Participants: Mark Howard & Jim Howard
Series Code: GBOTB
Program Code: GBOTB00002A
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00:26 Welcome to another episode of Books of the Book.
00:29 My name is Pastor Mark Howard and I am the Pastor 00:32 of the Global Seventh-day Adventist church in Globals 00:35 Michigan and also the director of Emmanuel Institute, a 00:38 training school of evangelism in the Michigan Conference of 00:41 Seventh-day Adventist and I am your host, 00:43 and I am here with my brother. 00:45 Yes, and my name is Pastor Jim Howard and I Pastor 00:48 the Detroit Metropolitan Seventh-day Adventist church as 00:51 well as the South Lyons Seventh-day Adventist church 00:54 in Michigan and we are excited to be talking to you 00:57 today about the book of Galatians. 00:58 Last time we gave a little bit of an opening and talked 01:01 about the central theme of the book of Galatians which 01:04 is the gospel not just one of many gospels, 01:09 but the everlasting gospel. 01:11 The apostle Paul has some very strong words in the 01:14 beginning of the book of Galatians that helps us to 01:16 understand that it's very important to him that 01:19 we get the gospel right. 01:20 What we need to do is jump right in to understand what 01:24 he had to say. 01:25 That's right, so we are going to turn into our Bibles 01:26 to the book of Galatians Chapter 1. 01:28 If you have trouble finding it you are going to go to the 01:31 New Testament and go through the Gospels Matthew, Mark 01:33 Luke, John and you'll come to Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians 01:36 2 Corinthians then you will find the book of Galatians. 01:38 There in Galatians 1:6 and the Bible says, 01:42 "I marvel," here is the apostle Paul writing 01:46 this "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from 01:50 "Him who called to in the grace of Christ, to a different 01:54 "gospel, which is not another; but there are some who 01:57 "trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 02:02 "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any 02:05 "other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, 02:09 "let him be accursed." Verse 9 says, "as we have said 02:14 "before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other 02:18 "gospel to you than what you have received, 02:21 "let him be accursed." - wow those are strong words. 02:23 Yeah, and if you understood the Greek word there is 02:26 anathema, which means to cut off with out any hope of 02:29 salvation, very strong language he is using. 02:32 So Paul is being very emphatic here about the idea of any 02:38 other gospel than what he has already preached. 02:40 So he is making it clear that there is only one gospel. 02:45 The challenge for us as we are stumbling into the book of 02:49 Galatians is that this is a letter he wrote to this 02:52 church in Galatia and he gives this nice little greeting. 02:56 Grace and peace to you and then he says I can't believe 02:59 you guys, so for the reader we are coming into this. 03:02 - what happened? - yeah what did we stumble into here? 03:06 The reality is it is hard for us to grasp where he is 03:09 going without getting a little bit of the background of 03:12 this story, what call forth this letter. 03:14 So that is what we are going to do today. 03:17 We are going to try to get some background on what called 03:19 forth a letter to the Galatian church. 03:21 Okay, well maybe will we should do is within the book 03:25 of Galatians first see if we can find some signs, some 03:29 hints as to what this background entails. 03:32 We already know it involves the gospel being perverted. 03:35 But there is a certain aspect of that we find out when 03:38 we look at Galatians Chapter 2. 03:39 So let's look at Galatians 2:1 together. 03:43 We are going to read for a few verses here. 03:46 It says, "then after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem 03:51 "with Barnabas, and also took Titus me." 03:54 Now we are picking up in the middle of a description 03:58 the apostle Paul is giving as to how he first was 04:02 converted and his apostleship as he was called into. 04:06 - you might highlight here that after 14 years he shared 04:09 earlier than that, after his conversion there were 3 years 04:12 in verse 18 that after his conversion he went up to 04:19 Jerusalem and then 14 more years. 04:20 It was 17 years since the conversion of Paul that he 04:23 shares this story and that will come into play as we 04:25 go on a little bit more. - That's right, good point. 04:27 As we look at Chapter 2 and verse 1 again it says that 04:30 he went up to Jerusalem after 14 years which is really 04:34 after 17 years from his conversion. 