The one thing I've noticed as
I've studied through Paul's epistles is Paul is very actively combating
works-based religion. Whenever an issue comes up in
the church, he hits it right head on. He goes right at it. And word had gotten to Paul that
the Galatians, the churches in Galatia, which he established
During his first missionary journey, the Lord providentially used
him to establish these churches in Galatia. They were young converts,
all very young converts, and Paul had went there and preached
the gospel. The Lord had the gospel go forth with power, as
we saw in our study in Thessalonians. Word didn't just come to them
in word only, but in power, and the power of the Holy Spirit
of God, and they were converted. And so there were several churches
that started in the Glacier area, and Paul is writing to them because
there's something that's been happening within those churches.
There's Judaizers who have crept in, and now they're teaching
that you must be circumcised to be saved, along with Christ's
work. So, in their eyes, Christ did
not accomplish a complete, perfect, sin-atoning work. Because they
are now adding works, which is basically the law. They're adding
the law to the complete work of Christ. The name of the message
is not of man, neither by man. Lord willing, we'll only be studying
one verse today. First verse. First verse. We're
gonna just take our time through the book of Galatians. It's a
wonderful book. It sets forth the freedom that
the believers have in Christ and all in and through the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, to be free is to be totally
released from bondage. We're free. We're free in Christ. We've been totally released from
the bondage of our sin, beloved, from the penalty of our sin,
from the bondage of our sin, not the presence yet, but one
day we will be when we go to glory will be free then from
the presence in so we are totally delivered from the bondage of
arson how by the precious precious blood of the lord jesus christ
he paid the ransom that god demanded for our eternal souls beloved
and he did it all by himself so let's read the first five
verses of relations chapter one will be looking at the first
verse of this book today but let's read these verses, the
first five, to get the context of what Paul's writing here.
Paul, an apostle, not of man, 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 forever and
ever. Amen. So we see Paul at the end
there gives all glory to God. All glory. He gets all the glory,
beloved. In religion, it was all about what we did. But in
grace, it's all about what he's done. And I'll tell you, he won't
share his glory with anyone. And we don't want him to. We
don't want to be glory stealers, do we? No, not at all. We want
to give him all the glory. Now, again, in this book, as
well as many others that Paul wrote, he's combating works-based
salvation. So an error has entered into
the church. And like I said, he's going to hit it head on.
And remember, as we read these words, as we study this book,
because I think we're going to be in this book for a little
while. We were in James for 35 messages, and that was a couple
chapters less than what we have here. And the book of Galatians
is such an important book for the church. As I said, it brings
forth the freedom that we have in Christ, the liberty. I do
not think we know how free we are in Christ. We don't fully
grasp it. But this book will bless us and
help us to understand as the Holy Spirit illuminates the scripture,
of course, only he can do that, and teaches us the things of
Christ. And that's my hope, is that the
Holy Spirit would illuminate the scriptures, and that we as
a group would grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and be even more secure in what we have in Christ, because
when we are like that, we won't be tossed to and fro. So when
someone comes up and says something, we'll know that's not right.
That's not right. Now this body's already proved
that before, haven't you? Something came up and you said,
that's not right. Not right at all. And it's wonderful. It shows that we're a mature
body of believers when the body itself rises up and says, that's
wrong. So you've been taught by God
the Holy Spirit. And Brother Jim was here. He
taught you well. But the Lord God, the Holy Spirit,
is the one who's giving you the understanding of that, right?
Now I'm here, I'm preaching the same gospel as Brother Jim, right? And God, the Holy Spirit, will
give you understanding of what we study. Isn't that wonderful?
It's the same gospel. It's absolutely wonderful. It's
just incredible. Now, ancient warriors of old,
when they went into battle, and remember, the Galatians are descendants
of the Celts, who migrated over from England, over and down into
to the northern regions of Galatia, and then eventually down into
the southern regions of Galatia, which is Turkey area, modern
day Turkey now. And so they came over. Now the
Celts, when they went into battle, they were decked out with all
kinds of war paint. The Romans went against them.
