Today we have before us one of
the most graphic stories in all of the New Testament. A story
that no doubt you know well. It's one of those
remarkably intense episodes in the early Christian church. And I'm sure everyone that was
there never forgot it. We talk about cutting the air
with a knife. The air would have been so thick
you would have needed a chainsaw to cut it at this time, at this
church in Antioch, in the place where people were first called
Christians. And God the Holy Spirit has given
us this account because there are some wonderfully powerful
lessons in it that I trust the Lord might help us to learn today. Without Him we can do nothing. Let's read Galatians chapter
2 and read about this episode in verse 11. But when Peter was come to Antioch,
I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed. For before
that certain men came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles.
But when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing
them which were of the circumcision. And other Jews dissembled, other
Jews joined in this hypocrisy likewise with him, insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their hypocrisy." But when
I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the
gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew,
livest after a manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews,
why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank You that this account is here before us and we pray,
Heavenly Father, that You would write the lessons that this account
brings to us on our hearts, Heavenly Father. You would shepherd our
hearts and souls and You might cause us, Heavenly Father, by
Your grace, to be a friend like Paul. and ultimately to respond
as a brother like Peter to situations like this. That you, Heavenly
Father, might get great glory for your holy name and your son
might be honoured amongst your people. We pray your blessing
on us, Heavenly Father. Be our teacher and our guide
this morning. We pray in Jesus' name and for
his glory. Amen. Fellowship is a big part of this
letter of Galatians. It's a big part of the New Testament. To fellowship with God, you must
fellowship with His people. To fellowship with God, you must
fellowship in the Gospel of His dear and precious Son. To fellowship
with God, you must fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so Paul begins the letter by saying that he's written as an apostle, a man sent from
God, but is written on behalf of brethren. So Paul is saying
that there are many brethren with me. Paul came with brethren
to this part of Galatia. One of the brethren he came with
was a man named Barnabas, the son of encouragement. And they
came not as private individuals, they were God's messengers to
these Gentiles, and they brought the testimony of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They brought the testimony from
the Scriptures, they brought the testimony of historic evidence. They brought the testimony of
personal evidence. They were witnesses of the Lord
Jesus. So Paul is not a private individual,
he's an ambassador. To disagree with Paul is to bring
his king into court with you in judgement. Salvation of the
Lord is of the Lord in all of its entirety. To add to it, to
add to what the Lord Jesus has done on behalf of His people
is to destroy it. To take anything from it is to
destroy it, because it's a description of the character of our God,
description of His character and His character revealed in
His work. People are justified by the faith
of Jesus Christ, the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ. What
remarkable faithfulness! It's good to ponder the faithfulness
of our great God and Saviour, faithfulness in the face of all
of the opposition, opposition from his family, opposition from
his countrymen, opposition from Satan, and ultimately as he goes
to the cross. The wrath of God, the sword of
God's holy justice is raised against him because of the sin
that he was made on behalf of his people and he was slain. He was crushed by that sword
of justice. He was forsaken by his father
and yet he was still faithful. He was faithfully honouring his
father's name, his father's reputation, he was faithfully honouring his
law, he was faithfully honouring his word, he was faithfully resting
on the promise of his father's faithfulness to him in the worst
of possible situations that anyone could ever be put through. And true saving faith, true salvation
is knowing Him. It's a grace gift from above
and it's a grace gift that is worked outside of man's activities. It's done on their behalf because
of the work of their surety. Paul brought this message, he
brought a glorious message of salvation to these Galatian believers
and they responded. They responded in love, such
love that they would have plucked out their own eyes and given
them to him. They responded in fellowship,
one with another. They responded in wonderful fellowship
with Paul and Barnabas. And he writes this letter with
a troubled heart and a grieving heart because that fellowship
is now broken. And that fellowship was broken
by these false teachers who came and they attacked Paul's character
and they attacked Paul's gospel. And he goes on and here we have
nearly two chapters of Galatians and here he is defending himself. What a remarkable thing that
an ambassador is brought to defend himself. If an ambassador is
brought to defend himself then people need to tremble before
the king. Such is the danger. He is fearful
for these Galatians and the fellowship that he had with them grieves
his heart, but he reminds them that the brethren that are included
with him in the earlier part of chapter 2 include the fellowship
that he had with all of the apostles. In the presence of false teachers
in Jerusalem, all of the apostles gave him and Barnabas the right
hand of fellowship. So now these Galatians are brought
to a critical juncture in the road, aren't they? Do they remain
in fellowship with Paul and the Apostles and the Gospel, or do
they stay in fellowship with these false brethren? God brings
people to a crisis point in their lives often, to reveal by His
grace how he saves and how he shepherds and how he rescues
these people. See, Peter had by his actions
in Galatia separated a body of believers that was joined together. The Christians were first called
Christians in Antioch because Antioch was built as a great
metropolis by the Romans at that time, and they actually had it
divided off like the spokes in a wheel, and so they had a section
for each national group. in Antioch and they had huge
walls and gates they could close and so if there was strife they
could actually contain the enmity between the nations which we
see again and again displayed throughout this world. And the
reason the Christians were so unusual is that the Christians
were gathered from all of those different groups and they gathered
together and all of those national distinctives, Roman citizenship
and all sorts of other things were irrelevant to Christians.
