Book of Galatians - Ch. 4, Vs. 1-4 (06/25/2017) | NOTE: Audio malfunction until minute 27:49

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Bro. Bill Nichols

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Was Paul seeking salvation? I've already got the answers. Wasn't he seeking salvation?
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That's right. He knew what he was doing was going to persecute Christians, but he didn't know that he needed salvation.
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He thought he was saved. He thought he already had salvation. Now, that tells you something about the thing.
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What is your role as a Christian? It's to let people know that they are in need of salvation.
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You can't save them. Only the Lord can do that. You may inform them, and you may not think you gain anything from it.
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Paul said, I watered, I planted the seed, and I polished water, and somebody else reaped the harvest.
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You don't know. But what you do know is, it is incumbent upon a Christian, if you're going to behave like Christ, it is incumbent upon you to know the truth.
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And this is one of Paul's messages there.
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It's the one that gives you a pattern. You've got to get it accomplished exactly.
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Who is it going to be that's going to do it?
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How do you know where they are? How many of you are a Christian? A few. What's the way you do it?
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If I'm the baby, then they say, oh yes,
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I agree with everything you say. Here you go.
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Then Paul stood amidst the martyrs and said, we men of Athens, I perceive that all things you are doing are sin.
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For as I passed by the martyrs, he said, if you were a slave to the bad ends of that mountain, you were to be counted.
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It's got a hard, and people agree with me, and they were righteous.
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They would be very unhappy. Same word. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare
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I to you. I'm going to tell you who this man is. He's the God that made the world, and all things therein.
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Seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth, well, it's not as simple as you think.
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Believe it or not, worship is as though you needed anything.
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You can't get anything that you need or want. He knows everything. You can't give the owner of everything anything, because anything that you have to question him, he knows.
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Neither does he worship the men's hands, as though he needed anything. See, he giveth to all, he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.
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And as they, one third of all nations, the men who dwell on the face of the earth, and have determined the times and the bounds of their habitation, he has determined who you are, and when you're going to be where you are, that they should seek the
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Lord, and happily they might do it happily, and find him, so we may not fall.
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For in him we live, and the Lord hath found our being. And certainly also, for as much then as we are the offspring of God, we are not things, that the
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Godhead is like the gold, and silver, and star, and raven, by heart, and in the times of the sea, and in the times of this age, when
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God wreaked that upon us, when we didn't know any better, but now command us all and everywhere to do good.
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Now you know, now you know who this man is, and this man is truly good, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world, and judge it, and that then we will do that.
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For I have given assurance to all men, and that he has raised me up from the dead.
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And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, and others said, we were here to do again our business.
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So call the party, I'm going to urge you, what are you going to do?
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The scoffers. We can guess, and your guess is probably right.
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They're probably scoffers. The debaters. What's to say?
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Maybe. Most probably the scoffers were us. The debaters, we don't know.
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Maybe. Not hardly a few. There were some.
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And I'll be uncertain, and I don't believe that we don't know. It's listed with reason.
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They were believers after the scoffers, and they played to it. And if in fact, they actually did play to it, they were scoffers.
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And so I ask that. Yes. Maybe.
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We don't know for sure. That's why we have to look out, and I look at all of you, and I really would love to talk to everyone in here, but I am 99 .9
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% sure that every person in here is a scoffer. I think that, because I can't,
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I don't think
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I am. I am a little bit more, I'm a little bit more sure of myself than I am of any of you, but I am not totally sure of myself.
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But what's interesting is, it's not my responsibility to convince myself that I'm a good scoffer.
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I'm a good scoffer, and I know that I'm a good scoffer, and the reason
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I am so impressed with myself. So, the next thing we want to look at is all of recognition of scoffers, and recognition of individuals.
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Can we win people's trust? If there had ever been a clever argument that we win someone's trust, that would have been it.
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The reason this was interesting, this was not three years after this. This was three years after this.
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Thirteen years to the
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Hartfield Sermon, this was three years after that. This happened at 55
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AD. Well, Christ sent me, not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
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People were, again, arguing at that time about truth, and some said,
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I am a Paul, and others said, I am a scholar, and others said, well, I have to tell you, all of you, I'm a Christian. Well, and he said,
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I want to be baptized tonight. I will be baptized with you. Oh, I wish
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I had baptized. But Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach. I was listening to the words.
