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00:00What if one chapter could change your life?
00:07What if there was one passage of scripture that allowed you to leave the past behind you,
00:13to look beyond your present challenges, and provided the hope for a brighter tomorrow?
00:19Turning the page to these powerful words can turn a page in your life,
00:25giving you the confidence you need for every step you take.
00:30Words that contain God's desire to breathe renewed life into you,
00:34through a divine promise just waiting to be claimed.
00:39A promise that you will never be abandoned, never be alone, and always be cared for.
00:47A promise that you are chosen and called by God.
00:52How would your life change if you knew you could endure every trial,
00:56that nothing could stand in your way, knowing there's nothing God wouldn't do for you?
01:04Is it too hard to believe that such an arrangement of simple words,
01:08composed beautifully, authored divinely, nearly 2,000 years ago, could be so great?
01:16What is this chapter?
01:19Romans 8, the greatest chapter in the Bible.
01:26I'm David Jeremiah.
01:28During my current teaching series, I've been telling you that Romans chapter 8
01:33is a Bible chapter that can change your life.
01:37And today, I will give you yet another reason why.
01:41Paul finishes chapter 8 with three verses that tell us
01:45there is nothing that can separate us from God's love.
01:49Does that sound life-changing to you?
01:52Well, all of us go through times in life when we wonder if God has forgotten about us.
01:57The clouds overhead may appear dark, and the wind may be blowing hard against your soul,
02:03leaving you feeling quite alone.
02:06But in today's message, which I call More Than Conquerors,
02:10we'll learn that nothing in life can come between us and God.
02:14We are able to conquer any difficulty, no matter its source,
02:19because we are conquerors in Christ.
02:22I hope you'll join me as we unpack Paul's profound words
02:27on today's edition of Turning Point.
02:31The act of writing out scripture by hand is a powerful practice.
02:35In fact, it is a command directly from God.
02:38God understood how writing with your hand imprints the words on your mind.
02:42And that's why Dr. Jeremiah has created the Written Word Journal.
02:46Use the Written Word Journal to write Paul's wonderfully rich letter to the Romans,
02:50word for word.
02:51As you do, record your thoughts, reflections, notes, and prayers on the adjacent page,
02:56charting your personal journey with God through the book of Romans.
03:00The Written Word Journal is yours when you give a gift of any amount in support of this program.
03:05And if you give $60 or more, Dr. Jeremiah will also send you his current teaching series,
03:10Romans 8, on CD or DVD, along with a correlating study guide.
03:14Or, if you give generously to the ministry,
03:17you will receive the Written Word Journal and a Jeremiah study Bible
03:21in the New King James Version.
03:23Contact Turning Point today.
03:27Thank you for watching Turning Point.
03:29Now, here is Dr. Jeremiah with his message,
03:33More Than Conquerors.
03:36Late one evening,
03:38while attending a conference in the German city of Hamburg,
03:42John Roth boarded a commuter train and headed for an outlying suburb.
03:47The train car was completely empty at that late hour,
03:52and he dozed sleepily as it rattled past the harbor,
03:56then through the industrial district.
03:58Several minutes into the trip,
04:01an old man, dressed in rags and clearly suffering from a mental disability,
04:06shuffled into the car, closely followed by four teenagers.
04:12The young man, sporting an assortment of chains,
04:15tattoos, and body piercings,
04:18entered the car, following this old man,
04:21laughing and talking really loud.
04:24Almost immediately, their attention focused on this homeless person
04:29who had seated himself near the center of the car.
04:33They began to taunt him, shouting obscenities
04:37and making humiliating references to his mental state.
04:42But verbal abuse wasn't enough.
04:44Without warning, they began kicking his legs with their heavy boots
04:48and punching him in the arms and in the face.
04:52Seated toward the back of the car,
04:55John Roth whispered a deep prayer,
04:58got out of his seat,
05:00and walked toward the old man and his attackers.
