I invite you to turn with me
this morning to Galatians chapter 1. It is, I believe, worth mentioning
that Paul declares himself in all of his epistles to the churches
to be an apostle and that he held this office according to
the will of God. Now that's important that you
don't just read that and take off and get into bits and pieces. When you read the Word of God,
stop and consider what's being said. This is the Holy Ghost
who has inspired these men to write and to write to believers.
And it's worth mentioning here that He says, I am an apostle
by the will of God. That is, I received my gospel
directly from the mouth of God. That's what he's saying here.
He's saying I wasn't taught this by man, this came from God. And therefore, it should be received
as though it were being spoken by God. If you wanna read that, where
it's applied, you can read 1 Thessalonians, I think it is, chapter two, where
he thanked God that when they received his message, they received
it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of
God. Now, what's all that mean? To
challenge his gospel is to challenge God. That's what it means. In verses three through five,
Paul lays the gospel foundation in the most simple of terms. He was very brief in his declaration,
yet very broad in his application. The gospel's not lengthy to present. You can present it in a few sentences. But its application is practically
endless. It's infinite. And if we truly believe what
he says in these three verses, if we truly believe this, what
Paul says in verses 3, 4, and 5, if we truly believe that,
there simply is no argument for the religion of human merit self-righteousness, self-will,
or works salvation. If you truly believe what he
says in those verses, this gospel foundation, it answers all arguments. You can't argue against it, this
is the wisdom of God. Now let's read these verses together
and I'll make some comments. concerning these things. In Galatians
1.3, Paul said, grace be to you and peace from God the Father
and from our Lord Jesus Christ, now this is all one sentence,
who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from
this present evil world according to the will of God. And now he's
not calling him the father, he's calling him our father. To whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. Now this present evil world,
although it includes its rank idolatry, sexual perversion, its wicked
immorality, is mostly directed toward Antichrist religion, who
had gotten its foot in the door at Galatia. And when he's talking
about your being delivered from this present evil world, that's
what he's zeroing in on in this letter to the Galatians. If you
read a little further down in the chapter, you'll find that
this letter is prompted by those who would pervert the gospel
of Christ. In chapter three, verse one,
he says, oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? Somebody
had come in there and bewitched these people, cast a spell on
them. that you should not obey the
truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set
forth crucified among you. And I don't really know what
that word evidently, but I think it refers to two things. It refers,
first of all, that Christ was set before them by the word of
God. Paul always, he was careful to set Christ forth according,
he died according to the scriptures. He rose again according to the
scriptures. He set him forth This is the
evidence right here. It's all the evidence a believer
needs. It's written. It's written. And the second thing is that
of his being an apostle who was accompanied by the gifts of God
who verified his office. Both he and Peter and probably
John and the rest of them, it's not stated, but I'm assuming
that it was probably true of all of them, that they brought
sick folks and laid them down just if their shadow passed by
they'd be healed. This is not this trickery type
stuff that you see today on these false evangelists and things
that are going around claiming to heal the sick. They heal somebody
with a headache. I don't see anybody giving eye
sight to the blind, do you? I don't see anybody raising the
dead. If you're gonna claim to be an apostle, I don't wanna
see the dead raised. And God gifted these men, they
could do that kind of thing. They could discern your heart. Somebody come in, And it wasn't
the robbers and whoremongers and prostitutes and opium smokers
or whatever else they had in that day that hounded these apostles
and hounded and attacked these churches. It was anti-Christ religion,
self-righteous, legalistic, works religion. And deliverance from
this present evil world is deliverance from antichrist religion. I'm
gonna reread to you this verse of scripture over here in 1 Corinthians
chapter two and verse 14. The natural man. What's that? That's that man born of his father
Adam, born under the curse of God, the natural man. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. He doesn't
receive those evidences and miracles performed by him. He doesn't
receive the Word of God of which he is the inspiration. He doesn't receive the preaching
of the gospel which he accompanies in power. He won't receive the
things of the Spirit of God. No influence over his life, no
submission, no repentance, no faith, no nothing. He receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, and here's why. They're
foolishness unto him. And because they are, he can't
know them. Because these things are spiritually
understood. What our purpose to do this morning
is to show you both sides of the coin. I want you to see things
as they appear to the enemies of God and to see things as they
are in truth. The natural man is not content
to leave things alone. He won't do it. He won't do it. He's not going to leave things
alone. He's not going to attempt to reconcile himself to God.
