Complete dependence upon the
Lord for all needed help this morning. Wish to direct your
very prayerful attention to the chapter that was read in your
hearing. Namely, Paul's epistle to the Galatians, chapter 3. And by way of text, verses 13
and 14. Paul's epistle to the Galatians,
chapter 3, verses 13 and 14. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. You know, very often the blessings
and favours of the Reformation are displayed in not necessarily
what is seen, but in what is not seen. I'll give you an example
here. Some nine years ago, I was favoured
to receive an invitation to preach in Uganda. And after the Lord's
Day morning service, and we'd had lunch, we just took a short
walk around the village, and comment was made about some strange
objects that have been left in the field. And I enquired about
them. I could see there was some discussion
going on. And what they found was, oh, they said there was
some voodoo practice this morning of which cursings would be made
upon the Christians. And in some cases,
there was a great deal of anxiety about such. Now, dear soul, you and I, I
trust, do not suffer under such anxieties. We have here the more sure word
of prophecy. and we need not worry who indeed
it may be or desires to curse us. Now a curse in the modern English sense is
defined as a call of harm upon a person or thing. But dear soul you and I are not
concerned with the cursings of men. There is only one curse within
the Scriptures that we ought to be concerned with and that
is that which is found within our text. But before we consider
these things in any detail. We must firstly consider the
context in which we find our considerations this morning.
Paul here is writing in very interesting circumstances. I
don't know how many of you have an interest in history, but very
often It can be very helpful to us if we read of what was
going on within the circumstances of these letters. Now all the
epistles were written certainly within the time frame of around
a decade. And if you are inclined to do
so, you may find it helpful to read the 14th chapter of the
Acts of the Apostles this afternoon. Because it was at that time,
and in those circumstances, that the Apostle was ministering. He was going about preaching
the everlasting Gospel. And thus, Many of the converts,
if we can use that phrase, were those who were called by
grace in Derby, Iconium, Antioch, and so on. And thus, a church was formed. the church was formed. And it
was very evident that the ministry in the beginning was of a very
faithful nature. But what do we read at the beginning
of our chapter in chapter 3? O foolish Galatians who hath
bewitched you that you should not obey the
truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ have been evidently set
forth, crucified among you." You can see the Apostle is using
these rhetorical questions. He often uses rhetorical questions
in order to press the point. And what was the point here?
Well, the people had come under false teaching. They come under bad influences. We can see nothing changes, does
it? How quickly, faithful, strict
and particular Baptist chapels have come under bad influences. And thus, they're a shadow of
what they were. What's more? What else do we
see? What was this poisonous preaching? What was the substance of it?
Well, it was to remove Christ as preeminent and attempt to
mix grace and works. No change there. No change there. Dear soul, we've
got to spell these things out. If we don't spell them out, we
might as well pack up and join the mainstream. Dear soul, you
and I have never been in the mainstream. Strict Baptists have
never been in the mainstream. We've no desire to walk the way
of the mainstream. Dear soul, this is a different
way. But we would maintain that this
is the way of Scripture. This is the way of Scripture.
Here, what do we see? Even within the context. Well,
interesting situation in respect of the church. Geographically,
even. The people, remember the church
is not... Some of our people think the church is the building.
The chapel itself. It's not. The church is the people
that gather. And these were primarily Gentiles. There were some Jews amongst
them. But at Galatia, the strong religious
presence was that of the Judaizers. And there was, as in other circumstances
within the scripture, that pressure to conform to the outward ceremonies and
to adopt and to kind of Christianize the Jewish practices and the
Jewish festivals and so on. But the Apostle here resists
these things. He resists them. Now, what do
we see? We also see here that, and it's
interesting to see this, that the apostolic ministries were
still in operation. By this time, they'd become less
frequent. But we see in verse 5, he therefore
that ministereth to you in the Spirit and worketh miracles among
you." We can see that. In the apostolic age, dear soul,
you and I are not to expect great aberrations. We're here to preach, to expound
the truth. And that's all. That's all. But here we can see the Lord
was working amongst them in that apostolic pattern. Remember the
church was built upon the apostles and prophets. So if you find
a man, as I've come across a man before, who declared himself
an apostle, you declare him a liar. You declare him a liar. No such
thing as an apostle today. We are but preachers. of his
truth. But these people, evidently of mixed circumstances
and background, had come together under the preaching of the Apostle. But they soon become engrossed
In fact that word bewitched has the same meaning as somebody
who becomes fascinated. You'll often notice that people
who often get taken up with error usually become obsessed about
something strange. We've seen it in our own denomination
with those who deny the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ if the
Lord will will touch upon his humanity this evening. But we
also find it, do we not, with those who get taken up with prophecy and such the like. What we have
here is the re-establishing that in all things he may have
the pre-eminence. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law. The curse. Now you and I this morning are
either living under a curse or we are living under what our
text describes as the blessing. Now, to understand the curse
right, we must, by necessity, go back to the book of Genesis. And even in that third chapter,
I'm not one for jumping about the Bible, it wearies people.
