Before I start, there are two
books that have some articles in them which are just profoundly
helpful when it comes to the issue that we're looking at today,
which is effectively, as the modern theologians would call
it, the idea of progressive sanctification. Just to show you how impressive
some of these books are, that's the size of the book that I took
this diagram out of. You can get them very cheaply
in India and I needed them over there for all sorts of things
I was working with. There it is, I don't know how
clearly you can see it, but here you are. You start down here
as a sinner and you're a slave to sin and you just bounce along
flat and then you converse and you pop up into a little zone
called growing in holiness. I'm not sure if you say it properly,
growing in holiness. And then when you get very close
to being like a right foot, God fucks you and takes you. I think the thing is that we
can, I can mock it when I think it needs to be mocked, but the
reality is that all of us a whole bunch of our lives. The reason
that's so popular is because it is so much in accord with
our flesh. And so when it comes to so many
issues that are just so simply dealt with in the scriptures,
man has to play all sorts of games with the Word of God to
actually sustain that. You can't sustain that from this
book. You cannot sustain it from this
book at all. And the verses we have before
us come after a serious warning in Galatians 15, but these three
verses that we're looking at today And hopefully, Lord willing,
again the following week, these three verses put a lie to that
graph completely. And they put a lie to it in verse
15 of Galatians 5. They put a lie to it in light
of a warning. But if you bite and devour one
another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another."
He's talking about people in churches. He's talking about
people gathering together with open Bibles in this town today. And that word consumed is the
word to destroy. Isn't it remarkable? There are
people in churches today all over this world, and there have
been throughout time, who are destroying each other, consuming
one another. It's really interesting how the
Lord works circumstances in our lives. One of the people that
we've had long discussions with regarding the Gospel some time
ago, and said he couldn't join us because we don't preach law.
I met him yesterday and he was going to a Christian meeting
where all the politically aspiring Christians of town were all gathering
together to congratulate themselves on how well they did in the election
of a few weeks ago and how they are standing as one. And they're
the ones that are at the forefront of standing for Christ in this
world and in this community. They're the ones that are at
the battleground to try and stop our nation descending into immorality. And there was this fellow who
was an elder in a church. And he said to me, I said, how
do you feel about the law? And he said, if you don't give
me law, if you don't give people law, they'll have no guidelines
for Christian life. They will just live licentiously. We have to put people under the
law. We have to put them. We have
to give people law. We have to have laws to rule,
to live by. And as he was talking about being
obedient to God, one of his friends walked by and heard the word
obedience and championed it and said, we've all got to be obedient
to God. Would to God that it were so,
but to be obedient to God is to be obedient to what he says
in this Word, is to be obedient to what he says about himself. There are people, there are people
biting and devouring one another, consumed of one another. And they are doing it, patting
each other on the back and encouraging each other into Christian moral
living under law. One of the mistakes that's made
so often in Galatians is that people seem to think that Galatians
is talking about God's eternal work of justification. But Galatians
is absolutely full of our walking in this world. It's full of descriptions of
Paul talking about the walking. When Peter turned from the Gospel
in that situation in Antioch, he wasn't walking upright according
to the truth of the Gospel. Paul talks about himself, doesn't
he? He says, the life which I now
live in the flesh in chapter 2. He challenges the Galatians,
having begun in the Spirit, now are you made perfect by the flesh.
He's talking about your activities right here and now, today. In this same chapter, in chapter
5, he says, we through the Spirit Wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. He's talking about your daily
Christian experience all the way through Galatians. Let's
not try and divide up the word of God and therefore make it
say what it doesn't say. To my friend yesterday, these
scriptures are just full of the most extraordinary warnings.