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He told me something. The Mars Hill Sermon didn't have the effect that he wanted. Lest the cost of Christ should be made of one event, of one event.
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My elegant speech, that doesn't mean anything.
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Walking in thinking, it's easy.
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Less impossible, it should be a fun effect. If I could talk someone into being saved, it would be for God's sake.
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I could just talk everybody into it. I'm talking to somebody. I didn't talk them into it.
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Faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith,
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I'm talking to the Lord. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.
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But unto them which are saved, it is to power of God. To those that claim to be people of the cross, to those, it was to power of God.
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But to the stoppers, it is foolishness. For it is written,
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I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, no matter how far you are from me. Whatever your argument is, it is foolishness.
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And I will bring to nothing the understanding of the truth. You've got to think, you've got to figure it out.
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It's foolishness. Just when I thought I knew all the answers to the truth, I found out nothing.
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It's not what God is giving you to do. It's foolishness. And I will bring to nothing the understanding of the truth.
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Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of the world?
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And I'll tell you, for after that, the wisdom of God, the
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Lord by wisdom, by power, he can get to every person's wisdom. You've got to everyone that's truly
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God by the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. And who believes?
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The elect. But what about the Jews? What do you believe? But okay, they were blinded.
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It's hard for the force of Gentiles to come in. But Jews require signs.
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They want to hear a little something. The interdiction.
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Gentiles hardly do. For the
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Jews require signs and the Greeks seek after wisdom. So the babies, the ones that said, will your
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Lord harm you like a slave? They want to come back and argue with the Lord and he might help them into a favor or they might talk him out of it but they were for the better.
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The Greeks seek wisdom. But Paul says, the
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Jews are a stumbling block. They don't want a
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Christian idea. They want a Jewish idea. They don't want one submitting to the
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Roman Empire. They want one supplanting the Roman Empire. And to the
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Greeks, foolishness, this is silly stuff you're talking about. But to them it was called, both
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Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.
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Because the wisdom of God was God's. And the Greeks, not simply not to baptize, but to reach out the wisdom of words that's the power of God.
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So the preaching of the cross is the wisdom of God. But the use of the faith is the wisdom of God.
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For it is written, you don't want to have to tell anybody that this is the wisdom of God.
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But the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger.
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We don't want to go six years later. 61 A .D. We don't want to go all the way to 61
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A .D. And Paul is going to describe his work.
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He has now come to understand what it is as a man, as a scientist of all kinds, calculated by his hands and they calculated by the power of God.
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And they came down from the cross to all of us and said, Paul now knows what it is.
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Paul now knows what it is.
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Look at this. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof to my trust in the flesh,
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I more. It's an awful way of saying, if you think you know something, if you think you are something, look at me,
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I am Paul. If you think you have value, look at me at the value
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I have. I was raised up just like all
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Jews were raised up. I was a stock of Israel.
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I was a stock of Israel. I was a stock of Israel. I was the tribe of Benjamin.
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I was a Hebrew who has touched the law of Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law of the land of Israel.
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If anybody obeyed the law, it would be Paul. But what things were gained to me no doctrine of the law was taught by history.
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Had to rephrase all of these things I used to think were worth something. The Jewish people,
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Pharisee, Benjamin, named after Paul the first.
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Yea, I do doubtless and I count all things that was for the excellence of the knowledge of God in me.
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For whom I have prepared the law for all things. All of these things
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I used to have, I have them in me. And do count them, but don't.
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He doesn't think there's much opportunity.
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All of these things that he wants, he doesn't think there's very much. And to be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is in the law, and if anybody had righteousness by law, it would have been
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Paul. Not having my own righteousness, which is by the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God, the righteousness of God, how does he have it?
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Because he had faith. Brother David, whose faith did he have? He had
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Jesus' faith. He didn't have his own faith. He had the faith of Jesus. That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his soul.
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That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his soul.
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That's something that we would like to do. That's something that we would like to do. Being made confirmable of his faith, if by any means
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I might know him and the resurrection of his soul, we now know that all of this all of this, except for all of this, all of this, all of this, all of this, that he had, and by the way, he has a heart.
