chosen race, subsist the bond
of sovereign grace, that hell, with its infernal train, shall
ne'er dissolve nor end in twain. This sacred bond shall never
break, The world should to her center shake Rest doubting, saying,
assured of this For God has pledged His holiness He swore, but once
the deed was done was settled by the great three one. Christ was appointed to redeem
all that his father loved in him. Hail sacred union, firm
and strong. How great the grace, how sweet
the song That worms of earth should e'er be one One with incarnate
deity One in the tomb, one when he rose One when he triumphed
o'er his foes, One when in heaven he took his seat, While seraphs
sang all hell's defeat. This sacred tithe forbids their
fears, ? For all he is or has is theirs ? ? With him their
head they stand or fall ? ? Their life, their surety, their all
? ? The sinner's peace, the day's manheef ? ? Whose blood should
set his people free ? ? On them his fond affections ran ? ? Before
creation work began ? ? Blessed be the wisdom and the grace ?
The eternal love and faithfulness that's in the gospel scheme revealed
and is by God the spirit sealed. Amen. We're going to be talking
about that today, about being one with Christ or union with
him. I'd look with me if you wouldn't
that same hymn book to hymn number 980. 980. This is to the tune
of Just As I Am. 980. With sins and fears prevailing
rise, And fainting hope almost expires. Jesus, to Thee I lift
my eyes, to Thee I breathe my soul's desires. Art thou not mine, my living
Lord? And can my hope, my comfort die? Fix on Thy everlasting Word,
that Word which built the earth and sky. If my immortal Savior lives,
Then my immortal life is sure His word a firm foundation gives
He let me build and rest secure Here let my faith unshaken dwell,
immovable the promise stand. Not all the powers of earth or
hell can e'er dissolve the sacred bands. Here, O my soul, thy trust repose,
if Jesus is forever mine, not death itself that lasts. A foe shall break a union so
divine. Yes, the Bible says that Jesus
is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that he has
loved us with an everlasting love. So he's loved us with an
everlasting love. That means that there's never
been a time that he hasn't loved us, and that there never will
be a time that he won't love us. So that union that we have
with him will never be broken. All right, back to hymn number
85. We'll sing that, and then if anybody has any requests for
any hymns, taken at that time. If anybody has any scriptures
you want to read. If any men have anything you
want to read here. Hymn number 85. Sing this to
the tune of All Hail the Power. Oh God, how firm His promise
standing when He hides His face. He trusts in our Redeemers and
His glory and His grace. He trusts in our Redeemers and
His glory and His grace. Then why my soul be sad complaints,
since Christ and Thou art One? Thy God is faithful to His saints,
is faithful to His Son. Thy God is faithful to His saints,
is faithful to his son. Beneath his smiles my heart has
lived and part of him possessed. I'll praise his name for grace
received and trust him Alright, does anybody have a
song that you'd like to sing out of any of your books? scripture you'd like to read.
If any of the men would like to share anything, you're welcome
to do that at this time. Pretty quiet today. All right,
how about one more song before we move into the preaching. In your blue hymn book, Songs
of Grace hymn book, turn over to hymn number three. covenant love. It says the tune is the Lord's
My Shepherd, but we'll sing it to the tune of Amazing Grace,
because I don't know the Lord's My Shepherd. Behold my soul. Wait a minute,
that's the wrong tune. Behold my. I can't take Amazing
Grace for some reason. Amazing Grace. Behold my soul,
the love of God. Behold the great, no that's not
it either. Somebody sing Amazing Grace for
me. Behold my soul, the love of God. Behold the great, most
free. Before all worlds, His purpose
stood. His heart was fixed on me. Elected by eternal love, the
covenant firm and sure. The triune God agreed in love,
salvation to secure. My soul was given to the Son,
He promised to redeem My blood and righteousness His own He
would my soul reclaim In the due time Emmanuel came to live
and die for me. He lives today and bears my name. Christ is my surety. In love He sent His Spirit down,
Who gave me life and grace. He drew me and I followed on. My Savior to embrace Now I rejoice
in covenant love Amazing grace, I sing I now am conquered by
His love. My Savior is my King. All right. Does anybody have
a song before we break out of here? I would like to share a
verse if I could. Oh, sure. I just thought of while
you requested. What's your first name? Michael. I will share with you 1 Corinthians
verse 10, a church divided over leaders. I appeal to you, brothers
and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of
you agree with one another in what you say and that there is
no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind
and thought. My brothers and sisters, some
from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among
you. What I mean is this. One of you says, I follow Paul. Another, I follow Apollos. Another,
I follow Cephas. Still, I follow Christ. And then Paul says, is Christ
divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were
you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not. I
thank God that I did not baptize any of you except maybe Crispus
and Gaius. No one. can say that you were
baptized in my name. He goes on to talk about how,
well, I will just summarize it by saying, Brother Michael's
having us at his house, and Sister? Glory. Glory. Glory. Glory. And all of a sudden, Brother
Brian says, well, I'm going to have church at our house next
week. And all of a sudden, I started saying, well, I'm going to start
going. I'd rather go to Michael's house, because Glory makes better
coffee than Brian's wife. We don't wanna, we don't compare
like that. We're all brothers and sisters
in Christ and we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and we don't have
to compare to each other who is better. So, something to keep
in mind. Amen. Yeah, the Bible tells us
that we're to strive to keep the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace. And a few verses later it says,
until we're brought to the unity of the faith. You see, the Spirit
is the one who teaches us. And so, We might all have different
understandings, different levels of knowledge. We may be, you
know, some things the Lord has revealed to some that he hasn't
yet revealed to others as they've grown in the grace and the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so with that being the case,
there's going to be, you know, we're not going to fully agree
on everything and every point sometimes. And so the Bible tells
us, you know, we're striving to keep the unity of the spirit.
and it's the Spirit's place to bring us into the unity of the
faith or the teaching and the doctrines of Christ. So that's
why we, the Bible also tells us that we are to, with meekness
and long-suffering, that we are to pray for those who, you know,
oppose the doctrines of Christ, that God would purr eventually,
give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. And so, yeah, we
shouldn't be slamming each other, but we should be, we should be
lifting each other up and that we should be preaching the doctrine.
Now, I think we need to stand firm on the doctrine, but there's
a way that we do that. And a lot of people out there,
especially online, they kind of like to attack, but we like
to just present the truth and if they receive it, then they
receive it because we know that no one can receive these things
unless the spirit reveals it. And so I can't force anybody
to learn anything. I can't make anybody understand. Only the spirit can do that.
Well, thank you for that. Anybody else got anything you'd
like to share? I was wondering if anyone had
an extra copy of the Bible. Oh, the Bible? Yeah, can you
get that? Alright everyone, we'll turn
to Galatians chapter 4. Continuing on in our exposition
through Galatians. Galatians chapter 4. Before we
get started, I'd like to thank everybody for the prayers and
all the sentiments that were sent to us over the last three
weeks. We had COVID. We got COVID a
few weeks ago. I was the first one to get it,
and then my oldest son got it, and my middle son got it. And
nobody else got it, just us three. The two boys were hospitalized.
