In verse 11, it says in the latter part of
that verse, the just, in Galatians chapter 3 verse 11 there, the
just, those who are just before God, they have been justified
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. that they shall live
by faith. Let me read it like this. The
just shall live by believing God. That's how we spend our
lives. That's how we live. We believe
God for righteousness. We believe God for forgiveness.
We believe God for acceptance. We believe God for pardon. We
do not believe God and anything else added to it. We believe
God. We believe the gospel. To believe
the gospel is to believe God. And that's how we live. That's
how we live. I know that it is in us by nature
to want to do something in order to be accepted, in order to please
God. It is in us by nature to want
to do that. If we were going to a cookout
over at my parents, Vicki would say, what do I need to bring?
We can't show up empty-handed. We've got to bring something.
And we carry that over by nature now. Natural man carries that
over into the spiritual realm. I've got to do something. I've
got to bring something in order to please God. In salvation,
we bring nothing. Our only hope and plea is that
when Jesus Christ died, he died for me. Now, if you're going
to a cookout, go ahead and bring something. You might want to
take something. But now, when it comes to salvation,
God has provided everything. He prepared a table for us before
our enemies in Psalm 23. He's prepared the table. He's
prepared the spread. We bring nothing. We come to
him for everything we need. without adding anything to it
in any way, shape, or form. Now, Paul, back in chapter 2,
in the last verse, in verse 21, he writes, I do not frustrate
the grace of God. For if righteousness, and God
demands righteousness, Without righteousness, without holiness,
no man shall see the Lord. For if righteousness comes by
the law, that if it comes by my obedience to the law, my personal
obedience to the law, then Christ is dead in vain. He died in vain. His death is useless. It was meaningless, if this is
so. And Paul uses strong language
here in verse 1 of chapter 3. He says, O foolish, that's strong
language. If I call you foolish, that's
strong language. O foolish Galatians who have
bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, that you
should not obey the gospel. before whose eyes Jesus Christ
hath been evidently set forth crucified among you, how foolish,
how foolish would it be for a man to be set free, to be let loose
out of bondage, to have the shackles taken off and made completely
free. And then for that man to turn
around and want to go back under that bondage and put those shackles
back on. How foolish is that? That's what
Paul says to him. He says, that's what you're doing.
You've been made free in Christ. You've been set free in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And now you're wanting to go
back under bondage. You want to go back under a law
that you can't even keep, and a law that cannot save you, because
it was never given to save. It was never given to save. So
how foolish is it to leave the only way of salvation, the only
hope of salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ, and go back under the
law? That law that demands absolute
obedience. Perfect obedience, it demands
it. It takes no less. No less. To leave the gospel of grace
and go under the works of the law? Paul said, that's so foolish. It's like he said, think about
it. Just think about it. Think about what you're doing.
It's so foolish to leave the doctrine of free justification
Go back under a law that only condemns. That's so foolish. That's so foolish. To go from
being free to being institutionalized. I was thinking about this last
night as I was looking at this. There are some people that have
been in prison so long they've become what you call institutionalized. When they've been set free, they
don't know how to act. They don't know how to handle
it. And what they'll do, often times,
they'll commit a crime and go back because they've been institutionalized. These Judaizers that came down
and started disturbing these Galatians, they were institutionalized. They didn't know how to handle
this thing of freeing Christ. Free from the law, old happy
condition. They did not know how to handle
that. So what they wanted to do, they wanted to take the Gentiles
and bring them under the law like they were and institutionalize
them. We're free in Christ. We are
free in Him. And he says here that Jesus Christ
has been set before you. He's been preached before you.
with great evidence. Paul preached who Jesus Christ
is. He preached his person, that
he's God, manifested in the flesh. He preached his work as a substitute,
dying to redeem, not attempting to redeem, but to redeem. And
he did it. He did it. He preached Christ's
sufferings. He preached Christ's as to where
he is now, seated at the right hand of the Father, he said,
he has been evidently set forth among you. Powerful preaching,
attended by the Holy Spirit. Let me show you something over
in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3. Here's what happened. You see,
Paul is speaking here to the Corinthians, and this can apply
to the Galatians. He says, But I fear, verse 3,
lest by any means, as a serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. That was what was happening there
in Galatians. Their minds were being corrupted. Who hath bewitched
you that your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity
that's in Christ? Just to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, thou shalt be saved. Don't complicate that. Don't
complicate it. Then he says, let me get back
here to Galatians. And he says, this is only what
I learn of you. This is what I want to know.
