Shabbat Shalom, everyone. If you don't mind, I'd like you to open your Bibles to the book of Galatians. Today is the last message on the study of the book of Galatians. And if you turn with me to Galatians chapter 6, Galatians chapter 6 for the last message, the book of Galatians, I'd like to conclude today with that study which we have enjoyed for the last few months, or I should say at least two or three months together as we study that whole important book of Galatians. Today we are in Galatians chapter 6 and we are going to read just the last verses, Galatians 6, beginning from verse 11. Galatians 6 and verse 11, I would like to read these remaining final verses that Shaul Paul wrote to their brothers and sisters in Galatia.

Galatians 6 and listen to what he said to them in verse 11. Galatians 7 and verse 11. Galatians 7 and verse 11. Galatians 7 and verse 11. Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand. As many as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Mashiach. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord Yeshua HaMashiach, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.

For in Christ Jesus, for in Mashiach Yeshua, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature or a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God. From henceforth, let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus, the Lord Yeshua. Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, be with your spirit. Amen. And that's how he closed, Shaul Paul closed this important letter that he wrote to the Galatians. So brothers and sisters, here we are. This is the last message today on the book of Galatians.

We have covered a lot of ground. We have arrived now to the final words of the apostle Shaul Paul, as he's writing now to the brothers and sisters, the region that is called the region of Galatia. Now again, bear with me, because today it is the final message. I would like just to emphasize a few important points as we conclude with this chapter. We know very well that God had promised that the Messiah will be sent by him and that when Christ, when the Messiah will come, it will be he alone who will provide salvation for all who will trust in him, both Jewish as well as non-Jewish individuals.

Well, the Lord Yeshua did come. He died on the Roman cross. He was buried there in the land of Israel and he rose on the third day and he was ascended and he was taken up to heaven. And he is now seated at God's right hand. He has sent the Holy Spirit of God, Ruach HaKodesh, down from heaven, according to Acts chapter 2. And he formed what is known to us today, the body of Christ or the body of Mashiach, the body of Messiah. The body of Messiah is a composition of Jewish and non-Jewish individuals who only believe in the person of the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah.

They repented of their sins. They have confessed that they could not, they could do nothing to save themselves. But on the basis of the finished work of the Lord Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah, they could be forgiven and they will receive eternal life. But you see, brothers and sisters, it was a different era had begun. Now the door was open to the goyim, to the Gentiles. And so when the door was open to the Gentiles, it was not easy for the Jewish people, the Jewish believers to understand what is going on here. What is happening here? How come now the gospel has gone beyond the borders of Israel to the nations, to the goyim?

But look at them. Many of them came from paganism. They worship idols. They didn't know the true and living God of Israel, the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And now they are going to accept him, accept the Messiah, and they will become one together with us who are Jewish believers. It was a, you might say, a transitional period, which today you and I live in the year 2020 already over 2,000 years or nearly 2,000 years have passed by since the assembly, the ecclesia, the church as is known, had been born. And now we have believers all over the world, whether it is beginning in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth, including where you and I are here today.

But because it was a transitional period, the early Hebrew believers, and even those who claimed to be believers in the early days, they needed to learn some lessons. And you remember what happened in Acts chapter 15. According to the first verse, it says, a certain man which came down from Judea, verse 1, they taught the brethren and said, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moshe, you cannot be saved. In Acts chapter 15, it says, verse 5, and there rose up a certain of the sect of the Pharisees, which believed, saying that it was needful to circumcise them, namely the goyim, the Gentiles, and to commend them to keep the law of Moses.

So you see what happened, that brought about a problem, because the people in Galatia, and the people in Asia Minor, that the apostle Shaul Paul presented before them the gospel, they have already believed in a Messiah. They have already accepted him as their Messiah, Lord and Savior. They were never circumcised. They never knew anything about circumcision. So it caused a lot of chaos. It caused a lot of problems. And then they told him, you must keep the law, because if you don't keep the law, you cannot be saved. And I want you to underline what it says in Acts 15, verse 1. Except ye be circumcised after the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.

And of course, anyone who knows his Bible very well knows, that when God gave to our own forefathers the Brit Milah, the circumcision, he never gave it to the Gentile world. He gave it as a sign, as a covenant sign between Israel, Abraham's descendants, and the Lord himself. Read Genesis chapter 17. So what happened is that now these non-Jewish believers in Yeshua, the Messiah, started to be not sure whether they are really saved, whether they are really justified, reconciled, or maybe they were not saved. They are not forgiven. As if the blood of the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, was not enough. Yeshua plus circumcision. Yeshua plus law-keeping.

And today, Yeshua plus baptism, people tell us. Yeshua plus human merit and human works. And the Bible clearly tells us that the only ground for salvation is faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. He died as a substitute for our sins. He was buried and he rose again for our justification. Nothing more and nothing less will avail us. Only Yeshua, only Yeshua, only Jesus, only him is the one that paid for the price of the sin of this world. But there was confusion there. So the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians these six chapters that we have. It was a letter that he wrote.

