Well, brothers and sisters, we hope that this time of questions and answers is not just trying to solve some mental problems, but rather that, if there is anything that really hinders us from moving on with the Lord, hopefully by the grace of God the hindrances can be removed these days. So I hope it will be positive and not something negative.
I have three questions, but all three questions actually deal more or less with the same thing. So I will just read one question and try to include all three questions.
What happens to God’s children who do not go on into sonship? Were they really saved?
First of all, I would like to say that our God is very positive, and He wants us also to be positive. That is why you find in the Scriptures there are not too many negative answers; rather, there are positive instructions all the time.
I think the problem here is: Do we really understand what the eternal purpose of God is? Now, if you understand that, all these questions are answered.
When God purposes, He never leaves it unfinished. In other words, so far as God is concerned, if according to His good pleasure He has purposed a purpose in Himself, then we are assured that purpose will be reached and arrived at, no matter what happens.
Man may delay the fulfilment of His purpose, because God honors our free will, but nothing can hinder Him from accomplishing His purpose. So what is the purpose of God concerning His people?
In Romans 8, we are told that those whom He foreknew, He predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that His Son might be the firstborn among many brothers. Whom He predestinated, He called; whom He called, He justified; and whom He justified, He glorified.
There is no doubt, no perhaps, no maybe, no if not—nothing of that kind. This is what He will do, and this is what will add up to the praise of His glory.
So, brothers and sisters, if He has predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His beloved Son, and thus into sonship, there is no question that everyone who has been called and justified will eventually arrive at sonship. The question is: When? How soon or how late?
First of all, let us remember to thank God for that. If you are called by God, and if you have responded by believing in the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior, you are justified. But that is not the end. You will be glorified eventually.
So I hope this is out of the question. Even when you come to 1 Corinthians 3, some have the foundation but build upon it with wood, hay, and stubble. At the judgment seat, every work will be tested and burned. But the Bible says, “He himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.” In other words, he is still saved, but there is loss.
The problem here is that if you believe in the Lord Jesus, and you are the Lord’s, and you have the Spirit of the Son—the Spirit of sonship—in you, you ought to follow what the Spirit is moving within you to do, and learn to cooperate and obey.
If you do that, you will arrive quicker. But if you neglect what the Holy Spirit is trying to bring you into—the will of God—and even reject or oppose it, then what will happen?
Let us remember: we who have believed in the Lord Jesus will not appear before the great white throne. That is the judgment of the dead, because our Lord Jesus has already been judged for us. Therefore, the judgment of eternal death or eternal life has already been settled.
With us there is no more judgment in that sense. We are out of death into life. Thank God for that. But that does not mean that, because of this, there will be no judgment at all. There will be no judgment of eternal death or eternal life—that is true.
Yet, as the family of God, as the children of God, we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. In Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10, we are told that there will be a judgment seat of Christ, a judgment seat of God.
That is where all God’s children—family members only—will be gathered before our Lord. One day all who are redeemed of the Lord will be gathered together before our Lord Jesus, and there He will judge us as members of the family.
It is not the great white throne, which speaks of judicial judgment. It is a bema, a judgment seat. In the old days, with a clan system, from time to time the head of the clan would gather all the members of the clan together. Outsiders would not be there. Everyone there belonged to that clan, to that family.
The elder would sit on an elevated place called a bema, and there he would judge the members of the family. Some who had done something that brought glory to the family would be rewarded. Some who had disgraced the name of the family would be disciplined. That is what happened.
So, brothers and sisters, whatever we did before we believed in the Lord Jesus, all the sins have been cleared away through the blood of our Lord Jesus. But after we are saved and become children of God, we have to be responsible for our behavior.
One day we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and He will decide who will be rewarded and who will be disciplined.
Those who have reached a certain degree of sonship at that time will be rewarded. And what is the reward? The Scriptures use different descriptions: to reign with Christ for a thousand years. That is during the kingdom age.
There is this age, the age to come, and eternity. It is not that after the end of this age you get immediately into eternity. No, there is in between the age to come, which is the kingdom age, when Christ shall return and establish His kingdom upon the earth. He will rule and reign over this earth with righteousness.
Thank God, those who have grown into sons—matured and able to take responsibility and render service to God—will reign with Christ for a thousand years.
Sometimes the Bible uses different words. They will enter into the marriage feast, like the five wise virgins. I personally believe the marriage feast lasts a thousand years. But those five foolish virgins will be shut outside the door—that is, outside of the kingdom.
The servants who are faithful will be rewarded: some over ten cities, some over five cities. But the wicked and lazy servant will be cast into outer darkness, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Now, brothers and sisters, people are very curious. What is outer darkness? What is gnashing of teeth? Are they saved? Oh, I say, out of the question. Of course they are saved.
But if you refuse the training of the Father, the discipline of the Holy Spirit, and the opportunity to learn of Christ today, you may think you have an easy time. You do not need to bear the cross. You do not need to suffer for the name of Christ. You can do whatever you want, because after all, you are saved.
Well, during the kingdom age you will be disappointed. The Father will not let you go until you arrive at sonship. So He will discipline you during that kingdom age so that you too can reach sonship.
Now think of that. How many years can we live on this earth after we are saved? Say that you can live until you are one hundred years old. Compared with a thousand years, there is no comparison.
