(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen, so we're having some audio problems in the back. The speakers in the far back over here stopped working. One of our pieces of equipment just failed and is going to need to be replaced. Turn it off the mic, turn it back on. All right, so we have a problem back there with the speaker. So I'm going to talk loud, but if you're back there and you're having trouble hearing me, then I would suggest that you just move over to this part of the auditorium if you're having trouble hearing, because the sound is totally fine over here. It's just the far back. So if you're having trouble hearing, I apologize. You might just have to move for this one service. Get a little bit closer. All right, no, I'm just kidding. But anyway, just sorry about the inconvenience, but I'm going to speak loud. Okay, so this morning I want to start preaching a little bit of a small series on the book of Galatians. And if you would, keep your finger in Acts 9, go over to the book of Galatians. And the Epistle of the Galatians is super important doctrinally. It's got a lot of great stuff in it that I want to cover. And it's probably, although this is kind of impossible to prove for sure, it's probably the first book of the New Testament that was ever written. It's probably the oldest piece of scripture in the New Testament. And before I get into some of the content of the book of Galatians, I want to really just talk about who the Apostle Paul is as a person and tie that in with the things that he's saying here in chapter 1. So in Galatians chapter 1 verse 1, the Bible reads, Paul an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Now this epistle starts out differently than a lot of other of Paul's epistles where you have this really standard formula of things that the Apostle Paul says. Notably, he'll often refer to who he's talking to as the saints. So if we go through Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, it's just the saints at Colossae, the saints, it's just constantly talking about how they're saints, he's blessing them. And then usually he always starts out saying something positive about them, praising God, glorifying God, talking about the good things about them. Whereas this epistle to the Galatians is a little bit more negative and he's even doubting their salvation later in the epistle. And so he starts out with a much more curt opening where he's not exactly praising them and glorifying God on their behalf and so forth because he's about to start ripping into them starting in verse number 6. But not only that, it's kind of interesting how right away Paul is defending himself even in the first verse just right from the jump he's saying, I'm an apostle, not of men, neither by man, which is something that he's going to hammer in the next couple chapters because apparently there are people who are doubting Paul's apostleship. They're doubting whether he's really a legitimate apostle and whether the things that he's speaking have actually come from God versus just him carrying some man-made corrupted doctrine. And so Paul makes a big deal in this chapter about the fact that the gospel that he preaches, the doctrine that he's teaching has come directly from God. He has received revelation directly from God and that he is just as much an apostle of Jesus Christ as Peter or James or John. Now why would people doubt this? Okay, well if you would flip over to Acts chapter 9, we're going to get into the story about Paul's conversion. The reason that they would doubt this is because the rest of the apostles were men who had been with Jesus Christ throughout his earthly ministry. They're following Jesus, they're personally trained by Jesus, they're given the Great Commission and they're sent out to teach all nations and they had been with Jesus, they had seen and witnessed his death, burial, and resurrection and so forth. Whereas the apostle Paul is a latecomer who actually started out in his early days persecuting Christians. So you can see why it would be easy for his enemies to come at him and say, well you know, he's not even a real apostle and he wasn't even following Christ and he's not an actual witness to Christ's resurrection and he's just taking what other people have taught and twisting it. Now look at Acts chapter 9 verse 1, the Bible reads, And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. So if you look back to chapter 8 verse 3, it says, As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and hailing men and women, committed them to prison. So what we see here is that the apostle Paul, at this time his name is Saul, Saul of Tarsus, and Saul is making havoc of the church, he's a big time persecutor of the church and he's just breathing out threatenings and slaughter. So he's not persecuting the church a little bit, he's persecuting the church a lot. He's vehement about it, he's emotional about it, he's going out and actually getting people arrested and he's being very proactive, going to the high priest saying, Hey, let's arrest more Christians and, you know, give me a warrant for their arrest so that I can bring these people in. Let's even go to other foreign countries and find Christians there and bring them back to Jerusalem so that they can be punished. That's what we see happening in chapter 9 at the end of verse 2. Then in verse 3 it says, As he journeyed, so he's on his way to Damascus for the purpose of persecuting Christians, and as he journeyed, he came near Damascus and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I'm Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And so what I want you to see here is that the Apostle Paul, even though he was a vehement enemy of Christianity, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, he actually was a sincere person. He was just sincerely wrong. He was misguided. He's wrong, but he wasn't just some horrible, malicious, evil person. And Jesus Christ predicted in John, chapter 16, that the day will come when he that killeth you, talking about Christians, will think that he doeth God's service. And that's exactly the category that Paul would fall into, that even when he's getting Christians arrested, even when he's getting them thrown in prison, and even wanting to see them put to death in many cases, he did it, the Bible says, ignorantly in unbelief. The Apostle Paul says later in 1 Timothy, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the implication there is, is that if he had not been doing it ignorantly in unbelief, if he had known what the truth was and just rejected it outright, then he would not have received mercy. But rather the Apostle Paul received mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbelief. He was sincere, but he was sincerely wrong. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Even if you're sincere, you've got to get the truth. And of course the Apostle Paul ultimately does get the truth. And so he ends up becoming a Christian. He thought that he was doing God's service when he was persecuting the Church, just as Christ predicted. So that's why when Jesus appears to him on the road to Damascus, he just immediately changes his tune. It doesn't take any time for him to be convinced or to be persuaded that Jesus Christ was real. He thought he was doing the right thing and when Christ appears to him and says, Why persecutest thou me? He immediately realizes that he's been an idiot, he's been wrong, and he just says, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Now Christ at this point does not actually lead him to salvation right there on the spot. The vast majority of people you hear talk about this, they're going to say that the Apostle Paul got saved on the road to Damascus. That really isn't true because he's still not saved yet. Though he has changed his mind about Jesus, he's not all the way to the finish line of being saved yet because notice a couple things. First of all, he's still blind and this pictures the fact that he's not saved yet. And Christ doesn't tell him, Hey, right now you need to call upon the name of the Lord. You need to confess me right now and be saved. Rather, he says, just go to the city and it will be told you what you will do there. And this will be even more clear when Paul recaps this in Acts 22, in case you're skeptical about what I'm saying right now. He says, Arise and go into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do. Verse seven, and the man which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no man. So they did not see Christ the way that the Apostle Paul saw Christ, they just heard a voice. They heard a voice, but they saw no man. He all arose from the earth and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man. Because he opened his eyes and he's blind. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight and neither did eat nor drink. So after he has this experience on the road to Damascus, he has to be led by the hand because he's completely blind, he has no sight, he can't see anything. And again, this is not a picture of someone who just got saved. Getting saved is typically pictured by your eyes being opened, right? I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see. He is still blind. He needs someone to guide him. He needs someone to take him by the hand. He isn't just instantly, oh, Christ is the Messiah, well here, let me just save myself real quick, let me just figure this out real quick. No, rather he needs someone to guide him. He's still blind, he needs someone to guide him by the hand, and he's taken to the city where someone is going to tell him what he needs to do in order to be saved. Look at verse 17, and Ananias went his way and entered into the house and putting his hands on him said, brother Saul, and he's not calling him brother Saul because he's a Christian, he's calling him brother Saul because he's a fellow Hebrew. He says, brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou came us, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost and immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales and he received his sight forthwith and arose and was baptized. Go to Acts 22 and we'll get a little more insight on this story, a little bit clearer version of this in Acts chapter 22 verse number 4. And the problem with saying that the apostle Paul got saved on the road to Damascus, there's a couple problems with that. Number 1 is that you're downplaying the significance of the character Ananias. Ananias figures strongly into this chapter 9 telling of the story, and then in chapter 22 Ananias also plays a key role. Why? Why do you even need Ananias? Because Ananias is the one who actually wins him to Christ. And this is the same pattern everywhere else in scripture, like for example, what about Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, right? Cornelius is a sincere man, but he's not saved because being a nice person, being sincere doesn't make you saved. He'd done a lot of good works, he'd done a lot of alms, he'd given a lot of money, but he wasn't saved. And so the Lord appears unto him in a vision and tells him, you need to go find Simon Peter and he's going to tell you what you need to do. And then again he reaches out to Simon Peter, Peter gives him the Gospel, he gets saved when he hears the Gospel from Peter. So just as Saul gets saved when he hears the Gospel from Ananias, Cornelius gets saved when he hears the plan of salvation from Peter. It takes a human instrument, someone to guide someone to salvation, someone to take them by the hand figuratively, sort of like the Ethiopian eunuch when he's reading the Bible and he can't understand it. And Philip asked the Ethiopian eunuch, understandest thou what thou readest, he said, how can I, except some man, should guide me? You see, unsaved people need to be led to Christ. They need to be guided to salvation. It takes a saved person to get them saved. Now a lot of people don't like this because they have some weird Calvinistic view that just, people just automatically get saved or whatever. Hey, they're taking the human element out of it, folks, the Bible says that God has committed unto us the ministry of reconciliation. It is our job to lead people to Christ. Now sometimes God will bring the people to us, like he brought someone to Ananias to lead to Christ. He brought someone to Peter to lead to Christ. But we need to lead people to Christ. Let me give you a verse that just explicitly states this. 1 Corinthians 3 verse 5, you don't have to turn there, but it says, who then is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? So according to 1 Corinthians 3, 5, everybody has some quote unquote minister by whom they believed. That could be man, woman, boy, or girl. But someone led them to Christ. My mother led me to Christ. And maybe for you it's not just one person who led you to Christ. Maybe multiple people led you to Christ and one person planted the seed, another person watered, ultimately it's God who gives the increase anyway, and the person who leads you to Christ is just an instrument of the Lord. But the point is that there is a human instrument involved in salvation. Otherwise, why doesn't Jesus himself just appear to every unsaved person and just lead them to Christ? Why doesn't Jesus himself go door to door in 2023 leading people to Christ? In fact, since he has so many hundreds of thousands or hundreds of millions of angels, why doesn't he send the angels out to do soul winning and why don't the angels go out and lead people to Christ? Because we as Christian human beings are the ones that God has chosen to preach the Gospel and he has committed to us, not to the angels, but to us, the ministry of reconciliation. And if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. We've got to go out there and win people to Christ. We've got to go out there and preach the Gospel to every creature. I don't believe for one second this doctrine that, well, it's just going to happen anyway and, you know, God's just going to work in their hearts and they're just going to read the Bible themselves or read a tract or whatever. No, no, no. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God, how should they hear without a preacher? How should they preach except they be sent? We've got to go out there and preach the Gospel and lead people to Christ. God uses human instruments to lead people to Christ. And the Apostle Paul is not an exception to that, neither is Cornelius. Now God obviously looked down at a guy like the Apostle Paul and he did do something special for him by appearing to him on the road to Damascus. He chose him for a very special ministry to write literally half the books of the New Testament. Now obviously Paul's an important person. God knew that in his foreknowledge. God knew all of the important preaching that Paul's going to do, all the missions that he's going to do. So he appears to him in this very special way, but he still says, go talk to Ananias. He'll tell you what to do. And during that time that he's blind, he actually sees in his mind's eye a vision of a man named Ananias laying hands on him and preaching to him and so forth. Are you there in Acts chapter 22? Look at verse 4. This is the Apostle Paul reflecting upon this event from the past. And he says, I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders, from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were bound unto Jerusalem for to be punished. And it came to pass that as I made my journey, and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me, and I fell into the ground and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? Sounds familiar, right? And he said, I'm Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest. And they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid, but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. Now let me just stop right here and say that people have imagined a contradiction here. Because in Acts chapter 9, he said that they heard a voice, but saw no man. Here it says, they saw the light, but did not hear the voice of him that spake with me. Those two things are not contradictory, because seeing a light and seeing a man are two different things, okay? In Acts 22, 9, it says they saw indeed the light, right? In Acts 9, 7, it says they didn't see the man, they didn't see Jesus. Yes they saw the light, no they didn't see Jesus. Makes sense, right? As far as the other part of this, it says that they heard a voice. In Acts 22, 9, it says, or sorry, in Acts 9, 7, it says hearing a voice, and then in Acts 22, 9, it says they heard not the voice of him that spake to me. Now is hearing a voice the same of hearing the voice of Jesus speaking to Paul? No. They heard a voice, but they didn't hear the voice of Jesus speaking to Paul. The significance is that they didn't hear the words that were being spoken by Jesus. They didn't hear the message that Paul got from Jesus. They just saw light and heard a voice, whereas the Apostle Paul saw the resurrected Christ and heard intelligible words from Christ telling him that he needed to go into Damascus and that it would be told him there what he would do. Look at verse number 10, and I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, arise and go into Damascus, and it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do. Again notice, Christ himself at this stage, at this moment, is not giving him the plan of salvation or, you know, prompting him to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved or given the Gospel to him at this moment. He just tells him, I'm Jesus whom you've persecuted. Why are you persecuting me? It's hard for you to kick against the pricks. Again, kicking against the pricks is what? Is that something inside Paul has been telling him that what he's doing is wrong, and he's been resisting that and fighting that. And as soon as Christ says it's hard for you to kick against the pricks, he realizes, wait a minute, that is what I've been doing. And now he's open, now he's receptive, now he's willing to hear, but he still needs to hear it from Ananias, doesn't he? That's what we see in the actual story in Acts 9 and Acts 22. So it says in verse 11, when I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me, I came into Damascus. And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there, came unto me and stood and said unto me, brother Saul receive thy sight, and the same hour I looked upon him. Now, let me ask you this. Is Ananias stated to be an apostle or a leader of the church or anything like that? He's just a devout man. He's just a good man, and he's got a good report of the Jews that dwell there. He's a godly man, he's a Christian, but he's not an apostle, he's not Peter, he's not James or John or one of those guys, okay? And he receives his sight when Ananias lays his hands upon him. Look at verse 14, and he said, the God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will and see that just one and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. That's what happened on the road to Damascus, right? He saw Christ, he heard his voice. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. And now why terriest thou? Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins. Watch this, calling on the name of the Lord. And it came to pass when I was coming into Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple I was in a trance, and so on. The story continues. But what we see here is that the apostle Paul is told to wash away his sins, calling upon the name of the Lord. Now if he's already saved, this wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it? Because his sins would already be washed away, he would have already called upon the name of the Lord, because whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But what's happening is that Ananias is taking him across the finish line, leading him to Christ, and when it says here, arise and be baptized, washing away your sins, calling upon the name of the Lord, I want to make it very clear. Baptism doesn't save you, and baptism does not wash away your sins. Now baptism pictures that. Baptism is figurative of salvation. It's a figure. So here's the thing, when you're in the water, it's a picture of Christ on the cross. When you go down under the water, it's a picture of him being buried. When you come up