We have been going through a series on the
Holy Spirit that was generated by my own heart concern for the terrible ways that the Holy
Spirit is dishonored in the name of evangelicalism today. The Charismatic movement sort of leads the
parade on abusing the Holy Spirit, grieving the Holy Spirit, insulting the Holy Spirit,
even blaspheming the Holy Spirit. And it just seems to be unbridled, relentless
abuse that is heaped upon the Holy Spirit. As I said very early on in the series, the
unpardonable sin that Jesus addressed in the gospel of Matthew was attributing to Satan
the works of the Holy Spirit. And I think there is a reverse of that sin
today, and that is attributing to the Holy Spirit the works of Satan. This is rampant in our world and the abuses
are obvious for all of us to see. It's very popular today to say anything you
want to say about the Holy Spirit, to assign to the Holy Spirit anything you wish to assign
to Him to gain power over people. Dishonoring the Holy Spirit is a kind of an
open sport now. There are attacks on God the Father. Open theism, that's a theological attack that
basically says God is not omniscient, He doesn't know everything, doesn't know the future. That's a theological attack. There are attacks on God the Son. One, called a Pauline perspective, denies
the actual atoning death of Christ on the cross. It assaults the nature of God, open theism
does. It assaults the nature of the work of Christ,
the Pauline perspective, and an assault on the doctrine of atonement, imputation, justification. There have always been those attacks of a
theological nature coming from within the church on the Father and the Son. The attacks on the Holy Spirit, while they
are doctrinal don't come across as doctrinal. They're not identifiable as doctrinal. They're just relentless things that are blamed
on the Holy Spirit of an experiential nature. They're tragically attacking God, the glorious
God who is three in one. The Charismatic movement has, in essence,
rejected the true identity of the Holy Spirit, rejected the true, glorious work of the Holy
Spirit and substituted a false God. There is a false God identified as the Holy
Spirit who is not the Holy Spirit, it's a God of the making of people in the church
today. It's a golden calf, it's a misrepresentation
of God the Spirit. And the movement freely ignores the truth
about the Holy Spirit and with reckless license puts up an idol spirit in the house of God,
blaspheming the Holy Spirit in His own name. There are so many illustrations of this that
one can barely keep up with them. There is a new book that is the current bestseller,
top of The New York Times list. It is a book that comes out of the Christian
world called Heaven Is For Real . It is a book that chronicles, supposedly,
the trip of a four-year-old during an appendectomy to heaven. He went to heaven, came back. You would think that a book like that couldn't
fall off a shelf, let alone have somebody take it off a shelf and buy it. But five million were sold in the first nine
months. Five million books in which a four-year-old
describes what he saw in heaven while he visited there during his appendectomy. He saw the Father, he says, who has wings
like Gabriel. He saw Jesus, who has blue eyes and is only
half as tall as Michael and shorter than Gabriel, but though He's really short, He's more powerful
than the rest of them and He rides a rainbow horse that only He can ride. And he saw the Holy Spirit, too. And the Holy Spirit is a blue transparent
fog floating around up there who shoots out power toward the earth. Five million of those in nine months? This is where we get our view of the Holy
Spirit and God the Son and God the Father and heaven? From a hoax? Fraud? Four-year-old whose imagination is prompted
and expanded by his parents, no doubt? The Holy Spirit has been turned into the latest
transformer toy. He can become whatever you want Him to be. Whatever shape you want Him in, whatever comforts
you, whatever interests you, whatever allows you to manipulate people for your own ends,
you can blame it on the Holy Spirit. This is a kind of blasphemy and insult. We've talked about that the last few weeks,
that is unworthy of any true Christian and certainly inconsistent with what Scripture
says, whether it's a severe heresy regarding the Holy Spirit or some frivolous experience
and misrepresentation. In any case, whatever the misrepresentation,
whatever the untruth is, it brings dishonor on the Holy Spirit, who's worthy of all honor
and all praise and all glory. So we've been trying to sort of get a clear
view of who the Holy Spirit is and what His ministry is so that we can worship Him in
spirit and in truth. And for the starting point of our series,
textually, we've gone to Romans 8. So you can turn in your Bible now, if you
will, to Romans 8. I've been very encouraged at the response
to the series. You've given us wonderful feedback that this
is a blessing to you and that you're seeing things in a fresh and new way and that it's
altering the way you view the Holy Spirit and the way you worship Him, the way you worship
in general, which is so very, very central to our Christian life. As we come to the 8th chapter of Romans, of
course, the book of Romans is about the gospel, and the opening five chapters talk about the
gospel. The opening couple of chapters talk about
the need for the gospel, the sinfulness of man, and then from chapter 3:21 to chapter
5, the end of chapter 5, verse 21, talks about the salvation offered in Christ to meet that
need. So it's a book about the gospel. The opening chapter presents the gospel of