But, if you would turn with me there for a moment, you can see
in Genesis and chapter 3, the Lord speaking unto Adam in verse
17, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and
hast eaten of the tree which I commanded thee, saying, Thou
shalt not eat of him. Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall
it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat of the herb of the
field. And we see here following on the ordinance of work. In
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto
the ground. For out of it was thou taken,
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. The Lord cursed the ground. This is, to all intents and purposes,
the world. And thus, we see the pattern
of the world, and the results of the world. You see, here we
don't need philosophers to tell us and psychologists to tell
us what makes men happy, what makes them sad, what makes them
lacking, and what makes them fulfilled. We can see it even
here in three chapters in Genesis. Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. In sorrow thou shalt eat of it.
And is it not true? The spirit of the world is simply to cover, to cover,
to gain, to gain. And the more people have, the
more they want. But it leaves them lacking. And it always will. But even more than that, it has
the stamp of death upon it. but did the Lord say unto Adam
in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die and as
the margin says dying thou shalt die there was an immediate spiritual
death but a physical death was to follow
and it's the same with you and I we might be favoured with good
health we might be favoured to be living a rather full life,
we might say, in the outward sense, but he's got the stamp
of death about him. It's the stamp of death, thorns
and thistles. What a mark of the fall. By the sweat of our brow we shall
eat bread. Even in our work, we might find
our work fulfilling in various ways, but like in all things, it soon passes
and we're soon forgotten. One example, I remember hearing
of a man who worked in the White House, he was a very senior lawyer. But he said to his friend, you
know, on the day I retired, my phone stopped ringing. We're all soon forgotten. We're
soon forgotten. Now, we see here a curse. A curse. But this curse this isn't an unjust curse is
it? that's the difference you may have seen the illustration
with a woman blindfolded holding some scales and the illustration
really is that justice is blind now I don't want to get into
the ramifications of our legal system, but men being what they
are, it doesn't quite work like that, does it? Doesn't quite
work like that. But you see with the Lord, a man always gets a fair hearing. But I can guarantee you this,
in and of self, The answer will be guilty every single time. Because we are weighed up against
the law. And thus, against the law, inevitably,
we're cursed. Not unjustly. What does the hymn
writer say? And if my soul was sent to hell,
thy righteous law approves it well. But we see something else here,
don't we? We see Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law. Now that word redeem, as some
of you will be aware, means to buy back, to reconcile, to redeem, to purchase back, is what our pastor calls active
obedience that is found here in Christ and all that He is. redeemed us from the curse of
the law. But it goes on to tell us how.
Being made a curse for us. Being made a curse. Now what
does that speak of? Well it speaks of the doctrine
of penal substitution. In the 1990s, when I was a teenager,
there was a man who was what some would call a celebrity Christian,
so called, by the name of Steve Chalk. Some of you remember him. And he was well known for denying
the truth of penal substitution. He was one of the first ones
to do so. There's no justice without penal
substitution. Why? Because the weight of sin
must be paid. It must be paid. Justice must
be met. You see, the moral law is unbending. It's unbending. You and I, we've rules and we
bend them and break them to suit ourselves. But you see, the moral law is
unbending. Being made a curse. It's as the Apostle describes
in the Corinthians, made sin for us. And do not misunderstand
me. You know, there's some people
who would say, or who would attempt to say, Because they're wicked
gossips. That Christ became a sinner on
the cross. He didn't. And we'd never say
that. We'd never say that. To be made
sin. In other words, sin was laid
to His charge. Though He never sinned. But justice must be met. Satisfaction
must be met. And here we have justice, we
have satisfaction, we have penal substitution. Oh, and there's
a wealth of doctrine here. What else do we see? It might
seem to you an innocuous comment, dear soul, but he says being
made a curse for us. It doesn't say he was made a
curse for all mankind. There's no universal element
to this at all, is there? He says made a curse for us. What I'm speaking of here. Ask
yourselves this how many times you hear it in your own chapels.
