Development of Body and Spirit

I'd like to thank Sheri for that very, very apropos and beautiful for this season of the year.

What does a baby feel like when it's born?

How many of you remember when you were born? I'm going to have to get Alan up here and let him describe to us what that was like.

I was going to say before that the only person I've ever heard say he remembered when he was born was Monk. Now, of course, Monk is a fictional character on television, and he was having problems with his father because he remembered his father trying to drown him in water and spanking him on the bottom. And he never could figure that out until they figured out it was talking about him being born. Well, of course, you can't go by that. I think when you begin to stop and consider a baby being born, obviously there's no memory for a child when that occurs. But, brethren, do you think that you will remember the day that you were born into God's family in the resurrection when that change takes place? There are tremendous changes that take place that enable birth to occur or enable birth to happen. Childbirth, you find, is a series of miracles, and our birth into God's kingdom is likewise a series of miracles. In this piece, the trumpet's picture is the time of the resurrection, the time when you and I will be in the kingdom of God, where we will be transformed from this physical to divine. You'll find in the human realm that the fetus grows for approximately 280 days in the uterus of the mother. The uterus normally is one to one and a half ounces in weight. During pregnancy, it grows or expands to one and a half to two pounds, so it's quite a bit larger. Conception takes place. When a man and woman come together, there's something like 200 to 500 million spermatozoa swimming upstream, trying to reach an egg, if there's one there. And there are only certain periods of time that that egg is there and that it can be fertilized. Well, what happens, obviously one of them gets there first, or you'll find that a number of them will reach there, but the egg has a tough protective coat around it. And once the sperm hits the egg, there is an enzyme that is let loose that causes it to be able to bore into the egg.

And so that a conception of fertilization can begin. So not every sperm gets through, obviously. If you had 200 million attacking this one egg and they all latched onto it, you'd have a problem. I don't know what that would produce. But once the sperm has penetrated, something else happens. The egg wall changes, and it changes dramatically in that it will prevent any further penetration. So once one gets through, the rest of them are outside. The door closes, and there's a protective barrier there again. Now, how does all of this happen? Supposedly, all of this evolved over a period of time. And I'm not exactly sure how that occurs. In Psalm 139, I want you to notice that David understood clearly some of these principles. In Psalm 139, we'll begin to read in verse 13.

Chapter 139, verse 13.

For you formed my inward parts, and you covered me in my mother's womb.

I will praise you, David said, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.

So David acknowledged that he was fearfully and wonderfully made. And when it comes to the spiritual realm, you find that it is a marvelous thing that God is doing. It is a miraculous plan that God is working out. Over six billion people are alive today on the earth, and out of that number, only a few thousand have been begotten or received God's Holy Spirit. You are among those few who have been chosen at this time. Now, before God's Spirit could enter in and begat our spirit, the spirit and man, and the two of them unite together, God had to loosen the hard shell around our hearts, around our minds. All of us at one time were like a turtle. We had this hard shell around us. We were hard shell carnal people, and we were all doing our own thing, following our own path, doing what we wanted to do. And somehow, God had to break through that. And so God worked with each one of us, as we know, to first of all call us, begin to open our mind through His Spirit, begin to work with us. And then God had to penetrate with His Spirit to begin to soften our hearts. In Romans 2, a different analogy is used here, but it's talking about the same thing in verse 28. Romans 2, verse 28. For He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but He is a Jew who is one inwardly. And circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God. So God has to penetrate the hardness of our heart. He has to cut it away so that His Spirit can be placed therein. And what you find, the process for this, is very simple. God calls us, opens our mind, begins to work with us. He grants us repentance. We repent of our sins. We ask God forgiveness. God then, we're baptized, gives us His Holy Spirit. And so God's Spirit then enters within us. Colossians 2.11 describes this process. Let's notice here in Colossians 2, and verse 11, it says, In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision, made without hands, not physical circumcision, by putting off of the body of sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ. So we are spiritually circumcised. We have the hard-heartedness of our carnality cutaways. We've all been hard-hearted like Pharaoh. Remember, the Bible says that Pharaoh would harden his heart, or God would harden his heart, and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron and what they wanted done. And so it's been with us. God has to soften us up. Now, once we have God's Spirit coming within us, it helps to prevent further penetration of wrong influences. It is there as a protection against Satan, against this world, against the evil we see around us in the society and the culture, just as the egg wall changes to prevent further penetration. So now there is a difference in us. Remember in Ephesians 2, verses 2 and 3, that there is a Spirit out there, the Spirit of this world, the Spirit of Satan, the devil. And Satan keeps broadcasting his Spirit, and he's trying to influence the minds and the attitudes and the approaches of all human beings. And in verse 2, we read, In which you once walked according to the course of this world, this is the way we once lived, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves. So we all were a part of that system and way of life at one time, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

