Chapter 1, beginning of verse number 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, unto the churches of Galatia: Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ."
The book of Galatians is an epistle written from the Apostle Paul unto the churches of Galatia, which is obviously a geographic location. He starts out by saying Paul, an apostle, and the word apostle is related to the word epistle. You can tell that they almost sound the same and they both come from the same root word as the word that we would use for the post office, epistle or apostle. Basically, an apostle is a messenger and an epistle is a message that's why it's related to posting something to somebody.
He says, "Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead." In the first verse he's making it real clear that he's not a messenger of men, he's not just repeating stuff that he learned from other people. He's claiming to be a messenger from God. Bringing God's word. Of course there are many other places where the Apostle Paul affirms that the word that he's bringing them is the word of God, it's not just the word of a preacher and so forth.
Even Peter himself sanctions the epistles of Paul as God's word in 2 Peter chapter 3 when he talks about, "As our beloved brother Paul hath written unto you," and he calls those the scriptures and he talks about how the people who are struggling with them are the same people who struggle with the other scriptures and so forth.
This is Paul bringing God's word to the churches of Galatians. There are three things that come up in this chapter and really these three things are the themes of the whole book of Galatians and they are brought out in chapter 1 and in the rest of Galatians he emphasizes these things over and over again.
Number one, this thing of the fact that he's not there to please men, he's there to please God. He's bringing a message from God, he doesn't care what people think about it. That's real clear in all the chapters, all the way up to chapter 6.
Number two, he strongly emphasizes that salvation is by faith alone, not by works. Then number three, he's teaching against the Judaizers. Basically, people who are coming in and trying to bring in a lot of the Jewish customs and the Jewish religion and so forth. All those things are dealt with in chapter 1 and they're expounded throughout the rest of the book
Right away just from verse number 1, we see here, "Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead." Jump down to verse number 10, it says, "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."
That's a powerful verse here saying, "Look, if you're going to go into the ministry to please men, you don't even belong in the ministry. You shouldn't even be a servant of Christ if your goal is to please people." There are way too many preachers today that will sensor the message and tone things down because they're afraid of what people are going to think instead of just faithfully preaching the whole word of God and letting the chips fall where they may.
There are a lot of things in the Bible that if you preach them today in 2015 America they're going to make people mad, but if you seek to persuade men and to please men, you shouldn't be the servant of Christ. Before you even decide to be a preacher, you have to decide that you're going to preach everything that the Bible says without regard for whether people like it or not. It's not relevant.
Look what the Bible says in verse 15, "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 I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into 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, save James the Lord's brother."
Again, the thing that he's emphasizing in these verses here is that he's not just repeating stuff that he heard from other people but that these are things that were directly revealed to him by God and they were things that he got from his own person study of the Old Testament, not just a repetition of getting up and repeating what he'd learned from men. That's what he keeps emphasizing with that.
Now, in verse 2 it says, "And all the brethren which are with me, unto the churches of Galatia." I just want to start by pointing out the fact that churches is plural there and so many people today they think that the church is this sort of ethereal institution that's made up of every person who's saved. Any believer is the church. Whereas the Bible used the term churches. Plural, meaning that these are congregations of people and there's not just one in Galatia, there are multiple churches in that area. It's being addressed to the churches of Galatia.
It says, "Grace be to you and 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 and ever. Amen." What does the Bible mean here when it says that He gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil world?
Keep your finger here and flip over to 1 John chapter 5. The thing that popped into my mind when looking at Galatians chapter 1 is in Acts chapter 2 when Peter is preaching at the day of Pentecost and he's speaking to all the Jews that were there and the devoutment from all nations and he says to them, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation." Save yourselves form this untoward generation.
What's being implied there is that generation of people were somehow trying to stop them from being saved because Peter's preaching in Acts 2:21, "That whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved," and he's preaching about how Jesus died for their sins and rose again from the dead. He's preaching the Gospel and he's saying, "Save yourselves from this untoward generation."
He's saying, "These people that are around you in this generation of the Jews were people that were trying hinder them from being saved," which makes perfect sense when you think about how Jesus said in Matthew 23 that the Pharisees, who were the religious leaders of the Jews at that time, that they shut up the kingdom of heaven against men neither did they enter in themselves but they also stopped those from entering that would have entered in. He's saying, "Save yourself from this untoward generation."
Look at 1 John chapter number 5 it says in verse 1, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?"
The Bible talks about the fact that we overcome the world by faith by believing in Jesus, by believing that Jesus is the Son of God. Why would believing that Jesus is the Son of God be overcoming the world? The reason why is that the world is out there to stop you from believing that Jesus is the Son of God and you have to overcome that in order to believe. You have to be saved from this present evil world, all their teaching, all their philosophies and all the stuff that's put into you and brainwashed into you from your youth. You have to cut through all that garbage because it's designed to stop you from believing the Bible. That's the goal.
If you go to the public school, the goal is to indoctrinate you in a certain way of teaching. It's not just to teach you math, teach you English, teach you computer skills or things that you're actually going to use in the real world. It's partly that, but a lot of it is to indoctrinate you in a way of thinking. It truly is a religious education because they teach you the beliefs and the philosophies of atheism. That's religion. People will say, "Atheism is not a religion because they don't believe in God."
