I'm going to look in Romans chapter
8 this morning, and the words from verse 16 are the words that
are heading, as it were, it's of my thoughts this morning and
in particular I'd like to draw your attention as we look at
this to verses 14 and 16. It's very much in the whole passage
but these two verses for as many as are led by the Spirit of God
they are the sons of God and verse 16 the Spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. We want to think about the ongoing
work of the Spirit. We want to think about the Christian
life. What are the norms of the Christian
life? What are those factors of our experience? This is not
an easy area. We are talking of something that
in many ways is a mystery, a remarkable thing. that God has sent his
Spirit to us. And we will come at this broadly
as Paul does in this great chapter. And as I said earlier, remembering
that in chapter 7 he sets before us that great tension. He felt
it, didn't he, greatly. The things he wanted to do, he
found he wasn't doing. And the things he didn't want
to do, he did. And all of us who seek to walk
carefully before God, we know that. We understand, don't we,
that war within us. And it's not easy. He says, for
that which I do, I allow not. For that I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that I do. Oh, he says, he feels that in
him there's no good thing. He says, the thought of will
is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I
find not. He says, what a tension he has
within him. It's inside, he says. He delights
in the law of God after the inward man. If that's our experience,
that's God telling us that we're children of God. We have a delight
in it. But he sees another law in his
members. Warring against the law of my
mind. bringing me into captivity. He
is all wretched man that I am, but he thanks God at the end,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, because salvation has come to
him. In his mind he serves the law
of God, but his flesh, that carnal flesh, of the law of sin, and we know
that all of Paul's letters are like one big argument, like one
long sentence. So when we come to chapter 8,
he's continuing this thought, how is it we're going to live
this life? How are we going to cope? How
can a Christian live with that tension of sin? What is his normal
experience? And we have here a powerful setting
of the Gospel, those tensions are still there. He says in verse
4 that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us
who walk after the flesh. Not after the flesh, but after
the spirit. He says those who are after the flesh, who are
carnal that is, they mind the things of the flesh. But they
that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. Is that
your experience? Do you mind the things of the
spirit? That's a witness of God to us.
That we are children of God. That we love the things of God.
We know many, alas, we seek to talk to, I'm sure you know them,
who have no interest in the things of God. They speak ill and despise
them. And we read to be kindly minded is death. But to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. Paul is continuing this thought
of the binary, which we see all through scripture, these tensions
between life and death, darkness and light, new life and death. We see these things all the way
through. To have a carnal mind, a flesh-centred mind, is enmity
against God. What a terrible thing to be God's
enemy. Isn't it? To be in enmity with God. We
see so many. We see in our day the fist raised
against God. We don't want God's standards.
We hate them. We want to put down the Bible.
We want to put down these truths. We want to raise up other standards.
Alas, they won't work, will they? And we know their mind, we see
their mind is not subject to the law of God. What a description
of Britain today, isn't it? We're surrounded by people whose
mind, people in high office, not subject to the law of God,
and they despise us if we are. He says, those in the flesh cannot
please God. We should be in no doubt about
that. He says, but you're not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit. Oh, that's where it should be.
to be in the Spirit. What a wonderful thought. He
said, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you, if that's
the case, says Paul, he doesn't assume that everybody reading
this epistle, everybody who's recognised as a church member,
everybody who's regular in attendance, everybody who wears the right
clothes and all the rest of it, he doesn't assume that, that
the Spirit of God is in them. If so be that the Spirit of God
is in you. Now, if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. We have to declare these
things. If we are not sure that we know
these things, we have to seek the Lord. If the Lord give us
such grace that we might find him, and that his will might
be done. He says, but if Christ be in
you, the body is dead because of sin, and we know that. Alas,
the bodies are dead. We know, we all know about sin. our sin, we are all experts in
our own way, alas, but the spirit is life because of righteousness,
for that is our only hope, let's get to work. Salvation in our
lives. I can remember in younger days
that salvation was seen as this great sort of hurdle, and that
once you got over it, by whatever means the evangelist told you
you would get over it, That was the great experience of your
life. You were saved. And then you were kind of there
and you were in a kind of in a pasture. That isn't really
the Christian life. Yes, it's a wonderful thing to
be saved. But the Christian life, as Paul
says it, isn't it? He says it's a race. We must
go on. We can't stand still. We can't
tread water. We've got to go on. And if the
Spirit is in us, there's an impetus. that we want to go on. Does he
not work within us? Does he not stir us up? Doesn't
Jesus describe this experience as living waters? I'm going to
refer to it later. Something welling up within us.
