Gooding, David: 2 - Argument 1 and 2

In our first session, gentlemen, I was trying to make the point that in the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul meets the false doctrine that was troubling the converts in Galatia, endeavors to meet those, those, uh, false doctrines by a series of arguments. It is enough if I have convinced you, or at least called your attention to the fact that in this epistle there are a series of arguments, and the arguments are of different kinds. Don't worry at this, uh, point if the different arguments don't matter much to you because you have not recently read the details that each one of them contains. So long as we get the idea that Galatians is composed of a number of arguments of different types, we shall be prepared to, uh, now take seriously the detail of each argument, and prepare therefore to recognize the different kinds of argument that we shall meet as we proceed. And as we see what the force of each argument is, we can seek God's help in any one practical situation to know when and where and how and in what order to use these arguments when they are relevant to a discussion and relevant to leading people to genuine faith in the Lord Jesus. The first, uh, argument then comes from Paul's apostolic authority. Let's come to the actual verses and notice the detail. Paul, an apostle. Not from men, neither through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. All Paul's letters start as letters in the ancient world were in the habit of starting, by naming the writer of the letter and then passing on his greetings. And Paul does that constantly, following the normal form of writing letters in the ancient world. But here, his normal greeting is enlarged, and things are said here that are not said elsewhere, and they are things that are absolutely basic to the Christian gospel. Paul, an apostle, not from men, neither through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. Let's take that last, uh, clause first to show the importance of what Paul is claiming. Paul has, uh, been appointed an apostle by God, the very God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, God, in raising Jesus Christ from the dead, established the very basis of the gospel. If Christ had not been raised from the dead, there would be no gospel. But the very God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead and commanded that this resurrection be proclaimed as the very basis of a gospel, that is the very same God that appointed Paul to be an apostle. That is exceedingly important. Paul i- apostleship is not just a little detail. Mr. So-and-so is a very good evangelist. Oh yes, yes, yes, but I think Mr. So-and-so is a much better evangelist. Yes, yes, well, uh, yes, they they're good in their way, but you don't have to take everything they say, and so forth and so on. You don't say that about Paul. Paul isn't just an evangelist, he's an apostle. And the very God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead appointed Paul an apostle to preach that gospel. And to expound it. And to lay down the terms of the gospel. That is the importance of his apostleship. So now, a born apostle, not from men, neither through man, is a very important part of this gospel related, uh, that Paul preaches. Where did he get his apostleship from? Was it the church that appointed him? Well, by definition, not. Was it the apostles in Jerusalem that were apostles before him that appointed him? No. And you'll notice the double clause. He is an apostle, not from men. The source of his apostleship was not men. Ah, but somebody could argue, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Paul, of course, your apostleship came, uh, originally from God, but it had to be channeled through men, surely. It was, came from God, but it was channeled by the laying on of Peter's hands, wasn't it? No, it wasn't. It's not only not from man, it was not through a man. Notice the double negative. Say, why argue about details like that? Well, we shall find out as we go through, uh, the, these first and second chapters. This is absolutely fundamental to the gospel message. It is through Jesus Christ and then God the Father. Why in that order? Well, of course, he was appointed an apostle at his conversion, was he not? Read the story of the Damascus Road experience, when it was the Lord who appeared to him. I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But the voice came out of that light above the brightness of the sun. And Paul, as a Jew, would not need telling what that brightness was. It was the Shekinah glory of God, of course. But a voice from the, the, the, the, the, uh, cloud, the glory, the light said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And Paul replied, who art thou, Lord? That was a very significant utterance. I granted that, uh, the Greek term kurios can mean simply sir, or nowadays mister, of course, or sir. But Paul is not likely to have responded to this glory above the brightness of the sun as, sir, who are you? He's using kurios. And kurios is the word used in Greek in the Old Testament constantly as a translation of Yahweh, Jehovah. Who art thou, Lord? Remark from your memory how many times Paul uses that term, Lord of Jesus Christ, in his epistles. Goes back to the time when the Lord appeared to him, of course. And then he was told to go into the city, and it shall be told you what to do. They took him into the city, and soon thereafter, the risen Lord, it was the Lord Jesus that sent Ananias. Do you see? Perhaps I ought to demonstrate that to you, uh, uh, uh, Acts chapter nine it is. It was the risen Lord that sent Ananias. Verse ten of Acts nine. Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said unto him in a vision, Ananias, and he said, behold, here am I, Lord. Uh, yes, exactly what did he mean by Lord? The Lord said unto him, Arise and go to the street which is called Straight. Inquire in the house of Judas for one named Saul, a man of Tarsus, for behold, he prays. And he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and laying his hands upon him that he might receive his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many of, uh, uh, uh, about this man, how much evil he did to thy saints at Jerusalem. And here he had authority from the chief priests to bind all that call upon thy name. When the religious authorities gave Paul this authority to go, uh, do you see, to, to bind, to arrest and bind and imprison, those that call upon thy name, this is Ananias talking. Well, who did the religious authorities, uh, uh, uh, uh, appoint and, and allow Saul to go and imprison? Not God, what we call God the Father, surely. He wasn't sent to imprison those that call upon the name of God. He was sent to imprison those that called on the name of Jesus. Because to call upon the name is a thing, a phrase that you would use in the Old Testament for prayer to God. To call upon God. To call upon Jesus is, of course, implication of who Jesus is. He is God incarnate. Hence the, the, uh, the anger of the Jerusalem religious authorities, that these Nazarenes called upon the name of Jesus. That to them was a blasphemous thing to do. But notice, therefore, that a- a- a- who's talking to Ananias? It is the Lord Jesus that is talking to Ananias. And i-i-i-it you say, but the Lord said unto him, go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. Paul, an apostle, through Jesus Christ. For Christ was the first actual agent in his appointment as an apostle. Jesus himself personally from the glory. And of course, God the Father. And what about, how is he described? Well, as I pointed out, God who raised Jesus from the dead. That is God's authentication and justification of the person of Jesus, that he raised him from the dead, yeah? And thus the whole story of the atoning death of Christ and his resurrection from the dead validated by God, by that very fact that he raised him from the dead. Paul's apostleship is a thing that can be mentioned in the same breath, gentlemen, as those great events that are the foundation of the gospel, the death, atoning death of Christ, his resurrection, and ascension to God's right hand, and his position in glory as being, excuse the term, commander in chief, the director of world evangelism. But not only Paul by himself, but all the brothers which are with me. Paul wasn't, in that sense, a- a solitary man doing his own thing. Paul's authority recognized and corroborated by all the brothers that were with him. Now comes the normal grace, the normal greeting, as in all his epistles. Grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, but now notice the description that is given of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil age. Notice that, not evil world, but evil age, according to the will of God, our God and Father. So grace and peace is not just a formal greeting. It is laden with the terms of the gospel, go- the salvation by grace leading to peace with God. Grace to you and peace wi- and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And the basis of this grace and peace is that Christ gave himself for our sins. Notice the term gave himself. We shall meet it again in Galatians. I live by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. He gave himself up, therefore, for our sins. This is absolute basic gospel. He will yet argue that, um, nothing else could save us from the guilt of our sins. That he might deliver us out of this present world, this present age, with all its evil. The only thing, gentlemen, that will deliver us out of this present evil age is the sacrifice of Christ. Let me use an analogy. You'll see at once it is merely an analogy, but the only people that could save pe- uh, uh, uh, the only thing that could save people from the flood, gentlemen, tell me what it was. Being circumcised? Or keeping the food laws? Or the law of Moses or something? No, the only thing that saved the people of that day was the ark. And the only thing that can save us from this present age with all its evil, is of course the sacrifice of Christ. But that sacrifice was according to the will of God, our God and Father. It was not a question of Christ doing something heroic to deliver us out of the hands of a wrathful God, against that God's intention. That's an old pagan idea. The sacrifice of Christ at Calvary was the will of God himself