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Dinner in our Epistle to the Romans, and tonight from chapter five. Epistle to the Romans, chapter five. Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand. And let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but let us also rejoice in our tribulation, knowing that tribulation works endurance, and endurance approvedness, and approvedness hope, and hope putteth not to shame, because the love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us. For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for the good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Therefore, it is as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come. But not as the trespass, so also is the free gift.
For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many. And not as through one that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment came of one unto condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses unto justification. For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one, much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ.
So then, as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation, even so, through the one act of righteousness, the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so, through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. The law came in beside, that the trespass might abound. But where sin multiplied, grace did abound more exceedingly, that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Lord fill our hearts with the sense of his abounding grace. One of these days it could be that you will come across an accident in the street. And if you do, permit me to give you a little, rather cheap, medical advice. Suppose there has been a car accident, and you come across a man lying on the ground. His left leg is broken, his right arm is broken, the front of his face is smashed in, and he's looking a horrible sight.
But in addition to that, some bit of iron from his car has gashed his leg and severed the main artery, and the man's blood is slowly pumping away. Now, what do you do? You say, well, he does look a terrible sight. Let me get out my handkerchief and, and just brush the blood off his face, and let me try and put his nose back straight as it ought to be, because he is a horrible sight and doesn't look very well. No, you wouldn't do that, would you? You say, yes, he's a horrible sight, and one of these days we shall have to attend to that, but the first thing we must do is to stop that artery bleeding, for if we don't, the man will perish completely, and then we shall have a chance of putting his face right.
And so it was that the gospel found us all, like the Samaritan found the man who had fallen among thieves, found us battered and disfigured in our characters and personality by sin. But the gospel, being God's wisdom to salvation, didn't first start about putting our spiritual face right and making us look nice. It went for what was our first and primary and most urgent need, the question of our guilt before God. For we were guilty indeed and exposed to God's wrath.
First thing the gospel does for us then is to deal with our guilt and deliver us from the wrath of God. Oh, marvelous thing. The gospel is God's power to salvation because for everyone who believes in Christ, it can give free pardon. It can justify him, that is to say, put him in the right with God, declare him right with God, freed from the wrath of God, reconciled with God. Last time we were thinking of the technical terms related to this justification.
It is by grace we found, that is, the opposite of our works. We are justified by grace without works. It is not that God's grace gives us the grace to do the works that merit the salvation, not at all. God's grace is the opposite of works. This justification is given to those that do not work, that solely put their faith in Christ. And then we considered at the end of our study what the Bible means by faith, and we found that it is not a merit. It is not a work that deserves our justification.
It is not a work that produces our justification. We put ourselves in imagination vividly by the tomb in which Jesus Christ our Lord lay, dead, stark dead. And we reminded ourselves that he had come to this because of our transgression. He was delivered up to the rigors of God's law, to the terrible sanctions of that holy law, and they consigned him to death. He was delivered up for our transgressions.
We stood in imagination beside his tomb and saw that body dead, cold, inert, lifeless. Had he remained like that, we should have been lost forever. Therefore, the urgent need we saw was that Christ should be raised again from the dead. What could be done about it? The answer was that we could do nothing about it. Our faith did not contribute to the raising of Jesus from the dead.
It wasn't the fact, let me remind you, at the risk of being absurd, it wasn't the fact that John, Mary, Thomas, Bartholomew, and all the rest of them collected around the tomb of our Lord, and by their faith made his body rise. Of course not. There's nothing man could do, nothing the strongest believer could do. It was God's sovereign act of free power that raised him from the dead. That risen life stands first as the witness that God has accepted that sacrifice, and that God accepts all who trust that sacrifice.
The fact that God communicates that same risen life to all that trust that risen Savior. We saw then that our faith is not some putting forth of our power that somehow produces our salvation. No, no. Our faith is not a work of merit at all. It is simply us coming in our bankruptcy, agreeing with God that we are guilty, that we deserve his judgment, that we cannot save ourselves, admitting that the sentence of God against us is not only just, but has a right to be carried out.
Then putting our faith in Christ, taking our stand with him, who for our sakes bore that sanction, and accepting as a free gift, gratis and for nothing. As simple bankrupts who contribute nothing. That free gift from God, that is faith. However weak our faith may be, it remains true that the gospel has got rid of our guilt, it doesn't stop there.
