Pledge of Paternal Provision

Adoption as the Pinnacle Blessing

0:00 In a very real sense, the highest privilege that God has afforded the fallen sons and daughters of Adam is the privilege of being adopted into his own family, of being constituted the sons and daughters of the Almighty, being made the heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. And when we begin to appreciate adoption as the pinnacle blessing among all the blessings which God in grace has provided for his own, then we will be able with some degree of conviction and spontaneous spiritual enthusiasm

0:46 to exclaim with John, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. And it is this great privilege of adoption, which we are presently considering in our Lord's Day morning meditations, a privilege which is not just one of the many privileges that constitute the cardinal blessings of our salvation, but it is, I repeat, the pinnacle blessing of those cardinal provisions of grace. If justification is the foundational blessing, then surely upon that great foundation, adoption brings us to the highest peak of gospel privilege.

Review of Adoption and Its Experiential Privileges

1:37 Thus far in our study of this great doctrine of adoption we have considered its central place in the plan of redemption we have looked at its essential nature and now we are drawing to a close our third division of study namely the blessings or the privileges of adoption And I have suggested that it is helpful in considering and in seeking prayerfully and believingly to understand and appreciate the blessings of adoption to consider them in two major categories, the legal privileges of adoption and the experiential privileges of adoption. The legal privilege is our inviolable sonship, a sonship which having once been conferred will never be reversed.

2:30 The second great legal privilege is a shared heirship, and thirdly, a conferred brotherhood. And all of this transpires basically in the court of heaven. And in this sense, the legal dimensions of adoption have their parallel in justification. But then there are experiential blessings of adoption, blessings that occur in the theater of our own hearts and of our own experience.

2:58 We've considered two of them, the first being the gift of the spirit of adoption, Galatians 4, 4 to 6, in Romans 8, 15 and 16. Last Lord's Day we contemplated the second great experiential blessing of adoption, the reality of paternal discipline, Hebrews 12, 5 to 13. Now today we come to the third and final major privilege of adoption in the realm of our experience, and it's what I am calling the Pledge of Paternal Provision. Now, the word pledge means a solemn assertion or promise or guarantee.

Introducing the Pledge of Paternal Provision

3:41 Now, we've had many weddings in our Trinity Church family life. There was one period when in a two-year span we had some 20 or 22 weddings. So the language of wedding ceremonies is very familiar to many of us. And not infrequently, one part in the ceremony, you will find the young man or not so young man and woman, let's just say the man and the woman, exchanging rings.

4:06 And one of the terms that is used quite frequently in the exchange of the rings goes something like this. This ring I give in token and pledge of my vows or of the sincerity of my vows or of my love. Now when the man says to the woman, this ring I give in pledge of my vows, what does the word pledge mean? Well, it is a solemn assertion and promise and guarantee that he was not just mouthing empty words in a marriage liturgy.

4:47 When you children in school stand and place your hand over your heart and you say, I pledge allegiance to the flag. What are you doing when you pledge allegiance? You are solemnly asserting your allegiance to your country, up to the point that that allegiance would involve disobedience to God, and then you have a higher allegiance. Well, the third great privilege of adoption is the pledge, that is, the solemn assertion and promise and guarantee of God's paternal provision for all whom he adopts into his family.

The Substance of the Pledge: Philippians 4:10-20

5:28 It would be an irresponsible act of God to adopt a family out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and nation, and either to be indifferent to the provision of their every needs or to be inadequate for the meeting of those needs. God is neither of those. Consider with me in the first place, then, as we seek to open up this aspect of the privilege of adoption, the substance of this pledge of his paternal provision. And I could bring to the service of this line of thought many passages in the Word of God, but there is one key text that in a sense is the watershed of every other promise of his paternal provision,

6:17 and, to change the imagery, is the seedbed out of which all other promises grow. And that text is Philippians chapter 4, verses 19 and 20. Now remember, we're examining the text in order to see in it the substance of this pledge of paternal provision for the children of God.

6:49 Verses 19 and 20. And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now unto our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

7:11 Now just a word about the context of this passage. In verse 10 of this chapter, Paul, who is imprisoned at Rome, writing to the Philippians, tells them that he is rejoicing in the Lord greatly. Now at length, he says, you have revived your thought for me, wherein ye did indeed take thought, but ye lacked opportunity. They have sent a gift to him by the hand of Epaphroditus, verse 18.

