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Heirs of God | J. C. Ryle · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine finding out today that you are legally and irrevocably
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a billionaire. Oh man, that would be nice.
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Right. Like, you see the paperwork, the
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lawyers sign off on it, and the assets are just completely
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secure in your name, right? It's yours.
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It is yours. But then you pull out your
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phone, you know, on a Tuesday morning, check your banking app,
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and the balance still says zero. Yeah, you literally have the
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title D to an empire, but you still have to figure out how to,
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you know, pay for your groceries this week.
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That is such a harsh reality check.
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It is. And that incredible tension
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right between the staggering wealth you actually own on paper
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and the very mundane, sometimes painful reality of what you
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currently feel. Yeah, what you experience
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day-to-day. Yes, that is the core dilemma of
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the modern believer. It really creates this massive
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psychological disconnect because we are so conditioned to trust
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our senses. Oh, totally.
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If we feel poor, well, we just assume we are poor.
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If we feel weighed down by, you know, the anxieties of the
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world, we assume that's just our permanent status.
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We judge everything by the current balance in the checking
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account. We do, completely ignoring the
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irrevocable trust fund that's waiting in our name.
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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. Today we are taking a deep dive
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into an absolutely a resting piece of theology written by JC
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Rile. It is a brilliant piece.
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It really is. It's a paper titled Heirs of God
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and honestly it acts like a spiritual audit.
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That's a great way to put it. Right, so Rile takes this
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specific text, Romans chapter 8 verses 14 through 17, and he
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extracts these incredibly hard hitting realities about what it
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means to be an adopted child of the Creator.
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And he pulls no punches. No, he doesn't.
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Our mission for this deep dive is to establish the precise
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relation of true Christians to God.
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Identify the specific internal and external markers of that
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relationship and look at the staggering privileges that await
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the people who hold this status. That's a lot of ground to cover.
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It is, but it's worth it. And I want you, the listener, to
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frame this not as some, you know, dry academic exercise.
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Treat this as a critical evaluation of your own status.
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Because Ryle grounds this entire audit in a claim that honestly
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must have sounded ridiculous to his original readers.
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Oh, for sure. Yeah, many of them were
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incredibly poor in a material sense.
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But he states right in his opening paragraph that the
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individuals described in this text, these heirs of God, they
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are the wealthiest people on earth.
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The. Wealthiest.
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Yeah, he makes a direct comparison between temporal
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wealth and eternal inheritance, and he points out the the
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inherent limitations of earthly money.
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And we see those limitations constantly, don't we?
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Oh, everywhere like. You can build a massive
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portfolio, you can buy the absolute best healthcare, but
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temporal wealth cannot cure an aching heart.
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Nope, it cannot lighten the heavy conscience it provides.
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Like 0 insulation against family troubles.
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Or, you know, the reality of death.
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Right. I mean you can amass millions.
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Billions, yeah. Billions, but you leave every
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single penny behind the literal second your heart stops beating.
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It stays here. Ryle argues that the inheritance
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of the believer does something money can never, ever do.
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It outlasts the grave. And he focuses really heavily on
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the relational shift that guarantees this inheritance.
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It's yes, he points out that being a son or a daughter is a
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step far above being a servant or a soldier or a subject or
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even a friend of a king. Yeah, let's unpack that.
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Because a subject obeys a king because of the law.
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Exactly. I mean that is spot on.
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They might respect the monarch, they might even benefit from the
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protection of the crown, but they do not live in the palace.
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Right, They don't have unfiltered access to the throne
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room. They're entirely outside the
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family structure. Let's bring that into a modern
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context so we can really see how radical this shift is.
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OK, yeah, think about a massive global corporation.
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OK, you have an entry level worker on the ground floor.
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Now, earning a paycheck is fantastic, right?
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It pays the rent. Sure, guys.
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But the relationship with the billionaire CEO is entirely
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transactional. They perform a task, they get a
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reward. And if they fail the task, they.
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Face termination, they get fired, right?
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But suppose that billionaire CEO legally adopts that specific
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entry level worker. Overnight the entire legal
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standing changes. Their future security, their
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daily interactions, their access to the top floor.
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Everything shifts. The transaction is completely
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replaced by affection and guaranteed provision.
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That shift from a transactional relationship to a familial one?
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It just rewrites the entire script of your existence.