Do you feel it? This is the life of faith. It's
a life of tension. Are we in Christ or not in Christ? These are very important things.
There's a mystery here. When we talk of these spiritual
things, it's like a mystery. I can't show you faith, I can't
open the box and take it out, but it's a gift of God. I've
said many times before, it's not a nothing, it's not a notion. If you receive faith, you've
got something from God. And to you it becomes a real
thing. It underpins your experience and yet it's an intangible. I
can't show it to you. What a wonderful thing. And yet
something has to be felt that hearts him. 2, 3, 7. It's often
quoted. We don't often see all the hymns.
It's quite a difficult hymn to sing and it's full of a reflection
of the deep suffering of Christ. Maybe we should. But he says
that it's not notion. We come in here, we're not just
in, it's not a club, we're not just like members of a political
party agreeing to certain ideas and coming to do a good thing.
I know people who go to church and they just do it out of duty
and it's what you do on Sunday and once you've been to the service
you put that away and off you go to the garden and the rest
of it. We don't have that religion. And as Hart said, he's right.
He has that ability, doesn't he, in some of these hymns to
write some very deep and telling things. Now our doctrine does
not come from hymns, it comes from the Word of God, but the
hymn to reflect the truth, the good hymns. We've got many good
hymns in that book, haven't we? The one we've just sung, wonderful,
the first hymn. You know, these are very telling.
This one shows a part, of course, very telling hymns. Have you
got something that's felt? A felt religion. This is what
our pastor is, isn't he? This is the burden of his ministry,
if we understand anything about our pastor. It's what he would
call experimental religion. It's why he loves the books he
loves, why we have the things we have at the back of the church,
why those things are published that are published. Because he
believes these reflect what he would call experimental religion. Real, deep, spiritual religion. A felt walk with God, not just
a notion. We have our Alas, we all have
our weakness, our own hearts, but there's no middle way. We
have to say that, even in our chapels. There's a lack of understanding. You're either in Christ or you're
not. It doesn't matter if you're in good standing. It doesn't
matter if you come from the right family, or you wear the right
clothes, or you know all the right people, and you can trace,
you know, ancestry. So many generations have come
to gospel standard shuffles. It doesn't matter. Are you in
Christ? Do you love Him? Is that what
consumes you? Is that the number one before
everything else in your life? There's no middle way, there's
no third way in the gospel of Christ. We're either, as Paul
says, we're either in Him, which is to be alive spiritually, or
we're lost, we're carnal, we're walking in the flesh. Oh, that
God would come to us. I've just been reading, we're
going to get some copies, a lovely little biography, very touching
and moving biography by Ian Shaw on the life of that lovely man,
William Gadsby. It's very, very moving, and his
life was consumed with service for the Lord, And he cared for
the poor. He was a remarkable man. A man
of virtually no education. Yet great things were done through
him. It tells you about his deathbed. And on his deathbed he was heard
to say, very weakly, three times, as he's coming to the end, peacefully,
he said, free grace, free grace, free grace. Isn't that wonderful?