Now, God gives us a defense. And that defense is faith. In chapter 6, verse 16, we know that once we receive the Spirit of God, that God's Spirit imparts to us faith, one of the fruit of the Spirit. And you'll notice here, in verse 16, it says, Above all, take the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

So you'll find that the shield of faith, when Satan throws his darts, his attitudes, we can put that shield up. This is a common analogy that they would have understood in the first century, the Roman army. The Roman armies would march, if you've ever seen any illustration. Most armies, when they fought back then, would have maybe a thousand, ten thousand men standing there with bows and arrows, generally long bows. And they would shoot a volley of arrows. And you can imagine an army approaching ten thousand arrows going up in the air and coming down on you. It would be devastating. It would just absolutely devastate your ranks.

The Romans had what they called the turtle. They would all take their shields. They would bunch up. Those on the outer edges would put their shields up in front of them. Those in the middle would put their shields over the top of them. And so when the arrows came down, a few would get through, but most of them would hit on the shields. And they would be protected from those arrows. And then when they were fighting, of course, they used a shield to protect knives and spear thrusts and swords and all of that. So it is with us, brethren, when we start out. Now, you find that you start out with a little egg. There is a zygote, as they're called. Then you have a little fetus or an embryo. And then you have a fetus. And then eventually you have a baby that is born. But what you find is growth is quick very soon. Growth from one cell, from an ovum that's united with a sperm, to billions of cells. In the first month, an egg will increase by 50 times. It will weigh 8,000 times as much as when it was first there. And at the end of a month, almost every organ within that fetus begins forming. The nervous system begins forming towards the fourth week. You have the beginning of a circulatory system, where you can actually see blood circulating. You have a rudimentary heart that starts beating. Where do all these specialized cells come from? When I say specialized, you start it with an egg. You start it with this sperm cell that is united with that egg. And there was one cell. Then they split, and there was two. Then there was four, and eight, 16, 32, 64, you know, 128. We could go on with the division. But it keeps multiplying and dividing. After a while, though, some of them start to form a heart. And then others start to form a nervous system. Others start to form a circulatory system. Where does all of that come from? Where do these special cells come from? Well, they're built in. They're programmed in the DNA.

We all remember that we receive our basic characteristics from both our mom and our dad. And there are 23 chromosomes from each parent. They impart the characteristic of each parent. And so you can look at a child, and generally a child will be, maybe will have your eyes, your wife's feet, have your nose, somebody else's teeth. And this is where you get into problems. Have your jaw, their teeth, or you have their hair, and whatever it might be.

Sometimes people look at a baby and say, that's a spitting image of the mom or the dad, because it looks maybe exactly like that. But it is through the chromosomes that you impart the characteristics, the family characteristics, let's say, of that family. The last few months of a child's development are for the fattening up of that child, adding weight and strengthening the baby and fully developing all of the systems and organs within that child. And what about spiritual growth? What I've been describing is physical growth. Spiritual growth is much the same way. When you and I first start out, we have God's Holy Spirit, we begin to learn quickly. You begin to learn everything. Everything is new to you. Can you remember when you first heard the World Tomorrow broadcast, or read the Plain Truth, or used to get booklets? Everything you read was brand new. You couldn't wait to get a magazine. You couldn't wait to turn the radio on or to watch television. And you just absorbed everything. It's said that a baby learns about half of what it knows in the first year. So it is with us. We learn the fundamental principles of God's law very quickly. We absorb them and we learn them. The very basic elementary knowledge is there. Now, as Hebrews chapter 6 says, though as time goes on, you know about the Ten Commandments, you know about the Sabbath, you know about clean, unclean meats, you know about tithing, and all of these things. So you've got the basic fundamentals down. What is left to do? Well, chapter 6, verse 1 here in Hebrews says, therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles, let us go on to perfection.

