Well, what an awesome passage
of scripture the first chapter of Galatians is. I hope you have your Bibles and
that you will just keep them open to this first chapter. The battle for the gospel is
perennial. Paul said in the Corinthian letter, I am determined to know
nothing among you. save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'm determined, that's what the
Apostle Paul said. And I likewise am determined
to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. When I point as your pastor,
I will point to Christ and to Christ alone, not Christ plus,
I will not point to baptism. I will not point to keeping the
Ten Commandments. I will not point to morality. I will say to you that Christ
is all. He is the Savior of poor sinners. He is the only one that can save. There is a name which is above
every name. At the name of Jesus, every knee
should bow. and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord. Paul in the Philippian letter
said, we have no confidence in the flesh. Zip, zero, no confidence
in the flesh. Well, what do you rejoice in
Paul? We rejoice in Christ Jesus. That's where the joy is. I guarantee
you, If you're trusting in yourself, your church entity, your denomination,
your baptism certificate, or anything else besides Jesus Christ,
you know you're a liar and there is no truth in you. You know
that in your flesh dwells no good thing. There are no perfect
people in this auditorium. are in the world. We were born
sinners by nature and we are sinners by choice. We choose
to sin and we are sinners by practice. And the only hope is
in the God of this Bible for deliverance. The gospel is so
complex and yet so very simple. Complex in the sense that One
must understand to really enter into the gospel that God is a
holy God, that he is a righteous God. The one who gave the Ten
Commandments is holy. He didn't give them thinking
you were going to keep them. The law of God is a mirror to
see that you have a dirty heart. and that you need a heart transplant.
In the Ten Commandments, you find out that you are a lawbreaker. All have sinned and fallen short
of the glory of God. God has so fixed it that boasting
is excluded. that when God saves somebody,
he begins to grow them in grace. And as they grow in grace, they
began to sing amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved
a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm
found. They come to see that the parable
of the 99 sheep that was safe in the fold was only found by
a seeking shepherd who left the 99 and followed that lost sheep
down into the valleys of sin, over the mountaintops of iniquity,
and finally lay hold on that lost sheep. And as that parable
goes, it said it was the shepherd who found the sheep. The sheep
was lost. I was talking to my niece who
lives near Washington, D.C. and has a farm. She's a doctor.
And she's always dreamed of having sheep. And she said to me last
night, Uncle Kent, you know sheep are so stupid. I said, I know
that. She said, well, how did you know
that? I said, because I've read the Bible. Jesus calls us sheep. You know, a sheep will get lost,
get out of the pasture, get out of the pen, will never find its
way home. We used to have a dog that we
didn't want, and I can remember well, my dad shouldn't have done
it, but he used to drop that old dog off, it would beat us
home. Sheep are dumber than dogs. Dogs
are pretty smart, not sheep. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. That message that Jesus Christ
is A-double-L will soon get lost unless perpetually the preacher,
the pastor is proclaiming it, setting it forth. Prone to wander,
Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God that I
love. It's so easy to think well of
yourself. I'll just tell you this, most
churches are boasting in a self-salvation and it is not true. You do not
save yourself and you do not have one single thing to do with
saving yourself. Salvation is of the Lord from
Alpha to Omega, from beginning to end. And here's what Paul
said in this beginning chapter of Galatians. I'm an Apostle. I'm an Apostle by Jesus Christ. I'm as much as an Apostle as
Peter or James or John or Matthew or Mark or Luke, because somebody
was saying about the Apostle Paul, You are a retail preacher. You are a retail apostle. You
took somebody else's doctrine of the other apostles and kind
of have robbed them of it. And the apostle says, I want
you to know that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. because he revealed
himself to me on the road to Damascus. I'm as much as an apostle
as the others. So that's what he says in verse
1, and I'm an apostle not of men. You think about his conversion
on the road to Damascus. Here was a Christ-hater, Christ-rejecter,
a legalist, a Pharisee, a self-righteous man who really believed that
killing Christians was something he ought to do. that it was a
godly act, and so he had papers of authority on his way to Damascus. And on the road to Damascus,
he met up with a sovereign Christ. As he walked along, the sovereignty
of God came in clear view. He was struck down, and he cried
out this, Who art thou, Lord? And I say to you, unashamedly,
that I believe in Lordship salvation, that salvation is of the Lord,
that He becomes your Lord before He becomes your Savior. He must
conquer you. He must be greater than you are.
