Romans II

Personality Weaknesses or Disobedience?

Romans 8:27a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

All of our academic disciplines and all the attempts that we ourselves make at forming a philosophy
of life are aimed at one particular target, and that is to try to find a unifying principle or one
single idea that will make sense of life. One unifying principle or one single idea that will give
meaning to life and that will enable us to know the purpose for our own lives. I think you’d agree
with that. That’s the meaning of philosophy, to find a single unifying idea or principle that will
give meaning to all of life and will enable us to know why we’re here at all. For weeks now, we
have been sharing the principle that the Person whom we believe to be the Son of the Maker of the
world has brought to us, and that principle is, the continuity of life.

[Diagrams are used from this point. See video of sermon.]

In other words, we’ve shared that if you think of the world as made up with many, many little
circles, 3.5 billion of us like that. If there was some life source here that could get into each
one of us and could give to us the same characteristics as this life source itself had, we could
then begin to express that to each other. Then, you could see us possibly entering into some
harmony in life. If this life source for instance had pity as one of its qualities, then that pity
would come into the hearts of all these 3.5 billion people. If this life source had love as one of
its qualities, then love would come into every personality in the whole universe.

We’ve been sharing that this actually is the plan of the Maker of the world, that we would each
retain our individual characteristics: some of us would have beards, and some of us would speak
quickly, and some of us would speak slowly, and some of us would like art, and some of us would like
science. But through all of us would run this one kind of life. And in fact, we’ve been finding
that Jesus has said that that life is the very life that runs through his own family — that is,
the family of the Father and the Son. It’s the life of the Holy Spirit. It’s uncreated life and it
contains the very genes of God, the very characteristics of God’s own personality. The Father’s
will is that, of course, we will receive that life and then we will begin to express it to the world
and to each other.

It’s no mystery, loved ones. I’ll just point out to you that there are two problem points in that
plan that you yourself can see. First of all, there’s this point, the receiving of that life. So,
there can be something wrong with our receiving apparatus. Then, there’s the transmitting part of
that plan. There can be something wrong with our transmitting apparatus, the method by which we
transmit this life to each other. That’s exactly where the problems are, you remember. We receive
this life of the Holy Spirit into our spirits. In order to receive that life of the Holy Spirit
into your spirit you have to be willing for your life to be governed by this Holy Spirit. You have
to be willing for your life to go the way your Maker intended it to go. If you’re not willing for
that, then you’re going to have problems with many willful characteristics of rebellion in your
life. You’re going to have trouble with things like anger, and jealousy, and envy. In other words,
you’re going to have trouble with what we would call our just “downright sins”. So if you are
unwilling for your life to be governed by this life of the Holy Spirit, then you’re going to have
trouble with what the Bible calls “works of the flesh”.

Now on the other hand, as this life of the Holy Spirit comes in there [pointing to diagram], so he
tries to get out. He comes up against this transmission problem, the soul. The soul consists of
the mind, and the emotions, and the will. They are what God uses to transmit this life of the Holy
Spirit to other people. If you have a problem because your soul is not fitted to transmit that
life, then you have difficulty with other things — what we would call “human personality
weaknesses”. You’d have trouble with things like facetiousness, or talkativeness, or being a little
overbearing with people, or trying to swamp people with a kind of human love and putting them off.
But you’d have trouble then in that area with human traits, human personality weaknesses. And the
need there of course, is to allow the Holy Spirit to begin to reroute and renew your soul powers.

Those powers, you remember, have been used for an entirely different kind of life. God intended
these powers of the soul to be used this way, he intended that the mind would be used to understand
him. The Holy Spirit would come in like that, [pointing to diagram] and then as he was going out
like this, the mind would understand what the Holy Spirit was giving to you from God. The will
would obey that and the emotions would express the joy of your fellowship with God. So the whole
plan was that the soul would experience an outgoing life. In fact of course, once you decide to
reject that — and we’ve all done that from the beginning of our lives — then the soul began an
inward turn kind of life. Where it tried to get security and enjoyment from the world itself. The
soul became perverted and the mind began to manipulate. Instead of to understand God’s will, it
began to try to manipulate the other 3.5 billion people in the world. The will began to try to rule
these people, to make some room so that we can get our own heads above everybody else’s shoulders.
Instead of obeying God, we became preoccupied with making other people obey us. Our emotions were
utterly desolate and lonely because of the lack of God’s fellowship and they began to concentrate on
enjoying other people, enjoying things and getting joy for ourselves.

Now loved ones, that’s what I mean when I say the “transmitting apparatus”, or the transmitters
inside us have become preprogrammed, and rerouted and perverted. Until they are renewed and you
begin to let your soul be governed by the Spirit, you’re going to have trouble with what we call
human weaknesses, human traits that are inexpedient for the expression of God’s life. I’d point out
to you that there is a definite difference here, because some of you may say, “Oh yeah, I have some
of those human weaknesses: anger, bad temper, jealousy.” No loved ones, those are downright sins
and you better just call them sins. The problem with those is, in the reception area you are not
willing for your life to be governed by the Holy Spirit and as a result of that, you get into a
situation where you want to control it because you don’t want the Holy Spirit to control your life.
You can’t control it so you lose your temper in order to bring the others to heel and enable you to
get control of the situation.

When you’re talking about things like anger, bad temper, jealousy and pride, the Bible has no doubt
about it. Those are works of the flesh. Those are downright sins. Those are due to a willful
rejection of the right of the Holy Spirit to govern your life. But I’d point out to you that if you
have allowed him to come in, and you’ve really received the Spirit of Jesus into your life, and
you’re alive to God, and now you want to express that to others, you come up against another
problem: the transmitting part of your life, the soul power, the psychological apparatus that you
have. It’s been used for years to take in from the world, and now it suddenly has to start giving
out. There you begin to run up against human weaknesses like talkativeness. You’ve been used for
years to talking a lot to try to get people to notice you. Now, you don’t want people to notice you
any longer. You’re happy not to be noticed, but you’ve got used to talking a lot and you just keep
on talking. The needle just won’t stop. You just keep at it. The reason has gone for it, but
you’ve got your personality into that kind of approach.

Actually, it’s interesting. Talking about the good things that you’ve done in your life can be
downright pride and boasting, or it can at times be something that you’ve got yourself used to.
You’ve just got used to talking big. I know several brothers who were salesman and they had
terrible inferiority complexes. They felt they were unworthy and had no value. Nobody respected
them and so they got used to talking big to make people look up to them. Then they came and they
received the Holy Spirit into their lives. They sense their significance as being God’s children,
but they had got used to talking big and they kept on talking big. Now that’s what you mean when
you talk about human weaknesses as opposed to downright carnal attitudes. These are downright
carnal attitudes here. The only thing that will deal with those is letting Jesus’ Spirit come in
and take over your whole life and giving up the right to control your life the way you want.

Now on the other hand, these can only be dealt with by a gradual process of allowing the Spirit of
Jesus to again and again brake you when you’re in the midst of talking too much. You see the glazed
impression coming over the other person’s eyes. You know they’re going to black out soon by you
talking big. Then the Holy Spirit points out to you, “Well you know you did it again,” and suddenly
you realize, “Yeah, I did.” You don’t feel a terrible guilt about it, “Lord I didn’t intend it.”
In other words loved ones, you can see that in a real sense these are kind of involuntary responses
that you find yourself producing. These [pointing to diagram] are real voluntary responses.

The Bible makes a distinction between conscience sin and unconscious sin. If you look up Leviticus,
there’s a real distinction between conscious sin and unconscious sin. This may help some of you who
have been concerned with another verse. The Bible talks about a sin unto death — and that you are
not to pray for — but there is a sin not unto death. I think you can see the point there. That
here [pointing] there is a deliberate rebellion against God which is due to your life not being
controlled by the Holy Spirit. Here there is a deception. Some of you find, “I am doing it again.
God doesn’t want me to.” Here you’re talking about a gradual process experience of the cross,
growing in grace. Here you’re talking about a crisis and instantaneous crisis.

So loved ones there is a real distinction there. I’ll just give you an example and then I’ll stop
long enough to let you push me on it in questions. You remember the situation with Peter in the
Garden of Gethsemane? You remember when Jesus was being arrested? Peter took out the old sword and
just whipped off the high priest’s ear. Jesus really used strong language with him, and yet that
was an example of this [pointing] rather than this. In other words, God knew that Peter’s motive
was, in fact, right. He wanted to save Jesus but his method of achieving that motive was of the old
worldly system.

Now when we talk about human weaknesses that’s what we’re talking about: the end is right. The
person who has been filled with the Holy Spirit, who has received the Holy Spirit and allowed him to
fill every part of his spirit, the end is right but the means are wrong. That’s really what we’re
talking about when we talk about human weaknesses or personality prayers.

Now loved ones, I think I should stop for a moment. Any questions? Does anyone want to try to push
me to clarify this or anything?

Q. Does the person on the right [pointing to diagram] then not know God at all and is he not a
Christian?

A. Brother, I think that many of us have real trouble with this area of our lives, that is,

conscious disobedience. Even though we have entered into as much of the gospel as has been preached
to us — now I’ll put it that way. I think a lot of us have heard often that Jesus has died for our
sins, but we have never really been told what — I hesitate to you use the word because it can
become a school very quickly — but I would call it radical Christianity. In fact, I would call it
just ordinary Christianity. But we’ve never been taught the radical remedy that we have been
crucified with Christ. So many of us have an intellectual concept that Jesus had died for our sins
— and we’re really good Jews. We’re just good Jews. We believe on him who is to come, but we
ourselves have no tremendous awareness as Jesus as a person in our lives. We believe the concept,
we’ll believe our sins have been forgiven but we have not entered into any crucifixion with Christ,
any death to our own right to rule our own lives, and so we’re still having trouble — conscience
disobedience.

Now brother, you can see the direction I’m taking. I’m saying that a person who has entered into all
that God has for them — which is being filled with the Holy Spirit or being baptized with the
Spirit, being crucified with Christ as well as believing that Jesus has died for them — you’re
right, they would then have victory in this area and are meant to have victory in this area. So
does that help? So if you want me to answer your question, I would say, “A person here [pointing to
diagram] would be a Christian, would be a Christian growing in grace. I’m afraid that there are
many of us who call ourselves Christians who are – I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m moving it back and
forward – a person who has had victory over these things would be a Christian, but was still growing
in this area, that would be a Christian. I think there are many of us who are Christians who seem
to be in the midst of this kind of problem and have not victory over it. Boy, I have done my best
to confuse that one!

Loved ones, I think you see, even though I was pointed to the wrong thing, what I’m suggesting: that
a Christian is meant to have to be free from this kind of thing. Free from that, and growing into
this. What I’m afraid you see, many of you loved ones do, you say, “Well I’m not free from this but
I’m growing into this,” or, “I’m growing away from it. I’m growing free from it.” No, you’re freed
from that by your instantaneous death with Jesus on the cross and by being filled and cleansed by
the Holy Spirit. Now push me loved ones.

Q. The past three weeks you’ve split the Spirt into three. Can you go over that again?

A. I think brother, that’s it. That there [pointing to diagram] I tried to talk about some of the
functions of the Spirit. I think those loved ones, are some of the functions of the Spirit. The
Spirit has a function of conscience. Then of course, it’s God’s will that that would govern our
wills. So our wills would be in direct submission to our consciences. Where we get into trouble of
course, is we try to put our wills under direct submission to our minds. Our minds of course,
should be in direct submission to our intuition of our spirits. But we so often, put our minds in
submission to our problems that we’re having with other people and we end up manipulating.

Fellowship should fulfill all the needs of our emotions so that those of us who are husbands could
love our wives freely without trying to drag love from them because we’re receiving the love from
the Father. It would be true with all of us who are roommates. I think it’s good loved ones, even
though I know it’s important for us to have a definite teaching every Sunday, it’s important once in
a while to stop like this so that you can get at me a bit and hold me back.

Q. By “sin onto death” do you mean a continual unrepentant rebellion?

A. Yes brother, I would say that. Now brother, I think we have to be very honest with ourselves
because there is a tendency for some of us to say, “Well I lose my temper three times a month, but
I’m not engaging in a continual unrepentant rebellion.” I think there’s a very tricky time there
where we have to decide sooner or later, “Listen, are we continuing in what is virtually apostasy
and a continuous unrepentant rebellion. How long can we continue rationalizing this sin before we
harden our conscience and before the Holy Spirit is no longer able to bring a spirit of penitence to
us?” But that’s it brother. Yes, a sin unto death would be a continual unrepentant rebellion.

Q. Would the consequences of that eventually be a separation from God?

A. The consequences of that would eventually be separation from God and that would seem even if
you’re a Calvinist and would hold to eternal security. You could go with old [Watchman] Nee who
would say, “You then behave as if you were dead.” Yes, yes — but it would be a separation –
certainly a separation from any consciousness of God’s presence.

Q. I’m asking for your opinion. Is this something you believe that we are very conscience of:
whether we are in a state of voluntary sin or involuntary human weakness?

A. No brother, I would say that probably with both of these, each of us are unlike God in three
million different ways. Perhaps they’re divided maybe into kind of two million and one million, and
God is just dealing with us in certain areas. But it seems to be the voluntary ones are the ones
that we’re conscience of and that he’s beginning to show us. Maybe he’s shown us 150 of that three
million. Now it seems to me that God intends us to deal with those and deal with them victoriously.

But there may be perhaps two million ways in which we’re not like God that are over here that we
don’t know about, and yet God is gradually beginning to deal with us on them. Now I would say that
these we’ll continue to grow in until we meet Jesus face-to-face. I would say this is where you
talk about growth in grace. It is a growth in perfection. If you’d like to put it another way
loved ones, this is a freedom from sin. This is a growth in obedience. As you can have various
degrees of anger, so you can have various degrees of love. So this is a growing into perfection.
This is a being freed of positive evil. And I would say that it is the Father’s will that we should
be freed from this mess here — and we should be growing here. We will continue to grow here in
this area until we see Jesus face-to-face, I suppose.

Q. Is it unrighteous for a Christian who has been filled with the Holy Spirit to feel extreme anger
at injustice to himself?

A. It’s very difficult loved ones, to be sure every time that you’re angry with the person because
they are opposing Jesus in you, rather than you yourself. We are such miserable, tricky people that
we find great difficulty being absolutely honest about that, and so it’s a very dangerous area. I
would imagine brother, it is. I would imagine strictly speaking it is possible for you to sense
that this person is despising Jesus in you in some way, and so you express wrath. I think is a
better biblical word You express wrath against him. You express God’s reaction against anything
that infringes his sovereignty and his goodness. You express wrath to them.

You remember the Bible says, “Be angry and sin not.” So obviously, there is an anger that is not
sin. I would say that the anger that is not sin, is controlled and unselfish, and the anger that is
sin is the very opposite of both of those. It’s uncontrolled and it is selfish. So I think maybe

I’d rather tackle it that way. I’m sure that the answer to your question is, “Yes a person could
express wrath against people who were opposing him himself, for God’s sake.” But I think those are
maybe better ways in which to determine that. Is it controlled? Is it unselfish? Is it on God’s
behalf or is it uncontrolled, selfish, and on my behalf?

Loved ones, you remember that I am not Pope Paul and so I’m just answering your questions as God
gives me wisdom here.

Q. [Question inaudible — person quotes], “Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” Does this mean that
the Holy Spirit is showing more?

A. That’s right, it means the inexpedient, involuntary faults.

Q. Sis says, “God can always forgive us on our weaknesses, but he cannot forgive us in our
iniquities”.

A. The only thing I quarrel with a wee bit is, because so many of us have come through psychology
and we use weaknesses rather generally: “My weaknesses is drunkenness and hers is adultery” and so
on. But I’m with you what you’re saying. Loved ones, isn’t the truth is that, “Until 70 times seven
(isn’t that the Father’s promise) “Until 70 times, seven as long as your heart is penitent enough to
come to me, and ask for forgiveness I will forgive.” Loved ones, that’s it. That’s why I do this
— so that you’ll be very honest with yourselves.

Now listen, am I playing a line here with God? Am I kind of pretending that I don’t know about
this, or am I being honest? Because loved ones, the tragedy is that if you’re just bluffing you’re
actually beginning to destroy the sensitivity of your own conscious and that’s what will prevent God
forgiving you. He will forgive as long as a person’s conscious is sensitive enough to him. But the
tragedy with those of us who keep on keeping on and on in known sin is that our conscience gets
harder and harder and harder until the point comes where we are no longer able to repent. Remember
that Hebrews passage says, “It is not possible to renew again to repentance, those who trample under
feet the blood of Jesus.” Not it is impossible for God to forgive them, but it is impossible to
renew again into repentance those who continually trample under feet the blood of Jesus. That’s why
it’s important to be very honest, and very straight about whether you’re involved in some
involuntary human weakness that you’re giving your whole heart to God to get rid of or whether
you’re involved in a downright sin that you just are not prepared to let go of.

So it’s the attitude of the heart, loved ones, more than the number of sins. Some of us used to get
caught up with this business, “What is habitual sin?” You counted it. “Well, habitual sins — three
times a week — and it’s not habitual if it’s only once a week.” But that’s not it. It’s not the
number of times. It’s the attitude of heart. Are you fighting against it with all your being, or
are you getting used to it, rationalizing it, and justifying yourself in the midst of what’s real?

Q. Could you explain the trinity?

A. No, Sis. I’ll be glad to try to go into some analogies some Sunday, but I know that it would be
just a wild one to try to pull into this present discussion.

Q. Could the two things be going on in the same time in the person’s life?

A. Undoubtedly they are, loved ones. Undoubtedly you’re getting some light about some human
personality trait that you inherited from your father. Undoubtedly, there are many husbands here
who know that they’re not sensitive to their wives, and that very often they hurt their wives
without knowing it. And not only us husbands, I think, have our heads on the block, but all of us
who have roommates. We often are aware that because we have inherited some of the briskness and the
roughness of our fathers, we’re not being sensitive to our roommates. The Holy Spirit is showing us
that. But underneath, there is also a downright irritability with those roommates. God is showing
us that comes from a different source than the briskness. The briskness is a personality trait that
you inherited and that I will work on gradually. This irritability is because you think she ought
to do it when you think she ought to do it. You want to be God of this apartment, and you’re not
getting the thing done the way you want so you’re irritable. Now this is because you haven’t let
the Spirit of Jesus come in and cleanse you from self, sense of right and rights and right to his
own way.

Well loved ones, I think it’s good to clarify the things with each other but I’d really encourage
you to ask the Holy Spirit to show you what you’re dealing with and to see that the remedies are
different. I’d remind you that you would really question a doctor if you went to him and said, “I
have been diagnosed as a cancer case, and I believe I will have to have my stomach cut away.” He
said, “Just eat a lot, and your healthy body will outgrow the sick part of your body.” You know,
you would repeat the reply to him, “No it will all grow together. The sick stuff will just grow as
much as the healthy stuff grows.” In other words, you can’t grow out of sin. You have to be
delivered out of sin by accepting your position with Jesus on the cross and allowing the Holy Spirit
to cleanse you. You can only grow into perfection and purity — so maybe you’d remember that. Stop
trying to grow out of your sins. You’ll never grow out of them, but you can grow out of your
personality inexpedient traits and into traits that express Jesus. I’d like to share next Sunday
personality prayers and spirit prayers.

Let’s pray, shall we? Dear Father, we thank you for your clear word. We thank you Father for the
plain responsibility that you lay before us, that you expect us to obey you. You expect us to be
free from voluntary rebellion against you. You expect us to take advantage of the provision you
have made in Jesus, for us to be filled and cleansed by the Holy Spirit, so that we will not be
angry, irritable, impatient, lustful people, but we’ll be people who have pure hearts, and clean
thoughts. We thank you Father, for showing us so plainly that even our human weaknesses are
intended by you to be cleansed by the Holy Spirit as we grow in grace.

Father, we thank you. Thank you that the vision of a perfect world, at least in our homes or in our
classroom, is possible. Father, we know that it’ll never come about in the world as a whole, but
thank you that if we all share the same life that flows through your own character, that perfect
world can come about here in our homes and in our schools. Father, we pray that you’ll lead us into
a greater awareness of ourselves, and most of all, of you during the rest of this day. We ask this
for your glory. Amen.

Personality or Spirit Prayers?

Romans 8:27b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

It’s really very difficult for each one of us in this auditorium, to realize that our personality is
the only one like it in the whole world. It’s really very difficult loved ones because our mass
society tries to emphasize the things we have in common with others, and the similarities we have
with others or to others. And our present psychological theories tend to stress how we are
dominated and dictated by our environment and our heredity. And so it’s quite difficult for us all
to really take this honestly and truly that there is nobody like you. There is not, loved ones.
There is no one just like you, in the whole world. You have a combination of shyness and drive that
nobody else has. You have a combination of humor and seriousness that nobody else has. And God
deliberately made you that way. You’re unique. And it’s very hard I think for many of us to
realize that. And we kind of hear it up here in our heads, but not down here in our hearts, and we
get back to, “Well everybody uses Alberto VO5 shampoo so I’m a consumer. Yeah, I get Alberto V05,
same as everybody else.”

But loved ones really that’s not true. The truth is that you’re different from everybody else in
the whole world, you really are. And you know too, that the effect that you have on the other
people with your personality depends to a great extent on the motives behind your personality. For
instance, you have a gift of humor that can be used in sarcasm to cut somebody down to size like
that, if the motive behind the humor is your exultation. But your humor can really put somebody
else at ease in a conversation if you just use it for making fun.

And it’s the same with shyness. Shyness is a real disadvantage, it’s a real debilitating thing.
It’s something that really cuts down and limits the possibilities of your being any use in society
if it is built primarily on your feeling that you’re not as good as you want to be and you’d really
like to be better than you are and you’d really like to be better than other people and so you don’t
want them to see how bad you are so you keep shy and quiet so that they won’t realize how
incompetent you are. If shyness is built on that, then shyness itself is a disadvantage. But, if
you yourself are really secure in your own status with your Maker then humility is something that is
beautiful. It’s something that wants to put the other people forward in conversation, it’s
something that wants to build the other person up. So your personality is unique but it can bring
about tremendously different results depending on the motive that governs your personality.

It’s the same with the life energy that runs through your personality. If the life energy that runs
through your personality is your desire to live your life independent of everybody else and make
yourself successful at all costs, then that affects everybody else in the world. But if the life
energy of God’s own spirit of love and peace runs through your personality, then it touches the
humor, and the shyness, and the drive, and the gentleness, and it touches them all into life that
enables you to transmit the life of God’s love and peace to other people. It really makes
everything beautiful.

As you think of a lake and you think of the sunlight on that lake early in the morning or at sunset
time. And it just touches the lake and the water just becomes gold or it becomes silver in the
morning. And it seems that the sunlight just transforms everything else. Or you look at a snow bank
and the sun hits it and it bursts into glistening light. Now that’s the same thing that can happen

to your personality. Your personality can be touched into gold and life and brightness and light if
the life of God’s spirit is running through it.

And you remember we said that if you’re not willing to let the life of God’s spirit take over your
personality and you in fact determine to use your personality for your own benefit and not for his
benefit or his glory at all, then that is what the Bible calls a sin unto death. That is a
resistance against the Holy Spirit of God’s life that will eventually bring you into darkness and
despair yourself and eventually into eternal destruction. Because God cannot let a wild personality
run through his universe doing whatever it wants, destroying wherever it wants. And so if you
reject the right of God’s spirit to run through your personality and to transmit itself to others,
then you commit a sin unto death. And you’ll remember we said it produces works of the flesh. It
produces anger, and you get angry because things aren’t going your way. When God’s life is running
through your life it seems to flow beautifully. But when it’s not running through your life you get
angry, you get envious, you get jealous, you get irritable, you get impatient. Those works of the
flesh come from a rejection on your part of the life of God’s spirit, a resistance to his Spirit
using your personality at all.

Do you remember the last day we said, that once you’ve accepted God’s plan, and you said, “Lord, I
know you want to pour your life through my personality. I know that’s why I have it.” Then that
Spirit of life begins to try to discipline your personality. And some things it doesn’t manage to
discipline and some things it does and some things you haven’t got light about yet. Some of us
still talk too much. Some of us are facetious; we’re funny at the wrong time. And some of us are
still harsh with our wives or with our roommates. And the Holy Spirit has not yet been able to give
us light about those things. Now those are sins not unto death, you see? Those are personality
traits. They are inexpedient traits that prevent the life of God’s Spirit getting through to other
people. They aren’t willful things. We’ve accepted, “Lord this is the principle that you have for
our lives: to let your life flow through us to others, and we’re willing to do that but there’s some
things that we haven’t seen yet that you want to change in us.”

You’re still doing them. They’re sins not unto death. Because they are not deliberate resistances
to God’s will — they’re simply blindness as to the way in which the Holy Spirit wants to transform
and renew your personality. And so loved ones last day, I think you remember, we talked about those
two. We talked about sins unto death, works of the flesh, anger, envy, jealousy. We talked on this
side about sins not onto death: inexpedient human traits, inexpedient personality habits that
you’ve got used to for years but really there is no iron in them. They’re there and you simply
don’t know yet that they’re wrong. The one is voluntary, the other is involuntary. The one is a
case of rebellion against God’s will, “I don’t want your Spirit running through my life.” The other
is deception, “I don’t know that your Holy Spirit wants to change me in this way yet.” The one
brings eternal death; the other brings a sense that you’re not ministering life. This one when
you’re free from it you become a child of God; this one when you become free of it you become a
minister of God’s life. This one is concerned with the end in view — you have a wrong end view, a
wrong motive. You’re living for your own self instead of for God. This other one you’re using the
wrong means to obtain the right end. You want to live for God but you’re using the wrong means to
attain it.

Jesus said, “I’m going to have to die, I’m going to have to go to the cross and die.” Peter loved
Jesus with all his heart and he wanted the best for Jesus. His motive was right, he wanted himself
to live for Jesus, but the means were wrong. He said, “Be it far from you Lord. Don’t let that
happen to you.” And Jesus turned around and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Not because Peter

was after the same thing as Satan, the elevation of self, but because Peter was using Satan’s
methods of avoiding danger at all costs in order to try to bring about the right end. So loved ones,
that’s it.

Now you can see that even though it was using the wrong means to bring about the right end, the
means in a way would have perverted the end. You can see that. If Jesus had accepted Peter’s
recommendation and had decided, “Yeah, I’d better avoid the cross at all costs,” we would presumably
not be here today. And so using the wrong means — while you can say it is just an inexpedient
trait of our personalities — it can result in dreadful disappointments and defeats in other
people’s lives. Loved ones, I really think a lot of people would probably be alive to Jesus if you
and I had allowed our personalities to be more disciplined by his Holy Spirit.

I think of about a 100 times when I believe honestly that I would’ve been prepared to listen to the
real gospel if it had not been spoken by someone whose personality was full of don’ts: “You don’t
smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t dance, you don’t go to the theater.” And it came over to me as a
negative, negative thing. And so when they shared the gospel with me I felt, “Oh I don’t want to go
into that kind of a negative life.” And I think it’s true of many of you. So I don’t think it is
enough to say, “Well Pastor then, as long as our motive is right that’s all that matters.” Loved
ones, no, I think the means is important in order to obtain the right end.

Now of course God has brought us down to this in a specific example and that’s what I’d like us to
look at today, it’s Romans 8:27, it is in regard to prayer. In other words some of us can really
miss out on God’s answers to our prayers, simply because we have not yet allowed our personalities
to be disciplined by his Holy Spirit. Romans 8:27 loved ones, “And he who searches the hearts of
men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to
the will of God.” And just look at the previous verse, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our
weakness.” King James Version says. “In our infirmities,” you remember, and we would say, “In our
personality weaknesses.” Likewise the Spirit helps us in our personality weaknesses; for we do not
know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for
words.”

In other words, God says the Spirit is always trying to pray through us despite our personality
weaknesses. And yet often we prevent him praying the way he wants to, because of our personality
weaknesses. And, of course, he always prays right. That’s why Romans 8:27 reads, “And he who
searches the hearts of men, knows what is the mind of the Spirit.” God looks down, knows the mind
of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” And I
think I will be able to make sense of it in a moment.

What’s the key to prayer? What’s the key to answered prayer? I’ll show it to you in Ezekiel 36:37.
It’s an important verse. “Thus says the Lord GOD: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me
to do for them: to increase their men like a flock.’” Now would you just look at it again? “Thus
says the Lord GOD: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their
men like a flock.” Now you almost feel like saying, “If you know what to do, why don’t you do it?
I mean Lord why do you say, ‘This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them to
increase their men like a flock.’? If you know that’s what they need, they’ve been decimated by
this exile and they need to be increased in their numbers, why don’t you just do it?”

Now loved ones, the principle of prayer is that. That God always requires some free will human
agent here on earth to know what he wants to do and to ask him to do it before he is able to do it.

Now that’s incredible, that the infinite God should be so tied to you and me as that. But he is,
loved ones. You who are theologians or philosophers at all, you know that the whole plan of
salvation is based on one principle: the preservation of our free wills and the creating of a
family of freewill agents who will love because they want to love. Now do you see it is the same
with prayer? Loved ones, God could see what every one of you needs here this morning and he could
if he were not of the nature that he is, he could come down and answer all those things immediately.
And do you see what that would make of us? It would make of us puppets, marionettes. He would come
down wherever he saw something going wrong, and he would fix it. Wherever he saw someone about to
go the wrong way, he would just change it. And all we ourselves would become would be puppets or
robots.

Now the Father has determined that though he can see what each of us needs, he is not free to do it
unless one of us freewill agents ask him to do it. He cannot intervene without us asking him to.
In other words, the key to prayer is kind of twofold. First of all, God will not act against his
own will. He won’t act against his own will. Now that is in I John 5:14. God won’t act against his
own will. It’s part of what we read. “And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we
ask anything according to his will he hears us.” In other words, God can only hear if we ask
something that is according to his will. So he will not act against his own will.

But the second part of the key to prayer is, he will not act apart from our wills. So he cannot act
against his own will, but he will not act apart from our wills. Now that’s in Matthew 9:29. “Then
he touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’” Or the King James
Version you remember is, “Be it unto you according to your faith.” In other words, it will be to
you according to what you believe and expect.

Now I think that’s the conundrum that we all face, that God cannot act against his own will, but he
will not act apart from our wills. So how do we solve it? Well some of us don’t solve it at all.
We add that little magical end to the prayer that makes it no prayer at all, “If it is your will.
Whatever you want. I haven’t a clue but whatever you want.” Loved ones, it’s not a prayer at all.
Truly, really it isn’t. It’s very different, the sense in which Jesus used that. And many of us
pray that way.

Others of us decide, “Well what’s his will? Well I don’t know.” And we use the old soul, our minds
and emotions, and we look around and we say, “Yeah well I think… Yeah okay, Lord do this.” Well
maybe that’s not his will so I will throw up another one. And we just keep throwing them up. And
we threw up so many that, sometimes by sheer chance, we hit on what God wanted to do and then — you
must admit kind of half-heartedly, because we have a fair idea that this might be coincidence — and
half-heartedly we say, “Ah, God answered my prayer.” Well you threw up so many that you were almost
bound to get one answer, about the same situation. You know, I know that we can throw up many
prayers about different things, but I think you’ll agree loved ones, that we come to a problem
situation when we hurl those things up to our Father as if it was just the volume of the prayers
that he would hear. It’s mad, it’s really mad.

It’s like me saying to my wife, “Love, let’s go and we’ll buy our Christmas presents.” And then me
saying to her, “Now don’t tell me, don’t tell me what you want,” and then I take her down to the
basement at Dayton’s and I start there. “Okay, would you like a pair of snow shoes?”, “No.” “Okay.
Would you like some wooly socks?” “No.” “Okay.” Then up, up to the book section, “Would you like
Martin Luther’s works? Would you like a camera, a Polaroid camera?” And I just go on, “Would you
like this? Would you like this? Would you like that? Would you like that?” Apart from the fact

that we’d never get it completed before Christmas, it is a dumb way to find out what she would like
for Christmas.

But loved ones, that’s what we do with our prayers. We keep on hurling different prayers up hoping
that some time we might hit the one that God wants to answer. And you know the answer to it. I
should get together with my dear one and I should say, “Love, what would you like for Christmas?”
Or I should observe the things that she has admired during the past year. Or I should use my
knowledge of her over the years and knowing the kind of things that she enjoys doing. And then I
buy her something because I’ve heard it from her own lips or I’ve read her own mind. Now, loved
ones, that’s God’s will for us. Not to keep throwing up soulish prayers, not to keep looking around
and seeing what you think God ought to do in your home or your family, but instead to allow the
spirit of God to begin to draw you close to the Father, to worship the Father, to love him, to spend
time in his presence until the Spirit of God within you begins to give you a sense of what God wants
to do in your family.

Do you see loved ones that our great minds are so arrogant that they are full of all kinds of
convictions of what God should do in our family, “Well, Lord, you’d better deal with my brother.
Father, obviously, my father is the alcoholic, that’s the first one you should deal with.” And
loved ones, maybe that isn’t God’s order at all. The Father can look down on every one of our
situations and knows exactly what he wants to do in that situation, but he cannot do it until you
ask him to do it. That’s it. His hands are tied by the principles in Ezekiel 36:37. His hands are
tied until some little fly here on this earth discovers what God wants to do and asks him to do it
and then knows that he is heard. And then God is free to act.

Loved ones, that’s the principle that goes on right through all the Old Testament. I’ll just show
you maybe one example of it if you would look at it, it’s Exodus 14:15-16. The Israelites arrive at
the Red Sea and the Egyptian army is behind them, “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to me?
Tell the people of this Israel to go forward. Lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the
sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go on dry ground through the sea.’”

God saw them. He knew what he intended to do. He told Moses what he should do and it was done.
Moses didn’t get to the Red Sea and it roaring against them and start crying and praying all kinds
of prayers. But God told him what he was going to do and then Moses went forward and did it.

It’s the same with Jericho. God explained to Joshua what he was to do, he got to Jericho and went
round the walls; the walls fell flat. God can always see what needs to be done in each situation
and he has already all the angels and archangels and all the power of the Holy Spirit marshaled and
ready to release into the situation and it all waits upon your word, loved ones. It all waits upon
you receiving through the Holy Spirit what God wants to do in a situation. I’m just encouraging
not only the mums, — because I don’t think you’re the only ones that do it — but those of us who
love our roommates and love our friends — would you stop being governed by your human, soulish
personalities, sympathies, and ideas as to what you think it would be a good idea for God to do?
And would you get together with the Father? And would you begin to sense from him what he wants to
do so that your prayers will begin to be an outflow of your worship and your fellowship with the
Father instead of some kind of emergency operation by which you try to pull the thing out of the
mess it’s in.

In other words, really, there’s one verse that states this and it’s I Kings 19:11. You remember it’s
Elijah. “And God said, ‘Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD.’ And behold, the LORD

passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the
LORD.” That’s the immediate emergency that has taken place. The son or daughter has run away from
home, your roommate has just decided she’s going to leave and you are left with all the rent to pay.
“And a strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD
was not in the wind.” That wasn’t the right prayer to pray, “Lord keep her from moving.” Or, “Lord
keep her here at home.” “But the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake…”
That’s the earthquake of your own ideas of what ought to be done in this situation, “Lord I’ll tell
you what I think you need to do here in my family, I’ll tell you Lord what I need in my career.”
“But the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in
the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” And the Hebrew literal translation is, “And
after the fire a sound of gentle stillness.”

Loved ones, that’s what we need, that’s what we need. A sound of gentle stillness and the presence
of our Father whereby we receive from him what he’s going to do in this situation and then we ask
him to do that and the prayer is answered. And his purpose has moved forward, that’s really it.
But, you know, these old souls of ours are so swollen with human love and sympathy and these old
minds of ours are so arrogant in their convictions and ideas of what God ought to do in our
situations, that we’re offering up soulish prayers all the time and then wondering why they aren’t
answered. And all the time, the Spirit himself is interceding within us with sighs that are too
deep for words. And he who knows the mind of the Spirit, understands that mind because the Spirit
always intercedes according to the will of God.

So there is a dear Spirit inside you that is trying to pray the right prayer. And that dear Spirit
is trying to break down all your personality strengths that want very good things, but they’re the
wrong things. And they’re preventing God bringing about his will. So I pray, you know, that some of
you who have fought this business of unanswered prayer will begin to listen to God along these lines
and begin to be used by him to bring about his purposes. Let us pray.

Dear Father, we have done it for the best motive in the world but we see that we’ve been sending up
to you prayers that are filled with selfishness and filled with our own egotistical ideas of what
should be done. Father we see that we’re just foolish children, that you are the elder Father, you
have wisdom beyond ours. You know what we need before we even ask it. And all you want is for us
to discover what you intend to do and then ask you to do it. Lord, we thank you. Thank you for
tying yourself to us in that way. And Father we apologize for the countless occasions when we have
simply been filling the atmosphere with static and with interference instead of voicing to you your
desires for us. So Father we commit ourselves to seeking you and beginning to understand your dear
mind through the power of the Holy Spirit. And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of
God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with each one of us now and evermore. Amen.

Luck or Providence? (Romans 8:28)

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Karl Marx described religion as “the opium of the masses” you remember. Do you know what he meant
by that? Really, he meant that a verse like “all things work together for good to them that love
God”, which is the popular translation of Romans 8:28 – a verse like that was being used by the
governing classes to keep the proletariat, or the people, or the workers, or the masses from being
discontented with their lot. And so he said, you see it is the opium of the masses, it’s the drug
that keeps people lulled into a contentment with their present lot. And so he regarded religion as
one of the instruments that the governing classes used to keep the workers and the peasants under
their control. And really it is a common misinterpretation loved ones of Romans 8:28.

That is, the idea that your present state is God’s absolute ideal best for you and so don’t question
it, just stay exactly where you are and if God wants to change it he’ll change it for you, but you
just accept it as it is and don’t do anything about it. It sounds close to Christian contentment
except that it lays emphasis on the fact that if anything is to happen to change it God will do it,
don’t you do anything about it. And it lays emphasis on the fact that this is God’s absolute ideal
best for you. Not his permissive will for you under the circumstances, but his absolute ideal best
— so you just stay where you are — and rest at that. What it results in is of course disastrous.
It results in absolute social irresponsibility, personal passivity, and just a readiness to let
things remain as they are for the rest of your life and really it is the kind of fatalism that runs
through eastern religions.

Things are as they are today because the gods have ordained it this way. It is this kind of
passivity that has paralyzed a sleeping giant like India. The economy hangs in chaos because people
are continually thinking, “Well all things work together for good. Things are as good as they can
be. We can’t do anything about it and the next life will bring an improvement. So, let’s not rock
the boat, let’s just keep it as it is.” And really loved ones, I think that attitude runs through a
lot of people who say they believe in the Father of Jesus. They have this idea that you can’t
change it and it’s not your responsibility to change it. Your destiny is fixed by God’s will
irrespective of whether your will cooperates or fails to cooperate with him or not, just take it as
true. All things work together for good to them that love God. It will all come out right in the
end. You just bear with it, put up. And so loved ones, I think many of us really do just that.

We have the idea that the will of God has determined the way our lives will go and all we can do is
accept them and know that somehow things will come out right in the end. Now loved ones because of
that misinterpretation of the verse I think it is good to read the Revised Standard Version and
maybe you would do that. It’s Romans 8:28

“We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to
his purpose.” “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are
called according to his purpose.” Now do you see loved ones, it doesn’t say all THINGS work for
good — because that’s of course where that fatalistic streak comes into Christianity and rules the
eastern religions. The idea that these mighty forces and events and circumstances, they work
themselves out for good. They impress themselves upon my life, they are the impersonal,
domineering, overwhelming force that is exerted by a divine puppeteer up there and I can do nothing
about it. That’s the impression that comes over when you make all THINGS work together for good as
the subject of the sentence. You get the impression, all things, well yeah but who works the “all

things” or what are the “all things”? Well, they are just events. Whereas, you can see here the
Bible says, “God works for good and works for good with those who love him.”

In other words, it is not God operating independent of you and me, it’s God working together with
us. He does some things and we do some things. God, you remember, we said two weeks ago, will not
act against his own will but he cannot act apart from our wills. God cannot just come down and
touch a dear one who is under cancer unless some of us realize he wants to do that and asks him to
do it. That’s why you remember Jesus said, “Be it unto you according to your faith.” Not according
to the movements of blind, impersonal, faithful circumstances, but be it unto you according to your
faith. As you believe so God will be able to act in your life.

It ties up with other verses. First Corinthians 3:9 talks about us being coworkers together with
God. So the whole teaching of Scripture is that God works with us and he does some things and we do
some things. This is the real answer to Marx and to his accusation. It is the real answer to all
critics of Christianity that down through history God has worked with people. And so the first
schools were started in the western world by Christians who believed that God would use them to
renew people’s minds. The first hospitals in the western worlds were started by Christians who
believed that God would use them to heal people’s bodies. The first trade unions in England were
started by Christians who believed that God would use them to bring justice into the economic world.
The first scientists were Christians who believed that God would use it to restore order to his
world. Every piece of progress that has occurred in the western world has come from people who
believed that if they took a step, the Father would take a step.
And it’s completely different from this other attitude that says, “Oh no, it will all work itself
out.”

Now, loved ones it is also different from another attitude. Do you see that it is not man passive
and God active. That’s the fatalism of eastern religions and of much of Christendom: man passive
and God active. But, neither is it man active and God passive, man doing everything and God doing
nothing. Which I would remind you is the real spirit that lies behind popular idioms like “you’re
the answer to your own prayers”. No, you can’t be the answer to your own prayers. There are some
things that you can’t do with all your prayers; you’re not the answer to your own prayers. Or “God
helps those who help themselves. Get out, God helps those who help themselves.” No, it’s God works
together with us. God wills and reveals his will to us — what he wants to do in a situation. We
perceive his will and either believe accordingly or obey accordingly and then God releases his power
into the situation.

Now do you see that loved ones? I should just mention it again. God has a will for every
situation in our lives today. He knows exactly what he wants to do in your present situation. Now
he wants to reveal that to you so that you can begin to work together with him on it. Otherwise he
may want this chair moved over here and you’re busy tugging it over here and you’re going this way
and he’s going that way. So God wants to reveal his will to you and you perceive his will and then
he lets you know whether you are to obey him in a certain area or believe him for a certain thing.
And, in the light of your response to God he releases his power in to the situation. And that’s what
this verse means, “God works for good with those who love him.”

Now loved ones an example of it would be I King 18:22. There was one prophet left, you remember in
Israel — and about 500 prophets of the Asherah and 50 prophets of Baal, 450 prophets of Baal. I
Kings 18:22. “Then Elijah said to the people, ‘I, even I only, am left a prophet of the LORD; but
Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let two bulls be given to us; and let them choose

one bull for themselves, and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it; and I
will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood, and put no fire to it. And you call on the name
of your god and I will call on the name of the LORD; and the God who answers by fire, he is God.’
And all the people answered, ‘It is well spoken.’”

Elijah did not say, “There are 450 prophets of Baal and there are 500 prophets of Asherah. Well,
just let’s sit here. All things work together for good for them that love him.” He knew that the
Father would work with him if he could see what the Father wanted to do. And so he sought God’s
will and saw what God wanted to do and he did his part.

Then would you look to verse 37. “’Answer me, O LORD, answer me,’” — and he believed God —
“’That this people may know that thou, O LORD, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts
back.’ Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the
stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw
it, they fell on their faces; and they said, ‘The LORD, he is God; the LORD, he is God.’” So
that’s God’s way of working.

Now would you go back with me to Romans 8:28, loved ones. Do you see the first two words in the
verse, the first two words? “We know.” Now, how do we know? Now the strange thing is that you
don’t know through other people telling you how God worked out some bad situations that they were
in. It is very interesting, but that’s not how you come to an assurance that God will do the same
in your life. It’s strange, you think it will. I used to think, “If somebody would tell me how
they were helped out of a hideous situation, I knew it would help me.” And, it appears to help us,
but actually we can always deceive ourselves into believing that our situation is worse than theirs
was. And so other people’s experiences don’t really reassure us. They may confirm the method by
which we really know. How do we really know? We know because Jesus is God’s son and he was always
doing that kind of thing himself.

He came along to some lepers and he healed them. He came along to a woman caught in adultery and
being accused by all other religious leaders and he forgave her. He came along to somebody else who
had lost something and he helped them. And Jesus says, “He that hath seen me has seen the father.”
And we know that our Creator is like Jesus. Every time Jesus came to a situation which was bad he
started to work to improve it. He never left it, he always began to improve it and change it. And
so we know Jesus always did that kind of thing. Moreover, he himself says that his Father does this
kind of thing.

Would you look at that where it says that. It’s Luke 12:27. Jesus says, “Consider the lilies, how
they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow
is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O men of little faith! And do not seek
what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be of anxious mind. For all the nations of the
world seek these things; and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and
these things shall be yours as well.”

And Jesus says, “The Father knows what you need in every situation.” And he is always working to
change and transform the situation. He’s the one that made it so that when you unzip the old skin
it automatically zips up itself. He made it that way. He didn’t make it so that it zips opens and
stays open and you bleed to death every time you get a cut. He’s the one that made it so that there
are healing powers that every time a thing goes wrong, a power works to make it right. The Father

is the one who thought of these things, loved ones. He’s the one who makes things heal. He’s the
one who has built into our world constant repair mechanisms that operate to bring health and bring
success and victory to us. So Jesus is saying, “Look, my Father is that kind of person. Every time
he comes into a situation that is bad, he’s always working to improve it.” God is always working in
everything. With those of us who love him, he’s always working with us for good. And so the
reason we know that God does this kind of thing is because we know his nature. It’s not by all the
experiences that people tell us about, it’s because we know this is the kind of God our God is. He
doesn’t come by and see a person who has been robbed and leave them lying in a ditch, he begins to
work with them to rectify the situation.

So I know that he is doing it in my situation. I know Father that you are trying to get through to
me, you’re trying to show me what you want to do to change my situation. Lord thank you. And of
course, we can see that that is the kind of way he operated down through the years in the Bible.
Maybe you’d look at old Joseph, who I think could probably beat any of us in catastrophes and
tragedies. Genesis 37. And it is just an up and down alternating experience of tragedy and triumph
right through. Genesis 37:3. “Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children
because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his
brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not
speak peaceably to him.” And then verse 23, “So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him
of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and cast him into a pit. The
pit was empty, there was no water in it.” And then verse 28, “Then Midianite traders passed by; and
they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty
shekels of silver; and they took Joseph to Egypt.” But God was working all the time.

And Genesis 39:1-5: “Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Poti-phar, an officer of Pharaoh, the
captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.
The LORD was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the
Egyptian, and his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD caused all that he did
to prosper in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him
overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him
overseer in his house and over all that he had the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s
sake; the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he had, in house and field.” And then in Genesis
39:19, you remember Potiphar’s wife compromised Joseph by lying in Verse 19. “When his master heard
the words which his wife spoke to him, ‘This is the way your servant treated me,’ his anger was
kindled. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s
prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison.” But again God is working together with him
for good. “But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favor in the
sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s care all the
prisoners who were in the prison; and whatever was done there, he was the doer of it.” And, God
continues to work with him.

Genesis 41:37. You remember Pharaoh has a dream and Joseph is called for out of the prison. “His
proposal seemed good to Pharaoh and to all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, ‘Can we
find such a man as this, in whom is the Spirit of God?’ So Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Since God has
shown you all this, there is none so discreet and wise as you are; you shall be over my house, and
all my people shall order themselves as you command; only as regards the throne will I be greater
than you.’ And Pharaoh said to Joseph, ‘Behold, I have set you over all the land of Egypt’.”

And we know that if God worked that way with Joseph he is the same yesterday, today, and forever,

and he is operating the same way with us today and that God does continues to work with us. And
loved ones we know that God does this because of the kind of person he is — because he’s done this
in the past and because every time Satan operates in our lives God is immediately working out how to
transform it. And that is the meaning of that verse that I think it would be good if you just look
at — and then I will promise not to trail you through too many more.

It’s 1Corinthians 10:13. Because it makes it just very plain to us that God is never caught out but
that he’s always really one step ahead. “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation
will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” In other words, we know
from God‘s own word that he’ll never allow us to be beaten and destroyed by anything and that he’ll
only allow it to take place up to the point where we can bear it and immediately if that happens he
will be working out a way of escape. So immediately Satan comes into our lives with some
destruction or catastrophe, God we know is immediately beginning to show us a way out of it. That’s
what he means, he’s beginning to provide a way of escape.

That’s why it says in the Bible that God will not quench the flickering torch. He will not allow
events to so come upon you that you are destroyed by them, that’s you remember the power that he has
over Satan. Loved ones it is not a dualism; it is not God fighting Satan and we’re not sure who
will win. It is God using even Satan’s workings to strengthen us and test us and to draw us closer
to himself. That’s the meaning of that interview you remember at the beginning of the book of Job.
You remember, Satan comes to God and God asks him, “Where have you been?” He says, “I have been
roaming throughout the world.” And God says, “What have you to say to me?” And
Satan says, “Well look at that man Job.” And God says, “Yeah look at him, he is a man that never
rebels against me.” And Satan says, “Yeah, that is because you have set a hedge round about him; he
has all that he needs. He is prosperous and rich, he has a family, he is respected by his
neighbors, that’s why he respects you.” And then God said, “Behold he is in your hands. Do
whatever you want only don’t take his life.”