This book says that he is in a cursed situation. Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all things which are written in the book of the law to have
done them. If you go to the law, if you
go to your works for one thing, you are obligated to do all of
them to God's satisfaction. He will not accept anything that's
perfect. And the reality is that just
as this man wants to play games in his great big thick book about
what happened to the Lord Jesus on the cross, the reality of
the situation is that the seriousness of it is a seriousness that's
only seen in light of the cross. in light of what God the Father
did to God the Son on the cross. And these people, by their law
keeping, are saying to God, that his son's work is not perfect
and not complete and not sufficient and also they are saying that
his son's work is not an ongoing work in the lives of God's people. You don't honour God by going
back and trying to keep the law. You blaspheme his son. And that's what the Book of God
is saying. And that's what Galatians and
Romans and Colossians and Philippians and all of the New Testament
is saying. It is what the Gospels themselves
are saying. All of the controversies between
the Lord Jesus and the Pharisees and the other religious leaders
in the Gospel accounts are just graphic pictures of the Lord
Jesus dealing with the self-righteous Pharisees that gathered just
down the road here yesterday afternoon and are now preaching
and speaking in churches. It is such a serious, serious
thing. It's such a serious thing on
so many levels, isn't it? It's such a serious thing because
it's happening all around us. It's such a serious thing because
an Apostle Peter can fall into this error so easily. And it
is. It is a wonderful, wonderful
thing. We will magnify God. God will be magnified. He will
be magnified among His people and His salvation will be magnified
because we realise again and again that without Him we can
do nothing. But we praise Him for what he
is doing in his work. And I love to quote those verses
that they will all be taught of God. That's my prayer, that
God would teach me and that God would be your teacher. That God
would be your teacher. He's promised to do it. Let me
read some verses. Isaiah 48, 17. Thus saith the
Lord thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord thy
God, which teacheth thee to profit, leadeth thee by the way that
thou shouldst go. Isaiah 54, 13. Thy children shall
be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. What a glorious promise. See
the whole business of sanctification is a much, much bigger thing. Like the whole business of salvation.
Salvation is made to be a light and fluffy thing if all you have
to do is walk down the aisle or sign a piece of paper. put
your name on some decision card, come and pray some prayer. Salvation
is a huge, huge activity. It requires as much of God's
power and wisdom as the creation of the universe. And sanctification,
this whole business that we're looking at today, the sanctification
is a divine act of God, because we cannot do it ourselves. And it's a divine act of God.
Thou hast perfected forever them that are sanctified." Read Hebrews
10, you'll be amazed at the promises of God fulfilled in the Lord
Jesus. Jude 1 says that we are sanctified by the Father. Hebrews
10.10, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus
Christ once for all. 2 Thessalonians 2.13, we are
chosen, chosen of God to salvation through sanctification of the
Spirit. So the work of sanctification, the work that this man can draw
simply on a little graph where you do your crop operation, sanctification
is a work of the Triune God and He will be honoured and He will
be glorified. He says he's perfected forever.
How do you improve upon perfection? How do you improve upon it? Craig
Marks a whole lot of exam papers. I bet you haven't given someone
110% yet, Craig, have you? Do you? No, you don't, do you? Once God has established perfection
and it's in His Son, it's perfection forever. You are washed, says
1 Corinthians 6.11, you are washed, you are sanctified and justified
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're all finished
works. If you're washed, you're washed
completely and perfectly. If you're justified, you are
justified once, and forever. Therefore, if God's children
are sanctified, they are sanctified by God the Father forever. So let's turn to our text. Let's
just read, having seen some of those things, let's just read
these verses. And if the Lord would come and
be our teacher as he's promised and I'm sure you'll go away from
here having the peaceable fruit of his righteousness if he works
it in your heart. This say I then, Galatians 5.16,
walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. And then verse 17 is necessarily
linked to it by that lovely little word for, because the flesh lusteth
against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these
are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things
that you would. And just to make it crystal clear
yet again, as Paul has done dozens of times in this book thus far,
if you think that being walking in the Spirit is going back to
the Law. As my friend said to me just
down here in the car park yesterday, he said that if you are led of
the Spirit, just read it, verse 18, if you be led of the Spirit,
if God the Spirit is leading and working in your lives, what
does it say? What does it say? You are not
under the Law. It seems as if these are lessons
that you could teach to children in kindergarten, and yet someone
can write a great big thick theology book that denies it. Such is the deceitfulness of
the hearts of men, and such is the wonder of saving grace
because that's where you would be, that's where we have all
been and we would be there in a millisecond if the Lord didn't
intervene. So here we have this remarkable
contrast, haven't we? We have this remarkable contrast
between those who bite and devour and ultimately destroy one another
