Well, we're back in Galatians chapter 4 once again. I want to look at the verses 8 down to verse 20 this morning, and I've called the message, Gospel Riches for Religious Dung. Would you trade gospel riches for what is just religious dung? and you'll see the reason why I've given it that title later.

Paul the Apostle, writing this letter, was a preacher first. He was a preacher. He'd gone and he'd preached the Gospel to them. In verse 13 he says, you know how through infirmity of the flesh, he had problems in the flesh, I preached the gospel unto you at the first. He preached the gospel first of all. But he wasn't just a preacher, he was a pastor. He was a pastor with a care, with an affection for these people.

These people were Galatian Gentiles. They were godless people beforehand. Verse 8 says, how be it then? when you knew not God. They were people who, like most people in the world today, knew not God. How be it that you did service to them which by nature are no gods? They were godless people, they were heathen people, they were idolatrous people. Gentile Galatians. They were like the Thessalonians to whom he wrote. And he says of them, when he preached the gospel, he says, I knew that God had opened your hearts to believe it because he said this, he said, you turned to God from idols. You were idolaters. Most people, the whole lot, are idolaters until they turn to the true God and get rid of all their idols. There's an awful lot who think they've turned to God, but they're hanging on to just one or two little ones that they just want to keep in the closet, just keep in the bottom of the drawer, just in case it might do them some good. No, no confidence in the flesh. You've turned to God from idols.

They'd heard the gospel. They'd heard the news of sins taken away in a substitute. God, our substitute, doing and dying, living and dying, that the law of God which says sin must be punished with death eternally, that that law is satisfied. When he died with his people's sins upon him in the justice of God, he took them away. And they'd heard that message, and they'd embraced that message. They'd not just heard it and gone, oh, that's an interesting thing, let life carry on as it was. No, they'd embraced it. They'd believed it, they'd loved that message, and they loved the Apostle Paul as the minister. How beautiful, it says, are the feet of those that bring good tidings of the gospel of peace. When I think back to the men whom I've heard preach the truth of God that has really affected my soul, I remember them with great affection, very, very much so. I won't name names now, but you know, I love the men that God set apart to bring the message of truth to me.

And in verse 14, he speaks of how the Galatians treated him and thought of him. He said, my temptation, which was in my flesh, ye despise not. The temptation, he was tested in his flesh. He had a thorn in the flesh. He had that in the flesh, which made it difficult for him to do what he was doing. You would think if Paul was a preacher, God would have gifted him with the clearest oratory, with the clearest speech, with powerful voice and ease of speaking. But it says elsewhere that they said of him that his speech was not very impressive, but That temptation which was in his flesh, he says to the Galatians, you didn't despise it, you didn't reject it, you received me, a mere man with a physical infirmity, as an angel of God. You received me even as Christ Jesus, a messenger of God, even as Christ himself. Where is then the blessedness you speak of? Because when they heard the gospel, they spoke of the blessedness of that gospel. Wow! We often use the terms because language fails us. We often use the terms, what an awesome position to be in when you think about it. You know, called out of the darkness of this world, called from that broad way that leads to destruction onto the narrow way that leads to life. rejoicing in salvation, speaking of the blessedness of salvation.

He says, I bear you record that if it had been possible you loved me so much you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. That's what makes me think, though I know other commentators say this isn't the case, I don't know why they say it, but I think the thing is that Paul was afflicted in his eyesight, and that's why he says, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me. That's why the epistles were always written by somebody else for Paul. He dictated and they wrote it, and on one or two epistles he said, here, I'm signing it with my own hand, because he must have had very poor eyesight. But they loved him, and they tried to help him.

But, but, all of that was in Christ, but people had come in to the Galatian churches. This is a group of churches. It's a number of churches there in Galatia. They, they were false brethren. Look in verse 17. He says, they zealously affect you. These people that had come in, they zealously affect you. They come in troubling the Galatians. Verse 12 of chapter five. I would, he says, they were even cut off, which trouble you. There were people coming in with a doctrine and with teaching which troubled the Galatians in respect of the gospel that they'd heard and believed from Paul when he preached it to them. Then in chapter 6, verse 12, he says there about these people, as many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. These are the ones that were coming in, troubling the Galatian church. And why were they doing it? Lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. He says, don't believe them, neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law. They don't. The Apostle Peter said that at the Council of Jerusalem. He said, let's be honest, neither us nor our fathers could keep it, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. They may glory in the power that they have as religious leaders over you. They were constraining the Galatians to submission to Mosaic law.

