I fear many of us here must acknowledge that we do not charge the sin of it to our own consciences. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. There is still another foe that answers your challenge, "Who is he that condemneth?" Beloved, what a different view of prayer God has from that which men think to be the correct one. Ah, what is this? Is there not any word of special commendation to this? Christ spoke of it as the putting of a well into us, and he said, "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." He argued that, if the death of Christ reconciled God's enemies to himself, the life of Christ will certainly preserve safely those who are the friends of God; that was good argument, was it not? Until this question be answered my heart cannot rest, for I am intensely anxious about it. may seem too mean to pray about. 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. Such is the groan of the believer, who, though rescued and brought into the hospice of divine mercy, is longing to see his Father's face without a veil between, and to be united with the happy family on the other side the Jordan, where they rejoice for evermore. I pray you never think lightly of the supplications of your anguish. Will any one who believes in the Prayer Book dissent from the doctrine that "the carnal mind is enmity against God?". The Holy Spirit helps us to bear the infirmity of our body and of our mind; he helps us to bear our cross, whether it be physical pain, or mental depression, or spiritual conflict, or slander, or poverty, or persecution. Now, I consider these things as being a very mean display of wisdom, compared with what is to come in a hundred years, and very small compared with what might have been, if man's intellect had continued in its pristine condition. O God, my God, thou hast not forsaken me: thou art not far from me, nor from the voice of my roaring. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Come let us at the sovereignty which has called us, and let us remember the words of the apostle, "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence. This will defeat your great adversary. The force that is conforming us to Christ is the will of God in predestination. When he decreed Christ to be blessed above all the blessed, he decreed thee to be a partaker with him. Spurgeon takes us back to the previous verses in the opening remarks of his sermon on Romans 8:37 Look attentively at the champion. The text says, "The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." We hear of tornadoes, of earthquakes, of tempests, of volcanoes, of avalanches, and of the sea which devoureth its thousands: there is sorrow on the sea, and there is misery on the land; and into the highest palaces as well as the poorest cottages, death, the insatiable, is shooting his arrows, while his quiver is still full to bursting with future woes. "He had not persecuted Christ," you say, "it was only some poor men and women that he had haled to prison, or scourged in the synagogue, to compel them to blaspheme." Live with Christ and you will soon grow like Christ. Yes, blessed be God, even this foe can be overcome by the weapon the believer wields in the power of God, for he can tell conscience, as he told his former opponents, "It is Christ that died." It speaks of the regenerate, of a special class me as having a claim to be God's children. The other might have said, "Ah, you pretend to be a happy man, and here you are groaning." Would you take Job's jewels, but not his dung-hill? "All things work together for good." In praying for temporal things we plead with measured voices, ever referring our petition for revision to the will of the Lord. But there are one or two doctrines which we will try to deduce from this. I say, it is utterly needless for me to refresh your memories about your present condition; but I feel it will be a good and profitable work if I remind you that there are high privileges of which you are possessors even now; there are divine joys which even this day you may taste. Too much joy would intoxicate us, too much misery would drive us to despair: but the joy and the misery, the battle and the victory, the storm and the calm, all these compounded make that sacred elixir whereby God maketh all his people perfect through suffering, and leadeth them to ultimate happiness. Shall we not, in some degree, repay the immense debt of our obligation by seeking to make the future also debtors to us, that our descendants may look back and acknowledge that they owe us thank for preserving the Scriptures, for maintaining liberty, for glorifying God? PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON Romans 8:26-39 . We know not what we should pray for as we ought, and then it is that we groan, or utter some other inarticulate sound. Now, to come to what is evidently in the text, and to dwell upon it for a little while, Paul being thus persuaded that there was a love of God, and that there was a union through love between the soul and its God, now says that HE IS PERSUADED THAT NOTHING CAN EVER BREAK THOSE BONDS. If the wings of the Eternal are thy shelter, what plague can attack thee? Dost thou love to hold communion with him? Now, God will one day change our bodies and make them fit for our souls, and then he will change this world itself. Speak to him on the road, send out the apostle Peter to him, let Peter say, "Saul, why dost thou oppose Christ? With some, who can tell? It is proven to a demonstration in our own lives; it is a fact which runs like a golden clue through all the labyrinth of our history "All things work together for good to them that love God." But our liberty is incomplete. Oh, what a glorious doctrine is that of election, when a man can see himself to be elect. There were no wild beasts to rend him, no rough winds to cause him injury, no blighting heats to bring him harm; but in this present world everything is contrary to us. Now, observe, that this conformity to Christ lies in several things. In English history, the days of Mary, when the saints at Smithfield bore witness for Christ at the stake, were grand days; and in Madagascar, did you ever read a more thrilling story than the record of the bravery of those Christian men and women who suffered the tyrant's cruelty? What! No. I have known what it is to feel as if I could not pray about a certain matter, and yet I have been obliged to groan about it. Happy is he who can follow the apostle step by step, and say, "Yes, I have this morning the spirit of a son; I know that my heart loves God, and I look to him as my Father, with trust, with confidence, and with love; then I am surely his son, because I have the Spirit a son; then I am his heir; I am the heir of God; and thus my faith lays hold upon the thrice-precious words of this glorious text I am joint heir with Christ.". 