This is the Truth Network. Forever, thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm one, nineteen, verse eighty-nine. I'm Stu Epperston. Welcome to the special Wednesday in the Word Leader podcast, where we prepare to equip our leaders of this special Bible study outreach breakfast.
Every week to teach through the scriptures. Thirteen Dario locations. There's a men's group meeting, and several of the locations host the women on Thursday morning. Stay tuned. Be encouraged as we jump into this week's Wednesday in the Word.
No sooner than Paul rebukes and goes after legalism, next thing you know. Legalism's ugly sister rears her head. License—another word for license—is antinomianism. Since I'm free in Christ, why not just go out and sin and go crazy?
Well, Dr. Sam Horn, that's where we find ourselves in Galatians chapter five. We did one through thirteen last time. This time we're looking at verses thirteen through eighteen, and the power of being free in Christ—not free to sin more, but free to follow Him, free to serve more. It's really important because yet you can go off on these extremes, and this is.
Not just in Galatia, but it's in the church today. Doctor Horne, how do we? I mean, even begin to look at this. How important is this passage of Scripture?
Well, I think you kind of set it up well. You know, we we have two ditches on the road of discipleship that we have to avoid. If we're not going to get our car stuck in in an immovable place, and and one of those ditches that we so easily can run to, is the idea that even if Moses can't help us with our salvation, he can actually really help us with our sanctification. And so now that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ. Let's run over to Moses and bring the law in, and the law is how we're going to be sanctified.
Jesus is good for salvation, but to be sanctified, we need Moses, and that's what we saw Paul blow up. That thinking, that we called legalism—the idea that that our righteousness is somehow earned in some way by our performance. Whether it be our our eternal righteousness by which God declares us righteous, or our our sanctificational righteousness, somehow that law is how we get there.
Now, now we made the really clear point from James that a true faith works, but works is not what produces the faith, and nor is it what sustains it.
So we got to stay out of that ditch. And we talked about that last time. The other dish on the other side is almost like an overcorrection, and it is what you said. It is, it is the idea that well, if if the law doesn't have a place in our salvation and it doesn't have a place in our sanctification. Then it really doesn't matter what we do.
That that's what Paul was actually talking about later to the Romans, in Romans chapter six, when he asked this logical question: If grace if grace really abounds and super abounds where there's a lot of sin, then sin must really not matter. And so let's just sin so that grace can even abound more. And Paul has to cut that off really. Hard, you know, he uses this strong language. May that thinking never be.
Don't ever come to that conclusion.
So we do have these two ditches, and this time in our text this morning, from verses 13 through 18, Paul is going to really talk straight to us about the second ditch, the ditch of antinomianism, or as you said, the ditch of license. Oh. Yeah, an anti means against, and nomi means law, and so there's this real sense, and even in the church today, there's this sense of well, you know, I, I'm free, and I can just kind of do whatever I want. I can use whatever language I want, and I'm not under that, and you know, everyone else is legalistic and. And and and there's a almost a a lack of care and concern, and Paul says that's actually the opposite here.
And then there's this whole, you know, we're going to get into the all the categories, you know, of you know there are folks that have a false assurance that they're going to heaven. They have no desire for God, living fully for the flesh, but maybe because they pray to prayer. And they're you know, or they had some experience when they were younger. They're just living out, living for the devil, and there's been no change in their life, or no no work of the Holy Spirit in their life, and and so and sometimes we put them in the category of carnal Christian. Yes, a Christian can be carnal.
The Galatian church was carnal. The Corinthian church was carnal. Modern believers are carnal, but as a pattern of life, and so Doctor Horne. Take us through these verses, or maybe how how would you structure you know these verses? There's just so much in here, and and he talks about the extremes.
And I just love some have told me that their favorite verse, Doctor Carson, who's done this in your when you've filled in for you when you've been out, his favorite verse in the whole book is five sixteen. Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. I mean, so much. We could spend hours and hours and hours on how to walk in the Spirit, living life under the control of the Holy Spirit.
