Word of Salvation – Vol. 18 No.37 - September 1972

 

When Can You Be Sure Of God's Love?

 

Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Romans 5:6

Scripture Reading: Romans 5:1-11

Psalter Hymnal: 89; 412: 1,2; 164:1,2,5; 378; 316

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Have you ever been in a situation where something which you really treasure was close at hand but for some reason or other you could not get hold of it?  The kind of situation, for example, where a man travelling through a hot desert and being terribly thirsty, is within sight of an oasis but just has not got that extra bit of strength that he needs to have in order to reach the oasis.  Such situations can be a real agony.

Now it appears that some are finding themselves in similar situations as regards salvation in Christ Jesus.  They are within sight of the city of refuge and pardon but for some reason cannot enter its gates.  The kind of person that we have in mind is not indifferent to salvation.  On the contrary, there are times when he really believes that he is saved.  But unfortunately, there are also times when he has his doubts about being saved.  You could say that he is a person who is quite clear as to what God is saying to him through His Word.  He knows that God says, "Believe and you shall live”.  But his problem is that he finds believing quite a difficult thing to do.  He knows that he ought to believe but finds that he cannot always do it.  He sees Jesus as the Hope for sinners and yet there are times when he feels far removed from Jesus.

Well, can anything be done for such people?  Can we offer something that will help them to overcome the problem?

The answer is: Yes, most certainly!  Our text provides the answer.  But in order to understand the text properly we will have to give some attention to the verses preceding it.

In the preceding verses Paul is speaking about being justified through faith, having peace with God, having gained access to the grace of God and rejoicing in the hope that there will be a sharing in the glory of God.  The manner in which Paul is speaking about these great salvation blessings indicates that they are all true for him and also true for those to whom he is writing.  In fact, Paul says that the hope that he has got, this hope of sharing in the glory of God, of being redeemed and saved, this hope does not disappoint him.  It does not let him down because the love of God has been poured into his heart through the work of the Holy Spirit.

So Paul and his fellow Christians are quite sure about all those tremendous blessings of salvation because they have experienced God's love in themselves.  But what is it to experience God's love?  How do you know that God really loves you?  Well, some say, "I just know, I have experienced it."  For many it is like the song called "I serve a risen Saviour”, where in the refrain there are the lines:
            "You ask me how I know He lives?
             He lives within my heart."

Yes, all that can most certainly be true.  Indeed, the child of God can say that God loves him because he has experienced this love.  The unbeliever does not understand this because it seems foolishness to him.  In fact, he cannot understand it because the Spirit of God is not at work in him.  But the believer knows!  He has experienced it.

And yet there is still the question, "How do you know that the love of God is really there for you?"  Yes, how and when can you be really sure?  Of course, you are sure when your faith is at mountain- peak level and everything is going just nicely for you.  But would you have this same assurance when you are depressed and when things are not going so well for you?  Where, at such times, is your assurance then?  Could you still base it on your experience and feelings?  We can all agree that God's Spirit works in the heart of the believers and that He assures them that God's love has been poured out into their hearts.  The believer knows this because he has experienced God's love.  And yet, the ground or the reason for knowing that God loves you can be lots stronger than just the experience!  People, even Christian people, can experience many set-backs by way of sickness and disappointments and then in such times they may not feel quite so sure about God's love.  In fact, a Christian may have committed a serious sin, he may have wandered away from God and in such a state of mind he is not so sure if God still loves him.  Then he would not dare to sing of Jesus living in his heart for he would regard himself as being hypocritical.

Yet, the fact of the matter is that God's love is greater than any sin His people may commit.  It would be a very poor salvation if it could be undone by the Christian's failures and sins.

Therefore, for the answer to the question, "When can you be sure of God's love?", we would have to look not only to the verses one through five, where Paul refers to the SUBJECTIVE knowledge of God's love, but we must also look to verse six, our text, where the OBJECTIVE knowledge of God's love is mentioned.  If one wants to be really sure of God's saving love for him then he cannot miss out on hearing the message of verse six.  And the text says:

            "While we were yet helpless,
             at the right time Christ died for the ungodly...!”

An understanding and a believing of this text will give you the sure conviction that God loves you.  Our text is very similar to verse eight, "But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”

When then can you be sure of God's love?  Well, by FIRST of all considering the TIME at which Christ died for the ungodly.  The text says, "While we were yet helpless, AT THE RIGHT TIME Christ died for the ungodly."  What or which time does our text refer to?  When was this 'right time'?  Other translations speak of 'at the appropriate time' or at the 'appointed time."

But whatever translation we use we are still faced with the question, "When was the right time, or the appointed time, or the appropriate time?"  Well, our text says, "While we were yet helpless...!”  The time referred to when Christ dies for the ungodly is the time when we were helpless; it was the time of our helplessness.  It was a time wherein we were unable to do anything towards our salvation.  It was a time wherein we were without any spiritual strength.  THAT was the time that Christ died for the ungodly.  It was, in fact, the best time.  Any other time would not be quite good enough.