From that time on, we've got to become perfect. The word means maturity. It's generally teleos or teleo in the Greek, and it means maturity. Just like a baby grows up into an adult, the little fetus starts out, grows up and becomes a baby. So it is with us that we have to go on to perfection. And so God wants us to go on to complete maturity. The Bible says that we must grow in grace and in knowledge.

And again, this is like the baby during the last few months that grows, adds strength, adds fat, so it is with us. We learn, we know the basic principles, but brethren, we continue to learn till the day we die, don't we? We grow in grace, in God's nature, in His likeness, and in knowledge. Not just knowing about something, but the spiritual application, the depth of understanding and comprehension is what we grow in. And God is creating His nature in us. He's creating His character. We receive God's nature from our Father, and also we're influenced by our Mother. The Church is our Mother. By the fact that we are here, we're around one another, the attitudes of one another, the encouragement we receive from one another, the whatever.

We can be a negative impact on people, or we can be a positive. We can build them up or pull them down. I mentioned about specialized cells because different systems begin to form. If you ever wondered that we all receive the same Spirit, and yet God gives us all different gifts. Some have gifts of knowledge, gifts of wisdom, gifts of understanding, gifts of faith, gifts of service, whatever it might be.

Some of the gifts, Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, talks about the gifts. We also receive the fruitless Spirit, and we are supposed to grow daily. Now, the embryo, or fetus, is protected by the Mother physically within the womb. The embryo, or fetus, lives in a sack of water called the omnion sack. It contains anywhere between one and four and a half pints of water. Now, you say, who wants to live in a bag of water? Well, if you're within the womb, you do, or the baby does.

It does several things for this growing child. It has even temperature, so the temperature stays a nice temperature, just the perfect temperature for the development of that fetus. It equalizes pressure, so it doesn't have the pressure of gravity on it, doesn't have the pressure that you and I would have. It protects from injury. Mom bumps into something. He sloshes to the rear. You know, she goes this way, he goes that way, and so he's protected from injury.

There's a cushion there. It allows the fetus to move freely. And many of you mothers, when you were pregnant, will remember that. Boom! Kick! You, that elbow, or whatever. Norma used to say, come over here, he's kicking. And I'd walk over, and you and I'd put in my hand, nothing. I don't know how many times that happened. And I think the baby's just planned that. Let's get the old man over here. Boom, boom, boom. And when you come over, now stop, and nothing happens.

Well, a baby also, while it's in the omnion fluid, has a cheesy, pasty protection on its skin called the vernix. And it covers the skin. You ever leave your hands in water a long period of time to see how wrinkled and how can affect you?

Well, nine months in a bag of water, and you might come out looking like a prune. Well, what you find is that God has made it so that there is a natural protection. And what prevents the baby from breathing in the water? He's in there breathing. He's going to get water in his lungs. Well, it just so happens that the lungs are collapsed. They don't operate while the baby's in there. This prevents the baby from drowning on the fluid. Its vocal cords are thick and soft.

It does not allow the fetus to swallow fluid. Now, it does drink a little, but it's just not gulping a whole lot of water down. It takes what it needs. So you find this embryo is able to develop within the womb of the mother and is protected. Now, in Galatians chapter 5, in Galatians 4 and verse 24, we find the Bible here talks about Jerusalem above.

