Well, as I always say, back in Galatians this morning, Galatians chapter 3, and I want to look at the second half of Galatians chapter 3 this morning, from verse 15 onwards. And I've called this message, Heirs According to the Promise. Those are the last words in verse 29 of this chapter, airs according to the promise.

Now all religion, all religion claims to chart the way to eternal life. All religion claims that if its followers do what it says, they will get to heaven. But here's the fact, only the truth of God's gospel reveals what God has done. not what you must do to attain it, to attain to heaven. God has done the work to get his people to glory. God has done it all from start to finish.

Religion says you must do this, do that, or you will or you will not get there. The truth of God, the gospel of God's grace says God has done this.

There were fraudsters, false teachers, false brethren, had come to the Galatian churches from Jerusalem. It says in chapter 2 of Galatians, verse 4, because of false brethren, unawares, brought in. That was to the situation in Antioch. But it was the same in Galatia. They'd come from Jerusalem claiming to be from the headquarters and claiming to have the better idea of the truth.

Yes, it was okay. that Christ had died for the sins of his people. Yes, it was OK that, but it left you needing to do more to make you better with God, to give you favor with God, to give you more acceptance with God, to give you a better crown with God in glory. You needed to keep the law of Moses, the Jews law of Moses that these people claim to be expert in, though none of them were anything like as expert as the Apostle Paul was, for he said he could say without any without any qualms about it at all, that he beat the lot of them.

As far as being a Pharisee and the best of the Jews was concerned, he beat the lot of them. None could come up to his standard. They'd come from Jerusalem trying to persuade these Gentile believers who'd heard the gospel preached and believed it and embraced it and had never been brought under Jewish law, Mosaic law, that they must keep that law, otherwise they wouldn't be acceptable to God. They were saying God hadn't done enough. You must keep this law for improvement with God.

And that is the so-called gospel today of much Orthodox Christianity. That's what much Orthodox Christianity will tell us, that Christ hasn't done enough, because there are all these other things that you have to do. And if you examine it against the Scripture, it is not true, because the Scripture is clear. Christ is all. Christ is all. And to add anything to what he has done is eternally damning to those who preach it, as he says in chapter 1, and to those who follow those who preach it.

To add anything is eternally damning, as I keep referring to chapter 5 and verse 2. Behold, I say unto you, I, Paul, say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, or you could add in, add anything else to the finished work of Christ that you must do to improve your standing with God, Christ shall profit you nothing. Christ shall profit you nothing.

When it comes to that day of reckoning, when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and Christ is the plea of all of his true people, those that have added things to the finished work of Christ, Christ shall profit them nothing. It will be said, depart from me, I never knew you. These are serious thoughts, these are serious ideas. Paul has shown that the inheritance of eternal life is in Christ and him alone. And that's exactly what Abraham believed. They said, we're good followers of Abraham. Abraham is our father. We're Jews. We've come from Jerusalem, from the HQ. We're true Jews. We're the children of Abraham. And this is what he had to do. He had to be circumcised. So you've got to be circumcised.

No, no. exactly as Abraham had believed, this is the inheritance of eternal life and it's in Christ and him alone. And it's for heathen Gentiles too. Look in verse 8 of chapter 3, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen, Gentiles, non-Jews, through faith. That's how he would justify them, through what they saw of what he as God would do. And that gospel was preached unto Abraham saying, in thee shall All nations be blessed. All nations should be blessed in him. When John looked in Revelation chapter 7 and verse 9, he saw a multitude that no man can number in heaven. And where did they come from? Answer, every tribe and tongue and kindred. It's just as God, God who cannot change, had promised from eternity.

So three points this morning, the promise of God, Number two, the purpose of the law, the law of Moses, and three, the liberty of faith.

So the promise of God, in verses 15 to 18, he says this, brethren, I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. So what he's saying there is that when people make covenants, make agreements between them, when they make last wills and testaments, when they make contracts between them, they're standing. They stand in law. They stand with force. If it be confirmed, no man can do away with it or add to it.