But thank God, His will must be done. He cannot fail. We may fail, but He cannot fail. Oh, that is great! Eventually, all will come into sonship. How do we know? Read Revelation 21 and Revelation 22. There, in Revelation 22, it says all His servants shall serve Him, and they shall reign forever and ever.
We will all arrive. Some arrive early—thank God for that. They please the Father very much. Some arrive late, and they grieve the Father, and He has to do something more unto them. But thank God, what He has purposed, He will accomplish.
In Philippians 3, we find how Paul wanted to win Christ. He pressed on, forgetting the things behind and reaching forward to the things before, in order that he might attain the prize of the upward calling of God.
What is the prize? Within the context, the prize is really reigning with Christ during the thousand years. This is the out-resurrection. But thank God, eventually God’s purpose includes everyone.
May the Lord use this not to encourage us to sit back and relax, but actually to encourage us to press on toward the goal—not for our own sake, but for the Father’s sake and for the sake of our Lord.
Thank you, brother.
I once asked a question at Bible school, and my teacher said in front of the whole class, “There are questioning questions, and there are inquisitive questions. A questioning question is rooted in doubt, and God hates it. An inquisitive question is rooted in faith, and God loves it. Your question is a questioning question. Meet me in my office after this class.”
It was very pleasurable in my heart to see the questions that were written, and they seem to be inquisitive questions rooted in faith. Let us bow, please, for a word of prayer and seek the Lord again.
Father, we thank You so much that You have given us Your Holy Spirit and You have given us Your Word. We pray, Lord, that the measure of light that You have shared with us might be helpful as we share together. We commit this short season unto You now, in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I was given three questions, and as Stephen took all three and made them one, I think one of mine can also be incorporated. So I have made two questions. The first is this:
According to Galatians, to live under the law prevents us from entering into sonship. Could you please elaborate on the meaning of a Christian living under the law?
I am sure many have expressed that question in different words but with the same idea. I have an idea that the heart of the question arises because of verses such as Romans 6:14:
Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace.
And Romans 7:4:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to Him Who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.
And Galatians 3:10:
For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse.
Many other verses point in that same direction. What does it mean to be free from the law? What does it mean to be dead to the law? What does it mean not to be under the law? And what is the Christian’s responsibility to the law?
The problem with a simple answer is that the word law is like the word baptism. In Hebrews 6, it speaks about baptisms, plural. There is the baptism of repentance, the baptism of fire, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
In Mark 10, our Lord Jesus said, “Are ye able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” He was talking about the cross. So, just because you see the word baptism, you cannot automatically register water. It is not always water. You need to see the context.
Just so, the word law is used in different ways. I have a book in my library titled The Ten Uses of the Word Law in the New Testament. In other words, there are ten different ways that word is used.
When someone says, “I am not under the law,” you need to know which use of the word law is intended. Is it the moral law? Does it mean, “I am not under the Ten Commandments”? It cannot mean that, because the Ten Commandments are the perfect transcript of our Lord’s character. That is the righteousness of God. That is holiness.
To sin is to be lawless. In that sense, we may use capital letters: LAW—the Ten Commandments, the law of God, God’s character. Every Christian is under law.
But especially in Galatians, the law is used another way. The theologians say it is used as a rule of life or a principle of life.
I found it very helpful in one of my translations. I actually went through the book of Galatians, and every time I saw the word law, I put these words: what man does. Every time I saw the word grace, I wrote these words: what God does.
I think that is pretty much how Galatians is talking about it. I am not under the law as a rule of life—that is, what man does. I am under grace as a rule of life—that is, what God does.
Sometimes, as it says in Galatians 5:4, “Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law; ye are fallen away from grace.” Does that mean you lost your salvation and fell from the purpose of God? You cannot do that. His purposes are going to be fulfilled.
Falling from grace in that context means that I fell from grace as a rule of life. I fell away from what God does and got back to the law—what I do. That is how Paul is using it.
Let me suggest this. With capital letters—LAW—I am under the law. I am responsible to love the Lord with all my heart and to love my neighbor. I am under law, but I am not under the law in order to keep the law. I am under grace to keep the law.
What am I saying? I am still under the holy standards of God, but it does not depend on what I do to keep that standard. I am under grace, and by the Holy Spirit living in my heart—the Law-keeper in my heart—I am under grace in order to be holy. I am not under what I do.
So that is the first part of the question. If we live under the law, does that delay or hinder sonship? Indeed it does. If I am under what I do, I am delaying the process. If I am under grace, in order to keep the law, I am not delaying it.
We are not lawless. It does not mean that we are slipshod and can do our own thing and live any way we want because we are not under the law. You cannot say that to the policeman who pulls you over: “I am not under the law. I am a Christian.” You will see.
There are many ways to use the word law: the moral law, the ceremonial law, the judicial law, the law as a rule of life, and so on. But by God’s marvelous provision, we are under grace.
The second question is this:
You once mentioned that God did not speak to Abraham for thirteen years due to his fleshly effort, and that you would die if God does not speak to you. How do we know God speaks to us daily? By what means? Please give a solid example.
You are not letting me out of this at all. Let me start at the end of that question and then try to get to the heart of it from my present life.
How does God speak to the Christian today? I think the brother or sister who wrote that question has asked a good question, because it seems to indicate that the person really wants to know, “How can I hear God?”
