Turn with me in your Bibles, please, to 1 Peter 1, verse 17. Hear now the inerrant, infallible, and inspired word of God. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work past the time of your sojourning here in fear, For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. who verily was ordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you who by him do believe in God and raised him up from the dead and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be in God. May God add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his most holy word. Let us hear from the Reverend Stephen Charnock as an introduction to our sermon today. Adam would be his own rule and ruler. He would be the rule of good and evil to himself. He would be his own end. These things must pass away. We must come to a fiduciary reliance upon God under the new head of his appointment and make him our highest good, our chief end, our exact rule, and therefore what is called the new creature. Galatians 6.15 is called faith working by love, Galatians 5.6. Adam's great failures were unbelief and self-love. He would not believe God's precept and threatening. He would not depend upon God. To this is opposed faith, which is a grace that empties us of ourselves and fixes us in our dependence on another. He would also advance himself and be his own rule and end to know as God to this is opposed love, which is an acting for God and his glory. And these two are essential parts of the new creature. I'd like to, Lord willing, finish. our study of the fear of slaves and sons with one more sermon on moving from the fear of slaves to sons, and this in regard or in addition to what we have already seen. We said earlier that it is impossible to please God by working under a legal fear. So why would we do it? The fear of slaves is a legal fear. It is impossible to please God without faith, Hebrews 11.6. His sons and daughters come to him, not by works, but by faith, with confidence in his being, in his fatherhood, and in his rewards, in his blessings. Secondly, we said that the slave has hard thoughts of God, but the son places those hard thoughts upon sin as the master, and that rightly. The way of the transgressor is hard. The way of the son under the yoke of Christ is easy and light. This is why Christ will call it his yoke. If we would move from the one to the other then, we must come out from under the deception that God our father is a hard master and he is not. The third thing we said in moving from the fear of slaves to the fear of sons is that we looked at coming out from under fearing God or serving God, excuse me, either for fear of punishment or as a mercenary looking for rewards. The remedy here is not playing God ourselves and judging and determining necessary outcomes, but by taking joy in the means and the service that God has provided in his commands and believing that we are received for Christ Jesus' sake and resting in that. Often people professing Christians will say, like we heard in Malachi, it is vain to serve God. or as we heard in Psalm 73, where the psalmist writes, truly I've cleansed my hands in vain. That's what we get when we're reasoning to outcomes rather than resting upon God's fatherhood. And when we do that, we will always be disappointed. We will never have the outcome that we think. And so we cannot rest then on outcomes as slaves would. But we rest rather in what it is to have our situation from our father who has provided for us and working in that situation to please him. And the final point that I'd like to raise on moving from the fear of slaves to the fear of sons has to do with what happens when we sin as slaves and what happens when we sin as sons. And I think if we can rightly lay this out that none of us would want to remain under the fear of slaves any longer with regard to our father because we see the misery of sinning as a slave before God, and we see also the mercy of sinning as a son before his father. Think of that for a moment with me, that if we sin as a slave, what are the things that regard that kind of servitude or fill up that kind of servitude? As a slave, you could be cast out. If you displease your master often enough, if you displease him deeply enough, what will he do? He'll sell you. He'll get rid of you. He'll send you off somewhere else. He'll send you packing with nothing. And so the last night of your servitude, you were in the bunkhouse. And the first night of being let go, you were in the forest, sleeping with the wild animals, foraging for your food. That's what it is with a slave. He cannot know from day to day whether or not he pleases his master. But the fear of sons is different from that. We know that our father will never cast us off. That although we may sin grievously against him, that he has forgiven us, not for ourselves, but in Christ. And that there's nothing we can do to sin ourselves out of God's favor. that we stand with him. Oh, he will chastise us, he will afflict us, he will punish us, but not in wrath, but in love, in mercy, in seeking to draw us to himself more closely, rather than to drive us away. As sons and daughters in Jesus Christ, beloved, you will never be cast out. What did Jesus say? All that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and he that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. No one is able to pluck them out of my hand, nor my Father's hand. So, beloved, let us look at some detail at what it means to sin against God as a slave and what that looks like and how we can maybe use that as an indicator, as a rule whereby to judge our own reactions and responses when we are found sinning against our Father. And the first example that we have studied before but now we'll bring forth is 1 Samuel chapter 15. We have gotten, haven't we, a lot of use out of Old King Saul. He has shown himself to be of great use to believers, as an example not to be followed, and as an indicator when our attitudes and thoughts have gone astray so that we might draw ourselves back into proper alignment with who we are in Jesus Christ. So notice, we'll begin our reading in verse 13. And Samuel said to Saul, what meaneth this bleating of the sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen, which I hear? And Saul said, well, they have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God and the rest. we have utterly destroyed. Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Stay on. And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel? And the Lord sent thee on a journey and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil and didst evil in the sight of the Lord. And Saul said unto Samuel, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal." And Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams, for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now, therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord. And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee, for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and it rent. And Samuel said unto him, the Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine that is better than thou. And also the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he is not a man that he should repent. Then he said, I have sinned, yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God. So Samuel turned again after Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord. What do we see in Saul here? We see a slavish obedience. And this slavish obedience is characterized in several different ways. First of all, shall we say it this way, slavish obedience is never really obedience. It's a feigned obedience. It's a false obedience. It's a sloppy obedience. It's an insincere obedience. It is an obedience that rises not up out of a heart of love for God, but like we said before, either out of seeking after God's blessing or to avoid punishment. And when we sin, this comes to the fore. Saul has something as the object of his desire as his, quote, highest good, but guess what? It is not God. It is not God his father as his highest good. Remember what Asaph said during his repentance in Psalm 73. It is good for me that I should draw near to God. Remember that? What else did he say? There is none on earth that I desire beside thee. This is what repentance looks like. Whereas Asaph will also say about himself, when I was in that other mindset, I was like a beast. Notice Saul here. He started out little in his own eyes. Well, that's good. That's how we all want to start, but it is also how we want to maintain. But he didn't stay that way. He became someone who thought himself competent to arbitrate the commands of God. That's not being little in your own sight. That's not behaving yourself as a son, is it? That's seeking as a slave to get by with what you can get by with. Because there's no love for the Father. Beloved, when we take the commandments of God and we begin to parse and pick and choose based on our own conveniences or desires, just remember, we may still be the sons of God, but those are sins. Those are habits that slaves partake in. They will take and leave because they have no love to their father. They don't have God as their father. So they're looking for benefits, they're looking for comforts, they're looking for a way to partake in something that is less arduous than real obedience. Whereas God your father has given you a full tale of commands for your obedience because he knows what's best for you. The mindset of a slave and the mindset of a son are completely different on that. So notice that Samuel accuses Saul of doing something. When you were little in your own eyes, you did well, but now the Lord sent you on an errand, and no longer little in your own eyes, you thought you could arbitrate or negotiate as to what God had commanded. This is the mindset of the slave. And notice Saul's immediate response when he hears that from Samuel. He said, yay. Can I put it in today's parlance? What are you talking about? Of course I obeyed the Lord. I went the way that he commanded me. I did attack the Amalekites. And we did destroy all of them, except Agag. OK. Yeah. But we brought him back as a trophy to God's glory. and we brought back the animals so we could sacrifice them to God. Isn't that better than what God required? Wouldn't this be better? Wouldn't this work? Oh, there are so many things that have entered into churches because the people of God think they work, rather than obeying the voice of the Lord. The son obeys for the sake of the commandment and his love for his father. The slave obeys because he's going to excuse himself for doing something that's more comfortable or palpable to him. Saul's highest good was for him to be king and to be in charge. That's what he thought. And so he says, in this way, I will magnify my authority. I'll bring back Agag and we'll bring back the animals. And let us remember that in the animals and in those sacrifices, they would have been peace offerings to the Lord. And that would then have been shared in by all of the people. In other words, they brought their own meal back with them. Let's remember that. that to sacrifice them to the Lord thy God, as Saul will say, would be to ingratiate himself to the people. Look at what kind of king you have. This is a king that allows you to bring back your own meal with you. This is a king that will feed you on the largesse of your enemies. So