that we should be saved thereby. And if these are the bases of salvation, then the doxology in this context is significant. To whom be the glory forever and ever, amen. That is the glory for our salvation. Is God's. The credit and the glory for our deliverance is due solely to Christ and to God. This then is Paul's authority, apostolic authority, but it is, as you see, the source of Paul's authority, not from man, but through man. Paul's authority recognized and corroborated by all the brothers that were with him. He's not a l- lone solitary character. But in his apostolic greeting, you have the gospel in miniature. And our point is that we must notice that his apostleship is a thing that can be mentioned alongside of these fundamentals of the gospel. Not that his death saved us, but the God who instituted salvation through the death of Christ and his resurrection is the God that, uh, appointed him to be an apostle, to preach that gospel of salvation. And the blessed Lord who died for us appointed him, as you see in the Acts, appointed him to his apostleship, to expound and preach that gospel worldwide. Now we come to a very solemn thing, verses six to ten. Paul's apostolic anathema. Notice it comes very early on, right from the start. But logically, it is in place. If Paul is a divinely appointed apostle to tell us what the gospel is, then anyone who disputes that apostolic authority is corrupting the very gospel of God. Let that be said, before we come to any detail of this false doctrine, let that be said from starting from basic premises, so to speak. You can't refuse the apostolic authority of Paul and still have the gospel. If you preach differently, it brings down upon your head his anathema. Anathema? What does that mean? It's the Greek translation, for instance, in the Old Testament of the curse that was pronounced on Jericho, which was in Hebrew cherem. Cherem is a curse in the sense that you see in Jericho, the thing had to be utterly destroyed. Cherem means something to be devoted to God, set aside for God, for God's judgment. And so Jericho was set aside for God's judgment. Israel had to destroy the city and everybody in it. Nothing should be salvaged from it. Things that couldn't be burned with fire, like the silver and gold, had to be given over to God. Nobody profited from it. It wasn't Israel's spite. It was that on that occasion, Israel were the commissioned instrument of God's judgment on that city. So Paul, in pronouncing an anathema, hands the folks over to God for God's solemn judgment. Because they are in opposition to the God who appointed Paul to preach the gospel, and they are da- daring to preach something different from that officially ordained gospel. So, to go back upon what's already, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, said, and now to come to verse six. I marvel that you are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel. That's to be pondered, isn't it? It doesn't say simply, I marvel that you are moving away from the gospel. That is a phrase that is elsewhere used in Colossians, if so be you, uh, uh, uh, continue in the faith and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. Yes, that is a sensible way of putting it. But here it's more than moving away from a doctrine. Notice the phraseology. I marvel that you are so quickly removing from him. That, of course, is a very big claim on Paul's part, isn't it? You deny the gospel of grace, you're moving not merely from a doctrine, but from a person, namely God, that called you in the grace of Christ. You'll notice how well chosen his words are and how every word counts. You're removing not simply from the teaching of Christ, but from the grace of Christ. Salvation comes of God's grace. It is the gracious gift of Christ. He offers you salvation by grace, and you won't have that and want to pay for it. You insult Christ. Yeah. You're moving away from the grace he presents you now, and therefore you're removing from him. And they're doing it so quickly, unto a different gospel, which is not another, there's only one. There are not differing gospels, gentlemen. How that is necessary to be preached in this world of postmodernism and religious synchronism should be evident to us, you see. The common notion, all our gospels, Islam and Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, and they all have their gospel message. No, they don't, says Paul. There's only one gospel, there is not another. There are other gospels, but they're f- are not true. There's only one true gospel. Only there are some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Again, it's not perverting the doctrine of the millennium or something, or different views, uh, uh, uh, of this, that, and other. This is perverting the very basic gospel of Christ. Then he adds in verse eight, that though we or an angel from heaven should preach unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema. If Paul in his old age were to go silly in the head and start preaching a different gospel, says he, I would deserve to be anathema too. And he says it twice over. As we have said before, so say I now again, if any man preaches unto you any gospel other