The difficulty for me in answering this question is that the question grows. Is this person asking, “How does God communicate today? How does God speak to man?” Or is it the larger question, “How does God guide? How can I know the will of God? How does God communicate His will and His purpose for my life?”
Or is the question even larger: “How can I discern God’s voice? How can I distinguish the voice of the Holy Spirit from the voice of the human spirit, or from the voice of an evil spirit?” That question grows, and it was difficult for me to know exactly what that saint had in mind.
But because that saint referred to the thirteen years of silence for Abraham, and to my testimony that I would rather die than have God be silent, I sensed that the question was: How does God speak today? How does He communicate?
I believe if we look at a couple of principles, it will also embrace the larger questions: How does God guide? How can I discern the voice of God? And so on.
Psalm 19 begins:
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth His handiwork.
Listen as I read Psalm 19:2-4:
Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night showeth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
We know God speaks through His creation. The heavens declare the glory of God, and according to Romans 1:20, it leaves man without excuse. Through the things that are made, God is clearly seen: that He exists, that He is wise, that He is strong, that He is immense.
So, a simple answer to the question, “How does God speak?” is that He clearly speaks through creation.
God also speaks through the storms of life. I love Psalm 29. It has been called the “voice of God” psalm, because seven times in eleven verses we read the expression, “the voice of the Lord.”
I believe Psalm 29 ought to be studied with Job 37, because both teach how God speaks in the storm. Job 37:13 says:
Whether it be for correction, or for His land,
Or for lovingkindness, that He cause it to come.
So God speaks through creation, and God certainly speaks through the storm. Enlarging on that, some would say that God speaks through circumstances.
Paul often used the expressions “an open door” and “a closed door,” and God confirms things with circumstances. The problem is that circumstances are subjective. If all we had were circumstances, we might be led astray.
Remember when Saul was delivered up to David. Everybody was saying, “Look at the circumstances! Kill him. This is God’s will. God has delivered your enemy into your hand.” David said, in effect, “I do not see those circumstances that way. I will not touch the Lord’s anointed.”
Jonah, when he arrived at Joppa, could have said, “Wow, look at these circumstances. I have just enough money, the boat is just about to go, and it is heading to Tarshish, exactly where I want to go. This must be God’s will.” But you know better than that. It was the opposite of God’s will.
So we need to be very careful when we simply say that God speaks through circumstances.
Let me give an example from my own life. I was studying a Scripture and spent many hours on it. In fact, I will tell you what it was: Luke 18:1-8, the parable of the unjust judge.
Usually, God does not tell you what the parable is about. Later, when some of His disciples asked, He would explain it. But in this one, right at the beginning, it is almost as if He knows we are going to miss it:
And He spake a parable unto them to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint.
Except in my heart, that parable did not seem to teach that. I was so glad He told me what it taught before I studied it, but I could not get hold of it. I studied it, met together with saints, and went over it. I am talking about two months of study.
One day I said to Lillian, “Lillian, I will not be disturbed. I am going to get to the bottom of this parable.” I did what you are not supposed to do: I got in bed. Do not study in bed.
I took my commentaries and piled them up on each side. I was locked in, with my Bible and commentaries, and I was determined to understand that parable. I opened my Bible on my lap and sat there in bed. Right behind me, I had one of those clip-on lamps. I was all set.
I prayed, turned on the light, and my Bible page was absolutely black. You see, the shadow of my head fell right over the Bible. The light was directly behind my head.
It was as if God said, “The reason you do not understand that parable is that your head got in the way.” I did not hear a voice, but I believe that circumstance was the voice of the Lord to my heart.
In those next moments, He unveiled His Son and opened that parable. I just believe that was the voice of the Lord.
How does God speak? He speaks in creation, in the storm, and in circumstances. But I believe God also speaks His Word in our hearts, and He speaks His Word through this Book.
Some would add that God speaks when you are praying, in visions, in dreams, and through the observations of others. But let me say a word about these two: God’s speaking in the heart and God’s speaking in the Word.
Sometimes we call the voice of God in the heart the Lord’s burden, the inner prompting. I have a dear brother in Newport who calls it “the intuitive jab of the Holy Spirit.”
I think that is what Paul had in mind when he talked about letting the peace of Christ rule in your heart. James perhaps had this in mind when he said that whatever is not of faith is sin.
Often we hear the expression, “God has given me peace about that,” and people say that peace means it is the will of God. I have never quite been able to make that my own.
Sometimes I am invited somewhere, or someone asks me a question, and they say, “Just pray about it and see if God gives you peace.” The problem I have with that is that I live in peace. I am at peace with the Lord, living in unbroken fellowship.
They say, “Did God give you peace? Is it peace on peace?” I already have peace. I am living in peace. I have found that it is not so much that God gives peace as that He takes it away.
If it is not His pleasure, and my heart is set on His pleasure, there is turmoil. I do not have peace. But if I take a step that I know is going to dishonor my Lord, there is turmoil and darkness in my heart, and peace is not there.
In this connection, I love Psalm 37:4:
Delight thyself also in the Lord;
And He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
You know what that is not saying. It is not saying He will give you everything your heart desires. It is saying He gives you the desire. Where did you get those desires? He plants those desires in your heart. He puts those burdens in your heart. He impresses your heart.
Because of that verse, and the teaching that is in the balance of Scripture, I believe that when you are delighting in the Lord, every burden is also a prophecy. When God impresses your heart, when He gives you a desire, I do not believe He prompts His children to pray for what will not be granted.
