As you turn in your Bibles to
Galatians chapter 5, Don sends his best wishes to all, he and
Shelby. Very good. Galatians chapter
5 is remarkable. remarkable passage of scripture. And as I've said so often, if
the religious world could just be granted eyes to see what this
says, then mission organisations, denominations, Bible colleges,
so much of the machinery of religion would be shut down the world
would be better for it. It's a reminder again of how
sovereign grace and sovereign revelation is the only thing,
the only thing that can teach God's people the truth. They
must be taught of God. They must be taught of God. Paul has encouraged the believers
to stand fast. And then he says in verse 11,
And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer
persecution? Then is the offence, then is
the offence of the cross ceased. Then is the stumbling block of
the cross, the scandal of the cross ceased. And in verse 12
he says, I would that they were even cut off which trouble you. In fact, it's strong language.
He's saying, I wish they would castrate themselves while they're
in the act of circumcision. Paul is wishing that the knife
would slip. I wish that they were even cut
off which trouble you, which disturb you, which pervert the
gospel before you. We spoke a couple of weeks ago
about the offence of the Gospel. Today I wanted to look at the
offence of the cross and to look at the offence that the Lord
Jesus calls people. And His apostles and His prophets
and His preachers have all trodden those same paths. It is in so many ways what we
have before us in the scriptures and before us in the religious
world when we interact with them. We have this constant revelation
before us. of those who are born of the
Spirit, and those who are purely natural. And the Galatian false
teachers, as do the Pharisees in the Scriptures, and so many
of the others throughout time, show us again and again how far
you can go in religion. how highly esteemed you can be
in religion, how you can have multitudes hanging on your every
word, multitudes admiring and applauding the things that you
do, and you can be completely lost, completely lost. Paul speaks of his ministry in
2 Corinthians 4. He says, Therefore seeing we
have this ministry, he has been made a minister by the Lord. As we have received mercy, we
faint not, but we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness, not handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience, and note the next phrase, in the sight of
God. Paul lived and ministered as
if he were in the sight of God. But if our Gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost, in her the God of this world
has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, And ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. And then verse 6 is a remarkable
verse, isn't it? For God, for God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ." Isn't it remarkable that a man with that testimony
A man with that testimony could be opposed so vehemently by these
false teachers in the churches of Galatia and wherever he went. If you go read on to verse 7,
he says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency
of the power may be of God and not of us. Just a vessel, just a vessel
of dirt, so it seems to the world. But in that vessel of dirt, is the treasure, the only treasure,
the only treasure that can save men's souls for eternity. I keep praying that God would
continue to humble us and continue to cause His people to walk and
to work out their salvation with fear and trembling as they witness
these realities that Paul experienced in these churches of Galatia.
We witness these realities day by day by day. They become part of the living
testimony of God's Church throughout time. Again, you know, we have
just read of our God reigning, that we live in this world where
people are caught up and distracted in so many things. There is one
big issue going on in this world. There is just one big issue that
matters most to all people, and that is the Gospel. That is the
Lord Jesus Christ. There is that one big battle
going on. Satan's forces are focused on
that with all their concentrated enmity against God and His people. It's always if the Lord will
enable us to keep our priorities in the right and proper place. Which is why Paul can say such
strong things, can't he? Those that trouble them. In chapter
1 he says Let them be accursed. Let them be accursed, these false
teachers, these bewitching teachers, these teachers that come looking
very much like Paul and the apostles, these teachers that come talking
about a Jesus, these teachers that come saying that you need
to add something to the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ
to be saved. The cross and the gospel is an offence. It's a strong
word, isn't it? You have been offended. We all,
as James says, in many things we offend all. Every single one
of us here has been the cause of offence, and all of us have
been offended. We feel as if we're wronged,
we've been mistreated, we feel as if our rights have been violated. It's a strong, strong feeling
to be offended. But as I said, the word can also
mean stumbling block. that people come to a place and
they say, I cannot go down that road any further with you. I don't like where that leads. I don't like the implications
of what that says. I don't like what that means.
