Sermon Tone Analysis

Galatians 4:8-11

 

What comes to your mind when you think of the demonic realm?

You may think of all kinds of dark and sinister practices known for black magic and occultic pageantry.

You may think of witchcraft and Satanism, oija boards and séances, or black cats and pentagrams.

But chances are, you wouldn’t normally think of /religion/ as a primary avenue of demonic trafficking.

Yet to the surprise of many, it’s one of the major thoroughfares to hell.

How can this be?

We have to remember that our adversary deceives more people with light than with darkness.

Religion is a bright path marked with signposts to heaven and many people get on this smooth pathway and are lulled to sleep by a message of good works, rituals, traditions, and self-reliance.

But apart from faith in Jesus Christ, religion is as dead and as dark as a grave.

Paul warned the Corinthians of “false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” [2 Cor 11:13-14].

During the dark days of WWII, Winston Churchill warned the allied forces of the Nazi tactics.

He said: “Remember—the enemy is crafty, cunning, and full of novel treacheries and stratagems.”

The message was: Be on guard!

The same could be said of our adversary, the devil.

Your enemy, the devil, is crafty, cunning, and full of novel treacheries and stratagems.

One of those treacheries is Christless religion.

Religion and its weak and miserable principles give people the illusion of spiritual safety and assurance… but in reality, it’s nothing more than an empty husk apart from faith in Jesus Christ.

In Galatians 4:8-11, Paul draws a straight line from faithless religious observance to demonic idolatry.

His warning to the Galatians applies to any church that replaces the message of the gospel with a form of godliness that denies its power.

It’s a warning we all need to hear and heed this morning.

In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of these verses.

8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.

9 But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?

Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!

11 I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.

[Prayer] In this important passage, we’re going to learn three timeless truths about the relationship between Christless religion and demonic idolatry.

The first point is based on verse 8, which is this…

 

*I.

We come into this world separated from God and in bondage* (8).

If you’re a Christian at all this morning, then there was a time when you came to know God for the very first time.

Verse 8 is written to straying Christians in Galatia.

He tells them: “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves…” There it is in black and white.

We come into this world separated from God and in bondage.

For the Galatians, their bondage had been to things they once called ‘gods’.

Paul takes great pains to reserve the word ‘God’ for the one true God.

But he also acknowledges that they once called their idols ‘gods’.

The Bible makes clear that these idols are /not/ really gods by nature.

In 1 Cor.

8:5, Paul wrote: “For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth -- as indeed there are many 'gods' and many 'lords' -- yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things.”

So the idols once worshiped by the Galatian unbelievers were just pieces of wood or metal they called gods.

But if they weren’t really gods, what were they?

In 1 Cor.

10:20 he makes clear that these beings are demons: “What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.

I do not want you to be partners with demons.”

That’s the connection.

In verse 8, Paul is saying that the Gentile Galatians had not previously known the true God but had actually been enslaved to demons, who exercised their power through religious practices.

This is the bondage from which God sets us free through faith in Jesus.

The 2nd point is in v. 9.

 

*II.

God redeems you and sets you free* (9).

God always takes the initiative in salvation.

We love because He first loved us (1Jn 4:19).

The only reason we can know God is because we are /known by/ God, according to verse 9.

Because He knows us and sees that we are spiritually blind, He takes the initiative.

He reveals Himself to us.

The Bible teaches that no person has ever sought God on their own initiative (Rom.

3:10-12).

Romans 3:11—“There is no one who understands, no one seeks God.”

 

There’s a lot of talk about the “Seeker Sensitive” movement in the church these days.

But the Bible knows of only One Seeker.

God is the Seeker, not the unregenerate.

Jesus sought me when a stranger living in darkness.

The One who seeks is the One who saves.

Jesus said the Father is seeking true worshippers to worship Him in spirit and truth (Jn 4:23).

Since God is the Seeker, all of our worship services and church activities should be Seeker sensitive.

Everything we do as Christians should be sensitive to the manifest presence of God in our midst.

But can a Christian who has been sought and known and revealed by God turn back to the enslaving principles of man-made religion?

According to verse 9, they can; that’s exactly what the Galatians were doing.

It doesn’t mean or even imply that their salvation was at stake.

They are known by God; that’s settled.

But they were being led back to the weak and miserable principles of religious effort… back to the principles of stupid self-reliance and self-justification.

All such efforts are an abomination to God who made one way possible for all who believe.

All the false religions of the world have one message that says “Do”; (do this, or don’t do that…) but only Christianity has a message that says “Done!” It is finished!

You are free!

The passion of the Christ is the historical account of God incarnate dying a substitutionary death for the salvation of His people throughout the whole world.

The Galatians had lost sight of that.

They left their freedom and tried to put the manacles of bondage back on their wrists and the stocks of slavery back on their feet.

Religious idolatry without faith was their slave master.

It was as natural to them as going to church on Sunday.

What would make a person fall for that?

How could anybody who has been set free voluntarily choose to go back to slavery?

It’s the story of humanity.

It’s the most common tragedy in the world.

Churches are filled with people who are trusting in religion to make them right with God.

They trust in their church membership, their denominational traditions, their calculated benevolence, their many fellowship groups, their long prayers, their poverty, their wealth—anything they think earns God’s favor.

And unless the true message of the gospel is preached, their false assurance will go unchallenged to the grave.

There are two groups of religious adherents in the Christian church who need this Galatian warning most urgently: In one group are those who have truly believed in Christ, but have been lulled into religious traditionalism because it’s all they’ve known.

This would include people who put denominational or traditional loyalties even above the Word of God.

In the other group are religious unbelievers who think they’re saved because they do the same thing the other church people do; they repeat the same prayers; they sing the same hymns; they give their tithes and offerings… but they haven’t a clue as to what the gospel is.

Now Paul is mainly writing to people in that first group in Galatia.

For the most part, they are genuine believers who have begun to drift into religious syncretism (and legalism) under the influence of false teachers.

The Galatians used to be among the religious but lost crowd.

They used to be enslaved to those “who by nature are not gods”.

In other words, they were worshiping demons and not the one true God.

Then God set them free.

God set them free from the religious bondage to demons.

That’s why it’s so discouraging to Paul that they’re returning to another form of bondage, the weak and miserable principles… which may look godly, but it’s hellish.

In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Paul warned his young protégé (Timothy) about the perils of false religion that goes forth in the name of Christianity, but it’s as bogus as a three dollar bill.