The title of the lesson this
morning is The Offense of the Cross. The title is taken from
the end of verse 11 where Paul says, Why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. And it's because of the offense
of the cross that the Galatians began running well, but then
they were hindered. So we're going to begin in verse
7 and see what Paul says leading up to this where he talks about
the offense of the cross. In verse 7, Paul says, you did
run well. Who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth? Paul compares the life of a Christian
to a race. Just from what I can gather reading
the writings of Paul, he must have liked sports. He used sports
illustrations several times in his writing. He talked about
wrestlers and boxers. He talked about distance runners,
laying aside every weight that does so easily beset them. He
talked about those distance runners pressing on toward the mark when
they get tired. And that makes me feel better
about being a sports fan, because it's something Paul and I must
have in common. And the believers, life is like
a race, but that race can only be run looking to our Lord Jesus
Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. That race can only
be run by the power of Christ, by the power of His work, not
the power of our works. And that's exactly the way the
Galatian believers began their race. Paul says you began the
race well. You came to Christ as a needy
sinner. You came to Christ completely
dependent upon Him. You came to Christ as a sinner
who needed mercy. You came to Christ as you were
nothing and Christ as everything. You began well. That's a good
way to begin. But now Paul says you're off
the course. Well, how'd you get off the course? How did you turn
to the law? When we turn to the law, we turn
off the right course. Well, they got off course by
listening to these Judaizers. We've been talking about them
in our study of Galatians. They came in and told these Galatian
believers, you've got to be circumcised in order to be saved. Now, you
do have to believe Christ, they said, but you also have to be
circumcised to have this outward sign and token of the covenant
in order to be saved. And when they listen to these
Judaizers, they listen to this message, well, you know, you've
got to be circumcised. They quit obeying the truth.
Now, what does obeying the truth mean? Well, obeying the truth
simply means submitting to Christ, submitting ourselves to the righteousness
of Christ and quitting any dependence at all on anything that we do
to make us righteous. And almost always when a person
begins running well, and then they get off the course. It's
because they become offended by the gospel. They become offended
by the preaching of the cross. The word offense that Paul uses
in verse 11, it means a stumbling block. Or it means a trip wire
that's hidden that they pull, you know, as you're running and
trip your feet up. Or it means to be scandalized. Now when a
believer begins this race that Paul's talking about, We ought
to expect Satan to put up stumbling blocks and tripwires to hinder
our race. And often, this stumbling or
this tripwire that comes up, it's someone. It's a family member,
someone we love and respect. And they say, well, you can't
believe that stuff. Surely you don't believe that. Well, that's
against everything we've always believed. That's against everything
our families always believed. Well, if what you're saying is
true, Granny's not in heaven. And we stumble. We become offended. We become scandalized by someone
that we love after the flesh. Or they'll say, now, come on,
you don't believe that election stuff. They believe God elected
babies to hell. And we become scandalized and
offended at that. The flesh does. That's not true,
but this is how they offend you and make you stumble by twisting
the truth. Someone else will say, well sure,
now this grace business is true. You can't deny that scripture
says by grace you're saved. But there's some things you still
have to do. You've got to tie. Or you've got to join this promise
keepers. Or you've got to join a discipleship
program to get your children educated into the kingdom of
God before you really are saved. And the flesh stumbles at that
because we think Well, what's wrong with tithing? What's wrong
with giving money to the church? That's a good thing, isn't it?
I mean, how could that be bad? What's wrong with showing everybody
that you live upright? You know, that you're not an
adulterer or extortioner. That's a good thing, isn't it?
What's wrong with teaching your children the Scripture so that
they make a profession of faith instead of, you know, getting
on drugs or caught up in all these other things? What's wrong
with that? Well, I'll tell you what the problem with it is.
All these things are taught as works. That's what they're taught
as and people start to trust in those things rather than trust
in Christ alone. It's the same thing as circumcision
that came up here at Galatia. And now they've stumbled and
they quit obeying the truth. And when you quit obeying the
truth, that's stopping trusting in Christ alone, believing his
word alone. Now, all of us are faced with
this kind of teaching in some form or fashion. And when you're
faced with teaching like this, I'll tell you what to do. Ask
the same question that Paul asked the Galatians. Who taught you
that? Now, who is it that's teaching
this? Well, if you look at verse 8, I can tell you who didn't
teach it. This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
God who called you by his grace didn't teach you this to turn
away from grace and turn away from Christ to the law. God called
you by his grace. He didn't teach you that. Now
think about it. What does God's Word say? God
said He never had pleasure in men trying to keep the law. God
said I never had any pleasure in you observing all these ceremonies. God said He never had pleasure
in the multitude of these animal sacrifices. God will not have
pleasure in men keeping the law and earning their own righteousness
when it's God who commanded us to come to Christ and trust in
Him in the first place. God didn't teach that. Christ,
who fulfilled the law for his people. He didn't teach you,
now you have to keep parts of the law in order to be saved.
Christ didn't teach you that. The Holy Spirit, who revealed
Christ to you in the Gospel. The Holy Spirit who revealed
Christ to you and told you, now look to Christ and depend on
Him. He didn't teach you to turn to the law and turn away from
the Gospel. The Spirit always points men to Christ. That's
what the Spirit does. He points sinners to Christ,
to look to Christ and look away from our works to the finished
work of Christ. Well, the Father didn't teach
you that, the Son didn't teach you that, the Holy Spirit didn't
teach you that. I'll tell you, you else didn't teach you that.
God's servant didn't. God's servant did not tell you
to start keeping the law plus believe Christ. God's servants
preach Christ, Christ alone. They preach freedom in Christ.
They preach the work of Christ and the glory of Christ. God's
servant, if he's God's servant, will never give you anything
to do that will give you any credit or any glory or anything
that you've got to do to make salvation ratified or certified
for you. Well, then who did teach you
this? I can tell you who taught you this. Satan. and his ministers. These are the ones who set up
these tripwires and these offenses. I'll show you that in 2 Corinthians
chapter 11. It's Satan and his ministers who taught this wicked
teaching of Christ plus. Christ plus something else in
order to be saved. In 2 Corinthians 11 verse 13. For such are false apostles.
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing
if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness,
whose end shall be according to their works." Now, what's
wrong with being a minister of righteousness? Well, it depends
whose righteousness you're preaching. These false prophets, they're
transformed as the ministers of righteousness. They're not
preaching to you the righteousness of Christ. They're preaching
your righteousness. Something that you can do in
order to be righteous. And that trips you up. A false
prophet, a minister of Satan, transforms himself into an angel
of light, a minister of light, a minister of righteousness.
He's not telling you to go out and commit murder. He's not telling
you to go hurt people and do dishonest things and do all these
horrible things. He's telling you to do good things.
And he's using the word of God to do it. Now, he's twisting
the scriptures. He's giving you a false interpretation
of the scriptures. But boy, it sure sounds good,
doesn't it? He's saying it from the Bible.
And when they do these things, if you want a sports analogy,
they trip you up. Just like Zola Budd. If you're
a certain age, you remember Zola Budd tripping Mary Decker in
the Olympics and costing Mary Decker the gold medal. They're
tripping you up. That's what they're doing. And
that's exactly when they put these stumbling blocks, these
tripwires, these things that offends you in front of you.
That's how exactly how men get off the race course and stumble
into hell. Now, look at verse nine. I'll
show you. This is so dangerous. Verse nine in our text, Galatians
five, how easily this can happen. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump. Just a little error in a man's
message spreads through the entire message and ruins the whole message. It ruins it to the point it's
another gospel. Which earlier in our study in
Galatians, Paul said it's not another. There's not another
gospel of grace in Christ. And that error spreads just like
one cell of yeast spreads through an entire lump of dough. That
one cell multiplies and multiplies and grows and grows and grows
till it's spread through the entire lung. And error does the
exact same thing. Now you may wonder why I'm so
adamant about error of doctrine. And why I'm so adamant about
error of spirit. I'm so adamant about the gospel
of grace. The gospel of grace. Grace alone. Christ alone. Faith alone. I'm
so adamant that our attitude here be an attitude of worship. We're not meeting to say, well,
this one's doing this and wrong. This one's doing this and wrong.