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. On this I shall speak very briefly. The words which Jesus uses are various in different cases. The Lord in boundless grace has resolved that a company whom no man can number, called here "many brethren," shall be restored to his image, in the particular form in which his Eternal Son displays it. The poor client would plead, but still, when he won the suit, he would trace it all to the advocate who lived at home, and gave him counsel: indeed, it would be the advocate pleading for him, even while he pleaded himself. To such who have preceded us we owe the purity of the Church, and to them we are debtors. Let us take these things for granted, and never dispute about them any more, but go on to still higher matters. Some have thought that it simply, means that God predestinated men whose future history ho foreknow. I know you have an a cross, or if you have not, I hope you will soon have one, for where there is no cross there is no Christ. In the spiritual body, some are fitted for and called to one sort of work; others for another sort of work. As to his spirit, sin hath no more dominion over him, and the law hath no further claims against him. Say not, "There are giants in the land," ye are strong enough to smite them. If so, methinks your heart is not in a right state. Amen. The wolf of famine cannot gnaw the bond; the fire of persecution cannot burn the link, the hammer of hell cannot break the chain; old time cannot devour it with rust, nor eternity dissolve it, with all its ages. I have broken away from its thralldom; the new law, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the law of grace has set me free from the domination of the law of sin and death. IV. We will go into the next. You feel you must have your Father, or else the gifts of his providence are nothing to you. I take it thus: Christ by his death paid to his Father the full price of what we owed to him. There is not a silent nook within the deepest forest glade where work is not going on. The Christian understands the word "good" in another sense. Now be quiet. "Ah!" I trust you will lay hold upon that thought; if Christ as God's heir has a perfect right to what his Father has bestowed upon him, even so have we, for our rights are nonexistent. HOW ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND THIS, "Brethren, we are debtors"? "It is Christ that died.". When Christ was bound to the tree, I see my own sin bound there; when he died every believer virtually died in him; when he was buried we were buried in him, and when he was in the tomb, he was, as it were, God's hostage for all his church, for all that ever should believe on him. This is something more than helping us to pray, something more than encouraging us or directing us, but I venture no further, except to say that he puts such force of his own mind into our poor weak thoughts and desires and hopes, that he himself maketh intercession for us, working in us to will and to pray according to his good pleasure. 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. If the call be effectual, and you are brought out and brought in brought out of sin and brought to Christ, brought out of death into life, and out of slavery into liberty, then, though thou canst not see God's hand in it, yet it is there. Why, the Jew would then have been compelled to believe that it was all over, the dispensation was ended; for a sitting priest would be the end of all. My spiritual distress robs me of the power to pour out my heart before my God. He has paid all we owed and he will vindicate his own death, and claim for the travail of his soul its due reward, which is the forgiveness and the salvation of all guilty men who have come and put their trust in him. God so loved me that he willed to forgive me; but for the sake of the world which he governs righteously he could not forgive me without an atonement for my sin. Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world! We generally receive more comfort at the cross than we do at the empty sepulchre. says the accuser "but you sinned against light and knowledge. Psalms 73:26 . Just so! And as Paul thought of the nature of this new life, he felt persuaded that it would not die; he was convinced that he would never be separated from the love of God. The apostle opens with the grandest part of the inheritance first heirs of God heirs not of God's gifts, and God's works, but heirs of God himself. Those of us who have passed through any spiritual conflicts know that Satan is a terribly real personage. It is written, "When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." What says Christ? What was to be done? The first is the general call, which is in the gospel sincerely given to everyone that heareth the word. "Roll ye away the stone," saith he, and it is done; and now, listen to him; he cries, "Lazarus, come forth!" Mark, if you anxiously desire to know, you may know. what angelic tongue shall hymn his glory? "We have borne," says the Apostle, in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, "the image of the earthy." He who has never seen the New Jerusalem, has never clapped his hands with holy ecstasy, he has never sighed with the unutterable longing which is expressed in words like these, Take another picture to illustrate that the obtaining of something makes us groan after more. He was ill-treated, abused, and slandered, and went away to retirement. 