DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey
the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth,
crucified among you?" Galatians 3:1.
WITH very great enthusiasm the Galatians received the Gospel when Paul
preached it to them. They seem to have been a very warm-hearted but
fickle people and Paul found to his great grief that while he was away
from them, certain false teachers came in and turned them aside from
the Gospel which he had delivered to them. He spoke out very plainly
about the matter. In this verse he uses very strong terms, while he
says to them–"O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you
should not obey the truth?" I do not know that any such witchery has
fallen upon any of you, but I do know that, being men, we are all
subject to the same dangers and I know, also, that there is a witchery
in the very air at this time so that many are to be found throughout
the Churches of this land to whom these words might be justly spoken.
We can only hope to escape this evil which Paul so severely condemns by
the use of right cautionary means. It is only, in fact, as the Holy
Spirit shall keep us that we shall be preserved from the fascinations
of error and kept true to the grand old Gospel of the blessed God. At
this time I shall very briefly speak, in the first place, upon the
subtle danger which is hinted at here–"Who has bewitched you?"
Secondly, at more length I shall speak upon the blessed
preservative–there is no way of being kept from this witchery like
having Christ Jesus, evidently crucified, set forth among us. And,
thirdly, a few words, in closing, upon the supreme folly of any who,
having tried this Divine preservative, nevertheless become bewitched by
error.
I. First, then, let us think of THE SUBTLE DANGER which is always
around us. It was hard work to preach the Gospel, at first, among the
heathen. Men had to lay down their lives to do it. They had to propound
new things which the heathen mind did not readily receive. But, by the
power of the Spirit of God, converts were made and Churches were
formed. And now came another difficulty. Even those that were
converted, or appeared to be so, became suddenly, as it were, bewitched
with error of one kind or another, just as in families children are
suddenly taken ill with certain complaints which seem incidental to
childhood. If parents had never heard of such things before, they would
be astonished! They would suppose that they must lose their children
when such unaccountable diseases suddenly appeared in them and yet they
survive.
In the family of Christ certain epidemics break out at times. We cannot
tell why they come when they do and, at first, perhaps, we are puzzled
and perplexed to think that such diseases should come at all. But they
do come and, therefore, it is well to be on our guard against them.
Paul calls it being bewitched because these people fell into strange
error–error which had no argument to back it–error surprising and
startling. He seems to say, "I cannot make it out. I cannot understand
how you should be thus misled." In Paul's day the error was generally
that of Judaism. They wanted to go back to circumcision and to the old
sacrifices of the Law. Paul was indignant enough about this. "I
testify," he said, "to everyone of you, that if he is circumcised, he
is a debtor to keep the whole Law and he has fallen from Grace. If you
go back to the old beggarly elements of Judaism, you are leaving Christ
and rejecting Christ and imperiling your souls."
He declares that he could not understand how they should wish to do it.
He calls it witchery, for in his day it was believed that men could
cast an evil spell upon one another and thus work evil upon their
fellow men. It seemed to Paul to be something like that–as if the
devil, himself, were in it and came and turned men away from Christ
Jesus to go back to trusting in the Law and its obsolete ceremonies.
And it was not long before Paul found another kind of error in the
Church. There came in among the most humble Believers certain men of
education who thought themselves highly intelligent–men who knew
something about Socrates and Plato–and they said, "These doctrines are
too plain. The poor
people understand them and they come into the Church, but no doubt they
have a deeper meaning intended only for the initiated."
So they began to spiritualize everything and, in the process, they
spirited away the very Gospel itself! Paul could not endure it. He said
that though he or an angel from Heaven should preach any other Gospel
than that which he had preached, it would be a cursed deed! Whether it
were Judaism, or Gnosticism, he smote it heavily and said to those who
fell into it, "Who has bewitched you?" You who read Church history know
that in later ages the Church fell into Arian-ism. There were great
disputes about the Deity of Christ and the air, for a long time, was
full of that deadly plague. When that battle was over and such men as
Athanasius had settled the question of our Redeemer's Godhead, then
came up all the superstitions of Rome–that awful midnight, black with
murky clouds, which covered the Church for ages.
