If you turn your Bibles to Galatians
chapter 3, it's good to see you here. I feel as if I just have
one message week in, week out. Just look
to the Lord Jesus. Just look to Him. One of the
beautiful pictures in the scriptures of Our glorious saviour are the
cities of refuge. And if you were a manslayer,
if you were guilty of manslaughter, if you were chopping a tree down
and the head fell off the axe and hit someone and killed them,
there was provision made for your safety. They had three cities
on either side of the Jordan River. In Israel, it's not a
very large country. that you could flee to the city
of refuge and then the person called the Avenger of Blood couldn't
touch you. You were safe, you were safe
there, you were safe. And the magistrates, the rulers
of the towns around, were obligated each year to make sure that the
path, the road to the city of refuge was clear of every obstacle
and at every turn and every corner there was a sign put up on the
road saying, refuge, refuge, refuge, refuge for your soul. And in preaching the Gospel,
we are proclaiming to people who are, by their fall in their
Father Adam and their own sins, they are willfully responsible
as manslayers. and there's one hope, there's
one city of refuge, and there's one sign. God's Gospel preachers
are appointed by God to point a sign like that, Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Jesus Christ and Him crucified
is everything, everything for life, everything for justification,
everything to be perfectly right before God. Everything from before
the foundation of the world. Everything in time. All the promises
of God are yes and amen. All the hope for God's people
is in Him. And as you read the scriptures
you will find again and again There is this remarkable contrast,
isn't it, where the Lord and His people are saying, refuge,
refuge. This is the place of safety,
the only place of safety is inside this city and all along the road. people who are pointing in another
direction, aren't they? Satan desperately is in the business
of deceiving people, leading people to follow his sign. And it looks like a way of peace,
and it looks like a way that honours God, and it looks like
a way that brings people into a place of righteousness and
holiness, and yet it's a false way. That sign leads to the pit
of hell. And that's what had happened
to these Galatians in chapter 3 verse 1. He speaks to them,
having finished his remarkable sermon in that church in Antioch,
in 3 verse 1 he says, O foolish Galatians. It's interesting,
isn't it? He writes in other letters to
the saints, to the brethren, but here he just writes to Galatians. He stands in doubt of them. Who
has bewitched you? who has cast a spell on you,
who has caused you to be fascinated by something other than the Lord
Jesus Christ, that you should not obey the truth. Jesus Christ
is the truth. The Gospel is the Gospel of the
truth about Him. And He describes the truth, doesn't
He? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ
has been evidently set forth, crucified among you. That's all that they did in preaching
the Gospel. They just set forth Jesus Christ
crucified among you. That is my job, isn't it? To
set forth Jesus Christ crucified among you. When we're evangelising
people, we want to try, if the Lord would allow, to just deal
with those questions that Paul limited his ministry to. The
simplicity that's in Christ, isn't it? The singleness, the
oneness that's in Christ. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Just spend your time evangelising,
defining those four words. and you will have done all that's
necessary in preaching the gospel." That's all that they did. You
read the book of Acts, what happened on the day of Pentecost? Peter
declared Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He declared Him as
Lord, He declared Him as one who has fulfilled all the promises
of God, as the one who was crucified, the one who is risen, And he does so in his other declarations,
and so did Paul. They had one simple message.
