Heisman was a fanatic. He wouldn’t let his players use soap or water because he considered them debilitating. His players couldn’t eat pastry, pork, veal, hot bread, nuts, apples, or coffee. His reason? “They don’t agree with me, so they’d better not agree with you.”

Georgia Tech had eight All-Southern players - intent on building their reputation. They lured lowly Cumberland to the game with a $500 guarantee. The Cumberland team had several players who had never played football before. The Cumberland official who accepted the offer had graduated and left the team in the hands of the team manager. Even the trip to Atlanta had been a disaster: Cumberland arrived with only 16 players. Three were lost at a rest stop in Nashville.

The game began. Georgia Tech scored 63 points - in the first quarter - averaging touchdowns at intervals of one-minute-and-twenty-seconds. To give you some idea of what this was like, at one point a Cumberland kickoff returner fumbled, probably from sheer weariness. He yelled to a teammate, “Pick up the ball!” His teammate replied, “Pick it up yourself! You dropped it!”

George Allen - the Cumberland coach - paced the sidelines, exhorting the team to “hang in there for Cumberland’s $500.” And to their credit they did finish the game - collected their $500 - and with it collected the honor of the worst loss in college football history: 222-0.

This morning our theme is “Victory in Jesus” - experiencing the victory of God in our lives even when it seems like we’re on the loosing team. I invite you to turn with me to Romans 8:31-39 - familiar verses - victorious verses.

For many in our congregation 1998 has started out like 1997 ended - and 1997 really wasn’t all that great. There are so many times in our lives when we feel like “Its too much” - the weight of our circumstance is too much - defeat and despair seem like the only real alternatives open to us. And we need to be reminded that we have victory in Jesus. God isn’t sleeping - He really is aware of what’s happening in our lives. God really is winning a great victory.

Romans 8:31-39: What shall we say to this? - God’s love for us is so great - what God has done for us is so immeasurable - it goes beyond our comprehension - If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also give us all things with Him? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation , or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For Thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any thing else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There are 3 questions here that we want to focus on. Three questions that all have the same answer - the answer is in verse 31 - in the midst of the circumstances of our lives - what shall we say about God’s love and all He has done for us? - “If God is for us, who is against us?” - and there are many occasions in which we need to be reminded that God is for us.

Say this with me - “If God is for us, who is against us?” - personalize the answer - “If God is for me, who is against me?”

Three questions:

1. Verse 33: “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?”

Who can bring accusation against those whom God has chosen?

Once again our President has had accusations leveled against him. And what is really sad is that - according to Wednesday's CNN pole - 54% of Americans believe that President Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky - in Friday’s CNN pole 51% said that President Clinton lacks the proper moral character to be president.

What is amazing about this is that nothing has been proven. Its the accusation - along with all the other accusations - that now has people talking about impeachment and calling for his resignation - only based on accusations. Accusations have great power - they stick to us - if there is any hint of an element of truth.

Satan accuses us constantly - accusations about our sins and our failures - trying to label us with guilt - to put us down and make us feel as if there’s no hope. “Why should God care for me? Why should God help me? Look at the kind of person I am. I deserve the circumstances I’m in.” These thoughts come - we all struggle with them - but we don’t have to listen to them. We should never listen to the voice of Satan or anyone - including our own voice - which brings accusation.

We are justified before God. God is the only one in a position to bring charges against us - and God refuses to do so because He’s for us - He has justified us through the blood of Jesus Christ.

“What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”

Second question...

2. Verse 34: “Who is the one who condemns?”

Who is able to imprison us?

Thursday, after 17 years, a $50 million manhunt, and 16 separate bombing incidents - which left 3 people dead and 23 injured - the long - tortuous tale of the Unabomber moved to an end. Theodore J. Kaczynski pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of life in prison "without the possibility of release.'' The evidence against him was unquestionable - mountains of evidence, a mountain cabin in Montana, and his 22,000 page diary condemned him he’s guilty. And the sentence is life in prison without any possibility of release - Guilty and condemned.