He's put on the enemy's uniform and taken up arms and he's at
war with God. He just don't know it. He's at
war with God. He despises God, not his God, but the God of the Bible. He's
at war with Him. His mind is hostility. Carnal mind is enmity. That word
is hostility. It's hostile towards God. Romans 8 says it. Because it
is, his mind is not subject to the law of God. Not any of it. Not the law of the tabernacle. Not the moral law. Not the authority
of God that commands him to do things. He's not subject to it. Neither indeed can be. But perhaps
the worst thing of all is that he receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God. Our Lord said this is condemnation. Light came into the world and
men love darkness rather than light. This is the worst thing
about this man whose mind is hostility toward God. He won't
receive the things of the Spirit of God. What things? What is the apostle
referring to here? And then also over in Galatians
1, 6 through 8, where he says, he said, if a man come, I don't
care if he's an angel, and I don't care if I come back and preach
to you another gospel, don't you receive it. You let that
man be accursed in your mind. He's accursed of God. The fact set forth in the word
of God concerning man's sin. That's one of the things he won't
receive. He's not gonna receive that. It's foolishness to him.
Foolishness, he says. He said, are you saying that
I come forth from the womb speaking lies? No, that's what God said. I think it's safe for me to say
what God said. That he goes astray as soon as
he be born, speaking lies, that he drinks iniquity like water,
that he loves darkness rather than light. And why does he do
that? Because his deeds is evil, that's
why. That all his righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. That man at his best states altogether
vanity, that he lives out his days according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. That he by nature is a child
of wrath, even as others. That salvation is impossible
for him to accomplish. That he will not come to Christ,
that he might have life. He always operates on the assumption
that he can come if he wants to. Problem is, his want to is
broke. He's not going to come. Why? Because he won't receive the
things of the Spirit of God. That's why. All of these things. He won't
come to Christ that he might have life. This is foolishness
to the natural man. Foolishness. Now he'll admit
that he You know, he needed a little money one time, and he saw that
wire laying over there at that house, and he went over after
the workers, went home, got that piece of wire and burned it and
sold it down there and got a few. He'll own up to something like
that, or he'll own up that he drinks too much and carouses
around too much. He'll own up to stuff, but he
ain't gonna own up to the fact that he's a sinner, that there's
no hope for him. and I hope God leaves him alone,
he's a goner. He's a goner. He's not gonna
own up to his ignorance. You can fill a library with the
books of things that he's ignorant of. He's ignorant. He don't know
God. He don't know Christ. He's not going to own up to that.
And secondly, here's another one of those things of the Spirit
of God. The Spirit of God reveals to us the absolute sovereignty
of God in salvation. That's foolishness to the natural
man. You mean I got nothing to say about it? That's exactly
what I'm saying. It's all of God. Salvation's
of the Lord. Oh, people of Israel got upset,
and they said, when he said, Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated. Oh, why do you hate Esau? Why do you hate Esau? He's a
child. He's a son of Abraham. He's a
child of God. Why do you hate him? Salvation
to the Lord. That the eternal God of glory
decreed to save a people for His glory. And that everything,
including creation, come to be by God's sovereign purpose of
grace. Creation was made by our Savior. You don't think about that much.