And he wrote it to them because he was so concerned for the spiritual welfare of these brethren. Like he is concerned, we need to be concerned for the spiritual welfare of our brothers and sisters today. And that's why, if you remember, in Galatians chapter 1, he said to them, if you remember in the first chapter, he said unto them, I marvel, verse 6, that ye are so soon removed from him that call you into the grace of the Messiah unto another gospel. Another gospel or another message or another besorah in Hebrew means that it's not only Yeshua, but it's man-married, man-human-married, it is law-keeping, it is circumcision, and today baptism, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on.

So Paul wrote this amazing letter that is so informative and so helpful for us to study. In the first two chapters, he gave a testimony of himself, how he himself accepted the Messiah, but first he rejected Yeshua. In chapter 3 and 4, he gave doctrinal teaching, how it is based upon the promises of God. God promised Abraham that the seed will come, and the seed would come that is the Mashiach, the Messiah, and that the law was to lead us to the Messiah. When the Messiah came, the law had been fulfilled by the person of Yeshua, the Messiah, and we are now under the grace that had been provided for us by Yeshua, Jesus, our Lord, and our Messiah.

And then, beloved brothers and sisters, in chapter 5 and chapter 6, he presented before the Galatians that if you are truly born from above, if you are really born again, if you are really saved, you have a new nature, and now you are to live in the light of the new nature. You remember the chart that we showed you more than once. We see the old nature in contrast to the new nature. The old nature represented in Scripture as the flesh, the outward man, the old man, the natural man, and the human nature. That is what the Bible describes every one of us who is a believer in Yeshua, the Messiah, and every person that we are by nature sinful.

We have received a sin nature from our forefathers, from Adam and Eve, Adam and Chava in the Garden of Eden. On the other hand, we can see that the believer in Yeshua, the Messiah, he has a new nature, a divine nature. It is called the spirit, the inward man, the new man, the spiritual man, and the divine nature. 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 4. Every one of us, if you and I are believers here today, we have two natures. The one nature is the Adamic nature. The other nature is the divine nature. The old man which is sinful, the new man which cannot sin. And we are to live our life now as believers in the light of our new nature and no longer in the light of our old man, our old nature.

So every time you and I think wrong, it comes from the old nature. Speak wrong, it comes from the old nature. Every time we are jealous, it comes from the old nature. Every time we covet, it comes from the old nature. Every time we lust, it comes from the old nature. But every time we do something that is honoring to the Lord, it comes from the divine, the new nature. We are new creation because of the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, work for us. He saved us, He forgave us, and now we are called to live a life that will be honoring unto the Lord. And you remember in chapter 5, in verse 16, the Apostle Paul said to the Galatians, So he can show us that we have two natures, So he can show us that we have two natures, and we are daily struggling with it.

Beloved brothers and sisters, should I live for the Lord? Should I go to the Bible class? Should I read the Bible? Should I pray? Should I do the right thing? Or should I forget about God? I'm going to do my own thing. I'm going to carry on in my own life without God, without Yeshua. And we are struggling with it every day. And Paul is challenging us to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh. So now, as he concludes this letter, I mean, when I prepared for this, I was so overwhelmed with the wisdom that Shaul Paul had from the Lord.

In these final letters, in the final, I should say, the final eight verses or so, you would think, Paul, he's just going to wrap up everything, and he's going to close everything, and he's going to just say, that's it, I told you everything. But I want you to see, beloved brothers and sisters, that the Apostle Paul teach us something that is very, very important. And I hope we all understand what Paul is saying in these final verses of Galatians chapter 6. You notice, first of all, that Paul mentioned in verse 11. Notice that, how interesting. In verse 11, he says, Ye see how large a letter, it should be really with large letters, have I written unto you with mine own hand.

Just pause here for a moment. Apparently, the Apostle Paul may have had problems with his eyesight. In fact, the Apostle Paul, earlier, in chapter 4 of this book of Galatians, and you notice what he said to them in chapter 4, verse 13, he says, Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my testing, or my trial, or the temptation which was in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected, listen, but ye received me as an angel of God, even as the Messiah, Jesus. And then he says in verse 15, Where is then the blessedness ye speak of? For I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked your own eyes, out your own eyes, and have given them unto me.

Apparently, perhaps, from this verse we learn, verse 15 of chapter 4, that Shaul Paul must have had a problem with his eyesight. So imagine, here's this man, Jewish man, Hebrew man, Israeli man, loved the Gentiles who became believers, wanted them to grow spiritually. And he was preaching to them the gospel, he led them to the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, and now he's writing to them because they were misbehaved. They did not anymore continue in what he taught them because those that told them that they have to be circumcised, keep the law, keep all sort of rules, they have infected them, and instead of them growing spiritually, they started to have friction among themselves, and they started to say certain things that were not pleasing to the Lord.

