that you and I have been fellowshipping
in the Lord. I've enjoyed more than preaching
to you, I've enjoyed your fellowship and your friendship. I appreciate
all of you who have grown so far to worship, to seek the Lord,
And it's been a good place to be. There's no way that you could
improve on what we just heard. Thank you, ladies, for the good
food. The best cooks next to the ladies we got up on. And
I know it. I'm not as dumb as I look. Galatians chapter 5, I want to
comment here just a few minutes on some of these verses. In verse 14, he tells us, All
the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. This I say then, walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the
flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,
and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot
do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit,
ye are not under the law." Now, I could probably come here this
morning and having gleaned from some of the commentators, and
could probably give you a discourse on this, that I could leave here feeling
somewhat proud of myself, that you would leave here wondering
what in the world was that man talking about. I want to look
at this this morning in the most practical way that you and I
can look at And I hope the Lord will teach us something this
morning, practical, that we can take home with us and help us
in the days ahead. The Apostle Paul has been speaking
in this epistle throughout the whole epistle from chapter 1,
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf. He suffered for
our sins according to the will of God. That is the way he began
this epistle. And he continually tells us about
the death of Christ on our behalf and our faith in him to justify
us. Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law, he tells us. The life that I now live in the
flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me. And throughout this epistle,
he sometimes just begins to hint at Christ's work in us, the Spirit's
work in us, the Spirit of God indwell in us. He says there
in the third chapter in verse 14, that since Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law, that the promise that God made
to Abraham might come on the Gentiles. And this is the promise,
that we might receive the Spirit. And then he says, God has sent
the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Father, Father. And another place he tells us
in chapter 3, you receive the Spirit not by the works of the
law, but by the hearing of faith. So I want to look just a little
bit this morning about the Spirit. Paul makes mention of him here
in this chapter so much. He says there in verse 16, in
the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. And he says
over there in verse 25, if we live in the Spirit, if we are
alive in the Spirit, if we have life by the Spirit, then let
us also walk in the Spirit. You and I are in a spiritual
realm. We must be in a spiritual realm. They that are in the flesh
cannot please God. You must be born again. Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
except a man be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. You'll never make anything else
out of it. But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you,
you must be born again. The wind blows where it wills.
It blows where it wishes to blow. And you hear the sound thereof,
but you can't tell where it's coming from or where it's going.
And so is everyone that's born of the Spirit. We're in a spiritual
realm. We're in a spiritual kingdom.
Being born again, Peter tells us, Not of corruptible seed,
but of the incorruptible seed, by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. For all flesh is grass, and all
the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. Just let the Lord
withhold the rain a few more days, and you go out and walk
on the grass, and you can see the nature of the grass. It starts
breaking under your feet and turning brown. That's the way
flesh is. That's the way the glory of our
flesh is. We're born and we flourish and
then we're gone. But the word of the Lord endures
forever. And this is the word you're born
of. If you're born of this word, you'll never pass away. And this
is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Born of
the Spirit, born of the word, of his own will begot to you.
with the Word of Truth. We are in a spiritual kingdom.
A spiritual kingdom. We must be taught of the Spirit. We must be born of the Spirit.
We must be taught of the Spirit. Turn over here just to your left
with me to 1 Corinthians 2. In 1 Corinthians 2, the Apostle Paul
is telling us of this very thing. In chapter 2, and look in verse
9, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 9, as it is written, I
hath not seen, the natural eye hath never seen, the natural
ear has never heard, it has never entered into the natural heart
of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love
him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things. The Spirit in us searcheth all
things. Yea, the deep things of God.
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the Spirit of
man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth
no man but the Spirit. I was telling folks up home about
an old dog I have. He's my neighbor's dog. And she's
got in the habit of staying over at my house. She comes by every
morning for breakfast. She'll come by and stand outside
the door until I give her a piece of bread or something. Labrador
retriever, huge black Labrador retriever. And she's found out
where my office is. My office is out in the garage,
in the back of the garage. And she comes out now to the
garage, and if she can find a ball, she'll stand there with a ball
in her mouth. And she'll lay it down and she'll start whining,
wanting me to come out and play with her. Sometimes I do, sometimes
I can't. But it's like a little grandbaby
standing there. Poppy, come out and play. Come out and play.
And I was a little bit in an aggravated mood the other morning
anyway, and she just stood there and she wouldn't go home. And
I thought within myself, you sorry stinking mutt. Go home
to your master." And I thought, boy, if she knew. Well, I just
thought about her. But she don't know. You know
why she don't know? She don't have my spirit. If
I had some way to take my spirit and put it in that dog, she'd
know what I was thinking. She'd know my mind. Well, that's
what Paul is telling us here. How can we know the things of
God? He's eternally different than
you and I. He's God and we're a creature.
