Well, you should already know
my text. This afternoon, if you want to turn with me to Galatians
1, I would invite you to do so. Galatians, Chapter 1. Well, Bruce
read this entire chapter this morning, so I'm only going to
read a couple of verses. Now we'll perhaps deal with more
than these two verses, but the thrust of the message, I believe,
is found in verses six and seven of Galatians chapter one. I want
to tell you before we even begin what I've entitled the message
this afternoon, and I call it a perniciously anemic gospel. a perniciously anemic gospel. Look with me, if you would, now
here in Galatians 1, verses 6 and 7. Paul says, I marvel. That word marvel means I'm amazed,
I'm astounded, I'm shocked, almost beside myself. Paul says, I marvel
that you are so soon removed from him that called you into
the grace of unto another gospel, which is not another, that there
be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Well, again, I think it would
be well if we would pause and acknowledge how much we need
the Lord right now. And Bruce, would you mind praying
for me, brother? Lord, Gracious Father, we bow
again before you here this afternoon. We bless you for this great privilege
and honor, and we feel in our hearts necessity to hear again
this blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and His grace. We
come here, Father, knowing that when we were dead in sin, we
could not hear. You hear an ear and see an eye,
and you may go above. And we set you as believers.
You've given us grace to believe, and yet we find we still cannot
hear apart from your grace. As Brother Wayne preaches to
us this afternoon, O our Lord in heaven, give us ears to hear. Oh, praise the Lord. Clear his
mind and his thoughts. Give utterance to his lips. Oh,
God. Let us take these things of the
precious gospel fresh into our hearts. The most precious, the
most powerful thing between eternity. Nothing else to save us. Nothing
else to reveal you to our hearts. Give us this afternoon the blessing
of the Holy Spirit to teach us through your word. In our Lord
Jesus' name, amen. Now before we even begin here
this afternoon, I want to establish a fact that is an indisputable
fact. Some may try to dispute it. In
the end, they'll find that they weren't able. The Lord Jesus,
if you'll recall in Matthew chapter 16, was speaking to his disciples. He was teaching them. He was
questioning them. And some of you recall Jesus
asked the question, who do men say that I am? Well, there were
some, well, some say you're this prophet, some say you're this,
or whatever. But Jesus said, but who do you say that I am? Peter
answered, I believe primarily for himself, but I believe for
many of the rest of them as well, and said, you are the Christ,
the Son of the living God. The Christ, the Son of the living
God. Well, Jesus eventually went on to say, upon this rock, And
by that, I think he's not talking about Peter. He's talking about the confession
that Peter made, his declaration that Christ is the Son of the
living God. Upon this rock, Jesus said, I
will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail
against it. That's the undisputable fact.
that I wanted to make known here before we go on this afternoon.
Nothing can hinder Christ from accomplishing the purpose of
God. He's going to build His church in the process of doing
that, and nothing can keep Him from doing it. And when He completes
it, He's going to take it home. He's going to take us home. Well,
I want to share a couple of other things with you also before we
get into this. If you'll look back in Matthew
with me a little further to the 13th chapter of Matthew, I want
to read a few verses here that tell us something else that we
need to understand. We need to be aware of. I suspect
that many of us here this afternoon are already aware of this, but
I want you to look with me in Matthew 13. I want to read a
few verses from verse 24 down through verse 30. This is a parable
that we're probably most of us familiar with, but we need to
be reminded of what Christ is saying here. Another parable
put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened
unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. Now, that is a
reference to the gospel, isn't it? That's a reference to the
gospel. That's a reference to Christ.
