May God be the glory. Let's read
the first five verses of Galatians. I'm going to preach through this
book. Not the whole thing this morning, but I'm going to preach
through this book. Preaching the gospel is serious,
serious business. And I know that anyone who is
called of God to this office and given the gifts of ministry
realizes that. It's a burden and it's a joy.
Jeremiah talked about the burden of the word of the Lord when
it's laid upon a man's heart to preach the gospel. And there's
many, many good times that we have when we gather just like
this morning to preach the word of God, to worship the Lord when
our hearts are knit together. I mean, there's nothing better
than that to me. It's not whoever's preaching. It's not just because
I'm preaching, but whoever's up here preaching the message,
if they're exalting the Lord Jesus Christ and our hearts are
knit together, that's joy. Undescribable. And then there's
heartache. There's a lot of heartache that
comes along with it. Many, many times as we preach
the gospel, we stand in opposition to men. And that's all too often
the case. Many of those are friends and
family members that we stand in opposition to. Paul mentions
in the first chapter of the book of Galatians, he said, I'm not
here to please men. That's not what we're about.
But we're here to glorify and honor God. To God be the glory. That's the issue of the gospel.
Look at verse one of Galatians 1. Paul, an apostle, not of men,
neither by man. but by Jesus Christ and God the
Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren which
are with me unto the churches of Galatia. Grace be to you and
peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this
present evil world according to the will of God and our Father,
to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Now, I'm going to
come back tonight and go through those verses and some more. But
what I want to talk to you about this morning, I'm really going
to go to the passage that Brother Ron read, 2 Corinthians 11, to
introduce the book of Galatians. But let me just begin this way.
Our ultimate goal and purpose in all things is to glorify God. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
10, whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. In Ephesians
1, verse 6, he wrote that all things in salvation are to the
praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved, in Christ. Let me ask you three questions.
What is the glory of God? That's a good question. What
is the glory of God? It's not something mystical.
It's not something magical. It's not some sort of emotional
high that we get on. As I said, when Mike sang that
song, I do get emotional. It's a beautiful song. But it's
what it says about our Lord. How it's honoring to God. And
I know he's singing it from his heart, too. That blesses me.
He's singing what he believes. And that's what I try to do.
I try to preach what I believe. You try to hear what you believe,
enter into it. What is the glory of God? Well,
the glory of God is the honor and revelation of who He is. Who He is and what He does. What He is and what He does and
who He is in creation. He's the Creator. He speaks of
the glory of God in creation in Romans chapter 1 and how men
by nature will We'll darken that glory and deny that glory and
worship the creature rather than the creator, worship self rather
than the one who created us. God reveals something of who
he is and his awesome power in creation, his wisdom, his glory,
his power, his goodness. And then in Providence, our God
is a God in control. Things work out as he purposed
and planned. God is never taken by surprise. I like that. Are you ever taken
by surprise? I'm shocked at just about every
other day at things, aren't you? I get shocked more and more. But God's never taken by surprise.
He knows what's going on. I had a preacher in Albany who
wrote me an email and he said, he heard me on TV and he said,
I cannot believe that you would say that God foreordained the
fall of man. And I wrote him back and I said,
well, what do you believe that Satan sneaked up on him and took
him by surprise? Because if that's what you believe,
he's not God. Our God is sovereign. He's in
the heavens. He sits on the throne. And that
is his glory, that identifies him, that distinguishes him from
idols. How do we know our God is the
one true and living God, the Creator? But then his glory,
and we'll say it this way, his greatest glory, is who he is,
how he reveals himself, and what he does in salvation through
Christ. The salvation of a sinner. in
and by the Lord Jesus Christ. His glory is that which identifies
Him and distinguishes Him as the only true and living God,
a God who can save and a God who does save. Isaiah spoke of
those who build up their images of wood and pray unto a God that
cannot save. That's us by nature, isn't it?
