Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church
located at 905 Yadkin Street in Kingsport, Tennessee would
like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. And now, Pastor Gabe Stoniker. I would like to bring a message
to you this morning from Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter
five, and I would like to focus on the end of verse 11, which
says, then is the offense of the cross ceased. Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. Now the title of this message
is, does the offense offend me? That's an important question.
That is a question that all of us need to ask ourselves. Truly,
we need to assess our hearts. Does the offense offend me? When the message of the cross
is preached, when it is very clearly preached, there is an
offense in it. There is an offense in the message
of the cross. Now, the apostle Paul started
this particular chapter in verse 1 by saying, Stand fast therefore
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. He said stand fast
in the liberty where Christ has made us free. He's made us free.
And he said don't go back to the bondage of the works of the
law. Don't go back to that bondage.
He said back in chapter 1, if you read through this chapter,
through this book, you'll see that he said in chapter 1, he
told them, I'm shocked. I am shocked by the fact that
you started in the grace of Christ. Paul came to them and he preached
the truth of the grace that is in Christ to them. And they started
believing that truth, and he said, now you're getting away
from that, and you're going toward another gospel. And he warned
them, there is not another gospel. There is only one gospel. Men believe, well, I kind of,
you know, think and believe this way, and you think and believe
that way, and that's okay, it'll all work out in the end. Here's
the truth, there's only one gospel. The Apostle Paul said, there
is not another. And that's what he means when
he says here in verse 7, Galatians 5 verse 7, he said, you did run
well. Who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth? He said, you ran looking to the
Lord Jesus Christ. You were looking to Christ, the
author and finisher of your faith. And he's asking them, what happened? What happened? Who did hinder
you that you should not obey the truth? The truth says Christ
is all. This Word is truth. And as we
turn to these Scriptures together and we see what God has written
in His Word, we're going to see that the truth is Christ is all. Christ is all. It's not Christ
and anybody else. It's not Christ and me. It's
not Christ and anything, Christ is all. The truth says all of
our good deeds, what we consider to be good deeds, are filthy
rags. Have you ever read that in God's
Word? All of them, filthy rags. The truth says our only hope
is to run to Christ. We have one hope. Run to Christ. And Paul is telling these Galatians,
that's who you ran to. You did run. Who told you to
stop? He said, who turned you back
to the law? Who hindered you? And who turned
you back to the law? Who hindered your faith? Who
moved the object of your faith? Who pointed you somewhere else?
That's what he's saying. Verse eight, he said, this persuasion
cometh not of him that calleth you. The God who called you by
his grace, he didn't point you somewhere else. God's word never
points a man somewhere else other than Christ, never, never. God's spirit does not point men
and women away from the Lord Jesus Christ, never. And God's
true messenger never points a man or a woman away from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Never. Look back a few pages
with me, if you would, to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. If you have your
Bible there, let's turn and read this together. 2 Corinthians
11 verse 1 says, Would to God you could bear with me a little
in my folly, and indeed bear with me. For I am jealous over
you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."
The Apostle Paul is telling them, all I want to do is point you
to Christ, one man. His people are called the bride
of Christ. And he said, I am preaching this
gospel to anyone who will listen to it. I am seeking the bride
of Christ. and praying that God will send
His Spirit and opened deaf ears, opened blind eyes, call out His
bride, call out His people. And the Apostle said, I just
want to point you to Christ. In verse 3 he said, But I fear,
lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. And you think about it. You know
how the serpent beguiled Eve? He said, Hath not God said? He used God. He used God's Word
and he got it wrong. He misquoted God and that's what
men are doing today. Verse 3 says, I fear lest by
any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity, the singularity
that is in Christ. Only Christ. Verse 4, For if
he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached. Who is he talking about, we have
not preached? He's talking about the prophets and he's talking
about the apostles. The men that God spoke to directly,
gave his word to. If he that cometh preacheth another
Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive another spirit
which you have not received, or another gospel which you have
not accepted, you might well bear with him. He might fool
you. You might believe him. Verse
14 right here in 2 Corinthians 11 says, And no marvel, for Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light. That's a fearful
thing. That is how the adversary works.
