Turn with me again to Romans
chapter 5. Romans chapter 5, I'm entitled
to this message, The Love of God Shed Abroad. The love of
God that shed abroad. Let's begin our reading here
in verse 6. He says, For when we were yet
without strength, In due time, Christ died for, notice this
very specific group of people, the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commendeth His love,
God manifested. Another way to say that, God
manifested, God made known His love toward us. He commended
His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Much more then. There's more. You always get those commercials
where they say, they give you this, and there's more. Listen,
there's much more here. That's great, but there's much
more, much more than being now justified by His blood. Listen,
we shall be saved. Saved from what? From the wrath,
from wrath through Him. For if we, for if when we were
yet enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life and
not only so but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ
by whom we have now right now you believe right now right now
right now you've received something you've received the reconciliation
You've received what his blood has purchased. You have received
it by faith, the reconciliation. Now, as we've seen in this book
of Romans thus far, we have seen the cause of justification. The
cause of justification is not rooted in man. There is nothing
good in man. There is no way a man can justify
himself. Paul makes that clear. So the
root cause of justification is the faith of Jesus Christ. The faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
That is the root of our justification. The cause of it. Then we have
seen the means by which we receive it is faith in Jesus Christ. which we know is a gift of God,
for by grace you are saved through faith, and that faith not of
yourselves, it is a gift of God and not of works, lest any man
should boast. We were given the grace of faith
by the power of the Spirit, but now that we have believed, this
is where he is jumping off in chapter, He begins in chapter
3 again. He tells us how the believer
is to live now that we have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He
says the just shall live by faith. He tells us how to live. What's
the rule of our life? If it's not the law, what is
it, Paul? The just shall live by faith. And you get into chapter 4 and
he gives Abraham as the illustration, Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him for righteousness. Well that wasn't written just
for him, that was written for us too. We who believe God, listen,
it is imputed unto us to righteousness. And then in chapter 5 we begin
to see the blessings of justification. We saw the cause, we saw how
it is we received it, we saw how the believer should live,
now then we saw an illustration of it, and now Paul testifies
in chapter 5 the blessings of being justified. Being justified
by faith we have what? Peace with God. You have peace
with God. You believe on Christ. You have
it now. You have peace with God. You
didn't earn it. You didn't merit it. We saw that
that's by the blood of Christ that that peace was merited.
We saw this. We had access to God. You have access into this
grace, Paul said, wherein you stand. You stand in the grace
of God. You're saved by the grace of
God. You have access. That's wonderful. That wasn't
anything like that in the Old Testament. The priests had to
go in there for us. Now then, the veil is rent, the
way is made known, and you have instant access. Listen, if you
don't pray, that's your fault. You have access. You have instant
access all the time to God. And thirdly, we saw we have the
hope of our salvation, the glory of God. We have hope. He said
that in Look at that in verse 2, he says, and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. The glory of God is our salvation.
God placed His name, stamped His name on our salvation. So
then if He is to be glorified, you must be saved. Well, we have
good hope then, because God will be glorified. Therefore, we will
be saved. That's our hope. That's our confidence. And lastly, we saw this Last
Lord's Day is that we not only glory in those wonderful positive
things, we also glory in something that's very negative. He said
we also glory in tribulation. In tribulation. And we glory
in tribulation because we saw this, it is necessary. Tribulation
is a necessary event. We saw the golden chain that
God has made and without tribulation there is no spiritual growth. Everybody wants to grow. Lord,
that I might grow in grace and love and faith. Anybody want to grow in faith?
I want to trust Him, don't you? I want to trust Him more. I want
to believe on Him more. Well, guess where that starts?
Tribulation. I want to submit to His will. Guess where that starts? Tribulation. Tribulation worketh what? Patience. Patience. We glory in tribulation,
not in tribulation itself, but in what tribulation brings. It brings Submission. Submission. It's natural for us to kick against
tribulation, isn't it? That's a first reaction. I had
a reaction, we were in the car, I heard something, one of the
believers is suffering because of something that the outside
world had done, and the first thing I want to do is kick at
it. That's our natural instinct to
kick at tribulation, but tribulation is necessary because it brings
submission. Submission. It causes us to submit. That's
what the word patience here, endurance. And like I said, listen to what
Solomon said. Solomon said this. He said, Trust
in the Lord with all thine heart. and lean not to thine own understanding,
in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."
