There Is One Gospel

[0:00] Paul was confronting a similar situation to that in the churches of Galatia. It wasn't the relativistic postmodernism that we deal with, but the churches were indeed tolerating false teachers and heresies that destroy the gospel and its influence.

[0:21] The issue, at least at first, with the Galatians is not so much that they've already become fully apostate, you'll notice even in the very first verse, there is an action verb that is a continuing action.

[0:36] It's not a completed action that they are deserting, not that they have deserted. There is something in Paul's mind where he is not willing yet to say that they have become full apostates to the faith.

[0:48] His issue, at least on the surface, is that they are beginning to tolerate other apostates to the faith, that they are tolerating within their churches, that they are tolerating within their scope of doctrine, things that destroy the gospel.

[1:07] And he uses this letter to confront the false teachers. He affirms the gospel of grace that had been preached to these people, that had saved these people.

[1:19] And he warns the churches that the doctrines that they are beginning to tolerate are setting them and others on the road to eternal hell.

[1:32] But before we jump into these verses, let's take just a moment before we start talking about defending the gospel to understanding what the gospel is to begin with. So what is the gospel?

[1:43] Let's just work through a few of maybe Paul's own writings about the gospel. Remember 1 Corinthians 15? Paul is writing that amazing chapter on resurrection, not only on Christ's resurrection, but the resurrection of the saints.

[2:00] And he opens the chapter by saying, I would remind you brothers of the gospel, the good news that I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

[2:14] And here's what he says it is. As of first importance, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

[2:29] So if somebody were to come to you and say, in just in one, really one or two statements, tell me what is the gospel?

[2:40] Paul tells us the gospel is very simply, Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried and then he rose from the dead in accordance with the scriptures.

[2:52] That's the gospel. That the only hope of eternal salvation we have does not lie in anything that we do, but it lies in something that Christ has already done.

[3:05] That the forgiveness we receive is not something that we can earn through religious observance or anything else. It is given to us. We receive it through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross.

[3:20] And we've spent the last several weeks looking at that very, very closely in Mark's gospel. that the purpose of Christ's death was not just to be a model or an example for us.

[3:31] It was an efficacious death. It was sufficient to actually provide satisfaction against God's wrath that the kids learned about on Thursday night.

[3:44] Jesus told Nicodemus that in his current state of unbelief and in sin, that he was condemned already. He was living in that moment underneath the wrath of God for his sin.

[3:57] But because of what Christ has done on the cross, God has taken his wrath for the sins of his people and he has put it on his son, fully satisfying his justice so that he can then come to all who believe and he can give instead of judgment, eternal life.

[4:18] And all of that comes not by what we do, but through what Christ has done. Christ died for our sins according to the Bible. He was buried and he was raised according to the Bible.

[4:33] Paul goes on in Romans chapter 1 to say that this is the thing that actually has power to save. He says, I'm not ashamed of this gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

[4:50] In other words, he's so convinced in the faithfulness of this gospel that he says it and it alone has the power to save. He writes to the Ephesians in chapter 2 and verse 8, you know the verse well, that it is by grace you've been saved through faith.

[5:09] This is not your own doing, he says. It's a gift of God, not of works, so that no man may boast.

[5:20] So here's the gospel. It's the power of God to save and that salvation is not based on what we do, it's based on the grace of God. It's a gospel of grace. And then he encourages his team as he is passing off the scene at the end of his life to continue to defend this gospel.

[5:40] He writes to Timothy, in 2 Timothy chapter 1, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God who saved us, called us with a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose of grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

[6:11] Loved ones, this is the gospel. There is no other one. This is it. And it's a wonderful gospel. It's a glorious gospel of grace, and it alone has the message of salvation.

[6:28] For Peter and John said, there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

[6:40] Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says that there is one body, that is one body of believers, and there is one Lord, and there is one hope, and there is one spirit, and there is one faith, and there is one baptism.

