And he know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did or knows, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called. And whom he called, then he also justified. And whom he justified, then he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is this and again, who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written. For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the sloth, in other words, the Apostle speaking, of his life being in jeopardy every hour. There must be something to this, for why would Christians in that day expose themselves to such persecution and imminent death? Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors to him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I know that verse twenty-nine and thirty are very difficult verses. Last Sunday morning we concluded with verse twenty-eight, knowing that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose, meaning that God has a plan, a program, even for the life of a Christian. In this life. And it's a wonderful thing when a child of God realizes that, that God has a plan, he has a program for your life. The moment you are saved, God begins to work in you that which is pleasing in his sight, to work to do that which is good before him, and for his glory and for your good. But then he goes on to speak of a greater plan, a plan that finds it beginning in eternity past than shrieks on to eternity to come. You have a golden king here in these five things. God foreknew, he predestinated, he called, he justified, and glorified. When you think of the foreknowledge of God, you go back into eternity's path, and there is where the first golden link is paid. Then that chain dips into time and down to the earth, and it's here where we're called and justified, and then the chain, the golden chain, treats back to glory, and is tagged in eternity that comes glorified. And so you see this five-linked golden chain in this one verse. And you'll notice all the cases are in the past in verse thirty. Whom he did, that's not the present, that's not the future, it's past. Whom he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified, then he also glorified. Everything from the destination before history began to glorification at its end is, in God's view, complete, already accomplished. Now that should be easy to understand. For instance, remember the Lord Jesus Christ in John seventeen. He's still on earth. He hasn't gone to the cross as yet. And yet he's praying a prayer. And that prayer is a sample of what he will pray when he goes back to the Father. And he tells us in that verse or in that chapter, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Now, he hadn't yet finished it. He was still chasing the cross. And on that cross, he said, it is finished. And yet Christ is praying a prayer that creeps on into the future and a sample of a prayer that he's prayed nineteen hundred years ago when he went to heaven and has been praying ever since. And he'll pray until the consummation of the church's testimony here on the earth. And when you read that wonderful prayer in John, then you'll get a little idea of what Christ is praying for you at this present moment. In other words, Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, and that's the first and last letter of the Greek alphabet, and all in between. He's the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, which was, which is, and which is to come. And so here you find in these verses God giving us an outline of his wonderful Torah, beginning with his election in the past, then predestination, what he is predestining those two who have accepted his son, and whom he forew would accept his son. But he has sent his Holy Spirit and his word into this world, and through there he's calling us. And all who obey that call will be justified. And all who are justified will eventually be glorified. Now that's exactly what he's bringing out in these verses. Grayson's taken man, and he has the idea of writing a book. And, of course, there are many books on the market, many individuals seeking to be offered. Now, anyone who writes a book, I've written of you small ones, I more or less have the material, or in my mind, what I intend to put down on paper. And that's practically true of every author who writes a book. He has out before him the contents of that book, what he's going to put into that book. And he could speak of that book as something already written, telling him some of the experiences that he's had and so on. Now in this verse... God knowing the end from the beginning. He's telling us in this verse what he had in mind, what he's doing, and what he was yet to do. And that's the explanation of what you have here in this verse. God foreknowing, predestinating, calling, justifying, and eventually glorifying. In other words, it's just like a blueprint. A draftman sits down on his board and he makes a blueprint of a structure or a building that will be built. It's not already built, but here it is. It's on the blueprint board, but first of all, it's in the architect's mind. And that's exactly true. God is telling us here something that was in his mind in eternity past. Christ was the Lamb's slave before the foundation of the world. That's a staggering and amazing announcement. You read in your Bible about the eternal God, the eternal Son, the eternal Spirit, and the eternal purposes of God. Our little minds cannot apprehend something that is eternal. To try and think of God. who never had the beginning, you just can't grasp such a thing. Going back, going back, going back. Surely there must have been a beginning. And surely there must be an end. But our little minds can't take that end. Because it's a subject so vast that we can't grasp it or apprehend it. For instance, take the subject of state. The more man has been able to peer into space through his powerful telescope and so on, the more he realizes that all the instruments that he has invented and employed fall far short of grasping the depths of space. North, south, east, and west, is there no end? Is there no end? As far as we're concerned, there is no end. There was no beginning. There will be no end. God is from everlasting to everlasting. Man is so constituted that he can't take these things in. We're accustomed to things that have beginning and end. We think of the beginning of a day, the end of a day, the beginning of a trip, and the end of a trip. The beginning of the year and the end of the year, our little minds can take in things of that nature. But