But when Peter was come to Antioch,
I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the
Gentiles. But when they were come, he withdrew
and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that
Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But
when I saw that they walk not uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being
a Jew, live after the manner of Gentiles, and don't live like
a Jew, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews? We who are by Jews by nature,
and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified
by the works of the law, that by the faith of Jesus Christ,
even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified
by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For
by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." What
we have here is one apostle rebuking another
apostle. Here's two great men, men mightily
used of God, been used of God many for years. But here's the
younger rebuking the elder. And not only that, but doing
it publicly. Doing it in front of everybody
that was there. And then, not only that, but
then writing it down and telling the whole world about it. And here I am talking about it
tonight. Now this shows us this, that if Christianity had been
the invention of men, this wouldn't have been recorded. If the Catholics
had wrote this and this happened to a Pope, they wouldn't have
put that in there. Ain't that right? But if Christianity had
been the invention of men, this wouldn't have been recorded.
But there's a reason that the Holy Spirit put it here. There's
some things for us to learn. And there's three lessons that
I want us to look at tonight going through these verses. And
J.C. Rouse said this, great preachers
and Christian leaders often, often make great mistakes. Often
make great mistakes. Second is this, to keep the truth
of Christ, to hold to the truth of Christ and His gospel is more
important than to keep the peace. And third lesson that we want
to look at is there's no doctrine about which we should be more
jealous or more zealous about than justification by faith without
the deeds of the law. Let's look at this first one
here. Great preachers and leaders often
make great mistakes. And here is Simon Peter. He is
one of the greatest apostles. The greatest apostles. He was
within the inner circle, you know. Him and James and John
went with the Lord Jesus Christ just about everywhere he went.
They were with our Lord on the greatest occasions. In fact,
our Lord told Simon Peter there, He said, I give us Simon Peter
upon this rock I'll build my church, and I'm going to give
to you the keys to the kingdom. And he gave Simon Peter the keys
to the kingdom, and by that keys he preached, he opened the door
of faith to the Jews on the day of Pentecost, and to the Gentiles
at Cornelius' house, and the gospel of the grace of God was
preached there. And Christ began to be preached
there that day when he had the keys to the kingdom. And he opened
the door of faith to the Jews. He opened the door of faith to
the Cornelius' house. And he is the one that stood
up in that great conference in Jerusalem when they debated over
whether a man had to be circumcised to keep the law of Moses in order
to be saved. And he stood up and says, Men
and brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made choice
by me that the Gentiles should hear the word of faith by my
mouth. and how God used me there, and
how we believe that we shall be saved by the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ even as they of Gentiles. He stood up and
defended salvation by grace, salvation through Christ, salvation
by faith, and with the hearing of the gospel. But here in Galatians
2, we see him withdrawing from the Gentiles for fear of the
Jews. that came down from Jerusalem. And so many followed his example
that even Barnabas, who actually traveled with Paul for years,
introduced Paul to the apostles, introduced Paul to the churches
because they were afraid of him. Even Barnabas got carried away
with this dissimulation. It says there, this is why he
withstood him in verse 11, But when Peter was come down, the
archer withstood him to the face, because he is to be blamed, before
that certain came down from James. James is the one who was the
head of the church in Jerusalem. He sat down and ate in fellowship
with the Gentiles. You remember when Christ let
that sheet down three different times and told him to rise, slay,
and eat? And he said, not so, Lord. And
that was how the Lord showed him that he had to go down to
Cornelius' house and have, and priest of the Gentiles and treat
them Gentiles exactly like he would treat anybody else. Make
no difference between them and the Jew. But here he is, he's
eating with these Gentiles. And those Jews came down and
he said, oh my goodness, what am I going to do? These Jews
are going to really think bad of me. They're going to think
that I've become a Gentile. They're going to think that I'm
unclean. They're going to think I'm unacceptable. They're going to
think I'm denying the law of Moses. So he separated himself
from them, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And
when they done that, everybody, a whole bunch got up from the
table and wept with him. Other Jews dissembled likewise. The word dissembled, dissimulation,
means play acting. It means stage acting. It means
you pretend you've got one motive for doing something and the motive
is really something else. He acted like the motive was
he was defending the law of Moses when really his real motive was
he was scared to death of them Jews and being rejected by them. And everybody got caught up in
that, said, Boy, old Simon Peter, he knows what he's doing, let's
just go with him. He's leaving the table and sleep with him.
