Stand Firm in Freedom (Galatians 5:1)

[Music] we need to be together to study the word of god and to open up not only open up the scriptures but our hearts to the lord and to one another there are a lot of one another verses in the bible one of them says that if we bear one another's burdens we fulfill the law of christ and i thank god for the congregation and for christian friends thank you for your prayers week by week by week i'm able to come here and preach the gospel and then go to the doctors during the week so thank you for for your many prayers i continue to get better in some ways and worse than others but today we're here to study the word of god so let me read the passage i'm only doing one verse because this is a very important verse in the book of galatians it's galatians 5 and verse 1. so i hope you have a bible available because there'll be some other passages that we'll be open up to but galatians 5 and verse 1 it says this it was for freedom that christ set us free therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery i'm only doing one verse because it is loaded with theological concepts and it's a transitional verse that takes us from chapter four to chapter five and some scholars even attach this to the end of four they and it will set the theme for the rest of chapter 5 and 6. let's pray as we begin heavenly father thank you for your word thank you that we have a love for your truth if we don't may you increase it in us or give it to us may we be people who want to follow what your word says and be obedient to it and to help one another to that end so we thank you for the opportunity to to hear your word today in jesus name amen so here again is our verse it was for freedom that christ set us free therefore keep standing firm good translation by the way and do not be subject again to the oak of slavery so the yoke of slavery that paul is talking about goes back to the previous verses and chapters in the book of galatians the yoke of slavery was law keeping and the supposed necessity of going back to law keeping or law works to try to be justified and frankly to try to be sanctified and the idea that we won't be adequate christians unless we submit to the laws that the judaizers and false teachers want us to submit to but paul is saying that we are set free in order that we might stand firm in freedom let me refresh your memory a little bit about earlier in galatians okay in galatians chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 it says this but it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in christ jesus in order to bring us into bondage but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you what is always at stake is the truth of the gospel spiritual warfare is about the truth of the gospel the enticement to go back to law works is in a battle against the truth of the gospel as we'll see a little bit later when we go into ephesians 6 the armor of god is about the truth of the gospel and the reason the gospel is central is that god's wisdom god's power god's salvation god's purposes are all gospel centric and so we don't apologize at gospel of grace fellowship for being gospel centric and if we fail to tell you the good news and to remind you of how glorious it is what god has done for you that we've failed period the gospel is what god has done for us but religious people are not satisfied with that religious people want to put one another under bondage it would seem counterintuitive but that's exactly the way it is false teachers wanted them to be in bondage to law works and they always volunteer themselves to be the law givers i've wondered sometimes why this idea of being a law giver is so enticing to so many people but if you really want to think about the big picture from genesis to revelation who's the law giver is the issue from day one satan questioned god as the lawgiver the serpent said has god said later in this sermon i'm going to talk about binding and loosing it has to do with what is or is not binding on the christian the the people that wanted jesus killed and destroyed they wanted to be the law givers and when jesus wouldn't submit to them they became outraged and infuriated and wanted to be rid of him why do so many want to be lawgivers because it's the most powerful position in the universe it's god himself who gives law and provides a way of salvation but humans would like to take over that role so when paul is saying don't be subject again to the yoke of slavery we go back to verses four and five that i quoted you to you and realize it was the false brethren that wanted to put them there you listen to us you jump when we tell you you born when we play the dirge and you rejoice when we play the wedding song we're in charge you're subjected to us jesus didn't go along with that nor the john the baptist or any other one who would be gospel century now this is my favorite slide for galatians and i've used it four or five times now you might notice here that it grew okay before it had ten points these are all drawn directly from the text itself after getting a little further in the text i added for this morning points 11 and 12. and what we pointed out before in galatians is that this all goes together once you go under the law works everything on that left side will apply to you whether you like it or not you'll be not justified cursed imprisoned all of us from the text under guard under custody be slaves under guardians under stewards slaves to the hostile spiritual powers it's slaved to idols and now two more of the flesh we saw that in galatians 4 23 of the flesh that'll be discussed more in chapter 5 and under our yoke which is our verse here 5-1 but what if you're somebody who doesn't accept the false idea of law works to make you