Participants: Mark Howard & Jim Howard
Series Code: GBOTB
Program Code: GBOTB000005A
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00:22 Welcome to another episode of Books of the Book.
00:25 My name is Pastor Mark Howard I am the director of 00:28 the Emmanuel Institute of Evangelism in Michigan. 00:30 For the Michigan Conference Seventh-day Adventist 00:32 as well as the Pastor of the Gobels Seventh-day 00:34 Adventist church and I am here with my co-host, 00:36 my brother Jim. 00:38 Hi my name is Jim Howard and I am the Pastor of the 00:40 Detroit Metropolitan and South Lyon Seventh-day 00:42 Adventist churches and I'm glad to be here. 00:44 Will we have been studying in the book of Galatians 00:48 and what is happening here is that this church in 00:51 Galatia is a church of the apostle Paul raised up 00:54 and somebody else came in and began to preach a false 00:57 Gospel that really turned the church upside down. 01:00 The apostle has come in to address the situation. 01:04 We are in Galatians Chapter 3 today and we are going 01:06 to begin there Galatians to 3:1 so if you have your 01:09 Bibles I would encourage you to jump in here with us. 01:12 The New Testament after the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, 01:15 John, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and then Galatians. 01:18 Galatians 3:1 and the apostle starts out here and says, 01:24 "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you 01:29 "should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus 01:33 "Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 01:36 "This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive 01:39 "the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing 01:43 "of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the 01:47 "Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? 01:50 "Have you suffered so many things in vain? if indeed 01:53 "it was in vain? Therefore he who supplies the Spirit 01:56 "to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by 01:59 "the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 02:02 just as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to 02:05 "him for righteousness. " 02:07 Not something we want to grasp here which is 02:09 interesting Jim, he brings it up 2 times. 02:12 This problem in Galatia came in, in what he calls the 02:20 hearing of faith was interrupted. 02:21 In verse 1 there it says, that they had obeyed the truth 02:26 but they had stopped obeying the truths when the hearing 02:32 of faith had stopped. 02:33 - they had switched to the works of law 02:35 as a means of justification. 02:36 I know for our viewers, if our viewers are reading 02:38 in the New King James Version, but if you are reading 02:40 in a version like the English Standard Version, the 02:42 New International Version, or some others it cuts off 02:46 that last part where it will read basically who has 02:49 bewitched you and it doesn't say you should not obey the truth. 02:53 So we picked the same idea up in Galatians 5 where the 02:56 apostle makes the same point again as it is in that 02:59 translation or those translations I mentioned. 03:03 Galatians 5:7 notice what he says, "you ran well. " 03:06 Past tense. You had been faithful, you ran well, but 03:10 he says, "who hindered you from obeying the truth?" 03:13 So the point were wanting to pick up on here is there 03:17 is something about this hearing of faith. 03:19 We are going to be talking about this today about what 03:20 the hearing of faith is. 03:22 While the people possess the hearing of faith, they were 03:26 obedient to the truth. 03:28 But when they lost the hearing of faith and began to turn 03:32 to the works of the law, they actually became disobedient. 03:35 Which is interesting. - it's just the opposite of what 03:38 you would think because when you think about the works of 03:42 the law, you think law, obedience and you think of the 03:45 focus not on faith but on obedience. - that's right! 03:48 The reality is that according to the epistle of Galatians 03:52 when they began to focus on the works of the law as a 03:56 means of justification, what they did was stop obeying 04:01 the truth and this really is not that surprising when you 04:06 read the other epistles of the apostle Paul. 04:08 He draws it out in other places. 04:09 I would like to point to one of them and it is in 04:11 Romans 10:1 he brings up this same point and it starts 04:17 this way, "brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God 04:22 "for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them 04:27 "witness that they have a zeal for God, 04:29 "but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant 04:33 "of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their 04:36 "own righteousness, have not submitted to the 04:40 "righteousness of God. " 04:42 So they were establishing their own righteousness and 04:46 it was a way for them to not submit to the righteousness 04:51 of God, so in many cases. - there was an obedience 04:55 it was actually a substitute for obedience. 