It's like when he went back fishing, said, let's go fishing too. And
oh my, three great errors Peter made. In his life he made three
great errors. And this is the third one. The
first one, you remember when he tried to keep the Lord Jesus
Christ from growing to the cross. And the Lord Jesus says, the
Son of Man must go up to Jerusalem and be delivered into the hands
of sinful men. Simon Peter laid hands on Him
and said, Be it far from thee, Lord, not so. It's not going
to happen. Our Lord rebuked him and said,
Get behind me, Satan. Thou shalt save us not the things
of God, but the things that be of men. And the second great
error that he made was this one. Three times he denied the Lord.
I ain't going to deny you. I'll go to prison with you. I'll
even die with you. Three times he denied the Lord
Jesus Christ. When that rooster crowed a third
time, he went off and wept bitterly and even cursed. You'd have been
standing there that day and said, there ain't no way that's an
apostle of the Lord. There ain't no way that man knows
God. But he is an apostle in the inner
circle. And here he is, here's his third
great error. He is an Antioch, endangering the very foundation
of the gospel. which is justification by faith
without the deeds of the law. And this is to teach us that
the greatest of men are just men. You remember Nebuchadnezzar
made that great big image? Everybody had to come down to
that image. That image made out of brass and iron and metal and
everything, but you know one thing was wrong with it? It had
feet made out of clay. And I don't care how big a man
gets, How popular he gets, or how high we think he is. How great a shadow he casts.
He's still just a man. And he's got feet made out of
clay. All that stuff. And that's the apostles. When
the apostles, we learned this, that when the apostles are not
under divine inspiration, they make great mistakes. Oh, Paul
made his, he made two grievous mistakes himself. Moses made
mistakes. He smoked a rock twice. He said,
am I going to have to deal with you all the time? He got angry
at times, and he didn't get to go to the promised land on account
of that. Oh man, it is best to state altogether
vanity. And I know, and it teaches us
this, that unless the grace of God keeps us, we ourselves will
fall into error. I know that believers are elect.
I know they're justified. I know we're sanctified. I know
we've been converted. I know we love God. And I know
we love our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the Spirit of God within
us. We're kept by the very power of God. But still, still, we're
men. And at our best, we're very frail,
weak creatures. And oh, the scriptures are full
of people who did this, made these great mistakes. Abraham,
when he listened to Sarah, you know what he got? Got Ishmael.
And we're dealing with Ishmaelites right now. We're buying all our
oil from Ishmaelites. They got us over a barrel, let's
call it an oil barrel, Ishmaelites. God said, I'll make you a great
nation. Now, they're great nations. That's where Ishmael lies. That's
because he lives to share. You can't have no child. Go unto
her. She's young. She can have a child. Next thing
you know, he's a child of the flesh. He wasn't a child of promise. And Aaron, when Moses is up on
the mountain, get the Ten Commandments. Aaron, listen to the children
of Israel who have got all their gold and throw it in the fire
and out come a golden calf. Listen to them. Said, Oh, where's
Moses? We don't know where he's at. Oh, what am I going to do?
Bet that's our God. Well, he took the gold and made
him a God. And he's the first high priest
in all of Israel. Oh, David, he wanted to number
Israel. He wanted everybody to know what
a great, great nation he was king over. He wanted everybody
to know how many he had. Joab said, Don't them God's children. God numbers His people. He knows
who His people is. You might number one that's not
His. Don't number them. David, don't
number them. David said, I don't care what
you say. I want all everybody in this remembered. Oh my, what
a curse he brought himself under. God gave him three choices. Do
you remember that? 70,000 people could die of a plague.
