Are You a Son or a Slave? Galatians Chapter 4 Verse 7 Explained

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, an Oklahoma rancher and farmer. Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for over 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, once again we'll just come right back to where we left off, Galatians chapter 4, and we're going to jump in now at verse 6. I guess Roy's already got it up there, and again we'd like to welcome our television viewing audience, and again we always like to let you know how much we appreciate hearing from you, your phone calls, your letters, and your interest in our work and our tapes and books and everything. We just are overwhelmed, really. Iris and I can never get over the fact that we're just such humble folk, and I guess people are finding out more and more that we're just as common and ordinary as anybody. In fact, I had a lady call this morning, and it's kind of amusing, you know, she couldn't find her words, and she said, well, I'm so nervous, and I said, now look. I said, just pretend you're talking to the farmer next door, and, yeah, but she says it's different. I said, well, not really. But anyway, we just appreciate so much hearing from you, and that the Lord has blessed our teaching and He's opened the understanding for a lot of folk, and that's all we can hope for. Again, remember, everything is available on video, audio tapes, and the printed page, so if you're interested in any of that, of course, why, you give us a call or write to us, and we'll get the information to you. All right, you know, I told you one time I had one fellow call, and he says, why waste five minutes with opening and closing? He said, we need every minute of teaching, so all right, here we go. Back to Galatians chapter 4, verse 6. Now, remember what we just saw in the last program, that when God at the proper time, at the exact moment, made of the woman, came into the human experience at His first coming, and of course went the way of the cross, that He might redeem not just Israel, but the whole human race, and that now there is not a soul living that hasn't got the opportunity for salvation. All right, now then, verse 6, He's going to come back to show these Galatians, as well as ourselves, the opportunity that we have as believers. Now He's not talking about salvation as He is our position now after salvation, and what a great thing it is to enjoy these doctrinal truths, even short of glory itself. You know, I've said so often, when I talk to people individually, and maybe I've said it on the program, I don't remember, but anyway, salvation isn't just a fire escape. I mean, that's about all people think of. They want to get saved so they won't go to hell, and they'll go to heaven. Well, that's all part of it, but that's not the most important. The most important part is that God is with us here and now, and He can help us avoid all the pitfalls of life, and my goodness, you know, I've said over and over, I'm not a counselor, I'm not a marriage counselor, but people call, and you wonder, how? How can they get into such horrible circumstances? Well, it's because they evidently never understood that the answer to all of life's dilemmas are right here in this book. It's all in here, and all we have to do is be obedient to the things of God, and we'll avoid most of those. I won't say we'll avoid them all, because after all, we're flesh and we're human, but we can avoid so much if we just understand our position as believers. And when the Lord said, even in His earthly ministry, that He came to give us life and that we might have it how? More abundantly, and that holds. This is still His whole concept, that we can have life, eternal life, but even in the physical that we can have it more abundantly. So now verse 6, and He says, because you are sons. Sons of whom? Well, sons of God. We're the born ones now as a result of our salvation, and since we are sons, God now—see, always have to point out that when it comes to the affairs of the spiritual, God is the one who precipitates all the action. We don't. You know, I think I mentioned to it last time on our last trip home, I had an opportunity to visit with an Orthodox Jew, and oh, it was a thrilling experience with his black robe clothes and everything, and steeped in the Law of Moses, of course. My, we just had a royal time, and I'll never forget that I brought him up in his memory to when Israel stood on the shores of the Red Sea, and I asked him, how much could they do? Well, he just sort of looked blank. I said, nothing. The Egyptian army was behind them, mountains on the right, obstacles on the left, and the Red Sea in front of them. And did God say, well, hurry up and do something, build some rafts, make some boats, get out of this predicament? No. He didn't even tell them to get down and go through gyrations and rituals and all that. All he said was what? Stand still. Don't do anything, and wait for the power of God. And what happened? The Red Sea opened up, and he led them through. Now, you see, it's the same way today. People try to do this, and they work, and they attempt, and they want to keep the commandments, and they want to do, do, do, and God keeps saying, stand still. Don't do anything, but believe, see? Believe that it's all been done. All right, so here again, because of our position now, after believing faith, God is the one who precipitates the action. God has sent forth, not