out of the water, it's a picture of his resurrection. That's one thing that baptism pictures. Another thing that baptism pictures is basically you're mortifying the old man, you're putting to death the old man, and just as Christ was raised up from the dead, even so we also should walk in newness of life. So you're saying I'm going to bury the old Steven Anderson, and I'm going to walk as a new man, the new Steven Anderson, the saved, regenerate, new creature in Christ. That's also pictured. You could also say that baptism pictures the washing away of your sins, but it doesn't literally wash away your sins. You could be saved without being baptized. You could be baptized without being saved, because being saved over and over again in the end of the Bible is by believing on Christ, it's by putting your faith and trust in him, calling upon the name of the Lord. The thief on the cross isn't baptized, right? He just called out to Christ and is saved. That's how we get saved. And so the Bible says in 1 Peter chapter 3, the like figure, figure like figurative, the like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Christ. So we're saved by the resurrection of Christ, which is pictured by baptism. Baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but what is baptism? The answer of a clear conscience toward God. The answer of a good conscience toward God. Let me ask you this. If that's the answer, what was the question? It's the answer of a good conscience. That means first you have a good conscience, and then the thing that comes after the response to having a good conscience is getting baptized. So you get saved, and then as a result, you get baptized. That's why when the Ethiopian eunuch asks, see, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized, Philip tells him, if thou believeth with all thine heart thou missed. Because baptism is supposed to be the answer of a good conscience toward God, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh. It's the answer of a good conscience toward God. I love to use the illustration of a wedding ring. The wedding ring symbolizes being married. People look at this, and it's not to show me that I'm married. I don't forget that I'm married. I'm not just going through life. I look down at my ring like, oh, whoa, I've got to get home. I have a family. I already know that I'm married. Hopefully I never get to that point when I get old where I forget that I'm even married and I need the ring to remind me of that. The purpose of the ring is to tell other people that I'm married. It's for everyone else's benefit just so that people will see that, and I'm signifying to this world, I am married. It's convenient, right, in this world. You look at someone's hand and see, is he married? Is she married? It's a helpful distinction. Okay, if I take this ring off, I'm still married. If I had never put this ring on, I would still be married because it's just a figure. It's just symbolic. If I put it on someone else's finger, it doesn't make them married. They don't instantly become married to my wife. This ring is just a picture, and baptism is a picture as well. That's why you will never find a verse in the Bible, because people love to point to verses like this that closely connect baptism with salvation, but here's what you won't find. You won't find a verse that says if you don't get baptized, you won't be saved, whereas you'll find tons of verses that say if you don't believe, you're damned, because that is the critical component. It's believing in Christ, not baptism. Baptism is just outward. Baptism is a testimony for other people. It's a public profession of faith in Christ to show other people that you're saved, but it doesn't affect your personal salvation, which is between you and God in your heart, whether you've put your faith and trust in Christ and confessed the Lord Jesus. And so we see that the Apostle Paul washes away his sins and calls upon the name of the Lord in the presence of Ananias, not three days earlier on the road to Damascus. He's still being blinded and led by the hand until Ananias actually talks to him. So I think that's an important distinction. Now, with all that in mind, let's go back to the book of Galatians. So I wanted to show you some background on who the Apostle Paul is. The Apostle Paul started out very zealous in the Jews' religion. He's persecuting Christians and the Lord appears to him on the road to Damascus. He sees the resurrected Christ. He hears his voice. He's chosen to do a very special work that God's going to send him to preach the Gospel, to found churches. He's called to be an Apostle by Christ himself, not by man. That's why he said in Galatians 1, 1, Paul an Apostle, not of men, neither by man. I mean, it's a little redundant, isn't it? But he's really driving that in. The Bible repeats things for emphasis. Not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. He's saying, you know who called me to be an Apostle? You know who chose me or nominated me to be an Apostle? Jesus himself appeared to me on the road to Damascus and then Jesus appeared to Ananias and explained to Ananias my ministry and that I'm going to be an Apostle and so forth. So Paul's apostleship is not based on other people. Now, let's stop and think about this. Is there another Apostle that is not chosen by Christ? Well, if you think about it, in Acts chapter 1, you've got a guy by the name of Matthias. They want to replace Judas and number him with the 12 apostles. So they pick a few candidates that are godly, righteous men in the church. And they choose a man named Matthias who checked all the boxes of being with Christ all the way from the beginning and being a witness of his resurrection and all that. And they chose Matthias and Matthias was numbered with the 11 apostles. Is that what happened with Paul? No. Because Paul's not an Apostle of man. He's not chosen by man, but directly by Jesus Christ. The opposite of that would be Matthias who is voted by the church to be an Apostle of Christ in that sense. Now, was that legitimate or not? I don't know. That's a matter of debate. Some people would say that Matthias is a legitimate Apostle. Some people would say that that's just the early church trying to figure things out. And when we get to heaven and the city has 12 foundations and on the foundations are the names of the 12 apostles written, what's it going to say on that 12th spot? I'll tell you one thing. It's not going to say Judas is scary. I've heard people claim that and that's just no. It's not going to say Judas is scary yet. Is it going to say Paul or is it going to say Matthias? And I'm not trying to debate that because I think that doesn't really matter. We need to save some stuff to get surprised by when we get there. So when we get there, we'll