We are in Galatians chapter 1 in the second paragraph beginning in verse 6 running through verse 10 There in that paragraph Paul says I am amazed that you are so quickly Deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another Only there are some who are distort disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ But even though we are an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary To that which we have preached you let him be accursed We have said before so I say again If any man is preaching to you a gospel of contrary to that which you received now let him be accursed Right for am I now seeking the favor of men or of God or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men I would not be a bondservant of Christ We began to look at this text last evening last Sunday evening We divided it into two parts Because Paul says that there are more than one gospel out there Vying for the hearts and minds of men and women We looked at what the three primary false gospels were last week just by way of review if you were Joining us tonight. They are legalism rationalism and of course Anti-nominism legalism is the idea that you will be saved based upon your performance as a matter Really what kind of law you're trying to keep can't even be the law of God perhaps the ten commandments But the idea is that you're not really as bad as people think you are or as God's word says you are but But one who can with just a little bit of help of prevenient grace Be able to make the cut so to speak I Would like to blame this on schools, but this kind of gospel was around long before we ever had an informal school But if the idea that God grades on the curb that you will look at different people and say well You know so and so is better than so and so and so and I have to have so many in here So I'll drop the curve and so many will make a performance level satisfactory enough to be accepted and the course put that way It is ludicrous, which is exactly what it is It's first cousin is the gospel of rationalism It's the idea that and it leads to a moralism a teaching of moral precepts that that are predicated upon getting the right answer or Acting in a proprietist sort of play or always being proper It's the gospel of the elite of the intelligentsia of the opera crust of the Western world It's the gospel born and and nurtured in the enlightenment where reason replaced the revelation of God and we're doing good Replaced being godly Where the righteousness of God was no longer to be imputed on the basis of a person who acknowledged their need and their worklessness before the Lord but but now was something to be learned in schooled in and Developed as science. It is believe it or not the prevalent religion of America. It dominates most of the mainline churches including Roman Catholicism There is finally anti-nomenism a relatively Late contender in the arena of gospels, although it's been around a long time. It's made it come back in the 20th century Antenomenism as you know means against the law the idea of cheap grace of easy believe ism if the idea that the gospel Teachers us that we're not saved by performance nor by having the right answer But we're just so levelable that God couldn't reject us anyway If the idea that we are more precious to the Lord than we really are and You hear it all the time it slipped into many evangelical sermons that the reason that God came to send His son to the world is just because you were worth it. Well, that's true That's not the basis for his sending his son Scripture says the reason he sent his son into the world is to fill his promises to build for his son the kingdom Kingdom of righteousness filled with righteous people who have the righteousness of Christ and fear to the them for a far from lovable And are not saved by anything that's cheap I think we run into anti-nomenism today because it is Correct for me to tell you that your salvation is free you pay nothing for it But that does not mean that it is cheap God has paid a dear price for it and the gospel of God Paul says clearly and Romans and hearing Galatians in the next chapter The gospel of grace does not notify the law rather establishes it the gospel of the of grace does not Teach that we can break the law whenever we want to and God doesn't care after all we're under grace If that's the prevalent gospel of evangelicalism today and it's a false gospel Paul says the these three contenders all strike against the gospel what he calls in this text the gospel of Christ We move from these first two verses Verses six and seven the verses eight and nine tonight and look at what the true gospel is Paul says that even though we or an angel from heaven. I think it's interesting that he says that You would think that he would say it even though we or an angel from hell should distort the gospel, but it is not Because these false gospels all we sound so palatable so credible so refined and good there what good people accept Paul says that even though we are an angel from heaven should preach to a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you Let him be a cursed a As we have said before so I say now if any man is preaching to you a gospel Contrary to that which you received let him be a curse He turns in verses eight and nine away from the false gospels to the one true gospel the gospel of grace And he says three things about this gospel this true gospel that he calls not the gospel of grace but the gospel of Christ in this text He says first of all It's a gospel with history He says that which we have preached to you and that which you have received Paul is referring to something that historically he had already