I'd like for us to read this
morning from this second chapter of the book of Galatians, beginning
with verse 3. Read just a few verses here.
But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled
to be circumcised, and that because of false brethren, unawares,
brought in, who came in privately to spy out our liberty which
we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.
To whom we gave place by subjection, know not for an hour that the
truth of the gospel might continue with you. that the truth of the
gospel might continue with you. And then we skip down to verse
11. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the
face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came
from James, he did eat with the Gentiles. But when they were
come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were
of the circumcision. and the other Jews dissembled
likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away
with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked
not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto
Peter before them all, If thou being a Jew livest after the
manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou
the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? Now, we find this phrase
here, which is my subject this morning, and that is the truth
of the gospel. The truth of the gospel. The
Apostle Paul was very zealous for the truth of the gospel. And he would have the gospel
truth, the truth as it had been revealed to him, the truth that
he had received from Christ Jesus, he would have that truth to continue
with God's people. He would have the churches to
be established in that truth. He would have all those who were
called of God and put into the ministry, he would have them
all to be sound in the gospel of redeeming grace. And even
to this very day, I'm sure that that is the commission to all
those who are called of God, and that is that they might maintain
and declare and preach the truth of the gospel. Now we find in
verse 11 that Peter was come to Antioch and Paul said, I withstood
him to the face because he was to be blamed. Now Paul, as we
said, was very zealous for the truth of the gospel. We remember
that he had said in verse 5 that he didn't give place by subjection,
not for an hour, to those false teachers that had come down to
spy out their liberty in Christ and if they could, to bring them
into bondage and put them back under the law and bring them
into bondage. He said, I didn't give place
to them for an hour. I didn't submit myself to them.
I didn't give them, allow them any time to try to persuade the
people of God because their message is a false gospel. And then here
when he speaks of Peter in verse 11, he said, I withstood him
to the face because he was to be blamed. For before that certain
came from James, get the picture, here's a fellowship hall and
we have believers in the fellowship hall. We have Gentile believers
and we have Jewish believers that are in the hall. But what
we might call those from Jerusalem, the religious leaders from Jerusalem,
had not yet arrived to the fellowship hall in Antioch. And so Peter,
he was having a big time eating with the Gentiles because he
believed that they had been converted, even as he. And he believed they
had a right relationship with God, a right standing with God,
even as he had. And so he ate with them. And maybe he had a pork chop
or had some ham, possibly there in the fellowship hall. And then
there certainly came from James these religious leaders from
Jerusalem. came down, and here they come
into the fellowship hall, and as soon as Peter sees them come
in, now these people from Jerusalem, these religious leaders, these
preachers that come from Jerusalem, you see, they believe that it
was necessary to circumcise and to command them to keep the law
of Moses in order that they be saved. And so when they walk
in to the fellowship hall, Peter, he withdrew and separated himself
from the Gentile believers because he feared those of the circumcision. He feared them because they were
dominating people and they were the kind of people that, you
know, that just somehow or other they had authority, don't you
see? They were religious big shots and they had authority
and so Peter, he feared them and so he separated from the
Gentile believers. And so he left the pork chops
and the ham and the bacon and he went over to the other side
where the Jewish people were, those that had been circumcised
and those that pretended to keep the law. And the other Jews dissembled
likewise with him. The Jewish believers that were
on the fence, they didn't understand the doctrine of God's grace clearly,
and they hadn't been taught maybe at this time, and they hadn't
been deeply taught by the Spirit of God as of yet. And so they
also, they dissembled likewise with him. They went over and
began to eat with the Jews, insomuch that Barnabas also who was the
son of consolation, that one who had received the gospel and
had been of use to God in His service. He was carried away
with their hypocrisy. But when I saw, Paul said in
verse 14, that they walked not uprightly according to the truth
of the gospel. When I saw that they walked not
uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter
before them all, If thou being a Jew livest after the manner
of Gentiles, And he had been living just like a Gentile because
he had been eating, I suppose, pork. And he just believed that
God justified sinners on the basis of faith and that their
hearts were purified through grace and through faith. So he'd
been living just like a Gentile and not as do the Jews. He said,
well, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? And so
the subject is the truth of the gospel. And beloved, we want,
if we can, to stand for God's gospel and to be faithful in
proclaiming it, that poor sinners might come to hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And that even in our day and
time, that men and women might have a sound heart in the grace
of God and know the truth of God as it is proclaimed in the
scriptures. Now let me start right here this
morning, and I hope that you'll bear with me. And I hope this
morning that the truth of the gospel will go forth. And I hope
this morning that every one of you that are dear children of
God, that you will not just assume that you have a sound mind and
sound heart and that you know sound doctrine just simply because
you've made a profession of faith or because you have been in religion
for some time. I hope that you will give us
a hearing today. Listen to what we have to say.
