When the Lord Jesus Christ met
Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road, Saul was about the business
of wasting the church. That's what he was trying to
do. And one by one, he wasted the people that comprised that
church. He beat them and he battered
them, he chained them up, he threw them down. He was indeed
a hammer of the churches. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ
met him and saved him and brought him to an experience of grace. Not only so, but the Lord Jesus
left him at that first meeting in no doubt of the task that
would be set before him. In Acts chapter 22, we have a
number of accounts of Paul's conversion in the scriptures
and in Acts chapter 22 and verse 14 we read of one of them concerning
a man called Ananias who was sent by the Lord to speak to
Saul of Tarsus. And Ananias said to Saul, who
subsequently became Paul, the God of our fathers hath chosen
thee that thou shouldst know his will and see that just one,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who himself is just and the justifier
of his people. To see that just one, and shouldst
hear the voice of his mouth, for thou shalt be his witness
unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. Within a little
while of the Lord encountering Saul of Tarsus on the road to
Damascus, he had already been given this commission. He was
not to be a spectator in this matter of the gospel outreach. He was to be that one who was
sent by God, commissioned by God to take the message to the
world. Turn with me to Acts chapter
26. Acts chapter 26. Read there another couple of
verses in the similar vein. Verse 15 tells us about the apostle,
or as he was then, Saul of Tarsus, speaking to the Lord. at that moment when he was confronted
on the road. Remember, he was heading to destroy
the church in Damascus. He carried letters in his pocket
that would enable him to put these church members into prison.
And there in verse 15, the Lord speaks to him and Saul says in
reply, who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom
thou persecutest. It's worth remembering, actually,
any who persecute the church persecute Christ. And Christ
is more jealous for the well-being of his church and people than
we can possibly imagine. He loves his little flock, he
loves his bride, and he is the one to whom all men who try to
lay hands upon his people will ultimately be answerable. I am
Jesus whom thou persecutest, But rise and stand upon thy feet,
for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee
a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast
seen and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee,
delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom
now I send thee. to open their eyes, and to turn
them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto
God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among
them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. That was quite a commission that
the Lord gave to Saul of Tarsus. And again, in Acts 9, and in
verse 15, we read that Saul was commissioned to bear my name
before the Gentiles, before kings, and before the children of Israel. So Saul, or Paul, knew what he
had to do. He must preach the gospel of
Christ. It was as simple as that. Christ
had stopped him. Christ had prevented him from
doing that which was the passion of his life. Doing God's will. hammering this church of Jesus
Christ. And Christ said, enough, you'll
touch no more of them. In fact, I'm going to show you
all the things that you must suffer as you go forth to preach
my name. And yet the Lord also told Paul
that he would protect and provide for him as he sent him into the
midst of this present evil world. And so the gospel that Paul was
given to preach was this gospel which was referred to here in
Acts 26, that there would be forgiveness of sins granted to
those that were sanctified in the Lord Jesus Christ. It was
the gospel of grace and peace that we have been talking about
in recent weeks. This gospel of grace from God
the Father and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ. This gospel
of grace and peace, which came to sinners through the declaration
of Jesus Christ crucified. He would testify of what he had
seen and heard, and he had seen the Lord Jesus Christ, and he
had heard him speaking. And this is what he did. The
gospel changed him, converted him, and it motivated him. He was nourished in his own soul
and he was comforted in his own spirit that his sins were forgiven. And that was the gospel that
he was sent to preach. The gospel which was preached
of me, says Paul. The gospel which I in turn preach
is the gospel that is suitable for sinners, a gospel that is
suitable for you and for me. It is suitable for weak people,
people who are needy, people who are lost, people who are
condemned. It suited the Jews who had tried
to keep God's law and failed. It suited the Gentiles who knew
nothing of the law of Moses and the traditions of the Jews. It is the gospel that ministers
grace, grace because God not because we deserve it, but out
of his magnanimity, out of his mercy, out of his goodness and
his love, takes away our sin. It ministers peace in that the
offended God is reconciled and we are reconciled to him. It brings liberty because it
releases the captive from the bonds of guilt and condemnation
and removes that heavy yoke of legal obligation and works, righteousness,
and religion. And therefore, when Paul, having
learned this gospel, having received this gospel, having been taught
it by the Lord himself, having preached this gospel, having
spent his life seeing the fruit of that gospel in the lives of
