Okay, open your Bibles, if you
would, to Galatians chapter 4. We're going to look at one more
part of this allegory that's set before us by the Holy Spirit
of God with Sarah and Hagar, which represents law and grace.
The son of the flesh represents the law, and the son of the promise
represents grace. So Ishmael represents the law. that which is by the works of
the flesh and can never be accepted by God, because God says cast
out the bondwoman and her son, right? But the children of promise
are pictured in Isaac. Have you ever wondered in awe
that you're a child of God? Have you ever stopped and just
thought about it through the week? It just makes you stop
whatever you're doing. I think the scripture says I'm
a child of God, not because of anything I've done, but all because
of what Christ has done. And have you ever wondered in
awe that God himself became a man to redeem you? Not just to say all the elect,
but you. I was thinking about that when
I was putting this message together. And the wonderful fact that the
redeemed of the Lord are called the children of promise is what
we're going to consider today. We are literally called by the
Holy Spirit of God in our text today the children of promise. That's a title that God the Holy
Spirit's given us through the pen of Paul because really the
true author of these words is God the Holy Spirit. He just
used Paul as an instrument. And the Holy Spirit of God tells
us in Galatians chapter four that we who believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, we who are born again by the Holy Spirit of God
and washed in the blood of Christ, we are called the children of
promise. Think about that this week. Meditate
upon that this week. This is truth. This is without
a shadow of a doubt. We are called the children of
God. And let's read verses 21 to 31 of Galatians chapter 4. We see that the Holy Spirit of
God sets forth by the pen of Paul an allegory which shows
us that law and grace do not mix. And that we are in fact,
in fact, the children of promise. It's a fact. And it's going to
be set forth in this text again by the Holy Spirit of God. It's
wonderful. It's wonderful. Me, a sinner? A child of God? A child of promise? My, it's
wonderful. I'll tell you. I hope you leave
here with your heart rejoicing today over this precious truth. Look at this, Galatians chapter
4, verses 21 to 31. Tell me ye that desire to be
under the law. Do you not hear the law? For it is written that
Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a
free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh. That's Ishmael. But he of the
free woman was by promise. Remember God promised that Sarah
would have a child in her old age? And that was Isaac. For
this Agar, which things are an allegory, for these are the two
covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth the bondage,
which is Agar, for this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and
answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and is 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. Here we go. Now we brethren, look at this.
Now this is a fact. This is a fact set before us.
Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
That's a fact. We are literally called here
by the Holy Spirit of God, the children of promise. My. But as then, he that was
born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit,
even so it is now. We're going to look at that today.
Nevertheless, what sayeth the scripture, cast out the bond
woman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be
heir with the son of the free woman. So then brethren we are
not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Now we see in
verse 29 there the scripture proclaims that the child of the
flesh persecuted the child of promise. That's still true today.
That's still true today. It's still true. Let's read that
again. But as then he that was born
of the flesh persecuted him that was born of the spirit, even
so it is now. Ishmael was about 13 years old
when Isaac was born. And Isaac was the child of promise.
Remember that Ishmael was the child of the flesh, produced
by the flesh, because Sarah said, we'll go into my handmaiden and
the child will be produced. She didn't believe God, did she?
See, she had unbelief, just like us, right? We all struggle with
that, see? We're no different, right? We're
no different than any of the saints before. I love when Peter
says, Lord, help my unbelief. That's, yep, isn't that all of
us? Yep, Lord, help my unbelief. And he does, he does. Now think
of this, in like manner, our physical birth preceded our spiritual
birth. We were born children of the
flesh. We didn't know we were God's elect. We had no idea.
Couldn't tell us apart from anyone else. Right? So we were born
physically first, before our spiritual birth. And in our unregenerate
state, we had no understanding of the promise of God. We had
no idea we were children of promise. But that didn't change that fact.
Isn't that amazing? We were born children of promise
and we didn't even know it. We had no idea. I was thinking
back about how I had absolutely no interest in God. Zane and
I were talking this week about how the only people who doubt
their salvation are saved people. I remember reading Spurgeon.
He said, unsaved people don't doubt salvation. Never. They
don't even think about it. But believers doubt all the time. Isn't it amazing? It's so true. It's so true. Oh my. So we were born like Ishmael. We were children of the flesh.
