You can open your Bibles to Romans
8. I've been looking forward to
this. I'm so glad you all asked me
to come down and preach to you. Joe called me two or three years
ago. I can't remember how long ago
it was. We talked some on the phone. I hear you all had a little
group here. We're beginning to meet, and
you're calling preachers. And I said, boy, I hope someday
they call and ask me. I'd like to go preach. I'd like to see
what's going on there. And so my wish was granted. They called,
and so I've been looking forward to this. Of course, I can identify
with many of you in the religious past that you've had, because
for 30 years, I have pastored a Sovereign Grace Baptist Church
in the middle of a Dutch Reformed town. Talking last night, I made that
remark. I said, we have 11 churches in town. Seven of them are Reformed.
And all the Reformed churches are well attended. There's plenty
of people in them. The four Gentile churches, I
call them, which is the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, Methodist,
and us Baptists. We're all relatively small compared
to the Reformed churches. But I know what kind of background
you came from. And last night, as I was trying
to come to a final decision of what
I would preach on, the thought occurred to my mind, I wish I
could condense 30 years of ministry there in Rock Valley into one
Sunday morning. And then I realized, well, I
can't. Because for 30 years, I've preached
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what I'm going
to preach here this morning. I can't bring you 30 years of
experience in the gospel. We all grow in grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And growing takes time. There's no way in the world that
you can preach a message that will suddenly mature all the
people of God up to a certain level. It just takes time. So all we who preach can do is
week after week preach that message which finds, saves, preserves,
and matures the people of God. Just as the manna fell from heaven
and it was the same manna every day and fully nourished the people
of God, the Jewish people as they had their trip there in
the wilderness, And it supplied all their nutritional needs.
Whatever it took, it was in there. So the Gospel supplies the needs
of God's people. Now in Romans 8, the message
I have for the first service this morning, I've entitled it,
Blessed Assurance. Now, the passage we'll look at,
I'm sure you are familiar with, beginning in verse 28 of Romans
chapter 8, It is written, 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. What shall we
say to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again. Who is even at the right hand
of God? Who also maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are
more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded
that neither death nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor 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. As
I said, I've entitled this Blessed Assurance. Now, as with nearly
all things in the Gospel, There is the objective reality of the
thing and there is the subjective experience of it. Now, every
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is assured, absolutely assured
by God of eternal salvation. There's no question about it.
It's an objective reality. Everyone whom God chose Christ
redeemed, the Spirit has or will call, they will believe, and
they will, in time to come, stand in the presence of God, holy,
blameless, without sin, in God's sight, and they shall live eternally
with Him. That is absolutely assured. Now
that's objective assurance. But what I want to deal with
this morning is subjective assurance. That is, our feeling about the
thing. Now, we must realize that we
are entire human beings. That is, we experience all human
experiences and some of those experiences are emotional ones. And there's nothing wrong with
emotions and nothing wrong with desiring to have these things
settled emotionally as well as intellectually. And so we don't
want to live our lives in a constant agony of doubt. Now understand
doubt does not mean you do not believe. Our Lord said to the
disciples, O ye of little faith, why did you doubt? Now he starts
by saying they had faith. And they did. The disciples had
faith. It was little faith, but little faith saves just as well
as strong faith. But little faith is not quite
so comfortable as strong faith. But he says, you have faith,
but why did you doubt? Well, we all do. We wish we didn't. And what I want to do is use
these scriptures to increase that level of what we might call
emotional or subjective confidence in the things we believe. Now
one cannot imagine a progression of thought that more powerfully
gives us assurance of eternal things. In verses 28 through
30, God's eternal decree and sovereign control of all things
is set forward to us as a reason to have absolute confidence in
the gospel that we believe. God's sovereign control. Those
who do not believe in the sovereignty of God over absolutely everything
have actually deprived themselves of the foundation of assurance
of faith. If we trust God for our salvation
and yet discover that God's not in control of anything, then
how do we know that something will not arise that God did not
foresee or does not control that is going to undermine the salvation
that He's brought to us? Our assurance of things eternal
is founded in large part upon the eternal God and His absolute
control of absolutely everything. In verses 31 through 34, The
justice of God is brought to bear on the issue of our assurance,
showing us that God's justice prevents the loss of any for
whom Christ has died and whom God has justified. Now once again,
we have those who believe that Jesus Christ died for everyone
equally. that His sacrifice was made exactly
the same for everyone. Such people have robbed themselves
of any assurance that might be derived from the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Because if Christ did that work
for everybody, yet some still end up in hell, then we cannot
have assurance in His work. Brother Rolf Barnard, who I'm
sure you've heard of. I never heard him personally.
