If you want to turn your Bibles
to my text this morning, you'll find it in Galatians chapter
4. Galatians chapter 4. It's on
page 1269 in the Pew Bible, if you're using the Pew Bible. 1269.
Galatians chapter 4. Let's begin reading in verse
1. Now I say that the heir, as long
as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be
lord of all, but is under tutors and governors under the time
appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children,
were in bondage under the elements of the world. Now let me just
comment on those three verses right quickly, if I can. Years
and years ago, and some places in the world today, They have
tutors. They have governors. And parents
sometimes give their children to these tutors and governors.
Sometimes we think of nannies that comes into the home and
helps with the children and trains the children. That's what these
tutors and governors were. Back in the days of the New Testament
time, these tutors and governors had a lot of power. They could
whip the children, beat the children. They trained them. When they
brought these children to the table, they had to have manners.
They raised them up, basically, and trained them. And that's
what Paul was saying about the law here, as we'll see in just
a minute. The law trained us. It subdued
us. It brought us to the point that
we realized we were sinners in need of a Savior. And that's
what he was saying here. All those years that Israel were
under the law, it was tutors. They had to obey the law. The
law trained them. Keep these days holy. Keep the
Sabbath days. Offer this sacrifice. Circumcise
your children. Do this, do that. The law was
training them up into adulthood. And that's what Paul's talking
about here. And in verse 4, But when the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law. to redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because
you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Father, Father, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou
art no more a servant, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ." Thomas this morning will be confined verses
4 through verse 7. And the title of my message this
morning is found here in verse 5, The Adoption of Sons. But we see so many things in
these few verses here. We see the Trinity. We see the
Trinity here. Now if you go to the dictionary
and you look up the word Trinity, you'll get a good definition
probably of it. If you go to your concordance
and you look up the word Trinity, you won't find it in the Bible.
It's not there. The word Trinity. But if you
go to the dictionary, you'll probably find something like
this. The union of three persons in one deity. One Godhead. The Father, the Son, and the
Spirit. I was looking in our Confession
of Faith, the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689,
and here's the definition that it gives us of the Trinity. Listen
to this. The Lord our God is but only
one true and living God. In this divine and infinite being
there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, all of one substance, one power, and one eternity,
each having the whole divine essence In other words, the Father
is complete in Himself, the Son is complete in Himself, the Holy
Spirit is complete in Himself, yet the essence undivided, one
God. The Father is of none, neither
begotten, nor proceeds from any. The Son is eternally begotten
of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and
the Son. All are infinite. without beginning,
therefore, but one God. God is not to be divided in nature
or being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative properties
and personal relations, which doctrine of the Trinity is the
foundation of all our communion with God, and all our comfort
is dependent upon this triune God." Now that's a definition
in our book. in our little Doctrines of Grace
book, you won't find that formal definition in the Word of God.
It's not there. But as you read the Scriptures,
the Trinity is set forth all through the Scriptures, the Old
and the New Testament. And here in my text, as you often
find it in Paul's writing and in the Gospels too, we have the
names of the Trinity. I want you to look here in the
text, in verse 4, look at their names. But when the fullness
of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law. When the fullness of time was
come, now what do we see there? And in verse 5, to redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. Now look in verse 6, and because
you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
heart, crying, Father, Father." We have the names of all three
in the Sacred Trinity, don't we? Here we have the Son, God
has sent forth the Spirit, and to our hearts crying, Father,
Father. We have all three names in one
verse. Such a profound doctrine in the Scriptures, and yet we
have this set forth in one verse. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Not only do we have their names,
but we have their offices. We have their works. I just read
it to you here in verse 4. God sent His Son. That's the Father's work. That's
His office. He sent the Son. The Lord Jesus
said to the Pharisees, ìIf God were your Father, youíd let Me,
because I proceeded and came forth from Him. Neither came
I of Myself, but He sent Me.î Thatís the Fatherís work. Thatís
His office in sending the Son. The Father has a peculiar work,
doesnít He? To send the Son. Now this is
what we believe, brothers and sisters. We believe in a Father
and we believe in the Son. And a man is not a Christian
who does not believe in the Father and in the Son. A preacher is
not a preacher if he does not preach the Father and the Son.
