Once again it's good to see you
all here. It's a great time when the Lord gathers us around His
Word and the prayer of His preachers in all times has been that He
would come and He would minister and He would reveal Himself and
He would save His people. He would demonstrate the wonders
of redeeming love. And in Galatians, if you turn
there, this is where we'll be again this morning. Galatians,
we have the Apostle Paul forced by false teachers to defend himself
and to defend his gospel. and what a blessing it has been
for the Church this past 2000 years to have this witness laid
before us. And Paul is forced, by their
attacks on him personally, Paul is forced to give an account
of his history. Let's start in verse 11. But I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I
neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my conversation,
my way of life, in time past in the Jews' religion, how that
beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God and wasted it,
and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine
own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of
my fathers. But when it pleased God, who
separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the
heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. Neither
went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me,
but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. Then after
three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with
him fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw
I none, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which
I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not. Afterwards I came
into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and was unknown by faith
unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ. But they had
heard only that He which persecuted us in times past now preaches
the faith which once He destroyed, and they glorified God in me."
For someone who's been around Christian circles for many years
now, getting on towards 20 years. I've been proclaiming the Gospel. There are two reactions that
are common to many, many pastors. There are people who want, when
they know that that's what you do, there are people who want
to try and establish the fact that they really are, and they
really are Christians and they really are believers and they're
wanting some sort of assurance from you, some sort of tick of
approval of what they are and what they believe. And there
are others, of course, who are struggling with assurance and
they're wanting to know, despite what they see in themselves and
see around them, they're wanting to know, am I really one of His? Am I really saved? The false
teachers throughout the scriptures preach do and do, but always
they are speaking peace to people who have no peace. If you have
peace with God, peace that comes from God, it's a peace that nothing
in this world can take from you. And it's a peace from God, a
peace that comes from the Gospel being delivered to you and from
the Gospel which is the Lord Jesus being revealed in you. We saw last time we met that
Paul's gospel was a gospel of revelation. It was by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. And that's what saving faith
is, isn't it? It's a revelation. It's Christ
in you, the hope of glory. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that you would cause your words to be faithfully delivered. Heavenly Father, work in us and
amongst us. that the Gospel that we believe
and the Gospel that we are found comfort in and delight in is
a Gospel that we will continue to proclaim with faithfulness. Protect us, Heavenly Father,
from the multitudinous errors which are around us and lead
us and guide us into your truth. And Heavenly Father, we thank
you that you declare that your Gospel is the power of God unto
salvation. What a remarkable thing, Heavenly
Father, that you have entrusted this Gospel into the hands of
men to be delivered faithfully, that you might use that Gospel,
you might call your people to yourself by that Gospel. Father,
make us faithful. We do pray for your blessing.
