Praise the Lord. Well, good morning. We're going to continue our Bible study on the Ordo Salutis, which is the order of salvation. And we're on step number 10 in our study, which is adoption. And I want to say this about the Ordo Salutis. I know this is kind of tedious at times, and we're trying to dig deep into this. And by no means, what I write is all you need to know about these issues. But I'm just trying to give you an understanding and then moving to the next step. But the reality is you really don't know anything about this until after you're saved and get into the church and start reading the Bible and start figuring this stuff out for yourself, because very little is being taught today about what to expect now that you're saved. I became a Christian, and I was born again, and I was justified. Didn't know any of those terms. I just knew what happened to me. And suddenly, my loves changed, and what I wanted changed. And I had a, this is 1971, and I had quite a collection. Back then, you could buy a long-playing LP for, for a record for about $3. And I had about $700 worth of records that I had bought. And it was all bad music and rock and roll and acid rock and hard rock and stuff like that. And so I listened to it all the time. And I listened to it, played. I had a real sophisticated thing where You could stack about 10 of them on there, and it would go to the next one, go to the next one, go to the next one, and play all night long. And that's what I listened to, and that's what I enjoyed. And that's one of the first things that happened when I went back home and I realized I couldn't live the way I had lived before. And nobody told me this. It just kind of dawned on me that there needed to be a transformation in the way I live my life. I took all the records in the backyard by the garbage can and I took a hand, I didn't want to give them to somebody because I didn't want them to be polluted. So I didn't want to sell them, because then I'm making money off sin. And so I just took a hammer, and I was beating the thing, throwing it in the garbage, and one at a time. And my mother said, are you popping firecrackers back there? And I said, no, I'm getting rid of my sin. She said, what are you talking about? And I said, all those records. And boy, she got so furious with me. And she said, well, I might want some of those. My mother. I had a big collection of the Beatles music and she grabbed it and said, I want this. And she kept it until she died and then I took it and hit it with a hammer and destroyed it in 2014. And so nobody said, well you're going to experience these convictions. The Holy Spirit now is in you and you're gonna say, well, I can't do that. Well, I shouldn't do that. Well, that's not right. And you know, and Isaiah, I was reading the Bible in Isaiah and it said, The Lord will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry. When he hears it, he will come to you. And though he gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, but your teachers will not be hid any longer from your eyes. Your eyes will see your teachers, and you will hear a word behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. When you turn to the right hand, the left hand, and you will follow also the covering of your molten images of silver and you will destroy all of your idols. And it just went on and on and on. And I was doing that. My girlfriend had given me a St. Christopher's medal that I just thought was cool. And so I didn't really know what was behind it all when I was lost. And so I wore it and rubbed on it when I was playing football. And then I realized what it was, and I said, well, this is wrong. And so I beat it to a pulp with a hammer and put it in a box and put the box in another box and tied it up with duct tape. And I threw it in the Gulf of Mexico because I didn't want anybody else to get it. And so there was a hatred, a hatred of sin. There was a hostile, violent, brutal hatred of the things that I used to be a part of. And the Bible says that's what will happen. and you can't stand this, you can't handle, you can't be a part of this anymore. And that is the fruit of salvation or what John the Baptist was talking about. So part of the reason I'm trying to teach this is so you will understand what's going on in your life. You don't just get saved and go to church, you're being changed. If you're not being changed, you might not be saved. You're in the process, if you've already been adopted, you're in the process of sanctification. And so these trials come to you. Where do these trials come from? Why does God do this? Because he's trying to change you. He's trying to change your loves and build up your perseverance and build up your patience and build up your... your steadfastness in the Lord. And the people who have suffered the most in life are the people who are the strongest in the Lord. You'd think that would be the opposite, but it's not. So we're on page 10, and we want to look at number eight. Adoption meant for all Christians and means for Christian parents that we suffer now and experience glory later. Now you're not paying for your glory. You're not putting down payment by suffering so that you can be glorified later. The suffering is not to defeat you. The suffering is not to destroy you. The suffering is not about beating you up or because you're so terrible that God doesn't like you. That's not what suffering is about. Suffering is about changing you. He's pulling the rug out from underneath your feet, so to speak, because you're trusting in things that's not of God. And I said this 100 times, it's hard for people in the United States to sing the doxology with any degree of honesty, because we say, praise God from whom all blessings flow. Well, our blessings come from the government, from our 401k plan, from our retirement plan, from we get a guaranteed check every month. So that's where our blessings come from. And so it's hard to then praise God for that. And I don't want anybody to lose their monthly checks. I don't want anybody to go without. But what are you trusting in? Are you trusting in that check? Are you trusting in the government that sends you that check? And are you trusting in God? And we can talk, it's easy for Christians, it's easy for people in church to talk the church language, because they learn the language of the church. It's another thing to actually live it, and it's not so much that we can articulate with words everything that's going on with us, but we need to be able to experience these things. And so we need to ask very serious and healthy and honest questions. Am I trusting in God or am I trusting the Social Security Administration? Am I trusting in God or am I trusting in my company's 401k plan? We have a hurricane and we have terrible devastation. Well, the majority of people have insurance and they have the federal government standing behind them. Nowadays, and Camille, we didn't have anybody standing behind us. We didn't get checks. We didn't have water. And now you get a check when you have a hurricane. You had the good misfortune to be in the way of a hurricane and you get a check from the government. And I'm not debating about whether that's good or bad, that's another subject. But what I'm saying is, we've got to constantly be aware of what we're trusting in, and who we're believing in, and who is our savior, who is our God, who is our provider. And it's not just words that we say, it's in the reality of the way we live our lives. And again, we can talk the church language real simple, it's real easy for us to do that. I noticed, I've been in different churches trying to promote this, that what James said periodically, we need to pray one for another rather than just pray for things. But we are to confess our sins to one another. And when you do this, it's interesting to listen to the confession of sins. It's supposedly the confession of sins. And you'll get things like, I wanna be drawn closer to the Lord. Well, that's not a confession of sin, that's a desire. You need to confess what you did wrong. I wanted to pinch that woman's head off when she wasn't going fast enough down the road. I yelled at my grandchildren because they had the audacity to touch the man of God when they weren't supposed to. You know, something stupid like that. And it's, that's sin. I lusted, I coveted, pray for me. And it's hard for us to do that because we're prideful animals by nature. It's our nature to be prideful. And part of this is we're struggling against the Imago Dei, which is the image of God that's stamped upon us, where we're not content to sit down and not do anything. We want to do things. And we want to create things and build things and plant things. And we want a better life than our parents had. We want a cleaner home. We want a better yard. We want better buildings, better sheds, better lawnmowers. And we're constantly in a process of improving ourselves. We take baths regularly. most of us, and we get all spruced up and gussied up and it's great, it's wonderful. And we put stink stuff all over, you know, because we don't want to be, we want to do better. We want to have pride in our appearance and in ourselves. And some of that's not wrong. It's when you cross the line. And I don't know if anybody else but me is struggling with these things, but I struggle with them all the time. And I don't usually realize that I've crossed the line until after I've crossed the line. I don't see the line clearly until after I've crossed it, and I've gotten into sin. And so I need the confession of sin. I was here early this morning confessing sin to God, and that's great, you can do that. Confessing sin to your wife, that's good, you can do that. But then it says confess your sin to your brothers and sisters too. And like I said before, there's only two reasons why we don't do that. One is pride and the other is the fear of gossip. And, or we cop out and say, well, you know, I just want to be drawn closer to the Lord. Well, that's not, that's not sin. So, or I'm not doing as much as I need to for God. Well, who is? Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards and Augustine didn't think they were doing as much for the Lord as they should have either. So that's just inherent in human beings. So we're going to suffer now. In the middle of page 10, we've got Romans 8, 22 and 23. Sister Charlotte, please. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Okay. Explain what verse 22 looks like. Hm? OK. I was thinking about thorns and cockroaches. OK. All right. I'm really glad y'all talk like that. That's good. I've had something that I've mulled around in my mind for 40 years that I don't know if it's true. There's a verse, there's one verse that, and I think it's in Isaiah, it says, hell will be enlarged. And its foundations will be moved out to make room for all of those who will be cast headlong into it. And I've always thought that's what earthquakes are. I know it's supposed to be tectonic plates shifting and blah, blah, blah. But hell, it's under the earth from what I can read in the Bible. And it has to be enlarged. The foundations are being moved. I don't know, but y'all said it was the bad, like the weeds. I would say roaches. Well, it talks about the whole creation. So any flaws or corruption in creation itself, the fact that there are some animals that eat other animals. The implication was that there was no death in the Garden of Eden, and yet there were animals. So the carnivores didn't eat. That's exactly right. The bobcats didn't eat the rabbits. Trees didn't die. Grass didn't die. Right. So the bobcats was eating something. That's right. But it wasn't rabbits. That's right. And they're going to eat that. The lions shall eat straw like the ox. Right. So just looking at nature where there is constant death going on, in the animal world shows us the groans of creation. Okay, now, and suffers the pain of childbirth. You and I have to read about it. We'll never experience that. But women who have childbirth, it's painful. And so the creation is suffering the pains of childbirth. So there's a straining and there's a something is not finished. There's life yet to be had. And so the second question of verse 22 is what is it groaning and travailing for? Verse 23 tells you what it's groaning and travailing for. It's we ourselves, the second line of verse 23, even we ourselves, within ourselves, grown within ourselves, waiting for what? Waiting for the adoption as sons, for our adoption as sons, comma, this is kind of a complicated verse, the redemption of our body. What we're waiting for is the redemption of our body. And we're waiting for it eagerly, which will complete our adoption. Because it says for our adoption as sons or because of our adoption as sons. So, and again, women can be sons of God in the spiritual sense that sons has to do with strength and vitality and they're in the forefront. And so it's not excluding the ladies, but we're... Brother Blair, if you think about OK, when we die and we're placed in the ground or cremated or whatever, but you think of that day when the graves are going to be split wide open and that body comes forward. That's a new beginning. That's like when that life began, it came forth out of the mother. There's gonna be a new life. You're going to get a redeemed body, a glorified body. So all of this, we're grown and looking forward to that day. Amen. Only, I don't think everybody is. If they were, they wouldn't act the way they're acting. They would be they would be more serious about these things. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. No, I think what you said was fine. I'm just saying you don't hear a lot about this. And there it is right there. We know we know that the whole creation grows and suffers the pain of childbirth together. I can't tell you how many years, decades it's been since I heard anybody talk about it. This is not a common topic of preaching or teaching. And Paul was, as a matter of fact, about it. We already know this. Even though death is the most real and assured thing in this world, nobody wants to think or talk about death. Right. And then there will be a generation of people who will never die. They'll be on earth when Jesus comes and they'll just be instantly changed. The dead will rise first and we will be caught up together with them to meet Jesus in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. So shall we ever be with the Lord in the air? Or so shall we ever be with the Lord? I think the period is there. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But, you know, you know, you know that that is commonly taught. We're going to meet Jesus in the air, but he's coming down to rain on the earth. That's what I've always asked people. So you're going to meet him in the air and then you're going to go back into heaven? No. So he coming halfway down and then going back up? No. That's crazy talk. And the reason they do that is because they've all been taught about a rapture. And so there's the rapture. No, it's not. That's the second coming. if you didn't know the rapture, if you never heard the word, and you've never been in church, and you just read that passage, there's the second coming. That's what the normal, natural reading of that passage would say to you. But because we've been indoctrinated with false teaching, we just assume that that's what he's talking, because we, again, I went to church, I went in church two weeks before everybody's talking about the last days. And they had this chart, and they got it all figured out, you know? And I'm sitting there bewildered. How in the world do you find that in the Bible? I'm not being critical. I read the Bible. I don't get anything like that. There's a verse, I think it's in the book of the Revelation, chapter 4, where the Lord says, come up here, King James. All my quotes are King James. Come up hither, I will show you things you haven't seen before." He's talking to John. Well, there it is right there. I said, there's what? John was caught up in, no, no, no, that's the rapture of the church. Who told you that? How did you get that out of that? And it's just amazing to me. And I was talking to the guy in here one Sunday night and he said, When you see the fig tree, then you know that the time is at hand. Well, there it is. I said, there's what? The fig tree. That's Israel. I said, who told you that? It might be. I'm not saying it's not. But how do you know that? And they're just so sure. And I'm going, wow. So anyway, I just, and they said, well, the bride is the church. Okay, well, what do you do when Jesus, John said, I saw the city of New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, sitting upon the earth, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. That's what it says. So there's a lot, and of course I believe that is the church. I believe it's symbolic of the church. But the church is on earth. The church is not in, I mean the church is in heaven in the sense that the people of God are in heaven. But the church is on earth. This is our domain that we rule and reign in or that we fall apart and die in. And the church that I read in the Bible is victorious. And so here it is right here. There's a groaning that's supposed to be going on in our lives. I don't hardly hear anybody praying about this. I don't hardly hear anybody talking about this ever, ever in any way. And it's almost like this is not happening. But the Bible says it is happening. How many, how often has it been, how, let me try to figure this, how often do I eagerly, eagerly await the redemption of my body? Not often. I go months and don't even think about it. Maybe years. I'm trying to get sanctified, I'm trying to get holy, and I'm bypassing the redemption of my body. So my body, this is the only religion I was taught, I forget what I was in when I was teaching this. Christianity is the only religion that teaches the spirit and the body are together. All other religions teach it's the spirit or the body. And the body's usually bad and the spirit is good. And believe it or not, there's a bunch of Christian churches that teach that now too. So Christianity says there's gonna be redemption, not of our soul, not of our spirit, but of our body. It says it right there. And we need to be waiting eagerly for that. Well, I'm guilty of not doing that. Man was originally created with a body. That's right. That's right. And so we don't believe in reincarnation. We believe in resurrection. And there's a reason why we do. I'm not talking about Jesus's resurrection. I'm talking about our resurrection. I'm going to die if I'm not part of the generation that's going to be on earth when Jesus comes, which I sure hope I am. But if I die, I don't care what kind of tomb or metal, concrete slab you put around that body when he goes, the worms are coming in. And they may wait two or three, but they'll get there. and there'll be dirt inside, there'll be dirt inside, I don't know if you've ever seen a body exhumed. 