Galatians chapter 1, we'll be
looking at verses 6 through verse 9. The apostle here says, I marvel,
I'm amazed that you are so soon removed from him that called
you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. which is not another, but there
be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But 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. As we said before,
so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto
you than that you have received, let him be accursed. We're going to find out in just
a minute how strong that word, accursed, is. It means this,
let that man go to hell. That's just as plain language
as you can make it. Any man that preaches another
gospel than that which we have preached unto you, Paul says,
let that man, whoever he is, if it were an angel, now we know
an angel's not going to do that, but if it were, he's making a
high metaphor, if he were to come and preach, another gospel. He says, I don't even care if
I come back and preach another gospel. Don't believe me. Let
us all go to hell, whoever it is. So then by this we can see there
is only one gospel. And that's the title of my message.
Only one gospel. Now the Apostle Paul, I'm going
to give you a little background about this. The Apostle Paul
delivered the gospel to these churches. The gospel of the offering
of Jesus Christ for the sins of his people according to the
will of God, so that by his righteousness that he obtained by his life,
and the atonement he obtained by his death, that he should
deliver his people from this present evil world. Now, the gospel is a wonderful
news. It is why it's called the good
news. The gospel is the wonderful news
of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. And this is the message
that was preached to them, and it was a message that Paul perceived
that they believed. They seemed to believe it, these
churches that he preached to. Now, over in chapter 4, Paul
reminds them of this. He said this in verse 13 of chapter
4. He said, You know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached
the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in
the flesh you despised not, nor rejected, but received me as
an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then this blessedness
you spoke of? He said, I bear you record that
if it were possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes
and given them to me. This church loved this gospel
Paul preached. They loved it so much that they
received him as if they were to receive Christ. They received
him into their churches. They received him into their
hearts and the message he preached, they loved it. They adored that
message. This was Paul's assessment of
these churches when he left them. Now, he had left them now for
about a year, or maybe as long as three years. The apostle left
this church, went to preach the gospel in another place, and
he heard that this church, that these people, gave audience to
other preachers who perverted the gospel. They gave audience
to other men who came in perverting the gospel. And there Paul writes
with utter amazement, he says this, I am marveled, I marvel
that you are so soon removed from him. Now, as I thought about
this, I thought about our own congregation. I thought about
this, I said, you know, I've been a pastor of our church for
now ten years. What if I'd gone away? And I'd
heard that another man came in and started preaching a false
gospel to the people that I had preached to for so long. Surely
I would have the same marvel. I would be amazed if any of our
congregation would believe another gospel. Paul was amazed. He said, I marvel. I'm amazed
that you are so soon removed. And so what Paul in zeal here
in this book is doing is rebuking these saints. He's rebuking them. He starts calling to their mind
their profession of faith. And he says, I am so amazed,
now here's a good translation of it, that you have removed
yourselves from Christ that called you by His grace. I'm so soon,
that you're so soon removed from Christ. He says, I don't understand
how could you remove yourselves from Christ. who supposedly called
you by His grace. See, Paul had no doubt that when
he taught that all who are saved are saved by the grace of God.
Everyone that's saved is saved by grace. All that the Father
chose, all that the Son redeemed, all that the Spirit called to
life by His grace, all of these shall be kept and none of them
will be lost. That's the teaching of the gospel.
Jesus said it himself, All that the Father giveth me shall come
to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the
will of him that sent me. And listen, this is the Father's
will which is sent me, that of all he hath given me I should
lose nothing. How many have been called
by the Spirit of God, by the grace of God, will Christ lose? He said, I will not lose any
of them. All that were given to Christ,
we will lose nothing. All that truly believe on Christ
alone, they have believed, they do believe, and they shall believe
until the end. And none of them shall ever fall
away. None of them shall be lost. Why? Is it because we're so strong
in ourselves? Is that why? No, the Apostle
Peter says in 1 Peter 1 and verse 5, who are kept by the power
of God through faith. You see, how is it that you believe,
you who believe, how is it you still believe? Was that your power? No. It wasn't my power that brought
me to Christ. It's not my power to keep me
in Christ. It is the power of God that brought
me. It's the power of God that keeps
me. Paul says, if you've been called
by His grace, and He was hopeful about these people, He was hopeful
that they were true believers, And he's even giving them the
benefit of the doubt. He says, why have you removed
yourselves from the only one that can save you? He marveled
because it's not possible for one to be saved and then removed
to another gospel. See what he's saying? Christ
and the Gospel are synonymous. They are one in the same. And
to remove yourself from the Gospel is to remove yourself from Christ.
