Book of Galatians - Ch. 1, Vs. 11-Ch. 2, Vs. 2 (07/09/2000)

Paul’s Gospel Comes by Revelation, Not from Man

We're in the book of Galatians chapter 1, verse 11, Paul's laying the foundation for some very strong doctrine. He makes a statement in verse 11, but I certify you. Certify, David, what would it mean to certify?

He said, what I am fixing to tell you is as official as I can make it. I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. Yes, yes, authentic and true and real. The true gospel that you heard of me is not of me, Paul is saying.

It did not come down from man or by man, including myself. Then as Paul says, I didn't make this up. I didn't read it someplace. Neither did anybody instruct me in what to say. There is no man that can learn the truth unless it is revealed to him by the Holy Spirit.

Dennis, you believe that? It's absolutely true whether we believe it or not. You, as you sit there week after week, will learn nothing from me. If you learn anything, it's the Holy Spirit that is revealing it to you at that very moment.

Neither will you learn anything out of sequence. Neither will you learn anything, Debbie, that is not applicable after that moment. For he knows when we need to know something. And he brings it about at that time.

Galatians 1 .12, Bill. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Remember now, the other disciples were in the very presence of Jesus as he walked on this earth.

Then he was crucified, buried, and rose and ascended back to heaven at a certain time later. Then comes Paul much later. And on the road to Damascus, we find his conversion experience. Then he went into the desert for some three years.

Some time, or maybe all of the time, I don't know, we're not told. During that three years, the Lord Jesus himself, the resurrected Lord, met with him. So Paul is saying, I got my words and theology directly from our Lord, the resurrected Lord.

Not that that would make any difference, but he certainly holds the position of being directly approved of our Lord for the mission that he had. 13. For ye have heard of my conversion conversation. That's the old English way of talking about your conduct.

In time past, in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. And we have some of the incidents in which he actually did this. And he's saying, myself above all, persecuted the Christian more than any.

And he says, and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equal in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my father. I think Paul means that he was more profoundly skilled in the law than any of his Jewish friends.

Remember this, people, a man's character will take care of his reputation. So don't worry about your reputation. Pay attention to your conduct every day. The way to gain a good reputation is to be that which you desire to appear.

Think about it. The way to gain a good reputation is to be that which you desire to appear. It is never well for a man to publicly vindicate himself from certain charges that have been brought against him, which his entire life contradicts.

Those who know the man, they don't need the vindication. Those that don't know him won't pay any attention to what he says or writes. So don't think you're making any headway when you try to justify yourself for your own actions.

You should never need to. Now we come to a very personal and amazing statement by Paul, one which carries great doctrinal value. In verse 15 of the first chapter of the book of Galatians,. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.

Pleasing God, the Will of God, and the Work of Grace

Let's talk about 15 a little bit. When it pleased God. Now Debbie, why is it apparently important to please God? Because he's God. Clarence, why do you think it's so important to please God? Diane, why is it important to not please God?

Let me say that differently. Well, it's important we understand that, but let me say it differently. What is the result, then, of not pleasing God? How does he let us know? What's the first level of knowledge that we've done wrong?

Dennis, is our conscience, and I'm talking about the born-again person, is the conscience of a born-again person guided by the Holy Spirit? Why do you know, then, that you've done wrong? What's the reason for it?

Bill, what happens if we ignore that? What will be one of the first signs that we are growing further from him? What is the first sign to us, if we're aware of it at all? What is the first sign to us of growing further away from the presence of God?

The lack of our joy. And she turned and looked at Clarence. All right. How many of you this morning know that you are in the will of God? Hold your hands up. Well, let me ask you, it'd be easier for those that don't know that they're in the will of God.

David, how do you know? But, I mean, right now, as you sit there, how do you know? He has a passport. Oh, and he's not here. All right. So we know it, Dennis, simply because we're here. Now, we're here physically or we're here mentally.

Did you all come to learn of his word this morning? Remember, I'm not teaching you. The Holy Spirit is. I'm just the mouthpiece, perhaps, once in a while. All right. So when it pleased God, Paul says, when it was pleasing to God, then, Roger, did Paul have anything to do with that?

Nothing whatsoever. Where was he at that moment? But when he realized that he was a child of God, where was he? All right. What if he had been late in starting? Would he have missed the experience? Why?

Then he wasn't late in starting. Could he have been early? Well, what if he chose to go on some other road? You have your classes confused. Is it possible, is it possible for you to outmaneuver God? Is it possible for you to ever be at a certain location when you're not supposed to be there?

Now, be cognizant of what you're all agreeing to this morning. Is it possible for you to be out of the will of God? I didn't hear so many others this time. In what area can we be out of the will of God?

In our mind. I hope you all understand that. Verge, you understand what we're saying? Good. You suppose your wife does? All right. So we can get out of His will, but it's only in our mind. Because when it comes to the doing, He controls every bit of it.

