Galatians chapter 5, and we'll
be reading in verse 1. Galatians chapter 5 and verse
1. The scripture says, Stand fast,
therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. And be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage. The title of the message this
morning is hold the line, hold the line, stand fast in liberty,
stand fast in liberty. After Paul has set forth every,
against every objection and argument, that no one has been saved or
will be saved by their obedience to the law. This is the whole
point up to this point. The Apostle Paul has methodically
laid out every argument. He has disposed of every objection
to this truth that no one No one is ever saved by their obedience
to the law. No one is justified in the sight
of God by their own righteousness or deeds. And Paul, after this, giving
also assurance from God's Word that salvation is absolutely
of God's free, sovereign, unmerited grace. This is the point. These are the conclusions of
what we have studied so far in this book. All of grace. Salvation is all of grace and
none of law. None of law. None of our obedience. And now he comes to the point.
Every gospel message always comes to a point. It comes to a point
of self-examination. It comes to a point to where
men must decide which side they are on. The gospel always calls men to see where they stand before
God. Joshua said this, Choose you. Choose whom you will serve this
day. Scripture says today is the day
of salvation. Today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today. We should
believe the gospel now. You should believe the gospel
now. I should believe the gospel now. The gospel of God's grace. If you are a son of promise,
you are on the side of grace. You know that salvation is of
grace. If you are on the side of law
and works, then you are not a child of promise. You are not a child
of promise. You have no hope. You are lost
and in your sins. And so I ask you this morning,
where do you stand? Is salvation absolutely of grace
or is there some merit by which you've earned your favor with
God? Are you a child of promise or
a child of the law? Are you born of free grace or
are you born in bondage to the law? Every gospel message should always
divide men. Every gospel message should divide
men. When a gospel message is ended,
there should be no doubt as to where you stand. There should be no doubt. It will always divide the sheep
from the goats. The gospel will always divide
the lost from the saved. It will always divide those who
are saved by grace. and those who are lost thinking
they are saved by their works. It will always divide, always
divide men. Where do you fall when the word
of God's sword comes down? Are you a son of grace or a son
of works? And know this, there is no mixture. There can be no mixture. You are either all saved of God's
grace or you are only saved by your works. There is no mixture
of grace and works. If you find yourself divided, if you find yourself, well, salvation
is of grace and I have to add something to it. You are not
divided. You are not in the middle somewhere. You have set yourself on the
side of works. There is no mixture here. If salvation is of grace, it is no longer
of works. And if salvation is of works,
it is no longer of grace. It's either or. There is no middle
ground. And anyone who preaches a middle
ground is a liar and the truth is not in him. Anyone who preaches
somewhere in the middle is a liar and the truth is not in him. He is not preaching the gospel.
And right now I tell you, if anyone is seeing a mixture, they're
lost. They're lost. Are you struggling with your
sins? Are you struggling with the guilt
of your sins? Are you in bondage? Then I tell
you, believe on Christ now. Now! Trust in His grace. Rest in His
blood and His righteousness. And God said, I will save you. I will save you. That's a promise
of God. That's where salvation comes
from. It comes from the gracious, merciful
hand of God Almighty by His promises in His Word. And His promise
is to everyone that believeth. He will save them. Everyone that
believes on Christ. Not Christ plus, but just Christ. Just Christ. And Christ alone. And we know this, we who have
experienced this, we know this. We know that salvation is of
the grace and mercy of God. And we know that He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins. And so we must continue. If you're
a believer, if you find yourself on the side of God's grace, what
a wonderful place to be. What a wonderful place to be
to know that God has saved us, not because of who we are, not
because of what we've done, but because He would in sovereign
grace, mercy, save us and pluck us out of the brands set for
the burning. He saved us, He redeemed us,
and we continue daily, constantly, in faith, looking to Christ,
moment by moment, living by faith, trusting in Christ alone, that Jesus Christ not only has
saved us, but He will save us. He will continue to save us.
Therefore, you sons of promise, brethren, brethren, hear the
first exhortation of this book. It is glorious, it's wonderful,
it is our joy, it is our privilege, and yet it is of great necessity
that we all pay heed, take heed to this exhortation, stand fast. You that have been saved by grace,
who have been set free by the blood and righteousness of Christ,
stand fast and hold the line. Hold the line. Believers in Christ,
we have been set free from the guilt of sin, haven't we? There's
no more guilt of sin. There's guilt of conscience.