100%, I asked people at the, 100% of these bodies are all got dirt in them. Where'd the dirt come from? They're sealed in this thing before they're put in the ground. Where'd the dirt come from? It gets in there. Ants get in there, worms get in there, dirt gets in there, and the flesh is going to eat away and corrupt, and you'll have a skeleton until, if it lasts long enough, you won't even hardly have a skeleton. Now, that's because my body is not redeemed yet. That's what this is talking about. If my body was redeemed, it wouldn't rot, right? And so there is a redemption of our body that we're supposed to be waiting eagerly for. And it comes by way of our adoption. Now, how does this work? I don't have a clue. And I'm sure, you know, smarter people than me will write a book about it. But I'm just saying, I have looked at this every way twice on Sunday, and I can't find a lot of information about how our bodies will be redeemed by way of our adoption. There's something, there's a connection, because it says, for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. There's a connection between our adoption and the redemption of our bodies. I don't know, I don't exactly know what it, what it is. So this strikes us as strange. It does me. Already we are, we are, aren't we already adopted? And this is the same thing you hear people say, well, I don't need to do that. I'm saved. As though salvation means you're finished. Well, as we can tell by the Ordo Salutis, salvation is a big old long thing that involves all kinds of steps. And what you're really saying, I was justified, I was born again, justified and adopted, and now I'm in the process of sanctification. But by definition, if you're in the process of sanctification, you hadn't finished. Now, if I die, I'm gonna go to heaven because I've been justified. But while I'm on earth, I have a duty, an obligation, and a commandment from God to be made holy. It's not optional. I am told to be holy as He is holy. Now, I didn't say, thank God, I didn't say be righteous even as He is righteous because I'm dead meat. I'm righteous by way of Jesus's imputation, but I am to be holy. Now, the Amish and the Mennonites and the Shakers and the Quakers, you know why they call them Quakers and Shakers? Yeah, because they would kind of jump around and jerk and stuff. They did prayer meeting in the... Now, you've seen that in a Pentecostal church. They would. I'm not making fun of them. And they shook and they quaked. And they're falling on the floor and they're shaking. They do. Now, let me just say this to you. That ain't sin. That's not sin. Adultery is sin. Blasphemy is sin. That's not sin. I used to be in there. Now, I didn't do that particular thing. But I've seen people, they would die for Jesus in a heartbeat. They're your brothers and sisters. They are saved. And don't attack them. I'm talking about the doctrine. I'm not talking about the individual people. And I know a bunch of people that's in the reform camp that don't even think Pentecostal people are saved. And that's wrong. They're wrong about that. John MacArthur's wrong about that. And whoever else agrees with him is wrong about that. And the only thing he's ever seen in a Pentecostal is read in a book. He's never been there. He's never been in a prayer meeting with those people. And that's wrong. So he's got clay feet. What else is new? So my point is, those people thought that being holy meant that you pulled away from everybody else. Now, I believe in that to a certain extent. I think it, I don't do everything the world does, but now I eat and I sleep and I laugh and I play, so. Well, and more than that, you go shopping and you go to the gas station and all that. Right, right. So, you can't, not only can you, not only should you not completely isolate yourself from the lost pagan world, you can't. Now there's these survivalists now, they're just a resurrection of the monastics, but they go off in the Alaskan wilderness and they carve out a thing. Great, how do you lead anybody to Jesus? How do you go into all the world and preach the gospel? And so they're disobedient. At best, they're disobedient. They say, well, I don't want all the big city traffic. I got you. I got you. But that's not the answer. Number one, everybody can't do that. It takes a lot of money to live primitively. Yes, it does. So you gotta create your own energy sources and everything else. And even if you watch some of those shows that have the people going after them, what are they doing? They're going down to the dump and they're scavenging stuff out of the dump, right? So it still takes Man-made stuff. And knowledge and skill of how to build that, right. So to an extent, we are not to be a part of the world and not to be connected to the world in certain ways. In other ways, we are told to occupy. So we can't disassociate ourselves. One of the greatest struggles that Christians are having today is how much do we need to get involved with government? Because in this country, we have the ability to pick our leaders. So if we can pick our leader, should we not be involved in that process? Of course we should. How much? And then at what point are we leaving the spiritual things behind in order to fix the natural things? And I don't know the answer to that. I asked R.C. Spruill that one time, personally I asked him, and he said, Blair, you got $100, and you got 24 hours in a day, and you can only spend the $100 one time, and you can only spend 24 hours one time. And so you've got to pick, something to do without $100 and with those 24 hours. And that means you leave other things undone. And that's the best you got. And so do we need to protest? Do we need to write? And so it's a struggle. And we go back and forth. We go in and out of this because we see what we don't want. And well, if we all got together, we could fix that. Well, I don't know that, because I think God's judging this country. So I don't know that you're going to fix it. Stop and think. And I don't want to get political, but the good guy last election was a whoremonger. He's the good guy. We don't have any choices. You got no honor there. You got no honorable man. He's not an honorable man. But he had the right policies. He's against abortion. He's for conservative judges. That's why he got my vote. And I held my nose when I voted for him, because I know him. I mean, I know above him. And I don't think he's good. I don't think he's saved. I hope he, maybe he did get saved, but I'm not impressed with the people he's hanging around in Christianity. I'm sure not impressed with that. He's not hanging around Paul Washer. He's not hanging around MacArthur and Spruill and those guys. He's hanging around name it and claim it and all that other thing, because he's attracted to that. And he believes in the power of positive thinking. Y'all remember Norman Vincent Peale? And then his disciple was Robert Shuler, the Crystal Cathedral. And it all boils down to what you believe. And so this issue should be in the forefront of our minds now that we understand that we've been adopted. And it should be our prayers. It should be our activities, because we are eagerly, eagerly awaiting, because of our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. And I'm guilty of not doing that. And so I just wanted to mention that to you this morning. And the first thing I think is that I think about that every morning when I try and get out of the bed and all those aches and pains kick in. Right. Right. And so I sure want that new body. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Now, I saw a bunch of Amish folk. We went to the mountains in Tennessee, whatever we were up there for, I forget. I guess it was our anniversary, I think. I don't remember. Anyway, Rhonda and I went up there, and we still were, everybody was wearing masks, so it was 2020, I guess. It was our anniversary. And there was this whole group of these Amish people, and the oldest guy in the group is the leader. I went to the oldest guy I could find, and I said, can I talk to you? Sure. what is your doctrine about salvation? He goes, what? He had no idea. I said, what do you teach? He said, I don't teach anything. I said, are you the leader? Yeah. You don't teach these people? Nope. I don't know. How am I supposed to know? So what that has become is what you see now in so many, now they still got the outward, they ride the horse and buggy to the atomic nuclear plant to work on nuclear bombs. Or they drive their horse to work on the, Amana, Amana was an Amish owned corporation, I don't know if it still is, but it was, where they made microwave ovens while they rode horses to go work on it. And they can't have anything electric. So they had these generators that were operating on something else. And it's amazing. I mean, they're strict about all that, and they've got the hair and the beard and the hat and the suspenders, and everybody's the same, and the women. And they don't know why they're doing it. They don't know why they're doing it. So back to us now. We can point our fingers at them. I watched a documentary of Amish people. And they said, well, we've got two choices. We can sit and watch something, or we can work. And we'd just rather work. And they work in people. You don't see a blade