Waylon, he ended up having to be flown to Kansas City to Children's
Mercy. Up there, his lung was completely
full of fluid, and a part of his other lung, and so they flew
him to Kansas City. Zach was in the hospital for
about a week. Waylon was in the hospital about
a week. My wife was in the hospital with both of them. And so for
eight days, she was in the hospital with one or the other. And I
was home sick. And of course, the other kids
that didn't get sick, they took good care of us and took good
care of the house. But we appreciate everybody that
sent their prayers and sentiments to us, and some that brought
food, some of the other members that was here that brought food. I just want to thank everybody.
But we are all clean. We've been quarantined for a
while, and so we're all over it. The house has been sanitized
and everything like that. I'm carrying the antibodies.
I have it too, so I feel safe. Did you get the monoclonal antibody
infusion? No. Oh, no, no. I got it through
getting it. Yeah, I ended up, me and my oldest
son, they give us the monoclonal antibody infusion, which helped
get us over it faster. Oh, I see. I heard about that.
Yeah. About 24 hours, I guess it was,
whenever I started feeling better. And same with him. So yeah, you
get it. You get that infusion. It's real
well. It's not the vaccine, but of
course we don't. We're non-vaxxers here, but we
don't judge. Well, I must be honest with you. I would be in that camp too,
but I'm in the Air Force. And I was required to get it,
which I still, I guess I have to bear that burden because I
wear the uniform. But let's just say I didn't go
there with a smile on my face. Well, we appreciate your service.
Thank you. Galatians chapter 4, whenever
we left off last time, brethren, we had taken a little parentheses
in our exposition because we were moving from verse 29 into
verse one and beyond in chapter four. And if you look at verse
29 there, it says, and if you be Christ, then are ye Abraham's
seed and heirs according to the promise. And we took a couple
of, well, we took a week to look at faith and in Hebrews chapter
10 or chapter 11, we looked at faith and we've seen that faith
is the undergirding, or faith is what supports and holds up
our hope or our assurance that we are Christ, okay? You know,
we talk a lot about assurance, and assurance is anything that
we get outside of ourselves. We don't, if your assurance is
in what you do, if your assurance is in, you know, law keeping,
or good works, or whatever the case might be, then your assurance
is misguided. We can never be assured of our
salvation by things we do because every religionist can mock or
mimic good works. I've known, like I said, I've
known people that, as I grew up in the church, that they were
members for 20-something years, and then all of a sudden, they're
gone now, and they've abandoned the faith, and they hate Christianity
and hate Christ. So anybody can mimic something
for a long period of time. Assurance isn't something that
we get from the outside, it's something that we get on the
inside by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is who gives
us that assurance. The Bible says that He gives
us His Spirit so that we might know that we are His children,
okay? And so we took a break and we
looked at faith and we seen how faith is something that is given
to every elect child of God. Whenever they are born from above,
they have been given the Spirit of God in them and they've been
given a divine faith as opposed to a natural faith. Everybody
has a natural faith. You know, I have a natural faith
that if I sit down in that chair, that chair's not gonna break
down on me, okay? I have a natural faith. But natural faith is not
what saves us, it's not what keeps us, it's not what trusts
in Christ. The natural faith is just natural
faith. And the Bible says that the flesh is just flesh and it
cannot please God. So anything that is produced
by the flesh, it cannot please God. The only thing that comes
from us, or that comes from within us, is the things of the Spirit
of God. And that faith that we talk about,
biblical faith, is a faith that is a gift of the Spirit of God.
It's not natural to us. The natural man received is not
the things of the Spirit of God, nor can he, because they are
spiritually discerned. Okay, so we cannot have this
faith. We don't have a faith that just reaches out and says,
oh, I'm gonna take that, and now that I've done that, then
God gives us something, in response to that. No, God gives us, he
has saved us in Christ Jesus and he has given us these gifts
of the spirit by the indwelling of the spirit in us and that
spirit is the one who does these things. And so faith, when faith
is given to the child of grace, that child of grace then has
this undergirding that looks to Christ alone for all their
salvation, okay? And so that's why we went and
looked at faith because we've seen that that type of faith
is only given to God's elect. It's only given to God's people.
And so with that being said, only they are the ones who will
ever trust and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we
moved in from there after we learned that faith is something
that is only given to the people of God, we began to look at this
term seed. It says in verse 29, if you be
Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. And if you drop down into chapter
four, you see that we are heirs in verse one. You see that we
are in, uh, uh, verse, uh, uh, verse, uh, uh, five, uh, adopted,
uh, the adoption of sons and verse six year sons. Um, again,
verse seven, we are heirs, uh, and so forth. We look at the
biblical doctrine of two seeds. There are two seeds that we see
taught throughout the scripture. There's the seed of Satan. We
see the Bible, the seed of Satan and seed of Christ. There is
a natural seed. There is a spiritual seed. We
see that in the types and the symbols that Christ used in his
teaching. We see the wheat and the tares. We see the sheep and
the goats. We see the wicked and the righteous.
Okay. We are not righteous in and of
ourselves. We are righteous because we have
righteousness imputed to us, right? None of us is right. The
Bible says there is none righteous, no not one. There is none. We're
all wicked. We're all evil. The flesh is
just flesh and it cannot please God. It can't do anything. So
the only righteousness that we have is a righteousness that
was imputed to us or that was laid to our account. Okay? And so with that being said,
then there are two kinds of people. There's the people that has that
righteousness imputed to their account. There are those who
does not, or that does have righteousness imputed, and there are those
that do not. So we have two groups of people. So we spent a couple
of weeks looking through all the scriptures showing how God
has shown these two groups of people. One group of that, the
elect of God, or the weak, the sheep, the righteous, Those were
elected before the foundation of the world. They were chosen
by God. We see in Revelation, the Bible talks about that there's
a book called the Book of Life of the Lamb slain. And that the
Bible says that in that book, names were written before the
foundation of the world. There were names written. It
just wasn't a book of life and then whenever somebody chooses
Christ, somebody's name was written down. You know, we used to sing
that old hymn, whenever I was growing up, there's a new name
written down in heaven, and it's mine, yes, it's mine. Okay, there
are no new names written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The names
were written before the foundation of the world, before anything
was created. And God had set those names there. But listen,
brother, in Revelation, it talks about the names that were not
written. There were names written, and there were names whose names
were not written. in the Lamb's Book of Life. And
so there are two groups of people, even before the world began,
God had already separated all of His creation as far as mankind
is concerned, had separated them out of those that He would bestow
grace upon and those who He would not. In theological terms, we
call that they are elected or they are reprobated. There is
the elect of God, there is the reprobate. And that was chosen
out before the foundation of the world. And so whenever Abraham
and Christ had this conversation way back when, whenever he came
and began to explain the gospel to Abraham, and Abraham saw that
Christ was his righteousness and counted Christ as his righteousness,
then Christ told him that, you know, your seed is going to be
plenty. It's going to beaker out every
nation and it's going to bless every nation. Now we found out
in Galatians already that that seed is talking about Christ.