men and women as he went amongst the churches, as he preached
in the marketplaces, as he ministered in the towns and the villages
and the cities, wherever God sent him. heard that in the churches
of Galatia these false teachers had gained a foothold, had taken
a grip, had begun to distract and divert the people of God
away from the simplicity that is in Christ. Is there any wonder
that he was so disturbed to learn of the perversions that were
occurring? Actually, it is clear from a
New Testament reading, especially of the book of Acts, and then
as we go into the epistles, the letters of the apostles that
we have to read and to study, that from the very start, from
the very beginning of that apostolic age, there were people who endeavoured,
who tried to blend the Old Testament tradition of the Jews with the
New Testament gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'm gonna use
a little phrase, and I guess in some respects, it's a little
bit of jargon. But I just want you to, and it's
not complicated, I just want you to be aware of it, because
in so many ways, this is the essence of the understanding
of the gospel. And the phrase is this, law and
gospel, law and gospel. And you might think that you've
learned a lot about the Bible and you might think that you've
learned a good deal about theology and doctrine and who God is and
who you are. But we need to understand the
difference between law and gospel. It is the essence of the peace
that we have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it
is the nature of the grace of the work of God in our hearts
and in the hearts of all his people. The big problem in so
many ways that we see today is that most of what is called Christianity
cannot distinguish between law and gospel. They don't know the
difference between law and gospel and they think that they get
saved by the grace of God and then they have to work out their
sanctification, they have to work out their personal obedience,
they have to work out their their Christian morality. They have
to do things for God, whether it's their giving or it's their
commitment or their dedication or whatever it might be. And
to the extent that they do or they don't, their peace with
God ebbs and flows. We need to understand that it's
always grace and it's never law. If we look to our works in any
way, in any capacity whatsoever, we will start to sink like Peter
did. And we'll have to be brought
back to that place of saying, Lord, help me. Paul saw what was happening. He knew that these people with
their subtle, subtle religion, with their works religion, with
their bringing back the patterns of the Jewish religious rituals
which had so dominated their thinking for hundreds and hundreds
of years, the bringing back of these things was going to be
a problem in the churches. And these men, they followed
Paul around. They contended against him. Wherever
Paul preached, the Jews in that town, the diaspora, the spread
out Jews, they came from the synagogues. And there were a
few exceptions where they received him. But in the main, they persecuted
him. They marginalised him, they spoke
evil against him. They even took up stones and
tried to slay him. They purposefully undermined
his message. They purposefully, dedicatedly
followed him around just as much as Paul was dedicated to the
missionary work to which God had sent him. They were dedicated
to the pursuit and destruction of every good that he was about. He preached the gospel of grace
and peace. And they subtly constructed an
alternative gospel of part grace and part works. We might call
it a mongrel faith. You know what a mongrel is? It's not a pedigree. It's not
pure bread. It's a mix. It's a mongrel. And that's what they were instilling
in the minds of the churches. and that's the subtlety of it.
They used the same words that Paul used. They spoke of the
same Jesus that Paul spoke of. They employed the same scriptures
that he employed. If you heard their worship, if
you heard their prayers, if you heard their singing, you would
probably not be able to distinguish between the two different groups. you could hardly tell them apart. In fact, here's the point, that
unless you know, you don't know. unless you know, unless it's
pointed out, unless it's enforced upon you, unless these things
are so clearly set before you. And even the nature of the subtlety
of the opposition explained, you just don't know. Such is
the ease with which our flesh and the natural man wants to
find every opportunity of boosting itself. and serving itself to
the diminishing of the power of the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ in our hearts and in our lives. Let me give you one example
of the way in which we can distinguish this law and gospel difference. And it's just one example. Paul,
the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, he preached, Jesus died
to save. The false teachers, they preached,
Jesus died to make salvation possible. Big difference there? You could
get away with that, you know. You could get away, unless you
knew the reason why that distinction is there. Jesus' death did make
salvation possible in the sense that we come to a knowledge of
that salvation because the Lord Jesus Christ died. We experience
the benefit of that salvation. But unless it's distinguished,
unless that difference is set before us about the way in which
these two phrases that sound so similar, Jesus died to save
sinners. Jesus died to make salvation
possible. That second phrase allows people
to reverse into it everything that they want to do to make
self-righteous religion. And that's what religion is.