I don't like what it will cost. And the way, as Galatians 5.11
says, the way to avoid the cost is to preach circumcision, to
preach works. Of course, the cross of the Lord
Jesus, Him crucified, is the greatest scandal the world has
ever known. What a scandal. It's remarkable
the descriptions of him in the scriptures, aren't they? He was
holy, harmless and undefiled. What a remarkable description
of him. Harmless. I've harmed many. But he was harnessed, and yet
he was nailed to a cross. Why was he there? Why did he
die? There is, there is just one reason
for death. There is just one reason for
death, and that is sin. There is no other reason for
death but sin. I love how Peter describes him.
He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. It means that he
carried them. It means that they are laid on
him. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. It doesn't say he bore the guilt
of our sin. It doesn't say, as so many modern
people in our world, our part of the world, saying he just
bore the consequences of our sin, or the shame of our sin,
or the guilt of our sin. He bore our sins. He was made sin. He bore the sin itself of all
of God's children. it was on Him. That's why He
died. No wonder the cross is scandalous. But the results of the work of
the cross are equally scandalous, aren't they? There are in many
parts of the world debates over what 2 Corinthians 5.21 means. It means what it says, brothers
and sisters. For He has made Him sin for us
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. There are people in this room
who are the very righteousness of God, and they were made the
very righteousness of God thousands of years ago. And what God does,
He does perfectly, and what God does, He does forever. Not only is Him being nailed
to a cross and made sin scandalous, but the effects of it in the
lives of His people is a scandal to the world. Fancy, fancy sinners
like us being declared by God to be the very righteousness
of God. He accomplished something at
his death. So much of the modern religious
world wants to parade his activities as if he tried to do something,
as if somehow he made salvation possible, he opened a door, he
had that Christmas present that we used to see every year, had
it there wrapped up, this beautiful present wrapped up, and wouldn't
it be a tragedy What a shocking tragedy is that after Christmas
there was one present unopened. One present unopened because
you didn't do your little bit. When Moses and Elijah met him
on the Mount of Transfiguration, they talked about the death that
he should accomplish at Jerusalem. What did he accomplish? Colossians
is beautiful in its simplicity, isn't it? And having, verse 20
in chapter 1, and having made peace through the blood of his
cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him I
say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and
you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through
death." He's done it with a purpose, isn't it? What's the purpose?
Just read it. To present you holy and unblameable
and unapprovable in His sight. That's what He's done. He saved
his people. He doesn't make them savable.
He's perfected forever them that are sanctified. When he cried
out, it is finished. For everyone he died for, it
is finished. Salvation is finished. And the religious world challenges
and says, well, do you say Do you mean to say that when he
said it was finished, salvation was finished, and you don't have
anything to do with it? Your works don't contribute anything. It was done before you were born. The Colossians were in Greece. Then Paul wrote that to them. Thousands of kilometres away. wholly, unblameable, unreprovable
in His sight. We have so many images and pictures
presented to us by the religious world of a Lord Jesus Christ
who is in need of our pity, in need of our sympathy, He doesn't
ask for it and he doesn't want it. What did he say as he walked
bearing that cross through the streets of Jerusalem and the
daughters of Jerusalem were weeping? And he says, don't weep for me,
don't weep for him, weep for yourselves because There was
something much, much bigger going on than the activities of man
in the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. See it wasn't man, it wasn't
wicked men who put him to death. It was his father who put him
to death. Not only is what he does for
his people scandalous, but how it's done is scandalous to the
thinking of natural man and scandalous to the thinking of natural man
in religion. There's no doubt that men's hands
are wicked. In Acts 2.23, it says, him being
delivered over by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. There's no doubt that there were
wicked hands of men involved, but the wicked hands of men were
acting according to the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of
God. Over in Acts 4, verse 28, Torah of a truth, verse 27, thy
holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, this is the prayer
of the saints of God, this is the prayer of the apostles after
their bout of persecution in the early days of the church,
whom he has anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles
and the people of Israel were gathered together All of that
activity, all of that collection of evil at every level of humanity,
at humanity's justice and humanity's power, humanity's religion, all
exposed. But what was happening? For to
do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined
before to be done." You will never understand the cross. People
will never understand the cross until they see the transaction
between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. If all they ever see is bleeding
wounds and cruel men and miss out on seeing God, they'll never
understand it. It's scandalous to them, isn't
it? It's a stumbling block to them. And you remove the stumbling
block, you remove the stumbling block in a really simple way,
don't you? You remove the stumbling block
by giving man something to do. some little thing to do. The Galatian false teachers are
the same as the ones that are spoken of in Acts chapter 15.