7:38 And Paul in his letter is thanking them for this tangible expression of their love which has been brought to him by the hand of this man Epaphroditus. But lest they misunderstand his words of gratitude, he corrects immediately any misconception. Verse 11, Not that I speak in respect of want, For I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein to be content. I don't want you to get the impression, he says, that I was sitting here fidgeting and complaining and grumbling.

8:15 But when Epaphroditus came and in his hands was your gift that relieved my physical necessities, I suddenly became a rejoicing Christian. He said, don't misunderstand me. I'm indeed grateful for your gift, but my rejoicing was not dependent upon your gift. I rejoice in it, but not on account of it.

8:35 My rejoicing is in the God who has taught me. I have learned how to be abased, how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret, both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want. I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.

8:54 And then he goes on again to express his thanks for their fellowship in the gospel. And it is in that particular setting of giving thanks to them for their gifts to Him, but expressing this larger dimension of spiritual experience, that He had learned how to abound in want as well as in plenty. I'm sorry, how to rejoice in want and in plenty. And then he boasts in his God, I can do all things through Christ or in him who strengthens me.

9:30 It's as though Paul says, now after I've told you all of this, I don't want you to think that there is a conduit of grace that has inscribed upon it my name, which comes from God to me and is available to no other. No, he says, by Christ Jesus.

10:16 So you see, the setting of this pledge of paternal provision is very significant. Now, what is the essence of that pledge? The essence is bound up in these words, My God shall supply every need of yours. There's the pledge.

10:37 My God shall supply every need of yours. And in this context, he is obviously thinking of him as God in his particular relationship as Father, for you have an almost unique combination in what we would call one of these expiratives of praise and adoration. Now unto our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Often in eulogies at the beginning, as we have in Ephesians, it's blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

11:18 Blessed be this God and Father, the Father of mercies, the God of comfort. But here you see it's God's fatherhood, not with respect to Christ, but to His children, that forms the focal point of this burst of praise unto our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. And so it is a pledge of the fatherly provision of God couched in simple language, My God shall gloriously supply all your needs, which would be a legitimate rendering of the passage. Now notice the two qualifying things he says about this pledge.

12:00 God shall gloriously supply all of your needs according to his riches and in connection with Christ My God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches so that we measure God's ability to fulfill this promise not by any human standard, nor by what human eye can see nor human logic deduce. Paul says, My God, who is our Father, to whom we stand in this relationship of adoption,

12:49 my God shall supply all of your need, gloriously supply it according to His riches, and he says, in connection with Christ Jesus. shall supply all your need according to his riches in Christ Jesus. Indicating that this promise of paternal provision is a redemptively rooted promise. It is a promise that pertains only to those who are in Christ Jesus, and it is a promise that obtains on their behalf because of who Christ is and what he has done for his own.

13:36 Now there is the substance of this pledge of paternal provision. All that can be said of God as creator, as sovereign, possessor, governor, Lord of the universe, perfect in holiness, infinite in his love, inscrutable in his wisdom, all that he is as God, he is as father to his people. He does not cease to be all that he is in himself as God when he sustains this unique and tender and intimate relationship to us as our Father. And so the pledge of his provision is made in these rich yet simple terms,

Pattern One: God's True Estimation of Our Worth

14:26 My God shall gloriously supply all your needs. So much for that brief exposition of the pledge of his fatherly provision. Now consider, secondly, the pattern of its fulfillment. The pattern of its fulfillment.

14:46 What is it that determines how God shall supply all our needs? He doesn't promise to supply all our whims, our fancies, or our desires. Paul was very careful to choose his words. He shall supply your needs, not your whims, not your fancies, but your needs.

15:08 Now, as God is committed in this relationship of Father to fulfill that pledge, what is the pattern by which he fulfills it? And here we turn to the Gospel of Matthew for our answer, Matthew chapter 6. The first aspect of the pattern by which God fulfills this pledge is His true estimation of our worth. You remember that in Matthew 6, our Lord is urging the subjects of His kingdom to heavenly-mindedness.

15:50 He commands them not to be preoccupied with earthly, but with heavenly treasures. And yet knowing that we live in this life and we have of necessity to be concerned with temporal concerns, he is laying out the principles by which as the people of God we will be enabled to live realistically in this world and yet not have the world possess us in terms of things. So we read in verse 25, Therefore I say unto you, be not anxious for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?