when you come to God, when you come to eternity, our minds just can't grasp, and it's not intended. that we should. We'll know more about it, and God will unveil these mighty mysteries in a day to come when we have heaven's capacity and be able to take in heaven's mysteries. It's like a little ant trying to think as human thinks. It's like a little ant trying to be a scientist and grapple with some of these technical problems that they have relative to their exploration of space. The little ant just doesn't have it, the capacity for those things. And when you compare us with dogs, And what God knows, and God's vast creation, we just don't have the capacity to take these things. Nevertheless, these things are sold. And all we've got to do is believe what God has revealed of himself. He's revealed enough that we can be saved and that we can have the assurance that we'll ultimately be glorified. There are sixty-six books in your Bible, and this Bible has been in circulation for around nineteen hundred years. And yet man has not won the debts of this book yet, nor has he reached it tight. I've read of men who've lived up to past ninety, some of them Greek and Hebrew scholars, who've done nothing but study the Bible, all arise. Men have all gigantic minds. They have great penetrating powers of perception. And yet after all those years of study, and they've written book upon book, they have to bow their heads and admit, I'm just scratching the surface of this wonderful book. I'm like a child patting on the beach of a mighty ocean. There's an ocean of truth out there far beyond my depth or coverage. But here you find God telling us something, and all we can do is believe it in this five golden link chain, whom God foreknew. Now, if God didn't foreknow things, he wouldn't be God. He knows the end from the beginning. He's come everlasting. He's true everlasting. And here he tells us as though it were all past and accomplished. He speaks of his foreknowledge. and his predestination of all those who believe on his son, and how he's going to call them, and how he's going to justify those who obey the gospel, and the ultimate glorification of them in the future. You'll notice those words, them, verse thirty. For when he did predestinate, then he also called. And he be called, then he also justified. And he be justified, then he also glorified. Making it very plain that everyone who is justified will be glorified. And I challenge any person who thinks you can be saved today and lost them all, saved again and lost again, or those who believe that one can become a true child of God and then turn up in hell. I challenge them with this verse. It says everyone whom God justifies in this world will be glorified. And as far as God is concerned, that's true. and I'm willing to accept it and believe it because it's here in our Bible. One of the most eloquent passages in your Bibles, from condemnation to glorification, celebrated in this wonderful hymn or song that we have read in the eighth chapter of Romans. God foreknew and elected to predestination and predestine to eternal life, those who use their free will aright in trusting His Son. You know the fact that God is calling you, and there's no question about that. The very fact that God is calling you through the gospel and by His Holy Spirit through you have a responsibility to come. You have a responsibility. Don't allow the fact of God's foreknowledge and predestination to stumble you and to say, well, what is the being will be? We know there are those who believe in it. Is that so? Why is the gospel preached? If that so, why is God calling men and women? If so, why is the Spirit of God here convicting men and women of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment? Why? Why isn't you reading your Bible in the very last promise? in your Bible in Revelation twenty-two, Whosoever will let him come and partake of the water of life's freedom. Now, does God mock the human race? Would he dangle out before them something so glorious as conformity to Jesus Christ and an eternity with him to share his glory forever and forever, and tell that man that all he has to do is open his heart and receive the Savior? Would the Spirit of God do that? Would the Word of God teach that? Would God be so cruel as to bang the Lord's glory before man, and then say, well, you weren't elected. You can't talk. You're not included. Is a person doomed to hell from his dailyhood? Some believe that. You're either born to go to heaven or you're born to go to hell. all predestinated before you were born. I don't believe it for one second that a baby is born into this world and is doomed to go to hell. Every man and woman has a chance of choice. Christ says you will not come to me that you might have life. He does not say you cannot. He says you will not. putting the responsibility squarely on the shoulder of the individual. Justify. Whom he called in, he also justified, not by an act of mercy alone, but by an act of justice. In other words, a person who is justified leaves a courtroom with nothing against this character. no stain against this character and it says we are justified freely not by works not by money justified freely as a gift, justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And on the basis, the virtue and value of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ upon the cross, God will justify all who believe. And the moment you believe you're justified, and God says everyone's justified is glorified. As far as I'm concerned, they're already so secure, they're already glorious. In my knowledge, this God, that certainly disposes of those who do not believe in the eternal security of the believer. glorification, God's salvation so complete that all who are justified are seen glorified. Preserved by his power, notice verse thirty-one. Verse thirty-one, what shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against? There are seven questions here, seven interrogation marks. I underlined them reading this the day before yesterday. I hadn't noticed it before. There are seven questions being asked in this text. And here you have this one. If God be fuller, who shall be again? Now, if I have God on my side, and the Bible tells me I'm in His hand. Christ said that. He says, I give unto my sheep eternal life, and make them never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which came to me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. The only way you can get out of God's hand is to find someone stronger and better than God's, and that's impossible. And if God before us, who can be again? And so according to what you have right here, we are preserved by his power in verse thirty-one. Then notice verse thirty-two. We are also secure by his gift. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him, with Christ, also freely? There's that word freely again. Freely give us all things the measure. Next question. He that spared not his own son. You know there are a number of spare nots in your Bible. God spared not the old world that sinned. He brought the flood in upon you. He didn't spell. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he did not spell. He rained fire and brimstone. He rained hell out of heaven upon them because they had sinned. He didn't spell. And he did not spare Israel. He did not spare the natural branches of which we'll be speaking in chapter eleven, twelve, ten, eleven, and twelve, or nine, ten, eleven. Chapter nine is Israel past. Chapter ten, Israel present. Chapter eleven, Israel future. And the Jewish nation has a glorious future. God did not spare the Jewish nation when they rejected Christ as their king nineteen hundred years ago. He cut them off temporarily and introduced the church aid, but he'll take them up again in the future. Your Bible is very clear on that. But if he spared not the natural branches, Israel, because they rejected Christ as their king, And if he spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and reserve them in chains of darkness unto the judgments of the great day, why did all sins? But here it says he spared not his sons. Why didn't he spare his sons? Had his sons sinned a thousand times no. Then why did not spare him when his life was sinless? Because Jesus Christ became sin for you and for me. And then he became our substitute and took our place. And all our sins were laid upon him. Jesus poured them on the free. God who knew them laid them on him. And believing, I am free. And when Jesus Christ became accountable for you and for me, when he became our substitute, and our sins were laid upon him, God did not stir. God poured out his judgment and his wrath upon his son, and out of the darkness Jesus Christ cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God did not spare his son. And let me say this, if you reject Jesus Christ, If you refuse to receive him into your heart, God will not spare you either. If he spared not his own son, and these others will repent, he will not spare you if you do not receive Jesus Christ as your personal faith. There's absolutely no hope for the man who all wants. who rejects Jesus' death. The only way he can spare you from eternal punishment is by you believing that he spared not his own son, but he delivered him up for us all. Here is God's wonderful gift in verse thirty-two. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, or gave him as a gift, how shall he not lift him with christ also freely give us all this sometimes people think well if i get saved if i become a christian why i lose this and i lose that and i lose the other things i know because the devil told me that too before i got saved but when you receive christ God will with Christ freely give you all things. All things that pertain unto life and godliness. He won't give you everything you want. He will give you what you need. It's only for children that are given everything they want. God doesn't spoil his truth. He gives them what they need. And if you accept Jesus Christ, you'll not want for companionship. You'll have the best companionship on earth with company with God's peace. Before I was saved, I had to run around with quite a gang, and I am ashamed to say they weren't a very good gang either. And I think, well, if I get saved, I'd have to give up the game. Well, I got saved. I did give them up. Well, I'd better put it this way. They gave me that. When I began speaking about being saved and going to heaven, they looked at me and I mean as if I had had a dose of LSD. They thought I'd gone off the rocker. They couldn't understand it. Well, this is strange. You used to be one with us. You used to do what we did. But now you don't. Now you're talking about being saved and going to heaven. I didn't have to give them up. They gave me plenty of room. Because I was a Christian. And that will be true. They'll see a difference in you. They'll see a difference in you. once you become a new creature in Christ. But instead of them, I think of the friends that I've had since then, the best of companionship, the companionship of God's people. When I got saved, I'll tell you, I had more friends than I thought I ever had. God's people rallied around and shook my hand and whipped me God. feel instead of praying for you, and get together, meet in homes, and have a wonderful time. I had real friends. And there was no drinking or gambling or taking the name of the Lord in vain in that society. They were people who were saved and going to heaven now, and they found good company, the best of them. And if you accept Jesus Christ, the same will be true of you. He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all to him? Who shall lay anything? Now notice this. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Here's another question. The fourth one. Shall God that justifies? And that's the right rendering there. Who's going to lay anything to the charge of God's elect, those whom God has justified? God has cleared him. The case has been examined. And Christ stepped in and became my substitute. And all my sins were laid upon him, and he bore my judgment. He paid my death. And now I've justified before God. And if God has justified me in the person of His Son, who is going to condemn me? Who's going to lay anything to my charge if God has justified me? No one. And that brings us to what we have in this verse. you have God preserving us from what? First of all, from the demands of justice, and I've mentioned them, if God before us who can be against us. Second, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Third, who is he that condemns? Verse thirty-four, shall Christ that died? If Christ has borne my condemnation, Who's going to condemn me? If Christ has paid my debt, who is going to accuse me of being in debt? If my debt has been paid by Jesus Christ, here are the demands of justice. Who is he that condemns me? Shall Christ that died for my condemnation, no one can condemn me. You know, in that verse you have four wonderful things. Christ died for us. He's risen again. He's ascended. He makes an intercession