Romans chapter 8, and we'll read
from verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh. That the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit
the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. So then they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we
are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For
if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through
the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God. For ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit
of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may
be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation
of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of
God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly,
but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only
they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit,
even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption,
to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope,
but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why
doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see
not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit
also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth
the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called,
them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Here is a fact which I doubt
many people would gainsay. I don't think many people could
have any doubt that this passage that we have before us this evening
is full of deep doctrinal truth and powerful spiritual insight. The Lord's people, as we come
to a passage like this, are and will be blessed in thinking of
it, reading it, meditating upon it, hearing it preached in our
presence. And this, of course, is all to
the good. It's good that the Lord's people
are blessed in this way. We have a desire after things
that the world finds strange and uncomfortable, but we have
a hunger and a thirst for the things of God. We have a passion
to enter into the revelation that God has given to us because
we see that there is something meaningful here, something helpful,
something glorious, something beyond this world and its passions
and its pursuits, which seems to enter into our hearts and
do us good. And we ought not to be surprised
when the revelation of God's ways and means, as we read it
in such passages as these, quickly lead us to profound ideas. We ought not to be surprised
when we begin to think about these things and suddenly realise
very quickly that we are being led into areas that are just
almost beyond our comprehension. These are concepts of God's own
revelation. They are at once thrilling to
the hearts of the people of God, and yet oft times leave us scratching
our heads. We are, after all, dealing with
holy things as fallen creatures. We are endeavouring to survey
the grandeur of God's plan and purpose, of infinite wisdom,
with finite brains, and with fallen and corrupt intellect. We are coming to these great
truths, and it's almost as if we're coming hobbled, because
these truths are spiritual truths, and we struggle with spiritual
things. The Lord has made us a spiritual
people, but so often we feel as if we're paddling around in
the shallows and we struggle to enter into the deeper things. I guess we shouldn't be surprised
at that when we think of the vastness and the wonder of revealed
truth as it has been given by God and the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to, having said that,
also make a point, as it were, of caution, because the sheer
scale of the remarkable revelation that we have in this passage.
And we might be wanting to talk about, say, Romans 8, Romans
9, and Romans 10 together, because they're amazing chapters. They're
wonderful chapters. Chapters that teach us about
eternal things, about God's plan. But as we consider these remarkable
truths, it might be that we dip in and out of passages like these
in order, as it were, to collect little snippets that comfort
us, that comfort our own souls, or, and that's good in some respects,
or, that we dip in and out of them to collect little clips
of ammunition that we can fire at somebody else. That we go
to Romans 8 and we say, now here's a bullet, I can put that in my
gun and I can let somebody have it. Certainly there are enemies of
the truth and we have to know our scriptures. We have to know
where to go to contend against those who would again say these
things. And I suspect that when we come
to Romans chapter 8 that a preacher could preach a sermon on every
phrase of this chapter. and he could have an extended
series on single words. And after all of that, he and
those that he had spoken to would feel that the half had not been
told. In fact, I have a fear, and perhaps
I should apologise to you now, that someday in heaven, you will
be standing there and saying to yourself, all of those years
that I went to that church and the half was never told me. Like the Queen of Sheba, when
she went to see Solomon's greatness, she said to the king, it was
a true report which I heard in mine own land of thine acts and
of thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not their
words until I came, and mine eyes have seen it. And behold,
the one half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me,
for thou exceedest the fame that I heard. And that's true about
the Lord Jesus. A half will never be told. And
that's to my shame that it's just too much for me. It's just
beyond me. I will endeavour to be as faithful
as I can, but the Lord Jesus Christ in all his glory will
always be beyond our reach. I'll always try to give you a
true report, but it may well be that in a day to come I'll
be found guilty as charged. The half was never told us. Perhaps
tonight will be another example of that. But I wish to take this
