Well, as we start this session,
the first thing I want to ask you to do is to take your Bibles
and turn with me to the book of Galatians. And I want you
to be finding what will be our text for this session, Galatians
chapter 1, beginning in verse 6. And before I read our passage,
I feel compelled to say this, that in our last session together
with Dr. Sproul, that message came with
such power and force and authority, I don't know about you, but my
heart felt a sense of shock and awe as God came in the power
of the Holy Spirit, I believe, upon our souls as we heard that
message And as I have thought this through, just even the introduction
to this message, I feel that I really need to put both my
feet in that message that we just heard and extend into this
message by saying this. Dr. Sproul reminded us of the
godness of God, the holiness of God. the infinite, transcendent,
majestic splendor of His all-perfect being, blameless and sinless,
flawless. Matthew 5.48, you shall be perfect
as my heavenly Father is perfect. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty. Heaven and earth is full of His
glory. holy, holier than all of us,
the holiest being in the entire universe, supreme in His holiness. In the sinfulness of man, in
the sinfulness of sin that we have all been weighed in the
balances and found wanting, we have all sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. And there is this infinite chasm
that now separates holy God from sinful man. No way that we can
approach this holy God in our own sinfulness, for we are defiled
and corrupted by sin. And God is infinitely holy. His eyes are too pure then to
behold iniquity. The entire book of Leviticus
is written to show how can sinful man find acceptance with holy
God and he cannot come on his own. He must come by way of a
sacrifice that has been prescribed by God. The one that God has
chosen as a substitutionary sacrifice is the only way that sinful man
can enter into the presence of infinitely holy God. And this means by which we come
into the presence of God is the gospel of grace. The higher that
we set the holiness of God, and the lower that we set the sinfulness
of man, the greater we span the chasm of the infinite grace of
God. In other words, we magnify grace. by elevating holiness and putting
man in his rightful place. But when we lower man, excuse
me, lower God, and we compromise the holiness of God, and we do
as Psalm 50 says, we make God in our own image. You thought
I was just like you. And as we elevate man and lower
God, then the span of which God's grace would cover that distance
is just a very small grace. And so the gospel of grace is
that this infinitely holy God who will not negotiate His holiness,
who will not lower His standard one bit. who has exalted his
throne in the heavens and his sovereignty rules over all. And we who have fallen in Adam,
and we who have fallen into the depths of sin, the only way by
which we may find acceptance with this infinitely holy God,
the only way, is by the grace of God that has been supremely
and exclusively manifested in the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Jesus said, I am the way and
the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but
through me. Paul said there is one God and
one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Peter
said there is salvation in no other name. For there is no other
name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."
The Apostle Paul, as he writes the book of Galatians, understands
what it is to be the chief of sinners. He understands what
it is to have fallen short of the glory of this God and to
be saved by grace. Paul understood when he wrote,
I am what I am by the grace of God. We see Paul on the Damascus
road as he is headed there to apprehend the Christians, and
there where he is struck off of his high horse by sheer sovereign
grace. What would you have me to do,
Lord? And in that moment of monergistic sovereign regeneration. The Apostle
Paul, who was not looking for Christ, not seeking the gospel
of grace, was apprehended by the grace of God. Paul was made a minister of the
gospel, a chosen instrument to proclaim the gospel of grace
to the Gentiles. And so on Paul's first missionary
journey in Acts 13 and 14, he is commissioned by the church. And he is sent out from Antioch
to be the preacher of the grace of God. That salvation is the
free gift of God. That salvation has been fully
accomplished through the finality and the sufficiency of the perfect
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That He is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. And that by His one death, He
has reconciled us to God. That by His death, He has propitiated
forever the righteous anger of God for all those for whom He
has died. Paul goes to the mission field
in Acts 13 and 14. He preaches grace, saving grace,
free grace, redeeming grace, reconciling grace. And he comes
to the cities of Galatia, and he preaches the gospel there
in the face of much opposition. And the power of the gospel comes
crashing home into the hearts of those who heard him. And there were many disciples
that were made, and he appointed elders, and he established churches.
