Jesus Made Perfect Through Sufferings - 6

Well, today we continue in Hebrews, now in chapter 2, verses 10 through 13, and begin verse 10 addressing that puzzling statement about Christ being made perfect through sufferings. We'll look at that in a moment, but let's review very quickly what we have seen, at least part of what we have seen so far in our study in the book of Hebrews.

This is a full and perfect revelation. Nothing will ever exceed what we know about God, what we are taught about God, than what came in the person and the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, therefore, is better than anything else, certainly better than anything in the Jewish Old Testament system, which is the main point of the writing of the book of Hebrews, written to Jewish believers who were pressured and tempted in some cases to return to their Old Testament Judaism to avoid the cause, the sufferings that they had come to experience as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the rite of Hebrews is telling them, don't do that. You can't do that.

It's not safe to do that. Now that Christ has come, there's no going back. And Christ is better than Moses, and better than Aaron, and better than Levi, and all of that's coming up, but so far we've seen in chapter 1 and also chapter 2 that Christ is better than the angels.

Something that we, perhaps, from our background, would not even have thought to need to be addressed, would probably not even have wondered about. But the Jews of the first century esteemed the angels very highly, and Paul in Colossians even makes reference to those who worshiped angels. And so, therefore, it is not surprising that the author of Hebrews starts by saying Jesus Christ is better than the angels, so much better, so far, far, far, far, far better than the angels, indeed better than anything else. Christ is the creator of the angels. They owe their existence to him.

Christ is the ruler of the angels, and indeed is the ruler of everything that he created. And so we are warned, as we come into chapter 2, that if we neglect God's word, that when brought by angels, brought great judgment upon those who neglected in the Old Testament, how much greater will be the punishment of those who neglect the revelation that Jesus Christ brings to us in this new covenant. That now brings us to Hebrews 2, 10 and following, in which we learn what Christ did to make us his beloved brethren and holy children.

And for those who take notes, there are three points. Number one, Jesus became perfect, verse 10. Number two, sinners became brothers, verses 11 and 12. And number three, rebels became children, verse 13. Now, because questions are raised in this chapter, or this portion, I found it very helpful to organize my thoughts around the answering of questions.

So I'm going to have a lot of questions to raise and then to answer. And so in the first one, in verse 10, where we learn that Jesus became perfect, I have five questions that I need to address. Number one, what does perfect mean in this context? Number two, who made Jesus perfect? Number three, why was Jesus made perfect?

Number four, why was this necessary? And number five, how was Jesus made perfect? Back to Hebrews 2, 10. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Alright, question number one, what does perfect mean in this context? What does it mean to say when Jesus was made perfect? Wasn't Jesus already perfect? Well, yes, morally perfect.

Yes, sinless. Yes, perfectly obedient to every command, every requirement of his heavenly Father. Perfect in those ways, but not perfect in the sense in which that word is used here. And the word that is translated perfect has a broader meaning than the English word as we normally consider it. And perfect here has the idea of being complete, having reached its final fulfillment, being qualified to accomplish the purpose for which it was created or made. And so in that sense, Jesus needed to be made perfect. He needed to be complete. He needed to be fully qualified to become our Redeemer, to accomplish the work of salvation that he was sent to do. Because, as we learned, studying the Scriptures, his qualifications to be our Savior was in fact a lifelong process. We sometimes think that once he became man, he was qualified, that's all he needed to do, to be qualified to be the Savior. He had to take upon himself human nature, human flesh. And then with a human nature that was capable of dying, he needed to give himself in death as a sacrifice for our sins. But the truth of the matter is he needed the whole process from conception in the virgin's womb all the way through to his death upon the cross and his resurrection, his bodily resurrection from the tomb, to be fully qualified to be our Redeemer.