You don't hear about that much. They want to talk about creation
and how it came to be and how old it was and all that. They'll
just wear you to death reading about stuff like that. Nobody's
excited about the fact that the Savior created the world. Why? Because he's the sovereign mediator,
that's why. Creation was made by our Savior
and it was made for him. And it was made by him. And by
him it has its continuance. He has everything to do with
creation. That providence is ordered and
arranged according to his good pleasure, not by chance and circumstance. He worketh all things after the
counsel of his own will. Salvation is not a plan subject
to Satan and man and unforeseen circumstances. It's God's fixed
decree and purpose. and ordered by his sovereign
mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that is. Listen to this. He said to them,
he said, a sparrow can't fall to the ground without your power. Didn't say it wouldn't fall,
he said it couldn't. Couldn't fall, why? Because he's working
all things after the council of his own. He's got the hairs
of your head. Every changing number of hair,
he got them numbered. Listen to this. Solomon, this
is a wise man, gifted with the wisdom of God. Listen to what
he writes here. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as
the rivers of waters. He turneth it whithersoever he
will. Listen to this one. The preparations
of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Proverbs 16, 4. The Lord hath
made all things for himself. Yea, even the wicked for the
day of evil. God's sovereign. He's sovereign
in all things, but He's sovereign especially in the salvation of
sinners. God said to Isaac's wife, Rebekah,
who was carrying twin boys in her womb, He said, the elder
is going to serve the younger. That had never been. That had
never been. Any Jew could tell you that the
elder is going to run the house. He's going to be the head of
the house. The whole of the inheritance is going to be in his hand. He's
the eldest. He said it ain't going to be
that way now. He said the elder is going to serve the younger. Why would God tell her such a
thing? Well, he tells you in Romans 9-11. that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. As it is written, Jacob have
I loved, and Esau have I hated. And then Paul said, what do you
say to this? What are you going to say to
this? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. Romans
9.15, for he said to Moses, I have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
and I have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Moses
told him one time, he said, if you're gonna kill all them people
out here, just take my name out of your book. He said, I'll blot
out whom I will. Now you go do what I told you
to do. I'll have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. Verse 16, so then it's not of
him that willeth. And it's not of him that runneth.
It's of God that showeth mercy. And then he tells us in verse
19, he said, here's what you're gonna say. Everybody said this
to him. I've had it said to me a hundred
times. You're gonna say to me, why doth he yet find fault for
who has resisted his will? If God's absolutely sovereign
in all things, how can he hold me accountable? Who hath resisted
his will? If God does his will and has
his way in all things, how can he hold me accountable? Here's
the answer. Who art thou that replies against
God? You don't know God. You don't
know anything about God. You're ignorant of God. You're
a finite man. The oldest man in the Bible only
lived 900 and some years. God's eternal. Where were you,
he said, when I laid the foundation of the earth, when I hung the
stars into heaven? Explain to me, if you can, something
about the foundation of the earth. Why don't it just spin off into
outer space somewhere? Who was my counsel? Who gave
me counsel when I sat down and drew up the everlasting covenant
of grace? You don't know anything. Who
art thou that replies against God? And I'm going to be honest
with you. I've got people who couldn't,
they couldn't quote a single line from the Bible. They probably
never read as much as John 3, 16 and that because they saw
it on a sign. and you tell them something about
God, boom, right back in your face. How can that be any start? Who art thou that replies against
God? Shall the thing formed say unto
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Oh, my son. I tell you, he threw,
I don't have any questions at Job. You can read them back there,
several chapters, one, boom, boom, boom, boom, just one right
there. Job said, once have I spoken, yea, twice, I don't speak anymore. Is there a God in heaven? Has
he spoken the universe into existence? Has he intervened into the lives
of some and passed by others? Has anyone ever caused God to
fail or to turn from His will? Then who art thou, old man, that
replies against God? God's sovereignty and salvation
is foolishness to the natural man. And here's another thing
that they won't receive. that God's Word is the foundation
of all our knowledge, and it being written by divine inspiration
is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in
righteousness. John Whitehead brought a man
with him to church one night, supposed to be a brilliant young
man, lives not too far from him over there, and this man wanted
to debate the gospel with me at the church. And I said, well,
I'll listen to what you got to say. But I said, we're not going
to move outside this book. Everything that we're going to
say, we're going to base it on this book. And if you can correct
me or show me wrong in this book, I'll change what I'm preaching.
