Turn back to Acts 15. Acts chapter
15. I titled the message, By the Grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You'll notice that Peter did
not mention anything else, did he? They came saying, you've
got to do this, you've got to do that. He doesn't mention anything but
by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what better man to
say this than the one who denied the Lord. He was taken to be
crucified. He denied that he even knew Him.
And this man knew. This man knew that salvation
is all by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew that. So let's look at this this morning
for a little bit. The subject of this chapter is
all of grace. That salvation is all of grace. There can never at any time be
any mixture of works or else it's no more grace. If you put
a speck Just a speck, the size of a grain of sand in it, of
works. It's no more grace. No more grace. But there will always be those
who try to bring us under bondage and destroy this liberty that
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. There will always be some, somewhere
along the way, that's going to come in and try to destroy this.
The Galatians are a perfect example of this. Actually, if you have
time, read the book of Galatians and you'll see this chapter because
this is what Paul's dealing with here. Look over in Galatians
chapter 1. I'm going to refer back to Galatians
probably three or four times during this message. But Paul
said in Galatians 1 and verse 6, I marvel that ye are so soon
removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ. You're removed from him unto
another gospel. These Judaizers that came in,
they were claiming to believe the gospel, but they said, now,
you've got to do this, and that's another gospel. That's another
gospel, Paul says, in verse 7, which is not another. They call
it the gospel. But it's not another gospel.
There is only one gospel. There's not another, but they
say there is. But there be some that trouble you, and we'll see
this, and would pervert the gospel of Christ, the gospel of grace. Christ alone, grace alone. 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.
As we said before, I'm going to Reiterate this. So say I now again, if any man
preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received,
let him be accursed. Let him go to hell. What do I say? Pretty strong
language, isn't it? Paul said, let that man perish
if he tries to take you away from the gospel, to divert your
attention away from Christ. There's never a time when we
perfect salvation, ever a time, when we perfect salvation by
this flesh or by keeping a commandment. Look back over in Galatians again
in chapter 3. In chapter 3, there's never a
time that we perfect or help perfect our salvation. And he
says in Galatians 3, in verse 2, no, it's verse 3, I've got numbers here I've written
down by this and I'm looking at the numbers I've written.
It's verse 3. Are you so foolish, having begun
in the Spirit, born of God, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Are you born of God and then
you set off on your own to live right, so to speak, to do Are
you now made perfect by the flesh? He said that's no way. No way. We start out in the Spirit, we
walk in the Spirit, and we die in the Spirit. In the Spirit
of God's grace. This is a problem they had to
deal with. And it says certain men, in verse 1 and 2, certain
men came down from Judea. They came down and they said
you must be circumcised if you are to be accepted of God. This
is what you must do, along with believing the gospel, along with
believing on Jesus Christ. This also you must do. And I want you to look back in
Genesis 17. Let me show you where this matter
of circumcision started. In Genesis chapter 17, look in verse 9. Genesis 17 verse 9, And God said
unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant, therefore thou and
thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant
which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee.
Every man child among you shall be circumcised, and ye shall
circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a token
of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days
old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your
generations. He that is born in the house
or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed, he
that is born in thy house and he that is brought up with thy
money must need to be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your
flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child
whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall
be cut off from his people. He hath broken my covenant."
They could not let that go. They could not let it go. The Jew believed. Now I'm talking
about a Jew who was just religious without Christ. He believed that
if a man was circumcised, he was automatically going to be
in heaven. He was surely going to be there. And this is what
they're saying. They said, this has to happen.
I'm sure they went back to Genesis 17. They said, see? See, they
had the Old Testament. And they probably brought this
in and said, now see, read this. This is what it says. You have
to do it. They didn't understand the gospel.
They did not understand grace. They did not understand who Jesus
Christ is. They didn't really understand
that. They did not understand the work of Christ, the person
of Christ, the righteousness of Christ, the blood of Christ.
They never saw Him. And they could not let go of
their works or their heritage and look to Christ alone and
grace alone. They couldn't do it. They did
not understand that true circumcision is of the heart and not the flesh. They couldn't understand that.
