The following message was given at Emanuel Baptist Church, Coconut Creek, Florida. Amen. Join me in your Bibles, Galatians chapter 4. Galatians 4. This evening we are looking at verses 8 through 11. From 1939 to 1945, time period most of us, hopefully all of us have studied at some point, World War II was being waged between the Axis powers, of course made up of Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria on one side, and the Allies made up of the United States, Britain, France, and 14 other countries on the other. On June 6, 1944 was the famous D-Day Allied invasion of Normandy, France. And that operation was called Operation Overlord. It was the largest seaborne invasion in known history. The operation began the invasion of German occupied Western Europe and led to the liberation of France under Nazi control. Following D-Day, the Axis powers knew. They absolutely knew that they were, for all practical purposes, completely defeated. They knew the question was not if, but when they would finally be compelled to lay down their arms. But they continued to fight. With whatever weapons they still had for almost another year, they continued to fight on, killing hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers. Now interestingly, more American and British soldiers died after D-Day than before, even though the Axis powers had essentially been defeated. Now this really is an apt illustration to help us understand what exactly could it mean. when we say that we believe that Satan and the evil powers of this world have been defeated by Christ on the cross. It doesn't take a scholar to understand that there is evil all around us and indeed Satan and his minions and all the evil powers and activity that are working day by day to bring people to ruin, to destroy families and churches, to discourage the people of God, to upset anything that would bring honor to Christ are at work. So how can we say that there has been a defeat? How could anyone say that the cross has had any real impact on Satan's activity in the world since it all seems so prevalent? We need to think about it in the same way as the access powers. Defeated, undeniably, unmistakably, completely and totally defeated, and yet the fight continued. And as for Satan and the evil powers of the supernatural world, their fight continues even though their ultimate defeat is already declared and secured by the creator, sustainer, and judge of all things. In fact, we can say that although the cross defeated Satan, the powers of God And the powers that work alongside him and with him, they have done more harm to people in history since that time than before. But they were defeated nonetheless. And the final manifestation of that defeat will come one day in the future. Satan and all the supernatural powers of evil were shown their final end at the cross, but they still hold on to some of their weapons and to some of their power. They are alive and well amongst the enemies of the church, orchestrating their nefarious attacks on true religion and the fight for righteousness. They were lurking behind the Jewish and Roman authorities who killed Jesus. And in Paul's day, he certainly saw them to be lurking behind the Roman and Jewish officials who continued to hound Christian believers. And so the real enemies of the Christians were not primarily people. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. You see, Paul understood and was telling the church that the real foes are spiritual. The same kind of invisible forces that afflicted the Jews for centuries, fallen evil forces conspiring against God's people and God's kingdom. Now as we've walked through Paul's letter to the Galatians thus far, he's pointed out the deception, the false teaching that the Christians in Galatia had been ensnared to, that they had been falling victim to. However, we're now getting to a point where Paul really takes aim at what's going on behind the scenes, if you will. What's going on supernaturally? What's going on in the unseen realm, wherein the people of God are still being afflicted by the defeated foes that they once followed? So let's read what Paul writes to the Galatians, chapter four, beginning in verse eight. Formally, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I have labored over you in vain. Well, the first thing Paul shows us in verses eight through 10 is that apart from a relationship with the one true God, all men are enslaved to gods of their own choosing. Now we have to remember, as always, what the big picture is for the Galatians. The Galatians, remember, are Christians. They have come out of Greek pagan backgrounds and they're now falling under the influence of the Judaizers who were telling them, if you're really going to be acceptable to God, you cannot just believe in Jesus. That's not enough. You have to believe and follow the Jewish ceremonial law. You have to follow the dietary restrictions. You have to practice circumcision and on and on. Essentially, the message from the Judaizers to the Galatians was Jesus is not enough. And so in that context, Paul says this sort of shocking thing to them. He proclaims, if that's the road that you're going to walk down, following the Judaizers, you're