Galatians chapter 3. We'll start our reading in chapter
3 and go through all the first seven verses of chapter 4. Our
text is found in chapter 4 verses 4 through 7. We'll stop our reading
at the end of chapter 4 verse 7. Let's begin in chapter 3 at
verse 19. This morning we want to speak
to the subject of the spirit and cry of adoption. All of the
Lord's people are declared to be adopted in Christ. And that adoption is not enough.
Those people who are adopted, adopted before time began, must
be born again in time. Therefore, they must be what
is called regenerated. So let's go back, and if I could
just as quickly as I can impress upon you the nature of this particular
book of the Bible, Galatians. This world in which we live,
religiously speaking, is the most mixed up it has ever been. People do not know the difference
between law and grace, between the gospel and Christ. They don't
know the difference between salvation by works and salvation by grace. And there's the answer. It's
in many places in the Scripture. But Paul is dealing with that
one subject from beginning to end in the book of the Galatians. Now Galatians is not a single
congregation. There are several congregations
in a province in Asia Minor that is called Galatia. Therefore,
the churches are referred to as the Galatians, the Galatian
believers in whatever city they happen to be in or whatever congregation. But the difficulty, the problem
was the same for all of them. And that is that there were messengers
coming to this province and to these congregations representing
themselves as being Christians, but because of their Jewish background,
they could not give up the Law of Moses, the Ten Commandments,
which means they had a very, very defective view of Christ
and the Gospel. If a man wants to hold on to
Moses instead of grabbing the Lord Jesus with all his might,
something's wrong with his understanding. Something's wrong with his heart.
He's not born again. So this book, this one book,
if it were rightly preached, believed on and understood, would
revolutionize what we call just generic religion in our generation. When you melt it all down, People
are given a plan, they're given an outline of their duties, and
you do this and God will bless you. And that's just about the
extent of it. Now let's see what God says in
His Word. Chapter 3, verse 19. Wherefore, then, serves the law. What is the purpose of the law? Are we clear as to what the purpose
of the law is? Here we go. It was added. The law is not the first covenant. The law of grace in Christ was
before the law, but it was added. It's the first that is revealed
in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant. It was added. Why? Because of sins called here
transgressions. Added because of transgressions. How long is it good for? How
long was the law to last? Look at this very carefully.
Till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. Now just how long is that? Until Christ came. and most especially until Christ
came and died on the cross. The law is finished. So why do people make such a
fuss over the Ten Commandments? Put it on the wall, put it in
the front yard, put it in the church house, put it wherever
you can, in businesses and all this kind of stuff. Why would
you do that? Because they actually believe
that they keep it And the truth is, no man can, only one man
has, and he's the God-man, our Savior, the Lord Jesus. What
purpose then serves the law? It was added because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to whom the promise was made. And
it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a
mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law
then against the promises of God? Are God's promises dependent
on the law? God forbid! Here's Paul's reason. for expressing such strong words
at that suggestion. If there had been a law given
which could have given life truly, amen, righteousness should have
been by the law. But there is no such law. There
is nothing that can be given man that if he will do it, God
will accept him because we'll mess it up no matter what it
is or how simple it is. But how long is the law for? Until the seed, Christ, should
come. All right? Verse 22. But the
Scripture has concluded all under sin. every son and daughter of
Adam from the beginning of time to however long time lasts, every
son and daughter of Adam guilty before God, all under sin, that
the promise by faith of Jesus Christ. I plead with you to look
at that preposition. It's not in, it's of. And there
are like four or five of these scattered throughout the book
of Galatians. You know what we think when we class ourselves
as believers? That it was my faith that saved
me. And you don't have any faith, and neither do I. If it's not,
first of all, the faith of Christ, there ain't no such thing for
me as faith in Christ. I know that sounds like Greek,
but that's what this book is saying. Faith is not of works,
it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2,
verses 8 and 9. Let me read 22 again. We've got to hurry. But the Scripture
has concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. Given to them
that believe. But before faith came, we were
kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards
be revealed. Wherefore, the law, look at verse
24, was our schoolmaster. Not the teacher, but the person
that enforced attendance, our schoolmaster. What was his office
or his purpose? Leave out the italicized words
to bring us, and it reads, the law was our schoolmaster unto
Christ. The law is designed to make us
give up on saving ourselves and apply to him whose very name
is salvation, the Lord Jesus, that we might be justified by
faith. But after that faith has come,
what happens to the law after faith? After faith has come,
we're no longer under a schoolmaster. We're under Christ. We're under
grace. We're under the gospel. Verse
26, for you are all children of God. All who are in Christ,
all who are made by grace to believe and trust Christ, you
are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. There is such a thing as faith
in Christ. I didn't say there wasn't. But
we must first know something about the faith of Christ so
that we do not look at faith as some deserving work that somehow
at least deserves part of our salvation, if not all of it.
