The characteristics of the sons of God, emphasizing that creation eagerly awaits their manifestation. It explains that sin has limited creation's potential, but God's plan ensures ultimate triumph. Becoming a son of God involves receiving Jesus Christ, a personal act of faith akin to trusting a well-built bridge. The love of God, described as outlandish and from another world, is bestowed upon believers, and this love should inspire a reciprocal devotion. Furthermore, those who are sons of God are characterized by being led by the Spirit, responding willingly to God's guidance, a stark contrast to those who must be coerced.
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read about that and do so I know the paper. We can open your Bible now to the book of Romans chapter eight. I think history will record that President Nixon would have gone down as perhaps one of the most popular presidents. in recent times, but instead will probably go out of office with a dark cloud over his head as any president in modern times.
For a simple reason that the dignity of his office has been overshadowed by a dark cloud, and he does not have the confidence in the respect that he once had just a year ago. When I think of his station in this world as the president of a nation, then I think of how the scriptures present the believer in this world as the son of God, an ambassador and a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's all the more imperative that the believer give a true picture of what Christianity is and who the Lord Jesus Christ is.
If a Christian does something which is not in keeping with his position as a believer, the one that suffers the most invariably is the Savior. In Romans chapter eight now, in verse nineteen, We have reference here to the sons of God, and this is what I would like to look at for a while this afternoon. Some of the characteristics of God's Son. For the earnest expectation of the creature or the creation, wait for the manifestation of the sons of God. I want to read that from another translation.
for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Another way this could be read is like this. For the earnest expectation of the creature or the creation, we can put it like this, that the creation stands on tiptoe, literally. The creation stands on tiptoe, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God or for the sons of God to come into their own.
All of creation. is waiting for that day when the sums of God will be manifested and come into the world. Verse twenty says, For the creation was made subject to vanity. Now that has been a rather perplexing scripture for me for a long time. But it simply means that the creation was made subject to vanity. That is limited to the entrance of sin. That is nothing in creation has fully come up to its potential, mainly because sin has deprived everything in creation from arriving at its true potential.
It says that the creation was made subject to vanity, that is, to this limitation through sin, not willingly. That is, it wasn't the desire of creation to be sold. Really because Adam and Eve took things into their own hands and rebellion against the word of God, the authority of God, and because of their transgression has pulled the entire creation into a state of being limited in its production and what it could be and what it should be. but by reason of him who has a subjective disdain and hope.
That is, God is going to triumph over this condition that has been brought about through sin. Ultimately, God is going to yet produce what he desires to see in this creation because God is looking out into the future and he will not be denied. And when that day comes, it will be the day when the creation will witness the manifestation of the sons of God. That's a marvelous thing to just think of the days we're living in. They're tremendously exciting days. These are days that we can't help but feel almost, if you almost sense the tingling of what's going to happen.
And more and more as we speak with Christians, we are aware of the fact that all of us, all of us without exception, are as it were on a tiptoe of expectancy for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the most thrilling thing that we have before us that he is going to come and very, very soon. When sin came into the world, all creation fell at the fact. The earth, God pronounced the curse on the earth. The earth isn't producing what it could and what it should. The animal world pronounced a curse upon the serpent.
It would go upon his belly. I don't know how he went before that time. Some believe that he stood upright, perhaps had legs. I don't know. But he was through this curse of sin going on his stomach. In the vegetable world, we find God mentioned thorns and thistles. and the thorns are leaves or branches aborted. Fissile, symbolic of proof that doesn't reach. It's too proof-potential. Of course, when we think of man, man has come away short of what he should be, what he should be.
It's only through the Lord Jesus Christ that man can be brought back into any kind of relationship with God and thus have a future as we have mentioned in verse nineteen. Now, would you turn with me to some references into the Old Testament? I would like you to notice, first of all, in Isaiah chapter fifty-three, verse eight, that we take up this subject of sons of God. Verse eight, Isaiah fifty-three, he was taken, this is you with the Lord Jesus, from prison and from judgment, And then a question is raised here.
