Pray with me please. All gracious and merciful Father,
show us your love today. Show us Christ today. May we
see Christ clearly and the love that is in his shed blood for
our sin as he died on the cross to save us. Cause that love,
dear Lord, that we see in Christ to flow into our hearts. affecting
all that we do as your love flows back out to your glory, to the
glory of our Savior Jesus Christ. And as I, your humble servant,
try to preach, oh dear Father, let me speak your words. Let
them be a comfort to your people. Fill us with your love, giving
us faith in the hope of Christ. that makes us not ashamed. In
Jesus' name I pray. Amen. If you've closed your Bibles,
would you open them please to Romans chapter 5, the first five
verses. My text this morning is the fifth
verse, but I want to read the first five verses, all five of
those verses this morning because I want you to have the fifth
verse in context. We see clearly from the general
scope and meaning of those exceeding great and precious promises which
are given to believers in the gospel of Christ, and there are
many, many precious promises, but we see that it is the intention
of our Heavenly Father that his people should enjoy every possible
consolation in their passage through this world on to a better
one. It seems to me that our gracious
God isn't satisfied with only just giving us the positive assurance,
which we have in Hebrews 4.9 that says there is a rest which
remains for the people of God, though our rest in Jesus Christ
is a marvelous rest. And so our loving God has determined
to give His people many refreshing springs of comfort along their
way. which makes their pathway smooth and sometimes makes the
desert that they pass through, this desert of a world that we
pass through, to blossom as the rose. God continually shows us
His love in all that He does for us in Christ. He continually
comforts us in many, many ways with His love. But especially
the great work of the regeneration of the heart which redirects
our hearts to God that is a loving work which is performed on believers
by the Holy Ghost and is this work of the new birth which I
pray that we all would know or that we will know from experience
which is the prerequisite of all happiness because with a
changed heart come all of the blessings of God's grace such
as patience and hope as well as love, joy, peace, goodness,
and faith, and so many others. And you can depend on it. In
the same proportion as the love of God is shed abroad in the
heart by His divine power, God's love will flow out again, influencing
every situation that a believer finds himself in, because as
the love of God flows in, creature dependencies and the comforts
or the conflicts which arise from all creature dependencies,
they flow out. There's no room left in a heart
filled with God's love. When divine love is shed abroad
into the hearts of God's people, Their hearts are changed by God's
love so that God's love, not self-love, but God's love, God's
unselfish, undeserved love becomes the operating principle by which
we live. God's love enters into every
part of a heart which has been made by God ready and able to
receive it. filling every nook and cranny
and leaving little or no room left for the tenants that were
there to remain and occupy. And so because the soul receives
all of its nourishment, feeding on this one principle alone of
God's love, which is a fixed and settled principle, there
will be a hope that maketh not ashamed, a hope that won't let
us down, Even in the worst of times, it is a hope that will
not make us ashamed. Our circumstances may vary on
the outside, but for those who are justified by faith, there
is a peace within which keeps the heart and mind through Christ
Jesus. But let the Apostle speak his
own words, as he tells us in the opening words of Romans chapter
5, some of the many precious effects which flow from a state
of justification before God. Look at these words carefully,
please, as I ask you to turn to Romans 5, beginning in verse
1. It says, Therefore, being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, And not
only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation
worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. And hope maketh not ashamed. Why? Because the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given
unto us. Paul is saying that when the
soul is taken by God, out of a state of enmity with God, in
which every man is born in that enmity, that enmity between himself
and God. And he is then brought into favor
with God, brought into a loving relationship with God, through
the merits and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That everything
changes because of that love of Christ, which is in our hearts,
which God puts in our hearts. Then, Paul lists various blessed
consequences which immediately arise out of our justification
before God and Christ. How very beautiful. How unanswerably
conclusive is this reasoning of the Apostle Paul. He takes
up this subject from the beginning, and then having considered the
separation or the enmity which sin has made in the sinner's
heart towards God, He tells us about sin removed and peace restored
by God's love. But then Paul goes on to prove
not only that the distance and the enmity between God and His
chosen people are removed, but the greatest favor and affection
of God flows to them in Christ. God tells us of His love. He sends us His love in Christ. A love relationship is formed.
by the three persons of God with God's chosen blessed people.
