If you will, look with me in
your Bibles in Galatians chapter 3. Here in Galatians chapter
3, I want to begin with verse 5. I announced last night that
this entire series of messages would be based upon the subject
of promise of God. Brother Bill just paved the way
in his message for what I have to say, and I'm thankful. because
of the time, some of the things that I wondered how I would be
able to say in this time, he has said. And I'm thankful we
can build on that. But last night, if you were here,
we considered together the promise of God in salvation by grace. If there's a distinction in how
we're looking at these messages, that would be the first distinction,
is that God's promise of salvation is not conditioned upon any work
of man or anything that man must do to fulfill it or any criteria
or condition that man would furnish. read those first five verses,
this is really what Paul is bringing back to the Galatians' mind. And you know how it is. You can come out of a meeting
like this and hearing the message of Christ and Him crucified set
forth. And in your heart, if you're
taught of the Spirit, you say, and you rejoice and you say,
yes, he is all my salvation, all of my forgiveness of sins,
all of my righteousness based upon what he accomplished there
at Calvary. And then you could go and sit
in your car and turn on the radio and just kind of all of a sudden
come on a preacher who's preaching up works, but he's mixing a little
bit with grace, he's preaching faith, and he's putting obligations
on you, and if you listen too long, what happens? In your own
heart and mind, it begins to sow some doubt, because this
flesh will cater in a moment to such teaching, if left to
ourselves. And so, that's why even the beginning
of Galatians here, I mention that because as Paul went preaching,
he preached Christ and Him crucified. He preached redemption through
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He preached righteousness imputed
in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where sinners
were justified in His death. But then what happened? Some
others come in, find an occasion. What do they do? It's not blatant
outward error. They weren't preaching free willism,
but they were coming in and saying, yes, it's Christ, but as Brother
Bill said, you've also got your responsibility. And as they began
to preach certain aspects of the law, it started, as it says
here in Galatians chapter 1, In verse 7, there are some that
trouble you and would pervert the grace of God. And that's
why this whole epistle is written then, to bring them again back
to clear thinking. As we saw last time in verse
1, O foolish Galatians, you're not thinking right. Now was he
writing them off as lost? No, because in verse 5 he said,
He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit. So he had
some confidence that the Spirit of God was working in their midst. And even a little later over
in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 10, he said, I have confidence
in you through the Lord that ye will be none otherwise minded,
but we all need those reminders, don't we? And that's why week
in and week out when we come together, we need to hear this
clear, distinct, pure message of grace and salvation that is
conditioned on the Lord Jesus Christ alone in what He's accomplished. And that's really the thrust
of this, the promise of God to save sinners by grace in His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Not by the works of the law,
as we saw there. And he reminds them, receive
ye the Spirit by the works of the law. Any of us that have
been under law preaching in the past, and I venture to say most
of us have, it's not a spirit of freedom. There's no sense
of forgiveness or accomplishment. It can't, because no matter what
you do to satisfy it, you still come away with the understanding,
I'm dealing with a holy God. And if God should mark iniquity,
who could stand? Where is the spirit of liberty?
Where is the spirit of forgiveness? Where is the spirit of peace
and of grace? I'll tell you this, it's nowhere
else than in the hearing of faith, the hearing of that faith, the
gospel, which sets forth Christ as all of salvation. And I ask
you, has he been made to you wisdom? Has he been made to you
righteousness? Has he been made to you sanctification? Has he been made to you redemption?
