Alright brethren, Romans 8.18. Our text begins, I reckon that
the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Now I don't have
to tell you that we live in a world full of trouble. We live in a
world full of suffering. And the suffering that some of
you are going through is heavy, it's hard, it's sorrowful, it's
real suffering. You'd be foolish to say that
it's not heavy and sorrowful suffering. It is. It is. But take that heaviness, take
that suffering that's so great to you and think on this. God says it's not worthy to be
compared. to the glory that shall be revealed
in us. That gives us some idea of the
greatness of this glory, doesn't it? When we suffer tremendously
and it's great suffering, think about how much greater the glory
of God shall be when we behold Him. And this suffering we suffer
is only for this present time. It's only for this present time.
And you know what Scripture says about this present time? It passes
faster than a weaver's shuttle. It appears today and then vanishes
away. It's just a vapor. Just like
the morning dew. When you wake up in the morning,
you look out and there's dew all over the grass and the next
time you look out, it's gone. That's this present time. You
know, a woman can travail in childbirth by anticipating the
joy that the child is going to bring her. And we can travail
in this suffering that we go through by anticipating the glory
that shall be revealed in us. I want to show you today that
sin has so affected God's creation. that both creation as well as
God's people patiently wait for that day when our hope will be
turned into sight. It's not only you and I who believe
that we're waiting, the whole creation is waiting. The whole
creation. Everything God created is waiting
for that day. I want to show you first of all
the glory is so great that it affects all of God's creation.
And our sin is so great it affects all of God's creation. Secondly,
I want to show you that the hope in every believer should therefore
be greater. If creation hopes, we have much
more than creation has, so our hope ought to be even greater.
And then thirdly, we'll see the application. I've titled this
Waiting by the Hope of Glory. It is the hope of glory that
makes us wait, isn't it? This is what makes us persevere
in faith. What made Christ endure the cross? For the joy that was set before
Him. The joy of glorifying God. The joy of having all His people
saved. And He set before us the joy
of His glory. And that's how we endure bearing
the cross of Christ as we pass through this world. First of
all, even God's creation awaits the manifestation of the sons
of God. God's whole creation is awaiting. the manifestation of the sons
of God. Look at verse 19. The earnest
expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the
sons of God. For the creation was made subject
to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of God who hath subjected
the same in hope. Because the creation itself also
shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. You see,
our sin is so great that we've brought God's whole creation
into the bondage of corruption. We don't have to look very far
to see this. All animals, all of His creation,
all animals, all fish are scared to death of us. And there's a
lot of animals we're scared of. They kill one another because
they're under this curse. God said in Genesis 3.14, He
was speaking to the serpent, but He said, Because thou hast
done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast
of the field. But that means all cattle and
every beast of the field are cursed. They come under this
curse too. The ground is cursed because
of our sin. Look at Genesis 3. I want you
to see this. Genesis 3.17. Even the ground came under this
curse because of our sin. Look here, Genesis 3.17. God says unto Adam, He said,
Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and has
eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not
eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life. Thorns also, and thistles shall
it bring forth to thee. and thou shalt eat the herb of
the field, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till
thou return unto the ground, for out of it was thou taken,
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. You know,
animals did not kill each other before the fall. There was no
death before the fall. Sin is what brought death in.
Before the fall, animals did not kill each other and Adam
didn't kill animals. Adam ate of the herbs of the
field and of the trees of the garden. He didn't kill animals.
And animals didn't kill each other. The scripture says Adam,
those animals were brought to Adam and Adam named them all.
Can you picture a big lion walking up to Adam and Adam just petting
on him He names Him. But after the fall, all that
changed. Animals became afraid of us.
We became afraid of animals because we kill them. We kill them. We're all under the curse right
now. Sinners abuse God's creation for our own sinful lusts. The
love of money is the root of all evil. And if it's enough
money involved, men love money so much that they don't care. They don't care. That's you and
me too, brethren. Every man's got a price. And
if that price is high enough, we'll find a way to justify ourselves. But it's the abuse of this creation. Everything God created, He created
it to glorify God in the person of Christ Jesus. Everything. It's not that after He created
it, He said, well that glorifies me. He created it to glorify
Christ. When Christ picked up a seed
and showed them and said, except this seed fall into the ground
and die and be broken, It shall not bring forth fruit, but if
it dies, if it's buried and dies, it's going to bring forth much
fruit. God created that seed to picture Christ and how He
laid down His life to bring forth the multitude of His people to
eternal life. But what have we done? We've
taken these things God created to glorify Christ and we've We've
sacrificed them to our number one idol, which is the idol of
self. That's right. And so, there's
some now that even worship and serve creation more than the
Creator. That's what Romans 2 tells us.
