I would like to call your attention this evening to the 34th verse in the 8th chapter of Paul's

Epistle to the Romans. The Epistle to the Romans chapter 8 and verse 34. Who is He that

condemner? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God,

who also maketh intercession for us.

Now, last week you remember I indicated that this verse and the previous one should rarely be taken together,

as between them they have one big statement, and that is, with regard to the challenge thrown up by the apostle,

as to whether it can ever be possible in any way for anyone who is justified

and who is one of the called of God ever to come again into condemnation.

That is the matter that he deals with in the two verses, but he divides it up into these two sections.

The first was, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? And the answer was,

it is God himself, as it were, the justifier. But now he takes up the matter again and puts it in a slightly different

form. Who is he that condemneth? Comes to much the same thing. Condemnation is the opposite

and the antithesis of justification, and yet there is a slight difference. So the apostle, it seems to me, puts it

like this in two portions, in two sections, though the fundamental question is in reality the same

one. Now, he does this undoubtedly, because, as is his custom and characteristic,

he is anxious that we should be made certain of this matter beyond any doubt or peradventure

whatsoever. So he leaves no stone unturned. He doesn't leave any conceivable argument, untouched,

or unconsidered. That undoubtedly is the reason why he goes into it like this in such detail.

He knows that we ourselves are ever ready to conjure up possibilities, and he knows still

more that the enemy of our souls is always ready to look for a loophole, always ready to

find anything he can that would discourage us and depress us and try and rob us of our confidence and of our ultimate assurance.

So in order to help us out of his great pastoral heart, he takes up every imaginable and

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