Now, as there is nothing like Scripture, let me read you a few texts, Romans viii. Though we cannot pay all, we can at least acknowledge the debt. my brethren, let us revel with delight for a moment in the contrast which I might present to you. We have at this present moment in us certain priceless things which distinguish us as believers in Christ from all the rest of God's creatures. The Spirit of God has come unto us so that our "bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost." As the wave-sheaf was the first of the harvest, so the spiritual life which we have, and all the graces which adorn that life, are the first gifts, the first operations of the Spirit of God in our souls. It is not merely that our judgment leads us in that direction, though usually the Spirit of God acts upon us by enlightening our judgment, but we often feel an unaccountable and irresistible desire rising again and again within our heart, and this so presses upon us, that we not only utter the desire before God at our ordinary times for prayer, but we feel it crying in our hearts all the day long, almost to the supplanting of all other considerations. Now the Spirit never did work effectually in any but the children of God; and inasmuch as the Spirit works in you, he doth by that very working give his own infallible testimony to the fact that you are a child of God. if thou art called, if thou art called truly, there will be a going out, and a going out alone. I have broken away from its thralldom; the new law, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the law of grace has set me free from the domination of the law of sin and death. Look! As a further test, keeping close to scripture this morning, for when we are dealing with our own state before God there is nothing like giving the very words of scripture, we are told in the first epistle of Peter, the second chapter, and the ninth verse, that God hath called us out of darkness into marvelous light. "If thou be the Son of God." His soul is translated from death unto life, but the body, this poor flesh and blood, doth it not remain as before? If the call be effectual, and you are brought out and brought in brought out of sin and brought to Christ, brought out of death into life, and out of slavery into liberty, then, though thou canst not see God's hand in it, yet it is there. Unless we are the sons of God the Holy Spirit's indwelling shall not be ours: we are shut out from the intercession of the Holy Ghost, ay, and from the intercession of Jesus too, for he hath said, "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.". Believing supplications are forecasts of the future, He who prayeth in faith is like the seer of old, he sees that which is to be: his holy expectancy, like a telescope, brings distant objects near to him. Romans 8:29 . I conclude by saying, see, my dear hearers, the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit, for if the saints know not what they should pray for as they ought; if consecrated men and women, with Christ suffering in them, still feel their need of the instruction of the Holy Spirit, how much more do you who are not saints, and have never given yourselves up to God, require divine teaching! But wherefore, conscience, should I go thus round about? What does he say upon it? you have had many troubles, have you not? To prove that, however, I will refer you to the express words of scripture: Romans 11:29 "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." In the second place, I see in our text A REMEDY FOR ALL SIN. When Satan stood forth to accuse Joshua, the high priest, he did in effect accuse Christ as well as that chosen disciple, and the Lord was not slow to put in his rejoinder to the objection: "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? As the Carthaginian, who might tread the desolate site of his much-loved city, would shed many tears when he saw it laid in heaps by the Romans; or as the Jew, wandering through the deserted streets of Jerusalelm, would lament that the ploughshare had marred the beauty and the glory of that city which was the joy of the whole earth; so ought we to mourn for ourselves and our race, when we behold the ruins of that goodly structure which God had piled, that creature, matchless in symmetry, second only to angelic intellect, that mighty being, man when we behold how he is "fallen, fallen, fallen, from his high estate," and lies in a mass of destruction. 