When people have the Gospel, they only have one simple message. They only need one simple message. When people don't have the Gospel,
they've got hundreds of other messages, hundreds of other methods. Hundreds of other ways of entertaining
people, hundreds of other ways, a multitude of other ways of
getting people to look like they're really believers. This only,
Paul is asking these questions, the Holy Spirit is asking these
questions of you and I today, brothers and sisters. This only,
will I learn of you. received you the Spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith." The hearing of faith
is just a synonym for the gospel, isn't it? It's the hearing of
the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things
in vain, if it yet be in vain? Verse 5, he therefore that ministers,
he therefore that supplies to you the Spirit and works miracles
among you, works of power that means, does he do it by the works
of the law or by the hearing of faith, by the gospel? I sometimes wonder, instead of
expounding these things, we just need to read them again. So I just really simply this
morning wanted to look at those questions, because they do outline
God's gospel and God's way of saving people. You'll call His name Jesus, for
He will save His people from their sins. One of the things
that we need to bear in mind always in the midst of all of
these trials that the church went through and the trials that
the Galatians went through are trials that the church will go
through continually until the Lord Jesus returns. These are good questions, aren't
they? They're the questions the Holy Spirit is asking of us. In 2 Corinthians 13 verse 5,
the Lord says, Examine yourselves to see that you are in the faith. Just back a couple of pages,
maybe just a page in your scriptures. Paul, as we just read in Acts
chapter 14, was beset by trials and troubles, and not least of
which from the false teachers, Satan masquerading as an angel
of light in the Corinthian church. And they were questioning whether
Paul was the genuine article So not only do these verses here
give us a test, they actually give us a test of gospel preachers. According to Galatians, if I
am not preaching the gospel, then the deepest, darkest pits
of hell are reserved for me. And if you are listening to a
gospel, and joining with those who have another gospel, then
not only am I at fault, but you are at fault. That's what he's
saying here, isn't it? You foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched
you? Paul, Paul and the apostles preached
a simple gospel. They preached it through, very
evidently, the weakness of their flesh. Very evidently, they were
not men that the world would esteem as great in any way possible. They say that Paul was a risen
up, bent over man with a large hooked mouth and had a very annoying
high pitched voice. What an instrument, what an instrument
God used to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. And here in
Corinth you have these people who are, in our colloquial expression,
are as flash as rats with gold teeth. They look all the world
to have all the goods. They look far, far more impressive
than Paul. since you seek proof of Christ
speaking in me, which to you is not weak, but is mighty in
you. For though he was crucified through
weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. He lives and lives
and lives forever. That ETH word reminds us that
this is in the continuous tense. For we also are weak, in him,
that we shall live with him by the power of God." What a wonderful
statement. We shall live with Him, not by
the power of our activities, but by the power of God towards
you. Examine yourselves, whether you
be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves,
how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates. Salvation is knowing the Lord
Jesus Christ. The hope of glory is Jesus Christ
living in you. Right now, living in you. This glory of Saviour that Paul
has spoken so amazingly of, isn't it? the faith of the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me." He lives by the faith
of the Son of God. He's justified by the faith of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's sanctified by the grace,
by the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. He looks to Him, seated
now on the throne, bearing the marks of that Lamb that was slain
from the foundation of the world, there with His redeemed in Heaven,
and what are they singing? They're singing the same Gospel
song that sounds in the hearts of God's people right here and
now. And so these verses are a test
for the Galatians, aren't they? He's actually asking them to
be reminded, he's reminding them of their recent history. He's
reminding them of what happened in their lives. He's reminding
them of the Gospel that he preached and the Gospel that came to them.