Let's get this straightened out. Receive you the Spirit or when
you receive the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit was in that church. That was the Galatian church
there is God's church, the Holy Spirit is in that church. He
said, when you receive the Holy Spirit of God, when you received
him, What was going on? Was the law
being read? Was the law being preached? Or
was the gospel being preached? Which one? Receive you the Spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith? What was happening?
Christ was being preached. When you received the Holy Spirit,
that is, when God saved you, when God saved you, what was
going on? What was being preached? Was
it the law? Was it works? Was it do's and
don'ts? Or was it Christ? You know what it was. It was
the gospel. It was the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's what was being preached.
Now, that being so, are you so foolish? Are you so foolish? having begun
in the Spirit, having been saved by the Spirit of God, regenerated,
born again, having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect
by the flesh?" In other words, did you start out in this matter
of salvation by the Spirit of God, but you're going to be made
perfect by adding your works to it? No. Are you so foolish as after being
chosen in Christ, being called by the grace of Christ, being
called by the gospel, that you're kept by the works of the law?
God forbid. God forbid. That having begun
your Christian life depending on the Spirit and grace of God,
that you're going to finish it? depending on the flesh. Is that
how this works? God forbid. We have over in Hebrews
12. Let me read it to you. We just
looked at it the other day. In verse 2, here's how we begin
and here's how we end. Looking unto Jesus. This is how
we begin. And this is how we end. Looking
unto Jesus, the author, the beginner and finisher, the one who brings
our faith to maturity of our faith. Looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith. That's how we begin and that's
how we end. Looking to Christ. At no point in time do we ever get to a point where what we
do is added to what Christ did for us. It's Christ and Christ alone
from Alpha to Omega. That's freedom. Now that's freedom. It's not freedom if it's Christ
plus anything. Because if you have to do a plus,
you and I can't do pluses. We can't do it. Because we can't
do them perfectly. Jesus Christ is the only man
who ever walked on this earth and absolutely pleased God. He
did everything perfectly. Every thought he had was a perfect
thought. Every motive he had was a perfect
motive. He said, my meat, my meat is
to do the will of Him that sent me. I would to God I could say that.
And I hope and pray that in a measure that is our means, that is our
desire. But it's not perfect. It's not
perfect. Because there's a lot of things
I want to get done during the day that has nothing to do with
pleasing God. You know that. Your mind is on
something that has everything our Lord did. He did to please
His Father. He did it according to the will
of His Father. The will of His Father pleased
Him. Now listen, this is so because
we're in this flesh. We get upset sometimes because
God disappoints us. He takes away. We pray, Thy will
be done. And then we get disappointed. when His will is done, because
it goes in a different direction than what we wanted, than what
we were hoping for. It goes a completely different
direction. There are things in life that I've done that I hoped
to attain and wanted to do, and it just went a different direction.
And I was disappointed. Our Lord was never disappointed.
Never disappointed. Because His will was always in
accordance with His Father's will. Are you so foolish having
begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? Have you suffered so many things over the gospel?" They
believed the gospel. Now listen, they suffered. We
have not, in comparison to them, we've not suffered. We've not
lost homes and jobs and families split up and excommunicated. That happened to them. He said, have you suffered so
many things over the gospel, over believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ, if it be yet in vain? Have you suffered so much over
Him? Now listen, if obedience, if righteousness comes by the
law, then what you're suffering for Christ's sake, it's in vain. It's in vain. It's useless. He
therefore that ministers to you the Spirit and works miracles
among you." What was happening when that was going on? God's
saving sinners. And the Hebrews here, they saw
some miracles now. They saw some great miracles.
