Galatians - Don't Trade The Truth For Foolishness

God Centered Theology

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In April of 1988, the evening news reported on a photographer who was also a skydiver, and he had jumped from a plane along with numerous other skydivers, and he would film the group as they fell and opened their parachutes.

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Well, on this particular day and on this particular film shown on the telecast, as the final skydiver opened his chute, the picture went berserk.

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The announcer reported that the cameraman had fallen to his death, having jumped...this

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is not really a happy way to start a sermon, is it? ...having fallen to his death, having jumped out of the plane without his parachute.

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It wasn't until he reached for the absent ripcord that he realized he was free -falling without said parachute.

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I gotta stop for a second. I mean, come on, really? You dive out of planes.

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Wouldn't it be first on the list to make sure you have a parachute? I mean, seriously? But nonetheless, this is the story.

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I'm just reading what's here, people. Up until the point he reached for the absent ripcord,

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I'm sure this jump seemed exciting, certainly fun, probably exhilarating.

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I don't particularly want to jump out of a plane. It's not so much the falling, it's the landing that I'm not too keen on.

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But tragically for this particular person, they had acted with thoughtless haste and deadly foolishness.

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Nothing could save him, for his faith was in a parachute that had never actually been buckled on.

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Faith in anything but an all -sufficient God can be just as tragic spiritually.

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You see, to try to live the Christian life on the basis of anything other than the truth of the

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Gospel that Paul has been defending throughout this book, as we've seen starting way back in chapter 1, and he's continuing that defense of it, and realistically, when you really boil it all down to it, everything that Paul wrote was a defense of the true

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Gospel in one way or another. But when you don't do it on the basis of the truth of the

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Gospel and the truth of Scripture, spiritually for you and that person, it's like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

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Because if your faith is not rooted and grounded in Scripture, then you will reach for that ripcord.

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Spiritually speaking, obviously. But in like manner, you'll reach for that ripcord, and when you need it, it won't be there.

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It's utter foolishness to think that one can be saved by the

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Gospel, saved by believing and having that hearing united with faith and inspired

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Scripture, and then somehow live or grow into Christian maturity apart from that Scripture.

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And this is ultimately the question that Paul is posing to these Galatians as we turn our attention to chapter 3 today.

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He has just finished the section in the end of chapter 2 about what real justification looks like in comparison and also in contrast to what the

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Judaizers were teaching. If you will remember, and for those of you who may not have been for some of these,

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I'll just sort of set our context. These Judaizers were teaching that, yes, faith in Christ is important, but they also teach that one must keep the law as well, and they also taught that you would need to be circumcised as well.

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This is obviously not what the true Gospel teaches. It's not what Scripture teaches about the life -saving

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Gospel that is solely by the grace and mercy of God. It is a free gift of His grace.

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Nothing can be added to it. Nothing can be taken away. It is only by repenting of our sin and placing our full faith and trust in the only payment for sin that God has accepted, and that is

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His Son, Jesus Christ. But this is the question that Paul is posing. He turns the corner here in chapter 3.

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What he's basically asking is this. If you receive the Holy Spirit by faith, which we all, that is one of the things that unites all

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Christians. We are all united by the same faith. We're all united by the object of our faith, which is

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Jesus Christ. We all have the same indwelling Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, and that is what unites us.

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And he's saying if you receive this Spirit by faith and by the grace and mercy of God and by believing the

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Gospel, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ, and if you've been made alive in Christ by grace and mercy and received the

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Spirit as a result, what in the world makes you think that now you're going to go on and live your new life in Christ apart from His Word and apart from the saving knowledge that is found in the

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Gospel? He's asking how do you think that you will grow into maturity?

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Now, we will see in a minute, specifically in verse 3, when he says, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

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We've seen this word and have encountered it several times over the last couple of years as we've been looking at different books in the

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New Testament. It is a word that means completeness. It is a word that means full maturity, not lacking.

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It is a stage in our sanctification that we are always working towards. We won't fully realize that perfection and that completeness in this life because of the sinfulness of our humanity that we still reside in as we haven't received glorified bodies as of yet.

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So there is always an element of continual growth, consistent growth, continual advancement without true perfection coming in this life.

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However, in the next life, we will not only, while in this life our soul and spirit are as holy as they ever will be, our sanctification in the sense of our life and in our flesh that we battle with daily, and we're actually going to look at this in great detail when we get to chapter 5 in Galatians.

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That's the part we war with. That's the part from a couple weeks ago when I told you, if you don't wake up every morning and you're not at war with yourself and at war with your flesh with your own sin, forget about everybody else's sin that we love to point out.

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We all do that at some point or another. We love to pull that number, so to speak.