We'll just turn over there for a second to make sure that we
clearly again see the context. In Acts chapter 15 verse 1, and
certain men which came down from Judea, from Jerusalem, from James,
Paul would say, taught the brethren and said, except ye be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. I love the response of Paul and
Barnabas in the next verse. Therefore, when therefore Paul
and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, The
reality is, brothers and sisters, as Christians there are some
things which are worth fighting for. There are some things which
demand our serious attention and demand us not standing by
and allowing it to go unchallenged. There is, as David said, there
is a cause If you go down to verse 5 you'll see, but there
rose up a certain sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying
that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep
the law of Moses. So circumcision in a sense was
an initiation rite into the whole law. But isn't it interesting,
the circumcision is the easiest command in all the law to keep,
isn't it? For most men, it's an activity
that's done way beyond our knowledge of it. For the Jews, eight days
old. For children in the Western world,
about a similar age or even younger. Whether it hurts or not, I have
absolutely no idea. All I know is that for men, they've
completely forgotten about it. And for men who are older, as
all the Jews that were the whole Jewish generation, the Israelite
generation, that were born in the desert, were not circumcised
until they crossed the Jordan. Then they were circumcised and
they had to spend a few days healing. But it's all over. And it's all done. It's remarkable,
isn't it? Done, finished. How much easier
is that to keep than not ever telling a lie? Not ever coveting? Legalists always, they're always Always find the laws that are
the ones that suit the most. So many of them have scrobbled
and argued about Sabbath. Sabbath is a relatively easy
law to keep in your flesh. It's impossible to keep. outside
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that ever kept it. But
in terms of what you do before meeting, you turn up at church
in the morning, you go home and sit quietly away from everyone's
sight and you turn up at church in the afternoon or the evening
and you go home and quietly go to bed and people say, well he's
had a restful day. And you can see what the statements
of faith talk about those people who give themselves to holy contemplation
all day. How do you know that it's going
on at all? Don't commit adultery. Don't
have a lustful thought. Don't have one angry thought. All of a sudden the law becomes
a different matter. I love what Clive Quirk said,
I think it was in our bulletin last week. He says, I can jump
over a barn if I'm allowed to make the barn. All the legalists
I've ever met are particularly focused on ones that they are
keeping. Always. Why not? They love to parade the sort
of legalism that they can keep before you. And we've got to
remember that in our world where deception is increasing and abounding,
we've actually got a whole bunch of new evangelical law that's
been added to the law of Moses, haven't we? Quiet time. Quiet
time. It's a lovely word, isn't it?