I love it when people say, here's my part in salvation. I did the
sinning, He did the saving. Well, I think that to be correct.
God sought you out. And the apostle Paul says that,
In verses 12 and following, he says, For I neither received
it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ. Now I tell you pointedly, flat
out, that in order for you to get to heaven, you must have
a revelation. a supernatural revelation that
Jesus Christ alone is Lord and Savior, and that you have been
cut off from all your denominationalism, your churchism, your baptismism,
your good workism. My faith is built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Revelation. Say, well, I don't
know about that. I don't know whether I believe
in this Holy Spirit. Well, if you ever get converted,
you will. You will know that once you was
lost and blind, and now you see. That's called regeneration. That's
called the Spirit of God coming where you are. He's the hound
of heaven. He tracks you down and reveals
to you the gospel of the glory. The gospel of the glory is very
simply this, the gospel of God's grace. Grace, what a sweet word. I like to call everything grace.
I name my kids grace. I name the church grace. I call
Grace Gospel Fellowship, Grace Centers of Hope, grace, grace,
grace. That's why people say, you know,
if you've heard Clark once, you've heard him. He's gonna preach
grace. Because whatever happened to me as an eight-year-old boy,
I believe regenerated, given spiritual life. I believe born
again by the Spirit of God. I've never got over. It's more
a wonder to me that I'm on my way to heaven, that heaven is
sure, that I have blessed assurance in spite of all that my flesh
does, in spite of all that my flesh thinks, in spite of my
wanderings, I am heaven-bound. And there's only one reason for
that. Verse 16 says, or I like verse 15, but when it pleased
God, when it pleased God, You see, if you are converted, there
was a time that God set. It was a predetermined time. You didn't get saved by accident.
You're not a lucky guy or gal, remember? Remember? Last year,
you were in the crack house. Today, you're in God's house,
worshiping Jesus Christ. How did you get from the crack
house to the church house, bowing down to the feet of Jesus Christ? Remember, you were wandering.
There is no one in here, including this preacher. You know, I never
wore a pair of shorts until Miss Pam got a hold of me. Because
if you dressed with a pair of shorts, I never had a phys ed
class. I was so holy, I stunk. I was self-righteous. the outside,
but what a mess I was on the inside. I was such a liar on
the outside, drawing attention to my outward holiness. The Apostle Paul said, I was
a Pharisee of the Pharisee. There was nobody better than
me. As far as keeping the law, I was as clean as a houndstooth.
Now you Southern people may not understand that, but an old hound
dog will sit out on the porch and that hound dog's tongue is
that long and it's always licking his teeth. Clean as a houndstooth. This morning, I'm looking for
sinners. You know, sinners are scarce. It's hard to find a real
bona fide, certified, real sinner. But I do know this, sinners,
you see, you've heard me say this many times, sinners are
as scarce as hen's teeth. You know, an old hen doesn't
have any teeth. If I can find a real, bona fide, certified,
crack addict, heroin using, prostitute, drinking church Pharisee who's
come to see they're dirty on the inside, I got some good news
for you. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save you. And that's the message. So many
of you have come to Christ. And I'm glad. Set up a standard. Build a fence around this. Pitch
your tent right here at Calvary. I'm trusting in Christ, his doing
and dying on the tree of the cross, in my room, in my stead,
in my place. Here's the message. Look at what
the apostle says. in verse 4 of Galatians 1, who
gave Himself for our sins. Who gave Himself for our sins,
not for our righteousness. He gave Himself for our sins.
I'm about to get happy on the inside. I can feel it starting. God made Him to be sin for us. God imputed sin, all of your
sins, to Him. He who knew no sin and had no
sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. That's the way it is. Imputed
righteousness. God took your sins. But the man
Christ beat Christ in your room, stand in place, and when he paid
the debt, he said, it's accomplished. Space is saved. It was a difficult
job. But his debt is paid in full. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those that are in Christ Jesus. Christ died in the place of sinners
who gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from
this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. You're saved because it was God's
will, not yours. Oh, you were willing when God
got through with you. But he had to change your willer.
Remember there was a time when you wanted crack and heroin and
sin and drank and you claimed your own self-righteousness.
You were a Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian or whatever. And there you made your brag.
