About the only time I have played golf is when I played with my two sons, Eric or Gregory. There was a time when we played 5-6 times a year…one time I even took golf clubs on a plane when Eric lived in Louisiana.

On one occasion, we were walking to the club house just before we were to tee off. Knowing I had not played for some time, Eric offered me a word of advice: “Dad, until you build up your confidence, why don’t you drive with an iron at first?”

“Eric,” I responded, “I have all the confidence in the world. What I lack is ability.”

Confidence can be a very good thing. It can also be a millstone around one’s neck.

Being confident simply is not enough. The crucial issue is in whom, or in what, is our confidence. Ill-founded confidence is deadly. Well-founded confidence is proper and good.

Some Christians have no confidence at all, believing that with one slip, one sin, they are out of the faith. Agonizing their way through life, they hope no sin has gone unnoticed and unconfessed; if so, they fear they will not get to heaven.

These Christians desperately need the confidence of which Paul speaks in Romans 8:35-39: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through

him who loved us. ³⁸  For I am sure that neither death nor

life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things

to come, nor powers, ³⁹  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the

love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul gives us every reason to be confident, not in ourselves but in our salvation and in the sovereign God who is accomplishing it.

Paul’s words offer hope and confidence in the midst of a fallen world. To everyone who is in Christ by faith, they are words of comfort and reassurance.

Christ protects the believer from the severest circumstances. This is the sixth assurance of deliverance, and it is the most wonderful assurance imaginable. “Who [or what] can separate us from the love of God?”

Too many people, even believers, feel that God does not love them, that He just could not love them. They feel unworthy of His love, for they come too short, are too disobedient, and fail too often. How could God possibly love them when they go against His will so much? The results of such feelings are…

Such feelings totally contradict Scripture. There is no circumstance, no situation, no event that can cause Christ to turn away from us.

No matter how terrible or severe the situation, it cannot separate the true believer from the love of Christ. Christ loves the believer regardless of the circumstance, and He longs to be reconciled to the believer.

No more severe circumstance can be imagined than the ones given:

Tribulation: to undergo struggle, trials, temptation, suffering, or affliction.

Distress: to suffer anguish, trouble, strain, agony; not knowing which way to turn or what to do.

Persecution: to be abused, mocked, ridiculed, shamed, mistreated, ignored, neglected, harassed, attacked, or injured.

Famine: to have no food, to be starving and have no way to secure food.

Nakedness: to be stripped of all clothes and earthly comforts; to be bare, having all earthly possessions taken away.

Peril: to be exposed to the most severe risks; to be confronted with the most terrible dangers to one’s body, mind, soul, property, family, and loved ones.

Sword: to be killed; to suffer martyrdom.

Just imagine a person experiencing all this. What would his thoughts be? Would he feel that he had been forsaken by God? In the midst of so much dark trouble, would he believe that God loved him?

Scripture declares loudly and clearly that God does love him.

In Knowing God, Dr. Packer applies his chapter, “The Love of God,” by asking some convicting questions:

• Why do I grumble and show discontent and resentment at the circumstances in which God has placed me?
• Why am I distrustful, fearful, or depressed?
• Why do I allow myself to grow cool, formal, and half-hearted in the service of the God who loves me so?
• Why do I allow my loyalties to be divided, so that God has not all my heart?
• … Could an observer learn from the quality and degree of love that I show to others—my wife … husband … family … neighbors … people at church … people at work anything at all about the greatness of God’s love to me?

There is absolutely nothing—no matter how dark and depressing, no matter how severe—that can separate the believer from the love of Christ. Circumstances are not evidence that God does not love us. God loves us no matter what the circumstances may be.

But believers must always remember: they are going to suffer while they are in this world.

In fact, the world is going to count them as sheep for the slaughter, rejecting and persecuting them (Psalm 44:22).

The world is going to persecute believers as long as believers continue to live for Christ.

Their lives of godliness convict the world, and the world rejects godliness.

No matter the circumstances and their severity, Christ will carry us through all, strengthening and encouraging us. We cannot lose, no matter the severity of the situation. Christ loves us and is going to look after and take care of us..

To begin with, God does not shelter us from the difficulties of life because we need them for our spiritual growth (Rom. 5:3-5).

• God assures us that the difficulties of life are working for us and not against
• God permits trials to come that we might use them for our good and His glory.
• We endure trials for His sake (Rom. 8:36), and since we do, do you think that He will desert us? Of course not!
• Instead, He is closer to us when we go through the difficulties of life.

Furthermore, He gives us the power to conquer (Rom. 8:37). We are “more than conquerors,” literally, “we are super-conquerors” (hupernikṓ) through Jesus Christ! through Christ who has loved us (Romans 8:37).

This is the seventh assurance of deliverance. There is nothing in the universe that can separate the believer from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The believer can be fully persuaded of this glorious fact.

Just consider the experiences and forces mentioned by Scripture:

Not death: confronting death and leaving this world cannot separate us from Christ and His love (John 5:24).

Not life: no trial or pleasure or comfort of life, not any person nor any thing in this life can separate us from Christ and His love.

Not angels, principalities, or powers: no heavenly or spiritual creature, no being from any other dimension can separate us from Christ and His love.

At this particular time the Jews had a highly developed belief in angels. Everything had its angel. There was an angel of the winds, of the clouds, of the snow and hail and hoarfrost, of the thunder and the lighting, of cold and heat, of the seasons.

The Rabbis said that there was nothing in the world, not even a blade of grass, that had not got its angel.

They felt there were three ranks of angels. The first included thrones, cherubim and seraphim. The second included powers, lordships and mights. The third included angels and archangels and principalities.

Now the Rabbis-and Paul had once been a Rabbi-believed that they were grudgingly hostile to men. They believed that they had been angry when God created man. It was as if they did not want to share God with anyone and had grudged man his share in him.

The Rabbis had a legend that when God appeared on Sinai to give Moses the law he was attended by his hosts of angels, and the angels grudged Israel the law, and assaulted Moses on his way up the mountain and would have stopped him had not God intervened.

So Paul, thinking in terms of his own day, says, “Not even the grudging, jealous angels can separate us from the love of God, much as they would like to do so.”

Not anything present or anything to come: neither present events, beings or things, nor future events, beings, or things—absolutely nothing in existence or anything in future existence—can cut us off from Christ and His love.

Not height or depth: nothing from outer space or from the depths of the earth can separate us from Christ and His love.

Note the grand finale: if there be any other creature than the ones named, that creature cannot separate us from “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

No malign influences (powers) will separate us from Christ. Paul speaks about height and depth. No other world can separate us from God. The word that Paul uses for other (heteros) has really the meaning of different. He is saying: “Suppose that by some wild flight of imagination there emerged another and a different world, you would still be safe; you would still be enwrapped in the love of God.”

Paul is saying: “You can think of every terrifying thing that this or any other world can produce. Not one of them is able to separate the Christian from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ, Lord of every terror and Master of every world.” Of what then shall we be afraid?

Matthew 13:20-22 (NIV) The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹  But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. ²²  The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

Matthew 10:16, 22-29 (NIV) I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. ²²  All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. ²³  When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. ²⁶  “So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷  What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.  ²⁸  Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

Luke 12:6 (NIV) Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.