The Holy Spirit in Galatians

I want to take another Bible reading in reg-ard to the work of the Holy Spirit. We have now looked at it from various sides. Yesterday morning we had the thoug-hts of God’s work in the Epistle to the Ephesians. This morning- 1 want you to take the Epistle to the Galatians and see what is taug-ht there about the work of the Spirit. We are g”oingto study that Epistle, not with a view to g-et doctrine or theology, as it is sometimes called, but we want to g-et teaching in regard to the Spiritual life and our daily walk. You know that the Galatians had been converted under the preaching of Paul. There had been very blessed times and the Holy Spirit had been among them in great power, and yet, strange to say, they had very shortly afterwards gone back. They had been led away by Jewish teachers and had fallen away from the simple life of faith. Paul writes the Epistle to reprove and instruct them. From what I have said you will see the state of the church was very low. The works of the flesh were very manifest. There was a great deal of bitterness, jealousy and clamor, consequently the teaching of the Epistle is one of warning-. I wish to point out specially, how, in connection with the mention of the Holy Spirit there are certain dang-ers against which we need to be warned. There are many people who think that when a man is filled with the Spirit, he is in a state of perfection. They will very soon find out that they are wrong-. I want to impress this very much upon you, that when a man g-ets the fullness of the Spirit, the life of the Spirit, it is a thing that makes him very g-entle, very humble, very much afraid of sinningag-ainst God and very tender lest he should be led to walk astray. He has a spirit of deep, deep humility and fear of pride.

Let us find out what God’s word tells us and warns us to beware of.

1. The first mention of the Spirit is Gal. 3:2. “This only would I learn of you, received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing- of faith?” There we see plainly that there are two ways in which men often think they can get the Holy Spirit. One is by the work of the law. That is the religion of human nature. We think we must work. We have been doing wrong, of course we must do right; we have been sinning, of course we must give up sin, and the more we give up sin and obey God the more we get of the Holy Spirit. The Epistle teaches us that this is wrong. “Was it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Did you find yourselves getting so good, so righteous, that you could say, Now, Lord give us the Holy Spirit? Did the Holy Spirit come upon you, in response to such a life, under the law? Or, when 3’ou were under the law, did it not show you that you were sinners and did you not come in faith, by the obedience of faith, first accepting Jesus Christ, and then giving yourself up to obey Him fully? “By the hearing of faith” you got the Holy Spirit. Take care, those of you who are seeking for the Holy Ghost, that you don’t seek by the works of the law instead of the hearing of faith. It is a free gift of the everlasting God. It is not what you do or what you are that will get the Holy Spirit. As a condition, you have to confess sin, and to give up sin; but the more earnest and intense your desire the more you fail, until you see that you cannot conquer sin yourself. It is as you come to Jesus and confess you are not strong enough to cast out sin, and say, “Lord, in Thy power I will live a holy life,” that you will obtain the Holy Spirit — you receive the Spirit by faith.

As we read in the 14th verse of the same chapter, “That we might receive the promise of the Spirit, through faith.” Now remember, everyone who is beginning to long for the filling of the Holy Spirit, that here is the great truth you need, you must get it by faith. Faith always means this: there is something I cannot do myself, I trust another to do it for me. Faith is always a confession of helplessness. Faith, if it means anything, means this: Lord, I cannot make myself worthy, but I can trust in Thy love. Thou canst and will g-ive me the Holy Spirit. I want you to say that without any doubt. And it is not only by faith once for all, but it is by faith every morning-, that the action of the Holy Spirit may be received fresh from heaven. Many people have a precious experience and live on that for forty years. We need the Holy Spirit fresh from heaven every day. I don’t know of a more solemn lesson than that of the manna that came from heaven. It became corrupt twenty-four hours after it fell. Water you want ever day fresh from the spring; stagfnant water corrupts. If you want to live the life of the Holy Spirit it must be a life continually renewed from heaven. I must come every day to be filled fresh with the Holy Spirit. This must be the holy habit of my life. As you beg-an so continue, by faith. You must learn to g“et hold of God’s promises, to believe in the divine, Godg”iven power working* in you and then your walk will be a humble one, from hour to hour. Just as a father gives bread every day to his child, so my Father gives me the blessed power of the Holy Spirit fresh every day. The great mark of a man who lives in the Spirit is deep, true, entire, unbroken dependence upon God. As I need the sunshine every minute of the day, the sunshine of five minutes ago does not help me now. Every minute the sun must shine on me from above; so every moment the Holy Spirit must come to my heart fresh from God. And thus you receive, not by the works of the law but by the hearing of faith.

