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Let's begin our study by reading together from the Epistle to the Galatians and chapter five. Galatians chapter five. Galatians five and verse um one. With freedom did Christ set us free. Stand fast, therefore, be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.
Verse thirteen: For you, brethren, were called for freedom. Only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another.
And finally, from chapter six and verse twelve: As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For not even they who receive circumcision do themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God. God give us good understanding of his word, and it will help if perhaps we can keep our thumbs in the place so that we can, from time to time, follow the argument of the remainder of this epistle.
We come to our third study, and what we have been trying to do in these three brief studies of this epistle is not, of course, to expound it verse by verse and comma by comma, but rather to get a bird's eye view of the epistle. And for that reason, we have somewhat arbitrarily divided the epistle into three parts and taken one part per evening. And from each part, we have again chosen one major theme that we might concentrate our attention on one major theme of each part.
So from the first two chapters, we took the question, how may I live unto God? And found the answer to be summed up in two phrases. One of them, justified in Christ. That's how you may live unto God, by being in Christ, being justified in Christ. And secondly, by Christ living in you. As Paul put it, I live and yet not I, Christ liveth in me. You in Christ, and Christ in you. You justified in him, and he living in you.
That constituted the major answer to our question, how may we live unto God? For our second part, we took, uh, chapter three and asked of it the major question, how may I be sure of my inheritance? We had to spend some time finding out what the inheritance was anyway, and when we found out, we found the answer to the question, how may be, how may I be sure of my inheritance? To lie in the great covenant sacrifice that God made with Abraham and his seed, long before the law, and therefore not dependent upon the law or its conditions.
An unconditional one-party covenant made by God with Abraham and his seed. That's how we can be sure of our inheritance. And we found, of course, that the way we enter into the good of that inheritance is by being baptized into Christ, and thereby putting on Christ, and therefore, for the purposes of that covenant, becoming the seed to whom God promised that inheritance by covenant. How may I be sure of the covenant? Sorry, how may I be sure of my inheritance?
Why? By being baptized into Christ, by putting on Christ by faith, and thus by becoming Christ's, therefore becoming the very seed of Abraham, to whom the inheritance was given by. Now we come to the third, and what is in fact the longest, uh, of our three parts. It extends from chapter four through chapter five to chapter six, And I want to sum up one of its major features thus, by asking the question, how may we enjoy freedom?
And what is true freedom anyway? How may we enjoy freedom? And what is true freedom anyway? Doubtless many other things are dealt with in this third section, but this surely is one of its major themes. Before we settle down to answer, uh, that question, let's remind ourselves of the other thing that we've been doing in these studies. As we have had time here and there, we've been casting a sidelong glance at Paul himself writing this epistle and asking ourselves, now, what argument is he going to use next?
What kind of arguments does he use? And so far we've found him using all sorts of different kinds of arguments. There's been the argument, for instance, from church history, a long, long chunk of church history, and we saw the importance of church history and why the argument from church history is so important in this matter of justification by faith. Last week we noticed that he used an argument from experience. It was just a very brief argument from experience, slotted in between other major arguments. And tonight we shall notice him going back to that kind of argument, the argument from experience.
Always valid, of course, to argue from experience, but not from experience alone. And perhaps the argument from experience oughtn't to be the biggest argument. Certainly they're not the biggest arguments in this epistle. Bigger than the argument from experience is the argument from church history, or again, as we found last week, the argument from scripture itself. Very carefully put together by a very judicious selection of key verses of scripture that explicitly state the principles upon which a man is justified with God. Wasn't the first time Paul had used those texts, of course.
When he wrote them down here in Galatians, he'd had them up his sleeve thousands of times as he stood in the synagogue and used them like the sword of the spirit, and thereby a good example to us likewise in our work for the Lord, in trying to help people. It's lovely to take the whole Bible, but if you can't remember it all at once, nor quote it all at once, it is an exceedingly good idea to copy Paul and have certain key positive statements of scripture that you've got at your fingerti- fingertips covering the basic principles of salvation. So tonight, again, when we get time, and from here and there, we shall be looking at the kinds of arguments Paul uses in this third section of this wonderful epistle.
So then, to our major question and its answer. How may we enjoy freedom? And what is true freedom anyway? And first of all, some positive answers, two big positive answers to that question. What is true freedom? The first answer is true freedom is being governed by God as a father treats a son rather than a little child.
Put it another way, true freedom is learning to live in the family of God, not just like a little infant, but like a grown-up son. That is true freedom. And you'll find that argument, if you care to look, in the opening paragraph of chapter four, verses one to eleven. an argument that Paul begins with the words, but I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differs nothing from a bondservant, though he is lord of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the term appointed of the father.
So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba Father, so that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. Lovely argument, and we notice at once it's an argument from analogy, which is a rather pompous way of saying it is a comparison of the way the believer lives with the way a grown up son lives in an ordinary human family.