If the Lord has granted you a hearing of faith, that's what he's been
made to you. You see him as all your wisdom before God. You see
him as all your righteousness. You see him as all of your sanctification,
not something you're working out, but having been set apart
unto his righteousness, unto his holiness through his death
and all our redemption. Now in this message, verses 5
down to verse 14. We're still looking at the promise
of God with regard to salvation. I gave you that homework last
night. Some of you told me you went
back and did your homework and looked up how many times the
word promise is mentioned in this particular chapter. Actually,
it's eight times. You may have missed two of these
because twice it's in the plural. Promises, for example, in Galatians
3.16 and Galatians 3.21. But all the other times, six
times, it's in the singular. If you look in verse 14, that
the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith. If you look in verse 17 and 18
and 19, you see it repeated again, and we'll look at this tomorrow,
but in this I say that the covenant that was confirmed before of
God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul
that it should make the promise of none effect. So this is like
reading a book. You've often maybe read a book
where it's got a particular title. I remember reading one called
The Seven Deadly Sins, and when I first started off, I couldn't
figure out how the author got that title. But halfway through,
it suddenly became apparent why he had given it that name. The
same goes with this chapter. When we first start off, we don't
see the word promise mentioned here, but as you get to the heart
of it in these verses that we're going to primarily sum up tomorrow
in the message, yet we find that the whole of this chapter is
built upon this truth, the promise of God to save sinners, but do
it in a particular way, by grace. In today's message it's called
the promise of faith. the promise of faith. Let me read this for you, and
I believe you'll see this is evident as we read it. Notice
how many times the word faith is mentioned. Verse 5, He therefore
that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,
doth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith. Remember, last night I mentioned
to you that in this context, you could easily replace this
word faith with the word Christ. With the word Christ. We're going
to see that tomorrow more plainly. But did the Spirit of God, does
He work through the works of the law? In other words, if you
obey, then God gives you His Spirit. Or does He work through
the hearing of faith or the hearing of Christ? Well, we know the
answer. It's through the hearing of Christ.
That message of Christ and Him crucified is revealed here in
the Word of God. And you notice verse 6, "...even
as Abraham believed God." You see, these Galatians were being
told that, in essence, there were two ways of salvation. It
might be by grace now, but we be of Abraham, so We're following
Abraham. And what do men do? Don't they
preach up Abraham's obedience? Don't they preach up, even in
that story of him offering up his son Isaac on that altar? You don't hear Christ being preached
from that, from Genesis 22. What do you hear? How dedicated
Abraham was. How obedient he was. What commitment
he had. Willing to give up the darling
of his heart. And so men preach that as being the message, but
it's not. It's not. If that's what's in
your thinking, you've got to go back to ABC in the reading
and studying of the Scripture. Notice here, even as Abraham
believed God, there's a connection between the hearing of faith
what Abraham believed. Man does not believe the truth
concerning Christ and him crucified through natural reasoning. It's
the furthest thing from his mind. Men left to themselves would
rather believe that somehow their faith has something to do with
their right standing with God. It takes the hearing of faith.
It takes the Spirit of God regenerating an otherwise dead heart to cause
a sinner to see that their salvation was conditioned on Christ alone
and fully accomplished by Christ alone. And what this verse, this
little word even here, is so vital because it's connecting
the faith of Abraham with the very same faith that the Spirit
of God grants to any of his elect today to see Christ. There's
no difference. Some people say, well, what did
he see? Well, he looked forward. He was caused by the Spirit of
God to look to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. What do we
do? We're caused by the Spirit of
God to look back to the cross. But if the Spirit has taught
us, we're both looking at the same place. We're both looking
at the same person. We're both looking at the same
object of salvation, which is Christ. And if you're not looking
there, the only thing I can say is there's not been a hearing
of faith. Not been a hearing of faith.
I've used this illustration with our congregation before. When
we first went to Niagara Falls a number of years ago, we stood
on the United States side and looked at the Falls and marveled
and then we got the idea Let's go over to the Canadian side
and look at it from the Canadian side different perspective, but
same object Whether you're on the Canadian side or whether
you're on the United States side, the object is the falls. All
of the attention. You cannot stand there and not
be overwhelmed and marvel. I can't explain to anybody, unless
they've been there, the thundering noise, even as you park and get
closer. And you think that 24 hours a
day this water is flowing and has not stopped and is not running
out. People stand there just mesmerized. But whether you're on that side
or this side, it's still the same object. That's the way it
is with Christ and the cross. That's the way it is with the
hearing of faith. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, any of
those in the Old Testament, they weren't saved in any obedience
to that law. That's the whole point that Paul
is making here with his Galatians. Why would you become enthralled
again with Those rules and regulations that no one can keep anyway.
