In our journey through this world
the Lord brings many circumstances in our lives and as we have borne
witness to the Gospel, we bear witness to the Gospel's impact
on people's lives. And we bear witness to the Gospel's
impact in extraordinary, uplifting and positive ways and we bear
witness to the Gospel's impact in ways that cause us deep concern. One thing that is always, always
true is that the Gospel is never, ever inactive and never, ever
unfruitful in this world. As Isaiah says, the Word of God
comes to this earth and it is spread forth and it returns to
God having achieved His purposes. I often think what it was like
for Paul both to write this letter to people that he loved in Galatia,
that he describes in the verses before us as people who ran well,
And now to see them being entangled again in a yoke of bondage. But also it's interesting to
consider that Paul may very well have known personally these people
who went to Galatia. I think it's in Acts 21, it talks
about the significant number of the Pharisees and others who
became believers. And then it says that they were
believers who were zealous for the law. Now Paul had been one
with them, had been a star among them. And yet now he has to write
in the strongest possible terms, with the greatest possible love,
with deep, deep, deep and serious warnings to these people. In verse 1 he says, stand fast.
Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. There is a remarkable freedom
and liberty in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's
people are profited, but those who go back to the law, Christ,
verse 2, shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole
law. And he speaks He has spoken again and again
of the extraordinary privileges of the children of God. The Spirit's
work in them, according to verse 5, is a work that brings them
to wait for the hope of righteousness. There's not a righteousness that
they can see. Their righteousness is in heaven. Their righteousness
will be seen in heaven. It's a righteousness in the future. And He calls upon these people
to stand in grace. Paul knows so clearly as do all
the children of God that by the grace of God I am what I am. And this is what avails with
God as we saw last week. What has power, what succeeds,
what is fruitful before God is faith. Faith that worketh by
love. Faith for him, a faith in him,
a love for his people, a love for his gospel, a love for his
person as it's revealed in all of the scriptures. See these
are the blood-bought and divinely wrought works for and in a Christian. This is but a description of
God's salvation, a description of God's new creation. It's a new creation that's brought
about by a belief in the truth. And he says to these Galatians,
you did run well, verse 7, You did run well. Who did hinder
you? So the picture is just a runner
in a race, isn't it? Who did hinder you? Who came
across in front of you and stopped you in your race? Who did hinder
you? Who cut in on you that you should
not obey the truth? And that word obey is translated
in many other places in the following verse. It's the word persuasion. Who's come along and persuaded
you? Persuaded you to believe something
other than the Gospel that you heard. He says to the Galatians
in 3.1, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? but you should not obey the truth."
And he gives a very clear definition of the truth, isn't it? It's
Jesus Christ, evidently set forth, placarded, heralded, set forth,
crucified among you. I love Paul's persuasions, isn't
he? Paul is a man who's persuaded. He's been persuaded by God. He's been persuaded by a meeting
with God. He's been persuaded by the Gospel. He's been persuaded by the meeting
with God. He's been persuaded by the Holy
Spirit's work in his life. He's been persuaded by this extraordinary
thing that we hold in our hands. I hate to call it a thing, this
precious, precious work. He's been persuaded by the Word
of God. He's been persuaded. And then
in Romans 8.38 he says, I'm persuaded. I am persuaded, I am right now
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor power, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God. And don't forget these next words,
there is one place where the love of God is always and will
always be. The love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. If God loves you, He loves you
in the Lord Jesus Christ. If God is going to display love
toward anyone, He loves them in the Lord Jesus Christ. Persuaded. Paul is persuaded. He's persuaded by a meeting with
God. He's persuaded. He's persuaded
in the midst of all of his suffering. He says, whom I have believed." So to
be persuaded is to be persuaded about whom. I know whom I have
believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which
I have committed to Him. It's a meeting with Him, it's
a persuasion of who He is, it's a persuasion about His ability. His ability on that great day,
against that day, that day when you meet Him, that day when He
returns in glory, you're persuaded that He's able to keep that which
you've committed. What's Paul committed to Him?