God performed these miracles by the Apostle Paul and some
of the other apostles. They saw some real miracles with
their own eyes. And he said, he therefore that
masters to you the Holy Spirit and works miracles among you,
does he do it by the works of the law or by the herring of
faith? What was going on when the miracles were being performed? Was the law being preached and
a blind man received his sight? Or was the gospel being preached
and a blind man received his sight? When these miracles that
were performed by the Holy Spirit What was the message? That's
right. What was the message being preached?
They know what the message was. It was Christ and Him crucified. Even Abraham. Now, you're going
to point to Abraham because they held Abraham, you know, they
all held Abraham in high esteem. The Hebrews did. And then, of
course, these Galatians, after they learned about him, they
did too. But even as Abraham believed
God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, it had nothing
to do with him being circumcised. It had nothing to do with the
law. Abraham was before the giving
of the law. It had everything to do with faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, the object of faith. Abraham believed God and it was
accounted to him for righteousness. It's not because he was circumcised.
It's not because he did anything. He believed God, and God reckoned it to him for
righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which
are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham? Who are the children of Abraham? Who are the true children of
Abraham? He tells us right here. He's
telling the Galatians here. You who believe the gospel, you
are the true children of Abraham. You are the true circumcision.
You are the true Israel of God, are those who believe God. And
it has nothing to do with his flesh. has nothing to do with
it. Know ye therefore that they which
are of faith, that is the same faith as Abraham, looking to
the same object. He's not talking about a degree
of faith here, he's talking about the object of faith. They are the children of Abraham.
Don't be fooled by these Judaizers, by these law keepers coming in
here and disturbing disturbing your peace. Don't be fooled by
them. Don't let them come in here popping
their suspenders saying that we are the children of Abraham.
Pay attention. Don't be fooled. The children
of Abraham are you who believe. You believe? I'm looking. I'm
looking at children of Abraham. And the Scripture foreseeing,
that is foretelling, God always took the Scriptures and foretold
the future. The Scripture foreseeing that
God would justify the heathen through faith, because he foreordained
it before the world began, preached before the gospel unto Abraham. Abraham heard the gospel. The
gospel was preached to him, saying, indeed shall all nations be blessed. that is in his seed. Look over
in verse 16. It says, Now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. Now he said not, he said not,
and to seed as of many. He's not talking about all those
Arabs. That's not what he's talking
about. But as of one, here's the one he's talking about, and
to thy seed which is Christ. And in him shall all nations
be blessed. In Christ shall all nations...
There are people whom God saves out of every kindred, tribe,
and tongue under heaven. Nation. Everyone out of every
nation. He saves people out of every
nation. And Abraham heard that gospel. You know what? He believed God.
He believed God. So then, they which be of faith
are blessed. They have the same blessing.
We have in Christ everything Abraham has. We have by inheritance in Christ
everything Abraham inherited in Christ. In Christ, we are all one. We are all one, and we have the
same inheritance. It's not that one's going to
get a greater inheritance, another a little bit lesser. No, we have
the same. We have the same. For as many as are of the works of the
law, They're under the curse of it. For as many who seek salvation,
seek life by what they do, are under the curse of the law.
For it's written, Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them. Now you
go back to Leviticus, go back to Exodus and Leviticus and there
when the law was given. Not just ten of them, all the
ceremonial laws, all those laws. He said you better do every one
of them perfectly. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident. It is very clear. You look down
through history. There were men justified before
the law was given. You had Noah, Abel. You had many of them there in
that time frame. You had many who were justified
under the dispensation of the law. Several of them. We've had many justified since. But none of them was ever justified
by the law. Every last one of them is justified
through believing God, concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. That's
how we're justified, cleared of all charges. But that no man
is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident,
for the just shall live by faith. It does not say the just shall
live by works. The Word of God is very clear
on this. The just shall live by faith. And the law, the law
is not a faith. The law doesn't require faith,
does not ask for it. Here's what the law says. The man that doeth them, the
man that's going to keep these precepts shall live in them. If you're going to seek life
by them, by doing, you've got to do it perfectly. It has nothing
to do with faith. It has nothing to do with believing
God. It has something to do with doing
it perfectly. That's why he says that no man
justified by the law and the sight of God is evident, for
the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith.
It has nothing to do with faith. It has everything to do with
do or die. Do or die. The just shall live by believing
God.