say, you know, it's probably going to say Paul, right? But who knows? That's up for debate. So back in Galatians, now let's get into the book of Galatians here. Now I don't want to talk too much about the other gospel because that's what I'm going to preach about tonight. I'm going to preach about the other gospel that Paul is so angry about and so emotional about and so vehement about in this epistle, what he's mainly writing the epistle to fight against and to combat this other gospel. I don't want to get into that. What I want to spend more time on is Paul here defending himself and his apostleship and explaining a little bit about his personal history. That's the important thing about this morning's sermon. So with that being said, we're going to jump down and we'll just read the famous verses but we're not going to talk about them right now. Verse 6, I marvel that you're 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 are an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you then 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 then that ye have received let him be accursed. We'll talk about that tonight but here's the key thing. For do I now persuade men or God or do I seek to please men for if I yet pleased men I should not be the servant of Christ. So in verse number 1 he starts out by saying that his apostleship is not of man, it's not by man, it's by Jesus Christ. Now he's saying look my ministry is not about pleasing man. There's nobody out there who I'm answering to or trying to please. I'm here to please God. I'm a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not seeking to please men, I'm a servant of Christ. So then he says in verse 11 but I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now here's where people could get confused. They could say well wait a minute what about Ananias? How can Paul say that the gospel that I preach I wasn't taught it by man, I didn't receive it by man, but that I received it by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Well here's what you have to understand. That when Paul talks about the gospel that he preaches, his gospel, and Paul repeatedly even in his epistles says my gospel. He used that term at least three times. And so when he says the gospel he's not just talking about a quick little plan of salvation, the Romans road, what you would give to someone at the door when you're winning someone to Christ, what Ananias is giving him. Because let me explain this to you, getting saved is super simple, thank God. Now is everything in the Bible simple? The Bible says there are many things in Paul's epistles particularly, 2 Peter 3 says that in Paul's epistles are many things hard to be understood. So the apostle Paul has a lot of things in his epistles that are hard to be understood. Is salvation one of them? No. Because God wants salvation to be simple, to be easy, because he wants all men to be saved. So he doesn't make it hard where you have to be really smart and educated or do a whole bunch of study or listen to hundreds of hours of teaching or preaching in order to get saved. No, you could literally get saved in a matter of minutes if you're receptive and obviously a lot of the people that we're talking to have already heard about Jesus many, many times so that's why it could possibly take something like 10, 15 minutes to win someone to the Lord because they've already heard it so many times, they are just missing some of the pieces and we're just finishing it off, sort of like Ananias is finishing things off for Paul who already knew a lot about the Bible as a Jew, he knew a lot about the Bible, he'd already heard from Christ on the road to Damascus and he had three days to sort of stew on that and think about that. And so Ananias is just like, hey, what are you waiting for, man? Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved, okay? Here's the thing about that, is that the Gospel is so simple that the Bible says, except you be converted and become as little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Think about that. Not only can children be saved, they have the easiest time of being saved. They're the best people to get saved. Well, I don't know if a little child can be saved. I don't know if a lot of adults are going to be saved, but I feel a lot more confident about the children. It's easier to get a kid saved than to get an adult saved. Why? Because they have that childlike faith and the child relies on mom and dad for everything. They rely on mom and dad to put a roof over their head, feed, clothe, nourish them, give them water. They're not out there making it on their own in life. They rely on their parents for everything, so this message that Christ has provided salvation and that we just have to trust him, it's like a little child just reaching up to their parents. They have no way to get up to those heights unless mom and dad pick them up. So they realize that they're not going to make it to heaven unless Christ picks them up and takes them to heaven. They're able to fully trust Christ more than people who've spent their lives maybe doing things for themselves, becoming prideful or boastful in their own achievements, maybe being corrupted by false religion and false doctrine. You know that pure, innocent, young child with that childlike faith, they're used to exercising faith in their parents and so they can just exercise that faith and be saved. Why is the Gospel so simple? Because all that you have to do to be saved is to fully trust Christ as your Savior. That's it. You just trust Christ as your Savior. And people try to make this so complicated, but it's not complicated. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he was buried and he rose again, and you just have to fully trust what he did to save you. And that's it. You just ask to be saved. Fully trusting him. Not trusting in yourself or your good works. Little kids, you know, they don't necessarily, well, you know, if I go to heaven it's going to be because I earned it. You know, it takes a while to develop that kind of arrogance and pride in our lives as we get older. And so the fact that Christ says you've got to be converted and become as little children, that should prove to you that the Gospel's not complicated. And when he warns in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, when he warns of another Gospel, another Jesus, another spirit, he says, as the serpent beguiled Eve by his subtlety, I fear lest ye be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ. The Gospel is simple. Being saved is simple. Look, I've gone out and knocked doors and talked to some people that weren't very smart and yet they got saved. And they were very lean on intellect, yet they got saved. Praise God. I'm so glad I don't have to knock on