It's not talking about seeds plural in the natural. It's talking
about seed in the spiritual and it's talking about Christ. And
we've seen that in verse 16 of chapter three. Now to Abraham
and his seed where the promise was made, he saith not and to
seeds as of many, but as of one and to thy seed, which is Christ. So the promise made to Abraham
was about Christ. But yet everybody that is in
Christ is also the seed of Christ. And so we talked about this seed.
We talked about the seed of Christ and all the righteousness, the
generation of Christ. We talked about there is a generation
that will serve him. Remember, we went to the Old
Testament and seen that there is a generation that will serve
him. And so the elect of God were people who had been chosen
out or sanctified, set apart for God before the foundation
of the world. to be a people unto him. And there were people that was
going to be created that was not there. Look with me if you
want, but you keep your hands in Galatians. But look in Romans
chapter nine, a very, very strong chapter on election. And it's
funny, sometimes I go through preachers and listen, they go
preach verse by verse and I'll go through and listen and a lot
of times this whole chapter is almost skipped. Look with me
in chapter 9 starting in verse 6. It says, Not as though the word
of God hath taken none of faith, for they are not all Israel which
are of Israel. So here again we're seeing there's
a natural Israel of the flesh and then there's a spiritual
Israel. The true Israel is the spiritual Israel. Neither because
they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. But in
Isaac shall thy seed be called." So you remember Isaac was the
child of promise. He was the child that was born miraculously
out of a seed in a womb that shouldn't have had kids, they
were too old. But yet he was the child of promise. Remember
though, Abraham also had another child of flesh called Ishmael.
But that was not the child of promise. Matter of fact, that
was the child that was kicked out with his mother, okay? It
was Isaac who the promise was made. It says, this is they,
or that is, they which are the children of the flesh, these
are not the children of God. But the children of the promise
are counted for the seed. See, it's the spiritual children
of God that are counted as the seed of God. It's not the fleshly
children, okay? And that's why we see there's
a difference between what we believe and what the Presbyterians
believe, the people that believe in covenant children. Because
I'm a Christian, my children are in that covenant because
I'm a Christian. It's the same mentality that
the Israelites had at the time of Jesus. Remember whenever Jesus
talked to them about being Abraham's children, they said, hey, we
don't have to worry about anything. We're Abraham's children. We've
got it made. We're Abraham's children. We're
of the promise. We're the elect of God. We're
the people of God, so we don't have to worry about it. anything
and Jesus was telling me, if you were Abraham's children,
you would believe on me. Because Abraham believed on me.
And as we see here, and as we'll see in the other verses, we see
that it isn't the children of the flesh who are counted as
the children of God, it's the children of the spirit. It's
the natural, or it's the spiritual children, not the natural children.
So Paul is saying here, he says, they which are the children of
the flesh, these are not the children of God, you can't take
the flesh and make the flesh the place where anything spiritual
is going to be accounted for anything, okay? For this is the
word of promise, at this time will I come and Sarah shall have
a son. And not only this, but when Rebecca
also hath conceived by one, even by our father Isaac. For here
it is, the children being not yet born, neither having done
any good or evil, So see, it didn't have anything to do with
anything that they had done. The decision was made before either
one of these children had come from the womb and done anything.
Neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God
according to election might stand. See, God had a purpose according
to election. God had elected a people before
the foundation of the world and he had a purpose for those people.
and he had a purpose for everyone else as well. And so these people
that God had purposed before the foundation of the world to
be the elect of God, or as the elect of God, he didn't choose
them by anything that they had done. He didn't look down the
corridor of time and see if they would accept him, or receive
him, or believe on him, or love him, or join a church, or get
baptized, or do any good work. He didn't look down and see anything.
not having done anything good or bad. It didn't have anything
to do with their good works. It didn't have anything to do
with their bad works. It was according to his purpose
in election. That the purpose of God according
to election might stand not of works, but him that calleth.
So it had everything to do with God's purpose, the one who calls.
He called them as his people. He called them as his children,
as his elect. And we were eternally his children.
We didn't become his children in time. I know a lot of people,
and I've heard it, and I even taught it myself at one point
in time, that we become the children of God whenever we believe upon
him. That's not when we became the children of God. We are already
the children of God before we were ever born, before God ever
created anything, he already had his children. We're gonna
see that here in just a minute. But look at verse 12. It says,
it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger, as it
is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Well, God does hate people, doesn't
he? He does. The Bible teaches that. We don't
have to shy away from that. A lot of people want to shy away
from the fact that God does not love everybody. There is a hatred
that God has. The Bible says that he hates
all doers of iniquity in Psalms. The Bible teaches that he hates
those who are wicked, who are not of his seed. He hates those.
Well, just let the Bible say what it is. You know, I posted
the thing not too long ago on Facebook where I said, you know,
it's not my job as a pastor or preacher to try to make God out,
whether it's good or bad, to do anything to try to pump him
up one way or the other. It's my job as a pastor to just
preach what's being revealed of God. I'm to preach God for
who he is. I don't make God to be good.
I don't make God to be bad. I make God to be who He is. And
I preach what it says in the Word of God. And that's how we
need to pray that the Spirit would keep us faithful to preach
that. But so often, and I'm guilty of this too in my beginnings
of what I know and preach now, whenever I begin to first see
these, to kind of hide these because I knew people wouldn't
receive them because it's completely opposite of what we here taught
most of our lives growing up. But yet we have to be faithful
to that. And God has said these things and we just, it's not
what I say. It's not Mike's theology. It's
not Sovereign Grace of Baptist Church's theology. It's the doctrine
of Christ. It's what Christ has put in his
word, God's word. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God and it's profitable. Even the parts that we don't
like, it's profitable. So we have to preach them. Bob
tells us that we preach the whole counsel of God's word, not just
hide it. We don't have a gospel for the
seeker. We don't have a gospel for those
who don't know. We don't have a gospel for the
immature. We don't have a gospel for the
mature. Well, you don't preach that until they have been coming
for quite a while. No, we have one gospel. We preach
that gospel. We preach the whole counsel of
God. And as I said, the spirit of God. Give you an example,
our children, our whole entire life. Well, I say our whole entire
life. ever since we began to learn more rightly of the things
of God and what the Bible teaches, we have had our children in the
preaching of God's word. We never separated them out.
Whenever we came here, I was thankful that this church didn't
do it. They didn't separate the children out into other things.
They bring the children in. The whole family came to church.