They worship and serve creation more than the Creator. They blasphemously speak of of
mother nature. There is no mother nature. That's
blaspheming. God is in control of creation. And it was God who subjected
creation to the bondage. He subjected it. He did it so
that one day Christ shall deliver even creation from bondage. You
see there it says, verse 20, The creation was made subject
to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected
the same in hope. See, yes, He subjected creation
to bondage, but He did it to subject creation to hope. To hope because the creation
itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into
the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And so the whole creation
groaneth until now, looking, waiting for that redemption. Paul is personifying creation,
giving creation a human characteristics here, saying it's groaning and
waiting and looking and all that, what have you. This has been
the case since the fall. is come into this world and what
He's done and is doing and shall complete is He is creating an
entirely new creation. An entirely new creation. Go
to Isaiah 65, 17 and look at this. Isaiah 65 and verse 17. He says, Behold, I create new
heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered
nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem
a rejoicing and her people a joy. Earthly Jerusalem was just a
picture, heavenly Jerusalem. And it's heavenly Jerusalem He
speaks of. I create her a rejoicing, and
her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and joy in my people. And the voice of weeping shall
be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. The ground
won't be cursed anymore. There'll be no thistles and thorns. There'll be no scars on the land
from man's exploitation of the land. There'll be no storms,
there'll be no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no death. So there'll be no crying and
no sorrow. And all of this is so because
there will be no sin. No sin. He's begun this work
in you who believe. He's created in you a new creation,
a new man. Paul said, neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision availeth. What avails? A new creation. And He's created in you a new
spirit in which is no sin and which cannot sin. Because it's
born of incorruptible seed. And because Christ dwells in
you. And so He's the hope of glory.
But one day our bodies are going to be perfect as well as this
whole creation is going to be perfect. All animals will get
along with each other. Let me read this in Isaiah 65,
25. This has a spiritual application. It speaks of you and I who are
conquered by grace and how those that were once enemies to one
another become friends. and get along. But it also has
a literal interpretation. It means literally this is going
to happen. It says the wolf and the lamb
shall feed together. They don't do that now, do they? That wolf will kill that lamb.
But in that day the wolf and the lamb shall feed together
and the lion shall eat straw like the bullet. He won't kill
anymore. He'll eat straw. That means the
nature is going to be changed, isn't it? And dust shall be the
serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all my holy mountains, saith the Lord. You see that? So, here's what I want you to
understand. Please get this. All the environmental
protesters in this world, PETA and the tree huggers and the
climate change people, all of these people. They're demonstrating. That's just one more example
of man trying to save by his own works. That's what that is.
You see, we are the reason this whole land came under a curse. So we cannot fix it any more
than we can fix ourselves. We're under the curse. We can't
fix it. Well, how's it going to be held
up and held in store. Look at Genesis 8.22. Genesis 8.22. God's going to
hold it in store. He's going to keep it. Look at
Genesis 8.22. He says, While the earth remaineth
seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat and summer and winter
and day and night shall not cease. They shall not cease. Go to Jeremiah
33 and look at verse 20. Jeremiah 33 20 God is going to
hold this creation in place and Christ is going to make it entirely
a new creation. John 33 and verse 20 Thus saith the Lord, if you can
break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night,
that covenant He just spoke about, there's going to be seed time
and harvest, cold and heat, daytime and nighttime forever. He said,
if you can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of
the night, that there should not be day and night in the season. Then may also my covenant be
broken with David my servant. That's Christ. He's picturing
Christ who come through David. He said that he should not have
a son to reign upon his throne. That's Christ, the one who reigns
upon his throne. And with the Levites, the priests,
my ministers, that's you and I who've been made priests unto
God by Christ's blood. And so he says it can't be broken. It can't be broken. But he tells
us, brethren, he's telling us that only God can deliver. Only
God can uphold and only God can deliver. And Peter told us, he
said at 2 Peter verse 3, men will scoff and they'll say, where's
the promise of His coming? And they say all things continue
as they were from the beginning of creation. And Peter said in
verse 5, 2 Peter 3 verse 5, he says, For this they willingly
are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were
of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water,
whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water,
perished. But the heavens and the earth
which are now, by the same word, are kept in store. reserved unto
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But don't be ignorant of this
one thing. One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord's
not slack concerning His promises. Some men count slackness. But
the Lord is not willing that any of His elect perish, but
that all come to repentance. And so that's what's going to
take place, brethren. And that day when He's delivered
all His people and He's delivered the whole creation, He's going
to make a covenant with all creation and with us. He said in Hosea
2.18, And that day will I make a covenant for them with the
beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with
the creeping things of the ground, and I will break the bow and
the sword. As brother Adams just read, going
to be no more war between creation and man anymore. and the battle
I'm going to take out of the earth, God said, and I'll make
them lie down safely. See, there'll be no sin. No sin. The reason God says in Revelation
that there'll be no more sea in the new creation, what do
the seas do? The seas divide us. There'll
be no division in heaven. We'll be one, perfectly one in
heaven. That's what he's talking about.