So take us thirteen through eighteen. How do our teachers kind of set this up, and as they get into prepare to teach, and as pastors that listen to this, we're preparing to preach this text.
Well, to remind everybody, we're in the third section of the book, and the third section of the book is application. Paul saying, "Okay, all this freedom, and all this defense of the gospel that we've been establishing has to go somewhere, and and where it's going is in the shaping of your daily life, and so there is a caution that he gives us in verses thirteen through fifteen, and the caution is very direct. Paul is not warning about a hypothetical danger that you know may be down the road somewhere." Somebody might actually see this on a rare day. He's actually warning us about something that you could say is a very real and present danger, and that is the the danger of misusing our liberty, misusing our freedom. And so he starts out in verse 13 by reminding us that when God called us.
The word "called" there is the word for election. When God chose us, when God called us, and He summoned us to freedom, Paul says, "I want you to remember that. Don't ever forget that." So when you're thinking about the two ditches, you've got on the on the one side the ditch of legalism, on the other side the ditch of license. And our our propensity is to build fences. And Paul says, actually, the way you keep out of both of those ditches is you stay on the road of freedom, and you drive on that road in the way God intended for you to drive.
You got to drive on that road in the right direction. And so, here's here's what Paul says: if you're using your freedom. As an opportunity to do things that your flesh really wants to do, you're driving on that road of freedom in the wrong direction. That isn't why the road was established. God didn't give you this freedom road so that you could walk back.
To your old life of sinfulness, where where you did whatever your flesh commanded you or desired you to do, if you're looking at the road and saying, "Hey, now now that I've got forgiveness and now that there's no condemnation or penalty, it doesn't matter where I go on this road. I'm going to just go back and do all the things my flesh wants to do." Paul says you you're misusing your freedom. You're misusing what's happening in your life.
So, what's the right direction? Paul says, "Well, when you get on the freedom road, here's the orientation of your life. You want to use your life to serve one another through love." And then he's going to quote in verse 14 something out of the law. That Moses made really clear in Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18, he says this: "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" And so, he's actually bringing Moses as a witness and saying to the Galatians, "If you really understand Moses." He's not, he's not putting a yoke on you to keep you pressed down in legalism, and he's not removing that yoke so you can go do whatever you want. Moses actually told you what to do with your life.
And what God wants you to do in the fulfilling of the second tablet of the law, you're to love your neighbor as yourself. This is exactly what Jesus talked about when he was talking to the rich young ruler, and so we find it again here in in in Paul. And in verse 15, he says, "Now." Let me let me give you a scenario, and I have an opinion here, Stu. I think this was actually going on. I think Paul is being very tactful here, but he's saying now that you know the road, and now that you recognize the ditches, some of you are actually going in the wrong direction.
And the way that I know that is, you are biting and devouring one another. And and if that keeps going on, you you need to watch out. You are going to consume each other, and so when we use our freedom for ourselves in in and it becomes self oriented, sooner or later we're going to do it at the expense of another.
Sooner or later, somebody else is going to is going to in some way suffer. Or be used by us to get what we want, and Paul says that's not what this road was intended to do. This road was intended to set you free, so that you could serve one another in love.
So that's the first thing I want to see is there is this strong caution that starts in verse 13 and goes down to verse 15. Yeah, the biting devourer. That language is literally. Animals, wild animals, you know. Yeah.
You know, biting, consuming, and it's interesting. The if you think of some some important prepositions, you think of we are saved. What? What are first of all? What are we saved from?
We're actually saved from biting and devouring each other. We're actually saved from slavery into sin, and from not being able to control ourselves. We're saved from that. Then what are we saved? What are we saved for?
Well, we're saved for freedom, and what are we saved to? We're saved to love and to serve, and that's the antithesis of biting and devouring. And this summary of the command, "Love your neighbor as yourself," which we see all over the place, Doctor Horn, this it's it's all it's all driven by a this new life in Christ. But it's it's easy to see the contrast, and it's easy to see.