Indeed, if we look back on history, it seems like a witchcraft, that
men who had the Gospel preached among them in all its glorious
simplicity, should, after all, submit their minds to such debasing
falsehoods as those of old Rome. They prostrated themselves before
images of wood and stone after the heathen manner, even as their pagan
forefathers did! At this present time it is a marvel to some of us how
the Churches have been bewitched again. When I was a boy, I recollect
hearing Mr. Jay say, "Puseyism is a lie!" I remember the words coming
just like that from his reverend lips and everybody, or nearly
everybody, fought with him. It was an amazing event if a high Church or
ritualistic place was set up. Everybody was astonished at it and, if
you said, "This is the Church of England and this is according to her
Prayer-Book," everybody said you were uncharitable and that it was not
so. They pitied our fears and said that a dozen men were going towards
Rome and that was all.
Look now, Sirs–these things are openly done! Our parish Churches are
commonly turned into mass houses and the Church of England is slightly
to be distinguished, in many parishes, from the Church of Rome! And yet
nobody is astonished! And, if we make a remark about it, we are set
down as bigoted. Who has bewitched this Protestant land? With
Smithfield scarcely yet swept of the ashes of her martyrs, they set up
the crucifix again! What would Oliver Cromwell say if he and his
Ironsides could come back to see what they are making of this land? I
know some strong things he would say and, as I cannot speak such
vigorous words as he would have uttered, I leave the subject with words
borrowed from Paul which well suit the case–"O foolish Englishmen, who
has bewitched you, that you should thus turn aside?"
Nor is this all. You see this witchery in another way among our
dissenting Churches. At a time not yet forgotten Unitarianism and
Socinianism gradually crept into Non-conforming congregations and the
pulpits lost their testimony for Christ. The Meeting Houses were
deserted and true religion seemed dying out of the land. Then came
Whitefield and Wesley and all their troop of Methodists and the blessed
flame that was almost quenched burned up again and we, of this
generation, have said one to another, "That experiment will never be
repeated–the Non-conformist Churches will never go in that direction
again–they know better! They see the ill-effect of this modern
teaching and they will now stick to the grand old Gospel."
So I dreamed! But I dream in that way no longer, for scarcely do I look
anywhere but I find the Gospel of Christ diluted, the milk of the Word
adulterated and the grand Gospel, as Luther and Calvin would have
thundered it out, seldom enough to be heard! O foolish Non-conformists,
who has bewitched you that you should not obey the Truth of God, but
should seek after this novelty and the other–this refinement and the
other–and let your God and Savior go? As for us, if we stand alone,
God forbid that we should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ! This is the peril.
II. Our second head is THE ONLY PRESERVATIVE. The Apostle says that the
Galatians had had Christ set forth before their eyes crucified among
them. Well then, if you want to be kept right and sound in the faith,
the first thing is to get the right Subject fixed in the center of your
hearts–Jesus Christ Crucified! Paul says that he preached that. He set
Jesus forth. Whatever else he might not have made clear, he did set
forth the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Beloved, settle this in your
soul, that your only hope and the main Subject of your meditation shall
always be Jesus Christ! Whatever I do not know, O my Lord, help me to
know You! Whatever I do not believe, enable me to believe You and to
trust You and to take Your every Word as the very Truth of God which it
is!
Beloved, away with the religion that has little of Christ in it. Christ
must be Alpha and Omega, First and Last. The religion that is made up
of our works and our feelings and our willings is a lie! Our religion
must have Christ for the Foundation, Christ as the Cornerstone, Christ
as the Top Stone! And if we are not based and bottomed, grounded and
settled upon Him, our religion is in vain. Paul wonders that any to
whom Christ has been the chief thing should ever
have been bewitched and I think that if Christ is really such to your
souls, you will not turn aside through error, but Christ Crucified will
hold you fast.
But Paul says not only that he had preached Christ to them, but that he
had set Him forth, by which I understand that he had taken pains to
make everything about Christ clear to them. He had preached His Person
as Man and God. He had preached His work as the atoning Sacrifice. He
had preached Him as risen and pleading before the Throne of God. He had
preached Him as our Substitute. He had made this the main
doctrine–that if we are saved, we are saved by the Righteousness of
Christ and our sin is put away because Christ bore it in our place and
suffered the penalty due for it that the Justice of God might be
satisfied and we might be saved. That is what He means by Christ
Crucified.
