writes to the church here in
Glacier. There's actually more than that.
There's several local churches there in Glacier. And he writes
to them concerning their leaving the gospel. I mean, what a charge. Leaving the gospel for another
so-called gospel. But before he does that, He's
going to express to them that he desires God's grace and God's
peace for them. And he gives his usual salutation. But I was looking over this the
last couple of days, and I thought these first few verses are very
important. Every verse in the Word of God
is important and would be there. But they're very important because
if he's not who he says he is, the rest of this means nothing.
It means nothing if he's not who he says he is. You know,
we have to be careful that we don't read these salutations
like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I marvel that you're so
soon removed. Let's never get to the point
where we look at this and we say, well, you know, Paul's an
apostle. That's very important. He says
here, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus
Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Word
apostle in the Greek is apostolos, or one sent forth as an ambassador
of the gospel. An apostle is a minister sent
directly by God to do a specific work. It's one who has received his
message directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ taught him. You know, he went back into Arabia,
he tells us here later on. He was there for three years.
He was with the Lord the same amount of time learning and receiving
the gospel that Peter and him spent with the Lord. Three years
he was there. And then Christ is said to be,
over in Hebrews chapter 3, the apostle and high priest of our
profession. Christ said this. He said, the
Father sent me, sent of God, for a specific work, redemption. He was sent of God to redeem
a people and he received his message from God. He said, as
I hear, I speak directly from God. He said in
another place that he came to do the will of him that sent
him. So Paul says, I'm an apostle sent of God. God put him in that
position. God put him in that office. And
he makes it very clear that neither man nor men had anything to do
with it. They were claiming that Paul
was not an apostle back in that time. Because he was not with
the Lord during his earthly ministry. They were discrediting his ministry.
And that's what Satan does. Satan is very tactful. Discredits
a man's ministry. Discredits a man. Tear it down. And Paul lets them know, and
he lets us know, that his apostleship was by Jesus Christ and God the
Father. That's who it's by. And this
is the powerful statement. Anyone less than God could not
make him an apostle. Only God can make true ministers
of the gospel. Only God. I have said several
times from this pulpit, I cannot give power to a message. I can
deliver the message. God's given me a message. I pray
for the message, and God puts the message in my heart, but
I cannot put the message in your heart. I cannot give power to
the message. It is God who makes men ministers
of the gospel, gives them the ability to preach the gospel,
But he's the one who applies it. He's the one that applies
it. Now, if God calls a man to the
ministry, pastor, teacher, we must be very careful how we handle
that gift to the church. Because that is a gift to God's
church. If we don't put him up on a pedestal and worship him,
we must be aware how we do handle that man. God
put him in that position. Let me show you a couple of verses
of Scripture. I want to look at this a little
bit before we get into the heart of the message or the lesson. Turn over to 1 Samuel 24. In 1 Samuel 24, Frank has been
going through the book of Samuel, and we know how bad a king Saul
had become. Saul was after David. He wanted
to kill David. I mean, he despised David. But look here in 1 Samuel chapter
24, and it came to pass when Saul was returned from following
the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David
is in the wilderness of Enjudi. Then Saul took three thousand
chosen men, three thousand men, and went to David. Out of all
Israel went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the
wild goats. And he came to the sheep cots
by the way, where was a cave, and Saul went in to cover his
feet. And David and his men remained
in the sides of the cave. And the men of David said unto
him, Behold, the day of which the Lord said unto thee, Behold,
I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest
do to him as it shall seem good unto thee. Then David arose and
cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privately. And it came to pass
afterward that David's heart smote him because he had cut
off Saul's skirt. And he said unto his men, The
Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the
Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing
he is the anointed of the Lord." See, that's what I'm saying,
be careful how we handle God's man. If that man may be rotten, but
I tell you what, that position isn't, that office isn't, that
office is of God. Look over in Acts, let me see
here, Acts chapter 23. Acts chapter 23. In verse 1, and Paul, earnestly beholding the counsel,
said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience
before God until this day. And the high priest at Ananias
commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.
