Look at verse 31 here. We're
going to read several verses before and after this. But mainly,
I thought this morning was on this verse here. Romans 8-31. It says, What shall
we then say to these things? God before us, who can be against
us? A couple things come to my mind
when looking at that this morning is, number one, this verse is
misused by a lot of people who think this is a charge verse
that we can just beef ourselves up and get out there and attack
the world because God's behind us in every adventure that we're
going to take on. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Therefore, let's pull up ourselves by our own
bootstraps and get out there and get after it, you know. But
I don't think that's exactly the meaning that God has intended
here, especially in the middle of not only this chapter, but
the whole discourse of Romans. The whole discourse of Romans
is God's salvation in Christ alone. Justification by Christ
alone. Our salvation is by Christ alone. And so I don't think God here
is charging us with Hey, I've got your back, get out there
and do your best and fight it the best you can and I'll be
there behind you. So we know that that's not what
that is talking about. And we'll hopefully, as we look
at the scriptures here, we'll see kind of what that does mean.
But the two questions that I see here, what shall we say then
to these things? First question is, what are these
things that he's talking about? And then the other question that
came to my mind when I looked at this, if God be for us, who
can be against us? Who is the us, then, that he's
talking about? Who is the us in view here? Well,
I think if we look at that first, maybe we can see what these things
are talking about after that. Who is the us in that question,
if God, or in that statement, if God be for us, Who can be
against us? Well, if we go back, of course
we can go all the way back to the beginning of the letter,
but if we just go back to the beginning of this chapter, I think we see
it very clearly there. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. So I think anybody that God is
talking about here as it relates to salvation, as it relates to
God's relation to them as being their protector, their guide,
whatever, you know, fill in the blank. And he's talking to the
elect of God. Now, of course, we've discussed
this plenty of times before, and all you guys have heard this,
you know, you all preached this all before. You guys have never
preached it. You guys have heard this. The
Bible is written to God's people, front to back. The gospel is
to God's people, front to back. Everything that is about the
works of Christ are to God's people, front to back, Genesis
to Revelation. Everything there is for the elect
of God. Now, we all are, I'm sure, in
agreement here that the elect of God, that number does not
increase nor does it decrease. The number that God chose before
the foundation of the world and gave to Christ is the exact same
number, and by the way, whose names were written down, That
same number and names that was before the foundation of the
world are going to be the ones at the end of the world who are
going to be there with Christ. Not one will be lost, according
to Scripture. Not one will be lost. However
yet, modern Christianity thinks that we're losing a bunch of
them. We're not getting out fast enough. We're not going far enough.
We're not having enough means. We're not having enough We don't
have enough programs. We don't have enough stuff going on. We
don't have enough things in the church to keep them entertained.
We've got to have karate classes and yoga classes and all these
other things to keep everybody entertained. Well, that's because
they've come for entertainment. They haven't come for worship.
They've come for entertainment. But we see that everyone for
whom God gave to Christ, they're going to be at the end. Everything
that this book is written about is Christ and everyone for whom
it is written is his elect. And so when we look at this us,
we see that the us here is the people of God, those who are
in Christ Jesus. If they are not in Christ Jesus,
this doesn't pertain to them. This doesn't have any pertinence
to them at all. So it is them. We also see in
verse 14, It says, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the sons of God. Verse 16, we see the Spirit itself
bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Verse 23, and not only they,
but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit. Verse 27, and he that searches
the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
So I mean, I think it's pretty clear here we see The us that
is in view in verse 31 is the saints of God, the people of
God, the elect of God, the sons of God, the children of God,
the seed of Christ. Many names that we're given,
sheep, wheat, all those things, they pertain to us. So if God
be for us, who can be against us? So if God is for His elect,
who can be against His elect. But what does this pertain to?
