Galatians 1:6-7, “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.”
Why was the Apostle Paul so upset in the Epistle of Galatians? The
apostle wrote Galatians to several churches in the the region of Galatia
(located in the country of Turkey today). Paul was upset because someone
was messing with the grace of God! I want to give you FOUR REASONS WHY
PAUL WAS SO UPSET:
- WHEN YOU ATTACK THE GRACE OF GOD, YOU ATTACK THE GOD OF GRACE! Carefully notice in Galatians 1:6 that it is called “the grace of Christ.” Amen! Every believer is saved by grace, called by grace, and commissioned by grace. The Bible only backs-up salvation by grace! You cannot back-up a Lordship Gospel with the Bible. This is why false teachers like Ray Comfort, John MacArthur, Steve Pettit and Paul Washer all rely heavily upon quotes from Calvinist preachers from centuries past. They were heretics then and they are heretics now! Since they cannot use the Word of God to support their damnable heresy, they quote theologically corrupt men as a secondary authority, in a lame attempt to bolster up their Strawman argument.
- WHEN YOU ATTACK THE GRACE OF GOD, YOU ATTACK THE GIFT OF GRACE. When I got saved as a 13 year old boy, I didn't promise God anything! Acts 16:30-31, “And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” We rest in Jesus Christ alone to be saved (Hebrews 4:10-11). It is not what we have done or must do, but what Jesus has already done for us through the cross of Calvary! JESUS PAID IT ALL! Christ died for the ungodly, paying our debt of sin in full with His blood (Romans 5:6-9). Eternal life is a free gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-9). You don't earn it. You don't deserve it. You don't merit it. You don't qualify for it. You simply ACCEPT IT BY FAITH!!! Grace is not what I do, it is everything that God did and does.
- WHEN YOU ATTACK THE GRACE OF GOD, YOU ATTACK THE GUARDIAN OF GRACE. The guardian of grace is the local New Testament church! 1st Thessalonians 2:4, “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.” What a lovely Bible verse! We have been entrusted by God in the local New Testament church with the Gospel. It is the greatest and most delicate treasure ever given to the world. The Apostle Paul was upset in Galatians because someone was messing with grace. Paul was upset that anyone “would pervert the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:7). If we don't guard the Gospel, then no one else will. Sadly, many false churches today have departed from the faith, preaching another gospel of making full surrender to Christ as “Lord,” forsaking your deliberate sinful behavior, faithfully running the race until the end of life, and committing your life to live for Christ, to be saved. What saith the Scripture? 1st Timothy 4:1, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;” The Apostle Paul warns in Galatians 1:6-9, that if any man preaches any other Gospel than what the Apostles preached, let him be accursed by God!
- WHEN YOU ATTACK THE GRACE OF GOD, YOU ATTACK THE GOAL OF GRACE. The blessed goal of grace is soulwinning worldwide! God desires for all men to repent toward God and believe the truth of the Gospel (Acts 20:21). Why is Paul so upset in Galatians? It is because the Gospel is for everyone, and when a corrupt preacher like Evangelist Ray Comfort says you must forsake a life of fornication to be saved, he has excluded you from God's grace! If sinners must forsake their sinful bad habits to be saved, then grace has been corrupted, and not everyone is welcomed to it. My inspired King James Bible says, “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). That is so clear and beautiful. The Bible does not place any stipulations, obligations, requirements or warnings to be saved, it simply saves WHOSOEVER WILL. Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Again we read WHO SO EVER. In the Greek that means, “YOU” and “ME.” The proponents of Lordship Salvation add a bunch of junk to grace that is not found in the King James Bible. In so doing they ostracize tens of millions of people, who are not ready to “forsake all” to follow Jesus as their LORD, in order to be saved. God's goal is to witness to everyone, but you cannot do that if you place unbiblical demands upon sinners to clean-up their ways, and to commit to serving Christ, because that is not the Gospel. People cannot be born-again by religion.
In the Epistle of Galatians we learn about GRACE and the GOSPEL. 2nd Corinthians 12:9, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” What a beautiful passage of Scripture! What a precious truth! Jesus said, “MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE”!!!
Let him be cursed who adds to grace! Tragically, Bob
Jones University (BJU) adds to grace. Sadly, Dr.
Steve Pettit (president of BJU) adds to grace. Horrifyingly, Harvest
Baptist Church on Guam adds to grace. Harvest promotes John
MacArthur, BJU and Steve Pettit. Their lies are their truth at BJU and
Harvest. When you attack God's grace, you attack the God of grace! Paul
was upset because someone was messing with grace. Paul called them
“foolish” and “bewitched” in Galatians 3:1. Paul said they had “fallen”
from grace, meaning they hadn't lost it, but they had gotten away from
grace. You cannot be saved when you get away from grace. The Apostle
Paul said in Galatians 2:21, “I
do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” BJU
frustrate's grace. Moody Bible Institute in Chicago frustrate's grace,
teaching the lies of Calvinism instead.
