“Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, 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.” (Romans 8:26-39)
Well, good morning, Father Dave, and everybody watching – all believers and those starting a journey towards Christ It’s good to be on your program, Father Dave. Thanks for inviting me on.
An interesting topic – Romans 8, verses 26 through to 39. It’s an interesting read and it says so much for the times that we’re living in at the moment.
It covers a couple of topics:
Firstly, it talks about intercession by the Holy Spirit – that intercession which also guides us through prayer. In other words, the Holy Spirit knows our hearts, and if we surrender to that Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will guide us to the prayers that we need to be praying to meet our needs in Christ.
Through Christ Jesus those needs will be met wherever it is God’s will, and we kind of need to have enough faith to not to be saved sometimes if the things we pray for can’t be fulfilled. Then we have to trust and have faith that the reasons those things can’t be fulfilled is because it’s not in God’s interest (or Heaven’s interest) to do so.
And so, the most important thing I get from that is we need to be completely filling ourselves daily with the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit being our guide, our comforter – that beautiful power that keeps us warm through the night when we would normally lie awake and worry. Inviting the Holy Spirit in does so much for us in that regard.
The other thing that those verses talk about is predestination. Now predestination is a fairly contentious issue. There are some people in some faiths who believe that what that means is that God has already predetermined that you’ll be saved, and nothing you can do can change that. So, good luck if you’re predestined, but for those of you who aren’t predestined, then just play the game and nothing much will come of you when the time of trouble hits, and those have been predestined are on their way, no matter how they’ve lived their life. And that just doesn’t fit with the whole nation that God wants us all to be saved. It just doesn’t work that way.
The way I read it is that God has predestined some people to wake up when the time is right, and those people will act and react in the circumstances they find themselves in to generate further interest.
Let’s say you’re running in a in a in a relay race – a very long relay race with long sections – and as you’re standing round, hours from your time to receive the baton, you don’t even know that you’re going to be receiving the baton, and then all of a sudden you hear the runner coming before you, racing up, and you look and you realise that the baton’s about to be handed to you, and then you run on with that baton and pass it on to the next person.
I think God knows, from what that scripture says, God knows that there are some people, no matter how dark their past, no matter how many things that they’ve done wrong, will turn. He knows that they will turn. He’s already predestined them to do that, and in the meantime, as we’ve been waiting to be switched on, if you like, by the Holy Spirit to do that work, we have been experiencing life – the good, the bad and the ugly.
I know in my situation, I now feel like for the last – for the previous, say, the first fifty-five years of my life – I was a sleeper for God, and God decided to wake me up in my mid-fifties, and for a job that He knew that I was I was being set up to do. I believe that the first, you know, the first – all of my life has been an education – but the fifty-five years I spent without God were years that educated me for the future – an eternal future – and all of a sudden, and for me it triggered, when, I guess, the lockdowns happened and all those sorts of things happened to us, and mandates were coming out and people were losing their jobs, it triggered me to go to the next step. And I think God has got many of us predestined to do that work when the time’s right, but I do not believe that it means that those who aren’t predestined are not fitted for heaven. That’s not true. I don’t believe that at all because it just doesn’t fit in with the God of love.
The other thing that these scriptures talk about is that we’re all conquerors, and the beauty of that is if we accept Jesus Christ into our hearts our minds and souls now and we accept the Holy Spirit to be the guiding comforter in that journey, then we are conquerors because it says, “I am persuaded”. In verse 38 it says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our lord.”
Hallelujah to that! Everything we’re going through will only strengthen us. We are conquerors. If we love Jesus, we’re standing in the light. This is a great controversy, my friends – a battle between good and evil,. If we choose to stand under the banner of Jesus Christ and stay tucked in behind him and hear his still, sweet and small voice, we’ve already won. Indeed, I believe we have by the way that many of us are treating one another now.
In a world filled with darkness in a world called for the lack of love we are rising to the occasion in creating islands of light, and many are wanting to look to those islands of light for refuge. I pray that we will all use these Scriptures to guide us to a better place – to help us to ignite others to a better place – and that we will all rest for eternity in the loving care of Jesus Christ.
Christ died on the cross to make us all friends – to give us the possibility to to all of us to become friends with God the Father. Greater love hath no men and to lay down his life for his friends.
I pray that this is a comfort to you as it is to me,, and stay in the fight, stay out of the trees, and remember who is buttering our bread – who is providing our bread and who gives us eternal hope.
May the Lord God be with you and may His word dwell in you richly. God bless and bye for now.
As first broadcasted on The Sunday Eucharist, July 30, 2023
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