read God's word, that increases
our faith because that faith that God has given us inwardly
is going to grasp those promises, is going to grasp that gospel,
and that's what gives us the hope. That's why the Bible says
that faith is the evidence of things unseen, you know? Faith
is not something in the tangible. Our faith doesn't lie in the
tangible things, you know, that we see. Our faith lies in what
we cannot see, what Christ has promised us, that he has promised
us to do us good, he's promised us to all things work together
for good, he's promised that he will deliver us from all things,
and that even the chastisement that we experience is his love
being shown to us in conforming us to the image of Christ. And
so whenever we sing these songs, they shouldn't just be words
that fly out of our lips for no reason, We ought to truly
in our heart be thinking that, you know, hey, I look to the
Lord for my hope. My hope is in the Lord. It's
not in myself. It's not in anybody else. My hope is in the Lord
and all the things that I experienced and everything comes by his hand. And I will just trust in him.
It might be bad, but, you know, it could be worse. It could be
worse. God could have left me in my
sin. He could have left me destined for hell. but he didn't do that. He chose me and he called me
and he gave me grace and quickening and he's given me faith to believe
and now he's given me the word of God to read and to know of
him and to know of his salvation and to know of his work that
he's doing and to know of our future. You know, what's gonna
happen in the future? And through all these things,
this is what keeps the child of grace from despair and from
doubt It's whenever our mind is fixed on Him, whenever it's
stayed upon Him as that passage says. Does anybody have another
song that you'd like to sing? What's that one? My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus for the righteousness. On Cross the Solid Rock I Stand?
Yeah. Do you talk in that one? It'll be in the old school hymn
book if it's in here. That might be the one that's
not in there. 203 in the old school hymn book. 203. That's a great song too. One
of my favorite hymns. I got a lot of favorite hymns.
Besides rock. 203. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
prank, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground
is sinking sand. When darkness seems to hide His
face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy
gale My anchor holds within the veil On Christ the solid rock
I stand All other ground is sinking sand All other ground is sinking
sand His oath, His covenant, His blood support me in the whelming
flood. When all around my soul gives
way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock
I stand, all other ground, sinking sand all other ground is sinking
sand when he shall come with trumpet sound oh may I then and
him be found Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before
the throne. On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand. That's right. Anybody else got
one? All right. Is that already going? Okay. All right. Galatians chapter
two. We've made it through chapter
one. for those who may have not been
with us through the first chapter. Remember, we have on Facebook,
if you have Facebook, we have the church's Facebook site. You
can go back, watch the videos of the sermons each week. Also, if you go to sermonaudio.com,
all of our sermons, the audio portion of that, I try to upload
each week's sermon sometime throughout the week, so they're there before
the next Sunday, but they're there also so you can listen
to the audio of the message. So you can go back and catch
up if you missed out on any of these. There's also, Sermon Audio
also has, and I'll pull it up here so y'all can see what it
looks like. Sermon Audio, you can get the Sermon Audio app,
but you also can get an app, I don't know if the kids can
see this, It's called Church One. Church One. It's just a blue thing with a
church on it. That's a sister app to the Sermon
Audio app. And with Church One, whenever
you go to Church One, you can plug in the church of your choice
that you want to get updates from. And then every time I upload
a sermon, it will automatically notify you a new sermon has been
uploaded. And then whenever you go to that, it just brings up
those, that way you don't have to try to find our church on
Sermon Audio or anything like that. It will bring up all the
new, and I think it shows, if I'm not mistaken, it will show, it shows our name and where we're
located and all the information about us. And then it shows the
first three or last three or four there, and then you can
push more sermons and everything. And then you can either download
them to your phone or device or whatever and listen to them
later or whatever you want to do. So there's several ways to
be able to do that. Right now our website is not
up and running. It's also on our website as well,
but I have to change formats on our website because the browsers
now are no longer able to work with the old technology that
our website was made with. So can't do it with our website
right now until I find some time to be able to get that rebuilt
on another platform so that it works with all the new browsers
and stuff like that, technology. Technology increases, I slowly
go behind it. So anyway, eventually it'll be
back on our website where you can go to our website and see
the last five sermons at a time. And anytime you click on any
of those links and any of those things, it'll take you to Sermon
Audio. And you can find all of ours, we got over 200 sermons
there so far this time. So if anybody watching, listening,
or here needs to catch up or wants to catch up, you can do
that. All right, Galatians chapter
two. I'm gonna read from verse one down to verse 10. We'll have
a word of prayer, and then we'll kind of dive into the exposition
here. Galatians chapter two, starting in verse one, it says,
after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus
with me also, and I went up by revelation and communicated unto
them that gospel which I preached among the Gentiles, but privately
to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run
or had run in vain. But neither Titus, who was with
me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And that because
a false brethren, unawares, brought in, who came in privily to spy
out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might
bring us into bondage. To whom we gave place by subjection,
no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue
with you. But of these who seem to be somewhat,
whatsoever they were, make it no matter to me, God accepted
no man's person. For they who seem to be somewhat
in conference added nothing to me. But contrary wise, when they
saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the
gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter, for he that wrought
effectually in Peter to apostleship of the circumcision, the same
was mighty in me toward the Gentiles. And when James, Cephas, and John,
who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto
me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship,
that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision.
Only they would that we should remember the poor, the same which
I also was forward to do. Our gracious heavenly Father,
we come to you this morning. We thank you for this song service,
Father. We thank you for the time that we've had and the truth
that was sung in those days, and what a blessing to our heart
that it is. Father, we just thank you for
who you are, for the grace and the sovereign rule that you have
over all things and the blessed promises that you've given us
in your word the very fact that you've given us your word and
your spirit to understand it and to know it father and to
be taught of it by him and so Lord we just are so grateful
that you've given us all these things for life and for godliness
that you've given us all things that we need for life and for
godliness whether it be you in the form of your spirit in us
or Whether it be your word to guide us and to teach us and
to instruct us, Father, we have been given everything, including
the imputation of your righteousness to our account, to stand before
you holy and just at all times. And so, Father, we're so grateful
to be a people of grace, to be a people that has been given
mercy. And Father, we are so thankful
for the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, and we pray that
salvation might come upon all these brethren and sisters that
are here. Father, we pray that if they're
without Christ, that you might convert them, that you might
quicken their soul, that you might give them ears to hear
and understanding and repentance and faith to come to you and
trusting Christ alone for their salvation, Father, and that they
might be baptized and that they might join this church in fellowship
and that they might be able to take part in the in the gospel
ordinances and in the fellowship of the gospel here, Father. And so we're so grateful for
this church that despite any hardships that we might face,
Lord, that you've kept us together, that you have given us a love
for each other and a love for the gospel, and that you would
continue to be with us, Lord, we ask that. We ask that you
would strengthen our numbers here, Father, not for show or
not for boasting, for the ministry of the gospel and for the edification
of the brethren. We ask, Lord, that your people
that are in this town, that desire to hear the truth, Lord, will
have a place to come and worship and to hear the word of God being
preached. Father, I ask now that as we
come under these passages of scripture that we have before
us this morning, that you would help me to preach them, that
you would help me to bring out from them not only the historical
things that are found here But Lord, that I might also be able
to expound upon the spiritual applications of these things,
Lord. We know that there are literal things that are found
within the word of God that we can take note of, but we always
want to find the spiritual nature of each thing that you have to
say to us. We might know spiritual things by spiritual understanding. And so Father Lord, lead us to
Christ today in the preaching of this. Help me to speak truth
and not error. I ask the Lord that you would
teach these brothers that are here, give them understanding,
Lord, that they might not only just gather the information and
knowledge that's before them, Father, but they truly, in their
heart, might know it as truth, that it might be something that
they can look to by faith and trust that you have done and
that you are doing among us. And so, Father, Lord, again,
we thank you for all that you have done. We thank you for each
one that's here. We just pray, Lord, that you might bless our
church, bless this time together. In Jesus' name that we pray,
amen. Well, as we move into chapter
two, we see Paul really hasn't moved very far from, let me kind
of move here at an angle here, so I can kind of give that to
everybody. Paul really hasn't moved away from his discourse
and what it is. Now, remember, the very central
aspect of Paul's introduction in this letter here is diving
right at the heart of the matter, and that is that there's only
one gospel. There's not two gospels, there's
not three gospels, that there's only one gospel. And the purpose
for this is because that there were Pharisees, there were Judaizers
who had come in, who had crept in unawares to the churches in
Galatia, and begin trying to subvert the gospel that Paul
had brought to them from Jesus Christ. And that in that subversion,
they were trying to bring him back under the law of Moses. And Paul here is, like I said,
he has hit it kind of straight in the mouth right at the very
first. And he said, listen, there is no other gospel. There's only
one gospel. And anybody that preaches any
other gospel uh... they're only perverting christ
they're not a servant of christ look with me if you would because
again those are very powerful words there he said verse six
i marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called
you into the grace of christ unto another gospel see whenever
a child of grace is called by christ and converted remember
we talked about this in the message that we did uh... on these verses
This call into grace isn't the calling into quickening, isn't
the calling into conversion, or excuse me, into being born
again. It's the calling into conversion,
the belief of the truth into the doctrine of grace. See, whenever
he revealed Christ in us, that's verse, that was verse 15, when
it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by his grace. See, we are called to Christ
by grace, but we are called into grace. We are called by grace
in our quickening, and actually if you go all the way back to
our election, and then in our quickening, we are called of
God, we are called to life, okay? And then in our conversion, we
are called to believe on the truth. And so this verse six
here, He says that you are being removed from him that called
you into the grace of Christ. That's the doctrine of the grace
of Christ alone for salvation. That was the gospel that Paul
had preached to these Galatians who he said he got directly from
Jesus, that that gospel is a gospel of grace for salvation, not law
for salvation, not works for salvation. it's a gospel of grace. So whenever you are called, when
we are converted, and see this is one of the reasons why I say
that there are a lot of people out there who are religious people
who call themselves Christians, who go to quote-unquote churches,
who say they believe the gospel, but yet Paul here is making it
very clear in these few verses that those who are truly converted,
that means they have been quickened, born from above, and are converted
in the gospel, given faith, that faith looks to a gospel of grace
alone. It doesn't look to other gospels.
