Romans 8.28 — Leonard Ravenhill

Okay, Romans chapter 8. You know, somebody's likened the epistle to the Romans, to the vertebrae in the human body. It is to the New Testament what our vertebrae is in our physical system. To some it's the most profound book, others say of course it's not.

It's surely a marvelous book. I think of an old hymn that we used to sing when we were youngsters about the Bible. It is a golden casket where gems of truth are stored. It is the heaven-drawn picture of Christ, the Living Word.

Jesus Christ as the Center of Scripture

Now the whole subject from Genesis to Revelations, or as the old man that got mixed up said, from generations to revolutions, the whole subject is Jesus actually, isn't it? He is the center, the circumference, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending, the light and the life.

Now go home and digest that. No, stay a bit longer, I want to talk to you. It's very obvious that as you read this chapter, it begins with what? There is therefore now no condemnation. Begins with no condemnation, it ends with no separation.

But in between the no condemnation and the separation, there's an awful lot of tribulation. Now let me be honest with you, here I got interested in this chapter this week, then switched from the theme, one theme in the chapter.

Let me show you where the word is now. Verse 26, let me say this. You know, if you read carefully through this marvelous chapter, if you read through the seventh chapter, as I've reminded you, to me Romans 7 is a graveyard, or a funeral service, or a funeral march.

Romans 8 is a wedding march. I love this, you may not like it. I'm going to say it because I enjoy it. One of the greatest English writers was John Milton. You may have read one of his books, Paradise Lost was his classic.

He wrote it after he got married. And his second volume is even better, Paradise Regained, he wrote that after his wife died. I bet you don't look at me like that, you put me off. But that's literally true, I mean I'm not joking, that's really true.

Well, Paradise, I think if Paul had known that hymn, Out of my bonded sorrow and night, Jesus I come, he would have sung it coming out of Romans 7. The trouble with modern theology, the preachers all get stuck on wretchedness, oh wretched man that I am.

You remember there's a hymn, I don't know how it begins, you may not know it. There's a phrase in it, prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, you remember that hymn? Prone to leave the God I love? Go sing that to your wife.

When you go home tonight, sing prone to wonder, wife I feel it, she'll say what? Prone to leave the wife I love, that doesn't make sense. Doesn't make any more sense to God, I don't feel like leaving God, I want to get nearer and nearer every day I live, that's my one petition.

I want to get nearer and nearer, closer, nearer to the heart of God as we sing sometimes. If you read through the 7th chapter, you'll discover that about 31 times the apostle uses the first person there, I, I, I, I, I, it's all I.

Finishing almost with, oh wretched man that I am. Now go through sometime and mark every one of the I's, I think that's 32, mark them with a little red spot. And then go through the same chapter and mark all the times he mentions the Holy Spirit.

You won't have any trouble because he doesn't mention him once. Then you come into the 8th chapter, see how many times he mentions I there, what are the verses? I should have checked my homework shouldn't I?

Verse 18, for I reckon, now he can't put anybody else there but himself, for I reckon. And then verse from 18 you jump to 38, for I am persuaded. Now the 9th chapter is all I, I, I, I'm in bondage, I'm not the man I want to be, I'm in captivity.

No Holy Spirit. Come to the 8th chapter, 18 verses 18 and 38 with the I, then you go through and read how many times, and the Holy Spirit is mentioned about 26 times. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that made me free from the law of sin and of death.

From Pardon to Purity and Peace

It's a wonderful epistle, this man's an amazing writer. He tells us that with all the corruption that he mentions in the first two chapters of Romans, and it's terrible, he brings us through and shows us that Jesus died to redeem us.

Or if you want to put it another word, to pardon us. But he goes from pardon to purity. He can not only pardon us, a man needs more than cleansing, forgiveness, all his old sins washing out, he needs more than that.

That's wonderful to have your record destroyed. A preacher told us in England about a man that couldn't keep silent in a minute. We had a man in our Methodist church like that, he was a nuisance. I mean he was when I was a little boy, boy I'd love to have him now.

He used to explode about four times every meeting, I used to think that's only once, that's two, two to go. And boy when he let rip he shattered the place nearly, I mean he'd been brought up out of a horrible pit.