The whole family listened to the message. And I know a lot
of people say, well, how can the children, they won't learn
or do anything. Listen, these children have grown up listening
to doctrinal preaching that isn't dumbed down to a level of ABCs
and 123s. They listen to this thing and
they can articulate it. A lot of them can articulate
already the things of God and be able to say that. I've seen
other children that are friends of ours that have grown up in
church but have not been separated out. They can articulate these
things. Listen, the word of God is strong
and it's powerful and when the spirit takes that word and reveals
that word. It doesn't matter if you're nine
years old, if you're nine years old, it doesn't matter. The spirit
is the one who teaches us. And listen, to say that the spirit
can't teach a five-year-old the gospel is ridiculous. For us
to hear the preaching, we look through scripture. They didn't
separate the children out into little children's people's places,
you know, to hear, you know, Jesus talked about. No, they
sit there with them and they listen. They listened. Jesus
preached all those sermons you've seen Jesus preach. The children
were there with them. And so whenever we come to these
things here, we think, you know, man, we shouldn't preach this
to these people or this people. No, listen, we should preach
it all because it's the spirit that gives us. And I didn't mean
to go down that rabbit trail, but it just jumped and I ran. Verse 13, as it is written, Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Here's
the thing that comes up. Wait a minute, you're saying
that God chose some according to nothing and others according
to nothing and neither one of them has a chance to make a choice
of their own? Then God is unrighteous in doing
so. Have you ever heard that? Well,
that would be unrighteous of God. That would be wrong of God. That's not just. Will Paul, the
Holy Spirit, I should say, was well aware of the arguments of
the natural mind. And he said here, what shall
we say then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? And what does it say? God forbid. For he said to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, that should lay down any notion of free will that
we can come to Christ of our own free will. It is not of him
that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth
mercy. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee." What was the purpose of Pharaoh?
Why did God create Pharaoh? For the purpose of raising him
up so that God might show his power in Pharaoh. God showed
his power through Pharaoh and his disobedience to God. If you
go back to the Exodus account, you see that God, before anything
happened with Pharaoh, had already told Moses, go down and tell
Pharaoh to let my people go. Tell him all these things. He
is not going to listen to you. I will harden his heart. And he won't let them go. And
what happened? Moses went down there. He told Pharaoh. Pharaoh
hardened his heart. He didn't listen. The plagues
came. What happened? It happened again, again, again,
and again. And if you go back and look in
the scriptures, and you can check me out on this, after every time
that happened, it said, and Pharaoh hardened his heart just as the
Lord had said. Well, how did the Lord have said
it? The Lord was gonna harden his heart. See, the Lord is the
one who is controlling all things. He is sovereign over all things.
He's in complete control. He has predestinated all things.
and pharaoh was raised up for a purpose. The bible says that
he has created all things, yea, even the wicked for the day of
evil. God has created the wicked line
of people for the day of evil. He has created them for a purpose.
You go into, I think it's in 1 Peter, 2 Peter, I can't remember
right off the top of my head, where it talks about the false
prophets and the false teachers and the bible says that those
false prophets and false teachers that they were ordained to that
condemnation. What does the word ordain mean?
It means to choose out, it basically means to be predestined. God
had ordained them to that condemnation of being false teachers. They
were going to be false teachers because God had ordained them
that way. What about Judas? We talked about
Judas. Judas was a man who God had raised
up for a specific purpose. What about all those ones that
crucified the Lord Jesus Christ? The Bible said that you by wicked
hands have taken by the determinant counsel of God. God determined
that those wicked acts would be part of his purpose, that
in every generation, all those things. Think about Jacob or
Joseph and his brothers throwing him in a pit, wanting to kill
him, selling him into slavery and all those things. The Bible
says that what you meant for evil, God meant for good. It was an evil act. They did
the evil act. It was evil. But it was something
that God before had ordained to happen because he meant it
for good. What happened? Joseph got sold into slavery,
but God moved him up in stature and rank. And whenever he got
up there, he was able to save all the Israelites that came
in to Egypt. First, it was just his family.
But what happened? It grew for 400 years. It grew into millions
and millions of people. See, God had a purpose. And that
purpose was brought forth by evil acts. So there again, we
have to have these categories in our mind that God does things
and we preach God the way that he's revealed and not the way
that we think we ought to preach him to make him look good in
people's eyes. Just preach what the Bible says. And the Bible
says here that he will have mercy on him who hath mercy. So that
it is not of him that will, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy. This all does have a point, by
the way. For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same
purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in
thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the
earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and
whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, why
doth ye yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
So there again, another question comes up. Well, if it's God that
determines all these things, then, you know, then who can
resist his will? Nobody can resist his will. God
does what he wants to do. And then how can he lay fault
on me? How can he judge me? for what
I'm doing, but look what God says in verse 20. Nay, but O
man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing
formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over
the clay of the same lump to make one vessel under honor and
another under dishonor? What if God willing to show his
wrath and to make his power known, see that's God's purpose, God's
purpose is to show His wrath and to make His power known.
That's what He did with Pharaoh. He showed His wrath and He made
His power known in Pharaoh. One of these days He's going
to make His power known. He's going to show His wrath
on all the wicked mankind. What if God willing to show His
wrath and to make His power known endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction? Now I've heard some
preachers say that that word fitted there means that they
fitted themselves for destruction. That's not true. It says right
here that they, and he endured with much long sufferings, the
vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. We just learned, if you let the
context define what it says, he just said, have not the potter
power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto
dishonor. He's the one who makes that happen.
It's not somebody that fitted themselves, it's God who had
fitted them for destruction. And there's several verses in
the Bible that teaches that. Verse 23, and that he might make known
the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had
afore prepared unto glory. So you see here, brethren, the
vessels of mercy have been afore prepared unto glory. That means
before the foundation of the world, before anything, In God's
purpose, he had a line of people that was going to be for his
glory in their saving, in their redemption,
in what Christ would do for them. And then there would be a people
that would be vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, made
for destruction, made or ordained for destruction. and it's all
going to be based on his justice, and he's not going to be unjust
in doing that because he is the sovereign over all things and
nobody can tell him what to do. His law is for man, not for himself. God gives law to man, but God
is not beholden to anybody. Nobody can tell God what to do
and what he can't do. Okay? I give this illustration
all the time. My mom and dad, they have a pond
out on their property. And my dad can go and he can
put up signs all around his property saying, you know, no fishing
in this pond. Okay. Well, one day he walks
down and he sees this guy out here fishing in his pond. My
dad goes down there and you know, my dad, he's probably going down
there with a gun. He goes down and said, you know, hey, what
are you doing on my property? Don't you see all the signs? It says
no fishing. And the guy said, well, I seen
you out here fishing the other day. I just figured it was all right.
And the guy said, well, this is my pond. I can do whatever
I want. The law that I put up around
here was for you, not for me. Okay. See, the law that God gave
us was for us, not for him. The Bible says that he is who
he is. I am that I am. Nobody can tell me what I can
do and what I can't do. I, whatever I do. And here's
the thing. God doesn't do things good. And that makes him good. God is good. And anything that
he does is good. Give you an example. Whenever
God commanded the Israelites to go into the land and to kill
everybody in the land. Now, did he, did he not give
a law to men to say, do not go murder? But yet, what did they
do? They went in and they killed
everybody in the land. Why? So that God could give them
the land. Now was God evil or wicked for
telling them to do that? No matter of fact. They were
disobedient if they didn't do that. You remember when they
saved the king and they hid some of the goodies down in the tent?