An argument by analogy. And the analogy extends to the difference between the way a parent will deal with a little infant and the way he'll deal with his fully grown up son. An argument from analogy. Incidentally, I dare say you've noticed that you've got to watch it when you, um, argue from analogies, haven't you? First of all, anal- analogies never prove anything, they only illustrate a point. Yes? Normally. Analogies are there to illustrate. But if you are arguing about spiritual things, it is exceedingly important to make sure that your analogy is a scriptural one, or at least has scriptural authority, because it's possible to get analogies that seem good and are not, and are very bad, in fact.
Suppose I stood before you arguing about salvation, how is a man saved, and I said to you, my man, why, of course it's evident salvation is like the village pump, you know, those old-fashioned pumps, which if you tried to get the water out, it wouldn't come. And so first of all, you had to prime the pump with a little water. You had to put some water in, in order to persuade the pump to work and deliver you a lot of water into your pail. And if I said to you, there you are, now salvation is like the village pump, you know, my man. You have to put your bit in first, and then God will give you his salvation, you see. If you do the best you can, God will reward you.
Well, perfectly so, if salvation is like the village pump, but it so happens that salvation isn't like the village pump. It's the last thing on earth that salvation is like. And the questions to ask about analogies is, who said so? Who gave you the authority to use the analogy. Because not all analogies are valid. But here is an analogy taken from life, the way a parents will treat a little child and the different way they'll treat an adult child. And it's valid, of course, number one, because it was given us by an inspired apostle, and number two, because this business of children and sons lies at the very heart of the gospel.
For just as we were born into a human family and had a father who disciplined us, so when we receive salvation, we are born again and born into the family of God, and God becomes our father. Because that's evident, isn't it? When we become forgiven, we're not just cast loose on on our own. It's a question of entering the family of God. And therefore, one of the things that results is that we have to learn to live in the family of God. How then will God treat us as believers in the Lord Jesus?
And how does he propose to govern us? Well, he does it in the way that is true freedom. So consider, says Paul, the difference between this infant and the grown-up in an ordinary human family. When the heir may be the father's heir, but when he's only a little nipper, he's very different, very little different from a slave. But he's under tutors and governors and teachers and this, that, and the other, full of rules and regulations. I don't know about you, uh, when I was a youth, uh, the age of, uh, two, three, four, or five, uh, my family couldn't afford private governors and things and so on.
I don't know about you, perhaps yours did. But there were plenty of rules, I remember that. One very simple rule that I came across early on in life had to do with doormats. If you had been playing in the garden or running through every puddle that you could possibly find in the manner of the best brought up, do see, and your boots were caked with mud. You were taught in my day that when you came into the house, there was a doormat, and if you didn't notice it, you were taken by the scruff of the neck or by the ear and shown the doormat. And then it was explained to you in words of one syllable what doormats were for. And if you didn't learn the lesson quickly and use the aforesaid doormat, steps were taken to impress upon you the necessity of using doormats.
Huh. Because, uh, uh, my parents at least weren't having the carpets ruined by a lot of infants, whole tribe of them, coming in and out, boots as many as they like on the very best carpets, of course not. And seeing we were only infants and had no sense in our head, means were brought to bear upon us to use the door. Sometimes we resented it. All the rules and regulations, there were many more beside, I won't go into them, the bathroom and all sorts of things, but uh, uh, all these rules and regulations that you had to keep, hmm, and about coming in at night and all that, you know what it was.
Then I grew up, in age at any rate, reached the age of twenty one. When I grew up and became my father's grown-up son, then of course the stick was put away. I was no more taken by the ear and shown the doormat. You say, why not? Well, my father hoped that growing up from a child to an adult had made a very big difference. And truth to tell, as far as doormats went, it had. You'll see. Because now I had got the way of looking at things like my father had got, and I realized how much carpets cost, and anyway, I didn't want to make a pigsty of them.
And having now the same outlook on such things as my father had, in that sense, guided by his sense of values and outlook, I used the doormat. Well, there were times when I forgot, of course. I noticed there were times when he did, but, uh, uh, uh, uh, normally I did eat. Not because I had to, not because there was a stick in the cupboard. No, because I looked at things as he looked at them. You say that must be a burdensome thing in your home, have to use the doormat. Do you find it so? Of course not. You want to use it.
What for? To keep the carpet beautiful, and why? Because you like carpets. Now, says Paul, freedom, what does it mean? Freedom means living in the family of God, number one. But freedom means being treated by God our Father like a grown-up son. That's what it means. Instead of a little infant. Under the Lord, you see, Israel were like little infants. They were put under governors and rules and the law itself, with fearful penalties attached to it if they didn't keep the law.
