One of the wonderful things about
proceeding through the scriptures verse by verse, book by book,
is that you come across again and again verses that you'd rather
not speak on and you wish in some ways you could find some sweeter things to talk
about. But today is one of those one
of those messages from God, and it's contained in a simple, simple
verse, simple phrase that's repeated in the scriptures a couple of
times, a phrase that the Lord Jesus used in some sense, and
Paul is probably referring to that. And it just says, a little
leaven. leaveneth the whole lump. A little bit of yeast, a little
bit of yeast, leaveneth the whole lump. I've often been struck
by Cole's story of the days of his being, I imagine, a junior
chef, Cole, when you and he put a little bit too much
yeast in a batch of dough and he came back the next morning
and not only had it grown out of the bowl but it had grown
over the bench and it had grown over the floor and it had grown.
Anyway, he had a bit of a mess to fix up. That's what this verse is saying,
isn't it? It says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And we would want to think again
and again, sometimes out of love and care for people We would
want to think naturally the opposite of this verse, wouldn't we? We'd
want to think that you can hold on to a whole lot of truths,
but if you actually compromise on one of them, it doesn't really
matter too much. As long as you have some fundamental
truths in place, being in error about some issues of the Gospel
is not a big deal. This verse and this whole letter
is saying absolutely no way ever. And these are God's words. They
aren't my words. There are many, many words in
the scriptures that caused me to think deeply and seriously
in this last few days. I've had a sore eye, so I haven't
been able to read as much, but I've done lots of time meditating
and thinking and listening. God's call to his preachers in
Isaiah 8 is to bind up the testimony, to bind up, to actually put as
precious jewels in a jewel bag, bind up the testimony of God. Seal the law among my disciples. And in verse 20 of Isaiah 8 he
says, to the law and the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them. Do you see what it says? If they
speak not according to this word, it doesn't say there's a lot
of light and a little bit of darkness. God is unequivocal
about His word to His messages and the word that He places on
the hearts of His servants. You see, God's ministers are
ambassadors for Christ. The message is His message. The
declaration of who He is, who the Lord Jesus is and how He
saves sinners is His message. If the Lord would grant us the
grace, we just have one desire, isn't it? That we would just
proclaim the Gospel. And I use the word we importantly
and instructively and essentially because wherever God raises up
an ambassador and a witness, he raises up a group of people
to hear. It doesn't matter whether it's
two or three. It doesn't matter. The numbers
don't matter at all. The issue is, is God's Gospel
being proclaimed? And that's what this letter is
about, isn't it? It's remarkable that Paul, writing from a distance,
speaks again and again of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the Gospel is a declaration of who God is, a declaration
of who sinners are in their father Adam, a declaration of the glory
of God, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ revealed in Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. It's a message A message that
if it is adjusted is destroyed. And we live in a world, according
to the Word of God, we live in the world where there are God's
preachers and there are Satan's ministers. In 1 Corinthians 11
he speaks about their ministers. Satan has his ministers. Paul
is writing because Satan has sent his ministers to Galatians. He speaks in 2 Corinthians 11
of his love for the Corinthians and equally in Galatians we have
seen again and again his concern and care for them. He says to
the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11-2, I am jealous over you with
a godly jealousy for I have espoused you to one husband that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by
any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ." It's the simpleness, it's the singleness, it's the
oneness, it's the declaration of who he is as God. And then he goes on to talk about
the false apostles. They glory, for such are false
apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
the apostles of Christ, 2 Corinthians 11, 13. And no marvel, Paul is
not taken by surprise at this, 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 ministers
of righteousness." Isn't that remarkable? Someone standing
in a pulpit with a Bible in their hands and a congregation in front
of them. A minister of righteousness. A minister of your righteousness. A minister of His righteousness. And he looks nice. And he has
great knowledge of the Gospel. So it seems he has great knowledge
of the Word of God. He has great zeal and he has
great moral attributes and he's Satan's messenger. So that's
the question, isn't it, that lies before the Galatian recipients
of this letter. You can imagine the howls from
people as they read this letter for the first time in their church. And you can imagine the scheming
of Satan's ministers there to try and gather the people to
themselves. And we know from this letter
they did it by discrediting the character of Paul and discrediting
his Gospel. And they did it with great subtleness,
didn't they? With great subtleness. So they
weren't saying, come back to all of the law of Moses. They
were really saying, this is how you can express your love for
Jesus and your gratitude to Him. by doing these law works. We'll start with circumcision.
