Last Sunday morning, we preached
out of the book of 2 Timothy chapter 2, on verse 19, where
the scripture says, the foundation of God standeth sure, having
this seal or inscription, the Lord knoweth them that are his,
and let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. That was our text on last Sunday
morning. And this morning I want, because
I got into some of these questions that we find in the 8th chapter
of the book of Romans, we mentioned a few of these questions last
week. I wanted to speak on one of these
questions this morning. It is in verse 35 that we'll
take this verse for our text in a few moments. But I do want
to go back a little bit and kind of refresh your mind as to some
of the things we talked about last week, and to bring you up,
if I can, to date this morning in my thinking, all my thinking,
concerning these questions that Paul asked. These are most intriguing
questions, and they're questions that imply an answer. Now, as we think of that verse
of Scripture that we quoted just a moment ago, which was our text
last week, We find that the Lord knoweth them that are His. And
we discuss with you how it is that God can know His people. And we discovered here in the
8th chapter of the book of Romans, in the 29th verse, or in verse
30, and verse 29 and verse 30, it says, For whom He did foreknow,
The Lord here through the mouth of the Apostle Paul is talking
about a people. He's talking about a people and
he said for whom he did foreknow. Speaking of men, it says he also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. Now the Lord knew his people. The scripture here teaches us
from old time he knew them before the world began. And this verse
says that he foreknew, for whom he did foreknow, the Lord foreknew
his people. The Lord did all of his knowing
at one time. He foreknew all of his people
from the beginning of the world. God is not knowing anybody today. He knew them all before the foundation
of the world was ever laid. And that, of course, is very
interesting and very important that we understand. The scripture
says of some, Matthew chapter 7, he said, depart from me, I
never knew you. And he meant by that, that when
I was a knowing people, I didn't know you. You were not included
in those that I knew from before the foundation of the world.
And so the Lord then knows his people because he foreknew them. Now this is not to let God look
down as some people say. This is not foresight. Some people
say, well God looked down through from eternity and looked down
through the generations of men and he could see what men were
going to do and therefore he predestinated that. Meaning that
God just stamped his approval upon what man was going to do
anyway. Well this is not, this is not
the truth. The truth is that God is an absolute
sovereign and for reasons known only to Himself, He chose a people. He chose a people with no regard
whatsoever for what they would do or would not do. He set His
love and affection upon them in old time and purposed what
they would do in regards to the gospel and in regards to the
effectual call. Now then, he said, these people,
these people that I foreknew, he said, that's how I got to
know them, I foreknew them. He said, these people I have
predestinated. I have predetermined that these
people, these men and women, and boys and girls, that they
would be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, that they would
be conformed to the image of my Son. Now, we said last week
that God loved his son and wanted all of those that were his to
be just like Jesus Christ. We're told in the Bible by David
over in the Psalms that he would be satisfied, he said, when I
awake in thy likeness. When I'm like you, I'll be satisfied. And John tells us in 1 John that
we're going to be like him because we're going to see him just like
he is. God's people are going to be
like the Lord Jesus Christ and he goes on to say That Jesus
is the firstborn among many brethren. He's the firstborn He's the one
he's the pattern and all of us are going to be like him He's
the firstborn and take note that he says among many brethren The
family of God is a many-membered family. We're accused of preaching
a very narrow doctrine because we preach sovereignty and we
preach salvation by the grace of God alone. We preach salvation
by God's elective grace. We're told we preach a very,
very narrow doctrine, but this is not the case. You see that
Jesus is the firstborn among many, among many Brethren, there's
going to be the family of God is going to be a great and family
and there's going to be many many The Bible says that they're
going to be as numerous as the sand of the seashore You're not
going to be able to number them. They're going to be so numerous,
but God knows every one of them He knows every one of them. They
belong to Him and He's made provision for them. And what a joy, what
a comfort, what a blessing to read here, as we shall in just
a moment here, to read here about the love of God and to see how
the elect of God are embraced in God's sovereign purpose of
grace as it's revealed here in these verses. Notice that whom
He did predestinate them were told he also called. That means
if God foreknew us and God predestinated us that he predetermined that
we were going to finally be like the Lord Jesus Christ that he
would then, he said that he would call us and in time he does that. He calls us by the divine spirit. He calls us by the gospel and
brings us unto himself. And he said, them that I called,
he said, I also justified. I justified them. I give them
a right standing before me. I provided for them what I demanded
of them. I put them in my Son. I imputed
all that my Son was unto them and imputed what they were unto
my Son. I put my Son on a cross, nailed
Him there. He died in their room and stood
in place. And I've justified them on the
basis of the merits of my Son. He died in their room and stood
and in their place. And then he goes on to say, those
that I justified, those that I gave right standing before
me, he said, them I also glorified. In the mind of God, all of those
that he foreknew, all those that are his, He said, I've called
them, I've justified them, and in my mind, I've already glorified
them. They're as much as glorified. Now, beloved, if you would look
over these verses, you would discover and examine this verse
here in particular, verse 30, you would see that every base
is covered, that God has not missed a point in the salvation
of these people. That God has not left, He's left
nothing to chance. Everything has been taken care
of. He's left nothing out. And you
say, well preacher, one of the reasons why I object so thoroughly,
and we take note here in verse 31, and we'll cover that. He
said, what shall we then say to these things? If so be that
all of this is as Paul states it to be, then what shall we
then say to these things? And there are those that raise
the objection and say, well this completely destroys man's part
in salvation. because God has covered every
base and He's done everything that was demanded of the sinner,
then the sinner has no room to glory, no room to boast. He seemingly
has nothing to do in this scheme. It seems that salvation is entirely
the work of God from the beginning to the end, and that it's a divine
project, not a human project. Well, that, of course, is the
truth. What shall we then say to these
things? You say, well preacher, I'd like
to say that I object to these things. I'd like to say that
I don't agree with these things. I'd like to say that I just simply
cannot believe this. Well, that God has covered all
of these bases. that He's a foreknowing, a predestinating,
a calling, a justifying, a glorifying God, and that He does all this
before the foundation of the world. He does it all before
man has ever been created, before man ever fell in the garden.
