All right, brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. Our text is found in verse 11.
Galatians 5 and verse 11. Apostle Paul, speaking by the
Spirit of God, says, And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision,
Why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. The Apostle Paul did not preach
that there was something that the sinner must do to be saved. He did not preach that there's
something a sinner must do to be saved. And we know that because
he was greatly persecuted. He says here, I brethren, if
I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?
Then is the offense of the cross ceased. The Apostle Paul preached
Christ and Him crucified. He said to the Corinthians, Christ
sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom
of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
He said to them, I determined not to know anything among you,
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He preached Christ and Him crucified. That's what He means when He
says the preaching of the cross. To preach the cross is to preach
Christ and Him crucified. It's to preach who Christ is.
That He's the Son of God. God the Son, the second person
in the Trinity. And He's the Son of David. He's
the God-Man. The God-Man. He's the King of
His people. He's the Savior of His people.
He's the bread from heaven. He's the way, the truth, and
the life. To preach Christ is to preach
why Christ came. God sent Christ to manifest the
righteousness of God. He sent Christ into this world
to manifest God's righteousness, to fulfill the law, to declare
God just, fulfilling the law for His people, to declare God
to justify, to justify His people from our sins, to redeem His
people, to reconcile His people. To preach Christ is to preach
what Christ accomplished. He finished the work that the
Father gave Him to do. He glorified God the Father and
He saved His people from our sins. He entered in once into
the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us. And
to preach the gospel, to preach the cross, is to preach where
Christ is now. He's not in the tomb now. He's
risen. He's risen to the right hand
of God. The scripture says, when He had by Himself purged our
sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
And then to preach Christ, to preach the cross, is to preach
what Christ is doing now. He's the head of over all things
to the church. And He has all power over all
in heaven and in earth. And He's calling out His people.
He's filling all in all. And He will not lose one. And
then to preach Christ is to preach what Christ shall do. He'll continue
until He's put all His enemies under His feet. The Scripture
says He must reign until He's put all His enemies under His
feet and the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Then Christ
is coming again. And then He's going to deliver
up the kingdom to the Father. This is what it is to preach
the cross, is to preach Christ and Him crucified. Now, I have
friends that profess to believe on Christ. And there's no doubt
that they're sincere. There's no doubt that they attend
their church regularly. They're familiar with the scriptures.
They're moral people. They're benevolent people. They
talk about wanting God to have the glory. They speak about the
grace of God. They speak about faith in Christ.
But when they hear me preach the cross of Christ, they're
offended. They're offended. Now, we have
mutual friends, and our mutual friends are different in their
doctrine and their practice from my other friend, but they don't
get mad when they hear their gospel preached. But when they
hear what I preach, they're offended by it. In doctrine and in practice,
The Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Essenes were all different. They all differed. They differed
greatly. But they all got along with each other. But they were
united in this. They were offended at Christ. They united together to persecute
Christ, to nail Him to the cross. And they were offended and persecuted
anybody who preached the cross of Christ. Whenever Paul was
Saul of Tarsus, he was a Pharisee of Pharisee. And while he was
Saul of Tarsus, he was offended at the gospel of Christ. And
he persecuted those who preached Christ. But the moment that Paul
was converted and he began to preach the gospel, those former
friends became offended at him and began to persecute him for
preaching the cross of Christ. Paul said on one occasion he
told them about what Christ had done for him. And it says, they
lifted up their voices and they said, away with such a fellow
from the earth, for it's not fit that he should live. Over
40 religious men gathered together, went to the chief priest and
the scribes and they said, we've bound ourselves under a great
curse that we will eat nothing until we've slain Paul. These
were men that were friends with Paul before he started preaching
the cross of Christ. Paul said of himself and of all
those fellow preachers, he said, we stand in jeopardy every hour. Just because they preach the
cross, that's the reason. Paul said he was imprisoned.
He said, Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes, save
one. Three times I was beaten with
rods, once I was stoned. And this came from his own countrymen,
it came from the heathen, it came from false brethren. It
came to him in the city, in the wilderness, and when he was at
sea. This was because he preached the cross of Christ. What is
the offense of the cross? Our subject is the offense of
the cross. What's the offense of the cross?
What makes men angry at the cross? Simply put, the preaching of
the cross is offensive because it gives all the glory and salvation
to God. It gives all the glory and salvation
to God. Now somebody sitting here may
think, well I want God to have the glory. I want God to have
all the glory, and yet when you hear me preach, you're offended.
