Romans 8:26. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities:
Our weaknesses, our insufficiencies, our inabilities: the Spirit of God comes in to be a helper to the children of God.
Romans 8:26. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought:
We do not know our own infirmities. Perhaps we think that we are strong, where we are exceedingly weak. The Spirit of God spies out the infirmities, and puts the help where the strength is required. «We know not what we should pray for as we ought.»
Romans 8:26. But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Those great things in prayer that we cannot ask for, which can never be expressed in human language, the Holy Ghost translates into groans, and so we are made to groan when we cannot speak; and those groanings bring us blessings which words cannot compass. Have you been into your prayer-chamber lately, pleading with God, and have you felt as if you could not pray? We often pray best when we think that we are praying worst. When there is the most anguish, and sighing, and crying in prayer, there is most of the very essence of prayer.
Romans 8:27. And he that searched the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
The Spirit knows what we want. God knows: what the Spirit is asking for; and so our prayer makes the complete round, and God sends us the blessing.
Romans 8:28. And we know
We know: we are sure of it.
Romans 8:28. That all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
We know this, for we have proved it in our own experience. «All things work.» There is nothing inactive in the providence of God. «All things work together.» There is a unity in providence. God sets one thing over against another. Blessed be the name of God, all things work together for good. The purpose of God to his people is good, and only good; and though this or that might be injurious, yet, all put together, they work for good to them that love God. Come, my soul, dost thou love God? Canst thou say tonight, «Thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee»? All things work together for thy good. Not only shall they work, but they are working, they work now, for thy good. And learn another sweet lesson. Thou art one of those whom God calls, according to the sweet purpose of his electing love, for so it stands: they that love God are the same as those who are called according to his purpose. If thou lovest God, God loves thee. Thy love to God, poor and faint though it be, is the assured token that he loves thee with an everlasting love, and, therefore, with bands of loving-kindness has he drawn thee.
Romans 8:29. For whom he did foreknow,
That is, look upon with pleasure and delight from before all worlds. Whom he did love and call to be his own. Christ is the man, the archetype. He is not to be a lone man. It is not good for man to be alone, not even for the man; and there are to be other men called by God's grace who are to be made like him, who are to be his brethren. These, whom God foreknew, with fore-love he has ordained, determined, predestinated to be made like his Son.
Romans 8:29-30. 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, them he also called:
Not with the common call with which he calls other men, but with the special call. The hen, when she is about in the yard, keeps on calling; but when she wants her own little ones to come and run beneath her wings, then she has a special cluck for them, and they know it, and they come, and run and hide beneath her.
Romans 8:30. And whom he called, them he also justified:
He regarded them as just. He made them just through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:30. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.
There is no break in this chain. The foreknown are predestinated, the predestinated are called, the called are justified, the justified are glorified. It is a wondrous chain. He that getteth a hold of it anywhere hath a hold of the whole of it, for this Scripture cannot be broken. If thou art called by grace into the fellowship of eternal life, thou shalt be justified and glorified.
Romans 8:31. What shall we then say to these things?
I do not know what we can say. Wonders of grace, mountains of mercy without limit what shall be say to these things? This, at least we can say:
Romans 8:31. If God be for us, who can be against us?
A great many can be against us, but we reckon them as nothing at all, if God be for us.
Romans 8:32. 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?
There can be no end to the bounty of God after he has given his Son. He that has given the jewel of the universe, the very eye of heaven what! will he not give to us all else really needed, and give freely, too?
Romans 8:33-35. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen 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?
Dear children of God, feed on these words. They are like wafers made with honey, like cold waters from the rock. Eat, drink, and be filled. «Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?»
Romans 8:35. Shall tribulation, or distress, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Well, these things have been tried. As it is written, «For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.» In Paul's day they were being hunted to the death, by thousands, and tens of thousands. Were they separated from Christ's love? The enemy grew tired of persecution before the saints were wearied by it. You remember how, in the days of the Roman Empire, the Christians came to the judgment-seat and confessed Christ, even when they were not sought after as if tempting their enemies to throw them to the lions, or put them to death. They were destitute of all fear, and though Emperors were worse than brutes, these Christians defied them, outbraved them; vanquished them. They could not put down the Christians.
Romans 8:36-39. As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through 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.