Romans No.19 More than Conquerors

I remember reading an address by F.B. Meyer, the great preacher of yesteryear, and he said that it's very rare, if ever, that someone gets to the end of their life and everything that they sought to do has actually been accomplished. And in the graphic fashion in which Meyer wrote with great, great descriptive ability, he talked about the paralyzed hand of the author being unable to convey the pen across the page any longer, though the book had not been completed. He talked about the sculptor not being able to hold a chisel though what he was endeavoring to fashion had not been brought to completion.

And I want to give very many examples of people whose lives and their life's work was very much like that of the musician Schubert. They finished up with an unfinished symphony, an unfinished life. You couldn't say that of Jesus.

The final word that left the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary was a cry of triumph when in the Greek language, he said, tetalestai, it is finished. All that God gave for me to do has been completely accomplished. And it's that thought of the finality of the work of the Lord Jesus and the way that we can bask in the glory of his achievements that is dominant in these final verses of this great eighth chapter of Romans.

Our Lord Jesus Christ was more than a conqueror in all that he endeavored to do. He came to this world with a specific purpose, a specific goal. He achieved that purpose.

He got the ball into the goal. And in the victory that belongs to our Lord Jesus, in the sunshine of that victory, we also are to bask. That's why the apostle Paul says in the 37th verse of this chapter, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

I like the translation that H.G. Moole gives of that particular expression, more than conquerors. We are super conquerors. You think of yourself as a superman, a Christian who's able to cope with all the temptations, all the difficulties that the devil drops in our pathway, able to go forth to conquer and to conquer conquest as did our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, it's this really that becomes, if you like, the seed thought that Paul opens up for us in these verses. Indeed, those of you who from the 28th verse are working from the NIV version of the Bible, you'll see that that final paragraph in our chapter is entitled more than conquerors. Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to do a specific work.

He saw the need, men and women, in the problems, languishing in the problems that sin had created for them. He saw them. He came, he saw, and he conquered.

He brought into this world the solution for the difficulties that men and women have created for themselves. Now, I argue that you get a grand statement of this, and so we'll turn to it in Colossians chapter two where we read of our Lord Jesus Christ in the 13th verse of that grand letter, the apostle Paul, of course, dashing it off to the Colossian church. He says, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.

He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to his cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Do you think of the cross of Jesus Christ not as an emblem of failure, but rather as the badge of his success? He came into the world to liberate men and women from sin, and the only way that he could do that was by taking the consequences of our sin upon himself, and as he did so, he conquered the power that held men and women in bondage through the attempts of the devil to destroy the glory of God in the face of men and women.

Now, because of what our Lord Jesus has done in bringing us back into a relationship with God, because of the finality of his work, it's true for us to say that we are utterly assured of our salvation. We're not in a sort of twilight world, maybe sometimes feeling saved and sometimes not saved. It's not our feelings that are important.

It's the finished work of our Lord Jesus that's important. What the apostle, more than anything else, wants to convey to us in Romans chapter eight is that you can be sure of this. You can be sure, as we say, as eggs are eggs, that you, if you trusted Jesus as your savior, you are saved, that you are bound for heaven.

You're not saved one minute and lost the next minute. And so we come on to what I've entitled in the 28th through to the 30th verses as God's treatment of his elect, God's treatment of his elect. Says Paul, we know, we who belong to the Lord Jesus, we who, basking in the victory of Calvary, we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Now, if you unpackage that, it means that all the various events in your life, everything that happens to you occurs within the sovereign purposes of God. Now, you've got to stop short for a moment and think that one through because there is a careless application of that verse which seems to suggest that everything that happens to us in life is so good, we should rejoice with joy exceeding, joy abundant and full of glory. And really, that's not on, is it? Because you know that there's some things that have happened to you that you find it very, very hard to glory in.

The Bible doesn't say that everything that happens to us is good. I, to this day, can see no good in the way that my dad died. Not that he died, but the way that he died.

I can't see any reason behind it. One day, I shall ask the Lord to tell me and he will. But at the moment, I can't work it through.

But what I can say is this, that there was an ultimate good in it because I believe that my dad is with the Lord in heaven. So the Bible is telling us this. As far as God's treatment of his children are concerned, all things work for the ultimate good of those who love him.

Here's old Joseph. We've been watching him, haven't we, for quite a long time on a Sunday morning at the tap. You couldn't say when he was in the dungeon that it was good to be in the dungeon.

Who wants to be in a dungeon? Who wants to be sold as a slave? Who wants to be accused of rape and yet was utterly innocent of the charge? Well, nobody in their right mind wants to have this sort of unpleasant experience. But ultimately, did it not work for the good of Joseph? He became the prime minister of all Egypt. And perhaps even more pertinently, because of what happened in his life, his brothers and his father were preserved.

They were able to come down to Egypt and bask in the fact that there were resources of food that had been stored by the wisdom of Joseph for such a time as hit them when the famine occurred. So all those unpleasant things that occurred in Joseph's life ultimately turned out to be for his good. And for the benefit of his brothers and his father.

I hope you've got that plain. That though in the victory of our Lord Jesus, we glory, and though our lives have upon them the seal of God's spirit, there will be certain things that will happen to us that are not easy for us to understand or indeed for us to accept. But one thing that you can say is this, if you're walking before the Lord as best you can, obedient to his will, responsive to his spirit, that he checks everything.

Everything that comes to you in your life, God permits. My old mum, she has problems. Sometimes I ring her up at night and one of the things that she worries about, she's now in her 70s, is what's it going to be like at the end? You know, will I retain my dignity? Will I have to go through great illness, suffer a stroke? Of course, I can't read the future, but I can try and tell my mum, as I tell folks here at the tab, that all her tomorrows are looked at by God before they reach her and he's got her ultimate good in view.

That's a marvelous thing for us to recognize. And this is what the Lord promises us in terms of these scriptures that we're trying to work our way through right now. Now, the ultimate good of Christian people is guaranteed to us by the involvement of God in our lives.

You see, we're part of these people, verse 29, whom God foreknew. God had a knowledge of you before you were actually born. If you check Psalm 139, you'll see the Psalmist says that God knew him before he was formed in his mother's womb.

God had an idea that you and I would come on planet Earth in the 1980s, that we would be living our lives at this time. He foreknew us. And not only did he foreknow us, but he also predestined us.

That means to say that he knew that you would respond to his specific call, the call of the gospel. Now, Jesus once taught, didn't he, that many are called. And in a very real sense, that is true.

Every time the gospel, for example, is preached at the time to four or 500 people, then they're all called. We say, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. But we have to admit that not everybody who hears does believe.

They're called, but they're not predestined. There's not that effectual call. They don't respond to the gospel as you and I have responded to it.

They don't respond to freely choose the Lord Jesus as their savior. But you and I have. He foreknew us.

He predestined us. And the ultimate goal that he has in mind for you and for me is to be made more like his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he's here called the firstborn among many brothers.

What does that mean? Well, our Lord Jesus was the first to be raised from the dead, wasn't he? But not only was he the first to be raised from the dead. If you go back to the history of the world, you'll find that Jesus is called, and the Jehovah's Witnesses misunderstand this statement. You find it in Colossians and also in the book of Revelation.

He's called the firstborn of all creation. That means to say that he was at the beginning of the whole of the created event. It was through him that the worlds came into being.

He is the beginning of creation. He's also there at the beginning, if you like, of recreation. He's the one who's been first raised from the dead in the power of an endless life.

And God has predestined you and me ultimately also to be raised from the dead as we share further in the redemptive successes of our Lord Jesus. He's predestined us, he foreknew us, he specially called us, he's justified us just as if we had never sinned. And here is the Apostle Paul using a prophetic past but looking into the future saying of the Lord Jesus and his effect upon our lives that he has glorified us.

One day you're gonna be like him, in degree you now are. But ultimately when you see him, you're going to be absolutely like him. And all this is the work of God which he has directed its benefits towards you and me.

Did you notice when Tim read this passage and as I've been working through it, showing you something of God's treatment of his elect, how all the verbs in these verses indicate the initiative of God. God is gonna work everything together for our ultimate good. God foreknows us, God predestines us, God conforms us, God calls us, God justifies us, God glorifies us.

See, God moved first and brought you to himself. That's God's treatment of you. It's staggering really, isn't it? I've got in the fly leaf of my RSV Bible which I used to use when I was at London Bible College something like this.

"'Twas not that I did choose thee Lord, for Lord that could not be. My heart would still refuse thee hadst thou not chosen me.' He moved first, he softened my hard heart and he gave me the ability to respond to his gospel as he made my justification possible through our Lord Jesus. And I look forward to the day when my earthly pilgrimage shall be through and I will be glorified like our Lord Jesus." Well then, if God has done something for us, shouldn't we respond? Don't you respond to people who do favors to you or who in some way seek out your company? You get a little invitation to a happy event, a wedding, and somebody puts on the bottom of the silver edged card RSVP and because you've got enough French just above and beyond la plume de ma tante, respondez s'il vous plait.

And that means reply if you please. Respond to what has been offered you in terms of the honor of being invited to this, the celebration of this happy event. Well, says the apostle, God has done all this.

This is his treatment. Let the elect respond to such enormous favors that God has directed to them. So verse 31, what then shall we say? And Paul leads off with several questions.

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? Paul is piling on the logic. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died.

I can imagine Paul really going very, very fast as he's writing this letter or really pouring it out to his secretary to take down in whatever was the form of shorthand in those days. The adrenaline's in his bloodstream as Paul recognizes the greatness of God's favor directed towards him and he wants to respond to such enormous, enormous blessings that he has received. Don't you ever get overwhelmed about the nature of your salvation? You know, I'm guilty of many things as a preacher and as a pastor, but one thing I think I'm not guilty of is taking the communion, the bread and the wine, and not thinking of it in the way that I ought.

It sometimes is the hardest thing at the tab to keep my emotions intact when I'm thinking of the bread and of the wine and what they convey, the broken body of our Lord Jesus and the shed blood. I've never lost what A. W. Tozer calls my awe. He loved me.

He gave himself for me. And this is really what Paul is telling us here. He's excited because of what Jesus has done for him.

You see, the apostle Paul's standing before God is a strong one, isn't it? And he's standing before the devil is strong in as much as, well, Paul is on the Lord's side. What shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? It's not that Paul never sinned. It's that Paul's sin has known absolution through the death of the Lord Jesus.

Though all the powers of hell are reigned against Paul, he is able to have this great confidence that in effect, it doesn't really matter because God is for him. In one sense, if you understand Paul's use of the preposition for in that, where are we? The 31st verse, then you've grasped the full total of the gospel. God is for us.

And he's shown that he's for us in as much as the Lord Jesus came into the world to die on the cross of Calvary on our behalf. Now, says the apostle, speaking of that death and analyzing the motivation, he doesn't say that Jesus died to make God love us. That's sometimes how we teach it to our boys and girls.

And that's a shame because it's wrong. Jesus died because the Father loved us so much, he sent the Lord Jesus into the world to be the propitiation for our sins. He, God the Father, verse 32, who did not spare his own son.

The most wonderful relationship that the Father enjoyed in eternity was that unbroken communion with his son. Now, when Jesus went to the cross, that was severed. That's why in the garden of Gethsemane, he weeps.

That's why bloody perspiration falls down his brow. He's not afraid of death, he's not afraid of pain. Other people have died equally as horribly as Jesus died at the physical level.

The problem for Jesus was not that he was bulking from physical pain, but the awfulness of separation from the Father. God gave him up and he gave him up for us all. And when the darkness surrounds the cross and you hear that cry of dereliction from the heart of the darkness, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You understand something of the agony that our Lord went through the day that he was made sin for us.

Now, he is the apostle and he knows that God is for us. He knows that God is for him, God who did not spare his own son. If God did this at the major level, then why should Paul be concerned about the minor level? If God has given us this, then the possibility is, indeed the certainty is, that along with him, graciously, he will give us all things.

Abba's fullness have we all received. And grace upon grace, his love has no limits. His grace has no measure.

His love has no boundary known unto men. And out of his infinite riches in glory, he giveth and giveth again and again. Our position is strong, but not only so, our defense is certain.

Does the devil sometimes sit on your shoulder? And does he sometimes bring charges against you? I had a most curious experience when I was sitting, when I was preaching in Singapore. And I was so helped by another man who was ministering in the first two days that I was in Singapore, following me in sessions. One day we went for a run on the Tuesday after I'd been ministering on the Monday.

And I said, how did you face the conference? You know, how did you come across? And now he's an American man, I've preached with him in various parts of the world before, but we only meet at conferences. And he said, you know, I had a most unusual experience. I said, what was that? He said, it was just as though somebody was sitting on my shoulder saying to me, all that you are saying is a load of Tommy rot.

And I had exactly the same experience, exactly the same experience. Preaching on the Monday and Tuesday was a great battle. And the interesting thing is that the conference delegates were utterly unaware of this.

It was like trying to preach to a stone wall. They weren't stone hearted people at all. My problem was, well, it was the old enemy, the accused of the brethren coming along and trying to trip me as I was preaching, capitalizing on the fact that mentally I was feeling tired.

And I was coping with fatigue having come down from Malaysia where there's so much persecution. But you see, here's the apostle and he's addressing this. Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? Can anyone rob them of their salvation? Can anyone say that their service in the sight of God is ineffective? Well, attempts might be made, but these attempts will not be successful.

Why not? Well, because God, God justifies, God grants us our salvation. God makes us successful in Jesus Christ. Our defense is certain.

As F.F. Bruce puts it, the prosecutor may not venture to appear, but the counsel for the defense is present and active. Aren't you glad that Jesus Christ is your barrister? You don't have to get someone else to plead your cause. And when he walks into court, all the prosecuting counsel just disappear.

It's no point them being around because no one can argue with him. He's got all the arguments to bring before God as to why your salvation should remain intact. Who is he that condemns? There's no one around, nobody in the courtroom.

There's only Jesus Christ, Christ who died. More than that, not just Jesus who died, but Christ who was raised to life. We have a living barrister who's at the right hand of God.

What is he doing? Well, he's interceding for us. This great role of advocate, it belongs to our Lord Jesus, loves Redeemer, plead for me. And that's precisely what he does.

And because he does that, says the apostle, all doubt about your salvation and you persevering to the end is canceled in as much as you've got the guarantee that your salvation is as secure as the resurrection of Christ and as secure as the promises of God to Jesus who has granted the Lord Jesus all those for whom he has died. The response of the elect to such favor, well, we respond by knowing that our position before God is strong and we admit to that. And our defense is certain.

Now, if ever you doubt these things, my dear brothers and sisters, I give you the pastoral advice that has been so beneficial to me in years gone by. Stay close to the cross of Jesus. Stay close to his cross.

Sing those hymns about the cross of Jesus very feelingfully. Be present at communion. I really find it very hard to understand why Christian people sometimes absent themselves from the Lord's table.

I'm not a legalist. I don't suggest to you that God is somehow going to show his displeasure to you on a Monday if you're not around the table on a Sunday. But what I am saying that is around the Lord's table, there is a very wonderful means of grace available to you and to me to help assure us of our salvation and to keep us in the very center of the will of God.

Well then, let's move on and let's conclude by looking at the final verses in this chapter. The apostle has been assuring himself of all the guarantees of the gospel. But he does square up to the fact that, well, the devil has his fling, doesn't he? He has his flings through circumstances.

He has his fling through experiences that some Christians have in terms of the devil trying to get into their lives. Remember once having great battles with the devil in Nepal? I really can recall two occasions in my life when I felt at night I had a hand-to-hand combat with the devil, with the forces of evil. I'd been confronting Hinduism.

And in a very real fashion, I felt the presence of the devil. And I was glad to be able to plead the victory of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and sense the very presence of the devil leave the room where I was on my own. And here's the apostle saying, well, who shall separate us from the love of God? Now attempts will be made.

Troubles, hardships, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. Many, many pressures at a human level and also at a satanic level are sometimes brought against the individual who's a member of the church of Jesus Christ. And yet the apostle is laughing at the opposition.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? You might try, but it's like blowing peas at a stone wall. You'll never knock the wall down. Not with peas.

There is no force on heaven, in heaven, on earth or under the earth that shall successfully dislodge you and me from the positions that are ours. The position that is ours in Christ Jesus. Now it's not just Paul who's testifying to that.

He dips into the Old Testament. He is the Psalmist who says, and he's quoting him in the 36th verse, for your sake we face death all day long. We're considered a sheep to be slaughtered.

And yet, says the apostle, plundering those words from the Old Testament Psalms, in all these things we're more than conquerors, super conquerors through him who loved us. And then he repeats exactly the same as he's been saying before. Different words he uses, but nonetheless the repetition is in principle the same.

I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, and here he's thinking about those satanic powers to which I've made reference in terms of battles that I've had in Nepal against the occult forces of evil. None of these things shall be able to separate us from the love of God. Neither height nor depth.

Nothing in the created universe will be able to dislodge us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. There is nothing in the course of time nor in the vast expanse of space, there is not one thing in the whole of the universe that can dislodge us from our position as those who are beloved of God. A love secured forever through Jesus our Lord.

Loved with everlasting love. That's what Paul is underlining here, not so in these final verses in this great and glorious chapter, the eighth of the epistle to the Romans. Now, are you working it through? I didn't just ask, are you understanding it? Are you working it through? Are you being a super conqueror? The devil slides alongside Jesus, the beginning of his ministry, if you are the son of God.

He wasn't doubting it actually, he was banking on it. If you're the son of God, take these stones, turn them into bread, you're hungry, you have every right. And as one Puritan says, this is a strange thing, the devil amongst the theologians, he quotes the word of God.

God has said, you shall not live. Or rather, God has said that it is possible that he will give bread to those who are hungry. And Jesus corrects the devil as he says, man shall not live by bread alone.

Jesus, the super conqueror, puts the devil to flight. Are you like that? Coping with the trials and the pressures of life, doing it not on your own initiative, but in the strength of the victory of our Lord Jesus. In all these things, super conquerors, through him who loved us and gave himself for us.

God's treatment of his elect, the response of the elect to such favor and squaring up to the opposition that I put to you is the drift of what Paul is challenging us with in these verses. Let's pray. Loving Father, we thank you for a salvation that's tailor made for our needs.

We have a hope that is steadfast and certain, gone through the curtain and touching the throne. We praise you for the firstborn from the dead, our Lord Jesus. Thank you for his finished work.

Praise you that we bask in the afterglow. Thank you that we don't have to copy him, but rather we participate in his life. Praise you that because we're part organically of who he is, part of his body, so our salvation is utterly guaranteed.

Now be with dear brothers and sisters here. Father, we've seen the ideal, but sometimes we live at less than the ideal. Sometimes the devil does come along.

We give him a place and doubts grow. Sometimes he creeps into our thought life and we accept impure thoughts and act upon them. Now Lord, we want to be strengthened, to be able to kick the devil out at every event, every turn in our life.

When sometimes he sits on my shoulders and whispers wrong things into my ears when I'm preaching. Father, we come against him in the power of our Lord Jesus. Give us victory, Lord.

Make us to be super conquerors through him. Bless every brother and sister who has to cope with the difficulty of depression. We come against that right now.

We rebuke it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We rebuke impure and immoral thoughts. We rebuke everything that savers not of our Lord Jesus.

And we tell the devil to be quiet, to shut up, to go away. We thank you that we can use such language because we're following the captain of our salvation, the super conqueror in chief. Help us Lord to continue in such a fashion that brings credit to the captain of our regiment as we're a part of his battalion for his name's sake.

Amen.