And it's a wonderful thing to do. But how often is it used
to flog people? Evangelism is a glorious thing. When God gives us opportunity
to witness to the Lord Jesus, our hearts are aflutter with
excitement. And then it becomes something
that people are flogged about. Missions and others, you could
name the rest of them. All the law keeping is saying
again and again is this, some act of obedience on your part
is needful. Some act of obedience on your
part matters. Some act of obedience on your
part alongside of the work of the Lord Jesus is necessary to
be saved. The cross is offensive. Offensive to natural man, which
is why natural man, to solve the offence, has created a gospel. A gospel ultimately that offends
as few people as possible and allows them to be esteemed as
men as much as possible. That's the offence of the cross
to natural man. Nothing can be added. The offence
of the cross to natural man is that God's children will not
compromise and they will not cooperate where there is a denial
of the fundamental things of the cross. So when the offence
is removed, the message is removed altogether. And the words of scripture become
almost meaningless. So often, so often the preaching
that I've witnessed even at that funeral service a couple of weeks
ago, there's so much of what he said was sweet and nice and
every single person in there, even the avowed pagan that I
was standing next to, everyone can smile sweetly. all can feel
at ease. She was a wonderful, wonderful
woman, and she did wonderful good works, and God's honouring
her for them, and the natural men there think, well I'm pretty
good too, thank you very much. I'm nowhere near as bad as that
Adolf Hitler. I'm nowhere near as bad as some
of those other religious people. I'm not like ISIS, I'm not like
those Muslims. like an all-smiles sweetly to
themselves. The offense is gone. May God
help us not to be offensive in our attitudes, in our behavior,
and not to be offensive in our personalities, and not
to be offensive Even in our thoughts towards those for whom we don't
know what the Lord is doing in their hearts. Saul is a great
example to us. We stand up for the truth of
the Gospel and we wait expectantly that someone like him, having
heard the preaching of Stephen and then being party to killing
him, is then converted sometime later. We don't know what our
brothers and sisters look like in this world. But as much as
I don't want to be offensive, the woe is to the preacher who
preaches a message which offends no one. If you preach a message
which offends no one, you haven't preached the Gospel. That's just
the truth of the matter. I remember hearing a story of
one of the old fellows, long gone, and he'd left the pulpit. Everyone came up to him and said,
oh, that was just a wonderful message, and it just warmed our
hearts. No one was offended, and he said,
that's really sad, there was another wasted opportunity. If there is no offence, there
is no saving power in the Gospel. As Paul says in Galatians 1.10,
for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. That is one of those verses that
has given me, who is a naturally sort of timid,
cowardly, wanting to please men person, It's a verse that gives
me great pause for thought, isn't it? For if I yet pleased men,
I should not be the servant of Christ. It appears to me that
as we serve the Lord more and more, the concern about that
verse seems to fade away. But I would like to look this
morning at some of the Lord Jesus' confrontations with those who
He offended. In Matthew 15, He spoke of the
religion of the men of this world, the accepted, the respected,
the esteemed religion of His day. He says, he calls it in
Matthew 15, a transgression of the commandments of God. They
have traditions, but they are transgressions of the commandments
of God. And he goes on to explain why,
and in verse 7 he says, You're hypocrites. You have made, in
verse 6, you have made the commandment of God of none effect by your
tradition. You hypocrites. Well did as I
prophesy of you, saying, this people draws nigh unto me with
their mouth and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart
is far from me. and he says their religion is
vanity, but in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men. And he called the multitude and
said unto them, Hear and understand, not that which goes into the
mouth defiles a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth,
this defileth a man. Then came his disciples and said
unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended when
they heard this saying? And he answered and said, Every
plant which my Heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted
up What's his advice to the multitude regarding the Pharisees and their
religion? Verse 14, let them alone, leave
them alone. They be blind leaders of the
blind, and if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into
the ditch. leave them alone. The Lord Jesus offended people. He offended people not by His
good deeds, He offended people by the timing of His good deeds
sometimes, but He offended people by His claims. He offended people
by His declaration of who He was God. He was the Messiah,
the Christ of God. He was the fullness of God in
human flesh. And he says to the Pharisees
in John 8, he says, if you believe not that I am, believe not that
I am God, you will die in your sins. And the response of natural
man, isn't it, is again and again, we will not have this man reign
over us. They are offended. They are offended. In John chapter 6 is where I
like to spend my time. In John chapter 6, verse 60,
which we'll get down to later on, when he'd finished speaking,
He says, these disciples came and when they heard this said,
this is a hard saying. This is a hard saying. Who can hear it? And Jesus knew
in himself that his disciples murmured at it, and he said unto
them, Does this offend you? This is a hard saying. This is
a harsh saying. This is inhumane. This is unsympathetic
towards man. This is a severe saying. Are you offended? Are you offended? It's remarkable in John chapter
6, we have several remarkable, miraculous stories. We have of
course him feeding that multitude with just A small lab had five
barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they amongst this
multitude? The multitude estimated by those
who seem to study things more closely than I, it may be 5,000. Some people estimate the multitude
may have been 20,000. He'd fed a multitude with next
to nothing. And then he'd stayed on that
side of the Lake of Galilee and he'd sent his disciples across
and there was no other boat there. And yet they find out that he
is on the other side. So not only the remarkable miracle
of feeding all those people, but the remarkable miracle of
getting across the lake. Either he flew, or he swam, or
he walked, but for whatever reason, it was a remarkable miracle.