16:35 Behold the birds of the heaven. They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. And your, now notice, heavenly Father feedeth them. He doesn't say the Father, your heavenly Father.

16:52 He doesn't say their father. It is your father who feeds the birds. Now he's going to ask a very simple question.

17:03 Are not ye of much more value than they?

17:08 See what our Lord is doing? In seeking to encourage the subjects of his kingdom, not to succumb to sinful anxiety about material needs and necessities, he impresses upon them the necessity of understanding something of their true worth in the eyes of their father.

17:35 Behold the birds of the air. Your father is cognizant of their needs. He supplies their needs. The bird does not lack for adequate provision.

17:51 Now, he says, are you not of much more value than that bird? In other words, God's provision for his own adopted children grows out of his true estimation of their worth in his eyes. Now he says, look upon yourself as I look upon you. Understand your worth in my eyes.

18:19 And when you do that, you'll have no doubts or questions about my provision.

18:25 Now what is the measure by which to estimate our worth in God's eyes? Well, the answer is found in a well-known text. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

18:47 What is God's estimation of our worth? The answer is the full scope of his redemptive love and activity in the Lord Jesus Christ. and if God has placed that kind of worth or expressed his estimation of our worth not merely as being the crown of his creation as we heard last Lord's Day evening man the creature made in his image but as the objects of redeeming love and it's God's consideration of that worth that forms part of the pattern by which he fulfills his pledge to supply our need.

Pattern Two: His Sensitive Awareness of Our Condition

19:34 But then there's a second element that enters into the pattern of his fulfilling this promise, this pledge, and it's what I'm calling his sensitive awareness of our condition. His sensitive awareness of our condition. And Psalm 103 is so helpful in laying out this perspective. We read in Psalm 103 and verse 13, Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.

20:10 For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. God's dealings with us in the fulfillment of His paternal obligations, if I may say that without a taint of irreverence. God is conscious of our conditions, sensitively aware He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. God who made us God who permitted the fall This God is sensitive to everything

20:56 That impinges upon us By virtue of our creatureliness And by virtue of our sinfulness And his fatherly provision Is conditioned by that awareness He does not deal with us as though we were angels, disembodied spirits who had no bodies Nor does He deal with us as though we were offsprings of an unfallen Adam and Eve He knows our faith in its creatureliness and in its sinful weakness and when he commits himself to provide all of our needs,

Pattern Three: His Perfect Knowledge of Our Real Need

21:43 he does so not only on the basis of his true estimation of our worth, but on the basis of his sensitive awareness of our condition. But then thirdly, he does so on the basis of his perfect knowledge of our real need. And notice how our Lord emphasizes this again and again in Matthew 6. When the Lord would give instruction with respect to prayer, he starts with the negative.

22:12 Verse 7, And in praying use not vain repetitions as the Gentiles do.

22:19 Verse 8, Be not therefore like them, Matthew 6, 8, For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye asketh. You see, the one thing that our Lord underscores on the threshold of giving to us a pattern, a framework of legitimate prayer, is this very principle. Your Father has a perfect knowledge of your real need. And then he picks up that same thought further on in the chapter when he says in verse 31, Be therefore not anxious, saying, What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things to the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

23:16 Now, why does our Lord emphasize that? Well, for the simple reason that a deep conviction concerning the fact that my Father knows my true need will keep me on the one hand from a sinful anxiety about those needs, and on the other hand from a brattish petulance in clamoring after all my whims. and then being fretful when God doesn't provide them. The pattern of fulfilling his own pledge to supply all of our needs is his own perfect knowledge of what constitutes real need.

24:04 We go back to Philippians 4 in our minds. There were times when Paul's real need was not another Epaphroditus with another gift that would put him in a state of plenty and abounding. His need was for grace to bless and praise God with a stomach that was growling with hunger

24:29 He said, I have learned how to be abased, how to abound. I've learned what it is to be content in hunger as well as in plenty. And he says, my God will do the same for you. He'll supply your true need.

24:46 and how often these verses have been abused to teach that no Christian will ever be hungry if he's walking in communion with God no Christian will ever be poor if he's walking with God that simply will not stand the test of scripture according to that standard the heavenly father was indifferent to his own well beloved son for he said the foxes have holes and the birds have nests and the son of man hath not where to lay his head Our Lord was a poor man. He couldn't even pay his temple taxes without performing a miracle.

