 Today we're in chapter 5 here in Galatians. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 12. Let's begin reading together at verse 1. I'll read to verse 12, and we'll get into our study. Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse 1, reading to verse 12. Paul writes, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. And do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he's a debtor to keep the whole law. You become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law. You have fallen from grace. For we, through the Spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind. But he who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is. And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution than the offense of the cross is ceased? I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off. Paul has been reminding, as we get into this study, Paul has been reminding the glations of an important lesson. And that lesson, obviously, as he's been given that lesson to them from chapter one to this point here, is that they're not under the bondage of the Jewish law. They have been made free through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is a fulfillment of the law. Jesus was the one who took every jot, every tittle. He's the one who fulfilled it all. It was all fulfilled in him. And so what we, as Christians, do is we trust in the one who is able to do all that we cannot do. The law calls for perfect obedience. And cursed is the one who does not keep the entire law. And so not a single one of us in this room, no human being outside of Jesus Christ, has ever lived, who could fully satisfy the righteous demands of the law of God. As we've already seen, the law of God was a school master. It was a tutor. It was intended to take the student and deposit them at the feet of the teacher. And the law of God was intended to awaken and to us an awareness that I was unable to live the life that I wanted to live or on occasion may desire to live. I didn't have the ability within me to do that. I needed help. I needed a savior. And so Paul has been emphasizing the grace of God all through the book of Galatians. And he's been speaking concerning false teachers who have entered in who are enslaving these Galatians, these Gentiles, though there are some Jews amongst them, who are enslaving them by attempting to bring them into the law of Moses and demanding that they fulfill it, that they obey it, that they wear the yoke of it, that they receive circumcision and all. And that's what he's been speaking about. And so what Paul wants them to do is live into liberty, that freedom, that freedom that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And so that's how he begins here in verse 1, when he says, stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. And do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Stand fast. When he says stand fast, therefore, in the liberty, the term stand fast literally means keep on standing. Be persevering. Remain planted. Be steadfast and immovable in that freedom that Christ gives to you. Remain free since Jesus Christ is a one who set you free. Don't get caught up trying to become super spiritual into and to make yourself good before God. Don't get caught up with trying to keep laws and ordinances and commands by men. Don't get caught up doing that, he's saying to them. Remain free in Jesus Christ and stand fast in that. Remain planted firmly in the freedom you have, the freedom you have over the domination of sin, the freedom you have from the fear of death, the freedom you have from the upcoming judgment. Remain steadfast in the liberty that you have, the freedom you've been set free from the spiritual captivity of Satan. Remain strong in the joy of grace, the joy of grace that overcomes the demands of the law. Remain strong in those things. I can't help but encourage all of us in this room to do that. Do not get caught up trying to make ourselves into something. But to discipline ourselves into the elements of holiness, pursue the things that make for peace. But to remember who's going to fulfill that work in us, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit remains in you and it bides with you. The Holy Spirit empowers you, strengthens you, gifts you. And it's all by grace, guys. It's all by the grace of God, not by works of righteousness which we have done. According to His mercy, He saved us by the washing of regeneration, by the renewing of the Holy Spirit. And so He's saying, I want you to remain fast, stand fast in the liberty in that freedom by which Christ has made us free. And He says, do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Stop being, literally, stop being held in a yoke of bondage. When He says, do not be entangled, that word entangled is the simple word that speaks of being ensnared by a trap. Don't be trapped. Don't be entrapped. These false teachers called the Judaizers are trying to lasso the Galatians for the old yoke of Judaism. And some Jewish believers were being tempted to return to the Jewish law. They had been set free. But because the arguments were so convincing and because there were certain things that they found appealing in the law, the Jewish believers were returning or being tempted to return to that yoke of bondage. And the Gentiles were being seduced to go to it. And so Paul says, no, you need to begin to understand that it's the freedom that Christ gave to you that really is the joyful thing about being a believer. Jesus came to set us free from this yoke that produces bondage. And He gave us a life of grace through faith in Him. Remember in Matthew chapter 11, if you take notes that's found in Matthew 11, 28 through 30. Remember there how Jesus said, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy. My burden, He said, is light. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. So when Jesus said, take my yoke upon you, that was a rabbinical term representing the sum total of obligations that a person must take upon himself. The Jews knew that word yoke because they had the yoke of the law. They had the yoke of the commandments. Yoke of the kingdom of heaven. That yoke had become legalism. And it had stolen any freedom that they might have experienced and produced bondage. So Jesus is simply saying, I can set you free. I could set you free from the ritual bondage of the ritual law. I can do what multitudes of sacrifices cannot accomplish. I can give you freedom through grace. Perhaps some of you have been with me on a Sunday night when I've mentioned this, but it seems that every pseudo-Christian cult emphasizes the same kinds of things, guys. It works righteousness. It's if you work hard, you can enter into the kingdom of heaven. And I mentioned in one of the evening studies on Sunday night how that as a younger believer, two young men came to my house. They were Mormons and they were speaking to me about their faith and I began to speak to them and I was a young believer, but I asked them some questions and we were having a discussion and I asked them, what do you have to offer me that I don't already have? What do you have to give to me that I don't have in Jesus Christ? And so I told them, I said, listen, I have freedom from sin. I have the power of the Holy Spirit. I've got a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. My name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. I'm gonna go to heaven. What do you have to offer me that I don't already have? And I'll never forget this young man's response. He said, we have the priesthood. And I said, I have Jesus Christ who is my high priest. He ever lives to make intercession for me. You don't have anything that I need and that's the bottom line. I have and you have in Christ everything you need. You are complete in Him. And when you understand that, you can live in the freedom that comes through a relationship with Him. You no longer have to beat yourself up trying to do something to make God love you. Many of us have been to places where we've seen people who have done those kinds of things trying to make God love them. I've been to the churches not only in Mexico City but in the Philippines where those poor people will get on their knees and will crawl sometimes for blocks, sometimes for miles till their knees are all torn up and bloodied. We've seen those who've taken the whips and flagellated themselves crying out for God to hear them and the blood pouring down from their backs. And all of that work and all of that attempt to get the attention of God when God has already given His attention to them, when He's a Father who loves them, who will listen to them when they cry if they would only cry out for mercy, He'll hear them and He gives His grace to them. And it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to see these young men riding their bikes, trying to get people to believe something that really isn't true. Would to God that we had the same zeal for the truth that they have for an error, that we would be willing to take of our own substance and pay for our own trips and live for two years and to preach a message. Would to God that more 18 and 19 year olds in this church had a mission heart for the truth. But unfortunately a lot of these, well these little Mormon kids, these young boys, they're preaching things that aren't true. They're in a yoke of bondage, guys. They're in a yoke of bondage. We got saved. Jesus set us free. We have the power of the Holy Spirit. We stand fast in that. Remain strong in that. Remain immovable in that. Hold fast to that. This liberty that Christ has given to us. And so that's what Paul is speaking about here and that's why in verse two he says, indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. Now notice how he says indeed I, Paul. When he says I, Paul, he's speaking with what would be called an authority, an apostolic authority. He's saying what I'm about to say has tremendous importance. So listen very carefully, he is saying, and understand and this is what he's saying. If you are circumcised, you render Jesus's sacrificial death and resurrection useless because you are saying that you do not need him. Turn your Bibles quickly to chapter two. You're in Galatians and let me cross reference that with chapter two verses 20 and 21. You're saying you don't need him but he had already said in verse 20 and 21 of chapter two, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died in vain. Jesus died in vain. If you could make yourself righteous through obedience to the law, that's what Paul was saying. He said I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. I recognize myself to be on the cross with Jesus because Jesus died for me. And therefore if you go out and become circumcised, you're saying that Jesus has sacrificed his death, his resurrection, is useless for salvation. So if you think circumcision will gain you any merit, he's saying you're wrong. Why? Well Jesus' atoning death is sufficient. Circumcision cannot benefit you beyond what is already provided for you in him. Again you are complete in him who is the head. And all I need and all you really need is a relationship with him to be connected to him. Now as he's speaking here, you need to remember a couple of things. As is true, every time the Word is opened up in a church service like this, you have basically at least two groups that are there. You have the unsaved. You have people in church services, every time we have a church service there are people who admit that they don't have a relationship with God. You have the unsaved. And so he would be speaking to those who are unsaved. He'd be saying to think that circumcision will benefit you, ultimately will leave you doomed. But when he's speaking to the saved, he's saying to think that circumcision is profitable is to quench the work of grace in your life. If you believe that you need to go into the law, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna keep yourself from growing spiritually because you're gonna try to add your works to the grace of God and thus you're gonna quench the Holy Spirit. And so if you think circumcision is profitable, one, to the unsaved, if you think that circumcision is profitable for you and it's gonna end up with you being saved, you're wrong and two, to the saved, if you think you're gonna become better and stronger because you're circumcised, you're gonna start quenching the spirit of God because you're not gonna walk in the grace of God and as a result of that, you're gonna spiritually fail to grow. And so that's his argument. Verse three, he says, I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised, that he's a debtor to keep the whole law. To live under any part of the law as a way of getting right necessitates obeying all of the law. To obey part of the law is to disobey that part that is not obeyed. Therefore, that makes you guilty. It's like what James says in chapter two, verse 10, when he says whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. You might be thinking, you know, I used to, I'm probably speaking to myself right now. I used to think that God graded on the curve, kind of like a percentage point sort of like that. I figured he had 10 commandments and so if I kept most of them, I probably had a good chance of getting into heaven. Well, when you're seven years old, how much sinning do you really have opportunity to do? And that's pretty much when I memorized the 10 commandments I was seven years old. You really don't have that much sinning opportunities, at least not that deep. There's no sinner like an old sinner, you know. I remember hearing of a little boy's testimony, he said, he was giving his testimony, he was around seven, he says, before I came to Christ, I was a terrible sinner. And you think of it that for a minute, it's almost sweet, as a matter of fact it is, the gentleness of his little heart to think that he was a terrible sinner and all of that, but you get the point, you know. So when you're seven years old, how much bad can you really, really do? But you live long enough, you start doing some real bad things, don't you? And so for me, I thought, well, you know, there are 10 commandments and I'll try and keep them and one by one, I broke those commandments. And by the time I was 20, the only one that I honestly thought I hadn't broken was, thou shalt not kill. At that point, up to that point, I hadn't killed anybody. So I started hoping that perhaps the Lord would just give me some mercy, you know, because I could come in and say, look it, you know, one out of 10 really isn't that bad. I really thought that, I really did. And then I read the Bible and after getting saved, I was reading the Bible and Jesus began to speak about murder and he began to speak about adultery and he was speaking of it being the condition of the heart, which is really a reflection of a nature, a nature that is sinful. And I began to understand some things about that and realized that by keeping the law or trying to be obedient or holding faster, thinking that perhaps I can keep a few of those commandments and do well and God is gonna permit me into the heaven because I tried. I came to realize that all have sinned, fall short of the glory of God, there's none righteous, no, not one. It's appointed unto men to die once and after this, the judgment and there was really no hope for me without Jesus Christ. And when I came to realize that because of Jesus, I could enter into heaven and what I needed to do is trust in him, well that mattered. You see, because if you break one law, you're guilty of breaking them all and I didn't know it at that time. And so as Paul is speaking here, he's saying, listen, if you're circumcised, Christ will not profit you because you're trusting in yourself and not him. And if you wanna go into circumcision, that being part of the law, you need to remember that you're a debtor to do the whole law. So he goes on into verse four and says, you've become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law, you, he says, have fallen from grace. Now, two words and then I'm gonna develop this with you. The first word is estranged. When he says you have become estranged, that word estranged means to be separated or loosed from, separated or loosed from. The word fallen means to lose one's grasp on something. So when he says you've become estranged from Christ and you've fallen from grace, what he's saying is you cannot live by grace and the law simultaneously. You can't. To be justified by the law would be to reject the grace of God. Now again, when he says you are fallen from grace, what does that mean? Falling from grace. Well, there are two basic aspects that we can look at. Again, there are non-believers, non-Christians who are there in the church services and as they're there in that church, and they could be there by the way, not for a week or a month, they could be there. Sometimes they're there for years. Sometimes people are not Christians and they're there for years. We've had people in this church who've received the Lord, who've answered an invitation that I've gotten to speak to afterwards who have told me, and this blows my mind, but they have told me that they have been in this church for years. Sometimes I believe one of them said something like he'd been in the church for almost 10 years and had been coming for that long. I mean, you put up with me for 10 years and you're unsaved, that's hard to believe because he did though, he said, you know, he says, I've been coming. He said, for all these years, and I'd hear your message and he said, and I'd hear what you said from the Bible and he said, I'd listen and I would listen and I just never responded. There are people that do that. They can be in the church for years. They can see the Lord move. They can even clap when somebody goes forward. They can sing songs with a lot of emotion. They may even say, yeah, I believe in Christ and all, but in reality, they're not trusting him. They're not trusting him. They're not saved. There are a lot of people like that. There are a lot of people like that. I see that more commonly now than almost anytime before. That people who go to church, it blows my mind. They go to church, but they don't really know the Lord. They really don't. They don't have a strong relationship with God. And so that's not uncommon. That was taken place during the time of the Galatians. So there are non-Christians there in the church services. They've seen the Lord move. They perhaps have professed a faith in him, but they've never really trusted him. They've been exposed to grace. They've been exposed to grace, but they've never embraced it themselves. They may have a shallow theory of what it is, but they've never personally embraced it before I got saved at the age of 20. If you'd have given me a quiz, if you'd have given me a quiz and you'd have asked things like, do you believe the Bible is God's word? I just said yes. If you'd have said do you believe that there is a God who is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? I just said yes. If you'd have said do you believe that there is a heaven? I just said yes. If you'd have said do you believe there's a hell, I probably would have said I'm not sure about that. What did Jesus Christ do? If you asked me, I would have said he came and did miracles and died on a cross. If you'd have asked me, why did he die on the cross? I'd have looked at you said, and I'd have said something like, because people needed him because we're sinners and he died, do you believe that he was buried? Yes. Do you believe he was resurrected from the dead on the third day? I'd have said of course, that's what Easter's all about. Been celebrating Easter all of my life. Yeah, I believe all of that. I would have answered your questions in the right way. Even while I'm smoking a joint, and that's the truth. I got in an argument with my cousin who was a Jehovah's Witnesses about who God is and we were arguing about God and the church and faith as we were getting loaded together. We did those kinds of things. I didn't have a problem doing that. And if you'd have told me it's wrong for you to drink or it's wrong for you to do that, I just said that's your opinion and that's none of your business. Just like most people that I've encountered who don't know the Lord will do. And I could have and did on occasion go to church. Didn't look any different than anybody else. I knew when to stand. I knew when to sit down in our church. I knew when to kneel. I knew when to do all those things. I was trained to do that. But I didn't have a saving knowledge of God. I could answer most of the questions and any evangelical question that was asked by any Christian I could have answered pretty much to their satisfaction because I was trained and I was capable of sharing those things. I was able to be acquainted with grace. I was acquainted with how God can work. I believed in miracles. I believed in angels. I believed in all of those things and I was unsaved because I never personally embraced it. There are people in church exactly like that. One of those groups is being spoken of here. They have a shallow understanding in theory but no personal reception of the grace of God. Now for Christians it would refer to moving from a place that God will work you in, work in you. It's a way of saying, you have fallen from grace is another way of saying is you removing yourself from the place where God can move through you. You are quenching the spirit of God because you are beginning to live a life under the burden of legalism and when you do that, you remove yourself from the place that you can receive the joy of salvation and you are quenching the Holy Spirit and moving from the place where God is gonna be blessing you to a place where it's very, very dry. When you talk about the grace of God, let me give you something here that might be of help to some. When you talk about the grace of God, always remember this. The word grace means unmerited favor but what grace is, it is a revelation of the essential nature of God. Grace is a revelation of the essential nature of God. It's a revelation of what God really is all about. The Bible tells us that God is a God of love and as a loving God, he desires to bless you. In first John in chapter four verses seven and eight, John writes, beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. He says whoever does not love does not know God because, he said, God is love. Grace is a demonstration of the essential nature of God. God is a God of love and God desires to bless you. Do you believe that tonight? I hope you do, I hope you do. God loves you and God wants to bless you. He wants your life blessed, he loves you. Just this last week I was sharing out of Deuteronomy when the Lord in chapter five there in the book of Deuteronomy said, oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always so that it might go well with them and with their children forever, that they would fear me, that their hearts would be inclined towards me white so that their lives might be blessed so it might go well with them. God wants to bless our lives. I hope we grab that