The Wickedness of Gospel Distorters

today on grace to you we're talking about people who declare that they are the people of the true god that they acknowledge jesus christ as their savior but they add works to faith you've got to understand who it is that is hindering you the influence of sin and the influence of evil and the influence of false doctrine in the church what in the world makes us so embarrassed about the gospel i determined to know nothing among you except jesus christ and him crucified [Music] well let's turn to the fifth chapter of the book of galatians again and these messages in this opening part of the fifth chapter are somewhat difficult to preach and very infrequently will you ever hear them preached because they are such severe denunciations of false doctrine and false teachers the opening 12 verses are designed to make it crystal clear how the apostle paul and god himself feels about false doctrine and false teachers and i'm not talking about other religions i'm not talking about some form of paganism or false religion buddhism islam hinduism or whatever else the issue here has to do with an aberrant form of christianity which is no different than a pagan religion as we will dramatically see in this passage and what paul is attacking in this entire letter is the idea that you can tamper with the gospel of salvation the gospel of salvation says that men and women are saved from sin and death and hell by faith in christ alone apart from any works or ceremonies or rituals or ordinances of any kind that is the gospel salvation is by faith alone and all glory goes to god it results in a transformed life which then produces righteous works but there are no righteous works or religious works that contribute anything to salvation that is the message of galatians and as i've been telling you it is the first of paul's letters and attacks the most critical issue in his ministry and that is the reality of the gospel paul says even if we as an apostle or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you he is to be accursed anathema damned paul is writing galatians in a state of righteous anger the kind of righteous anger that i think is missing from much preaching today and while we certainly do preach all that the scripture declares and that means the love and compassion of god there is a place for righteous anger over the false doctrines that have found their way into christianity and seduced people as they were attempting to seduce the galatians now in the opening of the fifth chapter paul confronts these false teachers in the first six verses we looked at last time he confronts their false doctrine helps us to understand what it does and then from verse 7 to 12 he looks at the character of false teachers the very work that marks them and i i want you to understand this portion and the gravity of it we're talking about people who declare that they are the people of the true god that they acknowledge jesus christ as their savior but they add works to faith such forms of christianity abound in fact one could argue that a hybrid kind of salvation faith and works is defining the largest number of so-called christians in the world because it would encompass both eastern orthodoxy and the roman catholic system and all kinds of other hybrid forms of christianity this is not a small group this is a massive population of deceived people paul wants us to understand the seriousness of this so he's going to tell us about false teachers let me read verses 7 to 12. you were running well who hindered you from obeying the truth this persuasion did not come from him who calls you a little eleven leavens the whole lump of dough i have confidence in you in the lord that you will adopt no other view but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment whoever he is but i brethren if i still preach circumcision why am i still persecuted then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished i wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves i don't know that there's a stronger statement against false teachers than this jude has strong statements and we'll look at them second peter has strong statements but of all of paul's writings this is the most devastating assault on false forms of christianity those who say they believe in the true god even the word of god the christ of god but ad works to salvation he shows the evil of their works in several statements number one verse seven you were running well who hindered you from obeying the truth false teachers hinder you from the truth false teachers hinder from the truth paul liked to use the metaphor of a race very popular form of activity in the ancient world you were running well he says using the metaphor of the race he used it back in chapter 2 verse 2 when he talked about himself running this was a very common metaphor moving rapidly ahead he is saying you started out so well back in chapter three verse three you you've begun in the spirit you're you're moving so well you were running well collectively he's looking at the church and saying everything seemed to be going in the right direction but again it's you it's not we we through the spirit in verse 5 embraces only believers but here it's you and that means it's the people in the congregation some of whom were listening to these judaizing teachers and being seduced into adherence to that we know that because back in chapter 4 verse 10 he says you observe days and months and seasons and years and i fear that perhaps i've labored over you in vain you you seem to have already stepped into some of these forms of external judaism but you were running well who hindered you not asking for a name or names it's a rhetorical question you've got to understand who it is that is hindering you they're passing themselves off as scholars of the old testament they were very likely connected to the pharisees they are the kind of people who would let you think that they came from jerusalem that they have the authority of james who was the leader of the jerusalem church that they they bear some apostolic weight they have a credential or so to impress you but let's be honest who are they really who hinder you who are they in the larger scheme of things today they may be religious religious leaders they may wear robes they may be priests they may be patriarchs they may be popes or cardinals or bishops they may be pastors they may be whatever they may have titles education but who are they really these judaizers had stepped into the the race that the galatians were running well and put up obstacles they had put a blockade in in the pathway and