2nd. Warning in the fourth verse. “Are ye so

foolish, having beg-un in the Spirit are ye now made perfect in the flesh?” This is a most important and instructive lesson, conveying- the solemn warning”, that a man can beg-in in the Spirit and then g-et off the line and g-o on to perfect in thefleshwhat was begun in the Spirit. You know what shunting is. On a dark night a train may be switched over to another track, and go off in a wrong direction. A man may receive the Holy Spirit and get shunted off the track just by one thing, the flesh. In Romans, eighth chapter, we saw the great contrast between the Spirit and the flesh. “Not in the flesh but in the Spirit,” “Not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” So, too, in Galatians the contrast is pressed. A man can begin with the Holy Spirit and unconsciously be led to perfect, to seek his religious progress, in the flesh. Thousands have done it. A man has, for a time, been under the power of the Spirit, and yet been led to seek the maintenance of his life and work in what is human and carnal. You may have the Holy Spirit in you and yet you have the flesh in you too, and the flesh is always active and ready to live the religious life. I have seen men in whom the power of the Holy Ghost is manifest, and yet there is just a little of self. God uses such a man, and yet self-confidence may corrupt all. The man perfects in the flesh what was begun in the Spirit. This is a danger to which you and I are exposed and therefore we must take the warning. How can we provide against it? You cannot provide against it. Nothing on earth can bring us relief. Oh, that we might have a real sense of our danger, a sense of our utter inability to keep away the secret, insidious power of the flesh. You need to pour impotence in the very depths of your being-, so that you, through God, praise God that your heart is full of the joy of the Holy Ghost. You still are conscious that all the time you are in the enemies’ territory, and may be led to allow the flesh to assert itself in your religion. You want to be brought to such a sense of your helplessness and dependence upon God as shall lead you really to yield yourself to the Holy Spirit alone. Dear Christians, you have a great many enemies, but watch specially against one. That one, how hard to be overthrown. It is self. Self is the flesh and the flesh is self. This is the one enemy you are in danger of allowing to come in between you and the Holy Spirit and leading you ofi”, shunting you off on the wrong track. Beware! To those who are seeking earnestly to live lives filled with the Holy Spirit, let me say, take up a position of deep fear and dependence. God’s word says “Fear not.” Look to God, be not afraid. But on the other hand it says, “Blessed is the man who feareth.” The man who fears lest he should sin against God and give way to the flesh is the man who gets to fear nothing because God is his strength. Having begun in the Spirit take care lest you perfect in the flesh.

