Thus have I tried to set forth the cheering fact that the Spirit helps the people of God. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." If that is not the meaning of the text I do not understand the English language. "What!" And yet it is within reach of every truly penitent sinner. but thou wilt not leave one of the "many brethren" for whom he died: the Spirit shall be with them, and when they cannot so much as groan he will make intercession for them with groanings that cannot be uttered. They are the family of God, and the family of Satan their character how different their end, how strangely divided! that the Holy Spirit may so convince us of sin, that we may unanimously plead "guilty" before God. Many of you will not feel the force of Christian reasons, let me remind you, that even you are obliged to the laboring poor. The other might have said, "Ah, you pretend to be a happy man, and here you are groaning." As Jonathan of old, with his armor, climbed up the steep place in the cleft of the rock and began to mow down his enemies, so, believer, alone or with your friend, as God has called you, climb up, for verily the possession is yours, and you may take it. I owe nothing to the past, I owe nothing to the future, I owe nothing to the rich, and nothing to the poor, compared with what I owe to my God. Many a Jonah, who now rejects the doctrines of the grace of God, only needs to be put into the whale's belly and he will cry out with the soundest free-grace man, "Salvation is of the Lord." We keep our longings to our Lord, and to our Lord alone. The Spirit of God never prompts us to ask for anything that is unholy or inconsistent with the precepts of the Lord. "This world is ours," says the apostle in another place, and ours because it is Christ's by right of inheritance. Consider again, I pray you, what a dignity God hath conferred upon you even upon you in making you his son. Once thou didst wallow in the mire, and if thou shouldst adopt a swine to be thy child, thou couldst not then have performed an act of greater compassion than when God adopted thee. What! The rod has been upon our back and we have smarted very sore, but in the darkest hour we have been able to say, "The time is in my Father's hands; I cannot murmur; I would not repine; I feel it is but right that I should suffer, otherwise my Father would never have made me suffer." Expect not, then, that all things shall work together as for thy good. Let a man once believe that all the treasure within is his, and then the stouter the bolt, and the surer the lock, the better for him. Or, to come nearer the truth, it is as when a mother puts her arms around the neck of her little child, and her child puts its tiny arms about the mother's neck; that is how we and God are joined together. Dries he sit upon a throne? The Holy Spirit helps us to bear the infirmity of our body and of our mind; he helps us to bear our cross, whether it be physical pain, or mental depression, or spiritual conflict, or slander, or poverty, or persecution. Can you not do it? You may walk the broad acres of this round globe, and never look upon a single spot that is not yours. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in the Greek, phronema sarkos, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the Law of God. It is not so in the family of God. cries a third; "a downright lie." Very likely all things will work together in a clean contrary way to that. Have I passed from death unto life by the quickening agency of the Holy Ghost? See how his father teaches him. Think not that our longings here below are not shared in by the saints in heaven. Brother owes to brother what he cannot pay until he dies. A fine title indeed if it belongs to every man! "You know how you used to blaspheme his name." "Who is that? There is a secret something about the Christian of which Satan wishes to spoil him, but which is entirely out of his reach, so the saint sings, "I am persuaded that neither angels, nor principalities, nor powers can separate me from the love of Christ. But I repeat it, this universal call is rejected by man; it is a call, but it is not a attended with divine force and energy of the Holy Spirit in such a degree as to make it an unconquerable call, consequently men perish, even though they have the universal call of the gospel ringing in their ears. III. A CHRISTIAN BROTHER was asked, one day, "To what persuasion do you belong?" So they are, but he that is with you is mightier far. We are debtors to the past. This poor man knows very little about law, and is quite unable to meet his cunning opponent. You can say, "God has given these souls to Christ, I am going to take them in Christ's name." At least, they seem to have lost their first love to him far sooner than they did to his servant. What does that mean? And yet God had a goodly land for him, and intended greatly to bless him. I fear many of us here must acknowledge that we do not charge the sin of it to our own consciences. I served the world, he would not, in mine age. 