passage, and I wish to take this passage, particularly the verses
from 18 through to 30. And I want to, if I may, Try
to see the force of this passage in its context, not just dip
in and pick out certain phrases, pick out certain words, pick
out certain doctrines and hold them up and look at them closely. There's a time for that and a
place for that, but since we're going through these verses consecutively,
just to look at the verses in this passage and see if we can
survey the length and the breadth, if we can't perhaps delve fully
into the depth, but to see them in their context. The apostle
has been affirming and applying the force of justification by
grace through faith. And this great truth is designed
to inform and to comfort and to bless the Lord's people. It
prompts our thanksgiving. It provokes our service. If we
understand justification by grace, if we understand that all that
we possess is God's gift to us, it will prompt our gratitude. If we've laid hold on that, it
will motivate our thanksgiving. More than that, it will cause
us to desire to thank the Lord in our service of Him, our service
of Him and His cause and His people, and we will seek to be
those who can be used for His greater glory. These truths also calm our fears. These truths of God's election,
God's foreknowledge, God's sending of his spirit to bless his people,
they calm our fears and they give us reassurance in our hearts. And they defend us against the
attacks of the devil. and it's good that we have these
because the Apostle Paul has shown how fallen nature, the
flesh, continues to be an adversary of the people of God and the
Church of Jesus Christ. On our journey through life,
we will discover that there are trials and challenges and persecutions
that come against us And sometimes, we've been reading a little bit
recently about some of the history of the Baptists, and the Baptists
over the centuries have been pretty badly treated by some
of the more dominant, powerful churches of their day. And sometimes
men and women had to give their lives for the things that they
believed. It is unlikely that that will
be required of us. Not impossible, but unlikely.
But that doesn't mean to say persecution stops. The devil
is always seeking opportunity to attack the Church of Jesus
Christ, and he will take every opportunity that he is given. So Paul has shown us in his own
life that he is aware of this wrestling that goes on, this
battle which exists between the flesh and the spirit, the devil
using the flesh as an occasion to attack the spirit. And he
felt it personally. And he knew that the Lord's people
would also feel it personally. And that's why he has given us
these comforting words. He has set before us the promise
of the coming glory of God and the exaltation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He has shown us that as Christ
is exalted, so we will be exalted with Him. As Christ is glorified
and seated in that place, in that throne of glory, so we will
have that seat of glory with Him. We are so united to the
Lord Jesus Christ that while we live in this world, and while
we yet are beset by the problems of this world, yet very soon
there is going to be an opening up of the fullness of the revelation
of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we will be bidden
to enter into our eternal rest with Him. And it will be wonderful. It will be amazing. It will be
beyond anything that we can imagine here. But it's not yet. It's not now. And until it is,
we will have to endure the difficulties and the trials of this life. Paul calls them the sufferings
of this present time. And that's the verse in verse
18 that we're going to begin at this evening. He's talking
about the sufferings of this present time, the trials that
the Lord's people, that the church has in this life. And the apostle
is encouraging us and thereby also equipping us as he does
the Lord's people in every age with divine guarantees based
upon three things that we know in this life. And that's how
I'm going to structure our thoughts this evening. Here are three
things that we know. The apostle talks about them
here. He says in verse 22, we know that the whole creation
groaneth. And then again in verse 26, we
know not what we should pray for as we ought. And verse 28,
we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God. So here are three things that
we know, and I'm just going to take these three points as we
sort of flow through these verses from 18 to 30, and just see if
we can unpack a little bit some of the comforts and encouragements
and guarantees that the apostle gives us based upon the things
that we know. Here's the first one then. We
know there is an expectation of better things to come. There's
a better world coming. In Romans 8, verse 22, it says,
And I was thinking about this as I was preparing. If there
is one feature which characterises life on this earth, It is pain. I wonder if you've
ever thought about pain. Not just the toothache or the
migraine or the tummy ache, not just the pain in the big toe,
not that kind of pain, but the pain and the hurt of loss and
fear and sorrow and death which has characterized and afflicted
men and women and boys and girls everywhere in this world since
time began. And I'm not, I mean, we could
spend so long on this, it's almost, you almost wonder where you could
begin. But people must have cried themselves to sleep. because
they were hungry, because they were cold, because they were
in pain, because they were frightened. They must have grieved at the
fact that they lost so many children in birth. That their husbands
went out to catch some fish and never came back again. That their
little village was attacked by some marauding horde that they
didn't even know existed and suddenly they appeared on the
hill and everyone that they knew was suddenly just taken away.