Now, what believer doesn't want to do that? How much are you
to trust the Lord? I was listening to a message
preached a long time ago, is it safe to trust the Lord? Is it safe? to put all your trust
in Him, regardless of what you think, what you see, what you
feel. Is it safe? The preacher said
this, I can tell you this, humanly speaking, I can't tell you it's
safe. Using human logic and wisdom,
I can't say that it is. It may kill you, trusting the
Lord. But we who believe, Luther said,
when faith comes, it kicks out human reasoning. Faith comes,
it kicks out human reasoning. We trust God implicitly with
everything. And how do you trust Him more
if you want to trust Him with all thine heart? How does that
start? Tribulation. Tribulation brings submission.
And submission brings experience. Experience in the power and the
grace of God. You want to feel God's presence. You want to know His power. Well,
where does that start? Tribulation. Tribulation works the submission,
and the submission, at the point of submission, then what? There's
experience. God gives us peace within. He may not deliver us from the
physical trial that we're in, but He would bring us inner peace. His promises are fulfilled. His
power is displayed by experience. And then what does experience
bring? Experience brings hope. Confidence. Where does confidence
come from? Tribulation. We glory in tribulation. You're not going to have confidence
in God without experience. You're not going to have experience
without endurance or submission. And you're not going to have
submission until you first have tribulation. These are necessary
things. These are necessary things. And this brings us hope that
makes not ashamed. Makes not ashamed. The experience
is proof of God's power and God's grace. And this hope, this confidence,
comes by bringing us to the end of ourselves. And it's not going
to have that kind of confidence until God brings you to the end
of yourself. Remember that I told you about the mariner? If you
read Psalm 107, you read about the wanderer, you read about
the fool, you read about the mariner, you read about those
that sit in darkness. You know what they all had in
common? They all had tribulation. Then what? Then you saw them
trying to fix it. And when they couldn't, they
cried unto God. And then God did what? He delivered
them out of their troubles. Then they what? They all praise
the Lord. That's exactly how this goes.
This is the experience, the constant. I want you to know this. This
is the constant experience of the believer. Tribulation, worketh
patience. Patience, experience. Experience,
hope. Hope maketh not ashamed. The love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts. Then what? Tribulation, worketh patience.
Patience, experience. Experience, hope. Hope maketh
not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts. Start over again. This is what it is. Do you think
that you could have endured the trials that you're facing now
when you were younger in the faith? No. God was so gracious
to cause us to grow in endurance so that we are able to stand
the trials we're in now. God is so patient and kind in
this process. And what I say about this process
is this, This is not progressive sanctification. It is progressive growth. But
my growth does not make me holier, does not make me more sanctified
before God, doesn't make me any more saved than I was before
I grew up. But God does cause His children
to grow. And as we are caused to grow,
I know this in your experience as a believer, the things of
earth are growing dim, aren't they? They once were so beautiful
and fresh and, you know, the things of earth were so joyful
and now as you get older they've lost their taste, they've lost
their flavor. Why? Because glory is more in
view. So what causes us to grow? And so now then the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts. And this love of God that's shed
abroad in our hearts, it is our love for God. The Holy Spirit
produces it. The Holy Spirit gives us more
love for God. But as we look at our love for
God, there's really no stability there, is it? I love Him. But I dare not take
my eyes off of His love for me. If I ever want to enjoy my love
to Him, It has to be with my eyes fixed on His love to me. And that's what the Apostle Paul
is doing here in verse 6, is he's saying the love of God is
shed abroad in our hearts. But what stirs our love for God
is His love for us. So that's what Paul's directing
us to. He's pointing us back to His love, not yours. He's pointing you to His love.
