Works versus grace. Probably,
if not the most important, one of the most important things
that we in the gospel need to understand. What in the world
is this thing of works versus grace? That's what the title
of the lesson is. What is that all about? And it's
simply, as Paul summarized things in Romans chapter 11, you might
remember, when he was talking about how they cannot mix works
and grace. Salvation by the works and the
wills of men cannot mix with salvation by the works and the
will of God in Christ. These two are mutually exclusive. In that sense, they're enemies.
And that's what this is all about. And going back to Genesis 21,
we're talking about Christ in the Old Testament. The events
of Genesis 21 are really, leading up to that, we can talk about
how we know this is Abraham and Sarah having a son, the promised
son, the promised seed, the promised child whose name was Isaac. He
was the product of the power and the mercy and the miraculous
power of God. Abraham was 100 years old. Sarah
was 99 when they conceived him and had this child. And so it
was beyond the pale of man to accomplish this. This was not
by the works of men. It was totally a promise from
God, by the work of God, by the power of God. But you remember,
God had promised in the covenant that he'd made with Abraham in
Genesis 12, that he would give Abraham and Sarah a son. And
as time went on, they didn't have a child. And so in a moment
of what you would call simply unbelief, Sarah, what did she
do? She gave her handmaid, an Egyptian
handmaid, an Egyptian bondmaid to Abraham to conceive a child. And she was thinking, well, God
hasn't given us a child and so we'll do it ourselves. And it
was a mess, wasn't it? Well, Hagar conceived and bore
a son named Ishmael. The name, and Ishmael, as you
know, we talked about how Abraham was the father of many nations
physically. Well, through Ishmael came the
Arabs, the modern day Arabs through that line. But Ishmael was never
meant to be the promised seed. That was Abraham and Sarah's,
he was the product of Abraham and Sarah's unbelief. And so
what happens now? Well, All of those events are
recorded in Genesis 16. Now you can read about all that,
how it all came about. But God told Abraham, he says,
Ishmael is not going to be the child of promise. In Isaac shall
thy seed be called. Well, as time went on, when Abraham
was 100 and Sarah was 99, God worked his sovereign will and
kept his promise, which he always does, and gave Abraham and Sarah
a child through a miraculous conception and birth, using both
of them, and then comes Isaac, the child of promise. I made
a note here in your lesson about how the name Isaac means laughter. It's the idea of happiness. And
if you look at Genesis 21-6, Sarah said, God hath made me
to laugh so that all that hear will laugh with me. And that's
the name Isaac. But you remember there was a
time back in earlier in Genesis when God, speaking to Abraham,
told Abraham, you're going to have a child and be in your old
age. And Sarah laughed then, you remember.
And then Abraham laughed. But it wasn't the laughter like
this. It wasn't a laughter. Here she says, God hath made
me to laugh. That's a good laughter. That's
a good happiness. But back then it was the laughter
of unbelief. Are you kidding me? I'm going
to have a child at this age? That kind of thing. So you see
the difference here. And so in his old age, and it
says in verse eight of Genesis 21, the child grew, this is Isaac. Now Ishmael had already been
born, and he'd grown, and was weaned, and Abraham made a great
feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. In verse nine, and
Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, which she had born
unto Abraham, mocking. Now what's being spoken of here,
Ishmael mocking Isaac, taunting Isaac, trying to make life hard
for Isaac. And verse 10 says, wherefore,
or for this reason, she said unto Abraham, cast out this bondwoman
and her son. For the son of this bondwoman
shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. Cast her out. They cannot live together. That's
the idea. And that sounds so cruel, but
it says here, it says in verse 11, the thing was very grievous
in Abraham's sight because of his son. Ishmael was still his
son. And he didn't want to cast him
out and all that, but then God intervened. In verse 12, and
God said unto him, let it not be grievous in thy sight because
of the lad and because of thy bondwoman. In all that Sarah
hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice, listen to her.
For in Isaac shall thy seed be called, and also of the son of
the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. So here's
what God's saying. You know, see, these things you
look at sometimes in the Old Testament and they seem like,
well, they're cold and cruel and all of that. But God is saying,
he's bringing forth a greater spiritual issue here that we
need to understand, which is a matter of life and death. But
he tells Abraham, now you cast them out. Because Isaac is the
seed. Isaac is your son. He's the son
of promise. Ishmael is not. Ishmael's got
to go. Ishmael, the bond woman, and
her son have to go. But he tells Abraham, but I'm
gonna take care of them. I'll make of them a great nation.