He himself could go to war. And what the other was, but I'll
forget what the other was, but one thing he says, Oh Lord, I
have sinned. I'll just put myself in your
hands. You do what's right. You do what's right. You do what
best suits you. And then Solomon. Solomon with
all of his wisdom. Solomon with all of his glory.
He allowed his wife to worship idols and got right in there
with him and got down right beside him and worshiped the same idols. Matter of record in the Bible.
Matter of record. And Jehoshaphat. Oh, what a good
king Jehoshaphat was. But you know what he done? He
went down and helped the evil king Ahab, the one who hated
Elijah and all of God's people. He went down and helped Ohio.
James and John, you remember this? When our Lord was going
through Samaria, and they acted like they didn't want the Lord
down in Samaria, He said, Lord, do you want us to call down fire
from heaven down on them? Them fellows, no wonder they
called them thunder, sons of thunder. We just called some
fire down. How many times have you wished
you could call fire down? If you could have, how many times
would somebody be burned up? Herman, how many of you burnt
up? And then how about church history?
I wouldn't have burnt nobody up, not me. No, you know better
than that. Then there's not only from the
Scriptures, but what about history? History teaches us that great,
great men, men of great stature in history, they made some great
mistakes. Martin Luther. Oh, God used him
to start a reformation. When he nailed them 95 theses
to the door at Williams there, he got harsh and he got mean,
and he even tried to have the book of James taken out of the
Bible. He didn't like the book of James.
He called it a book of straw, because it had something to do
with faith justified. If you've got faith, it's justified
by your works. And he just would not, hell,
he knew there was justification by faith, no works at all. And
he said, let's just take the book of James out, because it
don't go with what I see and what I understand. And John Calvin. This is one thing that happens,
you know, and here's another one God used in the Reclamation.
He was up in Geneva. And while he's up there, you
know, not only was he, had a great church up there and preached
all every day and wrote all of his institutes, but he was also
the civil law. He was head of the civil law.
He was the one who's control of everything that went on in
town. And if you didn't live right and didn't act a certain
way, you had to answer to Mr. Calvin and his soldiers or his
people that he had in charge. In fact, he permitted a man to
be burned at the stake. Here's a man who harbored and
taught doctrinally, systematically, the grace of God and predestination
in election. Come up with what's called the
five points. He had allowed a man to be burned at the stake because
he didn't agree with him. That's pretty hard, ain't it?
That's pretty hard. That's what you do when you get
in control, when you've got all the power. John Wesley and Augustus
Toplady, they fought tooth and nail, they abused one another
in the press, in tracts. Wesley called Toplady a devil
and he'd call John Wesley a devil. They'd call him a beast and they'd
just say there's no way in the world he could know the Lord.
And they just went on and on in the press and wrote tracts
and wrote books about one another and just fought tooth and nail.
Hated one another, despised one another. They'd mention and they'd
attack them. And there's a man, old John Cramer,
I believe his name is. They got him and they're going
to take and burn him at the stake. Well, he recanted. He denied
the faith. It bothered him so bad that he
called him back in there and he says, I'm sorry that I ever
denied the faith and I denied my master. And they took him
out and burned him at the stake. He repented and then he repented
and allowed him to take a burn at the stake. And the Puritans,
oh everybody likes to read about the Puritans. I don't know how
many books and magazine catalogues I get told about the Puritans.