Only one thing mattered, and that was the Lord Jesus. And
the Lord Jesus, showing them who they were and showing them
at the same time who He is, had brought these people together
in their first call Christians. And here we have, in Galatians
Chapter 2, an account of a situation where that church is broken up. And here you have a division. You have Paul and some Gentiles
on one side, and over here you have Peter, plus some Jews that
came from Jerusalem, plus some other Jews from that community,
including Barnabas. They're divided. they're divided. What was joined together, what
the Lord Jesus did in building one and breaking down that great
wall of division between humanity, between the Jews and the Gentiles,
is now being re-erected by Peter. And so Paul comes between Peter and terrible,
terrible situation. And you could have cut the air
with a knife, as I said. He came to Antioch. When Peter was come to Antioch,
I withstood him to the face. I stood directly in front of
him. Because he was to be blamed,
because he stood at that time in the original, he stood condemned. He stood as a condemned man.
And Paul publicly accuses Peter of being a hypocrite, of walking
a crooked path, of compelling others to join with him. But
what an extraordinarily embarrassing moment this must have been for
the Apostle Peter. As I said earlier, no one would
have forgotten how tense this must have been, and what an extraordinarily
difficult situation for Paul to be put in. But Peter was compromising
the Gospel, and in life We have to make many concessions to the
thoughts and feelings of those around us just to get on. As
you say in cricketing parlance, you have to let many things go
through to the keeper. And you just have to, if the
Lord allows, just ignore the slice, ignore the things that
you might hold dear, that you can just be at peace with people. But there is one place where
any compromise, any concession, is deadly. And Paul reminds us again, doesn't
it, that though we or an angel from heaven preach any other
gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let
him be accursed. And just so you're not mistaken
about how serious this situation is, But though we or an angel
from heaven preach any other gospel than that which we have
preached to you, let him be accursed. And as we said before, so say
I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than
that, that you have received." So it was a gospel that was preached,
and it was a gospel that was received, and now it's a gospel
under challenge. Let him be accursed. Anathema it is. Let him be without
God. Peter compromised the truth of
the Gospel. You see it there in verse 14. But when I saw that they walked
not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, He spoke to Peter. See, in 2
verse 5, earlier, he talks about the false brethren that were
brought in unawares to spy out our liberty that we have in Christ
Jesus, to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an
hour. It's a Hebrew idiom. It means
not for a minute. As soon as he knew that the Gospel
had been compromised, He dealt with them, and He dealt with
them for a reason. He gave no subjection to them.
