Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 580
Delivered on Sunday Morning, July 17, 1864, by the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:31.
THE Truth of God here asserted is indisputable. Even heathens have taken this for their motto and emblazoned it upon their standards of war. “God is for us!” has been the war cry of many a warrior as he has dashed to the fight, however out of place it was in such association its force was clearly perceived. Our text, however, protects itself from ill usage, for you observe that the text is guarded with the little word, “If,” as a sentinel. No man, therefore, has any right to the treasures of this text unless he can give the password and answer the question!
It is not every man who can say that God is on his side. On the contrary, the most of men are fighting against the Lord. By nature we are the friends of sin and then God is against us—with all the powers of Justice He is against us for our destruction unless we turn and repent. Is God for us? Remember He is so if we have been reconciled to Him by the death of His Son. But an absolute God must be in arms against us, for even our God is a consuming fire. It is only when we behold the Lord Jehovah in the Person of Jesus Christ that our hope and joy can begin! When we see Deity Incarnate, when we see God surrendering the glories of His Throne to become Man and then stooping to the shameful death of the Cross—it is then that we perceive Emmanuel, “God with us,” and perceiving Him, we feel that He is on our side.
Question yourself then, Soul, whether you are in Christ. He who is not with Christ is not with God. If you are without Christ, you are without God and a stranger from the commonwealth of Israel. But if through the sprinkled blood you can say that you are reconciled unto God, then take the full meaning of this text and feast upon it and be blessed, for “If God is for us, who can be against us?” We shall handle the text thus and may the Holy Spirit make it profitable—how is God for us? Secondly, who are against us? And thirdly, who are not against us?
I. First, HOW IS GOD FOR US? Augustine, in his notes upon the verses preceding our text has very beautifully said that God is for us according to the preceding words of the chapter in four senses. Look back a verse or two and you will find it. He is for us, for He has predestinated us. He is for us for He has called us. He is for us for He has justified us. He is for us because He has virtually glorified us and will actually do so. To the people of God here are four very prolific subjects of thought.
1. God is for us, because, according to the words of the Apostle He has predestinated His people to be conformed to the image of His own dear Son. Now, if God has predestinated us to eternal life, who can be against us? Must not the predestinating decree of God take effect? If God has determined it, who shall disannul it? If God has said it shall be, who is he that shall stay His hand, or resist the Omnipotent fiat of the Most High? He said, “Let there be light: and there was light.” He bade the world spring out of nothing and forth it came. All things obey Him. Heaven adores Him. Hell trembles at Him. No creature can resist Him.
As the potter molds the clay according to his own will while it revolves upon the wheel, even so the Infinite, the Omnipotent Jehovah does according to His good pleasure in the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of this lower world. “It is He that sits upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers.” He takes up the isles as a very little thing. Who then, out of these little things, can stand against or resist Him?
See, my Brethren, the force of God’s decree of old in the case of Israel. The Lord had promised to Abraham that his seed should inherit the whole land of Canaan, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. See, amid the smoke of the brick kilns Israel toils in Egypt. How was God’s decree to be fulfilled? When God makes bare His arm, you shall see and wonder! Pharaoh and all his hosts cannot hold those captives whom God determines to set free!
There they go, led forth like sheep by the hands of Moses and Aaron. They cross the desert until they come to the sea, even to the Red Sea. See, the mighty stream rolls before them and their ferocious enemies are behind but the Lord has determined that they shall inherit the land and therefore neither can the sea refuse to divide, nor can Pharaoh save himself when he goes down into the depths thereof. They are in the wilderness—famine shall destroy them! No, the heavens drop with manna! Thirst shall scorch them! No, the Rock follows them with its living stream! The serpents shall surely bite them! Yes, but the brazen serpent is lifted up and whoever looks shall be healed! The Amalekites attack them, but while Moses holds up his hands Joshua puts the foe to the route.