25:26 He had to send Peter to get a fish with a coin in its mouth. But the Father provided all of his needs. His true needs out of his perfect knowledge of his real need. And how clearly that came out in the temptation in the wilderness, you remember?

25:47 The devil says in essence to our Lord, Your real need after forty days of fasting, Your real need is for a good meal. On these conditions, we'll provide it. Prove that you're the Son of God. Command that these stones be turned into bread.

26:06 And our Lord's response was, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. That word which says, My grace is sufficient for thee, even in hunger, so that you will not deny me, nor disobey me, nor contravene my revealed will, simply to gratify a temporal physical appetite.

Pattern Four: His Proven Provision for Our Greatest Need

26:31 One of the most wonderful things that can come to the heart of a child of God in the midst of perplexing circumstances, when it seems in the external dimension of things that God doesn't care, is to remember that He has a perfect knowledge of our real need. And it is that which forms the pattern of fulfilling His promise to meet our need. His true estimation of our worth, His sensitive awareness of our condition, His perfect knowledge of our real need, and finally, His proven provision for our greatest need. His proven provision for our greatest need, Romans 8, 32.

27:18 He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?

27:35 You see, the pattern of God's fulfilling the promise to supply all our needs is to be found in the proven provision in supplying our greatest need. What was our greatest need? It was to have a mediator. Someone who could bridge the gap between us in our sinfulness and God in His holiness.

28:00 Someone who could render such perfect obedience to the law of God in its preceptive demands and in its penal demands, that Almighty God, while being just, could justify the ungodly. And it meant that God had, in the language of this text, to spare not His own Son. Delivered Him up, and in the language delivered Him up, is all the shame, the ignominy, the horror of Golgotha, The baptism of blood in the darkened heavens and the cry of dereliction, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And Paul says, A God who does that, who delivers up his own Son and spares him not,

28:52 how shall we not with him freely give us all things? It is through the work of Christ that we are granted the privilege of adoption, as we have seen God send forth His Son made of a woman made under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Well, if He's delivered up His Son that we might be made sons, will that God ever have a narrow heart to His child? It's unthinkable.

29:23 How shall He not with Him freely give us all things? So if I'm denied something that I think is a need, That's the problem. I think it is a need. And I'm only denied it because he who knows my true need has deemed otherwise.

The House Rules: Conditions for Fulfillment

29:47 Well, so much for the pattern of its fulfillment. Now, very briefly, a word about the conditions of the fulfillment of this pledge. And let me underscore when I use the word conditions, I'm not using it in a legal sense. The fulfillment of this pledge is in connection with Christ Jesus.

30:10 Remember, my God shall supply gloriously every need of yours in Christ Jesus. So these conditions are not to be thought of in terms of some kind of a legal framework where if you do this, you will get this in return. It's simply what I would call the house rules. You see, it is a gracious, free provision the Father makes in earning the money to put the bread on the table.

30:40 But he may establish certain conditions if you're going to eat at his table. One of them is you've got to wash your hands before you come to the table. Now, washing your hands doesn't earn your meal. You can't say, oh, I washed my hands.

30:53 I have a meal owed to me. No, no, the meal is graciously provided. That's simply one of the conditions. Another condition may be that you'll have to learn and exercise decent table manners.

31:05 If you don't, you get sent away from the table. Those are simply conditions of domestic administration. Now, when I talk about the conditions of the fulfillment of this pledge of paternal provision, we're not talking about conditions in an illegal sense. We're simply talking about the house rules.

Rule One: Commitment to the Priorities of the Household

31:28 And God says, you don't mind the house rules, the provisions won't be there. All right, what are they? Well, the first one is our commitment to the priorities of the household.

31:40 Our commitment to the priorities of the household. Matthew 6. The same Lord who said, The Father knows, you are of great worth to the Father.