I know that. We experience that constantly
and daily. We experience the guilt of our
conscience. But I know this, according to God's Word, there
is no more guilt for my sin. Why? Because Christ bore the
guilt of my sins and my sins have been paid for. They've been
completely satisfied by the blood of Christ. We've been free from
the power of sin. Sin no longer reigns in us. We hate sin. We despise it, even
though this flesh is nothing but sin. We still have a new
heart, a new nature that longs to serve and to worship God.
So when we hear the call of God, Hold the line! Oh, that's a good
call to us. That's a gracious call. I'm so
thankful that God has given us this privilege and duty Hold
the line. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free. But we are not free from the
sinful man nor this sinful world, are we? We are constantly tempted.
Constantly struggle with temptation. I don't know about you, but daily,
when I read the Word of God, I find more of my depravity. Every day that I draw closer
to Christ, the more I am exposed as to what I really am by nature. And I've not yet found the end
of my sinful nature. I don't know the full depth of
my wicked heart. I can say this, I know that in
my flesh dwelleth no good thing, but really, have I found the
bottom of that or the end of that? No. But daily we find that. Daily
we see how depraved we are by the Spirit of God and the new
nature. And friends, that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad
thing. When God exposes who we are,
that doesn't make it worse. It was already worse. It just
exposes what's really there. And that's okay, because when
I see that, I see what great depths the Savior had come to
redeem me. And that drives me to love Him
more. He that is forgiven much does
what? Loveth much. Loveth much. And daily we see
this. And the Scripture speaks to every
believer that we do have peace with God. We do have comfort
and assurance in our hearts by the gospel of God's grace that
we do have peace, even though on the outside it doesn't seem
that way. In the circumstances of life,
it doesn't seem as though there's peace. But there is inside of
our hearts, because Christ has made our peace. And never are
we promised peace in this world or with its religion. This world would have us void of all true
religion. That's the purpose of all the
world, all the lost world. Would have us to falter in the
gospel, would have us to fall from grace. That's their desire.
The religious world would have us to unify with them. while
the secular world would have us forfeit the liberty of the
gospel for what they call the greater good. Isn't that their
motive? The motive of religion is, hey,
compromise with us so we can have unity. And the voice of
the world says this, hey, you need to give up your stringent
thoughts for the greater good of everybody else. You're too
narrow. You're too narrow, you're too
bigoted saying your gospel is the only
gospel. That's not comfortable to people. You're not making people feel
welcome. You should make everybody feel welcome. Believers, Christians
are accounted in Scriptures like soldiers. Why? Because we're
in the midst of a war. We're in the midst of a warfare.
And we in this warfare as the church of the living God, we
are the soldiers that hold the line. We hold the line for the
cause of Jesus Christ, for the cause and the sake of His gospel
and His glory. And we are constantly made aware
of our enemies that they are not carnal. Our enemies are not someone you
see. It is something you don't see.
Our enemies are spiritual enemies. Spiritual enemies. Many of the
churches who were once called to hold the line of the gospel
and stand fast in the liberty of Christ, failed to hold the line because
they thought their enemies were carnal. If you'll notice in church history,
it was when the Christians seized power of the government that
the church began to wane in its faith of the gospel of God's
grace. It's when Christians started
taking active roles to change the laws of men to match the
laws of the gospel that the church began to compromise. You see, we're not here to change
government. That's not what we're here for.
We're not here to change the laws of men to match the laws
of God. That's not our purpose. God sets
up kingdoms and God takes them down. Not us. It's not our business. We're not here for that. We're
here for one purpose. Hold the line of the gospel. To stand fast in the liberty
of the gospel of Christ. And not be moved. Not be moved. The church failed in time past
because they tried by force to bring men into the church. They
tried by trickery to bring men under the gospel and say they're
saved. That is moving the line. That's
not holding fast. That's paving in. Paving in to
compromise. And every church that does this
will fail, and every professor of faith who holds to this is
an apostate. How then? Do we stand fast? How do we as the church of God,
how are we to hold the line? How are we to stand fast in the
liberty of Christ? We'll go to Ephesians chapter
6. This gives us a very vivid picture of how every believer
in Christ, how the church of the living God here in this world
is called to stand fast. Look at verse 10. Finally, my
brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand
against the wiles of the devil, for we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities and powers against the rulers
of darkness of this world. against spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand." When you think you've
done everything possible to stand, what does he say? Stand therefore.
When you've done everything, stand! When you can do no more,
stand. Stand what? Stand in His strength.
Stand in His liberty. Stand in His liberty. If we're to stand, we must be
dressed for battle. And God gives us a vivid picture
of what it is to be dressed in the appropriate armor for battle. I'll tell you what, a soldier
in this day who was not appropriately dressed for battle was a goner. You just, I mean, this type of
battle we've not seen in in history for many hundreds of years. And
I don't think we've seen the scale of the magnitude of this
type of warfare, this type of battle where it's hand-to-hand,
face-to-face combat, as when Paul was writing this. But our
enemies are spiritual, and therefore our uniform, our dress, is spiritual. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may be able to stand. Now, first of all, that we are
to put on is the belt, the belt of truth. Look at that in verse. Fourteen stand, therefore, having
your loins girt about with truth. Now what held up this whole armor
is this, the belt. Without that, everything else
fell apart. You had to have this first. You had to have the belt
of truth, otherwise the whole armor falls apart. Believer, gird yourself about
with the truth of God's Word. Here it is. Let God be true and
every man a liar. There it is. That's what we gird
everything up with. Well, what about this? I don't understand that. Let
God be true and every man a liar. I don't care if I can't figure
it out. I don't care if I can't reason
it out. I don't care if you ask me questions that I can't answer.
It doesn't move the fact of this. God's Word is the truth and everyone
against it is a liar. That girds up everything else.
And if you have that, all the rest of the armor fits right
on top and it won't fall, won't fall off. If you start to waver
that this is not the inerrant word of God, then everything
else is movable. Every piece of armor is subject
to be moved or taken off. You must have the belt of truth
girded up. Hold fast to this. Hold fast
to the truth that there is no righteousness, salvation, or
gospel that is not given to us by the truth of God's Word. God's
Word is the sum and substance of our gospel. It is the foundation
of our faith. Don't be moved. Don't compromise. Number two, we must put on the
breastplate of righteousness. See that? He says, "...and having
on the breastplate of righteousness." This is to gird on, to put on
that Christ, according to the Scripture, was made to be all
our righteousness. All our righteousness. We are to stand fast that we
have none in our zeal. You know what? I hold fast to
this. I stand my ground in this. I have no righteousness apart
from Christ's. I have no righteousness, no worthiness
to stand before God but by the righteousness of Christ. Don't
move. Don't move from that. Not one
inch. All our holding fast, all our
standing fast has nothing to do with our righteousness. But
because of our righteousness, we are able to hold fast. Because
our righteousness was made by God himself. And this breastplate, where does
it go? Right near the heart. You keep
this close to your heart. That Christ is all our righteousness. Keep it close. It protects the
heart. Christ, by His love and grace,
by the heart of God, He did this by His own heart, out of His
own love for us, He gave us His righteousness. And that should
make it dear to our hearts, because it is from the heart of God. And He has taken away all the
guilt of our sins. We have righteousness because
there's no more sin. Where sin is, there is no righteousness.
Is that right? You can't have righteousness
and sin. There's no mixture of that. Christ has taken away our sins
so that we can have His righteousness. Stand fast in His love. He first loved us so that we
may love Him. the shoes of the gospel. Shod
your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. It is
very important for the soldier in order to hold the line and
have traction to have the right shoes. These Roman shoes he's
talking about had cleats and they were bent backwards for
a reason. Because when they dug into the
ground, they were able to press forward. They were able to press
forward. How can we press forward? How
do we press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus? Shod your feet with the Gospel. Know the Gospel. Learn of Christ. Today we have people who are
trying to give us translations of the Scriptures that dumb down
the Gospel. Why? Why would we ever want to come
down somewhere in our understanding of the gospel? Come up. Learn of Christ. When I speak of justification,
sanctification, redemption, people say, those words are too hard.
Why are they so hard? Learn them. Know them. And you know what? I still haven't
learned all about them. But I know what justification
is, do you? I know what it is to be sanctified by God, do you?