And what happened? God told the prophet to go in
and they chopped him up in pieces because they kept some alive. They didn't kill them all. Now
let me ask you, is God wicked for doing that? No, God's not
wicked because God is not beholden to the things that he's told
the man. And so here we see whenever God chooses one and not another,
God is not wicked or unrighteous in doing so because he's not
beholden to a righteousness or a law or any kind of standard
of anyone else. He is the standard. He is the
one who is righteous and holy. So in everything he does, it's
righteous and holy. And if he says, I can choose
this man to never receive salvation and then judge that man for the
sins that he commits throughout his life and then eternally punish
that man, Nobody can say, you can't do that. Ain't that what
he says? He says, you can't reply. Why? Does the thing for him say, why
has thou made me this way? You know, who can resist God?
We don't have that right. God is sovereign to do those
things and he can do it. And so here we see, and that
he might make known the riches of his glory under the vessels
of mercy, which he hath afore prepared unto glory, even us
whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. So in Romans 9 we see that there
are two groups of people that God has ordained and that is
those who are vessels of mercy, those who are vessels of destruction,
or the vessels of honor, the vessels of dishonor. Now let's
go back to Galatians. All that to say this, we see
that there is a seed of Christ, here it's called Abraham's seed,
we see that it's called an heir. Everyone who is the seed of Christ,
and there's the spiritual union that we have with Christ, everyone
who is a seed of Christ is going to receive the promise or the
inheritance. Look at verse one. Now I say
that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing
from a servant, though he be Lord of all. Okay. And now we talked a little bit
about that last time we was together. We're not talking about age here,
we're talking about understanding, right? Remember when Paul talked
to the Corinthians, he said, whenever I was a child, I spoke
as a child, I thought like a child, I acted like a child, but whenever
I become more mature, I put away childish things. Now, was he
talking about his actual physical age and what happened? No, what
was he talking about? He was talking about his understanding.
Whenever I was a child in my understanding, when I was ignorant
of certain things, this is how I acted. But whenever I became
mature in my understanding, and I began to see this is what the
scriptures are actually teaching, when God revealed unto those
apostles, opened up their understanding of the things. Remember, whenever
they were walking on the road to Emmaus, and they were talking
about Christ dying, and all of a sudden Christ came here and
he preached to them from Genesis all the way to Malachi, preached
to them and showed that that whole entire thing was about
Christ. And the Bible says that he opened up their understanding.
See, if our understanding isn't opened up, then we're just looking
at words on paper trying to figure them out with the natural mind.
But whenever we are open, our understanding is opened up where
we are spiritually understanding what the Bible is teaching, then
we begin to see things on a little more deeper level or a little
more expanded or a little more understanding level, okay? And
so this is what he's talking about here. The heir, and he's
talking about us, all the children of grace, there is a period of
time that we go through, like a child, in misunderstanding. We don't understand. We're immature
in our thoughts and our understanding of the scriptures. Now remember,
this is all in context about the law. Paul is coming to them
because they have been bewitched by the Judaizers who are telling
them, oh yeah, we believe in grace, but you gotta keep the
law. You gotta continue to keep the law. If you don't keep the
law, Then you're not saved. And Paul's coming back in and
said, listen, that's not the gospel. The gospel is not law
and grace. The gospel is all grace. It's
only by grace. It's not the law that if you
have been united with Christ, you are no longer under the law.
You are dead to the law. That husband has died. You are
free from that law. And now you are under the law
of Christ. The law of Christ and the law
of Moses that was given to the Jews is not the same thing. The law of Christ is this, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the law of Christ. The
law of Christ is to look unto Christ, the author and the finisher
of your faith. The law of Christ is to believe
on him and him alone for all your righteousness, whether to
be accepted of God, to be justified of God, or for your preservation
in the Christian life. It's all of God. None of it is
on what we do. We are never looked on on our
works, what we do, for acceptance, for justification, for anything
else, for acceptance. It's all what Christ done for
us. He is our justification. He is
our sanctification. He is our life. He is our preservation. Why do we believe in the perseverance
of the saints? Because we believe in the preservation
of God. God preserves us, therefore we
persevere. See, it's the same thing, one
coin, two different sides. If you look at one side and one
side only persevering, You're thinking, well, we got to pull
ourselves up by our bootstraps and we got to hang in there and
do what? If you turn the coin over, you
see that the only reason that you're persevering is because
God is preserving you. Okay. It's all about Christ Jesus.
And so what we see here in Galatians is there is a time in our lives,
even though we're children of God, we have a child understanding
of things. We think, oh yeah, we gotta believe,
we gotta follow the law, we gotta do good deeds, we gotta come
to church and do all these things to stay right with God. But what
Paul is teaching them, listen, it's all of grace. Everything
has been taken care of. All your sins have been forgiven.
I tell our folks here often, I say that every sin that Christ
has died for, we will commit every sin that Christ has died
for, no more and no less. mean christ didn't die for more
since that week than we're going to do and we're definitely we're
not going to send less than what christ has paid for and we're
not going to do more sins than christ paid for or otherwise
they wouldn't be paid for same thing with the works we will
do the works that god has ordained for us no more and no less if
god ordained a certain amount of works for the spirit of god
to do within us we're not going to do any more or any less than
that now and as i always say that's not to say, just be lackadaisical
and everybody do whatever, you know, go on and just be, you
know, sit on your backside, do nothing. You know, I'm not saying
that. But what I'm saying is, is we got to understand the difference
between the works of the natural man and the works of the spiritual
man. The spiritual man is Christ in you. He does that work, not
you. The work of God is in you, but
the work of the flesh can do nothing. So we can't ever look
at that. And so as we begin to learn and grow in the grace and
knowledge of God, We move from being as a child not knowing
anything, but whenever the Spirit of God gives us understanding
and gives us repentance to repent from, oh yeah, it isn't about
my works. It's about all of what Christ
did. And now I turn from looking at self-righteousness and what
I do through my works to looking to Christ and what he did on
my behalf by imputing his righteousness to me and that alone is my acceptance
before God, then I have now matured from a child to a mature thinking
individual. That's what Paul is saying here.
Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing
from a servant, though he be Lord of all. See, we have all
the inheritance of God given to us, but because we're children,
we don't know. We don't know what we got, you
know? We still think we got, you know,
all this stuff to do. He says, but it's under tutors
and governors until the time appointed of the Father. See,
there's a time that in each one of us, if you're a child of grace,
there is a time that the Father comes and that by the Spirit
of God, He gives you repentance. He gives you knowledge and understanding
of the spiritual things of God. And at that time, then you wake
up and you say, hey, and I use the illustration of the prodigal
son. Remember there was a point whenever he was in the pig pen
he thought, hey, wait a minute, my father's servants have it
better than I do. There's a time whenever we are given understanding
of God. And so verse three says, even
so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements
of the world. What does that mean being under
the elements of the world? Well, if you look throughout
scripture, a lot of times the elements or the rudiments, your Bible
may say rudiments, the elements of the rudiments of the world
are referring back to what the jews called the law okay the
law of man the traditions of man and so paul here is saying
that whenever we were children we were in bondage under the
elements of the world we were in bondage to the law we didn't
we didn't know any better we didn't know the freedom that
we have in christ the liberty that we have in christ that the
law has been nailed to the cross and that that all of its ordinances
everything has been fulfilled in christ jesus And that all
of his obedience to God's law, which was perfect was laid to
our account. Therefore we have kept all of
the law because Christ kept the law. See, we don't understand
that until God opens up our understanding and gives us that. And that,
that faith that we talked about, whenever it reads that in God's
word, then undergirds our hope and says, yes. That's mine. I'm an heir. That's my stuff.
