Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3078
“I conferred not with flesh and blood.” Galatians 1:16.
THE conversion of Paul is one of the evidences of the truth of our holy religion. So far as this life was concerned, he had nothing to gain, but everything to lose by becoming a Christian. From being a great Rabbi he came to be the companion of poor fishermen who themselves were the followers of One who was poorer even than they! It is clear that he was no fanatic and not at all likely to be carried away by any sudden impulse. He was clear-headed, thoughtful, logical and his conversion must have been worked by some very extraordinary power—there must have been, to him at least, overwhelming evidence of the truth of what he believed and of that form of faith to which he devoted his whole after life.
In addition to supplying us with valuable evidence of the truth of Christianity, Paul has left to us a most remarkable example of its force in his own person. Never was there a man more fully possessed with the Spirit of Christ than he was. He was no feeble saint with just enough Grace to enable him to go limping into Heaven—he was a spiritual athlete, wrestling with the powers of darkness, running with endurance the race set before him and “filled with all the fullness of God.” He was one who was indeed “strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” He threw himself, with all his natural zeal, into the cause of Christ—that natural zeal being so sanctified by the Spirit of God as to make him a mighty and valiant servant of the Lord. I pray that we, also, Beloved, may be what Paul was. I will not even deny his bonds! He did so when he said to king Agrippa, “I would to God that not only you, but also all that hear me this day were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” But we might be willing even to wear his bonds if we might but have such a character as his fully developed within us!
Paul—being converted through Christ appearing to him out of Heaven, and speaking personally to him, being deeply repentant for the past and believing fully in Jesus as his Lord and Savior—had no sooner been baptized than he struck out at once an independent path for himself. He did not need to receive any commission from men, for he had received his commission direct from Heaven and, therefore, “straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.”
In our text Paul says, “I conferred not with flesh and blood.” He did not consult with good men as to what he ought to do! Why should he? Why should he ask them to countersign his commission when he had Christ’s name at the bottom of it? He did not consult his relatives, for he knew very well what they would say. They would think him ten thousand fools in one to throw up all his prospects of advancement to become the follower of what they thought to be the meanest of all superstitions. He did not consult even with his own flesh and blood, with himself. As I have already reminded you, he had everything to lose and nothing to gain by becoming a Christian—but he willingly descended from being a student of Gamaliel and a member of the Sanhedrim, to earn his living as a tentmaker and to be a simple itinerant preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He descended from comparative ease and luxury to poverty and stern toil— from safety and peace to bitter persecution! And at last to death by martyrdom. And while knowing that he could never be a gainer as to temporal things, he nevertheless calmly and deliberately gave himself up to be the bondservant of that Christ who had spoken to him out of Heaven and called him into His service.
I want to show you, first, that faith needs no warrant for its action but the command of God. If it gets that, it need not consult with flesh and blood. I shall try to show you, in the second place, the range of application of this principle to
ourselves practically. And then I shall show you, in the last place, that the principle is a grand one and commends itself to our best judgment
I. First, FAITH NEEDS NO WARRANT FOR ITS ACTION BUT THE COMMAND OF GOD.
Believers have no need to consult with flesh and blood. I may refer you in illustration of this Truth of God to good men in all ages. There is Noah, for instance. He is commanded by God to build an ark of gopher wood—an ark large enough to hold himself and his family and some of all beasts, birds and creeping things that were upon the face of the earth! Was it not an absurd idea to build so huge an ark upon dry land? Yet Noah did not consult with any of the people who were then living—we read, “Thus did Noah: according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”
Then, think of Abraham. He was commanded by God to leave his country, his kindred and his father’s house and to go unto a land that God would show him.” And we read, “So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him.” Further on—in his life there was that very memorable occasion when God commanded him to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering. Abraham did not consult with Sarah. He knew the mother’s feelings far too well to wish to lacerate them, and she might have said, “No, my Husband, such a deed as that must not be done.” So he did not ask her, but he rose up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, prepared the wood and set out on the three days’ journey to the place of which God had told him. He did not even consult Isaac, who was, apparently, thus to die. And when Isaac said to him, “Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” his father replied, almost choking, I think, as he said it—“My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” He consulted not with his own flesh and blood, else had the father been too strong for the Believer, but as God had commanded him to offer his son as a sacrifice, he unsheathed the knife to slay his beloved Isaac—a glorious instance of what faith can dare to do without asking the advice or the approval of men!