of grass out of shape on their 200-acre pasture, and there's not a piece of paper or a blade of grass on their fence posts. There's not a single fence post that's not fixed. It's amazing. So they clean. They don't know why. How tragic, going through that much effort and that kind of struggle to be different, to not be worldly is what they started out, I know about it. And yet they don't know anymore. And so we gotta make sure we know what we believe and we need to know why we believe it. And so these are verses that help us to fashion our beliefs. Part of what we are to be eager about is not just the second coming, but the redemption of our bodies. Now, and then we have to decide, okay, aren't we already adopted? Why does Paul say that we are waiting eagerly for our adoption? Yes, we are already adopted. When Christ died for us, the price was paid. And when we trust him, trust him and in him, we are legally and permanently in the family. But God's purpose for adoption is not to leave any of his children in a state of groaning and suffering. He raised Jesus from the dead with a new body, and he promises that part of our adoption will be a new resurrected body with no more disabilities, no more groaning, and completely unable to sin. Unable to sin. Thank you, Jesus. A transformation of the human nature where we're not able to sin. Therefore, what we wait for is the full experience of our adoption. And I would suggest to you that's true about every issue in the Ordo Salutis. Are you experiencing the full effect of being born again? Are you experiencing the full effect of being justified? Are you experiencing the full effect of being adopted and sanctified and everything else? And sadly, I don't think we are, because people talk about what's important to them, and they talk about what they're involved in. If somebody's got a new recipe for a cake, that's what they talk about. People got a new weed eater, that's what they talk about. If we're not actively involved in it, and we can't do it all at one time, I understand that, but we need to take like a week, take a week and just meditate on what it means to have a new birth, experiencing the miracle of the new birth where my nature was transformed in an instant of time. And therefore, the devil's work in me that would dominate me before I was justified is now broken. I still sin, but he doesn't dominate me like he used to. And so it is possible, and it is not only possible, it is true, that we sometimes resist the devil to the point of not sinning when he wants us to sin. We don't do that all the time, though. That's the problem. We still sin, and then we resist temptation. Now, resisting temptation can be fixed in two ways. You can stop being tempted when you fall into sin. Once you sin, Satan doesn't tempt you with it anymore. until the next time. So you lost. But if you resist temptation, it gets hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter until he leaves you alone. Because it's easier for him to go somewhere else and get somebody to sin than somebody that's actively pursuing that. And it's based upon the knowledge that his dominating power over me is broken. 1 John teaches us that. And that's part of the package of being born again. And so if I'm justified, I am now covered and draped over with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. What does that mean? How does that, how should I live my life? How should I conduct myself if that's true? So we meditate on that for a week. Then we meditate on what it means to be adopted for a week. And it's just, and when I was going over the attributes of God, I would say, take one attribute of God. The fact that God never changes. And then you get into it, and it has doors. And you open the door, and you go in that room. And then that has a door. You open that door, and you go into that room. And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. The reason he doesn't change is because what he said at the beginning was right. And the reason he said at the beginning what was right is because he knew everything. So his omniscience fuels his immutability. Well, I didn't know that until I started talking about this stuff. And so it's not just that God's immutable. Yay, yay, yay, got a merit badge now. No, I checked the box. I went over that attribute of God. That's not what it's about. Are you in awe of his immutability? Because I'm not immutable. I change all the time. Hopefully, I'm changing for the better. You know Jesus wasn't sanctified? Did you know Jesus didn't study the Bible? How about this? How about this one? How about this one? Jesus never sacrificed an animal. The whole time, neither did his disciples. There's no record of any of those people sacrificing an animal. And now, you know, I'm pretty critical of the Pharisees, rightly so. But I wonder if I had, if I'd have been alive back then. Let me ask you this. Would this attract you? You got somebody that's promoting the word of God. Would that attract you? Yeah. We need to return back to the Bible. We need to make sure that we're adhering to what God said. See? That's what the Pharisees taught. Now, Now, they didn't do it right, and they weren't really teaching the Bible, but that's what their business card said. And I would have been attracted to that. And so if I'd have lived back then, would I have become a Pharisee? Probably so. And if I'd have been a Pharisee, would I have railed out against Jesus like they did? I mean, you said, well, you're chosen. You wouldn't have. OK, fine. But here's this man comes, and his brother and sister are right there. His mama is over here. His daddy's right there. We've known him his whole life. And he's walking around telling people he's God. Bless him, Lord. I mean, obviously, he's got a mental problem, right? I could see you more like Nicodemus. I would. I'd climb that tree, bud. Amen to that. I got to see him. I got to see him. I got to touch him. I got to be touched by him. Amen. And then all of a sudden, he rides into the downtown main street of Jerusalem on the back of this colt. His feet are dragging the ground. It's the most clumsy, how do you say, unroyal. It's not royal. You're not thinking royalty when you see that. You're not thinking majestic when you see that. It's clumsy. It's awkward. And the Pharisees are standing over there, and they're going, golly. And these people are taking their clothes off and throwing their clothes in front of him, and they're putting down palm branches in front. Hosanna! Hosanna! And the Pharisees are going, bless their hearts. This guy's a nut. That's your king? Really? instead of a white stallion doing this and the king and his royal garb going down and he speaks and the thunder comes and you got this guy. Nothing, nothing, Isaiah said nothing about him was attractive. He was smitten of God and we did not esteem him, meaning we didn't take up for him. We'd say, wait a minute, God don't hurt him, he's God. Nobody did that. And was it anything? What did he look like? He didn't look like a European. He didn't have blue eyes. He was probably Tennessee ugly. We don't know what he looked like because there's no description. Right, but he probably looked like a Jew. He probably just looked like your average Jew. Right, which is nondescript. Right. Josephus has got two or three lines in his history. He saw him standing in the marketplace. And he writes, oh, by the way, it's not, oh my God, I saw Jesus. And he said, there's nothing about him that That's Jesus? Right. And it's just average height, average build? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I mean. You know, it's not particularly handsome, not particularly ugly, not, you know. Right. And so that sounds like God to me. Very average. That's the king of the universe. Right. And he comes in and his procession is the exact opposite of a royal procession. You know, he's not surrounded by these strong soldiers. He's surrounded by sinners. The poorest people, the most uneducated. And prostitutes. Absolutely. They're following him. He's got a couple of guys that used to be fishermen, and now they're just vagabonds, really, wandering around with this guy. And he's on this little horse, and he's probably being led. Probably somebody else has got the, you know, probably, got the lead on the whole on the on the colt and and leading it along as opposed to the king who would be controlling his own big war horse. And that's our savior. Yeah. And that's the king of the world. And he had this interesting relationship with Jerusalem. He had no desire to go to Jerusalem until he was going to die. That's the capital city. That's the habitation of peace. That's where the temple was. Yeah, that's the end all be all. He's in Galilee and in Nazareth and all these places. He can go there. He said, now, he set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem to die. And the only experience that I know about him in Jerusalem, he wept. He saw Jerusalem in the glory of that first century, and he wept. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. That's not a recommendation. But God's purpose for adoption is not to leave any of his children in a state of groaning and suffering. He raised Jesus from the dead with a new body. And he promises that part of our adoption will be a new resurrection body with no more disabilities, no more groaning, and completely unable to sin. Therefore, what we wait for is the full experience of our adoption, the end of our adoption, which is the resurrection of our bodies or the glorification of our bodies. Now, there is much groaning in the path of adoption on the way to full and complete salvation, but the outcome is glorious. It is worth it all. Sister Colleen, Romans 8.18, please. for I considering that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Now what do you get out of that verse except the obvious, beside the obvious, that the sufferings are not worthy to be compared? Since the sufferings that we suffer in this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory, what does that tell you about the sufferings? Well, in a sense, don't sweat them. Right. They're tools. They're a means to an end, right. Right. They're for our good. They're just instruments in the hands of God, in the hand of God to help us become what we need to be. Because they're not even worthy to be compared with the glory. The glory is infinitely better than the suffering was hard. And Paul really knew that. He did. Because he saw the Lord. Yes, he did. Several times. And the same zeal that he had before he had the encounter with the Lord, he used that same zeal. He didn't really, he just changed sides. But he was willing in both cases to do what was required. And he knew what was coming. And that's what we need is a true glimpse of who we serve. And what he has done for us. And he did set his face like a flint toward Jerusalem. But he still ministered all the way, even though he knew what was coming. And that's what we need. We need those eyes that see. the one that came, suffered for us. All the things that we should be suffering. But Paul knew, and that's what we need to pray is that we see and we know and we understand. And my prayer is, Lord, let the cross be more real to me this Easter than ever before. Amen. Wow. That's what Paul said in 2 Corinthians, which is where I think the gospel is best portrayed, that Satan desires to keep us blinded so that we will not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And that's the whole deal, that God unveils our eyes, and we behold him in his glory, and we love what we see, and we are changed into what we see. And that's what salvation's all about. And when that happens, the things of this earth will go strangely dim. Y'all are all aware, I'm sure, of the deal with Paul and John Mark and Barnabas. And I've never heard a sermon preached, I preached one, but I never heard, beside that, I've never heard a sermon preached that put Paul in a favorable light there. And everybody's saying, well, how in the world could Paul see the Lord and then act that way toward John Mark, and Barnabas had to rebuke him, and then he ended up dumping Barnabas and went with Silas? Well, I have a different take on that. I don't think that Paul was hard-hearted at all. John Mark had gotten sick. Paul was committed. Paul was focused. He had a laser-like focus on what God wanted him to do. And you can't send the Bible through the Internet. There ain't no Internet. You can't send it electronically. You can't send it UPS. You've got to put it on the backs of donkeys, and you've got to put that rope around your shoulder, and you've got to trudge through knee-deep snow as you're walking over the mountains to get to Ephesus to give them the Word of God. And Paul was committed to doing that. Because in my sermon, I was preaching about this. I said, because Paul understood, and I understand this, you will not die. You will not die until God's finished with you. And when God's finished with you, you will not stay. I don't care what kind of surgeon you got. I don't care whether you're eating tofu and tree bark and exercising your whole life. You won't last 10 seconds after God's done with you, and you won't, there's an appointed time for your birth, there's an appointed time for your death, and there's an appointed way in which you are going to die. It's an already done deal. And I could die tomorrow. I'm not saying I'm never gonna die. When I had my second wreck, the ambulance came to pick me up, and that beam came through that window, kinda hit me in the side of the head, but it hit my arm, thought I broke my arm. And I'm sitting there, and I'm going, because I really thought it was a terrorist. The first thing I thought, because I heard an explosion, I thought somebody blew a bomb up. I don't know why they want to blow a bomb up in the car wash, but I didn't think that far. Because I couldn't see. I couldn't see anything, because everything, all the debris was in here. And I'm sitting in my car, and everybody was looking at this thing, fixing to fall down on top of me. And this black woman opened the door, And I said, thank God. And she asked me, she said, are you a Christian? I said, yes, I am. I love Jesus. And she pulled me, literally pulled me out of the car over the console and everything else to get me out of the car. And I'm sitting on the thing, and the ambulance comes, picks me up, and I'm holding my arm because it hit me right there. And I'm in the thing, and I said, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. I can't die. And he said, oh, you can die. I said, that's not what I mean. I can't die till God's through with me. And he said, yeah, you can die. You can die. I've seen plenty of them. And I just, bless his heart, he didn't know what I'm trying to say. So I just shut up. I didn't say anymore. But that's what I was talking about. I mean, that should have killed me. That far, it would have hit me in the head, and I'd have been an imbecile, I guess, after that, or maybe I am anyway. No, a big old truck, a big old truck came around, the poor guy put on the accelerator instead of the brake, and he came around the corner, I was just going into the car wash, and he hit this, he hit this control station, and it flew up in the air, and it hit this beam, and knocked the beam off, and the beam hit me in the side of my car and through the window, and I'm going into the car wash, and I said, and then this beam shoots through, and the beams, I dig around, come through my window, and I'm going, oh! And just, you know, in seconds, you know? And that's how quick you can die. That's how quick it's over with, done. And you lift up your eyes and you're in glory. Hallelujah. But he didn't know what I was trying to say, but that's what, it's not worthy to be compared. The glory of God in heaven with us, the reward that we're gonna have is so infinitely greater than anything we have to go through down here. It's not even worth comparing it to. And this is especially relevant for parents of children with disabilities. They know the groaning of this life. All of us have children with some sort of disability, and some of us will live to get very old and watch our children age and die before we do. It just doesn't seem right that you bury your children. Your children should bury you, right? Others will see their children struck down in war or by accident or disease. Others will care for a disabled child until one of them dies. But all of this groaning is groaning in hope. Or it's not. And I know people that all they do is get more bitter, more bitter. They take care of their family members. And then at the end of the day, they're so glad they died. And they said, thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Free, free at last. I'm free at last. And they're glad they're dead because it's become nothing but a burden to them. And they've lost sight of what it was all about. That's tragic. because we are adopted by God and destined for a glorious resurrection and an eternal future of perfect health and wholeness and unspeakable joy. Truly, it will be worth it all. Now, you're in an ambulance on the way to the hospital to see if your arm's broken, see if you got a concussion. It's hard to remember that statement then, which is why we need our brothers and sisters. What helps me the most is not somebody say, yeah, I know what you're going through. I went through something similar to that in 1963. Let me tell you all about it. Let's don't compare sufferings. That's a waste of time. Let's all agree your suffering is more worse than mine. So I'll give in to you. I'm not trying to compare sufferings. Yeah, but I need you to tell me that. If there's only one reason why you're in this fire, brother, and that's because God's hand is upon your life and the glory that is ahead of you is infinitely greater than any suffering, I need that. That's what keeps my motor running. So what is adoption? Adoption is one of the primary benefits of the saving work of Jesus Christ, a pride to the elect by faith. In justification, God vindicates guilty sinners in the divine law court by declaring them righteous in his sight. Simeon had a friend of his that was in grade school with him. And he even came to this church for several Sundays with Simeon, redheaded boy. And he didn't have a father at home. His mother was a single parent. And I went over there to talk to his mother one time about the boy and to try to help win him to Jesus. And she told me, she said, well, he's saved. He's been saved since he was just a little child. And no, he wasn't saved. And so what I've told him, this is the mother talking, I've told him that he needs to rededicate his life to Jesus. So they got this made up fictitious thing in the church now where you get saved when you're 13. Then you go out and live like hell for 30 years and you come back and then