Now they were doing this in Galatia. And whether or not they were doing that, that's what happens when when we turn on each other. When we look internally, when we get obsessed with ourselves, and we we live in a fascist way as to how not how I can love and serve this person and put their needs ahead of mine, but how can I exploit them to get something from them? That's not freedom. That's going back into bondage, and so I I love how you've I love you how you characterize that, and I want to get out of the way and let you keep going on this line of thought.
Yeah, there is this caution that we talked about that starts in verse thirteen and goes all the way down to verse fifteen, and and you know the caution is needed because there's this conflict going on in in the Galatians, right? We're going to find out that the outward conflict, the relational conflict between them. Is actually the product of an even deeper conflict that's going on inside them, and that's where Paul head next. And so, what he does is he gives a command. And he exposes an even deeper conflict in verses 16 and 17.
So look at the command. Paul says, "But I say this is not just a suggestion. He's not just saying, 'Hey, let me let me give you an idea to think about.' He's actually speaking with the full authority of his office, and that's what he's been doing all along in the book. We we've seen Paul. Do things here in in this church that's being threatened by the Judaizers.
We've seen him bring his authority to the table more than we see almost in any other book that he wrote.
So he's bringing that authority here. He is saying it's like he's looking at the room and he's getting everybody quiet, and he's saying to them, "No more discussion." I'm going to give you a definitive, authoritative statement: Walk in the Spirit. That's a command. Walk in the Spirit, and the idea there is not a once and done. It's not like salvation, where you prayed a prayer, you repented of your sin, and God declared you righteous.
This is a present tense verb, and it is an active verb, which means I've got to do this. And I've got to do this all the time. The word walk. Is not a word that means what you do with your feet. I use the imagery of a road that we travel on because of this idea here.
Paul says, "Walk in the Spirit." That he's talking about living your life. Back in Psalm one, we saw a man do this. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, and so he's not living his life. He's not headed in that direction. He's not.
Oriented his his life goal and and and context in a certain way.
So basically, the idea here is walk in the spirit, live your life according to the spirit. And and when you do that, when you are living your life according to the Spirit, the word by there is is is not alongside.
So now Paul is not saying, listen, live your life alongside the Holy Spirit. That's a beautiful image and a beautiful picture, but that's not what's going on here. The word by is a word that means by means of. Walk, live, orient your life, go in this freedom direction by means of the Holy Spirit. Walk in the Spirit.
This is not like let's go find out where the Holy Spirit is at work and join them, or let's find out how the Holy Spirit. Thinks about something and align up with them. This is not what Paul has in mind here. Although those are wonderful things that we should do, he's actually talking about the Holy Spirit as the power to do this, the means, the power, the energizer who is actually going to move our life down this freedom road in the right direction is the Holy Spirit.
So walk or live by the power of the Spirit, and when you do that. Because you are letting the Holy Spirit empower you and direct you and and move you in a certain direction, He's never going to move you to fulfill the desires of your flesh. The Holy Spirit is never going to energize you to sin against God. The Holy Spirit is never going to orient you to sin against your brother. Right?
He's never going to orient you to to and energize you to to disregard the moral laws of God, or the will of God for your life. The Holy Spirit, who knows God's will intimately. Is is oriented perfectly to God's righteous and moral expectations, is going to energize your life. We're going to find out later, so that not only do you walk in the right direction, but you actually are putting to death certain things. You are putting things to death that that your flesh continually tries to tempt you to do.
So he gives this incredible command: walk in the spirit, be oriented in the spirit, because the spirit will never move you to gratify the desires of your flesh. And then he's going to explain why. He's going to say, "Look, there is a great conflict going on in the life of every believer." He's going to talk about this in Romans seven on a personal way. Remember when he said, "I'm a wretched man. I feel wretched because the things that I wanted to as a new believer in Christ, as a new man, are the things I often don't end up doing, and the things that my new man despises are the things I oftentimes find myself doing.