God, verses 1 to 17. Then comes the sinfulness of man, then comes
the solution in the wonderful sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So by the time you come to the end of chapter
5, we've pretty well gone through the fact that salvation is by grace through faith in
Christ, not by works, and that's made very, very clear. So the way of salvation is laid out. When you get to chapter 6 in the book of Romans,
you're now going to talk about the benefits of the gospel, and they run all the way through
verse 39 of chapter 8. So we have chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8
on the benefits of the gospel. In a very general sense, we could say this:
6 and 7 deal with the negative benefits and 8 deals with the positive benefit. Six and 7 deal with the negative benefits
in this sense: It's a no-longer section. You're no longer under the law. You're no longer a bond slave or a slave to
sin. You are no longer under the curse. You are no longer dead, you've come to life. You are no longer a victim of your flesh. So 6 and 7 give the negative aspects, which
are certainly positive in their effect, but they're articulated in a negative way - freedom
from the law, freedom from sin, freedom from punishment, freedom from death. When you come into chapter 8, now you get
into the positive aspects and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit becomes the theme
of chapter 8. This is that which the Holy Spirit does in
us, for us, with us. And we found that in chapter 8, it's more
than a text within itself, it's a launching point that sends us all over the New Testament
to find comparative passages that expand on everything it says. We're not going to do a lot of that - we're
trying to restrain ourselves to work our way through this 8th chapter. But nonetheless, we see the vastness of the
things that are here revealed about the Holy Spirit and how they can be elucidated from
other portions in the New Testament in particular. So we're looking at the benefits section of
what salvation brings us, and this is where the work of the Holy Spirit begins to really
become clear to us. The Father made the plan, the Son made the
plan possible, and the Holy Spirit makes the plan work. Okay? The Father designed it, the Father initiated
salvation, the Son validated salvation, and the Holy Spirit applies the reality of salvation. The Father is the one who chose us, the Son
is the one who redeemed us, the Spirit is the one who sanctifies us. Election is the work of the Father, justification
is the work of the Son, sanctification is the work of the Spirit. The Trinity engaged in this wondrous reality
of salvation. So as you come into chapter 8, and you're
looking at the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, as He positively
sanctifies the believer, it comes down to this: We're moving from grace to glory. Okay? We're no longer under condemnation. That's how verse 1 starts. We're no longer under the sentence of death
by the law. We have been delivered from the law of sin
and death. We have been given new life. We have been regenerated. We are born again. Now we begin to experience the powerful ongoing
ministry of the Holy Spirit as He moves us from grace to glory. And this is so critical for us to understand
because this is where we live. A right understanding of the ministry of the
Holy Spirit is necessary to worship the Spirit of God for the very things that He is at this
time doing in our lives. You cannot truly worship the Holy Spirit as
you should and you must unless you understand what it is that He is doing and what makes
Him so worthy of worship. So in the 8th chapter, this is what we find
out. Verses 2 and 3, He is freeing us from death,
from sin and death. Verse 4, He's enabling us to fulfill the law. It's not the negative of being free from the
curse of the law, it's the positive of being enabled to fulfill the law. Verses 5 to 11, He's changing our nature. Verses 12 and 13, He is empowering us continually
for righteousness. Verses 14 to 16, He is confirming our adoption
as sons of God. And that leads us now to verse 17 where we
find the last identifiable ministry of the Holy Spirit in this chapter; He is guaranteeing
or securing our future eternal glory. He is guaranteeing or securing our future
eternal glory, and that, of course, is the ultimate gift of God, a salvation that is
inviolable. We have a guarantee of eternal glory. This is the best of all the elements of salvation,
for what would a salvation be that we could forfeit? And as I've often said, if we could forfeit
it, we would forfeit it. If it depended on us in any way, we would
lose it because none of us could do whatever it would take to secure to ourselves by our
own merit a salvation from God. So the only hope we have for eternal glory,
the final part of our salvation, the final chapter, is to be secured by the same God
who chose us, called us, justified us, and will one day glorify us. It is the Holy Spirit then who, while sanctifying
us, is at the same time securing us. So we could say that the two works of the
Holy Spirit are sanctification and security. Down through verse 13, we could say we are
being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, starting in verse 14 where we get into being adopted
as children of God, which is a permanent relationship, we could say the work of the Holy Spirit is
in securing us. He progressively conforms us to a righteous
standard, which is modeled perfectly by Jesus, we saw that, and He secures us, He keeps us. That's what Ephesians 1:13 means when it says
