Discipline: The Certificate of Adoption, Part 2 (Hebrews 12:6-8) | Worship Service

We welcome you to Kootenai Church, we're glad you're here today. Would you stand with us as we sing and open up with, In Christ Alone.

In the ground His body lay, Light of the world by darkness slain. This is the power of Christ in me, From life's first cry I'm dead.

Just a couple of announcements before we begin, before I begin with the scripture reading I guess I should say, first up we have two breakfasts coming up that you need to be aware.

Of.

The first is on March 25th, that's a men's breakfast, it's for any and all the men in the church. It's a free breakfast, there's no cost to you, but you do need to sign up for that so that we know who will be attending that.

That's March 25th and there's information in your bulletin and there's a sign up sheet on the table outside, so please take advantage of that and put your name down. And then second is our resurrection Sunday morning breakfast that is a couple of weeks after that and that is on April the 9th, it's resurrection Sunday, there'll be no Sunday school that day, instead we'll have a breakfast here and if there are any men in the church who are willing to help out in terms of setting up and cleaning up and cooking and all of the stuff that goes into that, please talk to Thomas Leo.

And there's no sign up sheet for that yet, but there will be one next Sunday on the table out in the foyer for you to sign up for that. Last year at the very end of that we ran out of food because we had a bunch of people show up who had not signed up and so we kind of had some long lengthy discussions this year about how do we remedy that, we could buy a bunch of extra food, and instead we're just going to make an example of anybody who shows up to eat who's not signed up on the sign up sheet.

So you need to do that once every, say, ten years, people get the message, they figure it out. So there will be a sign up sheet for that next week out on that table and we would invite you to join us, that's a great time of fellowship on resurrection Sunday morning.

Turn your Bibles now, please, to Ephesians chapter 1 for the Scripture reading, Ephesians chapter 1, we're going to read verse 3 through verse 14. This is, in the original, a long and unbroken sentence as the Apostle Paul just begins to spill out a list of all the spiritual blessings that we have in Jesus Christ because of what he has done.

Ephesians chapter 1 and we're going to begin reading at verse 3 and we'll read through the end of verse 14. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before Him, in love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise who was given as a pledge of our own inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory.

Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Our gracious Father, what a magnificent list of promises and provisions we have just read. All these spiritual blessings are ours because of what Christ has done on behalf of His people, all those whom you have given to Him from before the foundation of the world.

There is no aspect or element of our salvation for which we can take credit or in which we can boast, but we boast and take credit only in Jesus Christ. We give Him all credit for what He has done. That is where the glory belongs, that is where the boast belongs, in His work of salvation for His own.

And so we thank you that by your grace you have drawn us near, that you have made those of us who were once aliens and strangers to the covenants of promise, that you have brought us near into your very household.

You have made us sons and daughters in your kingdom. You have given us eternal blessings. You have bestowed upon us lavishly your goodness and your grace, and you have promised us a lavish kingdom that is to come.

And so our minds and our hearts rejoice in these things and we reflect upon them, and these are the causes and the impetus for our worship and our praise and our adoration. And we pray that today as we worship and praise you for these things and as we focus our minds and our hearts upon these profound truths, our sonship, our adoption, your love for us in Christ, that our hearts will be filled with joy and that our minds and our hearts would be both overcome with a knowledge, a true knowledge of Jesus Christ and His purposes and in your Word.

We pray that you would give us grace so that our hearts may rejoice in these things, that we may be comforted by them, encouraged by them, and that you would be glorified in and amongst your people, in your church, both now and forever.

We pray in Christ's name, amen.

In the suffering, in the sorrow, when my seeking hopes are few,. I will hold fast to the anchor, it shall never be removed. Rise to shore and steady anchor, while the tempest rages on. When temptation claims a battle, and it seems the night has won.

