Well, hello, church, if you would open to Galatians, open to Galatians chapter. Three. Galatians chapter three, we'll move back into chapter two in just a moment for a verse or two there, but we'll be in chapter three this morning, starting in verse one. This is what the word of God says to us. Oh, foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you this only. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now, it is evident that no one is justified before God by works of the law, for the righteous shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. Let's pray. Father, Lord, we thank you for your Holy Spirit. We thank you for your Son, Jesus Christ, who has come down and done what we could not do, who is born under the law to redeem those who are under the law, that we might become children of Abraham and sons and daughters of God. And so praise you for these things, Lord, we do pray that you would give us understanding. Lord, I know there's some whose hearts may feel apathetic and indifferent to the study of your word right now, to these great realities before us. And we pray that you would actually use the word of God and to revive them, to strengthen them, to to remind them that you are more excellent than all other things and that you alone are worthy of our lives and of our worship. And so, Lord, we pray that you you have your way, that you would work your grace in and through this this time, and we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Well, guys, I actually was listening to a pastor earlier this week who was talking about preaching to a screen. And during this whole, it was during this whole COVID lockdown time, and he was actually arguing pretty convincingly that this isn't actually preaching. that's speaking into a screen and then you sitting wherever you're sitting and hearing and watching that this isn't actually preaching, but it's more of a devotional or something else. And, you know, I'll admit, I don't know what to call it, whether we call this preaching or not preaching or something else. All I know is I don't really like it. I would prefer not do this. I know you would prefer not receive the word this way. Something is greatly lacking. in the communicating of God's Word through this method. But here's what we do know. We do know that the Word of God is opened before us. And we do know that the Spirit of God works through His Word in the lives of His people. So let's trust that that can happen today for us. As you know, we're in the middle of a series in Galatians studying this great book. And we're seeing really that the two main themes here, the law and the gospel and how those relate. And, you know, I've gotten some feedback from some of you regarding the law in particular, and just you telling me this is hard. These are dense arguments. It feels, especially sitting there, watching the screen, trying to follow along with everything that Paul is saying about the law. And by way of encouragement, I would say this to you, you're not alone. Many great theologians have actually said that the law is the most difficult and complex theological topic in the Bible. So, don't feel stupid. We are all struggling to wrap our minds around something as massive and all-encompassing as the law. And really, the book of Galatians, what it does for us is it helps us understand the gospel and the law and how they relate, and how the law and the gospel relate to the Christian life. And so this is very relevant for us. It could easily be argued and argued this before that you can't even really begin to understand the Old or the New Testament without at least starting with a basic knowledge of the law and how that relates to your life and where that doesn't relate to your life today. So let's be realistic here. Let's not try to understand everything that can be understood about the law in one week. Let's just take it a little piece at a time here. And let's actually start by going back into chapter two and looking at one verse that we kind of skipped over before. I want to go back to chapter two and look at a very important verse on the law, verse 19. It says this, for through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. Through the law, I died to the law that I might live to God. Now again, many things could be said about the law, many more things need to be said about the law, but this seems important right here. This verse actually seems very, very, very important that through the law, I died to the law. That's important, but you know what? It's not really that clear, is it? What is he saying? It's almost as if we need Paul to come tell us what he means by this verse. because it's still very vague and difficult to nail down. Thankfully, he does explain what he means, but he does it in Romans chapter 7. So, I'm going to read a portion here in Romans 7 where I believe he's explaining exactly what this verse means, dying to the law. So, Romans 7, starting in verse 1, he says, the law is binding on a person as long as he lives. And then he gives an illustration. For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. And if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law. And if she, I'm sorry, if she marries another, she's not an adulteress. Likewise, and here he gets into it, verse four. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law. There it is. You brothers have died to the law. How? Through the body of Christ. So that we may belong to another. There's our answer, but I'm going to just keep reading so we can get the full context. To him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we may serve in the new way of the Spirit and not the old way of the written code." Verse 7. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would have not known sin. For I would not know what it was to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I once was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me. The first time I ever heard somebody using the law in this way, I think was early in my Christian life, it was Ray Comfort evangelizing. And he was giving the Ten Commandments saying, have you ever coveted? Have you ever lied? Have you ever stole? Have you ever cheated? Have you ever looked with lust and committed adultery? And the person would be like, yes, yes, yes, I've done those things. And he says, yes, you're a lawbreaker. What should God do with rebellious lawbreakers on the day of judgment? And what was he doing? He was using the law for the purpose of revealing sin, for the purpose of showing sin in the heart of that person. They didn't know they were a sinner or wouldn't admit it until the law revealed it. And that's what Paul is saying the law does. So the law kills us. It kills us. And look, when you go back to the Old Testament, you look at 613 commands of the Old Testament, or you look at the Ten Commandments, I mean, you just immediately are like, who can keep this? Who can do this? This is impossible. And you just realize there's no possible way that this is going to happen. It kills you. It condemns you. So that's one purpose of the law. It kills us. It reveals our sin and reveals the need for God's judgment. Number two, it reveals, wait a second, there was one man who did keep the law. He was born under the law. And he obeyed the law and Jesus came. He knew this was his purpose. He says, I didn't come to abolish the law or the prophets, but I came to fulfill them. Jesus knew why he came. And he came to obey the law that no other Jewish man or woman ever could. But then the law has a third purpose. It also prophesies. It prophesies. And we get this from Matthew 11, 13, that it says all of the prophets and the law prophesied until John, that the law prophesied until John, that is John the Baptist came. Okay. So all the Old Testament is prophesying. And then John the Baptist comes. They're prophesying. It's all prophesying about Christ, about this Messiah to come. And then John the Baptist comes. And he goes, hey, he's right here. Jesus, the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, he's right here physically among you. Behold the Lamb of God. But before that, it says in Matthew 11, 13, that the law prophesied, the law pointed forward. So all the festivals and feasts, all of the food laws and the holiness commands, all the temple and the sacrificial system, all these bloody sacrifices were prophesying. to something that was coming, to someone that was coming. In Hebrews 10, verse one says it like this, the law was but a shadow of the things to come instead of the true form of those realities. It can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near. It can't, he says. Otherwise, Why would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. But it's impossible, impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. So Jesus knew the law was prophesying, it was pointing to this need of a sacrifice, a once and for all sacrifice. And Jesus says, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but they were pointing to a body that you have prepared for me. Have you ever wondered why, you know, we call it the Old Testament or the Old Covenant? Why that word old in front of it, to modify? Why not just covenant? Why do we call it the Old Covenant? And only Christians see this. A Jew would never call the Old Testament the Old Testament, or they would never call it the Old Covenant. But Christians do. Why? Well, because we believe there's a new. And we believe the old is no longer relevant the way it once was, but the new has come. And we see this in Hebrews chapter 8, starting in verse 6. It says this, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old as the covenant that he mediates is better since it's enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant, the old covenant, had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says, and now he's going to quote Jeremiah 31, the author of Hebrews, starting in verse 31, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant. with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant. And so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not teach each his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. It's the promise of the new covenant. And then he ends in verse 13, summing it up like this, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. When he brings in the new, he makes the first one obsolete. obsolete. So, the old covenant, the law, it had a purpose for Israel. It distinguished them from all other nations. It restrained sin and revealed sin. It prophesied and pointed them to Christ, but it was a shadow. That's all. It was a temporary shadow until the substance would come. Hebrews 8, 5 says, the law serves as a copy, a shadow of the things to come. Hebrews 10, 1, the law was but a shadow of the good things to come. So, Paul keeps calling it the shadow. And in Colossians to the church in Colossae, he uses the word again. He says, let no one pass judgment on