The book of Galatians in chapter
four, and we're going to be reading from verse eight through to verse
20. How be it then when ye knew not
God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods? But now after that ye have known
God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak
and beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days and months and
times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have
bestowed upon you labor in vain. Brethren, I beseech you, be as
I am, for I am as ye are. Ye have not injured me at all. You know how through infirmity
of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first? And my
temptation, which was in my flesh, ye despised not, nor rejected,
but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness
ye speak of? For I bear you record, that if
it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes
and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy
because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but
not well. Yea, they would exclude you,
that ye might affect them. but it is good to be zealously
affected always in a good thing. And not only when I am present
with you, my little children of whom I travail in birth again
until Christ be formed in you. I desire to be present with you
now and to change my voice for I stand in doubt of you. Amen, may God be pleased to bless
to us this reading from his word. The gospel, the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is how Mark begins his gospel. the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the beginning of the gospel of the Lord. And when I come to speak to you,
I always make it my point to immediately begin by speaking
to you about the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel. Because I don't
know how long your attention is going to last. I don't know
whether I'm going to lose you in 30 seconds. I don't know whether
you're going to be thinking about something else entirely before
I've gone just a few minutes into what I've prepared for you.
But I want you always to know that at the very beginning, we
have the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The gospel of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the sweetest revelation of
divine grace ever granted to sinners. It is the finest message
of peace ever preached amongst sinners. It is the highest comfort
granted to the needy souls of sinners. And it is the only hope
of eternal life to sinners. Now, I hope I don't offend anybody
here today when I tell you that one and all, you are all sinners. And that means that you all need
the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Every single one
of us here needs to know this gospel. It is so rich in blessings. It is so good for our souls.
We need to hear this gospel. We need to believe this gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, is a message. It's a message that is spoken. It is a simple declaration of
what God has done to save sinners like you and like me. It is the testimony of the whole
of Scripture. It is the anticipation of the
prophets of the Old Testament. It is the testimony of the apostles
of the New Testament. It is the proclamation of faithful
preachers down through the history of the church. The gospel of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, it speaks of judgment. meted out upon the Holy Lamb
of God. It speaks of divine substitution,
that one who was not worthy of death died in the place of another. It speaks of justice honoured,
the holiness of God, the justice of God, the purity of God, upheld
and honoured. and yet mercy bestowed. It speaks of holiness satisfied
and of sins forgiven. It speaks of redemption. It speaks
of atonement. It speaks of righteousness. It speaks of a new start and
a new beginning. It speaks of free justification
with God and free sanctification, perfect holiness with God. It speaks of free grace to sinners. It speaks of everlasting love,
everlasting life, everlasting joy, and everlasting separation
for those who reject it. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, is true. It is precious. It is valuable. It is refreshing to the weary
soul. It is uplifting to the downcast
and to the disheartened. It is sustaining when we are
weak and needy. It is enduring when we can't
go on anymore. and it is glorious in the midst
of a troubled world. It is a glorious message of hope
and peace and salvation. It is an amazing story of full
salvation that has been arranged by God in eternity past accomplished
by Christ here in time, applied by God the Holy Spirit to sinners
like us. It speaks of the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ in laying down his life for men and women like you
and me. We have been studying for a number
of weeks now this book of Galatians. We've been talking about it and
thinking about it and reflecting upon the message and the lessons
that the Apostle Paul sought to communicate and to convey
to the believers here in this region. part of modern-day Turkey. It was called Galatia and it
was a place where there were a number of churches that had
heard the Apostle preaching and had received his message, had
received that gospel message with delight and pleasure, with
faith and trust, and they had found Jesus Christ to be their
Savior. And yet we discover that these
believers in Galatia were troubled because there were others who
came from afar off and they started to sow the seeds of discontent. They started to challenge the
gospel that had been declared. They began to say, don't listen
to Paul. He's got an agenda. We've got
a better message. We've got something else that
will give you fulfillment and give you pleasure, that will
make you to be pleased with God and God pleased with you. And the Apostle Paul learned
while a very far way away of the trouble that had been caused
to these Galatians. And so he says to them, when
I came to Galatia, when I came amongst you, when I was there
in your towns and villages and in your company and your presence,
I preached the gospel. Look at verse 13 of chapter four. He says to them there in the
middle of the verse, I preached the gospel unto you. That's what he did. He preached
the gospel. He didn't come with anything
else. He didn't add to it. He simply took at the first,
at the first, he simply took the gospel of Jesus Christ, the
son of God, nothing else. nothing added, nothing subtracted. How blessed it is to have and
to hold and to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, to know it,
to cherish it, to appreciate its importance and its value. to see that it is precious in
our hearts, to believe it and to enjoy it day by day, week
by week, month by month, year by year, all the days of our
life. The gospel that saves our precious
souls and fits us for eternal life in heaven with God. How foolish it would be to give
it up, to forego the blessedness of this message. And yet what
we see in this letter to the Galatians is that there is a
tendency in our flesh, in our hearts, in our lives, there is
a tendency to forego this spiritual purity. and to follow after fleshy
works. It's where our natural inclinations
always take us. We imagine that we can do something
for ourselves. We imagine that we can add something. to the pot. We can bring something
to the table. We can make a contribution. We
can help God out. We can show some earnestness. We can show some dedication.