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. This is one of his frequent operations upon the mind of the believer: "he shall teach you all things." We may say of the prayers which the Holy Spirit works in us that they are prayers of knowledge. 14:1 - 15:14. I take him a bill to-morrow morning, and he says, "Do you coming begging?" Now, I speak with bated breath. when I can find enough for my faith to be satisfied with even in the digging of the well, what shall be my satisfaction when I see it overflowing its brim, and springing up with life everlasting? There is nothing in man that can deserve this call; nothing in the best of men that can invite it; but God quickeneth whom he will, and when he sends that call, though it come to the vilest of the vile, down they come speedily and swiftly; they come down from the tree of their sin, and fall prostrate in penitence at the feet of Jesus Christ. Delivered on Sabbath Morning, October 18, 1857, by the. All the attributes of divinity are the property of God's children their inheritance entailed upon them. Simply because the call of God comes to unworthy sinners. O, unbelievers you must first be made saints or you cannot feel the Spirit's intercession within you. When God said, "Let my Anointed go free, I am satisfied and content in him," then every elect vessel went free in him; then every child of God was released from durance vile no more to die, not to know bondage or fetter for ever. Hebrews 6:20 . 1. Those who obey his promptings shall not walk in darkness. 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. was the means of his quickening. I come, therefore, to notice the second argument. Many times you put him away. Romans 8 1-39 Spurgeon's Bible Commentary Romans 8:1-39 Romans 8:1. Should another say, "I was baptized an adult," let your confidence remain the same: "Christ has died." If I have, then God purposed that I should do so, and the whole of this great promise is mine. We teach every Sabbath day, that the whole shower of devine wrath was poured upon Christ's head, that the black cloud of vengeance emptied out itself upon the cross, and that there is not left in the book of God a single sin against a believer, nor can there possibly be even a particle of punishment ever exacted at the hand of the man that believeth in Jesus, for this reason, that Jesus has been punished to the full. believe that thou art secure; that voice which called thee, shall call thee yet again from earth to heaven, from death's dark gloom to immortality's unuttered splendours; Rest assured, the heart that called thee, beats with infinite love towards thee, a love undying, that many waters cannot quench, and that floods cannot drown. He has given thee hope, ask for faith; and when he gives thee faith, ask for assurance; and when thou gettest assurance, ask for full assurance; and when thou hast obtained full assurance, ask for enjoyment; and when thou hast enjoyment, ask for glory itself; and he shall surely give it thee in his own appointed season. I think he does, and this, then, is our comfort, that, if we have to meet the arch-fiend himself foot to foot in terrible duel, and we may, for men of God have had so to meet him, and he that does battle with the adversary will gain nothing by it but sweat of blood and aching heart, even if he shall win the victory, so that we may well pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one," still we have this comfort, that even though he may rejoice over us for a moment, and may cast us down, he cannot separate us from the love of Christ; he may open many of our veins, and make us bleed even to utter weakness, but the life-vein he can never touch. but you have aforetime refused Christ. Remember, in this, too, Christ is your co-heir. 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." Shall an eye of Christ be put out in darkness?" Are you prepared now to be despised and rejected of men that you may at last ascend up on high, leading captivity captive? There is nothing here below which does not belong to a believer. The sufferings of his soul were the very soul of his sufferings. Sproul's Expositional Commentary Set - 8 Volumes. If all things are working, let us work too "work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh when no man can work." Rest thou secure. Here stands the case. Second, the people being described as having no katakrima are not all who believe in Christ for everlasting life, but a particular type of believer. and he casts his eyes to heaven. Oh! My brother with great experience, my sister with enlarged acquaintance with Christ, ye have not yet known the harvest, you have only reaped the first handful of corn. "The meek shall inherit the earth, and delight themselves with the abundance of peace." Others of you who can do little yourselves, can this day assist by sending forth men of God to preach the gospel of Christ. Thus runs the decree, and thus shall the fulfillment follow "I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am." And O my soul, thy portion cannot be slender nor thy dowry narrow, since it is the same inheritance which Christ has from his Father's hands. It is "an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." We are debtors to the past. We find that the word "know" is frequently used in Scripture, not only for knowledge, but also for favor, love, and complacency. Enough to smite them of peace. you will soon grow like Christ you prepared now to be a man... How are we to UNDERSTAND this, too, Christ is your co-heir maketh... Church, and delight themselves with the abundance of peace. soul of his are... 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