reading the sanctifying scripture. As this scripture is read, if you will receive it, you are as pure and clean as Jesus himself. The Apostle Paul writing to the Galatians in chapter two, verse 16. Father, we read this to you, thanking you that you have set us free. I'll tell you what I'm doing, I'm losing weight. Now I'm gonna tell you, that was not God, that was the devil. He doesn't like the scripture. I love it when you laugh. That's when you laugh at me. Cause I always wanted to be a comedian, but I never did have enough sense. Chapter two of Galatians 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith. of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. May God's grace just get a hold of you. so so so so you you you you you I said at eight o'clock that the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. This is Virginia, our pianist granddaughter. And thank God for those who had the ability to play beautiful music. I always wanted to play the piano. In fact, I tried to take lessons, but I have a humbling fault. And that is that I have dyslexia. And music is just like math. It's exact. And it's fine to have studied the theory. I've done that, music theory. But taking it and put it in your hands, if you have a humbling problem, you find out, okay, I'll try to sing a little bit. because I'm not going to be able to ever play the piano. But thank God we have those who can. And I love beautiful music. It is so soothing and so uplifting. Now, I am repeating some things because it's very important that we have ourselves released, most of us, were raised in a church, basically the Baptist and then the Pentecostal and the Holiness people, they spent more time telling you what not to do rather than what to do. It's important the way you stop not doing is do what you should do. And this is what the apostle, the future apostle Paul is doing. He's been raised. He has been the top-notch man in legalism. And now he has been saved by the grace of God, and the churches are afraid of him. He tries to go to Jerusalem. They will have him. They're afraid of him. He tries to go to Caesarea, even the Romans are afraid of him. They know what a killer he had been to Christians and to fellow men. And so finally, as you'll find as I read to you from the scripture, he has to go to Arabia, the same place where Mohammed found the establishment of Islam. But Islam is a religion that says submit, and submit's okay if you're submitting to the right. Submission is very important if you submit to that which you should be submitting to. So as I bring you this message today, please allow God by his grace to set you free from religion and give you the fullness of the grace of God. Brother Phil and I have spent about 40 years together working here in this church. We speak often to each other about how that we have been blessed by the grace of God. except for the grace of God, I would never be standing here. Thank God and may you find that unmerited love and favor. And may you accept nothing else because religion puts you in bondage. Salvation and the grace set you free. And I'm going to preach that as long as I can. By the way, just to make a little thing, you know now why I stand behind the pulpit. Okay, now let's get out of the scriptures, all right? We'll first look at Luke 9.30, just one verse, Luke 9.30, which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him to Tarsus. Saul was not welcome. After he had accepted Christ and had been born again, and had preached Jesus as the Messiah. The churches would not accept him. They were afraid of him. And there's a lesson for us today about that. The church wants to hide inside this building. How dare we go out into this world and have any kind of relationship with somebody who is evil and going to hell? Did you know that God expects you to love them? I have an example that is a very personal example and you'll have to be careful to understand every word I say. When I went to Los Angeles to pastor the church out there, before I left Oklahoma, one of my preacher friends had a son who lived in Los Angeles. And he's a great friend of mine. He's gone to be with the Lord now. But he asked me, I have a son, he said, who lives there in the Los Angeles area, and I do not in any way approve of his lifestyle. Would you please go meet him and talk to him? Maybe you can have some influence on him. I called him. We met for lunch downtown Los Angeles. And he tried his best, when I use that word best, you know I'm putting some marks around it, to make me very uncomfortable being around him. First thing, we walked in. I sat down at the table in this very nice restaurant. I take my napkin, put it in my lip. He said, you've embarrassed me. We don't do that out here. We order a drink first. And after we had our drink, then you could pick your napkin. I said, get me a Coke. But here's the good part. I believe I was able to have influence on him. When brother Phil and I came to preach his sister's funeral at Hoto, Oklahoma, Jimmy was there. He wanted to read something at the funeral service and his dad wouldn't let him in the sanctuary. But he came to us and said, let me go to the grave at Panama. Would you let me read this for my sister? And I just thank God that he was able to do that. And I pray to God I had some influence. That's what it's all about, people. It's not about us just going around soothing each other. But we should go and ask God, bring that person into my life that I can be a blessing to and show them the grace of God. Now, Luke did not write any more about what happened to Paul after the 30th verse of the 9th chapter. But Paul, after he had become the great apostle, he made a mission trip to Galatia. If you were to go to the place where he went today, you'd be in Northern Turkey. And so he went to Galatia and he revealed to the Galatians what happened to him after he went back to Tarsus when the churches would not accept him. They didn't want him, they were afraid of him. And so he goes to Galatia and the Judaizers have already been there and they're trying to get those people away from the grace of God. And Paul wants them to know that the grace of God is the way of God in this age we live in, the age of grace. So I'll begin now to what he wrote to the Galatians in Galatians, the first chapter of verse 11. It starts out this way. I certify you. He says, I want you to know what I'm going to tell you. I have it notarized by the notary in heaven. I want you to know this is not something that man has been able to cook up. This is of God and I have certification. What I'm gonna tell you is 100% of the Lord Jesus Christ. I certify you brethren, those of you who have been saved as I have, that the gospel, the good news, which was preached of me is not of man. It's of God. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but I was taught it by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to know, I have studied this very thoroughly and I'm very comfortable what I'm gonna say right now. He had to go down to Arabia and at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses had received the law and given it to the children of Israel. And they never kept it. They said they would, but they never did because Jesus is the only one who could ever keep the law. So he, at the foot of Mount Sinai, Jesus came back to this earth and taught him. what he teaches all over the Mediterranean areas. He established churches all over the Roman Empire during his day. For we have heard, for you have heard of my conversation. That's the King James Version. Actually, we don't use it that way today. You have heard of my way of life. in times past. In the Jews' religion. I didn't have the God religion, I had the religion of the Jews. And here's the thing that's so sad. Most of our Jewish, I call them brothers and sisters, and I think they are, they do not study the word, they study the traditions of the word. The rabbis would have some kind of a buzz, and they would start teaching and they didn't teach the word of God, they taught the traditions of men. And it's proven here in verse 14. And I profited in the Jews' religion. He did. As a matter of fact, he became the head of the Sanhedrin. He was the most powerful Jew. on the face of the earth there in Jerusalem, when he was persecuting the church of the living God and even having people killed for believing in Jesus. And so he said, it was profitable for me to stay in the religion I was in, but it wasn't of God. Being more exceedingly zealous, he was full of, for what he believed in. Be careful when you're around a religious zealot. They may do you more harm than good. You do not want to be a religious zealot. You want to be a person who is filled. with the grace of God for all mankind, whether you like them or whether you don't. Your job is to project the grace of God to all human beings, the unmerited love and favor. And I know some of you already, because you've been raised in your early time, especially in church, in all of these rules and regulations. And they have made you things that you should never be. You have become more damaging to the people who need to be saved because you don't want to have anything to do with them. They get pure and holy as you think you are. Neither went I to Jerusalem to them which were apostles. He couldn't go to them. They were afraid of him. and I returned again to Damascus. And after three years, he tried to fit in. After three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and I bowed there 15 days. He wanted to show Simon Peter what he had found in verse 17. And they had, the Bible doesn't record what they said, but I believe that the apostle, the future apostle Paul, taught the apostle Peter all the things he learned from Jesus Christ at the foot of Mount Sinai. I went to Arabia, it says in verse 17, and you say, well, how do you know that's Mount Sinai? How do you, can you prove that? I have never heard that before. Well, if I can get this Bible to open up, I'm gonna get it. Bear with me. He gives the example in the book, the fourth chapter of the book of Galatians. He gives the example of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. If you have studied that part of the Bible in Genesis, you know that Abraham and Sarah had reached an old age and they still did not have the promised child. So, Sarah did something she should not have done. She said to her husband, Abraham, go into my Egyptian maid and have a child by her, and that'll be the promised child. Well, that's how Ishmael was born. Ishmael was not the promised child, and they fouled up by getting ahead of God. Don't get ahead of him. Walk hand in hand with him. But just to prove to you about the Mount Sinai thing, verse 25. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answers Jerusalem, which is now. He said, I've been down there and there's nothing happening in Jerusalem that is on the earth. It's not doing what it should do. But now I want you to know, but Jerusalem, which is above is free heaven. And I love that song. Heaven came down and glory filled my soul. But I am following the Jerusalem which is above, the Jerusalem which is free, which is the mother of us all. My spiritual mother is not Jerusalem. It's not Shani. It's not Rome. It's heaven. And my mother, the one who is given by me birth spiritually, is in heaven. But Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that beareth not. Break forth and cry, thou that travailest not. For the desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband. But we, brethren, as Isaac was, we are the children of promise. But as when he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born of the spirit, even so it is now. You're going to be taught a great lesson. by people who think they're very holy. And you're gonna find out that no human being is holy, and the only good is Jesus in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Thank God for this young man who's gonna be baptized. Brother Phil will probably say some things, so I'll not try to explain it, so it'll be explained once. And thank you for being here today, this young man. is going to be an example of the grace of God.