So even God's creation right now is awaiting the manifestation
of the sons of God when creation itself shall be delivered. Now
here's the thing we get from that. If God's creation is waiting
and hoping, then you and I, brethren, who've been redeemed by the blood
of Christ, we have greater reason to hope than creation does. Look at verse 23. Not only they,
but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit.
Creation doesn't have that. You have the firstfruits of the
Spirit. And so even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting
for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body. Every believer that's
born of God has the firstfruits of the Spirit. Every one of us
born of the Spirit of God have firstfruits of the Spirit. What
is that? Turn to Ephesians 1. While you're
looking there, I'll give you an illustration. My grandfather always had a very
large garden. And whenever the first new potatoes
would be ripe for harvest. He would call me down to his
house and we would have a meal of nothing but new potatoes with
that creamy gravy, you know, and a little bacon and some onion
to go with it, cornbread. Man, that was good. And he'd
do the same thing when he had purple hull peas. I don't know
if you, I don't think you can get purple hull peas up here.
They're not black eyed peas, they're purple hull peas, Man,
they're good. And he would do that with those
peas and he would always say to me, Clayboy, the first fruits
are the earnest of what's to come. They're the guarantee of
what's to come. Ephesians 1.13 says, In Christ
ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation. We all hear the word of truth.
We all hear the gospel. That's how we're brought to trust
Christ. In whom also, after that you
believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. That means you were born of Him
and sealed so that He'll never leave you, He'll never forsake
you. You'll always have the Holy Spirit. Verse 14, which is, the
Holy Spirit is the earnest, that's a pledge, that's a guarantee,
of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. The redemption of our bodies
until the adoption. And all of this is unto the praise
of His glory. You see that this whole thing,
if you're born of the Spirit, you have the earnest, you have
the pledge from God that you shall inherit this inheritance.
You have it. That you and your body shall
be redeemed one day, adopted. You have that. Why? Christ purchased
His people with His own blood. We are His purchased possession.
That blood is priceless to God the Father. That blood declared
God just and the justifier. That blood redeemed all His people
and made all His people righteous. And that's the very purpose of
God in sending Christ is to manifest His righteousness. So God now,
you could even use the word must, He must call His people. He must save His people. And
He must lose none because His justice, His very righteousness,
His very character depends on it. And He's promised this is
what He will do. And so He shall. That's the greatest
guarantee we could ever have, brethren. And so verse 23 says,
Even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption
to wit, the redemption of our body. Christ redeems. He says we're waiting for the
redemption of our body. Christ redeems His people in
three ways. Christ redeems us in three ways.
One, we're redeemed from the curse of the law and the penalty
of sin by the ransom price of Christ's shed blood which He
shed on the cross. That's the first way. We're redeemed
from law and from the penalty of sin by Christ's blood on the
cross. Two, we were redeemed from the
rule of sin and from the dominion of sin whenever we were born
of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. And then at last, we shall be
redeemed from the presence of sin. And all the effects of sin
will be redeemed from that. And our bodies and our spirit
will be perfect. Perfect. He calls the redemption
of our body the adoption. And likewise, we're adopted in
three ways. One, we were adopted when God
in divine election chose us in Christ Jesus before the world
was made. Two, we were experimentally adopted
into the family of God in regeneration. Because ye are sons, He sent
forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
And then at last we shall enter into the full enjoyment of this
adoption when He brings us into glory with Him. So you see that
every time a new believer confesses Christ, I always think, I wonder
if this is the last one. That thought always crosses my
mind. Because one day it will be the
last one. And when it's the last one, Christ
shall return. He shall return. He's going to
redeem all His people out of this earth. Adopt us all out
of this earth into glory with Him. And then everything about
this earth and this world is going to burn up. It's going
to burn up with a fervent heat. I don't know what hell will be,
but I could see where men who are attached to this earth will
be in the hell that shall be when this whole world is burned
up. Because this is going to be destroyed. And that will be an eternal destruction
without any end. But brethren, you and I will
be delivered into God's presence from the trace of all sin. Just think on that. Not a trace
of sin. No presence of sin whatsoever. And this great last work, this
is our hope. This is what we're hoping for.