We construct a God of our mind and our imagination, but our
God reveals Himself as the only true and living God. All his
attributes, his character, shine forth to his greatness, his majesty,
and his honor. And it's that which he reveals
that incites the response of faith and trust. We trust in
him. We take our comfort in him. It
incites us to praise and to worship. When the Bible says fear God,
that means worship God. That means praise God. It brings
us to a position of humility, submission, and obedience. That
word glory, we get our English word doxology from it. We sing the doxology. Praise
God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures
here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly
hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That's the glory
of God. Here's the second question. Where
do we see the glory of God? Where do we find the glory of
God? Well, as I said, we see it in
many places. We see it in creation. We see
it in providence. But as I said, the greatest revelation
of God's glory is in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ to save sinners from sin. Redemption. Moses asked the question
back in Exodus 33 in verse 18. He said, show me thy glory. And God's response, verse 19,
he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee. I will proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee. That's Jehovah who saves and
I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious and I will show mercy
on whom I'll show mercy. God's greatest glory is in his
expression. an act of mercy and grace in
the salvation of a sinner through Jesus Christ. And look back at
2 Corinthians chapter 4 with me. This is a scripture here
that not only shows us where we see the glory of God, but
it sets in order and shows the importance of what we're doing
here this morning in worship. We've come to worship God. We've
come to praise Him. Now, how can I know when I go
out that door, those doors today, that I worship God? Do I have
to wonder about that? Let me show you this. Look at
verse 3 of 2 Corinthians 4. He speaks of the gospel. And
that's the issue in Galatians. Are we preaching the gospel?
Am I a preacher of the gospel or am I a false prophet? Somebody
says, well, listen to him, watch him. I agree. Watch me. Listen to me. Am I a preacher
of the gospel? Well, we're going to see this
morning. When you go out those doors today, you won't have to
wonder about that. You just listen. But look here in verse 3. He
says, But if our gospel, the good news of salvation by God's
grace in Christ, if it be hid, it's hid to them that are lost,
in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them
which believe not. The minds of unbelievers, spiritually
dead sinners, not quickened by the power and grace of God, are
blinded. That's what he says. Their minds
are blinded. They're ignorant of the glory
of God. And Satan is a great instrument in this blindness.
It is Satan's goal to keep sinners blind to the gospel. Why? Now look here. lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine under them." He wants to keep you from seeing Christ and
Him crucified. That's what Satan wants. He wants
to keep me from preaching Christ and Him crucified. Look at verse
five, for we preach not ourselves. We're not here to promote ourselves.
We don't preach our ourselves. We don't preach our works. We
don't preach our own righteousness. But Christ Jesus, the Lord and
ourselves, your servants for Jesus sake. The only way I want
to tell you about me is I'm just a servant. That's what Paul's
saying. I'm not asking you, telling you to look to me or to depend
upon me or to trust in me. Your salvation is not in me.
You're not a man follower. If you're a man follower, when
the man leaves, you'll leave. Now, that's so. But we don't
preach ourselves. But we preach Christ, you see,
and ourselves, we're just servants. When a wealthy person who has
servants who clean his house and cook his meals, if they quit,
he don't leave the house. His family don't leave with him.
Because the servants left, you see what I'm saying? Put it in
perspective. I'm just a servant. All God's
preachers are just servants. That's all we are. Don't put
any more stock in us than what the Scriptures do. I can't save
you. I can't save myself. So look
at verse 6 now. Now look here. For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined. That's the God of
creation now. He said, let there be light.
He said, "...has shined in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Where are you going to see the
glory of God? In the face of Jesus Christ, the God-Man. He is the revelation of the Godhead. The Father, the Son, and the
Spirit. In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And who He is? God and man in one person. And
what He did on the cross of Calvary is the complete revelation of
the glory of the Triune God. Right there. At the cross. You
sang that. Sang those very words. If I have
any glory, let it be where? Calvary. The Christ of Calvary. That's who He is and what He
did on that cross. Because on that cross, We see
every attribute of a holy God, honored and magnified and revealed,
working consistently together in the salvation of a sinner. You think, see, by our way of
thinking, well, if God's going to glorify Himself, He'd pick
the best people on earth and just put them on display. No,
sir. He sent His Son down here to
be humiliated, to suffer and bleed and die as the substitute
and representative of no-good, no-count sinners. Shed his precious blood for him.
Why? Because God is just and holy and righteous and he cannot
clear the guilty. Establish righteousness that
he might be just and justify. That's his glory. There's his
holiness as well as his mercy. There's his justice as well as
his grace. There's his truth as well as
his love. All working together in the one
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan doesn't want you to see
that. He doesn't want me to preach that. But that's what God's preachers
preach. The question would be better
framed this way, then. In whom do we see the glory of
God? Well, here's the third question.
