Okay, let's turn our scriptures
again to Galatians. I just wanted to look a little
bit at verse 21 and then move from verse 21 into chapter 3,
verse 1. So let's just read those verses
again. Now, foolish Galatians, who Sorry,
I do not frustrate the grace of God, verse 21 of chapter 2.
For if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead
in vain. O foolish Galatians, who has
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? Very clearly in these verses
Paul is linking people who believe that they can get some righteousness
by the law, that they can get some righteousness, they can
achieve some righteousness, they can do some righteousness at
all. If they think that they can do
that, they do these two things. They frustrate the grace of God. They set it aside. They set it
aside. They nullify it. They despise
it. They reject it. They make it
void. For if righteousness comes by
the law, if righteousness comes by anything that you can do whatsoever,
then Christ is dead in vain. Christ's death is unnecessary. Christ's death is without cause. It's for no purpose. Isn't that
remarkable? What a remarkable thing to think,
that there are people, multitudes, teeming multitudes of people
in churches all over this world, today, thinking that they can
do some work of righteousness that's acceptable to God. Not
only that, they can do some work of righteousness which will earn
them some extra crowns in heaven. As I've told you before, a number
of people have told me how I'm going to have extra jewels because
we went to India. A sinner went to India. A sinner
lived in India. A sinner came home from India. These verses are just so plain,
aren't they? And yet the religious world around
us, the largest missionary organisation in the world puts people back
under the law. 20,000 missionaries putting people back under the
law and under works. How many Roman Catholics are
there? 1.3 billion Roman Catholics. I think there's a similar number
of Muslims. hundreds and hundreds of thousands,
how many hundreds of millions of other people in churches on
this day around the world think that they have some works of
righteousness to commend themselves to God. This verse says that for them
Christ is nullified. and they have set aside the grace
of God. Those who are real sinners, those
who are real sinners, and the more I spend time looking and
preaching to people, the more I'm convinced that the only people
who have any idea, any conception whatsoever of sin, are forgiven
sinners. The only people who have any
idea of righteousness are people who have met He who is righteous. The only people who have any
idea of God's, the holiness of God's law, its demand for absolute
perfection, are those who have met Him who
is their law keeper and they find themselves at rest in Him. Bewitching is a strong word,
isn't it? It means to be deceived, isn't it? To have an evil spell
cast over you. And such is the nature of that
evil spell that people believe they can do these works of righteousness
and they'll get to meet the Lord on the Day of Judgment and they'll
have in their hands their righteousnesses, won't they? Multitudes. Read about them in Matthew 7,
21-23. Many will come to Him on that
day. What's Satan like when he's masquerading
as an angel of light? Is he going to have a Bible in
his hand? He sure will. Is he going to have an enormous
list of credentials, extraordinary zeal, extraordinary missionary zeal. He's going to talk an awful lot
about God and he's going to talk a lot about Jesus Christ. He cannot, as the scriptures
warn us, he cannot deceive for a time the elect unless he looks
very much like one of them. You cannot get into Paul's pulpit
in the churches of Galatia unless you look like Paul and talk like
Paul. And so the subtlety is huge. The question that immediately
comes to my mind is, am I bewitched? Have I been bewitched? The answer
is in religion I have. The answer is in religion all
of us have. Paul talks about the Lord Jesus.
