PEARLS OF PAUL
CHILDREN OF GOD
DR. JIM DIXON
ROMANS 8:14-21
AUGUST 1, 1999
In 1973, Moses David Berg prophesied that the United States of America would be destroyed. He prophesied that on January 18, 1974, this nation would be destroyed by a comet, the comet Kahoutek. January 18, 1974, came and the comet Kahoutek did not. The prophesies of Moses David Berg were proven to be a sham, and yet for hundreds of thousands of people who followed Moses David Berg, it didn’t matter. They continued to believe in him.
Moses David Berg was born on February 18, 1919, in southern California. His father was a minister and ultimately became a professor at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. His mother was a radio evangelist in the Missionary Alliance Church. And so, Moses David Berg was reared in the things of Christ, and he entered into ministry. He was in his 40s during the 1960s and he was, at that time, one of the leaders in the so-called “Jesus Movement,” which swept across America in those turbulent times. David Berg, who had not yet taken the name Moses, had gone to work for Teen Challenge, and he was the leader of their coffee house ministry at Huntington Beach in California. He was a charismatic leader, yet he had a very damaged ego. Of course, charisma combined with a damaged ego is a very dangerous thing.
It was later in the 1960s that David Berg separated from Teen Challenge, an evangelical ministry, and he established his own ministry. He called COG, representing the “Children of God,” and he began to establish coffee houses and communes all over the United States and all over Europe. He adopted the name Moses—Moses David Berg. By 1977, incredibly, the Children of God had two million members, most of them living in Europe, and 8,000 workers. Moses David Berg’s writings were translated into 28 languages. Most of his followers regarded his writings as holy scripture. Of course, the money was just pouring in.
In 1980, Moses David Berg was 61 years old, and his health began to fail. The Children of God began to decline because people could see that it was cultic. They discovered and it was revealed that the leaders of the Children of God were fiscally irresponsible, and they were pilfering funds from the ministry and lining their own pockets. The leaders of the Children of God were sexually promiscuous, and they were practicing polygamy. Moses David Berg had a harem of concubines. Of course, the theology of the Children of God was apostate. For these reasons, the Children of God began to disappear from this world.
Throughout history, there have been many cultic movements which have taken the name “The Children of God,” but the Bible tells us who the real children of God are. In our passage of scripture for today, the Apostle Paul describes those who are truly part of the children of God, and he describes the children of God in three ways.
First of all, he tells us that the children of God are adopted. The children of God have been adopted into the family of God. Speaking of the children of God, the Apostle Paul writes that “they have received the spirit of adoption.” The Greek word there is “huiothesia,” which means “to place a child.” The children of God have been placed into the family of God through adoption.
Some of you have heard of Ben Hooper. Ben Hooper was born in the 19th century. He was born in the foothills of east Tennessee. Ben Hooper was born to an unwed mother. His mother had been so promiscuous that they did not even know who Ben Hooper’s father was. Now, this was a different time. When children in those times were born to unwed mothers, they were sometimes called bastards. Children who were born to unwed mothers were said to be illegitimate children. And so, it was that Ben Hooper was viewed in that way, and he was stigmatized as an illegitimate child. Parents did not allow their children to play with him. He had no friends growing up. Parents would say, “I don’t want you to play with that boy.” “I don’t want you to play with Ben Hooper.” “He’s an illegitimate child.” “I don’t want you to have anything to do with him,” as though Ben Hooper had anything to do with the manner of his own birth.
There were no kindergartens at that time, but when Ben Hooper was six years old, he went to first grade. In first grade, he had no friends. During snack period, he just stayed at his desk. Everyone else left the classroom. He just stayed at his desk, and he studied because he had no one to talk to. He was socially stigmatized. At lunchtime, he went out and ate lunch, but all by himself he ate his sack lunch. Nobody was with him. He was all alone.
Every Saturday, his mother would take him to the General Store, and they would buy supplies for the week. Ben would hear other parents in the store and other kids saying things and whispering things. He would see them pointing at him. “There’s that illegitimate child.”