than that which you received, let him be anathema. You received, of course, from Paul. For now, it's not a question merely of persuading men. He is responsible to God. And therefore he must, um, uh, even if men reject his message, he must be faithful to God and to Christ. So he's not, um, uh, free to change the gospel because it is God's gospel. His task is to persuade men to believe and accept it, not to try to persuade God to change it. His task as an apostle is not to please men, but to please the one who appointed him. Now that has to be read, of course, against, uh, the exhortation in one of the later epistles, we have to consider one another to please one another, even Christ pleased not himself. We are to, uh, uh, to consider others and bring them, uh, grace and, uh, uh, and pleasure in that sense, aren't we? But when it comes to basic principle, deciding what the gospel is, it's not a question of deciding, well, what is, let's take a, let's take a, you know, lift up your hands. What do you think the gospel is? And decide it by majority vote or something. Not a question of pleasing men. It's a question of being faithful to the gospel that, uh, God himself has ordained. The argument then from the Paul's apostolic authority. We shall meet it again, as I warned you in our first talk, that Paul didn't get his gospel from the church or from the apostles that were before him. So now he launches into a long argument, a long section of his letter. From this verse eleven down to the end of chapter two. I have listed it under the argument from early church history. Conscious that many people would think I am misusing the term church history because they use church history to cover the period after the New Testament, uh, the church fathers and so forth. I use it deliberately, however, to stress the fact that our gospel didn't begin with the early church fathers. It began with our Lord, with his death, resurrection from the dead, and historically with the apostles. And the argument, as you see, right from the very start, that you see? For I make known to you, brethren, the gospel, uh, mo- known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man, for neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ. That is the basic and substantial point that he is going to make. And he's going to, uh, sketch in for us four Four periods periods. of his early church history, so to speak. All of them aimed at showing that his gospel is not from men, not indeed from the church, not from the other apostles. The The four Paul periods periods are are before his conversion, his behavior before his conversion, and what type of man he was before his conversion. Secondly, his conversion itself and how it came about. How is that going to be relevant to the question of whether his gospel is from God? Well, gentlemen, uh, if I ask you the point off the cuff, who led Paul to Christ? What would your answer be to that? Who led Paul to Christ? Pardon? Christ. Christ, yes, that's right. Yeah, Umbry, yes, that's exactly so. It was no other man that led Paul to Christ. Yes, uh, uh, Andrew went and found his brother, you know, and brought him to Christ. But no Christian, not the church, not any apostle, brought Paul to Christ. What does mean no? His conversion then, all of God, not from men. It didn't even come from Paul himself. So, what he was before he was converted, then his conversion, not from men or through men. What then happened three years after Paul's conversion? His first visit to Jerusalem. Where he gives us evidence to show that he didn't get his gospel from the apostles on that occasion, his first visit to Jerusalem, three years after his conversion. Third period of history. What happened fourteen years after Paul's conversion? This is chapter two, one to ten. On the occasion of Paul's second visit to Jerusalem. All aim to show that he didn't get his gospel from men or man, from the church, or from the other apostles. And the fourth period of history, two eleven to twenty one, um A later occasion, of course. What happened when Cephas came to Antioch? And, and this shows that far from getting his gospel from Cephas, on that occasion he had to correct Peter and rebuke him for his hypocritical behavior when he chose at a conference in Antioch to behave in a way that denied what in his heart of heart he believed about the gospel. And for the sake of the clarity of the gospel, Paul publicly had to oppose and rebuke Peter before everybody else. Not that Peter in his heart believed a different gospel, but under pressure, Peter behaved in such a way that his behavior suggested he didn't believe the gospel which in his heart of hearts he did believe. In other words, he behaved inconsistently with the gospel. Four periods of history then, of church history, all relevant to this basic proposition that Paul did not get the gospel from man or, uh, or, uh, through a man. It didn't even come, uh, delegated to him through a man. It came direct from Christ and God. And he goes to all this trouble to get this established on an historical basis. I had a young gentleman brought to see me, or I was asked to go and see a young gentleman down in the area of Newcastle, where