He didn't bow to them in any way, shape or form, not for an
hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you." The
truth of the Gospel. Now one of the Roman Catholics, centuries have tried to pretend
that this Peter is not the same Peter. It's another Peter. Because
here we have the Apostle Paul publicly rebuking the one they
call the first Pope. Peter would have nothing to do
with their blasphemy. This really is Peter the Apostle. All of the language of the text,
line after line, indicates that there was no question about who
it was. And the question that should lie before us and before
our hearts is, if Peter can compromise the Gospel, how easily and quickly
can I compromise the Gospel and you compromise the Gospel? Any
of us who know anything of our own hearts would want to confess
to our weakness. rather than our strength. It is something to be very mindful
of in the New Testament, that every time someone who is a believer
says, I will, they fall almost instantly. All of the apostles
that night that the Lord Jesus was betrayed said, I will, I
will, I'll stand there with you. And Peter stood up above them
all and said, even if those other 10 fall away, I'll be there. I'll be there with you. I will,
I will. When man thinks he is strong, in any area of our lives,
when we boast to ourselves that we won't fall as others do, we
are falling as the words are formed in our thoughts. It is
only the grace of God. And this is a great picture,
a great picture of the Lord shepherding His sheep. We have no question
that Peter was a saved man, a saved man before this, a perfectly
righteous man in God's sight before this, and a perfectly
righteous man I love what Proverbs 24.16 says, for the just man
falleth seven times and rises up. The just man falleth seven
times. In the scriptures seven times,
the number seven is a number that implies completeness, a
just man's falling. I don't know about you, but a
just man here is falling and falling and falling, but he rises
up. Why does he rise up? He rises
up by the grace of God in his life. The just man falls seven
times and rises up, but the wicked shall fall into mischief. What a remarkable example we
have here of the Lord shepherding His people, shepherding His beloved
one, with His rod and His staff. And He uses a true friend. The only true friends we will
ever have, ultimately, are friends of our souls. They're the only
true friends we ever have. They're the friends that we have
as we go through this world and many of them are so delightful
that any friendship will finish at death. But a true friend is
a friend of God and a friend of your souls. That's what Peter
says, isn't he? When Peter, Paul says here, by
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is the Holy Spirit's recording
this for us. That when Peter was come to Antioch,
I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed. I resisted
him to his face. I stood in front of him as he
was falling into a pit. I stood there before him to protect
him from falling any further. He didn't talk behind his back.
Paul wasn't a gossip, but also there's a very important principle
at stake, isn't there? When there is a public sin in
a public officer in the church, it requires public rebuke, so
that all would hear and all would know, because many, many were
led astray by Peter. And this public scene had led
to that division in the church spreading even to Barnabas. Peter was to be blind. Peter stood condemned. He stood with the circumcised,
the ones that had said that they came from James. He stood with
them and he stood opposed and he broke in fellowship with Paul
and the Gentiles. You see, Peter's actions here
are a mirror of what was actually happening in the Galatian believers. Paul wrote in verse 6 of chapter
1, he says, You are so soon removed from him who called you. He's
marvelled, he's astonished that they have so soon, so quickly
removed from him who called you into the grace of Christ unto
another gospel. That's exactly what Peter had
done. It was a thing that caused Paul to marvel. Peter was to be blamed. He was operating to please men,
and Paul said in Galatians 1.10, For do I now persuade men or
God, or do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should
not be the servant of Christ." You cannot be a servant of Christ
and have a desire to please men. You are a servant and an ambassador.
You have a message from the King and you are there to deliver
that message. And whether people frown or smile,
makes no difference to the ambassador, he is the king's servant. Verse
12, for before that certain men came from James, as we saw in
Acts chapter 15 verse 24, these people were liars and part of
the lie that they propagated with the Galatians and propagated
in the other places was that they actually said that they
had commandments from the apostles in Jerusalem, Acts 15.24. For as much as we have heard
that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words,
subverting your souls, saying you must be circumcised and keep
the law. That's what they were saying.
To whom we gave no such commandment. They had, as we saw last week,
they had associated themselves and got some sense of authority
by claiming that they were the representatives of the Jerusalem
church. But before they came, before
these people came, Peter did eat with the Gentiles. So Peter
had learnt his lesson, hadn't he? He'd learnt that marvellous
lesson in Acts chapter 10 when he had that vision. And three
times the God in a vision lowers a sheep and it's full of all
sorts of animals that are unclean. And God makes that remarkable
statement to Paul, to Peter. And Peter gets the lesson. What
God has called clean, don't you dare call it unclean. And Peter
He goes down to Cornelius' house and so he eats with the Gentiles
and breaks the law, and he fellowships with the Gentiles and breaks
the law. And he delighted in the liberty. He delighted in the fact that
God had purified the hearts of the Gentiles by faith. And he
went back to Jerusalem and the people in Jerusalem who were
still following the law criticised him. And there he was in Jerusalem
defending his activities and defending them again in the Jerusalem
Council. And he calls it, you're putting
a yoke. A yoke that we've never been able to bear. You're yoking
these Gentiles. The Gentiles were never given
the law. The Gentiles were never required to be under the law.