given the churches of the nation Something that they had acted upon by God's grace that he had received and believed and were trusting in He would say in another place at the end of Romans if you'll turn there to Roman 16 that this gospel had been around for a long time In different forms it was the preaching of the prophets and of the Old Testament in the Possils of the new He says in Romans chapter 16 and the last three verses beginning in verse 25 Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ According to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past But now is manifested and by the scriptures of the prophets According to the commandment of the eternal God has been made known to all the nations leading to obedience of faith to the only wise God through Jesus Christ be the glory forever a man Notice that their Paul refers to this gospel as a revelation That which came he said through my gospel my good news and the preaching of Jesus It was in the scriptures of the Old Testament the scriptures he calls of the prophets the gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ These things are historically Documented and and the gospel that we believe is rooted in history. We do not have a Faith that is given to a mysticism The things that we profess to believe the very core doctrines of our gospel are Rooted in the life and times of Jesus Christ the Messiah and of the men who went before him and prepared his way and those who came Matthew to proclaim his great works We we all the time it seems like Every other year we turn around at least every decade or so and there's another seminar to discover the historic Jesus the real Jesus Well, folks, I beg to differ with those theologians who think they're necessary I think they're ludicrous the real Jesus is in the gospel He's in Matthew Mark Luke and John and he find him in the book of Acts He's the one the scripture says that he himself says was foretold of the old Testament and he's the one around whom the whole New Testament is still He is the Christ the God of history He comes to our space and time and the things that he did he said Paul said in another place to Agrippa and to Festus when he testified a price before them. He said you men know that these things that Jesus said and did were not done in the corner People have seen that when he rose raised himself from then he appeared to 500 witnesses over 500 witnesses He appeared to to men and women in his day and time and and deliver the same message that Paul delivers to us through his Epistles in this time There's really no need ever for us to discover the gospel There may be a need for us to unclutter the gospel from all of the false ideas that become Impressed to the point like barnacles over the span of time And there's always a need for us to contend for that gospel to keep it pure Simple so the people can understand it and believe it doesn't take a rocket scientist to believe the gospel of God So it would not be a gospel for all men There's another brother of Jesus Christ not James but Jude who in his little epistle began this way He said Jude bonds servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to those who are the cold Beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you Beloved while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation I felt the necessity to write you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once or all Delivered to the saints to hear what you said I wanted to write you about our common salvation but I felt the necessity to warn you in the short letter of mine Shortest one in the New Testament About these false teachers and their false gospel and that you contend to earnestly for this Truth that was once for all delivered to the saints. It is a historic gospel It's also also Paul will tell us the time and again, and it's a gospel of grace Their brethren is ultimately the rough That is the thing that is believe it or not so offensive to men I Know That you in this room will agree with what I'm going to say at least the last majority of you will in the next few moments But I want you to think back to a time when you were not a Christian For some of you that may be when you were a child for some of us It may be just a few decades ago, but remember the first time someone shared to you the gospel and you really understood what it said about you And your works and about Christ and his work. Do you remember how offensive it was? For you to hear that you could do nothing to please God That your works were as unto filthy rags before the Lord That you were helpless and weak That you deserve destruction and if you were not going to find it and find something else it was surely by the pity and mercy of God Can you remember how offensive was I can? I can remember a fellow named Jimmy Lannimer Beating me to death with the gospel over 18 months, sending me every week It seems telling me these things that that I knew as he'd explained them had to be true They were right on the pages of scripture, but I did not want to receive or believe What was I rejecting the grace? I wanted to believe that I could do at least something to help God help me But that is not the gospel The gospel is Calvinism now many of you will say Lord forgive him, but before he forgives me here what you want him to forgive me for You you tend to thank many of you that Calvinism is the narrow-minded opinion of one man Who couldn't get along with anybody and was stuck away in the corner of the world just to be nasty for a season That's how the world presents John Calvin Unfortunately, what Calvin taught is now called Calvinism But it's really historic Christianity. It's the it's