But when men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the
wheat and went his way. And when the blade was sprung
up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the
servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, did not
you sow good seed in your field? From where then have these tares
come? Where did the tares come from? The man answered and said, An
enemy has done this. An enemy has done this. Do you hear that? An enemy has done this. The servants said unto him, Would
you then that we go and gather them up? And he said, No, nay,
lest while you gather up the tares you root up also the wheat
with them. Let both grow together until
the harvest. In the time of harvest, I will
say to the reapers, gather you together first the tares and
bind them in bundles to burn them. But gather the wheat into
my barn. Well, I want to share that with
you, because just as it is true that Christ is going to build
his church in the gates of hell, can't prevail against it and
will not, never could, never will. It is just as true, according
to what Christ teaches here, that we need to be aware of the
fact that all that outwardly might appear to be the church
is not necessarily all the church. And a lot of those that look
outwardly to be a part of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Excuse me. I'm glad I kept this up here. All of those that appear outwardly,
to be a part of the church, only God knows the truth about them. They can oftentimes do a good
job of deceiving us and most often have already deceived themselves,
already misled. But I wanted to point that out
because I think it's not difficult for most of us here this afternoon,
those of us who are believers, those of us who know what the
church is and what the gospel is, If you ever go and visit
any other church somewhere or something, you know, you can
go away wondering, you know, surely something's missing here.
Something's missing here. Well, there's a reason for it.
There's a reason for it. I also wanted to call your attention
to a verse over here in Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12 and
verse 32. And this for the simple reason
that I just want you to see what it is that Jesus calls His church
here in this verse. He says in verse 32 of Luke chapter
12, Fear not, little flock, little flock, for it is your Father's
good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Now then, I'm not intimating
here at all that some of these big churches out here are not
really churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not my place, you
know, to make that judgment in every case, at least. But the
fact of the matter is, and I think it's proven down through the
ages and throughout history, that by and large, the Lord's
people are a small group in comparison. A small group in comparison.
He calls them here a little flock. which calls our attention to
the fact that Jesus looks upon his people, this little flock,
just like a shepherd has got to look at sheep. Now then, any
of us that know anything at all about sheep, and my experience
and my knowledge of sheep is second hand because I've never
raised any, some of you perhaps have, but sheep are not often
looked upon as the brightest animals on the face of the earth.
They require a shepherd. They require somebody watching
after them, looking over them, guarding them and protecting
them, actually leading them, going before them, because if
somebody doesn't do that, they're going to wander off. We sang
a hymn this morning that I love, Prone to Wander. Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Well, that's the way sheep are.
And that, whether we like to admit it or not, is the way we
as His sheep are. We are prone to wander. prone
to leave the God we love. We're a little flock. We're just
poor sheep needing a shepherd. Well, now turn over to the book
of Acts for just a moment, would you? Chapter 20. Acts chapter
20. Now we learn here in Acts chapter
20 that Paul was actually in Miletus and he didn't want to
take the time or whatever the Spirit of God wouldn't enable
him and allow him to go to Ephesus, but he wanted to talk to those
folks there. And so he called for the elders at the church
at Ephesus to come over to him because he had some things he
wanted to share with them. And that's what I wanted to point
out to you here in Acts chapter 20, beginning with verse 28,
where he says to these elders after they had come at his request,
he said, take heed, therefore, Unto yourselves, and by the way,
let me just point out something he said in verse 27. He tells
them, I've not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. What was he doing there? Reminding
them that it was the gospel that he preached to them. The gospel. The gospel that he taught them.
