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Galatians, chapter 5.
Stand fast therefore in the liberty were with Christ have made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of *******. Behold, I fall say unto you, that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I justify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law.
You are fallen from grace, for we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith, For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avail of anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by law. Ye did run well, Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth?
This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
A little leaven, loving of the whole lung. I have confidence in you through the Lord, that you will be none otherwise minded. But he that troubles you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I brethren, if I be, yet if I yet be circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?
Then is the offense of the cross seas. I would they were even cut off which trouble you.
Poor brethren, you've been called unto liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another for all the laws fulfilled. In one word, even in this thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Or if you buy it and devour one another, take heed that you do not consume to one of another. This I say, then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh, For the flesh lusted against the Spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. What if you led the Spirit? Ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest. Which are these? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry.
Witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation.
Wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such life of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time half the day which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love.
Joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness.
Faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law.
Neither Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and loss. We live in the Spirit. Let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
My dad used to say to us, when God speaks, it's time to listen.
It is.
Speaking to us through this work.
This blessed person.
We're reading of in the verse one.
Christ has made us free.
But a place of liberty.
We have to be in as those who belong to Christ.
We're not in Christ, we're in our sins.
Under the terrible reality.
The judgment of God.
Is hanging over us.
Letting Christ.
Any man be in Christ is a new creature. He belongs to new creation.
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And because of resurrection.
Blessing lies ahead for us, for those of us in Christ.
Christ has made us free from the law, which we could not keep.
Which never could deliver us, but Christ has made us free person.
Glorious person who lives, who died in the cross of Calgary for us, but who lives in the glory of Christ Jesus our Lord.
What is freedom to a Sinner? You know, I was the Sinner, you were a Sinner, and then we're made free. What is freedom? It's the freedom to do His will. We never had that as a Sinner. We couldn't. Not one thing we did could be according to His will or pleasing to Him.
Now, by the grace of God, we have freedom to do that.
Not freedom to do our will, but for the first time when you're saved, you can please the Lord. That's the reason you were born. That's first. That's Revelation 411. You were born to give pleasure to the Lord. Wonderful, isn't it? There's purpose in our being here, but you can never achieve that purpose or give one ounce of pleasure to the Lord until you're made free by Christ.
Free from Satan's old and from sin can't do one thing. And I was just thinking if you turn to Romans 8, Romans 8 verse 2.
8/2.
For the law of the Spirit, capitalist of life in Christ Jesus, has made me free from the law of sin and death.
They're really not laws like the commandments. Isn't that thought? It's really a natural principle. It's something that can't change. It's something that's absolute. Like the law of Newton. When you throw it up, it'll come down. That's a law and and it can't be changed. God, of course, can change his natural laws, but this is the law of the Spirit. It's always the same.
If the Spirit has liberty.
He will occupy us with Christ. One way or another. It'll be occupied with Christ to the glory of Him. And if we're not in the Spirit, then it's going to be the law of sin. It can't be anything else. You're going to be controlled by the sin that's in you. Not you in the sin, but the sin that's in you if you're not controlled by the Spirit that's in you.
That's freedom.
That second verse of Romans 8, it's helpful to read the word law there as constant tendency or a fixed principle, a fixed principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that made me free from the fixed principle of sin and of death. It's not referring to the law of Moses there at all. It's referring to the the constant tendency, the principle.
Of the Spirit working, I was thinking that in Christianity we have two things that are essential for this liberty that we've been talking about. The one is a new nature which we have in Christ been born again, and the other is the Spirit of God is the power of that nature operating upon it to set us free from sin and death.
Romans 7 is a struggle between the the two natures that man has.
If he's been born of God and he fails. But in Galatians 5, the struggle is between the flesh and the spirit, and then there's victory because the Spirit is the power for holiness.
Tell us, Brother Chuck, what occasion the writing of the Epistle to the Galatians, just to set this whole chapter in perspective, what was the real problem there that the Apostle Paul was having to try and correct?