Remember the prophet said, that's my dad. He's Lord of all things. And the servants have it better
than what I'm doing here. I'm going back to him because he
has the inheritance. And guess what? Even though he
thought he squandered all his, and the Bible does say he gave
him that inheritance. He went and squandered that inheritance.
But guess what? Whenever he squandered that inheritance,
he was still accepted back as a son with full rights to everything
that the father had. Ain't that wonderful for us?
That a lot of times we may wander away and squander that in sin,
but we have been given forgiveness. We have been given reconciliation
to God. We can come back to God and he
receives us as a son because we are sons. Even though in our
minds, we might not even think that. Remember that prodigal,
he said, I don't even know if my father's going to let me come
back. You know, I'll go back as a servant. I'll go back to
him as a servant. Well, the father said, no, no,
no, no. You're my son. You're my son. And so here we
see, even when we were children, we were in bondage under the
elements of the world, under the law. And if you look at that
in theological perspectives, a lot of times as we grow in
the grace and knowledge of God, we, you know, we think of, Hey,
we got to keep this, the, the, all these laws in the scripture,
uh, and everything like that until the Lord brings us to the
place of rest, that place of entering into his rest. What
do you do when you rest? You don't do nothing, right?
My kids, you know, whenever I come in from work, I'll sit down in
my chair over there and a lot of times I'll just fall asleep.
Now, if I'm resting, I'm not doing anything. If we rest, and
that's why it's so hard to enter into his rest, is because entering
into his rest is solely trusting Christ for my righteousness.
That's what resting is. That's what abiding is. Abiding
in Christ. It's just trusting him for everything. I trust Him for my getting saved,
my getting trusted for justification, sanctification, and for preservation. I trust Him for everything. My
daily living, I trust Him for that. He's promised that He would
do good work in me. He's promised that He would work
out all, you know, that He would work in me to the will and to
do of His good pleasure. He's made those promises. I just
trust him to do that. And even though it may not look
like it, sometimes I see it, you know, we have sin. We continue
in the flesh, we're going to have sin. And it may not look
like it, but we've got to trust that he is bringing us to the
point where he wants us to go. And so when we look at this as
it pertains to the law, we see that sometimes we hear from the
outside voices, oh, you guys are anti-Nobian because you don't
believe that you're under the law anymore. Well, no, no, no,
no, no. There is no more law for the child of grace. The law
wasn't ever purposed to make me righteous. The law never was
given to make me holy. The law was never meant to make
me accepted of God. That wasn't the purpose of the
law. You've misunderstood the purpose of the law. The purpose
of the law was to take the child of grace who has been given spiritual
eyes and ears to know that they cannot keep the law. The law
was there to crush you. The law was there to show you
your inability of righteousness. To show your unrighteousness.
Your self-righteousness. That's what the law's purpose
was. The law's purpose is never to make us accepted to God. And so, faith and law cannot
exist. Faith and words cannot exist.
In fact, look at chapter 3, verse 13. I mean, verse 12. And the law is not of faith. If you're, you know, we talk,
you hear this all the time on TV, radio. Oh yeah, I'm a man
of faith. I live by faith. I live by faith.
Well, if you live by faith, then you're not living by law because
the law is not of faith. And the faith is not a law. They're
opposed to each other. They're two different people.
They're two different husbands. And so we don't live by law.
So whenever we're children, we think that we're under this bondage,
we're under this law, and that we have to continue to keep this
righteousness. And all this, if you read the Puritans, if
you read a lot of these old writers and stuff like that, they keep
pressing all this about purity and about law keeping and about
stuff like that. And listen, brethren, I'm not
saying that that's not written in our hearts. Listen, I wanna
do what God wants me to do. I wanna be obedient to God. I
wanna do all these things. But just like Paul says, I know
that I want to do the good, but whenever I want to do good, evil
is right there with me. Oh, wretched man that I am. As
long as I'm in this body of flesh, I can't do it. In my mind, I
will serve the law of Christ. In my flesh, I will serve the
law of sin. Paul realized that. This is going
to be this warfare from now on until I die. And then when Christ
removes this body of flesh and gives me a spiritual body to
align with the spirit of Christ that's in me, then I will be
done away with the warfare, but until then, it's there, brethren.
That's why, and God does that. God has ordained that for us
so that we might keep looking to him. Why is the warfare there? Paul, so you can keep looking
to Christ. What was the very next verse after Paul said that?
Therefore, there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. I keep
saying that I can't keep the law. I keep wanting to do what
God wants me to do. But I see that in my flesh I
can't do it at all. Not one iota can I do it. So what is my consolation? There
is therefore now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. Child
of grace, we're going to fail. We're going to sin. This body
and flesh is going to continue to be worthless in righteousness. So quit thinking that you by
your own efforts can produce a righteousness to make you accepted
of God or kept by God and look to Christ alone for your righteousness.
It is then and only then that you will experience the freedom,
the liberty, and the rest that Christ promised. And we can only
do that as God gives us that understanding. It is whenever
the time of the Father points to us. Look at verse four, but
when the fullness of time, we're just about done, but when the
fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a
woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the
law that we might receive the adoption of sons. See, the reason
he came to do all of what he did is so that we might be able
to, by the spirit's work in us, realize that we are sons. To
realize we can't live up to the standard of our father, But our
father has given us a righteousness in our place. He has provided
a righteousness in our place in our elder brother Christ.
Christ has been our righteousness. His life that he lived for us
in obedience to the law was laid to our account. And in this old
man who deserves all the wrath of God, Christ stood as our substitute
as a lamb in our place, and he took the full wrath of God. So
all the righteousness that was needed to fulfill God's law and
justice, Christ did for us. That's laid to your account.
And every bit of wrath that you deserved because of your sinful
old man, Christ also took that and laid that to your account.
You have received the full wrath of God on you because Christ
took it for you. good side of that is that you
also receive the full righteousness of Christ in your place because
He procured that for you also. See, there's a difference between
Christ's suretyship and Christ's substitutionary work. They sound
the same, but they're not the same. We sang it this morning
about Christ being our surety. Christ is our surety, meaning
that He is the one that the judge looks at and says, I will accept
you in His place. But substitution is actually
taking the place of the one there and taking the full payment or
the full penalty that was required by that person. And so if Christ
really did substitute, and here's where we get in. Why did we talk
about election? Why did we talk about reprobation?
