Thank you. Blessed are they that dwell in
thy house. I like that song. I appreciate that. God's people
want to be in the church house where the gospel is preached,
where God's saints, where people gather to worship the Lord and
magnify Christ. It's a privilege for me to be
here. I appreciate the opportunity. Your pastor has
supported me to be here with you today, preach to you in his
absence, and I do appreciate your pastor so much. And he wanted
me to announce to you Give you some
information, I guess you might say, since you all have certainly
been remembering me, my family, before
the Lord in many years. He wanted me to announce to you
that I'm no longer the pastor at the church. that I had been
pastor of, it's in the bulletin. The bulletins were made out,
I'm sure, before he knew. I talked to him last week, Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, somewhere along in there. I can't remember
now. But anyway, and I told him, he asked me how things were,
and I told him that I was no longer pastor there. They asked
me to leave, and I left. So, that's all I've got to say
about it. They just asked me to leave and
didn't want me anymore. So, I left and thank you for your prayers. Continue
to pray for us. We had a meeting last Sunday
morning in our home. A couple of families besides
our own had a time of worship. We don't know what the Lord has
in store, something that's going to be just temporary or permanent,
but we'll leave that in the Lord's hands and whatever his will is,
we'll praise him for it. That's what we want. So you continue
to remember us and specifically in that way. Now, if you have
your Bibles turned to Galatians chapter six. Galatians chapter six. I'm going to read, beginning
in verse 14 of Galatians, chapter 6. And the title of this message is, The Source of Our Glory. the source of our glory. Now, verse 14 of chapter 6 will
be our text, but I'm going to read more scriptures than this. And to begin with, I want to
read beginning in verse 14, and I'll read down through verse
18. And then later on, I'll go back and read some here in this
chapter preceding verse 14. But as for now, we'll begin in
verse 14. This is the text. 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 availeth anything, nor uncircumcision
but a new creature. And as many as walk according
to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel
of God. From henceforth let no man trouble
me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Brethren, the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. The source of our glory. We know in verse 14, the source
of Paul's glory. Is that the source of our glory? I trust that it is. The Galatians
were foolish. That's what Paul said about them.
You're foolish. O foolish Galatians! Who hath bewitched you? Who hath
deceived you? Who hath beguiled you? How were
they beguiled? How were they deceived? Well,
Paul wrote to them and was aware of what had happened,
that they had left Christ and the gospel of God's free grace,
and they had turned back to the works of the law. Paul was aware
of this. This concerned Paul. He was greatly
concerned about these Galatians. And he was aware that false teachers,
certain false teachers, had come in and seduced some of them,
many of them perhaps, from the gospel that Paul himself had
preached to them. And these false teachers had
persuaded them and beguiled them and seduced them into believing
that the observance of the law was necessary to salvation. And that justification before
God was based, according to these false teachers, was based partly
on grace and partly on works. So they were going back to the
works of the law. in order to be justified. Turn
over to chapter 1 just for a moment here in Galatians. Paul, at the
very beginning of this epistle to them, gets right to the very
heart of the matter. And I want us to notice this
in chapter 1 of Galatians, verse 6. Galatians I marvel that you are so soon removed
from Him that called you unto the grace of Christ unto another
gospel, which is not another. There's
not but one gospel. Paul said there's not another
gospel, which is not another. But there be some that trouble
you." Now here, he's referring here to the false teachers. Some that trouble you. And here's
what they do. They pervert the gospel of Christ. Perverted. Now he says this,
verse 8, But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto
you that which we have preached unto you, let it be a curse."
Paul says here that if we come and we preach another gospel, if an angel from heaven would
come in your midst and preach another gospel, it makes no difference
who it is If any comes and preach another gospel than we have,
that you have received, that we preached unto you the gospel
of God's grace, let him be accursed. Let him be damned." That's strong,
isn't it? And he says, repeats that in
verse 9 again. So Paul gets right to the very
heart of this problem here, the matter. which was another gospel
being proclaimed by false teachers. And these Galatians were foolish,
as Paul says in chapter 3. Now we go back to chapter 6 again,
and let's read some here in chapter 6 as we go up in reading to our
text in verse 14. And Paul is going to bring out
some things about these false teachers, what they gloried in
and their motives. Verse 12 of chapter 6, he says,
As many, here's referring to the many false teachers, and
they are many, were and are still. What's true of them in that time
and their motives and their glories and all their methods and so
forth is true today, even though their names have
been changed and other things are different and so forth. But
essentially what Paul dealt with here and what was happening in
this Galatian, amongst the people there in Galatia, the assemblies
of God there in Galatia, the churches of God, is true today. We have to deal with the same
errors and the same methods and the same motives of these folks,
teachers, today. This is why this is so essential.
