Chapter 4. You get to see how this new pulpit preaches. I appreciate Charles' work. This is not really a piece of furniture. This is more a work of art up here. You ought to look it over if you haven't seen it. I was preaching one time in West Virginia, and over the back, they had a balcony. Across the balcony was These words, woe is me if I preach not the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's a good thing to be reminded of every time you stand in this place. Charles, very thoughtfully, looks like he is etched up here where only I can see it. These words. But God. But God. What wonderful words. Paul, in Ephesians 2, reminding us of our deadness in sin, dead we were, dead we would remain. But God, rich in righteousness, whose love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ. Galatians 4, this morning, Galatians 4, verses 1 through 7. Galatians 4, verses 1 through 7. Jonathan Edwards, I believe, was the greatest mind that America has ever produced. And Edwards once said that the most difficult question in theology was how the two covenants, the New Testament and the Old Testament, relate to one another. And trust me that when Edwards says something is difficult, lightweights like you and me are really over our heads. And we're dealing with that question this morning, and I do believe, in spite of the difficulty, and I recognize what Edwards was saying, we have some light. We have some clues given to us as to how we are to view the transition from the old age, in the Old Testament era, under the law of Moses, to this New Testament day of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Galatians 4, beginning in verse 1. Paul writes, Now I say that the heir As long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant." And literally the word servant here, doulos in Greek, slave. Some of you who are little children, you agree with that, don't you? As long as you're a child, you really don't differ a whole lot from a slave. You're being told everything you're supposed to do, right? Okay, that's what Paul is saying. The heir, he may be heir to a fortune, he may be heir to the throne, but as long as he's a child, he differs nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all. But he's under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father. Even so, we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son. than an heir of God through Christ. We think back over our study thus far or recall that in the previous chapter, Paul has been giving us sort of an overview of redemptive history. We start with fallen man. Oh, he doesn't really start there in Galatians, but in Romans he does with the fall of man, the entire race falling in Adam. And then he points us to Abraham's day. in which Abraham is singled out from the rest of the human race and given a promise of blessing that is to come upon all nations. 430 years later, the Law of Moses comes into effect. And that, of course, was part of the discussion in chapter 3 of, wait a minute, what's going on here? Here God gave an unconditional covenant of blessing to Abraham. and then imposes this law, which is not unconditional, but conditioned upon obedience, and if you don't obey it, it curses you. So, in other words, God has promised blessing, but he has put us under a system that curses us. It appears that the promise and the law are working at cross purposes to one another. But Paul goes on to explain that the law's purpose was for a lot of things. It involves the fact that we're sinners, and as I have said back earlier, it objectified sin, it objectified righteousness, and especially the law pointed us forward that there's no hope in me, there's no hope in you, but there's hope in the coming one. And so the next great step We started with the fall, with the promise to Abraham, the law of Moses, and now finally the appearance, the coming of Jesus Christ into this world. I want you to notice that back in chapter 3, verse 23, there is a change from we, in verses 23 through 25, to ye starting in verse 26. Do you see that change of pronoun? There's been a lot made of that. that Paul, by using the word we, is basically explaining his situation as a Jew living under the law, and by ye, he is referring to the Gentile situation who, remember, were never technically under the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was a covenant, a national covenant, made with national Israel, and the Gentile per se was never under that particular covenant. However, as I pointed out, the writer, or Paul, certainly extrapolates from their situation to our situation. You say, well, maybe the Law of Moses condemned Israel, but it doesn't condemn me. After all, I'm never under the Law of Moses. Paul reasons exactly the opposite. If the Law of Moses condemns Israel with all their advantages being set apart to special privileges, special promises, and so forth, if they couldn't make it, you don't have a prayer. We are, after all, the old filthy Gentiles, the Goliath, the unwashed. We're just sort of out there, you know, far off from the things of God. At least Israel was close by, shall we say. They had a fighting chance. They had a shot at it. You and I, we were just lost as lost could be. But notice that he extrapolates Look at Galatians 3 verse 22, from Israel's situation to our situation, the scripture has concluded all under sin. In other words, in the fact that Israel was shown to be sinful by the law, the law then has concluded, notice how the scripture is here sort of personified. The scripture concludes or shuts us up all to sin. In other words, in the fact of Israel being shown as sinful, you and I are shown as sinful. I go back to my previous illustration. Don't want to wear it out, but I think it's a good one, so I keep using it. If you want to test the water in a well to see if it's