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He's still alive. He's still alive. He still has those things.
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He still has those things.
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Now I'm just going to go on and this is 60 years before that.
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About 40 years later that I'm here standing here with this with this called a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God and acknowledging of the truth but at the same time manifesting his word through preaching
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Jesus committed himself according to the truth to the commandment Now why did he say that?
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Because when I was an RTO I was speaking to the world and I was trying to convince the world to give me promises and answer to the truth to the truth to the truth
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Take away number one don't think that you say something and nobody will listen and nobody will hear that makes no sense because I speak to the world and I speak to the world and I warn you and I warn you say the truth say the truth everybody
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Mars Hill you're wasting your time trying to convince these debaters to believe to he would not have understood that he wouldn't have understood it until way later when he wrote
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Titus he needed time to mature and if Paul needed time to mature everybody else that we will be talking to will also need time to mature and maybe you'll plant a seed and the seed is not ready even to be watered and it needs to sit there and five years later somebody might pour a little water and the seed sprouts you just don't know but you do know what the
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Lord asked you to do so we are now through our introduction
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I kind of like this I picked this up from Brother David expand your introduction and you have less new stuff to do we finished chapter 3 with this and if you chapter 3 of Galatians in case you forgot where we are by the way
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I forgot where I was last week and told you we were in chapter 4 when we were still in chapter 3 but we're going to get to chapter 4 real quickly because I'm going to start on 29 if you be
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Christ then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise that was the last verse of chapter 3 we're going to go right into chapter 4 now
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I say that the heir as long as he is a child differ nothing from a servant though he be
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Lord of all now I found this in John Calvin's commentary on Galatians he says this now
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I say who made the division into chapters he says improperly separated this paragraph from the preceding as it is nothing more than a concluding section in which
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Paul explains and illustrates the difference that existed between us and the ancient people he does so by introducing a third comparison drawn from the relationship which a person under age has to his tutor the young man though he is free though he is
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Lord of all his father's family still resembles a slave for he is under the government of a slave he is under the government of tutors he is less than a slave he is being ruled by a slave even though he is the
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Lord of all but the period of the guardianship lasts only until a time appointed by the father so there is a time when the father says you are no longer under the guardian now what he is getting ready to do what
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Paul is getting ready to do he is getting ready to say the Lord is now saying it is time for you to no longer be under the schoolmaster to no longer be under the governor to no longer be under the tutor it is now time for you to be under grace so it is a change from being under the law to under grace and what determines that time what determines when that time occurs
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God now there is two there is two aspects to this there is the aspect of me as an individual there was a time when
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I as an individual was under the law all
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I had was the law I was ruled and my behavior was influenced to some degree by the law
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I knew it was against the law to kill and I did not want to kill anyhow so that was good
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I knew it was against the law to steal and even though I was tempted by things I knew that the punishment would outweigh what
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I would get so I did not steal I was in some way kept under control by the law but there came a time when the
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Lord took me and took you out from under the rules of the law and put you under grace and the real reason for that is you could not keep the laws anyhow now
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I told you I did not kill and I did not steal but I did do some things that I should not have done
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I broke those laws and the Bible says if you break one you break them all so if you have violated one law you are guilty of them all and so I was guilty under the law just like all of you were and still would be if you were still under the law in this respect going back to Calvin, in this respect the fathers under the
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Old Testament being the sons of God were free, I think I did that wrong oh,
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I got the fathers wrong, the fathers were the ancient fathers, those that were coming out from under the law the fathers under the
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Old Testament being sons of God were free but they were not in possession of that freedom while the yoke held the place of their tutor and kept them while the law held the place of the tutor and kept them under the yoke that slavery of the law lasted as long as it pleased
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God who put an end to it at the coming of Christ that's the bigger thing that's the
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Old Testament dispensation compared to the New Testament dispensation and Calvin says that's really what
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Paul is talking about here he's not really talking about me as an individual recognizing at some point as Brother Otis would say recognizing that I belong to him but the church as a whole the