Oh, you know how he teaches us of the things of God? He gives
us his Spirit. Ain't that what Paul is teaching
us here? Look in verse 12. Now, we have received not the
Spirit of the world. The world don't know God. But
we receive the Spirit. which is of God, for this reason,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. But when he gives us his Spirit,
how does he teach us? How does he show us these things?
Does he just come to us and we stand there with our mouth wide
open and say, oh, I can't explain this. It's just too wonderful. It's not like that at all. Oh,
it's joy unspeakable and full of glory. I can't explain what
Greg just preached. But he did. Didn't the Lord open
your heart? Didn't he open your understanding
as Greg was preaching? There wasn't some emotional enthusiasm. No, it went to your heart. The
words. Ain't that what he said? Which
things we speak, Not in the words which man's wisdom teach us,
but which the Holy Ghost teach us. A man stands before us and
he takes this text, and what does he do? He begins to comment
on these words. He explains words, he explains
phrases to us, and we get the sense of it. Why do we understand? God teaches us by His Spirit. Those poor foolish apostles and
disciples were on the road to Emmaus and they were so sad until
he opened their understanding that they might understand the
scriptures. The Lord opened Lydia's heart and she attained to the
words which were spoken by Paul. This is the way the Spirit teaches
us. He teaches us from the Bible, from the Word of God. We must
be taught of the Spirit. We must pray in the Spirit. We're
in a spiritual realm, aren't we? We're alive in the Spirit. We're not in the flesh. We're
in the Spirit. We pray in the Spirit. The Spirit helpeth our infirmities. What is our infirmity? One thing,
we don't know what to pray for. We don't know how to pray. You've
been there, haven't you? You've experienced this. We all
have. But here comes the Holy Spirit. And He gets in us. And He upholds us in the way
of prayer. And He enables us to pour out
our souls. To talk with our Father. To approach
and realize the access and the freedom we have through the Lord
Jesus Christ. Have you ever gone to prayer
and at first you had nothing to say? and you were so weak
and cold and you felt awful about it all. But then the Holy Spirit
secretly, secretly, oh, he begins to energize your heart and warm
your soul and open it up. I tell you, I have found more
strength in prayer. And I have been taught more experimentally
in prayer than I have in all of my days of reading even the
Bible. There have been times when I've been able to say in
my soul, Father, Father, and that meant more to me than all
the sermons I've heard in a month's time. Who enables us to pray? The Spirit. You remember, David,
sometimes as you read the Psalms, and he'll begin the Psalms and
he's so down. And he's crying to the Lord.
But before the Psalm is finished, he's delivered. And he's up and
he's full of joy. I waited patiently for the Lord. I cried to him, he said. I was
in this horrible pit, and I cried unto the Lord. And he brought
me up out of that pit, and established my goings, and set my feet upon
a rock, and put a song in my heart. All of that in prayer,
as he went to prayer. Praying in the Spirit. Well,
we must worship in the Spirit. The hour cometh and now is when
the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him
in spirit and truth. The Apostle Paul, writing to
the Romans, he said, I am the minister of Jesus Christ for
you Gentiles. Preach in the gospel of God that
the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable. being sanctified
by the Holy Ghost, worshiping in the Spirit of God. Well, we must have the Spirit
before we can love. All the law is fulfilled in this
one word. Somebody said, Law is my rule
of life. Okay then, that's fine. But all the law is fulfilled
in this one word. Thou shalt love thy neighbors
yourself. But I tell you, this much nobody ever loved apart
from the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is what?
Love. That's not a fruit of the flesh.
That's the fruit of the Spirit. Love is not some sentimental
emotion. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
Ecclesiastes, Paul said, declared unto us your love in the Spirit. Your love for God. Your love
for Christ and his gospel and his people and the things of
God. If a man loves me, he'll keep
my word. There is no sense of us getting
frustrated and frustrated with people who don't love the Lord. I've been there, I know where
they're at. They don't love his presence, they don't love his
word, they don't love his worship, they don't love his people. Don't
get mad at them. I've been there, haven't you?
I know right where they're at. And the whole problem is this,
they don't have the Spirit of Christ. And you cannot love apart
from having the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit
of God, and if you're born of the Spirit, you're born of love.