they had caused these people some no doubt even believers wondering about this and certainly those that were on the edge of faith thinking maybe this is the right way to go and they would have turned their backs on faith and walked right into legalism and right into destruction some of these galatians were no doubt on the brink of coming in full faith to christ but like those in the book of hebrews were hesitant for whatever reason and now these legalists had come along and for their own reasons were wanting to push them into legalism and away from the gospel and you might wonder why would they ever do such a thing and the answer is given you in chapter 6 of this letter verse 12 they desire to make a good showing in the flesh and so they try to compel you to be circumcised simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of christ they didn't want the persecution that came on them when they said they believed in the cross of christ this is a critical point they had believed in the cross of christ but they were not going to exclude their judaistic works because it was enough to bear the stigma of believing in a crucified messiah without being accused of the jews of abandoning your judaism if they did that they would have been persecuted it's as if to say the jews could tolerate them believing in jesus as the messiah even though it was a stumbling block to them if they continued to adhere to the law of moses so they were trying to hold on to their jewish community by making this good showing in the flesh in addition to saying they believed in the cross then verse 13 those who are circumcised not even keep the law themselves but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh they want to be able to say to their jewish community no no no we're supportive of judaism no no this christianity is just a branch of judaism we still believe you know the law the law has a place it has the priority place they wanted to hold on to that for their own personal social benefit paul says that's a false gospel if you go that way christ is no benefit to you you're under the law to keep the whole law perfectly if you're going to think you're saved by the law you are severed from christ you are fallen from grace and you will never attain the righteousness you pursue false teachers hinder the truth they get in the way of the truth secondly back to galatians 5 false teachers hinder the truth secondly they do not represent god they do not come from god they may say they do they will say they do they will claim divine rights divine authority divine power they may even say they speak for god they speak as if the mouthpiece of god but notice verse 8 this persuasion did not come from him who calls you this is an effectual call the call of god to salvation the god who called you into salvation by the way whenever you see anything about god calling in the epistles of the new testament it's always the effectual saving call not just an open gospel call it's the call to salvation mentioned in romans chapter 8 that whom he called he justified it's the call that awakens the dead sinner and regenerates him and gives him life it's that call the god who called you and gave you life is not the one who sent these teachers with this persuasion there's no connection to god no connection i know you think about people in these forms of christianity and you think well they must be connected to god they pray to god they talk about god they even hang around sometimes with leaders who are true believers and and true ministers of the gospel but there seems to be a lot of confusion about who these people really are as the emissaries of hell you're not hearing from god when you hear from them you're not this message is not preached today this this would literally disintegrate a lot of alliances that shouldn't exist in the first place so false teachers hinder the truth and they do not come from god thirdly they contaminate the church they contaminate the church this is tragic verse 9 a little eleven leavens the whole lump of dough we all know what yeast is right and yeast is a picture in scripture of permeation it's usually used of evil influence permeating evil influence the jews before the days of unleavened bread would remove every particle of leaven from their homes part of that feast was to recognize that they needed to get rid of the permeating influence of sin and so this was a symbol of that levin operated on the principle of fermentation as you know so it was a good illustration of moral and spiritual corruption these false teachers contaminate the church they corrupt the church by the way this is a common proverb verse 8 a little 11 11 the whole lump of dope paul used it in first corinthians 5 6. it's the same thing a little evan leaven's the whole lump and he's talking about again the influence of sin and the influence of evil and the influence of false doctrine in the church these false teachers will contaminate the church they will corrupt the church we see it all the time we see so many quote unquote evangelical people embracing these people as if they are part of the kingdom of god when they are the kingdom of darkness and they pull in their permeating corrupting evil influence these people do not come from god they permeate and contaminate the church paul comes to a fourth characteristic in verse 10 i have confidence in you in the lord that you will adopt no other view but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment whoever he is they will face divine judgment we saw that as i just read in jude and also in second peter chapter 2 they will face judgment paul is saying i have confidence in you in the lord that you will adopt no other view i have confidence that you're going to go the right way that you're going to be faithful to the gospel of grace and my confidence isn't in me it's in the lord that the lord is going to lead you into the truth i have confidence that the lord is going to bring you to the truth and that you will adopt no other view but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment whoever he is i don't care who he is i don't care what credentials he has i don't care what religious claims he makes paul says i have come to the settle settled conclusion in the lord that you're going to come to the truth and be faithful to the truth but with regard to the false teachers they will bear judgment from god doesn't matter who they are it doesn't matter who they are it's as if he's saying i'm confident that you're going to be okay because the lord is going to lead you to a full commitment to the gospel but the false teachers who are disturbing you that