His death was the digging of the well of salvation. Sometimes, too, the spirit feels that God is its Father not only by love but by trust. "If children then heirs." Go to the next house, and hear another groan. You will remember the last one had, "Yea, rather." I beseech you, my dear friends, take this thought with you wherever you go: "I am a debtor, I must serve my God. So the enquirer asked him again, "But what is . Transgress the law, and punishment will follow." If you have the Spirit of God in your soul, you may rejoice over it as the pledge and token of the fulness of bliss and perfection "which God hath prepared for them that love him.". To us, indeed, the things are scarcely comparable, since we are deeply interested in one, though not in the other. It may have seemed to him, as it does to some of us, to be almost too good to be true, and therefore the Holy Spirit so shed abroad this truth in the apostle's mind that he yielded to it, and said, "I am persuaded." But wherefore, conscience, should I go thus round about? There is real prayer in these "groanings that cannot be uttered." Now that is the way to act; to feel and acknowledge that you are a debtor; when there is a thing to be done, to do it, and to say, "Do not thank me for it, I have only done what I ought to have done; I have only paid the debt that I owed.". Moreover, the appetites of the body have a natural affinity to that which is sinful. The plain, simple spirit of the humble-minded Christian cries, "I am God's child." It is enough; he has the cause, nor would we take it from his hand even if we could, Well did the apostle say, "To the very uttermost he is able to save them that come unto God by him, because he ever lives to make intercession for them.". for if not, inasmuch as you reject one part of the inheritance you reject the rest. ), then it follows that God must be over all things and must control all things. Merchant; though you have been sore pressed this week, and it is highly probable that next week will be worse still for you, believe that all things even then are working for your good. Wherefore, be of good courage, and press forward in the divine life, for your work of faith and labor of love are not in vain in the Lord; so let us "lay hold upon the hope set before us:". He leads the spiritual eye to take good and steady aim at the very centre of the target, and thus we hit the mark in our pleadings. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." It begins with the word "for." That shows that this is used as an argument drawn from something mentioned before. He that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. The new birth as surely stands us with the image of Christ as our first birth impressed us with a resemblance to the fathers of our flesh. He is our legislator, our law-maker; and then, to make our crime still worse and worse, he is the ruler of providence; for it is he who keeps up from day to day. As to our spirits, we have liberty to soar into the third heaven, and sit in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus; but as for our bodies, we can only roam about this narrow cell of earth, and feel that it is not the place for us. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin." "All things work together for good.". What! Now this is yours. And if thou be called, it follows as a natural inference thou art predestinated. The whole of the mind is enmity against God. Christ had to be persecuted and so must you. There is not a star though it seemeth to sleep in the deep blue firmament, which doth not travel its myriads of miles and work; there is not an ocean, or a river, which is not ever working, either clapping its thousand hands with storms, or bearing on its bosom the freight of nations. But it is added, "We groan within ourselves." Much more, let me now tell you, is his life, much more the fact that he lives, and is at the right hand of the Father. Like a bird uncaged, how will it mount with more than eagles' wings! It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who sitteth on the right hand of God, who maketh intercession for him. The fool does not say in his heart there is no God, for he knows there is a God; but he says, "No God I don't want any; I wish there were none." Forth it steps into the arena, and we behold the law of God. how true it is that some who have had the best of parents, have been the worst of sons; that many who have been trained up under the most holy auspices, in the midst of the most favorable scenes for piety, have nevertheless, become loose and wanton! The evil one may whisper, "If thou be the son of God." Now, believer, thou mayest be very poor, and very sick, and very much unknown and despised, but sit thee down and review thy calling this morning, and the consequences that flow from it. Self-righteous man, I can tell thee in the tick of a clock, whether thou hast any evidence of election. We have believed in Jesus, and it is written, "as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on his name.". We know what to pray for as to objects, but we do not know what to pray for "as we ought" it is the manner of the prayer which perplexes us, even when the matter is decided upon. We do not know why it is so, but we sometimes find our minds carried as by a strong under current into a particular line of prayer for some one definite object. 2. Then, too, a worse than Herod sought to kill us. "It is Christ that died.". He it is that leads our soul to cry, "though my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure." If this be his ardent love of the Godhead, what must his hatred thereof be? Oh unhappy souls, that cannot call one of these your own! Look! Ah, and blessed be God they will too, by the work of the Spirit. And wilt thou think, yet again, what cause there is that thou shouldest realize to-day thy union with Christ, since thou art joint heir with him. The arch enemy, the old dragon, was always nibbling at the heel of our great Michael, who has for ever crushed his head. Another text. All things at this present moment are working together for the believer's good. Here, then, in the nick of time, as a very present help in time of trouble, comes in the Holy Spirit. 