He says, "...as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh."
Paul doesn't pull any punches, does he? He says that's their
desire. He says they're just trying to
impress you, trying to make an impression upon you, and doing
it in the flesh. Nothing spiritual about this
at all. This is all fleshly. Fleshly religion, religious excitement,
fleshly. They constrain you to be circumcised. This was the point they hammered
on. You need to be circumcised, and
being circumcised would be a sign that they were committed to the
law. That was just a sign of commitment to the law. They constrain you to be circumcised. Now, he says the motive is this.
It's one of the motives they have, only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross of Christ. They don't want to be
persecuted by their religious companions or their comrades. In Jerusalem, the big shots there
in Jerusalem, you know, at headquarters, they don't want to suffer persecution
by just preaching the cross, preaching the gospel. They add
something to it so they can avoid this persecution. You know, that
can be done. A preacher can avoid persecution in this way. as the same way
that these false teachers avoided, by just bringing out certain
aspects of the gospel, of the scriptures, and not declaring
the whole counsel of God. And as Paul referred to it in
Corinthians, the offense of the cross. If a man can preach the
gospel and not offend anyone—and I tell you, I have I have problems
with that. Not that we're trying to offend
people on purpose, but the very message that we preach, the message
of the gospel, is offensive to the natural man. We're not up here trying to see
how many people we can get mad at us and things like that. That's
in the flesh. I'm not talking about that. It's just the simple
gospel, as we call it. We could call it the very...
Paul refers to it as the offense of the cross. It is an offensive
message. And it will bring persecution.
And Paul says here that they are trying to keep in favor with
the big boys down in Jerusalem, you know, the Jews. And so they
come in preaching a perverted gospel that they might avoid
the offense of the cross, lest they should suffer persecution.
For what? For the cross of Christ. So they were Their motive was
to avoid persecution, just bringing in something that
would appease the Jews in Jerusalem. They looked upon Christians with
a little more favorable light if they could bring in the law
and have them keep the law and bring in that aspect of it. They
would look at them with a little bit more favorable light. They
wouldn't suffer persecution by preaching the pure gospel
of grace, God's free grace and blood redemption. Now, verse
13, here we have the hypocrisy of the false teachers, the hypocrisy
of the false teachers. For neither they themselves who
are circumcised keep the law. They don't even keep the law. And they're boasting in the law,
but they don't keep it. They don't keep the law. They're
debtors to the whole law, but they don't know that. They just
want to bring out certain aspects of the law, like circumcision.
But they don't even keep the law. but desire to have you circumcised. They desire to have you under
the law, even though they don't keep the law themselves. Now,
here's another motive, that they may glory in your flesh. They may glory in you in their
proselytes or their converts. How many did you have in church
Sunday? How many walked the aisle? Things
of this nature that go on every Sunday and just about every so-called
church in our land today. How many, how much, things of
this nature, boasting in the glory in the flesh. Well, this is a problem. This
is what Paul was confronted with in his day. This was their motive. They made glory in your flesh. That is, in How many of they
can convince and constrain to do what they tell them to do? Oh, this is certainly applicable
to our day. I mean, this is really applicable. But let's go on to verse 14.
Get to the text here in the heart of the message. The source, what
was Paul's glory? What was the source of his glory?
We should say, who was the source of his glory, would be a better
term. Paul says here in verse 14, but God forbid. Now Paul,
he didn't use the name of God lightly, never did. This is strong
words here. He didn't use the name of God
lightly or flippantly. But God forbid, Paul writes,
that I should glory. Now, Paul says, I'm going to
glory, but I'm not going to glory in what they're glorying in.
I'm not going to boast in what they're boasting in. God forbid
that I should glory, save, or accept in the cross. of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the source of Paul's
glory. Paul did not glory in himself. Now, humanly speaking, Paul had
a lot to glory in. I'm sure he was a very educated
man, probably the most educated man in that day, a man of great knowledge. But he didn't glory in himself,
did he? He didn't glory in his works, in his wisdom? He didn't glory in his ministry,
in his converts that God saved those under Paul's ministry and
brought to the knowledge of Christ. Paul didn't glory in the converts
under his ministry. He didn't glory in how many he
baptized. He didn't know how many. He didn't
keep a record. He told the church at Corinth,
he said, I don't know how many I baptized there. I said, I baptized
a few, but I just recollect, I just can't remember the names
and so forth. He didn't glory. in any of these
things that the religionists of that day and the religionists
of our day like to glory and boast in. That's why they keep their records
and all that stuff, that useless stuff, time-consuming stuff. did not glory in himself or his
ministry and what God was pleased to accomplish in and through
him. Paul did not glory in any of that. Paul's glory was in
Christ and in Christ alone, and in this especially, the work
of Christ. Not Christ as a teacher and a
preacher, although he was the best. ever lived and lived the
best life and did the most good deeds of any man who ever lived,
walked the face of this earth, but that aspect of it was not
so much that Paul gloried in, it was the redemptive work of
Christ that Paul magnified and boasted and gloried in above
all else. And that's what he means here,
doesn't he, by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul gloried in Christ and in
him alone. He said, God forbid that I should
glory in anything else, anything, nothing else except
Christ. What does he mean here? Let's
develop that just a moment. By the cross, we're not talking about the wooden
cross that Christ was crucified on. That's not what Paul meant
at all, or any crucifix so-called today, the material cross, no. He's talking here about the person
who died on that cross, what he accomplished on that cross,
why he died on that cross. the purpose that he accomplished,
the redemptive purpose, the person and work of Christ, the redemptive
work, the atonement of Christ, the sacrifice of Christ. This
is what Paul gloried in. He gloried in the truth of the
imputation of our sins to Christ and the imputation of Christ's
righteousness to us. He gloried and cries to as the
covenant head and surety of his people. I had you turn this morning in
the Bible school lessons of 2 Corinthians 5.21. I'm not going to—you know
that verse as you were here this morning, but those of you who
are not here, mark that down and read it. 2 Corinthians 5.21.
I want you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse
number 30. And thirty-one, we're going to
read two verses here. I like, well, verse twenty, we're
going to really start in verse twenty-nine and read three verses.
First Corinthians one, verses twenty-nine through thirty-one. He's going to say something about
glorying here, too. Boasting glory. First Corinthians chapter one,
verse twenty-nine. Keep your place there at Galatians.
We'll go back to it. Look here. Verse 29, "...that no flesh should
glory in his presence." Verse 30, "...but of him," it's
all of God, "...of him, ye are ye in Christ Jesus." Why glory
that I'm in Christ Jesus? Not in the flesh. I can't It's
of God that I'm in Christ Jesus. But of Him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom. Our glory in my wisdom? No, I don't have any wisdom. Christ is my wisdom. And righteousness,
our glory in Christ is my righteousness, my sanctification. Well, if you're a believer, you're
sanctified. You're sanctified in Christ. He's your sanctification. What about redemption? He's our
redemption. Now look at verse thirty-one.
I like this, "...that according as it is written, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord." Let him glory in the Lord. in Christ, in the Lord. We glory
in the redemption of Christ. We glory in the accomplishment
of Christ's redemption unto us, that he is our wisdom, that he
has been made unto us righteousness and sanctification and wisdom
and all this that Paul mentions there in that verse, that no
flesh should except in Christ. Let Him look
glorious. Glory in the Lord. Now, why do
we glory in Christ and in His redemptive work? Because our
eternal salvation depends upon it. That's right. Our eternal salvation depends
upon the person and work of Christ. Like David of old. This is all my salvation. Turn over there that passage.
I'd like to read that one. 2 Samuel. Did David glory in this? Let's
see what he himself said about this. These were David's dying
words. This man was dying when he wrote
these words, spoke these words. 2 Samuel 23. What did David, the saint of
God, glory in? David was a mightily used man
of God, wasn't he? Wrote many of the Psalms. We could go on and on about what
old David did and how God used David, but when David came to
the end of his life, he tells us here what he gloried
in. What was his hope? 2 Samuel 23, beginning in verse
1. Now these be the last words of
David. All right, David's last words.