They slapped him in the mouth. You think Paul mad? And Paul
said unto him, God shall smite thee, thou white in wall, for
sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to
be smitten contrary to the law. And they that stood by said,
Revilest thou God's high priest? Then said Paul, I wish not brethren
that he was the high priest, for it is written, thou shalt
not speak evil of the ruler of thy people." Even though the
man himself, even though the man himself may be rotten to
the core, that office, that position, that authority, position of authority,
it's of God. It's of God. And I know this, there is so
much disrespect in this country towards authority. So much of
it. And much of it they bring on
themselves. They bring it on themselves.
But that does not, that does not give us the excuse to become
like them. Does not give the excuse to speak bad of that office. Now
Paul, in verse 2, he includes the brethren that were with him,
which shows, you know, Paul always demonstrated his union with the
church. He never put himself up here
on a pedestal. It was always the brethren. He
just pulled them up beside of him. And then he also shows here
their agreement in what he's writing to them about. But before taking them to task,
before bringing out this problem of them turning away from the
gospel, I mean, what a problem. What a problem. But before he
does that, he invokes grace and peace from God the Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ on them. Grace and peace be to you. This
is a good way to start. If you've got to take someone
on a task, I tell you, the best way to start is in love. The
best way to start is by praying that God's grace and peace be
on them. And this was before the book
was written, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Paul knew
how to do it. He knew how to do it because
God had saved him. God had given him a new heart. So he starts
out by invoking God's grace and God's peace to them. This is a good example of how
to handle a tough situation. Start with grace. Start with
the grace of God. Start with the love of God. Start
with the peace of God. Show Him love. And then the next
thing He does, He lays the grounds for dealing with with this in
verse 4. He's going to give them the gospel
here in a verse. And he's giving them the gospel,
in verse 4, he's giving them the gospel that they are turning
from, that they are turning away from. He says, "...who gave himself
for our sins." Jesus Christ, verse 3, he says, "...and from
our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins." that he
might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will
of God and our Father." He briefly lays out the gospel substitution
that they're leaving here in this verse. He says, Christ gave
himself for our sins. Don't ever leave that. Do not
ever turn from that. That is the foundation of the
gospel. That's the foundation of our
hope. that Christ gave himself for our sins. He's writing to
the church of God. It's the foundation. And the
reason he gave himself for our sins is that he might deliver us from
this present evil world. Do you see this world as evil? We were talking a little bit
yesterday, Vicki and I were talking a little bit about this world
and people and what we call good and yet what God calls good is
two different things, two totally different things. We were talking
about people are decent people, but I told her, I said, you take
away, take away the restraining hand of God and you won't find
one decent person on this earth. I'm telling you, the wrath of
man serves God, and the rest of it he restrains. He said in, I think it's Psalm
121, he puts an end to wars. He makes wars to cease. If he
didn't, they wouldn't. If he did not make wars to cease,
there would be a continual war between families neighbors, communities,
countries, it would never stop. And it does not stop. Now, I'm
telling you, it doesn't stop because we're decent people.
It stops because God puts a stop to it. It has served His purpose,
whatever that is, and now it's time for it to cease. And He
gives us a little rest, He gives us a little quiet for a little
while. And this is, and I was telling
her this morning, I said, I realize, especially, you know, you watch
TV and news and the way things are nowadays. I said, this, the
gospel is becoming more and more unpopular because it reveals
men and man as he is. And that's just too tough to
take. He delivered us from this evil
world. The word of God says, There's
none good. No, not one. I didn't write the
Bible. God wrote it. Through men. Chosen men. God inspired it. The Holy Spirit moved these men
to write this. And this is the way it is. It
is as it is. This world is evil to the core. And I know we can't fully comprehend
that. I know we can't. But I tell you what, I believe
it. I believe it because the Word of God tells us so, and
I believe it by experience. The older I get, the more I see
it. And this deliverance is according to the will of God. Our deliverance,
Christ giving himself for our sins, our deliverance from this
present evil world, is according to the will of God. If that doesn't give you comfort,
and I know it doesn't, if you believe the gospel, that gives
you comfort. It gives you comfort to know
that your salvation and your deliverance out of this present
evil world is according to the will of God. And God's will will
be done. It will be done. And it is being
done. Now, to turn from Christ, to
turn from the gospel of grace, of substitution, is to turn from
the will of God. It's to resist the will of God.
And of course, Paul gives God all the glory. in this whole
thing. To whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. To whom be glory. All glory belongs
to God. All the glory of creation belongs
to Him. All the glory of providence belongs to Him. And all the glory
of our salvation from Alpha to Omega belongs to Him. Belongs
to Him. Now Paul comes to this Huge problem. I don't have enough
time to spend on this, but this is where I'll pick up the next
time. But let me just say a few things. Paul says, I marvel. I stand in wonder that you are so soon removed.
Now, listen, he doesn't say you're removed from a few doctrines.
You didn't quit being a five-point Calvinist and become a four-point
Calvinist. He said you're removed from Him. You left Him. He didn't just
leave some doctor. It's not that we have a doctoral
difference. You left Him. That's how serious
this is. The seriousness of the charge
is this. Removed from Him. You remember in Hebrews we looked
at last week. Over there in Hebrews chapter
10, it says, if any man sin willfully after he's received the knowledge
of the truth, that there's no more sacrifice, there remains
no more sacrifice for sin. That's how serious this is. Being removed from him. They
didn't just change a little bit in their theology. They removed
from him, the person. The Amplified version says this,
you turn renegade. I thought that's a powerful statement. You turn renegade. You've turned
on Him. Have you ever had anybody turn
on you? And Paul said, this is what you're
doing. You are turning on Christ. You're turning renegade on Him. They turned on Christ. They turned
on His grace. They turned on the way God saves
sinners. They turned on Him. And what does that mean? I'll
tell you this, you can't turn from one thing and not turn to another.
It's not like there's a blank space behind you. You turn from
something, you're turning to something. They turn from grace,
now what are you going to turn to? Works. That's the only other
thing left. You've turned from grace alone,
Christ alone, to works. Trying to turn to grace and works.
And that animal doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It doesn't
work. You've turned, he says, here
to another gospel, which is not another. There is no other gospel. But they call it a gospel. I
mean, you know, you see all these religious programs on television,
and they all say they're preaching what? The gospel. Well, it's
not. It's not. It's another gospel.
It's another way of salvation. It's another way of salvation.
So you turn, he says, you turn, which is in verse six, I marvel
that you are so soon removed from him that called you into
the grace of Christ and to another gospel, which is not another,
but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ. And that's what it is, it's a
perversion. It's a perversion. But though we are an angel, And
Paul's serious with this. You know, a lot of times we say
things to shock value or to get a point across. Paul means this. 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. Let him be damned. That's how serious it is to turn
from it. That's how serious it is to preach
a so-called another gospel. As we said before, just in case
you didn't hear it the first time, in case I did not get your
attention the first time, so say I now again, if any, and
that word man has been supplied, if any preach any other gospel
unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." To come with any other gospel
than what God has given in the Word of God, what He has revealed
in His Word, is to turn from Christ. It is
to leave the Lord Jesus Christ. They'll use His name. Mostly
they'll come preaching another They'll use his name. They couldn't
call themselves Christian if they didn't use his name. But they will not preach his
character, his person, his work. They will not preach him. He said, you leave that, you're
in trouble. Deep, deep trouble. that you're so soon removed from
him that called you into the grace of Christ and to another
gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble
you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you, let him, let him be damned. Let him be damned. There is only,
I've got written by this, I've got written by this verse here,
only one gospel. Only one way that God saves sinners
is through His Son. His blood, His righteousness,
His person. Don't ever turn from that. To turn from that is to leave
Him.