Oh, wretched man that I am!" Who's going to deliver me from this? Because I don't have the strength to deliver myself from this conflict. And the reason the conflict demands that we be delivered by somebody other than us is because of who's in conflict. Notice verse seventeen: the desires of the flesh. That's one of the combatants.
My flesh, and the other is the spirit. And the word against. Is the word that shows up in Ephesians six for this great battle between the forces of God through His Messiah and the forces of Satan through His dark and evil armies, and it's the same word here. There is a massive, implacable, unrelentingly hostile conflict going on between the flesh and the Spirit of God that dwell in us. And the desires of the flesh, or rather, the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.
And the flesh has a desire, and the desire is to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Right now, what's the solution to that? We're going to find out in verse eighteen. But but really, the the road that we're on. You you said it in one of our earlier broadcasts is the Freedom Trail, and there are enemies outside us trying to get us off that trail.
But there's an enemy inside us, and that enemy is constantly at war. It's constantly battling the the the spirit of God that now indwells us. Right.
So we've got our flesh, and we've got the Holy Spirit indwelling us, and these two are not coexisting peaceful. There is a a holy war that is going on in us, and and it happens 24/7. And Paul says that's why you can't get distracted by either ditch. If you get distracted. And and you don't carefully allow the Spirit of God to energize not just your thinking and not just what you do on Sunday and not just the fact that you got in your Bible for a couple of minutes in the morning.
You've got to let the Holy Spirit energize everything about your life, and and and orient you completely to life, or you're going to end up in one of those two dishes. You know the beauty that we have—the second, the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God, living in us. I heard one pastor once say, "The Holy Spirit is our chief resident." The question is, is He your chief president? Is He is He ruling your life? And Paul takes us into this, and you know, Doctor Horn.
There's so much in Scripture. I love the passage First Corinthians, which really correlates a lot to this passage. The whole book does, honestly, where he says, "Hey, you know, do you not know? Do you not know that your your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? You have been bought with a price." And so you know he changes he changes everything and connecting with him this is life in union with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, but this is not Christian life is not a cruise ship it's a battleship and we we have the flesh that's warring in us and I'd love for you to speak to this now, Doctor Horn this is super important the.
the the old nature, so we're saved. We're given a new nature, but then people, you know, so then some would say, well, then, and there is a there is a belief out there of this idea that you don't, you know, you can come to a point of total sinless perfectionism, you know, which is, which I don't believe is scriptural, but. What is the what is the relationship of the flesh and the spirit? Real quick, and we got to wrap up, but real quick, there, there, the the the the Holy Spirit is is is the we have a new nature, we have a new heart, we want to do things, but the old man is still, uh, with us, and but but we are no longer slaves, and there's that important word. Debtors or slaves, like Paul says in Romans six fourteen, sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are no longer under the law, but you are now under grace, and we have the Holy Spirit.
Yeah. So, can you speak to how important that is? People recognize that you don't have to sin as a believer. Am I? Am I?
Am I stating that correctly? Yeah, so I wish, I wish would be so nice if there was such a thing as sinless perfection. I've been hunting for forty years to find it, and and I find myself with Paul as in Romans seven, right?
So you're right. That that really isn't a New Testament teaching. Maybe the best way to describe it is in a quick illustration that I think will help everybody. Paul describes the life of a Christian like he would describe a two-volume biography. And so, Volume One is your old life before Christ.
And and he would describe you this way. He would say, in your old life, you were an old man.
So he's going to talk about that. He's going to use that language in places like Ephesians. He's going to use that language really clearly in Romans.
So before I came to Christ, you could take my whole life story and put it in volume one and say that was the old Sam Horn. That was the old man. The old man had two things. It had a body that it used, and it had a nature that controlled that body.
So my old man had an old sinful nature, and it had a sinning body, right? A corrupted body, a body that was decaying, etc.