Genius of the Puritans. Let me tell you something about
the Puritans. The Puritans hated the Baptists. Hated the Church
of England. Anybody that did not walk according
to their rule of faith, and they had the civil authority and the
civil power, and if you didn't agree with them, you went to
jail. You went to jail. I mean, you told the line for
them. If you had been a Baptist in
the Puritan's day, you know what happened to you? John and Benjamin
Teach, got two big books by him in there, got seven or eight
other pages in both of them. When the Puritans of Israel were
told, they took Benjamin Teach and put him in stocks and threw
things at him because he was a Baptist preacher. And then
when they let him out, he started writing hymns and they put him
back in there because he didn't write hymns, he slung off the
psaltery. Oh, how would you like to be
like that? That's what went on then. No wonder I read it to
you this evening. Cease ye from man. I read it
to you in Psalm 104. Cease from man. Put no confidence
in the flesh. Put no confidence in the flesh.
Call no man master. Call no man father. If any man
glory, let him glory in the Lord. And beloved, we know this, that
we all have a tendency to look too much to men. Oh, we have
a tendency to look too much to men. Those that we can see, rather
than God we can't see. And oh my, you know most people,
and this is true, and you know as well as I do, most people
are too lazy to think for themselves, and too lazy to look into the
Word of God and see whether anything's true or not. They just take whatever
somebody says as water, hook, line, and sinker. As Old Ralph
Barnard said, I've heard him said several times, the safest
place to hide from God is by your Bible and join a Baptist
church. They'll never bother you. God won't even find you
there, because you don't even come in there. I don't know if
that's true or not, but it sounds right. But look here in verse
13. Oh my, most are too lazy to thank
for themselves, too lazy to look into the Word of God. And those
other Jews dissembled likewise with him, with Simon Peter. Simon
made all these mistakes. All these men in the history
and the Scriptures made all these mistakes. And here these other
fellows did likewise. They'll dissemble likewise with
him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.
They said, we'll follow Peter. He's an old apostle. He can't
be wrong. He just can't be wrong. Let me tell you some things.
A man isn't right because he lived years ago. That's what
they call them, the old divines. Ancient writers. I like to quote
from ancient writers. I quote from them myself sometimes.
But a man isn't right because he lived years ago. A man isn't
right because he holds a high office. That office don't make
him immune from mistakes. He isn't right because of his
learning, because of his education. Our Lord Jesus Christ taught
Simon Peter himself for three years. So he isn't right because
of his learning. And in spite of all these things,
lived years ago, holds a high office, has great learning, Simon
Peter's still wrong here. A man isn't right, a man isn't
right because he's our father in spiritual matters. He ain't. You know, we love our fathers
in spiritual matters. We love the men who brought the
gospel to us. I love them. And I thank God
for them. And I bless God for Henry Mahan
and Scott Richardson and these dear men that I've known over
the years, Don and Maurice and David Pledger and Jack and all.
I just thank God for every one of them, for all that I've learned
from them. But oh my, they're still just men. Yeah. Yeah. You can read this yourself in
2 Chronicles 24, but there was a Joash who began to reign when
he was 7 years old. 7 years old was made king over
Israel, made king over Judah. And he lived for 40 years, and
he had a fellow that was his right-hand man, Jehoiada. When
Joash died, as long as Joash was alive, Jehoiada was one of
the most faithful men, most dedicated men. Done everything Joash told
him to do, he was God on a member. But when Joash died, Jehovah's
religion died with him. He turned to idols. Turned to
idols. Turned to idols. Oh my soul,
let's not be content with just a religion built on any inhuman
being. No preacher, no pastor, no man,
no mom, no dad. No, let's not build our religion
on anything that man says or man does, no matter what a mother
says or a dad or a preacher. The Bereans searched the scriptures
to see if these things were so. Look what Paul said there in
verse 15. This is what we need. When it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb, and He called us by His grace. And
He done this to reveal His Son in us or in me. That's what He
done. He calls us to reveal His Son
in us. And that's what we need to know.