the doctrines of grace theologians call them Taught not by by just Calvin but by St. Augustine before him By by the apostles by Jesus Christ before them Even alluded to in the prophets of the Old Testament Paul says C. H. Spurgeon when he dedicated the Metropolitan Tabernacle Asked five preachers in the area to come and five successive evenings and preach all these doctrines of grace because He wanted people in London to know that this tabernacle which still stands at least the facade does the insight It's been burnt down and rebuilt white on the same location there in the south side of London He wanted people to know that this tabernacle was dedicated to the gospel of God and He had people come and preach Calvinism what we call the five points of Calvinism that my brethren that my loved one is the gospel We know it under the acrostic of the tulip T. U. L. I. T The T stands for the total depravity of man which the Bible clearly teaches Not that man is as bad as he could get he can always get worse and Aside from the grace of God he will But total in the sense that every facet of his being Is tainted by this thing called original sin and rendered him not only totally oriented against God and force in But totally unable to do anything to correct that without the impregnating irresistible empowering grace of the Holy Spirit He is totally dead Ephesians said you don't have time tonight to look at that But I encourage you to go home and to read Ephesians chapter two verses one through ten R. Paul says that when you were dead the in your sins God that made you alive in Christ for by grace you have been saved There is a deadness about us that's beyond our imagination. That's the first offensive truth of the gospel that we are not Basically good people for we are not We are totally evil Not in degree, but certainly in the permeation of sin through every fiber of our being So that we are unwilling and unable to even cooperate with God unto eternal life The second point of the gospel known as the you in the tulip is unconditional election That if a man is in that state of spiritual death If he is totally unable to respond to God then God must do what has to be done to bring him to life and to faith and To righteousness and that is precisely what God does He unconditionally chooses those whom he will save we call it unconditional election Because it is not predicated upon any value or performance or work in the person chosen Ephesians chapter one speaks clearly of this doctrine It is out of the counsel of his own will in his own wisdom that God chooses whom he will choose and Send his spirit upon them to bring them out of death and into life our own confession of faith says Those of mankind that are predestined unto life God before the foundation of the world was laid According to the eternal and immutable purpose and the secret counseling good pleasure of his own will have chosen and Christ unto everlasting glory out of his mere free grace and love Without any foresight of faith or good works or perseverance in neither of them or any other thing in the creature as Conditions are causes moving him there unto and all to the praise of this glorious grace We would like to think that God looked down the road and said well He's going to become a Christian anyhow just choosing now But that's not how it happens dead people Dead people Do not respond to the call of God's voice Dead people Cannot answer the invitation of the gospel dead people Cannot obey the command to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ They must be born again. They must be brought to life By the sheer hand of God's good grace or they will be forever and eternally dead That leads us to the most unpopular point of the gospel and to the five points one which many do could not sing a few minutes ago Limited or particular atonement The idea that Jesus did not die to make possible the salvation of everyone, but he died to effectively save those whom God had chosen It was the angel Gabriel who appeared to Joseph in a dream one night and said don't be afraid to take this young woman Mary as your wife for that Which is in her womb is of the Holy Spirit And he said you she shall bear you with son and you shall call his name Yeshua Jehovah say For to see who will save his people from their sins If you believe in full verbal plenary inspiration you have to do something with the fact that the angel Gabriel under the Inspiration of God did not say if he will make possible the salvation of all people he did not say that Nor did Jesus in John chapter 6 say anything but this Everyone whom the Father has given to me will come to me and I will not cast him out and all who come to me will not perish All that the Father has given to me I will receive Not everyone but the ones that God has elected and given to Christ he will receive He has said this Christ to die for his people To atone for their sins And not for the sins of the world It is unrighteous on God's part to sacrifice his son for someone who he knowingly will not choose to be saved and will not extend the grace of Holy Spirit it is an unrighteousness on the Father's part to do that a gross injustice to make his son pay for sins That will not be atone for and he will not do that When we do not accept The limit itals a particular redemption of Jesus Christ What you are really struggling with is the sufficiency and efficacy of Christ's atone We may not doubt its sufficiency that is sufficient to save all men for indeed it is an infinite value and worth What we are questioning is it sufficient efficacy is it effective enough to actually cause The salvation of those for whom Christ died. You see there's