The Jews never kept it, if they were honest. He says, why are you yoking them?
Peter had enjoyed the liberty, the freedom which we have in
Christ. Imagine what it must have been
like to be a zealous Jew in those days. You got up in the morning
and everything you looked at involved some rules that you
had to keep. How you washed your hands, how
you cleaned the dishes in your kitchen, how you prepared your
meal. how you cook things, what clothes
you put on. Every moment of every day there
was a law standing above you saying do this and live. The law was such a burden for
them, when they went to bed at night they would have been so
pleased to be on their pillow as long as it was made out of
the right stuff. I often think of the Jews, what it must have
been like for a Jew who truly had the Spirit of God in him.
What a joy it must have been on that Day of Atonement. A great
day where you gathered together and you were told to sit down
and do nothing, not lift a finger, and then on your behalf a high
priest went in to the Holy of Holies and he took blood. And he came back out, God having
accepted a blood sacrifice. And for those real Jews. Those
real Jews who really should be called Christians even in those
days, it must have been the most remarkable sense of relief and
wonder and gratitude to God. They weren't looking at the blood
of that sacrifice, they were looking beyond it. They were
looking beyond it, looking where Abraham had looked and looking
where Noah had looked, looking where Enoch had looked, looking
where Abel had looked, looking to a substitute. And there they
were, the high priest having done his work and you doing nothing,
and then the high priest coming out and having those wonderful
words to say to you, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord
make His face to shine upon you and give you peace. There would
have been some people sitting there on those days who would
have seen that that peace was a remarkable peace from the burdens
of the law. The burdens of a guilty conscience
under that law. What freedom, what liberty they
must have felt. What wonder they must have felt
about a great God who did that. Not because of anything they
do. Their job was to sit still and do nothing. Someone else
did it all for them and came out and blessed them and they're
in the very presence of God. Clean. Clean because of a substitute. Clean because of God's work on
their behalf and nothing to do with them. That was the liberty, that was
the liberty that these people like Paul, what extraordinary
freedom it was to know that he was perfectly righteous, and
perfectly holy, and perfectly acceptable to a God who was a
kitchen fire, because the Lord had taken away his sins by being
made sin for him. No wonder those who have been
forgiven much love much. Paul had been forgiven much. And it's love, it's love for
the Lord and love for his gospel, love for his people and love
for Peter that causes this man He says he works harder than
all of them. He says it wasn't me who was working. He said it
was the grace of God working in him. This is an activity of
a gracious, gracious God restoring a wayward sheep. Peter used to
eat with the Gentiles, but when they came, when they were come,
he feared. He feared those that were of
the circumcision. Verse 12. Peter, this great apostle,
like his brethren in Galatia, had stumbled and fallen. He who had such remarkable courage,
who had enjoyed such remarkable privileges of liberty, here he
was. He just feared men. He was looking
at men and not looking at the Lord Jesus. He didn't say anything
at all. All he did was pick up his plate
and he moved it from one table to another. And he had so many
ways, didn't he? He had so many ways of justifying
it. Maybe, as Hebrews 10 and 12 tell
us, the brethren in Jerusalem were suffering intense persecution. And Peter could have justified
it by saying, if I don't stir things up here in Antioch, maybe
there won't be so much trouble for the brethren back there in
Jerusalem. There were so many ways. that
we can justify sin. We will justify in our own minds. Always find a way. But the fear
of man in the scriptures brings a snare, Proverbs 29. But Isaiah verse chapter 51 is
a remarkable passage. He says, even I am He that comforteth
you." Isaiah 51 verse 12. He's the one who comforts His
people. And who art thou that thou shouldest
be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which
shall be made as grass? And forget, forget the Lord thy
Maker. Here you are looking at a man,
a man who is going to die and a man who is going to be as the
grass of the field. And forget the Lord your Maker
who stretches out the heavens and lays the foundations of the
earth. and has feared continually every
day because of the fury of the oppressor as if he was ready
to destroy. Where is the fury of the oppressor? I, even I,
am he that comforts you." We look to the Lord and He comforts
His people. We aren't to look to men if the
Lord will give us the grace. We aren't to be fearful, fearful
of their frowns, fearful of their enticements to add something
to the Gospel, something of man's work that somehow might enhance
or polish the Gospel. Fear of man leads to a compromise. Here we have a picture of an
apostle, a believer, a believer stumbling and falling and compromising. The fear of man brings a snare. Peter walked not uprightly. He walked a crooked path. His movement from the table of
the Gentiles to the table of the circumcision was a crooked
winding path. Now let's just look at some of
the descriptions of this crooked path. He did eat with the Gentiles
but when they would come the first thing he did is he feared
man and then his actions led him to withdraw. He withdrew. It's exactly what
Paul says of the Galatians. They're withdrawing from him.