We pray for your mercy and pray for your grace upon us as we
come to these extraordinary words. We pray, Heavenly Father, that
they would be spirit and life for us and that you would cause
your people to look to the Lord Jesus, to look to Him alone for
absolutely everything. May He be our place of rest and
may He alone be our refuge. We commit ourselves into Your
hands, Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name we pray. So Paul gives his history. So
I wanted to look at his history. There is a history before his
conversion and there is a history after his conversion. In verse
13, he says, you have heard. You have heard. Paul didn't hide
the fact that what he was from them. He had laid out his life
in the Jews' religion. He laid it out clearly before
them. You have heard that in time past,
Paul had a past. All Christians have a past. They have a before and they have
an after. People say, I've always loved
God. I've always believed in Him. No, they haven't. No, they haven't. Nicodemus would have claimed
those things when he met the Lord Jesus on that dark night
in Jerusalem. And the Lord said to him, you
cannot see the kingdom of God. You cannot enter the kingdom
of God unless you are born from above. There must be this remarkable
transformation. And in times past, in the Jews'
religion, it's wonderful, isn't it, how in the New Testament,
again and again, and the Apostle John does it a lot, he talks
about the Passover of the Jews, and Paul talks about the Jews'
religion, not God's religion, the Jews' religion, how that
beyond measure, savagely, This Jews' religion caused him to
persecute the Church of God and waste it, to try and destroy
it. As Paul was trying to destroy
the Church, he was growing in the Jews' religion. He made havoc. says Acts 8.3. Havoc of the church,
entering every house and hailing men and women, committing them
to prison. In chapter 9 verse 1, Paul is
described as breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples
of the Lord. The Jews' religion, man's religion,
religion without grace. Religion that looks to all the
world as if it's honouring God, but it's not at all. Turn over
in your Bibles to Mark chapter 7. I'd just like you to look
at how the Lord Jesus shows the progression of man's religion. You see, in verse 2 of chapter
7, these Pharisees, Paul was one of them. In verse 2, they
saw. They saw. They are looking at
the external activities of some of the disciples, eating breads
with unwashed and defiled hands. They saw, and at the end of that
verse, they found fault. They saw and they found fault. And then they come in verse 3
to judge, don't they? They judge the Pharisees and
all the Jews, except they wash their hands, eat not, holding
the traditions of the elders. And in verse 5 they say, Why
don't your disciples walk according to the traditions of the elders? They've judged, they've seen,
and they've judged the Lord and his people as unclean. And the Lord Jesus answered them
in verse 6. He says, said unto them, Well
has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites? As it is written,
This people honoureth me with their lips, but their hearts
are far from me. May God protect us from ever
being like that. honour him with their lips, but
have no heart, love, or care for him. In verse 7, they go
on, don't they? In verse 7 he describes that
in vain, in emptiness, all it is, is emptiness. Emptiness do
they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men. They start by looking and judging,
and they stand as judge of the Lord and His people. Verse 8,
they lay aside the commandment of God. They hold on to their
tradition, the tradition of men, and in doing so they lay aside
So it's empty, and now they've laid aside the commandment of
God. What's the commandment of God?
To believe, to trust His Son. And He says in verse 10, they've
laid it aside, it's now, their religion is empty. For well you
reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own tradition. And then in verse 13, ultimately these men who knew
the Old Testament off by heart and thought that they were honouring
God like Paul by persecuting the church, they make the Word
of God of non-effect through your tradition, and at the end
of that verse 13 you'll see that it's never a static thing, it
grows, and many such like things you do. Paul savagely persecuted
the Church of God, but in persecuting it and trying to lay it to waste
and destroy it, in verse 14 he describes himself as profiting. profiting in the Jews' religion
above many of my equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly
zealous for the traditions of my fathers." Paul describes what
it was for him to be in the religion of the Jews in Romans Chapter
9, he describes that Israel which followed after the law of righteousness
has not attained to the law of righteousness. Whatever they
were following after, this righteousness that they had by their legal
activities, they never attained any. righteousness. Wherefore,
because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works
of the law, for they stumbled at that stumbling stone, as it
is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a
rock of offence, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed. Brethren, my heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved, for I bear
them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness." God's