and those who walk in the Spirit. They bite and devour. There are those who shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh and there are those who do fulfill
the lust of the flesh. So my prayer to God this morning
is that when we leave here we might, by His grace, have a better
understanding of what it is to walk in the Spirit. It is a glorious,
glorious thought, isn't it? Just as Paul says, speaks of
living unto God, drawing nigh to Christ and walking with Him. So what's it mean, walking in
the flesh? Walking in the Spirit, sorry,
and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. The verses together make it so
clear, isn't it, that the normal understanding is that if you
believe, that if you yield yourself to the Spirit of God you will
live a better life and a more holy life, that if you actually
work hard you won't give in to the lust of the flesh. The idea
that people are progressing in their sanctification is something
that's undone by a very, very simple question, isn't it? Anyone who thinks they're progressing
in holiness, how are you doing? How are you going? Are you prepared to come up here
and just give us a little short rendition of your spiritual successes
of late? So often those who believe that
they are progressing and becoming less sinful and becoming more
holy, when they are confronted with the reality and put on the
spot, all of a sudden their progressive sanctification just fades away
in a flash and rather than being progressively sanctified into
more holiness and peacefulness, they become offended and irate. And God's people find that the
words of God about what our flesh is, that all of our righteousness
are filthy rags. We find it just true and comforting
because we have another righteousness altogether. The Lord said to
his disciples, he said, you therefore being evil. What a remarkable
thing to say to his chosen closest friends on this earth. The progressive sanctifiers are
undone by the reality of what is going on around them. But
such is the level of deception, such is the level of the wickedness
of the human heart. They can think that what they
are doing is righteousness when in fact it is the very, very
opposite of it. This then I say, walk in the
Spirit. And you shall not fulfil the
lusts of the flesh. In fact that word you shall not
can be easily translated you will not, never. It's a strong,
it's a double negative, it's emphasis, it's doubled to provide
emphasis. You shall not fulfil the lusts
of the flesh. So what does it mean to fulfil
the lusts of the flesh? The word fulfilled is the word
that means to complete, to complete the lust of the priest, to bring
it to a conclusion. You shall not fulfil the lusts
of the flesh. The word fulfilled means it is finished, it is completed,
it is to have something brought to its end. It's the performance
of the last act which completes the process. Isn't it remarkable? It says you shall not fulfil
the lusts of the flesh. What is the fulfilment of the
lusts of the flesh? Turn with me to James chapter
1. James has a great description
of this. In verse 13 of James chapter
1 he says, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of
God. For God cannot be tempted, neither
tempteth he any man. Don't blame God ever. Don't blame God ever. But every
man, verse 14 of James, every man is tempted when he is drawn
away by his own lust and enticed. Then, when lust has conceived,
it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, sin, the
same word, sin when it has fulfilled its activities. When the lusts
of the flesh have been fulfilled, it bringeth forth death. So Galatians in the midst of
that warning gives us a remarkable promise, isn't it? You shall
not, if you walk into Spirit, if the Spirit of God indwells
you, you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, according
to James. You will. You will not. bring them to an end, all their
conclusions. There will not be spiritual death
for those who are in Christ Jesus, for those who have the Spirit
indwelling them. And verse 17 is such an important
verse, we mention it often, we talk about what lies behind it
so often, and it's such an important verse. You'll not bring them
to an end, and the four says, for the flesh lustrous against
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary
one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you
would." You cannot do the things that you would. And so verse
17, clearly, clearly undoes the normal sense of progressive sanctification,
that somehow you can, by walking in the Spirit, grow more and
more holy. For those who walk in the Spirit,
they are aware of this warfare going on. They are contrary one
to another. The struggle goes on. They are
adversaries and there is no truce between them. No sooner do you
go down on your knees to pray than you find wicked thoughts
arising in your head. The number of times my flesh
wants to stop me even thinking about coming to church, the number
of times my flesh assaults me and says it's not worth it, it's
not worth it, let's find some excuse to call it off today or
tonight. It's just remarkable. It's remarkable. There is just a battle, and the
battle is much deeper than those things. The struggle goes on. And for a believer, what does
a believer want? What is in the heart of a believer,
of a child of God, saved by grace? There is a desire in the hearts
of God's people to walk closely with Him. to be in His presence,
to be in His company, to never sin again, to live in faith, to simply trust
Him in all situations. It would be the desire of all
of God's children to love Him with all of our hearts and souls
and minds, and to love His people and to love our neighbours. It is the desire, it is the desire
of God's children to be living pleasing to Him. He has, He is so remarkable. But this verse says that even
though those things are there, isn't it? We would love to know
His Word better. We would love to have it just
on the tip of our tongues all the time and to live by the glories
of it. But what does the verse say?
