Promises, Privileges, Prospects of a Christian (radio)

Introduction to Romans 8: A Spiritual Goldmine

0:02 Open to God's Word to our nation, with our host, Pastor Albert N. Martin. We believe that the Bible is God's Word, and the gospel is a message of new life and liberty. So keep your Bible open for this broadcast, because as Pastor Martin preaches, he would like you to see the truth in your own copy of the Scriptures.

0:28 But you'll need more than an open Bible. You'll need an open heart, ready to receive and obey the Word of God. At the end of the program, we will be giving you some information about the church that sponsors this broadcast. But for now, open your Bible and open your heart, and join us for today's sermon.

0:49 We will be considering a portion of Romans chapter 8, so I would encourage you to turn with me in your Bibles to that chapter of the Word of God.

1:08 Any Christian, even remotely familiar with this chapter, will agree with me. You will agree with me when I say that the 8th chapter of Romans is nothing short of a spiritual goldmine of the promises, the privileges, and the prospects of the child of God. It begins with the wonderful assertion that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, and it ends with the great affirmation that there will be no separation, from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And between the glorious statement of no condemnation and the affirmation of no separation, there are these wonderful truths concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit, producing in us a fundamental ethical and moral change. His presence in us, the pledge of the quickening of our mortal bodies, His presence within us, an aid in mortification, His presence in us, attesting our sonship, bearing witness that we are the children of God, and His presence in us, enabling us in the bafflement of not knowing how to pray as we ought.

2:32 And furthermore, the chapter is suffused with the stabilizing reality of a solid hope of the resurrection of the body, the assurance that in the meantime, everything is working together for our good, and then the amazing statement that our salvation rests down upon the immutable purpose of God Himself. We are called according to purpose, and that divine purpose goes all the way through our salvation, from eternity to eternity, for whom He foreknew. He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, and all such will, according to verse 30, ultimately be glorified. No wonder there is this kind of holy triumphalism then, after laying out all of these promises, all of these privileges and prospects of the child of God, that Paul throws out the question in verse 31, what then shall we say to these things? He's amazed at the very thing. He's amazed at the very things He's written.

3:44 What shall we say to these things? He has declared nothing that's fanciful. He's declared nothing that is ephemeral. He has declared the realities of our salvation.

The Question: If God is For Us, Who is Against Us?

3:56 And having done so, He cries out, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, not the if of uncertainty, since God is indeed for us, who is against us? Many things and forces and powers, ours and personalities are against us, but who are they in the face of the God who is for us? For us in what sense?

4:23 For us in the commitments that the Apostle has been opening up in these previous verses. For us, that we shall never come into condemnation. For us, that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And after throwing out that question, in a spirit of what I've called holy triumphalism, He then moves on in verse 2 and gives what I regard as a major part of the answer to this question.

4:56 If God is for us, who is against us? And if you ask, in what sense is God for us? Verse 32 is part, a major part of that answer. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?

The Greatness of the Father's Action: He Spared Not His Own Son

5:19 I want you to think through this text with me under two headings. First of all, the greatness of the Father's action. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. And then the guarantee of the Father's provision.

5:39 How shall He not with Him also freely give us? How shall He not give us all things? First of all then, note with me the greatness of the Father's action. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.

5:59 Note first of all that the subject of this verse is God the Father. From verse 29 onward, He is clearly in focus. Whom He foreknew, He foreordained, to be conformed to the image of His Son. So the He refers to the Father who is Father in a unique way to His only begotten Son.

6:28 And carrying on from there, whom He foreordained, He called, foreordination is distinctively the activity of God the Father. Then He also called, calling, calling is distinctively the act of the Father. Then He also justified, and whom He justified, He glorified. What shall we say then to these things?

6:53 If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not His own Son. So it is right that we meditate upon the text in terms of the greatness of the Father's action. And notice that the Father's action is described with reference not to the Son, but to His own Son.

