Good morning, everybody. It's
wonderful to see you. I'm very glad to be here myself. Let's take our Bibles and turn
to the book called Galatians. And it will be Galatians chapter
5. And our text as well as our reading
will come from this chapter, Galatians 5. Now before we begin to read,
we'll bow for a word of prayer Beg the Lord's presence among
us this day as we meet here for the worship of our Lord Jesus
Christ, to whom we give all honor and
glory and power and strength. Every attribute that belongs
to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit equally belongs to
our precious Lord Jesus Christ. Now let us pray. Lord, thank you for the privilege
of meeting together this morning. We thank you for your care of
us. You're keeping power over us. We thank you that the storms that we had just yesterday were no more severe than they
were. We know that all things work
together for our good. You often send trouble to your
people to cause us to better understand the wonders and miracles
of your grace in Christ. And Lord, we come this morning
in our Bibles to a chapter of Holy Scripture that to many might
appear to be shocking, this book that we call the Bible that you
have given to us, Genesis to Revelation, is indeed a revelation of who
you are, of who we are, nothing and nobody, and who our precious
Savior is, and the indispensable work of your Spirit in the conversion
and regeneration of our souls. So Lord, as we come to this chapter, open our understanding to understand
what is here written. This book, as wonderful as it
is, is not open to the natural mind without a work of grace in our
souls. We could read this book from
cover to cover as many times as possible in our lifetime and
not know anything more when we finish than when we began. So
we beg you, dear Lord, you'd see fit to give us eyes to see
and ears to hear. And your Word tells us that the
seeing eye and the hearing ear, both of them are from the Lord. Thank you for your mercy. Thank
you for our Savior. Thank you for letting us gather
in this place. We pray in our Lord's name, Amen. Now then, our reading, Galatians
chapter 5. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
that if you be circumcised as a religious act, mind you, if
you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every
man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to the whole law. If you're going to keep this
Old Testament law, you've got to keep all the rest of them
too. And that's something you can't
do, nor can I. Impossible for us. And these Galatian professing
believers And as you get further in the book of Galatians, Paul
seems to be encouraged that they would heed the warnings that
he's given them in this book of those people from Jerusalem
who are called Judaizers, who came to tell these people, you
must not only believe and trust Christ, but you must follow Moses
and obey the laws of the Old Testament, particularly the Ten
Commandments. Verse 4. is become of no effect
unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law. You are
fallen from 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? This persuasion comes
not of him that calls you. It doesn't come from God. It
comes from some other source. A little leaven leavens the whole
lump. I have confidence in you through
the Lord that you will be none otherwise minded, but he that
troubles you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren,"
this verse is also our text for today, and I, brethren, if I
yet or still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased or ended. If you'll add just one legal
work for a sinner to do, people will buy into the gospel that
we preach. But if you tell them that just
one little thing they must do, is their own doing, we have missed
the gospel of Christ. Missed it entirely. Entirely. But Paul is confident that these
persons who were converted under his preaching many years before
this, that you'll be none otherwise minded, but he that troubles
you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren,
If I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. Then is it ceased. I would, these
persons who had brought this false doctrine, to the Galatian
churches, I would that they were even cut off which trouble you. For brethren, you have been called
unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled
in one word, even in this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one
another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. For the flesh, the natural man,
lusteth or wars against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,
and these are contrary the one to the other. so that you cannot
do the things that you would. But if you be led of the Spirit,
you are not under the law. No follower and true believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ is under the law. None. None. Not any. Verse 16, this I say then, walk