I looked it up just because I thought, well, here's one example that
I can quote. I know I've forgotten the details.
I should have written it down. I don't think I've got it here.
No, I haven't. But penicillin was only invented
in the 1920s. Think about that. That's after
the First World War. And it wasn't used to cure infection
and dull pain until 45. Penicillin, we take it for granted. Any infection that we've got,
we take some penicillin and we get rid of that infection. And
sometimes it takes 14 days and sometimes it takes two weeks.
But we pretty much demand that we get sorted out. Because we
don't put up with pain anymore. But that's so recent, so recent,
the whole history of the world, whether we're thinking about
the history of Israel, which we know because of the scriptures,
or the history of the nations that were beyond the borders.
How much pain, how many tears, have been shed in this world. If one thing characterises this
world, it's pain. Because even if people were having
a good time, even if people had a full tummy, even if people
were safe and secure, it never lasted for very long. Whether
we're thinking about mortality and length of time alive or whatever
it is, it was always a bitter life for the vast majority of
people. I don't, for a moment, believe
that there was ever an idyllic time in this world of extended
peace or pleasure. I think that sin and Satan has
wreaked havoc this whole world over. And we look out in our
day and we say, oh, things are bad, things are bad. Really? I think things have been perhaps
a lot worse for a lot of people in days gone by. Some people have always lived
with actual real intense pain. And all this is in the natural
man. This is the natural man. This
wasn't the believer, this wasn't in the spiritual man, in the
physical natural man. Pain has been so much a part
of our existence. And then on top of that, for
the believer, there's a spiritual battle goes on as well. But here's the thing, believers
have this promise, that not only our souls, but our bodies will
be delivered out of these groanings and travailings. our body, soul and spirit, the
whole man. Our flesh, this flesh, this flesh
that's growing old, this flesh that's breaking down, this flesh
that gets so weary, our flesh that adds so much to our suffering
in this world because of our doubts, because of our fears,
because of our aches and our pains, because of our foolishness, That in itself is going to be
redeemed. It is going to be made new. It is going to be changed. We shall enter glory as complete
people, body and soul. We will enter heaven with our
bodies and the victory that Christ will have will be complete. The resurrection of the dead
is something that we believe in. the resurrection of the bodies
of the Lord's people. We are going to not any longer
need our coffins, not any longer need our graves, not any longer
need to be hidden from sight under the earth, because all
of these things will be taken away and removed and that body
will be taken to the Lord and it will be changed. The bodies
of the saints will be delivered from death, delivered from corruption,
from weakness, from dishonour, from the grave, and they will
be changed. They will be freed from all that
makes it a burden to carry around this flesh at the present time. The resurrection is in hope. We live in hope of the resurrection
that is to come. And we don't see it now, but
we patiently wait for it because we believe and we know that there
is an expectation of better to come. What else do we know? Here's the second thing that
we know. We know that in the midst of our infirmities, the
Spirit of God, the Comforter, helps us day by day. We know our help must come from
God. You know, Although we say this
often, people will do what they want to do. And if they think
that they can help themselves and sort themselves out and make
good of their life, I say, go ahead, break a leg, go for it. Go for it and see if it works
for you. And some people do. Some people
manage to sort of claw and crawl to the top of the pile and they
get a good view for a while and then they find that somebody's
overtaking them or they tumble back down the pile or something
happens. Go ahead. Go ahead. But someday, We will get to the
end when the heart fails or the mind fails or the body fails
and we'll just be left lying and all that we've achieved and
all that we've done will fall away to nothing. We have present
infirmities and the Lord's people know that God the Holy Ghost
helps us in those infirmities. We don't even know what we should
ask for from God. Isn't that an amazing thing?