And therefore salvation meant much more to him than the stuffy little girls in the choir who used to giggle when he shouted. Well this man had a problem in the church he was in. When they got a new fine pastor from one of the theological seminaries, somebody warned him, now you better watch because Sunday night this man, he goes off like a bomb, he'll disturb you.

And sure enough he did. The fellow let rip when he talked about redemption and being saved. Little old guy who had enough sins to damn a multitude of people, never mind himself and his load of God. When you ask people and they say I don't know whether I'm saved or not, well they're not saved.

What's Bunyan say about the man who carried a bundle on his back and he came to a place, he said where it was walled in on either side, I came to a place that was somewhat ascending and I saw a cross and when I saw the cross the burden loose from off my shoulders, fell from off my back and rolled into an empty sepulcher and I beheld it no more forever.

And he gave three leaps for joy and he was a Baptist. So what do you think Pentecostals would do? I gave three leaps for joy and he said my burden rolled away. I saw it go off my shoulders, it rolled down the hill into the empty sepulcher.

You see, the message of Christ is based on an empty cross and an empty sepulcher. Now this little old guy used to shout, so when the preacher went to see him during the week, he said now friend, I knew you were coming but he said a college friend of mine came in and he's in my, he's in the room there, would you kindly stay in my office?

And you can look at the books, so there were encyclopedias and all kinds of things and the man's sitting there talking to his college friend and suddenly the guy explodes with a monstrous hallelujah. He says, what's this all about?

That's not a Bible you're reading. He said no sir, it's an encyclopedia. Hallelujah! What makes you excited about it? He said sir, it says here there's a place where the sea is 33 ,000 feet deep and the place near the Philippines where they can't even find the bottom.

Hallelujah! For what? He said because he cast my sins beyond the depth of the sea and he said if the devil tries to get them he'll get drowned anyhow. Maybe his theology wasn't very good but I like the idea.

He's put our sins away, your sins, maybe he didn't have many. Maybe you were college sins or upper class sins or maybe you were a prostitute. I don't care a hill of beans what you were. If you came to the cross and you found pardon, pardon is one thing, purging is something else.

But he came not only to give us pardon, not only to give us purging but to give us peace. Peace through the blood of his cross. And Paul says he is our peace. Again I remind you that before he left the disciples in John 14 he says peace I leave with you but wait a minute, what brand?

My peace. The peace that ran through his life when they tried to push him over the precipice. He wasn't flustered, he had the same peace that he had when he walked down the road. The same peace that when they were spitting in his face or again yelling to him come down from the cross.

A peace dominated him, a peace that passes all understanding and all misunderstanding. My peace I leave with you. He gave us his joy in the 16th chapter of John there he says joy, my joy and no man taketh it from you.

Now if you lose your joy you lose it, it's your fault, it's nobody else's. The devil has no power to take it, circumstances happen. You may not feel an emotional kick, that's not it. People say I don't know where I'm really saved.

I say are you married yet? Do you feel married? Do you have to feel married? Now some of you, I won't look at you too closely. Okay, let's look at this verse 26. This is the chapter on the Spirit. Likewise also the Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit itself or himself it should be maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Go down to verse 34. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yea, rather he is risen again who is at the right hand of God making intercession for us. So what do you have? You have the intercession of what?

The Son of God himself? Intercession of the Holy Spirit? In verse 27. Verse 34. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. Yea, rather he is risen again who is at the right hand of God making intercession for us.

We don't know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit maketh intercession for us. Verse 27. Because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Christ also makes intercession for us.

Prayer, Intercession, and Revival

So you have the intercession of the Spirit, the intercession of Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father and the intercession which he gives us. Now, I've come to this conclusion. You may disagree.

If you do, you're wrong. But I believe that prayer is the gateway to intercession. I believe that intercession is the gateway to travel. I believe that worship, that praise is the gateway to worship. There's no way of leaping into an experience of travel.

To use a common phrase, it's an education in the Spirit. We move in our steps continually making progress or we should in the realm of prayer. We get beyond our simple petitions. They may still be simple in one sense.