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It really does. Well points out that the son of
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an earthly parent naturally looks to his father for
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maintenance, education, love, and generally speaking, no bad
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conduct can completely extinguish a father's love for
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his child. When you elevate that concept to
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the Creator of the universe, it means your Tuesday morning is no
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longer defined by a fear of being fired from the cosmos.
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That is such a good phrase fired from the cosmos.
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Right. It's defined by the security of
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a home that is always open to you.
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Your mistakes do not threaten your legal status as a child.
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OK, but my immediate assumption, and I think you know, the
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assumption of most people listening, is that since God
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created humanity, everyone is automatically born into this
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family. Like if God created us, we are
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all his children by default. I'm guessing Ryle completely
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dismantles that idea. Oh, he takes a sledgehammer,
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too. Sledgehammer.
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Yeah, He calls the idea that all human beings have a natural
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right to look to God as their father a vile heresy.
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Whoa. Those are strong words.
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Very strong. Citing the biblical text, he
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argues that humans are by nature children of wrath.
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He says sin is hereditary. It runs in the family of Adam.
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So we are not born as sons of God.
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No, we are born alienated from him.
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According to Ryle, sonship only begins the specific day a person
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believes in Jesus Christ for salvation.
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OK, I have to play devil's advocate here, because this is
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where the modern mind completely recoils.
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Oh, for sure. If God is love, isn't it
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arrogant and frankly really harsh to say only a select few
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get to call him Father? People hear a phrase like
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Children of Wrath and they picture a deity who is just like
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perpetually angry at babies. It feels incredibly exclusive.
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Doesn't God love absolutely everyone?
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Well, Ryle fully anticipates that reaction.
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He makes a very careful distinction between God as the
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universal Creator and God as a reconciled Father.
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OK, how does he define that? Ryle admits without hesitation
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that God is the great first 'cause in that specific sense
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God is the creator of all mankind.
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He gives breath to everyone. He loves all mankind with pity
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and compassion. But the sonship we have simply
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by being created beings, is a sonship we share with stones,
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trees, beasts, and even the devils.
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Oh wow, so just existing doesn't make you a child in the
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relational sense? Right.
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Think of it like a Carpenter making a chair.
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Being made by a Carpenter does not make a chair the carpenter's
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child. That makes a lot of sense.
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The creation does not automatically equal adoption.
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But what about the Children of Wrath language?
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That addresses the mechanics of God's holiness and justice.
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God's holiness makes it literally impossible for sinful
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men to approach him directly without a mediator.
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The text actually refers to God out of Christ as a consuming
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fire. Stop there for a second.
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We hear terms like mediator and consuming fire thrown around in
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theology all the time. Yeah, they become buzzwords.
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Exactly. I mean, that's spot on.
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Let's work down the actual mechanism of what those mean.
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When I think of a consuming fire, I think of the sun.
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Oh, that's a great analogy, right?
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It is brilliant, it gives life. But if a comet gets too close,
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the Sun's sheer intensity just burns the impurity to ash.
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It's not that the Sun is angry at the comet.
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Right, it doesn't have emotions about the comet.
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No, it is just the nature of pure heat meaning a lesser
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substance. That is a perfect analogy for
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holiness. God's moral purity is so
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absolute that human corruption cannot survive in his unshielded
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presence. It would be annihilated.
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And that is why a mediator is required.
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Yes, in a legal sense, a mediator is a neutral third
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party who bridges a hostile gap between two sides.
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So Christ bridges that gap. Christ, having both a divine and
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and a human nature, is the only one who can stand in the
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consuming fire of God's presence while simultaneously holding on
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to humanity. So it bridges the incompatible
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natures. Yeah, and this reveals the
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massive human pride hidden within the modern pushback you
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brought up earlier. The idea that it's harsh.
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Right. God offers to be a Father and He
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offers salvation freely, but He establishes the terms to demand
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that God be our Father on our own terms while completely
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bypassing the mediator he provided.
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It's the height of arrogance. It is telling the Creator, I
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want the benefits of your house, but I refuse to enter through
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the door you built. I want you to lower your
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standards of justice so I can feel comfortable.
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You're demanding the inheritance while shredding the adoption
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papers. You want the crown without the
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cross. Ryle sees this boundary not as a
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harsh reality, but is a necessary framework maintained
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by a holy God who cannot simply wave a magic wand and ignore
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justice. So faith is the mechanism of
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this radical change. It is.