He had gone into details on this point and set forth the glorious
doctrines which cluster about the Cross. Brothers and Sisters, if you
want to be kept from the modern witcheries, think much of Christ and go
into detail about Him. Be familiar with His Divine Person. Be well
acquainted with His relationships and His offices–know what He is in
the Covenant of Grace, what He is to the Father, what He is to you! Oh
seek to know Him! He yet surpasses knowledge, but be students of
Christ! Do not have a mere superficial knowledge of Him, but seek to
know Christ and to be found in Him. This will keep you free from error.
When the Apostle says that He set Christ forth, he means, next, that he
had done it with great plainness. The Greek word has to do with a
program or a proclamation. It is as good as to say, "I have set Christ
before you as plainly as if I had printed a great bill and stuck it up
before your eyes. I have put the letters down in capitals, as a King,
when he makes a proclamation, puts it on the walls and calls attention
to it. So," says Paul, "I have set forth Christ before you. I have not
talked of Him in a mystical way, so that you did not know what I meant,
but I have set Him forth. I have said of Him that He suffered in our
place and was made a curse for us, as it is written, 'Cursed is
everyone that hangs on a tree.'" Paul set forth Jesus plainly.
Now, you know the way in which Jesus Christ is preached by some. It was
well described by old Dr. Duncan when he said, "They preach that the
death of Christ, in some way or other, had some sort of connection, in
some way or other, with the salvation of men." Yes, that is it–misty,
cloudy, foggy–a bottle of smoke! We do not preach Christ in that way,
but we just say this, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us
all." And because He was oppressed and He was afflicted in our place,
therefore does God most freely remit the sin of Believers and bid them
go their way. Substitution–may we never stammer over that–Christ in
the sinner's place!
Beloved, if you will get a hold of that Truth and get it well worked
into your soul, you will be more than a match for the ritualism or
rationalism of this age. Give up that doctrine? The man who has once
drunk it in and knows its sweetness cannot give it up, for he gets to
feel that, having once believed it, it acts in him as a detector by
which he discovers what is false doctrine and it gives him a taste
which makes false doctrine loathsome to him so that he cries, "Away
with it!" If anything contrary to this comes before him, he does not
timidly say, "Everybody has a right to his opinion." No! He says, "Yes,
they may have a right to their opinion and so have I to mine and my
opinion is that any opinion which takes away from the glory of Christ's
substitutionary Sacrifice is a detestable opinion." Get the real
Atonement of Christ thoroughly into your soul and you will not be
bewitched!
Nor is this all. Paul says that Christ was set forth crucified visibly
among them. Did you ever see Christ in this way? I do not ask whether
you ever saw a vision. Who wishes for that? I do not ask whether your
imagination was so worked upon that you thought you saw the Savior.
There would be no particular use in that, for thousands did actually
see Him on the Cross and they thrust out their tongues at Him and
perished in their sins! But let me tell you that it is one of the most
strengthening things to our piety to get to feel, by faith, as though
we did behold the Savior! We do not expect to see Him until He comes,
yet when we have been alone in our chamber we have as much realized His
Presence without the use of our eyes as if we had literally seen Him.
He has been certainly sensibly crucified before us, for this is the
point. He says that he had set forth Christ with such vividness–he had
word-painted so thoroughly well, he had spoken so plainly and so
simply–that they seemed to say, "We see it! Christ in our place!
Christ bleeding for our sin!" They seemed to see Him as if He were
before them in their midst. My dear Friends, do not say, "Christ died
on Calvary. That is thousands of miles off." I know that He did, but
what does it matter where He died as to locality? He loved you and gave
Himself for you. Let Him be to you as though He were crucified at
Newington–and as though His Cross were in the middle of this
Tabernacle!
