Good evening. Let's all stand together and we'll sing hymn number 186.

The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord. She is his new creation by water and the word. From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he bought her and for her life he died. Elect from every nation, yet one o'er all the earth, her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one birth. One holy name she blesses, partakes one holy food, and to one hope she presses with every grace endued. Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war. She waits the consummation of peace forevermore. Till with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blessed. And the great church victorious shall be the church at rest. Yet she on earth hath union With God the three in one, And mystics we communion With those whose rest is one. O happy ones and holy, Lord, give us grace that we, like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with Thee.

Thank you. Be seated. Let's sing hymn number 128.

128. Wounded for me, wounded for me, there on the cross he was wounded for me. Gone my transgressions and now I am free. All because Jesus was wounded for me. Dying for me. Dying for me. There on the cross He was dying for me. Now in His death my redemption I see. Oh, because Jesus was dying for me. Risen for me, risen for me. Up from the grave, he has risen for me. Now evermore from death's sting I am free, all because Jesus has risen for me. Living for me, living for me. Up in the skies he is living for me. Daily he's pleading and praying for me. All because Jesus is living for me. Coming for me, coming for me. One day to earth he is coming for me. Then with what joy his dear face I shall see, O how I praise him, he's coming for me.

Galatians chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2. The first five verses again deal with the second question this evening.

O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you? This only would I learn of you. received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain? He, therefore, that ministereth to you in the Spirit, ministereth you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, Doeth he it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

Our great, glorious, blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he himself is God over all, blessed forever. In him is all the wisdom of God manifested. In Him, all the power of God is manifested. In Him, Lord, everything that's required of us, you give to us in Him. Every obedience, every work, all the peace that we might enjoy in this world, everything we have is because of Him. Lord, we thank you for our blessed Savior. the Lord Jesus Christ. God, we look so forward to one of these days to see him face to face, to enjoy his presence forever and ever. But Lord, we enjoy him here on this earth now. We enjoy his presence. We enjoy his word. We enjoy the gospel. We enjoy grace. We enjoy righteousness. We enjoy the thanks. that our Lord bought and paid for us.

And, Lord, we ask for your presence tonight. We're going to talk about the Holy Spirit. So, God, Holy Spirit, come among us. Come down and be with us. And, Lord, we pray for those who are not with us through weakness of body, through providence. But we also pray for those who are troubled and have things to deal with in their home life. Jim and Debbie. Again, we always pray for Rick and Helen. God be with them.

Meet with us tonight. Bless the saints that's gathered out here to be fed. God give us grace and help me to feed them with food that you've given me. For Christ's sake, amen.

In number 127, Man of sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah, what a Savior.

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned he stood,
Sealed my pardon with his blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Guilty, vile, and Helpless we,
spotless lamp of God was he.
Full atonement can it be.
Hallelujah, what a savior.

Lifted up was he to die.
It is finished was his cry.
Now in heaven exulted high.
Hallelujah, what a Savior.

When he comes, our glorious King,
all his ransomed home to bring.
Then anew this song we'll sing.
Hallelujah, what a Savior.

Thank you, Bradley. You know, last week I dealt with verse one, these rhetorical questions and answers in the question, like I told you. And he started out, oh foolish Galatians, you know that that righteousness didn't come by the law. Christ would die in vain. And we know Christ didn't die in vain.

So all foolish Galatians who have bewitched you, who has enticed you, who has mesmerized you, that you should not obey the truth. You know the truth, but you're not obeying the truth, who before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath evidently been set forth crucified among you.

And this only, this is the verse I'm going to deal with tonight, this question, this only what I learn of you. I want to learn something from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law. And you notice how that's capitalized on by the Holy Spirit. By the works of the law or by the hearing of faith.

How did you receive the Holy Spirit? How did the Holy Spirit come to you? Did he come to you by hearing? Or did he come to you by what you did? And I tell you, Paul has great, great concern. The apostle has great concern for these Galatians. I believe he regards them as believers.

But these Galatians had been enticed, bewitched by Judaizers. They said, yes, Christ is the Savior. We believe Jesus Christ is the Savior. But we need Moses. We need the Ten Commandments. We need the Sabbath. We need all the things that add to Christ, and it needs to be added.

