everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. It's great to see everybody
here this morning. We can go ahead and find our seats. We'll go ahead and get
started. And once you do, let's go ahead and grab a hymnal and go to song number
419. Song number 419. Sound the battle cry.
Song number 419. Let's all sing it out with some zeal this morning.
Sound!
We just thank you for the opportunity to gather here and hear your word preached and and sing your songs together Lord
We love you and we just ask you to fill this room with our spirit or your spirit and
Bless everything that we do Lord and it's in Jesus name. We pray amen
All right for our next song. Let's go to song number 93
Song number 93 art thou weary
to us, let's all try to sing it out together and follow along.
Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you did not already get a bulletin,
you can lift up your bulletin,
or lift your hand up, I'm sorry.
And we'll get you a bulletin.
On the front, we have our Bible memory passage,
Matthew 28, verse 19.
And we're getting really close to finishing Matthew 28.
So if you're able to quote the entire chapter,
you can receive a special prize.
If you've been doing each verse every week,
you probably got to the point where it's really easy.
These last few verses are kind of pretty iconic.
So.
On the inside, we have our service time,
our soul winning times, our church stats.
On the right, we have a list of expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for them.
Upcoming events, we have our kids choir practice
that we're continuing until Easter services.
And we're looking forward to hearing them
perform for us on Easter Sunday morning.
Also, there's a spring swap that's gonna be April 13th.
There's a Mansfield soul winning marathon, the 19th.
We have Easter cards that we have for our soul winning material.
So if you'd like to hand out an invitation for Easter services,
we have some nicer cards that you can hand out
for the Easter services.
Our ladies T is gonna be May 10th.
There is some church reminders down there below on the back.
We also have our prayer list,
and that's really all I have as far as announcements.
We'll go ahead and go to our Psalm of the Week.
It's going to be Psalm 117.
Psalm 117.
117 in your special binders. If you're not familiar with it, follow along. If you
are, sing it out loudly. Psalm 117. We're going to sing it twice.
plates are being passed around. Go ahead and turn your Bibles to Galatians chapter number one.
That's the book of Galatians chapter number one.
Galatians 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, and all the brethren which are with
me under the churches of Galatia, grace be to you in peace from God the Father and from
our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this
present evil world according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever
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.
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.
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.
For I neither received that of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of
Jesus Christ.
Free have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond
and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in 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 and me,
that I might preach him among the heathen.
Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood,
neither when I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me,
but I went to Arabia and returned again unto Damascus.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter
and abode with him fifteen days.
But other of the apostles saw I none, saved James the Lord's brother.
Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God,
After words, I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and was unknown by face under the churches of Judea, which were in Christ.
But they had heard only that he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed, and they glorified God in me.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, we thank you for this day, for our church.
I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit.
Give him clarity of mind as he preaches to us.
Help us, Lord God, to apply this sermon to our lives.
Bless all aspects of it.
And help us to serve you better every single day.
We love you.
In Jesus' name, I pray, amen.
Amen.
Galatians chapter one in verse six, the Bible says,
I marvel
that you're so soon removed from him
that called you into the grace of Christ,
unto another gospel.
And unfortunately, not everything saves.
There's only one thing that saves,
and it's faith alone in Jesus Christ.
Anything else is another gospel.
And what I wanna preach this morning
is about why we know faith alone is correct.
why we know or why faith alone is correct.
Now, I'm not necessarily going to spend a ton of time proving
faith alone from the Bible, but I want to just talk about
how do we know that we're right about salvation being only
faith alone? And I think for a lot of people today, they
think that faith plus works is going to get them to heaven.
They also think even if faith alone was what saved,
that the belief that faith plus works would save them,
because, well, I already got the faith.
But the Bible is clear that you have to believe in faith alone to be saved.
And we know that we're correct for many different proofs in the Bible
and our human experience.
And I want to talk about why we know faith alone is correct.
Now,
In Galatians, the Bible is saying that there are people preaching another gospel.
What does it say in verse 7?
Which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and revert the gospel of Christ.
Why does it say it's not another? It's because...
Everyone virtually teaches the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
whether that be a Catholic, whether that be a Protestant, Lutheran, Presbyterian.
They're going to teach the basic facts of the gospel, that Jesus Christ died on the cross,
that Jesus Christ was buried, and that he rose again.
And we see in this world today, many people, if not the largest religion in the world,
believes in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is the same gospel,
Yet they still pervert the gospel because they don't end up teaching that it's faith in the gospel that saves you
Rather they diminish what the gospel means they take away from what Christ has done and they cause people to not be saved
But if someone preaches a perverted gospel the Bible says in verse 8
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 it now again, if any man preached any other gospel unto you,
then that which you have received, let him be accursed.
Why is it that the person who preaches another gospel is accursed?
Well, look at chapter 3, verse 10.
as are of the works of the law, are under the curse.
If you believe salvation is by works,
or if you add works to salvation,
you are cursed because you're under the curse of the law.
Because works is a curse when you can't keep them perfectly,
and the problem is for all of sin
and comes short of the glory of God.
Therefore, anybody who does not believe
salvation is by faith is cursed.
And they, those who preach a false gospel are a cursed of God.
And the Bible has a strong wrath towards those that are perverting people
and causing them to believe a false gospel who would be damned and go to hell.
Go to Romans chapter number three, go to Romans chapter number three.
Now the most obvious point as to why we know that faith alone is correct
is because the Bible just explicitly says salvation's by faith.
It just says it over and over and over.
You would think if salvation was by works,
they would have at least one verse that said that.
Have you noticed that the Bible never says,
for by works are you saved?
Have you noticed that the Bible doesn't just say,
oh, whoever has the works will go to heaven?
They don't have just all these verses saying this.
And many people want to make it seem like oh the Bible kind of teaches both
or actually the Bible brings up works all the time in context of salvation.
No it doesn't.
The Bible hammers faith when it brings up salvation and it just brings it up over and over and over and over again
that salvation is by faith.
Romans chapter 3 verse 20 is this passage or this part of scripture is just so clear
and I feel like it's just so powerful in describing our point. It says in verse 20.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
No one is justified by works. Works have nothing to do with justification.
It has to do with condemnation. You are condemned by not keeping the law, but you are not justified in the sight of God by keeping the law.
because no flesh shall be justified." Did you read that?
No flesh shall be justified in his sight.
You cannot look to your works to be justified.
If you look to your works, you'll be condemned, is what the Bible clearly teaches.
It says in verse number 21, but now the righteousness of God
without the law is manifested. What do we believe? Salvation is without the law.
without works, and he's saying right now,
to be righteous in the sight of God without the law is being made obvious.
How is it being made obvious? Because Jesus Christ is being preached
in the Old Testament. He was a shadowy figure. The verses were a little bit
darker,
but now that Jesus Christ has come to the earth for people to actually see the
Gospel with their eyes
and be eyewitnesses of the Gospel,
well the Gospel is now being manifested. And the Apostle Paul and others are going
in preaching the manifestation of the gospel because the apostles saw the resurrection Jesus Christ.
Think about it. How much more obvious could the gospel be to you if you saw the resurrected
Lord Jesus Christ? And they're going out and making manifest the gospel, the righteousness of God,
which is what without the law is what the Bible says.
and it says it's being made manifest,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets,
meaning the Old Testament and every prophet
preached the exact same thing,
but now it's just a little bit clearer,
it's just a little bit more obvious than what they had said.
It says in verse number 22,
even meaning specifically the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all
and upon all of them that believe,
for there is no difference.
Notice again, the Bible's just crystal clear.
It's by faith.
And what does by faith mean, those who believe?
And it says then in verse number 23,
for all of us sin and come short of the glory of God,
being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Verse 24 is just a powerful verse.
Notice that we're justified freely.
Salvation is a free gift.
The Bible hammers the free-ness of salvation,
saying in verse 25,
whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood,
to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins
that are passed to the reverberants of God.
Verse 25 is a very powerful verse.
if you understand what it just said.
Because think about this.
When we talk about salvation being by believing
or having faith,
and we read verses like Acts 16 verse 30 and 31
which says,
What does it mean to believe though?
What are we believing?
We're not just simply believing that Jesus is a person.
We're not just simply believing that Jesus existed.
We're not just simply believing that Jesus Christ died.
We're not just simply believing that He resurrected.
You know we're believing?
We're believing that His shed blood was put on the mercy seat
and that His shed blood is what gives us the forgiveness of sins.
And then when you notice in verse 25,
it says to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.