you in regard to questions of food and drink. These are things that are clearly related to the law. Food, drink, with regard to festival or new moon or Sabbath. All right. Again, I'm reading Colossians 2, verse 16 and 17. You can't say this about the law. But clearly something has changed here. Let no one pass judgment on you regarding questions of food and drink, with regard to festival or new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Now guys, this is why Paul is so frustrated with the church in Galatia. He is going, uh, really? You want to go back to the old when the new has come? Have you lost your mind? What are you doing? You would rather have the law than Christ. Are you foolish? That's what he says in verse three. He actually asks them, are you foolish? Are you foolish? Are you idiots? Is literally what he's saying. If you lost your mind, how could you go back to the shadow when the substances come? What's going on here? He's saying it's like a bride on her wedding day. So I would rather have the shadow of my husband than the real thing. I mean, it makes no sense. It's foolish. It's stupid. This is Paul's question, and then he just says this, well maybe it's just demonic. He says, who bewitched you? Who bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. He's saying, I preached to you the gospel so clearly. I put Christ before you over and over again. All the glories of the gospel. Christ is publicly portrayed as crucified. He was placated before you, put before your eyes, and then you want to go back to the law? Maybe it's demonic. Certainly it's got to be demonic. If you would go back to the law, when you have Christ, Douglas Moo in his commentary on Galatians says, bewitched is to exert an evil influence through the eye. The New Living Translation says, who has cast a spell on you? Paul's only understanding of how someone could see the glories of the new covenant in Christ and then want to go back to the old is either you're foolish or the devil's at work. You've been bewitched. He has no categories. I mean, he warns, Paul actually warned Timothy in 1 Timothy 4 of something very similar. He said, in latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. And it's interesting, the context of that warning that Paul gives Timothy, because it's related to those who warn you not to eat certain foods. It's related to law, wrong application of the law type teaching. Guys, here's what we know about the Apostle Paul, okay? He said a lot of stuff about the Apostle Paul. He does not hold back, does he? I mean, you know what he's thinking. This man is just, and he said this in chapter one, verse 10, he says, if I was still trying to please man, would I be a servant of Christ? He just, he's going, I didn't make this gospel up. I'm just the delivery man. I didn't write the mail. Like I'm just putting this before you. But it's not my words. Jesus himself revealed this to me and I'm passing it on to you. And you know, maybe it's wise to sidestep for just a second and make a quick point here. We are so scared in our day to offend anybody. You know, Paul is not concerned at this point about being politically correct. He's not aiming for some sort of diplomacy. He's not trying to appeal to scholarship. He doesn't offer to dialogue with these Judaizers. There's no compromise in him. He is, as a good shepherd, just seeking to warn the sheep of some dangerous teaching. of a different gospel. And he's not taking this postmodern approach that is so common in our day, where you have to begin to affirm all the things you like about a view contrary to yours, where you have to begin to underline all of their strong points before you very, very, very, very gently get to offer a word of caution on where you disagree. Now there's a time to be gentle, there's a time to not be confrontational, and there's a time to be confrontational. and to just flat out be blunt and clear. And Paul is not trying to be gentle at this point. He is blunt. He is clear. He could have said this. He could have said, you know, these are well-meaning brothers, guys. You know, they recognize the authority of the Old Testament. They're actually giving us some much needed help on remembering our Jewish roots. You know, there's a lot to be commended about these Judaizers. He could have commended them for their scholarship, their zeal for the law, their zeal for the Old Testament. He doesn't. He doesn't. He calls them false teachers. He says they're preaching a different gospel. And he says, anybody who follows their teaching is either foolish or they themselves are bewitched and being influenced by the evil one. Now you say, man, that. Why so serious? You know, why would why would Paul treat this so serious? And I think Martin Luther offers us something helpful at this point. He says, if you try to receive Christ by works, you are receiving a different Jesus. The true Jesus is only received by faith. That's what's at stake here. Paul sees it. He says, this is about a different Jesus or the real Jesus. There is nothing more important. So, love compels him to treat this serious. This is what love looks like when the gospel is at stake. Now, there's a few other questions that he begins to ask, and I'm going to put question two and three together. So, he says this, let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Which one? Was it by works of the law that you got the Spirit or was it hearing with faith? Which one saved you? Which one brought about