Now we turn to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. We're going through the book of Romans. We're in chapter eight and we'll be continuing in it for another message or two. Tonight we expect to be speaking on the secret of purity and victory. The request should be out for tonight's message. Morning chapter eight of Romans and verse eighteen. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Now when he speaks of us, he's referring to the Christians at Rome, including himself, and he's referring to born again Christians, not the unsaved. For the earnest expectation of the creature or creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God, that is the people of God. For the creature or creation was made subject of vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope. because the creature or creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Not only they but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption or the resurrection of the body." In other words, our subject today is this groaning creation. And that's a very sad passage we read, and yet a very blessed one. Some sad words are used, such as suffering and groaning and travailing and so on. Does God have a program for this groaning creation as we see it and know it today? Yes, He does. that we live in a world of glooms and griefs and sighs and sobs. It's apparent to everyone, pain and poverty, sickness and sadness, sorrow and shame, trials and tears, madness and sadness. and distrust and dismay, fear and failure on every hand, and we have to face up to that fact, and none can deny it. You find broken hearts and hopes and homes and bones and bodies, that's the order of the day. You think of the millions in India and China that are dying because of starvation. Also, other millions throughout the world are getting news every day of a malignancy or some fatal illness that's in their body. And if you could only listen to their groans of their heart, it would be considerable. And then the groans that come to many when they hear of loved ones are in trouble and in sorrow. And so it is a groaning creation. In other words, you have atrocities and crimes, and they stalk our sleep, catastrophes, and tragedies, also mar our land. And it will get worse. The Bible says the last days and the last days perilous time shall come, and evil men and censuses shall wax worse and worse. Who is responsible for this situation? Is God? No, decidedly not. Everything was perfect at the beginning when God created it, before sin entered into this world. There were no such things as storms or earthquakes or plagues or floods or famines or wars or sickness. No such thing as pain or sorrow or tears or accidents or doctors or nurses or medicine or hospitals. No such thing as jails or asylum. or funerals or cemeteries or death. None of these things existed in the beginning. No injunction or misery of any kind. No murders, no thefts, no robberies, no rapes, no suicides. nothing of this nature before sin entered into this world. With all these things experienced every day the world over, it had not, as our Bible says, a groaning, travailing creation, and the worst is yet to come. If you read the book of Revelation, you find what is ahead for this world, and the Lord Jesus Christ says the tribulation will be such that the world has never seen the light. And although we look upon our world today in certain ways, a groaning, prevailing, and suffering creation, yet the worst is yet to be. All you have to do is read Revelation from chapter six to chapter nineteen, and you see what is ahead for this poor, sin-sick world in which we live. Well, who is responsible? I think the Word of God gives us plenty of evidence as to the source and the cause of what we have in our world today. If you want to read it yourself, you may do so in chapter twenty-eight of Ezekiel, you have Satan, what he was before his fall. And his fall is given us in Isaiah chapter fourteen. As God created Satan, he was undoubtedly the most beautiful creature God created before he assumed the name of Satan. Here are some of the things you read in Ezekiel twenty-eight. He says, and God is the speaker. He was full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. He had been in the garden of the paradise of God. He was a sparkling, dazzling creature likened unto ten precious stones given us in that passage, the thardest, the topaz, the diamond, the burl, the omics, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, the carved uncle, and gold. He was the anointed cherub that covered us. He was set upon the holy mountain of God. He walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. He was perfect in his way, said God, from the day in which he was created until the iniquity was found in him. Here was this beautiful creature. And yet the time came when that beautiful creature whom God had created, Lucifer's son of the morning, he sinned. In other words, rebellion was in his heart. And this is what Isaiah tells us. How art thou fallen from heaven, Holy Supper, son of the morning. For thou hast said in thine heart, And I want you to notice the five I will hear. For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation. I will ascend above the heights of the twelve. I