the Son now, we're not talking about the cross, but he has sent forth the what? The Spirit, see, the Holy Spirit of promise. And he has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, not into your denomination necessarily, not into your church building. In other words, you don't pick up the Spirit when you walk through the door on Sunday morning. The Spirit is in the heart of every believer, and so he has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, that is, we cry, through the unction of the Holy Spirit, what? Abba, Father. Now we have that full privilege of approaching God as our Heavenly Father. The unsaved world can't do that. Oh, they can, but they won't accomplish anything by it. But you and I as believers can come right into the throne room now, and we can call him Father. And as Paul teaches, we can come with all of our petitions, nothing with hell, not on our merit, but because of that finished work of the cross. So here we have our position now as born ones because of our salvation, and then immediately God does the doing by sending forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. And in response to that now then, through the leading and the guiding of the Holy Spirit, we have every right in the world to call him Abba, Father. Oh, now look at verse 7, wherefore. You know, I've pointed out how many times Paul likes to use that word. I don't think he ever finds that word in Peter's preaching or even in the Lord's ministry, but old Paul uses it over and over and over. Why? Because Paul's is a progressive revelation. He is constantly building, and so when he's covered this ground, he says, wherefore, or therefore. And then he'll go a little further, and he's going to stop, and he'll say, wherefore, therefore. Well, here's another one, see. Now then, because of all that he has unveiled in these previous chapters, wherefore, thou art no more a servant or a slave. You're not even a little child that's under tutors, but a what? A son, a full-blown son, in full partnership with the Father. Now again, I think I did this in the last taping. You know, I'll never forget one of the first times we went to Israel, now this goes back a few years, and our first time there. So Iris, of course, had a lot of souvenirs to pick up for friends and relatives, and so she waited until we got to this one huge souvenir store, and there were very few. In fact, I don't think there were any other customers in there that day, was there? We were the only one. We were all alone. And here was this little 12 or 13 -year-old boy behind the counter, and Iris had all of her stuff collected, and so they start adding up, and she begins to bargain. Now I'll tell you what, she's the world's best, and she begins to bargain, and to bargain, and to bargain. And boy, she kept bringing that kid down and bringing him down, and finally he just put his hand on the counter, and he said, that's it. Well I could tell that the Father was sitting over there in the little ante room through a door, and so while I was seeing all of this go on, and I was getting amused, I mean amused. So I go back to the old gentleman, I said, do you speak English, and he says, oh yeah. I said, do you let that little fellow do that? You know what his answer was? He says, he's never lost a dime yet. See, he knew what he was doing. He had become a full partner in the business, and the Father did let him go, even though he was up against a pretty good bargainer. And so here it is. We're no more a little kid under tutors now as believers. We are in a full-blown position as the final tutored son of these parents, all right. Wherefore you're no more a servant, or a slave, or a son still being tutored, but a son, a full heir, see. And if a son, and if you're in that place of maturity that adoption has placed you, if you're a son, then you're an heir, oh my goodness, imagine how many young people just almost revel at the fact that they're an heir of some wealthy, rich grandfather, and they're probably almost waiting subconsciously, if not consciously, for the old gentleman to pass on, that they can cash in on all of his wealth, because they know they're an heir. Well, hey, we got something far better. We got something far better. I don't have a rich uncle. I don't have anybody that I can wait to die. But oh, listen, I can be anticipating this one, because I am a joint heir, you as a believer are a joint heir with God Himself. Okay, come back to Romans chapter 8. Now this isn't a slip of Paul's pen. Oh, he says it over and over, you know, this is part and parcel of Pauline doctrine, and here it is in Romans. See, I like to use more than one portion, because, you know, I've accused people sometimes, you build all your doctrine on one or two verses. Hey, listen, there isn't any thinner ice in all the world than to do something like that. And that's why I try to use as much Scripture as possible. This wasn't just a unique point in Paul's writing. It fits everything else that he's written. Romans chapter 8, verse 14, Romans 8, verse 14, "...for as many," in other words, he could just as well have said, for all of you who are led by the Spirit of God. Now listen, that's exclusivist. Remember I told you one time I get a kick out of the Biblical Archaeology Review letters to the editor, because some of these people write in and they condemn people for being exclusivist? Well, of course we're exclusivist, because the Bible is. The Bible