How do we give glory to God? How do we do that? Psalmist wrote,
Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. Worship the
Lord in the beauty of holiness. Our God is a holy God. He also
said this, he said, give unto the Lord the glory due unto his
name, bring an offering and come into his courts. Now, what offering
are you going to bring that would give God the glory due unto his
name? Cain brought an offering. Cain
worked hard and I'm sure it was a beautiful crop. He was a farmer.
And I'm sure he worked hard, and he plowed that ground, and
he planted, and he watered, and he fertilized, and he tended
that, he pulled the weeds, and he worked hard. And all that
fruit that he bore, he brought an offering. But God didn't accept
it. Why? Because it didn't give God
the glory due unto His name. People in churches today are
bringing offerings, whether it be their money, their tithe,
their attendance. what they believe the Lord has
enabled them to do. The Pharisees said, I thank God
I'm not like other men. Don't you thank God you're not
like other men? I do. I know my potential. I know what
I'm capable of, were it not for the restraining hand of God.
But let me tell you something, that's not my offering. That's
not my righteousness before God. That was the problem with the
Pharisee. What offering are you bringing? It better be one that
gives God the glory due unto his name. What offering is there
that does that? The blood of the Lamb of God. That's the only one. Abel brought
it. The high priest brought it when he went into the Holy of
Holies with the blood of an animal, typifying the blood of our Lord.
John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh
away the sins of the world. It's his precious blood, it's
his sacrifice, it's the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ and him
crucified. That's the only offering that
I can bring this morning that will give God the glory due unto
his name. And that should be the offering
you bring by faith in Christ. How do we give glory to God?
First, by acknowledging, trusting, loving and serving him as he
reveals himself in Christ and him crucified. Ephesians 1.12,
Paul wrote that we should be to the praise of His glory who
first trusted in Christ. Secondly, by loving and serving
one another. John wrote, Beloved, let us love
one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born
of God, and knoweth God. Where is God's love? Herein is
love, not that we loved Him, but that He first loved us and
gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Thirdly, by confessing
Him before men and witnessing of His grace to the world, Peter
wrote, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Set Him apart.
Distinguish Him. Worship Him. And be ready always
to give an answer to every man that asks of you a reason of
the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Fourthly,
by our obedience, as it is the fruit of God's grace and power
and the fruit of faith. Our Lord said in the Sermon on
the Mount, let your light so shine before men that they may
see your good works and glorify who you may know your father,
which is in heaven. The glory of God in Christ, as
he's revealed in the gospel of his free and sovereign grace,
you know, that's the issue of Galatians. Paul wrote over there
in Galatians one. Dealing with the problem of Galatia,
he said he said in verse Verse six. To these Galatians. Galatians, one verse six, I marvel
that you're so soon removed from him that called you into the
grace of Christ and to another gospel, which is not another. There's only one gospel. I'm
going to preach on that tonight. Christ crucified the only gospel. That's the only gospel. There's
no other. And it's not another, he said, but there be some that
trouble you. He's talking about false preachers here. and would
pervert the gospel of Christ. Now what he's talking about is
those who would come not openly denying the gospel of Christ,
but they've got a new twist on things. They've got a different,
something different to say, something to add to it. They pervert it. They change it. He says, but
though we are an angel from heaven, even if it's a, you know, they
question Paul's apostleship. And some of them were claiming
to be apostles. So Paul says, well, if an apostle
comes along and preaches or an angel from heaven, you can't
get greater in appearance than an angel from heaven. But if
that apostle or that angel from heaven preaches any other gospel
unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be
accursed. You count him cursed of God.
Now that's not said in pride and hatefulness. That's making
a judgment that God's word makes. He that believeth not shall be
damned. So Paul raises the issue. They're preaching another gospel.
