great, and such as I myself can never estimate. Didst thou never hear the heart say, "I wish there were no God?" ", When you have overcome Satan, the world will come forth to attack you, and to dispute your claim to be numbered amongst the people of God. The sighing of the prisoner surely cometh up into the ears of the Lord. It is to the praise of his enemy. the doctrine that man is guilty in all these things. But no; take a child away, place it under the most pious influences, let the very air it breathes be purified by piety; let it constantly drink in draughts of holiness; let it hear nothing but the voice of prayer and praise; let its ear be always kept in tune by notes of sacred song; and that child, notwithstanding, may still become one of the grossest of transgressors; and though placed apparently on the very road to heaven, it shall, if not directed by divine grace, march downwards to the pit. Consider thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. What a heritage lies before us! I showed you, just now, the difference between a groan and a groan. If they say that Christ's death does not repair the injury you have done to your fellow-men, tell them that, as far as you can, you mean to make restitution to them; and wherein you have done the world an ill turn, let them know that your Master has done it more good than you ever did it harm. Well, whatever it may be, and the woes of the present are very many, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. 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." Is there unrighteousness with God? Commentaries; Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible; Romans 8; Verses 38-39 - Romans 8:38-39. . All that he has, all that he is, therefore, belongeth to us. But, again, there is another point in which the saint is deficient as yet, namely, in the manifestation of our adoption. Our little debts we can pay. Oh! Have I any reason to believe that I have been called according to his purpose? Now, I do believe with him this morning, that the chief witness of God the Holy Spirit lies in this the Holy Spirit has written this book which contains an account of what a Christian should be, and of the feelings which believers in Christ must have. There is a third black portion, too, namely, temptation. "It is Christ that died.". Let us go forward into the future, however dark it is, with this confidence, that, one thing at least we know, the love of Christ will hold us rest, and by his grace we will hold fast to him. C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) Wherefore, let us be encouraged to go on, and fight against everything that is evil, especially in ourselves, and tread down all the powers of darkness, since nothing can stand against us while Christ is sor us; and for us he must be for ever and ever. Behold it, wonder at it, and bless God for it. "A night and a day," said he, "I have been in the deep," and I will warrant you that many a night and many a day he had been in spiritual deeps; yet he had survived them all, and he could testify to the faithfulness of his God, and say at the end, as the issue of his sufferings, "I am persuaded that nothing in creation is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.". When Christ gave himself for us, he gave us all the rights and privileges which went with himself, so that now he has, as our Brother, no heritage apart from us, although, as Eternal God, he hath essential rights to which no creature may venture to pretend. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits." that cry is directed to a mass of putridity, to a body that has been dead four days, and in which the worms have already held carnival; but, strange to say, from that tomb there comes a living man; that mass of corruption has been quickened into life, and out he comes, wrapped about with graveclothes, and having a napkin about his head. Yea rather, is risen again; (much more) is even at the right hand of God." Do you hate God because he loves you? Cannot we say this morning with thankful hearts, "By the grace of God I am what I am?" Our sighs are sacred things; these griefs and sighs are too hallowed for us to tell abroad in the streets. that eternal unchangeableness is engaged for the defence of the people of God. Grant me that the child is carnal, and my text says, "the carnal mind is enmity against God." He was born into this world in a very humble place, amidst the oxen, and in the manger; but yet he lacked not the songs of angels, and the adoration of the heavenly hosts. A chapter by chapter and verse by verse study of Romans taught by Pastor Paul LeBoutillier of Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon. Nay, my brethren, all that the most advanced of God's people know as yet, should but excite in them an insatiable thirst after more. Can you now detect in your calling, the hand of God, and the voice of God? Last of all, I have another practical point. It is so; but then my Lord Christ delighted to come to be my Saviour. 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. Call faith good pay him as their Father ; they have `` the Spirit of adoption, they... What is forgotten in these days says, `` for he shall be joyful When he declares the Lord then! 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