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But if you're not at war with yourself every day over your own sin and your own shortcomings and how you missed the mark and how you fail your

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Savior, something's wrong. Something's wrong. Because we're told to put on the full armor of God every single day without fail.

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And why would Scripture instruct us to do this? Just because it knows you're going to need it. Especially if you're going to try to live for and accomplish anything for God.

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But this perfection, this completeness, Paul is asking how in the world do you think that you can grow into maturity as a

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Christian apart from the same divine source being the Holy Spirit, the

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Holy Spirit of God that brought you spiritual life in the first place? Because we learn in the book of Ephesians.

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We learn this in the book of Titus. It talks about regeneration in Titus. It talks about us being sealed by the

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Spirit in Ephesians. And there's plenty of other places we could talk about about the Spirit's work. He's the third person of the

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Trinity. He is the one that regenerates us. He is the one that brings us to spiritual life. That brings us to faith in Christ.

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He is the one that seals us until the day of redemption. We need not neglect the person and the work of the

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Holy Spirit in our Christian life. And that's what these people were doing. They were basically saying, well, we're perfectly fine.

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Man, that whole thing about the Spirit sealing us and saving us, that whole get out of jail free card, which the gospel's not that, although it is a free gift.

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Well, we're good with that. But man, I now have to submit to the Spirit. I have to submit to the

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Word of God. I have to start living an actual Christian life. Yeah. If you remember from last time,

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Galatians 2 .20, we've been crucified with Christ. If you've been crucified with Christ, as Romans 6 tells us as well, that we're united with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection, we have died to sin.

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We no longer live. But we live for Christ. We live in Christ. If you're going to be united with Him, it is

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Christ that lives in us. And if we live that life that Christ lives in and through us through faith in the

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Son who died for us, who loved us, He gave Himself up for us. So yes, it's important.

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And yet, so many Christians do it every single day. Myself included. We ignore the

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Spirit's presence in our life just because we would disagree with some of our

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Christian brethren about how the Spirit functions. There's certain denominations that look at things a little differently and they're brethren just like we are.

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We would disagree on certain things, and that's okay. But just because of that fact that we would have certain things we may see a little differently, all

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Christians should be united on the fact that the Spirit is not only real, but He's active. He's active in everyone

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He indwells. He's active in everyone He's raised to spiritual life. We shouldn't ignore His presence for whatever reason.

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Sadly, too often, we do not seek to find the answer to the question what does

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God want? By going to His Word, we go to everything else. We go to man's wisdom. We go to what feels good.

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We go to what we've always done. And He's telling these Judaizers, He's telling these Galatians that we're falling prey to the

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Judaistic teaching. That's not how it works. That's not how the Spirit operates. And so notice in Galatians 3 .1,

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He says, you foolish Galatians. Now, this word foolish here does not mean mental deficiency.

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He's not saying they were incapable of what was needed in their minds to get it.

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He's not talking about mental deficiency. He's not talking about just simply being stupid or something like that.

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The word translated foolish here is a word that means mental laziness. Carelessness.

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It's a word that means they have a wrong attitude of heart. You see, ultimately, any attitude that ignores or rejects

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Scripture is not a Christian attitude. And what it's saying is that ultimately the issue here is it's not a mental issue, it's a spiritual one.

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It's the old cliche. At the heart of the matter, it's the power of the heart, right? Everything boils down to that.

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We think, we say, we do, we make excuses, we do all these things.

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We come up with all the reasons in the world. I covered this a couple weeks ago about how we come up with all the reasons in the world not to obey

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Scripture, not to obey the Spirit's prompting. And ultimately, what it comes down to when it really boils all the way down to the bottom line, it's a matter of the heart.

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It's a wrong attitude. And that's what he's saying here. He says you're foolish. You're careless.

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Your heart's not in the right place. Get your heart right with the Lord. He never saved you to go live and live under the bondage of the law.

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And that's what these Judaizers are trying to carry you and swift you away and bring you back into a bondage that Christ specifically saved you from.

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So yes, it is foolishness. It's foolish to think we'd be set free and then voluntarily go back and submit ourselves under a bondage of sin that was the one thing that was condemning us to hell in the first place.

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So yes, I agree, it's foolishness. That's what he's telling me. He says don't trade the truth for foolishness.

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Then notice he says, who has bewitched you? Well, this word bewitched means to charm or to fascinate, charm or fascinate, but in a misleading way.

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Typically by flattery. Also, you'll see this, people will make false promises that's not based in truth.

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It's because Satan always lies. He's the father of lies. Satan can't help himself.

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It's his nature. He lies and he lies over and over. And he comes up with new craftier ways to lie.

