So, let’s go on now to
Romans chapter 10, verse 4. Romans 10:4: For Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to every one who believes. So if you’ve become
a believer in Jesus Christ it’s the end of the law. Not the end of the
law in every sense but the end of the
law for righteousness. As a means to achieve
righteousness with God Christ put an end to the law.
When He died, that was it. When He rose from the dead He offered us a new way
of being righteous with God which was not the
keeping of the law. So, Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness. He’s not the end of the law as a part of the Word of God or,
as a part of the history of Israel, or as an example of the way
that God deals with people. The law is still there. But as a means to
achieve righteousness, the death of Christ on the cross
finally put an end to the law. Now let’s look for a moment at the
example of the Galatian Christians. Galatians is an interesting epistle. If you were theologically minded,
and I were to ask you, What is the problem that
Paul deals with in Galatians? you might answer legalism.
That’s the official theological description
of this problem. Now, most of the letters that
Paul writes to churches, he begins with a glowing thankfulness to God for all
the good that’s in them. Even the Corinthian church where there was a man
living with his father’s wife, and where there was
drunkenness at the Lord’s Table, he begins with a
glowing expression of his gratitude to God
for God’s grace. But when he deals
with the Galatians he’s so, if I may say,
hot under the collar that he doesn’t spend any time
thanking God for His grace. What was the problem
with the Galatians? Not drunkenness,
not immorality, but what?
Legalism. Paul viewed that as a
much more serious threat to their well-being
than immorality or drunkenness. Now please understand I am
not saying that God condones immorality or drunkenness. But I’m saying it’s a much
easier problem to deal with than legalism, because
legalism is so subtle. It appears so good,
we feel so right about it, that it’s hard for us
to be delivered from it. But this is what Paul says
in Galatians 1:6: I marvel that you are
turning away so soon from Him who called you in the
grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there
are some who trouble you and want to pervert
the Gospel of Christ. See, he didn’t have
anything good to say. He just said, I’m amazed you
turned away so quickly. Into what? Into legalism, into keeping a set of rules and believing that they could
be made righteous by that. And then in Galatians chapter 3
he returns to this theme beginning at verse 1: O foolish Galatians,
who has bewitched you? I remember years ago reading
that verse and suddenly realizing that quote, Pentecostal or Charismatic
Christians, could be bewitched because there’s no question
that these were Charismatics. It solved a big problem in my
mind because it explained to me a situation that had arisen
in a church I was pastoring. I won’t go into the details but I saw that my whole
congregation had been bewitched by the wife of the previous pastor who had divorced her husband and
married one of the Board members and still dominated
those people spiritually. So let me just offer
this as help to you. If you’re dealing with some
problem that you can’t understand it may be it’s this problem. The people you’re dealing with
have been bewitched. Paul uses it in a
very clear meaning. Actually, the Greek word for bewitched
means to strike with the eye. They’ve been smitten with the eye, they’ve come under the gaze
of an eye that bewitches them. I had a Greek Orthodox
priest come to me years ago who’d become Charismatic. He came to me for prayer,
he said, I’ve been bewitched. Somebody has put
the evil eye on me. He was a very sober man
and he knew his Bible. I don’t want to spend time on this but I just want to open up to you
the fact that this is a possibility. In fact,
in some places it’s a probability. Alright: O foolish Galatians,
who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ
was clearly portrayed as crucified? Paul says, I presented to you
the message of the cross. I depicted to you Jesus
crucified for our sins. How can you have been
moved away from that to some other basis
of righteousness? This only I want to
learn from you. Did you receive the
Spirit, The Holy Spirit, by the works of the law
or by the hearing of faith? Were you baptized in the Holy Spirit
because you kept a set of rules? Or because you heard the message
and received it with faith? Let me ask you that question. Is there anyone here
in this particular session who was baptized in the Holy Spirit
as a result of keeping a set of rules? The answer is no one. We need to bear that in mind. We were not saved
by keeping a set of rules. We didn’t receive the baptism in the
Holy Spirit by keeping a set of rules. We received them, as Paul says,
