Romans

[0:00] I'm seeking the Lord's help. I'd like your attention this evening to the epistle of Paul to the Romans chapter 5, reading verses 8 and 9.

[0:12] The epistle of Paul to the Romans chapter 5, reading verses 8 and 9. But God commended his love toward her, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

[0:30] Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

[0:41] But God commended his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

[1:03] When death strikes a nation as it has struck our nation, and a whole nation is brought to face the issue of death, we hear about us constantly the most extraordinary utterances, having no relation to the word of God at all, and the divine evidences that are left in Scripture.

[1:30] They are the utterances of those whose hearts are full of kindness, and have no conception of the God to whom the one has gone who has been suddenly struck down.

[1:48] No conception of the requirements necessary to enter into glory, and to be in his presence forever. So whatever life has been led, or whatever evil has been done, or whether there's been faith or no faith, whether there has been any attendance on the house of God, or anything, they're consigned to heaven immediately.

[2:14] All going to spend their time and life in the future in paradise, irrespective of what says the Scripture. And the Scriptures are so clear, so utterly clear.

[2:30] But you see, to come face to face with the Word of God, in all its solemnity, in the Aaron Article of Death, there will be immediately...

[2:47] immediately... a solemn lack.

[2:59] A solemn place where there is not the standard that the Scripture sets. where there is clear evidence in the Word of God, that out of Christ Almighty power can do nothing but deliver.

[3:22] So we hear from the leaders of our land and our bishops, prayers for the dead, requiem masses for the dead, as though that can save a soul.

[3:33] We hear the most solemn things, prayers for the dead, as though that will save a soul. The common expression which is often seen on the graves, rest in peace.

[3:47] And all this. All very nice and kind, and said in the best will in the world, and the kindest of intentions, that nobody should be hurt in any way, or doubt, have any doubt, as to the state and condition of the departing.

[4:07] But you see, when we come to the Word of God, it shines as a solemn beacon. And the Word which has rested upon my mind tonight, very blessed Word, much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

[4:33] And I would start at the end, you know, wrath. To depart from this world unready and unprepared is certainly to meet immediately, head on, the full wrath of Almighty God against sin unforgiven and unrepented of.

[4:59] And how solemn that is. It can be, and I believe it has been, the path of some who have sat under the ministry in our Gospel Standard churches all their days.

[5:17] And they've gone out into a never-ending eternity to meet that wrath of God. They have never known the Lord. We don't have to absent ourselves from the house of God to be in that condition.

[5:34] We don't have to walk in a godless world without prayer or Bible. We don't have to go to medium. looking for spiritual strength as some have done.

[5:48] And how solemn that is to tamper with the devil. But you know, an empty profession of his name is a very solemn thing.

[6:00] Oh, what a truth lies here to be saved from wrath through Him. And it is a very glorious truth of all the children of God that Christ in all His blessed finished work is the only one who can save us from wrath.

[6:28] God if we examine the religion of Islam do we find that they name the name of Christ?

[6:42] That they read the Gospels? But what do they do? One of the most solemn errors of Islam is this that whilst they accept the Lord Jesus Christ the Prophet they deny that He died upon the cross to take away sin.

[7:01] They in fact deny that He ever died on the cross. Islam says that Judas Iscariot died in His place. Christ went straight to heaven.

[7:11] They deny the redeeming work of Christ. How solemn that is. They claim to believe in one God Allah but they deny even though Christ is His Prophet and Mohammed is His Prophet they deny this very truth.

[7:32] They say that Christians have altered the Bible and inserted what they wanted to. Oh how solemn. The scriptures are very clear about this.

[7:43] He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life. That is John the Divine. And if we are out of Christ wherever we are whether we are a Gospel standard Baptist or whether we are some poor creature wandering in a godless world looking for pleasure without hope and without God in the world we are out of Christ.

[8:14] There is a blessed truth that lies here as I look around this little sanctuary of God where I have been preaching now since 1969 I can think of those here whom I have known and loved who I know were saved from wrath through him.

[8:40] They died in the faith resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

[8:51] They came within the compass of this word that rested upon our mind much more now being justified by his blood.

[9:03] Oh when we look at these two words wrath and justification we see such a vast comparison. There are those going forth to endure the wrath of God throughout a never ending eternity.

[9:21] It won't matter who they were what royal household they belonged to. they will be with all those cast into eternal darkness under the wrath of God where Christ said three times where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quake.

[9:48] Oh what a solemn place that is. It's a very good book little book written by a godly man Brown O'North the minister of Scotland in the last century called the rich man and Lazarus.

[10:03] I don't know how many of you read it. It's a striking book the rich man and Lazarus. It is a series of sermons preached on that subject of the rich man and Lazarus.