And the rest of this epistle is going on to tell us of all those marvelous things that God's salvation is now doing and shall yet do for us, by way of patching up our ugly faces and removing the blots and the blemishes, and in the end conforming us to the image of God's Son. And it's a glorious program. But before we embark on that, let us stop to, uh, consider certain delightful results that come to us from the fact that by faith in Christ we have been justified and cleared of guilt before God.
Result number one is this, that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God. Notice, please, the passage says peace with God. Does not say we have peace with ourselves, but peace with God. There is a difference, isn't there? A very real difference. It is important indeed that we understand what the difference is. It is very rare that a believer will ever be fully and a hundred percent at peace with himself.
Is it not so? Well, I hope it's so. I hope you're none of you at a hundred percent peace with yourselves. Are you? You're not satisfied with yourself? Looking back over this last week, you are hundred percent at peace and saying, yes, I'm a pretty decent fellow. I hope you're not. I hope while you were giving thanks to God for victories won and progress made, in your heart you're still terribly dissatisfied with yourself. Some of us may be disgusted with ourselves at this very moment, for the slowness of our progress and for the frequency of our faults and the repetitions of our many old, very stern mistakes.
Not at peace with ourselves. But all thank God, while we are not and should not be at peace with ourselves, if we have trusted the Savior, we may have peace with God. Knowing that he has accepted us as we are, accepted us for Christ's sake, is no longer, in the legal sense, wroth with us. We are reconciled, justified, declared right, accepted by God. We have peace with God.
There are some manuscripts of the New Testament that, instead of saying here, we have peace with God, read, let us have peace with God. And accordingly, some English translations have followed those other manuscripts. For my own part, I think that they are right who say we have peace with God. But even if the other manuscripts were more correct and that the original reading was let us have peace with God, then even so, let us tonight perceive what that would mean. It wouldn't mean let us try and get hold of peace with God. It would mean let us go on having, that is, let us enjoy peace with God.
You might as well. Oh, my dear believer, if you are not enjoying peace with God at this moment, well, you might as well. There's nothing to stop you. Peace with God. My I love. as the hymn puts it, is oftentimes low. My joy still ebbs and flows, but peace with him remains the same. No change. Jehovah knows because my acceptance with God doesn't depend on me, it depends on God's acceptance of a great sacrifice of Christ.
Let us enjoy this, my dear brother. If for the moment the troubles and trials of this weary life and the disappointments with yourself have overcrowded and overborne your spirit during the hours of this week, now then just for a moment pause and let the sunshine of peace with God break through the clouds. Look again into the face of God and know that for Christ's sake, he has accepted you. You have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And not only peace with God, but solid ground under our feet.
For the second result of being justified by faith, says this verse, is that we have had access, we have been introduced into. We have been introduced, we have had our access by faith into this grace where wherein in we stand. It is as though we had been beggars, and not only beggars, but criminals, so that the queen's armies and the queen's men were all hot on our track, and had they found us, they must have brought us quickly to prison and thence to death.
When, by the Queen's mercy, she forgave us. Ah, that's lovely. And we were certain that there was no more wrath, that the old army of the arm of the law would no longer pursue us. Ah, but there was more than that. She invited us to come and stand in her presence in Buckingham Palace. And as we stood there, amidst those deep piled carpets and the delightful oil paintings on the wall, we suddenly, uh, began to think, wherever am I standing now? We suddenly wake up to the fact we've been been introduced into the presence of the Queen, and we see all this splendor around us and this glorious, uh, Persian carpet under our feet.
We're not quite sure whether we ought to be standing here or not, or how long we shall be standing here, or whether in a present in a moment now a policeman will appear and usher us quickly out. So we might fear mighten, even as justified men and women, knowing that we have been forgiven, that there is no more wrath against us, we might still have a lingering doubt in our hearts as to whether our standing before God was secure or not. Whether one of these days we might, so to speak, be asked to leave and get out. And so the apostle stays to tell.
But if we have put our faith in Christ, we have believed God like Abraham did, not only are we justified, not only have we peace, but please look at our standing. We are standing where? We are standing in grace. Our fathers and grandfathers were wise old men, and their theology often expressed itself in homely fashion, but it was none the worse for that. They used to make a very clear distinction. You would often hear the believers of some, uh, sixty years ago, not that I can personally remember exactly what they used to say in those days, but you will hear them say, now, my boy, please understand the difference between your standing and your stay.