Here it is in the word of God. This is what Moses did. Abraham
did it. No harm in at all. A little leaven,
just a little leaven. Yeast is remarkable. I looked
it up and I was fascinated by some of the things I found out
about it. But it's a fungi, it's like a mushroom. And it's a tiny
thing, you can't see them of course, but where you do see
evidence of yeast is if you remember that dark grapes or dark plums
have a thin white film over them that you can wipe off with your
fingers. That's yeast. And what happens in the process
of fermentation of wine is that that yeast is on the skins of
the grapes, and as the grapes are then crushed, that yeast
on the skins comes into contact with the sugar inside the grapes.
Cole will correct me if I'm wrong. But it comes into contact until
all of the sugar in the grape is consumed, and then the process
stops and you have wine. Leaving, of course, in the scriptures,
refers to sin, and it refers here to this evil, this false
teaching which proliferated in that early church. But this yeast
actually grows by budding. You have this little cell and
it produces within itself a little clone and off it pops and then
that one grows and produces another one. So it always produces that
which is like itself, which is exactly what leave-in does, isn't
it? False teachers. False teaching produces people
like the false teachers. And of course, as you would know
from cooking, that the yeast is tiny and initially its growth
is imperceptible. You put it in and you have to
wait and wait and wait for it to work. What a remarkable thing, a little
leaven, a little leaven. All it needs is a little, a little
yeast leaveneth the whole lump. Paul is calling upon these people
to stand fast in verse 1 of chapter 5. You stand fast, you stand
planted, set on the liberty, the freedom from law wherewith
Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. Behold, Paul, I say unto you,
if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. It
seems like a little act. They can justify it in all sorts
of ways. Christ shall profit you nothing.
For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, he is
a debtor to do the whole law, and God will make sure the debts
are paid. Christ has become of no effect
unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, you are
fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything. Circumcision has no
power with God, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. You did run well. Who did hinder
you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion comes
not from Him that calleth you." When God calls people, He calls
them into grace. He calls them by a declaration
of grace, the grace that is in the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump, We have so much evidence of this throughout history, don't
we? We have what seemed like a relatively
minor sin in the garden, and yet all of what we see around
us All of the evidence of all of human history is that the
little leaven has leavened the whole lung. How did Isaiah describe
humanity? From the sole of the foot even
unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They have not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified. Again and again you read throughout
the scriptures how desperately, desperately we fell in our father
Adam, and how hopelessly lost we are, and how deep the darkness
is. The thoughts and inclinations
of the heart are only evil continually. The heart is deceitfully wicked
above all and beyond cure and who can understand it? Romans
3 finishes with a declaration. There is none righteous, no not
one. There is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre,
with their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps
is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways. The way of peace they have not
known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes." We see it, of course, when our
Lord Jesus came. For thousands of years He sent
His prophets and they declared who God is. They declared faithfully
who man is. They declared God's Gospel with
faithfulness. Abraham had the Gospel preached
to him. Noah had the Gospel. Moses had
the Gospel. They had the Gospel preached
to them. They had Jesus Christ and Him crucified preached to
them. They had thousands of years of
witness of God's faithfulness to His promises, of God's particular
Messiah that was going to come at a particular time, be born
in a particular town, of a particular lineage, and do particular things,
a bit like Cinderella's glass slipper, no matter how you look
at the Old Testament, how you look at human history, there
is just one, there is only one that fits it. And he came to
his own, and his own received him not. And the more he did,
the more embittered I became. They remained religious, didn't
they? I love how John describes it again and again. He talks
about the Jews' religion, the Jews' festivals. It was a religion
of man. And there was Jehovah, there
was God Almighty, standing before them, declaring Himself to be
God, doing things that no one else could do. raising the dead,
feeding thousands. And then they turned around and
they asked Him for signs. They wanted Him to prove Himself.