What does this pertain to? Does it pertain to me whenever
I'm going out lifting weights at the gym? Hey, if God is for
me, who can be against me? I'm going out here and I'm going
to lift my weights and I'm going to do all the exercises and if the
big bully guy comes, then, you know, if he's against me, God's
for me. He's going to help me out. Now,
if I go out here and the political system that's coming against
us is against us, is God going to sweep in and take them all
away? I'm not right now at this time. He's not. But that's not
what this is talking about. If God be for us, who can be
against us? We cannot divorce this context
whenever we see that everything preceding and everything following
has to do with the fact that he spared not, verse 32, he spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. It pertains to our salvation.
If God be for us, who can be against us? Listen, there isn't
nothing that can stop God's salvation from being given to His elect.
There is nothing that can stop Christ's righteousness from being
imputed. There is nothing that can stop
God's forgiveness of sin. There is nothing that can stop
reconciliation, pardon, There is nothing that can stop God
not imputing sin. There is nothing that can stop
the salvation and everything that is part of God's salvation
because He spared not His own Son. See, God spent everything
in sparing not His own Son. He sent His Son, and in sending
His Son, His Son accomplished everything that was to be done,
that needed to be done, that was required by the law, by justice. Everything that needed to be
done, God supplied in sending His Son. We use the phrase, spare
no expense. Spare no expense. Well, in essence,
that's what God's saying. I have spared no expense. I have
sent myself in flesh. to you. And I have given my life
for your life. I have obeyed on your behalf. I have died on your behalf. I
have kept all righteousness so that you would be righteous. And I have tasted death so that
you will not have to taste death. If God be for us in that, no
one can be against us. Satan can't come against us and
accuse us. He's the accuser of the brethren, right? Well, all
he can do is accuse. He can't make it stick. He's
the accuser of the brethren, but he is not the one who is
turning God's mind. He is not going to be the convincer.
He is not going to convince God. As a matter of fact, if you remember,
whenever Jesus mentioned, He said, Who can convince me of
sin? Who can convince of sin? No one
can convince God, the just as righteous God, that I have sinned.
Now, you might be able to convince these leaders here that are having
a sham court, but you are not going to convince me, God, of
sin. You're not going to convince
me. Well, brethren, if we are in Him, nobody's going to convince
God that we are in the same boat. Now, do we sin? Absolutely we
do. I just was mentioning, I deal
with my sin every day. But in the court of God's law,
God does not see sin. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, nor hath he seen perverseness in Israel, for the shout of a
king is among them. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputed not sin. Brethren, listen, those verses
don't mean anything if God ever looks on us that way. He does
not see that. So if God is for us, who can
be against us? Nobody can accuse us. Satan can't
accuse us. The world can't accuse us. We
have people all over accusing us. I've had it just even here
recently. You know, whenever you mention
anything about sin to somebody else or you mention anything
about doctrinal things to somebody else, what's the first thing
that everybody wants to do? They want to point the finger
back at you. Well, what about you? You're not perfect. You're
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, they want to just accuse
you of it. We have accusing of everything. And the only thing that we can
say is you're right. I am sinful. You're right, I do sin too. That
doesn't change the fact that it's sin. It doesn't change the
fact that we are in need of Christ. It doesn't change the fact that
we are righteous before God because of Christ. See, those things
don't change just because we're sinners. We are sinners. But God's truth still remains.
No one can lay anything, verse 33, who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect. Nobody can lay a charge to God's
elect. Why? Because if God is for us, who
can be against us? And God was for us in sparing
not His own Son. Now, that's the layman's, the
redneck way of saying justification. We've been justified before God.
