Please turn back in your Bibles to Paul's letter to the Galatians and chapter 1, page 823 in the Pew Bible. Last Sunday morning we began to look together at this great New Testament letter. Our thoughts were occupied with verses 1 to 5, the opening greeting, and this morning we come to the next paragraph, verses 6 Galatians 1, verses 6-10. The 19th century English novelist Charles Dickens wrote a novel with the title A Tale of Two Cities. Some of you I'm sure have read that novel. The story behind this letter to the Galatians could be given a similar title. We could call it a tale of two Gospels. The first of these Gospels was the one that was preached to the Galatians by the Apostle Paul, and it was a Gospel of a very particular kind. The Lord Jesus, as the Apostle tells us himself in Acts 20 verse 24, had given him the task of testifying to the Gospel of God's grace. And accordingly, it was the gospel of God's grace that the Galatians heard from Paul's lips. It is a singularly lovely description of what the gospel is fundamentally about. Gospel, of course, means good news. It was good news that Paul preached to the people of Galatia. And that good news had everything to do with the grace of God. In his undeserved kindness, which is what this grace is all about, God had sent his own beloved Son to live and to die for sinners. And if these Galatians would but come to the Son in their need as sinners, then God, of his grace, would forgive them and grant to them eternal life. That was the Apostle's message. There was no need for them to try and earn the favor of this God whom they had wronged. It wasn't a matter of personal effort. No good works were required of them. Simple reliance upon the Savior. That's what the Apostle preached. And when the Galatians responded to that message as Numbers of them did by placing their reliance upon the Savior. Great things happened. Their sins were all forgiven. Righteousness from God himself was granted to them as a free gift. Heaven and eternal life became theirs. Then there came to Galatia a second gospel. a different gospel as Paul puts it here in verse 6 and it certainly was different. Admittedly it had elements in common with the first. It still spoke about God's goodness to sinners in providing Jesus to be the Savior and it still directed the Galatians to believe in him. But it insisted. that more than faith was needed, if its benefits were to be enjoyed. Simple reliance upon the Saviour, which had been Paul's message, that was not remotely enough. Other things were necessary as well, things that the Galatians themselves had to do, in particular. And we glean this both from the letter to the Galatians itself and from an account that we have in Acts 15 of the Council of Jerusalem. In particular, it was insisted that circumcision was necessary, an obedience to the law of Moses. Salvation from God could be enjoyed on no lesser terms. Now in the course of our exposition of this letter over the coming weeks and months, we will be looking at this matter a great deal more closely. But there in brief was the situation. To the people of Galatia, not one, but two Gospels had come. The Gospel that Paul had preached, which said that faith in Christ alone was sufficient for their justification. And now this different gospel, which said that in addition to faith, there had to be obedience to the law of Moses. The situation, to use one of today's buzzwords, was a situation of religious diversity. And in a moment or two, we will see whether Paul thought this particular species of diversity was a good thing. Before we do so, I want us to note that the same diversity exists today. On the one hand, there is the gospel of God's grace that Paul preached two millennia ago. It's here in our New Testament scriptures and all over the world it continues to be preached. Men and women, boys and girls are still being urged to place their reliance upon the Saviour and they are still being assured that if they do so they will be justified. God will pardon all their sins and clothe them with a divine righteousness. But alongside of this apostolic gospel, the strains of this different gospel are still to be heard. There has been admittedly a broadening out as far as the details are concerned, but at its heart it's just the same. Christ and faith in him are still accorded a place, but not the exclusive place. Obedience to the law of God, submission to the sacrament of baptism, a life characterized by good works, studied efforts to get and to keep in God's good graces. These are deemed to be necessary too, if we would be sure at last of heaven. Well this morning we're going to evaluate this situation and we're going to see whether or not this diversity is a good thing. And as we do so, we're going to be gathering our thoughts around this different gospel, which had so evidently grabbed the apostles' attention and which generated this letter to the Galatians. In particular, we're going to look together at three things. First of all, at the apostles' verdict on this different gospel. Secondly, at the tragic impact of this different