7:21 And the emphasis falls upon the uniqueness of Christ's relationship to the Father as His own Son. The One with whom there was an eternal and indescribable relationship of communion and of love. Jesus could say the Father loved the Son and has committed all things into His hand. The Father spoke from Heaven saying, This is my Son, my beloved One, in whom I am well pleased.

7:57 And so the Father's action, which is in focus, is in focus here in our text with respect to His Son. Now two things are said of the Father's action with respect to His Son. The first is negative. We are told that He spared Him not.

8:17 The second is positive. He delivered Him up for us all. He did not spare His own Son. Now what does the word spare mean?

8:30 Well, in this context, it means to withhold a measure of the chastisement due to a disobedient child or the punishment due to a guilty criminal. This word spare is the word that Paul used in 2 Corinthians 13 when dealing as a spiritual father with the Corinthians. He wrote to them and used this word in 2 Corinthians 13 verse 2b, that if I come again, I will not spare. In other words, he says, if I come and I find that you've not dealt with the things that you ought to deal with as a loving, wise, but principled Father, I've spoken to you with words, I will come with a spiritual rod of correction and I will not spare you. I will not withhold. I will not refrain myself from the spiritual chastisement that your actions deserve. It's the same word used in 2 Peter 2 verses 4 and 5 where God spared not the angels that sin.

9:40 When innocent angels become guilty, criminal, rebellious angels, they deserve the punishment of God. He did not spare them. He brought that punishment upon them and the Scriptures tell us that they are kept in chains awaiting the judgment of the last day. In verse 5 it is said that He spared not the generation in Noah's day.

10:05 What does it mean He spared them not? You remember what Scripture tells us. He said, My spirit will not always strive, with men. And when God was determined to bring down the full weight of His judgment and not spare it, all were blotted off the face of the earth except eight human beings, Noah and his family.

10:27 So we are told in our text that the greatness of the Father's action is to be understood, first of all, negatively, when He did not spare His own Son. He did not spare His own Son. He did not withhold the punishment due to His Son. While God had previously shown mercy to multitudes of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam, when it came to His dealings with His Son, wherever this occurred and in whatever setting, we are told that He did not spare His own Son.

11:09 But positively, what He did was to delay and deliver Him up for us all. And we ask two questions of this positive statement. What did He do and for whom did He do it? What did He do?

11:24 He delivered Him up for us all. Well, to whom and to what did the Father deliver His Son? In not sparing Him, in not withholding any punishment that was due to Him, to whom and to what did He deliver Him? Well, we could answer that He delivered Him into the hands of wicked men.

11:49 And our answer would in part be correct. Acts 2.33, Peter's Pentecostal sermon, he speaks of the Lord Jesus and says, Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you by wicked hands have crucified and slain Him. Jesus had predicted that the religious rulers would hand Him over, would deliver Him into the hands of men and that He would be mocked and scourged and crucified.

12:21 And so when our text says He did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up and we ask the question to whom did He deliver Him? It would be partly true to say He delivered Him into the hands of wicked men. Or to say that He delivered Him in a way that we cannot fully comprehend. He delivered Him into the power of the fiends of hell and the devil himself.

12:49 You remember as Jesus approached His crucifixion, He said in John 12 and verse 31, Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And how is the Lord Jesus to cast out the prince of this world? Well, if we turn over to John 14.30, in some way His casting out of the prince of the world will be in conjunction with a coming of the prince of the world to Jesus and finding nothing in Him. John 14.30 I will no more speak much with you for the prince of the world comes and he has nothing in me. The prince of the world shall be cast out.

13:42 But that casting out will be in conjunction with a coming of the prince of the world to Jesus and finding nothing in Him. And both of these passages obviously point to His impending death upon the cross. And again in language that is mysterious but it's biblical language, Colossians 2.15 says that our Lord Jesus spoiled principalities and powers triumphing over them in it.

The Guarantee of the Father's Provision: Freely Giving All Things

14:13 That is, in His death. Well, now we move to meditate briefly upon the second head of our text. Having looked at the greatness of the Father's action, now note the guarantee of the Father's love. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?