All of this had transpired in the mind of the Eternal One,
the Eternal God. And so then as we look upon this,
And think about it this morning, what I say, and I suppose what
many of you here will say, praise God. Amen. What shall we then
say to these things is Paul's question. We shall say, praise
the Lord. Amen. God is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent and
let men worship before him. This is the work of our God. And then he says, If God be for
us, who can be against us? That's another question. Now,
beloved, if God be so for us, as Paul has explained, then what
this means is, what good would it do anyone to be against us? We will have opposition, but
the opposition cannot prevail against us. Let men and women
oppose us. Let Satan oppose us. Let many
and many will attempt to thwart us and to confuse us and frustrate
us along the travels of life and in the journeys of the way,
but it will do them no good because they cannot prevail. They cannot
prevail against us. Because God is for us, it will
not do them any good to aspire to, as it were, to destroy us
or throw us off the track because God is for us. Let men do what
they will. Now, the Lord does so know His
people that He's working in their lives, making everything work
out for their good, and whoever is against them and whoever raises
up a weapon against them, they shall be thwarted. God will cause
His people to overcome. Now, He goes on to say here in
verse 33, He said, Who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect? This is another one of the questions.
Who's going to lay anything to the charge of these people that
God has foreknown, that God has predestinated, that God has called,
that God has justified, that God has glorified? Where is there
somebody going to lay a charge to their account? They're God's
elect. God chose them. God set His love
upon them. God marked them out. God blessed
them as individuals and they're His elect. He said, it's God
that justifies. We often condemn ourselves, don't
we? We often lay charges to our own account. Well, Paul in verse
34 asked another question. He says, who is he that condemneth? You may condemn yourself. And
sometimes we do. Sometimes we have good reason
to condemn ourself, maybe. But the Lord says, through Paul,
he said, who's going to condemn us? Who can lay anything to our charge
and make it stick before God? Because trying, listen to me
now, to lay a charge against one of God's elect is like trying
to lay a charge against the Lord Jesus Christ. Can you find anything
wrong with Jesus? Can you find something wrong
with His character? The Bible says He was without
sin. The Bible says He was spotless
and we're in Him and it is on that basis that none can lay
anything to the charge of God's elect. It is because they're
in Christ and Christ is perfect. He is spotless and nobody can
charge Him with a sin. And so as long as I'm in him,
then nobody can lay anything to my charge. They hated him
when he was in the world, but it was without a cause. They
did not have a cause to hate the Lord Jesus Christ. He was
perfect, the spotless Lamb of God. And then he goes on to say,
who is he that can do it? He said it is Christ that died.
Jesus Christ has died in order that there would be no condemnation
to them which are in Christ. Jesus Christ, he went to the
cross. He was hung on that gory tree
and he suffered death, that agonizing death of the cross, in order
that you and I would never be condemned. in order that we would
be justified and in order that we would be accepted by God,
received by God, just as if we had never had one infraction
of the law in our lives, just as if we had completely pleased
God all the time that we lived on the face of this earth. It
is Christ that died. And my friend, you do yourself
great disservice if you don't believe what the Word of God
says. If you're an unbelieving soul,
you are not going to get any comfort out of the Word of God. The Word of God is addressed
to faith. You must believe what God says. And he said here, Christ had
died. Nobody can condemn those that
are in him because he's already paid the price of the law. He's already paid the demanded
price. He's paid the price of sin. And
the wages of sin is death. That's what it is. It's death.