It looks to the gospel of grace alone for salvation and not grace
and works. And so he's saying here you're
being removed from that gospel which is grace alone unto another
gospel which is not another. So there isn't another. There isn't a partial gospel
that you learn when you're a babe and now Whenever you're older,
there's another gospel that you learn more fully. Now, granted,
again, I say this because there's some that's going to argue that,
well, why don't you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ? Yes, we do. But whenever we look to Christ,
we look to the gospel of what he has done with no conditions
upon us. Salvation is of Christ alone. It's of the Lord. It's not of
us holding hands with Him. Remember the big 50 cent word
I told y'all last week? Synergism. It's not a synergistic
work. It's a, you may remember, what's
the other one? Monergistic work. Good, Waylon.
A monergistic work, okay? It's a work of God alone. Now,
whenever we talk about salvation, remember, we're not just talking
about the initial death and burial and resurrection of Christ. We're
talking about all of salvation. What does all of the salvation
encompass? Well, it reaches back into eternity
and it encompasses the pleasure of God to elect a people and
to give those people to Christ Jesus and put them into an eternal,
vital union with Christ so much so that there is no difference
between them and Christ as far as God is concerned. that that
union between them and Christ, them being the seed, okay, means
that they will have the same as Christ, that every seed reproduces
after its own likeness, right? That's what Genesis laid down
for us. And so all of salvation reaches back into eternity to
that point where God by his own pleasure, by his own will, that's
the only thing that we know. We don't know of anything else.
The Bible only tells us it was by his will, by his pleasure
that he elected a people and give them to Christ and put them
in the union with Christ Jesus, that they would be his people,
his children, his generation, his seed, that they would be
his and that Christ in the covenant of grace had promised that these
people who whenever they come into existence would be sinners,
They would come in under Adam, their natural head, the first
Adam, would come under Adam, a natural person, without the
spirit of God, without the ability to keep the law, without the
ability to attain to anything righteous that would fall short
of the glory of God. But even though out of that same
lump of people that they walked, they would be a special peculiar
people, that God would save or redeem out of the world for Himself. And those people, every one of
them that God gave Christ in eternity, Christ would come and
die for their sins, die for them, and in dying for them, then in
turn, by sending His Spirit, would apply all those spiritual
blessings that was already given to us in heavenly places. In
Christ Jesus would begin to apply the experiential part of salvation. See, all that happened from the
death of Christ backwards, all of that happened before you were
born. And that secured, what Christ
did on the cross was the securing, was the payment in that everlasting
covenant that ratified everything that was laid down, that there
would be a people and that people would be a sinful people, but
that people would be redeemed Therefore, God could be just
in the justifier and in loving them and justifying them that
God would not be less holy because Christ would come in their place
as a substitute. And in substituting for them,
it satisfied the law of God on their behalf. And that had nothing
to do with any of us. We weren't even there. And so
God purposed that from eternity. God wrote it down and it's done. that the very ends from the beginning
God had purposed and that God had declared them as such even
though they were not yet. He declared them as such. And
so our salvation was completely and totally wrapped up and finished
before the foundation of the world. And Christ came in the
discourse of time, at his appointed time, and he died in place of
his people, Old Testament, New Testament, backwards, forwards,
He died for those people. That death was the grounds upon
which that covenant was based. It wasn't based upon your receiving
it, believing it, accepting it, making a decision for it. It
was based upon what Christ did on that cross. His life leading
up to it, His death and His resurrection after it, all that secured your
salvation that God, in time past, before the foundation of the
world, secured and said, this is so. This ought to be so. But
experientially, we begin to see salvation this way. We are born
again, and then we are given faith. That faith then sees our
sinfulness and how we cannot keep the law of God. And that
faith then looks towards Jesus Christ and hopes in Christ alone
for that because he sees the gospel preaching the good news
that it's all been taken care of for you. There is no need
for you to try because you couldn't even if you wanted to. Okay? And so experientially we begin
to see all these things. We begin to see faith. We begin
to see repentance. We begin to see the hunger for
God's word. We begin to see the love for
the brethren, the love for God. All these things are the experiential
promises and blessings that God has given us, but he gave it
to us in eternity. but we begin to experience it
in time as verse 15 says, as it please God who separated us
from our mother's womb and called us by his grace to reveal his
son in us. See, that's whenever we begin
to experience it, but it's already been there. It's already been
there. Remember it was made manifest.
It was revealed to us. We are being, That's what the
good news is. We go and proclaim the good news
to those who God has given ears to hear of their salvation. It isn't an invitation for people
to make a decision. It's not an altar call that we
entice people to come down and follow a few steps to get saved.
Salvation is something that is totally, totally on its own outside
of us. And so Paul says this is a Doctrine
of grace the doctrine of grace. That's why we call it the doctrines
of grace Okay, it's the doctrine of grace That's why we believe
in sovereign grace that this grace is bestowed upon people
as God Desires as he wills okay, he has the choice in the matter
not us and Paul says here that there is no other gospel except
that one And if you are a child of grace and have been born from
above and converted, given repentance and faith, then you have been
brought into that doctrine. That means that that's the doctrine
that you're believing. But if there is, and here he
goes into verse seven, he said, but there would be some who would
pervert the gospel of Christ, exactly what was happening in
the Galatian churches. Those Pharisees and Judaizers
were coming into the churches behind Paul, and was trying to
stir things up, cutting Paul down, saying he's not even one
of the main apostles. He's not even one of the apostles. He's just a, you know, apostle-like,
okay? He's the Sam's Choice apostle,
okay? He's not the full-fledged thing,
okay? But at verse eight he says, but
though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto
you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be
accursed. He's saying any gospel besides
the gospel of the doctrine of grace, that thing that you have
been brought into by faith, which that divine faith, that's the
only thing that it reaches for. It won't reach for anything else.
He says if you follow after that, if you teach that, if you preach
that, let him be accursed. He's calling down curses upon
that. And you say, well, man, why is
it so bad? Well, he tells us again, as we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade
men of God, or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men,
I should not be the servant of Christ. Why should there be curses
brought down upon people who preach this other gospel? Because
if you're preaching another gospel, you're not a servant of Christ.