I'm a Christian. Be a Christian through and through. Now here's the danger. And what
was happening to these churches, the churches of Galatia, The
circumcisers were coming in, the Pharisees. And they were
saying, you have to be circumcised in order to be saved. You have
to keep, yes, Christ was a pretty good guy, but you have to keep
the law of Moses, and you have to be circumcised, and you have
to do this, and you have to do that. And some people were kind
of leaning. I would say to all of you, we
have a pretty good crowd today, I would say to all of you, be
careful where you go to church. Be careful what your little ears
hear. If you go somewhere where that
golden bell is not rung every service. I've told you this story
long ago, there was two great preachers. One was Charles Haddon
Spurgeon, which I claim to be my pastor. And there's not a
week goes by except I read a Spurgeon message. You know why? Because
in his messages is Jesus Christ from A to Z. They're full of
Christ. There was Spurgeon and Dr. Parker.
And there was two young men that was going to go into ministry,
and they said, you know, this week we'll go up to Dr. Parker's
church and hear him preach. And when they left after the
service, after Dr. Parker had preached, they said,
what a great orator. What an educated man Dr. Parker
is. The next week they went up to
the Metropolitan Tabernacle and heard Spurgeon. And they left
saying this, what a great savior, what a great redeemer is Jesus
Christ. That's the difference. You can
hear great sermons, but this is how simple it is. The apostle
said this, I'm jealous over you with a godly jealousy. I've espoused
you to one husband. You're engaged to Jesus Christ,
but I'm afraid for you. I fear that the devil through
his subtlety will take you away from a single mindedness, which
is in Christ Jesus. That's in the Corinthian letter,
a single-mindedness. I ask you this today, is it Christ
and Christ alone for you? Are you entrusting the Grace
Centers of Hope rehab program, the one-year program, the aftercare
program? Are you trusting Jesus Christ
alone, him alone? Are you engaged to Jesus Christ? Do you know there's a wedding
day coming? And so you don't look at anybody else or anything
else for your salvation. Let me tell you this, if you're
engaged and you look at someone else, you've been unfaithful.
I want that, I want her, I want, amen. The apostle said, there
is one that you're engaged, you're espoused to Jesus Christ. Don't
be looking at the Presbyterian church for your salvation. because
that's called spiritual adultery. Don't be looking at the Baptist
church, that's really spiritual adultery. I'm saying that to
you visiting with us because I came out of the Baptist church.
I was a Baptist most of my life. But being a Baptist is not going
to take you to heaven. It's the blood of Christ. It's
Christ alone. And so Paul says this, I worry
about you folks, that you're turning to another gospel, which
is not a gospel at all. Over 50 years of preaching, people
have often said to me, you know, to listen to you preach, it's
as if you believe there's only one way for people to get to
heaven. Oh, you're right. You heard me.
Jesus said, I am the way. That means there is no other
way. I'm the truth. That means everything else is
a lie. I am the life. That means everything
else is death. Oh, single-mindedness toward
Jesus Christ. Paul said, I marvel, how could
you? What is wrong with you? If you
go over to the third chapter of the book of Galatians, he
says this in verse 1, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched
you? Somebody has voodooed you. that
you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ
has been evidently set forth, crucified among you, crucified
among you. Ah, there's something about the
crucifixion. It's called substitution. It's
called dying in my stead. It's called taking my place,
dying in my room, suffering my hell, taking my sins. Substitution. I love the word. He became the propitiation. God is so holy. He's up your
eyes and to look upon sin. In order for you to go to heaven,
all your sins have to be paid for. And I'll tell you one sin
God hates more than any other. It's self-righteousness. It's
your boasting. I talked about that Wednesday
night, and three people confessed faith in Christ Wednesday night.
Boasting is excluded, totally excluded. The wrath of God was
poured out on Christ. That's why you're not going to
hell. That's why I'm not going to hell. God exhausted His wrath. His justice has been satisfied. And Christ said it's finished,
it's accomplished, it's done. What do you say? Well, you know,
I think He did everything but. I listen to occasionally TV preachers. And I watched Jesus Christ start
to disappear as they talk about the salvation of men and women.