This takes us into the mystery of the two natures. But every time we read something in the Scriptures about Christ being hungry, that is pointing to what we're getting at here. Christ in his humanity was hungry and his deity, of course not. Christ being tired, he had to lay down and sleep and slept so soundly that even the storm didn't wake him up. Does God ever get tired?

No, of course not. And he was fully God, but he was also fully man. And in his humanity, he became tired and so forth. We read in the book of Luke that in his early childhood, the early years of his childhood, that he grew in knowledge and in wisdom and in favor with God and man. How is it possible for God to grow? How is it possible for God to learn? How is it possible for God to acquire more knowledge of Scripture?

In his deity, that's not possible, but in his humanity, it's not only possible, it was necessary. How did Jesus the man learn the Scriptures? You say, well, he wrote them.

Why would he need to learn them? Well, in his deity, he wrote them, but in his humanity, he studied them. Let us do likewise in our humanity.

Let us study the Scriptures. And so Christ had to go through the whole process. He had to succeed where Adam failed. He had to be tempted and overcome that temptation where Adam, our first father, was tempted and terribly failed and fell and plunged the whole human race into sin.

So Christ had to go through that process of being a man and resisting temptation and experiencing the deprivations of man. And then finally, when that process was brought to its completion, he was ready to lay down his life upon the cross. He couldn't have done that before that process was fulfilled, and that's what the writer of Hebrews is telling us, that he had to be made perfect. Hebrews says the perfect son of God became his people's perfect savior. The perfect son of God became his people's perfect savior.

He was made perfect. Question number two, who made Jesus perfect? Well, the answer is God, as we see it in verse 10, and probably we should think in terms of God the Father, but who is verse 10 talking about when it says, for it was fitting for him? Well, the him here is the one who makes Christ perfect later in the verse. And so the him here is God Almighty. The him here is God the Father, described as this him for whom are all things and by whom are all things. This is speaking about Almighty God, who is the creator of everything, and for whom everything exists, for whose purposes, for whose glory everything exists. And so this one, him who, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Who made Jesus perfect? God. God his Father. Question number three, why did God make Jesus perfect?

And we've already answered that in part. But again, looking more closely at verse 10, we learn it is because to do so manifests the character of God. It was fitting for him. It was suitable for him. It was consistent with his character. It was a manifestation of who he is. It was consistent with his wisdom, his holiness, his power, his love, his grace.

It was fitting for him to do this because it is an outflow of his very character of who he is. It accomplishes his eternal purposes. It was fitting for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory. His eternal purpose is to bring many sons to glory.

The salvation of sinners is designed by God to highlight his love, his grace, his power, his wisdom. And therefore, it was suitable, it was fitting to him to do these things, to bring many sons to glory. Which, by the way, that phrase, in bringing many sons to glory, I'm convinced, clarifies the everyone that is mentioned in verse nine.

By the grace of God might taste death for everyone. Every one of what? Every one of the sons that God intends to bring to glory.

A vast number as we shall be reminded. So that's why God made Jesus perfect. Number four, why was this necessary? Why was it necessary to make Jesus perfect, that is complete, that is qualified, that is fully developed?

Why was this necessary? And it is, as we read again in verse ten, because he was appointed to be the captain of our salvation. Now that word captain has been translated, I suppose, at least ten or twelve different ways. And none of them completely capture the meaning of the word. You probably have to combine several of them together to get the idea of what this word captain means. Let me see if I can give you some of the translations that you might find in other translations of scripture. The leader of our salvation, the originator of our salvation, the commander of our salvation, the author, the founder, the pioneer, and that's not even all of them.

I just quit there so I wouldn't fill up too many places on my notes and run out of paper. But he is the originator, he is the leader, he is the captain, he is the commander, he is the pioneer of our salvation, and he needed to be made fully and completely qualified for that task. I have a quote from John Hohen today.

We'll have two today, we've already had one. Quote, such is the desert of sin, and such is the immutability of the justice of God, that there was no way possible to bring sinners unto glory, but by the death and sufferings of the Son of God who undertook to be the captain of their salvation. I'll read it again. Such is the desert of sin, and such is the immutability of the justice of God that there was no way possible to bring sinners unto glory, but by the death and sufferings of the Son of God who undertook to be the captain of their salvation. We have finally question five in reference to that first point that Jesus became perfect, and the question is how, therefore, was Jesus made perfect?

How did he become qualified? How was he perfectly suited, perfectly developed to the place where he was able to undertake this task that was assigned to him and that he gladly took and fulfilled? Well, we are told here that he was made perfect through sufferings, plural, not just the death on the cross, but sufferings. And we don't know everything that the writer of Hebrews had in mind by that word, but we know that there are great many areas of sufferings that Jesus Christ underwent before he finally suffered the ultimate suffering upon the cross. The sufferings, for example, of human limitations.

Can you imagine the eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, glorious God of the universe taking upon him human nature and going through all the stages to be born, coming out of his mother's body and birth just like all of us have, to be a helpless little baby cradled in the arms of someone else and having to be protected and cared for and fed and all the things that are necessary for a little baby. He who is the creator of the universe underwent this. That's a form of suffering, to be sure. The sufferings of human limitations. And then as he grew up and began his ministry, of course, the sufferings of rejection by most of those who heard him, the sufferings of humiliation as his enemies heap dishonor upon him. The sufferings of injustice that he endured on several occasions and ultimately endured in the trial when he who Pilate said was guilty of no wrong was nevertheless condemned to death. What injustice?

What sufferings? We sometimes chafe at the injustices that we see in this world. I started to say we sometimes rage about the injustices in this world. But we shouldn't as the children of God. We should not be people of anger, of rage, of perpetual discontent, of always looking for something to complain about and to rail against.

But yes, this world is full of injustice and it's a grating matter to those who understand what the justice is, what we ought to carry out in this world. That righteousness should prevail, that right decision should be made upon evidence and facts and not upon anything else. Yet here is the one who was totally innocent, not only of the crimes with which he was charged, but of any sin whatsoever.

And the final verdict was guilty. He's worthy of death. Crucify him.

What sufferings? What is he doing in all of this? Well, in part, what he's doing is experiencing the kind of sufferings that we all who live in this fallen sinful world experience to some degree and some extent so that he not only is qualified to be our sacrifice for sins, but as the chapter goes on to reveal and even more in the book of Hebrews goes on to reveal that he's qualified to be our great high priest. He's qualified to represent us before the throne of God. He's qualified to understand our sufferings.

Our pain, our grief, our sorrow so that he can be a qualified high priest to represent us before God. And so that's how he was made perfect is through sufferings. And he did all of this to become qualified to become the sacrifice for sin. And he did all of this to become qualified as a high priest to represent his people. And so that finishes point number one. Jesus became perfect.

And that's what is meant by that statement. Number two, sinners became brothers, verses 11 and 12. For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one. For which reason, he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly.

I will sing praise to you. Sinners became brothers and continue. Sinners are continuing to become brothers. Sinners are continuing to be made brothers until Jesus Christ returns. And what makes us brothers? And maybe I should start even by asking, what is a brother? And that's pretty evident, but a brother is someone that we understand is in close relationship with ourselves. That is of a kindred nature to ourselves in some way. It's often said that the human family is all of one brotherhood. And actually, that's true in a physical sense. It's not true in the Christianized sense in which that terminology is often employed, because there it misrepresents the truth of the spiritual relationship, because the Bible keeps reminding us that all of humanity is divided into two different categories. And there is no relationship between the two. There are those who are spiritual by the work of regeneration.

There are those who are carnal or natural by the virtue of the first birth having not experienced the second birth. And so that song that I can still remember from the time that I was a grade school child was being sung at that time was something like this. Do unto others as others should do unto you. All men are brothers. This above all things is true. Did you ever hear that?

