NOTE: This is an unedited transcript and, therefore, contains imperfections and is not for publication or quotation in whole or in part by anyone without the express written consent of Pastor Conley. The audio tape of this message delivered in the evening service on January 5, 1997, is available and may be purchased from the Church.

Unshakable Love

Romans 8:35-39

Dr. J. Drew Conley, Pastor

Tri-City Baptist Church, Columbia, South Carolina

He was a superb student. Graduating not only from the University of Glasgow, but also from seminary. He pastored several churches in Scotland including a very large church in Edinburgh. He was greatly loved and respected, yet he had one great drawback in his life: he was blind. He had been born in 1842 with only partial vision and his sight became progressively worse until he was totally blind at the age of 18. That blindness was the source of one of his greatest heartaches. After he had reached the position of great prominence in the church, he was engaged to a young woman, but during the course of that engagement she decided to break it off because she couldn't stand the thought of being married to a blind man. Some believe it was in the aftermath of that devastating blow that George Mathison penned the hymn, "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go. I rest my weary soul in Thee. I give Thee back the life I owe that in Thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be."

If there ever was a time in human history when we might doubt the steadfastness of love — the ability of love "not to alter when it alteration finds" in the words of Shakespeare — it is certainly today. It is a time of broken homes and broken hearts, where mothers kill their children and fathers abandon their families, where commitment is so out of fashion that well-known church growth consultants admonish us pastors not to even talk of commitment. What about God's love — God's commitment to us? In chapter 8 of Romans, Paul has masterfully laid out all of the reasons that we as believers are secure in Christ, and yet he has one final crescendo to add to his argument found in verses 35 to 39. We might ask the question, "Is there anything, is there anyone, that will cause God to cast me aside once I have placed faith in Jesus Christ? In the course of events, can my response to some enemy of my soul pry me loose from the grip of God's grace?" or in the words of Paul, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Paul lays out a long list of all the things that we might think may be powerful enough to separate us from the love that has laid hold of us who have placed faith in Christ Jesus. He first deals with suffering. When suffering becomes our lot, the natural human response is to think that God has forsaken us. Yet here Paul teaches us that even in suffering Christ's love does not let us go. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword separate us from the love of Christ? He seems to be thinking especially of those things brought on by a world hostile to Jesus Christ and those that follow Him, for he then quotes from the Old Testament, "For Thy (God's) sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (Psalm 44:22).

Tribulation — we are familiar with that term as we study the doctrine of last things — the word quite literally means pressure; sometimes it is translated affliction and speaks primarily of that affliction that comes from the outside, that presses down on us. It is interesting that the word from which our English term comes from is a Latin term and refers to a sledge (a wooden platform with strips or studs of metal on it, that is dragged across the stalks of wheat to separate the kernel of wheat from the chaff). So when we think of tribulation, we think of that kind of pressure that drags across us like great iron teeth separates grain from chaff. In John 16:33 Christ says, "In the world ye shall have tribulation"— you are going to have affliction; you are going to have pressure —"but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

Shall distress separate us from the love of Christ? This term speaks of narrowness, sometimes translated anguish, and has the idea of a torturing confinement. It speaks more of an inward compression of heart when we find ourselves in circumstances where it seems no escape — perhaps a dead-end job, perhaps an unhappy marriage, perhaps a situation in which it seems we are hemmed in on every side and the sides seem to be moving closer and closer together — it is a time of distress; it is a time that is common to the human race, even to believers — yet we are told Christ's love will not let us go even in times of distress.

Persecution carries the idea of being relentlessly pursued by someone determined to harm you. Persecution is the normal response of the world to a Christian who is bold in his witness and who is firm in his stand. It has always been the response of the world whenever the Church on the march really begins to do something of great significance. As the Church "turned the world upside down" in the first century, those that described it so were not paying the Church a compliment. They were saying, "You are changing the whole order of things. It is the end of our civilization as we know it. You are ruining everything. You have turned the world upside down." It was only a matter of time before persecution began in that early Church. When you trace the course of Church history, you will find whenever the Church begins to do its job, whenever God starts to fire up hearts, whenever preaching becomes bold, whenever Christians start to let their lights shine in the darkness and start cleaning up corruption, you will find there is great opposition to that — persecution, not only in bodily harm, but it usually begins with verbal slander and discrimination which precede actual bodily harm.