The redeemed sinner, after being taught by the Holy Spirit about
the love of Christ, which is seen in Christ's sacrificial
death for sinners, is then drawn step by step, this one that God
loves, is then drawn step by step by God, until seeing the
love of God, the sinner leaps into the very bosom of God with
a holy familiarity and a loving affection. I pray you know what
I'm talking about. I pray that's your experience.
It is only with God our Father that we are said to have peace.
And this peace is in our hearts only through the merits of that
almighty peacemaker, our Lord Jesus Christ. But that part which
God, the Holy Ghost, bears in this great work shouldn't be
overlooked or forgotten either. Because the access to this grace
of God wherein we are said to stand reveals God's gracious
leadings by whom it is accomplished. Because while we have this access,
the Apostle in Ephesians 2.18 tells us that it is by one spirit
unto the Father. And the loving consequences which
come out of these gracious acts of the Godhead on the hearts
and minds of the Lord's people also deserve our attention. These
safe sinners who are admitted by God into God's reconciliation
and favor are admitted at the same time into all of the privileges
of God's love which has been shed abroad in their hearts.
The faith which justifies the faith of Christ who is our justification
in which we stand qualifies us to do nothing less than to rejoice
in the hope of the glory of God. God who gives sinners grace will
also give them his glory. God's salvation is the result
of God's divine favor and therefore the gift of God's grace now is
the sure pledge of God's glory hereafter. So my prayer today
is that the loving triune God, that God we owe so much to, for
his gracious operations in our souls and for such unspeakable
mercies in our hearts. My prayer is that he might teach
us by his word and by personal experience about the effects
of his love, showing us with the convincing evidence of his
love by directing our hearts into this love of God and into
the patient waiting for Christ. Oh, dear Father, we pray. We
pray that your Holy Spirit might graciously give us a personal
knowledge of the effects of your saving love in our hearts by
divine teaching. Teach us, we pray, as we study
your word. Amen. What I'm saying to you is important.
It's important that we be taught by God. Because in seeing the
love of God by God's grace, The believer is then able to discern
in his heart that the grand source of all happiness is Jesus Christ. Did you hear what I said? The
grand source of all happiness is in Jesus Christ. The believer,
when he is led by God to see by faith that his gracious act
of Christ's redemption didn't originate in the merit of man,
But it began in Christ, with the love of God, then he is able
to see Jesus Christ in a new light. Before you can see Christ,
before you can see Christ in this new light that God gives,
you have to see first that your salvation did not have anything
to do with yourself, but it all began, originated, and is done
by Jesus Christ. He is able to see, once he sees
that, he's able to see God's love in Christ. Because he sees
that his salvation is only in Christ. And the effect of his
seeing that salvation is completely the work of God in Christ. And it's that the believer plainly
discovers that the continuation of God's love to him depends
only on the unchangeable purpose of God in Christ. You see, God
doesn't change. He loves you before you first
loved Him. He loves you in Christ. He saves
you in Christ, and how important it is that we all see that. God's
love does not change, and so He will not take away your salvation.
So then, as the believer is taught by the Holy Spirit of God, He
learns about the Father's covenant of grace as a fixed and predetermined
plan of God's loving mercy in Christ. He sees that God's mercy
isn't intended to operate sometimes and then not operate at other
times, according to the state and temperature of the human
mind. But God's love and mercy is in itself one uniform principle
of action. God is love. God is merciful. And that love and mercy is seen
in Christ's sacrificial death for sinners. That's the love
that changes hearts. Oh, that God might change our
hearts by filling them with the love of Christ. And therefore,
in direct proportion to the love of God occupying the believer's
heart, or to use the more expressive language of the Apostle, as the
love of God is shed abroad in the heart, it's shed abroad like
pure milk, when that milk is dropped on water and then that
milk sort of spreads itself over the surface of the water and
affects the whole. So that as God's love flows into
the believer's heart, he's enabled to find comfort in his view of
the covenant engagements of God in the worst of times as well
as in the best of times. No matter what his outward situation
will be, he can look to Christ and know the love of God. This
is important for us to understand. So let me give you an illustration
of what I think Paul is saying to us here in Romans 5. Suppose,
if you will, that there is a true believer in Christ, a true believer
who stands in this justified state which the Apostle is describing
here in this fifth chapter of Romans. And through the merits
of the Lord Jesus, this believer, by faith, has felt the influence
of the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit.