He speaks about His death again and again and again throughout
this letter, but he talks in verse 4, he speaks of Him who
gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this
present evil world. This present evil world. It is the prayer of my heart
that I wouldn't be someone who deceives people ever I know I've done it in the
past. I've done it in religion. I was
in the same place, and so were many of you, in the same place
as these people that Paul is writing about here. Who has bewitched
you? Ask the question. Who has bewitched
you? Who has bewitched you? Go on and look at all that in
a little bit more detail. I'd like to just think about
what it is to frustrate the grace of God. See, to be bewitched. Paul is a great physician, isn't
he, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He can diagnose
the problem. He can diagnose not just the
symptoms, but he can diagnose the root of the problem. How? Is the grace of God frustrated? How is this bewitching leading
to the grace of God being frustrated? We know and we proclaim as often
as we have the opportunity that our God is absolutely sovereign
and He saved His people from eternity and He saved them by
His grace. And His grace can never ultimately
be frustrated in the lives of His people. His purposes will
stand firm. But in the world of religion
and in the world that we live in, the grace of God can be frustrated
in the lives of people. The grace of God can be frustrated
by not receiving it. He says in 2 Corinthians 6 verse
1, we then as workers together with him beseech you also that
you receive not the grace of God in vain. Receive it in an empty way. The grace of God is the remarkable
gift of God. but to frustrate it is to neglect
it, to treat it lightly and not to esteem it highly." We read
again in Psalm 69, and we'll see a little bit later on at
the end of the message, the cost that the Lord Jesus bore to save
his people from their sins. Hebrews 2.3 says, How shall we
escape if we neglect so great salvation? So it's not often just standing
in enmity to it. It's treating it as if it's not
a big deal, treating it with indifference. I remember saying
some time ago, and it's become more true I think as time goes
on, if the gospel we preach is not a matter of life and death
to those who hear it and those who don't, we don't have a gospel
to preach. If it's not eternal life and
eternal death, then we have no gospel. If it's something that
people can take or leave, or they can do all sorts of other
things with it, and it's no longer a matter of life and death. It's not the Gospel. The Gospel
is the voice of God speaking of His dear Son. It's His last
word to humanity, is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It demands our serious meditation. If God the Holy Spirit would
cause us to go to this book of grace and examine the things
that we say, examine the simple statements that Galatians says
about the righteousness and the state of those who think that
they have some righteousness by their activities, some legal
righteousness, I would be horrified. They just simply turned from
their bewitching. But we know, we know the power
of bewitching. Some of you have experienced,
as I have, how incredibly enticing it is to think that we can put
people back under legal obligations to obey God, to do things. to do things that make them look
more righteous. See, people frustrate the grace
of God when they don't see their need of it. When they frustrate
the grace of God because they see that they have some other
place, some other hope, some other refuge. They can have Jesus
plus something else. They frustrate the grace of God
when they feel as if they can add to it. They can add to it
and they can enhance it and they can polish it by their legal
activities. They set aside the grace of God. What a heinous sin against God
and against your own soul. See the grace of God The grace
of God is a person. He is everything to His Father
and He is everything to His people. He is all of our righteousness. As we looked at last week in
Romans 10, He is the end of the law, He is the terminus. As far
as you can go in righteousness is Jesus Christ and you cannot
go any further. To go any further, to think that
you can go any further is to frustrate the grace of God and to say that His death is
in vain. Some statements that people make
to you are just so shocking that they just leave you thinking
for years. And we had a friend a few years
ago who said that there are times in his life where he has no sin. And he was questioned about it.
A learned man, he was questioned about it. Are you meaning in
terms of you and the Lord Jesus being one and Him having taken
all your sins away? And twice he said, no, I'm talking
about it personally. There are times in my life when
I have no sin. There are times, he's saying,
in his life when he has no need of a Saviour. May God bring his people to repent
of such things. The grace of God is frustrated
when it's brought to confusion, when it's brought to a place
where it can have something added to it and can be compromised. As I said, the grace of God is
a description of the very character of God. In redeeming his people
from their sins by his death on the cross, the Lord Jesus
has revealed God. The redemption according to Romans
3.24, the redemption is in Christ Jesus. You think about God's
declaration of himself, God's revealing of himself. He says,