This one's doing this wrong. Look at us. No, that's not going
to be our attitude. Our attitudes will be an attitude
of worship. God's to be worshipped. And I'm so adamant about that
because it'll ruin our gospel. Just a little error of doctrine,
just a little error of attitude. will ruin our gospel. We'll turn
it into another gospel if we make just, well, let's just make
an allowance. We know this is wrong, but let's
just make a little allowance for it. You know, we'll get more
people coming and things. No. That little error, just like
that one cell of yeast, will grow and grow and grow until
it ruins the gospel. And there's no worship left.
That's why Matthew 16, our Lord warned His disciples about the
leaven of the Pharisees. But what's the leaven of the
Pharisees? What's their error? Their error
is works. Now, be warned about that. Just
one work, just one, will ruin righteousness in Christ. And
I'm sure that's what the Jews would ask Paul. Paul, why are
you making such a big deal about this? Now, we're not telling
people to keep the whole law. We know that. But this is just
one little law. It's just one little ceremony
and all it is, it's an outward sign of the covenant. It's just one thing. Circumcision. Why make such a big deal about
it? Well, here's how dangerous one work, one work in order to
have righteousness can be. That one work will damn our souls. Anybody here want to Rub on your
body or ingest one bacteria of Ebola. Ebola starts with one
bacteria in your body and in a couple of days you're dead.
One work that we do in order to have righteousness will do
the exact same thing. It will kill us. Look up in verse
2, chapter 5. This is what Paul said. He says,
Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, That if you be circumcised, if
you do this in order to be more righteous, if you do this in
order to have salvation, Christ shall profit you nothing. That's
how dangerous this one work is. And it shows us how completely
we must depend upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Just wholly, totally,
completely depend upon Him and how completely our works have
got to go. We can have no dependence upon
our works whatsoever. Now, let me say this about believers. Believers do work. Believers
work. But the key is what's the motive
for working? What's that? What's your motive?
If you're working in order to justify yourself, you're trying
to live a good life, you're trying to do good things in order to
justify yourself, in order to improve your standing with God,
if you're trying to improve your standing better than the standing
you have in Christ by what you do, Well, you're falling from
grace. That's not grace. And Christ,
His righteousness, His blood, His sacrifice, His intercession,
everything about who He is, will profit you nothing. And you'll
die. You'll be damned. If you're not
working out of a motive of love, based on faith in Christ, you
don't know God. You're not saved. Because faith,
now it works. Faith works. Faith without works
is dead. But faith works by love. Not
trying to earn something. Not trying to make God obligated
to do anything for me. It works out of love. Isn't that
what Paul says in verse 6? We're in Jesus Christ. Neither
circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision. Doesn't matter
what we do or what we don't do. But faith, which worketh by love. Not trying to earn anything,
which works by love. But these Judaizers had this
thing turned around backwards. It's salvation by works, by even
just doing this one little work. So Paul says, now you're off
the course. In verse 10, he says, but now listen, I have confidence
in you through the Lord that you will be none otherwise minded. But he that troubleth you shall
bear his judgment, whosoever he be. He says in verse 12, I
would that they were even cut off, which trouble you. These
ones, whoever they are, I wish they're cut off. They'll be judged.
Now, they're off the course, aren't they? They quit obeying
the truth. But Paul says, I've got confidence
in the Lord. I don't have much confidence
in you. I don't have any confidence,
he said in other places. We have no confidence in the flesh. But
now we've got confidence in the Lord. We've got confidence the
Lord will keep his people. If these people are reading this
letter that Paul wrote there to the Galatians, if they belong
to Christ, God will keep them. He will keep them. And this is
why we can hope for the best. We have a dear friend, someone
who's just been a believer. We've been in fellowship with
him for so long. And we can hope the best for that person, even
when we have reason to fear the worst about him. Because God's
able. We have confidence that the Lord's
going to keep his people. Now, believers. Believers are
not infallible by any stretch of the imagination. We're not
infallible. And believers can go off in the wrong direction.
They surely can. But God will bring them back.
Now, if they belong to him, God will bring them back. Satan sets
up these tripwires. Well, the Holy Spirit would never
be compelled to tell us to watch out for them, to beware of them
if we would never stumble over them. Now, we can stumble over
these tripwires. But the Lord will pick His people
back up again, will trip and fall, but never fall away from
Him. Now how is He going to do that? How does God pick His people
back up when we stumble over these tripwires? It's by His
Word. It's by the preaching of His
Word. The preaching of Christ will bring us back into line.
If we belong to Christ, the preaching of Christ will just Bring us
right back into line. When we see Christ, when our
eyes get fixed on Him, you are automatically on the right course. Automatically. And what Paul
is telling him is this, now you will know what these men are
teaching you is not the mind of Christ when you read His Word. When you have His Word preached
to you, when you have Christ preached to you, you'll know
that's not the mind of Christ. And when Paul says he hopes these
enemies that they'll be punished and then they'll be cut off.
You know, he doesn't mean that he hopes that they'll be cut
off from Christ. He said over there in Romans, he said, Brother,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel, for these
Judaizers. My prayer for them is that they
might be saved. He's not praying that God will
cut them off from Christ. What he wants is that they be
cut off from the churches at Galatia, that they be separated
from these believers. So this infection of salvation
by works does not spread. We should still pray for these
enemies. Weren't you an enemy of Christ one day? I was. Were
you? Well, the Lord is merciful and
grafted us in. Instead of cutting us off, he
grafted us in. Maybe he will them, too. But
in the meantime, we hope that they're separated from God's
church so that they don't, as far as being a preacher to them,
so they don't cause this infection to spread. Now, verse 11, Paul
says, and I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, if I preach
that you've got to be circumcised in order to be saved, why do
I yet suffer persecution? Then, if I preach, if I would
just preach circumcision, the offense of the cross ceased.
All this would stop. Now, here's what happened in
Galatia, and Paul's prophets use the same tactics today. That's
why I'm pointing this out, because nothing's changed. They came
in and they told these believers in Galatia. Now, Paul preaches
the same thing that we do. Where do you think we learned
this from? We learned it from Paul. And
this is how they proved their error. They couldn't prove it
from God's Word, so they lied. And they said, Paul taught us
this. This is what Paul teaches. Now, where did they get this
from? Look back in Acts chapter 16. You know, they took a grain
of truth and twisted it. There wasn't a grain of truth
that Paul preached circumcision, but they took a grain of truth
of something that really happened, and they twisted it. Acts 16, verse 1. Then came he to Derbe and Lystra,
and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the
son of a certain woman, which was a Jewish, and believed, but
his father was a Greek. And Timothy was well reported
of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium, Him would
Paul have to go forth with him and took and circumcised him
because of the Jews which were in those quarters for they all
knew that his father was a Greek and he was not circumcised. Now
why did Paul do that? And this is what these Judaizers
went and told the people in Galatia. Paul preaches circumcision. He
had Timothy circumcised. Why did Paul have Timothy circumcised?
If these Jews in those quarters would have got a hold of Paul
before Timothy went and preached to him, before Paul took Timothy
out with him to go preaching, and they said, now, Timothy is
going to have to be circumcised before he's saved, Paul wouldn't
have done it. He would not have given one inch
to them. If they said, now, we're going
to listen to him preach before he's circumcised, he's going
to have to be circumcised. He's got to go through this ritual
before he can be a preacher. Paul never would have given in.
And the proof of that is Titus. Paul would not have Titus circumcised
for that very reason. He would not give quarter to
this business of justification by man's works. Paul had Timothy
circumcised before anybody made an issue out of it, so that when
he went to preach to the Jews, it would never become an issue.
It would never be a wall that was put up, and they'd just go
ahead and listen to Timothy preach. And what was he going to preach?