gospel And then thirdly, at the seriousness of preaching this different gospel. Well, first of all, the Apostle's verdict on this different gospel. In two different ways, in verse 7, the Apostle pronounces his verdict on this different gospel. But before we look at these two ways in which he makes his verdict or pronounces his verdict, We need to go back for a moment to the opening words of the letter where Paul describes himself as an apostle sent not from men nor by man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Now we were thinking last Sunday morning about what that meant. It meant that Paul spoke with their authority. As an apostle sent not from men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, Paul was one of Christ's official representatives, commissioned by him in accordance with the will of God and equipped by him to teach authoritatively in his name. So Paul's verdict on this different gospel is no mere personal opinion. An opinion that we are at liberty to dissent from if it doesn't commend itself to our understandings as reasonable or right. Paul, in giving us his verdict on this different gospel, is giving us the mind of Christ. And that being so, we are to listen to it in a spirit of reverence and submission. What then is his verdict? Well, let's read what he says, beginning with verse 6. At the beginning of verse 7, he dismisses it as being no gospel at all. And at the end of the verse, he denounces it as a perversion of the gospel of Christ. Well, let's look at it a little more closely. Literally, verse 7 begins like this, which is not another. You are turning to a different or another gospel, he says, which is not another. What does he mean? Well, I think the English Standard Version, I know some of you have that in front of you, captures it well. You are turning to a different gospel, not that there is another one. In other words, there is only the one gospel. the one message of salvation from God, not two. And it's in that light that Paul passes judgment on this different gospel. It isn't another one in the sense of being a valid alternative. You can take your pick and it doesn't matter what your pick is. No, no, there is only the one gospel. And this different gospel is nothing but a perversion of the true one. And it is in exactly the same light that we are to view the alternatives that are on offer today. When it came time for my first family conference back in 2003, boys and girls, I asked for directions because I'd never been to Tuscarora before. And Mr. Esherman gave me a sheet of paper with several alternative routes. I think there were three. And it would not have mattered what I chose one of them. But it wouldn't have mattered which one I chose, because all of them eventually led to the place where our family conference was being held. But it's not like that. with a way to God. There is a way and what a wonderful thing that is. There is a way by which as sinners we can come to be right with God and that way is the way of grace. We come as poor, needy, helpless, lost and ruined sinners to a gracious and kind God and we receive from Him as a free gift through Christ the forgiveness and the righteousness that secure us a place in heaven. But that is the only way. The priceless privilege of a right standing with God is not something that we attain to by our own efforts. It's not by works of any kind. It is by faith alone, in Christ alone, and any so-called gospel that tells us otherwise is no gospel at all. but a perversion of the truth. So the apostle does not celebrate the diversity that had arisen in Galatia. He condemns it and we condemn it too. The apostolic gospel is the benchmark It is the standard by which we judge all the alternatives in the religious market that are offered to us and pressed upon our acceptance. Ask yourself as you listen, as you hear, does this gospel give an exclusive place to grace? Does it send me to God with empty hands that I might receive his salvation as a gift? Does it shut me up to Christ and his life and death and say to me that Christ has done it all and that God requires nothing of me but my acceptance of him? Does it forbid me to try and supplement with my own works the perfectly sufficient work of Christ? If not, if the gospel that you are listening to is giving you instead the task of obtaining God's favour by a course of obedience and doing good, then what you are hearing is in fact no gospel at all, but rather a perversion of the gospel. and you must give it no more house room than the Apostle Paul himself did. So we have considered the Apostle's verdict on this different gospel. Secondly, the tragic impact of this different gospel. Verse 6, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. You will be familiar with the fact that in most of Paul's letters the introductory greeting is followed either by thanksgiving to God for some aspect of his work in the lives of the believers to whom the apostle is writing or praise to God in the form of a doxology or eulogy. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the letter to the Galatians, however, Paul does neither. The situation that this different gospel has created is so alarming and such a burden upon the Apostle's heart that he is compelled to address himself to it immediately. I am astonished. that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Now it's evident from these words, isn't it, that these preachers of the different gospel were enjoying an alarming success. They were not only getting a hearing in Galatia, they were gaining a following. The Galatian Christians were embracing this new message that was being preached to them when they had started to observe the Law of Moses. In Galatians 4 verse 10, for example, Paul says, you are observing special days and months and seasons and years. And in chapter 5 verse 4, he addresses himself to those who are trying to be justified by law. Now when Paul had been there, there had been none of that. He had taught them justification by faith alone and they had welcomed that message and they had begun to look to Christ and Christ alone as the sole ground of their acceptance with God. But now they're being taught this different gospel. A gospel which said that unless they were circumcised and obeyed the law of Moses they could forget about being justified. And they were believing it. Now from verse 6 you will notice that Paul responds to this situation in two ways. First of all, he expresses his astonishment. I am astonished. that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. It's the same word that is used of our Lord Jesus in Mark chapter 6. In Nazareth, it says Mark, he could not do any miracles except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed, astonished, at their lack of faith. It was just astounding to the Lord Jesus that in the face of everything that ought to have led these people to faith, they responded to him with unbelief. And here is Paul, and it is just astonishing to him that people who have actually exercised faith, who have believed the gospel, are so quickly turning to a different gospel. It's almost, he says, as if you've been bewitched. Chapter 3, verse 1, oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? As if someone has cast a spell. Just amazing that having been so impacted by the truth, they should be so swiftly turning aside. to error. And then secondly he endeavours to open their eyes to what they are actually doing. What are they actually doing in turning from this different gospel? Well he tells us in the first part of the verse. You are deserting the one who has called you by the grace of Christ, namely God himself. John Stott, in his very helpful exposition of Galatians, has some interesting facts about this word that is translated deserting. It signifies, he says, to transfer one's allegiance. It is used of soldiers in the army who revolt or desert, and of men who change sides in politics or philosophy. It is of this, he continues, that Paul accuses the Galatians. They are religious turncoats, spiritual deserters. And as you can see from verse 6, it's not just the message that they are deserting, not just the doctrine, To turn from the gospel of God's grace and to attempt to be justified by law was to desert the very God who had so graciously called them. By turning away from the gospel, says Paul, you are turning away from Him. So he expresses his astonishment and he sounds this alarm in deserting the gospel, you're deserting the God who has called you. Now the insistence that it is by faith alone, in Christ alone that we are justified is of course a key element in our evangelistic message. And we seek to warn, don't we? our fellow men and women against the notion so natural to fallen natures that in order to be right with God and sure of heaven there are certain good works that we need to do. We proclaim a gospel of grace and we say to men and women, boys and girls, that because it is by grace that we are saved there is no place for human merit and human work. Christ has done it all by his life and atoning death, and by doing so he has provided a perfect righteousness for sinners. And that righteousness is now offered as a free gift and is to be received by faith alone. That's our evangel, isn't it? Our good news for lost and helpless sinners. It's our good news for you this morning if you have not yet believed in Christ. The letter to the Galatians, however, impresses upon us forcibly that this is not just a message for the unbeliever. Galatians is not an evangelistic tract. It was written for Christians, who having embraced the gospel of grace, were turning to a gospel of works. And Paul says to them, and what a shock it must have been for them to hear this, because I don't suppose it would have entered their mind. Paul says, by doing so, you are actually turning from the God who called you. You're acting the part of spiritual turncoats. You are apostatizing. Our upstairs adult Sunday's class this morning was all about the doctrine of perseverance and if you were there you were reminded of the certainty of our perseverance. Those who are truly joined to Christ can never be separated from him. They will persevere