It's surely the view of God's love for us that gives us hope
that's not ashamed. It is the work of the Holy Spirit
to manifest this love by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so
the purpose of the Holy Spirit is by this same old gospel. This same old gospel. to manifest to us the love of
God by the death of His Son. The love of God is manifested
only by the death of His Son for the ungodly. This gospel, when it is preached
When the gospel of God's manifest love by the crucifixion of Christ
is preached, it does two things. It breaks the sinner's heart. That's what it does. I had read
that Spurgeon was talking to an elderly woman who loved for
her children to be saved, and she gave every ounce of her strength
to every available resource so that her children might believe.
And she would read to them The Alarm to the Unconverted, which
was a book that scared the children to death. It was that they were
on the cusp of hell, ready to fall off at any moment. You know
what she found? She said, the more I did that,
the more fearful they became, the more hard-hearted they became.
Fear, terror, of hell does not break the heart of sinners. You
know what does? Christ dying for the ungodly. Christ's love and willingness
to die for his enemies. That breaks the heart of the
sinner. And I tell you what other this
gospel of Christ's death and God's love does is it It refreshes
the soul of the believer. It refreshes me to know this,
that my salvation is not dependent on my love for God. It's dependent
on His love for me. It's dependent on the success
of Jesus Christ's death. And therefore, in verses 6 to
11, the apostle now will show the heart of justification. He
showed the cause. He showed how it's received.
He showed how the just are to live. He showed the blessings
of this justification. Now he's going to show you the
heart of this justification. It comes as an act of divine
love. Behold, the great cause and grounds
of our hope during the manifold tribulations is not our love
for God, but rather His love for us." So when you're suffering
in these tribulations that are going to come, that are necessary
for you, when you're in the tribulation, it is then we are to fix our
eyes on the grounds of our acceptance. the love of God, the death of
Christ. The love of God is not seen in
providence. You look to providence and you're
going to assume that God loves the wicked because their providence
seems smooth. And the providence of the righteous
is rough. You're not going to know God's
love because sometimes the providence of the righteous is smooth. I
like it when it's smooth. I love smooth waters for a while.
I'm thankful for them. But is that a sign of God's love
because I have smooth waters? Nope. What if I have troubled
waters? Is that a sign of God's hatred?
Nope. How do I know that God loves
me? The only way I can see that is
the death of His Son for the ungodly. Look at that in verse
6. He said, For when we were yet
without strength, in due time Christ died. For who? The ungodly. Now, this love that's manifest, this
love that is manifest by the death of Christ When did God
love us? You that are justified, it's
manifest that God loved you because He sent His Son to die for you.
Now when did He love you? Notice that, when we were without
strength. The love of God for His elect
was eternal. It's eternal love. according
as he had chosen us in Christ, when? Before the foundation of
the world. That's when he loved me. Chosen us in Christ before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy without blame
before him. Justified. He said, in love. In love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.
Listen, before there was anything but God, God loved us. You that are justified. Now,
I'm speaking only to those who are justified, because that's
who Paul's talking to. You, therefore, being justified. That's who he's talking about.
You that are justified. Listen, God has set His love
on you when you were without being. You had no being, because
there was no being but God Himself. That's when God loved us. Before
Satan fell and his angels, before Adam fell, before sin entered
into the world, God loved His people. He said, I have loved
thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, it's no surprise that
His love was upon us when we were born without strength. I
thought about it when you were born. We say an infant, He has
some strength. He can kick and he can move his
arms, giggle, cry. He can do a whole bunch of little
things. One thing he can't do is he can't take care of himself.
He has no strength. He can't feed himself. He can't change himself. He can't
carry himself. He can't do anything for himself. He is without strength. But I'll tell you this, this
is spiritually speaking, not just physically. When we were
born in this world, we didn't have much strength. We had some.
We could breathe on our own. God gave us breath, we breathed.
But this is speaking spiritually. We were so much without strength,
Paul says we were dead. Dead. Now how, how weak is a
dead man. How without strength is a dead
man? We were spiritually without strength. If I laid a corpse here and I
gave him one thing to do for life, he could not do it. Without what? Without strength.
