61. Bible Study Series Part 4: Galatians 4

Welcome back, everybody, to the For Freedom podcast, and this is a podcast where we seek to help you find freedom from the spiritual abuse of legalism. Spit it out, John. Do what? Spit it out, John. Come on now. I know. I'm trying to think of this. You know, if we were like a professional podcast, we have like this little rip thing that we said every single time to let people know what they're listening to every time we do it. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I'm just not good at that kind of stuff, so we are what we are. And it has been several weeks since we've been behind the microphone, John. Well, this is actually going to be dropping on, because we said we were going to a bi-weekly schedule, so this is going to be dropping on the actual date it's supposed to. But we were actually going to have an episode. I was going to have an episode for you last week, but man, I got punched in the face. John got the Rona. Yeah, well, I guess. And like I was down for two days straight. Not only that, like our septic tank got all screwed up, man. And you imagine having a house full of people that's got to use the bathroom, but nothing will – you can't flush the toilets. That sounds so exciting, John. We may need to edit that part out. That's pretty gross. It was awful! But God's been gracious. We're out of that, and I'm back to the land of living. Oh, it was a rough recovery, though. It was different. So, anyways, I had to cancel the interview that we had, and we're going to get back to that. We're going to get it rescheduled. We've got another interview scheduled and some things coming up. But, you know, today we're going to get back into our Galatians study. But before we do that, James, I think we need to address something. A couple big things. If you're a sports fan, Bengals, Rams in the Super Bowl. It's going to be a great time. It's going to be a great time. And I can't wait to watch Joe Burrow win his Super Bowl. Macaulay Culkin. Yeah. And I'm super excited. I reached out to our John, me and your former youth leader, Jeff Stevens. Oh, I thought you said you reached out to Joe Burrow and see if he wanted to come on the podcast. That's my next phone call today. Okay. He's got me on speed dial, so we're good. But I reached out to our former youth leader, and he's a diehard Bengals fan. And so I got his number. John, I texted him last night, and we were texting back and forth. And so he's excited. I'm excited to watch it. Someone who's never won one, been there one time, but able – 33 years ago, John, I was just a little baby the last time the Bengals were in the Super Bowl. I was just a couple of months old. And so this is exciting time. New air. Tom Brady was the quarterback. Yeah. So who's your pick? Who's your pick? We always do our picks in the Super Bowls. You're going Bengals. Bengals all the way. Since you're going Bengals, I think the magic right now is with the Bengals. But I do like Matthew Stafford. He's good. And I'm glad to see him finally in a Super Bowl. Yeah. I'm going to go Rams. Okay. I think that they got the home field advantage. I think that they got – dude, they got Aaron Donald, Vaughn Miller, Jalen Ramsey. Odell. Odell Beckham Jr. Yeah. The team's stacked. They've got a good team. Yeah. And I like Sean McVay, the coach. So I'm going to go Rams. And so we'll see who – I think last time I picked the Bucs. You did. And they won. Yeah. No, I picked the Chiefs. I think I went Chiefs and the Bucs won. But anyways. That was a year ago. I don't remember that. And, you know, there's another thing going around. We were good. I told John we should do a whole episode on this. But we just – we're not prepared for it. Yeah. Maybe in the future we will because there's a lot to it. But, John, go ahead and tell us what about it. Well, there's a clip going around about – with this guy, Greg Locke, saying that – He's not far from you, is he, John? Do what? He's not far from you, is he? No, he's in Nashville. Yeah. Mount Julia, to be specific. Hour away from you. Actually, down there right next to Jeremy Williams. Shout out to Jeremy Williams. He had lunch with him. He's down there in his backyard. Do what? Didn't you go have lunch with Greg and had him come preach for you at your church? Y'all were good buddies. No, I did not. Y'all were good buddies. But full disclosure, though, Greg Locke, he used to be in the IFB. And he preached at our college. Mm-hmm. And so then he made waves coming out of the IFB. And then he went through his own little troubles. He got sort of a public persona by his rant videos about politics on social media. Got him on Fox News and all that kind of stuff. And then his wife left him. And listen, I'm not going to go into, like, what happened there. I've heard a couple of different stories. I've actually heard some things from people that are close to the situation because I'm here in the area and know some people that know him. I don't know what happened. And I'm not going to say what happened because I don't know. I do know one thing that is a fact is that, like, a few months after his divorce went through, he marries his secretary. And it seems to me that since then, if you didn't know who this guy was, I see why this thing really, really, really, really made you mad. But if you knew who Greg Locke was before this, this should not, like, upset you that much because you should already know this guy's been off the deep end. Yeah. And I know that's pretty blunt. But, I mean, this is a guy who, like, declared Donald Trump was still president like six months after the election was finalized and Biden was sworn in. I mean, it's like, okay, buddy. I mean, it's just he's gone further and further deeper off the handle. And he keeps going. He's doing a series at his church on deliverance. And that's why we're not going to go into this because we don't, you know, we'd have to refute, like, things on demonology and demon possession. We just don't have the time to go into that with our schedules and stuff. But the thing that made a lot of headway was he made the comment about those that are kids that are struggling with autism and epilepsy and those types of things. They don't need a doctor. They have a demon either possessing or oppressing them. And there is a difference between possession and oppression. But, yeah, I'm just going to go out and say that's asinine. That's about the dumbest thing I think I've heard in a long time. It's idiotic. And