'The Believer's Challenge' and 'A Challenge and a Shield', Delivered on Sabbath Morning, June 5th, 1859, by the. We read that, when David had cut off Saul's skirt. If thou art this day an heir of heaven, remember, man, thou wast once the slave of hell. Yes, blessed be God, even this foe can be overcome by the weapon the believer wields in the power of God, for he can tell conscience, as he told his former opponents, "It is Christ that died." Amen. Here stands the case. Methinks I see the fathers at their midnight lamps, the ancient saints in their much-frequented closets, the thrice brave preachers in their pulpits denouncing error, and the faithful pastors reproving wrong. We believe that in the death of Christ there was a full penalty paid to divine justice for all the sins which the believer can possibly commit. I refer to the poets, men who stand aloft like Colossi, mightier than we, seeming to be descended from celestial spheres. Remember thou art now a debtor to God in a legal sense, as thou art in Adam, thou art no longer a debtor to God's justice as thou once wast. Where are those words which you have added, "Whom he did foreknow to repent, to believe, and to persevere in grace?" Measure me by the articles of the Church of England, and I will not stand second to any man under heaven's blue sky in preaching the gospel contained in them; for if there be an excellent epitome of the gospel, it is to be found in the articles of the Church of England. Yet was he stern in the denunciation of all evil; so should we be. He sees a throne, and on it sits one who is glorious; but it is his enemy. Has it lifted up the constant tenor of your life, so that you spend your life with God in prayer, in praise, and in thanksgiving, and can no longer be satisfied with the low and mean pursuits which you followed in the days of your ignorance? Turn to Romans, the 4:chapter, 13th verse (Romans 4:13 ) and you will find that there the promise that was made to the seed was that he should be heir of the world. This detailed study of Romans 8 will encourage you to live free of sin's shackles and enjoy victorious, confident communion with Christ. Soul, this suggests to thee a solemn enquiry, "Art thou in Christ or not?" If so, why doth God promise them what they have already. He said to himself, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." But it is added, "We groan within ourselves." Christ was in his death the hostage of the people of God. May the sons of God be greater than the sons of Romulus. Why the Lord may use any words. It is almost as good as Scripture; for Scripture leads us to think of the sufferings of Christ as an unfathomable deep. O Christian, thou canst not be condemned, for Christ has paid the debt. Romans 8:1 is widely misunderstood for two reasons: first, katakrima, the word typically translated as condemnation, does not mean that. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have been begotten into the family of grace. We need only the gospel thoroughly preached to bring about "liberty, equality, and fraternity," in the highest and best sense of these words. It is Christ that died." But in the case of the believing poor, their claim upon us is far more binding, and I beseech you do not neglect it. But the text, you see, furnishes us with a higher witness than this. A man might as well try to dispute him out of the fact of his existence as out of that equally sure fact that he has been born again, and that by gracious adoption he has been taken into the family of God. It still lingers in the realm of bondage, and is not brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God. We are predestinated to be conformed to Christ in that respect; the serpent's subtlety and cruelty will assail us also. The answer, therefore, to the statement, "There is sin," is this, "Christ has died. If any take up the gage of battle, and say, "We condemn you," we shall have this for our complete answer to every one, "It is Christ that died." Romans 8:28 . you a saint? let the cross and bloody sweat remind thee of thine obligation. He uses the aorist (past) tense, not the present. There were no seats whatever provided tor the priests. If this be not yours, neither are the rest, for they are in the same indenture, and they are beg seethed to you in the same will. He has come on purpose to put away our sin, and when he died, he made an end of it. We have known horror caused by guilt, and, therefore, for the future shall be throughout eternity a nobler race, freer to serve, and serving God after a nobler fashion than any other creatures in the universe. THE PROTEST OF an innocent man against the charge of an accuser may well be strong and vehement. If Christ owed anything to the justice of God by reason of his suretyship engagements, he would not be at God's right hand: but he owes nothing whatever. Do you think so? How can I pray? 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. Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. I know my brethren, it is very hard for you to believe this. Saul was anointed to be king when he was seeking his father's asses; and many a man has been called when he has been seeking his own lust, but he will leave the asses, and leave the lust, when once he is called. Now these longings these pantings for something more than this world can give you were but the evidences of a child-like spirit, which was panting after its Father's presence. Let me show you that you have not been hearing strange doctrine. PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON Romans 8:16-39 ; 1 Corinthians 15:39-58 . I shall not refer to any class of society, and say of them, we are debtors, except to one, and that is the poor. So the Christian has a good Father, a blessed, eternal home, and groans to get to it; but, ah! We may be remarkably indebted to members of parliament, but for the little they do they are tolerably well rewarded; at least, we take it that the place is more an honour to some of them than they are to their place. He looked at me, and picked me out as if I was the only man there, and described me exactly." Let us mark a yet more positive passage, Romans ix. EXEGESIS: ROMANS 8:12-13. Why, dying is the end of work; it is living that is hard work. 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