drinkable. You don't have to test every molecule of water in the well, do you? You dip you a test tube down in the well, you take a sample, and you test the sample. If the sample is drinkable, the whole well is drinkable. If the sample is impure and undrinkable, unpotable, then the whole well is contaminated. Right? That's how we do it. God dipped down into humanity and pulled out one family, the family of Abraham, called them out of utter idolatry, separated them, brought them into the land of Canaan, made a covenant with his descendants. In other words, there's his test too. Israel is going to be the test. Gave them the law, put them under the law, and the law proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israel was as sinful as sinful could be. Now, you do realize they flunked the final pretty badly. The final exam was when Jesus, the Son of God, is sent to them. And what did they do? They nailed Him to a cross. They murdered the Messiah. Oh, you say, those horrible Jews, how could they have done such a thing? My friend, you understand, they're just the sample. They're just like you and me. We would do no differently. Their sin is my sin. And what I see objectified in their experience under the law is exactly the same conclusions I can draw upon myself. And so Paul tells us that the law was never intended to save us or to justify us. He keeps saying that. I keep bringing up my illustrations over and over again. I mean, Paul, look at Galatians 2, 16, three times in one verse, three times in one verse, says that it's impossible for you and I to be justified by the works of the law. You reckon he's trying to get something across to us? I remember a guy, I was down at a conference in central Louisiana, and Conrad Murrell, his church sponsors this, and Conrad had sort of a question and answer time during the meetings. pops up his question, you know over there where Peter is asked three times by our Lord if he loves him, you know that text, and three times Jesus says, feed my sheep. Well, the man's question to Conrad, he said, well, why did Jesus tell Peter three times to feed his sheep? Conrad looked at him and said, well, I suspect because he wanted him to feed his sheep. That's pretty good reasoning. I suspect that's why three times in one verse that Paul has told us that you will never be justified by keeping the law. It's not going to happen. To equate to it, The law is our chaperone to lead us to Christ. And verse 26, your children are sons literally of God by faith in Christ and you put on Christ. And so the law is intended to drive us away from any hope in ourself and to drive us to put our trust in Christ and in Christ alone. The promise that God gave Abraham isn't going to be fulfilled in the Jewish people. It's going to be fulfilled in one Jew, Jesus of Nazareth. He is the one who has received the promise. And guess what? You and I, whether Jew or Gentile, can get in on the deal through faith in him. Through faith in him, that promise made to Abraham, to the families of the earth, is fulfilled in me." Notice he says there at the end of chapter 3 that you have put on Christ in verse 27. It's like putting on a coat. As I said, it seems to refer to the Roman family tradition, you know, sometimes way back in the good old days, antebellum times, here in the South, you had the coming out parties for the Southern Belles. You know, that's true. Okay, just want to make sure of my facts here. They don't do that anymore, I don't suppose. They do? Well, in Pontotoc, other places, okay. I mean, Pontotoc's about a hundred years behind the times. But anyway, the point is that even in a lot of customs you have places where you have like a coming out party. In Mexico, the Quinceanera celebration for a girl on her fifteenth birthday. It's a big celebration. You have a bar mitzvahs in the Jewish culture. many other types of things like that, where you pass from being a child to an adult. And the Romans had a ceremony like that, that the Roman sun wore what was called a toga pretexta. It was a toga, and again, when we think of toga parties, we think of scantily clad people running around in sheets, you know, but that was not the Roman way. You had a tunic underneath this that covered your body and then a piece of cloth that was about 20 feet long. I mean, this was a huge piece of cloth that you wrapped around you and over you and then draped over your arm. You've seen the Roman statues with them standing there with part of their toga. hanging over their arm. That's just the way you did it. You go out on the town in good old Roman style, Roman culture, that's how you dressed. And the sons, the underage sons, had a white toga with a crimson stripe down the edge to indicate that they were not yet of age. And at the time appointed of the father, usually sometime between the child's 14th and 16th birthday, they have a big celebration, a coming out party if you will, where the son no longer is treated like a child, he's no longer under the chaperone, the pedagogue anymore. He receives the toga virilis. Olivia tells me that's how it's to be pronounced. Virilis is how it reads to us, but it means a virile man. By the way, in certain circles, that toga wirilis was also called the toga liberata. Free. I've been liberated. Liberated from what? From that pedagogue. From my chaperone. I'm now a grown man, and I can go out on my own into the world. You see the difference? And that toga was pure white, and it symbolized that this lad who had been treated as a son A little kid has now passed into adulthood. And Paul seems to be referring to that here at the end of chapter 3, and as we go in now into chapter 4, we see how he continues to elaborate on that point. One of the things you may have noticed thus far is that what we call the doctrines of grace are not very prominent in the book