in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh, this human nature
of ours, the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against
the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that
you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led
of the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the
flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of
the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past,
that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom
of God." Now, I must stop. And mention this, it's imperative
that you understand it. It sounds like we're saying believers
do not sin. And that's the furthest thing
from the truth. We're sinners now and will be
until we're laid in the grave. Believers, unlike unbelievers, can fall into sin, but for a
Christian to claim themselves perfect in ourselves is completely
false and is not true. Our perfection is found where? in Christ and Him crucified. To know Him, to believe Him, to
trust Him is to be without sin before God. Alright, verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Neatness, temperance, against such there is no law, and they
that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections
and lusts." If you live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the
Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain
glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Back to
verse 11. And I, brethren, if I still preach
circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then is the
offense of the cross ceased. All Paul had to do was admit
one single work for believers to do. from what Moses wrote, from what
the Old Testament contains, from what the Jewish religion as a
whole held to be the case. And Paul is telling us that if
we grant just one single solitary thing, the offensiveness of the
gospel of Christ is no more. All right, this morning our title
is The Offense of the Cross. And I'll cover it hopefully in
these categories, the glory of the cross, the victory of the
cross, the offense of the cross, the preaching of the cross, and
the enemies of the cross. Now that's a lot of points to
cover, but I should like to be able to do that. We'll find out. Will we not? Here's the first one. This book that we have in our
hands, this Bible, has but one singular message from Genesis
to Revelation. And that message is the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world, by whom we are reconciled
unto God. His blood cleanses Every possible
sin under heaven. In Genesis and in Exodus, we
have the Lamb typified. In the Garden of Gethsemane,
it's Abel's Lamb, whereas his brother did not bring the proper
sacrifice and was rejected of God. In Exodus, it's the Passover
Lamb. that represents and pictures
the Lord Jesus Christ when He came into this world. He's the
Lamb of God that takes away the sins of a whole world of poor
sinners who manage to come to Him through the grace of God.
Secondly, Isaiah gives this Lamb a personal name. A personal name. Now, you ought
to be familiar with this. I know if you've been here any
time, you are. Ephesians 53, you ever heard of that one? I
know you have. It's called the Gospel of the
Old Testament. In a way, the 12 verses that
make up Isaiah 53, every last single one of those verses are
talking about Christ. And one of the most familiar
words to crop up in that chapter is the word, He. The Lord Jesus. He Himself is set forth in that
wonderful 53rd of Isaiah. Then we come to the New Testament,
to the book of John in chapter 1, verse 29. And here we have
the Lamb identified. Pointed out to us. Unmistakably
so. And who does this wonderful deed
for us? John the Baptist. He saw the
Lord Jesus coming to where he was baptizing, and he said, Behold,
the Lamb of God! The Lamb of God. John is the forerunner. John
the Baptist, that is, is the forerunner and announcer of the
coming of the Lord Jesus. And he literally came. wearing
a human body, human flesh, sin accepted, no sin whatsoever on
the Son of God. Then we come to the book of the
Revelation, and here we have the Lamb magnified. In the midst
of the thrones stood a Lamb as if it had been slain, and I add
the word if, as it had been slain, and all sung a new song. And we sang it this morning.
Thou art worthy. Thou art worthy. He alone is
worthy. Now to get to these five things. First of all, the glory of the
cross. These glories are in the doctrines
called free justification and full atonement for sin. Partial
remedies, when it comes to God and ourselves, partial remedies
are absolutely worthless. It either achieves everything
or nothing. And our Lord Jesus is indeed,
in all capital letters, everything. The cross is a display of God's
divine character. Now let me see if you understand
me when I say that Pilate put the Lord Jesus to
death. The Jews who clamored for his
execution put the Lord Jesus to death. But these things could
have been us had we been there. We would have done the same thing.