05:03As he got near, he said,
05:05"'Hans! Hans, how are you?'
05:09And then, slipping between two of the surprised teenagers,
05:13John embraced this man who had never met before in his life,
05:16helped him to his feet, and said,
05:18"'Come sit with me. We have so much to catch up on.'
05:22The old man followed him toward the rear of the car
05:25and slid into the window seat.
05:27The teens looked on, not sure what they should do,
05:31and for a time they talked among themselves.
05:33When the train pulled into the next stop, they got off.
05:37And at the following stop, Hans got off,
05:41mumbling a word of thanksgiving."
05:44Looking back on that event,
05:46John Roth made an incredible evaluation.
05:50He said, "'The common sense of our culture
05:52teaches that the only way to respond to fear
05:55is a cowardly retreat or a fight to the finish.
06:00The beauty and power of the gospel
06:03is that Jesus Christ offers us a third alternative.
06:08Trust in God, in the transforming power of his love.
06:12Don't be afraid.
06:14Stand up, enter into the middle of the conflict,
06:16and bring something nobody ever would expect.
06:19Bring love.'"
06:23In this next section and the last section of Romans 8,
06:27we're going to discover a force that is so powerful
06:31that it will conquer the worst things
06:33that could possibly happen to you.
06:35In fact, this force is so all-encompassing
06:38that nothing lives outside of its walls.
06:43Open your heart to the incredible possibility
06:47that whatever's going on in your life,
06:50God is more powerful than that,
06:52and that his love is unquenchable,
06:56unstoppable, and will never let you go.
07:02The story begins at the last couple of verses
07:06of Romans chapter 8,
07:09where we read in verse 37 these words,
07:13"'Yet in all these things
07:16we are more than conquerors
07:19through him who loved us.'"
07:23In all these things, we are more than conquerors.
07:28Now, the word more than conquerors,
07:31more than conquerors,
07:33there's three words in the English language,
07:35but in the Greek language from which this was translated,
07:38it's one word.
07:39It's a big, long word.
07:41The word is hypernikoman.
07:45Now, most of us know what hyper is.
07:47If you've got any two-year-olds, you know what hyper is.
07:50Hyper is kind of like out of control, over the top.
07:54The middle word is the word Nike.
07:57If you're a sports person, you know that word.
08:00The word means victory.
08:03That's what the word Nike means.
08:05So, hyper victory.
08:07So, the Bible says,
08:09you and I are hyper victorious over all these things.
08:13We are more than conquerors.
08:16And Paul's not talking here
08:18about something that will happen to us.
08:20He's talking about things that are happening to us right now.
08:24In the midst of these things, we are more than conquerors.
08:29And we're not merely conquerors.
08:31We're not just neutralizing the things that happen to us.
08:36Paul says, no, we're overcoming them.
08:39We're overwhelming them.
08:42More than conquerors, so that whether it's death or life
08:45or angels or principalities or things present
08:48or things to come,
08:50whatever it is that's going on in our life,
08:54because of God's love for us, we can overcome that.
08:58We are more than conquerors.
09:01We are overcomers.
09:03We're not simply enabled by his love to hold on.
09:08Neither is this the case that we'll just manage this
09:11and get through it somehow.
09:13How many of you know that's the way a lot of Christians
09:15approach their life?
09:16Well, how's it going for you?
09:17Well, we're doing okay.
09:19We're just hanging on.
09:21We'll get through it somehow.
09:23No, Paul says it's gotta be more than that
09:25if you understand what he's teaching.
09:27Because of what God tells us about his love for us,
09:31he gives us the strength to overcome things
09:34that we would never, ever be able to overcome.
09:37I was taught to study the Bible from the English language
09:40by a professor named Howard Hendricks
09:42when I was in seminary,
09:43and he called his course Inductive Bible Study.
09:46And I don't wanna go into a lot of detail about that
09:48except that he taught us to look for things
09:51that jumped out at us because they were repeated.
