Galatians chapter 4 and we'll
be looking at verses 24 through 27. Galatians chapter 4 and verse
24 through 27. The title of the message this
morning is the procreation of the law and grace. The procreation of the law and
grace. Now, last week we looked at these
verses. Let's read these together. Verse
24 says, which things are an allegory For these are two covenants,
the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is
Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai
in Arabia, an answer to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage
with her children. But Jerusalem, which is above,
is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written,
Rejoice thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry thou
that travailest not. For the desolate hath many more
children than she which hath a husband. Now last week we did
look at these two covenants. The covenant of works and the
covenant of grace. And we saw that there are only
two covenants of God with men. A covenant of works or law and
a covenant of grace or promise. There are no other covenants. We all this morning are under
one of these two covenants. You are either under the burden
and curse of the law or you are under the promise of eternal
life through grace. There is no other covenant. There are only two religions,
I told you last week. Only two religions, works and
grace. You don't have to get it mixed up. You don't have to
be confused. You don't have to learn all about
their religion. You just have to know this. If
they're depending on anything, not one thing to add to the sacrifice
of Christ, then they are under a covenant of works. But we who
believe in Christ, we are under a covenant of grace. Our salvation
is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Now,
These two covenants we saw also were an allegory, were given
to us in the form of an allegory. What is that? A picture, a type. These two covenants were represented
in the Old Testament by two sons, by two mothers who had two sons. This first son was Ishmael. He was the son of a slave girl
named Hagar. And the other was Isaac who was
born of promise. God promised that He would give
Sarah and Abraham a son. A son. Ishmael represents the
covenant of works and Isaac represents the covenant of promise. I've titled this message, the
procreation of the law and grace. And what I mean by that is really
found in verse 24. Look at that. Which things are
an allegory for these are two covenants, the one from Mount
Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. The word gendereth
means procreate. Bondage always procreates bondage. And grace always procreates liberty. Those are the two points I want
to make this morning. First of all, the law procreates
or the law genders to bondage. Ishmael being born of that slave
girl, Hagar, No matter what he did, no matter where he went,
no matter how hard he tried, he could never escape the fact
that he was born of a slave girl. He could never escape that fact.
He being the son of a slave was himself always a slave. Now you can put a crown on him.
You can put a robe on him. It didn't matter what you did
to his outer body. It was a simple fact. He was
born a slave. Hagar was bought. She was bought
of Abraham and Isaac to do their master's will. To do Abraham
and Sarah's bidding. She was a slave. And she always
was a slave. And so when God promised Abraham
that son, Sarah, in unbelief said, Abraham, why don't you
take Hagar, my young slave girl? I can't have a child. It's impossible.
You take my slave girl and you have a child by her and then
I'll claim him as my own. No, that's not what God promised.
That's not how God determined that the nations of the earth
would be blessed, not by the son of a slave, but only by the
son of the free woman. And this son was conceived by
a slave and born a slave. So it is, all men by nature are
born slaves under the law of God. Now, what do I mean by that? Some men have never heard the
law of God, isn't that right? How can everyone be under the
law of God if they've never heard the law of God? Well, the scriptures
are very plain. Every one of us have the law
of God written in our hearts. from birth. We have the law of
God in our hearts. We know that killing is wrong
even without ever hearing the Ten Commandments. We know that
stealing is wrong because it is written in our hearts. This
is why we have laws in government. And you can see how even our
laws, though corrupt they be, they still reflect some of the
characteristics of God's law. Why is that? Because it's in
their heart. And so when a judge stands up,
and a man's committed murder, and he swings his gavel and he
says, guilty, he judges that man based on a
moral code of laws that was written in the hearts of man. But the
problem is the judge himself loves sin just as much as the
man he condemned. So then, all men, the Scripture
says, are without excuse concerning this matter. Everyone knows there
is a God. Everyone knows that He is just
and must condemn sin. But this knowledge, this knowledge
never frees men. It never frees them. It never gives peace. It never gives salvation to the
soul. But rather, it enslaves men more
to sin. It excites men more to sin. When we commit something that
we know is wrong, the first thing that we do is we may feel guilty
about it, but eventually, if we commit it enough, we're trying
to excuse it. We'll try to excuse it. We'll
try to find some reason for it, or something to excuse us from
what we did. And pretty soon, our conscience
is filed over, it's seared, and we don't feel that guilt anymore.
Does that take away the guilt? No. The guilt is still there.
Guilt is still there even though you've defiled, you filed over
it. It's still there. You know. We know that God is just and
must punish sin. And we know this, that no amount
of law or religious deeds or self-righteousness or will worship
will ever remove guilt. Yet, the natural man still, regardless of what he knows in
his own conscience, still, he desires to put himself under
some kind of law, some kind of bondage. We are all, by nature, We are
all as creatures of God under the authority of God who must
punish sin. And yet we have sinned and still
do sin. So then we could never remove
sin ourselves. We can never remove sin ourselves. You know, the natural man really
doesn't want to remove his sins. He wants to remove the consequences. It's not putting our hand in
the fire that so much bothers us as it is the burning. You see, we want to indulge in
all of the sins of the world, but we don't want to feel the
pain of those sins. We don't want to feel the wrath
of God against those sins. Watching a man the other night
on television, and he was asked a direct question about how he
felt concerning, he said, do you believe that homosexuality
is wrong or abortion is wrong? And the man says, absolutely.
And the other guy was offended by that. Why? Because in his
conscience he knows he's wrong. In his own conscience, he felt
guilty. He knew it. But yet he hated the other man
for it. That other man didn't offend
him, didn't do anything to this man. Why was he so offended?
He was offended because he knew he was wrong. He knew he was
guilty. He knew he was guilty. And friends, because we are guilty,
we can never, by obedience, take away our guilt. Therefore, all works religion
gendereth to bondage. You remember when God appeared
in the scriptures on Mount Sinai, how did he appear? When God gave
his holy, just, and righteous law, how did he appear to men? Go to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse
14. Speaking to believers, he says,
follow peace with all and holiness without which no man shall see
the Lord. looking diligently lest any man
fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing
up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." Is that not clear that without
holiness you can't see God? Is that clear? It says it right
there, without holiness no man will see the Lord. That's just
got to be as plain as a nose on our face. Without complete
holiness, you will not see the mercy of God. You will not see
the love of God. You will not see the grace of
God. And so we who believe on Christ,
we should look and continue to look diligently and let us by faith rest only
on the accomplished work of Christ. unless the root of bitterness
spring up. What is that root of bitterness?
It's law. That's what the root of bitterness
is. The root of bitterness is the law. And the law troubles
us. It troubles our conscience. Does
it not? Of course it does. The root of bitterness is the
bondage of the law. And men may realize, as Esau
did, look at that, he said, lest there be any fornicator and profane
person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
Isn't that something? One piece of meat and he sold
his blessing. Do not Works, religion, and those
who believe in works, religion do the same thing. Do they not
sell salvation for one of their own works that they want to hold
on to? One piece of glory. One piece
of meat for themselves, and they'll sell the birthright. There is no salvation to be found
in the bondage of free will and works religion. There's bitterness. And look at this, for you know
that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing,
he was rejected. For he found no place of repentance,
though he sought it carefully with tears. Does that sound strange? You see, to an Arminian, this
person would have been saved, wouldn't he? It says he sought
repentance and he sought it with tears. What does that mean? God
didn't forgive him? No, God didn't forgive him. Why? Because he sought only the physical
blessing. He wept only because he had missed
out on the physical blessing. He did not weep over his sin. He didn't weep over his sin. The mount of the law and religious
works is one of no mercy. I do not care how hard a man
works. I do not care how sincere a man
may try to obey the law. I do not care how much a person
does in this life if they sacrifice their bodies. If they are doing it for their
salvation, God will not have mercy on them. There is no mercy to be found
in our works. To all who try to come God by
their works, they will not find mercy. but only the fire and
justice of God. Look at that in verse 18. For
you know, for ye are not coming to the mount that might be touched,
and that burned with fire, nor into blackness and darkness and
tempest for the sound of the trumpet and the voice of words,
which voice that they heard entreated that they should not be spoken
of to them anymore. You see, this was a terrible
place. There was no mercy to be found. If they touched that
mountain, they would be killed. There's no mercy to be found
in works. And let me ask you this, does it not always gender
or produce bondage? Every religion that is works-based
always gender it or procreates more bondage. Isn't that right? I enjoyed our conversation yesterday
immensely because we were talking about the Paedo-Baptists. The infant, those who believe
in sprinkling of infants and baptism of infants. And they
did it for a very sincere cause. They were trying to say, we are
dedicating our children to the Lord. So they instituted this
little ritual, this ceremony. But it never stops there. It
never stops with a little law. It always gendereth more and
more and more laws. Think of the Pharisees. Those
Pharisees who really tried to obey the law of God. I don't
doubt that they weren't sincerely trying to obey the law of God.