A church is not a true church that does not hold forth and
hold fast that truth that there is a Father and there is a Son. Two distinct individuals and
yet they're both one. How in the world do we understand
that? By faith we believe it, don't we? So here we have the
work and office of the Father. He sent the Son. And here also
we have the office of the Son. Look what he says in verse 5. To redeem them that were under
the law. What's the office of the Son?
It's different from the office of the Father. The office of
the Son is to redeem. You'll find that in the third
chapter, verse 13, that God sent Him to redeem those who were
under the law. And how did He do that? By being
made a curse for them. So there we have the office of
the Son. He's the Redeemer. And then here
in verse 6, we have the office of the Holy Spirit. And because
you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Father, Father. So there we have the office.
Isn't that amazing? It just amazes me as I read the
Scriptures and find this profound truth in just a few verses. Truth
that this world can't receive, that it don't understand, but
you and I freely believe and rejoice in and take great comfort
in. Those who talk about the Holy Spirit being a mere influence,
they err. They err. He's no more a mere
influence than the Father is an influence. The Father is not
a mere influence. He's a person. You don't send
somebody to do something if you're a mere influence. You've got
to be a person. When the Father sent the Son,
that tells us He's a person. And when the Son was said to
come and redeem, you've got to be more than an influence if
you hang on a cross to redeem somebody. You know something
about the Holy Spirit? He cries. An influence don't
cry, does it? It may influence you to cry,
but He cries. So He's more than an influence.
I want us to look at the text here for just a few minutes this
morning, and I want you to look at the dignity that's bestowed
upon every believer. We're told here that they are
sons of God. Did you notice the time the Holy
Spirit just kept repeating this four times in verses four through
seven? He calls us sons of God. But
when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son
made of a woman to redeem them that were under the law that
we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are
sons, God is sent for the Spirit of His Son, and to your hearts
cry now, Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a
son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ." Four times he refers to us there as sons. And I want you to look at the
different aspects of being sons of God. He calls us here in verse
5, sons of adoption. that you might receive the adoption
of sons. When we talk about somebody being
adopted, that means we take a child to be our own who's not our own. Biologically and by nature, he's
not our own. But we go through the legal system
and we adopt that son and make him our own. What does adoption
do? And the Bible talks quite a bit
about adoption of sons. First of all, that gives us the
right as children of God, doesn't it? We've got to have a right
to be. Adoption gives us the right. They sometimes tell us that adopted
children have more rights than an actual child because you've
signed on the dotted line. I'll take this child and be responsible
for it. So the courts can step in and
hold you more responsible for an unadopted child than they
can a child by nature. We hear a lot today about parents
emancipating their children or emancipating themselves from
the child. If you have a child and you can't handle the child,
and you're afraid the child's going to get you in legal trouble,
you go to the court and you emancipate the child or emancipate yourself
from it. You relieve yourself through the court of any responsibility
for that child. They say that's not too difficult
to do for a biological son, but they said you try that with an
adopted son, and you have to go through a lot to get that
done. So this gives us the right. Adoption gives us the right to
be children of God. You know you have to be given
a right to be children of God? A child just don't come and adopt
you. You adopt the child. And the
Bible says as many as received Him, to them gave He the right
to become the sons of God. So adoption gives us the right
as children. So we can't stop there, can we?
