Welcome to God's Word to Our
Nation, with our host, Pastor Albert N. Martin. We believe
that the Bible is God's Word, and the Gospel is a message of
new life and liberty. So keep your Bible open for this
broadcast, because as Pastor Martin preaches, he would like
you to see the truth in your own copy of the Scriptures. But
you'll need more than an open Bible. You'll need an open heart,
ready to receive and obey the Word of God. At the end of the
program, we will be giving you some information about the church
that sponsors this broadcast. But for now, open your Bible
and open your heart, and join us for today's sermon. We will be considering a portion
of Romans Chapter 8, so I would encourage you to turn with me
in your Bibles to that chapter of the Word of God. Any Christian, even remotely
familiar with this chapter, will agree with me when I say that
the eighth chapter of Romans is nothing short of a spiritual
goldmine of the promises the privileges and the prospects
of the child of God. It begins with the wonderful
assertion that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,
and it ends with the great affirmation that there will be no separation
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And between the glorious statement
of no condemnation and the affirmation of no separation, there are these
wonderful truths concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit,
producing in us a fundamental ethical and moral change. His
presence in us, the pledge of the quickening of our mortal
bodies, His presence within us, an aid in mortification, His
presence in us, attesting our sonship, bearing witness that
we are the children of God, and His presence in us, enabling
us in the bafflement of not knowing how to pray as we ought. And
furthermore, the chapter is suffused with the stabilizing reality
of a solid hope of the resurrection of the body, the assurance that
in the meantime everything is working together for our good,
and then the amazing statement that our salvation rests down
upon the immutable purpose of God Himself. We are called according
to purpose, and that divine purpose goes all the way through our
salvation, from eternity to eternity, for whom He foreknew, He also
foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, And
all such will, according to verse 30, ultimately be glorified. No wonder there is this kind
of holy triumphalism then, after laying out all of these promises,
all of these privileges and prospects of the child of God, that Paul
throws out the question in verse 31, what then shall we say to
these things? He's amazed at the very things
he's written. What shall we say to these things? He has declared nothing that's
fanciful. He's declared nothing that is
ephemeral. He has declared the realities
of our salvation. And having done so, he cries
out, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us,
not the if of uncertainty, since God is indeed for us, who is
against us? Many things and forces and powers
and personalities are against us, but who are they in the face
of the God who is for us? For us in what sense? For us
in the commitments that the Apostle has been opening up in these
previous verses. For us, that we shall never come
into condemnation. for us, that nothing will separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And after throwing out
that question in a spirit of what I've called holy triumphalism,
he then moves on in verse 2 and gives what I regard as a major
part of the answer to this question. If God is for us, who is against
us? And if you ask, in what sense
is God for us? Verse 32 is a major part of that
answer. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him
freely give us all things? I want you to think through this
text with me under two headings. First of all, the greatness of
the Father's action. He that spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all, and then the guarantee of the
Father's provision. How shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? First of all, then, note with
me the greatness of the Father's action. He that spared not His
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Note, first of all,
that the subject of this verse is God the Father. From verse
29 onward, He is clearly in focus. Whom He foreknew, He foreordained
to be conformed to the image of His Son. So, the he refers
to the Father, who is Father in a unique way to His only begotten
Son. And carrying on from there, whom
He foreordained, He called. Foreordination is distinctively
the activity of God the Father. Then He also called. Calling is distinctively the
act of the Father. Then He also justified, and whom
He justified, He glorified. What shall we say then to these
things? If God is for us, who is against
us? He that spared not His own Son. So it is right that we meditate
upon the text in terms of the greatness of the Father's action. And notice that the Father's
action is described with reference not to The Son, but to His own
Son. And the emphasis falls upon the
uniqueness of Christ's relationship to the Father as His own Son,
the One with whom there was an eternal and indescribable relationship
of communion and of love. Jesus could say, the Father loves
the Son and has committed all things into His hand. The Father
spoke from heaven, saying, This is My Son, My Beloved One, in
whom I am well pleased. And so the Father's action, which
is in focus, is in focus here in our text with respect to His
Son. Now two things are said of the
father's action with respect to his son. The first is negative.