Somebody said Paul's letter to the Galatians is his most explosive
letter. The Galatian churches have been
infiltrated with false apostles and preachers, false doctrine
that brought into question what we're talking about this morning,
the glory of God in the person and work of Christ, the very
ground of salvation. What is the ground of your salvation? Think about that. Upon what ground
are you justified, declared not guilty and righteous before a
holy God? What is the ground of acceptance? Well, the Bible says the only
right ground is Christ and Him crucified. His blood, His righteousness
alone. Nothing added, nothing taken
away. Salvation is more than that in
the sense that God applies it to us by His Spirit. The work
of the Holy Spirit is the fruit and effect and result of what
Christ accomplished. But never let it be said that
what God does in us, miraculous and necessary though it may be,
forms any part of the ground of our salvation. That preeminence
belongs to Christ and Him alone. And it is God's purpose, as He
inspired the Apostle Paul in Colossians chapter 1, to make
that so plain, that in the church Christ must have the preeminence. And in giving God the Son incarnate,
the crucified Christ, the risen Christ, the preeminence, He doesn't
take away from the Father and the Spirit. He glorifies the
Father and the Spirit. For it is through Christ in Him
crucified that we know the Father. Isn't that right? This is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true and living God, and Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent. No man knoweth the Father save
of the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal it. How do
we know God is just to justify the ungodly? Because He sent
His Son to die on the cross and establish a righteousness for
us upon which He could be so. And it doesn't deny the Spirit
or His work because it is from Christ that the Spirit comes.
He said, if I go not away, the Comforter will not come. Life
comes from Him. He told Martha, He said, I am
the resurrection and the life, Martha. recipients of the quickening
power of the Spirit of God, rest assured that life comes from
the Son, by means of the Spirit, and the Spirit is honored and
glorified. Christ himself said of the Holy Spirit, He shall
not speak of himself, he shall glorify me, he shall take of
the things of mine and show it unto you. That's the glory of
God, you see. How a sinner can be made righteous
before a holy God. The question of questions. Do
you know that no other religion, listen to me now, no other religion
in the history of mankind, no offshoot of man's religion has
even asked that question, let alone answered it. Isn't that a marvelous thing?
I don't even ask it. It's not even an issue. The issue
of man's religion is how hard do I have to work to get to God?
But how can God be just and justify the ungodly? How can he that
is born of woman be clean? How can God justify a sinner? Man's religion, they don't even
consider that question, let alone answer it. But that's the issue
of the gospel. That's the issue of Galatians.
And I'll tell you what, look at Galatians 6. This shows you
something of how Paul saw the seriousness of this thing. Look
at verse 11. You know, many times when Paul
wrote an epistle, he would set and dictate the epistle and have
someone like one of his helpers write it. Not this one. Not this epistle. And he says here in verse 11,
he says, you see how large a letter I have written unto you with
mine own hand. Now, you say, well, what does he mean a large
letter? Because really Galatians is only six chapters. That's
one of the shortest letters. Let me tell you what it means
literally. Apparently, I get the impression of this, that
Paul sitting there writing this letter. And he wanted to emphasize,
he ever got mad and written a letter? Well, I have. I mean, by hand.
Sitting there like that, you know, put that exclamation. I believe that's what Paul's
sort of doing here. Because literally, here's what he's saying, see
in what large letters I write to you with my hand. You see, their minds have been
corrupted. They've been drawn away. This is serious business. Now, I want you to turn back
to that passage that Brother Ron read, 2 Corinthians 11. Because
right here, we're going to see what happened to the Galatians.
Same thing happened to the Corinthians. Now, the Corinthians had a lot
of problems. But one of their problems was false preachers
coming in. Their minds had been corrupted
from what the apostles described here as the simplicity that's
in Christ. Now, that is the problem here
in Corinth. It's the problem in Galatia. Look at verse 1. Now, chapter 11. Let me just
go through some of these verses. Now, Paul, he's having to defend
himself, and no preacher likes to be put in that position. You
elders, you know that. You teachers, if you've ever
been accused of anything, you just hate to even deal with it.
I mean, it's just not fun. It's not what we're about. It's
kind of like a diversion. And Paul's saying, well, now
you bear with me. Now, he says, would the God you bear with me
a little in my folly of having to defend myself. That's what
he's saying. And he says, bear with me, bear
with me, and indeed bear with me. Now, look here, he says in
verse two, now here's the reason. He says, for I am jealous over
you with godly jealousy. Now, jealousy normally is the
product of selfishness and pride. But here, this godly jealousy
is a jealousy for the glory of God in Christ. We don't have
that by nature. That's something the Spirit of
God has to put in our hearts. Somebody said that God the Father
was so jealous for His glory that He sent His only beloved
and begotten Son into the world to preserve it in the salvation
of sinners. They said that God the Son was
so jealous of His glory that He agreed to suffer, to bleed,
and to die to preserve that glory in the salvation of sinners.