And the servant of Christ is one that God has sent. There
was a man sent from God to preach this. And any man preaching any
other gospel is not a man that's been sent by God. And we know
from the Old Testament types of foreshadows that anybody that
followed after the prescription of worship that God didn't prescribe,
they were killed. The two sons of the priest who
who did strange fire on the altar. God killed him. When Uzzah put
his hand in the ark, God killed him. Why? Because they didn't
follow the order. God sends his men to preach the
message of grace. And so anybody who preaches another
gospel, they should be accursed. And anybody who listens and accepts
that gospel as gospel, they should be accursed too. Why? Because
they're not servants of Christ. They pervert. See what he says
there? They pervert the gospel of Christ.
And as I mentioned in that message, if you pervert the gospel of
Christ, you're perverting Christ because the gospel is Christ. He is the gospel. He's the good
news. His work and his person and work
is the gospel. And so if you pervert the gospel
of Christ, you are perverting Christ himself. It's a serious
thing. So that's why Paul was hit the
ground running here, saying that we shouldn't listen to anybody
else. And then he began his biography, and that's what we've been looking
at for the last couple of weeks, from verses 12 down through 24. And we've seen that he began
to appeal to his biography, that how great he was in the faith
of the Jews, and was fallen after all those things, and thought
he was zealous. But God, whenever he revealed Christ in him, when
he converted him on the road to Damascus, He converted him
from the traditions of man. Look back at verse 14. He says,
And I profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in my own
nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of
my fathers. Now remember, I don't want to
rehash what we talked about in that message, but if you remember,
a lot of the things that we believed before were because of a misunderstanding
of the gospel. We thought the gospel was that
God loves everybody, Jesus died for everybody, and that we just
invite and it's up to you to make that decision to choose
him. Jesus has died for you, but you have to receive it, but
if you don't receive it, then you won't be saved. Okay, that's
kind of in a nutshell. But Paul here says, you know,
not only that, but we were exceedingly zealous in the traditions of
the fathers. See, we have even gone so far
into not only getting the gospel wrong, but we've laid traditions
upon people that wasn't laid down by God. And the Jews was
following a lot of these traditions. They were following the traditions
of the fathers, that the fathers had placed laws upon laws to
keep laws. And then they had added all their
other traditions in there to keep and everything. And Paul said, hey, I was zealous
in all of those things. But when I pleased God to separate
me from my mother's womb and call me by His grace to reveal
His Son in me that I might preach Him among the nations, what happened? He turned and repented of those
things. And we read, remember, where
he says that I counted all things as loss, as dumb, okay? All those things that he thought
was for his gain, he counted them as loss, as dumb. And so
what happens whenever a child of grace is converted, whenever
God reveals his son in us, whenever we, he reveals his son in us
and we are brought into the grace of Christ, we are given repentance
to repent and turn from the false gospels and the traditions of
men and turn to Christ alone and his doctrine. And see, that's
what Paul did. And he said, listen, Soon as
that happened, I immediately went up and I began to start
preaching this. That's what we saw, remember? But he said, then
after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and
abode with him 15 days. And the other apostles I saw
saved James to the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write
unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards, I came
into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and was unknown by face
under the churches of Judea, which were in Christ. And here's
what happens whenever a child of grace is converted of the
gospel and quits believing the false gospels and starts believing
the true gospel and stops following the traditions of men and starts
following Christ, this happens. When they heard only that he
which persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith which
once he destroyed and they glorified God in me. to the true people
of God, every time a person turns from false gospels and traditions
of men to the true gospel, and laying down those traditions
that weren't from Christ, men glorify God about it, because
we see that that's only a work of God. Only God can do that
work, because until that point, by nature, we're opposed to that.
The doctrines of men and the traditions of men, that gospel
of free will, free choice, decisionism, all that doctrine, listen, that
is what we crave as natural men. That's what we seek. That's what
we preach. I preached it for several years.
I preached that believing zealously that that's how God saved. But
like Paul said, but whenever God revealed His Son in me and
was pleased to do so, He converted me. He changed me. He granted
unto me repentance. What is repentance? It's to turn
from one way of thinking to another, right? He turned me from thinking
that my righteousness was something that I either chose or something
that I had to keep up of my own by following the rules. And he
showed me that all my righteousness before God was in Christ. That
all my obedience to the law was in Christ, not in me. That all
my faithfulness was in Christ and not me. He showed me the
gospel was Christ and not you and Christ. And so whenever that
happens, then to the children of grace, hey, we rejoice in
that. Matter of fact, the Bible says that for every sinner who
comes to repentance, the Bible says that all heaven rejoices.
Why are they rejoicing? because a child of grace who
by nature is at enmity with God and who by pride thinks that
they can gain some kind of a righteousness, whether it's legal in their standing
before God or whether it's experiential in their keeping up of a righteousness
in this life before God, whenever they repent of that and turn
and realize that it's all in Christ that our hope is, then
all of heaven rejoices because they say, bingo, that's it. And they couldn't have believed
that without the work of the Spirit of God in them. So all of heaven rejoices. And
so that's a brief recap of what we've seen, more detail if you
go back and listen. But here we pick up in chapter
two, Paul says, then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem,
so this happened after the first time he went to Jerusalem, where
he didn't see all the apostles, just a few, okay? And then he
left and went into Syria and Cilicia. So after 14 years, so
roughly we're about 17 years after Paul's conversion here,
okay? And Paul was saying, after 14
years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus
with me also. And he says, I went up by revelation. Paul went to see the people in
Jerusalem by, excuse me, by revelation. He wasn't coerced by men. He wasn't threatened by the people
in Jerusalem saying, hey, you need to get up here, you're preaching
something different than us. Okay, it was by revelation of
God. Now, the reason I bring this out is because here in a
minute, we're gonna look at the account of this in Acts chapter
15. And in Acts chapter 15 and in other places of scripture,
we find that Paul and Barnabas and Paul and Silas, whenever
they went on their journeys, They were sent by the church
in Antioch. They were sent by the church, and we'll read that
here in a minute in Acts 15, that they went by the church,
okay? It is not mutually exclusive
to say that God, by revelation, sins and that the church sins,
okay? For a preacher, now we don't
have, we don't see like Paul does, we don't have direct revelation
from God as far as, you know, God speaks to us personally and
tells us something outside of what God's Word has already declared. We don't believe that God continues
to give divine revelation as in new revelation. Now, he does
give divine revelation in a better understanding of what's already
revealed in God's Word, right? As we read God's Word and he
teaches us, he gives us divine revelation in the fact that he
reveals the truth that's already here. But nothing new outside
of this. Remember, this revelation that's
been given to Paul and these apostles is something that was
new to everybody there. They didn't know this stuff that
was going on. And so that's why there was this
direct revelation stuff. That's why the apostles was above,
was laid in the foundation of the church first because they
had the direct revelation from Jesus's mouth. This is what I
want you to tell them because this is the truth. You're gonna
hear other truths out there. This, though, is the real truth,
okay? So he's giving them this, going
back to the truth of the apostles, what the apostles heard and everything. And so the Judaizers had been
subverting that, saying Paul wasn't a good guy, he wasn't
the original apostle. And Paul is appealing to this
stuff, not to boast in his words, but to show forth that, listen,
There is no inconsistency with what I'm preaching to the Gentiles
and what Peter and the others are now preaching to the Jews. The Jews and the Gentiles have
one gospel. There's not a gospel to the Jews
and a gospel to the Gentiles. There's only one gospel. And
so he's solidifying the fact that this one gospel means one
gospel not only in its free willism, but also in its worksism. The Judaizers, they think that
they're being saved by keeping the law. The Gentiles, they think
they're saved by their own choice and choosing a God and worshiping
that God. So either way you go, Paul said
there's only one gospel. There's one gospel to the Gentile,
one gospel to the Jew. and what I am preaching and what
I have preached, even though them Judaizers are saying I'm
preaching something different. That's what's being preached
out of Jerusalem. That's what everything began under when Jesus
was here. I'm not preaching anything different.
And so this revelation, I went up by revelation and communicated
unto them that gospel which I preached among Gentiles, but privately
to them which were of reputation lest by any means I should run
or had run in vain. And what's he talking about here?