1. This he does by arousing our desires. I hear a brave, strong voice, crying, "Who shall lay anything to my charge?" However wise and advisable a human interpolation may be, it has no authority with us; we bow to holy Scripture, but not to glosses which theologians may choose to put upon it. Cast your arms around the cross of Christ, and give up your heart to God, and then, come what may, I am persuaded that "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come. Come life, come death, my soul can rest on this. He sees hosts of angels; but those hosts are the servants of his enemy. Now here is the first touchstone by which we may try our calling many are called but few are chosen, because there are many kinds of call, but the true call, and that only, answers to the description of the text. Surely no one is so daring as to say, that all men are led by the Spirit of God; yet may it readily enough be inferred from our text, that those who are not led by the Spirit of God are not the sons of God, but that they and they alone who are led, guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit, are the sons of God. If he had willed it, thou wouldst have been among the damned; if he had not willed thy salvation, all thou couldst do would have been utterly powerless to deliver thee from perdition. In full tale hath every sin received sentence in his death. The other might have said, "Ah, you pretend to be a happy man, and here you are groaning." On Lord's-day Evening, November 7th, 1886. If all things are working, let us work too "work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh when no man can work." Blessed be his name. I think I could indeed plead if I were pleading for myself. If he cannot afford to pay, he ought to keep at home till he can." Stay awhile; that horny hand of labor shall soon grasp the palm branch. This one thing I know, I am sure that there is nothing in those heights that can separate me from the love of Christ; I will stick to that, whatever revelations there may be to the enthusiastic, whatever raptures and ecstasies and extreme delights any may have, they cannot separate me from Christ. It is called "first-fruits," again, because these were always holy to the Lord. If not, I beseech thee, stop and consider! We groan within ourselves. And indeed this is proved by the very chapter out of which we have taken our text. All the troubles of a Christian do but wash him nearer heaven; the rough winds do but hurry his passage across the straits of this life to the port of eternal peace. I can always believe the past, and always believe the future, but the present, the present, the present, that is what staggers faith. What will the father do? Let the gospel be really felt in the mind and it will toll the knell of selfishness, it will bring down the proud from their elevated solitude, and it will restore the down-trodden to the rights of our common manhood. Boast not, if thou art in the true olive. An exile, far away from his native country, has been long forgotten, but on a sudden a vessel brings him the pardon of his monarch, and presents from his friends who have called him to remembrance. But this should not be so. It is his business to be the accuser of the brethren, and he carries it on with very great vigour. The actual mode of his working upon the mind we may not attempt to explain; it remains a mystery, and it would be an unholy intrusion to attempt to remove the veil. His early years had been spent in opposition to his Saviour. Amen and Amen. II. If such be the bright hope that cheers us, we may well groan for its realisation, crying out. Take care that you pay your debts before you spend money upon your pleasures. "The carnal mind is enmity against God" Romans 8:7 . "As many are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Now, in considering this solemn subject, let me remark that there are two kinds of callings mentioned in the Word of God. Yet these are the strongest forces imaginable death, life, angels, principalities, powers, the dreary present and the darker future. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. Ay, but Christ was co-heir with theirs, and when Saul persecuted the poor servants of Jesus, he pet the Master too. Our two interests are intertwined and made one, we have neither of us any heirship apart from the other; we are joint heirs, Christ jointly with us; ourselves jointly with Christ. If he hath poverty, it is better for him, for poverty is his to help him, to be sanctified, and to long for heaven. So it is: prayer prompted by the Holy Spirit is the footfall of the divine decree. I think you will see that, like links in a chain, these different truths draw each other on the spirit of adoption proves the fact of adoption; by the act of adoption we are children; if children then heirs; if heirs, heirs of God; but since there is another heir, we must therefore be joint heirs with Christ Jesus. How much have you done after all, young man? Yet at that selfsame moment, where human eyes saw nothing seraphic eyes beheld marvels of grace, and angels in heaven rejoiced over one sinner that repented, singing once again "glory to God in the highest." The psalmist said, "I am so troubled that I cannot I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart"; but he added, "Lord, all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee." "Well!" "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth no righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." 