Be persuaded to keep it by such penalties. Now it's different. It's not that God has grown slack or says the law doesn't matter or anything like that. No, that's not the thing at all. But now in Christ, we are no longer infants, but spiritually grown up sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba Father. And we look alar- uh, we look on God as he looked on God, and sustain that similar relationship, and have the very spirit of God's son within us, so that we want to do what God's Son would want to do.
That's at least how God's salvation works. You say, my dear good preacher, come down to earth, do. There are many days when I want to do things that I know are wrong. Yes, so do I. But we're talking here about basic principles, and presently we shall hear about how to deal with that other side of us, that old flesh that still wants to do things that are wrong. But the basic point is this: freedom, true freedom, means living in the family of God, no longer as infants, but as grown-up sons. And I like the way Paul puts it. He doesn't say God sent forth the spirit of his son into your heart so that you could become sons.
He puts it the other way around, doesn't he? Because you are sons. God sent forth the spirit of his son. God determined to make me one of his sons, one of his grown up sons. God chose me as an heir of his in Christ. Therefore, God said, well, if I got that man now and I'm going to make him a son, he'll have to learn how to behave as a son, so he better have the spirit of my son. Point number one. The difference between being a Jew under the law as an infant, very little different from a slave, and being a Christian, a believer in the family of God, treated like a grown-up son.
Not so much under rules and regulations, and certainly no penalties of the law, but the positive spirit of God's son in our hearts, making us want to do the things that he would want to do, giving us his value. And having made that point, Paul for a moment turns to Asai, doesn't he? Verse eight, die and being a Christian, a believer in the family of God, treated like a grown up son. Not so much under rules and regulations, and certainly no penalties of the law, but the positive spirit of God's Son in our hearts, making us want to do the things that he would want to do, giving us his value.
And having made that point, Paul for a moment turns to a side, doesn't he? From verse eight down to, uh, verse twenty, Paul turns aside and argues now from experience one more, once more, by showing the effects that this false doctrine has had upon the believers. That's a very important argument, isn't it? You can very often test whether a doctrine is right or wrong, among other ways, by asking what effect does it have on the life of the believer?
Make him more Christ-like? Make him more holy? Make him more loving? Or does it do the opposite? You may judge, in part, the rightness or wrongness of a doctrine by the effect it has. And Paul turns to discussing here now the effects that the wrong doctrines were beginning to have upon the believers. And he says, I stand in doubt of you, my dear good brethren, and for the life of me, I can't understand it when you have the chance of living as grown up sons of God and be treated by God as sons, that you turn back to the slavery in which you once were.
All sorts of rules, regulations, observing of days and months and years, bondage. As though spirituality consisted in observing certain rules. And so long as you kept the rules, you kept the right day, you kept the right month, you kept the right year, so you were spiritual. Well, that's quite false, isn't it? The only true way to be spiritual is to have the spirit of God's Son in you, that's spirituality. Not just being content to say, well, I kept the rule there, so I must be okay.
You know, it is easy sometimes, isn't it, to drop into that kind of thinking, to erect a whole lot of rules and regulations, and just because you've kept a whole lot of reg- rules and regulations, and you haven't done this, and you haven't done that, and you haven't done something else, to imagine you're okay. Oh, what a pathetic notion that is. Not necessarily spirituality at all. And there they were going back to bind themselves with these rules and regulations. Stand in doubt of you, says Paul. And then he says another very interesting thing. Not only that they were going back into, uh, bondage, a kind of religious bondage of observing all sorts of man-made rules and regulations. But he says, you know, what I do notice is the effect this wrong doctrine is having on your attitude to me, Paul.
You know, you might not have thought it, might not be one of the most obvious things, but it's still very true. You may test the rightness or wrongness of a doctrine by the effect that doctrine has on people's attitude to Paul. Find me somebody whose doctrine leads him to say, oh, that was only Paul said that, I don't know. This is a very curious doctrine you've got hold. You wouldn't be sitting here tonight saved, I should say, if it hadn't been for Paul bringing the gospel to Europe.
And it was an uncomfortable sign when this doctrine that these people had led them to withdraw their sympathies from Paul, the very man who brought them the gospel. And there was a further unpleasant sign when these people with this rigid doctrine of the law tried to monopolize the converts who wouldn't let Paul near them. They zealously seek you in no good way. Nay, they desire to shut you out, that is, from Paul's company.
And so Paul isn't allowed to get near them. It is always an unhealthy sign when teachers of false doctrine try to monopolize people and not let anybody else come near them. If God treats us like grown up sons, he trusts his people to know the truth and to be able to see it by his Holy Spirit's illumination. He doesn't treat them like infants that mustn't be allowed to decide for themselves.
