Great Texts in Galatians — Bill McLeod

Back in December and January of 1971, we were engaged in the city of Winnipeg in some revival meetings. Went for 17 days before Christmas and three weeks after Christmas, and God gave us a very wonderful time.

In one of the meetings after Christmas, the weather turned very, very cold for a couple of weeks, down to 30, 35 below, and some nights a wind blowing, and it cut the crowds down considerably, and yet God was working.

And I recall that one night, the power failed, so we had no lights, we had no PA system, and we had no heat, and the church seating 1 ,400, and I suppose there were, I'm not sure how many that night, 300, 400 people was all that got there, and many cars wouldn't start.

I'm afraid some didn't start after the meeting either. But the lights, the power failed just before I began to speak, and so since I normally speak without notes, it was no particular problem. And so I preached and gave an invitation, and people came forward, and afterwards we found out that there were two people who came forward that night who said if the lights had been on, they would never have come forward.

And you know, sometimes, when something like this happens, like the lights go out, the power fails, you say, oh boy, the devil's at it, you know. Wasn't really the devil. Well, the devil might have done it, but God overruled, as he always does.

Like Joseph's brothers who betrayed him, and he said, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. So God's always in control. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness are of the world, and they that dwell therein.

God gave us a great time there, and one thing that really blessed my heart was that almost every night, just as I began to speak, a number of the men, anywhere from two to eight or ten men, would go down in the lower auditorium and pray the whole time I spoke upstairs.

And I really appreciated that. And those men told me that they had some very unusual, well, I was going to say experiences, that's not how they described it, but they said that the presence of God was so real in those times of prayer in the lower auditorium.

And a crusade that began with three days' notice, no churches cooperating, well, by the time five weeks was up, we had decision cards from people from almost a hundred churches in the area, and God did a great thing.

We keep hearing of blessings that began then that are still flowing today, including people that have gone into full-time service, and at least one that went into full-time service in the province of Quebec, a Frenchman that found Christ in Winnipeg meetings.

I didn't know a thing about it until I heard about it, oh, it must have been a year and a half later on, how God had called this Frenchman to go to Quebec, a province for which I've had a great burden for many years.

There's only one evangelical worker for every 60 ,000 people in the province of Quebec. Now if we were to apply that here, this island, with 3 ,000 people, what would you have? You wouldn't have one Christian worker here.

You might have a visit from a Christian worker once in ten years, but that's how it is in Quebec. A great mission field right at our doorstep, almost totally overlooked and forgotten, because we're not alive and alert to the truth that the field is the world, and sometimes it's right at our doorstep.

May I ask this question? I wonder how many are taking, making special time each day, or maybe at night, for prayer for these meetings. I'm not asking this to embarrass anybody, but I'm interested to see.

If you are making, taking special time, would you just raise your hand so we can see this? Well, yes, and God bless you. I hope you're not trapped like a certain preacher asked a question like this, and he thought, no horrors, I'm not, but boy, if I don't raise my hand, what are the people going to think?

So he shot his hand up. And then the Lord got after him about this until finally one night he had to go and confess it in front of the whole crowd. He might just as well have left his hand down. Trouble had got him into it.

Prayer as the Foundation for Revival

All right, we said one night, didn't we, that you can't have a big fire until you have a small one, and God is waiting for you and I, his people, to call upon him. Call unto me, he said, remember, and I will answer thee, and I will show you great and mighty things which you know not.

There's a responsibility that each of us have to make time and take time for prayer. Seek you first the kingdom of God. Before your job, before anything, we are to seek the kingdom of God. And when we do this, you know, when I look after God's business, then he looks after mine.

See, them that honor me, I will honor, he said, and those that despise me shall be likely esteemed. Lord Turner tells of the time he was struggling over this matter of a hitch for his heavy machinery.

Machines were not selling because the hitch was poor, it was breaking, word got around they wouldn't buy his machines, he had to have a hitch. And so he was working, and almost had it one night, and then he remembered it was prayer meeting night.

And oh, he felt like staying at the drawing board, just, he almost had it, and he thought, now if I go to prayer meeting I might lose the inspiration I've got. But the Lord won out, and he went to the prayer meeting, and came back and he said, I picked up my pencil, and in ten minutes God gave me the hitch, the plan for the hitch.

And it was because of this hitch that his heavy machinery then began to outsell almost all the competitors in the market. Them that honor me, I will honor, God said. As far as the books are concerned, a few titles on the table in the vestry here, and the prices are marked on them, and I think somebody will be in charge of them again tonight.