Christ has justified us by His blood And through that justification,
there is no sin on our account at all. It's wiped clean. Therefore,
there is no grounds whatsoever that there can be any charges
laid against us. Is there a checkbook in your
pocket? No. Hardly anyone carries checkbooks
anymore, but you take a checkbook. You open it up, and it has your
little ledger there, and it says how much you owe, or not how
much you owe, how much you have, or most of the time, in my case,
how much I don't have, okay? It tells us what's there. It
tells us what's on the books. But whenever we look at the ledger
in heaven, under each one of the elect's names, there is nothing
there. It's zero according to sin. and it's completely full in righteousness. Can you imagine that? Matter
of fact, the Bible says that our name, that we are named is
the Lord our righteousness. Now that's only Christ's name,
right? But yet we are so in union with
Christ Jesus and He's so substituted for us that God considers our
name as well to be the Lord, our righteousness. Brethren,
you can't be any more righteous than that. And praise the Lord,
that's how we are seen by God. We don't deserve it. We definitely
didn't earn it. We definitely didn't perform
it. But God has given us that. So who can be against us whenever
God has declared us not guilty? When God has declared us the
same righteousness as Christ. Well, nobody can. Satan can't
do it. The world can't do it, but guess
what, brethren? Your conscience can't either. It may try, and
sometimes in the flesh it does. It rears its head. It tries to
point its finger at you. Paul said, you know, the struggle
that I have in the flesh, every time I want to do good, sin is
always there. Whenever I want to obey God's
law, what happens? My flesh doesn't do it. My flesh,
all it can do is sin. Even whenever I'm doing the good
things that my inside wants to do, because I'm doing it through
the outside, it's tainted because it's done in the flesh and it's
sin. The only thing that counts is that which is in the Spirit.
And so Paul had this struggle, and obviously that was coming
from a mind whose mind was like, oh wretched man that I am. And we begin to think about those
things. Our conscience becomes guilty before God, and rightfully
so, because we are full of sin. But brethren, again, that is
why the Gospel is there, to remind us how Christ has taken on those
sins, has nailed it to the cross, has removed it as far as the
east is from the west, that God is to remember no more, that
there is no record of those things, against us. So now even our conscience
cannot bring any charge. Even though our flesh may rear
its head, the Gospel is always there. The Spirit is always there
to bear witness with our spirit that we are His. And if we be
His, we be righteous. Now, I think we're well aware
of who the us is. I think we're well aware of if
God before us. But what about What shall we
say to these things? What are the these things? Everything
that we see after that is that God spared not His own Son, and
that is why the God being for us part is there,
because God spared not His own Son. But what about preceding
that? What shall we say to these things
that leads us to know that God is for us? Well, if you'll look back, verse
28, and we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.
Now, let me pause there for just a second. All things work together for
good. Is that just all the good things work together for good?
Everything, right? All things work together for
good. We sung last week or the week
before that John Newton hymn about God. You know, I prayed
to God and I asked for grace and faith and instead of what
I thought God was going to do, He did what? He just drove me down into the
dirt, made me feel the evils of my own heart, assaulted my
soul, left me to myself, withheld His grace so that I might feel
my sin and feel my evilness. Why did you do that, Lord? Because
that's how I answer prayers for grace and faith. Whenever you
see that, then you quit relying on yourself. You quit relying
on the world. You quit relying on everything
else and find your all in me. OK, that's what that's what God
has done. Well, is that a good thing? Is
that a good thing for God to pursue his worm to death according
to that hymn? It was a good thing. Is it a
good thing that sometimes the Lord leads me to myself to let
me feel how evil my heart is? Absolutely is. Why? Because whenever
the Spirit arises within us, it says, see, you still can't
keep the law. You still aren't righteous enough.
Keep looking to Christ. Keep looking to Christ. See,
that's how the Spirit preserves us. See, a lot of people think,
you know, hey, sin bad. We're to be obedient. Well, that's
true. The Lord calls us to obey. But what does He say about sin? Well, sin is there for us also. Does He hate sin? Absolutely.