And they became, as the Gospels declare us, they became more
religious and more embittered against Him as time went on,
until they crucified Him. The stark reality of human history
is that nothing has changed. Men are religious, but their
religion, rather than leading them to worship of God, leads
them to enmity against Him. We want And we must, and we love
to declare a gospel of free and sovereign grace. That God, given
that situation, God must act. And God did act. He acted in eternity. He acted
in time. He acted in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he still acts exactly the
same today, saving his people. I love how Paul began, didn't
he? He says Paul's an apostle. He wasn't made an apostle by
men in Galatians. He wasn't made an apostle by
men, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him
from the dead. He says, Grace be to you and peace from God
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Then he gives a really
wonderful, simple description of the Gospel. You see, He gave
Himself. He describes Him with His wonderful
titles. He is Lord. He is Sovereign Lord
of all. He is Jesus. He is 100% truly
man. He is the Christ of God. Every promise of God is yes and
amen. And then what did He do? He gave
Himself for our sins. that He might deliver us from
this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father,
to whom be glory for ever. Amen." That's a wonderful summary
of the Gospel, isn't it? It begins with God, begins with
God's will and God's purposes in His absolute sovereignty.
It finishes with glory to Him. and the middle work is all the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not a mention of anything
that man has to do there. Not a mention of man doing those
things. False teaching has proliferated
since the garden. And Paul in Galatians 5 talks
about you being persuaded. You are always being persuaded. I am always being persuaded. That's what sheep do. They are
persuaded. They flock and they follow. We're always being persuaded.
The question is, who are we listening to? Who is doing the persuading
in our lives? Is God the one that we are hearing,
or are we hearing from Satan's ministers. Nothing could be more
serious. Nothing in all this world can
be more serious. The deepest, darkest pits of
hell are rightly reserved for people like me. Standing in pulpits persuading
people. No wonder Paul talked about working
out your salvation with fear and trembling. Those who have
met God don't have any problem with what that all means. I'd like us to turn to the other
place in the scriptures where this word, this phrase is used. And then we'll get some, I trust
that the Lord's leading might get some understanding of what
Paul is trying to say to us here. So there are two leavens mentioned
in the scriptures. it seems. One is the leaven of
pharisaical legalism. Self-righteous works religion. And like a clone, it comes out
of self-righteous works religion and it breeds more self-righteous
works religion and the yeast just goes through the whole batch
of dough. And the other one, which has
A similar source at the end of the day is in 1 Corinthians 5,
and that is what is termed antinomian security, in the sense that you
can live as you like in this world. and sin is of no consequence. You see what he says in chapter
5 of 1 Corinthians. He says, it's reported commonly
that there is fornication among you, such as fornication as is
not so much named among the Gentiles. One should have his father's
wife. This is what this yeast has done.
You are puffed up, puffed up. and have not rather mourned that
he that has done this deed might be taken away from among you."
Paul speaks of him being absent. He says, in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered
together and my spirit and the power of our Lord Jesus Christ
to deliver such a one unto Satan. And I don't think there's any
doubt about that at all, that Paul is saying, you exclude this
man for this time from the fellowship of the Church. Such is how significant
the Church is. It is to be removed from it,
is to be handed over to Satan. Before you get too distressed,
it's wonderful this fellow repented in 2 Corinthians 2. He's actually
brought back into fellowship because he mourned. He mourned, as they should have
done. Your glory There they were, these
Corinthians. It is just remarkable, isn't
it, to think that the Corinthians, the Corinthians with all of their
amazing problems, were spoken of in such glorious, comforting
ways by the Lord Jesus, by Paul. They were rebuked for their misuse
of the grace of God, which is the circumstance here. But Paul
never says to the Corinthians, I'm in doubt of you, I'm fearful
for you. If you took anyone in religion
today and you laid out before them two churches, there's the
Corinthian church with open wickedness, competition about spiritual gifts,
divisions over who you should follow, All sorts of this sort of wickedness.