we're sealed by the Spirit. That seal can't be broken. We have a seal of the Spirit. We have the pledge of the Spirit. We have the guarantee of the Spirit. Or it says here in verse 23, we have the first
fruits of the Spirit; that is, God gives us the first fruits of a full crop to come in
glory. That's our guarantee of future glory. The Holy Spirit, then, does this twofold work
in us of sanctifying us, which is conforming us to Christ, who is the model. Remember, we said that Christ lived a life
of 33 years in order to establish the model of what sanctification looks like to which
we seek to be conformed under the power of the Holy Spirit. So He is in that work of conforming us to
Christ, which will only be perfected when we see Him face-to-face. But here, we're going to see He secures us
to our future glory. Anybody who tells you that you can lose your
salvation doesn't understand salvation. Anybody who says that you can have salvation
and lose it doesn't understand salvation. Salvation is a gift given by God before the
foundation of the world, and everyone - we will read in a minute - in this category of
being chosen by God will be glorified for whom He predestined, He called, and whom He
called, He justified, and whom He justified, He glorified. Jesus says, "All that the Father gives to
Me will come to Me, and I will lose none of them, but raise Him up on the last day," John
6. We are then indebted to the blessed Holy Spirit
for regenerating us, giving us life and then for sanctifying us and securing us until the
day that He Himself transforms us. We will be raised to our eternal condition
by the power of the same Holy Spirit that regenerated us at our conversion. It's a work that the Father designed and the
Son validated and the Spirit effects. Now look at verses 17 and following. We come into this section on the securing,
guaranteeing ministry of the Holy Spirit by which we can be confident that we will reach
eternal glory. Let me read it to you, starting in verse 17. "If children, heirs also, heirs of God and
fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified
with Him." And with that last line, Paul introduces the
concept of eternal glory. "For I consider that the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits
eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility,
not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also
will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children
of God. For we know that the whole creation groans
and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves having
the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for
our adoption as sons the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that
is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see with
perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. In the same way, the Spirit also helps our
weakness for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches the hearts know what the
mind of the Spirit is because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." This is all about future glory. It was launched with the last statement of
verse 17, which we've already considered, being glorified with Him. Verse 18 talks about the glory that is to
be revealed to us. Verse 19, the revealing of the sons of God
again in glory. Verse 21 at the end of the verse, the freedom
of the glory of the children of God. Verse 23 ends that we are waiting for the
redemption of our body. Verse 24 and 25 talk about our hope for glory
yet to come for which we eagerly wait. So we're now introduced to a category of ministry
of the Holy Spirit which secures us to future glory. Verse 23 indicates that at the heart of this
is the gift of the Holy Spirit, a down payment on future glory. We also learn in verses 26 and 27 that the
Spirit is interceding for us, which again is His work to secure us. A constant interceding on our behalf. One word jumps out at you when you read this
passage, and it's the form of the word "groan." There's a lot of groaning in this passage. Creation is groaning in this passage in verse
19. The creation groans is one way to translate
that. This one says the anxious longing of the creation,
but the Authorized talks about the groaning of creation. And then you find in verse 23 that we ourselves
who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan. And then down in verse 26, we have the groaning
of the Holy Spirit. This indicates that the creation and us and
the Holy Spirit are going through certain groanings, certain agonies, until the final
realization of glory. That's the whole point of this passage. The Holy Spirit lives within us as a down
payment on our future glory, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries us to that future
glory. That's His ministry. There is no greater gift that God could ever
give us than this. As I said, what would a salvation be worth
that we could forfeit? We would surely do it because we have not
the power in us to secure our own salvation in any sense. So here, the creation groans in verses 19
to 22, the believer groans in verses 23 to 25, and the Holy Spirit groans in verses 26
to 27. And all of those groanings are some indication
of an unfulfilled reality. All of creation feels the unfulfillment. Believers feel the unfulfillment. Even the blessed Holy Spirit experiences that
unfulfillment. This is wonderful truth. There's so much here, it's daunting for me
to try to get our arms around it in one morning, and we're not going to be able to do that,
but I'll take you as far as I did the people in the first service, so that's the standard
always for you guys. Let's look at the groaning of creation - let's