We are told that he spared him not. The second is positive. He delivered him up for us all. He did not spare his own son. Now what does the word spare
mean? Well, in this context, it means
to withhold a measure of the chastisement due to a disobedient
child or the punishment due to a guilty criminal. This word,
spare, is the word that Paul used in 2 Corinthians 13 when
dealing as a spiritual father with the Corinthians. He wrote
to them and used this word in 2 Corinthians 13, verse 2b, that
if I come again, I will not spare. In other words, he says, if I
come and I find that you've not dealt with the things that you
ought to deal with as a loving, wise, but principled father,
I've spoken to you with words. I will come with a spiritual
rod of correction and I will not spare you. I will not withhold. I will not refrain myself from
the spiritual chastisement that your actions deserve. It's the
same word used in 2 Peter 2, verses 4 and 5, where God spared
not the angels that sinned. When innocent angels become guilty,
criminal, rebellious angels, they deserve the punishment of
God. He did not spare them. He brought
that punishment upon them, and the Scriptures tell us that they
are kept in chains, awaiting the judgment of the last day. In verse 5, it is said that He
spared not the generation in Noah's day. What does it mean
He spared them not? You remember what Scripture tells
us. He said, My spirit will not always strive with men. And when
God was determined to bring down the full weight of His judgment
and not spare it, all were blotted off the face of the earth except
eight human beings, Noah and his family. So we are told in
our text that the greatness of the Father's action is to be
understood, first of all, negatively, when He did not spare His own
Son. He did not withhold the punishment
due to His Son. While God had previously shown
mercy to multitudes of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam, when
it came to his dealings with his son, wherever this occurred,
and in whatever setting, we are told that he did not spare his
own son. But positively, what he did was
to deliver him up for us all. And we ask two questions of this
positive statement. What did he do, and for whom
did he do it? What did he do? He delivered
Him up for us all. Well, to whom and to what did
the Father deliver His Son? In not sparing Him, in not withholding
any punishment that was due to Him, to whom and to what did
He deliver Him? Well, we could answer that He
delivered Him into the hands of wicked men. And our answer
would, in part, be correct. Acts 2.33, Peter's Pentecostal
sermon. He speaks of the Lord Jesus and
says, Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God, you by wicked hands have crucified and slain Him. Jesus had predicted that the
religious rulers would hand Him over, would deliver Him into
the hands of men, and that He would be mocked and scourged
and crucified. And so when our text says, He
did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up, and we ask
the question, to whom did He deliver Him? It would be partly
true to say He delivered Him into the hands of wicked men.
or to say that he delivered him in a way that we cannot fully
comprehend. He delivered him into the power
of the fiends of hell and the devil himself. You remember as
Jesus approached his crucifixion, he said in John 12 and verse
31, Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of
this world be cast out. And how is the Lord Jesus to
cast out the Prince of this world? Well, if we turn over to John
14.30, in some way His casting out of the Prince of the world
will be in conjunction with a coming of the Prince of the world to
Jesus and finding nothing in Him. John 14.30, I will no more
speak much with you For the Prince of the world comes, and he has
nothing in me." The Prince of the world shall be cast out,
but that casting out will be in conjunction with a coming
of the Prince of the world to Jesus and finding nothing in
Him. And both of these passages obviously
point to His impending death upon the cross. And again, in
language that is mysterious, but it's biblical language, Colossians
2.15 says that our Lord Jesus spoiled principalities and powers,
triumphing over them in it, that is, in His death. Well, now we
move to meditate briefly upon the second head of our text.
Having looked at the greatness of the Father's action, now note
the guarantee of the Father's love. He that spared not his
own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
also with him freely give us all things? Now the last half
of the verse that I'm calling the guarantee of the Father's
provision is a question in which Paul is arguing in a logical
category called arguing from the greater to the lesser. You
say, well, I didn't come to church to hear about logic. Well, I
hope you came to hear the Word of God. And you can't hear the
Word of God and read the Word of God when it has logical constructions
without thinking logically. And we do this all the time.
If you're sitting in the class and there's a student who solved
a complex problem in advanced calculus, And then you had a
little simple addition to do in order to know how much you
owed someone in a loan that you made. You would say, surely if
he can solve that problem in advanced calculus, he can do
simple addition. You're arguing from the greater
to the lesser. Now that's exactly what Paul is doing here. And
if we're to enjoy the sweetness of the divine provision in Christ,
we must get away from this idea that, well, I'm not put together
in a logical way. I just love the Lord, and I just
want to have a warm heart. My friend, if you won't use your
God-given head to think the way God thinks and the way He's revealed
His thought in Scripture, you're doomed to be an unstable Christian.
So if you want to say, well, I'm not a logical person, I'm
the more visceral, emotional person, well then, thank God
for that, but shore up the holes in the way you're put together
by God's grace so you can become a mature Christian. You've got
to think logically, because that's what the Holy Ghost has done
for us in this passage. He's saying, in the light of
the greatness of the Father's action, He that spared not His
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not
with Him freely give us all things? Now, what is the greatest thing
that God can give? Is it calling? Whom He foreordained,
then He also called. Is it justification? Whom He
called, He justified. Whom He justified, He glorified.
