Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

So we have a PowerPoint presentation for the sermon. It says that the picture is worth 1,000 words. And so I'd like to share an important message with you as we go through these different slides. And I'll just mention the title called, Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts, such as a Trojan Horse. That was a line from Homer's The Iliad about when the gods sent that message to the Trojans. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. They didn't pay attention. And sure enough, this is an archaeological depiction of the city of Troy, probably about in the 12th century. So about the time of the judges in Israel, Troy was a very important city. There was an empire, the Trojan Empire. This is in western Turkey, famously dug up by the German archaeologist Heinrich Hiehlmann in 1870. He mentioned that at seven years old he read Homer's Iliad, and he said, well, I'm going to discover that ancient ruin of Troy. And so he went in 1870. He dug up that area described by Homer. And according to one archaeologist, Hiehlmann was the luckiest archaeologist of all time. First time he dug, and he found the remains of the city of Troy. The Iliad means a poem about Troy, that city. And if we go to the next slide, part of that story was this battle between the Greeks and the Germans. And after ten long years of fighting, the Greeks couldn't breach the walls. They were discouraged. But all of a sudden they devised this trick. They said, well, we can't defeat them through power and besieging the walls. They're too thick. But maybe we can trick them into being able to open those gates. And so they acted like they had been defeated. They had about a thousand ships that the Greeks had landed there. And so they made this wooden horse, and they gave it and they left it in front of the walls as a gift. And then they all left in their ships. And so the Trojans were celebrating, and they brought this wooden horse with little wheels to be able to haul it in. And they were celebrating. But at night, they didn't realize this horse was hollow inside. And it had several soldiers hiding there. And so everybody was feasting and relaxed, and the guards were drinking while these soldiers came out, as you can see there, lowered the ladder. And they went and they raised the bars, and the city gates opened. And all the Trojans had come back in their ships that night. They came and they went and they destroyed the city of Troy. And so the term Trojan horse is a symbol of a trick using an apparently innocent thing to fool people. Now we have, in the computer age, a virus that is called the Trojan horse virus.

Because it looks like it's very innocent, but you accept it, and it's a virus that comes in and just jams up your computer. And so let's go to the next slide. Because, unfortunately, Satan uses this type of device to fool people into believing false beliefs in the Bible. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2, 11, we're going to cover in the Bible study later today, it says, lest Satan should take advantage of us, leave him an opening, for we are not ignorant of his devices. So he has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. And he uses Trojan horse types of tricks and traps, especially to try to deceive God's people. He's already deceived the rest of the world with false religion, false teachings, but he has to use something special, like this Trojan horse. Notice the next slide. Peter also warned us about false brethren bearing gifts like Trojan horses.

He says in 2 Peter chapter 2 verses 1, 13, and 14, he says, but there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies. Just like the Trojans innocently brought things that looked like it was okay, so secretly they will bring in destructive heresies. A lot of people won't realize it until it's too late. It says about these false brethren, they are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, sometimes having fellowship, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls.

And so we always have to be wary of biblical falsehoods that are introduced. After all, we live in a big world. A lot of different Christian religions and a lot of them sound very innocent. People can listen and say, well, that doesn't sound bad, but we have to be very careful because the Bible also tells us in Revelation 12 verse 9 that Satan has deceived the whole world, and that's not an exaggeration. He knows very well how to put things in such a way that it looks positive and looks attractive, and we can fall for that.

Notice in the next slide, because I do want to recount that this actually happened to our church back in 1995, when some sneaked in some destructive heresies.