No idea about the promises of God, the promise that God gave
Abraham concerning Isaac. And we see here, Israel who was,
or Ishmael who was born after the flesh, mocked and persecuted
Isaac, who was a child of promise. That happens today, that happens,
that, well Tom, you were telling me it was hard to be a Christian
in the army. You know, it just, you get mocked by people sometimes,
they doubt you, they bring things up. I remember that, when the
Lord first saved me. People thought, what happened
to Wayne? What happened to him? Well, now I love the Lord. I'm born again. I'm not the same
person, right? Just like we see Nehemiah coming
out of that water, remember on Wednesday? What's he say? He's
praising God. He's praising God. He's a changed
man. That's what happens to us when we're born again. We're
changed people. And our text says, even so, it
is now. It's still, still today. The natural man, especially religious
folks. Now, religious folks can be some
of the worst people around. They can come at you more than
anyone else, I'll tell you. We've experienced it, haven't
we? I look across, some of you are smiling, because we all know,
don't we? We've experienced that. They can be the worst. My. My. Now, think of this, though. Think of this. They're products
of the flesh. If they're not born again, they're products
of the flesh. They have a religious system. They have their standards,
right? And if you don't measure up to
those checklists, I call it checklist Christianity. If you don't check
their boxes, well see, we're born again. And we're a bunch
of sinners saved by grace, aren't we? Right? And we rest and trust
every day in the crucified one. In the Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing
we're but dust. Knowing how much sinner we really
are. And now the only reason we know
that is because we're born again by the Holy Spirit of God. See,
God's made us to differ. You know, the Lord took me out
of being a Pharisee. I was reading a thing this week
about hypocrites. And I said to Vicki, I said,
oh my gosh, I'm reading that first section about identifying
a hypocrite. And I went, that was me, that was me, that was
me, that was me, that was me, that was me, that was me. Right
down to a T. Critical? Critical? And that's
one of the main things is critical, being critical. And I'm like,
my gosh. And then it comes to the section
of the true versus the hypocrite. And it says, well, the person
who's born again, now they realize they're the chief of sinners.
Now they see their sin more so than anybody else's. And I'm
like, oh my goodness gracious. Praise you, Lord Jesus. Right? And he said, as we grow in grace,
we start to see our sin more and more and more and more and
more. Right? Isn't that amazing? Oh, it's
wonderful. That's all the work of the Holy
Spirit in us. And then we have peace and joy.
He went on to say, then the true believer has peace and joy because
all our sins are forgiven. All of them. Oh, it's wonderful. I want to share that with you
because it's so wonderful. See, that's why we're to make our
election calling sure, right? We examine ourselves, don't we?
Oh my, look what the Lord's done. Look back on your life before
you were saved and look at, look at now after you're being born
again and just marvel at what the Lord's done. It's all his
doing. It's all history. It's marvelous. Marvelous. So, people in the flesh, they
hate God, but they can't, they don't verbalize it all the time.
They don't verbalize it. But, see, they can't get at God,
can they? But they can get at his followers. You see? They can get at his followers.
And they manifest that hatred for God by persecuting Christ's
body. My, oh my, oh my. Turn to John chapter 8. Look
at this, John chapter 8. Like I said, I hope that at the
end of this message that we're just rejoicing as believers,
that we are the children of promise. It's a fact as we saw in the
text there. Look at this in John chapter 8. Look at this. Now, I've read several commentators
on this, and it says they believed on him, but these were mere professors.
And we're going to find out that they're mere professors. They
say, oh yeah, we love you, Jesus. But we're going to find out that
these folks here, spoken of, were not true believers. Because
we're going to see what the Lord says to them later on. Then said, verse 31. Verse 31.
John chapter 8, starting in verse 31. And we're going to go all the
way down to verse 47. Then said Jesus to the Jews,
which believed on him, if you continue in my word, then ye
are my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free. Look at that. Are we free? Oh,
how free we are, beloved. It's wonderful. We're free. They answered him, we be Abraham's
seed, and we're never in bondage to any man. You calling me a
sinner? I'm not in bondage. You see? Remember when we first heard
somebody call us a sinner? How did we react in our natural
state? I'm not a sinner. Oh yes we are. Look at this. Oh my. We be Abraham's
seed, and we were never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou,
ye shall be made free? See, they don't even know their
state. Jesus answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever
commit a sin is a servant of sin. And the servant abideth
not in the house forever, but the son abideth ever. If the
son, now let this just pierce your heart. This is wonderful. If the Son, therefore, shall
make you free, and we are free. We're free from the penalty of
our sin. We're free from the condemnation of our sin. We're
free from the law of God. We're free from the justice of
God. If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed. And we are, aren't we? Praise
be to God. We are. I know that ye are Abraham's
seed, but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place
in you. You see, there's the natural enmity right there. There's
the natural enmity of natural man. They seek to kill Christ,
the God man, God incarnated in the flesh. I speak that which
I have seen with my father and you do that what you have seen
with your father. Now look at that. He's identified
them. He separated them there, hasn't he? This is the hand of
Providence. The bony hand of Providence,
the finger pointing down. Oh my. Look at this. Our Lord's going to tell them
who their father is. It's the devil. They answered
and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Now look at that.
