True friends tell the truth. True friends tell the truth.
The Apostle Paul, writing by inspiration of the Spirit in
verse 8, How be it then, when you knew not God, you did service
unto them which by nature are no gods? But now, after that
you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye
again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto you desire
again to be in bondage? That's an interesting couple
of verses there. First of all, it proves that
without knowledge of God and without faith based on that revealed
knowledge in the Lord Jesus Christ, that all faith, all worship,
all service is idolatry. You can't serve a God you don't
know. Now, a lot of people criticize that because they talk about,
well, we're so limited in our knowledge that we can't really
know everything about God, and that's true. We don't know everything
about God. Job realized that, Paul realized
that, that God is so high above us, he's infinite, he's eternal,
he's immutable, and we're so limited in our understanding.
But what Paul is talking about is the revealed knowledge. What
God teaches his people in his work concerning who he is in
his holiness and his justice that he must punish sin, he's
a God who is holy, he must punish sin. The soul that sinneth must
surely die. God cannot in his nature just
look over or pass over sin without punishment. It's what he told
Adam in the beginning, in the day that you eat thereof you
shall surely die. The wages of sin is death. People quote that all the time
but they don't really believe it. I tell you about the fellow who
made the statement. He claimed to be a Christian.
He said, well, he said, I know I'm not perfect, but I've never
done anything to deserve hell. Well, when you say you've never
done anything to deserve hell, then you don't believe the wages
of sin is death. You can quote that till you're
blue in the face, but it doesn't mean a thing to you. The wages
of sin is death, and I'm a sinner. And so what that tells me is
that I cannot earn or deserve my way out of this mess that
I'm in. And so God reveals himself to his people as the God who
must punish sin and that we're sinners. And then God reveals
himself to his people by showing us ourselves, who we are, what
we are by nature. I'm gonna talk about that this
morning, the truth about sin, where the Holy Spirit convicts
us of sin. and what sin really is. Man knows
something about sin, but he doesn't know the true nature of sin as
it's revealed in the scripture until the Holy Spirit convinces
us through the word. And then he reveals himself as
a Savior, a just God and a Savior, one who justifies the ungodly
through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is none other than God in
human flesh. And he gives us an understanding,
John the Apostle said in 1 John 5, the Son of God has come and
given us an understanding that we may know him, that is true. Christ in his high priestly prayer
in John 17 said, this is life eternal, that they might know
thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. It was predicted, prophesied
in the Old Testament that under the new covenant that God's people
would know him. All right? So when we talk about
this knowledge of God, we're not talking about man being able
to know everything about the infinite nature of Almighty God,
but we're talking about God revealing himself to us as a God of salvation. He saves sinners. How God makes
a sinner righteous before him. That's the gospel, and it's a
revelation from God. Now he says, when you didn't
know that God, what were you? You were an idolater. And you
were fervent and zealous in your service unto them which by nature
are no gods." In other words, the gods they worship in their
nature and essence, they were not deity. They weren't God at
all. They were imaginations. And you consider how people,
even we ourselves, were and are passionate to serve gods of our
imagination who had nothing of deity about them in false religion. It's kind of like when we were
in bondage, boy, we were fervent and zealous in that bondage.
And then we come to know grace, shouldn't we be even more fervent,
more zealous in that, in that freedom? So he says in verse
8, he says in verse 9 rather, but now after that you have known
God. Now we claim to be saved by God's
grace, we claim to have that knowledge, that revealed knowledge,
a saving knowledge of God. Somebody accused me one time,
said, well, he believes knowledge is our, that we're saved by knowledge. Well, we're saved by Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ brings us to
him through knowledge. Christ is our savior. But notice
how he adds the words here in verse nine. Look at it again.
But now after that you have known God, or rather are known of God. He makes certain that they understand
that this salvation knowledge is of and from God. We're not
the source of that salvation knowledge, the revelation. God has to be revealed, doesn't
He? His Word has to be revealed by the Spirit. We're not the
source of it. In other words, God is the source
of all salvation. He's the originator. He's the
source of all true knowledge. To be known of God here is more
than just saying, well, God is cognitively aware of you. Like
he knows who you are. He knows your name and your address
and things like that. To be known of God is to be loved
of God. That's what he's talking about.
To be known of God is to be chosen of God. God chose a people. Remember in Matthew 7, 21 through
23, he talked about those who pled their own works for righteousness. And he said, I never knew you.