04:35 It says, "I went up by revelation, and communicated to 04:39 "them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but 04:44 "privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any 04:47 "means I might run, or had run, in vain. Yet not even 04:51 "Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to 04:55 "be circumcised. And this occurred because of false 04:58 "brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth 05:02 "to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, 05:05 "that they might bring us into bondage), to whom we did 05:08 "not yield submission even for an hour, that truth of the 05:11 "gospel might continue with you." 05:13 So there is some very sinister schemes he is talking 05:16 about here and in the heart of it in verse 3 is this 05:21 statement that not even Titus who was with him, being a 05:25 Greek, that is not a Jew was compelled to be circumcised. 05:29 He almost draws that out of nowhere as if they would know 05:32 what he was talking about. 05:33 But we don't exactly know, fortunately for us this story 05:37 where he says after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem 05:41 we have a record of. 05:42 - that's right we have that account. 05:44 That's right and it is in Acts 15 so let's look there 05:48 and it will give us a little bit better idea of what the 05:52 background is to the apostle Paul writing this letter 05:55 to the Galatian church. 05:56 Acts 15:1 it says, "and certain main came down from Judea 06:04 "and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised 06:08 "according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." 06:12 Okay now we are getting a little bit of a hint of why 06:15 he was bringing up circumcision in Galatians Chapter 2. 06:18 He was saying that not even Titus a Greek was compelled 06:21 to be circumcised. 06:22 Apparently these men were saying that you needed to be, 06:24 but he didn't feel that was true. - that's right! 06:28 Now in verse 5, if you keep moving it reiterates, 06:32 "but some of the sect of Pharisees who believed," now 06:36 the Pharisees who believed would represent Pharisees 06:40 the Jewish religious leaders who accepted Jesus Christ 06:44 was the Messiah. 06:45 They were Pharisees who believed, but it says, 06:48 "they rose up saying, it is necessary to circumcised them, 06:52 "and to command them to keep the law of Moses." 06:55 Okay I will interject here, I have had people read this 06:58 and say well it is very obvious what is happening here. 07:02 They are wanting these new believers to be circumcised 07:05 to keep the Ten Commandments and that is how they read 07:09 that in there and I want to emphasize that this term law of 07:12 Moses you can do a search, for example I am reading in 07:15 the New King James version. 07:16 There are 22 occurrences in the whole New King James version 07:20 of this term law of Moses. 07:22 They never refer exclusively to the Ten Commandments, 07:26 but to what we call Penitiff? or the Torah, the first 5 books 07:30 of the Bible which were written by Moses. 07:33 Instruction that came through Moses. 07:35 So it wasn't just dealing specifically with the 07:39 Ten Commandments, obviously here the issue is 07:42 circumcision, which isn't part of the Ten Commandments. 07:44 It is the broader picture of the instruction that 07:50 God gave through Moses. 07:52 One example of that we find in the book of Exodus 07:54 Chapter 12 and maybe we ought to look at that just to 07:57 get an idea of where these guys might be coming from. 08:00 The second book of the Bible, Genesis then Exodus. 08:03 Exodus 12:48, in Exodus 12:48 the instruction given when 08:10 you look at verse 43 it says, "and the Lord said to Moses 08:14 "an Aaron," so Lord gives us instruction and Moses has 08:19 written it out and in verse 48 he says, 08:22 "and when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep 08:24 "the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be 08:27 "circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it, 08:31 "and he shall be a native of the land. 08:33 "For no uncircumcised person shall eat it." 08:38 Of course this is in the book of the law of Moses 08:43 as these Pharisees believed were reading text like the 08:48 one in Exodus and saying it said in Exodus if a Gentile 08:52 wants to be part of us, he has to be circumcised. 08:55 That's right, and I think for us to look at this and draw 08:59 a conclusion it is difficult when we don't really know 09:03 the background of how circumcision came to be in the 09:07 first place, so at the risk of going back to the 09:10 beginning we really need to go back to the beginning 09:14 here and find out what it is that prompted God to give 09:17 the right of circumcision. 