“I marvel that
ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto
another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and
would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let
him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any
other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” (Gal.
1:6-9)
Belief is
expressed by behavior. Your actions tell the world whether you are coming from
a point of belief or going toward a point of belief.
Everyone you know
believes something, even if we don’t all believe the same thing. What you
believe will determine the way you act or react in certain situations. This
means it is very important that your belief be right, because then your
behavior can be dealt with scripturally.
If you have a
belief system that is contrary to the Word of God, it will reveal itself
through your actions and how you react to circumstances in your life.
Circumstances will put pressure on you, and your response does not cause a
certain belief but reflects what you already believe. Life does not make you
the person you are; it reveals the person inside you.
It is vital that
we understand this as we study Galatians. This is a church that had a belief
problem, and the Apostle Paul knew it needed to be corrected first, after which
the behavior correction would follow. In our independent Baptist churches over
the years, we have focused on behavior so much and spent so little time
teaching on belief that our people’s actions became what they believed. Some
received the truth and made it their belief system, but too many simply
conformed to outward actions.
What do you
believe? That is the mark of your spirituality. So many people go to church for
the wrong reasons – they like the pastor, or the music, or the location. We
have a generation of young Christians who have not been grounded in their
beliefs. If you go to enough people in your church and ask them questions about
what they believe in certain areas, you would be shocked by some of the answers
you get. These are the people who have spent years conforming outwardly but
have never nailed down a good core belief system.
We need to be
preaching about the holiness of God and His demands. If you see God as Isaiah
saw Him, “high and lifted up” (Isa. 6:1), your behavior will take care
of itself.
I can tell in many cases what you are reading and
who you are listening to by the way you act. I can look at what a particular
church is doing and often know who that church is following or patterning
itself after. You are either operating from a specific belief system or moving
into another one.
With that in mind,
notice in verse 6 THE ASTONISHMENT OF PAUL. “I marvel that ye are so
soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another
gospel.” He was astonished at the Galatians because of the speed of
their departure from the faith.
I was talking one
day to a missionary who visited my church, and we discussed how often a
missionary can come back to the United States after four or five years on the
field and visit a supporting church that is very different from what it was
before he left. A veteran missionary will see that several times over the
course of his ministry.
Your church and
mine are only one generation from liberalism and compromise. We have often
heard it said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” It would be simpler,
but just as accurate, to say, “Everything rises and falls.” Look at the
founding of our nation and examine the colleges and the churches that
proclaimed the truth in those early days but are now the epitome of modernism
and liberalism. A church that stays the same through multiple generations is an
anomaly, more the exception than the rule.
Churches change
because people are involved in churches. God does not change, and neither does
His Word or His Spirit, but people are another matter entirely. Paul was amazed
at what the people at the church in Galatia had done. He had planted this
church on a previous trip and gone away for a few years, but he discovered some
incredible changes in that time.
Verse 6 reflects
Paul’s astonishment at the source of their salvation. The phrase “removed
from him” refers to the church’s abandonment of Jesus Christ. Paul
essentially said, “It doesn’t matter whether you listen to me, but the fact
that you have turned away from Christ and His message of salvation is amazing
to me.”
It is interesting
to hear people talk about why they leave certain churches. Often it is because
they are sick of a particular man or movement (which was created by men). Those
who abandon the Lord’s church because of men have the wrong source of
salvation. A man doesn’t save you; neither does a movement or a church. Keep
your eyes on the Savior.
I tell my
congregation that they should follow me as long as I follow Christ, but once I
stop doing that they should keep following Christ, not me.
The final words of
verse 6 reveal Paul’s astonishment at the seduction of another gospel.
Other men had come in and made some major changes, placing too much emphasis on
the law and telling people they must do this and that, until Paul finally said,
“Wait a minute. You just came out of that kind of heresy. Why are going back
into it?” He had taught them about salvation by grace through faith, and now
they were turning away from that and being drawn back into what they had
believed in the past.
This passage does
not tell us why the Galatians were motivated to do these things, but I can
speculate about it somewhat. For one thing, man at his core is filled with
pride, and it is hard for many people to accept the fact that they cannot do
anything to earn their own salvation or to assist God with their salvation.
Religious things often appeal to people because they want to do something they
can feel good about, thinking that they have helped make their salvation
happen.