Of course, when our text speaks of Christ dying for the ungodly at the right time then we also naturally think of the time the Lord actually died upon the cross which was nearly two thousand years ago.  That was indeed the best time HISTORICALLY for Christ to die.  The Bible speaks of the time when Christ came to earth to suffer, die and be raised from the dead as "the fullness of time".  It was a better time than, say, the time of King David, or a better time than 1972.  When Christ died in the year that He did, then in the wisdom of God the situation of that particular time was the most suitable for the message of the cross to spread into the world.  The language condition, the political situation, the good network of roads in the Roman Empire, all, in the wisdom of God, were ideal.  Yes, in every way God in His wisdom regarded it the right time HISTORICALLY for Christ to die for the ungodly.

That then is one sense in which we can understand this time of Christ dying for sinners as being the right time.  But there is this other sense in which the words 'at the right time' should be understood and that is the time while we were yet helpless.  When is a person helpless?  Well, when he cannot do anything at all by himself.  Others have to come to help him because he cannot help himself.

Now there is a time when the unsaved sinner is quite helpless, when he is morally weak and without any spiritual strength.  He cannot do a thing that will help him on the way to God.  He is like a person in a pool of quicksand, totally helpless.  The Bible tells us that the sinner is in a lost condition.  There is no spiritual life in him.  He, in fact, is dead in trespasses and sins.  Spiritually speaking he is quite lifeless.  There is no love for God in him and no response.  He is spiritually dead.  His condition is even such that he is an enemy of God.  He has no regard for God at all but, in fact, he even hates God because of the simple fact that he is ignorant of who God really is.  He is not FOR God but against God.  All this makes sense because the person is spiritually dead; he has no strength and is quite helpless.

But now our text says that, when Christ has died for a person, for a sinner, it was DURING THAT STATE, DURING THAT CONDITION of helplessness.  We can never say that Christ died for sinners whilst they were on the way to become spiritually alive or while they were not quite so helpless anymore.  It was while they were unsaved that Christ died for them.  We cannot say that the sinner was already on the way to being saved by some act on his part and that Christ died for him then.  It is not a case of Christ helping those who help themselves but a case of Christ helping those who are utterly helpless.

The answer then to the question of when you can be sure of God's love is partly supplied when you consider that Christ died for His chosen ones WHILE they were helpless.  That, in God's great wisdom, was the best time for Christ to die for them.  God's love is shown to sinners who are utterly helpless and without strength.  His love does not depend on anything that is in the sinner or on anything that may be in the sinner at a later date.  No, God loves us without us deserving that love.

So the 'right time' is the time of our helplessness.  This is the time God takes as the best time and it undoubtedly is, for now God receives all the glory in the salvation of the sinner.  God is sovereign in salvation which means that it depends all on Him.  God shows His grace when He wills.

But there is more to the answer than just considering the TIME when Christ died for the ungodly.  The question as to when you can be really sure the God loves you with His saving love is also to be answered by considering the CONDITION of those for whom Christ died.  And what is their condition?  Well, their condition is described in our text as being UNGODLY.  "Christ died for the ungodly.” it says.  While they were in a state of helplessness Christ died for them, for that was in God's wisdom the best time, the right time.  But WHILST they were in that state of helplessness their condition was that of being completely ungodly.

We see here that Christ did the very thing we hardly expect anyone else to do.  We will usually be prepared to do something good for someone whom we feel deserves or needs to be helped.  But for someone who is righteous or just, (supposing there was such a person), we would not be required to help for they would not need any help.  A good man, yes, we would do something for him if he needed help for we would feel that he deserves help.  But who would consider helping someone who is utterly detestable and totally unworthy of any help?  Hardly anyone would.  But look at Christ, He did the very thing that we would never consider doing.  He died for the ungodly!

God's love can never be taken for granted.  Many people think that it would be the automatic thing for God to love them and forgive them their sin.  Any man would argue that they in one way or other deserve a little bit of grace for surely they are not as bad as all that, but Christ died for the UNGODLY.  He did not die for those who are not too bad.  As a matter of fact there are no people who are not so bad.  All are bad.  Therefore, God's love can never be taken for granted.  In order to understand that Christ died for the ungodly, the sinner must first see his moral weakness, his ungodliness, yes, his utter detestability and he must see that he deserves God's wrath upon his sin.  After he has seen himself thus will grace be recognized as grace.