He's wanting to be in fellowship with them. To withdraw is to
hold back, to shrink, to avoid. It's actually a term related
to ships. It's actually to let the sails
down. Don't go quite so hard. to withdraw. So Paul says that
he kept back nothing. He's free of the blood of all
men, he says in Acts 20, because he kept back nothing from people. He didn't withdraw anything of
the truth about who God is from these people. because he was
God's ambassador. God is not embarrassed about
his character. He's not embarrassed about his
election. He's not embarrassed about his
sovereignty. He's not embarrassed about the
particularity of his love for his people or the particularity
of his redemption. Ambassadors just say this is
what he is and this is what he says. I remember being in a church
some years ago And the fellow was preaching through Acts chapter
13. I thought this will get very interesting as he gets to Acts
chapter 13, verse 48, because he denied absolutely everything
that that verse says. And I thought it would be really
funny because Acts 14, verse 38 says, When the Gentiles heard
this and they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as
many as were ordained to eternal life believed. It's a great key
to the whole passage that God had a people out there, and to
those people God had sent the Gospel, and God had brought a
response in their hearts to the Gospel. And when the fellow had
finished, I'd actually been in Bible college with him, and I
asked him, I said, why on earth didn't you preach on that passage?
Why did you skip that verse? He didn't read it, and he didn't
mention it in his sermon. And it would have just answered
all the questions that were in the text. And he said, well,
the reason I didn't talk about it was that last week we had
a discussion after church. They had a question and answer
time after church. And there was a very heated discussion
about God's predestination and God's eternal love and God's
election. And so I didn't want to bring
it up again because I didn't want to stir people up. Dear,
oh, dear. I was just so stunned. I'm not
sure what I said to him. I haven't seen him since. It
was just shocking to think that you would actually hide, you
would withdraw a very clear, plain statement and let those
people who argue about it go and talk to God. God's not embarrassed
about it. He wrote it. He wrote it clearly
and plainly. And so Paul says he's not shunned,
which is the same word. He hasn't withdrawn from declaring
the whole counsel of God. Paul was more than happy to declare
divine election, divine predestination, absolute sovereignty, total human
depravity and total human responsibility for sins and particular redemption
and the great surety ship, the great gospel of the Lord Jesus. He held back absolutely nothing. He was just a faithful witness
and a faithful ambassador. And Paul tells us about these
Galatians, about these false teachers in Galatia, why do they
constrain you to be circumcised? Only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross of Christ. They withdrew, and Peter
had joined those who withdrew, who held back, kept something
back. Paul says to these Galatians,
he says, Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you
the truth? Paul held nothing back. Peter
was holding something back. He withdrew. He separated himself,
is the next word there. And the word to separate is the
same word that's used regarding sheep and goats. Paul was making
a statement. in separating himself from these
people. So he no longer identified with
the Gentiles and at this time he was no longer identifying
with the Gospel of Paul. Hebrews 10.25 talks about not
forsaking the assembly of ourselves together. which means in the
context of Hebrews 10 is not so much about church, as important
as church is, it's vitally important to the glory of God, but it's
forsaking yourself from and removing yourself, separating yourself
from identifying with the message of the Gospel. So Peter by his
actions is denying that Christ is all. that somehow if you do
these little things that you might be more pleasing to God,
you might be more godly, you might be just a little bit more
sanctified, a little bit more saved. It's the yeast, isn't
it? Just a little thing, a little
movement, a little bit of yeast works through the whole batch
of dough. He withdrew, he separated himself,
and all compromise, all compromise always leads others to follow. Sin is never happy on its own. That's why sinners gather together
with other sinners. They get comfort from them. They
get pressured as well. Barnabas was carried away. Not only was Peter carried away,
Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. Barnabas was
the man who had been with Paul on the missionary journey to
Galatians. He'd been into these Gentile
houses and he'd eaten pork and enjoyed prawns and enjoyed all
that non-kosher food that the Gentiles had been enjoying for
years. There he was in their houses having fellowship and
Barnabas was carried away. And the grace of God raises up
a Paul. What a great thing it is to have
a true friend. What a great thing it is to have
a friend as the Lord Jesus is who sticks closer than a brother.