04:57 Yeah, it was an obedience to a standard that they had 05:00 set up and they are the ones who determined what was 05:03 important and what wasn't instead of trusting what God 05:06 said was important and what wasn't. 05:08 That reminds me of another example in the Old Testament 05:12 Scripture in 1 Samuel during the reign of Israel's first 05:17 King Saul 1 Samuel 15, Saul had a habit of doing that 05:21 very thing of substituting his own standard for God's 05:24 standard and thinking that would answer to the obedience 05:28 that God was looking for. 05:29 1 Samuel 15:22, Samuel had to address Saul, God had commanded 05:37 Saul through the prophet Samuel that he was to go 05:39 against his enemies and he was going to the Amalekites 05:44 to war against them and to leave no one alive. 05:49 It was an idolatrous nation and they were not to take 05:53 any spoils, it was customary in those days to capture the 05:57 foreign king because then you could take glory to 05:59 yourself because you conquered that king, 06:01 but God said leave nothing. 06:03 Well Saul comes back from that battle and he brings the 06:08 livestock with him and brings the King with him. 06:12 He feels like he has done what God has commanded him. 06:17 So Samuel addresses him here as he sees this and he says, 06:22 In 22, "has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings 06:27 "and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? 06:31 "Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed 06:36 "then the fat of rams. For rebellion is the sin of 06:40 "witchcraft," and if you are reading along at home 06:44 you'll notice that 'as' is italicized. 06:47 That means it is not there in the original. 06:50 It would originally read like this, 06:52 rebellion is the sin of witchcraft. 06:54 He says who has bewitched you? The issue is the exact 07:01 same thing, Saul instead of obeying the voice of the Lord 07:07 was making certain personal sacrifices and obeying in 07:11 some areas instead of rendering a full obedience. 07:15 He was setting his own standard up. 07:17 You could say Saul was here seeking justification by the 07:22 works of the law, he was coming up with his own 07:25 idea and as long as he did what he felt was the most 07:28 important stuff that God was asking him to do, it was 07:31 okay if he weaved in a little bit of his own. 07:33 Really when we look at this situation we find that 07:38 sometimes we can set certain things that we do that 07:41 we are comfortable doing and we are okay with doing, 07:46 and those become what we feel is most important because 07:50 we are okay with them. 07:51 By doing that it becomes a substitute for obedience with 07:55 our whole heart and our whole life and that is exactly 07:59 what happened back in Galatia. 08:01 Circumcision became a substitute for obedience. 08:05 That's right and people think of it as the opposite. 08:09 They said no circumcision was obedience, but it was only 08:12 obedience in the context of a heart that was surrender to God, 08:17 where the flesh of the heart was cut away right before. 08:20 That's right, if you look at it Paul was not doing what 08:23 so many today would say he is all you really need to do 08:27 is believe, and this whole idea of circumcision, law, 08:30 that is unimportant you just need to believe. 08:33 Let's be honest about this, if the apostle Paul was 08:36 giving you the option, or if you have the option 08:39 to either just believe and that is all 08:42 you have to do, or be circumcised. 08:45 Which would be the easier route? Well just believe. 08:49 Circumcision was not exactly a pleasant experience to go 08:52 through. - not at all is specially in a day that 08:54 didn't employ a lot of anesthesia or anything else. 08:57 That's right, so clearly Paul was not giving a just 09:00 believe Gospel, he was a gospel that called on them to 09:03 do more than just render this external obedience. 09:07 And let's just clarify because I know there will be some 09:09 who will say my Bible says he says just believe in the 09:11 Lord Jesus Christ. What we mean by a 09:13 just believe Gospel is not what Paul means when he says 09:16 he believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. 09:18 This is what we are greatly talking about in the rest of 09:20 our time here, but we are addressing a belief that 09:24 excludes obedience and that is not a biblical teaching. 09:28 We are going to see that very clearly. 09:29 The fact is you are saying here this is something we see 09:32 repeated in the history of Israel. 