But you know all it takes to fall from grace? Just add one thing to Christ. or take one thing from Christ, and you've fallen from grace. And that's what these fellows are doing. And Paul is trying to help them out. And oh my, he has these five rhetorical questions.

And the first one, you know, when they obey the truth, people that have true faith, they do obey the truth. And what was the truth we obey? Jesus Christ and him crucified. We've seen him crucified for us, crucified for us.

And then he asked this question. I want to learn this from you. I want you to tell me what actually happened here. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? You know, when God gives a man faith, gives him life from the dead, gives him faith. You know how he receives that faith? How that faith comes to him? By the Holy Spirit.

And this is the first time the Holy Spirit's mentioned in this particular book so far. And I tell you what, genuine faith receives the Holy Spirit. You know, we believe, we believe that people who have been saved by the grace of God, they receive the Spirit of God. Now, euclidic relations too. Look in Romans chapter 8. Look in Romans chapter 8. You know, this is the first time the Holy Spirit's mentioned, so we need to talk about the person of the Holy Spirit.

No, there's, it's true that people who have been raised by, saved by the Spirit of God. Look what he says here in verse, excuse me, in verse 9. Well, he said in verse 8, then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But look what he says about his people, God's elect. You're not in the flesh. You're no longer considered in the flesh, but you're in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. If so, be the Spirit of God lives in you, dwells in you, abides in you. Now here's the conclusion. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he don't belong to Christ. He don't belong to Christ.

And if Christ be in you, The body is dead, and he means that's just exactly what the flesh is. We reckon ourselves to be dead. God considers us and everything about us dead, and oh, look what he goes on to say, because of sin. But the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is life because of righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. But if the Spirit of Him, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God that raised up the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead dwell in you, abide in you, He that raised up Christ shall also quicken, give life to your mortal bodies by the Holy Spirit that abides in you and dwells in you. And that's just as plain as the nose on your face. And this epistle came some important teaching about the Holy Spirit. This is his first mention.

And you know, true believers are indwelt by the Spirit of God. Look what he said back over here in Galatians. Look down in verse 6 of chapter 4. You know, true believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And that's what he asked, said, I want to find out from you fellows, how did you receive the Holy Spirit? And okay, so he says down here in verse 6, And because ye are sons, already sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. And when we first began to believe, we cried just like a baby does, Abba, Abba, Abba. And then as we grow and learn some things, we began to call Him our Father, our Father. And that's exactly the way it happens.

And you know, there's, you know, people say, well, there's the second blessing. And there's a later baptism of the Spirit after you become a believer. You know, the second blessing is, is that you get saved and then you get another blessing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes and does something for you that just salvation don't do. Well, you can't be saved without the Holy Spirit. You can't know Christ without the Holy Spirit. You can't be regenerated without the Holy Spirit. You ain't know nothing about the Bible without the Holy Spirit.

And all my thinking is this, you know, if all of our blessings are in Christ Jesus, tell me what blessing that we didn't get. Are we going to have to wait for a second? Are we going to have to wait and get saved and then go back and pray for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? No, no, no. Oh my. Well, how, when does a believer receive the Spirit? That's a good question. When does it, that's what you want to know about. I want to know how you fellas received the Spirit. Was it because you was keeping the Sabbath? Because you was keeping the Ten Commandments? Because you was going to a few fair ceremonies and had a few feasts? No, no. I tell you, you keep Galatians, look over 1 Corinthians 13. Excuse me, 1 Corinthians 12. In verse 13, when does a believer receive the Holy Spirit? When does he do that? When does he do that? Look what it says in verse 13 here, 1 Corinthians 12.

For by one Spirit, there that word's capitalized. Whenever you see Spirit capitalized, he's talking about the Holy Ghost. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. Now that word baptism there means put in to the body of Christ, immersed into the body of Christ. Baptized, immersed, put in to the body of Christ. Whether we're a Jew or whether we're a Gentile, whether we're a free man or else we're a slave, it don't make any difference. We've all been made to drink into one's spirit.