And if nobody's around, then there's a little plate there with some money in it, you can make change and take it from there. If you'll turn to the book of Galatians, please. Now we'll begin at the thirteenth verse of Galatians, he says, Paul says, You have heard of my conversation, this is Old English, which means my manner of life, or my conduct, the way I live.

You have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it, and profited in the Jews' religion above many, my equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.

Join me in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for this portion of your precious word. Thank you for the songs we've listened to or participated in tonight. And now, Lord, we look to thee to bless your precious word to our hearts.

And in this moment, Father of prayer, may your spirit come to each one of us, and enable us, O God, to open up our hearts to whatever you want to say this night, and we'll praise you in Christ's name, amen.

Being Left on Earth to Reflect Christ

The question is sometimes asked, why does God leave his people on earth after he saves them? Since we're going to spend eternity with God in heaven, why doesn't God just take us to heaven the moment that we are saved?

Well I think most of us know the reason for this. For example, in the book of Jude it says, and others saved with fear, pulling them, the Greek there means snatching them out of the fire. And so God leaves us here on earth partly so that he through us can win other people to himself, and so accomplish his purposes in the salvation of that number that the Father promised to the Son way back in eternity past.

This is the Father's will, Jesus Christ said, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. But there's more to it really than this. You know in Romans chapter 8 there's a thought there, a great truth that says, of whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate, he also did, that is, choose before or destine before, he also did predestinate, but notice what he predestinated us for.

You see a lot of people stop right there and say, well God predestined me to be carried to heaven in an armchair someday, but that's not what I read there. It says whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his Son.

And when people believe in that kind of biblical predestination they don't run into any problems. Now again you take the word elect in 1 Peter chapter 1, he says elect, is that wonderful? Yes. But elect unto what?

He says elect unto obedience. Oh that's a little different. Or people say, well I'm chosen. Yes, thank God we're chosen. You have not chosen me, Jesus said, but I have chosen you. But chosen to what? Oh he said I've chosen you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.

That's why he chose us. Or in Ephesians chapter 1 where it says we were chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. In none of these texts I have just quoted does he say we are chosen or elected to be carried to heaven in an armchair.

He says we were predestinated to be like Jesus Christ, predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son. So it raises the question then, am I like Jesus? Am I concerned that I be like Jesus if I am not?

Am I doing anything about it? Do I perhaps even understand that this is one of the reasons that God left me upon the earth? There's a prophecy, it's found in Isaiah chapter 8 and it's quoted in the book of Hebrews, the second chapter, and applied to Jesus Christ.

Actually, there in Isaiah chapter 8, it's the Lord Jesus Christ himself talking. And this is what he says. He says, Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are for signs and for wonders.

You would all agree, we'd all agree that Jesus Christ was a sign and a wonder. What about his people? We his children are to be signs and wonders too. Would anybody see anything of a miracle nature about my life?

But they ought to, or I was predestined them to be conformed to the image of God's Son. And 1 John chapter 3 runs like this. It says, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

Therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be what? Like him, for we shall see him as he is.

So a lot of people say, well, I know I'm kind of a crusty Christian, I know I'm not making much progress in the Christian life, and I realize I'm not much like Jesus Christ, but when the Lord comes back, he's going to change me just like that, and make me just like the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's not exactly deathbed repentance, which Billy Sunday described as being burning the candle of life in the service of the devil, and blowing the smoke in the face of God, but it's closely related.

You see, in 2 Corinthians 3 .18 we read this. But we all, I like that word all, but we all, he says with open face, the context has to do with Moses with a veil over his face, when he came down to the mountain after 40 days talking with God, the glory of God shot out of his face, and the people were afraid, so he had to put a veil over his face.

But he says, but we all with open, unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image. You and I are changed into the same image, that is, into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says, from glory to glory, that is, from one experience to another, by the Spirit of the Lord. So God predestined me to be like Jesus, and I'm not supposed to wait until he returns hoping that then I'll be like him, but now, as I look at Jesus Christ in the pages of the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, he transforms me into the image of God's Son.

That's one of the reasons why God left us here upon the earth, so that as people look at me, like it says, I didn't quote the whole verse there in Romans chapter 8, it says whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brethren, many just like him.

And he wants us to be like him. That's one of the reasons, then, he leaves us here upon earth, and Paul is talking about that here in the book of Galatians. First of all, you have the background for what he's saying.

Religious Tradition and the Church of God

The background is this, the Jews' religion. He mentions that little phrase twice. The Jews' religion. Oh, maybe it was the best religion as such upon the earth, but he doesn't call it God's religion, he calls it the Jews' religion, because it added very, very much to what God had given Moses on Mount Sinai, insomuch that the Savior, when he came, had to spend a lot of time removing some of these mossy traditions that men had added to the pure revelation that God gave on Mount Sinai through Moses.