righteousness is a holy righteousness, a perfect righteousness, a righteousness
fitted for heaven and going about to establish their own righteousness,
have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
Paul is describing the false teachers in Galatia, the people
that are troubling. He was one in some sense opposed
to the Church, and some of those Pharisees became believers, but
believers in the law and believers in their own rights. They had
just changed their coats and nothing had happened in their
hearts. See, false religion is the worship
of a false god, or it's the false worship of the true god. Satan doesn't mind which it is. I love the Henry Mayan quote
that's in our book. Anyone who is serious about a
knowledge of and relationship with the living God ought to
question today's religion, which makes salvation only a profession
and not an experience, which operates only in a person's mind
and not upon his heart, which obligates God but does not glorify
God, which designates Jesus Christ as saviour and denies his lordship. His hope of eternal life is based
mainly upon what men think and not upon what God says. You see, you can profit in false
religion. Some of us have. You can have
great esteem in the eyes of men. You can attain to positions of
power and authority and prestige and wealth. You can have people
give you allegiance and almost pay homage to you and your brilliance
and your righteousness which all men see. You can advance
in separation from this immoral world. The word Pharisee means
separated ones. They were separated. They weren't
going to join the dirt of this earth in their immorality. They were above it and they wanted
everyone to see it. It allows for all of those things. It honors zeal. He was exceedingly
zealous. Zealous for what? Zealous for
the traditions of my fathers. False religion can allow a man
to go a long, long way. to be much esteemed and much
admired in this world. Paul was the brightest star in
that firmament, a bright, bright star. And now we have this glorious
description. He gloriously describes his salvation
and he does it in these 10 phrases or 10 words. And I would just
like briefly to go through them with you. See, Paul describes
himself in Acts in 1 Timothy 1.16. He says he's a pattern,
a pattern of salvation. It means an outline, a pattern. A pattern, when we were at school
we had little outlines of Australia and you'd hold your little outline
of Australia on and you'd trace around all the little novels,
leave off Tasmania, and there you had your pattern. There you would have your pattern. That's exactly what Paul's describing
his life as. And in 2nd Timothy 1.13 it's
what he describes his doctrine as. It's a pattern of sound words. A pattern. Like Sodom and Gomorrah
in 2nd Peter are a pattern. They're an outline of what God
is going to do with the wicked and the reprobate. It's a pattern
to be held fast And a pattern to be copied. A pattern that
God himself works in the hearts of all of his people. These are
words that I've quoted I don't know how many times in messages.
They are delightful words. And one of the wonderful things
about having the opportunity to study them closely is they
become more and more significant and they become more and more
profound. And I trust that you'll be able
to trace the outline. The outline will either thrill
you or the outline will trouble you. If the outline troubles
you, there is one place to go. To he who drew the outline in
the first place. Let's just read these words.
They're great words, aren't they? But... But there is a time God butts
in to the life of people, but when there is a time of love,
it, when it, when God's eternal sovereign purpose came to pass,
when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, chose
me out, elected me, set me apart from the rest. and called me
by His grace." See, the call of God is a personal call and
a particular call, but it's the call of grace. If you've come
to salvation, you've heard a call of grace, not a call of works,
not a call of legalism and self-righteousness, a call of grace, a call of grace
to reveal, a revelation, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach
Him among the heathen. The called and those to whom
the Lord has been revealed bear witness to Him. They bear witness
to Him and I conferred not with flesh and blood." Those who have
had Christ revealed in them, those who have had that but,
don't need to confer with flesh and blood. They don't need the
affirmation of other men. God deals directly with them. Let's just look at these 10 words,
and obviously they'll have to be brief, and I trust the Lord
will use them, and you'll follow the outline. You'll delightfully
or seriously follow the outline. But, there are some glorious
buts in the scripture, aren't they? Man is heading on his path. Paul is there nearing Damascus
with these letters that establish his righteousness and his ability
to judge and condemn the Church of God. There he is, proudly
riding, surrounded by these other people, but, but, There must
be, there must be and there will be in all of the children of
God, there will be a divine interruption on your path to hell. There will
be, by God, a divine interposition. He will impose himself. He will
stand between you and where you are going. Paul has just revealed
what he was by nature in the clear confession of his past.