We know, of course, that he walked on the sea. He walked on the
sea. And it's a remarkable miracle.
He walked out into the middle of that lake. And he got into
that boat, and the Word of God says in verse 21 of chapter 6,
immediately, immediately, the ship was at the land where they
went. It was remarkably and instantly
moved from the middle of the lake to the shore of the lake,
or remarkably and instantly it was both at the middle of the
lake and at the shore. Miracles piled upon miracles
piled upon miracles. But down here in verse 25, and
they found him on the other side and said unto him, Rabbi, when
camest thou hither? And Jesus answered them and said,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me not because you saw
the miracles, but because you did eat the loaves and were filled. What an extraordinary indictment
of man. What an extraordinary thing to
pray that doesn't happen to us, that we would see remarkable
things of God and not attribute them to Him. We live in a world
of miracles, brothers and sisters. We live in a creation of miracles. We have witnessed as a church
the miraculous provision of the Lord hundreds and hundreds, and
if we had eyes to see, thousands and millions of times. May the
Lord protect us. from seeing his hand and not
seeing him. Verse 27, it's a great verse,
isn't it? Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that
meat which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall
give unto you. For him hath God the Father sealed. It is a gift of God. to see,
isn't it? It is a gift of God. And then they asked this question.
Then they said to him, what shall we do that we might work the
works of God? Jesus answered and said unto
them, this is the work of God, that you believe on him who he
hath sent. I'm sure Beth Day won't mind
me reminding her of that time. I don't know all the particular
details, but the question always is when you're preaching Sovereign
Grace, what do you have to do? What do you have to do? I remember
I might have been over the phone reading that verse out to you.
And sometimes these living and active words start skipping and
dancing off the page and dance into people's hearts, don't they?
It was remarkable, anyway. This is the work of God. It is God's work that you believe
on Him whom He has sent. And isn't it lovely that that's
where the sentence finishes. He doesn't say that you believe
on Him whom He has sent, plus you get circumcised, plus you
add your good works, plus you add your faith. It's His to give
and it's His to exercise. And the religious people might
say, well do you mean to say that if all you have is faith
in Christ then you'll be saved? That's exactly, that's exactly
what the Lord Jesus is saying. And of course, the natural religious
men are offended. You've got to remember the Lord
Jesus is preaching to this multitude. By the time he's finished this
message, he has reduced the multitude to nothing, and all that's left
are the twelve apostles. So much for preaching to please
men. So of course, if it's the work
of God, does that then mean that my works count for nothing? That's exactly what he's saying.