Now the elect of God, those that were chosen by God in old time
and given to the Lord Jesus Christ in that love gift from before
the foundation of the world, They are justified, they are
sanctified, they are redeemed and accepted by the Heavenly
Father, and their names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. They
are called in the Bible, the Saved of the Lord. They are called the Saved of
the Lord. They are the children of the
Eternal King, the Holy God of the Bible. Now they have an eternal
inheritance awaiting them in glory. That's all of the elect
of God. Now hear me this morning, this
is on account, this is on account of nothing that they have done. This is on account of nothing
that they have said, nothing that they have given, nothing
that they have performed. This is solely and completely
and absolutely because of who Christ is and what he did and
where he is now. That is how we are saved. If
we're saved, plus nothing, minus nothing, we're saved wholly by
the grace of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
Noah may get drunk and cause his son to fall into sin. But Noah is one of God's elect,
and he had found grace, the Bible says, in the eyes of the Lord.
He is a child of God by grace, and it is so, don't you ever
doubt it. Noah was a child of God. Now Abraham may find in his walk
and his travels in this world, sin in himself, as he did, and
he failed his wife, and he denied his wife not once, but twice. But Abraham was called the friend
of God and he has the faith of God's elect. Yea, Abraham is
the very father of the faithful. He's the father of those that
have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now David may find Bathsheba
and fall and kill her husband, but he is a man after God's own
heart down deeply. In his soul, he's a man of faith,
and he's a man after God's own heart. He was accepted on the
basis of what Christ would come and do hundreds of years after
he had lived and committed these sins. Now, do you believe that?
Can you believe that? Can you accept that this morning? David is saved, he is so, by
the grace of God. Now this morning if you were
sound according to the truth of the gospel, you can see that
these men who were out and out sinners in and of themselves,
yet how they could be saved and reconciled unto God and have
the hope of the gospel in their breast. God put away their sins. He charged their sins unto another
and He exacted the payment and the penalty of their sins from
another. namely the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't it wonderful to have our
sins paid for, to have our sins put away, to have our sins completely
cancelled out for them to be remitted and for them not to
be any longer on the books before God. Isn't it wonderful? Now
beloved, it's only through Christ that you can have your sins cancelled
out. Now if you cannot take this,
if you're not able to receive it, then you've missed the gospel. You've missed the truth of the
gospel. You say, well what these men
did was terrible and it was wrong. Well, it is so indeed, but if
you only knew this morning how terrible your heart is in the
sight of God, how black your heart is in a state of nature
before God, then you would be blushing here this morning instead
of just looking so smug. You would be blushing this morning
knowing that your own heart before God, that in it there dwelleth
no good thing. In your own heart is full of
sin and corruption and full of deceit and lying as it appears
before God. Now beloved, your head would
be hanging down if you just understood your depravity and how you came
forth from the Lord. My observation is that there's
not many convinced sinners among us. There's not many among us
who really know themselves to be as they are. Now a sinner,
Hart said in his poem, is a sacred thing because the Holy Ghost
has made him so. We are terrible by birth, by
nature, by practice, and by thought. We're all terrible and wicked
and sinful people. But the self-righteous religious
hypocrite of our day say that they've never done anything so
bad. Well, maybe not outwardly, at
least where people have been able to see you. But my friend,
you have just until the judgment to deny it. Because after the
judgment, when you come before God to face a holy God, when
the secrets of men shall come out, my friend, you have until
then to deny it. But then after that, it will
be out on you, it'll be out on you and you can hide in your
religious cloak and you can profess all you want to, to be something
that is above other men. But I'll tell you this, at the
judgment it's going to come out exactly what you are. And those
of you that are conscious, and those of you that are convicted
sinners, Flee to Christ and your sins will be pardoned, put away,
and your sin will be washed away in that fountain that's filled
with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And when you stand at
the judgment, you will find that judgment already fell on your
sins. It fell on Christ when He hung
on that gory tree outside of Jerusalem. Now, beloved, listen,
are we conscious of this, this morning, that everything that
criminals have been hung for, you and I have committed before
God in our thoughts? And we ought to understand that
and we ought to repent of our sin and turn to Christ. Well,
my friend, this morning, we know that the God of the Bible, that
He saves sinners. He saves sinners. Christ Jesus
came into the world, the Bible says, to save sinners. And Peter sat by the fire, you
remember, and he cursed and he swore and he said, I never knew
this man, Jesus, but lo and behold, Here's Peter, and he is a saved
man. He is saved by the grace of God.