They didn't know who they were at first. And these people come
flying out of the woods, attacking them, and they're all just painted
up and ready to go. In this book, Tim James says
that Paul has his proverbial war paint on. He's ready for
battle because this is the gospel that's being attacked. This error
that sprung up hits the very core of the gospel and goes against
the very core of the gospel. And we'll see that more as we
study this book. We'll see that more and more as Paul, especially
in the first chapter, Paul uses such strong words that he says,
let them be anathema, who preach another gospel. Let them be cursed,
who preach another gospel. That's how serious it is. That's
how serious the situation is. And think of this. So what's
entered into the church is you must be circumcised to be saved,
along with the work of Christ. And that's works. That's works.
And Paul's identified this as works, and we see that all through
this epistle. Oh, he just sets Christ forth. And something pretty neat we're
gonna see here, he's already set Christ forth in these little
words that we read already. You know, I was looking at this
message, and I stopped and I said to Vicki, because we listened
to the book of Galatians all the way home, from coming out
west to coming back here. We listened to the book of Galatians. And I said, we didn't even see
this, did we? And she goes, isn't that amazing? We were listening
to the book and didn't even see that. Look what Paul does. I'm
just going to give us a little preview here. Look what Paul
does in these first, he preaches the gospel in these first four
verses. This is wonderful. Look at this.
Paul, an apostle, not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus
Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. So
there he's talking about Christ being raised from the dead. That's
part of the gospel, isn't it? Christ was raised for our justification.
Look at this. In 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. There's the gospel. That he might
deliver us. He might deliver us. We can't
deliver ourselves. that he might deliver us from
this present evil world, and look at this, all planned and
purposed by God, according to the will of God and our Father. If you're saved, if you're sitting
here today and you're saved, it's all according to the will
and purpose of God. That's wonderful, isn't it? That's
absolutely wonderful. We know we can't save ourselves,
we know we'd never come to Christ on our own, but Christ has delivered
us, beloved. He's delivered us from the bondage
of our sin. He's delivered us from the penalty
of our sin. And one day, He'll deliver us
from this present evil world totally, won't He? Now, we're
set apart already as believers, but there's going to come a day
when He's going to deliver us out of this present evil world.
It'll either be at the day of our death or when He comes back.
We don't know which one. But we're waiting, aren't we?
We're waiting. Oh, we're waiting. We're waiting.
Oh my. So to add anything to the finished
work of Christ, the complete, sinatoning, finished work of
Christ is works. Just a pinprick of what we do
destroys grace. Just a pinprick of works. Anything
that you think in your mind, oh yeah, I'm going to get favor
with God for doing this. Nope. God only shows favor to
sinners in and through the Lord Jesus Christ and nowhere else. It's Christ plus nothing. Salvation
is of the Lord. He's the author, the finisher,
Christ plus nothing. My oh my. Salvation's of the
Lord. It's fully accomplished by Him.
And we've been taught that, haven't we, as God's people? We've been
taught this wonderful truth, haven't we? That salvation's
of the Lord. It's His doing. It's all His
doing. Now when you preach the sovereign grace of God and that
is bestowed upon a particular people through the perfect redeeming
work of the Lord Jesus Christ with absolutely no sinful human
involvement in that salvation, This truth is hated by all self-righteous
works religionists. They absolutely hate it. Because they want something to
do. You mean nothing I do will save me? Nothing I do will gain
me merit and favor with God? That's exactly what I'm saying. The only way we are accepted
by God is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's
it. and we as believers we rejoice at that truth don't we we rejoice
it's a wonderful truth it's absolutely wonderful it's the best news
I've ever heard as a sinner never heard such wonderful news my
oh my and later in this chapter we'll see Paul dealing with the
false teaching of having to be circumcised along with faith
in Christ to be saved and He's going to bring forth that that's
not salvation at all. People who believe in that are
lost. They're lost. And we've seen in our studies
in the past that any genuine saving interest in spiritual
matters is created by God in us. It's created by God the Holy
Spirit in us. If you have a desire to serve
Christ, if you're born again, and you have a desire to serve
Christ, you have a desire to hear his word, you love the gospel,
it's because God the Holy Spirit worked that in you. How do we
know that? Well, because we're saved. We
want nothing to do with that. Now, that's all I want to know. Oh, I want to hear people tell
me about my Savior. Salvation's of the Lord. How
do we know that? Well, Jonah cried that in the
belly of the whale, didn't he? Salvation's of the Lord. Oh,
indeed it is. It's the Father who chose us.