You say, what's wrong with Mosaic law? There's a huge chunk of the Bible that's the law of Moses. What's wrong with Mosaic law? Answer? Nothing, when it's showing the need of Christ. When it's showing that you need Christ because you cannot possibly find life by... The law says, do this and you shall live, but you can't. The law says, don't do this and you shall live. You can't stop doing it. Read Romans 7, that's the experience.

There's nothing wrong with the law of Moses when it's showing the need of Christ. But there's everything wrong with the law of Moses in religion after we have come to Christ. There's everything wrong with using the law of Moses as a rule of life after we have come to Christ. I'll say that again because people will say, listening to this, did I really hear him say that? Isn't the law of Moses the believer's rule of life? No, it isn't. No, it isn't. The faith of Jesus Christ is the believer's rule of life.

There's everything wrong with it after we have come to Christ. He's repeated the gospel of redemption. Redemption is purchase. It's payment of the ransom price. It's payment of the price that frees you from the law's curse. He said that in verse 13 of chapter 3. Christ has redeemed us. With his precious blood, the currency, he has paid the price of redemption from sin.

And he's concluded in chapter 4 and verse 7, which we were thinking of last week, wherefore, you believers, if you're true believers, you are no more a servant under the schoolmaster, under the law, but you're a son who's coming into the inheritance. And if a son, then an heir of God. Through Christ, you're an heir of God. There's freedom from the constraint of Mosaic law. How? By Christ and him alone.

How do I know that there's freedom from constraint of Mosaic law by Christ? Answer, because the Bible tells me so. Romans 10 verse 4, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Look at chapter 5 and verse 1, and I'm sure we're going to be coming back to this quite a lot as we proceed through to the end of Galatians, but look, he says to them, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Christ has made us free from the law. You are free from the law because he is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. and being not entangled again with the yoke of bondage, he set his people free from the yoke of legal bondage.

But he fears for them as a pastor. Not just as a preacher, preaching and then going on, but he He's concerned for them. He fears for them as a pastor. Look at verse 11 of chapter 4. He says, I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. He's uncertain about them because of what he's heard. He's unsure about them. Did they really hear the truth? Did they really believe the truth? They looked for a while like true believers, but Very often there are those who appear like true believers but they turn out not to be. He says in verse 20, I desire to be present with you now and to change my voice for I stand in doubt of you. Are they leaving, these Galatians, are they leaving the gold of gospel truth and liberty for religious done.

Look at Philippians chapter 3, just over a couple of pages, you know the passage well in Philippians, but in chapter 3 Paul recounts his His status in the pharisaical religion of the Jews, his status was that there was nobody quite like him. He says, there are these who've got confidence in their flesh. He said, if they think they've got confidence, I've got more so.

Look at him, verse five of chapter three of Philippians. Circumcised the eighth day, that's exactly right, of the stock of Israel. Not just of the stock of Israel in general, but of the tribe of Benjamin. Oh, that was special. A Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, was it just a part-time thing? No, he was absolutely zealous about it, persecuting the church. Touching the righteousness which is in that law, blameless. He could honestly say, hand on heart, that the others who were Pharisees looking at him couldn't find any fault with him.

But all of that, which you would think would be a huge stock of spiritual currency for eternity, he says, what things were gained to me, those things which I thought were getting me to heaven, I counted loss. Why? For Christ. Because when I believed Christ, those things became worthless, yea, doubtless. I count all things, everything I was, everything I did, everything I did in the name of the Jewish religion, I count them loss. Why? Because the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, is so much greater.