He has no strength. You see how useless works religion
is? Works salvation is a useless thing. It's the most worthless
thing in the world. If I set the cure for the dead
man right next to me, that cure would be useless because he couldn't
apply it to himself. That's how useless work salvation
is. It's worthless. You see the simplicity of the
gospel. Think about the simplicity of
the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. The simplicity of that can't be overstated. It's just simple. Everyone who
believes shall be saved. Now, you didn't misunderstand
any word in that sentence. It's a very plain and simple
language. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall
be saved. What's the difficulty? The difficulty is Jesus said,
no man can believe. That's the difficulty. He has
no power to believe. He is what? Without strength. And it's only when God gives
him strength that he is able to what? Believe! You then believe? Can you believe? Well, of course
you can. Why? You have life! God gave you life! And you believe. The only thing a man by nature
can do is sin. Sin. I thought of a dead fish
in a stream. You have a dead fish in a stream. Which way is he going to go?
Which way can he go? He can only go one way, wherever
the stream goes. You know the only way to stop
him is if I put a log in the middle of that stream and he
just bumps up against the log. Until what? I move the log and
then he goes. See, that's how we always sin. You see, God ordained
even our sin. We could not even fulfill our
sin had God not purposed it. And when God stops us, guess
what? We can't go any further. But if He moves His hand, what
happens? We're gone. That's all we can do. We're without
strength. Tell that fish to go upstream.
He can't. He has no ability. That's what
we were without strength. Paul says later in Romans 8,
7 that the carnal mind is enmity, hatred, and variance against
God, and is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can
be. In 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14,
he says, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. And he tells us why. He is condemned. He's condemned. Believer, consider this. Even
then, God loved you. You didn't know it. And I'll
tell you this, you didn't want it. Did that matter? No, He still
loved you. Unknown to anybody but Himself,
He loved you. He loved you when you were without
strength. And yet consider, in your sin,
in your ungodly, rebellious state, God's love was manifest in this
way. In due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. In due time. That denotes purpose. When something
is in due time, obviously you purposed it beforehand. God purposed
the death of His Son. Peter says it like this, Him
being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you by wicked hands have crucified and slain the Lord
of glory. Now who delivered who? Could
they have crucified him had God not delivered him? No, God before
purposed to deliver him, therefore Paul is saying this, at the appointed
time, at the appointed time, the whole Old Testament testifies
of his coming death, you know that? In the Old Testament, go
to Isaiah, Isaiah 53. It's just the clearest one. I
think it's the clearest one. There are many short verses that
are very clear about concerning his death, but this whole chapter
is clear, isn't it? The whole thing. You know, there's
a lot of people that try to make this chapter, they say it was
written after the death of Christ. It couldn't be written before
the death of Christ. Why? Because it perfectly describes
it, doesn't it? He shall grow up before him as
a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground, that hath no form
or commonness, and we shall see him. There shall be no beauty
that we shall desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were,
our faces from him. He is despised, and we esteemed
him not." Is that not exactly how men treated him when he came
into the world? You couldn't have written that more perfectly.
That was a perfect description. How many people in today's world
say, well, if Jesus was here, if Jesus was here, you'd try
to crucify him again. You'd treat him just like they
treated him. Why? Because that's our nature.
We're without strength to treat him any other way. But notice
why he came. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And by his stripes
we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone
astray and turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord hath
laid on him the iniquity of us all." You see why he came? He
came to bear our iniquities, our sins, The sins of who? The sins of
those that rejected him, those that despised him. Notice Isaiah
said, we hid, as it were. He didn't say they hid their
faces. He said, we did. We, like sheep, have gone astray,
including himself. And notice this. He was oppressed
and afflicted. He opened not his mouth. He was
brought as a lamb to the slaughters of sheep before his shears as
dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Isn't that exactly how he acted
when he came before them? He sat there in silence as they
mocked him and they ridiculed him. He didn't open his mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment. Isn't that exactly
right? They put him in prison and they
took him to Pilate. From prison to judgment, they
did that. who shall declare his generation,
for he was cut off out of the land of living. He's going to
die. Notice why. For the transgression of my people
was he stricken. It tells him where he's going
to be laid in the grave. He made his grave with the wicked and
with the rich in his death. That man who made that tomb,
that rich man who had a tomb, He did it for himself. He had
no intention to fulfill this scripture. God did. He put him in a borrowed tomb
of a rich man because he had no violence, neither had deceit
in his mouth, yet what happened? Even the success of this is determined,
isn't it? His coming, his dying, what he's
dying for, who he's dying for, and now he says, yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. To put him to grief, when thou
shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed.