Do I hate sin? Absolutely. But we still can't
get around the fact that God has used those very things. Did
He not use the sin of Peter whenever He denied Christ? Did He not
use the sin of Paul In coming against the church, Paul looked
at all those things and said, hey, listen, I did all those
things. I thought I had to zeal like nobody else had. But that
very sin that Paul experienced came around and he learned something
from that. Peter learned something. Jesus even told him before he
went into there, Satan desires to sift you. But whatever he's
done, I've prayed for you. And whatever he's done, feed
the sheep. What did Peter learn? Peter learned something. whenever
he denied Christ after the fact, he found that God's love overcame
even that. I mean, he denied Christ through
His face in His worst time. I mean, you can't get much worse
than that other than taking Him and crucifying Him. But what
did he do? After the fact, he learned that
God's love for him was unconditional. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are, and
notice there, if you would, the word thee there. That's in the
definite article thee. How often do you hear it quoted
in the world today? All things work together for
good to them who are called according to His purpose. As if there was
this general call out there, right? There's just some general
call. Brethren, there is no general
call. Calvinists tell you that. Calvinists will tell you there's
a general call and that there is a special call. There's only
one call. Well, there's two calls. There's
the call to election. As it pertains to us in time,
there's only one call. Whenever the gospel is being
heralded, it is not a general call just to anyone who will
believe. It's a specific call to only
those who Christ has redeemed. Here we see it's the definite
article the. It's a specific group of people. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called. That's a group of people. That's
a specific group of people. Those who are the called, the
called ones, the called out ones, the called ones, however you
want to say it. It's the called, not just as whoever's called.
You know, as an Armenian, when I grew up in the Armenian church,
We believe that the call was just we preach to everybody indiscriminately,
and that call there, everybody that's called, and everything's
going to work out to anybody who's called and who loves God.
So if I just love God, then everything's going to work out for my good.
Well, brethren, number one, none of us can love God without first
God shedding His love abroad in our heart. Even at that, in the flesh, it's
not a perfect love. The second of all, we are not
able to be the called just by our own choice. We don't choose
that. We are called the called because
someone else called us. Not because we responded to a
call, but because we are a special group of people. And it's to them who are the
called, and we are the called because we are the called according
to His purpose. Why are we the called? Because
it's according to His purpose. Is that not what Paul also says
there in Romans 9, just a few verses over, where he says in
verse 11, for the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand. The purpose of God is according
to election. God's purpose of redemption,
God's purpose of salvation, God's purpose of creating vessels of
honor, vessels of glory, is according to election. So that tells me
that election preceded the fall because it was God's purpose.
God's purpose began before the fall. God's predestination and
decree was before the fall. We are the called according to
the elect. We are the elect who are the
elect according to his purpose. You could change that and say
that it's saying the same thing. OK, it's saying the same thing
as a group of people. So again, we see that the us,
if God before us is tied back to the saints of God, those who
are in Christ Jesus, but to those who have been elected, the called.
All things work together for them that love God, to them who
are thee called according to His purpose. Now, in verse 29,
we have, in 29 and 30, we see what is typically everybody calls
the golden chain of redemption, right? 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. Notice if you
would, please, it was for whom he did foreknow, not what he
foreknew. Again, what does the Calvinist
tell us? Or what does, I say Calvinist, what does the Calminian,
that Arminian, I was talking to Brother Larry, there used
to be a guy that used to read as an Arminian, and now his name
just now left my mind. He wrote a book called Chosen
but Free, and he took this middle road of trying to marry God's
sovereignty and man's responsibility, and it was pure Arminianism all
the way through, but he's trying to hold hands in both camps. Yes, we realize Baptists are
Calvinists, and we also realize that Baptists believe free will.
So there's this middle road between sovereignty and free will, that
we don't have to divorce We don't have to choose one or the other,
that they're married together perfectly. Well, that's not true. At all. Whatsoever. And in this,
this man has said, God sees everything, and foreknows everything, and
even equated it to like a football game. He said, I can put in my
VCR tape, if anybody still has VCR tapes, put in my VCR tape
and I can record a football game that I haven't watched yet. The
determination of how that football game has already been determined
by the time I get home to go watch it. But whenever I'm watching
it, everything that's happening there, I'm seeing all these people
doing everything according to their free will. They're running
wherever they want to run. They're tackling whoever they
want to tackle. They're running plays the way they want to play.