And then he said to them, take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers,
and feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own
blood. For I know this, that after my
departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing
the flock. Also of your own selves shall
men arise speaking perverse things." to draw away disciples after
them. Brethren, what I want to tell
you here is it has happened. Happening all around us, isn't
it? Happening all throughout the land. happening all throughout
the world. Grievous woes have entered in. Tears have been sown in the midst
of the wheat. Some of those tears have grown
up right in the midst of the wheat and have begun to teach
and declare some perverse things. Some perverse things. Well, having
said that, let me begin the message by saying I don't believe that
there is any greater or worse disease that can grip the life
and the vitality of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ than
that which the Apostle Paul warned the church of in our text. Right here in Galatians chapter
1. What do you call it? Another
gospel. Another gospel. Well, I'm calling
this, that Paul called another gospel this afternoon, a perniciously
anemic gospel. And I believe that if we can
come to understand what this perniciously anemic gospel, this
other gospel that Paul talks about is, we'll realize that
nearly all of the spiritual weaknesses that we find in the church today
can be traced to this source right here. A perniciously anemic
gospel. I was thinking back the other
day trying to remember just when this began to take place, when
I began to notice it and my dad himself began to notice it. But
Bruce, my dad was a worker. Oh, he was a worker. Strong,
a little bit proud of the fact that he was. And I can recall,
even as a kid growing up, going to work with him, we'd be building
a house somewhere or something, and they'd be putting sheeting
on the roof. And my dad was always competitive. He always wanted
to race. And so they'd get a couple of them up at the ridge up there,
and after they tacked all this sheeting in place, and then they'd
start nailing, going down it. And my dad prided himself in
being able to beat everybody he had working for him. When
he was a younger man, before I came along, and he didn't tell
me this, but others told me this, he had a job of pouring these
concrete dips, these low water bridges out on the gravel roads,
the dirt roads there in Missouri. And most often they do this in
the hottest time of the year. And they didn't have ready mix
back then. And he'd wheel his old concrete
cement mixer out there behind his truck, and they'd have their
pile of gravel and their sand and their cement. And my dad
would put all the rest of them into the shade, shoveling gravel.
That's the kind of worker he was. The kind of worker he was.
But I'll never forget, and it was probably 30, 35 years before
my dad passed away, that his strength began to very slowly
disappear. And I'll never forget one evening,
standing there in the living room in our house as a teenager,
watching my dad come out of the door of his shop out here and
walk across the yard to come into the house. He could barely
put one foot in front of the other. It's almost like he had
a hundred pound weight on each of his feet. He'd gotten that
bad. I finally talked him into going
to the doctor. The doctor, after he examined
dad and did all these tests on him, said, I'm amazed. I don't
know how you ever walked into the hospital in your own power.
That's the kind of man my dad was. But my dad was diagnosed with
what the doctors called, in layman's terms, pernicious anemia. Now, I'm sure it's got some big
name. Some of you might know what that is, but it has to do
with the fact that his body was no longer drawing from the food
he ate, the iron that it needed. And his blood was just getting
thin, and he was getting weak, and he got in terrible shape. Well, it was easy to remedy. that he take a B-12 or an iron
shot or whatever it was, whenever he started to feel weak, just
give himself a shot. And he did that and he was fine. Almost
kind of like what Christians need in this matter of rediscovering
the power of the gospel. We lose sight of that and what
happens to us? We grow weak. We grow weak. Well,
let's define some terms here for just a minute, just in case
somebody didn't know what we're talking about when we talk about
a perniciously anemic gospel. We often use that word anemic
today, don't we? And we almost always think of
it in relation to something missing in the blood. But the word anemic
itself literally means lacking in vigor, lacking in strength,
lacking in power, without spirit. Isn't that interesting? The word
pernicious simply means destructive. So a perniciously anemic gospel
is quite simply a destructive gospel that is without the power
of the Spirit. That's a perniciously anemic
gospel. Let me, if I could, read to you, and I just copied this
out of my Amplified. I want to read these two verses
out of the Amplified translation. Listen to what it says. I am
surprised and astonished that you are so quickly turning renegade
and deserting him who invited and called you by the grace,