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Israelite church compared to the Christian church, the church under the law compared to the church under grace he said lawyers enumerate various methods of coming under the tutelage of governorship but of all these methods the only one adapted to this comparison is that which
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Paul selected the appointment of the father so here's what he says now
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I say that the heir as long as he is a child differs nothing from a servant though he be lord of all but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the fathers even so when we were children we're under bondage under the elements of the world when we were children when the church was a childish church the
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Israelite church under bondage to the law is under bondage to the elements of the world
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John MacArthur says this elements is from the Greek word meaning row or rank it's kind of like a periodic table for those of you who know science the elements on the periodic table the basic building blocks from which everything is made that's what the elements are the basic rules here the references to the basic elements and rituals of human religion
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Paul describes both the Jewish and Gentile religions as elemental because they're merely human never rising to the level of the divine both
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Jewish religions and Gentile religion centered on man made systems of work they will fill with laws and ceremonies to be performed so as to achieve acceptance all such rudimentary elements are immature like the behavior of children under the bondage of a guardian so if your religion is one based upon rules and regulations and laws to keep which
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I can keep my set of laws better than anybody else can but even
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I can't keep my set of laws perfectly if that's where your religion is it is fundamental it's based upon laws it's elemental like the behavior of children under the bondage of a guardian
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I'm going to read one more verse and I'm going to comment on it a couple of minutes and then I'm going to be through for the day but when the fullness of time was come but when the fullness of time was come there came a time when
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God sent forth his son made of woman made under the law now there's four things here to consider and I'm going to consider all four of them but only one of them today the fullness of time
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I'm going to skip God sent forth his son I'm going to skip except to say that if God sent forth his son the son must have already existed prior to his being sent forth and when did he send him forth at the foundation of the world so Jesus was already a member of the
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Godhead before he was sent forth made of woman now there's a lot to that the real crux to that problem is not the genetics not the fact that it was a virgin birth but that Jesus was not only totally
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God the pre -existent God the God that existed before time began but he is now totally man and because he's totally
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God he can keep the law and because he was totally man he can pay the price and it takes both of those he has to be of infinite worth to be able to pay the price he has to be
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God to be able to obey the law but he has to be man in order to bear the punishment for it made under the law that's what
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I want to look at just a little bit today and then we are through I need to scroll down to it now here's what
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MacArthur said about under the law like all men Jesus was obligated to obey
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God's law was Jesus under grace he was are you under grace was
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Jesus obliged to obey God's law he was tempted like us and I want to change the word
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MacArthur said obligated but I want to say more he did it because he wanted to I like that better but unlike anyone else because he was
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God he was able to perfectly obey the law he was able to perfectly obey the law and he did perfectly obey the law you couldn't his sinlessness made him the unblemished sacrifice for sins who fulfilled all righteousness that is he perfectly obeyed
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God in everything he didn't mess up on a single one of God's laws he got them all right all the time he perfectly obeyed
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God in everything and it's that perfect righteousness that is given to you that is imputed to those who believe in him who else is it imputed to well yes the elect and that's what we were saying that perfect righteousness is imputed to those who believe and those who believe are the elect
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Calvin said when the fullness of time has come he proceeds with the comparison that he had induced and applies to his purpose the expression which has already occurred the time appointed by the
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Father but still showing that the time which has been ordained by the providence of God was proper and seasonal the season was most fit and the mode of acting most proper which providence
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God directs he also says the literal rendering of this subjugate under the law made under the law is made under the law but he interpreted
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Calvin did is subjugated under the law which expressed more plainly the fact that he was placed under subjection to the law
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Christ the son of God who might have claimed exemption from every kind of subjugation became subject to the law
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I'm going to do that again I really messed it up Christ the son of God who might have claimed to be exempt from every kind of subjugation became subject to the law why?
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Calvin said he did it in our room that he might obtain freedom for us a man who was free by constituting himself surety redeems a slave by putting upon himself the chains and takes them off from the other so Christ chose to become liable to keep the law that exemption from it might be obtained for us otherwise it would have been no purpose that he should have come under the yoke of the law for it is certain that he did not of his own account do so he didn't do he didn't become subject to the law because he needed to because he could fulfill the law he became subject to the law because you couldn't to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons ok