You know what, Buddhism doesn't believe in God either and it's a religion. Buddhism says that there's not God, but yet I don't think that most people would argue that Buddhism is not a religion because it is a religion, because it has to do with their faith, what they believe about things that can't be proven and that's exactly what you learn down at the public fool system.
They're going to teach you their doctrine, their beliefs, their philosophies and it's not a Christian perspective that you're getting, you're getting an atheistic perspective. Whether you're in the science class, whether you're in the history class, whatever the class they're always going to put in their indoctrination to brainwash you.
Here's the thing, the people, they don't think they're being brainwashed. They think that they're thinking for themselves, but it's funny how they all think the same stupid things that don't make sense and it's funny how it's all the same stuff that's on TV all the time. It just happens to be that everybody's "common sense" is just always in lockstep with what's on TV and what's being taught in school. It's just like, "Well yeah, of course we believe that." Of course nobody believed that 50 years ago and what you believe is in lockstep with what the media is telling you, but that's just a coincidence. It's ridiculous.
A perfect example of this is I went down to that community college and I spoke to a class at the community college. I can't remember whether it was a religion class or a philosophy class. I spoke to this class and the subject was homosexuality. That's what they wanted to talk about because they're again brainwashed that that's the most important thing in the world, so that's what they always want to talk about.
We're down there talking about this and basically, the question was asked, "How many people agree with Pastor Anderson on this subject?" Out of this class of 30 students or whatever, there were two people who said, "I'm neutral. Maybe Pastor Anderson is right. I don't really know." Then there were basically like 28 people that were just strongly opposed to what I was saying and even just outraged, couldn't believe it, just blown away that I would have the gall and the audacity to teach what I teach and they were just strongly against me and then two people that are like, "I'm neutral." Translation: I agree with Pastor Anderson and I'm afraid to admit it.
Be that as it may, the vast majority of the students were strongly against what I was saying, but then I started explaining it to them, showing them what the Bible said, explaining to them how the media has had this agenda and everything and literally, I was able to turn around most of the class on the subject and I got one of the guys who was strongly against me, he even said, "Wow." This is in an hour. He's like, "Wow. It's scary how much we've been brainwashed."
There's a reason why 50 years ago everybody thought homosexuality was gross and perverted and disgusting and then now, everybody thinks it's normal and it's wonderful. Is that just an accident? No. There's been an agenda where people with millions and billions of dollars are making all these movies and TV shows and putting out all kinds of publications and magazines, just pushing it, pushing it, pushing it, and people don't even want to see it. They're like, "No." They keep pushing it and they get used to it and they get used it and then a generation just grows up where that's all they've ever even known.
Somebody comes along and starts preaching what the Bible says and they can't even wrap their mind around it. Why? Because the world today, and the world is a term that the Bible used over and over again, just talking about the agenda of the rulers of the darkness of this world who have agenda to basically get you to believe everything contrary to what the Bible says.
These people think that they are these independent, young free-thinking people, that they just came to the conclusion all on their own that being a homo is normal. They didn't get that on their own. They got that from just a bombardment of propaganda in the TV, the movies, school, everybody's been training them and teaching them that. Otherwise, how do you explain it's different 50 years ago from now?
It's progress. Yeah, it's really wonderful progress to get to where we're now condoning an activity that basically spreads a horrible disease. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that a great progress? Yeah, AIDS is progress. AIDS was spread in the early 1980s by homos that were having 500 partners each. Even a secular worldly book will tell you that, but the problem is people don't open book. No. They go to school, they go to the TV, they go to the movies and they don't even learn about the fact that even today if you go on the Center for Disease Control website it'll tell you that if you're homosexual you're 50 times more likely to get AIDS today.
Right on the government's own website, CDC.gov. Here's the thing, people aren't visiting CDC.gov. You know what they're visiting? Netflix. You know what they're visiting? They're visiting TV shows and that's where they're getting what they believe. They're not actually doing real research on these things. They're just going to say, "Oh yeah, it's totally normal." They see all this stuff on TV about them getting married. Monogamy doesn't exist amongst these people but, you know what, that's what TV tells us everyday so that's what people believe.
What am I saying here? The word of God will save us from this evil generation and their philosophies and their lies and their agenda to get us to believe that everything came from nothing, that basically thing just come to life by themselves, that there's no God even though there's no evidence of anything ever coming to life by itself. Ever. Life begets life.
What I'm saying is that in order to be saved you've overcome the world's brainwash. Here's the thing, today we're dealing with the brainwashing that's centered around atheism, that's centered around hey, sodomy is wonderful, that's centered around all these teachings of sciences falsely so-called. In Christ day, there was an agenda too that was against the true gospel and it Judaism. It was the Pharisees, it was the Sadducees, it was their false religion. There have always been all these teachings of the devil that would oppose the true word of God.
