Look here in verse 4. When the
fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a
woman, born 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 ye are sons, God
hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. crying,
Father, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a
servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Howbeit then, when ye knew not
God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known
God, or rather are known of God, I'll turn you again to the weak
and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire again to be in bondage. You observe days and months and
times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain." I don't know whether we'll get
to all of those or not, but let's look at this passage. And I never
get tired of sharing these passages with you. We looked at this in
our study of this epistle just the other night, but I want to
look at it a little different this morning. Here in verse 4,
we're told that in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son
made of a woman, born of a woman. Tucked to Himself are humanity,
real flesh and a real soul. The Son of God incarnate, born
of a woman. How essential that is. How essential
it is for the Son of God to be born of a woman. He had to become
man, made of a woman. Why is that essential? Because
you and I must have a representative. Man fell by representative, and
he must be raised by representative. Man did not fall, you and I did
not fall, by our own disobedience. We fell by the disobedience of
someone else. We will not be raised by our
own obedience. We will not have life, we will
not obtain righteousness by our own obedience, but by the obedience
of someone else. We fell in a representative,
one man, We must be saved in a representative, another man.
Romans 5.19, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
even so by the obedience of one man shall many be made righteous. The Son of God represents us
in His humanity. And to represent us, He must
be in our humanity. Be in our likeness. He cannot
stay in heaven and save us. If He's not made flesh and bones
like we are, sin accepted, He cannot save us. He must be made
of a woman, sin accepted. And to represent us, He must
be this. Look at this. Not only made of
a woman, but made under the law. That is so necessary, brothers
and sisters, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, must subject
Himself and obligate Himself to obey His law that He Himself
made. He either finding Himself in
our humanity, He either had to obey that law or sin against
it. Because Him being a man, the
law obligated His perfect obedience. If He did not obey the Law, He
will sin because He is under the Law. We know He can't sin.
He had no sin. He could not sin. Therefore,
He must obey the Law. He was made under the Law, and
the Scripture says being under the Law, He became obedient unto
death. Even the death of the cross. And what's the consequences?
We're told here in verse 5. Here's the two consequences of
Jesus Christ being in our humanity and obeying the law for us. To redeem them that were under
the law. There's the first consequences.
There's the first consequences. The second consequences is this.
that we might receive the adoption of sons. Now let's look at this. Let's look at this. First of
all, the consequences of Christ redeeming us, Christ being made
flesh and obeying the law, is redeeming us from under that
law. Now, I love this. I'm often stressing
this, but I love this. There's two senses in which the
Lord Jesus redeemed us from the law. First of all, He redeemed
us from its curse. Look back in chapter 3. Let me
remind you. Look in verse 13. Look at this. He redeemed us from its curse.
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, redeemed from the curse of the
law." What is the curse of the law? The curse of the law is
its threatening. The curse of the law is its demand. The curse of the law is its guilt. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. The curse of the law is its final penalty. What is the
penalty for breaking the law? Death. The wages of sin is death. That's what the law says. The
soul that sinneth, it shall die. That's what the law says. It's
a curse, and all of us are born under it, and the only way to
be delivered from the curse of that law is for Jesus Christ
to be made a curse for you. I tell you, this is so important,
especially in our day, for our hearts to get a hold of this
truth. That somebody else came into
this world in our humanity and bore what belonged to us. Let me read this verse. Look
at this verse where Paul quoted it. See, Paul says here, "...as
it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."
Look where he got this. Look at Deuteronomy chapter 21.
That's the reference that my Bible gives. Deuteronomy 21.
And look at how it reads here in Deuteronomy chapter 21. And
look in verse 22. This is amazing. Redeemed us
from the curse of the law being made a curse for us. Redeemed
us from the ministration of death. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. The law worketh wrath. And look here what he says in
Deuteronomy chapter 21 and look in verse 22. If a man have committed
a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou
hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon
the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day, For he
that is hanged is accursed." That's what Paul said. He that's
hanged on a tree is accursed. But look at this. Who cursed
him? Who cursed him? God cursed him. Now ain't that a mystery? Ain't
that a mystery? And Jesus Christ in Himself,
He had no sin. But He took our sin. He obeyed
the law in the days of His flesh. He should not have suffered death.
