True Advocate is he, and Comforter most effectual. ", Now, my hearers, "the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants;" but whenever I find a certain book much held in reverence by our Episcopalian brethren, entirely on my side, I always feel the greatest delight in quoting from it. Here cometh one and he cries, "Thou hast been a blasphemer." Some would have said within themselves "Let the caitiff nation be cut off. We are saved by hope. When the speaker has almost lost the thread of his discourse he turns his ear, and the prompter gives him the catch-word and aids his memory. He did not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax; neither should we. I say it boldly and without a figure, the eternal arm of God now nerved with strength, now released from the bondage in which justice held it, is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Christ. The righteousness of Christ imputed, secures the soul, the better part, from death. God loves Christ, and we love Christ, so we have a meeting-place; we love the same blessed Person, and that brings us to love one another. Do you curse your father, who so wisely watched over you? I am not going to expatiate upon this wondrous theme. 1. There is no fear whatever that, by any accident or by mistake, Christ should miss the honor to which his Father hath ordained him, he must be with his Father where he is. We are to be conformed to Christ Jesus as to character. O Christian, thou canst not be condemned, for Christ has paid the debt. I see "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." That bereavement is working for thy good. See how his father teaches him. The Holy Spirit has a wonderful power over renewed hearts, as much power as the skillful minstrel hath over the strings among which he lays his accustomed hand. Well, if not in this text, there is in another. 14. The natural desires of the human frame are not in themselves sinful, but through the degeneracy of our nature, they very readily lead us into sin, and through the corruption which is in us, even the natural desires of the body become a very great source of temptation. This is the part of the subject from which our craven spirit often shrinks, but if we were wise it would not be so. That secret we must keep separate from all earthly things; that treasure which he has committed to us we must watch both night and day against those profane intruders who would defile the consecrated ground. The evil one may whisper, "If thou be the son of God." He might say, as Jesus did to the Jews, "For which of these works do ye stone me?" The Father knew how happy his Son would be to associate his chosen with himself, for of old his delights were with the sons of men. "No," says another, "there is some truth in it, certainly; men do get bettered by their afflictions, but it is a truth that is not valuable to me, for I do not realize the good that these things bring." Let me feel the worm that never dies rather than the stings of an offended conscience, if indeed this is not itself, "the worm that dieth not." So shall we be, for because he lives, we shall live also. 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. Delivered on Sabbath Morning, October 7th, 1860, by the. He was content with them for what they were, but the first-fruits enlarged his desires for the harvest. He became a partaker of our infirmities and sicknesses that we might be partakers of the divine nature in all its excellence and purity. II. Or look you at Cincinnatus. Catalogue of Commentaries & Expositions. Yea, and when we cannot even utter our groanings, he doth not only help us but he claims as his own particular creation the "groanings that cannot be uttered." This is a fact which he takes for granted because he has perceived it in the hearts of believers. Said he, "All things work together for good; but perhaps, any one of those 'all things' might destroy us if taken alone. Others of you have affliction in your children, many of you are tried in your business, and some of you in your bodies with chronic or acute diseases. Here is A CHALLENGE TO ALL COMERS. It does not charge manhood with an aversion merely to the dominion, laws, or doctrines of Jehovah; but it strikes a deeper and surer blow. 2. Surely no one is so daring as to say, that all men are led by the Spirit of God; yet may it readily enough be inferred from our text, that those who are not led by the Spirit of God are not the sons of God, but that they and they alone who are led, guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit, are the sons of God. He beckons me, and I must be brought at length to see his face, and to be with him where he is. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, much more will they call them of his household by some yet more opprobrious title, if they can invent it. Christ hath a kingdom that shall never be moved. He begins by mentioning some of the things that are supposed to separate, and the first is, death. Again, I repeat it, the believer should take strong draughts of consolation here. What was to be done? He just repeated his master's name and office as many times as the other gentleman had titles. He can lay certain desires so pressingly upon our hearts that we can never rest till they are fulfilled. Brethren, the work of the Spirit is called "first-fruits," because the first-fruits were not the harvest. as the Lord liveth, there may be but a step between you and death; and if you have no Christ, and have never tasted of his love, you are running awful risks even in going one step further. This was pictured by the high priest of old. Now, we also, though we at our conversion are new creatures, are also said to be "begotten again into a lively hope." Here stands the case. What a debtor thou art to Divine Sovereignty! Our nation is fast learning to forget God. I would invite you, my brethren in Christ Jesus, this morning, to do three things; first, let us consider the terms of the will "joint heirs with Christ;" secondly, let us go forth and view the estates what it is of which we are joint heirs; and when we have done so, let us proceed at once to administer, for God hath made his children administrators as web as heirs. Would it not be well for all the churches to hold special meetings for prayer concerning the deadly scourge of influenza? heroism, where is it fled whither has it gone. Is the carnal mind at enmity against God? In what way could the Father put greater honor on his Son than by forming a race like to himself, who shall be the many brethren among whom he is the well-beloved firstborn? "Ask of me," saith he, and he gives him unlimited permission to ask, not as Herod who would give only the half of his kingdom, but as one who would give everything to his Son whom he hath appointed heir of all things, and by whom he make the worlds. We are deficient in those things for which we groan and wait. If today I am enabled to say I am called, then my boat is like the ferry-boat in the middle of the stream. Free-will may look very pretty in theory, but I never yet met any one who found it work well in practice. Romans 8 1-39 Spurgeon's Bible Commentary Romans 8:1-39 Romans 8:1. The tall archangel before the throne is not called God's Son, he is one of the most favoured of his servants, but not his child. 