better christians or to make you justified but instead you believe the gospel by faith then what's true everything on the right side of this list all directly from scripture justified blessed redeemed having received the spirit brothers and sisters in christ we believe the promise of god will release from the prison house we have new status in christ we're no longer under the hostile powers of satan we're sons and daughters heirs of christ we are people of the promise and we're free in christ now that is so glorious why would anybody listen to something else well most christians today do it's the enticement of man-made religion it's the idea that we can't humble ourselves enough to admit that we can't solve our own problems we need god's gracious work and if we try to do it on our own we'll fail but god has done it all for us we receive the promise of the spirit by faith that's what it says it means what it says it's glorious it's wonderful but it doesn't really cause religious leaders to get rich and it doesn't give them subjects that they can put under their thumb and push around because people like to do that because we have the gospel we received it by grace through faith from our lord jesus christ back to verse one again this is my only verse so i'm going to do it justice it was for freedom that christ set us free therefore keep standing firm now we to talk about that it is a battle it's a spiritual battle to stand firm in the gospel why because all the forces of hell are raid against it church history goes against it the powers of darkness the religious leaders the purveyors of popular books go against it because if this is a free gift given by god then that's it we don't need something else don't be so we have two imperatives here okay keep standing firm and imperative in the greek is something with an exclamation point it's a command keep standing firm don't listen don't listen to false teaching do not be subject another imperative what is this yoke of slavery well the word yoke we're going to see this in this sermon from from other scriptures was used in that day to mean the law or putting oneself under the law or it could simply mean the yoke of the balances for justice it's used that way in the old testament but here it would mean law works keeping law works prescribed by the teachers mentioned in chapter 1 verses excuse me i i mentioned that earlier let me find it for me chapter 2 verses 4 and 5. and it is this idea of being under the yoke we'll see that a little bit later freedom is gospel freedom now this isn't free to sin or free to rebel against god's moral law or free to do whatever we feel like but it's freedom under true biblical binding and losing which we're going to see here in a moment it's freedom from law givers who appoint themselves to that role it's freedom in that in the new covenant according to peter we have the priesthood of every believer there's not some authoritative prelate that's a word for religious authorities standing between us and god saying you listen to me and then you'll be right with god it's not true we have direct access to the throne of grace we're all priests to god we all can do binding and loosing in a biblical way we can all judge prophecy we can all prophesy one by one and we can all judge and so standing firm is not to be enticed to be under the yoke would be as would be to be a slave of something in 1 timothy 6 1 that's 1 timothy 6 1 it says let all who are under the yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so the name of god in our doctrine may not be spoken against so there's the yoke and so it would mean to be under slavery now in acts 15 10 you might want to jot this one down it comes in acts right after paul's ministry in asia minor and i believe after the incident where peter acts excuse me in galatians 2 stumbles on this point it starts with drawing from table fellowship with the gentiles by the way if you want to pick up that article it's about table fellowship traits from genesis to revelation okay acts 15 10. this is peter because evidently he yielded to paul's correction here's what peter said in acts 15 10. now therefore why do you put god to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear and now that the the light of the gospel is shining so clearly for peter so we can never bear it we can never be right with god by law works neither we or nor our fathers that would be those under the mosaic covenant we could never bear the yoke why put it on the gentile disciples in the old testament the greek old testament it often meant tyranny in fact that it's used a number of times about the babylonian king because god had ordained that he would be the one that would execute his judgment on rebellious israel and the prophet jeremiah told them to put themselves under the yoke because it's god's purpose for now freedom comes later so it can mean to be under tyranny freedom is linked to the gospel now here's my implications and applications i have four we must stand firm that's command of god stand firm in the gospel not the traditions of men wow what an enemy of the gospel the traditions of men are i've often said that tradition is like a big steamroller that they use to flatten out the blacktop when they're laying it have you ever seen those big rollers and it's mostly roller and they're driving up and down to get flat blacktop i've often said the truth is like a little grasshopper landing on the asphalt and the tradition of men runs over it you never know the truth was ever there boy as soon as you don't follow somebody's religious tradition the fury of hell is released on you we'll see that in the gospels how do we escape that are we just subjectively stuck with our own paradigm and we can't escape no i believe that we can believe