This is quite the passage that's before us today. I'll tell you a story. You've heard this story, I'm sure, if you were in high school. The story goes that she was born from the Titan Phocres and his wife Ceto, who were a god and goddess of the sea. Her beauty was absolutely stunning. It was unsurpassed in all the world, and she knew it. She flaunted it every day, singing songs about her hair, her skin, her eyes, her lips brazenly in the temple of Athena. One day she defiantly lay with Poseidon in the temple only to invoke the wrath of the goddess for this desecration. Then Athena came to her and turned her into a demonic underworld monster, a hag of the sea with snakes for hair. You know her as Medusa. One direct gaze from her eye, even after being beheaded by Perseus, would turn anything that was alive into stone. It was from her. Was it from her demonic beauty or from her hideous transformation? The poets disagree on what it was. Maybe it was from the power of her evil eyes alone. Eyes set on destroying the one beholding her. This power of a single glance to destroy a person with an evil eye is shared by her two sisters called the Gorgons, as well as a different creature called a basilisk, a chimera hybrid called the King of Serpents, which was made famous in our contemporary culture in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, if you've seen that movie. Now, you say, what in the world does that have to do with Galatians? The answer is going to surprise you, though not in some detached tale of fantasy or fiction and not in some moralistic lesson. We're going through the letter of Galatians, and we have come to Galatians three. where Paul is going to begin a lengthy defense of the gospel. Now, thus far in his gospel defense, he's been looking at the very human source of the Galatian problem, which is a group called the circumcision party that was tempting the people in the churches to give up the good news and return to a works-based justification. Now, suddenly Paul reintroduces supernatural elements into the mix, and later on, we won't look at this morning, but later on in this chapter and especially the next, he picks up the supernatural theme and he runs with it for many verses. Now, it is rarely understood by readers of this letter today that Paul has anything supernatural in mind in this letter, save God himself. And this is a tragic error that results in a failure to understand vital information being discussed in at least the next two chapters. And I wonder, why do we do this? Why do we miss this? Frankly, I think it's because we have all but removed the supernatural, other than God himself, from our worldview. We've been infected with liberalism and we don't even know it. We just don't have the categories to know how to begin to think about such things. We don't know what to make of them. It makes us uncomfortable. We can't put it in a test tube and verify it scientifically. And so modern people don't believe in such silly nonsense as the supernatural. We are much too evolved for that. And many conservative Christians have bought into this secular naturalism and rationalism and liberalism without even realizing. But here it is staring a square in the face in Galatians three, one foolish Galatians who has bewitched you. Have you ever read that before like this? Paul does not say who has fooled you. He does not say my how you've been duped. He does not say you sure are gullible. The word is much more otherworldly than that, as one translation puts it, who cast the spell on you or another one says, by what strange powers have you been tricked? The word bewitched is in Greek, the word best kind of. Does that sound like anything I've just mentioned the basilisk? They come from the same root. It means to cast an evil eye upon someone through magic or spells. One dictionary notes that superstitious people believe that great harm might result from the evil eye or from being looked upon with envious and malicious stares. Now, of course, superstitions like this continue to this very day. But it should be obvious that Paul does not have envious or malicious staring in his mind here. He is speaking about a kind of deception that has come from listening to the teachers of the circumcision party. This teaching, he is saying, with this word and will return to again later, quite explicitly has a demonic and otherworldly origin. Now, we've already seen Paul referred to this realm in this letter. In chapter one, verse four, he says that Jesus gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age. This evil age includes not only the evil that we commit, but that which the devil and his angels oversee. Elsewhere, he calls them in Ephesians six, listen to this, the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. Then in one eight, just four verses later, he brings up that very strange idea that an angel from heaven can deliver another gospel. Now, based on how he says later in our chapter, That angels put the law of Moses into effect on Mount Sinai, a very strange idea that we'll get to in a couple of weeks. I don't think he's speaking hypothetically about angels preaching another gospel. Now, this bewitching evil spell that has been cast over the congregations of ancient Turkey involves this theology. Christians are perfected by the flesh in verse three, that's that's what they're teaching. Now, flesh here stands for the entire structure of our fallen. Evil present age, including our own natures, including satanic influence and rule, and including the world systems and governments, cultures and all the rest. But I want you to notice the subtlety about this. The temptation is to give up justification by faith alone for these people. That's not the that's not the heart of the core of what they're doing. They knew that it was not good news to say that were justified by works. So in verse two, Paul asked this rhetorical question, he says, Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Now he's asking it rhetorically. He knows that they will answer with hearing by faith. And so then in verse three, he asked them, Are you so foolish? I want you to look at verse one and verse three, and I want you to notice that the word foolish is used twice. In these three verses, you might recall that that Jesus tells us not to call people fools in the Sermon on the Mount, and he says anyone who does this will be in danger of hellfire. Now, this is not the same word that Jesus has in mind. Jesus has actually two words. Rocca is the one that's more familiar to you, to you. And it's the idea of saying that you hate or disdain a person when you call him a fool, because the context is anger and murdering in your heart. The word we're looking at here is used only six times in the entire New Testament, and two of those are in these three in these two verses, and I want you to listen to one other instance of it. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray. slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. In Titus three, this is the language of demonic and otherworldly captivity. Now, I want you to understand, Paul does not hate the Galatians. He's not calling them fools. He's calling them foolish. He's saying that they have the inability to see that they've been led astray by Satan. Away from the true God in his gospel and his righteousness. What makes somebody foolish like this? Paul answers in other places, you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. That's Ephesians two. And that verse is relevant, but this next one that I'm going to give you is absolutely spot on with regard to our passage. Second Corinthians four for the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel. the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. How is it that so many Christians have failed to note these verses, not understanding that believers are literally held prisoners in another kingdom by another prince, one who owns them and rules over them and who makes them his slave? How this can be is a testimony to the extraordinary power of the evil one. We don't even think he's doing it, we don't even realize it, but I want to tell you something, he's not a being to be trifled with and he likes nothing more than when you do not believe that he's even there. But perhaps the reason so many Christians are averse to speaking and thinking about these many kinds of passages in the New Testament. It's because they see the extraordinary goofiness and bizarre activities of so many Christians who talk about Satan all the time. Have you ever run across this? You know, I have. You've heard it and seen it. They blame the devil for everything. They see Satan under every rock. He's responsible for all the problems in this world. As if humans have no responsibility at all because of him. That's not what you read in Genesis three, is it? He was the tempter, but who was responsible for what they did? However, here's what I want to say. If you look at what the devil actually does in these passages, if you really understand the nature of these things, What he teaches through demons to mankind, you will have a very different view of him than that strange, bizarre world that is out there that you come into every once in a while. Look again at the word foolish. It's a word used at the beginning of verse one and and in verse three, there's a parallel going on in the text. The bewitching spell is not some strange satanic superstitions or Weird, holy laughter or worse, or the blame the devil for everything talk that we so often associate with these fringe groups. Although I have no doubt there's a lot of satanic stuff going on there as well. What's going on is the seemingly ordinary idea that Christians are perfected by the flesh. It's the idea that God is appeased by what we do. by works of the law. This is a teaching of Satan, a bewitching spell. But it seems so non-supernatural in its origin, doesn't it? In fact, I wonder if you've ever heard anybody in the world ever talk about this as being satanic in order. Listen to some other verses and you'll get the idea. Paul says, I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons And not to God, I do not want you to be participants with demons. First Corinthians. Now, sacrificing in this case is not human sacrifice, but rather the rather innocuous idea of sacrificing food, it's a religious practice performed around the whole world, even to this day. But it's not performed to God, it's performed to the gods. I remember the only time I ever saw this occurrence in real life, we were on the big island of Hawaii on our honeymoon. We were driving down to the beach on Mount Aloha, the volcano that's still erupting to this day, trying to get up close