look at the groaning of creation. Verse 19: "For the anxious longing of the
creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God." Creation is groaning in verse 19. Creation is mentioned in verse 20. Creation is mentioned again in verse 21. Creation is mentioned again in verse 22. So in those four verses, creation is the subject. Creation is groaning. What is this talking about? And in what sense is the creation groaning? I think the readers, if they were Jewish,
would have some kind of an understanding of this. This is about - this is the groaning of anticipation. This is the groaning of unfulfillment. This is a kind of suffering condition waiting
for the promise to be fulfilled, and the Jews would certainly recognize it because they
talked about two eras of redemptive history, the present age and the age to come. It was pretty simple. There was the present age and the age to come. The present age was the age of sin and suffering
and decay and corruption and fallenness and sin. And the age to come was the age of the new
heaven and the new earth and righteousness and purity and holiness and virtue and glory
and the absence of death and decay and disease. It was the Isaiah 65:17: "I will create new
heavens and a new earth." People who knew the Word of God and waited
for the fulfillment of this understood what it was to be living in a groaning world. And even nature is seen as groaning. Nature here is personified. Verse 19: "For the groaning" - or the anxious
longing, as the NAS puts it - "of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons
of God." Now, what are we talking about when we're
talking about creation here? In what sense is creation groaning? And it's mentioned, as I said, all the way
down to verse 22. What part of creation? Angels? They're created beings. No. They're not groaning. Holy angels are not groaning because it's
never going to get any better for them, right? They're around the throne of God now, they're
in eternal perfection and eternal holiness. They're not subject to corruption, they've
never been subject to corruption; therefore, they don't have hope for anything because
nothing could get any better than it is. What about demons? Is he talking about the created angels who
fell and are the demons? No. They're not groaning in hope for their liberation
because there is no liberation, there's no salvation, there's no deliverance, there's
no forgiveness, there's no better future for demons, only the Lake of Fire. Well, maybe he's talking about believers. No, he's not talking about believers because
there's a distinction made between the creation and believers. Please notice, verse 19, the creation is waiting
for the revealing of the sons of God; therefore, the creation is distinct from the sons of
God. Verse 23, the creation wants to be set free
from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. So the creation that is moaning and groaning
and waiting and eagerly anticipating is distinct from believers. Well, maybe it's unbelievers, is that who
it is? Is it unbelievers? No, because unbelievers are not hoping in
Christ, they're not hoping for glory, they're not hoping or expecting something better from
heaven. They don't have any information about that,
they have no desire for that. And furthermore, if you look at verse 20,
they were not subjected to futility unwillingly. No, that's not true of unbelievers. They are willing sinners. They are willing to feed their own corruption. Bottom line, the creation that groans is no
part of the rational creation - no part of the rational, personal creation. What is left is non-rational creation, animate
and inanimate. So what you have here is a personification
of creation, the material heavens, the material earth, and everything that's in them, heaven
and all the bodies that are in it, earth, water, land, grass, flowers, animals, bugs,
fish, rivers, streams - everything that is in the animate and inanimate, impersonal,
non-rational creation. Creation is given an identity here. It's personified in a sort of poetic fashion. For example, in Isaiah 35:1, Isaiah says,
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad." Well, how could a wilderness and a solitary
place be anything consciously? But this is personification. Or even more richly, the wonderful, familiar
words of Isaiah 55:12: "The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into
singing and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." And I promise you, that if you ever hear the
mountains singing and the trees clapping their hands, they're going to take you away in a
white coat, so that's not talking about something that is a reality but is a kind of a poetic
personification. Creation, that non-rational, impersonal, animate
and inanimate, that is to be identified as living things and non-living things, rocks
and animals, that creation is anxiously longing, earnestly expecting, waiting eagerly. That's the groaning of creation. And the language here is very strong. That statement, "anxious longing" there is
a Greek verb that means to - literally it's a strange combination of components. It means to watch away from the head. It means to sort of stretch your head, get
on your tiptoes to look into the future, into the distance what you cannot see immediately,
stretching to see something that you wait eagerly for. So this is a kind of expectancy. It's as if creation is up on its tiptoes looking
out for something that it longs to see and who is it? It's persons. It's the revealing of the sons of God, the
unveiling of the sons of God. That's the time when we are all glorified. That would be at the end of all human history,