09:55And if you look at Romans 8, you'll notice
09:57that in the 28th verse of Romans 8 it says,
10:00and we know that all things work together for good.
10:04And then you get down to verse 31 and it says,
10:06what shall we say to these things?
10:10And then you get to verse 37 and it says,
10:12yet in all these things.
10:15Now, what kind of things is Paul talking about?
10:18Well, he told us in the last lesson
10:20he's talking about storms and peril,
10:23and he's talking about famine and persecution and nakedness.
10:27He's talking about the sword.
10:30In fact, he even says,
10:31for your sake we are killed all the day long.
10:34Paul was literally saying every day he faced death.
10:37So what is he saying when he says
10:39we are more than conquerors?
10:41He's saying all these things that I've listed,
10:44all of this long list,
10:46we can be more than conquerors when these things happen.
10:50How do we go about proving that to ourselves?
10:55Paul says that he is persuaded that this is true,
11:00that we are more than conquerors.
11:02Are you persuaded of that?
11:04Are you bouncing around these days
11:06with all this stuff that's happening to us?
11:08Are you hitting the wall?
11:10Are you wondering where did that come from
11:13and now what do I do?
11:15Well, he's going to teach us some things about God's love,
11:19but before we look at his methodology,
11:22let me tell you a brief story.
11:25George Matheson was born in Scotland in 1842,
11:31and as a child, he had just partial vision.
11:34It was pretty obvious when he was born
11:36that he had visual problems.
11:38By the time he was 18, he was totally blind.
11:42He did not let his blindness get in his way
11:45in terms of his student ability.
11:48He graduated from the University of Glasgow.
11:50He later graduated from seminary.
11:53He actually became a pastor,
11:55and he was a pastor of several churches
11:57and ultimately a very large church in Edinburgh.
12:01During the early days of his time in Edinburgh,
12:04he met a young woman, and he fell in love with her.
12:07He thought she had fallen in love with him.
12:09They went together for a short time,
12:11and then she came to him and told him
12:14that she had decided that she could not be married
12:17to a blind man for the rest of her life,
12:20and it just about destroyed him.
12:23It was so painful.
12:25What a disappointment.
12:27And out of that, he wrote a beautiful little song,
12:33and you probably have never heard this song.
12:36I grew up in a church where this would often be sung
12:39as a solo from time to time,
12:42and I don't think the words of the song won't stick with you,
12:45but the first line will.
12:47Here's what he wrote.
12:49"'O love that will not let me go,
12:54I rest my weary soul in thee.
12:58I give thee back the life I owe,
13:01that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.'"
13:06So broken by the loss of the love of this woman,
13:12he fell back on the love of God, and this is what he said,
13:16and I love this line.
13:18"'O love that will not let me go,'
13:23and I want to tell you this morning about the love
13:26that will not let you go.
13:29Paul is going to prove this to us in a very interesting way.
13:33It will surprise you to know that when I was in college,
13:37I was an English major.
13:40Please forgive my teachers for not doing a better job.
13:44Please forgive me for not being a better student,
13:47but that's the truth.
13:49I was an English major.
13:51And in English, there are certain tools that help you,
13:54and one of them is called amerism.
13:57I'm pretty sure most of you never heard that word
13:59unless you're an English teacher.
14:01What is amerism?
14:03Well, it's a way that in English you state a pair
14:06of contrasting words to represent the full range
14:09of everything in between.
14:11Here's a good illustration.
14:13He knows his subject from A to Z.
14:17That's amerism.
14:18What does that mean?
14:19He knows everything in between.
14:21He knows it from A.
14:22He knows it from Z.
14:24Now, Paul's gonna use five of those statements
14:28to prove to us the answer to the question you find
14:32earlier in the text.
14:34Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
14:36He's going to teach us in this text that no one or nothing
14:40can separate us from the love of Christ,
14:43the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
14:46Here's the first one.