Deeper still than goes the anchor, though I justly stand accused,. I will hold fast to the anchor, it shall never be removed. Rise to shore and steady anchor, through the floods of unbelief. Hopeless somehow, O my soul now, lift your eyes to Calvary.

This my boundless love assurance, see His love forever truth. I will hold fast to the anchor, it shall never be removed. Rise to shore and steady anchor, as we face the wave of death. When these trials give way to glory, and we draw our final breath.

We will cross that great horizon, clouds behind and life secure. And the calm will be the better, for the storms that we endured. Christ the shore of our salvation, ever faithful, ever true. We will hold, it shall never be removed.

As you can see from before you, we're going to observe communion later this morning. So we turn our eyes to the book of Isaiah chapter 53. And it says, he was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our peace fell upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We're going to sing, O fount of love.

O fount of love, divine that flows from my Savior's bleeding side. Where sinners strayed, their filthy rags for his righteousness applied. Mercy cleansing every sane, now rushing o 'er us like a flood.

There the wretched and vilest ones stand adopted through his blood. O mount of grace, to thee we call. For the lawns and for all on Calvary's hill, love and justice shall agree. Praise the Lord, the price is paid.

The curse defeated, our slaves by birth. Sons and daughters, now we stand. The joy is mine to drink, for my Lord has conquered death. Victorious forevermore, the ancient floor is laid to rest. How may Christ as King, alive and reigning on the throne.

Our tongues employed with hymns of praise. To God we turn.

That's on me.

I'm back, if you will, please, to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. We're going to be looking at verse 7 and 8 today. So we'll read together the entire context, beginning at verse 4, Hebrews chapter 12.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him.

For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined us for a short time, as seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, so that we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful.

Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Let's pray together. Our Father, we now ask your blessing upon our teaching and understanding of your word.

We pray that all that is here in this passage, all of the thoughts and meditation of our hearts regarding this passage may serve our sanctification and our edification, equipping us in the truth, helping us to think rightly about you and your purposes for us.

We pray that you would strengthen us where we are weak and encourage us. We pray that you would reprove us where we are falsely strong, where we think we are strong, but we are not. We pray that you would convict us of our sin, our wrong ways of thinking, our wrong views of you and your purposes, and cause our hearts to rejoice in and under the truth, we pray.

In Christ's name and for his sake. Amen. There is a close connection between responsibilities and relationships. There are many responsibilities that I have and that you have that we have only by virtue of the fact that we have a relationship with or to the people that we are responsible to in some way.

This is true in almost every area of life. As an elder in this church, I have certain responsibilities to you that are incumbent upon me and responsibilities to the Lord as well that are incumbent upon me by virtue of the fact that I am an elder in this church.

And the other elders share the same responsibilities. The people of this church have responsibilities to the elders of this church by virtue of the fact that you are here and you are members here and you are under the spiritual leadership of the elders of this church.

You have responsibilities to your employer or to your employees depending on what your relationship is to those people. Responsibilities that are incumbent upon you that you have by virtue of that relationship.

My wife has a relationship with me which places upon me responsibilities that I have to her that I do not have to any other woman in the world. Four billion other women, I do not have the responsibilities to them that I have to only one woman because of my relationship to her.

And the same is true with her responsibilities to me. I have responsibilities to my children that I owe to nobody else on the planet and they have responsibilities incumbent upon them by virtue of their relationship to me that they owe to no other man on the planet.

Four billion other men on the planet, they do not have any responsibilities to those people that they have to me by virtue of the relationship. It is the relationship that makes all the difference. Because I am my children's father, I have it incumbent upon me to provide for them, to protect them, to guide them, to nurture them, to meet their needs, to disciple them.

They have claims on my time and my attention and my energy that no other child on the planet has. And it's because of the relationship that exists. And I would argue that the closer your relationship, the more intense the responsibilities that one has by virtue of that relationship.

This is patently true in almost every area of life. It is so natural to us that we fulfill these responsibilities, we expect people to keep these responsibilities. We don't even think about it. I don't wake up every morning and think, Remind me again, what responsibilities are incumbent upon me with my wife and with my children?