We don't know, we're not smart enough, we're not wise enough,
we're not understanding enough to even know what we should ask
for from God. And part of the believer's constant
trouble in this world is ignorance. Ignorance of our Bibles, ignorance
of ourselves, ignorance of the ways of God, ignorance of the
divine. We don't know what's good for
us and we don't know what's not good for us. And let me just
give you an example, just a brief example. Should I take this job or should
I not? How do we know the answer to
that question? How can we possibly know whether
I should take that job or not? Should I buy this house or this
one? Should I live in this town or
this one? What path am I going to take
in this life? There's a poem that I like to
think about sometimes. It says two paths diverged in
a yellow wood. And which one is the traveller
going to take? And that comes down to we don't
know what's good for us. We don't know whether we should
go this way or this way. Even the very simplest decisions
that we have to make in a day can have consequences far beyond
our knowledge and our understanding. And maybe we say, well, you know
what? I'm going to make my decisions on what will be to God's greatest
glory. But we don't even know that.
We can't even bring our understanding to bear on such a statement as
that. Paul talks about our infirmities,
and we have many. It's a plural word. Doubts and
passions and weariness. And the devil uses all of these
things. He uses our ignorance. He uses
our doubts. He uses our lack of understanding. But what Paul is telling us here
is that we have the Holy Spirit and that's what makes the difference. We have the Comforter and he
brings to mind, he brings to our remembrance those things
which the Lord Jesus Christ has said and done for us. We don't
know what the future holds. We don't know about the decisions
that we have to make. And in many ways, we have to
step out blindly. But here's the point, that we
step out nevertheless because we have confidence in God. We have confidence in what the
Lord Jesus Christ has done. We have confidence in the Holy
Spirit. And we realise that while we
are quite inadequate in these matters, the Holy Spirit is with
us, and He is directing our paths, and He knows the future, and
He knows the will of God. And so He is speaking to us. He is conversing with us. He
is prompting and provoking us and interceding for us. And what I think this means is
not that the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf in heaven with
God. That's the Lord Jesus Christ's
role. But rather, the Holy Spirit intercedes
with us on God's behalf to us in this life. He is speaking
to us. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
to the Father on our behalf in heaven. and the Holy Spirit is
speaking on behalf of the Father to us here upon earth. The Holy Spirit intercedes with
us. And so here we have these things
going on and we have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
all engaged together in ministering to us. God and Christ and the
Holy Spirit in complete unanimity as far as the purpose of the
triune God, the God Jehovah is concerned and yet each taking
these different roles in the well-being of his people and
he's speaking to our hearts, he shows us our need The Holy
Spirit comes to us, perhaps it's in the preaching of the Gospel,
perhaps it's in the reading of Scripture, perhaps it's in simple
meditation, perhaps it's unprompted and to do with things that are
going on around about us, but because we have this relationship
with God the Holy Spirit indwelling us, comforting us, he helps us
day by day, he helps us Through the day, He is close to us and
comforting to us, even despite the ignorance that we have of
the things that are going on around about us. He puts words into our mouths. He strengthens our faith. He gives us in our prayers the
things to say. He enables us to come before
God as the father who hears and who is willing to be gracious
and kind to his people. He gives us a liberty. He gives
us a boldness in the presence of God. And he says, go ahead
and pray. Pray for these things. Pray by
faith. Pray on the basis of the blood
of Christ. Pray in the confidence of the
grace and mercy of God. And he leads us and he directs
us about those things that we should pray for and ask for. And this is where it gets perhaps
interesting in many ways because the Holy Spirit knows the perfect
will of God. We don't. But He does. So He is conforming us day by
day to the perfect will of God. He's showing us where our emphasis
should be, where our prayers should be directed, the kind
of things that we should be praying for. He's teaching us, he's guiding
us along like a mother does for a young infant child, just gently
holding with one finger the hand of the little one and as he takes
teetering steps, teetering, tottering, both, and he's moving along,
but he doesn't know, he doesn't know. He couldn't protect himself
on the road, he couldn't provide for his own food, that child,
that infant, but the mother's caring for him and leading him
