Galatians chapter 1. This fellow you see up here sitting on the pew with Larry and Nancy. I remember him from a long time before he was even Griffin's age. He was a little bitty fellow back then, but I don't know what happened to him. But it's good to see him. I think today will be my last Sunday with you this year. The fellows have told me that they would take two weeks. I look forward to the time off, shut down some of my daily routine, and just instead concerning myself with what do I preach next time, just read and pray as if no duty was on me. Both of those are duties though. I expect you, I would be very disappointed in you if If you did not support them with your presence and with your prayers, they will be just like Larry said he was this morning, empty and trouble getting up here. So you support them with your prayers and your presence. Something else I was supposed to have told you. Anyway, Galatians chapter one. I want to read, and you follow along with me, the first nine verses. And in verse six, you will see the word, last two words in that verse, another gospel. And there are three times in these nine verses that Paul speaks about another or any other gospel or another gospel. So that's what I will deal with this morning, Lord, helping. If you're there before we read, would you once again unite your hearts together as we approach the throne of grace? Our Father, we come again this morning to thy word. We come, I hope, as learners, as disciples, as a follower. And as the brother said, some of you might be getting close to the wicked gate, that entrance into glory, that place where the burdened sin roll off your back. I pray that you might help them continue to draw and enable them to follow. Father, give us hearing ears, but if you do that, we need fitting words to hear. And these dear souls do not need to hear a man. Gracious Lord, they need to hear thy voice. Thy voice as we read the word. And hopefully, thy voice in their hearts as they hear. give help, give wisdom, auction, and set before them these truths. And glorify your son, exalt him in thy great name, O Lord, by thy Spirit. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Galatians 1, 1. Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. All stating is his calling and authority from God, meeting personally the risen Savior. Verse two, and all the brethren which are with me and to the churches of Galatia, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world. Children, that will happen. Dying to deliver us from our sins and this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called you unto the grace of Christ, unto another gospel, which is not another, but there'll be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, myself and the company that I'm with in traveling, though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. Only two things I want to bring out In these verses, number one is the uncertainty of the great apostle. One used the most in all scripture. Though we preach any other gospel, let us be accursed, is what he was saying. If I come back behind or before you again in my travels, and I bring with me a gospel different than that that I previously proclaimed, then let me be accursed. And folk, that word means given over to the direst of woes. It is the most serious consequence that a man could face at death. Let me be accursed. That'd have to be the entrance to glory as Paul breathed that last breath that he found the door shut. You must continue. It is said when Judas hung himself that he went to his own place. There was a special place in hell for him. And these that heard the gospel and turned away, that'd be the darkness of dark in hell. There were five foolish virgins that continued with the wise, but the foolish, having not much all workings of the Spirit of God, the foolish found the door shut. And the one certainty that we all know based on scripture is that once an individual is saved, that is eternal. But I hope that there is no one here that foolish to think that this happened to me back 20 years ago or five years ago, so I'm eternally saved. There is a twin doctrine that goes with eternal security. And that is the preservation of the saints. All who have gone through the door will overcome. In the end, they will overcome all things and will never be overcome. Paul was aware of that. If ever there was a man aware that he had to finish the race, it was Paul. That was the uncertainty that he lived with and he ministered to. I Corinthians 9, I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I preach to others, I myself might be a castaway, reprobate. I can preach all these years, but if I don't keep my body, bring it into subjection to the will of God, follow him wholly and completely. This doctrine of eternal security will mean nothing to me. So I beat black and blue, do whatever. Now, I did not say that you're to go out and take a whip or a chain like some folk have done in years gone by. and they would punish their old flesh because of its evil ways. No, you punish your old man by following the word of God and that still small voice of God within the new man. And folk, the person or the people that trouble me the most is not those that are filled with doubt, And from time to time they might express that, I do not know if I'm saved. I wonder whether or not I was actually saved when I said I was. That doesn't bother me. The ones that trouble me are those that are never concerned They go through life with this positive attitude. I am a Christian. I was saved eternally. So I am secure. They never doubt. They go on as if that is a given in their life. And they wonder at times at me, why I am not certain all the time. Every true child of God knows that you are not yet completely saved. It is an ever ongoing process. And there are only a couple of places. The first one is in Hebrews on towards the into the book to the revelation Hebrews, you'll run into it. Same apostle chapter 10, verse 38 and 39. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. God talking through the apostle to leave this, that you might read it this morning. It goes on in verse 39, but we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe Paul, were you not saved on the Damascus road? If not, maybe when you met the one God sent you to that laid his hands on you and your eyes were open, were you not saved in either of these two times or in between them? Yes. We are not of those that draw back unto perdition. but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Paul, it seems to me that you are speaking with a double tongue there. Were you saved when you met Christ? Yes, I was introduced to him. I repented. I was given faith to believe. but the faith that I was given when I met Jesus has continued to increase and develop. And I believed then as I believe today to the saving. That's the future tense. I'm not yet in glory. I'm not yet saved. But the person that really troubles me are those that they just never doubt, I'm certain. And I don't mean too many of God's children like that. Sometimes we all get under the juniper tree like Elijah. But we are revived and we're brought back And we continue, the Spirit of God continues working in us to the believing of the saving of our soul. So every child of God, if you don't know that this morning, you should, that you are not completely saved. It's ever an ongoing process. You don't have to fret yourself. about am I offending or grieving the Holy Spirit because I feel like that I might not be saved this day? I don't know how many times I've come to the passage Larry read and another. Lord, I don't know. but this I do and am certain that you said all that come to you that you would receive and turn none away. I've been there many times and quoted that to others that are there. So in Galatians, in Corinthians 9 27 that I quoted to you from Paul and here in Hebrews, You've heard what the great apostle said about being saved. Now, what about the disciple with the utmost confidence in himself? And he looked the Lord Jesus directly in the face and he said to him, though all men shall be offended in thee, I will not. Never, Jesus said before the cock crow, you shall deny me thrice. And he looked again and said, though everybody should deny you, I will die with you and never deny you. How much? later before Peter had his feet knocked out from under him, and he wouldn't show Almighty eternally secure of who he was in himself. Now, the next one is in I Peter's, in his writings, I Peter chapter three, I'm sorry, chapter one. It was verse three through five that I wanted to read. 1 Peter 1, verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith, and here he's using the language of the apostle, through faith unto salvation. Peter, weren't you saved? Yes. Were you not a disciple? Did you not say that you would follow him all the way to death, no matter if everybody turned? Well, I did back then. That night when he looked at you in the judgment hall, never said a word, he just glanced over at you and you saw his eyes and you went out and wept bitterly. Peter was at the same man that said, the wall deny you, I won't be in the crowd. And now you come to his closing out his life, and he writes these two epistles, who were kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Though we are all traveling with me, including myself, every one of us have within us the possibility of falling away. Though we are an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel than that which has been delivered to you, let him be accursed. And you're sitting there saying that no angel in heaven could fall. Are they created beings? How do they exist? How do they remain faithful to God by the same way that you do? The work of God in you, keeping you, prodding you on and upward. Paul didn't take it lightly. He knew what was in him. I have that possibility of falling away. He had seen others. He certainly heard about Judas. He even saw Demas walk away from him. Well, no, the angels in heaven will not fall because the Lord already threw out a third that followed Satan. but we have that possibility. And I hope there's none of you this morning sitting there thinking I will never deny him. That's as certain within you as the next breath you take unless he upholds and sustains you. You be in the judgment hall and him beaten You're not gonna be in that company. You know, if they got the master, they're gonna get all his disciples. I don't know him. Ma'am, I don't know him. I said, I don't know him even cursed to prove. A child of God doesn't talk like that. If you hear another gospel, Children, there is but one true gospel. I hope I can go out with a sound mind. I don't know. I hope they'll sit me down if my mind goes. But there's one gospel. And if I ever preach anything contrary to the pure, true gospel of Christ, woe is me. And what is the gospel? Well, it is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel includes the person and the work of the Lord Jesus. He left, and we are in that season when the world used to, now every once in a while, you'll hear a mention of Jesus' birth. He left the portals of glory. Birth there in that stable. Unfit to be with human beings, more fit to be with the animals. For there was no room for his mother in the inn, and she could only find that place. Birth, having laid aside all his glory, And all his wisdom, eternal, infinite wisdom, he controlled, he brought everything into existence by the word of his power. He lay all that aside, that royal garment that those angels flew around there in glory with their faces covered. That's that little baby over there in Bethlehem. covered in strips of cloth that they usually would bury folks in, similar to that. All she could find, tearing up shreds of cloth, because he came into the world as a dying human being. And that's the only way you'll ever get to know him. If you're still so full of self, You won't ever know him. That's gotta be emptied. He emptied himself, no power, no strength, no intellect. He came about that by listening and hearing the adults talk and hearing them read what scripture they had. Taking him up to the synagogue and there listen. for that word from his father. Three or four, I don't know how old, I know when he was 12, I don't know when he came to the realization that God is my father. Said to his mother, didn't you know I must be about my father's business? That's that little baby there that knew nothing. That's that little infant that his mother had to stabilize his head. He was totally dependent upon another human being. Then throughout life as a dying man fulfilled the law of God in its entirety without sin. And yet in death, every sin of every child of God that will be with him in eternity was laid on him. And until you come to know that, you don't know the gospel yet. My sins laid on that holy being, but he died as a sinner with his father's face turned until that last breath that he drew. After he cried out, it is finished. Then he saw his father's face again, that had been turned from him. And he said, father, previously it was my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, he turned his back on him because he was sin. And you will never know that weight. If you don't go to heaven, you'll be paying that debt throughout eternity. And in two or three days, and the scourging, and the pain, and the insult, and the agony, he paid your eternal debt. If you go to glory, hanging on that cross was that man that paid your debt. I don't care what you know about anything else. You can know all the things, doctrines, hear, describe, talk with anybody, but until you find out my sins were in that man, you're either a baby in Christ or you don't know him at all. The true gospel sits all alone. That's what Paul was talking about. If I don't preach that, then God curse me. If I ever come back to you with some other form of the gospel, and children, you're talking about form, just turn on your radio or your televisions, and you'll hear You can just about hear whatever you want to. No, not just about, you can, just keep searching. But the child of God is looking for that one that will open the book and show him or her their place in this book and declare Christ unto them and the only way of forgiveness of sin. And it's such a sad, sad state that this land is in when salvation has been reduced to an act that a sinner can perform. If never before in your life Haven't cried out, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. See if you can find that place. Paul didn't take it for granted. I'll be in glory. He said, if I don't keep my body down under and letting the new man direct my steps by the Spirit of God. He said, I wind up a reprobate. That was his uncertainty. And the only time that he ever read, well, I'll tell you the certainty here. And the next, the only certainty that Paul ever found was in those dying moments when he could look into the face of God and see Him smiling at him and say, enter in my child. And I come to the certainty of Paul in those verses that I read to you. He was a man raised under the Jews' religion, maybe as a child taught from childhood up. And if there ever was a human being that could have confidence in the flesh, Paul said, that's me, Philippians 3. If any man might have confidence in the flesh, I more. And he begins to list out why. I was circumcised the eighth day. You remember God giving that to Abraham, those eight day old boys? I've heard, I know that methods are different now, but I've heard that blood does not begin clotting in an infant until at least eight days old. So they had to wait. I was circumcised as God gave it to Abraham and as Joshua renewed it before they entered into the land of Canaan. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrew. As touching the law, I was a Pharisee. There wasn't anybody on earth that could point their finger at Paul or Saul and say, he didn't obey the law there. touching righteousness in the law, blameless. And if ever there was an exceptional student, it was Saul of Tarsus. In that aspect, he is like Saul, the first king of Israel, head and shoulders above anybody else. That was Saul. sat at the feet of the greatest teacher Israel had in his time. And if he was not certain that the gospel of Christ was the only way to glory, he had nothing. because he gave up all things and counted everything that he had been taught and how he had been raised, that's wrong. Do you know what it takes for a man or a woman that get in age and they have to do away with everything that they were taught? You're not gonna let it go easily. And this was Saul of Tarsus. But he met Christ. He felt the free pardon of sin and the grace of God bestowed upon him. And he felt the weight of that sin, that burden roll off when he met the Lord Jesus. And no one could ever be so dynamic. Dogmatic is the word I should have used. I remember, this is off the subject, I remember Spurgeon telling about hearing a man. I learned man in the pulpit and he went to hear him. And he said the man got to a certain point in his message and He stopped and he put his hand on his chin as if he was there thinking. And just out of thin air, he pulled a word out. Spurgeon said, that man is brilliant. And the next time he heard that he was going to be close by, he said, I've got to go hear him. and the same message, get to the same place, and he stopped again, and he pulled out that same word. Spurgeon said he was nothing but a hypocrite and a showman in the pulpit. Well, we've got many of those. God help that I'm not. Well, I don't have that problem. But I did mean to say dogmatic. And how could he be that convinced, gave up everything that he previously hailed as righteousness, Now he proclaims that all will be accursed that hold to a gospel different than the one he was raised in under. You know, the world hates those that are dogmatic unless they're on their side. If you don't agree with me, then you have no right to be so dogmatic in saying what you believe. but a Christian becomes just that. I don't care what the news said. I don't care what is out there in the other places called churches. It doesn't matter. We, if we have been saved, we are dogmatic. Jesus Christ did for me what nobody could do. And that's Paul's certainty here. But now you're talking about somebody being dogmatic in religion, or one that follows a path no matter though all the world might be against it, yet they journey on because they're certain Jesus Christ is God in flesh. And I met him I'm as certain that he is the way, the truth, the door, and that anybody else that comes along are all imposters. And the God, Saul of Tarsus served. He thought was the God of the Old Testament. Now, can you imagine, and you're 40 years old, or 20, and you denounce everything that you were taught as a child, that'd be a hard thing to do, except if you were taught correctly. And Paul had no problem, never had a second thought when he met Jesus, the resurrected Christ. You wanna know about the God of the Old Testament that he was serving? David didn't seek from the scripture the proper way to bring the ark back into the city. The Philistines had gotten away, were putting it on a cart and let an oxen pull it. And David went and they put the art on a cart. There was this young man that when the cart began to shake because the cow stumble, He put his hand to stabilize, to keep the ark from falling, and God smote him like that. Do you know how accurate they had to be on everything? David took the ark over there to a man's house, and he wasn't gonna move it again until he found out how I'm supposed to do that. And folk, it was the Pharisees that prided themselves in doing everything always right. If I do it, I do it because it's right. But their right was because they saw no further than the actual deed and they never considered their heart from which the deed arose. God said, thou shalt not commit murder, okay? Not gonna kill anybody. Thou shalt not commit adultery, okay? I'm gonna be faithful to my wife or to my husband. And Jesus comes along and said, you oughta taken that one step further. Moses said, thou shalt not, but I say, Just look on a woman, you've committed adultery already. Or you hate somebody and you are a murderer. But they didn't see the motive because they were perfect. And they had formed a God by their own perception. This is what I think God is, therefore God is this. Years ago, I don't know if it's still taking place, but newspapers would have a cartoon section, or a drawing, cartoon, or figure. Sometimes they'd use the presidents and other men and women in high places, and they'd pick out one feature. Maybe a big ear, or a big nose, or eyes, they pick out that one feature and they magnify it in a cartoon. And that was called caricature. Looking at and maximizing one part of that man or that woman. You consider what the gospel has done the last 75 years. One attribute. They have made a caricature out of God, and they've magnified one attribute, and that's the love of God. I mean, you're gonna hear that time and again before you pass away if you listen to public preaching. That's what America believes. God is love. Therefore I'm going to heaven because I serve God. I serve that God I love. Paul said, I'll end up in hell if I depart from what I've preached to you and bring up another gospel. So religion has majored on one part of God, one attribute of God, at the expense of the whole council of God. And Saul of Tarsus was raised, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. I was at the top of the ladder. And his entrance into glory was evidenced by keeping the law just outwardly. That's all they knew. And Jesus Christ comes along and he said, you folk are majoring on the law of God and you're trying to do all these things or not do these things. And Saul looking at that old schoolmaster, do this and live. And the imposter Jesus came along and he declared that he had fulfilled the law. Saul's not gonna have that. He's going to get rid of the name of Christ if he has to kill every Christian that's in the world in his lifetime. but he met him. And now knowing redemption is solely in that man that I meant to have stamped out his name. It is Jesus Christ, nothing more or less than what he's done and what he became, what he did and what he finished. Now Saul of Tarsus is Paul. with redemption solely in Christ. And he was certain when he gave up the God of the Hebrews in meeting Jesus, he staked his eternal soul upon that. Now there's this certainty with Paul. How could there not be? This gospel of Christ, it is true, it is real, it is certain. And he had spent a lifetime trying to please what he thought was the God of the Old Testament, but he never could do enough. And everything he did, there was the uncertainty. Did I fail? But then he finds the gospel, that's our language. He finds the gospel, gave up everything, and now the only uncertainty in his life is if I ever preach anything else, let me be accursed. Let me, in closing, paraphrase the best I can, 1 John 4, 18. There is no fear that is dread or terror, as you know it. No fear in love. And if there was ever a man in love with Christ, it was John, Paul, Peter, No fear in love, but perfect. That is love that is brought to an end or finished, lacking nothing for its completeness. All that was found in Christ. So there is no fear in love, but perfect. Love casteth out fear because fear has a torment. I want all of you, I want all of you to leave here thinking, is my love for him being brought to its completeness? And it is casting out fear that has torment. You remember Vashti. Evidently she had no dread of disobedience to the king and her failure to obey. She was removed as queen and Esther was brought to the throne in the providence of God to save the Jews. And the king loved her so much, he said, ask what you will, up to half of the kingdom. Children, God will never turn down one request you have, if it is good that he can do for you. And there is no wonder that Saul of Tarsus has such devotedness to the Lord Jesus. is a member of his bride. He now holds to this, that God will withhold no good thing from him. And he's certain about all that. You got beyond race. Now there are some children that are raised correctly and I don't want any thinking I would tell you different. But I will close with this statement. It's one that Thomas Brooks, the old Puritan, made about a minister by the name of Welch. And at a dinner table one evening, folks saw him crying. And they went over and asked him, why are you crying? He said, because I can love my Savior no more than I do. You ever wept because your love for Him wasn't as it ought to have been? I'm weeping because I can't love Him more. What about you, children? You've got to be a child first of all to know that. But great is your loss if you do not know the love of Christ.