I don't have to review those every morning. The relationship is there, and so I simply function in the realm of those responsibilities, seeking to fulfill my responsibilities to them because of the relationship that exists.

And this is a perfect parallel that we find here in Hebrews 12 with the father-son relationship that the author is making so central to this issue of discipline in the family. He is arguing that discipline is essential.

It is part of our relationship with the Lord by virtue of our relationship with the Lord. It's a factor. It's a feature. It's a given. It's such a given that he makes statements that don't even need to be really explained.

What son is there whom his father does not discipline? That's a rhetorical question that is just simply to throw it out there and say, obviously, the relationship of the father and the son has incumbent these responsibilities in this relationship.

And so what son in the world can you imagine whom his father does not discipline? What father in his right mind would not discipline his children? It's so obvious. And that relationship and those responsibilities and that element of discipline are so much a part of our relationship with the Lord that when we experience discipline and we face suffering and the Lord trains us in righteousness, we should simply rest in and relax in the fact that this is an evidence of his love for us.

In fact, we are seeing that discipline is an evidence of two things in verses 6 through 8. It's an evidence of God's love for us. We covered that last week in verse 6. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.

You, as the adopted child of God, are the special object of his redeeming love and his disciplining love. The special object of that. God does not have the same relationship with unbelievers. He doesn't discipline the children of the devil.

Why?

He is not interested in their moral improvement. He is not seeking to get them to share in his holiness. He is not trying to produce in them the peaceable fruits of righteousness. These are blessings that fall to us by virtue of the fact that we are his children.

And since we are adopted into his family, the presence of this training, the reality of the training and the discipline, is itself an evidence of God's love for us. Verse 6. And second, it is an evidence of our adoption.

Discipline is the certificate of your adoption. You can look at God's training and say, this is the proof that I am adopted into his family. This is the proof that he loves me. Look at verse 7. It is for discipline that you endure.

God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

It is the proof of his love. Verse 6. We covered that last week. Today we're looking at discipline as the proof of our adoption in verses 7 and 8. Notice that the author makes the case two ways, positively and then negatively.

He states it from the positive side when he says in verse 7, For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? That's the positive side of it. If there is a son and there is a father, then the son will receive the discipline, the loving discipline of the father.

That's the positive statement. But then he states the same truth from a negative perspective in verse 8 when he says that those who are without discipline are not sons. So positively speaking, the presence of discipline is an evidence of our sonship.

Negatively speaking, the absence of such discipline and training is an evidence that we are illegitimate sons and not really genuine or true children at all. So he states it positively and negatively.

And then there is at verse 7, in this transition, it's not really a negative statement or a positive statement, but it's something of a transition, something of him introducing this argument that we have in verses 7 and 8.

But in verse 7, there is here a statement that has a little bit of a question regarding its meaning and its implications and how it should be translated. And I want to make you aware of this because it has some import into how we view the passage itself.

The word endure in verse 7, notice it. It is for discipline that you endure. That is how the NASB renders it. It is for discipline that you endure. That word could be taken or translated as either an indicative or as an imperative.

An indicative or an imperative. Now that sounds really complicated. It's not. By indicative, we simply mean something that indicates something. Think of it that way. It's an indicative, which means it indicates something.

It's really nice when words that sort of mean the same way that they sound make the connection easily. If it is an indicative, then it's simply describing something that is true of those to whom he is writing, namely, that they were enduring.

So if we take it as an indicative, what he is saying is this is true of you. You are enduring suffering and affliction as discipline. This is what you are enduring. That's how you are enduring. That's how the NASB renders it.

It is for discipline that you endure. You're enduring this, and you're enduring it as discipline, so kudos to you. This is true of you that you are currently enduring this, and you are enduring discipline.