Each one of us has death sentence hanging over our head - our sin has put it there. And, the only one who has the right to condemn us is Jesus - and Jesus died for us. And more than that, He was raised to life for us, He is now at the right hand of God in power for us, and He is also interceding for us. So there’s no chance that He’s going to condemn us.

Boxed in? Trapped by circumstances? Habits, addictions, and temptations that surround us and drag us down - Heartaches, pressures, problems. We have His resurrection power in us. He intercedes for us before the throne of God. Rather than condemning us, Jesus gave His life so that we can be a victor over all these things.

When we come to Jesus we come to someone we know exists and who lives within us - and in the power and authority of the name of Jesus we stand against anything which comes against us.

“What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”

Third question....

3. Verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ?”

Who or what can do it? Is there any force, anywhere, that can come between us and Jesus?

Paul lists the possibilities - first all the physical troubles and dangers of life (vv. 35-36): Tribulation, hardship, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, war, martyrdom? No, Paul says, none of these things!

Then Paul lists all the things of the unseen world (vv.38,39): death or life, angels or other heavenly rulers or powers, things in the past or things coming in the future, things in Heaven or things in hell.

There is nothing left out of Paul’s lists - everything is there. Paul takes everything in and says that nothing in all of creation - no being or force - is capable of separating us from the love of God which is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”

And, Paul says in verse 37: “In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” Not that we barely manage to win our way to Heaven by the skin of our teeth - barely surviving in life - hanging tough in tough circumstances.

But we are “more than conquerors” - “overwhelming conquerors” - taking the worst that life can throw at us and using that to become victorious. By the grace and the gift of God, and in the strength of God within - actually taking the very things that are designed to destroy us - and using them as stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks.

Ernest Gordon has written a book in which he tells of his experience during World War II, as a British officer in the Japanese prison camp by the River Kwai in Thailand. This camp was made famous by the movie, The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

Ernest Gordon was one of the prisoners that built that bridge, and he tells about that camp - the uncivilized behavior of the Japanese military - murdering prisoners overtly by inhuman means - covertly through torture and denying them medical care. He tells about their indescribable starvation diet which made them nothing but walking skeletons, yet they were driven out each day to do heavy labor on the bridge. 4% of the prisoners held by the Germans and Italians died - 27% of those in the hands of the Japanese died - and the percentage in the River Kwai camp was much higher.

Thousands of prisoners died as cholera, and other diseases, swept through the camp. The morale of the camp plummeted to the bottom - there was nothing left. It was a hopeless, hideous situation in which men lived in filth and squalor, and walked about as the living dead. The sick were ignored or resented.

He tells how he himself descended, through disease and weakness, to a place where his body was taken an laid away in the death house, among all the corpses. Though he was still alive, he was laid there to die.

Ernest Gordon tells how men living by faith in Jesus began to transform the life of that camp. At first, a few men who were willing to sacrifice their own lives in acts of Christian love for others - in the midst of the darkest hour of the camp - to exercise a little faith and a little love, and to do things for one another. Gradually this spirit spread, and soon others became involved - faith and joy and hope sprang into being again.

They organized an orchestra - made their own instruments. They organized a church. They began Bible study classes - and since Ernest had been to a university they asked him to teach the Bible Study. And Ernest Gordon - a man who had been a skeptic all his life - who began his internment as an agnostic - was the teacher. And, he taught the Bible came to trust in Jesus as his Savior.

The story goes on to tell how this whole camp was transformed and even the surrounding villages. And though the outward circumstances were unchanged, the Japanese were as hostile and as cruel as ever - the work was as heavy and the disease was rampant - yet the spirit of those men was literally transformed and they became joyous, happy, victorious individuals.

Ernest tells about their return to civilization - how they looked forward to coming home - to the joys of life. But, when they got home, they discovered that civilization is an illusion - that the realities of life were discovered back in the prison camp. It was when they were down in the darkest, and deepest, and the lowest depths of their lives that they began to lay hold of the eternal truths of God’s love and His constant presence with His people. They became, by faith, “more than conquerors.”