Amen.
May the Lord answer that prayer song as we are together this morning. The Lord is our tree of life.
The redeemed ones now have that opportunity to take of the tree of life which God had intended from the very beginning. Praise the Lord.
We have been studying that very thing this week in the groups, in our prayer-family times, and in the precious time we had this week on Friday night sharing out of Genesis 2.
Let us begin with a word of prayer.
Lord, I do come to Thee today. I want You to speak. Lord, I want You to tell us what we need to hear this morning. Lord, I want us to have the ability to hear You, and not only hear, but, Lord, the grace to respond to what You have to say.
Lord, may there be light today. May there be revelation. May there be the moving of Your Spirit in our hearts, Lord, that this time can be effective unto Your glory this morning.
Lord, we do plead the blood over everything we say, everything we share. Lord, we want all that is of man out of this time this morning. We just want what You have and what is on Your heart, Lord.
So, Lord God, this time this morning, even as I am speaking, I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, we have been sharing out of the book of Genesis—at least I have—and in the life of Abraham. This morning we come to Genesis 21: the birth of Isaac, the promised seed. Hallelujah. We finally got there. There are precious lessons to be learned in this twenty-first chapter.
How critical it is, brothers and sisters, that somehow, somewhere in your lifetime, the God of glory has touched your life and has come to you, because that is the way we are saved.
Now, we say we are saved because we accept Christ, and that is true. But really, when your heart is touched by God, it is the God of glory coming to you, revealing to you His Son. His Son is God’s glory.
He wants you to know His Son. His Son comes to you as your Savior.
You are a sinner, a fallen sinner. You are born that way. You are born in sin. If you do not believe it, just come and view my grandchildren, my precious little grandchildren. You realize that it does not take long for them to demonstrate the very selfish nature that we all have.
It is there. We are fallen people. But the God of glory moves in our lives, reveals Christ as our Savior to us, and now we have a way back to God—a way to be partakers of the life of God Himself.
The God of glory appeared to Abraham because He wanted to bring Abraham to glory, to the pleasure and satisfaction that God had for Abraham.
In order for Abraham to grow in his spiritual life, he had to learn to live by faith. In fact, he is called the father of faith in the Word of God.
In order to encourage and strengthen Abraham’s faith, God gave him a great revelation. It was a revelation of His purpose, of what God had on His heart. What was that great revelation? It was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because it says in John 8:56—the Lord Jesus Himself, speaking of Abraham, said:
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad.
He saw My day. In other words, Abraham was given a revelation of the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then we know from Hebrews 11:10 that it was said of Abraham:
For he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
We know that city, brothers and sisters, is the city we see in Revelation coming down from heaven as a bride for the Lamb.
He saw God’s full purpose. He was given a revelation of that, and that strengthened his faith. Frankly, brothers and sisters, I think this revelation was what enabled Abraham to endure all those years in the promised land.
As we have mentioned before, he went into this place that was to be milk and honey, and he had a difficult time there—many trials and tribulations. But God was with him. The whole time, he lived as a stranger and a pilgrim on this earth.
He ended up in the promised land, and the only thing he ended up with was a gravesite. But he had seen God’s promise. He had seen God’s purpose. He had seen the Son and the Son’s bride. He had seen the fullness of what God was after.
God was calling Abraham, brothers and sisters, to be a part of that. We need to understand that God is calling us to be a part of that same thing.
Most of you have had a revelation of Jesus Christ—that He is not only your Savior, but He is Lord of your life.
Today, we talk about cheap salvation. Many people say that you can go to them and ask, “Do you believe in the Lord Jesus?” and they will say, “Yeah.” But you begin talking with them further about the Lord, and they have no sense of what you are talking about.
There is no spirit there. They have only mentally assented to the fact that Jesus Christ was the Lord. It is a mental transaction, but they have not had the spiritual transaction that occurs when the God of glory meets you.
I am not talking about feelings. I am talking about a spiritual transaction. A spiritual birth has to take place.
We are here today, and we gather around this table remembering that we have had a spiritual birth because Christ shed His blood for us, sinners, that we could be redeemed.
In so doing, He has made a way that we might be partakers of the tree of life, which is Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit comes into your life. He dwells in your spirit and makes it alive to God so that you can communicate with God.
Brothers and sisters, this is what our brother Abraham knew something of. He had been given a revelation; therefore, he had faith. Praise the Lord.
Abraham was called to be a part of this promise—of Christ, of God’s purpose, of Christ and the bride.