You don't even hear of it in modern churches these days. And
then you had, on the other hand, you had these Galatians, and
there they were extraordinarily zealous, and there they were
out with the Book of Moses, and there they were planning their
circumcision ceremonies, and there they were encouraging each
other to be more and more zealous, and more and more religious,
and more and more obedient to this law and that law and all
these little commands. And you took the two churches
and you laid them before this religious world, Who do you think
people would say are the recipients of the grace of God? They would
condemn, wouldn't we? We would condemn the Corinthians
instantly and incessantly and we would hold up these Galatians
and say, look at this, this is what real Christianity is like,
look at this zeal, look at this obedience, look at this gratitude,
look at this love. The scriptures want us to be
shocked by the fact that it's exactly the opposite. You read
the first chapters of 1 Corinthians and the first chapter of Galatians
and the differences could be no more stark. Again the issue
is that we actually need to see things through the lens of the
Word of God and not through the lens of our eyes. Anyway, back
to 1 Corinthians 5. They're puffed up in verse 2.
They're glorying. He's not good. You know that
a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. And I love what he
says in the next verses. He says, Purge out therefore
the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened. for even Christ our Passover
is sacrificed for us. As you remember in that sacrifice
of Passover that one of the things they had to do was go through
their houses in Egypt and make sure there was no leaven, no
yeast, and they carried no yeast with them. They had to clean
their houses. He says, let us keep the feast,
not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and
wickedness. but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth." Let's keep the Feast. Let's keep the
Passover. Moses kept the Passover in Hebrews
11. It says he kept the Passover
by faith. How? How do you clean out this
purge out, this old leaven? I love what it says, the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth. That word sincerity is a remarkable
word. delighted, stunned I suppose
when I read it, but it actually has, it's a combination of two
birds, and one is light, the light of the sun, and the other
one is to test. So it means to test by shining
a light. Now isn't that the most lovely
thing? You test by shining a light. The light of the Gospel is to
be shined, but also what you'll find is that it's through subtlety
that Satan does his work, isn't it? It's through deceptiveness
and covering up. It's through hiding things in
little cliques. See, God's children who trust
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ have no need to
do anything in secret ever. Now that doesn't mean that I
need to know all of the sins and anguishes of your heart and
you don't need to know mine. We take them to the Lord. But
when it comes to the issues of the Gospel and Church, we don't
do anything. We have no need ever to do anything
in any secret way. We want everything that we proclaim,
everything that we believe, everything that we do, open and public. We want as much light as God
would allow to shine on us as He can. We don't want to hide. We don't want to hide. We have
nothing to hide from. We have no righteousness to establish. We have none to defend. We have
no traditions to establish. We have none to defend. We simply
proclaim He who is the light and we want that light to shine. Religion has a multitude of ways
of hiding. We have borne witness to multitudes
of people who hide. They have the truth, they have
light put before them and they scurry away to darkness. And there in the darkness they
can play all of their religion. sincerity, it's to test by sunlight. We are not as many, says Paul
in 2 Corinthians 2.7, as many which corrupt the word of God,
but as of sincerity, the same word, but as of God, in the sight
of God speak we in Christ. We have no need to play the games
of religion. to hide. We have a freedom. We have a freedom from falsehood. We have a freedom from defilement.