But in verse 24, we read these things are symbolic for they are the two cabinets. The one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. And this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear, break forth and shout, you who are not in labor, for the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband. And symbolically, Jerusalem above is our mother. And you find that that analogy is that the church spiritually is our mother. And brethren, you find that we have protection within God's church, just like the fetus is protected within the body. Another way of saying that is that we are protected within the body of Christ might be the better analogy. You cannot live outside of the body. You take a fetus, you have a miscarriage. And it's very early on, if that fetus is expelled from the body, it dies. It cannot live out here on its own. It has to be in the body. We cannot live outside of the body. The body of Christ are outside of the church. In John chapter 15, you'll remember what Christ had to say to all of us. Verse 4, beginning in verse 4, Biden me and I and you, and as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me, nigh in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. We cannot produce fruit, there's not going to be growth. And it goes on to show that if we do not abide in him, then we are cast out. And if we're not connected to the body, there can be no growth. As we will find that the fetus gets its nourishment through the mother. Now, the mother can lose the fetus in three different ways.

Now, these are three overall ways, but there may be more. But number one, the placenta. If the placenta is not firmly attached, and the placenta is not firmly attached during the first three months, it needs time to grow, and it needs time to attach. This is why women are told, especially in the first three or four months, not to really pick up anything heavy, not to do a lot of reaching, stretching.

That placenta can become detached. And if it becomes detached, there will be a miscarriage. Most miscarriages occur during this period of time, because the placenta is not firmly attached. Something happens to cause it to dislocate. Another way is foreign substances. X-rays, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, all of these things can cause the baby either to be deformed or not born alive at all. It can affect the health of the mother. What the mother has to eat, she has to be very careful what she eats and what she drinks, because it will have a profound effect upon the baby. We've all heard of crack babies. We've heard of babies who pick up aids as they're being born. Now, how does this apply to us? Well, it applies to us in this way. What would be a foreign substance spiritually? It would be allowing into our minds, into our hearts, into our thinking processes, things that are foreign, things that are harmful to us. Some people tend to listen to everybody on earth, as far as what they preach, what they say, what they teach.

What you find is that you can be hurt by those things. It can become very confusing to people. You'll find the baby is fed by its mother, not by Joe's mother, not by Tom's mother, not by somebody else's, but by his own mother. And as long as he's attached to his mother through the placenta, he can be fed spiritually. We come on the Holy Days. We come on the Sabbath. We are fed through magazines, booklets, articles, innumerable ways that we are spiritually fed God's Word.

Pornography could be another way. Anything that's going to come into your mind, the wrong influences of this world that are going to corrupt your mind can harm you. Now, the third way a child can be hurt is through abortion. Abortion is where someone comes in and deliberately kills the fetus. They have argued over abortions in the third term, and there are some who have had abortions in the third term last three months. Well, babies are born prematurely sometimes at five months old, and people will spend $100,000, $200,000 to save the life of that child, and others just go and have them kill. Well, who's out to kill us? Satan the devil is. Satan's out to destroy us.

A fetus cannot live, again, outside of its mother's body. It must stay within. There are two times of great dangers for a fetus. One, as I mentioned, is during the early three months period, and that is analogous to our early conversion. When God is first working with us, Satan will try in any way to discourage us, to undermine our faith, to get us looking somewhere else. And how often have we seen people who seem to come? I've had many people, even since I've been here in Cleveland, who write and say, where's your church? I send them the information. They never show up. You never see them. And you wonder, well, what happened to those people? Somewhere they, you know, they had studied, and then they're beginning to get sidetracked somewhere. Well, Satan will throw every roadblock at a person who is attempting to be called by God, or God is working with, to get them to go in the wrong direction.

We are children spiritually, and we can be influenced because we're not totally grounded in the truth when we're young. And we have to become grounded in God's way, just as a placenta is not fully attached. This is, again, when most miscarriages take place. And also, the moment of birth is a very critical time, the very moment that child is to be born. It's a second time of danger, because all kinds of problems can happen. A lot can go wrong with the birth process.

