Romans 8:14–30
The eighth chapter of Romans is the classic chapter on the sons of God. Many sermons have been preached on the manifestation of the sons of God, but we said, “This is so far removed from me. This is so future.” This message will cause us to realize how this walk in the Spirit has taken God’s remnant and moved them closer into this hour, until we find ourselves in the midst of this chapter. Whereas it was a thing foretelling, a thing of future manifestation, now we are experiencing it.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, Abba! Father! The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (keep in mind that there is a contrast between sons and children), and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (There is the message: “Into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”)
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. (The children are suffering and groaning to come to the finishing of the adoption, the redemption of your body. That is the last stage.)
For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.… He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Romans 8:14–32.
It is important that we understand this hour is seeing things come to pass. There is a contrast in these verses that I want you to grasp before we expound them. First of all, the slavery to corruption, the bondage that is upon people is very much in contrast to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Now understand that creation is being made subject to futility, and the two things are operating there. The present struggle in creation is futility and the slavery to corruption. This has also gripped the church. We want to get out of it and into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Everywhere in the world there is a futility on it. We are aware that their efforts are futile, and that futility strikes at the heart of the believer too. We find ourselves fighting a futility that we wish we could overcome. No battle seems to be resolved with finality; no problem is decided and taken care of irrevocably. The answers are often half answers; the blessings that come through are half measures, for the spirit of futility is still upon the church as well as upon the whole of creation. We pray, and in this Walk we are aware that the promises of God hold a great thing before us and we struggle to get into it, but all the time a spirit of futility is hitting at us.
When we start to be spiritual, something of futility hits. We start to walk with God, we start a project—even start a church and get busy with it—and it isn’t long before the spirit that is on the age creeps in like a fog upon our spirits and deadens our intensity. The spirit of futility is everywhere, and all creation has been made subject to that futility. It is up to us to break through it. We must break through that! This creation is groaning, groaning to be delivered from its futility, from its bondage to corruption.
All the world is still trying to believe in something and can’t believe in anything. Americans are disillusioned with our government. Most people have an almost cynical approach to politics. I read of a nurse, a communist on the side of the Viet Cong, who had gone to Vietnam to work in a hospital. The Viet Cong would bomb them and strafe the hospital; take out the sick and shoot them. When she finished, she became so bitter and could no longer believe in communism. She didn’t believe in anything, almost wiped out mentally because she couldn’t handle it.
There is nothing we can believe in. We are not so stupid as to believe in communism; history has proven what it is. But we wonder about our system of capitalism, because we cannot make controls rigid enough that the rich do not prey upon the poor. The people who have, continue to take from the people who have not. The powerful business combines are in the land until the little independent businessman hardly has a chance. Private free enterprise? Who believes in it anymore? Not with all the monopolies going. We have tried, but we can’t stop them.
What are we to believe in? We are subject to futility and no system is going to work until the King comes back and sets it up right. Nothing will be right until then. Maybe we have the best system in the world, but we are aware it exists with futility upon it. I am believing God for the Stars and Stripes to be waving over the land when the Kingdom is established in the earth. I think we should pray and contend for that everyday.
I love this country, but I know the futility upon us and I know that bondage of corruption. It is like a slavery. Even if we had a good government it would be corrupt within one administration. It would take only that long to become entrenched. It is impossible now for our system to work because we have created a bureaucracy that is the real ruler of the land. If you don’t think so, ask about government interference in building permits. Americans get jobs working for the government and proceed to harass their fellow man by creating laws which make it almost impossible for him to maneuver. Why they do this, I don’t know. Americans prey upon Americans. They are like a bunch of vultures preying upon each other, instead of creating a way of life so people can survive. These examples show that we’re under the bondage to corruption.