Listen to this passage. Beloved, let us love one another,
for love is of God. And every one that loveth is
born of God. That's why he loves, because
he's born of God. And he knows God, for God is
love. You and I are in a spiritual
kingdom, aren't we? We have been born into a spiritual kingdom. We have been made new creatures
in Christ. We have been delivered from the
power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear
Son. We have experienced a new birth. There is a new creature within
us that never existed before, a new man, an inner man, and
this new man lives in the Spirit, and he is told here to walk in
the Spirit. Because there is no other way
that he can overcome this world, there is no other way that he
can overcome the devil and flourish except as he walks in the Spirit. We wrestle not against flesh
and blood. If that was the case, I'd go
to the weight room more often. But that's not the case. I'll
tell you one thing. We've got much more stronger
enemies than flesh. We wrestle against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.
How are we going to overcome such power? Listen to what Paul
tells us. He said, I pray for you that
God would grant you to be strengthened with might by his Spirit. Now, think about that just for
a minute. God would grant you to be strengthened by might,
by his might, by his Spirit in the inner man. That's the only
way we can overcome. "...that Christ may dwell in
your hearts by faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in
love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth,
the length, the depth, and the height, and to know the love
of Christ which passes knowledge." And listen to this, "...that
you might be filled with all the fullness of God." We're in
a spiritual kingdom. The problem these glaciers were
having was this. They had begun in the Spirit.
They had been born of the Spirit. They were alive in the Spirit.
But their whole problem was this. They were trying to perfect the
flesh. Having begun in the Spirit, are
you now made perfect by the flesh? That's their whole problem. And
the way they were trying to do this was submit themselves to
outward ceremonies and rites. Circumcision. Circumcision. They wanted to be circumcised.
And you know one of the reasons they wanted to be circumcised?
Because it hurt. They wanted to suffer in the
body. They wanted to submit themselves
to feast days and Sabbath days. They wanted to abstain from certain
meats and drinks. It was all about abstinence,
suffering, suffering in this flesh. And they thought by doing
these things that they could perfect their flesh. And now
Paul writes unto them and says, No, no, the flesh cannot be perfected. God has not saved the flesh. The flesh is what it has always
been. It is full of passion, it is
full of lust, it is vile, it is sinful. The flesh lusts, it
wars against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And
what he is telling them here, instead of You realizing your
flesh is reaching the state of perfection, what you are going
to realize is this, the older you get and the farther you get
in the Christian life, what you are going to realize, your flesh
is much, much alive. And you are going to spend your
time just trying to keep him under subjection and to keep
him from having his way with you. And the only way you're going
to be able to keep him conquered and to keep him beat back and
beat down is to walk in the grace and the strength of the Spirit
of Christ, which is in you. This I say then, walk in the
Spirit. And when Paul says you're flesh,
he's not speaking of the members of the body so much, but he's
speaking of this nature. The old nature of the old man
that seeks an outlet through these members. I told him at
church the other day, I said, you know, I wish that my whole
problem that I had was with this hand. I'd go up to the nursery
room and say, I'm here to have my hand amputated. I'm going
to get rid of all my troubles. I'm having trouble with this
left eye, and I want you to go ahead and cut it out. Don't give
it to anybody else, please don't give it to anybody else. And
I'd go home so happy, one-handed and one-eyed, the more I'd be
happy, because my trouble would be over with. But that's not
our problem, brothers and sisters. Our problem is this old nature.
We are born with it, and we're going to live with it, and we're
going to die. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? When I would do good, evil is
present with me. And I never get any relief from
this. And the only way that you are going to conquer him to the
least, into any degree, and to keep him beat down, is to walk
in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. Have you ever read old Martin
Luther? He talked about when he was a
monk. They used to build their monasteries.
They never built them in town. Very, very often you found a
monastery in the city. They built them back on the mountains
and in the wilderness because they felt society was corrupting. And if you hung around society
and you was a holy man, it would rub off on you and you would
be corrupt. So they built their synagogue, monasteries out in
the desert. And they would go out there,
and Luther, if you read any of his work, he talked about going
out to those monasteries. And on a cold night, he sometimes
stripped himself naked and laid on those cold bricks, trying
to eradicate the sin that was in his body. He sharpened sticks
and cut himself with them. fasted himself half to death,
trying to eradicate the sin that is in this flesh that he felt.
I was reading the account of Jerome. He was one of these monks that
lived out in one of these monasteries. Here is his confession. Listen
to this. have I thought myself to be in
the midst of the vain delights and pleasures of Rome, even when
I was in the wild wilderness. And I who for fear of hell had
condemned myself to such a prison, thought myself oft times to be
dancing among young women, when I had no more company than scorpions
and wild beasts. My face was pale with fasting,
but my mind was inflamed with desire in my body. And although
my flesh was half scarred to death by fasting, yet the flames
of fleshly lust boil within me." I tell you, the passions of this
flesh cannot be eradicated by such means. And the more you try to eradicate
this flesh and the sin that's in it, the worse it's going to
go. Put us in a cave with a loaf
of bread and a bottle of water, and I'll tell you what we'll
be doing. Lusting and lusting and lusting. That's what we're
made up of. Sin. We're ruined. The remedy
for our misery cannot be remedied in this world. will die, saying,
O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body
of this death? What is a believer to do that?