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Ryle uses the imagery of a graft.
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Faith is what takes a branch from a wild, dying tree and
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splices it into the living family tree of the Father.
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It's the beautiful image. Until that specific transaction
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of faith occurs, angels do not rejoice over a person's natural
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birth into the world. They only rejoice over their
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spiritual rebirth. You know this desire for a
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universally affirming God? A God who acts like a cosmic
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grandfather, who just hands out candy and winks at our faults.
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Yeah, the grandfather in the sky.
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Right. That mirrors the exact school of
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theology Ryle attacks in the next section of his paper.
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He calls it a rising new theology.
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Oh, he issues a massive warning against this.
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It's a theological framework that preaches only mercy and
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love, while completely erasing God's justice and by extension,
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erasing the concept of hell. Which is very.
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Popular. Popular because this new
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theology comes to us sounding incredibly compassionate.
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It uses the highest professions of charity and liberality.
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It sounds so much kinder than the old rigid doctrines.
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But Ryle argues it is a completely hollow system.
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Absolutely hollow. And he lays out five very
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distinct, highly logical counter arguments against the idea of
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universal salvation. Let's look at the first one.
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It relies on historical facts. Yes, he invites the proponents
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of this all love, no justice theology to just go visit the
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ruins of ancient cities. Like which ones?
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He points to Mesopotamia, where Nineveh and Babylon once stood
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right. These were massive, thriving
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centers of civilization that engaged in horrific brutality
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and idolatry. Now they are completely
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desolate. He points to the shores of the
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Dead Sea, historically associated with the judgement of
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Sodom and Gomorrah. So he's saying, look at the
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physical evidence, Yeah. He points to the historical
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scattering of the Jewish people after the destruction of
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Jerusalem. Ryall's challenge is
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straightforward. Look at the archaeological and
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historical records of divine judgment and try to maintain the
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argument that God never punishes sin.
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The stones themselves cry out against that idea.
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His second argument moves from ancient history to human
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psychology, specifically the human conscience at the moment
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of. Death.
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This one is intense. It is he challenges these
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teachers to go to the bedside of a dying person who has lived
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entirely for themselves and try to comfort them with vague
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theories of universal acceptance.
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Ryle argues that in a dying hour, the human conscience makes
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sad work of these new liberal systems.
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Because it just doesn't hold up. Right when the lights are fading
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and the reality of eternity is rushing in, vague platitudes
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about a universally nice God just don't work.
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Without solid promises, without the specific mechanism of faith
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in a mediator, the gnawing anxiety about facing a holy
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Creator cannot be calmed. Because the conscience
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inherently knows that justice is real.
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Yes, we know we have broken the law and telling a dying person
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don't worry, the judge as a pushover offers no real comfort.
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That brings us to his third argument, which is where the
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logic it's genuinely fascinating.
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He points out the absolute nightmare of a mixed heaven.
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Oh, this is such a compelling point.
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He asked the reader to seriously conceptualize a future state
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where every single human being is gathered together without
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distinction. OK, so picture a crowd where you
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have Pharaoh who enslaved the Israelites, Nero who literally
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burned Christians alive to light his gardens, and Judas Iscariot.
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All thrown indiscriminately into the exact same eternal space as
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Moses, the Apostle Paul and William Wilberforce.
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It sounds like a recipe for absolute horror.
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Because it would be. Reill argues that in such a
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place there would be no common bond of harmony, the pure and
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the impure, the holy and the unholy forced into eternal
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proximity. Imagine being trapped in a room
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forever with someone who abused you and the administration of
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heaven just says well we are inclusive here so you have to
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live with them and they haven't changed.
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That is not paradise. Ryle concludes that an eternity
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in such a miserably confused crowd would be worse than
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annihilation. Let's use an analogy to look at
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the mechanism of why this inclusion fails so
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spectacularly. OK, think about a sterile
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operating room in a hospital, right?
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The entire purpose of that room is healing, and it's
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effectiveness relies entirely on maintaining A strict boundary
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against contamination. The surgeon scrub in, the tools
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are autoclaved, the air is filtered, yes.
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Now imagine if the hospital administration decides, out of a
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misguided sense of charity, to let anyone walk off the street
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into that operating room in their dirty clothes.
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Regardless of whether they've been sterilized.
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Exactly what happens to the room?
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It ceases to be a place of healing.