He lays his past before him and he looks back on it and he says
in Romans 6, what did we ever gain by all those things that
we are now ashamed of? He reveals what He was by nature,
and now He shows what He is, and why He is what He is, by
grace. There was a time past, now there
is a time. God butted in. Isn't it wonderful
when God butts in to our lives? I remember the times he butted
into my life. He says in Hosea that he hedges
the way of his people with thorns. It may not be pleasant when he
butts into your life, but the worst thing that can possibly
happen to anyone on this planet is to be given over by God, to
be allowed to go down their path. an absolutely essential butting
in. And then there is when, there
is in the scriptures, this butting in is called in Ezekiel 16, a
time of love. There is a time, a time set from
eternity. A time. As Psalm 102.13 says,
Thou shall rise and have mercy upon Zion, for the time to favour
her, yea the set time, is come. Now I was interested to find
out what that word Zion meant. It's one of those words that's
used a lot in the scriptures. It means a monument raised up. What a glorious description of
our God. What a glorious description of
His Church. A monument to grace. A monument to glory. See, there
is a set time. Times in this world are set by
God. But when it That little word
is a huge word, isn't it, in the scriptures, when the Lord
Jesus says, It is finished. It's good to ponder from the
scriptures what the It means. You can spend the rest of your
days examining the It and you will never come to the end of
it. You see, the It is the revealing, isn't it, of God's eternal covenanted
purposes. It is the unfolding. of his eternal
plan. Now and under God are all His
works from the beginning of the world. This eternal covenant
of love, this eternal covenant of grace, this eternal covenant
of the Gospel, this eternal covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus,
which guarantees and ensures that a sinner like Paul will
be interrupted by God at his time of love. And God's people
will love those eternal covenantal purposes. The works, says Hebrews
4.3, were finished from the foundation of the world. The eternal covenant
declares a God who is absolutely sovereign, a God who is absolutely
perfect in knowledge and understanding, great is the Lord and of great
power His understanding is infinite. Not just His knowledge, but His
understanding is infinite. An infinite God with perfect
knowledge and infinite power. But our God is in the heavens.
He has done whatsoever He pleased. A God of sovereign purposes. established and sure and secure. As Ecclesiastes says, whatsoever
God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it, and God does it that men should fear
before Him. But when it pleased God, God
is portrayed in the scriptures as a person. He has emotions. We must deal with Him personally. He is pleased, as we just read
in Psalm 115. He has done whatsoever has pleased
Him. And he can be displeased. When David sinned grievously,
God says, and the thing that David did displeased the Lord. I love the fact of the way God
was so specific. The thing that David did displeased
the Lord. David had never displeased him. He'd loved him from eternity.
It has pleased the Lord to make you His people, says 1 Samuel
12.22. And then we have that remarkable
verse that we read so often, and I trust contemplate a lot.
It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It pleased the Father to
crush Him. It pleased Him. The Lord is well
pleased for His righteousness sake. He will magnify the law
and make it honourable. The Lord Jesus in that crossing,
He magnified the law of God and He made it honourable. And that's
why the Father can save Him on that Mount of Transfiguration.
This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. I love the
in whom, because if you're in Him, God the Father is well pleased. If He's well pleased with His
Son, He's well pleased with everyone joined to His Son. And it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. And Hebrews 11 reminds us, of
that commandment that these men had rejected in their Jews' religion. Without faith, it is impossible
to please Him. But when it pleased God, two
things should be clearly evident regarding that and what we have
in religion around us. But when it pleased God, it shows
that there is no free will There is no declaration of man and
his sovereignty, man on his throne. There's no free will and the
Gospel is not an offer. The Gospel is a declaration of
who the Lord Jesus is and what He's done. It's outlining Him,
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So well did the psalmist say,
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me, O Lord, make haste to help
me. This pleasing God was pleased,
but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb. set him apart as an object of
grace, set him apart from all the others. As I said earlier,
the word Pharisee means to be separated. He's making that clear,
that he was separated by God. As Jeremiah was told by God,