will be like the most high. Yet, says God, thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. And the Lord Jesus Christ, referring to that incident, he said, I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. And here you have this beautiful picture, Lucifer, son of the morning, the coveting cherub, whose beautiful wings hovered over the very pole of the eternal God, as he looked down upon it, and he coveted the power of God. And the moment he did, God pulled them out of heaven into space. And I believe the catastrophe that followed is evident and upon almost every planet in our solar system. You look at your moon, you see the pop-holes, you see the craters, and there's nothing lovely or beautiful about the moon, and that is true of every other planet that they've been able to explore. It was through of this planet, undoubtedly the whole creation of God converged with efficiency and was hurled out of heaven. And I want to say this, he didn't come alone. He brought angels with him because the Bible frequently refers to fallen angels, fallen principalities and powers. and the revokes of joining Satan in the revolt against Almighty God. But the sad thing is this, when God decided to put Adam and Eve upon this planet, Satan set his covetous eyes upon Adam and Eve, because God had made Adam and Eve brutal over all that he had created on this planet, the birds and the beasts. God had made him the caretaker of that beautiful garment, and that was too much for Satan. Satan had been hurled out of the presence of God, but now he's going to try and destroy more of God's handiwork. He wants even the power that God had entrusted to Adam in the garden, unless you have the force of all rebellion, revoked and revolution and defiance, uprising and disobedience. Jason is behind it all, and he was the one that got ease to disobey God, and she more or less revolted against God. She defied God when she disobeyed God, and did what God told her not to do. Thus you have this groaning creation, all creation composed was thrown into confusion when Satan sinned. Even the animals, the beasts groan. You may got in Joel one eighteen, in the jungles and in the forests that animals small and large die and devour and destroy one another your domestic animal. They also know something of burning because of droughts and floods and storms. Why in the past week we've noticed about the floods down in Florida and the wildlife they're trying to rescue. even animals groan when they suffer and when they're in circumstances such as starvation. I've heard horses groan that have their legs broken or are suffering. Creation, even the animals groan. The fishes of the sea groan and the birds of the air groan. All creation is groaning. But we are interested in the human race. Today we have groaning hearts, groaning bodies, groaning homes, groaning societies, groaning loans. All creation is groaning. And that's what we read in our passage. the whole creation groaneth and forbeareth in pain, until now, until now. You and I are living in such a creation. Rebellion has brought emptiness to all. Recently I read two articles by two brilliant writers, and I'm going to quote from these men, I wouldn't want to trust my memory on what they said because it's too significant. And neither of these men were Christians. And you'll find one article that I'm going to refer to in the February, the one that I'm going to write to, the other one was in the paper only a few weeks ago, and I flipped it out, as I thought of this passage in Romans eight. And this is what this man says. And again I say, he was not a Christian. Life is a futile struggle against nothingness. Never before have so many had so much. but the proliferation of things has only deepened the sense of emptiness which afflicts millions of men and women. Never before have our achievements been so dazzling. We are able now to traverse continents in a few hours. to orbit the Earth, to walk upon the Moon. Yes, our technological successes have not heightened our bitter frustration at being unable to abolish world and poverty. All the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast depth of the Solar System. The result is a worldwide phenomenon. More and more patients are crowding our clinics with the complaint of an inner emptiness, the sense of a total and ultimate meaning of life. Man is rushing into the spiritual wasteland of atheism. Man has got rid of God's silly faith, yet something is still missing. And isn't it true? Even communism, today faith they got rid of God. In reading reports and magazines about the activities of missionaries, they say there's a real hunger among communists, especially the feds. Those who've been taught to believe there's no God. They're even believing that, as they have some for a few years. There's no God. They've got rid of God. Therefore, everything's okay. And yet they're discovering that even that thought that there's no God and death ends all. There is a hunger. There is an emptiness. There is a longing. There's a yearning for something. And that something has an answer. Why today the frustration behind the children, the rebellion of children against their parents, the rebellion of students against the institutes of learning, the rebellion of labor against management, and the radicals against an established society, what's behind all this? This frustration, too, but the number behind that is rebellion. Rebellion, rebellion. I want to say that Christians certainly are not excusable. There is rebellion in the heart of some Christians. Whenever God shows you something in his word and wants you to do it and he refused to do it, there is rebellion. just like a parent who says to his child, I'd like you to do this. And the child says, I won't, or he goes away and doesn't do it without saying a word. And when God tells his people to do something, he means for that person to do it. When God asks the sinner to accept his son as his Savior, and that sinner refuses, he's rebelling against God. When God asks his children those who are saved to be baptized and they refuse to be baptized, they are rebelling against God. When God asks them to remember his son the first day of every week, they refuse to do it, they are rebelling against God. And when God tells them not to do this, them not to do that, and they go ahead and do it, they rebelling against God. All this rebellion, Satan is the source of it. And let me tell you it's in human heart today. Human heart says it has never been before. The personification of rebellion will be seen in the day when the Antichrist comes, when he lifts his puny fist in the face of God and defies God. And in that day there will be rebellion, the like of which this world is never known. And that day is not far off. But even in that coming day, that rebellion will be futile, because God will destroy the beast, the antichrist and all who receive his mark. And if there is anything a child of God has got to be exercised about, it is rebellion in his heart. Varian against divine authority. Here is the word of God. Am I a rebel against divine authority? But going back to the unsaved person, oh, what a rebel he is. A rebel. Some of them are radically rebels, refusing to accept Christ, refusing to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be saved. I thought if I read to this article that I've just read to you, I thought of it, man's heart without Christ is like a dark, damp, dirty, cold, an empty cellar or dungeon. That's the condition of man's heart without Christ. The rebellion reign, resentment reign, man's heart is in the dark. instead of his heart being in the light. Man's heart is dirty instead of being clean. Man's heart is cold instead of being warm. Man's heart is empty without Christ when Christ would like to fill it. The next article that we read... over in the February edition of Jesus' Digest of a year ago. I was quite amazed when I saw the title of it. The title was Listening to the Language of the Universe. And this is what was said. New sounds from the vastness of space have jolted astronomers. The celestial size of crops at Arecibo Puerto Rico by a spherical reflector, one thousand feet in diameter, the telescope itself is like a dish laid flat, would cover twenty acres. so sensitive it can pick up signals measuring one thousandth of a millionth of a watt. A noise so faint that it makes a falling smoothly sound like a boulder crushing down the mountainside. The sounds were like a sigh, the drawn-out tremulous kind of sigh a troubled man might give. Imagine that. They're listening to the sigh of the star. And yet my Bible says in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the morning stars filling together, and all the sons of God sounded, shouted for joy. There was a sweet harmony existing among all the constellations and solar systems. But today they're sighing. So comprehensive is sin. This man goes on. He says the sounds were like a sigh, the drawn-out tremulous kind of a sigh a troubled man might give. Stars vibrating in such death tolls were emitting such melancholy exhalations as were reaching Earth. These startled astronomers and scientists said, and I want you to get this. Is something calling man without his having heard it yet? Has something been calling life steadily since its beginning? Are they waiting for us out there answers to questions we've never even asked? If so, the business I saw going on about a cyborg, the business of all astronomers, astronauts, and men of space may well be the solemnless business on Earth. Signals, frequencies, megacycles, never heard or picked up before. This article proves a groaning creation, also that out there there's a voice that is trying to reach the ear and heart of man. When I read that article and I have it at home, if you'd like to read it in this entirety, I was amazed. And the writer of that article, when he heard of this huge apparatus down in Puerto Rico, there was picking up sounds that had never been heard before. First the sounds of a man groaning. That's what caught my eye. And I thought of this text, this groaning tree. not only man and beasts and birds and fishes, but all creation is groaning. All creation is sighing. All creation is suffering because of sin. Because of sin. This is a groaning creation. And this man, he said, when I heard of this, I jumped the first plane out of cyborg. And he gave that report in the magazine. And I'll tell you, it's wonderful when you start to think that God, this great God, who created this