But that, by the way, it's an argument from experience. You will notice how short these arguments from experience are in the epistle, won't you? And from t- and from this matter of argument from experience, he now turns in chapter four and verse twenty one for another long, major argument on this matter of freedom. It's an argument drawn from the Old Testament scripture. It is in fact the second major biblical argument in the course of the epistle. And it is an argument from scripture, interestingly enough, from scripture typology. We noticed that on an earlier occasion, let us notice it now, because we're going to hear the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael, and Isaac from the Old Testament book of Genesis.
And Paul is going to draw the analogy and say that those passages are a kind of a type for us of the way we ought to go on. Now, it is very interesting in using arguments from Bible. Paul has two major ones, the set of arguments we had last week in chapter three, They were a series of quotations of explicit verses, explicitly expressing the basic principles of salvation. That came first. Now, second argument from Bible, typology. Both are valid, but perhaps the order is deliberate.
Better to start with the explicit statements, and when you have, uh, founded your doctrine on the explicit statements of the principles, then to bring in the very illuminating picture language of ancient history and typology. Because if we don't do it, you know, we're liable to quote typology, but not getting the typology correct, prove all sorts of marvelous things by typology that there's no authority elsewhere in scripture. So we have to be careful with typology. Only that typology is valid that squares with the explicit statements of Holy Scripture.
So having, in chapter three listed for us a whole list of explicit statements, theological statements, now Paul comes to clinch the point by another biblical argument founded on typology. And as I say, it's the story of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael and Isaac. It's going to answer for us the question, uh, how may I enjoy freedom, and what is true freedom anyway? Why, true freedom, this passage will say, is being able to look forward to your inheritance on the ground of being a freeborn son and not a slave.
Oh, what a lovely freedom that is. To have before me the hope of my inheritance, and to be able to regard it as a freeborn son regards his inheritance. He has it by birth. He has it by rise. He has it by the gift of the Father, by being the Father's son, by being freeborn. All that lovely inheritance in front of him. He doesn't have it in prospect, uncertainly, like a slave might hope one day, if I behave myself and work hard, I might amass enough money or merit to be given my freedom, so that life becomes a drudgery ten times over, in the hope of earning freedom at last and an inheritance.
No, it's living here like a freeborn son, conscious that there is an inheritance to be enjoyed on the grounds that he is a freeborn son. That's freedom. And Paul is going to enforce the lesson by quoting that tremendous climax from the Abram story, where God commanded Abraham to do what Sarah had said and turn out the bondwoman and her son. Why turn them out? Ah, now listen to the reason. For the son of the bondwoman shall not inherit with the free.
The inheritance is on the basis of being a freeborn son. The slave shall not inherit along with the free. There's not merely then a question of having been justified in the past, it is a question of the great future inheritance, and we live looking forward to it on the ground of being freeborn son. So what difference does it make? Well, allow me to borrow a parable, if you don't mind. Perhaps you think it was, uh, written for other purposes.
Never mind, allow me that at least tonight for the sake of the argument. Perhaps it was written for the reason I'm about to say. And it's the parable of so-called prodigal son, aimed at the unconverted, of course it was, but aimed at the Pharisees in particular. Who resented our Lord and the fact that he received sinners, actually went and ate with sinners. Now they thought that was the most awful kind of laxity, moral irresponsibility that you ever heard of. Fancy Receiving sinners and eating with them, when the sinners were the kind of sinners such as Luke delicately mentioned.
And to the Pharisees, our Lord answered in a threefold parable, didn't he? What man of you, if he had a hundred sheep and lost one, um wouldn't leave the ninety nine and go after the one? and when he found it, he'd bring it back with great rejoicing? He would that. Why would he? What do you say? Why would he? Would a man go after a sheep? Because that one sheep represents his profit, or near enough. What? No farmer can say, I've got a hundred sheep, so I don't bother about losing ten of them. It's his profit man. No grocer says, I got a dozen packets of tea here, so long as I sell nine of them, that doesn't matter if three gets lost on the floor. No, those three are his profits. Of she does Australia gotta go and get them.
Oh, I see. And what woman of you, why, she had ten pieces of, uh, silver on her beautiful, uh, necklace affair or whatever it was around her head, I don't know what they call them, you'll see, for dressing up days, and lost one of them. Wouldn't search the whole house till she found the one that was lost, and when she found it, what a fuss of rejoicing there would be. Why is that? Why is that, man? I know jolly well. Have a lovely sort of a coronet thing down the front here with ten bits of silver, there's a gaping hole in the middle. What woman is going out like that? You might as well ask a woman to go to a party with a big tooth missing in the middle of her, uh, her mouth here.
You can't do that kind of thing. I mean, uh, appearance. Why, of course. That's a tremendously important thing. Of course it is. But what these dear Pharisees would do for a sheep, and what they'd do if they were women for a lost bit of silver, that they weren't prepared to do with their lost and erring brothers, were they? Our Lord didn't say, what man of you if he had two sons and lost one of them? No, because that's precisely what the Pharisees weren't prepared to do.
