Let's open our Bibles up to the
book of Galatians. The book of Galatians. Oh my. We'll get right into it today.
Galatians chapter 3. Continue our study in this wonderful
book. Hasn't it been a wonderful study?
Oh my, it's just been so profitable, hasn't it? It's been so wonderful.
So wonderful. Today we'll look at Paul's last
question. I've been saying five questions,
I went back and counted, there's actually six questions. So we'll
look at the last of six questions today that Paul asked the Galatians
in this wonderful portion of scripture. And actually what
he's doing too is he's setting up, he's setting up, next week
we'll start where he's going to use an illustration of Abraham
to show that righteousness doesn't come by what we do. That righteousness
comes through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Our righteousness
is in Christ, it's not in anything we do. So he's setting that up
with these questions too as well. And again as I said, these questions
are great for us for examination, for us to examine whether we
be in the faith. Because the obvious answer to these questions
is it's all salvations of the Lord. That's the obvious answer
to these questions, but they're good questions. They're good
questions. And the Holy Spirit has had Paul
put these questions here for us, too, as well as for the Galatian
believers when this letter was written. And again, they're good
for us to ask ourselves, and the answers will point us right
to Christ. The answers will point us to the fact that our salvation
is all of God. As Spurgeon wrote a book, he
called it all of grace. And that's basically what these
questions will do. They'll bring us right to Christ.
So today's question will be found in verse five, but let's read
the context of this verse by reading Galatians chapter three,
verses one to nine. Oh foolish Galatians, Who has
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose
eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth crucified among you?
This only what I learn of you received you the spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Are you so foolish
having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain if it be yet in
vain? He, therefore, that ministereth
to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you, doeth it
he by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith, even
as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Know ye, therefore, that they which are of the faith, the same
are the children of Abraham? Look at that verse. Isn't that
wonderful? That's a wonderful verse. In
the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen.
Hey, that's us. through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham saying, and thee shall all nations be
blessed. So then they which be of the
faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. So we see verse 5 again
contains the word therefore. And that
word therefore will connect it to the other verses above it.
So all these questions are again asked for the Galatians to examine
how their faith started, who started their faith, right? And
who keeps them? Who keeps us? And this question
in verse five is similar to verses two and three. It has the same
thought, but it's different because it concerns what the Lord's done
among them. the miracles that have been performed.
And that was back in the apostolic days, the gifts of the Spirit
were active. Were active, and that's what
it's speaking about, this verse here. Let's read verse five again.
He therefore that ministered to you the Spirit and worked
miracles among you, doeth it he by the works of the law or
by the hearing of faith? Now with this question, Paul
knows that they must reply it was faith. They must. If they're
true believers, they must reply that it was faith and not the
works of the law that gave these miraculous powers. These powers
came from God, came from God and God alone. And this verse
begins with he therefore, which is speaking of God. Speaking
of God the Father, it is He who that minister to you and I, as
well as the Galatians, the Holy Spirit of God. Christ said, I'm
going to go, but I'm going to send you a comforter. A comforter. And that's the Holy Spirit, right?
He's with us. He teaches us. He guides us into
all truth, beloved. And it is God and God alone who
continually is giving us additional supplies of grace. Right? What does the scripture say?
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, right?
That we may obtain grace to help when? In time of need. So God
is continuously giving us grace, isn't he? Mercy. Mercy every
day. His mercies are new every morning,
the scripture says, right? Every morning we wake up. Do
you know your mercies are new today than they were yesterday?
Isn't that wonderful? You know why? Because the grace,
the manna, think of that as manna, right? What happened? Was yesterday's
manna sufficient for the Israelites for that day? No, they had fresh
manna, didn't they? We have fresh supplies of grace
and mercy. Now, not saving grace, right?
Because that's already done by the Lord. He's already saved
us. But do we need grace to make it through this world? Sister,
like you said, we're tired of this world, aren't we? We're
ready to go home. We're all ready. The more things
that go on, the more we'll get homesick for heaven. Right? To be with the Lord. But he has
us tarry here, doesn't he? He has us tarry here for the
season. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're here. We're
here for him. We're serving him while we're
here on this earth. Oh my. People say, well, how
do I serve him? Being with us together. Right? Supporting the local church.