whom God set forth. He set him forth to be a propitiation,
to be a wrath absorbing sacrifice, to declare So he sets him forth
as a propitiation to declare his righteousness, to declare
his righteousness for the remissions of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God. It's declaring his character
again and again. To declare, I say, at this time,
his righteousness, that he might be just. I love this phrase,
that he might be just. and the justifier of him that
believeth." It's a declaration of who our
God is, His righteousness. I love what the psalmist says,
he says, I will talk of His righteousness and His only. Psalm 71. Talk of His righteousness
and His only. People can be bewitched. We've been looking in church
in the evening about in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. You just might turn
there again. He talks about this mystery of
iniquity. He talks about Satan becoming
the man of sin being revealed. He talks about this great falling
away, this great apostasy from the faith. Verse 3, that the
man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and
exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped,
so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself
that he is God. Verse 5, it was part of Paul's
preaching to remind people of these false teachers. Remember
you not that when I was with you I told these things and now
you know what withholders that he might be revealed in his time. God withholds him and God will
allow him to be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity
does already work, only he that now restraineth, he that now
letteth, will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then
shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of
his coming, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan,
with all power and signs and lying wonders." and with all
the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because
they receive not the love of the truth that they might be
saved. And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie." that
they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had
pleasure in unrighteousness." What a remarkable description
of the judgment of our God. What a remarkable description
of His character. What a remarkable description
of this world that we live in right now. The deceivableness
of unrighteousness is the deceivableness of any righteousness done by
man. Because as Isaiah so clearly
says, all of our righteousnesses are filthy rags. There is no
such thing as human righteousness. The only righteousness is God's
righteousness. They receive not the love of
the truth, May receive not the love of the
truth. It's all very well to acknowledge
the truth. There is in God's people a love
of the truth. A love of He who is the truth. What a remarkable thing. What
a remarkable thing the deception is. when they are both deceived
by Satan and sent a delusion by God. There is, as our good Dr Paul
says, there is one solution. And again and again in Galatians
he reminds us. There is one person, there is
one place of escape. And that's what he goes on in
verse 3. He says, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Who has cast a spell on you? Who has bewitched you that you
should not obey the truth? That word bewitched is a strong,
strong word. If you turn in your scriptures
to Deuteronomy 28, And I think the reference here
of course is to those who frustrate the grace of God because they
believe that they have some righteousness by their law activities, then
Christ is dead in vain. If you go back to the law, if
you go back to the law, you are going back to the curse
of God. He says in verse 10 of the chapter
we're looking at, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of God, in the book of the law,
to have done them, to do them. When the people of Israel were
to go into the Promised Land, they were to stand on two mountains,
half the tribes on Mount Eagle and half the tribes on Mount
Gerizim, and they were to proclaim the blessings and the curses
of God upon themselves. This word bewitched is used once
in the New Testament and it's used twice in the Old Testament. Curse, the ultimate curse that
came upon the children of Israel. It came upon them twice in their
history. It came upon them once in about
586 BC when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and it came upon them
in 70 AD. So twice the children of Israel
experienced this curse. It talks about, from verse, from verse 47 on, it talks, scriptures
talk about the siege. This nation shall come, the Lord,
verse 49, shall bring a nation against thee from afar. It will
be the judgment of God, the righteous judgment of God, as swift as
an eagle and a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand, a
nation of fierce countenance. And he, verse 52, and he shall
besiege thee in all thy gates until thy high and fenced wall
comes down wherein thou trustest throughout thy land, and he shall
besiege thee in all thy gates throughout thy land which the
Lord thy God has given thee. And thou shalt eat the fruit
of thine own body, and the flesh of thy sons and thy daughters,
which the Lord thy God has given thee in the siege, and in the
straightness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee.
So that a man that is tender among you and very delicate,
his eye shall be evil toward his brother. That's the same
word that Paul is using here in Galatians 3 verse 1, bewitched.
His eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife
of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which
he shall leave, so that he will not give to any of them the flesh
of his children whom he shall eat, because he hath nothing
left him in the siege, and in the straightness wherewith thine
enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates. Verse 56. The tender and delicate woman
among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon
the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be
evil, her eye shall be bewitched toward the husband of her bosom,
and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her
young one that cometh out from between her feet, toward her
children which she shall bear, for she shall eat them. for want
of all things, secretly in the siege and straightness, wherewith
thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates." I think Paul is making a very,
very graphic case, isn't he? That to go back to law keeping,
to go back to any righteousness that you do of yourself, is to
frustrate the grace of God, is to nullify the death of Christ
for you, is to put yourself back under the curse of the law. And this is the ultimate of the
curse in a personal sense. And of course the self-righteous
Jews, in both of those occasions, in 586 BC and in 70 AD, they
thought the safest place on planet Earth was in Jerusalem, as close
to Jerusalem as they could get. When the Romans besieged Jerusalem,
a million Jews, over a million Jews died inside Jerusalem. died doing those things that
we just read. They did the same in 586 BC. They said that we are the ones
that are safe. They had taken the very words
of God and as the king sat in his palace, They had a section of Jeremiah
read to them and he cut it off with the knife and he threw it
in the fire pot until there was nothing left of the Book of God
before him. Bewitched. Galatians, who has cast a spell
on you? Who has put this veil over you
that you cannot see the truth, that you should not obey the
truth? That word obey has two meanings
in the scripture. One is obviously just clearly
to obey. When our brother Craig speaks
to his children, His children are to obey. If I ask why, he
has a simple answer, because I said so. But this obeying here,
this obeying here is a different obeying altogether. It means
to be persuaded. Persuaded. A foolish Galatians
who has bewitched you, you should not be persuaded. persuaded by the truth, before
whose eyes Jesus Christ has evidently been set forth and crucified
among you, is in effect asking them the question, isn't he,
these Galatians, under these bewitching false teachers, why
is the Gospel no longer having an impact on you? Why What bewitching, what evil
spell has been cast over you that you're not persuaded by
the truth, you're not affected by the truth, you're not moved
in heart by the truth, you're no longer brought to repentance,
you're no longer brought to faith, you're no longer looking to the
Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the truth of
God. The Lord Jesus on the cross is
the truth of God's character revealed. If you want to take
every aspect of God's character and you take it to the cross
of the Lord Jesus and there you see it on display as clearly
as it could ever be and as emphatically as it could ever be. If you want
to know what you are, what you really are, you go to the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll see on the cross of the
Lord Jesus and at the cross, you'll see the natural enmity
of your heart against God. That's what we as Adam's children
will do to God if we can get our hands on Him. So much for this notion, this
ridiculous notion that's so common, isn't it, that men are seeking
after God. As it is written, Romans 3, there
is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher
and their tongues they have used for deceit. The poison of asps
is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness,
their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery
are in their ways, the way of peace they have not known. There
is no fear of God before their eyes." Jesus Christ on the cross
reveals the character of God. He reveals the character of what
I am naturally in my Adam flesh and He reveals the wonder of
God's salvation. Paul never got over it. He never
got over preaching the cross of the Lord Jesus. He sought
amongst the Corinthians to know two things. He is determined. He set his
face like a flint. I determined, 1 Corinthians 2.2,
I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ.
and him crucified. He might have been weak in his
flesh, wasn't he? I was with you in weakness, in fear, in
much trembling, and my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God." If you go back a chapter to verse
18 to chapter 1, for the preaching of the cross, the preaching of
Jesus Christ and Him crucified is to them that perish foolishness,
but unto us which are saved it is the power of God, for it is
written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Has not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom, the world by all of its wisdom,
knew not God, it pleased God. by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Twice a week I do something that
God says the world will see as foolish. For the Jews require a sign,
and the Greeks seek after wisdom, that we preach Christ crucified,
unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness,
but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ,
the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Preach Christ Jesus
the truth. He just reminds them, doesn't
he? He reminds these Galatians of what happened when he was
brought there and he came and he just simply preached the Lord
Jesus Christ and simply and plainly and from the scriptures declared
him to be who he is, declared him to be, to have achieved what
he set out to achieve. No wonder these people that come
and turn them away. He says in verse 19 of chapter
4, he says, My little children whom I am in travail, in birth
again until Christ be formed in you. He says, I desire to be present
with you now and to change my voice for I stand in doubt of
you. He stands in doubt of them. They that go back unto works
righteousness, unto any sort of law keeping, in chapter 6
verse 8 he says, for he that sows to his flesh, he that sows
to his Adam flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that sows to the Spirit
shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Why would anyone
want to be under the law? Why do people want to go back
under the law? There are two simple reasons,
aren't there? People want to go back under the law because
they think they can keep it, and they think that by going
back under the law it can be an aid to their righteousness. They must think they can do it.