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It becomes a place of infection. The charity of letting everyone
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in actually destroys the very nature of the room.
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That makes so much sense. Ryle is essentially saying that
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forcing the unrepentant and the holy into the same eternal space
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destroys the concept of heaven. If heaven is a place of perfect
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purity, you cannot introduce unsterilized corruption into it
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without destroying the environment.
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Which flows directly into his fourth argument, the destruction
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of moral motivation. Oh, right.
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If everyone is going to heaven regardless of how they live,
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what is the point of fighting against your own dark impulses?
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There's no point, right? What motive remains for living
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soberly, righteously, or making massive sacrifices for others?
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If the final grade for the class is an A, No matter if you study
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or if you burn the textbook, nobody studies.
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Universal salvation strips all meaning from moral exertion in
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the present. It really does.
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And his fifth counter argument is that this universalist view
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contradicts the Bible from front to back.
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You have to ignore hundreds of texts to make the theory fit.
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And it's a cherry pick. Heavily, he warns that if you
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follow that path, you rob yourself of the bread of life
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and replace it with a system that sounds pleasant but has
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zero foundation. It will collapse the moment
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weight is put on it. So with that framework
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established that not everyone is naturally a child of God, and
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that universal salvation is a dangerous myth, it leaves the
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listener with a very pressing question.
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Which is. How do I know if I am one of
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these single opted children? Yes, we need to figure out what
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the actual markers are. Right.
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Ryle outlines 4 specific evidences to prove sonship.
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The first two happen entirely inside the individual evidence.
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Number one is being led by the Spirit.
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He describes this as a constant, discernible movement in a
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person's affections. People who are adopted by God
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are pulled away from certain things and pushed toward others.
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What are they pulled away from? They're pulled away from loving
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sin, from trusting in their own self righteousness, and from
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being completely absorbed by the opinions of the world.
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And pushed toward. Pushed toward Christ, toward the
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Bible and court. A desire for holiness.
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He calls it a beaten path that all adopted children travel.
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OK, but what does that actually feel like on a Tuesday?
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Because we still wake up wanting to be selfish.
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We do. It feels like an internal
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friction that just wasn't there before.
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Friction. I like that.
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Yeah, before adoption, you might lie to get ahead at work and
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feel completely fine about it. It's just a survival tactic.
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Just doing what you got to do. Right, but after adoption you
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might still tell the lie out of habit or fear, but immediately
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there is this internal alarm bell.
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The spirit leads you to see the ugliness of the action.
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You can't enjoy the sin the same way anymore.
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No, you can't. And Ryan notes that this leading
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can take you to places that feel very different from one another.
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Sometimes the spirit leads you to see your own emptiness,
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breaking your pride. Other times, the Spirit leads
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you to glimpses of future glory to cheer your heart.
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But the destination is always drawing you closer to the
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Father. Always.
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That friction leads right into the second internal evidence,
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which is possessing the spirit of adoption.
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This is where a massive psychological shift happens.
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Ryall says the adopted child is delivered from slavish fear.
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He contrasts the old nature's instinct with the new nature's
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instinct. Look at the historical examples
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in the text. You have Adam breaking the rule
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and immediately hiding in the trees of the garden.
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You have Cain murdering his brother and going out from the
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presence of the Lord. The natural instinct of a guilty
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conscience is to hide from the majesty and justice of God.
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Because you feel a massive, terrifying gulf between yourself
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and the Creator. But the spirit of adoption
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eliminates that instinct to hide.
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Instead of running away in terror, the believers new
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instinct is to approach God boldly as a reconciled parent
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crying ABBA father. I want to spend some time here
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because this is intensely practical for the listener who
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struggles with guilt. Please do.
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Christians still make mistakes. We snap at our kids.
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We fail morally. We harbor bitterness.
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How does a believer distinguish between normal, healthy
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conviction over a mistake and the slavish fear or spirit of
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bondage that Ryle says is supposed to be eliminated?
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Oh, that is the critical distinction.
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Let's look at the mechanism of guilt.
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Normal conviction, the kind of true child of God feels, is
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relational. They're relational, OK.
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Imagine a child who accidentally breaks their mother's favorite
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face. The child feels terrible.
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They cry. Naturally.
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But because they know their mother loves them, their grief
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drives them to go find her, confess what they did, and seek
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comfort. That is relational conviction.
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It drives you toward the parent for reconciliation.
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Yes, slavish fear, on the other hand, is legal and penal.