of Galatians. I don't think the word elect is ever used. The word predestination or predestined is never used. Those terms are to be found here. However, it becomes clear that even though those doctrines are not explicitly taught that that is the ground on which Paul is standing when he writes this letter. There's little hints. We'll see one this week. We'll see one again next week. We'll see hints that this is what is governing Paul's thinking. Because notice in chapter four, verse one, that we're talking about an heir. It might be an heir to a fortune. It might be an heir to a throne. That is, there is an heir that has something that one day is going to come to his possession. He doesn't have it yet, but he is heir to it. You understand the thinking. And we would say, well, what in theology is the equivalent of that? Well, it is that God has certain children marked out through election and predestination that blessing is going to be theirs, but it's not theirs yet. They have not yet obtained it. You can read where Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy that I endure all things for the elect's sake. Paul, why are you out here doing all this suffering? Why don't you just let free will reign? He says, no, I'm doing everything I'm doing for the elect's sake that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. It is marked out for them, but they do not yet have it until they come to faith in Christ. So Paul is using that same type of language here. You've got a child who is heir to something, but it is not yet in his possession. And the heir, perhaps to a fortune, to a business, to a throne in a Roman family, even though he's the heir, is treated not much different from a slave. He is placed, notice Paul says, under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the Father. Now, there's a difference between tutors and governors and the pedagogue, the schoolmaster that we saw back in chapter 3, 24. Notice, first of all, that we have plural tutors and governors in chapter 4, verse 2, where it was a singular pedagogue in chapter 3, verse 24. In other words, and the term. To be a tutor really here is to be a, what would be our equivalent, a guardian. I'm a little, you know, the Far Side cartoons, Gary Larkin, I must be a little nuts like him because I love that type of humor, but I remember the little dog, you know, as he's driving out, sticking his head out the window, shouting to his friend, I'm going to go get tutored. That's all I can think of when I think of the word tutor here. He didn't quite understand what was about to happen. But anyway, the tutor is someone who is responsible for you. It's not necessarily a teacher, but a guardian, a warden, if you will. And notice the second term, a governor. We think governesses. You know, like Maria in the Sound of Music, you know, to go be the governess for the Von Trapp children and so forth? That's the idea. That notice that Paul is saying we were under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father. We may have been elected from the foundation of the world, destined for heaven, for salvation, to be a child of God, but while we were in this situation, We're being treated like a slave and we're under tutors and governors. It's a broader term than just being under the law. Now, Israel, you see, was under such a tutor and governor. It's the law of Moses. It's their pedagogue. But notice that Paul here is extrapolating to everybody's situation and saying that every one of us, in one way or another, were under tutors and governors. Like I said, in the Jews' case, it was the Mosaic Law. For Gentiles, it was generally something else than the Mosaic Law, for sure. But in both cases, it was a bondage. Look at verse 3. Even so, when we were children, we were in bondage, slavery, under the elements, the elements of the world. I get fascinated and excited by things that I realize some of you could care less about, but this is one of the things that excites me, is the insight I have gained from studying this particular subject. The word elements here is a Greek word, stokeion. It originally meant to put things in a line. And then it became to means putting things in a sequence, and then eventually, and as it's being used here, it became used to indicate something that is an elementary principle. The closest thing we've got in our vernacular is the ABCs. Notice ABCs is a sequence, it's a list, but when we say you need to go back and study your ABCs, what are we really saying to someone? You need to go back to the first principles, to the elementary, you need to go back to first grade. That's what we're saying. And the word Stokian carried with it exactly that meaning. It was the elementary principles of the world, the cosmos. In other words, that we were in bondage and notice that Paul is speaking both of his experience as a Jew under the law and Gentiles in their experience under paganism as being in bondage to the Stokian. to the elemental principles of the world. That is an absolutely eye-opening, mind-blowing observation. Gentiles, under their idolatrous system, were under the same kind of system as Israel was I'm going to the wall. Do you understand? Paul is placing himself in the group that was a slave to these elementary systems. And he's saying that the Gentile, being a pagan, worshipping who knows what, was under the same kind of system. Notice what he's saying, that all men, as we say, are religious, aren't they? In fact, no matter how primitive you are, an anthropologist, he goes and studies a dig or something like that, and the first thing that clues him that he's dealing with man instead of monkeys, is he begins to find signs of their worship. It doesn't matter how primitive man is, you will find him worshiping something bigger than himself. He has a system of religion. And Paul is saying