When He burdens you, it is because He is doing something in that area. In that connection, the greater the burden, the greater the answer when God finally gives it. God burdens His people.
Sometimes it is not always a prompting or a burden. Sometimes it is like an insight. There are many things in the Bible that are darkness to my heart, and that does not bother me. Praise God; otherwise, His Word would only be the size of my peanut brain.
There is a lot of darkness, but I talk to the Lord about it. I come to Him about it, and sometimes He gives an insight. I believe that is God speaking. He gives some light, at least enough to satisfy me.
For example, one day I was calling on the Lord about something that had bothered me for some time: that God will not annihilate the wicked. I could not understand why He would not just wipe them out. What would You lose in Your honor and Your glory if You would just annihilate the sinner forever?
I did not hear a voice. I am talking about God using my mind. I was thinking, meditating, pondering these things, and this thought came to me: “Because I did not want to annihilate My Son.”
I thought, “Thank You, Lord.” Forever that settled it in my heart. I believe that was the Lord using my mind—not a voice, but God speaking.
Now that brings us to this final part: God’s voice in the Bible.
When God shut the heavens to Abraham, at that time there was no Bible, or only a little portion of it. So God in those days spoke directly in many ways and diverse manners. He spoke sometimes through a vision, sometimes through a dream, sometimes through direct communication, and sometimes through a theophany.
During those thirteen years of silence for Abraham, when God did not speak directly, Abraham still had creation. He still had circumstances. His house was anything but calm once Hagar and Sarah got going in there. He still had storms. But in the sense that God spoke directly to him, there was silence.
But now the Bible is complete. Now the Bible is finished. God has spoken in His last Word unto us in His Son.
I know there are those who believe God continues to speak from heaven. I am talking about a voice, a direct communication from God. I have been in places with God’s people where a brother or sister would stand up and begin, “Thus saith the Lord,” and then they would begin to speak as if God were speaking.
The problem I have with that is that God cannot speak an incomplete word. God cannot speak an imperfect word. If God says it, it is perfect. If God says it, it is infallible. Every time God speaks, it is inspired.
My concern is that this Book is not only inspired—I believe in plenary verbal inspiration—it is sufficient, and it is finished. If God speaks, then whatever He says I must put on the same level as Isaiah, Matthew, and Romans. I am not prepared to do that.
This Bible is God’s finished Word. Otherwise, you open the door for the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and all kinds of additions. God has spoken unto us in His Son in these last days.
When I made reference to the fact that I would rather die than have God stop speaking, what I had in my mind was my study. I speak as a fool, but if God were to deny me heaven and say, “Perpetuate some experience on earth, and that will be your heaven,” I would choose my study.
The Lord and I have had wonderful times as I pour over the Scriptures and He shows me the Lord Jesus. That is what I mean when I say God speaks from heaven. If God stopped showing me the Lord Jesus in this Book, I would want to go home.
To be with Christ is very far better. That is my life. I have got to keep seeing Jesus in this Book.
How do I know if it is God speaking? John 6:45 says:
Every one that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto Me.
If it leads to Jesus, it is the voice of God. That is what I had in mind. I am sorry if I caused confusion. I was not saying that God stopped speaking in some special, extra-biblical way.
The ministry where I serve was very kind. They built me a marvelous study and put in a skylight. I remembered the verse in Ezekiel about standing under the open heavens. I stood there and said, “Oh, finally, at last, God will speak through my skylight.”
Nothing. It did not work. He speaks through this Word. He unveils Christ, and that is what I had in mind when I said God speaks.
I just want to be very careful before saying that God is actually speaking again—not because I am afraid of subjective experience, but because I am so concerned that somebody might supplement this precious Word. This is a finished Book.
You want to hear God’s voice? Study this Book. Seek Jesus. Ask God to unveil His Son. I believe that is how He speaks.
Well, I just say, “Ditto.” Instant replay.
The first question has to do with what Paul says in Romans 8:17. It asks:
Romans 8:17 talks about suffering with Christ. What kind of suffering is being referred to here? If we do not suffer with Him, does that mean we will not be glorified with Him? Also, 2 Timothy says, “If we endure with Him, we shall reign with Him.” What does this mean?
Our brother Stephen has very adequately and wonderfully answered the matter of whether one ultimately reaches the goal, so I am not going to try to respond to that again. What kind of suffering is Paul talking about?
Brothers and sisters, we need to get very clear that God has taken the punishment that we deserved and placed it upon His Son. God has no delight in imposing punishment upon His sons.
Now, part of discipline may sometimes fall into a category that we might consider punishing. But the various things the Lord uses to produce the character of sonship in us are the things that we suffer, the things that we have to endure, and the difficult things that God permits or engineers in our lives.
In my understanding, the only instrument the Holy Spirit has to prepare our disposition—in terms of character and ability—is the cross. It is an eternal principle.
The only way you and I can ever dream of arriving at God’s goal is for Christ to increase in us, both in terms of His life and in terms of His character. For that to happen, resurrection has to become a reality. There needs to be an increase of Christ.
But resurrection only happens after death. You cannot talk about resurrection unless there is death. Otherwise, it has no meaning.
These sufferings that Paul refers to surely cover a broad scope. As we find in Romans 8:28, God causes all things—everything—to work together for good.