As we read it later on in chapter 5, they were biting one another, they were devouring one another, and so on. So you see what happened. He said, you were willing to give your eyes for me if you could. But what happened now? You have gone so far away. So he's telling them, listen, I'm writing to you this letter. But notice he used the word, you see how large letters have I written unto you with my own hand. Apparently, when Paul was writing a letter, he was always having a scribe to write this for him, and he might have a final remark at the hand. He was dictating.

It's like a secretary today. That they have her boss will say, listen, I would like you to dictate for me a letter to Mr. So-and-so. So Shaul, he was dictating his letter to the Galatians. And he took himself the pen, as if it were, and said, I'm going to write something myself. And he was writing, and apparently, it's not only that he's writing a large letter, because it's not so large. If you read the book of Romans, it's longer. The book of 1 Corinthians is longer. The book of 2 Corinthians is longer. Galatians is not that long. But he's writing with a large letter, like a young boy or a young girl, who is learning, if you will, how to write, because he had a problem with his eyes, sight, and therefore he used a large letter to write.

But notice, he said, I wrote it with my own hand. I wanted to express, as it were. For my heart, I wanted to share with you something that is very, very important, brothers and sisters, that your salvation is not depend upon anything that you do except upon the person and the work of Yeshua, the Messiah. Brothers and sisters, just to pause with me for a moment, can you imagine if you and I will receive salvation because of something good that we have done or some achievement that we have accomplished? We're going to leave this meeting hall today, and we're going to go to our own home, and on our way home, we're going to fall into sin, sin in our thoughts, sin in our words, sin in our behavior.

Can you imagine if God will depend upon our works in order to save us? He didn't wait for us to be, you might say, improve ourselves. He knew that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But what did He do? He provided the Messiah for our salvation. So praise God, our salvation does not depend at all upon the works of the law or circumcision or baptism or tongue speaking. It is entirely depend upon the finished work of Yeshua, the Messiah. So here He is writing with His own hands, with His own hands, with large letters, because He may have an eye problem, and He just wanted to share with the Galatians what He had in His heart.

And now from here on, from verse 12 to the end, it is amazing how he wants to draw the Galatians to seek to live their life for the glory of God and not for the flesh. You know how sad it is when we, and I'm including all of us here, like perhaps the Galatians and like many believers everywhere, we are saved, we are forgiven, we are justified, but how much of our lives do we live for the glory of God? How much of our lives do we live to honor God in our lives? How much? And we ask ourselves, we are puzzled sometimes. It says, Oh Lord, how many a times we are not so thankful to Him for what He has done for us and we live our life not for the glory of God, but for this old, selfish, sinful nature that we have.

So Paul wants to conclude this letter by saying to the Galatians, Galatians, brothers and sisters of the region of Galatia, I love you so much. I want you to live your life for the glory of God. I want you to see how important it is to live for the glory of God. And you know what He does? In these last words of the last portion of Galatians chapter 6, He presents before the Galatians three men. He presents before the Galatians three men. The first man is the legalist. The second man is Yeshua, the Messiah, who died on a Roman cross. And the third man, He presents Himself as a servant of the Lord.

In these last eight verses, from verses 12 to verse 18 of Galatians chapter 6, the Apostle Paul, Shaul Paul, presents three men, and I want to emphasize here, he presents three marked men. Just underline the word marked men. Men that were marked. If I would say men that had, you might say, had a mark in their life. The legalist, he is the one that emphasizes the external letter of the law and not the internal of the Spirit. This is the legalist. He presents him here. The second man is none else but our Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, the man who came from heaven and who paid for our sins when he died on a shameful Roman cross.

And the third man is none else but Paul, Shaul himself, who initially rejected Yeshua, but then later on accepted him and became a man that served the Lord and sought to live his life for the glory of the Lord. So three marked men. And every one of them is interesting that as we read about them, we can see some, you might say, characteristics of these men. Of course, the first man is found in verses 12 and 13. And this is the legalist and his or her activity. The legalist, the one who is emphasizing merely the external letter of the law or rules of men. We have it in the past.

We have it in the past. We have it today. But you can see that this man that he's emphasized and that he speaks, you can see his activity. And Paul, Shaul is mentioning the activity of the legalist. And notice what he says, three things in verses 12 and 13 about the legalist, the one who is emphasizing only the letter of the law and not really living in the light of the commandments that the law had given. Notice I'm reading verses 12 and 13. As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.

For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. Now it is amazing. Amazing the truth that Shaul Paul is presenting before the Galatians. He began, of course, with the legalist. And he says three things about that legalist. And that can be us if we are not careful. That can be us. That can be in Christendom, in Christianity. Christianity is happening today in, I say, the professing church today. It is happening just as it was in past days. Three major things he is mentioning about the legalist, the one who is inclined to boast in his own flesh.

Number one, notice that, verse 12a. You see what he said? As many as desire to make a fair show, that word for fair show is to impress others. Those who desire to impress others in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. Now notice that. The first thing he is mentioning about those who were the early, in the days of Shaul Paul, it was those Jewish people who came down from Jerusalem and demanded from the Gentile to be circumcised. Today it can be anyone in a Gentile Christian world that is all kind of demand that people do expect from other believers and you know what they want to do is it says here the first thing we find out about those individuals they are very, they are boasting, boasting in the flesh.