by the hearing of faith. We listened with faith
to the message we heard, we believed it and we received. And then he says,
Are you so foolish having begun in the
Spirit, The Holy Spirit, are you now being made
perfect by the flesh? When it’s put that way
it’s stupidity, isn’t it? If you needed the Holy Spirit to start
you on the pathway of righteousness how can you ever cease to be
dependent on the Holy Spirit? How can you ever rely on
your own little set of rules? But you see, this is very real. Paul goes on in the 10th verse: For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every
one who does not continue in all things which are written in
the book of the law to do them. If you’re going to be
justified by keeping the law you have to keep the
whole law all the time. And if you try to keep the law and do
not keep the whole law all the time you come under the curse
pronounced on cursed is the one who does not keep the words
of this law all the time. Is it possible for Pentecostal
and Charismatic believers to come under a curse? I want
to tell you, it’s very possible. In fact, I know it from
my own experience. Without going into
too many details I was part of a movement in
the body of Christ which was initiated by the Holy
Spirit, sovereignly, in a work that none
of us anticipated. God joined me together
with three other preachers, all of whom are
fairly well known. It was a sovereign act of God. We began in the Spirit, but
we weren’t going one year before we’d ended in the flesh. And the results were disastrous. So, I know this is real. You’re looking at somebody
to whom it happened. God, by His grace,
got me out of it. I think because I read
the Bible and believed it. I saw the situation I was in. But I want to tell you,
my dear brothers and sisters, this is not something
from the remote past, this is something that’s
still happening today. People who begin in the Spirit and then try to be made
perfect by their fleshly nature, come under a curse. I think myself, if I may say so, that a large part of the church
is under a curse. Let me give you one other Scripture
which is Jeremiah 17, verse 5. Jeremiah 17:5: Thus says the Lord, Cursed is the man who trusts
in man, makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs
from the Lord. Now, because it says his
heart departs from the Lord it’s clear that such a man had
a relationship with the Lord. But after he got that relationship he began to trust in man,
in himself, and his heart departed
from the Lord. Well, I think that’s
happened to the majority of the professing
Christian church. I’m not going to give any names, but most of the significant denominations or
movements in the church that we know about were brought
into being by a sovereign work of the Spirit of God,
by the grace of God. They would have never amounted
to anything apart from that. But how many of them today are
continuing in the grace of God? I would say very few. So they’ve brought
themselves under the curse pronounced in Jeremiah 17:5: Cursed is the man who trusts
in man and makes flesh his arm. Let me illustrate this
from a personal experience. Ruth and I decided to sell
our house in Jerusalem, and we went to the real
estate dealers and they said, It’s a beautiful house, you’ll sell
it quickly, this is what it’s worth. For fourteen months it never sold. We couldn’t understand. But I was at a service
in Christ Church, the church we
attend in Jerusalem, and the rector there said, I’ve got to pray with a man who
needs deliverance from evil spirits. Not all rectors talk like
that but this one does. That’s why we like him. So I thought, well I
better try and help him. I went along to this session and this
man was a missionary from Africa who’d come under
a curse, incidentally. I have to tell you
without explaining, the curse was pronounced
by a black African bishop. He was nearly dying. We ministered and he was delivered
from a number of evil spirits and then we began to deal with
the whole of his attitude to life. And I said to him,
You know, it seems to me you’re really trusting in yourself. You’re not really relying
on the grace of God. I said, As a matter of fact,
I’ve had that problem. I never planned to say this,
it just came out. I’ve had that problem
because in selling our house I’ve been trusting
on what I could do. I’ve been relying on myself. Ruth with characteristic
frankness said to me, in front of all these people,
Then you’re under a curse. I said,
That’s right, I am. So I confessed it,
repented of it and released myself
from the curse. We left that meeting, drove back to the new apartment
apartment where we were living and on the ground floor
we met a real estate agent who said, I would like to show your
house to some customers I have. Within two weeks
the house was sold. Do you understand? The moment
I was free from the curse God could move on our behalf. I see some of you get
the message.