For whom is this good? Well, primarily for the Lord. It is encouraging to realize that what God is doing in us is to produce something with which He is absolutely satisfied.
Think of it. God is going to do a work so that one day He can honestly, without reservation, look at you and look at me and find nothing wrong—holy and without blame.
Brothers and sisters, that is not the way it starts. We do not start there. How do we expect the Lord to take this impossible, disqualified person and bring him to the place where God says, “This is My beloved son. This is My beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased”?
It would be wonderful, in our human nature, if we always cooperated. Suppose that every morning, when your children got out of bed, they came to you and said, “Mom, Dad, I just want you to know that today it is my heart to do everything you want me to do.”
Would that not be wonderful? Anybody got kids like that?
Brothers and sisters, this is who we are in Adam. We are rebels. We are hostile. We do not want the will of God. We cannot do the will of God. There is only one will that we want—our own.
How is God going to deal with this? It manifests itself in many different ways. But God designs circumstances that will produce the kind of result He desires.
In eternity past, He predestined us for the adoption of sons. That includes a transformation of our character: a dying to ourselves and the resurrection of the life of Christ. The old man is decaying, but the new man is being renewed. He is growing in glory from glory to glory, day by day.
Do you think God will predestine us for something for which we are not prepared when we get there? Are we going to enter into it with no idea what to do, totally lost? Absolutely not, brothers and sisters.
What God does is take all the situations in our lives and give us opportunity to die to our own way and our own Adamic nature, and allow His life to increase in us. Then He uses those circumstances as pressure to produce character.
Our brother Lance Lambert has mentioned on many occasions that when he reads his Bible, he finds three materials in the New Jerusalem: gold, precious stones, and pearls.
This gold is a special kind of gold: pure, transparent gold. How do you get gold to be pure and transparent? Intense heat.
Precious stones—how do stones become precious? How do they become something that has value other than merely being a piece of rock? They are produced in the depths of the earth, under great pressure.
Pearls—what produces pearls? Irritation. A little piece of sand gets inside a clam or oyster, and it produces irritation. The oyster seeks to overcome the irritation by secreting a substance again and again. Every time it feels irritation, it secretes that substance, hoping to find relief. Eventually, a pearl is produced.
What are the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem made of? Pearls. What is the street made of? Gold. What are the foundations made of? Precious stones.
I do not know what your understanding is as to what the New Jerusalem is and how it is being built. My understanding at this point is that God is doing the work here and transporting the material there. In whom? In us.
Do you expect somehow that the character and ability to reign with our Lord Jesus Christ will happen for you simply by gliding along day after day with no problems and no difficulties? Oh, my brothers and sisters, it simply will not.
If we are going to reign with Him, we must learn how to suffer. We have nothing to do with the suffering our Lord Jesus experienced on the cross. Only He could experience that suffering. It was redemptive in a way that ours can never be.
But suffering is redemptive in terms of reproducing His character in us.
Because of time, I will not go into it, but I want to encourage you to read Paul’s testimony in 2 Corinthians 11 and 2 Corinthians 12. It is an amazing, amazing testimony of what God put this servant of His through.
He did not even mention all the things. He did not mention that, at the end of his life, everybody had abandoned him. Can you imagine, brothers and sisters? It was painful.
One painful thing, which is very difficult for some of us to endure, is that you give yourself again and again and again to your brothers and sisters, and somehow they offend you or reject you. Yet the Lord allows it to happen because He wants us to be able to love the way He loves.
That is not natural for us—please forgive my English. There is a limit to how far we will go in our love. How many times in your life, perhaps not with your mouth but in your heart, have you decided, “I do not want anything more to do with that person”?
Is that the way the Lord does? No. The Lord is responsible to bring us through these things. Even if they are foolish decisions that we have made, our God will take those foolish decisions and use them for good—for His good and for our good.
Only God can do this. Only God can take our sin, our rebellion, and our disobedience, and somehow turn them around and make something beautiful.
The sufferings are the different things that come into our life which require us to die to ourselves so that this gift of the life of Christ may increase. As we mentioned last night, brothers and sisters, it is life plus discipline that equals character.
In Hebrews 12, if we are without discipline, we are illegitimate. I do not know if I understand everything the writer is saying, but I understand him to mean that sonship is not merely an idea; it must become real.
Why does God discipline? Is it because He is angry and wants to punish you? No. It is because He loves you. He wants you to be fully prepared in terms of character and ability to take the position for which He predestined you in the age to come.
When the Scriptures speak of reigning with Christ, please do not think that means sitting on a gold throne with a big crown that pushes your head down. No, brothers and sisters. It means you will be engaged in activity, serving in some way, manifesting the servant life of our Lord Jesus.
I do not know what it will all be, but it is wonderfully planned. We are going to be so excited, so blessed, and so surprised. He is preparing you now.
When difficult things come into your life—whether it is a personal word from the Holy Spirit, a discipline upon your life, the Lord saying “No,” relationships in your family, or relationships with brothers and sisters—please see that much of the work of equipping us to reign with Christ is done right inside the four walls where we live.
Then there is God’s people. Being a member of the body of Christ, have you noticed that the Lord has saved some very, very funny people? You are one of them. I am one of them.
The Lord says, “I want you to go live with them.” He brings them into our lives, and He does not even ask whether it is okay. One day they just show up. What does the Lord say? “Love them. Serve them. Lay down your life for them.”