Why? Why is that? I only preach the
Scriptures, and when I give you something and say something to
you, I show you in the Scriptures, I show you from the Word of God,
and everything I preach, I preach to glorify God, give Him all
the glory. Why are you offended? Why would
you be offended? Have you ever thought this? Have
you ever thought maybe my heart is fooling me? Maybe I don't
want God to have all the glory. That's possible, you know, because
the Lord said this. He said the heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? The
preaching of the cross is offensive because number one, number one,
It leaves the sinner nothing to do. It gives the sinner nothing
to boast in. The scripture says that according
as it is written that no flesh should glory in his presence.
And number two, the cross of Christ gives all, says that Christ
has done all the work and it gives all the glory to Christ.
That as it is written, he that glories, let him glory in the
Lord. And there's a third thing, too. Not only does the gospel
not give us anything to boast in, the gospel abases us and
declares what we are. It declares we are sinners, helpless,
in need of a sovereign savior to save us. And that's offensive
to the natural mind. It's offensive to the natural
mind because, number one, it offends the pride of his wisdom.
Men don't like to be find out that they're wrong, even if it's
God that's saying they're wrong. Number two, it offends the pride
of a man's ability. Men don't like to be told they
have no ability to save themselves, because all their lives they've
been told they do. Number three, it offends the
pride of his merit, because the gospel says there's no merit
in you. Grace says it's not based on
anything in you or me, and that offends a man. And fourthly,
it offends the pride of his superiority, because the gospel puts every
sinner right on the same level with the worst sinners there
are. And man likes to think he's superior
than others. Paul said, if I just preach circumcision,
if I just preach one thing for somebody to do, I wouldn't suffer
persecution. But if he did, then the offense
of the cross would cease. Alright, I want to show you four
or five things here that the offense of the cross is. Go to
Galatians 2 verse 16. First of all, the gospel offends
the man who thinks that he's justified by his works, by his
own faithfulness, by his own obedience. Galatians 2.16 Now
pay attention to the reading of this verse. I hope you're
using the translation that words it just like I'm about to read
to you, because this is important. Galatians 2.16 Knowing that a
man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might
be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works
of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. Look down at verse 19. For I
through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ. You
see, it says we're justified by the faith of Christ, by Christ's
faith, by His obedience as the head and substitute of His people.
Christ justified His people. He justified His people and now
through the law, through Christ's obedience to the law, through
Christ laying down His life under the curse, under the penalty
of the law, through Christ satisfying the law in perfect obedience.
Now, all who were in Christ when He was crucified were crucified
in Christ. So that when Christ died to the
law, all His people died to the law. So that now, through the
law, I'm dead to the law. The law doesn't regard me as
being alive. It regards me as having been
executed. as having the full penalty poured
out on me, because it was poured out on Christ in my room instead.
You see, now if that's offensive to you, if that's offensive to
you, it's because you're not resting from your works in Christ. That's true. Any of us, if that
offends me, it's because I'm trying to come to God by my works,
and I'm not resting in Christ. But that delights the heart of
a believer because we know that we can't fulfill the law, we
can't measure up to the righteousness of the law. It deals with our
thoughts and our intents of our heart, brethren. All right, secondly,
the man who thinks that he can make himself to be born again and then that he can live throughout
the life of faith by his power In His strength, in His wisdom,
that man is offended at the cross of Christ. Look at Galatians
2 and verse 20. He says, I'm crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. Christ liveth in me. You see,
some think that sinners can be born again by a reform of their
life. By reforming their life. Preachers
tell folks these kinds of things all the time. The preacher will
constrain a man. He'll keep on telling him and
constrain a man and finally a man does what the preacher constrained
him to do. He comes down to where the preacher
tells him to come down in the front of the church or whatever.