That's what he's saying here about being delivered from this present evil world. Overcoming the world. Saving ourselves from this untoward generation through the knowledge of the word of God. Through the Bible. It says in verse 6, "I marvel." Verses 1 through 5 are pretty much an introduction to the book. It's just a greeting telling you who it's from, who he's writing to. It says in verse 6, "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."
Now we get into the second major theme of the Book of Galatians which is the fact that salvation is by faith and it's not by work. It's not by the deeds of the law that we're saved or justified and this is something that he teaches very well all throughout this book in literally every chapter. He says here that there are people out there that are perverting the gospel of Christ.
What does it mean to pervert something? It means to twist it. To corrupt it. To change it into something else. That's why he says they're preaching another gospel, it's not another but there's just people out there that would pervert the gospel. He's saying it's not just a completely different gospel. No. It's a gospel that started with the true gospel and they just twist it.
The question is, what is the twisting that he's referring to? What is the other gospel? We know that the true gospel is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again and that if we believe in Him, we'll have eternal life. What's this other gospel that he's warning about? If you notice the wording that he's uses there, he says in verse 7 that, "There be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ."
If we go later in the Book of Galatians, he actually uses that word trouble you. Go to Galatians chapter 5 just because then you can compare and see he's saying, "Look, there's people that are troubling you with a false gospel," so if we find where he talks about him troubling him, you can get an idea of what the false gospel is.
It says in verse 12 of chapter 5, he says, "I would they were even cut off which trouble you." These are the people that we're talking about. Then he continues the thought in verse 12, "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty." He says, "Look, I wish that they were cut off that trouble you because, brethren, you've been called unto liberty." Then he says this, "Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another."
Let's back up to get the context. Look at verse 1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. According to chapter 5, the people that are troubling the Galatians are people that are trying to bring them back into bondage and he's saying, "Look, I wish these people would be cut off because you've been called unto liberty." Let's learn about that liberty in the first few verses
He says, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." What is this bondage? What is this attack on their liberty? What is thing of, hey, these people are troubling you with another gospel? You know what it is? It's teaching that people have to also keep the law to be saved and that believing in Christ is not enough.
He's saying, "Look, if you believe that you have to be circumcised also," he says, "Christ shall profit you nothing." By the way, this is one of the best passages to prove that a person who's trusting faith plus work is not saved. This is one of the best ones because he flat out says, "Look, if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." Why? Because the people in Galatia are Gentiles. These people didn't get circumcised as babies. They're Gentiles.
People are coming in and telling them, "Hey, you need to get circumcised." These people that are coming in we would refer to them, even though the Bible doesn't use this term, this is a good term to explain it, Judaizers. Basically, these people who are trying to bring in "the Jews religion" and impose that on these Galatians. That's the third theme, as I had mentioned, of the Book of Galatians and these three themes are pretty much covered in every chapter and he really hits him from all angles and, obviously, there's a lot of other good things that are taught.
Here he says in verse 3, "For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law." He says, "Look, if you're going to say, 'Well, you have to believe and be circumcised to be saved, you might as well say you have to believe and do everything that the Bible had commanded in the Old Testament to be saved.'" He's saying, "You're a debtor to do the whole law. Why stop there at circumcision?"
He says in verse 4, "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." Our righteousness, our salvation is by faith, but these peoples is through the law. He says, "Look, if you're justified by the law, Christ is of no effect unto you. Christ shall profit you nothing."
How could somebody be saved and then you'd say, "Well, Christ profits you nothing"? No, no. These are people that are not saved. I mean, if Christ is profiting you nothing, if he sits there and says that you're fallen from grace and Christ is of no effect unto you, that's pretty much saying you're not saved. It's pretty clear.
By the way, you could apply this to anything. You could say if you believe in salvation by faith plus getting baptized or faith plus joining the church or faith plus doing good deeds, faith plus circumcision, faith plus whatever the ritual, whatever the teaching of the law, it's all going to basically stop salvation by grace because if it's of grace then it's no more works, otherwise grace is no more grace. If it'd be works, then is it no more grace? Otherwise, works is no more works. It can only be one or the other. Either it's 100% faith, it's 100% grace or it's not a gift anymore. It's not free anymore.
How much do you have to pay for a gift before it's not free? If you pay one cent it wasn't free. The Bible is real clear that there are no works involved in salvation. There's nothing that we do to earn our salvation, it's all by grace. It's all given to us freely, we just have to believe. We just have to have faith in Jesus Christ.
This is clearly the other gospel that he warned about and just in case there's any doubt, he hammers it in every single chapter. Look at Galatians 2:16 quickly. Galatians 2:16, "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."
That's just saying the same thing five different ways in one verse. How could you read that verse and walk away still thinking that you have to obey the law to be saved? Unbelievable when he hammers it and nails it in that verse. Of course, chapter 3 confirms it. Chapter 4, chapter 5, we'll get into those, chapter 6. It's over and over again.
Back to chapter 1 because we talked about those 3 themes. Paul makes it clear that he's really not interested in what man thinks. He's not trying to impress the other apostles. He's not trying to impress the Jews. He's not trying to get people to approve of his preaching. He's just going to preach the word of God.