Well, he went to Jerusalem and he's gonna talk to them about
this whole situation. Why is he going? Why is he going
there? Well, because of the Judaizers
that came into Galatia. Well, there were also Judaizers
who had went in to other places throughout the scripture. So
if you will, turn with me back to Acts chapter 15, and let's
look at this account of him going to Jerusalem. And I want to point
out a few things here to you. Acts chapter 15. We want to start reading from verse
1. It said, And certain men, which
came down from Judea, taught the brethren and said, Except
you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, Ye cannot be
saved. So here again, as I mentioned
at the beginning of our exposition of Galatians, those Judaizers
who was coming in and was telling people, hey, you can't be, you
can't be saved. Whether it is to get saved or
to stay saved, they were saying without keeping the law of Moses,
you can't be saved. Whether it's the entrance into
salvation or the keeping of that salvation until you die or Jesus
comes again, You cannot be accomplished without the law of Moses. You have to keep that. And that's
what they were saying. So they were making this an issue
of whether or not a person can be or stay saved without Moses. Because these men here were coming
into the churches and were saying, hey, these men, hey, we believe
on the Messiah. We believe it. As you'll see
here, these men were men from them. They were among those men
they were ones who believed even, because they stand up here in
a minute, some of them do stand up who were believers, but also
still have this mindset that there was still the law of Moses
to be kept. But I wanted to clarify that this is their mentality,
that you can't, and how many times do we hear that nowadays?
You know, you can't be a Christian if you don't keep the law. You
gotta keep the law, you know? You're a, the name just went
right in my head and went right back out. Antinomian, you're
an antinomian if you don't keep the law of Jesus. And we're gonna
dive into all that in days to come, but let's move forward. He says, verse two, when therefore
Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with
them that determined that Paul, excuse me, well let's stop right
there. When therefore Paul and Barnabas
had no small dissension and disputation with them. And I want you to
make note that this issue of law and grace is the point of
dissension and disputation among the people of God. I mean, very
much so. You know, I've told you about
a couple of preachers that we used to fellowship with in a
lot of the Bible conferences where I'd go and preach around,
or they would have me come preach around, that two particular preachers,
stopped having me come and preach or would not ever call me preach
and as even was telling people who was calling them asking them
about coming to our church when they were in the area here and
was saying don't go there because he's an antinomian and other
things that he said about me but thought that we were antinomian
and they asked well why do you believe he's antinomian? He said
because he doesn't believe that we're under the law but we're
under grace alone. And of course that person told
me that he said to him, he said, isn't that what the Bible teaches?
I mean, it's correct, ain't it? And then that guy called him
an antinomian and didn't have anything to do with him. But
anyway, there is whenever, anytime a person preaches the gospel
of grace alone, there's going to be dissension and disputation
because again, That very gospel is not a natural thing that we
can believe. It always is going to rub against
the natural man. Okay, the first Adam and the
last Adam, they are gonna rub against each other, the natural
man and the spiritual man. Paul wrote about it in Romans
7, that spiritual man and that natural man, or yeah, that natural
man and the spiritual man, flesh wars against the spirit and the
spirit against the flesh. The spirit is telling me that
everything is Christ Jesus. The flesh is telling me, get
up off your laurel and get to work for Jesus, that you've got
to keep up a righteousness before him or you're not going to be
saved. And Paul is saying, there is
that constant war that's in me. I feel that I need to be righteous
before God in doing all these things. And so I, with my flesh,
I've served the law of sin. But with my mind, I serve the
law of God. I will continue to miss the mark in my flesh. There's
nothing else that the flesh can do but miss the mark. But in
my mind, in my heart, I will keep the law of God. Why? Because
the law of God is not in what I do, but in what Christ has
done. That's why the very next verse,
and where's the chapter break there, but the very next verse
says, Therefore, there is now no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus. See, so Paul says that, yes,
there's going to be a struggle within us where we think that
we've got to do something good and we're going to feel bad because
we're not doing enough good. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt you just feel
bad because you don't feel like you're doing enough good for
Jesus? But the spirit inside of us says, listen, everything
that you do is filthy rags anyway. All of our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. That there is none righteous,
no not one. That that which is of the flesh
is flesh, and it cannot please God. So, anything that you would
do is not ever gonna be good enough. Even your bestest, in
its bestest state, is still tinged with sin. and it cannot please
God. It will always fall short of
the glory of God. Why? Because there's only one
God. There's only one who is holy. There's only one who is
righteous. And as Jesus said, and unless
our righteousnesses exceed that of the Pharisees, we'll never
be saved. See, our righteousness has to
be something better than even those who kept the law to the
totius as they could in human speaking. Now they weren't keeping
the law even though they thought they were, but they weren't.
We'll see that later in our exposition of Galatians. But see here, it's
a disputation and a dissension because the natural man thinks
there's something that I can do or do more to be helpful to
Christ or to be helpful to my righteousness before God. But
the spiritual man says that I know that in me dwelleth no good thing. That I am wretched, I am vile,
I am unworthy. That at the end of the day, I
am an unprofitable servant. That's what the spiritual man
sees when he looks at us. Matter of fact, is it that what
God sees when he looks at us? Outside of Jesus, remember in
Genesis, before the flood, The Bible says that God looked down
upon the inhabitants of the earth and saw that the intent of their
heart was only evil, continually only evil, continually. The intent
of your heart. How many of us have ever said,
well, God knows my heart? Yeah, he does. He knows your
heart. And apart from him in you, apart from that quickening
nature or that quickening spirit that's been put in you, that
heart is deceitful above all things. And who can know it?
So see, any kind of falling back onto Moses for righteousness
is going to be a dissension and a disputation between that person
and the child of grace who's been given to see that in me
dwells no good thing. That it is Christ alone for salvation. And so Paul and Barnabas here
said, listen, whenever these guys come, listen, it wasn't
just a small disagreement. It was a big disagreement. And
he says, They determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain
others of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and
elders about this question. So here we see that the church
thought it would be good for, hey, Paul, why don't you go up
to Jerusalem? Well, Paul already told us by
revelation that God sent him up to Jerusalem. But here we
see the church's understanding of the same thing. See, the Holy
Spirit of God works in conjunction with God speaking to the servant
of God. See, just like whenever a pastor
is called to a church, you know, whenever you guys called me to
be your pastor, I was praying, seeking the Lord, where do you
want me to go? You guys was looking for a pastor and saying, Lord,
show us who it is that you would have for us to be the pastor
here. And so while you were praying,
I was praying, God was putting it in my heart, this is where
I want you to go. But he was also putting it in
the heart of the church by the spirit of God within the church,
This is the man that I'm sending you. You guys had lots of guys
that was coming in at the time, besides me. But how did it happen
this way? Well, it's because God, by revelation,
God, by the working of the Holy Spirit, brought the two together.
Same thing here. Paul, by revelation of God, was
urged to go talk to the people up in Jerusalem because as he
and as the church here figured, hey, we need to kind of nip this
in the bud before it gets going too far from here. I mean, it's
starting to pop up everywhere. Here we have it here in these
churches in Judea. We've got it over in Galatia.
We've got it kind of cropping up everywhere. We need to nip
this in the bud, and so all you apostles need to get together,
and as one collective unit, lay down, because you are the ones
that have heard directly from God. You're the ones who have
heard directly from Christ Jesus. And so look what he says here.
He says that they should go up to Jerusalem, unto the apostles
and the elders about this question. What question? Whether or not
you can be saved without the law of Moses. Can a man be saved
without the law of Moses? Because these men were teaching
that you have to keep the law of Moses to be saved, particularly
circumcision. Verse three, and being brought
on their way by the church, see the church was the one who sent
them. He said, they passed through Phineas and Samaria declaring
the conversion of the Gentiles and they caused great joy unto
all the brethren. And when they, now notice that,
remember what I said a while ago? Whenever a person or child
of grace is converted of the gospel and brought from believing
a false gospel and turning and believing the true gospel and
getting away from the traditions of man that it caused the people
of God to glorify God in Paul, remember? Look what it was doing
here. Whenever he went to Phineas and
Samaria and declared that these Gentiles were being converted,
being taken from believing on their idols, believing upon all
their worship that they do to all these idols and however they
did it and everything. How they turn from idols unto
God. and believed upon Christ. And
what happened? They rejoiced. It caused great
joy unto all the brethren. And when they were come to Jerusalem,
they were received of the church and of the apostles and the elders,
and they declared all things that God had done with them.