Yeah. Somehow believers used to understand those words in days gone by. We don't hear them so much now, do we? Pity. And if you think that they are horribly technical terms, well, then never mind, you do your best to grasp them and make a distinction in your mind between your standing before God and your state before God. God doesn't pretend that we are all we ought to be as to our character, as to our state. As to my state, my character, the development of my behavior, God is divinely dissatisfied with me and never will be satisfied until I am conformed to the image of God's Son.
But while my state is far from what it should be, the Bible tells me my standing before God is perfect. For I do not stand before God on the ground of my merit, nor even, and get this, nor even on the ground of the progress I've made since I've been a Christian. My standing before God is solely and totally on the ground of his grace. Get hold of it. Because if you don't, our good enemy, the devil, or should I say our bad enemy, the devil, will, um, upset us on this score.
Of course the believer wants to make progress. Of course he or she will want to cooperate with God and become daily more like Christ. Ah, yes, of course. And then, of course, the dear believer won't always succeed. And some days the progress will seem tough, and some days he'll seem to go backwards. And as to his state, it will be now two steps forward, and now one step back, and and thus and thus, and up and down. And if I came to think that my standing before God depended on the progress I make in my Christian life, then my peace with God wouldn't last five minutes, would it?
And sometimes, even though we know better, we, we fall into that way of thinking, don't we? We get discouraged because of our poor progress, and then we come to doubt whether we are accepted with God. We are confusing our state with our standing. So let's get it clear. Before Paul goes on to talk, and he's going to talk about it at length, so don't be in any great hurry. He's going to talk about it at length, how God proposes to deal with our state. But first, he says, please get hold of it. Being justified by faith, you have a perfect standing that depends not on your progress, but on God's grace.
We stand fast in this Great. grave. We got there how? Through progressing in the Christian life? No, we got there through Jesus Christ our Lord. He it was that introduced us, and there we stand fast and shall do for all eternity. Not only that, and I beg you to begin to notice that little phrase, not only that, and not only that, and not only that. You'll find it going on many times now in this letter because he dances to a great reality.
God's salvation is so immensely big that when you've come across one great mountain of God's grace and climbed to the top of it and noticed it, and your heart is full and you think there couldn't be any more, God's spirit will say, oh, but not only that, something else as well. Yeah, and not only so. But we, uh, rejoice in hope of the glory of God. That word rejoice means in the original language, not so much rejoice in the sense of, uh, I'm H-A-P-P-Y kind of rejoicing, you know, full of smiles and pleasant feelings.
It's rather rejoice in the sense of exult, be confident. Not only so, but we have confidence, we glory, we have confidence. In hope of the glory of God. And what do you mean by the glory of God? Well, chapter three tells us the glory of God is something that we still come short of. All have sinned, that's in the past, and all do constantly come short of the glory of God. God's glory, among other things, is his character, what God is like, the way he behaves.
And still we all come short of that glorious standard, don't we? And if we're justified, then we have grounds for believing and confidently exalting that one day we shall attain the glory of God. One day we shall be like him. One day we shall be conformed to the image of his son. Or as chapter eight puts it, then he justified, then also he glorified.
And already, even before it happened, even now, we may confidently exult in hope of the glory of God. May I ask you to notice what the word hope means in the Bible? In passages like this, when the Bible uses the word hope, it means something a bit different from what we normally mean when we use the word hope. We say, for instance, I hope the sun will shine when I'm on holiday, and we mean I expect it won't.
Yeah. When the Bible talks about our hoping in the glory of God, it isn't a- a just issuing a vain sort of a wish, well, I hope one day I would like to, if it were possible, I would really like to, I wish I could one of these days attain to the glory of God, but of course it ain't very likely. No, not that kind of hope. The hope a Christian has is described in another part of the New Testament as like an anchor, both sure and steadfast. We may exult confidently in the certain expectation of attaining the glory of God.
You say, why tell us that here? Well, for a very good reason. The chapters that are about to come in this letter, chapters six, seven, and eight, are going to talk to us at great length and in great detail on the methods God is going to use with us to begin to change us and to transform us into the image of Christ. God's really going to do something with our faces, you know.
As Ephesians would put it, it's going to take the blots and the blemishes and the wrinkles away. And one day we shall be like Christ. And the process is going to be quite long. And you might as well know it, as let me say it bluntly, sometimes it'll be very painful. Some days enjoyable, yes, and sometimes not enjoyable. Ah, yes. You might as well face it. Some folks get the idea that when they trust Christ, thereafter it's going to be all joy and gladness and wonderful feelings all the way home to heaven.