According to God's Word, he works through the means of transforming
himself, imitating an angel of light. Imitating a preacher of
the gospel. Verse 15, Therefore it is no
great thing if his ministers, the adversary's ministers, also
be transformed as the ministers of righteousness. They come in
the form of being preachers of Christ, whose end shall be according
to their works. Sadly, that describes most ministers
in religion. That describes most men who stand
up in a pulpit because what they're trying to do is move the object
of faith, true faith, off of Jesus Christ to something else. They're trying to move men's
hearts, steer men's eyes away from Christ. And any man who
does that is a minister of Satan. That's the object of the adversary.
What does it mean to move the object of faith? What does that
mean? That means if a man tells you
that you can have salvation, In something other than the blood
of Jesus Christ alone, he's the minister of Satan. And that's
pretty clear. That's pretty strong. But that's
what God's word says. That's the truth of God's word. The truth cries, what can wash
away my sins? Nothing but the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing. And when a man stands
up and he says, oh yes, now it's the blood of Christ, they will
always say that. When you take them to task on this, they'll
always say that. Oh yeah, yeah, Christ crucified.
Christ on the cross. It's the blood of Christ. Absolutely. It's the death, burial, and resurrection
of Christ. Absolutely. Along with that. Oh yes, that,
but along with that. And that's where they're starting
to go wrong. That's where they're starting to move the object of your faith.
They say along with that. Now you have to, and then you
can just fill in the blank with whatever they say. If a man says
that, God says he's a minister of Satan. He is a minister of
Satan. It is the blood of Jesus Christ
alone. It's the blood of Jesus Christ
alone. Now, if you're turning with me,
go back to Galatians 5. Verse 9 says, A little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump. Do we understand what that means?
Do we understand how serious that verse is? Leaven is an ingredient
that goes into bread to make it rise. That's what leaven is. And a little bit of leaven worked
into a ball of dough will work its way into the whole loaf. The entire loaf. It won't just
puff up one little spot. If you take some leaven and put
it into a ball of dough, it won't just puff it up right there where
you put it in. It will work its way into the whole loaf. The whole loaf will rise. This is so important. This right
here is so important. People say all the time, they
say this all the time, well, no, the man I'm listening to,
he doesn't have it all right. Clearly, he's not declaring everything
that God says. Clearly, he's wrong on a couple
of things. Clearly, he's leaving some things
out. He doesn't have it all right,
but what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take the good parts
and I'm going to throw away the bad parts. It does not work that
way. That's what our God is telling
us. A little bit of error. Just a little bit of error mixed
in with the gospel of the blood of Jesus Christ alone for salvation. When men say, oh yeah, it's the
blood. But then they also have to mix in that error. Just a
little bit of error will work its way through the entire message
and it will error the whole thing. It won't just error that one
little part and then you can just cut that out and use the
rest. It will error the whole thing. When you hear a message
that is not in total agreement with God's Word, stay away from
it. This is what Paul is telling
the Galatians. And this is what we need to hear and what we need
to heed. Stay away from it. Parts of it
might sound good. Parts of it might sound wonderful.
But the whole thing is infected with error. The whole thing. Our Lord is the one telling us
this. He is moving on the Apostle's
heart to write this. He's telling us this. Look with
me if you would now at Matthew 16. Matthew 16, verse 6, Then
Jesus said unto them, Take heed, and beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees, and of the Sadducees. And they reasoned among themselves,
saying, It is because we have taken no bread. They didn't understand
what He was saying at first. His disciples didn't. Which when
Jesus perceived, He said unto them, O ye of little faith, Why
reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread? Do
ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the
five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?" He said, why are
you so worried that you didn't bring bread? They had just been
with him when he fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread. He said, I'm not telling you
you need to bring bread. I'm not scolding you because
you forgot to bring bread. Verse 10, neither the seven loaves
and the 4,000 and how many baskets you took up. How is it that you
do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread,
that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of
the Sadducees. Why do you not understand what
I'm saying? Verse 12 says, then understood they how he bade them
not beware of the leaven of bread. but of the doctrine of the Pharisees
and of the Sadducees." He told them, and our Lord, this is the
number one thing He did, is He warned them, do not listen to
the doctrine of the Pharisees. All of these preachers in Jerusalem,
all of these religious leaders, the famous ones, the ones everybody's
following, He said, don't listen to them. Don't do it. Here's
the truth of the matter. stealing a little glory from
Christ in the work of salvation, giving man just a little bit
of credit, just a little bit of the work to do, that will
end up stealing all of the glory from Christ in the work of salvation. All of it. If we give just a
little honor to man, If we say, oh yeah, now it's the blood of
Christ, the death of Christ on the cross, absolutely. But you're
going to have to clinch this deal. You're going to be the
one who has to seal the deal. You've got to be the one who
makes a decision or does something that finally confirms salvation. If we give just a little bit
of credit to man, a little bit of honor to man, we'll end up
giving all the honor to man. Without man's doing, it's not
going to be done. And that's the message of lies.