You cannot, you cannot, you cannot because there is this daily warfare
going on. On the other hand, your flesh and mine would sin
in such a way But so horrifying would the sin be that if you
knew the thoughts of it, you would run from this room as fast
as possible to get away from the monster that's all around. But what does the verse say?
It says, but you cannot, you cannot, The spirit will not allow,
the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh
and you cannot. This is that wonderfully comforting
doctrine, that wonderfully comforting truth of the two natures of believers. We have two natures, brothers
and sisters in Christ. The unbelieving world just has
one nature. They have one nature. It's only
believers, it's only the children of God that walk in the Spirit,
have two natures. They're the only ones that know
about the war. They really are the only ones that know what
this verse means. See, it's Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Your flesh wants to be seen as
righteous. It wants to be seen as holy. It wants to be seen as law-abiding
and law-enforcing. But the unbeliever The unbeliever,
those who do not walk in the Spirit, they have no idea. They have no idea really of what
sin is. They have no idea of what holiness
is. They have no idea of who God
is. They have no ability to comprehend
in any meaningful way what happened at the cross. They're just foreign to the children
of this world. Every believer knows of the struggle. Every believer knows that what's
born of flesh is flesh and what's born of spirit is spirit. This
is one of those days where you wish you had the time that our
ancestors had to read lots of scripture. I'd just like you
to turn in Romans 7. You know what, of course, these
modern theologians have done almost in all the Bible colleges
that I know of in this land. They have turned to Romans 7
and to justify that little chart that you saw there, to justify
the little chart, they have to say that Romans 7 is talking
about Paul prior to his conversion. absolute rubbish. There's not
a single word in this chapter, there's not a single word in
the scriptures that would allow you to think that. In fact, by
Paul's own admission, he was doing so remarkably well, wasn't
he? He was living under the law,
taught by the greatest of Israel's teachers. He was the star pupil
in their Bible colleges. He was their star missionary. He was their zealous one. And
according to the law, Blameless. Blameless. Let's read what he
really did say about himself. Romans 7. We might start We might start, for want of time,
in verse 14, but I press upon you the significance of these
chapters, and make sure, if you do get a chance when you go home,
read all of it and ponder it deeply. For we know that the
law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which
I would do, I allow not. for what I would do, that I do
not, but what I hate, that I do. Then if I do that which I would
not, then I consent under the law that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me,
that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." How dare an
apostle be so honest about himself. Now, if I do that which I would
not, it is no more either do it, but sin that dwelleth in
me. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present
with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man. But I see another law of my members
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that
I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God,
but with the flesh the law of sin. You've got to keep remembering
when you read the scriptures, the chapter divisions are put
in there by man, sometime in often the 13th and 14th and 15th
centuries, just keep reading. There is therefore now. Love that word now. Now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh. but they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the law, of God neither indeed can be, so that they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. But you, you believers, are not
in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. If any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. We have in these verses and in
Galatians and in other places in the scriptures just a clear
description of what it is to be a child of Adam in this world. The Spirit works in the hearts
of God's people. brings life and peace. The Spirit
brings us to find in those verses at the beginning of Romans 8
a glorious depiction of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
are set free, isn't it? The law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus, that may be free from the law of sin and
death. That's the Ten Commandments, the moral law of God. For what
the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,
God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us." Isn't it remarkable? All of God's children have perfectly
fulfilled the law. I can look to all the law of
God with perfect peace and perfect satisfaction. It's remarkable,
isn't it? See, God's children don't try
and keep the law, brothers and sisters. God's children have
kept it. The Lord Jesus kept it for me. I kept it perfectly in Him. We do not honour God by going
back to the law. All that happens to law keepers
according to the promise of God is that they bite and devour
each other. They boast about the flesh of
others and they climb up their ladder of righteousness over
the carcasses of those that they trash by not bringing them the
Gospel. by boasting about their works,
by putting people under a burden of law-keeping and under a burden
of performance. And then you take them to passages
like one of my favourites is in 1 John 3. This is a serious challenge.
I remember speaking through these verses with people who believed
in progressive sanctification, even people who I thought had
serious grace of God and they found these verses almost impossible. But he's speaking from verse
29, he's speaking about those who are born of God. You know that He is righteous,
you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.
What a remarkable statement. Doeth righteousness. do the righteousness
that God is pleased with. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons
of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not."