That is not true. Let me tell you that straight now. God will give you much, much joy and gladness. But because he's determined to make you like Christ, he'll do it, giving you as much joy as he can, but when he can't do it, and sometimes they're going to be painful. And therefore, some days you're going to be discouraged. And God wants you then not to make a mistake of thinking things are going completely wrong. Indeed, he wants you to know before you start that you can be certain that the result will be achieved.
What an encouragement that is. In the days, in the weeks, in the months where I feel that I haven't made much progress, or that I've blotted my copy book, or that I've slipped back, and the devil whispers in my ear, there you are, you might as well throw in the sponge, old boy. You're going to be like Christ? Unlikely, obviously. What you? Then I may come back to God's holy word and learn not only that I have peace with him and that my standing is a standing in grace, but I may learn to be confident in hope, in the certain expectation that I shall one day attain the glory of God, verse
three tells us that we, uh, can rejoice in our tribulations as well. And again, that word rejoice doesn't mean, you know, sing aloud for joy and feel happy and gleaming and glad. It's a word, I say, that means to exult, to have confidence. We may have confidence. And you'll notice that he says that we may have confidence in our tribulations, knowing certain facts, not having certain feelings.
Oh, when tribulations come, as likely as not, our feelings will be down in the dumps. And if we were going by our feeling, we shouldn't have much confidence, should we? Oh, my dear good Christian friend, do learn, please. That our feelings are very poor guides as to the actual fact of things, aren't they now? Here's a housewife. She's got the week's allowance.
She's now going out to the shop. She just checks into her purse. The money isn't there. Lost the money. I said, do! What's that? I've lost the money! Her feelings are up at high dough of exasperation and frustration and tragedy. And lost the money at all. Money's on the mantelpiece, where her husband put it. And she meant to put it in a purse, forgot and thought she had and hadn't, but there it is, and she's not lost it.
And those feelings were all for nothing, weren't they? Our feelings are stupid things sometimes. Oh, if they're nice, enjoy them, but don't believe them whatever you do. You get how often we do precisely that, don't we? If we feel all right, we think we are all right. And just feeling all right is no guarantee you are all right indeed. Sometimes one reads a tragic stories in the paper of little children gassed in their beds.
Felt all right. But feeling all right didn't mean they were safe when the old gas filtered into the room. Despite of their feelings, they died. Oh yes, enjoy your feelings if they're, if they're, if you've got good cause to think they're genuine, but don't you trust them ever? No, if you will be a confident Christian, you must learn to put your trust not in your feelings, but in God's hands, knowing, not feeling, knowing. We may be confident in the midst of our tribulations, knowing certain facts.
Well, now what are the facts? I am to know that however bad the tribulation and however down in the mouth I feel, I am to know that where there is genuine faith to start with, all that tribulation can do is to produce endurance. Your Bibles perhaps read patience. Well, yes, it means patience, but there are various kinds of patience, aren't there? At least we, we mean various things by the word patience. Hmm.
Some men are very good with their fingers. Some men, for instance, make model ships, don't they? Oh goodness. I saw a picture once, a man he made a model cathedral out of matchsticks. There were about five hundred and sixty seven thousand four hundred and twenty one matchsticks in this thing. He had all the patience to put it together. You know, shouldn't have been told the price if you'd have gone in when he'd come to a very sticky bit. And, uh, when it was doing just a very delicate operation and you had got in his way, he might have, um, been angry and lost his temper and kicked you or done other some unmentionable thing.
And you said, what an impatient man. Yeah. Impatient in the sense he lost his temper, understandably. But that very same man that lost his patience with you because you kept interrupting. Nevertheless, would stick at the job until he got it finished, bad tempered as he might be. And it's a second kind of quality, you know, the sticking at it, the stickability, the going through with it. That's the quality that this verse is talking about. And we are to know that when you start off with faith, then come what tribulation may, all it can do is to work endurance.
You say, is that important? Of course it's important. Let me remind you of a parable in which this word comes. Quoting now what is known as the parable of the sower from Luke chapter eight. And our Lord told us that when the word is preached, there are different results. Sometimes the word falls, so to speak, on the hard path. And the birds of the air come and gobble it up, and it never brings forth fruit, of course. That's just what happens when the gospel is preached, and somebody hears it but doesn't understand it, and it doesn't sink in, and the devil removes it before even they got out of the door of the place where they heard it.