In 2 Timothy 3:12 we read: "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." In other words, we may live in a time that seems very conducive to Christianity; we live in a country where there is to be freedom of religion, where you are free to express your views at least to some degree — you are free to worship — yet, if you truly live for God, you will run up against persecution. You will run up against those who will pursue you with the intent of doing you harm precisely because you are living for God, because that is the natural response that man has to God — he is at enmity to God — and those who line themselves up with God will find that God's enemies become their enemies as well. It is striking that today many of the so-called revivals are marked more by conformity to the world than confrontation of it. What is interesting is that it is not an accident that they are conforming — it is their avowed strategy to conform to the world in order to win it, yet Scripture would teach something altogether opposite. As persecution falls, I know in our country where we have enjoyed such religious freedom, when we even think things are moving in a direction of persecution, when we see signs they might close down our Christian schools or might somehow tax the churches or limit us in such way that we might be at risk, we begin to wring our hands. One of the reasons we worry about who will be elected President or what the makeup of congress will be, or what laws we pass or who is on the Supreme Court, is that we are concerned there may be some kind of persecution. Let us understand this: Should there be persecution, it is not capable of separating you from the most important facet of your life, and that is Christ's love for you. You are still secure. As you look at the course of human history, we really live in a bubble of time, an unusual period, where Christians are so well treated. Christians have fared perfectly well under God's love even in times of persecution — it will not separate us from the love of God.

Neither will famine — lack of food — separate us from God's love. There are times we don't eat as well, but there are few of us who have really suffered hunger — perhaps some day we shall — but even if we are suffering hunger, it does not mean God has ceased to love us. God loves us still. We still are secure.

Nakedness — a poverty so severe that a person does not have sufficient clothing, not something we generally experience in our culture, but it would not mean God has cast us aside.

Peril is just a general term for all danger. Robert Halding gave an insightful comment about perils and danger to those who live in a culture like ours where we really don't sense that much danger for living for the Lord. He says, "Let the Christian habitually consider his safety and protection as secured by the Lord, rather than the liberality of his times. That time never yet was when the Lord's people could be safe if circumstances removed restraint from the wicked. Those who boast of their unbounded liberality would, if in situations calculated to develop their natural hatred of the truth, prove after all that they are persecutors." We look at times like the Nazi era, we look further back to the times of Diocletian, or times when Christians were burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition, or those believers who suffered in the Iron Curtain countries, and the believers who suffer today in countries around the world, and say, "That peril is not something that we will ever face because our culture is different — our people are different — Americans are different — there is more of an openness and friendliness." I don't believe those who lived in Germany during the 1920s and ‘30s could have imagined the atrocities that would happen under Hitler. Those people who live in Russia are no different than we are. We are no different from those who lived in 300 AD — people are people. Your neighbors can become persecutors and those who produce peril for you just as easily as the neighbors of a 1940s Jew in Germany. People express that kind of persecution towards other people because of the sin of their heart, but perils of all kinds will not separate us from the love of Christ.

Shall sword separate us? That word for sword speaks of a large dagger that was usually used by assassins and, thus it is a symbol not so much of dying in battle but of dying by murder by a person that hates you enough to see you destroyed. You say, "Paul is engaging in hyperbole; he is being an evangelist with his typical exaggeration." No, remember who this Apostle Paul is. He is the one, according to 2 Corinthians 11:25 who had suffered in many ways: he had been beaten and stoned, imprisoned and shipwrecked; he had been in perils of waters, perils of bandits, of the Jews and of the Gentiles, of the city, of the wilderness, of the sea, of false brethren; he had been in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, fastings, cold and nakedness, many times. Paul knew what it was to suffer, and it is he that writes: "(None of this) will separate us from the love of Christ." Then he quotes from Psalm 44:22, "for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." Why does he quote from the Old Testament Scripture? He wants you to know this: That such suffering is not the lot merely of first century Christians; it is not merely the experience of an apostle to the Gentiles, it is the experience of believers in all ages — whether you be the psalmist in Psalm 44:22, or whether you be Paul writing in Romans, or whether you be the writer of Hebrews in the next generation writing in Hebrews 11:36-38 that people who loved the Lord were being tortured, mocked, scourged, stoned, sawn asunder, and slain with the sword, and were wandering about in sheepskins and goatskins, were destitute, afflicted and tormented. These are things that fall to the lot of believers.

