In this video, Chip Brogdon introduces the first weekly webcast of Watchman.net, where he aims to equip the saints and grow the body of Christ. He encourages viewers to pray and read through the book of Galatians in preparation for the upcoming study. Chip emphasizes the importance of studying the word of God and invites viewers to join him in a verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter exploration of Galatians. He expresses his excitement and gratitude for the opportunity to share God's Word through the internet.

...and be glad in it. My name is Chip Brogden and it's my pleasure, my privilege to welcome you to the first weekly webcast of Watchman.net and I am excited to be able to hopefully begin to put together a series of teachings for you each week. This is something that the Lord has impressed upon us to produce and he's given us the equipment to do it and I certainly have plenty of things I'd like to share with you and I know that for many of you listening in other countries, you and I may not be able to meet one another face to face but that's why it is so wonderful about the internet and I'm just excited to be able to have the privilege to share God's word with you and basically what we are here to do is to equip the saints, get us focused on Jesus and really, I hope, grow the body of Christ up to a place where we can see the fullness of Christ being manifest in his body, the church that he is building. Jesus is increasing and the kingdom of God is increasing. It's a wonderful time to be alive. It's a wonderful time to be a Christian. It's a challenging time but it is an exciting time and so we are happy and we are blessed to be able to bring this program to you. I hope that we can do it once a week. We'll do that to begin with anyway. I've got plenty to share and so I really feel that the Lord would have us to do something that I'm not used to doing, you may not be used to doing, but I really sense that there is a need in the body of Christ for some in-depth teaching along the lines of scripture certainly but teaching that gets us not just into another Bible study, not just into another Bible doctrine, not just so we can study theology or different subjects and have them as themes or topics for discussion and we fill our brain with a lot of facts and knowledge and really pride ourselves that we know the Bible, but I mean teaching that focuses on the centrality of Jesus Christ and focuses on the preeminence of Jesus over all things and it was Spurgeon I believe that said that every scripture in the Bible, every passage and portion of scripture is a path towards Christ. In other words he said when you read the scriptures you should be asking yourself what of Jesus do I see here? What pertaining to Christ is this telling me? And so you have that testimony from C.H. Spurgeon and then you have T. Austin Sparks and I just appreciate his ministry so much of course he has gone on to be with the Lord now, but his writings and some of his audio teachings are still available, but the thing that is so extraordinary about T. Austin Sparks is every place he ministers from out of the Word of God regardless of whether it's Old Testament, New Testament, whatever some obscure portion of scripture he sees Jesus in that scripture and he always brings it back around to Christ and I respect that there are not many people that know how to do that and are even trying to do that, but I believe that the scripture Jesus said that the scripture speaks of himself. He says that even Moses, the writings of Moses, the law, the prophets Jesus says that they speak of me, Abraham saw my day, Moses saw my day and if you know where to look in the Old Testament you see all of those passages of the Old Testament are simply bringing us into a deeper understanding, a greater awareness of Christ. You see those wonderful passages in Isaiah where it talks about a child is born, a son is given and of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end and just passages like that from the Old Testament scriptures and then of course the New Testament begins to explain and interpret for us all of those types and shadows of the Old Testament and I'm afraid friends that as we we emphasize more and more in these last days the the inspiration of the Spirit and prophetic things that Christians are pretty much getting dumbed down when it comes to knowing the Bible. Now I'm not talking about you have all the chapters and verses memorized but I mean just a basic understanding and knowledge of what the scripture says and you have to have that because I believe that the the written Word of God is the objective standard by which all of our subjective revelations are measured. Now what does that mean? What I'm saying is we can get inspiration from a lot of different sources and say in the name of the Lord or I received this or God told me or God showed me and and if you're on the internet you get several words and prophecies and visions like that on a daily basis. Well you need some objective standard by which you can measure and test and judge those things that are being spoken out and the Word of God, the written Word of God, the scriptures, the Bible gives us that objective standard. In other words whatever you hear it has to and it must line up with the scriptures. It cannot contradict the scriptures because the scriptures Jesus says they testify of me and it is the testimony of Jesus that is the inspiration of all prophecy Revelation 1910 tells us. So if now if all you have is the Bible and you don't have the Spirit to help you interpret and