What have you committed to Him, brothers and sisters? Paul has
all his eggs in one basket. He doesn't have a superannuation
plan. He doesn't have a plan B just
in case. You ran well, you Galatians,
you ran well. You ran well. What is it to run
well? What is it to run well as a Christian? There's a wonderful
definition in the Bible. I love the Bible's definition
of the Bible's terms. If you ever have a struggle with
a term, go and find out what the Bible says about it. See
what God says about it. Hebrews chapter 12 describes
running well. It says, Wherefore seeing we
are all so compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,
Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily
beset us. I'm glad the scriptures speak
honestly about the sin that besets us easily. It takes no effort
whatsoever to beset us. And let us run with patience
the race that is set before us. How do you run well? How did
the Galatians run well? Verse 2, looking unto Jesus. And what a great description
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the author and the finisher. of faith." The author and the
finisher of our faith, it says, but it's in inverted commas.
He's the author and finisher of faith. Who, for the joy that
was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and
is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Please
note what the verse says. It gives you one of the descriptions
in the scriptures of the emotional state of the Lord Jesus Christ
at this very moment. What's it say? The joy set before
Him. Our God is sitting, and He's
sitting at peace. You look unto Jesus is to run
well. You don't look unto yourself,
I've never been able to run anywhere looking at myself. All you do
is go round and round in circles. You don't have to look at other
people. You look unto Jesus again and again. You just take your
eyes off everything else, this world and its politics and this
world and its wars, and you look unto Jesus. He's the one that's
sitting on the throne. He's the one who is the author
and the finisher. He's the author. He wrote. He wrote the book of my life
and according to Revelation 5, he holds that book in his hand. Nothing, brothers and sisters,
comes into your lives without the author having ordained it. And as we saw in the story that
I gave you earlier, his timing is perfect. His events are ordered
and sure. Who hindered you? You see what
happens with law keeping. As soon as you turn from grace,
and turn from the Gospel, and turn from God, to think that
God needs some extra things from you to polish as it were, and
to shine, and to add some crowns to the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Who's hindered you? Who has in the words of Galatians
3.1, who has bewitched you? Who has enticed you and seduced
you? There are a couple of things
that are important just in that, isn't it, before we go too far.
If you have been seduced, if you have been seduced by someone,
it is 100% your responsibility and fault. And we know that God
is 100% responsible for His people. And if you are seduced, it might
just be in the mercy of the Lord. It will be for a time and a season. The other thing is, as I alluded
to earlier, Paul asks the question, who? He asks them, who? He does so often in many other
parts of the scriptures. He actually wants the people
of God to note the who's that deceive them. He wants them to
note. You see when the Galatians read
this letter, when the believing children of God amongst the Galatians
read this letter, they would have known. They would have been
able to name names here. If you have walked on this earth
for any time, and I know you have, you have believed things. You have believed, as I did,
things about myself. I have believed people who I
thought were sincere and thought were zealous and thought they
were telling me the truth. And as many of you will bear
testimony, it's a remarkable thing how the Gospel exposes
people. And that's what would have happened
in this Galatian church when this letter from God arrived
there and the Word of God came back to them powerfully. And
in the lives of those people, there would have been so many
of them that were like Peter, that would have just been so
overjoyed that on their road to the pit, Paul stepped in and
says, as God's servant, this is as far as you go. This is
as far as you go in hypocrisy. Such is the great mercy of our
God, isn't it? Such is the wonder of the gospel
of salvation. The gospel that reveals the grace
of God in the lives of God's people. So the question that
Pilate asked is a great question, isn't it? It's a question that's
laid out before us again and again in the Scriptures. What
is truth, said Pilate to the Lord Jesus? What is truth? The answer is just four simple
words out of John 14.6, isn't it? That's the answer I want
to lay before you. The truth is a person. The Lord
Jesus says, I am the truth. There is, as 1 John 2 verse 21
says, there is no lie in the truth. The truth never generates
a lie, it never brings forth a lie. The truth divides, doesn't
it, as light is from darkness. The truth stands as a powerful
friend, a ferocious enemy to lies. It's unbendable, intractable. And God's people love it that
way. It has no need to change ever. The truth is always the truth,
which is why so much of this apologetic Christianity is such
so dishonouring to God as if somehow we have to rationalise
and reason with humanity. And all that rationalising and
reasoning has got to the stage where so many young people that
I know of will even deny the historic reality of the life
of the Lord Jesus Christ. What ridiculous nonsense. Once
God has established a truth in history, he doesn't have to keep
going back and back again to establish it. It is the truth,
and it remains the truth, and people's opinion about it is
irrelevant. It is just the truth, brothers
and sisters. If you were there, if you were
there 2000 years ago, you would have been able to see that baby.