And you will recall that Jesus Christ said that you're guilty of frustrating the commandments of God by your own tradition. And so you have the background, then, the Jews' religion, out of which Paul came.

But I might have the Baptist religion, I might have the Pentecostal religion, I might have the Catholic religion, or I might have some other religion, and still not be a child of God? I picked a fellow up in the highway one time, I was going to a Bible camp from Kenora, Ontario, 12 miles east.

And so since I had a fellow with me that I took to be a non-Christian, and he was, I drove slow and I talked fast. I turned to him and I said, now he was in the Canadian Navy and he was thumbing his way down east somewhere from Kenora, from actually from Nanaimo, B .C., he had come.

And so I said to him, are you a Christian? And he said, I am a Baptist. And I said, well, isn't that wonderful, I am a Baptist minister. Like I'd shot him between the eyes. He knew he was trapped, so then I said, if you are a Baptist, there are some things you ought to know.

And he said, like what? And I said, you know what it means to be born again? He said, what on earth is that? I said, what kind of a Baptist are you then? Well, he laughed and said, actually, preacher, he said, the only connection I've ever had with any church is that a Baptist preacher married my brother and that makes me a Baptist.

And yet, I could be a member, a baptized member of a Baptist church or a Pentecostal church or an Alliance church or some other evangelical church and still be on the broad road that leads to destruction.

It could be the Jews religion or the Baptist religion or some other religion that we're just going through the motions. Like the Bible says there are some people that they have a form of religion, a form of godliness, but they deny the power they're of.

One translation says they have the form, but they don't have the force. They don't have the power. They don't have the spirit of God. They have never been born again. So they are members of the church.

The Jews religion, that's the background. The contrast is what he calls the church of God. He said I was part of the Jews religion, but I was guilty of persecuting the church of God. Now the church of God, I know there is a church of God denomination, but the church of God as we find it spelled out in the word of God, is just simply those people that have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and know they are born again by the grace of God, whatever church they happen to belong to.

They are part of the church, the ecclesia of God, God's church. They are part of that church. Am I part of that church? Well, Paul at one time was not a very, very religious man, praying at least three times a day, giving tithes of all he possessed, fasting likely twice a week, but unconverted.

Remember what the Lord Jesus Christ said about the Pharisees and dear people, they are the most religious people on earth, as far as religion goes. Do you know what he said about them? He says, you pay tithe, you pay tithe, but you have omitted the weightier matters of the law.

Do you know one of the great disservices that I'm afraid we preachers have done our people? We have led our people to think if they pay tithe, they are a real good Christian, but Jesus Christ said you have omitted the weightier matters of the law, and what are weightier matters than tithing, than giving one-tenth of my income to the work of God?

Oh, Jesus Christ said judgment, and mercy, and faith, and the love of God. These things are more important to God than paying the tithe. He called these people hypocrites. They were tithing, but they were hypocrites while Jesus Christ said all their works they do for to be seen of men.

At the background, this was the problem. The contrast, the church of God, people that are born again that love Jesus Christ from their heart, and walk in the spirit, and try to please the Lord, and love other people, and it's not for show, it's because they love Jesus Christ.

God's Purpose in Calling and Forming His People

Then God's purpose, he says, Paul says here, but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb, you know, with God nothing ever happens at the last moment. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.

You and I don't even know what we're going to do tomorrow. We might have some plans made, we might make it blown to smithereens before tomorrow comes, but known unto God are all his works from the foundation of the world.

Nothing happens at the last minute. Remember what the Lord said to the prophet Jeremiah, he said, before I formed you, before I formed you in your mother, I knew you, and before you came out of the womb, he said, I sanctified you, I set you apart, and I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

Pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me. That's why God called Paul that he might reveal his son Jesus in him. Religion, the world was filled with it.

What was it doing for the people? Practically nothing. One of India's prime ministers once said, and had to say it in guarded tones lest, you know, there be some repercussions from the statement, but he said, when I consider religion, when I consider organized religion, I am filled with nausea because he saw what it had done to his own country, organized religion without Jesus Christ.

Peter, Paul, and the Fear of Man

No Savior, that's chapter one. In chapter two, the background is the fear of man. I don't know if you knew this or not, I'm sure that many of you did, but did you know that Peter sinned long after Pentecost, the fear of man took over in his heart again, and the apostle Paul had to straighten him out in front of a whole church, that large church down at Antioch?

Did you know that? Here's what happened. See, back in those days, a Jew would never sit at the same table as a non-Jew, like a Samaritan or a Gentile. A Samaritan was sort of a half-breed Jew, half-Jew and half-Gentile, and a Jew of, you know, if a Samaritan even sat on a park bench while the Jew would just walk by, he wouldn't sit on that same bench because the bench had been polluted.

And you remember how when they saw Paul in Jerusalem and they saw him walking with a Gentile called Trophimus, they thought he'd taken Trophimus into the temple of God and it provoked a riot that almost cost him his life?

It was all right to have animals in the temple and to have birds flying around the temple, but it was wrong to have Gentiles. You see, because of their religion. Well when Peter became a Christian, God knocked that out of him, and you remember he preached to a bunch of Gentiles in the house of Cornelius and the whole congregation was converted?

And oh boy, when Peter went back to Jerusalem, he knew he was going to be called up in the carpet for preaching to non-Jews, so he took a bunch of brethren, six men with him. He said, these six brethren accompanied me.

And they backed him up in what he told the church back at Jerusalem. Well when he was preaching down in Antioch, that's far away from Jerusalem, there was no problem this time, most of the congregants were Gentiles, and they were having a great time, many, many people being converted and uniting with the fellowship, and then one day Peter happened to look down, and what did he see?

Oh, he saw some of the legalizers from Jerusalem sitting down in the crowd. And the Bible says he practiced hypocrisy, he dissembled, that's what it means, he practiced hypocrisy. And it says that all the Jews then, the Jewish converts in the church, they all backed off then with Peter to one side, they separated from the Gentiles.

And Paul says here in Galatians chapter 2, it was so bad that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. Barnabas, the son of consolation, who should have known better, even he was God. Now I'll tell you something, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the church of God, was like to have run on the rocks at that time if Paul hadn't been around.

Now then, if Paul had learned his gospel from the Apostle Peter, when he opened his mouth Peter could have said, tut tut little man, you know, all you know, I taught you, you've got nothing to tell me.

But Paul never happened to get his gospel from Peter. He says in Galatians chapter 1, I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, and his authority was Christ.

And so, what did he do? Well, if he operated like a lot of us would today, he'd call a committee meeting, get some of the leading brethren together off in a side room somewhere, and they'd try and thrash it out.

That's not what he did. It says here, I stand unto fear before them all, in front of the whole church. You know, in writing to Timothy, a preacher, you know what Paul said? He said, Them that sin, rebuke before all, that others also may fear.

Now that never happens in our churches. It happens in some mission fields. A friend of mine was a missionary, and he said once a month we used to have this kind of meeting where us missionaries would conduct the business part of the meeting, and when that was all, we'd go and sit in the back seat and wait for the fireworks.

Now in that particular area, these people talked a pidgin English, in the West Indies it was. And he said, We'd just sit there and wait and pray. And suddenly, a fellow would get up, and he'd march over and stand in front of another fellow,.

And he'd say, You is a crook!

But either he was or he wasn't, and the fellow would have to, you know, tell him what he's talking about, and he'd get it all settled right there. See, then some lady would come up and stand in front of some lady, and she'd say, You is an old gossip!

And then they'd have to get that straightened out, and this would go on for maybe an hour or an hour and a half, and they got the whole church purified, and everything was beautiful again. Now the Bible says, Then that sin rebuked before all, that others also may...

Boy, if a preacher did that, they'd boot him down the street so fast, he'd think he was always on the way out. But anyway, this is what Paul did. In front of the whole church in Antioch, he called Peter up on the carpet, and he said, Peter, if you build the things you once destroyed, you make yourself a transgressor.

The Holy Spirit Replaces Fear With Power

That's the background you see. You know what the contrast is? I'll tell you, people, there's a beautiful contrast here. Back in the Old Testament, you know, before the Holy Spirit was poured out in the church of God, Genesis, pardon me, in the book of Judges, chapter 7, for one example.

Remember Gideon? He had a small army of 32 ,000 or so, and he put the question to him, he said, Now, if anybody's afraid, they better go home. Is that what we tell them today? Hey, if you Christians are afraid, you better leave the church of God.

We can't do anything. If you're afraid, brother, we've got nothing to tell you. Is that what we say? That's not what we say today. There's a big contrast. Since the Holy Spirit's come into the world, we tell people, Look, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

But Gideon couldn't tell the people that, so he said, Look, you people better go home. He lost two-thirds of his army. Twenty-two thousand people went home. They were afraid. There was no remedy for their fear.

But there's a remedy now. God has sent forth the spirit of his blessed Son into our hearts, and the spirit that we have, you have not received the spirit of bondage, again, to fear, the Bible says in Romans 8, but you've received the spirit of adoption.

