Gospel Liberty (ii) (Quality: Good)

[0:00] For the whole of the rest of our lives, nothing is to be added to the finished, perfect work of Jesus Christ in regard to our soul's salvation.

[0:13] And, not only that nothing is to be added, but that it is positively evil to suggest that anything can be added. That it is Christ dishonouring to suggest that anything can be added, or to suggest that anything else is necessary for our soul's salvation.

[0:36] It is the great theme of Paul's teaching that by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works.

[0:47] Any kind of works, good works, religious works, or whatever, it is not of works, lest any man should boast.

[0:59] Everybody, everybody who is really and truly saved, and who find themselves in heaven at last, will see that the whole of their salvation is the work of Jesus Christ.

[1:13] He, and he alone is their saviour. And that nothing they have done in the whole of a long profession of religion which may stretch back 75 or 80 years, nothing that they have ever done has added one whit to the work of Jesus Christ in regard to their soul's salvation.

[1:33] This, of course, was the great contention of the reformers at the time of the reformation. This was the great centre of their opposition to the heresies of the Church of Rome.

[1:47] There in the Church of Rome, there were things being added as necessary in order to salvation to the work of Jesus Christ. So that, then, I believe, is the first thing to remember in regard to this epistle, and to remember in regard to our own soul's standing in Christ.

[2:08] That Jesus alone, Jesus uniquely is the saviour of sinners. And that his work of sacrifice on Calvary's cross, his work of obedience in his life, that perfect work of righteousness, the active and the passive righteousness of Jesus Christ, that, and that alone, is our only hope.

[2:32] Our only hope. And we are to add nothing to it. The second point to remember about this epistle is that they were being attacked at the very point where their souls experienced and knew the blessing of salvation through Christ alone.

[2:54] And that was at the point of faith. It was being suggested to them that faith in Christ was important.

[3:07] The people, these false teachers who were coming to the Galatians, didn't reject Christ out of hand. They weren't denying that Christ had come, that Christ was the Messiah.

[3:18] They weren't saying, now, Christ was an imposter and you've got to go back to Moses. They weren't saying that. They were saying, yes, Christ is the Messiah.

[3:31] But, salvation is not only by faith in Christ. Now, this was the next point that the reformers emphasized.

[3:47] That salvation was by grace through faith alone in Christ alone. So, there is the uniqueness of Christ and there is the uniqueness of faith.

[4:03] Those two things we have to always remember. And that's why in reading that chapter together this evening, I try to emphasize the number of times you have this thought of faith.

[4:17] Abraham believed God. So then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. The just shall live by faith.

[4:30] And that brings me back, really, to what I had begun to speak about a little this afternoon. This faith in Jesus Christ.

[4:44] You say, well, we're not being troubled by the Galatian heresy all over again. Friends, I don't know.

[4:56] I think that many are troubled by something that is strongly reminiscent of the Galatian heresy. The suggestion is that faith in Christ is somehow a bit suspicious.

[5:14] To say that a person is actually saved by faith in Jesus Christ sounds really rather too simple. It's got to be a little more complicated and a little more elaborate than that.

[5:27] It's got to be rather more impressive than that. And I can understand it because faith is the most humbling of all graces.

[5:44] That's why I believe God has sovereignly chosen this way. Salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone.

[5:55] No, says someone. I want something better, more impressive. I want to be able to tell a more striking testimony than just this, that I was brought to believe in Jesus Christ.

[6:15] I want some vision. I want some remarkable voice to speak to me in the night. I want something more impressive so that people will be more willing to accept that I am a true child of God.

[6:31] I can't really feel that it's enough just to say that I have been brought to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I want some of the things that I am a true child of God.

[6:42] I want some of the things that I am a true child of God. I want some of the things that I am a true child of God. And I can understand why. Because we have such a proud, self-righteous nature. And that lies at the root of a lot of people's trouble in regard to this great matter of gospel liberty.

[7:03] Their self-righteous pride stands as a barrier in the way. Oh, I know it's dressed up in all sorts of religious and traditional language.

[7:17] But it comes down to that very often in the end. That people, they read the scriptures, they read these epistles, but all the while there's this reservation in the back of their mind.

[7:31] It's not really like that. It's not really like that. Have you noticed how in regard to Abraham, the apostle emphasizes Abraham's faith.