You know, that's how we, you know, the body is the church. And as Gentiles, we're no longer outsiders. We're built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. And being baptized into Christ, that makes us full members of the body of Christ, full members of the church of Christ, full members of the household of faith. And we have the same foundation that anybody that's ever been saved by the grace of God and put into Christ has the same foundation, same foundation.

And then look what it says here. Also, we've all been made to drink into one spirit. What does that mean? That means that, you know, there in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, we've all been made to drink into one spirit. What in the world does that mean? That means that we get our life from the Holy Spirit. We come here tonight and, you know, and when it talks about drinking, that means you taste it, you take it in, you assimilate it, and you take it to be your own. And I'll tell you what, it's all been made to drink in just one spirit. We've become takers of the Holy Spirit by our experience. That's what he means. We've all been made to drink it by our experience.

You know, our Lord Jesus said this. He says, the flesh profits nothing. Don't profit a thing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. They are life. And being baptized into Christ is something that God does for his people. God does it. We can't put ourselves in Christ. We don't even know Christ until God puts us in Christ. And oh my, we're baptized into all of us are put there by God himself. And drinking is testing, a partaking of the spirit. And that's our actual experience. when we have the Holy Spirit take up his abode in us.

You know, look in Romans 8, just again with me for a moment. Look what he says down here in verse 15 and 16. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again, to fear now see how that's small letters not talking about the Holy Spirit talking about our spirit for we have not received the spirit of bondage again we have not received the spirit of fear we've not received the law we've not received but we have you have received now listen to this see how it's capitalized spirit of adoption whereby again we cry Abba Father The Spirit itself bears witness through thy spirit that we're the children of God.

That's why, you know, I say it this way all the time. I said Christ from the scriptures answers to Christ in you. The Holy Spirit in you answers to Holy Spirit from the scriptures and the Holy Spirit in Christ. And I tell you, believers are conscious, conscious of the Holy Spirit, and we're thankful I'm thankful for the Holy Ghost of God. I'm so thankful for it. The indwelling of the Spirit, you know how he does? He leads the believer. It leads him in his understanding of the gospel, even in his personal life.

Look in John 16, John chapter 16. Look down at verse 13. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, there it is capitalized again. The Spirit of Truth. That's all He is. He has to be Truth. When the Spirit of Truth, when He, the Spirit of Truth, it always refers to Him as a He, is come, He will guide you. He'll take you and guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever shall he hear, that shall he speak. And not only that, but he'll show you things to come. He'll show you things to come.

And listen to what he says. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. the things that the Father hath our mind and I said that he shall take of mine and he'll show it unto you he takes the things of Christ and shows them unto you

and a little while a little while you shall not see me and again a little while you shall see me how are you gonna see me by the Holy Spirit He brings, how in the world did we come to a knowledge of the truth? How did we come to the gospel of grace? How did we come to bowing to Christ? How did we come to acknowledge our need of Christ? Where did that work come from in us? How did we ever learn anything about Christ? How did we learn anything from the scriptures? It's by the Holy Spirit comes and He takes the Word of God, the things about Christ.

And I'll tell you, it starts in Genesis. He starts in Genesis talking about the things of Christ. Then he goes through Exodus and all how many things about Christ is in Exodus. And then, oh my, and then Leviticus and all the sacrifices and the priesthood, all of them spoke of Christ. And then you get down to Deuteronomy and numbers, numbers. The only reason they have numbers is so Christ can be identified by the genealogy. And you know, the earthly kingdom, the Judah, the earthly ones, they had the best position because Christ come from Judah, a king. And oh, my.

And I tell you, without the Holy Spirit, we would not understand a thing in the world about the Gospel. We would not understand the first thing about God. You know what we would be? We'd be a bunch of legalists or a bunch of free willers, or we'd be back out in the world, one or the other. There's no middle ground. And without the Holy Spirit giving us the understanding, bringing the things of Christ to us, we wouldn't know a thing. We wouldn't know a thing.

Look over in Romans chapter 8. I'm going to show you this again, if I can, if the Lord be pleased. Look what he said down here in verse 8 and verse 6. For to be carnally minded is death. To be mind, this old sorry flesh, this old body, is to be death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. How do you get a spiritual mind without the Holy Spirit?