That's what we're actually believing to save us
is the blood of Jesus Christ being applied into our account
just like the Passover and that's what gives us salvation.
You can't just believe Jesus existed you have to actually put faith in his blood and that saves you
Notice for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God to declare
I say at this time his righteousness
Salvation is by his righteousness not ours because the Bible says there's none righteous. No not one
Those who say it's by works are declaring their righteousness and they're not saved.
If you think salvation is by your righteousness, you're not saved.
If you think it's by repenting of your sins, you're not saved.
If you think it's by going to church, you're not saved.
If you think it's by getting baptized, you're not saved.
If you think it has anything to do with your righteousness, you're not saved.
You have to put your faith and his blood, that's where you get saved.
And what am I declaring? His righteousness. We don't have righteousness.
It says that he might be just. Who's the he? Jesus.
Jesus is the only one that's ever been just and ever will be just.
You're not just. You're not justified.
Notice, and the justifier of him.
Which believeth in Jesus? Notice again, it doesn't say that Jesus justifies those that follow the commandments
It doesn't say that Jesus
Justifies those who've been catechized or follow some religious tradition
He justifies those which believe in Jesus. He doesn't justify those who are born of the Jews
It's not an ethnicity. It's not a race. It's not a denomination.
It's not a set of rigid rules. It's not someone who turned over a new leaf.
It's those who believed in Jesus, and Jesus justifies those who believed in Him.
You say verse 27, where's boasting then?
How in the world can I brag if it was free how in the world can I brag if I did nothing to earn it?
If I don't deserve it. Well, what is the conclusion? It is excluded
There is zero that you can brag about there is zero that you can include of your works your righteousness
What you've done, it's completely excluded
by what law of works?
Nay, but by the law of faith.
So we see that faith and works cannot be the same thing.
Some people say oh faith means have the works. No notice it said by what law of works?
No, but by the law of faith works and faith are not the same thing. They're opposites
They are opposites and you're not saved by your works. Otherwise you could brag otherwise you could boast otherwise
You're declaring your righteousness knows by faith. So then you can't boast
It's free and you're declaring his righteousness for their mission of sins that are passed
So what's the conclusion?
Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Now how can you read these eight verses and then come away with any conclusion other than faith alone?
It's because you're blinded, you've been lied to,
you've been taken advantage of,
people are twisting scripture
because the Bible just hammered faith alone right here.
It couldn't have made it clearer.
And of course, we're not done.
Look at chapter 4 verse 1.
What shall we say then that Abraham, our father,
is pretending the flesh death found?
For if Abraham were justified by works,
he hath wear of the glory.
But not before God, for what say of the scripture?
Abraham believed God and it was counted
unto him for righteousness.
So how is Abraham saved?
By faith, not of works.
Verse 4.
He explains this now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt if works has anything to do with salvation
Then salvation could not be of grace
Grace and works are incompatible words. They cannot coexist just like me and these faggots. We can't coexist. All right
Just like me and these people that believe in multiple genders. We can't coexist and these stupid bumper stickers
If you have a coexist bumper sticker, I don't want to coexist with you
Those people are weird and they're liberals
and in the same way works and grace cannot coexist.
They don't exist together.
They're separate from one another.
Otherwise, both words become meaningless.
They are exact opposites.
Black is not white, white is not black.
And if you try to say they're the same,
well, you ruin both definitions.
Truth cannot be lies lies cannot be truth some things are the exact opposite and works and grace are the exact opposite
And if you were saved by your works, well, then it wasn't by grace
It was a debt that God owed you but God does not owe anyone salvation
No one has earned it. No one can get it. It's a free gift. It says in verse 5
But him that worketh not many he never did any works never did any good
but believeth on him that justified the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness.
Even as David also described with the blessings of the man
unto God and puteth righteousness without works.
You know, people say, oh, where does the Bible say faith alone?
Where does the Bible say that salvation is by faith alone?
Well, it said right here that it's righteousness without works.
Instead of verse 28 in the prior chapter,
therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith
Yeah, it's explaining that concept over and over and over and over and over.
So we just simplify it and say it's faith alone.
We're just trying to put it in a condensed way where you can understand what we're saying.
And look, you understand what we're saying.
Because when we say faith alone, you disagree with it.
But then we show you from the Bible over and over and over and over how it's faith alone,
and you just don't believe the Bible.
Now, look at it if you would chapter 5 for a moment.
Think about what the Bible describes salvation as like.
It says it's a free gift, verse 15,
but not as the offense.
So also, it's the free gift
for through the offense of one, many be dead.
Much more the grace of God and the gift by grace,
which is by one man, Jesus Christ,
has a bound and a many.
So Adam was the offense.
Jesus is the free gift.
He's giving us the free gift.
Skip down to verse 17.
For if by one man's offense, death reigned by one,
much more they which receive abundance of grace,
and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one,
Jesus Christ.
So again, we have here one man's offense, which is what?
It's specifically Adam.
Then it says, the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one, that's Jesus Christ.
Skip back up to verse 16.
by the righteousness of one, the free gift
It says,
came upon all men under justification of life.
Oh, you just think, you believe in cheap grace.
No, I don't believe in that, I believe in free grace.
It's not cheap, it's free.
And you know why it's not cheap?
Because it costs Jesus the most precious thing
in the world, His blood.
It's the most expensive gift to him and it's the freest gift that we could ever receive and
Notice 15 free gifts 16 free gift 17 gift of righteousness 18 free gift again
How many times in the Bible have to tell you it's a free gift
You look at Romans chapter number three verse 24 being justified freely
Then it's in chapter number five free gift free gift free gift. Oh, man
You guys just think it's a get out of jail free card. Yes, I do
But we're substitute jail with hell get out of hell free card believing in Jesus Christ
So you have to do just like you play the game monopoly all you have to do is just take that community chess card
Just grab it and you now are out there. You just have to take the gift of life freely
It's out there. All you have to do is just accept his free gift and you're saved forever
And the cool thing about the card is you don't have to play it and lose it you just you always have it
He gives you that card and it's just a permanent card that can never be taken away
And you're saved for all of eternity
Ephesians 2 8 9
Keep your finger in Romans. I want to come right back
Ephesians 2 8 9 says for by Gracie saved through faith and that not of yourselves
It is the gift of God not of works. Let's any man should boast so the Bible says by grace
Are you saved through faith?
Isn't that similar to what we've already read?
It's the exact same thing.
Now in Romans chapter 11, if you look at verse number six,
the Bible tells us something about grace.
Verse six, and if by grace, then it is no more works.
Otherwise grace is no more grace,
but if it be of works, then it is no more grace.
Otherwise work is no more work.
The Bible says salvation cannot be by both grace and work.
It's either grace and no works or it's work and no grace.
It cannot be both.
And you'll often hear Calvinists, you'll hear Catholics,
they'll get up and say,
God gave me the grace to do the works.
And you're just like,
you don't even understand definition of words now.
Because they'll say,
oh, the gift was for me to do all the work.
That's not a gift.
I mean, what if I said, hey, I'm offering all of y'all a gift.
You can mow my lawn for free whenever you'd like.
I'm so gracious.
Anybody, I'm gonna give you a great gift of grace.
You can wash my car.
You can mow my lawn.
You can clean my house.
Isn't that so lovely that I give you that opportunity
to do that?
I mean, that's nonsense.
It's nonsense to say, oh, this is such grace.
No, grace would be you transgress against me
that's grace. Grace is I give you money and you don't pay me back and I say
don't worry about it. That's grace and in the same way we transgressed against
God, we sinned against God and by his grace we don't have to go to hell to be
punished for our sins. Jesus took our place for us. Jesus paid our debt for us
and he sprinkled his blood on the mercy seat so we wouldn't have to die and go
to hell for our own sins and he offers us salvation by grace.
Let's take a quick journey through John.
I'm not going to show you every verse on this,
but I mean, point one is just so clear.
The Bible just teaches salvation by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.
And what was the synonym of this?
Believe.
It's those who believe.
Which is the same thing?
Believing, faith, the same thing.
The Bible hammers believing is what saves us.
John 1-12,
but as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his name.
How do you become a child of God by believing?
Verse 13, which were born not of blood,
nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
Look, you weren't born because of the fact
that you were a certain ethnicity or a certain race
or you had certain parents.
Nobody was born into God's family physically.
You were born into God's family spiritually
when you believed in Jesus Christ.
And it wasn't by you working or wanting to be saved.
It was by you believing in Jesus Christ and getting the free gift.
Look at John chapter 3 verse 15.