They're clinging to a man, aren't they? Oh, Abraham's not the Messiah. He never claimed to be the Messiah.
Right? They answered him and said unto
him, Abraham is our father, Jesus saith unto him, If you were Abraham's
children, you would do the works of Abraham. What did Abraham
do? He believed God, right? He looked to the Messiah. He
believed God. He believed exactly what God said. But now you seek
to kill me, a man that has told you the truth. Remember what
Paul said earlier in our chapter? He said, he said in verse, where is it
here? It's in Galatians. He says, he
said in verse 16 of chapter four, am I therefore become your enemy
because I tell you the truth? Sounds familiar to our master,
doesn't it? Look at this. Our master says, I've just told
you the truth, which I have heard of God. This did not Abraham. You do the deeds of your father.
Then said they unto them, we are not born of fornication.
We have one father, even God. Oh my goodness. Clinging to their
traditions, aren't they? Clinging to their descent from
Abraham. Jesus said unto them, if God
were your Father, you would love me. Why do we love Christ? Because He loved us first. Amen,
brother. Yeah. You would love me, for
I proceed forth and came from God. He came down. Remember,
He came down from heaven. Neither came I myself, but He
sent me." Praise God. Praise the Lord that God the
Father sent the Son to redeem us from all our sins. What mercy,
what love then the Father has for us. We're called the children
of promise because it's so. Oh, we're chosen in Christ before
the foundation of the world. Look at this. Why do you not
understand my speech? Even because you cannot hear
my word. Revelation. Christ must reveal himself to
us or we never know him. He gives us ears to hear and
minds to understand the word by power of the Holy Spirit of
God. You are of your father the devil and the less of your father
you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and abode not in the truth because there's no truth in him. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he's a liar and
the father of it. And because I tell you the truth,
you believe me not." Look at that. He's just telling them
the truth. Which of you convinces me of sin? What a question. And
if I say the truth, why do you not believe me? Now look at this
and praise God for this. Do you hear the word of the Savior
through the preaching of the gospel? Do you hear the Savior's
voice through the word when you're reading it? Glory be to God. Look at this. He that is of God
heareth God's words. Isn't that amazing? Our ears
were stopped before. We couldn't hear nothing before.
We've been given hearing ears, beloved. What mercy. He says,
ye therefore hear them not because you're not a God. Man, he's made
a distinction there, hasn't he? And see, the only one who made
us to differ is God. Because we're the children of
promise. Nothing in us that would merit
that, but no, we're the children of promise. Natural man's hatred
against God is manifested by persecuting God's people. Now look at verse 30 of Galatians
chapter 4 here. Isn't it wonderful to read the
Master's words and find such comfort in them? Nevertheless, what saith the
Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her
son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son
of the free woman. In this inspired allegory, Hagar,
which represents Mount Sinai, the law, and her son Ishmael
represent all the legal works of the flesh. All the legal works
of the flesh. And we see that we are expressly
commanded to cast them out. There's no room for works with
grace. It's either all of grace, or
there's no salvation. See, if someone says, well, it's
all the works, well, you don't know the gospel, right? Because
the gospel is all of grace. It's all what Christ done. If
we put anything that we do in it, see, so we're to cast aside
the works of the flesh, anything that we were counting on. Cast
them aside. Cast them out of our lives. Remember
in religion, you had to read your Bible so much, you had to
do all this, you had to, all that stuff. Now, is it good to
read the Bible? Absolutely, I would never say
don't. But I would rather read a chapter or five verses with
understanding, go through that, and just mull it over my mind
continuously, than read chapters and chapters with no understanding
at all. That's why I like the verse-by-verse
studies. Because we're able to see what the word says. And that's
really what it's about, what the word says. It's not my opinion,
but it's what the word says, right? And that's how we learn
and grow. That's how we learn and grow.