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. God made promises to Abraham and his seed. He saith not unto seeds as of many, but as of one. The seed of Abraham was the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman promised to Eve in the Garden of Eden, that the seed of the woman would come to undo that which the devil had done in the fall the seed of the woman and that seed would come from the descendants of Abraham down this line he said not to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ and this I say that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ there was a covenant confirmed before by God and that covenant was in Christ The law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul it. The law that was given to Moses at Mount Sinai cannot undo, cannot make of no effect, that covenant which God confirmed in Christ before the foundation of the world, that it should make the promise of none effect.

For if the inheritance, if the inheritance be of law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. You see, covenants stand. Once signed, they cannot be changed. The last will and testament, it's even more so with God. The promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. And that seed, as I've said, is the seed of the woman. The seed of the woman is Christ, God incarnate. God become man. And to all those who are eternally united with him. What was promised to the seed of Abraham, the Christ, it applies to everybody that was united with him from eternity.

For what God promised was, verse 18, The inheritance, the inheritance. What's the inheritance? It's eternal life. This is what we're talking about. We live in mortal bodies subject to all of the ravages of sinful, weak flesh. But this is eternal life in the bliss of God's heaven. It's God's paradise. He said to that dying thief on the cross next to him, today you shall be with me in paradise. What words of blessing! As we live in this life and we come across all of the experiences that we go through, to know that there is a paradise of God wherein there is no sin, where there is no death, where there are no tears.

Today you will be with me in paradise. Because you see, there's a kingdom prepared. I go away to prepare a place for you, he said. I must go away and prepare this place for you, he said. when it comes to that day of judgment and the people stand before him in judgment and to the ones whom he has saved he will say this come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world for the people blessed of the father let's look at some scriptures we read it right at the start Ephesians chapter one The people who are blessed of the Father.

Look in Ephesians 1 verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us, blessed his people. He's blessed his people with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. It's talking about heaven. It's the blessing of the destiny of the people of God, the people whom God has chosen. According, verse 4, as he hath chosen us, chosen his people, chosen his elect, in him, in Christ, when? Before the foundation of the world. Why? That we should be holy and without blame. Not that we should make ourselves holy. and make ourselves without blame, but that's what He has done. He has made His people holy. He has made His people the righteousness of God in Him, whom He sent as the substitute for sinners.

That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. There is a people, a multitude, chosen of God before the beginning of time, adopted as the children of God by Jesus Christ to himself, according to what? The good pleasure of his will. If God has decreed it, if it has pleased God to do these things, then they will be done. Paul said, when did you believe the gospel, Paul? When it pleased God to reveal his son in me. And it's why it's all to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted, accepted of God, accepted how? In the beloved. Who is the beloved? The beloved is the Christ. He's made us accepted, his people, accepted for eternity in him. And it's in him that we have redemption. How did he pay? Redemption means to pay. How did he pay? Through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

You look down at verse 13, in whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance. There's an inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory. God who started a work in his people, Paul tells us in Philippians 1 verse 6, he's confident that he who started that work, when it pleased God to reveal his Son in each and every one of them, He who started that work will complete it. He will complete it. He will not lose one. None shall be lost. All of them shall be there. The prayer of Jesus, that high priestly prayer, was that the people whom the Father had given to him before the foundation of the world should be with him where he is to behold his glory. This is good news of salvation. This is gospel. It's salvation from death to eternal life by the purchase of redeeming blood. This is the gospel.

It's, you know, we live in a world where around the vast majority want nothing to do with the gospel. They don't believe God. They don't believe his gospel. They want nothing to do with it. They think they can live perfectly upright and good lives without any prospect or any need to have anything to do with God.

But you know, this gospel is the gospel of God. Paul said in Romans chapter 1 verse 16, he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why, Paul, are you not ashamed of the gospel? For it is the power of God unto salvation. Who to? Everyone that believes. Everyone that believes. This is it. The gospel is this glorious blessing that if you believe it, this is where you are.

It's the covenant confirmed of God. Chapter 3 again, verse 17, the covenant confirmed of God, the eternal covenant of grace between the persons of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That covenant was made before time began in the great mystery that mankind knows nothing about, but that God has revealed to his people, this eternal covenant to save this people from their sins.