31:58 It is the same Lord who says in Matthew 6, 33, Having assured us that the Father knows what we have need of, the end of verse 32, But seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. You see, there is a house rule with regard to the provision of our needs, here in particular our temporal necessities, food and clothing. Wherewithal shall we eat and drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32:36 But God says there are some house rules, and the father is not committed to fulfill his pledge of paternal provision except where there is a commitment on the part of his children to the priorities of his household. In seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness, all these things will be added. and to the extent that we allow our hearts to go a-whoring after other priorities, and that's what God calls a divided heart, spiritual whoredom. And we allow the world and things and the pursuit of temporal delights or ambitions

33:23 in any way to neutralize this element of seeking first, primarily above all else as the supreme goal in life. As a mother, a father, a housewife, a workman, a student, it matters not what our position is in the kingdom. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. And these things will be added unto us.

33:49 You see, it's as we are pursuing the goals of the household that it would be a dishonor to the head of that household not to provide for his own. So Paul is able to say to these Philippians, who obviously are seeking the extension of the kingdom, who are sensitive to the needs of God's servants, who do not have the attitude outside out of mind, and there is Paul down at Rome, and they are concerned, and Paul says, I know that your concern preceded your gift. Getting the gift to me was a logistical problem, but I know your hearts were towards me. You see, seeking first the kingdom is not some kind of mystical thing.

34:33 It comes to concrete expression in terms of standing by and with and supporting the servants of Christ who are laboring for the extension of that kingdom. It involves our prayers, what we do and do not do with our money and our time, seeking first the kingdom and His righteousness, the pursuit of a life of holiness. as the great passion of our hearts. That's the house rule, and God says all who keep it will find their needs supplied.

Rule Two: Asking of the Head of the Household

35:04 But then there is a second condition, and it's this, our asking of the head of the household.

35:11 You see, the fact that he knows our need and has promised to supply our need does not negate the necessity of our asking for the need to be supplied. Our Lord emphasizes this in Matthew 6. No sooner does he say in verse 8, Your Father knoweth what things ye have need before you ask. And it's as though someone said, Well, why ask then?

35:34 Well, then he goes right on and says, After this manner therefore pray ye. It is precisely because your Father does know that we are to ask. Prayer is not informing God of something he doesn't know. Now, sometimes we pray as though that were so.

35:50 And we tell God, we instruct God. You know, we tell him a lot of things we think he may have forgotten. No, our Lord says, he knows what things you have need of, and yet in this very prayer we are taught to pray for the most mundane things such as daily bread, as well as the greater things of the honor of his name, the advancement of his kingdom, the performance of his will, the forgiveness of our sins. What does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness?

36:19 in a real sense it means that with all your heart you can enter into the spirit and the language of what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer.

36:28 Only the person who is seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness can pray from the depths of his heart Lord it matters not about my reputation my comfort my goals my ambition my house, my home, my car, my clothes. Above all else, O God, hallowed be Thy name.

36:52 If in the hallowing of Your name, Poverty, hardship, opposition, or death itself must come to me. I'm expendable, Lord. But your name and your honor is not. Hallowed be thy name.

37:10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth. How hypocritical to pray that if you're insensitive to the clearly revealed will of God in the theater of your own heart and in your own home. Why pray in this grandiose perspective that I will be done in earth as it is in heaven, if it's not being done in that little world of your own life?

37:32 Husbands seeking to love your wives as Christ loved the church. Sensitive, caring, nurturing, cherishing love. Wives being subject to husbands as the church is subject to Christ. Embracing from the heart the revealed will of God in the Scriptures.

37:52 But we are to ask of the head of the household, and his knowledge of our need does not negate but buttresses, and actually forms the foundation of our intelligent asking. We have the same emphasis again in chapter 7 and verse 11. If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? Well, you say, why must we ask if God knows our need, and if his heart is moved with fatherly compassion to us in our state, and if he's given his greatest gift without our asking, we weren't around to ask him to send his son and deliver him up.

38:39 Why in the world do we have to ask? ask? Well, the simplest answer I know to that question is that God's established it as the law of his kingdom. Christ himself is subject to that law. Psalm 2, ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession. And in the days of his flesh, our Lord is found in every major category of life as a suppliant seeking from his Father that which he needed to fulfill the will of God for him.

Rule Three: Harmonious Relationships with Other Members

39:18 So the second great condition then of having this pledge of paternal provision fulfilled in us is to ask of the head of the household. And then thirdly, we must be in a condition of harmonious relationship to the other members of the household. You see, if you come to the table and you're fussing with someone else sitting at the table, the Father doesn't promise to put your food on the table. He says, no fussing among the people sitting at my table.

39:47 Isn't that interesting? At the end of the Lord's Prayer, what petition does he open up and enlarge? Only one. Which one is it?