We have the glorious freedom of laying out what we believe
and proclaim before people and if someone can bring this word
to us and say you're wrong, we should and I trust we will be
the first to rejoice because all that God has done is purge
some dross and reveal something more of his glory. Because that's
all it will reveal. Sincerity and truth. sincerity and truth, the truth
that is in Jesus Christ, the truth that is Jesus Christ, that
truth that brings new birth, that truth that brings sanctification,
that truth that is our protection, the truth that is our preservation,
the truth that is in this Word that God has given us. The truth
that sincerity exposes and highlights and delights in. So where does the yeast come
from? The Lord Jesus caused us not
to be in any doubt about what yeast was. In Matthew Chapter
16 He spoke of it He spoke of it in strong terms. He says in Matthew 16.6, he says,
take heed, beware. He says, listen carefully, take
notice and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And of course, as the disciples
so often did, they took it to earthly things And the Lord Jesus reminds them
again, what a word that he might say to us so often, O ye of little
faith. Why reason you among yourselves
because you have brought no bread? Do you not understand, neither
remember the five loaves and the five thousands, and how many
baskets you took up, neither the seven loaves of the four
thousand, how many baskets you took up? How is it that you do
not understand that I speak to you not concerning bread, but
that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the
Sadducees? Then understood they how that
he bade them not to beware of the leaven of bread, don't worry
about yeast in a bit of bread, but the doctrine, the doctrine
of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And the doctrine of the Pharisees
and the Sadducees is as alive and well today as it ever was. Let's turn back to Genesis 3.
It's so important. If we don't understand Genesis
3, we really don't understand much of the rest of the scriptures.
We'll never understand what we are and the nature of the fall
and the nature of the leave and the nature of what we are as
Adam's children in this world until we understand something
of Genesis 3. It says, now the serpent was
more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God
had made, and he said unto the woman, you see, she listened
to him, he listened to him, and in a sense she opened a debate
with him. And then he says, you shall not eat
of every tree in the garden." He raises a debate and a doubt
about the Word of God. And the woman said unto the serpent,
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, But of the
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God
has said, you shall not eat it, neither shall you touch it. Do you see what's happened? God
said absolutely nothing about touching it at all. Nothing at
all about touching it. Now she, has subtly been led
to change the word of God. And the serpent said unto the
woman, you shall not surely die. So she had raised the possibility
that she might die. in verse 3, lest you die, that
it might be possible that you'll die. So now she's questioning
the veracity of God, the truthfulness of God and the judgment of God.
And in verse 4 we have Satan who just openly denies the Word
of God. You shall not surely die. And then he raised this possibility
before Eve. For God does know that in the
day you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and you
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. The Word of God. The will of
God is resisted and the way of God is deserted. It's an extraordinary thing,
isn't it? See, he attacks two things, doesn't he? Satan attacks
the Word of God. In verse 1 he raises a doubt.
In verse 4 he then substitutes his own word for it, and in verse
5 he casts a slur upon the character of God. Then he appeals to our
flesh, doesn't he? So once he's undermined the word
of God, he then appeals to our flesh. He appeals to our bodily
senses, doesn't he? Your eyes will be opened. He appeals to our fleshly emotions,
our desires. He appeals to our intellect,
that proud desire that we have in us to be thought, to be wise. He appeals to our pride. Then
he makes that remarkable statement, you shall be as gods. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and
the tree desired to make one wise, she took the fruit thereof
and did eat and also gave unto her husband with her and he did
eat. And the eyes of both of them
were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed
fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." See, Adam's
sin, Eve was deceived. Adam's sin was willful and deliberate
rebellion against God's command. You see, brothers and sisters,
the scriptures make it abundantly clear that there is a real and
active devil in this world. He's the father of lies, says
the Lord Jesus. He is, he does have, he serves. He says to the Pharisees, you
are children of your father, the devil. And he's too wise. He's too wise
for us to outwit Him without divine wisdom. He's too powerful
for us to overcome Him without the Lord Jesus Christ. And He's
too subtle for us to recognise Him without the Spirit of God
illuminating the Word of God and revealing the truth of God
to His people. You see, we keep thinking, don't
we, that the depravity that's in this world, the adultery and
the theft and the murders and all of that wickedness, comes
because Satan is in control and if somehow we can control Satan,
those things wouldn't happen. The scriptures never point to
that. You read Mark Chapter 7, the Lord Jesus makes it abundantly
