Galatians chapter 4. There's a running theme in Galatians. There's contrast that Paul's
clearly declaring of faith and works. He's telling them that
none can be justified by the works of the law. No one can
merit salvation based upon what they do. He's telling them that
none can be made righteous by doing because it's finished.
Paul's giving a contrast in all throughout all six chapters,
really. He contrasts the law and grace. He contrasts faith
and works. He contrasts the bondwoman and
the free woman, and that's what I've titled this message. So
here in chapter four, let's look at verse 21, and we'll read the
remainder of the chapter. Tell me, ye that desire to be
under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written that
Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a
free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are in allegory?
For these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai,
which gendereth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount
Sinai in Arabia, and he answereth to Jerusalem, which now is and
is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem, which is above,
is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written,
rejoice thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou
that travailest not, for the desolate hath many more children
than she which hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was,
are the 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. Nevertheless, what saith the
scripture? Cast out the bond woman and her
son, For the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with
the son of the free woman. So then brethren, we are not
children of the bond woman, but of the free. Paul asks a question. He demands an answer by asking
this question. Ye that desire to be under the
law, do you hear the law? What does the law speak? It speaks
of judgment, it cries out for justice. It doesn't redeem, it
can't save, it can't bring life. And yet there are those who desire
to be under this law. As soon as someone says do, and
you can fill in the blank with that, take that as far as you
want. As soon as someone says do in order to obtain salvation,
then they have devalued the cross of Christ. They have devalued
the work of Christ in salvation. There's no such thing as a believer
that just has things mixed up. A believer believes Christ is
all. That's one thing that a believer
has certain. And the only difference between a believer and a non-believer
is a believer believes. A believer is made to believe
by the faith of Christ bestowed as the work of the Spirit. We
know that to be true. Many men I've heard say, well,
I think that, you know, my loved one, they're, they're believers.
You know, they, they believe in, in Jesus. They believe that
he died, um, for the sins of the world. He, they believe all
their believers. No. No, a believer believes that
Christ finished the work given to him of his father, that Christ
successfully redeemed his people. No one is ever saved in a false
church that doesn't preach the gospel, unless a gospel preacher
goes there and declares the gospel. That's what happened to Greg
Elmquist in Florida. Todd Nyberg came down. They had
never heard the gospel before. Todd preached the gospel to him,
and the Lord opened up Greg's eyes, allowed him to see the
truth, and caused a great division in the church. And that's how
Grace Gospel Church got started. Greg will tell you, he never
preached the gospel before hearing, and this is not possible. The
Lord causes us to hear his gospel. How shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall you preach except
to be sent? So it comes by the preaching of the gospel, doesn't
it? God saves one way, the preaching
of the gospel, not the keeping of the law, not the keeping of
the law, not by us doing moral deeds that please him. We that
are in the flesh cannot please God. That's what Paul says. No,
Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. That's
the power of God into salvation, to everyone that believeth. Aren't
you glad he said everyone that believeth? Lord, make me an everyone
that believeth. I know that if you give me an
option, I'm not going to believe. I can, I'm dead and trespasses
and in sin by nature. I need to be made alive. I need
to be given faith that believes I can't merit faith. I can't
merit righteousness. I can't be found just before
you because of what I do in this keeping of the law. It doesn't
produce life. I need a substitute. I need to
be made alive. One who did keep the law of God
and his name is Jesus Christ, isn't he? Where do men hear the gospel?