the difference between a Calvinist and one who doesn't believe the Gospels of grace Not that God made possible the salvation of all men So they had to do something in addition to Christ worked, but that Christ actually saved his elect when he died their salvation was guaranteed That leads logically to the next point which is clearly taught in scripture the eye of the to look the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit What we call effectual calling in our catechism What is a factual calling? The factual calling is the work of God's almighty power and grace Whereby out of his free and special lump to his elect and from nothing in them moving him and their unto He does and his accepted time invite and draw them to Jesus Christ by the word and spirit Savingly enlightening their minds renewing and powerfully determining their will so that they although Themselves dead and sin are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call and to accept and embrace the grace offered and convey their name But why why do we say things like this if we don't believe in irresistible grace? You know, I've had people who reject that doctrine. They say I'm not a Calvinist I will never believe in the irresistible grace of all the spirit Then I'll talk to them about their uncle or their mother or their neighbor who's not converted and I'll say what's the problem here? And they'll say to me well, you know A person just can't believe unless the Holy Spirit works in their life. Well, what do you call that? What do you call that? That's called irresistible grace It's the irresistible work of the sovereign spirit who in the name of the sovereign Christ who atone for sins and Effected their salvation actually works in the heart of the ones whom the sovereign father is chosen If all those things are true and they are If they're not we have no gospel of grace if not we've got a gospel of grace 99% grace and a little bit of man helping God out and we ain't got a sovereign God and got a real problem Then you have the doctrine of the pee in the tulip the perseverance of the saint Thomas and spiel in their commentary on Roman safe All who were chosen by God were deemed by Christ and given faith by the spirit are Returnally saved they are kept in faith by the power of the Almighty God and thus persevere to the end It is the guarantee of grace that we will never fall completely from grace and be lost Let me tell you something if you want a gospel where anybody can make a decision at any time to be safe because God has done His part is up to men to do theirs Then you've got a gospel that does not guarantee the perseverance of the saint listen to me God is just if they can choose whenever they darn well please they can unchoose and lose it whenever they cross the line You can't have it both ways Don't give me this cockamamied stuff about being a one-point Calvinist what in the world is that? You believe in the perseverance of the saint's why what could possibly give you any hope that you will persevere to the end Look just look at this morning sermon at your own heart What gives you any credence of belief that you will be acceptable to God in the way you speak What's in your heart? Why would you believe that God would put up with you with all of this unless you believe If you were chosen of God Purchased by Christ Induelt by the Holy Spirit Sealed by God, sovereign grace, under the day of salvation Our confession says this perseverance of the saints depends not upon their own free will But upon the immutability of the decree of election flowing from the free and unchangeable of of God the Father upon the efficacy of the merit and Intercession of Jesus Christ the abiding of the Spirit and the seed of God within them and the nature and covenant of grace from which all Arise unto the certainty and infallibility of their salvation You say well pastor You're just given us the old debate between the Armenians and the Calvinists and indeed I am listen to me friends. What in the world was that debate other than a debate about the gospel pray tell What were they arguing about? It was the gospel C.H. Bergen said the election I take it and I am here speaking of the whole set of truths which group around this Central Sun has not only a salting power but exercise of the flavoring and a seasoning power over all other doctrines The purest evangelism springs from the truth that the doctrine which looks at that that we look at first as though it would hush Every exertion with indolence and make men sit down with listlessness and despair Really is the trumpet of God to awaken the dead because it honors God God will honor it We tend to say that all you can't preach Calvinism if Discurringes evangelism. Well, let me tell you something if you were a preacher like I am you wouldn't say that I Told people this morning if I believe that I had to get up every Sunday morning at every Sunday night and be on my best like the old Gillette razor commercials. I had to be sharp So that I could get it across you just right and convince you in your free Demented and depraved will to change your mind and somehow make a massive shift of gears and go into doubtliness from Godlessness If I believe that on the sole power of buying moral persuasion I had to bring you out of that into life. I would never preach another second never But I get to get up here and say look. I mean, I know right now folks that the things I'm saying is making some of you folks so mad You won't sleep till about one o'clock in the morning, but I know that what I'm saying Will to the elect Get through maybe not tonight But eventually those who have been chosen by God Will be saved by God Even if I'm off one night Even if I make a mistake listen to me even if I get it wrong Your salvation rest not upon the preacher not upon your own ability to make a free will clear-minded reasonable decision Dressed on the sovereign grace of God It is to preach grace It is to preach grace That is the task of the gospel preacher and to preach grace is to preach the gospel so to preach the doctrines of grace Is to preach the gospel All these other doctrines all these other false gospels They are not gospels of grace these legalism these rationalism these anti-nominism They're all based upon man with the doctrines of grace Rest on the shoulders of God alone It is God who's saved Not us, not we Spurgeon said the reason I believe The men do not know the gospel and have no power in their preaching Is that they are afraid of real gospel Calvinism Therefore The Lord does not own them Because they do not own the truth of the Lord You say fast you believe everybody who's a not a Calvinist doesn't preach the gospel. I believe everybody who's not a Calvinist Preaches a defective gospel But I believe the grace of God works even through them. I was saved by the preaching of a non-Calvinist But just because the Lord in his grace overlooks Poor gospel doesn't give us an excuse to continue to camp on one this gospel is a gospel of history It's a gospel of grace Finally Paul says it's a gospel of doctrine People say all the time. You know, I don't want to get into too much doctrine Why don't we just stick to the gospel? Well, let me tell you something if you don't stick to the gospel or to the doctrine You won't have a gospel after a while You'll end up with four spiritual laws you'll end up with some little three-minute track It tells you as Jesus in your heart to love God and try to do better You won't have a gospel gospel is predicated upon doctrine on the teaching of The Apostle if you're asking people to turn from sin. Don't they need to understand what sin is? Gracing the trust in Christ. What are they trusting in Christ for? I remember witnessing to a man years ago when I first became a Christian Campus crusade for Christ had a massive worldwide campaign Called the here's life campaign and you would get these bumper stickers on the back of your car And you could say I found it and you drive around town and people would are supposed to ask you what you found So one day one of my relatives said what's that? I would you find that said I found Jesus Christ found eternal life at all well? I never lost him It's not a bigger reprobate in my family He didn't even know him and so we had to be taught things about Christ You know John MacArthur said and I think he's right the problem with most gospel preaching today is we don't make the doctrine clear enough for That's true We've got to tell people what it is. We believe If we're calling them to have faith in the same thing right And we we live in an age where you say well, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere with it That's what your precedent for each is that's what all the politicians are and doesn't make any difference how I live It's making difference what I do I love God less America. I'll make you feel good. I'm sincere That's why we're in the shape we're in spiritually speaking Martin Lloyd Jones probably was the greatest gospel evangelical preacher of our times He said this about preaching I Would be prepared to argue that in many ways evangelistic preaching should be more rather than less theological than any other Kind of preaching and for this good reason Why is it that you call people to repent? Why don't you call them to believe the gospel? You can't ideal properly with repentance about dealing with the doctrine of man and the doctrine of the fall and the doctrine of sin and the wrath of God against sin And then when you call men to come to Christ and to give themselves to him How can you do so without knowing who he is and what grounds you invite them to come to him and so on? In other words, it is all highly theological Evangelism, which is not theological is not evangelism not evangelism at all in true sense It may be a calling for decisions It may be a calling on people to come to religion or to live a better kind of life Or the offering of some psychological benefit But it cannot by any definition be regarded as Christian evangelism because there is no true reason for what you are doing apart from these great theological principles I assert therefore that every type of preaching must be theological including and most importantly evangelistic preaching
Let me tell you something loved ones Your friends and and your family members who are locked in sin and lost deserve a reason for why Christ died they need to know precisely what is wrong with them They need to know By some plural Exercise of explanation what it is to repent and believe in Christ. They deserve clear answers You're asking them to give up everything they are familiar with To turn and follow Christ and by God is my witness they deserve to know why they don't need to be cajoled in some emotional moment They don't need to be worn down by 56 stanzas of just as I am They don't need to be given some little Presentation that ends in 60 seconds and then be asked to make a decision upon which all of eternity rests You need to learn your doctrine and explain to them why They are totally depraved and dead and sin why God has chosen to do what he has done why Christ died What the Holy Spirit will do what it is to have faith repentance how they can be sure that when they put their faith in Christ They will never perish They deserve those answers They deserve to know the doctrines of the gospel Paul