Will Vaus

Listen for God’s word to you from Galatians 4:21-31… Tell me, you who want to be under the law,   are you not aware of what the law says?   For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman   and the other by the free woman.   His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh,   but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar.  Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.   But the Jerusalem that is above   is free, and she is our mother.   For it is written: “Be glad, barren woman,      you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud,      you who were never in labor; because more are the...

Listen for God’s word to you from Galatians 3:15-4:7… Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case.   The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,”   meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator. A mediator, however, implies more than ...

One of the most oft-repeated phrases in this prophetic book is: “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah…” It appears over thirty times in 52 chapters. Of course, this phrase is not confined to the book of Jeremiah. We read that… The word of the Lord came to Abram… (Genesis 15:1) The word of the Lord came to Samuel… (1 Samuel 15:10) The word of the Lord came to Nathan… (2 Samuel 7:4) The word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad… (2 Samuel 24:11) The word of the Lord came to Solomon… (1 Kings 6:11) The word of the Lord came to the prophet… (1 Kings 13:20) The word of the Lord came to Jehu… (1 Kings 16:1) The word of the Lord came to Elijah… (1 Kings 18:1) The word of the Lord came to Shemaiah… (2 Chronicles 12:7) The word of the Lord came to Isaiah… (Isaiah 38:4) And Ezekiel says, over and over again, “The word of the Lord came to me.” Where would the people of God have been without the word of the Lord, especially in the time of Jeremiah, w...