Turn back with me now to the
book of Galatians, chapter 2, and just hold your place there. This church, I'm talking about this church,
has a reputation in this community because of the dogmatic preaching
of the gospel. and the unwillingness of its
members to compromise the truth. Now, if you ask the average person
in this community what's preached at this church, one of two or
three things are going to come out of their mouth. They preach
election. They know that. They preach predestination. They preach once in grace, always
in grace. You ask them what this church
down the street here preaches and they'll say, I don't know.
I don't know. You ask them what the church
preaches over in Taylor, the first Baptist church, I don't
know. Or what's that big church in
Spring Hill, what do they preach? I don't know. But they know what
this one preaches. And that's our calling. That's
what we've been called to do, is to make men understand what
we're preaching. I don't want you to leave here
today and scratch your head and say, well, I don't want any blame.
I'd rather you go out stomping mad. At least you heard me. At
least you heard me. I want folks to hear. And this
church has a reputation. I've run into them. They don't
know me from the man in the moon. I've only been here five years.
But this church has been here a long time. And whenever somebody
asks me, well, where do you pastor? And I tell them, they go, oh,
that church. One fellow, my neighbor, came
over to the fence one day. He's about 84 or 85 years old.
Had a stroke. And he came over, and he said,
I'm bound to ask you this. He and Winston are good friends,
worked together for years. He said, I don't know exactly
how to put this, and I'm probably going to put it wrong, but he
said, do you believe God is just going to save so many people
no matter what? I said, no, sir, I don't believe
that. I said, but I do believe God has an elect, and he's going
to save every one of them. And He's going to do it through
the death and the life of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the
reign of Christ in glory, and the preaching of the gospel,
and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He's going to call them
all to faith and repentance, every last one of them. I don't
believe men are going to be saved no matter what. I believe that
no matter what's already been ordained of God. And it's effectual. Here's some things they say.
They say that preacher thinks if you don't believe exactly
like he does, you can't be saved. I don't believe any such thing.
I don't believe it. I have a lot of friends and dear
brothers and sisters in Christ that if I wrote down what I believe
strictly according to this book, we wouldn't line up on everything.
I guarantee. There's people right here in
this church this morning I don't line up with 100%. Not 100%. But we line up on the basic things
of the gospel. We line up on them. He implies
in his preaching that you must be a theologian to be saved.
I don't believe that either. Neither one of these statements
are true. And I have fellowship with a
lot of folks who are not theologians. But there are some things that
I am not willing to overlook. That's what this book of Galatians
is all about. Not even by an apostle, I'm not
willing to overlook them. There are some issues that I'll
divide over. I'll divide with you over the
free grace of God. We'll split. We'll part companies.
over the free grace of God. Sinners are saved by the free
grace of God. Sovereign grace. Has nothing
to do with them. Never did have anything to do
with them. All by the grace of God. You
read sometime to yourself, when you're not here, when you're
not being You feel like you've got pressure around you, but
when you're home and you're all alone, you take your Bible and
you read 1 Timothy 1.9. God has called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. We had nothing to do with it.
It's all of God, and it's all of grace. And I'll divide with
you over the free grace of God in the salvation of sinners.
And I'll part company with you over Christ our righteousness.
Christ is all the believer's righteousness. Now, if you preach
anything else, you add anything else to that, you're preaching
works. You're not preaching grace, you're
preaching works. Nothing is added to that. He
is my righteousness. He was David's righteousness
when David was on the rooftop looking at Bathsheba as much
as he was when he was on the hillside ready to go down and
fight with Goliath. Christ was his righteousness.