Secondly, he wants to affirm the true gospel of Christ and say it's by faith, it's by grace, it's not by the deeds of the law, it's not of works that any man should boast. Thirdly, he's preaching against this Judaising effect. He covers it all throughout the book.
He talks about, for example in chapter 4, flip over to chapter 4 in verse 9, is just something that he brings up. He says in verse 9 of chapter 4, "But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, wherein ye desire again to be in bondage?" Again, he keeps using these words liberty and bondage.
He says, "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. 11I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." In chapter 3 he's talking about look, we're all the children of Abraham by faith in Christ Jesus. In chapter 2 he's talking about were those brethren from James are separating themselves from the Gentiles and trying to get them to live as do the Jews.
He talks about in chapter 4 how the Israelites are Hagar today because they don't believe in Christ and that the saved Christians, whether they be Jew or the Gentile, they're Isaac. They're the chosen people. They're the Israel of God. He hammers this over and over again.
He warns about them bringing in circumcision. He warns about them bringing in works based salvation. He warns about the Jews religion and how he excelled in it in the past but he forsook that when he go saved, when he believed on Christ. Here he's talking about them observing days and months and times and years. This is this whole recognition of the Jewish holidays. Today we're seeing a resurgence of this in 2015.
Look, we've all been hearing all the hype about September of 2015 and there's all these Judaising type teachers, the Zionists like for example, John Hagee, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, and they're teachings have all been pointing toward September as like some kind of doomsday. I've heard different dates in September. Some of them had said, "Hey, it's September 13th," or, "Hey, it's September 23rd." I'm hearing all these different dates from different branches of this whole Hebrew roots, Judaising type movement and I'll tell you this, one of the things that they keep saying is, "There's going to be a big financial collapse."
You know what, here's the thing about that. Have you ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy? A self-fulfilling prophecy is where somebody says something is going to happen and then they go make it happen or somebody makes it happen or it happens because they said it was going to happen. That's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. That doesn't mean that somebody is a prophet of God.
One of two things are going to happen in September. Either number one, there really is going to be some major financial collapse, which I don't think there's going to be, I think it's all just a bunch of hype.
Here's the thing, let's say there is. That shouldn't really surprise you anyway since the Jews are the ones who control Wall Street anyway. The Jews control the New York stock exchange and all these different things, so if they wanted to they can make it crash whenever they want. They could sell out their stocks and do whatever they want to make it plummet and to create a crisis. The fact that these Jewish teachers are predicting these or whatever is meaningless since they have the power to make it happen whenever they want since they control the wealth in New York. That's number one.
Number two, the other option would be that just nothing happens in September. That September is like any other month, which is that would be my guest. It's either going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy where they bring all this stuff to path or it's just a bunch of hype and that's what I think.
What I want to know is whether John Hagee and Jonathan Cahn are going to eat crow at the end of this month and say, "Hey, by the way, everything we wrote on those books was a bunch of crap." Is that what they're going to say? Are they going to admit that? You say, "Don't call it that." Okay, dung. It's garbage
You know what, that's what the Apostle Paul called that Judaising religion, that Pharisaical. We're not talking about the truths of the Old Testament. We're talking about the religion of the Pharisees, religion of the Sadducees. It's wicked. I wonder if these guys are going to eat crow at the end of this month or if people are just going to keep on buying their books and buying all this garbage because of the fact that there'd been so many other teachers in the past who've predicted, "Oh, Jesus is going to come back this month or that," and then it doesn't happen and people still follow these people and it's just mind blowing. It didn't happen.
The Bible talks about if there's somebody who's a prophet who claims that something is going to happen and then it doesn't happen, it says they're false prophet. Kind of a no-brainer there. These people are constantly making these predictions, hypen things up because they sell millions and millions of books and they make a lot of money. New York Times bestseller. The Shemitah by Rabbi Cahn and The Four Blood Moons.
You know what, when the Bible talks about the sun being turned into darkness and the moon into blood, it's not talking about an eclipse. It's not just talking about some reflecting optical illusion that makes the moon look red. It's talking about cataclysmic major events that are not going to be something where you could look at an eclipse chart and figure out when it's going to happen.
Then how could Jesus sit there and say, "No men know what the day or the hour and at such a time as you think not the Son of man cometh," if all you have to do is just pull out some chart that John Hagee is going to show you of when the moon turns red. You know what, the moon's been turning red for years and there'd been eclipse over here. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about something different than that. He's talking something that's worldwide, not just in certain places or whatever.
Anyway, don't be deceived by this stuff. I'm just living my September as normal. I'm not getting in the bunker or anything this September. I'm just going to go about my normal business. I'm not really worried about it. I get an email everyday. Everyday. What do you think about September? What do you think is going to happen? Have you read the Blood Moons?
Look, why would I listen to anybody who said that Jesus did not come to earth to be the Messiah? Who is a liar but he that denied that Jesus is the Messiah? He's anti-Christ to deny the Father and the Son. Why do I want to hear anything and why would I listen to anything that a guy who calls himself rabbi says when the Jesus said, "Be not called rabbi"? Case closed. End of story.