For whom I have suffered the loss of all things. I've lost all of that for Him. because he's the one I must have. I count them but dung. Dung. All of that stuff that people put such religious value on and put such trust in. Paul said, I count it but dung. Why? That I may win Christ and be found in him, not with my own righteousness, but that which is from Christ, the faith of Christ.

So then, here's the question. Wasn't the Old Testament Mosaic religion glorious? Well, if you've been watching from the start, Peter read for us 2 Corinthians chapter 3 earlier. And if you start in verse 7 of 2 Corinthians chapter 3, just turn there if you can now please. In chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians verse 7, it says, the ministration of death written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away.

The Mosaic law that was given at Mount Sinai, the Exodus, when the Israelites came out of bondage in Egypt, and God divided the Red Sea, and they walked through on dry land, and they came to Sinai, That mosaic law at Sinai was awe-inspiring. It was a fearful thing. I'm going to be dashing about a bit, but Hebrews 12, let me just turn there just for a moment. Hebrews 12, and... Hebrews 12 and verse 18, he says to believers, to the Hebrew believers, he says, you are not like your ancestors come to the Mount, Sinai, that might be touched and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. They were terrified. They were terrified when the law was given at Mount Sinai. They could not endure that which was commanded. And this was typical of it. If so much as a beast touched the mountain, it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart. And so terrible was the sight that Moses, even Moses, said, I exceedingly fear and quake. He was terrified. It was a dreadful thing.

The letter that killeth, in verse 6 of chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians. The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. This mosaic, Sinai giving of the law, it was the letter that killeth. Because why? Why was it the letter that killeth? Answer is this. It gave divine precepts of required righteousness. Because God is holy, and you must be holy. But in the process, it gave absolutely no help to sinners to achieve what it required. They could not obey it. They could not attain to it. Behaviour was constrained with threats and unattainable promises. Sin and you shall die. Obey and you shall live. But they couldn't do either. The physical sight terrified them. And then when we get to the tabernacle and the temple worship and its sacrifices and the redemption pictures that were in that, redemption from sin was pictured in the blood sacrifices and the priesthood. Even they had to be exact, or there was death. The Ark of the Covenant was rescued from the Philistines, and instead of the Levites carrying it, as God had said, they put it on a cart, and as the cart was going along, a bit like the roads in Britain at the moment, there were potholes everywhere, and a wheel went down a pothole, and the cart shook from side to side, and a man called Uzzah, with the best of intentions, reached out his hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant. He wasn't a Levite, he wasn't allowed to touch that Ark, and God struck him dead on the spot.

And David was terrified and angry at the same time. Under that dispensation, the people saw God as a consuming fire. Our God is a consuming fire, it says in Hebrews. They feared falling into the hands of the living God, because it's a fearful thing, it says, to fall into the hands of the living God, as a sinner, without a sacrifice, without redemption.

The Galatian believers had never been under that regime that was given to Israel. They were Gentiles, like we are in this country. But they were now being seduced by these false teachers into Mosaic law observance. by Jewish teachers who claimed that they were Christians and that they were from headquarters and that they were the real deal.

My experience down many years now, and my conviction is this, that in this country, and I know it's wide elsewhere in the world, serious Christianity, not the frivolous stuff that's not worth the time of day, but that serious Christianity is nearer to that mosaic regime than to the liberty wherewith Christ has made his people free. I really mean that. That orthodox Christianity in this country today, evangelical, reformed, people who call themselves Calvinists, who believe, all of these things, but the religion that they practice is nearer to that mosaic regime of law than it is to the liberty wherewith Christ has made his people free.

Why do I say that? Well, they say that they preach Christ and redemption through his blood, but having said that, you watch how they run their churches. They then run a legalistic regime of bondage. The thing that's the most important to them is church order and discipline. And their mantra is not, as Paul's was in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 2, when I was among you, I determined to know nothing other than Jesus Christ and him crucified. No, they run a regime of religious bondage, of church order and discipline.

I'll give you an example. Without naming any names, Honestly, we went to a conference a couple of years ago, and there was a guy there that, well, a couple of messages were outstandingly good gospel messages, but there was a guy there who spent an awful long time, probably two hours over two sessions, doing nothing other than reeling off the wonderful record of church discipline in a certain situation. And that was it, that's all he had to say. Christ didn't appear in the talk one little bit. And that was under the umbrella of a supposedly Bible-believing proper Christian church.