This is our hope, brethren. This is what keeps us enduring. This is the joy set before us.
This is our hope. Now let's see what God calls
our hope. Let's see what it's called here
in Romans 8.18. It's called the glory that shall
be revealed in us. The glory that shall be revealed
in us. When this redemption is accomplished,
and we're perfectly conformed to the image of Christ, Christ
shall manifest God's glory greater than any other way it could have
possibly been manifest. And He's going to manifest it
to more people than it ever could have been manifest otherwise. You see, that's another reason
Christ came. To manifest God's glory. That is, all His holy attributes. We're going to behold them perfectly
in that day and see that there's no other way they could have
been manifest like this except for in Christ and Him crucified.
Even the justice of God is going to be manifest in perfection
when He casts out the unbeliever. It says the host of heaven will
raise up praise unto Him when He casts them out because we'll
be perfectly righteous and we'll see God's justice is right. We'll see it perfectly. So everything
is going to be manifest, open and clear before all. Scripture says He predestinated
us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according
to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of
His grace. That's the end cause. He's going
to bring all His people to praise the glory of His grace. He says
in Christ we've also obtained an inheritance. being predestinated
according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the
counsel of His own will, that we should be to the praise of
God's glory who first trusted in Christ. God first trusted
Christ in eternity when He gave Him this whole work to do and
put it into His hands. But the end of that work is He's
going to bring all His people to praise and glorify God for
trusting it into Christ's hand. For trusting it. And He says
in the ages to come, He's going to show the exceeding riches
of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
This whole thing is to manifest His glory and bring His people
to glory in Him. That's why we say that a good
test of whether or not a man's preaching the gospel, we saw
Thursday night, it's if he preaches according to the Word. That's
the number one test. But right along with that, who
does he give glory to? Is He putting the glory in man's
hands and saying that man has something to do with his salvation?
Or is He giving God all the glory? God's true preacher gives God
all the glory. That's the whole purpose of this
thing. And in the end, everybody is going to behold this glory. Not only you and I who are saved
and with Him. We're going to behold it and
praise Him. But do you know Scripture says
those that are in hell are going to behold it? That worm that
never dies, that's spoken of as being the torment of hell, just like everything else, it's
all from the glory of God. And they're going to behold for
eternity. this perfect glory of God manifest
in Christ. And don't you suffer when you
have regret over something that was really, really good that
you could have had, but now you can't have it. That's that worm
that never dies, to behold what you could have had and never,
ever be able to have it. Alright, Romans 8, 19, he calls
it the manifestation of the sons of God. The manifestation of
the sons of God. In this world right now, God's
people are not noticed. The kingdom of God comes without
notice. He saves one here and one there. We're quiet, we assemble together,
we're not out trying to draw attention to ourselves. We're
not protesting or anything. We're just unknown to this world
basically. God's children are not recognized
by this world. But in that day, God shall make
everyone to know that we're His children. God shall manifest
it. God's going to bear witness to
it. The three in one shall bear witness that we are the children
of God. We won't have to defend ourselves.
We won't have to speak up for ourselves. God Himself shall
declare we are the children of God. And He'll make everybody
know that. It'll be the manifestation of
the sons of God. And then in verse 21, He calls
it the glorious liberty of the sons of God. Right now we've
been set free from the law and from the curse of the law. We've
been set free from the dominion of sin by Christ abiding in us. But in that day, brethren, this
will be a glorious liberty. We'll be completely, totally
free from the law, from sin, from the curse, from death, from
all of that will be delivered. Listen to this, Isaiah 35 10,
The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with
songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain
joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. He says in Revelation 21. Go there with me. Revelation
21 and verse 3. I'll close with this. Revelation
21, 3. I heard a great voice out of heaven
saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will
dwell with them, and they shall be His people, And God himself
shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes. And there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away. Look at Revelation 22 and
verse 3. And there shall be no more curse,
no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall
be in it, and His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see
His face. Can't you just imagine that?