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I mean, in the garden, it was just something as simple as, you know, has

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God said that you can't eat that fruit? Pretty straightforward. Pretty easy, right?

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God said don't eat it. Well, all I have to do is convince them that they can eat it and I've won.

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Or at least he thinks he's won. But nowadays, man, you've got so many layers. You've got so many different kinds of personalities.

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You've got so many things going on. Satan's had to up his game. He can't just rely on the old things from the old ways and old past ways to do things.

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Now, granted, Satan has a great advantage in that he's been studying human history for thousands of years.

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He knows what makes us tick. He knows what buttons to push. He knows exactly how to drill in there and get that one thing.

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Because trust me, if you're honest with yourself, we all have that one thing, don't we? That one little thing where Satan can kind of slide in, push that button just right, and he's got you.

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But it's because he lies to you. He lies to you. One of the greatest lies that's been sold to the

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American church decades ago that is bringing forth fruit over and over right now is that you can do church without being submitted to the authority of Scripture.

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Come up with the newest gimmick. Do whatever it takes to get butts in seats.

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Forget about holiness, righteousness, the gospel, evangelism, discipleship.

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It doesn't matter. Just get it full, man. That's works -based salvation, y 'all.

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You stand before God and say, Lord, I filled your church. He's like, I don't know you. If that's your righteousness that you're coming to me with,

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I don't know you. The only righteousness He'll accept is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Anything you do for Him, up to and including increasing in attendance at a church, is done out of love for the

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Savior, not to appease the Savior. Christians and churches in general have been bewitched.

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They've been charmed. They've been fascinated. They've been misled. They've been flattered.

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They've been sold promises that are not based in truth. Because Satan lies. He always misleads.

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He always makes false promises. He does not want you to know the truth. He certainly doesn't want you to obey the truth because He knows how

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God will bless you if you do. I've seen it in my life. When I was living my life based on the lie of Satan, man,

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I was miserable. No joy. But man, it's a sweet blessedness to love the

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Word of God. To obey it. To really get in tune with the presence of the

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Spirit in your life. To trust Him every day and say, how are you prompting me? What is it you're trying to show me and teach me?

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And how can I apply that and live it? Just like it was in Paul's day with the

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Judaizers and John, the other disciple. He dealt with the Gnostics and there was just all kinds of false teaching.

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It's no different today. But it's because Satan never ceases his attack on the truth. Turn on your

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TV. The attacks on the truth are just... it's amazing. I mean, we don't have time for it, but I would love...

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I got so much stuff on my computer. I would love to show you the research about how conservative voices,

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Christian voices, are being silenced all around us. Because people are doing this.

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I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. Satan engages his attacks both outside and inside the church.

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Many churches, and sadly, this one hits home for me, many pulpits. Trust me, I could name names.

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Many pulpits are bewitched and foolish because they've traded the truth of Scripture for something else rather than guarding it and defending it and living it.

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And as I said earlier, since foolish does not mean mental deficiency, that means the ultimate issue at play here and the ultimate issue in Galatians 3 is not mental, but spiritual.

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It's a wrong attitude. It's a wrong heart. You see, the reason many of these Galatian believers, and this is who

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Paul's writing to. He's writing to those Galatian believers, the one professing faith in Christ, and he's warning them. He's saying, this ain't right.

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And the reason they're falling into that Judaistic legalism is because they stopped believing and obeying the truth of the

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Gospel. They had deserted the truth. They had traded what had saved them for a false Gospel that doesn't save.

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See, it's not that there's the Gospel and then there's variations or layers or flavors, if you will, to the

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Gospel. No, that's not how it works. There's one Gospel. There's one payment for sin.

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Period. There's no comma. And whenever a

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Christian or a church ceases to actively believe and defend and apply the truth, much like these

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Galatians, they become susceptible to all kinds of errors. See, you have to be on the move.

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You have to be active in the war. There's no bystanders. There's no Christian bystanders.

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There's no sideline Christianity. As much as I warmed the bench in high school in basketball, and I did very well.

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I even got an award for it. I'm just kidding. That's not true. But I should have gotten an award for best and most warmed bench in the history of benches on a basketball team.

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That's not what Christianity is. We're all starters. We're expected to live like starters.

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Yes, I know football has started. God bless pigskin. But there's no 53rd man.

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You're all starters. You're all on the field. Or you're supposed to. And when this happens, what happens is after enough time has gone by, when you stop actively defending and living by the

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Word, you come to believe and apply error so consistently that you come to believe that error is actually true.

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And then you'll lash out and attack anything or anyone that goes against their truth.

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So instead of defending the only truth that's found in Scripture, you defend error as if it were truth.

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That's exactly what was going on here. These Judaizers were defending what they were doing. How dare

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Paul. Remember chapter 2? They went as far to even question his apostleship.

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He's not a real apostle. He never walked with Jesus. He just has that crazy story about how he was on the

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Damascus Road and Jesus came and saw him and converted him. Aw, come on. Paul's not a real apostle.

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You can't believe what he says. They'll lash out at anything that does not back up what they are purporting.

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And that's what these Judaizers did, man. They defended it staunchly. They said, nah, man, you've got to keep the law.

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You've got to be circumcised. Them old people of the way, those faith people, nah, man, they're telling you wrong.

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You can't believe Paul. That's what was going on. They traded the truth for foolishness.

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John MacArthur in his commentary on the book of Galatians says the following, and this is a full paragraph, a little bit lengthier than what

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I normally quote, but it's really good because I think the context of the full quote is worth hearing. He says in his commentary, the

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Christian life is neither entered nor lived on the basis of good feelings or attractive inclinations, but on the basis of God's truth in Christ.

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Christians who rely on self -oriented emotions instead of Scripture -oriented minds are doomed to be, and then he quotes

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Ephesians 4 .14 here, to be tossed here and there by waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the tricks of man, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

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He goes on to say, when they judge an idea on the basis of how good it makes them feel, or how nice it sounds, or based on how they've always done it, rather than on the basis of its harmony with God's Word.

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And I'm going to stop the quote there just for a second. That's the key. Is something in harmony with God's Word?

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Is it consistent with revealed Scripture? He goes on to say that those people that do that, they are in serious, notice, spiritual danger keeping in harmony with what the root of the word that's translated foolish actually means.

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It's not mental, but spiritual. To finish the quote, he says this.

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He says, the faithful, effective Christian life, however, is not simply a great emotional adventure filled with wonderful feelings and experiences.

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It is, first of all, the humble pursuit of God's truth and will and of conformity to it.

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And then he goes on to say, the true joy, happiness, satisfaction, and all those feelings that does populate the adventure and journey known as the

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Christian life are byproducts of knowing and obeying God's truth.

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It's true. It's true! How he puts it there, 100 % of that quote, absolutely true.

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How do I know that? Because I've lived it. If I pursue joy, satisfaction, whatever it was, fill in the blank, and I wanted to have it on my terms and my way,

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I never found any of it. Never. But by knowing the

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Word of God, studying the Word of God, applying the Word of God, being in submission to it, as a natural consequence, as a natural result of being in tune with the divine source of truth,

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I have joy and happiness and fulfillment, true peace and satisfaction.

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It basically comes down to two types of spiritual conditions that we find here in Galatians 3.

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And I'll put it in a modern way of expressing it. Basically, any Christian or any church that is not focused on and in pursuing and obeying the truth of Scripture is a foolish and bewitched

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Christian or a foolish and bewitched church that's fallen prey to Satan's program.

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He's got you. He's got you right where he wants you. If in your life, if that's the description of your life and you can't be bothered, you ignore the

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Spirit's presence in your life, you ignore the Word of God, you've been bewitched, you've fallen prey to that type of foolishness.

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But here's the good news. In contrast, the Word of God tells us that any Christian, any church that is actively pursuing conformity to the

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Word of God, while they will be attacked by Satan for doing so, they will stand firm.

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They will grow. They will have unity and health even in the face of such attacks by Satan.

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Why? Because they will be standing firm on the inerrant truth of God's holy and inspired

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Word. I've said it many times before. I'll say it again. If you go and live for God, expect

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Satan to show up at your doorstep. He's not going to sit back and be happy about it. What could they possibly accomplish?

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I don't need to worry about them. No. He is active. I believe it's 1

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Peter 5 .8. It says, He goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

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He doesn't take a day off. He doesn't take a vacation. Days off are great.

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Vacations are great. Satan doesn't take them. He knows his time is short. He has but a few small time in comparison to how long eternity is to devour

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Christians. To devour churches. And he's succeeding in large form in a lot of places in America.

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This is why by the latest statistics somewhere between 6 ,000 and 8 ,000 churches close their doors every year.

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He's devouring Christians. How many people can you think of in your life and say, man, they used to be on fire for the

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Lord. They used to be active. Where are they? What are they doing? How are they living their life? They've become foolish.

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They've become susceptible to the lies of Satan. But I'm telling you, just as true as every word in the

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Bible is, I can tell you on the authority of Scripture that if you live for God, Satan can throw everything including the kitchen sink at you and you will come out standing firm.

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You will come out standing tall. Because Ephesians 6 tells us having done all to stand.