I don't know. I heard it. Stuck with me all these years. And yet in the sense in which that was said, that's not true. That's not above all things true.

But there is a sense of truth in that. We are all of the same nature. We are all of the human nature. So how many races are there by the way?

One. The human race. And everybody who belongs to the human race is related. It makes no difference of our skin color and all the other variations that have manifested themselves throughout history. There is only one race, the human race, and in that sense all men and women are brothers and sisters.

And we ought to treat each other that way. That's the glaring error I suppose of those who in years gone by in this country and other countries and still around the world today have attended the evil practice of slavery because they failed to act upon the truth that every person is equally honorable, equally made in the image of God, if they understand that at all, though deformed by sin, equally worthy of respect and honor and justice, and therefore how can we suppress certain categories of people and say they're lower in value than we are? What pride, what sinful pride, what terrible injustice, because we are all of one race, the human race, and in that sense we are all brothers. But that's not the sense that is being used here in Hebrews, is it? For he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren or brothers. Who is he not ashamed to call brothers? Is that everybody in all the world?

No. Those who are being sanctified or those who have been sanctified. What does that mean? That brings us to this doctrinal word, this theological word, sanctification. Both he who sanctifies, the one who does the work of sanctification, and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren. You see, it's emphasizing our unity with Christ.

It's emphasizing our oneness with Christ. He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one. And Jesus recognizes that. And therefore he who really is set apart and above all other human beings, nevertheless in recognizing this, is not ashamed to call all of his children, male, female, red, yellow, black, and white, to call all of his children, all the ones that he has sanctified, his brothers, his brethren. That's what Jesus does, those who are sanctified.

Now, that word sanctify, actually if you get to the root of it, it's hagiadzo, is the Greek word at the root of it, often translated holy, but it really has the idea of being separate. God is holy, not only in the sense that he's sinless and perfect, but in the sense that he is separate from all of his creation. He is the only uncreated entity in all this universe. He is so different, we use the word transcendent, he is so far above everything that was created that there's no way to relate us to him except as he in grace and mercy reaches down to us and pulls us in.

But otherwise, we couldn't even come close. He's separate from sinners. He's holy. He's sanctified.

That's the way the word is understood in the Bible. When we talk about sanctification, we usually are referring to what we call progressive sanctification, which is the doctrine that those who have been saved, those who have been regenerated are now in the process of being made little by little ever more holy, ever more holy, ever more holy, ever more holy until we arrive in heaven and are completely holy. Progressive sanctification. But if you'll study your Bible carefully and look at the times that the word shows up, the word sanctified in your Bible, you'll find that most of the times what it's talking about is not progressive sanctification, but what I suppose we might call initial sanctification. In other words, when in the act of justification, first of all, we must be regenerated so that we can understand the gospel and believe.

Then when we believe it, the Bible tells us we are justified. We are declared righteous or holy or sanctified in the sight of God. The record of our sins in heaven, where the records are kept and where God is going to judge everyone at that great day of judgment. The record of our sins in heaven when we are pronounced justified, that record is expunged.

It is perfect. We are sanctified. We are made holy at that point. Judicially holy in the realms of heaven, in the courts of heaven. And then goes the work of helping us to catch up in our actual being, our actual nature, which is still a fallen nature, even though we now have a redeemed fallen nature. But now the work of helping us to catch up in reality, in our thinking, in our actions, in our words to what we are judicially in the courts of heaven.

Perfect up there, but not down here. That's the process of sanctification. So oftentimes the word sanctification refers to initial sanctification. Most of the commentaries that I consult consider this to be an example of initial sanctification or we could say justification. He who, let's insert the word justifies, he who justifies rather than sanctifies, he who justifies and those who are being justified are one. So that he's not ashamed to call us brethren. However, at least one commentator that I consulted dealt with this as if it were progressive sanctification.