Well, it's not going to come through hymns. You know, there
is hymns that sing the gospel and we just sung one that was
begging the Lord to send his spirit. We're going to sing some
the second hour that's talking about the finished work of Christ
that has the gospel in it. But, you know, we can't hear
the gospel through a song and believe it comes through the
preaching. It's so clear. We can't read a book and come
to the, we can't read the Bible and become a believer. It takes
the preaching of the gospel. It is the one power of God unto
salvation. That's what he said. Romans chapter
one, verse 16, the gospel of our Lord. If men do not hear
the gospel, they are lost. Being a believer means you've
heard the gospel and you believe salvation is Christ alone, period. Christ alone, that's being a
believer. We are called out of false religion. We are called
out of these anti-believing churches. Adding the law or anything else,
and you can fill in the blank there, adding the law or anything
else to Christ-finished work is declaring oneself the enemy. of the cross, the enemy of God
saying, I am God. I am good enough. I can make
a choice. I can do a work. I can keep a law and I can be
good enough before God that's being declared or declaring yourself
as the enemy of the cross, not the friend of God. It's raising
a clench fist to God, a clenched fist. This includes sayings that
men use, letting him into your heart. I chose Jesus and made
a good choice. I let him into my heart. I made
him Lord. We can't make him Lord. He's God. He is Lord. He was born Lord as a man, wasn't
he? Both Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He was born King of Kings. His
title was because of his blood, his precious blood of his father
that he had. There's our hope. That's what
the Lord demanded was perfect blood. He had that. The enemies of the gospel of
Christ say that he tried to do something, but he didn't redeem
you have to do your part. Most don't realize that they're
raising their fist to God whenever they say things like that. No,
he redeemed, didn't he? He said it is finished. What
was finished? Everything given to him to do by his father, everything. The redemptive work of his people,
it's done, it's finished, he's seated. This man, when he hath
by himself put away our sin, what did he do? He sat down on
the right hand of the majesty on high, didn't he? He sat down,
it's finished. There is no room in the house
of grace for the works of the flesh. Because the works of the
flesh cause us to look to the flesh but the believer looks
to Christ and his finished work the believer sees Christ as seated
in the heavenlies already as their intercessor. Lord calls
me to see that if i've never seen that before calls me to
truly believe that it is finished. This is why the bond woman had
to be kicked out completely. He gives us an allegory here.
Now an allegory is a symbol. It's a type, it's a picture,
and he uses Abraham and his wife, Sarah, and the handmaid that
Sarah had, Hagar, as the allegory, the type in the picture. Abraham was called of God in
Genesis chapter 12. The Lord said unto him, get you
up out of your country, away from your kinsmen and to a place
I will show you. And Abraham believed God. His
name was Abram at the time. The Lord said, I'm going to make
you a great and mighty nation. I'm going to, in you, my seed
will be called. I'm going to raise up the Messiah
through your bloodline. But it's going to be a spiritual
promise that will be kept. Spiritual, not physical, but
spiritual salvation. And Abraham believed God. Now,
Abraham was 75 years old. And I don't want to give us too
many facts. I want to stay focused on the
point this morning. But this is interesting facts.
Abraham was 75 years old when the Lord said, I'm going to make
you a mighty nation. Now, the age difference back
then wasn't much different than the age of Abraham was an old
man at 75. And so for him to believe the Lord, it had to be
the Lord gave him the faith to do so, didn't he? There's no
way Abraham would have just decided, okay, yeah, I can believe that.
I'll buy into that. No, no, no. This was faith given
that must believe Christ. Abraham was 75 when God told
him to get up, to get the up out of that country. Now, promise
had come to him here. But 11 years later, he was 86
years old when Ishmael was born. So the Lord didn't go as fast
as Abraham and Sarah thought that he should. Can you imagine
them thinking, okay, if we don't have this child, there is not
gonna be the child of promise born. There's not gonna be the
Messiah. There's no way that you can be the great nation the
Lord's talking about. There's no way the Lord can save
his people. We gotta give him a hand. We're gonna have to help
him out. We're gonna have to do our part. Does that sound
familiar? But men are preaching today, isn't it? You take the
first step, God will take the rest. You won't find that in
the Bible. No, not one, not on a single page. Ishmael was born
86. Abraham was 86 when Ishmael was
born. Sarah told Abraham, and the Lord
doesn't give us too many details, but you know the conversation
had to happen. We're running out of time. We're running out
of time. If we don't hurry up, you're
already 86. You could die any day. What are we going to do?