3. In the fourth chapter, sixth and seventh verses. “And because ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” In the previous verse there was a warning- against the spirit of bondage, here we are taught that the Spirit that comes in us is the Spirit of adoption; we are the heirs of God in His Son. The whole teaching of the epistle is this, not to go to God as servants but as sons. You have the Spirit of sonship. You all know the parable of the prodigal son and the elder son. How the elder son said to the father, ‘*I have served thee these many years, yet thou never gavest me a kid.” The father replied, “Son, thou art ever with me and all I have is thine.” Thou hast free access to my presence and all my possessions. What was wrong with that young man? He had the spirit of a servant and not of a son. Instead of trusting his father he was living the life of a slave. The spirit of bondage is so natural to us. Therefore God’s word says, do remember you are sons. Let us show it in our whole lives, in our intercourse with God and our walk before men, that the spirit of a son is in us, the Spirit of God’s own Son. God holds back no good thing from His sons. Our whole life ought to be in the faith, I am always a son of God. I have always everything I need. Most Christians do not enjoy that because they do not live in the spirit of sonship. The object of the Holy Spirit is to give 5’ou a full child-like heart toward God. Here in Galatians we are warned to take care that we don’t live before God as servants in the spirit of bondage. God gave the Spirit of His Son; He sent Him forth into our hearts. Oh that we might realize the simplicity of being- a child of God all the day long. My father loves me so. See the little child’s actions toward his father. He loves him and jumps on his knee and says, Won’t you give me this? The heart of the child is full oi confidence in the father. How blessed if we allowed this Spirit of sonship to possess us. Some people ask for the Holy Spirit and have somewhat of His power but their work is a burden. Allow the Spirit of God’s Son, who dwells in your heart from day to day, to deliver you from the spirit of bondage and fear — that wrong fear of a slave toward God — and give you a spirit of childlike access and openness and confidence and love. God has sent forth the Spirit of His son into your hearts. Do not live like servants, but like sons.

4. Chapter 5:1-5. You see here that there were many of the Galatians, who had been justified by faith in Christ, who had taken to works again. They were seeking for obedience in an external religion, a religion of works. Beware of that. A true believer waits through the Spirit for the hope of righteousness through faith. Everything that is promised to the righteous I am to hope for. Everything I hope for the Holy Spirit teaches me to expect by faith. Do you not see our whole life is to be believing? Some people ask, have you not told us to work very hard? Yes,but it is a very different tiling to work under the law and to work by grace. There is a law that you may not steal. How many thousands cannot keep from stealing. The law cannot put into their hearts that which shall prevent them from stealing. The law is helpless. It

can punish but it cannot affect a man’s heart. But faith can. There is no power in the world like faith. Thousands have been attracted to South Africa by the faith of what they heard about gold to be found there. Faith is the one power that made them leave home. Faith is the one power of the Christian life. We are always in danger ot seeking something by the works of the law. We are always in danger of thinking we ought to be doing something, instead of going to Christ, in faith, and saying, I can do nothing, work Thou in me. That is what Paul says, “I am nothing behind the chief est of the apostles, though I am nothing.” We, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness, for all the thousands of blessings that are to come to us every day of our lives. Paul teaches it in every possible way, that we must live and work in the Spirit coming from God and filling our life. Let there, every day of your lives, every morning, especially, be a time set apart for acting faith, for exercising yourself in believing, before you pray. There are Christians who study their Bibles so earnestly for half an hour, they have read and thought on God’s word, have prayed and told God what they want, but they have done no believing. They have never asked, do I know, certainly, that God is blessing; do I believe, for certain, that God is going to keep me? Am I perfectly sure God is going to guide me? If you asked them if they believed that, they would hesitate to answer. Take warning, and learn to say, every time you go to pray, I am not going to pray unless I believe God is listening. Am I sure that God hears me and can I trust Him fully that He is going to bless me. Hold still a little and say, Oh God, Thou wilt bless Thy child. If you do not feel that you can say that, all the more reason you should say, what is wrong? Let your heart go up in confession and tell God you are willing to give up everything; you will learn to see the teaching about the Holy Spirit and to believe in the reality of the work in you. The Holy Spirit is not merely for speaking or preaching, but for every hour of the day. Whether I eat or drink I need to have the Holy Spirit. I need to have the Holy Spirit to rule my disposition and keep me gentle, heavenly, Christ-like, devoted to God. You can never influence the church of Christ with your prayer unless the Holy Spirit is leading you. You cannot be living a holy life and a blessed life except in the full power of the Holy Ghost. What did God give the Holy Spirit for? That we might live like Jesus. That our life, like His, might be the exhibition of what the power of God’s Spirit can work. If we would but live the life of faith how wonderfully God would meet and bless us.