That was a kistemacher. And actually, as I look at it, I don't see any difficulty in thinking that it's both. In fact, I almost think that it must be both. We have initial sanctification of which we are declared holy before the judgment bar of God. We have progressive sanctification of which we are incrementally being made holy day by day by the work of God's Holy Spirit in our lives. And we look forward to the day when we will be entirely sanctified. And that only happened when our souls are in heaven and our bodies are in the grave and then we'll be entirely sanctified.

And I think that both of those things are included here. He who sanctifies us initially by his death upon the cross and continues to work in our lives to make us more like himself. And those who are being sanctified, having been justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and are being sanctified by God's work in our lives. We are all one, amazingly.

Therefore, he's not ashamed to call us brethren. We are all one because Christ and his sanctified people have one Father. And Christ and his sanctified people have one faith. And Christ and his sanctified people have one righteousness.

Imagine that. To even compare our righteousness with the righteousness of Christ. And yet that's exactly what the Bible teaches us. If we don't have the perfect righteousness of Christ, we don't belong to Christ. But when we belong to Christ, we have the same righteousness which he has. His is deserved. His is earned by resisting all temptation. Ours is a gift. Ours is imputed to us by the work of the Holy Spirit.

But the result is the same. We are all of one righteousness. And we're all of one destination.

And I'm sure we could add other ideas to that oneness, but we're all of one. He is holy. And we are justified, counted holy before God's judgment bar. He is holy and we are being made holy.

We are being sanctified until the day of full holiness. One commentator said, by his death he makes them holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. Both Jesus and his people are one. And Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brethren. That's what makes us brothers. But then the second question in verse 12 is to whom are we related?

And I'll give you two answers to that. The one that is implied and then the one that is explicit. It is implied, of course, that if we are brethren, we belong to a brotherhood, there are others in that brotherhood. Therefore, the answer to that question is all those who belong to Christ are our brothers. And we generally add in sisters because we don't want to be thought of as being sexist here. But maybe if I could just use the word brethren, that's not quite as, what should I say, not quite as divisive as the word brothers.

Because when you say brothers, you've always got to say sisters to include everybody. But when you say brethren, you're not inclined to say sistren. So we'll say brethren and we know what we're talking about.

OK. All brothers and sisters together. And so to whom are we related? To all others who are the children of God. But the emphasis of the text, the explicit answer to my question, to whom are we related? And the most amazing one is we are related to Jesus. The one who sanctifies.

And the people that he is sanctifying are all one. We are all related to Jesus. To whom are we related? We're related to Jesus, the perfect man. We're related to Jesus, the holy savior. We're related to Jesus, the sinless one. We are related to him in this work of redemption that he has done within our souls. And that brings us to the quotation of verse 12.

Saying, and then you'll notice that this is a quotation. And yet another quotation from the Old Testament. We keep bumping into them all along the way in the book of Hebrews. Saying, and here's the quote, I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you. That's a quotation from Psalm 22. Verse 22. The 22nd Psalm is a wonderful messianic psalm. It describes Christ's death upon the cross and much more than that. But I mean, the opening words of the psalm make that very clear. What does the psalmist say when he begins to pen this psalm? Verse one, first statement. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

What's that? Well, that's the words of Christ from the cross. Spoken hundreds of years before the cross. And with our understanding, we know that this is speaking of Christ. This whole psalm is about him. I can still remember some some some sermons stand out in our minds.

No doubt yours as well as mine. So distinctly that you can still remember them decades later. I don't hear many like that. I hope you hear a few like that from this pulpit, but I don't hear many like that. But I can still remember as a probably a high school boy. I don't remember exactly what the age was sitting in a Bible conference years ago and listening to one of the recognized leaders in biblical Christianity that I had never heard in person before, though I'd heard him on the radio. Stand up and open his Bible to Psalm 22 and begin to expound this psalm in a way that I had never thought of it before, had never heard it expounded before, and it just gripped my soul as he showed us Jesus in Psalm 22. It stayed with me all of these years. I can still remember that sermon 50 to 60 years later.