We have to do something. Is that not us by nature? We
think that Oh, I got to do something to to I got to keep some kind
of a law. I have to have some moral code
of conduct in order to please the Lord. I have to do something.
Christ bowed his head on Calvary's cross and said it is finished.
That means it is finished. Salvation accomplished for his
people. Then in time the gospel comes
to that individual that he died for on the cross and they hear
and are given faith to believe God. Just the same exact faith
that Abraham had. Well, Ishmael's born, and can
you imagine Abraham's relationship with his son, born of the bondwoman? Sarah gives her handmaid. I left
out of that very important detail. Sarah said, here, take my handmaid.
She can have a baby on my behalf. And that's exactly what happened. That's exactly what happened.
So Ishmael's born, 86 years old. 86-year-old Abraham has a son
named Ishmael. You imagine the love that he
would have had towards that son. It wouldn't have been a false
love. It was his child. It was his son. He had never
had had children. He had a son. I mean, I would
imagine that he nurtured him. He was loving to him. He was good to him. He taught
him things. He did, you know, I believe he
was a, would have been an honorable father to his son. Well, When Abraham was 99 years old,
that's 13 years later, Ishmael was 14 when Isaac was born, but
13 years later, the Lord appears unto Abraham, and he says, no,
you're gonna have a son. You're going to have a son. Sarah
laughed in her heart, said, I'm 90 years old. How am I gonna
have a child? He's 100 years old. How are we gonna have a
child? She laughed in her heart, and the Lord called her out for
it and said, why did this woman laugh? And she said, I didn't
laugh. He said, yes, you did. Yes, you did. You laughed at
the promise of the Lord. You laughed and think that it
is too hard for God to do something. God's not limited. He's all-powerful. God's not trying to do anything. God accomplished salvation. Everything
conforms to His will. Everything bows to Him. There's
nothing that can challenge him or threaten him. There's nothing
that can cause any harm to him whatsoever. He's seated as the
sovereign ruler of this universe and the inhabitants do as they
are purposed. And Sarah laughed. She thought,
that's impossible. But we know, we know according
to the scripture, that which is impossible with man, it's
possible with God. It's possible with God. He's
not limited in any way. Now these two, Isaac was born
when Abraham was 100. I've already said that, but these
two represent two distinct people. Either we are one or the other. We're born of the free woman
or we're born of the bond woman. This is the allegory here. One
is born bond and one is born free. One is born of grace unto
life and one is born of the law unto death. The law cannot produce
life. Ishmael was born a slave. He
was born as a picture of being under the law. Hagar was referred
to here in Galatians 4 as being Mount Sinai. Mount Sinai is where
Moses received the law of the Lord. It represents judgment. It represents death. The law
came by Moses, the scripture says, but grace and truth came
by the Lord Jesus Christ. When the law entered, the offense
abounded. We were shown that we are sinners
by nature, sinners by practice, sinners by choice. We bark not
to become a dog. We bark because we are dogs.
That's what a sinner is. A sinner sins not to become a
sinner. Men have an idea that if they do away with certain
sins, the Lord will be pleased with them. But it's the blood
in our veins that the Lord, that's an abomination to him. It's,
there's nothing good about man whatsoever in his sight. Even
the stars are not holy in his sight. This is what the law reveals. Yishmael was born of the power
of the flesh. You see the man and the woman,
Abraham and Hagar, coming together to produce life. They took matters
into their own hands. The Lord doesn't really give
us an account of how it came to be with Abraham and Sarah.
I mean, we understand nature, and I'm not going to go into
details for that reason, but it gives an account of what happened
with Abraham and Hagar going in, but it didn't do that with
Sarah. Why? Because it was a miracle
according to promise. It's none of our business what
happened, that's why. We believe God, we believe the Lord. Just
as we don't understand how the Lord was conceived of a virgin,
we can explain that, we just believe it, don't we? We just
believe it. The point is, is these things are impossible with
man. And when men and women, when we hear these things, we
think, well, there's something I've got to do then. This is
an impossibility. I've got to do so. No. Salvations
of the Lord. Don't know. Anytime we put our
hand to it, we are, we are attempting to be born of the bond woman. We're attempting to go, to put
ourself under the law, to try to get life from Sinai. And it's impossible. There is
no life that can come from Mount Sinai. It's not possible. Hagar and Abraham represent the
works of the flesh, exercising the power that men think that
they have, exercising their free will that they believe in so
much that they have. We have a will, don't doubt that.