Who shall declare his generation? That is, who is going to declare his family? Because he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. That is, the Lord Jesus Christ was cut off, you might say, in the midst of the days of the man in this earth. Question is raised, who's going to declare his generation? For a Hebrew to come into this world and to leave this world without having a family was always considered a very solemn thing.
Question is raised concerning the Lord Jesus, who's going to declare his family? In keeping with this, let's turn to Psalm twenty-two. Verse thirty. A seed shall serve him. It shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. Who shall declare his generation? That's the question. The answer is here, a seed shall serve him, it shall be a covenant of the Lord for a generation. Now, if you and I are going to have a family, we're going to have to have that family before we die.
That's a natural family. On a tombstone in England, there were these words inscribed. Here lies the father of twenty-nine. He would have had more, but he didn't have time. I think he did pretty well for the time he lived. But you see, any family that you and I have, in a natural sense, has got to be brought into this world before we die. Now the question is raised concerning the Lord Jesus. He was cut off out of the land of the living. Who's going to declare his generation? What's going to become of his family?
No natural family. He died without ever having a natural family. He did not have a wife, such as we know among us today. He did not have a family such as you and I know families today. But the psalmist tells us that a seed shall serve him, and it shall be a common to the Lord for a generation or a family. That is, the family that the Lord Jesus has. is a miracle family on the other side of death and resurrection. You and I have got to get our family before we die, but he didn't get his family until after he died. That's the difference. Now, all birth and all life is a miracle.
I saw the birth of our firstborn, and when I saw that, I thought to myself, I don't think I'll ever say an unkind word to my wife. But I did. But I never have forgotten. That miracle of life. All life is a miracle. And natural life, of course, is no exception. But when it comes to spiritual life, what a miracle that is. And every one that's a child of God today... is a miracle child. He's a child on the other side of death and resurrection.
And therefore, being born on the other side of death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, he possesses the kind of life that is incorruptible. And nothing in this world can sever us from our relationship with the Lord. the Sons of God. The whole creation is waiting on tiptoe, waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God. If you're a Christian today, you've got this before. What a prospect that is. On the other hand, if there should be any in our midst this afternoon and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, this has no meaning for you whatsoever. That's really a tragedy.
I'm so glad that my hope are not just tied up on this side of eternity I'm glad that I'm linked up with him whose days know no end now for another verse bearing on this we must turn to Hebrews chapter two I believe it is I want to show you one other verse and then we'll take rapidly as we can several scriptures giving some characteristics of the sons of God But you'll find this one verse here in Hebrews chapter two. And I want you to read verse ten.
For it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory. to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. Now we better say what this verse does not mean. First of all, we're going to it back up. Hard to come out head first. It does not mean to say, as it seems to say on the surface here, that the Lord Jesus Christ was made perfect through suffering. That is, he did not have to go to the cross of Calvary and suffer in order to become perfect.
The word perfect is it used oftentimes in the New Testament as the idea of completeness rather than sinlessness as we would think of perfection, sinless perfection teaching. But the idea of completeness. And it says that it has become the Lord Jesus, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory. to make the captain of their salvation complete through sufferings. That is, through his sufferings on the cross, he is going to be complete. How? He is going to be complete by bringing many sons into glory. That is the completion. He will not be complete unless his redeemer with him, you see.
That's why every child of God is going to be in that manifestation that day of glory. We're going to share it with him. Not one will be left behind. Not one will be missing. He would not be complete if he left one behind. But make sure that you belong to the Lord Jesus. Make sure you're safe. Alright, now let's go to these several verses and we'll look at them as briefly as we can. John chapter one and verse twelve. First thing that I think we need to consider is how does a person become a son of God?
Verse twelve, John's Gospel, chapter one, but as many as receive him, so then gave ye power or authority or the right to become the sons of God. even to them that believe on his name. Now it's rather striking, I believe, to notice that in the Gospel of John, as far as I can recall, there is nothing said about faith per se. We find references to faith in the other Gospel, and yet in the Gospel of John, there is not, as far as I know, any specific words relating to faith.