But through Jesus Christ, we've been given eternal life because
He died our death. And when He died, I died in Him. You died in Him. You must believe
that. That's the only way you're going
to be able to feel that you're never again going to come under
condemnation. Anybody can condemn you to the
wrath of God because justice is satisfied. The sword of divine
justice Was plunged into the very heart and soul of the Lord
Jesus Christ And your sin was paid for in the Lord Jesus in
his death It is his doing and his dying that saves us and then
the Lord Jesus is risen again He's been raised up out of the
grave He's not in the grave and I'm still in him and I'm living
on the resurrected side of the grave I've been risen in Christ
And I'm looking to those things that are above and I'm viewing
everything now from a heavenly point of view because I'm in
Jesus Christ and He's seated at the right hand of God and
I am too in Him. In Him. I'm seated up yonder
in Heaven. My citizenship is in Heaven from
whence also we look for the coming. of the Lord Jesus Christ who
will change our vile bodies that they may be fashioned like unto
his own glorious body. And then Paul says, who is even
at the right hand of God, he's seated there, we are in him,
who also maketh intercession for us. Jesus is making intercession
for us. He's the one that's interceding.
The Father always hears him. He's the one that's righteous,
perfect, and the Father always hears Him, and He's praying for
me. See, I don't need no priest on
earth. I don't need to go and make any confession to any man
on earth. Jesus Christ, He's my intercessor. He's my high priest. And I go
to Him. I go directly to Him. And He
intercedes for me. He's pleading my case like an
advocate, a lawyer before the Father. And when I sin, when
I stumble and fall, as I do many times, the Lord to the text. It was a little while getting
there, but nevertheless we are there at this time in verse 35. After we've heard all of these
things, then Paul of course is anticipating what people are
continuing to think. And he says here, he asks the
question, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? If the Father has
foreloved us, and if He's demonstrated that forelove by what He's done
on our behalf, and He's given us His own Son, He spared Him
not, and He's given us His own Son, Heaven's best, the best
thing He could possibly give to poor sinners. Poor sinners
couldn't get Him any other way except He be given to them, and
the Father has given us Christ, If so be, and people are still
living in this world, God's afflicted poor people are living in this
world and they're suffering tribulation and distress, persecution and
famine and nakedness and peril in this world and many have died,
given up their life to the sword. The question is, Are we being
separated from the love of God by what's happening in this present
world, in this life that we're living right here today? Well, as we consider these things,
I want us to ask ourselves some questions, and especially I'm
interested in us getting the answer that Paul gives to his
question. But first of all, he lists some
things here that would seem to separate us from the love of
God. There are some things that when
we experience them in this life, they're so difficult for us that
we may incorrectly draw the conclusion that we have been or we're about
to be separated from the love of Jesus Christ, the love of
God, which is in Jesus Christ. Now the first one of these things
that he mentions here is tribulation. Now this word tribulation, this
is a general term referring to many of the sufferings, many
of the afflictions, many of the difficulties and adversities
that God's people encounter in this world. There is a terrible,
terrible misconception going about today in the religious
world. And that misconception is we're told that if we had
enough faith, that if we could just trust God enough, that we
would no longer have any more trouble, no longer have any more
aches or pains, no longer have any more disappointments in our
life. If we could just trust God and believe God, then all
of these things would go away. And there are so many of the
professing people of God that are being deceived by this concept
that they become frustrated and they cannot understand why their
life is not easier and why things are not smoother for them. They
cannot understand it. Listening to these preachers
lie to them. Now, beloved, the Lord Jesus
said in John 16 and 33, He said, in me, He said, I speak these
things to you that in me you might have peace. But he said,
in the world ye shall have tribulation. In the world you're going to
have trouble. Now, you listen to what he said. He said, in the world, you're
going to have trouble. In the world, you're going to
have tribulation. In the world, you're going to have perplexity
and problems. And this is life, and you're
going to live with it. And you're going to have to deal
with that in the light, of course, of what I've told you, in the
light of the truths that I've given you. You've got to deal
with the fact that in this world, as long as you live in it, you're
going to have perplexity and trouble. Okay, the longer I live
and the more I study the Word of God and examine this subject
in the light of what the Bible teaches, the more I realize how
much Suffering and trouble, persecution has always been a part of the
lives of those who are faithful unto God. Those that have served
God, put Him first in their life and sought to follow Him in their
everyday lives. This suffering, trouble, persecution,
problems, affliction is a very great part of their lives. And you can't study the Bible
and believe what it says without seeing that. God's people are
a poor and afflicted and tested, storm-tossed people. And we need
to understand that. Now the root meaning of this
word, tribulation, it has to do with pressure. We're very
familiar, of course, with this term. Folks often tell us that
they have a great deal of pressure on their job. There are people
today that are having a great deal of financial pressure. There's
people that are having family pressures. All kinds of pressure
being exerted upon them. And whatever it is that seems
to press us down in our daily living is a part of the meaning
of this word, tribulation. Whatever it is that just seems
to be down and pushing us down and forcing us down all the time. This is this tribulation. Now
when we are in this pressure-packed situation living in this world
as we do, we wonder, does God know where I am? Does God know
how deep this valley is that I'm in? Does God know how troubling
my circumstances really are? Does God understand about this
pressure that I'm living under? Does He understand what this
is about to do to me? Why must I suffer so? If God
loves me and if I'm in Christ, why? Why, Lord, all of this tribulation? Why all of this trouble and this
agony? But the Apostle's argument is
that tribulation, he says, this cannot separate us from the love
of Christ. His argument is, it can. Now, he secondly speaks here
of distress, and I want to quickly get to this. Because in some
ways it's similar to the tribulation, but it's very important that
we also notice the distinction. And we see here that this word
distress that he mentions secondly, it means narrowness of place. Now I remember when Susan told
me about her taking the MRI test at the hospital, that he kind
of put her in this capsule, I can push her in this place. There in a very narrow place,
very confining, you were just, you know, you just were in there.