14:43 Now the last half of the verse that I'm calling the guarantee of the Father's provision is a question in which Paul is arguing in a logical category called arguing from the greater to the lesser. You say, well, I didn't come to church to hear about logic. Well, I hope you came to hear the Word of God. And you can't hear the Word of God and read the Word of God when it has logical constructions without thinking logically.

15:09 And we do this all the time. If you're sitting in the class and there's a student who's solved a complex problem in advanced calculus, and then you had a little simple addition to do in order to know how much you owed someone in a blown that you made, you would say, surely, if he can solve that problem in advanced calculus, he can do simple addition. You're arguing from the greater to the lesser. Now that's exactly what Paul is doing here.

15:36 And if we're to enjoy the sweetness of the divine provision in Christ, we must get away from this idea, that, well, I'm not put together in a logical way. I just love the Lord, and I just want to have a warm heart. My friend, if you won't use your God-given head to think the way God thinks and the way He's revealed His thought in Scripture, you're doomed to be an unstable Christian.

16:01 So if you want to say, well, I'm not a logical person, I'm the more visceral, emotional person, well then, thank God for that, but shore up the holes in the way you're put together by God's grace so you can become a mature Christian. You've got to think logically, because that's what the Holy Ghost has done for us in this passage. He's saying, in the light of the greatness of the Father's action, He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? Now what is the greatest thing that God can give?

16:41 Is it calling?

16:43 Whom He foreordained, then He also called? Is it justification? Whom He called, He justified? Whom He justified, He glorified?

16:53 Is it glorification? No, no, no, no. That's not the greatest thing God can give. The greatest thing God can give in pursuit of your salvation and mine is the gift of His own Son.

17:07 And He spared Him not, but gave Him, delivered Him up for us. His well-beloved, His only begotten, Son, His own dear Son. So if the measure of His love in His purpose to save us is that He has given the greatest gift to procure that salvation, will He withhold any lesser thing to make the salvation come to pass in everyone for whom it was procured? You see the logic?

17:44 He that spared not His Son, He did the greatest thing. How shall He not with Him freely give us all things? And the all things are not the new Cadillac that you happen to see and say, boy, I'd like that. And God says He spared not His Son.

18:02 He'll give me all things. That's the way the health, wealth, and prosperity folk would expound the text. But that's not true because you read on and the apostle expects that believers are going to be those killed all the day long, accounted as sheep for the slaughter, They may experience famine, nakedness, peril, and sword. Paul knew nothing of their health, wealth, and prosperity gospel.

18:29 Well, what are the things then that God is committed to give within this tight, logical framework? He spared not His Son. How shall He not with Him freely give us all things? Well, the all things are everything necessary to bring us to the full possession of every part of the salvation purchased by Christ.

18:53 And the ultimate expression of that salvation is when we stand totally conformed to His likeness. Whom He did foreknow, He did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son. And glorification is the actual experience of that in the day of our Lord's coming and the resurrection. And being given our glorified bodies united to glorified spirits.

The Nature of God's Giving: Gratuitous and With Christ

19:19 Then the all things will be ours in the new heavens and in the new earth. If He spared not His own Son, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? What we need if we face famine, and peril, and nakedness, and sword. The moral courage not to deny our Lord.

19:41 And should we deny Him? In a moment of weakness to go out and weep bitterly. And then to serve Him for the rest of our days. Whatever we need in the face of every kind of opposition that would seek to separate us from the love of Christ.

19:58 Everything needed in life, in death. Paul says, I'm persuaded. Nothing, nothing, nothing shall separate us from the love of God. That is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

20:09 A love in Christ. Not as a locked up. A motion. But a love that found a conduit through Mary's womb.

20:18 And on to the garden of Gethsemane. And on to Golgotha. And through the open tomb.

20:26 That's the greatest thing God can give. And He's given the greatest. And notice. The text says, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

20:38 In the original, that's not a separate word. You don't have the standard word for give and then a word for freely. But you have a word that means not merely to give. There is a standard nuts and bolts word for give used many times in the New Testament.