Well, he knew who they were. He knew their hearts. Scripture
says he knows our hearts, but he never knew them in that loving
relationship of salvation, father and son. He never knew them in
electing love, redeeming love, regenerating love, ultimately
saved by the grace of God. Psalm one and verse six says
this, it says, for the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but
the way of the ungodly shall perish. So what he's saying there
is that when the Lord says, I never knew you, those people he never
knew, he's not talking about, well, I don't know who they are.
No, he knew who they were, but he's talking about that relationship
with him under condemnation. They're going to perish. For
the Lord to know his people is to love them and to save them.
That's what the scripture teaches. Well, he says, now after you've
known God or you're rather known of God, how do you turn back
again to those weak and beggarly elements where into you desire
again to be in bondage? Now that's an interesting statement
too. To turn back to the works of the law for justification
before God, for salvation, is turning to things that are weak,
impotent. He even calls them beggarly.
They cannot satisfy God's justice for sins. They cannot make us
righteous before God. They're impotent to do that.
And it's the bondage of legalism as opposed to the liberty of
grace. And here's the issue. Men and women by nature love
bondage. Now you think about it. Think
about, again, that Matthew 7, 21 passage, 21, 22, and 23. Lord,
haven't we done this? Lord, haven't we done that? You
know what they're doing? They're pleading their bondage.
They're proud of it. Now, of course, they don't see
it as bondage. Oh, I'm not doing it to try to earn my salvation.
Well, if you plead that before God as making up any part of
your righteousness before God, that's exactly what you're doing.
Now, you may not want to hear that, but am I your enemy? Because I'm telling you, that's
what the book says. That's what God's word says. Even, listen,
and I'll tell you what, even true believers, you think about
these Galatians. Now, among these Galatians, they're
like every other church, true church here on this earth where
the gospel is preached. You've got all kinds of different
hearers. You've got the wayside hearer, you've got the stony
ground hearer, you've got the thorny ground hearer, and then
you've got the good ground hearer. Some of these were just people
who claimed to be Christian, but they truly weren't Christian.
And some of them were just Christians who were being confused. And
another thing that they have to deal with is the flesh. You know, even true believers
still have to war against the fleshly desires for legalism
because that's still in us. That's part of that warfare of
the flesh and the spirit. You know, really, that's the
main thing Paul's dealing with in Romans 7, 14 through 25. It's
not the desires to go out here and just be rebellious in society. I mean, there are desires like
that and we have to fight them. Do you know what Paul's doing
in Romans 7, 14 through 25, basically, is he's showing that the law,
even as a believer, Even as a sinner saved by grace, the law still
cannot pronounce me righteous based upon my efforts to obey
it. Even as a believer, even right now, I mentioned this on
the television program this morning, how I can say I've preached the
gospel for over 30 years now. That's not my righteousness before
God. That's not my meritorious work. That's not anything that's
going to recommend me unto God. God's pleased with it because
it honors Him, but it's not my righteousness. Christ is. The
law still cannot pronounce me righteous based upon my efforts
to obey God. But you see, we still have to
fight our natural pride. and self-righteousness in those
areas, don't we? Sometimes you know when things
go bad and you say, well, Lord, why me? I'm a preacher. That shouldn't happen to me.
Well, why not? Why would I want it to happen
to anybody else? Well, I think they deserve it,
and I don't. You see, you have to fight that.
And I believe that's what's going on in some of these people's
minds and hearts. They're having that warfare,
but they're being confused and they have to be taught right.
So look at verse 10. Now here's the problem. He didn't
say, now you're all doing this, doing that. He says, you observe
days and months and times and years. The religious observation
of religious ceremonies and times. These Judaizers, now remember,
they were telling them, they told them that physical circumcision
would recommend them unto God and contribute to righteousness
before God, but also they taught that they should keep the Jewish
festivals and feast days and Sabbaths. Those Sabbaths, feasts,
and times. Now you remember back in the
Old Covenant now, when those things were commanded of the
nation Israel, They were obligated to keep those days, those feast
days, those Sabbaths, but also those things were all pictures
and types of God's grace in the salvation of his people by Jesus
Christ. The Sabbath days, for example.
Sabbath means rest. Well, what is our rest? Well,
Christ is our rest. Read Hebrews chapter four sometime.
We don't have a Sabbath day. We meet on the Lord's day, the
first day of the week, and that's what we're doing today because
in commemoration of his resurrection and the abolishment of the old
covenant, the establishment of the new, but Sunday's not the
Christian Sabbath. Christ is the Christian Sabbath.