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. "Who is he that condemneth? (1) They seem to have misunderstood Paul's teachings and to have charged that he taught that the greater the sin the greater the glory of God (3:8). Who is Christ, and who is it with whom he intercedes. The Holy Spirit's mind is seen in our intercessions when under his sacred influence we order our case before the Lord, and plead with holy wisdom for things convenient and necessary. do thy shoulders forbid, and refuse themselves the pain of bearing it? You would forget your guilt in your daily business, but your conscience calls out at such a rate that there is no hearing anything else. This truth seems to me to have struck its roots into all the other truths of Scripture and to have twisted itself among the granite rocks which are the very foundation of our hope. Therefore do we say to that law, "Law, thou hast nothing to do with me; I am 'not under law, but under grace.' Yea, a tender mother knows her child's needs before the child knows what it wants. But the text, you see, furnishes us with a higher witness than this. God will not leave you, my brethren, he has pledged himself by covenant to you, and he has given au oath that his covenant shall stand. Dear brethren, let us not wonder if we have to work too. If not, I beseech thee, stop and consider! We go to our lowly homes; we meet with our brethren and sisters here in their earth-built temples; and we are content, so far as these things go, still, how can kings be content till they mount their thrones? Who can tell the fearful consequences to future generations if we now betray our trust. From the first, and now, and to the last, "he that hath wrought us to the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given to us the earnest of the Spirit." and a voice calls, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." And the heart, when we perceive not its ebullitions, when it belches not forth its lava, and sendeth not forth the hot stones of its corruption, is still the same dread volcano. 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. We are forced to use words if we would influence our fellow-men, but the Spirit of God can operate upon the human mind more directly, and communicate with it in silence. A lack of depth in the inner life accounts for most of the doctrinal error in the church. Provision for Christian living is in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Having reaped handfuls, we long for sheaves. The Spirit teaches wisely, as no other teacher can do. Well, then, thou owest ten talents, and thy brother owes only one; why should you be proud that you owe more than he does? We cannot break the bread and multiply it, we can, however, generously distribute what we have, and thus in feeding the hungry we shall prove ourselves children of our Father who is in heaven; we cannot heal the diseased with our touch, still we can care for the sick, and so in love towards the suffering we can prove ourselves to be children of the tender and ever-pitiful God. What says the believer now? What shall we say to that? (2) They may have thought him to teach that we should sin in order to get more grace (6:1) and, therefore, may have made his teaching of justification by faith an excuse for immoral conduct. How many an event has seemed to be conflicting in its day, that has worked out good for us? The carnal mind is at all times enmity against God. 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. It will cost you many a pang to keep that confidence; but oh! Now, as there is nothing like Scripture, let me read you a few texts, Romans viii. ----- "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." Romans 8:16-17. At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. III. And he just paraphrased it in his own dialect like this "My arm is always strong, and my sickle always sharp, when there is no harvest, and I think I could mow many an acre when there is no grass; but when the harvest is on I am weak, and when the grass groweth then my scythe is blunt." By an Old Member of Surrey Chapel. There is no difficulty in our believing that as one human mind operates upon another mind, so does the Holy Spirit influence our spirits. Not only does faith believe it, but our own history convinces us of the truth of it." Why, dying is the end of work; it is living that is hard work. Consider again, I pray you, what a dignity God hath conferred upon you even upon you in making you his son. He has been charitably received, he has been warmed at the fire, he has received abundant provision, he is warmly clothed. I must not speculate, for I know nothing about it; but it is no speculation to say that we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness; and that there will come a time when the lion shall eat straw like an ox, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. Is it not a wonderful thing that God loved me, and loved you, (let us individualize it,) that God so loved us that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life? I see him putting his own imprimatur thereupon, stamping it with his own signet, dignifying it with his own seal, and again I cry, "Yea rather, who is risen from the dead," who then can condemn the believer? Upon these two words the meaning of my text will hinge. The world's barque, it is true, is always tossed with waves, but these waves toss her first to the right and then to the left; they do not steadily bear her onward to her desired haven. He gives to us his raiments, and thus we stand arrayed. It cries for something, and it makes very odd and objectionable noises, combined with signs and movements, which are almost meaningless to stranger, but his mother understands him, and attends to his little pleadings. I have (continues the objector), stood upon the mountain-top, until my whole soul has kindled with the scene below, and my lips have uttered the song of praise. It is because the mind is so depraved that it loves something which puts the body into an abnormal