Look what I did. Look what I have accomplished. Look at me, see it says as many as desire to make a fair show, that Greek word for fair show, to impress others. So notice they impress others in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. In other words, you see, if they were successful to lead other Gentiles to be circumcised, they are going to say, boy, look what I have accomplished. I got a person to get circumcised. It's just like in the dark ages of the church where they baptize every baby and they say, look how many Christians we have. Listen, you can go into the water, you are going in a dry sinner, you are coming out wet sinner.

Because salvation is not because, wow, we have succeeded to baptize hundreds and thousands and look how many Christians we have as if their salvation depended upon their baptism. And you see, there is a danger in that, brothers and sisters, and it happened today. It's not only in the days of our own people when the Jewish people had to learn to recognize that the Messiah has come and that Yeshua is the Messiah and they didn't know how to handle the situation and they didn't know what to demand from the Gentile believers and they were going through a transition. But you see, it happened everywhere in many places over the generation of the church age.

People like to boast in what they have accomplished. Look how many people came to my church as if it is our church. It's not ours, it is the Lord. And if the Lord bless us to bring people into our midst, it is the grace of God. It is the Lord who works in hearts and not us but to boast and to say, look what I have accomplished, look what I am doing. This is the act of the flesh, the old nature, the sinful nature. And I remind you, brothers and sisters, you and I as believers still have this sinful nature and we are struggling with that every day and we have an inclination to boast in what we have achieved in our life.

We can boast in so many ways that is so dishonoring to the Lord. It's still the flesh and God do not want us to boast in our own sinful flesh. What have I accomplished? So the first thing he's telling in verse 12a, they are boasting in the flesh and what they do, they compel the Galatians in the context that we have here in the book of Galatians, they compel them, they constrain them to be circumcised. And notice that they want to make a fair show. Look at this. I got another one. I got another one. I got another one. And it's sad, isn't it? It's if circumcision saves.

Circumcision was never given to our forefathers to save our Jewish people. It was given because God made a covenant with the descendants of Abraham. Circumcision was never demanded from the Gentile world. It is given to the Jewish people, to the Hebrews, not to the Goyim, not to the nations. And therefore, to make a fair show, to make a show out of it and boast, it's not something that is honoring to the Lord. And that tells us something. When we are boasting, you in your area and I'm in my area, we have to check ourselves. God will never be pleased any time we boast. You remember what we read in Scripture?

Humble thyself under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you in due time. God resists the proud, but He gives grace unto the humble. And so the second thing now as He continues to share about the first man, the legalist, the one that is acting in the flesh, the one that is externally, won't have an external mark. We find out in verse 12b not only that they are boasting, but they are also, in verse 12b, they are compromising the truth of the Gospel. Look at this, verse 12b. And I'm reading, only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ, for the cross of the Messiah.

You see, what they do, they are compromising the cross of the Messiah because they don't want to be rejected by others. And just remember, when the church was born, when the assembly, the congregation was born, all believers in the church in the beginning were Jewish. All of them were circumcised. All of them were Jewish believers in Yeshua, the Messiah, and they were, they were persecuted because of their faith in Yeshua, the Messiah, by their own brethren. Even Shaul himself who wrote this letter persecuted the Jewish believers of first century. He took letters, you remember, from the Pharisees in Jerusalem to take it to Damascus, to the synagogue, to bring other Jewish believers back to Jerusalem to execute them because they believed in Yeshua.

They believed in Jesus. So what happened now, because they didn't want to, you might say, to suffer persecution, they, as it says here in verse 12, he said, lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ because the gospel and the way of salvation was only on the basis of the cross, the death of the Messiah, no more and no less. But you see how it was so difficult to the early Hebrew believers because all our lives we were taught that we need to be circumcised, we need to keep the law of Moses and then we didn't quite understand and still today our own brethren do not understand that the law should lead them to Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah.

And when Jesus the Messiah came, he is the only one who fulfilled the law on behalf of each and every one of us. And we are under the law of Christ, the law of the Messiah, as it says in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 2, bear ye one another burden and so fulfill the law of Christ, the law of Mashiach. And so brothers and sisters, not only that they were boasting the flesh of inclination to boast, but they were also compromising the truth of the gospel. and you know, what a shame to tell somebody you are not quite saved if you believe in Yeshua. You need more.

You've got to do something. You've got to be circumcised. You've got to be baptized to be saved. You've got to speak in tongues to be saved. You've got to keep these rules to be saved. As if all these rule keepings which we break all the time give us salvation. And you remember what we read, beloved brothers and sisters, that the cross of the Messiah is the only ground upon which we can receive salvation. So these brethren or I should say these people who acted in the flesh were people who were boasters but they were also compromisers. They didn't want to suffer. Oh boy, I don't want to suffer.