He died when I was 14 years old and I knew nothing of sovereign
grace at that time. But I've heard a lot about him
over the years. But he had a message and it was
several questions. And one of them was, if Jesus
Christ died equally for all men, what does the death of Christ
have to do with whether or not I'm saved? If he died for Judas
as well as Peter, then obviously it was not the death of Christ
that made the difference between Judas and Peter. But Paul sets
forward to us the sacrifice, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
as a foundation for assurance. And then in verse 35 through
39, presents to us the everlasting and invincible love of God and
love of Christ as guarantors of our eternal victory over all
obstacles to our salvation. Now these things are put up as
answers to the very things that are most prone to create doubt
in our minds. in our hearts. First of all,
when we doubt, and let me say again, doubt is natural. And
if you have doubts, don't let your doubts create more doubts.
I don't know of anybody who never has doubts concerning eternal
things. Least of all, the one preaching
to you right now. And these three things come to
my mind as causes for doubt. And this passage of Scripture
answers all three of them. First of all, our weakness to
control things so that we can see a clear path to glory. We would love to have set before
us a broad and straight highway all the way to glory with heaven's
glory shining on the horizon. And we could see all the way
from where we are to there, big wide road. But that's not what
the road of life is like. The road of life is a narrow
road, says the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a winding road. And
the thing about a winding road is you can't see very far down
the winding road. Now I grew up in West Virginia.
in the Appalachian Mountains. Of course, you got the Ozark
Mountains around here. And the thing about West Virginia, I
used to joke, you know, I said, if any time we found one, you
know, the little lines they put between the lanes and, you know,
they're like dashes. I said, if we could find one
of them that was straight, we figured we had a straightaway,
you know. You know, gun it, see how much you can go. And you
couldn't see very far, because it curved around the mountain
this way, curved around the mountain that way. Go down the hill here,
So very few places in West Virginia that you can see the road very
far ahead. And that's what the life of faith
is like. In fact, the book of Ecclesiastes
says that God sets the vanishing point in our minds. You know,
if you look far enough ahead, it looks like everything comes
to a point. He says He sets the vanishing point in our minds
so that we can't tell what He's doing. We can't see it. Naturally,
with natural, what we don't even call scientific, this is a scientific
method of observation and experimentation, cannot be applied to the things
of God. Because we just can't see them.
We walk by faith, not by sight. And we can't see, because we
can't see what's ahead, we certainly don't know how to control them.
In fact, we can't control the things that are right in front
of us. I mean, let's face it, if we can control things, all
of us would be millionaires. I think it was Augustus' top
lady. He said, free will? Or, you know, control? He said,
by my will, I can't even stop a toothache. So we know that we can't control
things, and that creates doubts. We wonder, will something happen
to bump us off the road of life between here and there? Secondly,
our sins. Now, I don't know who among you
actually professes faith. It's been a very strange experience
for me when I first went up there to preach there in Rock Valley,
Iowa. First time I went to preach,
I preached to them three times, and I knew that they were all
Calvinists, which was strange for me because I grew up in the
Free Will Southeast. But I preached the gospel to
them three times, and that evening, after the evening service on
Sunday, went back to the home of the host. And we're talking,
and as he's talking and describing how this little group came together,
I realized of the 15 adults that made up the core group, only
eight of them professed to have been saved. Of course, I wasn't
familiar with the religion that they came out of, you know, so
this was a big surprise to me. Where I come from, everybody's
been saved, some of them two and three times. And, you know,
everybody's confident of heaven. And here we've got a group trying
to start a church and very nearly half of them don't even profess
to have been saved. And I asked the man, you know,
I said, you're telling me not everybody believes? He said,
oh, we believe the gospel, but we just don't want to presume
that we've been saved. And I told him, well, presumption
or believing God is not presumption, it's just unbelief, not the believing.
But what it was is they like to wallow in the knowledge of
their sins as though there was something virtuous about that.
And proclaim their doubts as though these doubts were a virtue.
But let's face it. If we have been born of God,
we are more aware of our sin than we were before we knew God. And the thing is, the devil is
called what in the book of Revelation? The accuser of the brethren.
And there's nothing he likes more than accusing us in our
conscience, in the presence of God, and make us feel as though
we stand before God in our sins again. Now, a lot of people like
to say that Christians don't sin the same kinds of sins as
unbelievers. Well, that's just not true. The
Bible is a record. of the horrible failures of those
who truly knew God. The only success in all the Bible
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone else is a failure at
one point or another. And our sins, they're horrible,
aren't they? And they weigh upon us. They weigh upon our conscience.
