The Life of Legalism Portrayed - Pt 3

Well, today we're going to do the last section of this Galatians 421 through 51. And could I get someone, I know it's a lot, to read 421 through 51 for us? Or if you want to read part of it and we'll have somebody else read part of it, that would be great, too. I think it's just go if you read through it. Just read it from up here? Yeah, that'd be fine. Do you not listen to the law?

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai, bearing children who are to be slaves. She is Hagar. Now, this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem. for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother. For it is written, Rejoice, barren woman, who does not bear. Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor. For more numerous are the children of the desolate than of the one who has a husband.

And you, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit. So it is now also. But what does the Scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir which is the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Thanks, Ronnie. OK, I'll go back and review a little bit.

The three sections here are basically the first section, 21 through 23, kind of state the story, or the premise, or the issue. And the issue is that the Galatian believers there, Paul asks them in the very first verse, tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you listen to the law?

And the rest of it, he's going to say, here's what the law is really saying. through an allegory. And actually, it's a factual allegory, not allegories that we talked last week many times are fictional kind of things. This is not fictional. This is a truthful allegory, but he's going to draw spiritual truths from that allegory.

And then the last part, so we basically have the issue, we have the allegory, and then we have the application to the Galatian believers and to us as well. So today we're going to focus on that part. And we're going to go back and review those two sections here shortly Okay, so so the application and just I wanted to just kind of look at this again here This is the application and he starts off and you brethren Like Isaac our children are promised and he goes through the focus. I think of this application is Kind of a kind of a really interesting part. It's verse 30. I believe he goes back. He says what does the scriptures say?

And he goes back and he quotes He quotes what Sarah said to Abraham, which really upset Abraham. Abraham said, we're going to cast out your bondsmaid. So she said to him, this is a quote, cast out the bondswoman and her son, for the son of the bondswoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman. And he's going to apply that to what he's been teaching them.

It seems harsh. And even Abraham, we're going to read that account. But God says, no, I want you to listen to your wife. This is my plan. And he says, I haven't forgot about Ishmael. He's going to be a nation. He won't have my blessing, but he's going to be a nation. And we know that's going to carry out.

So it's interesting that that is the key that he's going to try to show them about how devastating it is to have law and grace together. You've got to get rid of it. If you don't, you're going to mix them. The whole tenor here is about don't mix law and grace. If you do, you're going to get law. You're not going to get grace. We're going to go through each of these verses here. When you read that, it seems the Lord is going to quote this verse. That sounds like Sarah in the flesh to me. But she realized she couldn't have a dual airship in Abraham's. There couldn't be two airs. Only could be one air. And that's applied to law and grace. So that's really kind of neat. OK, so let's go on. So to review the historical facts, there were two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. We read through Genesis 16 on Ishmael and Genesis 17 on Isaac. We have two mothers, Hagar and Sarah. We have two positions.

Bondswoman, or actually literally it's a female slave. That's what that word literally means. A female slave and a free woman. And we have two conceptions slash births. We have one, a fleshly scheme that Sarah said, hey, God's going to provide something for us here, but we're going to help him out here. We can make this work. I'll find my bonds made, and you can do that. And that's a fleshly scheme.

Whereas God's plan was a supernatural birth by Abraham and Sarah. And what's interesting is we're going to see that if you ask most people, they'll say, yes, we're We're descendants, spiritual descendants of Abraham, but we're also spiritual descendants of Sarah, which comes out in this passage too. And you think, well, yes, it takes God, it took two people to make, it takes two people to make a child. I mean, you know, with the exception of Mary where, you know, in that case is a very special case, but it takes two people. So we're going to see, this is sort of the line of Sarah, if you will. And we're going to see that that's, that's supernatural as well. Just a thought.

Abraham and Isaac were way beyond the age of childbearing. It took God's intervention, just as it did with the birth of our Lord Jesus, for the birth. So, in essence, it's a child of promise, yes, but it's a child of the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in them, just like it was in Mary. And we're going to see that we're children of promise and it's a supernatural work in us.

And that's what Paul's saying. Don't think that you're just something ordinary. You're not. It's a supernatural work for every believer in the Lord Jesus. It's a supernatural thing. It's not a natural birth. And if you think it's a natural birth, that's a problem. So that's the historical facts. And then both these charts are from Hal. And this is Hal's spiritual principles illustrated in the allegory. Two covenants. We covered this last week.

The mosaic. representing law and the Abrahamic representing grace. Two sources, two mothers. We have Mount Sinai, the earthly Mount Sinai and the earthly Jerusalem. In contrast, with the promised seed, seed singular, there's also a seed plural for the nation of Israel, but the seed singular is the Lord Jesus Christ and a heavenly Jerusalem. And then we have two positions.

One is bondage, death, and one is life and liberty. But there's only one heir. The heir comes through the line of the free woman, through the line of Abraham. And that's the heir, and that's believer. So this idea of bondage, liberty, and heirs, those three words are going to show up a lot in the rest of these verses.

Donna? Hopefully this isn't too much of a betrayal. Ishmael, was he Jewish when he was born? And then when he was cast out, how did that work physically? Well, okay, I haven't been given yet, so you couldn't actually say. in that same sense that he was truly Jewish. That would be interesting to look at. I did not look at that.

I know that, and I mentioned this before, the Code Hammurabi said that, and I'm quoting this from somebody that quoted it, that the child of a slave was still a slave. So basically, Ishmael could not be, he was still a slave. He couldn't become free by being the son of Abraham. Abraham was free and Sarah were free, but they're slaves, a child that could not be.

So in that sense it would follow with the product. It follows with the mother. And we're going to see Hagar is what is in bondage. And that's kind of the parallel. We see Hagar. We're tracing the line of the mothers rather than the line of the fathers. The mothers in this passage here. We look at Hagar. That represents the earthly, Mount Sinai, bondage, death. Sarah represents the promise, liberty, life, and so on. I think Tom was right. It would be interesting to trace back. That's the two reviews. Now we're going to start off with the first verse.

So basically what I did here, like Isaac, it's a prepositional phrase. So I just took the sentence we really read, you brethren are children of promise. And brethren are brother or brothers in Christ. Are is eimi, it's a Greek verb that we see quite a bit. It's a state in which something or someone continuously exists. So basically it's saying that we continuously exist He said, you brethren, and us, our children are promised. That's the state which every believer that trusts the Lord Jesus Christ, that's his state.

What's interesting is the prepositional phrase says, like Isaac, according to, is the translation of that Greek word, according to the Norman standard, which is Isaac. So the standard was Isaac. He was a supernatural child of promise, and we're a supernatural child of promise. So Paul says, you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise, according to Isaac as being the standard.

And that's another of the same kind. Right, another of the same kind. I thought Qatar was a court, anyway. That's what I remember from my Greek studies. All right, well, I'll have to check on that. Let's talk about that. Alas is another different... Right, right. Well, that's like new. I think that's new. Let's see. I'm getting confused. I'm confusing myself here. Forget it. Okay, all right. No, I agree with you on what you said about Alas, and they're the same kind.

Anyway, it's according to, according to the Norman standard, which is Isaac. Okay, so children of promise, basically. And we've kind of said this, Isaac was a promised miraculous birth. Every brother in Christ is a promised miraculous birth. And let's just look at, let's just read Romans. Let's go back to Romans and it kind of talks about this Believers being children of promise, Romans 9. Can I get someone to read verses 6-8?

Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of David are they all children. But in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. that the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

Okay, yeah, actually, so that's King James rendering? Yes, King James. Okay, no, that's fine. I think in this case, I like the New American Standard, it says, in verse 8, it says, this is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise as regarding descendants. So every believer is a child of promise. Focusing back on what God did with Isaac. So I was totally wrong.

Okay. Good. You may feel a lot better because I think I was loosening it here. Thank you. Okay. That's good. Thanks, Roy. Thank you. I appreciate you. All is fair in love and spiritual warfare. It's not supposed to be spiritual warfare among the brethren, right? That's something else. OK. Thanks, Roy. I appreciate your sharing that. OK. Let's go on. OK.

Verse 29. But as at that time he was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the spirit. So it is now also. That's hard to read. Okay, this is a fill in the blank. I decided you guys were getting kind of slack here. You're slacking off. Roger, let me correct my rotten reading here. That's not the seed of Abraham.

Good, that's excellent. That's very good. I like that. And that fits with scripture. Excellent. Praise the Lord. OK. So fill in the blank here. So it says, as at that time. So this actually isn't that hard. What time is Paul talking about here? In the context of what we want. It says, at that time. What time is he talking about here? Okay, any other thoughts? Think of the contents of what we read.