Technically speaking, spiritually speaking, Christ was always the
Christian's Sabbath. We rest in him for all salvation. We rest in him for all righteousness. We don't rest in a day. Nothing
wrong with physically resting on a day. I'm not saying that.
But it has no religious significance as to our state before God or
what will recommend us to God. It's all Christ. So all these
feast days and Sabbaths, they were abolished by way of fulfillment
in the coming of Jesus Christ and the accomplishment of his
redemptive work. It's finished, he said. And what
happened? The veil was written, too, from
top to bottom. So anybody who observes these
days, months, times, and years, and tries to keep them as meritorious
for any part of salvation, you know what they do? That's a denial
of Christ. That's a denial of Christ. And
you say, well, I don't want to hear that. Well, that's what
you need to hear. You say, well, you're just mean.
No, I might be mean sometimes. I shouldn't be, but I'm not mean
here. This isn't meanness. This is
truth that I need to hear. This is truth that you need to
hear that your hope is not in a feast day or a Sabbath day
or a month or a time or in circumcision. Your hope is in Christ for all
righteousness, for all salvation. Look at verse 11. He says, I'm
afraid of you lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Now Paul
expresses his concern for him here. that in seeking to follow
these false preachers in their false gospel, they might reveal
themselves to be false professors of the truth. And people take
this verse, you know, he said, I'm afraid lest I have bestowed
upon you labor in vain. You know, Paul knew that the
preaching of the gospel is never in vain. It's never for nothing. We won't turn there, but over
in 2 Corinthians 2, in verse 14 through 17, you mark that
down and read it again. That's where he said that we're
always victorious when we preach the gospel, even when sinners
reject it, we're victorious. He says, we're the saver of life
unto life to some and the saver of death unto death. But God,
listen, when the gospel is preached, God is glorified. Christ is exalted. And if God's pleased to bring
a sinner to saving faith, that's a marvelous thing. But that's
not what makes the preaching of the gospel effectual and victorious. That's God's business. But what
he's saying here is this. We know that if these professing
Christians were not recovered by God's grace, they were never
true believers. They were never saved from the
beginning. That's what the scripture teaches. And in their case, it
would have been for nothing, just in their case. And so look
at verse 12. Now what he does in these next
verses, He shows how their attitude towards him, towards Paul, has
changed because of the fact that they were now being moved away
from the truth. In other words, this wasn't just an issue of
personality. Some might say, well, people
get upset because he just doesn't have a good personality. Well,
I may or may not have a good personality. You may or may not
have one. We certainly need to do better in those areas if we
don't. But that's not what is bringing the hatred of false
preachers and false professors out. And this is what he says,
look at verse 12. He says, brethren, I beseech
you, be as I am, for I am as you are, you have not injured
me at all. What's he talking about? He's
saying imitate him in this sense. What sense? Have the same value. And the same value for it, the
same resolve in the grace of God in Jesus Christ and the righteousness
Christ has worked out to save his people from sin. I want you,
I want you to see, that's what Paul's saying, I want you to
see that you have absolutely no hope of salvation, no assurance
of salvation, but Jesus Christ in him crucified. That's what
he means when he says be as I am. When he says for I am as you
are, what he's simply saying here is I'm just a sinner saved
by grace like you. I don't have anything to recommend
me unto God but Christ and his righteousness alone. Here's the
Gentiles. I'm no better off than the Gentiles.
Here's the Jews. I'm no better off than them.
Let me tell you something about me. That's what Paul's saying.
I have one hope, this is a faithful saying, that Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. I have nothing
but the grace of God in Christ to recommend me unto God. I'm
just like you in that sense. I'm not better, and you've not
injured me at all. Now whether you believe it or
not, Paul's saying you haven't injured me. Your argument's not
with me. Your issue's not with me. You
may see it that way, but ultimately, here's what you're going to see.
You've denied the glory of God. When you look away from Christ
to your obedience to any law, in any way, in any shape, form,
or fashion, your injury is to God, not to the preacher. Now, they stoned Stephen, didn't
they? They injured him, didn't they?
But ultimately, who were they standing against? They were standing
against the Lord of glory. They were standing against Christ,
who is the judge of all. So you've not injured me at all,
Paul's saying. You can say whatever you want
about me, but your issues with God and with God alone and his
glory, And then look at verse 13, he says, you know how through
infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at the first
and my temptation or my testing, which was in my flesh, you despised
not nor rejected, but received me as an angel or a messenger
of God, even as Christ Jesus. Now, Paul, what he's doing here,
he's reminding them of when he first came into this area called
Galatia and began to preach the gospel. And apparently there
was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and many of them had come
to faith in Jesus Christ. And at that time, they received
Paul with love and joy and appreciation. They received him as a messenger
of God. Now, whether that, you know,
that word angel means messenger. And so whether it means the angelic
beings, you know, in other words, he's saying, you received me
like you would have received an angelic being, or whether
he's just simply saying, you received me as a messenger of
God. Either way, it doesn't matter
what his point is. This, his point is you, you looked
upon me as sent from God. Here's God's man. He's telling
us the truth. He's telling us what we need
to hear. And Paul said that when he first came there, it was through
a testing which was in his flesh. Now that's probably, we don't
know exactly the details of this, but apparently it seems like
that an illness forced Paul to change his travel plans and go
into this area. And it must have been a physical
ailment that forced him to come and stay at this place in Galatia
for a while. We don't know what it was. We
know this. It was the providence of God, wasn't it, that brought
him there. Paul didn't make them, I mean,
God was in control all the time. So when he first preached the
gospel to them, he did it in bodily, in weakness, in humility,
persecution, bodily afflictions, and they weren't offended at
him. Nobody would say, well, I know he's not sin of God because
he's sick. You know these faith healers
today and how they do. You know, if you've got enough
faith, you can be healed and all that and stuff like that. And of course we believe God
heals, but God didn't heal Paul here. He put him through a test,
a test of his faith. But they were so glad to hear
the good news of God's grace in Christ at that time that Paul's
sickness or Paul's affliction didn't bother him at all. Now,
why did he say that? It must have been because these
false preachers were going after Paul's character, after his bodily
presence. You know, they say that Paul
didn't have much pulpit presence, that's what scholars mainly say,
or mainly they say that Paul was not the most dynamic preacher. You know, the word among biblical
scholars is that Apollos was a real cultured Greek and he
could really hold a crowd's attention, you know. But now Paul wasn't
like that. Paul was a smart man. And he's
really a culture man, but for some reason he just didn't have
that pulpit presence that we like to see sometimes. But Paul
said, you received me with joy as a messenger from God because
I told you the truth. The truth, it was the gospel
that got their attention. It wasn't Paul. It was the grace
of God that grabbed their hearts. It wasn't Paul's eloquence. or
Paul's pulpit presence or his bodily presence or his demeanor. It was the gospel. It was Christ
hearing the message of salvation for sinners and a righteousness
from God. That's what grabbed hold of you.
And that's what gained their respect for Paul. And they received
him even as Christ Jesus, as an ambassador for Christ. It
wouldn't have been any better if Jesus Christ himself were
standing before them teaching this because they saw Paul as
his messenger. And so they thought so much of
Paul. Look at verse 15. He says, where is then the blessedness
you spoke of? They were blessed by Paul. Now
they were listening to these false preachers and they were
coming against Paul. And he says, where's the blessedness
that you talked about then? He says, I bear you record that
if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own
eyes and have given them to me. That's how much they thought
of him. That's how much they thank God for him and appreciated
him. Incidentally, this is one of
the verses that people think, you know, Paul's thorn in the
flesh. They think it was his eyesight because of this. And I don't know that that's
true. It could have been. I don't know what it is. I think it's
useless for us to even speculate on that myself because that's
not the message here anyway. But if Paul did have poor vision
or what, he's saying, you thought so much of me, you would have
plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. That's how
much you love the gospel, how much you love Christ. And so
now he comes to the conclusion. He says, now am I therefore become
your enemy because I tell you the truth? Well, these false
preachers had painted Paul to be the enemy of these professing
believers. But Paul was not their enemy.
Paul was their truest and dearest friend. He was concerned for
their souls, not for his own reputation, not for his own physical
health or comfort, not for his own glory. He was concerned for
their souls. And though it's, one commentator
said this, he said, though it's a common remark that truth begets
hatred, And we know that's true because John 3, 19, where it
talks about the light, this is the condemnation, light has come
into the world and men love darkness and they hate the light. Well, it's a common remark that
truth begets hatred, yet truth is never hateful except through
the wickedness and malice of those who cannot bear the truth.
The gospel of God's grace in Christ is an affront to the self-righteousness
of men in all false refuges. The offense of the cross is so
because it denies men any glory in the matter of salvation. And
that's what causes unbelievers to view gospel preachers as enemies. But as said at the beginning,
the title of the message, true friends tell the truth. And Paul
told him that truth. All right.