You've Come So Far - Stay the Course

“Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.” (Ga 3:4 AV)

The church at Galatia was under attack from those who wished to add circumcision and other works of the law to faith that souls might be saved.  This, of course, is heresy.  Salvation is by grace through faith.  The Galatians, like most, paid a heavy cost to trust Christ.  Especially if they were of Jewish descent.  However, the heathen paid a heavy cost, too.  They had to leave the religion of their fathers.  In some cases, this meant estrangement from family and friends for their profession in Christ.  Persecution was common.  Once baptized into the fellowship of the believers, the Galatian saint had a hard life to look forward to.  While Paul was away at a conference in Jerusalem recorded in Acts 15, unsaved Jewish scholars tried to convince the Galatians they were not truly saved unless they incorporated portions of the Jewish law and customs.  This added confusion to a young church and threw it into turmoil.  One of Paul’s arguments against this false doctrine was the hardship that same as a result of their faith.  The question posed by Paul here is intended to be the proof of their salvation.  It is also intended to bring into question the sincerity of that faith by which they were justified.  In other words, if your faith needed works to be justified, then why would others be persecuting you?  Secondly, and the way in which we will consider the question above: you have paid a large cost in trusting Christ and now that a few trouble makers are confusing you, you are going to abandon what you have proved through your trials of faith and allow them to dissuade you from the truth?  In other words, why would we allow a temporary adverse event to undo all that God has done by us in the past?

A story is told of an expedition headed out west.  More than a century ago, this small band of explorers wanted to leave the homesteads in the midwest for adventure and fortune they believed awaited them on the nation’s western coast.  Off they went with high hopes.  The first mistake was they left in the late summer for a trip that would take them through the mountains in the height of winter.  The wat of travel had already been trailblazed by pioneers a few generations prior, and the map they had shown the best way to their destination.  Everything was fine until they were into the winter months.  That is when they reached the mountains.  The route indicated on the map they had was not the shortest through the mountains, but it was the easiest and safest.  They started out into the mountains following the map to the letter.  About a month in, they had met a small group of Indians traveling from where they came from.  This small band of pioneers had sold their farms and had gone through almost all their provisions.  Sickness also made its way through the group and a few perished under its attack.  When these Indians showed up, it was a welcomed reprieve from their troubles.  These Indians, stating they knew the territory far better than the trailblazers who had gone before, promised to guide them to their destination for a small and inconsequential repayment.  Placing their hope in the natives, they agreed.  However, as it was soon apparent, the Indians had an ulterior motive.  As the little group progressed further into the mountains, they became more and more committed to the guidance of the natives.  This was their doom.  The natives simply wanted to take all they had without directly killing them and simply waited for the weather to do what their bow and arrow refused to do.  This small band of travelers started out well and paid a price for it.  But a promise of an easier time was their undoing.

If you’ve paid most, why don’t you pay all?  This is Paul’s point to the Galatians.  They had come so far and paid a hefty price because of it, why would they now abandon all that to take up some opportunity that seemed a bit better.  Some of their persecution would end if they welcomed the heresy of those who were causing them trouble.  Why not compromise?  We can get tired of paying a price.  We can get discouraged that the gains do not equal the cost.  We can begin to doubt all we have paid was not worth it.  We can look at what others refuse to pay, see what looks like their wellbeing, and wonder why we ever paid the prices, to begin with.  Why have you begun and paid a hefty price and only now going back on it all?  You have come so far and when the finish line is in view, you cash it all in for an easier time.  Which, in reality, is not.  Adding circumcision or other laws didn’t make salvation easier.  It made it harder.  The only thing false doctrine did was to make their persecution easier to bear.  What I see is a group of people who had paid the majority of what needed to be paid for the faith they professed, but when a relief valve showed up, they took the relief.  They did not endure to the end.  The sad thing was, they were almost there.  When a saint backslides in the later years of life, this is exactly what they are doing.  They paid a great price but cannot finish the course.  Here here for those who plod along until the end!