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It is the terror of a criminal waiting for the executioner.
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That's a huge difference. If a thief breaks a vase in a
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house he is robbing, he doesn't go find the homeowner to
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apologize. No, he runs out the back door to
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hide from the police. Slavish fear drives you away.
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If your guilt makes you want to run to Christ for cleansing,
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that is the spirit of adoption working.
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You are acting like a son. But if your guilt makes you want
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to abandon faith, stop praying and hide from God completely.
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That is the old spirit of bondage.
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Wow. Those internal feelings of
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adoption are incredible, but they are also backed up by
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something Ryle calls the internal witness.
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We are moving into the paradoxical evidences now,
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right? We are evidence #3 is the
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witness of the Spirit in the conscience.
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How does Ryle describe that? He describes it as a felt
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positive hope that the world completely lacks, but he is
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incredibly pastoral here. He acknowledges that the volume
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of this witness varies wildly from person to person.
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So it's not always booming loud. Not at all.
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For some believers, this witness is a loud, clear, ringing
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testimony. I am Christ's and Christ is
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mine. They sail toward heaven with
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full assurance. Be nice, right?
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But for others it is just a feeble, stammering whisper,
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often drowned out by the noise of the flesh and the devil.
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That has to be relatable to so many people.
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That feeling of I hope I have faith, but my doubts are so loud
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I can barely hear the witness. To comfort those people, Ryle
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offers a brilliant psychological test.
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OK, let's hear it. He asks the doubting believer to
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consider a trade. Would you take your tiny,
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stammering whisper of hope along with all your inner conflict,
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your fightings, your doubts and your fears, and trade it for the
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careless, unbothered heart of a worldly person who never thinks
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about God at all? I have never thought about it
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like that. The answer from a true child of
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God is always a resounding no. They might doubt the strength of
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their grace, but they possessed something inside.
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They would never voluntarily surrender to get their old peace
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back. That refusal to tray, that
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clinging to the tiny whisper, is itself the witness of the
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Spirit. You value the struggle because
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you value the father. I love that, But then he brings
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in the fourth evidence, which is where the real paradox hits.
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Yeah, this one is tough. Evidence 4 is suffering with
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Christ, Ryle states bluntly. Suffering is the diet of the
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Lord's family. He guarantees that every single
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child of God has a cross to carry.
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There is no escaping it. What kind of suffering are we
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talking? About he lists the obvious
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sources of these trials, the world, the flesh, the devil.
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But he also lists trials from relations and friends, hard
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words, misrepresentations and slander.
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It's comprehensive and he. Mentions what he calls your own
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home devil, the specific internal corruptions and
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besetting sins you have to battle daily.
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Why is this necessary? Why can't the inheritance just
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come with comfort right now? It's a fair question.
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Let's look at it through the lens of physical therapy, OK?
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When a patient is recovering from a severe injury, a physical
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therapist will put them through immense stress and physical
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pain. Right, they stretch things that
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shouldn't be stretched. To an outside observer, it looks
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like cruelty. Why are you bending that joint?
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Why are you adding weights to someone who was already hurt?
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It seems counterproductive. But the therapist applies
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resistance not to break the patient, but to build muscle,
21:59
breakdown scar tissue, and heal the body.
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The earthly hardships we face are the resistance training of
22:05
the soul. They are proof that God is
22:07
actively training the believer, not abandoning them.
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Ryle calls the suffering A weaning process.
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The purpose of the chastisement is to wean the believer away
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from an unhealthy attachment to the world and to make them
22:20
partakers of God's holiness. Weaning is a painful process for
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a child. It is, he quotes the reformer
22:27
Philip Milanthon, who said where there are no cares, there will
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generally be no prayers. This is so true.
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When my bank account is full and my health is great, my prayer
22:37
life gets incredibly shallow. Human nature requires friction
22:40
to look upward. Affliction is the tool God uses
22:42
to keep His children in close communication with Him.
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If the world was perfectly comfortable, we would never want
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to leave it for the inheritance. Never.
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The grueling nature of this earthly training, the constant
22:53
cross carrying, makes the promised future inheritance all
22:56
the more staggering. We are bearing this weight now,
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but what specifically are the heirs waiting to receive when
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the training is over? What is the actual inheritance?
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Raoul points out that human minds are simply too earthly,
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too bound by our current senses to grasp heaven fully.
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Language falls short. Yeah, if you try to explain the
23:15
concept of a vibrant, colorful sunset to someone who has been
23:18
blind since birth, you run out of vocabulary.
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So the Bible often uses negative terms to help us comprehend the
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future glory. By negative terms he means
23:28
describing what will not be there.
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Yes, it is a brilliant way to communicate with limited
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creatures. We understand our present pain
23:35
perfectly, so God promises the absolute absence of that pain.
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Rile lists them out. There will be no corruption, no
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fading of glory, no devil to tempt, no curse of sin, no
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sorrow, no tears, no sickness, no death, The total removal of
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every single source of human misery.
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Just imagining waking up one single morning without a
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lingering sense of anxiety or physical ache is overwhelming.
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It really is. But he doesn't stop at the
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negatives. He outlines the positive
24:01
realities that await the airs. He details several specific
24:04
positive joys. First, perfect knowledge.
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We will finally understand everything that is currently
24:09
obscured. And he notes a beautiful side
24:12
effect of this perfect knowledge, the end of all
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theological disagreements. Think about all the
24:18
denominational friction, all the bitter debates over church
24:21
governance or doctrine that have divided believers for centuries.
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Exhausting. In The Inheritance, everyone
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will finally see eye to eye. We will marvel at how blind we
24:31
all were. He also mentions perfect
24:33
holiness, which he describes using a really visceral
24:36
metaphor. He talks about how currently
24:39
corruption sticks to all our motives and actions like bird
24:42
Lyme. Bird Lyme.
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That's an interesting word. It's a sticky substance hunters
24:46
used to smear on branches to trap birds.
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Oh wow. It is a fantastic illustration
24:51
for the mechanism of sin. Even when we try to do something
24:54
good, like giving to charity or helping a neighbor, some selfish
24:58
motive, some desire for praise, or some hidden pride sticks to
25:01
the action. You can never perform a
25:03
perfectly pure deed. Our best works are covered in
25:05
sticky corruption. In the inheritance, we finally
25:08
say an eternal goodbye to that bird line.
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We will be presented without spot or wrinkle.
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I want to look closely at one specific positive point he
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raises here. He promises work without
25:19
weariness. OK, Yeah.
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Let's look at that. I think about how the listener
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relates to that concept. Right now, in our current state,
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even doing good deeds leaves us physically and mentally drained.
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Oh. Absolutely.
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I remember volunteering for a weekend youth retreat.
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I love the kids, I love the mission.
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But by Sunday afternoon, my brain was fogged, my feet ached
25:40
and I just wanted to sleep for two days.
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You hit a wall of exhaustion, a huge wall.
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It is a profound frustration of the human condition.
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Our spirit is often willing, but our carbon based physical
25:51
machinery breaks down. We want to keep helping, we want
25:54
to keep learning, we want to keep worshipping, but our bodies
25:56
demand sleep. Our minds succumb to burnout.
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The friction of living in a fallen world saps our energy.
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So what does working without weariness actually look like?
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Ryle is pointing to a future state where the glorified
26:08
physical body is no longer a hindrance to the willing spirit.
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You will have the capacity to engage in joyful, continuous,
26:14
productive activity without ever hitting that wall.
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Imagine having the energy you feel after a perfect eight hours
26:21
of sleep and a great cup of coffee.
26:23
But that energy never, ever fades.
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And he caps off the inheritance with the promise of perfect
26:29
communion, communion with all the Saints of history, reuniting
26:33
with loved ones without the anxiety of a future parting, and
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perfect communion with Christ himself.
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Seeing him face to face without a mediator because the gap is
26:42
finally been permanently closed. Knowing that this flawless
26:46
guaranteed inheritance is waiting, how should it alter the
26:49
way you live your life today? Ryle doesn't let the reader just
26:53
close the book and walk away. No, he forces a verdict.
26:55
He tells the reader to settle the question of whose child they
26:58
are. Time is short, the world is
27:00
getting old, and death is near. If you are not a child of God,
27:04
he pleads with you to lay hold of Christ and take up the cross.
27:07
But if you are a child of God, he issues a massive challenge
27:10
regarding how you walk through this world.
27:12
He charges the believer to walk worthy of their Father's house,
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to honor God by obedience and by showing love to all his other
27:19
children. The practical application of
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this sonship is a life marked by joy and a heavenly focus.
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He asks a very piercing question.