That is, our subjective conscience. And we begin to feel guilt. And
as we feel guilt, we begin to wonder, and we ask ourselves
this question, could somebody who knows God do these things?
Could somebody who knows God think these things? In the religion
I was brought up, they say, well, you know, once you're saved,
you won't want to do those things. Well, then I'm not saved. If
that's the truth, I'm not saved, and I don't know anybody who
is. They say, once you're saved, you won't want to hang around
your old friends. Really? Well, It's kind of funny. They said you wouldn't want those
things, but they had to impress rules on everybody so they wouldn't
do them. If you don't want to do a thing,
you don't have to make a rule against it. For instance, nobody
has to make a rule to me, thou shalt not eat liver. I have absolutely
no desire to eat it. I don't want it. I think it's
awful. Maybe some of you like it. I don't. So there's absolutely
no reason to put a law on me to not eat liver. Well, the only
reason that churches feel the necessity to bind God's people
under laws is because they realize no matter what anybody says,
God's people still like sin. Our sins cast doubt on us. And
then the third thing is the multitude of enemies that we see. standing against our salvation.
All the processes and powers which are too great for us, they're
right here. It seems that all of creation
stands against us in this quest for life. And so far as our experience
of the life of faith, it is a quest. I know and believe that in fact
we're going to be talking about this in a few minutes. There
is a sense in which our salvation is an absolutely done deal already. But it is not a done deal in
our experience. You say, what do you mean? Well,
God's not done saving us. We say that by the grace of God
we're free from sin. Well, that's a wonderful thing
to say. It's no wonderful thing to believe. But who here experiences
no sin? Salvation's not done. If it is,
I'm going to be terribly disappointed because I don't want to be like
this forever. I hope that God's got more to do. So, we see, or our experience
as we're going through this life of faith, It is a quest. Paul says, I press on to lay
hold of that for which God laid hold of me. Now what did God
lay hold of Paul for? Eternal life. Likeness to Christ. All the blessings of salvation.
God laid hold of Paul to give him those things. So Paul says,
I press on to lay hold of those things for which God laid hold
of me. That's a quest. So our experience of the life
of faith is a quest, and yet, like every quest, it seems like
there's a lot of troubles between here and the realization of that
quest. Troubles too big for us. Powers
too big for us. Many of the so-called charismatics
of our day, they like to pretend as though they got power over
the devil. And the devil laughs every time they say it. You know,
I can cast out devils. I can deny the devil. I can wrestle him to the ground.
And the devil just shakes his head and laughs. People like
that are in such bondage to the devil, the devil doesn't even
have to do anything to them. He can leave them alone. He's got
them so deceived, they aren't even reaching for real salvation. I got in an argument, now this
was in the early days of the internet, when you didn't have
things like Facebook to argue on, but you had these discussion
groups you could get involved with. Unfortunately, I kind of
like to do that. I got on one of these groups
and someone was all worried about Satanists, and how Satan is going
to be such a big trouble. I said, they don't bother me. I'm not afraid of them. I said,
I'm not even afraid of Satan. And they were surprised at that.
And they said, well, he's too powerful for you. I said, well,
certainly he is. He's too powerful for me. But
he's not too powerful for my Savior. Because my master has
his foot firmly on the neck of the Satanist master. So they're no threat to me. But
I do recognize this. I'm no match for Satan. He can
deceive me. He can overpower me easily. Now the solution to all these
dangers, our weakness to control things, our sins, all the obstacles
between us and the obtaining of glory are answered in verse
31. What shall we say then to these
things if God before us who can be against us? Now this is the
one of the ways in which the gospel is entirely different
from all the other versions of religion that men have created,
even those versions of Christianity. Because most versions of religion
have God as against us. And we are in some kind of contest
with God to obtain salvation. And it's either by overcoming
him, as many of the pagan gods do. There's some kind of warfare
going on, and we find some way to overpower him or outwit him.
Or in the various erroneous versions of Christianity, we're somehow
or another rendering to God something that obligates him to do what
he really didn't want to do, which is save us. But here Paul says, if God be
for us, who can be against us? Because the gospel teaches us
that God is the one who initially desired our salvation. And because
of that desire, designed a salvation specifically suited to people
like you and me, the weak, the sinful, the failing. And if He's for us, who or what
can be against us? David faced Goliath with these
words. He says, you come to me in the
name of your gods, but I come to you in the name of Jehovah. And that was a difference. David
was no match for Goliath, but Goliath was no match for Jehovah.