[10:17] He says in that book that the rich man uttered his first prayer in hell. father Abraham have mercy on me and he says it was wholly unanswerable.

[10:31] Brown O'North says there was a great goal fixed between heaven and hell.

[10:48] Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom. I never forget some years ago I had to go into the Royal United Hospital at Bath for an operation. I was in a ward with a godly sister.

[11:04] Anglican woman I believe but she was a godly woman. She used to go around the ward and she did on Sunday morning noticing where the Bibles were if there were any in the ward.

[11:16] Speaking to those about spiritual things and she came to the bed of every man in that ward that Sunday morning I was there and asked them personally to their face whether they would go to the chapel.

[11:30] And she told me she said if it's the hospital chaplain it won't be any good at all but if it's the evangelical vicar you'll probably enjoy it. He was from Walcott Street in Bath.

[11:42] Well it was the evangelical vicar that Sunday morning and I shall never forget his sermon. It was on the subject of the rich man and Lazarus. And he said this why was Lazarus in heaven?

[12:00] And he answered it. He said it was because he had the same faith as Abraham. He was brought to rest in Jesus Christ.

[12:17] He was in the arms of Abraham. They were one in glory. They had been saved from wrath. through him. He gave out for his hymn one of his hymns that Sunday morning.

[12:32] Hymn I shall never forget. Never heard it before. But he was made such a blessing in my heart. His hymn that Sunday morning one of James Montgomery's hymns.

[12:43] Not in Argasby's hymn book. But the hymn was this. Faith in the only sacrifice that did for sin atoned to cast our eyes to fix our hopes on Christ on Christ alone.

[13:03] And there was in that hymn this lovely line though dust and ashes in thy sight we may we must draw near.

[13:14] And you know I had passed through a week of deep exercise of soul and it's just where I'd be and oh how sweet that was to me I had felt dust and ashes in his sight and I had been brought to this faith in the only sacrifice that did for sin atoned to cast our eyes to fix our hopes on Christ on Christ alone.

[13:49] The Lord sometimes takes us apart to rest a while from the things of time and sense and all the carnal things and cares about us to concentrate on one thing how stands the case my soul with thee.

[14:09] Now there is a vast comparison here in our text this evening between this wrath and this justification. and we see here the apostle Paul entering sweetly in to this truth being now justified by his blood.

[14:36] You see nothing but a blood sacrifice will take us all to glory. Nothing but the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness will ever fit a soul to enter heaven.

[14:55] It is so clear in God's holy word this is being saved from wrath through him. It is to be justified by his precious blood.

[15:09] And we see lying here in this text the efficacy of Christ's blood to take away the wrath of God from our souls.

[15:25] Oh to be washed in that precious blood. Who are these? Says the book of the Revelation. This was the question John asked of the angel in glory recorded in the seventh of the Revelation.

[15:43] What a question it was. What are these which are arrayed in white robes? And whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest.

[15:55] And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

[16:08] What a blessed description it is. we can be certain of this that that is justification. It is to be made just before God.

[16:23] It is to be prepared to enter the realms of glory above. The rich man never got there. He was never justified in the blood of the Lamb of God.

[16:39] Lazarus, the poor beggar, was justified in the blood of the Lamb of God, washed in that precious blood.

[16:52] And the apostle knew something of what he was speaking of here when he penned this word, being justified with his blood.

[17:03] God, it is to be known in our hearts and not once, but many, many times in life's journey.

[17:15] I remember once when I was doing my army service, national service in Germany, I had been away as I was for nearly two years, completely away from the saying of the gospel.

[17:31] I don't think in two years I was more than a few weeks within reach of one of our chapels. I was cut off nearly two years from the saying of the ministry.

[17:44] And I was in the most godless and worldly atmosphere day and night. my heart was hard and dead and cold, but inside inwardly I mourn.

[17:59] I remember once coming back from Germany where I was, over to Harwich and down to London, returning to Southampton and feeling in such a dark, dismal, weary, carnal state, longing to hear the truth.

[18:18] And I said as I approached London that day, I won't go down to Southampton, I'll go up to hear John Green at Gower Street. So I did. And I remember going through the back station at Charing Cross and feeling in my heart as though I couldn't pray at all.

[18:37] But you know, entered the chapel at Gower Street that Tuesday night, sat down, I was late, they were singing the second verse of the first hymn. And as I listened, I bowed my head in prayer, and as I listened, they were singing this daily, I repent of sin, daily watch in Calvary's flood.

[19:00] And it melted my heart down, I felt the blessedness, it was the desire of my heart, the sacred reality of it. I went into that chapel that night with my heart as hard as another millstone, but John Green got up and gave out his text, go thy way.