said when I came to you I did not come with Superior to speech or wisdom proclaiming to you some mysteries of God But I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified There's never been a more doctrinal preacher and writer and all the Christendom than Paul the Apostle who calls this gospel my gospel Lastly brethren Paul tells us something about the motives of the gospel Tell us what a false gospel looks like gave us three false gospel told us what the two Gospels is it's a gospel rooted in history and grace and it's a gospel that is Theologically consistent and now he says Here's the bottom line versus not 10 you need to know what motives drive you in accepting or rejecting this gospel and In preaching what you preach and teach or witness to other people verse 10 For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God or am I Striving to please men if I was still trying to please men. I would not be a bond servant of Christ Any man who's taught a Sunday school lesson Still up before seminarians and seminary preached in the pulpit anywhere news exactly what Paul's referring to You want to pack the house? Here's how you do it You just get up in the pulpit and you make up a motive of your life in ministry to tell people What they want to hear and here's what they want to hear they want to hear that they're not as bad as the Bible says they are But Christ is not quite as necessary as everybody thinks he is And that they have more in them than they ever realized to reach their own potential To recognize self-fulfillment To meet the man upstairs and do something meaningful with their life. They're told that God needs them He's climbing away for them and they ought to do him a great favor and make a decision to follow him at least most of the time That's what they want to hear and That's as you know brethren One oftentimes with their toll Paul says if a roast are trying to please men Then I would not be Preacher of the gospel he had once tried to please men. He knew what it was like to be a Pharisee to be a man pleaser Jesus said you search the scriptures because you think that and then you have eternal life that it is these that they're witness to me and You're unwilling to come to me that you may have life. I Do not receive glory from men, but I know that you do and you have not the love of God in your cells I have come in my father's name and you do not receive me that if another man shall come in his own name You were all too readily to receive him How can you believe when you received glory from one another and you seek not the glory of God which comes from his only one? Jesus nailed it right on the head Here's the problem. This is why you men and women are rejecting me because I seek not your glory But the glory of God. I don't flatter you like your teachers do I don't suck up to you and tell you the things you want to hear and you reject me because of that You cannot receive the glory of God Because your heart's lust after the glory of men Paul says if I were like that I would not be like Christ a preacher of the truth I am a man who has the motive of this in my life Driving me and that is the glorified God By bringing them to Christ so the Holy Spirit can save them He said I do not receive as my My motive for ministry the laws and the plots of men, but rather I strive for the glory of God That is my primary purpose to glorify God to enjoy him for if he said in the book of angst I did not consider my life of any count as dear to myself in order that I may finish my course and the ministry Which I receive from the Lord Jesus Christ to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God preaching will offend people sharing the gospel with your loved ones will make many of them angry probably all of them at one time And it will cause you to be considered a Nincompoop Among many circles. Why do you care that those people who feel that way Will not be with you in the Lord forever, but the people whom God has chosen They will respond and they will come a day they'll thank you If you thought more of the glory of Christ than you did your own comfort Paul says look All the gospels that are offered in opposition to the true gospel have this is their primary motive They flatter men into the kingdom Rather than tell them the truth You say we'll preach too much wrong that here's what's wrong with it If you tell people they're basically Able to save themselves whenever they finally decide to agree with the gospel and be big-hearted enough to ask Jesus into their life
None of them will be safe. You can't be saved with a lie Although make decisions and they'll join the church and they may even go off and become preachers themselves But they won't be saved You'll be popular You'll have masses around you complimenting you for the way you have the drawing people to yourself and Making them feel good about themselves, but you know what they'll all be unconverted around you And when you die and they die They're blooded beyond your hands every single one