In the day the Jews came to John the Baptist and asked, “What shall we do?” he began telling them (Luke 3): He told the soldiers not to harass and oppress, he told the merchants and tax-gatherers what they should do. He addressed them, “You generation of vipers.” And if we want to address the spirit that is in the earth today, it is the spirit of corruption which has entered into the hearts of men. God has to break it. His plan is to break it through the sons of God. They will come up through the land and begin to travail; to rebuke and to bind; to judge in the name of Jesus Christ until these things break down, one by one. The futility upon the House of God and upon the land will be broken. The bondage to corruption will be broken in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How do we know who these sons are? Look for a pained expression on someone’s face and you probably have found one, because verse 18 says that if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified together with Him. If we are going through the harassment and suffering that is partaking of the very sufferings of Jesus Christ, we can identify ourselves as those who will reign with Him, those who are heirs of God and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Follow through the text with me, starting with verse 19: The anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. It looks as if the world has rejected the church and the sons of God, but I believe that the world has wanted to believe more than people know. They desire to have something they can have confidence in. They have been so sick of superficial piety, of assumed religiosity, that they have turned away from it.
Someone once told me, “You can always tell a preacher when you see one. They have that asinine way about them.” It is as if they are afraid to stand and be human beings. How can they be God’s representative in the earth? Everything is appeasement. They are servants of committees. They are subjected to boards of deacons which run the church. They approach everything in an apologetic manner. Where is the man of God who speaks forth the word of God? It is a thing so sickening and so affected. In old order I couldn’t even go to the conventions and conferences. I was accused of not wanting to have fellowship. How could I fellowship with that insipid futility? Somewhere along the line, something different has to come along that responds to what creation is calling for. With eagerness it awaits the sons of God who will turn it loose. It is waiting for agents of deliverance who are going to come and set it free. The anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
I must confess two emotions. I am thoroughly angry, yet I have such eager yearning in my heart that this Walk will see definite changes never seen before among the people of God. I speak this word with the assurance that the Lord gave me that the prophets will be speaking, proclaiming the sons coming into their place of liberation. It is happening.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Verses 20, 21. If we have that within our hearts, then we have to first partake of it before the world can receive it from us. We cannot give something we don’t have. We cannot loose creation from futility until we get out of the futility ourselves!
The prayers of the people have been centered on the liberation of the apostolic ministry. Many of you would be at a loss to define what you mean by that liberation, yet you know it has to be. You know as you look upon the ministry that it is supernatural. God has to have done this because I as a man could never have produced the word or the anointing that God has given. This has to be of the Lord. But without any qualms, you know that it is not yet what God intends it to be. I know that also. So you are crying for it to be loosed from the futility, from what seems to be a spirit from the age.
I have to break through and become a first partaker. I must break into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. I have to do it. This is what you are talking about in that liberation, and you are talking about it for yourselves, also. You are raised up not just to see the apostolic ministry loosed, but that you should be the seal of that apostleship. There cannot be an apostleship unless a people are raised up who are the seal of that apostleship, who are identified, who are changed, who are transformed, who exhibit all of the manifestation of that apostolic word within their own lives.
An apostle is not an individual. He is almost like a collective thing of the Body, the function of many members coming forth under an apostolic teaching. Then how can we glorify one man? We cannot. We can only pray for him in his weakness and his infirmities and believe for God to make him a pure, unhampered channel of that word to come, and pray that we ourselves shall be recipients, vessels of honor to receive the word that comes and be transformed and changed. All of us together will become the apostolic company in the earth, with the purpose and function for which God is raising it up.
For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. Verse 22. The pains we are under are not a cause of pessimism. The experiences and the sufferings we have gone through are not occasions to despair, “This is the work of Satan and it is our defeat.” I know the dragon is ready to swallow up the manchild as soon as it is born (Revelation 12:4); I know Satan will do many things to destroy the work of God, but the things you are going through are largely the work of God. The travail that you are under is the work of God.
What is happening to America today is the work of God, I believe. God is taking some of the arrogance away from the American people for one purpose, that they go into spiritual travail, and out of this travail I look for this walk to emerge strong and healthy, moving in the will of the Lord. I think that the pain of bearing children should be considered not negatively. Although it may be a very intense pain, you can consider it positively as a pain of creation. It is a pain of liberating that which you are to give birth to, so that it may exist before the face of God. That is what God is doing now.