Okay. When I got saved, volume one was closed. When I was crucified with Christ, and Volume Two started when I was raised with Him in newness of life.
So Volume Two is the story of Sam Horn, the new man, and the new man has a new nature, right? I have a new nature.
However. Because I didn't get a glorified body, I still have to deal with this weak and decaying and mortal body until I'm glorified. When Christ raises my body from the grave and or trans transfigures that body at at his coming, but but for now I still have to live in this perishing body. That's why Paul talked to the Corinthians and said your outer man is perishing. That outer man still has a remnant of the old nature, and the remnant of the old nature is the flesh, right?
I now have a new nature created in Christ after righteousness that's controlled by the Holy Spirit, but I have to live in this old body, and this old body. Still has a remnant from the old nature called the flesh, and the flesh has desires. The flesh, you know, Paul describes it almost like he would describe a person. It it it talks. It thinks.
It it acts. It wills. It resists. And so, as a believer, it's not like I'm a schizophrenic. You know, I'm a new man.
My old man is gone. I have a new nature that is a righteous nature, which is why I love the law of the Lord now. And I have a Holy Spirit that is going to energize all of this. But I still live in the old body with a remnant of the old nature that remains and will remain. Paul talks about it in Acts, in Romans eight.
Until I'm fully glorified, and that old nature, that remnant of the old nature, Paul calls the flesh, and and that's what's at war. All right, the old, the the the flesh is at war with my new nature, that is now being controlled and energized by the Spirit. And Paul says, you've got to let the Spirit. That's the last thing. As we close, there is a consequence to all this.
Paul says, "You'll know if you're walking according to the Spirit, because the Spirit will never lead you back under the law.
So, if if you want to know where these Judaizes are taking you, they are taking you away from the Spirit of God that dwells in you. If you want to know where all of this is heading, it's heading right to one of those two ditches. It just looks really spiritual." But it's not from the spirit. There are a lot of things that people think are spiritual, but they are not coming from the spirit of God. And that's what Paul says: when you are walking in the spirit, according to the spirit, being energized by the spirit, He is never going to bring you back under that bondage.
He's never going to bring you back under under Moses.
So those people. That are are under Moses, and they come into your midst, and they want to bring you back there. You just need to know they are not of the spirit of God, because the spirit of God would never do that. And you can recognize them when we get into the rest of the chapter next time. We're going to find out that there's some outward marks of people who are living under the law, and they are shocking.
This is where this goes. Legalism and license are not just theological terms that we throw around. They are massive, destructive dangers that do great damage to the body of Christ. They discredit the gospel of Christ, and they derail the life of believers and the relationship that we have with one another and with Christ.
So Paul's saying, "I'm saying something to you. All need to pay attention to." Don't walk according to Moses. Don't be energized by Moses. Be energized by the Spirit of God. And when Spirit of God is energizing you, He's actually going to help you fulfill what Moses said: love your neighbor as yourself.
But He'll never lead you back under bondage.
Well, it's almost like these two slave masters are constantly coming back at us. You know, we talked last time. About all the slaves after the Emancipation Proclamation had been declared by Abraham Lincoln, after they'd all been set free, they were still living in slavery, and yeah, even those that had been set free, no doubt the old slave master would come back and say, "No, no, you're you're mine, you're owned by me." Well, they weren't owned by them; they were set free, but. It's almost like the slave master of legalism comes in and says, "You're not doing enough. You got to perform more.
You got to step it up." God isn't happy with you. You know your performance is is lacking. And then the slave master of license is seducing you back into your old life and into the very thing that he saved you from, into your very past sins. And so, you know, Doctor Horn, there's an old Old Bob Dylan song that says you're gonna have to serve somebody. I'm not gonna try to sing it, but I'll quote it.
Serve somebody. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, all of us, all of us are so grateful. You're not gonna try.
We're trying to get more people listening to this podcast and not lose numbers. You know, we don't want to we don't kill our ratings. But he said, he said, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord. But you're going to have to serve somebody.