Number one for me, to me, is praying for me. I covet your
prayers. I covet your prayers. Oh my.
Because without prayer, right, you know, God answers the prayers
of his saints according to his will, right? We don't bend God's
arm, do we? No, we don't twist it. In religion,
I remember we used to try to twist God's arm, right? That
doesn't work. We don't twist God's arm. He
does His will. But He lays on us to pray for
His will to be done, doesn't He? It's amazing. It's just incredible. Absolutely incredible. So he's
continually given us additional supplies of grace by the spirit. And for the Galatians, they were
still living in the apostolic age here, where there were still
miracles being done, right? There were still things being
done by the apostles, miracles worked among them, the extraordinary
gifts of the spirit. And that's what this verse is
bringing forth here. So he's asking them, did these things
occur? Did these things occur by the flesh, by the workings
of the law? or by the power of the Holy Spirit
of God. How did these things occur? And
another thing to consider, too, is he's contrasting here true
gospel preaching at that time, right, with the apostolic gifts
and the false teachers who had none of that. See, the preaching of the apostles
was confirmed by those things, right? at that time. But these false teachers, they
had nothing like that. Because God won't bless a false
gospel, will he? No, it's a lie. Paul said in
chapter one, we looked at, it's a perversion, and actually in
the Greek, remember, when we looked in chapter one, he said
that that gospel is contrary to the true gospel. It goes against
the true gospel. My oh my. And the true gospel
is what? Salvation in and through Christ
alone. By his shed blood alone that's
redeemed our eternal souls. My, it's wonderful. So do law
works bring any of this about? He's setting before them this
question, do law works bring any of these miraculous gifts
about? No. That's works of the flesh,
isn't it? That's not by works of righteousness
which we have done, right? But according to his mercy, he's
what? He saved us by the washing and regeneration of the Holy
Spirit of God, beloved. It's all him. It's all his work. So, law works don't bring about
any of these things that were being worked out among them.
Not at all. And so again, he's setting before
the Galatians the foolishness of the false teachers in comparison
to the gospel preaching that they heard from Paul. What did
Paul set before them and the other? Now we know there was
other preachers that visited there too. What did they set
before the Galatians? Christ and Him crucified. How
do we know that? Well, look at verse 1. "...who
had bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently, he's been proclaimed clearly
and plainly, set forth crucified among you." That's the gospel! They preached the gospel of Christ
and Him crucified to the Galatians. And the Galatians rejoiced. And
so Paul's asking them, they received the Holy Spirit, right? And they
received this teaching. And Paul's asking them, why are you now going to these
beggarly things of the flesh? And even listening to these false
teachers, even entertaining what they say. And he's basically
saying, you know better, beloved. He taught them, didn't he? By
the power of the Holy Spirit of God. He set, that verse shows
you, he set Christ before them. Evidently, which means plainly,
clearly. Just set him right before them. So what's he doing again? What's
he doing with these questions? He's setting Christ before them
again. He's setting the works of God before them. This is genius. In these questions, He's setting
forth before them Christ and the work of God and God alone
as opposed to the works of the flesh. It's absolutely genius.
And He's doing it by questions. Well, we know who the true author
is, right? It's the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit's telling
us and teaching us here that Look at here with these questions,
you can see the contrast between the works of the spirit and the
works of the flesh. It's absolutely amazing. It really
is, actually. It's incredible. So he's saying, do any of these
works in these questions, do any of these works of the flesh
bring forth the works of the spirit? Well, the spirit works
where he wills, right? But we know he uses the preaching
of the gospel, right? Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God, right? So we know he uses the gospel,
right? My oh my, he uses means, doesn't
he? It's incredible. It's absolutely
amazing. He uses one sinner to preach
to other sinners, right? And then he takes the words from
between my mouth to you guys' heart and minds, and he blesses
you all with them. Like he's blessed me in my studies.
It's just, I just can't get over it, to be honest with you. But
that's what the Holy Spirit does, isn't it? It's just amazing.