"Oh, but He died 1900 years ago." I know He did, but the efficacy of
His death is a thing of today! "He died unto sin once"–and that once
pours the splendor of its efficacy all down the ages and the thing for
you to do is to feel as if you saw Him dying now, on the Cross
now–with you standing at the foot of the Cross and looking up and
seeing Him looking down from that Cross and saying, "I did all this for
you." Cannot you ask the Lord to make it as vivid as that to you? I
need, while I am looking upon this great throng, to forget you all and
to see Jesus standing here with the nail prints! Oh, if I could see
Him, how humbly I would throw myself at His feet! With what love would
I embrace Him! With what reverence would I adore Him!
But, my Master, I am so sure of the fact that You did die in my place
and that my sins were laid on You, that even now I see You discharging
all my debt and bearing all my curse. Though You are gone to Glory, yet
I vividly realize that You were here. This has become a fact to me.
Whenever you get into company where they are talking about the
Doctrines of Grace and sneering about them and whenever you get into
another class of company where they say, "Away with your simple worship
of God! You must have priests and incense and altars and all"–do not
argue with them. Get alone and ask to see Jesus Christ over again. See
if there is anything of popish finery about Him! See if there is
anything of this philosophy, falsely so called, about Him!
You will determine as soon as you have seen Him that you will call
everything else vanity and lies and bind His Gospel to your heart! The
Cross is the school of orthodoxy. Endeavor to stay there! While I have
been alone on the Continent I have, in my quiet moments, had
realizations of my Master's Presence and then I have wished that I
could borrow the wings of a dove, so that I might, then and there,
stand up and talk to you. I have been very sick and full of pain and
depressed in spirit and I have judged myself to be, of all men, most
unworthy and I judged truly. I still stand to that judgment. I felt
myself only worthy to be shaken like dust from off the feet of my Lord
and cast into the bottomless pit forever.
Then it was that my Substitute was my hope and in my lonely chamber at
Mentone I clung to His dear garment! I looked into His wounds! I
trusted myself with Him, again, and I know that I am a saved man! I
tell you there is no salvation in any other, but only in Jesus! You
will not be led away to any other doctrine if you will return
continually to this Truth of God. Some men want a sound pummeling with
affliction to get them to love Christ. And some old professors need a
touch of poverty, sometimes, or a little affliction, or a rack of
rheumatism and that brings them to their bearings and they begin to cry
out after realities and get rid of whims and fancies!
When it comes to close dealings between God and your soul–and death
stares you in the face–nothing will do but a crucified Redeemer and no
confidence will do but a sinner's childlike reliance upon the finished
work of Him who suffered in our place! I speak strongly, but I feel a
thousand times more strongly than I can speak.
III. The last point is THE SUPREME FOLLY of those who would leave Jesus
for anything else. Suppose that a man should once have simply trusted
in Jesus Christ and have realized the death of Christ and have come
into real contact with the dying, bleeding Master. And suppose that,
after that, he should begin to put his confidence in priests and
sacraments. Or, suppose that he should, after that, put on his lavender
kid gloves and become a philosopher–what would he be? Now, do not tell
anybody, I pray you. Keep it to yourselves! The Apostle Paul did not
affect the manners of a gentleman, but he spoke very plainly, indeed.
Do not tell your learned neighbors that I said it, because I did not
say it–it is Paul that said it! He says that a man who should do that
would be A FOOL!
"Oh, foolish Galatians!" What are you saying, Paul? They have only been
decorating their service–surely you cannot object to that! Don't you
know, Paul, that the old Jewish priest used to wear a splendid
breastplate worked with jewels and he had an ephod adorned with bells
and pomegranates? Surely in the worship of God we ought to do things
decorously and properly! And on this plea these Galatians have
exceedingly decked themselves out. "They are foolish Galatians!" Paul
says. Very rude of him, mark you–very rude of him! But I shall not
attempt to excuse him, for I fully endorse his verdict.
But here is a gentleman who has been reading Plato and, after reading
Plato, he has been reading the words of Jesus Christ and he says that
they do not mean what the common people think they mean–he says there
is a very mysterious philosophical sense hidden within them. For
instance, when Jesus Christ says, "These shall go away into everlasting
punishment," it does not mean at all what the words say! It means that
they shall ultimately be restored. Now, Paul, this
gentleman is a philosopher–what do you say of him? He says, "He is
foolish!" That is all he says and all that he needs to say, for learned
folly is folly at its height! "Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched
you?"