We have a will, but it is constrained by our nature. It is limited
by our nature. Man, what did the Lord say? You
will not come to me that you would have eternal life. Why
not? Because they that are in the flesh do mind the things
of the flesh. That's what he told Nicodemus.
That they that are in the spirit mind the things of the spirit.
That which is flesh is flesh, that which is spirit is spirit.
You got to be born again. Well, how can I be born again?
How can I enter into my mother's womb a second time and be born?
That's what Nicodemus said. Nicodemus, it's of the spirit
that you were birthed. It's the Lord that does the work
by grace. By grace through faith that we
are saved in that not of yourself. It's the gift of God. It's not
you doing it. We didn't choose to be born the
first time, did we? How can we choose to be born
the second time? We can. It's a work of grace.
He does. Men have the ever-growing desire
of the flesh to be God from the very beginning. That was the
temptation in the Garden of Eden whenever Satan said, God knows
the day that you eat of this tree, you shall not surely die,
but you'll be like God. It's the same word both times.
You'll be just like God. Well, that was enticing, wasn't
it? Why? Because we want to be God
by nature. We want to have the power. We
think of ourself and our wants, our needs constantly, but you
know, When the Lord gives grace and the Lord gives faith, we
look to Christ. We no longer look to self. We
no longer see what we do, but we see what he did. That's what
I need. That's what I need is him as
my substitute. I need his blood. No, I don't
need the Lord to look at me and my righteous rags. There's none
good but God. I need Christ. I need to be born
of him. Fruit of believing that we do
our part is the lie. It is the lie. And the fruit
of that mindset is death. It's iniquity. It's the offspring
that only works death. Men believe that they have life
and they've had an experience. They've done things and saw things
and believe that they're alive. But it's everything that we see
is not by faith. If it's physical, it can't be
of faith. That which is seen, why do you hope in it? You don't
hope in that which you see. We don't have faith in that which
we see. It's the unseen. It's the spiritual.
We have to have faith to believe God. And he's the one that gives
it. He's the one that gives it. Every single offspring of the
law is forever bound in bondage because of the realm that it
is born in. It's the realm of the flesh.
It's the realm of doing and the flesh is enmity against God,
the scripture tells us. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God, the scripture tells us. That's so clear, isn't it?
Don't go to Sinai looking for redemption. It's not there. Don't
go to Hagar, the bondwoman, thinking we can be born into eternal life.
It's not possible. It's not possible. She's in bondage. All she can produce is death.
Flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. That's what he's
talking about, the New Jerusalem. That's the place that he has
prepared for his people. That's who we're born of is the
Lord himself and the place he prepared for us. That's who we
must be found in. We must be. The flesh cannot produce spiritual
life. Cannot produce spiritual anything.
Do you know why? Because it's dead spiritually. When we're born, we're born spiritually
dead, spiritually dead. We must be made alive. We must
be born again spiritually. Romans 7.5 tells us, for when
we were in the flesh, the motions of sin which were by the law
did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. That's
all the law can produce is fruit unto death. But now we are delivered
from the law. How? How are we delivered from
the law? His elect have become dead to
the law by the death of Christ. He said that two verses before.
We become dead to the law by the life of Christ. When He lived,
we lived in Him. When He died, being made a curse
for us, bearing the sins of His people on the cross of Calvary,
putting away those sins, we died in Him. Therefore, whenever he
was resurrected, we were resurrected in him. We're seated in him now. I can't explain that to you,
but that's what he tells us. We've been glorified. We're just
going through the motions of time that he's purposed. See,
we're talking about an absolute sovereign God in every way. All things have been ordered
by him and all things will take place as he's ordered them to
be. He died to ensure We were born,
we were to be born of the Spirit, born of grace, born from above. Like Isaac, we're born of the
free woman. His people are born of the free
woman. There's only two kinds of people
in this world. Those that are born of the bond woman and those
that are born of the free woman. And the Lord is the one that
does that. Those that are born by grace and those that are born
of works, those that are born by faith, those that are born
under the law, or by the law. We're all born under the law,
we understand what I'm saying. When the Spirit's given to his people,
we see that we are dead in Christ and therefore dead unto the law.
And does that mean that we're lawless? Well, yes, in the sense
of righteousness, but We love the Lord's law, don't we? Why?
Because it's revealed to us that we are sinners. We need a substitute.
We need a savior. We love it for what its purpose
has been before time, what the Lord intended for it to be. Our
schoolmaster is what it's called. What does a schoolmaster do?
It brings the children to the school to be taught. Well, that's
what the law did. It's our school. It brought us
to Christ, showed us that we had a need we could not fix.
He did. He fixed it, didn't he? He fixed
it. How? By his death. By his blood. By putting away the sin of his
people. Now we've been born of the promise
of God, not the power of man. Abraham and Sarah could not physically
produce a child at 190 years old. They couldn't. It took a
miracle of God to do that. We know that, don't we? You and
I cannot produce spiritual life by what we do. It takes a miracle
of grace. The same miracle as Abraham and
Sarah, that's what it takes of the Lord by his hand, by his
work. It takes a miracle, doesn't it?
For us to be born again, it's his doing. It's not our doing
at all. He does it. The Lord asked Ezekiel one time,
he said, Ezekiel showed him a valley full of dry bones. He said they
were very dry. They were sun bleached. They
had been, this individual had been dead for a long time. The
Lord said, can these bones live? And what did Ezekiel say? Yeah, I think I'm going to choose
to make them live. No. He said, Lord, you're going to
have to do it. He said, Lord, thou knowest.
Thou knowest, which isn't to apply. If they're going to live,
you're going to have to do it. I don't know anything. I believe you. You can do it. I know you can.
But if they're going to live, it's going to be you that does
it. And that's true in salvation, isn't it? Lord, if these dead
bones are going to live, you're going to have to do it. And what
did he tell him? Prophesy. prophesying to the
wind. Now what do we do? We preach
the gospel. And then he chooses to blow or he chooses not to.
It's his choice. By grace are you saved through
faith and not of yourself. He's the one that does it. He's
the one that does it. And he caused those bones to
live, didn't he? Do you know why? Because he is life. He is our life. He is the life
that all life comes from. It's his choice to cause us to
live or to leave us polluted in our own blood, dead and trespasses
and in sin. Aren't you glad he chose to have
mercy and grace on some? Aren't you glad that he didn't
leave us where we deserve to be in the pits of hell for all
eternity for what we are and do and think? Everything about
us is wretched and vile, and yet he chose to have mercy and
completely restore us back to God, making us the righteousness
of God in him. That's what he did by birthing
us by the free woman. This allegory also reveals the
bond woman serving the free woman. The elder shall serve the younger
is what the scripture tells us. Whenever you see Rebecca is going,
Isaac, the child that Abraham had later on gets a wife named
Rebecca and she has, she's found to be with child. And she said,
if it be so, why am I thus? The Lord tells her, says, there's
two nations that's warring inside of you, two manner of people.
There's two different types into another allegory. It's the old
man and the new man. And he says the elder shall serve
the younger. What's that a picture of? Whenever
we become to the knowledge, when the Lord brings us to the knowledge
of the truth, when he births us by his grace, he sends his
spirit and power and makes us alive. We have a new nature. We're made a new creature in
Christ. And we still have this old man
on our back, don't we? We're still strapped to this
flesh that doesn't do anything that pleases God. But that new
man looks to Christ because it's born from above. It's born through
his faith. We look to his faithfulness.
We look to him because of his grace that's been bestowed upon
us because of that faith. Ishmael was 14 when Isaac was
born, but when Isaac became born, he was the end of all of Ishmael's
inheritance. Ishmael had to be cast out at
that point. Ishmael was no longer welcome. There is no glory for
the flesh, no glory for Ishmael. There's nothing left for him.
He has to be cast out. The Lord's the one that's gonna
have to do that, isn't he? The Lord's the one that's gonna have
to do that. One of these days, we are going to lay down this flesh,
and we're going to be made like him, be conformed to his image.
When we shall see him, we shall be made like him, for we shall
see him as he is. He's cast out the dead man and
made us alive in Christ Jesus, but we still have a warfare that's
taking place, don't we? How do we cast out the bond? Uh, the bond woman, as he says,
he tells us here, cast out the bond woman. How do we do that?
Look to Christ. Look to, he's the one that's
going to have to do that. Look to him. We can't, we couldn't
do anything to get salvation. We can't do anything to keep
the salvation. The Lord does the getting the
Lord does the keeping. He does it all. We're going to
read that in just a moment, but I kind of got ahead of myself
there, but He tells us in 2 Corinthians 6, be not unequally yoked together
with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness
with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness?
The child of the flesh had to be cast out. There's no glory
for the flesh in God's presence. The believer loves that, knowing
that We don't get any glory in salvation. That's good news to
me. I don't want any glory. I just
want him and to be found in him, not having my own righteousness,
which is of the law, but the righteousness, which is by the
faith of Christ. I love him getting all the glory.
Don't you understand something? The glory
of the son cannot be shared. It's his birthright. His birthright
will not be diminished by another. It's a picture of the Lord, isn't
it? The Lord Jesus Christ, him being the son, getting all the
glory for his people. That's what we see through the
Lord's spirit by faith. That's what's been revealed to
us. Christ gets all the glory. The bond woman and the offspring
of the law has to be cast out from our mind. We don't go to
the law anymore for righteousness. We flee to Christ. We flee to
Christ alone. There's no common ground. There's
no common ground when it comes to this gospel, God's free and
sovereign grace, his gospel and the gospel of works, the gospel
of the law. It's not gospel to us. We can't
find common ground in that, can we? It's all by grace. It's all
by grace. No one can grow to a knowledge
of the gospel that has to be the work of grace in the heart.
Of his people by his spirit alone. Growing in grace is not learning
more about him. It's not hearing more messages. I mean, that's it comes hearing
comes by the preaching of the word. Don't misunderstand. Growing
is down. It's not up. What does that mean? It means
you see less of yourself and more of him. We see how dependent
we are on him as our savior, as our heavenly father, as our
need. We have no confidence in this flesh more and more. If
I was to ask the older individuals in here, how much less confident
are you in your flesh now than you were when you first heard? It's growing as a decline, isn't
it? Paul kept, if you'd read it, he kept sounding like he's
getting worse and worse. He said, I'm not worthy to be one of the
believers. I'm the least of the saints.
Then he ended up being the chief of sinners. What was Paul doing? He was seeing less of himself,
having no confidence in the flesh, not less and less running to
the law, knowing I've got to have Christ who can touch the
law and not be destroyed and touch me and not be defiled.
He's the one I've got to have. That's what we see more and more
of. We've got to be born from above all by his doing. It's him stripping us, growing
in grace. It's him stripping us of any
hope in this flesh. It's him abasing us more and
more. Him leaving no doubt that anything we do is sin. Anything we do is sin. Everything he did, though, is
perfect, isn't it? Everything he did is righteous. Everything
he did is good. Got to have him. Got to have
him. The covenant of Hagar is a covenant
of works. It's a covenant of flesh. It's
a covenant of the law. Only produces bondage, only produces
death. It's the belief of living a moral,
more moral life. It's progressively getting better
and better. It's not the same as growing
in grace. It's the opposite of. It's the opposite of that. It's
keeping the law for morality. That's stating that Christ's
life, what he did, was not good enough. If I have to live a certain
way in order to secure my salvation or to please God, then Christ's
life was not enough to please God. That's what that's saying.