He's delivered, and he's brought out of his sin to be useful and
profitable in the ministry. You say, preacher, you preach
like that and folks will live just like they please. Well,
until God is pleased to change your pleasure, you're going to
anyway. You're going to live like you want to anyway, until
God is pleased to cross your path and to bring you into submission
to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. God looks on the heart of a man,
not on the outward appearance. 1 Samuel 16 and 7 says, salvation
is planned, salvation is purposed, salvation is performed by the
grace of God, by the God of all grace. Christ will get the glory. Christ will do all the saving. Grace must have all the glory. And it must have and it will.
And God will have all the grace in saving you. Or He'll have
all the glory in damning you. His justice will have the glory
in sending you off to that awful place where the worm doth not
and the fire is not quenched. He will not share His glory with
your works and your efforts. and your merit, he'll not accept
your self-righteous rags. God will not do it. At the marriage
supper of the Lamb, you will be clothed in the spotless garments
of Christ's righteousness, or you will hear him say, bound
him hand and foot and cast him into outer darkness, because
the garments of salvation are bestowed because of sovereign
grace, beloved, and we must understand that. One of the old writers
said this, What treatment since He came, love tenderly expressed. What robe is brought to hide
His shame, talking about the sinner. The best, the very best,
Heaven's best, better wisdom cannot weave, better infinite
abundance cannot bring forth. The sinner has on the garment
of salvation. He has on the wedding garment. He has on that linen that is
white and clean because he's in the Lord Jesus Christ and
his blackness and sin and filthiness has been put away. Sinners are
high in his esteem and sinners highly value him. Come then repenting
sinner, come approach with humble faith. Oh, what thou wilt, the
total sum is cancelled by his death. The total sum is cancelled
by his death. Come needy, come naked, come
loathsome, come bare. You can't come too filthy, just
come just as you are. Now, beloved, we all have legal
pride, and we have that preparing disposition, the self-cleansing
disposition. We all have a disposition that
we want to fit ourselves for eternal glory. But Christ will
not have it. He'll do all the work. He'll
do all the cleansing. He'll do all the saving. And
He shall get all the glory, both in time and for all eternity. Now then, there's nobody, if
this works generation of fundamentalists doesn't get around, beloved,
to seeing what we're talking about today, they're all going
to hell. Now they can call us whatever they want, antinomian,
call us whatever they please. But I want you to understand
that this generation of religionists is going to hell if they don't
come to see that men must come in their true character before
God and they must come to Christ for cleansing and for that washing,
that washing that is spoken of in the Word of God. Now, believers
are saved Not by their works then, but by the grace of God. Not by their goodness plus Christ. No, but they're saved entirely
upon the merits of the Lord Jesus. Men who believe grace, who preach
grace, who claim the grace, who do not frustrate the grace of
God, say this. Clearly, they say that we're
saved by Christ alone, plus nothing, minus nothing. Now hear me this
morning, your sins will never keep you from Christ. I don't
care how dark they are, how black they are, or how many they are,
your sins will never keep you from Christ. He came to save
sinners. He came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. He came to save a publican up
a tree. to save a thief on a cross, to
save a maniac hiding in the tombs, to save a woman of the world
at the well. He came to save the chief of
sinners, a religious Pharisee on the Damascus road. That's
who he came to save. He came to save old Saul of Tarsus,
who was righteous as any other man. had ever been when it come
to the law. He was as obedient outwardly
as he could be. But he was not saved. He was
not cleansed inwardly by God's grace and faith in Christ. Now
our Lord died for sinners. He's the friend of sinners. And
all He did in His life and His death, He did for sinners. That's
right. Now let the self-righteous religionist
say what he will. He's outside the picture. All
that Christ did, he did for sinners. Now then, all he has is for sinners. Is that good enough? I mean,
what do you think about that? Now, beloved, if you deny that,
then you're denying your sinnerhood, and you're denying the fact that
you're saying, I have no interest in what the Lord Jesus Christ
did in his life and in his death and what he's now doing in his
intercessory work. Because all he did in life and
in death and now seated at the right hand of God is on the behalf
of poor sinners. It's on the behalf of sinners.