Now, brethren, our time of birth is coming. The time that the Feast of Trumpets pictures, the return of Christ, His return to this earth, the time of the seventh trumpet when the seventh trumpet is blown, and you find that the resurrection takes place, is going to be preceded by a time of persecution and trial and testing. Call the Tribulation in Matthew 24, Matthew chapter 24, and verse 8, Matthew 24, verse 8. You find that Christ said that there would be wars and rumors of wars. Many would come in His name, saying that He was Christ. There would be famines and droughts, earthquakes. He said, all these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to Tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. Then many will be offended and will betray one another and will hate one another, and many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will wax cold or will grow cold. But He who endures to the end shall be saved. So you and I are going to have to endure to the end, remain faithful, and steadfast. So here at the end time, it's not always going to be easy, and there will be a time, a trial, a test, and persecution on the Church.

Now it's interesting with a fetus, when you look at the blood circulation within a fetus, the oxygen for it comes through the placenta. It bypasses the lungs because the lungs are not operative at this time. In full term, the placenta is as large as a soup plate.

And it weighs one pound or more, contains 100 cubic centimeters of fetal blood. It acts as a lung, a digestive organ, and kidneys for the baby. It is an attachment and a protective barrier for the baby. It's there to protect things. It's a barrier for things getting through to the child, as well as a potent hormone gland for the mother.

Also, the heart before birth, the blood flows from the right oracle to the left. The heart has four chambers in it. You've got the two upper, the oracle, and the two bottom. Now, before a baby is born, the blood flows across. When a baby is born, that closes, and it redirects the flow of the baby's blood.

The moment of birth is a critical time for this child, as we all know. The cord can be wrapped around its neck. And if a doctor or nurse or a midwife sees that, they try to get it off because baby coming down, cord around its neck, mother pushing, could strangle the child.

It's been observed that generally, women who have the cord around their neck will have a slower birth to slow down so that this doesn't happen. There's also an oxygen problem, but God has formed the fetus in a way to cope with this, to handle it. The fetus blood has 20 to 40 percent more surplus of oxygen carrying hemoglobin, so it's able to carry more oxygen to the baby. The fetus has an oversized heart for its body at that time. It beats up to 200 beats a minute, and it's supplying more oxygen to the body during birth. So it speeds up and it's supplying and pumping that oxygen into the baby. Sometimes that baby can be lodged there in the birth canal for a while, and there's a lot of pressure being put on it. The pelvic joints are more moveable, and you ladies know that. Things begin to shift and begin to move to allow this baby to drop down and to come through. The cervix and birth canal expand. If you ever ask yourself what initiates this birth sequence, you can be doing fine one day, and then all at once your wife can say, hey I just had a pain. So you get your watch out, you know, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, you're not worried about those. And then she, uh-oh, that one is a little closer, so you 10 minutes, and then when you start getting down around five, six, then you all, oh, you know, it's getting closer here. And two, you know, it's you're there. It's about time for the baby to be born. What initiates this? What causes this process to begin? You also have fetal molding of the fetal scalp. There are five bones in the scalp, and at this point the skull is not solid. If it were, you'd have a baby's head coming down through that pelvic region. It would be very large and cause a great deal of pain, and it would put a lot of pressure, but these bones overlap one another. And so the head decreases in size with the bones overlapping as it comes through the pelvic area, and the birth canal. Now, what stops the growth when it becomes an adult? See, it's growing within the womb. Baby's born five, six, seven, eight, nine pounds, continues to grow, and an adult can have something like 30 trillion cells.

Now, what stops that growth process? Why don't we grow taller or get bigger? Well, you might say we do get bigger, but when I say bigger, I mean we don't keep growing. We don't have 60 trillion cells and 100 trillion cells, and one day you're 18 feet tall and a thousand pounds. There comes a point where you stop, maybe you're five, five, five, six, six feet, and you have a normal weight. What stops that?

An adult, though, doesn't stop growing, does he? We continue to grow. Our cells are constantly being replenished. It is said that every seven years, every cell is replaced in our bodies, so there's a new you there every seven years. You and I are to continue to grow spiritually until we come to complete maturity. We can never say that we have totally reached the maturity level, have the character of God to the degree that we want. We're constantly growing in grace and in knowledge. Now, there are some drastic changes that take place at birth.