And I'll tell you this, old Lot, when he walked with Abraham,
he was a righteous man. But I'll tell you something,
he was still righteous even down in Sodom. Even down in Sodom. It said, that righteous man,
ain't that what the scripture called it? That righteous man,
vexed by their filthy conversation, he vexed his righteous soul from
day to day. And I'll separate myself from
any man or any group of people who will not confess the justifying
death and particular redemption accomplished by our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. I'll just flat part company with
you. I'll divide over it. I'm not
going to compromise that. And I refuse to have fellowship
with or give any kind of validity to a man or a church who does
not preach, teach, and rejoice in the free grace of God and
the gospel of accomplished redemption in Christ. There's no ground
of fellowship. Fellowship is fellers in the
same ship. Isn't that right? I can't have fellowship with
a man who denies what my Lord accomplished in His death. And
I can't have fellowship with a man who denies the truth of
God concerning the righteousness of Christ. He is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believes. The Apostle Paul began this letter
to the Galatians with these words. Now watch this in verse 6 of
chapter 1. He said, I marvel that ye are
so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of
Christ unto another gospel, which is not another. But there'd
be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Now just hold your place here
in Galatians 1 and let me talk to you for a minute. There's
only one way by which God is pleased to call out His elect
and save chosen sinners, and that is through the preaching
of the gospel. Now you argue about that all
you want to. I wouldn't walk across the street
to argue. You can argue about it all you want to, but it's
the plain declaration of the Word of God. It pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's
pretty clear, isn't it? There are no big words in that. The gospel is the means ordained
of God to call out and sustain His elect. And then secondly,
there's only one gospel. There's only one gospel. Everything
that's being preached today is not the gospel. Ceremonialism
is not the gospel. Legalism is not the gospel. Free willism is not the gospel. Reformationism is not the gospel. And intellectualism is not the
gospel. The gospel is a person. It's a person. The gospel of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is concerning the appearance,
the life, the ministry, the suffering and death and resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's about a person, not a system. And all those who were saved
came to Him. They didn't come to a system,
they came to Him. Most of them didn't know a whole
lot about Him. They knew something about Him.
They knew enough about Him to know that He had what they needed
to be saved. And that's how much you need
to know. It's about Him. And all those
who were saved in the Gospel narratives, every last one of
them came to Him. They bowed to Him. They looked
to Him. They believed on Him. They found
life in Him, and they followed Him. But not all men were in agreement
as to who He was, and why He came, and what He was doing,
and where He was going. Not all men believed that He
was the prophesied Christ of the Old Testament Scripture.
They chose rather to hold on to their system. They had a good
system. We'll just stick with it. Been
around for thousands of years. Been around thousands of years.
They chose rather to hold to a system, a denomination, if
you will, a tradition, worldly reasoning, philosophy, the law,
and their hope to please God by their obedience to the law.
The gospel is the Christ of God as God has declared Him and set
Him forth in picture and type and in prophecy and in the person
and work of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel. He is the
way. Just let that settle in a little
bit. He is the way. We don't believe sinners are
saved that way. I don't care what you believe. He's the way.
Find Him, you know the way. He told one of His disciples
was standing there looking at Him and said, He didn't know
the way. He said, Yeah, you do. I'm the way. He knew the way
and didn't know that He knew it. He's the way. He's the truth. You want to know the truth? Study
Him. He is the truth. Take your pet doctrine, whatever
it is. Is it free willism? Is it decisionism? Is it legalism? Take whatever
it is, whatever your pet doctrine is, and carry it over here to
the person of Christ and see if it fits. Does it fit his life? Does it fit his appearance? Does
it fit his death? If it don't, it's not the truth.
He said, I am the truth. And I am the life. I am the life. He told Martha,
he said, I am the resurrection, didn't he? He's the bread. He's the living water. He's the
great shepherd of the sheep. And no man, whether he makes
a decision or not, no man, whether he turns over a new leaf or not,
no man, no matter what his experience is, no man, no matter what he
accepts or rejects, No man cometh unto the Father, he said, but
by me." Christ is the Gospel. No man knoweth the Father save
the Son, and He to whom the Son will reveal Him. And everything
God demands from the sinner, He's provided for him in the
person of His Son. A perfect righteousness. Jesus
Christ came into this world as the federal head and representative
of His elect. You say, I don't know if I believe
in election. Well, you need to just rip the
book of Ephesians out of your Bible and throw it out in the
yard. Because it's all about election. And you might as well
take Peter's first general epistle and rip it out too. Because he
starts out that way, talking to the elect of God. And you
can take the book of Acts out, the book of Romans, Pretty soon
you are not going to have a Bible because the Bible teaches election. 2 Thessalonians 2 verses 13 and
14 tells us that we are chosen from the beginning unto salvation. And then I have already quoted
to you 2 Timothy 1.9 and 1 Peter 1.2. It says, He was made of
a woman, made under the law, this man Jesus of Nazareth. He
was made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law that they might receive the adoption of sons. Now, they were sons before the
world was. They were already sons, but they
couldn't receive Him. They were sons before the world
was. They were predestinated unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will,
Ephesians 1.5. Predestinated unto the adoption
of children. But they incurred a great debt
in Adam's fall and walked as children of wrath even as others.