Ah, there are others, said our Lord. Sometimes the seed of the word falls on rocky ground, and it springs up at once. Healthy thing, I'm honest. Ah, but then the sun comes up, and the wind blows, and it all comes to nothing and shrivels down. Why? Because it had no root in itself. That can happen too. Folks can hear the gospel, be moved by the general excitement, make some kind of profession that is based simply on emotion and on their feelings, and is not real and genuine faith in God.
And such folks being sustained for a while by their pleasant feelings and their religious moods, when persecution or tribulation arises for the word of God, then they stumble and they shrivel away. Why? They have no root in themselves, there's no good. The only thing that's any good is this, and here I quote our Lord's word, and that in the good ground these are such as in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast and bring forth fruit with endurance.
To me, that's the only kind of any good. Where the word takes root and grows and keeps on growing and in the end brings forth fruit. Because that's the only way you can bring forth fruit, isn't it? If a bit of core sown in the ground stops growing after two weeks, never brings forth any fruit, does he? Now to bring forth fruit, he's got to carry on with endurance.
Now that is exceedingly important, for we have learned in our previous chapters that though Christ has died, it's a great propitiation for sin. Not all men are saved by it. Not all men are justified. Christ has died, the sacrifice has been offered. That doesn't mean that all men are automatically saved. No, only those are justified who have exercised Say. faith. And if it's going to be any good, it's got to be a faith that goes on going on.
You can't say, can you? Oh, well, I believed, you know. Oh, yes, I trusted Christ. Oh, July the seventeenth, nineteen hundred and nine, Of course I don't believe now. Or I stopped believing long ago, but I still say. There will be no good with it. Faith is not a merit, but it is an indispensable link. If that link could be broken, then everything would be lost.
And of course, Satan knows that and will do all he can to break that link. And from time to time, all sorts of tribulation will come our way, some of it natural to the flesh, some of it sent, or if not sent, used by Satan to try and break that link of faith between our souls and God. And if it were possible for him to succeed, how could I ever have any peace or confidence?
And therefore God wants us to know right from the start, where there is faith, then all that tribulation can do is to work. As an old hymn put it, and we to the end shall endure as sure as the promise is given, more happy, but not more secure. Souls of the blessed in heaven. We are to be confident in our tribulations, not feeling, but knowing that tribulation works endurance.
The same sun, and the same wind, and the same rain that They're coming on that bit of seed that never had any root, but just sprang up of a sudden. Endure and grow. Seed of his word in the hearts of those that have genuinely trusted Christ. And endurance, therefore, as you might see, works approvedness. Perhaps that's the best translation of the term you can give it.
Approvedness. Shows that the seed is good seed. Shows that the faith is genuine. There are sometimes some old gray beards to be found about the place, aren't there? You know, when the man first gets saved, he's just professed faith in the Lord, and he goes and tells, uh, uh, Mr. double YX, I trusted the Savior, and he looks at it and says, hmm, time will tell, something like that. Needn't be so glum about it, need he?
It is quite true what he's saying. Time will tell. We needn't be so glum. They that endure, that demonstrate to all and sundry that their faith right from the start was genuine. What other means have you of telling? So then, endurance works approvedness. It demonstrates to all and sundry that the person is a genuine believer.
And of course, that approvedness gives ground to hope again, doesn't it? How full these verses are with hope. Hope based on God's grace. Now another ground for hope. Years of experience, being assailed by life's difficulties, spiritual tribulations of all sorts and kinds. Coming through them, battered perhaps, with the old shield of faith, with one or two dents in it, where some uncommonly heavy and fiery dart of the evil one basted hard.
They're coming through. Still carrying on. Still able to look up to God and say, God, after it all, I believe. The moving passage that is in Jeffrey Bull's account of his imprisonment. Amidst all the horrors of being brainwashed till he felt his sanity was going. Perhaps his testimony compromised. And at last, in a few minutes quiet in the old cell, amidst all the mental confusion and physical bodily pain and torture, to be able to kneel and look up to God and say, God, I believe.
And that endurance, a ground for hope. Yes, God's work in my soul is a real thing. Some of you sitting here tonight can say that, can't you? Twenty years, thirty years, forty years experience, and you will prove that God's grace is real. It has kept you right to this very moment. You've proved it. The young academic gentleman who's learned just recently a bit of philosophy may not, uh, understand how it is you can possibly have such confidence in your heart, because you can't argue logically like he's learned to log- uh, argue.