And so they came down and they were causing a lot of trouble
here. They were really stirring up these young believers. So
Paul and Barnabas, this is why God gives pastors and teachers. This is why He gives them. Paul
and Barnabas met them with a great confrontation. They did not welcome
them into the congregation. They met them with a great confrontation. Paul did not entertain them,
not even for an hour. Look over in Galatians again,
chapter 2. Here's how Paul dealt with these
men. He says in verse 4, and that because of false, let me
go back to verse 3, but neither Titus who was with me, being
a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised at this time, during
this situation when he went up to Jerusalem. And that because
the false brethren, unawares, brought in who came in privately,
privately, to spy on our liberty, to find a chink in the armor.
That's what he's saying. They came in to find a chink
in the armor. How many times did they try to
trap our Lord in his words and in his message? And he said they
came in privately. They slipped in. They just slipped
in. 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, that we submitted to them and
listened to them?" Paul said, no, not for an hour. Paul said,
I didn't give them the time of day, and I did not bid them Godspeed. No, not for an hour, that the
truth of the gospel might continue with you. No, he said, I didn't
give them a minute's worth of my time. Because they're wrong. They were wrong. No compromise. No compromise in the gospel.
And it was determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other
of them should go to Jerusalem, to the church in Jerusalem, about
this problem. Right in the face of the problem.
That's where it originated, right out of Jerusalem. They're the
ones, the Pharisees, you'll see this as we go on. So they go
right there when they face that problem and they go to the church
there in Jerusalem about this matter. Now listen, not to see
if what these false men were saying had any truth to it, had
any validity to it, not to find out who's right and who's wrong. It was not a debate. It was a
declaration. It was a declaration of the truth,
the reason why they went to Jerusalem. They didn't go up there to get
information. They went up there to declare the gospel of God's
grace and put this down, put an end to this thing. They went
to settle the matter, not debate the matter. They went to declare
and preach the gospel of God's grace and stop this foolishness. That's why they went there. They
didn't say, well, are these guys right? Could they have been a
little right? A little right is all wrong. A little right is all wrong. And then the first five and more
trouble came along. Some Pharisees who said they
believed. They said they believed. How
many people do you come across who say they believe the Gospel?
Then you tell them the Gospel and they get mad. You don't believe
it. If you did, you'd get glad. You
wouldn't be mad. And they said, it's needful to be circumcised
and keep the law of Moses, as Frank told us this morning so
plainly. The law can do nothing for us. The law has never saved
a person of itself. Never. And this is what they
were saying. You have to do this. You can
believe on Christ. Yeah, go ahead. But you've got
to do this too. It was evident that these Pharisees
did not understand or believe the gospel of grace. Religious
without Christ is what they were. And religion without Christ,
100% of the time, always ends up with works. Always. And now Peter speaks. This is
the first conference speaker. This is the first conference
Bible conference held in the Scripture. Here's the first Bible
conference. And what speakers? What if you had Peter, Paul,
Barnabas, and James speaking here this morning? Oh, my soul.
That would be a line-up. But Peter is the first conference
speaker, and he tells them how God saved the Gentiles there
in verse 7. And he's speaking here, no doubt,
of Cornelius and his family and that group that was there back
in chapter 10. He's speaking of them, how God
saved these Gentiles. and how that they received the
Holy Ghost even as they had at the day of Pentecost. He said
these Gentiles have received the Holy Ghost just as we have.
God has saved them just as He has saved us through the preaching
of Christ crucified. Not the reading of the law, but
the preaching of Christ. This is interesting over here
in Galatians chapter 3. Paul said in verse 2, this only
would I learn of you, you Galatians, you who believe God, receive
you the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of
faith. And here's what he's saying.
I heard Henry say this years ago and I've never forgotten
it. When God saved you, were the Ten Commandments being read
or was Christ being preached? I never forgot that. Never forgot
that. Was the law being read in the
temple every Sabbath day? Was you sitting there listening
to the Ten Commandments being read? Or was the grace of God
in Christ being preached to you? Now, how did you receive the
Spirit? You received it when Jesus Christ, Christ crucified,
was preached. And that never changes throughout
your whole life. It never changes. Never. And
he's saying here that they received the Holy Ghost through the preaching
of Christ crucified even as they did at Pentecost. And God put
no difference between us, the Jew and the Gentile. God puts
no difference. He made both. Is this not all
of God's creation? All of it. In Christ, this is
what Peter is saying, in Christ all are one. It amazes me how
simple they kept the message. They kept their messages so simple.
And he's just saying to them, in Christ all are one. That's what it says in Colossians
3.11. There's neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond
or free. Christ is all in Israel. And
he says, and their hearts were purified By faith. The same way our hearts are purified.