But there are a number of scriptures dealing with believing. It is the gospel of belief. Many other miracles did the Lord Jesus, which are not written or recorded in this book, but he says these are written that you might believe. You see, there's a great deal about faith in it, but it doesn't save faith as such. And there's a reason for that. Wherever the Lord Jesus Christ is presented, especially in the gospel of John, It takes for granted that he is worthy of our faith. Now, when a person receives the Lord Jesus Christ, it is faith in action, receiving him. I say, by way of an illustration, that when a young man and a young woman are joined together in marriage, it's the highest expression of faith that anybody can have in any living person in this world.
When a young woman says yes to that young man, she is putting our faith and confidence in him in a way she does nobody else. It's a greater declaration of faith than even with her own parents. Same with the man. And when a person receives the Lord Jesus Christ, he's putting his faith in him. As I said, there's no word just saying talking about faith. it goes without saying that he is worthy of faith. For example, if I go down the road and I come to a bridge, now that bridge, by the very fact that it's built over the river, tells me that it's worthy of faith. I don't get out of the car and say to my wife, now look Helen, I'll be back in about ten minutes, and I take a sledgehammer and a knoll, and I go down there and I tap all the understructure and the undergirds and say, well, it's okay, they will cross over.
Next car comes, a man jumps out with a sledgehammer and a coal barn. He goes down, tests it. Is this okay? We'll go over. We don't do that. We see that bridge. And that bridge just says, I'm safe. You can trust me. You can go over me. And we go over these things without thinking about it. That's faith. We don't question it. Faith is unquestioning, confident in the one that is presented for whatever he presents himself to be. And the Lord Jesus presents himself to men and women as Savior. And as those put their confidence and trust in Him, He becomes their personal Savior. And it says here, as many as receive Him, that is personal.
Now I want you to notice something. In John three and sixteen, it says, For God so loved the world, that's collected. That He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him, that's personal. Christ died for the world collective. That whosoever believes in him, that's personal. You will not be a son of God. You will not be saved. You will never be in the glory. You will never be in the manifestation of the glory of the son of God unless you begin where sinners must begin and have been received. Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Amen. as many as received, to them giving the authority to come, the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Now, let's go over to First John chapter three and notice another characteristic of the sons of God. John, you know, wrote in these three times, he wrote the gospel, we have the epistle, we have the book of Revelation, and one is history, one is prophecy, and one has to do with instruction for the family of God. John in these epistles takes the believer into the, you might say, the council room, and he speaks to God's family in a very intimate way.
Notice what he says here. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God, Therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. I think that love has got to be the least understood thing in this whole world. And perhaps the most needed thing in this world, and it's the least understood. And certainly when it comes to the love of God, is there a believer here today, and you've been saved for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, can you tell me, can you describe, can you analyze the love of God I can share?
I'm glad I'm a recipient of it. I'm going to regain my life in it. And I'll tell you, I don't understand. Bound, fattened. yet like one swimming in the ocean. So I am engulfed in the love of God. I marvel when I read here what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us. Now, a long time ago, I heard an Asian man give a description or a definition of this word manner of love. And that is that that word manner means outlandish, literally. Just here a few weeks ago, I was reading in a commentary, and I found one word that Sanchi, which his aged brother had said many years ago, for I was beginning to think that maybe he simply was speaking into thin air, out of thin air, and it was the word for him.
Behold, what for him? That's basically what that word has in mind, for him. Love, the Father has bestowed upon us. Now when we think of something as foreign, we think of something that is not local. That is not something that we're accustomed to. It comes from another place. The word outlandish is a very good word to use for. We think of something being outlandish, why it's something that, well, it's just crazy. I see a lot of outlandish things today, and whenever you say something's outlandish, why right away you have a poor concept of what it might be. But the word outlandish literally means something from a land outlying, way out there, a land out there somewhere.