[7:47] He believed God. And it was accounted to him for righteousness. He didn't believe God after the covenant promise had been fulfilled in the birth of Isaac.

[8:02] He didn't believe God after he had received the covenant sign of circumcision. He didn't believe God after he had seen a possibility that there would be an increasing family that would grow into the size of a nation.

[8:19] He believed God when there was no sign. He believed what God said. It was after, after that he had believed that God blessed him with encouraging signs and the fulfillment of his covenant promises.

[8:41] But when God spoke to Abraham by way of covenant promise, Abraham believed God. Now, friends, all this argumentation about something more impressive, about circumcision or keeping days, months and years and ceremonies and whatever, or whatever you might have erected in your own heart and conscience, all these other things are dishonoring to God who has spoken.

[9:11] Abraham believed God because it was God who had spoken. He had that deep conviction in his heart that a God who had spoken was faithful to what he had promised.

[9:27] And so, without any sign, without the sign of circumcision, before the birth of his child, he believed God.

[9:41] That doesn't mean to say he was a perfect believer. As you well know, Abraham stumbled and staggered many times in regard to his faith. I'm not preaching tonight that believers are perfect believers and that they always live in the full assurance of faith, that they never sin and never make a mistake.

[9:59] That's just not true. But the prevailing attitude of Abraham's heart in regard to God's promises was one of faith. And we do dishonor to the word of God if we in any way in our hearts belittle this great scriptural principle that we enter into the blessings and privileges of the covenant by faith in Christ alone.

[10:27] And of course, the attack being made against these Galatians, because it came at this particular point, was an attack on their standing as received, accepted, justified people in the sight of God.

[10:51] It was an attack upon that particular aspect of their spiritual lives. How they stood with God.

[11:05] How God viewed them. How do you think God views your situation tonight?

[11:18] Have you any reason? From the scriptures? To come to the conclusion that God receives you? You say, well, no, I can't.

[11:34] I can't believe that God receives a person like me because I'm so sinful. I can understand how you feel.

[11:48] It is a wonderful thing beyond all my understanding that God should so deal with sinners. But it is still true, friends, about Jesus Christ as they spoke so scornfully of him.

[12:02] This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. It is still true. It is still true. It is still true that God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

[12:16] You say, I can't. You say, I can't really think that just believing in Jesus is God's way of dealing with all this terrible mountain of sin and guilt that I feel.

[12:35] Well, it may be because there you've got your views of faith and of Christ mixed. Faith is faith in Christ. It's not faith in faith.

[12:46] We don't feel comfort in our hearts because we believe in our beliefs. We believe in Christ.

[12:58] And that's how comfort flows down into the soul that's troubled by sin. It's not because I am sure that my faith is strong faith or great faith that I have comfort in my heart.

[13:13] It's because my faith is faith in Christ that I have comfort in my heart. And how can that be? Because the word of God plainly declares that a man is justified by faith and not by the works of the law.

[13:36] God accepts a sinner in Christ Jesus as that sinner believes in Christ. God is saying of that believer in Jesus Christ, that man is righteous as Christ is righteous.

[13:59] Friends, faith is a wonderful grace and a wonderful gift. It's that by which we come into the experience of a living union with Jesus Christ.

[14:13] Now I know, as well as many here know, that there's an eternal union between Christ and his elect people. But I'm speaking particularly tonight of that very personal entering in of the believer into the things of the Spirit.

[14:33] Now, from that point of view, before we believe, we are burdened with guilt and fear. We feel to be under the condemnation of the Lord.

[14:45] In fact, Paul puts it like this, You were the children of wrath, even as others. And that's how we felt. But, says the apostle, you are justified by faith.

[15:04] And as soon as your heart responds in humble trust in Jesus Christ, however weak, however simple that faith may be. If your heart responds in faith in Jesus Christ, who is the Jesus Christ of the gospel, the Jesus Christ of Calvary, the Jesus Christ of that great work of sacrifice.

[15:28] As soon as your heart responds in faith to Jesus Christ, you have the assurance of God's word that there is no condemnation. That God himself does not condemn you.

[15:40] In all his holiness, he does not condemn you. You have the assurance from the scriptures, this wonderful covenant promise of God, that believing in Jesus, the law of God is satisfied.

[15:58] Jesus Christ has gone to the end of the law for righteousness. God makes no demands upon you in regard to your salvation. He makes many other demands upon us.

[16:12] I'll come to that later. But in regard to our soul's salvation, he makes no demands upon us. We are not going to be accepted by God because we have done this or we have done that or we have done the other.

[16:29] No man is justified by the law. The law condemns us.

[16:42] This is part of our imprisonment. When we're in bondage like that, the law is condemning us. It's like the law that's locked the cell door. Christ goes to the end of the law.

[16:56] He satisfies the law. His righteousness vindicates God's righteousness in the law. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.

[17:13] For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Now you say, oh, but that's too great for me. I just can't believe that was for me.

[17:24] Why not? Do you believe or don't you believe? I don't say, and I'm not asking whether you believe that you are saved.

[17:36] I'm asking whether you believe in Christ. For you see, the next verse says that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

[17:51] Through faith. And that is faith in Christ. It's not believing that I am saved.

[18:03] It's not believing that my faith is of the right kind and is great enough and strong enough. No, it's faith in Christ. It's the response of our heart to the glory and wonder of the person of Christ.

[18:19] It's the response of our heart to the wonder of that work that he did in his own life and obedience. It's the response of our heart to all that he had to suffer on Calvary's tree.

[18:32] Friends, I think there are many who are believers who don't enter into the joy of gospel liberty because they're sort of stumbling themselves.

[18:46] It's as though they don't even need people like the Galatians had to trouble them. They trouble themselves. They're always sitting there questioning the character of their faith, whether it's the right kind of faith, whether God has really given them his special gift of faith.

[19:05] They spend all their time wondering about the nature of their own faith when the Bible says that faith is faith in Christ. I know whom I have believed, says Paul.

[19:20] I know whom I have believed. He also knew, of course, that his faith was the faith of God's elect.

[19:31] But he didn't say, I know that my faith is the faith of God's elect and therefore I'm sure of my salvation. He says, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

[19:50] And friends, his comfort, his comfort, his joy, his sense of spiritual liberty is derived from the person of Christ, not from any subjective feeling in himself.

[20:06] Although, of course, it does become a subjective feeling in himself because the sense of gospel joy and liberty is subjective. We know, we believe, we rejoice.

[20:18] The whole point is that the focus of it is the person of Christ. It's what he has done. And all our comfort in regard to our salvation must flow from him because he is what he is, because he has done what he has done.

[20:37] Now do you see how dangerous this attack was as it came against the Galatians and why the apostle says so strongly, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.

[21:02] Perhaps I could just spend a few minutes also on this thought. You may be puzzled and perplexed about the way in which Paul speaks so strongly about the law in contrast to what we might call the gospel in this epistle.

[21:22] Now, for the most part, when he speaks of law in this epistle, he is speaking about the whole of that way and method that God took to deal with Israel from the time of Moses onward.

[21:34] It's in the books, the theological books, it's referred to as the Mosaic Covenant. And it is that way in which God dealt with Israel as his people through Moses and from the time of Moses on until the time of Christ.

[21:52] It would take me too long to go into a study of the covenants tonight. But the Old Testament is a historical revelation and it's a developing revelation.

[22:07] And God reveals himself to men by way of covenant revelation, by way of promise, by way of prophetic promise, and particularly in the covenant that he reveals to Abraham.

[22:23] A covenant of promise. And Paul makes much emphasis upon this wonderful covenant and its promises and its blessings. But then he says, the law was added.

[22:36] 430 years after the covenant that was shown and made with Abraham, the law was added. Now he says, does the law contradict all the principles and character of the Abrahamic covenant?

[22:54] Is it against the promises that God made to Abraham? No. Well then, what use is the law? Well, it was added because of transgressions.

[23:07] It came to the people at a time when they were sunk in ignorance and sin. It came at a time when those people very much needed a plain and clear revelation of God's requirements.

[23:22] And of course, it came at a time when God was determined to establish that people as a peculiar nation. And we must see, of course, the whole development of Old Testament history as focusing upon the coming of the person of Jesus Christ.

[23:40] It is all leading up to that point. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.

[23:56] Now in that method of dealing with Israel, God revealed to Israel a whole series of rules and regulations governing their national life, governing their religious life, and governing their moral lives.