They couldn't receive But Christ, their federal head, came into
this world and redeemed them that were under the law. He paid
the bill. He settled the debt. He did for
them what they could not and would not do for themselves.
Exalted the law and made it honorable. And no son of Adam, I hope you
hear me this morning, at least understand what I'm saying to
you, whether you believe it or not. No son of Adam can produce
a work of himself that God will approve of. I don't care what
it is. He cannot do a work that God
would say from his own lips, that's a righteous work. Can't do it. I don't care how
dedicated you are. I don't care if you kneel down
on glass and all those things that those old reformers did
when they were ignorant and in religion. You can do all those
things. God don't hear you, and He doesn't consider what you're
doing a righteous thing. I don't care what you sacrifice,
what you give. Men and women who believe that
they are are deceived, and those who profess it are hypocrites
and blind. Let me show you something over
here in the book of Romans. Turn with me to Romans chapter
3. Almost every church that I know, and preachers that I've heard,
believe and teach that men and women are saved by some degree
by their obedience to the law of Moses. Somewhere along the
line, the law comes in. He may not come along in their
regeneration. He may not come along in their
initial salvation. But down the road in their sanctification,
here comes the law. They believe in some way, to
some degree, to their obedience to the law of Moses. Now listen
to me. Paul was an Israelite. He was
a Jew and so was Peter. They had every advantage. that
a people could have. They had Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
and Joseph, the patriarchs. They had the Law of Moses. They
had the prophets. They had the Word of God. They
had the Levitical priesthood and all the types and pictures
of the Redeemers. The Gentiles didn't have any
of these things. They had it all. Now look here in Romans
3, verse 9. And if you want to, you can go
back to the very first verse there, and you'll see what I'm
talking about. They had the oracles of God. They had a great advantage.
But now Paul asks this question here in Romans 3, verse 9. He said, what then? Are we better
than they? Are we better than they? That's
what that Pharisee prayed, wasn't it? He didn't bow his head. He looked
right straight up into heaven. He said, I thank Thee, O Father,
that I ain't like Him. We find humor in that, but I'm
telling you that prayer is being prayed right now today, this
morning, at this very hour by untold millions. Are we better than they? Now
listen to this. No. Not in any way. Not in any way. For we have before
proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.
As it is written, there is none righteous. Now if any man, from
Adam to the end of time, could do a righteous work, something
of himself, of which God would approve, he couldn't make this
statement. He'd have to say, well, most
of them wasn't righteous. But that ain't what this says.
It said there's none righteous. And just in case you want to
go off to your own imagination, he follows it up. And he said,
no, not one. Because everybody got in their
mind, well, I tell you, I know one. No, you don't. And not even
one. Not even one. There's none that
understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. You getting that? The word none? None. And there's
none good. They're all gone out of the way,
verse 12. They are together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. And then he goes on and describes
the true character of those who are under sin. Causing vipers,
poison under their lips and all of these things. No fear of God
before their eyes. Now these are these people that
we're saying are righteous. That's who he's describing here.
Fallen man. Now listen to what he says here
beginning with verse 19. We know that what thing soever
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, whether
it's under it by a covenant or under it as their hope of justifying
righteousness or under it as a means to please and satisfy
God. What thing soever the law saith,
it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may
be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. The law has but one word toward
any son of Adam who by his own works attempts to keep it. Guilty. Guilty. But I sold my house. Guilty. But I read the scriptures morning
and night. Guilty. I visit the sick. Guilty. Guilty. That's all the law says. You can put it on a billboard
and put it out in the front of the church. You can write it
down in your Bible. You can make a plaque and sit
it up here and put a Christian flag up front. It doesn't make
any difference. Guilty. That's all the law is
going to tell you. Guilty. Are you listening? Romans 3, verse 20. Therefore,
by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his
sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Go before the
law, you're going to be judged. In perfect righteousness, you're
going to be judged. demanding perfect motives, perfect
acts. And all the law can do is tell
you you're a sinner and you're guilty before God. That's all
it can do. The law and human obedience to
it is not the way to God and it's not the way to a godly walk. Believers walk by faith. And
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believes. As clear as words can be used,
he tells us in Romans 3.21. But now, the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested. You see that? Without the law. Being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. Do you know that when God gave
Moses the law, before he could get back down to the camp, they
were dancing naked around a golden calf and God's high priest made
it for them. That's the sinner before the
law. Moses went back up on the mountain and when God gave him
the tables of stone, He gave him also directions for a tabernacle
and a sacrifice. Because that is the only way
you can walk before God. Walk by faith. Even verse 22,
the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe. Christ is our wisdom. God will
speak to a sinner in the gospel of Christ or not at all. And
Jesus Christ is our righteousness. He is the righteousness of the
saints. And the redemption accomplished
in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ is that which alone
has put away our sins and justified us before God. And these things are the very
heart of the gospel. There's no room in these things
for compromise. There's no room in these things
to lower a standard. You'll come to God this way or
you won't come at all. You'll walk with God this way
or not at all. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
15. My nephew asked me some questions
years ago. And when I got back home down
to Ball, Louisiana where I was pastoring, I brought a message
on those four questions. But during our conversation,
he said this. He said, you say you preach the
gospel. He said, but all these other
guys do too. They all say they preach the
gospel. You say you preach His death, His resurrection, His
ascension into glory. They say the same thing. You
say you preach His ascension. They say they preach His ascension.
How in the world is an average person supposed to be able to
tell the difference? You never will, but by the grace
of God. You never will. Whatever it is
that appeals to you is the direction you'll go. Whatever appeals to
that place, whether it's intellectualism, whether it's ceremonialism, whatever
it is, something will strike your fancy, and that's where
you're going to go. That's where you're going to
go. And that's where you'll die, but by the grace of God. Now listen to this. 1 Corinthians
15 verse 1. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have
received, and wherein you stand, by which also you're saved, if
you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed
in vain. For I delivered unto you, first
of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our
sins." That's not what that says. Is it? We dare not stop there. How that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures. Now, now, boy, that makes a big
difference. Because everybody is saying Christ
died for sins. I don't know anybody around here
that would stand up this morning in a place and not talk about
Christ dying for our sins. Find me one that tells you how
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That's one
I want to listen to. And that He was buried and that
He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. You can preach the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ all day and accomplish nothing if
you cannot show in the Scriptures who died, why he died, for whom
did he die, and what did his death accomplish. Tell me those
things. Now you're preaching something
about the death of Christ. And the same thing goes for his
life. Why must Christ become a man condescending from the
Godhead to take to Himself human flesh and then be bound by the
law He wrote? Why must He do that? Why would
He do that? And then the fact that He rose
the third day is celebrated every Easter, but nobody seems to know
what they're celebrating. Tell me why He rose. That's what
I want to know. What did He accomplish when He
was raised from the dead? And yes, He ascended into glory,
but what's He doing there? What's he doing there? Is he
wringing his hands, walking back and forth over the banisters
of heaven, wringing his hands, hoping somebody is going to believe
on him? That's what the average preacher has you believe. Because his death is just going
to be a complete nothing if you don't. They've got it. Scripture said
he sat down. And He didn't sit down worried,
He sat down expecting till His enemies be made His footstool.
For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
That's what the Scripture says. What's He doing in glory? What's
He waiting on? What's going on? The Gospel tells
us who Christ is, why He came, what He did, and what He's doing
in glory. And in Galatians 1, 6, Paul said,
I marvel that you are so soon removed from Him that called
you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is
not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert
the gospel of Christ. But though we are an angel from
heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before,
so say I now again. Paul pictured in his mind the
gasp in that congregation when he would say that. Let him be
accursed. And so he made that statement.
As I said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any
other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be
accursed. Take away his validity as a preacher
and an ambassador of God. Give him no respect. Give him
no honor. And don't invite him into your
house. Don't even tell him the Lord bless you when he leaves.