The world won't know you, brothers and sisters. It won't know that
you are a child of God. It won't see, it will not see
in believers the children of God. It will not know us. because
it knew Him not. Beloved, now we are the sons
of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know
that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall
see Him as He is." What a remarkable statement. You, my brothers and
sisters in Christ, will be like the Lord Jesus Christ. We looked
on Thursday night at that amazing verse in Ephesians 2, draw nigh
to Him. If you are walking and you are
like Him, and I am like Him, then we are going to get along
very, very well indeed for a long, long time, brothers and sisters. will be like Him, for we shall
see Him as He is. And every man that has this hope
in himself purifies himself." Don't they love the progressive
sanctifiers? Don't they love that? They purify
themselves even as He is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And
you know that He was manifested to take away our sins. That's why the Lord Jesus was
manifested. He was manifested to undo the works of the devil. He was manifested to take away
our sins. And that word take away is a
glorious word. It means to lift up in order
to carry away. What a glorious picture of our
Lord Jesus' work on the cross. He was manifested to take away
our sins, and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth
not. Whosoever sinneth has not seen
him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that does righteousness is
righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of
the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works
of the devil." Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin. That's a challenging verse for
you, isn't it? Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him. Next word,
next phrase is remarkable, isn't it? Just read it. And he cannot
see. Is that what it says? That's
what God says, isn't it? Whosoever is born of God does
not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot
sin because he is born of God. In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother. What remarkable statements about
the war of God's children in this world. People want to change it, don't
they? They want to say, well it's not really not commit sin and
he cannot sin, that he will not, they change it in the commentaries
to he will not practice sin continually. That's not what it says, Brothers
and Sisters, that's not what it says. His sin is not In Him
you don't sin. In Him, the new man, see it's
Christ in you, is the hope of glory. It's Christ in you that's
walking in the Spirit. If born of God, we are, as Peter
says, the children of God are partakers of the divine nature. When you, like me, children of
God, you look inside yourself, all you see is sin. All you see is sin. But the new
nature has never sinned, is not sinning now, and never will sin. He cannot sin. He lacks the ability to sin. So walking in the Spirit, to
go back to our passage in Galatians, walking in the Spirit is walking
in light of what God says about us. Walking in the Spirit is not saying, As we have heard
so many say, that I've only got one sin left, or I just had the
occasional slip-ups, or I have times in my life where I have
no sin, or I am growing more holy, I am progressing. That's not walking in the Spirit,
it's not being honest. These people that claim they
have these amazing victories over sin and boast of them before
other people are boasting about the activities of their flesh. You see, if you see every action
of your body as dead, which is what The scriptures are saying
again and again, every action of your body is dead. How does
Paul describe it? He says, I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless I live, not I. What
lives in Paul? What's the holy thing that's
in Paul? Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. So through the law, verse 19,
through the law I am dead to the law. God's children are dead
to the law. Can you look at everything about
yourself, everything that you have done and see it as completely
dead, crucified, buried, put away? Has the Spirit of God caused
you to see that that is what repentance from dead works is?
All of your works are dead. God's children walk after the
Spirit and not after the flesh. I quote those verses in Philippians
3 because I love them so much. Paul says that we are the circumcision,
Philippians 3. We are the circumcision. We the believers, we the brethren
of verse 1, we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. No confidence in any fleshly
activities at all. That's what walking in the Spirit
is, isn't it? We worship Christ Jesus. We are
the circumcision. We are the true circumcision.
That circumcision not done with the hands of men, that circumcision
of the heart, that implanting of a heart of flesh where there
was a heart of stone. A heart of stone comes to God's
Word and God's Word bounces off it. like oiled udders and water
off a slab of polished marble. The more they polish themselves
in their religious righteousness, the more easily it flows off.
But God's children have a heart of flesh. When they read what
God says in His Word, they are, by His Spirit's work in their
lives, they are moved to believe it. And what we believe is the
cause of our rejoicing. We don't want to commit the greatest
sin of all. The greatest sin of all is the
sin of unbelief. It's not your murders and your
adulteries and your thefts and all the other wickedness. It's
the great sin, the mother of all sins, is the sin of unbelief. And only God's children can be
brought to walk in that. Walk in the Spirit and you shall
not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Walk in the Spirit is looking
to the Lord Jesus and nowhere else ever. That's the whole purpose of God's
law, isn't it? Not to show you that you can
do it, but to turn you away from your flesh and your activities.
And the people of God again and again, they boasted, didn't they?