But we get again from prayer to travel, pardon me, to intercession. If two people are talking and I go and say, hey, listen just a minute, well, obviously I'm interrupting. I project myself against two people with my conversation.

If there's two people fighting and I go and I push them apart, I'm interfering. If I stand between a holy God and a dying world with the Spirit he wants, I'm an intercessor. I put myself between. I'm not asking the church to do it.

You know, the revival... I had a man call me from Denver today talking about revival. Okay. Do you know there was a revival in Denver by Wilbur Chapman who was still around when I was a youngster? A great American evangelist.

He's not mentioned much. He went to Denver. Do you know what happened? The Spirit came on that city till all the shops closed. The anniversary of that event will be the 13th of January. He asked me to fly up for the night and spend the night with him in prayer and then have a prayer date at which I can't do because of something else for the day or not.

But it's the anniversary. It's the 100th year from the time when the Spirit came and locked up that city. We don't do that anymore. We get a big shot evangelist flying in his private plane and put a lot of show on and get some broken down starlets from Hollywood and broken winded footballers and they put a show on.

The trouble is that when they leave town the presence of God leaves town if he was ever there anyhow. That is not revival. Call it anything you like. Call it emotionalism. Call it evangelism. I picked up a little thing I'd forgotten I'd ever written it and I saw it the other day in my office there.

I thought that looks good. Then I saw my name at the bottom so I knew it was. He said the reason we do not have revival is that we're content to live without it. When we're not content to live without it we'll have revival.

If we put as much zeal into business or if we go down to business with God like those guys, you know at West Point, you know, shiny buttons we're looking for a few good men. Well God is looking for a few rotten that want to become good that want to be cleansed and anointed in the spirit.

There's no academic distinction demanded. No social distinction. You can't be there, you're of royal birth you can't be there because your daddy owns I almost said a hamburger joint but I won't say that.

You can't get there by any other way except crawling there on our hands and knees. Imagine God closing a city down, 1905. Nobody went to work nobody went to business, everybody went into churches and they waited on God.

The man that called me was Charles Blair he had maybe the biggest church or one of the biggest churches there in Denver. Is the 13th a Sunday, do you know? 13th of January? It's either the Sunday it is, thank you or that's the day, a big football day and the Denver Broncos are in the running for the, what is it?

Soap bubbles. Do you know what he's going to do? He's going to continue the Sunday morning meeting right through in the afternoon in intercession isn't that something? He says, we're getting real concerned about revival.

I said, well bless you. I'd love to be there, I can't make it, I'd love to be there. Again, God does not answer prayer. He answers desperate prayer. Prayer does not change things prayer changes people and they change things.

I've come to this conclusion Martin, you check me about this. I'll ask you during the week now. We pray so often, the word of the is it the Psalmist or Isaiah has arm of the Lord awake. Well if Jesus Christ is the head who's the arm?

We must be the arm. We talk about the body. What's the body? It's not a corpse. The body, we must be the arm. Arm of the Lord awake and put on strength. The Spirit maketh intercession for us with what?

With groanings which cannot be uttered. I know I get into trouble about many things, it doesn't trouble me. I get into trouble but it doesn't trouble me. Groanings which cannot be uttered or taking the epistle of Jude, praying in the Holy Ghost is praying in tongues, I don't believe that for a minute.

Are you going to tell me that Finney never prayed in the Holy Ghost? Are you going to tell me John Wesley never prayed in the Holy Ghost? Why John Wesley used to meet a bunch of guys, the trouble with Wesley, I have a lot of trouble with Wesley, he was more spiritual when he wasn't spiritual than I am when he am spiritual.

He used to stay up all night and pray. They were just stuffy Church of England brilliant scholars of Oxford University. He was a don in the university, in other words he was a scholar a teacher in the university.

Oh brother, would I like to have dropped in with that crowd? Who was there? John Newton, you know, that wrote that amazing no, yeah amazing grace he wrote, how sweet the sound, he also wrote there is a fountain filled with blood.

William Cowper was there, no he wrote when there is a fountain filled with Newton wrote amazing grace, Charles Wesley was there, John Wesley was there the holiest man that lived since the days of the apostle John Wesley said was a man by the name of John Fletcher when somebody said Mr. Wesley don't grieve over his death, you'll see him there in heaven, my brother he said John Fletcher will be so near to the throne of God, this is Wesley.