salvation? Did you earn it through doing all these good things or did you receive it by hearing the gospel with faith? And then listen to how it flows into this Next question, he says, are you so foolish, having begun, that is begun the Christian life by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? And that idea of being perfected is sanctification. It's the same idea as Philippians 1, 6 that says, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. So He's saying, the same way God started a work of salvation in you, He will finish that work of salvation. You were saved by faith, and you will be sanctified by faith. That's what He's saying. Now, this actually is a huge argument against the Judaizers, and I've actually heard this myself from people. who have said, uh, I don't believe that we are justified by the law. I don't believe that we are saved by the law or by doing works. But I do think that we are sanctified by obeying the law. I've heard that. That's an argument that's being made by many, many people in our day. And the way that I'm understanding this verse is that perfected here is dealing with sanctification. So, Paul is explicitly saying, it's not possible to be sanctified by obeying the law. Or to be really blunt, you can't become like Christ in your character. by obeying the Mosaic law. You can't. There's not a verse in the Bible you can use to defend that. There's no verse there. It is not taught in the New Testament. This is not the way of the Christian life. Now, listen, I want to be fair. I want to give a counter argument here, because if there were a Judaizer listening to this or or sitting here with me, they may object or raise their hand and say, hey, I've got a I've got a verse, actually, that I do think applies. And they may bring up what Jesus says when he said, if you love me. You will what? Keep my commandments. And they'll say, see. And so I would want to turn there that they're quoting from John 14, verse 15, and the context there is very important. So Jesus does say, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, my commandments. That's actually important because he's going to explain what he means by that in the next chapter. So in John 15, verse 12, listen to what Jesus says. This is my commandment. that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. So Jesus is pointing us to his death saying, you want to keep my commandments? Love. Love another sacrificially, like I have sacrificially loved you. Now this is, we're actually in Galatians 5 and 6, we're going to get into this more. This will be very important when we get into those chapters in a few weeks, where Paul is going to begin to talk about the law of Christ. But right here, here's what we do know at this point. It is absolutely impossible to set your mind on the Sabbath, on the festivals and feasts, on all of the food laws, on observing certain days and circumcision and all of these matters of the law. It is impossible to set your mind on those things and to become conformed to the image of Christ in your character. It is not possible. It is not possible. Paul says this again to the church in Colossae, right after he's talking about the law. Two verses later in Colossians 2 verse 20, listen to what he says. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why is if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to its regulations? And then listen to what he says. Quote, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Sounds like things related to the law, referring to things that also perish as they were used, according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So the law has no power, and we know this, It has no power to stop you from wanting to sin. I mean, at the deep heart levels. And it has no power to motivate you toward love and good works. It doesn't. But here's what does. I want to lay out three things that do, quickly. The personal love of Christ displayed in the gospel. the personal love of Christ displayed in the gospel. Galatians 2 20, he says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me, loved me and gave himself for me. That that reaches deep. That reaches deep. The law does not get to the heart like that. Like the love of Christ for us. That is the path to sanctification. Faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Can you say that? There's a lot of people who have a general, vague, kind of generic idea of the love of God. But this is different. Jesus's love is very, very, very personal. Paul sees it. He knows it. He says, he loved me. Gave himself for me. I mean, hasn't this been what we've been seeing in the gospel of John as we've been going through John's gospel, that Jesus says, I laid down my life for the sheep. And it says he loved his own to the end, his own. But the love of Christ is very personal. And to the degree you think deeply on that and you comprehend and meditate upon that, you will find that your character begins to change, that sanctification begins to happen. This is not the only way that we are sanctified. But I would argue that it is the primary way that we are sanctified. Now you say, well, are you talking about that Jesus just loves all the obedient Christians out there? No, that's not what I'm saying. Jesus was clear. I came to seek and save those who are lost. I came for sinners, not the righteous. In fact, Romans 5, 6 says, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. He died for the ungodly, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would even dare to die. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. If that doesn't motivate you to want to put off sin and live for the glory of Christ, nothing will. Nothing will. For the true born again Christian, the reality of Christ's love for me is the most powerful force in our sanctification. It gets down to the heart. And Paul even says, I mean, this is so deep and rich what he's saying here. Verse 20, he says, I have been crucified with Christ. You ever think about that? I've been crucified with him. This isn't metaphysically that he got on the cross with Christ and was crucified physically. It means believers are regarded by God as having hung on the cross with Christ. That's why it says with Christ, not like Christ, but with Christ. We died with Him to sin and we raise with Him to life through the Spirit. Which leads to this second powerful point behind our sanctification in Christian growth, the experience of the Holy Spirit. The experience of the Holy Spirit. Now this is the, man, this is the tragedy of the gospel in our day, and the truncated gospel that's often preached. It is very common that you hear Jesus being preached that doesn't involve any experience of the Holy Spirit. They'll say something like, invite Jesus into your heart. But someone might ask the question, well, how do I know if He actually came in? How do I know when I ask God to send Jesus? How do I know it happened? And that's a really legitimate question, isn't it? And in Acts, we actually see this happening. People are hearing about Jesus. They're going, oh yeah, we've believed in Jesus. We're worshiping Jesus. We're following Jesus. And then they go, but we've never even heard of the Holy Spirit. How do you know if you received the Holy Spirit when you believed in Jesus? I know that some actually would argue, more of a Pentecostal type background, that speaking in tongues is the sign that you've received the Holy Spirit. I struggle to see that in Scripture. I don't see that in Scripture. But this passage says, you know you've received the Spirit by hearing with faith. He says in verse two, did you receive the Spirit by hearing with faith? But even that, I mean, it's like, well, how do I know I really heard with faith and therefore got the Holy Spirit? How do I really discern that? Verse four is interesting. Let's move to verse four. He says, did you suffer? My footnote at the bottom of my Bible says experience. You can translate the word suffer there for experience, same word. So the question is this, did you experience so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain? So he's going, did you have that emotional experience at the altar? Did you walk that altar, raise your hand, pray that prayer in vain? Did that thing that you thought was receiving the Holy Spirit, was it not actually receiving the Holy Spirit? Did you say you received Jesus or prayed something, but didn't actually receive the Holy Spirit? How do you know you have the Holy Spirit? That's the question. This is the question Paul is pressing on the Galatian Christians. This is the question I'm pressing on anybody who's watching this. How do you know you have the Holy Spirit? And I think the answer is in verse five. Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? I think the answer is right there. You see it? Does he who supplies the spirit to you, supplies, supplies, it's an ongoing present action in the Greek, continually supplies the Spirit to you. How do you know that when you believed in Jesus, heard the gospel, and believed in Jesus, that you received the Holy Spirit? How do you know? Answer. There is an ongoing supply of the Holy Spirit given to you as you continue to hear the Word with faith. That's what it says. The evidence that you were saved by faith is that you continue to hear with faith. So if someone has truly believed in Jesus for salvation, there will be ongoing evidence of the Spirit, the big one. In this passage, you hear with faith. You hear the Word of God and you believe it. You obey it. You treasure it. You trust the God who spoke it. You want to live for the glory of this God. You want to put away sin out of your life so that your life can be conformed to what's revealed here. You want to be around other people who are doing the same thing. You love the people of God. This is evidence that the Spirit of God is in us and that we are receiving the Word by faith, which practical application here, read your Bible, be in the Word. You know, if the hearing of the Word by faith brings fresh supply of the Holy Spirit, Shouldn't you be putting your ears to this, hearing it preached, reading it yourself, putting it in your mind and meditating on it? Because Paul is saying the Spirit is supplied through the hearing with faith. Guys, what an awesome promise for us. You didn't just receive everything you can get from the Spirit at conversion. You are continually supplied with new power from the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit, as you hear Him by faith through His Word. Awesome. Awesome motivation to stay in the Word of God. Now, There's a lot more I want to say here. I'm going to just finish up one quick last point here. So I'm not going to get into all of verse six through 14. I guess we'll get there next week. I'm really concerned, though, this is a point I want to drive through. How do we change in our character? What is really going to bring about that change? And so we've seen already