Here was the.
The Jews. The Judaizing.
Tendency in the early church to put the Gentiles under law.
And this, this epistle is written to, to show that we're not under law, we're under grace. Romans 2 also shows that. But this addresses that issue particularly, doesn't it? And the Gentiles were never under law, and the Jews were, and they always thought that they were superior to the Gentiles because they had the law. And.
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They certainly had.
A revelation from God, and so far as he had given it in the Old Testament, which was very superior to anything that the Gentiles had.
But the principle of law, it's not law that's bad. The law is holy and just and good. It's the principle of law that I have to keep it in order to have God's blessing, but I have to keep it to be in in good favor with God. On that principle we're all lost because we have a nature that will not keep it. But now He's given us a new nature and the Spirit as the power operating.
Nature to enable us to do what the law said.
Everyone of the the 9 commandments that the the one commandment which was ceremonial, which is keep the Sabbath day, but the other 9, they're all found embodied in the New Testament. But we're not under law as a principle, but we're under grace and the Spirit of God is the power operating on that new life so that what the law required is now produced by the Christian.
But not because he's under it. But he's under grace.
That's exactly what tells us that in order we might fulfill the righteous requirement of the Law, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. The law could not produce life. The life Law had been given by which life could be received in Christ died in vain. But what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending His own white Son and the likeness of the flesh of sin.
In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in US, walking not after the principle of the flesh, but according to the Spirit of God. So what we had in our chapter, if we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfill flashes lust.
Well, Paul had a habit in writing epistles of always commending all he could before he got into the rebuking or the teaching or exhorting. And you take the Corinthians where so much was wrong. I couldn't begin to list it here. It was terrible, let's face it, but it was moral.
Moral.
You call it.
Well, not evil it was.
Doctrinal air, air and moral air. Now we've got doctrinal air.
Foundation Truth. And Paul didn't commend the Galatians at all. What he did say is I'm afraid of you. That's what he said to them. I'm afraid of you. And what did they do? They said we have to have more than Christ. We have to have something from ourselves.
Rather, Paul said, I know that in me, that is my flesh is no good thing. You can't add anything to our standing in Christ, nothing. And that's the problem here. And the basis of this epistle was that Paul was so taken back to what they were listening to from these false teachers. They were, they crept in among them just for that thing, Satan's emissaries.
And you know, that's what's going rampant today in this world, Prisoner. It's that very thing. They like to have the flesh fed. They like to feel they're doing something. And once they leave, you take Demas when he left. False.
Paul loving the present world, and I believe it was the religious world. I don't think Demas went into this evil world. We don't hear of demons again, ever. We'll see him in glory, but he lost his life for Christ and brethren, that's everything.
We have this life yet here and he lost it for Christ. Nothing could be said for demons once he left false doctrine.
Bill, you had a comment.
Well, only just to have this point, and perhaps I could make it, I trust with humility because I have encountered it so often, particularly in places where I have visited. But I know it's rampant in North America here too. And that is that it doesn't seem that the Galatians had any question as to the salvation purely on the grounds of grace.
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They had begun in the spirit. They had recognized clearly that they could do nothing.
In terms of their eternal salvation. But then the enemy took that occasion to introduce the principle of law as the rule of life for the Christian. And how easily I say we can all fall into that. How easily the devil introduces that and perhaps allows, well, all right, you had to be saved by grace. You had to come into the good and blessing of the work of Christ purely on that.
But now, in order to live the Christian life well, we need some rules and regulations, and we need more, as our brother Bauman has expressed, than Christ. We need more than the Spirit of God and the energy of that new life and.
So I would suggest that that is the particular error that's being dealt with here by the Apostle Paul. Is that correct?
Yes, it's it's the old error of having confidence in the flesh. And I was just reading last night and it's very important to get this distinction.
A lot of people practice self denial in the time of Lent. They'll deny themselves eating certain foods or drinking certain beverages or.