We can show how committed we are. We can put our hands in
our pockets and we can give this. Or we can take our hands and
we can do that. Or we can be part of a process
that is going to enlarge and enhance and embellish the work
of God. That's what we think. It's what
our flesh tells us. Every single day of our lives,
our flesh tells us, you're doing okay. You're doing well. You're doing all right. You're
getting through this. When the reality is that if we
add anything to our life, to the uniqueness and the singularity
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have overthrown everything. The Lord won't have anyone contending
or competing with His Son. He is more jealous of the Lord
Jesus Christ than ever we could be. And God will have all the
glory in the lives of His people. We imagine that we can please
God by what we do. And that was what these troublers
of the Galatians were teaching amongst this group of new believers. And Paul doesn't pull any punches.
He says it's witchcraft. Witchcraft if you follow that.
It's idolatry. He says, who has bewitched you,
foolish Galatians? It's heathenism. You're going
back to what you've come from. You're going back to the religion
of the natural man who thinks that he's going to be able to
do something to please God by which he can earn God's pleasure,
God's peace, and God's privileges. Natural religion of unspiritual
men is just an empty formalism. And we see it all around us today. We see it in so many places.
We see it in so many guises and forms. And I'm not going to name
religions or denominations or anything like that. It's the
religion of the world, whatever it might be. It's the religion
of the natural man. It's our sheer morality. It's
the fact that we think we're better than we are. It's the
fact that we're self-righteous in our own ideas. And we can
always look at somebody else and say, well, I'm better than
he is, or I'm better than she is. At least I'm not there. At least I've done better with
my life than they have. And I might not be the best,
but I guess I'm above average. Isn't it amazing how we're all
above average? It's bondage. It's bondage because
if we go down that road, we can never do enough. Never do enough
to attain to God's perfection. And God demands perfect holiness. Look at your lives. Are you perfectly
holy? Look at your actions, look at
your words, look at your thoughts. Are you perfectly holy? And have
you always been perfectly holy? Then how can you dare to stand
before God who is perfectly holy and who cannot even turn his
eyes upon sin? Paul gives some examples of the
particular, peculiar, rituals, works, if you like, that these
Galatians are beginning to follow. And they're only examples because
our own society and our own age will have different ways of allowing
men and women to express their own goodness. Here, in the time
of the Galatians, Paul makes reference to certain examples
which were appropriate on the occasion. He says, you're going
back to these Jewish rituals, the days and the months and the
times and the years. Now, this was to do with the
Old Testament religious calendar or the ceremonial law of the
Jews. And it was talking about the
weekly Sabbaths that they had, where everything stopped and
they weren't allowed to do certain things and they had to do other
things. And the Apostle says, you go back to that and you start
fulfilling all the things that you've got to do and you don't
do all the things that you've not to do and you think that
in some way God's pleased with you. Don't you understand that
that was just a picture? That's not the reality of purity
with God. That's not the essence of holiness.