Man's self-righteousness. in pleasing God. And so that
subtle difference made all the difference and causes Paul to
be so grieved about what is going on amongst the churches of Galatia. I believe my ministry, I believe
the ministry of every true gospel preacher is to distinguish between
those two statements. the fact that Jesus died to save
and that Jesus died to make salvation possible. It is the role of the
preacher to go forth and gather in the elect of God and to comfort
that people with a knowledge that their salvation is a done
deal. that they are saved by Christ
on the cross when he shed his blood for them, that they are
justified by his death, that they are sanctified eternally
in him, that everything that was required by the holy God
for the salvation of his people was effected completely and finished
on the cross. And we have the responsibility
as part of that ministry to expose and to warn about the falseness
of the lies that are preached to men and women and the contradictions
which have now become widespread in our society. Do you see the
difference? Do you grasp the difference? Can you discern the subtlety
of these points? If Jesus died to save, and Jesus
is the sovereign God, the all-powerful King of glory, then he did save. But if Jesus died to make salvation
possible, then something else still has to be done to make
the benefits of that salvation effectual for me. And what else
has to be done has made denominations and preachers rich and powerful
and influential for hundreds and hundreds of years. And that's
the false religion that Paul set himself against. He says,
it's another gospel. He says, but it's not even another
gospel. It's not another because there's
no good news in that gospel. There's just doubt and uncertainty
and weariness and laboring and a heavy, heavy yoke, which will
be put on the shoulders of men and women and never give them
any assurance, never give them any peace. that the work of Christ
on the cross is effectual to save. Live a good life, join
a church, be baptised, sign our confession, come out to the front,
lift your hand, weep, confess, believe. So what is it to be? Grace and
works. or grace and peace. What did Paul say? It's the gospel
of Christ, or it's a perversion of the gospel of Christ. Let
me show you very briefly a number of the characteristics that the
apostle leaves before us here to show the true nature of the
gospel of Christ. The gospel of Christ, the gospel
of grace and peace is of divine origin. That's what he says in
verse 11. He says of chapter one, he says,
I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
of me is not after man. This isn't human. This isn't
designed, devised. This isn't thought through. This
isn't constructed by man. It's not after man. And so the
apostle, when he's writing to the other churches, for example,
to the Romans, in Romans chapter one, verse one, he says, Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto
the gospel of God. Not the gospel of man, the gospel
of God. This is God's gospel. This is
of divine origin. Romans 15, verse 16, that I should
be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering
the gospel of God. Then he says to the Corinthians,
I have preached to you the gospel of God freely, the gospel that
came from God, the message of reconciliation with God, effected
by the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the cross. In 1 Thessalonians
2, verse 2, he says, we were bold in our God to speak unto
you the gospel of God with much contention. The true gospel is
God's covenant promise of salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ. who gave himself that he might
deliver us. That's what Paul wrote to the
Galatians in verse three. Christ gave himself that he might
deliver us. And that's it. That's why he
gave himself. And you need to show me that
he wasn't successful. If you're going to bring in this
law, if you're going to bring in this works, if you're going
to bring in this human righteousness, if you're going to bring in this
personal obedience and lay it upon my shoulders as a yoke of
responsibility. He gave himself to deliver us
from our sins. It has a divine origin. It is
divinely revealed. Look at verse 12. Paul got this
from the Lord Jesus Christ. He got it on the Damascus Road
from the Lord Jesus Christ. That was his apostolic qualification. But it's also the experience
of every true born again child of God. You must be born again. But you can't do that. You can't
born yourself. You couldn't physically, and
you certainly can't spiritually. You must be born again. That's God's work, and he must
teach our souls. He must teach our spirits, and
he must bring us into that place of compliance. It's called a
new life. It's called a new creation. It
is so radical. It is so converting and altering,
and it is God who effects it in the lives of his people. So
Romans 8, 16 says, the Spirit itself beareth witness with our
spirit that we are the children of God. Salvation is not yours
for the taking, it is God's for the giving. It is bestowed, it