it just goes to show that this is just the ramblings and rantings of someone who has gone off the deep end. And the sad part of it is that he has people that are following him to a very strong degree. I don't know. I'm saying some strong things about it. James, do you have any comments about it? You know, John, right now with everyone's trying to get a headline. If you're following the news at all, you're – and when you understand that concept, you understand what's going on with Spotify and Joni Mitchell, how – Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan, that whole – you know, who even – whoever listens to the four songs that Joni Mitchell ever put out. It's Joni Mitchell. But he came out and said that if he didn't – or she, I don't remember – if they didn't get – if they didn't take Joe Rogan off. So all of a sudden, now everybody's listening to this person's music because they're just trying to get a headline. And that's what it felt like for me because as soon as he put it out, people that aren't even in the circle of Greg Locke was sharing this information and sharing this video on social media. And it was a way for him to go viral. It was a way for him to – people say his name and people talk about him. And so, you know, we're talking about him on this show. And there are people that, of course, when they make things like that, we need to refute. We need to talk about it. We will eventually. But, you know, there's a reason why we don't share clips by certain people on this show because we don't want to give them a platform at all. And we don't want to lift them up. And I feel that's what it is. He's trying to say something. I don't think he realized what he said was going to go as viral as he did. No, I did. I think he did. You really do? Oh, absolutely. I think that that was – I think he looks for things to say. Okay. That will go viral and trigger people. Okay. That's my opinion. Yeah, no, that's good. That's my opinion. Listen, I know I just made a judgment call there. But, you know, there it is. It's out there. But – It is vile. It is vile, not viral, vile, that he would say that. When I let Allie listen to it, she, as a school teacher who has taught and dealt with autistic and kids that are special needs. And she has a heart for special needs kids. I've got teachers in my church that are special needs teachers that deal with special needs kids all the time. I've got several special needs kids in our church that are adults now. And I don't – this is – it's vile that he would say that. Agreed. Agreed. And I think at that point, let's move to what we want to cover today. We're going to cover – we're going to get into our Galatians study again and cover chapter 4. So, with that being said, here's the intro. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. You obey your pastor. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got – hey, if you don't have a King James, you don't have a Bible. I do not have a King James. But you know there's something about that local new guest. But independent from the middle. So when you separate a King James, I don't have a week. And I'm like, I'm going to be a preacher. I don't have a preacher. I don't have a Baptist church. I still believe if you have gold today and hell me pride, get my talents on a woman. I'm a preacher. The young preachers that do love God getting pulled off into Calvinism. And I'll fight it. I'll fight it. I'll fight you in the parking lot over there. I'll get personal with you. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom Podcast. A podcast that is part of the RFP network. That seeks to bring freedom in Christ. From the spiritual abuse of legalism in the independent fundamental Baptist movement. Now here are your hosts, John Hollifield and James Saifert. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from Scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in Scripture. It is a part of the Scripture. But the defining principle in Scripture is love. And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under that teaching will become abusive. But what I'm saying is the ones who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teaching. I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start doing differently until they have a heart out of which they're going to be doing those things differently. Bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. Welcome back. And we are excited to bring to you the fourth installment of our Galatian series. And so we are going to be talking through. And John, do we want to give a little recap? Or I know time-wise this is a longer one as well. I know, we've got a lot of notes with this. But let's do this. Let's go ahead and read the chapter. And I'll read up to verse 15. And you pick up at verse 16 and finish out the chapter. So let's begin by reading chapter 4. And then we'll get into basically breaking down the chapter. So Galatians chapter 4, if you have your Bible, we're reading from—James, what version are you reading from? I have the John MacArthur ESV study Bible. Okay, yeah. So I'm reading from the ESV as well. So we're in the elect standard version. Hmm. Hmm. I heard that. He said, hmm. I don't know about that, John. He's already like, all right, cancel this podcast. All right. Here we go. The PSB, you know, that's the Calvinistic study Bible. Well, Galatians chapter 4, verse number 1. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into their hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God. How can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first. And though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? Then make much of you. They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much for the good purpose. And not only when I am present with you. My little children, from whom I am again to the anguish of childbirth unto Christ, is formed in you. I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about. Tell me, who desired to be under the law? Do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free. She is out of, and she is our mother. For it is written, rejoice, O barren one, who does not bear. Break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor. For the children of the desolate one will be more. And then those of the one who has a husband. Now you, brothers like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as the time was, I'm sorry, but just as at that time, he who was born according to the flesh, persecuted