It's the Father who set his love upon us in eternity. Oh, it's
wonderful. And it's the Holy Spirit. It's
the Son who redeemed us. So the Father chose us in eternity
in love. The Son redeemed us at Calvary's
cross. And God, the Holy Spirit, regenerates
us. Salvations of the Lord, then, isn't it? That's God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And they are one in mind,
aren't they? Remember that. They're one in
mind and purpose. They're three distinct personalities, but they're
one in mind and purpose. God the Son's purpose is the
same as the Father's purpose, the same as the Holy Spirit's
purpose. My, oh, my. Same will, same purpose. and
praise be to our great God and King, when one's given faith,
they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You ever heard of graveyard regeneration? Happens a lot in this world,
especially by works-based preachers. Someone who does not know Christ,
didn't love the Savior, all of a sudden, when they die, well,
they're in heaven. There's no such thing as graveyard
regeneration. I remember I listened to one
Doctrines of Grace preacher, and he said somewhere between
the funeral home and the gravesite, the person got regenerated. Well,
it's impossible, isn't it? But that's what these people
say. No. You know what? Bruce Crabtree told me a long
time ago, and I like this. I like this, because my mom and
dad died. You guys know my mom and dad
died. As far as I know, they're lost. But you know what Bruce
Crabtree said to me? God will do what's right, Wayne.
God will do what's right. So I don't have to stress about
it. That took the burden right off me. God will do what's right. So we don't have to worry about
that. Henry Mahan had someone come,
a lady whose son died in Vietnam, and she was agonizing over his
salvation. And that's what Henry told her.
And Bruce told me that. And it brought such comfort to
her from what I heard, and to me as well. God will do what's
right, Wayne. My. Okay. Right? That's just trusting in
his sovereignty, isn't it? That's just resting in him. It's
out of my hands. but praise be to God, when one's
granted faith to believe, they look to Christ. That's what looking
to Christ, you hear us say all the time as gospel preachers,
look to Christ, look to Christ, what's that mean? Believe, just
trust Him. Just trust Him. Just look to
Him by faith, and that's God-given faith. And you know, every person
who comes to Christ by faith will also come to Him by repentance. Because God works that in them,
too. My, it's incredible. And it'll
be a personal repentance. It's not someone else's repentance.
Just like when we cry out to God in prayer, it's not someone
else's prayer. It's our prayer. The publican, he didn't repeat
someone else's prayer. He said, God, be merciful to
me, a sinner. A regenerated person, the acts
can be not acts of anyone else, but think of this, if the person
has not repented and have not believed, then there's no spiritual
life in them. There's another group of religionists we also
need to be aware of, not just the worksmongers who add things
to the salvation, but there's also some who would agree with
us when it comes to the doctrines of grace. They would totally
agree with us, but then they add the line. Then they add the
law in. You've got to keep the law. You've
got to do this. You've got to do this. Oh, that's
dangerous stuff. That's mixing law with grace.
That's just as deadly as the other one. Just as deadly. They would say they believe every
single doctrine we have, but you've got to do this, or you've
got to do that, or you don't measure up here. Well, praise God, I'm saved in
Christ, in Christ alone, and so are you as a believer. Who
shall bring any charge to God's elect? It's God that justifieth. And I have friends that are involved
in that kind of stuff, and they would agree with me doctrinally,
they would lay it down, and then they hit the law, and it's like,
no. No. The believer is free from the
law. We are free from the law. The law has no claim on us anymore.
Now, do we go out and do things that are contrary to it? No.
That's the last thing we want to do. None of us want to go out and
kill someone. None of us want to go out and steal. No. None of us want to use the Lord's
name in vain. The one who we love and worship
and adore. We don't want to do that, do
we? But we sin more than we want to, don't we? That's a good question
to ask them, fellas. Do you sin more than you want
to? Well, I don't know. Okay, we'll just leave it at
that then. Let the Holy Spirit do the work.
My goodness. And we're seeing our dear brother
Paul will deal with the freedom that we have in Christ. He says,
Isn't that wonderful? Stand fast. That just means stand
there. You're not moving forward. You're standing there, stand
fast, just stand fast. Soldiers in the Roman legions,
they'd lock their shields together and they'd just stand fast in
the shield wall. And the enemy would hit that
shield wall at tremendous pace. And they would hold and stand
so fast that the very people that were coming at them, the
ones in the back would crush the people in the front. They
just stood fast. That's what we're to do. Stand
fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free. He set you free, beloved. We're
the freest people in the world. Do you know that, as believers?
No matter what we're going through, we're the freest people in the
world, in Christ. We'll see that, too. We'll see
that. Paul's gonna deal with that. In studying the book of
Galatians, we'll be given an understanding of God's amazing
grace. He's already given us an understanding of His amazing
grace as believers, but we hunger and thirst for righteousness,
don't we? Tell me more. Tell me more about how Christ
has set me free. Tell me more about His great
work of salvation for me. Tell me more. I'm a dead dog
sinner, I wanna hear more. Tell me about my Savior. Oh,
He's wonderful. He died for me. He saved my soul. And if we understand the purpose
of the law of Moses, which we will see Paul masterfully uses
and shows the use of the law of Moses, we will realize that
every believer is not under the law. And we'll be able to identify
these Judaizers if they ever come in our midst. But again,
we won't be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. So it'll secure us in the faith
in Christ. It'll give us, it'll concrete
what we believe already. It'll solidify it even more.
Because our hope is in the finished work of Christ. We hope in Him
and Him alone. We don't hope in anything else.
Just Christ and Him alone. Now, a little bit of history.
Galatia was an ancient province in the northern part of the Central
Plateau of Asia Minor. The exact date in writing of
this epistle, I'm not gonna get into that. People would say,
oh, it's been this year, oh, it's the, we have it. We have
it, right? It's for us to read. It was written
to the churches in Galatia. That's what we believe, because
that's what it is. So we don't worry about the date
when it was written. The Galatians to whom the letter
is addressed were most likely among the descendants of the
Celts. I found that very interesting. They were descendants of the
Celts, as I mentioned earlier, who had invaded Western and Central
Asia Minor in the third century BC and settled in that territory.
And the Celts were somebody the Romans don't want to mess with.
When they tried to invade Britain, they built that, I think it's
called Herodian's Wall, because they didn't want to mess with
the Celts. They walled it up so they wouldn't have to worry
about them. And they dealt with the rest of Britain. So they
were fierce people, very warlike. But the Romans had actually conquered
the Galatians in 64 BC, so 64 years before Christ is born. Now think of this too, 64 years
before Christ is born, they conquered Galatia. Now think of that. Soon, Christ will die within,
what, 90 years. And then the gospel will be written.
And those people will hear the gospel as Paul goes forth. Do you see God's providential
work? So he has the Romans go forth, they're conquering all
this land. You know, when people think, whoa, look at them, they're
conquering. God has a will and purpose for all. He's got folks,
he's got sheep out there. Oh, it's incredible when you
look at, I love looking at history from the perspective of the providence
of God. It's absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. My oh my. I'll tell you about something. Brother Neil, his dad was in
the Battle of the Bulge. This shows you God's providence.