I want to hear his last words. David, the son of Jesse, said,
The man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God
of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of
the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God
of Israel said, The rock of Israel spake to me. He that ruleth over
men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be
as the light of the morning when the sun rises, even a morning
without clouds, as the tender grass springing out of the earth
by clear shining after rain." Now look at verse 5, "'Although
my house be not so with God, yet He hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things." That's
that covenant of grace. It's ordered in all things, everlasting
as its nature, ordered in all things, and sure, it's certain. There's no uncertainty in the
covenant of grace. It's sure, it's certain. And
he says this, for this is all my salvation. All my salvation
is in this, and my—what?—desire, my glory. Christ is all in all, David is
saying. That's what David's saying. This
is all my salvation. the righteousness of God fulfilled
in Christ. Christ is all. Christ is all
in my salvation. The hymn writer wrote these words.
I like this. My God, when I approach thy throne
and all thy glory see, this is all my stay and this alone, that Jesus died for me. I tell you, for us to truly say, like Paul
here in verse 14 of Galatians, God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's more than
just a doctrinal creed that we adhere to in keeping
with the faith of our Father. Oh, no. Much more than that. If that's all it is and you ain't
got much, excuse the expression, the language, but that's all
it is to you. It's just a doctrinal creed that's
in your hate, that's in your covenant of your church, if you
have one. If that's all it is, then you've missed it. You just
got a head full of right doctrine, but your heart is empty. No, I tell you, you know why
Paul could glory in the cross of Christ? Because God the Holy
Spirit revealed it to him in his heart and his soul. and has made him and us to rejoice
in Christ and the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace. That's
why we're glorious, because the Holy Spirit has revealed
this glorious truth. better understand it and read
what the Word says about it. But it's in our hearts, most
of all. That's where God has revealed
it to us, in our soul. And I tell you, we delight to
preach it over and over again. You know, one of the complaints made against
me in my preaching, I heard this, you know, he preaches the same
thing over and over again. I'm glad he's listening to me. And like I said, my last Sunday,
I believe it was, I said, you ever get tired of hearing good
news? Well, that's what I'm preaching for
sinners, good news to sinners in the gospel. Preaching the
same thing over and over again. Well, glory to God, I want to
hear the same thing over and over again. Just come at it from
a little different perspective, you know, but give me the same
truth. Give me the bread. I want the bread every meal.
I want the bread, and that's the bread of heaven, the gospel
of it. I've got to have that. You can serve it on fancy dishes
if you want to, but just give it to me, you know. I don't care
about the dishes, the plates or whatever. You know, we like
to preach it over and over again. You know why? Because the Scriptures
testify of it over and over again. It's all through this word here.
I'm talking about the person and work of Christ. It's all
through the book. What else is there? Really, I
mean, if you take away that from the Bible, what do you have?
I'm not speaking irreverently against God's Word, but I'm just
saying this is the message of the Bible. You know, the law of killing.
The letter killeth. You can have a knowledge of the
Word of God in that sense of the word, and the letter killeth,
but the Spirit that giveth life, that's the Spirit that quickeneth,
that's the Spirit of the gospel. Yeah, we delight to preach it,
to tell it over and over again. The Scriptures testify of this. The Holy Spirit bears witness
of this. The Holy Spirit magnifies Christ. The Holy Spirit, He shall testify
of me, Jesus said, concerning the Holy Spirit. Yes, the theme of the Scriptures
is Christ. His person, His redemptive work.
Turn over to Luke 24 just for a moment. I love this passage
of Scripture. Luke 24. Luke 24, beginning in verse 25. Here the resurrected—the risen
Christ is on the road to with a couple of his disciples. And
oh, this is just rich here. I like what he—how he brings
this out here. Verse 25, Then he said unto them, Jesus said
unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all the prophets
have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things? and to enter into his glory."
Verse 27, "...and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he
expounded unto them and all the scriptures the things concerning
himself." He preached himself. Now, any minister that preaches
himself is not a true preacher of God. He preaches Christ. We
don't preach ourselves, Paul said. We preach Christ Jesus.
Christ was the only preacher that ever preached himself, and
he had a right to. He was anointed to do that. But
it says here that he began at Moses—that's the first books
of the Bible—and he went all the way through. And what was
the subject of his message there to them? The things concerning his person. Let's read on here. If you would please drop down,
I'm sorry, to verse 32 of this same chapter. And they said one
to another. That's when he preached unto
them and when their eyes were opened. And that's how it's done. That's how it's accomplished,
isn't it? When you hear the gospel and your eyes are opened to it.
to who is the gospel, who the gospel message is all about,
the Lord Jesus Christ. When your eyes are opened, just
like His disciples' eyes were opened, they said one to another,
verse 32, Did not our heart bang within us when He talked with
us by the way, and when He opened to us the
Scripture? He opened up the Scriptures to them. How did He open up the
Scriptures? By preaching Himself to them, by declaring what the
Scriptures testify of Himself. He opened up the Scriptures.
And when He did that, and He opened their eyes to that, they
said, Did not our hearts just burn within us to the glory of
God? Sealed for the glory of God.
Oh, don't you wish that—oh, I wish I could do this. I mean, I want
to do this, that in my normal conversation, that when I talk
to somebody, that I would have that effect upon them, that they
would just say, Oh, man, didn't our hearts burn within us as
He opened up the Scripture? I'm not there yet. I'm not there
yet, but I swear I want to be. Just in a normal conversation,
like Jesus was on the road to the man. He said, Well, He talked
with us along the way. He opened up the Scripture. And
boy, our hearts just burned in the right seat. So the Scriptures testify of
Christ. The Holy Spirit bears witness
of Christ, the redemptive work of Christ. Why do we glory in
the cross? Because this is how our sins
are put away. That's the only way, the only
way. We glory in the cross because
this is how sin has been put away. Christ has put away our
sin. Turn to Hebrews chapter 1, Hebrews 1. I just want to bring out some scriptures
here on this great, great truth. Hebrews 1, talking about putting away sin. This is why we glory in the cross,
because our sin is put away. This is our sin put away. Hebrews
chapter 1, verse 3, talking about Christ again here. Everywhere
you go, it's about Christ, who being the brightness of His glory
and the expressed image of His person. and upholding all things
by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our
sins, sat down on the right hand of
the majesty on high." He did it by himself. What did he do? Purge our sins. And when he purged
our sins, he went back to heaven at the right hand of God and
sat down because the work was done. finished, accomplished, successful. He put away something. He put
away our sin by himself. That's why we glory in the cross.
Turn over to Hebrews 9. Why are you in Hebrews 9, chapter
9, verse 12? Neither by the blood of goats
or calves but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." For if the blood of bulls and
of goats and of the ashes of the heifer sprinkling the unclean
sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God?" Yes, he obtained eternal redemption. How did he do it? By purging
our sins. by himself, with glory in the
cross, because this is how sin is put away. This is the only
way sin is—we can't put away sin. We couldn't put away one
single sin. If we had a thousand worlds,
living this life a thousand times, whatever I'm trying to say, we
could not put away one single sin. And that one sin will be
enough to condemn our souls to hell with all eternity. But you know what the Word of
God says? As far as the East is from the West has God removed
our transgressions from us. How? How? Through the redemption. that
is in Christ Jesus. That's how. Ephesians 1-7, listen. Listen to it. In whom? In Christ. We have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His
grace. This is why we glory in the cross,
because this is how our sins are put away once and for all,
as far as the East is from the West. God removed them, all of
our transgressions, you see. This is why we glory in the cross.
This is why Paul gloried in the cross. All right, one last thing here,
this last phrase here, "...by whom," back in chapter 6 of Galatians,
verse 14, "...by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. You see, the world had no attraction
for Paul any longer. Now, when he says world, he's
talking about everything that is in the world, the religion
of the world. You know, that's included here. This is a religious
world, very religious. There are churches everywhere.
I mean, everywhere you go there are churches. This is a very
religious work. It says, "...by whom the world
is crucified unto me." The world in all of its honors and all
of its glory and all of its applause, Paul says, all of it, are nailed
to the cross as far as I'm concerned. I'll have nothing to do with
it. As far as I'm concerned, it's—on
the cross, it's dead, dying, crucified. Has no more affection
for me. The world has no affection for
me, and I have no affection for the world. The world don't like me, and
I don't like it. Basically, what he's saying there,
I have no fear of the world. I have no affection, no love
for the world, no more than it has for me. You see, there was now a great
gulf between Paul and the world—a great gulf. And there you have
the separation of the cross. You see, you identify with the
cross, you identify with the gospel, and you'll separate from
the world. You have to. You have to. So we have the separation. of
the cross, by whom the world is crucified
unto me, and I unto the world. Oh, may we be able to say, and
able to say more and more, like Paul said here, but God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. May that be our glory. May we glory in Him forevermore.
The Lord bless you. Thank you, brother. God bless
you. Let's take our hymn books and turn to number 235. 235, stand with
me, let's sing the first and the third stanza. First and the
third stanza.