He shall prolong his days. The pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and be satisfied. Do you see that? The Lord Jesus
Christ's death was in due time, at the appointed time. God appointed
him to die. He appointed the Son of God to
this shameful crucifixion. And notice who He came to die
for. He came to die for a very specific
group of people. The ungodly. The ungodly. This kind of love is absolutely
unheard of in human history. Absolutely unheard of in human
history. In verses 6 and 7, the apostle
now is going to set the love of Christ in dying for the ungodly
against the best love a man could come up with. Look at this in
verse 6 and 7 of your text. Go back there. Romans 5. He said,
Verse 7, he says, "...scarcely for a righteous man would one
dare to die." You have a righteous man, here he is. He's innocent,
and now he's brought before a judge. And the judge condemns him to
death, a king. A king condemns this righteous
man to death. to anyone with any sense, that's
absurd, isn't it? I object. We would object to
such a thing. How could that man call himself
a judge or a just king if he would sentence a righteous man
to death? And we would have outrage. There would be outrage. There
is. When innocent men are put behind bars, we're outraged. When innocent men are put to
death, we're outraged. But notice what Paul said, will
you give your life for him? Will you take his place? Now
you'd be outraged. You'd probably start a GoFundMe
page for him. You'd probably give some of your
money to get some legal fees for him. Will you take his place? Paul said, scarcely would that
ever happen. You'd be hard pressed to find
an example of that. But notice what he says more.
He said, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare
to die. That word means beloved man. You take a man who's loved.
He's loved by his family. He's loved by his community.
He's loved by his children. Everyone loves this man. He is
a good man and he loves the people and they see him being put to
death. He said you might find somebody to take his place. Why? Because he's loved. He's loved. I read a story in
one of Spurgeon's messages about a minister who was, he preached the gospel and the
ruling party hated, despised him, wanted to kill him. So they
sent their goon squad after him. And they came to this house where
they thought he was And inside was a young woman, and she knew
where he was. She knew where the minister had
hid himself. And they threatened to kill her if she did not tell
them where he was. And so they put a gun to her
head and said, if you do not tell us, we'll kill you. And
they pulled the trigger, but it didn't have any shell in it.
It didn't have any powder in it. And yet, out of love for that
man, as a man of God, she would not tell them. She would not
tell them. Upon the threat of death, and
she would have laid down her life for that man because he
was a beloved minister. They loved him. They loved the
message he preached. And when he heard the shots,
he was nearby and he came and ran. to the place and said, please
spare her, take me. So you have instances of people
who love each other giving themselves for each other. What you don't
have instances of is dying for your enemy. Let us consider the unspeakable
and unheard of love of God tonight, He who is the Creator of all
things. Consider His glory before He
came. Consider His station before He
came. He was the Creator of all things,
praised by His angels and His saints. And in due time, at the specific
time, the Lord of Glory stood up and condescended to become
a man. I cannot imagine the awe of the angels who had desire
to look into these things. I cannot imagine their awe at
this. that He would take and the Holy
Spirit should fashion Him a body that He should be born of a virgin's
womb and come into the world hated." Hated. Despised. And yet our Lord did. He condescended
to be made flesh, to be made under the law, to suffer the
hatred and infirmities of the flesh and the hatred of men,
and soon he would die under the hatred and violence of men. And he did this not for a people
who loved him. He did this for a people who