And it's offensive to man, isn't it, because we think that our
contribution, we think our little bit means something. It is remarkable to think, isn't
it, that people can have such a high opinion of their works. that somehow God is obligated
to reward them and to give them extra crowns, extra jewels in
their crowns, and God is obligated because of their works to parade
them around heaven forever as saints who are closer to the
throne. It is extraordinary that any
child of Adam could think such nonsense. Such is the nature of the fall,
isn't it? We need to know, we need to remember again and again
what deal we did with Satan in the garden. We said we will not
have God rule over us, but we will have Satan and we will have
his rewards. And what does Satan want, isn't
it? Read it in Isaiah 14, I will be like God. I will ascend to
the throne of the Most High." God's offensive Gospel is always,
as the Lord Jesus was manifested to undo the works of the Gospel,
His Gospel, His glorious Gospel, undoes the works of Satan in
us. And we think that we have a heart
and a wisdom and a will and a worth that is somehow esteemed. What
does God say? He that trusts in his own heart,
he that trusts in guiding himself in this world is a fool. They found him, a rock of a fence,
a stone of stumbling, and they said, we can't go, we can't go
in his direction, we can't go down his path. We cannot follow him and our
personal righteousness. And the unbelief of men, if we
read down in John 6, verse 35, I am the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hungry. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. But I said unto you, you have
also seen me and believe not. They are unbelief. doesn't affect
the Lord Jesus one little bit. The unbelief of men does not
negate His work. Verse 37, because, verse 37,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. God's divine election, the great
and glorious covenant of everlasting grace and love, that God the
Father, from before the foundation of the world, gave a people to
his Son. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. There will not be one lost. Don't trouble your little heart
about that ever. The elect will be saved. And of course, this is offensive
to man's sense of entitlement, isn't it? How often have you
heard, well, that's not fair. That's not fair. God doesn't
have the right to do that. It's not fair for God to choose
some. It's unjust. It's not honouring
to humanity. And what sinful man is really
saying is that I am entitled. If anyone is entitled to anything
from God, I am entitled. It's offensive to man. And the next verse. He speaks
of why He came and what He achieved. Verse 38 of John 6, And I came
down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him
that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which has sent me, that all of which He has given me I should
lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day, raise it up
again at the last day. So here he's talking in the plainest
possible words about what he achieved in his death. He died
for his elect, he died for his bride, he died for his church,
he died for all that the Father gave him. And everyone he died
for is going to rise up at the last day. All of them must be
saved. As we know so well, that's a
doctrine that is so offensive to the religious world of this
day. You can probably count on one
hand the number of churches in this land that will preach it
openly and plainly and love it. It's always hidden away in some
sort of code language. It's always given some other
terms. What could be more plainer? All
of which he has given me, I should lose nothing but should raise
it up again at the last day." See, man in his fall had this
sense of self-control, doesn't he? And what the scriptures are
saying is that all of humanity is in the hands of God. You don't have any control and
you don't have any rights. You lost them all spiritually
by your sin. And all carnal men respond, don't
they? All carnal men respond when they're,
as it were, trapped, hedged in by the Gospel and have nowhere
to go. Look how they respond, just as
they did with the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. They
look but they don't see Him. And when they do see Him, what
do they say? Verse 42, Is this not Jesus,
the son of Joseph, whose mother and father we know? How is it,
then, that he saith, I have come down from heaven? It always is
the response, isn't it? The more and more I'm aware of
it, the more and more I see it. But when the Gospel impacts people,
they turn to the flesh of the man who brought the message. As if that matters, the chief
of sinners brought the message to the Galatians. Earthen vessels,
sinners, sinners by their own admission. They have nothing
in themselves that is esteemed of men. That's why the Galatian
false teachers attack Paul's character and they attack his
calling. They can't denigrate, attack
his teaching until they denigrate his character. Always. It's the
only place they have to go. The Lord Jesus is not put off,
is he? He says, Moammar, verse 43, he
answered and said, Under their name are not among yourselves.
No man can come to me. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me draw him. Here he is talking
about humanity and its fallen state, the complete and utter
depravity and inability of man to save himself at any point
in any stage. One of the remarkable things
of the Gospel, isn't it, is that it just reveals man in his complete
and utter depravity. His will is depraved. His heart is depraved. His affections are depraved. Every aspect of what I was and
am in my father Adam is completely depraved. And God's children find it refreshing. that God sees them as they really
are. And God's children delight in
the fact that God in His Gospel takes away their sense of personal
righteousness. And it's good because you don't
have any, and you never will have any, but we have something
much greater, the very righteousness of God. Remember saying in your