And so this blessed spirit of power lives in every Christian's heart. And if I'm afraid, then the spirit of God is the answer to my fear. Now, what was Paul's, Mike, what is God after here in chapter 2?

Chapter 1, that he might reveal his Son to me. Chapter 2? Oh, say, the background to Galatians 2 and 20 is Peter sinning down in the church at Antioch, the fear of man taking over, and the remedy for the fear of man was simply this, I am crucified with Christ.

Peter, I am crucified with Christ. Peter, you are crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Can you fancy Jesus Christ being afraid? Well, how can he be when he's King of kings and Lord of lords?

The blessed and only potentator, power holder, that word potentate means. And he lives in our hearts. So he said, Peter, listen, Jesus Christ lives in your heart. You are crucified with Christ, and that old system is gone now.

It's a living reality that the Son of God, Jesus by the Holy Spirit, lives in your heart. Peter, face up to it. We're not told here what happened. Paul doesn't go into any details as to what went on there.

But we do know that Peter must have got his life straightened out, because later on in running, in writing, you know, he talks about our beloved brother Paul. He didn't feel embarrassed or angry or mad at Paul, because Paul did what he did.

It's a good thing Paul was around here. People, like I said before, or the Christian enterprise would have run on the rocks way back then. And we probably would not have a pure gospel to preach and believe and rejoice in today.

Law, Faith, and the Crucified Life

In chapter 3 of this book, it begins by talking, the background is that people have been deceived into disobedience. You know, the devil's always working. You can have a powerful revival in a church or an area, and come back five years later, and you can hardly find any, you know, any evidence of it at all.

Other places you can come back 20 years later, and there's all kinds of evidence of the reviving work of God. But you know the devil's always busy trying to halt the progress of the work of God. You read of a certain one in the Bible that says he was coming to Christ for healing, and it says, as he was yet coming, the devil threw him down.

And the devil is trying to prevent you and I, if we're not a Christian, from coming to Christ. What he's telling the unconverted person is, oh, you've got lots of time. You have got lots of time. And he's telling Christian people the same thing.

We may be moved in our heart by the Holy Spirit to respond some night, to do something about the things we see are wrong in our life, and the devil keeps telling, well, not tonight, tomorrow night, tomorrow night.

But you know, it's always tomorrow night. Nobody gains by delay but the devil. And he does gain by delay, because in Luke chapter 8, Jesus Christ describes how the devil comes and takes the Word of God out of people's hearts.

God puts it there by the Holy Spirit, and the devil comes and takes it out. When we don't act upon it, after a while, it becomes very weak and very difficult to understand and lay hold of. It doesn't seem to be there the way it once was.

All right. So the problem was, oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, who has deceived you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently, the word there means, openly set forth, crucified among you.

The contrast in that chapter is law and faith. The word law occurs 16 times. The word faith or its equivalent occurs 17 times. You know, sometimes we can be right, dead right, and just as dead as right.

We are that way sometimes in the Christian life and walk. Oh boy, we know what we believe. You could ask us any question about any doctrine under the skies, and we've got a full answer for that. But I may be doctrinally right and morally wrong, spiritually wrong.

Paul never ever said, brethren, I know what I believe. But Paul did say, brethren, I know whom I have believed. Another translation says, I know in whom I have put my trust. I know in whom I have trusted.

We need to be able to say that too. Not so much I know what I believe, as I know whom I have believed. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against that day.

All right, the problem here is that the devil had come in and deceived the people of God. The contrast here, then, is between law and faith. And, you know, even although we are born again, there often, often is, you know, a spirit of legalism in our heart and life.

And we feel, if I just do this and do this and don't do this and don't do this, I'll be walking with God. What more can God expect than this? And yet, as we note in Galatians 2 and 20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

And Jesus Christ living in me is not an iceberg. He's the living Son of God. And if Jesus Christ has his way in your heart, your life, and mine, then there's going to be evidence of that. It just has to be.

Others will know it. They'll know it in the home, and they'll know it in the church, and they'll know it where I work, they'll know it at school, they'll just have to know it if Jesus Christ is living in me.

Because there's a little verse in the Bible that says, He could not be hid. He could not be hid. And the remedy, did you notice in Galatians 3, 1, he says, Before your eyes, Jesus Christ has been openly set forth, crucified among you.

Did you ever think that through? Jesus Christ was never in the regions of Galatia. He was never down there. The people down in that area had never seen Jesus Christ. What could Paul possibly mean when he said that Jesus Christ has been openly set forth, crucified among you?

There's only one thing he could mean. And that is this, that they had seen Jesus Christ in Paul. Remember in writing to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 2, he said, I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.