to the lava flow so we could see it. And all of a sudden. All of these fruit baskets started popping up. They were offerings to Pele. to appease her not to break out against their little villages or cities. They used to offer human sacrifices on the big island. Now they just offer fruit to demons. This is taking place in the United States of America today. There's another verse, Colossians to let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels Going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind. Some angels, fallen angels, want to be worshipped. They teach you to become monastic, to whip yourself, to beat the sin out of your body. This is a teaching of Satan. Another one, First Timothy, the spirit expressly says in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to what? We read it for the law to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. I think most of us read this verse thinking about Satanists, those who have satanic Bibles, whose rooms are filled with the doodlings of evil creatures who talk affectionately about Lucifer, people you would find in an X-Files episode. But what are these teachings of demons? They teach you to abstain from meats or marriage, things that God has created good. Have you ever thought of legalism as the teaching of Satan? How about this one? I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Or this one, certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were destined for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and denied our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. That's found in Jude, and Jude calls these people wandering stars whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever, comparing them to spiritual beings. And did you know that all of those verses that I just quoted come from different books of the Bible? This is obviously a widespread problem because it is the Gentiles modus operandi. This is the way they work and it's the way they worked for thousands of years. This was their worldview. It's a very basic problem to this day. It's the problem of simply giving up the good news or not trusting it when it comes to you. That's really pretty scary, I think. Now, what you see is a two pronged attack, but both of them are against the gospel. This is not strange, fringe, kooky stuff, and that's the key. One is a legalistic slavery to keep these laws, to become an ascetic or a monk, to punish your body or whatever. The other is exactly the opposite. It's an anti-nomian, anti-law principle that turns the gospel into a license for sin. But both of them are at the heart of the bewitching. According to these other verses, both are demonic teachings, both attack the gospel, you see. They don't just have their origin in man as much as that would stroke our egos to think so. These are the ways that Satan gets people not to hear the good news. They distort it and pervert it so that it's no longer what it is. And if the gospel is the power of God to conquer Satan, and if he knows that his only hope is to make people think it is a different message. That is what he's become an expert at doing. Now, that is the background behind the bewitching. We're ready to see the power of God, the one little word that shall fell the devil, as Martin Luther said, to defeat this satanic spell. Paul does not opt for some alternate magic. He simply tells them the gospel. That is what he does. He wanted to know nothing among them, but Christ and him crucified. That's what he uses to defeat this deceptive charms of Satan and the evil eye of the underworld links. The first thing to notice back in three verse one and two is how the gospel is put in terms of seeing and hearing. Now, this has been fascinating to me for many years. And it deserves a sermon really all to itself, but let me put this into a little perspective for you. Today, in our day and age in America, the sermon has fallen on rough times. I don't know if I need to tell you that or not. In the Protestant churches, sermons used to be expositions of holy scripture based upon the story of Christ, our savior. Today, they are often little more than seminars to help people make their lives more happy. If you happen to find a verse to help support the idea, all the better, but it isn't really even necessary. The problem here is that the message has changed, though most are completely desensitized to even seeing it. Think about it, if you've gone to church your entire life hearing self-help techniques, You will naturally associate that with the good news, because after all, if you go to a church, you're going to hear the good news, right? That's just what happens. Couldn't possibly be otherwise. But it isn't the good news. So whole generations of people in churches have been duped and they don't even know it. Now, how can you tell that the gospel is no longer present? One of the ways you can tell is by the forms that begin to creep up in the church. This is because no other message is the power of God to save a person, and so if people are not being changed by the messages and if people think the messages that they are hearing are good news, then the problem must be in the delivery, in the packaging. In the mode of communication, in the methods, It's because the message has been lost in the church, especially in the American church, that we began tinkering with the methods. For example, in our times, the emergent crowd experiments regularly with people painting pictures during the instruction time. Slides and movie clips are also very popular, even in non-emerging churches. We now have entire pastoral job descriptions With these titles, pastor of worship arts or pastor of visual arts or pastor of performance arts. And I could go on and on and on with examples of what's going on here, but the basic idea. Is that the job today is to oversee and coordinate a multi sensory worship experience I mean, after all, we're Americans. That's what we do everywhere else we go. What people especially clamor for in these experiences are images. Unlike Israel, who didn't see God and didn't want to once they did. We want to see God. Half of our songs are taken up with this very idea. Please show me your glory and your fire and your brilliance. The eye is our medium of choice to mediate between God and man. But notice what the text says. This is an astonishing thing. It was before your eyes that Christ Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified. Now, what in the world is Paul talking about? Is he referring to some sacred dance performance by his paid entourage of traveling showman whom he would put on display as he spoke? Do you do realize that Greeks loved drama and they would have loved for Paul to bring his gospel in entertaining ways, don't you? Don't think that Americans are alone in that. Everywhere you go in the ancient Greek world, you find theaters, don't you, Rob? Everywhere you go. Is Paul talking about having professional painters pull out their easels or perform professional sculptors begin fashioning a scene of the crucifixion out of clay while he spoke? Is that how they saw Christ crucified? Frankly, the idea would have been blasphemous to a Jew who believed in the Second Commandment. Jews never ever had images of persons in their synagogues. No, he tells us what he means in the next verse, verse two. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Did you catch that between the two verses, Christ was put before their eyes as they heard the sermon of Christ crucified. That is God's logic, friends, not man's. It is utter foolishness to us. But Paul says they are foolish for not believing it any longer. There's absolutely no person on Earth who would invent an idea like that. But that's what it says, because its origin is not with man, it's with God. Christ was set before their eyes as the images came into their minds through their ears. This is an extreme. Extremely profound thing, and it is a lesson the church desperately needs to recover in our day of gross. Idolatry in the churches, even though we plausibly deny that there's any kind of idolatry going on at all. Let's look a little more closely at the text, the word publicly, the words in our English publicly portrayed is actually just one word in the Greek. It's the word pro grafo pro grafo. It literally means to write beforehand. Herodotus, the Greek historian and others, used it to mean drawing or painting. Now, while it sometimes refers only to working with a pen, it's very clear that that's not what Paul has in mind here. He's talking about preaching, not writing. He refers to the eyes as seeing Christ crucified. Through the sermon, not about reading in a book. The word often has the sense of a placard or what we might call a billboard. It's the idea of painting a picture with words, an art form that was prevalent in America prior to the invention of television. One thinks of old radio programs like the War of the Worlds that caused mass hysteria merely through words. But that art form has now been almost completely lost to the prehistoric world of the 1940s. Do not miss what Paul is saying, he says that through the preaching of Christ, Christ was visually portrayed as crucified, as if they had driven past Calvary and three crosses with dead men hanging on them on the way to church that morning. Paul does not need visual arts in church because preaching is his visual art. Now, some are obviously better wordsmiths than others, but the fact is Any preacher who proclaims the death and resurrection of our Savior week after week is giving the people God's movie. In the form that does not tempt people to reach up into heaven to see it with their eyes. And why is that so dangerous, because if you see God with your eyes, you will die. Now, you can visualize it with your mind, but the eye is not doing the work here. The ear is. And this is important because the eye is not a vessel fit to receive the good news. How can I say that? We don't think a lot about vessels and containers and packaging these days, but marketing people know all about packaging. And what makes people want to buy something? The eye is not a good package to receive the good news. This is because the gospel is an announcement that must be heard. It is not a spectacle to be viewed or to be seen. You can't video Jesus. In order to see the news, because he's in heaven, how are you going to do that? You can only report about what others have seen. And when they tell you what they saw, you must process the logic of their announcement, not speculate about it in a subjective art form like a painting. There's a good book called. All God's children in blue suede shoes were the author, I think it's it might be Ken Myers and who