And when someone declares that the believer is free in Christ
and not under the law, right away people say, well, you're
an antinomian. They say, well, you're preaching lasciviousness.
You're preaching that you can go out and do whatever you want.
I've never heard a grace preacher do that. You know why? Do you know we're ordained to
works? Good works? In Ephesians chapter 2 it says
this, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. And you know what? We don't even know when we do
them. Remember the Lord said when you
do it unto one of mine, you do it unto me. Just even giving a glass of water?
No, we don't give a glass of water to a brother and sister
going, oh, I'm going to get blessed. We don't do that. They come over
to the house, we say, hey, you want something to drink? Yeah,
let's sit down and talk, right? See, I remember in religion,
every little, I even heard one guy say that him and his buddy
were out. Now this is how far religion
can take this stuff. This is just incredible. When
I heard it, I looked at him and I said, and I know this young
man, and I said, you're really serious you believe that? And
he goes, oh yeah. I said, well that's so wrong, it's not funny. Him
and his buddy were out. both professing Christians. And
they see an older lady trying to go into a department store. And he said, man, my buddy beat
me there, and he got the reward before I did, opening the door
for her. What in the world? And he really
believed this. Let us rejoice. that Christ is
our reward and it's not based on any performance of us. Isn't
that wonderful? It's not based on any performance
by us. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. So we have a responsibility to
perform good works, we just don't know when we do them. And God's
ordained them. He's ordained them, but in no
way do they justify us before God. No way at all. Nothing can justify us before
God except for Christ. You see? It has nothing to do
with our salvation. It's just things that God's ordained
for us to do while we're on this earth. And again, those brethren
in Matthew, I think it's Matthew 22, they said, where did we do
this? My, oh my, isn't it wonderful?
We don't even know. Oh. See, but when one preaches good
works performed to appease God's wrath, or win favor with God,
or avert punishment with God, or gain reward, or good works
performed for the purpose of affecting God in any way, twisting
his arm so that he has to do something over here. Remember
in religion, you gang up on God, everybody pray? Let's get more
people praying, because then God will do it. Now we lift up
our prayers in a little prayer group, right? Lift them up to
God, whatever he wills. You will, Lord, whatever you
will. Oh, my. But anytime anyone's
trying to gain merit and favor with God by anything they do,
it is one of the most monstrous evils in all the world. It's an abomination in God's
sight. Think of this. He sent his son
to be a payment for sin. And man is going to offer up
his own works in place of that? Do you see how monstrous it is? Yeah, fruit of thy hands, yeah.
It's monstrous. God looks at that as an abomination. Now think of that, what mercy
we've received. Because we're the children of
promise. Isn't that amazing? It's amazing. And good works
give people a confidence, a comfort, an assurance before God. They
think that they assure them of divine favor, but they're actually
damning delusions. God's given them over. My. I praise God, he saved me out
of that. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. Oh, my. Christ alone is our atonement
for sin. Christ alone is our righteousness.
Christ alone is our insurance. Christ alone in his obedience
alone is the ground of our acceptance with God. Nothing in us. We're
mere receivers of grace and mercy. Christ alone merits God's favor
and approval for us. The Lord Jesus Christ alone makes
us worthy for heaven, qualified for heaven. for eternal glory
and for the presence of God's glorious holiness. How? By his
redeeming blood. Saved by the blood of Jesus.
We trust Christ alone. To mix our supposed good works
with the work of Christ for justification, sanctification, assurances, is
to totally deny and make void the grace of God. We'll see that
in chapter five. Anytime anyone adds anything
to the finished work of Christ, it makes grace void. No effect. Serious business, isn't it? Serious
business. My, and the only person in all
the world who will be upset or offended or enraged by this plain
declaration of the gospel is one who's trusting in their own
works. Think of it, before the Lord
saved us and someone came and talked to us about grace of God
and salvation in Christ, how did we react the first time?