John Fletcher will be so near to the throne of God and I'll be so far away that I'll only see the reflected glory of Jesus the King of Kings in the face of that man, why does that leave me? I don't think he's right but I like his attitude but those are the men that birthed Methodism.

They were not rich men, they were intellectually rich. I believe every man that John Wesley had and you can get it, all the books have been rewritten now, a friend of mine has republished them not too long ago.

Schmuel, you know Schmuel's writings Martin? I've sent for a catalogue, six catalogues, I'll give you one. Schmuel has reprinted what used to be called what were they calling it? Wesley's Wesley's in the American edition they're called Wesley's veterans.

I believe every man that he had with him was equal to him spiritually, not intellectually. You don't need a whole crop of intellectual men but spiritually they were equal with him, they knew how to travel in birth, they knew how to pray.

You talk about a poverty stricken crowd. Nobody that lives in monasteries ever lived as carefully as those guys, monasteries became rotten with riches, the very thing they tried to run away from everybody left their money to monasteries thinking they were giving it to the kingdom of God.

So the monasteries became vastly wealthier. Had pure gold candlesticks inside and all the rest of the junk. But these men lived only, Wesley says let me live to preach thy word. I give you a phrase of Charles Wesley he says, this is colossal I think enlarge, inflame and fill my heart with boundless charity divine.

So shall I all my strength exert and love them with a zeal like thine and turn them to a pardoning God and quench their brands in Jesus blood. Give me the faith which can remove and sink the mountain to a plain.

Give me that give me that childlike praying love which longs to build thy house again. Thy love let it my heart or power and all my simple soul devour,. Wesley picked up a piece of paper one day a ragged piece of paper a hundred years before he was born, a beautiful little French, petite French lady Marie Antoinette Bourigno.

What's her hymn. Start with. Come saviour Jesus from above assist me with thy heavenly grace empty my heart of earthly love and thought, that's where it starts. The Lord won't love totally in your life, if you love your wealth if you love your position.

If you love something else he won't take second place. Come saviour Jesus from above assist me with thy heavenly grace empty my heart of earthly love and for thyself prepare a place. Nothing too dramatic.

Holiness, Worldliness, and the Indwelling Christ

Now what about this. Nothing on earth do I desire but thy pure love within my breast. This, only this will I require and freely give up all the rest, wealth, honour, pleasure and what else a short enduring world can give tempt as ye will my soul rebels for Christ alone resolved to live thee will I love and thee alone with pure delight and inward bliss to know thou takes me for thy known, oh what a happiness is this, well he lived like that, it wasn't that he got bowled over when he found that piece of paper with that written on, it became the I was going to use a big word.

It doesn't matter there they used to have a standard bearing, the old families in England have a flag and it became the thing that he put on his flag. So to speak nothing on earth do I desire but thy pure love within my breast.

Do you think he didn't get tempted a thousand times about that. His family was next to the royal family in England. He lived in a home with servants. He rode through the night 240 ,000 miles. He travelled on horseback, never once molested by the highway.

Men got to the place where he could only feed like the squirrels. He ate acorns or he ate blackberries off the side of the road and yet it never troubled him, why? Because he's consumed with a holy passion.

I love that but I've never preached on it, where Jesus says the prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in me. I want to be there, do you want to be there Dale? The prince of this world cometh and there's no territory in me that responds to him, so he is in despair.

He finds God has worked such a miracle of grace, he's not only got rid of all my lousy sins, he's got my sin principle out of me and he's come and so possessed me that the devil can't find any area in me.

The prince of this world cometh and he findeth nothing in me. But how could he if Wesley says that this love consumes him he'll give up the love of the world prestige, everything that you know, sometimes I guess I'm funny, well Sharon knows that but she wouldn't tell you that you know, I sometimes wish I could slip to heaven just for a rehearsal of the judgement day it would be amazing wouldn't it.