Why did we talk about God hating some and not others? Why do we
talk about these things? Because here it is, brethren,
it comes down to the very heart of the gospel. If Jesus Christ
is a substitute, That means he took someone's place, right?
Substitute means he went in someone's place. If he's the substitute
for all mankind, that means that everything that he did in his
life work, his obedience to the law, and everything that he did
and received in that death upon the cross was a substitute then
for every man. If he substituted for every man,
then every man receives the results of that substitution. If Christ
lived a perfect life, that life is imputed to all for whom he
died. And for all for whom he died, he took the full wrath
of God. And the Bible says that it has
been propitiated. That word propitiation means
that God's wrath has been appeased. God no longer has wrath on that
person. And if God has laid out all of
his wrath upon Christ as a substitute for somebody, And Christ in the
Bible says that God was satisfied with that, then that means his
wrath has been appeased, propitiated. If it's been propitiated, that
means there is no more wrath. And if he's done that for everybody,
then that means there is no more wrath for everybody. So either
you need to be a universalist and believe everybody's going
to be saved, or you need to believe sovereign grace. But there are
some that God has chosen for salvation and some He has not.
But this middle way that I grew up believing, that all men God
has died for and loves and wants them to be saved, but he only
will give it if you trust him, believe on him, receive him,
confess him before men, be baptized, all this stuff, that we tell
people that they have to do to be saved. That's not the truth
of the gospel. See, God isn't waiting to save
you, but the Bible says you should call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. And he did. Isaiah 53 says that
the Bible says that he saw the travail of his soul and was satisfied. And by his righteous servant,
he shall justify many. Didn't say justify all, he said
justify many. And so we see here, brethren,
in our text, the heirs, the seed of Abraham, the heirs according
to the promise. These are the ones who are the
line of Christ. They are the seed of Christ,
and they will receive that inheritance. There is no way they cannot receive. And I've mentioned this before.
We talk about people on the other side of the world in areas that's
supposedly not been reached by the gospel, and we say, oh, there
are people dying and going to hell that we haven't reached
yet. Listen, the Bible says, all that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And anyone who comes unto me,
I will in no wise cast out. That is a promise that God has
made that everyone that has been given to Christ will come to
me. There will not be one person in hell that Christ died for. And there will not be one person
in heaven that Christ did not die for. The number has been
fixed. And so when we look at this about
law, when we look at this about grace, we see that we have been
given this and nothing can keep us from The inheritance, the
inheritance is ours, whether we look like we deserve it or
not. Most, and I would say all the time, we look like we don't
deserve it. But brethren, that's where faith is. God gives us
faith to trust that I know I don't deserve it. I know I don't look
like I deserve it. I really am totally enabled to
keep what God has told me to do. But yet he did it for me
by his righteousness. by his work. So we see in verse
six, and because you are sons, notice that because you are sons,
God has sent forth his spirit of his son into your hearts.
See, I grew up believing, being taught, and then thus preaching
for many years. I preached that whenever you
ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart to be your Lord and
and you repent of your sins, you come forward and shake the
preacher's hand or write down a card or do whatever it is that
you say to do, it's then you become a child of God. And then
God sends a spirit into your heart. But this is not what the
Bible says. The Bible says, because I was
already a son and because I was a son, God sent his spirit at
the time of his choosing. Remember up there in verse two,
but as under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the
father, there's a time appointed by the father. Whenever we receive
the knowledge of Christ and it says here, because you are sons,
God has sent forth his spirit into your hearts, crying out
of a father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son
at that point, no, in our understanding. At that point, whenever faith
comes in, whenever the knowledge of Christ comes in, and His salvation
comes in, when the gospel is made known to us and revealed
to us by the Spirit of God, what happens? Our knowledge changes,
our understanding changes, and we go from being a child to knowing
that we're a son. We know that we are an heir,
and everything that has been promised is promised to us. Wherefore
thou art no more a servant but a son, and if a son, then an
heir of God through Christ. Howbeit then, when ye knew not
God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
But now, after that, ye have known God, or rather are known
of God, how turn ye again back to the weak and beggarly elements,
whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Brethren, why
would we ever want to go back to the law whenever we have been
given the understanding That's what Paul's trying to tell to
the Galatians. He said, listen, whenever I came to you, I didn't
preach something from some other man. I preached what was delivered
to me directly from Christ. The gospel I give you is the
gospel of Christ. He gave it to me from his own
lips. And I give it to you and you receive that. You believe
that. But now you've been bewitched.
You've been turned away by these Judaizers coming in, saying you
need to continue to keep the law. You need to continue to
keep the law. And so Paul's telling them, hey, listen, why would
you turn back to something And especially in Galatia, this was
a Gentile church. The Gentiles were never under
the law. Why would you turn to something that you never was
under? And why would you try to keep something that you know
that you cannot keep? A couple of last verses, Hebrews
chapter two and verse 10. The Bible says, Hebrews 2.10,
for he became him for whom are all things and by whom are all
things and bringing many sons unto glory. Who's He bringing
to glory? His children. He's bringing His
children to glory. And by whom all things in bringing
many sons to glory. If you just read this verse and
think about it, brethren, this is talking about the purpose
of God. Before anything was created,
why did Christ come forth? Why did God bring forth Christ
as the Redeemer, as the Savior, as the Messiah, as the surety,
as the substitute, the propitiator. Why did God bring forth Christ,
robed in flesh, God in flesh, why did He come and bring Him
forth before anything had ever happened? Well, it says here,
for it became Him for whom are all things and by whom are all
things. We know that's talking about
Christ, right? The Bible says that all things are by Him and
for Him and to Him. We know the Bible says that by
Him, He created all things, Jesus. The Word was with God and the
Word was God. All things were made by Him and
for Him in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through suffering for both He that sanctifyeth
and they who are sanctified, that's God, Christ who sanctify
it. And those who are sanctified,
what does it say? Are all of one. For which cause
he is not ashamed to call them brethren. See, there's this vital
union between us and Christ. That's why we are heirs. That's
why we received the promise. That's why God sends his spirit
into us. That's why we're called the children of God. That's why
we're called the righteous. That's why we're called the sheep. That's why we're called the wheat.
Because before the foundation of the world, there existed a
relationship, a true vital unity between the child and the father. Jesus said, thine they were,
they were yours. And thou hast given them to me.
John 17, when we pray to the father, he says, thine they were,
thou gavest them to me. and I have manifested myself
unto them that they might know that I am from thee." See, there
was this union between us and God in a spiritual life, in a
spiritual way, in a seminal way, in a seed way. There was life
there. In Him is life. And He has given
unto us eternal life. That God has given Him power
over all flesh to give eternal life to as many as God hath given
Him. See, that life The Bible says,
is hid with Christ in God. See, that life that we have whenever
born from above, that life is a new creation. It's not this
old flesh reworked. That's why I say the term regeneration,
that theological term regeneration is misapplied. That's not what,
if you look at the Bible, the Bible talks about regeneration
is that time when Christ died on the cross and was raised from
the dead. We are quickened of God. We are
born from above. It's a new creation. It's not
of this world. It's from somewhere else. It's
from the heavens. The Bible says that it is of
a heavenly birth. It's a new birth. It's a different
kind of birth. It's a spiritual birth. And that
spiritual birth that we receive is the life of Christ. It's Christ in you. It's his
life. And see, that life was hid with
Christ in God. and we were in him before the
foundation of the world. Therefore, that's why this is
saying, both he that sanctifyeth, and that word sanctify doesn't
mean make more holy, that word sanctify means to set apart.