When Ben was 12 years old, he went to church for the very first time. He had never been to church. His mother had never taken him there. At church, he saw some other kids and they began to make fun of him. They began to mock him. They said, “Ben, who’s your father? Who’s your father?” The minister of this church in east Tennessee saw the other children ridiculing Ben. He knew who Ben Hooper was. He had heard all about this boy, And so, the minister came up with a big smile on his face and said, “Ben Hooper, I know who your Father is. The family resemblance is unmistakable. I can see it on your face. You’re a child of God. Ben Hooper, you’re a child of God!”
Well, that simple moment transformed the life of Ben Hooper. He began to view himself in an entirely different way, and he began to have respect for who he was, and he began to believe he was, indeed, a child of God. Now, many of you know that Ben Hooper went on to become the Governor of the state of Tennessee and one of the most beloved leaders of the south.
That story is often told, and I’ve heard it on a number of occasions, and it is a true story, and it is a wonderful story, but it could mislead us. It could lead us to the conclusion that all people are just automatically children of God. And biblically that is not the case. All children, all people, are not automatically children of God. Now, the Bible does tell us that God loves all people. God loves all people. God loves you. And the Bible tells us that all people are created in the image and likeness of God. He is the Creator of all people, but people only become children of God, the Bible tells us, through adoption. They must be adopted.
The Bible tells us that we can be adopted into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior if we receive Christ. The Bible says in John, chapter 1, “As many as receive Him, to them He gives power to become children of God.” To as many as receive Him, to as many as believe on His name, to them He gives power to become children of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in John, chapter 3, that when we receive Him and when we believe in Him, we are adopted and we are born anew, the Greek word “anagennao,” which literally means “born from above.” Christ sends His Spirit to indwell us, and His Father becomes our Father. His family becomes our family, and we are adopted into the family of God. What Jesus Christ has by nature, for He is the only begotten Son, we receive through adoption.
I read recently the story of Jill and Pat Williams. Jill and Patrick have twelve children. Four of them are their children biologically, and four were adopted from Korea, and four were adopted from the Philippines. Twelve children. One day, Jill and Patrick Williams took their twelve kids to the park where they had lunch. Jill was exhausted. It’s a lot of work with twelve kids. A stranger went by and saw her and said, “Are all twelve of these children yours or are you just having some kind of picnic?” She said, “They’re all mine, and believe me it’s no picnic.”
Now, isn’t it true that we’re limited in the number of children we can manage. I know Barb and I certainly had times when we were exhausted with two kids. I think all parents are like that, and you’re all like that. We’re limited in our capacity in terms of raising numbers of children, and we’re limited in the number of kids that we could adopt. What a wonderful thing to adopt children, but we’re limited in the number of children we could adopt. But that’s not true of God. As many as receive Him, as many as believe in Him, to them He gives power to become children of God. And I tell you, He is ready and willing to adopt you if you would receive His Son and believe in Jesus Christ. He will bring you into His family, and you will become a son or a daughter of God. Who are the children of God? They have been adopted into the family of God through faith in Jesus Christ—huiothesia, adoption.
Secondly, Paul identifies the children of God as “those who suffer in this present time.” The children of God are adopted, and in this present time, the children of God suffer. Now, Paul tells us that the suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the glory that will one day be revealed to us. Nevertheless, it is true for us as children of God in this present time that we inevitably suffer.
In 1996, a strange thing happened in the country of Mozambique. A man there, a man named Al Sayad Hussein Ahkief fled the country. No one even knows why, but three years ago, Al Sayad Hussein Ahkief fled Mozambique. Now, he had owned a circus, and it was called Ahkief’s Egyptian Circus. When he fled the country, when he fled Mozambique, he left all of his circus animals in their cages. He abandoned them. And so, the authorities in Mozambique came and they found these circus animals. There were lions, tigers, and there were a few monkeys. There were ponies and dogs, and all of these had been used in the circus. Some of them were not in very good condition because Ahkief had fled, and he was no longer caring for them. They were in small cages.
When the authorities in Mozambique looked at the lions, there were three of them. They noticed that these three lions were really unusual looking. They didn’t look like any lions these authorities in Mozambique had ever seen. The male lion (and there was one male) had this huge thick totally black mane. There were other features that were unusual as well. And so, the authorities in Mozambique decided to call for zoological scientists to come in and examine these three lions. They came in and they were stunned. They were stunned to discover that these three lions in Ahkief’s circus were Barbary lions, and scientists had thought that the Barbary lion was extinct. The last Barbary lion in the wild had been shot in Morocco in 1921. This was 1996. Three Barbary lions.