09:19 So what we need to do is go back to the father of the 09:21 Jews, Abraham, we would go back to Genesis 12. 09:26 Of course we are going to Abraham because Abraham was 09:29 the one whom the right of circumcision was given. 09:31 So we are going to go back and find out why. 09:35 That is right, so we go back to Genesis 12 we find a 09:39 little bit about what God was promising to Abraham. 09:43 It says in Genesis 12:1, "now the Lord had said to 09:46 "Abraham; get out of your country, from your family 09:49 "and from your father's house, to a land that I will 09:52 "show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless 09:55 "you and make your name great; and you shall be a 09:59 "blessing. I will bless those who bless you, 10:01 "and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the 10:04 "families of the earth shall be blessed." 10:07 Now in order to make a great nation from Abraham. 10:10 In order for all the families of the earth to be blessed 10:12 through him, he needs descendents. 10:15 It took a little while and nothing was happening. 10:21 His wife Sarai was not pregnant and some roughly 10:26 10 years later we come to Chapter 15 and still the 10:32 promise had not been fulfilled. 10:34 Well at some point it became evident, even prior to this 10:37 just a new verses before in Chapter 11:30 it said, 10:40 "but Sarai was barren; she had no Child." 10:42 So it became now that they thought sooner or later she 10:48 might become fertile, but the reality is, as time goes 10:53 on as you said, there's no descendents. 10:55 Hope gets less and less and I think that is where they 10:58 were here when we get to Chapter 15 of Genesis. 11:02 It says in verse 1, "after these things the word of the 11:05 "Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, do not be afraid, 11:09 "Abram." He sensed his fear, "I am your shield, you're 11:13 "exceedingly great reward." 11:14 That is a powerful verse of Scripture. 11:16 He was promising that He Himself would be his reward. 11:19 But he continues in verse 2 and says, "Lord God, what 11:23 "will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir 11:26 "of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? Then Abrams said, 11:30 "look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born 11:33 "in my house is my heir. And behold the word of the 11:36 "Lord came to him, saying, this one shall not be your 11:39 "heir, but one who will come from your own body 11:42 "shall be your heir. Then He brought him outside and 11:45 "said, looking out toward heaven, and count the stars 11:47 "if you are able to number them. And He said to him, 11:50 "so shall your descendents be." 11:52 So here is this promise, Abram I told you 10 years ago 11:55 and I'm telling you again, you are going to have a 11:58 descendent through which all the families of the earth 12:02 will be blessed. 12:03 - which is an incredible promise, it says the stars 12:05 of heaven, - and at the time there was nobody. 12:08 So verse 6 gives us a very important verse of Scripture 12:12 that will touch on later in Galatians as an important 12:17 part of the Gospel. 12:18 In verse 6 it says, "and he", which is Abram, 12:22 "believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him 12:25 "for righteousness." So this is a powerful verse. 12:28 Abraham still believed the promise. 12:31 God had said that this heir would come from your own 12:36 body, but he didn't say he would come from Sarai's body. 12:41 So Sarai said well, this is not working out I am still 12:47 barren and devised a plan that Hagar, her maidservant, 12:52 would be the one through whom Abram would ultimately 12:56 have descendents and so they devised this plan to 13:00 fulfill the promise of God. 13:02 They almost sensed that since it wasn't being fulfilled 13:06 they needed to give the Lord a hand, if you will. 13:08 They would make sure descendent was born in the house. 13:12 Absolutely and so of course a descendent was born. 13:16 His name was Ishmael and Abraham and Sarai and Hagar 13:19 thought they had accomplished the will of God through 13:22 their own devising. 13:23 Ishmael grew and for years and years they were resting 13:27 content that the promise of God had been fulfilled. 13:31 Until we come to Chapter 17 in Genesis. 13:35 I'm looking at our time here and it looks like we need 13:38 to take a little break before we dive right in. 13:40 So we are going to break and when we come back we're 13:44 going to dive in to Genesis Chapter 17 and we are going 13:47 to see what happens with that descendent and the right 13:51 of circumcision then being imposed upon Abraham and 13:55 his descendents. Stay with us we will be right back! |
Revised 2014-12-17