That was just a picture. It was pointing to the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ must be
our rest. We don't rest on a Sabbath day. We rest in Christ. because we
have discovered him to be the one who has satisfied every demand
of a holy God. And what about the months? Well,
again, this was just a picture. It was to do with the monthly
sacrifices. It was to do with the new moon
and the full moon. And these monthly sacrifices,
they spoke, again, of a picture of Christ. It speaks of the light
of the world who is the Lord Jesus Christ. We go to the light
who is Christ. We don't go to the types and
the shadows. We don't go to the symbolism.
We go to the reality because the reality has now come to teach
men, to lead men into an experience of grace with God that hasn't
anything any longer to do with the shadows and the pictures.
And we can take these things, Paul goes on to talk about the
times and that's to do with the feasts or the years. Again, that
was to do with Jubilee and all Old Testament practices that
people thought if they fulfilled these obligations, they would
find the peace of God. I dare say that the highest The
highest manifestation of the holy will of God is found in
the Old Testament law. David calls it holy. He says
he rejoices to be in it. Anything we bring as our modern
equivalent, as far as our morality is concerned, as far as our deeds
are concerned, as far as our standards are concerned, as far
as our worldview is concerned, it can only ever be of a lesser
standard than that holiness that was revealed by God. But never
did any man satisfy God's standard and never can any man, woman,
boy or girl satisfy even the standard of our own expectations. We always fall short even of
our own expectations. We never excel what we want to
do. How can we ever satisfy God? And so we discover that we need
another. We need a righteousness which
we cannot accomplish by ourselves. We need a substitute, someone
who will stand up for us. We need an advocate, someone
who will speak on our behalf. We need a mediator. We need someone
who's going to go into the presence of God and lay claim to the promises
of God on our behalf. Look at verse 13 again. I want
to just draw your attention to a couple of things that the apostle
has to say in this verse. As it were, to try and explain
to you something about this gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The first thing he says to them
in verse 13 is this, ye know, ye know, He draws their attention to their
own witness, the things that they had previously experienced,
things that they were aware of in their own lives, what they
had seen by their own eyes and heard with their own ears. More
than that, more than that, what they'd felt in their own hearts,
because they had come to this conversion experience. They had
had a taste of this transformative work of conversion when the gospel
had been preached to them. He said, you know, you know because
you've experienced these things. They knew it in their souls.
And I say this to us, the children of God, the true people of God,
those who are brought by that saving work into the experience
of grace, we know what is right. We know what is right. We know
what is true. Because the knowledge that we
have of these things is a spiritual knowledge. If we have had these
spiritual truths revealed to us, we can't ever go back. And yet we are so prone to go
back. We lose the first love. We lose
that savour that we had of those early days. The power, the experience,
the joy, the enthusiasm, the wonder of those early days of
revelation when it seemed as if our hearts would burst. because
of a sense of forgiveness and peace with God through the Lord
Jesus Christ. We know that. We know it. We've
tasted it. We've experienced it. Why would
we go back? This is the war that exists in
the flesh. This is the battle that goes
on constantly in the lives of the Lord's people, in the experience
of the church. The discernment we have is spiritual,
the understanding we have is spiritual, and the truth of the
gospel, it resonates with us when we hear it. Are we not satisfied with the
peace that passeth understanding? Do we not have that joy in our
souls any longer? That assurance, that confidence
that the blood of Christ, the precious blood of Christ is sufficient
for us? This is a spiritual witness,
soul to soul, spirit to spirit. And I say this, there is no need
for a preacher to whip a sheep. There's no need for a preacher
to whip his congregation because the sheep hear my voice. So Paul
has simply to remind them, he has to go back, he has to say,
think about the things that you first knew. Think about where
you came from, what you received, what you had, what you possessed.
Are you going to give these things up and follow after these weak,
beggarly elements? These pictures, these metaphors,
these shadows, why would you go there? Why would you do that?