the Mountains of Morn sweep down to the sea. And this chap had been a professing believer in the Baptist Church. Now he's gone over to the Roman Catholic Church, you see, and has done a lot of research, he informed me. And so it's not off the cuff, he's got all this tremendous evidence, you see. And here we had it. You can't just read the Bible, you have to take into account the church's view and all the church's traditions that they received, you see. And, uh, if I want to know what Paul preaches, I must go to the church, you see. So I faced him with this. Let's do a little bit of history, old chap. You'll see, when Paul got converted, who led him to Christ historically? Oh, but you don't know, it was the church that told us which books are to be in the, in the ca- New Testament canon. I said, well, hang on, old chap. We'll get history first, you see, first century history first, can't we? Suppose I had met Paul before he had ever written anything, and I met him in the deserts of Arabia, and I said, I want to be saved, Paul. Can you tell me how to be saved? And he told me by word of mouth what he here writes in the epistle. Could I have listened to it, understood it, believed it, and be saved there and then? That is the issue of history, gentlemen. Don't be put off by getting into long disputes about who decided when the canon should be what. We can go before Paul had even written anything into the deserts of Arabia and listen to him, yes? Could we accept from his mouth what he hereafter writes? Well, our dear young man, he made all sorts of marvelous discursions from that, do you see, about the canon and, and all sorts of marvelous things, uh, do you see? Quite irrelevant to the matter of history. Mm-hmm. Ha ha. So he didn't get the gospel from others. How can we be sure of that? Well, look at his behavior, his manner of life, verse thirteen, And see his persecution of the believers. And his ardent zeal for the Jewish religion. Uh-huh. Did he really go and listen to sermons and learn the gospel from these chaps that he was persecuting and torturing? And Peter took him and counseled him, yeah? Well, that makes, that's nonsense. What led to his conversion, therefore? The gospel came to him, he says, verse twelve through revelation of Jesus Christ. That can be taken in two senses, can it not? The revelation which Jesus Christ made to him by appearing to him on the road to Damascus, that is perfectly true. The revelation about Jesus, that is likewise true. One of the things that drove him nearly mad before he was converted was the Christian claim that Jesus was the Messiah. But Jesus was crucified. And as Paul himself observes in chapter three, anyone hung on a tree is cursed of God. For the Christians to claim that somebody who was hung upon a tree and cursed of God was the Messiah seemed the extreme of blasphemy. What changed his view? Well, not the preaching of the Christians. It was the revelation of Christ in In glory. glory. Revolutionized his whole idea of God, of course. And led him to ask, well, if Jes- Jesus was the Son of God, why was he dying, hung upon a tree, cursed of God? Mm-hmm. It was through the revelation of Christ, therefore. But notice verse 15, but when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me even from my mother's womb and called me through his grace, to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood. So it was God's good pleasure, and not taken on the spur of a moment either. Not saying, well, this man Saul, unlikely chap, he's got converted. Well, I know, says God, what, what, what, what could we do with Saul? He's got converted. How shall we make use of him? No, no. Like Jeremiah, so Paul is claiming that God had his eyes on him before he was born and separated him from his mother's womb. God was going to use this man to preach the gospel. If I put it like that, it will please my Calvinist friends, and some societies it's good to please them. Doesn't thereby, uh, mean that Paul, uh, was a machine and that he had no, uh, opportunity, power, or strength to say no to the appointment. But God had had his appointment, uh, his eye upon him right from his mother's womb. Paul is making a tremendous claim. This is said of Jeremiah, the classical prophets. Do you see? Uh, uh, separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son. Now, strictly speaking, the Greek says in me. Well, of course, that meant revealing his son to him, of course, as he did on the Damascus road. But it was God's good pleasure to reveal his son in Paul, in and through him, in his conversion, and in his preaching. I can see what Paul means in part by reading again the story of his conversion as he gives it in one Timothy chapter one. That the long suffering of our Lord was exceeding abundance, uh, exceeding abundant, you'll see, that in me first, in me primarily, Jesus Christ might show, or God might show as an example for all those that should after believe on him unto eternal life. Paul was chosen to be a practical example of salvation. An example of what God is prepared to put up with and still forgive a man and turn him into a very apostle. That in me first might God show all long suffering for