Back in Galatians chapter 1 it says here, "Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ." By studying the rest of the book it's clear what that perversion is. It's bringing in the works of the law as part of salvation.
Let's keep reading. It says in verse 8, "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." These are strong words saying even if I myself come back and teach you another gospel. He's just trying to emphasize not to listen to anybody who teaches another gospel. What other gospel are we talking about? Works based salvation.
This whole thing of an angel from heaven coming and teaching another gospel, Paul warns about it in 2 Corinthians 11 when he talks about the fact that the devil himself has transformed into an angel of light and it's not great marvel if his ministers are transformed in the ministers of light.
There are two big religions that were started by an angel coming and preaching another gospel. One of them is a lot bigger than the other. One of them is about 700 times as big as the other or so. It's almost a thousand times bigger than the other and that would be Islam and Mormonism. Mormonism is like Islam for white people, but it's pretty much the same thing. Basically, Joseph Smith was a big admirer of Mohammad and he wanted to basically see if he could pull off the same deal that Mohammad pulled off.
The difference is that Mohammad just won a lot of military victories and so he was able to take over a lot more territory and get a lot more people under his influence and get off to a big booming start and for the religion to spread like wildfire, be spread by sword and conquest not just through evangelism.
Joseph Smith was never really able to get that off the ground. He lost some of those shootouts with the federal government and everything so they weren't able to do it. I mean, you know what, Joseph Smith wanted to be the next Mohammad, period. You can even find quotes from some of the early Mormon prophets praising Mohammad and there are so many similarities, it's mind boggling.
They were both started by an angel coming to them and here's what the angel came and told them, "Everybody's wrong." You know what I mean? They basically came, according to Joseph Smith, an angel appeared to him and told him that all religions are wrong. Every denomination is wrong. All churches are false and that's why he needed to star this new religion.
This right there is total foolishness to think that everybody in the world is wrong. You run into people like this today and I want to say that they are like the next Joseph Smith or Mohammad when they have this idea, "Everybody's wrong and I'm right." It doesn't make any sense because if you think about it, God is real. God created the world. God has manifested Himself unto mankind in every generation.
He spake in time past by the mouth of the prophets. He's spoken to us in these latter days by his Son, but what we believe is that there've always been people on this earth at all times who are always worshiping the true God and that always believed correctly and were always on their way to heaven and there've always been lots of people and that the gospel has been known throughout the world, throughout generations, throughout time and it's never just disappeared.
I mean, think about what Jesus Christ said, "Upon this rock I'll build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Joseph Smith wants us to believe it's gone by the time he's born. Then how did the gates of hell not prevail against it if it's gone and you have to re-institute it? It doesn't make any sense.
Then Mohammad's teaching is real similar. Basically, an angel comes and reveals to him, "Oh, by the way, the Bible is all corrupt. The Books of Moses are corrupt, the Psalms are corrupt, the gospels are corrupt." It's funny because if you actually read the Qur'an he says over and over again in the Qur'an, "The Books of Moses are the word of God. The four gospels are the word of God. The Book of Psalms is the word of God," but then when you try to point out anything in those books to a Muslim, they'll just say, "Oh, it's corrupt."
Basically, Mohammad wanted to write on the coattails of Moses, write on the coattails of Jesus, write on the coattails of David, but reject what they actually taught and believed in their words. It comes up with this convenient thing of yeah, I'm going to keep namedropping, dropping the names, yeah, Moses, David, yeah, Jesus, to ride on their coattails all the while rejecting what they said and taught. Just claiming, "Oh, well we don't really have the real Books of Moses. We don't really have the real Psalm. We don't really have the real gospels it's all been corrupted."
How could you change it when there's so many thousands of copies of it? Did somebody go around and change them all? All of these thousands and thousands and thousands of copies? It doesn't even make sense, but that's what they claim. It's all changed. Even though in different parts of the world it's preserved by different people, all different places, it's all corrupt. Just trust me and my 9-year old wife and my other 10 wives. Me and this 9-year old, trust us. Forget what's written by Moses, forget what's written David, forget the four gospels of Christ because it's all corrupt. It's this cult like. Whenever somebody's a cult leader, this is what they teach. Like, "Hey, everybody's wrong except me. Every church is wrong. Every religion is wrong." That's what Mohammad said. He's saying, "Look, all the scriptures are wrong except the Qur'an. Here's this new thing."
Is that what Jesus said when he came on the scene? Did Jesus come along and say, "Hey, all the Old Testament is wrong. Here's something new." No. Jesus said, "Think not that I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. I came not to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, 'til heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, 'til all be fulfilled."
He said that the Old Testament was preserved. He believed it. He confirmed it. He said that what we had today in His day was the same thing that they had back in Moses' day. He didn't pull out this thing like, "Oh, I'm following in the footsteps of Moses but, by the way, everything that you think Moses said is wrong. Trust me to change everything."
That's how Joseph Smith was too. All creeds are corrupt. All churches are corrupt. This is why he did not get baptized in any church. He wouldn't get baptized by any denomination because he said they're all corrupt so he baptized himself. Look, I talk to people that baptized themselves before and I'm like, "Whoa! You're trying to be another Joseph Smith here." "All the churches are corrupt so I had to baptize myself."