tonight. God wants to bless your life. God loves you, God is a God of love. He is essentially love and he wants to pour out his love on you and he does that through his grace. He pours his grace out on you and because he desires to bless, he makes a provision for us to receive his blessing and he does that through his grace. Grace is the source of salvation and grace is the source of blessings for those whom the Lord loves. In John 1.16 it says, from the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. God wants to pour his blessings out on us and we're so busy sometimes trying to make ourselves deserve it. Friend of mine many years ago now, probably close to 40 years ago, and I was speaking and as I was sharing with him, I was trying to explain to him the little that I knew about the love of God and his name is Nick and I said, Nick, I said, as a good friend can with somebody that you've been friends with a long time, I was open with him and I said, Nicky, I said, when are you gonna give your heart to the Lord? When are you gonna give your heart to Jesus? And he looked at me and he said, you know, I think about that. He said, I think I'll give my heart to him when I'm good enough. And I looked at him and I said, Nicky, you're an idolater. And he didn't really appreciate that, but it was true. I said, Nicky, you're an idolater. What do you mean? I said, I said, man, you can't make yourself good enough for God. You're creating your own religion. A religion that demands that you do certain things so that God will do certain things. Nicky, God doesn't work that way. God has already done what is necessary and what you need to do is confess your need for him and come to him as you are. He can work within you and by his power transform you. But if you try to change yourself, you'll never come to him because you'll never be complete. You'll never be able to do that. It requires the work from God. Whenever you try to make yourself good enough for God, you will fail. You're doomed to failure. You can't. But when you yield yourself to the Lord and say, God, would you work in me? God can have the freedom to do that work in you and through faith, you just simply obey and do those things which he commands. You read the word and it says, learn to love one another. And you say, Lord, that command by itself is gonna take a lifetime to learn to love you and love one another. It's gonna take a lifetime. But as you endeavor to do that, as you pursue him on a daily basis, as you say in the morning, God, work in me today, help me to love you, help me to love others, God does that. God begins to move in your life and you begin to change over time. You encounter some friends who may have known you in the old days and they say, what happened to you? And you say, what do you mean? Because something obviously has happened to you that they're noticing that you probably don't even see. But they see it and they ask, what happened to you? How come your life has changed? What's going on inside of you? And you simply say, you know what? I gave my heart to the Lord, man, I've been born again. Oh, you're one of those born-againers, you know, I guess. I never really thought of it like that, but yeah, I'm a believer, I believe in God, I believe in Jesus. I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the mercy of God, I believe in the grace of God. Yeah, I guess I am, I'm born againer. I never really thought about that, but that's what I am, yes. And God works in you and it's all because of grace and God wants to bless you and he does it through his grace. Ephesians 1.7 says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace. So Paul is warning here, relating to grace and he's saying, Christians, if you attempt to serve God through the observation of the law, well this is gonna result in you being ineffective and ultimately God will shelve you because you will not be useful to him. You're no longer walking in grace. He says in verse five, for we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love. The Judaizers were placing their hope on a righteousness that's based on works of the law, not by faith in God. But Christians rely on the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And I want you to see how he says in verse six, faith working through love. Any true faith is gonna always have works, but it's always gonna be in love. The things that you do are gonna be love for people, love for God. They're gonna be demonstrating your true faith, but you'll always have works that accompany true faith. And then finally he says, you ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. When he asks the question, who hindered you from obeying the truth, he already knows. He wants them to grab hold of it. Who's hindering you? He wants them to figure it out for themselves. Who is hindering us? The false teachers. Who's hindering us? The guys who've crept in and have taken us captive. Who's hindering us in our run with the Lord? The people who have been putting us under bondage. He wants them to know that. Listen, one of the things that's very hard in ministry is when you're talking to somebody and you're sharing with them and you're wanting them to see something in scripture and they just don't see it. They can't see it. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with people over time where we'll look at the scripture and what does that say? And they just don't see it. There's like blinders over their eyes. One of the things that blesses you is when the person you're speaking to says, I see that. Now it makes sense. I've been, and when they do that, there's hope. I can't tell you how many personal conversations over the years I've had as not only as a minister of the gospel, but as a Christian who I've had conversations with people and I'll point the scripture out and I'll say, this is what it says and the first thing they do is they'll say, yeah, but how about? Because they really don't want to see that. I guess because they just refuse to see it. They don't want to see it. And the Holy Spirit may be convicting them but they're not gonna listen and they don't. That's why Paul is saying to them, who hindered you? He wants them to be able to say, the ones who've hindered us are the false teachers who've crept in and taken as captive. He wants them to be able to say that. And then he goes on in verse eight and says, this persuasion doesn't come from him who calls you. This persuasion to step into the law and away from grace isn't coming from God because any teaching that draws you away from truth cannot be the truth. Here's something for you, a genuine teacher would rather die than knowingly preach falsely concerning Jesus Christ. A genuine teacher would rather die than mislead you. Does that mean that people who are genuine don't make mistakes as they're teaching? No, we all make mistakes. Everybody, no matter how long they've been teaching, we aren't really always 100% as accurate as we would like to be. It reminds me of Isaiah. When you look in the Old Testament book of Isaiah and you look at chapter five and in chapter five it's Isaiah's preaching there and he says, woe unto you, woe unto you, woe unto you. The entire chapter is filled with woes unto the people. So he's already out there preaching. Woe unto you, call light dark and darkness light who call bitter sweet and sweet bitter. He goes on and on and on throughout chapter five and he says, woe, woe, woe. But when you get into chapter six, it's interesting because in chapter six of Isaiah he says in the day that in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord and he was high and he was lifted up and his train filled the temple and he begins to describe this experience he had with God and how that there were these angelic beings there that he saw with wings that cover their eyes, wings that cover their feet, wings that they flew with. He's given these incredible descriptions and as he's there and the Lord begins to speak and says, who's gonna go for us? Who can I send? He knew that he was a man, he said, of unclean lips and I dwell, Isaiah said, amongst a people with unclean lips. What are you talking about? Are you saying that you're a cussing prophet? You use dirty words? Is that what you're saying, unclean lips? You know, there are those who say, you know, he was a profane prophet, he cussed. No, what was Isaiah saying? Isaiah was saying, I've been preaching about you but I haven't given the complete accurate words that could show how great and mighty and powerful you are. And what is interesting is the angel takes a burning coal and places it on the lips of Isaiah, purifying him and giving to him the ability to speak forth the word of God with that purity. But he said, I'm a man who has unclean lips and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips. There have been many times that I as a pastor pretty much do it almost every time. When I leave the pulpit and I consider the study, I always wish that I could change some things in it. I always do. I always wish that it were more accurate, more Christ centered, more biblical, more solid. That's just the way it really is. Because when you take the word and you hand it to people, well, like I said, a genuine teacher would rather die than preach falsely concerning the Lord. In 1 Thessalonians chapter two verses three and four, Paul said, for the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men, but God who tests our hearts. When my kids were younger and they were getting their driver's license, just teaching them to drive was really scary. I would take them into abandoned parking lots and I'd say, okay, drive around in here. And they'd speed up and hit the brakes and all of that and I hired people to teach them to drive. I couldn't do it. And they finally went and they'd got their license and they come back, you know, 16 and they have this piece of paper that says that they can drive. I know better than that, I've been with them. Yeah, they can survive, but I wouldn't really say they're very good drivers. Somebody else says that I didn't. But you know what they did? They wanted to drive my car. They wanted me to give them the keys to my car. Are you kidding me? No. Dad, I got my license. Can I go to my friend's house? No. Dad, really, I, no. Drive your mother's car. You take the keys out of your pocket, you know? And you hold them out and your hands are shaking like that. And you say, you know, go to the speed limit, stop at all the stop signs, make sure you stop at the red, you know? Everything, you can have it for this long. We hand them keys to a car, right? That's what blows my mind about the Lord because he gave to you and he gave to me the keys to the kingdom of God. And the keys to the kingdom of God are a lot more valuable than the keys to a car. Here I am, trembling as I hand the keys to my kid to take a ride. He's only gonna go three miles. He's gonna come back in an hour. The Lord God handed you the keys to the kingdom. Now think about that for a minute. You wanna talk about grace. Think about that for a minute. God handed you the keys to the kingdom. He said, these are the only keys that are gonna be usable for people to go to heaven. It's called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we have the encouragement by God to take these keys to present the Gospel, open doors, and see people enter in. And if we don't understand that, then we need to start. Because God gave to me this incredible gift, this ability to talk about Jesus Christ. And so he says, you need to understand that. Speak the truth. Those who are coming and are changing the Gospel, this persuasion doesn't come from the Lord because it's altering the Gospel. He says, in verse nine, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. The fruit of this deception is you're contaminating the church with sin. You put a little yeast in some dough. It just takes a little bit for it to actually permeate the entire lump of dough. Leaven in Scripture is a type of sin. And it's a picture of how sin permeates and how sin contaminates. And he's saying that this, even a small amount of error, is gonna contaminate the work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He goes on and he says, in verse 10, I have confidence in you, in the Lord, that you will have no other mind. But he who troubles you shall bear his judgment whoever he is. And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross is ceased. I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off. Couple of things as we're about to close. When Paul was preaching the Gospel, there were those who were saying that he continued to preach the law. But Paul was making it very clear that if I continued preaching the law, then why am I suffering persecution? Why are people still upset and why am I beaten and why am I run out of town and why are these things happening to me? You see, in 1 Corinthians 1.23, he said, we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Paul was saying, though they're telling you that I am continuing to preach the law, I'm not. I'm preaching the grace of God. And I suffer for doing so. And if I was not preaching the truth, I would no longer be persecuted. But in verse 12, he says something that it could pass you by if you don't look at it carefully. When he says, I could wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off. Guys, that is an extremely powerful statement made by the apostle Paul. Let me give you two applications as I'm about to close. One, when he says that they would cut themselves off, one way to look at that would be a wish that the false teachers would receive the fullness of God's judgment. Being cut off is another way of speaking of the judgment of God because you're cut off from the covenant and promises of God, cut off from God himself. Jeremiah 44 verse 11 says, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will set my face against you for catastrophe and for cutting off all Judah. So he's saying on the one hand, those who are bothering you, I would like to see judgment come upon them. That's a very powerful pronouncement. But second, and this I find even more interesting, especially in its context, remember in verse two, indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. Here's something for you to think about. There was a cult during the time of the writing of the book of Galatians. It's the cult of Sybil. Sybil was the earth mother. Sybil was a fertility goddess. She had a lot of followers during that time and one of the things that was really interesting about her followers is the male followers voluntarily would castrate themselves, themselves because they were the most fanatic followers of Sybil. The Galatians would have been aware of this particular cult as Sybil. And so when Paul is saying that they would cut themselves off, it would be another way of saying, why do you just cut off your foreskin? Why don't you show yourself to be as strongly devoted to your beliefs as a cult of Sybil? If you wanna go and have a cut in a way of the skin, why don't you go fully and castrate yourselves? Now, people say, could Paul really say something like that? That sounds mean, doesn't it? I mean, could you picture him on a Christian television program? Well, Paul, what do you think should be done? I think they should castrate themselves. Do you think that would go over good? Oh, we'd like to have you back again, Paul. I don't think so. How many letters do you think he'd get for saying something like that? Do you think that some of these TV shows would have John the Baptist on more than once? I rather doubt it. I really do because the message of repentance is such a cutting message. Now, so some people will say, is it possible that Paul actually would have that strong a feeling? Well, we need to remember something. Remember with me in chapter four, verse 19. Remember what he had said, my little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you? Paul had something that a lot of people don't understand even to this day. He had a deep, powerful, lasting love for Jesus Christ, his truth, and the body of Christ. And I do believe that it is very possible that when Paul was speaking and saying, why don't you show your devotion that he was using irony there in order to establish his point to say if you wanna talk about being zealous for your beliefs, well, there are pagans who are even more zealous than you are. You wanna speak about all that you're doing through following the law? If you think cutting something off is gonna make you better, why don't you go the whole route and be like one of the followers of Sybil and castrate yourself? Very powerful thing to be saying, but when you understand the love that Paul would have for God and the love he had for the truth, no, he's not saying they should do that. What he's suggesting is by contrast, if you wanna get into some kind of works orientation, then you better look at the ones who are most work oriented and see the things that they're willing to do for their faith and understand that God's grace, being what it is, should be valued above all things because it doesn't drive you to do the things that pagan beliefs will drive you to do. God's grace just draws you to a relationship with Jesus and gives you freedom and liberty in him. Why not enjoy God's grace rather than get caught up with the law and the bondage that comes through that?