And since Roger has spoken to us that we can't outmaneuver Him, then it must be that everything we do is according to His will. Now, don't ask me to explain every detail, because I cannot. There's so many things that man has thought that he has done, but he hasn't.

Who's talking? Roger. All right. Okay, you say that the only way out of the will of God is God.

Is God what? Allowing it to happen. No. He allows nothing from Satan, from you. See, we have a nature. He has given us the ability to think in the spirit or to still run back and think in the old satanic spirit.

Now, sin does not start when we think satanic thoughts. The sin starts when we leave the spirit. And we have perfect freedom to think what we want to. Scripture tells us that. That the mind of man devises his way, but the doing of it is of the Lord.

So we can think whatever we want to think, but that's not going to change anything. He has given us that freedom. Now, also, he has the ability to put thoughts in our mind and to change ourself. Satan can put thoughts in our mind, but only by some outside source.

God has direct access to our mind. Satan has to work through some agent and one of our senses. Now, don't think that you will see, hear, smell, touch, taste something, and it will immediately cause you wrong thoughts, because there's no time limit.

It might have been a year ago that you saw that, and you just now begin to think about it. But he has to come through the carnal senses, or else he would not have had to appear to Eve in the physical, because she was righteous, and he could not get inside her mind.

Now, I know there's some world-famous doctors that would disagree with me, theologians, but I have the right to my own view as much as they do. Any other questions? That it pleases God for us to not please him?

Write a letter on that, will you? Well, that's true. The results of our thinking, we think it's our thinking that manifests the results, when really it isn't. It's God. But through that, I would hope we learn.

We should learn by everything, good or bad, whatever it is. Every event that comes is designed to draw us closer to him. So everything originates with him, so everything is good in its original state.

Satan can only take what God sends and pervert it. Satan can generate nothing except sin, and sin's in the mind. That's right. That's what he meant by being more than a victor. Not just to conquer the sin or the situation, but use it to strengthen yourself, and that's the design of it.

Everything. Yes. I would challenge each of you to, sometime this week, you'll surely have a few moments, I want you to reflect on your past life and see, just think of everything that you can as far back as you can go, and see if you can tie it all together with this thread of the blood of Christ running through every event.

At the time, it might, Roger, seem like it was totally of Satan, and there's no good at all. God wasn't in it, or whatever. But now, looking back, years later, it becomes easier to see how God worked that way so we would be where we are.

Do that. I'm not going to ask you for a report. Just do it, and it'll help you. Don't ever condemn your past life, because whatever it was brought you here today, all of it added together is at this point right here.

All right. Would it please God, who, by the way, had separated me from my mother's womb, so before he was ever born. Turn to Deuteronomy 7 and 7. He called me by his grace. Another word for grace is favor.

Deuteronomy 7, 7, and 8. Debbie, will you read those for us? Before he was ever born, before any of you were ever born, before any of your grandparents were ever born, before Adam was ever made, before the world ever was in existence, we were in God.

We were in him, for everything has come out from him. Was it proper for God to call Paul at this particular time? Was it proper? All right. If it was proper then for God to call Paul at that time, is it not also proper for God to call us at this time?

If he chose to save Paul, then could he not also choose to save us? Paul was not looking for salvation. He was sure he already had it. There has never been a man, either before or since, that was so much against becoming a Christian as Paul.

But he did. And he had no say-so in it. David, what do you see in those few words?

The fact that he saved his son, Paul, he saved him, he didn't know it.

Does anybody see that it also says along, and maybe David was alluding to this, that the Son was already in him? If the Spirit of the Lord was already in Paul and Paul didn't know it, then, when it pleased God, he revealed the fact to Paul that the Son was in Paul and made him aware of it.

Is that right? No, it has to be to Paul because it's a personal thing. And others that are not believers would not know what was going on, just as much as the people with him heard a voice, perhaps, but didn't know what was going on.

To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen. So he has a purpose. Immediately, he had a purpose. I conferred not with flesh and blood. Now, David, he didn't run to the preacher, did he?

He didn't go to seminary. He didn't go to a deacon. He didn't look it up someplace in a psychological book to find out what was happening. What did he do, Bill? It's a simple question. What did Paul do when he realized that he was who he was?

He went off into the desert. That's right. He was led into the desert, much like our Lord was, only Paul was led to be taught by the Lord himself. Neither went I up to Jerusalem, this is where the other apostles were, to them which were apostles before me, or before I was appointed.

But I went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus, the very place that he was headed. For three years, Paul was taught by our Lord. He never from that moment on doubted of which he was teaching, that of which he was teaching.

Very important that we understand that he was instructed in such a way and his character was such that when he believed it, he knew it was right. Just like he knew that what he was doing prior to this time was right.

It was pleasing the Heavenly Father for him to kill all of these crazy lunatics that have this cultism going. Then three years after, or later, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him fifteen days.

But other of the apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, Behold, before God I lie not. What was he doing, Clarence, getting God involved in this? He says, I'm speaking in the sight of God who sees that I do not lie.