Well, he gives us this, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh. He didn't say the flesh wouldn't
lust. He said you won't have a vent for it through these members. Obey his teaching from his Word. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit
of God. And realize this, your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you. Do you and I
think about that? Do we realize that? Do you realize
this morning, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ in a
scriptural sense, the Holy Spirit dwells in you? He influences you, but he's not
just an influence, he's a divine person. And he dwells in you
to guide you, and to encourage you, and to strengthen you, and
to give you grace to war against this old man. He's in you. He's in you. I was thinking the
other day, maybe you have some problems with this like I do,
but I thought on something too long. And all of a sudden, I
sort of came to myself and I thought, what am I thinking about? And
I thought, boy, if the Lord was here staring me in the face,
he'd know what I'd just been thinking about. And then I thought,
he is here. He's in me. I will dwell in them. I'll walk in them. I said, we'll
set up for a boat. He is in us. And I tell you,
when you and I live in awareness that we're indwelled by this
divine person, this third person of the sacred trinity, Christ
in us by His Spirit, that will encourage us so much. You and I would meditate here
upon verse 17 in our text, Galatians chapter 5. The flesh lusteth against the
Spirit. He wars against the Spirit. The
Spirit wars against the flesh. And these are contrary, they
are opposed one to another. If you and I would just meditate
and think about this just a little bit. Wouldn't this give us a
renewed appreciation for the love and the patience of the
Holy Spirit? You know, we don't hear much
about the love of the Spirit, do we? He just doesn't testify
of Himself. But He loves us. He loves us. And He's so patient with us.
He is to us, as the person of Christ was to His apostles when
He walked with them and talked with them. What an ignorant bunch
of people Christ's apostles were when he was here with them. You
know if it was left up to the Lord's apostles when he was here
with them, the work of Christ would have been an awful, awful
failure. It would have. If he had said, it's up to you
now. I've given you this authority. Now you use it. You use your
own discretion. Yeah, do you know what they would
have did? They probably wouldn't have been a city of Samaria left.
You want us to call it on fire from heaven? They are ashamed,
the Lord. One day they were out preaching.
They ran up on this other preacher. The Lord was preaching in the
name of Christ and casting out devils. John said, You need to
come with us. And he said, No, there is another place over here
I want to go preach Christ there. Well, you shut up then. I don't
want to hear you preaching anymore. You just shut your mouth. That's
what they said to him. And they come back from bed to
bed about it. They will shut him up. But you know something? He never
gave up on those fellows. You know what the scripture says?
Having loved his own which were in this world, he loved them
until the end. And you know something? The Spirit
of God comes into our hearts, the Spirit of Christ comes into
our hearts, and he knows full well what he's going to be up
against. He comes here to set up his throne and he's going
to do battle with this miserable pharisee all the days of our
lives. And yet he so lovingly abides.
He so patiently and thankfully abides. He rebukes when he has
to. He reproves when he has to. But
he never leaves us and never forsakes us. And he opens our
hearts that we may rejoice in Christ and his goodness. He dwells in your hearts. Verse 18. Look at this. But if ye be led of the Spirit,
ye are not under the law. If ye be led of the Spirit, ye
are not under the law. And Paul is saying here, even
though we feel the workings of sin within our flesh, and those
so contrary to the spirit of holiness. But he is saying here, if you
are unable to fight against it, and you don't let this old flesh
have its vent, and you don't walk after that old flesh, then
you can know this, that you are not under the law. And for Christ's sake, this remnant
of sin that you feel working in you is not imputed to you.
There's no condemnation to you. Now, that's amazing, isn't it?
Sometimes we get so discouraged about this, we feel the working
of sin in us, we know how contrary it is to the Lord, but then he
comes right along and tells us, there's no condemnation to you.
You're in Christ. Sure, you have sin. It's not
imputed to you. This is the promise of the covenant. This is a covenant blessing.
I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. Why does he say that? Why don't
we just forgive it? It ain't something you can forgive.
It's something somebody is going to have to bear with and not
impute to us. It ain't sins you can lay aside.
It's something you've got to obtain mercy for. And that's
the covenant blessing. I'll be merciful to that unrighteousness. and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. And if you be led of the Spirit,
Paul said, you can live in the assurance that you are not under
the law, but you are under grace. What does this scripture teach
us, as we just looked at them in general? Well, it teaches
us this, the utter impossibility of being saved apart from a new
birth. apart from the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit. You and I are born into this
world, and by nature we are so sinful. We are born with sinful
nature. And that will never change. I
don't care what you do, you cannot change your nature. You live
with it and you abide with it. And until you and I are given
a new nature, we cannot know the Lord, we cannot love him,
we cannot reverence him, we cannot worship him or serve him. Nothing short of being born of
the Spirit will save us. The work of Christ within us
is just as essential as the work of Christ for us. We must be
born to begin. We must be lifted up from this
natural realm that we are in. Christ said those who are in
the flesh, those who are still in their nature, cannot please
God. If a man is trusting in his flesh,
and he is living after the flesh, and warring after the flesh,
he is not a Christ. But you are not in the flesh.
You are in the Spirit. Your confidence is not in the
flesh. You don't live your life worn after the flesh, but you
rejoice in Christ Jesus. You are looking unto Jesus with
spiritual eyes. You live by faith upon the Son
of God. You plead to him with purpose
of heart to be saved by him. You are waiting for the hope
of righteousness by faith. That's what Paul says. This being
so, you are not under the law. or the flesh is bound by this
old law of sin. But in the Spirit of your mind,
you are free. You are free. And there is no
condemnation to you. And you can live your life rejoicing
in Christ. And when this sorry life is over,
when this warfare is ended, You can go home to be with Christ
and rest from your labor. Who could ask for anything better
than that? All we're doing is waiting. Waiting. Sure, we're in a battle. Sure,
we're in a warfare, but we've got help, haven't we? If you
be led of the Spirit. I've got two verses of Scripture
I want you to turn to right quick, and I'll close. If you be led of the Spirit,
look over in Exodus. If you be led of the Spirit. Look at Exodus chapter 15. What does this teach us, to be
led of the Spirit? Isn't it a mercy? If you consider
this evening that you're a poor sinner, isn't that a mercy to
know that? You say, Bruce, everybody's a
poor sinner. I know that, but nobody hardly knows it. Isn't
it a mercy to know that you're a poor sinner? Isn't it a mercy
to know the way that God saves poor sinners? Here you were just
going along, dead in trespasses and sin, as ignorant as you could
be. And the Lord opened your understanding
and made you to know you are a poor sinner in need of a mighty
Savior. And he led you to Christ. David
said he leads us in the paths of righteousness. What's he talking
about? Well, I tell you, he led us to
Christ and showed us that Christ is our righteousness. You were
like me, you lived your whole life trying to establish your
own righteousness for God to save you. Did you not do that?
You never heard of the righteousness of Christ. You never understood
anything about you must be saved through the righteousness of
someone else. But here you sit this morning and you are trusting
in the righteousness of Christ. Who led you there? The Spirit,
didn't he? And he leads us in the paths
of righteousness? I never thought I'd see the day.
I thought it was impossible for me to sit in a service and be
happy, hearing the Word of God. The most miserable time in my
life is when I had to spend an hour and a half on Sunday morning
sitting and listening to some men read the Bible and hearing
the congregation sing. Oh, get me out of here, I'm bored
to death. I never dreamed that I could delight myself in the
Lord and in His ways. Do you feel that way? But you
do. Look how far some of you have traveled, sitting here in
this hot building. And it's getting hot in here. But you're willing, I could go
on for another, what, 45 minutes? Why would you drive this way
and why would you sit here? You delight in the Lord. You
delight in the Lord. Ain't that a mercy? That's a
mercy. He says here in Exodus 15 and
verse 13, look at this, "...thou in thy mercy hast led forth the
people which thou hast redeemed, thou hast guided them in thy
strength unto thy holy habitation." Mercy. Or for the Spirit to be
willing to condescend and James take you by the hand of your
heart and lead you. That's mercy. Look at another
place. Look at Isaiah chapter 42. I'll
close with this one. Isaiah 42. He just won't lead us and bring
us to Christ. I tell you, the Spirit of God,
if He left us for a second, if He left us for a second, we'd
be so lost. I know we'll forget Brother Mahan
one time. He said, Do you know if the Lord brought us within
ten feet of heaven? And he said, I'm going to let
you find the rest of the way for yourself. Henry said, we'd
get lost before we got there. That's how stupid we are, isn't
it? That's how blind we are, how ignorant we are. Well, look
here in verse 16 of Isaiah chapter 42. I will bring the blind by
a way that they knew not. I will lead them in paths that
they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them,
and not forsake them. Through many dangers, toils and
snares, I have already come. It was grace that brought me
safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. God bless his word.