20:52 But this word means to give gratuitously. To give as an expression of grace. To give without money, without price. To give to the undeserving and the ill deserving.

21:05 That's how He gives. He's given the greatest. And shall He not notice? Give with Him.

21:13 With Him. If He's given the greatest, all lesser gifts come as it were strapped to the belt of our Lord Jesus. And if we have Him, we have all the lesser things in Him. Given as an expression of grace.

The Call to the Unconverted: Embrace the Offered Savior

21:29 Given along with Christ Himself. But now, what of you who sit here and you're not in this category?

21:39 You're not one who's been called according to purpose. You've not been justified. And you certainly will not be glorified. You're not in the for us.

21:51 How do you get in there?

21:54 Well, our text holds the key to the answer. Look at it again. He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things? You see, God never holds out to any sinner a transcript of His electing decree.

22:14 We're unashamed to state the Bible teaches the doctrine. It's here in this passage. A passage of comfort. A chapter of great comfort.

22:26 How do God's elect discover their election? They discover it only when they embrace the One whom God sets before you. He's never going to set a sheet of paper before you saying, with your name on it, you are elect. You will eventually be saved.

22:39 Never. He's not done that with anyone. What He does is He sets His Son before you in the Gospel. And He says, My Son is a willing and an able Savior.

22:49 For all who will have Him, the vilest of sinners, there's no sin you've committed that is greater than the virtue of Christ's blood to cleanse that sin. There's nothing you've done or have become that in its cumulative ugly mess before the eye of God cannot know the blessedness of God's saying to you in Christ, just as if you'd never sinned. God reckoning you in the court of heaven not only innocent, as though you had never sinned, but as though you had perfectly kept the law. For when you receive the One whom He sets before you, He is made unto us righteousness, as well as sanctification and redemption. So my unconverted friend, you don't trouble your mind about election. You come to grips with this simple reality that this night in this place, I have warrant from the Word of God to say Jesus Christ stands before you, in the Word and promise of the Gospel. And if you will have Him, He is yours.

23:57 If you will have Him, He is yours. And if you will have Him, and you are in Him, then all of these wonderful things are yours. In Christ. In Christ.

24:10 Well, you say, I'd like God to... Yes, there are a lot of things you'd like God to do.

24:13 A lot of things that left to myself I'd like God to do, but He's never come down and told me, Albert N., will you please write out, write out my job description for today. He's never going to do it. Facts are very stubborn things.

24:26 And the fact is that there is no elect sinner who ever discovered his election except in Christ. And he discovered it when the offered Savior was embraced from the heart as the only hope of a needy sinner. And take Him in the light of this promise of John 1.12, as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name.

Conclusion and Invitation

24:56 That brings us to the conclusion of this week's message. You've been listening to God's Word to Our Nation. This program has been brought to you by the Reformed Baptist Church of Riverside. We are a congregation committed to preaching and seeking to understand and apply the doctrines and principles of the Bible.

25:15 When we gather to worship the God of Heaven, we give central place to the reading and preaching of God's precious Word. Now, since the entrance of God's truth brings light, we want to encourage you to come this Sunday to hear God's Word plainly preached. The Reformed Baptist Church of Riverside gathers at 10.45 a.m. and 6.00 p.m. each Lord's Day.

25:38 Our address is 3340 Iowa Avenue. We are located only 100 yards from the 60 Freeway, beside the Blaine Street exit. Our building is on the corner of Blaine and Iowa. You may have a question regarding the message you have just heard, or you may want to receive the free booklet we offer.

25:57 If so, please call us now at 909-243-9026. That number once again is 909-243-9026. Please feel free to call and do plan to visit us this Lord's Day when the Scriptures of God will be opened and explained. On behalf of the Reformed Baptist Church of Riverside, let me thank you for listening today.

26:21 We also hope that if God spares you, you will tune in again next week at this same time for another edition of God's Word to Our Nation.