And that's all adoption does. You know, natural adoption, you
make the child legally yours. But God has a way of making us
His in a special way. Not just adoption, but the new
birth. Regeneration gives us the nature
of sons. If adoption gives us the right
The new birth gives us the nature of the Son. And that's what He's
talking about here. God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts, crying, Father, Father. We have the nature of God. Isn't that amazing? That's amazing
too. They that are born of God have
the very nature of God within them. This is where the Jews
erred so greatly. They professed to be children
of God by their very natures, by their births. They told the
Lord Jesus, they said, we have one Father, and that's God. We're
born Jews, and every Jew has God as their Father. That's when
the Lord Jesus said, if God were your Father, you'd love me. He
told them, you have the devil for your Father, didn't he? We're,
everybody's the offspring of God. Paul taught us that in Acts
chapter 17. You know, everybody has a creator. We didn't make ourselves, God
made us. So in that sense, God is the father of everybody. He's
the, we're the offspring. But in a spiritual sense, nobody
is a child of God until those accept they're born of the Spirit
of God. That gives us the nature of God. Look here in Galatians chapter
4 again. Let me read you some here in
verse 21. Look in verse 21 of Galatians
chapter 4. Tells us about the children of
the promise and the children of bondage. Look here what he
said in verse 21. Tell me you that desire to be
under the law. Do you not hear the law? For
it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid,
that's the unbelieving Jews, the other by a free woman. But
he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he
of the free woman was by promise. Which things are in an allegory,
symbolic, for these are the two covenants. the one from Mount
Sinai, which genders to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar
is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem, which now
is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem, which
is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written,
Rejoice thou barren that beareth not, break forth and cry, Thou
that travelest not, for the desolate hath many more children than
she which hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was,
are the children of promise. But as then he that was born
after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit,
even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the
Scripture, cast out the bondwoman and her children, For the son
of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free
woman. So, brethren, we are not children
of the bondwoman, but we're children of the free." That's amazing,
isn't it? Those who are born of the Spirit
of God are sons of God, and they're called children of promise, just
like Isaac was. At this time will I come, and
Sarah shall have a son. Isaac was a child of promise. He was a child of sovereign grace.
He was a child of the mercies, the covenant mercies of God.
And Paul said, you who are born of God, you're a child of promise. You're born of God's will. You're
born of God's sovereign grace. as many as received Him, to them
gave He the right to become the sons of God, even to them that
believe on His name," listen to this, "...which were born,
not of blood, not of the will of man, not of the will of the
flesh, but of God." Born of God. Born by promise. Born of grace. That has to do with the children
of of adoption, the sons of adoption. We're children born of God. Something else has to do with
being children of God, children of adoption. Look back over in
chapter 3 and look in verse 26. We're children of God by faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at this. For you're all
the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. You know something? If you don't
believe in Christ, you can't be a child of God. That's what
this verse does. It fences the doctrine of true
sonship. It tells us, first of all, if
you're not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not
a son of God. Back years ago, when they used
to let a lot of animals run loose, hogs and things like that, they
used to fence in their garden. They fenced in their garden to
keep the beast out. And this fences in this beautiful
teaching of sonship. You've got a lot of people, a
lot of religious people, who don't believe that Jesus Christ
is the eternal Son of God. Did you know that? They can't
say with Thomas, when they bow before the Lord, my Lord and
my God. Well, this verse here tells us
those people, no matter what they claim, are not children
of God. They're not born of God. Faith
in Jesus Christ gives us claim to be sons of God. You are sons
of God by faith in Jesus Christ. When that Philippian jailer asked
Paul and Silas, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. They could
have told him, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you're
a child of God. But it's the same thing, isn't
it? No one is a child of God who does not believe with all
their hearts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and believe
it to the saving of their souls. True believers are children of
God. And to you and I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to the
saving of our soul, we know nothing of sonship. We're like those
slaves that serve out of slavery. They've got no choice. But now,
we're sons serving our Father. That's the difference, isn't
it? When I was lost in sin, all I did was serve out of bondage.
I was just a bondman, just like Agar son. But when the Lord saved
me, now I serve my Father. I'm free. But when we're in unbelief,
we know nothing about sonship, do we? Absolutely nothing about
sonship. It's only when we're granted
grace to believe in Jesus Christ to the saving of our soul. This
verse tells us the blessedness that God has put upon faith in
His Son. It's essential to believe in
Christ. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. Those who trust
the Son of God experience a new birth immediately. And that's the thing about salvation.