God does not say we will be saved from suffering. There is a whole theology today that preaches the idea that if you are right with God, if you put faith in Christ, that somehow God will make you immune to suffering — this is not true. In fact, the Scripture teaches if you believe in God, if you live for God, chances are you are going to suffer a little more in this life. You say, "Pastor, you are painting a dark picture here." I imagine those to whom Paul wrote thought so too. As yet they had not experienced this kind of severe treatment, but it would not be long before their blood would soak the sands of Roman amphitheaters as they were pitted against wild animals and gladiators. Others would be covered with pitch and set aflame to serve as human torches for Nero's garden parties. Such atrocities make anyone shudder; they even evoked pity from unbelieving Romans. That's what makes what follows absolutely extraordinary: "Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." In other words, God grants Christians not immunity from troubles and tragedies, but victory over them. It is not just that we will survive such suffering — barely making it through — but, according to this verse, we shall overwhelmingly conquer. That is extraordinary!

We expect God to conquer. We expect Christ to be the mighty deliverer, but God chooses by His love to change us so He makes us fellow victors in the conquest. It says, "We shall be more than conquerors." Note further that the text says not just that we shall be "more than conquerors," but that we are (present tense) "more than conquerors." This overwhelming victory to be won is won here and now as well as in the future. In other words, even in times of great distress and peril and persecution, Christians can overwhelmingly conquer — they can rise above it through the love of Christ that will not let them go. You say, "How can that be so? Surely, preacher, you are just getting on the bandwagon here." The Bible is nothing if not brutally frank and honest, so let's not cast this into the trash can of exaggeration; let's look at how it can possible be so. It is has been well said that "mountaintops are for views and inspiration, but you grow fruit in the valley." It is the times of suffering that make us fruitful; we first are made stronger through suffering. If you are looking for a church with a bunch of weak Christians full of all kinds of corruption, who are not getting the job done, who are not advancing the kingdom, who are not really happy people in the Lord, look for a church that is not suffering. Look for a church that is overwhelmed with affluence. Suffering makes us stronger, or in the words of a Christian historian: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." Persecution tends to purify the Church, it doesn't kill it. Troubles tend to loosen our grip on the kingdom of this world and fix our affection on the kingdom to come.

When we are young (Did you not find this so in your life?) we are very much enamored with worldly success. You are very much concerned that if you give yourself to God you will somehow miss out on what life has to offer. The older you get, the more you find that what life has to offer is a lot of trouble. There are good things, yes, but quite frankly what life has to offer is a lot of trouble even with the good. Even the best that this life under the sun has to offer is tainted by that which breaks our heart. Do you know what that does to us? The older we get as we focus on the Lord, the more we realize that this world is passing away — those things we thought would bring happiness, don't. I was thinking the other day, when we were in the Nashville area, about Elvis Pressley and the wealth he enjoyed. I thought about his car with the gold phone and the chipped diamonds in the paint on the car — unbelievable wealth. What can you do with a gold phone that you can't do with a plastic phone? It will sell for more, but it is just a phone — it doesn't make you a better person to hold gold in your hand, does it?

Isn't it interesting that some thing you always looked forward to having — maybe it was a house, a certain car, being able to wear a certain kind of clothes — and you finally get it, and then you find out you haven't changed a lick: you are just the same old person. Don't you ever feel like you are playing a role? You are just that eight-year-old kid from years gone by in a grownup's body. You have the same frailties and problems, and those people that you looked up to who were older and you saw them as mighty as Paul Bunyan, are not so mighty. When you get to be a Paul Bunyan, you find out you are just a grownup kid, and the things you sought so much for, they really don't bring you happiness or change you inside. The older you get the more you realize that this world does not offer you what you really want, or what you really need. Suffering tends to teach us that very well.

Second, the "affliction we endure," according to Paul, is momentary and light compared to the eternal weight of glory that will be our reward.

Third, when we come face to face with our weaknesses, when we find ourselves too small for our circumstances, we are finally in a place to experience the power of God. For God has said, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness;" and then Paul says, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities (my weaknesses), that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12:9). Aren't there things about you that bug you? There are things about me that bug me, but it is in those very areas where we are weak that we are most likely to experience the power of God. It is in those areas that we must "cast our care upon Him." He has said (Hebrews 13:5,6), "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." He uses a triple negative — we can't do that in English, but you can do it in Greek. "I will never (ever) leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly (we may with cheer) say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me."

How can we be such super conquerors? (That's what "more than conquerors" means.) It is through Him that loved us. Note the tense of that word love. It is past tense; it speaks of a fixed point in time — it is already proven. It is already established beyond dispute that God loves us, for "while we were yet sinners (enemies of God) Christ died (point in time) for us." We are "more than conquerors," because Christ has proven absolutely that He loves us. It is historical fact, and He will prove it again and again and again in our personal history, no matter the suffering. Jesus Christ died not just that the Church might be forgiven, but that we might be presented to Him blameless, "without spot or wrinkle" (Ephesians 5:27), saved from sin overwhelmingly — super conquerors. God doesn't just save us there at the time of conversion and then drop us and let us swim on our own; He continues to guide, lead, protect, care for and nurture until we come all the way to glory, and that is what this chapter 8 has been teaching us.