on, step by step, so that he grows and he learns and he knows
and he is deepening in his understanding and his relationship with God.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of his people. And the Spirit is moulding us,
managing us, modifying us, modifying our desires, showing us the things
that are important and the things that are less important, altering
the passions that we feel and the burdens that we have, and
sometimes satisfying our requests with amazing fullness. and other
times holding off and not giving us those things that we ask for
so that we might learn and alter those things which are in accordance
with the will of God. We are being conformed to the
image of Christ and that's the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. Here's the third thing that we
know and this is the verses from 28 to 30. If somebody's taking
a note it was that that That second one there was verses 26
and 27. Those are the verses that I've
just been thinking about there. But these verses now, 28 to 30,
we know, what else do we know that the apostle is talking about
here? Well, we know that it's going to be okay. We know that
it's going to be okay. We know that it's going to be
good because God has said so. Despite our trials, despite these
sufferings of this present time that Paul has been speaking about,
our God is bringing all things to pass according to His will. And He is conforming our hearts
and our minds, the hearts and minds of His church and His people,
to that sovereign will of God. Now we've asked this question
before, I think, in the context of this verse 28. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. How extensive is all
things? How comprehensive is that little
phrase? All things work together for
good to them that love God. And we do love him. We love him
because he first loved us. We love him imperfectly, but
we love him sincerely. We love him fitfully, but increasingly
You know, when we were young, just look around, check the audience
that I've got here, but when we were young and we first met
our wives or our husbands, ladies, oh, that was passionate. It was
passionate. It was, we just wanted to be
with them all the time and there was an intensity about that. But you know, I think what we
learn as we get older is that we don't love any less as time
goes on. We love more. There's a depth,
there's a fullness. There's areas where we've learned
about one another that lessons that only time could teach. And
there's a deepening of union between us so that almost we
couldn't imagine living without them. There was a time when we
wanted to live with them. Now we can't imagine living without
them. And so this is how the Holy Spirit
is leading us into this love of God. Because while we started
out in our Christian life and there was this enthusiasm, this
passion, this urgency, now we think we couldn't live without
Him. We couldn't live without Him. And so we come to this golden
chain of Romans chapter 8 and 29 and 30. This golden chain of divine purpose. And I want you to see something,
you know. This is being called by Paul. This is being brought into his
argument, brought into chapter eight, not as something to use
as a hammer to beat the heads of the Arminians. That's not
what it's there for. It works, because it's true. But it's there for our comfort. It's there for the people of
God. It's there to show us, to enable us to understand how it
is that these all things are bound together in God's sovereign
purpose of good and grace towards His people. This great truth of God's sovereign
purpose, God's covenant purpose, is for the comfort of the saints. So let's make sure that we use
it as such primarily and not just to bash the uneducated. This is mulled wine rather than
cold steel. These truths are ours. They belong
to the church. They're not for fighting about.
or inflicting or imposing on others there to comfort our souls
in times of trouble. We are called according to his
purpose. We are foreknown. That means
that we have been loved before time began. God knew us in eternity. And there's maybe something that
I should think about here rather than say it, but since I've started
the sentence, I need to finish it. We need to think about the
fact that the church has always been in union with Christ. You know, it doesn't begin when
we get converted. It's always been Christ's church. Ever since time began, from before
time began, this body of people had been committed into the care
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was always our representative. He was always our bridegroom. He was always our shepherd. He was always our redeemer. The
Lord Jesus Christ has always been intricately bound together
with his people and we are united to him, foreknown, loved before
time, in the heart of the eternal God. Predestinated predestinated. That means that our destination,
heaven, glory, was ascertained before. It wasn't to do with
the whims of our will. It wasn't to do with whether
we would or whether we wouldn't. It was to do with God's purpose.