I can still remember the impact of that sermon upon my heart. But here's what Psalm 22 verse 22 says. I'm reading it from my translation from Psalm 22, 22. I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will praise you. Very similar to the quotation that we have before us in Hebrews chapter two in translated from the Greek. But I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you.

Who's saying that? Jesus. This is a messianic psalm. This is Jesus speaking. Who is Jesus speaking to? To the Father.

What does he say? I will declare your name, my Heavenly Father, your name, my Holy Father. I'll declare your name to my brethren. Kind of shorthand for saying I'm going to reveal you to my people. I'm going to manifest who you are to my people.

I'm going to reveal your nature, your character to my people. I will declare your name to my brethren. And then this, in the midst of the assembly, and in the Greek translation, that's the same word as church, assembly, congregation, church. In the midst of the assembly, I, Jesus, will sing praise, sing praise to you, Heavenly Father.

This is telling us that part of what Jesus is doing and sanctifying us is making us worshipers of God. And he leads the way. He's our captain. He's our forerunner. He's our leader.

He's our pioneer. He leads the way in teaching us to worship God. That's what God is looking for. Isn't that what Jesus told the Samaritan woman? That God is looking for people to worship him in spirit and in truth. That's what he desires.

That's what he's doing in this world. And here's Jesus showing us part of how that is done. In the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise to you. And so in this Messianic Psalm, Christ declares God's name to his brothers. And Christ sings praises to God in the midst of the assembly, that is the congregation or church. Have you ever thought about Christ singing in worship to God? Have you ever thought about Christ singing in the assembly with his people? Have you ever thought about when you're singing praises to God that Christ in some sense is here singing with you? Have you ever thought about when you're singing praises to God that your voice may be actually used as the voice of Jesus singing praise to God? That puts a whole new cast on how importantly we should take this task, shouldn't we?

We shouldn't take it haphazardly or lightly. We're related to Jesus. Sinners become brothers.

But finally, number three, rebels become children. And that's verse 13 where it says, and again, this means another quotation. He's already given us one in verse 12.

Now another one. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, here's another Old Testament quotation, so we've got three in our text today, which consists of one, two, three, four verses. Three Old Testament quotations. And again, here am I in the children whom God has given me. Alright, let's see if we can explain this.

Rebels become children. How do we who are saved manifest our new position in Christ? Well, Jesus, the writer of Hebrews, quoting Jesus, quotes from Isaiah 817, I will put my trust in him. And again, this is Jesus speaking to the Father. I will put my trust in him. Or Jesus speaking to us about what he does in relationship to the Father.

I will put my trust in him. So to answer my question, how do we manifest our new position as children of God? A short answer, by exercising our trust in God like Jesus did. How do we get to that? Well, this is a quote from Isaiah 8, 17 and 18.

I'm not going to go back to it now because of time. Isaiah's message of judgment was largely rejected by the people of his day. And so he wrote down some of the message of judgment that God had given to him. He wrote it down in a scroll and gave it to someone else for safe keeping so that when in the time to come God's word came to pass, it would be evident that he, Isaiah, had spoken the word of God. In other words, Isaiah manifested such trust in God. He believed the word of God so much that he wrote it down and said, put it away for safe keeping and whatever this comes to pass, whether I'm living or dead, pull it out and look at it and know that what God said is absolutely true. Doesn't that manifest Isaiah's trust in God?

In the word of God, it certainly does. I will put my trust in him. Similarly, Christ's word when he was upon the earth was largely rejected. But Christ trusted God to perfectly fulfill all his word. He trusted his Heavenly Father and Christ's children also exercised trust in the word of God. So to answer my question, how do we manifest our new position as children of God? We manifest that by our faith, by our trust, by our strong, and to unbelievers who don't understand this, by our inexplicable faith in the Bible, which the world cannot understand, can it?