I know how I reacted. I can't repeat it here. My oh my. But God changed me. Born again by the Holy Spirit
of God. Look at the work he's done in us. It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. And
remember Paul asked the Galatians here, am I your enemies because
I tell you the truth? You see, works mongers hate the
truth. They hate the truth. Because
you know what it does? It takes any power away from
them. It destroys their pride, their positions. It takes all
that away from them. And it magnifies the Lord Jesus
Christ. It puts God in his rightful place,
doesn't it? And it puts man right here. Here
we are. I like what Scott used to say,
we make our headquarters in the dust. That's where the command
center is, is in the dust. It's so true. And God's way up
there, isn't he? Oh, it's wonderful. Oh, it's
wonderful. So this allegory here gives us
clear instruction how we're to cast out our own sinful works
and stop. It has nothing to do with salvation. We must embrace the Lord Jesus
Christ and his perfect redeeming work for us as our only acceptance
before God. Before a holy God, right? He's
made us holy, hasn't he? By clothing us in his righteousness.
He's made us holy. Oh, and our God, our God tells
us in Romans 3 that our works are like filthy rags. He tells
us that. See, but the problem, and the
problem is before we were saved too, we didn't believe it. But
we believe it now, don't we? Oh, now we see the perfect, precious,
redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ for me. And we just say,
why me? because it pleased God to do
so. My. My. Look at verse 31 now. It says,
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondman, but
of the free. And we're to be on guard. We're to be on guard
against error. We're to be on guard when folks
say, you have to do this to be saved to that. We say, no, that's
not true. That's not true. Look at this, so then, brethren,
we are not children of the bond one, but of the free. We have
received the spirit of adoption, beloved, and we are children
of the Most High God, children of promise. Our Lord again said
in the text we read, the Son, therefore, shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. We were held by the power of
darkness, Christ set us free. He set us free. We were held
by the power of Satan, Christ set us free. We were held fast
in the prison house of unbelief, Christ set us free. We were slaves
to sin and our sinful nature, Christ set us free. My, let's
go back to verse 28 now. We'll read this, now we brethren
as Isaac was are the children of promise. We'll make full circle
back to this verse and then next week, or no, the week after we'll
be going into chapter 5. So if you want to pre-read that,
chapter 5 is magnificent. All these, the whole Bible is
magnificent, but chapter 5 sets forth our freedom. It's just
absolutely beautiful. So now we brethren as Isaac was
are the children of promise. So he's telling the Galatian
believers here, your children of promise. Your children are
promised. So marvel at what the Holy Spirit's
saying to the people of God. The born again blood washed people
of God, we believers, our children are promised just as Isaac was. Think of this, Isaac was promised
to Abraham. We are promised and given to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaac was conceived and born
beyond the strength and course of nature. We are born spiritually
by the power of God, the Holy Spirit. As Isaac was an heir by birth,
as the son of Abraham, we are heirs of God and join heirs with
Christ. Ishmael, the son of flesh, mocked
and persecuted the son of promise. Even so, the false prophet, those
who think that they can be justified by their works, they mock the
two children of God, the children of promise. Salvation by works and grace
are opposite. Salvation by works is here. Salvation
by grace is here. And they do not mix. They are
total opposites. Total opposites. They do not
mix in any way. They're contrary to each other. My. And you ever notice believers
don't mock people. But unbelievers mock the people
of God. And works mongers, they mock
the people of God. My. Think of this. We're His covenant children.
We're His covenant children. The blood of Christ. By the blood
of Christ, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, we've been
cleansed from every spot and stain. Everyone. Nothing can
be laid to the charge of God's will. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Not one charge. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ. Nothing. All of God's promised children
are in Christ. Can we therefore then be separated
from Christ? Never. Nothing we do can separate
us from Christ? We're His. That doesn't give
us a license to go crazy, does it? No. we're ordained to good
works right we don't want to go out that door and go crazy
because people right away they say oh you're preaching like
that you're preaching that you can do whatever you want nope i'm not saying
that at all i'm saying god's got us i was thinking about this
this week if god's got us and he says i'm going to keep you
you're kept by the power of god then no one can pluck us out
of the father's hands like he said no one We're His. We're in a double grip. God the
Son and God the Father. Double gripped and kept. Can
anybody take us out of the grip of God? No. No one. Isn't that wonderful?
That's so wonderful. And absolutely nothing can be
added to perfection. Christ is perfection. His salvation
was a work of perfection. And all of God's promised children
are in Christ. The law has no claim on us. The
law has no claim on us. He fulfilled the law of God by
perfectly honoring it all for all his promised children. And all of God's promised children
were in Christ when all the sin of the elect were laid upon him.
And when he cried, it is finished, all our sins were laid upon him.
And everything God demanded for our sin was paid. And he said,
it is finished. It's perfect. Praise be to God. we who are the children of God,
we can rejoice, can't we? We can rejoice. Brother Travis,
can you close?