And he wants them to be horrified, to be horrified that they, like
Peter and Barnabas in that room in Antioch, had turned from the
Lord Jesus Christ and turned to the works of man and the works
of the flesh. Satan masquerading as an angel
of light is far, far more dangerous than Satan just operating as
an enemy of mankind. When he's dressed as a sheep,
and dressed as a preacher, and comes as a wise and learned theologian, Someone who has a passion. Someone who has a great knowledge
of the scriptures. Someone who can appeal to you. To appeal to you in ways that
move people. That's what to be bewitched is,
isn't it? They become fascinated. They
become beguiled. simply, all they have to do is
point you away from looking to the Lord Jesus. And then you
find all of a sudden that they have another Jesus altogether. You see, to turn away from the
real Jesus is to turn away from the Jesus who is proclaimed and
evidently set forth in the scriptures and evidently set forth by His
servants. The apostles and believers obey
the truth. And here we have in these verses,
we have a remarkable black and white testimony of
what it is to be saved and what it is to be bewitched and deceived. You see, it begins, doesn't it,
in verse 1, Jesus Christ is evidently set forth crucified, evidently
set forth according to the Scriptures, evidently set forth according
to the history of His life and His death and His resurrection
and His exaltation and His sitting at the right hand of God, sitting
on the throne of heaven. It's setting him forth in the
conditions and the terms of the everlasting covenant, the eternal
covenant in his blood. It sets him forth as the covenant
maker and the covenant keeper. It sets him forth as the mediator. It sets him forth as the surety. And as we explained a few weeks
ago, a surety is very different from a guarantor. When a surety
enters into his surety agreement, as the Lord Jesus did on the
behalf of his people, God the Father from the moment of that
covenant engagement before the foundation of the world, at that
time God the Father would never look other than to the work of
the Lord Jesus, for all of the justification, for all of the
righteousness, for all of the sanctification of all of his
people. And so God's people find rest
and find peace and find the liberty of salvation in looking to the
one place, the one person. They look exactly where God the
Father looks. He's evidently set forth. He's
evidently set forth. He's evidently declared to be
the Christ of God, to be God the Son. And the hearing of faith,
he's evidently set forth and it's the hearing of faith. The
hearing ear and the seeing eye both are from God. God gives spiritual life. And people hear, they hear. Wouldn't it be amazing if someone
today heard for the first time that the Lord Jesus had really
taken away his sins and he's sovereignly reigning and ruling
over all things. He's come and he's revealed himself
and he's taken up his residence in a sinner. the hearing of faith,
the gospel, because the Spirit is received. And then there is
a beginning. They are begun in the Spirit,
verse 3. They are begun in the Spirit,
and they are made perfect by the Spirit. and they have suffered. As a result of this coming they
will suffer in this world. They will suffer things that
the world will have no understanding of ever. And they will have, verse 5,
God ministering, God supplying the Spirit, working miracles
among you, miracles of faith, miracles of love, miracles of
hope, miracles of life, miracles of assurance, miracles, works
of power it means, miracles of looking to the Lord Jesus and
looking away from yourself. And on the other hand, we find
these false teachers. They are disobedient, and they
are liars, and they are bewitching people. He asks them, doesn't
he, in verse 1, who has bewitched you? Who has turned your eyes
away from the Lord Jesus Christ? Who's turned you to looking to
law obedience, to looking to law obedience and rewards from
heaven, the works of the law? causing you to think that you
can add something by your human activity to make the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ more acceptable. More acceptable before man, more
acceptable before God. There's a sculpture I heard of
some years ago and had the man with the chisel and a hammer
in his hand, and he'd actually sort of carved his head and he'd
carved his arms and he was working his way down his body. It's a
really evocative picture, isn't it, of the self-made man. He'd carved himself, I'm sure,
as the sculpture. The sculptors, apparently they
see the block of marble or whatever it is and they actually see the
form inside and they see themselves chipping away all the rubbish
to bring this polished object to life. But the self-made man,
made perfect by the flesh, the self-made man worships his Creator. He esteems and he delights in
his Creator and he keeps chiseling away and polishing away. And
these false teachers will tell these people that all that they
have suffered is now unnecessary and it's meaningless. Beguiling and bewitching. Our flesh is a ready and perfect