Salvation in Christ alone. Timothy was going to preach salvation
through the obedience of Christ to the law, not by our obedience
to the law. Not because we went through any
of these ceremonies, but that we're free from the law in Christ. That's what Timothy was going
to preach. And they listened to him preach. Now, they came
and they told these Galatians, well, Paul, he taught us this. And apparently they believed
it. Now, people do the same thing today. If somebody tells you,
well, this old preacher or this old preacher, they say this,
they believe this. They're the one that taught me
this. If I was you, I wouldn't just believe them. I believe,
I'd check it out. And here's how I'd check it out. With all due respect to these
old preachers that we all know and love, it doesn't much matter
what they say. It really doesn't. What does
God's Word say? That's what matters. You find
out what God's Word says and you won't be deceived. You find
out what God's Word says and you won't stumble over Satan's
tripwire. But I'll tell you the second
thing, the first thing to do is check God's Word. Another
good idea, maybe if that old preacher is still living, it
might be wise to talk to him and find out if he really taught
them that. It could be a good idea. Kind
of personal, but for a number of years, it's surprising after
Brother Henry quit preaching, how many things people say he
preached. I heard him preach a lot. I never
heard him say that. And I went and asked him. I said, Brother Henry, in case
I sleep all those years, would you mind telling me? I think
it's a pretty good idea. And this is what, if they would
have asked, you know what Paul would have told them? What he's
telling them right here in verse 11. Paul said, now if I preach
what these fellows preach, why am I under attack? Why are they
attacking me if I preach the same thing they do? If I preach
the same thing that these fellows preach, why are the Jews constantly
trying to kill me and stoning me and beating me? Why am I suffering
all this persecution? If I preach that a sinner is
saved by something that he does, I'm under attack because I deny
man's works in salvation. I'm under attack because I preach
salvation is all in Christ crucified, in Christ alone. In other words,
I'm under attack because men are offended by the Christ of
the cross that I preach. That's why I'm under attack.
Now, men aren't offended. by the wooden symbol that they
hang up on walls, or the golden symbol of the cross, you know,
they wear around their neck. They're not offended by that.
Men are offended by the preaching of the cross. The preaching of
the cross declares what Christ accomplished on the cross, and
men are offended by that. Now, I want to give you four
or five things here. What is the offense of the cross?
Number one, men are offended that the cross says All men are
totally depraved. That offends man's dignity. And
when you look at the cross, you look at Calvary, the cross tells
us man is totally depraved in two ways. First of all, how man
treated Christ tells us how sinful we really are. At the cross,
men beat and they mocked and they tortured And they killed
in the most horrible way that they knew. A man that everybody
had to say was innocent. Man did that. Doesn't that show
you how awful we are? The cross declares our sin. Second,
the cross declares man's totally depraved in this way. How God
treated Christ. How man treated Christ and how
God treated Christ. Men beat the body. of our Lord
Jesus, God made His soul an offering for sin. God punished His soul. God turned His back on His Son,
forsook His Son when His Son was made to be sin for His people.
Now, if that's what it really takes to put away my sin, what
does that say about me? It says I'm totally depraved,
without any goodness. I'm ugly and defiled by sin. And that offends man's dignity
because we want to think we're better than that. But the cross
tells us otherwise. Secondly, men are offended because
the cross declares the only way salvation is possible is by the
death of Christ on the cross. He couldn't be stoned. He had
to be crucified. And that offends man's pride
because the cross declares we are totally dependent on Christ
to save. The cross declares that salvation
is only possible by the death of Christ on the cross in two
ways. First of all, because of who man is. Since man is totally
depraved, we've already seen that, that offends our dignity. Well, if we're totally depraved,
we cannot contribute anything to our salvation. We're dependent
on Christ, and that offends our pride. Second, the cross declares
the only way salvation is possible is by the death of Christ on
the cross because of who God is. Now, God's holy. He's just and He's good. Well,
God would never punish His Son. He'd never make His Son, His
soul, an offering for sin and allow Him to suffer so much and
die such a humiliating death if it were possible for man to
be saved any other way. than by the death of Christ on
the cross. If that were true, God would be a monster. But He's
not. He's holy and He's good. Who
God is declares salvation is only possible through the death
of Christ on the cross. And that offends man's pride.