Doing certain things that they've been used to doing that are.
Not commendable. A lot of self denial, but that's not the same as denying self.
It might be helpful just to go back to the first chapter. I'm sorry Chuck, Denying self is a very vast difference from self denial. Self denial is a practice of what the Galatians were doing.
They were denying this and that in their life, but not denying self, which is a complete deliverance from self having no confidence in the flesh.
And that's that's true Christianity, isn't it? And.
The The common thought of man is to have confidence in something my mother used to say to me. Chucky, you mean there's no goodness?
I said no, that's not what I mean. That's what God means. That's what God says, that's what's the word of God. I'm giving to you that there's no good in US, and that's the hardest thing for man to get ahold of. That man is bad. That he's a Sinner. Yes, everyone will admit that he's a Sinner, but that he is incorrigibly evil and there's no good in him whatsoever. From the crown of the head of the sole of the foot, there's nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.
That he will not admit.
I said to my secretary once, if you can't come to the point where you say you are vile, as Joe did, you'll never get there. You'll never, you'll never get saved, She said. I'm not vile. I'll never admit that because man has such a high opinion of himself. He thinks there's something good in him. He admits he's got bad in him, but there's something good in him. And this is the only book that teaches us that truth, that there's nothing good in man.
I'm finished that's.
Important to see, very important to see because the law was a schoolmaster up until Christ and showed man that he committed sins. And most men will admit that they sinned, they've lied, they've taken the Lord's name in vain. But when the Lord Jesus Christ came, he showed that man was completely lost and helpless, that he was a Sinner. And that's why he says if he had not come, they had not had sin because it showed that not only had man contravened.
The law of God, but that he was a helpless Sinner, because here was the perfect perfection.
Of in man and they said away with this man, we will not have this man to reign over us. And so this law was a schoolmaster up until up until Christ had showed man, but it could only condemn and when man takes up the laws of moral code, it is it it does give man somewhat to glory because a brother Chuck can say, well, I've kept seven of the commandments and I can only say I've kept 6. And so he can glory.
For me he doesn't, but that's the principle of law, that man is better. But it's that wasn't what the law was given for. It was to show. It was to come to condemn. It could never deliver man and it could only show me that I had a nature that was in opposition to God. Because that's what Paul concerning the commandments, outwardly he was blameless, but there was one commandment that said thou shalt not covet, but that couldn't deliver Paul because he saw things that he wanted them, he covered it.
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And so the law condemned. And so the whole principle of law was something that could not deliver man, but Christ delivered us because this has been pointed out, were brought into new creation, a new life and a new power of life that desires to please God and that again. And if there's the desire to please God, then against such there's no commandment, there's no law.
Seems to me that the book of James answers this first verse pretty well if we read into James.
1.
Verse 25.
We're talking about liberty here.
What is?
James 125 whoso looketh into the perfect.
Law of Liberty, and continue at therein.
He being not a forgetful hearer, notice that.
But a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. That is that when we get saved, born again, we have a new nature, the very life and nature of Christ. And that's the only place where we're going to find this liberty. And that new nature does do what Christ wants. It doesn't. That's the only way we'll ever get liberty.
Any law that I put on myself is condemned. The flesh can't do it.
I thought the idea of the Promise Keepers was so ridiculous.
Because God tested man the first time with one law.
They couldn't keep one promise, he couldn't keep it, and it's still that way.
So there's a little danger of saying they trusted in Christ, but then they want to do something and so they're saved there. Paul says they're not. There's a real problem here. Look at verse 2. Behold, I Paul, say unto you that if you be circumcised, if you put yourself back in place under the law.
Doing good Christ prophecy do nothing, nothing, nothing. Listen, there's a lot of professing Christians out there, and we have to take them on that ground. But by their fruit, you know, And if they're not walking in Christ and realizing they can't do anything themselves, there's a question mark, you know, when they set aside Christ.
They set aside salvation.
When they added to Christ, they say he wasn't enough. Let's don't sugarcoat it with saying they stopped saying what? They're doing something now under the law. I know many are deceived that way. That's true. But there's the warning Paul makes, like he said to the Corinthians, examine yourself if you're even in the faith. I mean, there's a real problem, brethren, and let's watch it ourselves if we.
To move about in the flesh, glory in the flesh, we have to wonder, you know.
The next chapter here puts it very strongly Galatians 6 and simply to understand.
Verse 4.
Verse 3.
But if poor if a man think think himself to be something when he is nuts EDC with himself.
How clear that is, Christianity. We have a new nature and it's a nature that cannot sin. So there was there is no real need for any.
Legal system of laws to control it because it cannot sit. But at the moment we take up the law as a principle of life. We are recognizing the existence of something that needs to be controlled and that is the flesh. And immediately when we recognize that, we bring ourselves into *******. That's not Christian position.
Christian position is recognizing what God has done now and giving us a new life, and it does not recognize any longer what we are as men in the flesh. We are gone before God, we're dead, we're buried, and that's gone completely gone before the eye of God. What God recognizes is what's new, and I think it's important for young people to.
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Otherwise, when we speak about liberty that we're talking about the new nature. It's liberty for the new nature to express itself. Look at down the chapter to verse 13.
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. In other words, liberty is not to give occasion to the flesh. That's the way it's interpreted.
Many times remember in South America and brother Eric Smith was down there.
He talked about the question that was raised. Well, if you don't have to keep the law, then you can do just anything you like. And the answer was given, if you're a real believer, you wouldn't want to do just anything you like. You would want to do what pleases God, and that's real liberty. That's what we're talking about.
There's a new motive in Christianity as well, and that's brought out here, and that motive is love, because in the Old Testament they kept the law not generally out of the motive of love. That's not to say there weren't those whose hearts truly responded to Jehovah. That's true, David said on one occasion, I love the Lord. But it summed up perhaps in the verse that says who through fear of death.
Were their whole lifetime subject to *******? Why did a man not go out and pick up sticks on the Sabbath day?
Why did he carry out certain rites and ceremonies of the Mosaic Law? It was generally because of fear. There were stiff penalties if a man broke the law and didn't, did or didn't do certain things on certain days. But brethren, is that the motive in Christianity? No. The Lord Jesus said if a man loved me, he will keep my commandments. He said my commandments are not grievous because when the heart is engaged, it's not that there's a need for.
Restraint, but love. Love reaches out. It's just that you get it again in John 10 where you have in the Old Testament there was a fold because when you think of a fool, you think of restraint. You see sheep and a sheep fall and there's a restraint around them. There's a wall or a hedge, and that hedge keeps those sheep together in their proper order in place. But the Lord Jesus said there shall be 1 shepherd and notice.
Darby's translation in that verse not one fold. There shall be one flock, because now there's a person and our hearts go out to that person. And what constrains us to follow him? The love of Christ constraineth us, not because we're under certain creeds or laws or whatever, but because our hearts go out to that one. And when our hearts go out to a person, then it's not hard to please that person. I'd like to just say this too, not to go back, but I think it's.
To realize that the law in the Old Testament was never given as a passport to heaven. If man could keep the law, which of course he never did, but if he could have kept it. He was promised endless life on this earth, not as a ticket to get to heaven. And how misconstrued that has become people putting people under trying to put people under the law to get to heaven. And if you just allow me to go back to the first chapter for.
I think it kind of ties up what Bill said and what Chuck has said and others in connection with the context of the this writing.
Chapter 1 and verse 6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel which is not another. Once you notice that expression because the Gospels good news. Isn't it good news to be able to tell lost sinners that while it's true they can't or don't have to keep the law, yet they can come by simple faith in the Lord Jesus owning their need?
Receive full and abundant burden, receive the gift of God, which is eternal life. They're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That's the good news of the gospel. But Paul said you've gone back to something that isn't another gospel because it's not good news to tell people that now they're saved by the grace of God. They have to keep the law, shall I say it, to maintain their salvation. And that's really, I believe the thought here, brother, it's not.
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Not the law to get our salvation. They understood the grace of Christ that had reached out to them in their need, but it's it's the law to maintain their salvation. And the reason I bring that up is because our young people today as they go to school and operate in this world, they are bombarded with this kind of doctrine that yes, we're saved by the grace of God, but now we have to maintain some certain level of moral level in our lives to.
Our salvation Now, perhaps in our grandfather's day they preach the gospel of works to obtain salvation, but I don't think that's so much the case anymore because most people just don't care. My grandfather's generation, they had some concept about and concern about getting to heaven, albeit maybe a misconstrued idea about being how to get their work through the law or whatever. People don't care today. They're so indifferent they're just going on to a lost eternity without any thought.
So the enemy comes along and he says, well, you don't need the law to get your salvation, but you need it to keep it. Now both are wrong and there's no liberty in this where that's not that's not liberty to think that we have to be under some kind of.
Set of code of rules like that to maintain our salvation know by grace are you saved through faith and not not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And not only that, it's grace wherein we stand.
Are we going to be preserved to the end? Yes. Everyone of us who know Christ as our Savior are going to be in glory. Why? Because we maintain some rule of life or moral standard in our lives. No, it's all going to be based on the work of Calgary. And so the redeemed gathered around the land, they sing only of the blood of Christ, and they're occupied with the Lamb freshly slain.
No, let's remember in verse four of our chapter, Christ has become of no effect under you.
This is really positive. Look at mark 713. Mark 713. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's it.
Verse 7 I'll be it. In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines that commandment of men, For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, and now look at versa 13.
Making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition.
Which you have delivered. You know it's much worse in God's sight for those preaching and teaching this out in Christendom because they're leading them astray and they're not bringing salvation to them. Even the ones that come in for the first time in some edifice out there, they don't get this. What we have foundation, truth. This is our standing brethren.
That can't change. They don't preach that they they really give this and they're more responsible.
They make it a lie, make the truth a lie and notice the verse seven. He did run well. That's right. They started with a good perfection. We hope it was real. Paul knew some were real, but they're being tempted to to let the flesh work. He did run well. Who did hinder you that he should not obey the truth?
And brethren, that's the the key, the truth.
All of them out there are preaching the Word of God, one translation or another man's thought of what God meant when he wrote it. Truth is the Spirit of God teaching the church what the word of God is according to God. And that's what we want. And they didn't obey the truth. And I'll tell you, they have itching ears. And there's many that let us pray like that. And Satan's a deceiver. Just about 10 years.
Ago, you know what happened, and I never heard such words as those that left. We've never been so free. We've never had such liberty.
Can you imagine Satan's trickery? What freedom did they have now? Flesh to do what they like? Brethren, this is serious. And let's remember, this is our standing Christ and the truth.
And that's it.
So grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. That's right down to the root of it.
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Are we not guilty, though, brethren, of putting ourselves under law? Oftentimes we have this law. Don't do this, don't do that. And it's the law of brethren or the law of this group. And when those get out of that.
And say now we're free.
We're free from that ******* that we were in. Are we not doing what we're not doing because it would, it would go against the group I'm with. It's it's not according to their doctrine or because it would displease him. And are we following him? Are we following the Lord whether we're whether we're in this ecclesiastical group or this one?
If we're following the Lord in our life, that's going to settle every question.
It's not what group we're in and I think that's behind some of that that you were talking about.
A you know, we always like to point the finger at the other person. They're the one that's at fault. But what about me? How much legalism has been in me? And as I look back over my early days, a lot of zeal and a lot of legalism and I'm guilty of.
Of that very thing. And that drives people away, doesn't it? So we have to search our own hearts, consciences.