Oh, but what really matters, what really counts, God put God
to death. God put Christ to death on that
tree. He would not have had to move
even his little finger to have thrown that whole scene in utter
chaos and change the outcome entirely. But why did Christ
come to this earth? To live? To earn for His people
a perfect righteousness when He came to suffer to bleed and
to die on Calvary's tree. He said himself, no man takes
my life from me. I lay it down of myself. And if that ain't how it is,
I don't know anything about the subject. So the cross is a display of
God's divine character and being. The Bible says that God is merciful,
but it also says that God is righteous. The Bible says that
God is love, but it also says that He's holy. You can't have
one without the other one. God will save. He gave a people to Christ in
old eternity in the covenant of grace. Every person that would
ever be saved in all the generations of time on this earth. Those
names were in that book. And those persons were entrusted
to the Lord Jesus Christ. So God will save. Don't you misunderstand
this. He must punish the sins of those
whom He saves. But it's not them. It is Christ
who bears that sin. He took our sins in His own body
on the tree, according to the Scriptures. Alright, the second
thing about this cross. having to do with its glory,
is that the cross is a full manifestation of the great love of Christ for
His people. Let me read you a statement out
of the Scriptures. But God commended His love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners, what happened? Christ died for us. Here's another
one. If we would preach the love of
God, We only have to go to the cross. There it is. You won't
see a bigger, greater display of divine love for helpless,
ungodly, God-hating sinners like ourselves. You won't find a better
place for that than to behold the Son of God on the cross of
Calvary. That's just simply how it is. Alright, the third thing about
the cross has to do with its offense. And that's part of our
title this morning, the offense of the cross. So let's take a
careful look at this. This matter of the offense of
the cross. The cross puts away sin by full
atonement. Hebrews 10.14. For by one offering,
He, the Lord Jesus, has perfected forever them that are sanctified." If He ever makes you perfect,
you're perfect forever. But what about our sin? Well,
what about it? Atonement has been made. Justice
has been satisfied. If God has punished sin in His
Son, surely He can't punish the same sin twice. That would be
like somebody to whom you owe the debt, and you paid it off,
and then they call you and say, hey, when are you going to pay
this debt? And it gets your blood in a boil pretty quick when that
happens. I've had at least one occasion
for that to take place, and I didn't like it one little bit. Bought some gas at a gas station.
Paid for it. Left. And here comes a guy in
another car down the sidewalk now to get beside me and tell
me to stop and pull over and go back. Well, I pull back to
the filling station, and the guy sees me through the window
from on the inside. He said, you know, like, go on,
go on. I said, oh no, buddy, I'm coming
inside. I want you to know you ought
not do that unless you're absolutely positively certain. I might have thought a few thoughts
about him that weren't too kind either. But we have to be careful when we
talk about God and sinners. You just can't put God in this
little box where we can move Him around or take Him with us
or leave Him at home, whichever is our pleasure. God's too big
for that. You can't go anywhere in this
universe and not see Him, if you've got eyes to see Him. But when He says that the Lord
Jesus paid the sin debt of His people, by golly, it's just paid. And if we have a lick of sense,
we wouldn't want to add a single solitary penny to it. We want
the Lord Jesus to have all the honor and all the glory. And
if I don't, there's something drastically wrong with me. Now we come, secondly, to the victory of the cross. The victory of the cross. I know
that there are those who preach the cross of Christ, but who
do not preach it in its entirety, because the second half of their
message is telling the sinner what he must do in order for
God to do something for him. And that just ain't so. It has never been so. I don't
know what kind of Bible, people, well, I do too, because I used
to read it the same way they read it. If I didn't like something,
I just skipped over it. And I suspect you did too. Some people say that the cross
is God making an effort toward sinners. God doesn't make efforts. He
just does it. He never tries to do anything.
If you put an adjective like try on the name of God, you have
ruined that name. He doesn't try. He does. He accomplishes. Well, preacher, you're so smart.
What does He accomplish? Everything He ever intended. Saving every soul He ever intended
to save in every generation on the face of this earth. Some people say that when Christ
died on the cross, He made some kind of payment that requires
the works of sinners to complete. They'll say, God did do the work. But you have to believe. Well,
where do you think faith comes from? It's the gift of God, not
of works, lest any man should boast. Oh my! How far, how far we've fallen. Let me remind you of something.