And God, the Holy Spirit, is so jealous of that glory that
he glorifies the Son in the hearts of his people to show them how
God can be just and justify the ungodly to preserve that glory. And then, when that happens,
God's people also become jealous of his glory. Do you seek any
glory for yourself? Do I seek any glory for myself?
What do we need? We need a good dose of this godly
jealousy that preserves, seeks to preserve the glory of God
in the minds of people, not our own. Paul didn't want to defend
himself. He was not here for his own glory.
But he said, I'm jealous with a godly jealousy. Look here,
verse 2. For I have espoused you to one
husband. Christ is the husband. He is
the bridegroom. The Church is the bride. Christ
is the head. We're the body. Christ is the Redeemer. We're
the redeemed. Christ is the one. We're the
many. He's the representative. He's
the one who accomplished the work. I'm preaching one husband
to you, Paul says. Not two, not three, not a different
one. Not this, that and the other. But I've espoused, I've promised
you to one husband. that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ. Now, another way of saying that,
I believe, is that you might look to him and him alone. And that relationship between
a husband and wife is a perfect picture of that. The husband
devoted to his wife, the wife devoted to her husband, not looking
outside the marriage for comfort and for love, but looking to
one another. And that's what it is, the church,
the bride, the wife, looking to Christ and to him alone for
our comfort, our assurance, our peace, our salvation, our sustenance. Everything is in him. He says
in verse three, but I fear less by any means as the serpent.
Now he's talking about Satan in the garden. And the serpent
beguiled Eve through his subtlety. Now, what he's going to be talking
about here, it's beguiling, it's bewildering. It's something that's
not easily seen. It's something that creeps up
on you. And you don't notice it right off. And you don't realize
the implications of it until it's upon you. That's what he's
talking about here. And it's subtle. It's not preachers
standing behind the pulpit and saying, I deny Christ. That wouldn't fool anybody out
here. You wouldn't listen to the next line, would you? You
know, there are different, there are all kinds of false preachers.
There are those who just openly deny our gospel. They just openly
deny. There are those who openly preach
works, salvation. They don't fool you. But who
can fool God's people? Wolves in sheep's clothing. They come disguised, subtly,
beguiling, claiming to believe grace, claiming to believe sovereign
grace. Jeremiah spoke of them as those
who cry peace when there is no peace. Why would a man cry peace
when there is no peace? Well, where is peace? In the
Prince of Peace, Christ, in Him crucified. If your salvation
is based upon anything but Christ and Him crucified, reconciliation
unto God by His blood and righteousness, I can't cry peace to you. And
if I do, you know why? Because I'm trying to win you
over. And I don't care about the glory
of God. Is my concern to preserve your
honor? Well, if I can do that and preserve
the honor of God, then fine. But if I can't do both, Then
you've got to go, or I've got to go. You see, nobody's bigger
than the gospel. Nobody's bigger than our Lord.
And here comes Satan, and he bewildered Eve through his subtlety. He said, hath God said, hath
God said. God knows in the day that ye
eat thereof, you shall be as gods, he said. You can stand
on your own, Eve. You can make your own decisions.
You can set the standard. You got a mind of your own. And
it was subtle. And here's the problem. Now,
look here, verse three. So your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. Now, there's the problem.
What is the simplicity that's in Christ? That word simplicity,
some translators translate it singleness. Single message. I remember the story that Brother
Mayhem told one time about the band. Had a band, had a guitar
player, had a banjo player, and all that. I don't know what all
they were, but there was one old fella up there. He had a bass,
and he was just hitting, and those other guys, they were playing,
they were going all over the neck of that instrument. That
one guy, his hand just stayed right there, the same thing. You know,
just plunking that one note. Fella asked him after, he said,
how come they were going all over the neck of theirs, and
you're just standing there plunking that one note? And he said, well,
they're still looking for the note. I found it. I found the note. And that's
what this is. Why? Why do I preach Christ crucified
every message? Well, I'll tell you why. I found
the note. I found the note. And it's the only note that counts.
And it's the only note that's in tune with God's glory. Now,
we preach other things. But we always preach them in
light of Christ crucified. If we're going to deal with the
work of the Holy Spirit, don't remove it from Christ and Him
crucified. The Holy Spirit's work is to
point us to Christ and His finished work. If we're going to talk
about obedience and good works, they're founded and motivated
by Christ and Him crucified. Even our works must be washed
in the blood of the crucified one. Why? Because we're accepted
in the Beloved. We're going to talk about the
doctrines of grace. Total depravity. The only way I know I'm totally
depraved by nature is as I compare myself to Christ on the cross.
My sins sent Him to the cross. He made an end of my sin. That's
what it took to save a sinner like me. Unconditional election. Election was in Christ. Election
without Christ is a doctrine of pride. You don't believe me?
Look at the Jews. Limited atonement. Particular
redemption. Who brought it about? Who redeemed
us? Who secured our salvation by
His blood and His righteousness alone? Christ and Him crucified. Irresistible grace. No man shall
pluck them Out of my hand, Christ said, I and my Father are one.
He preserves us. Perseverance of the saints. In
what are we to persevere? Or in whom are we to persevere?
Christ. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Isn't that right? Our salvation
is complete in Him. The simplicity that's in Christ
is that one single message that leads us to look to Him alone
for all wisdom. For all righteousness, look to
Him for righteousness, to Him for holiness, to Him for redemption. See Him in His glory, His wondrous
person, the God-man who accomplished our salvation on the cross of
Calvary. Right there, 2,000 years ago,
the ground of our salvation was accomplished in full, and there's
nothing to be added to it. His work was not incomplete.
His blood and His righteousness are not insufficient to bring
about life and liberty. They bring about it in full.
His work on the cross is the reason for our existence. That's the single message. And
don't let anybody divert you away from that. And pray that
God will never let me get off that. Look at verse 4. He says, For if he that cometh
preacheth another Jesus. To take away from the simplicity
that single message in Christ is to preach another Jesus. I want to know that the one that
I'm trusting for my salvation is the true Jesus, not a counterfeit. And we've not preached, Paul
wrote, or if you receive another spirit, you see, I'll tell you
something. How do I know when I'm convicted
of my sins? and my guilt and my depravity. How do I know that it is the
Holy Spirit who's doing that? And not just a legal spirit or
natural conscience. You know, natural conscience
can do that. I mean, before you ever knew Christ, your conscience
would bother you. Don't tell me it didn't. I know
it did. It did me. But how do I know if it's the Holy Spirit?
I'll tell you how. Very simply, very singly, If
you find relief anywhere or in anyone but Christ and Him crucified,
it is not the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit, He's
going to give you relief. But you're going to find in one
place, in one person, Christ and Him crucified. You find it
anywhere else. I'll tell you what, listen to
me. If you even find peace in what you think the Holy Spirit's
done within you, it's not the Holy Spirit. Now hear me well,
that's how subtle this thing can get now. The Holy Spirit
always points the grieving sinner to Christ. His blood for the
forgiveness of all my sins. His righteousness for my complete
justification and entitlement to eternal life. And Him alone. Now that's simple. And men will
try to corrupt that with all kinds of different things. He
says, or another gospel which you have not accepted. To take
away from the simplicity that's in Christ is to preach another
gospel. Paul said that in Galatians 1,
I marvel, he said, I marvel that you're removed from that. Christ
has been evidently set forth among you crucified. Paul says,
I preach the finished work of Christ for your whole salvation,
and I'm amazed that you'd be moved off of that. And he says, you might well bear
with me. Now you see in verse four at
the end of it, it says him that's in italics. Now, let me tell
you something, folks, that's just one place where the King
James translators messed up. That italics means that the word
was not in the original and they supplied it. And for you English
teachers, what that is, it was a verb that required an objective
pronoun. I'm not going to give you an
English lesson today. But, you know, me is an objective pronoun.
Him is an objective pronoun. And so they, for some reason,
put him in there. But see, Paul is not telling
the Corinthians or the Galatians to bear with false preachers.
He's saying, you bear with me. Back up in verse 1. Look at it
again. Would to God you could bear with me a little. And indeed,
bear with me. And down here he's exposing these
false preachers And he says, you might well bear with me.