those that should afterwards believe. He is a model, therefore, an example, God-chosen example of conversion to show the tremendous long suffering of God through Christ. You see, the first of sinners in that he persecuted the church, and so forth and so on. But when it pleased good pleasure of God to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and again I returned to Damascus. This is therefore talking about it before his conversion and now his conversion itself. God's timing, God's predestination, God's call, God's purpose, and Paul's reaction during the next three years. God's timing, when it pleased God. God's predestination of Paul to be an apostle. Before he was born or from his birth. God's call by his grace, God's purpose to reveal his son in and through Paul. That Paul should preach the gospel of Christ to the Gentiles. Paul's reaction during the next three years. He did not consult or c- or confer with other Christians. He did not go to Jerusalem. He went to Arabia and then back to Damascus. But that being so, gentlemen, we have a little historical research to do, because it could be, we could misunderstand the chronology and the sequence of events in Paul's conversion if we were not careful. So let's look back at Acts nine. His conversion is told us... in Acts nine down to verse seventeen. How he went to Damascus, do you see? And then Ananias was sent to him. Verse seventeen, and Ananias departed and entered into the house and laid his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, who appeared unto thee in the way that thou camest, has sent me that thou mayest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And straightway there fell from his eyes, as it were, scales, and he received his sight, and he arose and was baptized, and he took food and was strengthened. And he was certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And immediately in the synagogues he proclaimed Jesus that he is the Son of God. And all that heard him were amazed and said, is not this he that in, uh, that in Jerusalem made havoc of them which called on this name? And he had come hither for this intent that he might bring them bound before the chief priests. But Saul increased the more in strength and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Jerusalem, proving that this is the Christ. And when many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him. Uh, do you see? Uh, and their plot became known to Saul, and they watched the gates also day and night that they might kill him. But his disciples took him by night and let him down through the wall, lowering him in a basket. And when he was come to Jerusalem. So from Damascus he went straight to Jerusalem, did he? Is that how we shall understand it? For in Galatians he tells us that when he, uh, got converted, you see, uh, I- I conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and again I returned to Damascus. From this we gather something that Luke doesn't tell us. He was on the road to Damascus when he got converted. Struck blind, he was led by hand into Damascus and lodged there. Ananias came to him, and he- his blindness was removed, he received the Holy Spirit, and forthwith began to preach. Then eventually the Jews laid up trouble for him, and, uh, he escaped, you'll see. He went to Jerusalem. Luke doesn't tell us what Paul himself tells us, that in that period when he was in Damascus, got converted, doubtless began to preach in the synagogues, then went off to Arabia and was there for three years or so, presumably inclusive counting, so it could be a little more than, uh, a year and two bits of other two years. But he returned to Damascus, and it was Damascus that, uh, uh, after three years since his conversion, he went up to Jerusalem. There is no contradiction. It is simply that Luke hasn't, uh, d- uh, thought to tell us about what happened when from Damascus initially he went to, uh, uh, the desert, Arabia, came back to Damascus. There was a lot of fuss. They tried to catch him, and he got lowered down the wall in a basket and went to Jerusalem. Let's look at, uh, two Corinthians eleven to fill in the detail. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 32. In Damascus, the governor under Aretas, the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes in order to take me. And through a window was I let down in a basket by the wall and escaped his hands. Gentlemen, meet Aratas, if you will, for for two minutes of your time. He's royalty anyway. He's king of the Nabateans. And if you haven't heard of the Nabateans and not met a Nabatean ever, well, look up your Bible dictionaries and they'll tell you all about these people. They were Nabataeans, yes? And they controlled the desert of Arabia to which Paul went, you see. Damascus was ruled at that time by Aratas, by a governor appointed by Aretas. Paul, therefore, uh, converted, was a few days in Damascus, then he went off to the desert, the Nabatean desert under the Nabatean kings, of course, but Damascus was ruled by a governor appointed by Aretas. And, uh, Paul eventually returned to Damascus. And the Jews made a fuss. Being citizens under King Aretas. For doubtless, uh, uh, uh, Paul, when