for us. Did you notice those four things in verse thirty-four? Christ died for us. He's risen for us. He's ascended for us. And he makes intercession for us. In the Old Testament they had the Jewish altar and it was to that altar anyone who had sinned against God had to flee if he wanted to be preserved. On a sacrifice was placed upon the altar and a substitute for him. In fact, we remember a case of Adonijah and he tried to take the throne of Judah. And Solomon got word of it. And he sent some of his soldiers to apprehend Adonijah. And what did Adonijah do? He knew that King Solomon would not tolerate this insurrection, and he ran and laid hold of the horns of the others. He thought, this is my refuge. This is my refuge. What are the horns of the altar that we have today figuratively speaking in the New Testament right in this verse? Christ died for me. He risen for me. He has ascended to God's right hand for me. He is interceding for me. There are the four horns of the altar, the four tunes of the gospel. And if you're being pursued by sin, and remember, sin pursues sinners. If you're not a Christian, all you have to do is look back over your shoulder and see that great army of sins, sins that are following you, crying out for your death and judgment. That's true of every unsaved person. The sins of twenty years. The sins of thirty years. The sins of forty years. The sins of fifty years. Sixty. I've talked to people eighty years of age, unsaved. And look at that mercy army of sins, following us. All those sins are trying out for death and judgment for the wages of sin is death. same is pursuing sin. Death is pursuing them. Judgment is pursuing them. Death is pursuing them. Fear is pursuing them. Helplessness is pursuing them. And habits are pursuing them. And your only hope of escape is laying hold upon the horns of the altar, or laying hold upon what I've mentioned in verse thirty four. Christ died for you, and he was raised for you. He ascended to heaven for you, and now he lived and intercedes for you. That's your only hope, and that's your only escape from these things that are pursuing you and pursuing the sinner every day. And so the question is asked, is God before us who can be against us? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who is he that condemns? Here are the demands of justice. Demands of justice. In all answers, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Then he gives us the blows of circumstances. If you notice then in that verse thirty-five, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Now look at the blows of circumstances. Shall tribulation, shall distract, shall persecution, shall famine, shall nakedness, shall peril, or the sword, Will any of these things separate me from Christ once he saves me? No. The demands of justice have been met. Justice has no further claim upon me. God has justified me because Christ bore my condemnation on the cross. And the blows of circumstances, it matters not how much a Christian suffers, and some of them do so. Nothing can separate them. None of the sorrows or sufferings of this life can separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And then you have the blows of the universe. Or you might say you have here the forces of the universe. In verses thirty-six and thirty-nine, the forces of the universe. He says, But I am persuaded, and it's very interesting to read the persuasion of the apostle. Time and time again he uses that word, persuasion. Here he says, I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor death, nor any other creature or not any other created being, man, angel, or demon, shall be able to separate one who is saved from the love of God. Now that Bible, I'm not giving you my word, that's right there in the Bible. And he dismisses all opposition with pairs practically. Dear Shreem, shall life or death superhuman intelligences... angels or principalities and abeyes in power, shall they be able to separate me? All time, things present or things to come, and dimensions of space, neither height nor depth, unless they should have omitted anything he had, has said, nor any other creative thing. throughout all creation has power to separate me on every believer from the love of Christ. How wonderful is this passage? Will the love that was poured out for me at Calvary ever wane? Will the affections of Christ for his own ever cease? Not unless his matchless name can be blotted out from the annals of history, not unless the sceptre can be rested from his omnipotent hands, or his eternal throne be demarked. And I belong. He loves us with an everlasting love. He keeps us with an eternal power, and as the hymn-writer hath well said, And when, Lord Jesus, thine own face I see, when at thy lofty throne I bow my knees, then of all my love and all its height, its death, its everlasting strength, no more and more. We've only begun to know a little of the love of God here. We'll know it in its fullness then. That love that saved me, that love that met all the demands of justice, that love sufficient to deliver me from all the blows of circumstance. That love and power that can deliver me from all the sources of the universe, nothing can separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And he's speaking here at this. The question boils down to this. Do you want this Savior? Do you want this salvation? Do you want it now? Such a wonderful salvation. Accept Christ and you will know you are definitely and eternally saved, eternally loved and eternally kept. Now that's the message of this passage. I trust you'll take it in. your soul unsaved. Do you know the Christ that we preach, the Savior that we love, the Master that we serve, the Captain that we fight for, the bridegroom that we wait for? and the King we shall reign with, and worship throughout eternity. Do you know him right now, experimentally, as your personal Savior? That's the question. Seven questions have been asked in this passage. Can you answer them all? Who is he, you might ask? the one who has done so much. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. What he would have you do this morning is to throw down your sword of rebellion at his feet, and let it conquer your heart, your heaven, and your very life. Say, like the poet has well written, O Swapless Lamb, I come to thee. No longer can I from thee stray. Break every sin now, set me free. Take all my sins today. Are you ready? Is he ready? He is ready to receive me. May it be yours that day. I will. I will come to Christ. on the thumb.