to the end in holiness, obedience and faith and they will be finally saved. The letter to the Galatians, however, and in this respect it is very much the same as the letter to the Hebrews. The letter to the Galatians confronts us with the fact that perseverance doesn't just happen. This letter is written to Christians who were drifting dangerously, who were turning away from the truth and who in doing so were turning from the God who had saved them. And Paul is warning them here and the writer through the Hebrews is doing the same but the consequences of such a drift are ultimately fatal. You continue on to the end like this and you will be lost. That's so very clearly emphasized in the letter to the Hebrews and it's no less grave a situation here in Galatia. That's the warning. to those who are drifting and the design of the warning is to get them to take the situation seriously and to return and to take a fresh hold of the truth from which they are drifting and by that means to persevere in faith and dependence upon God to the very end. And it may just be that there is someone here this morning who needs the same kind of warning, same kind of warning that Paul utters here in these opening verses of his letter to the Galatians and for the very same purpose. Has the ground of your hope been shifting? Are you no longer looking with the same single eye as before? to the Lord Jesus Christ and his precious work for sinners as the only hope of your salvation. Is your reliance being placed now not just upon Jesus but upon your own efforts, your obedience to his law, your observance of the Lord's Supper, Is it to these things that you are looking, at least in part, as the ground of your confidence of God's acceptance and the gift of eternal life? Well if it is, then let me say to you kindly but firmly, you are doing just what the Galatians were doing. You are turning from the one gospel that there is. and in doing so you are deserting the God who has called you in the grace of Christ. That's how serious that drift is. And there's only one remedy, and that is to return to the doctrine of God's grace that you embraced at the first, and to again place all your reliance, all your hope, all your confidence upon Christ and upon Christ alone. And if that is what you are doing, persevere in it to the end. So we've looked at the apostle's verdict on this different gospel. We've looked at the tragic impact of this different gospel. And now thirdly and lastly, the seriousness of preaching. this different gospel, and here we come to the explosive words of verses 8 and 9. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned. As we have already said, so now I say again, If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. Right at the beginning of this sermon we were thinking about the gospel Paul preached to the Galatians and which on hearing they accepted. There is the Gospel, verse 12, that the Apostle received by revelation from Jesus Christ and which, as we have heard, he authoritatively declares to be the one Gospel that there is, the one message sent from heaven to tell us how heaven may be ours. And we have been glancing at the rival. that on the apostles absence had been causing such disruption amongst the churches in Galatia and which continues to be heard all over the world today. The gospel that differs from the true one at the most fundamental of levels in its insistence on making works a condition of our acceptance with God. And now here in verses 8 and 9 in thunderous language The Apostle leaves us in no doubt as to what an immensely serious thing it is to preach that different gospel. It renders the preacher, he says, worthy of nothing less than eternal condemnation. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned. You are not only in trouble if you turn to this different gospel. You are in trouble if you preach this different gospel. Deep trouble. And you will notice that it doesn't matter who the preacher is. He may be an angel from heaven. He may be the apostle Paul himself. It makes no difference. Eminence will be no shield No exceptions are admitted. Whoever preaches this different gospel, Paul wishes the divine curse to rest on him. The word itself, translated here in the NIV as eternally condemned, is the Greek word anathema. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, it's the word that is used in the book of Joshua for the devoted things and the devoted people of Canaan. And we were thinking about these devoted things and devoted people some months ago. They were under the divine curse, anathema, and were to be devoted to destruction. And Paul's desire is that the divine destruction would come upon those who preach this different gospel. This error is so serious, so destructive, so robs God of his glory and sinners of the knowledge of the one way of salvation. But he invokes God's curse on those who preach it. A curse that when it lights on them, will certainly involve nothing less than what the NIV describes as eternal condemnation. And you will notice that he repeats it. Perhaps to make it clear that he's