Letter to the Galatians

By Sybrand Van Kwawegen

Sanctification Expanded.
Weekly Devotional and Study Guide in commentary book form.
Home Church Weekly Sermon / Study guide
Includes texts from KJV

New Testament Series - Book 6

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sybrand Van Kwawegen
• Release date: Apr 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005287627

Sybrand Van Kwawegen

I was born 21 August 1950 and grew up in a home best described as atheist. I knew nothing about Christianity until my high school years. After school I qualified in the trade of bricklaying before doing a BSc degree in Building Science at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). I worked in construction progressing to Construction manager and managing contract in what is currently known as the provinces of Gauteng, North-west, Limpopo, Mpumalanga Free State and Kwa Zulu Natal. I moved on into full time ministry in the Methodist Church of South Africa and studied for a B.Th. through the University Of South Africa (UNISA). During this time I also served as vice chair and chair of the West Rand Local Peace Committee as well as serving on the Regional Peace committee before and during the first democratic elections in South Africa and served as chair of Hospice in the West. I left full time ministry after 12 years and returned to construction and allied industries until my retirement two years ago. I the started acrylic painting as a hobby and doing further Bible studies that led to this publication.

Book preview

GOD – God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Pastor/pastor – used as a general term for all ordained clergy. Includes those variously entitled ministers, fathers, lay preachers, etc.

Word – as opposed to word is the Word of GOD also referred to as the Bible

KJV – The Authorised King James Version of the Word of God

AOV – The Word Afrikaans Ou Vertaling.

RCC – The institution known as the Roman Catholic Church.

Born-again – the name given to people that have remorsefully repented and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour and have been baptised in water by full submersion and born of the Holy Spirit.

Tribulation - The moment in time when Jesus Christ will appear in the Sky to call the born-again believers to join him at the wedding feast of the Lamb.

*********

Suggested way to use this Devotional

I suggest that you treat this book as a weekly devotional by only reading as much each day as what seems to be enough for you to absorb in a day, or even spend two or more days on a section if the Holy Spirit so directs you.

The book is also so divided as to be a practical guide for weekly home church worship and teaching sessions.

For that very reason I suggest that as you engage this book you begin each session by going apart from the present reality into a time of prayer and invocation of the presence of the Holy Spirit and asking GOD through the Lord Jesus Christ to open your eyes and understanding to the message for you and to help you to accept it and practice it in your daily life.

*********

Contents:

Abbreviations

Suggested way to use this Devotional

Chapter 1: Galatians 1:1 – Galatians 1:5 - The Setting

Chapter 2: Galatians 1:6 – Galatians 1:10 – Only One Faith

Chapter 3: – Galatians 1:11 – Galatians 1:24 - The Call to Salvation

Chapter 4: - Galatians 2:1 – Galatians 2:10 The further defence of the Gospel.

Chapter 5: - Galatians 2:11 – Galatians 2:14 – Paul Opposes Peter

Chapter 6: - Galatians 2:15 – Galatians 2:21 – Justified by Faith

Chapter 7: – Galatians 3:1 – Galatians 3:9 - Faith or Works of the Law.

Chapter 8: – Galatians 3:10 – Galatians 3:14 - Only by faith we are acceptable to GOD

Chapter 9: – Galatians 3:15 – Galatians 3:29 - The Law and the Promise

Chapter 10: - Galatians 4:1 – Galatians 4:7 - New- born not Fully Mature.

Chapter 11: – Galatians 4:8 – Galatians 4:20 - Concern for Wandering off the Track

Chapter 12: Galatians 4:21 – Galatians 4:31 - Majorities vs. Minorities.

Chapter 13: - Galatians 5:1 – Galatians 5:6 - Standing Fast or loosing Everything.

Chapter 14: – Galatians 5:1 – Galatians 5:15 - Warnings against Gullibility.7

Chapter 15: – Galatians 5:16 – Galatians 5:26 - How to Listen to the Holy Spirit

Chapter 16: – Galatians 6:1 – Galatians 6:10 - Bear one another’s Burdens

Chapter 17: – Galatians 6:11 – Galatians 6:17 - Remaining Steadfast in our Faith

Other titles by this author

About this author

Bibliography

**********

Chapter 1 – The Setting

Gal 1:1-5 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;) 2. And all the brethren which are with me, unto the churches of Galatia: 3. Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, 4. Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: 5. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

In the vast majority of churches that currently exist under the banner of Christian churches there is very little said or spoken about the fact that we are living in what is definitely the end of the end times, the so called eleventh hour of the pre-rapture period of the history of GOD with His creation. Whether it is because of the fickleness of congregants that will not tolerate their pastors boldly declaring the need for discipline, the hidden allegiances of denominations and pastors to satanic organisations, or the massive influence of the new age movement and the modern emphasis on psychology by a vast number of pastor to the extent that they are more interested in Psychology than in the Word of GOD, I cannot say and it is not for born-again believers to judge.

