六月二十三日[mp3_embed playlst=”/downloading/audio/evening/06/0623.mp3″]
经文: 等候得着儿子的名份。（罗马书八：23）
圣徒是上帝的儿女，但是，除非藉着某些道德上的特微，否则人是看不到这身份的。得儿子的名份并没有明显记号，也没有公开的宣告。罗马人可以带领孩子且私下养育他一段长时间。当孩子被合法认可时，才进行第二次的公开领养。他要脱去旧衣裳，领养孩子的父亲会给他穿上合于他身份的新衣。“亲爱的弟兄阿，我们现在是上帝的儿女，将来如何，还未显明。”（约壹三：2）我们尚未穿上合于天国王族的盛装。我们仍然穿着亚当后裔的血肉之躯。但是，我们知道当祂显现的时候，祂是“许多弟兄中作长子”（罗八：29），我们必要像祂，因为必得见祂的真体（约壹三：2）。一个出生于社会低阶层的孩子，被一位罗马高官领养时，他会对自己说：“我渴望被公开领养的日子到来，那时我将脱除这些乞丐的衣服，穿上成为高官阶层的华服。”
我们今天也要如此。我们在等待穿上适当的服装，显明自己是上帝的儿女。我们是年青的贵胄，尚未能戴上冠冕。我们是年幼的新妇，婚娶之日尚未来到。我们的喜乐如同涨满的泉水，期待有一日如间歇泉般涌出，直喷天上。我们的灵发出叹息要将它向世人显明。
Evening, June 23
Scripture: “Waiting for the adoption.”(Romans 8:23)
Even in this world saints are God’s children, but men cannot discover them to be so, except by certain moral characteristics. The adoption is not manifested, the children are not yet openly declared. Among the Romans a man might adopt a child, and keep it private for a long time: but there was a second adoption in public; when the child was brought before the constituted authorities its former garments were taken off, and the father who took it to be his child gave it raiment suitable to its new condition of life. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.” We are not yet arrayed in the apparel which befits the royal family of heaven; we are wearing in this flesh and blood just what we wore as the sons of Adam; but we know that “when he shall appear” who is the “first-born among many brethren,” we shall be like him, we shall see him as he is. Cannot you imagine that a child taken from the lowest ranks of society, and adopted by a Roman senator, would say to himself, “I long for the day when I shall be publicly adopted. Then I shall leave off these plebeian garments, and be robed as becomes my senatorial rank”? Happy in what he has received, for that very reason he groans to get the fulness of what is promised him. So it is with us today. We are waiting till we shall put on our proper garments, and shall be manifested as the children of God. We are young nobles, and have not yet worn our coronets. We are young brides, and the marriage day is not yet come, and by the love our Spouse bears us, we are led to long and sigh for the bridal morning. Our very happiness makes us groan after more; our joy, like a swollen spring, longs to well up like an Iceland geyser, leaping to the skies, and it heaves and groans within our spirit for want of space and room by which to manifest itself to men.