If you were there 12 years later, you would have been able to see
that young man in the temple. If you'd been there in Nazareth,
you would have seen him working with his father in his carpenter
shop. It was just the truth. If you were there, you would
have seen him walk on the water. If you were there, you would
have seen him. Feed 5000. If you were there, you would
have seen him in the Garden of Gethsemane. We just have the
truth. It's one of the comforting things of Christian religion
is that it is just based on simple, simple historic truth. A truth
that is foreshadowed in extraordinary detail in the Old Testament and
a truth that is laid out before us in the New Testament in the
most remarkable way. If you'd been there that day,
you would have seen him on the cross. You would have seen him
hanging there, covered with the experiment of men, his beard
plucked from his face, a crown of thorns on his head. You would
have seen him there as they walked by and mocked him. You would
have seen his blood falling to the ground. you would have seen,
you'd know in the darkness. It's just truth. Men's opinion
of it doesn't change it one little tiny bit. The truth, of course,
is so critical to everything, isn't it? I did read part of
that verse, allude to part of that verse much earlier on in
John chapter 4. If you're going to worship God,
according to John 4, 23, it says, true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth. And I love what the next part
of the verse says, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. Our God never seeks anything
without finding it. What a great God, isn't it? But
if you're going to worship God, you're going to worship God in
both those words and nouns there, aren't there? You're going to
worship God in the Holy Spirit. And you're going to worship God
in the truth who is the Lord Jesus. You're going to worship
God in the truth of how God saves sinners. You're going to worship
God in the truth of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is no salvation without the truth. You cannot be saved by the devil's
lie. According to the Word of God,
you cannot be saved, despite what men want to say. I had someone
who was once quite what I thought was a close friend of mine and
she was so offended by the Gospel of Sovereign Grace, even though
she was Reformed and she was horrified to think that that
I might have said, which I didn't, but I might have said that Armenians
aren't saved. I hadn't said it to her. I'm
not saying it's not true. It doesn't mean that they're
not savable. It just means that if they're
believing a lie about themselves and believing a lie about God,
they haven't yet heard the Gospel. They haven't come. Anyway, she
asked me, and I said, I just quoted a verse of scripture,
people are saved by belief in the truth. And she was so angry. She was just violently, it was
just shocking. I'm still shocked by her response.
Let's read what the Word of God says in 2 Thessalonians 2.13,
he says, I thank God for you brethren. He thanks God for the
brethren. We always ought to be thanking
God for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Brethren, beloved
of the Lord. All the brethren of God are beloved
of the Lord Jesus Christ because God has from the beginning chosen
you to salvation. He has from the beginning, from
before the foundation of the world, chosen you to salvation,
how has he done it? Through sanctification of the
spirit and belief of the truth. That's how he says, doesn't he?
He's chosen you to salvation through sanctification and belief
of the truth, and how has he done it? Whereunto he called
you by our Salvation is coming to a knowledge
of the truth. Our God and Saviour who will
have all men, all of His elect men of all sorts, to be saved
and come unto the knowledge of the truth. Repentance is acknowledging
the truth. Godliness, according to Titus
1.1, is acknowledging the truth which is after godliness. It's embracing, it's being persuaded
of the truth which is after godliness. The Lord Jesus in His high priestly
prayer talked about sanctification. Religion wants to talk about
sanctification all the time, but how is sanctification according
to the scriptures done? Sanctification is 100% the work
of God, brothers and sisters, and sanctification is 100% by
grace. And the Lord Jesus prayed for
his people. and he prayed for them, he's
talked about their sanctification by the truth and then he says,
thy word is truth. He sanctifies them. If you're
going to have sincerity in worship and serving God, It's called
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. See, only the truth
is sincere if you're going to be born again to see that these
things are true. James 1.18 speaks of the new
birth. He birthed his own of his own
will. You are born again through a
will. Begat he us. He did the birthing
through the truth of the gospel. Ephesians 1 talks about the sealing
of God's people after you heard the word of truth. There's some remarkable verses
in John chapter 8. We've read some of them in the
past about that you shall know the truth and the truth shall
make you free. But in John 8, 45, the Lord Jesus
says some remarkable things about those who stood opposed to him. You've got to remember that in
John 8 he's talking from verse 31 on to a group of people who
professed belief in him. And then in the rest of the chapter
he goes on to describe himself and his salvation and he describes
these others. In verse 42 it says, If God were
your Father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came
from God, neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why don't you
understand my speech? even because you cannot hear
my word. And he says, You are of your
father the devil, and the lust of your father you will do. He