He directed and dictated. He elected and He chose. He predestinated
a people for Himself. I just bought a pen from Amazon. Got it on my computer. I bought
a pen from Amazon. And nowadays when you buy something
online, you get a little tracking note which tells you where that
pen is at any particular time in its process of leaving the
warehouse until it gets to you. Well, I bought a pen last week
and it was first identified in Las Vegas. I'm not sure whether
that's where the warehouse was or whether that's where the distribution
place was, but it was in Las Vegas. That's Nevada, isn't it? Right. And then it went to Ontario,
California. My pen went to California. And then it went to Philadelphia. It went to Philadelphia. And
I'm thinking, how does it get from California to Philadelphia? And then it went to Louisville,
Kentucky. A pen. Then it went to Billings,
Montana. And then it came to Choteau.
and it reached its destination all over America. But that pen
was predestinated to come into my hand and come into my hand
it did. Now if UPS can bring me my pen
from all over the United States Won't the Lord bring his many
sons to glory? Absolutely he will. Hebrews chapter
2 verse 10 says, For it became him for whom are all things. There's that phrase again. And
by whom are all things. Nothing is outside of his control.
In bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their
salvation perfect through suffering. The Lord Jesus Christ is bringing
His sons and daughters to glory. He suffered to do it. He suffered. He came and He suffered in order
to bring us to glory. You think He's going to lose
one? And we are being conformed to
the image of His Son. The Lord Jesus Christ was made
perfect through suffering. Are we going to imagine that
there won't be any suffering in our lives too? No trials,
no difficulties, no edges that have to be rubbed down, no sharp
points that have to be knocked off. The Lord is bringing us
to glory and that process of bringing is a process in which
we will have to experience the sufferings of this present time. Christ is touched by the feeling
of our infirmities. That's the same word as is used
here in 26 where it says, the spirit helpeth our infirmities. The Lord Jesus Christ is touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. We are many brethren, many brothers
and sisters, and that union with Christ that we have, it pervades
all of the divine purpose and the will of God for the salvation
of His people. We are so much the centre of
God's will and purpose. We don't think that we're very
important or significant, but God thinks that we are immensely
important and immensely significant. And he has done wonders in order
to bring us into the experience of that union and that company
and that presence of God. We are called, we are justified,
we are glorified. It's absolutely certain The calling
has been in time, or we might even say that that was in eternity,
if we're thinking about the choice of God and using that with respect
to the calling, or whether it was the calling of the Holy Spirit,
our justification. Again, it is God who justifies
and our glorification. absolutely certain, no doubt
about it, as assured as anything could possibly be. And this justification
that Paul here is speaking about, this has been his great theme
in these early chapters of the book of Romans. And our glorification is just
as certain and sure as our justification by the Lord Jesus Christ. The
same God who justifies is the same God who glorifies, and He
will do it. In verse 18, the verse that we
started with this evening, the Apostle Paul said, I reckon,
I reckon. That means he's added it up.
He's done the math. He's looked at the various parts. He's come to a conclusion. He's
worked it out. He's thought it through. And he says, I know, we know that while we endure the sufferings
of this present time, there is better to come. Do you know that? We have a promise in our hand. of eternal glory beyond the sufferings
of this present time. I reckon, says Paul, I know,
we know, while we are insufficient for these things, yet the Holy
Spirit himself is in us. ministering to us, comforting
us, leading us to learn Christ, to trust Christ, and conforming
us to Christ. I know, says Paul, we know, we
reply in agreement, that because from eternity To eternity, it
has thus been decreed by the sovereign God, we shall be brought
to experience and enjoy and possess a greater weight of glory than
we can ever conceive or imagine. So here's a couple of verses
and then we're done. Romans 8, verse 18. For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us. And 2 Corinthians
4, 17. For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory. Amen.