that the pagan system and Jewish system, the Mosaic system, are two systems of the same kind. They're both being in bondage to the Stochia, the ABCs of the universe. Let me try to illustrate what I'm talking about. A few years ago, you all may remember, I went down to teach in a bunch of Presbyterian pastors, by the way, in the Yucatan Peninsula, down below Merida, at a school there. It was a wonderful, wonderful time. One afternoon, we had some time off, and one of the men took Dan and I over to the great Mayan ruins at a place called Uxmal. And this is relatively an unknown Mayan site, so it was sort of interesting in that respect. It wasn't crowded, but oh, it was mind-blowing. Huge pyramids and these huge stone buildings that had been used in Mayan worship. And this was a huge temple where they offered sacrifices, sometimes human sacrifice, by the way. There was what struck my attention was this huge quadrangle, big stone buildings all the way around this rectangular field. And every now and then in these big buildings were these little entrances. And you could go through those entrances into the inside of this building that went all the way around this thing. It's like a football field with this huge building going all the way around it. And you would go in and you would look around and it's this huge chamber and you could even see where there was smoke up on the ceiling where it became apparent that people actually moved in there from time to time to live inside this thing. And it began to dawn on you that the Mayan priests lived in those places. As the Mayan priests went up to Uxmal to do their work, they lived in these little chambers. And it's then that bells and whistles started going off in my mind because we read in the Old Testament the Jewish priests did the same thing. They went up to Jerusalem and they lived in little chambers while they were there ministering, while they were taking their turn ministering at the temple. And it began to click with me. Well, you say the Jews have a temple. Well, they're the only religion on earth that has a temple. Wrong. Almost every religion on earth has a temple. The Mayans had a temple. Well, the Jews had priests. They're the only ones that had priests. Wrong. These guys had priests. You say, well, these Jews, they offered sacrifices. They're the only ones that did that. Wrong. Everybody, almost every religion on the face of the earth has those features. Do you begin to see what Paul is saying here? That the Jews were placed under the Stochean just like Gentiles in their paganism were under the Stochean. The elemental principles of the world. It was the same kind of system. And there's another thing that was the same kind. That every religious system on the face of the earth Well, the lawyers, Philip, you call it quid pro quo. Something for something. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. You give me this, I'll give you that. Every religious system, including Judaism, worked by that principle. Something for something. The Eastern religions call it karma. You want good things? What goes around comes around. You better do good things. Or Maria, singing to her beloved captain, you know, in that very romantic scene, singing, nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. Every religion on the face of the earth, with the exception of one, works by that principle. The something good that you do may be different from system to system, from religion to religion, but every religious system except one works by that principle. I do this, I get that. So did the law of Moses. Keep the law, you get life. Do not keep it. You're under the curse of death. The difference with the Mosaic system was that it was a God-given system. And it was a system that had a promise attached to it. That's the basic difference. But in kind, it was the same kind of system that the Mayans in Mexico lived by and worshipped by. Now that's a fascinating observation. We'll come back to it as we continue our study, especially next week. But let me leave that for you to chew on and mull over. Just a little bit. Notice now in verse four, we go to the second section of our text. Namely, we talked about the condition we were under as children. And so whether pagans or Jews, we were locked slaves to the stoke and the fundamental things of the universe, we could say, all working on a treadmill type of religion. We've got to produce something in order to get the blessing of our God. And now in verses 4 and 5, he talks about what has released us from that situation. We see here in verses 4 and 5, and then on to verse 6 and 7, the triune God at work in salvation. Notice in verse 4 and in verse 6, God is the sender. Verse 4, He sends forth His Son. In verse 6, He has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. God is doing the sending. In verse 4 and 5, the Son has come to do the redeeming, and that has been the theme of our singing this morning, to sing about the redemption that we have in Christ Jesus. And then notice in verse 6 and 7, the Spirit has come into our lives to bring us the benefits, the application of what God has intended and what Christ has secured for us. So it's sort of like what we have talked about, the work of the three persons of the Trinity in salvation. The Father is the architect, the Son is the builder, the Holy Spirit is the carpenter. The Father is the composer. The Son is the director. The Holy Spirit is the musician. In other words, each have their role to play in the economy of salvation. Notice the work of the Son here. He is said to be made of a woman. Some of the modern translations will use born of a woman. It's not quite the word for birth, but it's close. It's to come forth from a woman. But notice, it's very clear that before Christ was born of a woman, He was sent from the Father. In other