And what are they actually doing? What are the Galatians actually
doing by going along with these false teachers? More of the false
teachers are doing this. What are the false teachers doing
by saying you have to be circumcised to be saved along with faith
in Christ? Do you know what they're doing? They're negating. They're
negating. I thought about this and this
is true. They're negating and calling Christ a liar when he
said it is finished. That's what they're doing. They're
saying, uh, what he said is not true. That's right. That's serious,
isn't it? When you, when we look at, I,
I was thinking about that when I was putting this together.
I thought, my oh my, that's so serious. That's so serious. What a, no wonder Paul says,
they bewitched you. They, they, you're under a spell. Because it's evidently false,
isn't it? But you know, anyone susceptible,
any believer susceptible to this too, but for the Holy Spirit. Now think of this too. This is
pretty amazing when you think about it. God in his providence
allowed those false teachers to come in like that. That the
book of Galatians would be written and identified. that we might
read them here 2,000 years later and go, here's these questions. Isn't
that amazing when you think of that? When you think of God and
his providence, do we not? For all of us as believers now,
we can read this wonderful book and go, oh, I can identify those
fellows now. And it gives me an opportunity
to examine myself too, whether I'd be in the faith with these
questions. Yeah, yeah, the apostles, when the Lord said, why don't
you come and betray me? All the apostles said, Lord,
is it me? Because they knew within them
they had the ability to do that. Isn't that amazing? It's absolutely,
it's incredible. So they're actually negating
the words of Christ when these false teachers And Paul's setting
forth, again, how this is a perversion of the true gospel. And he said,
you know, how do we combat false gospels? Put the straight stick
down. Put the truth down. That's what
you do. You don't have to get caught
up in what they believe and all that stuff, because just them
telling you what they believe, you're going to know it's a false
gospel. So you just lay down the straight stick beside the
crooked, right? Because that's a crooked stick,
isn't it? Oh, isn't God so good? He's so
good. Again, what do bankers do to
find out the counterfeit? They study the real. We don't
have to study the counterfeit. People spend all kinds of time
studying counterfeit religions and all this. Study the real. Then it's so easy to identify
the counterfeit. It's incredible. It's absolutely
amazing. So again, do law works bring
about any of this working of the spirit? No, no, no. The gospel is salvation in and
through Christ alone by his finished work alone. He said it is finished. In the Greek, it is perfect.
perfect. Can we add anything to perfection
by what we do? No. And think of it. It's done by a perfect man, a
sinless man. And him was no sin at all. My. And he was made sin for us that
we might be what? Made the righteousness of God.
Isn't that amazing? Our sins are imputed to him,
and his righteousness is imputed to us. my. And he bears our sins before
God's law and justice and saves our eternal souls. What a gospel! What a Savior is Jesus Christ
our Lord! And again, Paul's putting before
them, are you justified by observing rights in legal Legal things? Can a man be justified or a woman
be justified by the law? No, that's folly, isn't it? The
only way we can be justified is in and through Christ alone.
And who regenerates us? The Holy Spirit of God. It's
He who does that. I was watching a news channel
this week, not for very long, But, no, I was watching the news
channel. And on come this guy. Jesus Christ wants to save you
right now. All you got to do is bow your
head and repeat this prayer. No Holy Spirit regeneration.
See? It wasn't him, though. It was
another fellow. No, it was another fellow. Same kind of fellow,
though. Yeah, but, but no, no Holy Spirit
regeneration. Nothing, nothing talking about
you must be born again. Just bow your head. Can we be,
can we be born again by just bowing our head and repeating
a prayer? Well, there's all kinds of people
that pray in this world and they're not born again, right? You must be born again. It's
the Spirit's work, beloved. It's a work of the Holy Spirit
of God. It's not by a decision we make. That's called decisional
regeneration. There's no Holy Spirit work there.