And if you look at the first chapter of Job loved ones this afternoon, you’ll see that God has
control of Satan, that the things that come about in your life are not happening without God’s
permission, God does not send them. But when Satan operates, God allows through his dear loving
fingers only what you’re able to bear and so everything that happens to you has been filtered
through the loving hands of your own Father and the only reason he is letting them come through is
because he himself is going to use that situation to draw you nearer to himself and that is what it
means when we say, “God works together for good with those who love him.” God is always doing that
and so dear ones, that’s why we can really do what the Bible says. You know, treat it as pure joy
when you enter into various trials because for us they are not the terrible, wild, impersonal
results of a hideous power of evil in this world. They are the events that our loving Father is
allowing to come into our lives so that he may use them for good with us.

Now, just before taking a couple of examples, could I point out two truths about the way an ordinary
father would deal with an ordinary son. An ordinary father would get his little boy up every
morning early because he knows that the burden of self indulgence will be greater for the poor
fellow to bear if he is allowed to continue in it in his life than the burden of self-discipline. In
fact, the father knows that eventually the boy’s control over his own body and being able to make
his body do what he wants it to do will bring a certain exhilaration and satisfaction to him. So
just one fact, the father sees deeper than the boy, do you see that? The father can see that though
it appears bad to the boy at the time, he can see that further along the way it’s going to turn into

the boy’s good. So just in ordinary relationships here, often the father can see deeper than the
son. He can see behind the event and can see the good that he’s going to bring from it.

Secondly, the father has the boy bear all that he can possibly bear at that time, because the father
knows it will produce all the greater strengths and discipline in the boy. And yet, when he sees the
little guy beginning to crack under it, he’ll pull back. And so it is important for us to see that
at the very beginning of our Christian lives, the Father very often works everything very obviously
and plainly for our good, because we’re such poor little mites we need encouragement. And then as
we grow bigger he begins to ask us to take longer journeys simply believing that the good is his
good and he is judging it rightly. I know to us it appears bad yet he is making it good to us and
working it good for us. So the second fact is that God himself will often deal with us according to
our maturity or our immaturity.

Now, this can be seen in all the instances that we’ve had in our body. Brian Gibdel dived into the
lake you remember in the summertime, struck the bottom of the lake and broke his neck. And you
remember we started to pray for him because he was absolutely paralyzed. And, I don’t know if his
mum is here, but she was if you remember – well, there he is, he’s sitting in the second row. That
spoils my story. So he was lying in bed you know, and I remember your mum coming and saying, or it
was Judy I think came and said, “Yeah, Brian he just lies there with tears running down his cheeks.”
He couldn’t talk or do anything, absolutely paralyzed.

And you remember, ,his mum would come and she’d share and we’d pray and you remember how it worked,
I mean you could tell it wasn’t luck because she’d come and say, “he can’t talk” and so we’d pray
and he could talk. Then she’d come and say, if he could only lift his hand up like that, you know –
and so you pray so he could move his hand and now there he is and he was hiking with his dad and all
that kind of thing. Don’t know if he is skiing yet, but okay. That’s God working for good to them
that love him. That’s plain and obvious, that’s very plain and very obvious to us all.

Now I don’t know, is Chris Vork here? Maybe she isn’t. No? I married Chris a year – two years
ago. She’s 22, she married Bob Vork. Bob is just a man’s man in every ways, you know. A graduate
of Bethel, artist and a comedian, and just a dear fellow. All those of you who know Bob’s name know
that. And we married – I think they married in Bethel Chapel. And, there they are you know, a
handsome couple and life just opening up just beautiful before them. And, a year and a half ago, no
eight months ago, Bob was teaching in Braham, up north and he and Chris were in the Volkswagen going
along a country road late at night and saw these lights coming towards them on the wrong side of the
road. I don’t know that the driver was drunk but he certainly wasn‘t in control of the thing. Bob
of course, pulled the old car right up into a ditch to try at least to save Chris. And, of course,
the thing just plowed into them. Chris looked down at him and she knew he was dead at that moment.
And, immediately, she seemed to have a complete confidence in that situation that God was going to
work for good.

She had been very dependent on Bob and I suppose like many girls at the beginning, you know, our
husband is everything to us, and it was with her. She was very dependent and very quiet – that’s
why I wonder if she is here and just keeping quiet. But, she is very quiet and very shy and very
reluctant to take initiative on her own, but at that moment had a great assurance that God was
working for good in this situation with her. And so she went into the other truck and prayed with
the other guys who were trembling and shaking. I did the funeral and I know that she was just
victorious throughout the whole thing.

Now some of you know the rest of the story because God has continued to work for good in her. From
being shy and dependant on her husband, she came in you remember to the restaurant about five or six
months ago and it was just magnificent. She was head waitress in the restaurant for the past four
or five months and just has been a blessing in the place and moved the furniture that she and Bob
had gathered together and moved it down here into an apartment and three weeks ago she came to me
— this shy dependent girl whom all of us should began to treat as a tragic young widow, right?
Isn’t that it? A tragic young widow that we weep with and we sorrow with. This dear daughter of God
came to me three weeks ago and said, “Pastor, I really think God wants me to go to London.” So
tomorrow morning she will fly to London to begin to run the dining room in a restaurant.

And that’s God working together for good with her. You say to me, “What about Bob?” Bob knew
Jesus. Obviously the Father could have stopped the fellow running into him, but God knows that he
has another world to populate and the Father knows what need he has for Bob in that world and what
need he has for Chris in this world. And so God works for good in everything to those who love him,
to those who really want to please him. But loved ones, do you see it brings about a totally
different attitude to catastrophes. That’s why you remember one sister back there one Sunday said,
“My mother died of cancer.” So here is Brian being healed but here is a mum dying of cancer. So
here is Bob being killed in a car accident, but here is Chris coming out of it with joy and with
victory. And so loved ones, the good is not always immediately obvious to us, but God does work for
good with those of us who love him. who are called according to his purpose.

And so these situations that you’re in — would you stop looking down, would you stop treating them
as if Satan is in control — and would you begin to see that you have a loving Father who knows
what’s happening to you and has already a plan of deliverance for you. He’s just waiting for you to
find out from him what he wants you to do. And instead of sitting around and moping and cursing God
and cursing your luck, would you look up to your dear Father and see that this verse is true, that
God works together for good with those of us who love him and are called according to his purpose —
and that he does immediately the tragedy occurs.

Well, I pray that God will help you to see it because it just transforms life.
Would you just pray, loved ones.

Dear Father, we thank you for your clear word and by it we know that in everything God works for
good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. And, we thank you Lord, that
that is true and that that will be true this coming week for us in the little tragedies: in the
dead battery, in the failure of the lights, right up to the major tragedies, the death of our loved
ones, the loss of our jobs. Father we thank you, that you are saying to us, “Look up, look up, my
hand is upon that situation and I have already planned a new way for you to operate and to go. Look
up to me and see what I want you to do now and I am going to work this for good with you.”

Lord thank you, thank you, thank you that you are doing it at this very moment in each one of our
lives and all we have to do is look up and begin to live, begin to rejoice instead of sorrow. Thank
you, Lord. Thank you that you cannot be beat and that Satan can never catch you unawares, thank you
Lord. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with each one of us now and evermore. Amen

The Purpose of Providence

Romans 8:29a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Please turn to Romans 8:29, and you see the way that verse runs, “For those whom he foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among
many brethren.” Now all the eager theological beavers who are anxious for us to deal with those jaw
breakers and heartbreakers — foreknowledge and predestination — have to be patient until next week
because, I’d look us to look at the other parts of the verse this week and then try to deal with
those massive words, if not massive concepts, of predestination and foreknowledge next Sunday. But
let’s look loved ones together at the rest of the Verse 29. And, I’d love to sing it but I couldn’t
be sure that I’d hit the right notes so I’ll just say it, it was a song that was popular 15 years
ago and it goes, “Que Sera, Sera, Whatever will be, will be. The future is not ours to see. Que
Sera, Sera.” And “que sera” in Spanish is “what is will be”.

And that’s the way that many of us think that God governs our lives. Many of us think, “Yeah,
that’s the way God governs our lives. Whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see. You
can’t do anything about it. God just makes things happen irrespective of our own wishes,
irrespective of what we would like to happen. God just governs our lives the way he wants.” And
that loved ones is the normal interpretation that many of us place on the verse we studied last
week, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Many of us interpret that verse as
being the overwhelming dominating action of a divine puppeteer who just pulls the strings as he
wants and makes things happen irrespective of us completely. And so we get the idea, “Yeah well, if
it’s going to happen it’ll happen.”

And really it is a belief in faith that is no different from the Muslim who says, “It was the will
of Allah.” It’s exactly the same attitude. It’s feeling that all things work together for good to
them that love God. God just makes the thing happen. It’ll turn out all right in the end. Just
let’s just put up with it and bear it.

It’s the kind of attitude that I remember was very popular at a funeral in Ireland. You’d be
talking about the person who had died and talking you know about why a person at such and such an
age had died and as sure as anything somebody in that room could always be guaranteed to say, “Well
I think just his time had come.” And I don’t know if you have heard that, but I certainly grew up
with it, that it was an accepted belief that there was a kind of fate that governed our lives and it
was something that we Christians expressed by “all things work together for good to them that love
God” and you can’t really do too much about it. Now of course loved ones, it is an absolute
blasphemy. It’s utter blasphemy. It’s a complete contradiction of the meaning of the original
Greek in Romans 8:28 which we studied last Sunday and is a complete contradiction of the revelation
of our Maker that we get throughout the rest of the record of his dealings with the human race down
through history. So it’s completely wrong, it’s just wrong. That is the not the way God deals with
us.

And you remember that what we did was look at the Revised Standard Version translation of that
Romans 8:28. And if you had your Bible open at that point you could look easily to Romans 8:28 and
you see there that it runs, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him,

who are called according to his purpose.” God works for good with those who love him. God works
and we work. God works with us. God wills a certain plan in your life today, he has a certain plan
for this coming week for you. There isn’t one of us here who is in a difficulty at this moment that
God has not a plan for us to get us out of that difficulty. God wills that plan, then we perceive
it and believe it, and that allows him to release his power to bring it about. That’s what we saw
last Sunday, that it’s not that the things work together blindly irrespective of what we think or
what we believe. But it is that God wills a certain plan for each one of us, a certain purpose in
every situation and if we believe it, if we perceive it and believe it, then that releases him into
being able to bring that plan about. And so it’s God working with us for good. God works and we
work. He plans and we believe. He wills and we trust him to bring it about. God works with us.

Now loved ones that’s, that’s pretty plain if you would look at the gospel of Luke. It’s Luke 8:43,
“And a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years and could not be healed by any one, came
up behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment; and immediately her flow of blood ceased. And
Jesus said, ‘Who was it that touched me?’ When all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the multitudes
surround you and press upon you!’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; for I perceive that power
has gone forth from me.’ And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and
falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how
she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in
peace.'”

So Jesus came to destroy the works of Satan. Every woman who is hemorrhaging, every man whose body
is not working normally, Jesus has one intention in his mind and that is to get that body working
right. That’s what he came to do: to destroy the works of Satan, to destroy everything that
happens to spoil and prevent our lives being the beautiful lives that God made them to be. Now Jesus
wants to do that. But do you see that until we touch the hem of his garment, he cannot bring that
about in our lives? It requires us to believe that God wants to do a certain thing in our lives and
then he works with us for good to bring that about. And so without the woman’s faith God could not
have worked. Indeed you remember, he went to a village and he could do no mighty work there the
Bible says, because of their unbelief. So actually, if you refuse to believe that God wants the
best for your life, then you actually prevent him bringing that best about. You actually limit him
because God will not act against his own will, but he cannot act apart from our wills.

And so really loved ones, the Father works as those weavers work who make the beautiful imported
Indian carpets that you can buy for tremendous prices. Those weavers work carefully, manually. And
then they get by error or mistake of some kind, the wrong color of thread into the weaving. And you
may think that they would immediately pull that out. They don’t. They leave it in there and they
weave it into the original design so that the final result is a pattern that is far richer and
deeper than the original design that they started with. And they actually take the thread that came
in by error or mistake and they use it to make the final pattern better than it was originally
intended to be. Now, the Father works like that with our lives. He works in that same way. Some
incident comes into our lives that would utterly destroy them, the Father does not act as a massive
puppeteer who can do just what he wants irrespective of us. But he tells us what he intends to make
of that unexpected event. And then he weaves it into our life to make our life fulfill his original
plan in an even deeper way than he could have done otherwise.

Now what that does require, of course, is a positive belief on our part that God is working that
way. You see if you don’t believe that God is working for good in your life and that every
unforeseen event and every unexpected happening in your life is being taken by God the very moment

it occurs and is beginning to be worked into a new plan he has for you, then, of course, you prevent
him from being able to bring that plan about. And so one essential of God working in us is the
necessity that we ourselves believe that that’s God’s nature. His nature is to do that in our lives.

Now really loved ones the certainty that God is doing that in your life does not come, we said last
Sunday, from hundreds of people telling you how it worked with them. It does not. A 100 people can
tell you how they completely totaled out their car and how it turned out to be one of the best
things that ever happened to them. And when you total out your car you still won’t believe that’s
the best thing that ever happened to you. So it doesn’t matter how many people tell you about ways
in which God worked for good in them, that doesn’t actually stir up faith in you. It may confirm
what you already believe about your Creator, but it itself will not create faith. The only way to
come to a certainty that your Maker is always working for your good is to see that that’s the kind
of person Jesus himself is.

Jesus wasn’t a destroyer. He didn’t come around and find a leper with leprosy and then try to hurt
the leper or try to destroy him. Jesus himself was not a great destroyer. He was the kindest and
the most helpful person that ever lived. Now he is the son of our Maker. Our Maker is like that.
Everything you hear about our Father tells you that he is a person who is always trying to work good
in situations. He is the one who always says, “Him that comes to me, I will in no ways cast out.
Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be a white as snow.” He is always the one that says,
“Look at the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they reap. Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.” The Father is always the one who says, “How much more – if a
father gives bread to his son, how much more will I give good gifts to those of you who ask me.”

Loved ones, when you study the way God has dealt with us human beings down through the years, you
find out that his nature is always to help us. Always to work good out of evil, always to take
something that is a catastrophe like Calvary and turn it into the greatest blessing the world has
ever seen. That is the nature of our Maker. The nature of our Maker is not Eichmann. The nature of
our maker is not Hitler. The nature of our maker is not Napoleon. The nature of our Maker is a
loving kind Father who is always trying to find out how he can make your life more beautiful than it
is at the moment, more fulfilling and more complete than it is at the moment. In other words, our
Maker is always trying to work out what is best for us.

Now Shakespeare has a line that fits in right there and it runs “Aye, there’s the rub,” And that’s
it. What is best for us? Because that’s where the whole thing falls apart with most of us.
Because what is best for us, you can see is synonymous with the verse Romans 8:28. We know that in
everything God works for good. What is best for us is for good. It’s the good that God is trying
to work. And the problem is that when I ask you the question, what is good for your life, you do
not immediately answer with saintly assurance, “What God wants.” But we miserable little flies
answer, “What’s good for me? Well, what’s good for me now, well, I’d like radials [radial tires,
which were an advance on normal tires], a pair of radials, that would be nice, especially this
morning.”
Or, “Well, I’d like one of those hot lather,” I don’t know why you would want hot lather but, “I’d
would like one of those hot lather machines.” Or, “New golf clubs.” In other words, we always
answer what is good for us is what in our opinion we judge would be best in our life at this present
time. And, that’s the way we answer. What is good for us? We usually answer what we think would
help us most at this point in our lives.

And so loved ones, we with our miserable little minds are believing God for half a million different
things that we think would improve our experience of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
And God all the time is looking from his angle, but he cannot bring about what he sees we need
because we’re busy believing for a half a million other things that are absolutely irrelevant and
that we forget about after five years have passed. And so the problem with most of our experiences
of God’s providence, is disappointing and it is disappointing because we do not agree with God upon
what is good for us. In fact, you and I will heartily disagree with him. And really that’s where
the whole problem lies.

God’s idea of good for us is so different from our idea of good for us. Now loved ones, you could
tie that back to the two illustrations we talked about, do you remember, that had taken place in the
body [reference to the Campus Church body of Christ]. And we mentioned them last Sunday. You know
in your heart that you don’t have problems with Brian, back there, Brian’s experience, Brian
Gabriel. You know that you don’t have too many difficulties with the good there. You remember
Brian dived in off a dock, in the summertime, into Lake Minnetonka, struck his head on the bottom,
broke his neck, and ended up completely paralyzed in a hospital here in the cities. Then you
remember we began to pray. And as we prayed, each Sunday, so the prayer was answered. And so of
four fellows that were utterly paralyzed, he alone, I presume it’s still that way, Brian, he alone,
is out this morning and is able to be at church, but is able to be on his feet. And we all of
course answer, “That was great. God was working for good in that situation. And there’s the good,
there is Brian. He still has a brace on, but he’s alive, he’s active, the paralysis is gone.” And
we all immediately say, “Now that’s the good. Now there we can see God was working for good.”
Because in that instance, the good, his health, is what we all judged he needed at that time and so
we have no trouble with it.

Now I’d ask you to look at the other illustration. Do you remember, Chris Vork? And she is 22 now.
So two years ago, just about this time of year, a number of us were present at her wedding. And I
remember putting the questions to Bob and Chris to love each other in sickness and in health till
death us do part. Then you remember eight months ago, Bob and Chris were driving down that country
road in a Volkswagen, the truck was coming on the wrong side of the road, right head on collision,
plowed right into them and Bob was killed instantly. Then you remember me sharing with you that
Chris, who had been a very timid woman and had been very dependent on Bob was just given incredible
grace by the Father so that she actually prayed with the other fellows in the truck who were shaking
and trembling and she exhibited that kind of courage and confidence throughout the funeral. And
then she began to come into the dining room of the restaurant here, and just transformed the place
into a place of beauty and order. And now, last Monday, flew to London to do the same kind of thing
in the restaurant in London.

But you know that as you listen you have more trouble with the good there. And indeed there would
be some old skeptical hearts that would say, “Yeah, well, well she’s a very courageous girl. Well,
yeah, well I suppose, I mean, it’s as good as it could be. And anyway it’s the sensible thing for
her, she ought to get away and get lost in her work and maybe that will help her forget that empty
space beside her in her bed. That’s probably, that’s the wise thing to do.” But don’t you agree
that there’s a difference in our response? We kind of think, “Well yeah God works for good – well,
well let’s say he did the best he could under the circumstances.” And yet, loved ones, that’s not
what it says. It says God worked for good in that situation. And I remember at Bob’s funeral
saying, “Did God cause this?” No, the sinful lack of love and care for others in the other driver
— that caused it. Could God have prevented it? Sure God could have prevented it. Certainly God
could have prevented the accident. Why did God not prevent the accident? Because Bob knew Jesus

and the Father knows what his needs are in the new world that he’s creating. And he knew that this
was a time when he could use a work that Satan was bringing about to bring Bob into the new world at
the right time. And he knew also that Chris herself would be a blessing as a result of this. But
it wasn’t just because it was good for Chris, or good for the body, or good for the restaurant, it
was because it was good for Bob.

Loved ones the Father has more worlds than this pitiful little corner that we see. He has more
worlds than this miserable, one of the smallest, of the planets. The Father has a beautiful new
world that he’s involved in peopling at this time. And God judges the good in the light of the
needs of that world as well as in the light of the needs of this world. None of us enter that world
by chance. Even though Satan may bring about the death, it is the Father who permits the death, to
work its will in a person’s life. And God works for good to them that love God.

In other words loved ones, God’s good is really different from ours. God’s good for us is not
physical health and the continuation of our physical life. Loved ones that’s the mistake we make.
You know the saying, “Well, as long as you have your health that’s everything.” We are so dumb,
aren’t we? We have all these little clichés that are just dumb, and just utterly contradict the
Maker. “Well as long as you have your health you’re okay.” Loved ones, that is not God’s best for
us. God is not up in heaven looking at us just wanting us, wanting us, wanting us to have our
health above everything else in the world. Because he knows that sometime this old health is going
to run out. So there’s no point in making that the one true good in this life.

Now the evidence for that loved ones is 2 Corinthians 12:7. “And to keep me from being too elated by
the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me,
to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave
me.” And it is reckoned that it was some kind of glaucoma or some kind of disease of the eyes.
“Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, ‘My grace
is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ I will all the more gladly boast
of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

That’s just one plain example of a person who was a child of God who found that the sickness
continued. Now it didn’t prevent him fulfilling the purposes God had for him, but loved ones it’s
obvious there that freedom from sickness, that health and continuity of physical life is not God’s
best for us. And we are wrong every time we judge God’s actions in our lives thinking that that is
God’s greatest good. Sometimes it’s God’s greatest good, sometimes it’s not God’s greatest good.
Nor, loved ones, is it right to think that God’s greatest good is our personal, domestic, social and
professional success.

Now, loved ones, you have to take that, all of it. God’s greatest good for us is not our personal,
domestic, social or professional success. And we are just like silly little babies sitting on the
floor stamping the floor with our heels whenever we get mad because God has allowed us to lose our
jobs. And we suddenly say, “Well he isn’t working for my good now, obviously.” Loved ones, God’s
greatest good is not our personal, social, domestic, professional success. Now the clear indication
of that is in Job of course, Job Chapter 19. And it’s the whole purpose of the Book of Job and
loved ones it isn’t a problem, it’s a problem Book for those who are not prepared to accept God’s
judgment on things, but it’s a beautiful plain setting forth of this truth that we’re discussing
this morning.

Job 19:13. Job you remember started with the boils and all the physical diseases and then God

continued to let Satan operate in his life. Job 19:13, “He has put my brethren far from me, and my
acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.” That’s a social failure. “My kinsfolk and my close
friends have failed me; the guests in my house have forgotten me; my maid servants count me as a
stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes.” The domestic failure. “I call to my servant, but
he gives me no answer; I must beseech him with my mouth.” The professional failure. “I am
repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother. Even young children despise me; when
I rise they talk against me. All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned
against me. My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my
teeth.” Loved ones, God allowed Job to experience that to make it clear to all us human beings that
God’s greatest good is not our physical well being, it’s not our health, it’s not the continuation
of this life. It’s not our personal success, our domestic success, our social success, or our
professional success. God’s greatest good is in Romans 8:29.

Maybe you would just look at it, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to
the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” That’s the
good. All things work together for good and the good is conformity to Jesus. In everything in your
life and mine, God is working for good with us. That is to conform us to the image of his Son, that
his Son might be the first-born among many brethren. God is trying to create a race of new people
who will depend on him for everything and who will be satisfied with him alone. A race of people
who will throw away the crutches of their social success, who will throw away the crutches of their
friends and their families, who will do without the crutches of professional success or of a good
reputation, who will be able to walk without physical good health and who will be satisfied with God
only. Because until God finds a race of people like that, he is not free to give us all those good
gifts as and when he desires.

Loved ones God is using the events that happen in your life and mine to make us like Jesus. And
whenever you at last give up fighting and struggling for more shares, and for more reassurance in
the stock market, whenever you stop making a successful professional career the be all and end all
of your life, when you stop treasuring your health above everything else and when you at last agree
with your Father, “Father I want to be like your son Jesus whatever it costs me.” When you come to
that point, loved ones, an incredible peace comes into your life. An unbelievable peace and of
course a great peace in God’s heart because at last he has got a little child who is not grabbing at
his coat asking him for something. And he’s got a little child who he knows will stay with him and
trust him whatever happens. And therefore, he’s got a little child whom he can use to give his gifts
of life to his world. Loved ones, that’s it. I would encourage your hearts today and all time, to
pray your way through to that place. And I’d ask you, is your good the same as God’s good in your
life, or have you a controversy with God?

Let us pray. Father we thank you for making this verse so plain to us. That in everything you do
work for good with us and that that good is only for those who love you who are called according to
your purpose. And that purpose is that we might be conformed to the image of your son Jesus. And as
he learned obedience through suffering so you have called us into the same experience. So Father,
we thank you for Chris Vork’s experience as we do for Brian Gabriel’s. We thank you Father for Stan
and Emma who are at home sick today. And most of all, our Father, we give you thanks for the
particular events that have come into our lives, for the unforeseen and unexpected circumstances
that we now find ourselves in and that we have regarded up to this time, our Father, as a nuisance
and an inconvenience and an unjustified interruption in an otherwise happy life. Father, we thank
you for these things. We know you didn’t bring them but, Father, we know that even now, you are
using them to make us like Jesus and Lord we want to learn in what way we are to become more like

him in this situation and, Father, we know that after that has happened, then you are free to add
all the other things to us that are optional extras of your love and that we can do without anyway.
Father, thank you. Amen.

Foreknowledge and Predestination

Romans 8:29b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

“What makes him tick?” You know the expression? Usually you mean, what makes him talk the way he
talks? What makes him live the way he lives? What makes him think the way he thinks? You really
mean, what is the idea or the opinion that motivates him in everything in his life? Is it the
desire to be rich? Is it a dreadful fear of people? Is it a desire to be successful? Normally,
that’s what we mean when we ask the question, “What makes him tick?”

In 57 AD, Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in Rome. In three chapters of it he described three
different kinds of people according to what made them tick. In chapter six he described a human
being that lives for himself — or for herself – that lives to get their own way, to defend their
own rights, to do what they want to do. In chapter six he describes a group of people who are
dominated by the power of sin. The middle letter of the word ‘sin’ is what makes them tick.

Next, in chapter seven, he described a group of human beings who live not to get their own way, but
to do good. They just live to do good. They live to achieve certain goals and to meet certain
standards that they have in their minds. They’re dominated not by the power of sin, but they’re
dominated by the power of law.

Then in chapter eight, which is the chapter that we’re studying these months, he describes a group
of people who are driven not by the desire to defend themselves, and not for the desire to do good,
but they are governed by an invisible Spirit within them that tells them what to do moment-by-moment
— and gives them a desire to do it. This Spirit is just called, “the Spirit”. It’s the same
Spirit that guided Jesus of Nazareth, and it’s the very life Spirit that energizes our Creator.
Those human beings are led by this Spirit. As they are led by this Spirit — rather than dominated
by a desire to live up to certain standards, or by desire to get their own way — this Spirit gives
them a love for their Creator that is beyond anything they’ve ever had in their lives. At the same
time, their Creator works with them in their lives to bring about good. So as they respond to this
Spirit within them, so the Maker of the universe himself works with them and works to bring about
every event and circumstance in their lives so that it works good for them.

Paul says, “We know that this happens not simply because of the past experiences of people who have
been guided by this Spirit, but we know it also because of the fact that this great Maker knew how
they would respond to his Spirit. Before they ever did he knew how they would respond to it and he
therefore, predestined them to be conformed to the image of his Son.” He’s working ahead of the
game all the time. That’s why Paul says, “You can know that this Maker is working together with
these people for good in their lives, because he has predestined them to be conformed to his Son’s
image. He knows what’s coming up in their lives and so every event, however stray it may appear,
every circumstance, however unexpected it may seem, has been foreseen by this Maker. He’s using it
to bring about conformity to his Son Jesus in their lives.” And so, their lives take on an order
and a meaningfulness that most human lives lack.

Now loved ones, I think it’s important to grasp that. It’s the plain simple meaning of the heavy,

heavy verse, Romans 8:29. That’s the plain simple meaning of it. Now maybe we should look at the
verse itself, and then I’ll just repeat it so that we’re clear on it before we get into the
difficult stuff. Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to
the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” Now that’s a
simple encouragement to all of us who live in submission to this Spirit that we’ve talked of. It’s
a simple encouragement to us from God: “I knew you would be where you are this morning. I knew you
would be as you are this morning. I knew that and I know what’s going to come to you this
afternoon. I have predesigned you to be conformed to my Son’s image –- and whatever it is, be
assured of this, I’m going to show you how it can be used to make you more like Jesus.” That’s the
simple encouragement.

Before we get into all kinds of theological issues, it’s just a very simple encouragement to all of
us here who live in submission to the Spirit of Jesus. God is saying, “I knew you would be here
this morning. I knew you would be as you are this morning. Moreover, I know what’s going to happen
to you this afternoon, and I know what’s going to happen to you 20 years hence, and I am working it
all to make you like my Son Jesus — so no event is stray for me. No circumstance is unexpected for
me. I know how I’m going use it when it comes up. Just listen to me and I’ll tell you what to do.”
I think that’s just the simple message of the verse. I think that we can all grasp that. Even a
little leaguer could grasp that.

Now let’s go into the old twilight zone where these miserable little finite minds find before them a
huge gulf that separates them from the infinite mind of the Creator. Let’s see, loved ones, that if
you’re a creature and he is the Creator it is reasonable to expect that there are some things that
you might not understand. It is reasonable to expect that there will be partial insight by our
little minds.

Now I said “a little leaguer” purposely, because every little leaguer knows that there are dumb dads
and there are sharp dads. Every little leaguer knows that a sharp dad watches his little son throw
the ball, pick the first ball up and throw it. And the dad sees, “That fella has potential. I’m
going to arrange my Saturdays and his Saturdays so that we can have some time practicing together on
the baseball diamond.” That’s a sharp dad. A dumb dad is one who sees the little fella look at the
ball and pass it by, not want to lift it all and have no interest in baseball bats. But the dad
says, “He’s gonna be a little leaguer should it kill me, whether he wants to or not.” The dumb dad
doesn’t use his foreknowledge at all. He doesn’t read the little guy and see what his potential is.
He just does what he wants to do with his little son. We all know the result.

In other words, even the youngest one here knows that you can’t make people what they don’t want to
be. You can’t make people do what they’re not capable of doing. Our whole educational system is
built on the basis of foreknowledge. That’s why we have to suffer the old ACT tests and all the
rest of it. The whole educational system is built on the principle that you can look at a person
and you can foreknow, in some sense, the kind of people that they could be, or the kind of people
that they couldn’t be. Then you pre-design their education so that you develop those capabilities
that you’ve seen within them. Indeed, you would admit loved ones, that here in our own lives
foreknowledge is very basic to everything we do. You look at a thing and you size it up as best you
can, and then you design your own plan in the light of that.

Now loved ones, I think that’s the first basic fact to get very clear in our minds when we talk
about predestination. Here in Romans 8:29, you can see that God is not a dumb dad. He does not
look at us and say [pointing to different people in the audience], “You will be a child of mine.

You won’t. You will be a daughter of mine. You won’t. You will be a son of mine. You won’t.” He
doesn’t. The Bible plainly says in Romans 8:29, “Whom God foreknows he predestines.” So here it’s
stated very plainly that there is no predestination apart from foreknowledge. God looks and he
foreknows what is going to take place in a person’s life, or what a person is going to be like and
he predesigns in the light of that.

Now maybe it’s good just to see that. Would you look at Romans 8:29, loved ones, and just let it
burn itself very clearly into your own mind, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to
conformed to the image of his Son.” So there is no predestination apart from foreknowledge.
Foreknowledge comes first and then predestination comes in the light of that. God is not a
domineering dictator. He is not out to make us “Skinner-type” robots, or to make our lives utterly
dominated by his will. He is a loving Father who looks at his dear children and sees what way
they’re going to respond to his Spirit, and then he acts in the light of that.

Loved ones, just before going into the details of it, I would ask you to look at the reasonableness
of it. If we can invent computers that can calculate all the possible permutations, variations, and
variables in a certain situation, then surely the One who has created everything from which we even
make our computers is able to calculate an infinite number of variables, an infinite number of
contingencies in our lives and foreknow what is going to happen.

Now let’s engage in an exercise in futility. This is what it is. This is part of the foolishness
of preaching I think that we’re about. [Pointing to hand-drawn pictures.] There is infinity. But
that’s dumb because eternity is not just endless time. Eternity is timelessness. So, really you
can’t say that that’s eternity, that’s eternity, or that’s eternity. You can’t picture eternity so
what we’re involved in here is using anthropomorphisms of all kinds. Using men’s and women’s
picture language to talk about things that we cannot really talk about. We’re really on the edge of
the twilight zone — so just be patient and understanding.

Here [pointing] is eternity appearing. Now at this point, this is pre-creation. At this point God
exists in love with his Son and the Holy Spirit. God exists in love in a loving family with his Son
and with the Holy Spirit. It’s silly – even to talk this way — because God does not think in
sequence. He does not execute in sequence. He does nothing in sequence. He sees everything in one
great eternal moment because he is the great eternal Person himself. So for him, there is no past,
and there is no present and there is no future. There are no points in time, let alone points in
eternity, which is a contradiction. But for the sake of our own understanding, let us think of it
that way. God exists in love with his Son and the Holy Spirit.

At this point, he conceives his plan to share that loving fellowship with other persons who will be
free like him and to whom he will offer the Holy Spirit, his own life. At that point he conceives
of that. I’d just remind you that it’s foolish even to talk in those terms because the whole thing
occurred in one great moment in the great mind of our Maker. But he conceives his plan to share the
loving fellowship that he enjoys with his Son and the Holy Spirit — to share it with other beings
who will be free like him ( and that’s key) and to whom he will offer the Holy Spirit his own life.
That Holy Spirit will make them like himself and enable them to share love with him.

At this point, God conceives that they will be capable of refusing the Holy Spirit and rebelling
against him. Certainly, we can see how our infinite Creator could conceive that these free beings
that he would make would be capable of refusing the Holy Spirit and rebelling against him. At this
point, he conceives the need to put their rebellious hearts in his Son Jesus and destroy them there.

His Son at once accepts the cross in his Father’s heart. (From time-to-time, I’ll put Bible
quotations which are hard verses or difficult verses and those will be explained by these
paragraphs.) So at that point he conceives the need to put their rebellious hearts in his Son Jesus
and destroy them there, and his Son at once accepts the cross in his Father’s heart. So God saw the
need to do something about this rebellion that he saw could take place — and his Son agreed
immediately. Because they are one with each other in will, he agreed to do it.

At this point, God conceives that he can give the Holy Spirit only to those who accept their
position in his Son. In other words, God sees, “The power of this Holy Spirit is so great that I
cannot give it anyone who refuses to let their rebellious heart be destroyed in my Son Jesus.” So
he sees that he can give the Holy Spirit only to those who accept their position in his Son Jesus.
At this point he conceives that he must withdraw the grace of light and a penitent heart from those
who refuse his Son’s Spirit. So, he sees he must do the opposite. Those who don’t accept the
position that he’s offering them in Jesus, he must withdraw from them the grace of light in a
penitent heart. That will help to explain some of those heart-hardening verses in connection with
Pharaoh.

At this point, he conceives the plan for the first two free moral agents, Adam and Eve. He knows
them better then they know themselves. He foreknows what decisions they will make but refuses to
compromise their free wills by preventing those decisions. You see that? God conceives the plan of
making two free moral agents, Adam and Eve and conceives the fact that will make decisions that may
frustrate his purpose. But in order to preserve the key characteristic of himself, freedom and
self-determination, he determines not to prevent those decisions. That explains why often things
happen that aren’t God’s best will, but he’s trying to preserve free will, and let those things
happen. At this point, he foreknows all the people that will be born, how they will bring up their
children, and how they will all respond to his Spirit.

See loved ones, if you once allow that there is an infinite eternal mind, you have to see that that
is possible. You have to see that God is not one who has to play the game out before he sees how it
will work. He is capable of conceiving the infinite number of variables in your life, the infinite
number of contingent decisions that you will make. He is capable of doing that. If we with our
computers can do it in some sense for our machines, certainly the Father can. That helps to explain
names written in the book of life, remember, “from before the foundation of the world”. And then,
“Whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Then in Genesis 1:1
time begins. He creates the heavens and earth.

Now you need to think of it a little. But loved ones, I think that’s part of what Romans 8:29
means, that God is able to foreknow everything that happens — and then he is not able to prevent it
happening, but he is able to work with it one way or another. Those whom he foreknows will respond
to his Son’s Spirit. He predestines them. He pre-designs them. He designs them to be conformed to
the image of his Son. He says, “If they will respond to my Spirit, I will work to conform them to
my Son’s image.” But loved ones, the Father cannot do anything. He cannot use anybody who will not
exercise their own free will. He can only use even people who oppose him in accordance with their
free wills.

Now it might be good to look at an example of that, loved ones. It’s in Isaiah 10:5-7. It’s one
instance of God using an evil king to discipline the Israelites because of their hypocrisy. Isaiah
10:5, “Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff of my furry! Against a godless nation I send
him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize plunder, and to tread

them down like the mire of the streets.” But then you see that God is not making Assyria do that,
“But he does not so intend, and his mind does not so think; but it is in his mind to destroy, and to
cut off nations not a few.” And so God only uses Assyria because Assyria, the king of Assyria
himself wanted to do that.

And then in Verse 12 you find God confirming that, “When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount
Zion and on Jerusalem he will punish the arrogant boasting of the king of Assyria and his haughty
pride.” So God will then actually punish Assyria for their very pride that God used against his
people Israel, to discipline them, but God cannot make you do anything that you do not want to do.

So honestly loved ones, it is difficult to read the Bible any other way except to see that God knows
where you are at this very moment. He knows how you are going to decide things this afternoon. He
knows what you will be doing in 20 years’ time. That is good for all of us who submit to him. But
some of you may be sitting and saying, “Well, how will we know whether we are among those who are
foreknown as responding to Jesus Spirit, and therefore are predestined to be conformed to his image
or are not?”

Loved ones, you’ll know only one way: by the present disposition of your will — by the present
disposition of your will. You can know this very moment whether you’re heading towards life or
death by the present disposition of your will. It is absolutely your free decision and
responsibility. He says, “Behold I set before you life and death, choose life that you may live.”
So loved ones, really everything depends on our own free will, and the exercise of our own free
will. If you say to me at this moment, “Yeah, but God foreknows what I’m going to do this
afternoon.” Yes, if you exercise your will in the best way you know how — he foreknows that. But
he cannot make that happen. You alone can make things happen in your life. He only reads you.
That’s all he does. He’s able to read you.

So loved ones, will you think about it a little? I think it would be better to think about it then
to have questions this morning because you need to let some of that sink into you. We’ll talk a bit
more about it next Sunday — but you must admit it is quite shattering in a way, isn’t it? To think
that some of you have already decided how you’re going to live your lives and there’s someone in the
universe who can see that? I would urge you loved ones there – really. I know there’s only attitude
I have in my own heart and I’m saying to myself, “I’m going after every little piece of light he
shows me. I’m going to set my will his way, whatever.” And I pray you’ll feel the same way.

Let us pray: Almighty God, our own minds just stumble as we think of you being able to foreknow
everything that we will do. And yet Lord, we see in our own lives that we can foreknow without
making a person do anything. So we see, Lord, that foreknowledge is not fore-ordination. It is not
you making us do the thing. All you can do is read us. But Lord, it seems shattering to think even
now, that we can be read that clearly. So Lord, we would pray now for each other this morning. Our
mind is just in awe when we think of this whole truth, and our mind is just baffled by the mystery
of it. But Lord, we do know that we want to fulfill the purpose that you’ve made us for.

Lord, we want to please you. We do want your dreams to be made real in our hearts. And so Lord,
all we can say is that we cannot deal with 20 years hence. We cannot waste our time trying to plumb
your infinite mind to find out whether we are among those who respond to your Spirit or not. Lord,
all we have control of is this present moment. All we can do is say, “Father, you’ve been showing me
something in my life for some time and I’ve been evading it. I don’t want to be a person who evades
it forever and is lost. I want to stop evading it this very morning. Father, I want to put myself on

your side. I want to begin to respond to this Spirit of Jesus that makes life have meaning and have
value.”

Father, we would give ourselves to you now. We would ask you to give us your Holy Spirit so that we
may live our lives this coming week and in the coming months in submission to this dear Spirit so
that you could begin to use every event in our lives to make us like Jesus.

Predestination

Romans 8:30a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I would thank God for every one of you in the body who has made the body more beautiful by the
harmony of your own life. Because the harmony of the music comes from the harmony of your life, you
know. And thank God for every one of you whether you make music or not, you make music with the
obedience of your life and that’s what makes the body what Jesus has made it among us.

Would you like, loved ones, to turn to last Sunday’s verse and we could start at that point, Romans
8:29. I think that some of the questions that you would ask in a question time I got last Sunday
and I would like to try to speak to those questions today. Romans 8:29, “For those whom he
foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the
first-born among many brethren.” For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.

You remember how we explain that loved ones? If you just look at Isaiah 46, you’d see it there.
Isaiah 46:9-10, “Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God,
and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not
yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” So you remember
we said, “Whom God foreknows he predestines because in fact, God knows all things. He knows the end
from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done.” And so we said, you remember, “That
God is able to do far more than our computers are able to do. He is able to conceive what is going
to happen throughout the whole age and lifetime of the world because he has a great and a perfect
mind.”

And you remember we said that, “God sees that all as one great moment. It is as if he is on a very
high building when a parade is passing by. We are down here on street level and all we can do is
see what is passing in front of our eyes, but from a high building he is able to see not only what
is passing but what has already passed and is going on and what is coming next. And so God in
eternity can see everything in one great moment.” And we shared, remember, that eternity is not
endless time but is timelessness. And that is, of course, all that the old spaceship novelists are
after and space fiction people are after, that somehow it is possible to break out of time into a
timeless world. And that’s the world that God dwells in and he is able to see everything in one
great moment.

But, you remember, we said for our finite little sakes, he is prepared to show things in sequence.
Now, he doesn’t really himself operate in sequence, but he is prepared for our miserable little
finite minds to reveal him in sequence and so I ask you to play the game with me too and to look at
eternity, you remember. And it was that I did not remember to point out that eternity is a green
Irish land. (I’ll suffer from my wife for that silly joke.)

Loved ones, do you remember what I said, that if we could imagine precreation eternity then this
verse means that God first of all, exists in love with his Son and the Holy Spirit. That’s the
situation. If there was any beginning to eternity, at that point God exists in love with his Son
and his Holy Spirit. Then, if you could think of sequence at all in an infinite mind which is
really silly to think of, but, if you think of it that way just so that we can grasp it; at this
point in precreation eternity God conceives his plan to share that loving fellowship. The loving

fellowship that he has with his Son and the Holy Spirit with other beings who will be free like him
and to whom he will offer the Holy Spirit, his own life.

God conceives the possibility of a beautiful family that would share the love of the trinity family.
Then at this point — and I just remind you for the sake of being philosophically correct that it’s
silly to talk about points and eternities — but, at this point, he conceives they will be capable
of refusing the Holy Spirit and rebelling against him. He’s made them free like himself. And so he
conceives, they will be capable of refusing the Holy Spirit and rebelling against him. At this
point, he conceives the need to do something about that, to put the rebellious hearts in his son
Jesus and destroy them there. And at that same point, his Son once accepts the cross in his
Father’s heart. And I have put here some scripture references that otherwise are difficult to
interpret if you don’t see this truth. But at that point God conceives the need to do something
about these rebellious hearts. And he conceives the need to put them in his son Jesus, and destroy
them there, and his son Jesus accepts immediately that cross.

At this point, God conceives that he can give the Holy Spirit only to those who accept their
position in his Son. So he conceives only those who accept what I have done to them in my Son, for
them, will I be able to give the Holy Spirit because they’re the only people who will be safe to
possess the Holy Spirit. At this point, he conceives that he must withdraw the grace of light and a
penitent heart from those who refuse his son’s spirit. In other words, God begins to conceive, to
whom can I give the Holy Spirit and from whom must I withdraw even the grace of penitence and a soft
heart? And it’s to the people who refused his son’s spirit.

At this point, he conceives the plan for the first two free moral agents, Adam and Eve. He knows
them better than they know themselves, foreknows what decisions they will make — but refuses to
compromise their free wills by preventing those decisions. So, God conceives the first two free
moral agents, the first two particular people. And he conceives and he knows them better than they
know themselves so that he is able to foreknow what they will do. But he refuses to prevent their
action. Even though it is against him, he refuses to prevent it because he wants to preserve free
will. Because eventually he wants a group of people who want to love him. Not who have had to love
him or be forced to love him. At this point, he foreknows all the people that will be born, how
they will bring up their children, and how they will all respond to his spirit.

And that’s the difficult one for most of us. But, God foreknows all the people that will be born,
how they will bring up their children, and how they will all respond to his spirit. Which is
reasonable, in a way. If his great mind is able to conceive this complex world, surely his great
mind does not need to play out the act; his great mind is able to foreknow. And whom he foreknows,
he predestines to be conformed to the image of his Son. And then at that point time begins, in
Genesis 1:1 he creates the heavens and the earth.

Now loved ones, one of the questions that one person shared with me last Sunday is one that probably
a lot of you won’t have trouble with but I’ll repeat it, as some of you may. He said, “Does God not
foreknow us all?” And, I’d like to point out to you how that question became real in his mind. You
see, if you go back to Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed
to the image of his Son.” And so this brother was asking, “Well, those he foreknew he predestines,
well what about the rest? I mean, does he not foreknow them too?” Well, you see what this verse
really means, whom he foreknows will receive his Son’s spirit, them he predestines to be conformed
to his Son’s image. That’s really what that verse means.

God does foreknow everybody but he foreknows who of us will respond to his spirit, who will be
willing to receive his spirit, and those he predestines to be conformed to the image of his Son.
The others he can’t touch because they don’t want to be conformed to the image of his Son because
they don’t want to receive the spirit and God is able to foreknow that. And so the ones he foresees
will receive his spirit, he predestines them to be conformed to the image of his Son. Maybe it’s
good to make the point that “pre” means “before” and he predestines them in the sense that he
destines them for conformity to his Son’s image before creation, not before foreknowledge, you see
that? Meaning, it’s because he foreknows them and foresees, “Ah, that person will receive my
spirit. Alright now I destine him to be conformed to my Son’s image.”

So, it’s really the fact that God looks at us all, can conceive of all of us as being alive today,
foreknows the decisions that we will make, the contingent decisions we will make, foreknows how we
will respond to his spirit and then he destines us to be conformed to his Son’s image. A better
translation of “proorizo”, the Greek word for “predestined”, a better translation is “he designs”,
he designs us. So, God foreknows how we’ll respond to his Son’s spirit, that’s our free will
response. But he is able to read our free will and he designs us to be conformed to his Son’s
image.

That’s a great encouragement for those of us here who have many rough situations in our lives. Many
of us here have rough marriage situations and many of us have very difficult and trying career
situations. Many of us here are having hard times in our own lives. Loved ones, do you see that
God foreknew that you would receive his Son’s spirit and those things that are happening to you are
not chance. God designed your life to make you like his Son, because he knew you would be willing to
receive his spirit. Those things in your life, those hard things, are not things that have slipped
through while God wasn’t looking. Those are things that the Father has lovingly filtered through
his hands and his fingers. And he’s allowing to come upon you only the things you are able to bear.
And those are carefully designed. Loved ones, there is no place for us thanking God for all the
good things that he is giving us and then putting up with the others or resenting them. Those have
been carefully allowed and in a detailed way God has designed them to conform you to his Son’s
image. So that’s part of the truth of that verse.

Now, another brother last Sunday said, “But I have a person, I have a friend, who uses that very
argument of God’s foreknowledge to excuse his own passivity. Because he says to me, ‘Well, listen,
if God knows everything why should I bother doing anything, I mean, it’s going to happen anyway.’”
And I think loved ones, that’s the kind of trick position many of us find ourselves in from the
point of view of the dialectic, of the truth. Well if God knows everything why should I bother to
do anything because it’s going to happen anyway? Now do you see, that that is confusing
foreknowledge with foreordination? Foreknowledge is the ability to read a person’s mind and to read
a person’s character and then to project that 10, 70 years hence — so that you know what they’ll
do. But foreordination is making them do it irrespective of whether they want to or not.

Now loved ones, we’re not used to making these distinctions, I think, because we don’t use these
terms often in everyday life but foreknowledge is not foreordination. In other words, in planning a
shopping mall, foreknowledge is needed. You have to do polls of some kind to find out how many
other shops there are in that area, to find out how many residents there are that will use this
shopping mall, to find out how accessible that shopping mall is to the rest of the cities. You need
to use foreknowledge. And then you plan the shopping mall in the light of that foreknowledge, but
that does not mean that you made every person who came through those doors, come through those
doors. You didn’t. They came through of their own free will.

Every one of us has used foreknowledge in planning the educational program for someone else —
either advising them or if we have children in actually planning for them or if we’re counselors and
actually counseling the mentored. And we’ve used foreknowledge, we’ve said, “Ah, that person has
that kind of ability and has that kind of talent. Now, they should have this kind of training.”
But, loved ones, that does not mean that we made them study five hours a day or fail to study five
hours a day. We used our foreknowledge to design a course that would be suitable for them but, that
does not mean we made them do it. In planning a vacation, you use foreknowledge, you don’t just
wait until the boss says, “You’re free,” and then you go out and say, “I’m free.” You don’t — it’s
a wasted two weeks. You use foreknowledge to plan your vacation and you use foreknowledge to plan
somebody else’s vacation, but that does not mean you made them lie on a beach in Acapulco and sun
themselves all day. In other words, foreknowledge is different from foreordination.

Now, it is important, I think loved ones to keep that distinction clear. Now, I think where we get
into difficulties is we see that in regard to ourselves because our foreknowledge is so imperfect
that it is often wrong. And so, we can see how our foreknowledge is not foreordination, but it’s
when we transfer that over to the Father because he has an infinite mind, his foreknowledge is
absolutely perfect and so we have a tendency then to say, “Ah, his foreknowledge is foreordination.”
But loved ones, it isn’t. Foreknowledge, however perfect it may become, is still foreknowledge.
It is not foreordination. It is not making a person do what they don’t want to do. It is
foreknowing what they will do.

Now, it might be good loved ones, to just look at two issues then involved in that. You know fine
well, as I do, that the human mind rebels against being a creature, it hates that idea. The human
mind hates the idea of its creatureliness and it rebels against the idea that anybody but it could
know all that’s going to happen in its life. And the human mind rebels in a creaturely way against
the possibility of the Creator possibly knowing what decisions we’re going to make next year. And
so the human mind rejects the idea of that and it very plausibly argues, wouldn’t it be far freer if
the Creator didn’t know what decisions we were going to make and as if this were just a great free
wheeling, absolutely unknown universe where we would just make our decisions, nobody would know what
was going to happen and we just play the game like that until it turns out at the end. And we’d
play a great dualistic game and who knows who would win? Maybe evil would win, maybe good would
win.