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If you are a child of the king, why are you ever sad?
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Why do men ever doubt whether it is a pleasant thing to be a
27:36
Christian when they look at your life?
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He is challenging our tendency to look absolutely miserable
27:41
while holding a winning lottery ticket in our pocket.
27:44
He also questions why believers try to build a permanent nest
27:47
here on Earth when they know they're heading to a flawless
27:50
city. We spend an incredible amount of
27:52
energy trying to perfect our temporary circumstances.
27:56
We obsess over the landscaping of a hotel we are only staying
27:59
in for one night instead of living as citizens of a future
28:02
Kingdom. Think of it like a Prince
28:03
traveling Incognito through a foreign, hostile country.
28:06
OK, I like. This the Prince is on his way
28:08
back to his father's Kingdom to take the throne.
28:11
On the road he faces terrible weather.
28:13
He has to eat bad food. The locals mock him because his
28:16
clothes are muddy and he looks tired.
28:18
But the Prince never despairs. He does not get crushed by the
28:22
mockery or the bad food, because he knows with absolute certainty
28:26
that a palace, a crown and a feast are waiting for him the
28:29
exact moment he crosses the border.
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The temporary hardships do not redefine his permanent identity.
28:35
That is the exact mindset Rile is trying to cultivate in the
28:38
listener. He wants you to live with that
28:41
quiet, unshakable confidence. He speaks directly to parents as
28:45
well, noting that you can leave your children money, property,
28:48
or a great education, but no parent leaves their children as
28:51
well provided for as the one who leaves them, sons and heirs of
28:55
God. Because it is the only provision
28:58
that actually matters when the timeline stretches into
29:00
eternity. We have covered incredible
29:02
ground today. We really have.
29:04
We have traced the arc of the source material from the
29:06
foundational legal shift of adoption, moving from a
29:09
condemned subject to a love child, through the internal
29:13
evidences of the spirit's leading, the psychological shift
29:16
away from slavish fear, and the external evidences of carrying a
29:20
cross. And we have looked at the
29:21
staggering, incorruptible promises of the inheritance
29:25
waiting on the other side. We have seen that the diagnosis
29:28
of our spiritual state does not have to remain a mystery.
29:31
There are distinct markers. The spirit of adoption removes
29:35
the instinct to hide from God. The witness of the Spirit
29:38
provides a hope we refuse to trade away, even in our darkest.
29:42
Moments and the suffering we endure is a very physical
29:45
therapy that trains us for glory.
29:47
I want to leave you with a final thought to Mull over as you go
29:50
about your day, building on this idea of the inheritance.
29:53
Yeah, let's hear it. Consider Ryle's phrase about
29:57
believers currently being heirs and expectancy rather than heirs
30:01
and possession. We are waiting for the funds to
30:04
clear. Imagine if a massive,
30:06
unimaginable fortune, say $2 billion, was legally deposited
30:11
into your bank account today. You saw the paperwork, you know
30:14
the transfer is guaranteed by the most powerful institution on
30:17
earth, but the stipulation is that the funds will not become
30:20
available for withdrawal until next year.
30:22
Your current daily checking account might still be nearly
30:25
empty. You still have to budget for gas
30:27
and groceries this week. You are still dealing with a
30:30
daily grind. But how would that guaranteed
30:32
future through wealth alter your psychological anxiety over
30:35
today's minor financial annoyances?
30:38
If you get a flat tire or your refrigerator breaks down, it
30:41
wouldn't induce a panic attack anymore.
30:43
You wouldn't lose sleep over a $500 repair bill because you
30:46
know the massive fortune is secured and waiting.
30:49
The present pain is swallowed up by the future certainty.
30:52
The wealth is legally yours, you are simply waiting for the day
30:55
you come of age to possess it. Let that reality dictate how you
30:59
view the trials, the friction, and the hardships you will face
31:02
tomorrow. When we try to assess our value
31:06
by looking at our temporal circumstances, our earthly bank
31:09
accounts or our immediate physical comforts, the precision
31:13
is an illusion. We are looking at the wrong
31:15
Ledger entirely. The true X-ray of a believer
31:18
status reveals a different picture.
31:20
It reveals a child who has been legally adopted by the Creator
31:23
of the universe, standing in the Muddy Waters of the present but
31:26
holding the title deed to an eternal city.
31:30
You are, without a doubt, among the wealthiest people on earth.