[24:13] And some people make a very great distinction between those three departments of the law. For myself, I can't see the distinction as clear as they seem to think it is.

[24:24] Nevertheless, there was then a revelation of God, a revelation of God's will for these people.

[24:36] It was added. It was added to what? Well, it was added to the revelation given to Abraham. But it was only added for a time until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.

[24:56] Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. Now, friends, the great trouble in the churches of Galatia was that people were coming along and saying, now, look, you're doing despite to the law.

[25:20] The law was given by God. It's very important. And you're despising something that God has given by saying that salvation is only and solely by the person and work of Christ and that you enter into that blessing by faith in Christ.

[25:37] You mustn't say that. You must add to faith in Jesus Christ submission and obedience to the law of Moses. Oh, you say, well, it was only circumcision and one or two little other things.

[25:57] Well, maybe that was the way it was presented but that was not the way Paul saw it. He 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.

[26:15] Friends, if you are going to add anything to the work of Jesus Christ in regard to your soul's salvation, you become a debtor to do the whole law.

[26:29] you are saying that you are not a believer in Christ alone for your salvation but you are going to add to that something that you are going to do.

[26:45] There is some kind of self-righteousness that you are going to add to the work of Christ. Christ then has become of no effect. In that sense, I believe God is jealous of the honour of Christ.

[26:59] God will not allow anything to be added to the person and work of Christ in regard to the soul's salvation. And if you do try to do that, then Christ is become of no effect unto you.

[27:14] Whosoever of you are justified by the law, you have fallen from grace. Now what does this mean?

[27:29] It means that these people who were burdened by a sense of having failed, of sin, is spoken of it in the Acts of the Apostles as a yoke which we and our fathers were not able to bear.

[27:48] For all their pharisaical pride, there was not one of them that had really kept the law. There was not one of them that in the real sense and meaning and spirit of the law had kept it holy.

[28:01] There's only one who has. There's only one who could. And that was Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ in his life began with a perfect and holy nature and right from the very beginning sin.

[28:18] He could and he did go to the end of the law. No one else could. And you and I never will. And that is why Paul is so emphatic about this point.

[28:34] You can't pick and choose in regard to the law and say now we're under that but not under that. Because if you're under one part of it you're under all of it. This is what the apostle surely means when he's writing to the Romans and he says you're not under the law but under grace.

[29:02] And friends one of the great dangers in the believer's life is the danger of wandering back as it were into a spirit of legality. When faith is weak, when faith is attacked and when we're tempted the great danger is that we wander back into that attitude of fear and legality.

[29:28] Take your eye away from the finished work of Jesus Christ, his glorious person, his great love and compassion and start looking at yourself and trusting in your own endeavours and sure as anything you'll be back in this misery and your spirit will sink under this sense of bondage and fear again.

[29:51] I know what this is like friends and I dread it. I dread it. You know it's possible for a believer, even after he has believed and been brought into the liberty of the gospel to sink so far back, that he can be in real misery and terror again.

[30:15] Oh, this exhortation wasn't given for nothing. Stand fast. You are going to find you are attacked at this very point.

[30:26] In different ways, maybe, but you'll be attacked at this very point. The uniqueness of Christ, his finished work, and your faith in him.

[30:38] These are the points where the attack will come. Of course, you can see that when our faith is weak, we shall begin to feel anxious about this matter.

[30:52] Because when faith is weak, our sight of Jesus Christ and our apprehension of what he is and what he has done becomes dim. and the enemy is always ready to emphasize those aspects of truth that will aggravate our misery and bring us into terror and fear.

[31:14] You know what the devil wants you to do? He wants you to despair. He wants you to curse God and die. He wants to bring you down into the miseries of hell where there is neither hope nor light nor life.

[31:34] Stand fast. Therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Oh, you say, but that's all very well.

[31:46] That sounds very theoretical, but it's my feelings I worry about. I don't feel right. Well, it's a real problem.

[32:01] Let no one underestimate it. It's a real problem. A real pressing problem. When I don't feel right, what's the answer?

[32:19] To sit there and go over and over and over how we feel and torture our minds with a constant realisation that we don't feel right?

[32:30] Is that going to help? Are you going to start saying, if I could feel right, then I could believe? I think that's surely what the hymn writer meant in those words I quoted in prayer, pour not on thyself too long.

[32:52] There's a place for self-examination in scripture. Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith or no, but don't go on and on and on and on doing that because you have just become more and more miserable and more and more self-centred and more and more wretched.

[33:13] If you've seen enough of yourself to make you sick, then look to Christ. If you've seen enough of yourself to sink you down in misery, then look to a Saviour.

[33:28] That's the gospel, isn't it? Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.

[33:41] Oh, you say, but I've got no right to believe. I can't think that the Lord would allow me to believe in him. I just can't feel that that's a possible thing, that I could have a right to believe in Jesus.

[33:57] Friends, we've got no rights. Let's face the issue squarely. We've no rights. We've no right to anything. I never believed because I felt I'd got a right to believe.

[34:10] And I've yet to meet anyone who believed in Jesus Christ to the saving of their soul because they felt they got a right to believe. God's sin. The people I meet with who believe in Jesus Christ are people who just feel they haven't got any rights at all.

[34:31] And it's miserable, helpless, weak, wretched, sinners. And they know they need a Savior. Oh, no, friends.

[34:43] It's not a question of whether we've any right to believe in Jesus. Well, you say, can you be sure that the Lord Jesus Christ will receive me kindly and tenderly if I believe in him, if I trust in him?

[35:05] Do you think he will let me trust in him? Now, friends, where can you show me anything in the Bible that suggests that the Lord Jesus won't let people trust in him?

[35:20] I'll tell you something else, friends. If you've reached that stage in your soul's concerns and experience, there's something else in the Bible which is abundantly clear. And that is that Jesus Christ, most graciously, most pressingly, commands you to believe in him.

[35:40] Oh, yes. Believe the gospel. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Not a question of whether we have any right to believe.

[35:53] Not a question of whether the Lord will let us. It is because Jesus Christ and his apostles in their gracious gospel ministry set forth that gracious command to believe in him.

[36:12] And you may go, I believe tenderly with all the tenderness of conscience that God has given you. And you can say to him, Lord, it says in thy word, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

[36:25] And I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, and I'm sure of this, as sure as I know anything in spiritual matters, that you'll not be sent away.

[36:39] The Lord will not reject you. He will not turn to you and say, oh, but this great question and blessing of faith is not for you. No, friends, the whole spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the whole attitude that he showed in his own public ministry, was that those in need were welcome.

[37:03] They were welcome. And warmly welcome. And they were pressed, as it were, by the Lord to come. Come unto me, he says. Come, come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

[37:22] Oh, I hope that in some way, well, at least I've tried, the Lord knows, I've tried to take some of the stumbling blocks up out of the way. Well, let's come back to this matter of feeling again.

[37:38] Someone may say, but you've been preaching about liberty. I followed. the line of your thoughts, and I believe that's the response of my own heart. I still seem to be in such darkness, and I don't enjoy full assurance.

[37:59] Well, friends, all I can say is this. There are two ways of coming into the light. You can either come out of a pitch-dark room suddenly into the full sunlight, or you can come into the light like we do every day of our lives.

[38:19] There's a day star that arises. This is a prelude to the dawn, and then there is the dimmest of lights on the horizon, and then the light gradually increases, and then at last the sun just shows itself above the horizon, and then much later the sun is at the meridian.

[38:48] Now some come into the light and liberty of the gospel as suddenly and as wonderfully as a person coming out of a pitch-dark room into broad daylight.

[38:59] You know, there have been a few people who have had a most wonderful operation on their eyes. They've been blind for years, and suddenly through that operation they've been able to see.

[39:14] And the moment when the bandages are taken off their eyes, something they've been waiting for, hoping for, wondering will they be able to see, and then they know they can, suddenly the blaze of light shine into them, and it's almost more than they can bear.

[39:32] But friends, not everybody began to see like that, did they? And that's one of the dangers, one of the great dangers about concentrating so much on our exact present state of feeling.

[39:52] Let me say honestly, friend, one of the things that I do want want is a feeling religion, but what I don't want is a religion of feelings.

[40:05] If you can see the difference, I want a feeling religion, but I don't want a religion of feelings. If you're still troubled, then you say, but I do want to feel different.

[40:23] I do want to come into the full enjoyment of this precious liberty. Well, I'll say to you tonight, friend, just this.