They add their traditions. They add their confessions. Beware of man's confessions. They add their denominational membership club rules. I'll say that again. they add their denominational membership rules, and you say, well, what's wrong with that? And I'd say this, mere men, I don't care how good, I don't care how godly, I don't care how spiritual they are, mere men cannot see into the hearts of people. Mere men cannot mark another man's faith to see if it's good enough. It is God who gives life. It is God who shines in the hearts of his people to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

As he had with the Galatian believers, if we go back there to Galatians chapter 4 and verse 9, look it says there, but now, after that ye have known God, or rather, are known of God, why do you know God? Because he first knew you. Why do we love God? Because he first loved us. After that ye have known God, or rather unknown of God. You claimed, when you spoke of that blessedness of the gospel, you claimed that you knew God, that you were known of God, you knew his gospel. How is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Why do you do that? Why do you do that?

He knew them. God knew them from eternity, the Galatians. If they were believers, as he said to the Thessalonians, I know that you're the elect of God, because I know that because when the gospel was preached to you, you believed it through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. God had known them, as he knows all his people, from eternity. God had chosen them in eternity, before the beginning of time. God had loved them with an everlasting love. God had predestinated them that they would know Him, and that they would be conformed to the image of His Son. God had done all of those things.

Known of God, then, is my second point, as it says in verse 9, that ye have known God, or rather are known of God. To be known of God is to have eternal life. Do you have eternal life? Is that your hope? is to have salvation from sin's just condemnation. You know, as a sinner, God is just to condemn us to a lost eternity. But in knowing God, as Jesus prayed in that high priestly prayer to his father in John 17, that this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. We know the only true God only through the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is the way to God.

But knowing God, knowing God is life eternal. This is life eternal. The Father has given to the Son power over all flesh, that He, the Son, should give eternal life. Who to? to as many as the Father had given Him. The Father gave a people, a multitude that no man can number, to the Son before the beginning of time. And the Son covenanted in the covenant of grace to die for the sins of those people. And at the cross He was loaded with that sin. And the Father deserted Him. And the wrath of God for sin was poured out on Him. And he bore it, and he paid for it to the full, and cried, It is finished. The work was finished. It was done. The justice of God was satisfied. And he rose from the dead, justifying his people. They had salvation from sin's just condemnation, and they knew it by knowing God. By knowing God, they knew it.

This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. It is the promise of God in the covenant of grace, in that new covenant, in Jeremiah 31. You see, I'm not making up just New Testament things and what about the Old Testament. This is in the Old Testament. The days come when there will be a new covenant, said God via Jeremiah. And in verse 33 of chapter 31, he says this, this shall be the covenant. that I will make with the house of Israel. This is the covenant that I will make with my church. This is the covenant that I will make with my people. This is the covenant that I will make with those that have believed me. This is the covenant that I will make with those chosen out of mankind, the elect of God, and to whom faith is given to see. This is it, the house of Israel.

After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts. God won't write it on tables of stone as at Sinai. He will put his law, his gospel law, in their inward parts. He will write it in their hearts and will be their God and they shall be my people. My God, and his people. It's that intimate relationship.

They shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, know the Lord, you must know the Lord. Why? Because they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. Why? For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. What words of grace, that's in Jeremiah in the Old Testament.

God gives to each of his elect, at the time of his choosing, faith to see God the Son. This is the will of him that sent me, said Jesus in John 6.40, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life. We see by faith And in seeing who He is, what He's done, loving and embracing Him for all that He has done, believing on Him, we have everlasting life.

He knows His people. Jesus said, I am the Good Shepherd. He, our Lord Jesus Christ, in Him, In him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and he is the good shepherd. He is our God, and he says, I know my sheep, and I am known of mine. He knows them that trust him, it says in Nahum. He knows them, the Lord knows them that that are his, it says in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 19.