The fetus no longer is living in a sack of water. Here it was comfortable, protected, and one day mom says, my water broke, and the water is gone. Now, it can be replenished. You know, sometimes a woman doesn't give birth when the water breaks, but when the baby is born, it's outside. It is now subject to temperature. Up until this time, it was even temperature. Everything was was cool. Now, here it is. It's born. The room could be cold. The room could be hot, and I've seen babies, and you'll just start shaking, get blue, and you have to wrap them up in a blanket because they get cold. They are now subject to gravity, so they're going to feel different, and air pressure, whereas they were not subject to these before. The lungs before were partially solid. Now, they fill with air, and the vocal cords open up. You know, the vocal cords open up when they cry out, and that's good because they breathe in, and they get the air going. And the fact that they can make a sound like that indicates there's air in the lungs, and now they are breathing. Blood circulates through the heart different, as I mentioned to you earlier. I talked once to a member in our church, local congregation, who was a nurse, and I asked her to give me a write-up on the fetal blood circulation that changes. Let me read a little bit about what she wrote. She wrote several things to do with this.

It says, since the fetus receives its oxygen through the placenta, the lungs do not function in utero. To meet this situation, the fetal circulation contains certain special vessels, which may be regarded as bypass or detours, which shunt the blood around the lungs, so the blood is not flowing through the lungs, with only a small amount going through the lungs for nutritional purposes, you know, to keep them alive. As soon as a baby is born and breathes, the function of the lungs is established, the placenta circulation ceases. The baby no longer is dependent upon its mother's blood for oxygen. Now, notice, no longer dependent upon its mother's blood to provide the oxygen, but is a separate being and breathes to oxygenate its own blood. So now it's breathing, and the only way it's going to get oxygen is if it's breathing on its own. This change not only changes the character of the blood in many vessels, but also makes many of these vessels to be of no use, such as the umbilical arteries within the baby's body becomes filled with clotted blood and ultimately are converted into fibrous cords. And the umbilical vein within the body becomes a round ligament of the liver with occlusion of the vessel. After the umbilical cord is tied and separated, large amount of the blood returned to the heart through the lungs, which are now functioning, cause more or less equal pressure on both oracles, the two upper chambers of the heart. This pressure causes the foramen oval to close. This is the opening between the two upper chambers of the heart, which is present in the fetus. As I said, the blood's going this way. That closes. Now the blood comes and flows a different direction. The foramen oval remains closed and eventually disappears. And a couple of other ducts shrivel up and are converted into fibrous cords or ligament in the course of two or three months. The instantaneous closure of the foramen oval changes the entire course of blood current and converts the fetal circulation into the adult type. Now blood is flowing through the lungs and flows differently through the heart. And so there is a dramatic change that takes place. The heart slows down to about 140-150 beats a minute. The body catches up in size to the heart eventually. The baby gets hungry, must be fed. And boy do they get hungry. Right away they want to eat. The miracle of molting, the skull, where the bones were overlapping. If it was a difficult labor, the baby comes out and you think, boy that baby is something wrong. It doesn't look right. But the bones will pop back eventually and the head will begin to look normal. And those bones will become hardened. And there is what is called a soft spot up here on the top of a baby's head. And that's because these bones, the area where they can move. When the umbilical cord is cut, the fetus is now a separate human being. It's on its own. You've given life to a new being. It receives life from the father, a sperm united with an egg. It grows within the protective womb of the mother. The father and mother have given birth to a new child, new creation, a new baby. Now let's notice in Colossae, notice in Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1.15.

How all of this ties in with us and especially this Feast of Trumpets.

Notice what it says about Christ. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn, over all creation. And verse 18, He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he may have preeminence.

Jesus Christ was the first one to be born from the dead. Remember, He came to vest it Himself of His glory. The spiritual body came to the earth as God in the flesh died, and three days later was resurrected, setting us an example. He was the firstborn. Firstborn implies what? They're going to be more born. He was only the first. Our oldest son, Arthur, is our firstborn. We've had four others. There was the second born, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. Firstborn implies more children. Are there going to be more born into the family of God? Well, in Romans 8-29, Romans 8 and verse 29, we read, For whom he foreknew he also predestined, to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Christ is the firstborn from the dead, and He is the firstborn among many brethren. That includes us if we are faithful and we endure to the end. Hebrews 12 and verse 22 tells you who will be among those first.