[19:20] And as I have believed, so be it unto thee, my heart was broken to pieces. Oh, I felt such a sweetness and a savour in the gospel.

[19:32] Daily, I repent of sin, daily, wash in Calvary's flood. And I came out of that chapel and walked down Sarsby Avenue that night, a different man.

[19:43] I felt a little sweet liberty, a little of that precious blood of Christ upon my heart, what it is to be truly cleansed.

[19:58] The Lord comes into the hearts of his dear people time and again, and proves to them that lovely hymn, Law and Terrors do but harden, all the while they work alone.

[20:13] but a sense of blood-bought power soon will melt a heart of stone. And when our hearts are softened by the atoning love and blood of Christ, we enter into what follows in this chapter our text.

[20:34] Not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement.

[20:45] The margin reads the reconciliation. This is justification through his blood. It is to be reconciled to God.

[20:58] It is to have everything that lies between our soul and him taken away. and it is to be brought into his presence and to know his love and to know his peace and to know a little joy and hope in our hearts.

[21:18] We read in the previous chapter here being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

[21:35] Oh, how we must know that redemption in our own hearts if we are to be truly liberated from the power and guilt and filth of sin.

[21:51] We must know Christ as our redeemer and be able to come where Job came when he said, I know that my redeemer lives. Why did he know that?

[22:01] Because his redeemer had revealed himself to him, applied that precious blood in his own heart. He had then received the atonement or as we read in our text, being now justified by his blood.

[22:24] It is a present experience. Look at the Church of Rome. On Friday night, Cardinal Hume will celebrate a Requiem Mass in an attempt to wash away some of the guilt of the soul of Princess Diana.

[22:46] That is a blasphemy, absolute blasphemy. he has no more power with his wafer and his wine to wash away her soul.

[22:58] It is not the body and blood of Christ as he pretends. And who is he to offer up the redemption of Christ, the redeeming love of Christ, with his puny hands?

[23:11] And yet the nation looks up in wonder and thinks what a kind act, what a wonderful work of redemption. redemption. But no, being now, how clear the scriptures are, it is here in this time state.

[23:30] His sacrifice, as we read in the Hebrews, was offered once for sin. It couldn't be clearer. One sacrifice for sins forever.

[23:48] And justification is a blessed experience to be known in the heart of God's dear children. In the opening verse of this chapter, therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[24:10] That is the experience to be known in the justifying blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is now to know the peace of God which passed all understanding and to be able to say, I am clean, just God, I am clean.

[24:29] Some years ago, I had to go in February 1956 to the Royal United with a big ulcer under my tongue, which had been there since the previous July.

[24:41] Nothing would move it or touch it. when the consultant looked at it, he said to me, are you prepared for me to operate on you immediately? I said, yes, if you feel that's right, right, he said, I'll get a surgeon at once.

[24:56] I was taken immediately from his consulting room to the theatre, laid down, heavily injected in the throat and he took the ulcer away. I waited ten days for the biopsy to see whether it was a malignant ulcer, right at the back of my throat.

[25:14] And I knew in those days if that was malignant how solemn it would be. And I came home, I drove myself home and I sat in my armchair in our lounge and before me passed that evening a sight that I had never seen before, the sins of a lifetime.

[25:37] They went on and on and on. I had the most solemn sight of my life all through and the Lord brought me face to face in the reality of it with eternity.

[25:52] And I spent the following days mostly in my study on my knees wrestling with the Lord. But you know in the midst of that week, and I shall never forget it, on the Wednesday morning on my knees, I was reading in the Gospel of John and I came to the words of Christ regarding the washing of the disciples' feet.

[26:18] And Peter said, Thou shall not wash my feet. And Jesus said, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. And Peter said, Not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.

[26:33] And the Lord said, this was the word that came with such sweetness and power into my soul. He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, and he is clean every whit, and ye are clean.

[26:48] All that entered my heart with such immense power, by whom we have now received the atonement, ye are clean, through the word that I have spoken unto you.

[27:03] Abide in me and I in you, so shall you bring forth much fruit. You know, I was at absolute peace. Whatever happened, I didn't mind.

[27:14] The ten days being up, I went back to the hospital and sat in that consultant's room and waited for him to come in, and on the trolley beside me, I can see it now, the nurse brought it in there with the notes, the results of the biopsy, and I waited for him to tell me what he discovered.

[27:29] I didn't mind what he found. I felt absolutely at peace in my heart. And you know, he looked at me, I can see him now, he looked at me as though I never believed him.

[27:45] He said to me, I give you my word of honour. There is nothing whatsoever there. And you know, I had to pass that way, to learn that precious truth, and to learn this truth, by whom he have now.

[28:08] Or when we look at this precious word now, there are some nows in our lives justified now, by his blood.

