The heavens declare thy glory,
Lord. In every star thy wisdom shines. But when our eyes behold thy
word, we read thy name in fairer lines. The rolling sun, the changing
light, And nights and days thy power confess, And the blessed
volume thou hast writ, Reveals thy justice and thy grace. Some moon and stars convey thy
praise, round the whole earth and never stand. So when thy truth began its race,
destined to spread to every land, nor shall thy living gospel rest
Till through the world thy truth has run, Till Christ has all
the nations blessed, That see the light or feel the sun. Great Sun of Righteousness, arise! Bless the dark world with heavenly
light. Thy gospel makes the simple wise. Thy laws are pure, thy judgments
right. Thy noblest wonders here we view,
in souls renewed and sins forgiv'd. Lord, cleanse my sins, my soul
renew, and make Thy Word my guide to heaven. about the prayer. Father, we
come as unworthy servants this morning, unprofitable servants,
Lord, that cannot keep your word, that cannot keep your law, that
cannot keep the things that you have required for righteousness.
But we come, Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
by his blood we have claimed to come before you, before your
throne, Lord. And we humbly ask that you just
might be with us today. We come asking because Christ
has paid the price, the ransom for us, that he has taken the
wrath of God on our behalf. By his blood, we've been justified
before a holy God, that all the laws of God have been kept in
Christ Jesus on our behalf. And so Lord, we just come now
and we ask that you might be with us that you might help us,
Lord, to worship you this morning. We need the Spirit with us today
to be able to worship you in spirit and in truth. And as we
always ask, we pray that the Spirit would be with us and help
us. Lead us into that worship, Father. Guide us in that, that
we might speak the things of God clearly and truthfully, Lord,
that we might be hearers, that you might give us understanding
Lord, we need the Spirit's work today in all facets of our worship,
and so we pray that you might help us this morning to rightly
do that. We thank you, Father, for all
that you have done for us and through the Lord Jesus Christ
in our behalf. And Lord, we just thank you for
another day that we have to come together, to fellowship together,
to worship you, and to proclaim your gospel. Father, we pray
this morning for Brother Kevin, who's sick, and we ask, Lord,
that you just might be with him and his family that's at home
this morning. And we ask, Lord, that you give him a speedy recovery,
if that be your will. And we ask, Lord, that you just
might be with the rest of his family, if they might not get
sick as well. And Father, Lord, we just ask that you might just
bless this day. Thank you for Byron and for Steven
to be able to join us this morning. And we ask, Lord, that you just
might Continue to speak and minister to them and whether they're here
or whether they're back home, Lord, that you just might be
with them. Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for
the church that you've given to us for the ability to worship
together. We thank you for the opportunity
for the message of Christ to go out over Facebook and over
sermon audio. We thank you, Father, for the
opportunities that you give for these things and we pray that
you might help us to be faithful in what we do and how we use
these tools that you have given to spread your word. But Father,
we know that apart from the Holy Spirit teaching us inwardly,
that all the preaching and all the debate that man might go
through with Christian discussions, Lord, we know that They'll never
know anything apart from a revelation from God. So we pray today that
as I preach and as I minister this word, Lord, that you might
speak to your people, that you might teach them. Lord, I pray
that you would help me to keep me from error, that you might
give me the words to say, that you might keep me in the truth.
And Lord, I just thank you for all of this and we ask you to
bless it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, turn back in your
Gatsby hymn books to hymn number 411. Page 411. We'll sing the everlasting covenant
to the tune of all hail the power of Jesus' name. Come saints and sing in sweet
accord with solemn pleasures. Tell the covenant made with David's
Lord in all things order well. The covenant made with David's
Lord In all things ordered well. This covenant stood ere time
began That God with man might dwell. Eternal wisdom drew the
plan In all things ordered well. Eternal wisdom drew the plan. In all things ordered well. This covenant, O believers, stands
thy rising fierce to quell. Sealed by thy surety's bleeding
hands, in all things order dwell. ? Sealed by thy surety's bleeding
hands ? ? In all things ordered well ? ? T'was made with Jesus
for his bride ? ? Before the sinner fell ? ? T'was signed
and sealed and gratified ? in all things ordered well. T'was signed and sealed and ratified
in all things ordered well. When rolling worlds depart on
fire and thousands seek to help, This covenant shall the saints
admire in all things. Ordered well, this covenant shall
the saints admire, in all things ordered well. In glory soon with Christ their
King, His saints shall surely dwell, And this blessed covenant
ever sing, In all things order dwell. And this blessed covenant
ever seen, in all things ordered well. We call that absolute predestination. That's what that is. God has
ordered all things. He's known unto God. The Bible
says known unto God are all his works and in from the beginning.