What was Abraham’s part in this? God told Abraham, “There is a promised seed. There will be the Redeemer that will come, and it is going to come through your seed line.”
He also said, “You will have a family as the sands of the sea and as the stars of the sky.” The sands of the sea represent His earthly people, which today is Israel. Then He says the stars of the skies—that is the heavenly people. That is us: those who have come into a believing faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, as we mentioned earlier.
Those are the ones who are to be the bride of Christ. So, with Abraham there is the promised seed—Christ through his line—and also the stars of heaven, the bride. We see how ultimately tied our brother Abraham was to God and His purpose.
As you remember, Abraham got to the promised land, and after a number of years—many years—he had no child. When he was about eighty-six years old, his wife said, “Look, we know God wants the promised seed to come through your birth line. I cannot have children, but you still can.”
“So I am going to have you take Hagar, the handmaid whom they had gotten while they were in Egypt, and have a child by her.”
So they did. They had a child called Ishmael, and Ishmael came through the union of Abraham and Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah.
Now, you need to know, spiritually speaking, that this represents the way of the flesh—man’s way, man’s mind, man’s way of achieving God’s purpose.
It is not that the motive here was wrong. Their motive, their heart, was right, but their ways were wrong. It was not God’s way. That is the flesh.
You know, after we become Christians, there is a problem. We want to do God’s will. We want to do God’s work. We want to have God’s purpose achieved in our lives, and we can go about it in what is called the way of the natural man—the way of the flesh, man’s mind, man’s reasoning.
So when Sarah could not have a child, she said, “There is a solution to this, Abraham.” Abraham said, “Okay, that sounds like a reasonable solution.” And so Ishmael was born.
God did not speak to Abraham for another thirteen years. That is how serious it is to try to bring the ways of man and the ways of flesh into God’s work, into God’s purpose.
God’s purpose is very precious in His heart, and He does not want man tinkering with it. Abraham did not hear from the Lord for thirteen years.
Finally, the Lord appeared to Abraham. This was really a period of discipline in Abraham’s life, because he had to learn this great lesson. God did not really speak to him during this thirteen-year period; He just let him go on his own. Of course, Ishmael grew.
Now we have come to Genesis 21. Ishmael is around thirteen or fourteen years old. Abraham is now one hundred years old, and Sarah is ninety years old. Sarah can no longer have children—she could not before—and Abraham now cannot have children. There is a problem: the promised seed has not yet come.
But when God appeared to Abraham when he was ninety-nine, He told him, “You are going to have a child. The promised seed is coming through you and Sarah.”
Let us read Genesis 21:1-8.
And the Lord visited Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as He had spoken.
And Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
And Abraham called the name of his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare to him, Isaac.
And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
And Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him.
And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh; every one that heareth will laugh with me.
And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should give children suck? For I have borne him a son in his old age.
And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
God says in Genesis 21:2, “At the set time of which God had spoken to him.” Isaac was born at the set time God had determined.
When was that appointed time? It was when Abraham could not do it anymore—when Abraham and Sarah could not bear children. That was the appointed time.
It was God’s time, because, brothers and sisters, it had to be God. For God’s work to be done, God has to do it.
God waited until Abraham and Sarah could no longer do it. In other words, He waited until the flesh was totally exhausted of all its ideas and all its ways. When the flesh was totally incapable, the Lord began to move.
Isaac was born. That is the appointed time. Abraham and Sarah’s end, as far as being able to have the promised seed, was God’s beginning. That is when God began to work.
When Abraham and Sarah no longer could possibly do it, they were hopeless and helpless except for God.
What was Abraham and Sarah’s part? God did it. Isaac was born. All Abraham and Sarah could do was what? Believe. Have faith.
They were hopeless. They were helpless. But God had given His Word. Not only had He promised them the promised seed, but He had made an unconditional covenant with Abraham, as we have talked about before, that this was going to happen.
It says Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. In other words, it was faith—believing what God had said. That was Abraham’s part. That is our part, brothers and sisters.
We do need to believe God. That is something far more than a mental transaction in your head. That is a heart transaction through the Spirit.
Believing is a spiritual thing. You cannot even believe unless God gives you that ability. It is a spiritual transaction. Faith is spiritual; it is not mental knowledge.
That was Abraham’s part. I think that is why the messages our brother Stephen has been giving on spiritual life—on the spirit, the soul, and body—are so critical: that we learn the ways of the Spirit, that we know what is spirit and what is flesh, what is just us.
May the Lord really bless those messages, and may He really work in our hearts.