You must be born again. You must be. You must be. I was
once dead in trespasses and sins, and now, miraculously, by the
power of God, I'm alive in Christ. It's not by nothing I did. It's
all the Holy Spirit's work. It's absolutely amazing. And
we know Paul. Paul was hunting down Christians,
and then he's made alive in Christ. We don't see Paul praying a prayer
on Damascus Road. No, he says, Lord, who are you? Right? And he says, Paul's hardly
kicked against the pricks. Oh, my. My, see Paul was persecuting,
Paul was persecuting Christians, right? And the Lord asked him,
why do you persecute me? That's how vital in a union we
are with Christ. We're his body, beloved. So Paul's
persecuting Christians, and the Lord says, why are you persecuting
me? Oh my, isn't that incredible? That's amazing. So that's who's
writing this book too, is Paul. He knows the law. He knows the
law inside and out, doesn't he? He was a champion of the Jewish
faith. My, oh my. Look at verse 5 again. He therefore
that ministereth to you the Spirit and worketh miracles among you,
doeth he by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?
these miracles which were performed among you, he asked the Galatians,
were they the work of the Holy Spirit, or were they the work
of so-called law works? Can one be justified by observing
the ceremonies of the law, or is one justified in Christ and
Him alone? Well, the only answer a believer
can say is Christ in him alone. See how these questions bring
them right to Christ? It's genius, like I said, it's
absolute genius. Did your salvation or my salvation
come about by something we did? Or is it a miracle of grace?
It's a miracle of grace, isn't it, beloved? Did we receive the
doctrine of justification and salvation by faith in Christ,
in his gospel, by the power of the Holy Spirit, or by works
of our flesh? It's only by the Holy Spirit
of God, isn't it? I wouldn't even know. Do you know, I never
even knew. I'll be honest with you. When
I was a Catholic, I didn't know what justification was. I'd never
heard it. Even sanctification, I never
heard that. Christ's righteousness, never heard of that. You know
why? Because I was going about trying
to establish my own righteousness. Which I didn't know were works
of filth before the Lord. And I didn't even know they were
righteousness. I just called them being good. And then I find out
there's none good. No, not one. Oh my! My whole world just collapsed,
beloved. It just collapsed. My. So what shocked Paul about
the conduct of the Galatians when it came to these false teachers
was the fact that Christ had so evidently blessed them, right? And they'd been so blessed to
hear the preaching of Christ's all-sufficient work, his perfect,
atoning, sin-atoning work. They'd heard it preached to them.
in all his fullness, in all his sufficiency. And now they're
starting to turn to these false teachers. It'd be like having everything,
all the riches in the world, and you go to pick up a penny. Or go say, I want this penny
instead of all that. Because what's in Christ? And
I'm not talking about riches of the world. I'm just trying
to give us a contrast, right? Because in Christ we have all
spiritual blessings. So they have all spiritual blessings
and then they go to nothing. Piece of rock. My. You see the contrast, beloved? It's incredible. We have all
spiritual blessings in Christ. All the promises of God are ours
in Christ. my oh my it's absolutely amazing
and and and look at verse 8 in the scripture
for seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith rates
before the gospel unto Abraham saying in thee all nations shall
be blessed in verse 9 so then they which be of faith are blessed
with faithful Abraham oh my and then look at the last verse of
chapter 3 Look at this. This will just knock your socks
off. Galatians 3, verse 29. And if ye be Christ, then ye
are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Paul's not calling them unbelievers,
right? That's what I love about this
letter and the letter of the Corinthians. He doesn't say,
well, you're just a bunch of unbelievers. No, he believes
they're brethren. He believes they've been born
again. He believes they haven't apostated. No true believer will ever fall
away. Now we can be drawn away by stuff. We can fall into some
pretty wild stuff. Okay? We're susceptible to that. But it's by the grace of God
that he keeps us from it and pulls us back out of it. Oh my. So let the child of God, who
is savingly called by sovereign grace to the truth as it is in
Christ Jesus, ask in our own heart the same question Paul
asked these Galatians. How was the Spirit first received?
Well, it was the work of God, wasn't it? He moved upon us. We didn't move. We didn't make
the first step. The only reason we ran to Christ
was because we were born again by the Holy Spirit of God, right?