Listen to this, 2 John verse 9. Whosoever transgresseth and
abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that
abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the
Son. Now watch this. If there come any unto you, and
bring not this doctrine, Receive him not into your house, neither
bid him Godspeed." That's what God said. That's what God said. Paul in Barnabas was down in
Antioch. Peter came down to visit. And
he sat down with those Gentiles and he ate with them. I don't know what they were eating.
I'm going to say they were eating pork. Something a Jew was forbidden
to eat. Old Peter just had him a big
pork chop. He was eating that pork chop.
And one of these big-wigged Jews came down from Jerusalem. We throwed that pork chop down.
Kind of looked around. Eased on out of that bench. Went
way over on the other side of the room and sat down. And these
fellas, these big-wigged come over and sat down with him. And
those other Jews that were converted had been living with those Gentiles
for months, listening to the gospel and rejoicing. They saw
Peter over there. He was an apostle. And he saw
these bigwigs from Jerusalem. And they eased out of the bench.
And they went over there. Every Jew in the place. And then
here's Paul's fellow servant, Barnabas, and he sees it, and
Barnabas goes over there. And here's all these Gentiles
standing there with their pork chops looking over there at Peter
and them. Like what in the world is going
on? And Paul said, enough's enough.
And he come over and he stuck his finger right up in Peter's
face. And he said, what you're doing is wrong. If I build again,
he said, if you and I build again the things which had been destroyed."
What's he talking about? He's talking about that old fast
legalism. If I build that again, he said,
now I've made myself a transgressor. I've walked right out of the
liberty that God has given me and put myself in bondage again. And he tells him here in Galatians
2 verse 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have
believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law. For by the
works of the law shall no flesh be justified. God tore down. what Paul was. He destroyed his beliefs and
tore down his refuge and exposed his hypocrisy and sin and exposed
his idolatry and blasphemy. And he said, now if I turn again,
if I turn again to these same things in my daily walk, I'll
build again what God has tore down. Now watch what he tells
The law, if I'm free from the law, does that mean I'm free
to sin all I want to? No. The man who says that don't
understand the gospel. Verse 19, For I through the law
am dead to the law that I might live unto God. I couldn't live unto God under
the law. The law condemned me. It destroyed
me. It crucified my works. It condemned
everything I did. My best prayers, all my righteousnesses,
like Isaiah said, were filthy rags. I couldn't serve God there,
but now I'm dead to the law. But I'm dead that I might live
unto God. The law slew me and Christ my
substitute. Do you understand what that means?
It brought forth every charge, every transgression, every evil
thought, every false motive, and judged me in perfect righteousness. And then God poured out on my
guilty soul the full wrath and anger of a holy God until my
substitute died. And when he died, I died. And
when I died in him, the law was satisfied. Justice was satisfied. And now the law has no hold on
me at all. I am crucified, verse 20, Galatians
chapter 2. 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. Believers are born of
the Holy Spirit of God. They have the revelation of light
and life. Christ, He said, liveth in me. And He's their hope of life.
He's the way of life. But He's more than that. He is
their life. He is life. I have in me, Paul
said, a new creation, a new man. And I live by the faith of the
Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Now watch this,
verse 21. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. That's what this whole thing
was all about. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, Christ is dead in vain. And that's why I won't compromise
it. If I compromise it, I frustrate
the grace of God. And to preach any other doctrine
than the doctrine of Christ, the free and sovereign grace
of God in Christ, Christ our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, is to mark yourself out as an enemy of God, a cursed
of God, and a threat to anybody that will listen to you. Let
him be accursed. Ain't that what Paul said? We've
got no fellowship with most of the churches around here because
they preach another gospel. Let one stand and preach the
free grace of God, and I'll go sit and listen to him. Let him preach that effectual
death of Christ that paid the bill. Talk about a redeemer who
redeems. But this legalism and ceremonialism
and freewillism and universalism and every other kind of I don't want any part of it.
And I can overlook your views on eschatology. And I can overlook
your views on preaching and preachers. I can overlook your ideas of
church government. But I can't overlook the free
grace of God. And I can't overlook that justifying
righteousness of Christ. And I'm not going to by the grace
of God. It's either grace or works. There's
no compromise. It's either all Christ or all
man. It's either all for the glory
of God or it's all for the glory of man. God help us to be faithful to
His Gospel and prize in our hearts His free and sovereign grace
in Christ.