universe, he's trying to reach the hearts of men and women who are suffering in this groaning creation. That's the voice they couldn't interpret. They couldn't explain it. Well, I'll tell you, friend, that voice is explained right here in. This is the message that God is trying to get through to man. Man living in a groaning, sighing, sobbing generation. And all of you know it. Of course you have your days of pleasure and your days of brightness and joy. When you seem to forget everything else, then life is wonderful. But every human being comes to some time in his life. It may be a matter of hours or days when, friend, he knows something of groaning. He knows something of sighing and sobbing. He knows something of frustration and grief. He knows something of these things. Those human being have ever lived who hasn't had such an experience. But let me tell you this, even the Lord Jesus Christ grown three times over. But he didn't groan for himself. He groaned because of what sin had done, of what he saw in the world. So we find this groaning creation of which you and I form upon. Now God is not responsible. He was not responsible. What happened or what happened of what's going on today in the world? If God were responsible for this mess that we're in, why that would be inconsistent with His revealed character as a God of love, a God of justice, a God of order. And for God, His way is perfect. And this creation, even the planets are not perfect. But as for God, his way is perfect. And I want to say this, God in the beginning when he created the heaven and earth according to Genesis one and one, it came pressed from his hand in perfection like himself. But the earth became without void, form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Because of sin, Satan's rebellion against the Almighty God brought this situation about. What's going on in the world today is only an enlarged example or illustration of what's going on in your little heart. This world is round. You think of any sin you like. Write it down. Your heart happens to be like this. But I'll tell you that everything you can write down inside that world, you can write down in your heart because the seed of it is there. What you see in the world today is but human heart expressing themselves. Every conceivable sin is living in the human heart. And there's not a sin in this world that you couldn't commit if you were in certain circumstances. Make no mistake about it. Our hearts are set fools of aniquity. Now I know that some home... God, behold, produce an environment and early training of children is such that some children have brought up shelter from all this going on. And to me it amazes me that we have as many moral, clean, honor, good characters among our young people that we have when you consider what's going on in the world. But how many a young person who has been brought up in a religious home went to Sunday school as long as they can in them have turned out to be some of the worst characters that ever walked our streets? Showing that resident in their heart by birth was a fallen nature, a rebellious nature, all that required was time and opportunity and circumstances, and it came out. So today you can look upon this world as a picture of your heart as God sees. God wants to bring about a change, and he's not responsible for the state of the world, nor is he responsible for the condition that exists now in your heart. One thinks of what the Lord Jesus said to the disciples when they found tears among the weak in Matthew thirteen. The disciples asked the Lord about these tears. What did the Lord Jesus say? He said an enemy hath done this. And he tells us in that passage who the enemy was, Satan. Who is the enemy of God and man, Satan? Let me tell you, friend, God is not your enemy. He's our best friend you could ever have. God is not your enemy. But the strange thing is, the Bible says you are an enemy of God. If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. You cannot find in your Bible where God has to be reconciled to man. If man is just to be reconciled to God, man is a sinner, he's a rebel against God. And God wants man to come back and be reconciled to him. An enemy has done this. I've had a lot of funerals to take in this chapel since I've been here in fifteen years. It's strange to say I had to take a lot of funerals of people who've never been inside the chapel. A number of years ago, two policemen shot a man. And they claimed in self-defense. The man had never been to church. And both the policemen were far larger than this little five-foot-three man. Yet they said that they shot him in self-defense. They come to find out that one of those policemen was going with this fellow's wife. You may remember the case. Kimball's turn the next day when they had the funeral. They couldn't get all the people in. I was asked to take the funeral. Mr. Kermel said to me, he said, you know, these people don't know this man. They've come to hear what you've got to say about such a death. Why, what's going to happen to a man who's been shot under these circumstances? Because truly he was estranged from his wife and he'd been drinking. Well, I'll say this, as I said then, that, that an enemy has come this. Susan is behind such things