Is, is the principle of the assembly there where you are locally? Is it 1 where you kind of you kind of as you walk in, you kind of get shivered up because you're afraid you're going to do something wrong that doesn't meet with the approval of the group or are you there in in a happy liberty?
Where you're enjoying Christ and it's quite different and I know as I visit different places I can feel the atmosphere is different.
Here than it is over here and so we have to search our own conscience. I wanted to ask Jim. Jim, you said no ones ever kept the law. How do you know that?
Well, they would have lived endless endlessly on this earth, is the answer. They've all died.
Well, I don't want to get the impression, especially the young people, that if you let the flesh act, if the flesh acts in you, you're not saved. That isn't what we're getting at at all. What rules your life? What? What is your practice? What is customary with you?
That's your walk now. We all let the flesh act. Don't advocate ourselves about that. You know, I pride myself. I don't send Christmas cards, but I can't wait to get a hold of the leaven sheet in the morning. And never I I love to read the paper. That's just flesh. I may break myself someday, or the Lord will do it for me. But we all let flesh act. Let's face it. But that isn't what we're talking about.
What's the paramount thing in your life? That's it. And that isn't the paramount thing in my life.
It's Christ, and you know, we shouldn't allow flesh to act. I'm not saying that either. But don't let any of you who are saved think that you're not saved because you got their warfare, which we're going to read about. The flesh works against the Spirit, and the Spirit warth against the flesh. And many times I get to the dessert table and Satan wins. That's the flesh.
Yeah, I can't. I can't do it anymore.
I saw a doctor two days before getting here. He says you're fat. I'm under a raw rule now. I can't take that now. So Christ won there. But we have flesh in us. Let's don't deny it. But it doesn't mean you're not saved. We're not talking that way. Well, nature does have a place though, doesn't it? Scripture doesn't say that we're dead to nature.
We should reckon ourselves as dead unto sin.
But nature does have a place, but it needs to be guarded, or it can become an occasion for the flesh, right?
Let's go back to the third verse to take up what Brother Chuck was saying about legality. He said in the Philippians, beware of the concision. And perhaps that's a more precise term than legal because it describes really what is happening. And I think if we understand the truth of the third verse, we'll understand what the concision is with the law. It's all or nothing. It's not 99.9%, it's all or nothing. And if we take up with the principle of law, we destroy the.
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Authority because that's what he's saying and if we put ourselves under law, we are debtor to the whole law. So he's standing in the gas Bay there they were to keep within their own gate for themselves and the stranger and then there was the ties for the Levites. He said don't tell my pastor that that's 30% not ten but but I'm just saying that to show if you get taken up with to illustrate the point if you get taken up with the law, you're.
Do the whole thing. And the reason that we see in these Christian lands that it's disintegrated into lasciviousness is because man has destroyed the authority of God's word by taking up with it as a principle. And so the fourth verse says Christ has become of no effect because as a lost Sinner the law condemned me because I wanted to steal. And the law said, thou shalt not steal. It said to me, thou shalt not covet. And I had a nature.
To covet. But Christ died for sinners and he gave us a new life that doesn't want to steal and doesn't want to speak about the things of God in a vain way that doesn't want other people's things. It wants to give. That's the nature we've received. So why would God give us Christ if this law was going to help us? So he gave us the nature. And so that's why it's saying Christ has become of no effect. Why would God give us the very life of Christ?
When Christ, who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory. A life that say, I do always those things that please my Father. Why would he give us a life like that? If we're to go back to a set of rules, we like rules because usually we pick the rules we can keep. You know, we usually pick the rules we can keep and we glory in those. And as our brother was saying, perhaps we mark out certain things, and if you do certain things like that, you're going to be kept in good standing with the brethren.
There's a danger of that, but we need to live to please Christ, and there needs to be that atmosphere in the assembly and the fear of God and the assembly that when we come there that it's the authority of God's Word and that there's a life to please Christ. And that's what we did. Why he gave, why Christ died is because there was no other remedy other than the death and resurrection of Christ for sinners, because we had a nature that was opposed to God here and unsuited for heaven.
According to Nature, I look at two things that we've been talking about here.
And our brother has mentioned one thing about that which sets us free, which is the truth.
Could we just go back? Because we all want to be free, we all want to be liberated. And I'd like to read from John's Gospel, chapter 8.
The Gospel of John, chapter 8.
And verse 32.
I have in my hand something.
It's the word of God.
And I'm told in verse 32 The.
John 8 And ye shall know the truth.
And the truth shall make you free.
Many years ago.
As in Toronto and a brother there that lived past the 100 bar.
And I quoted this first to him. He was in the nursing home. He shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. He came back with this verse, which is verse 36.
If the Son if, if, if the Son therefore shall make you free, he shall be free indeed. What comes between those two verses?
Reverse the end of verse 34.
I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin, So every one of us in this room.
We want to come under *******. We allow our own nature, we allow that which is to be dead to direct us, whether it's in lust or whatever. He that committed sin becomes a servant of sin.
It happens and it can happen in the child of God. I believe it'd be better, practices said.
00:45:04
I don't think commit is right because I commit sin and I'm not a servant of Satan. Is that right? I do believe it'd be better to get that thought across to the young people special practices, but what I'm speaking about is what delivers us from self.
You know, I like to live for self. I'm selfish, naturally. I have that nature.
But I can get deliverance from that.
By doing that which is right in the eyes of God.
And God is light.
And God, because he's like, he reveals what I am.
That God is love.
And love delivers me from selfishness.
So the truth delivers me from the darkness and the darkness and ideas of men.
And Christ makes me free. What a blessed thing to walk in communion with a person who never changes. He lives, He delivers.
We've experienced that.
Christ will set us free.
If we allow the flesh to act, brethren, the law will condemn the acting of our flesh. And I think we need to recognize that, just not that we are free to make a few mistakes here and there. And because we're not under law, but the moment I allow flesh to act, the law condemns that. And I think that is what we have in First Timothy chapter 1.
Is helpful to see it there is a lawful use of the law.
We know that the law is good if a man used it lawfully.
How is it to be used lawfully, Not for the righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly, for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murders of mothers, for manslaughters, for ************ for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men Steelers, for liars, for perjured persons.
There be anything, any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God just committed to my trust. So there is a lawful use, and I think it acts on flesh and it flesh is allowed to act. What is going to bring that simple act to an end?
It's the law that condemns it. And what does it condemn it to?
Death and when death comes in it ceases to act and that's where we start in Christianity and recognizing that we're completely guilty and we come to God now on a completely new basis, on the basis of a new birth in God's family, a new life completely. So it's there is a lawful use of it and we must recognize that the.
The Word of God, it's not something we're under, but it's to bring to an end that activity of what is the flesh, so that death can put an end to it. And it has in the work of Christ, brethren, but we have to recall and remember each one of us, if we're saved, are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God.
And the Holy Spirit of God, his first office with one who's saved, is to bring Christ to him.
We're already brought to Christ, but to bring Christ to him for the Sinner, his office is to bring him to Christ. But the Spirit of God will never be inactive. And if we let the flesh act, we're out of communion with God. We're out of communion with the Lord. Even the Spirit of God then is not inactive. He'll wrap on your conscience until you allow him again to bring Christ to your hearts and you're back in fellowship or.
But let's remember the Spirit of God now, unless your conscience becomes seared, that's the real thing that brings you back, the Spirit of God. You can have a seared conscience. The law won't bring me back. You know, I know it'll condemn me. I mean, you shall not steal. I know that. And but that isn't the thing that brings me back to Christ. It's the Spirit of God in me that'll bring me back.
Always.
00:50:00
I'd like to comment on what you said, Brother John from John 10, because it's really the secret of liberty and it really shows us what is the use of the word of God, the whole word of God. Brother Bob referred to the law. She shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Is that we now have a nature that delights to please God. We have a power for that nature.
The Spirit of God. But now we need intelligence for that nature, and we get it from the word of God.
And it's in becoming acquainted with the truth of God that we find this liberty as a Christian.
So we face many situations in life and we don't know what to do. There's a desire to please the Lord. We have the power to please the Lord, but we don't know what to do. And so you open the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation, and you find principles that are going to help you and that are going to leave you free to serve the Lord and to please the Lord. So under the law, there was an unintelligent service. They knew that if they had a vessel in a place where there was leprosy, and it was.
That the vessel was defiled and so they were to put a tight covering on it and it wasn't to file. But now we have a reasonable or an intelligent service and so we can get help from that. And we say the children, we send the children, maybe some of us off to public schools and there's leprous things there. We put a tight covering on the word of God and they hear these things at school and they recognize them from the time.
To be nonsense. And so we get help. It set them free. They come, they go to school and they see they're trying to get them to go along with this and with that and the other thing. And we open the pages of God's word and they see what God thinks about some of these gross and awful things. People said the book of the Old Testament wasn't suitable to read the children because it mentioned such vile things, but they read about these things.
In the word of God, and they're protected from them. The world protects them by putting warnings up everywhere. Warnings in the bathroom, warnings on the highway, warnings everywhere.
The kids, we open up the Word of God and they find out about these things and they're protected. And so it sets them free because now they can live to please the Lord. We wonder what to do in a situation and we get down before the Lord about it and we open up the pages of God's Word. We find the truth of God and it tells us what we should do when we're free. We're not in ******* to a set of rules. Well, I'm not going to do that because brethren don't like it.
As Brother Chuck was saying, but we see a principle in the Word of God.
That would guide us according to God, and if we're all LED of the Spirit, He's not going to lead us in a way that's contrary to each other. We're going to be able to go on in communion with each other. So that's the activity of the truth. And his brother Bob said there may be a time when the law has to come and it has to condemn what I'm doing. But in a larger sense, going back to what brother John, in quoting John 10, is that by acquainting ourselves with the truth of God, we're set free to.
Lord, you have the nature, we have the power, and now we have the intelligence by the Word of God to know what we should do and how we should do it to the finest details. And that's why we have the Old Testament and the fine little pictures of every little detail. We won't face a situation in life that that the Word of God does not meet.
Verse 8 In our portion This persuasion cometh not of him.
That calleth you who called you? Of course it was God through the Holy Spirit. But what's he talking about? Persuasion. He's talking about those Jewish ones who crept in among them and are giving them this false doctrine. And he did say in that first chapter, we didn't go far enough, but no use going any further if any man or even an Angel.
Preach another gospel to you. Let him be accursed. Pretty strong, isn't it?
Let him be accursed. But but here it says this persuasion. They were being persuaded that it isn't Christ alone cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Now we're into assembly.
Truth, aren't we? Because Paul is reading to an assembly, he's writing to an assembly. And brethren, we're all lungs. Each assembly can be leavened. Let's don't ever forget it. We have a responsibility, both moral responsibility and doctrinal, and I think the doctrinal is the more important. Believe it or not, we can't neglect either.
00:55:08
But the doctrinal is this chapter is this book And didn't he say?
In verse 10.
No. Verse 11 of chapter 6. You see how large a letter I've written unto you with my own hand? That was not the practice of Paul. Paul put the last bit of it in his hand, so he sealed it that it's his letter. But he didn't write them, He dictated them. But here in his own hands, there's only two epistles.
That were written in his own hand. Philemon and Galatians and Philemon because.
It was so important that he wanted that personal touch with the slave owner when he sent a believer back who once was his slave. But here it's so important because it's doctrinal air and brethren, it can leaven the whole lump. That's the whole assembly. And let's don't neglect these precious truths that are coming out here.