clear that it's out of the human heart flows all of these things. No point blaming Satan for them. You see his primary sphere of
activity is religious. This is where he started in Genesis
3. It was religious, wasn't it? He was talking about religion. His chief aim is to get between
us and God, and his goal is to get us to stop trusting Christ. His method is to give us confidence
in ourselves. His work is to substitute lies
for God's truth, and do that subtly. And his servants, as
I said earlier, are in churches every morning, every Sunday morning,
diligently there. His servants are running Bible
colleges and mission organisations and denominations all over this
world. And his servants get men to perform
righteousness. They're ministers of righteousness,
ministers of their own righteousness, ministers of creature righteousness. He gets them to be busy, he gets
them to perform, and he gives them a faith, a so-called faith,
and he gives them a peace, and he gives them an assurance. and his ambition is not to keep
men from being religious or even to keep men from being moral. His ambition is to keep eternity-bound
sinners from trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, simply at rest
in Him and who He is and what He has done, and having no confidence
in the flesh You see, the leaven in Galatians 5 is like the leaven
that the Lord Jesus was speaking about in Matthew 16. It's the
leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It's the leaven of
religious activity. It's the religion of zealous
religious activity. And so often we meet with opposition that says, why
are you so dogmatic about issues to do with the Gospel? Why are
you so particular about particular redemption? Why are you so particular
about sovereign grace? Why are you particular about
declaring the absolute sovereignty of God and that salvation is
by grace and grace alone and the works of men have nothing
to do with it whatsoever? The reason, brothers and sisters,
is right here in this verse. Because a little deviation from
those things is not a little deviation at all. The leaven
grows and it grows, as I saw on it, and it grows by itself.
You put the leaven in there and it has its own fruit from itself. It consumes sweetness and it
grows and it grows and it grows. We are surrounded by a religious
world that can have fellowship with all sorts of people. They
come from a multitude of different places and they say, let's all
get together. It's so much better if we all
get together and it's so much better if we're all nice to each
other. Wouldn't it be a wonderful example
if we could do, as they call it here, Shalhaven Awakening,
where you can all get together in a big hall and somehow we
can wake God up from his supposed slumber. He's actually sitting
on a throne, brothers and sisters. He doesn't need to be woken up.
He is ruling this universe quite successfully, thank you very
much. You see, that's not where Paul
and the Apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ go. When they met,
when our Lord met with opposition to the Gospel, He just proclaimed
it more strongly. When people objected, He just
wanted to make it so very, very clear what they are objecting
to, who they are objecting to, and He wanted them to be absolutely
clear. As he said again and again to
the Pharisees, I am God. I am God. Abraham saw my day
and he rejoiced and he was glad. Paul says to these teachers who
come with their legalistic righteousness, that though we or an angel from
heaven, even if an angel comes and preaches any other gospel
to you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be
a curse, let him be anathema, let him be without God. 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." They're not
my words, brothers and sisters, they're God's words. John is
described as the apostle of love, rightly so. You listen to how
John, in 2 John, Verse 8. Whosoever transgresses and abideth
not in the doctrine of Christ has not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ has both the Father and the Son. If there come any
unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,
neither bid him Godspeed. For he that biddeth him Godspeed
is a partaker of his evildoes." You are not to have them in your
house and you are not to say, God bless you. That's how serious the issues
of the Gospel are. Paul has proclaimed the Gospel,
he's outlined the Gospel, he's outlined the extraordinary benefits
of the Gospel, he's outlined the extraordinary situation that
these Galatians find themselves in. So Paul didn't give in to
them. He wants us not to give in to
them. In verse 5 of chapter 2 he said, We gave subjection to them,
no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue
with you. Isn't that remarkable? He was
actually in Jerusalem at the time. And these people were thousands
of miles away in Turkey and he was there in Jerusalem standing
up with Peter and all the other apostles as one. and saying to
those pharisaic legalists, that is not the Gospel. You are testing
God. You are putting a yoke on the
neck of the disciples which neither we nor our fathers could ever
bear. The yoke of Christ is light,
brothers and sisters. The yoke of Christ is easy. Don't give in. Subjection to
them for a minute. We have seen that the leaving
of Satan's lies have gone through the whole lump of humanity. We
see that the leaving of those lies went through the whole Jewish
church, bar the elect. At times it was so bad that Elijah
thought that he was the only one left. And he'd travelled
around Israel and he'd seen some remarkable things and he thought
he was the only one. And what did God say to him?