God should not have cursed Him until He took our sin and made
it His own. And our sin being found on Him,
what does God do? God curses Him, Glenn. God curses
the Lord Jesus Christ. And here, brothers and sisters,
is what you and I must lay hold upon in our hearts, that God
has punished His own Son in our place. That sin has been punished
and punished by Him whom the sin was against. The Judge has
become executioner. He has judged sin. He found us
guilty of sin. And He said, I'm going to execute
you. I'm going to curse you. And Emmanuel in our humanity,
stood up in our stead and said, curse me in their place. Curse
me for their sins. Punish me for their sins. And
here's what you and I must lay hold upon in our hearts. Here's
what we must know and believe that our sins has indeed been
punished. God don't save us by His mercy
at the expense of justice. He cannot. He can't sweep our
sins under the rug and say, we're just going to forget about it,
or I'm just going to forgive you. It had to be punished. God can't save any of us at the
expense of His law. So to redeem us from the curse
of that law, His Son must be cursed in our place. And boy,
when you find that out, Oh, when you look to this Christ as He's
been accursed in your place, it just fills your heart with
so much confidence and assurance and joy, because you're redeemed
from the curse of that law. And you can say with that dear
poet, payment God cannot twice demand. First at my bleeding
surety's hands, and then again at mine. God won't curse you
twice. He cursed you in Christ. He cursed
His Son in your place. Cursed of God. He won't curse
you again. Boy, you can lay down your head
on your dying pillow. You can face death. You can face
eternity. You can face judgment if your
heart believes in this Christ. You believe about Him, but He
was cursed of God in your place. So first of all, the first aspect
here, where our text says that He might redeem us that were
under the law, He redeemed us, therefore, from its curse. From
its curse. And secondly, and I love this,
I love this, He redeemed us from under the law, that is, from
the obligation of rendering perfect obedience to that law ourselves. He redeemed us from the obligation
of us rendering perfect obedience to that law ourselves. Now, I'm
talking about the believer. What good would it do you If
the Lord Jesus redeemed you from the curse of the law, and the
Holy Spirit come to you, and He regenerated you, He gave you
life, and then He put you right back under that law, and says,
now you've got to obey this, you're bound to keep this, what
good would that do you? What would immediately happen
to you if that's the way it was? You'd immediately be guilty.
You'd stare your sins and death in the face, because the law,
it gives only nothing but the knowledge of sin. The law gives
no man power to do anything. It simply commands him what must
be done. And when you don't do it, it'll
condemn you. I don't care who you are. You
see, when I'm a child of God, the law has no respect of persons.
The very minute you look to it and say, I'm bound to keep it,
then you're going to be judged by it. And you know something? It's not the hearers of the law,
but the doers of the law. It's not those who try to keep
it, it's those who do keep it. And Jesus Christ has redeemed
us from the obligation of obeying this law in and of ourselves. Here's what old Luther said.
He had a lot to say about this subject. He said this, by the
words of the law, men are admonished and taught, not what they can
do, but what they must do, that he may know his sin, that he
may know his sin, not his ability and strength not to sin. I've heard man, and one man wrote
a little poem and said, God will not more demand than of ourselves
perform we can. God will not more demand than
of ourselves perform we can. Well, you know what God demands
of us? Make you a new heart and a new spirit. Did you ever try
to do that? He does command more than we're
able to perform. We were able back there in Adam,
before he fell, we kept the law perfectly. And some men said,
well, God wouldn't command it if He didn't tell us to do it,
if He didn't knew that we could do it. Well, there's a big difference,
brothers and sisters, in the law demanding a thing and us
doing it. There's a big difference. Luther
says Moses does not tell you that you have the power and strength
to choose and to keep and to do. He simply tells you that
you must keep, you must choose, and you must do. On one hand, the law commands
us, he said, what must be done, and on the other hand, he tells
us that there is none that doeth. On one hand, he says you must
do this good, and on the other hand, he said there's none that
doeth good. I'm amazed when I read some of
the dear brethren, and I call them dear brethren because they
are. They are. Some of the dear commentaries
that I read after, dear brethren. And as I read after them, they
often make this statement. that a believer, though he's
delivered from the law as a covenant of works, yet he is obligated,
he is required, he is bound to obey it as a rule of life. And boy, that's the words that
they use. Obligated, required, and bound by it as a rule of
life. And then, bless their hearts,
they begin to pick and choose which commandment and which law
they're talking about. They'll go ahead and lay aside
circumcision, and go ahead and lay aside the Jewish Sabbath,
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, and then they'll say,
but you're obligated to this one. You're bound to that one. You're not obligated, they
say, to be circumcised and to keep the Jewish Sabbath. But
you're bound and obligated and required to love God with all
your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength. Let me ask you a question this
morning, dear soul. Do you so love God? You say, Bruce, I love Him. If
you're His child, you love Him. And some love Him more than others. And all God's children love Him.