was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because
there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks
of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it." All lies
should be horrifying to the children of God. Because all lies, according
to the Lord Jesus, are fathered by Satan himself. Listen to the
next verse in John 8.45. And because I tell you the truth,
you believe me not. What a remarkable statement from
the lips of our God. Because I tell you the truth. me not." You see, believing,
believing to the salvation of your souls is a divine, glorious,
gracious act of God. You see, only those who are of
God, according to 1 John 4, 6, receive the truth. If you have
received the truth and been persuaded by it and embraced it, and loved
it. It's only because God has done
a work in your lives. You know, brothers and sisters,
how so many people that we've borne witness to have become
so offended by simple declarations of the simple truth of God. It hasn't bothered the Lord Jesus
Christ one bit. He hasn't had to move on his
throne for a second. He says in John 18.37, everyone
of the truth, everyone of the truth heareth my voice. To know the truth is to delight
in he who brings the truth and to delight in the truth of who
he is. To know the truth is to tell
the truth. To know the truth according to
1 John 1.8 is to be truthful about yourself. According to
1 John 1.8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. God's children acknowledge their
sin. They grieve over it and they're
not going to play games with men or God about it. They're not going to make silly
statements like saying that they have times in their lives where
they have no sin at all. They'll confess their sins. So
it's one thing, of course, as we've seen from our studies in
2 Thessalonians and in many other places in the scriptures, it's
one thing to acknowledge that it is truth, but to be persuaded
by the truth is to love the truth. 2 Thessalonians 2.10 talks about
a verse that should cause us to walk before our God with fear
and trembling and awe. He says, talks about the working
of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because. So the perishing ones perish
because they received not the love of the truth that they might
be saved. There's one thing to acknowledge.
that God is absolutely sovereign. And it's another thing to love
it. And for those who don't, the
next verse is extraordinary, isn't it? And for this cause
God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. God sends delusion and judgment
upon people who refuse the love of the truth. We have read so many verses today
that speak of the electing love of God. And so many people will
acknowledge it, acknowledge that God chose his people from before
the foundation of the world. But God's children love it. I
love the fact that He chose me before the foundation of the
world, because if His choosing of me had anything to do with
anything I've done in my life on this earth, I would be completely
snookered and hell's door would be opened very, very wide for
me. I love the fact, I love the fact
that in divine election before the foundation of the world,
He gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. That's a critical issue in so
much of false teaching, isn't it? Who gets the glory? Who gets
the glory? It's a good question to ask all
the time. Who gets the money? Who gets the glory? In salvation
according to God's book, God gets all the glory and His people
love it. They love it that way. They love
seeing Him high and lifted up. They love seeing Him on the throne
of this universe. That's why God's children love
particular redemption, real redemption. We love the fact that the Lord
Jesus laid down His life for the sheep. It's not just a doctrine
that's true, it's something that we love. There are lots of reasons
to love it. One is that again, he gets all
the glory for saving his people. He gets all the glory and he
gets the reward of what he suffered on Calvary's tree. but also in
Him doing that, all of His attributes, all of the glorious attributes
of His holiness and His righteousness and His justice and His love
and His grace are just so magnificently on display. And if the Lord Jesus
can die for me on Calvary's tree, which is what this religious
world says over and over and over again. I have no hope. I have no assurance. Our assurance
rests on particular redemption. I saw a thing just yesterday
which was really fascinating. A young Hebrew is going to Jews
in Israel and they were reading Isaiah 53 and apparently Isaiah
53 is a chapter of the Bible which is almost banned by the
Jewish leaders because it speaks so clearly of the Lord Jesus
and his sufferings and his death and his rejection of the people.
And so you have a young Jewish man reading this, having it read
to them, and getting these guys who read the Hebrew to read it.
And they're just shocked by it. They're shocked by what Isaiah
53, and then he asks, well, who on earth can this refer to? And
the young Jewish men acknowledge, well, this must be the Lord Jesus.
And the guy there is trying to explain the Gospel to them. You would think this would be
such a great opportunity out of Isaiah 53 to acknowledge the
absolute sovereignty of God, the absolute wonder of particular
redemption, that He had a sheep that went astray and all of the
iniquities of these sheep were laid on Him. And this man finished
by his Gospel declaration, and I'm quoting him. He says, this
is God's gift of salvation for you. In order to receive the gift,
there are several things that we have to do. And you know the
sort of things they're saying, aren't they? There are things
that we have to do. I'm quoting from him exactly.