Think. Right thinking. Foolish Galatians.
Where is freedom? Where is forgiveness? Where is
righteousness? But in this One who came and
accomplished it and fulfilled it, and God accepted it on behalf
of everyone for whom He died. You see, even as Abraham believed
God, Now here's an important thing I want you to look at here.
It was accounted to him for righteousness. Let me just make a few statements
here, give you some things to think about. These are some things
that I continue to mull over because I was not taught aright. And it took the Lord teaching
me exactly what this means. There was a time when I had been
taught that when it says, it was accounted to him for righteousness,
that because Abraham believed, then God counted him righteous. I would venture to say that most
of your writers that you're going to read or commentators, even
what's being preached in most congregations today that hold
this Bible in their hand, that's the message that's being preached.
If you believe, then God will forgive your sins and He'll declare
you righteous. I would say if I asked for a
show of hands, most of us, as we have heard that verse declared
to us in the past, that's exactly what we thought. And so what
did it do? It put the emphasis on the believing. What I would have you look at
here, because faith is used in different ways depending on the
context in Scripture. Let me just give you an example,
and I know this will take a little time, but I prefer to give you
this tool. And if you want to write it down and maybe go back
and look at it as you can, I pray the Lord will help you there.
One way that faith is used, and the reason I say this is because
I'm still having people email me today and write me and call
me and say, well, faith means faith. The real issue is that
they are opposed to justification at the cross. It's like people
that you deal with in free will religion. When you begin to talk
about God's sovereignty and salvation, saving whom He will, What's the
very first verse they send you to? John 3, 16. It says, God
shall love the world. That's what men are doing with
this. It says, justified by faith. And so what we have to do is
stop and say, well, now wait a minute. What does that mean?
What does that mean? Because we see, we're not denying
faith. See, some people run that way
with it. They say, well, you're excluding faith. Not at all.
My issue is with men who put the cart before the horse. If
you're making the justification of sinners to be based upon your
believing, then the same word has to be said of you as these
Galatians. Oh, foolish Galatians. That is not right thinking. Faith
has its place, but not in initiating or obtaining or maintaining salvation
or justification. We're going to see, as faith
is described here, that it is the fruit, it is the evidence,
if you will, of what Christ has already done. Let me give you
an example. Look over in Romans chapter 14
and verse 22. Faith does not always mean believing. Here in Romans chapter 14, in
verse 22, is a good example. Sometimes it's used synonymous
with knowledge. Knowledge. In other words, when
it says Abraham believed God, was it just that he was out walking
one day, looking up at the beautiful blue sky and sunshine, and all
of a sudden started thinking good thoughts about God? Is that
what that means? I believe. That's senseless.
Abraham believed God because there was some knowledge imparted
to him concerning God and some truth that was revealed concerning
his son. And that being revealed, there
being a hearing of faith granted by the Spirit of God, he believed.
He believed. But here in Romans 14 and verse
22, you can see how that's used. Hast thou faith? When you look
at it, what does it mean? It's not just saying, are you
a believer? Have it to yourself. That's not what it's saying.
Hast thou faith? It's talking in the context of
what's good and bad with regard to eating. Yeah, we all have
these grave clothes. We all have things. All of us
were brought up in different cultural settings. So certain
things offend. I just came from India. You know,
forget asking for a hamburger. Where's the beef? They got chicken,
they got lamb, and they got shrimp. Those are your three choices.
but not beef. Why? In their minds, in their
mindset, that's something that we've never been used to eating.