What it is a great thing to have a friend who comes between us
and our fall. and stands there, stands there
on God's behalf. Verse 14, but when I saw that
they were not walked uprightly, when he saw it was an urgent
action, when they not walked uprightly, they weren't walking
in a straight course. Peter and Barnabas were walking
in a crooked walk. They'd eaten with the Gentiles,
they'd enjoyed fellowship with the Gentiles, they'd stood before
crowds of people saying that the law was a yoke, that they
had never been able to be under and it was a testing of God to
put people back under the yoke of the law. They were now saying
that somehow, somehow this fellowship with these circumcised people
is helpful. It's a crooked, crooked walk.
It's a hypocritical walk. It's putting on a mask of our
external righteousness. They walk not uprightly and they
walk not according to the truth of the gospel. It's the thing that is the passion
of Paul's heart, isn't it? He, as I said earlier, he who
has been forgiven much loves much. When Paul met the Lord
Jesus on that Damascus road, for the first time in his life,
he realized how big a sinner he was. And for the first time
in his life, he realized the character of God. He'd met him. What is the truth of the gospel? The truth of the Gospel is how
God justifies sinners. And I love what he says in the
next verses which we'll look at, Lord willing, over the next
few weeks. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have
believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ. See, not everyone would say that
God justifies sinners. But what do they do, what do
they say about how He justifies them? Does He justify them when
they believe? Does He justify them when they
pray the sinner's prayer? Does He justify them when they
realise that there are two ways to live and they can now pray
this prayer and turn themselves into living a godly life? Although does he justify them
when they ask the Lord Jesus into their hearts? Justification is the declaration
in the court of God about a sinner. It's something done outside of
us completely. It's not because we do anything. It's not some sort of a deal
that we've struck with God. The scriptures are just plain,
it is God that justifies. He doesn't offer justification. He doesn't make salvation possible. We're justified by the Lord Jesus. Justified by God. Justified by what Christ had
done. Justified by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're justified by His blood.
We're justified by grace. We're justified by His faith.
Where were the Galatians? Where were the Galatians when
the Lord Jesus died on the cross? There they were, stuck in the
upper parts of Turkey, central Turkey. Strangers they were,
strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without
God in the world, just like we were. It was all done outside
of us, just as it was for those believing Jews when that high
priest went in. They were there and God had justified
them long before Paul got there. Justified freely. I love that word freely, doesn't
it? There is no cause in us justified freely by His grace. See, Peter
is blurring the lines, isn't he? Between law and grace, exactly
what these false teachers were doing. Peter, like the false brethren,
was actually compelling others. In verse 14, they walked not
uprightly, And Paul says unto Peter before them, if thou being
a Jew, livest up the manner of the Gentiles. He was a Jew and
he had the freedom and the liberty to live like a Gentile and not
as the Jews. Why compel? Isn't it extraordinary how legalism
is a compelling influence on us? That's how we are wired in our
Adam flesh. Do this and live, says our Adam
flesh all of the time. I don't know about you, but it
is remarkable when you're in the presence of people who live
in the basis of legalism. There is this amazing sense,
because I think the hearts of God's people are softened and
they have a heart of flesh and they are aware of their sinfulness
and they are aware of the fact that in so many parts of their
lives they have nothing to boast in at all and someone comes along
and they brag and they tell you about their Bible reading and
you think, oh dear, oh dear. If only I could read my Bible
as much as this person. They talk to you about their
prayer life and you realise that your prayer life is pathetic. They talk about their witnessing
and you realise that your witnessing is fragile and fractured in so
many ways. And I don't know about you, but
so often the instant reaction is, I better start doing some
of that. I better start doing some of that. I could do a little
bit better. I could get up a little bit earlier
in the morning and I could write a diary, I could have a prayer
journal, or I could have a daily reading thing that I've religiously
stuck to. It's wonderful. It's wonderful
to read the scriptures. It's wonderful to pray. But the
God's children have nothing to boast in about any of it. We
talk to God about those things and we don't brag before men.