he got to the desert and, and in the dominion of Aretas, he would not only have, um, communed with God and so forth and so on, like John the Baptist in the desert. But he doubtless preached when he got the op- opportunity to Nabateans and sundry others. If he did what he normally did, he'd begun already to preach in Damascus anyway, and that upset the Jews. If in, in, eh, when he went off into the wilderness of the Nabateans and he preached to anybody around there as well, then of course, the Jews would apply eventually, couldn't stick him anymore, and applied, uh, to the governor under the king, Aratas, to say, to have Paul arrested. So Damascus was no longer safe to him and would have been captured had not the believers let him down secretly in a basket by the wall, and then he went to Jerusalem. Yeah? So we have to put all those passages together to see what actually happened. So we've covered what his style of life before he got converted. It was not then that, uh, he got his gospel from any apostle or church. We've considered the nature of his conversion and his time in Damascus and in the Nabataean Desert, where obviously he didn't consult with the apostles in Jerusalem. Then, three years after his conversion, that three years would include his sojourn in the desert of N- of Nabataean Desert. After three, three years after his conversion, Paul went to Jerusalem. It is his first visit to Jerusalem. He tells us the purpose of it. He went to get to know Cephas. Not to inquire the gospel of him. The Greek verb used historesi at that point is a term you would use of a tourist going to Egypt, and I went to historesi the pyramids, meaning I went to get to know the pyramids and to look at the pyramids, do you see? He went to meet Cephas and get to know Cephas. He was only there fifteen days. Notice the scope of the visit. He saw none other of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother. Then after fifteen days, as a result of plots on his life, he left for Syria and Cilicia. And because that visit was so short, he was still unknown by face to the churches of Judea, though they had heard his fame and glorified God in him. This again, this incident, therefore, his, uh, brief visit to Jerusalem three years after he was converted, is quoting it to show once more that he didn't get his gospel and certainly not his apostleship, from the people at Jerusalem. And both Acts as te- uh, Acts is telling us that right from his conversion in Damascus, he preached the gospel in Damascus. It wasn't a question of his being appointed by the church or by Peter or James or John. He'd already been preaching the gospel for three years on his first visit to Jerusalem. But you say, perhaps, although he doesn't tell us there, they did have to correct certain things in his ideas and fill him in a bit. No, what happened fourteen years after his conversion, his second visit to Jerusalem. But that's a longer story, and we must leave it till after the break. Let me merely impress upon you, by the sheer boredom of my exposition, how long a time and space Paul is devoting to this matter of history. And it leaves me wondering as I sit here, my mouth watering because of the sausages or other things I'm about to eat, but it leaves me wondering, gentlemen, how many times have you heard these chapters expounded in the church? Half a dozen times since you were converted, or more than that, perhaps twenty times? However many times you've heard it, you need now to get them up your sleeve and beneath your caps, and any other metaphor you like to use, so that you know them inside out and upside down. And when you're now taking your bath and reveling in the soap suds, you could say to yourself, what are the the four arguments, uh, of the church history that Paul adduces to show that he didn't get his gospel from man, nor his apostleship, but was a direct revelation from God, not only appointed as an apostle direct by the Lord Jesus and God, but got his gospel by revelation from the Lord Jesus, direct from God. What are those four parts of, of, of history? Gentlemen, we need, if we're going to be good soldiers, you see, if a soldier is faced with a enemy coming around the corner, he doesn't say, oh, de me, I got some bullets here somewhere, wait half a minute, half a minute, don't shoot yet. I got some bullets here. I, I could get them out if, you know. No, you've got to be on the ready, gentlemen. You have to get it at your fingertips, yes? Know it well enough so you could recite it. Uh, because the arguments are so fundamental to the gospel. And particularly fundamental to this question of how and on what terms are we saved and justified before God. Is it through faith in Christ plus the works of the law, or by faith alone, through grace alone, without the works of the law? That's a fundamental issue in salvation. I don't need to tell you that. But this history, though you might find it a bit boring, Paul judged to be absolutely fundamental to his case. Here is the evidence that his apostleship came from God, and that his gospel came from God. He received it by revelation and not by the teaching of others. Righto, let's break off now for our lunch.