But do you love Him with all the heart, all the mind, all
the soul, all your strength? If you do, if you do, God bless
you if you do. I want to and you want to. And
someday we will. But if you do so love God this
morning, let me ask you this question. Do you love Him that
way continually? Do you ever have any thoughts
of God that's lower of Him than what He's worthy of? Do you ever have any thoughts
of His holiness that's unbecoming the blessed Holy Trinity? Do
you so love Him every second of every minute, every minute
of every hour? Every day of every week, every
week of every month, every month of every year, without ceasing,
without your love waning or cooling, do you love Him perfectly? All
the time. That's different when you look
at it that way. The law requires more than starts
and fits and partial obedience. It requires perfection. It requires
us not only to love God, it requires us to love Him with all our hearts,
and it requires it from the cradle to the grave. And it says, Cursed
is every man that continueth not in all things. And if you're going to continue
in all things, you've got to know all things. And it ain't
just a fitting and starting and stopping. I did good today, but
boy, the day before yesterday, then you're cursed. Then you're
cursed. James said, if you break one
commandment, you're guilty of all. The same God that requires
circumcision and the keeping of the old Sabbath, requires
the keeping of the whole law. And we cannot pick and choose
which one we want to keep and which one we're going to eliminate. So what must be done? Christ
must redeem us, not only from the curse of the law, but He
must redeem us. He must redeem us from the obligation
to in and of ourselves keep this law. Are we still cursed? We're
still cursed. Leave us under the law in any
sense to obey it, and immediately we prove our guilt. So in Galatians
chapter 5 and verse 4, Paul says the Son of God came into this
world and united Himself to our humanity and redeemed us from
under the law." From under the law. And I love to look at that
in every sense. In every sense we're redeemed
from the law. It's curse and it's obligation
to obey it. Free from the law, oh happy condition. Jesus has bled and there is remission,
free from the law. As soon as we begin to preach
such a redemption, I mean a full and gracious redemption. When
you say not only that Christ redeemed us from the curse, but
from the obligation of obeying the law, almost immediately somebody
is going to stand up and cry antinomianism. Antinomianism. Let us sin that grace may abound.
If we cannot bind you with the law, that means you are just
a servant of sin. You are just a servant of the
devil. And why do they say that? Because we preach grace and not
law. We preach grace and not works. Free from the law. This happened
to the Apostle Paul in chapter 5 and chapter 6 of Romans. He
says the law entered that sin might abound. But where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. that as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Grace reigns through the
obedience of another, through the righteousness of another.
Grace reigns. Okay, somebody jumped up and
asked this question in chapter 6. Shall we sin then? Paul, you're just telling us
it's alright to go ahead and sin then. You preach grace so free. You preach the law did nothing
but curse us and we can't keep it, so Christ redeemed us from
it in every sense. It sounds like to me then we
can just go ahead and sin that grace may abound. And you've
not preached the gospel until people begin to thank that. If you're still preaching part
grace and part works, then nobody's going to thank you in Antinomia.
But as soon as you set forth the fullness of Christ's redemption,
and what a gracious redemption it is, then somebody is going
to stand up and say, man, you must just preach your glib anyway.
You've got no law at all. And that's the way it must be
if you preach the gospel of the grace of Christ. Because we're
redeemed from under the law. But in Romans 6, he says this,
When man says the only way to assure a believer will not continue
his sin is to burden him and obligate him with the law, here's
what Paul said. Sin shall not have dominion over
you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. See what
he says? Somebody says, Paul, you're talking
about disgrace. And now if you don't make sure
that they know they're obligated to fulfill the law and keep it,
they're going to serve their sins. And Paul just turns that
on them. And here's what he says. No. Sin's not going to have dominion
over you. Oh, so they're under the law then. So they can keep
the law then. No. No. Sin won't have dominion
over you because you're not under the law, but under grace. See
how he argues that point? Those who are under the law are
under the dominion of sin. That's the whole problem with
this Galatian church. They'd heard the gospel and believed
it, and now they went back to the law. And sin has had dominion
over them again. It's only grace that will free
a man from the dominion of sin. It's only the redemption that's
in Christ Jesus that frees a man from the dominion of sin. You
were the servants of sin, Paul said in Romans 6. When were you
the servants of sin? When you were under the law. But God be thanked that you obeyed
from the heart that form of doctrine which was preached to you. What
was preached to him? Being justified by faith and
by grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. That
was what was preached to him. Then he said, being made free
from sin. Then you became servants of righteousness. A person cannot serve God. He cannot enjoy God. but as he
believes that Christ hath redeemed him from sin and its consequences."