The assurance of our salvation does not arise from anything
about us. It arises from those things about
God which are engaged in our salvation. So let's take a few
minutes to look at these scriptures again in a little bit more detail
and derive some assurance for us. Our inability to control
things so that we can see a clear path to glory is answered by
the truth that God sees all things and controls all things for the
believer's welfare. God's purpose shall stand. And it says that God works all
things according to His purpose. And He works them for the good
of those who are the called according to His purpose. The purpose of
God stands as a bedrock upon which we can build a confident
hope. God says, I have purposed it
and I will do it. If God has purposed the salvation
of someone, it shall happen. It's no question in God's mind,
that's for sure. Because he said, I purposed it
and I'm going to do it. He's not going to leave it to
anybody else who might fail at the job. God foreknew a people. We read there in Romans chapter
8 verse 29, for whom he did foreknow, he did also predestinate to be
conformed to the image of his Son. Now it is impossible for
you and I to think of anything outside the framework of time
and space. I mean, we're just not capable
of doing that. But remember this, God does not
exist in time and space. Time and space are his creations.
And we talk about, because we can't say it any other way, we
talk about before the universe existed. But quite frankly, before
the universe existed, there was no such thing as before, because
there was no time. But that's the only way we can
talk about it, because we have to talk in terms of time and
space. And so we can look at it this way. This is the best
we'll be able to do it. That before God created the heavens
and the earth, he predestinated a people, which reaches to what
some people call eternity out there. In our minds, what most
people have, most people think there's an old eternity and an
eternity to come. That's really not the way it
is. There's one eternity, one timeless existence of God, and
what we exist in is just kind of a little bubble floating around
in that. But nonetheless, this is how we've got to look at it.
Way back yonder, God predestinated a people, and He predestinated
them to an eternal condition yet to come. And because he did
that, he works everything between those two points to bring his
eternal purpose to full realization. What did he predestine his people
for? Well, I remember in my days of
free willism, there was a guy that wrote a book called, or
a pamphlet more like it, called Predestined to Hell? No. And
he was, you know, of course, what he was actually trying to
do is deny predestination altogether. But he was saying God doesn't
predestinate people to hell. Well, quite frankly, God doesn't
predestinate people to heaven either. Because predestination
is not about where you will be. It's about what you will be.
He predestinated his people to be conformed to the image of
Christ. Now, fleshly religion sees the
blessings of heaven all wrapped up in what that place is like.
Brethren, that's not what heaven's about. Heaven is about being
like Christ and being with Christ. That's heaven. And God has determined,
predetermined our destiny That's what predestination is. Predetermine
our destiny. And the destiny of God's people
is to be like God's Son. Quite a destiny there. Having determined their glorious
destiny, He does all those things necessary for the realization
of that destiny. He says in verse 30, Moreover,
whom He did predestinate, them He also called. And whom He called,
He also justified. And whom He justified, He also
glorified. Now, most of these things, we
see this written in the past tense. And most of these things
we understand in the past tense. Because we realize that He justified
through Jesus Christ. And we don't have a problem,
because we think of that in terms of the past. But Paul puts all
of these things in the past, including us being glorified. Now how can that be? Because
I'm looking at you guys, and as humans go, you're not bad.
But you're not glorified. I mean, let's face it. We're
not glorious creatures, are we? How can Paul say we're already
glorified? Well, understand this. Because
God does not even exist in time, there is no sequence of events
with God. Salvation is all one great big
event. We may divide it into these things,
but from God's viewpoint and in God's reality, these things
are done. Remember when our Lord was teaching
us to pray, and He made that statement, Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, this is
not something I would push with a lot of dogmatism, but that
word translated done might better be understood as made real. And so he's saying, thy kingdom
come, thy will be made real on earth, just like it's already
real in heaven. These things God has determined
for us are already real, and all that our life is, Is heaven's
reality becoming earth's reality? So, those he did predestinate,
he called them. And the call of God is an eternal,
timeless call that reaches us in our experience at a point
in time. But it was already done. I was
called before the stars were called into existence. I was
called. The call didn't reach me in time
until the time determined by God. But the call was given eternally. I was justified by God, declared
righteous by God in eternity. Now that justification was worked
by the Lord Jesus Christ at a certain time determined by God and it
was experienced by me at a certain time determined by God. But, it was already done. Glorified? I haven't experienced that yet,
but it's done. And just waiting, it's realization
in my experience. So, we need not worry that we
cannot control things. God's got it done. God's got
it taken care of. Secondly, our sins? Well, what
does He say about that? Well, he says this in verse 33,
who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Now, he
does not mean who shall make an accusation because Satan does
that all the time. He is the accuser of the brethren. He's talking about who's going
to be able to make a charge against God's elect and make it stick.