And he does, and you can read all about that in the book of
Genesis. But here's the lesson from all
this. Go over to Galatians chapter
four. And this is why you got two pages. And it's Galatians chapter four,
and if you'll look at verse 21, and I added this, actually our
lesson starts in verse 22, but listen to the question that Paul
is inspired by the Holy Spirit to ask here, tell me, Verse 21,
you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? Are you deaf? It's kind of like
somebody saying, somebody can't hear you, are you deaf? You that
desire to be under the law. Now what does he mean? He's writing
this to people who actually had a desire to make themselves righteous. to make themselves right with
God by their works under the law, by keeping the law. You desire to be under the law.
This is the way that I want to be saved. This is the way that
I want to be righteous. This is the way that I want to
be right with God. I want to do it myself by the keeping of
the law. And Paul says, don't you hear
the law? Well, if you look over at Galatians 3 and verse 10,
he says this. For as many as are of the works
of the law. In other words, if that's your
way, be under the law, you're under a curse. Not a blessing,
but a curse. Now why? Well, it's written,
cursed is everyone that continueth not in what? All things, not
some things, all things which are written in the book of the
law to do them. And verse 11, but that no man
is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. That's so plain in the scriptures,
even though man by nature doesn't see it. You remember Paul in
Romans chapter seven talking about before the law came, I
thought sin was dead. When I was trying to keep the
law for salvation, for righteousness, for life, I thought my works
were good enough and I didn't have sin. But when the law came,
when the Holy Spirit convicted him of sin by the law, he said,
sin revived and I died. I saw that the law condemned
me for my sin. I saw that I fell short of the
perfection of righteousness in the law that can only be found
in Christ. That's the issue. So he says
in verse 11 of Galatians 3, but that no man is justified by the
law in the sight of God, it's evident for the just or the justified
shall live by faith. That is looking to Christ, resting
in Christ for all righteousness, realizing that Christ is the
end of the law, the finishing of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believes. Now go back to Genesis four.
He says in verse 22, for it is written that Abraham had two
sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. So
he's making the distinction here because of the mothers. Hagar
was a bondmaid, she was a slave. Sarah was Abraham's wife. She
was never in bondage. She was free as Abraham's wife. And so the issue here is bondage
or liberty. To be under the law is bondage. And he says in verse 23, look,
but he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh, that
is, not by the miraculous power of God, like Isaac was, but after
the flesh. This was the flesh working, this
was Abraham and Sarah both working to do what God said he alone
could do. And so you know the story in
Genesis 16, how Sarah sent Hagar into Abraham, they had a child.
So he was born after the flesh. And then he says, but he of the
free woman was by promise. In other words, this was by the
promise of God, solely by the promise of God. When Abraham
and Sarah both were well past the age of conceiving and bearing
a child, so it was by God's promise and God's faithfulness to his
promise. There's no way that Abraham and Sarah could have
had a child apart from the miraculous power of God. And so he says
in verse 23, but he who was of the bond woman was born after
the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Verse 24,
which things are an allegory? Now an allegory is a part of
speech, it's a symbol. It's using physical things, historical
events and people to teach a higher spiritual lesson. And God the
Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write this. These things are
an allegory for these are the two covenants, the two testaments,
the one from Mount Sinai. Now that's the old covenant given
to Israel through Moses. God gave it to Israel through
Moses. Now you know when Ishmael was born, the old covenant was
not even established. But it was going to be. It was
sure and certain to be because God had already predestinated
this and his purpose and his will to bring the nation Israel
under that old covenant for a purpose. And of course we know the purpose
was to be a schoolmaster to lead them under Christ, which Paul
brought forth in Galatians three. So he's using Hagar, and Ishmael,
these two women, Hagar, to represent the old covenant, the one from
Mount Sinai, that was the law covenant, the Ten Commandments,
the ceremonial law, the civil laws, the dietary laws, everything
say, that Israel was under, and he says, that gendereth to bondage,
which is Hagar. Why does it gender to bondage?
Because as it pertained to Israel as a nation in the land of promise,
it was a conditional covenant. A covenant conditioned on them.
