Paul’s Letter to the Gauls (Galatians) – Chapter 2

I am going to say it again. Those dear brothers and sisters who wore those funny clothes took all that time thinking about adultery trying to keep from doing it but that’s all they thought about and in so doing they cut themselves off from the indwelling Spirit of God and thereby took themselves from the only hope the only engine of the Christian faith there is, and were left to perform on their own physical will power, and that won’t last very long. You’ll be back facing the fact that you are a sinner who cannot perform. Do you understand? Alright. Praise the Lord. There’s hope here, saints. We’re coming up to the next verse.

For through the law…through law, I died to law, that I might live to God. Praise the Lord. Mercy. What has happened in verse 19? Through law, I died to the law. Paul had a wonderful experience that most of the Pharisees did not have. He was driven to death by his own standard of conduct. The rest of them kept bluffing. He was driven to death. There came a moment when he saw the futility of what he was doing, and God used law as an instrument to do a very spiritual thing. God used law to put Paul to death. Now, do you understand what happens to you on that glorious day when you give up law? You say, “Lord, I can’t stand this any longer. I have been dead for three days, and I stink. Lord, I am so miserable. I can’t do this.” You might as well do that the day you get saved and get over with saints, because one day you’re going to have to do it or lose any and all joy with the Lord. At this point, the Lord will show you what is already true. A fixed established point, and that is: you’re dead to law.

When did you die to law? When did you die to all law? Please tell me. I’m sorry. Do you know when you died to law? Now, when Christ died, you died to law, but you didn’t know that. So, the law had to come show you that. You will not be convinced of it until you are driven to despair about your own nature. Then you come to a point where you say, “Law, I can’t do this anymore,” and you make the great discovery of the next verse, which is where we’re headed: that you are already dead. Law puts you to death, and Christ puts you to death. Actually, law brought you up to the cross. You, in desperation, came to be dragged by law, and Christ put you out of your misery and put Law out of its misery, too. Now I’m going to stop here a minute before I come to the next verse. I want to try to put that in perspective.

Two thousand years ago, I died to law, all law. But in November of 1962, after having been an evangelist and having preached as much a portion of Christian law as any man has, I discovered that I could no longer pretend; I could not live up to the very things I preached. I had Romans 6,7 and 8 out, and I was in my backyard, and I found out that I was dead to the Christian life. Forgive me, but that’s exactly how it came to me. Not to the law. I’m not a Jew. I’m a Gentile, that I was dead to the Christian life. Now, I’d already been dead to the Christian life for 2000 years; all law, all standards of ethical conduct, all rules, and all regulations. I had always been free, but I did not know it. But I can tell you, brothers and sisters, I got totally free that weekend, and it’s been growing ever since, the reality of it, and this is what I want to tell you. Do you know what my testimony of freedom is? I really want you to know.

Brad, where are you? What’s your testimony? I remember the week you just went around about that far off the ground. What were you giving up, brother? Or what were you finally discovering? You were euphoric…You were thrown out of your house because you were so legalistic that no one could live with you. I remember that. You are one of the most legalistic brothers I ever met in my life. You know, you had more legalism toward us than toward yourself. Have you ever noticed? You never noticed. J, did you ever notice? Oh, you did notice. Okay. Alright. We all do that.

My day of freedom came one Sunday morning, right after that, when I announced to my dear wife that I was not going to go to church, and I felt like I was about to commit the unpardonable sin. I held on to my freedom in Christ with absolutely everything I had. I wasn’t going back to that thing ever again if I could possibly keep from it. My dear wife, who stuck with me through thin, thinner, and thinnest, did not know what to think. She asked me a few questions. She was a little disturbed. My daughter, Linda, began to cry. Cindy, our younger daughter, did not know what was going on, but she started crying. I did not give in, but I want you to know, it was one of the most difficult moments of my life. I had denied my children the privilege and the necessity of Sunday school. It was 11:00 a.m., and we were not in church. I had never known of a Christian in my life, especially a minister, who had ever done that anytime, anywhere. I had no place to pin that. As far as I was concerned, to my knowledge, I was the first human being ever to do that.

The next Sunday rolled around, and I took my wife and my two children out to Tyler Lake, and we went out into the woods, and I read them some Bible. I didn’t know what to do, saints. Boy, God was so good to me, taking me from that point and showing me everything that’s been shown since then. I mean, that’s all I had was my freedom. That’s all I had. When we went out, I read some scripture to them. I said a little prayer, and I took two little branches…I hope you’ve read it, and I hadn’t at that time…Hines’s Feet on High Places. She had the little pouch where she kept her memoirs. Well, I didn’t know any of that at all, but I took two little branches, and I tied them together in the shape of a cross, and I put them there in the ground where we were as an everlasting memento that I was dead, and I was free, and I was going to find out what that meant as a believer in Christ. I wasn’t stepping down; I was stepping up. And yes, it is true that I’m a little wild. Yes, brothers and sisters, it is true I am a little strange, but I have been free since the cross of Christ. But I’ve been living in the experience of that freedom since that week in Tyler, Texas, and nobody has ever or ever will take that freedom from me. You shall not put me back in bondage to anything. Christ alone is my allegiance.

Now listen to the next verse. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh…in this body…I live…hear me, by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me. Now, I hope I can do this. There is something titanic here. When Paul sat down to write this letter, he wouldn’t give an inch for nothing. He is determined to show you that you can’t gain merit from the Lord, and there is no human instrumentality in your walk with Christ. None. That if there is human instrumentality, you have dethroned the Lord and you have enthroned man, his will, and his works.

Listen to the way he wrote it. The translator does not translate it this way, but there is no question about the way it was written in the original. And the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. The life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. The life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. The “of” is there. The faith is “of Him.” It is not you. You do not live by your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You live by the faith of Jesus Christ. On the day you were converted, He initiated, He originated, He created, He authored the faith by which you were converted, and it is by His faith, in you, His faith that is living inside of you, His present faith in you, by which you will survive as a believer. It will not be by the standards of men, but it was initiated and lives in you from Him.

Now, what is the faith of Jesus Christ? The faith of the Lord Jesus Christ is: I saw you before I created the universe. I saw you with My eyes. I marked you out in Me. You were in Me before I created. I have gone to the ends of time and to the threshold of the ends of eternity and I have found you there in the great multitude that is singing worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the Lamb and I have seen you here and I have seen you there and My faith is that you made it, and it is My faith, the Son of God, my faith, that causes you to live.

I want to go through that verse again and again and again and again. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live. If I am dead, I have been crucified with Christ. Christ lives where? Hey, say it. Just say one word. “In” Say it again. ‘In” Say it again. In your outward external conduct? No. Where does He live? “IN” You Pharisees are like a tomb. You outwardly look great, but inside, you have dead men’s bones. You who are redeemed, you outwardly may or may not look great, but inwardly, you have what? Christ. Not dead men’s bones. He is in you, and the life which is being lived on this earth right now is being lived by Christ’s own eternal ability to move inside and outside of time and inside and outside of eternity and to know all things and to see all things. He has faith in you, or He would never have loved you, died for you, redeemed you, saved you, and brought you forth on this earth to be His. You live by the faith of Christ that reaches from eternity to eternity. It is by that faith you live. Now stand up and boast if you can in your conduct, in your morality, in your prayer, in your anything. You and I don’t even have the privilege of initiating the faith by which we are saved, and this is not the last time Paul will say this.

You know, saints, in my entire ministry, I have never preached believing and having faith. Never once. Haven’t now. Never will. I’ve always thought that was the most ridiculous waste of time. Oh, brothers, we’ve got to believe. No, we don’t. We already believe. We’re going to find out that belief…by the way, did you know the words ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ are the same word in Greek? We use, I’m sorry that we can’t say, I faith in Jesus Christ. I faith in Jesus Christ; that Christ faith in me… His faith. You already believe. Saints, don’t ever get burdened down with believing. Where do you think you got your nickname? You are, say it, a believer. That’s what you do. You are a believer, but it’s Him who is believing…in you. And He did that a long, long, long time ago.