That whosoever believeth in him.
should not perish but have eternal life.
Verse 16, for God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish
but have everlasting life.
Verse 18, he that believeth on him is not condemned,
but he that believeth not is condemned already
because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God.
What does it say in verse 36?
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life
and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life
but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Good thing you have a King James in your lap this morning because modern versions will often change verse 36 to say he that does not obey the son shall not see life.
You know what? That's not what the Bible says.
It says he that believeth not shall not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Just like we saw in Galatians chapter number one,
those who have another gospel are accursed.
Those who are still of the works of the law are under the curse.
And those who believe not are what?
They have the wrath of God abiding on them.
They have the curse of God on their life.
And if they die cursed, they're going to go to hell.
John chapter five verse 24 the Bible says verily verily I say in you he that here with my word and believe it on him
That sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation
But his past from death and a life John 647 the Bible says verily verily
I say in you he that believeth on me at everlasting life
How many verses do you need for the Bible to just explain this point?
It's believe believe believe faith faith faith grace grace grace no works no works no works free gift free gift free gift free gift
How do you know faith alone is right?
Have you read the Bible?
I mean, the Bible is just crystal clear on this point.
Salvation is by faith, not of works.
By grace, no works.
It's a free gift.
All you have to do is just trust in Jesus Christ and you're saved for all of eternity.
Go back if you went to Galatians now.
Go back to Galatians now.
Okay, so point one, the Bible just says salvation is by faith.
You can't get away from it.
Now because the Bible is so clear on what we just read,
false religion also realizes all those verses are in the Bible.
So you know what they all have to do?
Give lip service to salvation by faith.
And frankly speaking,
It would be it would be hard for you to find a religious leader that won't just say salvation's by faith
I mean, I don't care if you find a Catholic some Presbyterian some Methodist
If you get them on TV if you get them in an interview and you say hey, do you believe salvation's by faith?
They'll say like yes, I do
because there's so many verses on it.
But it's then when they start explaining it,
you start realizing this guy does not believe
in salvation by faith.
That is not what they're really trusting in.
You know, it's a meaningless and a vain exercise
in many cases to just be like,
I think this guy's safe.
Don't you think salvation by faith?
And they're like, yeah, they'll just say it.
I mean, how many people have you knocked on their door
and they'll just say, yes, salvation by faith.
And then you're like, okay, can you lose it?
Oh yeah.
Is this like a one-time event?
Or does this take like a lifestyle?
Oh, it's a lifestyle.
If you don't have the work, so you're gonna be saved up.
Not at all, you have to have all the works.
You're like, you just said salvation is by faith.
Why do they sit there and parrot that?
Why is it that many times they'll just give that as the first answer?
Because the Bible just says it so many times
that if people are getting up and not preaching that,
people will be confused.
They'll be thinking, like, why read it like 50 times, you know?
So we have to drill down, ask more questions.
And this is something that I think a lot of people sincerely wonder
when you talk to them at the door or you're evangelizing,
is they hear, okay, salvation's by faith.
but I believe it's faith and works.
So I think it's like extra.
So I would obviously be saved then
because I have the faith and I have works.
How am I not better than you?
How am I not doing more than what's even required?
But the problem is, if you believe salvation's
by faith and works, you're not saved.
And so how do you know you're correct on that?
Well, the entire book of Galatians
is dealing with this issue.
Glacians is dealing with the issue of,
well, can I add something and still be saved?
Or can I put a little bit of extra in there
and get into the door, and the answer's no.
We already read in chapter one, there's people preaching another gospel.
He brings us up, chapter two, verse four, and that because of false brethren and wheres
brought in who came in privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus,
that they may be brought, bring us into bondage, to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not
for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
Now, in the context of Galatians, the apostle Paul's bringing up this question that had
previously entered in the minds of these Judaizers
and saying, well, you also have to be circumcised.
And if you think about it, Galatians is pretty interesting
because they're not even just necessarily saying
you have to do everything to be saved.
They're just adding like one extra cherry.
It's like faith and circumcision.
And the Apostle Paul is saying,
hey, there is these people, these false brethren,
Unawares brought in who came in to privately spy out our liberty.
Now let me explain something, false brethren are not saved.
So if Faith Plus Work saves you,
then why isn't the people bringing this doctrine are not saved?
Read only that.
Someone that's bringing a doctrine of faith plus anything
is a false brethren.
They're not saved.
And the text is already telling us
that people that have this extra version of the gospel,
that add to the gospel are false brethren
and they're not saved.
And they were trying to spy out Timothy.
I mean, it sounds kind of homo, you know?
I mean, think about it.
I mean, think about it, these guys seem kind of like fruity.
Why in the world are they so interested in trying to figure out
what's going on with Timothy? I mean, this is disgusting.
This is gross. And that's what a false gospel does, it makes you gross.
And it makes you want to do gross things, okay? And we see these false brethren
are coming in to spy
on them and to try and try to attack them.
Verse 16, it says knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law,
but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we
have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ,
and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law
shall no flesh be justified.
Now, doesn't that ring some bells in all the verses we just read again?
I mean, this is such a powerful verse.
It says we already know that no one is justified by works of the law.
Why because that's what he preached to this church. That's why they got saved. That's why they got plugged in
That's why they join. That's why they got baptized is they knew that salvation was not by works
It was by faith because when Paul showed up he wasn't telling them to keep the works to get there
He's like you showed up at church because I told you as a free gift
You got baptized because you believed it was by faith and then you started hearing about Jesus because of the faith
We know that's the truth
And he says, even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith
of Christ and not by the works of the law.
Why?
Because by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified, exactly what it said in
Romans chapter number three.
But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore
Christ the minister of sin, God forbid.
So he's saying, look, if obviously if I end up sinning after getting saved, which is what
It's not like Christ is just saying like,
hey, let's just keep sinning and partying
because we got saved and we can't lose it.
No, Christ isn't a minister of sin.
Christ isn't telling people to sin.
Christ isn't wanting people to sin.
Christ isn't giving you a license to sin.
Christ just saved you from your sin.
That's all he did.
Okay, just like you go out and you swim
and you start drowning and the lifeguard goes out there
and drags you out of the water and saves you from drowning.
He's not saying, hey, now I want to give you a license to go drown whenever you want.
In fact, don't ever try to swim.
Another lifeguard will say, swim.
If you go back out there, make sure you're swimming.
But what's the lifeguard gonna also say?
If you fail, you get a cramp,
if you get tired, something's weird,
I'll still run out there and I'll drag you
out of the water every time.
And in the same way, Jesus Christ is like that lifeguard
that when we get in the pool,
when we get in that ocean, that body of water,
even if we decide to stop swimming,
he's not gonna let us drown.
He's not gonna let us die, but he's not saying don't try he's not saying don't swim
He's not saying don't do good things obviously Christ wants us to follow all the commandments
He wants us to do a good job
He wants us to learn how to swim in our spiritual sea, but you know what?
He's gonna rescue us every single time and he's never gonna let you die on his watch
Okay, he's not handing out licenses to drown in the same way Christ is not handing us out licenses to do whatever we want
Christ is not a minister of sin.
But then Paul says this in verse 18,
for if I build again the things that I destroyed,
I make myself a transgressor.
What is he saying?
Well, but if I go back to my previous religion,
What are the things that he destroyed he destroyed the Pharisee religion?
He destroyed the Jewish religion if he's like if I go back and rebuild the Jewish religion
I'm gonna make myself a transgressor because no one can keep the law if I'm gonna say salvation by the works of the law
I'm gonna make myself a transgressor because no one is perfect. I've already destroyed that. I don't need that anymore
I'm done with that
Verse 19, for I, through the law, am dead to the law that I might live unto God.
He's dead to the law. He's already died in the law, meaning the curse of the law is dead to him.
It has no effect unto him. He cannot go to hell because he's dead to the law.
The law does not apply. Now, what does the law not apply to?
His end time judgment.
It's not meaning that the law of God doesn't apply to us right now.
He just explained that.
Christ is not a minister of sin.
But what he is saying is he's dead to the law that when he stands before God, the law
can't throw him into hell because he's dead to it.
But you know, before you die physically, you better make sure you're keeping the law,
alright?
Verse 20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live.
Yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me
I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness come by the law then Christ is dead in vain
If you have to be saved by works, then what Christ did was meaningless
Think about it this way if we go to lunch and I say hey, don't worry. I'll pay for lunch. I got it
and you think that, you get up, we eat, we eat,
we get up, we're leaving.