We're going to see God's face in the person of His Son, Jesus
Christ. And His name shall be in their
foreheads, and there shall be no night there, and they need
no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth
them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. I'll tell you
something, if we knew and really believed this, We wouldn't weep anymore when
our brethren pass from this life. You have brethren that are suffering
and they're sick and eat up with cancer and different things.
When they close their eyes in death, immediately they open
their eyes. and they see the face of God,
and there's no more sorrow, no more sin, no more crying, no
more death, just perfection. Perfectly worshipping God. This is why Christ said, don't
weep for me, weep for yourselves. That's who we ought to weep for
is ourselves because we're not yet getting to have that. We're still in this cursed place. So look at Revelation 19 and
look at verse 5. When that happens, then we shall
sing perfect praise and perfect glory to God. Right now we sing
and sometimes we sing out of tune, sometimes we sing too quiet,
Sometimes we're embarrassed to sing, and that day, we're going
to sing perfectly. And we're going to sing loud,
and we're going to sing praise and glory to God. Look here,
Revelation 19, 5. A voice came out of the throne
saying, Praise our God, all ye His servants. And it says, Ye
that fear Him, both small and great, And I heard, as it were,
the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters,
and as the voice of mighty thunderings. We get a little bitty glimpse
of that sometimes when you go to a conference, you know, and
there's 200, 300 people there, and so many more than in our
congregation, and everybody's singing together, and it's loud,
you know. Well, in that day, all God's
elect will be that great multitude. And we'll all be singing this
together. Mighty thunderings. Listen to
this. What will we sing? Verse 6 says, saying, Hallelujah,
for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice and
give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come. and his
wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine
linen is the righteousness of the saints." That's the righteousness
Christ gives to us, brethren, freely, through faith in Him. And it's that righteousness Paul
spoke of in Galatians. When the Galatian believers were
being turned back to the law, Christ said, we persevere in
faith. We don't go back to the law.
We persevere in faith until the end. And He said this, we through
the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. That's the righteousness we're
waiting on. Christ's righteousness. Christ's righteousness. To be
fully, completely righteous before God with no sin whatsoever. We
wait for that by faith. So seeing that we have this great
hope, brethren, this guaranteed hope that we have, this sure
hope of Christ our righteousness, let us, by the power of the Holy
Spirit, patiently wait in faith until that day. That's the application. Look at Romans 8 24. For we are saved by hope. But
hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth
he yet hope for it? Man will say, well, I'm not going
to believe what I can't see. Well, then you'll never believe
the gospel. Our faith is the evidence of
things not seen. We hope in things not seen. You
don't hope in something you see. When we see Christ face to face,
we won't have hope anymore. nor faith. We'll still have love,
but hope and faith will be no more. We won't need it. The only way we can have this
inheritance is by faith in Christ. Look at verse 25. But if we hope
for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for
it. This is by faith. We wait by
faith for this hope. This is the only way we can have
this inheritance is by faith in Christ. I'm beseeching you. I'm imploring you. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ today. No man knows when he's returning.
No man knows when the last believer will be called. And I'm telling
you, don't wait. Don't tarry. Seek Him while He
may be found. Cast all your care on Him now. This is the season of grace. Right now. When He returns, it
will be too late then. Now is the time. And believer,
go to Colossians 3. This is a familiar passage, but
this is the only way that you and I can wait patiently right
here. This is how our flesh is mortified Right here. Colossians 3.1 This
is how we wait patiently in hope. This is how our faith is strengthened.
This is how we're encouraged and comforted and we go on and
persevere in faith. Right here. Our flesh is mortified
this way. If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above. Where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God, Set your affection on things above. I've told you
before that word affection is singular. Not affections. Our affections were set on a
bunch of different things in this earth. Now God has made
our affection to be singular for Christ only. So we have our
affection set on things above, not on things on the earth. Not on things on the earth. Not
on things on the earth. Set your affection on things
above. I love this woman dearly. I love her dearly. I would be
so sorrowful when the Lord takes her home. If it was before me. But when it comes between Christ
and her, I have to go with Christ. And she feels the same way. You'll
hear me say this probably Saturday. If Sarah and Ben love Christ
more than they love each other, they'll have a happy home. They'll
have a blessed home. And that's just so. Here's why,
verse 3, For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ
in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Amen. After we sing a closing hymn,
Brother Kevin, will you close in prayer? Alright, thank you.