But there is this compulsion. He compelled them. You'd ask
Peter, are you compelling these Gentiles to come over here? And
he would say, no way in the world. But he was. Anything that's added to the
Gospel, anything that's added to the Gospel is to take away
from the Gospel altogether. And what's happening is that
these people and Peter and the others are all looking at themselves
and looking at their works and looking at their meals and looking
at the food they're eating and looking at the righteousness
of these people that said they came from James, they would have
been as polished as anything. They would have looked as flash
as rats with gold teeth. They would have looked so good. They would have been so zealous. And what would they have said
of Paul? Here's our friend Peter, he's come all the way from Jerusalem. He's spent weeks getting his
way up here and here you are, Paul, standing up and embarrassing
him in front of this crowd of people. How dare you be so insensitive? How dare you be so rude? How
hard? Peter's come all this way to
encourage us in Antioch. Here you are putting your feelings
and your convictions above the sensitivities of others and you're
happy to embarrass him publicly. It was hard for Paul, wasn't
it? It wasn't something that was easy for Paul to do at all. And you can imagine the sneers
and the sneegers that here he is, this self-righteous Paul,
this arrogant Paul, this incredibly inflexible Paul. But compromise,
as I said earlier, compromise is saying something about the
character and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And compromise,
just to remind us, involves these things, doesn't it? is to withdraw. Don't be quite so plain. To hold back something to please
people. Compromise involves separation. You're no longer identifying
with the truth of the Gospel and God's ambassadors. There
is only one Gospel, and it is a matter of life and death. The fear of man brings a snare,
and God's people can be brought into places of hypocrisy. May God protect us from those
things. May God make us friends like Paul and may God make us
servants like Peter. I'd love for you to go home and
read all of 2 Peter especially. 2 Peter is the most remarkable
book to be read in light of this and in light of what was happening
with the false teachers in Galatia. Because Peter's response is remarkable,
isn't it? How do you respond in that situation? The self-righteous will always
respond in justifying themselves in all sorts of ways. Those who
are God's children respond as Peter did. It's grace in action. It's the mark, has all the hallmarks
of the great shepherd of our souls at work in the people that
he loves. Peter was rebuked, Peter was
challenged openly and publicly and called to be a hypocrite.
And he turns around at the end of chapter 3 in 2 Peter, and
how does he describe Paul? even, verse 15, even as our beloved
brother Paul. It's also according to the wisdom
given to him. He's a beloved brother and he
has wisdom given to him from above. So that's grace, isn't
it? Paul, Peter talks about this,
we have obtained a like precious faith with us through, not the
righteousness of any work of man, the righteousness of God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ. He acknowledges, he acknowledges
that Paul is writing scripture and giving this account. and
he calls Paul a beloved brother. That's real grace at work, isn't
it? He must increase and I must decrease. It doesn't matter how
far we decrease as long as He increases. Peter would have been
so thankful to the Lord for sending Paul. There's not a word in Galatians
or in Peter's letters to indicate that he stopped there and stood
up and argued. At the moment Paul spoke to him,
the white flag would have gone up. He would have been smarting
from the public embarrassment and he would have been so grateful
to God. How many times, brothers and
sisters, have you stumbled and fallen and the Lord has sent
someone to rebuke you and to bring you back to that path.
This is the great shepherding work of the great shepherd of
our souls, isn't it? He would have been so thankful
that the Lord had set a limit to his sin, that the Lord had
restored the gospel to him and to these people that he cared
deeply about. Beloved Brother Paul. May the Lord work in our hearts
to show us how easily we can stumble and show us again and
again how extraordinarily gracious He is to His people. May He give
us hearts, hearts of flesh that again and again are just soft
to his chastening hand. It may not seem pleasant, but
there are two choices in this world for every human being,
aren't there? One is to be stopped and hedged
about with thorns by the Lord, and the other is to be given
over and allowed to go your own way. May God never let any of
you that I love go to your own way. Let's pray.