14:48Not the crisis of death nor the calamities of life.
14:53In the text he says, neither death nor life.
14:58Paul said, who's gonna separate you from God?
15:02Neither life nor death can do that.
15:04Paul knew about death.
15:06He's the one that wrote 1 Corinthians 15.
15:08Oh, death, where is your sting?
15:12Paul wasn't afraid to die.
15:14He actually said in Philippians,
15:16for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
15:19He wasn't afraid to die.
15:20Paul knew something.
15:21He knew that death cannot separate you from Christ
15:24or from God because what death does,
15:27it ushers you into the full glory of his presence.
15:31Death doesn't take you away from God.
15:34Death ushers you into his very presence,
15:37so death can't separate you from God.
15:41And if death cannot separate us, what about life?
15:45Paul says, neither burdens or bitterness or disappointments
15:49or uncertainties or physical misery.
15:52All of these things could pull one away from Christ
15:55if he were not in control,
15:57but here's what you need to remember, men and women.
16:00This story is not about our love for God.
16:02It's about God's love for us.
16:04If it were the other way around, you could understand,
16:07oh, yeah, these things can keep you from loving God,
16:10but we're not talking about that.
16:12We're talking about how much God loves you
16:14and what it would take for him to ever stop.
16:16Here's what we've learned so far,
16:18not the crisis of death and not the calamities of life.
16:23Paul goes on to say,
16:25not the intervention of angels or the intrusion of demons.
16:28He says, neither angels nor principalities.
16:31Most writers believe when he's talking about angels here,
16:34he's talking about evil angels
16:36because I can't imagine any good angel
16:38that would want to pull you away from the love of God.
16:42Why can't angels pull you away from God's love?
16:45Because angels report to God.
16:49They are in submission to him.
16:51He's the one that runs the angelic force,
16:54and demons cannot overcome him
16:57because he is more powerful than they are.
17:00Lucifer and the full range and ranks of forces in between
17:03do not have sufficient power to break the hold
17:07of God's love upon his children.
17:09Oh, love that will not let me go.
17:14So, it's not the crisis of death nor the calamities of life,
17:17not the intervention of angels nor the intrusion of demons.
17:20Here's the third one.
17:22Not the cares of today or the concerns of tomorrow
17:26nor things present nor things to come.
17:32Now, this is a concern along a horizontal line.
17:36Paul says that on the continuum
17:38between the present and the future,
17:40there is nothing that can separate us
17:43from the love of God.
17:45The things in the present can't disarm us
17:47because we learn God is for us.
17:49Who could be against us, right?
17:52And Jesus came and spoke to them,
17:54and he said,
17:55all authority's been given unto me.
17:57Why can't any of these things get through?
17:59Because they all are under the authority of Almighty God.
18:02They're in submission to him.
18:03He has determined to love us,
18:05and no one can release his grip upon that love.
18:09Not the crisis of death or the calamities of life,
18:12not the intervention of angels or the intrusion of demons,
18:16not the cares of today or the concerns of tomorrow.
18:19Listen to this one.
18:21Not the pinnacle of heaven nor the pit of hell,
18:25nor height nor depth.
18:27Paul says not anything so high or so deep
18:31can ever separate you from the love of God.
18:35What does that mean?
18:37Well, imagine traveling millions and millions of miles
18:41upward into the heavens,
18:44straight up into the deep space
18:46till you reach the outer edge of the Milky Way galaxy.
18:50It's impossible that the suns and the nebulae
18:52or the novas you would see out there
18:54would pose any threat to God's love for you.
18:58Neither would you find such a threat
19:00if you turned around and drilled downward
19:02into the hot core of the earth.
19:05This is a concern along a vertical line.
19:08If time cannot separate us from God's love,
19:11neither can space.
19:13God has every inch of the universe covered.
19:16He made it.
19:17He's the Lord of it.
19:18His love is deeper and wider,
19:20and all the dimensions of creation
19:23can never get in the way of his love for you and me.
19:28Not the crisis of death or the calamities of life,
19:32not the intermission of angels or the intrusion of demons,
19:36not the cares of today or the concerns of tomorrow,
19:40not the pinnacle of heaven or the pit of hell.
19:43Here's my favorite one of all,
19:44because it's everything we've already said
19:47in one merism.
19:49Not anything mighty nor anything made.
19:53Paul said it this way,
19:54nor powers nor any other created thing.
19:59Paul ends his list of the things that cannot separate us
20:03from the love of God with a handy catch-all phrase,
20:10nor any other created thing.
20:12It's almost like Paul is saying,
20:13and if I have forgotten anything so far,
20:16if I have left anything out that you might think
20:18could separate you from the love of God,
20:20if there's anything still laying on the table,
20:22let me take care of it here.
20:24Not any created thing can ever separate you
20:28from the love of God.
20:30This verse is not telling us that if we're Christians,
20:33we won't have trouble.
20:34God's pledge is not that suffering will never afflict us,
20:38but that it will never separate us from God's love.
20:42When we are in the deepest need,
20:45he comes to us in a way that we can't even explain.
20:50It's that peace that passes all understanding.
20:54Our confidence is not in our love for him.
20:57Men and women, our confidence is in his love for us.
21:00In the words of George Matheson,
21:02his love will never let us go.
21:06He will never let you go.
21:08He loves you.
21:10You cannot get out of the grip of his love.
21:12If you're a Christian, if you have accepted Christ
21:15as your personal Savior, you're in the family of God.
21:18Father God has your back.
21:21He has your hands.
21:22He's got you, and you will never escape from his love.
21:28You know, often when you study the Bible,
21:32you find passages of Scripture
21:35that illustrate other passages of Scripture.
21:39I want you to join me in reading Psalm 46.
21:45Psalm 46 is a wonderful psalm,
21:48and let me just tell you up front
21:50that it is the portion of Scripture
21:52from which Martin Luther wrote,
21:55"'A mighty fortress is our God.'"
21:58So, what we're gonna do here is we're gonna stand up
22:01and we're gonna read that passage of Scripture out loud
22:04so that it will imprint itself in your heart.
22:07So, let's all stand together.
22:10Now, here's what you need to do
22:12when you're reading Scripture out loud,
22:13especially from the screen.
22:15I'm gonna ask you not to read it from your Bible
22:16because there's so many different versions
22:18it won't make a lot of sense if we do that.
22:21So, we'll read what's on the Scripture.
22:22This is the New King James Version of the Scripture.
22:25Read it authoritatively.
22:27Let's read it out loud together.
22:29Let's read it like we really need it,
22:31and then let's hear it like it meets that need.
22:34Are you ready?
22:35Here we go.
22:37"'God is our refuge and strength,
22:40"'a very present help in trouble.
22:43"'Therefore we will not fear,
22:46"'even though the earth be removed
22:48"'and though the mountains be carried
22:50"'into the midst of the sea.
22:52"'Though its waters roar and be troubled,
22:55"'though the mountains shake with its swelling,
22:58"'there is a river whose streams
23:00"'shall make glad the city of God,
23:03"'the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High.
23:07"'God is in the midst of her.
23:10"'She shall not be moved.
23:12"'God shall help her just at the break of dawn.
23:16"'The nations raged.
23:18"'The kingdoms were moved.
23:20"'He uttered his voice.
23:22"'The earth melted.
23:24"'The Lord of hosts is with us.
23:26"'The God of Jacob is our refuge.
23:29"'Come, behold the works of the Lord
23:32"'who has made desolations in the earth.
23:35"'He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.
23:39"'He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two.
23:43"'He burns the chariot in the fire.
23:46"'Be still and know that I am God.
23:50"'I will be exalted among the nations.
23:53"'I will be exalted in the earth.
23:56"'The Lord of hosts is with us.
23:59"'The God of Jacob is our refuge.'"
24:03Perhaps the finest of Luther's great hymns,
24:07a mighty fortress is our God.
24:10Its majestic and thunderous proclamation of our faith
24:14is a singing symbol of the Reformation.
24:17Inspired by Psalm 46,
24:20Luther caught up in the hymn
24:22the very essence of faith
24:25which he found in the psalm.
24:29Throughout the ages, men have been stirred
24:31by the realization that the eternal God
24:33is available to them and that nothing,
24:36literally nothing, can overwhelm or destroy a man
24:40when he lives in his faith.
24:42Nothing can separate him from the love of his God.
24:48Dr. Jeremiah will return to close today's program
24:50right after this.
24:55Thank you for watching Turning Point.
24:57Dr. Jeremiah would like to offer you
24:59the written word journal Romans
25:01sent to you in appreciation of your gift
25:03of any amount in support of this program.
25:05And for a gift of $60 or more,
25:07Dr. Jeremiah will include his current teaching series
25:10Romans 8, the greatest chapter in the Bible
25:13on your choice of CD or DVD
25:15and a correlating study guide.
25:17Or if you give a generous gift of $100 or more
25:20in support of the ministry of Turning Point,
25:22you'll receive the written word journal
25:24and a Jeremiah study Bible
25:26in Dr. Jeremiah's preferred New King James Version.
25:29Thank you for your support of Turning Point.
25:32Contact us today.
25:36And now, with one last word for today's program,
25:39here is Dr. Jeremiah.
25:42I hope you caught Paul's final words,
25:45the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
25:49This is not some warm and fuzzy kind of love.
25:52It's the love God demonstrated
25:55by sending his own son to die on the cross for our sins.
25:59It's a love that asks only one thing,
26:02that you receive it as a gift.
26:05Have you received God's gift of love
26:08through faith in Christ?
26:10If you would like help understanding
26:12how you can become a Christian,
26:14I hope you will allow me to send you
26:16our free booklet, Your Greatest Turning Point.
26:20When you contact us, we will also send
26:23our monthly devotional magazine, Turning Points.
26:26The articles and daily devotions
26:28will be a great encouragement.
26:30We'll gladly send both of these resources to you
26:33completely free of charge
26:35when you contact us here at Turning Point today.
26:40In addition, you can order Dr. Jeremiah's legacy work,
26:43the Jeremiah Study Bible.
26:45A beloved study Bible
26:47and the culmination of Dr. Jeremiah's decades of teaching,
26:50helping you to answer, what does the Bible say?
26:53What does it mean?
26:54And what does it mean for me?
26:56Available in multiple translations and formats,
26:59there is a Jeremiah Study Bible for everyone.
27:02Also available for children,
27:04Dr. Jeremiah's Airship Genesis Kid Study Bible.
27:07Order yours today.
27:11Next time on Turning Point.
27:14The Bible says when Jesus looked at him
27:16and apparently Jesus looked right through him
27:18and saw the emptiness of his life,
27:20the Bible says Jesus loved him.
27:24Did you know that's the way Jesus looks at all of us?
27:27He sees us in our pain, our frustration,
27:29our emptiness, our striving.
27:31The Bible tells us that when he sees us, he loves us.
27:34Could I say this to you today
27:36as a representative of the Lord God?
27:39Jesus loves you.
27:42Thank you for being with us today.
27:44Join Dr. Jeremiah next time for his series,
27:46Seven Days Until Christ Returns,
27:48beginning with his message,
27:50Lord, It's Me.
27:52Here on Turning Point.
28:00Dr. David Jeremiah is delivering
28:02the unchanging word of God every month
28:04to more than half a million homes
28:06through Turning Point's magazine and devotional.
28:08Request your first issue now
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28:12and quick, clear, and creative devotionals
28:14from Dr. Jeremiah each month
28:16that will encourage, challenge, and strengthen
28:18your walk with the Lord.
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