What some people work for all their life, to be children of
God, to be accepted. I tell you, the Gospel puts this
blessing immediately upon believing. One minute a man's dead in sin,
the next moment he's alive in Christ. And that comes through
the channel of faith. And when Paul said, Believe on
Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, the very instant he believed,
he was saved. And that's the amazing thing.
You may come here this morning lost and dead in sin, and you
leave this place alive, alive to God, spiritually. And that comes through faith.
George Spurgeon made this lengthy quote about about this verse,
and here's what he said. Adoption of sons is not an extra
privilege granted only to assurance or growth in grace. It is an
early blessing and belongs to him who has the smallest degree
of faith and is no more than a babe in grace. If a man be
a believer in Jesus Christ, He can know His name is in the register
book of the great family above. For you're all the children of
God by faith in Jesus Christ. But if you have no faith, no
matter what zeal you have, no matter what works you do, no
matter what knowledge you've acquired, no matter what pretensions
to holiness you may possess, profess, you are nothing. You
are nothing. Your religion is vain. Without
faith in Christ, we are a mere sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. Faith, then, wherever it is found,
is the infallible token of a child of God. And the absence of faith
is fatal to this claim. We're made children of God. We're
children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. You never see these two
things separated. You can't separate adoption and
faith in Christ. They go hand in hand. If we're
children of God by adoption, we're believers in Christ. If
we're believers in Christ, we have this new birth. We're alive
under Jesus Christ. Paul links something else here
with the adoption of sons and faith in verse 24 of chapter
3. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The law was our schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Justification goes hand in hand
with children of adoption. the new birth. Where you have
one, you have the other. They both come. All comes through
the channel of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Justify. This is one of the things
that's glorious about the gospel. As soon as a man believes in
Christ, he justifies. He don't wait and go out until
he grows in grace and knowledge. He doesn't wait until he begins
to follow God as a dear child. As soon as he believes in Jesus
Christ, the instant He's forgiven all of his sins. And He's justified
from all things. That's amazing. But that's the
good news of the Gospel. Faith in Jesus Christ not only
works in us the spirit of adoption, and it justifies us, but it does
something else. It gives us the realization of
our freedom from the bondage of the law. Look what he says
in chapter 3, verse 22. But the Scripture hath concluded
all under sin, all under sin, that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them who believe. But before
this faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the
faith, which should afterward be revealed. Wherefore, the law
was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ that we might
be justified by faith, but look at this, but after that faith
is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. When do we realize this wonderful,
glorious freedom? When we believe in Christ. I
tell you, we're in bondage until we do, aren't we? We just work,
work, work, work, work, do, do, do, do, do, and we're slaves. They're slaves. But the instant
we believe in Christ, we come away from that law, away from
the curse, away from the bondage, and we have this glorious freedom
that is granted unto every child of God. What a privilege, then,
to be a child of God. What a privilege when God adopts
us because He frees us as slaves. We don't serve Him as slaves
anymore. We serve Him as sons. And Paul said, Stand fast in
the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. And don't
be entangled again. What a privilege, what an honor,
what a freedom to be a child of God. Don't go back into keeping
holy days. Don't go back into feast days
and back in the law. These are vagary elements that
can only bring you back into bondage. Are you a child of God? Relish that privilege. Live in
that freedom and don't let it go for anything. What a dignity. What a blessing. What an honor. Something else
about us being adopted children, our adoption not only came to
us by the preciousness of faith, but it comes to us by redemption. See what he says in our text
again, verse 4. But when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law. Why? That
you might receive the adoption of sons. See how vital our adoption
of sons is linked to redemption? There's no adoption of sons apart
from redemption. If you're living in the assurance
of your sonship, never forget this, brethren and sisters, it
cost the Son of God His blood. He redeemed you in order that
you might be adopted sons of God. Not only in leaving heaven,
not only being born of a woman and obeying His law, but it cost