I know what it is to be under the grace of God or to grow in
the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, do you? We know the Gospel
and we can grow in that understanding. And the more we grow, the more
we gain traction in this holding the line, in standing forth. Shod your feet with it daily,
constantly. reading and studying and attending
the worship of God. Number four, the shield of faith.
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you are able
to quench the darts. Of the wicked. You know, in the battle, the
first thing to get hit is the shield. Isn't that it? When Eve was tempted, what was
the first thing tempted? Her faith. That was the first
thing tempted. Yea, hath God said. You see,
in order for her to doubt what God said, her faith had to be
tried. It was found lacking because
it was in her own strength. And so is ours. In our own strength,
our faith is really nothing. But in the strength of Christ,
the faith which is given us of God can withstand any blow of
the enemy. Sometimes I feel like all I've
got is a shield and I'm backed in a corner. And all I can say is this. I
believe, Lord, help thou my unbelief. And that quenches every dart,
that quenches every dart, because my faith doesn't rest in my faith,
it rests in the object of my faith. The strength of my shield
is not my faith. The strength of my shield is
the object of my faith. He is strong and he can quench
any dart. Matter of fact, when the enemy
comes to you, you tell him, take it up with him. You take it up
with Christ. The Lord rebuke thee. My faith rests in Him. The shield
of faith, the helmet of salvation. Stand fast in the helmet of salvation
because this protects the mind. The mind. Believers stand fast
in the liberty of our salvation by hearing. No other gospel. Don't be lured into vain and
empty debate. and exercise of the mind. Don't
do it. In other words, you would have
to take off your helmet of salvation and set it on the table in order
to compare it with somebody else's. Don't do that. You put it on
your head. You leave it there. This is salvation. Take it or
leave it. This is it! There is no other
gospel! There is no other hope but Christ
and Christ alone. Protect your mind. You know, I've seen over the
years, learned men tried to defend the gospel by learning the other
gospels. And they have only ended up in
utter ruin or apostasy. That's it. I've known men to
stand so firm in the gospel and hold the line, and then I look
at them now and they're nothing more than jello. They're just
wobbly. You can't stand on anything they
say anymore. Don't fall into that. You don't learn the gospel by
listening to the false gospel. You learn it by listening to
the true gospel and you reject everything else. Immediately,
instantly, without thought, reject it. It's wrong. That's wrong. You don't have to give a reason.
If you don't know a reason, don't give one, leave it alone. Don't
fight it. Helmet of salvation, protect
your mind because that's how it gets down into your heart.
Once it starts getting in your mind and they start whirling
it around a little bit and the next thing you know, you move
a little bit and you move a little bit and you move a little bit
and you look back and where'd you go? It's what happened to
this church. It's what happened to this church. It can happen
to this one. The helmet of salvation. And
the last thing is the sword of the Spirit. Believers, stand
fast in the truth of God's Word. Stand fast in the gospel of Christ's
righteousness, His salvation. Hold fast in faith, but also
take the sword of the Spirit. The sword of the Spirit. I like this. In 2 Samuel, I believe
it's chapter 23, speaks of these mighty men. I had no idea why
all these men were listed. It was just amazing when I read
it again in the light of the gospel, I seen what it was. And
it said of these men that they were skillful both with the right
hand and with the left. Believer in Christ, be skillful
with the gospel. Be skillful. Be skillful in season with the
right hand and out of season with the left hand when it's
convenient and when it's not. And if you try to hit the mark
in your own strength, you'll miss the target every time it
is the sword of the spirit. He always hits his mark. All you have to do is take hold,
and he'll hit the mark of the enemy every time. His arrows
land exactly where he determines them to. Don't try to aim the
gospel like a rifle. Shoot it like a shotgun. Scatter
and leave it alone, and God will hit its intended target every
time. You take comfort in that, can't
you? Friends, hold this line. Don't
move. Don't move. And Paul says, praying with all
prayer, this is how we're going to hold this line, prayer. In
His strength alone, we'll hold this line. In His strength alone,
we'll hold to the gospel. Any other effort of our own will
only end in failure. Believers, stand fast in the
gospel of God's grace and don't be moved. I pray God will bless
this to you.