So here we see that the whole church in Jerusalem was gathered
together. The apostles, the church, the elders, everybody was there. And they declared unto them what
God had done with them. Now, just a side note, I wanna
show you here that who did they say did the work? What God had
done in them. So often we see, especially in
preachers, men who like to run around and boast about how many
people they've got saved. Well, we've got this many people
saved in our ministry, you know? We used to get a monthly paper
from the, State Association on the back
side of that paper They used to always have revival reports
and that evangelist would always write down, you know Turn that
into the paper that you know, I conducted this revival and
there was you know 15 people were saved and three dedicated
rededicated their life to the Lord and 15 entered the you know
Surrendered themselves to the ministry and blah blah blah all
that, you know two for baptism, you know something like that That's boasting in what you've
done. That's all that is. You know, they used to give out
awards for however many baptisms that churches would do, you know.
That's boasting in what you are doing. But here, whenever they
went before the church, they told all the things that God
had done with them. See, we boast about what the
Lord is doing, what the Lord has done, not about what we are
doing. We don't boast about our service
to God. We don't boast about our witnessing. We tell what the Lord has done.
Now look at verse five. But there rose up certain of
the sect of the Pharisees which believed. So the scripture here
is saying that some of these Pharisees were believing Jews,
okay? They were believers. Some of the sect of the Pharisees
which believed, saying, that it was needful to circumcise
them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. Now, this is
why I say it wasn't just that, you know, back in verse one and
back in Galatians where it talks about this, that it, you know,
because I've had a few guys that has mentioned to me whenever
they've heard me discuss this with them, whenever I say, well,
they're calling you to believe on the law of Moses, They say,
no, no, it's on circumcision. That was just the point, not
going back and living by the law, but by circumcision. That
was the only thing that was the issue. Well, that's not true
if you look at what the scripture says right here. It says that
it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep
the law of Moses. So see, it wasn't just circumcision
that they were commanding them to do to keep saved. but it was
to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses. So they were
telling you have to keep the law of Moses to be saved. Now we're going to find out in
a few weeks whenever we get to these passages, why that is a
hopeless, hopeless gospel. It's hopeless. That's why Paul says it's no
gospel. That's why he says it's an accursed
gospel. That's why he says it's a perversion
of Christ. That's why he says that anybody
that's saying that is not a servant of Christ. He is serving Satan
if he does that. Because there is no hope in the
law of Moses. And we'll see that as we go through. But it was not only circumcision,
but to keep the law of Moses to be saved. Verse six, and the
apostles and elders came together for to consider this matter.
And when there had been much disputing, so again, see, there
was, it caused a ruckus. It caused some talk, there was
some discussion that had to go on. Now, granted, we see they
were cordial about everything. Nobody threw a fit, punched each
other, tackled them down or anything like that. But there was a disputing. There
was some discussion that went on. It said that when there had
been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, men and
brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among
us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel
and believe. Okay, now remember that was,
remember Peter had the vision of the sheep coming down out
of heaven with all the animals on there and everything. And
a lot of people says, well, you know, that's just talking about,
so, you know, we can eat whatever we want to eat, you know. while
there's a sliver of truth in that, that's true, that whole
entire vision, though, was to show him that the Gentiles was
being included into this covenant, that they were gonna be brought
in, and that they were a part of this, that salvation was coming
to the Gentiles, and not to think of them as unclean, okay? And God, which knoweth the hearts,
bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did
us. So Peter is reentering. In fact,
not only did God, in a vision, tell me that the Gentiles were
gonna be saved, but He also, whenever I went and spoke to
them, He gave them the Holy Ghost, just like He gave us at Pentecost,
where the Holy Ghost came down, just like He did with us. And
they were speaking in different languages. They were interpreting
in different languages. They were people that was given
the ability to heal. Those gifts that God had given
specially to show forth his work, that was what was being seen.
He'd give it to them. And you say, well, what difference
does that make? Why is he bringing up this point?
Because he's saying, remember, the Gentiles never had the law. The Gentiles never was given
the law of Moses. They were never under the law
of Moses. But yet here God is going and saving a people who
has never been under the law of Moses, nor are they working
under the law of Moses right now. But God saved them. You mean they were saved without
Moses? See, that's what the Judaizers
were teaching. You cannot be saved unless you keep the law
of Moses. And here's the people who never
even was given the law of Moses who God was saving. So God is
obviously saving apart from the law of Moses. That doesn't mean the law of
Moses is of no good, because the law of Moses leads us to
Christ, right? Leads us to that gospel. He says, Peter rose up and said unto them,
men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made
choice among us that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the
word of the gospel and believe. And God which knoweth the hearts,
bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did
us, and put no difference between us and them, purifying their
hearts by faith." Does anybody know what purifying their hearts
by faith means? Does it mean that made their heart pure where
they were pure now? That's not what that means because
we know that we are not pure in heart. in those regards. We have not been made holy. Holiness
has not been imparted to us. Holiness has been imputed to
us. It's been laid to our account. We're unholy people, but we are
holy in Christ Jesus. So what does it mean that purifying
their hearts by faith? That means giving them a clean
conscience. That by the gospel they were given a clean conscience
before God. That whenever the gospel comes
in, We now have a clean conscience that we are accepted in the beloved,
that we are right before God, that we are holy before God,
that we are not lacking before God because Christ and what he
had done for us. So our consciences have been
cleansed. That's why it's important, brethren,
to continue to preach the gospel, to study your Bible and read
that gospel over and over and over again. Why? Because it speaks
to the spiritual man in us, reminding us cleaning and clearing our
conscience. But if we're looking to Moses
and the law and keeping law, what does that do? We're constantly
condemned because we find ourselves failing at that. Over and over
again, I try to do the law, but I find that I want to do good,
but I don't, I do bad. And whenever I try to do what's
right, what's wrong is always there right beside me doing it.
And then Paul said, oh, wretched man that I am. That our conscience
is just bound because we feel that we're not keeping it up,
and we are not keeping it up. But the gospel comes and purifies
our heart. It cleanses us, our consciousness,
so that we don't feel. If we're trusting in Christ,
if you're looking by faith and trusting Christ as your salvation,
not only legally, but experientially in time, of keeping you and causing
you to do the good work, You know, He promised that we would
do all the good works that God has foreordained of us, that
He would do those in us, working in us to will and to do His good
pleasure. So you are doing everything that
God has foreordained for you to do in good works. No more
and no less. You can't do any more than He's
ordained, right? And you're not going to do less
than He's ordained because He's promised to do it in you. So
if we trust the promises of Christ, looking to Christ, the author
and the finisher of our faith, looking to Christ, the one who
is upholding our, we call it on our side, we call it our, I just lost the word in here.
Our, not our, well, I'll come back to that in just a minute.
Our perseverance, that's it. We call it perseverance, but
it's him preserving us. Our perseverance comes from him
preserving us. Well, that perseverance, what
many people think is how we persevere in the faith, is by keeping the
law. They teach you the way that you
persevere in the faith is by keeping the commands of Christ,
keeping the commands of God, meaning the Old Testament law.
But the command of Christ is to believe the gospel. That's
the work. That's the command of Christ,
is to believe the gospel. And what does the gospel say?
I am keeping you. I'm the one that's holding you
up. I'm the one that's not letting you fall. I'm the one that's
not letting you go away. I'm the one that's keeping you.
And my righteousness, I've given it to you. So before God, you
have a righteousness as good as mine. And so faith, that's
what faith is looking to. And so whenever Peter here is
telling them, listen, that the difference, there's no difference
between them. God is purifying their conscience. by faith, just
like he's purifying our conscience by faith. He's purifying them
of their idolatry. He's purifying us of our law-keeping. So whether you're a Gentile and
you believe that, you know, we should believe all these wacky
things to all these other gods, or whether you're a Jew who has
been under the law of Moses, either way you go, You're finding
out that neither one of those is going to get you to God. Neither
one of those are going to keep you with God, but Christ. And so the Holy Spirit purifies
our heart by the gospel. And he says that now, therefore,
why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Now, pay
close attention to what he's saying here, brethren. I marked
it in my Bible. And I underlined that word tempt.
Peter is saying to preach the law to somebody, to preach that
someone must keep the law to get saved or stay saved. And
we know that's what they were doing. We just read it. Not just
circumcision, but the whole law of Moses. To preach that to somebody
for them to keep the law of Moses is to tempt God. He says, therefore,
why tempt ye God? Preaching the law is tempting
God. To put a yoke upon the neck of
the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able
to bear. See, Peter realized, hey, we have lived for thousands
of years underneath the yoke of the law, and not one person
since the lawgiver give it to Moses. And Moses brought it down
the mountain to us the second time. Not one person has kept this
law until Jesus came. Jesus has been the only person
with manhood that has ever kept the law fully. So he's saying,
why put a yoke upon their neck who have never even heard of
this yoke? They've never heard of the burden of the law system
and the priest system and all this stuff, why put that burden
upon their neck? Like we've had to carry around
for thousands of years thinking that we have to keep a righteousness
for ourselves and finding out that we never can keep a righteousness
for ourselves. Why even start that with these
guys who've never been under that? He said, if you're doing
that, you're tempting God. Verse 11, but we believe that
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved
even as they. Does that mean that there's two
salvations? No, there's one salvation. There's
one gospel. He is saying that, listen, just
as the law is nothing for us anymore, it's not for them. So don't go put it on them. Why
are you putting it on them? We have come to realize that
that salvation is by faith of Christ Jesus, by the faith of
Christ. His faithfulness is our salvation, not ours. So the gospel
that's preached to them is the gospel that we're preaching here.
So they're realizing, hey, we're preaching the same gospel here.
Verse 12, then all the multitude kept silence and gave audience
to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God
had wrought among the Gentiles by then. And after they held
their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken
unto me. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit
the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. Okay,
that was those who were elected of God, right? Out of every nation,
tribe, language, and tongue, there is a remnant of people,
a residue. Sometimes the Bible uses the
word residue, or remnant of people. So just like out of the Jews,
there was a remnant to be saved, there is a remnant in every nation. Every ethnic group, there'll
be a remnant of people. Not all the people, a remnant
of people. Look at verse 15. And to this,
okay, this inclusion of the Gentiles into this covenant, the bringing
of them in by the gospel, to this agree the words of the prophet
as it is written. And he goes back and he quotes
Amos 9.11. He says, after this, I will return
and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down,
and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up.
Now, some people take that scripture in Amos to mean in the millennial
reign that God is gonna set up a tabernacle again and gonna
reinstitute sacrifices again. and that christ is going to rule
on the throne of david with a rod of iron and israel is going to
rule with him the ethnic people of israel is going to rule over
uh... the kingdoms with him at that
time but here james is giving the commentary on amos in light
of new testament revelation christ revelation and this is what we
ought to go by not by what we think the Old Testament says.
And here it's talking about the rebuilding of that temple of
David or that tabernacle of David is the inclusion of the Gentiles. Why? Because the people of God
are built together a tabernacle under the Lord. Every stone fit
perfectly together is raised up to make that tabernacle where
the Bible says that God now doesn't dwell. Remember Jesus told the
woman at the well, there's gonna be a time coming where you'll
no longer go up to Jerusalem or up to this place or that mountain
to worship the Lord. God dwells in tabernacles not
made with hands. Meaning he doesn't dwell in artifices.
God doesn't dwell in buildings. That's why, you know, hey, we
love having that building. It was very convenient for us
to go, but that's not the church. Right here is the church. This
membership of the people of God, whenever it comes together as
a tabernacle under God, where God's presence is among us. And
the Bible says that God will dwell with his people. He'll
tabernacle with his people, but it's not going to be a tabernacle
made with hands. It's going to be a tabernacle that he brings together by the
spirit. And he's tabernacling us with us now. We are seated
in heavenly places. We've crossed Jesus right now. And so James is saying, listen,
this isn't about some future millennium. This is right now.
This is happening right now. The Gentiles are being saved,
just like we are being saved. And they are coming together
and we are forming one people. We are coming together as one
people, the true Israel. We are, well, the true Israel
is actually Christ. but we are being brought into
that true root, which is Christ. And it says, that the residue
of men, there's that word residue, of men might seek after the Lord
and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, sayeth the
Lord who doeth all these things. Known unto God are all his works
from the beginning of the world. Wherefore, my sentence is that
we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned
to God. but that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions
of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and
from blood." Now, let me just pause and say right here, this
isn't necessarily a commandment that they say that you have to
do this to be saved, for one. Matter of fact, as we'll see
later on in verse 28, he'll say, burden them other than these
necessary things, okay? These were admonitions that they
were given, these Gentiles, who were being included into these
churches with Jews. And it was causing a problem,
them coming in, not having, you know, the law of Moses over them,
they were coming in with some of these things that was gonna
cause dissension among the people within the church. And so the
apostles here was telling them, listen, for time being, it would
probably be good that you guys not participate in any of this
stuff here. because it's gonna cause a problem
in the churches. And until maturity comes, until
people are taught and learned, remember, we're still in the
infant stages of the church and the gospel being spread and being
taught, and Jews as well as Gentiles who have not the knowledge of
these things coming in and being taught these things. And so he
says, you know, be careful of these things. to abstain from
the pollution of idols. Well, we know that idols cannot
pollute because idols are nothing, right? We know that you can eat
meat that has been offered to an idol, and it's not gonna do
anything to you. It's not anything before God
that, you know, we are justified before God, and there isn't anything.
As a matter of fact, the Bible says that anything that we do
with Thanksgiving that we partake of, you know? So he's not saying,
so we know that that's not, that the intent of that is not that
we can't, of, you know, abstaining from the pollution of idols is
a command that we got to keep to say right with God. No, he's
doing this for the unity within the church. Until these things
are taught and worked out, there's still people believe in this
stuff that the Judaizers are bringing in. There's still people
whose their conscience is not clean as far as, you know, eating
things. You know, you guys are eating
things, doing the idols, but now you see that it ain't got
nothing to do with your idols. because you're believing on Christ,
but you still don't have a problem with it, which is fine, but they
do because they've had thousands of years of ingrained tradition
telling them you can't do that. And so until you can work those
things out, you be the stronger brother and don't do that. And
from fornication, of course, we know fornication, the Gentiles,
and I don't think they would have been carrying this on anyway.
But among the Gentiles, fornication wasn't a big thing. It was all
right for you to be married and to fornicate with anybody that
you wanted to fornicate with, to have multiple wives and things. And so they were saying to abstain
from these things, keep it out of church, and for things strangled
and from blood. Okay, so they're talking about
how animals were killed. The Old Testament talked about
not eating an animal that's freshly been killed, just eating the
meat right off the bone and everything. It's not talking about eating
your steak, medium rare. It's talking about why something
still has its lifeblood in it, like something that just died,
and you're picking it up and eating it, you know? You've strangled
it, you've killed it, and now you take it and you eat it. You're
saying, don't do that. Of course, the reason they had
that in the Old Testament was because there was sickness that they
could get, you know? If you don't cook this food, you're gonna
get sick, you know? And so there was some things
here that they were explaining that of necessity, that you ought
to follow. They weren't trying to give them
commands that, oh, we don't keep the law of Moses, but here's
some command. And see, that even kind of is
antithetical against itself, right? We're not to put a yoke
on anybody. Wait a minute, here's the yoke,
let's put you on this yoke, okay? So it's of necessity, it was
for peace within the church. Verse 21, for Moses of old time
hath in every city them that preach him. See, he's saying,
so there's people in every city that's continuing to preach this
law of Moses thing, being read in the synagogues every day.
