Well, if you would, turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 11, as we will revisit this passage we began last week. We've got partway through. 2 Corinthians 11 in our scripture readings, the first 15 verses. Following the reading of scripture, we'll sing together the glory of Padre. Please stand together for the reading of the word. I hope you will put up with a little of my foolishness, but you are already doing that. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those super apostles. I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge. And we have made this perfectly clear to you in every way. Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you. And when I was with you and needed something, I was not a burden to anyone. For the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied what I needed. I have kept myself from being a burden to you in any way and will continue to do so. As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, nobody in the regions of Achaia will stop this boasting of mine. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do. And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising then that if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness, their end will be what their actions deserve. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. Paul in chapter 11 here is beginning to defend himself, which he really doesn't want to do, but he's been kind of forced into it because of the opponents that were against him and some of their criticisms, and particularly because of the danger to the church that he sees. And the first six verses, which we looked at last week, are his passionate plea to the Corinthians and his fear for them. He begins in verse 1 simply saying, well, I hope that you'll put up with what I have to say, with my boasting. And he says, well, they're already doing it. So he's pleading with them for patience to hear what he has to say. In verse 2, he talks about he had betrothed them as a bride to one husband, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul here pictures himself as a father who's engaged his daughter to the greatest of all husbands. The Lord Jesus Christ, here is the servant who helped plant the church, but he had a great fear about her, which he talks about in verse 3. He says, but I'm afraid for you. I'm afraid for you because just as, I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, that your minds will be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. So he's afraid for them of what might happen to them that Satan and his deception, Satan's a liar, he can't tell you the truth. He parades fine sounding things in false garb that he's a liar and the father of liars. He's cunning and the idea in the word cunning is that he presents this manifold plate of goodies to you that look great, that look wonderful but none of it's real and none of it's true. that through his deception and his cunning, he will lead you astray and has a very negative connotation. It's not just leading you, it's leading you into destruction. And he's leading you astray or away from your sincere. And last week, I showed the kids pictures that were folded over. The idea of being sincere is a sheet of paper that's open, It's not nothing's hidden, but your devotion to the Lord is open and it's also, as it says here, pure. That is, there's nothing hidden about it. You don't know any... any distraction with loves of another kind, but your love is complete and pure and devoted to Christ. There's nothing getting in the way. And what he's afraid for this church is that by hearing these false apostles, they're going to be led away from their one husband, Jesus Christ. And he has great concern for them. And he goes on to say, if anyone comes to you in the coming, they're forcing themselves on there. And if they preach a Jesus other than the one I've preached, in Galatians he would say, let them be accursed. Here he's using, the wording of what he's trying to say here is to bring up there the fact that, well, they're putting up with this. Don't put up with this. Don't allow it. Don't hear about a Jesus other than the one I preach. Don't receive a spirit other than the one you receive from me. Don't listen to a gospel than the one you've heard from me. And just as today, there are many different Jesuses that are preached. There's the legalistic Jesus. It's believe in Jesus, but do something else. You add something to belief, your works. There's the antinomian Jesus. Believe in Jesus and then live however you want. Do whatever pleases you. There's the Jesus who's only love. They preach a Christ who never gets angry, who has no standards, who he's just peace and love all the time. And they get scandalized when he throws the money changers out of the temple or pronounces woes on the Pharisees. There's the Jesus is preached today that brings no pain into your life. No difficulties. He wants you to be prosperous and happy and have no trouble at all. And if you just have enough faith, you will not get sick, you'll have more money than you can possibly need, and everything will go well. That's not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible is one who dies on a cross and he says, if you want to come and follow me, you will take up your cross and come after me. So Paul is afraid that they're going to abandon the Christ that they've come to know and take another Christ. A couple different quotes I read last week. In some churches today, it doesn't really matter what the preacher says, provided he is animated and smiles frequently. Or as the DA Carson commenting on this text says, we like to have our Christianity shaped less by the cross than by triumphalism or rules or charismatic leaders or subjective experience. And any gospel that preaches to you a crossless Christ is a false gospel. Paul determined among the Corinthians to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. If that's not the gospel you embraced, it's a false gospel. Christ crucified is the key element and the key piece. Well, to continue on in this passage, Paul does two more things. One is he makes a defense of his ministry, which we'll look at briefly, and then he comes back to say some harsh things against these false apostles. So beginning in verse 5, he talks about, he says, I don't think I'm in the least inferior to those super apostles. Well, there's a lot of sarcasm going on here. These false apostles, they consider themselves the real apostles. quite unlike Paul. He wasn't talking about his super apostles, the twelve. He was talking about these pretenders who came and said, now we're the real apostles and you need to listen to us. And Paul says, I'm not in the least inferior to them. I may not be a trained speaker and what he means by that is I may not give myself over to the lofty rhetoric of the sophists of that day to gain a crowd and to gain a hearing, but he says, but I do have knowledge." In other words, Paul has biblical truth, solid content. The truth is in Paul. He doesn't have to pretend to be an exalted speaker. He just is bringing you the truth. That's what will change your life. That's what you can build your life upon. Another quote, the man who has nothing to say but says it well, is still a man who has nothing to say. And that's what Paul point Paul is. I'm a man who has something to say and you need to hear it, whether I say it in the fancy way that the others do or not. He goes on in defending himself, talking about his freedom to preach the gospel to them without charge. He said, did I sin against you to preach to you without asking for payment? One of the criticisms you see he was getting was that his critics were saying, well, if Paul isn't taking money from you, then he must not think of you very highly or he must not be very good because you get what you pay for. So if you don't pay anything, then you're getting nothing. And he's using sarcasm to kind of throw that back in their faces and say, well, did I sin against you to not to charge you? No, I'm robbing, and here again is some more sarcasm and irony, I'm robbing other churches so that I can serve you. And the Macedonian Christians gave their money to support Paul with no strings attached. The Corinthians, they would have given money, but they would say, well, we paid the piper, now play a song that we want to hear. The Macedonian Christians said, Paul, here's the money, go serve Christ and preach Christ. And he did. And he wasn't willing to accept their money and compromise the gospel, but he would preach the gospel without charge to them. to give them the full truth about Jesus Christ. And he says, and I'm going to continue to do this. And another one of his criticisms, as he brings out in verses 10 and 11, I'm not going to stop this boasting and no one can contradict this boasting. And he says, why? Because I don't love you. Well, that was one of the criticisms that he had received, too, that, well, if Paul really loved you, he must not think much of you if he's not going to accept your money. And he says, Is it because I don't love you that I'm preaching the gospel without charge? No. God knows I do love you. It has nothing to do with that affection for them. And he says, and I'm going to continue to do this so that my rivals will be seen for what they are, money-grabbing speakers. Basically, he's throwing up to the Corinthians, is it self-promotion or self-abasement? Which is most Christ-like? Is exalting yourself most Christ-like or is humbling yourself most Christ-like? You decide. and he had told them earlier, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich. Who was really the Christ-like servant? Was it these super apostles or was it Christ? So he's defending his ministry and defending his privilege to preach to them the gospel and then he comes back in this portion to give a most severe rebuke of his opponents. In the first section, he's really speaking to the Corinthians themselves about his fear for them being led astray. In the middle part, he's defending the right he has to minister in the way he has. But here, he's turning his message to those super apostles. And in the most severe language, it's very similar to Christ against the Pharisees. He speaks to them and he gives them sound rebuke. In verse 13 he says, such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. Now these men who were preaching a false Christ. These weren't sincere men who were trying to serve God but didn't like Paul. Paul very well put up with criticism as long as Christ was preached. Turn to Philippians chapter 1 for just a moment so that you can see that this this point is true. His criticisms of these men are not because they didn't like Paul or that they made fun of Paul or were critical of him. That's not at all what he was getting at. And you see this very clearly in Philippians chapter 1 beginning at verse 15. He's just talked about he's in chains because he's speaking the Word of God. And at verse 15 he says, It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. So we'll continue here in a moment. So you see there's two different There's those who are preaching and they're loving Paul and supportive of Paul even though he happens to be in prison. And then there are other people who are preaching thinking, aha, Paul is out of the way. Now, we can take the prominence and we can preach and we can say, kind of ridicule Paul along the way. And in verse 18, he continues, but what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached, and because of this, I rejoice, yes, and I will continue to rejoice. You see, I'm not saying Paul liked to be ridiculed or criticized. No one really likes that. But it didn't matter to Paul whether these opponents in Corinth were making fun of him or critical of him or didn't thought he was a bad speaker. It really didn't matter at all what they were saying about him. That was irrelevant to him. It didn't matter. The problem was they were preaching a false Christ. They weren't preaching the gospel. They weren't preaching the truth. Like you said in Philippians 1, it doesn't matter. What matters is that Christ is preached and in this, they will rejoice. And so here in 2 Corinthians, he's calling, saying these men are false apostles. They're deceitful workmen. They're masquerading as apostles of Christ. And he goes on to say, and no wonder for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It's not surprising then that if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness, what a scathing denunciation of them. He's calling these people children and servants of Satan. Now, if you were one of them, you would think if anything would wake you up and make you evaluate what you were doing, hopefully that would. But if you're going on in your arrogance, maybe you would just reject it and turn away from it. But Paul's statement here helps us to appreciate the fact that oftentimes the most dangerous people in the spiritual landscape are not those who are outwardly opposing the gospel. The atheist is of real no concern to us. You wonder why they get mad if they don't believe God exists. Why in the world do they even worry about it? I mean, they should really just go on. Why do they spend money on billboards criticizing Christianity? I mean, it's really kind of a waste of money, isn't it? They don't even believe He exists. It's not the atheist. It's not the hostile person. It's not the enemy of the truth that is really our, that's the danger. It's the ones who masquerade as our friends, who masquerade as those who are teaching the truth. But they don't. At least they don't teach you the whole truth. There was a very well-known TV preacher who's passed away, and I could tell you his name, but I really don't want to get into that for the moment. I want you to hear the point. And I remember reading about a conversation someone had with him and asked him, you know, why he didn't preach about sin. He said, I don't want to talk about that because it's depressing. It's discouraging to people. But he's preaching a false Christ if he doesn't preach on sin. Because when the angel went to Mary and Joseph and said, she will have a son and she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus, He didn't, the angel didn't go on to say because he will give them an easy life, he will save them from sickness, he will save them from hard circumstances, he'll deliver them from poverty. He said, you will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sin. Sin is our problem. Sin is what contaminates our lives and brings us trouble. It's not circumstances that will overwhelm us, it's unforgiven sin. Jesus Christ came to forgive us for our sin, to deliver us from that. And any Christ that is preached that doesn't give that message is a false Christ. It's missing a crucial element of truth. And Paul ends regarding these people that their end, actions, their end will be what their actions deserve. Jesus said of those who would cause one of his little ones to stumble that it would be better if a millstone were hung around their necks and they were drowned in the depths of the sea. They're going to receive the consequences of their own actions and their end will be dreadful. So Paul and his passionate A plea to you is to not be led astray, not to be drawn aside from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. But to turn a deaf ear to these false apostles who presented a gospel different than the one he presented, a Jesus different than the one he presented. But beloved, may you and I hold fast to Christ himself, Christ crucified, and find our hope in Him, in Him alone. Amen. Let us pray. Father in Heaven, we do thank You for the clarity of Your truth, the warnings that Paul gives us here so that we might be alert to any compromises of the truth, that we might hear the message of the Gospel in its clarity, and hold fast to that and find in Jesus Christ our hope and our peace that will last forever. May you, O Lord, make this place a place where Christ is preached in His fullness, and may we embrace that with all of our heart and not be led astray to some other Christ, but to hold fast to Him. May you be glorified through this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Following the benediction, we'll sing hymn number 580. If you want to turn there, 580, lead on of King Eternal. Dearly beloved, please stand for the benediction. Beloved, now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before his presence with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory, majesty, dominion, and power now and forevermore. Amen.