What is going on here? Let us read 2 Corinthians 1:9 and then 2 Corinthians 4:10.
Yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead.
Now let us go to 2 Corinthians 4:10.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
What a marvelous illustration Genesis 21 is of the spiritual principle of the sentence of death and resurrection life—bearing about in the body the death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest.
What was it that brought about Isaac? Their bodies were dead. They had the sentence of death in their bodies. The Lord touched them. They had faith, and, may I say this, they were quickened by resurrection life in their bodies so that they could bear children.
What a marvelous illustration: bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our bodies.
Let us go back to 2 Corinthians 1:9:
Yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead.
This is a spiritual principle. But brothers and sisters, God never meant spiritual principles merely to be knowledge, merely to be things that we learn. He meant that every spiritual principle we learn would become real and active in our lives.
This spiritual principle that we have just pointed out—the sentence of death in us, that we might not trust in ourselves, but that the resurrection life of Christ might operate—is a spiritual principle, but it must become real in our lives.
Let me read this. I wrote it down: This spiritual principle, if made real in your life, is the basis of real spiritual fruitfulness and effectiveness in your life.
Abraham, by the flesh, tried to be spiritually fruitful. He failed. Ishmael was born, but that was not God. It was not the promised seed. It was not God’s way.
But once that sentence of death, so to speak, came upon his body and his life—upon his ability to be spiritually fruitful—God moved, and he became spiritually fruitful.
So, to really have spiritual fruitfulness and effectiveness in your life, this is a principle that we all must not only know, but learn to live by.
Paul obviously had come into a situation in his life that pressed upon him greatly. In fact, he said, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.”
He said he was pressed beyond measure, even unto death. In other words, he was in a situation that, frankly, he did not think he could live through. Yet he was serving the Lord.
Sometimes we think that when we are serving the Lord, the road will be easy. But it was not. Paul had gotten to a place, whatever it was and whatever happened to him, where he just could not go on.
Then he made this statement: “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.”
Paul could have said, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves; therefore, we could not trust in ourselves. We had to trust in God.” That would be very true.
Brothers and sisters, we do have the sentence of death upon our flesh, upon our natural man. Why do we have a sentence of death? Because you have been crucified in Christ.
That means the sentence of death has come upon all that is of flesh—all of your own thinking, all of man’s ways. The sentence of death is upon it. God will not bless it. There is death upon it.
You have been crucified in Christ, and the sentence of death has come to your life. I do not know if you have ever experienced that in reality, or gotten to that place where you knew you just could not do anything and all you could do was call out to God that He would move.
That is when you learn this lesson: only God can do the things that God wants to do and achieve His purpose.
Paul could have said, “We had the sentence of death, and we could not trust in ourselves, and therefore we trusted God.” That would be very true, brothers and sisters. We cannot really trust in ourselves.
What does it say in the Word? “Lean not unto thine own understanding.” But we do it so often.
There is something critical, if you look at this Scripture, that you need to pay attention to. It is true that we have the sentence of death. That is a given. Whether you realize it or not, the sentence of death is there upon the natural life, upon the flesh, in the ways of man.
Paul says, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that…” That word that becomes very critical in this Scripture.
By putting in the word that, it means that we have the sentence of death in ourselves for a reason. There is a reason it is there. There is a purpose for this sentence of death.
What is that purpose? That the God who raises the dead will work. That is the purpose.
Being able to say, “Lord, I am unable. I cannot do this,” is not a bad thing. It is only bad if you stop there.
This sentence of death that we sometimes sense in spiritual life and spiritual service is not a bad thing. But if we stop there, it is.
We have to get past this that. It is there so that you will trust in God and His life will do it in you.
This is very basic to our Christian life and service: resurrection life and the sentence of death. It is not an end, but it is a beginning.
Abraham had been brought to this point concerning God’s promise. Abraham had been promised a seed, but he had come to the point that the sentence of death was working in him.
They had tried in the flesh, and fourteen years later this sentence of death had become very real to Abraham and Sarah. They thought it was their end. They thought, “This promised seed—how is it going to happen?”
God came to Abraham when he was ninety-nine and said, “It is going to happen, Abraham.” Abraham believed God.
He looked at himself and he could not believe. But when he looked at God, he could believe. Do you see the difference?
When we look inward, we cannot believe. All we see is hopelessness. We see that there is a sentence of death upon us, and we cannot believe.
But when we look to God, we can trust in the One who can raise the dead. Praise the Lord for that.