him who was born according to the spirit. So also it is now. But what does the scripture say? Cast out the slave woman and her son. For the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. So brothers, we are not children of the slave, but we are of the free woman. All right, so we're in this book of Galatians. And like James said, let's do a real rapid review because we got a lot to cover. Galatians is a letter that Paul wrote not to one specific church, but to a group of churches in the region of Galatia. Many, some believe, and I'm one of those who believe that this was Paul's very first letter because it was very quickly out of after his first missionary journey. When he got back, very soon after that, this group comes in. And after him, after these people had been won to Christ and Paul had had some time to teach them and disciple them, that this group called the Judaizers came in. And they started teaching these people that, yeah, they could find salvation in Christ, but they also had to keep tenets with the Old Testament law. Primarily, the men had to be circumcised. And so Paul finds out about this, and he's very angry. And so he actually writes this letter, and some scholars in the past have had trouble interpreting even this letter and translating this letter because of the rapid pace and some of the way the language flows from Paul's pen. Most of the time when Paul wrote a letter, he had what was called an amanuensis, a secretary, and he dictated the letter to them. But it's some understood, and we're going to get to this when we get to, I think, chapter 6 where he says, See what large letters I write this with you. That's believed that actually Paul was in such a rush to get this letter to the churches in Galatia that he actually didn't use a secretary this time around. He actually wrote this himself. And so he writes this out. Chapter 1, he sort of gets right into it addressing it. I mean, he used very strong language. He talks about them being seduced by another gospel. And if you are going to another gospel, which isn't the gospel, then you are damned. All right? You're condemned. So another gospel is not the way to go. He then moves to chapter 2, and he gives a couple of personal stories and illustrations. He says he talks about going to the Jerusalem Council with Silas and their establishment there in the Jerusalem Council, which takes place in Acts 15, won the position of the uncircumcised coming to Christ. And then he tells a story about how Peter came and visited their ministry. And then some people from James in Jerusalem came, and they started judging and had this legalistic attitude. Like, I can't believe you're sitting with the Gentiles. And so Peter leaves, and Paul had to, like, get in Peter's face over it. From there, Paul goes into, like, finishing up chapter 2, going into a doctrinal discourse of this subject. And he starts talking about—it's where we get the verse in chapter 2, verse 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, but yet not I. Christ lives within me. In the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by this faith that the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That transitions into chapter 3, which is the last one we did. And chapter 3 begins talking about this difference between the schoolmaster, the son. And then that flows right into where we are in chapter 4, sort of continues his thought when we get to chapter 4, talking about this. So Paul expounds the purpose, again, of the law, but with a different analogy. And this analogy is the transition from slavery to sonship. James, read this quote. I got some—this time we got some quotes from Weersbe because Weersbe's just like—some of his quotes on this chapter. Do what? He lays the wood down. Oh, my goodness. Weersbe. I love Warren Weersbe. God—that is a servant of God who lived well and died well. And, you know, he's been gone almost 20, 22 years now. And his life still—well, was it 22 years or was it just a few years ago that he passed away? I'm not sure. I have to look that up. But, you know, his testimony has—he was a great servant of God. Yeah. And read this quote by Weersbe. Yeah. It says, The Galatian Christians' experience is not too far different from that of the Christianity today who get involved and grow up in various legalistic movements. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Yeah. Hoping to become better Christians. Wear this, do that, go this place, go that place. Their motives may be right, but their methods are wrong. Warren Weersbe. Their motives may be right, but their methods are wrong. Examine to yourself and ask yourself, how are your motives? How are your methods? What are the things that we're doing in our life with our children, with the people that we're responsible to when we disciple people? Are our motives right, or are our methods right, or are our methods wrong? And this is where Paul really gets into this part of slavery and sonship, and we begin to start breaking this chapter down into three sections that we're going to talk about today. The first one, we'll look at verses 1 through 7, and we're going to talk about adoption and what adoption means. And adoption is near to my heart. Me and my wife, we had actually talked about adopting and fostering before we got pregnant with our thirdborn, with Hudson. And that's still a desire in our life. It's still a desire to foster and adopt kids. And so these chapters really mean a lot to me. And so when we begin to go through this, Paul starts out by correlating what adoption is and how this can affect to us. And he really begins in verse 1 and says, what is the status of a child? What is a child in this passage? And it starts out by saying he is an heir. A child is no different from a slave, though he is an owner of everything. And so he begins to say, listen, a child has ownership, has value in this life. And ultimately, that value is under the authority of the father. Verse 2, Wiersbe again says, the sinner trusts Christ and is saved as far as his condition is concerned. He is a spiritual babe who needs to grow. But as far as his position is concerned, he is an adult son who can draw on the father's wealth and can exercise all the wonderful privileges of a son. That is where we're at. That's great. Yes, we're a child. We're growing. But that child still has all of the wealth, all the power, all the glory that the Christ has for us. And we have the ability to possess that through prayer, through