the end of the Millennial kingdom, the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth. Creation is waiting for that. In verse 21, it's put this way: "The freedom
of the glory of the children of God." When all the children of God are glorified,
creation is going to get the benefit of it, right? Because there will be a new heaven and a new
earth. All creation, then, is viewed as up on its
tiptoes eagerly looking and waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. An amazing statement - a cosmological statement
of massive proportions, inanimate and animate creation standing on its tiptoes to catch
the first glimpse of the persons that it longs to see, waiting for the unveiling, the manifestation,
the revelation of the sons of God in their full glory, and it will come. Daniel 12:3 says it will shine like the stars
and Matthew 13:43 says will shine like the sun, will be blazing glory. The whole creation is looking for that event,
eagerly anticipating it. Why? Why is creation doing that? Go back to verse 20 for a minute. Because the creation was subjected to futility. The creation was subjected to futility, or
vanity, mataiotēs , means aimlessness, emptiness, uselessness, futility, inability to reach
a goal, the inability to achieve a purpose. It can't be what it wants to be. All creation was originally good, right? When God created in Genesis 1, it was good,
remember? He said - and He looked and it was good, and
He saw it and it was good. And then at the end, in chapter 1:31 He says
it was all very good. But it was subjected to futility. It can't fulfill its purpose. It is no longer what it should be, what it
would be, what it could be. And by the way, when it says in verse 20 it
was subjected, it is a verb that indicates a past tense. It's correctly translated in the NAS. It was a point in time. A definite event happened in past time in
history at which the creation went from being purposeful and perfect to being purposeless
and futile. It was subjected to decay, to corruption,
to frustration, to death and decay, destruction. Now, can we blame the creation? Is this just - it's just that something went
wrong in the evolutionary cycle? Is that what it was? What happened? Well, go back to verse 20 again. It was subjected to futility not willingly
- not willingly. The creation isn't at fault. Whatever subjected creation to its aimlessness,
whatever subjected creation to its decay and its inability to be glorious as the original
created goal was intended, whatever, it wasn't creation's fault. Creation is an involuntary victim. Something else did this to creation. Someone else did it to creation. Who? Keep reading. "Not willingly but because of Him who subjected
it." Who's that? God. God subjected creation to its futility. God, according to Genesis 3:17, 18, and 19
pronounced a curse on the creation. Why? Because of the sin of Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve sinned, a plague came on
them, a deadly plague, a plague that was so infectious no human being who ever walks on
this planet will escape it. A plague that is so contagious that no one
can avoid it. Like living in the midst of a city that had
been hit by the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. The plague was not only in the people, but
the plague dominated their environment. The plague was not only in the man lying in
the bed in the house, dying; the plague was everywhere in the house. It was not only everywhere in the house, it
was everywhere in the street, and it was everywhere in the city, and it was everywhere in the
countryside, and there was no escape because the environment was under the corruption. So it was when Adam sinned, the plague was
everywhere on the planet, and it continues to this day. Decay, disaster, pollution, disruption, degeneration
- those are not the result of some evolutionary fluke; those are the result - because it's
supposed to get better, according to the evolutionists, some anomaly, some bad mutation. The things are the way they are in the world
because God cursed this entire creation. He cursed it so that man is left to face every
waking moment of his life the deadly, destructive, corrupting realities of sin. As Isaiah 24:6 - a curse devours the earth. As Jeremiah 12:4 says, the land mourns. Nature's destiny is inseparably linked with
man's, and because man sinned and fell into a corrupt condition, so the domain of man
is in the bondage or the slavery of corruption. See that phrase there in verse 21? That the creation itself is in slavery to
corruption. Intimate connection between man's sin and
the decay to which the whole universe is subject. Environmentalists aren't going to turn that
over. They're not going to reverse that, they're
not going to mitigate that. Nice try, but it won't work. Solar energy won't do it. Eliminating carbon footprints is not going
to do it. Getting rid of fossil fuels isn't going to
do it. Education isn't going to do it. This is a divine curse. We're not on an upward trend; we're on the
way down from perfection. Listen: We're on the way down from perfection
to total destruction and there's no stopping point. That is a world view that is biblical because
when man sinned, he was punished by not being allowed to enjoy purity because he chose sin
and not even being allowed to enjoy the benefits of a perfect environment as king of the earth. He was now a king who lost his crown and tried
to rule over an unruly, corrupt, decaying, and deadly creation. God cursed his entire environment. You know, Isaiah has so much to say about