note what Saul is doing. He's got a better idea. So then, Samuel will tell him, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has rejected you from being king. Now notice that Saul changes his tune. As soon as he hears that the kingdom is going to be withdrawn from him, listen to what he says. No longer is it, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. Notice, Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned. I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in thy words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice." Notice he's still blaming someone else. He refuses to take responsibility. This is again slavish fear and not the fear of sons. So then he asks Samuel to pardon him and to turn again with me that I may worship the Lord. And Samuel said, I won't go back with you. You have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected thee from being king. And so Samuel turns from Saul. Saul takes hold of his garment to turn him back around and tears the garment. And this is the most telling, I think. The Lord will use that as an object lesson and Samuel will say to him, the Lord hath rent the kingdom from your hand. May I ask you, brothers and sisters, why was it necessary that God should rend the kingdom from Saul's hand? Because a son would have stepped down. A son would have had God as his highest good, and when he heard, the Lord hath rejected thee from being king, he would have said, then we need to get on with this. But he refused, because for Saul, his highest good was being king. You see how the slave has a different good, a different highest good, a different object of his desire than pleasing and loving his father. And so he turned away from the commandment of God at the first because it wasn't palpable to him. He tried to secure the object of his desire, him being king, with the people. He brought back the trophy and the animals. He only confessed he had sinned when the kingship was threatened to be taken from him. He thought that he could be a good little boy and retain it. And then when Samuel made it sure to him that it was final, he rent Samuel's garment so that the Lord would speak to him and saying, you know, I'm having to rend the kingdom with you. And as we've said before, so we say again, if God says, I'm going to take this away from you, no matter what it is, Beloved, no matter what it is, even some of the most deepest losses that any of us could ever face, the Lord will tell you it is for your salvation, for your holiness, and for your edification. This is why I'm taking it away. Trust your father. That's what sons do. That's what daughters do. Trust your father. That's what sons do. And don't say, no. No. I can't live without it. No. I can't exist without it. No. My life will be in shambles without it. No, it will not. You can't live without your Father. You can't live without your God. You can't live without Him. And your life is a shambles without Him. Right? But the slave doesn't see that. He's got some other object as his, quote, highest good. And so instead of repentance and salvation for Saul, he is hardened. And the worst thing for him spiritually is that he retained the kingdom. He desired the worst thing for him spiritually, and that is what he received. And so he ends up dying then as one pleading for his life on the floor of the Witch of Endor. Beloved, aside from the spiritual bankruptcy and offense to God that Saul has exhibited here, which ought always to be our first consideration, even if considered only from self-interest, can we picture a more tortured soul than his? He had, as we have noted, something other than what God had said to him in mind as his highest and best and blessedness and reward. But let us remember what God said to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15, verse 1. Behold, Abraham, I am thy shining shield, and I am thine exceeding great reward. We could look at several passages to show us that. Deuteronomy 33, 26 and following, Psalm 16, five and six, the Lord is my portion, I have a good heritage. Psalm 142, verse five, but let's look instead at the last on my list here, Philippians chapter three, verse eight. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss. for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but done, that I may win Christ and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, that I may know him. and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. It is knowing Christ, that is the apostle's aim. It is having him as his blessedness and reward. It is having Christ as his shining shield and exceeding great reward. Beloved, there is nothing that must come between you and him. And everything else, as we read about personified wisdom, nothing that thou canst desire can be compared unto her. Nothing. So the son then draws near to his God, his father, in confidence that he can do no better than this. No earthly position, no advantage, no relationship, no parentage, no inheritance will compare to the Lord himself as our portion and our inheritance as his sons and his daughters. Esau justified himself when he had sinned. He blamed Jacob, he swindled me out of my birthright and now he's taken away my blessing as well." Of course that's not exactly how it happened, was it? In fact Esau had a constant reminder of that in that he was named, his descendants were named Adom, red, because it was red that he desired rather than God. We remember that. But what did he do? He blamed everyone else but himself. The slave blames everyone but himself, because he thinks that God's chastisements are more than he can bear, rather than it being the goodness of God that leads to repentance, as Paul will tell Timothy. He will behave himself like Cain and say, my punishment is greater than I can bear, instead of embracing the punishment. This is what trusting sons and daughters do. They embrace their father's punishment when they have sinned, knowing that, indeed, sin is their ruin and not chastisement. You know, often in the Psalms, we read about calling upon God. And we call upon God for all kinds of things, don't we? And we should. But may I say it this way, don't make this error of calling upon God only for temporal relief from things. Because your temporal circumstances, hear me well beloved, your temporal circumstances do not imperil your spiritual estate. But if you're sinning, that imperils your spiritual estate. And so call upon God while you're sinning that you may be delivered from that rather than some temporal infirmity, some temporal affliction, some temporal inconvenience. Whenever we hear the psalmist calling upon God, fill up the context of that calling upon God not only with temporal things but with regard to spiritual things as well. That we call upon God when we have sinned against him. We run to him rather than from him so that we may know his forgiveness and spiritual healing. When we say that he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, that the chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed, the primary purview of the prophet in Isaiah 53 is our spiritual maladies, not our temporal maladies. Let us then, as sons and daughters, call upon God, not for relief from temporal difficulty, inconvenience, and affliction, but particularly for deliverance from temptation and sin and falling short of the glory of God. So, how many times do we read in scripture, in the Psalms especially, about calling upon the Lord? Psalm 18.5, 55.16, 86.7, But calling upon God in times of trouble, as we said, is not only temporal things. Turn with me to Psalm 50 and verse 15 for a moment. And call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. What do you think the psalmist is writing about here? He's not particularly writing about earthly difficulties, temporal difficulties. He's talking about the times when we come under spiritual affliction. When God allows us, doesn't he? When in his providence he withdraws a measure of his protection and we come under the temptation and oppression of the enemy of our souls. Call upon God in such times as that. When you are tempted to sin, call upon God. Cry out unto Him at such times. Your soul is more imperiled during those times than it is in temporal times. A slave, he limits his calling out upon God to his conveniences and comforts, not a son. He desires not to offend his father. And so when he comes under any kind of temptation, that is when he calls upon the Lord. Look at 2 Chronicles, let me see if I can find it here, there it is, 33. 2 Chronicles 33. Verse 11, we're talking about Manasseh here, King Manasseh. Wherefore, the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto him, And he was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord, he was God. Wicked, wicked King Manasseh, who was taken, and we all acknowledge that there was some temporal affliction here. But notice what Manasseh did, and this the slave cannot do. He humbled himself before God. Oh, a slave easily cries out for relief. A slave easily cries out for relief out from under temptation and affliction and difficulty. Something a slave cannot do is to humble himself before God as Manasseh did. No, it was for his sins that Manasseh cried out unto the Lord, imprisoned in Babylon by the Assyrians. And so it was then that Manasseh knew that the Lord, he was God. He was converted. And he brought forth the fruits meet for repentance. And he endeavored for the rest of his life to please his father in heaven. And notice how much of a grief it must have been to Manasseh that his former sins prevented him from bringing that full reformation that his father had brought. Those are the kinds of things that sons and daughters think about. And so beloved, when we sin against the Lord, this is a wonderful time to take stock. What kind of responses, what kinds of reactions do we have? Is it to call upon the Lord or is it to hide from him? And there are many ways that we can hide. We can hide by excusing ourselves. We can hide by blaming others. We can Manifest our shame by moving away from God and doing what Adam did and hiding ourselves in the bushes and so on. Or rather, we can come to God for healing and for restoration. So then, we must stop trying to have something as our highest good other than our father-son, father-daughter relationship with God our Father. That is your highest good, beloved. It will always be your highest good. This is what the son is convinced of. This is what the daughter is convinced of. Anything that rises up to assault or to impinge that relationship, That becomes the object of prayer and moving against it. We come to the Lord and not away from him. That service will never be resented. It will never be thought vain or worthless. He who has all favor will give all favor to you in Christ. He will receive your imperfect service for the sake of his perfect natural son. and there is no reason ever to estrange yourself from him. When you find that your pleasure and satisfaction in Christ and in his perfect righteousness, your services then will no longer hold sway in your own estimation and you will lay down every vestige of self-righteousness and you will not doubt of your favor with your father because you are accepted in the beloved. Ephesians 1.6, not according to your works, but by His grace. Our Lord Jesus Christ has magnified the law and made it honorable, and we stand in Him. And so when you sin, there is no need for that Saul-like excuse. When you sin, there is no need for insisting upon your own obedience, that sloppy and half-hearted obedience, and pleading that as somehow acceptable. There is no need for that. No, rather you come to your Father who already knows, and who has already provided satisfaction for your sins. Beloved, we come to Him who accepts us in Christ. and who will never send us away. The slave doesn't know God like that. He's afraid at every turn. He's afraid of being sent out. He's afraid of losing the object of his desire, and that object may be something as simple as the approval of his peers. Not so the son, who has his eye upon the father's pleasure at all times. Like the apostles in Acts 5, 38 through 42, we count ourselves privileged to suffer for his namesake. They took pleasure in pleasing the Lord in Christ, keeping the command to speak the word of the Lord with boldness, and they counted it a pleasure and privilege to suffer for his namesake. The slave is defeated by persecution, and his pretended faith is found to be false. But the people of God, according to Romans chapter 12, are more than conquerors, not in spite of these things, but in these things. Turn with me to Romans eight, and let's take a look at that. He, verse 32, that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things, not in spite of these things, but in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor the things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is in those things that we conquer, beloved, not in spite of them. So, as we draw this study to a close, I have one more point to make, and it's from the Proverbs in chapter 29. It is a most curious passage, as in the Proverbs so often, there is very little context, it's one verse, yet it is a verse, I believe, that is so very comforting to the people of God as we think rightly on it. We may have been induced through this study of the fear of slaves and the fear of sons, and in moving from the fear of slaves to the fear of sons, we may have been induced to examine ourselves and to recognize that there's still much slavish fear in our hearts that need to be rooted out. That we've not yet come to that full assurance of God that we're still harboring some other thing, perhaps as maybe not a higher good than God, but something beside him. Some of you that we earnestly desire and we kind of, you know what folks do is they end up putting God in that second fiddle position. You know, God will accept me anyway so I'll have this thing. Right? Instead of having God as our highest good. We may have seen that as we've examined ourselves through this, these last three or four or seven or eight sermons, we may have seen that there's still much slavish fear. Listen to me with regard or listen to Solomon with regard to Proverbs 29 verse 21. He, He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him become his son at length. Beloved, as we said a few weeks ago, there is some usefulness for the fear of slaves. It's not completely useless. It's not a useless fear. and especially if we consider it here in Solomon's context. Have you found that there's still way too much slavish fear in your hearts? You're in good hands because the God who will bring up a slave delicately from his youth will have him his son at length. The Lord has you right where he wants you. Don't flee from him. He is bringing you up delicately as a slave that he may have you as his son and as his daughter. He's training you. But remember, beloved, you must remain in the house. You must remain in that relationship. You must remain near to him. Don't venture off. He won't send you away. He has something greater in mind. He has your adoption in mind. And he will indeed in his day, as we read earlier in Romans chapter eight, manifest his sons and his daughters one day. We may recognize, may we not, that there's just too much slavish fear left in our hearts. That's okay. That's okay. continue hearing him, continue under the means of grace, continue in his house, continue feeding on him. And there will come a day when, especially in glory, every vestige of that slavish fear will be removed and the manifested sons and daughters of God will be made glorious before their father. Don't give up. Continue to persevere. Why else would Solomon write what he has written here in verse 21? Unless he would have us to understand that our God sometimes does receive men and women that are, quote unquote, scared or put to a fright into the kingdom of God. That he may have them as his sons and his daughters at length. Let's stand and call upon his name. Our dear Heavenly Father, we come unto Thee. We're thankful for Thy goodness to us and for Thy mercy. And that although as we look upon our hearts, we recognize the remnants and the vestiges of slavish fear, O Lord, we pray that we might learn more and more how to serve Thee and that our service to Thee more and more would resemble the service of thy natural son, our Lord Jesus Christ, with openness, with trust, with rest, with confidence in thy mercy. O Lord, we pray, afflict us and make us conquerors in our afflictions. O Lord, we pray, turn our afflictions into triumphs. Lord, we ask, turn our fears into faith. Lord, we pray, turn our former service of thine as we have served thee in fear or as mercenaries. Turn that, Lord, into the fear of sons and daughters with full confidence in thy mercy and acceptance in Jesus Christ. Turn us away, Lord, from everything that would draw us off from having Thee as our blessedness and reward, our exceeding great reward and our shining shield, we pray, that we might know Thee and our Lord Jesus Christ and Thy Spirit. For we pray in Christ Jesus' name.