So this influence is out there, and if you continue, if you don't
follow these things of necessity, there's gonna be unity in the
spread of the gospel. It's gonna be, it's gonna be,
I'm not gonna say harder because the gospel, the Bible says the
gates of hell is not gonna prevail against it. But there's gonna
be issues among yourselves if you're not careful. Verse 22,
then pleased that the apostles and elders with the whole church
to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul
and Barnabas, namely Judas, surname Barsalus, and Silas, chief men
among the brethren. And they wrote letters by them
after this manner. The apostles and elders and brethren
send greetings unto the brethren, which are of the Gentiles in
Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. For as much as we have heard
that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words,
subverting your souls. See, that's what I was talking
about. They're subverting their souls. They're laying upon the
conscience of these men things that they don't have any place
to lay upon their conscience. He says, saying, you must be
circumcised and keep the law. To whom we give no such commandment. So see the apostles from the
first church in Jerusalem never give the command. Remember in
the commission, Go ye therefore, teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Well,
one of the things that Christ commanded was not to keep the
law of Moses. Because right here, the letter
and the witnesses from the church of Jerusalem, see they see in
the mouth of two or three witnesses, a thing is established. Well,
one, the apostles wrote it down, Two, Paul and Barnabas have been
given revelation of God, or Paul had been given revelation of
Christ. And three, they sent witnesses from Jerusalem to testify
to the fact that what Paul is saying is the same thing that
we're saying up here in Jerusalem. So you churches, there is no
dispute between the people of God. The only dispute is between
those who are subverting the truth, the ones who are preaching
another gospel, the ones who are not servants of Christ. The
servants of Christ are preaching grace alone. The ones subverting
Christ are preaching grace plus something else. It's a subversion,
it's a perversion of Christ. And so they sent three witnesses,
in the mouth of three witnesses, the thing established. So there
was three witnesses to the fact that the gospel was exactly what
Paul had been preaching, exactly what Peter was preaching, and
all the other apostles, that this is not a salvation that
comes any shape or form by the law of Moses. And he even tells
us, we give no one such command. Those men that came down and
subverted you, they came on their own accord. They didn't come
from the church. They weren't sent by the church.
They were sent by somebody else. And brethren, we have a lot of
men out there who are professing preachers and pastors who have
been sent by themselves and not by God. And they're perverting
Christ and subverting the churches. He says, verse 25, it seemed
good unto us being assembled with one accord to send chosen
men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have
hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Preaching the gospel, it's gonna hazard your life sometimes. And
listen, we're living in a day and age now where it's becoming
more and more that way. As I said early on, coming back
into here may not be a bad thing. Because what's coming down the
pike in the United States and everything, you know, we're not
out in the open. We're able to still meet and
gather, but listen, they're hauling people to jail for preaching.
You know, this is supposed to be pride month, where all the
sodomites are out parading around their sinfulness. The Bible says
that they're glorying in their shame. They're glorying in what
they should be shameful about. And yet, here we are, You know,
if we preach anything against that, or if we preach and not,
and something not positive towards that. It isn't just preaching
against it, but if you don't jump on board with them and promote
them, then you're a homophobe, or whatever you wanna call it. And so, the days of easiness
for the people of God, if they stand on God's word, is, looks
like it's coming to a close here, whether it's gonna be easy, it's
gonna be hard. Men that have hazarded their lives for the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have sent there for Judas
and Silas, who shall also tell you the same things by mouth.
Okay, so they're testifying, not only by letter, but by mouth.
For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you
no greater burden than these necessary things. See, the Holy
Ghost taught them that is not the law of Moses. The Holy Ghost
taught that. That ye abstain from meats offered
to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from
fornication, from which, if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do
well. See, if you keep yourselves from
these, you shall do well. He's not saying that you can't do
those things, necessarily. But he said if you do it, you're
gonna keep yourselves well. You're gonna keep in unity with each
other. There's not going to be any doubts from those who are
of the Judaizing side or of the Jewish side and everything. But he says, you shall do well.
It didn't say you would be saved or you would be kept holy. He
says you shall be saved. So when they were dismissed,
they came to Antioch. And when they had gathered the
multitude together, they delivered the epistle, which when they
had read, they rejoiced for the consolation. They rejoice to
hear, oh, what wonderful things. We don't have to keep that stuff
that the Jews were told to keep. We don't have to try. You know
why? Well, probably for one, they
knew their own hearts because they were saved and they knew
their own hearts, that they were sinful. But probably these Gentiles
who had been living around and among these Jews for years and
years and years, especially the Samaritans, have looked upon
these Jews and seen what hypocrites they were. You claim to be keeping
these laws, and you guys are some of them. You're hateful
towards us. You despise us. You call us dogs. I mean, all these things that
you did, and all the while, you think that you're keeping your
law, and you weren't keeping you. You killed your own Messiah, who
didn't ever do anything. Gentiles, whenever they heard
that we don't have to keep the law of Moses, they rejoiced.
Listen, every child of grace, when given grace, they hear that
it is of Christ and not them, rejoices. Oh, what a blessing.
Whenever Jesus said, come unto me, all ye who are weary and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. How many of y'all have realized
in the Christian life that it doesn't seem like rest sometimes.
It's burdensome. When does it become burdensome?
Whenever you're trying to perform a righteousness before God, but
if you just rest in what Christ has already done and say, there's
my righteousness. And confess before God your sin. See, he said that if you confess
with your sin, he is faithful and just to forgive you. Now
he doesn't forgive you at the time that you ask forgiveness
because you've already been forgiven of it, right? He's forgiven of
your sin because of Christ and his work on the cross. All sins
were forgiven in Christ. But what does he mean by that?
He means that whenever you confess before God, you're a sinner,
you're acknowledging that I'm still in need of that cleansing.
I'm still in need of what Christ has done for me that I'm not
attaining. I'm still missing the mark at
every point. That's why the law was even given to us. That's
why it was, the law was given and all those prescriptions and
the sacrifices and all this stuff was given to show us our inability
to do before God so that we would be crowded to Christ and see
that he is our only hope. And so they said, they rejoiced,
and Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the
brethren with many words and confirmed them. And after they
had, now think about that for a minute. They exhorted them
with many words and confirmed them. How do you think they exhorted
them? This is the message that they
were bringing. You don't have to keep the law of Moses. So
how do you think that they were exhorting them? Well, probably
a lot like I'm doing with you guys today. Letting you know,
hey, you're gonna be out there thinking that you're not doing
enough for Jesus. But don't look at that. It's
not your performance that God is looking at. He's looking at
Christ on your behalf. Sure, yeah, if you're compelled
in your heart to go do something, go do something. If you're in
your heart or consciously convicted of something, hey, follow that.
Do that, you know? And don't send them to yourself.
But he said, there's no condemnation, though, in Christ. You know,
you're not held down. You're not going to lose anything.
And you're not going backwards. If you're not doing something
for Christ, that Christ has promised that he is working in you to
will and to do his good pleasure. I just imagine that's kind of
what he's telling them. He's encouraging them. Hey, there's
gonna be days that you're gonna be down and you're gonna feel
like, man, I'm not worth anything in the kingdom of God right now.
Rejoice, Christian, because it's not about your performance and
how much you do for Christ. Listen, you are working out your
salvation with fear and trembling and performing every good work
that he has ordained for you. He promises that. And you're
not gonna stop that. You're not gonna halt it. You're
not gonna change it, alter it. He's gonna do it. See, that's
what I think that he is probably exhorting them and saying things
like this. Hey, listen, you're gonna feel, oh, probably was
giving them the Roman seven speech. Hey, listen, there's days that
I feel like I'm the most wretched of men, which I am and by nature,
but praise God, Who shall deliver me from this body of death that
can only sin and never come to the measure of Christ's glory?
Christ. Christ is delivering me from
that. He's delivered me, not only positionally in God's eyes,
but he's delivering me inwardly by purifying my heart with the
gospel. Therefore, there is now no condemnation
to those who have cried Jesus. When I sin, guess what? No condemnation. Does that mean go sin all you
want? Absolutely. The love of God constrains us.
The love of Christ in us constrains us, and the hope of the gospel
actually causes us to desire that righteousness, to want to
obey Christ. And we'll see that as we go further
in Galatians as well. But let's finish out the narrative
here, because it's time to stop. It says, and after they carried
their space, They were let go in peace from the brethren under
the apostles, notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there
still. Paul also and Barnabas continued
in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many
others also. And some days after Paul said
unto Barnabas, let us go again and visit our brethren in every
city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how
they do. And Barnabas determined to take with him John, whose
surname was Mark, but Paul thought not good to take with him, them
who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the
word. And the contention was so sharp between them that they
departed asunder one from another. And so Barnabas took Mark and
sailed unto Cyprus, and Paul chose Silas and departed, being
recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God. And he went
through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches. And so they took
that message that they had all agreed upon, that salvation in
no way, shape, or form relied upon the law of Moses. And they
took that to the churches and confirmed in every church that
doctrine. And so we see here back in Galatians
when Paul says that, but of these, in verse six, but
of these who seem to be somewhat whatsoever There it maketh no
matter to me, God, except that no man's person. For they who
seem to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me." It kind
of sounds like he's saying something negative, but he's actually not.
He's saying, listen, these Judaizers who's coming in behind me and
telling you that I'm a lesser apostle than these guys, he said,
whatever this conference, this assembly, this meeting in Jerusalem
is or was, He said, they're coming into the apostleship before me
doesn't mean anything. We were both given the same gospel
by the same person, Jesus Christ. And he said, and this conference
didn't add anything or take anything away from my message. It confirmed
my message. See, I didn't go up there to
get affirmation from them that I should keep on preaching. I
didn't go up there. See, some people think that whenever
Paul says that he went up there lest he run in vain. He wasn't
going up there to see whether or not he was preaching in vain.
He was going up there to make sure that the message that they
were preaching and the message that he was preaching, that he
wasn't doing anything out of the sorts to cause any backward
motion in the ministry of that gospel with them. Him going to
the Gentiles, how he was going to the Gentiles, and the message.
Because listen, we already know that Paul was confident in the
message because he had received it from the Lord Jesus himself.
carried over places that this you know and also not only in
the body and the body distress so he wasn't in doubt of his
apostleship he wasn't in doubt of that gospel but he was just
making sure they are we on the same page here because we need
to be on the same page we're preaching the same gospel and
if i'm going to get out of it you're going to circumcision
with it or jews the hate you know i want to make sure that
my running in the places that i'm going to stop counteracting
what you guys are doing. We want to be in connection with
each other. And so it isn't a negative thing that Paul was saying, but
said, but contrary wise, when they saw that the gospel of the
uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the
circumcision was unto Peter. Now, let me clarify that. It
doesn't mean that there was a gospel of uncircumcision and a gospel
of circumcision. It means that there was a gospel
to the circumcised, the Jews, and the gospel to the uncircumcised,
the Gentiles, but it was one gospel, not different gospels.
For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of
the circumcision, the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles.
So God had given Peter the apostleship to preach unto the Jews. He's
given me apostleship unto the Gentiles. And when James, Cephas,
and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was
given unto me, They gave to me and Barnabas the right hands
of fellowship. You see that it wasn't until Paul and Barnabas
had showed forth the grace that had been given unto them, the
doctrine of grace, as well as the actual giving of grace, but
the message of grace. See, whenever Peter and all them
heard that the message that Paul was preaching was the doctrine
of grace, which was of Christ, Then they gave him the right
hand of fellowship, but not until then. And these verses, brethren,
that I've been teaching you this morning is one of the reasons
why I say that those who do not believe the doctrine of grace,
those who do not believe in the sovereign grace of God, we can't
call them brothers. We can't give them the right
hand of fellowship and call them brothers because they're still
in unbelief. They're still believing that
perverted gospel. until they believe that, now
that's not saying that they're not elect and that they at some
point are going to become believers. I'm not assuming upon the election
of God, I don't have, I can't see the book of life, I don't
know who's in that. But we do know, just like they
knew, who was believers and who was not believers. The believers
were the ones who believed the doctrine of grace. The ones who
didn't believe were the ones who believed those other Gospels
that were no Gospels at all. And the ministers of those other
gospels were subverters, were perverters of Christ, and were
not servants of Christ. And so how can we shake hands
and say, hey, come into our fellowship, preach, teach, be a member? How can we call them brothers
when they are perverting Christ in their message? They're subverting
the churches in their messages. When they are falling back on
a works-based gospel and not a gospel of Christ alone. The
Bible says that we are to keep that leaven out of the church. And so that doesn't mean that
we hate them, that we be mean to them or anything like that,
but we cannot give them the place of brother or sister in Christ
until we see the fruit of that salvation, which is faith in
Christ. Faith in Christ looks to Christ alone. It doesn't look
to Christ in my decision, Christ in my church, Christ in my baptism,
Christ in my law keeping, Christ in my whatever. You wanna attach
onto that. And so he says, whenever they perceived the grace
that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right
hands of fellowship that we should go unto the heathen And they
under the circumcision, only they would that we should remember
the poor, the same which I also was froward to do. And so there
they went, continuing to preach that gospel. Now we'll stop right
there and we'll pick up Lord Willing in verse 11 and move
down next week. Does anyone have any questions
or comments or anything? before we end our time. The 27th, let me open my calendar and double check
that. It's not next Sunday, but the Sunday after that, I'm scheduled
to fill in the pulpit at Delaware still, unless they have something
happen between now and then. But the 27th, I will be in Delaware,
so we will, on that day. But Lord willing, next week we'll
be here and we'll pick up and burst your letters. Anybody got
anything? Anybody have a song that you'd
like to sing before we close? All right. Our gracious Heavenly
Father, once again, we come thanking you for all that you are. We
thank you for your sovereign mercy that you've given to us,
your sovereign grace that you've extended upon us. We thank you
for your rule over all things. We thank you, Father, that all
of our days and all of our events have been numbered by you, been
ordained by you, that all is coming to be exactly as you have
planned it to be. We thank you, Father, that salvation
has gone out to all the ends of the world, that the gospel
is successful in doing what it is called, been given to do,
and that they that are yours are being called to faith in
Christ Jesus from every language, nation, and tribe. Father, we're
so grateful that the gates of hell cannot prevail against your
church and against the gospel that it carries. And Father,
we look forward to the days ahead. We know that tumultuous times
are coming. We know that there are going
to be days as things wax worse and worse, that your church might
be persecuted if you see fit to allow that to happen. But
Lord, we pray that you would keep us faithful, that you would
help us to stand in truth, and that we might be a beacon of
light, that we might be salt, or that we might be a witness
and a testimony of Christ Jesus and a declaration and a proclamation
of his gospel. Father, Lord, we do. We lift
up our friends and our family who do not believe the truth.
And we ask you, Father, to please give them faith, to trust you,
to believe upon you, Lord. and that they might repent and
turn from their false gospels, and that they might turn to you.
Lord, we pray for our city. We pray, Lord, that you just
might minister grace throughout it. We pray that you would raise
up other churches that is preaching this truth, even if it isn't
us, Lord, that others might come and they might preach the truth
alongside of us here. Father, we just ask that Joplin
be flooded with the gospel of Christ's salvation. Lord, we
pray that as these people are being saved, that you would direct
them to churches that are preaching this message, that they might
be edified and that they might exhort one another in love and
that they might serve in gladness this wonderful gospel that we
have before us. Father, I thank you for each
brother that's here, each sister that's here. I thank you for
all the ones that are attending our services, Lord. I pray, Lord,
that it's been pleasing to you and that it's been edifying to
them, Lord, that you have taught us by your spirit and that you
will continue to work and minister in and through us in the days
to come. And Father, Lord, we just thank
you so much for Christ Jesus and for the blood that was shed
on our behalf, that substitutionary work he did in our place, and
that you found it to be satisfying to your justice and that we are
no longer under condemnation, nor never we ever was, because
we were united with Christ before the foundation of the world.
Lord, we don't understand how that works or how it even happened.
We don't have the fullest grasp on that, but Lord, we can apprehend
what you have said, and we can believe it as truth because you
said it, and you do not lie. And so, Father Lord, I pray that
we might live upon those promises, and that those promises might
be our strength and our shield throughout the week as we encounter
the things of this world, Lord, that might try to beat us down.
May you give us joy, may you give us peace, may you give us
strength in the Holy Ghost as we do those things as ministers
of the gospel. And Father, I thank you again
for this time together. I ask you to bless the food that
we're about to eat. May you nourish our bodies in
the fellowship that we're gonna have here, Lord, and it's in
Jesus' name that we pray, amen.