Sarah and Abraham were quickened. They believed God.
I want this to be real. All I can say, brothers and sisters, is that God will work in all of our lives in many different ways to bring us to this point: that we have this sense of the sentence of death upon the natural man and his ways in our life—the flesh.
Another way to say “natural man” is me, I. “Yes, I can serve the Lord. Yes, I can do this. Yes, I can speak.”
When you become a Christian, you should want to serve the Lord. You should want to walk and believe in the Lord. We are energized—we want to do things for the Lord.
But the Lord says, “No, I need to do some work in you. You have to find out that you really cannot do it.” Sometimes that process is painful.
But this does not just apply to somebody ministering His Word. It applies to living your everyday life.
In your everyday life, there needs to be that spiritual sense within that there is a sentence of death upon your natural life. You need to learn to depend on the Spirit of God to speak to you and to strengthen you in your life daily—not just occasionally when you are serving the Lord, so to speak.
It is a critical way of life. It is not just an event.
Actually, one of the best pictures of this is a brother we will come to a little later: Jacob.
Jacob may be the best example in the whole Word of the flesh trying to do the things of God. You remember how he tricked his brother in order to get the birthright, and he tricked his father in order to get the blessing.
He was always after the things of God, but it was man’s way.
Finally, toward the end, because he had tricked his brother, his brother was not that fond of him. Jacob ended up having to encounter his brother, and he got into all kinds of turmoil.
What happens to Jacob at this point? He is under great pressure in his life.
Actually, it is the Lord who comes to him, and it says that he wrestles with the man all night. Remember the story? I hope you do. He wrestles with a man all night long.
This man cannot prevail against him—it is the Lord. Jacob is so strong in his flesh. Finally, Jacob says, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.” You see, he was still after the Lord’s things.
But you know what the Lord did. Remember the story? He touched his hip. He put his hip out of joint.
He remained that way for the rest of his life. He had to walk the rest of his life on that dislocated hip.
That is the way it ought to be in our lives, brothers and sisters. There needs to come a point in our life—and only the Lord can do it—where He touches the strength of our flesh.
If you are a wrestler, a wrestler knows that these muscles in the hip joint are so critical in wrestling.
The Lord touches that joint. You always sense the weakness in your ability. That weakness is always there. It is the sentence of death. It is always with you, every day.
Yes, you can still walk, but there is that reminder. There is always that reminder that it has to be the Lord.
You know what is even more precious? The writer of Hebrews, in Hebrews 11, speaking of Jacob, said that at the end Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph, worshiping God.
Then he adds this little precious statement: “Leaning upon the top of his staff.”
I think the Holy Spirit, with great purpose, put that little addition into that Scripture. He worshiped God, leaning on his staff. He worshiped the Lord. It was not Jacob any longer; it was all the Lord.
He had the sentence of death, but praise the Lord, he worshiped God leaning on that staff, saying, “God is able. God can do it. God is able.”
Praise the Lord, brothers and sisters. What a lesson that we can learn from the life of Abraham, from his inability and his wife’s inability to bear children and to enter God’s purpose.
They were not able. They had the sentence of death. But it was with a purpose that they had the sentence of death. That purpose was that God, who raises the dead, could touch them with resurrection life, and they were able to bear children.
It is a great lesson we all have to learn.
Let us look now at what I want to call putting away the flesh.
It is one thing to recognize that there is a sentence of death. It is a great thing to recognize that the sentence of death is upon the flesh—your flesh and the natural man.
It is a great thing when you experience resurrection life working in your life, enabling you to overcome and do things that you simply cannot do. It is a great thing to walk in that.
I think that is part of what we see in this next part of the chapter, because the flesh has to be put away. That is not something that necessarily happens in our lives immediately.
Let us go back to Genesis 21, beginning with verse 9.
And the child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, mocking.
Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this handmaid and her son: for the son of this handmaid shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.
And the thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight on account of his son.
And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy handmaid; in all that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
And also of the son of the handmaid will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.
We see here Ishmael mocking Isaac. This is a very painful part of Abraham’s life.
Let me go back. Ishmael mocks Isaac. Isaac has been weaned; he has gotten past the baby stage. We see Ishmael mocking him.
All of us who have children and grandchildren see this going on sometimes with the older ones. They make fun of the little ones, or whatever.
Sarah becomes indignant and says, “No, this is not going to happen. We cannot have this. Ishmael cannot be heir with Isaac, my only son. Put him out.”