So in order not to suffer I will get people circumcised or today I will get people speaking in tongues or getting baptized so I will not suffer. I will tell yeah, they did something in order to be saved. There were compromises. And how many times we are compromising this? It says here, lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. You know, when early believers follow Yeshua the Messiah, these early Hebrew Christians, they suffered for the name of Yeshua and they took a stand that salvation is only through the person of the Messiah. But now notice what he continues and he says in verse 13, the third thing that he says about this man, the legalist, it says not only that the legalist is boasting, not only that the legalist is compromising, but in verse 13 he says the legalist is also a hypocrite.

He has two faiths. Faith for the public and faith for the private like we have many times. Notice what he says in verse 13. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire or but desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. In other words, you see what he's really saying here beloved brothers and sisters. They themselves do not keep the law. And you check yourself and I check myself if we have kept what God's law demanded. You will see very quickly that you and I have broken every law, every law that God had given to us in scripture.

And so what they do is that they demand from you to do something but they themselves don't live in the light of it because God sees them. And you know, who knows it even better than all? Shaul Paul. Because Paul, Shaul was the one who said of himself in the book of Philippians concerning the law, he was the one that he said, he was blameless. He lived a godly life as a Jewish man under the law but then he said, but I hadn't, if the law would not say you shall not covet, I wouldn't know that I have coveted. He admitted that he might have kept the external activities and requirement of the law but in his own heart, in his own heart he broke the law himself.

And so he's saying about these legalists that not only that they are people that are boasting, not only that they are people that are compromising, but they're also hypocrites. And brothers and sisters, isn't it true how many a time you and I are hypocrites? How many times we are hypocrites? we have one faith for the public and another faith for private. We have to admit that even as believers today, it doesn't mean that Christians are not, can be hypocrite. Believers in Yeshua the Messiah are not hypocrites and that's why the Lord knows our hearts and he knows we need always to turn back to him in confession and repent and say, Lord, I've sinned again, I blew it again because we are no different than those early ones that the Apostle Paul is speaking about.

So brothers and sisters, again, if you look at this chart again, you see this old nature that we have? The flesh, the outward man, the old man, the natural man, the human nature is deceitful. Jeremiah, Yirmiyahu Hanavi, the prophet of Israel says the heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know it? And God said, I know, I know the heart. And God knows the heart of each and every one of us and thank God that because of Yeshua we received forgiveness of sins. So Paul presents before the Galatians that one legalist, a marked man who has an external mark. I did this, I have accomplished this, I am circumcised, I am baptized, I can speak in special languages and so on.

That is only a proof that I am so spiritual, only God knows the heart. And Paul says, be careful, don't fall to the hands of the one who is a legalist because you're going to find yourself never enjoying a relationship with the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah. But now, praise God. He is turning from the legalist and he is continuing now to speak about another man. And that's the man I would like to share with you about today. And that man is none else but the man, the Messiah Yeshua, Yeshua HaMashiach, the man from heaven, our blessed Lord. We read in verses 14, 15 and 16 and let me read those verses.

But God forbid, Shaul Paul said, that I should glory save in a cross of our Lord Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus, in the Messiah Yeshua, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision but a new creation. And verse 16, And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be unto them, shalom upon them, and mercy and upon the Israel of God. Notice, brothers and sisters, that he is directing now the attention to the person of Yeshua, the Messiah. He is another marked man. But he was marked differently. You see, we by nature are marked because of our pride and our sinfulness.

But he was also marked. But he was marked differently. You notice what he says about Yeshua. It's so beautiful. Paul, Shaul, says, listen, if you think that I'm going to boast in the old nature of mine, I'm not going to boast in it. This man is a sinful man. But I have another one to boast in. And so he directed the attention of the readers to you and me and the Galatians. And he said to them, listen, in verse 14, I want you to see the person of the cross. The person who died for our sins. Who is that person? And notice what he says in this verse 14.

He says, God forbid. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. He is, first of all, presenting before the Galatians the person who died on the shameful cross. Who is that person? Notice he calling him here, God forbid that I should glory save in a cross of, notice, our Lord Adon, Jesus, Yeshua, Christ, Mashiach, Messiah. He's Lord. He came from heaven. This person by the name of Yeshua the Messiah is the one that God has sent from heaven because all have gone astray here in this world.

He had to be born of the virgin Miriam without sin, sin apart. He was the holy son of God. Remember Luke chapter 2? We read, this holy one which shall become out of you, he said to Miriam, shall be called the son of God. In other words, what he's saying to the Galatians, Galatians, I want you to center your affection upon the person who died on a cross. The person. Brothers and sisters, listen. The person that died on a cross, on a Roman cross, is none else but God the Son as man, as sinless man. He didn't have to die. He didn't have to lay down his life on this shameful tree, shameful cross.

He was the only man who lived the perfect life here in this world. But willingly, he came from heaven to die on a shameful cross. When you really think about it, brothers and sisters, it's fascinating. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, he gave his son. God gave his son to pay for the penalty of our sin. He was marked, but the mark that was upon the person of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, was the mark that he had in his hands and his feet and his side when he was hanging on a shameful cross. If you turn with me to the book of Psalms for a moment, Psalm 22.