Don't you worry Elijah. There are these that have not
bowed to me to bow. Why? Because I've reserved them
for myself. God's elect, brothers and sisters,
will be protected by the grace of God. Not because they're wiser. Not because they are smarter.
Not because they are more knowledgeable. The thing that is our protection
is our relationship with Him. He is our strength. He is our
wisdom. It goes through the whole lump
of the individuals of Broca and the whole lump of the church
and the whole lump of the church universal, the whole lump of
this professing church. You see, what Satan wants you
to do is to look at yourself, and to look at your works, and
to take your eyes off the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the fruit
of the leaven, isn't it? The fruit of the leaven is self-righteousness. You see, if you have one moment,
one activity, One thought that you have done or you are doing
or you will do that will in any way make you more acceptable
to God and more pleasing to God. In doing that activity you are
saying, I don't need the Lord Jesus Christ. May God protect us and preserve
us from those things. One of my favourite bits of Christian
writing is from Joseph Hart. I'd just like to finish with
some of his words. He says, I am daily more and
more convinced that the promises of God to his people are absolute
and desire to build my hopes on the free electing love of
God in Christ Jesus to my soul before the world began, which
I can experimentally and feelingly say he has delivered me from
the lowest hell. He has plucked me as a brand
out of the fire. Though my ways were dreadfully
dangerous to the last degree, His eyes were all along upon
me for good. He has excited me to much love
by forgiving me much. He has showed me, and still daily
shows me, the abominable deceit, lust, enmity and pride of my
heart. and the inconceivable depths
of His mercy. How far I was fallen, how much
it cost Him of sweat and blood to bring me up. He's proved Himself
stronger than I and His goodness superior to all my unworthiness. He gives me to know and to feel
too that without Him I can do nothing. He tells me and enables
me to believe that I am all fair and there is no spot in me. Though
an enemy, He calls me His friend. Though a traitor, His child. Though a beggared prodigal, He
clothes me with the best robe and has put a ring of endless
love and mercy on my hand. Though I am often sorely distressed
by spiritual infernal foes, afflicted tormented and bowed down almost
to death with a sense of my own present barrenness, ingratitude
and proneness to evil. He secretly shows me his bleeding
wounds and softly but powerfully whispers to my soul, I am thy
great salvation. His free, distinguishing grace
is the bottom on which is fixed the rest of my poor, weary, tempted
soul. On this I ground my hope, oft
times when unsupported by any other evidence, only by the spirit
of adoption received from Him. He has chosen me out from everlasting,
in whom to make known the inexhaustible riches of His free grace and
long-suffering. Though I am a stranger to others,
and a wonder to myself, yet I know him, or rather am known of him. Though poor in myself, I am rich
enough in him. When my dry, empty, barren soul
is parched with thirst, he bids me come to him and drink my fill
at the fountainhead. In a word, he empowers me to
say, with experimental evidence, where sin abounded, Grace does
much more abound. Only the Lord in His Sovereign
Mercy can protect us from the yeast that is outside and inside
and all around. May God preserve us and protect
us. Let's pray.