And he becomes a small dot over the horizon. While it's your
faith, and your free will, and your baptism, and your church,
and your morality, and your sanctification, and your this and that, what
ought to be always this? Christ is all. Christ is all. That's all. Christ is all I need. All I need. I'll tell you this
today. He's all I want. He's all I want. He's the desire of my heart. Well, I didn't get very far,
but I want you to go over to the last chapter of Galatians,
and I will conclude. You say, well, Pastor, what about
that passage in the book of Galatians? that the Galatian churches has
fallen from grace. You know, you can get saved and
then you can lose your salvation. The Bible doesn't say you must
be born again and again and again and again. If God saves you,
he didn't save you to lose you. Say, oh, but, you know, it's
so sad. Susie relapsed and, you know,
she's gone back out there. And we hear that, we've heard
it this week. about relapse here. We're not
comfortable with relapse, but my friend, there's no one in
here that's not a relapser. Why are you looking at me that
way? You're a relapser. You are. But you know what? When God's
kids mess up, he never leaves them nor forsakes them. Say,
well, you know, she's really out there. Yes, and God's with
her out there. And greater is he that's in you
than he that's in the world. The spirit of God that draws
us back to Christ. People can do the craziest things
and then mourn it and talk about how they love the Lord and they
repent of it, they turn from it. What I wanted to show you
is this. And by the way, it does say in
the book of Galatians, Paul says to these churches, you have fallen
from grace. Say, well, what does that mean?
That means they have stopped trusting in the grace, unmerited
favor of God and are starting to turn towards circumcision. That's always been insanity to
me. I thought that no females are going to heaven. Anyway, It's just as crazy to choose
something else as a work that will take you to heaven. Think
about how insane that is. How insane that is. We often baptize people here,
everybody that professes faith in Christ, absolutely, you ought
to confess Christ in the waters of baptism. And we immerse here. And what you say is not there
is a fountain filled from the city water main, but there is
a fountain filled with blood. You're not trusting in the water.
What you're saying is, Christ died for me, Christ was buried
for me, Christ arose again for me, and I'm a new creation in
Christ Jesus. I'm trusting Him and Him alone.
Paul ends this book by saying this. Look at verse 14 of the
last chapter. But God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom the
world is crucified unto me. You know what makes me not like
the world? Christ. You know, I go through
this, Miss Pam and I both kind of go through this. Every week
there's something happens, almost every day. The world is so powerful,
the flesh is so wicked. That's what keeps me going. I
glory in the cross of Christ. I know this when Susie fails. I know Jesus Christ did not When
John fails, I know this Jesus Christ did not when Kent messes
up I know this Jesus Christ did not he gonna take me all the
way I He puts me in the way, leads me along the way, and takes
me all the way. That's why I'm a happy guy. I'm
such a mess up. I am such a mess up. I thought
by the time I got to 73, I'd be near perfect. But it seems to be going the
other way. but God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the
world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. You know what
that means? I've had people say this to me, well, preacher, you
know, they don't go to church, they're not good. You're still
preaching the old bloody way? You're still dunking people? You got that big smile on their
face? I go, yes, and hell's hot and I'm heaven-bound. I know
that for certain. And I rejoice, and God forbid
that I should glory in anything else save the cross of Jesus
Christ. Now watch this. Watch this, watch
verse 15. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
avails anything nor uncircumcision. Doesn't matter whether you've
been circumcised or not. And I'll tell you this, it doesn't
matter as far as being heaven-bound whether you're a Baptist, Catholic,
Methodist, or Presbyterian. It doesn't matter. These things
don't matter. What really matters is this,
that you've been given a revelation of the crucified God-man who
came into the world, went up on Mount Calvary, paid your sin
debt in full, got up out of the grave on the third day, ascended
back into heaven, and now you've got the best lawyer in all the
world to plead your cause and case, who's never lost a case,
and will never lose a case. Don't you need a lawyer? You
need a lawyer. Don't shake your head this way,
don't go like, you need a lawyer, and you need a good one. And
Jesus Christ is the mediator, but watch this. And I learned
this as a boy preacher. And I have preached this all
over this country. And as many as walk according
to this rule, rule, rule, rule. What rule? God forbid that I
should glory save in the cross. As many as walk, that's a continual
way of life. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.
Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ is my only Lord
and Savior. There is salvation no other place
anywhere. I love to tell the story. I love
to hear the story. I like pastor preaching the same
old thing every Sunday. He just preaches it and preaches
it, and we all sit there and smile and go, amen, like it's
the first time we heard it. Hey, that's good, that's good.
I told you that last week. As many as walk according to
this rule, peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of
God. I would encourage you young Christians,
Or, old Christian, study the book of Galatians. You'll find
out what I'm telling you this morning is absolutely true. And
pitch your tent at Calvary. Drive a stake down there. We
were gonna sing near the cross, weren't we, this morning? Why
don't we? Let's stand and sing near the
cross. Stay near the cross. That's where the price was paid.