The Hebrew prophets of Israel have predicted that the Messiah will come and he himself will have that mark upon his own body and that mark will be a mark that will be provided in order for Israel the nation and the nations of the world who will trust in him. Notice that in Psalm 22 and we all know this verse very well. Psalm 22 we read, listen to verse 16. At the end of verse 16, Psalm 22, 16, they pierced my hands and my feet. the Psalmist of Israel knew very well by divine design inspired by the Holy Spirit of God that when the Mashiach will come he will be pierced upon a shameful cross and he will be marked if you will beloved brothers and sisters and the mark was not because of any sin that he had committed but because our very own sins that we have committed.

Go to Isaiah 53 and in Isaiah 53 and verse 7 we read, listen to this, verse 7 says, he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth and listen to this, he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter as a sheep before a shearer is dumb so he opened not his mouth. he was marked by being brought as a sheep before her shearer when they took the sheep and they sheared the sheep and then they killed that lamb he received that marked mark in his body but it was not his own fault for his own sins that he had to die it was for the sin of this one.

This is the person of the cross beloved brothers and sisters. Listen, go to Matthew chapter 27 for a moment and look at this verse, very interesting verse when Yeshua the Messiah was on a shameful cross. Matthew chapter 27 and verse 35 we read this verse. Matthew 27 verse 35 it said and they crucified him, this is the Roman soldiers, and they crucified him and when you just imagine beloved brothers and sisters what it meant for a man to be crucified. The Romans in the days when Yeshua came, the way whereby they were executing judgment upon those who disobeyed the law that they had, it was crucifixion. they took a person, they placed him upon a wood and they nailed his hands and his feet to the wood.

Can you imagine? And they took Jesus and they crucified him. But he didn't do anything wrong. It was not for anything that he had done that he was going to die, but he was mocked for you and for me. And that's why the Apostle Paul first of all wants us to see the person that died on the cross. And the word for cross has to do when you think of crucifixion, immediately you think of death. That's the manner whereby many, hundreds of thousands died in the days when Yeshua, the Messiah, came to this earth. and so we read about the person of the cross, Yeshua himself.

The cross, the cross speaks of death. The cross speaks of judgment. And it is on that shameful cross that our Messiah died and that's why Paul said, God forbid that I should boast or glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, Yeshua Hamashiach. If I'm going to boast in anything, here is something that I can boast. I can boast in this work that our Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, have done for me when he died for me on a Roman cross. Brothers and sisters, listen, why Paul is emphasizing this so much? Because he knew very well that if there is any hope for salvation, God as men, sinless men, had to die.

The Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world, had to die. Many times people don't quite understand it. He must become a substitute, the just one for the unjust one in order to bring us to God. If he hadn't died for our sins, we would never have any hope. That's why the cross where the Messiah died is one of the most, you might say, it is the highest or the most, you might say, important event that happened in human history. Messiah died and he died for you and for me. I mean, sometimes when you really think about it, it is really puzzling. What did he find in us that he was willing to die?

this is the person of the cross. He had to die for our sin. You remember earlier Paul said in Galatians 2.20 he said, and if you remember that verse, I quoted it already before, Galatians 2.20, Paul said, I am crucified with the Messiah, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but the Messiah liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith, listen, of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You know, even our mothers and our fathers who love us so much, never done for us what Yeshua, the Messiah, have done for us, the person of the cross.

But he continued, brothers and sisters, go back to Galatians 6, and you can see not only the person of the cross in verse 14, but we also see the power of the cross. What is the reason that the Messiah had to die, and what he can accomplish through his death on a shameful Roman cross? In verse 15, we see the power. What is the power? Listen to this. In verse 15, Paul continue, and he said, for in the Messiah, Yeshua, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature, or a new creation. Do you know that the power that God now could, you might say, unleash because of the work of the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, he can provide for us new creation.

You see, when Jesus died, when Yeshua, the Messiah, died, he was punished for our sins, and if we only have embraced him and confessed, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I confess that I fail you, I couldn't keep the law, I couldn't do the right thing in my life, always I seem to sin and fail before you. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God says, believe on the Lord Yeshua, the Messiah, and you shall be saved. And he provides for us, as it says here, notice in verse 15 at the end, but a new creature, we should say, a new creation. Look again at this chart.

Here is what happened to us, beloved brothers and sisters, in the flesh, in the old nature, because of our sons, who are descendants of Adam and Eve, we all have inherited this flesh, the outward man, the old man, the natural man, the human nature, which always sin. But when we have accepted him, he provided for us new creation, new nature, the spirit, the inward man, the new man, the spiritual man, a divine nature. You see, we have been transformed from death to life. 2nd Corinthians 5, 17, says that all that are in the Messiah, Yeshua, are a new creation. All things will pass away, all become new.