Why on earth would you go back to it if you didn't think you
could do it? As I said earlier, the only people
who know anything of the sin that they are, are people who
have met the Lord Jesus. We have no idea of what sin is. We actually think our sins are
righteousnesses, until such time as we meet Him. And that's why
the Gospel, the Gospel is the only solution. Paul, the great
physician, under the leadership of he who is the great shepherd
of his sheep and the great physician of souls, knows that there is
just one, one solution to every situation in spiritual life,
and that is the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's openly
set before us by God, crucified. I just want to finish by thinking
about some questions. What was Paul doing? What was
he doing when he says Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth,
evidently put on display, before you as crucified." It's good
for us to ponder again some fundamental questions, some simple, simple
questions. They're all answered in Galatians,
they're all answered wonderfully in that verse that we often quote
from 2 Corinthians 5.21. For He hath made Him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. If you recall when I spoke on
that verse some little time ago, the word made there in the first
instance is a word that is a creative word. It's a remarkable, wondrous
word. It's the word that's used in
reference to the creation of this world. It was just spoken
into existence, marvelously and wonderfully made. The second
made there that we might be made the righteousness, we might be
established We might be established and sustained,
not in our own strength. It's a different maid. So let's
just ask some simple questions. Who was it that was made sin? Who was it
that was evidently set forth crucified? Who was crucified? The Lord of Glory was crucified. God has made Him to be sin for
us who knew no sin. The only man that ever walked
this earth who knew no sin. He is the Son of God. I love
to turn those words around. He is God the Son. He is the Creator. He is the
Sovereign. It is the Christ of God. To be the Christ of God he has
to be God himself and he has to be the surety of that eternal
covenant. He must be both God and man,
not man of Adam's descent, but a man made to be like his brothers. He was made. It was He who was
nailed to that cross, it's Christ that died, Romans 8. He was delivered, He gave Himself. He gave Himself. I love how Paul describes Him
in chapter 3, he says, Christ to be to you in peace from God
the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostles love
to give Him, led by the Holy Spirit. They give Him His titles
all the time. He is God. He is fully God, Lord. He is. Jesus. You shall call his name Jesus
for he shall save his people from their sins. He really was
a man. He is the Christ of God. To be
the Christ you take every promise of this book. You take every
promise of this book. And every single promise of this
book, every prophecy about him is yes and amen. He fulfilled
every single one of them. Did he bring in everlasting righteousness?
Did he put away sins? Read about it in Daniel 9. Read
about him. We read about him last week in
Isaiah 53. Every promise. We read about
Psalm 69. Every promise. He really did
have a broken heart, brothers and sisters. He really did, in
that garden, sweat great drops of blood. He really was crucified. Why? Why was he crucified? Why did he die? There's only
one reason for death in all the scriptures, isn't there? The
wages of sin is death. Without sin you cannot die. The wages of sin. Why did he
die? He died under the very purpose
of God. As Peter says in Acts chapter
2, it was the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. He died a cursed death. He was crucified. Who made him sin? I can talk
about it and I can read it out of the scriptures. It takes something more than the words
of man to bring us to any understanding of what it was, to any understanding
of the horror of what it was. God the Father made His Son sin. He did something that only God
the Father can do, only God can do, and He took all of the sins
of all of the people of God all of the sins of all of the children
of God, from Abel through to the last one to be born on this
earth. And he took the whole lot, that
whole evil lot, and he put them on his son. And his son was treated. He who
knew no sin, not ever once did he commit a sin. He who knew
no sin was made sin. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. The Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all. He was made sin. What was done to the Lord Jesus
Christ when He was made sin? He was made a curse. Isaiah 53 is almost sadly sanitized
because it says, it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. and he hath
put him to grief. It pleased the Lord to crush
him. His son was crushed under the
wrath of God. As Zechariah 13, 7 says, the
sword of God's justice was unsheathed against his fellow. He was made
a curse for us. He was made a curse. The next question, a simple question
isn't it, is for whom was Christ made sin? For whom was he made
sin? It's the clearest teaching in
all of the scriptures, isn't it? It's very clear teaching
in Galatians, isn't it? He gave himself for our sins. See, Paul is writing as an apostle,
and he's writing on behalf of the brethren with him, and he's
saying he gave himself for our sins. You can spend eternity
walking the halls of hell, and you try and find one person down
there that can say, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. I live by the faith of the Son
of God who loved me and gave himself for me." They can say
that in churches here, can't they, all over this world. Again
and again and again, the Son of God loved me and gave himself
for me. They can say it behind pulpits.