Well, do you see loved ones, that it’s really a rebellious attitude to the way the Creator has
arranged the world? He has not arranged it to be a chance kind of game like that whereby maybe the
good ones might win and maybe the bad ones might win. The Father has foreknown the thing, has seen
the way we would act and has brought in various corrections so that the thing would not be utterly
and absolutely destroyed and yet so that those of us who want our own way will be able to get our
own way, but so that his final plan for the universe will still be sure. And you see that we cannot
make reality what our imperfect self-willed little minds want it to be. We can only make reality
what God has revealed himself to be and he has revealed himself to be someone who knows the end from
the beginning and who can foreknow.

Just one other side that I think we should notice, that attitude of passivity, that says, “Well God
knows what I’m going to do, so what’s the point of doing it? Just sit down here. It’ll happen
anyway.” That kind of attitude, you can see is really a God defying attitude, isn’t it? It’s
really a God defying attitude. It’s an attitude that challenges the wisdom of God. It’s an
attitude that accuses him of not doing it the right way and I’m going to beat you anyway. It’s not

an attitude of trust in the Father.

It’s like being in a huge maze, you’re in the center of it and you have to find your way out. And
there’s an infinite mind that knows which corners you’re going to turn and so you sit there and you
say, “Well, he knows. He knows anyway what I’m going to do, so I’m just going to sit here.” Then
the infinite mind says, “I knew you’d do that.” And then you sit there for awhile and you say, “Oh
well, I’m tired of sitting here. So, I’m going to — well, I’m going to turn a few corners.” And
you’ve just turned the same corner and the infinite mind says, “I knew you’d do that.” And then you
say, “Well, then I’m going to just sit down if you know it anyway, I’m going to sit down.” And then
the infinite mind says, “I knew you’d do that.” And then eventually however dumb we may be,
eventually, we look up and we see this is dumb. My job is to get out of this maze and the only way
the plan for my life is going to come about is me doing what I’ve to do. And it’s the job of the
infinite mind to foreknow. It’s not my job to try to second guess him, or to try to argue with him
that he hasn’t the right to foreknow, or to try to challenge him that he’s predisposing me one way
or the other. I have to believe what he says, that he is a free loving Father, that he is not
predisposing me, that the reason why Jesus had to come at all was because he had given me free will
to do what I want and that all he does is, he is able to read me better than I am able to read
myself.

But loved ones, finally, I think you have to come to that position. It is very difficult to argue
yourself into any position but one of challenging God, if you start trying to make foreknowledge
foreordination, which it really isn’t. One brother last Sunday said, “Well, why would God want to
know all that?” Well I am sure that the Father doesn’t sit brooding upon it all and I’m sure he’s
working with us with all his heart so that the whole thing will come about in a real way that has
integrity in it. But one of the reasons the Father knows it all is because that’s his nature. He’s
omniscient. He is just a God who is able to conceive of everything at once. The real miracle is
that he has made free willed, independent people. People who could have free wills, people who can
exercise their free wills independent of him, that’s the real miracle. It’s no amazing miracle that
he’s able to read us and foresee what we’ll decide.

Loved ones, really, the truth probably is this: that those of us who are responding to his Spirit
find tremendous stability and reassurance in the fact that he knew we would do that and that he has
carefully designed every event and circumstance in our lives to make us like his son Jesus. And the
truth probably on the other hand is, those of us who are not responding to his Spirit are rebelling
against his right to foreknow and his right to rule the world. And we’re rebelling against our
creatureliness. And that’s really our situation, it’s one of rebellion. Is there any way of
knowing what you’re doing, because at this moment the Father foreknows what you are going to do in
the rest of your life. Is there any way of knowing what you are foreknown as doing? Are you
foreknown as one who will receive Jesus’ spirit and will be conformed to his image or at this moment
in eternity has God foreknown you as someone who will reject that Spirit and who will go on your own
way and destroy your own life forever? Because that’s really — it’s us that does it.

Well loved ones, there is. There are certain works God does in a man or a woman’s heart, that show
that that person is heading either toward life or towards death. In other words, is there any way
of knowing whether the Creator of the universe has foreknown that you will go to New York this
coming week, or this afternoon? Well, if you were on a bus going to the airport there’s a much
greater chance that you are foreknown as somebody who’s going to New York than if you were sitting
at home. In other words, if you’re on the journey somewhere there’s more of a chance that you are
in fact known as one who is going to receive his Spirit.

Now, God has outlined some of those works and that’s the next verse, loved ones, if you’d look at
it. Romans 8:30, “And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also
justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” So, those whom God foreknows he
predestines and then between the foreknowing and the predestining are these three experiences at
least: you’re called; you’re justified; and you’re glorified. First of all, if you are foreknown by
God as one who will receive his Spirit, he has looked into your will and he knows the way your will
is going to decide, you’ll have experienced being called by God.

Now, what is God’s call? First of all, it might be good to see that it comes to everybody. And
those who are foreknown as receiving his Spirit are those who have responded to his call, but the
call itself comes to everybody. You remember, you could look it up maybe afterwards, but Matthew 22
is a chapter where Jesus talks about the king, you remember, the marriage feast and he went out and
invited everyone to it. And they refused. And then he sent the servants out into the highways and
the byways and told him to invite the poor and the downtrodden and invite them. And then Jesus
finished the parable by saying, “Many are called but few are chosen.”

So, loved ones, all people throughout the whole universe receive this call, so that we do not have
specifically ourselves. That is something that all of those who are foreknown as responding to
God’s spirit share with everybody else — even those who are foreknown as rejecting his spirit. So,
everybody receives his call. There is no one that doesn’t receive it. What is his call? His call
is this, “Stop living your life for yourself. That physical and mental life that you have is only
temporary. Start living your life for me and for my purpose in the world and I will give you my own
life, the Holy Spirit, so that you and I can live forever together.” That’s the call.

How does the call come? Well, in various ways, but one way is, sooner or later the truth dawns upon
you that there must be an intelligent mind somewhere behind the order and design in this universe.
That’s often the way the call first comes to us. You’re walking along the street or you’re driving
along and suddenly it dawns on you, “Yeah, this all can’t have come about by chance. Even if
evolution is true somebody must have made the thing that evolved.” And suddenly it dawns upon you
that there must be an intelligent mind behind the order and design of this universe. For many of
us, the next step in the call is a sense that we should be living our lives differently from what
we’re doing but we can’t seem to do anything about it. Just a growing sense that we should be
living our lives differently from what we are but we can’t seem to do anything about it.

For many of us, another step in the call is a growing conviction that Jesus Christ probably is the
Son of the Creator of the universe. And that he obviously believed that some evil part inside us
was destroyed with him on the cross. That begins to grow inside us as a deep conviction. We begin
to sense, “Yeah, this Jesus Christ is different from Buddha and Muhammad. He seems to be what I
would imagine the Son of the Creator of the universe would be. And he obviously senses very strongly
that his death is some way connected with me. And in fact, that there’s some evil part of me that
is preventing me living life the way I should that was destroyed with him on the cross.” For many
of us, that’s a further step in the call.

For many of us then, there’s a sense inside us that unless we do receive some supernatural power
such as the Bible seems to describe the Holy Spirit to be, unless we receive some supernatural power
like that, we cannot possibly be like God. And we cannot possibly please him. For many of us, loved
ones, those convictions and those vague sensings inside us have been the call of God.

Loved ones, if you’ve had as much as that, do not expect some other supernatural event or voice.
That is part of the call of God to you. And now the decision is yours. And that’s it, loved ones.
If you’ve received as much of a call as that, then the ball is now in your court. And if you ask
me, “Well, Pastor, can you tell me how I can know if I’m foreknown as one who will receive Jesus’
spirit and be conformed to his image or not or go into eternal hell and into either darkness or
loneliness forever, how can I tell that?” Loved ones, I have to throw it back to you. The only way
to tell it is, what have you done with the call so far? Really, really, that’s all I can suggest.
It’s the same as the trip to New York; how can you tell you’re going to be in New York or not?
Well, how have you responded to the bus coming by your door, or how have you responded to the fellow
who has come over to check in your bags? How have you responded to the first few moves towards you,
that the Creator has made? And really that’s it, loved ones, because the Father said this, just
very plainly, loved ones, “Behold, I have set before you life and death; choose life that you may
live.” And he just made it dead plain, loved ones, that it’s our choice.

He can foreknow, it’s his job to foreknow, just as it’s the job of a father to foresee how the
children are going to behave, it’s the job of a director to foresee how a business is going to go,
so it’s the job of the Father to foresee and foreknow, but loved ones, the decision is yours,
really. And I would just encourage you to be real about it.

You can say, “Well brother, I haven’t made many moves towards it so far but I’m going to.” But
that’s just silly, it’s silly. Well, you can see it’s meaningless, it’s meaningless. I refuse to
check in my bags, but I’m going to get to New York. I haven’t stepped on the bus yet. I’ve let it
go by. But, no, I intend to get to New York. It’s not possible. In fact, dear ones, it is a great
existential moment in your life. That’s it. It is your decision. God sets it before you. Of
course, I have to be just honest with you that here we’ve had a unique opportunity, I think you
agree. We’ve had a unique opportunity. We’ll look back – do you realize? We’ll look back on these
days. Now some of the older people here will agree with this. But we kind of think it will never
end. But we’ll look back on these days, and we’ll think of these as remarkable days, incredible days
of opportunity. Some of you loved ones will go off to other towns and other cities. You’ll marry and
get jobs elsewhere, and will look back to these days as golden days. Incredible days when we saw
one body of Christ that seemed to look like the body of Christ and some fellow talked to us about
Christ in a way that we could kind of understand. And loved ones, these are unique days during
which you have received God’s call. So I would encourage you to be real, just real, don’t be fear
ridden, just be real about your response. But what you’re choosing today, governs what you will be
tomorrow. You know that, just in a temporal way. But you can see how true it is in an eternal way.
Let us pray.

Romans Series

Predestination: Questions & Answers

Romans 8:30b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Brother was sharing the question last Sunday, how does prayer enter into predestination? I think
it’s important, loved ones, to see that God foreknows, and it’s very tricky for our finite minds to
get around this, but God foreknows everything that will happen in the light of the obedience and the
prayers of those whom he knows will receive his Spirit. And in the light of the disobedience and
rebellion of those who he knows will reject and resist his Spirit.

So that God’s foreknowledge of what is happening in the world, takes into consideration the prayers
that will be offered by those of us who respond and submit to his Spirit. This allows prayer, rather
than being something that changes perhaps something that God has not foreseen, it is part of the
activity that God foresees and will be used by his Holy Spirit to bring about his will.

So in a way, brother, prayer is part of what God foresees and yet it is our free action. If we
didn’t pray, then, in fact, that would prevent him doing certain things in people’s lives that he
also would have foreseen and would have had to endure even though he didn’t want it. So, there are
many loved ones who are sick in our families and our circles of friends whom God wants to touch into
life but he cannot because we don’t pray. In fact he has had to foreknow that. He knew we wouldn’t
pray but the one activity he refuses to engage in is changing our free wills.

Even though he sees that it results in an evil, the greater good of preserving the free will is more
precious to him than preventing any temporary evil, even if that evil is the death of a person. Do
push me loved ones, you know you push me to a point and then I have to express the finiteness of my
miserable little mind.

Question: In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed “If it be thy will.” Does that mean Jesus had hesitation to do
God’s will?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

If Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “If it be thy will, then I will drink of the cup, but if possible,
let this cup pass from me”[Matthew 26:39], how could Jesus, knowing that this was the only way, how
could he experience any hesitation? Loved ones, I think first of all there’s an absolute difference
between a rebellious, “I don’t want your will. I want my will.” There’s an absolute contrast
between that and the attitude of a person saying, “I want to do what you want, Lord. If there’s any
other way, then do it but if this is the only way, then I am glad to do it.” I think it’s important
to make that distinction between the prayer of Jesus and the prayer that we so often pray, “I am not
going to do it.”

But I think, Jim, it’s important to see that that is part of the expression of the humanity of Jesus
himself. In some way, loved ones, Jesus, when he came from the Father in heaven, either laid aside
or — those of you theologians who know the kenosis theory and maybe hate it — laid aside something

of his divine qualities or at least refused temporarily to use them.

For instance, with the Father in heaven, he had absolute omniscience. Now he shows by questions that
he puts at times, here on earth, that he did not have that omniscience — that divine omniscience.
He showed often that he had the same gift of the Holy Spirit as we have, when you remember he
discerned there were murmurings in their hearts. He often shows that he had that kind of discernment
of the Holy Spirit, but repeatedly he asks questions that reveal that he had restrained himself from
using the omniscience — that is, knowledge of all things that he had with his Father in heaven.

So, that is part of it: that Jesus, in a real way, became a human being, in a real way put himself
under the same limitations as we. And it seems to me that’s part of also what comes out in the cry,
“My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, and then followed by the declaration of faith, “Into
thy hands, I commend my Spirit”, that Jesus, in a real way, loved ones, suffered and endured the
infirmities that we have and was a human being and yet completely divine also.

Question: Are there some theologians who don’t believe in free will, but believe we are programmed,
so to speak?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

Sure, loved ones, there are some theologians who believe that we do not have free will but because
of the fall, we are in something of the same situation as B. F. Skinner [psychologist-1904-1990],
would say. The determinist psychologist would say that we are not free. We are pre-programmed. We
are pre-determined.

Loved ones, God is so good, he is so good in just blasting us again and again with words like
Deuteronomy 30:19 and gets old Moses to say this. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you
this day that I have set before you, life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life that
you and your descendants may live.” It is so good to answer Skinner and everybody else and say, “Why
would God tell us to choose, if he knows we cannot choose, if he knows we are not free to choose?”
It comes out again and again in Jesus’ statements, “If any man wants to come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his Cross.”[Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23]

Even John 3:16 says, “For God, so loved the world that whosoever believeth in him” — any of you can
who wants — and you can do it if you want to. I just think that’s it. I think the theologians or
the psychologists get themselves into the midst of determinism or over-emphasis on the sovereignty
of God by taking only parts of scripture and that’s always the difficulty we get ourselves into.
That in a real sense, the sovereignty of God is taught but you cannot get away from free will. Oh,
it just comes out again and again, loved ones.

Question: How can we change the path for our futures, including our educational or vocational
decisions?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

I’d press you dear ones who have been brought up in our educational system in the past 10 or 20
years. Loved ones, there’s been a general, subtle tendency in our system to indicate this: what you
were yesterday is what you’re going to be today. You remember Peter has a good piece that exposes
the evolutionary philosophy that has come among us in these days. People will say, “All things shall

continue as they have been from the beginning.” That’s what has got hold in so many of us. S.A.T.
tests [vocational aptitude tests] in high school are good, great, as long as you see that God is
able to work beyond and above the S.A.T. tests. It is not the absolute truth that because you were
able to repair your bicycle when you were five-year-old, you absolutely ought to build a dam across
the Mississippi river when you’re 27 because you are a born engineer. It’s just not true nor does it
give some indication, but we are free agents and we need to see that in our educational system.

God is the god of the new beginning, each time the sun rises. That’s why you never look at the sun
and think, “What an old sun.” It just looks as new each day. You never look each spring and say,
“What old, miserable green shoots are coming up in my garden.” No! They’re so new and fresh that you
know they’ve come just dead new, brand new from the Maker’s hand that morning and that’s the
Father’s message to us.

It is Satan’s message. It is an old message, “You cannot change. You cannot be different.” Loved
ones, you can. Jesus’ word is always, “You can be born anew. You can start all over again, this
moment if you choose.”

Question: If God calls us before we choose, how does he foreknow?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

It seems, Dave that (I think I am right but I might be missing your old computer mind) that God
calls everybody. He calls everybody, so he calls everybody. He doesn’t say, “Judy is going, I
foresee that she’s going to receive my Spirit. I foresee that her husband, Dan, is not, so I call to
Judy loudly but I call to Dan just quietly.” No. God gives the same call to all of us. He gives the
same call as strongly and as loudly to all of us but he does foreknow how we will respond, but he
still does not change the call.

Question: So then, he does foreknow who will receive his Spirit?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

That’s right. He chooses those who are willing to receive his Spirit.

Question: Then, there is a difference between foreknowledge and foreordination (life path that
cannot change), isn’t there?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

Loved ones, you cannot, by all kinds of perversion of logic, you cannot make foreknowledge into
foreordination. You cannot. It just appears very like it because it’s perfect foreknowledge but it
is still foreknowledge. It is God reading what the person would do.

Question: Acknowledging our free will, what does Jesus mean when he says, “Those who commit sin are
a slave to sin and only the Son can make them free.”?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

Good. Acknowledging that we are free, what does Jesus mean when he says, “Those who commit sin are a

slave to sin and only the Son can make them free.” If we have not yielded to Jesus and we have given
ourselves over to life that is independent of God, we get into certain habits: drugs, sex,
self-deification.

These enslave our souls — that is, our mind and emotions — and the scientists can prove even that
there are almost ruts in the cortex of our brains because of things that we do and do again and
again and again. Jesus is saying that no person can free themselves from that by their own activity.
If I had not allowed their whole self to be crucified with Me on Calvary, they would be able to do
nothing. But because I have done that, they are able to turn to Me and ask my Holy Spirit to make
that real in them and therefore they can be free.

So, brother, it’s the same situation with putting these lights on here in this auditorium. To get
light in this auditorium, I go over and I just switch actually one of the circuit breakers and the
lights come on, but I am in no doubt that I have not generated the power that has caused these
lights to light. I know that some fellow back in the generating station has actually got the
generators moving. I know nevertheless that the light will not come in unless I do switch that
circuit breaker.

Now, it’s the same with the Father. He has replaced in Jesus a limitless source of power that has
already destroyed our old self — and the moment with our little wills we say yes to Him, he is able
to release all the power of the Holy Spirit into us and to make us free.

Question: How would you sense what God wants you to say to a person, in the light of the fact that
God is calling that person in certain ways?

Response from Pastor O’Neill:

I see. The Holy Spirit, who is impressing a certain kind of calling upon that person, either through
the order and design of the universe or through their own guilt, can let you know which he is laying
emphasis on and can guide you to come along the same wavelength.

That’s it, loved ones, I’ll try to take from there next day. It’s 12:02, so I’ll try to take from
that point next day. Just relating the call of God to our response to it. Let us pray.

Father, thank you. Thank you that you are so new. Thank you that joy is the center of your heart.
Thank you Lord that you’re not calling us to some miserable funeral but to a marriage feast. You are
saying to us, “Come and join me and my Son in the beautiful family of love that we have together.”
Thank you, Lord.

Now we pray Father that you will make that so real to all of us that we will see that we alone can
say yes or no to it. Lord, we pray for those whom we love that they too will say yes for your glory.
Amen.

Justification

Romans 8:30c

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

This morning we’re all together and you’d like to think that that’s the way it would be forever, but
it really isn’t, loved ones. And there will come a time when we will be divided very definitely
into two groups. And indeed, we really are divided now into two groups even though we all appear to
be together. The most loving man who ever lived made that very plain. He said when the son of man
comes in his glory and all his holy angels with him, then there will be gathered before him all the
nations and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
And he will say to those at his right hand, “Come blessed of my father. Inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And to those at his left hand, “Depart from me
you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

I think it’s just good sense and realistic to see that there will be a division, loved ones. The
amazing fact, of course, that you and I have been discussing these past few weeks is that God
foreknows who of us will be in which group. He foreknows who of us here will be in which group. He
foreknows who of us will burn forever against each other in our own lusts and hatreds and who of us
will live together in continual peace and harmony forever. God foreknows that. You remember we
shared that he foreknows it. He does not put us into those groups. He does not make you the kind
of person that can only burn forever against your friends in hatred and anger. He does not make you
the kind of person that can only live in love and peace and harmony forever. God does not put us in
one group or another. He foreknows which group we will be in.

He himself has made us with free wills so that we can choose which group we want to be in. But he
is able to read us. He’s able to read us. And he can look at us, even the moment that he conceived
us, he can look at us and he can foresee with a mind that is far greater than any computer. He can
foresee the numerous contingent decisions that we will make throughout our lifetime and that will
result in us being in one group or another. And so God foreknows. The amazing thing is, he foreknew
what Hitler was going to do to the Jews and yet he refused to prevent him. Because the one life
that he sees is worth preserving is the life of a free relationship of free will agents who love
each other. And so the Father has endured, loved ones, all kinds of dreadful things that he has
foreseen we would do because he’s determined to preserve the ideal of a family of free will agents
who love each other because they want to, not because they have to.

So even today, God foreknows what you’re going to do this afternoon. And even though you may be
going to hurt a person that he loves deeply, and that he has given his own son’s life for, God
refuses to prevent you doing it because he is committed to the principle of free will, and of at
last producing some agents or people who have free will who want to love him. It’s incredible,
loved ones, the things that God has put up with from us men and women because he has that ideal in
his mind. I just remind you of the impossible situation, if I put Irish machine gunners around the
auditorium and said, “Okay, we’re all going to love each other. Nobody can get out. You’re all
going to have to love each other.” Well, there’s no hope. There’s just no hope. You cannot compel
people to love each other. You cannot force people to be loving towards each other, that’s
something they have to want to do.

And that’s why, loved ones, God made that the whole aim of creating us. He enjoys the love of his

own son, and he wants as many of us who want to, to join him in that trinity family, and to love him
and his son, and to live in peace and harmony and understanding and achievement with him forever.
And so God has given us the free will, so that we can do that, or not. That’s why he offered to us
the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit contains his own life, and anyone who receives the Holy
Spirit immediately begins to find themselves becoming like Jesus. And, of course, the Father is
looking for all those of us who begin to be more and more like Jesus because those are the people
who will live forever with him in harmony and peace. And the rest of us will go into some kind of
experience such as Sartre described in his play “No Exit”.

Now, loved ones, that’s the Father’s plan. And God foreknows which way we will turn and he
foreknows who of us will accept and who of us will reject. Now you may say, “Well, if he knows it,
can we not know it?” But loved ones, we have miserable finite little minds, we cannot get into his
infinite mind and foreknow all that he foreknows. You know you have trouble foreknowing what your
daughter or your son is going to do. We have trouble foreseeing what the examiner is going to do
with the examination finals. We have trouble foreknowing little things. We cannot foreknow what he
knows. We cannot get into his infinite mind and see what he sees.

But there is one way, you remember we talked about: Everybody that God foresees will receive his
Holy Spirit. He begins to design their life in a way that will conform them to Jesus’ image. And he
begins to do different works in their lives to make them like his Son. So do you see, if one of
those works was being done in you now, you could tell something about which way you were heading?
In other words, if there are two ways you can go and one of them is into the family of God and there
are certain works that God does in people who are choosing that way, then, if one of those works are
being done in you, you can have some kind of hope that you are moving in that direction.

Remember I shared with you last day that if we were going to try to foresee which of you were going
to fly to New York at five this afternoon. Well, if at four o’clock, all of us but one was still
sitting at home drinking coffee, but one of us was on the bus going to the airport, there’d be more
a chance that that one would be the one that was flying to New York. Because he or she would be at
one stage on the way they’d be moving towards life and some others would be moving towards death.

Now that’s what we shared last day, that you cannot see the infinite mind of God. You cannot see
what he sees for the future of your life, but you can tell which way you’re heading at the moment.
In fact, you remember, if you’d like to look at the verse, it’s just so important that maybe we
should, Deuteronomy 30:19. It’s one of those strong verses that reinforces clearly that God has
given us free wills. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set
before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants
may live.”

It is possible to tell whether you’re choosing life now or not. It is really. There are some works
that God does in those who are choosing life and you can examine if any of those works are being
done in you and you can tell whether you are choosing life or not. Now maybe we should look back at
the works, loved ones. It’s in Romans 8:30. You remember Romans 8:29 just summarizes what we’ve
said up to the moment, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image
of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” Now how can you tell if
you are foreknown as one who is predestined? Romans 8:30, “And those whom he predestined he also
called.” So if God has looked into your life and he sees that you are willing to receive his Holy
Spirit, he predestines or pre-designs you to be conformed to his Son’s image. Now how can you tell
if you are foreknown in that way? How can you tell if you have chosen that or not? Well, you’ll be

called, that’s the first thing.

You remember we said last day that everybody is called. Those of us who are going to live with God
forever and those who are going to reject living with him forever, we’re all called, everybody is
called. He causes his rain to rain on the just and the unjust. He causes his calling to come to
all people. Those whom he has foreknown will receive his Spirit and those whom he has foreknown
will reject his Spirit. The call comes to everybody so really to tell if you are one of those who
have been predestined or foreknown as predestined to be like his Son, you have to ask not only are
you called, but have you responded to the call? That’s really what you should think of.

I could outline some of the call. All of us have probably sensed at one time or another that
unguided evolution, or chance, or explosion, cannot explain the order and design that we see in
blood circulation, in the seasons, in the design of the human brain. All of us have probably sensed
that at one time or another. Now that’s part of the call. That’s God saying, “Look, there is
somebody outside this universe who is responsible for it.” Now what we have to ask ourselves is, how
have we responded to that call? Some of us know that, but we’ve kind of put it on the shelf and
leave it there and say, “Well, everybody knows that.” And some of us begin to respond to it by
saying, “Yeah, and I wonder why that intelligent being put us here?” Now it sounds ridiculous,
loved ones, but you can actually tell which way you’re heading by the way you’ve responded to that
initial call, really you can. You can tell which way you’re heading and which way you’ll probably
end up by the way you responded to that call.

I remember — I think I shared with you — at seminary, one fellow got hold of a comment by some old
saint in a book. We were all having trouble with our prayer times. We couldn’t get up to pray. And
we were devising all kinds of methods to get up to pray without tears. And he read this comment by
this old saint in the book, “As Now, So Then.” It just hit us, tore away all the hypocrisy and all
the pretence. As you are now, you haven’t much reason for believing that further on you’re going to
be very different. It’s not determinism, it’s just you’re choosing. You’re choosing what you’re
going to do today and it’s affecting what you’re going to do tomorrow. So, loved ones, you can tell
partly by your response to that call.

Another part of the call you remember we shared was that most of us have sensed at some time or
another, that we are not living life the way we should, and that we can’t seem to do anything about
it. Most of us have sensed that. That we’re not living life the way it was meant to be lived and
yet we don’t seem able to do anything about it. Now, some of us simply grunt and say, “Well, we’re
all human beings. We’re only humans. We’re all doing our best. That’s what we’ve got to do, just
keep on doing our best.” Some of us respond to that call in that way. And some of us respond to it
wondering, “Is this conscience that’s making me feel this, is this some kind of message from outer
space that I can really live this way?” Now you examine your own heart; which way have you
responded to that? You can tell which way you’re going by the way you’ve responded to that feeling
that you’re not living quite up to par. You can tell which way you’re going according to whether
you’ve kind of grunted, “Well, we’re all human beings. We must do our best. Live by the golden
rule as best you can.” Or are you responding saying, “This conscience inside me — it must be some
kind of message from outer space that you can live better than I am living.” Now you can tell which
is which.

Another part of the call, you remember we said, was that some of us at some time sense that this
Jesus — from the evidence that we’ve seen, from his miracles and his resurrection from the dead,
from the good documentary evidence we have behind the history of the New Testament — we sense this

Jesus probably is the son of the Creator of the universe. He probably is. Now some of us decide,
“Well, that’s very nice, he probably is. And maybe he did let something evil in me be destroyed
with him on the cross. Well, that’s very good of him. That’s certainly a man laying down his life
for his friends. That’s good.” And we kind of lay it aside and we say, “Well, yeah, that’s good.”
And we admire him, but we put it on the shelf.

Others of us say, “What did he really do on the cross? If he didn’t die just as a political
criminal, then did he allow some evil inside me to be destroyed with himself? And if he did, what
does it mean for my own life?” Loved ones, you can tell which way you’re going, you know you can.
I bet you if I talked with you even, I could probably tell which way you’ve responded to that call
so far, even allowing for all the ridiculous pretence we can put on, we sophisticates. But you need
to look, which way am I responding to that?

You remember another part of the call that we shared was, many of us sense that unless we experience
some supernatural power of some kind, something even like the Holy Spirit, we’re just not going to
be able to deal with the terrible sense of insignificance we have in our lives, the terrible sense
of unhappiness we have, the terrible sense of frustration we have. We sense unless we have some
supernatural power beyond ourselves, we will not be able to deal with these things.

And some of us, of course, reject that idea completely. Some of us decide, “I’m not going to submit
my life to this Holy Spirit. I’m going to opt to kind of overcome these things myself.” And so by
our own power and our own willpower, we try to make ourselves significant. We try to make ourselves
secure. We try to make ourselves happy. So, loved ones, really, you can tell which way you’re
heading by the way you’ve responded so far to the call.

Now here’s the amazing thing. Those of us who believe that Jesus did not die for himself, but that
he actually allowed the old carnal selfish will that we’ve been struggling with for years and that
has been spoiling our life for years, but that he actually allowed that to be destroyed with him —
those of us who side with Jesus against ourselves and who submit ourselves to the Holy Spirit to
conform us to his image, we experience a sense of being justified. That’s right. We know we’re not
right yet, we know we still have not everything together inside, we know we have made a mess of
life, we know we aren’t up to much, but there’s inside us a clear witness, “I’m doing nothing to
stop God through the Holy Spirit making real the destruction of this evil within me that took place
on Calvary.” There’s a conviction inside us that that’s our situation. And there’s a sense we have
inside that we’re justified, really.

We know there’s still a heart of darkness inside us. We know there’s a terrible selfishness that is
trying to destroy us and destroy everybody else. We know we’re not perfect saints, but we have a
clear conviction that we know that the only way we’re going to get over this is to accept that that
was destroyed with Jesus on Calvary 1900 years ago, and that the Holy Spirit is able to so work in
us that he can make this real in us today. And so we have a clear sense that we’re accepting the
remedy that the Creator has provided. In other words, we know that we’re allowing him to bring a
personal flood of destruction into our rebel hearts and so that somehow he is justified in letting
us continue to live in this world. Because he has, in fact, destroyed the evil in us in Jesus. And
so we sense in some way that he is justified in allowing us to live. And we begin to sense that we
are justified in being alive. And we’re justified in continuing to live in his world, simply
because we sense we’re not doing anything to stop him bringing about the remedy that he has
provided. That is, the destruction of that old self and all that desire for our own way and our own
rights in Jesus.

And that’s, of course, what Romans 8:30 says. Those who are called, who have responded to the call,
they find themselves justified. That is, they begin to feel at home with the Maker of the universe.
They begin to sense, he loves me. He’s accepted me. I’m not perfect. I’m not pure and saintly as he
is going to make me, but he has put me into his son, Jesus, and has destroyed me there. And as far
as he is concerned he feels justified in therefore letting me to continue to live in this world
among my friends. And so, thank you, Lord. And there’s a sense of feeling that we’re justified,
loved ones. We just feel we’ve been made right with God. We’ve been put right with our Maker.

Now those of us who have rejected that, have a completely different experience. Those of us who
have said, “Maybe something did happen in Jesus and Calvary. I don’t know what it was, I don’t
understand it. When those fellows talk about it, I can’t get my hands around it at all. Maybe he
did do something. Maybe he is a great person. Maybe he’s even the son of God, but I have a lot of
feelings of fear and insecurity in my life and I’m going to overcome this myself. By hook or by
crook, I’m going to overcome this insecurity that I have on my own. I’m going to destroy this
insignificance that I feel. I’m going to overcome it on my own. I’m going to make myself happy.”

And, loved ones, somehow we sense we’re not being what God made us to be. We’re not doing what he
wants us to do. We’re not accepted by him. We’re not fulfilling the purpose for which we were
made. And therefore, we have a terrible sense of having somehow to justify ourselves. Because
whether we really believe we’re going to hell or not, we are made by a Creator who has committed
himself to destroying everybody who rejects him. And that is built deep into our beings. And we may
hardly even believe the Bible, but we still sense that somehow we’re not justified in being here.
And we have a terrible sense of insecurity and a dreadful sense of insignificance. And we feel we
ought not to have a place here on the world’s surface. And many of us will even testify to that.
We’ll say, “I don’t feel I have any right to be here.” And we will spend our lives trying to
justify ourselves.

We’ll be like Pilate. We’ll want to justify ourselves to our superiors by doing what they want us to
do. We’ll be trying to justify ourselves to public opinion by trying to do what it wants us to do.
We’ll be trying to justify ourselves to our parents by being the kind of people that they want us to
be. We’ll be trying to justify ourselves to our peers by trying to compete successfully with them
and compete even successfully against our own standards for ourselves. We’ll try to justify
ourselves to our parents, to our husbands, to our wives. We’ll try to be the wives who make
“mountain grown coffee” [from a TV commercial]. We’ll try to be the husbands who are earning all
the money that the wife needs. We’ll spend our lives trying to justify ourselves because we won’t
accept the justification that God has given us in his son, Jesus.

Now, loved ones, it doesn’t take a deep, deep person to see which way you’re going. Those of us who
accept what God has said about us, and accept that we have to be destroyed in his son, Jesus, as far
as our old selfish will is concerned, those of us are justified in his eyes and we feel justified.
Those of us who refuse that and determine to try to overcome the insignificance, and the insecurity,
and the unhappiness on our own, end up trying to justify the unjustifiable. We really do. Our lives
end up in a continual series of attempts to justify what cannot be justified. We do something
wrong. We know it’s wrong. The boss tells us off. We try to justify to him what can’t be justified.
We’re always trying to justify what we are because we’re not what we should be.

Now, loved ones, where do you stand, really? Which way are you heading? We agreed a couple of
weeks ago, it was uncanny, almost sinister, to believe that there is a great mind in this universe

that actually foreknows what way you’re going to end up and what way I’m going to end up. But, you
remember, we decided we can’t deal with that, that’s in infinity. All we can deal with is this
finite world. But we can tell which way we’re turning today. Loved ones, you can. You can. You
care more for public opinion, like Pilate, than you care for God’s opinion of you. You care more
for what men will say to you than for what God says about you? And you know that he has provided a
way. But you know it off by heart so I’m not going to repeat it to you, but I just push you on
this. Are you responding to the call, or are you continuing to try to justify yourself?

Let’s pray. Dear Father, you know that we have been brought up in a society where we have been
taught to try to justify ourselves by getting good grades or getting on to the school team. Lord,
you know that all the commercials on television, they’re rating us with a need to justify ourselves
to our husbands and our wives. Lord, you know how Satan seems to have divided us against each
other, instead of uniting us. You know, our Father, how many of us can hardly sleep at night
because we’re worried about what somebody will think of us the next day. And, Lord, we know that
this is not your plan for us. We know, our Father, that what you want to do is get us to stop
covering up what we are. Stop pretending that we are good. Stop pretending that we are what we
aren’t, and just accept that there is a miserable, selfish heart of darkness in us that you saw
could only be destroyed in Jesus, your son, on Calvary. And that you have, in fact, done that. And
all you’re asking us to do this morning is believe that and allow your dear Holy Spirit to start
showing us how that can be real in our lives.

Oh, Holy Spirit, we see that all we have to do is speak to you and ask you to start revealing to us
in what way God has destroyed all that is wrong in us already and has no wish to destroy us any
longer. And, as far as he is concerned, he’s justified in allowing us to live. And we are justified
in his sight. We are put right with him. Lord, I pray for each dear one here in the auditorium and
on this communion Sunday, Lord, I pray that some brother or sister will take a definite step this
morning that they can confirm at communion this evening and have done with all the
self-justification. Lord, we would pray for each other as just human beings. We pray that you’d
help each of us to see how to step into justification and step on the way to life and away from
death. We ask this in Jesus’ name. And now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and throughout these coming years and
forevermore. Amen

Glorified

Romans 8:30d

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I think you’ll all recognize the man very quickly who wrote this poem.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.
And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler,
Long I stood and looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth
Then took the other as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear.
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

Both that morning equally lay,
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day,
But knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.”

And God knew the road that Robert Frost would take before he took it. Not because he made him take
it, but because he could read Frost. The moment he conceived that Frost would be born, God could
read Frost and could tell what kind of a person he was and what kind of decisions he would make. It
really isn’t surprising, because you and I do that ourselves when we are going to give a Christmas
present to a friend. We ask their nearest relative what kind of a thing they would like. Because
we assume that by knowing the kind of a person you’re dealing with, you can tell the kind of thing
they will do and the kind of thing they will like. My wife knows fine well that if there was one
plane going to Disneyland and one plane going to Mexico, she knows which one I would take.

And so it is with your loved ones. They know the kind of person you are and they can foresee the
kind of decision that you will probably make. And so really loved ones, if you think of your life
as a series of roads that have forks in them, what we’re seeing is that God knows that when you come
to this fork you will take this one, or you will take that one. God can foresee that.

The reason we have trouble with the idea that God can foresee all those contingent decisions is that
we ourselves, if we could foresee that people were going to hurt us, we would stop them. And
therefore we tend to keep thinking, “Oh God must be the same. If he can foresee everything that’s
going to happen in the whole world, if he can foresee every decision that I am going to make, then
he would surely stop us if he sees we are going to hurt him.”

And so we tend to say that all of God’s foreknowledge must be foreordination. He must know Frost is
going to take this turning and I’m going to take this turning because he made me take it. But no,
loved ones, the Father actually treasures free will so much that he will not prevent us doing
something that even will hurt him. We ourselves are so sure that we would not go to those lengths
to preserve the right of others to have a free will that we are convinced God must be as miserable
and mean as us and so surely he cannot be prepared to go to all the lengths he has gone to preserve
free will in us. But he does, loved ones, he does. The Father can foresee what you are going to do
or know what I am going to do but not because he makes us do it, but because he can read us, really.
And that’s what, you remember, Romans 8:29 states, which we have been dealing with over several
weeks.

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined.” And “pro-orizo” is the Greek word and it is better
translated “he pre-designed their lives”. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestinated to be
conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.”
And you remember the picture that we got of pre creation eternity in light of that. [Shows a diagram
of time and eternity] Remember I pointed out that the line of eternity is the right color and that’s
the line of eternity. And if you think of what happened a billion, billion years ago — and it’s
silly to talk in those terms because God is timeless and eternal and there you cannot talk in terms
of sequence — but if for the sake of our finite minds, you talk in terms of sequence then it means
that at some point — and even that is a contradiction when you are talking about eternity which is
timelessness — at some point God exists in love with the Son and the Holy Spirit.

At this point he conceives this plan to share that loving fellowship with other beings who will be
free like him and to whom he will offer the Holy Spirit, his own life. Once he conceives of that he
conceives that they will be capable of refusing the Holy Spirit and rebelling against him,
especially if he makes them so they can be free. Then he conceives that they can use that freedom
to refuse the Holy Spirit and rebel against him. Therefore, at that point he conceives the need to
put their rebellious hearts in his son Jesus and destroy them there. And his son at once accepts
the cross in his Father’s heart. And this is all before God ever made an ocean or a mountain. Then
God conceives that he can give the Holy Spirit only to those who accept their position in his son.
Only to those who allow this selfish, carnal will to be destroyed in Jesus, only they will be able
to receive his Spirit. He conceives that he must withdraw the grace of light in the penitent heart
from those who refuse his Son’s spirit. And then he conceives the plan for the first two free moral
agents, Adam and Eve.

Then loved ones, he knows them better than they know themselves. He foreknows what decisions they
will make, but refuses to compromise their free wills by preventing those decisions. Now, loved
ones, that’s important to see that, that God was able to foresee that. He was able to foreknow what
decisions they’ll make but refuses to compromise their free wills by preventing those decisions. He
foreknows all the people that will be born, how they will bring up their children and how they will
all respond to his Spirit. See, God must be able, with a mind that is better than any computer, he
must be able to foreknow all that.

Then whom he foreknows he pre-designs to be conformed to the image of his Son. Then in Genesis 1:1,
he creates the heavens and the earth. Now loved ones that’s what we have been saying over the past
weeks, that that is the situation, God foreknows all that. Then you remember the question we asked
was, “If God knows what the outcome of your life and my life is going to be, then is there any way
by which we could know that outcome? If he can foreknow who of us here will receive his Spirit and

therefore who of us he has been able to pre-design, as far as our life was concerned to make us like
Jesus, is there any way we can know that?” And, we’ve said several times it’s impossible to have an
infinite mind, it’s impossible to get into God’s mind, but it is possible to tell which road you’re
on, up to this present time.

You can’t tell which city you are going to eventually get to. You can’t tell whether you are going
to burn in your own selfishness and lust and a kind of hell forever, or whether you are going to
live in harmony and love and peace in a kind of heaven forever but you can tell which way you are
heading today. You can tell that loved ones. God foreknows where you are going to end up. You
cannot do that, but you can tell which way you’re heading today because there are certain landmarks
along the road that will enable you to tell which way you’re choosing with your free will. And,
those landmarks, you remember, are the works that God begins to do in a person who is willing to
receive his Holy Spirit and submit their lives to his Holy Spirit. And those landmarks or works are
detailed in Romans 8:30. “And those whom he predestined he also called;” that’s the first thing he
does, he calls us. “And those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also
glorified.” So you can tell which way you’re choosing and which of the roads you’re going down
according to which of these works you are or are not experiencing.

And first you remember we talked about calling, that God calls all of us. You remember I suggested
that the call really was often to some of us in the question of, is there a God? You’re walking
along the road and you think of all the order and design in the blood circulation of the body, and
the seasons, and the way the rivers flow into the seas and the seas don’t overflow, and the earth
keeps going in regular obits and you wonder, “Is there a God?” And for many of us, that’s the first
calling.

There you choose one road or the other. You either say, “No,” in which case you are moving away
from life and you have already made a decision that is taking you in that direction, or, you say
“Probably there is, probably there is a God.” All I’d like to point out to you is that most of us
don’t stop choosing at that point. For most of us the choice kind of goes on because even that can
divide into another two roads because some of us say, “Sometime I’ll make a final decision on this.”
And we say, “Probably there is a God. Well, I’ll shelve this question and sometime I’m going to
make a final decision on it.” And some of us say, “Yes. Not just probably there is a God, yes there
is a God.” But even at that point loved ones, I’d point out to you that there are another two roads
to be decided upon. Some of us say, “Yes, there is a God, so what if there is? My life is still my
main concern.” And some of us do take that view, we say, “Yeah, yeah, there is a God. But what if
there is? That’s okay for the theologians, or for the preachers, or for the Christians, but me,
I’ll get on with my own life.” And some of us say, “Yeah, there is a God. Why did he put me here?”

Now loved ones, for most of us, God’s calling is somewhat involved in that kind of question and that
kind of answer. AlI I would point out to you is the very obvious one, if you think of this road
[shows diagram] as always leading towards God and you think of these roads as always leading away,
do you see that these all end up on the same road? You may appear to be saying, “Yes.” But,
eventually if you act as a practical atheist, you have in fact said, “No,” back up here. You simply
have bluffed yourself if you said, “Yes.”

For most of us the calling goes on. And you remember I suggested last day that for most of us it
intensifies, in feeling I’m not living the way I should and I can’t seem to do anything about it and
the calling kind of intensifies, we feel, “Yeah, I’m not living the kind of life I should, and I
can’t seem to do anything about it.” And then there’s a choice; you can go either one way or the

other. You say, “Well, nobody’s perfect, I’ll do the best I can. I’m not living the way I should,
but after all, nobody is so I’ll keep doing the best I can and try to live by the Golden Rule if I
can.” Or you can go the other way and say, “This nagging of my conscience must mean I’m meant to be
able to live better than I am doing. This conscience is not just a higher ideal or a kind of
Victorian inhibition I have, this must be a message from somewhere outside myself that I can live
better than I am doing.” And so, most of us make a choice, loved ones, at that point.

You remember we said last day, that the calling often intensifies even more because we begin to
think, “Well with all the evidence I have heard and all the books that I have read, Jesus probably
is the Creator’s son. And he seems to have allowed something of my evil self to have been destroyed
in his death. That seems to be true.” But once you are faced with that fact, you then choose again,
one road or the other. You either go this way and say, “That’s good. I won’t have to go to hell.”
And I think there are thousands of us in our churches who live that way. You know, we say, “Great.
Great. Now I can enjoy myself and I won’t have to go to hell.” And some of us say, “What does this
mean for my day-to-day failure? If Jesus has allowed part of my old self to be destroyed with him
and part of the evil inside me to be destroyed, then what does this mean for my own day-to-day
failure that I’m experiencing?” For most of us the thing comes down, you know, into something more
particular, and God brings his call very clearly to us, some other power like the Holy Spirit is
needed in my life. And many of us have come to that point.

Some of us have said, “I won’t submit my whole life to a person like the Holy Spirit. I just won’t.
I’ll get my happiness and security and significance by my own efforts.” And some of us I think
have listened to this, you know, Sunday after Sunday for years. And we’ve said, “Yeah, yeah I know.
You’re probably right what you are saying, there probably is a power like the Holy Spirit but in
order for him to be in my life and to make it what it should be, I would have to submit my life to
him. I’m not going to do that. I want to run my own life. I want to get my own happiness, and my
own security, my own significance the way I want.” And some of us choose the other and say, “I’m
willing to let my old self, with its lust for happiness, and security, and significance be destroyed
with Jesus. Holy Spirit, you rule my life as you want.”

So really, loved ones, in the area of calling there are many choices as far as the roads are
concerned. And you can tell, you are no fools, you can tell which ones you have chosen so far. I
think it is true, loved ones, that you can go back, but it takes a very definite determination to go
back and to take some of the right turnings. I’d ask you which way you have chosen to turn up
until this present time. What we said of course is, when a person turns this way [indicating
diagram] there comes to them a great sense of peace. They aren’t made perfect, but suddenly they
know deep down in their hearts, “I’m not perfect but I am turning the way my Maker wanted me to.
I’m willing to let this miserable old self of mine be destroyed with Jesus. Holy Spirit show me,
show me what more of it has to be destroyed, show me and I’ll go that way.” And there comes to us a
great sense, “I’m doing what my Maker wants me to do, so he’s satisfied with me.” And we have begun
to feel that we are justified in our Maker’s eyes. We begin to feel, “He feels happy with us.”
We’re not perfect saints but at least we’re accepting the diagnosis of our problem and the remedy
for it that he wants us to accept. And we have a real sense of being justified in being here in the
world and a real sense of being put right with God.

Now, the others of us who turn the other way, have the completely opposite experience. Those of us
who are still caught up with the naive optimism that has ruled the educational system for the past
30 years, that naive optimism that says, “We are inherently good people. We are really good people,
all we have to do is let the good come out.” And you know that’s the theory, that’s the theory.

Those of us who believe, “I’m okay. You’re okay.” We end up the rest of our lives trying to prove
that that’s so. We do. We end up the rest of our lives trying to justify that claim. And we’re
always trying to prove that we’re right, trying to prove that we are right in other people’s eyes,
in our own eyes, in our friend’s eyes, in our professor’s eyes. We live lives bent on establishing
our own self righteousness. Because we will not accept God’s declaration, “You’re evil inside. And
what I did in Jesus was to destroy that evil.”

We will not accept that. We keep saying, “No, no, we’re not evil. I’m Okay, you’re okay. We’re
all inherently good people. All we have to do is let it out.” And we keep barking our shins on the
evil core of Old Self inside us. And we keep tripping over the fact that we are not inherently good.
And so we end up in lives of self justification.

So, loved ones, that’s what Romans 8:30 means when it says that those who accept God’s diagnosis and
remedy of this problem of not being able to do the good that you want, those of us that accept that
remedy, we find we sense that we’re justified and we’re put right with our Maker. Those of us who
don’t accept it and are continually trying to prove that we don’t need that remedy or that we’re
good on our own, we spend our lives justifying ourselves in everybody’s eyes. And of course it
brings its toll, you know. It brings its pain. We find ourselves trying to prove to our employers
that we’re right, that we’re worth something, we’re worth respecting. We don’t have that sense of
being approved of by our Maker. We don’t have a sense that we are worth a lot in our Maker’s eyes
and so we’re always trying to use our jobs to establish our worth, or we’re using our school career
to establish our worth.

So suddenly our job no longer is something our Maker has given us to do and that we joyfully do
because he’s told us to do it. Suddenly our job, or our school career, our degree ceases to be
something that our Maker wants us to do and therefore we do it and enjoy doing it. Suddenly the job
or the career become means of establishing our value in our employer’s eyes, or our professor’s
eyes, or our parents’ eyes. And everything begins to be used by us to justify ourselves.

It brings tremendous strain, because every partial failure — like a reproof at work, or a low grade
on a test at school, or every disastrous failure like being dismissed from the job, or failing the
final exam completely — every failure becomes a cause of strain inside us because we feel, “I’m not
worth anything and they don’t think I’m worth anything. I’m not succeeding in justifying myself.”

And tremors of tremendous insecurity and insignificance begin to go through our whole personality.
And, of course, through the emotions of anxiety and worry and fear, that is translated into all
kinds of tension in our muscles–all kinds of tension in our arteries that stops the free flow of
blood through our bodies so that we begin to experience the headaches, and the heart trouble, and
the arterioscleroses, and the ulcers that take the beautiful people that God made us to be and
convert us through a series of emotional and physical deterioration as the years pass, into stunted,
decrepit little pygmies who are worn out with tension and sickness and disease. The very opposite,
loved ones, of the glory God had in mind for us. The very opposite of the beautiful people that God
had in mind. We fall far short of the glory the Father had for us.

Now if we accept the justification that God has given us, if we accept we are rotten, “And, Lord
Jesus, I am willing to let that rottenness be destroyed in you. And, Holy Spirit, will you make this
real in my life today? Will you make this cosmic miracle real in me? Holy Spirit, I’ll do whatever
you tell me to do.” Suddenly, loved ones, there comes into our lives a sense of free justification.
The failure on the exam is not the disaster that it is to the other person. The loss of the job is

not the disaster that it is to the other person. We know we’re right in our Father’s eyes. We may
not be right in anybody else’s eye, but the Creator of the universe thinks the world of us and there
comes into us a great sense of relaxation, a great sense of being justified.

The old blood flows freely through the body. There is no tension in the muscles, there are no
ulcers in the stomach and instead of the body deteriorating as the years pass, even though it grows
old because God has planned for age to be part of our present creation, yet the body itself does not
grow sick. It does not become worn out with tension. In fact, the emotions and the intellects of
people who live like this actually grow younger as the years pass. And it seems to them themselves
that the older they get in a sense the younger they feel and the freer they feel. And then when
their dear body goes into the grave, the spirit of Jesus that has already been working in
transforming them comes into the grave also and takes that body that appears to be physically dead
and raises it up and brings it back into the glory that God had put into Jesus himself. And they
find themselves glorified completely. Partially being glorified as this life proceeds, but glorified
completely at the resurrection.

And I think that, loved ones, is part of what God means in Romans 8:30. And you at this moment are
choosing, you’re choosing. You can even tell at this moment by the degree of glory you are
experiencing or the degree of deterioration that you are experiencing. You can tell now which way
you are choosing.

So really all I’m saying to you is, would you look at it and will you do something about it while
you still have the ability to see? Because the incredible thing about this is, the more you choose
the wrong road at every fork, the blinder you get and the more impossible it becomes to see that you
are choosing the wrong road any longer. So, loved ones, will you think about it? Because there is
a beauty and a glory in life that is the Father’s will. The Father intended us to die well, not to
die sick, to die well. We look at those old men in the Old Testament and we say, “120, 130, ah they
were just counting differently.” We’ll do anything, you know, to prove that the miracle can’t be
true. Ah, loved ones, God wants us to live well and to die well. And we can do it, if we accept his
explanation of our present situation. I pray that somebody today will start turning the right way,
if you recognize you’ve been going wrong. Let us pray.

Father, I thank you for my brothers and sisters here. And Lord, I ask you to give each one of us
light. Help us to see Father which way we are going with our lives. Help us to see that we do have
free will, we do have the ability to make a right choice. We can choose, Lord, whether to go on
trying to establish this self-righteousness of ours, whether to go on justifying ourselves again and
again to everybody, to try to justify ourselves to ourselves, or we can accept that you looked upon
us and saw we were incorrigibly evil, incorrigibly selfish and you put us into your son Jesus and
you destroyed all that selfishness there and that through the Holy Spirit, you are able to make that
real in us. And, Oh Holy Spirit, I would pray that some loved one here would start a partnership
with you this morning. And would say to you, Holy Spirit, “I don’t understand all of this but I ask
you to begin to lead me and guide me into this kind of life.” Father we would pray that for each
other this morning, and thank you for each other. Thank you, Lord. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus
and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us, now and evermore.
Amen.

The Father of Jesus Christ

Romans 8:31a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Loved ones, I’d like us to resume our study of God’s explanation of reality in Romans if you would.
So would you look at Romans 8:31. It runs like this, “What then shall we say to this? If God is
for us, who is against us?” The verse is so great that I think a human being is dwarfed by all
that’s in it so I asked God to share with me what some of you needed to hear in regard to that
verse. So that’s what I am going to do loved ones, I’m not going to attempt to expound the whole
verse but just to share with you some of the things that God showed me some of us here needed to
hear in that verse.

If God be for us, who is against us? “Our own misconceptions of God”. Some of you here don’t
realize how much God is for you. Some of you here don’t realize how much God is really for you,
really. The first place he showed me some of us had a misconception about him was in regard to that
streak of perversity and irrationality in us called our carnal wills. You remember how often we
have discussed it. It’s that attitude that’s expressed in Romans 8:15, “I do not understand my own
actions. The evil I want to avoid is the very thing I do. And the good that I would, I cannot do.”

And all of us know that that carnal, selfish will is part of that inturned reverse personality that
we have developed over the years through trying to get all the security, and the significance, and
happiness we wanted from others and from the world instead of from God. We all know that. And you
all know as well that God took that selfish, carnal, perverted personality and put it into Jesus and
destroyed it there. And you would all say these words, I think, back to me. In fact, you all know
that what you have to do now is allow God to make that real in you today, to destroy that old
selfish will, and then to put into you the life of his own Holy Spirit.

But some of you here this morning think that God is condemning you until you let him deal with every
little last bit of that selfish personality. God showed me that some of you think that. In other
words some of you say, “Yeah, I know that has to be made real in me, and I want it to be made real,
and I know God isn’t really doing anything but condemning me until it’s made real.” Loved ones,
that’s not true. God is for you. God is for you. Ever since you agreed to get onto the operating
table of Jesus’ cross and God began to work on you with the knife of his Holy Spirit, God has been
for you. He’s for you.

When he lovingly and gently with his knife begins to search into that anger problem in your life, or
begins to probe into that jealousy problem in your life, or that problem of uncleanness in your
thought life. When he lovingly and gently begins to probe with the knife of his Holy Spirit in
there and you momentarily recoil, he’s saying to you, “I know my loved one. I know it hurts, but
I’m working with you to get rid of this cancerous disease. And I know it’s entangled in all kind of
ligaments and arteries throughout your whole life and I know you are feeling the repercussions of
this everywhere, but loved ones, we have to get rid of this. Now let’s work on it together.” Loved
ones, God is for you. He isn’t against you.

The Bible says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That means that as far as
God is concerned when he destroyed your carnal, selfish will in Jesus he has no more reason to

condemn you. He wants simply to get together with you and say, “Okay, now I have done all that’s
needed on the cross now, let’s together get this real in your own life.” That’s the Father’s
attitude, loved ones. God is not standing off from you saying, “Get rid of that. Get rid of it. I
am not accepting you until you get rid of that.” It’s not so.

From the moment you thanked him for letting Jesus die for you, from that moment on, he’s your
father. He’s been working with you. He’s a loving father working with his child to make you like
Jesus. And it’s as a father who loves you that he’s working. The Holy Spirit is not witnessing to
you that God is angry at you when he points out that you still have bad temper in your life, or when
he points out that you still have greed in your life. The Holy Spirit is never witnessing to God’s
condemnation of you. He’s always witnessing to his own desire to make you like the rest of his
children and especially like his son Jesus.

But loved ones, his working with you is as a loving father not as a terrible judge saying, “You must
come up to this level of purity before I’ll accept you as my child.” He is saying rather, “I accept
you. I have no reason to do anything else. All I wanted when I condemned you to death was to
destroy that selfish, carnal personality of yours. I did that in my son 1900 years ago, now I have
only love to you. I have only love and acceptance to you until the end of this life. And then it’s
out of my hands. If by that time you have not let me deal with you and you have not received my
Holy Spirit, then you yourself have excluded yourself from living eternally by refusing my Holy
Spirit. But until that moment, I’m with you, I’m working with you.”

Loved ones, God is for you in this dealing that he’s doing with each one of us in regard to these
inward sins that we have. It’s really as if you are walking along a muddy road with the Father at
your side and you fall yet once more –- splash! — into the old mud. And you get up and there he is
you know, like any dear dad, rubbing the spot to get it off and your skin is burning a wee bit
because he is rubbing quite hard. And you are crying out, “You don’t love me. You don’t love me.”
And he is saying, “Would I be here down in this muddy road with you? Would I have allowed my Son to
become sin for you — because that’s it — to become dirty for you? Would I have allowed myself to
come down here to walk in this muddy road with you and pick you up like this, if I didn’t love you?
It’s because I love you that I am trying to rub this dirt off.” And loved ones, I think some of us
here this morning need to see that — that God is for us when he is working on the things that are
wrong in our life. He’s not condemning us, he’s for us. That’s the first thing that the Father
showed me.

He showed me another thing that some of us are doing and we need to know that God is for us. You
remember how paganism began, do you? If you’d like to look at it loved ones, it’s Romans 1. It is
just about three verses there explains the origin of paganism or non-Christian religions. Romans
1:20. This is the way things happen you see, “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible
nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been
made. So they are without excuse.” So everybody knew there was a God. “For although they knew
God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking
and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the
glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.” That’s
how paganism started.

Centuries ago we just started to ignore God and we began to make things we called gods. We knew
they weren’t gods, but we began to make idols out of wood and stone because we could control them.
We could make them in our image, make them as we wanted. Now the incredible thing was that as we

did that our minds became darkened and we opened ourselves to spirits in the universe. Some of you
have come across the phrase in Colossians “elemental spirits in the universe”. Loved ones, there
are spirits, there are evil spirits in the universe. They fell with Satan. And they are a part of
that group of spirit beings that work against God’s Holy Spirit.

Now once people began to worship idols and ignore God, they opened themselves to these evil spirits.
And it’s these evil spirits that produce the appearance of power that you get in spiritualism. You
know with the table tapping or the appearance of power that you get in Hinduism or Buddhism, there
is something that appears like power there and it comes from these evil spirits. Now of course,
these evil spirits are out to destroy human beings, that’s all they are interested in doing. Satan
himself is out to destroy us. And that’s why you get pagan religions who are preoccupied with
trying to placate these evil spirits. That’s what they do. You’ll notice every pagan religion has
a complicated sacrificial system or works righteousness system where they try to hold these evil
spirits off from destroying us and they’re always placating them, trying to persuade them not to do
evil to us. Now that’s where that whole idea of placating came in.

Now loved ones, some of us have carried that over into our relationship with our Father. And “If
God be for us, who is against us?” There is a misconception that some of us have that the father of
Jesus Christ has to be placated. I think some of us feel that. Some of us feel, “Yeah, yeah, well
God’s for me, but I have to persuade him, I have to placate him and please him, I have to do
something to persuade him to love me, to turn his wrath away from me. I have to do works that make
me in some way worth appreciating in his eyes. I have to prove that I am valuable to him in some
way. I have to keep him off. Otherwise he’ll let his wrath burn upon me.” Now loved ones that is
not true.

There are lots of verses that say it’s not true. But even just Romans 5:8 says it. “God commends
his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Now you are probably a
lot better than you were, I hope, from when you first started to come here. You probably are. I
hope you are. Now before you ever started to come here or before you ever started to think of God
at all, God loved you. God loved you as a sinner. Jesus said, “I haven’t come to save good people
I’ve come to save sinners. I’ve come not to heal people who are well, I’ve come to heal people we
are sick.”

Now loved ones, God loved you when you were far worse that you are now so you can be absolutely sure
that you don’t need to start placating him now to try to persuade him to love you. God loves you
now as you are. He loves you as you are. He has no reason to turn wrath upon you. He turned his
wrath upon you in Jesus once, that’s it finished with. He is not an unjust God, he doesn’t burn a
person twice for the same sin. He has burned you once in Jesus, once in Jesus he destroyed you.
That’s all. From now on he has a loving accepting attitude to you. He has always had that, but he
had to deal with that carnal selfish will in some way and Calvary was his way of dealing with that.

I think, you see, some of us think Jesus had to die to persuade his Father to love us. No, God was
in Christ reconciling the world to himself. It was because God loved us that Calvary took place.
Calvary was God’s way of dealing with the insuperable obstacle to him giving us his Holy Spirit.
That was our carnal selfish wills, but God loved us even before Calvary. And you yourself do not
have to produce a new Calvary of good works and good efforts to try to persuade God to love you. God
doesn’t need to be placated, God’s for you. God’s for you. He’s not against you. God is for you.
He’s saying, “Look, my arms are open, my loved one, come I want to give you this uncreated life that

fills me and my son Jesus. I want you to receive this. I am willing for you to have it. Here it
is.” God is for you, loved ones. You don’t need to placate him.

Just one other thing that the Father showed me. You remember the way, before we believed there was
a loving Father, we felt very insignificant. Indeed even some of you might feel it even today. You
might feel, “Well, three or four billion of us here in the world, and I’m one little person, I’m
nothing. I’m nothing. I’m not noticed. I’m not noticeable. I’m not significant. I’m worth
nothing.” Do you remember the way we decided “I’m going to make myself worth something. I’m going
to be significant. I’m going to be important.” And, we started to use our job, our looks, or our
abilities to try to make ourselves significant. You remember that’s what we did because we really
did not believe there was a loving Father up in heaven who could see us or who respected us or loved
us at all. And so we kept on doing that. Then, you remember, we began to see that the Father thinks
we’re significant. We don’t need to depend on other people for significance. The Father knows us.
He thinks we’re significant.

Now loved ones, I think some of you this morning have carried over that old competitive spirit into
your relationship with the Father. You don’t need to but I think it just became second nature to
some of us and we still do it. We still are out to compete with others to try to establish our
significance. And even when we come into the Father’s family, we don’t just want to be ordinary
sons, ordinary daughters. We want to be great sons, the greatest sons, the greatest daughters. In
other words, I think some of you think that God is not for all of us equally. I think some of you
think that Billy Graham, and Elijah, and Calvin — now God could not miss those boys. And in heaven
there will be a special level where they dwell up there. And there will be special levels of
attainment. And that wouldn’t be so bad even if we thought that, but the way we act is we think,
“Well I can never be like Graham. I can never be like Elijah. But boy, I am going to be as good as
I possibly can be so he notices me.” Now, loved ones, that’s anathema to the Father of Jesus
Christ. That’s anathema to the Father of Jesus Christ. God is for all of us equally. You don’t
need to be an outstanding son of God. You don’t need to be an outstanding daughter of God so that he
loves you. God loves all of us equally. There are no levels in heaven. The Father is for all of us
equally. We’ll all be the same in his presence. And you don’t need to strive and strain to compete
to try to be outstanding. You just need to be his child.

Now, loved ones, the teaching is so plain in many of the parts of the Bible. But maybe you’d just
look at Matthew 20. It’s a very obvious one. You remember it’s the account of the owner of the
vineyard, you remember, who employs laborers at different times of the day. Matthew 20:8, “And when
evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their
wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour
came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive
more; but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the
householder, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have
borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am
doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; I
choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what
belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’”

Loved ones, the Father is for all of us equally. God is for us. I don’t know if you’re sitting
there this morning with strange ideas about God being against you in some way or about you kind of
competing with him, or trying to please him, or trying to prove yourself to him in some way. Loved
ones, the Father knows you better than you know yourself. There are evil things in you that you

don’t even know and the Father sees them. And yet he still has kept the blood flowing through the
old arteries. He’s still held the protons and neutrons together. He’s still lovingly raining his
rain on the just and the unjust. He still enabled you to go through day after day after day. It’s
him that’s holding you together. He must be for you if despite what you are he continues to hold
your life together.

Loved ones, the Father is for you and I would plead with you to stop looking at it as a competitive
kind of battle and see that God is for you. He’s working with you to try to clean up your life.
He’s working with you equally with everybody else. He’s working with you because he wants to, not
because you are successfully placating him with all your good works. So I’d encourage you loved
ones just to stop the good works stuff and just say, “Father you know it all. Thou my God seest me.
I don’t understand how you could put up with me Lord, but thank you. Thank you for being my Father.
Thank you that we can work on this together. Thank you that you’re not judging me. You’re loving
me.” I pray that some loved one here will see that. Because I just know there’s some of you just
going through agony because you’re not realizing that if God is for us who can be against us? The
real answer is nobody. The only thing that can be against us is our own misconceptions, our own
disbelief that God is really for us. He is, loved ones, he’s for you. He’s for you.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we thank you. Lord, I suppose it’s just a carry over from that old demon
worship, but Father we have such difficulties with thinking of a God who doesn’t need to be placated
or satisfied in some way. Lord, we’ve been so used to proving ourselves to everybody else that we
kind of feel we have to prove ourselves to you. But Lord we see that that isn’t it, that you are
the Father of Jesus, that he that has seen Jesus has seen you and that you are that dear Father in
the story of the prodigal son and you always meet us more than half way. And Father thank you that
even these dirty marks that we have in our lives, these things that we still have to take to the
cross, thank you Father that even there you’re not condemning us. You’re just saying, “I’m down here
in the mud with you because I love you. Let’s work on this dirt together.” Thank you Lord, thank
you for being so kind and so loving to us and help us to be like that to each other this week.
Thank you, Lord. Amen.

Satan’s Lies

Romans 8:31c

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

There is a scene that is repeated probably every minute in our world and has been repeated every
minute since the world was created. It’s the same scene that can take place in a prairie here in
the Midwest, or in a New York apartment, or on a desolate moor in England, or in a luxurious villa
on the French Rivera. Every minute some man or woman is looking up at the sky and wondering, is the
universe and the power behind the universe friendly or unfriendly to me? Is the power behind the
universe trying to defend me or trying to destroy me? Does the power behind the universe love me or
hate me? Is the power behind the universe a dictatorial tyrant or a loving father?

There are plenty of clues to the answer. I’ll show you one. This is the first time I’ve given him
such an opportunity to perform. This is him. [shows a little Yorkshire Terrier] His name is Chou
[pronounced shoe]. And you know, you look at him and you think, “Our dear God must be the greatest
at doing little loving things to make a little thing like this. He really must be the kindest
person in the world to give a little gift like this that really doesn’t have great use at all. Now,
he feels he does, but survival of the fittest just doesn’t explain him, you know. He would not be
here if it were survival of the fittest. And the whole business of the necessity of the balance of
nature and maintaining the balance of nature, it just doesn’t explain little fellas like this.

This has to be made by somebody who really likes to do loving things. Little things like this and
little birds, and flowers, and the colors under the sea that many of us will never see, those are
clues, loved ones, about the kind of power that is behind the universe. And it’s very difficult, I
think, to argue that the power is anything but somebody who is loving, and who is kind and who likes
doing little things for the people he loves. Now I know, that holds no water if we want to get into
a philosophical discussion. But, what does hold water in a philosophical discussion is: The
plainest indication of the kind of power that is behind the universe is the dear Person who came to
this world, who was the only one who left it and came back to earth. And he assured us, “Look, the
reason why I was able to die and come back and tell you what it’s like on the other side is because
I’m the son of the Person who made you and he is my loving Father and he’s the kind of person –
listen, I’ll tell you this: he’s the kind of person if you being evil know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more will my heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask.”

And every piece of information, loved ones, we get from the best documented life of that time, that
of Jesus of Nazareth, every indication is that the power behind the universe is for us, completely
for us. And that’s what we’ve been studying these past few weeks. And, you might like to look at
the verse. We’ve looked at it before but some of you might not have been here. Romans 8:31, “What
then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us?” And every piece of information
that we have is that God is for us.

Who then is against us? What we saw last week is, the same person who was against Jesus. Jesus is
the best source of information we have on the invisible world. And the person who was against him
is the person mentioned in Matthew 4. Mathew 4:8, “Again, the devil took him to a very high
mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him,
‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Begone,
Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.”’

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.”

What we saw last week, loved ones, is, there is not Mephistopheles with a pointed tail, and pointed
ears, and a three pronged fork. But according to Jesus, there is a devil. There is a spirit being
who used to be an angel of God. The Creator has other beings besides us. He has animals, and fish,
and birds, and he made spirit beings called angels. Not beings with wings and all that kind of
thing, but spirits that have no human bodies. And Satan was one of those angels. And what we saw
from references that we checked out, you remember, last Sunday in Jude, and Peter, and Isaiah, and
Ezekiel was that this was an angel that rebelled in pride against God. And from that moment on he
has spent all his time trying to induce as many other beings as possible to join him in rebellion
against the Creator of the universe.

And his method of course, is just one of continual lying. He knows that it is unto us according to
our faith. He knows that if we really look at a little fellow like that dog, or we look at Jesus’
words and we begin to treat the Maker of the universe as the dear Father who made those things and
made those people, he knows that it will be unto us according to our faith. That God will begin to
be able to get his life through to us. But similarly, he knows if we believe this is a tyrant God,
a miserable judge who is out to destroy us, so it will be unto us according to our faith. So we
will receive all that Satan can do in our lives. And so his job is to get us to believe lies. So
Satan’s only power is to lie. And that he does continually to us. And he tries to get us to believe
lies about the Creator.

Probably the greatest lie of course is that he doesn’t exist. He tries to get us to accept that.
And you must admit he has been very successful in our particular generation. I had tremendous
difficulty believing that there could be a Satan. I had been so bombarded with all these weird
middle ages descriptions and paintings of him. And Satan’s job of course is to persuade us that he
doesn’t exist. That way, you see, he gets us to think that the lies that we find coming to us, or
the suggestions about God that we find coming to us are the production of our own minds and in fact,
that his activity is the natural doubting of a normal, healthy mind.

And of course, once he gets us to do that then he gets us to regard that as tolerable. And we think
to ourselves, “Well, it’s reasonable everybody doubts. You know, everybody has these strange ideas
of what God is like. Everybody doubts if God loves them.” But no, they don’t. People don’t
naturally doubt if God loves them. They only doubt if they begin to accept the lie from this spirit
being that God does not love them. And of course, once they begin to regard that as the natural
normal activity of their own minds, they begin to tolerate it. And that’s what Satan wants.

Loved ones, what I’d like to do is just share three other facts about this spirit being before we go
on to talk about some of the lies that I think some of us are involved in here. First of all, it’s
maybe good to see that he has one specific strategy for inducing us to join him in rebellion and to
join him eventually, in eternal destruction and separation from God. And that strategy is in
Revelation 12:10. “And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and
the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren
has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.’” That’s his method. He
accuses you.

So often you find yourself at home, or in your room suddenly wondering, “Does God really love me?
Am I really God’s child? Would God ever be prepared to deal with a creature as bad as I am?” And
loved ones, that does not come from yourself. It does not. It comes from Satan whose job is to

accuse you and say, “Look, you’re so rotten, you’re so miserable, you’re so hopeless, you’ve failed
so many times that the Creator would not have anything more to do with you.” Now, you need to watch
loved ones because some of you will say to me, “Oh no, brother, but isn’t that the conviction of the
Holy Spirit?” No, the Holy Spirit always convicts directly, he says, “Stop gossiping.” He says,
“Stop telling lies.” He always gives you something specific that you can respond to; Satan doesn’t.
He comes at you with a vague generalized sense of accusation and doubt about your acceptance with
God. And that’s his job.

One of his great aids of course, before Jesus died, was God’s own word. It stood against us. You
remember, Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” And of course Satan used to urge that upon
us. He used to say, “Look, God has committed himself to destroying all who live apart from him and
are independent of him and want their own way and their own life. That’s you. Now, the wages of
sin is death. You’re going to die.” And that kind of stood against us.

Now of course, once we see that God destroyed us in Jesus, that legal bond no longer stands against
us. And of course, that’s always the way to answer Satan. The way to answer him is never, “No, I’m
not, I’m really good,” because you’re not really good. Or, “Well, I was better this week than I
was last week.” Well, in some ways you were and in some ways you weren’t. The way is never to
argue with him about your own goodness but to say, “Yeah, you’re right. I know that stands against
me. But, God has put me into his son Jesus and destroyed me there. And God will not destroy me
twice for the same sin. So, I offer you the blood of Jesus. That’s why God is accepting me.”

And that’s why, loved ones, you have that statement in Colossians 2:13-15. And it might help some
of you who have maybe labored under some of this in the past. And this is the only way to answer
Satan, loved ones. I don’t think you should enter into ethical discussions about your own life with
him. You should just answer him this way. “And you, who were dead in trespasses and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our
trespasses,” and then verse 14, “Having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal
demands.” The bond was the wages of sin and death. That was the legal bond that stood against us.
That’s what Satan always urged. But God has cancelled that bond because he’s put us into Jesus and
destroyed it there and worked out the bond. “This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” And in
that way you see, “He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them,
triumphing over them in him.”

And so Satan’s power to accuse us is actually no longer a power at all if you answer him in the
right way. In fact loved ones, the truth is that Satan’s activity now is permitted and limited by
God for his own purposes. Now, that’s strange, but God gave the angels free will and that’s how
Satan ever rebelled in the first place. And God has continued to allow Satan to have free will up to
a point. He limits him, he holds him back from destroying us completely. But he gives him
permission to offer his lies to us, because God knows that every time we reject him we’ll be
strengthening our faith in his word and his promises. And so in a way, Satan is now God’s unwilling
servant.

And that’s clearly set forth, if you doubt it, in Job 1. Those of you who know the book of Job know
the verses I’m talking about. Job 1:6, and it shows clearly that Satan is under God’s control, and
yet up to a point is given freedom to work his own lying ways, because God knows he can use every
rejection of those ways to strengthen our own faith. Every time we reject a lie we grow stronger in
the truth. “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD,
and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, ‘Whence have you come?’ Satan answered the

LORD, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’ And the LORD said
to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless
and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’ Then Satan answered the LORD, ‘Does Job
fear God for naught? Hast thou not put a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on
every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the
land. But put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to thy face.’”

And it’s interesting that God will never put forth his hand and touch us and destroy us.
Destruction is never God’s work even though Satan said to God, “Now you do that just to test.”

“And the LORD said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your power; only upon himself do not put
forth your hand.’ So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.” And so loved ones, God
allows Satan to tackle you and me but only up to a point. And there’s no temptation come upon us
above what we’re able to bear. And God is using that power of evil to actually strengthen our faith
in God’s assurances that he loves us and can bring us through everything.

Nevertheless, loved ones, I think a lot of us, despite those facts — that Satan’s only power is
that of accusing us wrongly and that that power has now been destroyed by Jesus death, and that his
power to lie to us is even limited and under God’s control — nevertheless, I think many of us
still, even here, — it’s almost unbearable to say it, loved ones — but some of us, I know it’s
terrible, but some of us here will believe Satan’s lies throughout our lives. And some of us here
will end up with Satan. We will, really. I know that’s unthinkable, but some of us here, despite
all these truths that we’ve heard, will continue to believe those lies and reject God.

And loved ones, to emphasize that I’d just ask you to look at one verse with me and then just leave
it at that. Revelation 20:7. However gentle we are with each other I think it’s important for love
to be honest and real. And it’s important to point out to you these verses. It discusses the
millennium, you know, the thousand years, “And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be
loosed from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the
earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea.
And they marched up over the broad earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city;
but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown
into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be
tormented day and night for ever and ever.” And of course, they’ll torment themselves really.

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it; from his presence earth and sky fled away,
and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne,
and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were
judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead in it,
Death and Hades gave up the dead in them, and all were judged by what they had done. Then Death and
Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any
one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

It is true loved ones, despite all that we share today, that some of us here in this group will
continue to believe Satan’s lies. I want to do everything possible to try to help you see the lies.
I’ve asked God to give me some discernment about some of them you believe.

I think that some of us believe Satan’s lie about God’s love. That is, some of us keep on

believing, “Well, if God made a dear little creature like that dog, and if he makes little babies,
and he makes strange little things that are lovely and interesting and quaint, then God must be such
a lovey dovey God that he is for me whatever I do.” Now, loved ones, that’s a lie. That’s a lie.

I can be for that little pet dog but if I’m really for him I’ll have definite thoughts and wishes
for him. There’s certain things I won’t let him do. I won’t let him charge across Highway 494. I
won’t let him fall out of a car when it’s moving. I won’t let him eat himself until he’s sick. I
won’t let him do certain things just because I’m for him. Now, loved ones, it’s the same with our
Father in heaven. It’s just dumb for you to believe Satan’s lie, “God is for me — whatever I do in
this life.” No he isn’t, loved ones. God has a definite desire for you and me that is in line with
his love for us. He wants us to be like himself and his Son and he’s out to destroy everything that
prevents us being like them.

And so everything in our lives that is not like Jesus, God is out to destroy. And it’s because he
really loves us. So don’t believe Satan’s lie, “Oh God is so lovey dovey, he’s for me whatever I
do.” No, God has definite wishes for your life and mine. And he’s out to destroy everything that
will prevent those. In fact, loved ones, he’s out for radical surgery, and some of us are very
disturbed when we see that. We just are horrified at the thought that, “Boy, to become like God and
to become like Jesus means radical surgery in my life.” But loved ones, it does.

Christiaan Barnard [a South African cardiac surgeon who performed the world’s first successful
human-to-human heart transplant] was not the first one at all. You see it there in Ezekiel 36:26.
“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your
flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” And loved ones, your Father loves you so
much that he’s determined to take out that heart of flesh. All of us have a heart of flesh that
wants its own way, that wants to have its own way in everything, and wants to defend its own rights,
and wants to destroy anybody that stands in our way. That’s the heart of flesh that most of us
have. And we just stand up for self gratification and self glorification all the time. And the
Father is determined to take that heart out of us and to give us a new heart. And the dearest donor
in the whole world has died so that we could receive his heart.

And loved ones, what happens with many of us is, that dear donor, Jesus, has made his heart
available to us and by the power of the Holy Spirit God can implant that heart in us, but first he
has to take out the old heart. And that’s what happens. We begin to feel the knife of the Holy
Spirit for the first time on that old heart, and we begin to draw back and say, “God doesn’t love
me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be reproving me and correcting me like this. He doesn’t love me if he’s
hurting me like this. He’s convicting me. He’s telling me I’m wrong. He doesn’t really love me if
he’s putting me through these things.” And loved ones it gets more and more vehement as our whole
body begins to reject the heart that he puts in us when we’re born of God at the beginning.

When he puts that dear heart of Jesus in us, the whole body, as is to be expected, even in physical
life it occurs, there’s a whole rejection process that takes place and our whole personality rebels
against that heart of Jesus within us. And that heart of Jesus wants to love, and be patient. And
this whole body rejects it, and reacts against it, and says, “No, I want to lose my temper. I want
to be what I am.” And as the whole body puts into activity this rejection process, we cry out
again, “God doesn’t really love me.” And Satan’s lie is right in the middle of that, loved ones.
Satan is trying to get you to believe, “Yeah, he doesn’t really love you. He wouldn’t hurt you like
this if he loved you.”

And loved ones, God states the opposite in Hebrews 12:4. And of course that’s why Jesus always
answered Satan with God’s word, because the truth is stated plainly here for us. And that’s why God
regards us as being without excuse. It’s Hebrews 12:4. “In your struggle against sin you have not
yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation which
addresses you as sons? –‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage
when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves.’”

It’s not because he doesn’t love you that he disciplines you. He disciplines you because he loves
you. “…And chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline you have to endure. God is
treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left
without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not
much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time at
their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment
all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of
righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Really loved ones, there are faithful wounds of a friend. And those are the dear wounds that the
Holy Spirit begins to work on. Even after a service like this, on your way home you may begin to
sense something inside you saying, “Boy, you need to change, you need to change. Why not let that
heart of Jesus transform your own life?” And you begin to feel, “Yeah, there’s something wrong.”
And then Satan gets in and says, “You mean, you’re not good enough? Of course you’re good enough.”
Of course, the answer is, “No, I’m not good enough, not at all. That’s why God had to do the
radical surgery on me. That’s why he loves me.”

Loved ones, I think those are some of the lies. I think there is another lie that some of us here
tend to believe. And that is that Satan suggests to us, “You ought to produce a satisfactory
experience that is an authentic Christian conversion.” I think some of us accept that lie. Satan
comes to you and says, “Now all that you hear here on Sunday mornings, you want to take all of that
and you want to produce in your own life a satisfactory authentic essential Christian conversion
experience. Now that’s your job. Okay, now go and do it.” But, I think a lot of us make our
relationship with God an intolerable burden because we believe that lie.

Loved ones, I think some of us almost take the great facts about what God has done to us in Jesus as
ideas that we are supposed to use to manipulate into a satisfactory experience. And I think many of
us are always reading the descriptions of a real son of God or daughter of God in the Bible and
we’re listening to sermons about these things, and we’re saying, “Yeah, that’s what an authentic son
of God would be. That’s what an authentic daughter of God would be. Boy, I have to produce that
kind of experience in myself.” And I think many of us here are spending our lives pursuing the
right experience. That, loved ones, is a lie of Satan. It’s not your job to produce the experience
at all. It’s God’s job to produce the experience. And it’s his job to do the work in you. And
that’s why Jesus said, “If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children then how much
more will my heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask.”

Your job is to ask with your whole heart and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and to walk out
in faith that God has kept his word. And let him produce whatever experience you need to have, or
whatever experience you don’t need to have. But loved ones, don’t believe Satan’s lie that you have
to somehow produce an authentic experience of conversion, or a baptism with the spirit which will
satisfy all the criteria and opinions of all the pastors, all the teachers, all the friends, all the

books, all the Bibles you’ve ever read. It just is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is
to come to God and do what he tells you. Let him give you whatever experience he wants you to have.

I think it would lift some of you loved ones, if you’d reject that lie of Satan. I’d just like to
deal with one other lie that I think some of us labor under. A lot of us know that we have to ask
God with our whole heart for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. We have to ask God with our whole
heart for his Holy Spirit. Loved ones, those of you who haven’t been before, the Holy Spirit is a
supernatural power that has the qualities of our Creator within it. And, the Holy Spirit actually
is a person and he is able to come into your life and change you inside.

Now many of us, I think, know that we’ve to ask God with our whole heart for the Holy Spirit. And we
have to be willing whatever that Holy Spirit makes us. I think Satan has lied to some of us, “Keep
on analyzing, keep on analyzing and eventually as you analyze yourself and as you find out in what
ways you’re not ready to get on the cross, and as you keep on self examining and going through an
introspection of your own miserable life, there will come a day sometime when you can raise self
analysis to the Nth degree and it will become the fullness of the Holy Spirit.” Now, that’s dumb.

Loved ones, the fullness of the Holy Spirit is supernatural life. Analysis and self examination is
psychic or psychological life. You can never raise one to such a degree that it becomes the other.
It’s like a stone trying to become a little bird or a little animal. It will never, because one is
inanimate life and the other is animate life. Now, it’s the same with this self examination. Loved
ones, there comes a time when sooner or later you have to go out on a limb with God and you have to
say, “Lord, I’m as surrendered as I can be. I can’t go on the rest of my life examining myself to
see if I can be more surrendered. Father, I ask you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. I ask you
with my whole heart. And Lord, I receive this dear gift by faith and I’m going out to live on the
understanding that I now have the Holy Spirit in my life. And I’m going to do what he tells me and
expect him to tell me.”

But loved ones, I think Satan has lied to some of us that, “No, no, you’re not ready yet.” And you
say, “Well, I’m almost ready aren’t I?” And Satan says, “No, no, you’re not quite ready. A little
more prayer, a little more self examination, a little more looking into your motives and analyzing
them and then you’ll be ready.” And we get to tomorrow and we say, “Okay, now I’m ready.” And he
says, “No, no, just a little more –just another sermon, another Sunday service, another book to
read.”

Loved ones, the Father is waiting with his arms open. And he loves you and he’s saying, “Look, will
you come? There are some things inside you that I still need to show you but come, and I’ll give
you the Holy Spirit if you ask and you receive him by faith and you start living banking on him
being there. And I’ll show you the other things.”

Loved ones, really, if I were you I’d just ask the Holy Spirit, “Holy Spirit, show me if I’m living
under lies. Just show me.” And loved ones, every one of us here whose life is shadowed or grey, or
dark, or gloomy, are living under some lie — really, we’re living under some lie of Satan. And I’d
urge you – you’re a miserable lot and I’m a miserable person, too. We’re nothing, you know. We’re
miserable creatures. We have nothing good in us but what the Father puts in. But loved ones,
you’re not that bad. You don’t originate the lies. It is this being called Satan that Jesus told us
about. And I’d encourage you to disassociate yourself from him. And don’t think you’re just
projecting your own evil into some physical being that you can then disassociate from yourself. No,
do it. Disassociate yourself from him. Reject the lie. And begin to see that the Father is a

loving father and that he made little green apples, and little dogs, and rain, and sunshine, and
made this dear Jesus who is the light of life to all of us. And he loves you. And he’ll give you
what you need. Let us pray.

Dear Father, thank you. Thank you that you’re real and true and that you really are alive and
Father that you’re the loving person that Jesus has told us you are. And Father, thank you that
it’s your dearest wish that every one of your dear ones here in this auditorium would have the
confidence to come to you now and treat you for real and ask you now to give them your Spirit, the
same spirit that makes you you and makes Jesus so like you, to give us your Spirit. And oh dear
Holy Spirit, we hardly know how to treat you but we know that you’re real and a Person inside us.
And we commit ourselves to listening to you and obeying you even though we don’t quite understand.

And we ask you Holy Spirit to begin to make us the kind of children that our Father would be pleased
with so that this dear world of ours might see who its Creator really is and so that thousands in
India, Africa, Australia, and South America, and Russia, and China will get a glimpse of the dear
Person that made them through us here. We ask this, our Father, in Jesus’ name.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with each one of us now and throughout this coming week and until we see Jesus face-to-face. Amen.

Satan

Romans 8:31b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

All the fears that you have, loved ones — and probably most of us have some fears or have had some
fears — and all the anxieties that you experience can be traced to one attitude inside you. And
that is the refusal to believe that the Person who made you is really your loving Father and will
not let go of you. And it’s true with all your frustrations, all the frustrations that you have.
Even things like greed and covetousness that you have. Even things like hostility and resentment,
all those attitudes can be traced back to one misconception you have. You keep thinking that you’re
here to make it alone and if you don’t make it alone you’re not going to make it.

And so everything that we suffer in this life and every shortcoming that we feel can be traced back
to the fact that we deep, deep down don’t really believe that the one who holds the sky up, and the
one who holds this planet in space is our loving Father and knows each one of us by name. And that
is what we’ve been talking about for a few Sundays. It’s all based on that verse and maybe you’d
like to look at it and see it for yourself. It’s Romans 8:31. “What then shall we say to this? If
God is for us, who is against us?”

Probably there isn’t one of us here in this auditorium who do not hear that and still tend to say,
“Well, yeah, yeah I know he is for some people but he can’t be for me. I know he can be for Billy
Graham or he could have been for Luther, or maybe he is for this church the way it’s being blessed,
maybe he’s for this church. But me, I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough. He can’t possibly be
satisfied with me enough to be for me. So I’m afraid he’s for everybody, but not for me.” And of
course loved ones, the unequivocal answer to that is a verse in the New Testament that says that God
was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

And you’re going to have a hard time excluding yourself from the world. Maybe if you jump up high
enough you can say you’re off the world for a moment and therefore he didn’t reconcile you to
himself but the verse says plainly that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. In
other words, God is reconciled to you because it doesn’t say, “God was in Christ reconciling moral
men to himself,” or, “God was in Christ reconciling good men and women to himself.” It says, “God
was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”

That includes the fellow in New York that has just murdered someone. This last moment someone was
murdered in New York and God reconciled and is reconciled to that murderer at this moment. The
woman in Calcutta who has just this morning abandoned her new born baby on a doorstep, God is
reconciled to that woman. In other words, God took the envenomed sting of all us miserable
poisonous snakes and he put that sting into Jesus and destroyed it there. And at that very moment he
made us no longer lethal enemies of himself. And so he has nothing more in us that he wants to
destroy. He has nothing more against us.

As far as he is concerned he has taken this miserable, selfish, carnal will, and this miserable
reversed personality and put it into his Son, destroyed it there, and he isn’t after anything else
in us. So God is reconciled with us, loved ones. God is for you. Now, the heresy of universalism
is that whether we receive his Holy Spirit or not which he is now offering to us so freely, whether
we receive it or not we’re going to live with him forever. Well, that’s not true. God is for us

during these 70 years. He’s given us a reprieve. He’s given us respite. He said, “Look, I have
destroyed you in my son Jesus and now I’m offering you the Holy Spirit of my uncreated life. For
these 70 years you have a second chance to receive this Spirit.”

But you remember the Bible says, “Then comes death and then the judgment.” So after death loved
ones, the second opportunity is lost. But during this life time, God is nothing but for us. And
loved ones, that’s true for you. God is for you at this moment. He has nothing against you. He’s
offering you the Spirit of his own life that can make you like his son Jesus and he has nothing
against you. Now, when this life ends then if you have not received that uncreated life then
because you’re only a temporal being you will die eternally. But up to that point, God is nothing
but for us, loved ones. And that’s really what this verse says.

You remember the verse says, “Well who then is against us if God is for us?” And two weeks ago you
remember that we shared our own misconceptions, they’re against us. Our own misconceptions of God,
that’s what’s against us. We believe lies about God being against us. And it’s those lies that are
against us. It’s those lies that make us feel so abandoned. It’s those lies that separate us from
the Creator who is our loving Father. If God be for us who is against us? Our misconceptions of
him, the lies that we believe about him, the lies that we spread to others about him, that’s what’s
against us.

But, the kind of double whammy that we do on ourselves is we not only believe lies about God but we
believe lies about those lies. In other words, many of us here have not a sense of closeness to our
Father who is the Creator of the universe because we believe he couldn’t be bothered with somebody
as unimportant as us, or because he couldn’t have any time for somebody as bad as us. So we believe
all kinds of lies about him. But on top of that, we believe a lie about the source of those lies.
We believe that we invented those lies. So of course, many of us can get ourselves into a terrible
sense of depression because we think, “Well he’s right, I mean he says that God is a loving Father.
I certainly don’t believe that. I don’t live like that. I live according to lies I suppose but I
don’t only do that but I’ve invented these lies.”

And we get into a tremendous sense of depression and hopelessness. We feel, “Yeah, I’m not only
believing lies, but I’ve invented the lies. I’m the one that has originated the evil.” And perhaps
that’s the greatest lie that the originator of the lies practices upon us. The greatest lie that he
practices upon us is that he himself doesn’t exist. And that’s true, loved ones.

I think many of us here are convinced that the lies we believe about our Creator we have invented
ourselves because we have become convinced that there is no such thing as Satan. And so we believe
that the lies were not originated by him but were originated by us. And if we are even evil enough
to invent the lies that we believe, then what hope is there for us? That’s exactly what Satan wants
us to believe. Satan’s greatest lie is that he doesn’t exist. And I suspect that many of us here
this morning believe that. I labored under that for years. And if you ask me, “Well, why did you?”
Well I’ll tell you. Satan, in my mind, was always associated with spooky things of the imagination.

We had a great cupboard under the stairway at home in Belfast. And there’s where, I was a little
child you know, I was taught there was a boogieman. And then when I got a little bigger, 21, and my
mom and dad laughed at the whole idea, there’s no such thing. So in my mind the devil was connected
up with childhood fantasies that I used to have. And so, when I got away from my childhood
fantasies, I, of course, thought I got away from believing in the devil. And I felt the devil was

just one of those fantasies and really doesn’t exist. And I began to feel, you were really pretty
dumb if you believed in anything as silly as the devil. So I think that’s one of the reasons I was
reluctant to believe there was a devil at all. I think another reason was because of the ludicrous
visual images that were presented to me of the devil. He had horns and he had a huge tail, spiked
tail, and he had a great three pronged fork, and he had always a malevolent grin on his face. And I
kind of thought, “Aw, that’s just silly. That’s dumb. There can’t be that kind of a person. And
anyway though it’s pretty evil looking that’s not the most evil thing I’ve ever experienced in the
world.”

And when that was coupled with a very physical idea of hell with real physical flames and kind of
other combustible material I kind of felt the whole thing was a silly invention. There’s no such
thing as the devil, there’s no such thing as hell. And I don’t know, but you might have found
yourself in the same position. I suppose what got me away from the idea of the devil particularly
was Flip Wilson’s [American comedian] joke, “The devil made me do it.” And I felt, “Yeah, that is
what poor weak human beings say when they want to escape from their own moral responsibility for
their lives. They say, ‘The devil made me do it.’ The devil is just a projection of their own evil
nature. It’s an attempt of mankind to separate himself from his own basic immorality and he tries
therefore to personalize it in some form that he can hate and detest.”

And so for all those reasons I gave up the idea of Satan completely. And of course, I was left in
the position that Satan wanted me to be in. He wanted me to be in the position where every time I
resisted one of his lies I felt I was resisting myself. He wanted me to think that it was me that
invented the lies so that every time I resisted one of those lies about my Maker or my Creator being
my loving Father I would feel I was resisting a production of myself and I was resisting myself.
And he wanted me to eventually come to the place where I could not separate myself from those lies.
I saw that those lies are me and I cannot separate myself from me. And I would come into a position
of absolute hopelessness and despair.

And that’s in fact what I did do. I came to a place where I felt, “The evil is me, the lies are me.
And I cannot get rid of them. So I just have to live this way for the rest of my life.” Loved ones,
Satan does exist. There is a Satan, there is. If you believe Jesus is really the son of our Maker
and that he is speaking the truth about reality, then you’re forced to adopt his belief about Satan.
And it’s just very clear and unmistakable, loved ones.

And the first thing of course Jesus brings home is that Satan’s only power is that of deception. I
think a lot of us talk about Satan as if he has tremendous powers. Well, if you talk about a person
taking the power in the universe and using it to destroy millions of people instead of producing
electricity with the nuclear energy, then yes they have power. But all they have done really is
pervert power that is in the universe. Now, that’s what Satan does. He perverts power that is
already in the universe. He himself has no power and his only ability is that of deception and
lying.

Now, would you look at it with me, loved ones? It’s John 8:44. And I think it is important to see
that he exists and yet to nail him down very clearly for what he is. And Jesus tells us this
plainly. “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

So loved ones, every time Satan tries to exercise power over any of us, it is through lies. Now,

Jesus repeatedly treats Satan as a real person. Luke 10:18. And you remember he sent 70 disciples
out. “The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your
name!’ And he said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.’” And for Jesus Satan
was a very real person.

And during the temptation you remember, he spoke to Satan and treated him as a person. And maybe
that’s the most important thing we should grasp this morning. Don’t get all preoccupied with the
origin of Satan but take Jesus’ very pragmatic attitude to him that he does exist and that he lies
and deceives and is to be resisted and can be resisted. Maybe that’s a very important thing for
some of you that have been involved at times in spiritualism.

Loved ones, Satan does not have any power but that of perverting the power that is latent in the
universe. And the only other ability he has is to lie and all you have to do with the lie is to
reject it. And you can reject it as long as you see that it comes from outside you and not from you
yourself. You can refuse to acquiesce in Satan’s lies.

So if someone here this morning is all preoccupied with Satan, loved ones, it is not necessary. You
simply look away from him. You look to Jesus, and you resist Satan. And he flees from you, because
his only power is that of lying. So if you’re tending to think, “Oh, he has terrible power. You
should see the things that he’s done in my life, or the things that he’s done in my friend’s life.”
Loved ones, he has no power except to pervert the power in the universe and to misuse it and to lie
to you about his power.

Now, where did Satan come from? Did God make him? Yes, it does seem that God made Satan
originally, not as he is today. But God did make angels, loved ones. There are angels that are
talked about in the Bible –- spirits — an angel is a spirit. You have to get away from your mind
all the wings and all that business you know, because that’s just bad. Satan loves us to think of
heaven in that kind of way and it’s not right. It’s alright when we’re children but when we’re
grownup at this age we need to see the thing right.

And “angelos” in Greek means “a messenger”. It’s the word you use for messenger. If you send
messengers you’re sending “angelos”. You send messengers to a place. So the word angel means a
messenger. And they are spirits. That is, beings that do not have bodies like ours. And God did
make spirits. They’re mentioned often. If you look in Revelation 7:11-12 you see that the angels
are part of that group around God at this very moment that love him, and praise him, and worship
him. “And all the angels stood round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures,
and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory
and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’”

Satan was one of those originally. He was a spirit being that worshiped God. And then there came a
time when he used the free will that the angels share with us human beings. God has given all his
creation free will to worship him or reject him. And Satan used that free will sometime in pre
creation history to rebel against God. Now loved ones, there are various references to that, but
maybe one of the plainest is in Jude, verse 6. “And the angels that did not keep their own position
but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the
judgment of the great day.” So there were other angels that rebelled with Satan.

And there’s another reference to that in 2 Peter 2:4. “For if God did not spare the angels when they

sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the
judgment…” And then Peter goes on with his logic. But there’s a reference to Satan and having to
cast some angels out that rebelled with him. Now loved ones, there are some references in the Old
Testament that it might be good for you to look at. Just two especially, one is in Ezekiel 28. And
there Ezekiel is talking about the king of Tyre and then as with all prophecy you know, he goes from
the temporal into the eternal realm.

And it’s pretty obvious that he’s doing that because some of the things he says cannot be attributed
to a human king. And you see that God is using Ezekiel to talk about this pre creation rebellion
that took place among the angels. Ezekiel 28:12, “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of
Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘You were the signet of perfection.’” Well
immediately that is said of course, it cannot be a human king. “You were the signet of perfection,
full of wisdom.” In other words the king of Tyre was a type of Satan but it’s really Satan that is
being talked about.

“You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the
garden of God.” Which obviously the king of Tyre was not. “You were in Eden, the garden of God;
every precious stone was your covering, carnelian, topaz, and jasper, chrysolite, beryl, and onyx,
sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald; and wrought in gold were your settings and your engravings. On
the day that you were created they were prepared. With an anointed guardian cherub I placed you;
you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were
blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you.”

Then in Verse 17, “Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the
sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on
you.” And it seems loved ones, that together with one other reference and then I’ll not ask you to
look up anymore, Isaiah 14, where again Isaiah is speaking of a physical human king and then moves
into that eternal realm as the prophets do. They move from temporal to eternal in their prophesies.

Isaiah 14:12, a lament, really, over this fallen angel. “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day
Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in
your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will
sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will
make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit.”

And loved ones, Satan’s job now is to carry as many of us with him as he can. And he is a spirit
being that is not omniscient, he cannot know everything but he does know often what you’re thinking.
And he is not omnipresent because you remember the Bible said that he has to move to and fro
throughout the whole world. And so he does have to move from place-to-place but he does have other
spirit beings that he can send into your mind.

And, oh, I would plead with you, for goodness sake get wise enough to see that the lies are not
coming from yourselves. The lies are coming from spirit beings that are able to inject them into
your mind. But loved ones, everything that comes in from the outside can be rejected, really. So do
not sit there and labor under Satan. You need not. His only power is that of lying and deception.
And he is continually involved in trying to bring that about.

And so many of you who question, “Is God for me?” Loved ones, if you’d just look at God, if you’d

just look at Jesus, if you just let Jesus tell you what God thinks of you, you’ll never have any
doubt but that God is for you. And I would plead with you, whenever you begin to doubt and whenever
you begin to think, “Oh no, somebody like me I’m not worth it. I’m not important enough.”

Loved ones, look into Jesus’ face and hear his words, “A sparrow does not fall to the ground but
your Father knows. Are you not of much more value than many sparrows?” When you think, “Oh my
Father couldn’t be for me. I’m so unclean, I’m so dirty, I’m so miserable.” Look into Jesus’ face
and hear him saying to the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more. Neither do I condemn you.”
And see God for what he is, a dear loving Father who cares for you and who wants you to receive his
Holy Spirit. And if you receive that dear Holy Spirit you’ll begin to sense a new life coming up
from inside you and that life, loved ones, on the final day will transform your body the way it did
Jesus and will enable you to live forever with his dear Father.

But loved ones, that is truth. The other stuff is part of the lying bluff that Satan urges upon you
day-by-day. And I would encourage you to reject it and resist it.

I’d like next day to talk a wee bit more about the ways in which God is for us and talk a little bit
more about some of the lies that I think some of us here believe. But I’d urge you at this point,
let’s put Satan where he belongs under Jesus’ feet and therefore under your feet. Because if you’re
in Jesus you’re at least as high as his big toe, and it puts you above Satan.

And loved ones, I’d encourage you, take Jesus’ attitude to him and reject him and be finished with
it and don’t engage in conversation with him, or don’t acquiesce in his lies.

Let us pray. Father, we would pray now for every loved one here who is sitting beside us in this
auditorium. And we pray especially for anybody who is just under it. Father, any loved one here
who feels lonely, and abandoned, and feels they are just on their own trying to make it alone, oh
Father will you come down and show them Jesus’ face and show them your own eyes of love, and enable
them to lift up their hand and put it in yours and to realize that the Person who made flowers as
beautiful as we have, and the Person who made mountains as beautiful as we have must be real, and
must be personable, and must be kind, and must love.

And oh Father, we would pray that each loved one here in this auditorium would begin to treat you as
their loving Father and would begin to cast away from them all the sin in their lives and all the
hatred, and the resentment, and the worry and anxiety and would receive from you the uncreated life
of your Holy Spirit; would allow you, Lord Jesus, to come into their hearts and to bring the
sunshine in the sky into their lives this day. We pray for each other Father, this coming week that
we may have the good sense to reject Satan’s lies and believe your truth for your glory.

And now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with each one of us now and throughout this coming week. Amen.

Resurrection Life For Us

Romans 8:31d

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

A little more than a week ago, a gaunt old man with a straggly beard and hair down to his shoulders
died 3,000 feet above Houston [in a jet flying him for medical treatment] with no friend or relative
at his side. And the funeral was a 17 minute thing. And no one, of course cried at all at the
funeral, or felt they should cry. And the main concern after the autopsy was really who would get
hold of the $2 billion that he’s worth.

And the whole death is filled with irony. It really is. He was one of the richest men in the
Western world and yet he really died of malnutrition, living in a penthouse that cost him $1,000 a
day. And then it’s more ironic when you see what his own will and attitude was to it all, because
this man, in 1938, received a ticker tape welcome in New York for a record breaking flight. And yet
this man who had received all that kind of attention spent the last 20 years of his life in darkened
rooms with no one talking to him and talking to no one and communicating by written notes to his
aides.

This man, who died because of the poisoning in his own body due to kidney failure, had spent the
past 20 years of his life trying to defend himself against infection and poison. And so there were
Kleenex everywhere in his rooms. He would not have air conditioning in his rooms, lest it bring in
germs. In his determination to defend himself against people and against infection, he isolated
himself from everybody and rushed, as all of us know, from the top of one hotel to another in
secrecy. And perhaps the most ironic fact about the death is that he refused continually, after the
accident that he suffered in London and had that pin put in his hip, he refused continually all the
doctors’ encouragements to him to walk and to exercise. And if he had done that, he could have
lived well beyond 70 and there was no need for him to die. Moreover, he refused any encouragement
on their part to begin to eat sensible food; he lived on cookies and milk. And so really he
virtually killed himself.

And do you know what he boasted to an executive in 1960? “I have never done anything in my life
that I did not want to do.” You know what? It’s ironic, isn’t it, that he had never done anything
in his life that he didn’t want to do and it was that very attitude that brought about
self-destruction, really. And, so it’s ironic because he, who defended himself from people all the
time, found himself dying in loneliness. He who defended himself against infection all the time,
found himself dying of infection. And he, who boasted that he never did anything that he didn’t
want to do in life, killed himself by the things that he wanted to do.

And, loved ones, that’s only one extreme example of this stream of death life that seems to flow
through our world. Because there isn’t one of us here that hasn’t touched it at times. There seems
to be a flow of death life that moves through individuals and communities, and wherever it moves, it
takes the beauty of the world and it turns it into ugliness. It takes the love of warm
relationships and turns them into loneliness. It takes the plentiful, really infinite resources of
our universe and turns them into scarcity and deprivation. Wherever this flow of death life comes,
it darkens and destroys all that it touches. And you know that it really is a supernatural power.
It has to be a power, loved ones, hasn’t it, to make a man kill himself. It has to be a power to
make people do what they don’t want to do and destroy themselves in the process. And you know that

somewhere in that book [the Bible], that power is described as a power that is a murderer. It is
determined to destroy life and to kill people. And Howard Hughes’ death is just an extreme example
of a death life that probably all of us in this room have touched at some time.

I suppose the condition is pretty obvious that he fulfilled to let that death life come into him.
The condition he fulfilled was simply, he was out to defend himself against any person that might
inconvenience him in any way, or against any pain that he might possibly undergo, or against
anything that might be a nuisance to him. He was determined to defend himself and keep himself away
from that at all costs. And he was also determined to do in this life exactly what he wanted to do.
Now, loved ones, if you fulfill either of those conditions, the death life touches you. It does.

Every one of us who has started off with a bright Easter Sunday morning and have ended up at the end
of the day bickering with our wives, know that the death life touched us because we began to fulfill
those conditions. Because there’s something we wanted our way and that death life began to be
released. And the end of the day was a tragedy compared with the way it started out. And you could
multiply the examples where that flow of death life seems to have come in, if you look at the ruins
of a day on your hands, or you look at the ruins of a marriage on your hands, or you look at the
ruins of your business, or your job on your hands, and you think, “How could this come about? It
started off so beautifully. How did this happen?”

And, loved ones, it’s just true that there is a flow of death life that moves in and destroys and
tears apart everyone who fulfills the conditions that it needs to begin to energize a person’s life.
I suppose the amazing thing is that today is so different for us. Today is Easter and it’s so
different from all that gloomy stuff. Today you remember all the kind of life that there is, and
that’s amazing too, isn’t it? In a world that is so filled with the death life, the death life is
in Lebanon. The death life is in Ireland. The death life is in Russia. The death life is in cities
that are being terrorized. The death life is in bickering families. The death life is in businesses
and jobs. It’s amazing that though so much of this death life is produced by us men and women, yet
there seems – oh the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it, “There lives the dearest freshness
deep down things.”

And it’s amazing that at this time of the year, you look out at ground that a month ago was hard,
and dead, and cold, and there are little purple hyacinths and little yellow daffodils pushing up
through it. And it’s all so fresh and new. And you look out at trees that were dry and were
surrounded by dead brown leaves, and now you begin to see little buds that are just so beautifully
wrapped up that you really feel there’s been a huge manufacturing company working night and day all
through the winter, because they’re all just ready there to burst out. And they’re all clean and new
and fresh. And, oh a month ago, you looked out and there wasn’t a thing on the water, and there
wasn’t a thing on the earth. And now, you look out and all the ducks are quacking and paddling like
mad, and all the birds are whistling and flying.

And, it just comes home to you that we seem to have death life flowing all around us in all our own
relationships, but there seems to be this new resurrection life that’s coming in. And that’s hard
to explain, isn’t it? I mean, I can see how we human beings get fed up with winter, and I can see
how we get fed up with misery, but how do we manage to produce summer and spring and joy? And you
know fine well that we really don’t, that we certainly don’t produce spring, and we don’t produce
summer. But the truth is that we have great trouble producing joy, too. How do you explain it? How
do you explain the phenomenon?

And I push you further, which is reality? Which is final reality? The old man with the dialysis
tube hanging out of his body, gaunt and emaciated, and a straggly beard and the hair, and the lost
look in the eyes, and the plane, and death — is that final reality? Or is final reality spring, and
flowers, and daffodils, and new life? We’re all in the same boat in trying to answer that question.
We’re in the same boat as Mohammed, and we’re in the same boat exactly as Confucius, and Buddha.
They’re all mere men.

All they can do is do what you and I can do this morning. They can examine the phenomena in the
world and come up with some personal opinions to explain it, but they really have no more
information at their disposal than we have here this morning. So, really, they’re all in the same
situation. All the great leaders of the religions in the world are in the same situation as we are
this morning in trying to answer that question. They’re going to give their personal opinion based
on observable data here in our closed universe.

Of course, why Easter is so great for us here in this auditorium is not because of the daffodils, or
the Easter bonnets, or the summer dresses, or the Easter bunnies, but it’s so great because one of
us died and disappeared from the earth, and then came back, and for more than a month, showed that
he was physically more alive than he had ever been before and showed that he had a spiritual
aliveness that was greater than anything we ourselves possessed. And this Person said, “I have been
out of this world and have seen our Creator and I tell you that he’s my Father and that this life
that he’s given to me, it is final reality. It is reality that death and death life is something
that can be defeated by this stream of life that he has given to me.”

And, loved ones, it’s because of that man’s rising above death, it’s because of the careful
documentation we have of his resurrection as compared with all the fakes and all the bluffers who by
holding their breath or by self-induced comas, have tried to imitate that resurrection — it’s
because of the certainty that he did really die and did really rise that we ourselves answer,
“Resurrection life is the final reality.” And the death life that made that jet over Houston so
tragic and so miserable is not final reality, and is, in fact, something that we have reduced
resurrection life to ourselves. That final reality is resurrection life.

Now, of course, there’s a real problem for us here this morning because we live in an environment of
death life. We live in an environment of that old life that is destroying. We live in a life, an
environment that is full of the depression and the loneliness and the bewilderment of the death
life. And so when we come to this kind of a phenomenon, we describe what is true in our
environment. We say, “Listen, in our environment, dead people don’t rise, that’s just a fact. Now
let’s face it, dead people don’t rise.” And, of course, we’re like a little mole that is speaking,
trying to describe the blue sky while we’re underneath the earth. We’re talking about something that
we cannot see and that we have no experience of. But yet, you know what we’re like. We’re so proud
and we’re so sure that the bit of the world that we have seen is all of reality that we proclaim,
“Yeah, dead people don’t rise, so this man couldn’t have risen. He couldn’t have risen.” And that’s
been the argument down through history.

Paul was repeating it in I Corinthians 15. People said, “No, dead men don’t rise, so this man
couldn’t have risen.” And I think so caught are we in our own death life environment that I think
many of us have problems with it. Loved ones, there’s no way around it, you can’t get around a
historical fact, you can’t. You can’t, by bleating some kind of presuppositional philosophy that
dead people don’t rise, say, “Therefore, this fact can’t have happened.” Loved ones, the historical
fact of this man’s resurrection is so obvious and plain that no presuppositional philosophy about

dead men not rising or the supernatural not being possible will meet the case.

And I think we all know, you could all repeat the old arguments off by heart. But the fact is that
old Caesar, you remember, wrote the Gallic Wars. He wrote the Gallic Wars, I suppose in the First
Century sometime. And the first manuscript we have of those Gallic Wars is 900 years later. That’s
the earliest manuscript. And we have only nine of them. Yet we have no doubt that old Caesar fought
the Gallic Wars, led his soldiers across the bridge, and met Hannibal.

We believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the basis of 4,000 manuscripts. And the earliest one we
have is not 900 years after Caesar wrote his Gallic Wars, but 30 years after John wrote his gospel.
30 years after an eyewitness wrote his account of Jesus’ life. In other words, the historical fact
of Jesus’ death and resurrection is better attested than any other known fact.

You know that the two facts that you can’t get away from are the empty tomb and the resurrection
appearances. I won’t draw it out at length, but some of you may be sitting here with the old
arguments that we learned at high school. And they’re still running in your mind. And we still are
basically unhistorical and unintelligent people. I hate to tell you that, but we are. We hate to
take things intelligently, we take them emotionally. And so we tend to take an attitude that, “No,
these things can’t have happened, so they didn’t happen.” And then we begin to try to make up
possible explanations that would do away with this apparent historical fact. It’s basically a
non-historical attitude towards history, but you know the way we go. We say, “Oh well, wait a
minute I’ll tell you how it could have happened.”

And then we get into our old arguments. And the truth is the arguments to explain away the
resurrection are more difficult to believe than the resurrection itself. And you know that, and so
I won’t draw it out, loved ones, but there’s someone here who’s sitting with the old skepticism. So
you know how it goes. The disciples stole the body. The disciples stole the body. That’s how it
happened. That’s how you explain the empty tomb. They stole the body.

And you know you come up against a real problem with that one, because you have these men stealing
the body of a man that they respected and loved, going out and preaching that this man actually rose
from the dead. And yet they know full well that he didn’t rise from the dead — that they actually
stole the body and pretended. And that would be all right, loved ones, if they did not come into
persecution because of this, and if they did not end up walking into lion arenas with their children
in their arms. And then you have to face the fact that these men stole a body, they then proclaimed
that he was alive, and then they died willingly for that lie that they knew to be a lie.

And there, of course, you have a psychological and an ethical impossibility. Men who followed
Hitler may have followed a lie, but they didn’t know it was a lie, they believed it to be true. They
didn’t make it up themselves. But for the disciples to steal a body and for that to be an
explanation of the empty tomb, you’d have to believe that really they were masochists, they were
determined to destroy themselves and their families. And men don’t die for what they know to be a
lie. They may die for what they think is the truth, but they won’t die for something that they know
is a lie.

And then, “Well, the authorities stole the body. The authorities, the Roman authorities, the Jewish
authorities.” You know, if we don’t want to believe, we’ll almost go to any authority, we’ll make
it Kissinger or Nixon, as well. But, “The authorities stole the body.” Well, if they stole the
body, all they had to do was present the body to everybody. Parade the body of Jesus through the

streets of Jerusalem, through the streets of Rome, and say, “Look, here is this Christian lie for
what you see it to be: just a hoax. Here is the body of this man that they say has risen off the
earth.”

And then, loved ones, “Well, maybe they didn’t steal the body, maybe he really just swooned. Maybe
he didn’t really die.” And then you’re faced with just a towering feat of physical strength: that
this man, who was bleeding from wounds inflicted by the most efficient killers in the world at that
time — that this man, who bled right through two nights and three days in a tomb had the strength
to unwrap the grave clothes from himself, then had the strength to get up and roll back the heavy
stone from the tomb and then had the incredible strength to travel really 20, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90
miles in different directions, appearing on fourteen different occasions in different parts of the
country, and giving an impression, not just of a man that had managed to overcome his wounds, but a
man who was more gloriously alive than he had ever been before. It’s just impossible to believe
that Jesus just swooned.

And you know then we say, “Well, maybe the women went to the wrong tomb.” And we all know women, and
they could just do that kind of thing. But you have a real problem, we men are not as dumb as you
and we just – then you have to believe that everybody else kept going to the wrong tomb, that Peter
and John, that all the Roman soldiers, everybody kept going to the wrong tomb. And it’s harder to
believe the explanations, loved ones, than to believe that Jesus really rose from the dead.

It’s the same with the resurrection appearances. “They were hallucinations.” We all do a few books
in psychology and we’re right in there with hallucinations. And you know there are laws that govern
hallucinations and those laws are not met by the appearances of Jesus. A hallucination has to be
experienced by someone who wants it to happen. For example, a mother who has lost a son in the war
and she wants to see him coming through the door of the kitchen. And she wants to see him.

These men, you remember, confessed to each other, “We had hoped that it was he that would have
redeemed Israel, but we’ve now given up hope.” And they had so given up hope that they were
absolutely amazed and could not believe that this was anything but the gardener that appeared
outside the tomb. They had lost any hope that he would rise from the dead.

Hallucinations have to appear really over a long, long period of time. These appeared for a little
more than a month and then stopped.

A hallucination is a subjective experience. One person sees it. Jesus appeared to all the
disciples in the upper room, then to about 500 people at one time. It’s impossible, loved ones, to
explain away the appearances of Jesus after the resurrection on the basis of hallucinations.

The fact is, he rose from the dead. You know, you just have to face it. It’s the best attested
fact in our history that Jesus did rise from the dead. And how did he do it?

Well, loved ones, if you’d look just at one verse before we close, it’s Romans 1:4, “And designated
Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus
Christ our Lord.” The power came from the spirit, you see the capital S in Spirit. The power for
Jesus’ resurrection came from the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God’s uncreated life and it is him that brings resurrection life. And wherever
he comes, he brings resurrection life. And you yourself can experience resurrection life, loved

ones. Resurrection life touches a dank tomb and turns it into brightness and life. Resurrection
life touches misery and turns it into joy. Really, believe me. Resurrection life can come through
the Holy Spirit into your own life. Really, that’s true. And you have a lot of things in your life
that can be touched into life by this power of the Holy Spirit that raised this man, Jesus, from the
dead.

What have you to do? Well, Hughes shows you what you’ve to do for death life. Just defend yourself
against anything that would hurt you. Spend your life, spend your days defending yourself against
people. Spend your days avoiding people who would be a kind of a nuisance to you. Spend your days
avoiding pain or hurt or discomfort in any way. Do that and the power of satanic death life will
flow into your life. And your life will get smaller and smaller and smaller. And you’ll become a
wizened old man or woman, dried up inside. That’s what happens. You’ve already seen it partly in
your own life and partly in others’ lives.

To experience the resurrection life of the Holy Spirit you do the very opposite, loved ones. Jesus
said, “I am the good shepherd and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” Stop defending
yourself. Stop trying to avoid pain. Stop trying to avoid discomfort and inconvenience. Stop trying
to avoid people who would be a nuisance to you. Stop trying to protect yourself. Lay yourself out
and say, “Lord God, whatever you want to use me for in this life, I’m for it.” And, loved ones,
there’ll be a power of life that will come through you.

And you’ve known it at times. You know you’ve known it. You know you’ve known days when you’ve been
out on some picnic lunch or you’ve been out on some expedition of some kind, and a lot of other
people have left the work to you. And while you resisted it and resented it and were bitter about
it, the going was tough and it was heavy, and you were getting tired. Then, when you suddenly took
a new attitude to it and said, “Ah, I can do it. I can do it.” Suddenly, when you took that
attitude, there was a flow of energy that came into you, and you ended that day having done far more
work than anybody else, but it seemed that you had more energy than you started off the day with.

Now, loved ones, it’s amazing, but that is your Father in heaven trying to give you a notion, “Look,
this is the way I want you to live your whole life. I want you to take my son’s attitude, ‘I have
come to give my life a ransom for many. I’m not demanding that I have all the comfort. I’m not
demanding that I avoid pain and inconvenience. I’m willing, Lord, for whatever you want me to do.
You want me to brush the floor and really painting the wall is nicer? I’ll brush the floor, Lord.
You want that person to type and be in the front office and me to be in the back stuffing these
envelopes? I’ll stuff the envelopes, Lord. You want that person to be out in the boat this
afternoon and me to be back here slaving at the cooker? I’ll do that, Lord.’”

Loved ones, it’s true, really it is. And you know it’s true, because you’ve experienced little bits
of it. That every time you take that attitude, there’s a power that comes into you. That’s
resurrection life. That’s the Holy Spirit. It’s possible to live your whole life that way.

If you want death life, well, just follow Howard Hughes, “I’ve never done anything in this life but
what I wanted to do. I’ve never done anything in this life that I didn’t want to do.” That’s it.
Live that way and the death life will pour through you and you become a miserable creature that has
no friends, that is loved neither by God nor man. Loved ones, if you live that way, you’ll
eventually destroy yourself. If you live just to do what I want to do, if you govern your whole
life by that, the death life will tear you apart. You’ll be filled with ulcers and hypertension and
then on the final day, there’ll be darkness and loneliness and separation from the dear Father of

lights.

To receive resurrection life? O, Jesus said, “My meat…” Meat is something that you need, you can’t
do without, you have to have it every day. “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” If you
want the power of this resurrection life pulsing through your personality and your body, would you
stop living the way you want? Will you stop buying the car you want? Would you stop taking the job
that you want? Would you stop trying to get your way at home, get your way with your roommate, get
your way in personal relationships and would you begin to say, “Lord God, you made me for a purpose
like you made the birds. Father, what is that purpose? I want to do that, Lord.” And every time
an opportunity comes to be Jesus to somebody, be it. Loved ones, if you’re that, there’s a
resurrection life that will come into you, really.

I used to get mad when I was a teenager, at my dad, because the fella always was helping other
people. Or when there was a battle at home, he was the one that gave in, he was the one that
submitted. He was always the one who was giving or giving in. And I would say to him, “Dad,
they’ll destroy you if you keep on at it.” And you know, he had always more energy and more life
than all the rest of us. And it was like that right up until he died. He always had more life and
energy than the rest of us who were protecting ourselves, and defending ourselves, and trying to
keep ourselves comfortable. Loved ones, that’s the secret. If you’re game to lose your life for
his sake, you’ll find it and that resurrection life will begin to pour through. I guarantee it,
loved ones, I guarantee it.

So, I don’t know, are some of you a wee bit wizened? Just little gnarled, tied-up, knotted little
creatures you who are busy defending yourself and, “I’m going to watch my corner?” Well, loved
ones, why not sink it today? Why not see that that leads to one thing. It leads to the kind of end
that Howard Hughes experienced. It really does. That’s the way you end up when you’re always
defending yourself from inconveniences, always trying to avoid anything that will put you out, and
always wanting your way in this life. There’s another dear Person, who is alive at this moment here
in this auditorium, and he’s alive because he lived a different way, and he’s willing to give that
to you.

Let us pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for Easter Sunday. Thank you for it, Lord, because it’s not a
memorial day. Thank you, Lord Jesus that you’re here. Thank you Lord that we’re not at the mercy
of that stream of death life that destroys everything it touches and that has murdered that dear man
that you made at the beginning, that dear fella, Howard Hughes, that you enabled to be born as a
little fresh new baby. Father that we’re not at the mercy of that death life that destroyed him,
but that your resurrection life, Lord Jesus, can come into us through the power of the Holy Spirit
this very day, if we will begin to live for you, Father, for your will, not our own. If we will
begin to live ready to face the awkward jobs, ready to take on the difficult tasks. If we are ready
to stop defending ourselves and preserving our lives, if we’re willing to lose them even for you,
then you will enable us to find them. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Amen.

Our Human Antagonist

Romans 8:31e

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

When you were little, say a five or six year old, did you ever go to a store where your father knew
the owner? And those were kind of magic words — “My dad knows the owner.” Or, “My dad knows the
manager.” Or, “My dad knows the boss.” Or, “My dad knows the custodian.” Or, “My dad knows the
office boy.” Or, “My dad knows anybody that somehow makes this massive thing personal to me.”
That’s the kind of feeling I think, that this person had some connection with me personally and he
would treat me as a person with some kindness, or some fairness, or some honesty not just as some
impersonal kind of customer, but this person would treat me as a person. I think that was really
the heart of it.

As the years passed and we grow into adults it gets more cynical. It becomes the old philosophy,
“It’s not what you know it’s whom you know that counts.” With the idea and the overtones that
you’ll get unfair advantage over somebody else because you’re in the know. But I think when we were
kids it wasn’t that at all, I think it was just, “I know the boss” or “I know the manager” or “my
dad knows him.” And in some way that gives me some connection with him and I can expect to be
treated as a real person with some kindness in this place and it just gives you a great sense of
security. And the whole tenuous connection that you had through your father was consolidated
tremendously if, of all wonderful things, the son of that owner was in your class and suddenly the
fella who actually lived in the same house as the man who owned this huge store, or who ran this
huge restaurant, or who was principal of this great school, suddenly it all came a little step
nearer because you kind of knew his son whom he actually lived with.

Now, that is of course what Easter was all about. That’s what last Sunday was all about. It was
history’s reassurance that a human being like ourselves had died, had disappeared off the earth, had
come back for more than a month and before he disappeared for good had assured us, “My Father is the
creator and the owner of this universe and he loves you and he wants you to have the kind of life
that he and I have.” And suddenly you began to sense you knew the owner of the store and it just
transforms everything. From the world being a kind of lonely, unfriendly place full of things that
you can’t trust and that you have to be scared of, it suddenly becomes a dear friendly place that
your Father owns.

Suddenly the Atlantic is safe for you because it’s his swimming pool and you know that he knows
every corner of that swimming pool and that swimming pool is safe for you because of it. Suddenly
the sunset is something that you own a piece of because your father is the real owner of that. And
loved ones, it has transformed many of our attitudes to the whole world, this experience of
receiving the life of the Spirit of our Creator into us when we receive Jesus as a Savior into our
lives. It changed our whole attitude and it made us think differently and feel differently about
everything that happens to us. And that is of course, the real heart of the verse that we’ve been
studying for about four weeks.

It’s that verse that runs, “If God is for us who is against us?” “If God is for us, who is against
us?” And the whole message in that verse is, listen, if the owner of the universe is for you, what
does it matter who else is against you? And, who really is against you? What we’ve been saying
over the past few weeks is that Satan is against us for one. Satan is a spirit being. There are

human beings like us with human bodies and there are spirit beings, beings that have just spirits,
that have no physical bodies. Satan is a spirit being who used his free will to rebel against the
Creator of the universe. And he’s been permitted by the Creator to continue to exist in order to
provide us with a constant sense of choice throughout our lives as to whether we will listen to his
lies, or his deception about the Creator of the universe — or whether we will listen to the truths
about the Creator of the universe that Jesus has given to us.

And so this Satan has continued to exist by God’s own permission. He’s in fact defeated, because
God only allows him to continue to exist in order to continue to put before us the choice: will we
believe that God is as he says he is, or will we believe lies about him? In other words, it’s to
continue to bring before us the responsibility we have to exercise our free will but Satan is, in
fact, defeated. And Jesus made that very clear, when he said, “Listen, you don’t have to do much
with Satan to get rid of him.” And James, I think, said it most clearly in James 4:7 if you look at
it. And this may be good to remember because I think a lot of us build Satan up in our minds and
don’t realize that his only power is that of deception and lying and really, he himself has no
power. To get rid of him all we have to do is what God shows us in James 4:7.

James 4:7, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
Actually, that’s all we have to do. You don’t have to put on a big battle and start casting him out
of yourself and make a whole deal about it, you just have to resist him actually because he is
defeated. He is only suffered by God to continue to exist to bring before us the need to choose
God’s truth rather than his lies to exercise our free wills. God wants us to exercise our free
wills. He doesn’t want them to go to sleep or be passive and so he allows Satan to continue to
exist. But all we have to do to get rid of him is refuse him and resist him. Refuse to acquiesce
in his lies and that’s it.

So loved ones, will you remember that anybody who is getting all down under Satan and believing the
lie that he is some being with tremendous power, he has not. You just resist him and he’ll flee
from you — that’s it. I think some of us this morning might answer the question differently.
Romans 8:31 goes, “If God is for us who is against us?” And I think some of us here this morning
might say, “Well, Satan’s against me. My own misconceptions of God are against me. The lies I
believe about God they’re against me. I see that. But if you were in my shoes week, after week,
after week, you’d see who was against me. My wife does not understand what I have to face
day-by-day, she doesn’t. She doesn’t understand as old Archie (Bunker) would say, “It’s a jungle
out there.” She doesn’t.”

Or “My poor husband, he’s against me. He just doesn’t understand the amount of work that has to be
done at home. He’s my enemy. Who is against me? My son, he’s against me. He doesn’t understand
the responsibilities I have. He doesn’t understand how difficult it is to keep bread in the home
day-by-day. He’s against me. My friends are against me. They’re against me day-by-day. Do you
know they let me down at the worst possible moment, just when I need them most they let me down.
Who is against me? All kinds of people are against me. They’re not against me all the time but
yeah, I have enemies working against me. My professor, he’s against me. If you saw the busy work
that he expects me to turn in day, after day, after day, you’d see how much he’s against me. If you
saw my roommate, you’d see that she’s against me if you saw the way she treats the room as if it’s
just her room — you’d think nobody else was living in the room but her. You’d think I have no
rights to have anything in that room at all. Yeah, she’s against me. The repairman is against me.
The plumber is against me. The electrician is against me. I know they’re out to get me. They’re
out to bring my life to a grinding halt. Who is against me? All kinds of people are against me.”

And loved ones, I’m wondering how many of us would say that — “we have enemies, all kinds of
enemies that really don’t understand where it’s at with us. We have friends that, if they had any
sense, they would stand by us but they let us down at just the wrong time. My boss is against me, he
expects me to do all kinds of ridiculous things just because I’m conscientious. He gives me far
more than I can handle. He’s against me. My associates at work, they’re against me. Just because
I’m responsible they leave everything to me and I’m left holding the heavy end all the time.” How
many of us loved ones, would say that?

And you know it’s dumb — it just is. It is lies and bluff completely. Even if those poor souls do
something against you they probably are not conscious that they’re doing it. And if they are
conscious that they’re doing it, they’re probably not conscious of all the effects it’s having on
you. And they probably, even though it looks to you as if they’ve done it with malice or
forethought, it looks to you as if they’ve sat up in their room at night working out, “How can I
destroy that person?” Even though it looks to you that way probably it isn’t that. There aren’t
too many of us that spend our evenings planning each other’s destruction the next day. Probably
even if they have worked against you they’ve done it without knowing. Or, if they’ve done it at all
they’ve done it without realizing the effects it would have on your life.

But loved ones, the most important thing of all is they didn’t initiate the thing at all. They
didn’t. Now, you’ll see that, if Jesus was faced with it, faced with a dear friend who just at a
crucial point in Jesus’ life showed that he didn’t understand where Jesus was at at all and he
advised Jesus to do something that was exactly opposite to what Jesus knew he should do, and wait
till you see the way Jesus speaks to him. It’s Matthew 16:21, “From that time Jesus began to show
his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests
and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him and began to rebuke
him, saying, ‘God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter,”
and obviously he didn’t address Peter but addressed the real person who had prompted Peter to say
that. “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me.” Not, “Get behind me, Peter! You are a
hindrance to me.” But, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the
side of God, but of men.”

Loved ones, they aren’t your enemies. Your dear wife, your dear husband, your dear friends, that
mother who is out to destroy your life, that father who just does not understand what life is like
today for sons and daughters, they are not your enemies and they themselves have no desire to
destroy you. But Satan gets into all of us and deceives us into saying things and doing things that
work for the destruction of the other person. But loved ones, it is him that is doing it.

Now, I agree with you, Jesus knew that if he had continued to acquiesce in that lie of Satan and
that deception, eternal death would eventually come to him. And I agree completely with you, that
if they continue to acquiesce in Satan’s lies and Satan’s deception eternal death will come to them
so it is their responsibility before God. But loved ones, it’s time we ourselves saw that the
initiation of the action does not come from them. They simply go with a tide that is flowing from
Satan towards us. It is Satan himself that is at the back of it.

And Jesus saw it so clearly that when men and women act against each other it is not them themselves
that are doing it. To a certain extent, loved ones, we human beings are really neutral instruments
that have to be governed either by a power of good or a power of evil, a power of God or a power of
Satan and all we do is acquiesce and say, “Yes to that power or yes to that power.” But loved ones,

it’s the power that we have to resist and stand against. It is not the poor little instrument that
Satan uses at that time. Jesus made this clear about Peter in Luke 22:31. Jesus made it clear
that Satan has no body of his own and so he has to act through the bodies of human beings and his
aim is to get hold of these human beings so that he can use them.

Luke 22:31, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat,
but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen
your brethren. And he said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.’ He
said, ‘I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you three times deny that you know
me.’” And yet Jesus had no antagonism to Peter. And it would have been so easy for us to say,
“I’ve told you Peter all that I know. I’ve shown you myself more openly than anybody else and yet
you’re going to deny me?” And yet Jesus didn’t take that attitude to him at all but said, “Satan is
anxious to use you but I have prayed for you.”

Now loved ones, it’s the same with us. Do you not see that Satan laughs when he gets a husband and
wife fighting each other? Do you not see that? Do you not see that he sits and laughs because he
knows that they’re responding not against each other but against him and actually they’re ignoring
their real enemy and they’re fighting bluff enemies. Loved ones, every time roommates argue back
and forward and are sarcastic with each other, do you see that Satan laughs because it is him that
prompted that argument in the first place.

Every time you work up a tremendous resentment against your boss, or against some authority that is
over you, you send at least psychic emotions and thoughts against that person but probably even
more, you release spiritual powers against them and Satan laughs because that isn’t your real enemy
at all — it’s him that is underneath. And what is he trying to do? Well, it’s there in Galatians
5:15, “But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another.”
Loved ones, that’s what Satan is after.

He wants to get us to consume each other. He is after our death and if he can get you to once treat
your roommate, or your husband, or your wife, or your boss, or your associate at work, or your
friend in class even temporarily as your enemy –“who is against me? These monsters are against
me.” If he can once get you to treat them like that, he’s already begun to use you to bring about
their destruction. How many husbands have died early of hypertension because of the nagging,
nagging, nagging of their wives? And how many wives have died of ulcers and of anxiety because of
husbands who would not take their own place of responsibility in the home? How many mums and dads
have been worn to early deaths by kids that wouldn’t put themselves in their parents’ shoes for one
moment? How many bosses have retired early because the people working under them never thought of
them as anything but a boss and never for one moment thought of them as a human being with ordinary
family troubles like everybody else? Loved ones, Satan’s job is to use us to destroy each other.

What is Jesus’ way? Distinguish your real enemy. For goodness sake stop fighting as if they were
both your enemy. See that one is usually the innocent tool, or the deceived tool, or the tricked
tool of the real enemy that is Satan. Would you resist Satan, would you stand against him, and
would you pray for the person that lives with you, or pray for the person that you work with? Loved
ones, will you start making a distinction?

1 Corinthians 13 is so good and I used to think Paul was dumb –“love believes all things.” I
thought, “Believe all things and you’re destroyed, you’re ruined.” And then I began to see love
bears all things. One of the modern translations says, “Love is always eager to believe the best.”

Loved ones, start doing that with the people that you think are your enemies. Start being eager to
believe the best about them. Start seeing this is Satan that used them to bring this about. “Lord,
I believe that. I believe the best about them. I believe that they have been deceived by Satan and
Lord Jesus I pray for them now that you will give them light and enable them to see the situation
rightly. And now Satan, I resist you, I stand against you, I refuse any affects that this will have
in my life.”

But loved ones, that’s the way to deal with our real enemy. Stop this business of who is against us
— your friends, your wives, your husbands, your associates — it doesn’t even seem reasonable if
you think about it that they should be against you. But, it is true that Satan is in fact using
you. I think many of us say, “But they’ll destroy me — they’ll destroy me if I keep letting them
do this. If I don’t resist them or stand against them they’ll destroy my life.” Loved ones, God has
made it clear who is in charge. You should look at it, 1 Corinthians 10:13. “No temptation has
overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond
your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to
endure it.”

There’s no trial and there’s no difficulty that has come upon you through another person, or through
circumstances, or through events that God has not already examined lovingly and stamped, “Okay, they
can bear that.” And any that you cannot bear he has already filtered out of the situation so that
it will not come to you. Loved ones, do you realize how many situations could come that would have
destroyed you already? You know how weak you are, you know the kind of thing that could have
destroyed you in one stroke. God has kept all those things from you. And there is no trial, and
there’s no temptation, there’s no difficulty that comes to you day-by-day that has not already been
examined closely by him and has been stamped, “Okay — personally adapted to you — you can bear
it.”

And he has already worked out a way by which you can escape and a way by which you can be delivered.
And the only way that you find it is to immediately look up to him and stop fighting those paper
tigers. Stop fighting those enemies that aren’t he real enemy. Resist the real enemy and look to
the Father who has already planned a way of escape. You know so many of us think in our own human
little terms and we say, “Yeah, yeah, but my boss, him, He couldn’t control him. My boss has no
respect for man, or God, or beast. Nobody could touch my boss.” And loved ones, don’t you see it’s
dumb! Don’t you see that there is no one beyond the Father’s control.

It’s there in Proverbs and it’s a verse that has helped a lot of us that have been concerned about
our futures, and about the powers the professors have over our futures whether we pass or not, about
bosses and the authority they seem to have over our promotion. It’s Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s
heart,” even the heart of the king, “is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it
wherever he will.” Loved ones it does not matter if it’s President Ford, it does not matter if it’s
Putin, it does not matter if it’s an unfeeling professor, it does not matter if it’s an
unsympathetic boss. Do you see, the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord and the Lord turns
it whichever way he wants for your eventual good.

There is no wild-cat force in your life that is not under the control of your living Father. There
is no force that he cannot switch whatever way he eventually wants to bring about what he has
planned in your life. And loved ones, the way he does it is the way he does it with you, he woos
you to do certain things. So he does with the boss, and the kings, and the professors of this
world. There is no enemy, there is no power that can destroy your life or bring anything into it

that God himself does not want.

Many of us say, “But the things that I’ve gone through I can’t even see the purpose of them. It
seems that these individuals are just senseless, stupid, uncomprehending forces. They’re almost
automatons or robots. These people and these things that happen to me, there’s no sense or purpose
in them.” And loved ones, you know the purpose is obvious right throughout scripture and it will be
obvious in your life too if you begin to look at it this way. It’s in Job that is quoted as the
book that talks about suffering. And so many people who don’t understand it say, “Oh yeah, that’s a
problem book.” And really it’s not — it’s a beautiful book that expresses the heart of the way God
uses trials and difficulties.

It’s Job 19:13, and many of us wonder, “Satan’s work seems to be pointless, seems to be purposeless.
How can God bring any meaning out of it?” Verse 13, “He has put my brethren far from me.” This is
the kind of isolation that Job experienced. “He has put my brethren far from me, and my
acquaintances are wholly estranged from me. My kinsfolk and my close friends have failed me; the
guests in my house have forgotten me; my maidservants count me as a stranger; I have become an alien
in their eyes. I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must beseech him with my mouth.
I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother. Even young children despise me;
when I rise they talk against me. All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have
turned against me. My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my
teeth. Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! Why
do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh? Oh that my words were
written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven
in the rock for ever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God.” That’s why.
There’s no way to come to depend on the Father until you find that all other dependencies are bluff
and temporal and will pass away.

Now loved ones, every so called enemy of yours is some poor soul that is deceived or tricked by
Satan with a view to destroying you and God is turning the whole thing round so that you will be
brought to a place of such confidence in him that you will not depend on any other crutch be it good
health, many friends, good wife, husband, father, mother, reliable job. Loved ones, really if God
is for us who is against us? Nobody worth talking about, that’s the truth. Thank God. Let us
pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for your clear word to us that there is no trial or temptation come upon
us above what we are able to bear. And that with the trial itself there’ll be immediately a way of
escape that you have devised. And Father thank you for showing us that this dear roommate of ours,
even these dear ones that are competing against us at work, they are not in control of things
themselves. Even those who do the worst against us are being used by the power that rebelled
against you. And Lord we thank you that that power has no power worth talking about. Thank you
Father that we can resist Satan and we can immediately look to you in every situation and find out
from you how you are bringing us into greater dependence on yourself through this trial, through
this difficulty. Thank you Lord that if you are for us then there is no one against us who is not
under your control. Thank you, Lord. Amen.

God’s Love

Romans 8:32a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Campus Church started about six years ago at the end of 1970 and there were about 200 of us who were
under 20 and there were about four of us who were over 20. Stan and Emma Halverson were over 50,
and I was 36. And today, you know, the elders are maybe 26 or 27 and we regard them as venerable
wise old men because they’re that age. But it was good in some ways because we saw some truths more
clearly, simply on account of the fact that we were often looking at them from the viewpoint always
of sons and daughters and it was good in a way.

For instance, we took Jesus’ words at their face value when he said, “You have to leave your nets
and follow me, or if anyone wants to come after me let him deny himself, take up his cross and
follow me, or any of you that will lose your life for my sake will save it.” It was good, we really
believed that, and we really felt that we did have to take all our training, and our education, and
our degrees and lay them at his feet and ask him what he wanted us to do with them. We did see the
issue wasn’t ignore education, ignore training, ignore degrees — but what are you using them for?
Are you using them for your own advancement or are you using them for Jesus’ advancement?

The mums and dads here will excuse me saying this but the interesting thing was that the opposition
to that approach came not from our peers at college. And that’s true, the opposition we got was
not from our peers at college, strangely enough it was from our moms and our dads because they kind
of took the attitude, “Why do you think we sacrificed to get you a good education and a good
training and now you are going to become a nothing. Why don’t you get a good paying job, marry some
nice girl or guy and gather some security for yourself for the future.” And it was kind of
surprising to us you know because we were such a young body, it was surprising to get that often
coming from our homes, not from all our homes, but many of our homes.

And of course we began to think, “Well, we are pretty holy people when even these wise men and women
who are our dads and mums begin to think that even before we are sacrificing.” Of course, it wasn’t
long before we discovered we were just as sick as they were and our personalities were just as sick
because we were brought up in prosperity and not in the depression, so we weren’t eager all the time
to get material things but we discovered that we were just as eager to get status among our peers or
to get enjoyment out of life. We began to realize that the idea that they had sick personalities
was ridiculous, our personalities were pretty sick. We found that the problem wasn’t knowing what
was right to do or what was wrong, but the problem was that we seemed to have personalities that
were bent and twisted.

And we could see these statements of Jesus, “Make nothing of yourself, take up your cross and follow
me,” but we found there was something inside us that didn’t want to make nothing of ourselves.
There was something inside us that wanted to make a great deal of ourselves and wanted to splay
ourselves all over everybody else’s life and wanted everybody to see us and glorify us. So we saw
that our personalities were the things that were at fault. There was something selfish and carnal,
and something twisted and perverted and irrational inside us and we could not change. We could look
away and admire a truth or we could want to do something, but our personalities seemed themselves to
be radically twisted out of joint and those we couldn’t do anything about.

And, that’s why Jesus of course, was so precious to us because we saw that God had taken all the
dirtiest part of our personalities, all the most copious part, all the greediest part, all the most
obnoxious part, the part that we couldn’t do anything about, the part that tried to grasp for
attention when we knew we should be humble, the part that tried to grasp for things when we knew we
should give to the other person, the part that tried to tear the other person down when we knew that
we should actually be building them up. That God took the worst part of our personalities, the
dirtiest most rotten part and put it into his son Jesus and destroyed it there and that in fact our
old self was crucified with Christ. And that the moment we believed that all of that garbage was
buried with Jesus forever and we didn’t have to live with the results coming up like a smell in our
lives continually every time we tried to do something good, he moment we believed that had been
destroyed by God and his son Jesus and the moment we submitted to the Spirit of Jesus we were free
from it all. That was the miracle, loved ones, that we began to experience.

Now what God says to us this morning is, “In the light of all that, what do you think is my present
attitude to you?” And that is really what the verse says so would you look at it loved ones, it’s
Romans 8:32. “He who did not spare his own Son,” — and it is interesting you know the Greek word I
think is “osge” and it’s emphasizing ‘this very one, the very same God who did not spare his own
son’ — “but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” Really what God
is saying through Paul is, if I give up my own son for you, wouldn’t I give you everything else that
you need?

Really like a father who gives his kidney, one of his kidneys, for his son because he knows that
transplant will save his son’s life and then several weeks later on his son cuts his finger and asks
his dad for a band-aid, will his dad not give him the band-aid? Sure, no question. So if God
gives up his own son and gives really part of himself for you and for me then surely he is going to
give you any band-aids you need, he’s not going to stop at that if he did this for you. Old Martin
Luther puts it like this and maybe it’s good especially for all you miserable old Lutherans to
listen, ah that dear fellow you know, he was just so great wasn’t he. If we read Luther as God’s
man and not as the head of some church, we’d get so much from it.

“Picture well to yourself this dear own son,” writes Luther. “Then you will feel intimately this
flow of divine love. If you had a son, who was not only your own bodily son but also your only
son, an intelligent, wise, sensible, pious, good and very dear son and for the sake of a miserable
strange servant who in addition was your debtor, you now spared not this son, but you send and let
him go and endure even death just in order to redeem that servant, how great a love you had for that
servant.” Or you know if you think of it that God had a dear son who loved him with all of his
heart and who trusted him completely and who submitted his will utterly to his Father, a son that
had committed his life to doing nothing but expressing his father’s life and his father’s love that
his father wanted throughout the whole universe. That this son was the most beautiful being in the
whole world, the last thing that ever needed to be destroyed in the whole universe. On the one side
you have that dear beautiful son and on the other side was Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, heartless,
relentless destroyers. You had Bluebeards, and pimps and perverts that used men and women’s bodies
like cattle. You had railroad barons and kings who used cheap labor to make as much profit and
money as they could.

On the other side, you had that ugly mass of humanity and us here. Us miserable creatures here with
our dried up, little hearts grasping for everything that we can rasp from everybody else. With our
own clever little minds always working out how we can keep ourselves on top and keep everybody else
underneath. With our own miserable little emotions wanting to get all the enjoyment we possibly can

strain from other people. And God looks on one side at this most beautiful Son and at this
miserable ugly mass of humanity on the other and he says to his son, “My son you see them, they have
so perverted their own natures that if I offered them my Holy Spirit they are not even free to make
a choice and to receive it and if I destroy that miserable, perverted nature and those carnal
personalities of theirs, they’ll be destroyed with them. My son, will you let me put that into you
and destroy it in you so that they at least have a free opportunity to receive your Spirit of life?”
That was the choice here.

Have you ever cleaned up anyone’s sickness? Have you ever cleaned up anyone’s sickness? Have you
ever had anybody spit in your face? We talk a lot about that, but have you ever had anybody spit in
your face? Probably it is few enough of us actually have. Would you think of the worst thought you
have ever had when you’re alone? Would you think of the worst thing you have ever done in your whole
life? Would you think of the rottenest, dirtiest thing you have ever said? Now would you describe
that to me so that I can think that thought, or do that deed, or say those things for the next year
of my life. You know what you think, even those of you who have not talked to me, you know, you
just recall it, you just recall it.

Now loved ones, that’s what happened. The worst, most critical, most dirty, most lustful, most
domineering part of you, God transferred into his own son Jesus, and destroyed it in him. The worst
of you, the part of you that you can’t even bear to look at, that part God the creator put into his
son Jesus. Because you see that thing that you have done would otherwise go on throughout the
universe forever. It would. Time and space are infinite and somewhere in the universe the things
that you and I have said and done go on and can be observed and their effects can be felt somewhere
in the universe forever, if it weren’t for this miracle of God. It’s obvious that many of the stars
that you see now no longer exist. They don’t exist. Those stars, many of them that we see at
night, they’re no longer in existence, they died years and years ago. It’s their light that we see
continuing to come towards us.

Now in the universe every act, and every word, and every thought would ricochet through the universe
forever intensifying its hold on you and spreading its pollution throughout the whole place had it
not been for the fact that God took that part of you, that twisted, miserable personality under
which you are prepared at this moment to continue living and he put it into his son Jesus and he
destroyed it there. And so, there isn’t a dirty word that you have spoken, there is not a wretched
temper fit that you have had, there is not an unclean thought that you have experienced that Jesus
who never had any of those things himself, has not taken into himself and tasted fully so that his
Father could destroy it forever. That’s why God says, “Jesus tasted death for every man.” Jesus
tasted that destruction for you. For whom? Ah, the verse says you know, “God gave his own son for
us all.” That means for you, and that means for you, and for you, and for you, and for you, and for
me.

God took the worst that each of us have and put it into his son Jesus and destroyed it there. Why?
Because they both wanted us to be free from these miserable, selfish, carnal personalities that are
always standing up for their own rights and wanting their own way and they both knew that we could
never overcome them by all the psychology in the world and that only if they destroyed them
themselves, would we have any chance of being free. And the whole purpose of it was so that we
could receive the spirit of Jesus into us, that spirit that makes him the most beautiful person in
the whole world. The real purpose in him taking the worst of you into himself and having it
destroyed there was so that you could receive his Spirit into your life and submit yourself and your
life to that Spirit and become like him.

Will God give you that Spirit, loved ones? Yeah, the question is foolish. Will he who did not
spare his own son, will he not give us all things with him? Of course he’ll give you the Holy
Spirit, that’s the whole purpose in Jesus dying. God is not unwilling to give you a spirit that can
change your life and then you say, “But brother, I’ve tried a hundred times to change, can I ever
change, can I ever submit my will to God?” Loved ones, if you answer no, you deny what I described
ever happened on Calvary. You deny that God took the worst of your personality, took you yourself
and put you into Jesus, destroyed that personality there and has killed it. That personality of
yours that loves to be proud, that loves people to look up to it, that loves to be respected, that
loves to criticize others, that was taken and put into Jesus and destroyed there. If you say you
cannot submit to God because you have tried a hundred times and failed, you deny that God in fact
ever took your old self and destroyed it in Jesus and you cast yourself into a moral morass in
Romans 7:15 which reads, “I do not understand my own actions. Because the good that I would I
cannot do, and the evil that I want to avoid that is the very thing I do.” And you throw yourself
into a hellish world where people continue to destroy themselves with their selfish personalities
forever in darkness.

No loved ones, the truth is that it is because God has destroyed that perverted, irrational streak
in your personality in Jesus on Calvary that you can submit to him. And love ones I’d repeat that,
don’t you see that the whole trend of even today’s – most of today’s psychology, most of today’s
sociology is bent on reinforcing Satan’s lie that you cannot. So a 100 of you, 200, 500 of you here
this morning, 500, 700, maybe 800 of us here this morning are struggling with something in our lives
that we cannot overcome and loved ones the truth is you cannot overcome it on your own, but you can
believe that God your creator has destroyed that personality in Jesus and you don’t need to live
under that kind of power any longer. And, loved ones it is possible to take a mighty leap and to
leap into cleanness this morning by faith, it is.

If you keep on with this pit-patching and trying to do your best and working at it with little aids
and little help-yourself techniques, you’ll get nowhere. You’ll be in a deeper sinking sand than
you were when you started. The only way loved ones, is to believe that this man that died on
Calvary was not simply a political criminal, he was not simply a substitute for you; he was you.
When he died, you died. When he was crucified and cried out, “My God, My God, why hast thou
forsaken me?” It was not the weight of his selfishness, it was not the weight of his lust that made
him feel far from God, it was the weight of your lust, and your selfishness, and your pride and my
ambition, that was what made him feel that. But, do you see the beauty of it? If that’s why he
died, then that thing is finished with and that is destroyed and crucified.

And if you say to me, “Well, why am living under it?” Because love ones, you’re believing a lie,
you’re believing that this life is still very much yours to do what you want with. You’re believing
that you have not been crucified with Jesus, you’re believing that this life is yours to do what you
want with and while you are believing that, you are believing a lie and you live under the effect of
that lie. But, loved ones this morning it is possible, honestly, anything that is done by faith can
be done in a moment. It is possible this morning to see it in a new way and to see that that
personality that you’re struggling with was destroyed in Jesus and that he can give you that sweet
spirit that fills his life and makes it beautiful and it can change your life. But it takes a step
of faith. A declaration this morning, “I’m going to no longer live under sin as if I have to live
under it. I’m going to no longer live under the power of my own greed as if I have to live under
it. Lord I step out of that this morning and step out of those graveclothes and into yours.”

Loved ones I know it is amazing, I know. I know as you sit there you think, “Will that do it?” The
power of thought will not do it, it’s the thought that follows what God has done in history, that’s
what does it. It’s you aligning yourself with what God has done in your life and it’s possible,
really it is. It is, it’s possible to be delivered this very morning.

God’s Kindness

Romans 8:32b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

“Do you use mountain-grown coffee? You know it’s the richest kind!” [quote from a popular TV
commercial for coffee] I’ve often imagined what I would feel like if I were a woman and that
miserable creature of a husband curls up his mouth and looks down at my coffee — I think I’d just
lift the pot and pour it right over his head! Let him go and marry Mrs. Olsen if he wants.

And I think all of us feel much that way when we reflect upon the thing, but somehow most of us will
probably have to admit those wretched commercials get to us. There’s something inside us that wants
to be as good, if not better, than everybody else. And there’s something in us that makes us want
to please our husbands and we want to be as good a wife as everybody else. We want to ride off into
the sunset with the most beautiful girl in the class and we’re ready to buy whatever will bring that
about. We find ourselves again and again with part of our personalities responding to these silly
TV commercials.

And of course the fact that the commercials are continuing to be shown shows that they are very
effective. Obviously a lot of people are motivated either by accusation or by false guilt to try
to be as brilliant as the actor in that commercial is. And there are many fiancés who want to be as
kind to their loved one as everybody else who deals with Goodman Jewelers. There’s something in us
that feels, “Maybe he is right; if his name isn’t on my car maybe I did pay too much for it.”
There’s a thing inside us that wants to get as much as we can for as little as we can. There’s
something inside us that makes us want to grab as much happiness as we feel the Constitution says
we’re to pursue and we have a right to. There’s something that makes us want to be as good as
everybody else and that’s, of course, what all the commercials depend on.

And it’s funny up to the point where you eventually extend yourself too far financially because of
these strong urges inside you. Or you find that this desire to be better than every other husband
brings its own trail of nervous exhaustion and irritability into your home. Or your desire to have
your wife better than everybody else brings into your marital relationship a kind of critical spirit
that begins to destroy the home. And then you begin to realize that this is not just a way of
selling things, this thing inside me that responds to these commercials is also the same thing that
begins to spoil my happiness, and my friendship, and my marriage.

And of course many of us have looked at that thing inside us and tried all kinds of psychological
techniques to get rid of it. We really have seen that you can carry ambition too far and this
desire to be as good as everybody else and to be better than everybody else eventually brings you
under slavery to people’s opinions and begins to enslave you as a prisoner to what everybody else
thinks you should do. This desire to have all the happiness you can possibly get your hands on,
eventually makes you utterly resentful to any event that comes into your life that is at all
inconvenient to you.

You begin to find that these things are inside you and somehow they won’t change. So you try the
psychological techniques and the power of positive thinking methods and you try all the systems you
can and yet none of them seem to be capable of changing this reaction that your personality has.
Loved ones, I think many of us find ourselves in that situation — we just are baffled and really

don’t know what to do. Then it is that many of us at last discover that that’s what Calvary is all
about. That what God did was take that twisted, perverted personality that keeps on responding in
those ways and he put it into Jesus and destroyed it there. And any of us who believe that and
submit to the Spirit of Jesus is able to be free from it.

Many of us here walk free from those things, but I think many of us here are under them. I think
many of you have your life dominated by what somebody will think of you, by what either your boss
will think of you, or what your friends will think of you, or what your parents think of you. Many
of us are dominated by a desire, “We must have as nice a house as that other person has, who
graduated with me from school.” Many of us here have a great desire to have things under control,
we must have everything under control and if there’s anything that slips out of our control, we get
mad and irritated about it.

Many of us, loved ones, I think you’d admit, find ourselves with a personality that is exactly
suited to responding to those silly carrots that the commercials and everybody else holds in front
of us. And if that were all, it wouldn’t be so bad, but we find that that same personality, twisted
and perverted as it is, is also the thing that makes it impossible for us to do what we know is
right in the world. And so really it’s a relief for many of us to find that that’s what Calvary is
about. God took that twisted, perverted personality, put it into his son Jesus and destroyed it
there. And because of that, it is possible to be delivered from it by the Spirit of Jesus.

Now what we saw last Sunday was that that was a hideous experience for Jesus himself — an
unbelievable, macabre experience for him to go though. And it’s referred to, loved ones, in Romans
8:3, “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” Now sin in the flesh is just
the independent life inside each one of us that wants to substitute our friend’s approval for God’s
approval. Sin in the flesh is that. It’s that tendency of all our personalities to want to
substitute everybody else’s approval and acknowledgment for God’s approval and acknowledgment, so
that we don’t have to deal with God.

Now that sin in the flesh is an unmanageable trait in each one of our personalities. It’s a trait
that you with all your psychological techniques cannot control. Now God took that trait and put it
into his son Jesus and destroyed it there. That’s what it means when it says, “God condemned sin in
the flesh.” He took the trait in you that wants so badly to ride off into the sunset with the most
beautiful girl in the whole school, he took that trait and he put it into Jesus and he destroyed it
there. And because of that it is possible for you to be free from it.

Part of it really is this: in Colossians it says, “You died with Christ.” And the fact is that after
each one of us here in this auditorium is physically dead, you couldn’t care less about anyone
else’s opinion. They won’t matter – they can cut down whoever they want but you don’t care — you
don’t care about who gets the most beautiful girl in the class. Once you’re physically dead, those
things aren’t important.

Now the truth is that God took you and put you into his son Jesus, and destroyed you there so that
you can experience the same freedom that you will have in physical death through dying with Christ
right there. Really, that’s it.

Now, loved ones, some of us here live in that freedom, honestly. Some of us live here as if we have
died physically and we have been delivered from those tremendous desires that seem to govern us and

dictate to us while we’re alive. Now that’s what it means when it says, “God condemned that sin in
the flesh.” He actually condemned it to destruction — he destroyed it. It meant incredible pain
for Jesus, you know. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “God made him to be sin who knew no
sin.” Jesus himself was willing to be regarded as worse than everybody else. But he took that
tremendous sense of irritation, and discontent, and restlessness that you and I have often felt when
we found someone else being praised more than we were, he has taken that tremendous sense of
restlessness, and irritability, and discontent and he put it into Jesus. Even though Jesus himself
never had that feeling himself, God put it into Jesus and destroyed it there.

The terrible sense of loneliness and abandonment that you and I have felt after we’ve had one of our
bouts of self-centeredness or our bouts of selfishness, God took that tremendous sense of desolation
and loneliness and abandonment that you and I experienced, and even though Jesus had never
experienced that himself, God put it into his son Jesus and Jesus experienced it there. That
tremendous sense of discontent that you haven’t enough happiness, and that you’re not as happy as so
and so is — that tremendous sense of discontent, that tremendous sense of frustration that you
felt, God put into his son Jesus and destroyed it there. In other words, loved ones, everything
that you and I have ever experienced, Jesus took into himself for us and took it through death.

And, of course, that’s part of the problem when we first become Christians. We receive into
ourselves this dear Spirit of Jesus, this dear Spirit of this man from Nazareth who was willing to
be despised and regarded as an absolute criminal, who was willing to be absolutely unhappy in order
to make everybody else happy, who was willing to have nothing and to have what he had taken away
from him. We have this dear, gentle, beautiful spirit of Jesus come into us and it comes into this
roaring lion — this wild personality of ours that wants all the happiness it can get, that wants to
be better than everybody else, that wants to have its own way whatever it costs everybody else —
and that’s the conflict that many Christians feel. They feel the Spirit inside them of this dear
Jesus struggling against this personality that they have. Now loved ones, the truth is that God
took that personality of yours that is so miserable and he put it into his son Jesus and he
destroyed it there. And you don’t need to live under that, you don’t need to live a slave to that.

And it’s important to see that God did it not just for the whole world. Here’s the verse that we’re
studying today, which says, “God gave up his son for us all.” And it’s vital for you as you sit
there to see that God did not do that for the fellow beside you, or the girl beside you, and not for
you. God did not do this with a great satanic power of evil that you found exhibited in Hitler or
in Joe Stalin — God has done it for you. God took your personality, that miserable little dried up
thing that is such a burden to you, and that is such a burden to all your friends, he took that,
loved ones, and he put it into his son Jesus, and he destroyed it there.

You want to know what it cost? Would you let your son pay a $500 fine if it would free some of us
here? Now, would you let your son serve a year’s prison sentence if it would free one of us here?
Now, would you let your son experience the consequences of the venereal disease gonorrhea, if it
would cure one of us here? Now, the last is the nearest to the truth, the last intensified a
billion, trillion times is what Jesus endured for you and me. Loved ones, the very worst that you
have ever produced, God put into his son, Jesus, who was not like that at all, himself, and
destroyed it in death so that you could be free from it.

And was it just Jesus? It wasn’t. If a Father and son were close together, it was Jesus and the
Father. Your father and my father, they’re poor copies of what the Father in heaven is. You

remember Jesus said, “I and my Father are one. I can’t do anything apart from my Father.” You
remember the Father himself said, “This is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased; this is really
the apple of my eye.” And we need to see that it was the Father who was sacrificing, it was the
Father who loved, that gave a son for this purpose.

I think some of us wonder, well what is love? I think some of us who have husbands, and wives, and
fiancés, and lovers, and friends, we’ll often think, “Oh, you’re giving me gifts and you’re giving
me things, but they’re things, things, things — love is giving yourself to me.” I think we feel
that, don’t we? There are many people who are friends and they’ll give us things, but you know a
person loves you when they really give themselves to you — and that’s why we talk about God’s love.
God gave us the rain and the trees and these clothes and this building and the bodies that you and
I all have, but the greatest thing was — when it came down to the crunch — he reached into the
innermost depths of his own intimate family and he destroyed all the uninterrupted peace and harmony
that he had with his Son and he allowed the dearest being in the whole world, the only being that
really has the same nature as him, to be torn out from his arms and to become the first creature who
would die absolutely alone in the dark.

That’s the kind of love that our Creator has and that’s the kind of love that he has for you. And
loved ones, nobody else has loved you to that extent. Nobody else has loved you even to dying, let
alone taking all the worst that you have ever had in the world bearing down on you so that you have
to cry out, “My God, my God, why has God forsaken me?” Nobody has ever gone to hell for you but
this dear one, Jesus. And it was so that you could be free from it.

I’d like to share with you the last part of the verse, loved ones. It’s Romans 8:32, “He who did not
spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” The
first part is for love, you see — it’s giving yourself because he didn’t spare his own son, but
gave him up for us. And the second part is kindness — will he not also give us all things? Love
is giving yourself and kindness is giving things and that’s what God says this morning to all of us,
“Listen, if I was willing to destroy my own family, if I was willing to take part of myself, my own
son, and put into him all the worst that you ever thought and said and did, and allowed him to be
destroyed and to go to hell for you — if I love you that much, don’t you see that I’ll certainly be
kind to you. If I love you that much, I’m certainly going to give you what things you need.” And
really that’s it. Surely the Father who gave himself and his own son for us, surely he’s going to
give to all of us all the things we need.

You know, some of us are pretending today. We say, “Yeah, but sometimes he hasn’t come through for
me.” And it’s important to see what that verse in Philippians 4:19 says, “That my God will supply
all your needs from his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Loved ones, if this dear Father loves you
as much as this, you have to trust him to judge what you need. You have to trust that he really does
love you and that he is judging what your needs are and knows them better than you. He knows when
you need to have a happy time, he knows when you have to have a sad time. He knows when you have to
lie in green pastures. He knows when you have to walk beside still waters. He knows when you have
to go through the valley of the shadow of death. He knows what is needed to make you like his son,
Jesus. Loved ones, God loves you so much that he gave his son for you — he certainly is going to
be kind and give you what you need — but when you trust him to judge your needs. Will you stop
crying like little babies and saying, “You’re not giving what I need” when you see that he loves you
more than you love yourself. God surely will be kind to you. He surely will give you what you need.

I think some of us say, “Yeah, well he’s come through for me but what makes me uncertain about
depending on him is obviously some things I should work for myself and some things I should trust
him for. I mean I obviously shouldn’t lie back in my arm chair or my recliner and pray for a double
dip of chocolate chip and just expect it to come down.” And I think a lot of us feel that way,
“Well yeah I see that if he loves me this much, he wants to give me what I need, but I have trouble
seeing what I should trust him for, and what I should work for myself.”

Loved ones, there’s a piece in Mark that talks about a woman that sold ointment; who took ointment
that she had and put it on Jesus’ feet. Then there’s another woman who has the same kind of
attitude but gave the one mite that she had into the offering plate for the poor. And then the line
of the scripture goes, “She did what she could.” You’re to do what you can. You’re to work as hard
as you can, we’re to study as hard as we can, we’re to plan the finances as wisely as we can, we’re
to do everything we can to ensure that the children have the right upbringing, we’re to do all we
can to keep the car in running order. But after we’ve done all that we can, we’re to remember, “My
Father is watching and he loves me so much that he split up his own family for me. He loves me so
much that he took the worst that I ever had in my heart and put it into his dear Son’s pure heart.
My Father is going to come through for whatever I can’t meet.”

Loved ones, after you’ve done it all, you have to go to bed quiet and free from anxiety and worry.
Sure you have to work, but you’ve not to be anxious; you have to work but you’ve not to worry,
because this God who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us
with him all things? The truth is, he will. Your Father won’t let you down. Your Father, who gave
you this body, won’t let you down. How does your heart keep beating, can you tell? You’re a genius
if you can because no medical person can tell why the heart keeps beating. Nobody can tell why it
keeps beating. Can you tell how all the protons and neutrons in your body hold together? You’re a
genius if you can because nobody else can tell. Can you see that what you and I are at this moment
is totally dependent on somebody else’s love? We can’t even explain what we have at this moment.

Loved ones, will he not give you everything that you need? And the truth is, he will. The truth
is, he will. He loves you as much as he’s done in his Son, he loves you enough to supply you with
what you need day-by-day and he expects you to trust him for it — I would say that. Somebody here
is troubled with a bank account, somebody here is troubled about a sickness that they just don’t
know how to deal with, somebody else here is troubled about what they are going to do with that son
of theirs.

Loved ones, is it not true that this dear Father who started the whole thing at the very beginning
and has demonstrated his love so clearly to us in his Son, is it not true, that it’s in his interest
to preserve his investment? He’s already invested so much in us that he has no intention of letting
us go without. Then I’d ask you, have you had all your needs met? We’re all alive here, we’re all
breathing, we’ve all clothes on our backs — what’s his record like? Is it good or bad? Have you
found yourself in hideous situations which you weren’t able to come through? Or, how did you get
here this morning? All of us have come through, because the Father calculates everything carefully
and supplies just what we need to make us like his Son. He’s just a good God.

Let’s pray. Dear Father, we thank you for such a plain statement backed up by the world’s history
and by our own personal history that you, who did not spare your own son but gave him up for us all,
you will also give us all things with him. Thank you, Father. We apologize, Father, for the nights
we’ve been restless in bed with worry. We apologize, Father, for the nervousness and the anxiety
that we’ve had. Lord, we thank you for this beautiful world. We thank you for your love. We thank

you that you are not a God that just gives us things, things, things, but you’ve given us your very
own Son and we thank you, Lord. We intend to live this week in peace — like people who have a
loving, trusting Father looking after us. And now the Grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and throughout this coming week.
Amen.

Who Justifies Me?

Romans 8:33

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Now if you will turn, loved ones, to Romans 8:33 — the first part of the verse is a question, “Who
shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” A million people, a million things, a million
circumstances. And you may say, “Ah, that’s ridiculous. Nobody could bring a charge against God’s
elect. Nobody could bring anything that would shatter the peace and the sense of assurance that
God’s children have because they’re his children.” Now loved ones, I tell you a million things
will, a million different people will, and a million different circumstances will.

Have you ever got a D? I know that some of us aren’t such magnificent academics that a D is any big
deal for us, but for those of us who think we are something in the academic world, have you ever got
a D? You hand the paper in and then you get it back three weeks later and you walk home in a kind
of daze — it just seems as if the whole world has fallen because a D you did not expect. Or, have
you ever lost a job? Maybe not your own fault at all, but you lost a job. And you know how you
feel as you are going home — you feel absolutely shattered and you wonder what you are going to do.
You really have no idea how you are going to sort things out.

Or have you ever come to one of those milestones in your life — 17. And you say, “What have I done?
I’m 17 and what have I done?” And then you get to 21 and you say, “21 and what have I done?” And
then you get to 26, “26 and what have I achieved?” And then you get to 30, “30, what have I done
with my life?” “35, what have I done with my life?” “40, what have I achieved?” “45, what have I
done with my life?” 50, 60, 65, 70 what have I done with my life? Or have you ever come to one of
those terrible failures or defeats in your life when you just put your head in your hands and think,
“There is no way out of this at all, this is hopeless. I am the most useless fool in the universe.”

Loved ones, when you ask that question, “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” I’d
answer a million different things. A million different situations seem to be capable, for many of
us, to shatter any sense of peace or any sense of assurance we have that we are the children of the
maker of the universe and that he is in full control. I think all of us here would admit, “Sure,
I’ve experienced one of those things,” or, “I’ve experienced all of those things. All of those
situations that you have described — yes, I have come into them and yes, I do agree they have
shattered my peace and they have spoiled the sense of assurance that I had about my life. And I
must admit that the chaos they have brought into my life and the confusion and the panic they have
sent to the bottom of my heart have governed my responses and my reactions far more than any peace
that I had with God.” And indeed probably all of you would agree that’s one of most bewildering and
irrational parts of that kind of a shattering experience.

It seems to be able not only to cause you temporary self doubt, but would you not agree that it
seems in certain situations, to throw you into widespread panic. It seems capable of making you
suddenly question the whole purpose and the whole direction of your life. I’m sure many of you have
experienced something like that and that you’ve gone home and you’ve wondered, “Why am I even here?
There’s no point in me being here. I have no right to be on this earth.” And we find that things
that people say to us, a little D that some professor gives us, a critical comment that our boss
makes to us, or a conflict that we have in the office can send us home with our whole certainty
about our lives shattered and crumbling and we spend days, maybe a week, maybe weeks, maybe a couple

of months in certain situations, trying to gather the thing back together again.

Now loved ones, why should that happen? Why is it possible for almost anybody, it seems, to bring
some kind of charge against God’s elect and apparently destroy all the great peace and assurance
that they have that their Father is in control of their lives. Why is it possible for that to
happen? We can all see why it’s possible to be a little put out by somebody’s criticism of you. We
can all see why it’s possible for someone to be a little set back by a low grade on an assignment.
We can all see why it’s possible for a guy, especially who has a family depending on him, to have to
take a little while to gather himself together to get out to that unemployment line and start
looking for a job. But loved ones, why is it more than that? Why is it an apparent shattering of
all our self-image, and all our assurance about ourselves, and all our certainty about our place in
the world, and all our assurance that we have a right to be here — why does it affect all that?

Loved ones, I think because it is connected up with a spiritual truth or an eternal fact that we
ourselves have not completely dealt with in our own lives. And that fact is that we have no right
to be alive on this earth the way we are. That’s a fact you know. We actually have no right to be
alive on this earth the way we are – really. Now I could show you why, it’s James 4:17 and it is
the first part of the logic of it, “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it
is sin.” “Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” I doubt if
there is anybody here who has never been in that situation — where you’ve known what was right to
do and you’ve not done it. Now that is sin.

Now loved ones, go to Romans 6:23 and I think it’ll begin to explain why we get into such a state of
absolute hopelessness over little things, even though they are little tragedies. “For the wages of
sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Our conscience
keeps on testifying to the fact that all of us have sinned, we’ve all lived independent of the
creator of the world and we’re under condemnation to death and we have no right to be here on this
earth; our conscience testifies to that. And we respond to that death sentence by saying, “We have
a right to be here. We have, we have, we have. I know I’ve sinned but I have a right to be here
and I’ll prove it to you. I’ll prove I have a right to be here. I’ll prove by how good I am, I’ll
prove by how much I contribute to this world that I have a right to be here. I’ll prove by the kind
of brain that I have that I have a right to be here. I’ll prove by the good things that I do that I
have a right to be here. I’ll prove by the good father I am that I have a right to be here.”

Loved ones, we’re like a group of prisoners on death row who are sentenced to death and we invent a
little system of merit points for the most moral murderer among us and we play this little game. Our
tragedy is that we treat the game for real. We really do think that if we can pile up enough merit
points, somehow or other the law will not carry out the death sentence upon us. And so we keep on
piling up these little merit points — and underneath our conscience is testifying against the whole
game and is saying, “You have no right to be here on this earth.” And we’re saying, “We have. See
what we’ve done. See what a good job we’ve done. See how much money we can earn. See what good
grades we get. See what everybody thinks of us. See how approved we are by the general populous.
See how efficient and effective and useful to the world we are. We have a right to be here.” And
our conscience is continually testifying to the truth that all your system of merit points does not
affect the fact that this death sentence is being enforced by the Creator of the world upon you and
it’s not part of your little game.

Now loved ones, that’s why we get so cast down when suddenly our merit points seem to be falling
behind. Whenever the boss criticizes us for the mess we have made of that last letter, it’s because

we have linked our ability as a good blameless typist to our right to be here on this world, that we
get so upset. Really loved ones, that’s why all those irrational feelings come up within you when
you get home, those irrational feelings that make you feel, “I have no right to be in this world.”
It’s dumb. You know it’s dumb. Just because you make a mistake in a letter, that doesn’t mean you
have no right to be in this world. But it’s because we’ve linked up our performance in our job to
these things. Loved ones, it’s more obvious with us guys who have jobs and a family to support.
You know the agony many of us were in over this last recession. Many of us who were good at our
jobs and many of us who had good jobs found that even the very firms were collapsing and we found
ourselves without a job. And suddenly many of us found ourselves wondering why we were even here.
And we had real self-questioning and self-doubt.

Loved ones, it’s because we link up our performance in all these areas to justifying our own
existence here on the earth. And we’re always crying out to the Father, “I really have a right to
be here. I know you say I should die for my sins, but really — aren’t I worth something? Aren’t I
worth something?” Loved ones, that’s why we all come home and regale our roommates with sterling
stories of how we bested some other student in an argument. Or it’s especially effective if you can
tell a stirring story of how you bested a professor in an argument. And somehow it boosts you, it
makes you feel, “You think I’m just an ordinary roommate, but really I am something of worth and
value in myself.”

And you know us husbands, I mean we’re the worst aren’t we — we bore our poor wives with how the
world turns in our office and we’re always at the center of the world’s turning. We’re always the
diplomatic, brilliant seer that makes everything go right and we always make sure we tell them of
that part that we’ve done. And you know it all just comes out again and again, all of us are at
this continually. We’re all the time trying to bring out the best part of us for somebody else to
hear about it. And loved ones, it isn’t just pride, it isn’t just boastfulness, but deep, deep down
we keep thinking we have to prove ourselves.

I’ve never seen the TV series, and maybe you have, “Happy Days” I think it’s called. No, you
haven’t seen Happy Days? The main star is called, “Fonzarelli”, “The Fonz.” There was an
interview in “People” magazine. Now “Happy Days” was at the top of the ratings – it just wiped
them. And you know what he (the star) says? “I have a terrible need to continually prove myself.”
And you know what’s so idiotic? A fellow who is at the top of fame as far as entertainment is
concerned and is at the moment on American TV, it’s ridiculous that he feels he has to prove
himself. But loved ones don’t you see that we’re all in the same game. We’re all involved in this
desire to justify our being alive here on this earth. And so every little event that in any way
impeaches our ability as a typist, or our ability as a housewife, or our ability as a father, or our
ability as a teacher, or our ability as a student, throws us into a panic of self-doubt, of
self-recrimination, of questioning whether we have a right to be here or not.

Now loved ones, what’s the way out? That’s very plain — leave the justifying to the only one who
can justify. Leave the justifying to the only one who can justify. Would you stop trying to
justify yourself? Would you stop trying to prove that you’re of great value, and of tremendous
worth, and that all of us couldn’t get along without you? Would you stop trying to prove that the
world has found a tremendous little gem when it found you or found me? Would you stop trying to
establish that you’re worth something and that you are of value and would you see that you are good
for nothing but to be destroyed? That’s what God says. Because you’ve lived so independent of him,
because you’re such a selfish, miserable creature who wants your own way and wants to walk over
everybody else, you’re good only for being destroyed. And would you see that God destroyed you in

his son Jesus, and therefore justified your existence here on the earth.

Now loved ones that’s it — the one who enforces the death penalty is the only one who can lift the
death penalty and that’s what he’s done. And not all the argument in the world will change it. Now
if you doubt that in fact you were destroyed with Jesus, loved ones, I will show you a few of a
hundred verses. Romans 6:6 is an obvious one. “We know that our old self was crucified with him so
that the sinful body might be destroyed.” Then Romans 6:4, “We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death.” Then Colossians 3:3, “For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in
God.” Colossians 2:12, “And you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with
him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” Galatians 2:20, “I have
been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.”

Loved ones, God destroyed you in his son Jesus, and the moment you believe that and submit to the
Holy Spirit working the effects of that out in your life day-by-day, that moment you are justified
in being here on the earth. Really, that’s it. Romans 5:9 says, “We are justified by faith in
Jesus.” And you can never justify yourself however great a person you are, even if you do get on
the “Happy Days” show, or even if you do become famous, or even if the whole world knows of you and
approves of you and praises you, all of that will not lift the death sentence from you. That can
only be lifted from you by the fact that God has executed it in Jesus and you have been crucified
with him. And the moment you say, “Lord, I accept that. Now Holy Spirit will you begin to show me
what the effects of this are to be in my life?” And the moment you begin to submit to that dear
Holy Spirit, that moment you are justified.

And then loved ones, the boss cuts you down in front of everybody else in the office, or he tells
you you’re fired in front of all your colleagues, or you come home and you have to tell your wife,
“I’ve lost another job,” or you go home to your parents and you show them the C’s and D’s, or you
come home after somebody else has just put you down in front of all your friends and you’re able to
say, “Father, I know I have a right to be here because of what you did to me in your son Jesus. I
know you love me. I know you’re glad I’m here and Lord that’s all that counts.”

And loved ones, the Holy Spirit will begin to bring in you a sense of balance and a sense of quiet
peace so that you will be able to see these little failures for what they are — your failure to
jump over a temporary hurdle that society has decided to erect. And after you fail to jump over
that hurdle, there will be other hurdles that God enables you to jump over. But your failure to
jump over them says nothing about your right to be here in the world. Loved ones, you don’t have to
keep proving yourself, truly, really. You don’t have to keep proving yourselves to yourselves, and
to your relatives, and to your professors, and to your employers. You have a right to be here in
this world because God destroyed you in his son. He has no desire to destroy you a second time, he
wants you to be here, he’s glad you’re here and he’s willing now to give you his Holy Spirit to
begin to guide you into the kind of life that he wants you to live.

Loved ones, the moment you accept that, at that moment there comes a great sense of peace, a great
sense of justification into your heart. And a great freedom from having a chip on your shoulder all
the time and having to prove you’re worth something. Who justifies me? Not you, not the way I do
this job, not myself. I’m justified by God, my Father who saw I was so miserable that he had to
destroy me and he did it in Jesus so that I could experience that by faith and now allow his Holy
Spirit to make me the kind of person he wants me to be. And that’s it — God wants you to live in
that kind of peace.

So I’d ask you, all of you sitting there, you know some area where this is happening in you. You
know what a grind it is; you know how it throws you into absolute chaos when the little tragedy
happens. Would you not settle the big question, that it’s God who justifies you. And he justifies
you by carrying out his death sentence upon you and his son. Why not thank him for it and ask him
through his Holy Spirit to begin to work out the effects of that in your life. And why not enter
into peace, real peace, because really there is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God, a
place where you do not need to be thrown into confusion by everybody who tosses a hard word at you.
And so I pray that some of you as you sit there this moment will take a stand now. I pray that
you’ll take the stand now.

Don’t say to yourself, “Well, yeah that’s true and I’m going to go home and think about.” Why not
just do it now? You don’t think about whether the sun is shining or not in this moment. You know
it’s shining and you know the sky is there. Now the same one that put the sky there and put the sun
there has put you into his son Jesus and destroyed you there. Why not accept it and why not say,
“Lord thank you. I knew I was not much good. I didn’t know I was quite good for nothing, but now I
know Lord and thank you. And now, Father, will you begin to make me over anew now that you have done
what needed to be done.”

And stop substituting, loved ones, the little merit points and disconnect your daily performance
here from this big question of your right to be here. Sure, you have a right to be here the moment
you accept what your Father has done.

Let’s pray. Dear Father, we would pray for each other this morning, because Lord we know that if
the other loved ones beside us are like ourselves, they’re having their struggles with this. Even
those who think they are Christians, Father, find themselves justifying themselves to their wives,
and their parents, their loved ones, their professors, and their employers. And Lord we feel so
stupid when we do it because we realize that we are responding in an irrational way and we’re
getting the whole thing out of perspective. And Lord we see that it’s because we think our very
worth and value as human beings is being impugned and Father we see that is not so. Lord we see
that you condemned us to death for our rebellious willfulness and Lord we see that’s what we have
deserved when we see what we have done to other people.

And Father we accept that and we don’t know what it means for us in detail, but Lord God will you
show us by this Holy Spirit that you have? Will you send him into our lives and will you begin to
show us how this will change our lives and how you want us to accept what you have done in Jesus?
And Father we know that the Holy Spirit will give us a sense of peace with you and a sense of
acceptance with the only one who finally matters — the one who is the ultimate and final arbitrator
in the whole universe. Lord if you accept us, what does it matter who rejects us? Father we thank
you for that. We would pray for each other, our Father, this morning, that you’ll enable us to walk
in the joy of this through this coming week, through every eventuality, so that when we ask the
question, “who shall bring any charge against God’s elect” we will be able to answer, “no one. It
is God who justifies.” We thank you Father. Now the Grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and throughout this coming week.
Amen.

Answer to Condemnation

Romans 8:34

Sermon Transcript by Ernest O’Neill

It’s really good to know that you didn’t happen by chance, you know. You just didn’t happen by
chance. You were made by a dear Creator who loves you and he really does know your name. He knows
why he put you here, and he cares about you and thinks about you every day. And really, when you
begin to sense that, it gives you a great sense of knowing why you’re here and knowing what you’re
doing here. Suddenly you realize, “Well, if the great Significant Other in the world knows me, then
I am important to somebody.”

And you begin to sense a quietness and confidence in being here. You begin to realize, “I’m
significant to him and I know why I’m here, and I know where I’m going.” And of course, it affects
everything else that you do. You look at the trees, and the lakes, and the mountains, and you sense
that you know the person who made all these. So you feel a kind of a communion with them even,
because these are his gifts. And gradually, bit-by-bit, you begin to sense that he is real apart
from his gifts, and you begin to enjoy his love and his fellowship. You begin to get great
satisfaction from him and great peace of mind and a great contentment in being known fully by
somebody who loves you.

The more confidence you gain in him as your Father and as the one who owns the Milky Way, and owns
all the galaxies, the more confident you begin to feel that he’s not going to see you starve.
Certainly if he’s put you here for a certain purpose he’s not going to let you die out through
exposure or starvation and you begin to sense, “He is going to provide all that I need.” You begin
to feel a great sense of security, even physical security, as you realize that you were put here by
a dear Creator who loves you and he is your Father and cares about you day-by-day and will meet all
your needs.

That’s the way it’s meant to be, and that’s the way that it is for a lot of us here — I really do
think that — I think a lot of us here live like that. But I think you would probably agree with me
that some of us here don’t live like that. Some of us here don’t like the idea of somebody else
running our lives. Or, we’ve been brought up in an intellectual atmosphere where we’re encouraged
to feel that you are to do the jobs you want to do, the way you want to do them and to live your
life the way you want to without any reference to any creator that might be around. So there are
some of us here this morning, I’m sure, that aren’t very conscious that the Creator, whoever he may
be, is also our Father who loves us, so we find ourselves really cut off from his love.

But the killer is, even though we’re cut off from any awareness of his love by our own desire to do
without him, yet we still have a basic structure that he gave us — that is — we still have a
personality that needs his love. And many of us, I think, find ourselves in that dilemma; we don’t
have his love — we aren’t sure whether he’s really there or not, and we haven’t managed to
establish much of a personal relationship with him and yet we find ourselves with a personality that
does cry out for love. We need love and we need the love that makes us feel we are important — the
love that makes us feel we’re something more than just one of three and a half billion ciphers in a
huge planet. And you know of course, what most of us do in those situations who aren’t receiving it
from our Creator — we just go mad to get somebody to give us that sense of significance — and so
we’re involved in all kinds of ridiculous circus antics.

We’re trying to earn more money than everybody else so at least we’ll be significant that way. We’re
trying to gain more influence than everybody else so that we’ll have some importance that way — we
know our employees don’t really love us, but at least they appear to look up to us and it gives you
a sense of importance. We know at times our families don’t think we’re the most wonderful people,
but at least we can use them to give ourselves a sense of importance. We’ll ride a different
motorbike than everyone else. We’ll drive different cars than everybody else. We’ll dress in
different clothes than everybody else. We’ll do anything to get some of the feeling of love or
sense of importance that love gives you that we were really meant to get from our Creator — but now
we try to get it from each other.

It’s the same with happiness. We were meant to walk through God’s garden with God right beside us in
a sense of complete openness. You know, he’s a person that doesn’t hold anything back — he’s
uninhibited and he’s open. He knows everything about us so you’re not afraid to let him know things.
There’s a great sense of being known and being fully known when you know God. And of course we miss
that and we miss the happiness that that brings, we miss the satisfaction that that brings, we miss
even the exhilaration that brings. And those of us who miss that, of course, try to get those
things elsewhere — and that’s what many of us are involved in.

There probably isn’t one of us here that hasn’t had boy/girl problems or man/woman problems, and
they all center around that — we’re trying to get from another person the sense of being known —
being fully known — that we sense we should have. We sense somebody should know all about us.
Somebody should know the bad and the good. Haven’t we all made fools of ourselves going out on a
limb with some girl or some guy that didn’t feel the same way about us — but we were so desperate
for somebody to know us fully?

Then it gets into the realm where you want the satisfaction or exhilaration of the physical or
emotional thrills. We’re trying to get those and many of us are putting our marriages almost on the
rocks because we’re still trying to get the thrill or excitement or exhilaration that no poor,
little, puny human being can ever give us.
But we’re not getting it from God so we have to get it from somewhere — from danger, or from
alcohol, or from drugs — from something.

And it’s the same with the security thing — nobody here can make themselves secure — you know it.
Just look at Howard Hughes – the fella was a bundle of neurotic insecurity and yet he surely had
more ability to make himself secure than probably any of us will ever have.

And yet we don’t have that connection with our Creator — we don’t have the connection with the
person who brings that wind down that he brought down yesterday evening, or brings the darkening of
the skies down. We don’t have that connection with that dear Person so we feel very insecure — and
we’re always bound up trying to make ourselves feel secure. So you know, it becomes the money
grabbing, or it’s “if we could only get ourselves in a job that you couldn’t lose. If you’d only
get yourself in a job that nobody could take away from you. If you could only get the home paid
for, then at least – well, you’ll have the taxes. They can go up and up but still, you keep hoping
that somehow you’ll win.” You have a feeling that you can’t beat the system, but you keep trying to
beat the system — you keep trying to make yourself secure.

And of course, loved ones, in doing that — in trying to get the love from the world that we can
only get from our Creator, in trying to get the sense of security, and significance, and happiness

that any love brings us from the world — our personalities have been completely turned upside down,
really. They’re working outside in. They were meant to work inside out. In other words, we were
all meant to stride through the world with absolute security, an absolute sense of our own
importance, an absolute sense of our own place in the world, no problem with identity crisis,
completely confident about where we’ll get our next meal from. We were meant to walk like that
through the world — with absolute trust in our Father — with all that love coming into us and
through us and then being able to give it out to everyone else so that the whole world would have
been chock full with love. That was the Father’s plan.

But because we’ve gone the other way, our personalities have turned upside down. Instead of working
inside out, we’re working outside in. That’s what Paul meant when he said, “The law is spiritual.”
The law — all the things that God has told you to do — are meant to work from the inside out.
You’re meant to get everything from God that you need and to be able to give everything to other
people. But you’re not spiritual like the law — you’re carnal. That is, you’re fleshly. You’re
trying to get through your body all the love, and the significance, and the security and happiness
that you’re meant to get from your Father above.

And of course, the whole system is perverted. There’s just a radical perversion, loved ones, in our
personality, there really is. We’re like automobiles that we’ve adapted for methane gas and now the
owner is running them on gasoline and it’s a mess, it’s just a mess — the system wasn’t built for
that. It’s been adapted for methane and it doesn’t work. Almost like trying to put the gas through
the exhaust pipe, that’s almost what we’re doing. The gas is meant to go in the tank, the love of
the Creator is meant to come into us and go out and be exhausted to everybody else. Instead we’re
almost trying to get the gas through the exhaust pipe and the whole system is working upside down.
That’s a radical perversion that has taken place in all our personalities.

That’s why God said, “The wages of sin is death.” Do you see that? That’s why he said that — “If
you live independently of me like that, that’s what sin is. If you live independent of me like
that, your whole personality is going to become utterly perverted, radically perverted, completely
twisted — and the only thing I can do with it is to kill it, destroy it and start again. That’s
why the wages of sin is death.” That’s why God said that. The only thing you can do is to destroy
the whole thing and start again.

In other words, loved ones, even if you could receive God’s spirit, the spirit of Jesus — the whole
love and life of Jesus, even if you were able to receive it, even if you were able to depend on it
for a moment, God is saying, “Your personality is so twisted and so perverted that it’s
incapacitated for expressing the Holy Spirit I am giving you.” There isn’t one of us that wouldn’t
agree with that — many of us have received Jesus — but we find our own personality is working the
other way all the time. Jesus wants to love somebody, but our personality has gotten used to being
suspicious of people and we find a real battle going on. There’s something trying to get out but
there’s something we’re trying to get in from other people.

We want to do something for the church but there’s an eye to the main chance. We’re wondering,
“Yeah, but how we can get something out of it for ourselves?” That’s the battle we’re facing all
the time. And it’s because the personality is radically perverted. It’s twisted, it’s an “outside
in” personality instead of an “inside out” personality. That’s why God said, “The wages of sin is
death.” Now loved ones, that’s what happened on Calvary. Our old self, that old self of yours was
crucified with Christ and that’s why it was crucified. God destroyed it there so that he could
raise it up anew and make it completely different and make it the kind of personality that could

work inside out.

And loved ones, that’s why all the psychology books are only useful up to a point. They have no
power to change the radical twist and perversion that has taken place in your personality. Only the
work that God has done in Jesus can do that. Now of course the moment you acquiesce in that, the
moment you sense that that has happened, the moment you agree with it, the moment you allow it to
take place in your own life, you come into the kind of situation that Paul describes in today’s
verse and it’s Romans 8:34, loved ones. “Who is to condemn?” So the question comes to you “Who is
to condemn me?” Then you turn to John 5:22 and there you find the only one who can condemn you,
because he’s the only one, really, that can judge. John 5:22, “The Father judges no one, but has
given all judgment to the Son.”

So the only one who can condemn us is the one who is going to judge us on the last day and that’s
Jesus. So a person who has agreed to what has happened to them on Calvary asks the question, “Who’s
going to condemn me?” The answer is “Jesus.” And then they see the rest of that verse, “Is it
Christ Jesus who’s going to condemn me who died to prove to me that this did really happen — that I
was crucified with him? Jesus, who was raised from the dead to show me that God had accepted that
death and that this Jesus was not just a political criminal who died saying that I was dying with
him and I wasn’t, but was actually raised from the dead to show me that God knew him and that God
had accepted that as the solution, who is now at the right hand of God to prove to me that he and
the Father are together and whatever he says about me is right? And then who, far from condemning
me day-by-day, intercedes for us before the Father?”

Now that’s the situation, loved ones, with those of us who have accepted that we were crucified with
Jesus. Something comes to us to condemn us and we say, “Who will condemn me — Jesus? But Jesus is
the very one who allowed me to die in him. He’s the very one who took the worst personality and
took it into himself and allowed it to be destroyed in Calvary. He’s not the one that’s going to
come in and condemn me because I’ve accepted that. That was the only thing God demanded: the
destruction of my old selfish, carnal personality. I’ve accepted that — I’m allowing God to work
it out in me through the Holy Spirit — he’s not going to condemn me for doing what he wanted me to
do.” And that’s really the situation.

Except, some of us here do not answer the question the same way as Paul answered it. When he asked
the question, “Who is to condemn” — we say, “My father, he condemns me. My mother condemns me. My
children condemn me. My boss condemns me. My peers condemn me. Everybody is condemning me. They
don’t just accuse me, they don’t criticize me or throw things at me that might be wrong, they
actually condemn me. They say that I’m good for nothing, that I’m no kind of a husband, that I’m no
kind of a father to anybody’s children, that I’m hopeless — that I shouldn’t even be trying to be a
typist. They condemn me. They put me down, these people and not only that — they don’t just
condemn me in words — but they have the power to make the condemnation stick because they can fire
me. They can cut me out from their circle; they can make me feel lonely. These people condemn me.”

Now loved ones, I’d share with you one or two things that you need to look at when you face that,
because I don’t think there is any of us here that has not faced somebody who was condemning us and
was saying we were no good, and we were worthless and useless, and it’s important to see some things
about it. First of all, they have no power beyond the grave — they’re temporal little creatures
themselves — they may well die before you do. They have no power beyond the grave. They have no
power over your eternal destiny. They have no power over those things, so their condemnation is
worth as much as it takes to get another job. Their condemnation is really very temporary and

unimportant.

That is what Jesus meant in Matthew 10:28. “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill
the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” And really loved ones,
there’s a limit to the condemnation that people can bring to you. The second thing is this: you may
say, “Yes, but they can make my life miserable while they’re condemning — even this side of the
grave.” That is limited — even that is limited and is modified by the dear Father who loves you.
Even the consequences of their condemnation are not under their control. They are under the
modification and the restraining hand of your dear Father. So he has his hand above you and your
boss is throwing this firing down upon you, or this father and mother are throwing down this
condemnation on you and the Father opens his hands to let just as much down as you can bear. That’s
it. He just opens his hand and when he sees you’re drowning he closes his hand. That’s all.

Now, why do I say that? Look at 1 Corinthians 10:13 — because most of our misery comes by looking
at the thing itself and not seeing it from our Father’s angle. 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No
temptation,” and the Greek word is the same word as for trial, “No temptation has overtaken you that
is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength,” or
he will not let you be tried beyond your strength. “But with the temptation will also provide the
way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Loved ones, the Father will not allow anything
to come to you that you cannot bear. Some of you say, “Yes, but their condemnation makes me shaky
about my own standing before God.” Well loved ones, then you have to look clearly at the fact that
you’ve already been condemned; that as far as God is concerned he has damned you to death in Jesus.
That’s been done once, he’s not going to damn you twice. He doesn’t kill a person twice for the
same life of sin.

And it’s important for you, when their condemnation makes you shaky, to look at what has happened in
Jesus and see, “Lord, you destroyed me there — I know you’re not interested in destroying me again.
And however much these people may make me uncertain of myself, Lord, one thing I’m certain of,
you’re not a double murderer. You do not kill a person twice. You’ve destroyed me once in Jesus
and that was necessary to transform me into the kind of person that could be used in your family —
but that’s once — and that’s all that’s needed.” It’s important, loved ones, to look at what has
happened in Jesus.

Now, some of us of course, don’t have that problem. We say, “Well brother it’s not that others
condemn me but, well, I condemn myself — I condemn myself and I just can’t forgive myself. It’s
not a problem of other people not forgiving me, I just cannot forgive myself. And to tell you the
truth I have a poor self image.” Now loved ones you better be very straight about all that stuff.
First of all, that presupposes that you have the power to condemn yourself; you’ve the power to damn
yourself to death, that’s what you’re saying. Secondly, it means that you feel you have the power
not only to damn yourself to death but you have the power to decide what kind of an image you have
— to decide you can forgive yourself.

Now loved ones, you have not sinned against yourself. You’ve sinned against God and against other
people — it’s not a matter of forgiving yourself — you can’t forgive yourself. And finally, it’s
kind of an assumption that you can have a good self image apart from God. Now loved ones, none of
those things are truth. The truth is that apart from Jesus you’re a miserable, self gratifying,
self glorifying wretch and that’s it. And I don’t see how you can have a good self image as a
miserable, self gratifying, self glorifying wretch. It’s hard to make even that look good and it’s
kind of dumb to try apart from Jesus — that’s what God says. In fact, God says, “I’m the person

who believes the best. I’m eager to believe the best about you and even I couldn’t find anything
good about you, I had to destroy you, so don’t you start trying to find good things about yourself.”

So really, on the whole, all those statements are untrue; you can’t condemn yourself even if you
tried. You have no power to condemn yourself to death. You can’t forgive yourself because it’s not
yourself you’ve sinned against, it’s God and it’s against other people, and really you couldn’t
possibly have a good image because you’re so miserable. So it’s important to deal with it at that
level. Now, let’s see what’s behind those things.

“Well, my problem is I condemn myself.” Loved ones, do you see that it’s sin compounded? It’s sin
compounded — “I’m going to live independent of God the Creator of the world, I’m going to do that.”
That’s what sin is. And then “I’m also going to be my own executioner — I’m not going to let him
condemn me or punish me, I’m going to punish myself as well.” So you’re not only going to be a
rebel against God but you’re also going to be your own executioner — you’re going to be a
rebellious executioner. So deep, deep down it’s a desire to punish yourself for your sins. You not
only want to sin and be independent of God, but you want to be an independent punisher of those
sins. And really, it’s a salvation by works kind of game that you’re playing, you know.

In fact, at the bottom of it is this: you don’t want to accept what God has done to you in Jesus on
Calvary. You don’t want to allow his death to be made real in your life, but somehow you want to
get around the guilt that you’re feeling about your sins. So you feel if you can punish them by
continually feeling grief or regret or remorse, you’ll get some kind of satisfaction that those sins
have been dealt with. Yes — but they’ve been dealt with in the only way that doesn’t matter. The
only way they can ever be dealt with is by allowing them to be dealt within Jesus on the cross.
Instead of getting up and proudly saying, “I’m going to beat myself for those terrible sins” – to
allow that old self to be crucified with Jesus.

And really, that trick of “I’m condemning myself” is a salvation by works syndrome and it often
comes out in, “Well, I don’t want to punish myself too much for my gossip.” So you begin to punish
the person in the next desk for their gossip because you project your gossip into them and then you
end up punishing them by criticizing them. No. If you condemn yourself you’re involved in wanting
to compound the sin that you’ve already committed by trying to get rid of that sin on your own. You
can never do it, loved ones, you can never do it — it’s a refusal to accept what God has done to
you in Jesus.

It’s a wee bit the same with the business of, “Well, I just can’t forgive myself.” It’s really a
feeling inside us that somehow “Oh, I’ve sinned against myself. I’ve really hurt myself more than
other people.” It’s really selfishness, “I’ve been drinking so long that I’ve done harm to my own
body and I just can’t forgive myself for that.” And the worst thing about your drinking is the sin
that is committed against God and against everybody else. But when you say, “I can’t forgive
myself” you give the impression that it’s you, above all, that you’ve sinned against — it’s not.
You’re the one that’s done the sinning, you’re the one that needs the forgiveness and somebody else
has to forgive. But underneath there’s a failure to see that Jesus’ death deals with the problem.
There’s a feeling that forgiveness is somehow a feeling of sorrow that somebody will show to you, or
an overlooking of certain faults that somebody will do to you, or a lowering of certain standards so
that they can accept you. So deep down there’s a hypocritical attitude, “Well, God may be prepared
to lower his standards to forgive me but I’m not going to lower mine. My standards are higher than
his and he may manage to lower his but not me. No, I have certain standards that I’ll hold onto.”

Loved ones. it’s Phariseeism, it is — that business of “I can’t forgive myself.” The truth is that
God forgives you when he restores the relationship between you and him. That’s what forgiveness
means. Forgiveness doesn’t mean, “Oh yeah, okay, alright, let’s forget it.” That’s not
forgiveness, that’s dumb. You can say that — lots of people have said that to you — but the
relationship has never been the same, isn’t that right? They have said, “Oh yeah, I accept your
confession and let’s forget it.” But you’ve never had the same relationship with them. Forgiveness
is the restoration of relationship. The Father says, “Look, I accept you completely as my own
children if you’ll just accept what I’ve done to you in Jesus. I’ve destroyed you in him. Now,
just let me, through the Holy Spirit, make that real in you and you’re mine completely. I accept
you with all my heart and with no reservations.” And that’s what real forgiveness is.

And it’s the same with the self image thing, you know. Really loved ones, the truth is that God has
destroyed that old, self centered being, in Jesus. It’s finished with, and now it is Jesus in you.
Failure to appreciate the Jesus in you, and to respect the Jesus in you, is reprehensible heresy and
blasphemy. So if you have a poor self image of yourself, that’s exactly what you should have
because God’s word says, “There is nothing good in me.” Romans 7:18, “There is no good in me” — so
you should have a poor self image of yourself, apart from Jesus. But in Jesus, accepting that all
that has been done away with on the cross and that Jesus himself is now in you — you have the most
beautiful Person in the whole universe inside you and you should have nothing but respect, and love,
and acceptance for that dear Person. There is just no place for a poor self image if Jesus is in
you, because he’s the most beautiful person in the whole world.

So loved ones really, that’s it. The only thing that is anything near false condemnation in a
Christian’s life is conviction. The Holy Spirit at times will come down and tell you, “Stop doing
what you’re doing.” But you know the difference between conviction and condemnation. Condemnation
is a vague sense that somehow you’re being rejected, a general vague sense. Conviction is the Holy
Spirit coming down saying, “You talk too loud in class,” or, “You talk too much,” or, “You
criticize.” And the moment you stop doing it the conviction lifts. So there is conviction in our
Christian life but who is to condemn?

No one can condemn because it is the judge himself that has died — yes, he’s been raised from the
death — who sits at God’s right hand, who day-by-day intercedes for you and me. So who is there to
condemn when the judge himself is pleading on our behalf and his Father agrees with what has
happened and shows that by raising him from the dead? So loved ones, will you ask God to show you
where you’re under some of those deceptions. Especially, some of you under that old self image
thing; it’s not fair and it’s not right, and true, and honest. Or the, “I cannot forgive myself
thing,” or, “I condemn myself” — get yourself out of the picture — God has already condemned you,
accept that and go on from there. And that’s what the Father wants from you today. So I pray that
anybody who’s under it will look at what God has done to you in Jesus. That’s all that was required
and that’s all you need.

Let us pray. Dear Father, we would pray for each other now this morning because we know, Lord, that
any man can speak words but it takes your Holy Spirit to wing them to our hearts. So Father we pray
for the loved ones beside us — pray Lord that if they are under any kind of false condemnation you
will show them, our Father, what you did to them in Jesus. That’s all you need, that’s all you’re
satisfied to do and that’s all they need. Father, give them grace to accept that and to allow you,
now, to take them on from that place by making that death and resurrection real in them through the
power of the Holy Spirit. We ask this in Jesus’ name. And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and forever more.

Amen.

The Love of Christ

Romans 8:35

Rev. Ernest O’Neill

I think we’ve all had this experience; a little voice inside you says, “Don’t criticize your
colleague to others.” But the comment slips out before you can barely do anything about it; “He’s
not very consistent is he?” The little voice inside of us is activated by the spirit of our Creator
and our Creator is really saying, “Don’t you try to put others right by your criticism. My Spirit
has the specific task of convicting the world of sin and he will do it — you just keep quiet.” But
we, of course, reject that voice and decide, “No, we’ll put them right.” And the way we do it is by
criticizing them behind their back to somebody else.

Now, that’s sin. That is sin; that’s trying to do something that God wants to do but you take it
over and you do it yourself and you do it without his power or without his strength. Now that is
sin, loved ones. Or you’ve had a retched day — it’s just been a constant strain in that office,
it’s been a grind the whole day at work, and beyond that you’re beginning to get anxious about the
finances so when you come home worn out you reach for the drink, or you reach for the tranquilizer,
or you reach for the cigarette. And the little voice within you says, “I have power to give you
peace and quiet at this moment if you’ll just stop doing what you’re doing and look to me.” And
that little voice even says, “You’re not solving the problem — you’re only trying to suppress the
symptoms of a wrong attitude to the problem that is in you.” And the little voice says, “Look,
there’s a greater, more powerful life that I can give you to enable you to get over this if you’ll
just sit back in the chair and look to me for a moment or two.” But we decide no; so we pour the
drink, we swallow the pill, we drag the nicotine in to dull the nerve endings. That’s sin.

It’s not because it’s smoking, it’s not because it’s drinking. Those things in themselves are not
wrong — but it’s using them to try to find an answer to the worry and anxiety that comes from not
trusting your loving Father in heaven — that’s the sin of it. It’s trying to live life and face
life’s problems without God, rather than taking every opportunity to trust him and lean in to him.
You in fact find other material things to act as a substitute for his undergirding love and
assurance. What you’re really doing is getting used to living without God in those situations.

You want a car, a coat, an armchair, some shoes you’ve just seen in a sale, or a motorbike that
you’ve been wanting for so long. The little voice says within you, “God first and others second,
then yourself.” But you feel, “If I don’t get it now I’ll never get it” so you buy the coat, you
buy the car, you buy whatever it is. Now, rejecting that little voice of conscious and deciding,
“I’m going to do it; I’m going to get what I want when I want it” — that’s sin, loved ones. That’s
sin; that’s living apart from your maker; that’s living without his directions operating in your
life. That’s normalizing life as if there is no God, as if there’s no loving Father who thinks
about you and takes care of you. That’s what sin is.

Now even those examples show us all, because I don’t know if there are any of us who haven’t done
that, that it doesn’t need to be the martini or a tranquilizer — it may be something else like
turning on the television to drown out the worry. There probably isn’t one of us who has not
experienced that in some form. Now loved ones, that’s what sin is. Sin is not all this business of
indiscriminate killing. Sin is not all this business of the mafia; sin is not all that kind of
stuff. I’m sure those things are the out workings of sin, but sin itself is a very, very simple

independence of God; not treating him as your loving Father. Sin is not dealing with everything in
life with his power and his strength, but is attempting to meet every challenge on your own, by your
own power, with your own lesser methods and substitutes.

And most of us find that this has become such an automatic reaction in our own lives that we
actually have gotten use to calling this our sinful natures. Really, it’s so automatic that we
almost say, “This is just natural — this is the way we go; sure, I take a martini.” That’s not the
way you deal with worry — that’s the way you lighten it up and look forward to a reasonable kind of
evening where you can at least think clearly. But we say, “Yeah, that’s the way to go.” So many of
us have gotten used to this that it’s a natural thing to us and we call it our sinful natures.

God, in Romans 6, calls it the body of sin. He says it’s a body of sin. That is — the body has
gotten used to being used by this power of independent life to find in the world the substitutes for
God’s power that it needs. So the body is the servant of sin; it takes a drink to affect the
emotions, or it takes a pill to affect the emotions, or it brings the nicotine through the lungs to
affect the nerve endings. But the body is being used by this independent life that wants to exist
apart from God and without God’s help. This has become so automatic in many of us that we just call
it the sinful nature. But it is actually a dreadful perversion that has taken place in our
personalities. Our personalities have gotten so used to operating this way that they cannot work
any other way.

So it’s become an unnatural thing for people, when they are worried, to immediately turn their eyes
to God. It’s become the natural thing to turn to something that will dull the worry. It’s become
the unnatural thing for people, when they’re in financial troubles, to turn to the Father and hand
the whole thing over to him. It’s become the natural thing that you go to whoever may be the human
answer. The thing has become so automatic and natural that it is a perversion in our personalities.

Our personalities have become reversed — instead of taking from God and giving to the world, we
take from the world and try to give to ourselves, so there is this streak of perversity or
irrationality that we cannot deal with. Now loved ones, transcendental meditation does not make one
dent in that tendency; it doesn’t make a dent in that personality that has become reversed. Church
going habits cannot affect it; they cannot change that basic way your personality works — that is
perversion — it cannot change it. You still find yourself reaching for the drink, reaching for the
pill, reaching for the cigarette. No church going habits can change it, no eastern religion can
change it.

Eastern religion can bring a kind of passivity into your psychological apparatus, but it can do
nothing to change that radical perversion that has taken place in your personality that makes you
operate as if there is no God. Power of positive thinking can’t affect at all that reversal that
has taken place. In fact, there is no religion or psychological technique that can deal with that
basic reversal and basic perversion that has been handed down to us over the years by our
forefathers — that have lived for centuries as if there is no God. And that’s what most of us are
left with.

Loved ones, that’s the point of Calvary; when Jesus died 1900 years ago God included your perverted,
reversed, carnal, self centered, independent personality in him. He destroyed it there so that a
new one can be created by the power of his Holy Spirit in you. You need nothing less than that.
Honestly loved ones, if you’re struggling with some of the things that I struggled with, you need

nothing less than a new personality. You need a completely new being because your old one works the
wrong way. It doesn’t matter how you train it — you can’t get it to work the right way. The only
solution is the solution that our Creator has found. He has put it into his son on Calvary in a
super spacial, super temporal miracle and he has destroyed it there. And through the power of his
own life, called the Holy Spirit, he is able to recreate a new personality in you.

That’s what Calvary is all about and you can find it in several scriptural versus.
II Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God.” Jesus did not have this kind of perverted personality, you see.
His personality worked the right way — he automatically trusted his father. He didn’t have that
kind of perverted personality so that he had to die, but God made him your personality and my
personality. He took the worst, that you can do nothing to change, and he put it into his son and
destroyed it there. That’s what, “He made him to be sin who knew no sin” means. So he put your
personality into his son and destroyed it there — and you see why, “So in him we might become the
righteousness of God.”

Then verses 14-15 of that same Chapter, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are
convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died.” All of us died when Jesus died.
“And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for
their sake died and was raised.” And that’s why he died, so that we’d no longer live for ourselves.
Now that is what the love of Christ is, loved ones.
The love of Christ is not involved in reinforcing that desire to do what we want to do; that is what
we call carnal self-confidence. Carnal self-confidence is trying to get from the world and other
people what you really should be receiving from God. Jesus’ love is not involved in reinforcing
that carnal self-confidence. The love of Christ is found in that he is taking that carnal
self-confidence of ours, that will eventually drive us into hell and will drive us away from God
completely, and he’s destroying it in himself. That’s the love of Christ.

The love of Christ is that he is lovingly trying to draw us on to the cross with himself and get us
to allow him to destroy that self-confidence that wants to make do with the martini or the pills or
the cigarette or the television, what God himself wants to do for us. You have a loving Father. He
wants you to turn to him and share your troubles with him and put your trust in him and begin to
depend on him to sort things out in your life. These other methods are just declaring your
rejection of that.

That’s why the Bible says that the mind of the flesh is against God — it isn’t subject to God’s law
neither can it be because the whole attitude is, “let me get what I need for myself whether he wants
me to have it or not, and let me get it apart from him so that he has no control of it.” That’s
that carnal self-confidence that Jesus has died to destroy. That’s his love, loved ones; he has
experienced the worst of your independence and your pride and your self-dependence. He’s taken it
into himself and destroyed it there.

Now that is not what popular Christianity teaches; popular Christianity teaches that Jesus died for
us so that we could go on doing what we cannot stop doing; sinning. But now we will do it like
everybody else, but we’ll do it with impunity because Jesus has died for us. Popular Christianity
says, “Jesus died for us so that we don’t have to die at all – you can carry on just the way you’re
doing, but now you won’t be punished for it.” Loved ones that is not real Christianity; real
Christianity is what II Corinthians says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” so
that we might continue to sin with impunity — no, “so that in him we might become the righteousness

of God.” And the whole purpose of Calvary is to deal with that perverted, self-confident
personality of yours that continues to want to live without God. That’s what Calvary is all about,
and that is what the love of Christ is all about. Jesus loves you so much that he is trying to get
that death embrace around some part of your life; he’s trying to embrace you and draw you up onto
his cross where you, like him, are crucified to the world.

He didn’t use martinis to deal with the worry or anxiety. He didn’t use nicotine to try and quiet
himself down when he was nerved up. He didn’t use the television to dull his brain to the troubles
around him. He wants you to join him in that death to using external substitutes for real trust and
faith in your Father who made you. What he’s involved in doing now is trying to lovingly draw you
into that embrace and draw you onto the cross. That’s what it is all about.

Now loved ones, that’s what makes sense of the verse we are studying today. And maybe you’d like to
look at it, its Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Now the love of Christ is
Jesus trying to draw us into his own death to using the world, instead of God as our Father and the
supplier of all our needs.

What really happens is all these things draw us nearer to the love of Christ. They don’t separate
us from the love of Christ; they draw us nearer to him. Because do you see that all of these things
are determined to destroy our existence? Look at it in this verse — right from the last one, you
see the sword — that is death itself. Peril is danger of life or danger of death. Nakedness is
the exposure of our bodies which would eventually bring death. Famine is lack of sustenance for the
body which would eventually bring death. Persecution is the persistent attempts of other people to
destroy us. Distress is some difficulty that we might come into that begins to bring strain into
our lives. Tribulation is the kind of pressures that we meet in this life that begin to make us
feel less adequate than we really are.

Now each of those is increasing degrees of death and destruction of our old selves, and each one of
those has the effect of drawing us nearer to Jesus. So let’s take an example, the very first one —
tribulation. The Greek word is “thlipsis” and it means a feeling of pressure. So the finances are
beginning to fray at the edges, okay. You’ve taken on one payment too much and you’re beginning to
worry about the late charges and you’re beginning to sense, “I don’t have the thing in control and I
really shouldn’t have bought that last car.”

You’re beginning to have that feeling of pressure that is spoiling life — you know it — you lose
the freedom and the joy of it and you begin to have trouble getting to sleep at night.
And you’re waking up in the morning still thinking of how you haven’t paid that last bill. Or many
of us have had the experience in work where the job doesn’t seem as secure as it used to seem, and
we begin to worry when we come home at night and begin to experience a feeling of pressure that just
grows, and grows, and you begin to sense , it’s spoiling all of life and it can easily become the
next word — distress. “Stenochoria” is a narrowness where you’re being narrowed in and you feel
you’re being driven back into a corner; “I’m getting into a financial corner or a professional
corner and I don’t know quite which way to turn.”

Now the reason you feel the pressure is because you long ago have taken over the management of your
own finances. The reason you’re in this mess at all is you made some decisions that were not given
to God at all and you didn’t refer to him at all about them. But whatever it is, you’ve begun to
take the thing over yourself and you’re beginning to manage your financial life so when it begins

fraying at the edges you feel, “It’s my responsibility. I got myself into it, it’s mine and I have
to do what I can to rectify it.” You know what happens in that situation; the “self” just
intensifies. In fact, some of us have found a real, almost suicidal, self-destructive tendency, “We
will not sell the car — we won’t sell it — we won’t sell the thing — no.” It will be an
admission that we’re lacking in self-confidence, or we’re failing in competence and we just seem to
hold on all the tighter. It’s almost as if the car is on its way over the cliff and the further it
goes the harder we hold onto the steering wheel.

It’s the same with the job situation; we found the job is not as secure as we thought it was and we
feel it slipping out of our grasp. And you know what we do — we intensify our efforts all the
more; we try to grow more subtle in the way we get one up on the other fellow in the office, or we
work harder, or we work longer hours; but we do everything to hold onto that thing. But loved ones,
our whole reaction shows that we’re going to keep these things, “Whether God wants us to have them
or not — I’m going to hold onto them, I am going to hold on to them.”

The love of Christ is acting in every pressure situation and is saying to you, “My child, will you
come onto the cross with me? Will you die to the financial situation; will you die to your need for
that car or that coat? Let it go. What does it matter? In 20 years you won’t know whether you had
it or not. Die to your job situation; die to your control of that job. Let me take care of the
job, let me give you the job I want, let me allow you to be demoted completely until you are little
more than an office boy or office girl. Let me have my way in your life. Be prepared to join me on
the cross. I became a nothing. I became a criminal in everyone’s eyes for you — now join me on
that cross. Will you relax and forget what everyone else thinks you should do, and turn from this
self-managing of your life that you’re engaged in, and join me on the cross, and die to this carnal
self-confident desire to run your life apart from God by all other kinds of substitutes?”

In every pressure situation — whether it be tribulation, or distress, or whether it be people out
to get you and to destroy you — your Savior is trying to use that to draw you onto his cross; to
draw you out of some self-managing of your life that you’ve begun to develop. All strain, and all
unrest, and all discontent, comes from you wanting something that your Father in heaven doesn’t want
you to have at that moment and that you won’t get. Or, if you get it, will turn to ashes in your
hand. All unrest and strain and discontent comes from you wanting something that your Creator
doesn’t want you to have at this moment.

Every time you back off from that attitude and join Jesus on the cross, there comes a sense of peace
and rest, and an absolute contentment, “Whatever the Father has given me that I’m happy with.” That
was Jesus’ attitude. You remember Jesus said of Judas in John 13:26, “It is he [who will betray me]
to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave
it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. “He got up to go out and all the rest thought he was going
out to do something with the money, but Jesus knew and he said, “What thou doest, do quickly.” Now
that was Jesus attitude, “Alright, if God has allowed this to happen, I cooperate with it. Thank
you Father it’s in your hands.” Not, “Come back here Judas and stay.” But, “Lord, it’s in your
hands. Judas is going to do what my Father is allowing him to do. I accept it.”

Yet in no way was he fatalistic or pacifist, because Jesus was very active on others behalf, and
very active on God’s behalf. So loved ones, it’s dying to taking care of yourself and coming alive
to caring only for God and for other people. That’s what Jesus is trying to draw you into every
time strain or tribulation comes. So far from those things separating you from the love of Christ,

they actually are a method that the love of Jesus uses to bring you onto the cross. Do you doubt
it? Then when were you last closest to God? When did you last feel closest to God?

There isn’t one of us here who would not say, “Either when my dad died, or when I saw my job
disappearing out from under me, or when the house burned down, or when my wife was going to die.”
Or we’d all refer to some hideous disaster that was outside our control. Now loved ones, what we
need to see is that all these disasters are being used by Jesus and by his love — not sent by him
— but used by him to try and draw us out of this self-management of our own lives — that’s really
what he’s trying to do.

So each one of you will see it differently and only the Holy Spirit can show you, but what God is
after is that old independent self of yours. That’s why Jesus died, and that’s where deliverance
comes.

Let us pray.

Dear Father, we would confess that a thousand times we have taken the thing into our own hands.
Lord, a thousand times we’ve reached for the martini, or the cigarette, or reached for the
television remote, or gone out for a walk; anything to get away from the trouble, or the problem, or
the worry, or the anxiety. Lord a thousand times we’ve seen other people about to take our job out
of our hands and we’ve risen up — not questioning whether it was your will or not — just
determined that we weren’t going to lose our end of the thing. Lord we see that it’s completely
opposed to Jesus’ way; we see Father that it’s often that self assertion that we produce that causes
all the trouble in our homes; that same self assertion that creates the arguments and the
disagreements with our loved ones.

So Lord, we do see that this personality of ours is trained in an animal like kind of self defense,
self-preservation technique that wants to run our lives the way we want them to without reference to
you. Lord, we see that that’s not the way you meant us to live. We see Lord, that there are little
sparrows that shouldn’t be alive at all; they should be destroyed by all the stronger birds. There
are little animals that shouldn’t be alive in your world; by survival of the fittest they wouldn’t
be alive at all. And yet Lord, you preserve them — even the sparrows can’t fall to the ground
without you seeing them.

So we see our Father that there are thousands of examples in life of you preserving the lives of
those who depend upon you and who have no other defense. Dear Father, we see that our lives, too,
are meant to be lived like that; we’re meant to join our dear Savior on the cross, and allow you to
destroy in him this carnal self-confidence and self- assertion and then commit our lives into your
hands and begin to rest in you, instead of other substitutes and other saviors.

Dear Father, I trust you for any brother or sister here this morning who knows that they need to
commit this whole thing into your hands and stop thrashing around and trying to get their own way by
their own power. Lord, if there is a brother or sister here who has been involved in “government of
the self, by the self, for the self” will you enable them to see that that leads to destruction;
that there can only be one God in your universe and that’s you, and that you have a plan for each
one of our lives and all you want us to do is let you show it to us, and bring it about.

So dear Father, we would pray for each other this morning; pray for everybody who is in the midst of
a pressure situation, everybody who is in tribulation or distress this morning — Lord, will you

show them that they’re in it because they’re trying to be their ringmasters; they’re trying to run
the whole circus; they’re trying to be God. Will you show them you want them to give up and to
trust you, and trust your Holy Spirit, that you will express the love of Jesus to everyone of us
this morning as he lovingly draws us into his death- embrace on the cross, so that we may experience
that resurrection life that treats our Creator as our Father; one who can be trusted, can be
depended upon? We ask this in your name Lord Jesus. And now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and ever more. Amen.

Resourcefulness or Resources?

Romans 8:36

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Will you take a Bible loved ones and turn to Romans 8:35. “Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword?” Many of you would have no trouble with the answer. You would say, “No, in my experience
none of those separate me from the love of Christ. In my experience in fact, whenever I’ve come up
against tribulation, or the sword, or famine, or distress, I’ve found that I’ve drawn closer to
Jesus. In those situations I’ve found the love of Christ most real to me.” I think many of us here
this morning would answer that way. (cid:9)

Intuitively in our own existential experience we have no trouble with that question. We say, “Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or sword?”
“No, far from those things separating me from the love of Christ — those things draw me closer to
the love of Christ. I feel his love more powerfully when I’m in the middle of situations that
involve suffering and pain.”

Some of us here would have trouble with the question. Those of us who doubt whether God really
exists or not, or who aren’t quite sure what kind of God he is. We would have a bit of trouble with
that question because we feel if God is a God of love then he can’t ever allow distress, or
pressure, or tribulation, or famine, or the sword to come upon me. And we have real troubles with
that question; we just can’t see how a God who is good and omnipotent can co-exist with evil and
suffering in his world. Or, some of us would have trouble with the question, who aren’t quite sure
what sin really is, or who don’t really understand why God allowed Jesus to die, or we aren’t quite
sure what his love is trying to bring about in our lives. We would have trouble with that question.

And so loved ones I’d just ask us patiently, once again this morning, to look again in the light of
this question at what sin is; at why Jesus died, and at what his love is trying to bring about in
our lives. And I’d ask you first to look at two diametrically opposed attitudes to death, two
absolutely opposite attitudes to death. One is stated in a poem by a Welsh poet called Dylan
Thomas. Some of you who have done some literature studies at school may know of him. You remember,
he died of alcoholism several years ago, I believe on a tour here in the states. His father was
dying and he wrote this poem to his father at that time.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
because their words had forked no lightening they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

And many men and women have died in that kind of protest. Many have died fighting it to the end
like that — afraid of what was beyond and fighting and refusing to “go gentle into that good
night.”

Would you look with me at a different attitude entirely — you’ll find it in Luke 23:44-46. “It was
now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the
sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud
voice, said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his
last.” It’s just the very opposite.

One man says, “Dad, don’t go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the
light.” And the other man says, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” And then he breathed

his last. Some of us could say, “Well, one was a fatalist, one was a determinist. One was a poor
weak creature who believed that every event that took place in his life was sent to him by God. He
was one of those creatures who would say, ‘Whatever will be will be and you can’t oppose it — you
just accept it as from God’s hand’ while the other was a real, red blooded man, who opposed the
forces of nature that are out to destroy humanity.”

Except loved ones, that the interpretation doesn’t hold when you go into this man Jesus’ life
because you find him in his own lifetime constantly opposing death and sickness even when the
circumstances seemed absolutely overwhelming. So it’s hard to call him a fatalist. It’s hard to
say, “Oh, he was just someone who was a fatalist who said, ‘Oh it was meant to happen so that’s why
it’s happening so why oppose it.’” No, in his lifetime, he repeatedly moved strongly against such
things.

Now, there’s an instance in that same gospel in Luke, if you want to look at Luke 8:49, “While he
was still speaking, a man from the ruler’s house came and said, ‘Your daughter is dead; do not
trouble the Teacher any more.’ But Jesus on hearing this answered him, ‘Do not fear; only believe,
and she shall be well.’ And when he came to the house, he permitted no one to enter with him,
except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and
bewailing her; but he said, ‘Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at
him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand he called saying, ‘Child, arise.’ And
her spirit returned, and she got up at once; and he directed that something should be given her to
eat. And her parents were amazed; but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.”

So Jesus, loved ones, was not a fatalist and yet when it came to his own death you can see that
there was a gentle sweet acceptance of it. And there was great peace and rest and yet it wasn’t the
peace and rest of a fatalist. It seemed to be the peace and rest of not a passive man but a man who
was cooperating with something that he knew should happen. And of course, that’s the explanation of
it. Jesus met his own death that way with such peace and rest. Even though he opposed death in
other people throughout his life, he met his own death with great peace and rest because he believed
that that was God’s will for him at that time.

And indeed, he says that, dear ones, in John 5:30. He says that that is the basis of his own life.
“I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek
not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” Do you remember in the Gethsemane Garden Jesus
prayed very sincerely? He said, “Lord, if you can take this cup away from me will you do it, but
not my will but your will be done.” And so Jesus met his own death with peace and rest because he
really believed that that was his Father’s will for him.

Now Dylan Thomas had none of that attitude to his life. He didn’t believe that his life was ruled
by any God at all. He believed that life was full of chance and he had to fight everything that
came his way. And he believed that it was up to him to fight it on his own. And in fact, Peter
felt the same way you remember, because the people came to arrest Jesus — and Peter whipped out the
sword, and cut off the ear of one of the servants of the high priest. And we in our own lives so
often have that same attitude.

So often many of us here this morning do not live sensing that there is a dear Father who has
everything organized and knows what is coming to us. Because frankly, we’re not too concerned with
what he thinks. We feel we’re here in this world on our own, we’ve to live our lives on our own and
we’ve to swipe out at anyone who threatens our existence in any way at all so most of us live the

same way as Dylan Thomas or as Peter. We don’t have this sense that Jesus had that his life was in
the hands of an almighty God who had it planned for him and whom he could trust to defend him
whenever he needed defending. We feel, rather, that we’re here on our own, that there’s nobody
interested enough or capable enough to take care of us or to look after us and I better do the job
myself.

We tend to have an attitude to life that, “I look out for myself and I’ll live by myself, and for
myself.” And even though probably all of us here believe in God, yet, loved ones, we have a strange
kind of hypocrisy in us; we are somehow able to believe that there is a God and that he controls the
world and that in some strange way he keeps us all from falling off. You notice all the Australians
haven’t fallen off! You should phone them after this service and check, but they probably haven’t.
We somehow see that this God manages things so we don’t all fall off the earth and yet, though we
know that, we don’t depend on him in our daily experience. We live as if we not only control the
spinning of this globe through space at hundreds of miles an hour but as though we can control every
little detail that takes place in our lives, and as if it’s entirely up to us to do it.

We live, in a sense, as practical atheists and we have therefore developed a nature inside that is
like that of a cornered rat. We have a kind of cornered rat or cornered animal nature inside of us
that swipes out like Peter at anything that would destroy us and we’re really paranoid. We have
developed a nature that is programmed for survival at all costs. It doesn’t matter what it costs
anybody else, we’re going to survive. And so we live that kind of life and loved ones, it’s
entirely opposite to the kind of life that Jesus lived.

Of course it’s that nature of ours that we’re coming up against when we do try to be unselfish and
live by the golden rule. It’s that nature inside us that we’ve developed that we come up against.
You know how you try to do something for somebody but there is something inside you that is working
against it keeping an eye out for yourself. Now, it’s that nature that prevents us being the kind
of people that we want to be, and the kind of people that God wants us to be, and living the kind of
life that Jesus did and meeting death the same way that Jesus met it. It’s that nature of ours that
is so anxious to look out for ourselves and is sure that nobody else is looking out for us. It’s
that nature that spoils our lives. It’s that nature that produces irritability — we get impatient
with somebody because they are inconveniencing us. It’s that nature that stabs out at people
because we think they’re out to destroy us. And, it’s that nature that was put into Jesus 1900
years ago and was crucified in him.

That’s what Jesus and all his apostles said. Paul said, “Look, our old self — that old self of
yours that’s so defensive and that lives so much on its own by its own power for its own wants and
its own wishes — that nature that wants what it wants, when it wants, where it wants, how it wants
it — that nature was put into Jesus and that old self was crucified with Christ.” And you remember
Paul said himself, “I was crucified with Christ and yet it is not I that lives but Christ lives
within.” And loved ones, the difficulty with that taking place in our lives is not the difficulty
of your old self being crucified 1900 years ago. Einstein’s theory of relativity solves that for
any of us who has done a little thinking.

Obviously, time and space are one great eternal moment. Time really does not exist. The difficulty
with that being made real in us is not one of belief — it is one of will. That can only be made
real in you and me, we can only change from this “Dylan Thomas” kind of raging against life and
against everything that opposes us and come into this peace that this Jesus had, we can only do that
if we’re willing to have that nature destroyed in us — to have that old self crucified. And of

course loved ones, from a natural point of view we don’t want that. That is, left to ourselves we
want nothing to do with that. Left to ourselves, we don’t want that destroyed. Left to ourselves
we’re like Jacob who is always trying to manage the problem ourselves. We get ourselves into
trouble by our deceit and we try and get ourselves out of trouble by our deceit.

We really operate like Jacob. We work basically on the belief that there is no God to help us and
it depends on our own resourcefulness. And at times our own resourcefulness means our own lying and
deception and our own squirming out of difficult situations. And basically we operate like that.
So of course we, for that reason, go for the tenderist piece of chicken on the plate. That’s it —
it’s the source of all greed, it’s that attitude. We don’t work it out in detail — but that is
really why you go for the tenderist piece of chicken on the plate — because, “There’s no one else
looking out for me so I better look out for myself.”

And you know there are moments where we see that we wouldn’t actually die if we didn’t get the
tenderist piece of chicken on the plate at that time. We can afford to sacrifice then because we’ll
get it later on when we go to Burger King on our own. That’s why we go for sitting beside the
nicest guy and the nicest girl, that’s why. Because we’re fairly sure that God doesn’t really
understand how important that side of our life is to us and even if he did he might not work it out
the way we want it worked out. And so we sit beside the nicest guy, sit beside the nicest girl and
you know that in itself — just that little relationship — is a source of a lot of heartache for a
lot of us who have been left out of things.

That’s why we go for things for our own sakes and for our own pleasure. That’s why we go for the
most comfortable job, because we feel, “Well, maybe God isn’t looking after us.” That’s why we go
for the job with the biggest salary, because it’s easy enough to give the extra dollars back to God
but it’s a hard situation to get those dollars if he’s holding the purse strings. So we go for the
salary that is biggest and that will solve all our needs without his help. And really loved ones,
that’s the way we naturally live and to tell the truth, I don’t think we would ever change. While
we’re standing on our feet we will not change. While we’re standing up on our feet we will keep on
operating that way until eventually we come to that death experience that we cannot tackle on our
own. But while we’re standing on our feet we’ll try to live our lives by our own resourcefulness,
doing without God, getting what we want, when we want, where we want, how we want.

And loved ones, the only time that we will begin to question that whole business is when we come
into the experience of Romans 8:35. That’s really why God allows those things to happen to all of
us. God allows those things to happen to at last begin to expose to us that we’re living our own
lives by our own power and that it is irrational, insane, crazy, mad, doomed to futility and despair
because we are not, finally, dependent only on ourselves. And so God allows these things to come
that are mentioned in Romans 8:35.

Maybe you’d just look at the verse and I’d like to point one out to you that I think would make it
real in your own heart and your own life. Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall tribulation,” you remember we dealt with that last Sunday to some extent, “Or
distress.” Now, the Greek word for distress is “stenochoria”. Now, I’m sure you’ve often had a
touch of “stenochoria”, haven’t you? “Stenochoria” is narrowness of room, narrowness of room. Or
some of us would talk about being between a rock and a hard place, or some of us would talk about
painting ourselves into a corner. Now, that’s “stenochoria.” And God graciously allows all of us
here to experience “stenochoria” at some times in our lives.

I’ll tell you about a monkey who had “stenochoria”. This little monkey got into a candy shop and
all the candy jars were sitting there and candy jars, as you know, have narrow mouths on them and
then they’re big inside and all the candy is inside. And he put his hand in through the mouth of
the candy jar and grasped the candy and held it in his hands like that. And of course, his hand
bulged out and he couldn’t get his paw back out through the narrow mouth of the jar. Now, that
monkey had a bad touch of “stenochoria” — he had narrowness of room. But the inner meaning of it
is that in order to grab something for himself he trapped himself, but he hadn’t the sense to let go
of it so he could get out of the trap. Now, that’s “stenochoria”.

So you end up with a beautiful house, and a beautiful car, and you haven’t an extra dollar at the
end of the month for a new tire if you needed it. That’s “stenochoria”. But, you won’t let go of
the house and you won’t let go of the car, and you’re uptight all the time. And the wife has to
speak to you gently or otherwise you’d kind of break up. Or, the husband has to be nice to you
otherwise you’d just scream the roof off. That’s “stenochoria”. Or, when you end up with the job
that you wanted professionally and financially but it’s a miserable work atmosphere in which to
spend your days. That’s “stenochoria”. You come home at night and you’re uptight, and you’re worn
out, and it’s hateful and miserable, but you’re making the money and professionally you’re going up
the ladder. That’s “stenochoria”.

Or, you get a set of personal relationships that you feel are absolutely essential for your status
and for your own enjoyment, and for your own success in life but they are a bore and a strain, and a
pain to maintain. But you continue to maintain them, laugh at the silly jokes, do the things they
want you to do because you want what you want. Now, those are situations loved ones that are
described by God as “stenochoria”. You find yourself in a narrowness of room, you’re uptight,
you’re between a rock and a hard place, and you won’t let go to get out of it. Now, God allows that
to come because actually sin, which is independence of God, living by your own resourcefulness
instead by his ever available resources, sin always drives you back and back into “stenochoria” —
it does.

The world is so organized that way. If you could only see it, our God is no fool. He does not
allow us to rebel against him and run from him without our having many signs that we’re doing it.
The Father has so organized the world that if you keep living by your own resourcefulness —
remember the whole story of Watergate — wasn’t that it? You retreated to a new – well, it didn’t
even seem as if they were retreating sensibly. It didn’t even seem they were thinking up the lies
and planning them carefully. We usually do a better job than that. But, it was retreat, retreat,
retreat, depend on your own resourcefulness, trying to duck that one, duck that one, trying to make
up a new lie to meet that one.

Loved ones, if your life gets to that point you’re in the midst of distress, and “stenochoria” and
narrowness of room. And God is saying to you, “My son, my son, my daughter, my daughter, would you
stop trying to live it by your own resourcefulness. Would you stop trying to get what you want,
when you want, how you want, where you want and would you start being concerned, like my son, with
what my will is for you?” Because loved ones, there’s a beautiful verse in one of the psalms that
says, “God delivers us and brings us into a broad place.”

And loved ones, when you’re living in the light of your Creator’s will and you’re living in the
fullness of what he wants for you, you find yourself walking in a broad place. Really you do,
believe me. You’ll find yourself walking every day in a broad place and you’re not hemmed in on
this side, and hemmed in on that side, and trying to remember which lie you said to that fella, and

what you said to that person, and how you maneuvered this, and how you manipulated that, and how you
have to try and keep this person right and keep that person right. Suddenly you’re in a broad place
when you’re walking in a place where you’re ready for what God wants for your life.

I don’t know how many of you here have worked yourselves into “stenochoria”. I don’t know how many
of you in your jobs, in your home situations, and in your relationship life, have worked yourselves
into a tight spot. Do you see that God is allowing that to come to you because Jesus is lovingly
stretching out that dear death embrace and saying, “Will you join me on my cross? Here I am not
able to control these Roman legions, here I am not able to control this crowd in front of me that is
insulting me and hooting at me, here I am not able to control what they’re going to do with my body
even after I die. Will you join me here? Because I tell you, if you will you will have a great
Person looking after you, as I have looking after me, and you will not suffer anything that you
cannot bear. Nothing will happen to you but what my Father is willing to happen.”

Loved ones, Jesus is trying to draw you into that dear embrace and ask you to die with him. That’s
what this verse, Romans 8:36, really means. It’s a quotation from the Old Testament, “As it is
written, ‘For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be
slaughtered.’” This society that we live in is not based on this way of life. The society we live
in is based on getting its own way and establishing its success and getting its own gratification.
So of necessity this society exerts tremendous pressures on all of us.

For instance, do you know the bestselling paperback today? The bestselling paperback is titled
“Winning Through Intimidation”. It’s the game of how to get one up on the other person — how to
manipulate them, and how to manage them. Do you know the latest fad? We’re always having the “how
to” — how to live more successful lives, how to be happier with your family and your pet dog, how
to be the kind of person you want to be in your business. The latest fad is self assertion training
or assertiveness training. Assertiveness training — assert yourself, make people do what you want
them to do, don’t let them walk over the top of you.

Now loved ones, this society has all those pressures pressing in upon you and me. It is all the
commercial pressures pressing in upon us; “get what makes you comfortable”, “get what makes you
happy”. Loved ones, in the midst of all those we are dying all the day long. We are dying in their
eyes because we are saying, “No, that’s not the way to happiness. No, asserting myself is not the
way to get others to do what I want them to do. No, intimidating others is not the way to win and
be a successful business man. No, getting what I want to make me comfortable and happy in this life
by buying all that I need — that’s not the way to happiness.” We are dying all the day long. In
their eyes we’re being dumb; in our eyes we know we’re joining that dear Jesus on the cross and
accepting that finally the only resources we have in this life come from the Person who made us.
And those resources will only be made available to us when we give up depending on our own
resourcefulness.

Our own resourcefulness is simply a method of living life without any resources at all. And it
always involves tremendous bluff, lying, and finally absolute disillusionment. And loved ones,
that’s what the verse means. We are dying all the day long. We are continually coming into
situations where we’re asked to join Jesus on the cross and to trust the same Father who defended
him to defend us. And oh loved ones, when you begin to do that you’ll find yourselves in a broad,
broad place. Really, believe me — because your Father loves you and he will not let anything
happen to you that will destroy you and you can trust him.

And so I’d ask you, would you start trusting? Will you stop being practical atheists and start
trusting that this dear God is taking care of you and you can afford to join his son on that cross
where he died to his own right to get what he wanted when he wanted, where he wanted, how he wanted?
And if you do that, you’ll find yourself in that broad place that the Father has for each one of
us. None of us should be uptight. None of us should live uptight lives. None of us should be in
“stenochoria’ — none of us should be little monkeys who won’t let go. Let go. Let go and you’ll
find that God will take hold. Believe me, I know it works. Let’s pray.

Dear Father, we would join together, we would put our arms spiritually around one another here in
this room today and we would love each other up to you and pray for each other. Father, you know
how many of us here, how many of the loving brothers and sisters, are in the midst of all these
things. Father, you know how many of us have gotten ourselves into ridiculous situations because we
want what we want. Father, we’re sorry and we ask you to forgive us now. And Lord we see that you
have given us good common sense so we can see what’s happening and we can relax our hold on these
things.

So Lord I pray that you would show each brother and sister and show me if we’re experiencing any
narrowness of room, if we’re experiencing a tight spot, if we find ourselves between a rock and a
hard place, if we’ve painted ourselves into a corner. Enable us now, Father, to see that we’ve done
that because we’ve tried to manage our own lives instead of seeing what you wanted for them and then
receiving the resources that you made available to us.

Lord, enable us to take that plain step this morning simply to say to you, “Father, I have been
living like that for years and I am worn out. And now Lord I see that you have destroyed this old
self – this aggrandizing, self gratifying nature, in Jesus on the cross and I accept that Lord,
thank you. I ask for a new nature. I ask for your Holy Spirit to come in and give me a new nature.
Give me the nature of Jesus — a nature that is submitted to you and that is anxious to find out
your plan for my life and to begin to be satisfied with your resources and not want those that you
haven’t given me.”

Lord, enable each of us to pray that prayer with honesty this morning that you may be glorified in
our lives and then we’d be straightened out and we may begin to walk in a broad place. We ask this
in Jesus’ name and for his glory. And now, the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and throughout this coming week and
forever more. Amen.

Indomitable Living

Romans 8:37

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Loved ones, have you ever been in this situation where, for instance, you had a payment due, and the
month is drawing to a close, and you haven’t got the payment? Or have you ever been in a situation
where there’s an assignment due, and you’re just not getting the work done, and the thing is coming
up closer and closer? Or have you ever been in a situation where there’s strain between you and
your roommate, or between you and your partner or your husband or your wife — there’s just strain?
Now all those situations are situations of pressure — just a continuous, never ending, increasing
pressure away in the back of your head that keeps nagging at you.

Now that’s the real meaning of the Greek word that’s translated a little differently in Romans 8:35
and perhaps you should just turn to that and look at it — Romans 8:35, “Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or sword?” And those translations tend to take the verse right out of our experience. So
it’s important to look back at the Greek words themselves and the Greek word translated
“tribulation” is a word “thlipsis” and it really just means pressure.

And if I said to you, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ — shall pressure?” Probably
all of us would say, “Yeah, yeah — I get so panicky about the thing that I think if Christ really
loved me, would he let me get into this situation?” Or maybe some of us say, “Well, I know he loves
me, and yeah, I know that’s true away back there in my mind somewhere, but I somehow can’t remember
it when I’m in this kind of pressure situation.”

Now if you take it a little further and you deal with the assignment this way — you lie about it to
the professor — and yet you find the new deadline coming up and you still haven’t the assignment
done. Or you borrow the bank payment from a friend and that loan is beginning to spoil your
relationship with your friend. Or you decide with your partner or with your roommate you’ll have
one of those “solve it all, let it all hang out” sessions, and you have one of them and the thing
just disappears in a mess. The alienation is worse than before and you withdraw from each other
more than ever.

Now that’s the kind of situation that is described in the next Greek word “stenochoria” and it’s
translated there as “distress.” But remember, some weeks ago we saw that it really meant narrowness
of room — painting yourself into a corner. You think you’ll try to deal with the assignment
problem by at least winning more time for yourself through a lie, but you find yourself being
painted into a corner where you still haven’t the thing done, and your present state is worse than
it was before.

It’s the same with the roommate or the husband-wife situation; you have one of those sessions where
you’re going to solve it all by being absolutely honest and telling each other exactly what you
think of each other and you find the old “stenochoria” — you paint yourself into a corner. You
have fewer fronts on which to meet each other than you had before. And the same with the old
payment thing; you think you’ll get yourself out of the tight spot that you’re in by negotiating yet
another position from which you can fight the issue. And you get yourself into a narrower spot, a
straightened place — “stenochoria”.

It’s an intense form of pressure, of course. It’s pressure in your life that you’ve tried to deal
with in your own way, and then it becomes almost unbearable pressure. If you say “Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ — shall “stenochoria”?” All of us will say, “Yeah, it
separates me. I’m so preoccupied with my problem when it gets to that point that I can’t get clear.
I feel – I’m sure I can get clear through to God after all this is over — but at the moment don’t
bother me with that kind of stuff. Let me get myself out of this tight spot that I’m in.” Now
that, I think, is what many of us find ourselves in.

Then of course if you just take it another step; you’ve lied to the professor about the assignment
— and you still aren’t able to get it in — and now you have to start planning your day and missing
lectures so that you don’t have to face the professor. Or you find yourself having borrowed the
money from the friend, and now you’re constantly aware of that so it’s utterly spoiled your
friendship. Now you spend your time trying to avoid the person that you used to enjoy being with.
Or with your roommate or your husband or your wife — you’ve negotiated through “stenochoria,” and
now you’re at the position where you still have to keep a front up in front of other people. You
have people into your room with your roommate, and you have to keep up an appearance of friendship
between you. Or you invite people to your house for supper and you have to keep up an appearance of
happiness with your roommate or with your partner.

Now that is what is described in the third word there that’s translated in Romans 8:35 as
“persecution” but it’s the Greek word “diogmos” and it means “pursuit.” It’s that feeling you have
that “circumstances are out to get me, they are, and they’re coming against me. Now I’m not only
retreating into where I wanted to retreat, but I have to turn around and run from it.” And you feel
“Boy won’t they leave me alone? Why won’t they leave me alone — stop crowding me, just give me a
little room and I’ll negotiate myself out of this.”

Loved ones, that’s usually the process, isn’t it? Probably all of us in this room this morning
could say, “Yeah, I could give you an example of that where I’ve had pressure, and by my own
foolishness I’ve turned it in to “stenochoria.” I’ve turned it into a kind of narrowness and
straightened place. I’ve painted myself into a corner. And then I’ve taken another step, and it
seems I can’t get away from these things — they seem to be pursuing me — the circumstances and the
people seem to be actively seeking to destroy me.”

Now loved ones, many of us who are faced with the question, “Who shall separate me from the love of
Christ — will pressure, or narrowness of room, or pursuit?” We would say, “Sure — any of those.
And as it intensifies more and more I haven’t time to think of the peace of God because I’m so busy
trying to get myself out of the mess.”

Now loved ones, it isn’t so with God’s children. Let’s look at that and then let’s tie it up with
ourselves. Do you see that Paul asked the question in verse 35, “Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or pressure, or distress, or narrowness of room, or persecution,
or pursuit, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Then in Verse 37 he answers, “No, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Paul says that there are
certain people who actually, in the midst of all those things, end up more than conquerors.

I don’t ask you to take sides in the Six Day War [in 1967] but I suppose it’s a good example of a
“more than conqueror.” I don’t know whether they were attacked, or whether they made the first
strike, but it was very close. Somehow the Israelis managed to come out of it more than conquerors.

I mean, they came out of it — the Six Day War — with more weapons than they went in with — more
tanks. Many of them were Russian tanks I suppose, but they came out with more than they went in
with, so they were stronger than when they went into the battle. And they gained a lot of ground
from the enemy that they actually had never intended to take, I suppose, originally.

I suppose that’s what it means to be “more than conquerors.” You not only win the battle, but you
actually come out of it stronger than when you went in and you come out of it with ground that
you’ve taken from the enemy. Now loved ones, that’s what Paul says God’s children do in down to
earth problems of everyday living such as we’ve discussed.

I think many of here would say, “Well, I feel I’m a child of God. I believe that God, the creator
of the universe, is my loving Father and I believe that he put my old, selfish, self ruled, self
reliant personality into Jesus and destroyed it there so I would be free to trust him as my Father.
Because I know before, with my old perverted personality, I couldn’t trust him, but now I believe I
am free to trust him. So I do believe I’m a child of God and yet I admit that, in these kinds of
situations, I’m not more than conqueror. In fact, I’m often roughed up badly and often come out of
it conquered and fleeing with my tail between my legs.”

And I think that’s true, isn’t it — that there are many of us here this morning that actually are
children of God, and actually have received the Spirit of Jesus into us, and have been changed
inside. And we do believe that God is in charge of everything, and that there’s nothing comes to us
other than what he has filtered through his hands. But when we get into these particular situations
— in the chaos and confusion of the situation — we find we’re not able to rest in peace, and we
find we lose all our peace and a lot of our trust.

Now loved ones, why is that? Don’t you see that it’s because God is trying to reveal something to
us through allowing these things to come to us? He doesn’t send them, but he allows them to come to
us. The payment for the bank that we can’t make, the roommate relationship or the husband-wife
relationship that has strain in it, the assignment that we can’t get done on time — he allows these
things to come to us to show us that even though, on the whole, we believe God is in charge of our
lives, we have to start bringing that control of his down into the nitty gritty, individual,
everyday experiences of our lives. And he will continue to allow these things to come to us so that
we will come more and more, into the position of conquerors in them.

We usually experience defeat in these situations because that’s an area that we have not handed
totally into the Father’s hands. If you want to know, “Where have I not yielded my life to God” —
loved ones, it’s dead easy. Everywhere there is strain in your life; there you have not given
everything over to the Father. That’s right, really. It’s just a sure way of telling — wherever
you have strain. If you’re sitting there and you’re thinking, “I have four payments like that.” Or
“I have two relationships in that situation.” Or “I have five assignments like that.” If you’re
sitting there and you’re thinking, “I can think of others that you haven’t mentioned” — loved ones,
wherever there is strain in your life, that’s a place where you have not fully handed the thing into
the Father’s control. That’s it.

Now don’t keep worrying and being anxious about it. Don’t sit there and squirm and work yourself up
into a kind of strength where you’ll be able to take this thing and pull it into shape. Rather, see
that God is showing you, “My child I want you to live at ease. I want you to live at ease — not
that your circumstances will be easy — my Son’s weren’t. The cross was not soft to be upon. My
disciples did not have an easy time physically. But inside you can have a continual ease in all

these situations.”

Now loved ones, how do you come into it? Well, think of the strain with the roommate, or with the
husband, or the wife. The first step is to ask the Holy Spirit to undeceive you — to undeceive
you. Somehow the lying spirit in this universe, whom Jesus calls Satan, has deceived you about that
relationship. That’s why you have strain about it. The other person may have strain too — your
wife or your husband may be strained in their attitude to you. Your roommate may be strained in her
attitude to you. You can’t do anything about that, that’s not your business. Your business is to
deal with your own strain. You get nowhere while you keep on saying, “Oh, but they’re doing the
wrong thing, they’re causing the strain.” You have no control over them. The fact is that God can
bring you into a place where you have such freedom from strain yourself, that even their strain does
not touch you.

So the first step is to ask the Holy Spirit to give you light, to reveal to you in what way you have
taken that relationship under your control, taken it into your hands and out of God’s hands, because
that’s the basis of the problem you’re having. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you; “Holy Spirit, in
what way have I a wrong attitude to my husband or my wife, or a wrong attitude to my roommate? In
what way am I wanting them to do things that they won’t do, and wanting them to stop doing things
that they won’t stop?

In what way, in other words, do I want to control their lives? In what way do I want to be God over
them instead of you? In what way am I expecting something from them that they are not giving me?
In what way, Holy Spirit, am I looking to them for something that I should look to you alone for?
In what way, Holy Spirit, am I trying to get some significance from them in the way they treat me —
some security for myself in them, in the way they treat me? Some happiness for myself in them, and
in the way they treat me?”

Loved ones, that’s the first step and honestly, you would not believe it, but every strain that you
and I have in relationships with another loved one comes because of deception in us about what we
should expect from them. That’s it. Loved ones, every husband-wife team here that have strain with
each other, that’s why, loved ones. We’re looking to each other for something that we should
receive from God alone, and we’re expecting from one another some security, some significance, some
happiness, some attention, and some love that we should receive from God alone and therefore,
actually, we’re using each other. We are.

We all like to say, “Oh no — we’re not.” But, we’re using each other as crutches to somehow help
us through our lives because we don’t believe that the Father is able to do this for us. We
believe, rather, that we should receive it, maybe, from him — but through the other person. And so
we’re using each other, and therefore are unable to love each other — that’s it. When we say we
love each other to our roommate or to our partner in marriage, we’re really saying, “I need you” —
not “I love you.” So usually, loved ones, it’s some deception there.

It’s the same in the business issues, the same with the payment thing. It concerns our financial
lives — some way in which we’re taking our whole financial life into our hands. That’s why it
begins to go astray. It’s the same with the assignment, our academic life, you know — we’re not
doing things when God tells us to do them. We’re trying to burn the candle at both ends, and so
we’re cutting this thing short so we can get our own way here. It’s always because we’re taking the
thing, whatever it is, into our own hands and trying to run it our way that we end up in situations
of pressure that turn into situations of narrowness of room and turn into situations of pursuit that

we cannot escape from. But the first step is — ask the Holy Spirit for light.

If you ask me, “Why ask the Holy Spirit?” Loved ones, you and I are great at introspection, but we
cannot see through the blindness that this lying spirit of the universe puts upon us — and you know
it. What husband or wife here has not come back from a vacation and discovered that they are
treating each other abominably? What husband or wife here has not come back from a break when
they’ve been away from each other and you come back more determined to really love each other than
ever before? It’s the same with roommates. Inside that narrow little room, there’s a deception that
takes place until they begin to see the whole thing awry — off balance. And what we need is to see
it right, and only the Holy Spirit can give us light about that.

The second step is to be willing to take our place with Jesus on the cross in dying to our rights to
get from this other person what we think they ought to give us, or dying to our rights to run our
financial life the way we want to. In other words, it’s always because we want the car and we want
this other thing as well, that we come into pressure. It’s always because we’re not willing to give
to our dear partner or dear roommate — but we want to get something from them — that we come into
pressure.

The second step is coming into a place where you are willing to say, “Lord Jesus, you died to
anything that Pilate could give you, you died to anything that the soldiers could give you. You
never dickered with them, you never pled with them, and you never copped a plea with them to get
from them what you thought they could give you. You depended wholly on your Father. Lord Jesus, I
want to put myself, like you, into the hands of your Father. I want to say, ‘Father into thy hands
I commit my spirit. I commit my love life, and my social life, and my financial life, and my
academic life, and my professional life. Lord Jesus, I’m willing to die to the rights to the things
that I’ve been demanding in this situation.’” And loved ones, when you come to the ground of your
heart in that particular area of your life, and are willing to say that, there comes down from the
Holy Spirit of Jesus, at the right hand of the Father, peace and rest that you cannot believe.

Now loved ones, it is miraculous, because it is not just the absence of strife, or the absence of
pressure, it is a positive rest and peace and an unbelievable source of love that goes out to other
people and an actual source of, not just freedom from anxiety, but actual joy and peace in the midst
of the situation. So it is a real gift of life of the Holy Spirit that God gives you when you at
last hand that part of your life over to him. So in effect you end up more than conqueror, because
you come out of the tight situation having appropriated a new part of Jesus — a new part of his
life. You come out of the situation stronger than you went in and you’ve taken ground from the
enemy that you will never yield the same way again — you’ll never be caught just on that same issue
again. From then on, you’ll be able, in that area of your life, to walk in peace and rest.

Now loved ones, that’s part of what Paul means when he says, “In all these things we are more than
conquerors.” But the two steps are: first, the light of the Holy Spirit to see in what way you’ve
taken the thing out of God’s hands into your own hands and in what way you’re looking to this other
person, or this other situation, for what you want and what you need, instead of looking to God for
what he will give you when you need it. And secondly, taking your place with Jesus in dying to your
rights to those things, and in looking to God alone for what you need in your life.

Now loved ones, I know it works, because God teaches me it day-by-day. And I know that he is the
same to you as he is to me. So I would encourage you — maybe you’re sitting there and you don’t
know anything about Christianity at all — maybe you have difficulty even believing some of it. But

this is reality, you know it fine well, you know this is where we’re living and loved ones, if you
see that — whether you have all your intellectual arguments sorted out or not — I’d take a step
forward this morning. You don’t need to look far, you know it. If it’s a pressure situation — you
know the strain. Just go right to that situation and speak to the Spirit of God this morning and
then look to Jesus — really.

I’ll try to pray a prayer that would help you to know how to pray yourself. And I’d ask you to do
it as we come, now, to an end and then, this afternoon especially, to begin to look at some of these
things. But take a step now. Don’t just listen to it — it’s not just stuff to understand. It’s
truth that we can be freed by — really.

Let’s pray. Dear Father, it’s almost unbelievable in this world of pressure and this world of
tension to think that you have intended us to live in complete ease and rest. And Lord, with all
our selfishness we have so often thought that means free from troubles or free from difficulties.
But Father, we see that Jesus was not free from those things nor the disciples, and that you want us
to be able to bear all the things that other people bear, but with complete peace and unruffled
rest. Father, you can see the area in our lives where there is strain. It’s a strain that
prevents us enjoying this present moment, it’s a strain that prevents us being interested in other
people — we’re so tied up with ourselves and our own problems. It’s a strain that prevents us
rejoicing in you, and enjoying your world, and loving you, and letting our spirits go up to you in
peace and in rest.

Lord, we ask you now to send your Holy Spirit down to us — as you promised that you’d give the Holy
Spirit to them that asked. And Holy Spirit, we would ask you — will you reveal to us in a deeper
way than even we’ve heard this morning, reveal to us in a personal way that we will understand how
we have taken this situation into our own hands, how we’re demanding from it what we want, how we’re
wanting to be God over our partners, or over our finances, or our academic life or our business
life? Holy Spirit, will you show us? We’re blind and we cannot see it. You know that. You know
we’re blundering about here, and we’re experiencing this strain because we can’t see what we’re
doing. Will you show us in what way we have to put this back into God’s hands and relax into him?

And then, Lord Jesus, we know that you took this personality of ours that always wants to do things
itself, you took it into yourself and destroyed it in Calvary. And Lord Jesus, you know that you’re
able to destroy all this manic activity and its attempt to bring its own solution to these problems,
now. Lord Jesus, we want to take our place with you on the cross and die to our rights in this
situation. We want to die to our right to get out of it what we want. And we want, with you, to
say “Into thy hands, Father, I commit my spirit.” Lord Jesus, we want to do what you do — look to
your Father alone for all that we need and be content with what he gives us. And be content, as he
is content, with our roommates and our partners, and no longer strain to change them ourselves.

Dear Father, I would ask you for my brothers and sisters and for myself, that you would help us now
and give us light, each one of us. Enable us to see where we have to submit our wills, and it will
bring us into that peace that passes all understanding, that will keep our minds and hearts in
Christ. Amen.

God’s Love and Death

Romans 8:38a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Have you ever been addicted to anything? I think a lot of us here have been addicted to alcohol,
and to drugs, and to nicotine. But I’d just ask you, who maybe haven’t been involved in those
addictions, have you ever even been addicted to something like Coke or caffeine? It seems to me
probably all of us here have had some experience of addiction even though society may not normally
regard it as addiction. I remember I went with a group, years ago, to do missionary work in the
mountains of Mexico. It was then that I realized that Coca-Cola, for me, tasted like water and it
was then I decided, “Okay, that’s when I have to stop.”

I think most of us probably have some experience of addiction. Now, you know loved ones that the
first difficulty you face is that you have to reach the point where you really want to quit. That’s
the first difficulty, I think; you have to reach that point where you really want to quit. And
probably that, at the end of the day, is the greatest difficulty. But you have to come to a point
where you decide, “Yes, I am going to quit. That’s it.”

Now the second difficulty is, in a way, more serious than that, and yet it’s something someone else
has to do something about. Because I’ve found that even when I decided to quit, my body, and my
mind, and my emotions had got used to the addiction. My personality had gotten used to this
particular crutch that I was using, so I discovered that I wasn’t facing simply the resistance of my
own will to quitting, but I found that I was facing the resistance of my personality that had got
used to this for years, and years, and years. It was like being in a car; you wanted to turn it to
the right — but the wheels were caught in ruts and it kept going straight ahead. You really did
want to turn it, but the car was in these ruts and you could not turn the wheels.

I think that’s what a number of us have discovered with this whole business of addiction. That
you’re facing two problems: one, you have to decide to quit yourself; and two, you find that when
you do decide to quit your whole personality has gotten used to this crutch or this addiction, and
you feel that it’s almost impossible to change it. We’re all addicts, in a way, even if we’re not
addicted to specific chemicals such as we mentioned, we’re all addicts in that we’ve drugged
ourselves into trying to find fulfillment from the presents that we’ve been given, rather than from
the one who gave us the presents.

We’re a bit like the wife of the millionaire who says, “Things, things, things — you’re always
giving me things but it’s your own love that I need, not the things.” Except that many of us here,
I think, have not come to that point; we’ve tried to satisfy ourselves with the things, things,
things, not realizing that what alone would satisfy us is the personal love of this dear One who
gave us these things.

So many of us here this morning probably still are addicted to a bright sunny day for our happiness;
probably there are many of us here that still don’t realize how dependent we are on a bright sunny
day for our feeling of happiness, or how dependent we are on the encouraging words of our peers for
a feeling of recognition and importance. How dependent we are on our living or our working
situations for our sense of security. And yet loved ones, all those things are just the presents
that our Creator gave us. They’re really there to express his personal love for us, and to get us

to begin to depend on him alone and not his gifts.

Now I think some of us here have realized that; I think some of us here are aware of that. We’ve
listened to this for several Sundays, and maybe several years, and we realize, “I know I’m depending
on the gifts that he’s given me instead of him, himself. I know that, and I do want to change, but
I’ve tried to change. I have tried to think he approves of me; what does it matter whether this
friend of mine approves of me or not? I’ve tried to think that way but my mind seems in such a rut;
I seem to have gotten so used to depending on other people’s opinions for self respect or a sense of
self worth that I have, that when they don’t approve of me I find myself in depression, or in
anxiety, or worry.”

I think many of us are in that spot. We say, “Yes, what you’ve said is right; we know that we’ve
been given all these things only for the expression of the Creator’s love to us, and we know we’re
meant to depend on him himself and not the things he gives, but we find we cannot do it.” And many
of us come to the point where we feel, “My mind, and emotions and my body have become so used to
depending on things, and people, and situations for all that I need that I think I cannot change. I
just cannot change.” And it seems to many of us here that we just cannot change.

And yet we all know people who have changed. We know that even though it seems we could never change
ourselves, yet it is a fact that many people have changed and they’ve become different people; they
have begun to depend on the Creator for their worth and their importance. And loved ones, it’s
because our old self was crucified with Christ — that’s why it’s possible.

Our old personality that has got into those ruts — you are dead right we are in ruts — you’ve got
so used to being a “yes man” or a “yes woman” when it paid you that you are in a rut. You’ve been
so brain washed by the idea that if you had a good bank account or a good insurance policy you’d be
safe that you’re right — it seems impossible to change that personality that has got into those
ruts. Except for the fact that God did change it loved ones, you’re not responsible for changing it;
our old self was crucified with Christ.

What you used to be was destroyed by God in Jesus. That’s so important that I think it would be
good for us to pause a little this morning and look at some of the clear statements in God’s word
about these things. So will you turn Colossians 3:3, “For you have died,” — the “you” that used to
be — “have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Now loved ones, your personality that is addicted to alcohol or that is addicted to comfort, or
laying in bed, or that is addicted to jealousy, or that is addicted continually to the evaluating of
your friends — that personality was crucified with Christ and you can have a new nature if you
really want it. Now loved ones, that’s it honestly. It’s just a lie for you to sit there and say,
“Brother I cannot. I have tried.” Loved ones, God’s word is stronger than any personal experience
that you have had, and God’s word says that your personality as it used to be, that dear old body
that is used to alcohol pumping into the blood, that dear old mind that is used to everybody
approving of you, those emotions that are used to having the love of other people constantly feeding
them and being offended when you don’t get that love — loved ones, all that was crucified with
Christ.” And it is possible for you to have a new nature this morning because God has already given
it to you if you really want it, and if you are willing to step out in that faith.

I’d press you on it because for years I felt, “No, I can’t, I can’t.” And don’t you see dear
brothers and sisters that that’s the game Satan is playing and all society is playing? Don’t you

see that is where psychology at times has gone astray? “We are what we are and we cannot change.”
No, you can change — that’s what God is saying here, “All that you used to be was crucified in my
son. That’s why I said, ‘I made him to be sin who knew no sin.’” Sin is depending on things, and
people, and circumstances for the security, the significance, and happiness that you’re meant to get
from your Father-Creator.

God made Jesus what you were like, and destroyed that on Calvary. In other words the little ruts
that we have equipment to measure that occur in the cortex of your brain that are made by your
thought patterns, were put into Christ and destroyed in him. It is a lie to believe that you have
to keep on thinking a certain way simply because our instruments can measure the ruts in the cortex
of the brain. God took that and destroyed it in his Son. And even though the physical symptoms may
still be there for us to measure with our equipment, yet the effect of those in the cortex of your
brain — the thought patterns that you’ve established for years — the unclean thought patterns —
were put into Jesus and destroyed there.

Loved ones, it’s the same with everything else that you’re addicted to. That slavish habit of man
fear that you have over the years developed into a monstrous paranoia; that was put into Jesus and
destroyed in him and you can be free of it. I know it’s incredible, but you, by accepting that all
that you were was crucified with Jesus and being willing, of course, to be crucified with Jesus, and
being willing to undergo whatever he wanted you to undergo — you by accepting that this morning can
be freed in an instant. Truly, you can be freed in an instant. That’s what God means when he did
this.

And it’s the same with everything; any overwhelming addiction to nicotine, or caffeine that causes
you headaches when you don’t feed it, that was put into Jesus and destroyed in him. That dependence
you have on the opinion of your peers that keeps tripping you up every time you try and be an
individualist — that was crucified in Christ and you can be free.

Loved ones, I’d press you on that because I know there are dozens of you sitting there this morning
and do you know — we all have little things. Some of us are sitting here with an alcohol problem.
Some of us are here with some drug problem that looks more respectable; it’s aspirin, or codeine or
something else. Do you see that we’re all in the same boat — you are no worse than the rest of us.
If any of us are addicted to anything — if it’s addiction to men’s praise, addiction to anything
but to God, dependence on anything but our dear Father in heaven — we’re addicts and we’re all in
the same boat.

And loved ones, it’s to all of us here, not just those dear souls that have so often felt inferior
because they’re addicted to something that’s more obvious or that we’ve been able to give a label to
— but loved ones, to all of us — you can be free in a moment if you really want to be, because God
has taken that personality of yours and destroyed it in Jesus. But it requires you to believe that;
you can’t be freed just by your own effort. It takes you to live in that day-by-day-by-day.

Now loved ones, that’s what God is saying to us. And the only reason God has done that is because
he is our dear Father and he wants us to depend on him, and to trust him, and to love him back
instead of trying to substitute all these other things for him. He’s like a dear Father that sees
his children living on cookies and Coke and he knows that what they need is the good protein and
carbohydrates that will make them healthy. He wants us to be healthy, and he wants us to get off
these things that are purely temporary and are not lasting and do not do the job, finally.

He’s like a Father who sees his children trying to hit all kinds of emotional highs through cheap
thrills of every kind and he says, “You were made to have the peace and exhilaration of an intimate
relationship of love with me — that’s why I made you. That’s why I’m inviting you into the death
that my Son experienced to all these temporary things that do not actually satisfy you. I’m
inviting you to die with him to significance from things, or security from things, or importance
from the people that think certain things about you, or the feelings that certain situations give
you. I’m asking you to die with my Son to these things and if you’ll do that, I will give you all
the satisfaction of an intimate relationship with myself. But I cannot, unless you’ll give up all
these other substitute pearls that you have. You will not receive this pearl of great price —
you’ll have no reality in your relationship with me — until you accept that these things are wrong
and that you are finished with them and that I have destroyed the old personality that was addicted
to them.”

Now loved ones, that’s really what God has done. And that’s what it means when the Bible talks
about God’s love in Christ. God’s love in Christ is his desire to have us as dependent on himself as
Jesus was, and therefore he invites us into Jesus’ death to all the temporary things and situations
that are a substitute for him, himself. That’s God’s love in Christ.

Now loved ones, you’ll be able to see then, why Paul says what he says in this verse that we’re
studying today. It’s Romans 8:38, “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord.” And that’s such a massive verse that I would just like to talk about death — for I am sure
that death will not be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. You can
see why; because death is just the removal of the things that we have already ceased to depend on
through our crucifixion and resurrection in Christ. It’s just the removal of those things.

Death cannot separate you from the love of Christ Jesus if you have already ceased to depend on
those things. Death is just the removal of the sunny day, it’s just the removal of friends and
colleagues whose opinion is important to you, it’s just the removal of exciting little vacation
experiences that give you a feeling of happiness and satisfaction. Death is just the removal of
those things, so if you’ve already accepted your death with Jesus to those things, and come alive to
the real person, the dear Person, that is behind all these things and whose fellowship and
relationship you were created for, then death is nothing; it is just the removal of things that you
have already ceased to depend on. And that’s why Paul is saying, “Death is just exposing us to the
full light and love of this person without the immediate circumstances or gifts that were used to
first express his love to us.” And so death for someone who has come to depend on the Creator alone
is nothing.

That’s really important to see — that that’s the way someone who has a loving, intimate
relationship with God, and who depends on him alone, feels about death. That’s why when I went,
years ago, to a little house in North Minneapolis where the dear guy was having one of the most
painful cancer deaths that I have seen and I found him writhing on the bed, the day before his
death. We talked and then I prayed, and as I was going out of the room I said, “God bless you.” He
stopped all the writhing, his eyes lit up and he smiled and said, “No, not God bless you but say to
me ‘God make you a blessing.’” He died the next day, and I did his funeral about three days later.

And you know, just the thought of that dear fellow saying that in circumstances like that brought

home to me that death is nothing for a person who has already begun a close, intimate relationship
with the Father. I remember my Dad in a hospital in Belfast. I remember sitting with him through
the night and I remember he died at eight o’clock that morning. I remember him saying, “I’ve come
in this time to be really healed.” And I sensed the certainty in his own heart that this time it
was a real healing; it was a completely new body — it wasn’t a patching up of the old one. And
there was a complete peace because death for people who have already begun an intimate relationship
with the Creator is nothing but a passing from one room into another, and that’s all it is.

It’s no separating you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Because for you the love of God in
Christ Jesus has meant dying to all the temporary things that you’re going to lose when death comes,
and a coming alive to the real person that is behind all these things. And that’s what Jesus says;
“Whoever believes in me will never die.” Do you remember when some of them said, “Oh, this man’s
daughter is dead?” He said, “No, no she’s not dead, she only sleeps.” You remember he proved it by
just wakening her again.

And Jesus explained to us, “For those of you who already have a close relationship to my Father and
know him as your Father, death for you is just a going to sleep. And you’ll go to sleep so
beautifully that those who watch you will say, “What a beautiful morning it will be tomorrow.” It’s
nothing but a sleeping and a wakening up, and then seeing face-to-face the Person whom you have
glimpsed all these years through his gifts.

So really, it’s a difficult thing for a person who is in that close relationship with the Father to
know whether to stay here or to leave. That’s what Paul put so clearly in Philippians 1:21. “For
to me to live is Christ.” It’s not my job, it’s not the things that I own, it’s not the people I
know, it’s Christ. “and to die is gain. If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful
labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My
desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”

Do you see loved ones, that for those of us who are in that relationship to the Creator, you’re just
looking forward to meeting the real Person whom you have glimpsed so often in the brightness of the
sunlight? You’re going to actually meet and live with the dear Person whose gentleness made little
lambs and soft snow. You’re actually going to meet the Person whom you have glimpsed through his
gifts, and whom you already have begun to know personally and to depend on in a personal way. And
for those of us who are in that situation, death is a gain — it’s not something that separates us
from the love of God; it’s something that brings us into the fullness of that love. It’s like
meeting the dear person that you’ve been looking forward to meeting for years.

In other words, death is only a fearful thing for those of us who are still junkies. Death is only
a fearful thing for those of us who are still junkies on materialistic security — our security
comes from the number of things we possess, those of us who are addicted to pleasure and happiness;
whose happiness comes from the more pleasure we can get, the more exciting experiences that we get,
whose sense of worth comes from other people’s opinions. For us, death is a vast expansive
emptiness, a loss of all the things that we’ve depended on, and that are life to us. Death for us
is a frustrating experience of constant deprivation. Death for us is a great lonely darkness,
because we have lost all the things that make life bearable to us.

Now where do you, yourself, stand? Here’s a good way to find out: if you were dead at this moment,
what would the inner state of your own personal experience be? If you can imagine being dead at
this moment, what things or what people or what situations would you miss most or do you think you

could not do without? Really, where does your enjoyment of life come from truly?

Loved ones, that will help you to know to what extent you’ve begun to live life the way your Creator
really wanted you to. Let’s just imagine what you would die to. Let’s imagine that just after this
service you died. So you’d be dead to your possessions; you would not take the car with you or the
house, or the money, so those things would not be with you. Now how much do you get from those —
because you’re not going to have them with you. So whatever you’re getting from those, you’re going
to be without when you die and one thing certain is, we are all going to die.

You wouldn’t have your friends or your husband, or wife, or your relatives so you won’t have their
smile, and you won’t have their comfort. Now to what extent do you depend on them? You won’t have
a future, that’s certain; you’ll have no future. Now, to what extent do you spend your life
thinking of your future, or comforting yourself with what you’re going to do when things get better?
So loved ones, death would mean dying, at least, to those things.

God’s will is for you this very morning, to take that position — that’s God’s will — for you this
very moment, to take a position in regard to those things as if you’re dead, and then to think of
yourself as lying here on this floor. We all go home and during the night Jesus comes and sees your
body that you’ve now vacated. He comes in and in his Spirit he gets into that body and he stands up
in it and walks out of this room. It is he that meets your friends tomorrow at work. And when they
say, “You’re looking well” you say, “Well, no this isn’t me, I died and this life I’m living — it’s
not I that live it, it’s Christ that’s living it in me. And I am living this life by the faith of
the son of God.” Now that’s what can happen to you this morning, and that’s what happened to me one
day many years ago. It can happen to you, and you can change completely.

You have to take a step, loved ones. You do have to take a stand, because all of you have struggled
with these things. I know you’ve tried to make a change and it hasn’t worked, so you do have to
take a stand. I’d encourage you that you could take it this morning by saying “Lord, I am finished
with this dependence on everything that I am going to lose anyway, instead of being dependent on
you. Lord, I’m going to take a step of faith this morning and begin to depend on you.”

Loved ones, you do have to take that step if you want to make a change. Because if you go home this
morning and say, “I agree with all that, and I am going to try to change” you know it won’t work.
You have to make a covenant with God that you’re going to change. So I’d encourage you this morning
to do that, really.

I think we should pray with our heads bowed. You should just raise your hand if you determined, “I
want to make a change.” I’ll see it, and will pray for you. And that’s all; it’s a covenant
between you, and God, and me. I’d encourage you loved ones to make a definite stand.

I was against that whole thing. I was what I thought was a kind of smooth, sophisticated
intellectual, and thought all this decision stuff was mad. But loved ones, I know now that
confession with the mouth is made unto salvation, and you do have to, sometime, tell someone, “I am
beginning to live my life this way.” So I’d encourage you to take a stand even as we pray this
morning. And then by all means after, if you do raise your hand, if you want to come to the prayer
room afterwards that’s good — if you don’t, that’s alright.

Let’s pray.

Dear Father, I would trust you now for my dear brothers and sisters here — many of whom have
listened to this for a long time and have wanted to change. Father I would trust you now to give
them the grace to raise their hands and say, “I’m going to start living this way and I just want you
to know and I know that God sees my hand going up.” Father I just trust you. Amen.

Using — Not Abusing — The World

Romans 8:38b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Here is something very easy to imagine: a hard day at the office or at school. Okay, so you just
couldn’t grab any rest and you hit emergency after emergency –it’s one of those days. You miss
several appointments or assignments and you spoil your relationship with at least one significant
other and you’re just feeling fed up and tired and worn out. Now loved ones, many dear ones in our
society, and maybe some of you, when they’re faced with that come home and using the beer, or the
martini, or the cigarette is the only way in which they can possibly unwind after a day like that,
so that’s what they do — maybe some of you do — and actually it works. It does work because
scientifically the nicotine and the alcohol are depressant drugs.

And so through the blood stream and through their effect on the nerve endings, they actually
immobilize the part of your brain that receives warning signals that there’s strain in your whole
personality. That’s what happens; it actually cuts off the warning signals so that you don’t know
that all kinds of strain exist in your body as result of that kind of hectic day. And so you seem
to feel relaxed and you enter into that kind of specious vacuum, or at least you’re removed from it
all, and it happens simply because they’re depressant drugs and that’s what they do.

They immobilize the part of your brain that receives those danger signals of strain from your body.
So you remember the way you tensed up when he said that thing to you during the day, or you remember
the way your emotions got all worked up with anxiety because you couldn’t get this assignment in.
Now what the depressant drugs do is they cut off those signals — they don’t eliminate the strain,
the strain is still there — they just cut off the reception of those signals to your brain. So
really, in a way, you do become like the Titanic. That’s really what happens when you down the
beer, or the martini, or you smoke the cigarette. You actually become like the Titanic, where all
the passengers went on in a kind of unrealistic euphoria because they were insulated from the
knowledge that the crew or the Captain had about the dangers they were about to face. And so in
effect that’s what happens; you become kind of like a Titanic and you’re insulated from the things
that are actually beginning to burn inside.

What happens to most of us is that we get so accustomed to neutralizing the warning bells or the
alarm signals that let us know there are fires raging inside our life or our body that we become
incapable of facing those fires, and we become incapable of facing life without cutting off the
warning signals. That’s when we become addicts or junkies, because we become incapable of facing
life without using something physical to cut off the “Thousand natural shocks,” that Shakespeare
said, “flesh is heir to” [Hamlet]. And so we cut off those thousand shocks that come in upon us; we
cut off our knowledge of them by some kind of drug addiction. Now that is one way to get peace.
And loved ones, Jesus pointed that out in John 14:27. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to
you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” So that is one kind of peace, you see, that the world
can give.

Now it can give it, loved ones, so nobody should sit here this morning and say it doesn’t work. You
have to keep on and on at it and it becomes your master eventually, but it does bring you a kind of
peace. It involves using the physical world to dull the body’s warning signals so that you’re no
longer aware of the pains that come to you from living without your heavenly Father, that’s it.

It’s using the physical world to dull the warning signals that tell you that you’re not living the
way you should live and that you don’t need to live a day in a terrible kind of juggernaut
experience such as you do.

The warning signals come to you and give you headaches and give you anxiety and worry — they’re to
warn you that you’re not living the way you were meant to live — you weren’t meant to shatter
through a day like that. You were meant to trust your loving Father for all that day. You were
meant to look to him each moment, and he’d have taken care of the emergencies, and he’d have enabled
you to get over the difficulty of the appointments that you’ve missed. But really, drug addiction is
using the physical world to cut off those signals so that you can continue to live without God —
without treating him as your loving Father. And yet you don’t have to put up with the signals in
your brain that “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark”, that there is something wrong
inside.

Now loved ones, God’s word has a title for that; it’s called “abusing the world.” That’s what it is
— it’s “abusing the world.” Not using the world or the gifts or the material things in the world
for the purpose for which they were given, but using them, in fact, to prevent yourself realizing
that you don’t trust the Creator as your loving Father.

Now I think many of us here this morning probably rose delightedly to that whole sermon last Sunday,
because it was a really good “smoking and drinking” sermon. And I think many of you could have sat
there and said, “That’s it, brother, just give it to them — those miserable old addicts sitting
beside me here. Their bodies have got so used to the drug that they can’t get away from it and yet,
that has been crucified with Christ and they can stop it if they want to — why don’t they? That’s
right, you go for them.”

And it’s very easy loved ones, to do that in all of our self-righteousness and to miss the point of
what God was saying to us last Sunday. To miss the point that sin is not just using something
physical to achieve that purpose, but sin is using any drug, whether it be a physical drug, or
emotional drug, or an intellectual drug — it’s using any of those drugs so that you can live
without trusting God as your loving Father.

It’s using anything as a substitute for the one relationship that you need — and that is a loving
relationship of trust as the son and daughter of the Person who made you. And sin is using any drug
for that — the alcohol and caffeine are just easy examples. But loved ones, it’s using any drug —
emotional, intellectual, or physical — to prevent you trusting the Father for the love and sympathy
and understanding that you’re to receive from him only.

So would you come back with me to the hard day that we talked about? And let’s think this time that
you come home and you’ve had the personality conflicts, and you’ve had the emergencies and you’re
just worn out. You wouldn’t dream of touching a cigarette –“Oh no.” And you wouldn’t dream of
touching that martini because “Oh, that’s addiction and dirty, bad, sin” and you would not have
anything to do with it. But your poor roommate, or your partner, or your dearest friend, or your
dog, or yourself — you explain the day completely to them, from your point of view of course.

You explain it all, and the poor wife has to sit there, the poor husband has to listen to it all.
“He said this to me and I said this to him.” Or your roommate, or your friend — whoever happens to
be around — and then after explaining it all, you sit back and you bathe as the drug rolls over
you. All that confidential sympathizing comes from the other person, and that kind of marital

reinforcement comes from that poor husband or wife whose duty it is to give it to us or that self
pity that comes from ourselves — we sit back and allow it all to roll over
us and soothe us, and soothe us, and soothe us. That’s drug addiction.

That’s receiving from someone else the love and the understanding that we are meant to receive from
our God alone. I don’t need to tell you that most family problems, most roommate problems come
exactly from that because they don’t give you what you think they should give you. That’s where the
resentments come up. “She doesn’t understand me, doesn’t love me, and has no interest in me; has
interest only in herself. He doesn’t care about what I’m going through at all, just has no ability
to put himself in anybody else’s shoes.” And the same with the husbands and wives, we’re not
getting from them what other husbands and wives give to their partners. And we never say it, but
deep, deep down all kinds of resentments and bitterness’s build up inside because we’re trying to
receive a drug from someone else that will act as a substitute for the love and understanding and
sympathy of our dear Father.

Now loved ones, a whole new life breaks upon you when you accept that that old world-dependent,
people-oriented, circumstance-drugged personality was crucified with Christ, and you decide that you
no longer need from people, or from circumstances, or from situations, or from experiences — the
love and the understanding and the reinforcement that you can get from your own God. A whole new
life breaks upon you — you would not believe it — a whole new, courageous, free, healthy,
outgoing, dynamic begins to take hold of you and you cease to be a poor little creature who always
needs to be comforted, or encouraged, or always needs the recognition of his peers, or always needs
the adulation of his friends, or the sympathy of his partner. You become instead, a person who is
full, and complete, and free, and liberated, and filled with an outgoing love themselves. Now loved
ones, that’s what we mean when some of you committed yourselves to Jesus last Sunday. That’s what
it means. It means joining Jesus in a death to anything — be it nicotine, or caffeine, or the
sympathy of other people, or the love, or the adulation of other people — anything but God’s own
love for you.

Now God’s word puts it lots of different ways. So would you look at some verses, loved ones, just
to see what it is? Galatians 4:6, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son
into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” Now when you turn from your friends, or from other
people, or from things for comfort and for consolation, and you decide, “I’m finished. I’m letting
that old personality that got used to that kind of treatment be destroyed with Jesus” — loved ones,
there comes into your life a Spirit from God that makes you feel like his son, makes you feel like
his daughter. That’s right, really. It’s a Spirit that comes inside and makes you feel like God is
your Father.

You’ve probably heard me talk often about it on Sunday mornings and you thought, “Oh, I’d love to
have that attitude to the person who made the sky above me — I’d love to feel that in the midst of
that argument with the boss, I’d love to feel that.” Loved ones, you can only feel it if God sends
the Spirit of his son into your heart, and he only does that if you will give up all other crutches.
You can’t have your friend’s love, and your friend’s comfort, and your friend’s consolation and
then grab Jesus as well. It has to be either or; it’s one or the other. It’s deciding, “I’ll
depend on one and not the other.”

That’s partly what it means — it means a wholehearted experience. Now that’s the way the Bible
described it in II Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the
old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” And it’s like being a new person, it really is.

It’s like being a completely different person from the one you used to be. And if you’ve ever lost
that sense of being an absolutely new creation, be sure that it’s because you’ve gone back to some
of your old addiction, really. If there’s anybody here who has lost the sense of being a new
creation, it’s because you’ve gone back to some of the old addiction. You’re still looking to the
poor little new car for a little bit of excitement. You’ve gone back to some of the old things, and
you’re getting a little bit of excitement or love or sympathy from those and that’s why you’ve
ceased to be a new creation, or to sense you are a new creation.

And loved ones, one last verse, Galatians 6:14, “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” That’s
what it’s like. It’s accepting your place in Jesus and expecting no comfort but what comes from your
Father, expecting no clothing but what he gives you. It’s accepting that as far as your inner needs
are concerned, it’s as if the world did not exist, that’s it.

Now you know this is totally different to we’ve all been taught. We’ve all been taught, “You ought
to use the world to meet your needs.” That wasn’t God’s plan at all. But we’ve got so used to it
that we’re like parasites — trying to fulfill our needs from each other — and we were never meant
to. We’re meant to be crucified with Christ to the world and the world crucified to us.

That’s what baptism really means, you know. That’s why in the New Testament they put people right
underneath the water, really. I was a Methodist and we just sprinkled — I didn’t understand what
you Baptists were doing! [Laughter] But I see it now; that it is going down under the water so that
it’s like being buried. It’s as if the other world is no longer in existence. It’s just the same
as Noah. You remember in the days of Noah the whole world was flooded out, and Noah had only the ark
to depend on.

Now that’s what it’s like in the entry into Jesus. It’s from then on, looking to him only for all
your needs. And that’s what God’s love in Christ is, loved ones. It’s God coming and putting his
arm around you saying, “Look my son, my daughter, will you join my son on the cross in dying to
receiving anything but what I gave him? Will you do that too? Will you die to anyone fulfilling
your need or anything fulfilling your need except me? Will you? And look — you can feel my arm
around you — I’ll be reliable, I’ll be faithful. You’re my son, you’re my daughter, and I won’t
let you die. But just die to receiving anything from anybody else but what I give you, will you?
And if I don’t give you it, will you be content to be without it?” That’s what it means, loved
ones.

Now the verse that we’re studying today is Romans 8:38. And I’d like to share one truth with you,
from that verse: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I’d like to
point you to the word life, “For I am sure that life will not be able to separate us from the love
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The ascetic says it will. The ascetic says, “You don’t need
people. You don’t need them to supply your needs; you don’t need them to supply anything. You need
to shut yourself off from human relationships; you need to shut yourself off from any possessions.
You need to be as poor as you possibly can be; you need to get away from the world.” That’s what
the ascetic says and there are many dear ascetics in the Eastern religions, in Zen Buddhism, in all
kinds of sects and cults, and that’s their theory. They say, “No, life can separate you from the
love of God in Christ Jesus — that’s why you have to keep away from life. Keep away from the
outside world, cut yourself off, and enter into a monastery. Keep away from human relationships,

keep away from people, and keep away from things.”

Now loved ones, I am afraid that some of you might think that dying with Jesus is the same thing.
And I think that some of you at times think, “You mean I’ve to look to God alone for all the
sympathy and love I need? I’ve to look to him alone for my security and my significance and my
happiness? I have to die to looking to ski trips or vacations for my enjoyment. I have to die to
looking to my job or my possessions for my sense of security. I have to die to looking to other
people for my sense of importance and worth. Well then, what’s the point of all those things? If I
don’t need them, I may as well not be in this world.”

And loved ones, do you see how selfish and brain washed we have become? Do you see what we’re
saying? We’re saying, “If I don’t need my wife to give me love and sympathy, if I don’t need a
skiing holiday to break a little the boredom of life and give me a little excitement, if I don’t
need an odd meal out in the evenings to give me something to look forward to, then why bother with
any of those things? Let me get rid of my wife; let me get rid of my car. I don’t need to go out,
so I should never go out — and then I should just stop living.”

Loved ones, do you see that you do need all those people and all those things? And do you know why
you need them? To share God’s love of you and his evaluation of you. To share the sense of worth
that you have received from him, to share the sense of security that you’ve received from him, to
share that sense of happiness that you are receiving from your relationship with him. You need
people. You can’t do without people because that love has to flow through you, otherwise it doesn’t
exist. God didn’t need us to express his love to, because he had Jesus. But loved ones, we need
each other, otherwise love is unreal. And so sure, you need your husbands and your wives — we need
each other, here in this room, but not to get — to give.

Loved ones, we’re so brain washed, don’t you see? We’ve become such perverts that we think, “Ah
that’s unreal, that’s unreal.” But loved ones, that’s why we’re here. And if you say to me, “But
why the possessions?” For the same reason — to share with others a love and a generosity that
you’ve got from your Father. The car isn’t there for you to enjoy, the car is there for you to
share that love and that generosity with others, that’s why it’s there. The food isn’t there just
for you to enjoy, it’s for you to share with other people and share the generosity and love that God
has given to you. It’s to enable you to be strong enough to do what God wants you to do here in the
world. And so do you see when we talk about dying to all those people and things supplying what God
alone should supply, we’re not saying you don’t need those things, but you don’t need them for your
security, significance and happiness. You need them in order to share that sense of security,
significance, and happiness that you’ve got from your Father with others.

Loved ones, it’s just a different home life, honestly it is, it’s just a different home life when
you come home at the end of a hard day and you’re not worn out — because you’ve hit each emergency
with your dear Father. You know he’s there, and you’ve looked up to him at each moment. You
haven’t gathered a whole lot of strains as the day has gone on, but you come home more filled with
his life than you went out, because that life has been flowing through you in lots of situations and
emergencies. You come home with it flowing through you, and you don’t come home to sit down and
say, “Okay, just bathe my feet and wipe my troubled brow and give me my dinner.” You don’t. You

come home and you go in to help the other person and to give to the other person the limitless
energy and love that the Father has been giving you all day. And loved ones what happens is — that
home or that room of yours begins to burst with love.

Now I mean that — that’s real. Don’t you sit there and say, “That’s just idealistic.” That home
of yours begins to burst with love, and the world begins to feel the overflow of that, and that’s
God’s plan. That’s what it means to be his child. That’s what it means to be crucified with Jesus;
so that those of us who accept our crucifixion with Christ are not miserable ascetics who will not
swim, or will not ski, or will not go out in power boats, or will not buy cars or will not have
homes, but we’re people who do not look to those things for the security and significance and
happiness that we know we can receive only from our dear, close relationship with our Father. Now
loved ones, that’s what you were made for.

Really, you’re just dumb if you’re sitting there and you think of all the incredible dangers in this
world. When you think of it, you could go out and cross the road and that’s it. When you think of
the incredible dangers, and all of us are sitting here confident, “Oh sure, sure, no one would press
the nuclear button.” But we all know fine well that some mad-man sometime is going to press the
button — you know that — somebody’s going to do it sooner or later.

When you think of all the incredible dangers in this world, — and actually they were always as
great as this, we just have more abilities to face them and therefore they’re greater now — but
when you think of all the incredible dangers, do you really think that you were meant to live in
this world without having an omnipotent, almighty Father who loved you taking care of you — do you?
Loved ones, no dear Creator would do that to anybody, and your Creator hasn’t done it to you. He
loves you, and he can supply every need – if you’ll die to the substitutes that you’re trying to get
from everybody else and everything else — that’s it really.

So I pray that you’ll take the step. It’s easy — just take it yourself. You do need to take a
stand, do you see that? You do need to take a stand. I used to feel, “No, no, you can kind of sink
into it by osmosis.” You don’t — you take a stand. It’s like a marriage; you can say, “I love
you, I love you, I love you,” and she’ll believe you, believe you, believe you — for a while. But
there has to come a time when you both go together and you make a commitment before somebody else
and say, “We’re together.” There’s something incredible happens when that takes place — it’s like
that. If you want to change from being just a creature to a child of God then you do need to take a
definite step of faith and say, “Father, I see what I need to do; from now on I’m going to look to
you, and each time you point out to me that I’m looking to people, I’ll stop it.” You can do it
there, where you are sitting.

But loved ones, if you see all this, then I’d encourage you to take a step this morning, and then
come to communion tonight and seal it. You’ll hear different ones of us sharing here today how we
have just begun this kind of life. So I’d encourage you to do it. I think we should pray, loved
ones.

Father, thank you that dying with Jesus to anyone or anything supplying our needs but you is a hard
experience at first, but it leads into a beautiful experience of resurrection life. And Father,
thank you that we can accept by faith this morning that you have destroyed this old, addictive

personality of ours, which for years has fed off the praise of our teachers, or the adulation of our
friends, or the boasting of our parents — this personality that for years has got used to little
thrills that come from a skiing holiday, or going out with somebody new.

Father, we accept that this old, addictive personality has been crucified with Christ. Lord, we
believe that you destroyed it there, and that we, by faith, can be made new this morning and can
live as your child, dependent on you only, and able at last to give instead of to get. Thank you
Lord, thank you. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit be with each and every one of us now and evermore. Amen.

God’s Love in Christ

Romans 8:38c

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

We’ve been talking, loved ones, during these past months about being free, just living as really
free people you know. Free from all the character traits and the behavior patterns that prevent us
being what we want to be. We’ve talked about being free from those things. And some of us this
morning would love after the benediction to really talk to others. We’d really like to socialize,
but we just have a crippling self-consciousness and crippling feelings of inferiority that make us
withdraw into ourselves and make us scuttle away after the benediction and try to get away from
everybody. And many of us here are in the grip of all kinds of vices that we can’t shake and
however many resolutions we make it seems that the fear of people, or the lust, or the envy run our
lives so that the good we want to do, that we can’t do — and the evil that we hate, that’s the
thing we do.

What we’ve been seeing during these months is that the reason our will is so ineffectual to control
these feelings and these character traits is that our whole personality is perverted and twisted and
so the will itself seems to be paralyzed. And really the whole personality is perverted and twisted
because we live like orphans, we really live like orphans. We live as if there is nobody to take
care of us. We’ve kind of been placed here by chance, and we have to provide for ourselves and take
care of ourselves. We have to somehow make our own way in society, we have to make our own mark on
other people. And so we live like orphans and our personalities have developed those traits because
we live like orphans, so we have developed animal-like kind of defense mechanisms — of fight,
fright or flight — just to protect ourselves.

So we find our personality is that of an orphan or a little animal that has nobody taking care of
it, and we fight for recognition and we’re afraid all the time of losing the security that we’ve
got. And our life is a constant flight from anything that is unpleasant or that looks as if it
would make us unhappy. And yet, though we eat to get rid of our fear, and we curry favor with our
peers to get rid of our feelings of rejection, and we go out of our way to try to be happy, yet the
real trouble is not our eating, the real trouble is not our main fear or our slavishness to people’s
opinions. The real trouble is not our heathenism; the real trouble is our whole personality is the
twisted perverted personality of people that live like orphans. People that are committed to trying
to get from others the love and the security that can only come from regarding the Father of Jesus,
who is our creator, as our own loving Father. And yet we find that our personality does not operate
like that.

So you know, we make our resolutions but it seems as if you have a little pick axe and are trying to
remove a whole mountain with that little pick axe. You’re trying to affect a tiny little activity
or behavior pattern that is part of a whole big problem that is far greater than that. And the
whole big problem is that our personalities do not operate like children of God, but our
personalities operate like little estranged alienated orphans. And the problem is not how to change
our eating habits really or how to change some drug that we take, or how to stop smoking or how to
stop being angry, the problem is how to change our whole personality. And you know that’s what we
discovered God had done for us.

And that, loved ones, is in Romans 6:3, and maybe you’d just look at it and read it. Romans 6:3,

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been
united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like
his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed,
and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” And that’s God’s love in Christ. God took your petty
squalid little personality and destroyed it in Jesus and raised you up as a new creation with all
the natural attitudes and reactions of a child of his.

Now that’s what happened loved ones, that happened. That was miraculously achieved by God in Jesus.
And it’s not up to you to try to make yourself his child, that has been done. God has already done
that and so what we’ve been saying is, “It’s a lie,” when you say you can’t stop smoking. It’s a
lie, if I say, “I can’t stop losing my temper.” It’s a lie, when you say you can’t stop unclean
pictures rising in your mind. It’s a lie, when you say you can’t stop being sarcastic with other
people. It’s a lie. You can because God changed the personality that used to be able to operate
only in that way. And you’re telling a lie when you say you can’t change, because in fact, God has
changed you. All those attitudes that we talk about — being lustful, being unclean, being
selfishly ambitious, being sarcastic — come from that little orphan, that little defenseless animal
that thinks that he or she is on her own in this world, and has to make her own way. And once that
personality has been destroyed in Jesus — which is what it means when God says our old self was
crucified with him — once that has been destroyed, all the reactions that it produces are no longer
natural to us, and you can simply change them in a moment.

Now loved ones, that’s it, that’s what God says. Now you see it in again in II Corinthians 5:21,
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.” Now we were all sin. Sin is living independent of God and trying to get
from the world and other people the sense of importance and the sense of value, and the affection
and the love that you should receive from God. Now that created an old rutted personality so that
you feel you’re in ruts at times. You want to get out of them but you can’t. That created an old
rutted personality, that always struck out at others when you were ignored, that always curried
favor with others because you wanted other people’s love and attention. Now that rutted personality
was put into Jesus, he became all that we were, and God destroyed that in him so that we are able to
become what he is, a loving trusting son of his Father.

So really loved ones, honestly, it is never because you cannot stop losing your temper, it really
isn’t. It is that you don’t want to stop losing your temper. It is never that you can’t stop being
impure, it is that you don’t want to stop being impure, it really is. It’s just we say, “I can’t.”
But really it’s, “We won’t.” It’s not that you can’t change because God already changed you in
Jesus; the whole thing has already been done. It’s like someone making this set of clothes for me
and I don’t have to come along and sew the whole thing up and fit myself, the suit of clothes is
ready, all I have to do is put them on. Now, that’s it loved ones, honestly. And it’s like me
looking at a suit of clothes that looks very light and thin. And I say, “Oh, no, those won’t keep me
warm.” And you have made them and know they will keep me warm. But I have to go in faith, I have
to put the clothes on and then I suddenly feel they keep me warm.

Now it’s like that with us. You have to say, “I’m willing to change. And I believe Lord that if I’m
willing to believe that you have done this to me in Jesus and I start believing that and acting on
it, then I will actually begin to feel the results in my own life.” And that’s the truth loved
ones, that’s what it is. I think some of us here this morning say, “Well yeah, we know what you say

and we really believe it, but there is a little voice that whispers inside me and says, ‘You can’t
change. It’ll work for everybody but you. But you’ve treated people this way for so many years
that you can’t change. You’ve been addicted to the caffeine or you’ve been addicted to the aspirin,
or you’ve been addicted to the alcohol, or you’ve been addicted to using your wife, or using your
friends for so long that you can’t change.’” Now I think many of us here probably say, “Yeah, yeah
that’s right I believe what you’re saying this morning, but I have to tell you that there is a voice
inside me that says to me, ‘But I can’t change.’” Now whose voice is that? With some of us, loved
ones, we’d better be straight, with some of us it’s the voice of our own wills, it is. It’s just
we’re so subtle that we’ve learned to change that voice. The voice really, if it was honest, says,
“You don’t want to change.” But that doesn’t sound too heroic, so we switch it to, “You can’t
change.” And really we mean, “You don’t want to change.”