And they're completely free. But the determination of the
game is already there. Now, at the time, I thought, man, that
was so profound. And boy, I started using that
as an argument against my uncle, who believed the doctrines of
grace, and we all thought he was kooky. But I started using
that. See there? Look at that. That's
how it works. God foreknew and everything. And what my uncle
taught me, and this was the first time I began to see this, it
said for whom he foreknew, not what he foreknew. He didn't foreknow
an activity He didn't foreknow somebody choosing Christ. That's
an activity, right? He didn't foreknow an action
or an event. He foreknew somebody. For whom
he foreknew. For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate. See, the foreknowing of the whom
came down to being predestinated. to be conformed to the image
of God. God predestinated the called, according to His purpose,
to be conformed to the image of Christ, to the image of God,
His Son. So it's because He foreknew them.
Now, we know that foreknow, that word foreknow, means loved, foreloved,
right? It means foreloved. I've mentioned
it to our church here many times. If you go over into the Gospels
and you see whenever the angel came to Mary and it talks about
Mary being with a child, it said that she knew not a man. Did
that mean she didn't know any men? Of course not. She was betrothed
to Joseph, right? She knew a man. She knew her
father. She knew men. It didn't mean that. What did
she knew not a man mean? She hadn't been intimate with
a man. That's the same connotation this word for knew. He for loved. There was an intimate relationship
between him and the whom. And because of that intimate
relationship before him, now when I say intimate relationship,
I'm not talking about the intimate relationship between a man and
a wife. I'm talking about the fact that there was a love, according
to Scripture, an everlasting love. There was an everlasting
love for the elect before the foundation of the world. That
is the whom. For whom He did forelove, foreknow. He did predestinate to be conformed
in the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among
many brethren. That's part of these things. What shall we say to these things?
We say, praise the Lord that He foreknew us. Praise the Lord
He foreknew us. Because if God foreknew us, then
there can be nothing held against us. Because He predestinated
those tombs to be conformed to the image of Christ. Now, here
again, the Calvinists will say, well, you're now going to have
to appropriate the means Get your Bibles out. Get your sermon
audios out. Get your YouTubes out. Get your
preachers that you like. Surround yourself with all the
preachers, all the teachers. Get your commentaries. Get your
systematic theologies. Get your theologians. Get your
seminaries. Get all these things together.
And you get to conform into the image
of Christ. Isn't that how we're conformed? If I don't do the job good enough,
then I'm not going to be conformed. That means the conformity to
Christ is left into my hands. Now, He said, those whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of the Son. Brethren, it's assured. As much
as we are foreknown by God, as much as He has predestinated
every event, He has predestinated our conformity That is why we're
called hard shalls, right? We're called hard shells, hard
shalls, because we believe the Bible says we shall come to Him. We shall not be lost. We shall, whenever God says something's
gonna happen, we believe it shall happen. Shall does not mean maybe
so. Shall means shall when it comes
to God. Moreover, whom, again, there's
that word whom, not what he did predestinate, but whom. 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. You say, well, wait a minute,
I didn't think we were glorified yet. All the rest of us in the
past tense are not glorified in the past tense. Well, brother,
we're already glorified. You realize that? We're already glorified. The Bible says that we are seated
with Christ in the heavens. We are already glorified with
Him in the Spirit. Now this flesh is not going to
be glorified. This flesh is going to be put down one of these days.
And who we are on the inside that is glorified already is
going to take on a spiritual body that coincides with what's
on the inside of this fleshly body. And praise the Lord, we
will be one whole man. not two divided men. Right now,
we're divided. One of Adam, one of Christ. But soon, in the Lord's time,
we will be all spiritual. You know, one Corinthians says
that that was not first which was spiritual, but that which
was natural. But it does say, as we have taken
on the image of the earthly, we shall take on the image of
the heavenly. We will have His heavenly body.