Same way. By faith they turned to God.
By faith they became obedient. By faith they worshiped God in
Christ. By faith they received the blood. By faith they received
Him. That's what He means here when
He says their hearts are purified by faith. It's evident. It became
evident. Now why? Why put a yoke on their necks? That's what you put on an ox
when you're going to plow with him. You put a yoke on his neck
and you take a whip. Rain and you whip him and make
him plow. Make him plow. Why put a yoke
on their neck that we who are present, we who are present and
our fathers were not able to bear? He said, we never have. At this time and throughout our
whole history, we never have kept the law. We've never kept
it. Ever. And why bring them under
bondage? Why bring them under such a bondage
to something we couldn't even do? We couldn't even handle it.
So why put that on them? And here's the key verse. But we believe. And here's such
a, what you call the Apostle's Creed, and just such a, so much
is said here in this verse. So much is said in this verse.
It's like 2 Corinthians 5.21, For He hath made Him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That's the whole Gospel in a verse. That is the
whole comprehension of the Gospel in a verse. And Peter says here,
but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
we shall be saved even as they. And he worded it that way, really
the Holy Spirit, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, said it that
way on purpose. He didn't say, they shall be
saved even as we, because that's what the Jews were trying to
do. He said, now, if you're going to be saved like us, this is
what you have to do. No, he said, we Jews are going to be saved
just like them. That's what he's saying. We shall be saved even as they. We believe, and here's what he's
saying, and this is what the church believes to this day.
It hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. We believe
that salvation is all of grace. The believer understands that.
Now you can explain it all day long to an unbeliever and he's
still not going to get it. But the believer understands that
His salvation, or her salvation, from Alpha to Omega, is totally
100% of grace without any effort ever on my part, and her part,
and their part. From our election in Christ to
our final glory, it's all of grace. I wish I could say that
like it needs to be said. It's all of grace. What is it
that the apostles believed here and preached that's bound up
in this verse? I can only just give you just
a little salting of it. You put a little salt on your
food. I can just give you a little salting. It's all. Here's what
they believed and preached when Peter said this. This is in this
verse. That man is totally, 100% dead. dead in trespasses and sins.
He is totally depraved or it would not be all of grace. If there is an ounce of life
in you, if there is just an ounce of something that you can do,
a spark, it's not all of grace. So when he says it's all of grace,
he's saying you're all dead. You're all dead. And then he's
saying this, that God chose a people in Christ, or it would not be all of grace.
If it's like it is in today's preaching, that the Lord is waiting
for me to choose Him, that's not all of grace. All of grace
is God choosing me. Unconditional. Absolutely, 100%
unconditional. God choosing me. And then that
salvation is according to the will of God, or it would not
be all of grace. Of His own will beget He us with
the Word of truth. If it's not all according to
God's will, and not human will, if my will ever, the will I'm
born with, if it ever enters into it, it's not all of grace. That's why Peter said it's all
grace. We believe that the atonement
of Christ is effectual to put away all our sins. My repentance,
which is a gift of God, has never put away a sin. It has never
put away one sin. I can weep from now until the
time I die, and it will not wash away one sin. It's all grace. It's all of grace. We believe
that God's grace will prevail or it would not be all of grace.
If at any point His grace comes to this point, that I must come
to this point, it would not be all of grace. It wouldn't be. We believe that the saints will
persevere until the end or it would not be all of grace. If
at any time I have to take over It would not be all of grace.
He's not my co-pilot. You know what that means? It means I'm flying this thing.
If I need him, I'll call on him. That's what you do to a co-pilot.
A co-pilot is there if you can't handle it. I can't handle it from start
to finish. I couldn't get the thing off
the ground. Couldn't do it. It won't fly. It's all of grace. Grace, as
John Newton said, has brought us safe thus far, and grace will
lead us home. It'll lead us home. He's saying that salvation is
all of grace. When we believe, and he says
this, and we believe that we shall be saved even as they. Now, God humbled that man, didn't
He? God humbled that man. He said, we Jews shall be saved
the same way as those Gentile dogs are saved. Same way. By the grace of God, through
the blood and righteousness of His Son. This is a blow to self-righteousness. Those pious Pharisees standing
there, we kept the law, they didn't keep anything. They claimed
they kept the law, that they were so clean, they were so pure. And Peter says, if God saves
us, if God saves any of us, any of us Jews, it will have to be
the same way He saves those Gentiles. It has to be. There's only one
door. Christ said, I'm the door. And even though the Jews had
the Word of God, they had the sacrifices, they had the ceremonies,
none of these things ever saved one of them. Never. Never. Everyone who has ever been saved,
from Adam to the last one, has been saved by the grace of God.
