Paul’s Letter to the Gauls (Galatians) – Summary

That human being was born inside of you, only he wasn’t you. I don’t know what you call him. You say a divine being? I don’t know, but somebody was born inside of you. A baby was born inside of you, and as soon as he was born, he said, “Daddy. Daddy.” You’ve got a new Father. First adopted while still a human, adopted out of the law, and then inseminated with the divine nature, and the child is born and cries, ” Daddy, daddy, daddy.” That was a natural thing of your spirit, and it’s going on inside of you right now. Let your spirit cry out, ‘Abba… Father.” It’s good for you to get somewhere and say, “Abba,” let your spirit cry out, “Father…Daddy” …to the Lord. He has put His Spirit in you, and you’re divinely created now, and you’re a son of God, and that spirit cries out, “Abba Father.” You cry out to the Lord as your Father.

Now we’re no longer slaves, neither under the law nor are we children, as good as slaves, but now you have become not an heir, not an inheritor, not a child, but you are now a son. If you’re a son, you are an heir. I wonder what that says. I bet that says an heir of God. Did anybody bring another one of those translations? Heir of God. I’m sure it’s an heir of God. You inherit God. However, at that time, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are no gods. But now you have come to know God. He makes a reference back to the time before you were converted. I think He’s speaking here to the Gentiles. And He makes this statement. “And now that you have come to know God,” and He stops, and he says, “Eraser.” He looks around for an eraser. That’s not good enough; he can’t erase it. They haven’t invented erasers, and he says, “No, you haven’t come to know God. Something more important than that has happened. God has come to know you.”

Well, Bob, where are you from? If I invite you to the graveyard in Santa Barbara, is there anyone you know out there? I didn’t think so. Well, I want you to know that one day God got to know you because you suddenly appeared in His universe. You suddenly appeared in His realm. In His realm, because you’re now a heavenly creature. You’re born from above. You’re going to find out in just a moment how heavenly you are. I didn’t write this book; if I were writing it, I would have put it in there. You now belong to the heavenlies, and you appeared, and God knew you. You are known by God, and that’s far better, far more important than you knowing God. For you to know God, there could always be the possibility of an error. That could get to be dangerous. You might have had a miscalculation in judgment, but boy, for God to know you… I told someone at the dinner table today that, some years ago, my wife was reading a newspaper article about some movie stars who were something… She was so disgusted. She threw that down, and she said, “God doesn’t even know those people exist.” And there was more truth in that than she realized. They are reckoned dead. They are reckoned dead, and you don’t go around getting to know dead people. But now, through the spirit, you have been made alive in Christ, and God knows you. Or rather, now that you have become known by God, and now, brother Paul really goes back to the problem.

How is it that you would turn back again to the weak and worthless rudimentary things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again? Why would a child of God, born of the heavenlies, free from the law, adopted out from under law, made an heir, and now actually having the divine nature put in him, and the divine nature far excelling the human nature to the point he’s no longer reckoned the human creature, but a divine creature, no longer an earthly creature, but a heavenly creature… why would you want to go back to slavery? Why would you return to the law? Why do you do that? Well, you’ll stop. Why go back to the old creation? Why go back to what’s worthless and, at best, weak? Listen to this next verse. Where then is that sense of blessing you had? Where then is that sense of blessing you had?

Do you recall when you got experientially saved? Do you? If you were an adult, and you had anything like a good, solid conversion experience, you remember the season in there when it was blessed, do you not? I believe that most of you, having begun in the spirit, have at some time in your life reverted to the law. Is that not true? You have gone back to trying to merit your position with the Lord, which has got to be one of the greatest studies in futility ever launched on by any creature to try in any way to merit brownie points with God. I’m not going to get into that again, but that’s the last thing on earth God ever expected you to do. God gave you up. That’s why He invented grace because you were hopeless. Did you notice that the blessing was less when you went back to the law? Let me tell you how to get that blessing back. Very simple, give up that law. Go back and rejoice in your freedom. Why don’t you go back and enjoy grace? Go back and enjoy the freedom, and I will really want to make this clear. I don’t care if I get misunderstood. I’m not saying…Galatians is not the end of the Bible. You are absolutely free from everything. All law, all rule. That means that you can smoke all you smoke. You can drink all you want to drink, and you can cuss all you want to cuss.

Now, yeah, I know there would probably be at least one or two preachers in the world who wouldn’t agree with that, and they would really get up on their horses. But listen, my dear brother and sister, you’ve got to begin there. You have to begin with absolute freedom. You work out from that point. If there are any limitations, you work out from that point, but you start with liberty. You start with freedom. You are free from all laws. Isn’t that wonderful? Look, and you ought to have the privilege of basking in that for a while.

Maybe we should all drive home at 90 miles an hour, and you’ll pull out that driver’s license and say, “There you go.” You’ve got to start there, brother. You’ve got to start there, sister. What? But Gene, I’m going to repeat what I said in the…Gene, you preach a gospel like that, and people start doing all sorts of terrible things. Hey, let me tell you something. That’s not true. I know a group of people we taught that doctrine, and sure enough, everybody went out and started getting drunk. I’m an eyewitness to that. And I’m going to tell you why. I’ll tell you exactly why, because the vessels that preached it were flawed. The man who preached that gospel was above reproach. They sensed his liberty. They still found no reproach in him. He was an imitator of Lord Jesus Christ and preached the same gospel of liberty, but His life was above reproach.

I am not afraid to preach to you the gospel of liberty. I am, as far as that goes…I sometimes get bolder. Won’t you go out and do exactly what you want? And when you get caught, say, “Gene said…” (laughter) You’re free from all law. Gene, there’s got to be a hook in here somewhere. There’s no hook. Dwight L. Moody was once talked to about this. He was saying something about grace, and there are those who do not believe in grace, who are Christians, or at least believe it in little bitty doses. And someone rebuked him for something; they said it would lead to sin; his converts were going to go out and get drunk. And he said, “Let me tell you something. I go out and get drunk every time I want, and cuss every time I feel like it. I want you to know I go out and get drunk every time, and I go out, and I swear every time I talk…I’d better stop. (laughter)

You have to start from the point of liberty, and you work out from there. You’re free. Get your blessing back, saints. Accept your freedom in the Lord. You’re free. You’re free. You’re like Cindy Edwards (Gene’s daughter), who went to Europe. And she called and said, “I want to go. I want to go back. I want to go see Europe.” And I said, “You got any money?” She said, “I got a little bit.” And I said, “Go do it.” And she wrote to me, and she said, “I go down the street.” It’s the first time she was in Europe, you know. Oh, she was in Europe, you know, looking around. Nobody’s around. She’s in cities all by herself. She had this little pack on her, and she said she should start jumping on the street. She’d say, “I’m free!” That’s wonderful. I thought that was glorious. She’d jump up and down on the streets, saying, “I’m free…free from the law!” Let me tell you. How do we raise kids, you uptight parents? I’m not talking about the ones who raise your kids lawlessly. You uptight parents. You try grace on your kids sometime. The next time one of your kids starts to do something wrong, I always want you to say, “Let’s do it. Is that as well as you can do that? Do it twice…” I tried this on my kids, and it worked miracles… (Laughter)

I’ll tell this story; I haven’t told this before. I’m not ashamed of it. I went through one of the blackest periods of my life, blacker than anything that any of you could ever imagine. And it was really hard on me. It was hard on Helen. It got blacker every month and every year. There was no problem, as far as I recall. There was no problem between Helen and me, but it got blacker and worse, and you know it wasn’t like…what she said that day was not unusual. It was not a surprise… things build gradually. It was an unbearable situation; you could not ever comprehend how unbearable it was, and the pressure was so great. The atmosphere was so charred, and my wife, my sweet little Helen, said to me one day, “I want to go home, I want to go back home to Texas.” And I’m…you know, you read books about the wife and says, “I want to go home,” and you know then you have this big family row and all that, and I had somewhere where in all of my problems, I had the recollection of grace.

Hey, can you believe this? I had the presence of mind to say to her, “Well, honey, let’s go home. Let’s pack up.” She crumbled; that ended it totally. There was never another word; she just couldn’t believe it. She wanted to stay right there and fight it out with me. She just wanted to argue with that. You know, she just needed to fence some hostilities. Next time your kids really want to do a bad one, just go ahead and let them. You might be surprised. Saints, you’re free. You are absolutely free. You’re not under the laws, and nobody’s looking over your shoulder; at least God’s not. Get your blessing back. (Chapter 4:15-17) For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth? They…He doesn’t know who they are. They eagerly seek you, but they’re not doing it commendably. But they wish to shut you out in order that you may seek them. That they wish to shut them out of the blessing of grace, so that there will be no more grace, and there will be no more joy and no more freedom. Therefore, you have to go and seek men.

I don’t know if you understand that, because I don’t know if you’ve ever sold yourself the law that badly, but you lose the Lord in going back to the law. You will need to report to somebody who will read the riot act to you and tell you what you can and cannot do. When your liberty is lost, you have to go back to the lawgivers. Don’t do that, brothers. Keep your freedom. I am free as a preacher, and you ought to be free from being…this is going to sound strange…you ought to be free from being a Christian. You understand what I mean by that? Does that make sense to you? Because there is a Christian image, and you don’t have to conform to it. You do not have to conform to that. And by the way, if you would dress up real pretty and come in here, I wish you would, because some saints have said, “Do y’all wear blue jeans or corduroys as a test of fellowship?” (laughter) If I could say anything to you, you are a heavenly creature, and the law did not pertain to you. You know, you’re going to be weak towards sin as long as you’re afraid of sin. As long as you’re afraid of sin, it’s going to have a grip on you. When it really soaks into you that you are free from the law, and sins that made us…the law, but sin had no power over you until the law came along, and now you’re free from the law. Therefore, you’re free from sin.