Yeah, he did the first work in us. And as I come to Christ in
the first moments of convictions under sin, so must I at the very
last come to him. Right. We rest in him our whole
life, don't we? We trust in him our whole life.
What do we bring to Christ? Nothing but our sin. And we say along with the publican,
God be merciful to me, the sinner. I'm a sinner. I need mercy. I
need mercy. I need mercy. And this is true
of everyone who flees to Christ. And it's wonderful. And the soul
who comes to Christ, what do we find? What do we find? Forgiveness
of all our sins, beloved. Past, present, and future. Everyone
washed under the blood of Christ. And God says, I don't remember
them anymore. Now think of what David wrote,
too. If the Lord should mark iniquity, who should stand? All
of us are guilty. But yet, in Christ, we have the
full, free forgiveness of all our sins by the blessed, perfect,
sin atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. My, it's absolutely
wonderful. And it leaves us with such joy,
doesn't it? It leaves us with such peace
that we can't really explain it. We try to, I try to explain
how I feel about Christ, but inside it's just bubbling over. Words just don't seem sufficient,
do they? But yet we still tell folks how
wonderful our Savior is, how merciful our Savior is. And think
of the divine glory of God and grace which drew salvation's
plan. And the glory and grace which
executed salvation's plan in Christ and Him alone. And the
glory and grace which has been brought right down to you and
I as believers. How can we not rejoice as the
born again blood washed people of God? Because it's the Spirit's
work, right? Do you know that every believer
is a miracle of grace? We're miracles of grace, beloved.
We're trophies of God's grace. Do you know we're Christ's jewels?
Isn't that amazing? We don't feel like jewels, do
we? But we're his jewels, beloved. Yeah, but we're his jewels. We're
his diamonds. We're his precious stones. Oh, it's amazing. It's absolutely
amazing. And now as we as believers, what
do we do? We daily live on Christ now, don't we? We daily live
upon Him. And that doesn't stop till the
day we go home to be with the Lord, do we? We daily live on
Him. We live in the comfort of the
forgiveness of all our sins. We live in the comfort of Christ
being our Savior and our God. that he shed his blood for the
remission of our sins, and that we are clothed in his perfect
spotless righteousness. Let's read verse 5 again. He
therefore that ministered to you the Spirit and worketh miracles
among you, doeth it he by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith. Now note the words, he therefore that ministered
to you the Spirit in verse 5. Paul does not mean himself or
any other gospel preacher. He's not drawing attention to
himself. Nope. He's saying that it's God and God alone. See,
we don't have the power to minister the Spirit. Anyone who says they
do is lying. There's people who say they're
apostles and all this stuff. They're just lying. They're just
lying. They don't have no power. They
don't have no power. No, no, no. But the one who had
the power here to minister the spirit of these extraordinary
gifts of the spirit unto men, it's God himself. You know, all of us have giftings.
And those were given to us by God. They were given to us by
God, beloved. The only reason I can get up
here and preach the gospel is because God gave me the gift
to do it. I'll tell you what, I couldn't do it on my own and
I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to at all, at all. So we see here, look at, and
again, during the apostolic times, the extraordinary gifts of the
Spirit were manifest at the first preaching of the gospel to them
for the confirmation of it. And they were still supplied
with it as the following words show, and worketh miracles among
you. So this is still during the apostolic times. And so we
see the distinct different arguments from Galatians 3, 2, in which
further proof of the folly of the church members who had received
the gospel in the spirit of regeneration, and some of them are now being
swayed by the false teachers. Look at verse 2. It says, This only would I learn
of you, received you the Spirit by the works of the law or by
hearing of faith. The point that's similar is he
asked them here, again, did you receive it by the hearing of
faith? So there's two different things
here. First is regeneration in verse
two. In verse five is speaking of these extraordinary gifts
that were manifest during the apostolic times. So similar but yet different.
Similar and yet different questions. And so there's a distinct different
argument from verse 2 and verse 5. But similar in the sense of,
is it the Holy Spirit? Did you receive the Holy Spirit
by something you did? Or by the hearing of faith? And
then are these miracles done by the Spirit or by the works
of man? Well. We all know the answer,
right? It's done by the Holy Spirit
of God. It's Him. He does the work. And
the gospel is confirmed by these extraordinary gift signs and
wonders of the Holy Ghost, which were still among them, and yet
they were departing from this gospel. All this was being done
in their midst, and they still were departing from the gospel.