So there's a very real sense we're all slaves. We're all servants. The question is, is am I under the power? Is my master King Jesus and the Holy Spirit living in the Spirit, or am I, or am I falling back into into this old bondage and slavery? And it's for freedom.
He set us free. We're not to abuse it. We're not to to let it take us back into yoke and bondage, and we're not to let it cause us to to abuse and and and you know misuse our faith and go back into into into sin. And you know, I really want to encourage people. I want to give you the final word, and I want you to pray us out of here, Doctor Horn.
But I really want to encourage people to read. I was up in the middle of night reading Romans six; just so good, just on how you know the the you know we were yielding ourselves as servants of righteousness, and read that, and then read Colossians three. Where he talks about our identification with Christ and how we are putting off the flesh. We're we're in fact we're killing we're mortifying. It's a pretty rough word there in Colossians three five six and seven.
We're putting off we're mortifying the flesh, and we're putting on righteousness. We're putting on love and but this this is something that comes from the inside out. The religion, it was driven by performance. It's not driven by acceptance. The gospel is driven by acceptance.
I love what one one theologian said. One British theologian. I just heard this guy. I saw a Facebook reel of all things. He said, "He said every religion in the world has acceptance at the end and performance at the beginning.
So you hope you do good enough, right, to get God to like you." But he said the faith, what Jesus Christ taught, lived, and what we have in the gospel is acceptance at the beginning. He says, "You are my son. You are my beloved one," and then we perform out of that acceptance.
So I perform. Hey, you and I are doing this podcast because our father loves us, man. We're doing this out of joy. I mean, what? Who?
Neither one of us have time to get get on this recording, you know, every week and and do this. But we're doing this because, man, our father loves us, and we're we're doing this to serve others and be a blessing to them and all of our leaders in this. Ministry and everyone that's a part of this, it's because He accepts us that we perform and we walk in His light, and we're under the smile and the warm embrace of our Father. And that's walking in the Spirit. And when we're walking in the Spirit, we're not going to be fulfilling the lust of the flesh.
So I want to give you the last word, Doc, and maybe you can pray us out here too.
Well, I think you summed it up well. I would just say this: when when God frees us through His Son by the power of the Spirit, He didn't free us so we could be free agents to do whatever we want to do and go wherever we want to go and do and and just live however we want to live. That was not the purpose of the freedom. The purpose of the freedoms was so that we could change direction, so we could change orientation, so that we could live in and flourish as His image bearers the way He intended us to live and flourish, and and and part of that, as you said, is is starting out from the right, you know, at the right part of the road, not performance but acceptance, accepted in the Beloved. But I think sometimes when we come to This discussion about legalism and license—we know there are two ditches, and we know there's a road we're supposed to stay on.
But but we default just internally to one of those two ditches. We're either going to go, yeah, but you know, I really don't want to. I don't want to blow it. I I don't want to displease the Lord.
So let me just add a few of these fences in. Let me just add a little bit of Moses in. Or we're like, you know what? I didn't know that I could do whatever I wanted. I I had no idea that when I got saved and grace came into my life, there's no more condemnation.
Heck yeah, I'm good. And off we go to license. We were never created to be free agents. We were created to be beloved sons, and beloved sons show their love for the father. By doing His will, that's what Jesus said.
I came to do the will of the One who sent me, and that's exactly how true free people should live. We live to do the will of the One who bought us. And so, with that, let me pray. Lord, I pray that you would just encourage our hearts, strengthen our our souls, deepen our minds, and submit our wills to this glorious reality that you set us free, so that we could walk in a life that is oriented to your will, that accomplishes your purposes, and that reflects your love for us to others. And we can only do that by by means of the Holy Spirit.
So help us to do that in Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you, Doctor Horn, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at WedInTheWord dot com. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and all social media, including Instagram. And be encouraged.
Stay in the Word. Read it. Share it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on God's word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.
Proverbs thirty verse five.