Then suppose that this believer who is justified by the faith
of Christ is then brought under the influence of some strong
temptation. Maybe this temptation is on top
of or is added to other conflicts that are going on in his life
that come from the powers of darkness. So that he has other
trials in his life to contend with too besides his temptation. So that this believer has a great
stress in his soul. And then added to it, there will
certainly be some deep sense of indwelling corruption that
also afflicts him. Most of us, I think, have been
exactly where I am describing this believer. We've been in
the same situation. We become overwhelmed with our
trials and our temptations, and maybe even overwhelmed with our
guilt. We do that because we're not
looking to Christ. Turn please to Romans 7 verses
14 and 15. There are many times like that
in the life of believers. When the believer has no strength
of his own and he realizes it, he has no strength to deal with
these temptations and conflicts. And so where will his soul find
relief? Where does he find the strength
to deal with these temptations and trials of life? It can't
be in himself because in himself he knows that he's weak. He has
no strength of his own to deal with the powers of darkness.
And his sin brings him down into the dust. As Paul said about
himself in Romans 7, verses 14 and 15, he said, For we know
that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow
not. For what I would, that do I not,
but what I hate, that I do. So where does a believer find
strength in his times of need? Now turn please to John 14 and
verse 16. God the Holy Ghost, who is the
only one, the only power who can illuminate the darkness of
the mind, may have stopped his shining, his giving light to
your soul. For whatever reason, I don't
know, but he may have stopped for a time giving light to your
soul. Most of you, I think, have probably
experienced that. But there is one thing that is
absolutely sure because it is a sure promise of God. We know
that the Holy Spirit has not withdrawn his presence from the
soul of his redeemed Because that is, according to Gospel
promises, that is impossible. In John 14, verse 16, Jesus said
to us, I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another
Comforter. He'll give you the Holy Spirit,
that He may abide with you forever. God's promise to us is that the
Comforter, the Holy Spirit, will abide with God's people forever. But what do we do? What do we
know about the job of the Holy Spirit? Turn to John 16, verses
14 and 15. Although the Holy Spirit may
be at home in the believer, found a home in a believer, we don't
always sense His presence, do we? And unless God gives us His
grace to act by the faith of the Lord Jesus, It is certain
that no communications can flow because it's the Spirit's peculiar
work, as Jesus says in John 16 verses 14 and 15, of Jesus Christ, to fill our
hearts with love for Christ and for the things of Christ. It
is the job of the Holy Spirit, as I have just read, to take
of Christ and show Him unto His people. And so I ask you, when
you're in your trials, when you're in your temptations, where do
you look for comfort? You can't look to yourself because
you know that you're weak. You can do nothing. Where do
you look for comfort? Well, a true believer looks to
Christ as the Holy Spirit shows him Christ. And so we see the
sweetness and the importance of God the Father's covenant
love in which that blessed promise has its full accomplishment.