words, if we want to talk about the human nature of Christ, as a human, He was born in Bethlehem. As the divine Son of God, He didn't have His beginning in Bethlehem. He was sent from heaven into the earth. You notice that distinction? In fact, when Pilate is questioning Jesus, as Lewis Johnson pointed this out, that the only time that Jesus ever refers to himself as being born is when he's standing before Pilate, and Pilate says, they're saying, they're telling me you're a king, is that true? And Jesus says, well, thou sayest, which in the colloquialism, that's you said it. And he says, to this end was I born. I was sent forth into this world to bear witness to the truth." Notice that he no sooner gets the word born out of his mouth than he turns around and makes it clear that his beginning was not at his birth, that he was sent forth. Before his birth, he existed as the eternal Son of God. At his birth, he is being sent into the earth, into the world. He's not only born of a woman, and by the way, that's an interesting expression. You'd usually say, well, so-and-so begat so-and-so, and so-and-so begat so-and-so, and it's always the man, isn't it, that's doing the begatting? But in this case, he is not begotten of Joseph, he is born of the woman. And it's referring back to that first gospel promise in Genesis 315 that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's skull. No, he's not born of man, but he is born of woman. He does partake of our nature, not through his father, but through his mother. But notice this well, he's not only born of woman, but he's born under the law. That same law that I described in our earlier messages that came into your life literally with a magnifying glass. Put your life under a microscope. It intruded into every area imaginable. What you wore. What you eat. What you drink. Where you go. Who cooked your food? How did they cook it? On what kind of pot or pan did they cook it? You don't even want to get into some of the other stuff, the cleanness and uncleanness regulations, but you understand the law came into your life like a whirlwind and put your life under intense scrutiny. I said it objectified sin. It didn't allow you to draw the line, what demarcates righteousness and sin. God drew the line with the law and says don't sin, don't cross that line, except the lines are everywhere. Everywhere I turn, everywhere I look, there's lines, there's boundaries that I can't cross. It sort of became the pastime, I think, of the Jewish rabbis to figure out ways to cross over those lines without really crossing over those lines. Jake, you know what I'm talking about, just sort of playing around, you know, doing sort of like lawyers, Philip, trying to find the loophole. You know what the point of the law was, but we try to find some technicality that lets us around it. That was how the Jewish rabbis seemed to spend most of their time, trying to find loopholes, because this thing was just all over me. It put my entire life Under scrutiny, Jesus came into that system, that system. You ever say what that means? That Jesus' entire life has to be concerned with clean and unclean, with what you eat and what you do, whether you violate the Sabbath or not, and whether eating grain out there in the field with unwashed hands is breaking the law or not. He has to live his life under that scrutiny. You say, well, wonder why God did that? So that there was no question whatsoever of the sinlessness of our Savior. There's a point in Jesus's ministry when he challenges his opponents. Which of you can convict me of sin? You're not going to get me saying that. All you got to do is follow me around for a little bit or just talk to my wife. You know, you know how it is. Jesus could say to his opponents, come on, show me your stuff, bring your best, your best shot against me. Which of you can convict me of sin? He challenged them. He was the Lamb spotless, holy, undefiled. He was born under that system and lived a righteous life under that system. And something even more important is that he came under that system because that was the system that offered life. That was the covenant that promised life if you obeyed it perfectly, wasn't it? And it is under that covenant that he has earned life that he gives as a free gift to you and me. He came under the law, if you'll look carefully at verses 4 and 5, He came Himself under the law, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. He put Himself under the law to free us who were under the law. Now, we think of redemption in a lot of different ways, don't we? We think of redemption as redemption from sin. And sure enough, we need to be redeemed from sin. Or we think of being redeemed from Satan. We're slaves to Satan. We need to be redeemed. But notice that Paul has another thing that we need to be redeemed from. We need to be redeemed from the law. We need to be taken out from under that system that cursed us and condemned us. And Christ has come that we are no longer treated like slaves, servants, but we are treated like sons, adopted as sons there in verse 5. We are legally adopted as God's children. I was thinking our brother Mike Donato got a job down at Tutwiler at the correction center. He said he would be the controller down there. I said, you mean the fellow that walks around with a cattle prod? That kind of controller? He said, no, no, no. I'm the guy that keeps the books. But we're happy for Mike to have gotten a full-time job. Remember, he lost his job back in the fall. And I was thinking about that situation. Suppose the governor of Mississippi said, folks, I've got a solution to our crime problem. You know, our prisons are overcrowded and all this. I'm just going to turn all the prisoners loose. I'm going to show them grace. I'm going to give them mercy. I'm going to send them out, and