39:55 Verses 14 and 15 of Matthew 6. Look at it. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

40:14 You see the intimate connection between our relationship to God as Father and our relationship to the other members of the household. The Lord emphasizes this in another context in Mark 11, verses 25 and 6. Look at it quickly, if you will.

40:33 Therefore I say unto you, verse 24, wonderful promise, all things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them, and whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any, that your Father who also is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. You see this third condition upon which God has committed himself to provide for his own? It is this house rule that pertains to our relationship to the other members of the household. And this perhaps is the reason why some of you are a bit cynical about some of these promises.

41:17 You say, yeah, I've seen that in Philippians. My God should supply all your needs, but I don't find my needs being met. Could it be that you're violating this house rule? You've got rancor, bitterness, suspicion, envy, and other wicked attitudes to other members of the household.

41:35 And God says, no sense coming to the table and asking me to fulfill my pledge of provision till you sort out those matters with your brethren.

41:47 I want to underscore again these are not legal conditions, but they are the family rules. And if we've been constituted the family of God, then it should be our joy to keep the house rules, and thereby to magnify God as the God who in His commitment to His children is glorified in the supply of all their needs. you see for those of you who have no connection with Christ Jesus this pledge does not pertain to you God has made no pledge to supply all your needs he has made some solemn pledges if you continue in your impenitence and unbelief

Application to the Unconverted

42:34 and the pledge God has made is to magnify his eternal justice in your damnation He that believeth not the wrath of God abideth upon him.

42:51 The wicked shall be turned into hell. My friend, God has made a pledge with regard to every impenitent man or woman, boy or girl in this place, continuing in your impenitence. But thank God He's made another pledge. And that pledge comes to you in these words.

43:12 him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. And if you will turn from your sin and flee to Christ as your only hope of access to God you have a word from God that he will not turn you aside. And the pledge of paternal provision cannot be yours except it is yours in Christ. And it is never yours in Christ until you come to Christ.

43:46 All the promises of God in Him are yea. And God comes to you with all of His promises in Christ and says yes. And the response of repentance and faith are your amen. May God grant that some of you who are not in the family and know nothing then of the joy and the privilege of His paternal provision will even this day seek that provision in the only place it is found.

Closing Exhortation and Prayer

44:15 But dear child of God, may I close with this exhortation to you? Do you see the solid basis you have for dealing with your own needs? Do you see the solid basis you have for praying? The solid basis for submitting in the dark?

44:37 the solid basis for bearing all things for Christ's sake. One of the most subtle attacks of the devil upon a child of God in a period of darkness is to question the legitimacy of the Father's love or the ability of the Father to provide. Either God doesn't care to meet my need or He can't. And I trust our study this morning will arm you with sufficient perspectives to ward off that fiery dart.

45:17 Know that as a child of God, one of your great privileges in the framework of adoption is the pledge of His fatherly provision. that provision pledged in those words my God shall gloriously supply all your need a pledge that he fulfills by a pattern that is rooted in his perfect knowledge of us in his sensitive awareness of what we are in his appreciation of the worth that we have in his eyes and one which he has demonstrated in the giving of his Son is no idle promise.

46:03 May God grant that we as his children will be living monuments of the largeness of our Father's heart to his own. Let us pray. Our Father and we do not take that name upon our lips lightly we bless and praise you for all that is bound up in your becoming our Father through the work of your beloved Son. We pray that this privilege of adoption

46:48 which we have contemplated today may become a burning reality to everyone who in Christ belongs to your family. Lord, forgive us when we have misapplied and misunderstood the pledge and thought that it was a pledge that you would supply our every whim and fancy. Forgive us when we've disobeyed the house rules and thereby disqualified ourselves from the fulfillment of the promise. Teach us of your ways.

47:26 Make us your obedient sons and daughters. And may we be living monuments that you are indeed the God who gloriously supplies our every need. seal then this word to our hearts have dealings with those who cannot call you father in truth who may be able to frame the words but who are strangers to the spirit of adoption enabling them to cry Abba father because they are strangers to repentance and faith oh Lord deal with them mercifully and powerfully oh God give them no rest until they know that they too are within the orbit of that gracious pledge of fatherly provision.

48:17 Hear then our prayer and seal your word to our hearts. We plead through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

48:37 Thank you.