this, I can hardly resist reading some of the things that are there. But one of them, I'll resist a little bit. Isaiah 24:4: "The earth mourns and withers,
the world fades and withers, the exalted of the people of the earth, they fade away. The earth is polluted by its inhabitants. They transgress laws, violate statutes, broke
the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth and those
who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are
burned and few men are left." Then he goes on to talk about even more disastrous
elements of trying to live and survive in this world; 34th chapter of Isaiah, he says
even more about it; 33rd chapter, the whole creation is cursed. So the principle of corruption is everywhere,
so the creation is groaning because it has been subjected to futility, not of its own
will but as an accommodation, a necessary accommodation, to the curse of God on Adam
and Eve and on all humanity, and it cannot do anything to reverse its slavery to corruption. This is an act of God. "But," you say, "why is creation up on its
tiptoes?" End of verse 20: "In hope" - in hope - "in
hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption." Beautiful imagery. The whole creation standing on its tiptoes,
longing to be what it was originally created by God to be and knowing it will never happen
until the glorious manifestation of the children of God, the freedom of the glory of the children
of God, until the final eternal state. That's what all creation is waiting for. They are looking for a better future. That's the kind of world we live in. We live in a very difficult world. I'm working on a book that will come out in
a few months, it's called Twelve Unlikely Heroes . People seem to want to buy books that have
"twelve" in the title, so I'm just going to keep writing books that have "twelve" in the
title - Twelve Ordinary Men , Twelve Extraordinary Women - so I think they like "twelve," so
Twelve Unlikely Heroes . One of the heroes is Enoch. And you look at Enoch, you say, "Well, wait
a minute. A hero has got to be somebody who has some
kind of impact on a lot of other people, and Enoch seemed a kind of a solitary figure." He was walking with God. It was just the two of them. He was walking, and one day he just walked
to heaven, didn't die, remember that? Enoch, just like Elijah, carried in a chariot
of fire to heaven. That's a very rare situation. But what makes Enoch a hero? Why would you think of Enoch as a hero? What level of influence? What range of influence? What about him is so heroic? He was a righteous man who walked so intimately
with God that God just took the walk right into heaven one day. What makes him special? I'll tell you what. Do you understand this, that the entire generation
in which Enoch lived were all drowned in the flood except for eight people? Do you know how rare a bird Enoch was? Do you know what it is to be the only guy
in the world that walks with God? You're looking at a hero if ever there was
a hero. You're looking at a man who lived against
the grain of a culture that was so corrupt, God killed millions of them in one fell swoop. That's why it's heroic. For Enoch, it was that he walked with God. And for us, how do we survive this corrupt
world? Look, lower your expectations, will you, for
the world? Will you? Lower your expectations for the world, for
its education, its politics, its social structures - just lower your expectations. Get them down somewhere like those in Genesis
where God saw the world and it was only evil continually. Just get them down there and you'll be okay. And then walk with God. God protected Enoch through a corrupt world,
and that's the work of the Holy Spirit. God is still doing that, not by walking with
us, but by living in us, and it's the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us in the midst of this
corrupt world. Paul even calls it a crooked and perverse
generation. That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This whole creation is waiting for the deliverance,
the freedom of the glory of the children of God when it will also be set free from the
slavery to corruption that has cursed it. How is this going to happen? How is it going to happen? Well, the psalmist talked about it in Psalm
102. You might overlook this if you didn't look
closely, but it's a wonderful statement, Psalm 102 verse 25. It says, speaking to God, "O my God," he says,
and then he says, "You founded the earth and the heavens are the work of Your hands. Even they will perish, but You endure. All of them will wear out like a garment,
like clothing; you'll change them and they'll be changed but You are the same." You created it, it will go out of existence
and something new will come, that's Psalm 102. And it is described in careful detail in 2
Peter 3. Second Peter 3 gives us these words, "The
day of the Lord will come like a thief in which the heavens will pass away" - exactly
what the psalmist said - "with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense
heat and the earth and its works will be burned up." That will be literally the atomic explosion
of the created universe made up of atoms. And it tells us even further in verse 12:
"The heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat." And the world and the earth and heavens, as
we know it, will go out of existence. I call it the uncreation. "And in its place will come a new heaven and
a new earth." That's what Peter said. Revelation 20 says it, 21 says it, 22 says
it. So creation is awaiting a cosmic regeneration. In fact, looking to the future, there is no
hope for any change in the creation from the way it is until the glorious freedom of the