Him His blood. before you could be an adopted
child. Now you're no longer under the
law, but you're under grace. But your substitute died under
that law. He died to represent you. He
stood in your place. He stood in your stead. And his
death was a redeeming death. If you aren't an adopted son,
then live in the praises of that redeeming blood, It bought you body and soul and
spirit. You know what? You were on the
eternal brink of war. Standing right on the eternal
brink of war, just like standing on the edge of a high cliff with
one foot already stepped over. That's where we were. In and
of ourselves, the Bible says, we were ready to perish. But
Jesus Christ stood in our place, in our stead, and said, These
are my sons. These are my children in my eternal
purpose, and it's going to cost me my blood, but I'm going to
go and redeem them and bring them back." And that's what he
did. All were sons of God by redemption. Without shedding
of blood, there's no redemption, and without redemption, there's
no adoption of sons. Now, Paul gives some consequences,
not only the blessedness and the privilege, of being adopted
sons, but he gives here some consequences of being adopted
sons. He says in verse 6, this is amazing. And because you are sons, God
has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying,
Father, Father. God has sent his Son. We got two sendings here. He
first tells us God sent his Son to redeem us. And then He says,
God sent His Spirit, the Spirit of His Son, into your hearts.
You know, God didn't ask anybody before He sent His Son into this world. He didn't go around taking a
survey, He did it. Would you like for me to send my Son? He sent Him anyway. He
sent Him on purpose. A lot of people didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people
didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people
didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of
people didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people didn't want
Him to send Him. A lot of people didn't want Him to send Him.
A lot of people didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people
didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people
didn't want Him to send Him. A lot of people didn't want Him to I don't want
anybody to misunderstand me about this, but He doesn't come to
seek your permission. He's not come to seeking your
permission before He comes to the heart. Some people misunderstand
when the Lord Jesus is talking to a back-slidden bunch of Christians
in Revelation 3, I stand at the door and knock. The Lord don't
stand at a lost man's door and knock and say, I can't do anything,
you've tied my hands. Here we have this sovereign Holy
Spirit. And when He's going to come into
the heart, the devil's in the heart. He's ruling the heart. And the Spirit comes in as a
sovereign Holy Spirit and binds Satan and casts him out. And He sets upon the throne of
the conscience. He takes possession of that place.
Somebody said, does He do it against our will? No. He don't
do it against our will, but He makes us willing in the day of
His power, don't He? Oh, God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into our hearts. And here's what the Lord Jesus
said, I'm going to give you another Comforter, and He shall abide
with you forever. When He comes, He's there forever.
He never leaves. Mr. Spurgeon said, I don't know
which one is more wonderful, that Jesus Christ came into this
world and spent thirty-three and a half years in this ungodly
world, this sinful world, or the Blessed Holy Spirit that
comes into the heart to these poor, weak frames that are pronged
to sin and abide there forever. Which one is the most wonderful?
They're both wonderful, aren't they? God sent His Son into this
wicked world, and God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. Christ, Father, Father. And that's
the next thing I want you to notice about this text. Where
did the Father send the Son? Where did He send the Spirit?
He says you're into your hearts. Now, what's the heart? That's
a vital part of a man, isn't it? That's a vital part of our
being. Keep your heart with all diligence.
Out of it are the issues of life. Boy, if your heart's bad, you've
got troubles, haven't you? If the heart is working properly,
what does the heart do? I've got to be careful with Joanne
here because she'll corner me up and she'll say, Bruce, you
need to study. If you're going to talk about medical things, you need
to do more study on it. But the heart simply pumps blood
through our extremities. It pumps blood and oxygen to
all of our fingers, our brain, our toes. It's a vital part. If your heart gets sick, if your
heart quits pumping, what happens? Well, you're going to die. The
heart's vital. Where does God send the Spirit
of His Son? Into our hearts. Not just our
brains, but into our hearts. The vital part of us. And the
spiritual heart is just as vital to us, our soul, as the physical
heart is to our body. And when the Holy Spirit comes
into our hearts, He sends all of His life throughout all the
faculty of our soul. The life we have in our soul
comes from the Spirit of life that God has sent into our heart.