Of course you can read it in the book of Revelation but when God unfolds all the things that these men sneer that kind of thing wealth, honour, pleasure and what else this short enduring world can give one of the greatest American preachers ever Jonathan Edwards said, God stamp eternity on my eyeballs.

That's pretty tough isn't it, I say often for myself and others, Lord we're so earthbound, anything like that Jim we're earthbound with our petty little circle, our family oh no, a bit bigger than that, the church no, a bit bigger than that, garden valley, heaven help us which is alright but when eternity comes in, the whole life is completely revolutionised, every distortion, everything's brought into focus.

Nothing on earth do I desire it's a mess, it's a downhill. All I want is life pure love within my breast that love so amazing so divine, that everything's a love crooked perversed, rotten, corrupt people.

And then Paul says what to the Corinthians, and such are some of ye but ye are washed, ye are sanctified. Oh you know this I've lost my watch, I've got an old one here but it's a good one, because it keeps stopping so if you hear an extra hour you'll know why.

It's because my watch keeps stopping not my fault they blame somebody this is the thing that really got me let me see, let me find the verse, it's here in this chapter in Romans 8 again I would dare to say to you tonight, that not 1 of the preachers in America will use this text and it's the greatest text for Christmas verse 32 of Romans 8 he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things, God help us, we've stopped at John 3, 16 you go to the average church every Sunday morning, it's the same thing, the preacher runs the same sermon or somebody said he runs the same train, he just changes the engine, it has a red engine one week, and a blue on the next, and a green on the next, God has with him, what did I say here, freely given us all things, my something here he that spared not his own son an old English hymn says thou didst not spare thine only son, but gavest him for a world undone, and freely with that blessed one thou gavest all delivered him up for us all, think of the scope of it and take the whole race, all the human race put them all in one great circle here, whether they're red or yellow, black or white, barbarians sidians, bond or free.

Paul sums the whole thing up and he says there's neither Jew nor Greek, which is race distinction bond nor free, class distinction male nor free male nor female, sex distinction. You can't get outside of that circle can you?

He delivered him up for us all but why don't they all know? Why are people in Haiti still living under terrible superstition and witchcraft? Why again are the people up the Amazon, I think of that place so often the first book Norman Grubb wrote was about a young man called Fenton Hall, he was the Babe Ruth of English cricket an aristocrat, six feet four in his stocking feet, champion tennis player in the Royal Air Force, black champion cricketer, he went up the Amazon was there three weeks and died and people in England say what a waste.

Why didn't he stay, he could have been a clergyman he could have been Archbishop of Canterbury maybe he did more than fifty Archbishops did, by going up there and dying and preparing the way for others to go.

He was amazed when he got there to see those tribes that have been there ever since as far as we know almost the dawn of creation, hadn't one word, there's some words you can explain the cross to them, do you know what a cross was?

Can't talk about atonement and those other marvellous words regeneration, brother you start with ABC's and these smart boys go to college now and then try and tell you how much of the bible they don't believe, you know when I was a boy they used to call that higher criticism started in Germany, do you know who paved the way for Hitler?

The church if higher criticism hadn't come in and doubt cast on the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Jesus Hitler would never got his way. See that's why the devil wants to get the bible out of schools in America and prayer my priority is not to get the bible in schools, I have to get it in homes.

Prayer in schools, what about prayer in homes? I put the deacons on the spot in one church you know one of those nights I felt real rude and mad so I brought all the deacons, I said never have a family altar, come on you may as well live in Russia, boy did they shed some tears.

Romans 8:32 and the Scope of God's Gift

He spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all. That's the first great scope, that great circle there, and the second great circle is this that he has with him freely given us all things, do you think God has any afterthoughts?

Let me reverently say, does he scratch his head and say oh I was going to tell the apostle Paul that I should have told John on the isle of Patmos, does God have afterthoughts? No he spared not his own son but freely given us all things.

Look at the who's here, in verse 33, who shall lay anything verse 34, who is he that condemneth, verse 35 who shall separate us from the love of Christ, you know Paul's always talking about things in this chapter.

You know most of you can recite Romans 8 28. Can't you, Romans 8 28, what is it? All what? Things things, well now he uses the word here again he has freely given us all things. Now leap up to the 37 verse, in all these things what things?