If I remember right, this church
was started in 1842. I believe that's right. In 1842, Baptists in the South
were solidly the same as we, Calvinistic in their doctrine. And if that ain't so, we wouldn't
be in this building this morning. Because when these people who
didn't like what they were hearing decided to take us to court, and that case was going to draw
near pretty quickly, the only thing left to them was to take
it to a court of law, And so through the lawyer that we were
using at the time, I had placed some books, some of which I never
got back, by the way, but I wanted him to know what we were, what
we believed, and what the Scriptures teach. He was a Presbyterian. I was in his office one day,
and the other lawyer on the other side, he called him And Mr. Brian wanted me to go in the
next room and pick up the phone. He wanted me to hear it. And
here's what this turkey was saying. He said, Bob, Bob Brian was our
attorney. He said, Bob, both of us are
Presbyterians. We're supposed to preach. We're
supposed to believe the stuff that this man even dares to preach. But you know and I know there
ain't a Presbyterian anywhere in these parts that would dare
speak a word of this. So I gave Mr. Bryan those books,
and we got a notice that we were being kicked out of the local
Baptist Association, which thrilled my soul. And I had him to call
their lawyer and give him the title of these books. Because
Campbell University over at Bush Creek has got a library far bigger
than anything I've ever seen, I'm sure. And these books are
no doubt on that shelf. Well, guess what? When they consulted
the books, all the war racket just died. Just died at one time. And in
just a few weeks time, we had a request for something like
30 or 40 church letters. Which today I'll scoff at and
laugh at. If you need a piece of paper
to tell you that you're a believer, I ain't going to give it to you. This cross is offensive. It's barbaric. But it's God. It has to be right. Why? God did it. Number four, the preaching of
the cross. You can find these words in 1
Corinthians 1.18, for the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness, but unto us who are saved it is the power
of God." The gospel must be preached. And the cross is the centerpiece
of the gospel. You can't preach the gospel without
preaching Christ on Calvary's tree. You just can't do it. You cannot do it. There are only two views to be
had in regard to the cross. Either it is foolishness and
nonsense, or else it is, as 1 Corinthians 1 has just said, the power and
wisdom of God. It's one or the other, and you
ought to know that it is the power and wisdom of God. Then there are the enemies of
the cross. The devil is certainly an enemy
of the cross. Some of you have read Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress. And the lion, as Pilgrim makes
his way on his journey, the lion reveals himself and growls and
threatens. And Pilgrim got a bit closer
and looked. And the lion had a chain around
his neck. And you know who had the other
end? The Lord Jesus himself. And that's
still the rule. That's still how it is. Right
now. Unbelieving Israel is the enemy
of the cross. This fellow that we know as Paul
the Apostle was once Saul the Pharisee. He put many people
to death. One of which is completely covered
in the seventh chapter of the book of Acts, a man by the name
of Stephen. But if Saul meant to continue
as a Pharisee, he should have stayed home that day. Because
when he heard what Philip preached, he was a walking dead man. His
very next excursion to arrest Christians, put them in prison,
and kill as many as he could get permission to kill. Oh my
goodness. He never got over what Stephen
preached. And by the time you get to Acts
chapter 9, he's falling on his face on his way to Damascus to
arrest Christians. He falls flat on his face. And
he's a voice from heaven. And that voice is none other
than the Son of God. Saul, Saul, Saul, why persecute
thou me? And he meekly answered, Who are
you, Lord? Yes, that's who he is. King of
kings and Lord of lords. You could say Paul met Christ
that day, but it would be better if you said Christ met him. Our Lord met him on purpose. He knew precisely the outcome
before he ever spoke to him from heaven. the third enemy of the cross. Not only Satan, not only unbelieving
Israel, but unbelieving Gentiles as well. In the religious makeup of our
day, in the denominations or undenominational, it doesn't
matter, who are claiming to be followers of Christ, among many
of those are the enemies of the cross. Because they are telling
people in language just like this, you have to do something
for God in order for God to do something for you. Now, I'm telling
you the truth. If that be the case, you don't
need to hear anything I've got to say. That is a total lie. It cannot be supported by Holy
Scripture. But people hate the truth. The truth regarding this cross,
this death, this saving act of the Lord Jesus Christ is offensive
to them. And so they modify what it is
they preach. I venture to say, and I dare
you to prove me wrong, I'd like for you to if you could, It's
the only place in this county preaching this message. The only one. Why did the Lord do such a thing
here? Just because He would, that's
all I can tell you. It won't because of me and it
won't because of you. Oh no. People make themselves enemies
by changing the rules of the game, by telling you that if
you take the first step, God will take the second, and such
a tommy-rod as that is all over the place. And I tell you this
as plainly as I know how to tell you. If you get your religion
off the television, you ain't got no religion. Enemies of the cross. Well, let's go back to our text,
if you have it in front of you. If you don't, you don't need
it. And I, brethren, well, y'all ain't going to listen
to me, so I'm going to wait for you. Okay? And I, brethren, if I yet
or still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. And then I'm jumping over to
chapter 6 of Galatians for just one verse. That would be verse
14. But 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 creation, a new creature,
a new creature. OK, great.