Paul’s Letter to the Gauls (Galatians) – Chapter 4

Man of the year. I really expected…Gorbachev…man of the year. I tell you, it’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming. He’s on worldwide television, and he’s speaking to the whole world, and the whole…oh, it’s coming, man. (tongue in cheek) Listen, the guy who fit it more than anyone in my lifetime was Mussolini when I was a little kid. Well, there were cases built for Mussolini that were airtight. I mean, they were airtight. That guy was back in Rome. Maybe you know that, in the Colosseum he actually had built, on the side of the Colosseum, five large granite maps. One of them, the Roman Empire, when it was small, a little bigger when it got bigger, and then he built one of what he wanted it to be again in his lifetime, and it covered virtually all of Europe, and man alive, he looked like it. I want to tell you something. I don’t have the nerve to…I’m in chapter 12. No, I don’t. I don’t believe anymore that there is, or ever will be, a contemporary man of sin. Now, there’s a doctrine for you. I don’t believe that there is a beast out there, and I don’t happen to believe that there’s going to be a thousand-year reign. If you want to believe all of that, you go right ahead and believe it, but will you please not let it get in the way of your Lord? My dear brother, it is future stuff, and you can’t alter it, no matter what.

Now it’s verse 12. I beg you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You have done me no wrong. I came there with bodily illness to preach to you. Where is your blessing now that you’ve gone back to the elemental things? Have I become your enemy by telling you about grace? Then, in verse 17, they eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out in order that you may seek them. And I want to stop you on verse 17. I’ve already referred to this in an earlier message, but I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, one of the ways you can tell whether or not you’re under bondage is whether or not you have to go back and ask somebody else what is and is not proper conduct. There is a mark, and I have watched this, that is so consistent with that which is legalism and law. It is invariably true. You do not know what pleases God. You have to ask a man or a woman, thereby establishing a mediator between God and man, determining what is good and what is evil. The issue is not good and evil. It is not right and wrong. The issue is death and resurrection. The issue is the old man who belongs to this world and the new man who belongs to another realm. A man who is under slavery to all ordinances on this earth, and a man who has nothing to do with any ordinances upon this earth. It is always good to be eagerly sought after in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you, but they’re not doing it for a good reason. My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed within you. There’s that “in” again. Again, and again, there’s “in”; now what does he mean by, I am laboring again though Christ be formed in you.

I’m going to speak for Paul here. I’m going to speak for myself; I don’t know what it means, but this is what it means to me, and I’m sure it means something different than it might to you. I labor with you that Christ be formed in your spirit, and if something happens that gets clogged up, then I labor again for Christ to be once more formed and released in your spirit. Then, as He grows deep within your innermost being and goes out and starts reaching into your soul, and you start acting funny because the spirit of God starts working on you, and your soul wants anything but the cross of Christ and the enthronement of the Lord over your nature. Once more I labor that Christ be formed in you. Not this time in your spirit, but in your soul. I labor again and again and again. Tonight, I’m laboring that Christ be formed in you. But Gene, He’s already formed me here. Yes, but He is being formed. He is being formed. And as He takes more territory, new things arise, and we labor again and again that Christ be formed in you. Paul has gone back and picked up his pick and shovel, and he’s going back to the basics of the Christian faith: that Christ be formed in them. They have grown up to the point that they have outgrown the grace of salvation. They have gone to law, and Paul is laboring with them that they will return to grace, not only for salvation but also for their Christian walk.

Verse 20. But I could wish to be present with you now and change my tone. Tell me, those of you who are under the law, do you not listen to the law? I’m just going to stop here and finish. Now comes the fun part. This is really funny. The rest of this section is as funny as it can be. When Blastinius came among you, do you remember that he said Paul did not come from the mother church? All Jews looked upon Jerusalem as the place. Everything came from Jerusalem. Paul comes from some place called Antioch to you. When Paul heard this, he was incensed. He’s already referred to Jerusalem once, and he says, “I did go to Jerusalem, and I did get approval.” But he’s not through with this Jerusalem issue yet. Paul does the most audacious thing. In fact, this may be what got him killed.

He is going to turn an insult into an outright injury. He is going after Jerusalem tooth and claw. Are you ready? Listen to the law. The law says that if you break any part of the law, you’re guilty of having disobeyed all of the law. Do you not know? Listen, it is written that Abraham had more than one son. He had two sons. The first son that he had was named Ishmael. Do you know how Ishmael was born? A slave. They had gone out and purchased this woman. They bought her. She was a slave, a meek slave sitting over there on one side. And Sarah goes to Abraham and says, “Have a son through her, and I will call him my own.” Maybe that’s what God wanted us to have.

Quit smoking, chewing, cussing, and drinking. Maybe that’s what will please God. We will never quit smoking, drinking, and cussing. We will get to know Jesus Christ, and we’ll forget such things. But that man did what all law does to all of us, all standards of conduct. He went in with his physical hands and sought to do the will of God by human labor. And he sought to gain God’s promise by his own physical effort. In other words, he tried to live the Christian life by his own personal physical efforts. He went into Hagar. She bore a child in a natural way. There was nothing divine, nothing miraculous about it, nothing heavenly. And she was a slave. The reason Paul says she was a slave and the reason Ishmael was a slave is that they were born naturally. And if you work to please God by ordinances and obedience and by any rules or regulations or subjections to men in moral conduct, you have put yourself where Hagar and Ishmael had been. You put yourself under bondage. You have made yourself a slave to human effort, and the blessing of God goes with it.