Amazing, Paul is emphasizing, and you see what he says in verse 15, he says, in the Messiah, Yeshua, neither circumcision availeth anything. So what if you are circumcised? I mean, listen, the boy, the Jewish boy, we who are Jewish, we didn't have any say in the matter. Our parents circumcised us because that's what they were commended according to the law that God had given to our fathers. And they were circumcised, our own fathers, because their grandmades, our grandfathers knew that that's what God had given to the people of Israel, to the Hebrews, to be circumcised. But circumcision does not make you saved. Because circumcision only makes you even more responsible to submit to that which God said in his word.

And that's why Paul says, you see, brethren to Galatians, he says, in the Messiah, Yeshua, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision. Okay, so you are coming from among the goyim, from among the Gentiles. You were not commended to be circumcised. Or your parents were not commended to be circumcised. Okay? So it's not your uncircumcision, neither it is your circumcision that availeth for salvation, but in the Messiah, Yeshua, we all come on the same ground. We come to admit that I am a sinner, that I need forgiveness of sins. And then God provides for us a new creation. And why we need this new creation? Because you remember what Yeshua said to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, you must be born again.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. That's why I told you, you must be born born of the spirit, born again. You got to have a new life, a new nature, otherwise you will die in your sins. When you're going to stand before God, and if you did not believe in Yeshua, the Messiah, you will have no hope because your flesh profit is nothing. Somebody had to pay for your sins, and the person of the cross, Yeshua, the Messiah, paid, and he because of his work, the power that the cross has. You remember a verse that I always love to quote, Paul said it in Romans 1 and verse 16.

He said, for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, the gospel of Messiah. You know why? Because it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. Why we are not ashamed of the fact that Yeshua died for our sins? Because it is the only power that God has in order to forgive a sinner. God can never forgive you and I if we don't have faith in a Messiah. He can never bring you and I into heaven if we don't believe we reject the Messiah. the only one that had paid for our sins. There is power in the blood of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

Not only that he is the person, God the Son who became a man, but the work that he has accomplished on the cross gives God power and salvation to everyone that believes. But you must believe. You can't reject the message of the gospel. Now notice the third thing that he said about Yeshua the Messiah that marked men. He died on a shameful cross. The person. His work was sufficient to give God's power unto salvation. Verse 15. But now look at the purpose. What was the purpose that God had provided his son the Mashiach to die? What was the reason? What is the purpose? And notice verse 16 is the purpose.

What is the purpose? Verse 16. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace, shalom be unto them, and mercy, chesed, or achamim, and upon the Israel of God. In other words, the purpose that God had shown us in giving his son is not that we will live like we used to live before. can you imagine if somebody said to God, God, thank you for the gift of salvation, but don't bother me from here on. Thank God my ticket is paid, Jesus the Messiah, Yeshua the Messiah died, and now I can carry on and walk in a life that is not pleasing to him. You see, that's why in the earlier chapter, in chapter 5, it says, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the last of the flame.

There's got to be a change in our walk here in this world. Not only positional change, we receive the moment we have accepted Yeshua the Messiah, but practical change. If there is no practical change, one must wonder. If you and I can just carry on to live our life to say, well, I'm a believer, but I don't walk with the Lord, I don't talk to him, I don't read his word, I live in a world, get influenced by the world, I live in sin, continuing in sin. We may fall into sin, but we should never continue in that. Paul said in Romans 6, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

God forbid. No, you got to have a change of life. If you are a new creation, if you are really born again, God is saying to us all, is there any change in your life? Are you carrying on like you used to live in the past? Do you have an appetite for the things of God? Or do you have an appetite for the things of the world? Or Satan, or the flesh? That's the thing. You know how we know that a brother or sister or person got to know the Lord, he or she accepted the Messiah? That all of a sudden their appetite is different.

I used to live like that. But I want to live differently now. I want to live for my Lord, for my Savior. I want to serve Him. I want to honor Him in my life. I want to be pleasing to Him. That's the change that is evident. Notice that's why he said in verse 16, he said chapter 6, many as walk according to this rule. What is this rule now? Or this law is what we read in chapter 6 in the first two verses. Verse 2 he says, bear ye one another burden and so fulfill the law of the Mashiach. This is the rule whereby we go. That's our rule.

That's our law. Yeshua HaMashiach become law. And you know, he is the one who gave the law to Moshe on Mount Sinai. And the law that he gave to Moshe on Mount Sinai pointed to him when he would come in the fullness of time. And the law that he had given, he knew that Israel or any other nation will fail in a full sense of the word to submit to this law. That's why he provided the sacrificial system. That when an Israeli failed and sinned, the blood of the lamb and the ram and the goat have covered, atoned for his sins. So you notice what he said, they gotta be different in your life.

And you notice, interesting, he used these two words, notice that, he said, as many as walk according to this rule, peace or shalom be unto them, this is one group, then he added, and mercy and upon the Israel of God. Notice he used them and the Israel of God. What does he mean here? He doesn't mean that now the church become Israel, not at all. Israel is still waiting the day of redemption, when the Messiah is going to come at his second coming. What does he really say? The them is the goyim, the Gentiles who became believers in Yeshua the Messiah. And the Israel of God are the Jewish believers who have accepted Yeshua the Messiah and they are the true Israel of God.