The fact is though that it is every born-again believer’s personal responsibility to know the entire Word of GOD.

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

In these last days it is a real concern that so many believers have chosen the manipulation of the occult and psychology as their supreme source of knowledge rather than the Word of GOD. As we work through the letter to the Galatians we will notice two things in particular. First is the passion that Paul pours into this letter. There is an urgency coupled with the admonitions as well as a fervent desire for the Galatians to appreciate the urgency of their return to the truth.

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

The second thing that we will see is that there is a great deal of common ground between the behaviour of the Galatians and the situation that most (arguably) born-again believers find themselves in today. The Galatians too were misled and persuaded to follow after the popular thinking of their Jewish and Greek peers.

Interestingly the Galatians were new people of the Way, in an environment where many longstanding traditions had become the normative way of living and the road more travelled. They too were in a position where the forces opposing the Gospel of Jesus Christ were merely building on the familiar and traditional in order to gain the upper hand. Just like in the present time when people talk about the familiar and the traditional and move on from there to build their proclamation it is more readily accepted as the truth than something radically new and different.

In the late 1950's the case for turning to margarine and away from butter was met with great resistance. Now that we know the dangers of margarine and the benefits of butter there are parts of Europe that are trying to persuade people to return to butter. Problem is all the false teaching about margarine and butter has now become the familiar and the traditional way and now there is the same resistance 60 years later to changing back to butter that there was before against changing to margarine.

Theological seminaries and faculties have almost all begun to place a heavy emphasis on training students in human psychology, traditional doctrines and hermeneutics and very little emphasis on the knowledge of the original Word of GOD. There are such a wide spectrum of so called Bible translations available that with the training pastors are getting currently and using an appropriate translation they can say anything they like and make it seem like the Word of GOD. Thus when Paul says Jesus gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father, Paul could just as well be talking to us today.

One of the greatest falsehoods of our time is not so much a teaching of a blatant lie, but the neglect of teaching the uncompromising truth. The majority of pastors completely ignore any teaching on end times, the rapture and the tribulation and even fewer are teaching about spiritual healing of every known disease to mankind. The reason is that both of those subjects are bound to cause far more discomfort to people's lifestyles than they are generally prepared to tolerate. Pastors have, unlike Paul, become terrified of speaking the truth and they are aided and abetted by congregations that reward them for saying nice things in spectacular ways. Is that evil? Are we being surrounded by a cloud of false witnesses, lies and comfortable teachings just like the Pharisees and the Greeks were imposing on the Galatians.

The similarities in our situations are undeniable but the worst part is that in our case time for individuals to put their relationship with Jesus Christ back in order is fast running out. The rapture is now an imminent reality. Yet it is right there that many Pastors begin with false teaching by saying that the rapture happened in 70 AD and we are now in the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ. That teaching is a blatant lie and part of the evil that born-again believers are faced with in these end of end times.

For one thing Jesus has made it clear that during the during the 1000 year reign satan will be bound and satan certainly is not bound in the present. Not only are the works of satan very much in evidence but the fact is that all the opposition to Jesus such as Illuminate, freemasonry and the Jesuits will have been conquered and will no longer exist and yet they are very much in evidence in the world we live in today.

The evil that exists around us in the present is further entrenched by the neglect by the churches that currently exist under the banner of Christianity that have not done away with the worship of idols and false festivals that were introduces into Christianity by the RCC. These false festivals that the pastors of the majority of present churches not only celebrate but they actively promote them, have entrenched curses upon their members by the millions. However there is little surprise in that fact since we have in our day in South Africa the reality that one of the largest churches was not only started by a known Luciferian but they still use the Emblem of the Knights Templar (a level 30 Freemasonry symbol) as their church emblem and the connections of the three major Afrikaans speaking churches to the Broederbond (a breakaway element of Freemasonry that has for the most part been reabsorbed into Freemasonry since 1994). The largest English churches emblem is also on the background of the symbol for the sun god and one of their past leaders has been photographed with Queen Elisabeth while they are both wearing Illuminate gowns. What the public at large is not aware of is that Freemasons above the 30th level and the illuminate have all proclaimed themselves as being I am which is from the Hebrew YHWH which the KJV translates as GOD.

We can go on at length but the striking fact of all this is that what most Born-again believers perceive to be Christian churches are front organizations that have been brought under the influence of Freemasonry and the Illuminate and thereby under the influence of the RCC. The RCC was the mother of these organizations and is anything but a Christian church and the Pope is himself a member of the Illuminate. This influence and control that these organizations have is part of their sworn allegiance to each other to protect and advance their political dominance and financial empires. Two of the largest branches of these financial empires are the medical insurance industries and the pharmaceutical industries. That begins to explain why the majority of churches have stayed clear of a major part of the Gospel, namely the healing of 95% of all physical and mental illnesses.

