And look here in Galatians 1
and beginning in verse 1. Paul. Paul. We know this fellow years and
years before this as Saul of Tarsus. He sought to do many things contrary
to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And he did those things. He despised
Christ and persecuted the saints more than anybody else. He profited
in the Jews' religion, he said, above many of my equals. He was
a mean man. He drug women and children out
of their houses and hauled them off to jail. And some of them
were put to death because he bore witness against them. That
man believes in Christ. That woman believes in Christ.
They need to be stoned. And he was a mean, blasphemous,
injurious man. Saul of Tarsus. But now the Lord
Jesus named him Paul. And he calls him the Apostle. Paul, an Apostle. An Apostle. And you know what is so precious
about this? He's our Apostle. He's an Apostle
to the Gentiles. And I tell you, he was the best
apostle of all of us. Do you know that? He said, I
labored more abundantly than they all. He was the wisest of
them. The Lord Jesus called this man
up to heaven. And he's seen these things and
heard all of these things. And he said, I can't even utter
what I saw, the glory of heaven. I just wonder what he saw. I
wonder what he heard. But he said, I can't express
it. But the Lord called this man, filled him with wisdom,
with heaven's wisdom, and sent him to the Gentiles to preach
the unsearchable riches of Christ. How Christ must love us to give
us an apostle like this. I tell you, the Jews had their
apostles. The Jews had their apostles. But I tell you, our
apostle was the best apostle. And notice what he says here
when he talks about being an apostle. He said, I'm called
the apostle, the special messenger of Jesus Christ. But I'm not
of man. I don't have my authority from
man. Now, they'd been telling this
on him. They'd been telling that he was called of those other
original apostles. And that's where he gets his
authority. That the only way any man could have any authority
was coming out from Jerusalem, from those apostles. Paul said,
I'm not a man. Not even Peter, not even John. They didn't call me. Look what
he says on down in this chapter, and look what he says here in
verse 16. Wouldn't it please God? When it pleased God to call me
by His grace in verse 15, to reveal His Son in me, there in
Damascus, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, look
at this, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither
went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me.
I didn't need to do that. I didn't need them to lay hands
on me or call me. But I went off into Arabia. and
returned again unto Damascus. So look at verse 18, After three
long years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with
him for fifteen days. But other of the apostles saw
I none, except James the Lord's brother. They had nothing to
do with calling him, did they? He said, I didn't even see Peter
for three years. Then just for a few days. I'm
not of man. Man didn't call me. And he says
here in verse 1, neither by man. I'm not taught by man. When you
and I learn, where do we go to learn? We have to go to Scripture,
don't we? Well, Paul did that too, but
I tell you, not always. And man never taught him a thing.
Peter never taught Paul anything, did he? John never taught Paul
anything. What did he learn? Look back
up here in verse 11. But I certify you, brethren,
that the gospel which is preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus
Christ. Christ taught him directly. Christ
revealed to him the wisdom of heaven, the wisdom of the gospel. Not of man. Neither by man. But look at this, but by Jesus
Christ. He called me. Jesus Christ taught
me. And he adds this to it, and God
the Father. And God the Father. Now, why
does he add this? Well, there's no contradiction
between Christ and the Father. Somebody may say, well, alright,
then Christ called him. What about God? Is God as pleased
with him? Christ called him, but what about
God? So he adds this, and God the Father. He's not just the
Apostle of Christ. He's the Apostle of God the Father. God the Father. And you know
what the Lord Jesus said? If you hear Him, you hear me. If you don't hear Him, you don't
hear me. And you hear him, you hear me,
and you hear him that sent me. And that's the way it is with
the Apostle Paul. You know, we have a teaching
today that's been around, and it's of the devils. The devils
started this. And man received it. That Christ's
teaching and Paul's teaching contradict one another. That
Christ taught one thing, and Paul taught something else. Christ
taught one gospel, and Paul taught another gospel. Would Christ
and God the Father call a man and teach him something that
was contrary. No. This man is the apostle of Christ
and the apostle of God the Father. And notice how he says this,
"...who raised him from the dead." In other words, Paul is saying,
I'm not an apostle of a dead Christ. I don't preach a dead
Christ. I preach a Christ who died and
who rose again. He preached a risen Christ. And don't we find this everywhere
in the Scripture? They all preach this risen Christ. God had raised Him from the dead. And I tell you, there are some
implications to that. The Lord Jesus said, I'm alive. I'm alive forevermore. And He
said, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. I tell
you, if He's dead, He has no power, does He? He's decayed
and gone by now. But the very fact that he raised
from the dead tells us that he defeated death. And now that
he's risen again, and he says, I've got all power over death
and hell. I'm a risen Christ. And I tell
you, it teaches us something else too, doesn't it? The work's
finished. He's risen. If there lacked one
thing, in a way of man's redemption and man's salvation. If there
lacked anything to be done and Christ didn't do it, he would
have still been in the grave. But the very fact that the Father
raised him from the dead says the Father is pleased. The Father
is satisfied. Boy, that means a lot because
I think what some of these false apostles and false teachers were
telling these Galatians here was God is not completely satisfied
with Christ. He's satisfied with him to an
extent, but you're going to have to add something to it. Then
why did the Father raise him? The work was done. The work was
done. And the Scripture says he was
delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. He took our place, Glenn. He
is our representative. And if he raises, what does that
mean? Sin is gone. And we're cleared. will justify. He was raised for
our justification. Who raised him? The Father in
heaven. And he goes on in verse 2 and
says this, And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches
of Galatia. Now, he adds this. You don't
see it in any other of his epistles. But he adds this for a reason.