They boasted at Mount Sinai, God, you just tell us what to
do and we'll do it. Piece of cake. Easy. Remarkable, isn't
it? He just destroyed Egypt and its
gods and its pharaoh and its armies. He's just part of the
Red Sea. And then you can just turn around
and say, well, I'll do it. Piece of cake. They said exactly
the same thing 80 years later to Joshua. You just tell us what
to do. You just tell us what God says.
We'll do it. Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. May God protect us from that
sort of nonsense. It's looking, all of it is designed
for us to look away from ourselves, isn't it? To look away from ourselves,
to look away from our works, to look away from our ability
and to just look to God. You cannot meet the law of God
and survive without being hidden in a rock. You must be hidden
in a rock. Elijah, as bold and as brave
as he was, stood there on Mount Carmel and he defied Ahab and
Jezebel and all of those prophets, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
of them. And then he got frightened about Jezebel and he ran down
to Sinai. He ran down and God says to him,
what are you doing down here, Elijah? What are you doing down
here? But Elijah survived down there
because he was hidden in a cave. in Iraq. Elijah was told, you
get away from here. God told him, you get away from
here Elijah. If you're going to heaven, you're
going back across the Jordan and I'll take you to heaven. And here we have, two and a half
thousand years later, a whole religious world that is putting
people back to Mount Sinai again and again. Let's go to verse
18. If you are led of the Spirit,
if the Spirit of God is at work in your life, if the Spirit of
God is leading you, if the Spirit of God has come and you are walking
with Him, you are walking in Him, if you're walking in Him,
you are not under the law. And to be under the law, as we've
seen again and again through our Galatians, is to have something
of salvation. Something of salvation at the
beginning, at the middle, at the end. Something of salvation
dependent upon you in any way. It can be something that you
do to get yourself saved by your activities. It can be getting
some extra rewards in heaven, having some sort of crown that's
a bit more polished and a bit more sparkly in heaven that you
can show off to other people. They believe it, brothers and
sisters. They tell other people about it. And they boast of it
because they believe that their works of righteousness are going
to earn them something to boast about when they get there. It
can be at the beginning, it can be at the end, and it can be
in the middle, to make yourself more holy. And that's how they
misinterpret these verses, don't they? That if you yield yourself
to Spirit and get yourself busy, you'll make yourself more holy.
If you open yourself to the Spirit and make yourself more holy,
you will sin less. That's just works of the flesh,
brothers and sisters. That's what works of the flesh
is. It's just the law. If you are led of the Spirit
of God to walk in the Spirit of God, you are not under the
law to any degree to achieve anything. As I said earlier,
you do not honour God by trying to keep the law. You dishonour
the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 6 makes it so abundantly
clear. It's remarkable the gymnastics
that people have to go through to try and undo what God says
in His Word. He's not excusing sin. He says,
don't let sin reign in your mortal body, verse 12, that you should
bathe the lusts of. Neither yield your members of
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
of instruments of righteousness unto God. And then this remarkable
verse, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are
not under law but under grace." And we can turn that verse around,
can't we? For sin shall have dominion over
you that are under law and not under grace. You see, what religion
does, what religion does, it exchanges outward immorality
that the whole world can see for a far far greater sin, the
great sin of unbelief and the great sin of self-righteousness. It is far worse I promise you,
according to the scriptures, the sin of self-righteousness
and the sin of unbelief is far more dangerous than all of the
outward sins that you see. You are better off to be down
at the pub and in a brothel than you are to be God's children are laid. I love that word in Galatians
5. God's children are laid. God
says, isn't it, unless you become as little children you shall
now wise enter into the kingdom of God. God's children want to
be laid. God's children find delight in
Him leading us. God's children find delight in
the perfect and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's
children find no delight in the things of their flesh. Look to
Christ is what walking in the Spirit is. Just simply trust
Him. Just trust Him. Call upon Him to give you faith. Lord I believe, help my unbelief,
is the cry of the sinner. to walk in the Spirit is to just
believe, like Paul did, that through the law, I am dead to
the law. The law has exacted its perfect
punishment on me. The law said that I needed to
die. That was the wages of sin. And
my death has been died. My death has been died. I through
the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God, I might
walk in the Spirit. This is about walking in the
Spirit, isn't it? I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live,
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God. His faithfulness, His and not
mine. the faithfulness of the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me." May that, by his grace, be your
testimony. May you find him delightful.
Let's pray.