Now that's so. A guilty sinner cannot enjoy
God. He cannot approach unto God. A person cannot delight in the
law of God, but as he believes that Jesus Christ hath redeemed
him from that law. You'll never love the law of
God, you'll never delight in it until you're free from it.
And the very minute you see that Christ has freed you from that
law, then you'll look at it and you'll say, oh, how lovely. How
lovely. I lay in sin's dark dungeon.
I lay in sin's dark dungeon, bound by the demands of the law. My mind grew hard as an adamant
stone. Enmity and guilt ruled all. Till I heard Emmanuel preached
that in His flesh and blood and soul gave Himself on a cursed
tree to redeem me and make me whole. I looked away from Moses'
law, away from strength and power in me. T'was then I heard a gracious
word, The Son hath set you free. The fetters lost their mighty
grip, And darkness fled by light replaced. I rose to love and
walk with God, And to live in the joy of redeeming grace. to redeem them that were under
the law. I can't conceive, brothers and
sisters, I just cannot conceive of a person purchasing a slave
from his taskmaster, buying him out of bondage, freeing him from
that taskmaster, and then turning around and putting him back under
that taskmaster. buying him from his master and turn around and
say, now, to his master that kept him in bondage, now you
take care of him. I bought him, now I'm going to
let you raise him and keep him in care. I can't conceive such
a redemption. Now, look here right quickly
in the last portion of verse 5. That's the first thing. That's
the first thing. The first aspect of redemption.
It's from the curse of the law and from our obligation to obey
it. Until you see this, until a man
sees this, until a man sees himself free from the law, I'm convinced
that he cannot enjoy God or love the law. Here's the second aspect
of the Son of God redeeming us from the law, and look at this,
that we might receive the adoption of sons. And then in verse 6,
Look at this, and because you're sons, God has sent forth the
Spirit of His Son into your hearts. They're not only adopted sons,
Christ redeemed them to make them adopted sons, but they have
the nature of sons. They have the Spirit of God's
Son in their hearts. Now here's where everything begins
with us, right here. Right here is where God begins
with us, and here is where you and I begin to experience what
it is to be redeemed. We've been taken out of the bunkhouse,
out there where the slaves lived, and we've been brought up to
the Father's house. And this is what you and I have experienced.
The slaves are out there making a meager living, and that's all
they are, slaves, and that's where we were. And now we've
been brought up to the Father's house. We eat at His table. We sleep in His bed. We sit at
His feet. We hear His voice. We look upon
His face. We know His love. We trust in
His provision. We enjoy His presence. We delight
to follow Him as dear children. We are not slaves anymore. We
are sons of God. Really! By nature now, sons of
God. We were children of wrath, but
now we are children of God. And boy, we look back down there
at the slave house, where the slaves lived. Trying to scrape
out enough to make a living. And it's never going to get any
better with them. Working, working and slaving. But they lived there
in the buck house. But up in the house are the children. Up in the father's house is where
the children live. And why do they live there? They're
children. Slaves don't live in the father's
house. They belong in the bunkhouse.
If they misbehave, they get whipped and cursed. And when they die,
they die without any hope. They don't have a father. But
the children are brought up to the father's house. And everything
that belongs to the Father is theirs because they're children.
And here's where everything begins to change here in verse 6. Because you're sons, God has
sent forth the Spirit of his Son. Let people talk about the
necessity of a believer being under the law so he'll know how
to live, how to act, what to do, where to go and what not
to go. But what can the law do for a
man that verse 6 cannot do for him? What can the law possibly
do for a man more than what verse 6 has done for him? He sent the
Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, Father, Father. The law produces slaves, and
that's all it can produce. But the Spirit produces newborn
sons. And I'm telling you, they're
real sons too. They've got the nature of a son.