Personally, I was approached by some ministers that I had known for many years, and three times they tried to persuade me to forsake keeping God's commandments, especially the Sabbath and the feast days. I had a good friend. He graduated from Ambassador College. He was a minister, and all of a sudden I got a call from him and started talking. How are you doing? How's everybody? The family? And yes, yes, all fine. And then he said, well, you know, this thing about keeping the Ten Commandments of God, did you ever think and did you ever consider that those Ten Commandments are just based on physical things? And I answered back. I said, can you tell me, is the Tenth Commandment physical? Where it says, you shall not lust after your neighbor's wife, after your neighbor's goods. Is that something physical or not? And so then he said, oh, well, I just want to see how the family was. Thank you very much. Didn't have an answer. But they were trying to introduce a Trojan horse, something to question about God's commandments. Another time, a minister that I had that had been my boss. And all of a sudden, we call it he drank the Kool-Aid. And so he was there with another prominent minister. My wife, Cottie, and I were having lunch with both of them. And then they started saying, well, you know, about God's law and inangulations. It tells us that that has been already done away. And I looked at both of them with decades of knowing the truth of God. And they were trying again to trick me into going against God's holy laws. And so that was a short lunch we had. And then there was another time where again, the epistle of Galatians was used to try to persuade person. And so many here are here because they didn't swallow the Kool-Aid. They didn't bite that bait and started breaking God's laws, thinking they had license to do so. So the basis for many of these change beliefs was primarily that they had a new take on Paul's epistle to the Galatians. And I actually had a gentleman who was very close to being baptized, an older gentleman, right here in the Garden Grove Church. And then he said, well, I read Galatians, so I'm not going to keep the Sabbath anymore. Just like that. And that was the last I saw of him. So this new view that they had of Galatians actually became a Trojan horse against God's laws. It had a devastating effect upon the church.

So how can we avoid falling into this trap?

I was in Chile at the time in 1995 with a large congregation of over 300 brethren, and also had some other churches in the south, taking care of Bolivia and that two congregations there. And as a result, that this Galatians was just there flashing all the time, and they were using it more and more to try to erase everything. It was like the universal acid that would just melt everything and erase anything about God's laws that was positive.

And so as a result of my experiences with false teachers in Chile, I wrote a booklet titled, What is Galatians Really About? That was in Spanish in 1995, and the congregation was able to look at that because I realized this is an epistle you have to be very careful with.

You can easily misunderstand it. And just recently, I looked at that booklet again, and I plan to update and publish it as well as in English, and be able to share it once it goes through peer review. Now, Peter had warned about some of Paul's epistles being, quote, hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction.

That's in 2 Peter 3 verse 15. Galatians certainly fits this description. Now, when we finish 2 Corinthians, the next book is going to be Galatians, which is one of my favorite books to go through, because it's a wonderful, as long as you understand what it's about. So, we'll be covering that God willing in the next months or so. But let's look at three key facts about the book of Galatians. So, you won't be fooled into believing a terrible heresy.

Let's go to the next slide.

So, here's the first key. Galatians was written quickly because of the dangers posed by the false teachers who had arrived there.

So, there wasn't time to clearly spell out the details, leading to a possible misunderstanding of what Paul was saying. That's the first thing. That letter was written in haste.

It was sent to the Galatian brethren. They needed it because they needed to be aware of these false teachers that were in their midst. You don't wait when the congregation is in danger like that.

I've had a couple times in my life where I've had to write that type of situation. Be careful. They're here, and especially from 1995, and so where you had to be very careful because it came from all different parts. And the ministry was tested whether they're going to continue keeping God's commandments or not. So, as the Bible scholar F.F. Bruce mentions, quote about that epistle to Galatians, it says, but the trouble was not confined to Antioch. It spread to the young churches of South Galatia. These churches were visited by Judaizers who urged upon them that their faith in Jesus as Lord required to be supplemented by circumcision and observance of the Jewish ceremonial law. In their innocence, the South Galatian Christians were disposed to accept this new teaching. Yeah, they're pretty much lining up to all be circumcised because they thought, well, that's necessary for me to be in the church. And it's important to realize that even today, the Jews, first of all, if you're going to be converted to their faith, the man has to be circumcised. They will not accept you as a Jewish member of the church until you are physically circumcised. And once you're physically circumcised, then you have to do a ritual bathing. You go into a pool and you have to be immersed, and then you come out. And thirdly, because after all, that is that now you're under the purification laws. And if you get ritually defiled, touching a dead person or whatever, you have to go back to that pool and you have to be washed, or else you are ritually unclean before God and the congregation. And thirdly, to become a Jew in the faith, you have to offer a sacrifice.