14. We are to work with God in the matter of our becoming like to Christ. A thousand sources of joy are opened in that one blessing of adoption. He covers his face for a moment with his hands, and then looking down at his sons, and finding that the testimony is complete against them, he says, "Lictors, do your work." PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON Romans 8:1-39 . But the great high priest of our profession, Jesus, the Son of God, hath taken his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high. At all times, at all hours, at every moment, (I speak this as God speaketh it), if ye are carnal, ye are each one of you enmity against God. He hath suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Dost thou love God, not with lip-language, but with heart-service? Impossible. You have continued in it, and persisted in it." The dreariest thing you can read is the newspaper. Saul's eyes are filled with tears, and then again with scales of darkness, and he cries, "Who art thou?" This is our witnessing that we are born of God. Now, if I cannot say the first things because of diffidence, though they be true, yet can I say this, that I feel myself to be a sinner, that I loathe my sinnership, that I detest my iniquity, that I feel I deserve the wrath of God on account of my transgressions? "Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and now ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me," said the old Patriarch. Well, in the first place, there is one part of the property which we may enjoy at once. Here is the 9th article, upon Original or Birth Sin: "Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam; (as the Pelagians do vainly talk); but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit; and, therefore, in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. By the grace of God, the apostle stands defiantly in the midst of all the believer's foes, and flings down the gauntlet before them all. When Christ was bound to the tree, I see my own sin bound there; when he died every believer virtually died in him; when he was buried we were buried in him, and when he was in the tomb, he was, as it were, God's hostage for all his church, for all that ever should believe on him. Now, the divine will or mind may be viewed two ways. But, beloved, all that belongs to Christ belongs to Christ's people. If all things work together for good (all events, all circumstances, all trials, all happenings, etc. They are well put together by that master of eloquence, Paul, and they were moreover, dictated by the Holy Spirit, who telleth man how to speak aright. It should be, "The fool hath said in his heart, no God." God the ever blessed is one, and there can be no division between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It has been the good pleasure of the Lord to bless my "Personal Notes On a Text" to many of His tried and afflicted people, and to make them messengers of comfort in hours of sorrow or darkness. Let us try to meet this question, "Why does Christ intercede to day in heaven?" He goes into the tent of King Pyrrhus with the intention to put him to death, because he is the enemy of his country; he slays the wrong man; Pyrrhus orders him to be taken captive. And if we be his sons, are we not thereby bound to love, serve, and obey him? The tug of war is now with us. Veteran! By God's grace, the man who trusts in Christ's eternal love, and believes in the immutability of the divine purpose, and therefore is persuaded that he can never be separated from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, he is the man to win a glorious victory by his faith in his great God. Some do not believe in the personality of the devil; but I am as sure of it as I am of the personality of his children who deny their own father. I thought that had I to intercede for anybody, and do a mediating part, if I had to intercede for my brother with my father, I should feel I had got a safe case in hand. leaving not so much as a single drop of wormwood or gall for any to drink who put their trust in him. We see the mercy-seat, and we perceive that God will hear us: we have no doubt about that, for we know that we are his own favoured children, and yet we hardly know what to desire. Behold his goodness that he hath spread before you! This day, if we do not break fish and barley loaves, we bring you better food; this day, if we cannot give to men opened eyes and unstopped ears, yet in the teaching of the gospel of Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, the mental eye is cleansed, and the soul's ear also is purged; so that in every child of God, in proportion as he labors in the power of the Spirit for Christ, the works which he does bear witness of him that he is the son of God. He shall feast all the more joyously because they shall eat bread with him in his kingdom. I want nothing more. The alternative of this bond, if not paid, was, that we should be sold for ever under sin, and should endure the penalty of our transgressions in unquenchable fire. Here we must bow our heads. I can see black storms that have lowered o'er my head, and torrents of opposition that have run across my path, but I can thank God for every incident that ever occurred to me from my cradle up to now, and do not desire a better pilot for the rest of my days, than he who has steered me from obscurity and scorn, to this place to preach his word and feed this great congregation. To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient. When the speaker has almost lost the thread of his discourse he turns his ear, and the prompter gives him the catch-word and aids his memory. The signature of the one will not avail to alienate the estate, nor can he sell it by his own right, nor have it all at his own separate disposal, or in his own sole possession or holding. If you are now led to repent of sin; if you will now cast yourself on the blood and righteousness of Christ, your eternal salvation shall be as sure as your present existence. They record on the other hand of blood-thirsty Nero, that he became so because he was suckled by a woman of a ferocious, barbaric nature. We see not yet all things put under man, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor; and in the person of Christ Jesus this day we, the men who are made in his image, have dominion over all things, being all made kings and priests unto God, and in Christ Jesus ordained to reign with him forever and ever. So it is with those prayers which are all broken up, wet with tears, and discordant with those sighs and inarticulate expressions and heavings of the bosom, and sobbings of the heart and anguish and bitterness of spirit, our gracious Lord reads them as a man reads a book, and they are written in a character which he fully understands. We are heirs with Christ. 16-18. This does not exclude even infants at the mothers' breast. Christ hath a kingdom that shall never be moved. you are quarreling with this divine arrangement, you are beginning to differ with this blessed policy of God. As he turns over each of these love-tokens, and as he reads the words of his reconciled prince, he asks "When will the vessel sail to take me back to my native shore?" The text speaks of "our infirmities," or as many translators put it in the singular of "our infirmity." He does not say, "I am persuaded;" he does not say, "I believe;" but with unblushing confidence he appears before you and says, "We" (I have many witnesses) we know that all things work together." Those who obey his promptings shall not walk in darkness. It means, first of all, that Christ is now in the honourable position of an accepted one. What! "It is Christ that died." For, first, if I am called then I am predestinated, there is no doubt about it. Ah, and blessed be God they will too, by the work of the Spirit. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Through many troubles you have passed, but you can say, they have all been for your good. "Oh," say some, "it may be true that we are at times opposed to God, but surely we are not always so." We do not like groans: our ears are much too delicate to tolerate such dreary sounds; but not so the great Father of spirits. Behold, O trembling penitent, the means of thy deliverance. Not the "liberty, equality and fraternity," which the democrat seeks for, which is frequently another name for his own superiority, but that which is true and real that which will make us all free in the Spirit, make us all equal in the person of Christ Jesus, and give us all the fraternity of brethren, seeing that we are all one with our Lord, in the common bond of gospel relationship. And men of every kindred, and of every tribe, shall see in the face of every man, a relative allied to them by ties of blood. You, that were going to thrash mountains, find that molehills cast you down. "To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." Let us mark a yet more positive passage, Romans ix. Those who are called, are men who before the calling, groaned in sin. We cannot draw the bow of prayer alone. We are called "joint heirs with Christ" what meaneth this? I am treating the text as you see, verbally. Is there nothing to commend this? If thou hast a desire, God has given it thee. Now election shuts up the precious treasury of God's covenant blessings for his children for penitents, for seeking sinners. They are discontented enough with life and yet they are afraid to die. ", I. There have been many who have been won from drunkenness by hearing the preaching of God's Word even under myself, and those persons have been ready to carry me on their shoulders, from very gratitude, for joy; but I would be bound to say they make a far more feeble display of their thankfulness to my Master. It is twice over declared in our text that he maketh intercession for us; and the meaning of this I tried to show when I described a father as putting his hands upon his child's hands. No; though you should be weary of your life, though you should never have a ray of light by the month together, there is nothing there to separate you from the love of Christ. "For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." While you shall for awhile sigh for more of heaven, you shall soon come to the abodes of blessedness where sighing and sorrow shall flee away. III. Then he gave the words I used, and continued, "It was a true description of myself. Some men groan after wealth, they worship Mammon. And I see him look downwards; there lies the old dragon, bound in chains, the accuser of the brethren; and the apostle stares him in the face, and says, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Oh! "So he bringeth them to their desired haven," said the Psalmist by storm and tempest, flood and hurricane. 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