is. And what's it excluding here? Lost people are not led by the Holy Spirit. They're out there on their own under the power of the God of this world. But believers, believers are led by the Spirit of God. That's one of the indications that we have true salvation. I had a letter the other day, and it was a good question. I don't mind it a bit. How can I know that I'm truly saved? It's a good question. Well, I wrote back. I'm sure I answered that question by now. I wrote back. There are several ways, but number one, do you have a hunger for the Word of God? If not, I doubt if there's any true salvation, because it just follows like daylight following dark, that when we become a child of God, we hunger after His Word. Number two, do you enjoy being with God's people? If you don't, then there's something wrong. And I would re-examine my so-called salvation experience. And do you enjoy prayer time? Do you enjoy taking your needs to the Lord? If not, I doubt if there's any relationship there. But whatever. It's a thing of the heart, and I can't look on the heart, nor can anyone else. But you can self-examine. And I think it's Peter who wrote, make your call in an election sure. Well, what did he mean by that? Don't work a little harder, but just simply on the light of Scripture, examine yourself. Are you just depending on something that you have done? Or are you depending on a solid faith in the Gospel wherein the power of God has been exercised? And when that happens, here it comes, as we saw in Galatians, and now here in Romans, the Holy Spirit comes into our life, and He begins to lead and guide and direct to the place where we don't have to have rules and regulations. The Spirit does that. All right, now here again. So if we're led by the Spirit of God, then we are the sons or the born ones of God. That's one of the proofs of the pudding. Now verse 15. For, he says, as a believer now, that's who he's talking to, for you have not received the spirit of bondage again to what? To fear. See, believers don't have to walk around in constant fear. Oh, we have respect for God, we revere Him, but we don't have to fear Him because we know He loves us. In fact, I'll never forget, I think I mentioned on a program a long time ago, somebody sent me a tape of their pastor's Sunday morning sermon, and I learned a bunch from it. And that was that in John chapter 13, where Jesus was dealing with Martha and Mary and Lazarus all through that chapter. It wasn't how much Lazarus and Mary loved Jesus, but what was it? How much He loved them. And it was an eye-opener. And see, this is what people have to realize. It isn't dependent on how much I love Him, although we're certainly going to love Him. But you see, the thing that's important is that we realize how much He loved us. Enough to die for us, enough to suffer for us. All right, now then, when we have that kind of a salvation, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. I see how that flies in the face of these people that say, Well, you can never really know. Oh, you can hope so, try, do the best you can, but you'll never really know. That's not what my Bible says. My Bible makes it so plain, and mine's no different than anybody else's, but it makes it so plain that we can know that we have passed from life, from death unto life. And here is another one. It's the witness of the Holy Spirit that we have that salvation. We have the fact that we are children of God. Now, verse 17 is what I came for. Verse 17, and if we're children, if we're true sons of God by virtue of our saving faith, then what are we? Heirs, heirs, not of some rich grandfather, not of some corporation president with millions and millions of shares. Oh, but we got something far greater. We are heirs of God. See that? Just exactly like he said in Galatians. We are heirs of God, and now to bring it even tighter, we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Now, listen, I don't have to tell adults like you what it is to be a joint heir. If any of you own a home or you own property, and both of you are owners, what are you? You're joint heirs. You both have rights to that property. If one of you pass off the scene, the property belongs to the one that's left behind, regardless of which one goes first. All right, now the whole concept of joint heirship is part and parcel of that Christian experience, that we are heirs of God because we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And of course, that may mean that we will suffer with him, and we may also experience that glorification with him. All right, back to Galatians once again. So verse 7, in complete agreement with Romans 8, Wherefore thou art no more a slave, but a son, a one in full heirship, an heir of God through Christ. Now verse 8, How be it then, when you knew not God, you did service unto them who by nature are no, or not, gods? Now I've stressed, especially since our time in the Mediterranean last spring, that as we retraced so many of the area that the Apostle Paul labored in, and we saw the gross idolatry, the gross mythology of all these places where Paul earned his converts, and how the man must have been constantly subjected to all the immorality of that ancient world. It's beyond us. And yet he never slowed down, he never stopped proclaiming the gospel, and out of that gross, immoral, pagan world, oh, he got trophies for God's grace. And I'll just explain this to somebody Sunday afternoon. We