before I formed thee in the belly, I knew you. And before you came
forth out of the womb, I sanctified you. I set you apart. I set you apart as holy. I sanctified thee and ordained
thee a prophet unto the nations. In Romans 9 it makes it abundantly
clear, isn't it, that before they were born, before either
of them, Jacob or Esau had the chance to do wrong or right. Jacob I loved, but Esau have
I hated. When is a man saved? A man is
saved in the Scriptures when he believes the Gospel When is
a man saved in the scriptures from before the foundation of
the world? It cannot be clearer. talks about these blessings,
these spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. All spiritual blessings are in
Him and in Him alone, according as He hath chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before Him in love. having predestinated us under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to
the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace. God's children were saved from
eternity. Because they're gods from eternity,
they will be saved in time. He was saved, he was separated,
and he called me by his grace. He called me by His grace. If you turn back to Acts chapter
9 and hold your hands there for a minute, it's wonderful to contemplate
the Lord's beginnings with Paul and it's repeated another two
times in Acts so that we will get the outline laid clearly
before us again and again. He called me, Saul, Saul. Why persecutest thou me? So he called him by his name. Separated, God's children who
are saved are separated and they are called. God in Romans 8 describes
that process. They are foreknown They are predestinated,
they are called, they are justified and they are glorified. They
must be called because of an eternal foreknowing, a loving. They must be called at time,
in time, that time of love, because of God's predestinating purposes. How did the Lord Jesus describe
it? He says in John 10, My sheep,
My sheep, owned by Him, My sheep hear My voice. I know them and
they follow Me. They hear a voice. They hear
a voice that's personal. They hear a voice for them. He
says in that chapter earlier, he says in verse 3 of chapter
10 of John's Gospel, he calls his own sheep by name and leadeth
them out. And when he puts forth his own
sheep he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they
know his voice. A stranger they will not follow,
but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers."
So he calls his people to himself. 2 Thessalonians 2.14 says, he
called you by the gospel. He's calling you, He's called
you by the Gospel. The call is specific. It's heard particularly by the
object of the call. You see, other people heard on
that Damascus road, they heard some sounds, but they didn't
understand what the words were. But Saul did. So did. You see, it's a call of grace. Call of grace. The sheep hear
the shepherd's voice of grace. See, Paul in outlining his life
is wanting the Galatians to come to a point, don't they? Have
they followed this outline and do the teachers, the false teachers,
do they have Paul's outline? So the false teachers, there's
not a call of grace, it's a call of law and a call of works. But the call is a special call,
it's a specific call and it's a call to reveal. It's a call of the Gospel, it's
a call of revelation. Jesus Christ is the revelation
of God, and the Gospel is the revealing of Jesus Christ in
the Gospel. It's the revelation. It's this
revelation. It's a revelation of a person. It's a revelation of His Son. It's a revelation of a Whom. and what was revealed. You see
the whom and his works are revealed. In Acts 9.3 Paul describes this
butting in of God. And as he journeyed he came near
Damascus and suddenly there shined around him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me?" You see, Paul met with the Lord Jesus. It's a sovereign
manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what was revealed
to Saul? The Lord Jesus Christ lives. The death and the grave could
not hold Him. The Lord Jesus Christ lives and
reigns and He comes from heaven. And the Lord Jesus Christ visits
this earth and visits His people in power. He is light. He brings light. And the light
He brings is to reveal Himself. You see, this revealing, this
sovereign manifestation of the Lord Jesus reveals Saul as he
really is. The real Gospel reveals us in
our true state. So he was revealed as a sinner. He fell to the earth. There is no way Paul Saul could
stand in the presence of God as he was. Saul was a sinner
with no ability to stand before this Lord Jesus. was a sinner in great need of
forgiveness and grace and mercy. What did he have in all of his
works? Nothing, nothing, nothing but
sin and depravity. Religious sin and depravity. And it's a call of grace, isn't
it? What a remarkable event. He's a sinner who has met his
judge and he still lives. He's a sinner who's met his judge
and still lives, but he's a sinner who was saved by grace and a
sinner commissioned Instead of Him standing in judgment of the
Lord Jesus, now the Lord Jesus is revealed as Master of Him.
You read it there in verse 6, He trembling, trembling and astonished. When people meet God, when they
really meet God in the Gospel, they are trembling and astonished.
And what do they say? Not, what will I do? What can
I do? What will you have me to do? And I hear the Lord say, Arise
and go into the city, and it shall be told you what thou must
do." He is now in the hands of a sovereign God. You see, to
know Christ, as Paul did, is to know His sovereign choice. It's to know and to hear His
voice, particularly calling. It's to meet Him and to meet
Himself. It's to know Him that He, a sinner,
can now stand in the presence of Almighty God. His sins have
been taken away. is to know that if you're going
to be saved, you must be saved by Him and grace, His grace alone. You meet Him as a sovereign and
you know that it's impossible for Him to fail. You'll call His name Jesus, for
He will save His people from their sins. He shall not fail,
He shall not be discouraged. Paul had no doubt about the sovereignty
of the Lord Jesus. Paul knew. Paul knew God. You see, so much of our religious
education seems to think that if we bring people to a certain
level of knowledge and doctrine and teaching, then they come
eventually to get to know the Lord Jesus. The scripture inverts
that all the time. So you don't get to Christ by
doctrine and by teaching. You come to the truth by meeting
Him and knowing Him. The problem with the false teachers
in Galatia, as much as they might have talked about the Lord Jesus
and as much as they might have talked about righteousness and
as much as they might have lived a righteousness and a worthy
moral righteousness in the eyes of men, the big issue for them
is that they hadn't met the Lord Jesus. See, what we believe,
as we said last week, what we believe is determined by who
we believe. If you believe him and you've
met him, you'll believe the things about him without any hint of
a debate or an argument. The who we believe is determined
and defined by what he does. Christ and his works can't be
separated. To define one is to describe
the other. In the scriptures in the New
Testament we see this again and again. John the Baptist proclaimed
him, he says, Cast your eyes upon the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. Paul had two things in mind always
with all of his preaching and with all of his evangelism. Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Salvation is a revelation. a revelation of Him. As we saw last week, it's a scriptural
revelation, it's a spiritual revelation. It's a revelation
according to this Word. Salvation is believing who Christ
is as is revealed in the scriptures. It's impossible. It's impossible
to be saved. It's impossible to know Christ. And that's what salvation is,
John 17.3. This is eternal life, that you know Him and the Father. It's impossible to know Him and
think that He tries and fails. It's impossible to know Him and
to deny His absolute sovereignty. It's impossible to know Him and
to deny His absolute power to do all that He has promised to
do. He will save His people from
their sins. He took their sins and owned
them as His own and His Father crushed Him and He bore their
sins and He carried them away. You see we delight in what people
call the glorious doctrines of grace. The total depravity of
man the unconditional electing love of God, the particular redeeming
love of the Son, the irresistible grace, the perseverance of the
saints. But the doctrines of grace should
only ever be seen as one. It's one doctrine that helps
to describe his character and his work in those he saves. The false doctrine leads to false
worship and it leads always to a false assurance and a false
hope. It causes people to say peace
to themselves. when they have no peace. That's
why Paul, who loved these Galatians so passionately, said that they're
bringing another Jesus and another Christ and another Gospel. Let
them be accursed. If he came back to them with
a changed Gospel, he's describing another Jesus, another character,
and he blasphemes Those who bring this other Christ, they blaspheme
the character of he who is the saviour of his people, my husband
and my friend. Even if an angel comes, let him
be accursed." If you read the rest of Paul's New Testament
letters again and again, His understanding of Christ is an
understanding that's come directly from God by revelation. See, where is the Son revealed?
He's revealed in me. He might be revealed to multitudes,
but unless He's revealed in you, there is no hope of glory. The man is saved when Christ
is revealed in him. See, where does faith come from?
Where does faith come from? Faith comes from Christ in you. Where does love for Christ come
from? Where does real love for Him
come from? We love Him, says 1 John 4, we
love Him because He first loved us. Where does repentance come
from? Repentance is a gift of God. It's a granting from God. It comes from Christ in you. I love what the Lord Jesus said
to his disciples that last night before he was crucified. He says,
at that day, at this time of love, you shall know that I have
been my Father. You shall know these things.
You'll know them. You'll know that I am in my Father,
and you in me, and I in you." What an amazing promise. What an amazing promise fulfilled. in the lives of all of God's
saved ones. Paul describes himself in Galatians
2.20, he says, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live,
yet not I, but Christ liveth. He lives and he lives and he
lives and he remains in me. and the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me." It's a revelation of the Son in you. Verse 16, that I might preach
Him among the heathen, that I might evangelise Him. See, people are
saved when they come to know that Christ Himself is the message. Jesus Christ and Him crucified
is the Gospel. that Christ is all my acceptance
before God. God sees me and the Lord Jesus
perfectly joined together. Not one tiny part of his body
can ever be lost. The head's in heaven, isn't it? You can take the rest of my body
and try and drown it as much as you like, but if my head's
above the water, I'm going to keep on breathing. We are seated
with Him in heavenly places. Christ is all of my acceptance
before God. He's all to my soul. He's all
that the Bible speaks about. He's all to God. To reveal His Son in me that
I might preach Him. Immediately, salvation is an
event, a new creation, the old is gone, it's the implanting
of Him who hadn't evidenced Himself, His presence, in you until that
time. Immediately, it's a revelation
to the heart and soul. I conferred not with flesh and
blood, God's saved children don't need
the opinion and the affirmation of men. It's wonderful that the
Lord has given us brothers and sisters. It's an extraordinary
gift of God that he sent people from around the world to come
here to encourage us. But they come here to bear witness
to what God has done amongst us and in us. We don't need the
opinions of men. We don't need their affirmation.
We don't need their theology book. We don't need their church
fathers and their great deeds that they've written up, their
great confessions. We just speak, says the scriptures,
we speak what we know. You see, we just read it, read
it earlier, we know, we know all things work together for
good. I don't know all the circumstances of your life and I don't know
what's going to befall me, but we know. We know that God works
all things together for the good, that they may love Him and are
called according to His purpose. We know, says Romans 7, that
in my flesh dwells no good thing. We know. To preach him is to
bear witness to him, is to testify to who he is and what he's done. It's to describe his person,
describe his works, describe his salvation. So here we have
in these short verses these ten things, nine or ten things that
Paul describes as his pattern, his outline. There is a but. There is a divine interruption. There is a time before that interruption
and there is a time after it. But when there is a time of love,
there is an unfolding of the it, of God's eternal purposes. Our men are saved when it pleases
God to save them. It's God's good pleasure, not
man's will or man's work. It's God who saves and separates
according to divine election. It's comforting for the saints
who have fallen like Saul before God. to know that He was separated
from the foundation of the world, separated from His Mother's Word,
what's it saying? Do your good deeds do anything
to aid your salvation? Do your bad deeds take away from
God's ability to save? It's not according to works. Separated by God, called by grace,
The sheep hear a shepherd's voice and in the shepherd's voice they
hear a call of grace and not a call of law and works. They hear a call, this voice
of the Lord Jesus, they hear Him call personally and particularly. a revelation, a revelation of
the Lord Jesus in you. He takes up residence in His
people. The saved people know that He
is the message. He is the message of all evangelism. He is the comfort of all God's
people. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
says the Lord. Comfort them. We preach Him. And you confer not with flesh
and blood. No human opinion matters. May God grant us and continue
to grant us the grace to follow in Paul's footsteps, to see his
outline as the outline of the Lord's work in our lives, and
to pray and to look to Him that if He can do it to the chief
of sinners, He can do it to those that we love and care for. The
call of grace is an infinite sovereign call of a remarkable
saviour who must save his people from their sins. Let's pray.