Their prosperity and their keeping that land was conditioned on
their obedience. Now of course we know in their
history they failed. You remember in Jeremiah 31,
when Jeremiah in prophecy was comparing the old covenant, this
Mount Sinai, to the new covenant, which is Mount Zion, that which
was fulfilled in Christ. And he said, now I'm gonna make
another covenant with the house of Jacob, the house of Israel,
that's spiritual Israel. And he said, it's not gonna be
like that covenant I made in Mount Sinai with their fathers,
which covenant they break. Well, how'd they break it? with
their disobedience, with their unbelief, with their idolatry.
And God punished them. He took the land away from them,
but he kept them together and intact until the Messiah would
come. So they were in bondage. Now
any notion, and here's what the point is, any notion of salvation,
and I want you to understand, I was gonna bring this out in
the message today. the message coming up at 11.
In the Bible, salvation, when it pertains to spiritual salvation
and a right relationship with God, is never, never partial. It's never saved in part or to
a point. It always includes the whole
blessing of salvation, righteousness, life, and glory. all the blessings,
complete. There never is an example of
a person being truly saved and not persevering under glory. Never. And that's what the message
is about, coming in 11. There is no way that God gives
a partial salvation. And that's a glorious thing.
Now, how can God be sure and certain that salvation is complete?
Because it's in Christ. It's conditioned on Christ, the
surety. Christ is the surety of the new
covenant. But here, in verse 24, he's talking
about bondage. Any notion of a salvation that
in part is conditioned on sinners, At any stage, and here's where
I put it, at any stage, in any way, to any degree, is bondage. In other words, I think about
this. How many people today call themselves Christian and they
believe that you can be saved but you can be lost again? That's
bondage. You know that? Why would you
be lost? Because you don't keep up your
part. That's exactly what it is. It's bondage, it's not freedom,
it's not liberty. They can call it liberty. You
know the Pharisees, they said they were free, but they weren't. They were in bondage and he proves
that here too. If righteousness comes by the
law, by the works of the law, You know, technically speaking,
we can say righteousness does come by the law. In what sense? Christ is the end of the law. He was made under the law and
he's the end of the law. And so if righteousness comes
by the law in the sense of our works under the law, then Christ
died in vain. There's no such thing as righteousness
without Christ. And that's his righteousness
imputed to us, the one that he worked out. Anything else is
bondage. So those people say, well, if
you're not doing, you're dying, and all that kind of thing. All
they're doing is preaching bondage, and they don't know it. That's
the thing about the natural man. He's in bondage, and he thinks
he's free. And that's why he won't receive
the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. I'm
okay. You see, that's the way he feels. I've done enough. I
did my part. I made the difference. That's
bondage. But if the Son make you free, you're free indeed. Well, look at verse 25. He says, for this Hagar, Agar
is Hagar, is Mount Sinai in Arabia. That's the law from Mount Sinai
given to Israel through Moses. And answereth, or you might have
in your concordance there, is the same as Jerusalem which now
is. Now that's a telling point right
there. Jerusalem in Paul's day. What
do you think of when you think of Jerusalem? It's the capital
of Israel. It's the city of God, it's where
the temple was. But Jerusalem, which now is,
and is in bondage with her children. The point he's making is that
the natural, physical seed of Abraham, even through Isaac,
the Jews in Jerusalem, that they were in bondage. They weren't
free. They had perverted that covenant
made from Sinai and they turned it into a system of works, salvation. But God had never given that
covenant on Sinai to be any way of salvation for sinners. That's
not what the old covenant was for. You know, you'll hear some
people say, well, that was God's way back then, you know. They
had to do, no. That covenant, again, it was
a schoolmaster keeping them together until Christ would come and fulfill
all righteousness for his people. And for them to think otherwise,
that it means salvation's conditioned on me, that righteousness is
established by me, that's bondage. And that's Jerusalem in Paul's
day. Well, let me tell you something,
it's Jerusalem in our day too. Somebody talks about the Jews
being the people of God. Well, they were for a while under
that covenant, but God granted them a bill of divorcement, Jeremiah
said. So where does that leave us?
We'll look at the next verse, verse 26. But Jerusalem, which
is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. Now, what is
Jerusalem above? That's the spiritual heavenly
city. You can read about it, for example,
in Revelation, which I thought I had it listed here. 21, Jerusalem, yeah, yeah, Revelation
21, nine through 27. This is the spiritual city, the
spiritual kingdom of God manifested in the true church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, where the true gospel is preached, there's only
one message of freedom and liberty. The perfect law of liberty, James
called it. And that's the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace, saving sinners by his grace through
the blood of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, wherein the righteousness
of God is revealed. That's the only message of liberty.