Well, these three Barbary lions were sent to the Hoadesbrute Research and Breeding Center for endangered species. Today, those zoologists have found a few additional Barbary lions that were in small zoos and circuses in Europe, and they are trying to re-breed the species.
Some of you may be thinking, “Well, big deal! I mean, who cares about Barbary lions?” But, of course, Barbary lions have an incredible history. They were the lions of the Roman Empire. Caesar sent the Roman legions into northern Africa to capture the Barbary lions. They were brought back, and they were used in the Hippodromes throughout the Roman Empire, and Christians were fed to Barbary lions in the Circus Maximus and also in the Flavian Amphitheater, more popularly known as the Coliseum. In the Coliseum, you can still see the cages where the Barbary lions were kept. Of course, in the hippodromes throughout the Roman Empire, the Barbary lions were used to persecute Christians.
Many years ago, Barb and I went with friends to Turkey, and we went far inland into Turkey to the ruins of a city that was once named Aphrodisias. It was very close to the ruins of the biblical city of Laodicea and the biblical city of Colossae and the biblical city of Hierapolis. Aphrodisias has a major archeological dig that is taking place there, and they have uncovered a massive Roman hippodrome. This hippodrome, this stadium, is 200 yards long. All of the seats are still there in that giant oval, seating, they say, for 200,000 people. You can still see the tunnels where the barbary lions came out when they fed on Christians. It’s a reminder of a time long ago when the children of God suffered physically for their faith in Jesus Christ as, indeed, in the first three centuries of the Christian world Christ men and women were persecuted unto death.
We would be naive if we really believe that Christians were no longer suffering physically. We know that Christians even today are being persecuted in many parts of the world, and this persecution has been documented by many agencies, and it has been acknowledged by the United States Congress. Christians continue to be persecuted, and they continue to suffer. This is always true of the children of God. But there is a kind of suffering that we all participate in as children of God. There is a kind of suffering that we all have in common. In this passage, Bible scholars agree that Paul is not really referring to the physical suffering of persecution. Paul is referring to the spiritual suffering of sanctification. All of the children of God suffer spiritually for the sake of sanctification.
Paul tells us that the children of God are led by the spirit of God. In the immediately preceding verse, Paul tells us that the children of God do not gratify the desires of the flesh. The Bible tells us that the children of God have two natures. If you’re a Christian and you’ve been adopted into the family of God, you have two natures. You have a new nature, the Bible says, a new nature given you by Christ. When He sent the spirit to indwell you, you received that new nature which is patterned after Christ, and that new nature is characterized by the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. That’s the new nature, and it’s been given to you by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
But the problem is, you also have the old nature. We all have the old nature, the fallen nature. It’s characterized by lust and by temper and anger. It’s characterized by pride, by jealousy. It’s characterized by gossip and slander. It’s the old nature that has fallen and it is characterized by sin. The old and new natures are at war within us as the children of God. We are to be led by the Spirit of God, and we are not to gratify those desires of the flesh that are sinful, the old nature, which the Bible calls the “sarks,” or the flesh. This is a great conflict involves struggle in the life of every creation as you wage war against sin.
I read recently a writing by an ornithologist. Ornithologists are those who study birds. This ornithologist said that the absolutely craziest bird in the world is called the cuckoo bird. Of course, it’s called the cuckoo bird because of the sound it makes. Of course, it sounds a lot like a cuckoo clock. Now, the word cuckoo in the English language has come to mean crazy because of the behavior of the cuckoo bird. It is true that the cuckoo bird, and particularly the European common cuckoo bird, has lost its instinct to build nests, so the mother cuckoo bird doesn’t build a nest. What the cuckoo bird does is it flies around and it looks for a nest that’s already made. It looks for a nest that has eggs in it, but it can’t just be any nest with eggs in it. It needs to be a nest with eggs in it and the mother needs to be at least temporarily gone. Then the cuckoo bird swoops down, lands in the nest, and lays an egg. It might lay one egg. It might lay two. Then the cuckoo bird flies away and that’s the sum and total of the cuckoo bird’s mothering.