[40:38] Venture on Christ, whatever you feel like. I remember reading about some poor old lady who got very troubled and she said, oh, I can't pray, my heart's so hard.

[40:54] And a good minister said to her, well, try what a few hard-hearted prayers will do. Friends, it's like that with feelings. I sometimes think we've got to fight by faith against our own feelings and disposition.

[41:12] We've got to say, by faith in the scriptures and by faith in Christ, very well, I feel low, I feel depressed, I feel dark, but I believe, I trust, I cast all my care upon another.

[41:28] And I believe the day will come when, although it's dark at the moment, it will be light again. You know, yesterday and today, in our part of the country, have been beautiful days.

[41:46] Sun was shining. The sky was clear and blue. But for a long time before that, we had very dark days, very cloudy days.

[41:58] And they make you feel low, don't they? You don't feel very happy and lively when it's all dark and miserable and misty and wet. But you don't say it's going to be like this forever.

[42:13] You know very well it's not going to be like that forever. You know very well the day will come when the wind will blow the clouds away and the sun will shine again.

[42:25] There will be blue skies again. You will feel the warmth of the sun again. And so this problem of feelings, I think is perhaps well expressed by Luther when he said feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving.

[42:48] But I will trust the word of God, nought else is worth believing. I can't trust in my feelings. feelings. You know, that's the danger some people are so obsessed with this matter of feelings.

[43:06] But you can be utterly deceived. There have been people who have felt sure that they were saved who never were. There have been people who have been sure they've got the full assurance of faith when they never have.

[43:25] So don't you pay so much attention to feelings. You pay far more attention to the unchangeable, infallible, reliable word of the living God.

[43:38] And see all the truth and reliability of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ. And do what Abraham did. He believed God when he had no signs.

[43:53] He believed God when things were very difficult. He believed God when things were very disappointing. As year after year passed and his wife bore no child.

[44:07] And at one point you well know he went back to that old fleshly attitude. And he listened to his wife suggest and went in to their Egyptian maid.

[44:21] And she bore a child. But in this epistle Paul has some sad things to say about the bond woman and her child.

[44:35] What saith the scriptures? Cast out the bond woman and her son. For the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And as soon as we start mixing our fleshly schemes with the Lord Jesus Christ and his work we're going to be in dire trouble.

[44:54] Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

[45:07] And there's so much more friends I could have said. These people were being attacked by what we might call pressure groups.

[45:22] There's lots of those you know in the world today. People who are saying unless you believe as I do you can't be saved. Unless you accept our particular view of things you can't be saved.

[45:37] They're adding to Christ. They're adding to the scriptures. They're forcing their own interpretation upon the scriptures and setting that up as a standard for everyone else to jump to.

[45:51] Saying if you don't then you're wrong. There's something very suspicious about you. Remember what happened in the early days of Paul's experience of these things.

[46:05] How. Well I haven't really time have I. It's in chapter 2. You read it. You see what happens about Peter.

[46:15] Godly Peter. After all Peter had been through. Peter gives way to a pressure group. And because of the fear of man he stops eating with the Gentiles.

[46:27] And Paul has to withstand him to the face. When I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel I said unto Peter before them all.

[46:39] If thou being a Jew livest after the manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews. Why compelest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews. Stood him to the face because he was to be blamed.

[46:53] Friends. Don't give way. Don't give way to these pressures that come against you. Trying to make you feel because you have this whole hearted this simple hearted faith in Jesus Christ there's something suspicious about you.

[47:12] There's something lacking in your religion. Stand fast in the liberty. And just lastly and very briefly it's not licentiousness.

[47:27] It's not lawlessness. Oh it's something wonderfully different to legality and bondage. Friends it's the response of a believing loving heart to Jesus Christ.

[47:40] The law came by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And this believer enjoys liberty in the gospel because because he sees all his law in the hands of Jesus Christ.

[47:57] If you love me Jesus says keep my commandments. You don't see the commands of Jesus Christ in the hands of Jesus Christ as a threatening condemning law threatening you with hell and eternal punishment.

[48:12] It's only when you look back in unbelief that you see that kind of law. You see the law in the hands of Christ as a law of love.

[48:28] If you love me keep my command the love of Christ constraineth us. This is the New Testament. New covenant principle. New covenant principle.