I don't know. I don't know. But what we're here speaking
of is particular redemption. We've no need to be ashamed of
particular redemption. You and I ought to glory in the
truth of particular redemption. Why? Because this is the only
doctrine. This is the only atonement or
understanding of the atonement that brings glory to God. This
is the only doctrine. The poor Arminian, or the poor
Fullerite, who offers Christ indiscriminately. What good is
that? What good is that? It reduces
the Lord God of Heaven to nothing. Reduces Him to nothing. Because
unless satisfaction was found, unless redemption really was
made, God is not God. I said to somebody only last
week, find me one sinner in hell who the Lord has died for. You
won't find one. You won't find one. Full atonement thou hast made
and unto the utmost farthing paid. This is justice satisfied. Being made a curse for us, this
is speaking about the church. Couldn't be speaking about anybody
else. It couldn't be. Being made a curse for us, For it is written, we see here
the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scripture in Deuteronomy 21 verse
23, as we see it in the margin. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. Now here, we would pay again
some attention to the context. It was the practice, not just
of the Jews, but of many of the pagan societies that surrounded
them, to punish by death upon a tree. Now, it was only later that the
act of crucifixion came in. But, there's a lot again, there's
a lot of misunderstanding in this respect. I am not one who
would particularly believe in the cross as we have it in the
awful idolatry of the Roman Church, which is two diametrically opposed lines,
one horizontal and one vertical. But actually, it was upon an
upward pole. And this pole would often be
hung on a tree. That was the practice in those
days. Now it's mentioned here particularly
because of the public nature of this. And indeed the public
shame of it. You see this is the real depth. of the love of Christ to sinners. What we see in the dreadful images
of the Roman Church actually doesn't come close to the reality
of the shame. It doesn't come close. Cursed
is everyone that hangeth on a tree. It was the punishment for crimes. often in the civil sense. But
of course, in the case of the Lord Jesus who voluntarily laid
down his life, it was for the punishment of
sinners, himself committing no sin at all. But it was necessary for him
to walk that way. You read it for yourself, in
John's Gospel and chapter 16. But we see here in verse 14 and
continuing on, that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. The emphasis of this is, for
so many years The Jews were looking for the
Messiah. For one to come of their own
race to their own race. But what do we read? He came
unto his own and his own received him not. Now in the Old Testament
in many places, particularly in Hosea and Isaiah, We read
of what here the Apostle is confirming. That is that the Lord would call
a people who were not a people. That the Lord would redeem those
of who He knew not. Heathens, Gentiles, like you
and I. Those of whom had come from,
in many cases, pagan backgrounds. But, he emphasizes the nature
of this here, when he says this, that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. Now, what was the promise? Well, the promise came unto the
seed, didn't he? We read in verse 16, "...Now
to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not,
and to seeds as of many, but as of one. And to thy seed, which
is Christ." This has got nothing to do with
any promise to any racial group. Certainly not to any land in
Palestine, which is but a political situation and setup. If you're
looking to the Middle East, you're looking in the wrong place. This
is a spiritual seed for a spiritual people. I apologize for those of you
who have heard this before, but I'm not so sure you all have. we were invited, I think rather
naively, to a Bible study by those of dispensational views
and tendencies. And someone asked a very honest
but real question toward the end. They said, if I'm a Jew,
What does God's promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob mean to me? And
I took the opportunity, friend, to speak a word in season. I
said, I can tell you it means absolutely nothing. You'll find
the answer in verse 29 of our chapter. And if ye be Christ's,
ye are Abraham's seed and an heir according to the promise. There's not going to be any future
for any particular race of people. This is a spiritual seed, dear
soul. You see, and what does our text bear out? That this is fulfilled, the blessings
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. Each of us are born under the
curse. We're born under the curse and we're in need of redemption. We're in need of redemption.
But what do we read in here? We see the promise of it. That
we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Through faith. The promise of the Spirit. The Holy Ghost being poured out
upon the day of Pentecost. And indwelling the believer. This is the work that is spoken
of here. But we read these things are
found through faith. Now it's important that we understand that these things are a consequence of the Lord's
work within us. With the friends at Osset last
week We considered that word in Colossians, Christ in you,
the hope of glory. This is what the Lord does. He
implants His work within the soul. Nothing that you and I put our
hand to can take us to heaven. It can't. But you see, the way
of faith is the way that the Lord will have his people walk. Faith in what? Faith in Christ's
person, all that he is. In other words, I'm saying this
to you. Faith is not the cause of our salvation, simply the
effect of it. There's no salvation without
faith. Him stares this out that repentance
always ends in faith. Now, these people at Galatia, who
were they? Who were they? Well, they were
firstly the most unlikeliest of souls to perceive the Lord's
blessing and favour, born the majority in utter darkness. Now they come under the preaching
of the Apostles, but quickly been turned away, quickly been
turned away. And the Apostle writes, that these souls may see, the
way of God more perfectly. And isn't the life of faith just
like that? Perhaps we think when we are
first called by grace that we know everything. We've got the Scriptures, we've
got a faithful ministry. The disciples had that. But how
does the Lord deal with them? We see him correcting them, don't
we? All the way through. Think particularly of Peter. All the way through the Scriptures
they were learning in Christ's school. That's the life of faith,
isn't it? That's the life of faith. We might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith. Now, how stands the case with us dear
soul? You know this is the Lord's mercy
to sinners and particularly chose that last hymn with that in mind.
It says, free grace to sinners. But what's the language of the
hymn writers? Wonderful language. It says,
free grace to such as sinners be. And if free grace, why not
for me? Why not for me? That's the language of faith,
isn't it? It's the language of faith. Or
do we go out of the chapel as cold and as indifferent as we
came in? It's the work of the Spirit that
we need in amongst us and in amongst our churches. Sadly,
some chapels think that because revival isn't happening as they
see it, the answer is to get out on the doors, delivering
leaflets and knocking on the local neighbourhood and so on. That's not the answer. That's
not the answer. The answer is an outpouring of
the Spirit. That's what we need. That is
what we... and we're reading of the promise
of the Spirit. The promise of the Spirit, that's
what we're in need of. And what does the Spirit reveal?
The Spirit reveals Christ. This is the work of the Spirit. This is the work of the Spirit. And this is the work of faith. Christ pre-eminent. And we'll realise this, that
He is all and in all. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Amen.