had a group of college kids, and oh, they had a list of questions that long. And one of the points I made, now isn't it amazing that these new converts of Paul's gospel came out of all the license and the immorality of the pagan worship of gods and goddesses, came into a salvation experience, and almost immediately had to be martyred for their faith. Oh, think of that. They hadn't been saturated for 50 years in Christianity like you and I have. But even as new believers, just recently saved out of all that background, and they died for their faith, they didn't go back into their paganism. I would think it'd been awful easy to do. But you see, if you look at that and then compare that with Christianity today, how many professing Christians today, even after having been, what shall I say, taught and tutored for 25, 30, 40 years, if that kind of persecution came, that their life was on the line, how many would stay with it? You ask yourself, how many? Next Sunday morning when you're sitting in church, and I don't care what church you're sitting in, and I can do the same thing with mine, you look out over that congregation, how many? If all of a sudden a heavy hand of persecution would fall, and we would have to literally give up our life for our faith, how many of that congregation would go with us? I think we'd be kind of surprised. But you see, this is what Paul is talking about, that all of his converts, not only in Galatia, but up in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth, Rome, any place that Paul ministered and had these converts out of paganism, they immediately came under the pressure of persecution. We covered that. We were back in the Corinthian letters. This is the main reason he didn't really encourage marriage, because it's so much easier to die for your faith if you're single than if you have a loved one to worry about. That was his only reason. But here, look at it. When you knew not God, they were steeped in pagan darkness. You did service. See, they worshipped these pagan gods, who by nature, when you boil everything down, they weren't gods at all. They were nothing but a piece of wood or stone. Oh, but verse 9, here's another one of my favorite words. But, see, but they're no longer in that paganism. They're no longer worshipping wood and stone. But now, after you have known God, or rather, even better yet, we could say, you're known of God. God knows them personally now, because they're His. They're His children. Now then, he says, if you are in such a glorified position, why? Now look what he calls the law and legalism. Why or how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements? Now what does it mean to be beggarly? Well, just exactly what the word implies, is to be just sort of groveling and just begging for mercy. And that's all these things were. They were beggarly, and they were weak, and they had absolutely no power to lift these people out of their bondage and out of their paganism. Then why turn back to something that's no good? Now, we've been studying the book of Hebrews, I think, in our Muscogee class on Saturday night. And all through the book of Hebrews, what's the comparison? The things that were good, and they were, but, oh, now we've got things that are what? Better, thousand times better. And so here he's responding, why, oh why, when you've had it so good, your feet have been planted on something solid, you're an heir with God, you have the Holy Spirit to direct you, then why turn back to that which is beggarly? Well, what's he talking about? The law, legalism, and legalism is beggarly. It is a dust groveling system. And if only people could see that. Legalism is just putting people literally crawling in the dust and begging that somehow I can make it. Oh, you know, I had quite an experience in Indiana. Just before we left, I had the sweetest letter from a dear lady who had come out of some of the most rigid religious background, and I won't even name it, and how she had just gloried now in the grace of our message. And I had no idea because she was clear from Pennsylvania. And so I was sharing some of the points of the letter with my crowd in Indiana, and lo and behold, who should walk up in break time but this lady. I said, you've come clear from Pennsylvania, and it was just my, and oh, now you talk about somebody that was effervescent to be living in such freedom and such grace. You'll probably hear this somewhere down the road. She'll know who I'm talking about. But listen, this is just the opposite of what the Galatians were doing. The Galatians were going back into that stuff, if I may call it that, and they were giving up their freedom and their joy and letting themselves get wrapped up again in legalism and law-keeping. And he says, how, Paul says, how can you desire to again be in bondage? It is hard to understand, isn't it? And yet that's the human race. Even tonight, today, the whole human race, for the most part, is just simply groveling in legalism and good works, trying to keep the commandments and not realizing that when Christ died, He paid it all. You know, that's what the old song says, isn't it? He paid it all. Oh, indeed He did. And oh, this is all I'm asking God to do, to just open the hearts of people that Christ has paid it all. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kenta, OK, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer -supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.