We will be like Him. Scripture says, we will be conformed
to the image of Christ Jesus. And it's a done deal. But that
glorified, we are already glorified in the Spirit, in Christ Jesus. So it already is. Now there is
a future aspect to that, as I said, according to the flesh. Then
He also justified, and whom He justified, them He also glorified. So what shall we say then 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? We mentioned this verse, I think
it was last week. Christ has given us all things.
Ephesians chapter 1. He has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. It wasn't just in time that we
received these blessings. We received them in the Spirit
before the foundation of the world. All things have been given
to us. And he says here, he says, how
shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Again, these
things have been given to us freely. It didn't come by price.
It didn't come by earning. It didn't come by working. It
didn't come by my being an honorable person. my obedience, my upkeeping,
anything like that. It was freely given to us. Why? Why does it have to be free?
Because if it's any other way, it's not by grace. And God's
salvation is by grace alone. Not by works. The Bible says
that if it is of works, it's no longer of grace. But if it
is of grace, it's not of works. And we know that the Bible says,
for by grace are you saved. So if it's God's salvation, it's
only gonna be by grace, and if it's by grace, it can only be
free, because anything else is gonna be worse. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
free to give us all things? So who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who even at the right hand of
God who also maketh intercession for us. Something to ponder there. Kind of goes with what we were
talking about last week. It says there that Jesus Christ
is at the right hand of God making intercession for us. But in verse
27 it says it's the Spirit that maketh intercession for us. Look
at it when you get home. It says who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress
or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? Now, if we
all went through all that stuff, and some of us probably have
gone through some of that stuff, we've definitely all gone through
tribulation, I'm sure, and distress. Don't look like I've gone through
much famine, but we've all gone through that. But I can imagine
someone who goes through all those things probably gets to
thinking to themselves, man, I've been cast off by God. Paul
even said, remember, he even hoped that he would not be found
to cast away. You know, he went through those things, night and
day, however many days in the deep, and all the persecutions
that he went through. John the Baptist, remember? He
was in prison. He got to thinking, man, I was,
hey, someone go ask my cousin what's going on here. Is this,
I mean, obviously something's going on here that I don't recognize.
He wasn't sure. I'm sure we all get to that place
whenever we see that, but it says here, who shall separate
us from the love of Christ? Just because we come through
all these things, all things work together for good, right?
Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword,
they all are for our good. Nothing is going to separate
us from the love of God, no matter how bad it looks. No matter how... Listen, brethren, this country
is at the worst that I've ever seen it. In my 50 years, some
of y'all that's been here longer than I have, it's probably way
worse than you've seen whenever you were in your young years.
I mean, it just seems like, and it seems like it snowballed just
in the last few. How wicked, openly wicked. There's always been this wickedness.
There's always been this wickedness. But praise the Lord, His constraining
grace has kept it hidden In our country, for many years, we're
just in, so to speak, if you allow me the term, in the closets,
you know. But it's wicked and it's just
snowball. Brother, God hasn't changed His
control over all things, has He? He hasn't changed His sovereignty. He hasn't lost control. Evil
is not abounding over Him. But yet we see all these things
and we think, my word, what is going on? But, brother, listen,
who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Just because
God is not showing any love to the non-elect in the fact that
judgment has come to America does not mean He does not love
His elect still. Listen, brother, while judgment
may be coming upon the evildoers, the wicked ones, listen, He loves
His elect. While we see these things going
on, don't think that God has not changed His love for His
people. As it is written, for thy sake
we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors
because we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. No, we are
more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Amen. That's
how we are the conquerors. I'm reminded of those passages
in Revelation, I believe it is, about those who are the Overcomers
are the ones who are the conquerors. Who are the ones who are the
conquerors? The ones who are in Christ Jesus. We are the conquerors
in Christ Jesus. We have conquered all these things,
but it isn't because we went out and fought hard against it.
It's because we are in Christ Jesus who has conquered them. He has conquered them. Has He
not been through every bit of that we just read? Think back
to it. Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, Nakedness,
peril, sword. Is there not one of those that
Jesus did not experience? He experienced every one of those.