It's a birth, it's... Actually, this isn't fair. We're going to read the verse that gives all the answers here in a second, so it's not going to be fair. But anyway, the answer is, it's a time when Isaac is born and Ishmael will mock him. I believe this is in that context. So it's at the time of Isaac's birth, I would say. So this one ought to be easy. He was born according to the flesh. Ishmael, right. We're rolling here. Now we're going to read, I kind of have this in between, it's the way it comes in the verse.

So basically persecuted is to pursue literally, and actually it's in this imperfect tense, which is ongoing and pastime. So it says this persecution was ongoing, ongoing in past time. It fits perfectly with the fact that Paul's talking in his days looking back to Abraham. He says that persecution was ongoing back then. And now we're going to read about it in Genesis 21, 1-9. And there isn't a lot here, not a lot of detail about this, but just kind of a, but it's kind of good to read this. Genesis 21, and I'll get someone to read 21, 1-9.

Then the Lord took note of Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as he had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of this son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Now Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

Sarah said, God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me. And she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age. The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.

9. Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking him. Okay, actually this answers the question that Donna had. This is good.

So, it looks like that they were Egyptian. Not, so Abraham was called a Uruk-Haldes, right? So it's different, so you're right. They are not of the, and that's probably why they're so slaves. So she's Egyptian, okay, that's good. So basically here, so here's, and it's kind of lost in the very last part, it just says that, now Sarah saw the son of Hagar, who's that? Okay, good. The Egyptian, whom she had born to Abraham, I'm sorry, whom she had born to Abraham, mocking. So he was mocking, and literally the word is, I lost it here, Roger. No, actually I don't have much more than that. What do I do with that? No, I have that. Do I have that someplace else? Anyway.

So who is Ishmael mocking? What exactly is he mocking? Well, from that verse it's very hard. And I read that verse many times. To me it looks like, from what I take it, he's mocking Sarah. He's mocking Abraham, I don't know, Sarah, the child? I don't know. It doesn't say. You're right. In the footnote it says you're all playing. Yeah, and actually the word, yeah, it, okay, I do have a, it's a laughing, a laugh, a laughter, a laughing scorning is what I, it's a better translation, a laughing, it's playing and laughing but you're putting a person down, you're scorning them.

And it could, you know, think about, you know, it could be that Ishmael said, well, and I think it was, what was the difference in age, about nine years maybe. So he was, and I have that someplace, I'm not exactly sure, it's about between Ishmael, oh yeah, I know where it was. Abraham was like 89, 11 years maybe. He was like 89 at the birth of Ishmael. And became 91 by... So Ishmael is about 11 or 12. It could be, well it took you long enough, you guys, I don't know, it's total conjecture.

That verse is actually the only verse we have. I did a search on mocking and I didn't find much in terms of the Abrahamic story. Would Hagar and Ishmael be thinking though that they were the first born and would inherit? Well, if they understood that code, I don't think they would. I don't think they would. Well, they would if there was no natural born. And I guess that's what they were hoping for.

Yeah, the same thing with Isaac. Right. And that's why God sent his servant in to get a relative to come down and marry Isaac. Right. The same Hammurabi code applied there too. Right. That's good. That's good. So it looks like Ishmael was mocking the birth of Isaac, basically. So Paul's going to draw on that, because he says that, basically he says, and let's just go on here, him who was born according to the Spirit, and that's Isaac, right? And so here's the key part. So now he says, remember back when with the birth of Isaac, Ishmael was mocking.

He says, we have the same issue today. He says, we have the same tension. And he relates it to the struggle between the flesh and the spirit, basically. And so I have several verses. The one in Acts is about Stephen. Maybe we'll just skip that in the interest of time. It talks about Stephen and how he was persecuted before he was stoned. But the ones that are interesting are basically the ones that will come up on here later. In Galatians, well, let's first read 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 3.12. This basically makes a statement, and indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So persecution, including mockery, including all kinds of things, is part of the Christian life. And then in Galatians, it's much more to the point of what we're seeing here. It talks about the tension, or the battle, in a sense. And let's read Galatians 5, 16 and 17. I want someone to read that, Galatians 5, 16 and 17.