unmerited favor of Christ the Messiah, and that you are transferring
your allegiance to a different, even an opposition gospel. Not that there is or could be
any other genuine gospel. But there are obviously some
who are troubling and disturbing and bewildering you with a different
kind of teaching which they offer as a gospel and want to pervert
and distort the gospel of Christ the Messiah into something which
it absolutely is not. Is it any wonder then that Paul
wrote The churches in Galatia of the great danger of this,
what he called another gospel, what I'm calling this afternoon
a perniciously anemic gospel, a destructive gospel that is
void of the power of God's Spirit. Let me just say this, if the
church, and I include myself and you, When I say this, if
the church neglects the biblical gospel of God's free and sovereign
saving grace in Christ, they will undoubtedly not only allow,
but to their own hurt, find themselves embracing what Paul called another
gospel. It's happened. It's happened
all around us. which Paul said is not really
another gospel, but rather a perversion of the true gospel, which, as
we saw this morning, is the only power of God unto salvation. The only power of God unto salvation. Well, from the very beginning,
there have been other gospels. Not real gospels, as Paul says
here, but there have been others that have been proposed and proclaimed
spoken of as gospel. Gospel. Isn't it sad how that
word has been abused? I mean, things like Aunt Martha
makes the best apple pie that you'll ever find, and that's
the gospel truth. Nonsense. She may make the best apple pie,
but the gospel got nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with
it. Oh, how the gospel has been distorted
and perverted and twisted and turned and changed. and abused,
and because of it, ignored and forgotten. There have always
been these other Gospels. But all of these other Gospels,
whatever form they might have appeared in, they have all left
their hearers ignorant of the fundamental truths and elements
that lie at the very heart of God's good news to sinners. All of it. Only the biblical
gospel, only this gospel that Paul preached, the biblical gospel,
deals with the justice and the holiness of God in contrast with
the radical depravity of sinful man's heart. Only the gospel
of God's grace does that. Romans 3.23 that we looked at
this morning so clearly says, all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. We said that was the sinless
perfection of God. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And any message that does not
have at its very core these two great truths, the holiness of
God and the sinfulness of man, it's not the biblical gospel. Oh, how we need to realize this.
Didn't Peter quote the book of Leviticus? Peter? And didn't
he say, Be holy, for the Lord your God is holy. The Lord Jesus
Himself in Matthew 5 said, Be ye therefore perfect, even as
your Father in heaven is perfect. Now those words do not come to
us in the form of Do it if you want to. They're
not optional. Be holy! The Lord your God is
holy. We're not. Be perfect as your
Father in Heaven is perfect. We're not. And the reason being
is because, as Paul said, we looked at it this morning, as
by one man, sin entered into the world, and death was in.
So death and sin have got a hold of all of us. And the sad thing about that
is, is the Scripture very clearly tells us, for instance, in Hebrews
12, verse 14, without holiness, we're not any of us going to
ever see the Lord. Never. Never. Without the sinless perfection
that we as sinners fall short of, we're never going to see
the Lord. Oh, dear friends, Only the biblical
gospel makes clear to us both the holiness and the justice
of God and what a contrast there is, how far short of that we
as sinners fall. And if we don't see that, we'll
never really see a need for a Savior. You know, these other gospels
would encourage us to compare ourselves to one another, Bruce.
And I may look at Bruce and say, boy, I'm falling short here. But then I may look at somebody
else and say, I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good. Oh, I don't want to tell you
what, folks. If you ever see Him, if you ever
see the Lord of glory, if you ever see the God of sinless perfection,
your heart will break. You'll see yourself for what
you are. Remember what Isaiah said in Isaiah 6? In the year
that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord high and lifted
up, and His train, His glory filled the temple. He described
these seraphim, these angelic creatures that were about the
throne of God crying out day and night, Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord of hosts. Oh, remember what Isaiah said
when he saw the Lord in His holiness? Woe is me. I'm undone. I'm lost. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts, the God of glory." Oh, only the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace makes known to us that one that we
fall short of, and how far short we fall, and how desperate is
our need because Only the biblical gospel makes known the absolute
necessity of the shedding of blood in the substitutionary
atonement. Only the gospel of God does that. Oh, Bruce, there are hymnals
that have taken out all the references to the blood. To the blood. I don't want to sing about the
blood of God. It covers sin. I'm going to sing
about the blood of God that paid the price for this poor sinner,
this poor man. Oh, but only the biblical gospel
makes known the absolute necessity of the shedding of blood. You
remember what the writer in Hebrews said, without the shedding of blood there is
no remission of sin, no remission. Only God's good news reveals
the nature of true conversion, true conversion. You know, these other Gospels
would lead us to believe all you've got to do is just turn
over a new leaf. All you've got to do is just polish up your
act a little bit here. I'll never forget Brother John
Mitchell. On the very day that our church was established as
a church, he and Brother Daniel Parks preached for us. And John preached a message on
the need for the new birth. There was a young man, a young
boy there in the congregation that day that was, his heart
was gripped by that, gripped by that. And he went to his mom
and he said, Mom, I don't have a new heart. She said, Son, you
don't need a new heart. All you got to do is just work
on the one you got. Only the gospel of God's grace
makes known to us the nature of true conversion and how necessary
it is. Jesus said, except you be converted,
you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Oh, but if any man
be in Christ, he's a new creation. All things are passed away, and
behold, all things are become new. You know what that is? That's
being changed, and that's radical change. That's another word we
looked at last Wednesday night in our Word study, conversion,
what it means. It's a radical change, a radical
change. Only the biblical gospel gives
biblical assurance of life and salvation from sin with all of
its consequences. John 3, verse 14 and 15. And
what Jesus said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes
in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. John 6,
47 says, if you believe on Christ, you have life. Acts 16, 31, we talked about
that already today, the Philippian jailer. What have I got to do
to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved. Oh, we could turn to Romans 10. So clear there. We'll not take
time now. Verses 8 through 13. But in all these passages of
Scripture that give us assurance of the promise of God being a
guarantee to us if we only believe on Christ. In none of those passages Do we see anything about obeying
four spiritual laws? I remember seeing a tract years
ago. Four spiritual laws. Just follow these things and
all will be right between you and the Lord. Then there was
the other one called the Roman Road. The Roman Road. Taking you through a few verses,
you know, in the book of Romans, which is not necessarily bad.
But the idea was all you've got to do is just follow these verses
through there and you'll be on your way to heaven. I'll never
forget, somebody once said, I don't remember who it was, said that
the Roman road at best leads to Rome. At best. Nowhere in these verses do we
ever find one of the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ or Christ
himself saying all you've got to do is just say the sinner's
prayer. Just lift up your hand back there
in the congregation, you know, when the preacher asks you, do
you want to be saved? Just lift up your hand. Get up and walk
down that aisle and come to the front here and pray this prayer
after me. Oh, it's so simple. All you've
got to do is just ask Jesus into your heart. But Bruce, you ever
hear things like that from the gospel that God gives us? That's
false assurance! False assurance! What's the gospel
say? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved. Only the gospel of God's free
grace gives us real biblical assurance. All these and many other crucial
truths are missing in the message that's heard in far too many
pulpits today. And the reason for that I fear,
is that men have embraced a perniciously anemic gospel. And what did Paul say is going
to happen to those who preach it? Oh, if we'd have gone on
and read a little further there, verses 8 and 9, I believe it
is, in Galatians 1, he said, let them be accursed. You know what that literally
means? To be accursed? devoted to destruction. Let them be devoted to destruction. They're further hardened by their
having been given a false assurance that can keep them from ever
really listening to the true gospel of God's saving grace. Secondly, it reduces what we
view as the church. from a spiritual body of regenerated
believers to nothing more than a gathering of carnal, fleshly,
sinful men who profess to know God, whose lives give absolutely
no evidence of it. And churches are full of them
today. Oh, in many of these so-called
churches, there's a lot more tares than there are wheat, Bruce.
A lot more tares than there are wheat. Oh, how we can only pray
that God in His rich grace has still got His little flock somewhere. Paul spoke about these men who
preach such an anemic gospel in more than one place. But Paul
spoke of them in Titus, if you'd like to look with me, in chapter
1, verse 16. These men who preach this other
gospel. This perniciously anemic gospel.
Verse 16 of Titus 1, Paul says, They profess that they know God,
but in works they deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and
unto every good work reprobate. False. Counterfeit. Anything
but the truth. Anything but the real thing.
Jude speaks of them as well in his letter. Jude, verse 4. For there are certain men crept
in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Look
at verses 12 and 13. These are spots in your feasts
of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without
fear. Clouds they are without water.
carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withers without fruit,
twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea,
foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved
the blackness of darkness forever." And then verse 19, "...these
be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit."
They're just as anemic as the gospel they preach. Without any
life, without any power, without any real vigor, without the Spirit
of God. Without the Spirit of God. Oh,
how I pray that God would impress this upon our hearts. Thirdly,
the preaching of such a perniciously anemic gospel, it removes the
burden of biblical Evangelism. Evangelism means something totally
different today than it did when the Scripture was written. Something
totally different. We think of evangelism today,
we think of somebody going and holding some services for a week
or two and maybe out under a tent or in a big coliseum somewhere
or down at the field house or whatever there, you know, that's
evangelism. Well, it might be and it might not be. It just
depends on what's going on when they get there, doesn't it? I want to tell you what, let
me just share with you what the burden of biblical evangelism
sounds like. Paul said this in Romans 9, I
say the truth in Christ and I lie not. My conscience also bearing
me witness in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself
were accursed from Christ. for my brethren, my kinsmen,
according to the flesh. Now, that's a burden. That's
an evangelistic burden right there. Verse 1 of chapter 10,
he says, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for
Israel is that they might be saved. They might be saved. Oh, but this perniciously anemic
gospel removes that burden. Removes that burden. And the
proclamation of glad tidings is seldom, if ever, there. Seldom, if ever, there. And that's
what the evangelist is. It's glad tidings. Oh, if we
were to read Paul's instruction to Timothy there in 2 Timothy
4, he told him, preach the word. Preach the word. Verse 5, he
said, do the work of an evangelist. That's preach the gospel, folks.
That's preaching the gospel, the evangel. That's what an evangelist
does. Oh, but the perniciously anemic
gospel that we're talking about here, that other gospel Paul
talked about, it replaces that burden, the true evangelistic
burden, with a desire equipped with nothing more than humanistic
endeavor and worldly methods. Several years ago, and I believe
as a direct result of a perniciously anemic gospel, churches began
to think they had to build a gymnasium. to reach people for Christ. Isn't that sad? I used to have cabinet
business. I did cabinets for some folks
that went to a great big church over in Brownsburg. The church
has been built. Huge thing. Huge thing. And one
day we were talking with them and they were talking to myself. It might have been Justin or
maybe one of the other guys that worked with me. We were installing
their cabinets And they told me, they said, now you know that
big building we've got over there, that's not really our sanctuary.
We haven't built that yet. That's our performing arts center.
I want to tell you folks, never
been a soul saved because of a gymnasium. Never been a soul
saved because of a performing arts center. Every soul that's
ever been saved, been saved by the power of the gospel. Power
of the gospel. Such a false and impotent gospel
like we're talking about leaves sinners in their sin and under
the condemnation of that holy sin-hating God we talked about
earlier. You don't believe in Christ,
you're already condemned, Jesus said. You don't believe in me,
you're already condemned. Worst of all, a perniciously
anemic gospel It brings reproach upon the name of God Himself. And the reason is because He's
not glorified. Not glorified. Everything we do should be to
the glory of God. Isn't that what Paul said? Isn't
that what he taught? Whether you eat or whether you drink
or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. If that's true,
then surely when it comes to the message we preach, God should
get all the glory for it. All the honor, all the glory.
Oh, but this perniciously anemic gospel doesn't give God the glory. The church isn't built up by
it. Oh, we may eat some tares at
it, but not wheat. The unconverted are not saved,
and the church has little, if any, witness in regard to the
glorious gospel of our blessed God, as Paul calls it, because
it's been replaced with another gospel. One that doesn't have
any glory in it at all. None at all. Not for God. Oh,
there may be a lot of glory in it for the preacher. May get
a feather in his cap. But God is disgraced. God is
dishonored. The gospel of God's grace is
replaced with a perniciously anemic one or a destructive one
without the power of God's Spirit. Oh, may we as God's people be
always confronted with God's Word that will enable us to keep
the gospel before us always in memory. We will not take time
that we could go to Peter's writing in 2 Peter several times throughout
his writing. He says, folks, I say this by
way of making you remember. I want you to remember. I want
you to remember this. Remember this. Oh, dear friend,
we must not forget. And if we have, as we said this
morning, we've got to rediscover the Gospel and its power. It's
so important. So important. Let me read you
this passage of Galatians 1. Paul said, I marvel that you
are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace
of Christ unto another gospel. Which is not another, but there
be some that would trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ. But though we are an angel from heaven, preach
any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto
you. Let him be accursed or devoted to destruction, as we said before.
So say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto
you than that which you have received, let him be accursed. What we are facing today is nothing
new. It's nothing new. Not a new problem. I read where Spurgeon once said,
in these days, and he's talking about his own. He said, in these
days, I feel bound to go over the elementary truths of the
gospel repeatedly. In peaceful times, we may feel
free to make excursions into interesting districts of truth
which lie far afield, but now we must stay at home. and guard
the hearts and homes of the church by defending the first principles
of the faith. In this age there have risen
up in the church itself men who speak perverse things. There
be many that trouble us with their philosophies and novel
interpretations whereby they deny the doctrines they profess
to teach and undermine the faith they are pledged to maintain.
It is well that some of us who know what we believe and have
no secret meaning for our words, should just put our foot down
and maintain our standing, holding forth the word of life, and plainly
declaring the foundation truths of the gospel of Christ. The
foundation truths. Oh, if we've forgotten what those
are. If we've forgotten, then we need to rediscover the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace. The gospel Paul preached. the
gospel we preached. We got to guard against any other
gospel. We need to learn to recognize
a perniciously anemic gospel for what it really is, a destructive
gospel. It is void of life and the power
of God's Spirit. And the reason is primarily for
God's glory. But dear folks, the gospel has
got to be known before it can be made known. And we have a
commission. We have a commission from the
Lord himself. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. Are we doing it? Are we prepared? Do we know it? Oh, I pray that
we are. You remember Paul told Timothy
in 2 Timothy 3, he said, Timothy, from a young man, from a child,
you've known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise
unto salvation. That could be said of many of
us. I grew up, I don't remember, I don't remember a time when
my folks didn't take me to church, Prince. I'm a kid. I went to every Sunday school
service, every church service, every Bible school in the summer,
everything there was, church did. I was there. I heard these
things in a fashion. These things that are able to
make you wise and be salvation. Oh, but to my own shame and disgrace,
somewhere along the way, I forgot. I forgot. Had to be reminded. And that's exactly what the Apostle
Paul was doing there in our text for Stony, wasn't he? Reminding
us. Moreover, brethren, let me remind
you. Let me remind you of the Gospel
that I preached unto you. Because any other Gospel is a
perniciously anemic Gospel void of the power of God. It won't
save anybody. It won't save anybody. It won't bring any glory to God.
Only disgrace. Oh, that God would speak to our
hearts and convince us of how desperate is the need in the
church today. The true church. Though we may
have some tears in our midst, that the true church would get
a good grip on the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace
and cling to it. Refuse to let it go. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank
you. Thank you for the time you've
given us today. Time to consider things that we believe are very
important for us to know and understand. Lord, would you make
them real to us. Convince us, convict us, correct
us, reprove us. Whatever you need to do, Lord,
bring us to our knees before you. Open our hearts. Oh God, restore unto us an awareness of that gospel by
which we are saved, in which we stand, in which we must live
our lives. And give us discernment to recognize
anything that falls short of that. in Jesus' name, Amen.