Many people will boldly tell you that their faith deserves
all of it, and they're nuts. It isn't so. They're deluded,
and it's easy to be deceived. Verse 27, for as many of you
as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, and I think
Paul here is referring to the spiritual act of being baptized
into Christ rather than the the physical act of being baptized
in water, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond
nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if you be Christ, then are
you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Now
I say that an heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing
from a servant, though he be Lord of all. I don't have time
to stop and explain that, but you should understand something
about it. But is under tutors and governors until the time
appointed of the father. It's another way of explaining
why we're under this schoolmaster for a temporary period of time.
Even so, when we were children, we're in bondage under the elements
of the world. But when the fullness Look carefully
now at verses 4 through 7. When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made born of a woman, made
born under the law. Christ, who is the very lawgiver,
places himself under obligation to keep his own law because he's
keeping it in the room place instead of his people and thereby
earning for them a perfect righteousness and by his death paying the last
penny due to the penalty of their sins. Verse 5 and verse 4 has
a comma at the end. He's not only made of a woman,
made under the law, but He is made to redeem them that were
under the law. Some people think, well, Gentiles
are not under the law. You don't understand the Bible
if you think that. Every creature that God created
and all human beings are creatures of God's making. We are under
His reign, under His rule, under His authority. And His law is
incumbent on us as much so as it is a Jew. There's no difference. To redeem them that were under
the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Adoption of sons. Now verse 6. I've got two more verses here.
And because you are sons, not in order to become so, every
single person in the history of mankind is either a child
of God or a child of the devil. And nothing in us and by us changes
us from one category to the other. It's forever done. Oh, but that's not fair. If salvation
were fair, we'd all perish. We don't deserve anything except
hell. Now that's the truth. The reason
God sends forth His Spirit in regenerating grace is tied to
this first phrase in verse 6, because you are sons. The Bible speaks of believers
and unbelievers as sheep and goats, but it never speaks of
a sheep becoming a goat or a goat becoming a sheep. Because you
are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father. I didn't know until just a day
or two ago that the Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane the
very same night that he was arrested, used that expression in his prayer
to his father when he said, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless
not my will, but thy will be done. And I believe it's the
preface to that phrase that he said, Abba, Father. So it's not a new expression.
It is actually the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word Abba,
if I understand it right, now I'm just talking about a plow
boy from southern Sampson County trying to explain to you language
that I know nothing about, Hebrew and Greek. Abba, if I understand
this right, in the Hebrew, and that word is a Hebrew word of
sorts, means father, and the word, what is the other word? Father, translated father in
our English Bible, in the Greek is pater, P-A-T-E-R, which you
find used in various words that have that as a root of that word
or part of that word. But the point is that Paul is
using an expression to say father, father. But it's a far more powerful
term than that. I don't know how to communicate
it to you. If you've got a Hawker dictionary, I bet if you looked
up Abba, you might find some help. So the Spirit of God's
Son is sent forth into the hearts of His children, not to make
them His children, but because they are His children. And it
results in their crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore, you are no
more a servant, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ." Now, our approach this morning to these
four verses will be fairly simplistic, maybe. I reckon you could call
it that. Just to make sure that we have a basic understanding
of what these statements are about. what they're for, what
they're designed to accomplish. It's almost like Paul, now remember
the difficulty at Galatia, we talked about it a little earlier,
that they're being besieged by religious teachers of one kind
or another who are trying to add the keeping of the law to
the gospel. They're adding Moses to Christ,
Mount Sinai to Mount Calvary. You understand what I'm saying?