as that. And that's only one of many. Why, only about a year ago, we took the funeral of a man, his wife, and he shot her, and then he shot himself. Maybe you remember that, too. Neither of them Christians, we had to take the funeral. We were asked to leave. And there was no possible hope that they'd gone to heaven. But who's behind these things? No job. An enemy has done this. The destroyer has done this. And this can be said about a lot of things that happen. You couldn't attribute them to God as the inconsistent to his character, to the victims of God. And as many things that happen in your life and mine, even Christians, that God is not the author of, an enemy has done this. Satan, trying to ruin your testimony for Christ if you're a Christian, trying to tempt you. Did he not try and tempt the Lord Jesus Christ? He did. Three times the Lord Jesus Christ said, It is written, it is written, it is written. And an enemy has done this. The enemy of God and man, if you sit here this morning and you're unconverted, you do not know Christ as your Savior. The reason you're unconverted is because of the power of Satan. over your will and your heart. For there's one greater than Satan. Greater is he that is Christ, speaking to the Christians. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. There's no excuse for a person being unsaved. Satan is strong, I know that. But there's one stronger than Satan. He can deliver you from the clutches of Satan. So says Christ, an enemy has done this. Sin and Satan are behind all the tragedy and catastrophes of life. The cry is today, you hear it, as people refer to what's going on in the world. Why doesn't God do something? You see, the human heart may mean God for you. Why doesn't God stop the war in Vietnam? Why does it stop a lot that's going on in the world? That's the human heart. So it'll blame God. God's not responsible for this. God's committing it, and man's going to learn by his own experience that it doesn't pay to rebel against God. They say, why doesn't God do something? Let me tell you something. God has done something. He is doing something, and He's going to do so more. What has He done? And He looks at this groaning, prevailing, suffering creation. What has He done as He looks at you in your unconverted condition? He gave His Son to gasp and to do more. Could you ask God to give more? He gave His Son. That's what God has done. Because man has sinned, and sin has got to be punished on the wage that sin is debt. And Jesus Christ suffered for our sins. He paid our debt that we might go away. Why if silver or gold could have saved men and women? God could have created planets of silver, constellations of gold, if silver and gold could have saved men and women. Men and women needed a savior because they had sinned. And that savior must be a sinless savior, and only one was found, and that was the Son of God. And God gave his Son. Do you want him to do more? God has given his son the Lord Jesus Christ to die upon the cross. He rose again. He now sits in heaven at God's right hand. What is God doing? God is calling out of this growing creation of people for his name. God looks upon what's going on in the world. He sees the drift, the tide. He tells us where this world is going. This world is like a huge truck with cargo on it, and that cargo, human being, going down a steep hill, and God is trying to snatch from that feeding truck with all human freight. He's trying to snatch individuals who want to be delivered, whose hands are out, whose hearts are hungry. on this planet and with its human race upon it, going on to the destruction. God sent his son to save whosoever will, and he'll save everyone who says God be merciful to mean the sinner. God is calling out to all nations of people for his name. Christ bore our sins, he annulled the power of Satan, he bore the curse of a broken law, and he satisfied God. And let me say this, that Christ is the only hope of a groaning heart, a groaning body, a groaning home, a groaning society, a groaning world, and a groaning creation. God gave His Son for that purpose. Think today that man try to live a good life and do a few puny good works and give a few dollars and think that's the way. No, then, the situation is more serious than that. It took nothing less than the son of a living God to come into this world and to die upon a cool cross and be raised again from the dead of the chagies. That's what it says. That's what God has done. And what is he doing now? He's saving all who believe. What will he do in the future? He'll come and he'll raise all those who will fall asleep in Christ. He'll catch up and change all those who are alive on earth beneath the sages in the air. And so shall we forever be with the Lord. That's what God is going to do. God has a plan for this planet. Today is saving precious souls. He has a future program too. After the church is caught away, all born again once, then the worst days this world has ever known will fall upon the earth for approximately seven years after which hope will come of the Armageddon. And to read out of his kingdom all things are of sin. Then is when the world will feel the fist, the male fist of an angry God against sin. And all these defiant rebels we see in the world will be destroyed. And then the church, with Christ shall reign over the earth, and Israel, God's chosen earthly people, shall go into the millennium and shall reign ahead of the nation instead of the he, the first of the nation, instead of the last. In other words, no man can relieve this groaning situation. No church can relieve it. No government can relieve the situation. Why we had, as you know, Roosevelt's New Deal, Truman's Fair Deal, Kennedy's New Frontier, and Johnson's Great Society. Have they relieved this groaning creation's one sigh? No. There's only one who can do that. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. As I said a while ago, he groaned at the grave of Lazarus. He groaned at what sin had done. And he had come and expressed purpose to relieve the groaning hearts of those who had fallen. He was towering over a loved one, a brother who had died. When you accept Christ, it means that sons replace slaves. Saving replaces sin, liberty replaces bondage. Glory replaces groaning, and heaven replaces hell, and life replaces death, happiness replaces hopelessness, and joy replaces sorrow, happiness, triumph replaces tragedy. That's what Christ means. This salvation is for the soul now. Right now, if you accept Christ, your soul will be saved. But this salvation also saves the body when Jesus comes, when our vile bodies will be changed into his likeness. And this salvation will save the world when Christ reigns in the millennia. You might say those of us who were saved this morning, When we consider the power of Satan, the mess this world in, and that we're saved and going to heaven, we have a right to say unanimously, hallelujah, what a savior. To know that I'm saved out of the mess, and I can go to heaven with a joy in my heart, instead of groaning, it's going to be groaned. Instead of sighing and sobbing and singing and rejoicing, I wonder if you know this morning this pager of whom we have been speaking. With Christ a brighter day will dawn. Without Christ a darker night is coming. Our only safeguard in this bewildered, confused world is the Bible. Those who believe this Bible and are saved have Christ now, by the Spirit within them, shall have Christ himself in person, in eternity. You right now are either part of this great rebellion that we mentioned or add in the statement. You are part of that great rebellion. the growing creation, and the growing crisis. We are up right now. Or you are saved, ready for the coming, His glorious return, to have a glorified body, to share His glorious reign, and experience the grand unfolding of the wisdom and power of the God of age. God will show in that day to all who were saved and in heaven, how sin is it of what that sin is called, and how God devised a plan to save man from sin and Satan's domination and deliver him and make him like his son to reign with him like him forever. If you're unfaithed, you're rebelling against God and Christ. If you are saved, you have surrendered to Christ and to God. What will you do? What? Rebelled or surrender? What will you do now? You leave this meeting this morning, either a rebel against God and Christ, or you leave this meeting having serenity. You will live with the will of God and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and pass out to this groaning, prevailing creation. into the glorious liberty of the children of God. What a wonderful verse, verse twenty-three is, and with this we flow. And not only they, that is every living creature, the animals we've been speaking about, not only they are groaning, but ourselves, Christians which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, what? waiting for the adoption to lift the redemption or the resurrection of the body. That's what we're waiting for. Those of us who are saved are waiting for the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ. Unlike the mother and child who are giving birth to her son, She rejoices the beginning of travail because a son has been born into the world. This world is travailing in pain, that passage says, travailing in pain in the plan of God. That travailing because of the goodness of God and giving His Son to die upon the cross. This tragedy will end ultimately in the birth of a new world in which God shall be all in all, inhabited by all those who have opened their heart and received Christ as his or her personal seed. Will you leave this meeting a rebel? or a redeemed child of God, to answers locked within your heart, may it be yours to refuse to return any longer, but surrender to the claims of Christ. Right now, let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend you thy servant. We ask thy blessing upon thy word May it stir the hearts of those of us who were saved and were living in this lonely world. We have a contribution to make, try and reach others who are involved in this strong current of rebellion against the Almighty being carried on to the cataract of wrath. O Father, we ask you to exercise our hearts without seeking to reach for love. those here this morning who are on stage know they're not Christians. May they lay down their arms and hoist the white flag of surrender and come to Christ and make him the captain of their salvation. He asked if he was worthy.