Galatians 3:4-5
"Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?" Galatians 3:4-5. Lord willing we will take some time to learn about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In learning about the ministry of the Holy Spirit we will learn who He is, and what He does. There are things that are attributed to Him that He is not involved in. It seems His true work has been covered up as a result of bad theology and bad practice. His name is attached to many religious activities by people. Here are a few things the Holy Spirit is not. He is not an experience. You cannot feel Him. I am sure you have heard people say things like, "We could feel the Holy Spirit moving tonight; or, man you really need to experience the Holy Spirit." You will not find this terminology in Scripture. A man told me about a meeting they were going to have and he said the Holy Spirit was going to be there. I tried to explain to him that the Holy Spirit is always with me because He is God the Holy Spirit. He did not understand what I was saying because his mind had been programed that the Holy Spirit was some type of feeling or experience. Unless the Lord saves his soul he will spend the rest of his life looking for an experience or a feeling and calling it a move of the Holy Spirit.
The altar call is another event that is fabricated by man but has been attached to the name of the Holy Spirit. You will not find altar calls in Scripture. "The altar call is a modern invention. When the Holy Ghost departed, men stepped in and made altar calls." Leonard Ravenhill. Preachers feel like failures if people do not come to the altar during the invitation. The preaching is geared to the altar call. The music is also geared to the altar call. Some preachers will even put you on a guilt trip to make you go to the altar. A result is that people will attribute the emotions and feelings etc. of an altar call with the moving of the Holy Spirit when in all actuality He is not involved. You end up with people making decisions based on feelings and emotions, not based on Scripture in context. People have experiences at the altar and attribute them to the Holy Spirit. These same people will say that they know what they felt and what they experienced, and I tell them I don't doubt what they felt or experienced, but what they felt and experienced was not of the Holy Spirit. With that being said, wouldn't you like to know what the bible says about the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Let us get into verses 4 and 5.
"Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be in vain," Galatians 3:4. "Have ye suffered in this verse is used of evil, meaning to suffer, be subjected to evil. In the most general sense, to be affected by something from without, to be acted upon, to undergo an experience. This suffering is by the hands of men. Those who live for Jesus Christ will suffer some type of persecution, possibly even death. "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution," II Timothy 3:12. When we are suffering because of others, we need help to live for Jesus Christ. Our suffering is not in vain. Turn to John 14:15-26; 15:18-27; 16:1-14. If we believe that nothing bad should ever happen to us because we are Christians, when something bad does happen we will stumble; but, if we understand that bad things will happen to us, and that the Lord has already given to us the Comforter, we will look to the Lord for help. We will depend on the Lord, and not get discouraged. Nor will we follow after false teaching trying to find peace. But, if we do not know or understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we can be led astray.
It is obvious that the Galatians were suffering for being Christians. Much of the sufferings the early Christians faced came by the Jews. So, one way to ease the sufferings would be to embrace the teaching of the Judaizers. Judaizers mixed the Law with Christianity. Ultimately you would end up trying to earn your salvation and depend upon your works to stay saved and live for Christ. You would depend upon yourself, not the Lord. This would cause the persecution to ease up a little. To save your own hide you would distance yourself from true Christianity. No suffering for Jesus Christ is ever in vain.
The Christian is saved by faith, and lives by faith. Faith is a gift from God. It is not earned in any way. "Faith" in verse 5 speaks of faith in Christ's death, as the ground of justification before God, saving faith. As a technical term indicative of the means of appropriating what God in Christ has for man, resulting in the transformation of man's character and way of life. Such can be termed gospel faith or Christian faith. We simply believe God. We trust God no matter the outcome. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast," Ephesians 2:8-9. We are saved by the Sovereign will of God. He grants us faith to believe, and He saves us by His grace. He radically transforms our lives. We begin our Christian walk in the Spirit, and by the aide of the Holy Spirit we continue to live for Jesus Christ.
We don't need, nor should we desire that which is fabricated by man to live for Jesus Christ. I am thankful that God uses people, but we should never try to take the place of the Holy Spirit. There are traditions that we do, and we have no idea why we do them. There are many traditions in the church. Not all traditions are bad, but they should never be put on the same level as Scripture. Traditions that are not based on Scripture will lead us away from Scripture. Why do we do what we do? Have we been guilty of trying to fabricate a move of God? Have we attributed to the Holy Spirit things that He has no part of? May the Lord grant us grace to grow in our understanding of His Word, and His Holy Spirit. Lord willing next week we will look more at verse 5. We plan on looking at the gifts of the Spirit. We are aided by the Holy Spirit, and we are furnished by the Holy Spirit. Please send questions and comments to richardsonbaptistchurch@gmail.com. Soli Deo Gloria.