It says that it grieved Abraham’s heart. The Lord said, “Look, you need to do what Sarah says.”
I think this is interesting, because I am sure the first thought that went through Abraham’s mind when Sarah said to get rid of him was probably, “Look, Sarah, this was your idea in the first place. Why should I listen to you again?”
But this was God. He was speaking through Abraham’s wife. That is when, brothers, we have to learn to listen to our wives. Sometimes it is the Lord.
The previous time, it was not; this time, it was. Abraham said it grieved him.
Do you see how difficult it is to let go of your flesh—to let go of leaning upon your own understanding, to let go of trusting in yourselves, and instead trusting in God?
This illustration out of the life of Abraham should tell us the real difficulty we all have with this. We go through probably much of our lives trusting in ourselves, not really leaning on God, not really trusting Him, but trusting in the flesh—in our minds and our ways.
We began this morning with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. We talked about taking of the tree of life. This is it. This is what it is all about.
Are we taking of the tree of life or the knowledge of good and evil?
Your reasoning says one thing. Sarah said, “We cannot have children, so here is Hagar, the handmaid.” That was man’s reasoning.
Abraham agreed. He lived by man’s reason. He did not trust God.
It is so easy to live by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They thought it was a good thing to do, but it was not. They did not listen to God. They were not really trusting God.
At this point in history, with the sentence of death upon them, they had this child. It was a marvelous thing: God had done it.
God says something very definite. Basically, what He is saying is, “You cannot continue to allow the flesh to control your life. You have to put it away. You have to put it out.”
It will never be heir. It will never inherit the things of God. Your flesh will never make it into the kingdom. Your natural way and natural man will never make it into the kingdom.
It is the spiritual man who will make it into the kingdom—the one you became when you were born again, the life of Christ in you. That is the life that is going to make it into the kingdom.
These two lives cannot be allowed to operate together. One will submit; one will control your life. It will either be the flesh or the Spirit.
Therefore, put out the flesh. In this case, it says, “Put out the bondwoman and her son.” Put it away.
I thought about this. So many people approach the Bible with this humanistic thought. They would look at this and say, “This is not right. This is not fair.”
After all, Ishmael was the firstborn to Abraham. Ishmael was the older son. Ishmael—his dad really liked Ishmael. They got along well together. “It is not fair. God was not fair.”
I do not know if you ever look at some of these things that God does and wonder whether it is fair or not. But that is the human mind. That is human reasoning. That is humanism.
We have been praying on Wednesday night that the spirit of humanism would not take over this world. It is certainly heavy in the United States.
So much so that even in the churches, brothers and sisters, they do not even believe Christ is the Son of God anymore. Or they say you cannot say Christ is the only way because it will offend somebody, and you cannot offend people because that is bad.
That is humanism.
Brothers and sisters, we have to learn to trust God. We have to learn His ways.
He says that you should not be leaning on the natural man any longer. You should not be living by your flesh, but by the Spirit.
Once again, I want to say that is what these messages on spiritual exercise are about: learning to live by the Spirit, not the flesh.
Ishmael does mock, and the Lord tells Abraham that he has to put him out.
Does this not remind you of some Scriptures?
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.
— Galatians 5:16-17
And they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
— Romans 8:8
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
— John 3:6
That is what is going on here. In very real life, this is what is taking place.
Our flesh does not want to be put out.
It says, “Look, are you not used to me? I am the one who has been making all the decisions in your life. Now you have become a Christian, and you do not want to depend on me for the decisions any longer?”
“Yes, I have messed up a few times, but look, I am still in charge. Listen to me. Reason with me.”
“Does it feel good to you? Well, if it does, it is probably right.” Have you heard that?
That is right. I know we have heard it. We have been taught that. That is what psychology is all about: “I want you to feel good. Feel good about yourself.”
I am sorry if we have any psychologists in here, but psychology deals with the soul. It does not deal with the spirit.
How is it that we are set free from this natural tendency, from this flesh? We have to put it out. How is that done?
The Lord said, “Deny thyself, and take up thy cross, and follow Me.” There is no way to follow the Lord unless you deny yourself and take up the cross.
What is denying self? Denying self, frankly, means that you recognize that the sentence of death is upon the self. The sentence of death is upon the natural man.
When he begins to raise his head and says, “No, I think we ought to do this or that,” we should deny him.
This is the way it is done: “I do not know who you are. I do not recognize you anymore. The sentence of death is upon you. You have been crucified in Christ, and I am going to make that crucifixion real by not even recognizing who you are.”
“You are not a part of my life anymore.” That is denying self.
Then you take up the cross and say, “Lord, not my will, but Thine be done.” Allow the resurrection life of the Lord to work, to take you through, to overcome, and to prevail.
I am going to have to wrap this up pretty quickly. Paul, in the fourth chapter of Galatians—let us turn there real quick.
Galatians 4:19:
My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.
Then Galatians 5:4:
Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law; ye are fallen away from grace.
Then in verse 12, Paul says, “I would that they which unsettle you would even go beyond circumcision.” That is a strong word. It means mutilated.
What was happening in Galatians? The reason I go here is because in Galatians 4—you can read it later—Paul goes back to this very place in Genesis with Abraham, to what we have been looking at this morning.
He goes back to Abraham having to put Ishmael out of the house, and he says this is an allegory. It speaks of those trying to live by the law and those who live by grace.
He says Hagar speaks of those who live under the law, who try to live by the rules, who try to make it on their own, who try to please God out of their own flesh and in their own ways.
What the Galatians were doing was that the Judaizers had come in and said, “It is great that you believe in Christ, but to be perfected, you need to go back to all the Jewish customs and perform all the Jewish customs. That way you will come in to be perfected.”
Paul is extremely angry—the only way I can say it—because he said, “I wish that all these who are teaching you this would be mutilated.” Those are strong words.
He said, “It is another gospel. It is not the gospel of grace, but of works.”
A simpler way of saying it is this: Are you living your life trying to follow the rules, or are you living by the life of the Spirit within you, which says, “Yes, you can do that,” or, “No, you cannot do that”?
The things I do not want you to do, I will empower you. That is the Spirit.
Otherwise, you are trying in the flesh. You do not recognize the sentence of death upon your flesh, and you say, “Well, I can be perfected by just doing these things. I will be a good Christian.”
Paul said, “No, no, no. You have missed it. Because if that is what you are doing, then Christ is of no effect to you. You are trying to justify yourself before God by your works instead of by leaning and trusting in Christ.”
The way of the knowledge of good and evil—brothers and sisters, may the Lord really give us revelation concerning this, because I think often that is the way we live.
I hear so much of it today in Christianity. One of the best-known preachers in the nation today put out a book, A Better You.
That is what he preaches for: the better you. I have heard him. He talks about how you need to be humble. He talks about how you need to have a positive attitude. He talks about all these good things that you should be doing, and he tells stories to encourage us to do that.
He talks about God. I have not heard him talk about Christ yet.
What they are doing is saying, “Look, this stuff has not been working. Trusting in Christ, having the sentence of death in you—all that does is make you self-conscious. Having the sentence of death does not work because it puts you down.”
“Therefore, what you need to do is have self-confidence.” Now, we are talking about Christians, not non-Christians. “You need self-confidence. You need to have higher self-esteem.”
“The way to do that is to do all of these good things that the Bible teaches.”
Some people are helped. They actually become a better person. Do you know what has happened? They have strengthened their soul. They have strengthened the natural man. They have made him stronger. They have made him better.
But you know what? He will never inherit the kingdom with the promised Son, Christ.
All I am trying to say is, do not be fooled by some of the things that are coming into Christianity today.
The only thing that works is the cross of Calvary and responding to the work of Christ on the cross. That is what this is all about.
The sentence of death is nothing more than recognizing that Christ has crucified that old nature in you.
Now, you need to be clear: the old nature is not obliterated. It is still there and will be there until you die.
But it has the sentence of death on it because it has been crucified in Christ. The sentence of death is there.
So when that old nature wants to rise up and take over your life, to begin running your life again, hopefully you will sense that sentence of death upon it and say, “No.”
“I do not recognize this one. I do not recognize this man any longer. That is the old Jerry. There is a new Jerry in Christ.”
That is God’s way. Man’s way is to build up the old guy, to make him better.
Well, I think that is enough for this morning. May the Lord really show us.
Lord, in some ways I just feel like I have been so unclear on this matter. But, Lord Jesus, I pray that You, by the Spirit, will work in our hearts.
Lord, may we be able to sense that sentence of death in us and, at the same time, be able to trust in You—trust in Your life that is in us.
Lord, may we learn to live by that life that is in us, and not by our natural abilities. Lord, may we be able to be that new creation that You have made us in Christ Jesus.
Lord, may we learn spiritual life. Oh, Lord Jesus, may You do this for Your own name’s sake, Lord, that You can have a people ready for Your soon return.
We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.