through the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every
one has been saved by the, and he says this, by the grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ. If he'd have said by the grace
of God, then Jesus would have said, well, we believe that. But he
used that name that was so contemptible among them in Jerusalem, those
Pharisees. He used that name. And in doing
so, he used it in a way that he put him on equal footing with
God. He said, by the grace of the Lord, by the grace of the
one you nailed to the cross, by the grace of the one whose
face you spit in, by the grace of the one whose hair you plucked
out, by the grace of the one that you despised and rejected,
we believe that by His grace we shall be saved, even as those
Gentiles. Put himself on the same footing.
God saves the outwardly, Moral person. Outwardly, I said. Nobody's that way inwardly. Nobody's
that way inwardly. One time, Vicki was telling me,
this has been years ago. I'm going to use this as an example.
I've debated on it, but I'm going to. There's a lady she was talking
to, she bragged She was bragging
that when she got married she was a virgin. Just bragging about
it. Well, that's good. But not in
her heart she wasn't. I guarantee you. There ain't
one of us ever gotten married with a virgin heart. There's
more fornication committed in this heart than all the brothels
and dives in this whole world put together. That's the truth. And this is what Peter is saying.
These Pharisees were saying, here's what they're saying now.
This is what they're saying. We're virgins. That's what they're
saying. And Peter said, well, not in
your heart you're not. We have never kept the law. You
see, we go by degrees of sin. We have a problem with putting
measures on sin. You know, we say, this is worse,
this is worse, this is bad, this is not as bad. God sees sin as
sin. And you know where the worst
of all of them is? Self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is the worst
of all sins. Make you look down your nose
at everyone else, Including God. Because that's what they did
to Christ. They looked down their nose at Him. Who is God? That's
what self-righteousness will do. That's what it will do. And he's saying here, God saves
the outwardly moral person the same way He saves the openly
vile sinner. By grace. By grace. by the grace of God, through
the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter
does not mention ceremonies. He doesn't mention baptism. He
doesn't mention the Lord's table. He speaks only of grace. Only
of grace. Spurgeon said this, To be kept from overt offenses
is a favor for you to be grateful Be grateful that God has kept
you from some things. You know, He restrains. There
are things I haven't done because God restrained me. There were
some things, believe me, there's a whole lot of things I wanted
to do that God did not let me do as a young man, teenager. We have a great capacity for
sin. A great capacity. The Scripture says we drink sin
like water. We drink iniquity like water. Spurgeon said to be kept from
overt offenses is a favor for you to be grateful, but not a
virtue for you to trust in. Isn't that a statement? It's
something to be grateful for. Of course, there are things that
we can do and God forgive us of it, but the consequences follow
us throughout our life. It can follow us. And we'd be
thankful for being kept from those things, but my soul don't
trust in it. It's like I like to say that,
like, that's fine, but don't trust in it. That could be your
ticket to hell. You can't give it up. You can't
give up this confidence. This is your righteousness. This
is your acceptance of the Lord God. God saves the mother of Israel.
The same as He saves the mother of harlots by His grace. Because it's constraining grace. Sovereign constraint. That's
what it is. Be thankful that you've been
kept from gross sins. But remember this, and you will. If you're a child of God, you'll
remember this. Your heart, that old heart, is still just as dead
and black as everybody else's. If God did not sovereignly constrain
society, we couldn't live here. We would be extinct in about
a week. We would. If he was able to kill
everybody that you hated, everybody that you got mad at without a
cause, I'm telling you the truth, by the end of the week we'd all
be dead. That's the truth, isn't it? That's
the truth people don't want to hear. I couldn't say that to
Oprah. She wouldn't have it. It wouldn't be one of those epiphanies
that she gets. But that's the truth. If God
took away his constraint and let you, that old heart I'm talking
about, that old nature, let it have its way. We'd all be dead
in just a short period of time. We all need the grace of God. And it said in verse 12, all
the multitude kept silence. God shut their mouth. The gospel was being preached
in power. Oh, the power of that day. Power. And then Paul stands up. I'll close this. Paul stands
up to speak, and he declared what miracles and wonders God
wrought among the Gentiles there in verse 12. The grace of God
was at work among the Gentiles. He said, God is saving these
Gentiles, just like He saved us. And then James stood up to
speak. And you know what he did? He
stood up to speak and backed up Peter's message. Just like
I'm backing up Frank's message this morning. There in verse
14. And you know why he backed up
Peter's message? Because Peter's message agreed with the Word
of God. Look in verse 15, 17. And to
this agreed the words of the prophets, as it is written, 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 that the residue of men might
seek after the Lord. And all the Gentiles, upon whom
my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things."