Their mouths will be stopped one day. and the mouths of God's
people will never stop singing it. We spend some time looking at
the songs in chapter 4 and 5 and in chapter 7. He behold a great
multitude which no man, chapter 7 verse 9, which no man could
number of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues stood
before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes
and palms in their hands and cried with a loud voice, Salvation
to our God which sits upon the throne and to the Lamb. Who are they? Verse 14, Sir, they are Noah's. And he
said to me, These are they which came out of the great tribulation
and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb. A multitude. a multitude singing
in heaven about a Redeemer. That's what heaven is about,
isn't it? The songs of heaven are about a sacrificed, successful,
sovereign Redeemer who's substituted for His people. It's the us,
it's the sheep, it's the elect. Throughout the Scriptures, the
death of the Lord Jesus is always, always portrayed. as a death
with a particular people and a particular purpose in mind. That's what Paul preached to
these people. He had no reason ever to change
it. It's God's truth. He has made sin for his people. If you go back to our verse in
2 Corinthians 5, it's the us. It's the us. There is an us. He has made Him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we, we the us, might be made the
righteousness of God in Him." What did he accomplish? What
did he accomplish? What is meant by the simple phrase,
that's one word in the original, it is finished. By Himself He purged our sins
and He sat down. By His own blood He has entered
in once into the holy place, having what? Having obtained
eternal redemption for us. He has made peace. What did He accomplish? He made
His people spotless, absolutely perfect. Isn't it remarkable?
He's going to present us before Him unblameable. Why? Because we'll be holy. We're holy, brothers and sisters. You don't need to add to holiness. Without holiness, no one will
see the Lord. You have to be as holy as God. That's what he's done for his
people. He's made peace. He's rescued
us. He gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us from this present evil world. He's rescued us that we might
live unto God as we saw a couple of weeks ago. He was manifested
to take away our sin. He was manifested to glorify
His Father. He was manifested to magnify
the law and make it holy. Why did He do it? Why did He
do it? Why did He do this? What's the
fountain from which all this flows? We just read about it. Who loved Me? who loved me. He loved a particular people
as a husband loves his bride. He loved his bride. He loved
his father. He loved us. There is no other
way." The question that Galatians 3.1
is asking, Does this persuade you? Are you persuaded? Are you convinced? Are you moved by Him and His sacrifice for
His people? I'll just tell a brief story
and then we'll finish. There's a story told, I just heard the
other day, of a very wealthy Englishman went to California
during the days of the gold rush. and he was a wealthy man and
after a few months on the Californian gold fields he was an extremely
wealthy man. To go home he had to go through
New Orleans and it was still the days of slavery in America. And so he went to a slave auction
for some reason and there on the slave block was this beautiful
black girl and she was being bidded over by these two avaricious
men who wanted to use her for no good purpose whatsoever and
he was so taken by the tragedy of all of this and the depravity
of it that he stood up in the auction and he said, whatever
they give you, I'll give you twice. And she was his. As he walked
up to her, she spat in his face and he came to take her. And
then he took her downtown and filled in the papers. The papers
were the papers that guaranteed her freedom. He bought her freedom
for her. And as he handed her the papers
she couldn't read or write and she spat in his face again. And
he wiped the spittle from his face. And then he said to her, do you
know what this means? She said, you are now completely
free, you can go. And she said to him, I just have
one request of you, just one request. He gave himself for us that he
might deliver us from this present evil world, from the evil of
its religion, from the evil of our hearts which long for our
own righteousness, from the evil of the bewitching delusion of
legalistic self-righteousness. Let's pray.