Paul says, what about extremes of condition? "I am persuaded that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God." I like that word persuaded; it means I have been convinced. Paul is not engaging in wishful thinking. He is saying, This is something I have come to understand by experience and that I continue to be assured of — "I have been persuaded" — that death is not able to separate us from the love of God. Francis Bacon said, "Men fear death as children fear the dark." Down deep in the human soul is a natural fear of death — it is the beyond and we are afraid of it — that is why there are books written such as Embraced by the Light. (Remember, if you read that book, that Satan can appear as an angel of light.) People are afraid of what is going to happen — they are afraid of death.

Death is a natural thing, and the closer that the sickle of death falls to us, as it falls upon those we love — that is a lot different than those who die that we read about in the newspaper that we didn't know from anyone else — as it falls close to us the more devastating death is. When you lose a loved one, it leaves a wide gaping hole inside of you. It is like a sledgehammer blow to your heart. It is hard to get over; in fact, I don't know that you ever get over it. Even marriage, the closest of all human relationships, the one that is to mirror our relationship to God, is only "‘til death do us part." But death cannot part you from God's love. Think about it: that which rips apart even the most intimate of human relationships, only brings you closer to your Savior, for "to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord." And being "absent from the body" is what death for the Christian is — it brings you closer to your Savior. Death — the great separator — the great divider — cannot divide you from your God. In fact, just the opposite — it only brings you closer. Death removes the soul from the body, but it does not remove life from the soul, and neither can it remove God's love from the Christian. In the words of Alexander Maclaren, "God does not lose us in the dust of death." He loves us still.

"Neither death nor life" — from one pole to the other pole and everything in between. Life with its distractions and its seductions poses a greater spiritual threat to us than death — the threat of lukewarmness and unfaithfulness. At other times, life can be more cruel than death and to be released from it can be a merciful escape as age and disease do their work on us. As we go up and down with changes foreseen and unforseen, life can be hard to bear, and yet Paul says, life — whatever happens in it — cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Angelic powers: "nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers shall be able to separate us from the love of God." One of the most fearful experiences you can go through is to be under open demonic depression — under attack by Satan or one or more of his emissaries. It is something they make horror films out of, but it is something that if it happens to you is frightfully real. The fact is that Satan and his emissaries attack us far more than we realize. There are times when he chooses to make himself known and produce the kind of fearfulness by which he is characterized. It is when we are aware of his attack that the experience can be chilling. Paul says, "principalities," which very literally means rulers, but is used in the New Testament specifically to refer to the rulers of the darkness of this world. Satan and his demons who hold power over the kingdoms of this earth cannot drive a wedge between you and God's love for you if you belong to Christ.

Ephesians 1:21 and following tells us that Christ is set "Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." What is this saying? All principalities and powers, Satan and his demons, every powerful force in the universe, God has placed under Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and you, if you are a believer, are organically connected to Him — you are the Church which is His body of which He is the head; and just as the head protects the body, Christ will protect you. Those angelic forces cannot separate you from the love of God. Colossians 2:15 says, "He has "spoiled principalities (in war when you conquer an enemy you spoil his belongings — you rifle through what he has — you loot) and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." Just as those Roman soldiers would parade their captives through the streets of Rome in their victory march so Christ has paraded the demons in His victory march over them — that victory won at the cross.

Angels seems to refer to good angels since principalities normally refers to evil angels. Angels drink from the well of God's love, but they cannot drink it dry. Its fountain still flows full for us. There is a great fixation on angels today, and I am afraid that much that is supposed to put us in touch with the angels is actually opening us up to demonic control. Angels are truly mighty beings. Man is "created a little lower than the angels" — angels are more powerful beings than man. They surround God's throne and go on errands for God to minister to His saints, and yet they are powerful to the extreme. Angels have killed a whole host of 185,000 soldiers (the army of Sennacherib) in one night. They killed the first born of Egypt as the death angel went over that land before the exodus. They would never turn against God's people, but even if they were to do so, they cannot divert God's protective love from us.