Is it glorification? No, no. No, no. That's not the
greatest thing God can give. The greatest thing God can give
in pursuit of your salvation and mine is the gift of His own
Son. And He spared Him not, but gave
Him, delivered Him up for us, His well-beloved, His only begotten
Son, His own dear Son. So if the measure of His love
In His purpose to save us is that He has given the greatest
gift to procure that salvation. Will He withhold any lesser thing
that is needful to make the salvation come to pass in everyone for
whom it was procured? You see the logic? He did spare
not His Son. He did the greatest thing. How
shall He not with Him freely give us all things? And the all things are not the New Cadillac that you happen
to see, and say, boy, I'd like that. And God says, He spared
not His Son, He'll give me all things. That's the way the health,
wealth, and prosperity folk would expound the text. But that's
not true, because you read on, and the apostle expects that
believers are going to be those killed all the day long, accounted
as sheep for the slaughter. They may experience famine, nakedness,
peril, and sword. Paul knew nothing of their health,
wealth, and prosperity gospel. Well, what are the things, then,
that God is committed to give within this tight, logical framework? He spared not His Son. How shall
He not with Him freely give us all things? Well, the all things
are everything necessary to bring us to the full possession of
every part of the salvation purchased by Christ. And the ultimate expression
of that salvation is when we stand totally conformed to His
likeness, whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son. And glorification is the actual
experience of that in the day of our Lord's coming and the
resurrection and being given our glorified bodies united to
glorified spirits. Then the all things will be ours
in the new heavens and in the new earth. If He spared not His
own Son, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? What we need if we face famine
and peril and nakedness and sword, the moral courage not to deny
our Lord? And should we deny Him in a moment
of weakness to go out and weep bitterly and then to serve Him
for the rest of our days? Whatever we need in the face
of every kind of opposition that would seek to separate us from
the love of Christ. Everything needed in life, in
death. Paul says, I'm persuaded nothing,
nothing, nothing shall separate us from the love of God. that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord, a love in Christ, not as a locked-up
emotion, but a love that found a conduit through Mary's womb
and on to the Garden of Gethsemane and on to Golgotha and through
the open tomb. That's the greatest thing God
can give, and He's given the greatest. And notice, the text
says, How shall ye not with Him also freely give us all things. In the original, that's not a
separate word. You don't have the standard word forgive and
then a word for freely. But you have a word that means
not merely to give. There is a standard nuts and
bolts word forgive used many times in the New Testament. But
this word means to give gratuitously. To give as an expression of grace. To give without money, without
price. To give to the undeserving and
the ill-deserving. That's how He gives. He's given
the greatest. And shall He not notice? Give
with Him! With Him! If He's given the greatest,
all lesser gifts come, as it were, strapped to the belt of
our Lord Jesus. And if we have Him, We have all
the lesser things in Him, given as an expression of grace, given
along with Christ Himself. But now, what of you who sit
here, and you're not in this category? You're not one who's
been called according to purpose. You've not been justified, and
you certainly will not be glorified. You're not in the, for us, how
do you get in there? Well, our text holds the key
to the answer. Look at it again. He that spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how should
we not also with him freely give us all things? You see, God never
holds out to any sinner a transcript of his electing decree. We're
unashamed to state the Bible teaches the doctrine of election.
It's here in this passage, a passage of comfort. A chapter of great
comfort. How do God's elect discover their
election? They discover it only when they
embrace the One whom God sets before you. He's never going
to set a sheet of paper before you saying, with your name on
it, you are elect. You will eventually be saved.
Never. He's not done that with anyone. What he does is he sets
his Son before you in the Gospel. And he says, My Son is a willing
and an able Savior for all who will have Him. the vilest of
sinners. There's no sin you've committed
that is greater than the virtue of Christ's blood to cleanse
that sin. There's nothing you've done or have become that in its
cumulative ugly mess before the eye of God cannot know the blessedness
of God's saying to you in Christ, just as if you'd never sinned.
God reckoning you in the court of heaven not only innocent as
though you had never sinned, but as though you had perfectly
kept the law. For when you receive the one
whom he sets before you, he is made up to us righteousness as
well as sanctification and reduction. So my unconverted friend, you
don't trouble your mind about elections. You come to grips
with this simple reality that this night, in this place, I
have warrant from the Word of God to say Jesus Christ stands
before you in the Word and promise of the Gospel. And if you will
have Him, He is yours. If you will have Him, He is yours! And if you will have Him, and
you are in Him, then all of these wonderful things are yours. In
Christ. In Christ. Well, you say, I'd
like God to... Yes, there are a lot of things
you'd like God to do. A lot of things that left to myself I'd
like God to do, but He's never come down and told me, Albert
N., will you please write out my job description for today?
He's never going to do it. Facts are very stubborn things.
And the fact is that there is no elect sinner who ever discovered
his election except in Christ. And he discovered it when the
offered Savior was embraced from the heart as the only hope. That brings us to the conclusion
of this week's message. You've been listening to God's
Word to Our Nation. This program has been brought
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