That's the message of error. That's the message of leaven.
And our Lord warned us, beware of it. Beware. Look with me,
if you would, now at 1 Corinthians chapter 5. In 1 Corinthians 5,
verse 6 says, Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a
little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the
old leaven, the leaven of this flesh, the leaven of the works
of man, self, pride. Pride puffs up. He said, Purge
out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as
you are unleavened. No pride, no self, no flesh,
no man. There's no man involved in God's
salvation. He went on to say, For even Christ
our Passover is sacrificed for us. That's salvation. That is
the gospel. That's the message of truth and
the message of God's word. He said, therefore, let us keep
the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice
and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth. What he's saying is let's preach
and let's believe and let's hold to the scriptures alone. Grace
alone, God's free gift alone, and Christ alone. The blood and
work of Christ alone. Let's not mix any of the leaven
of the flesh. Let's not mix any of man's works
with the unleavened bread of the sincerity and truth of God's
Word. Now back in our text in Galatians
chapter 5 verse 10 says, I have confidence in you through the
Lord, that you will be none otherwise minded, but he that troubleth
you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be." In this whole
letter, I would encourage you to read this whole letter. Open
up to Galatians chapter 1 and you just read six chapters. Read
straight through six chapters and read what the apostle is
writing to them. Throughout the whole letter,
he is being extremely frank with them. He is being extremely honest
with them, but he said, I believe you're believers. I do. He said, I believe the Lord will
bring you back to his truth, back to his word. I believe he'll
convince your heart again. That's what he's saying. that
this is indeed the truth. I believe He'll show you the
object of your faith again, Christ alone. Christ alone. But He said in verse 10, the
one that's troubling you, the one that is lying to you, the
man who's standing up and telling you that there's another object
you should be looking at, He said God is going to deal with
him. God is going to deal with him. Verse 11, And I, brethren,
If I yet preach circumcision, and that was the issue of that
day. God said in the Old Testament that Israel was to be circumcised. He said, you are to be circumcised.
This is my token to you. He didn't say that was salvation.
He said, it's my token to you. And he said, the apostle Paul
is saying, if I yet preach circumcision, Why do I yet suffer persecution? Why am I being persecuted for
the message I preach? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. Now Paul had Timothy circumcised. Not so he could be saved. Not
at all so he could be saved. Paul refused to have Titus circumcised
and he tells us that in Galatians chapter 2. He refused for Titus
to be circumcised because the Pharisees were trying to make
an issue of salvation out of it. They were saying, he can't
be saved unless he's circumcised. And Paul said, if we're going
to make this an issue of salvation, if this is going to be contingent
on salvation, that a man get his flesh involved, a man's works
become involved, he said, we're not doing it. We're not doing
it. It is the blood of Jesus Christ
alone. But he did have Timothy circumcised
to remove the hindrance of the preaching of the gospel. There
was no issue made out of it. And he did have him circumcised.
And these false preachers were telling the Galatians, who were
preaching works to them, they were preaching circumcision to
them, Like men do today with baptism and other things, God
has written in His Word concerning it, and men try to make a work
out of that condition for salvation. And they said, well, Paul's doing
the same thing. He had Timothy circumcised. He's
preaching circumcision too. And Paul said, if I was, if I
was preaching that circumcision is what saves a person, why am
I being persecuted? If I was preaching what everybody
wants to hear, why am I being persecuted? He said, if I was
preaching works, the offense of the cross would cease. If
I started preaching works, the offense of the cross would stop.