you get rededicated. You make Jesus the Lord of your life. So there's two events now. That's exactly what Pentecost preaches. There's two events. The Bible teaches there's one. So I remind my Southern Baptist friends how Pentecostal they are when they talk like that. And Pentecost is like Catholicism. It's based on Catholicism, not Protestantism. Pentecost has more in line with Roman Catholicism than it does with historic Protestantism. So I remind my Southern Baptist friends how Catholic they are when they talk like that, because they didn't get that out of the Bible. And they hang their hat on people who believe and know the Bible. And they don't. And that's because it's not taught, and it's not preached. There was a pastor in this town. He used to be a surgeon. He's the one that operated on Beulah's leg. By the way, Beulah went through her surgery, and she didn't have to have a hysterectomy. I was so happy about that. Billa had her leg cut off, and this guy had to put the little veins back together again in her leg. And I was in the waiting room, and he came out, and he said, I've got a pin in her big toe. I've got the big toe sticking out of the thing, and there's a pin in it. In two days, if that toe turns black, we've got to amputate. If that toe turns pink, then we've saved the foot. And oh, I prayed. I fasted. I prayed. I cried out to God. And I walked in the hospital. I just preached in the church. And I was preaching. I was all fired up. And I was preaching about healing. And I went to the hospital. And I opened the door. And the toe was as black as night. And I just died inside. And I walked out of the room. And I was just trying to process it all. And this little bitty boy in a football helmet was standing in the hallway. And I just got down on my knees in the hallway with him. And I said, are you OK? And he said, I fall down and hit my head. And his mom was standing there and she's crying. And she said, he falls down and hits his head all the time. And I said, I looked at the little boy and I said, would you like Jesus to heal you? And he said, sure. It's so simple. And I just prayed for him. And they said that he took the helmet off and that he was fine. I can't prove that. But here my daughter, here's my defeat. And in the moment of my lowest ebb, I was able to pray for this boy. And that's the mystery of God. And because it's not by might, it's not by power, it's by my spirit. So it's got nothing to do with how you're feeling, because I felt horrible right then. And so they had to cut Biola's leg off, but the surgeon got a problem in his hands. He couldn't keep doing surgery, so he became a preacher. Went back to school, became a Baptist preacher, and good Baptist preacher. And he preached in this church. I invited him to come preach in this church. And I also invited him to come to another service, and he came, and somebody else was preaching. And he whispered in my ear, Because this guy was not Baptist, the other guy. And the Baptist preacher whispered, he said, Blair, you don't want this. You don't want this. This is not what you want. I said, hmm. Yeah, I really did want this at that time. So I would get in my car and drive to his office when I was trying to put the pieces together about Reformed theology. And I've got a set of commentaries by James Montgomery Boyce in my office that he gave me. to help me come into the Reformed faith. And, you know, I'm just smiley Jack and I'm sitting in his office and I'm so happy we're all going to be Reformed and we're all going to be biblical. And I'm so happy, happy, happy. And I said, now you preach this in your church, right? He goes, no, I can't preach this here. I said, what? You're helping me preach at my church and you can't pray. He said, well, it's different. See, we got split my church and we have a huge mortgage on this church and I can't afford to let the people. I said, so you're doing it for money? And I left out of there. I was so defeated. I said, good night. This is one of the guys helping me. And he won't preach it. He knows it. He believes it. He won't preach it. the man that gave us these chairs right here. I was praying with him. And he said, Blair, I hear you on the radio and I shake my head and I say, that won't work. You just can't preach like that, son. And I said, just listen. I'm amen to that. So I'm, that's why I say I'm the donkey. I don't know any better. I'm gonna preach the word of God. In adoption, he makes those who are already justified his beloved children with whom he dwells. According to God's covenant promise, believers are made sons and daughters of God, heirs according to the promise of redemption. Like justification, adoption is a once-for-all, non-reputable sovereign act of God. Though distinguished from the ongoing process of sanctification, adoption ensures the restoration of God's likeness in his adopted sons and daughters. So the more you get into these other things, beside being born again and beside being justified, you realize that what people call getting saved is just the beginning. It's certainly not the end. You're just getting started. The doctrine of adoption is taught in redemptive history in Old Testament types. It is fulfilled in Christ and comes to full spiritual fruition in the New Testament. As with the other benefits of redemption, I was reading yesterday my buddy Joseph in the Old Testament. And what did he do? He was innocent of the charges. And he said, he told the guy that he interpreted his dream. He said, remember me. And after three days, get me out of here. OK, what was that? Jesus was three days and then he rose out of that prison. And that's why Joseph is a type of Christ, see? That's what the whole Old Testament is. I didn't know that till yesterday. I never made that connection till yesterday. It is fulfilled in Christ and comes to full spiritual fruition in the New Testament. As with the other benefits of redemption, the Holy Spirit is particularly revealed in our adoption. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of adoption on the basis of His work in this act of redemption. Okay, the doctrine of adoption is one of the central benefits of redemption applied. In justification, God forgives guilty sinners and accepts them as righteous in His sight only on account of the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ. In adoption, he brings those who were once enemies into the family of God, giving them an eternal inheritance. So I ask another Baptist preacher this question. You say that the shed blood of Jesus is what saves you. Yes, absolutely. Then why do you need the resurrection? And why didn't Jesus come down here as a full grown man on Friday morning, get crucified on Friday afternoon, rise from the dead on Sunday morning, and then go back up on Sunday afternoon? Why did he spend 30 years as a human living a life as a colossal waste of time? And he didn't know. He didn't know. In adoption, he brings those who were once enemies into the family of God, giving them an eternal inheritance. In this way, the benefits of Christ's death and resurrection bring sinners from the law court into the living room. Though adoption logically follows justification in the Ordo Salutis, it is no less important in the experience of salvation. So adoption is similar to justification, yet distinct from progressive sanctification in that it is a one-time act of God. I'm born again. Okay, God birthed me all over again. But I don't understand the ramifications of being born again until several years after it occurred. I don't know all the ends, what does it mean to live born again? Same thing's true with justification. I'm justified, it happened, 1971. I didn't realize the impact of justification until I began to study the Bible and realize all the connection. I was confusing being born again, being saved, and being justified as being all the same thing. I think a lot of people do that. It's not, they're separate. And they're for separate reasons. And so, it is true to say, to some extent, that we're saved right now. We understand what we mean, but actually that's an incorrect term. We're forgiven and made righteous now, we're adopted now, we've been born again now, but we're still being saved. We're not finished with salvation until our body is glorified. Okay, that is a great explanation. Okay, the preacher stands in front of the church and they play just as I am forever and ever and ever and finally people go down again. Usually just to get them to quit singing. They're giving their life to the Lord. Hopefully. And then they go out. And you don't see them again. And they think they've got that insurance. Right. Policy. Right. And they know nothing. Of sanctification. Amen. It's a one time deal. You've been saved. And they count on that. And nothing's required beyond that. And part of the reason that's true is the lack of good preaching and teaching, but part of that is true because they want to believe that. It didn't matter what they were taught, they'd still believe it. I've had people leave this church that said the same thing, and I guarantee you they were taught right. They just didn't care. They just wanted to believe that. So there's that, but then there's also a lack of real preaching and teaching, and that's a problem. and I don't know what to do about it other than... What's the use of the Bible? Amen to that. What's it for? And if all you got to do is say, Lord Jesus, forgive me, come