Sermon Tone Analysis

Galatians #7

Galatians 3:1-5

Old Time Salvation

 

 

Well, I missed you guys last Sunday.

I appreciate the good people who serve here with me and give of themselves that I can have some time off.

But being gone one Sunday and having weather issues on Tuesday and Wednesday, it feels like forever since I was last with you.

As we move forward into chapter three of Galatians, Paul continues to make his argument between salvation by the law and salvation by grace … of salvation through action or salvation by faith.

We think of Salvation as being a New Testament idea … but it is a Bible Concept … it’s going to take us several weeks to work though this, but each week will have precious gems in each week.

So, go with me back to Galatians moving to chapter 3

READ 3:1-3             

 

There are three words I want to put in your mind today,

 

Bewitching

Suffering

Living

 

And as we move through these weeks I want you to see that new provisions were made through Christ, but Old Time Salvation and 2009 Salvation are the SAME thing.

We used to sing a song when I was little, maybe some of you who were raised in the church remember it … It was a song that was first published in 1873 … the tune seems to date back to English Folk Music but the style was African American Spiritual … it seems to be a song that was a cusp merging Black Spirituals and White Gospel Songs and bled into Southern Gospel

 

The tune has evolved a little … we used to sing it this way

 

Give me that

Old Time Religion

Give me that

Old Time Religion

Give me that

Old Time Religion

It’s good enough for me

 

The first printed lyrics were adjusted a little perhaps to fit the audience

 

Oh!

This old time religion,

This Old time religion

This old time religion,

It is good enough for me

 

In that first printing it had extra lyrics that said \\ “it is good for the mourner …”

Other lyrics

It was good for our mothers

It was good for our fathers

Makes me love everybody

It was good for the Hebrew children

It was good for Paul and Silas

It was good for the prophet Daniel

It was tried in the fiery furnace

It will do when I’m dying

It will take us all to heaven

 

Now, some of you already have your mind working … and you are saying /“I don’t believe in Religion”/, don’t get distracted … we are not talking about man-made religion.

Let’s get our definitions

When that song talks about what is good for you mother and father, and for Paul and Silas and for Daniel, for those boys in the fiery furnace, for Abraham, Moses, David, Adam, Hannah … it is Salvation

Salvation, Old Time Salvation

 

Is it really the same for Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Hannah, David, Daniel, Peter, Paul and Mary … wait … J yes and Peter, Paul, Mary, or Mavis, Cletus and Virgil?

YES … so why do we get sucked into the Religious Activity and try to bypass the Grace of God?

We will see later that YES we should follow a pattern of living that is laid out in scripture but is it FOR salvation or because of salvation?

That’s where the lure of religion gets us … Religion by itself won’t do anything for us.

That’s what Paul was saying.

People today think they just need to find “something that works”

Buddhism

Hinduism

Judaism

Citizenship

Good Samaritanism

Footballism

 

Fill in the blank

What is the lure into a system?

Look back at our words

 

Paul says

“/You foolish Galatians!

Who has bewitched you/?”

J.B. Phillips translation rendered it /“Oh you dear idiots of Galatia … surely you cannot be so idiotic”/

 

Well Paul what are you really trying to say. 

 

1.

Bewitched

 

The word translated “/bewitched/” … it is a word only used here in the New Testament and it

/Baskaino ~/bas-kah-ee-no~/ “to slander, to bring evil on one by feigning praise; to give an EVIL EYE; to charm, to bewitch/

 

What is so “bewitching” about the law?

God gave the law so what is wrong with the law?

When Paul talks here about “The Law” … he is generalizing for both the Law as it had come to be practiced by Israel and the Pharisees and the Practice of Circumcision.

So if these came from God, what was wrong with them?

Nothing is wrong with the Law, but there is a whole lot wrong with man

 

  A.

Circumcision

God gave the practice of circumcision to Abraham as a sign of a Covenant, a Promise he would make with him.

It was a promise of blessing.

It was a continuation of the promise made to Eve in the Garden to one day do away with the power of Evil.

It was a physical mark

It was a mark that struck at the identity of the men

It was an internal mark that they belonged to God and he belonged to them.

It was a generational sign, passed down from one to another

It was given to Abraham and he gave it to each generation after him.

But the bewitching thing is that it also had the potential to be overtaken by pride

Satan knows where we are susceptible and he strikes there.

And along the way those with the gift of the promise took their eyes off of the God of the promise and put our eyes on ourselves.

These Judaizers were seeing their circumcision as an entitlement instead of a gift of Grace.

In the days of Moses, they had already forgotten God and their place in his plan.

And yet God further proved the faithfulness of his Promises

He gave The Law

  B.

The Law

The law was given by God to Moses in Exodus 20-34.

The basis of course was the 10 Commandments

Interestingly enough, the Lord who describes himself to Moses in Exo.

34:6-7 as /“the LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”/

God is a gracious God and a covenant keeping God and he gave the Law as a further sign of his Love and Grace.

The Law was never intended to make us PURE, it was intended to show us we were sinful and it made provisions to appease God during an intermediate time until the Promised One came

3:19 says /“it was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come”/