And if you had claustrophobia, you'd be in trouble. You'd just
be in a real tight place. Well, that's what this word means. It means narrowness of place. It means being hemmed in. Have
you ever felt that you were hemmed in and now you know that there's
people, various people in the world that's told us that one
of the reasons why that they have just broke and run is because
they felt hemmed in. We know that there are many Christians
that have testified to the fact that they just hardly could continue
to wait on the Lord because they felt so stressed and so pressured
and so hemmed in in their life. And there's been many that's
deserted their families. There's been men that have deserted
their wives, and wives that's deserted their husbands, and
people just all over the place deserting their responsibilities
Because they say, I just can't stand it anymore. I'm hemmed
in. I just can't take this anymore.
I'm not getting anything out of life. It's just that old daily
grind of things and I can't put up with it anymore. And I just
can't deal with it. It is then, when we feel this,
that we ask of God, really, does God really love me? Why am I
in such a narrow place? Why do I feel that I'm so hemmed
in? Well, all of God's people, whatever
the walk of life may be, they may face this distress. And the
root word signifies what you and I feel when life just seems
to be a big blob. That's what it is. That's what
the word signifies. Nothing exciting going on. You know, it seems like that
we turn on the television, see the people in the commercials,
and they're so excited, and they're just, oh, they're bubbling over,
and just so much going on, and we somehow or other get the idea
that that's life. That's not life, friend. That
is not the life of the people of God in this world. It's the
same old routine, day after day, week after week. You say, Preacher,
listen, I had a whole lot of plans, and a lot of goals set,
and times running out on me, and I thought when I was this
age, it would be entirely different, and things would just simply
be different, and things haven't materialized for me as I thought
they would. And I, my life as a preacher,
I'm just hemmed in, and I don't know how to get out, and I'm
under such pressure now. I'm under more pressure than
I ever was before. And, you know, I lost my job,
the fellow says. And another fellow says, well,
the company that I work for, they shut down, and I've worked
for them for 20 years, and they shut down and moved out of town.
I was talking to Stan Anderson down in Virginia. He called me
the other night. Worked for this trucking company
for a long time. Somebody come along and bought them out. 200
people out of a job and they left the country. Just went over
to another state. Moved away. Preacher, what am
I going to do? I'm under this. I'm hemmed in.
What am I going to do? Preacher, does God love me? Have
I been separated from the love of God? Preacher, how can you
say that God is for me when I got all of this trouble and all of
this pressure in my life? Well, beloved, let me say this,
and I make haste to say it, that God is a God of His Word. And He said, I will never leave
thee nor forsake thee. He said, you may boldly say,
I am your helper, and I will not. Listen, you need not fear
what man shall do unto you. The Lord said, I'll be your helper. Well, when we get in the flesh,
and we get hemmed in, and we get all of this trouble upon
us, then we ask, If God is my helper, why am I so miserable? If God is my helper, then why
do I have such pain in my body? If God is my helper, Preacher,
why did I lose my job? Why is my life so empty, Preacher,
if God is for me? Why am I in this rat race and
nothing seems to ever change for the better? Why is this preacher,
if God loves me, if He really does? Well, the Lord did not
promise that we would not have tribulation and distress. No. But He did promise that in the
midst of these, that He would never forsake us, that He would
never take His love from us, or He would never allow these
things, regardless of how big they were, that He would never
allow them to separate us from His love. He still loves us no
matter how we feel and how depressed we are. The love of God is right
there. It's unchanged. God foreloved
us before all time and we just need to believe it. We've gotten
the idea some way or another, you see, that this thing, we
got the idea that we're going to be born into this world and
that this world was going to be a friendly place to us and
that everything would work out just well for us. Here, there'd
be very little distress and trouble, and we have young people now,
just young men and women, who are saying, well, the world,
we just, dawned on us suddenly here that the world is such a
place that I don't even feel that I could bring a child into
this world, don't even feel that I'd want to. The world is in
such an awful, awful place. But we must go on living and
trusting God, believing God and do that which God has placed
us here to do. We've got to go on in the fear
of God and in the love of God and believe what God said to
us in His Word. Well now the next word that Paul
mentions is persecution. Persecution. When people are
being persecuted, it may seem as if that persecution would
separate them from the love of God. Now most of us living in
this day don't know much about Bible persecution. The Bible
says if we would live godly in Christ Jesus, we would suffer
persecution. All those that live godly in
Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. That ought to tell us something.