is revealed, it is received at God's initiative, and it is the
work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the life
of every individual believer. Thirdly, this is a divinely arranged
gospel. It's divinely originated, it
has divine origin, it has divine revelation, and it is divinely
arranged. Look at verse 15 and 16. It pleased God, who separated me
from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal His
Son in me. that I might preach him among
the heathen. The timing of salvation, the
calling into salvation, the methodology by which that salvation comes
to men and women, to boys and girls, that has to do with God's
working, God's providence. You know, I would have all men
to be saved. Now, I would push it on, I would be
as eager and as urgent as I possibly could be. But I know these things
are in the will of God and His timing is perfect. And therefore
we carry this message promiscuously. We desire to preach it to all
who will hear and to give us an audience and who give us a
listen. But we know that it is God the Spirit. The wind blows
where it listeth. We're at once. You can't control
the wind that blows. You certainly can't control it
in Shoro. How could we possibly control
God the Holy Spirit? He works according to his timing. This gospel is divinely arranged. Paul says, when it pleased God. Maybe when you were young, you
were taught to say please. Somebody says, I want that. Well,
what do you say? Please, when I'm ready. When it pleased God, not when
it pleases me, when it pleased God. We always want to rush matters,
but God's work His timing is perfect. God's elect were chosen
in eternity. They were redeemed at the cross. They are born into this world
to parents exactly in accordance with the will and purpose of
divine providence. They are sinners. but at a specified
time of love, in a place that no one could possibly imagine. They are called by the gospel
that searches them out, that seeks them out, and they are
born again by the Holy Spirit. They are brought to confession
and faith. It is a divinely arranged gospel. And another thing about the true
gospel, the only real gospel, is that it is divinely confirmed. Look at chapter two, verse nine. When James, Cephas, and John,
who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto
me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship. Paul received the apostles, the
other apostles right hand. These troublemakers had endeavored,
that was the reason why they were here. Paul had gone up to
Jerusalem to speak about this problem of circumcision. Okay, I'm guessing you all know
what circumcision is. It's a cutting of the flesh in
a very private part. but it was done with religious
and ritualistic significance. It spoke about the fact that
these people who had been cut And it was a physical cut that
remained as a mark in the body for all the life of that person.
After that cut had been made, that was a mark to show that
you were obligated, that you were under the duty and responsibility
to maintain the religious practices of that group. These people were
coming in and saying, you have to circumcise these Gentiles. not because a piece of skin had
to be cut off, but because they had to be brought under all of
the obligations that that circumcision epitomised, represented. So when
the apostles come to speak about this circumcision, they're talking
about all of these responsibilities, this religious practice which
was represented by circumcision. Now he says in verse 3 of chapter
2, neither Titus who was with me being a Greek was compelled
to be circumcised. The apostles didn't compel Titus
to be circumcised. He was a Gentile, he wasn't circumcised
and he wasn't compelled to be. So the apostles recognized that
this was not necessary and when Paul spoke to them about the
gospel, that it didn't include works at all in any way, they
gave him the right hand of fellowship. There was a union, there was
an agreement that this is the true gospel. These others who
had come, and we are told verse 4, verse 5, verse 6, that they
came and they stood up in the synod and they argued their case. This was a gathering of aware,
intellectual, reasonable people who argued their cases out. But
Paul says, we gave them place. No, not for an hour. We couldn't
believe what these people were saying. We couldn't accept their
message. But the Lord's elect, those who
were his people, those who had been taught by him, they bound
themselves together in the gospel. They perceived the grace, the
apostles, the other apostles perceived the grace that was
given unto me. How is that? because they shared
the same gospel. They knew the same Lord. They
loved the same truth. They had received the same message,
the same gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ. John, what did
he say to you there when you laid your head upon his breast? What was his message? Peter,
what did he tell you? That was what he told me. That's
what I saw and heard. That was the message I had received.