the truth that we can be priests to god that we can understand the truth of the gospel and we don't have to cave into the post-modern idea that everybody gets their own truth we can know we can understand we can believe we don't have to allow tradition whether we're riding the steam roller or somebody else to roll over everything we can be corrected if sola scriptura means anything our ideas and beliefs must be correctable otherwise we're just whistling into the wind and not believing our own doctrine christ has freed us from law works that's what it says in galatians biblical binding and losing are essential i'm going to show you that boy talk about a passage that's often misunderstood and it's used as the one in matthew 16 about binding and losing and then fourth christ yoke christ's i have a possessive there yoke brings true rest we're going to end with the gospel itself and i love the universal call of the gospel and it should be proclaimed i believe consistently christ's yoke brings true rest now let's go to this command from god to stand firm the lord said through paul stand firm now this has been misunderstood i've been writing articles since 1992 that at least that we published and there's 126 of them now there's one particular article that i get more feedback to this very day than all the other articles i ever wrote and it's the one about casting out demons and i tell a story about i used to believe in that and what i did back in the 70s and somebody that's promoting this and what's wrong with it and how it leads to bondage and somehow i got linked around the internet and i get emails every week and they don't read the whole article they want me to cast demons out of them i've got a demon how can i get rid of it and i always use that as an opportunity to preach the gospel come to god through the gospel and once you do that if you believe the gospel and trust jesus christ as your lord and savior you are delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son yeah but the demons still bother me well then go tell god about it and let him decide what he's going to do and then they say well no no you're just escaping your responsibility you be bobbed away or to cast out the demon that'll just make things worse for you because now you're spending all your time interacting with demons go to the gospel and that is a weekly email exchange and generally speaking once i point them to the gospel they're not interested they go look for somebody else's article why why do we feel like the gospel can't do it for us look at this this is ephesians 6 13 through 15 and i'm going to read 16-17 this is the armor of god and it says stand firm that's our topic here therefore take up the full armor of god so that you will be able to resist an evil day and having done everything to stand firm stand firm then it's repeated therefore having your loins curded with truth and having put on breast plate of righteousness having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace i'll read on verse 16. and in addition to all taking up the shield of faith which will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of god stand firm where see what is thought by so many and there are professional christian shamans who you can hire to help you do this figure out what demon is doing what address the demon directly and talk to the demon no demon i won't listen to you and the demon says something else no i won't listen to that either then another demon comes in well i'm not going to listen to this one and then pretty soon it gets too complicated so you go find a shaman who knows demons better than you do and he or she starts addressing the demons well we've got to stand firm we've got to put on the armor of god and then we turn the armor of god into an incantation literally i've got all these books in my heresy library at least what's left of it i threw most of that away because i didn't have room anymore but here's what you do say this so you get up in the morning and say i put on the breastplate say it so they say don't listen to this it's an illustration of what not to do i put on the helmet aha demons you can't get me now i just put on a helmet there's an invisible helmet on me i put on it and so they go through the incantations and wouldn't you know the day goes on a demon start in again well maybe i didn't do it right dear ones no forget all of that this is the gospel what what is this saying to us where do we find the truth through the gospel what's god's given us in christ where do we obtain righteousness both imputed and imparted through the gospel where do we find peace through the gospel says that right here we have faith do we believe that we're transferred into the kingdom of his beloved son or do we believe we need a shaman to interact with the demons take on the helmet of salvation stand firm you have salvation as a gift from god through the gospel the word of god is a means of grace that informs us informs us about the gospel and applies it to our lives in every practical way you can imagine the demonic component is to go back now remember where were we as we go through galatians that the stoichio the demonic powers were what we were under before and if we go back to law keeping we go back to the demons oh my goodness the things i've heard in 50 40 years not 50 i was only 12 50 years ago or 13. i fudged i'm 63 became a christian at age 20. now all what i've heard well the pietistic higher order christians that i'm a better christian than you or how are you going to get god to do anything or how you're ever going to be holy they had altars that you'd go forward to try to get a higher order experience and literally i kid you not there were groups that would see somebody coming forward to their altar to have a higher order experience receive the spirit maybe speak in tongues or maybe receive entire sanctification or holiness whatever it was called literally the pastor would tap on the shoulder of the lady praying say you're not going to receive anything from god one of the ladies is going to take you back to the ladies room and we're going to get the rings the earrings the makeup we're going to get all that off of you and when we do then we'll bring you back here and then god will meet you and you'll find what you're looking for that's i'm not making that up that's just another version of going under the stoichio god is withholding his blessing from somebody who believes the gospel because he doesn't like how they dress oh yeah i heard that i've also heard that if you had any kind of a thing in your house whether it's a crescent moon shape or a certain art or a frog the demons will come and we become no better than pagans running around wondering why the demons are getting us and not standing firm in the gospel what is valid binding and losing this is terrible bondage i i honestly my heart goes out to the people that email me who get mad and they don't want the gospel they want a shaman to manipulate the demons here's what i know you shall be in that condition of interacting with demons perpetually unless you stand firm as it says here in the gospel what does satan do he's the accuser of the brethren what's he doing in revelation he's accusing him before god day and night what's the issue in colossians 2 well the cross are we right with god has the blood of jesus washed away all our sins are we god's special sons and daughters who he's brought to himself and will he keep us and protect us against all the onslaughts of satan i say yes now let's go to this issue of binding and losing this is so essential i don't know it's really beyond me how to emphasize this so that you get it it is so important it's going to determine what we submit to and what we don't submit to let me read it to you matthew 16 i will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven now when i first came across this it was used to promote the warfare worldview meaning that if we're tormented by satan and demons we could use verbal assault incantations secret sayings words to manipulate the universe and therefore bind satan and demons and so in the 80s i wrote articles i had a pastor's meeting that we hosted to talk with them about that brought out the theological material and argued that this isn't about binding satan and demons is about forbidding and permitting as understood in the context and by the rabbis had a hard time getting them to believe that there was a book out called this present darkness this guy has a fictional city where people started binding satan and all things got better the crime rate goes down and so on and so forth see we imagine ourselves to be the masters of the universe i'm this great glorious man of god who will determine what demon is allowed to be over what city and according to jude and ii peter 2 this is usurping god's place it's to blasphemy mean blessing god himself and even michael the archangel did not dare do such a thing but said the lord rebuked you it's not our domain to rule over god's universe in that way that's not what this is about this is about this is given in the singular here peter but in matthew 18 it's given to the rest of the apostles jesus spoke for god it said an amount of transfiguration this is my son listen to him jesus was the new greater moses who spoke bindingly for god if jesus said something was a sin it's a sin if jesus gave liberty then liberty we have and he gave that authority to his apostles those who were chosen by him who were with him from the beginning plus one born out of time later paul and they would be able to speak authoritatively for god we deny that there are any authority of apostles and prophets beyond the biblical ones we assert that true binding and loosing is in accord with the teaching of christ and his apostles which would be our new testament the galatian false teachers to put this in context we're practicing false binding let me give you an example so make it real clear the galatian false teachers paul mentioned them in chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 we're saying that if you're a gentile believer you cannot be a part of christian table fellowship unless you are circumcised and keep the law of moses now the jerusalem council that i quoted earlier in acts 15 refutes that and they're saying we bind you to the law of circumcision paul argues that abraham was blessed by god through faith when he was uncircumcised and that this was a false teaching so they were practicing false binding they falsely put christians under the yoke of bondage christ and his apostles speak authoritatively for god to bind is to forbid and to loose is to allow let me say that again to bind his defer bid and to loose is to allow what about this thing of prophesying and judging prophecy can a man or woman stand up in the church and say thus saith the lord and then give some prophecy beyond scripture or anything attached to scripture as if they were the pope and the pope by the way doesn't have this authority either luther spoke very eloquently about this whole issue and he had it right he actually used 1st corinthians 14 to prove his point you have the priesthood of every believer you may all prophesy one by one let the other judge so one believer can say according to how i understand christ and his apostles and what they taught this is bound in other words we have to obey it or roost we don't it's christian liberty and that has to be logically connected to the text itself the implications and applications are many we do it every sunday but someone else can challenge that there's no human who can sit in some seat and say i speak for god you don't you can't judge me you can't challenge what i say that doesn't exist other christians can say no your use of scripture is wrong this isn't binding and here's my proof and let the others judge that's how luther used it and his application was any church authority including the pope who has the gospel wrong any lowliest christian can judge the prophecy to be wrong and say be silent and sit thou in the corner to the pope now this isn't engendering some idea of being rebellious or a kind of classic in its own right but to be able to do simply what it says binding and losing not directly from god but in accordance with the accordance with the teaching of the apostles and prophets who gave us the new testament now let's talk about the yoke i want to really get this galatians 5 1 well preached okay i love the passage i worked really hard to get all the way to chapter five verse one so i'm going to take advantage of the chance here what about this yoke the false teacher is one of the christians in asia minor to be under their yoke they wanted to put them into slavery and say you do what we say you jump when we tell you to you obey us you do everything we say put yourself under are you and if you do that you can feel good about yourself until the next time we tell you something else so your money your obedience you're squirming around when the religious leaders tell you what you should do or shouldn't do your your guilt feelings or whatever it might be buys you peace for a moment until now that they have this power because you can't judge what they say until they come up with something else there's no and to it there isn't there's no end luther finally saw that there's no end to this and he finally called a halt to the whole thing it says sola scriptura scripture alone we're not going to feel like god is going to judge us because we refuse to listen to the church in his pontifications will listen to christ and his apostles because they speak for god matthew 11 28 through 30 come to me jesus says this come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for i am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my br load is light now so many don't understand in context the revolutionary and glorious thing that's going on here what jesus is saying they don't look at it in context let's get the context into our mind earlier in matthew 11. he said what shall i like in this generation too it's like children playing in a marketplace one of them says i played the dirge and who didn't mourn they were playing a funeral game jump when we tell you to the other children you say we're playing wedding game we're singing a fun wedding song now you rejoice with us and the only way to find favor and i was talking about jesus and john the baptist is to submit to these false religious leaders john the baptist wouldn't do it jesus wouldn't do it and these leaders were tying up heavy loads matthew 23 laying them on men's shoulders not willing to lift them with a little finger that was their yoke perpetual and unending obedience to the whims of immature people who gain power over other christians and not according to scripture it's a horrible state to be in there's no end to it in that context and i'm going to prove to you that that's the right context and how we'd understand it the yoke would be to put yourself in submission to someone's decrees or the oak would be law keeping now at issue here is sabbath keeping the rest that jesus is promising is sabbath rest you find that in the book of hebrews jesus is the one who grants true sabbath rest he's the lord of sabbath and those who come to him find rest for their souls that's what it says do you think you find rest for your souls if you submit to the pharisees we'll see for in a moment you never will they will find you in violation again and again and again and you'll never have rest for your soul because you won't know what they're going to come up with next but with christ and his apostles it's already been said it's already been spoken we can understand and it's not onerous worrisome burden some but it's freedom for its freedom that christ set us free therefore stand firm in this liberty to now be entangled with the yoke and the oak in that case was the decrees of the religious rulers take my yoke upon you learn from me gentle and humble in heart dear ones when you come to jesus christ you don't find an insecure tyrant who wants to watch you squirm as he puts you under his thumb when you come to jesus you find a loving savior who laid down his life for you a redeemer who bought you out of the marketplace of sin a lord who doesn't need the lord over somebody to be happy but who takes care of your every need and concern and who carries you along all the way to glory he's gentle and kind not that he isn't a legitimate law giver because he is not that he won't bring judgment but he will or you find rest for your soul my yoke jesus's yoke like you'd put on an oxen it's not burdensome it's easy and it's light now let's see the context look at this if you didn't believe me about the context hopefully you will no excuse me hopefully you will now matthew 12 1-2 this is right after the offer for his yoke and wouldn't you know it as jesus said take my yoke upon you and find rest there's a sabbath controversy he's talking about sabbath and that was one of their favorite ways of making rules sabbath laws at that time matthew 12 1-2 jesus went on the sabbath through the grain fields and his disciples became hungry he began to pick the heads of grain and eat guess what they're going to say uh how work you pick grain let's work on sabbath you're in violation you're a rebel god's angry with you but when the pharisees saw it they said to him behold your disciples do what is not lawful they're doing binding and losing to do on the sabbath so they bound the disciples of jesus and said you may not shell out some green in your hand as you walk through the field throw it into your mouth and eat some of it you're not allowed to do that i used to do that on the farm by the way with the oats and jesus then quotes some scripture to prove that they were wrong about how they understood scripture but then he makes his claim in matthew 12 8 i want to get to that so i'm going to read that to you if you have it open in matthew 12 i'm going to read 8 through 14. i'll show you what's going on i'm not making all of this up it may be a little different than how you've heard or understood binding and losing but i have a lot of scholarly back backing to it it's all scriptural i'm not making this up okay matthew 12 8-14 for the son of man is the lord of the sabbath so he claims to be lord of the sabbath not just one who's subject to it that's why he can offer rest for souls verse 9 departing from there he went into their synagogue and the man was there whose hand was withered and they questioned jesus asking is it lawful to heal on sabbath so that they might accuse him they try to bait him into healing a guy with a withered hand what is getting lost in this whole process the guy with the hand we don't care if he's healed we just want to catch jesus so we can get him out of our midst and crucify him we don't care about this guy he's just fodder for us he's just somebody that we can do you just don't care about about his well-being that's why jesus said come to me and you find rest for your souls my burden is easy yoka's light they wouldn't have accused him verse 11 and they said to him what man is there among you who has a sheep and if it falls into the pit on the sabbath he will not take hold of it and lift it out pause dramatic pause well implied yeah they'd all take the sheep out what's wrong with this human beings are created in god's image they're more important than sheep lesser to greater if you take the sheep out don't you care about this guy whose hand is he of course they're thinking well jesus if you're so powerful you can heal him on mon on monday or tuesday or wednesday or whatever some other day because we got to preserve our right to dictate the sabbath laws verse 13 then they said to the man then he said to the man excuse me stretch out your hand he stretched it out it was restored to normal like the other there's 14. look at the result there's 14 but the pharisees went out and conspired against him how they might destroy him here's a man who offered rest to israel who proved himself to be the lord of sabbath by healing the man and they are so angry because they see a threat to their power to put everybody under their thumb so they want to get rid of them don't tell us the truth don't heal people in our synagogue we want you gone in fact we want you dead one more slide and here we shall look at the gospel back to verse 8 son of man is lord of the sabbath there's there's a section i was running through this with eric on the phone wow john 9 is so fabulous i have yet to figure out a way of preaching it because it's such a long chapter but on your own read the story of the blind man in john chapter 9. it's very interesting in its own right and they were asking jesus whose sin this guy or his parents why he was born blind and jesus said neither but that the works of god might be manifest and that god might receive glory so what happens is the man is healed and that got him in trouble with the pharisees remember the guy with the withered hand trouble with the pharisees healed blind man trouble with the pharisees why because all of these things were a threat to their authority to do their own binding and losing and making laws and rules and making people jump through their hooves they couldn't give that up the gospel strips that away from everybody and gives us in place of it the authority of scripture and the priesthood of every believer so here's a blind man healed verse 9 john 9 16. i just can only give you a little of this therefore some of the pharisees were saying this man is not from god talking about jesus because he did not keep the sabbath but others were saying how could a man who was a sinner perform such signs there was a division among them some the debate is whether jesus is a sinner he has to be a sinner he broke sabbath well heal the blind yeah well what are we going to do about that has anybody read this scripture has anybody read isaiah 53 or isaiah 42 has anybody thought about the fact that when messiah comes he'll heal the blind well let me read some of this to you i don't have any more slides so i have some in my notes here where this whole thing goes and then we'll we'll go to the gospel john 9 30. the man answered they started questioning this man let's in the intervening verses the man answered and said to them now here's a blind man blind from birth he he's doing business with the pharisees and the scribes and the scholars this is ironic to the nth degree he didn't have any way to learn torah to know all this stuff but he's refuting the smartest man in israel the man answered said to him well here is an amazing thing that you do not know where he is from and yet he opened my eyes verse 31 continuing the discourse of the blind man who was just healed we know that god does not hear sinners but if anyone has god fear he does his will he hears him verse 32 since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind so says the blind man who's now healed verse 33 if this man were not from god he could do nothing verse 34. they answered him you were born entirely in sins for now if you go back to the beginning of john 9 they were debating who sent him or his parents born blind he had to be totally full of sin that was their prevailing worldview you were born entirely in sins and you were teaching us so they put him out what happens when somebody tells the truth to the religious leaders ow you must go they were deciding that anyone who listened to jesus would be put out of the synagogue that comes up here they put him out he just got healed now he can be shoulder to shoulder with the others and learned torah and be part of it he'd been around his whole life blind they threw him out how dare you get healed on sabbath shame on you wow jesus heard that they'd put him out in finding him he said do you believe in the son of god notice jesus in his compassion did not leave him only seeing he wanted him to see in a more important sense than that is spiritually he says to him do you believe in the son of man the man was not yet a christian john 9 36 and he answered who is he lord that i might believe in him verse 37 jesus said to him you have both seen him and he is the one talking to you hallelujah he said to him lord i believe and he worshipped him and jesus said for judgment i came into this world here's the point here's the main point of the prickity for judgment i came into this world so that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind judgment of hardening the religious leaders who went through this man out of the synagogue became even more blind the blind man who had never seen the light of day can not only see physically but he becomes a worshiper of god through jesus christ who gave him spiritual sight what is it that we want what is it that's important to us what is it that's offered through the gospel talk about that article i wrote where people want me to cast out their demon a guy called i decided just to let this whole thing run run its course one time four or five years ago he said i got a demon it's a horrible demon and no one can cast that out of me so i'm calling you because i'm hoping that you have some power of the holy spirit that everybody else doesn't have i said well i can tell you right now i don't have that i have the holy spirit but i don't have anything that other christians don't have well this is terrible and i've been to meetings all over the united states and nobody can get this demon out of me how do you know it's a demon well it's just inside of me and i feel it churning around in there so he went around around around so finally i said to the man because this has point here with the blind there at the time our fellowship had a blind lady who was coming to church and she worshiped god and i said to him finally i said are you willing to serve god on his terms through the gospel whether he delivers you from what you think is a demon or not and it went silent and he said what kind of question is that i said it's a very legitimate question are you willing to serve god on his terms we have a lady at the time five six years ago who's blind who serves god on his terms and i'd say her condition of being physically blind is at least as bad not worse than what you described i said i'm not going to argue with you whether it's a demon or not i want to know if you're going to be willing to serve god and the guy got mad and he hung up on me he didn't want to serve god he wanted a relief from his what he thought was a demon what about you are you willing to come to jesus and find rest for your soul this very john that i've been quoting was the path the gospel that teaches that jesus preaches that ask god face to face with god who came into this world and lived a sinless life predicted his own resurrection from the dead was crucified buried and raised on the third day appeared to many witnesses and bodily ascended into heaven we're all as hard-hearted and blind as anybody we've read about in these passages if left to ourselves but there's freedom and deliverance and healing and rest is found by repentance and faith repent from having the kind of attitude some of these people had and be like the blind man who says who is he lord that i might believe in him see he had what he wanted his eyes saw he could have gone out and had the career he never had or maybe he had the family he never had or find a wife or look at the sites in israel people sent thousands of dollars to go to israel he was there never seen anything but instead of running out to enjoy his new sight he says who is he lord then i believe in him i believe lord and he worshiped today will you put your faith in jesus christ and trust him alone and stand firm in the gospel let's pray heavenly father we thank you for your word your word is true we have to confess that outside of a work of grace we wouldn't be any different than the worst of some of these characters we read about in the bible but maybe be like the healed blind man and serve you and that's what we need to see jesus may we be satisfied being under ear yo could not look for something else we thank you lord in jesus name amen please stand for the benediction which will be from hebrews chapter 13. i can tell when people stand you hear all the wd-40 deeds squeak squeak squeak squeak interesting okay we're in hebrews chapter 13 and verse 20 now may the god of peace who brought up from the dead our lord jesus the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of the everlasting covenant equip you with all that is good to do his will working in us what is pleasing in his sight through jesus christ glory belongs to him forever and ever amen god bless you go in peace [Music] you

Channel: Critical Issues Commentary

Views: 151

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Bob DeWaay

Id: BoDPQvmLq5s

Length: 59min 51sec (3591 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020