His logic won't give him much confidence. You've got the true ground of confidence, the experience of the reality of God's grace in your life. And so this, uh, approvedness is another ground for hope, for certain expectation. And it's a certain expectation. Hope makes not ashamed. That's a funny old Hebrew word, isn't it? Makes not ashamed. We don't talk like that nowadays, but I suspect we could easily understand what it means.
Quite sort of a funny story. Forgive my telling it, told me by a railway official in England. He explained that far from King's Cross Station, there used to be, in the happier days of British railway, a train that left somewhat after midnight, about four o'clock in the morning or some impossible hour like that, to go from King's Cross to Peterborough. It was, uh, used to take workmen and tools and equipment and various other things and Her Majesty's post and various other augments from King's Cross to Peterborough.
But this was a train that was never open to passengers because it had to go on parts of the rails that were not insured by the company for passenger traffic. So passengers were never allowed on. One night there came a puffing and a blowing into King's Cross Station, a businessman. He came as a skeleton to catch the last train from King's Cross to Peterborough, and he missed it. And he was not a little put out, for he wanted to go to Peterborough, and to Peterborough he was going. So having lost the last passenger train, he suddenly aspired this other train.
So he went out to some guard or ticket inspector and said, well, now look, I want to go on this train. He said, sorry, sir, you can't. Well, he said, I am. No, he said, you can't. It's not a passenger train. No, he didn't care about that. He's going on this train. Uh, well, you can't, said they. Well, he didn't care. So, uh, nothing would content him. He went along to the train, opened the door, chose a nice compartment, got in, and of course he got a long wait till four o'clock in the morning, so he thought, well, he would take his shoes off, then make himself comfortable on the old seat and wait, uh, until the train took him to Vidmar. So to sleep he went through the hours of the night, and that was dreamed of the progress he was making at Peterborough.
Woke up in the morning, mm, the train was quite still. Felt he certain that now he'd arrived in Peterborough, put his shoes on, opened the door, and there he was standing on the platform in King's Cross Station. What a fool he felt. Yeah, how ashamed of himself he felt. He had been so confident he was going to Peterborough, but when he went to sleep, the railway officials took the precaution of unhooking the carriage that he was in. The train went to Peterborough, but not him. He did feel a fool. Hope had made him ashamed because he wasn't based in facts.
Are you hoping to get to heaven? Not only to get to heaven as a place, be transformed into the image of God's Son, to attain the very glory of God. Oh friend, what is your hope based on and in? Oh, do make sure it's in the right place, won't you? Wake up at last and find that you've put your hope in the wrong place. Oh, what a shame it will be. Oh, what an indescribable disappointment.
Do make sure your hope built in nothing less than Jesus' love and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but solely lean on his great name. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. It doesn't make us ashamed, this hope. Why not? Well, finally, for tonight, that is.
Let us cons- consider now the deepest ground of all in which the Christian hope is based. Makes us not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit who has given us. The love of God that is not my love for God, please, but as the rest of the verses in this paragraph go on to tell us, not of our love for God, but of God's love for us, the love of God, the love that God commends towards us, that love.
And that love is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given us. This is the first mention of the work of the Holy Spirit towards the believer in this epistle. We shall find many more mentions of it later on. What a delightful work this is of his. To the believer, from the very moment he puts his faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and he begins to pour out, like a man might pour out a glass of water on the ground, till the water goes everywhere, all round the place. So does he get the love of God and pour it out in our hearts.
Not just in our minds, but makes it real in our hearts, so that the love of God is a real thing to us. Not just a pious hope. Don't ask me exactly how he does it. How does a little baby know his mother loves him? I don't know. Somehow mums have ways, don't they, of conveying to that little, little personality that nestles on their breast that it's secure, that it's loved. That child is ever to grow up into a rounded personality, so the psychologists tell us, those beginning years are so tremendously important that in that time when that child's personality is being laid down, it shall feel secure.
And if for some reason it is deprived of that security psychologically, it may be bent and twisted the rest of its life. So that right from the very start, beginning with the babe in Christ, the Holy Spirit pours out the love of God in their hearts. Give them that basic security on which God shall build the rest. Secure in God's love. But in order that it might not be just a kind of spiritual instinct, but something that we know intelligently with our minds, the Holy Spirit begins to argue the case.
And with his delightful arguments, we bring our session to an end. His basic argument, and I do hope you will allow the Holy Spirit to argue. There are good arguments as well as bad arguments, aren't there? Sometimes you hear the Christian folks say you shouldn't argue. We know what they mean. They mean, yeah, you shouldn't get hot under the collar and lose your temper and all that kind of thing. But good arguments are good, aren't they? Let's call them reasoning then, if you don't like the word argue. I do hope you'll let the Holy Spirit reason with you.
For warm as is the love of God, it is also absolutely logical and consistent. So the Holy Spirit argues like this. He says, look, please will you tell me. What would you think, uh, is the biggest thing that God will ever do for you? Careful how you answer that one. Who you say the biggest thing God will ever do for me is to give me a house, uh, with four bedrooms in. No, you say, no, you mean that. No. The biggest thing God will do for me is to take me home to heaven and give me a mansion in the skies.
No, that isn't the biggest thing God will ever do for you. If you imagine in the sky, yeah, he'll give you a galaxy or two if you're not careful. If you work too hard for him here, you might find yourself landed with a galaxy or two up there to look after for all eternity. That'll be quite a job. That was there are more diamonds than any one star in the galaxy than we've ever seen with our eyes. Yeah, diamonds ain't much to God. The biggest thing God will ever do for you, let me tell you, God has already done. Hasn't he? God has created who knows how many thousands of galaxies.
But the Word spun them into being and upholds them. God had only one Son. Galaxies are things, but God's Son is a person. Biggest thing God will ever do for you, he has already done. He has given his Son to the death of the cross for you. After that, anything is quite small, anything else.
Isn't it so? Could you imagine anything bigger than that gift? Go on, be, be. I'm not asking for polite compliments, I'm asking you to be realist. Imagine one of these days you'll get home to heaven and see your mansion in the sky and say, now God, you're beginning to talk. I never did think much of that story of the cross and of your gift of Christ, but now you've given me a mansion, now this is it. Is that how you feel, do you think? No, indeed not. A moment's sober thought is enough to show us that the biggest thing God will ever do, he has already done.
He's given his son for us. He's died for us. Now please, question number two. As the Holy Spirit, will you please consider, when did God give his son for you? And what were you like when God gave his son for you? Surely, if God were going to give his son to die for you, God surely waited until you'd improved a bit, didn't he? Until you had made strides towards heaven.
Before he'd give you a gift as big as that. That isn't God's love. This is the love of God. While we were still enemies. While we still were sinners. Christ. died for us. Have you got that? Well, friend, this is not a matter of feeling, it's a matter of fact.
While I was yet a sinner and an enemy, God gave Christ to die for me. That is a fact. Certain things follow. You're not sinners now, are you? Not in that vulgar sense. You're not enemies now. You have repented. You have trusted Christ. Oh yes, in many things you still fail and fall, but instead of trying to maintain that hard old front and say it doesn't matter, you confess your sin, you acknowledge your unworthiness, you've come to Christ, and God has received you, yes?
You've been justified, yes? You've been reconciled, yes? You're no longer that guilty sinner, you're no longer that open enemy. You've been reconciled to God, justified, accepted. Now come. If Christ died for you when you were still a sinner, when you were still an enemy, do you think that now you have become a child of God, friend of God? He would one day cease to love you and throw you out. Would that make sense?
That God would love me when I was a sinner to the extent of giving Christ for me, and now that I've become a child of his, he would cease to love me for some reason and throw me out. That would be an absolute logical nonsense. If God would behave like that, then God would be convicted himself of being inconsistent in his love. His love would be proved to be an inconstant thing, an arbitrary thing, a thing you couldn't rely on, a thing that made no logical sense. God isn't like that. God's love is no will of the wisp of emotion. Some folks are like that, aren't they? You're going to see them one day, cool, and they give you anything.
They give you a rose out of the garden, they give you an ornament off the mantelpiece, you can't look at a book in their library before they give you the whole lot, you you'll get embarrassed by the things they give you. You go the next day, oh, they shut the door on your face. You say what temperamental folks they are. Not God. So then the Holy Spirit argues. If when you were enemies, you were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, now that you're reconciled, shall you be saved by his life. Oh God, help us to take it.
God help us to give him the quiet necessary. Those lovely buds of the love of God may begin to trickle ever deeper into our personalities, till they have produced there that, uh, purpose, that security in our lives, knowing that at last, by God's grace and love, we, whom he has justified, shall be glorified and conformed to the image of his son.