into my heart in Jesus' name, amen, and you're done and you're sealed, then what's all those other verses in the Bible about? About obedience. That without sanctification, you won't even see God. So, you know, they say, well, you don't believe in once saved, always saved. I don't believe it the way it's being taught. I believe salvation is eternal. But what makes it eternal is not that God drags me to heaven against my will. He drags me to Jesus initially against my will, but he doesn't drag me to heaven against my will. The way that works is that I get convicted of things and I repent and change. That's what keeps me saved. Other than that, I'm not still saved. And so it isn't that you lost your salvation as you never had it. You were just deceived about your salvation experience. Well, how do you know, Brother Blair? You don't really know till after the fact. If you have an ongoing desire to be made holy, if you have an ongoing hunger and thirst for righteousness, all those verses in the Bible, if you're panning after God like the deer pants after the wolf, that kind of stuff, if you're troubled about being lost, you're probably not. Because most lost people don't care. Or most lost people don't believe in a million years that they would go to hell. If there's a God and if there's a heaven, I'm sure I'm going because I'm such a great guy. And we don't accept that kind of what if you took your car to a repair shop? And the mechanic looks at you and he said, what's wrong with my car? Well, it's a mystery. I'm not sure. We need to study it more. You wouldn't accept that. Right, but we accept it in church. Well, nobody really knows. Yeah, we really do know what the Bible teaches. That's what he says. I don't know everything about God. I have no idea how God's sovereignty and human responsibility go side by side, and they never cross over. I'm not a robot. God is sovereign, and I'm accountable for what I do. Those are seemingly mutually exclusive statements. And somehow they're not. And the only thing I can figure out, there's an element about God that he didn't choose to reveal to us that would answer that question. And that's one of the things I want to ask him when I get there. And I could have told you this a million times, and it's kind of funny. But I mean, I believe this with every fiber of my being. I'm going to get there, and he's going to look at me and say, Blair, how in the world did you get that out of what I said? And I just, Lord, you know. So I was teaching one night a Bible study, and everybody went home happy. And I went in my room in there, and I was so upset. And I just thought I blew it royally. And then I heard R.C. or John MacArthur or Piper, one of these guys preach on that very same subject. And I wasn't even in the same universe. I was, I don't know what, how I got that out of that passage, but it wasn't even close. And I'm going, good night. So I repented the next Lord's Day. So adoption is similar to justification, yet distinct from progressive sanctification in that it is a one-time act of God. In his book, Knowing God, I recommend that book very highly, J.I. Packer takes either the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene Creed, and he goes over every element. Knowing God, J.I. Packer famously observed, quote, if you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child and having God as his father. That's something we probably ought to ask people, instead of saying, are you saved? Because everybody says they're saved. Say, is God your father? Are you a child of God? The English Puritans held that adoption was a central benefit of redemption, inasmuch as it encompasses the totality of what it means to be brought into a saving relationship with God as our Father. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, Our Father. The Apostle Paul noted that every believer has the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Christian life simply cannot be lived in fruitful service to God unless it is lived in light of the truth of the believer's sonship in full union with Jesus Christ. Now, there is a video series by Sinclair Ferguson, who is a Squawish man. He speaks, and I love his accent, about union with Christ. He's got a book written about that, too, Union with Christ. And that's what he thinks the whole of all salvation is about, us becoming in union with Christ. And this sonship is rooted in the eternal relationship between God the Father and God the Son. There is only one eternally begotten, infinitely beloved Son of God. However, the sonship that we receive in adoption is also rooted in the Son's covenantal standing that He obtained by accomplishing the work of redemption. So even though God the Son is eternally the Son of the Father within the Godhead, according to his humanity and redemptive history, he gained a covenantal standing as the adopted son by accomplishing the work of redemption. Now, that needs to be explained a whole lot more than what I did, but it's a book. And so just buy the book, Union with Christ, and you'll get it. As Psalms 2 predicted, the messianic king would achieve the right to be adopted as the covenantal son of God and the head of a new humanity. This truth is not to be confused with the early church heresy called adoptionism. With every truth of the Bible, there's a perversion. There's thousands of heresies. There's seven major roots. I preached on the history of heresy, but A heresy attacks the deity or the humanity of Jesus, one or the other or both, and it attacks God the Father or it attacks grace. That's what all heresies do. So adoptionism is a heresy, which came from the heretic Arius. Rather, Jesus is the eternal Son of God, who is the head of the redeemed humanity. The last Adam gained a covenantal status of sonship on account of his saving work. Therefore, all who trust in him now have the right and privilege of being the children of God. So, Brother Robert, look at John 1, 12 and 13. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name. Those who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." You hear people all the time saying, receive Christ, receive Christ, receive Christ. That's a biblical term. But what does it mean? So we got to make sure that when we say you need to trust in Jesus, what does that mean? What are you talking about? Trust in Jesus. That people are understanding what we're saying or it's not doing them any good. And another thing I noticed, too, when people go to church, they don't want to act like they don't know. So they'll say, yeah, I trust in Jesus. I'm sure. OK, I've got that. I don't know what you're talking about. When we first started coming here, y'all were saying all kinds of stuff. I had no clue. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? And I feel bad about that, because other people are saying the same thing. And we've got to be able to talk. I try to talk in Alabama English, but sometimes I don't. And I've looked back on my radio broadcast, and I've used phrases that's not true, that's not accurate. And I use them because that's the way I was taught. And I've got to get it out of my lexicon. The doctrine of adoption is built both on the son's relationship to the father within the Godhead and on the promise of the everlasting inheritance in the covenant of grace. All through redemptive history, there were allusions to the doctrine of sonship from Adam to Israel and from Israel to Christ. In the New Testament, the adoption of believers is rooted in Jesus' own eternal relationship to his father and in his redeeming work as the last Adam. And I forgot to bring a videotape for Sister Barbara. Golly, just remember that. In Jesus's genealogy, Adam is called the son of God, but only for one reason. God made Adam in his image and likeness. Now, let me tell you the answer. We don't know. That's the answer. Here's the question. Why did Adam sin? He's made in the image and likeness of God. You say, well, we all have a fallen nature. Adam didn't have a fallen nature until he sinned. Now, if you think that one's tough, Why did Lucifer fall? Why did Lucifer? He was in heaven. He's where I want to be. In the presence of God. And that wasn't good enough for him. She got Judas Iscariot. As far as I'm concerned, he cast out devils and healed the sick and raised the dead, just like all the other apostles. Or he would have stood out and that would have been a hint. I'm conjecturing that. And he was three and a half years with Jesus and he didn't love him. He betrayed him with a kiss. But if you stop and think about it, only people close to you have the ability to betray you. Strangers can't betray you. Only close people to you. People say they love you. I was a broken hearted. We had lost a couple of people in this church. And I went to a conference in California, John MacArthur's church, and I was just tore up. And I went to him and I asked him, I said, you know, we did two people leave and. It's just like a divorce, it's like a death, it hurts. He said, sure does. I said, what do you do about it? He said, you can't do that. You got two choices where you can harden your heart so that you don't get hurt, but then you can't work with people. You can't work with them because you don't love them. If you love people and they leave and you know they're wrong and you know they're going out in sin, it kills you. But he said, here's the thing, you lose two people, I'll lose 250 people at one