Later the Mormons changed the story because they changed their story many times about how their religion started. One of the changes is they changed it to where, "Well, him and his buddy baptized each other." I guess it just seem stupid that he baptized himself. Then it's like, "Okay, they baptized each other," and then they started baptizing everybody into their false religion.
The thing about that is whenever you see that mentality, that's a scary mentality because the Bible teaches that basically God's word has always been on this earth, it's always been preserved. He said that His word will be preserved unto all generations.
Isaiah chapter 59, flip over there real quick just because this is such a great verse on preservation and it's one that not everybody necessarily knows because we all know the verse Matthew 24, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." It's found in Mark 13, Luke 21 as well.
In Isaiah chapter 59 look at verse 21. It says, "As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and forever."
What's He promising? To preserve the word of God that was spoken by Isaiah. He said, "This will be preserved." Of course, Psalm 12, "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever."
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Men did not live by bread alone," Jesus said, "But by every word that that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." How could we live by every word if we don't have every word? Let these cult leaders come along and say, "We're right and everybody else is wrong," and that's not true.
That's not what Baptists have ever taught. Baptists have never said, "Hey, just this church right here, we're the only ones that are going to have Him and I am the only one who's teaching [inaudible 00:40:31]." You know what, there's not a single doctrine that I am the only one who teaches it, period. In fact, there's not a single doctrine that only Baptist teach. You can't really point to one true biblical doctrine and say, "This is only coming from Baptist." Name the belief.
Even if people think, "Some of Pastor Anderson's belief are so radical," yeah but all my beliefs are shared by millions of people even if you name my most radical belief, whatever that is for you. The thing about the reprobates, yeah, guess what, I'm not the only one who thinks that. There are millions of people who believe that. By the way, I just want somebody [inaudible 00:41:10] this afternoon that wasn't going to accept the gospel until I explain to them about reprobates and then they got saved.
So much for me turning everybody away with this horrible doctrine because she's like, "Well, wait a minute, when you're saying you could never lose your salvation and it's all by faith," she had a hang up about pedophiles and stuff. I explained to her the reprobate. I showed her in the Bible the vile affections and everything and she's like, "Oh okay." Then it made sense and then she said, "I've had tons of experiences like that."
That's why God sends me to that door. You know what I mean? It's not an accident. God knew. Pastor Anderson is going to get through to her because she has this hang up about this. God uses us all in our own way. The bottom line is anytime anybody is teaching something that no one else is teaching, that is a red flag right there. That's a cult-like teaching.
I'm not saying if you find someone little interesting verse or, "Oh nobody had ever seen that verse or something," and thought of it that way, but I'm talking doctrine. I'm talking beliefs, doctrines. Look, if we all have the same Bible, if the Bible [inaudible 00:42:25] for thousands of years and every believer is indwelt by the same Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is said to guide us into all truth, then how could we be the only ones who are right when there's all these other people who are also indwelt by the Spirit that are reading the same Bible? That's why you'll find the same beliefs amongst all kinds of people.
This Mohammad and Joseph Smith are both saying, "Hey, forget everything that's been preserved. Forget the written word. Forget the tradition of the fact that there's people all over that already believe the gospel and that are already saved."
They're just basically trusting an angel over all that evidence of the preservation of God's word, of the fact that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church, that there would be all kinds of churches and people that would pass it down and that there are saved people and everything. People have been calling upon the name of the Lord since Genesis 4 and every generation has been saved. The remnant. There's always been a remnant. There's always 7,000 men who haven't bowed [inaudible 00:43:31].
It's funny because when you read the life of Mohammad, at first he wondered if it was a demon that was talking to him and he even wondered, "Am I demon possessed," because he was saying stuff and he couldn't control and everything. Then some woman that he knew told him, "You're not," and he's like, "Okay." That was just it for him. Seriously. Read it.
That's why I think that God put this in here. For us in Arizona, yeah, we're surrounded by Mormons, but there really aren't that many Mormons in the world. They only claim that there's 14 million and they inflate their number and they claim that there's 14 million. It's actually less than that. Whereas Muslims, there's 1.6 billion people who claim to be Muslim.
This is mainly for the Muslims, but the white Muslims also, aka the Latter Day Saints. Right here he says, "Look, even if an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you, let him be accursed." Here's what blows me away, that there are even some Baptist who teach that Paul preached a different gospel than Jesus taught. He's sitting there saying, "If anybody preaches anything different, they are cursed."
How can you say Jesus taught a different gospel when Jesus clearly taught salvation is by faith in the Book of John? Ninety times it says believe in the Book of John. One book at the Bible, John, which is all about the life of Christ, which has the most read letters of any of the four gospels, if you have the read letter addition, and 90 times it's believe. Same gospel that Paul taught. Faith. Faith alone.
"Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."
Let's keep reading here. He says, "Let them 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." Let me ask you this, is the Bible teaching respect all religions? It says, "Let these people be accursed that are teaching these lies. 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." Back to that first theme that we talked about.
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. For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it."
This is what people will twist where he says, "My gospel, the gospel which was preached of me. It's by the revelation of Jesus." He's not saying it's a different gospel though. He's just saying that he actually got things directly from God, directly from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, directly from his face to face encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not saying, "Hey, everybody's wrong. Let me come in and start a new cult." That's not what he's saying.
He says here also that in time pass watch this, in verse 13, "For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion." Then in chapter 1 verse 14 it says, "And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers." Notice what he calls it. The Jews religion. He's not claiming that as his own. He's contrasting the Jews religion with Christianity.
A lot of people will say, "Oh, Christianity is just a completed form of Judaism," or, "Christianity is picking up where Judaism left off." Wrong. Christianity is picking up where the Old Testament left off and there is a massive difference between the Old Testament and Judaism. Judaism is the religion of the Pharisees. Judaism is a rotten, false religion whereas the Old Testament is the word of God. You'll say, "How can you believe the Old Testament not Judaism?" Because Judaism denies the Old Testament.
In word they'd say, "Oh yeah, we believe the Old Testament," until you start asking them what they believe because if they believe the Old Testament they'd believe things like say creation or they'd believe things like the flood or they'd believe things like the fact that Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. You'd expect them to believe that, right? They scoff at these stories. They mock at these stories. They don't believe them.
The biggest example is just you read the first five books of the Bible and over and over again it's teaching them to do an animal sacrifice. They don't do that at all. It says that blood is atonement for their souls on the altar. He said, "When I see the blood I'll pass over you." Jesus is the Lamb of God slain from foundation of the world, but they don't believe that. Why aren't they doing sacrifice? We know that Jesus is our ultimate sacrifice.
That's why Jesus said, "If you believe Moses you'd believe me or he spake of me, but if you believe not his writings, how should you believe My words?" Don't confuse the two. Judaism is the Jews religion and Paul is talking about it in an interrogatory way. Christianity, on the other hand, is the religion of both Old and New Testament. The New Testament building upon the Old Testament. That's the difference.
He says here that he persecuted the church of God back when he was in the Jews religion and he profited in the Jews religions above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the Old Testament of the word of God. Is that what he says? No. He says he was more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers. In Colossians he calls those vain traditions. These are the tradition that Jesus said made void the Old Testament, made void the word of God.
"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." What this is teaching is that God always had a plan of using the Apostle Paul to write the New Testament, basically. This is something that God who knows all things, who foresaw all things, who knew the word of God from the beginning, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This was all foreknown that Paul would be the instrument that God would use to write the New Testament.
It says in verse 16, "To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen," heathen meaning the Gentiles, "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus and 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, save James the Lord's brother. Now the things which I write unto you, behold, before God, I lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea 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."
What he's saying here is that he had been spending his time in his ministry not in Judaea but rather traveling the world preaching the gospel in all of these foreign places. That's what he'd been doing. He didn't feel that he needed to go to the former apostles in order to be able to accurately preach the word of God.
He didn't feel like he needed to confer with flesh and blood because he got direct revelation from God himself and because he had the Old Testament scriptures himself. He had the word of God, he had the Spirit of God and, as an apostle, he received Divine Inspiration, Divine Revelation and so he didn't need to confer with flesh and blood to verify that somehow what he was saying was true.
The reason why the Apostle Paul is constantly making statements like these and talking about these things is because of the fact that there were many people who did not consider him a real apostle. They considered him to be a fraud and he was constantly under attack. Of course, that's what the Muslims will say. They'll say, "Jesus and the apostles were great, but then Paul came along and changed everything and corrupted everything," and all this stuff.
Paul was called into question in his day of whether he really was an apostle or not and even today, with the Muslims, it's still called into question and with the Hebrew Roots Movement, some of them would call it into question whether Paul was legit. The reason why is that the Apostle Paul was not one of the original 12 disciples. He was not following Jesus before he was crucified and buried and risen again.
If you remember in Acts chapter 1 when they were choosing a replacement for Judas Iscariot, they said, "Somebody who was with us beginning from the baptism of John onto that same day that he was taken up from us." That was the criteria that they had when they wanted to replace Judas Iscariot as one of the 12.
Flip over to the last place tonight, 1 Corinthians 15, I'll close on this. 1 Corinthians 15, and we see what the Bible teaches as the definition of an apostle and what that means. If you remember when the apostles were original ordained and when that term was first used, we read about in the four gospels where He takes the 12 that He had chosen and He says He gives them power against unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and to do all these different miracles and so forth. He gets these 12 and He gives them special power and also then later it says He ordains 70 others also and He gives them his power, and so forth, to be able to perform miracles and do all this stuff. That was the apostles.
The Apostle Paul obviously wasn't there. He receives his commission after the death, peril and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrected Christ appeared onto him on the road to Damascus and ordained him as an apostle. It says in chapter 15, it's talking about all the people that had seen Jesus after He rose from the dead.
It says in verse 5 or look at verse 4, it says, "That he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 5And that he was seen of Cephas," Cephas is Peter, "Then of the twelve. After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present," meaning when the book was written, But some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles."
Notice, all the apostles saw him after He rose again, right? Then it says this: "And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, and am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am," and so forth.
Basically, Paul was the last apostle because Jesus appeared unto all the apostles and then last of all He appeared unto Paul. The criteria, biblically, for being an apostle would be someone who was specifically sent out literally by Jesus in the flesh, given power by Jesus, sent out literally by Jesus in the flesh, and who have seen him in his resurrected form. This is true of all the apostles and it was true of the Apostle Paul.
However, this is not true of anyone today, but yet there are people today that call themselves an apostle. Notice what Paul said, "Last of all, He was seen of me." There are not apostles today. You'll find all these churches where people just self-proclaim that they're an apostle. Apostle so and so. It's just some kind of a title that some [inaudible 00:56:02] but, however, they have not seen the resurrected Christ. The next time anybody sees Him is when every eye shall see Him when He come into the clouds.
He was as one born out of due time and being born out of due time he's saying he's a late comer. Here are all the other apostles ordained, he's ordained later. Still very close to the events and questions. Still very near after the resurrection of Christ but it's a little bit later than the rest. He's the last one.
You'll say, "Well then, Pastor Anderson, how do we know that the Apostle Paul is legitimate? How do we know that he really is an apostle?" That's one of the things that Paul brings up in a lot of his epistles and one of the things he brings up, he says, "The signs of an apostle were done among you."
The Bible talks about how in the Book of Acts special miracles were performed by the hands of Paul. The author of the Book of Acts is Luke. Luke is basically sanctioning him and saying, "Look, I saw the miracles," and so forth. You'll say, "Well, Pastor Anderson, we didn't see the miracles. We weren't there. Why should we believe that he's an apostle?"
The truth of the matter is because of the power of God's word. That's the answer because look, half the New Testament is penned down by Paul. If half the New Testament is penned down by Paul, then if we were to reject Paul we'd be rejecting 100 chapters, 100 chapters, 100 out of 260 that are penned down by the Apostle Paul. Here's the chapters that we'd be rejecting. Amazing, powerful scriptures that we know are the word of God because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit says we read the Bible.
See, here's the thing. Let's say Paul were an impostor, then we'd read Matthew, we'd read Mark, we'd read Luke, we'd read John and there's so much power in God's word. Every page is powerful, right? Then we'd get to Romans and we'd be like, "Huh? Where's the power?" Get to Acts because Acts is mostly about Paul. Whoa! Where did the power go? Who turned off the power? We get to 1st and 2 Corinthians and say, "Wow, this is weak." You know what, when we get to Romans, we find some of the most beloved scriptures in the whole Bible.
When missionaries go to bring the word of God, what are the two books they translate first into these first foreign tongues? John and Romans. Why? Because of the power of the Book of Romans. What's one of the most famous, okay forget that. Not one of the most famous, what's the most famous chapter in the New Testament? 1 Corinthians 13 written by Paul. Number 1 most famous chapter.
If he was a fraud, why does he have the outstanding chapter of the New Testament? It doesn't make any sense, does it? The power is there. However, pick up the apocrypha, the power shuts off. Pick up the book of Mormon and the Qur'an, yeah, the power is off. That's how we know.
Look, why do we even believe any of the Bible? Because of the power of God's word, that's why. Paul even said, he said, "Hey, That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God," and it's the word of God that has power. "It's quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
Oh yeah, that was written by Paul, Hebrews 4:12. Hebrews 4:12 is one of the most famous verses in the New Testament. All scriptures [inaudible 00:59:37] given by inspiration of God. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." We can go on and on, verse after verse after verse. It's half the New Testament. That's how we know that he's an apostle because of the power of God's word and because of the fact also that Peter sanctioned his work in the scripture. If you throw him out then you'd have to throw out Peter. If you throw out Peter, what are you left with? It's crazy.
The bottom line is that the Book of Galatians is a powerful book. It is the best book for proving that salvation is by faith and not of works. He runs it into the ground in this book and it's also a very powerful book against the Judaising element and it's the most powerful proof that we're all God's chosen people who believe on Christ regardless of ethnicity.
Galatians 3 is the most powerful teaching that we are the children of Abraham, not the so-called Jews but it's us as believers that have replaced the Jews as God's chosen people in the New Testament. Believers in Christ. Amongst believers are there Jews? Sure. They were Jews and then they became Christians and so that's why it's not necessarily to always give that caveat.
Galatians is a powerful book in the word of God that drives in these truths and I think it's a book that has more relevance today than ever. It's very relevant. Why? Because we're dealing with Islam today more than ever. We need these scriptures here warning us. We're dealing with these Hebrew Roots Movement and this resurgence of Judaism more than ever. We're dealing with people bringing in work salvation. This is the book that we need to know like the back of our hand. If we're going to be able to combat this stuff we need to know the Book of Galatians.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank You so much for this book, Lord, and help us in the next few weeks to get as much as we can out of it Lord, to understand it and to truly hide it in our hearts, Lord, that we will not be deceived by the cunning craftiness and slight of men whereby they lie and wait to deceive, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
