Galatians chapter four as you're
turning there. Let me tell you a little bit
about the book of Galatians. Historically it has been such
of immense importance yet along with the book of Romans were
the two major books of the New Testament. that were behind the
Protestant Reformation when Europe was finally freed from the grip
of Roman Catholicism in the days of Luther and Zwingli and Calvin.
I realize that's 500 years ago, but still you and I owe a tremendous
debt to those men and what they saw in God's word. Martin Luther,
in fact, called the book of Galatians his Katie von Bora. Now, Katie
Von Bora is the name of Katherine Von Bora. She was his wife. You
see, there were these 12 nuns who escaped from a nunnery and
came to Wittenberg, where Luther was. And he managed to find husbands
for 11 of the 12, but there was one left over that nobody wanted.
She apparently wasn't that good a looker. So Luther decided he
would marry her. And Luther had a lot of faults. I mean, he was a crusty old fella
he was a revolutionary and he had a sharp sharp tongue but
one thing that in Luther's favor he had a wonderful home life
and he credited a lot of that to his he called her Lord Katie
He said that this is my Katie Von Bora, the book of Galatians.
He says, I'm betrothed to this book as I am wed to my wife because
this book had such an influence. Because you see, in the book
of Romans, you have Paul setting forth what the gospel is. In the book of Galatians, you
have Paul teaching what the gospel is not. You see, it's like playing
a football game or a baseball game. There's offense. There's
where you try to score your points. But you better know how to play
defense, right? Because no matter how good you
can play offense, if you can't stop the team from scoring, you're
going to lose the game. In fact, there are those who
would argue that good defense will beat good offense any day
of the week. And so in the book of Galatians, we see Paul defending
the gospel. In Romans, the Gospel is this. It is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ alone that we
are trusting completely to what our Savior has done. In the book
of Galatians, He is teaching us that it is only faith in Christ. It is not faith in Christ plus
something. There were those who were saying,
oh yeah, we believe you ought to believe in Jesus, but you've
got to do these other things. And so he is defending the gospel
from error. Let me have you turn to Galatians
4, and I'm going to take my text starting in verse 21. Galatians
4, verse 21. We'll read down to the end of
the chapter, and I'll make a few comments as we go to sort of
help you understand what's going on here. He begins by saying,
tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do you not hear
the law? now there were some that wanted
to put these collation believers under the law they're still around
today folks and they were there in paul's day and you throw a
lot of who were these fellows will have a nickname for them
theologians called them the judy eyes if you want to know what
these men believe you can scroll back over the acts chapter fifteen
you'll see if the council of jerusalem inverse five that the
rolls up some of the fact of the pharisees who believe their
believers in jesus And the question is, what are we going to do with
these Gentiles? We got these Gentiles that are believing on
Jesus. What do we do with them? These guys say that we must circumcise
them and command them to keep the law of Moses. In other words,
we've got to make Jews out of them. In order for you to be
accepted by God, yes, you need to believe in Jesus, but you
also must be circumcised and keep the law. That's what these
guys are saying, and here we find them here at Galatia. So
there are some who desire to put these Galatian believers
under the law. So he says, 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. He's referring, and we'll talk
about this in just a minute, to the history of Abraham here.
But Abraham had two wives. Well, he had others later on.
But two are of particular interest to Paul. His first wife was a
woman named Sarah. She was a free woman. She was
a full wife. He had a second wife, later on,
named Hagar, who was a slave girl, a concubine. I used to
think, I grew up on a farm and always heard about Solomon's
concubines. I thought they were saying combines.
I said, man, that was one big farmer. a slave wife and this was completely
proper in the Old Testament time in the culture and where Abraham
lived that you not only had your full wife but you also had these
slave wives and her name was Hagar and remember he has two
sons one by Hagar named Ishmael and the other by Sarah named
Isaac so those are the major players here alright that's what
Paul is referring to verse 23 But he who was of the bondwoman,
I'm going to move this down just a little bit, he who was of the
bondwoman, a bondwoman is a slave, that's Hagar, was born after
the flash. But he of the free woman, that's
Sarah, was born by promise. Which things are an allegory,
for these are the two covenants. the one from Mount Sinai engendering
children for bondage who is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai
in Arabia and answers or corresponds to Jerusalem which now is and
is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above
is free, the free woman. Jerusalem which is above is free,
which is the mother of us all. For it is written, here he quotes
out of Isaiah 54, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, break
forth and cry, thou that travailest not. For the desolate have many
more children than she who hath a husband. Now we brethren, we
Christians, we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. And as then, he that was born
after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit,
even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the
scripture, and here he quotes from the Old Testament again,
cast out the bondwoman 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. Paul has, for
the last few chapters, been teaching us that, I hope I'm not, is that
blasting you away here. Paul has been teaching us that
there is absolutely no way any of us will ever be justified,
ever be accepted by God, ever be saved, that's our terminology,
by the works of the law. And by the way, although he is
focusing in on the works of the law, what he's really saying
is it's any good works. Because you'd say, if there's
any works that will save me, surely it would be the works
of the law, that system God gave and said, do this and live. Surely
if I'm ever going to be saved by doing good, it'll be by doing
this good. And so he is proving the impossibility
of us ever saving ourselves by good works of any shape, form,
and fashion. And he's been doing this in several
ways. Back in chapter 2 in verse 16, he just comes right out and
tells them. He's talking about a conversation he was having
with Peter when Peter wasn't living very consistently with
the gospel. I'll back up to verse 15 in Galatians
2. He says to Peter, we who are Jews by nature and not sinners
of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we
have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by
the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by
the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Do you realize
in one verse he said it three times? You will not be justified
by the works of the law. And he's saying to Peter, you
and I agree on this point. This is apostolic teaching. This
is the doctrine of the gospel. We will not be saved by doing
the works of the law. We will be saved through faith
in Jesus Christ. So he just comes right out and
tells him. Then in chapter 3, starting at about verse 1, he
points the Galatians to their own experience. How were you
saved? Were you saved as legalists, as law keepers? Well, you go
back to where these people, this is Galatia. This is in the middle
of Asia Minor. It is the place where Paul and
Silas went on their first, or Barnabas, I'm sorry, Paul and
Barnabas on their first missionary journey went through this area. You can go back and read the
history of it. It's in Acts chapter 14. And there you will find that
these are not Jewish law-abiding people. They are pure pagans. I mean, Paul heals a guy. You
remember the story? And all of a sudden, they come
out and they're wanting to sacrifice... The fellow who's the head of
the temple of Jupiter wants to come and offer a cow to these
guys. I mean, these are pure pagans!
So Paul says, how did it work in your case? You have received
the blessing of forgiveness of your sins. You have received
the Holy Spirit of God. Did it come when you were keeping
the law? Or did it come by faith in Jesus
Christ? And of course, they knew the
answer. And then he argues another way. Starting in Galatians 3,
verse 6, he says, let's take Abraham for an example. How was
Abraham justified? When was Abraham justified? Well,
we read about the fact that one night, God took Abraham out,
showed him the stars of the heaven. He says, you see how many they
are? That's how many your seed shall be. And Abraham believed
God. He believed the promise of God
and it was counted to him for righteousness. In other words,
God is saying you are a just man because you have believed
what I have promised you. When was Abraham circumcised?
Now that's in Genesis 15. Abraham is not circumcised until
Genesis 17. Now you may not know much about
theology, but you know a little bit about numbers, don't you? 17 follows 50. So to say that you must be a
circumcised law-keeping Jew to be justified certainly didn't
work in Abraham's case, but because two chapters before he circumcised,
he is already accepted, declared righteous by God through faith. And then he argues another way,
starting in Galatians 3 and verse 10, he says, you who want to
be under the law, did you never read the fine print? How many
of you read the fine print when you go take out a loan? You know,
most of us don't. Let's be honest. But Paul is
saying, surely, don't you remember when you ratified the covenant?
And he's referring to a time when Israel went into the land
of Canaan. They'd been instructed by Moses to go stand between
two mountains. Mount Ebel to the north, Mount
Gerizim to the south. Half of the tribes were up on
one mountain, half of them on the other mountain. The priests
were to stay in the middle. And the priests were to read
the stipulations, the blessings and the curses of the law. And
as they would read them, when they read the blessings, this
bunch over here would shout amen. When they read the curses, this
bunch over here would shout amen. Now you can go back to Deuteronomy
and read all about this. But Paul, in Galatians 3, verse
10, mentions the very last thing that was said, the last curse
that was read. Galatians 3, 10 says, for as
many are as of the works of the law are under the curse, for
it is written, and here he quotes from Deuteronomy 27, cursed is
everyone that continues not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. And like a fool, they said,
amen. They said, amen, that sounds
great to us. That's wonderful. We'll put our
John Henry to that. And Paul says, do you realize
what you have done? Did you realize what you just
said? You said you would do it. You just didn't say, well, we
think it's a good idea that people ought to be doing the law, or
we wish we could. You said you would do it. You
said you would do all of it. you see this is not a cafeteria
plan where you get to pick and choose which ones of the laws
you want. You say, well, I think thou shalt
not murder. You know, I don't want anybody murdering me, so
I think that's a pretty good one. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Well, I like adultery, so I think I'll throw that one out. You
don't get to pick and choose. It's a whole law. And then notice,
what did he say? That continues not in all things. It's not that you just do it
once in a while. When you feel like it, you have
promised you will not just think about it. You will do it. You
have promised you'll do all of it. And you promised you'll do
it always. And you said, if I don't, curse
me. And Paul says everybody who entered
into that agreement is under the curse of the law. the law
cannot bless you it can only curse you there's only one way
to get out of that curse and he goes on and tells you about
it that christ was made a curse for us hanging on that tree so
that that curse might be removed from us you would think at this
point that paul has said just about everything that could possibly
be said about this matter we have an expression you know beating
a dead horse i mean you know the things already dead why do
you keep beating it But just when you think everything that
could possibly be said about this matter has been said, we
find our text in Galatians 4 when, oh, here's one more shot at it,
one more proof that you will never, ever be justified by your
own doing, by keeping the works of the law. And it is this allusion
to Old Testament history way early. to the history of Abraham. Abraham lived about 2,000 years
before Christ. And to understand this, we have
to know a little bit about Abraham's history. I don't want to embarrass
anybody, but I have found that I find that most believers today
have some familiarity with the New Testament, but very little
familiarity with the Old. And so some of this may be brand
new to some of you, and I'm trying to keep that in mind, but it's
very important history because it's telling us where we came
from. Let me remind you a little bit about Abraham. You recall
after creation, after the fall of man, a curse was placed on
the whole earth and evil was allowed to run its course. And
before long, to no one's great surprise, the whole world is
full of evil. So God destroys the world in
the days of Noah, saving only Noah and his family. And shortly
after the flood, before this thing just starts all over again,
God selects one man, one family out of mankind. His name was
Abram, or Abram, as they would say in Hebrew. He lived in the
area of Ur of the Chaldeans. That's in Mesopotamia, what is
modern-day Iraq, not far from where my son is, in fact. he
calls this man out of paganism i mean the guy is a pure pagan
this is babylon you understand he calls abraham out and he says
i want you to go to the land that i'm going to show you and
i'm going to give this land to you and to your descendants i'm
going to make of you a mighty nation and i'm going to bless
every family of the earth through you through you and through your
descendants Now, keep in mind that to this point, God has only
cursed man. This is the first time the gospel
is preached to man. Now, realize the theologians
tell us, well, back there in Genesis 3.15, you know, God said
that he would send a seed of the woman to crush the serpent's
head. You remember that promise, but
I'd remind you that God wasn't talking to man. You go back and
read it. He's having a conversation with
the serpent. And man is just overhearing this. Here is the
first time that gospel good news is preached to man. And it's
being preached to Abraham. That I am going to send a blessing
rather than a curse. I will bless the earth, all families
of the earth. And I'm going to do it through
you. Rather than sending death, I'll send life. Rather than judgment,
I'll send heaven. And it's going to come through
you, Abraham. It's going to come through your descendants, through
your seed. Now, that's the promise. Abraham
is 75 years old when that happens. He leaves Ur. He goes with his
family to this area called Canaan. And there God has promised to
make of him a mighty nation. Now, you have to understand that
in that day and time, in the Hebrew language, names meant
something. They weren't just names. It's
not like Bob, Sally, and Susie. They meant something. And the
name Abram meant exalted father or high father. If we're going
to put this in our modern vernacular, we would say it meant Big Daddy. I mean, that's what the name
meant, Big Daddy. And you have to understand that
here is this man leading around his family and his servants,
and they're just nomads. They don't own none of this land.
God, he said, I'm going to give this land to your descendants.
But he didn't own any of it. He's just camping. He's a nomad,
wandering all over the place. And you have to understand the
people of the Middle East. If you've ever been around somebody
from the Middle East, you find very quickly that absolutely
nothing is off limits for them to ask you. How much money do
you make? Do you have a why? issue pretty
i mean anything go and and you have to understand that that
sort of a mindset of that culture and you can imagine abraham wandering
all over this land he's coming into contact with the inhabitants
of canada and and the first thing i want to know if what's your
name but i'm not my name big daddy well what's the first question
they're going to ask of somebody named big daddy how many kids
do you have right Well, guess what the answer is? Zilch. Nada. And I can just see him.
Hey, guys, come over here. You've got to hear this one.
Here's this guy named Big Daddy. And guess how many kids he's
got? None. So Abraham's having to live with
this humiliation, wandering all over the place, meeting new folks,
having to explain to people that though his name is Big Daddy,
He has no children. In fact, he complains to God.
You promised me that through my descendants, the world's going
to be blessed, but I don't even have a descendant. And that's
when God takes him out and shows him the stars there in Genesis
15 and says, that's how many your seed shall be. Well, about
10 years later, Abraham's now 85. Sarah's 10 years younger
than him, 75. and they still don't have any
children of it's been going on for ten years now and it becomes
obvious that somebody's got a problem here either sarah is baron or
abraham abram as he was known as big daddy uh... he's impotent
i mean somebody's got a problem here so sarah decides when abraham
is eighty five to give abraham her slave girl I'm sure Abraham said, no, no,
honey, I don't want to do that. I'm sure he dragged his feet
all the way, but anyway. Anyway, he said, OK, if that's
the way you want it. So sure enough, Abraham, Abram,
his big daddy, goes into Hagar, the slave girl's tent. And nothing's
private, you understand. This is a bunch of nomads living.
Everybody knows what's going on. They see Abram go into the
slave girl's tent, and before long, she's pregnant. And so
it becomes pretty obvious that the problem is not Abram, it's
Sarah who is barren. And as our text has already told
us, this slave girl, Hagar, has a son by the name of Ishmael. Now the problem with the son
of a slave is that he too, being the son of a slave, is a slave. If you are the son or the descendant,
the offspring of a slave, you yourself are a slave. So Abraham
has now, or Abram, Big Daddy, has a son, but he's a slave. But at least he's the father
of one. Now, at age 99, about 14 years later, God appears to Abraham at the
Oaks of Mamre. Genesis 18, you can read about
it. And he says to Abram, I want you to change your name to Abraham. He said, well, what's
the difference? Well, where Abram met Big Daddy,
Abraham means the father of nations, the father of multitudes, the
father of jillian's we would like we would like megadaddy i want you to change your name
to megadaddy and uh... and that's what you are going
to have a son all over himself already got a son is ishmael
surely he's the one that you're going to appear for your promises
through and does it all go it's not it it's the son that's going
to be born to you and your wife who in her younger years couldn't
bear children. Now she's 90. And now Abraham
is pushing 100. And Paul gives us a little insight
into his condition over in Romans 4. It says his own body now is
good as dead. It's not just that Sarah has
a problem with barrenness. He now has a problem with impotence. And there is no Viagra. There is no such thing as in
vitro fertilization. You get the picture. And you know what Abraham does
when God gives him that promise? He laughs. It's just so utterly
ridiculous. It's so impossible. He laughs. And Sarah overhears from the
tent, and she starts laughing. And God says, OK, I have a lesson
to you. That'll be the child's name.
You'll name him Isaac. The word Isaac means he laughs. He laughs. You laughed at me. That'll be his name. Every time
you call his name, it'll be a reminder to you that you thought I couldn't
do it. You thought it was impossible.
I'm going to do it. And by the way, it is then at
age 99 that Abraham is commanded to be circumcised. at age 99, you begin to understand
the spiritual significance of circumcision. It's what Paul
teaches us in Philippians 3. We are the circumcision, he says,
who worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and
have no confidence in the flesh. We have given up on flesh as
the mechanism You understand that's what Abraham's circumcision
is indicating. He has utterly given up. It is
absolutely impossible for he himself to do it. If it's going
to happen, it's going to be a miracle. If it's going to happen, God's
going to have to do it. And can you imagine at breakfast
the next day where Abraham gathers his family around and I've got
an announcement. Now he doesn't have, he only
got one son, Ishmael, but He's got a whole bunch of servants,
and I call it a family gathering here. From now on, I don't want
anybody calling me Big Daddy. From now on, my name is Mega
Daddy. Can you see these servants over
here? He's got one son, one son, and
he wants to be called Mega Daddy. But sure enough, about a year
later, he laughs, is born. Isaac. And a little while later,
when Sarah is weaning Isaac, she catches Ishmael. Now, Ishmael's
a teenager by now. This slave boy. She catches Ishmael. mocking her son, and she goes
to Abraham and says, that's it. I want that woman and that boy
out of my house. I will not have him being an
heir as a son, a legitimate son of Abraham. He stood in line
to inherit some of Abraham's wealth, right? In fact, he's
the firstborn son. I will not have that kid inheriting
your wealth along with my son. And Abraham doesn't want to do
that. I mean, that's highly improper. But God says, listen to your
wife. This is the only time in scripture
I can find that a man is told to listen to his wife. But sometimes, fellas, it's a
good idea. Listen. Listen to you what? In other
words, what God is telling Abraham is there's a reason why I want
you to do what I'm telling you. And the reason is so Paul can
write this to us 2,000 years later and explain the meaning
of it all. I want you to kick them out of the house. So he
does. And in accordance with the customs of the day, the laws
of the day, he doesn't send them away empty-handed to starve.
He gives them a gift. But the point is, he has disinherited
Ishmael. And Ishmael will not be an heir
along with Isaac. In fact, you'll find a little
later when he goes to seek a wife, Rebecca, you know the story for
his son Isaac. What does that servant say to
Rebecca's family? My master, oh, he's a rich man.
And he's giving everything to his son. This one son is going
to get the whole kit and caboodle. It's all his. And Rebecca, it'll
all be yours. you marry you you see the picture
all right now that's the history behind all this and notice down
in verse twenty four that paul says that this is an allegory
now allegory is a fictional story that has a correspondence to
things in real life well let me give you an example you are
you familiar with jesus's parable of the tears in the week i call
that an allegorical parable because it's like an allegory Everything
in that parable had some correspondence to a real thing in life. You
remember the wheat represented the children of God. The weeds,
the tares, represented the children of Satan. The reapers, he says,
are the angels. The harvest is the end of the
world. Every detail in the story had some correspondence to something
in real life. Now normally, allegories are
fictional stories. Because you see, it's hard to
take real history and make allegories out of them unless you are sovereign
over history like God. And then you can take actual
historical people and events like Abraham and his two wives
and make them an allegory. Paul is telling us that's what's
going on here, that the two wives And the two boys that are born
to Abraham have some significance. Notice in verse 24, he says,
which things these women and their children are an allegory
for these, these women, these two wives are the two covenants. That the two women, Abraham's
slave wife, Hagar, his free wife, Sarah, represent two covenantal
systems. there's a lot of what we talking
about here a covenantal system is a mechanism for doing something
it's how it's going to operate it's how god's gonna work he's
gonna work through the first that we have democracy and communism
two different political system to understand in democracy things
work one way in communism things work another way but they're
two different ways of doing that Paul will go on to explain here
in our text that there are two covenants working here. One he
calls the covenant of promise. The covenant of promise. It's
the one that God gave to Abraham. And God did not say, now Abraham,
if you'll be a good old boy, I'll bless you. God unconditionally,
unilaterally said, I am going to bless all the families of
the earth through you. In other words, not because of
you, but in spite of you, I have chosen, unilaterally, on my own,
out of pure grace, to send blessing to all the corners of this planet. And it's going to come, historically,
through you, Abraham. Now that's a promise. Four hundred
and thirty years later, there's another covenant. it's the covenant
of law now remember a brick most of the program comes much much
earlier than most don't know about most of you saw the movie
your chart has been all that okay we've got that down but
i want you to realize that that doesn't happen for another four
hundred and thirty years and god now enters into a mother
covenant another kind of covenant it's called wall and it's not
unilateral it's bilateral i mean by that god didn't this time
say simply this is what i'm going to do he says if you will do
this and then i will do this if you will obey me i'll bless
you if you don't know how to curse you and that's the nature of most
of the covenants you and i enter into down at the bank will give
you the money but you don't have to make these easy monthly payments
you know what i'm saying and if you don't we don't come get
the car okay that's the kind of covenants we normally enter
into is like the covenant of law but notice we have two covenants
one a unilateral declaration one a bilateral or conditional
it's got a condition to it it's conditioned on their obedience
and so paul is saying that those two wives represent those two
systems of things and those two systems of things are engendering
children. They are bearing children. I
mean, what a wife was for in that Old Testament time was not
just companionship, but basically to produce children, to produce
an heir. And that was Sarah's problem.
She couldn't produce a child. And that's why she gave Hagar
to Abraham. And so what Paul is saying is
these two systems are producing children. And this one system
represented by Hagar is producing slave children. They're in bondage. They're under the law. They correspond
to that Jerusalem over there in the Middle East where they're
in bondage under the law of Moses. But Paul says, our mother is
not that system, not Hagar. Our mother, as a Christian, is
Sarah, the free woman. And the city, the offspring that
she's producing is not that earthly Jerusalem over there in the Middle
East. It's that heavenly Jerusalem. And she's producing children
that are free, that are blessed. And guess what? Children who
are going to get an inheritance. Because remember that all the
children of Hagar are getting cast out. They're not going to
get any inheritance. And you say, well, what's my
inheritance? It's what we call heaven. Our inheritance is laid
up for us in glory. And so you see how Paul is arguing.
He has pointed out in verse 30 of our text that the children
of the slave woman, along with her, get cast out. But that we,
verse 31, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman. but
of the free. Now, let me try to sort of bring
this down to earth in the few moments that remain. But what
does this mean to us? The first thing, the main thing
that it means to you and I as a New Testament believer is that
our birth, our existence is just as miraculous as the birth of
Isaac. that we are not here. I mean,
anybody can have an Ishmael. It takes God to have an Isaac. God must do something. God must
produce it. It may happen through human means. It may happen through a man standing
and preaching the gospel, you understand. But if God is not
at work in that, nothing happens. there is a hunger and a thirst
today to see the miraculous. I think that's why the Pentecostals
are growing so. They want to see something supernatural,
something of God. And even if it's howling or frothing
at the mouth or rolling and, you know, whatever they do these
days, you know, speaking in tongues is sort of old hat. You've got
to have barking in the spirit. You think I'm making that up.
Toronto Vineyard, that's what they do. Then they went to barfing
in the spirit, vomiting in the spirit. You know, we just want
to see something supernatural. Do you understand that if you
are a Christian today, you're a walking, breathing miracle
of God? There is only one reason for
your being here today. for your existence as a child
of God. And it is that God has done a miracle of grace in your
heart and your life. That's what He's done for me. We talk about who's your daddy?
I want to ask you a question. Who's your mama? Who's your mama? I know who my
Heavenly Father is. Who's my mother? Did you catch
that? We, brethren, as Isaac was, are
children of promise. Jerusalem, which is above, is
free, which is the mother of us all. You understand that if
I am truly saved, born again, I have a heavenly mother. It's
not Mother Earth. It's not Mother Mary. It is a covenantal system called
grace, called promise, called God's unconditional statement
of truth that I am birthed by what God has declared He's going
to do. My existence as a believer and
as a Christian is not because of me, but because of God. And
it has come through my Heavenly Mother, if you will, this covenant
of grace. Secondly, it tells us a little
bit about the fulfillment of prophecy. I won't dwell on this.
I don't want to step on anybody's eschatological toes. You can
be wrong if you want to be. There in verse 27, he says this
is the fulfillment of this rather strange prophecy in Isaiah 54
where he says the barren woman is going to rejoice. She's going
to wind up having more children than the woman who could have
children. There's this sort of pattern of barren women. Have
you ever noticed that? Not only was Sarah barren, but
the next generation, Rebecca was barren, and then God worked
that she bore a child, and then it's Rachel that's barren, and
the next generation, do you see how that trend follows? Then
it's Hannah. The mother of Samuel is barren
until she prays to God. The parents of Samson are barren. She's barren. And then there's
Elizabeth as we come up to the New Testament time. The mother
of John the Baptist is barren until she gives birth. You see that this pattern is
being repeated, that God is constantly teaching this lesson that I'm
the one who's going to give the offspring. I'm the one who's
going to give the children. And then, of course, we have
the greatest miracle of all, a virgin birth. in the case of our Lord. You
see that pattern? Notice Isaiah 54, and we don't
have time to go there, but it is a passage that we are being
told by most folks today, oh, that's talking about Israel in
the millennium. Somebody sure should have told
Paul, because he quotes it right here as a fulfillment of what
is going on today in your life and my life. Somebody should
have told Jesus. Because it's just a little later
in Isaiah 54 when it talks about this barren woman's children,
says they shall all be taught of God. Do you realize that Jesus
quotes that very verse over in John 6? No man can come to Me
except the Father who has sent Me drawing. It is written in
the Prophets, they shall all be taught of God. You see, He's
quoting this passage, Isaiah 54. Somebody should have told
them if that's the case. They see it. as the fulfillment
of these Old Testament texts. It tells us a little bit about
the enmity between flesh and spirit. You remember the part
of the story where Ishmael, the teenage boy, is now picking on
little Isaac? Paul points out to us that verse
29, then, as then he who was born after the flesh persecuted
him who was born after the spirit, even so is it now. There is a
natural enmity. Enmity is the feeling between
enemies. It's not exactly hate, because
I may not hate my enemy per se, but I'll shoot him because he's
my enemy. There is a natural enmity, hostility,
between the children of the Spirit and the children of the flesh.
It went on in Paul's day. Who's doing the persecuting in
Paul's day? Who's the first great persecutor
of the New Testament church? It's not the Romans. It's the
Jews. It's these legalists. They are
dogging Paul wherever he goes. They hate his gospel. And guess
what? The legalists is going to hate
my gospel. I tell you, folks, I've had people in my congregation,
if they could have done it and got away with it, they would
have shot and killed me dead. Bill, you know what I'm talking
about. Oh, they hate grace. It's not that they don't understand
it. They understand it as well as you and I understand it. They
hate it. And they hate it with a passion.
You say, why? Because it's taking away from them everything they're
trusting, everything their hope of heaven is built on. You're
robbing them of it. It's their glory. I'm afraid a man will kill you if
you try to take away his righteousness. And that's what we're trying
to do in the preaching of the Gospel is to take away a man's
trust in his own righteousness so that he has nothing of which
to boast in glory except in what a Savior has done for him at
a cross. And then finally, it tells us
a little bit about how holiness works in the lives of God's people. I want you to put yourself today
in the place of Isaac. Don't you know that he never
tired of hearing the story of how he was born? That he realizes
from day one that he is a miraculous person. He is the result of God
working. I've often wondered when Abraham,
many years later by the way, Abraham's well up into his hundreds
at this point, takes Isaac, who's a strappling young lad at this
point, up on Mount Moriah to offer him as a birth sacrifice. How is it that a hundred and
something year old man can manage to tie up a strappling teenage
boy? But there you see the obedience
of Isaac. The submission of Isaac. The
realization that I am what I am by the grace of God. And I am
in God's hands to do with as He pleases. And that is what every child
of God ought to realize. If you're saved here today, you
need to realize this, that you are not your own. You have been
bought with a price. You belong to another. And I
may then do what the law commands me to do. You see, the problem
is not so much with what the law is saying, do, it's how do
I do it? What will motivate me to do it?
And what Paul is teaching us very plainly in these texts is
that it is the understanding that it is the grace of God at
work in me. It is out of my heart of adoration
and thankfulness, gratitude to my God that I want to please
Him. I want to serve Him. I want to
live for Him who died for me. That's my goal in life. John Bunyan, you probably know
of John Bunyan's name, wrote the greatest allegory ever in
the English language called Pilgrim's Progress. How many of you read
it? Few of you didn't think this was a Pilgrim's Progress crowd,
to tell you the truth. But anyway, you ought to get
you a copy and read it. A marvelous thing. He's telling
the story of a Christian's life in an allegory, in a fictional
story. Bunyan wrote these words. Run,
John, run, the law commands, but gives us neither feet nor
hands. For better news, the Gospel brings,
it bids us fly and gives us wings. That's the difference. May God
bless you. May you come to know this God
who loves to begat children by supernatural means. May you be
an Isaac. May you be one of the children
of that Mother above who is free. Let's pray. Father, let us in these words,
may we get a sense of the miraculousness of the fact that we are a child
of the King, a child of God, that we have come to faith in
Jesus Christ, that we have experienced the supernatural power of our
God. Let us remember that we owe our
all to the One who gave Himself for us so that we might have
life. that we realize that we are Isaacs
related to our Father Abraham, not by genetics, but by faith. That the same faith of Abraham
that cleaves to that promise of God, we too, Father, have
put our faith in the testimony that You have given to us through
the Gospel of Your Son. So, Father, bless us today. May
this encourage us. May this help us. In the name
of Jesus, I pray.