What does that show us? We're just sinners, saved by
the grace of God. We're all susceptible to this. But they had also seen the gospel
confirmed by the extraordinary gift signs and wonders of the
Holy Spirit of God. How do we know that? Well, look
at here. In the latter part of this verse,
Paul asked them, doeth it he by the works of the law or by
the hearing of faith? Well, so again, he's contrasting right
before them, the true gospel and the false gospel. by setting the true gospel at
the straight stick right before them. And the apostles' meaning is
that these extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and those miracles
done among them did not attend again the preaching of the law.
The false teachers didn't have those. And they taught justification
by works rather than justification in Christ alone. So we see that the answers to
all these questions is salvation is a work of God. Plus absolutely
nothing done by man. Let's read verses 1 to 5 again
to see these questions again. O foolish Galatians! Who hath
bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, before whose
eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
So Christ being set forth, crucified among them. This only would I
learn of you, received ye the Spirit by works of the law, or
by the hearing of faith, were you regenerated by the Holy Spirit
of God, or by something you've done. Are ye so foolish? So he's saying you're being foolish,
following these false teachers. Having begun in the Spirit, are
you now made perfect by the flesh? Right? We're sanctified in Christ
and Christ alone, right? We grow in the grace and knowledge
and truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, but that's a work of the Holy
Spirit of God, not by anything we do. Have ye suffered so many
things in vain, if it be yet in vain? All that they suffered
for Christ, is it just in vain? It's in vain if they follow the
false teachers, isn't it? He therefore that ministereth
to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he
by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? So are
these miraculous gifts of the Spirit that are being manifest?
Are they the work of the flesh? Or are they the work of the Holy
Spirit of God? All these we know the answer, by God's grace. See,
I didn't know the answer before. I'd have said before, when I
was in workspace religion, I would have said, well, it's by something
I do. No, it's not by nothing I do, not by nothing we do, is
it? It's by the grace of God and
the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. So again, Paul asks these questions
in order for the Galatians to examine themselves, whether they
be in the faith. And these are good questions,
again, for every believer to examine ourselves, every believer.
Paul would have us to understand by inspiration of the Holy Spirit
of God that the one who ministered the Spirit to the Galatians,
the same person who worked miracles among them, is God the Father
and God alone. These words minister in our text
means to supply abundantly or bountifully. Bountifully. Has he not supplied abundantly
and bountifully for us in Christ? Oh my gosh. All spiritual blessings
in Christ. Oh my. in the words miracles
is from dunamis it's used in first corinthians twelve ten
which is me which is miracles and in uh... second readings
twelve twelve it's it's uh... translated wonders the same greek
word so it's it's work of the spirit of god in each place the
references to the holy spirit conferring miracle working power
upon certain members of the early church so then we see that he
would be done a good work in us your financial here finishable
It's the Holy Spirit of God. The same one who was bestowing
these miraculous powers in the early church is the same one
who gives us life. Right? Being born again by the
Holy Spirit of God. And the same one who keeps us,
beloved. The same one who keeps us. Beware of those who peddle
something you must do to be saved with Christ. Because we see that's
damnable doctrine, right? That's all it is. Anyone who's
teaching salvation based upon self-effort, they're teaching
a lie. That's all you got to do. If
somebody says, well, you got to do this, that's a lie. Just
know that. Anybody teaching self-effort,
it's a lie. So, beloved God, let us take
much comfort in the free and sovereign grace of God in Christ.
Let we who are the redeemed of the Lord take much comfort in
the everlasting covenant of God, which is ordered in all things,
ensuring Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for our soul,
shed his blood to ratify that covenant, beloved, the everlasting
covenant of God. And what blessed assurance this
can give we who are the people of God, what peace it can give
us amidst this world. And in this life, the storms
of life come about. What peace we can have? I'm secure
in Christ. I'm complete in Christ.