Heaven is for redeemed sinners. This is a faithful saying. worthy
of all acceptation. Paul said that Christ came into
the world to save sinners. Now then, our Lord despised self-righteousness. Your sins will not keep you out
of heaven and keep you from Christ, but your good works and your
self-righteousness will. It'll keep you out of heaven.
It'll send you to hell. You say, it looks to me like
it'd be the other way around. Well, that's because you're not
sound in the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel is that
your good works and self-righteousness will send you to hell because
they're not a sufficient savior, you see. They're not sufficient.
God won't accept it because it's not absolutely perfect. There
ain't anybody here that can produce a perfect righteousness before
God. All of us together. Just take
all of our righteousness and put it together and God wouldn't
accept it on the behalf of one of us. He would not. Now Christ
had compassion for sinners. They gathered around him. The
Pharisees stood off and they criticized the Lord Jesus Christ. They said we're not like other
men and they were by their own admission not saved people. They had no part or lot with
Christ. They would not fellowship with
Him. They would not come in their true character to the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, He came, as we said,
and we emphasize it, that He came for sinners. He came to
seek and to save that which was lost. The whole need not a physician,
save the Word of God, but the sick. The publican beat on his
chest, saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner. And he went
down to his house justified, and the Pharisee went off still
in his sin and still headed for a devil's hell. Your sins will
never keep you out of heaven. Your sins, get it, will never
keep you out of heaven. Heaven is a place where God's
going to take sinners. He's going to take sinners up
to heaven. Now then, redeem sinners that is. Sinners whose hearts
are purified by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you hold on to your own
merit and hold on to your own works, you'll never come by the
gates of that pure city. You'll never come into an eternal
and pure heaven. And further, your sins are no
barrier at all to perfect holiness. No sin, done, thought, or otherwise
is any barrier to perfect holiness. Perfect holiness comes by being
in union with a perfectly holy one. Perfect holiness is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is imputed, it is imparted
to all God's elect, perfect holiness. Everything that God demands of
you, He has provided for you in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Outside of Christ, the best man
who ever lived is an abomination in God's sight. Now, I'm not
talking about you and me. I said the best man or the best
woman that ever lived is an abomination in God's sight. Now all of our
righteousness is as filthy rags before God. Do you know what
a sinner is? Do you know what a sinner is?
Are you willing to say and admit the truth about yourself? You're
a sinner before God. And if you come to see that and
to know that, then there's hope for you. There's hope for you.
Sinners enter heaven by grace. No man has ever entered there
any other way. The Bible says not by works of
righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy
he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewal
that's brought about by the Holy Ghost. And then in 2 Timothy
1 and 9, who have saved us and called us, not according to our
own works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. And then
verse 16, here in Galatians 2, 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. For shall no flesh have a standing
before God, just as if they had never committed a sin. But through
grace and through Christ, we can have that standing. Now then,
sinners enter heaven by grace. Nobody has ever got there any
other way. That is the truth of the gospel
if it's ever been told. Now there is no two things in
all the world. that is different, that is as
different as law and grace. They are diametrically opposed
to each other. They are as different as light
and darkness. They are infinitely apart. They can no more mix than fire
and water can mix. Listen to Romans 11, verse 5
and 6. Even so, then, at this present time also, there is a
remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then
is it no more works? Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it's
no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. Well, are you going the grace
road? Are you on the grace road? All
who see themselves as sinners, and has felt bitterly in their
hearts the guilt of their sin, and have felt in their own souls,
separated from God, knowing that they were lost because of their
sin. All those who see themselves
as sinners, then they go the grace road. They go to Christ. They come to Christ. And they
come to Him. And listen to this poem. It's
an old poem, and it's one that's blessed me many a time. I sought
thee weeping high and low. I found thee not. I did not know
I was a sinner. Even so, I missed thee for my
Savior. I saw thee sweetly condescend
of humble men to be the friend. I chose thee for my way, my end,
but found thee not as my Savior. Until upon the cross I saw my
God who died to meet the law, that man had broken, then I saw
my sin, and then my Savior. What seek I longer? Let me be
a sinner all my days to Thee, yet more and more, and Thee to
me. Yet more and more, my Savior. My friend, if you've come to
see who you are, and you've come the grace road, then you want
the Lord Jesus Christ. You need Christ, you want Him,
and you must have Him. And ere you depart this life,
you must find Him. Well, what is a believer's attitude
towards sin? After God has saved them, after
God has delivered them, after God has put His righteousness
in them and given them right standing before Him, after God
has loved them out of their sins into life and liberty in His
Son, what is their attitude towards sin? Well, the believer, he knows
and rejoices that all of his sins are pardoned. that they're
all paid for and that they're all put away by the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a rejoicing soul. He rejoices
that Jesus paid it all. And it doesn't bother him for
a man to get up and preach the sinner down and preach him down
as far as he can preach him. But that's not the last word
of the preacher. No, but he rejoices when Christ
is exalted and lifted up because Christ is the Savior and Christ
has delivered him. And that's a believer's attitude.