He said, Peter's message agrees with the Word of God. That's
what he said. Our message, our message must
agree with the Word of God. That's what happened when I heard
Henry on television. I told Henry this. I said, what
I was reading matched what you were saying. For the first time
that happened. All other times I was like, hmm. I remember telling the person
there one time, I said, man, something's missing. It was Christ. It was
the gospel. But being that I had made a profession,
I believed it, and they used the Bible, and they used the
name Jesus, and they used the name Gospel. It was another Jesus,
and it was another Gospel. We still had these among us.
They just changed their faces, chameleons, to fit the situation. We still have them. Our message must always agree
with the Word of God. Salvation by grace is not new. Bible through and through. It
is. And he says in verse 18, known
unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. This
has been in the purpose of God. He said this way, saying this
has been in the purpose of God before he created the world.
This is not new. It's new to me. There's a lot of things new
to me. I don't know much. It doesn't
take much from my teaching something that's new to me, but not new
to God. Known unto him are all his works. All of them. This is not new. Salvation was not an afterthought
with God. This has all been taken care
of. The saving of the Gentiles is
not a new revelation. It's a clear revelation now,
but it's not a new revelation. The Old Testament is full of
this prophecy. He told Abraham, he said that all nations would
be blessed through his seed. That seed is Christ. And He's
talking about all of us. We'll be blessed through Him,
through the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you're not born of God,
you can't comprehend this. And you'll take the Scripture
and you'll twist them. And you'll say, well, this is what it's
saying. Then you'll try to go teach others, make proselytes, make
the twofold with children of hell. That's what you end up
doing. But if God gives you an understanding, you say, there
it is. They say, well, He was talking about that all the way
back when He was talking to Abraham. And so they concluded by writing
and sending a letter here in verse 19. Wherefore, my sentence
is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned
to God. Now, let me read you some verses.
But that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions
of idols, that they don't partake of idolatry ceremonies. They don't get caught up in that.
From fornication, that's all evils. I mean, it was just Any
sexual device was just, I mean, it was just okay. Just like it's
becoming our day. And from things strangled and
from blood, for Moses of old time hath in every city them
that preach him being read in the synagogues every day. We
only need to send this letter to the Gentile churches because
those even saved among the Jews know not to have anything to
do with these idols, this pollution of idols. They've been taught
that all their life. And I think that's what he's
saying there. Then pleased it the apostles and elders with
the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch
with Paul and Barnabas, namely, Judas, surnamed Barsabbas, 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, forasmuch as we have heard that
certain which went out from us have troubled you with words.
Now they went out from us, but what's the scripture say? They
were not of us. They were not of us. Subverting
your souls, saying you must be circumcised and keep the law
to whom we gave no such commandment. That did not come from us. 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.
We have sent, therefore, Judas and Silas, who shall also tell
you the same things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy
Spirit, the Holy Ghost, and to us to lay upon you no greater
burden than these necessary things. These are just necessary things.
That you abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and
from things strangled, and from fornication, from which, if you
keep yourselves, you'll do well, fair you will. 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 with a consolation, with such comfort. No, you don't have to do these
things. You don't have to keep the law. You don't have to be
circumcised. You don't have to do anything
to keep yourself or do anything to be saved. It's all by the
grace of God. And they said, whew! You know
they did. They went, whew! Man, aren't
you glad of that? Because if God made you to know
your heart, if you know your heart, and somebody comes in
here and says, now you need to keep this and this and this,
Especially if you're a young believer. And you're going, man,
I can't do that. I can't do that. You know, the
Jews would have been wise when all those things were read to
them and He said that you keep these things. And you know what
they said? We'll do it. We'll do it. Oh, I can't do it. Lord, I can't do this. You do
it. by the grace of God, we shall be saved even as the
worst, vilest person on this earth. We shall be saved, because
we're all just the same. We're all men and women of like
fashion.