09:34 I'm thinking about Matthew 23 and the religion of the 09:37 Pharisees and it says in Matthew 23:23. 09:41 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" 09:45 Now that word hypocrite comes from a Greek word that 09:48 means an actor or a stage player, you guys are actors, 09:52 you are pretenders that your religion. 09:54 "Hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and 09:59 Cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the 10:03 law: Justice and Mercy and faith. These you ought to 10:07 have done, without leaving the others undone. 10:10 Jesus didn't have any problem that they were paying these 10:15 tithes on these very minute herbs, very small herbs. 10:18 They were very particular, Jesus never condemned the 10:21 Pharisees for being a particular, what the problem was 10:25 is that they were over do certain areas of obedience 10:29 to compensate for what they didn't want to do. So for 10:32 example if they didn't want to obey in one area they 10:35 would figure well, I'll go to church twice a week. 10:37 - then they added their own laws to that to make it 10:40 okay. - if I'm with my neighbor's wife but I will go 10:44 to church more often and pay more money and that may 10:47 sound crazy but we do that very thing today. 10:50 That's what the Galatianism was, we substitute what we 10:54 feel is obedience instead of rendering obedience in 10:57 those areas we just don't want to render obedience in. 11:00 I think you hit the point which is where you want to 11:03 and where you don't want to. 11:04 I'm mean obviously you are not going to create a standard 11:07 of righteousness, or what you believe is important around 11:10 things that you do not feel comfortable doing. 11:12 You end up choosing, if you feel comfortable with that, 11:14 that becomes important and the other things well 11:17 at least you are doing these so why do I need to do these? 11:19 He reminds me of what we talked about in our last episode 11:21 where we brought up Cain and Abel. 11:24 Cain and Abel were both worshiping God, they were both 11:28 many things that God had asked. Cain did not do 11:32 everything that God had asked because he felt 11:35 I'm already doing these other things and just because 11:38 I don't bring the lamb that God asked for 11:40 I am worshiping God, I am doing these other things. 11:44 He didn't truly sense that he had a need and he needed 11:47 to trust what God was telling him. 11:49 He had too much confidence in himself. 11:51 That is right and he really wasn't obeying God. 11:53 - that is the point I wanted to make because most 11:57 Christians typically assume right off the bat the 12:00 Pharisees their big thing was obedience. 12:03 But it is really interesting if we go to John 7 and ask 12:11 the question of people, 12:13 Who was more obedient Jesus or the Pharisees? 12:17 Which Jesus or the Pharisees? It is hard for people 12:22 to answer right away, here is how I worded it, 12:25 lets ask it that way. 12:28 Who was more strict in their observance of the law, 12:30 Jesus or the Pharisees? 12:32 Oh, the answer is the Pharisees were. 12:34 But if you come to John chapter 7 and the words of Jesus 12:37 himself in John 7:19 Jesus said to the Pharisees, 12:40 "did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps 12:44 the law?" And yet if we go to John 15 where Jesus speaks 12:48 Himself as he sits in John 15:10, "if you keep my 12:53 commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have 12:57 kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. 12:59 Now the point to be understood is, but Pharisees were 13:02 not obedient to the law of God. 13:03 They were obedient to their concept of law God which was 13:06 vastly different, they were obedient to their own 13:09 standard that they had set up. 13:11 They were picking and choosing what they were 13:13 comfortable with and leave in undone because 13:15 they were feeling they were all right because 13:16 they had tipped the scales as it were. 13:19 So when we are talking about obedience we're talking about 13:23 a heart obedience that God is calling for. 13:26 One more point that I would like to add into that is 13:29 when it talks in Galatians about this justification 13:32 that doesn't come by the works of the law 13:35 but by hearing a faith. 13:37 We remember that in Romans 3:31 it says by faith we 13:41 established law so the only way to truly have obedience 13:45 is through faith, the works of the law which is 13:48 an avenue apart from Christ, there is too much self- 13:51 confidence and we can never be truly obedient to God 13:54 when we don't yield ourselves to trust Him. 13:57 That is absolutely right. 13:59 Well we have some of the things we want to jump into here 14:01 but we are going to take a break and we hope 14:03 you stay with us and we will be right back! |
Revised 2023-04-24