Let's hear the Word of God as we turn to Paul's letter to the Galatians. Galatians chapter 4, and we're beginning to read at verse number 12. "'I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. You've done me no wrong. As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus Himself. What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Those people are zealous to take you over for no good, What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them. It's fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, and not just when I am with you. My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I'm perplexed about you. "'Tell me, you who want to be under the law, "'are you not aware of what the law says? "'For it is written that Abraham had two sons, "'one by the slave woman, the other by the free woman. "'His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way, "'but his son by the free woman was born "'as a result of a promise. "'These things may be taken figuratively, For the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves. This is Hagar. Now, Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia, corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children. Break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labour pains. Because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband." Now, you brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time, the Son born in the ordinary way persecuted the Son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son. Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. Just because somebody quotes or refers to the Bible in the course of a discussion or an argument, doesn't necessarily mean they've understood the Bible correctly, or that they've interpreted it accurately. They may not. Always have to keep in mind that cults like the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, will refer to the Bible often. They will quote it. And yet, we know that the doctrines they claim to get out of the Bible are utterly unbiblical. So we shouldn't take quotations from Scripture just at face value as if people really understood what they were saying. The question always has to be, are they really attending to what the Bible is actually saying? Martin Luther spoke of those who would use the Bible like a nose of wax. And what he meant by that was there are people who can bend it in one direction, bend it in another, make it say all sorts of things that it doesn't really say. So we need to be careful when we seek to use the Bible that we're attending carefully to what it really says, that we are interpreting it accurately. And Paul raises that very issue in his debate with the false teachers in the churches in Galatia. You know, of course, in the letter, above all, Paul is anxious to protect the Galatian Christians from false teachers, from those who were coming into the churches, to try and influence them, to lead them to think, well, to be saved, You need to believe in Jesus, plus keeping the law, plus good works. And Paul, knowing the profound danger that that false teaching posed, was in various ways seeking to answer what these legalists were saying. You have to add your works, your law keeping, to faith in Jesus Christ. That destroys the gospel. And yet here were men coming into the church who would quote the Scriptures. You may well have known a great portion of the Old Testament Scriptures when they talked about the law. They'd be able to quote, quote the Bible. And of course, people would be impressed by that. They would be very much inclined to listen. Paul is asking the question, but do they really understand the Scriptures that they're using? That's the key question. So, we want to think of the portion we read from verse 21 to 31 of Galatians 4, true spiritual freedom, true spiritual freedom, because this is a vital issue for Christians. God saves us in order for us to be free, but anything that brings us back into bondage is a danger that has to be dealt with. And Paul sees this happening in Galatia, and he doesn't want those who know and love Christ to be led astray back into bondage after God has set them free. I want to think first in this portion of the history. The history, as Paul takes us back into the Old Testament Scriptures, that these legalists profess to love and respect so much. And Paul asks the vital question. He says, tell me, you who want to be under the law, you Judaizers, you legalists, Are you not aware of what the law says? And paraphrase it, Paul's saying, okay, you quote the law, you quote the Bible, but do you know what it really says? And, I mean, the subtext clearly is Paul knows they are not really understanding the law, and they're not understanding the Word of God, and he's seeking to correct them. They need, actually, to listen more attentively to what the law actually says. The law, as far as Paul's concerned here, is the first five books of the Old Testament, what we sometimes call the Pentateuch, the five books from Genesis to Deuteronomy. That's the law in the Jewish scriptures. Jewish Bibles divided into three sections. There's the law, there's the prophets, and there's the writings. So the law is the first five books. And Paul is saying, look, you quote the law, but do you really understand what it says and what it means? Because he knows, in fact, they don't. The Judaizers think that the law supports their ideas, and yet Paul understands, in fact, that the law, rightly understood, supports what he said and supports the gospel that he has been preaching. And Paul brings his readers back to the book of Genesis. And you can read, particularly in Genesis 16 and Genesis 21, it's the account of Abraham's family. And Paul's really saying, right, you say you are sons of Abraham and you're very proud of being sons of Abraham, but hold on a minute. Don't forget Abraham had two sons. Not just one. You're very proud of being a son of Abraham, but really the issue is, which son are you? Because they are very, very different. And back in those chapters in Genesis, we read about Ishmael and then about Isaac, the two sons of Abraham. And Paul sees a tremendous contrast between these two sons, same father and yet profoundly different men. Contrast, Paul sees, between those who want to live on the basis of the law, of keeping rules and regulations, which is what these legalists wanted, And on the other hand, those who want to live on the basis of God's grace and God's promises, living on the basis of faith. And there are two options, as it were, living by law and keeping rules and regulations, and living by faith, by the grace of God. And Paul sees those two reflected in the two sons of Abraham. Ishmael and Isaac. We said that the Judaizers put tremendous store on being sons of Abraham. They were really proud of their identity. Abraham is our father. But then Paul drives home the point. Remember, there were two sons, two very different sons. And you might not be the son that you think you are, which of the two, Ishmael or Isaac? And Paul's drawing out spiritual lessons from those chapters in Genesis, from these two very different men, Ishmael and Isaac, lessons that he applies in Galatia that we can apply as well. Crucial differences between the sons. Because you think of Ishmael, He was the son of a slave woman, the son of Hagar. And it was a measure of Abraham's lack of faith that he fathered a son in Hagar. He couldn't wait for God to keep his promise. He tried to rush ahead, and what a mess he made. So there's Ishmael, who's the son of a slave woman. Ishmael is a slave himself. And then when God's promise was fulfilled and Isaac was born, here a very different son, son of a free woman, of Sarah, himself free. So you have Ishmael, the slave. You have Isaac, the free man. And there are the two very different sons. And there are two very different ways of seeking to be right with God. There's a way of bondage, and there's a way of freedom. And Paul goes on to say, the son by the slave woman was born the ordinary way, was born according to the flesh, the natural process of events. The result of human activity, Ishmael was born. But then, how different Isaac is Because Paul says, the son by the free woman was born as a result of a promise of divine activity, not the merely human, as in the case of Ishmael, but by the result of God making a promise and God keeping a promise. And Isaac is born when, humanly speaking, it was impossible. Here's this very old man, old woman, and yet a son is born. That was God's work. That was not just by natural process. Natural process produced Ishmael, the slave son. But the gracious work of God and fulfilling His promise produced the free son, Isaac. God enabled Abraham and Sarah to produce Isaac. We're reminded of that in Hebrews 11, for example, a great chapter on faith. In Hebrews 11, 11, by faith, Abraham, though he was past age and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father because he considered him God, faithful, who had made the promise. So there are two completely different sons, Ishmael, born in the natural course of events, a slave and, all appearances, a man without faith in God. And on the other hand, Isaac, born as a result of God's promise and God's power and God's working, and he was free, and he was a man of faith. And the line continued from Abraham, Isaac, on down, eventually, of course, we know, to the Lord Jesus Christ. God was at work. So, there's the contrast between what man can achieve by his own strength, Ishmael, and what God does by His power, keeping His promise, Isaac. That's the history. That's the background, the picture that Paul is painting. You have a slave son, result of purely human activity, Ishmael. And you have a free son, Isaac, the result of God working graciously, the promise keeping God. So what does Paul make of all of this? Well, secondly, we have what are called the allegory. Paul spells out what's the significance of all of this. Why is he talking about Ishmael and Isaac and he's writing here to the Galatian churches? What's the point of it all? Paul draws a lesson from these historical events for the problems that were going on in the churches in Galatia. These things, he says, may be taken figuratively. Or if you have the ESV, it says, these things may be interpreted allegorically. They provide, as it were, pictures of spiritual truth. That's why Paul is recalling this history from the book of Genesis. He's using the two sons of Abraham as an illustration, an illustration of a vital principle of God's dealings with sinners. and sends two ways by which people may hope to be saved. There is, if you like, the Ishmael way, and there's the Isaac way. And, of course, Paul knows full well only one of them is really a way of salvation, and one of them utterly futile. So he spells it out. He draws out the figurative importance of Ishmael and Isaac. and of their mothers, Hagar, the slave, and Sarah, the free woman. The women, he says, represent two covenants. First of all, there's the law, the covenant of law. And he goes back to Sinai in the history of Israel. One covenant, he says, is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves. So, Ishmael, in a sense, is reflected in what went on at Mount Sinai. Now, yes, there was grace at Sinai because God had liberated the Israelites from Egypt. He had set them free, undeserving, often ungrateful people. That was grace. But what stands out especially at Sinai, you know, is the giving of God's law. Not only the Ten Commandments on the two stone tablets, But all the rest of the law that you have recorded in Exodus and on through the early chapters of the Old Testament, God gave his law to his people. And you think of Mount Sinai, you think of the law. Of course, that was something that would delight the legalists. Yes, the law, the law is so important. But the law was never given. Not at Mount Sinai, not at any other time. The law was never given to be a means of salvation because sinners could not keep the law sufficiently. But if you believed you could, if you believed that by keeping the law you could be right with God, you were going down a road into darkness. A road that was not leading to salvation, but in fact was leading further and further away from God. The law was given as a guide for life. God gave His law to people He'd set free. And this is how you're to live. That's what the law was for. And you see that in the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments start off of how God had set them free from bondage in Egypt, And then all the commandments follow. The problem with legalists, not just in Galatia, but down through church history, people who think, if you keep the law, you'll be saved. The problem is that they're depending on themselves, on their efforts, on their works. And by the works of the law, nobody will be right with God. That's one of the lessons Paul keeps hammering through Galatians all through his writings. If you depend on your works on keeping the law, you cannot be saved, because nobody can keep the law adequately. And that's reflected in the slave son in Ishmael, on a slave mother, Hagar, and on Mount Sinai, where the law was given. And still, Paul knew in his own day The Jews were still trying, by and large, to satisfy God by keeping the law, keeping all the rules. And that's the mindset that the false teachers were trying to bring into the Christian churches in Galatia, and get these Christians to add their works to the way of salvation. Utterly, utterly futile. And those who try to be saved by works, who try to be saved by keeping the law or keeping any system of rules, are like Ishmael, because they're slaves. They're slaves to sin. They're slaves to the rules. They're slaves to the law. And down that road, there is no salvation. That's Ishmael. And everybody who seeks to be saved by works is in slavery, and they will never be free. So that is one possibility. That's one of the sons of Abraham. But then, of course, there's the free son. There's Isaac. So there's the way of law, but now there's the way of promise. And Paul speaks of Sarah. Sarah, who provided the son of the covenant, Isaac, the free son. And here really is an illustration of the way of grace, salvation through trusting the promises of God, looking to the grace of God for salvation. We belong Not to the earthly Jerusalem, a place of law-keeping and legalism, Paul says. We belong to heavenly Jerusalem. And he says, the Jerusalem that's above is free. Not a mountain in Arabia where the law was given, but the heavenly city, the home of every child of God. Here is a city that's built by God's grace and God's mercy, not by human works, not by law-keeping, but by the grace of God. It's the very opposite of the way of law-keeping. To trust in God's grace for salvation is as far away from trusting in your own works as it's possible to get. And it's this way of grace, of promise. Pictured in Isaac, the free son, that is the way of the gospel. That is the way of salvation. It's the gospel Paul preached. We belong to the heavenly city. As he writes in Philippians 3.20, our citizenship is in heaven. And it's all of grace. And it's all flowing from the promises of God. God is bringing in a people by His grace, bringing them into the city of Jerusalem, bringing them into His church, bringing them into His family. And that's why Paul quotes from Isaiah 54. There's a quotation there in verse 27. "'Be glad, O barren woman who bears no children.'" What's the point? that quotation. Why does Paul suddenly quote from Isaiah 54? Because he is saying, here are children born of promise. Here is God bringing in a family that's produced not by merely human means, but a family that's the result of grace. Those who believe on the Savior that he has given. After The captivity of Zion was reversed, and the Israelites were brought back. God brought them back to their own city. And that was His grace. There's another picture of salvation. Sinners like you and me, lost in our sin. And God, in His grace and His love, brings us out of our sin and our lostness, brings us into His family, brings us into the spiritual Jerusalem. And as believers in Christ, who are the free children, who, as it were, are the descendants of Abraham and Isaac, we believe in the Messiah Christ has given, that God has given, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have true freedom. We are set free from sin. We're not in slavery, like legalists trying to earn their way into heaven. We're not in slavery like those who are in bondage to trying to be good enough for God. We've trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're set free from our sin. We are the children of Abraham. As Paul wrote back in chapter 3, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed. And we are not the descendants of the slave son, Ishmael, were the descendants of the free son, Isaac, the man of faith, saved by God's grace. And Paul's setting before these legalists, which are you really? You're a son of Abraham, very good, but are you the sons of Ishmael still in slavery? in slavery to law-keeping and effort and works? And Paul knows they are, of course. Or are you sons of Isaac, free, born as a result of God's promise, saved by God's grace, people of faith? That's true spiritual freedom. How different from the legalism and the bondage that was being imported into Galatia. And you can see why Paul was so anxious, that if people believed that message, they were abandoning the gospel. And Paul longed for them to grow in gospel truth and grow in Christ-likeness and to know what it was to be really free. The bondage ended. So, Paul gives the history. And then he gives the allegory. What does this all signify? But then we need to think finally of the application. Because we might be inclined to think, well, why is a passage like this in our Bible? Do we really need all this about Hagar and Sarah and Ishmael and Isaac? Is there any point in this? Well, why are we preaching a passage like that to Christian folk? That's fascinating. Many years ago, one of the great Scottish preachers, Douglas Macmillan, some of you will have heard of him. Douglas was a shepherd and converted, great minister of the gospel. Remember Douglas saying, on one occasion in his congregation, he was preaching through Galatians. And he was due to preach on a Sabbath evening on this passage, Sarah and Hagar. And he had many young people and students in the congregation. And before the service, he thought, what am I going to say? What did I make of this for these people? What are they going to get out of a passage like that? And he preached faithfully. And I think it was five or six young people professed faith after that sermon. They were converted from a passage that he thought, what are we going to get out of this passage? Because it's God's Word. And it's the heart of the gospel, slavery and freedom. Slavery, if you depend on your own works and your own efforts, you're always going to be a slave. Freedom, if you believe in the Savior God has given, the promised Messiah, And you trust in Him. That's freedom. That's the way of salvation. By God's grace, a number, even that night, embraced the Savior and knew the joy of salvation. He was amazed. And all of us who heard it were similarly amazed. That's what God does with His Word. And this is the gospel. It might be in the Old Testament clothes of Ishmael and Isaac and Hagar and Sarah, but it's the gospel. And that's what Paul is presenting. And the question is, which son are you? You profess to be a Christian. Well and good. But Paul says, well, now, brothers, which? You see his confidence in the Galatian Christians. You brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. For all that he has said, some hard things, and he's had some severe warnings, he's hopeful of the Galatians' real standing, that they're not going to be led astray, that they're not going to embrace that false gospel that isn't really a gospel. There's optimism. despite all the struggles and everything that's going on in the churches. He's confident that they are really the children of promise. They owe their spiritual existence to the gracious work of God. And he doesn't want that to be compromised. He doesn't want them to be led astray from this sound path that they're on. It really matters. They're not to look to their own works. They're not to add anything to faith in Christ for salvation. And the promise of God always takes us to Christ. You're children of promise. If you're a child of promise, you've come to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you've trusted in Him for salvation. You've been set free from your sin. And a miracle of grace has happened in your heart. As Paul says, we're born by the power of the Spirit. And that's how any sinner's saved. If you're saved today, you have been born by the power of the Spirit. Isn't that a wonderful thing to be told? You're a child of God's promise. You're born again of the Spirit of God. And you are a free child of God, liberated from bondage, and that burden of trying to keep God's law well enough, which you could never do anyway. And there is a spiritual battle, of course. Paul reminds us that Ishmael and Isaac were very different spiritually, and Ishmael persecuted Isaac. And there's always spiritual war going on. If you belong to Christ, the enemy wants to trip you up, wants to pull you back, wants to hinder your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. We mustn't be deceived by any false gospel, by any who would suggest you've got to add your efforts, your works, to faith in Christ in order to be saved. That's why Paul says, get rid of the slave woman and her son. Get rid of any false gospel, anything that compromises God's grace and God's promise, because those things will do you no good. Don't be deceived. And he's really telling the Galatians, don't be deceived. Hold on to the gospel. And he's saying to us, don't be deceived. Hold on to the gospel, because that's the way of freedom. He says, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman. Is that true of you today? Do you profess to be a Christian? Are you relying entirely on Christ? Are you relying entirely on the grace of God to save you? Or is there some thought that your efforts and your works and your attempts to be a good person are contributing to salvation? Well, there is a slave to be thrown out, to be put aside, and to trust entirely on the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. That's the only gospel. That's the gospel Paul preached. That's the gospel we preach. Don't be deceived. Don't listen to any voice that would suggest you can make a contribution. You've got to add your bit to what Christ did by faith in Christ alone. And that's true spiritual freedom. That's to be a child of promise. That's to be an Isaac. You start to think, I'll contribute. I'll do a little bit. That's slavery. That's to be an Ishmael. That's to be a child of the slave woman. That's to abandon the gospel. Why does Paul give us this passage about Hagar and Sarah and Ishmael and Isaac? It's because it illustrates the Gospel, that there is one way of salvation, by the grace of God, through the promised Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Him, there is everything that sinners like you and I need. Do not abandon your freedom As an Isaac, as a child of promise for slavery, to be a child of Ishmael, to rely on your works that will never save you. True spiritual freedom. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved. May we be children of promise. May we be Isaacs enjoying true spiritual freedom. in the Lord Jesus Christ.