The believer looks to Christ, not to himself, but he looks
to Christ because all things are in Christ. In Hebrews 13,
verse 5, God has said, I will never leave nor forsake thee. It's in looking to Christ that
we find strength. It's in remembering that Christ
died that we might have life, that we might find our strength
in Christ. It's the love of Christ shed
abroad in our hearts which gives strength to poor sinners. In
contemplating this provision of God's covenant engagements,
the soul finds relief at all times because it is an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure, as it says in 2 Samuel
23.5, so that Christ will never leave us or forsake us. So then,
it is no longer a question within the soul of a believer when he
is under any trial or sin or temptation, whether or not God
may help him, but the child of God is enabled to assume with
a confidence that is well grounded in Christ that God will surely
help in our time of need. We only need to look to Christ
for our strength and help and His love will pour into our hearts
giving us the strength of Christ which is His love. There aren't
any purr adventures with God's promises. It's never perhaps
with God's promises, but everything is fixed and certain and absolute
in the love of Christ. This view of God as a covenant
God in Christ removes all fear. Love casts out all fear. But what do we do in those situations
when we're tempted and we're in trial? In our fleshly nature,
we tend to look to ourselves. We may pray for the strength
to fight the battle, But then if God gave us the strength in
ourselves, we would get the credit. And God is a jealous God. When
Christ died, He conquered the enemy. He conquered sin and death
and Satan. The battle is already won. Christ
is our strength. So in love, we look to Christ,
remembering His love. Praise God. It is very sweet. and an unspeakable mercy to have
a covenant God to look to, a covenant God to rely on in all seasons
and in all occasions. It is in God's covenant grace,
it is in Christ's death as our substitute, that we see the love
of God. And that love flows into our
hearts as we look to Christ, and then it flows back out again
as we live for Him. And next to the blessedness of
the covenant itself, the method by which God the Father has graciously
condescended to adopt by way of recommending it to our warmest
embraces, is a very pleasing addition to its enjoyment. Turn
please to Hebrews 6, verses 17 and 18. You know, a promise isn't
worth very much when it comes from men, because even the best
of men break their promises all the time. But a promise from
God can be counted on. When you consider who and what
God is, and the love that we see in Christ, and in the unchangeableness
of His nature and perfections, a promise from God should be
enough to satisfy even the weakest mind. Because God's promise,
God has promised sinners the Savior. And Christ died for us
to keep that promise. So if he kept that promise, then
every promise that God has promised, he will also certainly keep. God, when he entered into his
covenant agreement, pledged himself to faithfulness by his solemn
promise. And we know that God is able
to perform all that he has promised. But by faith, we know that it's
more than just that God is able to keep his promises. God is
not only able, God is willing to keep His promises. And so,
because of His great love, He does keep His promises. In Hebrews
6, verses 17 and 18, it says, wherein God, willingly more abundantly
to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel,
confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which
it is impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation
who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before
us. Jesus Christ is that hope. God
confirmed his covenant promise in a way that surpasses all of
our ideas about mercy. In the blood of his dear son,
God stamped the validity of his promise with an impression of
tenderness and love that is unequaled in my mind or knowledge and I
think in yours as well. Listen to this carefully. As
a perpetual seal to his covenant promise, God marked in blood,
in Christ's blood, no less than the precious blood of Christ
in that standing memorial of Jesus' death which we call the
ordinance of the Holy Supper. In that, God designed to keep
up a never-ceasing remembrance of His love among the faithful
to every renewed commemoration. The Lord Jesus Himself gave this
importance when He called it the cup of the New Testament
or the New Covenant in His blood. Now, if you put all of these
things together, you see what a gracious design God the Father
had so that his people would be refreshed on all occasions
with a view of his covenant mercies and his love in Christ. Turn
please to Galatians 3 verse 15. God was not content with only
expressing his love and mercy in the covenant itself because
the covenant is in fact nothing but grace and mercy from beginning
to end. But our compassionate and loving
Father who knew very well the weakness and the unbelief of
the human heart, adopted all of these other methods of comforting
us to express his love and mercy in order to gain our desire to
receive his love, so that when the other waters of the sanctuary
ran low, then the thirsty soul might find sufficient strength
and nourishment in this truth. God has shown his love to us
in Christ. God has shown his love to us
in Christ's death on the cross for our sins. And as the Apostle
says in Galatians 3.15, Though it be but a man's covenant, yet
it be confirmed, if it be confirmed by the death of Christ, that
no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. So therefore God's covenant
was established on such immutable or such unchangeable pillars
that it must be like himself, the same yesterday, today, and