word means throwing you into confusion they're going to face horrendous punishment horrendous punishment when someone gets inside a church and tampers with the church the punishment is severe so what is the impact of false teachers they hinder the truth they do not come from god they contaminate the church and they end in a face-to-face judgment with god then has paul has one other thing to say in verse 11 they also persecute the true teachers they also persecute the true teachers but i brethren if i still preach circumcision why am i still persecuted then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished now let me give you the background of this verse so you'll understand it paul was persecuted he once persecuted the church but after his conversion he was persecuted and the primary source of persecution of paul came from the jews yes the gentiles also persecuted him but particularly the jews persecuted paul they dogged his steps the judaizers doing what they were doing was a form of anti-paul effort it was a kind of persecution they didn't have the authority to inflict wounds on his body or make him a captive they wouldn't be able to do that unless he was back in jerusalem in their country but they were persecuting him by dogging his steps with false doctrine trying to undermine everything he did but notice what he says there brethren if i still preach circumcision why am i still persecuted somebody must have said well paul wait a minute you're inconsistent you preach circumcision what in the world would they would they have in mind with that very simple back in the 16th chapter of the book of acts you don't have to go to it i'll just tell you about it paul came to meet a young man by the name of timothy paul met timothy was impressed by timothy's righteous life godliness he was a believer in christ his father was a gentile but his mother was jewish timothy had never been circumcised but he was a believer in christ paul had him circumcised somebody probably told the judaizers about that and said look you even preach circumcision and paul is saying if if you think i preach circumcision why are you persecuting me if that's what you want and you think i'm doing it well of course they didn't think that they persecuted him because he didn't preach it but then that brings up the issue of timothy why did he do that very simple reason timothy was already a believer it had nothing to do with salvation but he would have had no access to synagogues it would have been the natural thought of jews that he had a gentile father and he had a jewish mother since he wasn't circumcised he must be a pagan he must have taken his father's religion this would have made it difficult for timothy to minister along with paul so paul accommodates the jewish expectation by having timothy go through this surgery so that he will be accepted as one who has embraced judaism like paul and together they can minister to the jews it was nothing more than that and it was obvious he didn't preach that or do it any other time or they wouldn't be persecuting for not preaching it if i preach circumcision why am i still persecuted then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished he's saying this if i was preaching circumcision the jews wouldn't be stumbling over the cross now you have to understand what he means by this the jews had two problems with apostolic preaching problem number one was a crucified messiah that was a problem that was a stumbling block to them because they thought messiah was going to come be a king not a crucified victim of pagans romans that was a problem but there was an even greater problem and that was that paul was saying we had no obligation as believers to adhere to the mosaic ordinances that was a bigger problem those judaizers knew it because i told you in chapter 6 the judaizers believed in christ and the cross but they also wanted to embrace the whole mosaic ritual so that their friends would accept them paul would have been accepted if he had believed in a crucified messiah jesus christ but held on to the trappings of judaism if his message had been you have to believe in jesus christ crucified and adhere to the mosaic law and then you will be saved but paul didn't preach circumcision he didn't preach the mosaic law and that's why they were after him with such vicious passion so what we learn here is that false teachers will persecute true teachers that is if true teachers tell the truth you can avoid that if you don't tell the truth the message of the cross was all paul ever preached christ and him crucified never the law galatia was adjacent to phrygia for jia was known for the worship of sabile c-y-b-e-l-e a pagan goddess this was the dominant worship in the area and the priests of sabil and the very devout worshipers of sabile had themselves castrated they became eunuchs eunuchs for the purpose of the worship of sabile this is sheer gross paganism why would paul ever say this to these jewish teachers what he is saying is this if you accept circumcision and the mosaic rituals and rules you might as well go ahead and castrate yourself and become a full blown pagan because that's what you are this shows you how extreme any deviation from the gospel is you are a full-fledged pagan you might as well do the most severe things pagans do they would be devastated the judaizers when they heard it must have been infuriated they thought they saw themselves as god's representatives they were full-fledged pagans there is no room for any alteration of the gospel of salvation by faith any deviation and you might as well become a eunuch in a pagan religion because that's what you are there is little debate about the fact that truth is under attack truth in politics world events and in a softening of absolute right and wrong but more importantly attacks on truth within the boundaries of evangelicalism in his book the truth war pastor john discusses the vital importance of truth and certainty in this modern age as understood through scripture this resource available through grace to you will be incredibly encouraging to you as you seek to know the truth in an age of confusion the truth war is available by contacting grace to you at 888 57 grace or by visiting our website gty.org thank you for joining us today in unleashing god's truth one verse at a time

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 110,503

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Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ, Grace to You, Wickedness, Gospel, Distorters, False Teachers

Id: xqyoq897PYA

Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021