19. Then it appears if we are called joint heirs with Christ, we legally and strictly have no inheritance apart from him. God has given us full assurance, and infallible testimony, and in all this we rejoice. The new life which God has given to us is not ours that we should ascribe its excellence to our own merit: the new nature is Christ's peculiarly; as it is Christ's image and Christ's creation, so it is for Christ's glory alone. I cannot of course picture what your precise trouble is. ", I am anxious not to tarry over controverted matters, but to reach the subject of my sermon this morning. Do I suffer with him, suffer for him? For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. There is real prayer in these "groanings that cannot be uttered." 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. but you have aforetime refused Christ. It is called "first-fruits," again, because these were always holy to the Lord. Oh, that you would come and learn it! "There!" And has not God often made the dead to rise at our word, by the power of his Spirit! The fool does not say in his heart there is no God, for he knows there is a God; but he says, "No God I don't want any; I wish there were none." Romans 8:28 . He hath not published the page whereon the actual names of the redeemed are written; but that page of the sacred decree whereon their character is recorded is published in his Word, and shall be proclaimed to thee this day. (Who would wish that they should? I am the king of that inheritance, and without me doth not a dog move his tongue." Will you not be satisfied to serve God though you lose by it; to stand up and be thought an arrant fool, because you will not learn the wisdom of this world; to be esteemed a mad fanatic, because you cannot swim with the current. When I think how the poor toil day after day and receive barely enough to keep their souls within their bodies: when I think how frequently they serve their Church, unhonored and unrewarded, when I know some of them who perform the hardest deeds of service for our common Christianity, and are yet passed by with neglect and scorn; when I remember how many of them are toiling in the Sabbath-school, having neither emolument nor reward; when I consider how many of the lower classes are as prayerful, as careful, as honest, as upright, as devout, as spiritual as others are, and frequently more so, I cannot but say that we are debtors to all God's poor in a very large degree. I have said before, there is heaven in it, and though the word sounds like sorrow, there is a depth of joy concealed within. They are blessed, but they have not had their public entrance. 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. Now, thirdly, and this is the practical part of the discourse, let us proceed to ADMINISTER TO THE EFFECTS. His early years had been spent in opposition to his Saviour. Here is a youth who is to be initiated in the art of archery, and therefore he carries a bow. Wherefore, since it is only our Judge who can condemn us, and since he is the very Person who has paid our debt for us, and put our sin away, we dare to repeat again, with additional emphasis, our ringing challenge to all the universe, "Who is he that condemneth?". "It is Christ that died." With that attack upon his Sonship the fiend commenced the battle. Grace in the soul is its new nature; the soul is alive to God, and has begun its holy happiness which shall endure for ever. do I converse with him, commune with him? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of him who rose again from the dead? The apostle tells us that "they without us cannot be made perfect;" that is, until our bodies are raised, theirs cannot be raised, until we get our adoption day, neither can they get theirs. We are apt to think that the motion of the world and the different evolutions of the stars are but like the turning round of a child's windmill; they produce nothing. However wise and advisable a human interpolation may be, it has no authority with us; we bow to holy Scripture, but not to glosses which theologians may choose to put upon it. Are you ready to throw up your own claim, and say, "I will not be heir of anything?" If I promulgated the doctrine on my own authority, I could not blame you if you should turn against me, and reject it; but when, on the authority of Holy Scripture, I propound it, God forbid that any man should quarrel therewith. Go not into thy brother's house in the day of thine adversity. It is almost as good as Scripture; for Scripture leads us to think of the sufferings of Christ as an unfathomable deep. Sovereign Mercy comes, and there lies this unconscious, lifeless mass of sin; Sovereign Grace cries, either by the minister, or else directly without any agency, by the Spirit of God, "come forth!" Live with Christ and you will soon grow like Christ. 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." Sustained by distinguishing grace, a man learns to glory in tribulations also; and strengthened by electing love, he defies the hatred of the world and the trials of life. His own dear Son came, and stood in my place, and took my sin upon him. O ye first-born whose names are written in heaven, I take my seat with you and join your rapturous adoration. We morally speak of work, especially on this day, as being the opposite of sacred rest and worship. You must be tempted of Satan, you must be tried by the world, the flesh, of the devil. We must not pry into it, but we know that he was verily of the nature of God. So live, so act, ye sons of God, that the world may say of you, "Yes, these men bring forth the fruits of God; they are like their Father; they honour his name; they are indeed filled with his grace, for their every word is as true as his oath; their every act is sincere and upright; their heart is kind, their spirit is gentle; they are firm but yet they are generous; they are strict in their integrity, but they are loving in their souls; they are men who, like God, are full of love; but like him are severely just. Coming to our aid in our bewilderment he instructs