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In the book of Galatians, false teachers were trying to convince the people to return to God's law to earn God's favor.
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So they said, okay, we'll go back to the law. And Paul's saying, are you crazy? Do you hear what the law says? Do you want to be the child of slavery or the child of promise?
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That was almost 2,000 years ago. But what the Apostle Paul was pleading with the Galatians to rediscover is just as important for us today. Thanks for being with us, for renewing your mind. And in this final sermon from R.C. sproul in this series, in Galatians, chapter four, you'll see that the answer always was and always is the Gospel. As this is the final message in the series, it means it's also your final opportunity to to add Dr. Sproul's commentary, not just on chapter four, but on the entirety of Galatians to your library. This single volume hardcover commentary can be yours when you request a copy when you donate before midnight tonight@renewingyourmind.org well, here's Dr. Sproul.
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Tell me, you who desire 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, 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 will be more than those of the one who has a husband. Now you, brothers like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what do the Scriptures 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 of the free woman. It was the night of my 24th birthday. I was coming home from a basketball game through the portion of Pittsburgh which was called East Liberty. I was coming back to our apartment where we were going to celebrate my birthday when As I was walking past a jewelry store, suddenly I heard a woman screaming, stop. And I turned and looked, and this man ran out of the jewelry store and ran right into me. Instinctively, and certainly not heroically, I just grabbed him by the shoulder and I said, hold it right there. And he looked at me meekly and he said, I give up. Fortunately, he didn't have a knife or a gun or anything, but I just stood there and held him until the police arrived and they took him away into custody. A couple days later, I saw one of the arresting officers on the street in East Liberty, and I said, what was with the man who robbed the jewelry store? And he says, oh. He says, that fellow's a strange one. He said he had just gotten out of jail, but jail is his comfort zone. He likes it there. Three square meals a day and a roof over his head. He can't cope in free society. So as soon as he gets out of jail, he immediately commits a crime and allows himself to be apprehended so he can go back to jail. Can you imagine somebody just getting out of jail and wants to go back? Well, this is what Paul is saying to the Galatians. He says in chapter four, tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? Do you not pay attention to the law? Are you listening to what the law says? The law says, thou shalt not. Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not. And if you are under this law, you're in bondage, you're under the curse of the law, and you are not living in freedom. He says, you're like the people of Israel who cried out while they were enslaved by Pharaoh in the Old Testament. And they groaned and moaned, and God heard the groanings of his people. And he sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, let my people go. And you know the story of the Exodus and of the magnificent thing that God did to free his people. But no sooner had they been liberated, and as they were wandering in the desert, sick and tired of eating manna morning, afternoon, and night, they began to think nostalgically of how great they had it in Egypt. They had garlic, cucumbers, onions, and they said, let us go back. They wanted to go back into prison for the sake of some garlic, and they murmured against the God who set them free. Now Paul goes on here when he said, 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. You know the story of Abraham, Sarah. God came to Abraham in his old age, when his wife was past the age of childbearing. She was barren. And God promised Abraham that he would have a son and he would be the father of a great nation. His descendants would be more than the stars of the sky and the crystals of sand on the seashore. When Abraham told that vision that he had to his wife Sarah, she laughed. And the word for laughter in Hebrew is the word Isaac. But Abraham was convinced that God would keep his promise. And so he waited for a week, he waited for a month, and expected Sarah to become pregnant. And she wasn't. She waited. He waited for six months, a year, six years. And every day Sarah grew older and older and the promise was all the less likely to be fulfilled until finally, Abraham and Sarah concocted a scheme to make sure that God's promise would be fulfilled. And Sarah said, why don't you join with my servant Hagar and have a son? And so, as the story goes, Abraham got with Hagar. She became pregnant and bore a son whose name was Ishmael. But Ishmael was not the son of promise. He was the son of slavery. God had not forgotten the promise that he had made to Abraham. And so it came to pass that Sarah became pregnant and she had a son whose name was Isaac. LAUGHTER Paul speaks of this story in history and attaches an allegorical significance to it. He says, now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants. They represent two different covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, where Moses received the law. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery. She's Hagar. Now, Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, Sinai in Arabia, Jerusalem here. Because the Jews in Jerusalem were still living under the old law of Moses and had rejected the covenant that God made to Abraham, which was a covenant of promise that the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother. Let me just pause for a second and say that the Bible is filled with discussions about freedom and slavery. This tension is being discussed over and over and over again in Sacred Scripture. That's also been a point of discussion for intellectuals, for philosophers through all of Western history. You think of the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, who's famous for saying, man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. I agree with half of Rousseau's assessment, the second half, that, yes, we are in chains, but I don't believe that we are born free. Lions may be born free, but Human beings are not born free. The Scriptures tell us that from the moment of our birth, we are afflicted by the corruption of original sin. The American philosopher theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote a treatise on original sin that's not nearly as well known as his treatise on the freedom of will or on his religious affections. But in that treatise on original sin, Edwards goes through all of the biblical texts and deals with them in an academic, exegetical fashion to probe this whole debate about freedom and slavery and the corruption that we experience at birth. And then suddenly he shifts his attention from the Scriptures, and he said, if the Bible never said a single word about original sin, natural reason would have to posit it in order to explain the human condition. We've heard the cliches over and over and over again. Nobody's perfect. To err is human. To forgive is divine. I have heard people say that God entitles all of us to one sin. I don't read that anywhere in Scripture that we have an entitlement to disobey God. But even if it were true that we're entitled to one mistake, how long ago did you use yours up? But Edwards is saying, if we were all born free from any inherited corruption, wouldn't you suppose that at least 50% of the population would remain perfect and sinless? You say, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. We're born free, but we're in a corrupt society? Well, what society made up of people, and they're corrupt people. You would still think that 50% of the people in this society would be free from evil. But Edwards says the universality of the fallen human condition screams from natural reason for an explanation. And then in his much more famous treatise on the freedom of the will, Edwards, and I have to say, in a very complex and difficult way, analyzes the whole question of free will. Free will is one of the most abused concepts that we encounter in civil discourse in our country today. If I would ask the average person, do you believe in free will? Then naturally they're going to say, of course I believe in free will. And so did Edwards, but with very careful qualifications. The common understanding of free will in our society is this. It's a concept borrowed from pagans, from humanism, that says that the human soul is free to decide with equal inclination either to the left or to the right. He can choose to be sinful, or he can choose to be obedient to God with equal power. That is, his will is neutral or indifferent. Now, of course, looking at Scripture, we're told on every page that that's not the case that we are born in a state of spiritual and moral bondage. And here is where Edwards makes this very important distinction, where he distinguishes between natural ability and moral ability. What's the distinction all about? Natural ability is what nature equips us to do as we are created. I do not have the natural ability to fly through the air like a bird. If I want to fly, I have to have some kind of mechanical equipment to enable me to fly through the air. I don't have the natural ability to live underwater. I may be able to swim underwater for a few seconds, or I may be able to go underwater in a submarine, but by nature, I don't have the equipment necessary to live underwater. I don't have the gills and the fins and the scales any more than I have feathers and lightweight bones and wings that make it possible for me to fly through the air. The reason for Edwards distinction was this. He says, we have the natural ability of freedom insofar as we have a faculty that we call a will. We have the natural ability to. To make choices, and we make choices every day. What we don't have is the moral ability to choose the things of God. By nature, we're in moral slavery, and only God can set us free. Shake your head and you're thinking, wait a minute. Does that mean that if a person wants to choose God, that they aren't able to do it? No, that's not what it means. Anybody who wants to choose God can choose God freely. But the problem is, what with the want to, sure, you can choose what you want to, and you can choose God if you want to, but not if you don't want to, because in one sense, we're doomed by our freedom. And Edwards goes on to explain it. He says, a choice is an effect, and it has to have an antecedent cause. And what causes the choice that you make today and tomorrow and yesterday is the strongest inclination that you have at a moment. Now, think about it for a minute, folks. Edwards was saying, you have never made a choice to do anything in your life that you didn't want to do. Last week I had a root canal, and it wasn't pleasant. It didn't work. It was a disaster. And it was so bad that the dentist, after two hours, gave up and said, I'm going to pack that tooth. I still wasn't able to calm it down, to make it numb, and you're going to have to come back in a week and we'll go after it again. The worst pain I ever experienced in my life in a dentist chair. And he says, come on back and we'll do it again. Now, here's the crazy thing. I chose to do it again. My doctor, who was here this morning, prescribed some drugs that made me willing to go back again. And so, even though, all things being equal, I would never choose a root canal, what person in their right mind would? But when your tooth is hurting and it's abscessed and you want to make sure that it stops hurting, if