Look down verse 9 again. If you're not in the flesh, but you're in the Spirit, Christ dwells in you. And then, oh my, I done showed you 13. If you live, look right down and say in verse 13. For if you live after the flesh, you're going to die. If you trust your flesh, and there's so many people do, You know how many people are out here working for their salvation? Seeking peace by the flesh. Seeking peace by what they do. Seeking peace by their church attendance. Speaking, you know, trying to get peace through devotion, prayer reading, tears. But oh no, if you live after the flesh, live after this old body, you shall through, but if you through the spirit do mortify, make dead, The deeds of the body you shall live. And this is, I love this right here.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God. Where does the Spirit of God lead us? He leads us to Christ. He leads us away from ourselves. He leads us away from any hope in this body and in this flesh.

But oh, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, you know what they are? God says they're sons. Sons of God. That's what we are, we're sons of God.

And oh my, then he goes back over here, look back over in our text. He said, this only would I learn of you. How did you receive the spirit? How did the spirit of God come to you? Did he do it by the works of the law? Did he do it by the 10 commandments? Did He do it by your keeping the Sabbath? Did He do it by you praying three times a day, going to the temple and praying three times a day? Is that what you've done? Or by the hearing of faith?

You know, how did God take, how did the Holy Spirit take up His abode in us? By a sovereign, creative act of God. You know, as God commanded the light to shine out of darkness, He has shined in our hearts to give us the understanding of the knowledge of God's glory in the person of His blessed Son.

Oh my. But now from our standpoint, by our experience, the Holy Spirit's received by faith when we believe. But God in giving us life, When He gives us life, He gives us faith in that life. Faith doesn't give us life. God gives us life, and with that life comes faith. Faith is the result of life, not the cause of life.

And where faith is, where God gives us faith in giving us life, we begin to see things spiritually, and things that were once hidden, and we now see, and they're realities to us. Now you think about all the things you didn't know until somebody told you.

And we know when the Holy Spirit comes, we begin to see things in a spiritual way. Things that was hid. Things we didn't know. Things we didn't understand. And we all started out as babies. We did. We really started out as babies.

And you know, I didn't know much about election. I didn't hardly know anything about election till I found it out in the Bible. I didn't know anything about God's sovereignty till I found out in the Bible. How could I learn those things? They was hidden to me until somebody in the Holy Spirit came to me and taught me those things and showed me those things.

And now we begin to see these things spiritually. Things that you've never seen before. You'll say, oh boy, I've never seen that before. I never heard that before. As a fellow told me Sunday morning, he said, man, in life, I've never, you brought out things that I never know even existed in them verses of Scripture.

And that's what it does. You see things spiritually that you've never seen before. And how do you see them spiritually? By the Holy Spirit. And you know what? And these things become realities to us.

I've never seen Christ but by faith. But He's a reality to me. He's a reality to me. Eternity's a reality to me. Ain't it to you? And boy, because of that faith and God giving us life, when He gives us, we see things spiritually we never saw before, things that are hidden, and now they're brought out where we understand them.

We now, because of that, we trust in Christ. Trust in Christ. Nothing or no one else do we trust. We have some understanding now of his person. You know, when you talk about the Holy Spirit coming over a virgin, and that virgin bringing from her womb God, God, that baby that come out of her womb was God. And he yet had to grow up as a human being, as just a little bitty baby born. And he had to grow up and grow by wisdom and stature, grow up to be a man. And when he was 30 years old, he started to work. He made people understand his person.

How did we do that? Because the Holy Spirit taught us about it. Now we understand some things about his works. I'm a work of grace. I'm a work of Christ. You're a work of Christ. Salvation would not be anything apart from Christ. We wouldn't know him. We wouldn't have life. We wouldn't have peace. We wouldn't have joy had not Christ come in and made himself known to us.

Everest's work he did while he was on this earth was telling us some truth about how he saves a sinner. Cleansing a leper. Where's all lepers unclean? Dead, just like Lazarus. Live, I say unto you, live. Lost, he said, all lost sheep. I'm going to find that lost sheep, and when I find him, I'm going to bring him, put him in the fold. Oh, everything he did, he did as an illustration of how he saves us. And we wouldn't have known those things without the Holy Spirit in us. Oh, it wouldn't happen.