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Stand firm, therefore, having put on the full armor of God. Resisting the devil. Resisting his schemes.

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Will it be hard? Yes. I'm not going to lie to you. It's going to be hard. At some point in your life, you may feel like you're reading the

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Psalms that David wrote. You're going to say, my goodness, he's writing about me. I feel like enemies are all around me.

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I feel like the attacks are never ending. And they keep getting worse. But somehow you keep getting up every day.

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You keep moving forward. You keep trusting God despite it all. And my friends, that is what the

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Christian life is. It's not a removal of obstacles. It's not a removal of trials.

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It's the Word of God. It's the Spirit of God. It's Christ Himself living in and through you when these things come in your way helping you to stand firm and stand strong despite what you're facing.

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And you can do it. Not because I say so, but because the

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Bible says so. That's how I live it. That's how I know it. I don't have any special insights.

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I don't have any special abilities or powers. I just simply read the Word. And it tells me that if I trust

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God and worship Him supremely, as we looked at when we did the deacon ordination in Acts 5, as they said, hey, let those apostles go on and keep preaching.

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If it's of man, it's going to fail. But if it's of God, no man can stop it. So I'm here to tell you today, if you're living for God, studying

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His Word, defending it, living and obeying it, whether as a Christian or as a church, there is nothing, nothing that man can do to stop you.

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And not because it's you doing it, because the mighty, living, eternal Creator of God of the universe is living in you.

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And He's working through you. And He's not letting you fail. He's not letting you quit. He's not letting you go off in apostasy because He has you.

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He keeps you. He holds you. He loves you. And He will not let you fail or quit because His Word's at stake.

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And His people will stand firm. Always. Notice what

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He says. He says in verse 2, This is the only thing I want to find out from you.

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Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing with faith? Are you so foolish, having begun by the

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Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? You start.

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The Christian life begins by the Spirit of God. It is lived by the Spirit of God.

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And it's brought to completeness by the Spirit of God. Verse 5,

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So then does He who provides or supplies or furnishes you with the Spirit, works miracles among you, do you do it by the works of the law or by the hearing with faith?

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Notice the hearing of the Word of God united by faith. This is how we live the

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Christian life. We hear the Word of God. We study the Word of God. And by faith, we apply it.

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We obey it. And notice it's just like Abraham did. He says, Even so Abraham, and then it's quoting the

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Old Testament, believed God and was reckoned to Him as righteousness. Abraham believed what

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God had said. He believed the content of his faith may have been different at the time, because we live in a world where Jesus has already came,

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He's already died, so on and so forth. At that time, they were looking forward to the coming Messiah. They were believing what

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God had said about how He would be blessed and all the nations would be blessed in Him. He wanted to believe from where He lived and go to a place

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He hadn't even named. You see, true faith, genuine faith, true biblical faith is always united with obedience.

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It is not obedience that saves you. It is not obedience that justifies you. But true obedience always accompanies true faith.

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Because it's a transformation. It's going from someone that's dead in sin to alive in Christ. Those two things could not be more different than each other.

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So if your life doesn't look different, if you're not living different, if you don't have new desires and loves and wants, and you don't love your

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Savior, something's wrong. Something is wrong. You see, we have the truth.

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We have the Gospel. We should never trade it for anything else because to do so would be utter foolishness.

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So what is your faith in? What is your faith in? Everybody's got faith in something, right?

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You know, I cross two bridges on I -95 when I come here. I don't ever say, well, I better stop, do a little inspection, maybe stomp on the concrete.

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I just want to make sure they're going to hold my car up when I go across. Y 'all do that? I hope not because it would be kind of crazy. We might need to have a talk after the service.

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We don't do that, do we? Any of you that fly, do you go and inspect the plane before it takes off?

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No. You trust that the people that are inspecting it know what they're doing, right? Everybody's got faith in something.

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If they tell you they have no faith at all, they're lying to you. Everybody's got faith in something. The key is what is your faith in?

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What's the object of your faith? Is it the only source for the divine truth? Is it the only Savior, Jesus Christ?

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Do you live your Christian life submitted to that Savior and the blessing that comes from loving and obeying and just pleasing our

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Savior? If not, we will be no different than that photographer who in his haste and foolishness jumped from the plane without regard for the one thing he needed the most.

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If you do not see God's Word in your Savior and the Holy Spirit of God as the most vital thing above everything else, the most vital thing in your

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Christian life, then do not be surprised when you reach back for the ripped cord and it's not there, spiritually speaking.

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Don't miss this. This is my last sentence. It's very important.

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We as Christians are saved by the truth and we must live by that same truth.