Many have not understood why the charismatic movement tore up churches. Pastors fear this word which comes because it splits the churches open. But it has to bring the travail, and the people have to come forth out of the old order of things. People say, “Well, it’s not of God because it causes confusion.” Because it is of God it is causing a separation. It is loosing people from the old bondage, the bondage to corruption and futility. It is bringing God’s people out.
We send this word and it looses people. You might say it is a very destructive thing, very negative. No, it is very good! Even if it seems to tear the womb as the manchild comes forth, yet it will soon heal. And whatever seems to come in almost violent pain for the moment, let it come! Let God’s people be loosed from the futility, let them be loosed from that which has harassed them and held them down. Don’t you yearn to move out into God? Don’t you believe that there is another step, there is a breaking off of the bondage, there is a loosing ourselves into the flow, in the name of the Lord? There is!
Verse 23: And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. This is really the heart of the message. Here it is indicating that creation is under travail. Yet creation is not as aware of the travail as we are of the travail that is within us. We are in the real groaning, and it says that we are waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, that is, the redemption of our bodies. The battleground has been taking place in my body for the last few years. The physical assault is being stepped up against us as the redemption of our bodies nears and we are coming close to that time. This is what we are groaning for, praying for. You may wonder if we ever believed in divine healing. Yes, we would pray and the sick would be healed. You may wonder, “What’s this assault? We’re loosed, and the next day we’re in another assault.” In the physical assault, Satan is trying to prevent our faith laying hold upon this manifestation that is coming, the redemption of our bodies, that taking on and having the firstfruits of the Spirit, knowing that the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead will quicken our mortal bodies.
Any who are called to be prophets, elders, apostles, or any other ministries in this Walk, are constantly going through some kind of physical manifestation of assault. Even if they are not physically ill they feel assault signs. Pains come, which are signs of witchcraft coming against us. All the forces of Satan are struggling. Witchcraft has come forth for one reason: to hold back the manifestation of redemption in our bodies, to assault us physically, because this is the battleground right now. This is the current ground we are to take, where we get into that glorious manifestation of life within us, the physical body coming into redemption. The very life that raised Jesus from the dead will be coursing through our physical bodies. This is the next step, and that is why we are in warfare.
I knew this Walk was related to that when it began to manifest itself in this way about twenty-five years ago and as it continued on through the years. People walked away from this by the thousands; others stayed with it. We would have signs in our hands, signs in our mouths, signs on our heads. And as soon as He led us into the warfare, we would have various types of assault signs. People would say, “Oh, they’re crazy; they’re following signs.” For the first time, the battle was centered in the realm of the physical. We had known what it was to actually encounter in our bodies the direct assault of Satan. God had somewhat protected all the moves of history from that, but in this time we began to enter into it. Why? Because this is the area we are going to take. This is where the battle is to be won. We will break forth into life. And as Paul said, “We are groaning within ourselves. Having the first fruits in the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”
“Waiting for the adoption as sons.” In other words, the seal of sonship is to come with the redemption of the body. The seal of sonship in the sons who are coming forth will come as you begin to find a body entering into the redemptive phases. I believe God for us to move into it now. Is that too audacious? We are groaning; we are eagerly awaiting it; we might as well claim it and move in as fast as we can.
Verse 24 goes on to say, For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. Some of you who are older may take exception to the zeal of some of the young people. You say, “Oh, they’re going to hurt their lungs with that violent prophesying.” Notice this Scripture is speaking about hope generating a perseverance, a perseverance and a diligence with an eagerness that waits for it.
That is exactly how we approach it, because we have that hope within us. It is a hope for something we do not see. We are determined to see it, and we persevere to see it, eagerly awaiting to see it. We can hardly hold ourselves back because we must press into it with everything that is within us. I wanted to emphasize this because right at this time we do hope for what we do not see. But it isn’t a passive hope. With a perseverance we are actually shoving our way in to get beyond the veil of what we can see.
Verses 26 and 27: And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should. This is what I keep reminding you. When you don’t know how to pray, don’t be so cocksure about it; just back off and say, “Lord, Your will be done,” and let the Spirit groan through you because there is so much that we do not understand. We can’t even understand what is happening to ourselves, let alone what’s happening to our brother and sister. We don’t know what God is putting anyone through. And in all honesty before God, let us simply groan before God and not be so vindictive or so dead sure about what we are supposed to get.
We do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Verse 27. That is so very important. Here is creation groaning and travailing; here are the sons, the children who are coming to birth, groaning and travailing within themselves for that work to be done in their bodies: that seal, the adoption as sons. Also we have the groanings of the Spirit within us too deep for utterance, beyond words. It looks as if everything is geared for one thing—all of creation, ourselves, the Holy Spirit—is moving towards one end: the sons have to come forth. The sons of God must come forth. It must be a release that comes in the name of the Lord.
Verse 28 is not often understood: We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. Verse 28–30. I call this God’s sovereign law of purpose for the sons of God. This law of purpose means He, in His sovereignty, is going to make all things work together in order to work out the purpose He has for you. What is the purpose? It is this manifestation of the sons of God that is to reveal creation. If you are in this Walk, and you are open to be what God wants you to be, then you love God and you are called according to His purpose. If you were not called according to His purpose, you would not be in this Walk. You see, the Walk is directly related to God’s future plan in the earth, so you are in accordance to His purpose. This is a sovereign law. It is not something variable that depends on you as much as it depends upon God’s decree and His sovereign will. And His sovereign will is that all things work together for good to those of you who love God. And you are called according to His purpose in the earth now! Because you are called according to His purpose, everything is going to work for your good.
“Oh, I thought everything was working against me.”
No, I think God has a sovereign way of decreeing, “No matter what comes against them, even if it is principalities and powers, I sovereignly decree that it will work for their good, and it will bring forth My purpose within them.”
“Oh,” you say, “I thought that God was ruining me, or that the devil was doing it. Something was; the devil was making me do it!”
No, it isn’t really that. It is God who is taking everything, no matter what its intention and what Satan or man would purpose towards you, and He makes a sovereign law: “I overrule all the intents and purposes and destruction and malice that is intended towards this person, I declare it, I sovereignly rule that it will work good to those who love God and are called according to this purpose.”
No matter how it comes against us, if a man rises up to persecute this Walk, I believe that God’s sovereign law of purpose says He will make it work for good because we love God. No matter how it seems to come to destroy, discredit, or persecute us, God will vindicate it by bringing forth a sovereign ruling: “It will work together for their good.” And that’s the thing we are depending upon today, with Satan raging against the inhabitants of the earth, with judgments coming. And the judgments of the earth are not only God judging man, but God is turning man against man.
In the days of King Jehoshaphat, when the enemy came against the children of Judah, God delivered them by causing the enemy to fight with one another until they all fell to the earth dead men. He used them to destroy each other. God is doing a lot of that in the earth today. And you might think, “Oh, this terrible, terrible thing that is taking place: all of this war and everything else.” God is using these very systems to destroy themselves. Just see that you don’t. The Word says, But, if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Galatians 5:15. You can do the same thing yourself if you are not careful. Don’t let any spirit get into you, but to love and to edify and to be strong.
God was saying in effect, “Because I foreknow these ones, I am going to predestine them to be conformed to the image of My Son.” These sons who are to be manifested will all be just like Jesus. Hebrews 2:10 tells us He is bringing many sons to glory; He is the Author of their salvation through sufferings. He is doing the same thing through us too. He is bringing us into a glorious realization that perfection is not a thing to draw back from, but God is actually going to finish the work that He has done in our hearts.
Doesn’t He have a way of rubbing one believer against another? Doesn’t that sandpaper operation have a way of bringing you to the end of your fleshly responses and feelings? Isn’t He doing a marvelous job in you? Doesn’t it hurt? Doesn’t it make you yearn eagerly and groan to see it accomplished and to become just like His Son, conformed to the image of His Son?
“Oh, that’s wonderful! If only we would walk in all that!”
We can. The promise is great: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Romans 8:32. In other words, the Father intends everything to be heaped upon His dearly beloved Son in this day, when every knee will bow and all authority in heaven and earth will be in Him, and He will freely give us all things with Him. Everything that He gives to His Son, He will give to Him with us—freely give us all things with Him. There will be no end to it.
You ask for a few blessings once in awhile, but you don’t realize what God has in mind. He intends for you to be co-partakers—heirs of God and joint-heirs of Jesus Christ. And He will give you freely, with Him, all things! He did not spare His Son for you, so then He will not spare giving you with Him everything that is to come. He has included you. You are accepted in the Beloved. It is hard for us to grasp how many good things that God has set before us. And we are not afar off from these things. These truths strike the cords of your heart because you are going through these things; you recognize the groanings and the travail; you sense what you are. You are chosen. God is bringing you forth, and isn’t He truly causing all things to work together for your good, because you are called according to that holy purpose that He had in His sons? What a day to take faith in your heart, to just give yourself over wholly to the Lord with everything that is within you, and say, “Lord, oh, I want to serve You all the more and eagerly press into this that is just before me.”
When a mother is laboring and she grows weary, there comes that time in which there is a need of a real lift, and that is what the Word says, “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness,” when we don’t know how to pray as we should. And if you feel a little weak, push! Bring it to birth! Go after it! Grit your teeth and hang on. Let’s go after it, we can make it. Not by human endeavor, but this Scripture speaks about a perseverance; with perseverance we eagerly wait for it. There has to be that violence within our faith that we are going to move in. We are going to have it! Stir yourself, if you’re a little bit lukewarm, a little halfhearted.
“Well, I think I’ll just take a little vacation from this right now, because I work hard and I’ve been kind of disillusioned and disappointed about a lot of things.”
That doesn’t matter, God is with you. Come on, let’s give it another try.
“But it’s getting worse all the time.”
Yes, the time between pains becomes less as the hour of delivery comes. If you want a long time between pains you will have a long time coming to birth. Suppose we just press in, crying, “Lord, let it come! Let it come!” How soon will it be when that final push comes, and the sons begin to break forth into their place in God? All creation is groaning and waiting for it. We are groaning for it. The Spirit within us is groaning for it. With perseverance let us press into it.
This word comes to instruct our hearts and to help us, to teach us in the way we should go. No message like this should be without some action on your part. There should be a turning away from any withdrawal because of the intensity of the battle. There should be a fresh dedication to press right into this hour of travail with hope and expectancy. And there should be a drawing upon the joy of the Lord, because the greatest hour of joy and victory the world has ever known will be when the remnant comes into Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads (Isaiah 51:11).
Lord, meet our hearts. How can we walk before Thee, O Lord, with a half heart? We cannot. We must walk before You with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength. Everything within us must respond. We speak to the inner-being; we say to our soul, “O soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Everything within me respond to my Lord. Let every emotion, every feeling, everything within me, O God, be prostrate before Thee. Teach me, help me by Your Spirit to be submissive. Let there be no rebellious areas in my life that You do not touch. Touch them. Speak to them that they wither and die.” There cannot be within any of us, Lord, bitterness, rebellion, or any unclean thing, any animosity or jealousy that causes us to judge our brother. O Lord, let there not be that ambition within us today, but only that seeking after Your will with all that is within us.
In everything we would magnify Thee together this day; in every way we would submit our hearts to You. You have spoken to us today. If any of us have a heart that is not open to this word, O God, help us to open to it completely. Trouble us with this word until it becomes a part of us, and let us be like those at Berea, who earnestly searched the Scriptures to find if these things were so (Acts 17:11). And if they are so, and the Spirit bears witness to us, O God, let there not be a reluctance on our part to receive them with all grace and all joy.
Let there be within us more of Thy love. Perfect Your love within us for one another. O God, we cannot walk these days before us without love. There must be that which searches us for the last bit of self-seeking and selfishness, and we believe that You will take care of that too. Amen.