Why do we think these people foolish? Because we should be foolish,
ourselves, if we were to do the same! A good many years ago, when I was
about 15 or 16 years of age, I needed a Savior and I heard the Gospel
preached by a poor man who said, in the name of Jesus–"Look unto Me
and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." It was very plain English
and I understood it and obeyed it and found rest! I owe all my
happiness, since then, to the same plain doctrine. Now, suppose that I
were to say, "I have read a great many books and there are a great many
people willing to hear me. I really could not preach such a commonplace
Gospel as I did at the first. I must put it in a sophisticated way so
that none but the elite can understand me"?
I would be–what would I be? I would be a FOOL, written in large
capital letters! I would be worse than that–I should be a traitor to
my God, for if I was saved by a simple Gospel, then I am bound to
preach that same simple Gospel till I die so that others, too, may be
saved by it! When I cease to preach salvation by faith in Jesus, put me
into a lunatic asylum, for you may be sure that my mind is gone. There
are hundreds of you who feel perfectly happy in Christ. You believe
that all your sins are washed away, that you are justified by the
Righteousness of Christ and accepted in the Beloved. Now, suppose that
you give that up and say, "Instead of believing in Christ's dying once
and making an Atonement, I am going to believe in the perpetual
sacrifice offered by a human being in the 'mass'"?
You would be very foolish! Suppose that, instead of trusting in Jesus
Christ for perfect pardon and justification, so that you know that
there is no condemnation to you because you are in Christ Jesus, you go
back to works and say, "I am going to work out my own salvation by my
own good works"? You would be foolish to the last degree and you would
soon discover the fact by the misery that would come over your spirit.
Look again! When you have lived nearest to Christ and trusted most in
Him, have you not felt most desire after holiness? Now, tell me, if you
have tried the modern views, what state of mind have you been in with
regard to your daily walk?
I will tell you. You could, with those modern views, frequent the
theater and the music hall and feel quite easy. And you could do a
sharp trick in business and feel comfortable. But you know that when
you have seen Christ you cannot do anything of the kind! You are
sanctified by His Presence. You feel a strong desire after perfect
purity. You feel a horror and a dread of sin. You walk tenderly and
cautiously and you are bowed down by distress of mind at the thought of
your imperfections. Judge, then, which must be the right doctrine–that
which makes you most holy must certainly be true! But if you turn away
from your Lord, whose very Presence breathes sanctification and
communion with Him is sure to bring holiness, you will be a fool! And
we shall have to say, "Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?"
During the last few meetings that we have had here, my dear Brothers
Fullerton and Smith have been preaching the Gospel–the straight-out
Gospel of Jesus Christ. And at one meeting, held afterwards, there were
scores of persons who rose up to tell of what that ministry had done
for their souls by God the Holy Spirit. There were thieves reclaimed,
drunks reclaimed, harlots reclaimed, great sinners reclaimed! Well,
now, suppose that, after all, some of you ladies and gentlemen should
say, "We see what the Gospel can do, but we are going to try something
else"? You would be fools! I am always ready to try a new machine–we
will try the electric light one of these days instead of gas when we
are sure of it–but suppose that it should all go out and leave us in
the dark! I will wait till the invention has been tested!
So it may happen with the new religious lights that men bring up which
are like dim rush lights compared with the blazing sun of Gospel
Truth–we are not going to try anything new to the risk of our souls.
We are going to keep to the old, old Gospel until it is worn out. When
it gets worn out and will not save any more and will not comfort any
more and will not draw us near to God any more, then will be the time
for us to think of something fresh. But as that has not come to pass, I
beg to say that I will drive another nail into my old colors and fasten
them anew to the old mast!
What I have preached among you these 26 years I will preach again, for
I am determined to know nothing among men but Christ and Him Crucified!
And may neither the preacher become a fool, nor any of his hearers
become fools, by being bewitched, so that they forsake the glorious
Gospel of Jesus Christ! Oh that you all knew its power and were all
saved by it! God grant that you may be, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
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Samuel and the Young Man Saul