And when He's there, He gives life to our intellect, How do
we know about God? How do we know Jesus Christ?
How do we know ourselves? How do we know the way of salvation?
The Spirit of God is in our hearts and He enlightens our intellect. He opens our understanding. And
I'll tell you something else He does. He affects our will. Will is a vital part of us. We
can't serve God if we don't serve Him willingly. The Holy Spirit,
when He's in our hearts, He inflames the will. What leads you to read
God's Word? What leads you to pray? Why did
you have a will this morning to get up and get dressed and
come here to the public worship of God? Where did you get that
will? He gave it to you. He's there
in your heart. And I'll tell you something else
He affects when He's there. The affections. the affections. If you're tender-hearted, and
you're kind, and you forgive, and you're gentle, you know what's
happening to you? The Holy Spirit is pumping His
life in your soul, in your affections. I tell you, it has more, it's
probably, in this verse right here, it has more probably to
do with affections than anything else, doesn't You can see that. He sent forth the Spirit of His
Son into our hearts. Not giving us knowledge, which
He must do. Not inflaming our will, which
He must do. But you can see how He tenders
the affection. Father, Father. Some people get
upset with us because I guess we're just not strong enough
Calvinists for it. Or we're not narrow enough. We
don't make the Gospel narrow enough. We make it as narrow
as the Word does, don't we? But they put so much in this
business of knowledge. Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge.
What about the other faculties of the soul? What about the affection? Somebody wrote an article I put
in the bulletin. I think it was Brother Frank
Hall. A Word to Angry Calvinists. Did you all read that? You ought
to stick that on your fridge and read that. A Word to Angry
Calvinists. You just can't have enough knowledge
for those guys. You've got to make everything
so straight. I love knowledge. I love Calvinism. But I tell
you, when I think about the Holy Spirit coming into my heart, my affections are stirred when
I begin to cry, Father, Father. And I tell you, when knowledge
has left you and you just don't have a will to do anything but
sit, but if you've got this cry in your heart, Oh, that means
something, doesn't it? That's an indication the Holy
Spirit is there. He sent forth the Spirit of His
Son into our heart. And that brings us to this. Notice
whose Spirit it is. The Spirit of His Son, Jesus
Christ. Now this is amazing to me that
this is the Spirit of God's Son. And yet He's one with God and
He's one with Jesus Christ. One in the Trinity. And He calls
Him here the Spirit of His Son. Son. Brother Larry made mention
this morning about Christ being filled with His Spirit. Well,
He was born of the Spirit, wasn't He? The Holy Spirit, the Holy
Ghost shall come upon you, He told Mary. She was found with
child of the Holy Ghost. And everything He did, Larry,
He did by the power of the Spirit. I cast out demons by the power
of the Spirit. He went off into the wilderness
filled with the Spirit. And when He prayed the Father,
He sent back this gift, this precious gift of the Spirit that
He gave to His church. So it is the Spirit of His Son,
and it says that He sent Him into our hearts, crying, Father,
Father. And notice that cry again, Father,
Father. I want you to turn, just for
a second, I want you to turn over in Mark chapter 14. I want
you to look at this, Mark chapter 14. He's the Spirit of His Son
crying, Father, Father. Look here what He says. This
is where the Lord Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And boy, the pressure was on Him. He sweat drops of blood, and
look what He said in verse 34. Mark chapter 14, look in verse
34. And He saith unto them, My soul
is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Tear ye here and watch. And He
went forth a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that
if it be possible that our might passed from Him. And look at
this, and He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto
Thee. Take away this cup from Thee. He prayed the same thing
that Paul said He prays in us. The Spirit of His Son, what does
He pray? Abba, Father. Some say this word
Abba, and I guess it is an Aramaic word, a Hebrew word, an old Hebrew