Very moving when you read it again. That's what concerned
him. Is that what we want? to know
that the free working of God in our hearts. Now verse 14 I
drew your attention to. I'm not a great mathematician,
I'm much better at statistics really. But there's an algebra
I call it here. I call some of the scripture
is by its pretension. It's like the Hebrew poetry. It's lovely. You need to stop
and think sometimes about how verses are written and just stay
with them. It's a good habit to sit and
meditate sometimes I don't know if that's your experience. Sometimes,
perhaps it's because I have to preach, sometimes I read through
and a particular verse, it stops me and I've read it how many
times before, who knows. And it suddenly comes with greater
clarity. I look at it and a whole stream
of truth seems to come. And these two verses I picked
out, I like that. He says here, a truth and he
reflects it in two ways. He says if you're led by the
Spirit of God, if the Spirit of God is leading you, then you
are sons of God. And equally, he turns it around
the other way. I love this. I like the way it's
put here. But if you are led by the Spirit of God, then are
you sons of God? He puts it both ways and you
have to think carefully that if we are children of God, we're
going to be led. And both those conditions apply. Oh, we need to know that leading.
We need to desire it and to seek it. We're not to be led. Easily
led, aren't we, by our own old natures, our old selves. We have
to let God lead us. The devil would come in. Oh,
he wants to undermine us. He wants to undercut us. He wants
to attack us sometimes. We do feel difficult situations. We feel attacks. Trying things
come to us that we need to be brought through. But we don't
know what trial. the Lord might bring us to. It could be illness,
it could be employment. We just do not know. Think of
our dear pastor, what came on him last summer. The Lord brought
him through a very, I mean, those who went to see him know, a very,
very severe trial, quite a worrying thing. And we're very grateful
that he's back with us. We know not what, but God is
in all these things. We don't say that's bad, hard
luck, an accident. God is sovereign in our circumstances. What a great mystery. And he's
acted. Verse 15. God has acted. We've received something from
God if we're children of God. We've received the Spirit. You've
got the Spirit. You've got everything you need.
Without the Spirit you could not be a Christian. You could
not function. You could not live the life that
we are expected to live. God in Christ has granted us
the Spirit. And so much more, you see. This
all goes together with great truths of the Scripture. And
we haven't received the Spirit of bondage against a fear, but
we've received the Spirit of adoption. I haven't got time,
I have preached on it, to go into it. This is a great doctrine. It's a foundation stone. It's
one of the most wonderful, powerful, touching truths in all of Scripture. We who were lost, we who were
no people, we who were in darkness, we who in our natural man hated
the things of God, did not do the things of God, God has adopted. And it's not just we've been
born again, we've been made children, we've been made children of God. We have been placed in Christ. That's our position. Isn't that
fantastic? We've been adopted, now I have
an adopted son. Simon didn't ask to come in our
family because he was a baby when he came. And we didn't really
know Simon. But we felt it was right before
God that we should bring him into our family. And he had changed
his family name. He didn't have a family. He was
an orphan. Not wanted. But by the grace of God he had
a family. They were going to look after
him. They were going to love him and
care for him. And that's exactly what the Christian is. He's outside.
But God brings us in. Isn't that a wonderful thing?
We're going to say more along these lines. The Gospel is so
deep, it's almost impossible really to set it afoot. It's
like an earnest assurance of all that's to come. And therefore,
if you're in a family, when Simon could speak, he would call me
Daddy. Those of us who've been fathers, No, that's one of the
life's great moments. I'm sure when your little child,
who you love, recognises you. They've been smiling at you for
a while, but it's when they call you Daddy. I tell you it's a
wonderful moment, it's a big moment. But we're told that's
what we can, as it were, call God. If you were a Jew, It's
Jehovah, isn't it? It's Yahweh. And you're very
careful and you're very fearful. You can't really be careful about
coming to God. You don't take the name of God
lightly. That's one of the reasons they don't like Christianity.
But what does Paul say? We can call him Abba, Father. Abba is a Greek word. It's a
family name really. It's not quite Daddy, but it's
very familiar. We call him father in a family
way. And Jesus taught this, didn't he? On the Sermon on the Mount.
Isn't that wonderful? I love the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 6, verse 9. The beginning of what we call
the Lord's Prayer. Often we think that John 17 is
the real Lord's Prayer. But the beginning of the Lord's
Prayer, what does Jesus say? It's one of the most shattering
two words in the whole of scripture. He's saying to you and to me,
when we approach God, we say, Our Father. And we have to understand
how dynamic and dramatic the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was
setting forth that which the scribes and the Pharisees could
not set forth, which is the truth. And the Christian, if he's in
Christ, if he's born again at the Spirit, can say, Our Father. What a privilege. No Jew has
any concept of that. And the world outside don't understand.
They think we think of God. And if you explore with them
what we think God is, you find it's complete and utter nonsense. Because they don't know God.
Because they don't know the Word of God. What they think we believe
in is often ridiculous. But we can say, Our Father. We had no people. Of course,
his epistles are very much like Paul's epistles, but he puts
it in a very wonderful way in his first epistle, in that great
chapter 2, which I think I preached on here last year. Wonderful,
wonderful, when the pastor was a wonderful chapter, setting
forth the privileges of being a child of God, what it is to
be a Christian and to have faith. And we're on chapter 2, and I
think it's just a couple of verses, and at violin 10, well, Peter
is setting forth this wonderful picture of the church as a building,
a temple, that we're stones. He says, you are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, kings and priests, a holy nation, a peculiar
people, a chosen people, that you should show forth the praises
of him have called you out of darkness into his marvellous
light and this is the verse which in time past were not a people
you were not a people you were outside all this glory but are
now the people of God which had not obtained mercy once you have
not obtained mercy you are in darkness you are outside but
now You have obtained mercy. Have we obtained mercy? By the
grace of God. By His love. By setting forth
of Christ. By calling us to Him through
the Gospel. By planting in us love and faith
and truth. It's all His work. We were nothing. But He is everything to Him. Because Jesus called God His
Father, the Jews hated Him. They hated Him, we believe, for
lots of reasons. they hated him excuse me they
hated him because he had authority and spoke with authority and
taught clearly which they were not doing the Romans 8 of course
there is that great debate between Jesus and the Pharisees we see
it again in chapter 10 but here we see part of that great debate. Verse 18 I am one that beareth
witness of myself and the Father, see, it says the Father that
sent me beareth witness of me. Then said Anton, where is thy
Father? You see, they thought he was
speaking of a worldly Father, not God in heaven. Jesus answered,
you neither know me nor my Father. If you had known me, you should
also have known my father. And so it is to our day, people
do not know who we are, they don't know God, they don't know
the Father, they're not sure who we are, what we believe,
where we're coming from. And this ultimately was part
of what led to his crucifixion. In chapter 19 and verse 7 we
see the charge against him, one of the charges, And we want chapter 19 of verse
7, have I got them wrong? Yes. The Jew is answered to Pilate. This is what they said to him.
This is the wicked thing that Jesus did. We have a law, and
by our law he ought to die. What? What was it he broke? What was the law that Jesus broke
that he had to die? It's this. Because he made himself
the son of God. What they're saying is he was
calling God his father. He was a man but he's calling
God father. Now Jesus says when you pray
and I pray, we say our father. That's exactly the same position,
the same kind of accusation that Paul was in. What a great privilege
is it to be a Christian, that we can so come to God. And verse 16, what a verse this
is, our other verse I wanted to point you to this morning.
The Spirit, that's God himself, God the Spirit, beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now the Spirit
indwells and It was something that even the religious leaders
did not understand. They didn't understand the life
of faith. We read that man, much criticised I felt unjustly by
the way, Nicodemus, had the courage to come to Jesus, had the courage
of course at the end to help bury Jesus, to publicly come
and help bury Jesus, and to speak for him in the Sanhedrin. We
read also later in this epistle that he came, it was good that
he came, wasn't it? because we see what Jesus said
to him and it may well be that it was Nicodemus who remembered
all these things and told them to John to write them in the
gospel and all these wonderful words in John's gospel and that
great chapter 3 Jesus talks about being born of the flesh and being
born of the spirit and be born again, and Nicodemus is struggling,
doesn't understand these things, even as those around us to this
day do not understand, do they? These essential truths. How can
these things be? He says, how do we know all these
things? How can we know what God is doing? Well, it's the work of the Spirit.
You must be born again. Let me tell you a great truth
about the Spirit, which is not understood in some circles to
this day, because they know not the Word of God. The wind bloweth
where it listeth. Now here is the sound thereof,
but can't tell whence it cometh. We've had quite an experience
of that recently, with wind pouring at us, insinuating itself. But we read, so is everyone that's
born of the Spirit. We can't order. We cannot direct
the Spirit. We don't know where he's coming
from. We don't see him. But there's evidence. Some of
you may have had damage. I've seen, they've shown down
things on the news where people, you've seen roofs blown off properties,
trees blown over, cars crushed by trees, huge waves destroying
buildings. You've seen the effects of wind. All of us have seen something
of that. So has everyone that's born of
the Spirit. God is in control. It's a sovereign
work of God. The Spirit comes. And again,
it's in that area of felt religion, unknown religion, and experienced
religion. We don't have that, we don't
have anything. It's very hard to describe. But it's the truth,
isn't it? Oh, what a status. If we'd be
in Christ, we have. That we are in Him. And we hope for Nicodemus, don't
we? That he's spirit at the end.
Isn't that lovely? This man who came at night, he was the one,
one of the ones who helped. put those preservatives like
Muslim Christ and placed him carefully in that tomb. What
a privilege that man had to put the dead bruised and battered
body of Christ into that tomb. But with the expectation of course
of the resurrection. Oh it's wonderful. This is life
in the spirit. Do we know anything about this?
Do we know? Paul goes on, are you joint heirs with Christ?
Do you understand about the sufferings of the present time? He talks
about the creation groaning. Well it is, isn't it? We are
in a fallen creation. Then you get the astrologers
and scientists all telling you all these wonderful things, billions
of years, and tell you great confidence. I heard the other
day, oh, that used to be two... Earth used to have a twin planet
the same size and they collided and that's how the moon was formed.
They tell you all these things and they haven't the first clue,
really. We are in a very disordered world.
The creation is groaning. Why? Because of the fall. Because
science, true science, tells us there's a breakdown. There's
not an increase in order, which is what evolution foolishly tells
you, but there's a breakdown. People who know the laws of science
and entropy, they know there's a disorder. Why do we all increasingly
have to go to the hospital? Why do we have illnesses? Some of them are to do with disorder.
Because of the fall. But we know we have a hope. As
Paul says, we've grown within ourselves. We're waiting for
the adoption. We're saved by hope. Have you
got that hope? I've preached on this before,
not just, well I hope the bus is going to come, but that real
hope, which is an assurance. The scriptural doctrine of hope
is very close to that of assurance. They're the same thing. Do you
really have that assurance? You're saved. Christ is coming
again to call his own to him. Oh, but we need help in this
life. Anyone who's a true believer, I don't need to tell you. I know
it deeply myself. It's not easy walking the Christian
life. And those younger in the faith
are perhaps finding that it's not easy. Why? You think, I can
remember being told, oh, and you can go to churches and throw
in the city, well, come to Christ and all your problems will be
solved, life will be easy, the Lord will provide for you, you'll
know health, you'll know wealth, you know, everything will will
be wonderful. But that's not the lives that
people lived in the scripture. It's not the lives that the great
saints lived. It's not how we find life. Not at all. We've
got to walk with patience. We need help. And we are dependent
on God. If you don't know that, you've
got to learn. You're dependent upon him every
day. And he will teach you. Verse 26, what a wonderful verse. Again, just a few words, they
tell you so much. Far more than I can explain.
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. Do you know
that? We need to know that. All we
do, really, truly and deeply, because you may not now feel
that, but we will all in life at some time, we will know infirmities,
we will know deep distresses, we will. And how are you going
to stand? Are you standing in the flesh? Are you standing in your good
standing on a regular church goer and all the rest of it will
do you no good? It's the Spirit with you. And He's with us. I love that.
See, when Christ went, John 14, when Christ left, He's not going
to leave you alone. I mean, to be a... I started
trying to picture myself as a disciple. Can you imagine? You're walking
every day with Christ. Can you imagine the experience
that Peter, James and John had? And Thomas? Thomas was criticised,
but he was consumed with Christ. That's how you understand Thomas
and what he says. So taken in with Christ. He couldn't
believe it. Christ was gone. He was traumatised. And when they said he'd come
back, he was so traumatised by Christ's death and going, that
when they said he'd come back, he couldn't believe it. This wasn't
a man, a totally simple man. I understand Thomas. I want to
see. Can I see him? But Christ did
say to them, blessed are they that haven't seen, yet believe,
that he was traumatised. But what's our dependence upon
him? You know, people are dependent
on religion, on the church. You know the unbelievers. They've
got their rosaries. If you go into Roman Catholic
churches, they depend on the church. They think the church
saves them. Their gospel is that's what Catholicism is so evil.
It's the church saying, if you're not Christ, you've got to come
to the church. We've got to minister grace to you for our sacraments.
And if you don't get those, you don't get to heaven. Anything
but point them to Christ. That's a lie. We come to Christ.
And it's a failing religion. Christ said, I won't leave you.
I'll leave one with you. He says, he will be with you
and he will be in you, it's what you read in John 40, it will
be in you, it's just very in us, then we are His. And I love
that again, these things are carefully chosen by the translator,
the paraclete, it's a very, perhaps a complex word, but it's one
who stands by us, one who is for us, a supporter. The pastor
has explained this word a few times, it's been very helpful.
And it's translated quite nicely. You've got always the problems
in translation. It comes as comforter. Well,
my confession this morning is I need a comforter. Sometimes
I feel I'm needing very much. Do you need a comforter? You
know what I'm talking about. If you do, then God's speaking
to you, isn't he? Because we need that spirit.
We need his prayers. He searches the hearts. You see
verse 27. the mind of the spirit, because
you make an intercession for the saints according to the will
of God. Prayer is not easy, is it? I don't find it easy to pray,
to pray in a service to know what to pray for and to represent
the needs. You are very dependent upon God.
But we have one who helps us, do we not? Do we not feel it
when we come here on furnaces? Do we not feel an impetus, a
help? But the Spirit itself maketh
intercession for us. Listen to this, with groanings
which cannot be uttered. There's a mystery here. I think
this is hard to explain, isn't it really? When we pray, we do
believe there's one with us to help us. The Christian is not
alone. Christ is gone. Isn't that the
wonder of the Gospel? But we're not deserted. We believe
in a Trinitarian God. People don't understand that,
you see. But we have God the Spirit with us. Christ the Son
was here in this world. He was with the disciples. Christ
went to heaven, but then God the Spirit was with the disciples. They weren't left. They weren't
abandoned. On the contrary, the Spirit was. We see in Acts 2, suddenly there
was the rebirth of the church. and God did great things through
them. Oh, do we know these things?
Do we love them? Oh, to know that Spirit's working.
We have one, again, Paul tells us in Hebrews, I believe that
Paul did write Hebrews, and we're told there, let me just read
a couple of verses, again we know them, at the end of towards
the end of chapter 7 verse 24 this man as Christ because he'd
continue it ever have an unchangeable priesthood and you know the priesthood
wasn't just the offering of animals it was represented the people
and it was it was praying for them interceding for them as
well through the sacrifices and wherefore he is able also to
save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he
ever liveth to make intercession for them This is a wonderful
truth. We have one in heaven, a man in heaven, whoever lives,
to intercede for us. And until Christ comes again,
we have one on earth, with us, who intercedes for us. Make it
intercession for the saints, according to the will of God.
Isn't it God provided so wonderfully for us in the Gospel? And this
was, we must desire, John Thornes, the woman of Samaria. Christ
was talking to her about wanting water from the well and he said
I shall give you water so if you drink of these waters you
are never thirst again and the woman said give me give me these
waters didn't she she didn't really understand what he was
talking about but you see we're in the same kind of area as I'm
talking about this morning we're thinking of the life of the Spirit
Jesus answered and said unto her verse 13 whosoever drinketh
of this water shall thirst again It's natural water, yes, and
people around us, that's what they want, as it were, they want
natural water, they want the things of this world. You know,
papers are full of it, they want experience, they want life, they
want travel and all the rest of it, they want possessions.