condition; and here we have a proof that the imagination itself has gone astray. "We have," says the text, not "we hope and trust sometimes we have," nor yet "possibly we may have," but "we have, we know we have, we are sure we have." Having summarily disposed of all of them, Paul adds, "nor things present." "Yea rather," said the apostle; as if he would have it, that this is a still more powerful argument. To this end Jesus Christ came into the world and bore our image, that we, through his grace, might bear his image. It is a sad, sad world. If I did not know that I should win it, I might think that I would let discretion be the better part of my velour; but, being assured that Christ will be with me all through, I feel incited to war against all that is evil that I may overcome it in his strength. But, again, there is another point in which the saint is deficient as yet, namely, in the manifestation of our adoption. Are you among the number? But if thou scorn it, remember, thou scornest the rest of the inheritance, for they are all one and indivisible in your Father's will. The joint heirship reaches from the gloomy patina of deep affliction up to the bright ineffable splendor of the throne of bliss, nor can any man reverse the record. "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." 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. A little more than he said about the others. Yea, that harp is mine, and my soul by faith would make every string resound with melody. I do believe that there is a supernatural way in which apart from means, the Spirit of God communicates with the spirit of man. May the sweet Spirit lead you to Jesus, cause you to look to him upon the cross, and trust in him; then you will have something worth hearing, for you will have a love that changeth never, a love that shall never be separated from you nor you from it. I served the world, he would not, in mine age. But perhaps there may be a suit in law made against the will; some antagonist may set up a counter claim; an enemy to the entire family may proceed at once to attack the will with venom and with malice; he may take it into the Heavenly Court of Chancery, and there, before the great Judge, the question may be tried as to whether the inheritance be legally and lawfully ours. We will come again in a few days: as we are entering the first house we see weeping faces and flowing tears, a coffin, and a hearse. Christ will not belie himself. What consolation then to be called: for if I am called, then I am predestinated. The right hand of God is the place of majesty, and the place of favour too. holy Immanuel, exalted as thou art, thy co-heirs here below begin by faith to partake of thy glory. "So he bringeth them to their desired haven," said the Psalmist by storm and tempest, flood and hurricane. Here he is covered with the sweat and dust which he acquired by Adam's fall; there his brow shall be bright with the immortality which is conferred upon him by the resurrection of Christ. The Spirit is one with the Father, and the Father knows what the Spirit means. Let me imagine a man entering heaven without a change of heart. C. H. Spurgeon At Exeter Hall, Strand. They bare their backs, the rod scourgeth them. If his heart is against God, we ought to tell him it is his sin; and if he cannot repent, we ought to show him that sin is the sole cause of his disability that all his alienation from God is sin that as long as he keeps from God it is sin. It is an oft-repeated truth, and one which, perhaps, has almost lost its meaning from being so oft repeated, that this is the very crisis. The pinch of faith always lies in the present tense. All God's children are heirs, however numerous the family, and he that shall be born of God last, shall be as much his heir as he who was born first. I think I see him sitting on a jutting crag by the edge of Jordan, listening to the harpers on the other side, and waiting till the pitcher shall be broken at the cistern, and the wheel at the fountain, and the spirit shall depart to God that made it. Ay, but Christ was co-heir with theirs, and when Saul persecuted the poor servants of Jesus, he pet the Master too. That bereavement is working for thy good. Amen and amen. I look on them, and see among their glorious ranks, some whose names are celebrated in every Christian land as the bold "lions of God," the immovable pillars of truth; men of whom the world was not worthy, whose praise is in all the churches, and who are now nearest the eternal throne. It is not with us a matter of doubt; we have tried it, we have proved it. Is the carnal mind at enmity against God? Come with me, believer, to your estates, and behold, just on the edge of your Father's great inheritance, lies the swamp and morass of affliction. The duty of the minister is to call souls to Christ, he is to make no distinction whatever "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." But, secondly, the object of grace is that there may be some in heaven with whom Christ can hold brotherly converse. he hath made us kings. I groan, for I can do no more. 2 If you belong to Christ Jesus, God's Spirit has given you a new life. Oh, how sweet it is to believe our names were on Jehovah's heart, and graven on Jesus' hands before the universe had a being! It also delivers us from every fear and doubt. Yet, further, to illustrate the full meaning of the joint heirship suppose, after the via had been proved and acknowledged to be right, it shall be found in winding up the affairs of the testator, that nothing is left to distribute suppose, after all this boast and talk about being heirs, the property should be nil, or there should even be found a debt against the estate what then? He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth; he bears up the pillars of the universe; his breath perfumes the flowers; his pencil paints them; he is the author of this fair creation; "we are the sheep of his pasture; he hath made us, and not we ourselves." While dwelling upon this joint heirship, let us remark what an honor is conferred upon us. 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