your dentist tells you to go have a root canal, I'd say, I'd rather have a root canal than to have this continual pain. Or I'd rather have this root canal than have my tooth pulled. All things being equal, I didn't want the root canal. But all things weren't equal. They're never equal. I know that there are people in this church this morning, probably men, who, if you ask them, you want to go to church this morning, you say, that's the last place I want to go. I want to go play golf. I'm going to go play tennis. I'm going to go to the beach. Yet you can. Why? Because you rather would come and spend an hour in church than listen to your wife complain all week long. And so that's what Edwards meant by choosing according to the strongest inclination that you have at the moment. You know, I think to myself, sometimes I'd really like to be sinless. I'd like to have sin gone from my life. But whenever I want to do something more than I want to obey God, what do I do? A hundred times out of a hundred, I sin. If I want to obey God more than I want to do the sin, then I obey God. But it all comes down to the disposition or inclination of the heart. And here were these people that God had set free from the law. When they heard the gospel preached from Paul, they rejoiced. But then Paul left them, and some false teachers came in and began to tell them, well, no, what you really have to do is get back under the law, the ceremonies, and keep all those laws that we've looked at in previous weeks. And so they said, okay, we'll go back to the law. Paul saying, are you crazy? Do you hear what the law says? Do you want to be the child of slavery or the child of promise? Then he says, as it is written in the Old Testament, rejoice, O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor. He's talking about Sarah. For the children of the Desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband. In every society. This is the tragedy. More people willingly choose slavery than freedom. But you brothers like Isaac are children of promise. For just as that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so is it now. Fast forward 2000 years and Paul would say it again, and so is it now. But what does the scripture say? Wait a minute. We could stop right there and go home and not answer the question, what does the Scripture say? Because our natural inclination is to say, what? Who cares what Scripture says? And what Paul is saying is, what does God say? For many years I taught, among other things, the science of apologetics, which is the intellectual defense of the truth claims of Christianity. I don't know how many times I've had a debate with people who had all kinds of intellectual objections to the Christian faith. And I tried to be as patient as possible to answer to the best of my ability, every one of their critical questions. But at some point in the discussion, I would stop and say, hold the phone for a second. Let me ask you a question. What do you do with your guilt? I don't know how many times I've asked people that question. What do you do with your guilt? I know there are all kinds of people out there that say, well, there is no such thing as guilt. There's no such thing as good or evil. And they say that until somebody steals their wallet, and then they have a different opinion. But, you know, I've never had somebody look me in the eye and say, I don't have any guilt. Because they knew that I knew that if they said they didn't have any guilt, that I would know very well that they were lying to me straight to my face. What do you do with your guilt? You can rationalize it, you can deny it, or you can have it forgiven. And the only answer to the law is the promise. That's what Paul's telling these people here. You want to listen to the law? The law will break your back. It'll bury you in guilt. But it's in the promise. So he concludes by saying, what does the scripture say? The scripture says, cast out the slave woman, get rid of Hagar, get rid of Ishmael, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman. So he concludes this section by saying, so, brothers, we are not children of the slave, but of the free woman. That's what the gospel is all about. Slavery or freedom and our inheritance is not in Arabia or in Jerusalem, but in the heavenly Jerusalem as children of the Promised.
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Amen. That was R.C. sproul with his final sermon in Galatians, Chapter 4 Renewing youg Mind has a global listening audience. That audience still includes me, but I can recall how helpful this program was for me and my wife many years ago when we were newly married and living in Australia. Your generosity made it possible for me to listen then and helps countless Christians today hear trusted teaching, whether living in Melbourne, Australia or Malaysia. So thank you for the ways you frequently show your support as you donate, leave positive reviews and comment on the daily video on YouTube. And to show our thanks when you donate before midnight tonight, we'll send you the hardcover edition of RC Sproul's commentary on Galatians, written with a pastor's heart and suitable for both Bible study and devotional reading. I recommend this edition to you. Simply give your gift@renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast Show Notes. And if you live in Australia or any country outside the US and Canada, when you donate at renewingyourmind.org global, we'll unlock access to the ebook edition so that you can read his thoughtful commentary and take this teaching with you on the go. Again, thank you for showing your support of renewing your mind, but be quick as this offer won't be repeated next Sunday. During his earthly ministry, many people asked Jesus questions, some to trap him, some out of curiosity. And beginning next Sunday, RC Sproul will turn to the Gospel of Ma to examine saint questions. I look forward to you being with us next time here on Renewing your Mind.
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Sam.