[6:55] There is one gospel, and we must affirm and defend this gospel of grace. Otherwise, by deserting God and his gospel, we will follow the path to hell and lead those under our influence on the way there.

[7:18] So when Paul writes to these churches in Galatia, he is not writing casually. You understand now why he doesn't take time in the beginning to thank them.

[7:31] There's nothing to thank. This becomes less of a letter of encouragement to believers, and it is structured more like an evangelistic letter to those who may not actually be converted.

[7:45] And there is a great gravity and weight to the things that he says, and we need to heed these verses personally and as a church. So let's look at it together.

[7:56] The first thing, just two really main points to look through. First one is, I want you to see the exclusivity of the gospel of grace. The exclusivity of the gospel of grace.

[8:10] So in verses six and seven, we see the situation presented, at least in summary form. Paul was shocked to hear these professing Christians were deserting God and distorting the gospel.

[8:26] So he opens his correspondence with a passionate affirmation of the exclusivity of the gospel. There is only one gospel, in other words, he's saying.

[8:37] Let's look at verse six. We see them deserting God. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

[8:52] I'm blown away, he says. This word for astonishment, thalmatso, is the same one used by Matthew when he describes that scene with Jesus and the disciples on the boat in the Sea of Galilee.

[9:09] And remember in the middle of the night, the big storm comes up and it's beating the ship to pieces and the disciples are afraid they're gonna die and Jesus is asleep in the back and someone runs and gets Jesus and there's that famous statement, Jesus, do you not care that we're dying?

[9:26] And do you remember what Jesus did? He goes to the front of the boat perhaps or maybe he just gets up where he is and he says three words, peace be still. And with the sound of his voice, he harnesses all of creation.

[9:40] The waves that are beating the ship apart become smooth as glass. The wind completely stops. It is a miracle of miracles, so to speak. And then Matthew says that the disciples in that moment marveled, which in our language doesn't seem like much, but when you put it into the context of what they were experiencing in that moment, it literally means their jaws were dropped.

[10:05] They were speechless. They knew nothing to say and then the other gospels say that this marveling actually led to fear on their part. What manner of man is this, they said, that even the wind and the seas obey him.

[10:20] Same word Paul uses here, thou matzo. I'm astonished. My jaw has hit the floor. Same word that is used for the disciples by Luke on the day of Jesus's resurrection when he appears into the room later that night and he just shows up in the middle of the room and he has that mill of fish right in front of them and it says thou matzo in regards to the disciples.

[10:46] They're blown away. They've just seen a person resurrected from the dead appear in front of them suddenly. Now imagine how that might feel. Be terrifying.

[10:56] Be overwhelmed with amazement. That's what Paul says he feels in this moment. I'm blown away. I'm astonished at how quickly you have turned to another gospel.

[11:15] So his astonishment is not just about the fact that they are entertaining and tolerating false gospels. It's the fact that they've done it so quickly. You know, dating New Testament letters isn't always an easy thing to do.

[11:27] It's tricky. But the evidence suggests that at the time Paul wrote this letter to the Galatian churches, it was only about a year after he had actually helped to establish these churches.

[11:41] That's fast. It's a reminder that the early season following our conversion is often the most exciting.

[11:53] It's also the most volatile. because Satan wastes no time trying to destroy our faith. Because for us to stay too excited about our faith for very long is going to become an influence on others who might turn to the gospel as well.

[12:10] And the early days of our faith is often the most challenged of our faith. That's not to say that as we grow and as we get older that it doesn't become more difficult.

[12:22] It's just the challenges begin to change and they take different shapes for each of us. But it's only through faithfulness to the word, reliance on the Holy Spirit that we develop this spiritual maturity that is necessary for fighting off these attacks.

[12:40] Well, these fledgling churches had not had time to develop that level of maturity. And it didn't take long for false teachers to come in and to begin to deceive so that these young believers were beginning to turn away.

[12:58] Notice that Paul's accusation here is not that they were deserting the gospel, but that they were deserting God. Look at it in verse 6.