And so where that gospel is preached, you see, heard and understood
by the power of God under the new covenant as established and
ratified by Christ in his obedience unto death for his people. That's
the heavenly Jerusalem. We who believe, we who are saved
by grace, are citizens of a heavenly Jerusalem, heavenly kingdom. It's above. And unlike earthly
Jerusalem, The heavenly Jerusalem is not in bondage, it's been
set free, free from the law, oh happy condition. Jesus hath
bled and there is remission. We're forgiven. God cannot lay
anything to our charge because Christ was charged with our sins. And he was our substitute, our
surety, our substitute, our redeemer, set us free. His blood cleanses
us from all sin, not just some sin, not just past sins, not
just sins of commission, but all sin is cleansed, wiped away
by the blood of Christ. We have a perfect righteousness
right now. As He is, so are we in this world. In what sense? Am I as perfect
as Christ in my thoughts? In my motives, in my deeds, no,
but I'm as perfect in Christ because I'm justified. I have
a righteousness imputed to me that is perfect, cannot be contaminated,
and can never be taken away. And therefore God will not lay
anything to my charge. Now Jerusalem, which is above,
is the mother of us all. What I believe he's talking about
there is it is through the ministry of the church in the preaching
of the gospel that the people of God are conceived from above,
born again from above, under the ministry of the gospel. And
that's the ministry of the church that God has given us. Go ye
in all the world and preach the gospel. And God is calling out
His sheep, His elect, into the fold. And so in verse 26, but
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
And then verse, that's the last one on your lesson. But in verse
27, pardon me, No, no, I mean verse 27, yeah. For it is written,
rejoice thou barren that bearest not, break forth in cry, thou
that travailest not, for the desolate hath many more children
than she which hath a husband. Under the old covenant, God wasn't
husband to them, he said that. But again, he granted her a bill
of divorce, but that which was old, waxeth old, vanishes away,
it's gone. But under that covenant, there
were very few. Under that old covenant, there
were some who were spiritually and eternally saved by the grace
of God because God the Holy Spirit, like he does us, he gave them
life, gave them eyes to see, but there were very few. And
so it's like they were barren. But now under the new covenant,
rejoice. because there's many, many children
that he'll bring to faith in Christ. And so verse 28 says,
now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
What's the promise? What has God promised his people? Salvation for sinners by his
grace. He's never promised any salvation
based upon our law keeping, based upon our works. God's never made
that kind of a promise to his people. And so we're children
of promise. We believe the promise of the
gospel. That's the promise that's fulfilled in Christ and by him.
And he says in verse 29, but as then, he that was born after
the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even
so it is now. Now he's showing the tension,
the hatred, that exists between those who are of the law, under
their works, and those who are of grace, free. You know the
first example of that tension? Cain and Abel. Cain hated Abel. And it was over religion, wasn't
it? It was over doctrine. God accepted Abel's offering,
the blood of the Lamb, which pictured Christ. He would not accept Cain's offering. And it's the same way. This is
the condemnation, that light has come into the world and men
love darkness and hate the light because their deeds are evil.
Christ said in John 15, 18, marvel not, the world hates you. It
hated me before it hated you. You see, works and grace cannot
mix. They cannot coexist. They cannot
be in fellowship. one with the other. Cain and
Abel could not have fellowship. What Abel believed, and in what
Abel rested, exposed Cain to be a false hope. And what, this
is the point of Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael, the child of bondage,
the child of the flesh, represented salvation by works, Isaac represents
salvation by grace. And as Paul said in Romans 11,
works and grace cannot mix. And the old covenant, it ceased. Read about it, I've got your,
in your lesson, Hebrews 8, read the whole chapter, and Hebrews
10. Again, that which is old, that which has grown old has
vanished away. And so Christ, by his coming
into the world, he fulfilled, All the types, all the pictures,
he fulfilled the law. Remember he said at his baptism,
suffered to be so that we might fulfill all righteousness, and
he did by the law. And so what's the lesson? Well,
if righteousness come by the law, then Christ died in vain,
but he didn't die in vain. He died for a purpose and he
accomplished it, and by his grace, we are saved, we are kept, and
we'll be brought into glory. Okay.