That used to be huge. I don't know if they still do
that as much anymore. But then they'll tell him what to pray
and he'll pray what they tell him to pray. The church will
have him learn the creed. The church will have him go through
a probationary period over time and jump through all the hoops
the church wants him to jump through. And then he'll be baptized. And then, through all the course
of all this, at some point they tell him, now you've been born
again. He's been born again. Let me tell you what the prince
of preachers said. The prince of preachers said,
no man, no man can come unto me, except it be given him of
my Father. That's the only way we can be
born again. The only way. He said the natural
man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. There's foolishness
to it. And he said this, neither can
he know them because they're spiritually discerned. We have
to be given the Spirit of God to have life. We have to be given
the Spirit of God to be taught the things of God. You don't
know what I'm thinking. The only way you're going to
know what I'm thinking is if I tell you what I'm thinking. And Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 2, it's the same with God. You don't
know God unless He sends forth His Spirit into your heart and
reveals in you and tells you the things that God reveals to
His people. That's the only way we're born
of God and the only way we know God. We have to be taught of
God. Now that's offensive to a man's wisdom, to his pride,
to his wisdom, to the pride of his ability. The intellectual
man, he wants to find out God by his searching, by his reason
and his understanding, and it's offensive to him to be told.
This is by divine revelation. God has to reveal the truth in
us. The man who's a debater, he's
offended because of the authority and the dogmatism of the gospel. It doesn't come to you and say
this is up for debate and maybe it can be a little bit another
way. No, it says Christ must give you life. He's life. He's
the author and finisher. He's life. And it says you must
be born of the Spirit of God. And it says you must bow to God.
And either that or be damned. The man who's a reasoning scientific
man, he's got to have everything proven to him by things that
are. Things that exist. Faith is the
evidence of things not seen. And that offends him. The wheel
worker is offended because he wants to have done something
that gave him life. He wants to have done something
that gave him life and sustains him and makes him righteous.
And he's told by Christ, the flesh profits nothing. And that
offends him. And then, in addition to this,
not only we have to be born of God, but most believe, brethren,
that once you begin in the Spirit, then somehow you can live this
life of faith by your own strength, by your own wisdom, by your own
power. Oh, you might need a little help from the Lord now and then,
but that's what He's for, just to make up where you need a little
help. That's not so. Look here, Galatians 2, verse
20. He said, 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. Now, it's true that once we're
born of God, we live the rest of our days by faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The just shall live by faith.
But brethren, the only way you and I can live by faith in Christ
is by the faith of the Son of God abiding in us and keeping
us. That's the only way. That's the
only way. Christ said this in John 15,
5. He said, I'm the vine and you're the branches. He said,
he that abideth in me and I in him. The same bringeth forth
much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. You see, I can't
even abide in Christ unless He first abides in me. And I can't
continue abiding in Him unless He abides in me. Because He said
without me you can do nothing. That includes everything. Nothing. And I can't do anything without
Him. Nothing without Him. Now friend, if that's offensive
to you, why is that offensive to Him? You want Christ to have
the glory? He alone must give His people
spiritual life and He alone must sustain the life in His people.
Paul said, He which hath begun a good work in you. That's how
it begins. He begins it. And he says, He
will also continue that work. He'll perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. If we know something of our sin,
we know something of our helplessness, we delight that He abides in
us and He keeps us because we know we can't keep ourselves.
Don't you delight to know that? But the man that doesn't know
something of his sinfulness and doesn't know something of his
utter wretchedness, that man is self-righteous and proud and
thinks he can do this himself. Paul said there in verse 21,
I do not frustrate the grace of God. Don't frustrate the grace
of God, brethren. Look why. If righteousness come
by the law, if there's anything that you have to do to make you
righteous, to bring you to God, to save yourself, Christ is dead
in vain. Alright, here's the third thing.
Most believe that once you're born of the Holy Spirit, this
is very, very popular, very, very popular. Once you're born
of the Holy Spirit, that you make yourself more holy, you
make yourself more sanctified by your obedience to the law.
Look at Galatians 3 and verse 2. This only would I learn of you.
Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law? Did you do
something to get the Spirit of God? Did you do all those things? That's how come God gave you
the Spirit of God? Was it by the hearing of works?
Was it by the hearing of you do and do this and that? Was
that how the Spirit of God came into you? No, it wasn't, was
it? That's what we just saw. Or was
it by the hearing of faith? We hear the faith of Christ.
We come here to hear the works of Christ. To hear the works
of our God. How God chose His people. Christ redeemed His people.
The Spirit of God regenerates His people. How the salvation
is of the Lord. That's what we come to hear about.