One thing happens. Every one of those leaves that's
out there that's moving around by the little breeze that's blowing,
he predestined every bit of that. So not one thing happens outside
of his sovereign control. All right, turn to 243. I'll
sing this, and if anybody has a request
for a song or has a scripture that you'd like to read. 243. Sing this to Howe Farmer Foundation. Great Father of Glory, how rich
is Thy grace! What wonderful love is displayed
in Thy face! In Jesus thy image with brightness
we view, and hope to be born to that likeness anew. By favor adopted thy sons we
appear, And led by thy spirit we boldly draw near. Jesus beloved and washed in his
blood with hope we adore at the footstool of God. The man who is blessed with hope
in the cross He is free from the bondage of guilt and the
curse. The blood of his shirt he, by
faith he renews, while hope in that fountain his spirit renews. you The world knows us not, but
in this we rejoice. To God we're no strangers, but
objects of choice. His love from eternity gave us
a home. Where now we are hoping in safety
to come. Arrayed in obedience, all wrought
by the Lamb, by Christ our Jehovah, the Ancient I Am. With boldness we journey while
Christ leads us on and hope soon in glory to praise the Three
One. Amen. Anybody got a song that you'd
like to sing? 15 in the room. Okay, we'll sing this to the
tune of My Face is Found a Resting Place. The Jews of old their sabbaths
kept, a picture of the rest. Which sinners find in Christ
you said, come unto me and rest. Look to Jesus, he has finished
all the law required. Sorry man, this doesn't seem
to be lining up. Hang on just a minute. I don't know another tune to that meter. I don't know this tune, honey. I'll have to choose another one. You got another one? Uh, thirteen
maybe. Thirteen? Okay. It's calling me to eighty-six. We
can sing that to uh, Joy to the World or Amazing Grace. Either
one of those. How about we sing it to uh, Amazing Grace? All things together work for
good, by God's all-wise design, to those who love their Sovereign
Lord, the call by grace divine. My God before the world was made
predestinated all and nothing happens in this world beyond
my God's control. Eternal love redeemed me by His
blood. He called me and He gave me life
and He will do me good. My God, I trust your providence. Your will, not mine, be done. Content I wait to see your grace
and bow before your throne. My life, my all, I now resign
to you, my Lord. God, nothing I ask or seek except
the glory of my God. Anybody else got a song they'd
like to sing, or a chorus, or a scripture they'd like to read? Turn your Bibles to Galatians
chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4 God's holy law brings bondage
to the child of grace. And that was Paul's question
to these brethren. He called them brethren. We'll
see that even in today, our passage today. But God called them brethren,
or Paul called them brethren. He still acknowledged that even
though they had gone into the error of believing that righteousness
was either gained or kept by keeping the law, that they still
were considered brethren up to a certain point here. Now if
they continued in this error, I'm sure Paul and all the other
brethren would cease to acknowledge that fellowship because if they
continue in the error of heresy and lying about Christ, then
I'm sure that they would have cut off that fellowship with
them But we see and we want to remember back now, again, when
people come in, I mentioned this last week, sometimes people drop
in and listen just to one message or view just for one day or something
on the thing. And so sometimes I have to reiterate
a few things. Remember now, Galatians is a
letter written by Paul to these churches because there were men
from Jerusalem who had come down who still believe that even though
that they believed in Jesus Christ who was the Messiah and that
he died and that salvation was by him, they also said not only
do you have to believe in Jesus, but you have to keep the law
of Moses to be saved and to stay saved. So your righteousness
either to get saved or to be before God has to come by believing
Jesus and keeping the law. We have a lot of people that
still preach that kind of stuff today even in sovereign grace
circles. But Paul here has written him
a letter saying that that is not what Christ taught us apostles. That is not what we taught you
whenever we came and preached among you. That is not the gospel
that you received whenever the Spirit gave you faith to believe.
And so now what has happened is these men has come down and
they have bewitched you. Look with me at Galatians chapter
1. Remember what Paul said. He said, verse 6, I marvel that
ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace
of Christ unto another gospel. So if you're preaching anything
besides free grace, besides sovereign grace, besides grace in Christ
Jesus alone, If you're preaching anything else, that's another
gospel. Okay? So, that's why we reject
Arminian churches, that's why we reject Arminian preachers,
that's why we reject Arminian baptisms. All that stuff because
that is a false gospel. The churches have no authority
from Christ to preach the gospel. The gospel that they're preaching
is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any ordinances that they might
keep as far as baptism is concerned, they did not have any authority
to baptize because they are not a gospel church. The only people
that God gave that authority to was the gospel church. His
church. The church that He began. Okay? That institution of gathered
believers who were believing the true gospel and were baptized
under that administration, under that institution, they are the
ones who are the true churches and they are the ones that preach
the truth. The Bible says that the church
is the pillar and the ground of truth. Anything outside of
that is not. Okay? And so Paul here is saying,
now be careful Galatians, because what was delivered to you by
me was delivered to me by Christ. So what I gave you was exactly
what Christ told me, and now you're listening to these Judaizers,
and these Judaizers are telling you that you need to keep the
Law of Moses to be saved or to stay saved. And that is not the
Gospel. Now watch what he says here,
verse 7, Which is not another, but there be some that trouble
you and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. Anytime that a preacher
or a theologian or a theology system or a doctrine or a church
or whatever, anytime that they add anything conditional, any
human works to your salvation, that is perverting the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. If they say, to be saved you
have to do blank, that's a perversion of the Gospel. The Gospel is
never, ever, ever, ever, ever You do this to get saved. The
gospel is never, you have to think this to be saved. Salvation
is something that happened completely and totally outside of us, even
our time. Salvation happened outside of
our little time bubble that we're in here. Salvation happened based
upon the Lord Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.
That's what saved his people, nothing else. Your belief didn't
save you, your works don't save you, your law keeping, what little
law keeping you think you can save, or do what you can't, that
does not save you. What saved you is the objective
work of Jesus Christ. Okay? His work that he done is
what saved his people. You're coming to understand that.
You're coming into the knowledge of that. That's called conversion.
That's a different story. That's something that comes whenever
you hear the truth and believe the truth because God has given
you faith to believe that. Again, God has to give you that
faith to believe it or you would never believe it. Okay? So that's
the gospel. The gospel is the finished work
of Jesus Christ. And he didn't have to do anything
for it. That's the gospel. Jesus did it all. Jesus took
your sin, Jesus took your wrath, and Jesus gave you his righteousness,
and therefore, all of his obedience to the law, the whole time that
he lived, he fulfilled the full law of God. And because he fulfilled
that, that goes to your credit. So you've fulfilled the law of
God. So whenever someone says, you've got to keep the law of
God, you can just tell them, hey, I already have. I've already kept all the
law. Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus fulfilled
it for me. And that's in my account. And
so Paul says that any other preaching is a perversion of that gospel. Now we don't want to be mean
to people. We don't like to, you know, be rude to people or
anything like that. But brethren, we do have to take
a stand, and especially within our local churches and within
our congregation, not allow that error in. Okay? Not go to that
error. Okay? A lot of people like to
go and listen to their famous preachers and things like this.
Those famous preachers that are preaching error, we don't need
to be listening to them. Matter of fact, the old Baptists,
back in the 1700s, 1800s, if you were a member of the Baptist
church there, if you went and listened to somebody outside
of that belief system, that faith, the doctrines of grace and the
Baptist immersion and all that kind of stuff, if you went, like,
to a Presbyterian church or something like that, they would exercise
discipline towards you, you know? And if you continued to do it,
then they would withdraw your membership from the church because
they believed that doctrine was so important. Doctrine was very
important. We see that all through the scripture
about how doctrine is very important. We shouldn't live just loose
and fast. Oh, it don't matter, or this or that. Now, with that,
we gotta remember, even though it's very important, And we need
to be very strict with our doctrine, how we deal with people in their
doctrine. And there may not be, there may
be error and things like that. There is a way that we need to
do that. We need to do that with long-suffering,
with gentleness, with meekness towards them. We need to continue
as long as they are open to listen, to continue to speak and minister
the truth to them. and not just be bullish with
them, right? But Paul says here, he makes
it very clear. He says, but though we are an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached
unto you, let him be accursed. Let that person be accursed.
And we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any
other gospel unto you than that ye have received, which is the
one that was received by Paul or from Christ, let him be accursed. He says, for do I now persuade
men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For
if I yet please men, I should not be the servants of Christ. So what's Paul saying here? He
says, if you're preaching a gospel message just to please the ones
that you're preaching to, just to make it easy or to make you
popular or to get more people in or whatever, if you're preaching
anything other than that sovereign grace gospel, if you're preaching
anything other than imputed righteousness, If you're preaching anything
like do this or do that or do this to be saved or to stay saved,
that's another gospel. And he says anybody that preaches
that, they're not a servant of Christ. They're not a servant
of Christ. They may think they are. They
may look like they are. They may be doing a lot of good
things and be zealous for some religious system that you think
or they think might be Christian. But brethren, anybody that is
doing that is not a servant of God. not according to Michael
Smith, not according to Sovereign Grace Baptist Church, but according
to God himself. He says, you're not pleasing
me, you're not serving me, if you preach a gospel that is grounded,
that is rooted, that has any bit of works added to it. It's not my gospel, and you're
not serving me. And why did I go back to that?
here in chapter four, Paul, who calls these brothers, brother
continues to call them brethren as long as they're under this
correction. And as in, if they heed this
correction, then it proves that they truly are brethren, that
they come out of this and in correction and being corrected
and begin to believe the truth. Once again, they, they believe
these things. Verse one of chapter three, oh
foolish Galatians who have bewitched you. that ye should not obey
the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set
forth, crucified among you." So the gospel was preached to
them, they received the gospel, but now they have turned away
to the law and the Judaizers, and in doing so, Paul is saying
that's foolish. If you move away from free grace
and begin to follow after law-keeping, then you're foolish. and you've
been bewitched. See what he says there? He says,
this only would I learn of you received you the spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Are you so foolish
having begun in the spirit? Are you now made perfect in the
flesh? See the Judaizers were saying
that it takes you keeping the law of Moses to continually be
sanctified, to become more and more and more holy. to be more
and more righteous before God, to stay righteous before God.
But Paul is saying, listen, there's no way you can ever do that.
Because here's your choices. Perfect or not perfect. That's your only two choices.
There's no middle area. There's no gray area for you to hover
in. Okay? You're either perfect all
the time or you're not perfect all the time. That's your two
choices. I mean, that's all we are. It's either perfect or not
perfect. Now if you try to do the law, the rules of the law
stand. And what does the law say? Remember
what it says? That you have to keep every law,
not just part of laws, not just some laws, but every law. You've
got to keep every law that God has ever given in that old law
system, you have to keep every one of them all the time, perfectly,
without fail. And if you break just one, at
just even one minute time, You have busted the whole thing.
You have now transgressed every law because the law, it's not
the laws of God, it's the law of God, singular. All those laws
make up one body and God says all of them work together. You've
got to either keep them all or break them all. There's no keeping
some and we don't have to do these but we can do these. No,
it's either you do them all or you don't do them all. Again,
no middle ground there. So if you want that system, then
you've got to follow every rule. And I'm here to tell you, brethren,
you've already broken them. You've already broken them. So
there's no hope in trying to keep the law. Or you're perfect. Now, how are we perfect? Do we
know people that actually keep the law? No, I just said we can't
keep the law. We've already broken them. Every
one of us has broken them. How are we perfect? We're perfect
by imputation. Jesus imputed or laid to our
account His righteousness. That's how we're perfect. We're
never perfect because of any works that we do. You'll never
be perfect. Ever. From the day you're born to the
day you die, You're never going to be perfect. You can't keep
it. Your flesh cannot do the law
of God. It's impossible. It's weak. The law is weak because
your flesh is weak. Your flesh cannot keep the law
of God. And so therefore, to try to go back under that system
is foolishness. You've been bewitched. To try
to preach that is to serve Satan and not Christ. To preach that
is to preach cursing upon people and not grace upon people. Salvation is by grace and not
by works, whether it be salvation in its legal sense or salvation
as far as your experience of that, your knowledge of how you're
saved. How are we saved? You know, I
mention a lot of times, I don't mean to get too far off track
here. I've already kind of gotten away from what I want to talk
about this morning. A lot of times whenever I talk to people,
we've had a few visitors that's come through and visited our
church over the years and everything. And sometimes, you know, they'll
ask if I can visit with them after the services. And a lot
of times whenever I'm talking with them, I'll ask about their
salvation. I say, well, how, you know, tell
me about your salvation experience. How, you know, how old were you
saved? And probably 80, 90% of the time,
They go, well, I used to be a drug addict and do this and do that
and everything. And I just realized that I needed
to get cleaned up. And so I happened into a church
one time and heard the preacher preaching. I gave my life to
Jesus and accepted him as my Lord and savior. And I got baptized
and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, whatever they
call them to do. I said this prayer, uh, become a member of
their church or whatever it was. Okay. Soon as they say, I did,
I mean, I already know that they don't know the gospel. See, whenever
you ask somebody, how did you get saved? Or how were you saved? The correct answer is never,
well, I did this. There's nothing you can say that
makes you saved in that sentence. In that instance, there's nothing
you can say. The only thing that we can say when someone says,
how did you get saved, or how were you saved, is Jesus Christ
bore my sins and He imputed a righteousness to me. I'm still a sinner but
in God's account I'm perfectly righteous and it's only because
of His imputed righteousness that I'm saved. Only because of His blood. It's
not your choosing Him. It's not your accepting Him. The Bible never tells you anywhere
to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. But the Bible
does say that you have to be accepted by Him. We have to be
accepted in the Beloved. Not us except the Beloved, brother. And so what Paul was telling
his brother is listen, you guys are going back, they're taking
the same, and we use the term Arminian, but you're going back
to the same free will man work system that was already being
preached You're going back under that. These guys are disguising
it as zealously obeying the law of God. We want to obey the law
of God. But they're disguising the same heresy that has always
been is that you can provide a righteousness of your own by
doing good works. Good works can never be done
in our flesh. That's why we have to be saved
by Christ. That's why we need His life. and obedience for our own. That's
why we need His death for us. That's why we need His blood
to cleanse us from our sin. Because our works can never ever
please God, because the flesh cannot please God. And so Paul
here in verse 9, as we've been looking at, and then we spent
several weeks in Romans saying why the law is bondage, because
the law is weak, the law occurs, the law cannot be kept, the law
is a schoolmaster and all these things that the law is and what
it was intended for but it was never given to make anybody righteous. And so Paul in Galatians chapter
4 and verse 9 says, but now after that ye have known God or rather
are known of God How turn ye again to the weak and beggarly
elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? See,
Paul even calls the law at that point, as it pertains to the
child of grace, the weak and beggarly elements. Okay? It's the weak and beggarly elements.
This is not what Christianity is about. This is not what salvation
is about. This is not what the gospel is
about. The law and the gospel are not
the same thing. The law was to show you your
inability, your need for Christ. The law was there to condemn
you before God. And now Christ and the gospel
tells us of how we are not condemned because we are in Christ Jesus.
He died for us. He's our representative. He is
our head. He is our Savior. We've looked at that question
of why do they desire to be in bondage again? Why is the law
bondage? And we found that the law is
bondage because whenever you preach the law, you cannot keep
the law. Nobody can keep it. And so to
preach that to people, for them to keep for a righteousness,
is to keep them all the time in bondage to the condemnation
of the law. But we've been set free from
the condemnation of the law. As a matter of fact, remember
we read last week that we have died to the law. We are free
from that, we are no longer under the dominion of the law. And
so now Paul goes on, let's move forward, I'm going to move on
in our Galatians exposition, back out of Romans. Verse 10
he said, Ye observe days and months and times and years, and
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Now what is Paul talking about? Ye observe days and months and
times and years. Well, he's going back and talking
about the old law system. Though all the laws of Moses
was set up around not only just the sacrifices, but all the feasts
and the festivals and the Sabbaths that they had to keep. And if
you go back and look, there was like 700 laws in the Old Testament
that they had to keep. And these feasts and festivals,
all these things that they had to keep for all the time, they
was constantly having to keep this and do that. They had the
weekly Sabbath. They had the yearly Sabbath.
They had the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast
of Pentecost. They had the Passover. They had
all these things that they had to continue to keep. But what
all those things was, they were never intended to save anybody. Matter of fact, in Hebrews, we
find out that God says even though he ordained those things for
that time period, he never found pleasure in those and that none
of those ever saved anybody by the sacrifice of bulls and goats
and all those other sacrifices that they did. It never saved
anybody. It never was intended to save
anybody. They were all types and foreshadows to point to what
Christ would do. And therefore, there was no saving
value in keeping the law. The very fact that every year
they had to bring a sacrifice before God showed that they were
not keeping the law. Okay? But he says, so now you've
heard the gospel of free grace. You've been set free. You're
not under the law. You've been given a righteousness
that's of your own. There is no works that is required
of you that Christ has taken your punishment upon himself.
Why now are you wanting to go back under something that all
it's going to do is condemn you to punishment. And so it says, for example,
ye observe days and months and times and years. Now let me just
say this, brethren, there's still a segment of people today, I've
mentioned them before, it's called, today, the modern term, it's
called the Hebrew Roots Movement. They're the modern day Judaizers.
And not just them, there are others, even among sovereign
grace people, who believe that we're still under the law, to
keep the law, especially the moral law. And they teach these
things, and they bring their hearers underneath these things,
and all they're doing is cursing their hearers. All they're doing
is bringing them into bondage. And Paul here is saying, this
is what these Judaizers are doing. They're telling you to keep the
law of Moses, so you need to continue to keep these days,
and months, and times, and years. What do they mean by that? Well,
the first thing he mentions is, he mentions, you observe days.
They had a seven-day Sabbath every Saturday. They had to observe
the Sabbath, and they didn't do anything on that Sabbath.
So from 6 p.m. on Friday evening till 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, that was
the Sabbath for them. They couldn't do anything. I
mean, nothing. You couldn't kindle a fire. You
couldn't walk very far. You couldn't do nothing. No work,
no labor. And so they observe these things
and even today we have people like the C. Burroughs movement
who they say, hey, churches should be on Saturday. That's the Sabbath. So we got
to keep the Sabbath. And so they don't do anything.
And so they prepare and they stop whatever they're doing at
sundown and they keep it until the sunset the next day. And
they do all these things on there. according to this Jewish Hebrew
law system. And just a side note of my side
note, we are not a Christian Judeo
religion. We're not a Christian Judeo religion. There is no Judeo about us at
all. We are not a Christian Jewish
religion. The Jews rejected Jesus Christ. The Jewish system has been done
away with. Jesus, before he died, he said,
I will leave your house desolate. That Jewish system is gone. We
are not serving the same God. The Jews that are Jews today
are not serving our God. They are not serving. They are
not the children of God. They are. Matter of fact, Jesus
called them the children of Satan. They are the tabernacle of Satan.
They are not. I'm not being anti-semitic. I'm talking about the religious
system. I'm not talking about the ethnic people or the racialness
of this thing. I'm talking about the religious
system. The religious Jewish system is an anathema. It's a
curse. It's not serving the God of the
Bible. If they were serving the God
of the Bible, they would be worshiping Christ. And they would be leaving
the law behind. And there are some that say,
well, they are these Jews that are Messianic Jews. They believe
in Christ, but they still continue in this Jewish stuff. Well, if
you're still trying to put the law in with the Gospel, Paul
said that's a perversion of the Gospel, and that that does not
serve Christ. If it's not serving Christ, it's
serving the other Lord, which is Satan. You're either a child
of Christ or you're a child of Satan. There's no middle ground
there either. You're one or the other. And
Jesus said that the children of Satan will follow and listen
to what their fathers tells them. And they will not believe what
Jesus says because their father is the father of lies. They will
listen to lies and believe lies. They won't believe truth. So
whenever I preach the truth of Jesus Christ out of the scriptures
and say, this law is abrogated for us, this law is done away
for us, and someone doesn't believe that, if they're believing that,
it's either because their child of grace is yet to be given revelation
of that by the Spirit, or it's a child of Satan who does not
listen to that, cannot hear it, cannot understand. Jesus said,
the reason you don't hear my words is because you're not of
God. If you were of God, you would
hear my words. what Jesus said. He also said
that you cannot hear because you are your father the devil.
How about that? I actually used that very line
that Jesus used just not too long ago. A man who had come
and made a post on Facebook about God predestinating everything.
and that it isn't about our wills, but he is predestined to everything.
And he came on and he mentioned something about sin. He said,
well, what about sin? Is that outside of God's will?
I said, no, if it was outside of God's will, it wouldn't happen.
I said, God controls all things. And so, you know, he thought
that that was crazy. And he said, well then, obviously,
if I don't believe what you're saying, it's because God has
predestined that I not do that. And I said, you're exactly right.
You're exactly right. I said, if you don't believe
this, it's because God has predestined you not to believe that. I mean,
that is the truth of scripture. And sometimes that's a harsh
thing to say. Sometimes it's a harsh thing to say. Here, like
Paul, he says, if you're believing these things, you're back in
bondage. If you're believing these things and thinking you're
keeping these things, you're not keeping these things. But
if you think you're keeping these things, you're under a curse.
You're being bewitched. You're foolish. He's saying you
think that you coming in here and keeping these Sabbaths is
going to do anything? That Sabbath that was in the Old Testament
was meant to point to the One who is our Sabbath. Christ is
our Sabbath. What does the word Sabbath mean?
You guys have been in church most of your life. What does
the word Sabbath mean? What does the word Sabbath mean?
That was not a music group, although there is a music group called
that. The word Sabbath means rest. It means rest. Jesus is our rest. Jesus is our
Sabbath. He's our rest. We rest in Him.
We're not working to rest. Sunday isn't our day of rest. Saturday isn't our day of rest. Christ is our rest. What are
you talking about preacher? What I'm talking about is all
the things that were required of the people to do on the seventh
day, they just rested. They just rest. Don't do nothing.
We put away all our works and they did that in honor of God
whenever he created the earth in six days and on the seventh
day he rested from his labors. So for them, For six days we
have to labor, labor, labor for God, but on the seventh day we
get to just rest and worship God. The other days we're working
for God, working for righteousness, working for this, but on the
seventh we get to rest and just worship God and enjoy the day.
Well, Jesus is our rest. We rest all the time. Every day
is rest for the Christians. Every day is rest. We rest in
the fact that Jesus has done it all for us. We don't have
to do anything. We have ceased from our labors. Why? Because
Jesus has accomplished our labors for us, on our behalf. Now let
me ask you a question. If you guys had a job somewhere,
doing whatever, let's say it was out digging a 10-mile ditch.
You had to start first thing in the morning, and you had to
dig a ditch, and it had to be done by the end of the evening.
Okay? And you got out there and you
got your shovels all out and got your, you know, post hole
diggers, your rock pick hammers and all that stuff to break through
rocks. And you got your string that you line out so that your ditch ain't, you know, crooked
and all that stuff. You get all your tools out there
and you turn around and all of a sudden there's that ditch already
dug for you. And you look over and say, well,
how'd that happen? And there's somebody there. saying, hey man,
I went ahead and I took care of that for you. Because I know
looking at those tools that you got, you wouldn't have made it
10 miles. Looking at your health, I don't think you could have
got a couple of miles. It's a long way. 10 miles is
a long way to dig in one day. I don't think you couldn't have
done that. There's absolutely no way you
could have done that. But I can, and I did it for you.
Would you turn around and argue with him and say, here, let's
put that all back and let me dig this ditch? Or would you try to get next
to that and try to dig another one beside his? That's foolishness
to us, right? We think that was dumb. We turn
around, what would we do? We turn around and say, well, thanks. Appreciate that. Thanks. All right, well, here, I'm going
to put my tools away, sit down in my lawn chair and get a glass
of tea and enjoy the beautiful ditch that was dug for me. It's no more different than what
we're looking at in the gospel, brethren. Jesus has already provided
a salvation for us. He has already provided the obedience
to the law for you, if you're a child of grace. He has already
taken the wrath of God for you, if you're a child of grace. There
is nothing you have to do to work to do that. And so Paul
is saying here, listen, Christ is our We don't have to keep
keeping the Sabbath. So that's what the days meant. Every Sabbath day, they had to
keep going over and over again. And it was every week, every
week, every week. But then he says that you observe
months. Well, what are the months? Well, in the Jewish religious
system, they had all these new moons every month. And whenever
the moon came full again, they had the sacrifices. They had
the hearing of the law. And they had to continue to keep
these things. They had to keep these sacrifices.
They had to come and listen to the hearing of the law. But brethren,
the Bible teaches us that Christ is the end of the law for us. The Bible teaches us that He
is the only sacrifice. He is the last sacrifice. Hebrew
tells us by His one sacrifice, He has perfected all His people
for all time. Perfected them. By His sacrifice,
He has perfected His people. Not by His sacrifice plus your
obedience. It's by His sacrifice. We look
to His sacrifice as our obedience. And so there isn't these new
moon things, these observing monks. We don't have to observe
all the things of the sacrifices and the hearing of the law and
all these things. Christ does that for us. We don't
have to be reminded that we are breaking the law over and over
and over again. We know that the Spirit of God
in us convicts us and tells us that we are breaking the law
of God, that we are sinning against Him, that we have transgressed
Him. But brethren, what the Spirit
also tells us is that we have been saved from those things,
that we have been cleared of all those charges that ever come
up. So what we do, we take and say,
thank you. We say, thank you for your salvation. Thank you for your grace. We
confess our sin before God that we are disobedient, but we are
thankful that God has saved us and has put away those sins that
we are not held under those any longer. He says that, he says,
you observe days and months and times What are times? Well, there was the Feast of
Tabernacle. That was a certain time that they had to acknowledge
that there was the Feast of the Passover, the Feast of Pentecost.
Every one of these, Christ is the fulfillment of those feasts.
Every one of those, Christ fulfilled that. The Feast of the Tabernacle,
what did that type of shadow point to? It pointed to the fact
that Christ would come in the flesh. The Bible says that his
name will be Emmanuel, God with us, that he tabernacled with
us, that he came and lived among us in the flesh. Okay? And so he fulfilled the Feast
of the Tabernacles. What about the Feast of the Passover?
Well, Christ, the Bible says that Christ is our Passover.
He died for us. He is the sacrificial lamb of
the Passover that was slain. Okay? So he is our Passover. There is no more need to do that. Whenever some people take the
Lord's Supper, they say that that's the Passover. The Lord's
Supper and the Passover are not the same thing. The Lord's Supper
is not the continuation of the Passover of the Old Testament.
The Lord's Supper was instituted after the Passover dinner was
completed. So it's not the same thing. We're
not having Passover. And I listen to, and I even know,
even in my own hometown, I've seen churches there that they
gather together and they have a community Passover celebration. Brethren, if you're a child of
grace, if you're a Christian and you're proclaiming Christ
as Savior, there is no more Passover for you. Christ did it all for
you. And to continue to celebrate
the Passover is to be like the Catholic who continues to crucify
Christ over and over and over again in the mass. It's no different. All that is is the Protestant
version of the Catholic observance. And both of them are Antichrist.
So let's not do that. Let's not do that. What about
Pentecost, the Feast of Pentecost? Well, brother, Christ has also
fulfilled the Feast of Pentecost. He sent down His Spirit, and
that Spirit works in the heart of the elect to bring them to
the knowledge of Christ. to convert them, to grant them
repentance and faith so that they would believe the gospel.
And when do we see that happen? We see that on the very first
sermon that was preached after Christ's resurrection. Peter
preached and what happened? 3,000 people were converted that
day. The Feast of Pentecost is also
called the Feast of Firstfruits or the Feast of Weeks. Those 3,000 souls were the first
fruits of the Gospel dispensation. Moving from the Old Testament
dispensation, and whenever I say dispensation, I'm not claiming
to be a dispensationalist. I'm talking about the era of
the Law and Prophets ended with John the Baptist and the beginning
of the preaching of the Gospel started. The New Testament began
with John. and started going forward. And
we see the first fruits after Christ's death. The Bible says
that unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies,
it abides alone. But if it dies, it bears forth
fruit. Christ died, he was buried, he
was raised to life, and with him, all the elect of Christ
was resurrected with him. And we've seen 3,000 souls that
come to acknowledge that by faith, repentance and faith, as the
first fruits Then we see he says, he observed
days and months and times and years. In the Jewish belief system
and under the law, there were Sabbath years. Every seven years
was a Sabbath year. And during that Sabbath year,
not only did you rest, but you also left your ground. All the ground that you tilled
and you worked for six years, in that seventh year, you left
it alone. You didn't toil or work the ground,
and you let the ground rest. during that time period. Matter
of fact, there are farmers that still follow that rule just because
it actually works. I mean, the ground replenishes
itself, the nutrients that is needed by doing that. Now, what
they'll do is they'll row, you know, they'll hold a row of places
to plant here, but they'll leave this section empty and then they'll
work that and everything and then they'll switch over to this
side and then they'll leave this empty for a period of time and
that way the soil regains its nutrients and things like that
and everything. So they use the principle that's
there but as far as a worship thing, as far as a religious
thing, the seven year Sabbath is done away with. Christ again
is our Sabbath. On the 50th year, every 50th
year they have the festival or the Feast of Jubilee And in that
50th year, all the servants, all the slaves were set free. They were given liberty and set
free. Okay, if you had slaves, every
50 years, you lost your slaves. All your slaves were set free. Brethren, Christ has also fulfilled
this. He is our Jubilee. Whenever Christ
died for us, He paid all of our, that was the other thing in Jubilee
is if you owed anything, if you had any debts, all your debts
were cleared out. I'd be nice. I wouldn't mind
seeing that stick around, to be honest. Of course, I have
to wait one more year, at least until September. I turned 50
in September, so that means all my debts would be cleared out.
I wouldn't owe anything. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? Christ has already paid all of
our debts so we don't owe anything. Christ has already given us liberty. He has given us freedom. So, observing these feasts, observing
these Sabbaths, these new moons, these sacrifices, these Sabbath
years, observing days and months and times and years, Paul goes
on to say, I'm afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you
labor in vain. He's saying, listen, if you continue
to do this, I am afraid that my message, that my gospel that
I've preached unto you has fallen on dead ears. Because if you
continue in this, this is a disparaging of Christ, to continue to observe is here, it's ridiculous. You
are, you've heard the term, and matter of fact, Byron mentioned
this phrase just yesterday, I think it was, you observe the creation
rather than the creator. Now we think that's kind of dumb,
right? How come you're over here worshipping this, you ought to
be worshipping the one that made that. I mean, this is awesome, yes,
But the very fact that this awesomeness was made by this person, then
that means this thing is even more awesome because he made
that awesomeness. See, that's why it's crazy to worship the
creation rather than the creation because we're created. All of
us are created. Everything's created. The one that should
be worshipped is the one that created all things. Not all things
that were created. That's kind of dumb. Same thing
here with Paul is saying. Why are you worshipping all the
types and the shadows whenever everything the types and shadows
was pointing to is already here and has done it? You're going
back and worshipping the shadows and not the substance. It'd be
like me going out here and standing on this porch with the sun shining
and trying to shake hands with the shadow. If you'd go out there
and try to shake hands with my shadow that would be dumb because
I'm standing right there to shake my hand. Why do you want to go back and
observe the types and shadows that was meant to point you to
the one who was to come to observe all those things for you and
to deliver you from those things? The condemnation that fell upon
you because you couldn't keep them. Why would you do that? And so Paul's saying, listen,
if you continue to walk in this way, I'm afraid that my message
has fallen on dead ears, not, or deaf ears, I guess I could
say deaf ears. but dead ears. You were like the parable that
Jesus preached about how the seed was sown and after a little
while it popped up, but then it withered away. Or it was swept
away, or the carrion was taken away. You know, those three soils
that didn't produce anything. See, the soil has to be made
good before there's any fruit. And if they continued in this
way and there's no fruit, Now whenever we say free, we're not
talking about good works by the flesh, we're talking about the
works of the Spirit inward. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
trusting Him for our salvation. That's the works of God that
you believe. This is the work of God that you believe. That's
what the Bible says. The works of the Spirit are love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, general. These are all internal spiritual
works, not outside fleshly works. And Paul's saying, you know,
hey, brethren, If you continue these things, I think what's
happened here is I've preached to dead ears. I've preached to
dead ears. He says, verse 12, Brethren,
I beseech you, be as I am, for I am as ye are, and ye have not
injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity
of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. So Paul
here is saying, he said, listen, I wish that you would be as I
am. I'm trusting Christ. I am looking
to Christ. I am preaching the gospel, which
is free grace, sovereign grace. Now they didn't use those terms.
We've coined those terms through time. They may have used those
terms. I don't know. It's not found
in the Bible anywhere though, but we've turned the term. We have formed those terms. But yet, it's the same thing.
He's saying, if you preach the gospel, which is a gospel of
grace, not works and everything, and if you turn back from those things,
you've not injured me at all. He said, listen, I hate to see
you going this way. I hate to see you going down
this path, believing these things, being bewitched, being a fool
to believe that you can keep the law for righteousness. But
he said, if you be as I am, and I am as you are, then you've
not injured me any. Praise God that you have been
turned back to the truth. Praise God that you've been back
to the gospel. He says, you know how through
infirmity of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at the first
hour. I'll be honest with you right here, brethren, and I can
take correction from anybody that wants to give me correction
on this. I don't know whether or not this is talking about
the infirmity of the flesh. I don't know if that's talking
about a problem that Paul had in his body as far as some sort
of an impairment or, you know, some people say he had a headache,
some people say he had eye problems, some people say he had a back
problem. I don't know what the case might
be, to be honest with you. But he says, you know how through
infirmity of the flesh, and if I'm looking at it in a spiritual
way, I'm thinking about even though through the infirmity
of my flesh, the inability for me to do anything right, I preach
the gospel unto you at the first. See, I'm doing that right now.
I'm preaching to you the gospel, but I can't preach perfect. I
don't have perfect knowledge. I don't know everything. I don't
know all of this. And even if I could quote all
of this by memory, that still don't mean I have understanding
of all of this. No preacher does. If you think
a preacher knows all of this, You're wrong. And if you have
a preacher that's telling you he knows all this, I'd check
out and go somewhere else. That preacher is full of pride
and boasting. Listen, I'm in ignorance of a
lot of things. It's only by grace that we know
anything. It's only by grace that we are revealed things.
And Paul is saying here, he says, you know that through the infirmity
of the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at the first."
And as we remember, Paul said that gospel that he preached
to them was the gospel that Jesus gave to him directly. He didn't
go and, matter of fact, let's turn back to it so we don't misquote
it and that we don't think it's just me saying it. Verse 11,
chapter 1. It says, But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel
which was preached of me is not after man. He said, I didn't
get my doctrine from a theology book. I didn't go looking at
the commentaries. I didn't go looking at the creeds
and confessions of men. I didn't go to some other famous
theologian and ask him, what do I need to believe about this?
What should I think about this? No. He said, that's not how I
received this. He said, for I neither received
it of man, neither was I taught it by man, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ. Now brethren, I'm here to say,
that the only way that you know anything, any way that I know
anything of truth about this Word, if it be the truth, is
because of the revelation by Jesus Christ Spirit. I can preach
all day long, and I can teach all day long, but unless the
Spirit reveals that to you and teaches you that, you're never
going to understand it, you're never going to learn it. It's
not going to become wisdom to you. It's just going to still
be foolish to you. But when the Holy Spirit teaches
you that, then those things you begin to understand and you have
that wisdom of God. And so Paul here is basically
saying the same thing. He says that, I have preached
these things to you from the very beginning, even though through
the infirmity of my flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first,
and that gospel that I preached was not from man. These Judaizers
are coming and bringing you something from man. Remember, we went back
to Acts. What happened? This became such
a This became such a problem with these Judaizers that Paul
and Barnabas went back to Jerusalem and met with the apostles that
were there in Jerusalem and said, hey, we've got to nip this in
the bud. These Judaizers coming down and
wreaking all kinds of havoc in the Gentile churches. They're
coming out here and preaching that they have to be under the
law and preach the law and they teach that these guys have to
be under the law of Moses and be circumcised to be saved and
that is not what Jesus taught us. And these people are being
drawn away by these things and we need to come together and
be in unity on all this, whether it be me and all the other apostles
that are out preaching to the Gentiles and you guys here that
are preaching to the Jews. We need to come together and
we need to make clear that that is not the gospel. And that's
exactly what they did. They came together and they discussed
it and they said, yes, that is not The gospel, as a matter of
fact, the Gentiles never was under the law. Why should we
put the law on them that we, us, and our forefathers could
never keep, right? Remember us going over that?
So, Paul is saying the gospel we preach to you is a gospel
of grace, not a gospel of works and law. If you believe that,
you're being bewitched, you're being drawn away. He says, you
know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel
unto you at the first. And my temptation, which was
in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected, but received me
as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus himself. So he's saying,
listen, he said, you guys received the word and you received me
as if Jesus himself were here preaching to you. You was glad
to hear it. You was, you was, uh, uh, uh,
rejoicing to hear this message. And then verse 15, he says, Where
is then the blessedness you spake of? You said you were blessed
to have heard that gospel message, but where is it now? You're wanting
to go back to Moses. It says, for I bear you record
that if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your
own eyes. And again, see, he's talking about, man, the affection
here between us or between Paul and the Galatians was so great. And they love the fact that he
brought them that message. And it resulted in their soul
so great that they were thankful for that, even to the point where
Paul says, listen, you loved on me so much for bringing this
good news that you probably would have even plucked out your own
eyes and given them to me. But look what he says in verse
16. He says, but am I now therefore become your enemy because I tell
you the truth? See the very man that they loved
for bringing the good news of the true gospel, now they were
like, I don't know about that. And they began to believe the
Judaizers. And now they're thinking Paul
is an enemy. We shouldn't be listening to Paul. And so Paul
is asking, have I now become your enemy because I tell you
the truth? Are you now going to be my enemy
or are you going to repent? and believe the gospel. See, brethren, whenever we preach
the gospel, we're going to make enemies. Whenever we preach against
law-keeping for righteousness, we're going to make enemies.
But the fact remains is the revelation that we have of the gospel came
by Jesus Christ. That is His truth. Listen, if
it was Mike Smith preaching Like Galatians chapter 1 says, to
persuade men and to be a pleaser of men, I wouldn't be preaching
these messages that I preach here. I would go back to my Armenian
days and preach those messages that I used to preach. Accept the Lord Jesus Christ.
Believe upon Him and you'll be saved. If you'll do this, if
you'll do that. Every head bowed, every eye closed, raise your
hand if you love Jesus. One of those types of messages.
I would go back to all this ooey-gooey that everybody's all right and
you just need to do your best to serve Jesus Christ, to live
in community with each other and to press into Christ and
to all, you know, all this stuff that we use types and phrases
and we use, you know, little TikTok type mentality for religion. when the heart of the religion
is preaching the gospel. It's not about preaching how
good you are. It's not about preaching how good you could
be. It's not about preaching how much you need to be doing.
What we need in the pulpits as men to preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ. We have hearers that are not
listening to Jesus. And as we obviously see here
in Galatia, Now, I don't think that we could fall away. The
Bible is very clear that the Holy Spirit will preserve us
and keep us from falling away. But that doesn't mean that for
a short time that we can be fools and be bewitched by tinkling
sounding things. And thank the Lord the Holy Spirit
will convict us of that, teach us of that, draw us back into
Christ, not into Christ, we're in Christ all the time, but draw
us back to the truth But brethren, when we have men
in the pulpits that are preaching conditional works for righteousness,
it's just a tinkling in the ear because the flesh loves to hear
that stuff. The flesh loves to hear that.
And we're going to see that as we go further. I mean, these
men, he says, they zealously affect you, but not well. Yea,
they would exclude you that they might affect them. But it is
good to be zealously affected always in a good thing and not
only when I am present with you. And as we go on to see, we'll
see that these men, the whole reason they preach this to these
people is because it pumps up their pride. It boasts of them. I got them to become more holy
and more righteous by my preaching. God forbid that we have preachers
that boast in their own abilities that think that because of their
preaching that they are changing anything. It's only God that
does that. My preaching, all it does is
confirm what the Holy Spirit's already teaching you or taught
you in your heart. We still need faithful preachers.
God makes faithful preachers. They don't become that themselves.
Listen, you can spend 25 hours a week, 30 hours, 50 hours a
week in a study, studying, and that ain't gonna make you a better
preacher. It ain't going to give you the ability to change hearts,
to change minds, to make holy people. All that's going to do
is give you 50 hours of studying. We need men that rely and look
to the Holy Spirit to give them the words to say. We need preachers
that will preach the truth no matter how it's going to affect
those that are hearing it. We need to preach the gospel
of Jesus Christ. We need to pray that the Spirit
would give us the unction to do that. The Spirit would give
us the ability to preach that truth and to stay faithful. Because
listen, there's a time coming. We talked about that at our men's
breakfast yesterday. There's a time coming, and the
Bible even tells us, that people will not put up with sound doctrine.
There's going to come a time when they will not put up with
sound doctrine. But they're going to gather around
themselves, preachers and teachers, that tell them what their tickling
ears want to hear. And they're going to be in masses.
They're going to be a lot of them. And as you can see, our
churches that preach the truth most generally are little bitty,
small churches. You can almost, you can almost,
I'm not going to say exactly, but you can almost look and see
if there's a big church somewhere, more than likely they're pandering
to the people's flesh and not preaching the truth. Because
the Bible says that there are few that are on the road. There
are few that believe these things. We are a remnant of people that
believe these things. And that there's not many that
believe. But there's a whole lot going down the other road.
That the truth that we preach is going to be rejected by the
world. But if you find yourself popular
with the world, more than likely, You're not preaching Christ and
His gospel. Because the Bible says that's
offensive. It's foolishness to those who are perishing. The Bible says that it is a savor
of death to those who are perishing, not a savor of life. So we must
keep preaching the truth, just as Paul, even in these hard circumstances,
and we pray that God would grant repentance to those who are being
led astray by these false doctrines and false gospels that are being
preached and particularly those that we can keep the law for
righteousness. All right, does anybody have any questions or
any comments? Anything that you would like
cleared up? I know that I'm not a great orator
or preacher and sometimes I speak confusingly. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, we again thank you for this day, and we thank you for
your word. We thank you for the Spirit of God. We thank you for the blood of Jesus.
We thank you for the work of Christ on our behalf, his life, which the Bible says that he
lived in perfect obedience to all that the Father had given
him to do, that every law that God had ever demanded everyone. For all the types and
foreshadows throughout the Old Testament, Jesus Christ fulfilled
every one of them. We pray, Lord, and thank you
for the death that he died. The Bible says that the wages
of sin is death, and we are all sinners. If we say we have not
sinned, we have made God out to be a liar. for all have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death. But
Father, we're happy today. We're rejoicing today, but we're
also humbled today because Christ has died for His people. Scriptures
say that His name was called Jesus because He came to save
His people from their sin, and that He did. He cried it is finished
at the very completion of his time here for what he came to
do. He did not come to raise an army.
He did not come to institute an earthly kingdom. He came to
save his people from their sin. And all that the Father had given
him, he will lose none. That is why he cried, it is finished.
So his life and his death on our behalf, we thank you, Father.
The Lord, we also thank you for his resurrection, for in his
resurrection, not only were we resurrected and given life, not
only were we resurrected and justified by his blood, but by
his resurrection as well. By his resurrection, it justified
the fact that God was pleased with that sacrifice on behalf
of all of his people, and that everyone for whom Christ died
The benefits of that salvation, justification, sanctification,
glorification, repentance, faith, those are all theirs by promise. And Father, we are so grateful
for Christ's life, his death, and his resurrection. But Father,
we are also looking forward to Christ's soon return. We pray,
Lord, that he might come quickly. The days are evil, our country
is turned wicked, more wicked than we have ever seen in our
generation or in our time or in the life of this country.
And Father, we know that you are sovereign and in control
of all things and have purposed all things and the ends thereof
for your glory. And so we know that nothing is
out of control, but Father, to live in this cesspool of society
that disregards you, that hates you, And that evil is waxing
worse and worse every day around us. Father, we look forward to
the time when our King Jesus will come and take us away from
this sin and destroy this body of flesh that has haunted us
from the day that we were born with sin and death. And that
he might take this world and that he might burn it away and
bring forth in the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness. Father, we look forward to our
new home, our new body, our new tabernacle, as some would say,
maybe even mansion, that you've built for us, the body that will
in-house this perfect spirit of God that will not know sin. So Father, Lord, we are grateful
for all that you've done on our behalf. I'm grateful for these
brethren that are here today that you brought. I pray, Lord,
that you have taught and encouraged them today, that you've edified
them for those watching and listening. I pray that they have been edified.
Lord, may you be with us as we leave. Again, we also lift up
Kevin, again, that you might extend a hand of healing, Lord,
to him, that you might be with their family. Lord, keep us this
week as we leave this place. May you give us opportunity to
share the gospel of Jesus Christ to anybody that we're around.
Lord, we pray that if there's any in this city, as we always
do, that desire the truth, wayward sheep that do not even know that
this church is here, or looking for a place that preaches the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, may you bring their paths
across to us, that you might bring them in, that we might
labor together in the gospel, that we might labor together
as brothers and sisters in Christ. Father, Lord, we just thank you
again your love that you've given to us through the Lord Jesus
Christ and we thank you for the life that you have brought us
in the new birth and we thank you Father for the opportunity
to gather together and to worship you and we pray that it has been
a sweet savor to you today and it's in Christ's name that we
pray these things.