know and give you revelation into what the Bible is saying then you are a Pharisee. You will just basically have have the Word of God the written Word of God there you'll have the Bible you'll have the scriptures but without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to help you interpret and understand what it is you're reading you won't have a clue. So we need the certainly we need the inspiration and the revelation of the of the Spirit of God. Just having the scriptures by it by themselves without that Spirit it's just simply not a not enough. You look in the book of Acts and you'll recall that there was an Ethiopian eunuch who was reading from the book of Isaiah and Philip the evangelist was led by the Spirit to meet this man out I guess in in the desert out there on the way back to Ethiopia and you'll recall that that eunuch was reading from the scroll of Isaiah and he wanted someone to explain it to him he didn't understand what it meant. He had questions and he needed insight and revelation of course he it was just a it the words were there he had the same words but he didn't have the Spirit there to to give him illumination and that's when when Philip prayed for him and he received the Lord then that Holy Spirit came to live within him and then he could he could read and understand and interpret the written word from there on out. So we need both we need the inspiration of the Spirit and we need an understanding of the Word of God and I'm just amazed at the number of people I come in contact with who don't have a basic understanding of what the Bible says and so what I really hope that we can do with with this weekly webcast is to get into the Word of God and and really really get into the meat of the Word but do it in such a way that leads us back to Christ and do it in a way that is going to to build us up spiritually build us up on the inside not just fill up our mind with more facts and more figures you know more more trivia we don't need that but what we need is Spirit and truth and the Word of God in mix with the Spirit of God working together this is how we grow spiritually and this is how we are able to come into the full knowledge of Christ you know so many people they will email me or they'll call or they'll ask for a word from God but they don't know the Scriptures if you would know the Scriptures the Lord can speak to you through those Scriptures and you won't have to run all over the world looking for someone to give you a word quote unquote it's nothing wrong with getting a word from God but you need to know God's Word first otherwise you won't be able to exercise good spiritual discernment and someone can easily lead you astray so we want to be wise we want to be prudent and we want to not be not be foolish but discern the Lord's will and one of the best ways to discern his will and know what he wants know what he wants for you know what his purpose is for you is to get into this Word of God and begin to study it and what I what I propose that we do is just basically take take one book out of the Bible and go through it chapter by chapter now the the Bible has 1189 chapters so depending on how many chapters you you get through in the course of a week it could take you a good deal of time but I I think there is value in going through the Word of God going through the Scriptures systematically and I'm I think it helps if you have other people who are studying along with you so if you know that we're going to be in a certain chapter on a certain week it's easier to simply read through that chapter be thinking about it and then be prepared as we discuss it everyone is on the same page and so who knows we might just have the world's largest internet Bible study before it's all over with but whether it's large or whether it's small it can be valuable if we will devote ourselves to it and ask the Lord to speak to us in it so why don't we just go to him right now and ask him ask his Holy Spirit to give us that illumination into his Word we thank you Father for your Word we thank you Holy Spirit because you are the teacher you are the counselor you're the one who leads us into all truth and you are the one who grants us who gives us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and so to everyone who is listening right now I pray Lord that you'd open our eyes open the eyes of our understanding the eyes of our heart that we may see and know you open our ears that we may hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches and as as we are decreased Lord may you be increased in us and I thank you Father we thank you for this time that we have together and I just pray that whoever is listening and wherever they are in the world that you would speak spirit and truth and life to them through me and I praise you in Jesus name Amen praise the Lord well I have had on my heart for some time to put together some kind of a teaching on a particular book in the Bible that I think has definite application to us today they all have application to us in one way or the other but this one in particular really I think speaks to the condition that we find ourselves in today as as a church as disciples of Jesus Christ who are growing and hopefully growing and wanting to mature in the full knowledge of Jesus so what I'd like to do if you're in agreement is to begin a study on the book of Galatians so if you would take your Bible and turn to the book of Galatians chapter 1 we'll begin reading with Galatians chapter 1 and if we do if we just do one chapter a week on Galatians that would give us six weeks in Galatians you think six weeks just to do a one book of the Bible that isn't that kind of a long time well it you may think it's a long time but God's Word is so rich and it's so deep honestly it could take me longer than six weeks to go through it I think if we do if we do 30 minutes a week one chapter a week and spend six weeks in Galatians by the time you're finished with Galatians you're going to have a very good understanding of this and this is this is a very critical letter that Paul wrote because it speaks to as I said before it speaks to the condition that we find ourselves in today I get lots of questions by email and a lot of the questions that people are asking me would be answered if they would simply go to the book of Galatians and you'll see what I'm talking about as we go on but let me give you a little introduction here about the book of Galatians and please understand folks when when Paul was writing these letters to churches he did not write in chapter and verse he did not realize he was writing scripture for us 2,000 years later he just wrote one continuous letter it was from his heart and so the the chapters and verses are added for our convenience they're not inspired but it helps us to find and to locate particular passages but keep in mind when Paul is writing he is not writing chapter one he is that is something that we added in that man added in the translators added as a a matter of convenience to us who are reading so what is the background of the book of Galatians well it's one of the one of the first it's not it's not the first but it's one of the earlier epistles that Paul wrote and basically here's the situation Paul had gone through the province of Galatia and he had preached Jesus and as you read through the book of Acts you'll you'll see the evidence for this that Paul preached Jesus some people believe some people did not believe the ones who believed were disciples and before you know it there was a church Paul did not go out to plant churches now see this is one of the problems we're going to have as we endeavor by the grace of God to go through each chapter one chapter at a time is something strikes me and I just want to go out in that direction is it's going to take discipline to keep me on this chapter-by-chapter study of the word but basically and this is a topic for another discussion Paul did not plant churches he preached Jesus that's a whole nother message but he preached Jesus and when people believed into Jesus they became disciples of Jesus and Jesus gathered them together and all of a sudden there was a church that that's another message altogether because I know planting churches is a is a big thing and I'm here to tell you Paul did not plant churches he planted Christ his object was not to see the church grow but to see Christ increased and as you are in union with him obviously you're going to grow spiritually because he's going to increase in you and spiritual growth is less of you and more of him but one of these letters is Galatians the epistle of Paul to the Galatians was a letter written back to these churches that he had that he had seen birthed out of the Holy Spirit making disciples for Jesus and then Jesus gathered them together into his ecclesia the church Galatia was a province and so there were many gatherings of disciples in that province and it what you need to understand is that Galatia was a Gentile province these Christians were Gentiles they were not Jews Paul was known as the Apostle to the Gentiles and these Christians that Paul is writing to they were Gentiles in other words they were not Jewish now Paul was Jewish until he met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus and without realizing it that was the beginning of the end of his career in the Jewish religion just as when I met the Lord Jesus that was the beginning of the end of my career in organized religion it just seems to happen that way when you meet the Lord and you have that encounter with him your life is different there's going to be a change and so it happened to Paul and Paul traveled north from Jerusalem he went through Asia Minor the provinces there Galatia was one of those he preached Jesus and they believed okay now the situation behind this letter is this after Paul preached Jesus got them started and they begin to grow then Paul left them and went on as the Holy Spirit led him to other parts of the world he got a report that some some of the people from Jerusalem some of the Jewish Christians had gone through and gone behind where Paul had just left and was teaching them that they needed to be circumcised now what is the significance of that well basically they were trying to convince the Galatian Christians that having Jesus is good but if you really want to please God here is this set of Jewish laws that you need to obey and you know this is this will make you more spiritual this will bring you into the the inner sanctum so to speak and so basically they were taking these people who believed in Jesus and they were trying to get them to convert over into a Jewish Christian type of a of a relationship with God now that's that's really giving it a bottom-line analysis that's just so you can by way of introduction know what we're talking about when we start reading through these chapters and why Paul is compelled by the Holy Spirit to bring some correction here and so that's that's your introduction to the book of Galatians the problem is these Christians had come to the Lord Jesus and now people are coming in behind Paul and adding to the gospel of Jesus Christ adding to salvation by grace through faith adding to the cross of Jesus Christ and saying what now that you're saved now that you're Christians now that you believe in Jesus here are all these Old Testament laws you don't know anything about because you're a Gentile we don't expect you to know them but now that you're a Christian now that you believe in Jesus you need to start living according to the law of Moses and and this Paul had this problem out of the out of the Jews from Jerusalem all the time and so he's going to address the situation here in the book of Galatians and you know it's it is I see it happening today folks I see the same thing happening when you take people who have been saved by grace filled with the Holy Spirit trusting in the Lord Jesus walking after him and then here comes someone some religious person it it could be any one of a number of different denominations or religious flavors and he's come along and say that's good that's well and fine but here's something else you need to do and then they try to lay the law on them and say you know to this is still for today you need to obey this and really they don't have a good understanding of all that Jesus did and they don't really understand all that is meant by Jesus being our high priest being the mediator and the establisher of a new covenant a better covenant established on better promises we when we get into the book of Hebrews you can see all of this for yourself but a lot of our questions as to are we supposed to obey the law what part of the law is valid for today what about this and what what about tithing what about Sabbath days all these are major questions for people and these questions would be answered if they would read the book of Galatians and the book of Hebrews just those two books of the Bible of course you could read Romans and get come to the same conclusion you could read Colossians and come to the same conclusion but if you just read Galatians and read Hebrews all those questions would be answered and what would happen if you would really open your mind as you would see Jesus increased you would see him so enlarged that you would say you know what I just he has done so much he has established such a greater such a better covenant than what we had before I just I can't go back to it and that's what happened to Paul that's precisely what happened to Paul he's more religious than you would ever be he was more of a Jew than you would ever be he was more righteous according to the law than you and I will ever be but when he met Jesus Christ that was the end of that he says I counted all loss in in Philippians he says you know I was I was this and that in the Jews religion I was a Hebrew the Hebrews and I was of the tribe of Benjamin and I was of the Pharisees a strictest sect of the of the religious leadership and all these things that that Paul was all the things that Paul had in the in the Jewish religion before Jesus and after Jesus he says you know what I count all of that as loss I counted all is done all of it even you know the religious stuff keeping the law the Torah the observance of Sabbath and New Moon and all the festivals what how was he able to do that because he saw that Christ fulfilled them all and that they were all summed up into Jesus and in in 30 minutes it's impossible for me to convince you of that if you were really into that kind of thing I hope that you'll tune in next week and I hope that you'll stick around and listen because it will change your life and all I'm trying to do here is just enlarge Jesus I'm trying to increase him I want him to be magnified I don't want any religious system for better or for worse it could be good it could be bad it could be neutral for all I'm concerned but I don't want any of that to take the place of Jesus Christ in your life he must increase he must be larger and larger and he is larger than that system of religion someone greater than Solomon is here folks someone greater than Moses is here someone greater than Abraham is here someone greater and he is the Lord Jesus and so this is the situation for Paul writing to the Galatians and so I encourage you this week see my times already gone I mean you know the same thing happens here as happens in real life we did the school of Christ a couple of weeks ago in Wilson North Carolina and I had all the material I wanted to cover and and we were supposed to get out of there it's six o'clock and we didn't get finished until after eight o'clock and I was so embarrassed that we didn't finish on time but see that's what happens is there's so much to this word and and I just hope that you will this week pray just pray and if you want to join us in Galatians you've got the introduction today I hope this kind of gets you excited get your your wheels spinning and what why don't you this week maybe read through the book of Galatians it's only six chapters and you can read it through and probably 15-20 minutes at a real leisurely rate but why don't you read through that book and then when we come back next week we will begin our study actually verse-by-verse chapter-by-chapter with Galatians chapter 1 so we'll leave it at that until next time this is Chip Brogdon thank you again for tuning in if you'd like to get a copy of today's broadcast on compact dish you can or you can wait until we're finished with the series and get the series all at once or if you prefer you can just download and listen to it here on the website we love you God bless you send emails to us info at watchman.net or just go to the website use the feedback form www.watchman.net