And you know what a believer is never going to do? They're
never going to remove themselves from Christ, and they're never
going to remove themselves from the Gospel. It's impossible. You can't separate them from
the Gospel of Christ. And this is the whole sum of
the letter, the subject of all the Book of Galatians. Now, if
you want to know that, that's the reason why the apostle is
writing this letter, because these have went away. These who
profess to believe have gone away listening to another gospel. They've gone away from Christ.
Now, listen, if a man does not hear the gospel of Christ, then
he cannot know Jesus Christ or believe Him to the saving of
his soul. Now, a man may hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and
receive it for a time. But listen, if that man ever
goes away, I want you to understand, he never really believed to begin
with. If a man professes to believe,
and I don't care how sincere he is, I don't care how much
work he does, I don't care if he preaches, it doesn't matter.
If he goes away, he never knew Christ to begin with. He never
heard the gospel. He never believed the truth.
Our Lord said this, there are going to come false Christs. This is Matthew 24-24, you look
at it later. He says, for there shall arise
false Christs and false prophets, and they shall show great signs
and wonders, insomuch if it were possible They would deceive the
very elect. Did you get that? If it were
possible. But it's not possible. It's not
possible. No matter how great their miracles
are. We who believe in Christ will never believe in a false
Christ. We who believe in the gospel
will never believe a false gospel. It's not possible, Christ said,
when you hear the voice of the shepherd, you'll
never go away from him. It's not possible for those who
are called by grace to fall away to another Christ or another
gospel. And when the true gospel is preached,
we recognize it, we believe it, and we reject every other gospel. We reject it. And I want you
to, I'm trying to be, I want to be as simple as I possibly
can. There are only two gospels, true
and false. The true gospel is simply salvation
by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That is the true
gospel. A gospel of salvation by grace. The false gospel is salvation
by works. Salvation by works. I don't care
what you put on the door, what denomination you claim to worship
in. The gospel is all that matters.
I don't care what you put on. Put anything you want on the
door. If you worship God by works, if you worship and you are saved
by works, that gospel is a false gospel. And we'll see it in just
a minute. That's the gospel that they were being taught in here,
a gospel of works. That's a false gospel. The only
true gospel is salvation by grace. Grace. or you know that scripture,
and I'm going to quote it here in just a minute and show you
fully. For by grace you are saved, through faith. And so then, as
I preach to you the true gospel, this world and its false religion
would have us believe that there are many ways to God. Have you heard that? Well, all
roads lead to heaven. It don't matter what you believe.
Everything's going to end up all right. Everything's going
to work out all right. That is not what Jesus said. That's just not what he said. He said this, enter you in at
the straight gate. Why? For wide is the gate, and
broad is the way that leads unto destruction, and many be those
that go in thereat. But narrow is the way, and straight
is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life. And
listen, few there be that find it. You hear that? Jesus said
few. There'll be few. This straight gate and this narrow
way is this, the one true gospel. Christ alone. Christ alone. This is the narrow gate and the
straight way. It's narrow in that it only has
one object. It's singular. Christ. Christ. Now then, listen to this. Paul
said they moved from him to another gospel, which is not another,
verse 7. But there are some that trouble
you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. This other perverted
gospel that Paul is referring to is justification by the works
of the law. Now, there in these churches,
they were given the idea that Jesus was good. Now, these people
that came in and preached this other gospel, they didn't come
in with horns and pitchforks. They didn't come in looking like
the devil. They didn't come in. They came
in in suits and ties, and they were dressed in their finest
robes, and they came in. They didn't down Jesus. They
didn't try to put him out the door. What they did is said,
Jesus is good. Jesus is wonderful. Jesus died
for sins. We believe that. They believe he rose again, but
what was the difference? They concluded that you must
add something to Christ. Now, what these people in Galatia,
in this book here, what they were adding was one thing. circumcision. The law said you had to be circumcised. They said Jesus is good, you
must believe in Jesus. You must believe he died and
rose again, but you also must be circumcised according to the
law in order to be justified. These men were not trying to
destroy or eliminate the gospel of Christ, they simply added
something to it. They just added something. Paul tells these churches of
Galatia that the false gospel is a gospel in name only, but
in substance it is of no value to the souls of men. It is not
a gospel at all. It's not a gospel at all. He
even makes makes it a point to tell them that all who believe
and follow such a gospel are cursed of God. He said that in
those last two verses in our text. He said in verse 9, if
any man preach another gospel than that which we have preached,
he said, let them be what? Accursed. So listen, there's
only two gospels, one true, one false. Anyone who believes and
teaches the false gospel, Paul said, let them go to hell. Let
them go to hell. The true gospel is what I'm concerned
about. I want to hear and preach only
what is true according to this book. That's it. And so there
are three things about this true gospel that I want us to look
at. First of all, the gospel has only one author. God. God. God is the author of this
gospel. Secondly, the gospel, the true
gospel, only has one object. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. One object. And lastly, the true
gospel has only one means. Grace. Grace. And so let's look at each of
these this afternoon. First of all, let us see this,
that the gospel that Paul preached, the author of this gospel was
not Paul. The author of this gospel was
not the apostles. They wrote it down, but they
were not the author of it. Moses was not the author. Neither
was any of the prophets. The author of this gospel is
God Himself. Paul says in Romans 1 and chapter
1 and verse 1, He says this, I'll just read
it to you. I've got several of these that we can find this out,
but I don't have time to go through them all. Paul said this, "...a
servant of Jesus Christ called and separated unto the gospel
of God." You see who he's getting credit to? God is the author
of this gospel. Now, the gospel is the good news
for sinners. sinners who are condemned and
unrighteous before the eyes of God's justice, and how God might
justify and pardon such sinners." That's the gospel. Now, again,
I want to stress the importance of this gospel because any deviation
from this is to the ruin of your soul. I don't want to deviate
from God's gospel. Why? Because God's the author.
I don't want to invent anything. And you don't want me to invent
anything. Now then, the true gospel of
Jesus Christ is one that begins with God and comes to man. In
the beginning, in the beginning, does the word of God begin with
God or man? It says, in the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God
said, let there be light. Now that's the gospel, friends.
That's a gospel. There's God. He's holy. He's
just. The earth was out of form and
void. That's talking about man. That's talking about us. By nature
we're with form without void. Darkness was upon our heart.
And what did God say? God said to the sinner, let there
be light. Let there be Christ. And Christ is the light that
shined out of darkness into our hearts by the command of God. So where'd this gospel come from?
It came from God. And He preached it even at creation. Let's go a little further. You
remember when Adam sinned. Who sought who? Did Adam seek God, or did God
seek him? We know this. The Scripture says,
ìThe eyes of them were both open, and they knew they were naked,
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.î
The first man-made religions, right there, works. They tried to cover their nakedness
by the works of their hands. They sowed, hoping to cover their
nakedness before God. Did it work? No. When God said
this, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of God among the trees. The leaves weren't
enough now. They needed trees. In that when
man happens, when man is convicted of his sin, he runs to his religion,
try to find confusion. He tries to confuse things. Oh, but when God speaks, there's
no confusion. And the Lord called unto Adam and said, Where art
thou? Remember, it was God seeking after man, not man seeking after
God. In the beginning of all true
religion starts with God seeking man, and all false religion begins
with man seeking God. You got that? All true religion
begins with God seeking man, and not the other way around.
If your religion is man seeking God, You're in the wrong one. It's true that the scripture
says that God commandeth everyone everywhere to repent. God commands
men to seek him, doesn't he? Seek the Lord while he may be
found. Now what it said? That's a command of God. The problem is not the command,
the problem is us. We can't do it. The problem is us. Jesus said,
no man can come to me. Except. I'm thankful for that. The Father which has sent me,
draw him. When Adam failed, he lost the ability to obtain favor
with God. He lost all spiritual ability
to worship God as he once did because he spiritually died. And we all died in him, spiritually. When you and I were born into
this world, we were born dead in trespasses and sins. Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
so death passed upon all men. For all have sinned. You know
when you sinned? You know when your first sin
was? You sinned when Adam sinned. That was your first sin. You
were in a representative. He represented all of us. And
when he died, we all died. And because of this, none of
us will come to Christ. Jesus said, search the scriptures,
in them you think you have eternal life. Now they are they that
testify of me, and you will not come to me, that you might have
life. Jesus said that. Man will not
come to Christ because their nature is bent in sin and lust. Men will not come to God except
God comes and saves us. We would have never come to God.
You see, man will not bow to a sovereign God. Now, you want
to come to God, we always like to come on our own terms. We
say, God, I'll come to you, but you've got to do this. We come
on our own terms. Now, man will come to God that
way, but God won't receive a man that way. They won't bow down. But here's the gospel of God,
that God was rich in mercy. That God, before the foundation
of the world, before Adam ever sinned, God determined to be
the author of the salvation of some of Adam's race. God purposed
to come to sinners as he did to Adam and reveal his gospel
that he had purposed even before the foundation of the world.
How sinners could be saved and how God could be just in saving
them. Now a man that cares only for
his pardon but not about the justice of God doesn't know the
gospel. You see, God cannot show mercy
at the expense of His justice. You and I do it all the time.
We're not just. We forgive without payment. God
can't. God won't. So then how can God
be just and still justify a sinner? I'll give you an illustration. What if a judge had a murderer
before him and he was guilty? And the judge had compassion
and said, okay, I forgive you. Would that judge be just? No. We'd want him off the bench.
He wouldn't be just. So then how can God be just,
knowing your sins deserve hell? How can God be just and justify
us? Well, see, this is a gospel that
God made. How He could be just and justify
the ungodly. I need to be justified, don't
you? Do you need to be justified before God? I see that God cannot
pardon or excuse my sins. Therefore, I must have someone
I must have someone do something for me that I could not do for
myself. I must have someone to satisfy
the justice of God. And you know who that is? The
only one that did that was Jesus Christ. the only one. He is the
only one to satisfy God's justice. This is the gospel that was hid
with God before the world began. He alone is the author of this
gospel, and if God had not chosen the people and put them in Christ
and purposed that Christ should save them, none of us would be
saved. None of us would be saved. Isaiah
said we would have all been as Sodom and like unto Gomorrah
had God not chosen, had God not originated this gospel in himself. The scriptures are plain in Ephesians
chapter 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. Here's the gospel. According
as he hath chosen us in Christ before the world the foundation
of the world. For this purpose, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him, in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children, how? By Jesus Christ unto Himself. according to the
good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His
grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved." So
who is the author of this gospel? God. What is His gospel? His
gospel is one of sovereign mercy, where God chose a people, put
them in Christ, and determined that Christ should save all of
His people. That's the gospel. That's the
only true gospel. originated with God. Now, secondly,
what is the object of this gospel? Simply, it is Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. You remember when the Lord Jesus
Christ was risen from the dead, He came to His disciples as they
were going on the road to Emmaus. And they were sad. And He said,
why are you so sad? He said, don't you know? This
man, we thought he was the Christ, and he's died. And Jesus said
to them, ought not Christ to have suffered and entered into
his glory? He said, what are you so sad for? This is what
was supposed to happen. And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures, what
did he expound to them? Things concerning himself. So what is this book about? What's
this book about? I tell you, it's about Christ.
From cover to cover, it is about Christ. It's about Him. It's
about Him. He is the object, the subject
of every page. These here were teaching the
heresy. They were teaching the heresy
of Jesus plus their works. They didn't want to eliminate
Jesus from the Scripture, they couldn't, but rather they were
just adding something to Him. They said, well, Jesus is part
of the object of this book. The other part is your doing,
your working, your whatever. This is what is being done even
in our day by men who would pervert the gospel, is they've taken
the focus off of the work and person of Jesus Christ and put
it on man. They give some mental assent
to Jesus Christ, but then they turn right around and then they
say, well, that's not everything. No, friends, I'm here to tell
you Christ is everything. Christ is everything. And to believe anything else
is a lie. Christ is all in the Scriptures. All. The lie of the false gospel
is this, its object and power is not solely resting on the
person and work of Jesus Christ. The true gospel is one that has
its sum, subject, its object, its affection in the person and
work of Jesus Christ. Paul said, I determine. I determine
not to know anything among you except what? Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. That's it. Why? Because He's
all in the gospel. Now this gospel, If I'm to preach
you the gospel, then I must preach Christ. Who is He? Who is He? In order to believe in Christ,
don't you have to know who He is? Listen, He is God, manifest in
the flesh. Isn't that what John said? John
said, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. And in verse 14 he said, And
God, the Word, was manifest in the flesh. The Word became man. And so then Jesus Christ, God
Himself, took upon Himself our nature without sin. And being found in fashion as
a man, He humbled Himself. He served. He served God. For what purpose? To obtain righteousness and redemption
for all that the Father gave Him. All that He was responsible
for. He came to obtain. Now, this
is a very hard word to understand. He got it. He got it. He got it. What? Righteousness. He obtained it by his own merit
and obedience to God. He did it. The scripture says
this, even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith
of Jesus Christ. How did he obtain righteousness?
By his own faith in God and obedience to God. He obtained it. Later
in Galatians 3, Paul says the same thing, Galatians 3, 22.
He said, But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that
the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them
that believe. What is this promise of God?
Eternal life, peace with God, forgiveness of sins, pardon,
atonement, redemption, righteousness. That's the promise of God. How
is it obtained? By the faith of Jesus Christ,
all by Himself. By His faithfulness alone, without
any help from us, without any help of our hand, or without
any exercise of our will, without our baptism, without our church
membership, He obtained it all by Himself. He did it. He did
it. Secondly, this gospel of Jesus
Christ has its object because of his work on the cross by which
he redeemed his people. He redeemed us from our sins. Jesus Christ is the sum of the
gospel because in his death he accomplished salvation for all
that the Father gave him and by this one offering for sin.
I want you to, this is the center. If there's a center of the gospel,
the cross is it. The cross is it. That's why all
time hinges on that death, on His death. For by His one offering, Paul
says, He hath perfected forever. them that are sanctified. All those God set apart in eternity,
Christ perfected them on the cross. Perfected them. Now, how much better can you
get than perfect? You can't get any better than
perfect. He perfected them. The Scripture says this is why
His name was called Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins. In Hebrews 1 and verse 3, it
says He by Himself purged our sins. We can see that Christ
didn't make salvation possible. He actually accomplished it.
He finished it. That's why He said on that cross,
He said, Finished! It's finished! The work's done! I did it! All by myself. He purged our sins. The gospel
that Paul preaches, the gospel that we preach, is concerning
a successful Savior. Now, you listen to me. Anybody
who preaches a defeated Savior is not preaching the gospel. How many times you heard, I don't
know if you've heard this, I've heard it as a child, Jesus did
all he can do and the rest is up to you. What a load of crap. That's just all he can say about
that. If he did all he can do and left the rest to me, I'm
doomed and so are you. That's not the Christ I serve.
The Christ I serve finished the work. that God gave him to do. He finished it. He didn't make
salvation possible. He accomplished salvation. He
did it. That's important. You remember
those priests in that temple. You know there was no chair in
there? You know why? They were never finished. Always
working, always sacrificing those things over and over and over
and over again. But when Jesus Christ offered
His one sacrifice, He did what? Scripture says He sat down. Why? It's finished. You only sit down
when the work's done. You don't sit down before the
work's done, but he sat down on the right hand of the Father
on the majesty on high, because the work of salvation was finished
by his offering alone. Therefore God hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name that is above every name, that at
the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. to the glory of God the
Father. Therefore, Paul said, I determined
not to know anything except this, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He is the gospel of God. I'll
tell you what, there are a lot of people preaching a lot of
things. They're preaching family and future things and prophecies
and all kinds of stuff. Saying, you need to be a better
husband, you need to be a better wife, you need to do this, do
this, do this, do this. And they got a big long list
of to-do lists. Now there's nothing wrong with
a good marriage, is it? I'm not speaking against a good
marriage, there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is it's
the center of their gospel. What's the center of the true
gospel? Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the sum and
subject of this gospel. Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Not a rejected Savior, not a defeated Savior, but a successful Savior. And the third thing about a true
gospel is the means, the means by which sinners are saved. There's only two ways that you
can come up with how sinners are saved. They're either saved
by something they do, or they're saved by grace. These two things can't be mixed.
I'm going to show you this. The Scriptures are clear that
salvation is by grace, by grace, for by grace you are saved. Is
that clear? Is that plain words that anybody
can misunderstand? For by grace you are saved. Unmerited favor. That's what
the word means. Unmerited favor. For by grace
you are saved. Listen, through faith, never
apart from faith. But listen, even faith is a grace. It's not a work. He said, and
that, faith, not of yourselves. Yet faith is a gift of God, not
of, listen, works. See how he's putting those two
against each other? Grace and works? They can't be mixed. Not
of works, lest any man should brag or boast. Boast. You see, it's of free grace that
any of Adam's race is saved. If there's anybody in this room
saved, it's of grace. There's no other way around it.