discipleship, through growing. John, as we go through some of these trainings, one of the counselors, as I was going through a video just yesterday, he said, do you desire to live for God more than you desire to breathe? Is your desire in your life to grow closer to God so that you desire to be closer to God than you actually desire to eat, to breathe, to sleep? And that's a question we have to ask ourselves because as a child, that should be our desire to grow closer to Jesus in everyday life. And this is where that condition grows as a child. Yeah. And this is very doctrinal. I love this theology. I love this doctrine that is just rich in this area right here. Verse 3 says, in the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of this world. And so, you know, there's, when still living under Judaism or paganism, it was like living as a child. The law did not recognize those who were under it as mature. And the basic elements of pagan thought and life only enslaved to sin. I've been reading, I'm about to finish up the book, Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund. He uses an illustration in there sort of talking about this very thing. And he says, think of a son who is just like diligently working in the house. He cleans his room. He cleans the kitchen. His dad comes home from work and he quickly rushes out and starts washing the car very, very diligently. And he's just doing all these things, working himself to the bone, working hard and hard and hard. And the dad finally comes out and says, son, what are you, why are you working so hard? And he's like, and the son replies, dad, I'm just, I'm trying to earn my way to be your son. And the dad looks at him and says, you don't have to earn being my son. You're my son. And that's the idea here. When we are grafted into God's family at salvation, we don't have to earn it anymore. We're part of the family. We're his sons. And what Paul's trying to get across here is that being sons, we become heirs. You know, think about that. James, talk about that a little bit as far as the aspect of inheritance. Yeah. You know, as a, my, my dad, he just adopted four kids and it's crazy that he did, but, but he adopted them. And I was talking to him just the other day. And I said, you know, dad, legally, you can write me out of your will. You can take everything away from me and I can get nothing. But because you adopted those kids, those kids have to be in your will. And when we go through this thought, that's, that's, we've heard that before, but when you really think about it, when you think about being adopted, you can't be written out. You can't be taken out of the father's will. We are adopted into the family of God. And so because we were adopted, that will, that promise that God has given us is always going to be there for us. And that is encouraging to know because this is, this is a thought that can really ground us in, in our theology, can ground us in our worth and our value and our identity. Right now we're going through an identity study for our youth and this is where we can really determine where our value is at because it's in Christ. You want another mic dropped quote from Warren Wearsby? Yeah, go ahead, John, give it to us. Legalism is not a step toward maturity. Yeah. It is a step back into childhood. Man, Wearsby's, you know, and let's, let's, let's dive a little bit more into the text here a little bit. There's, there's a, a phrase that jumps out in verse three and in verse nine, elementary principles of the world, which is how it is translated in the ESV. And so there's been some debate among commentators and scholars on what this is talking about, what Paul's referring to. Um, I actually take the position that he's referring to what he talks about in Colossians 2a, see that, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. And I think what he means here, what he's talking about here, my opinion is that, uh, the elementary principles of the world are these philosophies, these ideas, these teachings of the world system. And when we say the world system, we're talking about the, the ideal world teaching system that is opposed to Christ. It is these other ideas that come in that are unbiblical, anti-biblical. And, um, and listen, we got to be careful with that. A wholesale rejection of legalism is not a, it should not be a wholesale acceptance of everything that the world teaches. And we have to be careful with that. And I'm talking about everything. I'm not, I'm talking about like, be careful what you're listening to in the news. You sound like a fundamentalist. Listen, I'm saying that we have to have discernment. Yeah. You can't forsake all principles that were taught. There are some things we have to guard our heart against. Yes. There are some things we have to guard our mind against. I think, uh, Brian Edwards had said on the, one of the most recent, uh, RFP things. He said, uh, podcast, he said, I haven't watched the news in months and it's just really changed the way I think. And I approach things. I don't even know what's going on a lot of times, but it, it gives me clarity in my mind. And I'm caught up in this often because I love news. I love politics. I love listening to those things. Uh, and I have to sometimes guard myself because I can be so consumed with just listening to those things to where my mind, it becomes on a bent toward or against certain people or things. Um, and so this is a huge thought because we do need to, uh, regulate those principles as John said. Yeah. Yeah. So then he talks a little bit more about how we, uh, attain this adoption or how this adoption came to us in verses four and five. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law. This is the when, the who, the how, and then the what and the why in verse five to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoptions as sons. When, when the fullness of time, it would come who God sent forth his son, how born of woman, born under the law. What, what was the purpose of this to redeem those who were under the law? Why? So they might receive adoption as sons. Get that. Yeah. Right here you have the gospel. Yeah. And he gets to the end of it and he says this. Now there's other reasons in scripture given for the reason of the gospel. Here's one of the reasons given. To bring you into the family. Yeah. How great is that? How great is that? So we can call him Abba Father. So we can call him. Oh, we're gonna, we're gonna get to that. Yeah. Yeah. So James, cover six and seven, the result of our adoption. The result of the option. What does this do? Verse six. And because you were sons, God has sent you the spirit of his son into our hearts. He allowed the spirit of God to come into our hearts, to direct our paths so that we can call him Abba Father. The Arabic term here, the word father here is a term of endearment that a young child would use towards their father. Literally translated Dada or Papa. Dada. That was my son's first words. My daughter, both of my sons' first words was Dada. I can remember it very vividly in my mind, even just a couple of months ago when Allie came home from work and it was a Friday and I was working with Hudson and all of a sudden he looked at me and he said Dada. And I came in and I said, Allie, you'll never believe what Hudson just said. And she got, you know, and mom, she wants him to say mama first, but he looked at her and he said, Dada. And when he said that, man, my heart melted because as a father, that is that term of endearment that is so close when someone calls us that, when Jade falls down and hurts herself and she reaches up to her dad to help her. That's that instinct that we have as dads. And if me being a fallible, sinful man still can show love to my daughter, imagine how much greater the love that God has for us when we reach to him in our helpless state and say, Dada, I need help. Yeah, I think I thought about this with like every culture has some type of way that children express this type of beginning affection towards a father in their life. You know, papi, papa, dada, daddy, you know, whatever it is. But I think that this is I just I just love this because this is what the gospel brings us to. It brings us to that point to where we now have the relationship with God in those quiet times. We can look at him and say, Dad, Father, Holy Father. What this means. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. James talked about that a little bit with the with the talk about inheritance. Max Anders says this. Grace is adulthood. Law is childhood with privileges of adulthood. Why regress back to the law? Yeah. Sonship means heirship. Why do you want to go back to the way it was? Why? Why? So this sort of transitions to the next part of the text, verses eight through 20, Paul's parental plea. And this sort of is also a little bit of a transition. We have a transition in this where it starts going from doctrinal to more of a heartfelt plea and applicational in the book. And so so let's verse eight says formally, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not God's. So what's the state? Let's let's think about this. What is the state of those before you're in Christ? Lost, dead. It's enslaved. In our sins. Yeah. Yeah. You're enslaved to sin. That's what that's your past state. And that's everybody's state. We are enslaved to sin. All right. Next. Verse nine, James. Verse nine. It goes into this present reality. He continues on by saying, but now that you have come to know God or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back against to the weak and the worthless, the elementary principles, as John said, whose slaves you want to be once more. Man, my mind was reminded just now of the children of Israel. When they came out of Egypt, they were in bondage. And Pharaoh was giving them more and more legal, more and more responsibilities and made them make their own bricks and made their work 10 times harder. And they left from there. God gave them freedom. And they are just a couple of days removed from that freedom. And they see the mountains and they see the Red Sea. And they looked at Pharaoh and said, just let us go back to live in slavery again. I know you brought us out of freedom and you brought us into this life that we're going to go into the promised land. And God's provided for us in the desert. He provided a way of escape out of Egypt. But, you know, we really like the life of slavery. Can we go back? And yet this is where we're at so many times. Paul, again, is addressing this in the New Testament. And yet 2,000 years later, we're still addressing it because we are comfortable being in that slave ship instead of the sonship. And this is where he says, this is the reality that you're in. We are heirs. God has saved us. And he has given us all things in Christ. But yet we still desire to be under the bondage of slave, under the bondage of sin. And it boggles my mind when we want to be in that sin. We want to be in that slave to the flesh. And we don't want our life to grow towards Christ because it's comfortable being in sin. Yeah. And can I say this? Stop looking for answers in the world. Yeah. That's what Paul's saying. You have been brought in to God's and now are known by God. Why do you turn back to the weak and worthless elementary principles? Why? Why? Stop going to the world for answers. Yeah. Find those who can break it down. Learn to study God's word for yourself and get those answers in God's word. Mm-hmm. Listen, we champion common grace here. We do. We love that. We know that we don't have the monopoly on finding observable truth. But, crying out loud, I am so burdened by the church, by Christians, who think that they need to—they don't classify anything as something that they've learned or saw the truth unless somebody unsaved says it. Yeah. Sorry. Maybe I'm getting a little bit too worked up about this. You're good. You're good. When you said champion common grace, I thought you were talking about champion, where we went to college at, John. Oh, okay. I was taken back for a moment. And this is Paul's concern as well. Look at verses 10 and 11. You observe days and months and seasons and years. I'm afraid I may have labored over you in vain. His concern was that all of his work had been for nothing. Yeah. Because they went back to cover—this was something that was also done in the laws, like observing certain days and certain holy days and ritual days. They were saying that now they had to do. And so now this was set apart and you must do this. Or, you know, you can't celebrate this on this day. And that kind of stuff. And so Paul was like, I didn't teach you that. That's lunacy. Stop acting that way. I like what Swindoll says. Ultimately, championing the gospel isn't about winning or losing arguments. It's about God's people gaining or losing freedom. Yeah. That's good. That's so true. Because that is where we are at as a church. That's where we're at as a people. That's where we came out