When the father of the parable welcomed the prodigal son back in his rags and repentance, the elder brother objected, didn't he? Why did he? Well, just listen to him. That wretch of your son of yours, you call him a son? Look what he's done, how he's squandered your inheritance. And me? I worked for you all these years. You haven't given me anything. And his father scratched his head and couldn't make out what the chap was talking about.
What do you mean, he says, you worked for me all these years and, and I've never given you anything. What are you talking about, my dear good man? Well, that's what he said. Worked hard for you all these years, got nothing out of it. Might as well have gone like my brother and painted the town red, and here I've been a goody, goody, goody man. I kept all the rules, I worked hard, I've got nothing for it. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Now you discover what the disaster has been all the years. Been working like a slave. Thinking that the inheritance depends on his working. Because he thought the inheritance depended on his working when he saw this prodigal come back, and got just a little bit of calf out of it.
Of course he jealous. Father was dumbfounded, he said, I'm like a good man. All I've got is yours, what are you talking about? I've never given you anything. The whole lot is yours, man. But it's possible to live, you know, though you might be the very heir of all things, it's possible to get into the way of living as though you were a slave. Oh, what a different way he'd gone up, he would have gone about the farming, wouldn't he, that older brother, if he had realized he was the heir of all things, just being the father's elder son, you see.
And when this poor miserable chap came home, who had so messed up his life and ruined everything and thrown away his potential, when he came back in repentance, uh, and his father welcomed him and proposed to give him one fatted calf, if he pleased. This other chap had realized that all that the father had was his. He said, Father, well, it's one fatted calf enough. One change of dress enough, Father? I mean, can't you afford, couldn't you stretch a point, give him two? Change of suit, another pair of shoes, black as well as brown, and uh, what about a goose or something? I mean, do we have to be all that stingy?
He had no sense in his heart of being the father's heir and thought the father had never given him anything. Oh, my dear fellow believer, what you think about your inheritance and about your status this very moment will determine how you live and will determine your attitude to other folks. If it dawns upon us that we are freeborn sons of the Father, with an incalculable inheritance, oh, how that will transform our attitudes to the poor, broken people who have wasted life and live foolish.
But to get back to our Genesis, I wandered, did my forgive me that bit. Uh, get back to Genesis. And the story of Abraham and Ishmael and the slave cast out because he shall not inherit with the free. You know, poor old Paul has come in for a lot of criticism from certain theologians for using this story as an illustration. They've said it's allegory and it's very, very bad, and it's arbitrary. Of course, it's nothing of the sort, is it? Actually, it's a chunk of real history to start with. And if tonight we can find ourselves simply to the level of history that actually happened in Abram's life, we should find the same principle in Abram as Paul applies presently to us.
So let's think of it at that. Abraham had been justified by faith, Genesis fifteen tells us. And God had then said to Abraham, Abraham, and what's more, I'm going to give you a vast inheritance, and I covenant it to you and to your seed. Well, at that moment, Abraham believed. So he and his seed were going to have this great inheritance, but he hadn't got any seed. So how would the covenant be fulfilled? Tell you what, Abram, said Sarah one day. Tell you what, Abram, you know, hmm.
It was a curious suggestion, wasn't it? Just you listen to it. The Lord, you know that seed business, you know, uh, you're going to have seed and a, and a great inheritance, right. He says, you know, the Lord has withheld me from bearing. So, we can get round that, can't we? Really? Yes, she says, you take Hagar. Half a minute. If the Lord had restrained her from bearing, or perhaps he intended to for the while. What on earth was she doing? Suggesting ways of getting round what God had done, in order to produce the seed that God had promised but hadn't given.
What a curious attitude. God had said, Abram, you're going. So how would the covenant be fulfilled? Tell you what, Abram, said Sarah one day, tell you what, Abram, you know, hmm. It was a curious suggestion, wasn't it? Just you listen to it. The Lord, you know that seed business, you know, uh, you're going to have seed and a, uh, and a great inheritance, right. He says, you know, the Lord has withheld me from bearing. So, we can get round that, can't we? Really?
Yes, she says, you take Hagar. Half a minute. If the Lord had restrained her from bearing, or perhaps he intended to for the while. What on earth was she doing? Suggesting ways of getting round what God had done. In order to produce the seed that God had promised but hadn't given. What a curious attitude. God has said, Abram, you're going to have a son, you're going to have seed. Sarah couldn't trust God to give it to them.
Now she thought ways of getting round it and acquiring it by her own effort. And you know, the more you ponder it, the more foolish the matter becomes, doesn't it? To accept it from God, that would have made life like the life of a freeborn daughter of God. But now, if you've got to fulfill God's promise by your own effort, you'll turn yourself into a slave. And oh, how significantly she took one of the slave girls. To try by human effort to fulfill what God had intended to give them as a gift.