5. Our next warning is found in the 25th verse of the 5th chapter. “If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit.”’ Let me press upon j-ou the great difference between the two things. Paul says you may have received the Holy Spirit when you believed, but that is not enough. You must also walk in the Spirit. It is possible for a man to separate the two things, one from the other. Men may be very anxious to get pardoned and become

God’s children, and yet think that after that they must be content to walk in the flesh. Look at pride, temper, worldliness, jealousy, coldness toward Christ, so little personal love. These are all the works of the flesh, and may be found in a man living in the Spirit and yet not walking- in the Spirit. Now Paul comes to us and says that if we live in the Spirit we must also walk in the Spirit. What does that mean? Walk includes all our intercourse in daily life, our contact with people, our conversation with the world. All this must be in fellowship with the Spirit of God. Paul meant this Spirit to be in my home life, my church life, money making, money giving, money spending, every part of my life. Paul says that if )’ou live in the Spirit, you should walk in the Spirit. Every step must be in the Spirit. Am I preaching an impossible thing? Verily no. The message is the very mind of God and God’s word. What did He send the Holy Spirit for, if it was not to enable His children to live a holy and a heavenly life? It was to sanctify us, to bring Christ into our lives and to make us one with Christ. In this chapter it is stated the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. How am I to live that? Paul did not mean that for people who are better than we are. No, it is for each of us. And how can I live thus? By being twice as gentle or loving as I am? No! The fruit of the Spirit is love and gentleness every moment of the day. But how am I to be kept every hour of the day and walk thus in love? By having- the filling of the Spirit of God. Are you going to take in this truth? I cannot live an hour of the day rightly except as I am filled with the Spirit of God. Let us just give up ourselves to walk in the Spirit and the power of the Holy Ghost will become stronger and we will find there is grace to enable a man to live and walk in the Spirit. This is a question of the deepest importance. “Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” There is the answer to the question, how can I conquer all these temptations of the flesh? Walk in the Spirit. Give up to the Holy Spirit to rule your life, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. You will not get out of the flesh, but you will have power to conquer the flesh. The Holy Spirit will be the energizing and dominating power in your life. That can be, because God has promised it. If we yield our lives entirely with child-like faith, God will lead us into that life.

6. Last chapter, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” The Galatians had gone back to the life of the flesh. They worshipped God very earnestly but they were self-righteous. They thought to do a great deal to please God but all sorts of bitter jealousies and envyings broke out among them. Paul said they were in danger of devouring one another. When I do not wait for the Spirit of God to teach me and work

/ in me then I cannot work in any other power than that of the flesh, and it bring-s me no real peace and happiness. Relig-ious flesh, with its self-effort, is still sinful flesh. The man who is trying- to conquer sin and serve God, without the filling- of the Holy Spirit, finds sin stronger in Him every day, because he is trjdng to serve God in the power of the flesh. It is self, self-effort and self-confidence, and always breaks out into sin. There is no g-ettingover this, we must not sow in the flesh, we must sow in the Spirit if we would reap the fruit of the Spirit. Our whole life is sowing-. Every word we speak is sowing-. Every action is a seed. Every sentiment and disposition is a seed. Let us sow in the Spirit. Let our whole life be a yielding- to the Holy Spirit to perfect His life. We shall reap in the Spirit a g-reat harvest of peace and power, of joy and blessing-.

Now, dear friends, there you have the warning-s of the Epistle to the Galatians in regard to the holy life. I close by laying upon you the necessity of taking this truth to God in prayer, alone. My brother, the Father in heaven is waiting. As He looked upon the elder son He looks upon us and says, “Thou art ever with Me and all I have is thine.” Why not come and claim what is ours? Let us go to the Father and implore Him to teach us the right life, the life of the Holy Spirit. Let us learn the lesson day by day, to be still and to yield ourselves to pray in the Spirit; to walk and work in the Spirit. Let us yield ourselves in faith to God, the Holy Trinity; the Father, through the Son gives the Holy Spirit to be the life of our soul. God make it your and my blessed experience every day. Amen.