There would be no offense. The natural flesh of men and
women would love the message. It would give them glory. It
would give them a work, an effort, a part. And they would love it
and they would receive that message. But He's telling them, here I
sit in prison. He's writing to them from Rome.
Sitting in prison and He's saying, I'm being persecuted right now
for the truth's sake. Persecuted because I'm preaching
God's truth. He said the offense of the cross
is still in the message. I'm not preaching words. Not
at all. Now, when a man is preaching
the truth, he's preaching the cross of Christ. Jesus Christ
crucified. And when the cross of Christ
is clearly preached, I mean clearly preached, the what of it, the
why of it, it's an offense to the flesh. It is an offense to
the flesh. Where is the offense in the cross
of Christ? Where is it? Why are men so offended
by the message of the cross? I was listening to a message
that a man preached, a man who is a preacher of the gospel.
It was recorded back in 1985, many years ago. And this man
said in his message that he was reading People magazine. And
there was an article in that magazine on sin. They did an
article on sin, and they polled people. They asked them a question,
and they took all those numbers and averaged the number, and
they came up with a number. And they asked people, as of
1985, and this was the answer, the average person sinned about
four times per month. Now, is that not a hilarious
answer? Those of us who know what we are, four times per month. I'll tell you that that's a lie.
That's a lie. They're all lying. Which is a
sin? So let's go ahead and make it five. And I can also tell
you from experience, I'm flesh too. I'm quite positive they
were lifted up in pride that it was only four times a month.
That's a low number. Pride is a sin. Let's go ahead
and make it six. All right, six times in a month.
Clearly, they are completely ignorant, absolutely ignorant
of God's Word. If they knew God's Word, they
would not have given that answer. Ignorance to what God has written
and commanded is a sin. So, seven. Let's make it seven.
The fact that they don't know God, that's a sin. Let's make
it eight. The fact that they were conceived
in sin. That's what the Word says. Conceived
in sin. And it literally runs through
every molecule of their being. That ought to tell them. That
ought to tell us. That ought to tell everybody
that you cannot count sin. You cannot count sin. Sin is what we are. It's what
we are. And here's where the offense
comes in. It's when you tell a man that he cannot contribute
one thing to salvation because he's a sinner. No ability. Not only are all of his efforts
wasted, not only are they all wasted, they flat ruin everything. They ruin everything. Therefore,
Christ had to come and finish the work, start the work, and
finish the work on that cross alone. Hebrews 1 verse 3 says
He by Himself purged our sins. There is nothing we can do. Nothing. Well, then if there's nothing
we can do, why preach this message? If there's nothing we can do,
why preach this message? It's because the message of the
offense of the cross is what God uses to open blind eyes. It's what He uses to put life
in the heart. And this is how we can know if
our eyes have been opened and if life has entered this heart.
The same message, here it is, God's Word going out. The same
message that is a saver of death unto death is a saver of life
unto life. What that means is, the same
message that is an offense to the unbeliever, it's the exact
opposite to the believer. The exact opposite. I looked
up in a dictionary, the opposite of the word offensive. the antonym
to the word offensive, and these are the words I found. Appealing,
delightful, desirable, enjoyable, lovable, pleasant, sweet, and
wonderful. Does that describe the gospel
of Jesus Christ to you? After the truth is preached,
He paid it all. He righted all my wrong. He perfectly
redeemed everything I ruined. And all I have to do and all
I can do is rest. Without Him, I'm nothing. He
is everything. When that's preached, is that
the most desirable, lovable, precious thing you've ever heard?
If so, then this offense is not offensive to you. And God has
revealed His truth to you. As we preach this message, may
we never remove the offense And as we hear this message, may
the offense never offend us. That's my prayer. Till next week,
may the Lord bless His word to our hearts. You have been listening
to a message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign
Grace Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message, or to hear other messages of sovereign grace, you can write
to our physical mailing address at 905 Yadkin Street, Kingsport,
Tennessee 37660. Please tune in next week for
another message of God's free and sovereign grace.