Now the other bird (usually it’s a thrush) comes back to the nest, and the other bird is the mother of the eggs in the nest, most of the eggs in the nest, and the other bird is not a mathematician. So, the other bird is not aware of the fact that there are more eggs in the nest. And the other birds, of course, cares for those eggs and they all hatch, even though one of the eggs, the cuckoo egg, is twice the size of the other eggs. They all hatch. This other bird, then, begins to provide for all the babies even though the cuckoo bird baby is so much bigger than the other babies. In fact, it’s bigger than the mother that’s feeding it. The mother will come with the worms, and all the little babies have their mouths open. The cuckoo bird is huge, and its mouth is cavernous. You know who gets the worm! And so, the cuckoo bird and the nest just gets bigger and bigger, and the other little birds get smaller and smaller. You can always find a cuckoo bird’s nest because you see a whole bunch of baby birds dead on the ground near the nest. The cuckoo bird has pushed them out one by one.
God wants you to understand as a child of God that there’s something cuckoo in your nest. He wants you to understand this. He wants you to understand that you’ve got two different kinds of birds in your nest. You’ve got the old nature and you’ve got the new nature, and you’ve got to decide what you’re going to feed. I promise you, the old nature has a cavernous appetite, and you’ve got to resolve, as a child of God, you will not feed it. And that involves suffering because you’ve got to say no to some of the things which, in the flesh, you want to do. You’ve got to resolve that you’re going to feed the new nature, and that means time in the word. That means time in prayer. That means time in Christian fellowship. That means volunteer Christian service, because that’s how you feed the new nature that’s given to you as a child of God in Christ Jesus. All of this is part of the suffering of the children of God.
Well, there’s a final point that Paul makes, and this final point is that the children of God are heirs. They are adopted. They suffer. It’s the suffering of sanctification as they seek to overcome the old nature. And they are heirs. They have a great inheritance. If we are children of God, then we are heirs, “heirs of God,” Paul says, and “co-heirs with Christ.”
Now, the Greek word for “co-heir” is the word “sugkleronomos.” This word sugkleronomos literally means “equal inheritor.” This is an amazing promise. We who are the children of God by adoption will inherit all things with God’s Son, co-heirs with Christ. Jesus said, “All that the Father has is Mine.” That’s what Jesus said. “All that the Father has is mine,” and yet He loves you so much as His adopted brothers and sisters, He wants to share it all with you. You have an incredible inheritance laid up for you, I promise.
Some of you may have come into an earthly inheritance. It might have been great. It might have been small. Some of you may never come into an earthly inheritance and you know it. And maybe it bothers you a little, but don’t be bothered because there’s an inheritance laid up for you and it is great. If you really believe that, if you’re really a child of God, it affects your attitude in life. It even affects your attitude in death.
You all know that on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all seven astronauts onboard. Scientists who have examined this horrible tragedy have discovered that the seven astronauts did not die immediately. They found from their individual oxygen reserves that many of them were still alive when they hit the water. Still breathing. Still using oxygen. They also have a recording of the last moments in the Challenger Space Shuttle. They have an audio transcript, and that audio transcript reveals that the two women astronauts were very different.
One of the women astronauts was a woman named Judith Resnick. You probably remember her name, and she was brilliant. She was renowned for her competency, her precision. But Judith Resnick, by her own confession, had no faith in God. Do you know the audio transcript of the final seconds on the Challenger Space Shuttle reveal her voice just spewing profanity? Just cursing with just a panicked cursing in those final seconds. That same audio transcript also records the voice of the other woman astronaut whose name was Christa McAuliffe. Many of you probably remember Christa McAuliffe. She was the school teacher who was very open about her faith in Jesus Christ. On that same audio transcript is her voice and her final words, and she is reciting the 23rd Psalm, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
I tell you, the children of God are different. They are different in life and they are different in death. They are different in life and death because they are adopted into the family of God. They have suffered for sanctification’s sake and they look forward to an eternal inheritance. They know that they are bound for heaven. They know that one day they will receive a new body, indestructible and no longer subject to decay. They know that there is a heavenly city. They know that there will be a New Heavens and a New Earth. They know that they will be forever with Jesus Christ Himself. They are the children of God. Adopted, suffering, and heirs. Let’s close with a word of prayer.