Then I say, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. So Paul takes a real life event, if you will, and makes a contrast to what's happening And I thought even better, and I didn't have any good examples of what was going on Paul's day with the Judaizers. And maybe with a little more looking into it, you could find, probably in Acts, you could find some cases where the Judaizers were on Paul's case all the time. And that's hence why he wrote Galatians. So they were constantly, constantly after him about the law, over and over and over again. It wouldn't give up.

He's writing this to try to say that's not the path to godliness. That's not what God desires. And he goes back and tries to give them an example they will understand between Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac. So that's a kind of persecution. And actually I have a quote here. It says, the flesh will persecute the spirit. It's the nature of the flesh. Go ahead, Gail. different illustrations that I'm thinking of is they did that to Jesus. Right, exactly. And I think they probably did it to Timothy. I think there's some, I'm not aware, but some mention of that kind of thing.

And then I'm reading a novel at home I just started. It's called The Coffee Traitor. And it's about when coffee was first introduced into Europe. And this guy is Portuguese and he's fled to Amsterdam, which is very accepting and tolerant and all that. he's Jewish and he had fled Portugal where they had like secret Jews, they were called, because the Catholics persecuted them, well the Moors before that.

But what they did to each other was they had a group of people who were very legalistic who would go around and spy and even dress in disguise and spy on other Jews to make sure that they were keeping the law. Interesting. And that they weren't associating with certain people. And then if they didn't like what they were doing, they would in effect excommunicate them.

Well, that's interesting. That's very interesting. And that's what, that was what Paul's up against. Yeah. And he's trying to bring that, you know, to those believers there. And then the application to us about not letting law Law can't be part of what you, you know, if you let law in, you have to open the door to that, you're in trouble.

I like your definition there, to pursue, because that really illustrates. Right, and that's good, isn't it? Exactly, exactly, that's good. Okay, so let's continue on here. Okay, so now Paul's going to say, here's the solution to the problem. So let's just go here.

But what do the scriptures say? And actually, if you still go back to Genesis, this is what Sarah said after the birth of Isaac. This is what Sarah said. Back to Genesis 21. Therefore she said to Abraham, this is right after we had about the mocking. In verse 9 it was, Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, mocking, I'm sorry, the son of the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore, she said to Abraham, drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be heir with my son, Isaac.

I thought that was really good. And it's a little corny, you know, it's corny in terms of the free woman in this case, but that was really good. So basically, he's going to go back to that and he's going to bring it up. He said, here's the plan. This is what you should do. This is a plan of action, so to speak.

And you probably said this, but Arabs are still persecuting and mocking the Jews. Yeah, actually. Thanks, Bonnie. Thank you. It's just carried on. Yeah, exactly. And it hasn't stopped. In our day and age, it's just denying that things happen, wiping out the whole state of Israel. It's incredible.

So Paul has a strong response to that. He says, cast out or to drive out, to drive forth, cast out the bondswoman. What does a bondwoman represent? We saw the flesh. There's a whole bunch of parallels. The flesh, bondage, the law. The bondwoman That whole line is labeled with all those characteristics.

And actually the physical seed through Sarah, which became Jerusalem. That's what it says here in the text. Jerusalem, which was the Jewish nation, was mocking Christians. They became the sons of Hagar. Exactly. By allegory. I know, isn't that interesting? Yeah. I know, that's interesting. In comparison to Jerusalem above, in comparison to the earthly Jerusalem. Right.

You know, Jerusalem was the place, I mentioned last week, was the place that, that's where they kept the law perfectly, I mean, they tried to. They were watching each other to make sure that each other kept the law. And Paul says, you know, spying out our liberty, talking about, you know, they couldn't keep the law while there were all those sheep in Bethlehem to take care of that business. So really we're persecuted or pursued or whatever you want to say by both Sarah's children as well as Hagar's children in that sense, because we have the Arabs and we have the Jews both saying, and the other wants to keep their heritage through Sarah. But neither one wants to keep their heritage through Grace. Grace is the most hated... what's the quote, Bonnie? I always forget. It's the most hated thing in the world. Who's the... I can't remember. Maybe Schaefer. I think it was Schaefer. And this really shows that. This set of passages here. Okay.

But the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman. Heir is a birthright inheritance. So in Galatians 3.18 it says, For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise. But God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.