[13:09] I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ. This turning from the gospel was not an action on its own.

[13:23] It was the means by which they were deserting God himself. You cannot separate love for God from faith in his truth.

[13:34] You can't separate discipleship from faithfulness to the gospel. And think about it. These Galatians would have immediately affirmed a love for Jesus.

[13:50] But Paul's priority in writing to them was that by turning to a false gospel, they were in reality deserting the very God that they claimed to love and to know and to follow.

[14:02] Because it's impossible to be a disciple of Jesus and tolerate a different gospel than he taught. It's not possible.

[14:16] And I see in this verse a warning against the modern notions of deconstruction within Christian communities. Do you know what I mean?

[14:28] Do you understand what I mean when I say that? There is this, you can find all kinds of articles about it. It feels like every other day there's another apostate Christian and there's an article that's written about them and how they have gone through this process of deconstruction that has ultimately led to them leaving the faith altogether.

[14:44] It is kind of a buzzword right now that indicates kind of tearing apart everything that you've ever believed to find some other kind of truth or your truth or however it is that you might term it.

[15:01] True deconstruction implies that there is a systematic dismantling of the trappings of religion in order that we might get to the foundations of Christianity which is the gospel.

[15:19] So that if we talked about Legos a couple weeks ago, right kiddos? Let's say we were to build a castle out of Legos this morning. There would be a difference between John Moseley coming through and saying, hi-yah!

[15:33] Karate chopping the castle apart, right? There's a difference between that and Clementine coming to the castle and saying, you know, instead of just karate chopping the thing and destroying it to start over, why don't we just kind of take it apart piece by piece to see where the instability actually was and then we'll reconstruct it better.

[15:53] Okay, that's true deconstruction. It's a systematic dismantling that gets us to the gospel so that then we can reconstruct our lives and our faith and our beliefs on the gospel itself.

[16:08] Another word for this is reformation. And this is something that we're always doing as Christians. We're always looking at the peripheral things in the church.

[16:18] We're always looking at the traditions of the church, the things that we cling to so tightly and evaluate them against the truth of the gospel. Are they actually serving the purpose of the gospel? So that coming out of the Reformation in the 16th century, that phrase, always reforming, would be true for us today.

[16:34] That's the true sense of deconstruction. But what's happening in many Christian circles today is not deconstruction. It's demolition. And what people have done is for legitimate reasons in some cases, because of church hurt or the ubiquitous headlines about abuses in the church and physical abuses and spiritual abuses and all these kinds of things.

[17:02] And there's these people that have spent their lives in Christianity and maybe it was a superficial life or whatever it was. And they begin not to deconstruct their faith. They just demolish it altogether. And when they bring the wrecking ball in, they destroy the gospel with it.

[17:17] So what comes out on the other end is not a reconstructed faith built on the truth absent of man worship or absent of all the trappings of religion that would aggravate us and frustrate us in our walk with Christ.

[17:30] What actually comes out on the other end is a tolerance of a false gospel, whether you call it that or not, bending to cultural whims, turning to a gospel of their own making.

[17:45] They've utterly deserted God. And that's what Paul's getting across. You think that you're just improving or strengthening your faith or whatever it is.

[17:55] That's not actually what you're doing, Galatians. You're deserting God. And if you're in one of those positions right now of quote-unquote deconstruction, just as a word of warning, make sure in the process of reforming your faith that you don't demolish God, that you don't desert Him in the process.

[18:18] So they're deserting God. Second thing we see here in verse 7 is they're distorting the gospel. That's how they're deserting God, by distorting the gospel. Verse 7, not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

[18:38] The false teachers who were troubling the Galatians, we find as we continue reading the letter, they were what we refer to as Judaizers, which were Jews who claimed to be followers of Jesus, that Jesus was necessary for salvation, but they taught one must get to Jesus through Judaism.

[19:01] So that they insisted that salvation from Jesus could only be achieved by someone who first converts to Judaism, and with that comes taking the sign of circumcision, or at least affirming as a woman that you would agree that circumcision would be necessary, and then you adopt the Old Testament laws in regards to ceremonies, rituals, dietary restrictions.

[19:28] So that the seduction of this kind of teaching is that it does not outright deny Christ. That's why it's so deceptive.

[19:41] They didn't deny Christ. They didn't deny that He was useless. They actually affirm, though, that we need Jesus as a part of this equation. His sacrifice really does mean something to what we're doing, but it's not everything.

[19:56] It's not sufficient on its own. You also need the law. You need these ceremonies. You need the Sabbath. You need the dietary restrictions. You need the circumcision. And once you come through that pathway, that pathway is the only way to really get to Jesus and receive eternal salvation and forgiveness of sins.

[20:16] So rather than denying the gospel, they distort it. But to distort the gospel is to destroy it.

[20:29] That's Paul's point. And he says it at other points in the letter. Chapter 2 and verse 21, you could probably just look there quickly with your eyes. It's probably on the same page. Chapter 2, verse 21, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, as the Judaizers were teaching, then Christ died for no purpose.

[20:55] In other words, they're distorting the gospel. They're destroying it. You can't have a righteousness on your own. You can't have a righteousness that comes in any way through the law.

[21:06] And if you can attain a righteousness in any way through the law, there was no purpose for Jesus then to die. So the Judaizers then, they're not simply enhancing the gospel.

[21:21] They're actually destroying the gospel. Look at chapter 3. It might still be on the same page there for you. And at verse 10, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

[21:34] For it's written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now it is evident, Paul writes, that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.

[21:50] That's a quote from Habakkuk. But the law is not of faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

[22:06] For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

[22:17] You see what Paul's getting across here? You can't have works in faith. It doesn't work. They're not compatible. Righteousness from the law and righteousness by faith are not complementary.

[22:31] They're not compatible. They're antonyms. They don't work that way. It's one or the other. This is really no different from the false gospels that we deal with today.

[22:47] It's no different from the teachings that salvation comes through observance of the sacraments or through penance or the mediation of saints.

[23:03] It's no different from those who would say that your baptism is salvific in some way, that Jesus is great and you need him and we're so grateful for him, but you won't be saved until you get baptized and that in your baptism, that salvation is then made complete.

[23:21] That's a heresy not to be tolerated. Can I tell you that there's a lot of Baptist churches like ours who do the same thing.

[23:32] They don't do it with baptism. They do it in other subtle ways. They preach superficial gospels, superficial explanations of truth.

[23:46] And they suggest that your salvation is on the action of a moment. That if you walk this aisle and if you say this prayer and if you fill this card, you're good.

[24:00] So that in the end, people are not embracing Jesus alone for salvation. I wonder how many people we know who have set their hope on something in addition to Jesus.

[24:18] In their hearts, they're trusting not the finished work of Christ. They're trusting their baptism or they're trusting their observance of religious formalities or rituals.

[24:35] They're trusting this prayer that they prayed or they're trusting some other superficial thing other than the gospel. It's not that they take the gospel out.

[24:49] It's that they are deceived into thinking that it's not the gospel alone. We need to remember that Jesus plus anything else equals nothing.

[25:07] That's what Paul is expressing to these Galatians. You can't add circumcision to Jesus. If you add circumcision to Jesus, you end up with no gospel. If you add the Sabbath to Jesus, you end up with no gospel.

[25:21] If you add baptism to Jesus, you end up with no gospel. If you add a ritualistic prayer to Jesus, you end up with no gospel. MacArthur says, Paul is not friendly to that.

[25:33] He doesn't see that as a minor detail. What harm if they want to be circumcised? What harm if they want to keep the Sabbath? What harm if they want to follow rituals and ceremonies and dietary laws?

[25:45] What harm is that? It's deadly harm, he says. It's damning harm. Because if you add any work of any kind to the gospel, you have undone grace.