And then the waiter, waitress comes over
and they say, hey, are you gonna pay for your meal?
And you're like, he paid for it.
And they say, no, he didn't.
His credit card didn't work.
His credit card was expired.
His credit card failed.
Are you gonna pay?
You're like, okay, I guess I'm gonna pay.
Then you know what you're doing?
You're invalidating the other person.
You're not, the other person didn't pay.
The other person didn't do their job.
It makes what they did meaningless.
How meaningful would it be if I invite you to lunch
and then say, I'm gonna pay and then I didn't pay?
You're not gonna be like, thanks so much for lunch.
I mean, can you imagine paying for the lunch
after I told you I was gonna pay
and then thanking me for it?
Thank you for buying my lunch.
I mean, why in the world are we singing hymns to God?
Why are we singing hymns to Jesus Christ
that he paid it all to God be the glory?
It's only through Jesus.
You know, if he didn't actually pay for it.
He actually paid for it, so then we can say thank you.
So we can actually give him the glory and him the honor.
And I'm not gonna frustrate the grace of God
and say, oh, no, no, no, it's what I do.
Well, now we're making what Christ did of none effect.
It's vain, it was meaningless.
And you know what?
Work salvationists make the gospel meaningless because they're saying,
no, no, no, I got to pay.
Well, now you're taking away the payment that Jesus already made.
And if you go to the restaurant and they pay the meal,
you can't pay on top of it. They won't let you pay the meal.
Obviously, you can give an extra tip, but you know what? That doesn't do anything.
You know, you can't pay for the meal that's already been bought
and already been paid for.
The receipt has already been made.
They handed the receipt to the person that paid.
And you know what? Jesus already has the receipt.
You can't pay for it.
It's already a done deal.
There's nothing to pay for.
You either just accept it or you don't.
Now, if we keep reading in Galatians,
it just keeps getting more clear that these people are not saved.
Look at chapter 4, verse 11.
Chapter 4, verse 11,
I am afraid of you lest I bestowed upon you labor and vain.
Now he's saying this group of people got mixed up.
So imagine you go to an area,
you preach the gospel,
you get a bunch of people baptized,
you bring them into a church,
and then later you come back to that church,
or later you hear about that church.
And this church is now saying salvation's by works.
Now this church is saying you have to be circumcised.
Now this church is saying you have to do more than just believe.
You're thinking like,
Maybe all that labor was, I'm afraid,
that what I did didn't work.
I'm afraid that you guys actually aren't even saved.
I'm afraid that somehow this didn't stick
because you obviously don't even believe the gospel anymore
and he's worried that it's kind of mixed up.
Now, a couple of things we can learn.
Number one, it seems like it must be possible
for someone to get a little mixed up on the gospel
and still be saved.
Okay, but here's another thing we can learn that if someone's a little mixed up you should have zero confidence that they're saved
Okay, so if someone's a little mixed up and I'm doubting their salvation or don't believe they're saved
That's the attitude Paul has he's saying well, I'm afraid that you're just not even saved
Okay, because we shouldn't think like oh well this guy that's mixed up in the gospel is still saved for sure
Now if someone's mixed up in the gospel, it should be like a huge red flag that they're probably not saved
and we need to make sure that they're right.
You know, we go out, knock doors,
and we talk to people, many people are confused.
And it's like some people criticize,
oh, you're just getting people that are saved,
saved again or something.
Well, even if that was what I was doing, praise God,
I'm not that worried about it.
Like, oh, you went from being really screwed up
on the gospel to now being sharp, that's still a win.
You know, I mean and look if they were saved and we prayed to get them saved again. It didn't hurt them
It didn't like get them in a lower level in heaven
or like give them a chance to go to hell
or something like that, right?
I mean, what's the worst thing you did?
Oh, today I convinced somebody salvation was by faith
more than they thought earlier
and reassured them that they were saved.
I mean, if that was what we did, praise God anyways.
But look, I believe that most of our salvation,
most of our preaching, we really are getting people saved
that we're really converting them into our religion.
But even if,
All we are doing is sharpening people up in the gospel, praise God,
maybe then they won't go to a church that's confusing them constantly.
But yeah, it is possible for someone to get a little mixed up.
But that's not the vast majority anyways.
People that are just wrong, it's just 99% of the time they're just not saved,
they need to get saved, they've never been saved,
and that's why they're giving wrong answers, that's why they're screwed up.
But notice, if you think it's faith plus something,
what does the apostle Paul say? I don't even think you're saved.
He doesn't say, oh, good, you got extra.
Bonus credit.
Oh, you filled out the entire test
and filled out the bonus section.
No, there's not a bonus section.
When you try to add works, now you're just not even saved.
If you try to add anything, FaithBusWorks does not save you.
He's afraid of you.
He doesn't think you're saved whatsoever.
Verse 19, my little children of whom I travail and birth again,
until Christ be formed in you,
I desire to be present with you now
and to change my voice for I stand in doubt of you.
He's frustrated, he's thinking like,
man, when I come back to this church,
I'm gonna have to try and get you guys saved again.
I'm gonna have to try, I changed, my voice is changing.
I was kind of talking to you like we're brothers,
like we're friends, like you're the saved,
but now I'm gonna have to try to like change my voice
and it's gonna be like, y'all already been saved.
Like I'm gonna be rebuking you, I'm gonna have to be sharp,
I need to figure out where we're at.
And you know what, sometimes we have to change
our voice a little bit.
Oh, this preacher's kind of mean,
or he's changing his voice.
Okay, well, what does Paul say?
He's not always a mild-mannered, even-tempered guy.
Sometimes he has to change his voice.
Sometimes he has to reprove, rebuke, exhort,
with all-long suffering and doctrine.
Verse five, I'm sorry, chapter five, verse two.
It says,
Behold, I, Paul, say unto you that if ye be circumcised,
Christ shall profit you nothing.
For I testify again to every man that is circumcised,
that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
If you think it's salvation by faith,
plus works, you're not saved.
He says in verse four, Christ has become of no effect unto you,
whosoever you are justified by the law, you are fallen
from grace. Now what does it mean to fall from grace?
Well, it's not that they were saved
and in grace and lost it. It's that grace was being extended to them
and instead of receiving it, they fell from it. So God was
extending them this grace option and then they
fell from the grace. Think about it this way.
Let's say you miss a payment on your mortgage your bills and the company you call them and you say
Hey, sorry something happened, and they say no problem
We'll give you a 10-day grace period and if you pay your bill in the next 10 days
We won't hit you with all these late fees and charges
and then you don't pay in those next 10 days.
What's going to happen?
Now they're going to slam you with all the extra fees.
Why? Because you fell from the grace period.
You had the grace extended to you,
but you didn't accept the grace
because you didn't end up paying your bill.
And in the same way, God is extending grace to the unsaved.
God is extending grace under those that are not
already a son of God.
But if they don't believe in that grace period,
Well, now they've fallen from grace,
Christ has become of no effect unto them,
they're going to the law,
they're going to be circumcised and they're not saved.
Now this is not saying that if someone's
physically circumcised they can't be saved,
it's saying someone who's trusting in their circumcision,
someone who's trusting in the works is not saved.
They've fallen from grace, they didn't understand that salvation is a free gift, they didn't
understand that it was just by believing.
They went to try and seek salvation by works and they're not saved.
Verse five, for we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.
Notice the hope of righteousness, this is such an important phrase.
You're not righteous
You weren't righteous before you got saved
You weren't righteous the moment you got saved and you're not righteous after you get saved
But you have the hope of righteousness
Meaning what that one day we'll get a new body and we'll be glorified and then we'll be righteous
But now we still sin the apostle Paul said in his saved state in Romans chapter number seven. I am carnal
He's still not perfect.
We're going through a process of sanctification.
We should strive to do that, which is right,
but you're not righteous.
You won't be righteous in this life.
You have the hope of righteousness.
And how do we acquire the hope of righteousness?
By faith.
When we believe in Jesus Christ, we become saved and later in the future
we will be redeemed fully and we'll have a new body and we'll finally become righteous and you know what?
That's great. We should have a desire to want to be righteous. You say hey being saved is wanting to be righteous
Have you heard this yet to be willing to be saved or willing to be righteous all I have to do is just have
faith in Jesus to be saved.
But you know, you could say, yeah,
I do want to be righteous,
but I know I'll never accomplish it in this life.
All I know is if I believe in Jesus
and he gives me a new body,
then I could be righteous
and I have the hope of righteousness in the future.
But you know what, they're teaching,
you can be righteous now.
There are people that say, oh, we're righteous.
Oh, I don't sin.
People will say they don't sin anymore.
They're only confusing themselves.
There is not a just man upon the earth
The Bible's clear that there's none righteous.
I mean, if you actually understand sin, no one's escaped this.
I mean, the Bible says the thought of foolishness is sin.
To him to know it is good and do it not to him it is sin.
The Bible says to look with lust is sin.
The Bible says to be angry with your brother out of cause is a sin.
I mean, if we were honest with ourselves,
we're probably sinning multiple times every day.
We can't escape it.
And that's at, that's at like the base level.
Let alone...
Many people are still lying, stealing, committing fornication, committing adultery, getting drunk.
I mean, if you really knew what people are doing behind the scenes, you wouldn't think no one's sinning.
People put on a brave face at church, but we know what's really going on.
And it's hard to convince pastors people don't sin.
We know all kinds of stuff, all right?
You didn't stop sinning.
Hey, the Catholic priest, he knows people didn't stop sinning.
He's got people coming and confessing
all kinds of crazy stuff that's going on.
Let alone the people that think that they're super righteous,
well, you still have bad thoughts.
You still have bad actions.
You still are lazy sometimes.
We're still selfish sometimes.
We're still prideful sometimes.
I mean, you can't escape sin.
But we have the hope of righteousness that one day we will no longer be prideful, selfish, carnal, having
temptations of gossip and lust and covetousness and being dishonorable and lazy.
I mean, we won't have that. We'll be righteous finally.
But right now we don't have it.
But you know what's clear in the book of Galatians is that if you add anything to salvation, you're not saved.
He's afraid of you. He stands in doubt of you.
He doesn't think that they're saved whatsoever.
And of course, we have to think that about other people.
You know, I know that salvation is faith alone
because when you add anything else, you're not saved.
It said it was by faith alone and then when you add it in anything else,
in Galatians, it's clear that you're not saved and it doesn't save
and it can't get you there and you're making what Christ did in vain.
Here's the third thing. Go back to Galatians 2.
Why is faith alone correct? Well, the Bible says salvation is by faith.
Why is faith alone correct? Because adding works doesn't save you.
Why is faith alone correct? Because those are the people who evangelize.
People believe in faith alone are the people that actually do the evangelism in the world.
Look at Galatians chapter 2 verse 7.
But contrary-wise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me,
as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter,
For he that wrought effectually in Peter, to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.
Now this is what's interesting.
The Apostle Paul—this is such an important point—in chapters 2, verses 7 and 8,
the Apostle Paul says,
hey, God wanted me to reach the Gentiles,
and God wanted Peter to reach the Jews.
That's the circumstance.
The circumstance is the Jews.
The uncircumcision is the Gentiles.
Now, is there a verse in the Bible that just says, like,
Peter only go to the Jews?
No.
There are verses in the Bible that kind of indicate God wanted us in the Apostle Paul to the Gentiles,
but how does the Apostle Paul know that's what God wanted?
It's because it's what happened.
But it's their works that ended up establishing what God truly wanted.
Why is it that we know Peter was supposed to get a bunch of Jews saved?
Because he got a bunch of Jews saved.
Why is it that we know God wanted Paul to get a bunch of Gentiles saved?
Because Paul got a bunch of Gentiles saved.
And you can kind of see it was about the works, wasn't it?
How do you know that you were chosen of God to do a work?
It doesn't matter. Oh, you're ordained. Oh, you're giving this commission. Oh, we you say you're gonna do it
Doesn't matter. Did you do it?
You know think about the parable in the New Testament. There's two sons and the dad says to one
Hey son go in my vineyard, and he's like I won't go
but then later he goes and then the other one says yeah, I'll go and then he does it and he says which of these
Twain did the will of his father?
It's the one who did it because who cares what you say who cares what your commission to do who cares where you're sent
It matters if you do it and if we think about this
It's not the people that give lip service to evangelism
It's not the per people that say they're gonna do evangelism. It's the people that do evangelism that matter
You know what?
Show me the people that are actually getting people saved and doing evangelism and I'll
show you the people that God wanted to do with evangelism.
How do we even know who's right?
Well, who's actually doing the work?
I mean, think about it.
What if the people that were right were people that never got soul winning?
Oh, Calvinists were right.
Well, that stinks because they never told anybody.
Like wouldn't you want the people that are actually doing something to be the people that are right?
And at the end of the day, we notice the people who believe in faith alone. They're the ones doing the work
Show me a soul winner, and I'll show you someone that believes in faith alone
in
fact apart from your two cults the Mormons and the J-dubs which have a completely different plan of salvation completely different Bible
They, you know, will go out and damn souls to hell.
But at the end of the day,
if you really want to find people
that are doing hardcore evangelism,
it's pretty much independent fundamental badness.
You could ask the internet,
you could just look in reality.
I've had an independent fundamental badness
that nothing to do with our church
or a movement knock on my door
and try to like give our family the gospel.
Who would say they've had an independent badness
ever knock on their door before?
Yeah, I mean, some of us, it should be all of us, you know.
I would love it if it would be like 50 times a year.
But at the end of the day, at least I've had that.
How many of you have had a Calvinist knock on your door
to give you this gospel?
Oh, zero.
How many of you had a Catholic knock on your door
to try to give you the gospel?
Oh, zero again.
Okay, is that a coincidence?
No, the people who believe in faith alone
are the ones doing evangelism.
Why would, and think about this, if we were wrong and they were right,
well then the Great Commission is being fulfilled by no one.
We are, we are the ones going out and preaching the gospel.
There's other groups, if you look online, they'll say Southern Baptist and Evangelicals are also out there
doing work, trying to reach people.
I don't think they're doing it as much as Independent Funnel Baptist soul winning.
And honestly, they're kind of mixed up sometimes.
Sometimes they're kind of weak,
but at least they're doing something.
And look, a lot of Southern Baptists are saved.
A lot of evangelicals are saved
and they have some desire to reach people.
And look, the people who believe in faith alone,
those are the people that are gonna go out
and preach to other people and get them saved,
just like we see all Peter, just like we see
at the Apostle Paul going out and preaching the gospel.
And how do I know faith alone is correct?
Well, those are the people who are evangelizing.
I mean, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel every creature.
Someone's got to do that.
Who's doing that?
You think the Spirit of God just doesn't exist in the world anymore?
You think that the Spirit of God isn't flowing in somebody that's saved?
I mean, someone's got to be saved.
And if the Spirit of God is flowing in that person,
Jesus Christ said,
if you follow me, I'll make you a fisher of men.
So someone's getting someone saved and let's just everyone's unsaved
But no if you actually believe that there's really fishermen that people are really saved
Well, you're gonna find them by the people that are reaching people and going soul-winning and getting people into
Church and those are the people who believe in faith alone are the ones going out and preaching the gospel
They'll be to Matthew 28 and we'll look at the famous verses there. I
Know that we're correct because we're the ones who are doing the work
You know why we do the work, and they don't,
because we're confident in what we believe
and they're not confident.
We know faith alone works.
We know faith alone saves.
They aren't confident in their presentation,
so they're not gonna go out, because if they did,
they would fail, it would be confusing,
people would run them off, they would run into one of us,
and they would just get destroyed.
We'd be like, let me show you in your own,
I basically take the sword out of their hand
and then slay them with their own sword.
Because we know how to be saved and they don't, and that's why we win.
That's why we're aggressive. That's why we're confrontational.
But think about just the practicality of the Gospel.
The Bible tells us in Matthew 28, verse number 18,
Go ye, I'm sorry, and Jesus came and spake of them saying all power is given to me in heaven and earth
Go ye therefore and teach all nations
baptizing them and the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost
Teaching them to observe all things what are commanded you and lo I'm with you always even in the world. Amen
Think about the practicality of this verse
If God wants us to teach all nations
And getting someone saved takes months, years, decades.
It could never happen.
Salvation has to be done quickly.
And if salvation has to be done quickly,
well, it can't be by works,
and it can't be by inspecting their fruit
because then we'll never really accomplish much.
It has to be fast.
And you know what's fast?
Salvation is by faith alone, it's a free gift.
Handing out free gifts can go quickly.
You know it doesn't go quickly being a disciple
I mean, there's many people who take a long time to become a disciple.
There are many people that get saved and then take some a while to end up getting baptized,
take some a while to end up getting in a church, take some a while to read the whole Bible,
take some a while to start dressing like a fundamental Baptist, getting plugged in a church,
actually start becoming a soul winner, actually producing fruits.
I mean, that could be a really long process for many people.
And we can see God slowly working in people's lives.
But that's not what gets them saved. It was that free gift that they got, that's what got them saved.
And yeah, some people don't do much with that free gift.
Some people aren't even that grateful for that free gift.
But you know what, that's what we're handing out.
And it wouldn't make sense that it would take a long time
because then how could we ever baptize someone?
If I have to wait and do like an eight week course
to figure out if you're even saved to give you baptized,
we're not gonna be baptizing scores of people on every day.
We're not gonna go out and get 3,000 people saved
in one day.
Think about this, the early disciples, 120 people,
they get 3,000 people saved in one day
and baptized on the same day.
How long can you really spend with a person
to give them the gospel and baptized in one day
when it's 120 ratio to 3,000?
It had to be something that was done quickly, wouldn't it?
It had to be fast, it had to be quick and of course if God expects us to go out and do lots of labor
it has to be something that can be done quickly and let me tell you something if your gospel presentation takes days weeks years
It's wrong
Go to Acts chapter number eight. I would argue if it takes an hour, it's wrong too now look
Sometimes it does take an hour
But if it always takes an hour, there's something wrong
I believe that if you effectively communicate the gospel,
you know, you should probably be around 10 to 15 minutes.
And if you're a little slower, it takes you 20, no problem.
If it's a super rush and super receptive person,
I think it's possible to get someone saved six, eight minutes.
You know, I mean, I've seen it, it can happen.
It's like the Bahamas, okay?
But if you're getting someone saved in two minutes,
you're probably doing it wrong.
Two to four minutes, you're probably doing something wrong.
You're probably not being thorough enough.
You probably need to improve.
And if it's taking you like 30 plus minutes,
you probably need to work on your efficiency.
Okay, you need to think about, you know, I think that's the sweet spot and it's about 10 to 15 minutes and
You know, maybe extends to 20 25 depending on what kind of objections they have or what kind of situations you run into
Maybe how distracted they are
Obviously, some people are just low-hanging fruit and you can just get through it pretty quickly
And it's gonna depend a little bit on the person, but you know what it doesn't take?
35 weeks
It doesn't take 35 years to preach the gospel.
Now it could take someone a long time to end up getting saved
because they're just hard end, resistant.
You have to sow a lot of seeds and water
in that person's life for them to finally come to the point
where they want to get saved.
But you know, the gospel presentation itself,
you explaining how to be saved should not take
like years and decades and whatever.
It takes just a moment of time and look,
Acts chapter 8 is a great story about this.
Look at verse number 35,
because there's this Ethiopian eunuch reading the Bible.
The deacon or evangelist Philip is running unto him.
He reads Isaiah and he's like, hey, what's this about?
It says in verse 35,
then Philip opened his mouth and began
to the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus.
So guys, read in the Bible.
You have an evangelist show up.
Hey, what does this mean?
So he just immediately starts explaining to them
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Verse 36,
And as they went on their way, they came under a certain water,
and the eunuch said,
See, here's water, what does it mean to be baptized?
And Philip said,
If thou believest the law in heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And he commanded the chariot to stand still,
and they went down both into the water,
both Philip and the eunuch,
and he baptized them.
Now, do you think it would be a good idea
to baptize people that are not saved?
That would be bad, right?
Giving them a false assurance of salvation,
not being clear, but how can this guy meet him
and in the same day, probably just moments later,
end up baptizing him?
Is salvation by works?
Wouldn't you have to wait and see like,
well, do you have the works?
Are you gonna change your lifestyle?
Have you repented of all your sins?
Have you done all these things?
Cause I don't wanna just baptize you.
But, look, he doesn't know anything about the guy.
He doesn't know what sins he's committed.
He never told him he's going to repent of any sins.
He never said he wants to change his lifestyle.
He's not even going to live in that part of the world.
He's going back to wherever he's from.
But he says, hey, I'll baptize you based on one thing if you believe with all your heart.
And he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
He believes it. He's trusting in Jesus Christ. He wants to believe in Jesus Christ and of course at that time
You know, these events happened.
Jesus was a real, everybody had heard of Jesus.
Everybody knew this guy died on the cross.
Everybody pretty much knew about the resurrection.
So to confess that he was the son of God or Christ
was to admit you believed his death burn resurrection.
It was to admit that you were believing
that that was what gave you the forgiveness of sins,
not the works of the law.
So in many cases, them, I sing, just he's the son of God.
They're kind of lumping all of that belief
into that statement.
Okay, today,
because of so much false religion people can say he's the Son of God and not actually be saved,
not mean all that, or not believe all that. So we want to be careful that we're more thorough
today. There's been more heresy spread, you know, in time, past, more false religion spread.
I mean back then they don't have the Catholic Church. Sorry Catholics, you don't go back to Peter.
You didn't start with Peter.
No, there isn't Mormons. There isn't Jehovah's Witnesses. There isn't Calvinists. Calvinists don't exist.
Presbyterians don't exist. Greek Orthodox doesn't exist. Nope. There's just John the Baptist.
Right? There's Baptist, okay?
They go back to Peter. We go back to John the Baptist. All right?
Hey, we're before you. All right?
And we're with them that were baptized in the wilderness.
We go back even further all the way back to Moses,
that Baptist church.
Hey, they were baptized through the Red Sea, weren't they?
All right, because it's always been Baptist, all right?
I'm not changing the nomination.
How pathetic to change, to get Baptist off the sign.
Sorry, there's a little rant.
Come on.
You take Baptist off the sign, that's lame.
Just just basically just say like you're a lame Christian that doesn't want to do what the Bible says
No, we're gonna keep Baptist on the name. We're steadfast Baptist church
We're not just gonna become steadfast. We're steadfast Baptist church
And we're not gonna get away from being a Baptist like Philip. Who's baptizing?
You know gets away from this people to take out verse 37 the NIV
So then the church changes the NIV then they take Baptist off the sign don't they?
and they take out baptism verses in the Bible,
and what requires you to even get baptized.
And of course, why is it that these churches
want to baptize people so quickly,
because it's a sign that you're actually
getting people saved?
But you know, if you don't get anybody saved,
no one's gonna get baptized.
And so they have to just baptize people,
they don't even know what they believe,
they just drug them off the street,
we'll give you a sandwich, get baptized, get in line.
And you know, there are a lot of people
that have been baptized that aren't saved,
but we don't want to do that.
But you know, it doesn't take a lifetime of works to figure out if we can baptize them or not.
It takes what? A profession of faith.
Just simple faith and Jesus Christ saves you.
And we see that salvation can be quick.
Now it says in verse 39,
When they were come up out of the water,
the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing.
Think about how weird of a baptism experience this is.
Like some guy just comes out of nowhere, tells you,
He was buried Rose again. He's like can I get baptized? Will you believe it?
He's like I believe it he dunks you as soon as he brings you up. He's just gone
Like you just just come out of the water like
You're like check it where did he go
But then he just went he's just rejoicing maybe saw the spirit of Lord whisk him away
I don't know, but it's isn't that kind of crazy. You'd be thinking like this guy got baptized and then the guy's just gone. Oh
Don't you have to do follow-up the spirit of the Lord's forcing him to not do follow-up?
He couldn't even invite him to his church
You like ah sometimes you go and you preach some of the gospel and get them saved and you walk away. You don't even know their name
Okay
Well, the Spirit of the Lord whisked me away to another door to get another person saved.
You know, it's more important to me than knowing that guy's name that I'll forget five minutes
later anyways, was another person saved.
I mean, who in here would say I know every single person's name that I've gotten saved?
Like, I remember every single convert I've ever had.
Yeah, I mean we all forget that's about and especially if you do a lot of soul winning that becomes impossible
I many times don't know their name while I'm talking to them like they tell me and I'm like I
Don't know go to a foreign country news thinking like can I call you something else like you know
Especially I mean Asian countries. I really struggled like understand. It's it's dark sayings for me
You know and so they're telling me their name. This is it's funny when I went to college
We played basketball, and all the foreign students,
they just made up American names, you know?
They're just like, my name, my name's Charlie, you know?
My name's John.
And it's like, but what's your real name?
It's like, Chin Chachal.
And it's just like, okay, Charlie, no problem, you know?
Because like, for me, I'm just like, I just struggle.
Like, you know, I just don't understand that, okay?
And there's like, do I have to know the person's name
to get them saved?
No.
It's meaningless.
Hey, do I have to stick around and hold their hand
and make sure they come to church?
No, no, I can preach in the gospel.
We can get them baptized the same day.
Why?
Because faith alone evangelizes quickly.
Where salvation by works takes years and decades.
Hey, you go to the Catholic church,
it'll take like a year or two to get confirmed.
You have to go to all these classes and get catechized,
and they're just trying to damn your soul forever.
Hey, you go to the Mormon church,
it's gonna take forever to join that church,
and to be a part of the Mormon group.
You know what, that is not the Bible.
The Bible, people are just running through towns,
just getting score saved and leaving.
Paul's just going and just killing it.
Go to Galatians chapter three,
go back to Galatians chapter three.
So point one is the Bible says salvation's by faith,
that's how we know it's correct.
Number two, adding works, you're accursed,
you're not saved.
Number three, those who believe in faith alone
are the people doing the evangelism.
Number four, evangelism is quick in the Bible
and it's quick in the world.
And the only way it could be quick,
if it's faith alone.
The only way it could be quick is if it's a free gift.
And that's how we know that they're saved
is because they believed it.
Not by some works or some outward manifestation
because that doesn't save you anyways.
I don't need that.
You know what I need is a profession by faith.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
And when I ask you what you have to do to be saved
and you say be a good person, you're not saved.
When I ask you to be saved and you say faith alone in Jesus. Well, that's all I can do for you
You know and when someone gives me the right answers
Even if I'm not sure I mean there's not much else I can do
You know if they're lying to me. I can't really I can't really stop that
So I'm gonna move on and try to give someone else the right answers
Galatians chapter number three. Here's the fifth point. I want to make I'm just gonna make these two points
These last two points pretty quickly, but Galatians chapter number three
The people who have believed in faith alone,
you know why we know we're correct?
Is because of the people who understand the Bible.
Look at verse two.
This only what I learned of you received you the spirit
by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith.
Are you so foolish having begun in the spirit?
Are you now made perfect by the flesh?
So he's trying to say like,
you guys got plugged into church
and made all these changes in your life
not because you started doing works.
but because you received it by faith.
And think about it, people realize,
oh, I don't have to change anything to be saved.
They believe that, and then they change everything.
And then the Bible just turns on like a light bulb
in their head, and now all of a sudden
they just understand the Bible.
Even though they didn't do it, do anything.
Go to 1 Corinthians 2, go left, just a hair.
1 Corinthians 2, there's number two.
The Bible says in verse number 11.
For what man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man which is in him even so things of God knoweth no man
But the spirit of God verse 12 now we have received not the spirit of the world
But the spirit which is of God that we might know things that are freely given to us of God
Which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth
But which the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things of spiritual. Hey, you know man's wisdom teacheth
This is theology
Theology is not how you understand the Bible.
If you study a bunch of theology,
you'll get screwed up on the Bible fast.
Theology is wrong.
Theology is Greek wisdom.
Theology is coming from Plato, it's coming from Aristotle,
and then it gets into the hands of the church fathers,
but it's just a repackaged Greek wisdom, Greek philosophy.
The Bible says to beware of philosophy.
That is what man's wisdom, man thinks he can teach you the Bible apart from the Bible,
but it's nonsense, it's foolishness.
It rejects the clear scriptures.
Do not think that you're going to understand this book
apart from this book.
We understand this book with this book
and with faith alone.
People believe in faith alone know this book.
Man, when I listen to people explain parts of the Bible
that aren't saved, it's goofy, weird, crazy,
and they just make all these weird excuses.
You know, the Bible say like,
let not your women speak in the church.
And then they'll say like,
oh, well that's talking about how back in the day,
women were on this side of the church
and men were on this side.
And during the middle of the service,
women are like, hey, honey, what's for lunch?
And it was causing kind of an issue in church.
So it's saying like, hey, let's not let the women
yell across the auditorium during the church service.
What, who came up with that?
Not someone that believes in faith alone.
Some weirdo, okay?
Not only that, people that deny faith alone
believe weird stuff about the Trinity.
They interpret the parables wrong.
They interpret all of the law wrong.
They get up and say, I read Leviticus 20, 13,
I still don't understand what it means.
You know, the people who believe in faith alone
actually believe in understanding the Bible.
And they get to compare spiritual with spiritual.
Verse 14,
But the natural man is even not the things of the spirit of God
for their foolishness unto him.
Neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned.
They read how they're supposed to eat the body of Jesus
and they think, let's eat it.
They hear about drinking blood
and they think we have to drink blood in church every single week.
You know, it just goes over their head.
It says, call no man father.
Oh, let's call the main guy in the room father.
It says, hey, don't disfigure your face when you fast and then they put ash on their face.
It just goes over their head and then because they're not saved, they just can't get it.
It's like when little kids try to explain to you adult subjects, like where babies come from or how money works
and you're just thinking like, wow, you have no idea what you're talking about, but you're cute because you're a kid.
But you know when you become an adult Catholic, you're not cute anymore.
You need to grow up and become a man and believe in faith alone and that's how you understand the Bible.
Go to 1st Timothy chapter 1 and it's also, you know, this is a different sermon for a different time
But it's really concerning when you see a pastor
That's been a fundamental Baptist for decades and supposedly read the Bible for decades and a supposedly spirit filled being wrong
And just so many doctrines and just being wrong and so many interpretations and just constantly teaching things that are off
Because you're just thinking like I don't know that you have the spirit of God
because the natural man doesn't understand this stuff,
but the spiritual guy would.
I mean, it's just weird when you're just wrong
on everything, like there's something off about you, okay?
And then they start attacking faith alone
or attacking soul winning.
Wow, that's someone you want to stay far, far away from.
Here's the sixth point I want to make,
is those who believe in faith alone
are the people who make lifelong changes.
First Timothy chapter 1 verse 12,
and I think Christ Jesus our Lord enabled me
for that economy faithful putting me in the ministry
who was before a blasphemer,
and a persecutor and injurious,
but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelief.
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding a button
with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
The apostle Paul says that he had the biggest transformation
of anybody in the world,
and yet he preached salvation as a free gift
by faith alone.
And you know, some people say like,
oh, when you go out and preach this message,
you're hurting people
because now they're just gonna live however they want.
But isn't it funny that we're filled in a church right now
where everyone believes salvation by faith alone
and yet many of us have the strictest standards of anybody?
I mean, isn't it funny?
Like people criticize it like,
oh, your church makes you follow these rules
and all these standards
and you try to do everything the Bible's saying
and you're so legalistic.
All the while then they also say yeah, but but your faith alone. You're saying you don't have to do anything
Wasn't it funny? Which one is it?
Us that believe in faith alone seem to be trying to do everything and then you get mad at us saying what your teaching is
Causing people to not do that
Wait a minute. I feel like our room is full of people doing that
Isn't our room full of people actually trying to serve God even though none of us think we have to do it to be saved?
I mean, I know for a fact I could just I could walk out right now never come back do nothing good sin as much as I want
I'm going to heaven
You know I'm standing here because I actually fear God and I want to be rewarded in this life in the next and
Actually love my wife and I love my children and I love you guys and I love the loss and I'm here
So we can pull more people out of the fire
because I have love in my heart.
I didn't just want to get out a jail-free card,
I also want to help other people get that card too.
And the people who believe in faith alone
are the ones that make the best changes in their life.
They're the ones where the men actually lead
and actually provide for their households.
Show me a church where there's more men
who are the single breadwinner in their house
than our church.
Hey, you look at, compare us to the Catholic Church, compare us to the Presbyterian Church,
compare us to the Non-The-Nom Church, show me churches where they have more men that
are the single income earner than our church.
Show me a church where the women are dressed more modestly and more godly than our church.
Show us a church where people know the Bible more and have read the Bible more.
Show me a church that's doing more evangelism.
Show me a church that's actually trying to give up sin.
Show me a church where people aren't drunk.
Show me a church where they're not fornicators.
Show me a church where they're not extortioners and railers.
You know what? We are separated and sanctified,
and we're trying to serve God here,
even though we believe it's faith alone.
They want to say, oh no, the transformation of the Gospels,
we have a changed life. Look around.
And look, I'm not saying that we've arrived.
I'm not saying that we're better than every other church.
What I am saying is when we do a little bit of comparison,
I notice that people living the most sanctified lives
are the ones that bleed salvation is the freest.
That's how I know faith alone is correct.
Hey, wisdom is justified of our children.
If we saw the Catholics just being so much better people than us,
it would kind of make us wonder like, maybe they're right.
If we saw the Mormons being better than us,
we would think maybe it's right.
But you know what, I see more hypocrisy in the other churches, more ungodliness, less
faith, less sanctification, feminism, liberalism, heresy.
That's what I see.
Go to 2 Peter chapter 2, just flipped to the right, go to 2 Peter chapter 2.
Our church is trying to make lifelong changes.
I mean, who in here would just self-admit,
I'm way different than when I got saved?
I mean, look around the room.
And none of us are doing that
because we wanna go to heaven.
We're doing that because we want God to be pleased with us.
Because we want him to be happy with us.
And we know even if we did nothing again,
we would still be saved.
But that doesn't motivate me to be a bad person.
Now, many churches are teaching you to change your life
and give your life, surrender your life.
I mean, think about what the other churches are saying.
Surrender your life.
Robert Morris is Lordship Salvation.
This is what he said.
This is how you know you're saved.
Who's the boss?
Who makes the decisions in your life?
He says, if you're still in charge,
you're gonna go to hell.
I mean, think about the extremity of what he's saying.
Yet you go to gateway you talk to people gateway their lives don't look like Jesus is making every single decision of their life
They're not separated and saying divide why because they don't believe in faith alone
They believe in work salvation and when you believe in work salvation you're you have this crisis
Because you realize you're not sinless
So then you have to drag this bar way down
to make you feel like you're somehow righteous
when you're not at all.
Whereas we realize we'll never get there,
so our bar is as high as possible.
Be there for perfect even as our Father
which is in heaven is perfect.
But we're still striving for that.
They have to drop the bar so low
because they realize how low they are
and they have to then pretend
like they're still righteous with such a low bar.
And those who believe in faith alone,
they're the ones that actually make real life long change.
You see these false religions,
people end up becoming worse.
Their lives are worse than when they got into church.
Look at verse 20.
For after they have escaped the pollutions of the world,
through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
they are again entangled therein and overcome.
The latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness
than after they have known it, to turn from the Holy Commandment, delivered unto them,
but has happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned
to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire."
Now some weirdo taught that this is talking about saved people.
He's wrong, and he's wrong about a lot of stuff.
But notice in verse 22, it says, the dog is turned to his own vomit again.
Dogs are not saved in the Bible.
Doctor, picture of unsaved creatures.
So it doesn't matter how much you wash up the dog,
it's still a dog and it's still not saved,
and as soon as it can, it's gonna eat its vomit again.
The pig, no matter how much you scrub it,
it'll jump in the mud immediately
once it gets another chance again.
You know what's saved?
Sheep.
The dog didn't become a sheep and then get cleaned up.
It's still a dog because repenting of your sins doesn't change who you are.
And people that are going to a church trying to repent of their sins to be saved
are still a dog, they're still a pig, and they're still going to want to do disgusting things.
You have to be changed on the inside and become a sheep, become a son of God
before you have the capability of having a lifelong change,
something that'll actually stick.
Someone that'll become a fundamental Baptist and stay a fundamental Baptist.
Those who believe in faith alone, those are the people that are going to be steadfast.
People believe in works.
As soon as they screw up big enough, they'll quit forever because they realize they can't
make it.
They realize that they can't keep going.
And so many of them get discouraged and they go back and you know what, they're never going
to be saved.
I want to go to one more place.
Go back to Galatians chapter five.
Here's the last point I'm going to make.
Probably be a whole sermon, but this is why I know faith alone is correct is because it's the people with the greatest persecution
We are the people with the greatest persecution. Those who believe in faith alone and
It's not a coincidence because of course the enemy
Wants us to stop getting people saved so he's going to attack us the most and the heaviest
Galatians chapter 5 look at verse 11 and I brethren if I yet preach circumcision
Why do I yet suffer persecution?
then is the offense of the cross ceased.
Look, almost every other religion
and every other group teaches and works salvation.
That's why they can get along with each other so well.
Why is it that the Catholics and the Jews
on our Supreme Court are getting along so well?
Why is it that the Catholics and the Jews
in our government get along so well?
Why is it that Ben Shapiro
on the daily wire, the Jew, can be such good friends
with Matt Walsh, the Catholic,
because the offense of the cross
has ceased for both of them.
Why is it that we can see these ecumenical councils
for the president, where we have the Pope
and the Dalai Lama and some Imam
or some Muslim representative,
and there's all these false religions,
they're all wearing a dress and a skirt and weird hat.
And it's just different colors and they're just all up there and they're all buddies because you know what?
The offense of the cross has ceased for that group
Why do we suffer persecution?
Because we bring the cross of Jesus Christ because we bring the true gospel and we say you guys are all wrong
You're all unsaved you all believe in works
You're all false prophets and then they gnashed on you with their teeth. They want to destroy you
And you know what? Faith alone is correct because we're the ones being persecuted.
We're the ones that are actually being attacked. We're the ones being protested.
We're the ones being shut down. We're the ones that are being infiltrated.
We're the ones getting all kinds of grievous things happening unto us.
Why? Because we're right.
And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
Hey, if you aren't suffering persecution, you're not godly.
You know, it's funny, churches that once were being persecuted
or once being afflicted, now they're not.
Now no one's mad at them.
Now they have no problems.
You know what happened?
They lost their godliness.
Think about it. How many churches today that are speaking a pro-Sodomite message
or whatever, they're getting protested, banks are shutting them down,
they're getting attacked, they don't receive the persecution.
And you know why a lot of churches won't preach things in the Bible?
Because they just don't want to be persecuted.
They don't want to be afflicted, they don't want to be attacked.
You know, you go out and you knock on doors.
I mean, isn't that the best thing we can do?
Isn't that the nice thing we do is knock on door and offer someone a free gift of salvation?
You don't even know how many emails and phone calls we get about that.
How dare you come and knock on my door.
You guys shouldn't be doing this. Oh, I'm gonna call the cops.
I mean, look, people in our church have been punched in the face for going out and preaching the gospel.
People have been banned from countries trying to go out and preach the gospel.
Let alone what we actually say, the gnarly stuff in the Bible.
But look, when you go out and you preach the gospel, you will face persecution, and that's how I know that we're right.
I know that we're right.
You know, and what's the point of the sermon?
Well, when we're persecuted, we should rejoice
and allow this to further increase our faith
that we're godly and on the right path.
We need to know that we're on the right path
and we need to have confidence in our message
because we don't want to get to a point where
we're going out and they're like, yeah, faith plus works.
And we're like, yeah, they're probably saved.
Well, I know they think they can lose their salvation,
but they're Pentecostal, they're probably saved.
No, we need to know this person's not saved.
We need to have a desperate zeal in our heart
to get these people saved.
We want to make sure that we know,
hey, it's not faith plus works,
because we live in an area of the world
where almost everybody believes they're saved.
We live in an area in the world
where everybody will give lip service to the gospel,
which is not another...
But there's many which have perverted the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And we need to be sharp, we need to be clear, we need to be confident.
And you know what? We know that salvation is by faith alone because that's what the Bible teaches.
We know salvation by faith alone because adding works won't save anybody.
We know that faith alone is what works because those are the people doing the evangelism.
We know faith alone is right because it's quick and we can get people quickly saved.
We know that faith alone is right because those are the people that understand the whole Bible.
We know faith alone is right because those are the people
who actually made changes in their life.
And we know that faith alone is correct because those are the
people being persecuted in this world.
Let us never lose confidence of salvation by faith alone,
but let us be those bold mouths that go out into all the
world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Let's go in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us the gospel
and giving us the understanding.
Thank you for giving us such a quick and efficient tool
that we can go out and preach.
Thank you for making salvation so free.
And thank you for giving us just so much wisdom and knowledge freely so that we could understand
all parts of the Bible.
And thank you for also helping us to be able to change our lives and live godly lives.
And thank you for giving us faith to overcome persecution, to overcome obstacles.
I pray that when we're persecuted we'll rather rejoice but not be discouraged.
I pray that when we're persecuted we'll embrace it and we'll know we're on the right path.
I pray that when we're persecuted and afflicted that it'll just help us know that we're even
than we previously thought.
And I pray that you would help us to do all this work
in the honor and glory of your Son,
and in His Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, in closing, let's go to song number 404.
Song number 404.
When the battle's over.
Song number 404, let's all sing it out together.
We shall wear a crown, yes, we shall wear a crown, yes, we shall wear a crown.
Baptism, this afternoon,
Kezia is coming for baptism.
Have you trusted Christ as your savior?
Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost.
Burying the lightings of his death,
raise the walk and newness of life.
Make sure to congratulate Kezia and her family.
God bless your dismissed.