It's called in Hebrews chapter 13, in the blessing, in the benediction, at the end of Hebrews 13 in verse 20, now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. It's an everlasting covenant. There was never a time when this covenant was not in force. It's a permanent covenant. It's the permanent covenant of God's peace to his chosen multitude.

It's throughout scripture. So you can go back to Isaiah 54 and verse 10 and read words like this. For the mountains shall depart. You see, this creation is not as solid and enduring as you might think. For the word of God says the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed. But my kindness, God's saying this to his people, my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. It's a permanent covenant.

It's a covenant made by the persons of the Godhead. It's a covenant, you're normally a covenant in the dealings of man is between two parties, and there's a mediator between the two parties. But in this covenant, God is one. He is one, and it's the persons of the Trinity that covenanted. The Father chose a multitude in Christ because He loved them. He sovereignly loved them, according to His sovereign purpose of grace.

The Son undertook in that covenant, in that shaking of hands as it were, he undertook to come, to become man, to pay for the sins of those people that God had chosen, to justify them before God, to make them fit for his presence. And the Holy Spirit covenanted that in time each one of them born as the children of Adam and living in the sin of Adam, children of wrath even as others, dead in trespasses and sins, it says in Ephesians 2.

But at the right time, God the Holy Spirit comes to each one and gives new life. You must be born again. The wind blows where it listeth and you can't tell where it's coming from. or where it's going to, but so it is with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God comes and gives new life to each of his people. It's the covenant that is in the book of Jeremiah in chapter 31. It's quoted in The book of Hebrews in chapters 8 and 10, the new covenant, the covenant of grace. I will be your God and you will be my people. I will put my laws not on tablets of stone, but I will write them in your hearts. I will write the gospel of grace in your heart.

It's the covenant that the Psalmist sang of. Let's just read a few of those verses. We read it earlier, Psalm 89.

I will sing of the mercy... Think about when this was written. This is 3,000 years ago, 1,000 years before Christ came, and yet the people of God knew the truth of God. This was written in the age of Mosaic law, but the psalmist knew the covenant of grace. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I have said, mercy shall be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. Listen, I have made a covenant with my chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant. Who's he talking about? Not talking about King David. King David was just a picture, just a type. He's talking about Christ. He's talking about the son of God, the chosen.

He speaks of him in Isaiah 42 and verse one. Behold mine elect, my chosen one. This is the father speaking of the son whom he would send. David is Christ. David is Christ. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David is Christ as he's pictured here thy seed will I establish forever and build up thy throne to all generations That's the covenant of grace. That's the covenant God made in his son Concerning the people that he loved from before the beginning of time

in John's gospel chapter 17 We refer to it often because it's this high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ, who prays this. He says to the Father, as thou hast given him, the Son, power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal. Do you want eternal life? Do you want eternal life? or just this fleeting time on this earth, just as a flower that blooms and then fades and is gone. No, we're talking about eternal life, that they might know thee. This is life, truly, to know God, the only true God.

And how do you know the only true God? There's only one way you could know the true God, and that's through Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent, he says to the Father, the Son of God says to God the Father, One God, only one God, but manifest, can I say manifest? But in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And here's the Son praying to the Father, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which you gave me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

And then in verse 22, I in them, Jesus is saying this, he, as God, in his people, in them, the people the Father gave him, I in them and thou in me, that they, his people, may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. You see that? The love of the Father to his people is as the love of the Father to the Son of God. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me. See, there's a people given by the Father to the Son in the covenant of grace before the beginning of time. I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

It's the covenant of promise to Abraham, and that covenant applies to all who believe what Abraham believed. The promise of accomplished salvation, the promise of life in God's eternal kingdom, and that promise is in Abraham's seed, which is Christ.

Believer, if you believe God, this is the testimony of scripture. God chose you before time, and he chose you not for any good he saw in you, but by grace alone, sovereign grace. God redeemed you from sin's curse with his own blood as a man. It says that, doesn't it, in Acts chapter 20, is it verse 28? Look after the church, Paul says to the elders there. Look after the church which God has purchased with his own blood.