And yet he overcome all those things. Therefore, we are overcomers. We are conquerors because of
him. It says, 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 creature shall be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Brethren, what
blessed words that we read there. I mean, it's just amazing. Nothing. Our sin, our guilt, all persecution,
all things outwardly, all things inwardly, nothing can separate
us from God's love. Now, I don't mean this in a bad
way or a blasphemous way or anything like that, but to try to get
the point across in here. Listen, there is nothing that
I can do, no matter how bad the doing, that's going to separate
me from the love of God. Now, I'm not encouraging people
to go do bad. I'm just saying there's nothing
I can do. There is nothing that this world
can do. There's nothing that Satan can do to separate us from
this love. Why? Because we are the whom
that He foreknew. We are the whom that He did predestinate
to be conformed in the image of God. We are the whom that
the Bible says very clearly that He has called us and justified
us and glorified us. We are the ones that nothing
can be against us because He is for us and that He sent His
only Son. Amen. Well, those were my thoughts
for this morning. Anybody got anything that you'd
like to add? Or any of you men have anything
that you'd like to share? One verse. John, the 17th chapter. It's always just kind of blown
me away. In the 22nd verse, it says, "...the
glory of which thou gavest me, I am giving them, that they may
be one, even as we are one." And so he's actually saying that
we're going to share in His glory. And we're actually sharing in
His heart. Amen. That's another thing that's
hard to grasp. It's hard to grasp that we're
as righteous as He is righteous. We're going to share in His glory.
I love the beautiful chain grace
here, you know, in verses 28, 29, that, first of all, God is
in the calling, the choosing, the purpose, and everything.
And then we find the we, the us, the whom, how wonderful that
is to know that God's grace is so wonderful that, you know,
and I've heard it said before that the worst thing God can
do is leave us to ourselves, and He didn't. It was all because
of Him. If He left me where I was, no
telling where I'd be. You know, and another thing I
see here is, we didn't see the word sanctification in those
verses that we discussed this morning. In 1 Corinthians chapter
1, verse 30, it says, There but of Him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. And it was the sanctification
of Jesus Christ that keeps us, you know, and has caused us to
be cleansed and free in Christ and before God, you know, to
stand before Him whole. So it's a wonderful passage,
a wonderful thought. I don't know about y'all, I think
most of the time when I hear people talk about sanctification,
to me they don't have it in biblical terms. They think sanctification
is a progressing... Something you can do, too. Yeah,
something that we do in progressing in holiness, becoming more holy. But every place that I look,
and I did a study on this several years ago, and from what I've
seen on that, number one, the primary meaning of it is just
being set apart set apart before the foundation
of the world in the election in Christ Jesus but also it's
being set apart for God we were set apart as vessels for God
that he might show his mercy on that he might show his compassion
on that he might show his love upon that his redemption all
this stuff you know that that has to do with if you allow me
this the positive side of Because there's the negative side, there's
the wrath, the hate, you know, the justice of God. All that
is to the vessels of dishonor, to the vessels of honor, there
is love, there is compassion, there is mercy. All those things
that are on there. Therefore, God shows all of who
he is in those two sets of vessels and everything. But that sanctification,
like you said, It's in Christ Jesus. It's not in our, amen. It's not in our work. We were
sanctified in Him. We had John Wesley, you know,
and he taught two works of Greeks. He taught salvation and sanctification. And he taught that you had to
die out for the old man. And of course, that's the Arminian
duty. But like you said this morning,
we can conform and that it was all predestined
that we would be confirmed. The key word in that is reckoned.