Do you mind suffering when you have to love somebody whom you consider totally unlovable? They are not worthy of your love, but the Lord put them there.
We try to walk on the other side of the street when we see them coming. Or in our fellowships, we give them the cold shoulder, hoping they will leave. But if we do that, you know what the Lord will do? He will send someone just as bad, or even worse.
God has predestined us. He has determined that He is going to prepare us for what He has for us. If we do not know how to love, forget it, brothers and sisters. If we have not learned the lesson of loving, there is no place for us in that thousand-year reign.
As our brother Stephen said, we will have to go through another course. Somehow God will prepare us. He would prefer that we learn our lessons now.
Brother Ernie High, the next question is:
You once said that, as Christians, to enter into spiritual sonship we need to pursue being filled with the Holy Spirit; or, in other words, we need to be led by the Holy Spirit in all matters. Could you give us some examples of how we can be led by the Holy Spirit moment by moment? I feel that I am the one making decisions daily—to do this or do that, or not to do this or that. How could I know for sure that my actions are the Holy Spirit’s leading?
Brothers and sisters, let me remind us that the beginning of this whole process is something God did. He caused us to be born again. A new person in Christ has been created in us.
The Holy Spirit somehow works in our lives to make us aware that we are needy people. We need something very much in our lives. He works to open our eyes, create faith in us, and enable us to believe what God wants to give us in His Son.
Maybe we had no understanding. I can tell you, when it happened to me—February nineteenth, fifty years ago this coming February—I had no idea what was happening to me. I had never read a Bible; I did not even own one. I did not grow up in a Christian family.
The day it happened, I had no idea. All I could do was go and fall on my face and cry until there were no more tears to cry. I did not even know why I was crying.
When I got up from that experience, anyhow, it was a great beginning for me. The Lord has been faithful, as you already know, because He is faithful to you and He is faithful to me as well.
Brothers and sisters, the whole beginning of the Christian life is a miracle—something that only God by His Spirit can do.
Some of us think the Christian life is trying to teach an elephant how to fly. How long do you think it would take to teach an elephant how to fly?
I still have in my mind the picture from the other day when we were coming across a bridge and I saw a seagull standing there absolutely still. I watched him in the mirror after we passed him, and he continued to stand there and simply live his life. He was only doing what seagulls do. He was responding to the life of the seagull that was in him.
Now, brothers and sisters, what the Holy Spirit wants us to do is allow this life that He has placed in us to grow and mature. We have to learn all the way along how to respond to this new life.
Please, my brothers and sisters, do not go on trying to teach the elephant how to fly. Give up. See how foolish and impossible it is. Your old man, descended from Adam, cannot be Christian. You cannot Christianize the old man. It is not God’s solution.
God has only one solution for the old man: execution by crucifixion. And He has already done it. He put us in Christ, so that when Christ was crucified, we were crucified with Him.
There ought to be some hallelujah and amen coming from our hearts this morning, because He did something for us that we could never do for ourselves. He has done it by grace, my brothers and sisters.
We need, as quickly as possible, to become sensitive to the life inside of us and learn how to obey that life.
What God is wanting to do with us, in one sense, is very simple. He wants to do in us what He was unable to do in Adam, but what He was able to do in His Son.
There is only one fundamental thing that God is after in us: obedience.
Take, for instance, Philippians 2. Hebrews 5 says that He learned obedience. Philippians 2 says that He was obedient unto death, yea, even the death of the cross. Therefore God highly exalted Him.
Through one Man’s obedience the many are made righteous. So all of God’s lessons have as their focus the matter of you and me learning to obey the life that God has put within us.
The Holy Spirit has been sent on a special mission in the life of every believer: to teach us these lessons. What does it mean to be led by the Spirit? It means that you learn to recognize Him. You learn to hear His voice.
As our brother Ed would say, it is not necessarily verbal. I am not saying it is never verbal, but the Holy Spirit has different ways of communicating and helping us rely on this life that He has put inside.
Paul talks in Romans 8 about the law of the Spirit of life. Obeying this law enables us to keep the requirements of the LAW—in big letters.
If we obey the Holy Spirit, He will always, without exception, lead us to do the will of God and to keep the law of God. He will never, under any circumstance, lead us in a way that would violate the will of God or cause us to break His law.
Do you see how simple it is? I do not want to say it is easy, because it is not easy. But it is simple. The law has been written in our hearts and put in our minds. All you have to do is learn how to obey the Holy Spirit in every situation.
Let me give you one example from my experience. I was living in Long Island, New York, in 1972, I think it was.
Those of you who have known me for a few years know I am close to saying that I am a troublemaker. I create problems wherever I go. When problems get too difficult, I find a way of escape. I run away, trying to find a place where there are no troubles so I can create more.
This is not intentional. It is just who I am. There were problems in the assembly where I was the pastor, so naturally I wanted to get away. I wanted to get out of the problem.
My wife’s family lived in Alabama. I thought it was a good time to go to Alabama and see her family. She was excited because it had been quite a while since we had been there.
We made plans, packed the car, and started heading south. We crossed the Verrazzano Bridge and went onto the New Jersey Turnpike. As soon as we got onto the turnpike, something inside of me said, “This is not right.”