you know what? They will be so thankful that they'll never commit armed robbery again. They'll never knock over a liquor store. They'll never come in and steal your color TV in the middle of the night. Because after all, they will have experienced this wonderful grace from my office, and they will never commit crimes again. You think that's going to work? Fat chance. But what if the governor said, I'm going to free all of the prisoners and I'm going to personally adopt every single one of them. They will come and live in my house as my sons. And you say, well, that's got a shot. That's possible. Now, there's something else that's going to have to be done, and that's going to follow in the next few verses. But yeah, OK, I get it. You are not freeing the prisoners so they can just go their own way. You're freeing the prisoners so that they can be adopted, in this case, as the very child of God himself, which fulfills the scripture all the way back in Hosea. I know it's late, but it's not late. We're just getting started. Hosea. Hey, we're go here. Let's go. Hosea chapter one. Hosea chapter one. Hosea keeps having his wife, keeps having these kids, and she is a rascal. She is very unfaithful. And God gives him these names for his kids. And the last kid that he has is Hosea 1, verse 8, said she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, and she conceived and bore a son, and then said, God, call his name Lo-Ami. Now, Lo-Ami is a name in Hebrew which means not mine. Can you imagine a father naming his child not mine? Gives you some indication, doesn't it? Not mine. Call his name Lo-Ami. For ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Yet, look at verse 10, yet the number of the children of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea which cannot be measured nor numbered. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God. Notice that God is, as it were, washing his hands of the nation of Israel. the seashore. Now, you may not see the significance of this, and I don't have time to show you, but in Romans chapter 9, this is the text that Paul quotes when he's talking about the mysterious purposes of God's sovereignty and how we Gentiles are called, along with Jews, to be the children of God. And he quotes this verse. But this isn't... I know the dispensationalists say this applies just to Israel, to the restoration of Israel. I know they say that because they've got a Scofield Bible and that's what he says right there on top of that verse. This is the restoration of Israel. Somebody should have told Paul. Paul quotes it and says, that's us. Gentiles as well as Jews are adopted into the family of God. Do you understand the language of that? See if you can find an Old Testament saint that ever calls God their father. Now, they will talk about God is father in a national sense of the nation or in a creative sense. He's the father of angels and so forth. But see if you can find David as intimate as David was acquainted with God. Does he ever say father? Never, never. And yet you turn to the pages of the New Testament and what do you have Jesus telling his disciples? When you pray, pray like this, our Father who art in heaven. Love your enemies, pray for those that misuse you and so forth, because your Father does this. He makes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. That which is actually missing in the Old Testament turned to the New Testament and suddenly it fills the pages. I don't know how many times in the Sermon on the Mount alone does Jesus refer to God as Father and teaches us to address him as Father. It's the fulfillment of that text back there in Hosea. That there's a day coming when God will have all of these children. And here we see it fulfilled. Because God has adopted us, we who have come to Christ in faith. But as I say, you say, OK, governor, you're going to let the prisoners go. And you're going to adopt them, you're going to bring them into your own house, you're going to set at your table like your own kids. Seems like there's still something missing, and yes, there is. It's verses six and seven that not only has God adopted us as his children, but because your sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant, a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ. There is a, if you want to adopt a child, first step is some legal stuff, right? You got to get the legal. stuff out of the way, taken care of. And once the adoption is finalized, that child is now legally yours, objectively yours. But if you are any kind of a parent at all, you are interested in more than just being able to say, this is my legal child. If you are a true parent, you want to instill in that adopted child your character, your mind, your judgment. Do you understand what I'm saying? Adoption, yes, involves getting the legal stuff out of the way, and objectively this child now is legally mine, but it also involves a subjective process by which now I seek to implant in the heart of that adopted child my own heart, my values, my thoughts, my ways. You see the difference? And what we see here in Paul's teaching is exactly that happens in salvation. That yes, there is this huge legal obstacle to our being the child of God. That is removed by Christ at the cross. And now that we are his children, officially, legally, God sends forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to conform us to the image of Jesus. Notice that this clearly means that at least in one sense or another, the Spirit didn't come to the New Testament age. Anybody getting out the darn feathers? That's a dangerous thing to say, but it's true. I do not mean that in absolutely every way that the Holy Spirit was not present until the New Testament age, of course. Certainly the Holy Spirit was present and active in the Old Testament time. We read the Spirit came upon Samson and he rips the lion, for instance. But there is a particular thing that Paul is stressing here, and it's very important for us to grasp this. There's a thing that Paul is stressing here that something about the Spirit of God did not occur until the New Testament age. Jesus himself talked about it. We were talking about the Feast of Tabernacles here in Sunday School just a little while ago. And you read over in John 7 that on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the great day, Jesus stood up and said, If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. And John, as a little verse of commentary, explanation, saying this, he spoke of the spirit that they who believe on him should receive, but the spirit was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified. Let that sink in. The spirit in some way or another has not yet been given. That's the words of John the apostle. for some aspect of the Spirit is awaiting the glorification, the ascension of Christ to the throne. And by the way, once you get that fact in your head, then Peter's words on the day of Pentecost make perfect sense. That Jesus, you crucified, has been raised to the throne, seated at the right hand of God, and he has received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, and he's chanted forth on us. Notice what's peculiar about this New Testament day is what Paul says here in verse 6, that because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son. That's what's unique. That's what's new in this New Testament day. Not that the Holy Spirit wasn't here in the Old Testament, but now the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God's Son. It's the Spirit of Christ. It's the Spirit of Christ because it came through the intercession of Christ. He's the one who asked the Father for it, says Peter. It's the one who comes through, the Spirit comes through his mediation, and the Spirit comes to glorify Christ, as he taught his disciples in the last discourse. You understand, that's what's peculiar. It's the Spirit of the Son that has now come to all believers. And what are the effects of the Spirit of Christ in our life? Well, let's suppose you have a dog spirit enter into your cat. What would be the effect of having your cat with a dog spirit? Well, you'd have a cat that would go out in the backyard and bury bones, chase cars, right? A dog spirit in a cap makes the cap act like an arm. Well, what do you suppose the evidence of having the spirit of the sun in a Christian is? That we begin to act like the sun. You understand, this is that third step in the process. The governor not only frees the prisoners, he adopts them as his children, and now he instills his spirit within them so that they want what he wants, desires what he desires, chooses what he would choose. You see? This is that final step. And notice how it's described here. There is an instinctive knowing of God in verse 6. This is mysterious. I keep having people want me to pat them on the back and give them some assurance of salvation. And, folks, the preacher can't do this for you. The preacher can't do this for you. I can read you scripture until I'm blue in the face. I can tell you what I think, what my opinion is, and if it's worth that one, it'll cost you. At the end of the day, only God can do this. Send forth His Spirit, the Spirit of His Son, into your heart, crying, Abba, Father. That intuitive knowing of the little child, that's my Father. He knows. And notice this isn't just father, it's abba father. You probably already know that that in other languages is papa or daddy. It is the most intimate. Not only do you not find anybody in the Old Testament calling God personally their father, you ever hear one calling him daddy? But this is the blessing of the New Testament age that the Spirit of Christ, the Son of God, is coming to my heart, and there's something within me that responds to God as my Father, my Daddy. When did they learn this? In Mark 14, as Jesus is praying out there in the garden, you'll hear him use these same words, Abba, Father. It's the Spirit of Christ. And that same intuitive knowing of God and wanting to please God that we see in Jesus is now seen in all of us who have partaken of His Spirit. We're no longer serving like a slave. We're serving like a son. Don Carson up in Thunder Bay last summer asked an interesting question. Let me ask you. I want to show of hands. How many of you men? in your occupation or doing what your father did. Jeff, you, you, Steve, y'all are engineer, insurance, did roughly the same thing. Larry, Jeremy, you know, raise your hand, yeah, okay. Jeremy's the best example of this, I know. About five of you. Do you realize that in the day of Jesus, a hundred percent of you would have raised your hands? Because you see, to be the son of a father just didn't mean that legally I'm his and he conceived me. It's in that culture to be the son of a father meant that you became what your father was. You remember how Joseph is called the carpenter. And then in one place, Jesus is said to be the carpenter. In other words, if my father's a carpenter, I'm going to be a carpenter. If he's a farmer, I'm going to be a farmer. I become what my father is. In other words, to be the son of the father is more than just begotten. It is that I bear the image. I like watching Jeremy and Wayne work together. It's the best illustration of this I know. That you learn how to do what you do because you see it in your father. You've watched him, you mimic, you follow his example, and you become in your character and your ways what your father is. That is precisely what Paul is saying here. God is not just interested in officially having your name as his child down at the courthouse. He's interested in making you look like him. You know, we go to the funeral and we get people into heaven, and then we work back to the fact that they were a son and this. We always get things backwards. Notice that Paul says that you're being an heir, and by heir, I hope you realize, the inheritance of the Christian is what we call heaven. That inheritance that is laid up for us in glory. That's our inheritance. But notice that he says here, if the second part of verse seven, we're going to approach verse seven backwards. If you're a son. Then you're an heir. Inheritance is just for children. God's children are the ones who are going to inherit. What he has for them, OK? So in other words, your inheritance, whether you're going to make heaven or not, depends on whether you're a son. But then look at the first part of verse 7. If you are a son, you are no more a servant, a slave. You see that? How do you recognize a son? We say, well, they worship God. Slaves worship God. Israel under the law worship God. No. The difference is that the inheritor, the true child of God, no longer worships God as a slave. He worships God as a son. And you see, the son's question, and I know that some of you are going to say, well, if I want to be a Christian, how many times do I have to go to church in a week? How much money do I have to give? How many times do I have to give? You're asking the wrong question. The question you're asking betrays your heart. It's the slave that asks how much, how long. The son isn't asking how much cotton do I have to pick today, but how much cotton can I pick today, because my father's crop is my crop. It's not how many acres I've got to plow today, it's how many acres can I plant? Do you understand that when you start phrasing the question, and I ask you to judge your own heart and mind this morning when you got up and you realize this is Sunday, do you say, I have to go to my father's house, I have to go hear from my father? Or did you say, oh my, what a day. I get to go commune with God. This strikes at the heart, my friend. You say, well, I go through the motions just like everybody else. So did Israel. That's Paul's point. They and you are slaves to the stokehead, to the ABCs. You're made to do your homework. But if you are truly the child, the son of God, nobody's having to stand over you and slap your hand. Nobody's having to tell you when to go to bed and get up You do it because you have the heart of a son. There's a sense, my friend, in which I'm far more Pentecostal than the Pentecostals. Because if I read the New Testament rightly, what Paul is talking about here defines what being a Christian is all about. It's not about obeying the rules. It's not about disciplining myself, making myself do this and that, act like a Christian. What defines being a Christian is possessing the Spirit of Christ. There is something in me that is new, that is motivating me. And by the way, I say I'm more Pentecostal than a Pentecostal. I don't care if you speak in tongues as much as Benny Hinn. If you don't have this going on, you may have all the gifts in the book, But if you do not have this reality, you are not His. This is what it is to be a child of God. We have received, notice, Paul says to them, they've received the Spirit. The Spirit came at Pentecost in this way initially, but it didn't end at Pentecost. The Spirit still flows to those who truly put their trust in Christ today. Notice this is no more than just walking an aisle, signing a decision card. This is something supernatural. I had some feedback. A fellow was asked, what do you dislike about my preaching? And he answered, well, Brother Mark, it makes getting saved just way too hard. And I got to thinking about that, and I said, you know, the fella has terribly misunderstood me. I really didn't mean at all to make it so hard. I meant to make it impossible, absolutely impossible, that God has to do a work in your heart. change you from someone who is a slave under a religious system to someone who's a son and does it because it is your heart's desire. It's your appetite. Oh, you can't wait. You crave worshiping God, serving God because he's your father and you have the spirit of his son within you. Is that you? Now if I'm misreading this, somebody correct me. But if not, we better take this seriously. This is what it is to be a Christian. Let us pray. Father, open our minds, our hearts, illuminate us by your truth that we might, Father, Get the sense, get the wonder, the majesty of what your apostle is saying here. That we realize that this is your word, alive and powerful, defining what it is to truly be a child of God. We use that term so flippantly, Father. And then we go out and live like the devil, claiming to be your child. Lord, save us from our hypocrisy. Let us get honest with you. What truly is our heart's desire? Do we have the heart of a son towards you, our God? And Lord, if we don't, then may we come to your son and beg for mercy. May we come confessing our sin, confessing, Father, not only the more morbid sins, but the sins of our religion. that we have thought that we could earn your favor by some little religious act. Father, thank you that you have opened a way for us through Christ, and I pray that we might come and receive Him, not just receive the doctrine of Him, But truly receive Him that your spirit would be alive in us, conforming us to your image, making us new, causing us to choose and will things that we wouldn't otherwise do, causing us to desire and choose things, aspiring and chasing after holiness that we wouldn't otherwise do. And Father, may it be that which causes us to live a life It does wonderful things, righteous things, holy things, but not because we have to, but because we get to. Because this is like my Father. May we have reality, the reality of what it is to know your Son. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.