forever. And the believer finds it to
be so because in his darkest hours when he stands justified
in Christ's righteousness and in his heart the love of God
has been shed abroad by the Holy Spirit unto him, he looks to
Christ and he finds consolation. But let's look at this next same
blessed work of the Spirit's influence in this way too as
it's called forth in an exercise towards the person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. from the well-known union which
the true believer has with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He possesses a property interest or a share in whatever belongs
to the Redeemer. All that Christ has are yours
in Christ. Follow this closely because if
you can understand it by the teaching of the Spirit, it's
going to be a blessing to you and you'll see God's love in
Christ death even more clearly, I think. At least that's been
my experience. As the covenant head and mediator
of his people, Jesus Christ is a member of his own mystical
body. And therefore as the head of
his church, he is literally a part of himself because the head is
part of the body. So that not only all his springs
are in him, but Christ's graces can never totally become weak
in the body. while they were rushing forth
from His almighty fountainhead. Because I live, Christ says in
John 14 verse 19, ye shall live also. Turn please to Ephesians
5 and verse 30. Our life is in Christ. We live
in Christ. And so it is impossible for the
least or for the most inconsequential of Christ's people to ever perish
without involving the Redeemer in the same destruction. Because
as Ephesians 5.30 says, we are members of His body, of His flesh,
and of His bones. You cannot imagine, I think,
a body going around without a head, can you? Well, I can't imagine the church
going around without Christ at the head either. Jesus Christ
is the head of every one of his people. He rules over them in
love. Which of you doesn't love your
own body? Christ loves his body, the church,
and he has shown it to us in many ways. Now this might be
a new idea to you. I don't know. Though it isn't
new in the sense that we haven't looked at it before. It's just
so marvelous that it is hard to understand except by the teaching
of the Holy Spirit. But it's a major blessing which
results from the love of God in Christ. From our text we get
this idea that even though we are still in our present fleshly
state of existence, and so everything that comes from us is imperfect,
or as we've said before, all that we do is filled with sin.
Yet as the love of God works through us or is shed abroad,
there will still be a holy and godly perfection in the operation
of the love of God and his work done through us in the power
of Christ as the branch is connected to the vine or as the head is
connected to the body. We are truly and properly united
to the Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of a renewed life in the soul,
the communications from Christ's fullness will still be more or
less revealed according to this principle of divine love being
shed abroad as coming from the Spirit's work through us as the
love of God is shed abroad in the heart. As the love of God
flows into us, it flows back out again as love of Christ to
accomplish God's will. And where there is created by
God the greatest emptiness, of all creature or worldly enjoyments,
there will then be in proportion a larger space available to be
filled by the Creator's love. And so also when the heart is
swarming with vain thoughts like a cage of unclean birds, until
these birds fly away, or more properly speaking, until they
are put to flight by a changed will, what room can be found
for God's love? It becomes very sweet for us
to see, and indeed it is among the principal occupations by
which the Holy Ghost sheds abroad the love of God in the heart,
that the method which God is pleased to adopt by the accomplishment
of so much mercy is all from God and not in the least bit
from us. Not from us or from our strength
and ability, but it comes from God. But at the same time, in
order to empty the souls of God's people, to receive divine things,
God often seems to permit His people the gratification of their
wayward desires in the pursuit of one creature comfort after
another. He seems to do this on purpose
so that from the continual disappointment in themselves, They may be brought
back again to seek the love of Christ and to seek their happiness
in Christ. That's the only place where it
can be found. That's the source of our happiness
and the source of love. It is for this end so that God
might draw His people back to Christ and make them dependent
on Christ for all things, that God tinges all of their comforts
with vanity, and he converts their desired pleasures into
sources of pain. God causes a bitter fruit to
grow out of the very plant that his people had proposed to themselves
to find much sweetness in, so that by throwing down one after
another all of the false props of creature competences, God
brings them low in the dust before himself by way of preparing them
for the greater manifestations of his love. when we see our
unworthiness is when we see God's love in Christ most clearly.
Turn please to Hosea 2, verses 5-7. There we find a beautiful
illustration of this from the example that God gives us of
Gomer. Gomer is a picture of God's church. And beginning in Hosea 2, verse
5, we read about Gomer. She said, or because she's a
picture of God's church, the church said, beginning in Hosea
2 verse 5, she said, I will go after my lovers that give my
bread, and my water, and my wool, and my flax, mine oil, and mine
drink. This woman, you get an idea,
she loves herself, don't you? She's a picture of God's church.