hated him. He did this for those who opposed
his rule, who opposed his law, who despised him. I often think
when I consider his dying for the ungodly, I think of the Roman
soldier. You remember that Roman soldier
who was converted after his death? But before his death, what did
he do? He mocked the Lord of Glory. You remember they had
beaten him. How much anger and hatred has
there to be to mutilate a man who's done nothing wrong? And
yet you can see the violence in their heart. Why pluck out
the hair from his beard? He's going to die. And yet they
do. They're so angry that they pull
the hair from his beard. They take a crown of thorns and
they push it on his head. He's mutilated beyond recognition,
and they take a purple robe and throw it over him, a reed in
his hand, and say, Hail, King of the Jews, mocking him as he's
about to die. Why? What purpose does it serve
other than their hatred against him? He has to carry his own
cross as they torture him along the way, mocking as he steps. They take the nails and pierce
His hands and His feet. They lift the cross in anger
and they push it into the hole, dislocating His arms. As He lay, as He's there, suffering
in anguish, it's not enough. The hatred is so much it's not
enough. They had to pierce His side with
a spear. You remember after He said it
was finished and the sun was dark and the earth quaked. Remember
what that Roman soldier said? He said, oh surely this is the
Son of God. He was dying. the man who pierced his
hands and his feet. He was dying for the man that
mocked him and smote him. He was dying for the man who
hated him. What's true about him is true
about us. By nature we hate the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now listen, if you don't believe
in Christ because you hate Him, don't pretend you love Him. You
don't believe in Him, you hate Him. You despise the Lord of
glory and you say this in your heart, I will not have that man
to rule over me. That's what you're saying when
you don't believe. Don't tell me you love Christ
and no belief. You're a liar. I don't know because that was Therefore, sinner, behold the
love of God that is manifested, the love of God that is witnessed
only by the cross of Christ, not for those that loved him,
but those that despised him. Are there any ungodly sinners
here? Are there any so vile as not
to be able to lift up their heads? Is there any sinner here who
could not justify himself before God? That's who you die for. He died for sinners. What is
Joseph Hart saying in his hymn, a sinner is a sacred thing for
the Holy Spirit hath made him one. We as sinners have no righteousness,
have no offering, but by faith we look to Jesus Christ and we
see this, that He alone by His death forever satisfied God. He bore the guilt of our sin. He didn't sit and die like any
other man. He died bearing our sins in His
own body on the tree. He died under the guilt and the
wrath of God. When Paul says this, that we
are delivered from wrath through Him, why are you delivered from
wrath? How is it that you, ungodly as you are, are now delivered
from wrath? Because He in love endured the
wrath of God for you. by Himself, alone, in love, in love for you. And notice in
verse 9 He says this, now, much more than, now being justified. Now look, when you were without
strength, He loved you, He died for you, He justified you when
He died for you. But now, you that believe, listen,
there's much more to this. Now, you being justified by His
blood, here's your hope in your tribulation that's necessary,
your trials that are necessary, here is your hope, we shall be
saved from wrath through Him. I am so glad there is no cooperative
effort in this. I am going to be saved through
Him. That's it. There is no Him and
me. It's just Him. I'm going to be
saved through Him. From what? The wrath of God.
I often think about when I think about being saved from the wrath
of God, I think about the Israelites when they walked through the
Red Sea. And the walls of water on each side, standing on each
side as they walked through, could not touch them. Nothing, not one drop of water
fell on their heads. They walked straight through.