Why would you turn your back on the joy that you once knew? In Romans chapter eight, verse
16, we read these words. The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. Have you had
that witness with your soul? Have you had that experience
of grace? Do you know what it is to trust
wholly and exclusively on the promises of God and the merits
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only saviour of sinners? Why
would you forget that? Why would you go back? Why would
you forgo that? Why would you neglect it? This
is the truth. So he says to these Galatians,
ye know, ye know. And then he goes on to say, verse
13, ye know how through infirmity of the flesh, What did Paul mean
by this infirmity of the flesh? Well, maybe he was referring
to their infirmity, the fact that they were heathens, they
were Gentiles, they were worshippers of idolatrous gods, they went
to the temple, they went to the altar, they went to the practices
of their heathen religion, and these fleshy things, they stand
in the way in the way of the people hearing the gospel with
clarity. And it may well be that that's
the infirmity that he is referring to. And we know that Paul, when
he preached, he preached simply, and he preached clearly those
simple things of Christ. Or maybe he was talking about
his own infirmity. There has been some suggestion
that Paul carried with him some weakness in his flesh, perhaps
some bodily ailment, some weakness. Nevertheless, he overcame that. He broke through that. Whether
it was a stammering tongue, whether it was poor eyesight, whether
it was a disfigurement in his body, he was able to break through
that to such a degree that the words that he spoke came with
power. into their hearing, into their
hearts and into their souls. And maybe it was external pressures,
maybe it was their friends, maybe it was their neighbours, maybe
it was the people they used to go to worship with, who stood
at the side of the road and pointed fingers and laughed at them and
said, what, you're not coming to the temple anymore? Got a
new God, have you? Whatever it was that this infirmity
of the flesh was, maybe simply the natural disinclination of
the flesh, because we're told in the Word of God that the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Our nature
is opposed to these things. It's a delight to see you visitors
here today. I'm pleased that you're here
listening to the gospel. This message is so needful for
you. Week by week, month by month,
you need to hear the gospel preached. This is the way there will be
natural inclinations that will detract from this gospel. These are the infirmities of
the flesh. They will be personal. They will
be social. They will be the world's temptations. They will be whatever's going
on in your life. And you will have a great big
mountain of hurdles to be overcome if you want to hear the gospel
of grace. It could have been any of those
or all of them. Such is the impossibility of
spiritual life being received except the Lord himself powerfully
applies a miracle, irresistible power, irresistible grace. And yet Paul says, Through these
infirmities, through these infirmities, against all these natural detractors,
Paul preached the gospel. He brought words of life to bear
in the experience of these Galatians. He brought these words to their
souls. He opened up the truth in their
presence. He showed them Christ. He declared
the gospel. He showed them the Lord Jesus
Christ crucified in their place. He showed them the power. We
use the word efficacy. The success, the power, the achievement,
the effect, the effectualness of the blood of Christ to cleanse
our sins. He showed them the power that
is in the blood. He brought to them all that had
been accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross. He showed them
the character of the substitute, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. He told them about God satisfied
with the death of his son in our place. And he spoke to them
of the imputation of righteousness, the bestowal, the gift of righteousness,
of holiness, of acceptance with God that comes through faith
in the completed work of Jesus Christ. This is what he laid
before them. This is the gospel. And ye know how that through
the infirmity of the flesh I preached to you the gospel. I preached the gospel. That's
all a preacher has to say. What did you say to them? I preached
the gospel. Well, then that's enough. That's
enough. We've said before, it's not my
job to speak to you about politics or sport or 101 other things. That's for somewhere else. It's
my job to preach the gospel, and that's what the Apostle Paul
did. In truth, that's all that the
Lord's people want to hear. It's the preaching of the gospel
that is the God-appointed means, the method of creating new life
in a sinner. In a little while, we're going
to have communion. See that there? That's not going to give you
new life. Not these elements. This is a Baptist church. We've got a Baptist tank. You
give us a little bit of notice, we can fill it with water and
we can put you in there. That's not going to save you. We use the phrase, the means
of grace. It's not a biblical phrase, but
we use it. The means of grace is the preaching of the gospel,
and that's it. It's by the preaching of the
gospel. It's by the declaring of Jesus
Christ's work and the sufficiency of it, that which he has achieved,
that men and women are brought to that place of believing it
or not. They either believe it or they
don't. And that is the only way of spiritual life. It's not songs. It's not plays. It's not little
sketches or skits that we sometimes see as part of worship services. These things don't bring life.
They bring entertainment, but they don't bring spiritual life.