And that is a subtle, subtle thing. It can be done incrementally
by small doses, a little at the time. You and I would drink most
anything if we had long enough to get accustomed to the taste.
And that's how it is speaking religiously concerning our souls.
And yet Paul recognized the danger that to add the law to the gospel
It does not change the gospel. It makes no gospel at all. You
can't combine the two. They're mutually exclusive. But
these Galatians had begun with such great promise. Now they're
actually considering what these teachers are telling them and
were willing, it seems, or almost willing anyway, to submit themselves
to be circumcised. to indicate that they have embraced
Moses and the law and law keeping along with the gospel in Christ.
So believers are being set forth in a number of ways. One of which
is called adoption. Remember that word? We read it
just a little while ago. All right. Adoption gives us
the rights of children. The rights of children. Child
is adopted into a family. That child assumes the same rights
that any other children that are in that family. And if there
are none, it would be, you know, the normal rights for children.
That's what he's saying now about this glorious and wonderful gospel
of Christ. But we must have more than our
rights as children. We must be given life, life from
the dead. We must be quickened. We must
be born again. There is no life apart from the
new birth. If a person is not born again,
he's lost. It can't be another way. No other
way. All right. So let's look at a
few statements now. I hope to be able to try to clear
this up. Let's see. Let's work on verse
6 here for a second. And because you are sons, God
has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father, or Father, Father. Now, sonship, to be the sons
and daughters of God, is the gift of grace received by faith. Faith receives this as a gift. It's not merited or earned. It
is completely a gift. All right, look back in chapter
3. We read these verses a little bit ago. And look at verses 24,
25, and 26 and see if that helps us on this subject. Verse 24,
chapter 3. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster
unto Christ. Watch this, that we might be
what? Justified by faith. That is, declared just in God's
sight. Holy in God's sight. Why? Because we're in Christ. If we're not in Christ, we can't
be holy. God won't see us as being just
and holy. The law was our schoolmaster
under Christ that we might be justified by faith. Look at the
next verse, verse 25. But after that faith has come,
we are no longer under the schoolmaster. People who are in Christ are
no longer under the law. They're not trying to keep the
law. The Lord Jesus has already kept it perfectly for them. For
us to attempt to do so in order to gain some kind of favor to
God would be to put our little puny effort in competition with
the finished work of the Lord Jesus. And that has a smell to
it that you can't tolerate. It's unacceptable. The third
verse I want you to look at is verse 26 in chapter 3. That's
24, 25, now 26. For you are all the children
of God. How? by faith in Christ Jesus. Every believer has faith in Christ. That faith is not the cause of
his being in Christ. His being in Christ is the cause
of him possessing faith. Let's read it one more time.