I imagine that even in places, and I've not met any yet, but
let's say the gospel, the Lord is pleased to raise up some believers
there that know and understand and believe this gospel, His
grace, sovereign grace. I imagine that for some of their
people it's going to be a hard thing someday if they have a
common meal and someone brings beef because they've been raised
all their life with this mindset. I can't eat it. This was kind
of the struggle here with Jews and Gentiles. Jews were taught
never to eat any pork. The Gentiles are laughing, saying,
what's the deal with pork? So you had this conflict. This
is what Paul said. Hast thou faith? Do you have
a certain knowledge with regard to these things that you've been
liberated? Have it to yourself. If you want to have pork at home,
eat it at home. But don't invite a Gentile over. I mean, don't invite a Jew over
and put pork in front of them just to watch what he does. That
would not be a loving thing to do. You see? Hast thou this knowledge? I truly believe that the more
the Lord teaches us of Christ and His finished work in righteousness,
fully accomplished and imputed there to cross, the more that
knowledge is revealed to the heart, the freer we become in
our consciences. Don't you find it so? I do. I
look back to some of the things that I was, even after I believed
that the Lord had opened my heart and mind to Christ and began
to teach me, I look back to some of those things and just shudder
now to think of how I was in my mind in bondage. Why? Because of my upbringing. Because
of my background. Now does that mean that this
freedom now causes me to go out there and just live like the
devil? No. There is a constraining,
there is a A grace that moves me constantly toward Christ and
His glory, although feebly, you see. So faith can refer just
to that knowledge that God gives of His Son and the truth of salvation. Faith, secondly, refers to the
doctrine of faith. The doctrine of faith. If you
look over in Jude chapter 3, so when we're talking about the
promise of faith, or the promise of Christ, the promise of grace,
these are all synonyms, the promise of truth as it is in Christ. If you look in Jude, just before
the book of Revelation, probably one page in your Bible, Look
at Jude 3. These that say, well, it means
that they're justified by their believing. Now, wait a minute.
How is the word faith used here? Beloved, when I gave all diligence
to write unto you the common salvation, it was needful for
me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly
contend for the faith. He's not saying contending for
believing. That's not what the contention is. It's the faith.
Notice, which was once delivered unto the saints. In other words,
that revelation of truth that is the same regardless of the
era, Whether you go all the way back to Adam and Eve there in
the garden and the skins of those animals, those instant animals
that God slew and enclosed them with their skin, that is the
same message as what Paul is preaching here in his day of
Christ and Him crucified. Same message. There it was in
a type picture and what promise. in prophecy, but in Paul's day
now, in fulfillment. But it's the same message. Once
delivered, any that are saints that are saints before God, declared
to be saints, declared to be righteous, it is based upon this
same message. It is according to. Do you realize
that word by also means according to? So there are certain portions
when it says justified by faith, by the faith, it is in accord
with the faith. I don't know why that's so hard,
unless you believe that somehow your believing has something
to do with your justification. Then you're going to take that
little word, by, and you're going to say, no, it always means through.
I get people doing that, always means through. Oh really? You
know, something is, it's the bylaws. Why do we call them bylaws? It's according to certain rules
and certain laws and certain regulations that have been set. So a person that's been justified
by faith. It's just simply saying if a
sinner is justified before God, it's going to be according to
the faith that God has revealed that concerns His Son. And the
faith that sets forth the work of Christ. is finished and accomplished
and satisfactory to Almighty and Holy God. That's right thinking. That's thinking Scripture. It's
not straining the Scriptures. It's not making them say what
they don't say. Just like here. This is objective. Abraham believed God. There was substance revealed
to him concerning Christ and Him crucified. in which he rested,
to which he submitted. He believed. There's that believing. God is the object. There's the
revelation concerning his Son. Alright? But come back here to
Romans chapter 4 and verse 13. Faith can also be synonymous
with Christ. In fact, if he is the object
of faith, that's why I say you can take and replace the name
of Christ, or faith, and substitute for the name of Christ, and you
will have the truth. Just as here in Romans chapter
4 and verse 13. Notice, for the promise, there
it is, the promise that he, Abraham, should be the heir of the world,
was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law. In other
words, this promise was not based or conditioned upon Abraham or
any like him fulfilling the law themselves, but through the righteousness
of faith. Now take and put the name Christ
there, through the righteousness of Christ. How was that righteousness
established? Christ did it. Where was it accepted
but when he finished it? He said it is finished. How was
it imputed but in his death? What remains but for God to declare
sinners righteous once Christ had completed the work? And so,
even here, you can see it's referring to Abraham, but the promise is
based upon that righteousness, it says, of faith. But the way
to read it is, that righteousness, we know that's Christ. He's the
object of that faith. It's that righteousness of which
faith speaks. The faith. It's that righteousness
of which faith declares. And that was true of Abraham.