He loves to sing these old hymns of the faith that exalt the Son
of God as the all-sufficient Redeemer of sinners. He rejoices
in it. He prays God for it. He's a rejoicing
soul. And then also he condemns sin
in himself. While sin does not reign, it
does remain in the believer. Sin remains in the believer.
Everybody hear. this morning that professes faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ, that has traveled with the Lord. Anybody
here that has any experience in walking with God would testify,
stand up and testify this morning that there is sin that remains
in the believer. Although it does not reign in
the believer, it remains in the believer. But the believer does
not excuse his sin. He does not justify his sin. He grieves over it and he daily
confesses his sin before God. He judges his motives as well
as his manners by the holiness. of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we judge ourselves by Him. And when we find iniquity in
ourselves, we despise that iniquity and we judge that iniquity. Now
the reason we do is not because we are different than other people.
It's because there has been a principle of righteousness implanted in
us when God saved us, when we were regenerated by the Holy
Spirit, and that it's there, and that's Christ in you. That's
what it is. And so your attitude towards
sin is going to be reflected, and it's going to show that Christ
is in you. And you're going to judge yourself
by the holiness of Christ. And when we find iniquity, then
we're going to despise that iniquity and look down upon it and say
with the apostle in Romans 7, O wretched man that I am. O wretched
man that I am. Now the believer thirdly, he
forgives sin in others. He forgives sin in others. He
does not forgive himself. I do not believe that David ever
forgave himself. for the sins that he committed.
The sin of adultery and the sin of murder by proxy. I don't think
he ever forgave himself for that. I don't think that Abraham ever
forgave himself for being such a coward and denying his wife
and saying, she's my sister because he thought that they would kill
him if he told them that he was her husband. So he said, she's
my sister, do what you want to with her. I don't think he ever
got over that. I'm sure he didn't. And some
of us here have never gotten over some of the things that
we did when we were in our lost state. Never, never will you
get over it. We'll forgive others, but we
will not forgive ourselves. Only God can do that. But we're
quick to pity and have mercy and forgive others, but we are
not too quick to forgive ourselves. We look down upon ourselves. If we're not able to forgive,
then we forfeit the right to ask forgiveness from God for
ourselves. And this is an extremely testing
and trying spot as believers. But that's our attitude if we're
a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. I preach not myself,
but Christ Jesus the Lord. That's the attitude of a true
believer in Christ. He longs to be free from all
sin. and he wants to be perfectly
conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. While the
true believer rejoices in Christ, he's content with his lot in
this world and finds joy in the fellowship of the Lord's church
on earth. He will only be completely and
entirely satisfied when he awakes in the likeness of Christ. in
an eternal and pure heaven. Now, beloved, this morning, if
you have followed in what we have preached here to you today,
you have heard the truth of the gospel. And we do not frustrate
the grace of God. If righteousness come by the
law, then Christ is dead in vain. We preach a pure gospel to you
that righteousness comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and
that no man can be justified, accepted by God, and brought
into fellowship with God and the holy angels in an eternal
heaven but those that have been washed in the blood of Christ
and those that have been made righteous by imputed righteousness. And the righteousness and merits
of Jesus Christ are for sinners. Would you like to be perfect? Would you like to be holy? Would
you like to be acceptable unto God? If so, my friend, come to
Christ in your heart. Don't move a muscle, but come
to Christ in your heart! And come to Him and give Him
the glory that He's a Savior of sinners. Father, we thank
You this morning for the privilege of preaching the truth of the
Gospel. I pray this morning that we might
be steadfast in giving Christ the glory, Christ the honor,
Christ the praise for all that's been done in our unworthy souls. We thank Thee, our Father, for
having mercy upon us and for saving us. Give us, we pray,
a faithful walk, a true walk, a walk that honors Thee, a walk
that will bring praise and glory unto Thy name. Use this message
for Your honor this morning. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.