And he comes back to the church at Antioch, and he gives the
report to the church there. Before he goes to the Jerusalem
council, or perhaps at the same time, he receives word that the
churches where he has preached the word, there has been a vacuum
in his absence, and there have been false teachers who have
come into the churches of Galatia. They are known by us as Judaizers. And they are those who have come
in and they use the name of Christ, and they speak of grace, and
they speak of faith, but they add to it man's efforts to keep
the law, both in justification and for sanctification. And the
Galatian believers were so easily swayed. They were naively gullible. And they were easily hoodwinked
by these hucksters of the gospel who have come in and who have
diluted and corrupted the purity of the gospel of grace. And they have added works, and
they have added human merit, and they have added man's religiosity
back into the purity of grace. And Paul receives the message.
He had just been there. In fact, he had warned them not
to fall for the false teachers. And so, he receives the report,
and he writes these words beginning in verse 6. Normally, at this place, Paul
would say something like this, I thank my God for you. I have
you in my heart. My every remembrance brings joy
to me." But for writing this epistle, Paul is not thankful
for what has taken place. There has been a breach of the
gospel of grace. There has been a compromise. And this is a major issue. So Paul, writing now this, the
first of the thirteen epistles, for this one, he does not dictate
it. For this one, Paul is so exercised
in his soul that he takes pen in hand, and he writes it himself,
and he writes it in boxcar-sized letters. so that a man can read
it from the other side of the room, so that there is no mistaking
what he has to say, as he now is a guardian of the grace of
God. And so Paul writes his fieriest
of all epistles. And he writes, beginning in verse
6, I am amazed. I am astonished. I am shocked. that you are so
quickly deserting Him, who called you by the grace of Christ, can
this be? For a different gospel, which
is really not another. Only there are some who are disturbing
you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if
we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel
contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we have said before, so I
say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary
to what you received, he is to be accursed. For am I now seeking the favor
of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please
men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. The reason that Paul is so consumed
and obsessed with this is Paul well understands in his own life
that Paul, who was born of the nation Israel, circumcised on
the eighth day, born of the tribe of Benjamin, Zeal, a persecutor
of the church, according to the law, blameless externally, Paul
understood more than anyone else in the ancient world that the
only way he could find acceptance with this infinitely holy God
and find acceptance before the godness of God, as he is a vile,
corrupt sinner, is through the amazing, extraordinary, infinite,
pure, saving, redeeming, reconciling grace of God. And for there to be any compromise
with the gospel of grace, that person should go to before he influences others to
the broad path that is headed to destruction. We need to hear
this in this day. As we minister the Word of God
in the places in which God has assigned us, we are surrounded
by many different gospels and many perversions of grace. There is the new perspective
on Paul today that is a frontal attack on forensic justification
by faith alone. It's not a matter of semantics. There is the ECT and the compromise
of justification by faith alone. There are non-lordship advocates
who weaken what the nature of true saving faith is. There are
those who teach a baptismal regeneration, etc., etc., etc., etc. And there is a stewardship of
the gospel that has been entrusted to each and every one of us.
This is our hour in history. And we have all been made guardians
of the gospel of Jesus Christ and guardians of the grace of
God. And we must put ourselves into
the skin of the Apostle Paul and vicariously feel what he
felt. Believe what he believed, and
preach what he preached. As we look at these verses in
this session, there are four things that I want you to note. I want you to note first Paul's
amazement. He begins in verse 6, I am amazed. This word amaze means to be shocked,
to be bewildered, to be astonished, to be astounded. To put it in
the vernacular, Paul is dumbfounded. Paul is perplexed. He would say
in street language today, this blows my mind that you are so quickly deserting
him. Would you please note that to
desert the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, to desert the purity
of saving grace is to desert the person of God Himself. Do you see this? God is one with
His gospel. As John Piper has said, God is
the gospel. To desert the grace of God in
the gospel is to abandon God Himself. It is to go spiritually
AWOL. It is to turn your back on God. It is to become a spiritual deserter
in the midst of war. Why is God synonymous with His
gospel? Because all of the attributes
of God are supremely put on display in the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Would you see the holiness of
God? Then look to the cross and see
the infinite chasm that separates God and man. Would you see the
righteousness of God? Look to the cross and see that
which is imputed to sinners who believe. Would you see the wrath
of God? Look to the cross and see sin
under condemnation and under judgment. Or would you see the
sovereignty of God? Look to the cross and see Christ
triumphantly saving those for whom He came to save. Would you
see the grace of God, the love of God, the mercy of God? It is supremely put on display
in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the cross becomes
the arms of God reaching out to lost sinners that He would
save them by His grace. But to turn away from the gospel
of grace is to desert God Himself. He then writes in verse 6, concerning God who called you
by the grace of Christ. This grace is unmerited. It is undeserved. Paul understands
that. He knows that he is the least
deserving person on the earth to become the recipient of such
a bestowal. Who called you by the grace of
God. If you would turn just a moment
to chapter 2 and verse 16, just to isolate a text, a verse, that
helps put a frame around this grace of God. It's the first
time that Paul mentions justification in inspired scripture. It is
the first time that Paul puts his pen to the parchment and
writes in this epistle as well as any epistle of justification
by faith alone. Notice what he writes in verse
16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the
law, but through faith in Christ Jesus. Even we have believed
in Christ Jesus. so that we may be justified by
faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the
works of the law no flesh will be justified." Paul is the master
teacher here. He uses both negative denial
and positive assertion. There is no room for misunderstanding. There is no wiggle room in verse
16. There is no place for anyone
to misunderstand what is the grace of God in the gospel. Negatively, he says three times
in one verse, that it is not by the works of the law. That
man makes no contribution to his own salvation, except the
sin that nailed Christ to the cross. And then with positive
assertion, he says three times, that we are justified by faith
in Christ Jesus, and then faith in the verb form, believed in
Christ Jesus, and then he comes back and says a third time, faith
in Christ Jesus. To be justified is to be put
in a right standing of perfect acceptance with holy God. There
are three metaphors that really communicate to us what is the
essence and the heart of justification. Now the first is a legal metaphor
in which we find ourselves in the judgment hall of God, in
the courtroom of God, standing before the judgment seat of God,
and we have all been condemned by our sin and fall infinitely
short of the godness of God. Standing next to us is our Advocate,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the perfection of His life and
the perfection of His death has met all of the requirements of
the law that we ourselves have broken again and again and again.
And when we put our faith in Christ apart from any works of
the law, God looks upon Christ and justifies us. And there is
the great exchange of justification. that all of my sin laid upon
Christ and His perfect righteousness laid upon me. The great exchange,
the worst about me given to Him, the best about Him given to me
and God's gavel comes down and God forensically, legally declares
me to be the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. The life that
I have never lived. The life that Christ perfectly
lived, and His sin-bearing substitutionary death, it is imputed to me. And I now stand before the judgment
bar of God, declared to be the perfect righteousness of Jesus
Christ. That is the first metaphor. And
it is all by faith alone in Christ alone. The second metaphor is
that of the marketplace of financial transaction. That as I stand
before God, I am spiritually bankrupt before a holy God. I
am poor in spirit. I have no spiritual capital with
which to pay off my sin debt. Jesus Christ is infinitely great
in the spiritual wealth of His grace, His saving grace, and
His mercy. And my sin put into his account,
and his perfect righteousness put into my account. I who am
a spiritual pauper, I who am spiritually bankrupt before a
holy God, I now become the riches of the righteousness of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and it has been credited to my account. My sin credited to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this transaction, by faith
in Christ alone. And then the third transaction,
or the third metaphor, is that of the clothing arena. In my own sin, my righteousness
is as filthy rags before a holy God. I cannot come into the king's
banquet hall in my own filthy, dirty rags. Jesus Christ is infinitely
holy, infinitely pure, infinitely perfect, and in the act of justification,
the robes of my own self-righteousness, which is as filthy rags and the
side of the godness of God is taken off of me and placed upon
Christ and Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin for me. In the robes of His perfect righteousness,
His active obedience, His sinless death, I am now robed in the
perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. And now when God looks
upon me, the holy, holy, holy God looks upon me, there is now
a covering for my sin. And God sees me in the perfect
righteousness of His own Son, Jesus Christ. It is all by grace. The entirety Both of His righteousness