But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. But we have been taught by the Spirit of God to trust God, to trust his word, to demonstrate our trust of God by believing his word. We believe it's true, we know it's true, and things that he says that haven't yet happened, we are confident, absolutely confident that they will take place in the proper time. We like Jesus' trust in God. That's maybe the first of many evidences that you are a true child of God.

If you don't have that kind of faith, then you don't have this kind of salvation. But there's a second quote as we move on. There are two quotes actually in verse 13, and they both come from Isaiah 8.

The first one is Isaiah 8, 17, and the second one is Isaiah 8, 18. And again, the last half of verse 13, Here am I and the children whom God has given me, says Jesus. Here I am and the children whom God has given to me. What does it mean to become a child of God? Isaiah 8, 18 helps us to understand.

I am the children whom God has given me. We take it first back to Isaiah, when Isaiah wrote these words, and what did it mean? Well, Isaiah and his children. Again, Isaiah's message had been largely rejected, a message of judgment to come upon the nation of Israel.

Most of his compatriots did not believe it. But Isaiah did, and he believed it so much that he had two sons born unto him, and he gave them names, and I won't try to pronounce these unpronounceable names, but the names had meanings, and the first son's name meant, Remnant Will Return. Isaiah prophesied a judgment in which a remnant would be taken away, as we know, into Babylonian captivity, and yet would, 70 years later, return. And Isaiah believed that so much, he had so much trust in God, that he named his first son, Remnant Will Return.

He believed those words, didn't he? And he testified publicly of his faith in the Word of God, naming his son that. And his second son was named, hasten the spoil, that is, bring on the judgment. May the armies come and collect the spoil that God says is going to happen when he brings judgment upon Israel.

He believed in the hope that a remnant would return when all of this was said and done, when the punishment had run its course, but he also believed that the judgment would be awful, and he said, bring it on. In a sense, it's what we pray when we say, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. We pray, even so, come, Lord Jesus. What are we praying for? Well, we're praying for the blessing of his return for his people. We're praying for the awful judgment of his return upon the unbeliever.

And both of that is part of what we're saying. But now we transfer these words of Isaiah to Jesus Christ. It also speaks of Jesus and his children, not just Isaiah and his children, but Jesus and his children. And here the imagery switches from brethren, Jesus and his brethren, to children, Jesus and his children.

We're familiar with both concepts in Scripture. And so Jesus and his children, what do we know about them? His children become one with Christ. Here am I and the children.

We're all here together. It speaks of our being brought into God's presence. Here I am and the children, where are you? In the presence of Almighty God with the host of the redeemed ones, the sons that are brought to glory. We are God's gift to his son. Here I am and the children whom God has given to me.

We could camp on that one for a while, but time will not allow. But even here, the doctrine, the truth of election is made clear. The children whom God has given to me. We are a testimony of God's faithfulness to this present generation. Like Isaiah and his sons were a living testimony to the word of God being true. So Jesus and his children were a testimony in his day and continue to be a testimony right down to this day that God's word is true. How do you account for a multitude of people from every tongue and tribe and race and nation who believe the Bible, who believe the word of God, who believe the gospel, who are looking for the return of Christ, who are living for the Lord in this world, when this world is so opposed to all of that?

How can you explain people like this? We are a testimony, we are a living testimony to the truth of God's word and to the future promises that are coming. They are true and we testify that we believe them to be true. Well, I have more, but I will quit because I have an eye on the clock.

But I will conclude by asking this. Do these truths that we have learned today about the children of God, do they describe you? Do you believe strongly and implicitly in the word of God? Do you love to sing praises in worship to God? Are you being sanctified by the Savior?

If not, then I'll tell you what you need. Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

If you're not, that's where you need to go. Go to Jesus, tell Him your need, believe His word. Shall we pray? Father, oh Father, take Your word and seal it to every heart as needed. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.