word, Abba. And Father, is a Greek word. So some have suggested that the
Hebrew covers the Jews and the Father covers the Gentiles, the
Greeks. So the Jews, if they're born
of God, if they're children of adoption, they call God their
Father. And we poor Gentiles who are
born of the Spirit of God, we call Him our Father. Jew or Gentile,
whatever language you speak, If you're a child of God, you
call Him your Father, don't you? Your Father. But I think there's
something more to this than just that. I was reading someone was talking
about French. The French in their day, French
people there in England spoke a lot of English. You heard them
speak in English until they got in trouble, until they come in
difficult trouble. And then they spoke the French
language. They went back to their native tongue. I thought that
was sort of strange. But the man said, this is what
people do that have a second language. He said, he was talking
about the Welch, bragging about their beautiful language, but
he said they spoke in English all the time. And he said, unless
they got in trouble. He said, when they got in trouble,
they reverted back to their native language. And that's what we
see in the Lord Jesus here, isn't it? Boy, he was in trouble. This cup, this cup of sin and
the judgment that He was ready to drink, and His soul was exceeding
sorrowful. And what does He do? He goes
back to His native language, the Hebrew language, Abba, Abba,
Abba. And boy, this just teaches me
that as children of God, when the rubber meets the road, as
we say, when it comes down and our souls feel crushed within
us and we're burdened about it, Well, that's when this sincere
Abba Father comes forth, isn't it? When you can't do anything
but groan. When you have no words. And the
Spirit is there in you making intercessions for you. What do
you say? Well, you get right back to the
native language of the newborn son, don't you? Abba Father,
Father, Father, Father. And it comes from your soul.
That's the language you know best. When you have to revert
back to your natural language, it's the one that's heaven. Heavenly
language. Father, Father, Father. One more thing, and I'll close.
But back in our text again, and Paul said this, and we've commented
on this so many times. Verse 7, chapter 4, Wherefore
they are no more a servant, your son, and if a son than an heir
of God through Christ. Heirs of God through Christ. I've never been able to grasp
this. Sometimes this verse, this concept will dawn upon me that
I am an heir of God. And it just absolutely overwhelms
me. An heir of God. And I've told you so many times,
brothers and sisters, this means more than just heirs of what
God possesses. and what he can make by his wisdom
and power, heaven's going to be a real place. There's going
to be a new heaven and a new earth, and God is going to make
everything to satisfy humanity, a glorified humanity, forever.
If he made those trees back in the garden well pleasing to the
eyes, what's he going to make in that new world? I don't know how it's going to
be, but I know this much. It's going to be wonderful. It's
going to be entertaining. It's going to be satisfying,
because God's going to make it. But I think this means even more
than that. I think this means to be an heir
of God Himself. Inherit God. Inherit His joy. Inherit His peace. Inherit His
love. Inherit His rest. Everything
that He is, some way or another, will inherit. Come thou, my servant,
into the joy of the Lord. That's what he said. The Lord
told Abraham, I am your shield and your exceeding great reward. I am your reward. And the church
said the Lord is my portion and my cup. The Lord is the portion
of my inheritance. The Lord is. I'm going to inherit
Him. I tell you, if we see this, it'll
make the toys of this world seem like nothing. You can just turn
your back on mansions and money and bank accounts and ambitions
and pride and everything else. I'm an Arab God. What I want
are these toys of clay that's vanishing away. Fade, fade, each
earthly joy. Jesus is mine! Jesus is mine! Not just His righteousness that
He gives me. Not just His blood to cleanse
me. He is mine. Not just His life. He is mine. Everything that He
is, is mine. And everything a living God is
able to communicate to me is mine. Heirs of God. Heirs of God. Bless His holy
name. Brother Wayne, would you just