He says, I'm writing this epistle to you, and I've got all these
brethren with me. And they're in agreement with
me as I write this epistle. Now what's that about? Why does
he even mention that? Well, these Galatians had left
the gospel. He tells them down there in verse
6, I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called
you into the grace of Christ in another gospel. Now he writes
to them to rebuke them and to tell them that they've erred.
And he calls them back to repentance. He says, you've erred. You're
living a lie. And he says, it's not just me.
That's enough because I'm an apostle of Christ. But he said,
I've got these brethren that are with me. That put more weight
to it, didn't it? When the church agrees upon something
and stands against the evil that's in our present day, I tell you,
that gives it more authority. If the church had risen up when
Catholicism first started, if the church had risen up with
one united voice and said, this is wrong, if the church had risen
up when Mormonism came on the scene, and risen up and continually
stood against that, they would have probably stamped it out.
All of these cults and old cults that's in our day, if the church
would raise up with one united voice and say, this is wrong,
this is heresy. That's what Paul did. He said,
it's not just me, I've got all these brethren with me. All these
brethren with me. Put some force behind it. If
a dear pastor comes to me and says, Bruce, you've erred, that's
enough. That's bad enough. I'll say,
you show me my error. But when he comes to me and he
says, my congregation is behind me. I have told them what you've
been preaching, and it's not just me, but it's my whole congregation. You know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to say, man, wait a minute here. Wait a minute. It's not
just this one man, but this is all these brethren. All these
brothers. That's why the Lord Jesus said,
if a man is going off into error, and you confront him and he won't
repent, you take the two or three brothers with you, and then you
bring them before the whole church. The whole church. Well, I tell
you, if the church says you're wrong, that's what the study
we've been doing on Wednesday night, studying through through
the doctrine to faith, the Baptist doctrine to faith, 1689. That
was over a hundred churches got together. And you remember why
they got together? To condemn Arminianism. That's
what they said they got together. I tell you what, that was some
authority, wasn't it? With the brethren. With the brethren.
They're with me as I write these things. And here's verse 3, and
I love this passage. Paul always puts this in all
his epistles to the churches. Be unto you, and then peace. Grace and peace in that order. He never reverses that order.
You'll notice that. Grace first, and then peace. Why does He do that? Well, you
can't have peace until you've obtained grace. It's grace that
saves us. You can't have peace until grace
saves you. If a man rejects grace, he has no peace. By grace are
you saved. It's grace that puts our sin
away. In whom we have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. And when this rich grace puts
our sins from off of our conscience, what's the effects of that? Peace.
Peace. He's made peace through the blood
of His cross. And where does this grace and
peace come from? From God the Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. There Paul keeps linking these
two together. I'm an apostle of God the Father
and of Jesus Christ. Now he says, you're this peace,
and it comes from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Perfect union between the Father
and the Son. One in essence, one in will,
one in purpose, One in desire, where one speaks peace, the other
speaks peace. And these false teachers were
saying this. Yes, Christ did a great work. He came, He lived,
and He died. And He brought grace and peace.
But God expects more. Before God gives you peace, you're
going to have to be converted to Judaism. You're going to have
to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Then God will give
you peace. Paul begins right off the bat,
and he says, no, where Christ gives peace, the Father gives
peace. You can't have the peace of Christ
without the peace of God. They are one. Peace from God
the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. And verse 4, I
think, has to be sometime one of my most favorite verses of
all the Bible. Who gave himself? This Lord Jesus,
who gave us grace and peace, gave Himself, all of Himself,
gave Himself, all of His humanity. There was nothing held back.
Gave His naked body, Glenn, you told us this morning. Gave all
of His time. He did nothing else. He never
wasted any time when He came to this world. He gave us every
bit of His time. He redeemed it all. Made good
use of it. From the time He came into this
world, sucking upon His mother's breast, He wasted no time. He
gave all of His time. He gave His back to the smiters
every bit of it. He said, take it all. Put your
deep furrows upon Him. Gave His face to those who plucked
off the whiskers. Gave His head to the crown of
thorns. Gave His body to be exposed in His nakedness. Gave His blood
to be poured out on Calvary's tree. Gave His human self, He
gave His divine self. Whatever was in Jesus Christ,
He gave it all. He held back nothing. He gave
Himself. Why? For our sins. For our sins. Paul puts this right here, and
if you'll study this epistle, you'll know why he started out
with this. Because the Galatians had turned the gospel upside
down. And they begin to say, in essence,
it's not our sins He gave Himself for. It's our goodness. It's what we're able to do, our
potential. I want you to look over here
in chapter 5 of this book. Look over here in chapter 5 and
begin here in verse 2. Look here in verse 2. Galatians chapter
5 and verse 2. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For
I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he
is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you, whosoever of you who are justified by keeping the
law, you are fallen from grace." You know what they were saying
here? Christ died that we might be circumcised. Christ died that
we may keep these ceremonies, these feast days. And by keeping
these feast days, we can be saved. Christ died that we'd have a
chance to save ourselves. That's what they're saying. And
Paul is saying here, no, no. Christ didn't die for any of
your potential. He didn't die to give you a chance
to save yourself. He didn't die for your goodness.
He died for your badness. Your badness. Christ gave Himself
for our sins. Ain't that what we hear today? We hear this all the time. Christ
died upon the cross. Now you've got a chance. Now
you've got a chance. If you'll just add something
to that. He died for what I can add? Is
that why He died? Now I can be baptized and justify
myself. That's why he died, so you could
be baptized. So he didn't die then for my badness. He died
for my baptisms. He died for my works. He died
for my church membership. See what they were saying. So
Paul starts off right off the bat, and boy, he confronts them
with this. He says, Christ gave himself, not for our goodness,
but for our badness. Look over here in Romans chapter
5. Romans chapter 5. Well, Paul
does this better than anybody, any of the other apostles. When
he goes into the death of Christ, boy, he don't mince words. Look
what he says here in Romans chapter 5. And look in verse 6. We talk about the death of Christ. Never let us talk about Him dying
for any chance to give us or any potential that we may do
something or be something. There is no white Christ. I saw
a sign. You see these signs all over
the place. Christ died for you. Won't you do something for Him?
Have you ever seen that sign before? Christ died for you.
Won't you live for Him? Is that why He died for my living
for Him? See the gist of that? And look
here at how Paul says it in verse 6 of Romans 5. When we were yet
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Don't mince any words. Don't
mince any words. Ungodly. For seriously for a
righteous man will one die. There's no sense in dying for
a righteous man. Maybe for a good man some were
there to die, but God commenced His love towards us in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more now, being
justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
And look in verse 10. For if when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved. It is not good people. It is not our goodness. It is
not any potential or any chance or anything like that. No, he
gave himself for our sins. Christ gave himself for our sins. When you and I are confronted
in our hearts with a knowledge of our sin, we must never hold
up our religious duties. We must never hold our faithfulness
against the knowledge of our sins. It may make you feel better for
a while, but that's a false peace. That's
a false peace. Here's what we must do. In faith
we must lay hold of this word in verse 4. Christ gave himself
for our sins. When the devil comes to your
conscience and he magnifies your sins and tells you how unworthy
you are and how you should have been damned for your sins, I tell you, don't fuss with him
because he's wiser than you are. And don't deny it. Disagree with
But go right here to this verse and lay hold of this verse and
say, yes, I have sinned. Yes, I have the knowledge of
sin. Yes, it stings my conscience. Yes, I'm worthy of hell. But
Jesus Christ gave Himself for my sins. And lay hold of that
Word by a hard faith. And I'll tell you what Satan
will have to do. He'll have to flee. If you're going to present
your works and your merits and your goodness before Him, I tell
you what, He'll get the best of you on that. Because He'll
have you looking at your works and you'll see all the sin and
all the failure and all the falling in yourself. And I'm telling
you, you'll despair. He'll drive you to despair. But
as soon as you take Him to this Word and lay hold of this Word,
yes, it's sold. But Christ gave Himself for my
sins. He'll have to flee then. He can't
stand before Christ and His blood. He can't. They overcame Him by
what? The blood of the Lamb. How did
they do that? By this word right here. Christ
gave Himself for our sins. The Bible, every word. It talks
about this very thing of Christ giving himself for our sins.
All the Old Testament. Brother Larry read it this morning.
A fountain opened. Why? For sin and uncleanness. Peter says he bore our sins in
his own body upon the tree. That's the same thing Paul was
saying. The Lord Jesus said, this is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for many for the remission of sin. When we seek
Jesus Christ upon the cross, brothers and sisters, what we've
got to remember, He was there for our sins, giving Himself
for our sins. If you're a good person, you've
got no part in this. If you have no knowledge of sin,
and you think you're worthy, and you can justify yourself,
you've got no part in this. Jesus Christ hung in His blood
and nakedness for our sins. I tell you, that not only tells
us how bad our sins are, and our inability to put them away,
but it comforts us if we truly believe in Him that our sins
are atoned for. They are satisfied for. Because
it takes no more than this. If He was willing to do this,
and He was, And he did, and he did it. Then our sins are gone. Our sins are gone. And you may
feel them. You may see them in yourself.
But look at it from God's perspective. God says they're gone. Now, you
can believe yourself, or you can believe Him. I'm going to
believe Him, aren't you? Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away. What? Sin. Sin. He takes it away. In a just manner,
too. He didn't sweep it under the
rug. He didn't just hide it. He atoned for it. He gave himself
for our sins. But Paul adds something here.
He puts this little word, our sins. He gave himself for our
sins. Here's why the Pharisees hated
the gospel. hated the gospel. They couldn't
say this. They refused to believe the gospel
because when they heard Paul and these other apostles preach
this, our sins. You know what they said? We've
got no part in that because we don't have any sin. Ain't that
what they told Christ? We have no sin. Christ said because
you say you have no sin, your sins remain. If you had sin and
the knowledge of it, you'd look to Christ. And your sin would
be gone. But they was looking at everybody
else. They brought that woman taken in adultery, and they said,
she deserves to be stoned. The woman came into Simon's house,
and he said, boy, she's a sinner. But when they looked at themselves,
we don't have any sin. We know nothing about that. So
they couldn't put their selves here in this place, could they?
Because when we come here and see Christ dying upon the cross,
here's what we have to say. He gave Himself for our sin. our sins. If you and I profit
from the death of Christ, we must come here and sit down with
Paul the sinner, and with Peter the sinner, and with John the
sinner. We must sit down with them and
look upon Christ and say, Our sin. Our sin. I'd love the Pope of Rome to
death. We'd receive him in a minute. If he'd get out of his little
polk mobile, and come down off of his balcony there that he
speaks from in St. Peter's Square, and get out of
that dress, and come and sit with the rest of us sinners, and sit down with us, and look
upon Christ with us, and say, Our sin, we can have fellowship
with Him, then couldn't we? But he exalts himself against
Christ and goes around and pretends to put everybody else's sins
away when he's full of them himself, and denies that Christ died for
our sins, we won't have anything to do with it. We call him a
blasphemer and a liar and a prophet of the devil. Our sins. Boy, there's a lot
of peace right there. A lot of peace. I just put my
name in there. Paul puts his name in there.
Christ loved me and gave himself for me. And I sit down with you. I sit down with you. I come out
of this pulpit and sit down in the dust with you. And we all
look to Christ together and say, Our sins. Our sins. And look
why he gave himself for our sins. In order to deliver us from this
present evil world. No matter what age you look at
this world, if you go back right after the fall of Adam and Eve,
you know what you could say about it? Evil. When sin entered, this
world became evil. And it has been evil from Adam
to this very present time. Evil. Evil. John said, we're
of God, little children, and the whole world lies in wickedness. The whole world? The Lord Jesus
said, the world don't hate you, but it hates me because I testify
against it that the works thereof are evil. There's nothing good, brothers
and sisters, about this world. Nothing good. Evil. Everywhere you look, it's evil.
We've got black devils. And that's what the world usually
looks at. They look down at the red light
district and talk about the harlots. And they look up there in New
York City at the stock market and talk about those covetous
thieves. Or they look in prison and talk about the murderers.
Or over in the East and talk about the terrorists. And say,
boy, those people are awful. Well, they are. But you know
there's a lot of white devils. This world is full of white devils.
And you know where you find them at? In the pulpits. And you find
them in the pews. And they're worse than anybody
else. The white devils are worse than the black devils. And this
world is full of white devils. They're not only the enemies
of the cross of Christ, they make merchandise of men's souls. They deceive men's souls. You
may be a bartender and get a man drunk by putting the bottle to
his lips. And you destroy his body. These white devils destroy
men's souls. And they're worse than ever,
aren't they? Evil world. Evil world. And they talk about gifts. You
hear these people talking about, you know, the Lord needs you.
And you're so talented. And it's just a pity that you
don't use your talent for the Lord. What is your talent? Evil. Evil. The present evil world. Bruce, you're just too rigid.
You guys get too rigid. You're too narrow. You want to
broaden your horizon, they tell us. Don't you want to accept
Catholicism? Ain't there some good you can
find about Jehovah's Witnesses and Camelites? Can't you broaden
your mind? Can't you expand out your view
and accept them? Don't you want to be accepted?
No, I want to be saved from it. Don't you? I don't want to be
accepted of them. I don't want to accept them.
I want to be delivered from it. Because it's evil. It's evil. Everything outside the Lord Jesus
Christ is evil. Oh, look at those beautiful people.
Yeah, they're beautiful, but they're evil. Oh, look at the
talismans. Yeah, but they're evil. They're
evil. Present evil world. This world is no more and no
less than a kingdom of devils and darkness and ignorance. And
there's only one way to escape its dominion and end, and that's
for Christ to deliver us. And that's what the Bible says
he did. He gave himself to deliver us from this present evil world. Are you sorry he's delivered
you? Glenn, you've never been sorry he delivered you from free
will religion, are you? I ain't either. I ain't either. And I don't want anything else
to do with it. I count it a great evil. A man thinks he has some
goodness about himself, I don't hesitate a minute to tell you,
man, you're evil. You're still in the kingdom of
darkness. Men talk about the power of their free will. We
don't hesitate a minute to tell them you're in the kingdom of
darkness. I don't care what you are. I don't care who you are.
I don't care what you've done, how beautiful you are, all your
talents. We don't care. That's nothing. If you're outside of Christ,
you're in the kingdom of darkness. And there's but one that can
deliver. And who is that? The Son of God. I tell you, you
take somebody that can deliver you from this kingdom of darkness,
he's got to be God, ain't he? Jesus Christ can't be any mere
man to do this. Angels can't do this. It takes
a great one to deliver a man from this present evil world.
and the power of this darkness? But that's what the Father said.
He said, I'm going to send you a Savior, a great one, and He
shall deliver you. From what? This present evil
world. The kingdom of devils. He shall
deliver you. And He says here in the last
part of verse 4, and we'll close with this. According to all of
this, according to the will of God. I feel sorry for these Galatians. I really do. And I'll tell you
one reason I feel sorry for them. In a way, they'd lost the knowledge
of God's will. They'd absolutely lost the knowledge
of God's will. Paul says here, you'd receive
the gospel. At least they received it in
their heads, if not their hearts. And they'd look to Christ, he
tells us in chapter 3. And Paul said, you ran so well. You were doing so good. What
happened to you? Well, we know what happened.
They lost the knowledge of God's will. These false teachers rose
up and said, Christ is not enough. Oh, He's done a lot for you.
But now it's God's will that you be circumcised. It's God's
will that you be converted to Judaism and start keeping all
of these ceremonies and holy days. And that's what they did.
That's what they did. And they lost the knowledge of
God's will. What is God's will in saving
a man? You find that out and you'll
find out the gospel. What is God's will in saving a sinner? You find that out and you'll
find out the gospel. I've told you so many times this,
how I was when I was a teenager. And I thought it was God's will
for me to save myself. And I quit doing all of these
things and started doing the good things that I thought I
could do. It didn't work. Then I come to a little bit of
knowledge and I thought, well, it's God's will for me to save
myself by myself, but Christ can help me. That didn't work
either. Then I found out God's will to
save me by Christ alone. And I found out the Gospel. And that's when the Lord saved
me. I found out God's will to save me by Christ. Christ gave
Himself for our sins to deliver us. And all of this is the purpose
and will of God. I came down from heaven not to
do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this
is the will of Him that sent me. It's going to cost me my
blood. But I know the Father's will
that of all that He's given me, I'm not going to lose a one.
Because I'm going to the cross and burn their sins and atone
for them. And I'm going to deliver them
from the kingdom of Satan. And here you and I stand this
evening and we rejoice that we know God's will. We know His
will. And our Father, according to
the will of God and our Father, I will be a Father to you. And
you shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord. Giving Himself for my sin. Just
turning from anything and everything and throwing myself upon Him.
And following Him. That's enough. That's enough.
According to the will of God and our Father. Lord bless His
Word. Let's pray.