If we understand it as an imperative, then he is not describing something that is true of them, indicating something that is true of them. Instead, he is giving them a command or a request or an exhortation, in which case he would be saying something like this.

You are to endure affliction as discipline. It's a command. He's not saying that we are enduring or the 1st century readers were enduring. He's not making a statement regarding what was true of them, but he is exhorting them or commanding them to endure suffering as discipline.

Now, I think that the argument and the flow of the author's instruction points to this being an imperative, and this is how the NIV renders it. The NIV renders it endure hardship as discipline. I think that that is the author's point.

He is describing here, and he is giving us an imperative. He's giving us a command as to how we are to endure discipline, and the whole flow of the context and the flow of the text, I think, is best understood that way.

So I'm going to say something here that you won't hear me say very often, and that is that the NIV has a better translation at this point than the NASB. That was the first time I said that out loud. I should have practiced that.

There's a better translation of this passage at this point than the NASB if you understand it as an imperative. Endure hardship. Now, why would I say that it is an imperative? Look at the commands that we have back in verse 5.

You have forgotten the exhortation, the encouraging exhortation that is addressed to you as sons. What was that exhortation? Commands. Do not despise the discipline of the Lord. Do not despair under the discipline of the Lord.

These are commands. He says in verse 3, Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. A command. Verse 2, Run with endurance the race that is set before you.

He's not saying that they were enduring. In fact, their steadfastness under discipline, under persecution, is the very thing that he is concerned about. He's not applauding them and saying you're enduring well.

He is addressing a group of people who were suffering affliction and in their minds and in their hearts, they're thinking, I could go back to Judaism and all of this affliction would go away. Remember, that's the temptation to apostatize.

So he's simply saying to them, no, you must endure this hostility. You must endure the persecution, but you are to endure it as discipline. This is the perspective. Affliction is discipline and that's how we are to see it.

Affliction is discipline. It's training. It's training in righteousness. Your suffering is not random. We are not to endure affliction as if affliction is just something that happened to fall out on me in this life.

I don't know what happened, how the stars aligned. I don't know if I didn't get the right fortune cookie at the Chinese restaurant last week, but suddenly all of these things have come crashing down on me.

And I guess this is just how the cookie crumbles. I guess this is just how it happens. It's random. It's chaos. My number came up. I guess it's my turn. That's one way you can look at affliction. Or, you could view all affliction, all suffering, trials, tribulations, persecution, hostility, difficulties in this life, you could view them, this is God's way of training us in righteousness.

You see how that's two totally different perspectives? Endure affliction as discipline. Look at it as discipline. Trials are discipline. Tribulations are training. And suffering is your moral formation.

This is a totally different mindset. Imagine that you had a personal trainer who showed up at your house and you've got a race to run, so you need to get in shape, and it's a year from now. And the personal trainer shows up at your house and he lays out for you a curriculum.

He says, hey, here's your training schedule. 7 a .m. tomorrow morning, you're meeting me at the gym and we're doing this, this, and this. Here's your diet from here on out. Here's a regimen of what we have for you over the course of the next year.

Here are your personal goals. Here are the benchmarks that we know that we're going to progress through this. It is time to get you in shape to run the race a year from now. That is exactly what discipline is in the Christian life.

It is training in righteousness so that we may run our race and that we may finish it. You would look at a personal trainer and think, this guy's only doing this because he hates me. You would never say that, would you?

Especially if you're paying him. Then you would realize, he's doing this because I'm paying him. He could find somebody else to pay him to do the same thing, but you wouldn't assume that he had nefarious motives in giving you the training regimen, would you?

No, you would say, he wants me to run the race. He wants me to win. He is in this for my improvement and he knows exactly how to make that improvement. He knows what the goal is and he knows how to get me across that finish line to that goal.

And so he has laid out this regimen. And if that is the case, then I can trust the personal trainer and I won't be bitter. I won't despair under it. I won't think lightly of it. I won't get discouraged by it.