Jesus Christ is referred to as the first of the firstfruits.

Notice what it says here about the church and those who partake in the first resurrection. The firstborn is the firstborn who are registered in heaven to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. So we are the church of the firstborn, and our names are written in heaven in the book of life. And you find that there have been the spirits of just men who have been made perfect. So we know that there have been those who have gone before us, who have made it, who are going to be in God's kingdom. And it shows that we can make it also. Now when it says here made perfect, that doesn't mean perfect in the sense that you and I have to come to the point where we never sin. Because as long as we're in the flesh, we will sin. But we are to be made spiritually mature, and to have the attitude that God is looking for, that we totally agree with Him, His plan, His purpose, and want to go His way. Remember Hebrews 2.10? I won't read that. You can jot it down. The God's purpose for putting man on this earth is to bring many sons to glory. That God is bringing many of us to glory. Eventually, all human beings will have that opportunity. There are two analogies used in the Bible to describe this process that you and I are going through today. We just covered one of them. The growth process that takes place within the womb of the mother or the church. We start out small, we grow till we can be born. The second analogy deals with the growth of a child outside of the womb. A baby, we start out as babes in Christ, and we grow up to adulthood. We mature and we grow. In Hebrews 5, if you'll just back up here, a few chapters, Hebrews 5 verses 12 through 14, notice, We're not to stay, babes, as it says here. For though by the time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again, the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food. And everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. For he is a babe, just a little child, a little baby. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, in other words, mature age.

That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Now verse 1, Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection. Let us go on to maturity, is what he is saying. We don't want to remain babes, but we want to grow up. We want to mature. So we are to grow to maturity. Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 13, describes also this process very eloquently. Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 13, It says, Till we all come to the unity of the faith, of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So what kind of a man are we to become like? We are to become like Christ. As we discuss so often, when God looks at us, what does He want to see? He wants to see Himself in us. And in verse 14, We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness, a deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth and love, may grow up in all things unto Him, who is the head Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body. So the body grows and we develop. Both analogies teach the same lesson in the Christian experience. That is, if we start young, we have to grow to maturity, spiritual growth and experience, and a maturing process. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 17 tells us, 2 Corinthians 5 and 17, that this is a new creation. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things become new. We are a new creature, a new creation, a new entity. In Ephesians 4, 22 through 24, it says that we are to be a new man. Let me read verses 23 and 24 out of the NIV translation.

Verse 23, to be made new in attitude of your minds. So what is new is our attitude, our approach, our outlook on life. And to put on the new self, created to be like God. So what are we to become like? We are to become like God in true righteousness and holiness. So God wants us to be like Him in righteousness and holiness. So when God calls us into His Church, we must grow. God gives us the opportunity to grow in character, in His nature, in His mind, in His approach. And we will not be resurrected unless we have developed the spiritual nature and character of God. Colossians chapter 3, let's back up here, we find Colossians 3 verses 9 and 10. So, brethren, we are to grow into the very image of God.

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. So, brethren, we are to grow into the very image, very nature of God. Genesis 1, 26, 27, you can just jot that down, explains that mankind was made in the image of God. We were made to look like God. We were given certain abilities, certain talents, skills. We had the spirit in man put in our brain to give us a mind so that we could think and reason, have self-awareness, develop character to make us possible to have contact with God. And in so doing, there's going to come a time when this whole process that God has been working with each one of us individually, where he has taken us when we were carnal and hard-hearted and had a shell around us, and softened that and put his spirit in us, and through trials and tests and, you know, experiences we have grown, we have matured, and we have come to the point of developing God's character, so that there can, at last, be one momentous change that's going to take place. In 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 47, we find that we're to develop the character of God, and eventually we are to have the substance of God, the composition of God. Character is developed now. The body, the various substance of God, we will be given later. As verse 47 says, the first man was of the earth made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven, and as was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. We're all made of dust. And as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. We are to have God's image. We are to become a spirit being in the very family of God. You know what takes place at the resurrection? We will become a separate being. With eternal life in us, self-generating life, we will possess life within ourselves. We will have eternal life. We know that the period of growth is much longer than the period of birth. The fetus is in its mother's womb for nine months. Birth takes place in a few hours or maybe a few days. On the spiritual level, we're placed in the church and may be a member for a number of years. Some of you have been around for 40, 50 years, 30 years, 20 years. But there's going to take place a change. In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump, the trumpet will sound and we will be changed. And we, we, I think, will remember that birth taking place.