What happened when Pharaoh tried to do the same thing? The walls
of water destroyed them. The wrath of God shall not touch
you. You that are justified, wrath
of God shall not touch you. Ever. Ever. You are justified
by His blood. Now that Christ has died for
your sins in love, He has now made you to receive this justification. So the question is this. What
then, if God loved me when I was without strength, if God loved
me even when I hated Him, even when I sinned against Him, God
had set His love on me and sent His Son to die for me, now, much
more now, being justified, shall I then be lost? Will He now abandon
me? That's what it feels like. Don't
your trials feel like that? Your tribulations? They feel
as though He's abandoned you. It hurts. It's painful. He promised
peace and joy and love, and yet our experience in His life is
full of pain and sorrow and grief. And what happens is the flesh
rises up. And I'm not talking about the
inner man. The inner man believes. But the flesh rises up. How many
times did David ask that question? Have you forsaken me? Have you
cast me off forever? Well, no. I loved you even before I justified,
before you received this justification. I loved you when you were ungodly. Now by grace I have justified
you and given you my spirit. I have put my new nature in you. How then shall I ever abandon
you? What then could you do to move
God from His love? I can understand if He loved
you after you did something. If He loved you because of something
you did, then I can see Him hating you because of something you
did. But He loved you not because of anything you did. Therefore,
He will never reject you based on anything you do. Isn't this
astounding? It's the most wonderful message
of love. Paul's going to talk about this
in Romans 8. When he says this, if God justified me and Christ
has removed all condemnation, who's going to separate me from
the love of God? I know I'm going too far, but
I want you to see this because it's vitally important that you
see this. Some believers even get stuck in this chain, this
golden chain of our experience. Tribulation works with patience.
Some believers even get stuck between tribulation and patience.
Some believers die in this place. I knew a man who was hurt by
another believer. He was seriously, emotionally
hurt by this other believer. And yet, It was torture to him. This man, he loved the gospel.
He loved Christ. He believed on Christ. And yet
he could not get over this pain that this man caused him. He
could not forgive this man. And therefore, I watched him.
He was stuck. And he couldn't get past it. Tribulation was working submission. He never got there. As a matter
of fact, he died. He died with that. Does that
mean that God stopped loving him? No. Remember, God's love
didn't have anything to do with what he was doing and what he
didn't do. And I got reference for that in scripture in 2 Chronicles,
I think chapter 15, 16, somewhere in there. King Asa. King Asa was offended by what
the prophet told him. He went and hired this foreign
army to invade Israel and God said you shouldn't have done
that and the king got pouty, got mad. And he threw the prophet
in prison. You know, God gave him gout in
his feet. And you know what? He never asked
God to heal him. Now this was a man after God's
own heart. This was a man, the scripture
says he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. And
yet, what do we find? We find Him stuck between tribulation
and patience, and He died there. Now listen, He did experience
deliverance, didn't He? When He died? When He died, He
was delivered from all that. And sometimes, believers, we
look at our sin and the guilt of our sin and we say, how in
the world could God continue to love me? Well, it's not based
on what you do. God's love is based on what Christ
did. If you want to know how much God loved you, Look at the
cross. He sent His own Son. That's what the Apostle testifies
of. He said, for if we were enemies, we were reconciled. And I want
you to see this. God didn't reconcile you. God
didn't save you to make you a slave. Now, that would have been good. Take an ungodly, rebellious man.
He's even killed the son of the king, and he comes before the
king, and the king says, I love you. I'll make you a servant. Wouldn't that be gracious? But
how much more gracious would it be if he took that rebel and
made him a son? It's exactly what he did. When
he said he reconciled you to God, he means just that. You
are reconciled to God eternally by Jesus Christ. You're made
a son. Son. How much more love can be
displayed than taking a rebel and making a son? Is there any greater love than
this? So when he talks about the love
of God being shed abroad in our hearts, what is he talking about?
He's talking about the death of Jesus Christ. That's what
moves us to love. And so believer, let us therefore
glory in tribulation because we who are redeemed, we who are
justified, we are loved. In your tribulation, you may
know this, you're loved. God loved you before. He brought you to himself. And now having been brought to
him, will he ever cast you out? Now what Paul says, if He had
given us His Son, how shall He not with Him freely give us all
of that? The love of God shed abroad in
the heart of the troubled believer is the cross of Jesus Christ.
That's how God's love manifests. Don't look at the world. Don't
look at your circumstance. You won't find the love of God
there. Look to the cross. and see that God loved you even
before He called you. Why will He not then keep you? I pray God will comfort you with
this. Let's stand and be dismissed in prayer. Our Father, dismiss us with Your
blessing, please, and pour out Your Spirit upon us. Teach us.
Instruct us in the things of Christ. Let us see the glory
of His death and the beauty of His resurrection. He is our hope. I pray that you would do this
for your own glory, in Jesus' name.