That comes through the preaching of the gospel. It's not law. It's not works. It's not ritual. It's not symbols. It's not ceremonies. It's not man's free will. It's
not man's imagined power to choose, like we're making you an offer
here. Are you going to accept it or
not? That's not the gospel. The gospel is a declaration of
what Christ has done, what he has achieved. Paul says, woe is me if I preach
not the gospel. And I speak a word to anyone
who gets on their feet and stands before God and before men in
God's name. Woe unto you if you preach not
the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God. Paul says to these Galatians,
you know how through infirmity of the flesh, I preach the gospel
unto you at the first. At the first. Paul preached to
the Galatians personally. He preached directly, he preached
immediately. And we need to hear the gospel
personally. You'll never get saved because
your daddy was saved. You'll never get saved because
your mother prayed for you. You'll never get saved because
somebody back in your family was a preacher of the gospel. That's not how it works. It has
to be unto you. It has to be personal. It has
to be the gospel preached in our hearing. and it has to be
the power of God at work in our lives. We need to hear the gospel
personally. We need to hear it regularly. What if there's no gospel church
near me? Move house. There's an idea. What would stop us doing that? Ambition? Money? Lifestyle? The kids' education? What are our priorities? What's
more important than the eternal well-being of our soul? We need
to hear the gospel. What if there's no preacher?
Well, then you get down on your knees and you plead with God
to send you a preacher. Have you any idea how valuable
your soul is? A little aside, I wasn't going
to mention this, but it's just, it's here. I've been thinking
a lot over the past few days, few weeks about these boys in
Thailand down in that cave system. And I've wondered what it must
have been like for them sitting in the darkness. Not knowing what was going to
happen to them. And what a relief when those
two divers stuck their head up through the water. Now I know
it's a big job and they're still trying to get these kids out.
But what is hell going to be like? What is it going to be
like sitting in the midst of the blackness of darkness forever? Forever. And nobody ever sticking
their head up through that water to say, we're coming for you. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? How shall they preach except
they be sent as it is written? How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings
of good things. God's preachers will preach where
and when they can. There may be many who hear the
words of those preachers, but they will still be judged in
their sins. But if you are to be saved, then
the word must come to you in power. Let me repeat how serious
this matter is. There is a multitude of religion,
there is a multitude of churches out there. What is essential
is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Paul says to these Galatians
in the first chapter, this was his introduction to them, he
says, 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 put into the depths
of hell. Let him be separated from God
forever. If he preaches anything else
except this message of free grace by the blood of Jesus Christ,
by perfect holiness imputed by the righteousness of Christ,
let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now
again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have, that ye have received, let him be accursed. they preached it at the first. I preach the gospel unto you
at the first, at the first coming of the gospel, at the first stirrings
of the spirit, at the first rising of the son of righteousness and
their understanding as he came with healing in his wings. I
think there's some good advice here from Paul for us. One, stick
with the preacher who first brought you to a knowledge of the truth. Stick with him. If the Lord has
brought you through the preaching of a mere man to understand these
eternal precious truths, then it's a good idea to hear that
man as often as you can. Let us not be man followers,
or as those who heap to themselves teachers having itching ears,
but let us see where these first stirrings of grace were found. And if the Lord has been pleased
to use such a man to speak to our souls, then let us hear him.
There is something honourable about faithfulness and waiting
upon the man who has prevailed in birth for our souls. Something admirable when those
who are taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all
good things. There is something safe in being
faithful to him who was first faithful to your soul. These
brothers and sisters in Galatia, they had received Paul as an
angel from God, as a minister of truth, as Christ's messengers
to them. Paul goes so far as to say, when
I was there preaching to you, you couldn't have treated me
any better had it been Jesus Christ himself that had been
coming into your houses and coming into your homes. Had it been
Christ himself, you couldn't have treated me any better. Why would they then turn away
from him now? Why would they go back to these
old ways of thinking, these old ways of acting now? Paul's faithfulness
at the first in his gospel preaching, the Spirit's witness at the first
in their souls, their communion and fellowship together at the
first in the simplicity that is to be found in Christ. That
was worthy of their zeal. and of their passion. Not these interlopers, not these
imposters, not these novelties, not these new things, not this
return to shadows, not these works, not this law, not the
weak beggarly elements, but standing fast in the liberty with which
Christ has made us free. Not being entangled again, by
the yoke of bondage, finding grace and peace coming from Christ
alone. May the Lord keep us faithful
to the truth, make us wise unto salvation through the faith that
is in Christ Jesus. Amen.