That's what he means there. So put that in there. Put that
in there. I believe Brother Mahan pointed
out in his commentary that that's what it should be. Bear with
me. Paul's saying you bear with me. Not with these false preachers.
He says avoid them. Now, look over there in verse
13. I want to just say this before
I close. I want to tell you something about false preachers. Now, like
I said, there's all kinds of false preachers. They've got
all kinds of different messages. But I'm going to tell you something,
their message is opposed or a perversion of the simplicity that's in Christ. And I want to show you something
that no false preacher can do. All right? Now, this is important.
I want you to look at this. Look at verse 13. He says, For
such are false apostles, deceitful or deceptive workers, transforming. Now, that word transforming means
they change. OK, there's a change and what
it is, it's a temporary change. That's what the tense of the
verb indicates there. They change, but they can't stay
there. It's a wavering. So they're transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. These are men who
can change to where they appear to be apostles of Christ. Verse
14, and no marvel. Paul's saying, don't be amazed
at that. For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of
light. Listen, didn't Lucifer, that old snake, stand before
our Lord on the mountain and quote scripture? He sure did. He quoted scripture. That's amazing
to me. What pride in God that he would
quote scripture to the living word of God. To get him to deny
his father. Well, his apostles are just the
same. Verse 15 now. Therefore, it is
no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of what? Righteousness. Whose end shall
be according to their works. Now, many commentators on that
verse 15, they would tell you that these false preachers will
transform and preach man's righteousness. But I don't believe that's the
case. And here's why. Why would they have to transform
to preach man's righteousness? That's what comes to us naturally.
You don't have to transform to preach man's rights, what we
do naturally, that's what we think naturally. This transformation
is this. They will transform themselves
temporarily to preach the righteousness of God, the gospel, the righteousness
of Christ. But it's a temporary thing. They
cannot stay there. Day in, day out. Sunday morning,
Sunday night, Wednesday, in the Bible studies, in their witnessing,
at some point in time, they have to go where their heart is and
preach man's works, man's righteousness. They cannot stay on that single
message of grace, grace, grace. Now, that's what a false preacher
cannot do. Why can't he do it? Because his heart's not with
the simplicity of Christ. His heart's not there. He can
transform temporarily. But as John said in 2 John 9,
he cannot abide in the doctrine of Christ. He cannot stay there
and that be the tenor of his message. Now, I want you to go
to Galatians 5.1. I'm going to read two scriptures
to you and then I'll close this morning. Now, that's what a false
preacher cannot do. He cannot stay focused on Christ
and Him crucified, His blood, His righteousness, His finished
work on the cross. He's got to be diverted. He's
got to go off on tangents. He's got to look for new things.
And they'll all put your focus on the sinner rather than upon
the Savior. They'll focus your attention
within instead of upon Him. He can't stay focused on that
message. He's got to be diverted. Somebody
said, well, what is the theme of the book of Galatians? Most
people go to Galatians 5 and verse 1, and I believe that is
a good statement of the theme. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Stand firm in the freedom, the
salvation that Christ has already accomplished for us. And don't
go back to works, religion, the law, legalism, mysticism. Don't go back to that. But stay
with the single message. Now, one more verse. Galatians
6 and verse 14. Here, I believe, is the best
statement of the theme of the book of Galatians. It's the believer's
motto. We're talking about the glory
of God. In whom we glory. But God forbid that I should
glory, save or accept in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto them. I believe
that's a good statement of the theme of Galatians. God forbid,
that word glory. It's translated rejoice in Philippians
3 and verse 3. We are the circumcision, we worship
God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. We glory, we rejoice, we boast. Our confidence is in Christ crucified. Christ and what he accomplished
on the cross. The cross, he said. He's not
talking about a piece of wood hanging from your neck tacked
up on the wall when he says, I glory in. He's talking about
Christ and him crucified, the finished work of Christ, his
blood, his righteousness imputed. That's what I glory in. That's
where I find my assurance, right there. And I'm not going anywhere
else. Not going anywhere else. Not
going to look anywhere else. I don't need to. I found the
note. Just keep it right there. Somebody said, well, you sound
like a broken record. Not to the people of God. Not to the
people of Ghana.