I mentioned that when a baby is born, drastic changes take place. For us, that comes in two forms. Prior to the return of Jesus Christ in our birth, the church will be persecuted. We already covered that in Matthew 24. This is a critical and dangerous period of time for the people of God. But those who endure to the end remain faithful will be saved. Now Job, in Job 14, 14, you might remember we hold your place here, but in Job 14, in verse 14, we find that the Job talks about a time that we all look forward to here in the future. In verse 13, he says, So brethren, there's going to come a time when a change will take place. God will call, we will answer, and we will, those who are alive and remain will be changed instantly. But the dead in Christ will rise first. At the resurrection, there will be dramatic changes that take place. Dramatic changes. Verse 44, 1 Corinthians 15, tells us that we are sown a natural body. It's the natural body, the physical body that goes into the grave. It is raised a spiritual body. There's a natural body and there's a spiritual body. The difference between that natural body and that spiritual body is day and night. Verse 42, it is also the resurrection. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption. We will no longer be corruptible. This physical body decays. It dies. It slowly returns to the earth, the dust. But we will have a body that will be incorruptible, cannot be corrupted.

You and I, in verse 43, will be given a body of glory. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. So we will now have a body that is glorified, and we will have a body that is a powerful body.

And when I say powerful, I'm not just talking about muscular strength. I'm talking about power to rule the universe, to assist God in carrying out His wonderful plan. When we talk about glorified bodies, Matthew 13, verses 41 through 43, describe that. In verse 41, it says, The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. In verse 42, Matthew 13, And they shall cast them into a furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the Son in the kingdom of their Father. Who has an ear to hear? Let him hear. Rather, we will shine forth our we will have bodies that will be like the Son in glory and power. There is a tremendous amount of power that is radiated out from the Son, and we will have power within us. And so there will be a tremendous and drastic change. As verse 50 says, Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. There's that word, changed. Job said he's going to wait until his change came. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, that's the seventh trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible. We shall be changed. And this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So we will then possess immortality. Right now, the Bible says only God has immortality, but immortality is something God will share with us. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, this mortal is put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

God has been patiently waiting for his family on earth to grow and develop to where it finally looks like him. As a fetus is growing, it may have the elementary things there, but they still have to be perfected. God is looking at us, and he says, well, not yet.

Not yet. And he's still waiting. Human parents wait nine months. The last few months can seem to be the most difficult. Right? You feel heavy, everything. You're not feeling well, the backaches, and all of the problems associated with that. Well, God's been waiting 6,000 years since the time he created man and put him on the earth for his family to be born and changed at this level. And as we read back in Isaiah 54, let's just read that to finish, verse 1.

Isaiah 54, verse 1, we read this earlier, there's going to come a time in the resurrection when it will be said, Sing, O Barrett, you who have not born, break into singing and cry aloud, you who have not labored with child, for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married woman, says the Lord. So there's going to come a time when the resurrection takes place. And all of those who are of the firstfruits, the firstborn of God, in the first resurrection will be changed and made immortal. And, brethren, we will be in the family of God, and we will be separate beings. We'll be on our own. We'll have life-sustaining power within us and be a part of the family of God. So what we find is this, that God is given to us the physical for us to learn from and to teach us spiritual lessons. The birth process is certainly one of those physical processes that contains many wonderful spiritual analogies when you look at it. Truly, the greatest miracle taking place on earth today is a miracle of conversion. And that miracle will be even more magnified when there is total conversion, when we have totally changed from physical to divine.