home for Satan to do his work. There's nothing in us by our
nature in Adam that turns away from anything that's self-righteous
in us. We love the sound of our own
voice. We love the esteem that we can
gain. And Adam Flesh in the guise of
religion and in the guise of Christianity is a powerful, powerful
force. You see it on display throughout
this world. And the worst of these teachers
that bring law righteousness is that they can open up this
book. They can open up this book and from Exodus 20 through all
and into the Gospels and even beyond, they can look and find
places where you must do that salvation is on the basis of
your works and your will and God is going to respond to you
on the basis of your worth. Do this and live. This only. Let's look at verse
2. We'll go through these questions.
We looked at one of them last week. We'll look at these next
ones today. This only will I learn of you. Here is the heart of the issue. This is where the bewitching
of believers is focused. To move away from the simplicity
of Christ. This only, he says, will I learn
of you. Received you the Spirit. Did you receive the Spirit by
the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? He's saying to the Galatians,
what was your experience? We looked last week at those
questions, those simple questions about Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
which was laid out again and again in the preaching of the
Gospel by those people. Who was it that died? Why was
He crucified? For whom did He die? You can't
preach the Gospel unless you preach for whom he died. Everywhere they proclaim the
Gospel. They proclaim a Gospel of a successful
substitute, a successful sovereign saviour. What did he achieve? What did he accomplish by his
dying? And the other, the last question.
is what is it to you? What's it mean to you? That's
what he's saying to the Galatians, isn't he? What was your experience? How were you saved? How were you born again? What
happened at that time? What happened when Paul came
and proclaimed the Gospel to them? Did he proclaim the Gospel in
terms of proclaiming some law activity? Or did he proclaim
the Gospel declaring Jesus Christ and Him crucified? It's remarkable,
isn't it? The flesh of man says, how can
so great a gift, how can you receive such an amazing gift? forgiveness of sins, perfect
holiness before God, everlasting life, the unsearchable riches
of Christ. How can all of that come to you
simply by believing? Surely such great gifts must
be earned. And then you see in Acts. We've just turned back to Acts
chapter 10. I love these stories in Acts. In Acts chapter 10 we
have the story of Peter preaching to Cornelius. So this is the first record of
someone going from the apostles and preaching to a Gentile congregation like
us. And he declares in verse 38 how
that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with
power who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed
of the devil for God was with him. And we are witnesses of
all things which he does He did both in the land of the Jews
and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God
raised up the third day and showed him openly, not to all the people,
but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat
and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded
us to preach unto the people and to testify that it is he
which was ordained of God to be the judge of the quick and
the dead. To him give all the prophets
witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall
receive remission of sins. And while Peter spoke these things,
the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they
of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came
with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out
the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speaking
with tongues, and magnify God." Then answered Peter, Can any
man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which
had received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded
them to be baptized in the name of the Lord, and they prayed
him to tarry with them certain days. What was Cornelius doing? What were the Gentile believers
doing? when the gospel came. What a
remarkable thing, isn't it? The Holy Spirit, verse 44, fell
on all them which heard the word. They poured out the gift of the... Why? What happened? He proclaimed
the Gospel, didn't he? He proclaimed Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. Jesus Christ and Him risen. He just simply proclaimed the
Gospel. Isn't it remarkable, brothers
and sisters? to think how complicated evangelism has become under the
false teaching that's rampant in our day when you see the impact
that it had on these people. I love what verse 46 says. said,
they heard them speak with tongues, and the tongues in Acts are not
the silly tongues that you hear about in Pentecostalism and charismatic
nonsense that goes on in this world. It was languages that
people could understand in Acts Chapter 2. It was languages that
people could understand here. It was languages when Peter reported
back in Acts Chapter 15. It's the same, it says. They spoke with tongues. And
the wonderful thing about the real Gospel and its impact in
the hearts of people, what did they do? They magnified God. Was there a mention of the Law? In all of Acts 14, was there
a mention of Moses and the Law? Did you receive the Spirit? Do
you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith? Acts is just one long testimony
of thirty-something years of the beginnings of the Church
in this Gospel age. And everyone that was saved was
saved by the preaching of the gospel. And the Holy Spirit fell
on all them which heard the word. Faith in Jesus Christ justifies all
things which the law could never justify anyone. So the law has
nothing to give. The law just demands, and the
gospel brings with it its own rewards. It brings with it the
rewards of liberty, of freedom. It brings with it the reward
of magnifying God. I love what Zechariah 9.17 says,
how great is his goodness. When you are saved, brothers
and sisters, what do you think? How great is His goodness and
how great is His beauty. How great is His goodness. Where the Spirit is, the Lord
is that Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. There is freedom. The Galatians,
like us, when we are led to look away from the Lord Jesus and
to ourselves and our works, we're led from liberty into bondage. How do you receive the Spirit?
You receive the Spirit by hearing the Gospel. with the ears of
faith." The hearing of faith. What a great description of the
hearing ear that the Lord gives. The next question he asks is,
are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, are you now made
perfect by the flesh? If you have begun in the Spirit,
are you completing your work? Like that sculptor, are you finishing
yourself off by chiselling away and polishing yourself? Are you
now made perfect by the flesh? There is a beginning. Conversion
is a beginning. Many of us here, probably all
of us here, have had our time in religion. had our time in all sorts of
beguiling sorts of religion, whether it's the remarkable experiences
that beguile, or remarkable service that beguiles, or remarkable
activities and remarkable people that you're with. We all had
some sort of beginning, but the beginning that he's talking about
here is the beginning that John talks about in 1 John 2.24. He says, Let that therefore abide
in you which you have heard from the beginning. And if that which
you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, You shall
also continue in the Son and in the Father. And this is the
promise that He has promised us, even eternal life. These things I have written to
you concerning them that seduce you." We've had all sorts of beginnings
in inverted commas. There's Simon, Began as a reformed,
you were a reformed man Simon, weren't you? Strongly Calvinistic. We had a beginning. I had all sorts of beginnings. Been through so many of them.
And then the Gospel came with power. And I've had a beginning
that I never ever want to be moved from. I have a beginning. I love what the psalmist says,
lead me to a rock that is higher than I. You've been led to a
rock by the gospel. And as Simon prayed earlier,
we have witnessed, haven't we, after this last six or eight
years, I've witnessed it a bit longer in India, I've witnessed
the power of that rock, the power of that gospel. And it has been
assaulted like waves on a headland. It's been assaulted again and
again, thousands of times over, and in every single situation,
it stands firm, and the things opposed to it fall away and are
exposed in the most remarkable ways. Is that not your destiny,
brothers and sisters? You've had a beginning that's
a real beginning. As John says, it's a beginning
that abides, a beginning that remains. Where would you go? Why would you go from that beginning? Really the beginning is Him,
isn't it? Why would you leave the Lord
Jesus Christ as He's declared plainly in the Scriptures? What
are you leaving for? That's what he says, doesn't
he? O foolish Galatians, are you so foolish? You had a beginning
and now you've been beguiled. Peter had a remarkable beginning,
didn't he? says the Lord Jesus. He just
spoke a word of power and Peter downed his fishing nets and he
followed the Lord Jesus. And he stumbled and he fell and
he stumbled and he fell and on this rock And in this beginning,
he who began the good work, says Philippians 1.6, he will carry
it out. If he begins, he will complete
that work. There is a beginning. There's
a beginning in Christian life, a beginning in real Christian
life. A beginning that is begun entirely
outside of ourselves. It has the most powerful impact
upon us. But it's life from above. It's life from outside of us. It's transforming life. And it's a life that's begun
by Him. that will cause us to see and
because us, like Peter had Paul come before him when he was about
to fall into a pit. Paul in the Gospel comes before
these Galatians and stands before them and they have to walk around
him and over his Lord Jesus to get to hell. He will stand there. The Gospel stands firm, brothers
and sisters. We have seen it. We have seen
it attacked in hundreds of different ways by the people, the very
people that Galatians is telling us about again and again and
again. I remind you of the circumstances. I don't have to talk about them
specifically. You know about them. You know that they go away
from a dealing with the Gospel. Defeated in our eyes by the Gospel
and they go away proud in their own activities unless the Lord
has mercy upon them. There is a beginning, there is
a critical beginning. And if that beginning is a work
that's begun by the Lord, it's the beginning that He'll complete. Are you made perfect by the flesh?
The flesh here is just works of the law. Really what Paul
is asking these people is, is your God, is your Saviour now,
is this Jesus that you would claim to be worshipping, is He
so pathetic that he cannot do what he started, that he cannot
finish what he's promised to do in the lives of his people. You see, all attacks on the Gospel
are attacks on the very person and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is sovereign. He is successful. He is satisfied. He is the substitute of his people. He is their saviour and he will
preserve them and protect them. It's his gospel. He has far more
at stake in this gospel than we have. The worst that can happen to
sinners who are beguiled and remain beguiled is that they
will go to hell. God loses all of his attributes
and all of his names if his Gospel isn't successful. His Gospel
is powerful and active. His Gospel causes his people
to stand in ways that cause them to suffer, and the suffering has no rational
basis whatsoever. People who are beguiled and led
by Satan and deceived do things which are just shocking to common
sense. Imagine being in Israel, being
someone like Caiaphas and having a son or a granddaughter that
you loved dearly. and are seriously, seriously
unwell, there is only one person on planet Earth that can do any
good. There is only one person on planet
Earth who can rise the dead and heal the sick. And yet, that
one who spoke peace and that one who spoke of God, the one
who was the only one who was ever honest with those men, is
the only one that they wanted to persecute and pursue and work
out as many cunning schemes as they possibly could to bring
him down. Brothers and sisters, I know
something of the sufferings that you have gone through for the
sake of the Gospel. It is the promise of God. The
Lord Jesus says, through many tribulations you must enter the
Kingdom of God. Yea, and all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. We read about the
persecution of Paul and his friends in Acts chapter 14. He's saying
to them, You've suffered these things
for the sake of the Gospel. You've suffered the loss of friends.
You've suffered the loss of social status. You've probably, you
may have, according to Hebrews 10, you may have lost your possessions. You've suffered the loss of your
religious status. You have suffered extraordinary
things. Christians, real Christians,
suffer in this world in a way that the world will never understand. We suffer because of our love
for people who reject the Gospel. We suffer the scorn that they
bring to us. And yet, in the midst of this,
he asks them, have you suffered so many things, if it yet be
in vain? He says to the Galatians, I stand
in doubt of you in chapter 4 verse 20, but as Peter and Barnabas
were restored after being bewitched, restored by a strong word from
God, restored by Paul preaching the Gospel to them, he is thinking,
he is hoping that as he proclaims the Gospel again and again in
his letter to them, that these Galatians might be restored as
well. This letter is written to bring
repentance to people. He reminds them in the next question. He therefore that supplies to
you the Spirit and works miracles among you, does he do it by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Does he do it by the
Gospel? does he perform these works of
power amongst them. Now the apostles, and in that
day before the New Testament was finished, they did perform
remarkable miracles. Paul raised people from the dead.
We just read in Acts 14 that he healed a man who had been
lame, unable to walk from his birth. What a remarkable deliverance. They are works of power. He may be referring to those
miracles. He may just be referring to what
the Word says, works of power, works of power. The power to
believe the Gospel is a supernatural work of God. The power to endure
in the Gospel, to remain in the Gospel, is a supernatural work
of power. Salvation is of the Lord, the
power to love. to love God and love His brothers
and sisters is a supernatural miracle of God. Salvation is
a miracle, brothers and sisters, a miracle from beginning to end,
a miracle before the foundation of the world, a remarkable miracle
in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remarkable miracles throughout
time. It's extraordinary to me, isn't
it, that the Christian world is embarrassed so often about
the supernatural, and they want to try and modify the faith so
that we can actually have rational debates with learned scientists,
and so we give up on supernatural creation. For what? We're looking
at supernatural things all the time. There is no hope for Christians
outside of the supernatural. We're looking for a time when
the Lord Jesus may come back right now and there will be this
enormous shout and it will be like lightning across this creation
and he will wrap up this creation. He'll take his people out of
this earth. There will come a day He'll come
a day when in a service like this the Lord Jesus will return
and His people will be lifted up into the sky and as they're
lifted up there they'll be transformed and out of the graves and out
of the sea and out of the dust of this earth will this mighty
army of the redeemed have their resurrected bodies restored to
them and He'll destroy this earth and He'll create it again and
it'll be the home of the righteous, and we're embarrassed about supernatural
things, brothers and sisters. Dear, oh dear, that's a delight
in supernatural things. I long for more supernatural
things, for more works of power, more power to believe. So Paul
mentions the Spirit three times in these questions. The first
one is, did you receive Him? And to receive Him is to have
Him begin a good work. And to receive Him and have Him
begun is to have Him supply. Does this happen because you
turn back to the law? Is He going to come in response
to you going back to Moses and digging up the body of Moses
and going back to Mount Sinai, going back to your works of righteousness? Or does it happen because of
the Gospel? The supernatural works come because
the Gospel comes. It comes to bear witness to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Just while we're on the business
of miracles it's really important that the miracles in today's
religious world ought to be dismissed by believing people instantly
as false. Can you think of one work of
miraculous activity that is paraded before this world that is associated
in this last age with the real Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?
I can think of thousands that are associated with false Gospels.
Wouldn't it be wonderful? I would love to have the power.
I'm sure you would as well. I would love to be able to heal
my brothers and sisters and I can't. And Paul could at times and he
couldn't at other times. In fact he went to Galatia because
he had a problem with his eyes and he who could raise the dead
couldn't even cure himself. The works of power associated
with the Gospel are works that cause God to be magnified in
the hearts of His people. What a remarkable work of power,
what a remarkable miracle it is for God to sustain one of
His children in the midst of trials which would break, would
normally break someone. What a remarkable thing in the
midst of darkness and despair that the child of God is drawn
to look to Him and find peace with Him that is unimaginable
in this world. What a work of power for Him
to come. and hold the hand of this little
one and take them, as Isaiah 40 says, in his arms and carry
them. What a work of power to be carried
by him. What a work of power, as Paul
said, to be loved by him. What a work of power to know
that he gave himself for you. what works of power. He that
supplies and he that works miracles, they're both in the continuous
tense and so they're not something that starts and then stops. The
works of power to believe, to love, the works of power to look
away from yourself and look away from your works and look away
from the law and look to the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives. He gives the gift of
life and He gives the gift of faith. I love what the Lord Jesus
said to the woman at the well. He says, if you knew the gift
of God and who it is that says to you, give me to drink, if
you knew the gift of God and if you knew He who is the gift
of God, you would have asked of Him and He would have given
you living water." What a wonderful journey to salvation that poor,
poor sinner had. What songs of redeeming love
she's been singing for 2,000 years. He chose his people to
believe to the belief of the truth, He gives them on behalf
of Christ to believe in His name. And when He calls them to believe,
it's according to His own purpose and grace which was given them
in Christ Jesus before the world began. His covenant is ordered
and secure, ordered in all things and sure. And therefore the faith
to believe, the faith to be turned back to the gospel and away from
law works is part of that eternal covenant. Some of these Galatians
who had been bewitched were turned. They were turned by the Gospel.
You see, Paul doesn't turn them to the law and their works. In
fact, that's the signpost that leads to cursing. He signposts
the Lord Jesus again and again. And there's no boasting in the
flesh of man. We ourselves were sometimes foolish,
disobedient, deceived. Serving diverse lusts and pleasures? Sure. Living in malice and envy,
hateful and hating one another? But after that, the kindness
and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He
saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost,
which He shed on us abundantly." I love the abundance
of our Lord Jesus, which is shed on us abundantly through our
Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, that being justified by His grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. May God grant you the grace to
simply believe, to delight in the liberty of
the hearing.