Now I think what it tells us is that somewhere or another
that we just simply are not living godly lives in this world and
somewhere or another we have just so lived that we have not
in any way, shape, or form put ourselves out front and defended
what we believe or to oppose the world that believes so differently
than what we have. Now hear me, we've been wonderfully
blessed in this country for the last 200 years, and we know some
of the old early Baptists were persecuted out in the eastern
part of the United States, but for the most part, we have been
wonderfully blessed. We can come, meet as we are here
this morning, and preach the Gospel, and preach the Word of
the Lord. And we need not fear that somebody's
going to come in and arrest us and carry us off down to the
jail for preaching or meeting as we do here this morning. But
in other places, it's not so. And there's so many scriptures
in the Bible, I'm not able to get into all of them. I will
mention some of them to you. In Matthew chapter 5 and verse
11, And maybe I would read that to set the tone of what I'm trying
to say here. Matthew 5 verse 11 and 12. He
said, Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute
you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, be exceedingly glad,
for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you. So Jesus says here, don't be
sad and sorrowful if you suffer persecution because he said you
rejoice and you be glad for great is your reward in heaven because
they persecuted the prophets. which were before you. And so
blessed are ye when you are persecuted. And then there's some verses
there in 1 Peter chapter 4, beginning with verse 12, where it says,
think it not a strange thing when all these fiery trials come
upon you. And if any man suffers a Christian,
let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf. But just see to it that no man
suffers as a busybody or sticking his nose in somebody else's business
and somebody gets mad and mashes his nose and he says, well I
think that's because I'm a Christian. No, just because you have your
nose in the wrong place. But it says if any man suffers
a Christian, let him not be ashamed. but let him glorify God. Now,
the next word is famine here, and this word famine means the
shortage of the necessities of life, and it's obvious here that
most of us have never experienced much of famine. But nevertheless,
it's not hard to see how that a person that's faced with such
circumstances could feel that he was separated from the love
of God, where he doesn't have anything to feed his family,
when he's not able to feed his children, when he's not able
to, as it were, to sustain himself, no provisions, famine. You know, if a person was caught
up in that, you'd say, well, I don't know whether God loves
me or not. I don't know whether the love of God reaches to me
or not. But there have been many of God's people that have been
faced with famine. And then he said, or nakedness.
Think about that if you will. Now you and I, we can go to our
closet, and we did this morning I suppose, and we could pick
through a number of things that we could wear out into public.
But there are some who have been robbed of their goods. The book of Hebrews, chapter
10, verses 32 through 37, you could read that. And I apologize if we don't have
the time to turn there and read that this morning. In Hebrews
11 verse 36 and 38, through 38, these are verses here that talk
about people being in a situation where they're destitute, and
where they wandered about, as Paul mentions some there, Hebrews
11, in sheepskins, goatskins, and lived in caves, and with
a filth and the offscouring of the earth. And so it's not hard
to see how that when people get in these kind of circumstances,
why they would question, does God really love me? Does God
really love me? Would I be in this kind of a
mess if I was a dear child of God, if the Lord really had set
his affection upon me? Now the next word is peril that
Paul uses here, and that word is danger. That word is danger. That's what that means. Well,
in many cases, the Apostle Paul had these situations. He said
he was in peril. Let's read in 2 Corinthians 11. 2 Corinthians 11. There's three
or four passages that I'd like to read, but let's turn to 2
Corinthians chapter 11. And let me read here. a portion of the word that I
think will help us to see what he's talking about. We begin
here with verse 24. Paul says of the Jews, five times
received I forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten with
rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night
and a day I had been in the deep, in journeyings often in perils
of water, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen,
in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils
in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings, in hunger, thirst,
fastings, often in cold and nakedness. Now these are the things the
Apostle Paul faced as a believer, as a preacher here in this world. And then he talks about the next
thing he suggests here is the sword. He says the sword. After all these dangers and all
this nakedness and all of this trouble and distress, persecution,
then finally the sword. The sword. Well, now if you and
I, if we knew somebody, you see the sword was the most deadly
instrument or weapon in that day that Paul lived. And here,
if we knew somebody who loved the Lord, and they were laid
out and their head was severed from their body by a sword, would
we have some question in our mind whether God loved them or
not? Well, you know the Apostle Paul, he was a martyr, and you
know he died just that way. His head was severed from his
body by the sword. The man who wrote these very
things that we're preaching to you about today. What would we
think about the love of Christ? Paul says that even the sword
itself, though it can separate the head from the body, it cannot
separate the soul from the love of God. It cannot separate God's
people. Will the sword separate a child
of God? The answer is no! No, it will
not. To be absent from the body, beloved,
is to be present with the Lord. We must face, I think, we've
got to focus on eternal things, beloved. Get our minds so much
off of these temporal things and think on the things that
are eternal. And quit thinking so much about
worldly things. This is where we get in trouble.
We must walk by faith and not by sight. We've got to believe
God and believe Him. We've got to view everything
from a heavenly point of view and quit looking so much on all
of our difficulties and diffugalties here in this world. Now he goes
on to say, here in the next verse, in verse 36, as it is written,
Well, where is it written? It's written in Psalm 44 and
verse 22 that he said, for thy sake we're killed all the day
long, we're accounted as sheep for the slaughter. This is written,
it's taken from the Psalms there. And Paul said this is our position
in the world. It's for the Lord's sake, he
said, we're killed all the day long. Now this phrase here, all
the day long, that just simply means Every day, all day long,
we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. God's people.