What is grace? Someone has accurately stated G.R.A.C.E. as an
acronym meaning: “God's Riches At Christ's Expense.” Grace is God giving
us what we do not deserve. Mercy is God withholding from us what
we do deserve. As a sinner I deserve to die without Christ and
burn in Hell forever as punishment, and so do you. Thankfully God made a
way of escape through faith alone in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Apostle Paul clearly defines the “Gospel” (Good News) in 1st
Corinthians 15:1-4:
- DEATH
- BURIAL
- RESURRECTION
That's grace! Anyone who receives Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for their sins, believing that He was buried and raised up three days later from the dead, is saved. We are saved solely by God's grace. When someone like Ray Comfort, Marty Herron, Steve Pettit, Sam Horn, Adrian Rogers, Billy Graham, Harvest Baptist Church on Guam, Bob Jones University, David Jeremiah and John MacArthur teach that MORE is required than childlike faith, they have corrupted grace. Romans 11:6, “And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” Could the Bible speak any plainer? I think not. Works and grace must not be intertwined, which is what Lordship Salvation is. Pilgrim's Progress preacher and author, John Bunyan, made this excellent quote:
“If you do not put a difference between justification wrought by the man Christ without and sanctification wrought by the Spirit of Christ within, you are not able to divide the Word aright; but contrariwise, you corrupt the Word of God, and cast stumbling blocks before the people.” —John Bunyan (1628-1688)
Marty Herron, Steve Pettit, Gary Walton of Harvest Baptist Church, Bob Jones University, and Moody Bible Institute today, are all casting stumbling blocks before the people. Back in 1944 when BJU still taught Free Grace Theology, Dr. Bob Jones Sr. (1883-1968) had this to say about the matter (and I agree 100%):
“He [Jude] said, well it was 'needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith, which once for all [was] delivered unto the saints.'
Now wait a minute, you've got something worth contending for! Isn't it strange that something so valuable and so wonderful as saving faith is something we that have to be exhorted to contend for? Why, if you had a diamond worth $5,000 you wouldn't leave it just lying around anywhere. If you had $1,000,000 in gold, you'd go put it in a vault. [If] Anybody tried to get it, you'd fight to keep them from gettin' it. And we just sit down and just let people steal the faith that Christians have, and never bother about it. Some of us pay 'em to do that! Some of us pay preachers to stand in the pulpit and steal the faith of the saints of God, and send our children to Hell. The most crooked crook on God Almighty's earth is a preacher who stands in a Trinitarian pulpit, and steals the faith of people!
You know I've said it many a time; if I was up in Heaven, fifty years from now (and the Lord tarried), and any religious liberal ever sat in a classroom in this institution, and tried to disseminate his infidelity, I'd ask God Almighty to excuse me for a little while, and I'd come back down to this school and get a stick of dynamite, and I'd blow it into smithereens! I'd rather see this school a heap of rubbish, just a little rubbish here and a little rubbish yonder, than see the time ever come we could be such softies, we'll sit down and let the Devil put his modernists and religious liberals in here to rob them of the faith. And yet that things going on in America, from one end of this country to the other!” —Dr. Bob Jones Sr.; YouTube | MP4 | MP3
As you just read, Dr. Bob Jones Sr. said he would rather destroy Bob Jones College, than to let modernists and religious liberals (like Dr. Steve Pettit) corrupt one student with infidelity that robs them of their faith! Professed Christians nowadays are so deceived by the Devil, that they even pay infidels to destroy the faith of young people in the Word of God and the Gospel of free grace! Bob Jones University sells, sanctions and uses multiple Bible revisions! They sanction the Devil's corrupt Alexandrian manuscripts! BJU horribly betrays the inspired Word of God. Sadly, Bob Jones University has been going downhill in spiritual deterioration for decades, hobnobbing with ungodly Neo-evangelicals. Consequently, they've been infected with ecumenism, Lordship Salvation, Calvinism, John MacArthur and corruptible seed at BJU!
We are living in woeful times of apostasy, when professed Christians are
not really saved at all. Anyone who believes that they don't have
eternal security, does not have eternal life dwelling in them. They
don't have Jesus in them! 1st John 5:20 says that Jesus is
eternal life, “And
we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding,
that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even
in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” I
love that! JESUS IS ETERNAL LIFE!!! The Bible doesn't tell us to forsake
our sinful ways to receive God's gift of eternal life, we are simply
told to RECEIVE JESUS. The gift
of eternal life comes wrapped in the wonderful package of Jesus!!!
And that is why the Apostle Paul was upset at the churches in Galatia,
because they were messing with grace! DON'T MESS WITH GRACE!!!
Truth + Half Truth = a Lie