given to me and even the repentance and the faith with which I believe
upon Him, it is all of grace. And so Paul writes back in chapter
1 verse 6, I am amazed. I am shocked. I am stunned. that you are so quickly deserting
Him who called you by the grace of God." Note this, for a different
gospel. There are only two kinds of gospels. There is the true gospel, and
there is a false gospel. There is a saving gospel, and
there is a non-saving gospel. There is the gospel of divine
accomplishment, and there is the gospel of human achievement. And the gospel of human achievement,
whereby sinful man makes contribution to the finality and the perfection
of the death of Christ and the perfect life of Christ, Paul
says, it is a different gospel. And at the beginning of verse
7, which is really not another. It is a counterfeit gospel. It is a sham salvation. It is a fake message. It is a
rip-off religion. It is a mangled message which
cannot save. Paul says, I am amazed that you
have abandoned God. for another gospel. We should be equally shocked
in our day for those who abandon the gospel of grace. I was listening
on television not long ago to Larry King Live, and there were a collection of
religious leaders on this program. And one of them is probably the
most popular religious leader of our day, who preaches in an
NBA coliseum. King said, we've had ministers
on who said, you either believe in Christ or you don't. If you
believe in Christ, you're going to heaven, and if you don't,
no matter what you have done in this life, you ain't. We know who that minister is
who said that. He's out in Los Angeles, John
MacArthur. Response, yeah, I don't know. There's probably a balance. I believe you have to know Christ,
but I think that if You know Christ, if you're a believer
in God, you're going to have some good works. I think it's
a cop out to say, I'm a Christian, but I don't ever do anything. It's a total evasion of the question
that was asked. King, what if you're Jewish or
Muslim? And you don't accept Christ at
all. National television, international
television. Answer. You know, I'm very careful about saying
who would and who wouldn't go to heaven. I don't know. King. If you believe you have to believe
in Christ, they're wrong, aren't they? Well, I don't know. If I believe they're wrong, I
spent a lot of time with daddy in India. I don't know all about
their religion, but I know they love God. I don't know. They seem so sincere. I don't know. You and I had better know what
the gospel truth is. We better get the gospel right,
to quote a book title. And we better get on the housetops
and cup our voice and shout it as far and as wide as the gospel
message can go forward. Jesus saves, Jesus saves, Jesus
saves. This is Paul's amazement. This
is Paul's astonishment. It ought to shock us and astonish
us in this hour that there are so many who are tongue-tied We
must roar like a lion. Now I want you to note second
Paul's adversaries. In verse 6, excuse me, verse
7. Only there are some who are disturbing
you. And let me tell you this, whenever
the gospel is compromised, it will always disturb the church
greater than any other disturbance. The gospel is God Himself, and
it is the chief cornerstone of the church. It is upon this rock
that He will build His church, and the gates of Hades shall
not prevail against it. But for this solid rock to be
compromised brings extraordinary disturbance to the church. Only
there are some who are disturbing you." He doesn't mention them
by name, but these some are the Judaizers who are trying to bring
their legalism and their works righteousness into the church
to tell sinners that you've got to do all of these things in
order to believe that the death of Christ is not final and is
not sufficient to save sinners. In addition, they are bringing
this legalism to the believers. to retard their sanctification
to prevent them from growing in the grace and knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Only there are some who are disturbing
you and want to distort the gospel of grace. They are greatly troubling
the church. Specifically, they are saying
Christ and grace and faith are good as far as they go. But they
are alone inadequate to save or to sanctify. Human works,
by keeping the law, are necessary for salvation, and the works
of the flesh are necessary for sanctification. As they were
saying, you have to be circumcised to be saved. You have to keep
the Ten Commandments to be saved. You have to observe the holy
days to be saved. You have to practice the ceremonial
law to find acceptance before God. These are the adversaries
of Paul. They are the adversaries of the
church. And we have these adversaries in our day as well. They are
those who claim that salvation is by faith and good works, faith
and water baptism, faith and church membership, faith and
speaking in tongues, faith and Hail Marys, faith and the Mass,
faith and last rites, faith and the treasury of merit, faith
and the buying of indulgences, faith and, faith and, faith and. There are others. who clearly
deny the essential truths of the gospel and of Christianity. They deny the Trinity. They deny
the absolute deity of Christ. They deny the Lordship of Christ.
They deny the virgin birth of Christ. They deny the sinless
life of Christ. They deny the substitutionary
death, the bodily resurrection, the second coming of Christ.
They deny that justification is forensically imputed to the
sinner who believes upon Christ at the moment of saving faith. They say that justification will
come perhaps in the final judgment, in the end, if one has done their
part to keep the good works, and in the end, they will be
justified by a holy God. Such are adversaries. of the gospel of Christ. Others denied the exclusivity
of salvation in Jesus Christ. These are the adversaries of
the gospel. Paul said there is a good fight,
and it is the fight for the purity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want you to note third, Paul's
anathemas. In verses 9 and 10, these false
teachers of Paul's day, these Judaizers sought to undermine
Paul's authority and teaching in every way they could. And
so Paul had to respond boldly because the period of the gospel
is at stake and because the eternal destinies of souls are at stake. So Paul writes in verse 8. But even if we, referring to
Himself and Barnabas and whoever would have been in His traveling
entourage, even if we are an angel from heaven, be it Michael
the archangel, be it Gabriel, be it one of the chief angels,
be it one of the ruling angels, be it one of the guardian angels,
be it one of the seraphim or the cheraphim, if any one of
the elect angels should preach to you a gospel contrary to what
we have preached to you, contrary to the message of salvation by
grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, Paul says, he
is to be accursed. The word accursed means to be
devoted to destruction. It means to be consigned to the
flames of eternal hell below. It means to be damned. To be
eternally condemned. Martin Luther writes at this
point, here Paul is breathing fire. His zeal is so fervent
that he almost begins to curse the angels themselves. There
must be no neutrality when it comes to the gospel of Jesus
Christ. James Montgomery Boyce writes,
how can it be otherwise? If the gospel Paul preaches is
true, then both the glory of Jesus Christ and the salvation
of men are at stake. Boyce writes, if men can be saved
by works, Christ has died in vain. The cross is emptied of
meaning. Boyce writes, if men are taught
a false gospel, they are being led from one thing that can save
them and are being turned to destruction. Close quote. How true are the words of Boyce
because they are the very words of Paul in this text. And then if that were not enough,
in verse 9, Paul now reloads. and repeats what he said in verse
8. And he turns from the hypothetical to the actual. And he says in
verse 9, as we have said before, meaning that when he was there
in Galatia, Paul told them this very truth. That the gospel of
grace is the only way of salvation, and if any false prophets or
false teachers preach to you another gospel, they are to be
devoted to destruction. As we have said before, so I
say again now, if any man, be he an apostle, be he a spiritual
leader in the church, may he be any person, if any man is
preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he
is to be accursed. Those are very serious words.
And they should call all of us here who understand the godness
of God, and the sinfulness of man, and the span of the infinite
grace of God, that there is no other way to find access or acceptance
before this holy God. And this should call all of us
not only to preach and to proclaim the truth, but to be as Paul
and to fight for the very purity of the gospel of Christ. I would remind all of us that
Paul is putting this on the front doorsteps of this book. At a
place when he would normally say, I offer thanks for you,
Paul has a bee in his bonnet. Paul is riled. because the gospel
of Jesus Christ and His grace have been compromised. So, I want you to see finally
Paul's aim. In verse 10, we see Paul's aim.
As Paul concludes this section, he gets down to the bottom line.
And the bottom line that stands behind this issue for Paul as
a minister, and as a preacher, and as a servant of the Lord
is, who is he trying to please? Is he trying to please God, or
is he trying to please man? Is he trying to have a popular
ministry and gain the acceptance of people in his community, or
is Paul seeking amens out of heaven? That is the fundamental
question before each and every one of us here today. And so we see in verse 10, Paul asks these questions. These
are soul-searching questions. For am I now seeking the favor
of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? Paul reasons with us, and he
is saying, if I am seeking the favor of men, I would certainly
tone down my rhetoric. But Paul is not courting the
approval of men, and certainly not the Judaizers, nor anyone
who is sympathetic to the message of the Judaizers. Instead, Paul
is seeking the approbation of God. Paul has learned a very
important lesson in ministry. If you please God, it does not
matter whom you displease. And if you displease God, it
does not matter whom you please. Gospel ministry is very simple. It is one-dimensional in this
sense. We must please God. It will be
God before whom we will stand in the last day and give an account
as a steward to His Master of how faithful we have been to
preserve the purity of His message and to preach it and dispense
it while upon this earth. This confrontational, harsh language
by Paul is hardly calculated to win the approval of men. Men-pleasers
simply do not hurl anathemas against those who proclaim false
gospels. But Paul is not a man-pleaser. Paul is a God-pleaser, and so
therefore he brings strong words. I remember hearing John MacArthur
preach one time. spoke a sentence that just electrified
my heart. He said, now is the time for
the strongest men to preach the strongest message in the context
of the strongest ministry. I thought, God, I want to be
one of those strong men. I want to be one of those who
brings the unvarnished, unadulterated, strong message of the Word of
God in the context of the strongest ministry. So Paul concludes in
verse 10, if I were still trying to please men, I would not be
a bondservant of Christ. In the ultimate sense, pleasing
men and pleasing God are mutually exclusive. They cannot be mutually
inclusive, not in the ultimate sense. We must make a choice
whether to please God or whether to please men. Bottom line, this
is not an either-or, or it is an either-or, not a both-and. Either we seek to please men,
and if we do, we will displease God. And if we seek to please
God, we will find ourselves at times displeasing men. But bottom line, it cannot be
both ways. Jesus put it this way, no one
can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one
and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise
the other. Every one of us must come to
this fork in the road and decide whether we will be men-pleasers
or God-pleasers in ministry. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians
2 verse 4, we have been entrusted with the gospel, so we speak. Not as pleasing men, but God
who examines our hearts. Paul told Timothy, for the time
will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting
to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves
teachers in accordance to their own desires. and will turn away
their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. This is a day, this is an hour
in which we must stand strong in the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We must be unwavering and uncompromising
to this gospel of grace, and as those around us who would
be capitulating to the whims of the time, who would be like
the wave of the sea tossed back and forth, who are adding to
the grace of God human merit, human works, works righteousness,
who would be denying justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Let us be those who say with
Paul, I choose to please God and not men. I will be unwavering
by God's grace to the purity of the message that has been
entrusted to me. I think of John Knox after he
returned from Geneva back to Edinburgh in Scotland, as he
preached the Word of God in such a bold and fearless way. I think
of Mary who then assumed the throne, and her first Sunday
back in Edinburgh, she went into Holyrood Castle, and there she
had a private Mass. The next Sunday, John Knox ascended
to the pulpit in St. Giles Church, and he said, I
fear one Mass more than all of the marching armies of Europe
that would descend upon this kingdom. Mary heard about this sermon,
and she sent her servants to fetch John Knox and to bring
him down to Holyrood for a private audience with this preacher.
And as John Knox stepped in, and there was Queen Mary, and
surrounded by layers and tiers of her government officials and
her counselors, she began to address John Knox. It would have
been an easy time for him to say, oh, we're all just saying
the same thing. It would have been an easy thing
for John Knox to have said, I don't know. But John Knox began to preach
the eternal gospel of Jesus Christ to this woman who had not yet
put her faith and her trust in the sufficiency and the finality
and the perfection of the one atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he called her to repentance, and he called her to turn away
from her vain religion and to put her trust and her faith in
the living God through Jesus Christ. And Mary was reduced. Her biographer
said, to a puddle of tears, and sounded like a howling animal. Where are preachers like that
today? It's been well said, the problem with preachers today
is nobody wants to kill them anymore. We must understand we're not
in this for a popularity contest. We are in this for God. When John Knox was buried, and
today he is buried what is under the parking lot outside of St. Giles Church, as they lowered him into the
grave, the ambassador from France said, here lies a man who never
feared another man. God give us such boldness. The
righteous flee when no man pursues. The righteous are as bold as
a lion. Make us steeped deeply in the
gospel of grace and in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let
us be unmoving and unwavering in our commitment to sola fide,
sola gratia, sola Christos, based upon sola Scriptura for sola
Deo gloria, for the glory of God alone. May God use us in this hour and
in this generation to preach the gospel of grace. because there is no other way
that sinful man can find acceptance with the godness of God except
through this one atoning sacrifice and man's faith in this risen,
living, triumphant Savior, Jesus Christ. May God give us grace
to preach His message of grace in this hour. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank
you for such a glorious gospel that you have entrusted to us.
We know that it comes with great responsibility and great accountability,
and there is a stewardship that is entrusted to us. We know on
that last day we will stand before you at the judgment seat of Christ,
and we will give an account to you. for how open and how faithful
we have been in the ministry of Your Word. Lord, I pray that
You would use even this conference and this time that we have together
as we are reminded of Your holiness and our unholiness, as we are
reminded of the infinite, immeasurable, immutable grace that is found
in the cross of Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that You would seal
to our hearts this gospel message and that we would be those who
would preach it to the kings and the queens of this world
and fear no man as we proclaim the message. We
pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. the One who became sin
for us, that we might become His righteousness. Amen.