I'll simply know that this is the regimen that is laid out for me. Endure affliction as discipline, as training. Understanding in your mind and in your heart that this is the way that the Father is deciding to treat you so that He may discipline you, that He may train you for the race that He has laid out before you.

Trials are not random. Affliction is not without purpose. Suffering is not without aim. Sacrifice is not without reward. It's discipline, so endure it. Knowing, as he says in verse 7, that He deals with you as with sons.

And this is the heart of the analogy. He deals with you as with sons. But what if the suffering is really intense? He deals with you as with sons. He scourges every son whom He receives. So even the most arduous training, even the most severe discipline that God brings into our lives, we can understand it and view it.

We can embrace it from this perspective. He deals with you as with sons. And so if He is dealing with me as with a son, then I can know that I am His child, that my family relationship with Him as one of His precious spiritual offspring is indeed at the very heart of all of the affliction that I endure, of all of the hostility that I face.

And so training and discipline should not surprise you because this is what sons get. God is handling you as He would a son. He's not handling you as a judge handles a convicted criminal. We would deserve that, right?

But He doesn't deal with you as a judge does those who come before Him. He doesn't deal with you as one who is His enemy. He's not dealing with you as one who is a stranger. And He's not dealing with you as a king would deal with subjects.

Even though in many ways, all of those relationships are true of us. I was an alien and a stranger to the covenants and to His kingdom. I was a criminal who stood before that judge. And now I have been pronounced not guilty by virtue of the fact that somebody else has taken my punishment.

And I am certainly a subject in the kingdom of the great King. He is our King. But in discipline, God is not dealing with us as subjects, as criminals, as strangers, but as sons. That is a precious blessing.

And this sonship we have, not by our own doing, and this is an important reminder. You didn't fall into this sonship. You weren't born into this rite. This is not your birthright by virtue of the fact that you were just simply born into this world.

And God didn't wake up one morning and say, oh, now you're a son. Well, that's awkward. I guess we have to deal with each other for eternity now, don't we? Because somehow, you believed, you repented, and you've trusted Christ, so I guess you're a son now.

That is not His attitude at all. You were an alien and a criminal and a stranger, and He pursued you. He chose you in Christ from before the foundation of the world and set His affections upon you. And in time, He sent His Son, the perfect sacrifice for our sins, to die in our place to bear all of the penalty for all of the wrath for all of our sin.

It was all laid upon Christ who was the perfect and full sacrifice for sin. And He who bore that sin lived a perfect life so that He could impute or credit to our account that perfect, blameless righteousness that we needed to stand before His throne.

And then in time, after we were born at the fullness of the time when it was perfect for God to do so, He drew us to His Son. He wooed us to Christ, making Christ precious to us, opening our eyes so that we may behold the glory of God in the face of Christ, that we may understand our own sin.

And then He gave us new affections, a new heart, turned us from our sins, caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and adopted us into His family, granting us full and free forgiveness for all of our transgressions.

And He welcomes us in. How much of that was your work? It's a small number, and it's not a very crooked number. It's a very round number. None of it was your work. You did none of that. So you didn't just fall into adoption.

He chose you for this, pursued you for this, purchased it for you, brought you into it, caused you to be born again, and welcomed you into His family. And He does so not begrudgingly, but with wide-open arms.

Romans 8, verse 14,. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the 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 testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God. We are His sons by adoption, and that is His work. Ephesians 1, verse 5, He predestined us to adoption. He predestined us to it.

Before the foundation of the world, before an Adam or an angel was spoken into existence, He predestined you. If you are in Jesus Christ, He predestined you to adoption as sons. Ephesians 1, verse 11, says, We have also been predestined to an inheritance.

And we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory.

That sonship that you have is sealed by the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Spirit of God in your life, and He is the pledge of the inheritance, the inheritance to which you have been predestined from before the foundation of the world.