Well, that's what she did anyway. Well, when Hagar saw that she was going to have a child, and she was only a slave girl, and her mistress hadn't got a child. That was a bit too much for Hagar, and she began putting on her airs and graces, you know. Now she was somebody. In fact, there was a sense in which she was better than her mistress. Oh, you should have seen her in the early months putting on her parts. I thought she was gone a queen overnight. Oh, how much better she was than Sarah. I mean, she must be a better woman.
And you know, it's bad enough if you're in a, in a forty-room mansion to have somebody like that around, isn't it, bodho? But you try it when you're living in tents. Gets on you a bit. Parading herself as though, ooh, she had great attainments and better on off and more saintly, I suppose, than Sarah herself. I'm surprised what airs and graces people give themselves sometimes when they think that they've made progress better than other people, you know. Anyway, uh, when she got a bit uppish and disobedient to Sarah, uh, as well, Sarah couldn't stick it anymore and persuaded Abram to turn her out.
So he turned her out. Hm. But God met her and sent her back again. Sarah and Abram don't get rid of their mistakes quite as quickly as that. No, no. They've got to learn for their own benefit and for ours what that kind of attitude leads to. And so God sent, uh, Hagar back, and he said, Hagar, you're going to have a child. And then God said some very true, but not very complimentary things about the child that would be born. He said he shall be a wild ass of a man. His hand against every man, and every man's hand against him.
Can you imagine what he was? When he was four, it was bad enough. When he grew up to thirteen, well, fancy living with him. In a home. I tell you what, Abraham and Sarah had some unpleasant years with that lad about the place. Trying to keep him in his place, absolute wild ass he was. Knew no discipline, had to be forcibly restrained. And made life very unpleasant. But after all, he was merely the son of a slave woman. And he hadn't Sarah's hope, and he hadn't Abram's faith.
Wild, unregenerate nature. And so he had to be under great brawny arms of discipline. And Genesis says he was thus in Abram's house all those uncomfortable years, right up until Genesis twenty one. And did you say why Genesis twenty one? Because at Genesis twenty one, the promised seed, Isaac, came. So here was the slave boy in the house with his mother Hagar all the while until the promised seed came. Genesis twenty one, the promised seed came. And as soon as the promised seed came, the command went out, now you can get rid of the slave boy.
And Paul isn't slow to see the analogy, is he? That was all true in Abram's life. It was after those years of the slave boy in the house, with all the difficulty of disciplining him, God fulfilled his promise, and God gave Abram and Sarah the son of the promise, born of promise, born of faith, a freeborn son to be his heir. And you know, Paul sees in that actual bit of real history a very clear analogy, doesn't he? Abram was given the justification by faith and promise of the inheritance through the seed, but there came the intervening centuries when God put them under the law, didn't he?
The law of Sinai, until the promised seed came, namely our blessed Lord himself. And why did God put them under the law in those intervening years? To do for Israel what Abraham had to do for Ishmael. The law was added because of transgression to keep Israel under. By those stern measures of law plus penalty. When the promessee came, Jesus Christ our Lord, oh how, how there came a difference. What happened when the promised seed came with, uh, with Abraham, incidentally?
Came in Genesis twenty one, didn't it? And Genesis twenty two tells you how the promised seed was taken up the mountain and offered in sacrifice to God. Yes. And Genesis twenty four says that at that stage God began a new movement. He started to bring out Abraham from the Gentiles and form the nation, and to keep him waiting, and then until the promised seed came, and when the promised seed came and was offered on the mountain of sacrifice, then Abram sent out by God's direction to the Gentiles, and there came another big move out of the Gentiles in the person of Rebecca. She was joined to Isaac.
So has it been in history. God visited the nations and took out Abraham and started the Jewish nation and promised him that the promised seed would come. Until he came, Israel were under the law. When the blessed Lord Jesus came, he and the Father walked to Calvary together, and the seed was offered. And the slave was cast out. And the inheritance was covenanted through the sacrifice of Calvary. And then God began the next big move out of the Gentiles once again on the day of Pentecost and after, and you and I, the Gentiles, were brought in and have been joined to the promised seed, the heavenly idol.
Paul isn't playing ducks and drake with typology. First of all, the principle was true in the literal history of his own life. That history so controlled of God as it becomes a prototype of the greater history from Abraham to Christ, right down to this very present. And his lesson therefore applied to Abraham, and it applies to us. How shall we inherit? Not as slaves, like, uh, Hagar and Ishmael, but as freeborn sons, like I.