So we're a son of the free woman. So like I said, this is the line, this is the mother's line through this. And this one seems maybe, he comes back and he does it, so then, brethren, he already said that we're a son of the free woman. He kind of says, well now, he's going to make a, and I'll reiterate, also, we are not children of the bondswoman, but we are children of the free woman. Exactly, exactly. We are the spiritual children of the free woman. Therefore be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. So it's a spiritual connection that we have with Abraham and Sarah. Roger, it's kind of interesting.

I just stopped to think. the Koran that these Muslims were living by, you wonder how, if they based anything at all on things that they knew about the Bible, was this a deliberate eradication of that very point you were talking about there to make sure that didn't appear, or is that in that Koran, I wonder?

I'm not exactly sure I know what you're asking, I'm sorry. Excuse me for interrupting. Don't know about the Korean department, but as far as the Saudi Arabians see it, they were the totally legitimate and legit. Oh, I see. That is interesting. They flipped the story. I actually haven't done enough studying on that.

Well, God does say, and we actually didn't read it back in Genesis 21, He does say that He will make a nation. He promises. In fact, that's when Abraham says, Lord, Sarah says to cast out the bondwoman. And He says, listen to her what she said. He said, I'm going to make a nation. Ishmael will be a nation. So He said, I'm going to take care of that. he'll be taken care of. But he didn't say it would be a good thing. The seeds that were sown in that path will be fulfilled. One last comment before we run away with saying it is altogether a bad thing. The last nation or group of people that were mentioned as praising the Lord when the You're talking about a future day?

Oh yeah, what's interesting is they're going to come to Israel. You know about God? Please tell us. Please tell us. I know if you read, there's several in Nehemiah and other places. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. Everything is turned around. Israel has, they're the connectivity to God and they want to know what God, and they're going to come to Israel to know about God. It's incredible. No, I agree. That's wonderful. Okay, alright.

So then, many think that this verse is kind of, the chapter division was poor here. This should be the last verse of the previous chapter. Because this is kind of his culmination, if you will. It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Actually, I like the literal rendering of that. It's kind of hard. You've got the word You've got the verb form and the noun form. I'll just go ahead and show that here. The literal translation is Christ freed us for the freedom, which is kind of hard to say. To me it made more sense, it was more helpful I guess I should say. So the first freed is a verb. To make free comes from the word deliverance. And then the noun form is basically liberty. So Christ freed us for liberty.

So then the question comes up, and it also has a definite article which is even more interesting. What does the freedom refer to? If you don't look at the paper I have my answer but I'd like to hear what you think. inflation laws, but they're at work reviewing price. Would that be, at the very top, it was for the freedom? Is that what we're saying here?

Okay, basically the literal rendering, see what they've done is they've put in the noun in front of it, they put the noun first, it was for freedom, the noun form of that, I can't pronounce it, but anyway, the noun forms first, and then set us free is freed. So I found it easier to read the literal translation to be Christ freed us for the freedom. Or you could say Christ freed us for the liberty, which might be a little bit easier to say and understand. Christ freed us for the liberty.

So the question is, what is the liberty? What's he talking about here? The work of the Spirit. Okay, all right, that's good. Okay, I'll give you that. Okay. It's, you know, the freedom or liberty we have in Christ, like I did in the rest of it. Okay.

It's basically, the only liberty we have is in Christ. There's no other freedom outside of Christ. And His freedom becomes our freedom because we're identified with Him. So, it's basically the freedom we have in Christ, I believe. He set us free because He allowed us to be free, paid for our sins, identified with us, so that we would be free to be in Him, identified with Him, and free to do what pleases Him, free to focus on Him. Under the law, we've got to focus upon all the do's and don'ts, right? In Christ, we're free to focus on Him.

So may I say that poorly, but the freedom, the liberty, the freedom is the liberty we have in Christ. I probably didn't write it correctly as well either. Well, and Roger, I was thinking too, that's really a fact. that he's setting forth there, right? That liberty is, whether you make use of it or not, it's yours. Christ did that. Exactly.

Positionally, we have the liberty. The question is, are we going to return back to a yoke of slavery? Are we going to go back under it? We have the liberty. We have the liberty to focus on Him. Are we going to go back to, you know, to a way that doesn't allow us to focus on him, that focuses on all the do's and don'ts of life.