Verse 26, chapter 3. For you are all, not part of
you, not some of you, You are all children of God by faith
in Christ Jesus. It doesn't say anything about
church membership. It doesn't say a word about the
Lord's table. It doesn't mention baptism. None of these things
and a thousand others that men have invented and put down as
something that you must have or that you must do in order
for God to see. You and I have to have anything,
be anything, or do anything except to center and sin in order for
God to save us. We will never be saved. It's
who Christ is, what Christ has done, where He is right this
second, and what He's right now engaged in. That, my friend,
is the ground upon which our hope is built, not on ourselves. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto Thy Name give glory. Look it up in Psalm 115, verses
3 or 4 or somewhere along in there. Alright, here's the second
thing. Sonship, we just said, is the gift of grace. Purely,
freely a gift. The gift of grace received by
faith. Adoption. Adoption comes to us
By redemption. By redemption. Look back at verses
4 and 5 in chapter 4. We read these and made a slight
remark or two, but not much. Adoption. Chapter 4, verses 4
and 5. But when the fullness of the
time was come, the coming of our Lord Jesus had been determined
from the beginning, and you know you can't find the beginning,
there's no such thing as the beginning, in eternity past. But no man ever knew it when
it was. But it says in the fullness of
time. When that moment of the incarnation
was to take place, in that exact moment and no other, when the
fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son made of
a woman, made under the law, and you could equally use the
terms born of a woman and born under the law, for they will
support either translation, to redeem them that were under the
law that we might receive, what? The adoption of sons. Now, there are no step-sons in
God's family. They're all sons and daughters
in Christ. But this adoption in this fifth
verse is tied to something of awesome importance, and that's
the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ. Without redemption, there's
no forgiveness. Without redemption, there's no
remission of sin. Therefore, there's no acceptance
by God There can be no conferring upon us any kind of blessings
whatsoever without redemption. Christ is the Redeemer. One of the greatest tragedies
of living in our day is that people speak of the Lord Jesus
in such a disparaging way. They insult Him from sunup to
sundown and all night long, speaking of him in language that does
not fit him in the least. They talk of his being disappointed.
Some even describe him as looking over the banister in heaven and
crying because people won't let him save them. This is all just
utter nonsense. You don't believe that, do you?
You can't. Gardeners say you can't be sane,
but I know I can say you can't be spiritually sane. You hear
it all the time. I don't have to tell you what's
making the rounds. But doesn't it turn your stomach?
Oh, they think to be able to prove that Christ died for everybody
without exception would make his death so wonderfully big
that it would just blow people's minds. And it has exactly the
opposite effect. You make it universal. And the
actual saving of sinners is not universal. You have made the
Lord Jesus a colossal failure. Think about that. If that be
the case, if Christ died for everybody alike, then it don't
matter a hill of beans whether He died for you or not. But I'm
trying to tell you that all for whom He died are savingly adopted
into the family of God. And that adoption took place
in old eternity when all that was given between the holy three
and one was a promise on the part of our Lord Jesus, a covenant
engagement to come into this world in the fullness of time
and redeem His people. Not try to redeem them. Now look at verses 6 and 7 again. Let's see if we can get to the
end of the row here. The third thing is this. Let's read 6 and 7. Because you
are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son, that's
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of His Son, into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. So these words, Father, Father,
are actually the words of the Holy Spirit. But they become
ours by His grace. They become ours. Wherefore,
you are no more a servant, but a son. And yet if you ask the
believer about himself, are you the servant of Christ? He would
say, I hope so. I sure want to be. There's a
brand of religion that I despise that's been around a long time.
People just sort of make themselves little gods. I'll tell you. people that are in Christ, the
people whom God adopted in Christ and redeemed in Christ, are people
that will go to their graves with a poor estimate of themselves. And it gets worse the longer
we live in this world. If you can't experience that,
if that's not part of your experience, if you're getting better instead
of worse, I mean in your own eyes, something ain't right. Either I'm lost or you are one.
I don't know which it is. No more a servant, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. Believers begin even here to
enjoy the privileges of being sons of God. All right, I've
got one more thing, and it's all in chapter 4, and I've got
to read several verses to get it done. But here is a particular
singular consequence of being a believer, of being a child
of God, that is not on the positive side of the page. It's an inevitable
consequence of being a follower of the Lord Jesus. I'll give
you the generic form and then I'll give you the form out of
Galatians 4. You know, when a person is born
again, they think everybody and his brother will just get so
tickled they can't stand it. And they find out it ain't quite
that way. In many cases, trouble is born right in one's own family
as a result of grace. You know that. Let's look at
it through Galatians 4. Let me see how quickly I can
read these verses. Beginning at verse 8, how be it then when
you knew not God, You did service unto them which by nature are
no gods, but now after that you've known God, or rather are known
of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements
whereunto you desire to again be in bondage?" Why would a person
who's been set free from the law want to go back under the
law? That's what Paul is asking the
Galatians. He says to them, you observe days, and months and
times and years, I'm afraid of you, lest I bestow labor upon
you in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as
I am, for I am as you are. You have not injured me at all.
Yet know how through infirmity of the flesh I preach the gospel
to you at the first." My temptation, Paul's physical ailment, which
was in my flesh, you despised not, nor rejected, but received
me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the
blessedness you spoke of? For I bear you record that if
it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes
and given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy
because I tell you the truth? These Judaizers, he says in verse
17, they zealously affect you, but not well, not good. Yea,
they would exclude you that you might affect them. But it is
good to be zealously affected always in a good thing and not
only when I'm present with you. Now here's the first thing. Hang
on to right there. We've got to read a few more
verses. Paul is showing us in the example of the Galatians
that when people come to know the gospel of Christ, to love
grace, to love God as He reveals Himself to them in Christ, people
of other persuasions, religious persuasions, they just don't
like that. And so they begin to do just
like these Judaizers. They're trying to pull you away. So Paul is warning these folks,
and if you read right on through to the end of the sixth chapter,
you'll find out that he's a lot more hopeful concerning them
that it appears at this point in the letter. All right, now
here's the second thing. These are inevitable consequences
of being a believer in Christ. The next example is called an
allegory. It's the allegory of Sarah and
Hagar and Isaac and Ishmael, and it shows that Law and grace
can't live under the same roof. Abraham and Sarah tried it. It
didn't work. All right, let me just read it
to you. But remember, this is not just
a story. We would have never known this
had God not revealed this to the Apostle Paul. It is an allegory.
You could read Revelation in the chapters that deal with this
until your eyes fall out and you'd never see it. But it's
a glorious picture of God's grace at work in the soul of the sinner
and the conflict that ensues if he dares confess it. Alright,
let's see. Let me read on through three
more verses and then I'll jump ahead, okay? My little children,
verse 19, my little children, I'll call them the Galatian believers,
little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be
formed in you? I desire to be present with you
now and to change my voice, for I stand in doubt of you. Tell
me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the
law? Don't you really and truly know
that you and I cannot keep the law? We cannot. You might can climb a mountain,
but you can't keep Mount Sinai's law. You just cannot. You cannot. And if you could, you'd be the
most arrogant devil around and nobody would want to be around
you. But that ain't the case. That is not the case. Alright,
jump over to verse 28. In the ensuing verses, we've
heard about Sarah and Hagar and Abraham and Sarah deciding that
since this promised son It doesn't look like it's going to take
place. We're going to have to help God out. And so they have
a child between Abraham and Hagar. And then when the time comes,
Sarah finds herself pregnant. And the war is on. And it's still
that way. Alright, start at verse 28 and
we'll read through the end of the chapter. as Isaac was, are the children
of promise. The children of promise. Isaac was a child promised. You wouldn't know this from reading
the New Testament, but Abraham wavered in his confidence in
this promise of a son and resorted to the flesh for the answer. And this world, this very hour,
experiences the conflict that was born in that household. Now,
we brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as then,
he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born
after the Spirit, even so it is now. There have been a number
of attempts just in recent years of congregations that tried joined together. The one that
comes to my mind was in Louisville, Kentucky. And it was a Sovereign
Grace Presbyterian Church and Redeemer Baptist Church. And
they held a big conference with some high-powered speakers to
see if they could find common ground. And the conference wasn't
over before the whole thing just went up in smoke. I mean, it
was plain as plain can be that the two cannot mix. Reformed religion and the gospel
of Christ are not compatible. Let me read it. Verse 29, but
as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that
was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what
does the Scripture say? Here's what it says, cast out
the bondwoman 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." What a glorious
statement, indeed. All right, 139.