But what happened when they tried to obey the Sabbath? They said,
well, you're supposed to rest on the Sabbath. Okay, so they
rested and then their conscience came to them said that's not
enough. You didn't rest enough. You got to do more to rest. Okay,
now then we're going to start adding traditions to the law.
Law says rest, but that's not enough. We've got to add more
specific things to it so that our consciences can be clear. And the more they added, the
more their conscience was defiled. The more they added, the more
their conscience was defiled. Until they had so grievous a
burden that resting was labor. God says rest. And they made
it a labor. Jesus said, you put burdens on
men that you yourselves won't touch with a 10 foot pole. When is enough words enough?
Isn't that the question of religion? When is enough enough? It's never enough. So it always
procreates more bondage. That's why Paul says in our text
that this law, this Mount Sinai, gendereth, procreates more bondage. Well, number two, grace always
procreates liberty. Grace always yields liberty. Isaac, who was a picture of the
better covenant, the covenant of grace, was the child of promise. He was the child given to Abraham
and Sarah when it was past their time, when her womb was dead
and barren, fruitless. You see, In that, there's hope. You know, in the law of the leper,
it was only when the leper was covered from head to toe that
the priest could denounce that he's clean. Isn't that something?
It was only when Sarah's womb was the deadest it could possibly
be that God gave the promise of grace. that God accomplished
what He had promised He would do in her. God had promised to give a son
in whom the nations of the world would be blessed. That is Isaac,
whose seed was Christ. And this son Isaac was not a
slave, but he was born of a free woman. Therefore, he was free. This is an allegory to us of
the covenant of grace. And everyone who is under this
covenant is free. Free. Look in your text at verse 26.
But Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother
of us all. Jerusalem is Israel, the church. The church of God, both Jew and
Gentile, bond and free, male and female, it doesn't matter
about our outward physical condition or status. This matter of grace
is something that God does for us regardless of our status in
this world. It's something that He does freely
without a cause in us. And all who are sons of promise
are born not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man,
but of the will of God. If you are born, again, it is
because of the will of God. Because God willed it so. God
accomplished it. God did it. God purposed it. That's how we were saved. What does that gender? What does that message procreate? Humility. That's what it does. It procreates humility. Law and works always gender to
pride. I am not trying to get you to
come up to some education or academic level of the gospel. I want the gospel of God to touch
your heart so that you might be humbled before God. And this humility before God
only frees us It frees us. It gives us liberty to serve
God. Why is it that you love to serve
God? Is it not because the grace genders
that love in us to serve God? It does. It genders worship,
praise, adoration, thanksgiving. All of these things come from
within us. Because God by grace has saved
us. Genders love to God and love
to each other. It was only by the power of the
Spirit of God through the preaching of the gospel of Christ that
we were saved. What did we have to do with it? Nothing. Nothing. What then do we have to do to
keep it? Nothing. Nothing. You see, I am free from the law. I am free from the curse. And the law has nothing to say
to me, but welcome. He says to you. Innocent. Of all charges. That's what the law has to say. Is that not free? But let us beware. lest we fall
into the root of bitterness, unless we try to gender some
type of bondage on ourselves, because that only genders more
bondage. But grace, grace produces love,
humility, worship, praise. All of those things that God
commands us to do, these are not grievous to us, are they?
Is it grievous to you to worship? No. Is it grievous to you to
praise God? No. Because I'm free in Christ. Pray that God blesses
to you. We're dismissed.