But Jesus says, whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him shall never thirst. And this is a confusion to us.
The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life. And the one who said that
to him, Sir, give me this water, and I thirst not at all. But this is surely the life in
the Spirit, is that not? What is it that's going to well
up in us to eternal life? What is that thing, that agency,
this God in us? If we're alive in Christ, this
is what it is to be. It's in the Spirit. We need to
know this in our day. We need to be stirred if we don't
know these things. We trust and pray that God will
reveal them. It's a mystery. God comes and
impresses these things upon us and we say this carefully. A
man cannot save himself. We do believe in free and sovereign
grace but we believe every word of the scripture and the scriptures
are set before us and we are careful in what we say to people. and in those truths that we say
that if the Lord says, rise I seek the Lord while he may be found
call upon him while he is near then that's what the scripture
says and there is a turning to him and if we feel God is speaking
to us of course we turn to him and seek him and seek that he
will reveal himself it's a good thing to feel that need to turn
to him How can we know? How do we know
what is our spirit? How do we know what is God's
spirit? Well, you have to be very careful. We have to know those
things that please God. We have to know the scriptures.
And we have to prove them in the end. You've got to walk the
Christian life. You've got to live it day by
day. And then you'll know. God will
teach you. God will lead you. You'll have
difficult times. Look at the life of Paul. He
sets it out, doesn't he? Three times he was shipwrecked.
Well, we know one of them. Amazing. Providence of God. He was saved. All were saved.
Everybody on that ship was remarkably saved. All the stonings and the
beatings, the imprisonments. Well, trust to God that we won't
know such severe things. But life will bring us trials.
It will do. And faith is proof. If you've got faith, it comes
out of all these things, whatever is before you, comes out of it
stronger, because it's been proved. Abraham had faith, and was able
to offer Isaac. Even though God had promised
great things in Isaac, he obeyed God. A remarkable thing. And at the end, in Revelation,
there's a great picture. The eternal state is something
that's hard for us to imagine. The way it's pictured, of course,
is not, in a sense, necessarily what we're going to experience.
But it tries to set forth something of those things. We know that
there are those who take these things literally, and there are
many difficulties with that. But we see here, at the end,
the last chapter, chapter 22 of Revelation, verses 16 and
17 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things
in the churches I am the root and the offspring of David and
the bright and morning star and the spirit and the bride say
come let him that heareth say come let him that is a first
come and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Isn't that related to this life? That's eternal life, but that's
still surely in that eternal life. Is that not a spiritual
life? We shall be then, if we are resurrected with Christ,
we shall have spiritual bodies, we shall live spiritual lives,
we shall know as we are known. In this world we have a foretaste.
We have an increasing desire for those things. We begin to
understand what it is to walk in the Spirit. There's that lovely
hymn, I've read part of this before, I'm not ashamed to again,
from the Great Sin Book, we know we don't sing the Great Sin Book
anymore, but there's this lovely hymn, 662, and the verse is from
Song 63, I'm my beloved, you're my beloved, mine, this is a lovely
first To me, it puts some of this feeling there, that relationship
that the believer has with Christ, and how he, by the Spirit, is
consumed with Christ. This is by George Robinson. Love
with everlasting love, led by grace that love to know. Spirit,
breathing from above, thou has taught me. It is so. O this full
and perfect peace, O this transport, O Divine, in a love which cannot
cease, I am His, and He is mine. That's what we're thinking of,
being His. Only His do we have the Spirit,
because He loves us. He'll never leave us, He'll forsake
us as we come to the end of this chapter. You know those last
verses of chapter 8 are so wonderful and assuring, aren't they? God
is for us. Who can slay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who is he that condemns us for?
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Oh, he says,
we are more than conquerors. He says this, I am persuaded
that neither death, nor life, angels, principalities, nor powers,
nor things present or things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And we have the
assurance of that. because we have the indwelling
spirit. That's the earnest of our inheritance. That's the presence
of God. It's a deep promise. May by God's
grace we all come to know that and truly to feel it. Amen.