But now we do not think that the majority of people who come to church regularly would take God's love for granted.  There are perhaps more people who know that they are sinful, morally weak and not deserving God's love; who know that salvation is by grace through faith but who are not always SURE of their salvation and not sure of God loving them with His saving love.  They are the people who, like we said in our opening remarks, who are very close to something they really treasure and value but for some reason cannot reach it.  They are those who cannot always say with conviction that they are saved.  And it is not that they are indifferent.  On the contrary, they would love nothing better than to be sure of God's love for them, sure of salvation and yet they cannot be because they see their failures and sins and these bring the doubts.

Now if you are such a person then listen carefully, for this text that we are dealing with, this part of God's Word, will give you much help and comfort.  Remember that the text says that Christ died for the UNGODLY.  Fix your minds on that as we look at some of the things that cause doubts about you being saved.

Some would say that they could not be really saved because they are only very simple people and quite unable to understand the whole of the Bible's message.  Many things will always remain unclear to them because they just have not had a good training or they are just not able to comprehend.  They somehow feel without strength and think that God cannot really love them enough because they cannot understand enough of God's Word.

Others feel that God could not really love them for they do not repent enough.  They are aware of their sinful deeds and confess them to God because they feel duty bound to do so.  Yet, they also feel that they could be more sorry that they are.  They are sorry for their sins but not sorry enough, they feel.  And so they argue with themselves, "How can you deserve God's love if you don't repent enough?"

Then again, other experience terrible sinful thoughts.  They fight these terrible thoughts and feel ashamed about them but the thoughts don't leave them.  They want to be rid of them but they cannot.  The person loves God but how can God possibly love him if he keeps on having thoughts running through his mind that really insult or deny God?

Then there are those who are weak Christians and who know that they are.  They want to quit sinful habits but they just have not got the strength.  They feel terribly miserable because of this.  They say to themselves, "How can God possibly love me if, after I have repented of my sin, I do it again so soon?"

And finally we have those who have such very good intentions but are so easily influenced to sin and evil by others.  God's Word, through the preaching and reading from it, really cheers and strengthens them and they are ever so determined to stay close to God.  But they meet bad company and they are easily influenced to wrong things.  And because such a person is so inconsistent, he feels God will grow tired of loving him.

Well, we have just mentioned five examples to show how God's love is doubted and how sinners feel that they do not deserve God's love.  The above problems and other possible ones can be so very real.  They bring us into despair and make us feel so lonely, miserable and so spiritually unhappy.  But what does our text say?  "While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."

Now notice that.  Christ died for the UNGODLY.  We so often think that the opposite of this is true.  We think we must somehow deserve God's love for otherwise God will not give His love.  We think that if God is to love us then there ought first to be some godliness in us.  We think that God cannot or will not save us if we do not know enough of His Word, or if we are not capable of producing a deep understanding of His message.  We think that God will not bother with us if our repentance is not good enough, or if we have sinful thoughts, or if we have not the strength to break with sin, or if we are easily influenced to do evil.  BUT Jesus did not come to save us because we had some worthiness in us, as though we are in ourselves worth saving.  Jesus saved us because we were utterly worthless, ruined and sinful.  He did not come to our rescue out of any reason that was in us, or will ever be in us, but only because in His great and merciful love He wished to save us.

And let us be honest regarding the real situation concerning us.  Our interest in God is never enough, our repentance is always imperfect, our thought are never wholly pure, our break with sin is never completely final and we are never completely immune to evil influences.  And THAT makes us so helpless, without strength and ungodly.  BUT Jesus came to call sinners, the unrighteous ones to salvation.  Christ died for the UNGODLY.  Let that Scripture truth never leave your mind.  You can be sure of God's love when you consider that Christ died for people like you and me, the ungodly ones.

There remains only one more thing to be said.  You can be sure of God's love when you BELIEVE to be true what Christ has done.  "While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  Do you believe THAT?  Yes, do you believe that these words are true?  We make it so difficult for ourselves sometimes whilst there is no reason at all really.  We even make God smaller than He is by thinking that there must be something worth saving in us before He will love us.  But whilst the sinner is quite helpless and ungodly, in THAT state and in THAT condition Christ died for him and now you are asked to believe it.  There is no reason really is there, why you should not believe this to be true?  In fact, believing is by far the best thing to do.  Try as you may to bring yourself to the point whereat you think you are worth saving but it will be of no use.  You will never reach this point.  Simple, child- like faith, that is all you need to have.  Just believing that Christ really did what our text says He did.

And then when you believe that, then God will give you the grace to come to Him in humble repentance for all your ungodliness.  And God will go on to give you the strength you need to fight against, and conquer, sin and the devil.  The Holy Spirit will freely work in you for this very purpose but you will have to take care that you do not resist Him,

When can you be sure of God's love?

Firstly, by considering the TIME when Christ died and that was whilst you were completely helpless.  Then secondly, by considering that the condition of those for whom Christ died was one of UNGODLINESS.  And thirdly, by BELIEVING to be true what Christ has done.  And so in the end it is salvation by grace alone!

Amen.