MAN’S RIGHT TO BECOME THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

TEXT: HE CAME UNTO HIS OWN ? AND THEY THAT WERE HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT; BUT AS MANY AS RECEIVED, TO THEM GAVE HE THE RIGHT TO BECOME THE CHILDREN OF GOD, EVEN TO THAT BELIEVED ON HIS NAME, John 9:12.

I

Christ come to his own, and his own received him not.

II

But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children of God.

III

Even to them that believe on his name.

(I) It is the nature, therefore a fundamental principal, of God never to come to anything not his own. The fact that Christ comes to a man is a proof that that man belongs to Christ; and Christ has come to a person when Christ’s words come to that person, for Christ reveals that his WORDS are spirit and life (John 6:63). Any person who rejects Christ’s words now, would have rejected him when he was on the earth (John 18: 48).

It is so much better for any one for God to give Christ’s words for him to receive or reject and thereby receive or reject Christ. A man can take Christ’s words all to himself and study them out alone with God, who wills his presence so man feels alone and decides to receive or reject for himself.

When man rejects Christ, it is no proof that man does not belong to Christ. It only proves that Christ cannot give that man the right to become a child of God; hence, such human beings remain children of Satan. How any treat the commands of God, will locate whether they are children or not.

(II) Christ gives the right to become a child of God.

The word right means "according to truth, justice, or law. To reject comes from Satan, and he uses no truth or justice or law of God, to keep us from our right to become children of God.

God, through Christ, gives any person the right to become his son or daughter, if he or she will believe the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and act on them. The words of Christ call for action: To repent of sins, to leave the world, to deny one’s sinful desires, to live a Christian life. This is why any person rejects the right to become a child of God, he prefers to stay in sin, to enjoy some of them; which literally means that he must lose his right to become a child of God, and at last suffer the penalty of his sins himself, which Christ suffered for him; if he would believe Christ’s words, and accept from Christ the right to become a child of God, who os love to all who will accept their right from Christ to become children of God.

This right from Christ to become a child of God is the greatest offer ever made in time or eternity or ever can be made, even by almighty God himself. Every other right of man is as nothing when compared with it. Without it, every other right of man turns to degredation, suffering and shame. To miss it, any human being would be better off never to have been born; or better to have a great stone fastened to him to live alone in the deepest ocean forever. If all goodness and wealth of men were centered in one man, and that man had the power to make another person his son, his only son, to live forever on the earth, it would be folly for any man to take such an offer, and reject this offer from Jesus Christ to have the right to become a child of God.

Why does any one reject this offer of Jesus Christ, to give any one the right to become a child of God, if they would only believe his word? If you would really see a person, you would understand why he rejects Christ’s offer to have the right to become a son of God. You would see a person, any person not a child of God, surrounded by demons, and other demons all in his spirit, doing their best to persuade him not to accept the right in Jesus, to become a son of God. Look at him again and you will see that human beings that he naturally prefers to be with are people who themselves have rejected their right to become children of God. Look at him again, and you will see that the man’s nature is like that of the demons, like that of people he enjoys being with.

Look at the man again, and you will see that the man’s spirit, the only part about him that is possible to become a child of God, is dead itself to God until Christ gives it life enough to believe his word (John 1:9; Eph. 2:1); and when the spirit of the man begins to believe on Christ to get its right to become a child of God, then the man’s own fleshly will, all the demons inside and out of the man, and the Man’s own friends who have rejected Christ’s offer to them--all these forces try to prevent the man’s spirit from accepting the right from Christ to become a child of God.

On the other hand, the man’s spirit has friends who are more powerful than all the combined forces of evil against it (Rom. 8:31; Heb. 1:14). All of God’s people of all ages are for it; that is, if it will only believe the word of Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, will make it into the nature of God, live in it. With all this help, to believe the word of Christ and become a child of God, all people should become the children of God; but if they will not, no wonder God says that they are without excuse, Rom. 1:20.

(III) Only those who believe the word of Christ on earth, can become the children of God in this world, inherit it, Matt. 5:5, and his seed the earth, Ps. 25:13. When a person believes on earth and acts on it, this fact will fit his destiny in eternity, either in heaven or in the outer darkness, where those who reject Christ on earth and the demons are in prison forever, Jude 1:3.

God’s words are truth itself, for he is the God of truth (Ps. 31:6). There is no truth apart from God. There is no truth, not one particle of truth, in any impression, from any source, you feel not to believe on the name of Jesus Christ and get your right for Holy Spirit to make you a child of God. All children of God have been where any sinner is now. To a man, they will testify that nothing that Satan promised them to stay in sin, had any joy, pleasure or truth in it, that no sin is worth committing. This question is so important, so paramount to man that gives a witness from hell, for man not to go there (Lu. 16:30). Now, as God is the God of truth and has all truth, it is such an awful crime for man not to believe on the name of Christ to get his right to be made a son of God. When children of God meet such a person, a person who will not believe the words of Jesus Christ to give him the right to become a child of God, they cannot understand why a man would be so insane about his own interest, until they look back to the time when they did not believe what Christ said to them; and then God tells them that "the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel if the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them," II Cor. 4:4. Such a scene is everywhere, so common it attracts no attention, yet so heartrending, pathetic, and useless. Nothing on earth can compare with it.

A man was on a speeding passenger coach with a crying baby in his arms. The infant was crying, and nothing the man could do would stop it. Another man near by looked up from his paper and curtly said, "Can’t you stop that brat from crying?". The man with the child replied, "I am doing all I know, the dead body of its mother is in the baggage car of this train, going to her burial." It was so pathetic, the ladies gathered around offering their services.

During the World War, an American mother crossed the ocean to visit her son who lay wounded in a French hospital, and when she found him, he was covered to his chin with a white sheet. Her son, whose baby eyes and smiles and touch had thrilled her young mother heart after she was told that she had brought a man into the world. She had taught his cooing voice to form words to tell her how much he loved her, had trained his wobbling steps to grow straight for his feet to beat the tattoo music of love for mother as he ran around her chair, feel his chubby arms around her neck, his voice gurgling love for mother. Now, she craved to see the stalwart form of her son, to feel his strong arms around her, to hear his manly voice say, "Mother, I love you."

So she stood by his couch with his body shrouded in a white sheet as she let her mother love flow down into his eyes and heart of her beloved son. Finally, she asked, "Son, are you well enough to stand upon your feet?" He answered, "Mother, I have no feet." After a while she whispered to her beloved son, "Won’t you shake hands with your mother?" The son whispered to his mother, "Mother, I have no hands." Pathetic? Yes. Heartrending? yes, but there was hope, His mutilated body, when Christ calls for the dead (John 5:25), will rise from the grave with hands and feet; and that dead mother will be alive again. But the person who will not receive Jesus Christ to give him the right to become a child of God, is in a hopeless state forever, because he would not believe on his name.

God commands man to work six days and rest one (Ex. 20:9) in order to sustain their bodies; but only to believe Christ one time to obtain eternal life, never to hunger any more (John 6:25). When Christ’s name is believed on one time, it makes a child of God, who is not satisfied to live in sin any more, for sin cuts his spirit off from God, he loses harmony with God’s people on earth; and sin, demons, and wicked people will become his spiritual friends to guide him into the broad road to death, in which no child of God will walk; but he will repent, beg for mercy and pray for power never to walk in the ways of sin any more.

Copyright © 2006 Brett W. Smith. All rights reserved.