time. And he said, I baptized them and I've been in their homes and I prayed with them. And they dodged me in the store, they didn't even want to look at me. And you say, why? I don't know. Well, but here's the good news. As long as there's life, there's hope. And maybe God had to do something with them. Maybe they had an unsettled issue or I don't know. And then they come back and they're strong and there's the hope. And so I have unsaved people in my family and I grieve and it's grievous. It hurts. Because if they die, they go to hell, as far as I know. And I don't have the ability to assign them into hell. I have the ability to preach the gospel to them. And if they don't accept the gospel and repent and trust, I can tell them they're going to hell. I have that authority. But I don't make them go to hell. But as long as I leave the light on and I leave the door open. And I try to do a better job. And then you go through things. Well, maybe I've been too hard. Maybe I've been too in their face. And I'll back up a little bit. And the only thing that does is they smell blood in the water, and they come at you, because they already believe something that's wrong. And then they want you to believe what they believe. And so it's a tug of war. It's back and forth. It's back and forth. And don't ever give up the offensive. Don't try to play defense here, because you'll get overwhelmed. be on the offense. So I am. I don't know if it's by nature what I did play offense and football, but I believe in offense. You go after and I'm going to score so many touchdowns, you won't have trouble keeping up with me. And you're going to run out of time. And so that's why I believe about Satan. That's why I believe about the church. The church needs to be on the offense, not the defense. And. We need to go, go, go, go, go, go, go and get out there and preach and teach and whatever. And just wear Satan out trying to keep up with us. Amen to that. And then we know who told me to get up and go. Amen. Yeah, it's just hard for me to play defense when he told me to get up and go. I mean, how do you defensively get up and go? And he said, well, I'm scared I'll make a mistake. Let me end that right now. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to say things that ain't right, and you're going to do things that's not right. And if you're in ministry, if you're a deacon and elder, you're going to say things and do things that people are going to leave the church because of you. I always tell people that when they get in the ministry. And you're going to feel horrible about that. And you should, because you probably were wrong. And when that happens, I got you back. Maybe so. Maybe so, but it wasn't okay that they did what they did, and they made a mistake. It was not something they did on purpose, but people got offended. And it's hard to get them back, because nobody has done that in this church more than me. So I got you back when that happens. I will stand with you. In the New Testament, the adoption of believers is rooted in Jesus' own eternal relationship to his Father in his redeeming work as the last Adam, hallelujah. In Jesus' genealogy, Adam is called the son of God, Luke 3.38. But only for one reason, God made Adam in his image and likeness. However, Adam marred the image and likeness of God, bringing himself and all of his offspring into the bondage of sin. since the fall, all mankind proceeding from Adam by ordinary generation are slaves of sin rather than sons of God." If you read Genesis, the Bible says he made man in his image and in his likeness. And then in chapter 5, it says Adam had a son that was made in his image, fallen, You're not, you don't, you're not, you don't get, you're not born and then you do something bad and that's what makes you fallen. Therefore, before you're, when you, from the time you're born to the time you know what to do and you don't do the right thing, it's this age of innocence, that's a lie. That's Roman Catholicism. So you get 12 and it's the age of accountability, Roman Catholicism. They got it from Samuel being 12 and Jesus being 12. They just picked a number. Had nothing to do with salvation in either case. But it's just a lie from hell. You're corrupt and fallen and a child of Satan in the mother's womb. That's why it's so amazing. Pentecostal said, well, you got to get saved, then you get filled with the Holy Spirit. Really? John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit before he was born. Hallelujah. Glory. So you just said you had to be saved, then filled. So he's saved, then he got filled before he was born. Figure that one out. The history of redemption is the history of God turning slaves of sin into sons of God by forgiving their sins and restoring His image in those He redeems through His eternal Son." Hallelujah! How do you read that and not jump? When He redeemed old covenant Israel from their bondage in Egypt, God was forming a covenant people who would function as His corporate firstborn son in the world. Look at Exodus 4, 21 and 22, Sister Terri. The Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders which I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then you will say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. That's what God told Moses to tell Pharaoh, that Israel is my firstborn. So Israel in the Old Testament is a type of Jesus Christ, right? That's the whole Old Testament. It is symbols, signs, types, shadows of the genuine. And so everything in the Old Testament was tangible and natural, an earthly tabernacle, a physical thing, a physical people. Everything in the New Testament is spiritual, a heavenly Jerusalem, a heavenly tabernacle. things you can't see, because what you see is temporal, what you cannot see is eternal, the writer of Hebrews taught us. I'm telling you, Hebrews is a masterpiece of getting this in your head. And once you get it in your head, you see how wrong, that's too harsh a word, how off people are about teaching about this stuff. Because you can't have it both ways. You can't be in the New Covenant and be in the Old Covenant at the same time. And I wouldn't want to be. Adam was the protological son of God. Aren't you glad that you got for that word, right? Proto means first, logical means in order. So he was the first son in order, son of God. In other words, Adam was the first type of Jesus, while Israel was the topological son, typological son of God. physical symbolism. But Adam and Israel anticipated the coming of Christ, the eternal Son of God, or the last Adam, or the true Israel. So when Jesus came into the world, He fulfilled everything that Adam and Israel failed to fulfill, thereby securing the adoption and everlasting inheritance for all believers. It is like Well, it's better than this. This is a lousy example. Probably the most wonderful piece of property. And you know about it and you've seen it from your car driving by it. And it's just beautiful. It's immaculate and it's perfect. And there's no swamp on it. And it's great. And somebody you don't even know. Buys that property and gives it to you. For no other reason than he loves you. That property's heaven. And I don't deserve to go to heaven. I don't deserve right now to go to heaven. And I'm going to heaven because he loved me and gave himself for me. My. The theological concept of the firstborn is central to the doctrine of adoption in the history of Israel in redemptive history. The firstborn was to be consecrated to God from the womb. Look at Exodus 13, 1 and 2, brother. Keith, help me Jesus. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, sanctify to me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast, it belongs to me. Belongs to me, belongs to me. Here you're a woman who doesn't have a child and you're crying out to God to give you a child. and you want a child so bad, you want a son so bad, and God gives you a son, and you give him back to God. What a woman, what a woman. Sister Marie, Exodus 22, 29. You shall not delay the offering from your harvest in your vantage. The firstborn of your son you shall give to me. Wow, wow. God pronounced judgment on all the firstborn of Egypt as the climax of his plague, since Israel was his firstborn son. The firstborn son was the heir of the father's inheritance. In the New Testament, the concept of the old covenant inheritance is expanded and fulfilled. The firstborn son and the inheritance was typological of the new covenant blessing of our saving adoption in union with Christ. The writer of Hebrews expressly declared that Jesus is what, Brother Claude? The heir of all things. The heir of all things. He's not just the creator of all things. He's also the heir of all things. And so our inheritance is wrapped up in him. I'm going to inherit because he's going to inherit. Huh? And I can't be distinct from him. If I'm distinct from him, I perish. Amen. So let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your word. Thank you that you did not leave us to wander aimlessly through this life. Lord, I pray this has been helpful. I pray, God, this has been encouraging. I pray it's been inspiring. I pray that it's helped people to understand the beauty and the majesty of adoption, the importance of adoption. And Lord, let it sear into our conscience, and let it become part of our lexicon. Let it become part of our prayers. Let it become part of our meditation, our conversations. In Jesus' name we pray.