Bible study all those years ago that such is the nature of the
depravity of man that if God took away his restraining hands
from this town, the blood would flow down the streets. and there
would be absolute and utter carnage until no one was left. We are
deeply indebted to the restraining hand of God upon the wickedness
of man." Then he goes on to say, doesn't he, it is written in
the prophets, they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that has
heard and has learned of the Father comes to Me." See, we
are utterly dependent, as we read in 2 Corinthians 4, we are
utterly dependent upon God to reveal Himself. Otherwise, we'll
never come and we'll never see. As Job says, Can you by searching
find out God? Can you find out the Almighty
unto perfection? The answer is a resounding no. People can't work out a way to
get to know God. People can't study a way to get
to know God. God reveals himself to people. It's a divine revelation and
it's offensive to man's wisdom and man's ability. Man's pride. In the next verses
he goes on to talk about his preservation of his own, doesn't
he? Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread
of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh
down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am
the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of
this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread which I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." God's children will persevere
to the end because they are preserved by Him. Those who don't persevere
to the end have never been saved. When God saves, He saves utterly
and completely and He saves forever. He must do it all. And again,
man's sense of self is offended. And down in verse 63 we must
hurry to the end. And the Lord Jesus says, Does
this offend you? What and if you shall see the
Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It is the Spirit
that quickeneth, it's the Spirit that gives life. The flesh profiteth
nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are Spirit and they are life. This flesh prophet is nothing. The Lord Jesus said, without
me you can do nothing. See, it's offensive to man's
sense of religious attainment. But there are some of you that
believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that
believed not and who should betray him. And he said, therefore I
said unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given
unto him by of my father. From that time many of his disciples
went back and walked no more with him. He was offensive, he
was scandalous. He was a place of stumbling and
they said, we cannot go that way. We cannot walk with Him. Men were offended by the Lord Jesus
Christ revealing Himself and revealing His eternal purposes
and revealing His glorious eternal covenant. They were offended
by Christ then. Man hasn't changed. The Gospel
hasn't changed. Religious man has not changed. The Pharisees that Paul is writing
about, the Pharisees the Lord Jesus was dealing with, are alive
and as well and as prosperous and as prominent today as they
always were. And men, even us, are caused
to think, can these really nice, religious, kind, moral, zealous,
missionary-minded, self-sacrificial Christians be offended by the
Gospel as they were in the Lord Jesus' day? There's very one
easy way to find out. You just proclaim the Gospel
to them. You just proclaim the Gospel
and you'll find out what's in natural man. The offence is removed when works
are preached and the offence is removed, as it is in so much
of the preaching of this day, where the Gospel is preached
in a sort of code language. where someone who believes in
sovereign free grace can say, well, I agree with nearly all
of that. And someone who believes in free
will in the works of men can say, well, I agree with that.
And no one is really offended. We cannot preach the Gospel and
preach a message to please men. These words of the Lord Jesus
offended people in his day, offended him so much that he who was holy
and harmless was put to death. Kiss the son. Kiss the son, Psalm
2 says, bow and worship. He is worthy of worship and he
is worthy of worship He is worthy of worship. And He's worthy of worship for
telling the truth. He's worthy of worship for His
denunciation of human religion. Does it offend you the way He
spoke about man's religion? Does it offend you? Is election
offensive to you? It is to multitudes. Is particular redemption offensive? It's offensive to multitudes.
Is total depravity offensive? It is to multitudes. Is irresistible
grace offensive, that he must draw or we will never come? is perseverance and preservation
offensive. One of the wonderful things about
the Gospel is that the things that offend the men of this world
are the things that warm the hearts of God's people and cause
them, as the Lord Jesus and his apostles did, to stand for the
truth no matter what. me said, which is why to go back
to Galatians, Paul said, I wish, I wish that they would even cut, be cut off. That's how passionate he is. I would that they were even cut
off which trouble you, which bring troubling messages to you
about your works, but pervert the gospel that leads you away
from the simplicity of it in Christ." And I love the message
that's in it too, as it was in Galatians 1 where he speaks to
these people. He says, let them, he says, let
them do the work. There is no warrant for Christian
aggression against anyone. We defend the Gospel. But our
fight, our fight in this world, is not a fight against flesh
and blood. And the weapons of our warfare are not the carnal
weapons of the world. So Paul doesn't say that he wishes
to go and cut them. He wishes that they would do
it to themselves. It's a very, very big difference. We have a Gospel which we know
has offended many exactly as it was 2,000 years
ago. And that offensive Gospel is
an offensive Gospel which saves exactly as it did almost thousands
of years ago and keeps God's people saved forever. There is no other hope. There is no other refuge. Let's pray.