It's true of any today for whom Christ died. You see? So come
back here to Galatians chapter 3. And we're going to tomorrow
look at this again when we get over to verses 19 through 23.
I believe it will become clear because in verse 23 particularly,
Paul says, but before faith came. What is he doing but using faith
as a personification of Christ? It's not saying before believing
came, we were kept under the law. I mean, Abraham believed
God before the law was given, so that makes no sense at all.
But there's some, particularly old reformers and writers, that
say this. This is their argument. Before
you believed, you were still under the law. You'll hear preachers
raising that way. Even though they say Christ died
for his elect, and actually finish the work, they contend that you
continue to be under the law and under God's wrath until you
believe. And they'll bring you to this
verse right here. And they'll say, see what it says? Foolish
Galatians. That's not what faith is in this
context. It's talking about Christ, before
Christ came. In fact, read it all the way
down through there. We were kept under the law. Even
the elect of God were born before Christ came, born under that
condemnation of Adam. It's not like some are saying
that since God is eternal and He decreed from eternity to justify
sinners, therefore, their justification was immediate upon the decree
of God. And they're even saying that
the elect They did not actually fall in Adam as the rest fell. I heard a preacher say they fell
out of fellowship. Well, that's not what the scripture
says. When Adam fell, we all fell.
We were all under that law. We were all under that condemnation,
that sentence of death. until Christ came and put it
away. And that's what it's saying here. Kept unto law, shut up
unto, notice, the faith which should afterwards be revealed. It's not talking about believing
that would afterwards be revealed, but the faith being Christ who
should be revealed. You see, His coming. We're not
stretching the Scriptures here. Just read it for what it is.
This is language of Scripture. And so when it says here in verse
6, even as Abraham believed God, notice, it was accounted, charged
to, imputed to him. That little word for, if you
look at it in the original, is actually unto, toward righteousness. It's not saying there that his
faith was a substitute for righteousness. As Brother Bill said, some people
reason that way. They think their faith stands in the place of
righteousness. But it's saying here that Abraham believed the
revelation of God and it, if you look at it in this context,
what's the closest thing that it could modify? You go back
up to verse 5, the hearing of faith. In other words, the hearing
of faith, the revelation of that faith was accorded to Abraham
unto the righteousness that Christ would yet come and accomplish
and fulfill. Abraham was not looking to his
faith in any way as his justification before God. He wasn't even looking
to the knowledge of the faith as his justification. It was
toward, it was unto righteousness, or we could say Christ. who is
righteousness. Just as it says, he was made
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
That's exactly what was made to Abraham. Wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. Abraham didn't put any confidence
in those animal sacrifices, although he offered them. But in offering
them, where were they looking? To those sacrifices? No. To Christ. Exactly where we need to be looking.
If we're taught of God. Taught by His Spirit. So you
see, that's the promise of faith. And that's the language that's
used here in verse 22 of Romans 3. Again, that we will pick up
tomorrow. But the Scriptures have concluded
all under sin, you see, in Adam. That includes even the elect.
that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ, in other words,
that faith which is all about Christ, all of Christ, all of
His person and His work might be given to them that believe. In other words, the believing
is the evidence that it's been given. I ask you, where's your
rest? Where's your hope? Is it in somehow
your works of the law? That's the way of condemnation.
You say, well, I made my profession of faith years ago, and I'm confident
that that's what is going to stand me before a holy God. I
wouldn't want to be in your shoes. If you're looking to a profession
of faith, you realize that even Simon Magnus made a profession. It said there that he believed.
There are many that have professed to believe that are lost, know
nothing of Christ. I don't care what your profession
is. I don't care how long even you've been sitting under this
message of truth. Unless God grants you the hearing
of faith, there's no hope. May He grant you that hearing
of faith. And may He cause you where you sit, not to look to
your neighbor, not to look to the preacher, not even to look
to what knowledge you think you have, but look to Christ and
Him crucified. He's all our hope. May the Lord
bless you.