someone's door and just think, oh, this person's too stupid, they can't be saved. No. They can be saved. It's about the heart. It's about trust in Christ. Now, obviously there are people who are mentally disabled to the point where they can't even comprehend what's being said. These people would be akin to like a baby or a toddler who automatically goes to heaven anyway because they're an innocence and they don't even have the knowledge of good and evil. And so that's not what we're talking about. We're just talking about people that are kind of dumb. And you know what? There are going to be many dummies in heaven. And many super smart intellectuals roasting in hell. That's the reality. I thank thee, my Father, Jesus said, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. So what is the Apostle Paul saying? The Apostle Paul's point here when he says, the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. He's talking about the totality of his gospel message. Obviously someone led him to Christ. That's not the point. A Christian guy who's not even an apostle led him to Christ. What he's saying is that he's not just parroting the doctrine that's coming from Christ's apostles, Peter, James, and John. And the context is going to bear that out. But he's talking about the fact that he wrote all these epistles, all those things that he taught, that stuff's called the gospel. Sometimes we have a too narrow of a view. And that's why I preached this sermon a while back called, what is the definition of the gospel? Or what does the gospel mean? And I showed how it's more expansive than we typically make it. It's not just a plan of salvation. It's the whole way that Paul is thinking about redemption and the whole plan and so forth. And we're going to see that borne out in this passage. So he says, the gospel which was preached to me is not after man. I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For you've heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it. And profited in the Jews' religion above many mine equals of my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. Neither went up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus. Now what is he saying here? The apostle Paul is saying that when it was revealed to him that he was going to preach the gospel among the heathen, when is that? That's when Ananias wins him to Christ and Ananias tells him the things that he's going to do and so forth. He doesn't immediately confer with flesh and blood. So once he's saved, he doesn't go sit at the feet of Peter and the other apostles and be taught the Bible by them, to be taught theology by them, to be taught the finer points of the gospel or the rest of the whole message of Christ's ministry and his death, burial and resurrection and his second coming and all these different things. He doesn't immediately confer with flesh and blood, instead he goes into Arabia and then he returns to Damascus, but he's not sitting at the feet of the other apostles. How is he learning the Bible? This is how he's learning the Bible. First of all, he already knew a lot about the Old Testament because he was very deep into the Jews religion. So he had studied the Old Testament very extensively, but he was unsaved and you don't understand the Bible if you're not saved. Now that he's saved though, he's going back to those scriptures and you know what he's seeing? Christ on every page. He's seeing Christ on every page. So through the Holy Spirit, he's actually developing all of his preaching and beliefs and what he's going to teach. Not only that, he receives special revelations from Christ. In fact, later he's going to talk about this in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7. He says, lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh. So he talks about just receiving an abundance of revelations from Christ. Obviously the guy who is penning down at least 13 books of the New Testament is obviously receiving divine inspiration and special revelations. He's not repeating things that he heard from someone else. He learned things from studying the Bible on his own through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and even through direct revelation from Christ. And so he says that he went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus, then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and bode with him 15 days. Now if you study Acts, the Apostle Paul's soul winning from day one, he's preaching in the synagogues from day one, he's expounding the Old Testament scriptures publicly from day one in Damascus, all over the place, in Arabia, all these different places. But notice he does that, he's preaching and teaching the Word of God for three years before he has a sit down with Peter. And he actually spends 15 days with Peter. But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. What is the Apostle Paul's point here of saying, look, I didn't get this stuff from man. I didn't learn my doctrine from man. The Gospel I preach is not after man. I didn't learn it from man. I got it by a revelation of Christ. In fact, when God called me into this ministry, the first thing I did wasn't, well, I got to go to Jerusalem and learn from the other apostles. No, I just went out preaching. I just went into Arabia. I just went to Damascus. I just went out and did my job as an apostle among the heathen, right away. Then after three years, I spent 15 days with Peter, but even then it was just Peter and it was just 15 days. And in fact, I didn't even meet the other apostles except for James, the Lord's brother. So he's saying, yeah, I had a little bit of contact with apostles, but I didn't go to Bible college with the apostles for three, four years or something. Now why is this significant? Because the people in Galatia are questioning Paul's credentials as an apostle. They're questioning whether they're getting from Paul, the doctrine they're getting from Paul, the preaching they're getting from Paul is actually the real deal or if Paul has maybe taken the teachings of the original apostles and messed them up a little bit, changed them a little bit. He basically wants them to not think that the apostle Paul is like when you order an apostle on Wish, this is what you get at the apostle Paul. I thought I was getting, it's sung by the original artists. I thought it was going to be Peter. I thought it was going to be John. We get like the poor man's apostle Paul or something. No, Paul is saying, look, I am every bit as much of an apostle as these others. In fact, let me read for you some scriptures on this. The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12, 11, in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. He's saying, look, I'm not behind Peter, James, John, I'm just not. He said, truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience and signs and wonders and mighties. The apostle Paul is performing miracles like an apostle. He's getting revelations directly from God like an apostle. He's writing scripture like an apostle. Even Peter in 2 Peter is going to say that what Paul has written is the scriptures. Paul says that those who receive his epistles should acknowledge it as the word of God, not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God. 1 Corinthians 9, 1, am I not an apostle? Is Paul speaking? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you, for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord. So the point that Paul is making is that I am giving you the word of God straight from Jesus Christ himself just as much as if this were coming from one of the original twelve apostles. This is coming from me and God has chosen me to preach this. And look, we all acknowledge that or we wouldn't have a book in our Bible called Galatians or Romans or 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. Look, the New Testament in large part is delivered to us by the apostle Paul. To be a Christian is to be, yes, a follower of Christ, yes, but it's also to be a follower of the apostle Paul. Even today we're following the apostle Paul, right? We're looking at his epistles and saying, this is a man of God, this is a true apostle of Christ, this is the word of God. Look what we read in Romans and 1 and 2 Corinthians and Galatians is just as much God's word as what was carved into stone tablets on Mount Sinai. It's the word of God. That's what Paul's getting across here. He's saying, look, the gospel that I've preached, I didn't get it from man. I wasn't, I didn't go learn it from Peter, learn it from James and then put my own spin on it and maybe we should go back to the source, you know, let's go back to Peter, let's go back to James to get a truer version. No, no, no, he says, look, I got this directly from God. And do you see how that doesn't contradict the fact that Ananias just, you know, laid hands on him and told him to call upon the name of the Lord, ran through a super quick plan of salvation with him because he's so ready to get saved. You can't really turn around and then say, well, Ananias taught me everything I know. You know, it really is no contradiction to then say I didn't learn the gospel I preached by man because part of the gospel that Paul preaches, it's not, he's not just preaching, you know, yeah, Jesus died on the cross, rose again, you got to believe and trust in him. That's the simple plan of salvation. But you know, he's also preaching, you don't have to be circumcised. And that's a big issue in this letter to the Galatians about people coming in and saying that you need to be circumcised or that you need to follow the Jewish calendar or that you need to abstain from certain foods and so forth. You know, part of Paul's gospel is saying that that stuff's all done away in Christ. Did Ananias explain that to him when he's just winning him to the Lord? At the door, as it were? No. And so we don't want to get confused by those things and twist what's being said here. What's being said in Galatians 1 is that the Apostle Paul is a bona fide apostle who learned the word and the doctrine and the preaching directly from God and he's delivering it to the Galatians as God's messenger. What does apostle mean? It means messenger. It says in verse 19, other of the apostles saw I none save James, the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you behold before God I lie not. Now what's the point of saying that? Why does he say the things which I write unto you behold before God I lie not? It's because he's being obviously falsely accused of lying about these things, of actually being a man-made apostle, a man-pleasing apostle, someone who did not receive revelation directly from Christ but that was just receiving it from the Jerusalem apostles. You see, we don't have the other side of this conversation, right? This is sort of like a single-sided phone call here because we have the Apostle Paul rebuking the Galatians. We don't really have the Galatian side of the story. So how do we know what the Galatians are saying? What are they doing? We can only know from what Paul says here. This is the only evidence, right? So therefore, if Paul's getting up and saying, I'm an apostle, not of man, neither by man, then what can we guess about the churches of Galatia? They're saying that he is of man or that he is man-made. When he gets up and says, look, I did not learn this stuff from Peter and James and John and then when he says, look, I am telling the truth, I lie not, it's obvious that there's an accusation being made there. Does everybody see that? He says, the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not. Afterwards, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, this is like three some odd years into his ministry, and was unknown by faith unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ. He's saying, look, I wasn't spending my time ministering in Judea. In fact, they didn't even know what I looked like. I was unknown by faith unto them. They'd heard the report about me preaching the gospel in Syria, right, another nation. Right away, what did God tell Paul? That he was supposed to go to the heathen. He's going to go to the nations. He's going to go to the Gentiles. Right away, the day that Paul got saved, he's told, go to the Gentiles. After all his ministry, we see him, he keeps wanting to go back and preach to more Jews or whatever. He's human nature. He grew up among the Jews. He wants to reach his own people. I get it. But the very first day he got saved, he's told, you're going to the Gentiles. So what do we see him doing? Going into Arabia, going into Damascus, going into Syria, going into Cilicia, so that three, four years into his ministry, probably even 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, way deep into his ministry, he is unknown by faith to the churches of Judea. Only, the Bible says, they had heard only, verse 23, that he which persecuted us in time past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed, and they glorified God in me. And then into chapter 2, he says, then 14 years after, so now we're 17 years in, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me, and I went up by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. And so, we'll get into that more in a future sermon, but the point is that he's saying, look, three years went by before I hung out with Peter, 14 more years go by before I go to Jerusalem and I get together and really talk turkey with the apostles about the finer points of the gospel that I had already been preaching for the last 17 years. I mean, think about how long 17 years is. You know how long I've been pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church? Seventeen years. So imagine, think about all the preaching I've done, and I'm sure Paul preached a lot more than me, because I have a hard time preaching more than three times a week. Whenever I preach four times a week, I start getting burned out on preaching, and so I struggle to preach three, four times a week. The Apostle Paul is obviously, you know, arguably one of the greatest Christians who've ever lived, greatest preacher of all time or whatever, and so, yeah, he's probably preaching a lot more than me, but even me in 17 years, how many sermons have I preached in 17 years? Thousands. Thousands. And think about it, how many subjects I've covered. Think about the fact that I've literally preached verse by verse just on Wednesday night. Forget Sunday, which Sunday is two-thirds of my preaching. Just Wednesday night alone, I've literally preached, like, what, 17 twenty-thirds roughly of, you know, I know that's a weird fraction, but I know it's going to take, like, 23 and a half years to get through the entire Bible cover to cover on Wednesday nights, and I'm, like, 17 and a half years in, so 17 and a half divided by 23. Hey, so I've preached this huge chunk of the Bible, and that's only one-third of my preaching, and I guarantee you Paul was preaching way more than me. So this guy has done a lot of preaching by the time he confers with the apostles and sits down and starts talking about the Gospel and whether his Gospel is correct in their sight. And you know what? They end up agreeing that he is correct, and that his Gospel is correct, and they end up believing the same thing that he believed, but he didn't get it from them. He wasn't trained in it by them. It's they had both come to the same thing because they both have the same Holy Spirit, they've both known the same Jesus, so they end up believing the same things. So what is Paul's point here? His point is that he is not, like, one generation removed here, like, well, you know, if we go to Paul, we're one more step removed from Christ. He's saying, no, no, no, I was not behind even the cheapest of the apostles. Though I be nothing, I'm every bit as much of an apostle as these other apostles are. And of course we believe that because half of our New Testament is epistles of Paul. And so what's the moral of the story here? Obviously it's important that we understand this doctrinally because as we go into the rest of the book of Galatians, we want to have this foundation of who Paul is, what's the issue, what's he saying, and we're going to get into tonight the false Gospel that he's combating in Galatia. But a couple of morals for us in our Christian lives today in 2023 is that, first of all, we need to get out there and win souls to Christ because it's not going to happen by osmosis. I don't care what the Calvinists say, or even people that aren't Calvinists. People just think that people are just going to be saved by just reading the Bible on their own. They're just going to get saved from getting in a hotel room and picking up a Bible and reading it. They think they're just going to get saved from just reading a Gospel tract or something. Look, I wish that were true, but most Gospel tracts just end up in the trash, they don't even get read, and even the ones that do get read, they basically would rarely be understood by the unregenerate man. You know what? We need to get out there and actually open our mouths the way God told us to and make known the mystery of the Gospel. We need to take the unsaved by the hand and lead them to Christ. That's what we need to be doing. Leading people, they're blind. They need to be led to Christ by a Christian. That's lesson number one. Lesson number two is that if there are people out there that hate us and despitefully use us and persecute us, we are to love our enemies, why? Because today's enemies could be tomorrow's brothers and sisters in Christ. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now are there just malicious, super evil, reprobate people out there? Yes there are. But there are a lot of people out there who persecute us ignorantly and unbelief. So just because someone hates us or despises us or maliciously uses us, that doesn't mean that they're just a reprobate or something, right? We should love our enemies, overcome evil with good, because I guarantee you, I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands, but I guarantee you there are people sitting in this auditorium right now who would say, Pastor Anderson, when I first heard your preaching, I absolutely hated you, or before I was saved, I absolutely hated you. I've had people tell me that in this church, say, I used to hate you. I've gone out and preached around the country and had people tell me, man, when I first heard you, I absolutely hated you. I've had people tell me that they fantasized about coming here and physically hurting me because they were so mad about my preaching. They wanted to beat the whatever out of me and they hated me, straight hated me. But you know what? Now they're saved. Now they're my friends. Now we're both working together to serve Christ. Isn't that wonderful? Well guess what? There are other people out there today that are enemies today, they're hostile today, but you know what? We don't want to just burn our bridges with people that are not necessarily bad people. Even somebody who's a persecutor like the Apostle Paul isn't necessarily a horrible person. Some people are just misguided. And so we want to be patient and in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who were taken captive by him at his will. They're victims. Forgive them. They know not what they do. Let's lead them to Christ and let's overcome evil with good. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great passage in Galatians, Lord. And Lord, we thank you for the testimony of the Apostle Paul. We can learn so much about your grace that even someone who was persecuting Christians could still receive forgiveness and be saved and that he could be an example to others afterward about how your grace can cover even these egregious sins of persecuting your people. And Lord God, thank you for the epistles that are in our Bible from the Apostle Paul. Help us never to make the mistake that some people in Galatia and Corinth and elsewhere are making. Help us never to doubt that those are your word, Lord, but help us to realize and acknowledge the divine inspiration of the epistles of Paul. And we know they're powerful scriptures, Lord, because they're given by inspiration of you, Lord. And so we thank you. Help us as we continue to learn about Galatians. Bless us now as we go our separate ways. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.