And this is a full sonship. God embraces us not reluctantly, but gladly, welcomingly, and lovingly brings us into His family as His works. So we didn't stumble into it. This is not our idea. It's not our doing.

We weren't born as such. We are made such by His doing. And what is the proof of your adoption? What son is there whom the Father does not discipline? Your discipline is the proof that you were adopted into the family of God.

Look at verse 7. What son is there whom his father does not discipline? That's something of a rhetorical question. He's simply answering it as if the answer is so obvious that the relationship and role between a father and a son is such that there is no such thing as a good father, a benevolent father, a kind and loving father, who does not lovingly discipline his children.

We talked about this last week. The father who does not love his children enough to discipline, does not love his children enough to form them for their own good. So the absence of discipline is in itself an absence of love.

What son is there whom his father does not discipline? The answer to that would be so generally accepted that a good father and a decent father would do this, discipline his children, that the author simply has to remind us of what is obviously patently true on the surface.

A father disciplines his sons. That's it. That is so obvious. It's always motivated by love. That was the point of verse 6. And this obligation that a father has extends to listen to his children and nobody else's children.

As much as you might want to bring discipline on the rowdy kid in the middle of the aisle at Walmart, that is not your prerogative. So if you're walking through Walmart and you see somebody disciplining a child, spanking them in the middle of the aisle at Walmart, which who of us here has not longed for that at some point in your life, you see that happening, you know what?

That person is in a relationship to this kid and loves this kid enough to correct their behavior. So what son is there whom his father does not discipline? Notice it's stated negatively in verse 8, if you're without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children.

Here's the same point being made, but from the other side of the aisle. It describes those who are without discipline. Those who are without discipline are without training. If you are a son, the father is morally obligated by his responsibility and by his love to provide for you and to oversee your training and your discipline.

And so the father, being spiritually here, of course, the father will correct you. He will train you. He will instruct you in righteousness because that is his role. That is the nature of his relationship to us.

And the opposite is true that those children who are not legitimate children who do not belong to him, they do not get that training. Verse 8 says, "...of which all have become partakers.". Those who are without discipline.

"...Of which all have become partakers.".

All what?

All legitimate children. All his children receive discipline. So if you receive discipline from the father, then you know this. You're his child. That's your certificate of adoption. And he loves you.

This we can know for certain. And this is the birthright. This is the joy. This is the blessing that falls out to all who are legitimate children. "...of which all have become partakers.". Verse 8, "...and if you do not receive that, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.".

Illegitimate children. The King James translates that. And you can look that up on your own. Very colorful word. You're an illegitimate child, not a true and legitimate son. So therefore, should you pity or envy those who go without discipline?

You should pity them.

In the ancient world, illegitimate children were children who were sired by a man, but that man had no moral or legal obligation to that child to train them, to teach them, to pay for their education, to give them any kind of instruction.

In fact, education and instruction were restricted to legitimate legal children in the ancient world. An illegitimate child, one who was base-born with spurious parentage, did not get the benefits of training or the blessing of discipline or any kind of legal inheritance.

In fact, illegitimate children, even if they knew who their father was and they could prove who their father was, and even if everybody in the village understood who their father was, they had no legal claim whatsoever upon the inheritance that would come down to the legal or legitimate children.

And so here is the point. Nobody escapes discipline and receives the inheritance. Listen to that. Nobody escapes discipline and receives the inheritance. Nobody receives the inheritance without being disciplined because discipline is a blessing only reserved for those who are legitimate children.

And this is the picture. Those who are base-born and spurious are without this discipline. Probably every one of us who is here today had that friend in school or a friend in your neighborhood whose parents were a lot less strict than yours.

Right? You remember that person? You used to talk to them all the time, that classmate, that very good friend. And their parents, they would just wink at every indiscretion. You knew that you did something and the two of you together got in trouble and word went out to both sets of parents that this was happening and you always knew, when I get home, I've got adults standing in line to beat my hind end.