What was I supposed to do? Here is what I did, brothers and sisters. By the grace of God, I said to the Lord, “Lord, if this is not Your will, You get this car turned around and head us back to New York.”
We got to Washington, D.C.—you know, Interstate 495 around Washington—and all of a sudden I noticed we were going back north.
So I went back. We went back to New York. My wife was crying, my children were upset, but we went back to New York.
What I am trying to say is that the blessed Holy Spirit is committed to us. He is committed, and He will be faithful to us regardless of how foolish our decisions are, if we have a heart that wants only to do the will of our heavenly Father.
If we want to learn how to obey this life He has placed inside us, He will be faithful. He will take our mistakes and our foolishness and turn them around and get us headed in the direction of God.
Would it not be wonderful if every child could learn how to walk and never fall down? How are you going to learn to walk by the Spirit? You are going to have to make some mistakes. We are going to need brothers and sisters to come and say, “Let us get up. Let us go on again.”
Some of us are so proud. Listen to me: some of our flesh is so proud that we say, “If I cannot do it right the first time, I am not going to try to do it at all.” How foolishly we follow that philosophy.
The blessed Holy Spirit has come. He has been sent here. He is on a mission. The Father and the Son have sent Him so that this goal of our being glorified, reigning with our blessed Lord, and being fully pleasing to our heavenly Father may become possible.
If we do not learn to know and respect Him—first of all, to know the Person—then we will miss His ministry. He is God and He is a Person. We can know Him in a very living way and learn to hear His voice and recognize His directing work in our lives.
If you have fears, questions, doubts, or any negative feeling about Him, ask the Lord to remove those things. He is God. He is one hundred percent for you. He only wants to bring you to the end of the goal that God has for you.
Without His ministry, you will never get there. Do not be afraid.
I said “finally”—well, this is my third finally, okay? How can this become a reality in us?
I think there is one fundamental necessary thing that you and I need to do: we need to put into practice the reality of what we confess with our minds.
Do you know where our Lord Jesus Christ is right now? Do you know what position He presently occupies? The Father has placed Him at His own right hand and given Him all authority in heaven and on earth.
Has this become something to which you have properly responded? Have you declared Him not just to be the sovereign Lord of the universe, but Lord in your own heart?
The moment you bow your knee and declare to Him, “Lord, You are my Lord,” that gives the Holy Spirit freedom to come in and do everything God wants to do in your life.
Do not be afraid of Him. Do not hesitate. Do not be put off by other people’s exaggerations or overemphasis on things. Say to your Father, “Father, I want the real thing. I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I want to be anointed by the Holy Spirit. I want the fruit of the Spirit to grow in my life. I want the gifts of the Spirit to operate in me. Whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do, I want that to become my experience.”
There is a Calvary and there is a Pentecost. I suggest that we go to both of them. Do not just visit Calvary and know the forgiveness of your sins. Go to Pentecost and experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, whatever that means for you.
Do not get involved in controversy. Just go to your Lord and say, “Lord, You are the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. Whatever that means, whatever happened on the day of Pentecost and in the Book of Acts, I want it for me.” I believe He will respond.
Well, I was the first to speak, and now I am the last. There are just two questions here. I want to read this question because it is a wonderful question.
I have strong desires to be fruitful and spiritually effective, or, in other words, to enter into spiritual sonship in a fuller way. But I feel many times very frustrated. There is no one with whom I can share my spiritual burden and vision. Also, I feel my flesh is so weak, and my spiritual progress and fruitfulness are much too slow. If so, how long, if ever, could I enter into spiritual effectiveness with sonship in view? How could I enter into corporate spiritual sonship?
Praise God. First of all, I am happy because this person has a heart for the Lord. They really are pursuing the Lord, whatever fashion that may take.
It sounds like a young person. Why? It is like an adolescent who wants to take over his dad’s job, but he is only fourteen. He says, “I am not growing fast enough. I am not growing fast enough.”
But we grow with a growth that is from God, and we have to grow up at His rate. I do not think you should worry so much about your growth rate. You think it is way too slow; maybe your parents think you are growing way too fast.
But you have a heart for the Lord. You really want to become spiritually effective and fruitful. All of that is wonderful.
Let us begin by saying this: every Christian who has a heart for the Lord is going to come into sonship. Consecrate your life before the Lord. Present your body as a living sacrifice. Then prove what the will of God is in your life.
Look at 2 Peter 1, where our brother Stephen shared in the first session. There is that wonderful list of spiritual character development. The Lord wants you to take the faith you have received by grace and add to that faith moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love.
But when we read this question, we see someone in whom the shadow of Romans 7 is lurking. Why do I say that? Because this person wants, more than anything else, a law for how to be spiritual.
That does exactly what Ed was talking about. Once you set up a law for your spirituality, you will hinder yourself. Most of us have to do that for a while, until we come to understand a subtle difference.
There is a difference between taking things up for the sake of the Lord—“I am going to discipline myself. I am going to study in a disciplined way. I am going to pray for an hour a day”—and responding to the Spirit’s enabling within us to pray, study, and serve.
On the sonship side of being crucified and living by Christ as our life, there is something more responsive. We respond to the Spirit’s enabling within us to be disciplined in prayer and study. It may look like the same mechanical thing, but there is all the difference in the world.
One is a response to the life within saying, “Go to Me, My son, in prayer.” The other is your desire to go to the Lord in prayer in order to become spiritual.
There is a crossover here. There is a shadow here. You can hear it in words like, “I am frustrated.” Here is somebody who is really trying, and I give them a silver star for trying.
Two things will happen: they will come to the end of themselves, and secondly, they will find the way to do it rightly.
I never discourage any young person who really wants to be faithful to the Lord and has a heart for Him. I say, “Go get them.” Do not think the Lord does not love that.
Even when Paul was a brand-new Christian, he was still very carnal, but his desire was to pursue the Lord. There was nevertheless a new creation in him, the new life within him that was growing—the resurrection side, right from the beginning.
But Paul had to go through Romans 7, and so will you. You are on the way.
Let me be practical and look at one Scripture dealing with sonship: Hebrews 12. There are two sides of Hebrews 12 that I want us to see.
The Lord wants you to grow and add this to your life and add that to your life. This is the way we grow. But look at the first couple of verses, and I suggest that there are two things ahead for this person.
Another reason I see the shadow of Romans 7 here is that there is too much self-consciousness. It is like an adolescent saying, “I feel like I am not making it. I feel like I am so far behind. I, I, I.”
The real pursuit of sonship becomes something other than yourself. It is drawn out of you by life. This person has to come a little bit to the end of themselves and their self-consciousness about not making it, because that is a hindrance.
Hebrews 12:1 says:
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
The first thing you will experience in this growing process is that you will have to lay aside hindrances—even self-consciousness, self-condemnation, and self-inspection. Introspection can really hinder the process of sonship.
Lay aside those hindrances and the sin that so easily besets you. Is it not interesting that in everybody’s life, whether adolescent or older, there is usually one thing that keeps tripping you up?
If you want to grow with the Lord, deal with those two things: the hindrances and the sin in your life. Go to the Lord about them.
Having done that, fix your eyes on Jesus and run the race. Very practically, I believe the Lord has laid some racecourse before you. He wants you to learn His life while running that race.
There is a discipline the Lord wants you to undertake. Maybe it is studying to show yourself approved unto God. Maybe it has to do with some service in the body of Christ. The Lord says, “There is a course. I want you to run that course.” Lay aside hindrances and run the race.
Then you are going to have to learn to rest in this matter of growth. If you fix your eyes on Jesus, you will find yourself growing when you do not realize you are growing.
You will find that the Lord is taking hold of you in areas where you did not think He would take hold of you, because He loves you so much. So He has got such a young person’s heart, and the Lord will lead them—Romans 7, Romans 8, upwards and onwards, to infinity and beyond.
There is somebody else in the shadows of Romans 7. Here is the last question:
When we come to know the Lord and are saved, then we become a child, and then a son, and then joint heirs. At what point do we become part of the bride?
That is a good question. First question: Are you not already engaged?
At what point does somebody who is engaged become part of the bride? Paul says, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” You are already engaged.
If you take that to heart, you are already part of the bride—and indeed you are. The bride especially emphasizes the heart matter. Where is your heart?
That is what Paul was upset about in 2 Corinthians 11. He said, in effect, “I betrothed you to Jesus, and you are letting somebody else distract you.” Set your heart on the Lord, and you are already betrothed.
Then turn to Revelation 19. You know the verse about the bride making herself ready. Revelation 19:7-8 says:
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him:
For the marriage of the Lamb is come,
And His wife hath made herself ready.
And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure:
For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
You are betrothed now. How can you prepare yourself as the bride? Here is a clue: Are you adding righteousness to your life? Are you doing the works the Lord has told you to do? This is a question of obedience, is it not?
There is service to be done, and as you do that, you embroider into that fine linen garment. Your righteousness becomes something very beautiful in the bridal gown—not yours alone, but something to which you are contributing.
Way back in ancient history, Ernie and I were pastors in Indiana, and they used to have quilting bees. The women would get together, and one woman would put a rose on the quilt, another would put something else on it, and each had her own sewing to contribute.
The fine linen bridal gown is like that. Do you want to be part of the bride? Then add your righteousness. You cannot be passive about it.
There are works prepared before the foundation of the world for you to do. Will you do them?
If you do not make it for the millennial reign, Revelation 21 says that when the new heaven and the New Jerusalem come down, there is the bride—and that includes everybody, even those who did not make it for the millennium. You will still be part of the bride.
So when are you going to be the bride? If you are the Lord’s, realize that you are the Lord’s, and have given yourself to the Lord, you are already betrothed and you are on the way.
Could I end with what our dear brother said at the beginning? The Word of God is very positive about this thing.
If you have a heart, you are going to be a son. The Christians I worry about are the Christians who do not ask the questions. They do not care.
The person who says, “What happens to the Christian who does not make it to become a son?”—you know something? That Christian is going to become a son. The very fact that they are concerned about it is a good indication.
We are all going to fail and make mistakes, but the Lord sees the heart all the way through. When we find a brand-new or younger Christian who says, “Give me the law, give me the method, I am going to do it,” the Lord looks at the heart and He loves that precious saint because they are sincere.
Yet it is possible for someone to have a heart for the Lord while still having no character yet. I know people would have said that about me when I was a new Christian: “He has got a heart for the Lord.” I just had no Christian character.
The Lord starts with the heart, but the Lord wants character. He will get it through the process of our lives if we respond to His prompting and respond to the Holy Spirit. May the Lord have His way.