[28:21] They are paths that we must walk in, to know the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

[28:39] It is a blessed principle laid down here, that we are only justified as the atoning blood of Christ is applied with the Spirit's power in our hearts.

[28:59] Oh, to know it, not once, again and again, in life's journey, and to know it in a dying hour. My late friend John Rayner, with whom I walked in the closest friendship, he was my closest friend from our days together at university as a student, back in 1952 at Leicester.

[29:26] We walked together in an unbroken friendship to his dying hour, and I kissed him goodbye, and I shan't forget the sweetness of it. He looked me in the face, and he said, I'm going to heaven, and I know it.

[29:41] he was lying in the peace of God which passed in all understanding. Christ was with him in his dying hour.

[29:53] Now was the time, and now was the justification. Oh, he was saved from wrath through him. And I drove home along this road, coming down through Abingdon, Swindon, Marlborough, home, and I never forget the peace of that journey.

[30:15] I could leave him. I knew it was well. The blood, the atoning blood of Christ, was upon his heart, and he was dying in the sweet peace of God which passed in all understanding.

[30:33] And you see, there's a beautiful verse in the scriptures regarding this, being saved from wrath through him. It's this, thine eyes shall see the king and his beauty.

[30:47] They shall behold the land that is afar off. And the only way we shall do that is through this precious experience that is spoken of here.

[31:00] Being now justified by his blood. And when that blood is applied, then we shall know that sweet peace of God which passes all understanding.

[31:22] And we shall know what it is to die in peace and have a blessed hope of glory.

[31:33] But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

[31:47] You know, this blood was shed centuries ago when the Lord shed his precious blood upon the cross, the apostle looked at it in this light.

[32:05] We are directed to look at it in this light. God commendeth his love toward us. It was shed long before we were born, long before we'd ever sinned.

[32:17] And yet we know this. Peter says it in his epistle, who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

[32:32] Before we had ever sinned, Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree. He saw what we would do in our life, the multitude, the magnitude, the depth, the variety, the solemnity of our sins.

[32:50] And he prayed for his whole church in that prayer which followed the Lord's Supper and preceded his entrance into the Garden of Gethsemane. The prayer recorded in the 17th of John, Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.

[33:10] How is that possible? Only is there justified with his blood, being now, that is in their life, here below. Oh, I ask you here tonight, what do you see in this truth?

[33:28] Do you believe it? And you may say in your heart, but I have never experienced it.

[33:40] I ask you this, do you believe that you can never enter heaven without it? do you believe it is the only way to glory?

[33:58] We read in the epistle of John, he, that is Christ, is the propitiation for our sins. Not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.

[34:12] That is the whole world in time. from every generation. And do you know, what does it mean?

[34:27] It means this, that he is the one who bore the wrath of God for us on the cross of Calvary, that we might know the peace of God in our souls.

[34:45] That is justification. being justified, as we read in this text, by faith we have peace with God.

[34:59] That is reconciliation by whom we have now received the atonement. Oh, I tell you this, if we leave this world without it, there is no justification in eternity.

[35:15] we must know it here below. We must be brought into these precious paths to know the atoning love and blood of Jesus Christ.

[35:33] God commendeth his love toward us, says the apostle, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

[35:45] That is before we had ever sinned. much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

[36:06] We shall know that beautiful verse, he is the propitiation for our sins. The great wrath remover of God and we shall know that peace here and we shall know it hereafter.

[36:26] And the angels heralded the entrance of Christ into this world over the hills of Bethlehem. They said on earth peace.

[36:39] They were referring to the atonement. On earth reconciliation. And they were referring to Christ's work upon the cross of Calvary.

[36:51] And they were referring to his church being justified freely by his grace, that is the grace of God, sovereign grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

[37:08] The apostle Paul knew it so well in his own heart, in that street called Straight, as he lay there in prayer, having been cut down on the road to Damascus.

[37:25] The Lord speaking, John and I said, behold, he prayed. we don't have to ask what he was praying for.

[37:39] We can hear his prayer just as we know the prayer of the psalmist David in the 51st psalm, wash me and I shall be wiser than snow.

[37:50] As we hear it in the psalm, pardon mine iniquity, O Lord, for it is great. And we hear a beautiful answer to that prayer.

[38:03] Year washed, year clean, through the word that I have spoken unto you. Abide in me and I in you, so shall he bring forth much fruit.

[38:20] Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

[38:32] For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life.

[38:47] And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

[39:00] What a mercy it would be if these truths were preached in the Abbey on Saturday. But I fear we shall not hear them.

[39:16] But oh how vital they are that this land hears these truths again. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

[39:33] Amen. Amen. anybody what are you doing?

[39:48] Do you with any sugar on those раза many luck. s use them out