Argument then, there follows in, in, in Galatians, as you'll see, another short argument from experience, but the argument becomes much more solemn. For now, Paul steps aside to argue that the false doctrine is wrong. How wrong? Why wrong? He shows it to be so desperately wrong by drawing out its implications. That is always the thing to do with false doctrines, when you get the opportunity, and in the appropriate place, of course, to push them to their logical conclusion and see where it comes to.
That Paul now does. All right, he says, you could be heirs through faith, freeborn sons, and living not like slaves, but as freeborn sons, and you're going back to this miserable doctrine of circumcision and the law and these human rules and regulations. Righto, but you can't have both. You see, I testify straight to you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. You cannot mix the two. You who would be justified by the law, you are fallen from grace because you cannot mix the two principles. Either you inherit on the terms of grace, or you try to inherit on the terms of law, but you can't mix the two.
Christ is of no effect for you. You would be justified by the keeping of the law. And certain other and very solemn things he says, we have not the time to stay upon them. But notice as we pass it, those words, chapter five verse two to chapter to verse twelve, Solemn words, as Paul draws out the implications of this false doctrine and pushes it to its conclusion. It isn't just an alternative version of Christianity, it's an either or, and you cannot have both.
With that, he comes again to talk of freedom. Chapter five and verse thirteen. And the verses that follow are so well known and so often preached upon, and far better than I could preach upon them anyway, that I shall not attempt to expound them in detail. That's not because I don't think they are important, they are exceedingly important, but I am under the tyranny of the clerk and the slave in that respect, if no other. Freedom. We thought about what it is. It's, it's living in the family of God, but as a son under a father and not as a little infant. It's living and going about your work for the Father as a freeborn son, who is to inherit freely because he is a son, and because he is the Father's son and has a great inheritance, which he didn't deserve but gets by grace, he's just as interested in his father in developing the inheritance.
Not like a slave trying to earn it, but because it's his, developing it. What is freedom? Well, now we'll learn what it isn't. You've been called to freedom, says Paul. Don't you use your freedom as an occasion for the flesh, for freedom is not permission to do as you like. Permission to sin and to imagine it doesn't matter, for it does matter. Why does it matter? Here in these verses, chapter five, verses thirteen to fifteen, and again in chapter six, verses six to ten, Paul tells us why sin matters.
It's only one of the reasons, but it is a serious reason. And that is this, that though a believer is freed from the penalty of sin, and there is no penalty, he is not necessarily freed from the consequences of sin. And if he sins, he will reap the consequences. Sometimes it seems to me we have so often preached and emphasized that there is no penalty for the believer.
And there is none, of course, that we've forgotten to emphasize that there are consequences, even for believers. You say name some, all right, says Paul, coming really down to earth. Now, take heed and, uh, don't start biting and devouring one another. Timely words of wisdom, aren't they? Because if evangelicalism has suffered from one blight more than another, it is in churches where they have bitten and devoured one another.
But why shouldn't we bite and devour one another? You say there's no penalty? No, my brother, there's no penalty. But why shouldn't I bite and devour one another? Because there are consequences. What kind of consequences, you say? Well, this. Take heed, for if you bite and devour one another, you will be devoured one of another. And just because you're believers, it won't save the consequences. And you will spoil part of your inheritance.
Won't you? And the peace and the joy and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost in practical terms in the church are ruined. He's a father, and he gives his, his grown-up son, in chapters twenty one, gives him a beautiful Jaguar car, free and for nothing. What would you say of the son who said, Father, hmm, you know, in days gone by, if I misbehaved, you used to give me six of the best. Mm, suppose I went out and drove this car at one hundred and twenty five down the road and skidded and put it in the ditch and ruined it, would you give me six of the best?
My father said, no, I shouldn't give you six of the best, my boy. Oh, oh, how nice. There's no penalty? No, no penalty. Right, I'll go and smash it up then. Silly jumble. Because there's no penalty for sin. Does it matter if we sin? Says Paul, look here, God has not mocked you now. What a man sows he reaps. Just you imagine a farmer. God has told him, couldn't think how, God has told this man to plant wheat in his field. And the man, being foolishly disobedient and headstrong, has gone and sown barley in the field.
The barley beginning to grow. Then the man realizes what a fool he's been. And he comes to God and asks pardon. Oh Lord, what a fool I've been. You told me to grow wheat, and I've gone and turned barley. Forgive me. Well, of course the Lord forgives him. And what then? Does a miracle and changes the barley to wheat. No, I'm afraid not, sir. There's no good you're getting down on your knees if you're the farmer and saying, oh God, turn this barley into wheat. There's got to do no such thing. What a man sows, he reaps. And if believers, as believers, we misbehave, we damage one another.