This is an intimate, personal knowledge. It's a knowledge which is all driven by the love of God, as it says in Romans chapter 8. Whom he did foreknow, that doesn't just mean he knew about them before time, but he purposed their life. He did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom he did predestinate. Then he also called with the name of his Son in union in eternity, and called them out under the gospel in time. And whom he called, then he also justified. He justified them by rising from the dead, the sacrifice having been paid, the debt having been paid. And then he also glorified. Glorified, for we're seated. If you're a believer, we're seated in heavenly places in Christ.

He knows them. It's knowledge driven by everlasting love. And so, as far as all believers are concerned, these in Galatia, those in Ephesus, in verse 18 of chapter one of Ephesians, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. You're not in darkness, you're enlightened to the truth of God, that you may know what is the hope of his calling.

What's the hope of his calling? Eternal life, heaven, the kingdom of God. Why did he come? He came preaching the kingdom of God, the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. It's a glorious inheritance in the saints that is there. secure in eternal promises and the purposes of the unchangeable God, but were prone to the weakness of the flesh.

These Galatians were prone to the weakness of the flesh. Paul has a pastoral parental care for the flock of Christ. As he said to the elders of Ephesus on the beach at Miletus, he said, pastor, shepherd, care for, look after the flock of God over which he has made you overseers. This church which he, God, has purchased with his own blood. How does God purchase a church with his own blood? By becoming man becoming the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so he warns them to beware. It's like he says to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians chapter 11. In verse 3, Paul fears for them too like he does with pastoral care. For all those that have believed, I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve, gave her the evil eye to unbelief. Through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, he says, you might well bear with them, because you're so weak in the flesh in turning aside to these things.

So finally, prone to wonder, how turn ye again, he says, to the weak and beggarly elements? How turn ye back from the knowledge of God, from the blessings of salvation liberty, from the promise of accomplished salvation, from the full assurance of faith to the weak? and beggarly elements of religion with its rules and regulations. Desiring to be back in bondage.

Verse 9, look at the end of it. Where unto you desire to be back in bondage? You actually desire... The human flesh desires to be back in bondage to it. To legalism. What was it called in 2 Corinthians 3? The ministration of death. Because in it there's no joy. There's no peace. There's no comfort. There's no righteousness, because you have to earn it all yourself. There's no salvation in it, therefore it's weak.

It's true, it's the righteousness of God, but just in that legalistic mosaic law is the ministration of death. It consists in observation of poor beggarly things. What do I mean by that? Well, I think that's what the scripture means when it says, meet. and drink, the external things. Dress, the way you dress, the ritual of the calendar.

In Romans 14 and verse 17, Paul underlines it there. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, it's not these things, but it's righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. But weak flesh is prone to being drawn back to weak and beggarly bondage. It covers gospel liberty with a veil.

Back in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 13, Moses put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. But their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament. Which veil is done away in Christ?

You see, you read it as the law of Moses, just as a legal thing, and there's a veil, there's a veil, because you cannot see through to the end, to the objective. What was the objective of that? was eternal life, the kingdom of God. But you couldn't get there because of the weakness of the flesh. There's a veil there that stopped you seeing the reality, which is taken away in Christ.

And most so-called Christian religion today is living with that same veil untaken away. It says in verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 3, Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, There is liberty, liberty, freedom. But we all, with open face, beholding, as in a glass, as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as the Spirit of the Lord.

That veil is taken away in Christ. I'll give an illustration from my career. I spent a big part of my career working with the Royal Navy and with the other services, but mostly with the Royal Navy. And I worked with some very, very smart guys, some really, really good people. In any other situation of the world of work, they would have been leaders. They would have come to the fore.

But there was also several that I came across who even reached middle-ranking officer status and they did a competent job but I worked with a lot of them that came out of the Navy and worked in the company that I worked for and as I say some of them though some came out and they were absolutely superb but there was a significant number who when they came out of the Navy when they came out of the bondage of the Navy's rules and regulations they didn't know what to do They hadn't a clue how to live.