children of God. Look, the creation went down with the Fall
of man, and the creation will come back again in the exaltation of man, okay? Between - in the first three chapters of Genesis,
you have the cursed creation. Cursed because man is corrupt. In the last three chapters of Revelation,
you have the new creation in perfection and righteousness because you have glorified humanity. And in between is the sad, long history of
sin and corruption. The two are linked. What happened to man in the Garden happened
to the creation. What happens to man in glory will happen to
the creation as well. It will be liberated. So all creation groans, waiting for that to
happen. Verse 22 sums it up. "The whole creation groans, all of it, because
all of it is cursed, and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now." A verb that means pains of childbirth. And childbirth pain is a positive pain, right? I mean, it has a positive result. Some pain has negative result. You're feeling bad and you're going to feel
worse, you're going to die maybe. But childbirth pain basically is the kind
of pain that anticipates something wonderful, like great event, something blessed, and that's
the kind of pain that the creation feels. You don't need to take care of the creation,
folks. Can I tell you that again? I've said this before. Step on the grass, kill a deer, do what you
want, you don't need to protect the creation. It's here for you. You don't need to be stupid about it, you
don't need to be evil about it, but you have to understand, this is a cursed creation. It still is allowed to yield riches and blessing
for us. God's going to take care of His creation until
the time when He destroys the entire thing. Okay? So don't get carried away with trying to preserve
the creation in the condition it's in. You will be much better served when it doesn't
even exist. Okay? Not that you could hurry it or delay it, that's
in God's plan. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, "I wonder whether
the phenomenon of the spring supplies us with a part answer. Nature, every year, as it were, makes an effort
to renew itself, to produce something permanent. It has come out of the death and the darkness
of all that is so true of the winter. In the spring, it seems to be trying to produce
a perfect creation, to be going through some kind of birth pangs year by year. But unfortunately, it doesn't succeed, for
spring leads only to summer, summer leads to autumn, and autumn back to winter. Poor old nature tries every year to defeat
the vanity, the principle of death and decay and disintegration that is in it, but it can't
do it. It fails every time. It still goes on trying as if it feels things
should be different and better, but it never succeeds, so it goes on groaning and travailing
in pain. It has been doing that for so very long." So very long but it still reappears and reenergizes
the effort every year. Be kind. Don't blame your grass, don't blame your flowers,
it's the nature of it. They make a good try, he says, every spring. Creation groans for glory. Secondly, and just briefly - couple of minutes. Believers groan for glory - verse 23. "Not only this" - that meaning creation - "but
we also ourselves. We ourselves groan within ourselves waiting
eagerly for our adoption as sons, namely the redemption of our body." Look, we understand the groaning of creation
in its imperfection because we're part of creation and we are living imperfections. We groan in ourselves, lamenting our cursed
situation. Paul says, "O wretched man that I am, who
will deliver me from the body of this death?" Romans 7:24. You remember 2 Corinthians 5:4 where Paul
also says, "In this tent we groan, desiring not to be unclothed but to be clothed upon
with our new body, that this mortal shall put on immortality, that death shall be swallowed
up in life." David groaned in Psalm 38:9: "All my desire
is before You and my groaning is not hid from You." We know what it is to groan. We groan. What are we waiting for? What are we groaning for? Well, he says in verse 23, "Our adoption as
sons." You say, "Wait a minute, we were already adopted. You told us that in 14 to 16 in this chapter,
that we have been adopted." Yes, we have been adopted but we don't have
our inheritance yet. True? And what is our inheritance connected to? End of verse 23, the redemption of what? Our body. We've already been adopted formally into the
family of God. We are the children of God. We have the Holy Spirit leading us now - verse
14. We have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of adoption,
in us by which we cry, "Abba, Father." We sense that intimacy with God. The Spirit is testifying with our spirit - verse
16 - that we're the children of God. So we have been adopted but we have not received
our inheritance. You remember 1 Peter 1:3-4? We have an inheritance that fades not away,
reserved in heaven for us, not yet received - not received until the glorious freedom
of the children of God. So we groan. We groan for the day when this mortal shall
put on immortality, when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, when death shall
be swallowed up with life, right? First Corinthians 15. We groan for that experience. We want to be clothed with our heavenly body,
like unto His glorious body, Philippians chapter 3. Paul even calls these vile bodies, our flesh,
our fallenness, our humanness, our sin. We can't wait. Thankful for grace but we can't wait to go
from grace to glory - from grace to glory. Are we going to make it? We are - verse 23 says - because we have already
the first fruits of the Spirit. That doesn't mean something that comes from
the Spirit, not first fruits from the Spirit, but the first fruits of the future promise
from God who is the Spirit. The Spirit is the first fruits, the first
fruits of the Holy Spirit. He is the first installment. First fruits was the little bit of the crop
that the farmer pulled first, the first part that came in while the rest was still reaching
its full bloom. He would pull in the first and he would know
what the future crop would be like by the first that came. The Holy Spirit is the first fruits of the
full crop that God has prepared for His people. He is the installment, the down payment, the
arrabon, the engagement ring, the seal, the pledge, all that language is found in Paul's
writings. And He is the Spirit of promise. That's the hope of the redeemed. Colossians 1:27: "Christ in you, the hope
of glory." We then groan until that is fulfilled. And the older you get, the more you groan,
right? Really, the more you groan. You groan more because you can do less. You groan more because you have more to groan
about. Not only personally in your own body, but
things are going on around you that make you groan. I didn't used to groan so much about the way
things were in the world when I was a lot younger. I didn't groan so much about the loss of life
and the challenges. Between services I sat and prayed with John
James whose wife had a stroke, a brain leak, and after 62 years of marriage went to heaven
this week unexpectedly, and I sat and felt the groaning and agony of his own heart as
he tried to explain to me what it was like to lose his wife. He's been in our church with her since 1972
and how much the church has meant to them. And it's a groaning life and the longer you
live it, the more you accumulate about the groaning of it. And we all live in hope, but that hope burns
brighter as we grow older and experience more of living in a corrupt and fallen world. I'm not trying to fix the world. I'm just waiting for the day when the Lord
puts it to an end and creates a new heaven and a new earth. We live in hope. Verse 24: "In hope we have been saved, but
hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees?" In other words, we're saved by faith, but
we're saved in hope, right? Because our salvation is not full yet. You're nearer now - Romans 13 - nearer to
salvation. Your salvation is nearer than when you believed,
that is the future aspect of it. So we live in hope for what we don't see. But if we hope for what we do not see, with
perseverance we eagerly wait for it. What keeps our perseverance strong? What keeps our hope bright? It's the ministry of the Spirit of God in
us, the first fruit deposit of the Holy Spirit. He is the one leading us, He is the one confirming
our adoption, the Spirit of adoption by which we cry, "Abba, Father." He is the one testifying with our spirit that
we're the children of God. He holds us, secures us, causes us to have
a persevering hope with which we wait for the return of Christ. And we wait for our own future glory. So creation groans and believers groan. In verses 26 and 27, the Holy Spirit groans. But that's such a great section, and I'm going
to save that for next time because it leads into all things working together for good
which is a familiar verse, verse 28. Such a wonderful thing to look honestly and
truthfully at the ministry of the blessed Holy Spirit in our lives and get past the
folly and the foolishness of childish imaginations about the blessed and marvelous, magnificent
Holy Spirit. To reduce Him to some kind of a blue fog is
foolishness, misrepresentation of the intention of our understandings of Him. And I speak of that as a golden calf because
it turns God into some kind of visual image. And you never want to think about the Holy
Spirit in a visual way. You never want to think about God in a visual
way. You're entitled to think about Jesus Christ
as a man. Salvation includes faith which looks back
to the finished work of Christ, and it includes hope, which looks forward to the unfinished
work of Christ. It is a faith walk and it is a hope walk as
well. Father, we thank You for our time together
today and for all the wonderful music that we enjoyed and participated in, the wonderful
fellowship with those around us and yet even more as we fellowship when things are over
here and through the day. Thank You for the opportunity to come back
again tonight for the ministry of the Word and to worship and to honor You. We thank You, blessed Holy Spirit, for all
that You do in us to sanctify us and to secure us unto eternal glory. Thank You, O Christ, for the provision You
made on the cross that renders this possible. And, Father, we thank You for the wondrous
plan that You ordained before the world began. Thank You to our blessed Savior for sending
the Spirit that He might do His sanctifying and securing work in us until that day when
we are glorified in the new heaven and the new earth. We long for that reality, not only for our
own sakes; we long for that reality for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who
is worthy of honor for the sake of the Holy Spirit, even God the Father who deserves to
be worshiped forever and ever. And that will be what heaven is, the true
worship of the Trinity forever. We can't even comprehend it, but we pray,
Lord, that You will cause us to be faithful in hope to wait for that day when You will
surprise us every moment of eternity with Your glory and Your goodness. Thank You for calling us, thank You for justifying
us, thank You for promising to glorify us. In the name of our Savior, we pray. Amen.