Just to capsulize anything else, Paul says, "powers." It is a term that is often used for miracles, denoting the supernatural strength that is necessary to perform such a mighty work, but it also refers to beings who wield great authority and power even to a supernatural degree. He says those powers cannot separate you from the love of Christ. In 1 Peter 3:22 Christ has gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God — "angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him." If you belong to Christ, even angelic powers cannot separate you from God's love.

Paul moves into a cosmic dimension and says, What about time? "Nor things present, nor things to come shall be able to separate us from the love of God." Things present: how often we long for time to pass by so that we may be free from some trial or circumstance. Things to come: ironically we often fear the future because we do not know what it will bring, especially during times that pretend cataclysmic change. There are books out such as The Coming Economic Earthquake and What To Do When America Falls about these disasters which may or may not befall us; we worry about these things. There was the day when Rome fell — can you imagine after 1000 years of dominating the earth the kingdom falls? They thought it was the end of the world, and yet God's love remained fast and sure for those who belonged to Him. "The future is safe," says Martin Lloyd Jones, "because God is the Lord of history." You and I enjoy the love of God — the God who was the God of Abraham, the God of David, the God of Paul and of Peter. Time does not change our God. We have a relationship with that same God who was the God of Augustine, the God of Luther, of Calvin, of Wesley, of Whitfield, of Spurgeon, Morgan, Livingston, and Mueller, and He is our refuge and our sufficiency every bit as much as He was theirs. Time does not wear God's love for His people down; it does not use it up; it does not nullify it; it does not divert it. Time cannot separate us from the love of God.

Even those believers who live in the so-called "Post Christian Era," and I think that term is probably premature, cannot lose God's special love for them. There is no such thing as a "Post-God Era." God is not dead, but the theologians who proclaimed Him so are. God is eternal, and so is His love, and we are loved with an everlasting love. In the words of James Montgomery Boise, "We are creatures of time." We live in a perishing world. Apart from spiritual battles and spiritual victories everything we accomplish will pass away. No matter how great our earthly victory may seem in the world's eyes, or our own, great monuments will crumble; works of art will decay; fortunes will be dissipated; heroes will die; even great triumphs of human intellect or emotion will be forgotten, but not so with spiritual victories. We are loved everlastingly and time will not change it.

What about space? "Nor height, nor depth shall be able to separate us from the love of God." There are places you can go that are lonely beyond belief, but you can never find a place where God is not. That is the whole theme for Psalm 139: "Whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" It is not that he wants to run from God; it is that there is no place I can go where He is not with me, "even if I make my bed in hell." God is everywhere and so is His love. The love of God reaches me no matter how deep or high I go.

Finally, as if there were anything more to say, Paul says, all creation — "nor any other creature"— anything that was created. The only thing that was not created is God Himself. Not anything that was created — no third party — can interpose itself between God's love and God's people. You and I may experience this unshakable love, but I want us to note the final words of this passage: "which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." No person will ever know the love of God unless He trusts in Jesus Christ our Lord. This unshakable love is only for those who place faith in Jesus as the Scriptures define Him to be. Not the Jesus at the "Jesus Seminar" — that Jesus never lived — but the Jesus of the Scriptures. Jesus the Savior from sin — that is what His name means, Jehovah saves. Jesus, God in the flesh; virgin born; sinless; dead, buried, risen and coming again. Jesus the Christ, that is "the anointed one," the King — God the Father's uniquely appointed ruler — Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus, the Master; God the Son, to whom all judgment is committed; highly exalted above every name there is. If you believe in that Jesus, if you have cast your faith in Him, if you belong to Him, then you know God's unshakable love and it will never let you go. "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake." Unshakable love.

Have you placed faith in this Jesus Christ? The great tragedy of human history is that there are thousands — no, millions — who in spite of God's revelation and wooing, choose to turn their backs on God's love. Perhaps you have been one of those people. Perhaps you say, "Pastor, I want this kind of love; I need this kind of love. I need to know God has hold of me forever, and that He will not let me go. I know I need this Jesus Christ. I know I need this unshakable love." If you have this need, please let me know before you leave this morning so we can have someone show you from God's Word how you, too, can have this unshakable love.

For those of you who profess to know the Lord Jesus, that means this unshakable love is poured out on you and is in you. I don't know what this year will hold as a church body, or for you as an individual, but I know this: whatever it holds, it cannot remove you from the ultimate blessing of God's love. He will not let you go. No matter the trials you face or the suffering you may undergo, no matter the hatred you may have heaped upon you, no matter the great victories you may win, no matter your frailties, God has hold of you, and He will work all things together for good, to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose, and in that confidence you can overwhelmingly conquer. Let this be a year of victory through Him that loved us.

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