not being carried away in the least by the passion of his heart, but as speaking with great deliberateness, he repeats the imprecation. Verse 9. As we have already said, so now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. James Denny, in his book, The Death of Christ, has some helpful comments on this. He says, for example, to touch Paul's teaching, that is his teaching about the gospel, and not to do something that leaves his gospel unaffected. Let me start again. To touch Paul's teaching is not to do something that leaves his gospel unaffected. It is rather, says Denny, to wound his gospel mortally. Again, The man who perverts the gospel is the worst enemy of God and man. It is not bad temper or narrow-mindedness in Paul which explains this vehement language. It is the jealousy of God which has kindled in a soul redeemed by the death of Christ a corresponding jealousy for the Saviour. It is, he says, the unforced and uncompromising defence of that on which the glory of God and the salvation of the world depends. In other words, the apostle understands what is at stake here and he speaks accordingly. Now we are not warranted in concluding from this that those who preach this different gospel will certainly be condemned. And I say that not for one moment to dilute what Paul is saying here but because God is and has been merciful to many such preachers. They have preached a salvation of works and God has opened their eyes and they have been converted and ever afterwards they have preached the true gospel. Banner of Truth just recently published a book called The Letters of Thomas Chalmers, a huge volume of letters That was Chalmers' history. He despised, he hated the doctrine, the evangelical doctrine of justification by faith alone. And he preached morality for the first few years of his ministry. And then God converted him. And ever afterwards he became the great champion of the Galatian teaching on justification by faith alone. So there is mercy for the preachers of this different gospel if they will seek that mercy. The curse pronounced does not exclude the possibility of repentance. But where that repentance doesn't happen, where preachers continue to insist on a religion of works as the way to heaven, the curse of God will ultimately fall on them. They have led their hearers astray. They have fatally distorted the one message that tells us how to get right with God. They have helped to shut their hearers out of heaven. And their punishment will be to be shut out of heaven themselves and to be instead eternally condemned. Well it's obvious from the Apostle's language that he's not the time-server, the man-pleaser that, as it seems from verse 10, his enemies were accusing him of being. He was a servant of Christ and as such he acted and spoke. And what a heart for Christ. And what a heart for his gospel. And what a heart for his people. this man had. You feel the intensity of it as you read his burning words in verses 8 and 9. This is a man whose eyes are wide open to the seriousness of what these Galatians are doing in turning to this different gospel and the sinfulness, the damnableness of what these troublemakers were doing in preaching it. And brethren, we are rightly challenged by the apostle. We need to ask ourselves, how clearly do we see the danger that is being posed by corruptors of the gospel of God's grace today? How deeply do we feel it? Don't we sense as we listen to the apostle? I certainly do, and it's such a humbling thing. Don't we sense that we need a far larger share of the Apostle's understanding and a far larger share of the Apostle's heart for Christ and the Gospel and his people than we presently possess? And I want you to make it your prayer that as in the will of God and with God's help We make our way through this letter to the Galatians. That will be one of the distinguishing fruits of it in our lives. That we will come to share something more than we do of the Apostle's understanding of the issues that are at stake here. And come to share more of his heart and its burden for those who are being led astray and his glorying. in the true gospel. And then finally this, in just a moment. Paul's anxiety here, as he writes this letter, is to break the hold that his opponents in Galatia were having over the minds of these dear people. And what he's really saying through verses 8 and 9 is this. These are not the kind of men you should be listening to. These are not the kind of men that you should be taking for your spiritual guides. and nor must we. They may be very popular, very gifted, very eloquent, very influential, very learned. They may hold high ecclesiastical office, and they may be looked up to by millions. And Paul says, don't be dazzled. Ask yourself the question, what is their message? That's the critical thing. What's their gospel? And as you value your immortal soul and desire to be right with God and sure of heaven, if their gospel is not the gospel of God's grace that you find in the pages of the New Testament, but a different gospel, then reject them and their message with them. Let us pray.