You see, the Navy had told them what to dress in. The Navy had told them when to turn up here, there and everywhere else. The Navy had told them when to get up and when to go to bed. The Navy had told them what to eat and what not to eat. The Navy had told them when they needed the dentist and when they needed the doctor. And they came out of the Navy into the liberty of the non-naval rules, and they didn't know how to cope.

And I believe it is so with so much religion. With religion calling itself Christianity, but really religious legalism. The gospel of Christ, the words of Jesus, are what he said. He said, the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and life, not the ministration of death. They're spirit and life. And where the spirit of the Lord is, There is liberty from those things. Is he with you? Is he in you? There is liberty there.

Why would any experiencing freedom from bondage want to go back into prison? It's the same with some released prisoners, you know, there's a... There's a type of prisoner, the habitual prisoner, who quite frankly finds life in the big wide world far too difficult to cope with, and finds the regime of prison, limiting though it be, just easy to cope with. And so they keep going back in, serial offenders.

Is it like that with religion for you? If the Son of God shall make you free, Jesus said, you shall be free indeed. In Christ, In all he has accomplished for his people, think of this, in Christ for all he has accomplished for his people, the prison door of religious bondage is thrown wide open. But he doesn't send us out. into the open, naked and bankrupt. He gives faith, and faith is the rule of life outside of that bondage.

The just shall live by faith. Oh, that's a New Testament concept, isn't it? No, it's in Habakkuk, the prophet Habakkuk. The just shall live by his faith. The justified of God, even in the Old Testament, always lived by faith. Abraham lived by his faith, for he saw the promised seed coming to deal with his sin. not by the law of Moses, and that faith is not of ourselves, but it's of God's Spirit.

In John's first epistle, chapter 4 and verse 12, no man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. He's given us his Spirit. He's not given us the spirit of fear, but he's given us the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind in the liberty that is in Christ. We're told in, I refer to it again, chapter five and verse one, stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with bondage. Christ has made his people free, so stand fast, stand solid in it. Don't allow religious legalists, wherever they might come from, however near or far, don't allow religious legalists to shake that confidence. The Word of God says it. Doesn't matter what they say, doesn't matter what their confessions say, doesn't matter which wise man's writings they get out for you, the Word of God says you are free in Christ.

They'll tell you that you're abandoned. How dare you do this? How dare you walk out? You're abandoning years of tradition. How do you know better than those that have gone before us? You're abandoning years of tradition and religious wisdom. That was exactly what Saul of Tarsus, before he was the Apostle Paul, he told the early church that they were abandoning that which was the only right way.

But you see, they have their motives. these that would drive you down that way. They have their motives. In chapter six of Galatians, verses 12 and 13. I read them earlier, but we'll read them again. As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh. Oh, does that look bright and proper for people looking at it? Does it? Do you know something? Do you know why I'm not wearing a suit and tie this morning? because I don't want to make a fair show in the flesh. I'm dressed like everybody else in this room here. I'm dressed in the way that people dress in society today. I'm not trying to make a fair show in the flesh.

He says, they will constrain you to be circumcised. Why? Because they don't want to suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. You see, If you preach the true gospel of grace in Christ and Him alone, if you preach the true gospel of particular redemption in Christ and Him alone, you'll suffer persecution from the world around. Oh, if you go along nice and not trying to raise any hackles at all, you'll get on very fine. They won't find any fault with you whatsoever. They'll really like you. That's why those false teachers were coming in. They want to make a fair show in the flesh and constrain you with law to get the approval of religion and to avoid the persecution that comes with preaching the cross. They want to glory in your flesh. Oh, look what we've made them do. We've brought them into line. Haven't we done well? Well, don't let them. Don't let them do it.

Honestly, often I've seen a good, true gospel situation ruined by the fear of religious men. I mean that seriously. I mean that. Where the gospel was clearly preached, The fear of religious men made them back away from it and water it down and follow falsehood. It says in Proverbs 29, the fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.

So, in closing, Let us who believe, let us who believe, if necessary, plough a lonely furrow in this world to remain close to the Lord. It's a narrow way, Pilgrim's Progress, the narrow way. He is the one who's called us out of religious darkness into his marvelous light. Be not entangled again with the yoke of religious bondage. Amen.