May it please God to bless us
together for a few moments as we continue our meditations in
the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. Chapter 4, and this evening we'll
read verses 10 and 11. You observe days and months and
times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labour in vain. You may think it rather surprising
that it was necessary for the Apostle Paul to address the Galatians
in this way. But really the great concern
of the Apostle was that the Galatians did not go back to their Judaism,
which really was just keeping the law of God. Especially when we think of those
feasts which were kept, the Feast of Tabernacles and the Passover
and then Pentecost. There were those three principal
ordinances which were carried out and had been for many years. And the Apostle now, of course,
was directing them so very clearly to be a true follower of the
Lord Jesus Christ and there was no need, therefore, to follow
those things which had passed. And they were passed because
the Lord Jesus Christ had come and fulfilled the law. And all
that was necessary, he had done. Nothing was lacking. And so there
was no need to revert to those Old Testament ceremonies, which
of course were satisfying to the flesh, as people may have
patted themselves on the back, had they once again Now the years
come and again they kept those ceremonies and those laws which
had they been commanded to by Moses and then of course as those
things which followed. But there was no true satisfaction
in them because nothing was perfect. Sin was mixed with all they did
and it consisted really principally of their works in following the
law. But now the Apostle is directed
them so clearly not to just rely on such occasions as that. And of course we read together
in Colossians a very similar statement and it's interesting
that the Apostle there he says, let no man therefore judge you
in meat or drink or in respect of an holy day or of the new
moon or of the Sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come
but the body is of Christ. And of course the Sabbath day,
which was instituted at creation, had moved from what was the Jewish
Sabbath to now what we keep today as the Lord's Day. The essence
of it has not changed. It is still a holy day. It was a holy day when the Lord
instituted it. in creation. It wasn't a day
just to spend as people wanted to. And the Lord, the Prophet
wasn't speaking against that. But he was speaking against them
if they were still keeping the old Sabbath and not keeping now
the new Sabbath, which of course was the Lord's day. And so we
should be grateful that we have these words of instruction. And
what does it really mean? Well, I believe as much as Galatians
means, it means this, free in Christ, free from all the ceremonial
law, wonderful as it was, instructive as it was. But now today, we
can look to Christ as a fulfillment of all those laws, satisfactorily
kept by the Savior and superseded by the Savior. And so now today,
as we've gathered together for prayer, the wonderful favour
is that we can approach to the throne of grace. We have a glorious
high priest in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who we can come
to, who does present the prayers of his people to his Father and
our Father. And how thankful we should be
therefore tonight to have such a way As we gather together for
prayer, we can come to Almighty God through the Lord Jesus Christ
and understand the wonderful thing that we are indeed free
in Christ. You see, all these previous ceremonies
really referred to an earthly kingdom, but we are looking forward
to the heavenly kingdom, the glorious kingdom, because Christ
has come. He was prophesied. to come. He
did come and he did all that was required of him. He finished
the work that his father gave him to do. Oh, can we not praise
God for that tonight? And as we're here now, praying
to our God to realise that we do not pray in vain, but that
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So these words are very short
and very simple, but very pithy. as they were necessary to the
Galatians and necessary to the Church of God today, that we
look only to Christ.