We have to confess our sins. Well, I'll tell you right now,
brothers and sisters, we can start confessing our sins now
and never stop, and we will never ever get to the bottom of them
or the breadth of them or the depth of them, the extent of
them. We won't even get to contemplate
the depths of the sin that is going on behind this pulpit right
now that I'm not even aware of. Confess our sins. Repent of them. There you go, repent of them.
You must. These are things you have to do. You have to commit
not to do them anymore. And you have to believe in the
Messiah and when you've done all of this, when you've done
all of these things, then you transfer our sins to Him. You get to transfer your sins
to Him. Now that's mighty honouring to
man and mighty dishonouring to the Lord Jesus. This is only
if we believe in this Messiah and receive Him into our life
will He take our sins away and upon Himself. That's not salvation as the Bible
describes it, brothers and sisters. In fact, as much as you admire
these young people for their zeal, you pity them. But see, they've been persuaded,
haven't they? See, to be persuaded is not to
lose zeal. In fact, the most extraordinary
zeal can come from these people that persuade. Persuade others. We live in a world. It's not
for nothing that the Lord Jesus calls us sheep. Sheep do two
things all the time. They flock and they follow. Always. You see a lone sheep, you've
got a sheep with a problem. They flock together and they
follow. May God have mercy upon us and
cause us to follow Him. See God's children love irresistible
grace. They love. They receive, as we
just read, they receive the love of the truth. They are happy. They are happy to be defined
as God defines them. And they are happy for their
salvation to be defined by a God who defines himself as he does
in the scriptures. The other thing about the truth,
and Paul has spoken much about it in Galatians thus far, is
that the truth is always linked to grace. In John, that famous
verse in John chapter 1 verse 14, it says, The law was given by Moses, but
grace and truth, John 1.17, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. The law came by Moses,
but grace and truth came by the Lord Jesus Christ. Truth and
grace are twins, inseparable twins. Salvation is entirely
of grace, and God's children love it that way. They love to
talk about sovereign grace. They love to talk about eternal
grace, immutable grace, free grace. And I love going back
again and defining grace as the scriptures do. It's the bestowal
of a gift on them, on those who have no merit in them and from
whom no compensation is demanded. It's bestowed as a free gift
on those who have no positive merits whatsoever, but are thoroughly
ill-deserving and thoroughly hell-deserving. This sovereign
grace is unmerited. and it's unsought, and it cannot
be bought, it cannot be earned, it cannot be won. The recipient
has no claim on it. It's not asked for, and it's
undesired. Eternal life is a gift. Knowing God is a gift. It's not earned, it's not claimed
as a right and it's always in the scriptures diametrically
opposed, as black is to light, as light is to darkness, to any
works whatsoever. Grace. is just purely the work
of our God and it honours Him. So where the truth of the Gospel
is declared, as it was to these Galatians and they ran well,
where the truth of the Gospel is, there is grace. There is
grace bestowed because it's the salvation by the Gospel of grace.
And where the grace of God is, there is truth. Who hindered you? Who cut in
on you? Who's now persuading you?" says
Paul. The truth has serious implications. The love of the truth has serious,
deep implications in the lives of God's people. Paul would not
allow for one second for Titus to be circumcised and he wouldn't
allow his people to be brought into bondage. For him to circumcise
Titus in Galatians 2 would have been to admit that Christ is
not all in salvation. To whom we gave place by subjection. You see, we didn't submit ourselves
to them. We didn't come under their persuasion.
No, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue
with you. We have to be so thankful for
God for raising up Paul, who had been the most extraordinary
passionate legalist, to be turned to someone who was as equally
passionate and vehement about sovereign grace. He had met his
Saviour. He knew how he was saved. When Paul met the Lord Jesus
on the Damascus road, all of his works, which men esteemed
and Paul esteemed, were seen in an instance to be absolute
dung, which is what he called it. Manure. Manure. Not compost. Manure. And that's why he had to speak
so strongly to Peter, because Peter by his actions was saying,
there is some little tiny thing that you can do that might make
you more acceptable to God. He wasn't walking uprightly according
to the truth of the Gospel. Poor Peter had been persuaded. I want you brothers and sisters
to be persuaded by God about God. Be persuaded by God about
yourself. So the question is, and so many
people raise it and I hear it so often, is how can you know
the truth? You can have your truth and I
can have my truth and he can have his truth and we can all
get together and have one great big multi-faith celebration of
all our various truths because no one can actually know the
truth. That's not what our Saviour said.