And they've got the heart cry of a son. My Father, My Father. If I didn't believe in a new
birth, where the children of wrath are made children of God,
if I didn't believe the third person of the Holy Trinity came
to live and dwell in the hearts of the believer, to guide him
and to teach him and to subdue him and rule him and overcome
in him? If I didn't believe the Holy
Spirit came and put the graces of God in his heart of love and
joy and meekness and goodness and faith and tenderness, if
I didn't believe that, then I'd probably say, yeah, he needs
to be under the law. He needs to be bound. You can't
trust him. But I do believe those things. I do believe those things. You may, this morning, be able
by argument to contend with me that a believer is under the
law. and that he must be obligated
and bound to it. You may teach me that, but I
tell you, if you ever convince me of that, you better not turn
your back on me. Because when I start hearing
that, I get so hard-hearted and mean-spirited and self-righteous.
I read a book not long ago by Horatius Bonhart, and I love
Horatius Bonhart. He's a better man than I ever
think about being in this world. But a little article he had I
read about believers under the law as a rule of life. And boy,
he argued it. I couldn't argue against him.
You know, he's a brilliant man. He's a theologian. And he talked about a believer
being obligated, a believer being bound, and he must, and he must. And boy, I tell you what, when
I finished with that book, I was so mad. I was so hard in my heart,
I could have whipped my neighbor. That's the way I felt. That's
the way I felt. Sin bubbling up in me. Then I
reached behind me on my shelf and got William Huntington's
The Believer's Rule of Life. And he started talking about
the Holy Spirit dwelling in the heart. He's talking about looking
unto Jesus. He's talking about being followers
of God as dear children. Let this mind be in you that
was in Christ. And boy, when I finished that,
my heart was just melted. I felt like if I could find a
dear saint of God, I'd hug his neck and find out if he needed
anything. My heart bubbled over with appreciation
and adoration that someone had redeemed me and was living in
me to guide me and teach me and rule me and subdue this old man. If you be led of the Spirit,
you're not under the law. You don't need the law. All it
does is just beat you up. Keep this old flash under the
law. Beat him down with it. But don't you ever let Moses
in your conscience. That's where Christ rules by
His grace. It's one thing, as dear brother
Bonar did, to be able to argue and articulate a certain position. But to experience something,
that's altogether a different thing. Some dear men can produce
a good argument, and they can debate, and they can hold that
a believer must be under the law of Moses as a rule of life,
but what happens when they experience that? To argue is one thing, ain't
it? To experience is something else. Argue for a believer being
under the rule of Moses. But how do you feel when you
try to experience that? There are those who say that
to walk according to the rule of being a new creature is not
enough. But Paul says it was. Some say that the Spirit of Christ
dwelling in the heart As the believer's rule of life, that's
not enough to subdue the works of the flesh. But the Bible says it is. If
you walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Greater is He that's in you than
He that's in the world. Some say that faith as the believer's
rule of life is not enough. But the Bible says it is. The
life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God. Some
say that hope of being conformed to Christ's image is not enough,
but the Bible says it is. Every man that hath this hope
in him purifies himself. Some say the love of God shed
abroad in the believer's heart will not drastically affect his
attitude towards his fellow man, but the Bible says it is. My
answer to those people is this, what's been your experience concerning
these things? I'm not talking about your ability
to argue and articulate and debate. What's been your experience in
this matter of law and grace, this matter of Moses and Christ?
Are you a new creature? Are you a new creature in Christ? What effect has such a thing
had upon you? Tell me what you've experienced.
Not what you can argue and articulate. Tell me what you've experienced
about being a new creature. What effect has that had upon
you? What effect does it have upon
your daily life for the Sovereign Spirit to dwell in your heart? I'm talking about in the core,
in the center of your being, for the Son of God to dwell there
in His Spirit. What effect does that have upon
you? What effect does it have upon
you for the Spirit to impart to you His mighty graces of love
and joy and peace and longsuffering and gentleness and goodness and
meekness? It's easy to argue and to debate
and to win the argument, too, if you're smart enough. But to
experience something is altogether different. If one argues that salvation
is by grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, and argues for all the benefits
of those things to be bestowed upon a believer, And somebody
else says that's not enough. Christ and Him redeeming us from
under the law and giving us all the benefits of that is not enough. But you must be put under the
burden and the obligation of the law of Moses. Then my only
argument is this. That hasn't been my experience.