God justifies them. He's the one doing the justifying.
And so it's a waste of time to try to get him doing the condemning
of us. Now, we have a law in our country,
and I'm glad we have it in our judicial system, a law against
double jeopardy. Once you've been declared not
guilty, they cannot try you for that crime again. The reason
that that was put in is part of our, I believe it's in the
Constitution, that nobody is exposed to double jeopardy. The
reason is, in the past you could be. If the prosecutor lost in
one court, but he was still convinced you did it, he could take it
to a higher court and try you again. There is no higher court than
God. And God has justified His people. Who's going to be able then to
make a sin stick to them? They can't go to a higher court,
and God's already rendered his verdict. It's over. He is the Supreme Court of the
universe. You can't go farther than that.
Not only this, he says, who is he that condemneth? Now, understand,
condemn is the opposite of justify. It's really what, in the Greek
language, it's the opposite of justify. So who will condemn? Who will render a verdict of
guilty against God's people? It's Christ that died. Our hope is not in our death
and somehow or another our death will pay for our sins. It won't.
That's why hell goes on forever. It never gets the payment made.
But he said Christ has died. Look at who it is that's died
and then look at the kind of death He died. Yea, rather He's
risen again, which was proof from God that God had accepted
His work of sacrifice. And now He's even at the right
hand of God who also maketh intercession for us. Now why does Jesus Christ
sit at the right hand of God to intercede for us? Well, Jesus
Christ is God entering time and space. And he sits there at the
right hand of God in time and space, and our sins, which we
keep committing in time and space, he keeps taking care of them.
I know his sacrifice once for all put away sin, yet we keep
on sinning, and so it's put here in the real experience of time
and space for us, Our sin comes before the throne of God. Jesus
Christ intercedes for us. And He really doesn't have to
say anything. His very presence there is the intercession. Our
sins can't get past Him to get to God. And then lastly, considering
all the enemies that confront us, we have this confidence. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? This is why that religion in
which I was brought up, it's one way in which it's proved
so wrong. Because quite frankly, they say
God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Jesus loves
you and died for you. But somehow or another, you end
up in hell. Now let me ask you something.
If you loved somebody, and you had the power to keep them from
going to hell, would you let them go? No. So either God's
love means nothing, or his love changes to hate somewhere along
here. But Paul understands that love never fails. We love people and if we fail
in doing them good, it's because of the weakness of our wisdom
in knowing what's good or the weakness of our power in carrying
it out for them. But if you love somebody, you
will do everything within your wisdom and power to see to their
good. That's what love is. Well, God
has no lacking in wisdom or power. Nobody can separate us from His
love. And He mentions a few things.
He says, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life. Now you
might say, yeah, that death. I'm always afraid that at death
I'll be separated from the love of Christ. Don't worry about
that, because it says, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, for thou art with me.
But you know what scares me worse than death? Life. Life. Because I look at life
and me living life, and I think, how can God keep putting up with
me? Life presents more troubles to me than death does. Nor powers, excuse me, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers. Paul puts that in there because
one of the early heresies of the church, Gnosticism, had this
whole array of beings out there that we can't see, which they
called, and some of them were angels, and others they gave
the status of principalities and powers. Paul wasn't saying
that all of these things actually exist. He's just answering them
according to the Greek philosophy of the day, which Gnosticism
was just an attempt to put a Christian veneer on Greek philosophy, is
what it was. And he said, not the angels,
not the principalities, whatever they are, the powers, whatever
they are, not things present, nor nothing to come, nor height,
nor depth. And then in case he missed something
that bothers you, nor any other created thing, shall be able
to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ. Now
there are two kinds of beings. The creator and created things. The only two kinds of things
there are. We've read here that for everyone
in Christ, God is for them. And then we read that nothing
in the classification of created things shall be able to separate
us from the love of the Creator. What does that mean? We're saved. All of us who trust
Christ, all of us, he says here, who love God. And you say, well,
I don't want to trust my love. That wasn't given to us as the
thing to trust, just the way by which we are identified. We
may be like Peter and deny him. Our courage fails at some moment.
But the Lord said, Peter, do you love me? Peter, for the third
time, you know. You could tell he was grieved
that the Lord asked him, he said, Lord, you know all things and
you know that I love you. You know whether or not you love
God. If you love God, what that is
is proof that he loves you. And if he loves you, he's for
you. And if he's for you, nothing
can be against you. Our Father, we pray that you
bless your word. Make it glorious for yourself and make it beneficial
to us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you, brother.