walking into slavery to the non-gods. So who are these non-gods that Paul is talking about? That's the first thing we need to understand. Now most of you realize in the Greek world there was a God for everything, literally everything. Every element of creation, every activity of man had a specific God. So there was the God of earth, there was the God of fire, of water, of the sun, of the moon, of the stars, of land, of agriculture, wine, and food, and on and on. So farmers would sacrifice to the God of agriculture, sailors prayed to the God of the sea, there was Ares, the God of war, there was Aphrodite, the God of sexual love and beauty, and of course, everyone's favorite God, Bacchus, the God of the party. But what eventually happens is that everyone has their own God. And there are these non-gods of verse eight and the elementary principles of the world mentioned in verse nine. And it's all of these different kinds of gods that Paul is referring to. Now admittedly, there's some difficulty in translating some of this and almost every English translation you read has a little bit of a different way to word it as a result. But essentially, these non-gods of verse eight relate to the elementary principles of verse nine, or your translation, New King James says, the weak and beggarly elements. Same thing, elementary principles. Now, what makes this difficult is that it can have a few different meanings. So we have to look at the context of what Paul is saying. I'm not gonna go through all the different possibilities, but I wanna point out the flow of his thought. Remember again, we mentioned this briefly last week, this is the same line of thought that we saw in chapter three, when Paul told the Galatians that they were bewitched. Remember, you foolish Galatians, who is bewitching you? They were under a very powerful, satanic supernatural force, a satanic spell of sorts. In other words, yes, they're buying into the false teaching of the Judaizers, but it wasn't just the Judaizers who were leading the Galatians astray. There was something much more powerful at work. They were continuing to turn back to it, is what Paul is saying now. Well, what were they turning back to? Non-gods, or elementary principles, or weak and beggarly elements. The spirits behind every created thing that was being worshipped. And so in the Greek pagan mind, every basic created thing had a God. Or to use Paul's language from back in verse 3 and here in verse 9, the elementary principles of the world all had a God. In other words, anything can be worshipped. And we know that, right? Anything in this world can be treated as a god and become the foundation of your religious practice. We see it all the time. We see it in our own lives. We see it in the lives of others. We have a tendency to think about idolatry as something that we practice in our hearts, but Westerners sort of, we sort of laugh at those who would put offerings before a statue or they would have a carved idol or something like that. We see that and we laugh. But, and Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians, it's generally not the case that people were worshiping the actual statue or carving itself. They're interested in the spirit behind the statue, if you will. They're interested in the spiritual being that they believed inhabited that statue, or is represented by that statue, which is actually far more dangerous than the statue itself. And here's the reality. If you are not worshiping the God of the Bible, If you're not worshiping the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as God, the one true and living God, you're worshiping something or someone else who is your God. There is no such thing as an unbeliever in the truest sense of the word. There really is no such thing as a person who is irreligious. You either worship the one true God or you believe in something else as God that isn't the God who will save you. And we know this is a rebellion against God. It is an absolute rejection of what God desires because the first of the 10 commandments says, you shall have no other gods before me. And so here's something that's at the heart of all that the scripture teaches. You are what you worship. You take on the characteristics of whatever it is that you worship. So when we think of that in terms of Christianity, we say that what the Apostle Paul says numerous times in his letter, what are we becoming like as Christians? We're becoming more Christ-like. We're becoming like Christ. We're being made all the more into the image of the Son. But what's happening before we become Christians or what happens as Christians, if our worship is diverted away from the one true God to a God of our choosing, we become more like that non-God. And so this has some very serious implications for us, doesn't it? I think if I sat down with some of you and said, let's talk about your life, and you brought out, for a time now, maybe you've been filled with bitterness, you're lying about things all the time, you're getting a little bit bored with the church, you're lacking in generosity, you're being selfish, and then I ask you, why do you think that is? It's likely, it's very likely that you would say something