How could God, who is spirit, purchase a church, a people, with his own blood? By becoming man. By taking on him the flesh of the children. He partook of the same, it says in Hebrews 2. He took on the flesh of his people that he might answer the demands of divine justice concerning the sin of those people.

God has redeemed you from sin's curse with his own blood as a man. And if so, your sins are gone. Do you know, we used to sing some very trivial choruses in our Arminian days years ago, and one of them was, gone, gone, gone, gone, yes, my sins are gone. Now my son, you know, and you think it flippantly, and you think, oh, they didn't know the doctrine that was behind it. But the fact is, the scripture says, gone, gone, gone, gone, the people of God, your sins are gone.

God gave to his people a heart of repentance, to repent of sin. He gave the gift of faith, for it's by grace that you're saved through faith, through the medium of faith, and that faith is not of yourselves, that is the gift of God. He gave faith, he gave new life, you must be born again. He gave new life, and God will bring all of his people safe into eternal bliss, relying on nothing from those people.

These guys who'd come from Jerusalem HQ, and plenty who are in orthodox religion today, insist that we must keep the Mosaic law. Didn't God give that law? Didn't God give that law? Yeah, yeah. There's an awful lot about the law of Moses in the Old Testament, isn't there? From the time it was given, there are chapter after chapter through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and then the implementation of it, and the building of the temple, and the enactment of the priesthood, and the right way to do it, and the wrong way to do it, and the striking dead of Uzzah because he reached out to hold the Ark of the Covenant.

All of those things, there's an awful lot about the law of Moses. Didn't God give that law? Yes, God gave that law on Mount Sinai. Don't these people from Jerusalem have a valid point? Doesn't religion around us today that tells us that faith in Christ is not enough, you have to go on and keep the law of Moses. Don't they have a valid point?

I remember many years ago talking to a man who was held in high esteem by many in the orthodox Christian Calvinistic world. And he said to me, I was only a young man at the time and I didn't have the wherewithal at the time to answer him. But he said, we keep the law, don't we? I should have said to him, do you? Do you? Do you think you keep the law? Do you honestly think you keep the law? It says later on in Galatians, it says... You who want to be under the law, you who want to say that everybody's under, he said, haven't you heard what it says? Haven't you heard the law? You know, it's a strict, it's a strict, it's a harsh regime. Haven't you heard the law?

Well, then what was the purpose of law? Because that's addressed in these verses. Verse 19. Wherefore then serveth the law? What's it for? What's it for? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one but God. is one. It was added. It was given by God later in time, after he'd given the promise to Abraham. He'd revealed the promise down the ages to Abraham, when there was no Mosaic law.

Think about it. All the patriarchs before Moses, they lived without law. There were no Ten Commandments given then. There was no law written in the books of Exodus and Leviticus and so on and so forth. It wasn't given then. Noah and Abraham and the judges, they lived without that, not the judges, no, no, no, let me get my history right, but they lived without that law. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they lived without that law. Joseph lived without that law.

The law of God though, is more than that which was given to Moses. It's captured in what was given to Moses, but it's more than that. Because you see, there is a moral right versus wrong. There's a truth of God versus lies that are not of God. There's a fundamental good versus evil. I don't know how you explain any of those things. if your idea of how we came about is evolution. I just don't know how you could explain where they came from. These are from God, and they're written in all humanity.

If you were to look at Romans chapter 2 and verse 15, it says this, They show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness. He's talking about mankind In general, that law is written in the hearts of man. All people, all people, believers and unbelievers, it's written there. There's a fundamental sense of right and wrong. And I know in many, it is a sense which is numbed and dumbed to the point where they seem to have no conscience and no feeling whatsoever. But it's there, written in the heart of man by God, before the law was ever given at Sinai.

The law that condemned the world of Noah's day to just destruction was that very law of God written in the heart of man. Because God said of man, looking down from heaven, every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil continually. And that's why God sent the flood that took them all away. What was the law that found them guilty? What was the law that judged them as worthy of condemnation? What was the law which sent the flood to take them all out of the way? It was that law that was written in their hearts.