Isn't it lovely what he said? In John 8.32, you shall know
the truth. God's children know the truth. Does that mean they know all
that's in this book? No, but they know Him. They know
Him, and they know His Gospel. And you shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free. If you continue in my word,
then you value my disciples indeed. See, God's children... The word
disciple means to learn. God's children are learners. We are prepared to learn of Him. We can know the truth. The truth
is a person. It's the truth, according to
the Lord Jesus, that makes me free. It's not my knowledge.
It must be He who makes me free. free to believe, free to know,
free to love, free to trust, free to look away from myself
and everyone else and look away from my works, free just to look
to Him as the gift of grace and the gift of salvation. Look unto
Him and be you saved, all you ends of the earth. Who persuaded
the Galatians? Who's persuading the people of
this world? It's very, very evident, isn't
it, from any cursory look at history, and I've read you a
little bit of what's going on in enthusiastic evangelism today. It is so evident that people
have been persuaded away from the truth, the truth of the Gospel. The truth, of course, is a person. to be persuaded away from the
truth is ultimately to change the character of the God that
you believe in. And to change the character to change the way God sees His
work. That's the persuasion so often,
isn't it? The Lord Jesus makes it clear,
doesn't He? He says, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am
the life. And then He makes it so clear,
doesn't He? He puts an end to all multi-faith nonsense. No
one comes to the Father but by Me. So the Lord Jesus, in closing,
is all the truth. He's all the truth about God.
If you want to know about God, you look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He says, He that has seen Me has seen the Father. In Him dwells
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, all the fullness of sovereignty,
all the fullness of Creator, all the fullness of justice,
all the fullness of holiness, all the fullness of grace and
righteousness, all the fullness of wisdom, all the fullness of
all of the attributes of God are just wrapped up for us to
see in Him. Don't have to look anywhere else. And as we know, brothers and
sisters, and as Paul was made so painfully aware and so delightfully
aware on the Damascus Road, the Lord Jesus Christ is the truth
about me. He's the revelation of the truth
about all humanity. When Peter had a revelation of
him, he says, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. So the Lord Jesus Christ is the
truth about me. He reveals so clearly that I'm
not like him. He's God. and I'm a creature. He's holy and I'm anything but
holy. He is full of grace and truth
and I'm full of everything else. He shows me also what I am. On the cross the Lord Jesus revealed
God. in all of His glorious attributes,
His holiness, His justice, His love, His mercy and grace. You
take them all to the cross and you will see them magnified extraordinarily. And you take all of humanity
to the cross and then you'll see what they really are. That's where you see humanity
on display. That's where you see humanity
on display before its creator. Without the grace of God, you
see, we can look back from these 2,000 years and say, well, if
I was there, if I was there, I wouldn't have been like that.
I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have been like those
religious leaders. I wouldn't have walked by and knocked him.
Garbage. Absolute garbage. The only thing that stops us
treating Him like that is Sovereign Grace restraining and changing
us. We would have, as humanity does
today, we would have plotted against Him with lies and hypocrisy. Read Clay's article in the Bulletin
this week, it's really good. But wonderfully the Lord Jesus
Christ reveals the truth about salvation. See he is salvation,
isn't he? I love what Simeon says, isn't
he? He held that baby, just a baby, in his arms. He says, I can go
to heaven now. I've finished my time here. I
can go in happiness and peace because my eyes have seen Thy
salvation. Brothers and sisters, we are
dependent, totally and utterly dependent upon the sovereign
mercy and grace of God to stop us being hindered. Who's hindered
you? What's happened? What's happened
to you Galatians? What's happened to so much of
this professing Christian world that the glorious truths of the
Gospel are no longer sufficient? They're no longer substantial
enough. They're no longer gratifying
enough. And people want more. And God
in His judgment has provided entertainment, endless entertainment,
inside and outside of religion if people want gratification.
So this persuasion didn't come from he who called you. It didn't
come from the Lord. If God calls you, you're going
to be called, as Galatians 1.6, you're going to be called into
the grace of God. And you're called, as Paul was,
by the grace of God. called by grace to rest entirely
upon Him, to look to Him and to find your soul at rest and
at peace, and to find looking again and again and again, a
source of endless delight and comfort. That's what Heaven's
about, isn't it? That's what the new creation's
about. Let's pray.