And I tell you this, you don't have to be long in the company
of the true people of God to know that they're the Lord's
people. In 1 John 2, verse 19, we read,
they went out from us, but they were not of us. If they had been
of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went
out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. The differences that we have
in Christianity today are there because they went out from us
but they went out from us because they were not of us. Grace and peace. Gospel, not law. Fellowship is
founded in true faith and gospel experience, the fact that Christ
has ministered to our hearts. enables us to share fellowship
in these gospel truths with one another. Paul calls it, in fact,
the fellowship in the gospel and the fellowship of his sufferings. And in 1 John 1, verse 7, it
says, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another. and the blood of Jesus Christ
his son cleanseth us from all sin. That's a gospel. The blood
of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin. Past, present,
future, done. The death of Jesus Christ and
his blood. It's a divinely blessed message. Many churches establish rules to keep their people in
proper place. But the true church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that is evidenced by the true preaching of the
gospel within that church on an ongoing basis. That was Paul's
concern about the churches of Galatia. These churches are being
turned. These churches are being spun.
Is that possible? It's interesting. Paul speaks
about these men as brethren. That's not to say that every
single individual within the churches of Galatia were brethren,
and yet he had high hopes for them. He believed that there
were sufficient amongst them so that when he spoke to them
and rebuked them for their errors in being distracted and diverted
into other ways, they would return and come back. There had been
a divine blessing upon the ministry of Paul. The gospel of God, the
gospel of Jesus Christ had been effectual to save. It had gone
out and amongst the Gentiles and they'd been gathered in their
hundreds and their thousands. Paul says to the Romans, I'm
not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and
also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the
just shall live by faith. And it is a divinely protected
message. Look at verse 11 of chapter two. This is pretty amazing, really,
when you think about what is happening here. When Peter was
come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was
to be blamed. Peter was blameworthy. Because
of the things that he did, because of his actions, Paul speaks about
it then in the verses that follow. We discover that even Barnabas,
who had travelled with Paul, he was taken in by Peter's actions
and followed Peter's example. And Paul couldn't believe it.
Why would Peter do that? Doesn't he know better? It is possible. that I might say
something wrong to you. I will try not to. And it is
possible that I might do something wrong amongst you. I'm just an earthen vessel. I'm just a pot of clay. That's all this man is. I want to say with Paul, I speak
the truth in Christ, I lie not. And yet even Peter knew the fear
of men. Even Peter succumbed to the wiles
of these troublemakers. God, give me grace to be rebuked
when I wander from the way of truth. and it is divinely preserved. God's gospel, the gospel of his
grace and peace, it's his. And I am no more jealous of that
gospel than he is. I'm no more protective of it
than he is. God is keeping his gospel pure,
and he is sending that gospel to accomplish his will and his
purpose. The gospel of God, the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the gospel of grace and peace will never pass
away. It is the message of glory. It is the message of the eternal
word and purpose of God. It's Christ's story, and we will
be telling it in endless ages. We will speak of these things
in the eternal dimension. and that is why John calls it
the everlasting gospel. But the word of the Lord, says
Peter, endureth forever, and this is the word which by the
gospel is preached unto you. We began by asserting the great
truth that the gospel is the only gospel, and that is the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel that our Saviour died
to save sinners, not to make salvation possible. Rather, that important distinction
is here attested by the Apostle at the end of chapter two. He
says, Because Christ is dead, I am dead. Because Christ is alive again,
I am also alive. Christ liveth in me. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. If you take that view, as so
many do, that Christ died to make salvation possible, then
Christ is dead in vain. That's the bottom line. If righteousness
comes by the law, if you need to be circumcised, if you need
to be obedient to some code of practice, some rule of men, then
Christ is dead in vain. That's the bottom line. It's
law. or it's gospel. It's not law and gospel. May the Lord teach us to love
and value these truths. The gospel of God and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen.