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We have a copy of the scriptures
this morning. Let me invite you to turn to the book of Galatians. The book of Galatians. And as
I noted last week, we're continuing this study through Paul's epistle
to the believers in Galatia. And we're looking at the final
two chapters. Chapters five and six focus upon
ethics, whereas chapters one and two of Galatians was Paul
telling his story is his biography, really, as an apostle, in order
to, I think, claim his authority as an apostle. And then chapters
three and four were primarily about doctrine, particularly
the doctrine of justification by faith. In the final two chapters,
the theme is ethics, which is the application of doctrine in
our practical living. And so that's what we're meditating
upon in these final two chapters. This morning, we're looking at
Galatians five, and I'm going to be reading verses six through
twelve. Let me invite you, as you're
able to stand in honor of the reading and the hearing of God's
word. Galatians chapter five, verses six through twelve. The Apostle Paul writes. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. Ye did run well. Who did hinder
you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh
not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump. I have confidence in you through
the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded, but he that
troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense
of the cross ceased. I would they were even cut off. which trouble you. May God bless
the reading and the hearing of his word again in this place,
and let's go, Lord, together in prayer. Gracious God, we thank
you for this good deposit of your revealed truth, and I ask,
Father, you would give us the light of the Holy Spirit, just
as if we go into a dark room, we need to turn on the lights
to be able to see. We need the illumination of the
Holy Spirit. in order to understand your words.
Send that to us. We ask this in Christ's name.
Amen. And you may be seated. Again, these last two chapters,
I think, are bringing home, Paul's bringing home, okay, in light
of the doctrine of justification by faith, that we are saved not
through our works, but by faith alone in Christ. What are going
to be the ethical, implications of this for how we live out our
lives. And if we could take a turn from
the old Francis Schaeffer book, How Should We Then Live? Here,
Paul is going to admonish the recipients of this letter because
he thinks they've gone down the wrong path. He thinks they have
adopted a false persuasion. They've adopted a false belief
and the false belief, I went back and read verse six, which
is where we ended last week. The false belief of these teachers
who had infiltrated the church was that you need Christ plus
circumcision in order to be saved. And so he had boldly stated in
verse 6, for in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love. And I think that last part, by
love, he's wanting to remind them, yes, salvation is by grace
alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of
God alone, but it will work itself out in the loving actions of
those who are saved. That's not the basis of our salvation,
but it is an overflow of the fact that we are saved. And again,
Paul is going to continue now in our passage to reinforce this
admonition This exhortation that the Galatians had accepted again,
this false persuasion. He starts out in verse seven
saying to them, ye did run well, ye did run well. And he starts
off really here with a sports metaphor, doesn't he? Then he
talks about living the Christian life as being like running a
race. And if you ever read much of
Paul's letters, you know that there are quite a few actual
sports metaphors that are in Paul's epistles. Sometimes we
think of him as this, you know, pale one person. You get the sense that from reading
Paul's letters, he probably was an athlete, at least in his younger
years, actually to survive all the things that he survived,
shipwrecks and beatings. He was probably a quite athletic
man and perhaps even before he became a believer, as a youth,
he probably was engaged in lots of athletic events. In Philippians
3.14, he uses the metaphor of running a race and pressing towards
the mark or the goal or the finish line. He says, I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus. Philippians 3.14. One of the
best-known passages where he uses a sports metaphor is 1 Corinthians
9, 24 and following, where he says, Know ye not that they which
run in a race run all, but that one receiveth the prize? So run
that ye may obtain. You're in a race. You're seeking
a prize, a goal. Don't be lazy. Don't be haphazard,
he say. Then he goes on. First Corinthians
nine, twenty five. And every man that striveth for
the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain
a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. So what he's saying,
you know, the athletes, they go into training, they they sit
down the training table, certain things they exclude from their
diet. There are certain activities that they exclude themselves
from because they want to get themselves in shape. And he's
saying as a Christian, there are certain things you're going
to have to abstain from so that you might build yourself up spiritually
to be in the right shape to be able to strive after the prize. 1 Corinthians 9, 26, I therefore
so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I, not as one who beat
at the air. Now he brings in a boxing metaphor.
I'm not just shadow boxing all the time. I'm not just punching
the air, but I am really engaging in that which is physically vigorous
to edify me. And he's applying that spiritually. And then he says 1 Corinthians
9, 27, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection,
lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I
myself should be a castaway, even as the athlete gains mastery
over his body so that he might win the prize. So Paul is saying
I as a Christian must gain mastery. And I think he means literally
over my body, over some of my passions, my appetites, lusts. I must gain mastery over it,
lest I preach to others godliness and I'm not that way in my own
life. And so I make Christianity a
laughingstock and I become a hypocrite. So, he uses these athletic metaphors. It's disputed whether or not
Paul wrote Hebrews. If he wrote the book of Hebrews,
Hebrews 12.1 says, Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed
about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every
weight and the sin which so easily doth beset us and let us run
with patience. the race that is set before us.
And there I think when he talks about the cloud of witnesses,
he talks about the athlete going into the arena, where there are
the crowds there, maybe at the end of a marathon in the Olympic,
Summer Olympic Games. where it ends with them entering
into the stadium and all the witnesses are there. And Paul's
saying, when you're living the Christian life and you're running
the race, there's an unseen cloud of witnesses. All the saints
have gone before and all the angels watching you. And now
run and persevere in the race so that you might finish and
win the prize, he's saying. Likewise, again, kind of looking
at Paul's use of athletic metaphors, in 1 Timothy 4, 8, he says this,
For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable
unto all things. It's okay to exercise. There's
nothing wrong with that. It's not sinful. It's not unlawful. It profits a little. Bodily exercise
profits a little. But Godliness is profitable under
all things, Paul says. Now, again, I say all that to
say that Paul is fond of athletic metaphors. Let's go back to Galatians
5. So it's not surprising, then,
that he says to the Galatians, ye did run well. But it's kind of a question interpreting
this. Did Paul really think that they had run well? Given everything
that we have heard thus far, does Paul really think that they
have run well? And the answer to that is no.
But the problem is they think they have been running well.
They think they have been competing well. And so Paul is actually
taking their stats and probably even their pride and the folly
of it. And he's saying, well, let's let's examine this a little
further. You saying that you run the race? Well, let's look and see what
happens. And so he follows up and says,
who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? Who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth? The word he uses here for to
hinder in Greek is egg cup, though. Which literally means to cut
into. And so he says, you think you're
running well? Well, who is it that is cut into
you or cut you off so that you have not obeyed the truth? The New International Version
renders this verse in this way. It says, who cut in on you and
kept you from obeying the truth? And so the image here is saying,
you're saying you've run well, as far as I can see. You were
running well, perhaps, but then somebody came along and elbowed
you and knocked you off the path and dislodged you from running
the race as you should. And probably what he's thinking
about here are what? The false teachers who came in,
the false teachers who came in and said, you need to be circumcised
in order to be saved. Faith in Christ alone is not
enough. You need to keep the Old Testament dietary laws. You
need to add these laws, rules, and man-made regulations in order
to be saved. You need to add those things.
And they have been like runners who have jostled them and cut
them off. I don't know how many of you have become fond of watching
the Winter Olympics over the last couple of weeks. But one
of the events that's kind of fun to watch is the short track
speed skating. Have you seen any of that? It's
amazing. They start off, you know, four
or six people. That's a really short track. They're just going
around and almost every race, there's a crash and people are
always jostling. And sometimes the person who
might be in second place and then somebody will come along
and there'll be a collision. Somebody will cut into them and
they will knock them out. And so Paul has that similar
sentiment here in addressing the Galatians. He had preached
to them the pure gospel of Christ. And then these interlopers come
along and told them you need Christ plus works. And they had
dislodged them. They had caused them to be disqualified
from the race. And so Paul offers then in verse
8 this very frank evaluation. He says, This persuasion cometh
not of him that calleth you. This persuasion. What is the
persuasion he's talking about? He's talking about the fact that
the Galatians have become convinced that they need circumcision and
probably other acts of obedience to the Old Testament law, like
keeping the dietary laws or keeping the Old Testament holidays, that
they need these things in order to be saved. And Paul is saying
this is a false persuasion. It does not have its origins
with God. In fact, he says here distinctly
in verse eight that it cometh not of him that calleth you. Anytime we read here in a passage
from Paul, the English word call, it's the Greek word Kaleo. We
think of the doctrine of the effectual call. That's what he's
referring to. This idea that you need Christ
plus circumcision or Christ plus work. does not come from the
person who extended to you the effectual call through the preaching
of the Word, that's the external call, but the Spirit's internal
compulsion to be drawn to Christ. This did not originate with the
God who extended to you the effectual call. I think of what's called
the golden chain of redemption in Romans 830, where Paul writes
there, moreover, whom he did predestinate them, he also called
and whom he called them. He also justified and whom he
justified them. He also glorified. That's the
golden chain of redemption. the one who called you, the one
who justified you, the one who is sanctifying you, and the one
who ultimately will glorify you, has not taught you that you need
to add anything to Christ in order to be saved. You don't
need to be circumcised to earn your salvation. Paul continues
then to warn these false teachers, and he warns them by giving them
what we could call a one verse parable in verse nine, where
he says, A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. And what he's
talking about here is that these apparently few false teachers
were able to come in and in a short period of time. They were able
to sow seeds of discord and doubt in the purity of the gospel and
to ruin basically a short period of time all that Paul had been
able to establish among them. Of course, the image here with
the leaven is just a little bit of the leavened dough or a little
bit of yeast that is mixed into the whole mass of bread dough
will be able to infiltrate it and influence it and make it
to rise. And so Paul is saying just a
little bit of false teaching can get mixed into the whole
lump and spread its nefarious influence throughout the whole.
Not to produce something good, a loaf of bread, but to produce
something ruinous. It can ruin, poison the whole. By the way, this is one of those
places where I think it is shown that Paul knew directly the teachings
of our Lord from the Gospels. Because if you look through the
Gospels, you'll notice that this is a metaphor that Jesus often
used in his teaching. Remember, he often talked about
the yeast of the Pharisees. In Matthew 16 6, Jesus said,
Take heed and beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Likewise, in Luke 12 1, it says
he began to say to his disciples, first of all, beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Also behind this metaphor was
the idea of the Jewish practice of the Passover. And at the Passover,
you had to get all the leaven out of your household. You had
to make unleavened bread, and so you had to remove any sign
of leaven or yeast that would influence the bread that was
going to be baked. And so it becomes a metaphor also for spiritual
purity. Do not tolerate false teaching. Do not tolerate false doctrine,
because if you let in just a speck of it, It will have an influence
out of all proportion to its actual size. And we see this
in First Corinthians, chapter five, six through eight, where
Paul wrote there, Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that
a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out, therefore,
the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump. as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover,
is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast,
not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
It's that same image again that he's using here, this one verse
parable. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. You've let in
a little false teaching, you've let in a little malice, you've
let in a little impurity, and it's ruined the whole. The image
that came to mind when I was thinking about this verse was
the report recently of the chemical spill in Charleston, West Virginia. Back on January the 9th, they
initially said, I think, 7,000 gallons, and now they're saying
10,000 gallons of this chemical, MCHM. was leaked into the water
supply. 10,000 gallons, that might seem
like a lot, but really that's not a lot when you consider the
thousands of gallons of water that flow in any river constantly
passing by, particularly someplace like West Virginia, where there
are lots of mountains and lots of water supply. Somehow, the
7,000 to 10,000 gallons got put into the water supply up there,
and it ended up affecting, they say, nearly 300,000 people. In
fact, they're still testing. a month later. And they're tracing. And this chemical is so powerful
that when it's found, I think, in more than a one to a billion
proportion, it can have an influence upon people who ingest it or
wash with it and so forth. They still have it. Just a little
bit, a little bit of leaven leavens the whole. A little bit of false
teaching can infiltrate and can ruin the whole body and harm
thousands. And so this is the kind of warning
that Paul is giving to the Galatians here. He goes on in verse 10. And you got to love Paul. He
is a spirit inspired communicator. If one type of rhetoric doesn't
work, he'll try another. If berating you and admonishing
you and shaming you doesn't work, he'll try cajoling you. And so
he's got his full arsenal, his full arsenal, spirit inspired
arsenal things to soften the hearts of the Galatians. And
here in verse 10, I think he begins to change course in his
rhetoric as he says to them in verse 10, I have confidence in
you. Through the Lord. That she will
be none otherwise minded. Rather, they continue to chide
them. He expresses confidence in the fact. I think that if
they are truly saved, if they are truly converted, that they
will eventually see the light, they will be convinced of their
error, they will repudiate it and they will return to the truth.
I have confidence in this Paul says. And the key part is the
little preposition there. I have confidence in you through
the Lord, in the Lord. I have confidence that that you
will see the light. You won't go on thinking I need
Christ plus circumcision. You will understand eventually
that that is wrong. And I don't think Paul is using
here some kind of reverse psychology like we sometimes use with our
children. You know, I have confidence you'll choose the right decision,
which is mine. I don't think really he's doing
that, but I think he truly is expressing here a confidence
in what we call the perseverance of the Saints. Again, it's the
idea that if you're really saved, if you're really converted and
if you're really among the elect, eventually, even though you may
galley with something that's not right, eventually you'll
be drawn away from it. And you will be drawn back to
the truth. So the confidence that he's expressing
is not really in the Galatians, is it? It's not really in who
they are, but it's a confidence in the Lord to be able to save
and keep his own. I have confidence in you through
the Lord that you will be none otherwise minded. In other words,
that you will not think anything other than the truth, this is
a mammoth Trust in the Lord. We should recall this should
we should recall this verse if we ever have friends or loved
ones in the Lord who get caught up in doctrinal beliefs or practices
that are either clearly false or that set off alarm bells that
they might be false. This would be a good verse for
someone who has a friend or loved one who's got into something
you think might not be right in belief or practice. I have
confidence in you through the Lord that you will be none otherwise
minded. I've listened recently. There's
a church group in Texas and I've written about it on my blog that
is taking on some cult like qualities. And there are a lot of young
people. In fact, one of the alarm bells for this church is Most
of the people in it are in their 20s, and the elders are only
in their 20s in the church, so-called. And there are a lot of people
who have been attracted to it, people who have grown up in evangelical
Christian churches, and earnest young people, and some of their
parents are just distraught because their children have gotten mixed
up with this. Maybe they need to listen to this verse. Paul
could say, I have confidence in the Lord. If you're really
His, that eventually you'll be drawn away from this, you'll
be taken back to the truth. Again, this is what we call the
doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. We see it in places
like Philippians 1.6, where Paul says, being confident of this
very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it until the day of Christ Jesus. Or in John 10, 27 and
following, where Jesus said, My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of My hand. My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. See, parents or us, we're teaching
our children, we're trying to teach them what we think are
biblical truths, and we don't want them eventually, when they
become older, to drift into error. You know what our greatest safeguard
against that is? That is they're actually converted. Because if they're actually converted,
if they're actually part of the elect, you know who's going to
keep them in the faith? The Lord himself is. That's not to say
we should do everything that we can to try to rightly teach
them, get them in the right church and hearing the right doctrine
and get the right books in their hands and educate them and all
those things. But, you know, if the Lord deals
with their hearts and they're converted, you know, he's going
to keep them in the end. He's a whole lot better keeper
than we are. He's a whole lot better watchman than we are. Now, on the other hand, Paul
also expresses his supreme confidence in the justice of God. And in
the fact that God will deal justly and righteously with the false
teachers who have introduced this another gospel to the Galatians. That's the other side of this
in verse 10. Look at the second half of verse 10. But he that
troubleth you shall bear his judgment. whosoever he be. That's the other part of the
confidence he has. God will keep the elect, but God will also
righteously and justly judge the false teachers. The verb
here for those who trouble you in Greek is terrasso. It means
disturb, terrify, frighten. It's used to describe stirring
up water. Those who have stirred up the
waters. And Paul used this same verb exactly in Galatians 1.7
to describe these false teachers. He talked of the gospel, the
another gospel that they had preached in verse 6, and then
he says in verse 7, which is not another, but there be some
that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Now he's
going to go on and say here in Galatians 5 10 about them. Those
who trouble you shall bear their own judgment, whoever they be. Paul is affirming here that God
will not spare false teachers. Jesus said in Luke 17, too, that
it would be better for one who offends or scandalizes one of
the little ones, one of the immature Christians to have a millstone
hung around his back, his neck, and to have him be cast into
the sea. And in the book of Jude, in Jude verse 4, it speaks of
false teachers who crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained
to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our
God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord
Jesus Christ. It's just a reminder, a little
book of Jude, 2 Peter is a reminder of this, that God will deal with
false teachers. Just as God is no respecter of
persons in salvation, he is no respecter of persons in judgment.
Notice at the end of verse 10, he says he will judge those who
are troubling the Galatians, whosoever he be. Paul says false teachers will
be judged no matter who they are, no matter what worldly credentials
they hold. There are going to be many people
who have stood behind pulpits and have been professors in religion
departments, there are going to be many teachers who are going
to be held to account for what they have said. And it's a quite
fearful thing to say. Just notice, Paul isn't holding
anybody else to a standard. He's not willing to be held to
himself. Look back at Galatians 1.8, where previously he said,
But 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. Paul is saying, if I come back and I tell you that
you need Christ plus some other practice or action, let me be
accursed. If there seems to be an angel
come down from heaven and preaches to you that you need Christ plus
some other practice to be saved, let that creature be accursed. And we all know from what Paul
said in 2 Corinthians, sometimes Satan can masquerade as an angel
of light. And so here, Paul is addressing,
again, in two ways, confident in the perseverance of the saints,
confident in God's justice. Here we see both sides of that
in verse 10. Paul is saying, Don't take the
word of any man based merely on his reputation or appearance,
but ask whether or not his teaching measures up to the revelation
of God in Scripture. In verse 11, then Paul seems
to be addressing a different kind of charge or accusation. I think there's some back story
to this. And so in chapter five, verse
11, he says, And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision,
why do I yet suffer persecution? And from this, we can glean that
apparently Some of the false teachers had claimed that what
they were teaching, the need for circumcision was in line
with what Paul preached. They were saying, oh, what we're
telling you is just what Paul said. Paul also preached that
you need to be circumcised in order to be saved. In other words,
they were saying, Paul's a legalist just like we are. Paul preached
works righteousness just like we're preaching. Maybe they even
called attention to the fact that During Paul's second missionary
journey, as it's recorded in Acts 16.3, Paul had circumcised
Timothy when he joined him on that missionary journey. But
when we look at Act 16, three, where it says Paul had Timothy
circumcised, we must remember that Paul did not say this was
necessary for Timothy's salvation, but he probably did so because
he did not want it to be a stumbling block in Timothy's ministry and
Paul's own ministry to his fellow Jews. In fact, it fits with what
we can call Paul's incarnational philosophy of ministry. which
he lays out in 1 Corinthians 9 19 and following where he says,
For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself a
servant unto all that I might gain the more. And under the
Jews, I became as a Jew that I might gain the Jews. To them
that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them
that are under the law. To them that are without the
law, meaning Gentiles, as without the law, being not without law
to God, but under the law to Christ, that I might gain them
that are without the law. To the weak I became as weak,
that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men,
that I might by all means save some. And so the point is, perhaps
some people have taken Paul's incarnational philosophy of the
fact that he had Timothy circumcised, the fact that in some circumstances
Paul would live according to Jewish custom in order to have
an opportunity to preach Christ. They said our preaching is the
same as Paul's. And Paul's going to respond to
that here, he's going to say, wait a second, this is a false
accusation and it's an intentional misunderstanding of my ministry. So he says, and I, brethren,
notice he still calls them brothers despite the disputes that they
had. And I, brethren, if I yet preach
circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? And here's Paul's
response. Listen. If I'm in line with these
Judaizers, why are they persecuting me? Why are they opposing me? If I'm preaching that The gospel
is calm in Christ, but it doesn't really mean anything. You just
keep living like a Jew. Then why am I being persecuted?
Why am I being cast out of synagogues? Why am I being harried by civil
officials? Why am I being accused of being
a troublemaker? Not only does the presence of
persecution that Paul is undergoing prove that he has in no way preached
the necessity of circumcision, But more powerfully. Paul also
points to the fact that he's continuing to preach the scandalous
message of the cross. If I'm preaching, you need to
be circumcised to be saved, Paul is saying. Then I'm no longer
preaching the cross, and guess what, friends, I am preaching
the cross. So he says in the verse 11, then is the offense
of the cross ceased. If I'm preaching you need Christ
plus circumcision, then the scandal or the offense of the cross is
nullified. If I preach salvation by works
righteousness through circumcision or anything else, then I am no
longer preaching the cross. What was the significance of
the preaching of the cross? Paul outlines this in 1 Corinthians
1. Verse 22 and following where he says, For the Jews require
a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ
crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness.
But unto them which are called, Palaio, effectually called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,
because the foolishness of God is wiser than men. and the weakness
of God is stronger than men. The scandal of the cross was
that God saves men not through their external piety, not through
their works of charity, not through their mental working out of right
doctrine, but God through Christ saves people by the bloody death
of a righteous and perfect man upon the cross. The cross plus
nothing equals salvation for the elect. Paul is saying, if
I'm preaching circumcision, I'm not preaching the offense of
the cross any longer. The last thing that Paul says
here is probably the verse that's most discussed about this passage. Maybe the one you might be most
familiar with. Paul says here at the end to
these Judaizers, of these Judaizers, I would, they were even cut off,
which trouble you. I would they, the they here is
the false teachers, the troublers. He says, I wish that they were
even cut off. The verb he uses here is apokopto. Apo in Greek is a little prefix
that means from. Kopto means cut. I remember earlier,
the egg copter meant to cut in the runners who cut in. Now he's
saying, I wish those who trouble you were apple copter. I wish they were cut off. That
word literally means to cut off. It also has the sense of to mutilate. And in the Greek language, it
also has the sense of to castrate. Paul is essentially saying they
care so much about circumcision. They're being so legalistic about
circumcision, I wish they would just go the whole nine yards
and emasculate themselves. So the New International Version
reads like this, as for those agitators, I wish they would
go the whole way and emasculate themselves. Indeed, it's very
vivid language that Paul uses here. And as I've already noted,
there's a little bit of a play on words, perhaps. These people
who cut in upon you, I wish they would just be cut off, Paul says.
Now, what do we say about this verse? In our modern day, there's
so much emphasis, particularly related to ministry, on a therapeutic
view of ministry. We ministers are supposed to
be seated in a chair, like psychologists, we're supposed to be good counselors.
very affirming, good hand holders. There's also more and more a
kind of a feminized view of ministry. We were riding into the church
before we got started this morning, had the radio on for a local
mainline denomination church. It was actually a woman preaching
the sermon there this morning. So there's a very feminized view
of ministry. And some might might read Paul's
words here and they might say, This is sub-christian. How can
Paul possibly say, how can a Christian minister possibly say, I would,
they were even cut off, which trouble you knowing the deeper
implications of that? Some might say Paul had anger
issues. He's just too harsh. He needs training and counseling. They might go searching for other
places in Paul's writings where he says similar things. You want
to you can find lots of this in Paul, quite frankly, look
at First Corinthians 421. He says to the Corinthians with
whom he's had lots of problems, he says, what will you what do
you want? Shall I come unto you with a
rod or in love and in a spirit of meekness? In other words,
when I come visit you, should I bring a whip? Should I bring
a belt to take you to the woodshed? Or should I come in love? Or
even Galatians 3 1, where he said, oh, foolish Galatians. Should an apostle call anyone
a fool? Shouldn't he be affirming? Now,
I'm not trying to excuse real abuse, real spiritual abuse.
There is real spiritual abuse that happens in churches. It
happens in a lot of conservative churches. I'm not excusing that. But I am saying here in this
place, Paul is writing as an inspired apostle. And his words
here, the best parallel to them are the imprecatory souls. We
talk about that when we sing the Psalms. A lot of times you
come across some of the Psalms and you're like, whoa, where's
the gospel in this? Psalm 137. Oh, Babylon, blessed
is the one who takes your little nursing infants and dashes their
heads against the rocks. And here Paul is expressing an
imprecatory sentiment. And the thing about it is, I
think it was so infused with the spirit of God and so infused
with a sense of the righteousness of God and the holiness of God.
That it issued out of him in an inspired warning against ungodliness. What we see in this is the degree
to which a holy God hates false teaching and hates for his precious
lambs to be misled and to be abused. Those who preach falsehood,
Paul says they should be cut off and they will be cut off. What did he say earlier back
in chapter five in the second half of verse 10? He that trouble
you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he shall be. Well, we've worked through the
passage, and as John reminds me, like clockwork, we got to
come to the conclusions or the gleanings or the spiritual points. And I threaten to add to my normal
three points a fourth things that apply to John Beach. But
let's see what kind of what kind of applications that we can draw
upon this today. It's over lunch last Sunday.
We're talking about last week's passage. Ron and I were talking
about it and we were talking about wondering about did the
Judaizers really believe that circumcision could save you?
They were saying you've got to believe in Christ, but they were
saying you also should obey the law. So weren't they being righteous
and were they really that misguided? Didn't they believe in Jesus
and then they were just extra zealous in wanting to keep the
law? Yes, we might say that perhaps there were some things that were
right about what they were saying. As Christians, we do want to
obey God's moral law. We do want to be obedient, but
They mixed in enough error with the truth that it made their
whole belief structure wrong. They thought they had it so right,
but they were wrong. That happens a lot of times in
the field of your spiritual belief. Sometimes you think you've got
everything right. And then later on, you come to
understand that you had some things wrong. All false religions
and all false cults believe that they have the truth. And they
hold their beliefs with great sincerity and often with great
fervor. You ever had a discussion with
a Jehovah's Witness or with a Mormon? They sincerely believe and they
fervently believe that what they hold to is true. But all their
sincerity and their fervency doesn't mean that they're right.
The Judaizers had a false persuasion. Paul nails it in verse 8. This persuasion cometh not of
him that calleth you. The persuasion, the conviction
you have does not come from God, no matter how sincerely you hold
it or how fervently you hold it. Now, I noted last week The
problem in the modern church today, the problem for believers
today is not any longer about circumcision. That was the problem
in the first century. But we still do battle with works
righteousness, do we not? And particularly conservative
and even particularly even reformed circles, because we're very conscientious
and we want to be so faithful, we want to be faithful to God's
word, there are things that come up. that we can latch on to,
just like the Judaizers latched on to circumcision, and we can
say this belief or this practice must be essential to the Christian
life. And it can be all manner of things. I mentioned a slew of them last
week. It could be head coverings. It could be women must wear dresses. It could be no television in
your house. It could be no attending secular
movies. It can be you've got a homeschool,
you've got to discipline your children according to this newest
parent manual that's come out from the latest Christian guru.
And we can latch on to particular kinds of things and say, I need
Christ. Plus, I need these modern varieties
of circumcision. Essentially, in order to be saved.
And in fact, what we're really saying is I need to add something
to the crosswork of Christ in order to be saved. And this is
why Galatians, I think, is in the New Testament. Because we
keep going back to this book and we keep reviewing it. And
we keep examining what we hold to and reminding ourselves, friends,
if we're saved, It's only because of Christ. And it's only because
of the cross. And if I'm leaning on anything
else, no matter how wholesome, no matter how good it might be
in some ways. If I'm leaning upon anything
else and I'm trusting in that for my righteousness, for my
salvation, I am Eric. If I'm really saved, I have confidence
in the Lord. that I will not be otherwise
minded. And I'll repent of that. And I'll turn back to Christ.
Well, as I've noted, we conservative Christians are prone to get into
these types of traps. How do we shake ourselves loose
from false persuasions? And I want to suggest briefly
just three ways we might shake ourselves loose from false persuasions. First of all, this is the most
important. We should practice discernment.
We should practice discernment. I really truly am surprised at
how many of my fellow Christians sometimes they'll come to me
with a book or a website or something and they'll say, oh, this is
a great Christian idea or whatever. And just because it has the name
Christian or quote some Bible verses doesn't necessarily mean
it's rightly dividing the word of God. And so we need to be
discerning. We have resources that God has
given us to practice discernment. The best resource we have, of
course, is the Bible, the key resource we have. And so anything
that someone presents to us as a as a as a belief or a practice,
the first thing we have to do and we have to ask ourselves,
is it biblical? Can you show me book, chapter
and verse? And can you show me not just
one proof text? But can you show me a whole constellation
of Scriptures that systematically teach this truth? And then I
might go even further. I can use the resource of God's
church. This is, friends, a big reason
why we need the church. I can bring that idea or that
practice into the body of believers. And over lunch or over the women's
Bible study or men's gathering or fellowship, I can say, brothers,
sisters, what do you think of this? And they can tell me. And then that's just that's using
the church visible. But I also have access to the
resource of the church universal. And I have access to all the
great elders and teachers of the church. I can pull down Matthew
Henry's commentary and I could pull out Matthew Poole's commentary
and I can pull John Calvin's commentaries. And I've got a
vast resource. of teachers and elders. I've got the living elders in
my local church, too, that I can appeal to. Who have been given
to the church to help people be discerning. I also have the
resources of prayer and meditation. And so I should draw upon all
these resources when some new idea or new practice is presented
to me as something that is essential for the Christian life. John
said in 1 John 4 1, Beloved, believe not every spirit, but
try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false
prophets have gone out into the world. The second resource that
we have is time. We have time, we should take
our time. We're presented with some new idea or some new practice,
it might be something that's biblical and right, we should
we should pursue, but We also shouldn't make hasty decisions.
There are few decisions in life that cannot be helped by taking
adequate time to make them. If you've ever studied logic,
you know, there's a logical fallacy called the fallacy of exigency.
It's often used by politicians and lawyers. And it's the idea
of everything's urgent. We've got to make a decision
now. We've got to make this quickly or all is lost. And usually when
someone is doing that, they are manipulating you into making
an uninformed decision. You have time. You have time
to pray. Time to think. Time to read. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
five to be not rash with thy mouth and let not thine heart
be hasty to utter anything before God. For God is in heaven and
thou upon earth. Therefore, let thy words be few.
The third resource we have. Is that we should strive to be
stable and consistent rather than erratic and inconsistent. We shouldn't be like a Christian
butterfly who flitters and flutters from one conviction and practice
to another, never settling anywhere for long. This is what the Bible
calls being double minded. In James 1.8, James said a double
minded man is unstable in all his ways. And so, friends. Here's our our our counsel is. Be stable, be stable, practice
discernment, take your time, be stable. As Paul put it in
Romans 14.5 when addressing disputable practices, let every man be persuaded
in his own mind. Friends, let us avoid the pitfalls
that the Galatians fell into. Most importantly, let us look
to Christ and to him alone for salvation. And let us avoid any
practice that tells us we need Christ plus something else. in order to be saved. Amen. Let me invite you to stand together. Let's pray. Gracious and loving God, we know
that just like the Galatians of old, we are prone to false
persuasions. And Lord, I ask that you would
ground us in the truth of the gospel the truth of the scriptures
so that we are kept in the faith, that we're not drawn to obscurity,
to cult-like practices, but we would be drawn to the pure gospel.
We would be drawn to Christ and the cross and the preaching of
Christ and him crucified. And that would be enough. That
would be enough for us. Help us to avoid the sin and
the error of taking away from God's word. Ignoring things that
are clearly there and help us to avoid the error of adding
things that clearly are not there and making these a legalistic
standard of obedience. Gracious God, again, we are we
are prone to make mistakes in this area. We are weak. We need
the strength of Christ. We need the guidance of your
spirit. Grant that to us. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
False Persuasion
Series Galatians Series
| Sermon ID | 227142124331 |
| Duration | 54:09 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Galatians 5:7-12 |
| Language | English |
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