of. It is gaining or losing freedom that God has given us the freedom. Now, here's an interesting section, James. Yeah. Paul goes into some more personal pleas with them in verses 12 through 16. I want you to sort of dig into that a little bit. So he begins to reflect or recollect some things. This part of the letter transitions from a doctrinal discourse to more of a heart to heart talk. He begins in verses 12 to 13 by saying the reason for being with them. What is what was Paul suffering from? He began in verse 12 and he says, brothers, I entreat you become as I am, for I also have become as you. You did me no wrong. You know it was because of my bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first. So he begins to go through this sorrow of saying, listen, it hurt me to do this. It was painful in my body, but yet I continued to do it. And you're doing it. What he's talking about is whenever he first met them. When he first got there, he was suffering. There was something going on with him and they brought him in and took care of him. Now, here's where there's a big theological question. What was Paul suffering from? And there's a lot of speculation on it. You know, like, was it something that was internal? Was it something going on? Does this have to do with what he talked about in Corinthians with that thing, that thorn in the flesh that he asked God to deliver from him for so long? And this, the most, probably the most, like, probably I think the best sort of answer that I've ever heard and one that I sort of speculate to be the one is that he had trouble with his eyes. Paul had some major issues with his eyesight and he wished God would fix his eyesight and God used that to keep him weak and depended on him. But apparently some kind of sickness that he had was really affecting his eyes here and they brought him in and took care of him. In fact, I think he even talks about how well they treated him. Yeah, and he says that they would have gouged out their own eyes. Verse 15, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. That's how much they cared for him. Yeah. And he's actually, he's like, I love you guys for that. I'll never forget that. Yeah. But now I've become your enemy? Yeah. And then he gives this direct question, which is where I picked up reading. And I wanted to say something at the time, but, you know, I wanted to just finish reading. But listen to these words again. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? Man, how powerful is that statement? Because what does the Bible say? Faithful are the wounds of a friend. I would rather my friend tell me the truth. I want John to tell me, James, you're an idiot. Stop doing what you're doing because I know I can trust him. I know that if he's going to tell me that it's because he cares about me and he loves me. And I'm going to do the same to him. If he's doing something that is inappropriate or wrong, I want to be able to have that ability to correct him and to say that, hey, listen, check up where you're at. And you need to, these are some things you need to change. And we've had to do that before to each other. And so this is a direct question. Am I your enemy? Because I tell you the truth, because the Bible says the truth will set us free. And so we have that freedom in the truth, that we were set free from our sin because of the truth of the gospel. And so we now have this opportunity to where Paul is saying, listen, I'm coming and I'm giving you this, this, this is from my heart. I'm telling you the truth of where you're at. Once you love me and now you're, you're going back to those old ways. And so he's given the truth and he's allowing the truth to hopefully again, set them free from the legalism that has been brought into their life again. Man, that's a great point, James, because that is where we need it. You know, we don't, what I was just talking about earlier about stepping away from the elementary principles of the world. I mean, Jesus' prayer to God in John 17, the high priestly prayer, he prays to God, set them apart, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. Jesus says the way that you're supposed to change, the way that's been ordained for you to change and grow in your Christian walk, to grow more like Christ is through the truth. And what is truth? It's God's word. He even defined it for us. Yeah. And so we need that truth. We must have that truth. Exactly. So Paul continues on with this and even transitions from like talking about how they were so good to him, then he talks about sort of like defending a little bit and pointing out the other, the Judaizers problem in verse 17. He says, they make much of you. He's talking about the Judaizers. They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out that you make much of them. Wow. He exposes them right away. What does he say? He says, they flatter you, but for not a good purpose. And he says, why do they want you? Because they want you to turn around and build them up and make them up. Now, here's another great quote from Wearsby. Wearsby says, the true servant of God does not use people to build up himself or his work. He ministers in love to help people know Christ better and glorify him. Beware of that religious worker who wants your exclusive allegiance because he is the only one who is right. I'm going to crackle it. He will use you as long as he can and then drop you for somebody else and your fall will be a painful one. The task of the spiritual leader is to get people to love and follow Christ, not to promote himself and his ministry. Sometimes when I read these quotes and I have all of what Warren Wearsby has ever wrote, I almost think he's writing to the IFB church at times. Because, man, these are things that when we read these and we know the history and if you don't know the history, go back and listen to some of our first episodes where we talked through the history of the IFB. Because this is building up a man versus building up God and building up a ministry instead of building up his kingdom. And this is so true. So true. Yeah. And then he acknowledges the Galatians weakness in verse 18. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose. He acknowledges that. Yeah. So is it good to be made much of for a good purpose? Yeah, I get that, guys. I get why that was enticing to you. And not only when I am present with you, and then verse 19, he expresses this parental love again. My little children, for whom I am again in anguish, in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. James, I remember in 2018, we went to T4G. And while we were there, we heard some excellent preaching all week. And while we were there, John MacArthur preached this message. And he preached on this one verse, Galatians 419. And he talked about the role of ministers and what our goal should be for our people. Not to build big buildings. Not to have a bunch of people. But our goal is to labor and anguish until Christ is formed in them. That's our goal. That's our first and foremost goal. Me and you as shepherds, as ministers of the gospel in the local church. What is our goal? Our goal is to see our people being formed in Christ. That's it. And Paul puts this in such language that he was just, it was like the anguish of childbirth. I mean, he travailed over it. He got to his soul of wanting to see them formed in Christ and become more like Christ. Yeah, exactly. That is so true. And let's go ahead and finish up. We're getting close here to the end. We're going to look at the last 10 verses. And we're going to look at Paul's biblical illustrations. And he sets up these questions, these comparisons almost. And he gives this illustration in verses 21, 22 and continue on. He gives us this allegory as a spiritual or symbolic, symbolic, I'm sorry, interpretation of a story that has literal meaning as well. And so, John, let's go ahead and talk to Abraham's two sons and the differences in their births. John, we'll talk about that real quick. All right, so this is something that I also want to throw out a warning here, and this is the idea of allegory in Scripture. All right, first of all, when it comes to allegories, allegories, James read the definition there. Let me read it again. An allegory is a spiritual or symbolic interpretation of a story that has a literal meaning. We have to, the problem with something like the story that we're about to cover, which is an allegory, is that people have taken it as license to then think that they can go to each and every Old Testament story and turn it into an allegory with some kind of spiritual meaning, and then that's how you handle the text. And I think that's a huge error when it comes to biblical handling, biblical interpretation, because I think the only reason why we would do something like that here is because we're actually specifically told in the text, let's use this as an allegory for this point. And here we have it within the text that that's what's going on. I think lots and lots of mishandling of Scripture and error has come by people trying to allegorize narrative portions of the Bible. And whenever you see somebody doing that, red flags should go up, because what happens is eventually they think that they're making such good points, they're making points that aren't even in Scripture and aren't scriptural. In fact, many times end up contradicting scriptural truth from other places in the text. So anytime you see somebody or hear somebody or hear a preacher trying to allegorize, and most of the time it's the Old Testament stories, allegorize that, red flags should go up, you should start taking very careful notes and making sure that what they're saying actually checks out, and what they're saying comes from the text. Now, with that being said, this is mentioned as an allegory. Go ahead, James. It's almost like someone were to get up and say, you know, you are David. You need to take that giant down. Go conquer your giant because you are David. Yeah, thank you, Matt Chandler. You're not David! Yeah. So here we go. He says, first of all, starts off with this question, and he says, tell me, in verse 21, you desire to be under the law? Do you not listen to the law? He's like, you want to now say this is the... You can't keep the law. Why do you want to be under this thing? Then go verse 22, and he starts the story. For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman, which is Hagar, one by the free woman, which is Sarah. All right? So, real quickly, we're going to break this down because we're going long. Woman one, Hagar, represented by Mount Sinai, the Old Testament covenant, the Old Testament law, present Jerusalem is slavery. That's all the things it represents. That's all the things woman one in this allegorical understanding represents. The son of the... Verse 23, Now, this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants, one Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. Verse 25, Now, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. So, woman two, and I'm going to have James read verse 26 and 27 here. Woman number two is Sarah, mentioned to as our mother in the text, represented by Jerusalem above. And here he quotes Isaiah 54.1. I'll bring Isaiah 54.1 up. And represented as free or freedom. James, read 26 and 27. 26 and 27. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, And that is a quotation or reference to Isaiah 54.1. It says, Shout for joy, O barren one. You who have born no child, break forth in joyful shouting, and cry aloud, you who have not travailed. For the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous than the sons of the married woman, says the Lord. Yeah. So, we have this situation. Why are we going to be of the slave? We need to be of the free. So, the application of the story now comes in verse 28. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. So, what are we supposed to do? If we're in Christ, are we of the slave woman, Hagar, or are we of the free woman? We're of the free woman. We're of Sarah. That's us. Freedom. Let's go. But just, verse 29, But just as at that time, he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also is it now. What is he referring to? He's referring that once Isaac came along, if you remember the story in Genesis, Ishmael, the little teenage brat, was like, I don't like this. I don't like you. And he started picking on him and making fun of him. It led to this bad situation where, you know, Sarah kicked out Hagar and all this stuff. And that was this, he persecuted, what he's referring to here is that Ishmael, son of Hagar, was persecuting Isaac. And what he's saying is, those, those who are of the slave woman, unbelievers, are going to persecute those of the free. True. Those who are in Christ now. That's what he's speaking of. So then verse 30, But what does Scripture say? What does Scripture say? So Paul, here he goes again, going back to the Bible. He's going back to Scripture in his text. And this should be an