Reckon yourself dead. Our mind is to reckon ourselves
dead. You know, we are dead to sin. We are dead to the law. And that's something that we
have to reckon ourselves. Again, we may not see it, it doesn't
look like that, but that's the standing that we have. Our standing
is that way in Christ Jesus. I guess John Wesley really went
down that and see why he got there, because
it's a very man-centered, humanistic kind of thing. Yeah, but whenever you look at that whole
system of sanctification by works, or sanctification
by obedience and everything, I keep falling back on that if
that's where our sanctification comes in, I'm not going to be
sanctified. Because just as soon, how do
I want to say this? Even if we put aside the fact
that the Bible says that it defines the law as one body, it doesn't
break it up into little pieces like moral, civil, ceremonial. It's all one thing. And it says
that if you break it in one, you broke it in all. So the standard
isn't trying to keep it as much as you can. The standard that
God has said is keep it all. If you don't keep it all, then
you've broken it all, and therefore you're guilty of it all, and
you're condemned by it all. So, I mean, put that aside. Just me trying to keep up a sanctification
I mean, today I may do what I think is well, and then tomorrow I
go back twice as far as I came yesterday, and good. You know,
it's just a constant pedal. You know? And I'm going forward,
I'm going backward. I'm going forward, I'm going
backward. And I've mentioned to our church before, whenever
I was younger and Armenian, I would lie awake at night in my bed
trying to remember all the sins that I committed that day. And
I'd sit there and I'd try to think of every one so I could
confess them, so I could be forgiven for them. And I'm going through
the list in my mind, everything that I knew that I'd done that
wasn't right and everything. And then I'd get to the end and
I'm like, man, I don't know. There's probably more. And then
I would pray the blanket prayer. Lord, if there's any more sins
that I haven't thought of, bring them to my mind or at least cover
them, please. But the whole fact of living
that fearful life of just all constantly, I can't perform,
I can't perform. Now, to those who have not been
given the Spirit of God, that's not a problem to them. They don't
worry about that because they think their religious activity
is enough and they're good with that. They're satisfied with
how much they're doing, how much they come to church or how much
they give or how many verses they know or what all they know.
They're okay with that. But to the child of grace who's
already been given the Spirit, they have that attitude, you
know. Forgive me, I'm a sinner, you
know. They know, O wretched man that I am, that in me dwelleth
no good thing. And they battle that. Our sin
is constantly before us and everything. And so without the mindset of
knowing, praise God, we have been sanctified in Christ Jesus.
We have been made holy. We are as holy as He is holy.
And I've always, and I think I've shared this with Larry before
in times past, I always ask those progressive sanctification folks,
what is progressive? What is being sanctified? If
the flesh is just flesh and it cannot please God, if all the
flesh can do is produce sin, and if what's in us, the inward
man, is created in pure righteousness and holiness, if it's born from
above and cannot sin, than what's being progressively sanctified.
What's being progressively more holy? Because the flesh isn't
getting holy, and what's in us is all holy. It's true righteousness
and pure, I may be mixing those up, created in true righteousness
and holiness. I mean, how does it get any better
than that? It's the creation of God. It's
born from above. It cannot sin, according to one
John. So what's getting more holy? in that camp can tell me what's
getting more holy. I've shared this with Michael
before, but I used to have a neighbor who was brought up in the Roman
Catholic Church. And as a young child, he was
11 years old, he would go to Mass. What we're really talking about
is imputation and substitution. Without the substitutionary work
of Christ, we're not going to hope at all. I was mentioning
last week, the issue of substitution has really been a doctrine that
the Lord has really this year has really solidified in my mind
and caused to be of great comfort. And it was on the heels of going
through, I preached through Galatians last year, the year before last.
I preached through the book of Galatians, verse by verse. And
it was through that, preaching about the law and grace, that
at the end of all that, I really seen how substitution, not just
in my death, but in my obedience, was so overwhelming to me. that he didn't come just to,
you know, we're saved by his death, but we're also saved by
his life. And we're saved in the fact that he obeyed on our
behalf every bit of the law. So I haven't broken any of it
because that substitution is there. And what a beautiful doctrine
that is. And I don't believe that part
of it was preached enough in churches and everything. But
I think a lot of it is because a lot of churches today, preach
law because we've got to keep everybody in line, you know.
You know, it's been said, the more we see Jesus Christ, the
less we see ourselves, and it's very true in the scriptures today. Well, it's very well brought
out.