I'll submit to it. Well, he said, if you're going
to confine it to a book of ancient Jewish writers, he said, you're
leaving me nothing to say. Well, that's how it is. That's
how it is. Man got nothing to say. What
does he know about God except what God revealed to him in this
book? That's foolishness to a natural man. That's foolishness. A preacher without a Bible is
like a lamp without oil. All he has is his dreams and
visions and the vanity of his mind and all his conjecture and
natural reasoning and vain imaginations. The Lord said if they speak not
according to this word, it's because there's no light in them.
There's no light in them. There were ten virgins, he said.
He gave this parable. Five of them were wives and five
of them weren't. What happened to the five that
weren't? They had a little bit of oil
when they started. Had a little bit of light shining
when they started. And they wasted it. They just
let it burn out. They didn't try to replenish
it. They didn't bring any oil with them. They just let it burn
out. And there's thousands, there's
a bunch I could name who came here for a while till the light
burned out and they left. They left, they didn't want any
oil. And they told the five virgins that had the oil, they said,
give us your oil. They said, no, you ain't getting
mine. Go down there where they sell it and get it. Go down there. foolishness to the natural man
to believe that the word of God alone is the foundation of faith. And it's foolishness to the natural
man to believe that he's shut up to a messenger of God being
sent unto him with the gospel. Boy, you talk about, you know,
I think I have more resistance to that than I do on particular
redemption. You mean you, You think a man
has to have a messenger of God sent to him? You believe that's
what the scripture teach you? I believe that's what God said.
You want to argue with somebody,
argue with him. Based upon these four facts,
You can't call on him in whom you have not believed, you can't
believe in him of whom you have not heard, and you can't hear
without a preacher, and he can't preach except he be sent. That's
what God said. And now Paul sums it all up in
Romans 10, 17, and he said, so then, faith cometh by hearing,
hearing by the word of God. Here's another one. It's foolishness
to the natural man that he must be born again. Boy, he don't
like that. He don't like that. He don't
know what to do with that. He'll talk about it, but if you
ask him any particular about it, boy, he don't know. He'll
run. He'll run something else. He'll run to his experience.
He'll run to his decision. He'll run to this and run to
that. Scripture said you must be born again. You can't perceive
the kingdom of God, you can't enter the kingdom of God. This
new birth is absolutely necessary. In John 1, beginning in verse
12, the apostle tells us, as many as received him, that is,
received him as God has set him forth, received him as the apostles
preached him, received him as he's declared in the Old Testament,
As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons
of God, even to them that believe on his name, who were born, not
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God. Peter said, seeing you purified
your souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned
love of the brethren, See that you love one another with a pure
heart fervently. Are you listening? Being born
again. You can't do that unless you've
been born again. Born again is a necessity. It's
a necessity. It's a new birth. It's a new
creation. It's something that was never
there before. It's a new man, a new will, a new understanding,
new principles, new motives. Except you be born again, you
cannot perceive the kingdom of God. You cannot enter the kingdom
of God. And then he goes on and tells
us that which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's all it'll
ever be. It's not going to change. It'll
get religious, but it won't get righteous. It's never going to change. It
loves this present world. It'll never quit loving it. It loves itself. It don't love
God. It'll never change. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And
this man, this old wretched man, this man beguiled and led away
by the spirit of Antichrist has been invaded by the spirit of
Christ and the old man has been kicked off his throne. And a
new king has been established. There's a new man in him. And he no longer rules the house. Listen to this. John said, you
are of God, little children. You are of God. And you've overcome
them, these false prophets, these spiritual adversaries. Because
greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world. That's
the only reason. That's the only reason. And then
what about this? Here's another thing. It's absolutely
foolish to a natural man to believe that Christ lived and died and
rose from the dead and intercedes in glory for his elect. He wants to attribute these things
to everybody. I don't care how you live your
life, you go down there at the funeral home and that person
dies and preacher comes in and he preaches him right into glory. Well, one good thing, he's not
suffering anymore. He's at peace now. Huh? Where do people get these things?
