As he turns over each of these love-tokens, and as he reads the words of his reconciled prince, he asks "When will the vessel sail to take me back to my native shore?" Have you forgotten that he had shame and spitting, the reproach, the rebuke of men, and that he conceived all those to be greater riches than all the treasures of this world? Perhaps our fullest thought upon the text is this. Do you hate God for all this? Still the bond was not cancelled until the day when Christ rose from the dead; then did his Father, as it were, rend the bond in halves, and blot it out, so that thenceforward it ceases to have elfect. Let me show you that you have not been hearing strange doctrine. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Here the heir of heaven is unknown; he is in disguise, full often clad in the habiliments of poverty, but there his princely character shall be discerned and acknowledged, he shall be waited upon by angels, and shall share in the admiration which the universe shall pour upon the glorified Redeemer. I have sometimes read sermons upon the inclination of the sinner to evil, in which it has been very powerfully proved, and certainly the pride of human nature has been well humbled and brought low; but one thing always strikes me, if it is left out, as being a very great omission; viz. And the believer is to be the heir, I say, not merely of God's works, not simply of God's gifts, but of God himself. 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. "Yes," he could say, "and a blessed thing it would be for you if you had the same thing to groan after that I have." Does he stand in the presence of God he appears in the presence of God for us; Hebrews 9:24 . And has not God often made the dead to rise at our word, by the power of his Spirit! Whatever may be the confidences of others, and whatever may be your own, put them all away, and keep to this one declaration, "It is Christ that died." Silently the forest groweth, anon it is felled; but all the while between its growing and felling it is at work. Brotherhood has its ties of debt, and to my brother I owe what I shall not yet pay him. We are heirs with Christ. There is nothing that pains me so much as sin; I desire to be quit and rid of it; Lord help me to be holy"? It means, first of all, that Christ is now in the honourable position of an accepted one. Satan was eager that the new-born child of grace should be put to death, and, therefore, sent forth fierce temptations to slay us; but the Lord found a shelter for our infant spiritual life, and preserved the young child alive. God would not go down to the earth for payment; it must be brought to him. God's great love for us is supremely demonstrated in Christ Jesus our Lord, who gave Himself for us on the cross. One of you says, "Well, it is an empty pocket with me." We have a sacred secret which belongs to Jesus, as the first-fruits belong to Jehovah. In illustrating the effectual call of grace, which is given to the predestinated ones, I must first use the picture of Lazarus. It will be the Spirit's own self pleading in me, and by me, and through me, before the throne of grace. We must be joined together, or else the apostle would not talk of separation. Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world! And, as to all evil, our Lord's entire life was one perpetual battle. He knows and comprehends the cryings, and meanings, and sighings, and chatterings of his bewildered children. Romans 8 The apostle, having fully explained the doctrine of justification, and pressed the necessity of sanctification, in this chapter applies himself to the consolation of the Lord's people. You must enter your suit against the Head if you would attack the members, for verily the action at law which can be pleaded against the member of the body must be pleaded against the Head itself, for no court can allow a distinction between the body and the head in an notion at law. Commentary on Romans 12:3-8 (Read Romans 12:3-8) Pride is a sin in us by nature; we need to be cautioned and armed against it. God requires us to remember the poor, and their poverty is a claim upon our generosity. But his reply was, "No, I trust they will always be at war with you, for Carthage must be destroyed if Rome is to prosper." Be not drugged with the laudanum of self-security! We are panting, longing after something greater, better, nobler, and it is coming. Standing at the foot of the cross, and beholding the Redeemer in his expiring agony, the Christian may indeed gather courage. My cause is quite safe in his hands, especially when I remember again that he pleads with my father, and that he is his own Father's beloved Son, and that he is my brother and such a brother a brother born for adversity. Nay, my brethren, all that the most advanced of God's people know as yet, should but excite in them an insatiable thirst after more. Those teachings which are commonly called Calvinistic doctrines are usually most beloved and best received by those who have had much conflict of soul, and so have learned the strength of corruption and the necessity of grace. Another will say, "Ah, it is an insidious disease that will soon carry me to my grave!" It is clear then the prayers which are indited in us by the spirit of God are those which arise from our inmost soul. I think he does, and this, then, is our comfort, that, if we have to meet the arch-fiend himself foot to foot in terrible duel, and we may, for men of God have had so to meet him, and he that does battle with the adversary will gain nothing by it but sweat of blood and aching heart, even if he shall win the victory, so that we may well pray, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one," still we have this comfort, that even though he may rejoice over us for a moment, and may cast us down, he cannot separate us from the love of Christ; he may open many of our veins, and make us bleed even to utter weakness, but the life-vein he can never touch. "We know it. I will make no answer to that accusation but this: "It is Christ that died." It will be a terrible thing to have to answer to the great and mighty God for having so sinned." We are like Jacob looking at the wagons, and the more we look at the wagons, the more we long to see Joseph's face; but our groaning after Jesus is a blessed groan, for. I do believe that there is a supernatural way in which apart from means, the Spirit of God communicates with the spirit of man. So shall we be, for because he lives, we shall live also. We know right well that there are many things that happen to us in our lives that would be the ruin of us if we were always to continue in the same condition. let the cross and bloody sweat remind thee of thine obligation. He lives, and because he lives I shall live also. I believe that the apostle was persuaded that these two blessed links existed between him and the great God, and he was persuaded that neither of those two links would ever be broken. Here are beings that know evil, and know also good, beings placed under infinite obligations by bonds of love and gratitude to choose for ever the good, beings with a nature so renewed that they always must be holy beings; and these beings can commune with the incarnate God upon spurring as angels cannot, upon the penalty of guilt as angels cannot; upon heart-throes, conflicts, reproaches, and brokenness of spirit as angels cannot: and to them the Lord Jesus can reveal the glory of holiness, the bliss of conquering sin, and the sweetness of benevolence as only they can comprehend them. She liked "high Calvary" preaching, and so do I; and it is "high Calvary" doctrine that I find in this passage. It would not have been consistent with his justice for him to pass by my sin. Others will say, "It is a family of children who have no bread." God loves Christ, and we love Christ, so we have a meeting-place; we love the same blessed Person, and that brings us to love one another. Such a hope as this is "an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast"; and the man who has this anchor on board the barque of his life can never suffer spiritual shipwreck. 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? This is just what Jesus has to do. Furthermore, this conformity to Christ lies in relationship as well as in nature. II. Would you take Job's jewels, but not his dung-hill? God grant to you all to be believers in Christ, now and for ever. So, when we get the first works of the Spirit of God, we are not to say, "I have attained, I am already perfect, there is nothing further for me to do, or to desire." Happy, happy man! There was no kinship between the Lord Jesus and angels, for to which of the angels had the Father said at any time, "Thou art my Son?" Yet more, I fancy that. "These are thy glorious works, parent of good, Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!". His intercession is not in or for the unregenerate. Suppose, too, that when he had to plead with the judge himself, this advocate at home should teach him how to behave and what to urge, and encourage him to hope that he would prevail, would not this be a great boon? We shall take the words one by one, and try to explain them. It is not possible for us to be divine, yet it is written that we are made "partakers of the divine nature." HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" 537, 553, 297. Such guidance will the Spirit give to each of you if you will ask him to illuminate you. My eternal destiny infinitely more concerns me than all the affairs of time. We know not what God is, nor the measure of his attributes. I beseech you, my dear friends, take this thought with you wherever you go: "I am a debtor, I must serve my God. Sow well, for others must reap. What bliss to know that he who is "very God of very God," and sits on the eternal throne, is also of the same nature with ourselves, our kinsman, who is not ashamed even amidst the royalties of glory to call us brethren. Come, men, put your face against all weathers; be ready to come up hill, with the snow blowing in your face, be ready to march on when the tempest howls, and the lightnings flash over head, and the snow becomes knee-deep; nay, be ready to go into the crevasse with him, and perish, if need be. Let her, then, as Christ's queen, claim the earth as hers, and send her heralds forth from sea to sea to bid all men bow before him, and confess him to be their King. Christ loved you when he died; he will love you when you die. "They are so; but not when they are arrayed in the robes, and invested with the credentials of their Sovereign. You may go down, down, down, till you seem to have got beyond the reach of help from mortal man; but there are cords and bands which bind you to Christ that even these depths can never break, come what may. From this he infers that if God has given us the Spirit whereby we call him "Father," then we are his children, which is plain, fair, and clear reasoning. Much need is there for the stone that it should be well secured, for within the sepulchre there is a putrid corpse. What consolation then to be called: for if I am called, then I am predestinated. It is the mighty God himself who came here to be a Man, and to die in our stead, for is it not written that God hath bought his people with his own blood? Let me appeal personally to you in an interrogatory style, for this has weight with it. But listen to another word of the Lord in the first epistle of John, iii. My brethren, we ought not to do so. And they speak not; "because," says Paul, "I have obtained mercy who was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious, that in me first he might show forth all longsuffering." Then after you had heard what the natural religion of man is, I would ask what must his irreligion be? How can a heavenly one be content till he ascends to the heavenlies? When the speaker has almost lost the thread of his discourse he turns his ear, and the prompter gives him the catch-word and aids his memory. We are willing now to be conformed to the image of Jesus, yea, we are more than willing, we are anxious and desirous for it; but still the main and first motive power lay not in our will, but in his will, and to-day the immutable force which is best to be depended upon does not lie in our fickle, feeble will, but in the unchanging and omnipotent will of God. Wherever we go, we gather fresh proofs of the common observation, that we are living in a most marvellous age. They love him as their King, they are willing to obey him, to walk in his commands is their delight; no path is so soft to their feet as the path of God's precepts, the way of obedience thereunto. You may have seen very beautiful prayers in print, and you may have heard very charming compositions from the pulpit, but I trust you have not fallen in love with them. Consider thou art as deep in debt as thou canst be to every attribute of God. 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." Yes, blessed be God, even this foe can be overcome by the weapon the believer wields in the power of God, for he can tell conscience, as he told his former opponents, "It is Christ that died." And when he surroundeth thee with favors, girdeth thee with mercies, encircleth thee with loving kindness, dost thou hate him for this? He is safe, and he must be saved, though all things pass away. If the wings of the Eternal are thy shelter, what plague can attack thee? If you follow after Christ, and find eternal life, when they hear of it, they will sneer at you, and bring up all your past life against you. what can destroy thee if omnipotence is thy helper? He could not be persuaded that nothing could separate us from a thing which did not exist, so he is persuaded, first of all, of the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. No; though you should be weary of your life, though you should never have a ray of light by the month together, there is nothing there to separate you from the love of Christ. I hear a brave, strong voice, crying, "Who shall lay anything to my charge?" Now, the apostle sets the whole matter before us when he said, "The whole creation groaneth," and you know what comes after that, "travaileth." But, again, there is another point in which the saint is deficient as yet, namely, in the manifestation of our adoption. Suppose it to be a time of war centuries back. In too many instances ministers of religion has propagated doubt, and the result is a general hardening of the popular feeling, and a greatly-increased neglect of public worship. These are blessed subjects, though I cannot speak upon them as I would. His wife clings to his shoulder, his children seek to persuade him; they attend him to the waters' edge; he sails for Carthage; his death was too horrible to be described. 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