That law found Abram, even Abram, and I'm saying Abram rather than Abraham, his name before it was changed to Abraham. It found him guilty of lying concerning Sarah, saying she was his sister and not his wife. It found him guilty of unbelief because that's why he lied, he didn't trust God. It found him guilty of unbelief in going to try and find assistance from the arm of flesh rather than trusting in God, even Abram. Even Abraham. That law of right and wrong, written in the heart, found Abraham guilty of those things. But that law didn't negate the promise of God. What was the promise of God? It was the eternal covenant of grace, revealed to Abraham and his seed.

So what about the law of Moses? It was revealed by God through angels, it says. It was in the hand of Moses, the mediator. It talks about 430 years later. Is the word of God wrong where it says 430 years later? There we go, in verse 17. The law which was 430 years after cannot disannul because the fact is that when God gave the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, 13, 14, 15, down to when the exodus happened, when they came out of Egypt and went to Mount Sinai and the law was given. That was more like 600, 650 years, something like that. So is the word of God wrong? No, I think it's talking about from when Jacob went down into Egypt, when Joseph called him, Joseph as one of the, you know, the top man in Egypt. called him down into Egypt, and then it was 400 years. It was a promise that was made to Abraham when he revealed the gospel to him. In Genesis 15 he said, your descendants are going to be oppressed for 400 years by those who are not of their own nation. And he's talking about that time in Egypt, 400 years. Actually, the exodus and the giving of the law was more like 600 years later. But it's not contradicting the word of God.

The Mosaic law, the Mosaic law that was given on Mount Sinai in the commandments concerns moral laws, it concerns civil laws for the people, for the Israelites, it concerns ceremonial laws concerning the way that they should approach God, and it all defined sin clearly. But not only that, it defined the remedy for its curse, the curse of sin. And the remedy was in blood sacrifices, and that's why so much of the law is about Leviticus. You read it, it's quite gory. You read it then, you see the blood sacrifices, because it's talking about how is sin paid for. And the priestly intercession, picturing the priestly intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It was a law that was strictly just. the law given at Sinai. It was terrifying. It was impossible for flesh to keep. The people said, please, please, don't let us hear the voice of God. We're terrified. We cannot do it. Moses, put a veil on your face. We daren't look upon you. You've been with God and the sight is too terrifying. Because our God is a consuming fire. It is a fearful thing for a sinner to fall into the hands of the living God.

That law, as Peter said, the Apostle Peter said at the Council of Jerusalem to the other apostles and elders that were there discussing the issue of whether the Gentiles should be required to keep the law of Moses. Peter said, let's be honest, none of us could keep it. Our fathers couldn't keep it. It's a burden. Why should we put this as a burden on these Gentile believers? We couldn't believe it. It's a condemning law. But it was only for a limited time. Verse 19, it was for a limited time till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. Till the seed should come to fulfill the terms of the eternal covenant. Till the seed should come, which is Christ, who would say, as we read earlier in John 17 verse 4, he could say to his father, I have finished the work that you gave me to do. He had fulfilled his part of the covenant of grace. The law was given by Moses, says John 1, 17. The law of God was given by Moses, that law of condemnation, that law showing sin for what it really is, that law which convicted Paul who thought he was perfect until he read that commandment saying, thou shalt not covet, and he knew that he was a covetous person. That law was given by Moses.

But what we need for eternal life is grace and truth. And grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The law covenant was mediated from God to sinners by Moses. But the eternal covenant of God was mediated within the persons of the Trinity. the three persons of the one Godhead. And it was mediated to God's people by Christ, for there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

So did the law contradict God's covenant promises? Verse 21 is what it's saying. Did the law contradict God's promises? No. it proved that the righteousness of life cannot be attained by law works. And it says that in verse 16 of chapter 2, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. In verse 22, of chapter three, the scripture has concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

The law finds all guilty without plea. It does. It's what it says in Romans chapter three, verse 19. We know that what things soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law, all of us, that every mouth might be stopped. You know, what's your plea? How do you plea? Can't say a word. I'm guilty. All the world may become guilty before God. It finds every single one of us guilty.