It is also a scarcely known fact that the allopathic medical industry (i.e. the industry that all medical doctors, specialists, psychologists and psychiatrist belong to, have not got a cure for a single disease that exists among mankind. All that they do with their allopathic medications is to control diseases in a way that makes mankind addicted (permanently dependent on) to them. Yet it has been shown repeatedly to this day (and there are thousands of testimonies substantiated by medical science) of the fact that by divine intervention Jesus is still curing (not controlling) believers to this day. Just like Jesus came as Paul says to rid the world of the Galatians from this present evil so that fact still exists to this present time and the story that healing is a ministry that was only intended for the time of Jesus Christ on earth and that of the Apostles, is a blatant lie that stems from the RCC and Freemasonry.

The overbearing majority of the pharmaceutical industry is under the control of the Illuminate and Freemasonry and furthermore has its roots in alchemy which is steeped in witchcraft and satanic demonism.

1Sa 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

2Ch 33:6 And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. (about King Manasseh of Israel)

Gal 5:19-20 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

We find that in most churches the attitude is that we have the medical doctors that work with the pharmaceutical industry to take care of the health of the people. In the first place the doctors that practice allopathic medicine are never trained in the root causes of diseases and yet it has been proven by medical science that 95% of all physical and mental diseases have their roots in sin. Hence the only cure for diseases lies in dealing with the root causes thereof and that means dealing with the forgiveness of sin. I am sure we can all see that there is no way that pharmaceutical medication (witchcraft) can be the answer to sin. That doctors are still needed to fulfil a role for both the divine healing and for the unbeliever, it is also clear that the church cannot abdicate its role in healing to doctors that know nothing about the root causes of diseases. Yet I do not know at present of a single church where this is taught and practiced.

I hope that I have helped every reader by now to see that the evil that existed in the world of the Galatians can be just as readily applied to our present circumstances in these end of end times. There is in fact so much evil surrounding born-again believers in the present that evil has become the normative thing in today’s world. Evil has in fact become so ensconced in our society that it has become almost indiscernible. Take for example what so many Christians say about Christmas. Though there are many that know that Jesus and Christmas are unrelated they say that "they know that they are not celebrating anything evil (even though every single symbol in the modern celebrations have evil connotations) and GOD knows their hearts. Now I ask where in the Word do you see that mankind is given the authority to decide which festivals they may celebrate and that they may decide how and for what reason they celebrate them? It does not exist. But what I can show is the consequences of celebrating false festivals;

Deuteronomy 28:15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

Then follows verse 16 to 68 which list and describe all the curses that mankind will incur for celebrating these false festivals. But this is the modern theology that comes under all sorts of weird and wonderful theological names to us that all basically teach only one thing. If a person decides in their own healthy mind that what they are doing is not disobedient, never mind what the Word says, then it is acceptable to GOD. Be aware that this is exactly what the medical insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industries want you to believe so that by the curses you will incur their businesses will flourish.

Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, 4. Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

This greeting of Paul to the Galatians indicates that what Paul is going to deal with in his letter is the very fact that it was to deliver mankind from this very pit of evil in which they were entombed that Jesus gave Himself in accordance with the will of GOD the Father. It is then also clear that we are entombed by evil as much or even more that the Galatians were and that therefore the teachings in this letter will be as essential to the sanctification of born-again now as it was then to the Galatians.

It is therefore absolutely vital that if we are to hear the Lord our GOD talking to us through this letter to the Galatians that we pray to Jesus Christ to set us free from all our preconceived ideas that have no basis in the Word of GOD. We cannot hear the Holy Spirit witnessing to our spirit if we hold on to principles and teachings of men that are not true to the Word. There is only one authority on earth and that is the original Word of GOD which for English and Afrikaans speaking South Africans is only found in the KJV and the AOV.

There is an urgent need for us as born-again believers to ensure that our beliefs are the pure and uncompromised will of GOD so that we can live with the full and correct assurance that we will be raptured by Jesus Christ when that trumpet sounds and that can happen literally at any moment. When it does there will not be time like there was for the thief on the cross to come to repentance and to save ourselves from the tribulation. Instead we will be like the five foolish versions that found the door closed when they returned. The rapture is not only imminent but it is an event that will happen in an instant.

1Thesalonians 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Back to Contents

**********

Chapter 2 –Only One Truth

Gal 1:6-10 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. 10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

Paul’s disappointment and surprise must be seen against the fact that when we are saved by the grace of GOD through faith, the gift of GOD, the normal thing would be for