wrote it, but he he gives this analogy of taking a picture And what's on the picture is a cat, and he's on a mat. And if you're just looking at that picture, how do you interpret the picture? Is the cat getting ready to leave the mat? Is the cat just got on the mat? Does the cat hate the mat? Is the cat looking for a mouse? You have no idea what the cat is doing on the mat, because it's subjective, because it's a picture. But if you were told in a statement, the cat is on the mat, then you know exactly what's going on. It's not up to your subjective interpretation of it. There's another problem with the eye, especially as it surrounds multimedia, television, magazines, jumbotrons and the big screen. These forms of communication create something called celebrity. That's just what they do, that is what they do. OK. When you walk by People magazine in the grocery store, you see celebrity because that's what People magazine has created for you. Celebrity is not compatible with the good news. The method of preaching is perfect for delivering the gospel because it's a personal form of communication and personal communication, face to face communication does not lend itself naturally to the cult of celebrity. Which is the sorry mess that we find ourselves in today. Neither does it lend itself to shallow discipleship. It allows for personal intercommunication, interaction, catechesis and all the rest. After this sermon, you have a question about it. You come and talk to the pastor. You can't do that even when you're listening to John MacArthur on the radio. He becomes a celebrity. He's untouchable because you don't know him. If you joyfully receive the news that you heard in the sermon, you can come and tell the person who delivered it to you. Or if you didn't like it at all, I suppose you could tell him that, too. And before turning to an explanation of the gospel, the apostle asks one final question in verses four through five, did you suffer so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Again, hearing is contrasted now, but this time it's contrasted with working. It was the way before, but I didn't point it out before. The point is to work is the opposite of to hear. Now, his question here is curious. Most translations render it as suffering. Have you suffered so much in vain following Chris Ostrom's commentary on this seventeen hundred years ago? The problem is that we don't know of anything concrete or specific that the Galatians ever suffered. In fact, Galatians 612 indicates that the circumcision party is preaching a false gospel so that they wouldn't have to be persecuted like Paul was for preaching the cross. The only person who actually seems to be persecuted and suffer anything here is Paul. And so it might be better. to offer a translation. Did you experience so much for nothing is the way that revised version has it. I said, what is one of the experience in verse five, it includes the spirit in miracles. That's kind of the opposite of suffering. In this case, the idea might be similar to Simon, the sorcerer who experienced the spirit and then tried to use the power of God to make money. The spirit showed his great power in those early days, your member throughout the Book of Acts by healing people through the disciples, casting out demons and all sorts of other things. Salvation was especially a remarkable thing in those days for the Gentiles against the backdrop of their perversions and religious darkness, satanic deception that they lived in. We live 2000 years after that and just aren't familiar with that world anymore because so many people have been saved by the gospel. Just unfamiliar to us, but it was an incredible thing back then, I guarantee you. I was asking, was that all in vain? It will have been in vain if you turn away from the truth and embrace the very things that you left behind. That's the warning. They're under the spell. How can the spell be counteracted then? It's by repeating the gospel. The gospel came to them through hearing. In hearing was combined with faith. But you see, this is the way it's always been, and that's what he's going to tell you for the rest of our verses this morning. In case anyone is tempted to use the Old Testament to prove otherwise. Which is, in fact, what the circumcision party was trying to do. Paul will now show you. That the gospel is in the Old Testament. Let this be a warning to anyone who thinks that the Old Testament provided another way of salvation that was attainable for fallen men. Yes, of course, the legal system was always in place, and if they could have obeyed it perfectly, they would have been saved. He talks about this in the verses after what we're going to look at. We'll look at them next time. The thing is, nobody did that. Nobody could do that except for Christ, who was the obedient one in every way, even to his own sacrifice on the cross. He did this so that anyone who believes in him by faith alone might be saved. So verse six, it's about Abraham. This verse begins with just as it connects with the previous verse, they heard with faith that as the Galatians heard with faith, just as Abraham believed God and was counted to him as righteousness. Now, this is a remarkable verse. From the Old Testament. Genesis fifteen six. That becomes the proof text of the gospel for Paul in Romans and in Galatians and also in James. Now, there's, of course, many people throughout church history who have sought to pit James against Paul. Mason's doing a marvelous job showing you that's not the case, and he's going to James's letter we saw previously in Galatians two. That you can't pit the two against one another. Both of them have the same gospel. And yet, what do you do with James 2, 24, when he says you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. The only time faith alone is ever used in the Bible, of course, is in that verse. And so our Roman Catholic friends love to say that James says we're saved by our works, we're justified by our works because of this verse. People will say that James preaches a salvation by works, but they failed to notice the very verse before this in James, which is a quotation of Genesis fifteen six. That we've just seen here, as I was reading Calvin's thoughts on this, I thought this is worth this is worth sharing with you a little bit, his comments on James two twenty three. He says they who seek to prove from this passage of James that the works of Abraham were imputed for righteousness. Must confess that scripture is perverted by him. Because the imputation of righteousness that Moses mentions preceded more than 30 years, the work which would have. Had Abraham be justified, which is the sacrificing of Isaac. And since faith was imputed to Abraham fifteen years before the birth of Isaac. He could not surely have done this through the work of sacrificing him. He says, why then does James say that it was fulfilled even because he intended to show what sort of faith. That which was just that which justified Abraham, that is, that it was not idle, but rendered him obedient to God, as we find in Hebrews 1118 or 118. He says the conclusion, which is immediately added, as it depends on this, is no other meaning. This is Calvin. Man is not justified by faith alone, that is, by a bare and empty knowledge of God. He's justified by worse. That is, his righteousness is known and proved by its fruits. When you think about James and like this, do you see how silly it is to think that he would ever say that Abraham was justified by works 15 by the work of sacrificing Isaac? Nonetheless, 15 years before Isaac was even born. It's absurd. But what is faith? What does it do? Faith is one of the most popular words in the American vocabulary today, along with prayer, everybody talks about faith. It's like Oprah's favorite word, but to Americans, faith has no object. It's just faith and faith, faith and faith. That's not what faith in the Bible is. In the Bible, faith rests upon the promises of God's goodwill. Towards us, it trusts and it hopes that the promises are true and sure it delights and takes comfort that they are trustworthy in Abraham's instance. Faith comes. To pass prior to any of the promises being fulfilled. In our case, faith comes after receiving a message that those promises have been fulfilled in Christ, but in both instances, faith comes before any works that we do. We are not perfected by the flashes. Go back to an earlier verse. The promises of God in the gospel are conditioned only on one thing, trusting them by faith. But faith is not a work. As if the one little work you have to do is believe, as I said, it is resting, not working, it is trusting, not doing it is hearing and believing. But you asked, didn't Abraham do something in order to get the promises to come true? Didn't he obey God first and then receive the promises? Didn't he set out for the promised land first? I'm glad you ask. Calvin sites, Hebrews, eleven, eight, and it's an important verse in the context of Galatians three. Hebrews, eleven, eight says this by faith, Abraham obeyed when he call was called to go out of the place that he was to receive an inheritance and when he went out. He did not know where he was going. Hebrews has in mind the very first recorded words that we have of God to Abram found in the Bible, which is Genesis 12. Hebrews is quoting verse one, Paul quotes verse three in our passage. Here's the whole segment. Now, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country. And Hebrews says he believed that by faith. In your father's house to land, I will show you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you. I will curse and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. And did you hear the gospel in that passage? The gospel. What's right there, Paul tells you so. The reason why Abraham went is because he believed the gospel. Isn't that remarkable? He believed the gospel. You mean the gospel didn't start with Paul or even Jesus? No, Galatians 3, 8 says the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand. To Abraham saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. That's Genesis twelve three. Now, this is an interesting choice of words for Paul, he says that the scripture preached to Abraham. And so we're right back to preaching. And hearing. What he means is that the gospel preached to Abram was preserved for us by Moses in Genesis in the scripture so that we could see that he had to believe the same things that we have to believe. But of course, scripture didn't preach to Abram. Abram didn't have anything written down to read. When you think about scripture, you think about a writing. For Abram, God preached to him personally. God came to Abraham and as Stephen says, the God of glory appeared to him. Who is this God of glory? The only seeable person in the Trinity is our Lord Jesus, unless the spirit shows himself in the sign of a bird or a cloud or fire or whatever. James calls him the Lord of glory. John says, we've seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten son. From the father, we've seen the word glory today, when Paul reminded us that Satan prevents unbelievers from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The psalmist asks, who is this king of glory and answers the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, where does he get that idea from? Who is that? Moses says the Lord is a man of war. But he's not a man like you or I. When Joshua saw him, he fell on his face and worshiped him, for he spoke and said, I am the captain of the armies of the Lord. He is a holy angel, but an uncreated angel. He is the Lord himself. He came to Abraham and preached to him. And Stephen says he appeared to him. With his eyes, he saw him. What does man do in the Old Testament? This man of war, he delivered his people out of the kingdom of Egypt, out of slavery and captivity, he fought for Israel as they entered the promised land, seizing the strongholds of those ancient peoples that dwelt therein, obliterating their gods before the mighty men of Joshua and David. In the New Testament, he came in the flesh, only time that's ever happened, and delivered demonically possessed men and women from the stronghold of the devil. He bound the strongman. He obeyed God's laws where Adam failed. He died to set men free. He rose from the grave to deliver them from evil. He proclaimed this message of the end of the tyranny of the spirits that he had cast out to them. All of this is supernatural and against the supernatural. And today, through the proclamation of his victory, this man of war wrests slaves from the captivity of Satan and he thrusts them into his own kingdom with one little word. His word, because he is the word, you see. Paul has this very thing in mind. These people become his brothers and sisters, his church and his bride. They become, as Paul says here, sons of Abraham. These sons are not born of natural descent or of human will, they are born of God. They are born by faith through hearing and believing the message that they've been set free and delivered from the tyrannical dictatorship of Satan. No more are they under that heavy yoke and burden of slavery to the law. No more must they obey their master, the devil. Their works will not avail them here for the God of glory has done all the work in their place so that they might be set free and brought home to dwell in the heavenly kingdom. This is their blessing, Paul says, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. He was the man of faith for the gospel. Was that you shall in you shall all the nations be blessed. They are blessed through Christ who preached the gospel to Abram this very morning. He is preaching to you through the mere moderate. Silly means of a sinful preacher who needs him as much as you do. Have the eyes of God penetrated your soul? The eyes of God. Not to turn you to stone, but to set you free. Are you still under the bewitching spell of the evil one? The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, Peter says, and the psalmist says the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth to show himself strong on behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him. Those are perfect. Those who are perfect are those who have been justified by faith alone. Do you clamor for excitement and entertainment when you come to worship your great God, or are you satisfied in hearing the word who died for you? Are you still working the works of evil, attempting to appease God through what you do, or have you received the spirit by hearing with faith? Are you now trying to be perfected by the flesh? Have you succumbed to the temptation to be religious without the power of God? Are you drowning up to your neck in a Christian life that feels burdened rather than free? Have you approached the holy city and temple of God in vain? Then hear and see with a heart of faith, that's Paul's only remedy to the problem. Tell you the gospel again that you might believe. Believe God and the promise is sure it will be counted to you as righteous. Lord, we've tackled a lot of things in this little passage, a lot of things. We seem to be witching spell that people are under when they don't trust in your word. We've seen how we are so tempted to. View you with our eyes, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. We've seen that faith has always been entrusting the promises of God, and we have seen that the promises have become realized fully in the God man. Jesus Christ, as he died for our sins, was raised to life so that we might be justified. And so I would pray that you would give us eyes to see these things, that the eyes of the Lord would be upon his people and that we would not be bewitched by that mesmerizing Eye of Medusa that turns us to stone. Set us free, Father, we have hearts of stone naturally, we want hearts of flesh, hearts that desire to love you and obey you because you've given us faith and allowed us to be set free from all things that would merit your favor. Comfort your people today by your word, I would ask. Amen.