Before we believed God's promises, verse 23, before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up under the faith which should afterwards be revealed. We were in bondage to the law's demands. We were like children. We were like heirs of a vast inheritance, a vast estate, rich beyond measure. But while we're children, treated as slaves under a schoolmaster.

Verse 24, wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster. And I'm not going to say to bring us, because I don't think it's in the original and it doesn't help. You'll see a little article in the bulletin. The law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The schoolmaster in the Greek was the paidagogos, the strict disciplinarian, whose harsh regime drove us willingly to Christ for receipt of the promises made to Abraham and to his seed. Drove us to that situation where we find liberty in Christ and him alone.

Christ has freed his people from legal bondage. And so, briefly, because we don't have much time left, the liberty of faith in verses 25 And 26, we read, but after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as you have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Believing in the faithful accomplishments of Jesus Christ, Resting in the peace that he has secured for his people, we're no longer under the paedagogos, the strict disciplinarian schoolmaster. We're no longer children treated as slaves by a harsh disciplinarian, but as children possessing the sure promise of eternal inheritance.

You might have heard me say this before, and it's similar to a story that Don Faulkner tells, but when I went to secondary school in the 1960s. Discipline was strict. Discipline was very, very strict. And corporal punishment was the order of the day. And the headmaster then was a man called Mr. Willett. And he was a very, very good cricketer. He captained Derbyshire, and I think he'd even played for England. And so he had a very strong arm. He was a fantastic batsman. He could hit a six clean out of the ground. And if he could do that, you can imagine what he could do with a cane. And I managed to avoid it throughout my school career, but there were several of my friends who didn't avoid it. And the story they told was, it was the most awful experience you could ever imagine. And all the time I was at that school, and Mr. Willett was the headmaster, I'll be honest with you, I and all my mates were terrified of him. We really were. We were frightened of him. You don't step out of line, because if he did to you what he'd known he'd done to others, that was terrible.

Then, 25 years after I left that school, there was a reunion of me and my old classmates. And he, that headmaster, then long since retired, came to that reunion. And there we were, all together, having a meal together, and I wasn't frightened of him at all. Not in the slightest. Do you know why? Because he wasn't my schoolmaster anymore. I was no longer under. The idea that he should threaten to cane me then, I was out of that.

When we've come to faith, you are no longer under the schoolmaster, which is the law. free from that relationship. Who is Paul talking about? He's talking about verse 27, as many of you as have been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ, who's neither in that situation Jew, nor Greek, nor bond, nor free, etc. Those who are Christ's people, given by the Father to the Son, given by the Father to the Son. As it says in John 6, 37, all that the Father gives me shall come to me. As it says in John 17, verse 2, He has given the Son power to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him. Before time began, that gift was given. It's talking about those people, all those people, as many of you, as have been baptized into Christ and have put on Christ in time, baptized into him, buried with him in his death, rising with him in his resurrection, wearing him, putting on Christ Jesus, united with him as evidenced by God's gift of faith.

In verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. there is neither bond nor free, there is neither servant nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. We stand as the people of God, that great diversity of things, all one in Christ Jesus, with no human distinctions.

Because verse 7 of the same chapter, what did it say in verse 7? Know ye therefore that they which are of faith are the children, the same are the children of Abraham, irrespective of Jew or Greek or bond or free or male or female. And with Abraham and with all the household of faith, it says that in chapter six and verse 10, chapter six and verse 10, as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. This is what it's talking about. the household of faith, those who are heirs, heirs.

Look at it in verse 29. If ye be Christ's, then ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Heirs, not depending on, not subject to law works that you might do, but heirs, inheritors of eternal life according to the promise. What guarantees? your state in eternity, of eternal life, of eternal bliss, it's the promise of God from before the beginning of time. Those people who will hear those blessed words on that day, come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. That is what Hebrews calls the full assurance of faith, resting in Christ's finished work, which has secured your eternal place in heaven.

We all get disturbed at night at times in our sleep, disturbed thinking about how things are. Well, child of God, meditate on the blessing of your secure inheritance and sleep peacefully. As it says in Psalm 4 verse 8, I will lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety.