Cursed or Blessed

Q: What does the Bible say about being justified by faith?

The Bible states that justification comes by faith in Jesus Christ, not by the works of the law (Galatians 2:16). The Apostle Paul emphasizes in Galatians that no person can be justified by the works of the law, but only through faith in Jesus Christ. This is foundational to the Gospel, as it shifts the focus from what we can do to what Christ has already accomplished. In Galatians 2:16, Paul declares, 'Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.' This highlights that our standing before God is secured solely through faith in Christ's righteousness, not through our efforts to keep the law.

Q: How do we know that salvation is by grace and not by works?

Salvation is by grace and not by works, as Paul states that the just shall live by faith (Galatians 3:11). Paul's letter to the Galatians makes it clear that salvation is a work of grace. The principle that 'the just shall live by faith' underscores that it is faith in God's promise, not our own merits or law-keeping, that secures our salvation. Galatians 3:11 reminds us that justification cannot come from the law because the law only condemns; it is by grace through faith that we receive life and redemption. Thus, any attempt to mingle grace with human works leads to a denial of the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice and the grace of God.

Q: Why is understanding the curse of the law important for Christians?

Understanding the curse of the law is crucial as it reveals our inability to be justified by our own works (Galatians 3:10). The curse of the law is an essential concept in understanding our need for Christ. In Galatians 3:10, Paul teaches that 'cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.' This highlights our total inability to achieve righteousness through adherence to the law. Recognizing this curse underscores the necessity of God's grace in providing a Savior who redeems us from this curse by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). Acknowledging the curse fosters humility, reliance on Christ, and a deeper appreciation for the work of redemption that transforms us.

Q: What is the role of faith in the life of a believer?

Faith is the means by which believers receive righteousness and live their lives empowered by Christ (Galatians 2:20). Faith plays a central role in the life of a believer, serving as the means through which we access the grace of God and the righteousness of Christ. In Galatians 2:20, Paul expresses that he lives by the faith of the Son of God who loved him and gave Himself for him. This signifies that our life as Christians is sustained and empowered by the faith of Christ working within us, not merely our own belief. Faith transforms our relationship with God, allowing us to experience His promises and live out the reality of our new identity in Christ, leading to obedience motivated by love rather than fear of judgment.

All right, brethren, turn with me to Galatians 3. Galatians 3. Our subject is cursed or blessed. Cursed or blessed. Let me just read one verse to you. He says, In verse, let's read to verse nine. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

Now, the false message that was being taught to the Galatians is being taught today. Our Lord said that there would be a doctrine taught that if it were possible, it would deceive the very elect. That's not something that is just blatantly obvious. That's something that sounds like the gospel, but somewhere it's off. It's what they were confronted with at Galatia.

Legalists had come to God's elect who Christ had made righteous and holy, and they came to them and said this, and I'm just gonna give you this. It's in Acts, but I'm just gonna give it to you. They came to them and said, except, now that's an important word, except you be circumcised after the manna of Moses, you cannot be saved. It's needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses."

These were folks who believed on Christ and said all their justification was Christ, all their righteousness was Christ. These folks said, amen. Christ's people are people chosen, Jew and Gentile in Christ. These folks said, amen. They said, Christ laid down his life for his people, and he fully accomplished making them righteous and putting away their sin. He laid down his life for his people particularly, amen. And these brethren said, and Peter declared, and God made their heart pure. He made their heart holy. And these brethren said, mm-mm, now listen.

That's so, but there's something you gotta do. Accept you, be circumcised, and all that is, is accept you come under the law, and keep the law, and give it at Mount Sinai. You can't be saved. That same message is preached today. Sinners are being told, after you believe on Christ, for your righteousness, then you have to keep the law to become holier and holier and holier. And by your works, you put down your sin and you put down your sin and you become less and less sinful and more and more holy. And at the time that you are ripe, so to speak, God brings you to glory.

This word I'm about to read is the word of God. Paul's just a messenger writing it down. This is God's word to everybody sitting here right now. In verse one, he said, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth. before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you. This only would I learn of you.

Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? The message that you heard, did somebody come and preach to you and say, now, if you do this work, this work, and this work, you put away some of your sin, you start obeying God's law and you prove that you've turned over a new leaf and that you really are looking to Christ, then you'll be born again. Is that how you started? Or did you hear the message that said what was preached in the Valley of Dry Bones? You're a dead sinner, but the Lord will come and he'll breathe life into his people and he'll make his people live and he'll give you life and he'll give you faith in the works hall of him. Which one of those messages did you begin with?

Now God's child that's really been sanctified will say it was by the hearing of his faithfulness. That message is preached in the valley of dry bones and then the Lord came and did in those bones what was preached. He made them live. And then he says this in verse three.

Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Is it now gonna be that you go back to the law and you start keeping the law of Moses and you're gonna grow better and better and better and more and more holy? Is that what you're saying? And listen to what God says about that. Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet in vain?

He's saying, if that's what you believe, you don't believe Christ. He asked the question, he said, Christ who ministers the spirit to you, and works miracles among you. Christ who sent you the gospel and through that gospel works the miracle of saving faith brought you to believe, brought the miracle of granting you repentance to look totally from yourself to him only. Did he do that through the message that tells you you have to keep the law? or did he do it through the hearing of his faithfulness and what he does? And he answered it this way, verse six.

Even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, however Abraham was saved, that's how God saves all his people, that's what he said. Was Abraham made righteous by the law? No. Was Abraham made holy by the law? No. Did Abraham get holier and holier by the law? No. Was the law the rule of Abraham's life?

No. Couldn't have been. Because in Galatians 3, it tells us right here, verse 17, the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ to Abraham, the law which was 430 years after, cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect. Abraham did not have the Ten Commandments, neither did Noah, neither did Enoch, Neither did Adam, neither did Eve, neither did Abel.

So either God changes and decides, I'm gonna save a different way than I saved them, or God's the same and he saves all his people exactly the same. Scripture says in verse seven, which are of faith, they which are of faith. The same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Now here's our text. Here's our text. For as many as are of the works of the law. Now we have two different things here. We have those that are of faith and we have those that are of the works of the law.

Those that are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things. which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it's evident the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith. The law is not of faith. The law says the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And he did it that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. In other words, that we might be saved the exact same way Abraham was saved. That we might receive the promise of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ.

Cursed or blessed, cursed or blessed, those that be of the works of the law are under the curse. Those that be of faith are blessed of God. All right, the cursed. Here's the curse. As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. anybody looking to their law-keeping. And here's how you know if you're looking to your law-keeping. If you say, except I keep this law, I can't be saved. If that's what you say, you're looking to your law-keeping. You're trusting in something you do. There's a difference. Romans 14 tells you a weak brother might feel like he needs to still observe the law observe days and eat certain things. He's weak in faith.

He doesn't have to do that. But he's not telling his brother that knows he has liberty. He's not telling that brother, now except you do this, you can't be saved. He's not parting with him and leaving him. He's doing what he does to the Lord. And he's trusting this brother that has liberty. He's doing what he does to the Lord. and they both are trusting Christ to make each other stand. That's just a weak brother.

But if in our heart we think that by our law keeping, we're making ourselves better, more holy, or more righteous, adding to what Christ is and what Christ has done. If we think by our law keeping, we're earning a reward from God, God's going to be indebted to give us something because of what we've done for him. See, the motive of the heart's everything with God, because he's looking on the heart. And we're not fooling him. If the motive of our heart is my works are going to count for something, then we do not know God. We're under a curse. Here's why. Here's why. How serious is it? Here's why. It's just what Paul said. Are you foolish? What God said, having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by something you do, by your works, by your flesh, by the law?

Now look what Peter, all Peter did is he gets up from a table sitting with Gentiles and he goes and he sits at the table with his Jewish brethren. That's all he did. And by doing it, Some others that were sitting there said, I need to do what he's doing. And they got up and went over there and said, too.

That's called dissimulating. That's called being a hypocrite. And here's what the spirit of God, here's what God said about that. When we confess faith in Christ, we're saying Christ fulfilled the law. He's all my righteousness. And so that middle wall, of petition, the law, has been destroyed. It's been, and it's just words. He fulfilled it, he honored it, he glorified it. But we're saying that wall's been taken down, like you would destroy a wall. It's not, we're one in Christ now.

But God said in Galatians 2.18, in answer to what Peter did, God said, if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. Four, I through the law, through Christ honoring it in my behalf, am dead to the law. What does that mean? That means the law has nothing else to say to me. I'm righteous, it can't say anything to me. That I might live to God. Look with me now here in Galatians 3, Look at verse 24.

The law was our schoolmaster unto Christ, until Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come, we're no longer under a schoolmaster. For you're all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. As many as you has been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. If you have Christ, if you have Christ on to where when God looks at you, all he sees is Christ, you need to add anything? All God sees is a perfect righteousness, a perfect holiness that his son is.

Do you need to add anything to that? No. In him, there's neither Jew nor Greek. What defined a Jew or a Greek? What made one to be a Jew and one to be a Greek? The law. that distinctions don't exist anymore. Because everyone in Christ has the exact same righteousness and the exact same holiness. There's neither bond nor free, we've been made free in Christ. We're not bound or free, we're in him, we've been saved. There's neither male nor female, you're all one in Christ Jesus. Look now over here at Galatians 4.

If I go back to the law, and I go back to my works and I put any confidence in what I'm doing, what am I really doing? Verse nine. Now, after that you have known God or rather have known of God, after you confess that you believe Christ, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements wherein to you desire again to be in bond? Surely Paul's not referring to the law as weak and beggarly. It's only weak and beggarly because You and me are weak and beggarly.

We can't keep it. That's why Christ came. How do you know we can't keep it? God sent his son. If we could have kept it, God wouldn't have sent his son. What happens if I ignore all this and I say, well, I'm gonna go back and I think I'm gonna keep the law because I think I have to or I can't be saved?

All right, Galatians 5.1. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if you be circumcised, and you know when they said that, they meant command them to keep the law, given at Sinai. If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.

For I test again, again, again, this is what he's saying in our text. So he says, I'm saying it again to every man that's circumcised, he is a debtor to do the whole law. Now go back to our text. Here's why that's a curse. Verse 10, for it's written, this is God speaking, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.

No matter who the person is, you must continue from the moment of conception, you have to be holy and righteous, till the day you draw your last breath, you have to be holy and righteous, because you have kept every dot and every tittle of the law perfectly without any deviation whatsoever. That's the only way God says a man has kept the law. If man hadn't done that, he has not kept the law. That's how strict God is.

A man has to keep dot every I and cross every T and it all has to be done from a perfectly holy heart. A holy heart is one that loves God perfectly and loves your neighbor perfectly. That neighbor who spits in your face and cusses you out and steals your property and mistreats your children. That one. You gotta love them perfectly. No deviation. And let me say this to you. Men divide the law for the same reason the Pharisees did, to bring the law down to a man's level. That's what the Pharisees tried to do. They changed where the goal line was so they could score a little easier.

The Lord never, ever divides his law. What he gave at Sinai was one covenant, and it included every law, 613 laws. Christ kept all of them. Christ observed all of them. Christ fulfilled all of them. And he did it with a perfectly holy heart, with no deviation, in perfect love, in perfect faith to God, in perfect love to his brethren, none whatsoever. And then he went to the cross and took all the sin of all his people and stood before God as having broken every one of them. And God poured out on him what justice demanded. And he did that because he perfectly loved his father and he perfectly loved his people.

And God said, he's the only one that ever obeyed the law. And that's what it takes. Now, if you want to come to God and say you've done that, you are a fool. A blind, deaf, dumb, ignorant fool. Insanity. Because God is pleased with his son. And his son made his people accept it. Nothing to be added. Nothing to be added.

If you fulfill the royal law, love your neighbor as yourself, you do well. If you have respect of persons, if you've ever treated one man differently than another man because of something about that man, you're convinced of the law as a transgressor.

Whosoever should keep the whole law and offend in one point, he's guilty of it all. He said, don't commit adultery. He also said, do not kill. If you commit no adultery, but you kill, you're a transgressor of the law. And Christ said, if you're angry with another without a cause, you've murdered them. See, God sent his son because there's not anybody on the top side of this earth that's born of Adam that has ever kept the law of God.

Hang on now, not after you believe God either, have you ever kept it? There's a sin nature in you. And Paul said, when I would do good, evil is present with me. Oh, wretched man in the name, are you that wretched? Well then, preacher, don't you think I can believe on Christ and yet go to the law and my works account for something?

Look at verse 11. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. For the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith. The law says you have to do it all, and then you can live. When I see their preacher, there's where you mixed up. This is what's wrong with you people. Y'all confound justification with sanctification. We're not trying to keep the law to be justified. We're keeping the law to be sanctified. That's exactly what the Pharisees were saying. That's exactly what they were saying. We're not saying Christ is not your justification. We're saying now that you believe he is, except you keep the law, you can't be saved. Okay then, if that's true, how am I going to be saved? How am I going to know how to walk? How am I going to be led? How am I going to know what I should do?

Go back to Galatians 2 and look at verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. My old man has been punished under the justice of the law. The law has nothing else to say. I died. My old man's dead. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I. Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now live, In this flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That doesn't say I live by faith in Christ. That says I live by the faith of Christ.

That's an important distinction. If your Bible doesn't have it, burn that thing and get you one that does. Look back here at verse 16. 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. All right, now back here, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faithfulness of my Lord Jesus Christ, just like if I was a child and he took me by the hand and said, come on, son, I wanna go this way.

Nope, we're going this way, come on, and he leads me. by his spirit through the preaching of this gospel. And that's how I know how to walk. That's how Abraham walked. We say, well, the Lord spoke to Abraham. The Lord speaks to his people now. That's what this preaching is. He's speaking to you right now.

And if you're saying, I don't believe this, it might be he ain't speaking to you. But if he is, you're gonna hear him. And you're going to say, if you've been doing what these Pharisees are doing, you're going to say, I don't even know if I've ever believed him.

Because I thought all this time I had to do that. I thought I had to do that to be saved. He's going to teach you. I'm your righteousness and I'm your holiness. Go with me to 1 Corinthians 1. See, if I keep the law and it contributes or counts for something, I'm gonna boast in that, because that's just how I am. And that's how you are too. But here's why we're saved through this gospel.

Verse 29, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of God are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom. There's where I get my discernment. to hear these things and to understand Christ as my wisdom. And he's made, God makes him righteousness to us. I'm just before the law, never sin, perfect before the law. And sanctification, holiness.

See, Christ had a holy heart, and he fulfilled the will of God by his one offering. He said, your law's in my heart, Lord. Where did the Lord tell him, put that law? Put it in the ark. The law was in Christ's heart. He's the ark, and he's the mercy seat.

He fulfilled the law for his people, by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ one time for all time, because he perfected forever them that are sanctified. He was cast out of the camp, and he went without the camp, and he sanctified the people with his own blood.

If you, God gave a law called the law of the red heifer. If you walked over a grave and you didn't even know that grave was there, you're impure, you're unholy. If you had a water and a gnat that you can't even see landed in that water and he's so small you can't see him and you drank that water, you're unholy. And the only way you could be made holy was that red heifer had to die. in your place. And then they took the ashes of that burned heifer and they mixed it with some ashes of some water and other stuff and they took hyssop and they sprinkled it all over you. And that made you pure ceremonially in type and picture. But the Hebrew writer said, if the, let me read it to you. I don't want to mess it up. Hebrews 9. Listen to this. Hebrews 9.

Verse 13, if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of a heifer, red heifer, sprinkling the unclean, this is sanctification, sprinkling the unclean sanctifyeth to the purifying of the flesh. If that ceremony did that, he said, just fleshly-wise, just in picture and type, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot, holy to God? How much more shall he purge your conscience, make your inward man perfectly holy from those dead works you're doing to try to make yourself holy so that you can actually serve the living God now? That's it, brethren. He's our holiness, and he's our righteousness. He's our, and now here's why you're not gonna be able to mix the two.

The just shall live by faith. I live because Christ lives in me, and he leads me, and I hear him in this gospel. He strengthens me through this gospel, through his word, he teaches me. that I have to have this gospel. He teaches me to love my brethren like he loved me, be merciful to them, forgive them, help them look to Christ.

He teaches me he's everything. He's all. And so now he's leading me, he's saving me, and I'm walking, I'm living by faith. He's everything. Just what we just read. And he's our redemption. So that we glory only in him. Now, but if I'm gonna try to say that I gotta keep this law, well, here's what he said, the law's not of faith. In other words, it's gonna have to be one or the other. It's gonna have to be Christ is everything, and you're walking trusting him only, or it's gonna be you've gotta do it all, but you can't mix them, can't be both.

Listen now, Romans 11.6, if it's by grace, it's no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it's of works, it's no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. All right, now let me get back to this objection that I know is coming.

A preacher, he said no man's justified by the works of the law. And you're talking about sanctification. How do you know that Christ is your justification. How do you know Christ is your righteousness? The only way a man believes that and knows that is when Christ has been made his sanctification. For us, in our experience of it, we have to first be sanctified, given a new holy man, and that blood of Christ be sprinkled and purge our conscience from our dead works, making us holy, so that we realize Christ is my justification.

So, if I'm looking to me to sanctify myself, I really don't believe he's my justification either. You get that? If I hadn't been turned from my works to make myself holy, then I hadn't been turned from my works to make myself justified either. That's just so.

Here's the blessing. Here's the blessing, last point, verse 13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. The us is in Ephesians 1. God the Father blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, according as he chose us in Christ, that we should be holy, where? In Christ. He sanctified us in Christ. He chose us in Christ. He separated us in Christ. He declared us holy in Christ. and that we should be without blame, that's perfectly righteous, where? In Christ, in love, in the beloved. And it says, and he predestinated us to the adoption of children, and it says, and in Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. He did it all.

Look there, Galatians 4.4. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, maiden of the law, to redeem them that were under the law. He was made of a woman, he was maiden of the law, and the spotless lamb presented himself to God, and he hath made him sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

And then, because he's made sin, and God's just now to pour out divine vengeance on him, God made him a curse. And he bore it. You know what the curse is? The second death, it's being cast out of God's presence into outer darkness for eternity. That's the death that was owed, that we owe justice. How could that be satisfied?

Because he's the son of God, eternal God. and he became a man to take the place of his people. And let me make this point. I'm running long, but I gotta make this point. Can you stay with me just a little bit longer? In Ezekiel, God said, the soul that sinneth, it shall die. The father can't bear the sin of the son, and the son can't bear the sin of the father.

Well, then how? Let's look at it like this. Go back to the beginning. It will be a little easier to understand this. We all died in Adam. Nobody existed. When Adams broke that law in the garden, we all broke it. And then we were all born of him. We all came from him. So by what he did, we're guilty before the law, and we're unholy in heart. OK? Now go back to the beginning, because Christ looks both ways. But let's just go back to the beginning. Nobody exists. Christ is the only man. He's the head. None of his people have been born yet.

I'm talking about spiritually. So whatever he does, that's what all the children are going to do. So he takes all the sin of these children and He bears it, and He makes them all righteous, and He does it from a perfectly holy heart, and then He makes them all to be born of this incorruptible seed so that their entire new man is holy, which makes them look only to Him and know, He's my wisdom, my righteousness, my holiness, and my redemption. I don't owe anything.

He's everything. See, he wasn't the father bearing the sin of the son or the son bearing the sin of the father. He's the one man. He's the one man. And what he did, all his people did in him. He did it with a holy heart and perfect righteousness and put away our sin. And God says, that's what you did. Who know him? You that know him. You that are his. He says, you already did all that. I'm not trying to be holy. I am. I'm not trying to be righteous. I am. And I actually have a new man that makes me know this, that's holy.

When you die, nothing's going to be done to that spirit. You're going to be with the Lord. Why? Because you're holy. This sin nature that came from Adam is what it always was. It's sin. That's how I come. I can't look to myself. I just see sin. But it's going to the dust. And nothing about it's going to glory.

Because God's going to raise a new body, perfectly perfect just like Him, in His image, so that when I get to glory, everything there will have been the creation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and nothing of Adam, nothing of flesh whatsoever, all Christ's creation, the new creation, all of Christ. Paul says it's not circumcision, it's not your law keeping out of veils, it's not saying, well, I don't believe that, I'm not going, it's not uncircumcision out of veils. It's Christ making you a new creation.

That means He's turned you to Him to know, I'm saved. I'm right there right now with Him. And He's gonna lead me. He's not gonna let me go. This don't make me wanna go sin. This don't make me wanna go kill somebody or commit adultery. This makes me, now from a heart of knowing I've accepted, it makes me want to honor Him in everything I do. and he's gonna see to it you do.

Here's the promise. He did all this that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of this Holy Spirit through faith. The promise is this. The Lord comes to you, he sends you this gospel, he sends the Holy Spirit, he regenerates you, he purges your conscience now to know you're not guilty, you're holy, you're righteous, accepted of God, because you're in Christ at God's right hand. From the rest of those days, it's through faith. You're looking to God's promise and what he's promised you.

And he's promised you that you're now a son, and because you're a son, you're a joint heir with Christ, and you're gonna inherit everything. Look, look, verse 15, he's saying, if it's a man's covenant, you've confirmed it, no man disowns it or adds to it, To Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He didn't say to seeds as of many as of one, to thy seed which is Christ. In other words, the covenant, the promise that was confirmed before of God in Christ.

God told Abraham, everything I'm promising to do for you is gonna be accomplished by Christ. You're not going to do any of it, Abraham. And he said, so the law, which was 430 years later, it can't disannul that promise that it makes of none effect. And here's the promise, for if the inheritance be of the law, if you did something by your law keeping to get that inheritance, it's not a promise anymore. but God gave it to Abraham by promise. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. He did it all. Look now, let's read the whole thing at verse one. Why was the law then?

I say the heir, as long, Galatians 4.1, the heir, as long as he's a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he's Lord of all, he's under tutors and governors to the appointed time, appointed to the father. Even so, when we were children, we were in bondage under the law. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, because God had chose you and predestinated you to this, God sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, I have a father, wherefore you're no more a servant but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ.

I hear men preaching law, and I hear them trying to scare the hell out of people. We've got to keep you in this seat, so you've got to observe a Sabbath, so you're in this seat, and you better tithe, you better give your money. God said, you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. Any man that does that will have the worst place in hell with the people he put there, and that's going to be bad. That'd be like a prosecuting attorney going to prison with the people he put there.

You've received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The spirit bears witness with our hearts we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Everything that belongs to Christ belongs to his people.

And this is the message, God said, Don't you go and scare my people. Don't you go and tell them, put them under law and put them under bondage and frighten them like them Pharisees were doing. Paul said, if you follow these fellows, Christ is going to profit you nothing. God said, comfort ye, comfort ye my people.

Cry to their heart, tell them their warfare is accomplished. I've rewarded them double for all their sin. Set your affection on Christ above. That's where you are. When he comes, you'll be with him there in glory. He's salvation, nothing else. Amen. All right, Adam.

Cursed or Blessed

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about being justified by faith?

How do we know that salvation is by grace and not by works?

Why is understanding the curse of the law important for Christians?

What is the role of faith in the life of a believer?

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Cursed or Blessed

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about being justified by faith?

How do we know that salvation is by grace and not by works?

Why is understanding the curse of the law important for Christians?

What is the role of faith in the life of a believer?

Sermon Transcript

About Clay Curtis

Comments

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