example for us. Going to Scripture for points, for proving points. A little shot at, never mind, never mind. Anyways, cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. And he's referring to Genesis 21, 10, and 12. Yeah. So what's our application, John? Swindoll says this, his point's clear. Christians must reject legalism and refute those who teach it. Yeah. That's clear. And it ends, John, here before we give some practical things, verse 31, the doctrinal point to the whole thing. So brothers, we are not children of the slave, but we are children of the free woman. We are free. We are not bound by the law. We are not bound by legalism. We are not bound by whatever situation that you're in. We are in a free, we are brought by a price and we do not have to live in legalism anymore. God has freed us. He has redeemed us. And that should be an encouragement to us all. And the next verse, it is, for freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. Galatians 5.1, which is our verse. It's our verse. And that is what we are trying to, listen, we champion and we shout, Scripture is what is our authority. We need to obey Scripture. We are not for trying to give you some type of license to sin. We are not for what's called antinomianism, meaning now that you're not under the law, you can do it. That's not what we're about. But listen, we also want to champion and shout for freedom as much as possible because in Christ you are free. I used this illustration last night and I asked him, I said, do you think when you hear the phrase you, the Bible, has the way that you were intended to live or the way you're supposed to live laid out for you, how you're supposed to live? I asked these young people, I said, do you feel like that phrase right there is restrictive? And one of them said, yeah, sort of. I said, think about it like this and I used this illustration. I said, think about a train. Think about a train coming down railroad tracks and think about the person laying the railroad tracks for that train and let's say that person was like, you know what, I want to lay these railroad tracks whatever way I want to. In fact, let's zigzag them a little bit right here. In fact, let's take some of these railroad track pieces and spell out my name and that would be really cool and lay out the railroad tracks like that. Now, when the train comes and gets to that section of track, what's going to happen? It's going to be an awful crash, chaos, destruction, devastation, right? But when you lay the tracks down like they're supposed to go, when the train comes through and it's barreling, it is coming through free as it's supposed to be and it is a force to be reckoned with. It can, a train when tracks are laid and it stays on its tracks can just be what it's created to be with as much force as it wants. And that is what God's word is to our lives. It sets the freedom for us to be who we were created to be. Yeah. It's reminded of the song by Tom Petty, Free Falling Baby. Love it. I love it. We may have to end as our closing as just playing that song. I don't know if we have copyright issues or whatever, but we're Free Falling Baby. That's how we are. Free Falling! I wasn't going to sing it, John, but if you want to, you can. Another place where we probably need to edit. We don't edit here. We don't edit here. That should be our motto for Freedom Podcast where we don't edit here. We don't edit here. We're great. That's good. James, I love this. Going through this Galatians 4. Why do we wait so long to do it? Because you're a bum. That's why. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. All right. Well, it's been a pleasure to be here with you and I'm glad you tuned in. And, you know, I miss getting together, John, every week, but I know that our schedules don't allow us. And so, if you have any thoughts or questions, we've had several people reach out to us. We've been able to meet up with some people. We are planning to be at the T4G this year. It's the last year of it. This will be in April. And if anyone is there and wants to have a little meetup, we're going to meet up with everybody. We've got a couple people that we know they're going to be there. I've already reached out to a college friend of mine, Charles Loader. And he's going to be meeting us there and we're going to have a good time hanging out. And so, it'll be a time where if you're in the area or if you're close by in Kentucky, it's going to be at Louisville at the, it was going to be at the Yum Center, but they moved it to a different location, which is just like one block away. But still, we're going to be in that area in April and so hopefully we can see you then. John, any other announcements or anything coming up that we need to? No, we're getting some interviews scheduled and we're, we got some topics that we want to cover. We're going to cover a topic on struggling with your, your, married couples is sexual intimate life when it's been complicated or struggling with one of the spouses past abuse. And we're going to cover that topic with some authors. We're going to cover the topic of messy church, messy people, and loving, messy people and having, and that kind of subject. So I'm excited about that one. We're trying to line up some things as far as like doing something also on wisdom as it concerns social media. And, and so we got some things. If you have something that you'd like for us to cover, like James said, reach out to us. We'd like to hear some feedback and sort of, we want to cover things that are relevant that also, that go in line with the message of what we're trying to do, but also that would be something that people would be interested in hearing what some biblical wisdom about. So, email address? 4-F-O-U-R-F-R-E-E-D-O-M. Stop laughing at me, James. 4-F-R-E-D-O-U-R-E-D-O-M.tletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletletle And it's encouraging to me. It's encouraging to John. I know when people reach out and say that our conversations are helping them, this is what me and John do. We just talk, and we are still blown away that people listen to our conversations. So it's a blessing for that. Well, this one probably going down in the ranks is sort of a spicy one. So until next time, to God. Not the pastor. Be the glory. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFPNetwork.org. To find more podcasts like this one, resources, and meetups to encourage you on your journey. 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