us. She is, "when unadorned, adorned the most." But lo, a light shines round about him and he falls to the ground, and he hears a voice crying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me; it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." And this persuasion helped him to gain his aspiration. Happy man, happy woman, who can truly say, "I am persuaded that God loves me. And as we are debtors to all times, so we are all debtors to all classes. Thus have I tried to set forth the cheering fact that the Spirit helps the people of God. "Oh," say some, "it may be true that we are at times opposed to God, but surely we are not always so." Ye may train him up, ye may make his intellect almost angelic, ye may strengthen his soul until he shall take what are riddles to us, and unravel them with his fingers in a moment; ye may make him so mighty, that he can grasp the iron secrets of the eternal hills and grind them to atoms in his fist; ye may give him an eye so keen, that he can penetrate the arcana of rocks and mountains; ye may add a soul so potent, that he may slay the giant Sphinx, that had for ages troubled the mightiest men of learning; yet, when ye have done all, his mind shall be a depraved one, and his carnal heart shall still be in opposition to God. Yet there is the church, and how can she in the slightest degree incur condemnation, when she is already at the right hand of the Father with her covenant head. Ye are of God, little children, and the whole world lieth in the wicked one. Yet more, I fancy that. The second time the Lord called him, and said, "Samuel, Samuel," and he arose again, and went to Eli, and said, "Here am I, for thou didst call me," and then it was that Eli, not Samuel, first of all perceived that the Lord had called the child. We heard of a certain clergyman who was said to have given forth "the finest prayer ever offered to a Boston audience." Delivered on Sabbath Morning, April 22, 1855, by the, --------------------------------------------------------------------------------. 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. CHILDREN are expected to bear some likeness to their parent. We are not to be passive like wood or marble; we are to be prayerful, watchful, fervent, diligent, obedient, earnest, and believing, but still the work is God's. Look at his gore, as it distils from his body in Gethsemane and on the accursed tree. While you shall for awhile sigh for more of heaven, you shall soon come to the abodes of blessedness where sighing and sorrow shall flee away. The man who uttered this challenge, "Who is he that condemneth?" "Yet," says Paul, "I am persuaded that life cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." But our liberty is incomplete. The glorious Spirit, one with God, attests the truth of the testimony, and beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now, I am not sure that the doctor is perfectly right. If God should choose this morning to call the hardest-hearted wretch within hearing of the gospel, he must obey. "Oh, I want to get home to my dear wife and children. His interpretation of it is a groan, and that is all. It must condemn sin, for "the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good." Oh! She liked "high Calvary" preaching, and so do I; and it is "high Calvary" doctrine that I find in this passage. Psalms 16:5 . Oh, wherefore art thou at enmity with him? 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. In the volume of the Book it is written of him: "I delight to do thy will, O my God! "All things work together." We are to be like him then in nature, in relation, in experience. Believing supplications are forecasts of the future, He who prayeth in faith is like the seer of old, he sees that which is to be: his holy expectancy, like a telescope, brings distant objects near to him. Say soul, canst thou honestly declare that thy past life was darkness and that thy present state is light in the Lord? If we are born into his family it is a miracle of mercy. You do not know the love of Christ. Whosoever loveth God, without doubt, is a Christian; and whosoever loveth him not, however high may be his pretensions, however boastful his professions, hath not seen God, neither known him for "God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Like a bird uncaged, how will it mount with more than eagles' wings! He called them, mark you. We are called "joint heirs with Christ" what meaneth this? "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." You long rejected Christ." Go to the next house, and hear another groan. I, too, am persuaded by a thousand arguments, and persuaded beyond all question, that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Look here, this is my confession of faith; here will I hale thy brothers and thy sisters to prison, and beat them in the synagogue and compel them to blaspheme and even hunt them to death, for my breath is threatening, and my heart is as fire against Christ." We pray evermore on such matters with this reserve, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Fellowship in his sufferings is needful to communion with his glory. and what is election, but God's purpose to do what he does do? It is not with us a matter of doubt; we have tried it, we have proved it. "Who is he that condemneth?" Weigh the riches of Christ in scales and his treasures in balances and then think to count the treasures which belong to the saints. He is persuaded that things present cannot separate us from Christ. He did not bring the mercy-seat outside the veil, to carry the mercy-seat to the blood. We heard of abundant harvests, but we soon discovered that they were all a dream, and that there would be scant in the worker's cottage. So you see if there be any flaw, if there be any action to set aside the will, or if there be found no effects, or if the effects be slender, the loss falleth upon the co-heirs; not on one alone, nor on the other alone, but on the two, since they are jointly designated heirs in the will, and they are only heirs as they stand in relationship with one another. Conscience, truly answer! I do not know a more beautiful sight to be seen on earth than a man who has served his Lord many years, and who, having grown grey in service, feels that, in the order of nature, he must soon be called home. Brother owes to brother what he cannot pay until he dies. 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. 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 next argument for making us sure that they will speed is this that they are "the mind of the Spirit." He said within himself, "Does Jesus love me? 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