And we damage assemblies. There's no penalty. All but what consequences. So to the Spirit, and of the Spirit you shall reap eternal life. That is, you will enjoy it. As the Holy Spirit within you develops the life that God has given you with all its potentials, and you enjoy that eternal life, and even here in this world begin to reap the blessed consequences of eternal life. So to the flesh, as a believer, and of the flesh you will reap corruption, tears, brokenness, and things that perhaps in this life can never again be put right.
You say, if that is so, how can I know freedom if there is always present the danger of consequences like that coming because of my foolishness? Where do I know freedom? Not in doing as you like, of course not. That's a way to sorrow and misery. Not simply, however, in having a law. How then? You know the answer. By having the Holy Spirit within and being led of the Spirit. Now, if you are led of the Spirit, it's a different principle from law. It's not command plus penalty.
It's the life of the Holy Spirit within. One of the most strong arguments for the truth of the gospel that Paul preached is this, that not only is justification by faith, but the truth is evidenced in this, that justification by faith does not lead to ungodliness of life. Why doesn't it? Because at the same time as you get justification, you get God's Holy Spirit within. So finally, this then, says Paul, God has given us his Holy Spirit, you know, that doesn't mean that the old flesh is gone, the old flesh is still there, very much there.
And the spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit, and these two are contrary the one to the other, so that you might not do the things that you otherwise would. Here comes the flesh with all its ugly desires of spitefulness and revenge and narrow-mindedness, and urges itself forward. Ah, how shall I overcome it and put it in its place? By the desires of the spirit, because if you're a believer, the Holy Spirit is desiring the other thing. And in that moment when I'm about to be malicious and unkind and slander my brother and tell tales out of school, in those moments when I'm wanting to be peevish and get revenge, if I'm a believer, there will be another voice saying, no, you don't, no, you don't, this is wrong.
If I'm a believer, there is the Holy Spirit, and he will desire the other thing so that I don't do the first thing. Forgive the crudeness of the analogy, but I promise you, if you will, then I will cease. Have you ever come across shower baths? Why, sir, of course you have. But there are different kinds of shower baths, you know, available on the market. Some shower baths are very good, and some shower baths aren't quite so good. I had one at one stage. It was affixed to the taps, you'll see.
You turn the hot on, and then you try to get the cold to turn the hot a little bit down, but the cold wouldn't come. Hot hot hot cold tap on, nothing would happen. Okay, it's scalding hot. Watch yourself. And then, when you weren't looking, presently the whole thing turned like an iceberg. Out came the cold water, and there wasn't any hot. When some wise plumber explained to me all about this, he said, well, you see, there are these two jets of water, and one is so strong that as it's coming by, the hot is coming by so strong, the cold can't get out. It can't mix. And then presently the cold get the upper hand, and the cold comes out, and the hot can't penetrate it.
Oh, that can lead to disaster, I tell you, don't you get one of those showers, if you can help it. Little bit like the Holy Spirit in the flesh, isn't it? These two things are contrary one to the other. The Holy Spirit has given us that we might listen to his desires and yearnings and allow him to surge forward in our lives, and by his surging forward to cut off what otherwise would be the expression of our flesh. Many other arguments does Paul add there too, and we haven't time for them, but perhaps we've, uh, covered the major ones.
And tonight, how may I enjoy freedom, and what is it anyway? When you've all said and done, it's not through the law, it is through Christ. Oh, if I've got a theology, if I've got a secret of holiness that gives me the credit, then it's false. Those who want you circumcised, do it so they may boast in your flesh. God forbid that I should glory, says Paul. If I'm living a godly life, God forbid that I should take the credit for it. God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the means, not the law. That is the means by which I have been crucified to the world, and the world unto me. Shall we pray? O Lord, once more we have spent a long time at thy word. We thank thee for its intrinsic interest, how it delights our minds. But Lord, it goes beyond them, and now therefore we pray thy grace. So much of what we have thought about now we shall not be able to remember immediately as we go.
But by thy Spirit's power and presence, be pleased to use that word in our deep subconscious minds, cleansing our thoughts, and cause it to abide, stored in our minds, that thy Holy Spirit may bring it out in the day of need. And give us grace, Lord, privately to take thy word again as we have opportunity and quietly to go over it, that what has been of thyself might be indelibly written on our minds and hearts, so that thy spirit may use it in his daily struggle against our flesh.
Until that great day, when that evil flesh shall be no more, and thy spirit's work complete, and we conformed to the image of thy Son. Heart us then with thine evening peace, peace, and grant us thy blessing, ourselves individually, and on this church here, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. One further word, permit me to say, uh, that it is altogether my fault that I have kept you so long at these meetings. That is not the normal custom of the elders of this church or the, uh, preachers that they get, uh, from time to time.
If it has upset you, don't blame them, nor think that this is regular. Normally the preachers behave and you're out by nine o'clock, so don't let it stop you coming back. And if I personally have grieved you by going over time, please forgive me, and then I can't come again.