And through the hearing of the cross of Christ, the Spirit enters
in and gives us life. Now once you begin that way,
look at what He says now. Are you so foolish, having begun
in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? Do you now turn around and go back to the law? No. You see, we became guilty
when Adam sinned in the garden. He's the head of all that he
represented. And I say it that way so that
you can understand how Christ is the head. He's the head, Adam
was the head of all he represented, of all who would come from Adam,
be born of Adam. That's everybody. And so when
he sinned in the garden, we sinned in the garden and we became guilty
under the law. We fell under the curse of the
law. But not only that, brethren,
we were born of Adam. We were born of his corrupt seed
so that we have a corrupt sin nature in us. An unholy, defiled
nature in us. Polluted. That's what we have
in us. We must be justified. We must be made righteous. And
that takes care of our sin in Adam when he transgressed in
the garden. But something else has to happen, too. We have to
be sanctified. We have to be born again. We
have to be born of God and made holy, given a new heart and a
new nature. You know, when Christ hung on
the cross and they came there and they pierced his side, two
things come out of his side, blood and water. Blood and water. What's the significance of that?
Justification is by the blood. Justification is by the blood.
Christ made satisfaction to justice by giving his life in place of
his people. And so the scripture says the
believer is justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus. And sanctification is represented
by the water. Christ washes us clean when He
sends the Holy Spirit and He effectually creates within His
people a new man that was not there, giving you a new holy
nature so that we might be partakers of His holiness. That holiness
without which no man shall see the Lord. That's His holiness
that He puts in His people. We have to be made partakers
of the divine nature in order that we can escape the corruptions
that are in the world through the lust of our old defiled flesh. That's what has to happen, brethren.
And that's what he does. Both righteousness and sanctification
are from the same person, from the same fountain, through the
same blood and righteousness of Christ comes this new creation
that he makes within his people. of God. 1 Corinthians 1.30 says
this, Of God are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto
us wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. He's righteousness and sanctification. Zechariah 13.1 says this, In
that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David and
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. That's to all those he's going
to call, his people, his true Israel. There's going to be a
fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. You see that? For sin and for uncleanness.
And that's why we sing Rock of Ages. When we sing Rock of Ages,
we sing this. Let the water and the blood from
thy wounded side which flowed be of sin the double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. You understand that? Now, does
that offend you that Christ is both righteousness and sanctification? That's not offensive to a believer,
to somebody that's been sanctified. Because we see, this is the true
evidence of sanctification. This is the fruit of sanctification.
You stop looking at you. You stop looking within you.
You stop looking for your works and your doing and all that.
You start looking to Christ alone for everything. That's the true
mark of one that's been sanctified and made righteous by Christ.
By Christ. You know, if you're mad at him
for this, you've got to understand, he's the door. He's the way.
He's the only way we can come to God's presence. It doesn't
do any good to get mad at Christ for being righteousness and sanctification.
The man that does that, he's slamming the door shut. The best
thing to do is bow to him. We'll do that if he sanctifies
us. Only if he sanctifies us. Alright, here's the last thing.
Sinners imagine. After all this, sinners still
imagine, there's at least one thing I got to do. There's one thing I need to add.
There's something I need to add. Turn over to Galatians 5. Now
in Galatia, it was circumcision. But that was just opening the
door to the law. But you can put anything in the
place of circumcision here, any work that a man vainly imagined
he needs to add, you can put it right here in the place of
circumcision and the same principle applies. Listen to Paul, Galatians
5, 2. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
that if you be circumcised, or if you have to add anything else
of your hand to Christ, whatever it is, Christ shall profit you
nothing. Christ shall profit you nothing.
For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, he is
a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you, whosoever you are who are justified by the law. You're
separated from grace. You're trying to come another
way other than grace. For we, through the Spirit, wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ
neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith
which works by love. You did run well, who did hinder
you that you should not obey the truth? See, he said this
is the truth. This is the truth. The believer's
rule of life, brethren, is faith. That's our rule of life. It's
not the law. How could the law be the rule
of life for Abel? How could the law be the rule
of life for Enoch? How could the law be the rule of life for
Noah? They didn't even have it. The rule of life is faith. That's
what he just said there. The just shall live by law. No, the just shall live by faith.
Listen, we wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. And
everything the believer does, every work the believer does,
he does it not by law, not by the constraint of men, not by
the constraint of a legal must and have to, not by the constraint
of anything but the love of Christ for us. So that what we do, we
do it because we want to do it. Because thy people shall be made
willing in the day of thy power, the Lord said, and Christ makes
his people willing to serve him because of his love for us. That's
the constraint that truly works. The law never did. The law never
did. Either salvation, he says here,
if you try to come by anything that you do, you've fallen from
grace. What he's saying here is what he said over there in
Romans 11, 6. Salvation's either all of grace, or salvation's
all of works. If it's all of grace, that means
it's all of the Lord. It's all of Christ. If it's of
works, that means you have to do it all. Listen to the scripture. If by grace, then it is no more
of works. If by grace, it is no more of
works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. It can't be grace and be partly
works. It's impossible. But if it be
of works, then it is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no
more work. Listen to Titus 3, 5. Let's turn
there real quick. Titus 3, 5. Salvation is by our triune God
in Christ. Listen to this. Titus 3, 5. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which He shed
on us. There's the Holy Ghost and there's
God our Father. which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ our Savior. There's the Son. Father, Son,
and Spirit. That being justified by His grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
That's the hope of eternal life. That since we're justified by
grace, we're heirs of eternal life. We're going to inherit
eternal life. That's our hope. That's our confident
expectation. Salvation is all by grace. Now, that's the offense, brethren,
of the cross. All for whom Christ died are
justified by Christ, and we receive it, it's given to us through
God-given faith in Christ, not by any work we do. All for whom
Christ died shall be born again by Christ being formed in us
through the Holy Spirit, and we're going to be kept and continue
by Christ abiding in us, not by our strength, not by our power.
Number three, all for whom Christ died shall be sanctified through
the hearing of faith by the Holy Spirit. And when He takes you
out of the realm of your flesh and He sanctifies you, you're
holy. You grow in the state of holiness,
just like you growed in the state of humanity, but you don't become
more holy, just like you don't become more of a human. You're
holy. That thief on the cross had it. He had that holiness
that you got to have to enter God's presence. Christ in it. And he entered God's presence.
And we have it from the moment we're sanctified. It's by Him. Christ our sanctifier. And then
all for whom Christ died shall be saved without us adding one
thing to Christ's Word. Without adding anything. He's
the author and finisher of faith, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. He's all in salvation. All. Now perhaps you ask this. One
last question. Perhaps you've heard me, and
I hope you've heard me. If you're offended at this, I
hope you've heard the message here. Perhaps you're asking this,
why then do so many preachers, so many preachers, why do so
many preachers constrain men to do more and more and more
using the law, using threats of punishment, using promises
of reward? Why do so many preachers do that?
Paul tells us, God tells us, Galatians 6, Verse 12. Here's why, brethren. As many
as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain
you to be circumcised, only lest they should suffer persecution
for the cross of Christ. Because neither they themselves
who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised
that they might glory in your flesh. Friend, listen to me. If you're offended by the gospel,
will you please hear me? Please hear what I'm about to
say. If I gave you one work to contribute to your salvation,
you'd stop being offended. You'd stop being offended. But
if I did that, the gospel would cease. The gospel would cease. It would cease to be the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace. It'd be the gospel, that other
gospel that's not another. It'd be the message of works.
Listen, I have no desire whatsoever to offend you. I have no desire
to offend anybody. But I also have no desire to
glory in your flesh. I have no desire to constrain
you to do anything whatsoever. My desire is this. I desire to
see those that God brings to hear me preach. I desire to see
you saved. I desire to see you saved by
God. And I desire to see God get all the glory in your salvation.
That's what I do desire. And so rather than glory in you
and what I can constrain you to do, I glory in God. I glory in my Redeemer. And I
preach this message to you because He saved me by it. And I know. I'm not preaching speculation.
I'm not preaching what ifs, ands, or maybes. I'm telling you what
I know is a truth and a fact. This is the gospel through which
God saves sinners. I know it. I've experienced it. And so then, I'm on glory in
Him. And I'm going to sit here and that's what I do in my preaching
every time I preach. That's what these brethren here
that delight in the message are doing every time we're here.
We're glorying in God. We're glorying in God. And so
here I say with Paul, verse 14, God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom the world
is crucified unto me and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision avails anything nor uncircumcision, but a new
creature, a new creation. And as many as walk according
to this rule. That's our rule. That's our rule. As many walk according to this
rule, peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God. I
pray for you. I pray for you that Christ will
give us all a broken and a contrite heart and bring us to cast all
our care on Christ because salvation is of the Lord. Amen. Let's stand
together, brethren.