His dad was in the Battle of the Bulge, and he told me he
was sitting, his dad was sitting by a barn. And he was the driver,
and he had another guy beside him. And I guess the guy said,
hey, Wagner, why don't you pull back a little bit? And he said, okay,
no problem if you want to. And there was nobody around or
anything, so he put it in gear and backed up. And Neil said
that a bomb had come and dropped right where they were. And I
said, you know why that happened, Neil? Because you're one of the
elect, and you're gonna spring out of his loins. Isn't that incredible? So think
of that as you start to find out about your history of your
family. All those things happened so that you would be born exactly
where you would hear the gospel. Isn't that, it's just so amazing. It's just so amazing. So even
the Romans invading Galatia, was all according to the will
and purpose of God. Because the gospel was gonna
go through. It was gonna go through some cities, Antioch, Lystia,
Derbe in the south. Those were gonna be established
churches. And Paul, Paul had founded these
churches in Antioch, Lystia, Derbe and other places in Galatia
on his first missionary journey in AD 46 to 48. So it makes sense then that this
epistle is addressed to those churches. And on his first missionary journey,
several churches were established by Paul with Barnabas. That's
when he went with Barnabas accompanying him in the area of Southern Galatia. And again, in all probability,
this is who these letters are written to. And Barnabas and Paul had left
the area of Southern Galatia, and then men known as Judaizers
had come right in. They come right in. Crept into
those young churches, young Gentile churches. And they said they
couldn't be saved unless they kept the law of Moses, along
with the work of Christ. They insisted that they had to
be circumcised after the manner of Moses. And when those Christian
converts argued that Paul did not teach such things, these
Judaizers said, Paul has no authority. How do we know that? From the
first verse of this book. From the very first verse of
this book, we know that. They said Paul wasn't a true
apostle. He was not one of the apostles who walked with the
Lord Jesus Christ. Look at the first verse. Look how Paul right
away establishes that his authority doesn't come from any man or anybody, but it comes from
God and God alone. He says, Paul, an apostle, not
of man, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father
who raised him from the dead. So he sets forth right away.
He defends his apostolic authority right away because he's being
questioned. The Judaizers had said, nah, he has no authority. He's not sent by God to preach.
Oh, my. You know the worst thing you
can say to a gospel preacher is they're not preaching the
gospel. That's the absolute worst slander that you can put upon
a gospel preacher. Donny Bell and I were talking
about that this summer, and he said, Wayne, that's the worst
slander. They can say anything they want
about us, but to tell us we're not preaching the gospel, that's when the war paint goes
on, like Tim said. because the gospel's precious.
Christ is everything to me, just like he is to you. He's everything. And he's given me a message to
preach and proclaim. And that's what me and other
gospel preachers do. We just get up, we preach what
the Lord's put on our heart, we preach the gospel of God's
free and sovereign grace, that salvation is in and through the
Lord Jesus Christ alone, plus nothing. God's people love it,
and I love it too. It's wonderful. It's absolutely
wonderful. And then, as I mentioned earlier,
right before the introduction, he preaches the gospel. Look
again at verses 3 and 4. Right within the introduction,
he's preaching the gospel. Grace be to you, verse 3, in
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 the Father.
And in verse one, he says, who raised him from the dead. The
gospel's being preached right there. So what does Christ, or
what does Paul do? Paul does what he says he does
in Corinthians. He preaches Christ and Him crucified.
Before he gives any rebuke, and notice this too, do this, this'll
really bless your soul. Go to the book of 1 Corinthians
and read the whole first chapter. Before Paul does any correction
at all, he sets forth Christ. And it's that musical tuning
fork I talked about a long time ago, right? It's like, ting!
And then all through the book, that premise is set forth. Paul's
doing the same thing here. Right away, before he does any
correction or any rebuke, he sets forth the gospel of salvation
in Christ alone. And remember, too, it's the Holy
Spirit who does the correcting. It's not the preacher's job to
shear the sheep. You know why? Because we're sheep
too. Right? And if a preacher points a finger
at you, as the old saying is, he's got all these fingers pointing
back at him, right? I'm a safe sinner just like you
all. I struggle with sin every day
just like you all. It's tough, isn't it? Oh my,
may God give us grace and strength to overcome sin. My oh my. So he preaches the gospel right
here. He sets forth his apostolic authority, so already he's just,
all he does is set it forth. He just says, I'm not sent by
man, I'm sent by God. And that's the end, he doesn't
argue anymore. Period, that's it. My authority
comes from God. And then he preaches the gospel.
within the first four verses. It's absolutely wonderful. It's
absolutely wonderful. So right here again in the introduction,
he preached that salvation's of the Lord. And the reason he's
doing that, remember, is because of the error that's crept into
the church. So he's addressing the error head on. He's already
hitting it, isn't he? And he says here that he's not
an apostle. No man made him apostle. And what do we see here? We see
here that false religionists will often try to discredit God's
preachers by slandering them. And these Judaizers, they'd slandered
the Lord's preacher. They'd slandered him. And if
they can't bring any true accusations against them, they'll make up
something. And this is what happened to Paul. They said, well, he
has no authority to preach. And let us not be too hard on
the Galatian churches in the fact that they didn't rise up
and say, they're an infant church. These are infant churches. These
folks have not been saved for very long. So they're very young
in the faith. Now we know a mature church will
act differently, wouldn't it? It'll stand up and it'll say,
that's wrong. That's wrong. But let's not be
too hard on them again, because they're just infant church. They've not been in Christ very
long. Oh, they've been in Christ from
eternity, but you know what I mean. They've not been regenerated
for very long. And so Paul's dealing with this
serious error. And look at, he says right here,
his authority comes from God. Paul an apostle, not of man,
neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who
raised him from the dead. You know, the prophets of old
were hated by the Israelites, weren't they? So it shouldn't
surprise us that Paul's hated by these self-righteous Judaizers. They're clinging to their vain
traditions. They're false preachers. They're
preaching another gospel, and we see that Paul, we're gonna
see, Paul's gonna deal with it, he's gonna call this. It's not
the gospel, it's another gospel. You know, anytime that anybody
adds just a pinprick of works, it's another gospel. That's how
serious this is. That's how serious it is. And
that's why I thank God that he's given me a message, and he saved
my soul. And I know that it's all by his
perfect work. And I thank God that he brought
us all together, and you all love to hear that same message.
And I thank the Lord that he's given us the opportunity to get
it out all over the world. Isn't that amazing? Here we are,
meeting here together, and the message is going all
over the world, beloved. Absolutely amazing. And we're blessed just
being together. This is what's most important
for you and I, just being together here. And for the furtherance
of the gospel, right? That's why we're here. We're
here for the furtherance of the gospel. But we love to hear the
gospel as believers. This is what we want to hear.
This is the only thing that'll comfort us. Only thing that'll
comfort us is the gospel. Well, I still got a few pages
left, so I'm gonna have to do those next week. I got a little
carried away there, so. But isn't it wonderful? Salvation's
of the Lord. From beginning to end. Nothing
can be added to it. Nothing can be taken away. It's
not dependent upon you and I. That's what leaves us in awe
and wonder, isn't it? That it had nothing to do with us. We're
just, someone gives you a gift, what do you do? You just receive
it, right? Thank you. God's just given us a gift of
eternal life, beloved. And we're gonna thank him forever.
We thank him while we're here on this earth. And in glory,
we're gonna thank him forever, beloved. We're gonna sing praises
and be in awe of the one who saved us by his grace when we
see him face to face. What a day that'll be. We're
homesick, aren't we? We're homesick for heaven. Oh
Lord, give us grace and strength to endure the days that come
forward while we are pilgrimaging through this world. To God be
the glory.