The Inseparable Love of God (1) [ Romans 8:38-39 ] Why can nothing separate us from the love of God? 1. Because God’s love is eternal. Romans 8:29a says: “For those whom He foreknew…” The word “foreknew” refers to before eternity began —before the creation of heaven and earth . The phrase “those whom He foreknew” does not simply mean knowing about someone intellectually, but rather loving them. In other words, it refers to “those whom God loved from eternity past.” Amos 3:2a says: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” If “known” merely meant intellectual knowledge, that would imply that God only knew Israel and did not know the other nations—which cannot be true, because the all-knowing God lacks knowledge of nothing. Therefore, “I have known you only” means “I have loved you only.” God loved Israel among all the nations of the earth. Hosea 13:5 says: “I knew you in the wilderness , in the land of great drought.” The “wilderness” was where the Israelite...
A pastor may sometimes
experience being at the bottom of life.
The
officials took the prophet Jeremiah and lowered him
by
ropes into the cistern of the royal prince Malchiah,
which
was in the courtyard of the guard.
The
cistern had no water, only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud
(Jeremiah
38:6).
As I
meditate on this passage,
I am
reminded of the prophet Jonah, who disobeyed God's command.
When
he prayed to his God from the belly of the great fish
(Jonah
2:1), he described himself as being in the deep waters (vv. 3, 5)
and sinking
down to the roots of the mountains, imprisoned in the land of death (v. 6).
Yet,
despite his situation, the prophet Jonah prayed to God,
saying,
"But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you.
What
I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord" (v. 9).
As a
result, the Lord saved the prophet Jonah’s life from death (v. 6).
If
the Lord rescued the disobedient prophet Jonah,
wouldn’t
He also save the prophet Jeremiah, who was obeying God’s word?
The
Lord used Ebed-Melech, the Ethiopian court official, to go to King Zedekiah and
say,
"Your
Majesty, what these men have done to the prophet Jeremiah is an evil act.
They
have thrown him into a cistern, and he will starve to death there
since
there is no bread left in the city."
So,
King Zedekiah commanded Ebed-Melech, "Take thirty men from here with you
and
lift the prophet Jeremiah out of the cistern before he dies."
Thus,
the prophet Jeremiah was rescued from the pit where he had been trapped
(Jeremiah
38:7-13).
It
seems that even pastors, who are servants of the Lord, may sometimes experience
being
at the bottom of life, like being in a pit or the depths of the sea.
Such
experiences can lead them to feel a sense of despair.
However,
the great grace of God given in those desperate situations is
that the Holy Spirit makes them long for the
Lord even more and fills them with hope,
ultimately
allowing them to experience God's salvation.
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