Which represents the law. I've heard it said that there's a tyranny of the Holy Spirit that's far greater than the tyranny of the law. In that, if there's anything that we are adding underneath the tyranny of the Holy Spirit, by the Spirit to lead us to just rest and let him do his job. I'm not saying it right, Roger. It flip sides it. If there's anything good, it's the Word of the Holy Spirit. Well, and that's basically, if there's any freedom, there's no freedom outside of Christ. I mean, he'll say, oh yeah, I'm free. I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever sin I want. It's part of the deal.

Yeah, basically. I may be a good sinner, or what we consider a good sin. I can spit and all the flavors of spit. Okay. Anyway. I'm sorry. That's okay. Okay, so the last part of the verse is, Therefore keep standing firm and it's this is a command present imperative And I can I'm basically, you know, it's What are we standing firm against here, but in the context we've been talking about? That's the punch. Okay, or the law Right. All right.

I think it's right Okay So he says, don't be subject until yoke of slavery. Subject is to be held in and tangled with. The yoke is coupling two things that were not to be coupled with this law system. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then you're heir through God.

OK. All right. So basically, I just went through and I kind of picked out the highlights here and tried to kind of summarize. So basically, we are children of promise like Isaac. We are persecuted by those according to the flesh. Cast out the bondwoman and her son. So this is why I kind of, for today's, reject law as a basis and practice for the Christian life. We are heirs with the son of the free woman. We are children of the free woman, not the bondswoman. And these are spiritual truths. Christ freed us for the freedom, for liberty. And lastly, don't be subject again to a yoke of slavery. Roger? Yes, sir. If I may interrupt you. Sure, sure. An unknowing answer to the question.

Jesus said of himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life. That word truth, as he put it there, it's part of what we're talking about here. He is the truth. He is the truth, and he is the freedom. There is no life true life outside of Christ. People think they have life. He's all those things. And he's freed us to live in that freedom. To live in that liberty. It's hard to say that. Make Christ freed us for the liberty. And the translation isn't all that bad. The translation is, it was for freedom that Christ set us free. So that's good too.

So we're to stand in liberty, stand in the place He's placed us. And we're to operate that way, not go back again to the things of the law, of trying to perform to do a certain set of things that we believe will please God. We already please Him. And we're to believe that and walk by faith in the liberty He's given us. So we're in liberty to believe in Spain.

Right, you're always operating on, am I measuring up to this standard? And you're always, and you say I can't make that standard, and that's what they're supposed to realize, you can't attain to that standard. Yeah, our choice is do we really believe God or not? Exactly, and it comes down to that, right?

So this whole section was focusing the Galatians and us back to historical facts with Abraham This has been good for me, because I've been through Galatians before, but seeing how much the line of Sarah is important, and that contrast between Sarah and Hagar, how important that is, it really came out in this set of verses.

This would be very offensive to you. I know. No kidding. Oh, I know. Well, actually, the thing about casting out, I mean, wait a minute. Abraham was upset by that a little bit, but you take, well, I'm going to cast out the entire legal system, just cast it out. I mean, that's, you know, Actually, I've been using Hal's notes and he had a section in there, are we at Holly Hill's anti-law? Because he taught this.

Weeks and weeks go by, you guys I'm sure were here. And he says, we're not anti-law. The law is holy and righteous and just. It's just the law is not a means to live the Christian life. You can't live the Christian life by the law. And we fulfill the law by faith in Christ because it's his life that fulfills it.

So anyway, but he said, are we anti-law? And he spent quite a few, you know, I looked through different, you know, different weeks in that, you know, we're not anti-law. Is it safe to say we're anti-works? Well, they're good works, right? Those works that Christ says through us. Antiphony comes from the flesh. The law. Self-effort. The law is wonderful. Actually, in Galatians, it talks about... I thought it was a good verse. Why the law?

It's in Galatians 3.19. Why the law? It was added because of transgressions. It was added to control the fleshly nature. Law does do that. It does control it. But it's not a means of salvation. And that's what God's trying to point out. It was added because of transgressions. OK, all right.

So next week we go on to 5.2 and beyond. So we're going into more interesting verses. Yeah, there's 25 times the word law. appears in Galatians, and we're about maybe, we're getting down two-thirds of the way, something like that. We've got more about law. It's not going to end here. All right, so let's close.

We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have. Lord, thank you that we can trust you and rest in you. Thank you for the liberty we have in Christ, that we can just spend our time focused on Him, pleasing you by our faith and trust in what he has planned for us. In Christ's name, Amen.