So there's a small little sacrifice that you offer. And now you're a full-fledged Jew. Does it matter what nationality? No. Who you are, that's part of the male. Now, if a woman does it, of course, she doesn't have to be circumcised, but there's still the ritual washing and sacrifice that has to be done. So this is what these Jewish Christians that were false brethren were trying to impose on the Gentile believers there.

Let's continue with the next slide. It says, F. F. Bruce continues. He says, when news of this came to Paul at Antioch, he wrote his epistle to the Galatians in white hot urgency, beseeching these recent converts not to be seduced from Christian simplicity by a totally different gospel, which in reality was no gospel at all. Bruce is correct when he says what Paul was talking about in Galatians was, Judasers, who urged upon them that their faith in Jesus as Lord required to be supplemented by circumcision and observance of the Jewish ceremonial law. Nothing is said here about the Ten Commandments and the rest of God's moral and spiritual law, which is unchanging.

God doesn't change his laws. Notice in Romans chapter 7, Paul himself is showing that it was a ceremonial law that was temporary, but not the spiritual and moral law. Notice in Romans chapter 7, in verse 12, it says, therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Something that's holy is preserved in this way. It's something good and just.

And then it goes on to say, verse 14, for we know that the law is spiritual. It comes from God. But I am carnal, sold, understand. We still got this fight with our carnal human nature.

And then it goes on to say, in verse 21, it says, I find then a law that every, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. Verse 25, and I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. You see, this is something that he knows. It's a permanent way of looking at things.

It's not the law that has the problem. It's our human nature that has the problem. That's what has to change.

And so when the false teachers use Galatians, they don't bring up that it has to do with the ceremonial law that was temporary for the Gentile believers. Now, they still had to keep the Ten Commandments. They had to continue keeping all the feasts and everything else, the food laws. Those aren't rituals. There was one part that was temporary.

Let's look in Jeremiah 7, verse 21. Scripture I haven't used for quite a while.

Jeremiah 7.

He says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people, and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. And so, yes, there was that temporary ritual and ceremonial law, but that was something that was temporary.

Let's look at the second key point.

It has to do with the term works of the law. Paul denounces the works of the law as a means toward salvation, but he's not talking about God's moral and spiritual law, but the temporary ceremonial law with its rituals and sacrifices. So the works of the law is not talking about, you know, doing good, or keeping the Sabbath and things like that. The works of the law had to do with the sacrifices and the purity, laws, purification, all of those take a lot of work to do.

Notice the two concrete examples Paul gives about the wrong, quote, works of the law in Galatians. Why does he talk about the works of the law in a negative way?

Well, look at exhibit number A. Just like a lawyer, he has to bring out concrete evidence. Well, in Galatians we have two case in points. We have two exhibits. That's in Galatians chapter 2. When he's talking about the works of the law, he uses the example here of what happened with Titus. Notice in Galatians chapter 2 verses 1 through 4. He says, then after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and also took Titus with me. And I went up by revelation and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run or had run in vain. So he talked to the apostles. They were all in the same team. He says, yet not even Titus, who was with me being a Greek, in other words, he wasn't circumcised. He'd been baptized. He was a minister at that time. He says, was compelled to be circumcised. Here he was in Jerusalem, all these Peter and James and John and others, and nobody said, well, it's okay.

We understand what you've done, but you've got to circumcise Titus. That's part of the law, right?

It's part of the ceremonial and ritual law. And so he says, and this occurred because of false brethren. So we had one group that hadn't changed their minds.

They still had that Jewish perspective. You needed to do these three things, circumcision, purity washing, and then sacrifice. By the way, has anybody ever seen that type of ritual when the person is made into a Jew this way, circumcised and done? Oh, okay. But believe me, go to the local synagogue. That's what they do. And so he says, this occurred because false brethren secretly brought in who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty.

In other words, the liberty of having Gentile Christians not having to go through circumcision and submit themselves to the ritual law, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage. So now what good was Christ's sacrifice if we have to go through different sacrifices and rituals, which pointed to Christ's ultimate sacrifice? And he says, to whom we did not yield submission, even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. That this truth that was revealed by God, especially first of all in Acts chapter 10 with Cornelius, the Gentile, who received God's Spirit and was baptized, and he didn't have to go through circumcision.

So that's exhibit A. Now, if it's talking about the Ten Commandments, why bring in Titus and the issue about whether he should be circumcised or not? If it had to do with God's spiritual and moral law, it had to do with the ceremonial law. So once you have that pattern, that reference, as you go through the book of Galatians, it will be understood. But if you don't define your terms carefully, then when Paul says, well, you know, the law was until Christ and things, again, it's talking about the ceremonial law.

Christ superseded with his sacrifice the ceremonial law. Then we have exhibit number two. It says you need two witnesses. Well, we had the witness of Titus, and now we have the second witness, which starts in verse 11. It says, now when Peter had come to Antioch, there were a lot of Gentile believers in Antioch. Paul says, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed.

So Peter wasn't perfect. He made a mistake. He weakened under the pressure of these Judaizers. It says, verse 12, for before certain men came from James, in other words, James the Apostle. And they said, well, we're here, Antioch, and we're going to set the law. We're going to establish things. He said, Peter, he would eat with the Gentiles. So Peter knew he had eaten with Cornelius and with all the other Gentile Christians, but now they had this little group.

These were probably a Pharisee background. They were very strict, and so they pressured Peter. And he separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision, the group in the church that was demanding circumcision from the Gentiles. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, the Christian Jews, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. So you see there's this pressure to conform. That happened in 1995. The pressure to conform. How many people just buckled under that pressure? He says, and the rest of the Jews, verse 14, but when I saw, talking about Paul, that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, but not requiring Gentiles to be circumcised, I said to Peter before them all, if you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles, if you, having now become a Christian Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles, which means you can now eat with them, you can fellowship with them, they are not some sub-group in the church.

We're all together. He says, if you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles, and not as the Jews, who don't eat with Gentiles, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? Why are you giving this example? These poor Jewish, the Gentiles are thinking, well, Peter apparently doesn't think we're good enough unless we're circumcised.

He says, we who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Again, the context is about the ceremonial law.

And then we go to the third and last example. Next slide. Paul uses the term the whole law, in Galatians, as a synonym of the works of the law, in Galatians 5, 1 through 3, and verse 6, saying, I'll just quote it here, he says, stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. Again, free from having to go through the ceremonial law, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage, the yoke which the Jews had to be able to have to go through all these purity laws, all of these sacrifices. Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, see that's a term, that's talking about what law? The ritual law, Christ will profit you nothing. You're putting the ritual law now as whether that Christ sacrifice is not enough. You need to supplement it with this ritual law.

He says, and I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised. Of course, he's not talking about the Jews because they've been circumcised since the eighth day, right? Since they were born. Talking about the Gentile Christians. Every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. In other words, with all its rituals. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything. See, the purity laws no longer are binding.

The sacrificial laws are no longer binding, but faith working through love.

Paul is clearer in 1 Corinthians 7, 19, where he says, circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters. You see, you separate the spiritual and the moral from the ritual and ceremonial.

Clearly, Galatians has nothing to do with God's holy commandments, but with the temporary ritual law. And so, as we finish up, last slide. So brethren, don't let anyone use Galatians as a quote, Trojan horse to confuse you. For it clearly is talking about Gentile Christians not having to submit to circumcision and begin keeping all of the ritual law that Christ superseded. In other words, his covered over and replaced, substituted.

With his once and for all sacrifice. As Hebrews 9, 9 through 10 says of this ritual law, quote, it was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who perform the service perfect in regard to the conscience. In other words, you can go through the ritual, but spiritually before God, you're still a sinner. You're not going to kill an animal, and with that erase the sin, which does happen with Christ's sacrifice. He says, these sacrifices are concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances, the sacrifices, imposed until the time of Reformation, when Christ died and replaced all those rituals with his own sacrifice. So brethren, beware of those bringing the biblical Trojan horses.