It's just those who set apart. When will we set apart for Christ?
Well, we read it in Romans 9, where God had elected some, not
having done anything good or bad, for vessels to be vessels
of glory, and some to be vessels of dishonor. God set us apart
God sanctified us in Christ Jesus. See, our sanctification happened
before the foundation of the world, in the election. And therefore,
whenever he made one lump, Adam, natural man, out of that one
lump, there came people that would not receive, there would
be people that would receive, all out of that one lump. So
in fleshly Adam, God redeemed his people out of them. See,
election happened before Adam, not after Adam. Now in theological
terms, for anybody who's theological geeks, you have superlapsarianism,
you have inferlapsarianism. Y'all can go look that up whenever
you get home. My grandpa used to call them
50 cent words. But he says here, he says, for both he that sanctified
and they who are sanctified are all of one. for which cause he
is not ashamed to call the brethren, saying, I will declare thy name
unto my brethren. See, he only declares his name
to his people. Unto whom in the arm of God been stretched, right? Remember Isaiah, he said, you
know, to whom has the arm of God been revealed? The answer
to the question is the only ones that have to understand that
and know that are the ones to whom the arm of God has been
revealed. He has to be, he has to reveal
that. I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst
of the church will I sing praise unto thee and again I will put
my trust in him and again here it is behold I and the children
which God hath given me. See God gave the children to
Christ and he did that before the foundation of the world.
For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood
He also himself likewise took part in the same. Now let me
ask you, Brother Elder Lackey, I heard him talk about this this
week and I'm in complete agreement with him on this. It says, for
as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood. That to me sounds like they were
children before they even took on flesh and blood. The children were partakers of
flesh and blood, just like Christ before he took on flesh. Existed, right? We too existed
before we took on flesh and blood. But we existed in Christ, that
life, that spiritual life. Now again, we're not talking
about fleshly Adam man. We're talking about spiritual
life. That spiritual person who we are. That new man, that new
creation. The Bible says that we are created
in Christ Jesus. We are created, we, the people
of God are created in Him. That's eternal, vital unity.
We are created in him. Therefore, if we are in him,
everything that is promised to him is given to us. Why? Because
we are heirs of him. We are his children. We are his
seed. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh
and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that hath the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all the time, lifetime subject to bondage. See, we were subject to bondage.
That's going back to what we've seen in Galatians. There was
a time when we, in our minds, was in fear. We were in bondage.
I can't keep God's law. I can't keep God's law. God's
wrath is going to come upon me. I can't do anything to please
God. And all that was in bondage until all of a sudden the gospel
came and said, great news, great news. We know you can't keep
the law. That's why Christ came. He came
to fulfill the law for you. And he came to die the death
that you deserve. And it's yours because you're
his child. You're his children. We see that
the Bible says that the spirit of God has given to us that we
might know what is freely given to us. Corinthians 2.14 or 12.14. So brethren, listen, as we look,
as we, and we're going to press on, matter of fact, we're probably
going to be in this section of Galatians here. because I want
to go back and reiterate some other points that was in there
that I didn't get to. My main point was wanting to
tie in the seed of Christ and the reason that we receive the
promises of Christ, the reason that we receive the liberty that
is in Christ is because we are heirs. We are his children. We've
been given to that because we are his people. And so we'll
return back to this section of teaching next week, Lord willing. Does anybody have any questions
or comments or anything? I always give time for any rebuttals
or corrections or reviews. I'm not above error. I'm not infallible or infallible
just like anybody else. But as long as we use God's word
to do it and not man's philosophies or traditions, I'm always open
for correction and review. Anybody got anything? Thank you
for bringing the word. Appreciate it. Yeah. Okay. If nobody has anything,
well, let's spend a little prayer. I apologize for the prayer before
we even started to kind of jump right in and kind of antsy. I
hadn't preached in about three weeks. Heavenly father, we thank
you for today and we thank you for your grace and your mercy.
We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ and the life that we have
in and through him. Father, we thank you for salvation,
for forgiveness of sin, for the reconciliation to God. We thank
you, Father, that you have given us life and life eternal. And Father, we just are unworthy
of all these things that we have talked about today. And just
like that prodigal, we often find our face down in the pigsty,
in the mud and the mire of our flesh, fulfilling the lust of
the eye and the lust of the mind, The lust of the heart, the pride
of life, all these things we seek after in this flesh. And
Father, we often return to our vomit, but Lord, we are so thankful
that by grace, you have saved us and that you have given us
the promise and the inheritance of Christ. We thank you for our
elder brother who lived that perfect life for us, that he
might also die that death that he died. the perfect lamb of
God taking away the sins of the world. And so father, we just
thank you so much that you have counted us in that number of
your children. Lord, we know it wasn't anything
that we did to deserve it. We know that there's nothing
that we can do to keep it. And so father, by faith, I pray
you keep us faithful, that you keep us trusting in Christ alone
and that you might that you might squelch the self-righteous acts
that we think that we can accomplish in our flesh to be something
in your sight and in your eyes. And we know that you have said
that all men are wicked and evil, and that there is nothing good
in them, that whenever you looked down from heaven, you saw that
the intent of their heart was only evil continually. That's
who we are in the flesh. And that it's just flesh and
it cannot please you. It can't do anything, Lord. We
have to trust in you alone, and Lord, we can only do that if
the Spirit enables us to do so. So we pray that. Father, I pray
for this church, and I pray that you would continue to keep us
faithful to the preaching of the word, the teaching of the
word, to the fellowship of the brethren. Lord, we pray for our
members that are not here today. We pray for Kevin and Jacqueline
and for Alessandro, Lord. We pray that you would keep them
safe on their trip back to Guatemala and while they're gone, Lord,
we just pray that you would keep them safe and Lord, that you'd
give them a good time of fellowship with their family. I pray for
brother Ed, who's not able to be here today. Lord, we just
ask that you'd be with him. We continue to lift him and his
family up during this time of grieving
over his son and his passed away. Lord, and for Beth and for Mike
Lord, we just ask that you be with them as they build their
new home. And Lord, we just thank you so much for all that you've
done. Father, thank you for these two
brothers that have been here with us and visiting, Lord. I
pray, Lord, that you keep them safe from their travels, to be
with them during this wedding that they're at, Lord. And we
pray that you would bless this wedding, this marriage that is
about to happen. Lord, that you'd be with them
on their way home, giving them safety. And we thank you for
their time here and the input they've given. And we just are
so grateful for all things. We know that all things are given
by you and that all gifts come down from the Father of lights.
And so Lord, we know it's you and you only. And so we ask this
all now in Christ's precious and holy name. Amen.