But these are strong expressions of desire which God is using
to describe the many wanderings of the heart after its various
idols. She says, mine, mine, mine, my
wool, my water, my bread, my flax, my drink. Strong expressions
of desire. But what does God say to all
of this? In verse 6 of Hosea 2, God says, Therefore behold,
God is speaking, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make
a wall that she will not find her paths, and she follow after
her lovers, but she will not overtake them, and she shall
seek them, but she shall not find them. Then shall she say,
I will go and return to my first husband, For then was it better
with me than now." Our job is to look to Christ
because all things are in Christ. To every born-again child of
God whose head and Savior is Jesus Christ, the things of the
world that we sometimes desire and that we sometimes seek after
are not nearly so good as the things of Christ. Here you see
at once an illustration of the process of grace, God's grace,
by which the Holy Ghost brings back the soul and prepares it
for the full enjoyment of divine love. We won't find love in the
things of the world, but by God's mercy we can find love in Jesus
Christ. When God has mercifully induced
sorrow, disappointment and pain, which has sickened the hearts
of his people in their pursuit of all of the worldly creature
comforts, and having thus driven all of the buyers and sellers
out of the temple, a fit habitation is then formed by Jesus himself
to enter in, and his great love is revealed again more fully
to save sinners. The heart of the sinner melts
under a deep sense of his own folly and ingratitude towards
God. when God's goodness and mercy flows out towards him in
love. Then full of these impressions
of God and of his own sinfulness, the believing sinner is driven
to his knees in prayer to confess his vileness and God's mercy.
The redeemed sinner's language then is as Psalm 119 verse 96
says, I have seen an end of all perfection. The end of all perfection,
of course, is Jesus Christ. And as in Psalm 73, verses 25
and 26, the sinner says to God, Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My
flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. These are precious testimonies
of the Holy Spirit's influence on our hearts and souls in conforming
the doctrine of our text in Romans 5.5. The love of God is indeed
shed abroad by His power when all creature affections are lessened
or removed by God to make space for the fuller reception of the
Redeemer. And that is done in proportion as this blessed principle
prevails by the power of God's Holy Spirit. so that all other
idols die or fade away when the Holy Spirit shows us the love
of Christ. So that you are able to estimate
your own exact situation in your relationship with Christ and
in the love of God being shed abroad in your heart, let me
give you this thought, and I believe that you can depend upon it.
According to your estimation of the degree in which the Lord
Jesus is held by you in love, Such, more or less, is the Spirit's
operation of this blessed gift of love in your heart, because
your love and affection can come from no other source but Jesus
Christ. In those happy souls where this
influence of God's love is largely extended, there will be no apprehension,
no distress, no deadness to divine pains, no anxious desires for
earthly pleasures, no spirit of bondage, and no guilty fears
for perfect love casts out fear. As it says in John 4.18, the
Holy Ghost sheds abroad the love of God with such fullness and
such sovereignty that it sweeps away like an overpowering torrent
all other considerations. Oh that God would make this true
for all of us. Is that your prayer? He'd make it true by showing
us more clearly the love of Christ. As it is with all true believers
in Christ, in whose hearts this love of God prevails, as they
experience that the creature comforts of this world have lost
their sweetness, as their affections lose their bitterness, as their
afflictions lose their bitterness, while God's love is uppermost,
they can and do enjoy Christ in everything and without anything
because in all circumstances which concern them. they see
the working of love of God in Christ Jesus. Turn please to
Romans 8 and verse 35. Are God's people blessed with
children? Are they blessed with friends and health? If they are,
then in God's love they see the hand of Jesus in these gifts,
and it gives them a special blessing. Are they deprived of them? Are
they pried of children and friends and health? If they are, then
they stand defenseless and alone. And if so, then having the Lord
is their portion. In Christ they have all that
they need. And more than most, they have God's love. When slander
and accusations are unjustly thrown at them by the world,
they will hardly be felt while the peace of God rules within.
In those times of trial, the strife of tongues will be as
the clamor of distant multitude to the soul, which is wholly
occupied with the love of God. Sweet and precious was Paul's
experience to these truths when Paul, in the full confidence
of them, cried out in Romans 8.35, Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? And skipping down to verses 38
and 39 of Romans 8, we see that this will be a happy testimony
to us if the Lord will cause us by faith to say as Paul did,
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. I have only one more bit of evidence
to bring to you to illustrate this sweet doctrine of the Spirit's
work of shedding God's love in the heart. That is that when
the Holy Spirit reveals Himself to your soul in His gracious
operations so that it opens another source of enjoyment to you, the
believer, in a consciousness of the source from whom all these
mercies flow, You might well imagine, indeed, without my insisting
very much on it, that if God the Holy Ghost is, as the Scripture
teaches us that He is, if He is the sole author of all the
delightful fellowship and communion which true believers have with
the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, then the same grace
would be exercised to lead your mind to a proper understanding
of the person and operations also of the one who is the cause
of these joys, Jesus Christ. I find this very interesting.
The many methods by which the Holy Spirit of God carries on
His grace in the soul in quickening, reviving, comforting, and strengthening
influences are all just so many illustrations of this doctrine
of God's love being shed abroad in the soul. And although our
Inattentive and careless minds forget a thousand proofs which
God is continually giving to us of the love that is in Christ. And yet still there are sufficient
evidence in every believer's experience to the fact itself.
We have ample evidence from God to demonstrate that while the
Holy Spirit is shedding abroad the love of God in the hearts
of God's people, to open up communion between each of the persons of
the Godhead and the souls of the redeemed sinners, God is
no less calling up every devout affection of their hearts towards
Himself. Every grace indeed which is brought
forth into the life of a believer by the Holy Spirit so that faith
acts on the person of the Father or the Son as well as all of
the sweet influences which manifest themselves in the life of a believer.
They are the immediate result of this divine power of God and
they are called in Scripture the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians
5.22 says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, godness, and faith. Turn please to John 16, verse
13. But the greatest of these is
love, isn't it? It's the love of Christ given
back to God by God's people. I encourage you to look with
a critical eye at what the Holy Spirit of God is doing in your
life. What is the Holy Spirit doing to teach you of the things
of Christ? If you know that you are being
taught the things of Christ, then you are being taught by
the Holy Spirit. For example, at any time that
you've been deeply burdened with distress in your soul, which
comes from a misunderstanding or a perversion of God's Word,
and you are in danger of being led away by error, the error
of the wicked, do you experience the teaching and correcting of
the Holy Spirit? I pray that you do. And when
you aren't understanding a passage of Scripture that you have experienced,
that you've had the experience with what Christ promised, in
John 6.13 Jesus said, Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth,
is come, come into your heart, he will guide you into all truth.
For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear,
that shall he speak. And he will show you things to
come. He'll show you of God's continuing love in Christ. And
has the Holy Spirit, sweet teaching, flowed into your mind in such
a way that it seemed like a voice though not an actual voice, but
it seemed like a voice speaking to you saying, this is the way,
walk ye in it. When you turn to the right and
when you turn to the left, walk ye in it. As the prophet said,
you should expect to experience in Isaiah 30 verse 21. I know that what I'm saying and
what I'm describing is not something that all of you have experienced
by the grace of God. Some of you have not had the
joy of experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life,
showing you the love of Christ. I know that. But God is real,
and God is love, and God is merciful. His love has been shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. God does
indwell His people. Oh yes, you can depend on it.
The sweetness of all spiritual gifts becomes more or less according
as the blessed spirit himself takes the things of Christ who
is the fountain of them and he shows them to you while the soul
is enjoying itself at the stream, the stream of love that comes
from the fountain. Do you know anything about this
precious word? About which the text speaks,
the love of God shed abroad in your heart by his divine power?
My earnest prayer is that you might know, that you might know
these things of Christ and that they would be made known to you. But I encourage you to make a
diligent inquiry. If you will look to Christ, you
will find God's love. Because although divine grace
isn't given by God because of our human seeking, and yet when
sinners are brought within the call of God's grace, God has
said in Ezekiel 36 verse 37 I will yet for this be inquired of by
the house of Israel I will be inquired by the church to do
it for them and so I say to you ask then and you shall receive
because this is the promise of God seek and you shall find and
knock and it should be open to you for as a father knowing how
to give good gifts unto his children So shall your Father give his
Holy Spirit to them that ask him. May God graciously shed
abroad his love in every heart that can hear my words. May his
power flow through to you in love. May he fill us with joy
and peace in believing that we may abound in hope through the
power of the Holy Ghost. Amen.