So you were Tessiella belly you wouldn't tell them the truth That grace That sin That Christ who stands between Warfield said there is nothing therefore against which Calvinism sets his faith with more firmness and every form and degree of Then then every form of degree of self-salvation Above everything else it is determined to recognize God in his son Jesus Christ Acting through the Holy Spirit who may ascent as our veritable Savior and to renounce all glory to men Who have done nothing But crucify the Lord of glory and so there you have it As to beginning emigrations You have a choice which gospel you want Paul says You can have a gospel of performance where you do the right thing you keep the law you you punish rulebreakers You accomplish goals you earn a sense of acceptance all within the limits and lines of tradition To be a legalist you can be a rationalist you can have the right answer you can be orthodox and keep the party lines and look good and be nice and never fend Anyone to be well respected and well informed You're a moralist Or you can be a lawbreaker and anti-nominist You can go and live whatever way you want to laugh at all and say and all he loves this anyway Aren't we so lovable he could never reject this You have a rude awakening coming You can turn to the pages of history in the Bible you can read the doctrines of grace From the best and Lutheran Calvin you can read polls of pistols and find out That when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared he saved us Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness But according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the Holy Spirit Who me poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ the Lord that being justified by his grace We might be made errors according to the hope of eternal life You will say preacher You're preaching to the choir tonight. I don't think so I'll let my friend Martin Luke to tell you why this is a great concern to Paul and to me and to modern preachers Therefore let us learn that this is one of the devil's specialties If he cannot do his damage by persecuting and destroying the church He will do the under the guise of correcting and edifying our doctrine Thus today he is persecuting us with power in the sword So that once we are out of the way he will not only corrupt the gospel, but will obliterate it So far he is not succeeded Frey has killed many who steadfastly confessed that our doctrine is holy and divine And by their blood the church was not destroyed, but rather was watered and grew So since he cannot succeed that way he is a rousing false teachers At first they accept our teachings and preach it in agreement with us But later on they say that we have made a good start But that the more sublime things had been saved until now and so forth This way the devil impedes the progress of the gospel But on the right side and on the left More on the right by edifying and correcting that on the left by persecuting and destroying He tries to thwart the church Therefore we must pray constantly We must read and hold tightly to Christ and do his word So that we may prevail against the tricks With which the devil attacks us on both the right and on the left For we are not contending against flesh and blood Against powerful forces From the spiritual realm Don't think for a minute Brethren That this gospel of grace that we preach to hide is not criticized And undermined and perverted in our own age And in our own circles maybe even in this own room Don't you fool yourself We have every reason to listen to Jude And contend to earnestly for the faith Which for once were all was delivered to the saints For certain persons have crept into our numbers unnoticed Those who were wrong beforehand marked out for this destruction Ungodly persons who turned the grace of our God Into licentiousness and who deny our only master in Lord Jesus Christ You think about it There's one gospel Flatters God But not men But it saves men To the glory of God. It's a gospel of grace Front to beginning Beginning to end It's all of God Not of man That's why we sing with Fanny Crossy Whatever her the aunt you are To God be the glory To God be the glory Great things he has done Amen Let's pray Father it is necessary for us again and again To be reminded of these doctrines of grace In this age of humanism of secularism Were men are always Speaking so well of one another And so so poorly of you Always wanting to take credit for what you do And blame you for what they do It is necessary for us to be reminded That this historical Grace-based Doctrically Preferred gospel of the apostles and prophets That which Jesus Christ himself gave to us That which Augustine and Lutheran Calvin and the Puritans And all the great men of the evangelical Historic Protestant faith have Profestibly even passed on age after age Must be Must be contended for and protected In every age Give us the grace to do that Ween us off of our own self-righteousness And our lust to take from you Father the God that belongs to you And to the Son and to the Spirit We acknowledge our depravity Our helplessness Our propensity to do evil We confess before you tonight that if you had not given us your irrefutably irresistible grace That none of us would be in grace at this moment And we confess before you tonight That it is because of Christ and what he has done that we are saved And not what we have done in ourselves And that we rest in that Christ For our own security and assurance And if for a moment Be decided to forsake us We would perish in an instant We would lose all that he has given to us But we confess that this will not be so Faithful as he who called us And faithful as he who will bring it to pass You will continue to perfect that Which you have begun until the day of Christ Jesus And for your own glory and that alone You will save every single one of your left So that someday in glory by the billions They will confess worthy is the Lamb that was slain To receive honor and glory and dominion and riches and power and the strength worthy Is the Christ who was slain We praise you for saving us by his grace And in that gracious name We give you thanks for his sake
And now may that grace of our Lord Jesus Christ The love of God the Father And the communion of the Holy Spirit Be yours now and forevermore Amen