We live according as he teaches us, don't we? We live according
to that in our heart, out of love that he's given us for him,
but we don't do it for righteousness. No, we don't do it to be saw
as good enough for him. No, we need Christ. We need him
to see Christ's life. And if our life be hid, it is
hid in Christ with God. That's our hope, isn't it? Only
the elect of God are made to believe that Christ is all our
righteousness, Christ is all our justification, and that's
exactly what this allegory teaches us. It teaches us that spiritual
life His salvation revealing Christ is our justification.
Christ is our righteousness. Christ is our wisdom. Christ
is our sanctification. He's all. He's all to his people. It's wholly and entirely based
on the promise and the work of Christ alone. Nothing we can
do can merit it. He did it all. Hagar is the mother
of the fleshly seed. That's Sinai, the law. Sarah
is the mother of the seed of promise, the spiritual seed.
And if we are born of that spiritual seed, it's all by his power.
It's all by his power. We're dead. And actually he's
referred to because of their age, they're referred to as their
bodies being dead. As if we understand what that
means. They couldn't produce life anymore.
That's the point. They were, Lord had to do the
work and he's going to have to do the work now in us, isn't
he? And he gets all the glory. That's how salvation's accomplished,
all by his power, according to his promise. I want us to make
this statement. Just as it is impossible, just
as it is impossible to be free under Hagar, it is impossible
to be in bondage under Sarah. Just as it is impossible to be
free under Hagar, it is impossible to be in bondage under Sarah. Why? Because the Lord hath birthed
us and made us free, free unto Him by putting away our sin.
The law doesn't have anything to say against the believer.
The law doesn't say anything against those which the Lord
died for. Why? He put their sin away. That's
where the strength of the law is, is sin. But God's people
don't have sin anymore. Christ put it all away. He doesn't
see us as sinners any longer. He sees us as the righteousness
of God in Him. I can't see that, and you can't
see that. That's what God says, and that's what's true, isn't
it? That's how it really is. See, it's all by His doing. It's
all by his doing. And in one day, one day when
we drop this robe of flesh, we'll see that we've been made the
righteousness of God in him, that he will be conformed, that
his glory will be revealed in his people. That's our hope.
Lord, cause us to ever see that now and not look to this flesh,
not to take matters into my own hand. Don't let me run to Sinai.
It's just going to produce death. I know it is. Don't let me do
it. Keep me fleeing to Christ. And in closing, I wanna read
the last few verses here. I said we would look at verse
28 again. Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the 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. Nevertheless,
what sayeth the scripture, cast out the bond woman and her son,
for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son
of the free woman. So then brethren, we are not
children of the bond woman, but we're children of the free. How
do we cast out the bond woman? We can make that work if we wanted
to, you know that? We could, but guess what we'd be doing
then? We'd be trying to do something to please God in it. How do we
cast out the bondwoman? Look to Christ. Look to Christ. If you can, you will. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's not a work. That's something
he does. If we can believe, it's because
he's done it. He's made us believe him. He's causing us to look
to him. He's given us life. He's given us faith all by his
grace. That's how the bond woman is
cast out over and over again. We start thinking of taking matters
into our own hands, don't we? The Lord says, no, seek you my
face. He turns us to him again. How does he do it? By the gospel.
Here we see Christ seated again. Here we see our salvation accomplished
again. Here we rest in him by his gospel. It is his work by his spirit. He sets our affection on Christ.
It's the only way that the command to cast out the bondwoman is
obeyed. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Christ. Believe God. The yoke of his people's bondage
is broken by the finished work of Christ. Look to him. Look
to him. We're no longer in bondage. We're
going to look at that. Actually, we're just going to
continue on. I could probably call it part one and part two,
I suppose, but we're just going to continue on in chapter five,
the second hour. Last thing I want to tell us is either we are born
of the bond woman or we're born of the free woman. And it is
all by his doing, all by his doing, if we're born of the free
woman and he gets all the glory in it. Amen.