You see, because the rest of the nation has not accepted him. They are not forgiven, they are not saved, they don't have a new creation. Israel, our own people, is waiting the future day. Jeremiah said, and I want to read it for you for a second, go to Jeremiah 31, it hasn't happened as yet, but in Jeremiah chapter 31, the Lord is speaking to Israel long before the church was born, at about 600 BC, there was no such a thing, a Gentile part of Israel in those days, the church was not in existent, the Messiah hasn't died as yet. Jeremiah was anticipating by the word of the Lord the future restoration of Israel and God said, behold, the day come, verse 31, of Jeremiah 31, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in that day that I took them by the hand out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant, they break, they break, although I was a husband unto them, says the Lord, but notice, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write them in their hearts and I will be their God.

And they shall be my people. It didn't happen as yet, brothers and sisters, our own people, Israel, as a nation, is still blinded to the fact that Yeshua is the Messiah. And they are waiting the future day when eventually all Israel, Romans 7, Romans 11, blindness in part happened to Israel until the full numbers of the Gentiles become and then and so all Israel shall future be saved. As it is written. So Paul presented three things about the person of Yeshua the Messiah. He is the person of the cross, the power of the cross, and the purpose for the cross. The person who died, the power that his death brought about, and the purpose for that is to bring many sons unto glory, to bring many to accept Yeshua, the Messiah, and become redeemed, and that their life will change, and they will live differently here in this world until Yeshua is going to come again.

Now, finally, brothers and sisters, back to Galatians, let's talk about the last two verses, and that's it. so we talked about the legalist verses 12 and 13. We talked about the person of Yeshua the Messiah verses 14, 15, and 16. And now finally, Shaul, Paul, presents himself as the third person who is also marked. But why was he marked? Notice that, verse 17. He says, from hence forth, let no man trouble me, for I bear, listen to this, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Yeshua, the Lord Jesus. Notice that, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Yeshua. He said to them, to the brothers and sisters in Galatians, do not add any more trouble to me.

I'm writing this letter to you, this whole letter of Galatians, to instruct you that your salvation and your redemption has nothing to do with human merit, works of the law, circumcision, baptism, speaking in tongue, human merit. No, it's based upon the finished work of Yeshua the Messiah. He said, don't any more add to my trouble. I already have instructed you about this earlier. when I was with you. But I want to tell you, brethren, he's saying to them, I bear in my body the marks of our Lord Yeshua. And you know what Paul is saying to us here? That in his life, from the day that he made the decision to live for Yeshua the Messiah, he had experienced suffering like no other men have experienced for the name of Yeshua.

He has suffered so much in his life because of the testimony of Yeshua the Messiah that we have no idea how much suffering, how many marks he had in his body. And let me conclude with those marks. If you turn with me to 2nd Corinthian chapter 4 and verse 8, and there we read, we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed, always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Yeshua, that the life also of Yeshua, of Jesus, might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus, for Yeshua, for Yeshua's sake, that the life also of Yeshua might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.

He has experienced suffering like you and I have no idea. If you turn to 2 Corinthians 6, just a couple of chapters, notice in verse 4 what we read. 2 Corinthians 6, verse 4, in all things, approving ourselves as ministers of God in much patience, in affliction, in necessities, in distress, in stripes, in imprisonment, in tumult, in labors, in watching, in fasting, by pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by love and feign, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold will live, as chastened and not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things.

Paul said that he was marked man who suffered in his life for the name of Yeshua. One final verse in chapter 11 of 2nd Corinthians. Notice verse 22. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelis? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of the Messiah? I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors, more abundance. In stripes, above measure. In prisons, more frequent. In death, often. Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day I have been in the deep.

In journeying often. In perils of waters. In perils of robbers. In perils by mine own countrymen. In perils by the heathen. In perils in the city. In perils in the wilderness. In perils in the sea. In perils among false brethren. In weariness. In painfulness. In watchings often. In hunger and thirst. In fasting often. In cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without that which cometh upon me daily. The cares of all the assemblies. I don't know. Here's a marked man. But he was marked now as a believer who sought to live for Yeshua the Messiah. And so brothers and sisters I'm going to conclude Paul presented three men.

The legalist, the Lord Yeshua and a servant himself. The legalists demand external things. The Lord Yeshua died for the sin of this world and the servant suffered for the name of the Lord and for the gospel sake. So he concludes this letter in verse 18. He said brethren brethren the grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah Jesus Christ be with your spirit amen. That's how he closed that letter. He wished shalom he wished peace and he wished grace chesed for the brethren that they will be able to continue on to follow the Lord Jesus the Lord Yeshua and live their life for him. So he is also desiring to see this for my own lives and may the Lord help us also brothers and sisters that we also in our own lives should live somehow in some small measure for the glory of the Lord and boast in him and not in the flesh.

can we say amen to that