That hasn't been my experience. I spent quite some time looking
to the Law of Moses. I spent my whole adult, my whole
teenage years looking to the Law of Moses. I did. And I spent quite a few days in my
believing life looking to the Law of Moses. I have. And here's been my experience.
Every time I looked in that direction. All I'm doing is stirring my
sin and death in the face. Has that been your experience?
Now somebody say, well, you've got this wrong, you've got that
wrong, let me show you this. Well, we'll argue all of that.
But what has experience taught you? Look into Moses, what do
you see? Look into Christ, what do you
see? And when you try to mix them, what do you feel? I believe in my heart of hearts,
and the only place that I've been able to find any rest in
my spirit is when I believe in that full and free redemption
from the law. that is in the Son of God incarnate,
hanging on a cursed tree outside the city of Jerusalem. That's
the only place, brothers and sisters, I find any rest in my
spirit and any confidence in my heart. It's when I find myself
in Christ. It's not just saying that God
is our Father. A lot of people say that. But it's having the Spirit of
God's Son. See, that's why I said, here's
where we began. Here's where we began. We call God our Father. A lot
of people do. But they don't have the Spirit
of His Son. That's the difference. It's the Spirit of the Father.
It's not just knowing the truth. It's having the Spirit of Truth.
It's not just talking about grace and the doctrines of grace, it's
having the spirit of grace. I will pour out upon them the
spirit of grace and supplication. If grace is not effectually teaching
me to deny ungodliness and worldly lust, and live soberly and righteously
and godly in this world, then I best examine myself to see
if I have the Spirit of grace. If I don't love the truth and
walk in the truth as it is in Jesus, then I best examine myself
to see if indeed I have the Spirit of truth. And there's a difference,
brothers and sisters. There's a difference. If I cannot
own God as my merciful and forgiving Father that I can constantly,
through Christ, approach Him to, then I best examine myself
to see if I have the Spirit of His Son. Crying, Father, Father. This thing is experienced. There
may be a lot about this we don't understand. But I tell you, you
know what you've experienced. You know that. Now he says in
verse 7, and I'll close, look at this. Wherefore, thou art
no more a servant, but a son. You're not a servant now. You
know the Scripture teaches that we are servants. But what Paul is saying here,
you're not a slave to the law anymore. You're a son of God. And I tell you, brother, there's
a vast difference in the way slaves serve as opposed to the
way sons serve. There's a vast difference. And he says in verse 8, Howbeit
then when ye knew not God, You did service to them which by
nature know God." Knew not God. When you knew not God. There
was a time in our lives when we didn't know God. You know,
you and I should never forget this. When we look upon our loved
ones that's lost, don't be mean to them. Pray for them. Witness to them. Because you
and I were right there. We did not know God. Nor His
Son. And where were we then? We was
dead. This is life eternal that they
might know thee. And we didn't know Him. So we
were dead in trespasses and sin. And what was our manner of life
then? Well, Paul said, we did service to those who by nature
are no gods. He wouldn't say this to embarrass
these people, and I don't say this to embarrass you and I.
But when you and I were without God and without Christ, We didn't
know what we served. We didn't know what we worshipped.
We worshipped everything. I'll tell you what I served.
I served my promises in my reformation. God, if you'll let me live another
day, I promise you, I'll be a better man. I'll get my act together.
That's what I served. That first seed that Turch read
to us about, you know what his God was? You know the God He
served? I fast twice a week. Fasting
is not a God. Paul said, by nature it's no
God, but they make a God out of it. I pay tithes of all that
I possess. That's my God. Catholicism, they
got their God. They got their altars. They got
their masses. They got married. They got their
camels and their silly superstition. The Camelites have got water
baptism. They serve it. All these things
are by nature, no gods, that men serve. And you and I did
too, didn't we? And I tell you, when a man begins
to be concerned about his soul, he begins to feel some guilt
in his conscience, and he knows something's wrong. Things ain't
right here. I don't want to face God like
this. But if the Holy Spirit doesn't lead him, to find rest
and salvation in Christ. You know what He'll do? He'll
run to these little gods, and He'll start serving those little
gods. And you and I would have done the same thing, brothers
and sisters, and been there today, if this Sovereign Spirit had
not come to us, and taught us, and led us to find rest in the
Lord Jesus Christ. God bless His Word to our hearts.
Oh, Father in Heaven.