It's a very powerful and also a very dangerous thing to use the name of our Lord in confirming something. If we make sure that God teaches us, we may be sure of the truth that he teaches. Afterwards I came into the region of Syria and Cilicia and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ.

In other words, they had heard of him but they'd never seen him. And was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but they had heard only that he which persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith which once he destroyed.

Debbie, that had to make the news that night. That had to be something I doubt if it can be mentioned today but at that time it was very important because the people of the way, they're not called Christian yet, but of the way were fearful when they heard that Saul is coming.

Paul’s Changed Reputation and the Praise of God

24, and they glorified God in me. David, what's it mean they glorified God in me? It's for what they found in me they praised God. The most speedy and easiest method of accomplishing our desire is to overcome the evil and do good.

That's the quickest way. Is an immediate compliance with our first convictions without conferring with flesh and blood? I have checked that personally. For me it usually works. Let me explain what I'm talking about.

Usually when an important question comes to us we have an answer immediately. That first answer reveals your true character. If your true character is what it should be the first answer will be right.

But if you stop and consider it with yourself, the flesh you might be persuaded some other way. So, anytime from now on when you answer a question if you do not verbalize your first thought then record it so you'll know what it is because that very first thought is how you can check your progress in this Christian walk.

Do you understand what I'm saying? Listen to your very first thought that comes when you're asked a question. Now, you may not want to voice it but for your own benefit read it. Go back and read it. And if it is wrong then you need to work on your walk with the Lord more until it becomes more the part of your character.

Unlike Paul, many of today like to show their earthly degrees and certificates to brag about their accomplished or their being commissioned by a certain church or denomination. Did you ever see anybody like that?

How many times have you ever gone into a pastor's office a preacher's office I won't say pastor a preacher's office and you see all of his diplomas hanging every place on the wall. How many do you suppose Paul had?

He didn't have an office, did he? All that poor Paul had was something that man could not read and that was a personal appointment from our Lord Jesus himself. Any questions on the first chapter? I hope that you have better retention of your memory than I do that you can keep things in mind for a week so that all of that ties together.

I wish some way that it were possible and I have not yet found it. Where we could go through the book without stopping but so far that's impractical, Debbie. But let's look at chapter 2 for just a moment.

I'd like for you to go to the book of Psalms to the 139th Psalm. Greg, would you read verses 15 and 16 to us, please? What's that mean to you, Greg? Could it apply to us? Could it apply to us? Galatians 2, 1.

Titus, Paul’s Private Visit to Jerusalem, and a Revelation-Driven Ministry

Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also. Here comes Titus. The word Titus means honorable. He was with Paul and Barnabas at Antioch and accompanied them to the council of Jerusalem.

He appears to have been a Gentile and to have been chiefly engaged in ministering to the Gentiles. To have been for Paul sternly refused to have him circumcised in as much as the case in his case the cause of the gospel liberty was at stake.

We find him at a later period with Paul and Timothy at Ephesus. Once he was sent by Paul to Corinth for the purpose of getting the contributions of the church remember that they were taking to Jerusalem.

He joined the apostles when he was in Macedonia cheered him with the tidings he brought from Corinth. After this his name was not mentioned until after Paul's first imprisonment. When we find him engaged in the organization of the church in Crete where the apostle had left him for that very purpose.

The last notice of Titus is in, is it Timothy? Or Titus? Timothy. Some place in Paul's later writings we find him with Paul at Rome during his second imprisonment. From Rome he was sent to Dalmatia with no doubt on some important missionary Aaron and we have no record of his death.

This is Titus. And I went up by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preached among the Gentiles but privately to them which were of reputation lest by any means I should run or had run in vain.

This statement has been grossly misrepresented I think. We know from the first chapter that Paul knew what he was teaching and he knew it to be right. That would be because he had received it directly from our Lord himself.

Here we find him going to Jerusalem to visit with some of the apostles. He didn't visit with all of them. Some of them. And Paul told the apostle what his message was and had been all the time to the Gentiles.

But it was not to get their approval as most people seem to think it was. Why do you suppose he did this? Why did he go to Jerusalem and with the apostles explain what he'd been teaching? He's going to check them out.

Now, perhaps they never knew that. But he knows what he's teaching is the absolute truth. He wants to know what they're teaching. And I dare say if they had not been teaching the truth he'd have told them.

But he saw that they were. He did it in such a way that I think Roger, they never suspected his real mission. And that's good. We don't have to tell everybody everything. I think you're absolutely right.

But he was sent by revelation. Turn to Amos 3 .7 and we'll stop. Amos 3 .7 They'll read to us. He doesn't pull any surprises, does he? He doesn't have any sting operations, does he? The people that are involved in the coming event will have it put on their heart to pray concerning the coming event.

And they don't know what it is. But that's the way he works. One great reason that that's the way it works is that when it comes you'll recognize it and give God the praise for it. Alright, we'll take it up at that place next week.

Any questions? Well, let's stand and I'll ask Dennis to dismiss us, please.