All things proceed from Jesus Christ. We've been thinking of that in Hebrews chapter 1 haven't we? God says of him thy throne O God is forever and ever, he upholdeth all things by the word of his power.

You see everything in the whole world and in creation is moving up to Jesus Christ right now it's all come from him, it is in him it's going to be for him. But this is so enormous in all these things, what things?

Well you get some questions in some little books. Don't you, fill in the put words, the missing words. What's he talking about? What has he been talking about? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who is he that condemneth?

Does somebody dare to challenge the finished work of Jesus Christ in my life? Who is he that condemneth? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Now these are the things in this very verse 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Tribulation, distress, persecution famine, peril, nakedness or sword in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I'm persuaded that neither death, nor life nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, come on, come on seems to me here that the apostle Paul put his shoulders back and if you like it, thumbed his nose to the devil and said listen, I challenge everything you have there in hell.

You can heat your furnaces seven times hotter and make all the weapons of persecution. But there's nothing can separate me from the love of God, I'm the only one that can do that, by my unfaithfulness, by my disobedience, nobody else can do it.

They may cross you off the membership roll, one of our boys used to say well it's about as good as having it on a sausage roll if you're not saved. So what if you get thrown out of court, what happens?

What matters? You know the apostle here says all things just as he says all things, not some, all things work together for good in all these things we are more than conquerors. But this last verse it seems to me is pushing into our day, there's neither height nor depth or any other creature.

You see since Paul wrote this, if you can think of it this way which isn't good. The horizon of the universe was there in the days of Paul. Now it's somewhere up there we're pushing the horizons back, we've got a thing called the sun here.

We've got a thing called the world here. I understand that you could put 500 worlds in that one sun, 500 of our one world in that sun, you could put a thousand of those worlds in a sun that's up there in space that they find a while ago up away there in infinity.

Supposing there are demon powers. And there are demon powers. Sure enough. But supposing there are some green men living in another world. He says neither things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth nor wholly defines neither height nor depth nor any other creature.

Tell me when I go out that while we were here a flying saucer landed down there. There's some mysterious little men running around. We don't know what kind of power guns they may shoot your ears off or something.

Nor any other creature. He said God hasn't missed anything. The redemptive work of Jesus Christ is not an unfinished work. It's a perfect work. Yes God hasn't omitted anything. He has freely given us all things.

What all things. Well let me read it without you looking at it I'll tell you what it is. It's according to his divine power he has given us unto us all things. I didn't put that there. Peter didn't put it there, the holy ghost put it there because it compliments what John the Paul had said in the second epistle of Peter chapter 1 and verse 3, according to his divine power he has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

People get. Oh God's given us all things, I'm going to believe God for Christmas, a nice Christmas gift, a Rolls Royce. Surely not a black one, a blue one. Oh he's going to give me this. We're always on the level of thinking like poor so called rational people outside.

I don't wonder the good old book says the world loves its own, it does. You can climb the social ladder, you can climb the religious ladder. You can climb the church ladder. God has anticipated every motion that I need to make in my life.

Every motion, every emotion every subtlety of the devil, every cunning trap of the devil. He can make us alive in the holy ghost to this degree as I've said before if we prayed longer in the morning we wouldn't be praying at night to get over our troubles.

It's our fault. We didn't get alerted, we weren't wise in the spirit, oh well I've got to be at Dillard's at a certain time. I'm always saying Dillard's, I should get commission on that Dillard's first and then of course we're going over to Sanger Harris where all the big shops shop, and then we're going to my shop where the poor guys go, JC Penney.

We've got it all planned out, well.

Providence, Spiritual Discernment, and Divine Intervention

What if you say before you go Lord maybe the best thing for me this morning is to have a flat tyre when I get right down on three, oh no, don't ask God for things like that. We don't glory in tribulation.

We glory in police cars come and help us out or tow away wagons or something. What if God stops me on the road because some poor old sinner is going to come up and he needs me to talk to him. And there's no one else will talk to him all day.

Those wonderful Quakers remember in your day did they talk about having an authentic stop in the spirit you're going to do something and suddenly like that God says no and you can't explain it. Just God said no.