That's what we have to understand. That God saved us. God called
us. So we see that the greatest of men, great leaders, make some
awful great mistakes. Now, second thing I want us to
learn is this. To keep the truth of the gospel,
to hold to the truth of the gospel, is more important than keeping
the peace. More important than keeping the
peace. He said there in verse 14, Galatians 2, But when I saw
that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the
gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, You being a Jew, you go over
there and you live like a Gentile does. You don't live like the
Jews do up there in Jerusalem. Now, by you walking away and
leaving them, you're telling the Gentiles to live like these
Jews do. after you've lived like them.
You're confusing them, that's what he's saying. You see, the
Apostle Paul knew how important and precious peace was. You know
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, David
said. Look right here, just turn your
Bible back one page to 2 Corinthians 13.11. Look what it says here. Finally, brethren, farewell,
be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind. What's this?
Live in peace. Live in peace, and the God of
love and peace shall be with you. That's why I said live in
peace. He told of the Ephesians, endeavoring
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. In the
bond of peace. And oh, he knew what peace was,
endeavoring to keep it. He said he became all things
to all men, that he might by all means save some. But here's
Paul. He wasn't with the Twelve. He
wasn't with the Twelve. He was three years old in the
faith before he ever met Simon Peter and James, the Lord's brother.
He wasn't with the Twelve. And here he was when he stood
Simon Peter to his face in Antioch in front of all these men, in
front of all these Jews, in front of these Gentiles, and there's
no doubt I don't know how many people were present, but a lot
of people were present. He risked great division among
the apostles. He was the younger. He was the
younger. And he says, you know, respect
your elders. Them that labor among you give
double honor. But he dared to look that old
apostle, stand with him eyeball to eyeball, and look him in the
eye and rebuke him, rebuke him, because he walked not uprightly
according to the truth of the gospel. Huh? He took the chance that he might
divide the whole church. I'm going after Peter, I'm going
after Paul. That I'm going to stay with the
law, you can stay with the Gentiles. He took a chance that he might
divide the whole church. Why did he do this? Because he
hated false doctrine. He hated error. You know, a little
leaven leavens the whole lump. He knew truth was more important
than peace. Much, much more important than
peace. They walk not according to the truth of the gospel. The
gospel has a truth that's defined. The gospel has a truth that's
clearly seen. And lots and lots of preachers,
I know for a fact they do it, and I've seen them do it, and
heard them do it, and know they do it. Lots of preachers, they'll
compromise doctrine, they'll compromise truth to keep peace. They'll hide election because
they don't want to offend anybody who doesn't believe in election.
They'll hide God's sovereignty and say, ah, first time I ever
went and preached in a place over in North Carolina, that
fellow said, whatever you do, don't mention the sovereignty
of God. They hate it over here. They hate Calvinism. And I didn't
even know what one was that said, don't mention God's sovereignty,
whatever you do. Call Him Almighty. What do you think I've done?
I had to say, God's sovereign. I mean God's sovereign. On the
way out of that building that night, the guy who was running
that place, he said, you know, sovereignty is not in the Bible.
And I said, Trinity ain't either, but that don't mean there ain't
one God in three persons. He named something else, and
I said, well, pre-millennial ain't in there either. He named
something else, and I said, I said Sunday school ain't in there,
but you do that, don't you? He kept trying to hymn me up.
He didn't like it, did he? But that's what I'm telling you.
People will tell you what you can preach. And oh my, they compromise substitution,
take the blood out of Christ, take the blood from Christ and
His power and His glory. Justification by faith alone
without works, without merit, without law. Perseverance that
everyone for whom Christ died will continue. No danger of them
not continuing. Not just continuing to continue,
but continuing in the faith. Everybody's going to persevere
in life. But we're talking about persevering
in the faith. In Christ, in the gospel. Oh,
beloved, he saw the foundation of the gospel of justification
by faith under attack here by what Simon Peter did. He knew
better. He knew that Peter knew better
than that. Yes, sir. You see, it was for
truth's sake our Lord rebuked the Pharisees. He said, you search
the Scriptures and your new error is neither knowing the power
of God nor the Scriptures. And oh, it was for truth's sake
that Paul withstood Peter. Luther denounced the Pope, Whitfield
challenged Wesley, and Paul wasn't willing to compromise the truth
for unity's sake right here. I'll tell you a story, I've probably
told you this before, old Hugh Latimer. Hugh Latimer is an old,
old preacher. And he preached before King Henry
VIII. You all know who Henry VIII was.
He had how many wives? Six wives? Eight wives? Had a
bunch of wives. He'd get one. That's why I said
how the Church of England started. He was in the Catholic Church
and he wouldn't let you divorce. So he said, well, I'll just start
my own religion then. I can divorce whoever I want
to. That's exactly how the Church of England, I'll start a state
religion of my own. And so old Henry VIII, his old
new Latimer got up there to preach. He got called to come preach
for Henry VIII. And he got up and he preached
from where John the Baptist told Herod. He said, it's not lawful
for you to have your brother's wife. Preached on that. When he got done, Henry VIII
told him, he said, Mr. Latimer, I'm going to let you come back
next week. And I'm going to give you another opportunity to preach.
And I want you to understand who you are you're preaching
to, and who you're standing before. And old Adam had told him, I
know that I'm standing before a king, but I'm also standing
before the king of kings and the sovereign of the universe.
And if I come back next Sunday, I'm going to say exactly what
I said today. You know what they've done? Henry said, take him out
of here and kill him. I don't want him in my, no more
than my king. Not many of them would have done
that. Oh, I'll be back next week. Oh, they would have found some
place where somebody had half a dozen wives. They would have
done something like that. Now, beloved, peace is precious.
Unity is precious. But it's not worth compromising
the truth over. And I'll tell you this, it can't
be done. Truth cannot be made acceptable
to the natural man. You can't do it. And let me tell
you this, not only that, but error cannot be made acceptable
to God's people. Truth and error can't go hand
in hand. And you know, you can't make
truth acceptable to the natural man, and you can't make error
acceptable to God's people. You can't do it. Can you? Huh? Preaching to the cross is unto
them that perish foolishness, but unto us believe. It's the
very power of God itself. And then let me say this lastly.
Let me hurry. Not only just keep the truth
of the gospel. It's more important than peace.
And that great men make great mistakes. And there is no doctrine
of which we should be more jealous and zealous for than justification
without the deeds of the law. Ain't that what he says here
in verse 16? Knowing that a man knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law. And that's
what he says when he saw them Jews coming down, he says, these
Jews are law keepers, Sabbath keepers, ceremonies, and they
follow the dietary laws. And when they came down there,
he left those Gentiles and went over there and sat with those
Jews. And by doing that, he's telling them Jews that you're
not near as holy as these folks over here are. Knowing that a
man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ. Now, this is not our faith in
Christ. It's by the faith of Christ, Christ Himself. Our faith
has to be perfect. We don't have perfect faith.
The Lord Jesus Christ did. He obeyed God perfectly. He believed
God perfectly. And that's why He's our complete
and perfect salvation. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ. That we might be justified by
the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by
the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. No, justification
by faith. Now watch Peter down here, that
Paul withstood him to his face. He hadn't publicly denied a single
article of faith. He had not preached one false
doctrine. He had not denied the cross,
he had not denied substitution, he had not denied the sacrifice
of Christ, he had not denied the blood, he had not denied
anything of the faith of Christ. But what he did, he had had fellowship
with, ate with, communed with the bleeding Gentiles. without
them being circumcised, without them submitting to the law of
Moses, without them having dietary laws, without them having any
kind of a law other than faith in Christ. And he did not take
the yoke of bondage he put upon them, and he kept company with
them as believers in Christ, as heirs of the promise, and
then suddenly he withdrew from them. Why? Why? Because these important
men came from Jerusalem, came down there. And by leaving them
Gentiles and going over to those Jews, he indicated that they
were less holy than these Jews were. You're not as acceptable
to God as these Jews are. You're not as holy as these Jews
are. You don't have the law like these
Jews do. And he implied by his actions,
By his actions, and he just changed tables. He implied by his actions
that these believing Gentiles, because they had not kept the
law of Moses, that they were lacking something. You lack something. Spent all that time with them,
and now they're not acceptable, since these Jews came down. Had to be like, you know, me
coming to your house, and because a bunch of your family's there,
You say, well, you know, I don't want to be embarrassed. You might
all leave. Because you'd be embarrassed by me or something. And that's
what he acted like, that he was embarrassed. And in a word, what
he was doing was he was adding to Christ. You Gentiles, you're
good up to a point. You're saved up to a point. I
can fellowship with you up to a point. But when these Jews come around,
since they're holier than you, more acceptable to God than you,
I got to go over and sit with them. Well, Peter, I thought you loved
us. You've been preaching to us.
You've ate with us. You've slept in our houses. You've
sat at our tables. You've prayed with us. We've
had wonderful fellowship. And now all of a sudden we're
unclean? Aren't them Jews? We're unclean? You'd rather be
with them Jews than with us? You're telling us that we're
unclean now. We're unacceptable now. We're not holy now. We're
not sanctified now. And he never said a word. He
just moved from table to table. That's all he did. Oh my, and
what he's telling them by his actions, if you want to be accepted,
if you want to be holy with someone whom I can fellowship with, you're
going to have to come under this law. And Paul wouldn't endure this
for a minute. He said, I withstood him to his
face because he was to be blamed. Because those men came down from
Jerusalem, And he was afraid of them. He was afraid of them.
He was afraid that they would reject him. He was afraid that
they would excommunicate him. He was afraid of their opinions.
He wanted to be accepted of them. And he had rather tell those
Jews, Gentiles, that they couldn't make it. The whole book, the
whole book of Galatians, It's about this very thing. Ain't
that what he says in verse 8 of chapter 1? That though we are
an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than
that we preach, let him be accursed? Huh? And oh my, so he says here,
let me look down here in verse 20 and 21 of chapter 2, and I'll
wind it up. Here he says, you know, he was
stood in because, oh my, fearing them that were the circumcised.
Not walking uprightly towards the truth of the gospel. Oh my, like me getting around
a bunch of law keepers, Reformed Baptists, and getting right in
there with them and agreeing with them. It just won't work. Here, and he says this, and I'm
crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me." Now watch this, I do not frustrate
the grace of God. That's what Simon Peter did,
he frustrated the grace of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Why did you leave the
Gentiles and go back over to the Egyptians? And now we're
two books over in Colossians. Let me wind up. This is the long
and the short of it. This is it, brethren. Either
it's so or we have nothing. Colossians 2.9. This is the long
and the short of it. Either it's so or we don't have
nothing. For in him, Colossians 2.9, for in him, in Christ dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now watch this. And you
are complete in him. which is the head of all principalities
and powers. And what's this? In whom also
you are circumcised. And what kind of circumcision
did you have? No priest done it to me. No rabbi done it to
me. Oh, how we are circumcised by
Christ. Our hearts were circumcised.
Our ears were circumcised. Our will is purified by the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. So remember, great men make great
mistakes. It's better to keep the truth
of the gospel. More important to have that than to keep peace. And there's nothing we should
be more zealous of and jealous of than the justification by
faith without the deeds of the law. Our Father, in the precious holy
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for your goodness,
your grace, your mercy given to us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. Thank you for the message this
evening. I pray that it be a blessing to the saints here. Father, we
look to you, we desire you, we need you, and we cast our all
upon you and all in with you. Forgive us of everything that
is unlike you. and teach us and instruct us in the ways and things
of God in Christ. Save your people in this place
for the Lord Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen.