“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel” (Gal 1:6).

Did you know that Harvard was founded to train ministers, specifically Puritans, to preach the gospel? Then liberals snuck in, and instead of starting their own school, they parasitically took over Harvard and made it Unitarian.

So the conservatives went south and started Yale. Once again, their goal was to train conservative ministers of the gospel. And once again, the parasites took over.

So the conservatives tried a third time. They went to New Jersey and started Princeton. Again, the goal was to train conservative ministers. And, well, you know what eventually happened there, too.

Wherever the gospel is preached, gospel perverts are sure to attach themselves like parasites sent by Satan to undermine the work of God.

Paul saw it happen in the churches in Galatia.

False teachers came preaching a false Christ and a false gospel, and the Galatians started falling for it.

Instead of starting their own churches, these gospel perverts found it easier to corrupt an already established ministry. As Luther sarcastically remarked,

“These precious martyrs are not willing to take any chances but move into places where the Gospel has already established itself and where they can live without danger and in great tranquility…There the enemies of the cross of Christ could live in great smugness, without undergoing any persecution” (Luther’s Works, p. 26:23).

If you’ve ever wondered why liberal denominations don’t send out missionaries, that’s why. The gospel perverts want to live in comfort. They want to move into a building that’s already there and be paid a salary that someone else raised from godly givers.

It is devasting to see a work that you have tried so hard to build up become corrupt and begin to fall apart.

That is agony.

Paul felt it.

Bob and I feel it, too.

We feel it when we hear about downgrade trends in the Free Grace movement that are taking people away from the simplicity of eternal life through faith in Christ.

We also feel it whenever we hear that a Free Grace church now has a Lordship pastor.

Luther knew all about this anguish. He said that’s the preacher’s lot in life:

“Here you should learn that pious preachers have this lot in life. In addition to the persecution that they have to endure from the wicked and ungrateful world and the hard labor that they experience in planting churches, they are forced to see the quick overthrow of what they had taught for so long in its purity, at the hands of the fanatics, who thereupon lord it over them and get the upper hand. This causes more anguish for godly ministers than any persecution by tyrants” (Luther’s Works, p. 26:23).

What’s the lesson here?

Be vigilant.

Don’t take the truth for granted.

Don’t take doctrinal integrity for granted.

You might be working hard for the truth. But the parasites are working, too, only they’re not working to build up, but to destroy.