The gospel must come first

[0:00] Be pleased to Galatians chapter 2. My title this evening is World Evangelism in Jeopardy. Or, the Gospel must come first.

[0:17] We've seen from the very start of this letter of Paul to the Galatians, we've seen something very clear, and that is that the stakes are very, very high. But what goes on in their church, in that city or in that region, what goes on there has the potential to have ripples worldwide.

[0:39] That's what Paul is writing about. The potential is that if they continue to head in the direction that they're heading in, accepting the teaching from these new theologians, and adopting the practices that these new theologians want them to adopt, not only will it mean slavery for them, bondage, returning again to this evil age that the Gospel has rescued them from, not only that, but also, it will mean destruction of the very Gospel itself.

[1:13] Chapter 2, verse 21. If you do what you're doing, Christ died for no purpose. The Gospel itself will be destroyed. And hence, what will follow is the destruction of our future Gospel mission to the whole world.

[1:31] That's what's at stake here. Seems astonishing to us, doesn't it, that something so apparently trivial, just the matters of a few specific actions, a few texts perhaps, from these new theologians, that that could have such an enormous impact, right across the whole Christian world, the Christian church.

[1:51] But that is what's at stake for Paul in writing this letter. He's genuinely worried, as we see in verse 2 of chapter 2, he's genuinely worried that his whole mission, the race that he's been running, will be in vain.

[2:06] That his whole vision and task for world mission will be in jeopardy. if this situation isn't sorted out. Seems astonishing, doesn't it?

[2:17] But then we've seen an example of exactly that sort of thing just in this last week, haven't we? The impact of a small concession