In the past few
decades we have seen a number of battles on salvation-related issues such as
“lordship salvation” (through which hardly any of us would be saved) and the
importance of repentance from every sin you have ever committed (I can barely
remember all of my sins from the past two days). I believe that repentance and
faith are like Siamese twins; you can hardly separate them. You repent from
your sin, recognizing your lost state, and trust by faith in Jesus Christ.
The newest issue
is Calvinism, or the question of who can even be saved. Is it true that
“whosoever will may come,” or is it just a select group? Did Christ die for the
sins of the entire world? Here is an easy way to look at it: Whenever you see
the word “all” in the Bible, it means “all.” It’s that simple.
I haven’t even
gotten into issues from other denominations such as water baptism, speaking in
tongues, etc. How do we manage to fight about all of these things regarding the
gospel? It all boils down to pride. People think to themselves, “I know more
than the average person. I’ll straighten everybody out.” Because of that type
of thinking, thousands of people are drawn into these seductions.
My philosophy is
this: “Keep it simple, stupid.” I just want to know what the Bible says, not
what somebody says. Instead of worrying about whether I am one of the elect, I
will just remember that the Bible says, “For God so loved the world.”
I am part of the 100 billion or so who have lived on this planet since Adam and
Eve, and Christ died for every single one.
Verse 7 shows us THE
ADVERSARY OF THE GOSPEL. “Which is not another; but there be some that
trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.” Not every person who
shows up in your own church is automatically on Jesus’ team. Some could even be
sent by the Evil One to deceive people and disrupt the work of the gospel. Part
of the pastor’s role as shepherd is to guard the sheep against the enemy.
Always be wary of
the person who is too good to be true. When you hear about all the great things
So-and-so did at the past eight churches he attended and how he wants to jump
in and start teaching your folks, slow down for a minute. Paul wrote in I Tim.
5:22, “Lay hands suddenly on no man.” You need to watch him for a little
while to be sure.
I am not
responsible for any other church except my own. There is no place in the Bible
that says I am to be the Holy Spirit for any other person. I am only the
shepherd for those in my church. I think we would have a lot fewer problems if
every Christian worried more about his or her own church and less about
everyone else in this regard. Guard against those who would come into your
church and advance another gospel.
There are dozens
of churches in the Tampa Bay area, where I am a pastor, that are crazy where
their doctrine is concerned. I don’t get in my pulpit and rail against most of
them because my congregation does not know who they are anyway. If those false
preachers are on radio or television, however, I will warn my people because of
the possible effect those broadcasts could have on my church.
What are some of
the adversaries of the gospel? One of them is pluralism. It troubles me
to think about how few of our young people have a firm grasp of the concept of
Biblical salvation. So many of our unlearned teens have been taught by their
parents and other churches that doing good is the main requirement to get to
Heaven.
The opening phrase
of verse 7 says that this other gospel “is not another.” It is not
another gospel, but a false teaching. It saddens me that millions more will be
condemned to Hell by religion than by paganism. Pluralism says that all roads
lead to Heaven, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Jesus is not a
good way to be saved, or the best way. He is the only way.
False preachers
are adversaries. They are the ones Paul wrote about “that trouble you.”
I am not talking about the ones you see on television; I am referring to the
ones who would work in your church. That is why we are so careful at our church
about who would teach a Sunday school class to our adults or our children.
Dr. Harry Carr,
one of my mentors and a man I consider a hero of the faith, was pastor of a
church and discovered after some time that a sweet lady in her seventies or
eighties, who had been teaching Sunday school for many years, was teaching
Jehovah’s Witness doctrine. He was stunned by this and realized that he needed
to give more consideration to what his teachers were doing in Sunday school.
Every one of our classes should be learning the same things from the Word of
God that we are preaching from the pulpit.
My father-in-law,
while on the mission field, had a man come in who began teaching that baptism
was necessary for salvation. This can easily happen on the mission field, and
it can happen in our churches here if we are not careful. We must be clear
about what our people are teaching and make sure we all are on the same page.
Perversions of
the gospel are adversaries. It would be easy to spot a lie if it walked up
to you and announced, “I am a lie.” False teachers would be easy to identify if
they wore signs around their necks. But perversions come into our lives
disguised as truth. “We’re not going to change a lot, just a little bit.”
This is one reason
our church only preaches and teaches from the Authorized King James Version of
the Bible. We don’t want a bad translation to get into our midst, and this is
the best way to guard against that. When a verse reads “a young woman
conceived” instead of “a virgin conceived,” that is a perversion.
We don’t jump on
the bandwagon of every new thing that comes down the road. We want to wait and
see if it is proven. That is a Biblical principle. David went to war with men
who were proven in battle, and he liked to go with what he knew. He certainly
could have killed Goliath with Saul’s sword if the power of God was upon him,
but he was unsure about the sword himself. He knew he could count on the stones
and his sling because he had put down a lion and a bear with them. Those
instruments were proven in his eyes.
If the foundation
is unstable, it won’t be long until the structure crumbles. When an
organization starts mixing doctrine, sooner or later something will have to
give. There is one thing that is certain about compromise: the stronger
position will always give in to the weaker position. When liberals and
conservative compromise, it means conservatives will have to go toward the
liberal side, never the other way around. This is true in politics as well as
Christianity, because the conservative side is viewed as too narrow.
If the devil
walked into your church this Sunday, he would be attractive. He would be
talented and articulate, and you would possibly leave thinking, “Wow, what a
great sermon!” A person with spiritual discernment would notice that he said 99
things that were great and one thing that was just a little bit questionable. That’s
how it starts.
I have heard a
preacher say something and thought to myself, “What a great thought.” A few
hours later and I would consider it again and think, “But it’s not Biblically
correct.” It might sound awesome, but it is not grounded in truth.
When I was in
Texas there was a local event every year that brought evangelical teens to a
theater for a concert with preaching and other activities. People told me how
fantastic it was, so I checked it out and discovered that I could not agree
with the doctrinal statement and several other aspects of the program. For
twelve years, at the same time every year, I heard the pleas from people in my
church and answered, “No.”
I could have let
our group participate in this event and it would not have destroyed the church
– at least not the first time. But it’s not the big catastrophic things that
bring down a church. It’s the little slides here and there over a period of
time. You let your guard down here and there, and one day you realize that
everything is different.
Let’s look at THE
ACCURSED WARNING in verses 8-9. “But though we, or an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let
him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any
other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
Paul repeats
himself in these verses, which we know is a sign that God wants to make this
point especially strong. It is as if He is saying, “Listen up. This is
extremely important.”
We must be
aware of the source of the message. “Oh, we know Brother Stancil. He is a
good man.” Good men can change. In fact, I am amazed at how many good men have
compromised over the years. A good friend of mine, who has been in the ministry
four or five decades, told me recently that he had quit preaching about certain
things “because I just got tired of fighting the same battles year after year.”
He just decided to let it go, and many other preachers have done the same.
You may recognize
the name of a preacher and assume everything is fine, but you have to make sure
he is preaching from the Word of God. If I stand up in the pulpit and start
talking about my own philosophy or some dream I had as if it is our new
direction, my church needs to direct me someplace else.
We must be
aware of the substance of the message. Is it the true gospel? Aside from
the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no gospel. We have
to protect our message. Whenever you stand up to proclaim it behind a pulpit or
in a Sunday school class, make sure you have searched the scriptures and know
it is there.
A man came up to
me recently after a service and asked me about a particular point. “Where in
the Bible did you find that?” he asked. I love it when my people ask those
kinds of questions. What I say must always be in line with what the Bible says.
I love to hear topical messages and preach one from time to time, but I believe
the duty of the pastor is to explain, verse by verse, the Word of God.
We must be
aware of the sentence of a false messenger. If someone preaches a false
doctrine, what should we do? The word “accursed” in these verses is pretty
strong, and we should not take such a thing lightly.
The false
messenger should be ejected from the ministry and degraded from the
office. We need to make it clear that we do not endorse those teachings,
because someone could spread that heresy in another place and then say it had
previously been preached in your church. You don’t want that kind of reputation
for your church. If you leave a church where I am pastor and you do so in the
wrong way, you will not get a good recommendation from me. I have a
responsibility to protect the integrity of my church.
If a false teacher
does not get right, he will have to be cast out of the church. Would it
be wise to let him stay and contaminate others? No, the word “accursed” means
“out.” He is to be abhorred by men. You should not have fellowship with
unfruitful workers of darkness, who espouse doctrinal error and open rebuke to
the things of God. He is accursed by God and will be judged one day for
his actions.
“Doctrine divides.
Let’s not quibble over doctrine. We need to come together in unity.” These
kinds of statements have been made hundreds of times in the past few years, but
nothing could be further from the truth. If we are not built on doctrine, we
have nothing. I want everyone to get along, but we must do it on the basis of
the Word of God.