And you're not to expect or believe that you're locked. If it's better
than that, then praise God for it. But this is the way it is
with God's people in this foreign place, in this world where we're
strangers and pilgrims. We're accounted as sheep for
the slaughter. Now then, as we think a little
bit about this, I think that we see here how these various
things may impact upon us. As we just think a little bit,
as long as we're in this world, this is going to be our experience. We are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter, and as far as this ungodly world is concerned,
it never hesitated to take the life of any one of God's children. This world, listen to me, the
only reason that you and I have the liberty that we presently
enjoy is that God in his providence has given us laws in this country
by which we are presently protected. That's the only reason why that
we're not right today being led as lambs to the slaughter. That's
why you don't have a bigger problem than you got this morning in
your life. That's why you don't have to
worry about somebody coming knocking on your door in the morning and
saying, where was you at yesterday morning? Where was you at? That's
why we don't have to worry about somebody knocking on that door
back there and taking us all off, mowing us down with a machine
gun, stripping us all naked, and parading us out in public,
and trying to get us to recant our position, what we believe
about the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why you don't have a bigger
problem than you got this morning, is that God in His providence
has given us these laws in this country that protects us, but
I assure you that there are forces of evil at work today in America
that would gladly lead every professing Christian to the slaughter
because they hate the things that you stand for. They hate
what you believe. And they hate the Christ that
you believe in. And it's happening, listen to
me, the element is just as real right now upon the earth as it
has ever been this element of us being led as sheep to the
slaughter. And more and more the pressure
is going to be upon us to either conform or to suffer as Christians
have suffered in ages gone by when we're being pressured now
not to discipline our children anymore We're told we can't do
it. We're told that we've got to
let them just grow up. We've got to send them up instead of
bring them up. And we've got to let them run
like renegades. We've got to let them be as wild as jackrabbits.
We've just got to let them do whatever they please to do. And
we can't lay a hand upon them. We can't constrain them. Well,
you see, the people of God know what the Bible says, and they've
got an obligation to God and to His Word to discipline their
children. I'd be the first one to raise
an objection against child abuse, but I'd be the first one to advocate
to you that you take the position of the Word of God and discipline
your children. You must do it! It's your obligation
to do it and don't listen to the philosophy of the world and
those would tell you that it's not necessary or it should not
be done. Because if you do, you're the
ones going to come up on the short end. You're the ones going
to lose your child, you're the ones going to ruin your child.
If you don't take the position of the Word of God. There are
many other things that if we really, and God give us wisdom
to know where to take the stand, and to where to stand so as the
world let them take whatever position they would toward us,
and they're going to want to kill us. They're going to want
to do away with us. If we take the position on things
as we ought to. Listen, may God give us the wisdom
so that we will not cast our pearl before swine. So that we
will be able to, in the wisdom of God, walk as God would have
us to walk in this world. And you notice the cause. He
said it's for thy sake. It's for thy sake. But notice.
In verse 37. I'm going to get to that. Now
I'm not going to go through all verse 38 and 39. I'm just not
going to do that. But I've got some things I've
got to talk to you about, about verse 37. This thing is not going
to be complete unless I talk to you about this. Nay! He said,
now here you have the answer to the question asked in verse
35. He's asked the question and then
in verse 37 he said, no! Nay! None of these things can separate
you from the love of God. Nay, in all these things. Not
over the top of them, not underneath them, not around them, but in
all these things. Right down through the middle
of all of this we've been talking about this morning. The distress,
the tribulation, the persecution, the being accounted as sheep
for the slaughter. In all these things, Paul said
you're more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Now, this
is a tremendous statement of scripture in all these things.
What a paradox. The sheep are conquerors. The sheep? Well, they can't hold
their own, can they? Well, do they have a weapon to
defend themselves? How are they going to be more
than conquerors? Well, they have no strength of
their own, and through the providence of God and the wisdom of God,
we're told here that they're going to come out on top. They're
going to be more than conquerors, not just conquerors in the battles
of life, but more than conquerors. Now hear me, I said this was
a paradox, but in the Bible, the Bible teaches that the way
up is down, you know that? The way up is down. It teaches
that when we're weak, then we're strong. That's a paradox, isn't
it? And then he that humbles himself,
the Bible says, shall be exalted. These are all paradoxes. And
so it is that the sheep of Christ, they overcome. Strange, but this
is the wisdom which God has given us which is superior to men. The sheep win. The sheep overcome
in the end. Think of some of the examples
quickly with me in the Bible. Number one, think of old Joseph.
Over there in the Old Testament, and you know you might have thought
that you had a real rough childhood yourself. But old Joseph You
know, he was sold into slavery by his brothers. God marvelously
and miraculously kept him alive and saved him from being killed.
But he was accused then later, he was sold into slavery. Then
he was accused by Potiphar's wife. And he was committed to
prison, put in prison. He didn't commit the crime he
was accused of. He took a stand for what was
right. He suffered persecution. But then after a time, he was
called from the prison. into Pharaoh's house to interpret
a dream that no one else could interpret. And he interpreted
the dream and he was exalted there in Pharaoh's house from
the dungeon right to the very throne. And he became next in
authority to Pharaoh himself. Now not only did he survive,
not only was he spared, no, Joseph was more than a conqueror. Let me explain. He was more than
a conqueror because when his brothers came down in time of
famine, he was in position to provide for them, send for his
father Jacob, bring the whole family to Egypt, provide for
them, when the rest of the world was starving to death in a famine.
Joseph was more than a conqueror. Now think again with me of old
Elijah. I have to hurry here, I don't
have much time. Old Elijah over there in 1 Kings chapter 18.
He stood very boldly one day. The prophets of Baal was there
and they were calling upon their God and they were trying to show
that Baal was God in the earth and of course they were not successful
in doing that. And old Elijah, he prayed that
God would send fire down from heaven, that the people might
know that he's God, and that Elijah is the prophet of the
Lord. And the Lord was pleased. They
got the stones together. slew the bullock, they put the
bullock on the wood, they got the barrels of water, he said
you do, fill up the barrels and pour the water over the wood
and over the sacrifice, you do all of that. And then he said
you do it again. And then he said you do it again.
He wanted to make sure that everything was soaked down. And then he
cried out to God, and the fire came down, you remember? The
fire came down from heaven, and it burned up the stones of the
altar, it consumed the bullock, it consumed the wood, I mean,
it licked up the dirt, the dust, the water out of the ditches,
and the victory was the Lord's. And so, listen, and the people
all cried out and said, the Lord, He is God, the Lord, He is God. This is a mountaintop experience.
Don't you like to have mountaintop experiences? Have a good day
when the Lord just blesses and when He comes and lifts you up
and encourages you and you just rejoice in the Lord. Well, old
Elijah was a conqueror that day, was he not? And he slew. He said,
you take out them prophets of Baal and you slay them. And they were slain, 850 of them. And then old Ahab was there and
so he told his wife Jezebel, about her prophets being slain.
And so Jezebel in 1 Kings 19, 1 and 2, she sent a messenger
unto Elijah and said, now, tomorrow, if you're not dead just like
them prophets are by this time tomorrow, he said, it's not going
to be any fault of mine, I'm going to kill you. And so Elijah
took off down a day's journey into the wilderness, got down
under a juniper tree there, and cried to God and said, Lord,
it's time you take my life. Just take me out of here. He
wasn't rejoicing about the persecution. He said, just take me on out
of here. Because he said, my days are over. He said, I'm no
better than the forefathers. Just take me out of here. Well,
of course, old Elijah, you know that he never died. He thought
he was going to. He said, it's time for me to die. He said,
it's come to that. He was so afraid, old Jezebel,
that wicked woman. It was after him, don't you see?
But you know that old Elijah, he never died. Jezebel did. The dogs eat her up at the wall
of Jezreel. The dogs ate her. Just ate her
body up. And, you know, the dogs licked
the blood up out of The chariot that was washed out of the chariot
of her husband Ahab when he was killed. But you know Elijah,
he didn't die at all. You know he was caught up into
heaven and carried a fire? Yes he was! He was just caught
up into heaven, never died at all here on this earth. And so
beloved, you see how he was more than a conqueror? You see that?
Isn't that plain? Well it's very plain to me. He
was more than conqueror in the end. And then over there in Acts
chapter 7, there's a man by the name of Stephen, the first martyr
of the church. And the scripture there says,
just let me, I've got to read a little of this to you, but
he preached a sermon unto the Jews and he accused them of killing
the Lord Jesus Christ, being the betrayers and murderers. of the Lord Jesus. And when they
heard these things, they were cut to the heart. They gnashed
on Him with their teeth. And He being full of the Holy
Ghost, you see, they said, well, we got to get rid of this fellow.
We got to get rid of this fellow. He's saying things that we don't
want to hear. He's saying things contrary to
what we believe. And so He was about to be stoned
to death. And he was full of the Holy Ghost,
verse 55 said, and looked up steadfastly to heaven and saw
the glory of God. You see, Stephen saw some things
his enemies didn't see. His enemies looked upon him and
said, this is a sheep for the slaughter. That's what he is.
He's no conqueror. He's a sheep for the slaughter.
And so, what did Stephen say? He said, well, I see the heavens
open. And he said, I see the Son of
Man standing on the right hand of God. That's what I see. Well,
then they cried with a loud voice. They stopped their ears. We don't
want to hear any of this. And they ran upon him with one
accord, cast him out of the city. They stoned him. And the witnesses
laid down their clothes at a young man's feet whose name was Saul.
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, as Stephen is the one
calling on God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. He kneeled down, cried with a
loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when
he had said this, he fell asleep. He fell asleep. Was he a conqueror? Was he more than a conqueror?
He really was. He really was. Look what he saw.
He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of
God. Oh that we could all see that when time comes for us to
leave this world. Think of it if you will, this
world is just the bottom floor of the house and heaven is the
second floor of the house. The second floor of the house,
the sun shines there always. The Lord's people going home
to be with the Lord, be with Him forever. And old Stephen,
absent from the body, present with the Lord. And he was forever
free from all the heartaches and the troubles and the agonies
and the afflictions of this life. He was free from it all. He was
more than a conqueror. He really was. I believe this
is the way. Preacher, you say you think my
case will turn out like that. I just believe what the Word
of God says. I just believe that you're more than conquerors through
Him that loved you. I believe that. I think you're
coming out on top. I think it's going to be okay.
I just don't see how you can possibly ever be defeated. I
don't see how that you can possibly end up in a bad way as a child
of God, one who is loved of God from old eternity. I heard an
amazing story the other day. And this story, and I'll tell
it and then we're done. This story was about a preacher
over in China back during the days of severe persecution. And this was a Chinese preacher.
And the Bible had been banned from the country. And so this
preacher, along with some other believers in China, had arranged
for a large shipment of Bibles to be brought into the country.
And so when the shipment arrived, somewhere or another, some of
them were separated. The shipment got separated, some
of them fell into the hands of the authorities. But this Chinese
preacher and his Christian followers and friends, they had 10,000
Bibles that was put into their hands. And they were blessed
of God to take them and to bury them under the floor of a barn.
And in a few days, now after the persecution was lifted, they
would hope that they could distribute those Bibles. That was their
idea. But in a few days, the authorities
came from nearby, and they arrested this preacher. Because you see,
some of the Bibles had fallen into the hands of the authorities.
And so they arrested him and took him into custody, and they
began to question him about these Bibles. And said they wanted
to know if he had these Bibles. They wanted to know where they
were at. And so they tried every way, every way possible to get
him to tell that, where the Bibles were. And he said, well I've
been persecuted before, I've had all this before. And he said,
I'm not going to, the Lord give me grace, I'm just going to keep
my mouth shut. I'm going to be silent. I'm not going to say
anything. I've suffered like this. I've suffered before from
these persecutors and I'm not going to tell them anything.
Well, so they tried every way they could. So finally they said,
you're not cooperating with us. So they said, we're not going
to kill you, but you're going to kill yourself. So they took him out
into the courtyard which was out of doors, prison was kind
of a round prison, and the cells all opened out into this courtyard
and there was prisoners in all these cells inside and they put
this Preacher upon a large stone that was only big enough for
him to stand on. He could only stand on that stone. There was no room, except just
enough room for his feet. And they put a noose around his
neck, which was of course fastened to a beam above him. And they said, now when you get
tired standing, and your knees buckle, you're going to kill
yourself. You're going to hang yourself. Or if you step and
move off of this rock, you're going to hang yourself. You're
going to die right here. You're going to kill yourself.
And so there were two guards down below. Well, the man stood
there 24 hours. and in the hot sun and without
food or water and another day came and gone and he stood there
and he stood there and he stood there and finally seven days
came and gone and by the grace of God he was still standing
there in that one place and everybody by the end of the seventh day
and those hardened criminals and all in the prisons were standing
at the gates looking out looking out upon this man, they knew
that something supernatural was happening right there, or standing
right there before them, and so they continued, continued
to watch him, and he stood there for 13 days. And in the evening
of the 13th day, there was a tremendous storm came up, and the rain fell,
torrents of rain, lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled. And in
the midst of all of this rain, the man just gave out. His legs
had swollen to where they were not hardly recognizable as being
the legs of a man. And so his legs gave out. And
just as his legs gave out, there was a... a crash of lightning,
and he fell. And the men at the bottom caught
him. And the lightning had burnt the
rope in two, and he fell into the hands of these soldiers at
the bottom of the rock. And these men say, don't leave
us now. We know that your God is something
else. He sustains you. He's kept you. He has enabled you to endure
all that you've endured. Tell us about your Jesus. Tell us about your God. And those
men were converted. Those soldiers were converted.
And this man lived to go on and preach the gospel. He was more
than a conqueror. When it looked like that surely
the purpose of God was defeated in his life, he was more than
a conqueror. That's an amazing story and it
supposedly is a true story. I believe it to be true or I
wouldn't tell it to you this morning. I tell you God's people
are going to overcome. God's people are victorious.
There's no way you can defeat the Lord's people. They're foreloved
of God. God has provided for them in
every way. And he said, you're more than a conqueror. You're
more than a conqueror. Just hang in there, brother.
Just hang in there. And keep pressing on. You're
going to overcome. We're going to overcome in Him
who is the overcomer. Father, thank You for Your Word
and for this privilege of preaching this morning. Bless this congregation
and encourage each one of us with these words that we've heard
today. And may the Spirit of the Lord
mightily work in every one of our lives, and may we be useful
in the Kingdom of God, and may we, without fear, press on, our
Father, in the cause of Christ. We pray in His name and for His
sake. Amen.