Third, the cross declares that God is sovereign in salvation.
And that offends man's free will. The cross is not an act of man.
Now, I know men did all those wicked things, but the cross
is not an act of men. The cross was an act of God.
I know men did just exactly what they wanted to do, but after
they were finished, what did Peter tell them? He told them
all you did was accomplish the eternal purpose of God. God wrote
the scriptures thousands and hundreds of years before Christ
was crucified, and you fulfilled every one of them in the way
you put Christ to death. That just shows us what you did
was accomplish God's eternal purpose. This was an act of God. God's sovereign in salvation.
And to make sure we couldn't miss the point, when He was nailed
to the cross in the most physically helpless condition you ever saw
Him in, our Lord Jesus Christ showed all mankind He's sovereign
in salvation. He saved one of those two thieves
crucified with Him. Our Lord was numbered with the
transgressors, and he put the sin of that thief away. Passed
the other one by, but this one he saved. And that thief, based
upon the word of our Savior himself that day, entered into paradise
with our Lord, having done no good works. The only work he
could claim was the work of faith. He believed God, and that faith
was sovereignly given to him by the dying Savior. Even in
his dying agony, Christ was sovereign in salvation, and that offends
man's free will. Four, the cross declares that
there is full atonement for sin only by the death of Christ,
and that offends man's ability. You mean to tell me that I can't
do anything to make the death of Christ effectual for me? That
Christ did it all and I'm completely dependent on him? That's exactly
what the cross says, isn't it? If I'm going to be saved, I'm
going to have to receive the atonement, not earn it. Receive
it. Romans 5 11. Paul said this.
We also join God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom? We've received the atonement.
We didn't earn it. We received it. We are dependent
on him to give it to us, and that offends man's ability. Fifth,
the cross simply and clearly declares salvation is in Christ,
our substitute. And that offends man's wisdom.
You mean it's not more complicated than that? Nope, it's that simple. And that offends man's wisdom.
And then we hear that God wasn't playing at him, but that he was
serious, that Christ was made sin for his people and the Father
killed him for it. Well, I don't understand how
that can be. So I'm going to call that heresy because that
offends my wisdom. The simplicity of Christ being
made sin and me being made righteous in him is too simple. The problem
is not that man can understand it. The problem is it offends
their wisdom. And who cares? What did Paul
say in 1 Corinthians 1? What did he say about man's wisdom? Man's wisdom, no better than
foolishness. That's all it is. The cross, the simplicity of
salvation in the substitute, offends man's wisdom. And last,
the cross declares that salvation in its entirety is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. If you and I are going to be
saved, we're going to have to go to Christ outside the camp. That offends man's love of self.
Now that's a strong one, that we love ourselves. There was
a song, I remember, You've got to teach your children to love
themselves. No, you don't. We love ourselves just fine.
And this is what keeps us from coming to Christ. Love of self. We've got to go to Him outside
the camp. If you're going to be saved,
you're going to have to go to Christ. You're going to have to leave
self and go to Christ. You're going to have to leave
everything you love about yourself. And you're going to have to get
down in the dust and beg Christ for mercy. If you're going to
be saved, you're going to have to be united to this despised
Jesus of Nazareth. And that offends man's love of
self. That rich young ruler came to
our Lord, widely sorrowful. Love of self. He couldn't let
go of everything his flesh loved and come to Christ and depend
on Christ outside the camp. The cross declares that Christ
came to save sinners. Why are you offended? Now, if
you're a sinner, you're not. The only way we'd be offended
by that is if we don't think that we're sinners. Our nature
is offended by that message. But God sent his son to save
sinners. He died for sinners. God help
us to come to Christ and love that message and not be offended
by it. This is the only remedy. Why
would we be offended by it? Because our nature's foolishness,
that's why. But God's able. I know we're offended by it,
but just like God's able to keep His people, they'll stray off,
He's able to bring them back. He's able to save them, too,
give them a new nature that loves us. Not offended, too. All right.
Well, the Lord bless that.