They just make them up as they go. And then I hear people say this
all the time. That just don't seem right to
me. How many times have you heard
that? More times than I can even remember. That don't seem right. The Bible said there's a way
that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death. He wrote it twice in the book
of Proverbs. Proverbs 16, 25 and Proverbs
14, 12. There's nothing of God in a natural
man except his conscience and the light of creation. Men and
women argue about how men are reconciled to God who don't know
God. They don't take into account
God's perfect justice and God's perfect righteousness. His demands for perfection, his
character, it's called his perfections, his attributes. And they argue over man's rights,
and God's rights, and their rights, and not understanding anything
at all about his power, and his eternality, and his wisdom. And
they argue over judgment, not understanding that they're now
under it. that in their arguing, they are experiencing it and
manifesting it, and that they are constrained by it. I don't know how much of this
that you've read and yet you haven't read, but I want to quote
this to you. He said, keep thy foot when thou enterest into
the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to offer the
what? The sacrifice of fools. What's that? That's blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. That's what that is. Commenting without even thinking
or praying about it or studying it or looking at it, just right
back in your face. That's the sacrifice of fools. Be not rash with thy mouth, let
not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God. For God's
in the heaven, thou art upon the earth, therefore let thy
word be few. What's he saying? He's saying
shut up and listen. That's what he's saying. Christ
died for his people. By his death he put away their
sin. He didn't attempt to put it away,
he didn't put it away if, he put it away. As their representative and substitute,
he bore their sins in his own body on the tree. Then he rose
from the dead, Romans 4.25, declaring their full free justification
by God. Well, preacher, how do I know
that this was purchased by his death for his elect? How do I
know this wasn't concerning the whole world? Because in Romans
8, 33, he said, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's
elect, it is God that justifies. And Christ that died, who is also risen, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. Who's the us? It's his elect.
It's those he foreknew, those who are the called according
to his purpose. Those He predestinated and called and justified and
glorified. Our Lord said in John 10 and
11, I'm the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd giveth His life
for the sheep, and you believe not because you're not of My
sheep. This book teaches particular redemption and that his merits
not only puts away our sins and provides us with a perfect righteousness,
but buys them the rights to all the means of salvation, including
hearing, believing, repenting, understanding. But that's foolishness to a natural
man. Try to tell it to him. You try it yourself. See what
happens. And most of all, it's foolishness to the natural man
that salvation is by the grace of God and not by his free will
and his works. He just can't understand. He can't grasp the idea of free
grace. Free grace. See the sinner. You were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich
in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were
dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ. By grace,
ye are saved. And he's raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that
in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus, for
by grace are you saved through faith. And that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. Natural man can't perceive that.
He won't have that. He won't receive that. He won't
submit himself to it. Here's what he's going to say.
He's going to say, what can I do? Isn't that what that rich young
ruler spent his whole life trying to be as pure as he could be
and paid tithes of everything that he made and he comes to
the Lord and he said, what do I need to do to inherit? It ain't
in your doing, it's in his doing. And then the last thing, it's
absolute foolishness to the natural man to believe that by God's
accomplished redemption in Christ, that all his people, those whom
he calls, are at peace with God. Huh? I've been on this way a
while, and it's still hard for me. Still hard for me to believe
that God's not upset with me. We're at peace. We're at peace. In spite of all of our daily
sins and inabilities and shortcomings and unbelief, we're at peace
with God. It says, Christ made in himself
of both Jew and Gentile one new man, so making peace. And Paul
just put it flat out. He is our peace. Christ is our
peace. And he said that this peace passeth
all understanding and that it'll keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. And so Paul writes to this troubled
church And he said, grace and peace be to you. Don't leave that, don't go anywhere
from that. Don't let anybody bewitch you
or beguile you or sell you on anything else. And this, I believe, is at the
forefront of the faith of all God's elect, salvation decreed
by God the Father, accomplished by Jesus Christ, and applied
by the Holy Spirit of God. that Christ gave himself for
our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world
according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory
forever. And all those who really believe
it, they give him that glory forever and ever. Now, next time
you read Paul's opening remarks to the churches, I want you to
remember what I preached to you this morning. Remember those
things.