the personal faith and the personal love of Christ for us in the gospel. and experience of the Holy Spirit as He continually supplies His presence and power to us as we hear His Word. But what else is gonna bring that deep change that we need? And this last point is, I don't know what to title this, but a hermeneutical kind of covenantal key to unlock Scripture. It has to do with how we read the Bible. How you actually read this book really does matter, and if you're sanctified or not. Or how, the degree in which you're sanctified. It really does. And so I'll jump to a quote by D.A. Carson here and let him say it. He said, there are two ways to read the Bible. You can read it as law or as promise. He says, if we read it as law, we will find on every page what God is telling us we should do. Even the promises will be conditioned by law. If we read the Bible as promise, we will find on every page what God is telling us He will do. Even the law will be conditioned by promise. I hope that's helpful to you. We'll unpack that more next week. Let me end with, jump over to verse 11, chapter 3, verse 11. There's a quote here by Habakkuk. We'll let this one end us. And by the way, Habakkuk, that's who Paul's quoting. That's actually a book of the Bible. It's in the Old Testament. We're gonna meet Habakkuk in heaven one day. You'll see him and you'll spend eternity with this dear saint. And what if he comes up to you and says, hey, how did you like my book? And you're like, I've never, you wrote a book? Who are you? You should read Habakkuk. It's a good one. So he says here, The righteous shall live by faith. The righteous shall live by faith. You know, Martin Luther, some people argue that Martin Luther was actually converted by this verse. And there's this story that I heard. I guess Martin Luther was still a monk in the monastery at this point. He was going through a really dark time of depression and illness, and he was in this bed in Italy, and he thought he was gonna die, and he found himself reading Habakkuk, and this verse just jumped out at him. The righteous shall live by faith, or the just shall live by faith. And it just kind of lodged into his mind and he didn't understand it, he said. He didn't understand what it meant. Well, later he recovers from this illness and then he goes to Rome. In Rome, the Pope, he finds out the Pope had given this edict that indulgences could be given and received. You could give your money and walk up the stairs of this big cathedral and give your indulgence and you could receive forgiveness of sins for yourself or for someone else, a family member or someone you knew. And so this is just a dark, dark time in church history, but this false Catholic gospel had brought people to this point where you have literally people crawling up these stairs, kissing the stairs, praying prayers, and giving indulgences to receive forgiveness of sins. And Martin Luther was doing that. And his son actually wrote about this later, or he wrote about his father years later and said, my father was, and I'll give you the quote. He says, as my father repeated his prayer on the staircase, the words of the prophet Habakkuk came suddenly to his mind, the righteous shall live by faith. Suddenly he left those stairs and returned to Wittenberg and took this as the chief foundation of all his doctrine. And then Luther said later, before those words broke upon my mind, I hated God. I was angry with him. But when by the spirit of God, I understood those words, the righteous shall live by faith. Then I fell. I felt born again as a new man. I entered through open doors into the very paradise of God. So church, that's what we want. Until we get to the paradise of God, we want to enjoy the Lord here. We want to be conformed to his image. What's going to give God more glory than enjoying him as our greatest treasure? Being conformed to his image and our character? What's going to give us more joy than that? But I can tell you, church, the law can't do that for you. but the promises of God in his gospel can. And the spirit of God can bring those to you by faith. Let's go to the Lord and let's ask for him to do this afresh in our hearts. Father. Lord, many difficult things in this passage. I do hope, Lord, that understanding has been granted. Lord, even if we don't understand everything your word says, none of us do. But God, would you bring some of this truth to bear in our hearts and lives? Would you bring good fruit from this? Lord, would you help us read the Bible as full of promises, life-giving promises? And Lord, would you help the righteous to live by faith? and the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us. Lord, we love you, and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, church, if you would stand, and I will close us with our benediction from Ephesians. Let's pray. For this reason, we bow our knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named. That according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power in your inner being. That you, being brooded and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the height and the depth and the width and the breadth. and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and that you may be filled with the fullness of God. And to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ever ask or think, to Him be the glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. We love you, church. Y'all have a great afternoon. Blessings.