Well, please turn in your Bibles to Galatians 5. We are looking today at verses 7 through 12. Last week, we came back into this series after a long Christmas series through the book of Malachi and some other visiting ministry. All a great blessing but now we're back to finishing this book and we opened up chapter 5 last week and now we're looking at verses 7 through 12. 7 through 12. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. I wish those who unsettled you would emasculate themselves." What an interesting paragraph for the Apostle Paul to give to us. You can see how strong his passions are. as he seeks to defend the churches in Galatia, the province of Galatia, from false teachers who have come in among them and are preaching that, yes, believe in Christ, but also you must keep the law. And so these are legalists. He calls them Judaizers who have come into the church and the church is under that influence. They have been given freedom in Christ. They are free from the law as a covenant before God. the covenant of works for them has been put away their covenant with God as as believers is the covenant of grace this is what their relationship is based on on the perfect work of Christ in his obedience in his life it is substitutionary death in his resurrection is bodily resurrection he has done all that is necessary and now these false teachers are coming in and saying Oh yes, but still you have to be circumcised, you have to keep the law, you've got to keep the festivals, and you have to do this in order to be saved. And they were corrupting the gospel. So Paul is speaking in opposition to their influence here. You may notice that the opening verse dealt with running. You were running well. And I think throughout this paragraph we see the doctrine of perseverance. These believers, they were being tempted to turn away from the gospel, but Paul has confidence, he has concern But he has confidence because those that are truly born again will persevere. We believe in the perseverance of the saints. And the London Baptist Confession, I just copied a small part of it here for you, as it talks about the perseverance of believers. And this is what it says. Though many floods and storms arise and beat against them, yet they, the church believers, the true ones, shall never be able to take them off that foundation and rock which by faith they are fastened upon. Notwithstanding, through unbelief and the temptations of Satan, their sight of the light and the love of God may for a time be clouded and obscured from them, yet He is still the same, and they shall be sure to be kept by the power of God unto salvation." The entire chapter on perseverance is so beautiful and helpful, perhaps the Lord will I'll allow you to look that up later and read the entire thing. But the doctrine of perseverance teaches us that though God's people may have their ups and downs, nevertheless, they are kept safe by the Holy Spirit. In fact, you may remember, I last week read you a little story from the Pilgrim's Progress concerning Worldly Wise Man, but you may remember, if you've read that book, that In the house of interpreter, Christian is being taught amazing things and one of my favorite stories is when he's taken into a room and there he sees a fire burning in a fireplace on the wall. And there is a person there that is throwing water on the fire, trying to put it out. But no matter how much he tries to put it out, nevertheless it continues to blaze. And then Interpreter, who is the Holy Spirit, takes him to the other side of the wall, hidden from view in that room, takes him to the other side of the wall, and there is Christ pouring the oil of the Spirit on the fire from the backside. And the lesson is that though the devil, because that first man throwing the wire represents the devil's desire and effort to overthrow the faith of his of the believer. Nevertheless, the believer is sustained in his faith by Christ himself. Aren't you glad that it doesn't depend on you to sustain your faith? Yes, we do abide and we use the means of grace, we gather with God's people, we worship, we pray, we read His Word, we hear His Word preached, we meet and speak with one another and counsel each other, we strengthen each other in the faith. These are the means of grace that God has given by which we can continue steadfastly, be devoted to the doctrine of the Apostles, and to prayer, and to fellowship, and to the evangelism of sinners, and so forth. But it is God, in His hidden work by the Spirit, who sustains us. Ultimately, we would be overthrown if it depended on our own strength. And so, the doctrine of perseverance. You were running well, but now something has happened. Now, one of Marianne and I's favorite things to watch the Olympics. Back in 1984, we were watching the Olympics and one of our favorite runners was running Mary Decker. And at that time, 1984, Mary Decker held every American record from the 800 meter to the 10,000 meter. So she was amazing and on target to win the gold in the Olympics. She was running, I think, I think this was a 3,000 meter race. And there was a young, less experienced runner in that race, actually a fan of Mary Decker, her name was Zola Budd. She was from South Africa. She ran barefoot. So, if you're old enough to remember some of those, you may remember her. And as they were running, she stepped in front of Mary Decker and caused a terrible fall for Mary Decker. She was injured. It significantly ended her career. And so it was a terrible thing. And of course, I think later people believed that it was just an accident, not something that was done on purpose. It is an illustration of what he is talking about here. Paul says, you were running well, who hindered you? The word is to cut in on, to cut in on. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? Now, when he says the truth, remember that the truth is a phrase that's synonymous with the gospel. And the gospel not only comes and saves me and delivers me from the penalty of sin, but it also enables me to overcome the power of sin in my life. And now that the gospel was being polluted by these false teachers, they were hindering the church there from continuing in the faith. They were being cut off. And so false teachers, number one, I'm going to give you six things here. False teachers seek to overthrow the faith of God's people. Let me just say this. It is so important that you be in a gospel church. It is so important that the elders in that church be faithful to the Word of God, and that they be under the lordship of Jesus Christ. so that they can lead people with the word. This is vital. People choose churches many times because they like certain styles, they like personalities, they've got friends there. Listen, these are not good reasons. And so it's so important for us to understand that false teachers are out there to overthrow the faith of God's people and if you have your eye on something other than Christ then it is very possible that they might step into your life and influence you and let me tell you one of the big ways that false teachers do this is through the internet that's right the internet is full of religious personalities But God did not call you to know and follow religious personalities on the internet. He called you to know your pastor, to hold your pastors accountable, your elders accountable, and for for them to lead you according to the Word. That's the relationship that is biblical. And Paul here as a father to these Galatians, he is speaking to them and he knows they're being pushed to turn away from the doctrine as he gave it to them when they were converted. Number two, false teachers are not from God. In verse 8 he says, this persuasion is not from him who calls you. It's interesting because the word persuasion, it's a verbal form in the previous verses translated obey. It's from the word persuade, but in that particular form it means to obey. And here you have the same word, a different form, This persuasion, this teaching, this influence that has come upon you, it does not originate with God. In fact, if you look back at chapter 1 of Galatians, let's read there just verses 6 and 7. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel of Christ." You see what he's saying here, brothers and sisters. They have come with something else. They've added something. They're just adding maybe one thing. For example, What if I just add baptism to the gospel of grace? Just adding this one thing. If I add that one thing, I have polluted and distorted the gospel of Christ, which is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That's the gospel that is taught by the Apostle Paul in the book of Galatians. And these false teachers are not from God. This persuasion, this teaching, this influence is not from Him who calls you. When you got saved and you believed the gospel, you didn't know all about theology. Probably if someone said, okay, tell me about the Trinity. You would go, the what? We're not born again and suddenly know those things, right? But you were given the gospel, and the gospel itself is what we call the rule of faith. In other words, the truth that you were created by God, but that you have fallen in Adam, and that you are sinful, and that you are under condemnation, but that God, by His mercy and grace, sent His only Son into the world, His only begotten Son, who lived a sinless life, and took the penalty of your sin, and suffered your hell for you on the cross, rose from the dead, and is the giver of life, and who will someday return to judge the living and the dead. Now that summary of the gospel message is what the early church fathers emphasized. So the Apostles Creed, very ancient. Here I have the Nicene Creed as well. In other words, that message then becomes the principle of interpretation so that you can understand whether someone is speaking the truth or not. It's the key. It's the rule of faith. It's the key by which you can understand the Bible. When you're reading the Bible, you will understand it if you see it through the lens of the Gospel. Too often we want to put the Bible under our authority instead of putting ourselves by mind over the Bible. That is not the way we come to the Bible. We come to the Bible to submit and we read the Bible with Christian eyes through the lens of the gospel itself. It is the rule of faith and it is also the principle of discernment so that when we hear other people come and they add one thing to Jesus Christ, they add one thing then you know this is wrong. This is not the gospel I received. This is not that which was preached to me. And this is what Paul said, that anybody who does this, let them be accursed in chapter 1. And so false teachers are not from God. They are not just a different version. Listen, Paul said, though I, though we, if we were to preach a different gospel to you, or an angel from heaven were to preach a different gospel, listen, let him be accursed. It is only the message that has formed the church that creates a Christian, the Word that creates a Christian through the power of the Holy Spirit, that is the message that we must cling to. So they are not from God and there are multitudes of false teachers out there. Number three, false teaching spreads in an insidious way. So in Galatians 5.9 Paul says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Leaven in the Bible is a picture of an influence that corrupts. It's insidious because it works subtly. It works in a hidden way and yet its influence is very powerful. Paul does not name any names here as he does in other places. He even says whoever he is, he may not have known who these personalities were that were influencing the Galatians. But he says a little leaven. So it only takes a little bit of yeast to be added to a loaf, a lump of dough, to cause that dough to rise and whatever It does bacterially, scientifically. I don't know. You can explain it better than me. But it smells good, and you know it's great when it's cooked. But there's just a little, and it's added to, and it influences the whole. That's the picture here. And so it may have started with just one or two brothers, men who claimed to be Christians, and they were starting to influence others. and to speak to others about, yes, but we need to keep the law. Yes, yes, believe in Christ, but we have to also, we have to be circumcised. And so they are adding to the gospel and this leaven has been spreading through the church. Listen, be on your guard. As you're listening to the pulpit, be on your guard to hear what is being preached to you. Always have the rule of faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ before you to measure what is being said. If something contradicts that rule, it is false, and it doesn't matter who says it. Paul says, though I, right? Though we. And so false teaching spreads in an insidious way and we must be on our guard, Christians. But false teachers will be judged. Galatians 5.10 Paul says, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view. Let me pause there for a moment because once again you have the perseverance of the saints. Paul says, I have confidence in the Lord, right? Who is the one sustaining us? Who is the one pouring the oil on the fire from the other side of the wall? It is the Lord Himself who is sustaining and strengthening our faith, convicting us, bringing us to repentance, teaching us, instructing us building us up in the faith. And so he says, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view because they are his children, his spiritual children. He is their spiritual father. He is an apostle. And so he's speaking with apostolic authority, which is the same authority by which all the New Testament was written. It was all written with apostolic authority. by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And so, it's effectively, you would take no other view because this is the view of the Word of God. That's what he's saying. I'm confident that you will persevere in submission to the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Gospel. But, the one who is troubling you, you know, they were the one who is hindering you back in verse 7. Here, the one who is troubling you, they are disturbing you, they are distressing you. They're introducing thoughts that are confusing. The church is being distracted from the goals of preaching the gospel and encouraging one another in the faith, being distracted by this false doctrine that has come in. And he says, that one who is distressing, disturbing, troubling you will bear, notice it, the penalty. And yes, there is a definite article in the Greek text there. He's speaking of the judgment. The judgment, yes. They may be wealthy now. Their false teaching may make them wealthy now. Now they may appear to be so blessed outwardly. They may appear to have so much support and such a great following, but the penalty is coming. Yes, the judgment is coming. And it doesn't matter who they are before men. They will stand before God and give answer for the harm they did to his church. And brothers and sisters, that puts the fear of God in me. I want to build the church of God with the word of God. And I want to lift up Jesus Christ before your eyes and that your faith would lay hold of Him. I do not want your praise and honor. I only want to hear that you are inspired to follow hard after the Lord and to love Him supremely. And so false teachers will be judged. And false teachers oppose the cross, number five. So Galatians 5.11, he says, but if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. Now, if you read the commentators, there is such a ton of ideas about what this verse means. But I trust that the spirit of God has helped me to understand, and I did see there were others who agreed with me on this. So you know how in sports, not that Alabama has any interest in sports, but you know how in sports when a player has played for one team, and then, and it could be a coach, and everybody loves him, But then that person goes to another team, and when they appear on the field to face their old team, the fans that once loved them now are booing them because they're fighting for the other guy. Well, let that illustration be before you, because I think what Paul is saying here, look, he says, I used to play for Team Law. I preached circumcision. I said the law was the only way. You've got to keep the law. It's the righteousness of the law that will give you righteousness before God. I used to teach that. I was the star player for team law. Until God knocked me off my donkey and showed me the truth, and now I preach the gospel. I am for team gospel. And so he is bringing this now. And now he is persecuted. Once he was the darling of the Pharisees. But now he is the one who is persecuted and afflicted. And they are doing everything they can to kill him, to get rid of him. You can read it in the book of Acts and other places where he suffered for this. And I think that's what he's saying here. I used to preach circumcision. And I don't anymore. And so that is what has produced the persecution that I am receiving. Because, he says later in chapter 6, that they, the Judaizers, the legalists, they don't want to preach the cross. They want to preach the law plus the cross. Because if they preach circumcision, then they won't be persecuted for the offense of the cross. They won't be persecuted for the message that what Christ did was everything that needed to be done. What Christ did was everything that needed to be done. And if you preach the cross of Christ, the work of Christ on the cross is utterly sufficient. You see, the Judaizers were saying, the work of Christ is not sufficient. Yes, Jesus did that, but you need to do this. You see how wicked that is? It undermines the work of Christ. It undermines the person of Christ. It puts man on the pedestal. It causes us to boast and we have praise because we can point to ourselves as the source of our salvation. You see, the cross kills the sinner. The cross convicts, the cross shows that we are rebels against God, that we are unrighteous, that we have nothing to offer, that all our good works are like filthy rags before God. The cross proves our utter worthlessness to give anything righteous unto God. And for that reason, the cross is an offense to those who want to say, hey, wait a minute, I've done this, I've done that, I've kept this law, I've kept that law. And when a person hears the gospel many times they are angry. I can remember talking to a woman, an elderly woman who was very religious and her father was a pastor and I began to talk to her about sin. She was angry as I told her that she was a sinner. Of course, I said, I am too, but we have broken God's... No! I hope that woman got saved, but she sent me on my way. But let me tell you that they... The cross is offensive to those who want to boast in their own righteousness, those who want to be confident in what they have done, and that that gives them some privilege or some standing before God. The cross cuts that out. You know, Martin Luther, he talked about the theologian of the cross and the theologian of glory. And the theologian of glory is one who boasts in himself. one who boasts in his works, boasts in his intellect, he talks about that, boasts in his own wisdom as well. But the theologian of the cross is one who recognizes that the suffering of Christ is what saves him. He boasts in the cross of Christ, which Paul says in chapter 6, that God forbid that I should boast in anything else except for the cross and Christ crucified. So false teachers oppose the cross. It's not just a different view. This is a terrible, terrible antagonism to the gospel. And then finally, false teachers cut people off from the gospel of grace. So there's a lot of metaphor here, and maybe More than metaphor, but he says, verse 12, I wish those who unsettled you, there it is, they trouble you, they unsettled you, they hinder you. Unsettled here is a word that's used for creating riots. Those that stir up rebellion against the gospel in you. Those that bring about confusion and an attitude that of insurrection against the Lordship of Christ, instead of bowing the knee that we have something to say about ourselves. He said, I wish those who unsettled you would emasculate themselves. I said false teachers cut people off from the gospel of grace. So understand they are saying you've got to be circumcised. So he calls them those dogs, those mutilators of the flesh in the book of Philippians, this same group of people. And they think they can make people righteous by them being physically circumcised, which involves the cutting off of the foreskin. And so this attitude that calls for this physical mutilation in order to be saved, he is drawing a picture from that. And he says, you know, actually what they are doing by talking you, by persuading you, that you have to do this to be saved is they are cutting you off from the gospel of grace. And Paul, with the most anger that I think I can see in his letters, says here, I wish they would just go ahead and emasculate themselves, become eunuchs. Because what they are doing by preaching circumcision is to cut people off from the grace. May they be cut off. That's what he says of them. Well, brothers and sisters, the gospel is our treasure. And we want to hold on to it. We want to delight in it, to delight in our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has done all things well, who has done all things for us and what he has accomplished. Let us be faithful to that. Will you stand with me? Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. Father in heaven, we give thanks for the gift of your Son, the gift of the Spirit, the gift of your Word. We give thanks for the gospel of salvation, and for how by your mercy we heard and received that truth that you opened our hearts, convicted us of sin, showed us Christ the Savior, and persuaded us to believe, brought us to repentance. We take credit for none of this. You have done it all. And so we give you glory for your saving gospel. Father, would you help our church to be faithful, never to give in or to give up one inch of this ground. And we ask it in your worthy name. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.