And when we keep this in mind in connection with this scripture here, behold what outlandish love the Father has to be filled upon us. That is, love from another land, from another world, if you will. Not love like we know it in this world. But love from another world, this love from another world, gone and lavished upon the wind. You know, that word is used another place. When the Lord Jesus spoke to those raging waves and that boisterous wind, And those men saw what he did with a word from his lips.
They said, What manner of man is this? But even the wind and the waves obey him. You might well say, Behold, what outlandish man is this? Man from another world that can come into this world and speak. The raging waves cease their aging. And the wind ceases its glory. And the man from another world. That's the kind of love he has lavished upon the Son of God. And when I think of the kind of love that you and I am, show and return. We love him because he first loved us.
And if we ever saw anything of the love that was expended upon the like of you and me, we could never hold back our love for him. And let me point out, my friends, the first step and declension recorded in in the church at Ephesus once that they had left their first love. That was the first thing that God record against the church. They had left their first love. The quality, the highest quality of love had been first statement. And mind you, whenever the love left, then everything else kind of you. You show me a marriage. I don't care if I've got a fifteen-room house and he's got a He's got a paycheck that goes into six figures or more.
If there's no love between that husband and wife, all you've got is a building. That's all you've got. I've seen people that lived in little log cabins and aged cornbread, clover milk, things like that, and they were happy. Why? Because there was love there. Love all the love of God. Here we are in a world that knows nothing about. They don't know anything about decency. We see and we've heard last night how a young woman could be taken and forced into a car and humbled and humiliated because you know good and well that when it got her in the car what took place.
And then when he had finished it. My Bible says that in the last days there's going to be this plague of man's beast. So that when the man of sin exalts himself into that holy place, you'll have a lot of people that will be ready to listen to you. I don't feel at home in this world. I'm not trying to feel at home in this world. Every day I live in this world. I feel the coldness of it. I feel the energy of it. I've got to rub shoulders with the world.
I can't leave the world. I've got to live in this world. But I keep saying, oh God, don't let the world get a clamp on me. Don't let the world squeal you out and drain you of the very thing that made you a memory. of the body of Christ. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon you. Tell you what's killing us today. We're as correct. We're as straight as a gun barrel. But I'll tell you, we're just as narrow. And we're as clear as moonlight and just as cold. Oh, may God give us the warmth of love.
That kind of love that will put a tract in your hand, the kind of love that will enable you to go up to a brother or sister that you haven't been on the best accord with and shake his hand and love him. We don't need to come here and learn more truth. We're like the old Baptist deacon that I knew down south. He said, Lord, he says, we don't need any more meetings to hear more truth. He says, we ain't practicing what we know. Well, if we practiced one-tenth of what we knew, Brother McCurkin, the world wouldn't even know us either. The trouble is they know us too well. They didn't know the Lord Jesus.
He says, they won't know you because they didn't know me, but the trouble is they know us too well. All right. Now look at Romans, verse eight, fourteen. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are what? The sons of God. I want you to notice something. This is going to chill somebody, I'm sure. For as many as are what? Led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Now you know I'm always amazed. when I see how you've got to talk so hard and talk so long and reason so much in order to get some Christian to even faintly begin to follow the Lord in a path of a beast. My Bible says, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Son of God. You see? There's something about a child of God, a son of God, that responds to the spirit of God. Just respond. You don't have to force it.
I don't know where I was when I mentioned this. I have a real weakness for anything that's alive. I love things that are living. I'm not a mechanic. I'm not a mechanic, though. But I like things that are alive. When I was in Popper Bluff, a good number of years ago, my father asked me to clean the gutters out, and there was a sparrow nest up there, and so I went up, and there was only one little sparrow in it, and I tossed the nest down, and this little thing hopped up, and it was bear and biscuit. And I... My father was about to stand to death, and I said, no, don't you.
He said, what are you going to do? I said, well, I can't be a kid. So I picked it up and put it in a box, and I fed it with bread, sauce, and milk. That thing grew into a lovely sparrow. I bought a fifty-cent cage in a hawk shop, dragged that sparrow home my wife. Put her head in a conniption pit when I came in with that sparrow in a bird cage. She said, what in the world are you doing now? I said, well, I said, Dad, I had to clean out the gutter, and I didn't have the heart to kill that sparrow. I said, you're sure not going to have a sparrow in here. She said, I don't like a canary bird, much less a sparrow. Well, finally I got tired of feeding it myself.
She said, well, why don't you let it do it? It was okay. I brought a cage out, sat on the picnic table, opened up the door. Little sparrow hopped out and sat up on the door. It was a little cage. Remember a starling, we got lots of them, came flying by and made a starling triangle, sparrow looked up. They never moved. About that time a robin came by the other way, and the sparrow looked, and he never moved. Wouldn't you know, the third one, the flyer, was sparrow, made a sparrow cry like that, that sparrow was gone. Now, he had never seen a sparrow before, unless I looked like one. I was the only mother and daddy he had ever known.
But when that sparrow came by with a little sparrow cried, he did not have to be forced to follow. He took it after that bird and he was flying as fast as he could. He said, I'm a sparrow too. Here I come. Here I come. Here I come. You couldn't hold him back. You know, if you're really a child of God, you don't have to be pushed and forced and coerced to obey the Lord Jesus. You'll find that a person who's really a child of God, there's a desire to obey, there's a desire to honor, to plead baptism. Sure. Lord, tell them, find everything that's coming my way because I'm a Christian, I want it.
If I talk to a young believer here today and he's been saved one, two, three, four years, he never even did that. How come? You don't take the place around the table of the Lord Jesus to remember him. How come? You're hardly ever telling anybody about Christ's salvation. How come? You're not looking for His return. How come? As many of us are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Son of God. The sons of God can be seen in that they are led by the Spirit. They go willingly. And that little bird, I'll tell you, went willingly with the rest of those things.
Why? Because it was a built-in thing that responded to that sterile cry. And I get all these, okay? When I see Christians that you've got to twist their arm into seven months in order again to say, well, I guess I'll go to you. I get to you. And then I think I'm going to quit here. I've got several of us that I'm not going to get around. There's one more thing. I'm thinking about this. They're led. Don't have support. It makes me think of those three boys that belong to the Boy Scouts and they had an assignment, you know, to do a certain amount of good deeds and so on. And the Scott Master had his boys lined up and he said, well, what did you do today?
And one boy said, well, I did that. Well, that was good. What did you do today? Boy, he said, well, I helped an old lady across the street. Well, that was nice. And the Scott Master, what did you do? He said to the next boy. He says, I helped that first guy take the old lady across the street. Well, he says, that was good kind of thought. Two fellows have taken an old lady across to me. Says to the next boy, what did you do to me? Well, I helped those other two guys take the old lady across to me. He said, well, how come it took to mention? Well, I said she didn't want to go. Okay. I feel like that sometimes when I look into the faces of God's people, they don't want to go. They don't want to do them.
But as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. I don't have time to talk either about the conduct of God's sons, like in Corinthians chapter six. They are separate from the world. And in Philippians two to fifteen, the character of sons, he says, they're blameless. And then in Hebrews twelve and seven, you'll have my outline, and that is the correction of God. For what son is he whom he chasteneth not? We have another one of these editors' conferences, committee conferences next year. I'll give you the last patented. The whole world stands on tiptoes.
waiting for the manifestation of the Son of God. All I can say of the glorious future that the child of God is going to share with the Lord Jesus Christ, all I can say is, Lord, help me extend my little life now. Nixon would have been perhaps one of the most popular, wonderful presidents we've ever known. And I'll have to confess that he had really won my respect. Today that man, and it's not altogether impossible that that man is going to be leaving his office within a year.
Not at all impossible, because the crowd is too black or white. And I don't want to leave this world. and meet my Lord soon to come. Let it be found out that I have lived up to the character and the dignity of my being son and father. Dear brother Pat McGee made a statement and I never forgot that we were well represented in heaven. God grant that he was well represented on earth.