Grace was purposed by God, accomplished by Christ, and it is by grace
that the gospel is applied to the hearts of sinners. We by nature were even as others
children of wrath, children of wrath under the condemnation
of God's justice. But now we have heard the gospel.
Have you heard the gospel? You believe what I just said?
Because I didn't make it up. It's in the book. And so if it's
in the book, you should believe it. Now if you believed it, how
is it that you believed it and other people won't? Were you
better? Did you have some kind of academic
understanding that somebody else didn't have? No! If we believe
at all, it is by grace! By grace! How did this take place? Only
by grace The only true gospel is applied
to sinners by the unmerited favor of God. Listen to this. God will
have mercy on whom he will. That's just so. If you have believed
this gospel is because of God's mercy, no other reason. No other reason. Because God
said, I'm going to show it to this one, I'm going to show it
to this one, and this one, and if he passes over other people,
that's his prerogative. He can do that. It's grace. He quickens those whom he will.
He calls us to life, to be born again of the Spirit of God. Now,
the false gospel would have us believe that salvation is procured
by something that you do. I like this statement. Anyone
who asserts that something must be done by the sinner before
redemption, righteousness, and pardon can be accomplished is
a false prophet preaching a false gospel, and those who follow
them follow them to hell. If anything, if you are adding
one thing to Jesus Christ, it's no longer grace. Well, I've been a good church
member all my life. No, that's not grace. Well, I
was baptized. No, that's not grace. You're
adding something to Christ. No. You add one thing to Christ,
you've defiled the gospel. You've missed it. You've put
it into another gospel. Paul said this, if it's of grace,
then there's no more works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
If it be of works, then it is no more of grace. Otherwise,
work is no more work. You cannot mix them. You cannot
mix works and grace. If men would search out what
they're being taught concerning the free will of man, they would
see that they've twisted the Scriptures and made faith a work. They've made faith a work. Faith
is not a work. Faith is a grace. Isn't that
one of the fruits of the Spirit? Faith? It is. Just like love,
joy, peace, meekness, all of these are graces of God. And
faith is a grace. It's not a work. And no man is
saved apart from faith. You must believe. But even in
believing, we must recognize that's the work of God. Do you
believe? Well, that's the work of God. That's not your work.
That's God's work. These men in Paul's time believed
that Jesus died for their sins. but they must contribute something.
So it is with today's preachers, Jesus died for your sins, but
you must obtain it, you must make it effectual, you must do
something. You must do something. Isn't
that what men are saying? That's what men are saying. Listen,
if anybody tells you that, you mark them as a liar and you run
as fast as you can. Now look back at my text and
see if I'm telling you something that's not in the book. Look
at it. If we, or an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel than that which we have preached,
let them go to hell. See it? There it is. So what
are you to do with these men? Run. It doesn't say argue with them.
It doesn't say debate them. It says let them alone. Let the
blind lead the blind. They'll both fall in the ditch.
That's what our Lord said. So what is salvation? It's only
by hearing of this gospel, the only true gospel. What is this
gospel? It is God's gospel. You know
what that means? It's unchangeable. If it's God's
gospel, does it change? Look at religion, how it changes,
isn't that right? Religion, they come up with new
things all the time. Put them out, they call them
traditions. The only tradition I'm interested
in is this book. Everything else can be burned.
You can burn every other book in the entire world, this is
the only one I care about. That's it. I love to read other
books and good books, they're fine. But those men didn't come
up with the gospel. Remember, it's God's gospel.
It's not theirs. Calvin didn't come up with this
gospel, did he? Luther didn't come up with this gospel. No.
They believed the gospel. They didn't come up with it.
It's God's gospel. It's eternal, immutable. It's
His purpose to save His people by Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. And the object of this gospel
is Jesus Christ alone. He is the only one to obtain
righteousness and redemption and is now seated on the throne
of God to save his people from their sins. And I tell you, the
only means of this gospel is grace. The only way one obtains
and believes this gospel is by the grace of God. Anybody tell
you anything else, you need to leave them and run as fast as
you can. Let them be accursed. Now I tell
you, did I come up with this or is this in the book? You know
I didn't come up with it. I don't. I don't want to invent
one thing. I just want to tell you what
God says. And you should believe God. Let God be true and what? Every man a liar. One gospel. One gospel. not many. May God give you the
grace to believe on the only gospel on Jesus Christ. Let's
be dismissed in prayer. Gracious Father dismisses with
you.