Now we, and you know, we consciously now, we welcome, we want the Holy Spirit to come among us. We feel the necessity of the Holy Spirit in us. That's why I pray, God, Holy Ghost, come among us. Come down in the presence of the Spirit of God. Because if he don't come down, I can't preach and you can't listen. You know why we can't? Flesh. Oh, the knowledge. God give us this spiritual knowledge of Christ and salvation by him.

And how did it come? How did these things come to us through the preaching of the gospel? Paul calls it the hearing of faith. He says the hearing of faith twice here. He mentions the hearing of faith three times in his epistles. Faith cometh by hearing. The hearing of faith. He mentioned it twice right here. And oh, the Holy Spirit is the cause of our faith. And you know what the consequences of faith is when God gives us faith? You look to Christ, you trust Christ and only Him. That's the consequences. You know who He is, you know why He came, and you know who He came for, and what He accomplished by His death. Oh, my.

All right. Then look at the contrast here in this Galatians 3, 2. You know, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, by the hearing of faith? The one who seeks to appease God, and I come across people like this all the time, those who seek to appease God by the law, by the works, by their sanctification, so many people So many people do that. There are Sabbath keepers. There are Sabbath keepers. That Sabbath means that they keep Sunday as a Sabbath. And you know what that produces? Just a Pharisee, huh? And all those who seek to appease God by their law, by their works, by their Ten Commandments, by their ceremonies.

I used to have fellowship with a fellow years ago. He's dead and gone now. The Lord took him out. But he used to talk about the Holy Week. And Easter was a Holy Week. You know, and a lot of churches do that. They'll start talking about Christ. You know, His advent, when He come down in His incarnation. And then they go through what they call the Passion. And then they go through what happened on Friday, when he was crucified, then they got Palm Sunday, because that's the day he rose again from the dead. But they go through a whole bunch of rituals. And then they go back at this time of year, they're going to put him in a baby in a manger, and they're going to have somebody pretending to be Mary and Martha, I mean Mary and Joseph, and they're going to have some lambs laying there, and they're going to have some tags laying there, and they're going to do all that thing.

And I tell you what, the Holy Spirit will not let us believe that. Will not let us do that. When we didn't know Christ, we was right in the thick of it. You know, my, as a fellow tells me all the time, you know, he talks about God's sovereignty, God's sovereignty, God's sovereignty, and then turn around at the same time and says, I led my grandson to Christ. He says, I had nothing to do with my salvation, but it had something to do with somebody else's salvation. You can't have the Holy Spirit and be that contradictory. The only way things makes us contradict each other is when we're just really like we really are. You get me out of the poop, it ain't no telling what I say or do.

But oh my, but I tell you what, the one who seeks to be peace God by the law, by their works, they know nothing, nothing about the spirit and the presence or power of God. They're still in spiritual darkness. They're blind to the saving work of Christ, deaf to the gospel of God's grace. And why should these Galatians, that's what Paul said, why should these Galatians turn from light back to darkness, go from faith to works?

But where the Holy Spirit dwells, where the Holy Spirit dwells in a heart where Christ dwells, there's peace, there's joy, There is love, there is grace, there is faith. And it brings us to an utter and absolute dependence upon Christ for all. And let me ask you this, did you receive that peace and joy, grace and faith by doing something or by hearing something? I got it by hearing, by hearing. by hearing. And I feel sorry, I really do feel sorry for people. But there's nothing you can do. People go, if a man wants to believe a lie, you can tell him all the truth that you know, and he'll still believe a lie. If a man wants to believe a lie, he will. He will.

Our Father, the blessed name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for allowing us to be here tonight. I pray that you and your mercy enable me to make things clear, make them understandable, that I didn't darken counsel with words. And, Lord, we desperately need you. We need your Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to teach us, to guide us, to keep us from this world, keep us from ourselves. Keep us from trusting in anything or anyone besides our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how we bless you for Him. How we bless you, oh Lord, that you took the things of Christ, oh Lord, Holy Spirit, and brought them to us and opened our heart to these precious, precious truths.

God bless my dear brothers and sisters, those who are not with us, those who are watching, those who are listening. God bless them. God encourage them. Hold them up by your Holy Spirit. We ask these things in our Lord Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things