[26:00] And the gospel that we proclaim and the gospel that we believe for salvation, the gospel that we defend is the gospel of grace, not grace plus anything else.

[26:12] It's grace and grace alone. And to add any other thing to it is to nullify the grace of God, Paul says. And his famous remarks about the man on the middle cross, I'm sure all of you have probably, at least on some level, are familiar with this clip.

[26:34] Alistair Begg said, if you were to die tonight and try to gain entry into heaven, what would you say? And he says, if you or I answer that in the first person, we have immediately gone wrong.

[26:52] Because I, because I have faith, because I am this, because I got baptized, because my dad was a preacher, or because this, or because I, I, I, I.

[27:06] No, he says. Loved ones, the only proper answer is in the third person. Because he, because he took my sin, because he died my death, because he rose from the dead, because in the context of what he was saying, he said I could come.

[27:27] And that's exactly what Jesus did. He said come to me, all who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

[27:39] It's not about what you do. It's not about an action that you perform. It's about him, and him alone. There is one gospel, and if you try to add anything to it at all, it becomes no gospel at all.

[27:58] It removes then, the only good news that actually makes it gospel. The exclusivity of the gospel, we see the second thing, and we're done. The destroyers of the gospel of grace.

[28:11] The destroyers of the gospel of grace. Look with me at verse eight. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.

[28:27] As we've said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

[28:38] Paul's speaking through hyperbole here. He doesn't actually anticipate that there will come a time in his ministry that he will change his preaching of the gospel.

[28:52] Neither did he intend to say that it's even possible for an angel, a true angel from heaven, to preach a different gospel than the gospel of God. That's not what he means to insist here.

[29:05] He's speaking in hyperbole. His point is that the gospel of grace through Jesus is not the exclusive gospel because he says it is.

[29:16] It's the exclusive gospel because God says it is. Do you see the difference here? That's why he throws himself in here. That's why he throws the angelic beings in here.

[29:28] That it's not about what the messenger says. It's not my gospel. It's not my authority. This is God's gospel. This is his authority.

[29:39] It's his word that has told us these things. It is his spirit that has affirmed these things. It is his son who has accomplished these things. This isn't my gospel, it's his.

[29:50] And if anyone, including me, were to come into your church and preach any other gospel other than what you have received, let him be accursed. Which brings us to an important point of application, I think, regarding celebrity individuals within Christianity.

[30:11] Be careful that your faith isn't based merely on what your favorite preacher says or what your favorite musicians sing.

[30:21] don't accept something just because I say it or because someone that you actually respect says it. No.

[30:35] We can't do that. If your faith isn't based on the word of God, you will inevitably fall into whatever error your favorite Christian succumbs to.

[30:53] There is nothing unique about me. There was nothing particularly unique about Paul other than the way the Lord used him. And Paul says, if you base your faith and your gospel and your doctrine solely on me, you're gonna go wrong.

[31:12] Because if I and the weakness of my flesh go wrong, you're gonna follow me there. It's not about me, he says. It's about the word. It's about the truth of God.

[31:22] It's about his gospel. We must get in the habit of, as so many of you are, and I love it so much, we're blessed as a church to have people we would call as noble Bereans, like in Acts 16, examining the scriptures and as Paul said, destroying arguments that exalt themselves against the truth of God.

[31:49] We are blessed as a church with many people who do that. And let me just echo what Paul says. If at any point, it doesn't matter if I'm the founding pastor, whatever title you would give me, if at any point, Jared Blankenship stands up here on a Sunday morning or any other time and starts to add things to the gospel of grace, it is time for you noble Bereans to find a new pastor.

[32:13] Paul says, this is not about me. This is about the truth. And so don't follow me on the road to error, don't follow an angel on the road to error.

[32:25] Trust the Bible. Trust God. Because many false teachers are everywhere. And the Bible warns time and time again that these destroyers of the gospel are not always easy to identify.

[32:42] Matthew chapter seven, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing. Inwardly, they're ravenous wolves.

[32:56] Be careful who you read after. Be careful who you listen to on their sermon podcast. Be careful who you watch on TV. Be careful who it is that you begin to follow.

[33:09] Always judge everything by the truth of God, not the winsomeness of a personality or the seeming effectiveness of somebody's preaching. Some of you have been a part of ministries before who seem to be abundantly fruitful only to find out that the one driving with their personality was involved in some type of sickening sin and had to be disqualified.

[33:34] You know what that's like. And if we set our hopes on those people, when they fall, we will either fall or we'll be absolutely devastated and we'll be tempted to be like those deconstructionists that we talked about earlier.

[33:54] So hurt that we stop going to church because we think that the church is just full of a bunch of people that aren't worth associating with anymore. We stop listening to preachers because we assume that all the preachers are just as bad as this one.

[34:06] If this one could fool me, the rest of them could fool me. If this guy was a proponent of that thing, I'm going to make sure that I don't listen to that thing anymore. You see, we got to be careful with that.

[34:18] 1 Timothy 6, Paul told Timothy, he said, if anyone teaches a different gospel, a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words of Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he's puffed up, puffed up with conceit and understands nothing, he says.

[34:36] In Acts 20, he says to the Ephesian elders, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And then he takes it a step further. He says, and from among your own selves, even among the elders of your own church, there may be some men who arise speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them instead of after Christ.

[35:01] And he says, so be alert. So church, be alert. Be alert. What will happen to these destroyers of the gospel?

[35:17] Paul tells us in verse 8 and 9, he repeats it. They will be accursed. This word, anathema, has the implication of one who is being devoted to destruction.

[35:31] The word itself means devoted to or devoted to something. In the scripture, it's always put in the context of negativity or a curse. So we take from that that what Paul intends to say is that these people are devoted by God to destruction.

[35:46] They are accursed in that sense. It's the same word he uses to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 16, 22, to describe those who do not love the Lord Jesus.

[35:58] It's the same word he uses in chapter 3 and verse 13. We read it just a moment ago to describe what Jesus became for us. He became anathema for us.

[36:11] This is not the kind of word someone uses to say that God is going to put them in a time out for a little while. Or as Gus would say, get a nice talking to.

[36:23] That's not the kind of word Paul's using here, Gus. No. The Galatians were flirting with a damning heresy that had eternal consequences.

[36:37] He intentionally repeats himself, making the point absolutely clear. Those who attempt to change the gospel are devoted by God, the judge, to eternal hell.

[36:49] And why do you think he's so concerned to be repetitive and to express this to these believers in Galatia? Because if you end up hitching your wagon to a false teacher, you will follow them on the path to destruction.

[37:04] That's why he's writing. He's not writing because his feelings are hurt, that they're listening to another teacher more than they're listening to him. That's not Paul's purpose.

[37:16] He's writing because the very salvation of their souls is at stake and the continuation of the true gospel is at stake. That's why we must affirm this.

[37:27] That's why we must defend this truth. So let's wrap it up. There's one gospel.

[37:39] It must not only be believed, it must be defended. And we cannot take a casual approach to these things. We must remain steadfast, firm in our convictions about God and his truth.

[37:55] but I want to finish by addressing anyone who may be concerned that your tolerance has led God to remove his salvation from you.

[38:09] And I want to point out that's not what Paul is dealing with here with the Galatians. He wasn't assuming that the believers in Galatia were unconverted or in danger of having their salvation taken away.

[38:23] that's not what he's saying. Salvation is eternal. That's why the Bible calls it eternal salvation. Everlasting life.

[38:36] Meaning that once you have it, you get to keep it. Because you didn't get it for something you did, you received it because of something Christ has done.

[38:49] And his work cannot be undone. It will not be undone. That is his promise to us and it's a promise you can trust. But the Bible makes it clear also that the authenticity of our salvation is revealed in the fruitfulness of our lives.

[39:11] Jesus said this, by their fruits you will know them, he said. The apostles repeated that time and again. So Paul's warning here to the Galatians was to get the true believers, the truly converted ones, back on track because we all need that sometimes.

[39:34] We all have moments where for one reason or another maybe we're deceived that we're drawn away from certain things about the truth and if we have the Holy Spirit living within us which is promised at conversion, we know that with the preaching of the gospel we will be realigned with the working of the Holy Spirit.

[39:50] We know the Bible tells us that's true. Paul's writing so that the truly converted will be reformed. They'll be put back on track affirming and defending the gospel. But he's also writing that the truly unconverted would be exposed as such.

[40:07] That brings up the question about individuals who at some point in their life appear to be genuine Christians but later deny the faith and become apostate.

[40:20] How are we supposed to process that? John helps us there. 1 John 2 and verse 19 he says they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would have continued with us but they went out that it might become plain that they are all not of us.

[40:51] In other words he's saying you see it in the fruitfulness of their life. Upon hearing the faithful preaching of the gospel do they realign to the truth of God or do they continue in error rejecting the truth of the gospel?

[41:06] Well that's what reveals to us whether or not their conversion was ever legitimate or whether they were like though the seed that Jesus said sometimes it sprouts for just a moment and it appears to be something genuine but it quickly fades away either through the persecutions of life or the deceitfulness of sin.

[41:25] Those who abandon the faith prove that they never truly belong to God but those who do belong to God will hear the warnings of Galatians 1 and strengthen their faith in the one true gospel.

[41:39] not because they're smarter than the other guys but because it is the grace of Christ that holds us fast not our ability to hold on to him.

[41:55] Sometimes we hear people say and I've probably said something like this before in the midst of a difficult trial and we would say I'm just trying to cling on just trying to hold on to him and I understand why we say that because from our perspective that's all we're doing we're just trying to hold on.

[42:11] The truth of the matter is when it comes to our salvation you can hold on as tight as you want and it won't mean anything if he's not holding on to you and that's the point.

[42:23] You fall into some kind of deception or some kind of tolerance if you've got some doubts and you're just trying to work through all the stuff be assured that if you have been truly converted you have the witness of the Holy Spirit in your life Jesus is the one holding you.

[42:39] We sing about this. Great songs we sing about this. When I fear my faith will fail Christ will hold me fast. Not me grabbing myself by the bootstraps and giving myself a kick in the pants and just getting my head right.

[42:56] No that won't do it because your head's always going to fail. No Christ will hold us fast. When the tempter would prevail he will hold me fast.

[43:07] I could never keep my hold through life's fearful path for my love is often cold. He must hold me fast.

[43:19] And that's the blessing of it all. Todd Wilson said using scripture by his own power God will quote guard us through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

[43:34] That's 1 Peter 1 5. He's more than able to keep us from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.

[43:45] That's Jude 24. Think about that one. Remember what Jesus told his disciples? He says all that the father gives me will come to me and no one that comes to me will ever be cast out.

[43:57] He says this charge I have received from my father that anyone who belongs to him will not be abandoned they will not be left out. So to say that at some point Jesus is going to let me go says either that Jesus is not sufficient enough for your salvation or he is not capable of holding you in your salvation and we know both of those things are absolutely!

[44:23] false. He indeed is sufficient.! Only he does and so Jude says he is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before God because that's the task he's been given and if you belong to him he will present you before his father he goes on he who called you to his eternal!

[44:53] glory in Christ will himself restore! confirm! strengthen! establish you that's 1 Peter 5 10 he will quote sustain you to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ 1 Corinthians 1 8 indeed Paul says I am sure of this quote that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Philippians 1 6 quote he who calls you is faithful he will surely!

[45:26] do it that's 1 Thessalonians 5 24 you won't do it he will do it you won't always be faithful he is always faithful so the questions remain this is the gospel it's the only one will you believe it will you believe it and will you defend it defend it to your family defend it to your friends defend it to our community because there's only one