like, well, because I'm a sinner. I'm weak and I'm flawed, I'm a sinner. Now, that's absolutely true of all of us, right? But here's what happens with us. We say that, and in saying that, what we're often communicating is, I'm a sinner, which means I'm powerless. I can't do anything about it. So that's the thing that's true about all of us, being sinners. It's absolutely true. But when we say it in that context, we're actually sort of copping out. It's not that it's not true, it absolutely is true. However, we tend to use it as our escape. It's the Christian equivalent of shrugging our shoulders and saying with the world, nobody's perfect. But here's what we're not admitting at that point. We're not admitting the reality of what's really going on because we usually don't get it. We're blinded by it so we don't see it and therefore we can't communicate it. We have something else in our lives that is competing for our affections. We have something else that we are looking to as a new idol that is being erected in our lives. Again, you are what you worship. You're becoming more and more like whatever it is that you give yourself over to. And anything we give ourselves over to that is not the true God of the Bible is going to lead to bitterness, to anger, to distrust, to selfishness, to pride, and on and on and on, because only God as God is able to dispense grace, and patience and selflessness and mercy and peace and understanding and wisdom and on and on into our hearts. And so here's a big lesson for us from Galatians. And these Galatians, again, many of them buying the lies of the Judaizers. They're essentially rejecting the most basic foundational truth of the Christian faith in the gospel. And instead, they are listening to and following through with a lot of these practices of the Judaizers and what they're putting before them. It's all completely and totally opposed to the gospel. So what does Paul say? He tells them, you are enslaved to non-gods. You are enslaved to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world. And now you're going back to what you knew before. So you're not living upon the love and the grace of God. You're not living upon the righteousness of Christ alone. You're living life upon the legal structures of the powers and principalities that you have decided to assign power to in your life. Do you see what's at stake for us? Whenever I've completely blown it, or just made a mess of things, my response shouldn't just be, well, I'm a sinner, and sinners do dumb things. Yes, that's true, but that's not it. In fact, that's not even most important. What I really need to ask is, what am I putting in the place of God? What is so important to me right now that I'm deciding it's more important than the God who created me, sustained me, and has saved me? What has me following after this non-God? Why am I turning back to my former way of life? Why am I doing this? So there should be more preaching to ourselves. But that preaching to ourselves shouldn't just be don't do that. It's not as simple as I just need to tell myself to stop doing what I'm doing and then I'll stop doing it. No, I need to ask something bigger. Why? Why are you not doing what you're supposed to be doing? Why are you doing the wrong thing instead of the right thing? And then we have to be honest and answer with the absolute fact that something besides God has taken over our affections. Something other than God has become our highest good. There's something other than God that we are adoring. And that's underneath every single sin that we commit, isn't it? That's what screws us up. That is the reason why we do everything we do opposed to God. That's the root of our personality. When something good I'm not talking about evil things, but when something good becomes the best in our eyes, it becomes a God to us. It becomes the integrating focus of our personalities and it's why we are the way we are because we become like what we worship. But how is it? How is it that I can know and be known by God, as Paul says in verse nine, and yet still turn back to weak and worthless elementary principles in this world? He asks that here, not because he doesn't know the answer, but more of a way of questioning them so that they will consider their own hearts. How could you? He's asking them. But I want to answer that question. How is that possible? The Galatians, Paul's clear all throughout this letter, they belong to Christ, that you're united to Christ by his blood, they are Christians. So how is it possible? How are they being deceived or bewitched or enslaving themselves once again to that which is contrary to God? We've said it several times walking through Galatians, that as Christians, we have a non-obligation to sin. In other words, as a redeemed people in Christ, our hearts have been changed, we have new affections, our will has been changed, and so we are no longer obligated to sin like we once were. Our prior disposition was we could not not sin because that's what we were bound to in our will. But as Christians, we are no longer bound to sin. Furthermore, Christ has died on our behalf, and on the cross, he crushed the head of the serpent in accordance with the scriptures, defeating the enemy, giving all who trust in him victory over sin and death. So how is it that we could still be enslaved to these non-gods? Well, remember the Axis powers of World War II. They were defeated after D-Day, but they continued to fight. There's no mistake that in the supernatural world, the evil powers have been dealt the death blow already. Jesus triumphantly, finally, completely, and totally defeated the evil forces of the world on the cross to include death. However, Until the Lord cast them all away into the everlasting lake of fire, they continue to wage a losing battle. Why? Because while they may be defeated, they can still take others with them. They can still deliver heavy blows to the church. They can still do damage to local churches and homes and individual lives. And notice Paul is saying to the Galatians, if you go to them, they will enslave you. So how do they do it? Well, the biblical writers use a word over and over again that we don't really have an English equivalent for. So to make perfect sense of it, it's often translated as something like lust. But in our modern vocabulary, we generally think of lust in terms of sexual desire. One commentator gives what I think is the best word for it when he calls it over-desire. Now here's what we need to see. An over-desire is not an oversized desire for something that is bad or evil. It's actually an over-desire for something that is in itself good. It may be love, it may be achievement, it may be your child's happiness, you name it. Good things can become over-desires. And when that happens, we are completely opened up to the non-gods to which we can become enslaved. There's a real spiritual evil that says, if you want it, you can have it. And once you have it, you'll become happy. So in our hearts, we indulge our over-desires, we create this unrealistic, delusional world to grasp for, and in doing so, we can take normal, good desires and turn them into a non-God, and they're just waiting to jump on and enslave us by pulling us away from a right relationship with God. So you see in our hearts, we turn a good desire into an over desire, and then when we're seeking to indulge it, we walk right up to the trap. It is so subtly and so craftily set by the forces that are aligned against us that we might be bound in its slavish chains. Now, perhaps you hear this, And you're a little bit uncomfortable with talk about the supernatural evil forces, the supernatural world. Christians often pay lip service to this reality, but we never actually acknowledge that there are evil things that happen in our lives that are truly influenced by evil forces. But we shouldn't be intimidated, we shouldn't be scared, and we should talk about and acknowledge the reality of the supernatural. I mean, we believe that a sea was parted, We believe that time stood still, that manna rained from heaven, that water came out of a rock that was struck. We believe in a savior that was born of a virgin and was raised from the dead. We believe all these things so very strongly. So when we hear about the evil forces in this present world, we shouldn't write it off and say they don't exist or that they aren't actively at work. They are. And they want nothing more than to make you complacent and indulge your over desire to begin following them. In fact, the greatest thing that these evil forces could do in our lives from their perspective is to make us think that they're not active and they're not working and they're not involved in our lives in any way. So let me give you an example of how this might work out. We have a lot of parents and grandparents in our congregation, so I think there's a very real danger in something like this for all of us, myself included. Think of a love for your child or your grandchild and your desire for them to be very happy and healthy. That desire can very easily become something that enslaves us. And what I want us to know is that it's not just that our priorities can be a little messed up, or that maybe there's a season of life that we focus all of our effort and attention on this little child, but it can actually be something that becomes evil, driven by an over-desire in our hearts that walks us right into the snares of the evil. So what ends up happening? Well, we end up doing things in the exact opposite way that God calls us to. But it's easy to justify all of it because it started as a desire for something good. So in this example, what happens when a parent maybe goes down that road? They pour all of their attention, all of their affection, all of their effort into their child or their children. Eventually they withdraw from community, They close themselves off from the wisdom of others. They become prideful in the way they do things as opposed to others. Maybe they make comments about it. They're comparing their child to other children. They're announcing everything to the world about how great and wonderful and perfect their life is with their new child. And all of it is completely oblivious to the fact that the most important thing is all of the sudden missing. a worship of God. And we can predict what the things will be that happen because it's all of these evil things opposed to God, and it's going to be the exact opposite of what God desires, that we've allowed this over-desire for a good thing to take over, that now we've turned the most precious thing that we have received in our earthly lives into a God that is no God at all. So you see, it's not just about some pagan Gentiles in the first century. This is about you and me, and it's about never allowing our hearts to be taken captive by over-desires, never allowing our actions to follow because we walk into the enslaving trap of the forces of evil that await us. I could give you a thousand examples of what this could look like for each of us, and you could probably think of some yourself for your own situation. What do you love? What good things do you desire? Reason through in your mind how it is that what you love and desire that is a good thing in and of itself can actually become an overdesire and set a trap that you might fall into that you would begin to follow after the non-gods. The Apostle Peter warns us on this point. He says, be sober-minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, he prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Now some of you here are not Christians and maybe you're hearing all of this and you're saying, that is crazy. I am not led by some supernatural force. I make my own decisions. I take responsibility for my own actions. I don't listen to or follow some invisible force in the world that is guiding me or manipulating me. Do you really think your decisions are not in any way influenced by anything outside of you? Now, worldly people often talk about the universe guiding them. or they rely on astrology. And based on your astrological sign, you're destined to have certain characteristics and whether you were born in the morning or the evening makes all the difference in the world or any other sort of claim about why things are ordered in the world the way that they're ordered and they happen the way that they do. Well, the reality is that you know that you're not just some autonomous being that has complete control over every aspect and every part of your life. You do things sometimes and think, why did I do that? Or why do I keep doing this? You have over-desires that are being fueled by the non-gods, and if you don't have anything more powerful to overcome their influence in your life, you are going to continue to follow them. But the Apostle Paul's entire mission, my entire mission, and this church's entire mission is to say, look, you may not want to admit it, but you don't have the control that you think you have. You're enslaved to powers and principalities that do not function for your good, but for your demise. There is a real enemy that seeks to do real damage to you, and he will act on you whether you acknowledge or give assent to his existence or not. And he has an entire army behind him doing his bidding. But here's the message. There is a far more powerful and far more compelling reality that exists, and that is for you and for your good, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. In Christ, we have the full assurance and hope that the enemy while still fighting, while still prodding and crafting and scheming is already defeated because Christ fulfilled the law of God to perfection on our behalf. When we were born into this world, the law says, do this perfectly and you will live. But we all know without a shadow of a doubt that we cannot fulfill the law perfectly in every way, in our hearts, in our words, in our actions, and before we can even speak, we act selfishly. We act in self-serving ways that guarantees our condemnation and its justice. But Jesus died a sinner's death to take the penalty that is owed to us because of our sin. And when we put our faith in him, when we put our trust in him, when we bend our knee to Christ as our Savior and our Lord, instead of bending our knee to the non-gods of this world, Jesus becomes our substitute. Jesus becomes the penalty that was paid for our sin, and the Father adopts us as his children and changes our affections. He gives us new hearts that are no longer bound, no longer enslaved to the principles of this world, no longer unable to do that which is good and pleasing in the sight of God, but now, now living upon the righteousness of Christ. Now, living by the power of the Spirit that dwells within us and guides us by His infinite wisdom, that reminds us daily of God's infinite grace and love, and compels us to live upon the sovereign, saving grace of God instead of the paltry, empty promises of this world. And when we are in Christ, we have every reason to rejoice in the new affections in our new properly oriented desires and a completely new influence under God instead of the influence of this world and the flesh and the devil so we can truly experience joy everlasting and know what it is to truly have joy and peace even in the midst of trials and suffering and hardships. And as Christians, we are living in communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit with a powerful reality at play in Christ, and we have all that we need. all that we could ever think to want. Anything greater than we could ever imagine or ask for because we have everlasting life, we have the pardon of sin and we have a peace that endures. And friend, if you are not in Christ, whether you want to admit it or acknowledge it or not, you are under a powerful influence that exists outside yourself and you are serving a non-God. And the only hope you have, the only answer to your problem is to look to Christ and live, to look to Christ by faith, to take hold of Christ and to receive Him as your all and all. And when you come to Him in humility, He will receive you as His own. He will not back you down, He will not turn you away, but He will take you in your weary life and make you to be a new creation in Him by faith. He will lead you to acknowledge your sin in repentance, He will give you the promise that in Him, all of your sins are forgiven. He will help you to see your legal-hearted way of life. enslaved to the non-gods of the world, driven by your over-desires and self-righteousness. And he will give you a new purpose. He will give you new affections. He will give you a new and lasting hope that cannot leave you empty or hopeless or disappointed. And so the call for you who do not look to Christ is to look to Christ that you might truly live. Now notice Paul says something in verse 10 here, and it's very interesting, and it's not maybe what you might assume at first. The natural assumption is that because the Gentiles are being influenced toward the teaching of the Judaizers, that he's talking about Jewish festivals and days of observance, but remember the context in which Paul is writing here is to the Gentiles. These aren't Jews or former Jews, these are the Gentiles. And he's saying the Gentiles are turning back to something from their past. For many of them, what was in their past? They were looking at the worship of sun and moon and stars. In other words, they were worshiping the creation rather than the creator. So the days, months, and seasons that Paul mentions, and the years, are those things marked out by the sun, the moon, and the stars? Now, part of their belief system was that these objects had power and control over them and over the world around them. And so Paul is taking aim at this and he is saying, you were enslaved to these things that are non-gods. now that you've been freed from this, don't go back to it. Don't worry about the times and the seasons and the days and the months and the years. If you believe all of this astrology, it will take control over your life because you are assigning it a power it doesn't actually have. And he's pointing to a very real danger here. We need to realize this. There is a very real evil power at work behind all of these things. And if we open ourselves up to them, we allow ourselves to be enslaved by them. Now, Christians, thank God, we're protected against the power's worst designs, which are the things that would separate us from Christ completely. But Paul promises us in Romans chapter 8 that even the worst distresses, or persecution, or famine, or peril, none of the evil powers will be able to separate true believers from the love of Jesus Christ. For I'm sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. As true believers in Christ, we have all the assurance that we need that we are secure in Christ and we will not be taken away finally and completely. However, that's not a free ticket for us to just venture into the world and to entertain the elementary principles of the world. There's nothing good there. They will only serve to damage you, to damage the church, to damage your family. Don't turn and be enslaved to those things that by nature are non-gods, but turn to worship the one true and living God who has revealed himself in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Well finally, verse 11, Paul shows us that turning away from Christ to other gods may be proof that a person was never united to Christ in the first place. When I moved to Savannah, Georgia for the first time in 2003, it was the first time I had ever seen a lighthouse. They're really very unique structures and they serve a very important and very practical purpose. Lighthouses are these distinct markings and they're placed in desolate places along the coastlands to show sailors where the danger was and to help guide them on the waters. And those vivid beacons were very helpful and necessary. Well, Paul is serving as sort of this lighthouse to the Galatians. He's beaming a bright light in order to alert the church about the shallows and the rocks that are surrounding them and that are seeking to enslave them. Now at the time of Paul's writing, the Galatian church was about to run aground and perhaps be destroyed. But Paul is in an impersonal lighthouse. He's not a revolving light in the bleak darkness. He's on the shore. He's jumping up and down. He's waving his arms at the Galatians and he's shouting at the top of his voice because the Galatians are headed toward destruction. And he reminds them that God has used him to call them to bring them into the glory of His grace. But he entertains this question. Was it possible that in all that he has done, all that he has witnessed in their midst, all that they have professed to believe and to be, was it possible that he had labored over them in vain? Is it possible that they truly were unconverted? If they continue in their present course, what does he tell them? You will prove yourselves to be so. He's not saying that they're going to lose their salvation, but that by choosing to be enslaved, if they continue in that enslavement, they may very well be proving themselves to be outside of Christ altogether. That's terrifying. Paul is saying to the Galatians, you once were slaves and now you want to go back again? How dare you? Are you fools? Are you idiots? Have I been wasting my breath? R.C. Sproul would say, what's wrong with you people? Now here's what's so astounding about it and where it all comes together and everything else Paul has written thus far. Before they were Christians, the Galatians were pagans. They were Greek pagans. They were Greco-Roman people. They were pagans, worshiping false gods. They were worshiping idols. They were... surrounded by all sorts of evil, terrible things. And everything that's opposed to God was being worked out in their lives day by day by day. Now remember, this is what Paul's saying you're being tempted to. But what is the whole reason the book of Galatians is being written for? Again, teachers have come to the Galatians and have said, if you really, really want to be accepted by God, it's not enough for you to just believe in Jesus. You have to be very legal. You have to be absolutely moral in the way that the Jews tell you to be moral. Right, so they're really getting to move, they're beginning to move into this kind of legal moralism. They're going to be moving into a place that's more moral and more religious than they've ever been before. That's the danger. But do you realize what Paul is saying here? It may not register at first because we've been talking about pagan religion and supernatural forces of evil, but think about this. Before they were Christians, the Galatians were doing all the evil things they were doing out in the streets, living lives of complete licentiousness. But now they're about to go into a life of absolute rigorous program of utter obedience to legal details as a way of seeking to earn God's favor, and Paul says you're going to be right back where you were. Isn't that fascinating? How could he say that? It's startling. It's astounding that Paul would say that being incredibly moral and ritualistic and sexually pure and all the sorts of things that you are about to enslave yourselves to is just the same as if you were out worshiping idols and living this pagan life, fornicating all over the place. Why? Because legalism and antinomianism are the same thing. Because Paul is saying you can either be enslaved to the non-gods and follow all of your over-desires, or you can be enslaved to the law which cannot save you while you seek to gain your own salvation by law-keeping. Either way, you're gonna end up in the same place. And so instead of following Christ, you're following the law as a means of salvation, and you're actually seeking to be your own Lord and your own Savior through obedience to the law. You're just as enslaved. And you know the law of God is manipulated by the evil powers arrayed against us, and it becomes one of the most powerful weapons in Satan's arsenal. Why? Because again, we know it's from God. We know it's good and holy and perfect and right, but it was never intended for our salvation. So the problem with religious spiritual slavery is worse than following the non-gods in some ways because you don't know you're dead. And in fact, you've hidden behind a religious veneer and have convinced yourself that you're amongst the super spiritual elite. It's a trap. And so Paul is actually here explaining the way to deal with the enslavement of the non-gods. In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul says, I don't care what you think of me. He says, I care very little if I'm judged by you or a human court. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Now here's the connection. Anything we are enslaved to will come under judgment. and will keep us under judgment. I can be under the judgment of my peers, my religious group, the non-gods I submit to and open myself up to. Whatever it is, I'm inviting them into my life, but Paul is saying that in the gospel, your performance ultimately means nothing. Your popularity means nothing. Those things in the gospel mean nothing. What matters is that God knows you. It's what God thinks of you, and more specifically, what God thinks of you in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is like a laser beam. He thinks about this all the time, and as a result, he laughs in the face of anything else that comes along. Criticism, what people think, he's not up and down all the time because he's like a laser beam. He's focused on that. The important thing is not that I know God, but that God knows me. My knowledge of God goes up and down all the time, but his knowledge of me is absolutely and permanently fixed and unchanged. The Lord says, I will never ever forsake you. But then the other part is that you do have to know God. Ultimately, it's not enough to just tell yourself over and over the gospel, you should do that. That's important, but it's not enough. It's not enough to say to your desires, which is fundamentally what you have to do, you're a good thing, but you're not the best thing. I don't need you in abundance, I have Jesus, and I always need more of him. Now that's, again, a good thing to tell ourselves. And I'll tell you something, sometimes that's the best thing that works in a pinch, when you're feeling like, I have to do this, everything in me is drawing me toward this thing, whatever it is, I feel like I have to do it, how do I get control? You have to find what that desire is, and you have to recognize it's becoming an overdesire, and you have to look it in the face and say, I don't need you, I have Jesus. But ultimately, You have to know God. And we know God how? We know him through his word and through prayer and through all the varied means of grace that have been provided for us that we might draw near to him. And it's not in a moment that it all happens. It's day by day and year by year, living our Christian lives, depending on the things that God has provided. And it's like a snowball rolling down the hill. And as we progress as Christians, it gets bigger and bigger and we're more and more equipped to fight off the over-desires of our hearts that we can walk in faithfulness all the more. And so Paul is telling us, go get him. Everything he has ever done is so that you can know him, and only by knowing him will you ever be able to say, forget it, to the non-gods and to the legal way of life. Reminded, as we close, when Hudson Taylor died, he was a great missionary to China, there was a piece of paper found in his diary. It was this loose piece of paper, he had written on it, and he would move it every day to mark where he was in his Bible. And it was just these verses written on that paper. He wrote this. Oh Jesus, make thyself to me a living bright reality. More present to faith's vision keen than any outward object seen. More dear, more intimately nigh than even the sweetest earthly tie. See, every day, Hudson Taylor was asking for Jesus's reality in his life. He was saying, that's the only way I am ever going to be free from everything that waits to enslave me. That my affection, my love for Christ and my understanding of his love and affection for me overpowers and outweighs everything else that this world could ever put on me. And so if you take that prayer and you go to Him every day with it, He will meet you. He's not gonna drag His feet, so don't drag yours. Don't turn to the elementary enslaving powers of this world. Turn to Christ, delight yourself in him alone, and he will give you all the desires of your heart that are rightly informed by the gospel and rightly regulated by a great affection for Christ and a greater desire for the things of God than the things of this world. And so let's all pray for that, for ourselves and for one another, that our affections and our desires for Christ would be far greater than anything else. Amen. Let's pray together. Lord, once again, we are so thankful for your word. We're thankful for the kind warnings that you provide, the vivid examples that you provide, We're thankful, Lord, that you have revealed to us the things about this world that are seen and unseen. Lord, without you revealing it in your word, we would not know what goes on in the supernatural world and the reality of the powerful forces that are arrayed against us. And yet, Father, we stand with grateful hearts that because we know these things and how they function, that the true and good desires in our hearts not be turned into over-desires, that we would be taken by the non-gods into false worship away from you. And so we pray, oh God, that whatever affections we have for the things of this world, no matter how good they are, that they would never be overtaken. That they would never become that thing that overtakes our true affections that we need and must have for the Lord Jesus Christ. May it be, oh God, that all of our hearts would be content in the Lord Jesus alone. And that everything else that you have given to us that is good and right, even the best things in this life, that they would be subordinate to our affections for Christ. that we would see from a mile away the challenges that face us, the things that confront us, that leave us wanting something other than Christ. And so we pray, oh God, that we not follow the non-gods of this world, but that we also not fall into a rigorous legalistic practice. We pray, O God, that you would keep our hearts from turning your law into something that it was never intended to be. We pray, O God, that you not let us think of the gospel in such a way that it frees us to live our lives licentiously in any way that we choose. but rather that we would understand the proper use of your law, married and sweetly complying with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we may walk in faithfulness to all that you have given to us for our good and for your glory. And we pray all of these things in Jesus name. Amen. We hope you were edified by this message. For additional sermons, as well as information on giving to the ministry of Emmanuel Baptist Church and on our current building project, you can visit us online at ebcfl.org. That's ebcfl.org.