Please take your Bibles and turn in them to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. If you found your place in the Scriptures, please now stand with me for the reading of God's Word in 2 Corinthians 11, 1 through 4. Hear the Word of the Lord. spoken through the Apostle Paul. I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning Your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Let's pray. Our Fathers, we come to this text of Scripture this morning. We want to ask that you are at work in a powerful way we thank you for the fact that you have inspired this word and even as the Apostle Paul was writing it as a letter we understand the work of the Holy Spirit overshadowing and working through him so that what he wrote is your word even to the Corinthians, and even as we look at its context today, even to us. And so we pray for clarity of mind and the ability to comprehend with our minds and understandings this word that was spoken then, but also what it says to us as those of us who are believers in Christ, as well as those of us who've come into this room this morning. who do not trust in Christ and have not come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. And we pray that as the word is explained and as it is proclaimed this morning that the power of God would be manifest in the person of the Holy Spirit in conviction, in encouragement Lord in consoling our hearts and giving us comfort assurance and fueling us for the walk of grace that you've called us to walk and and even as opportunities come before us this week to share with others Christ to share with others the magnificence and the wonder of what he's done in our hearts and lives we pray that you would fill us up so that we just overflow with joy as we consider the truth, and with confidence as we consider what Christ has done, and with zeal as we consider who it is we are as a church and to whom we've been committed. And so we pray that you will work all these things in our hearts and lives and we ask it in Christ Jesus' name. Amen. may be seated. And what you see this morning at the very outset of this text is Paul pleading that the Corinthians would bear with him in a little foolishness. This morning's text is the threshold of a section in which Paul is about to speak in ways and say things that he normally would rather not do. Without good reason, he considers the things he's about to say to be foolish. That's why he says, bear with me in a little foolishness. It's like, I would not normally tread on this ground, but because the situation calls for it, requires it, and demands it, I'm going to. So I'm asking you from the outset to please put up with me. This is not the way I'd like to usually speak, but I'm going to have to in this section. Paul is certainly not trying to make much of himself in a prideful sort of way. but he will be demonstrating the validity of his apostleship and he will be putting forth for the Corinthians a basis upon which they should out and out reject the invading teachers at Corinth and be completely and steadfastly devoted to him. So at the threshold to those things that he is going to say Paul is explaining why he is willing to stoop to this level. Something so important is at stake that he must speak up. And the thing that is so important is the purity of the devotion of the church in Corinth to Jesus Christ. And there are two matters here that drive Paul's determination to protect that purity. one is jealousy and the other is fear the one is a is a jealousy and he calls it a divine jealousy and the other is a fear that he feels is a legitimate fear it's a concern that he has in regard to these Corinthians so let's look at each of these things on the one hand fear or on the one hand the jealousy and on the other hand the fear these things that are driving him to to speak in a way that he normally would not So first of all let's look at the jealousy Paul calls it in verse 2 a divine jealousy. Paul in these verses likens himself to the father of a bride which has been betrothed to her husband. Jewish marriage customs in the New Testament culture began with betrothal. it was a period of time usually lasting a year or so in which the bride and the groom were set apart to one another and committed to one another as husband and wife for all intents and purposes they were married although for this year or so this betrothal period they did not live together nor did they consummate the marriage Generally, the groom spent the betrothal period preparing the home in which they would live and preparing for the wedding ceremony. And the only way that the betrothal could be canceled or could be broken was by death or divorce. Unfaithfulness during this time was adultery as much as at any other. It was the responsibility then of the father of the bride to protect her and to keep her and to ensure her fidelity so that when the groom came to receive the bride, the father would present to the husband a pure virgin as he came to escort her to the wedding ceremony and the feast. Now this understanding helps us sympathize with Joseph as the two were betrothed to one another. As we get to this season of the year we are thinking about the birth of Jesus and we are thinking about the amazing miraculous way in which it took place. We can also think for a moment about the unusual way in which this came about and how it had to have affected Joseph. The news came to him during this betrothal period that Mary was found to be with child. We can imagine how devastating that must have been. It could mean only one thing under normal conditions, her unfaithfulness. So Joseph As the Scriptures say, being a merciful man, determined not to put Mary to open shame, but decided to divorce her quietly. That was the way he would have to deal with this because the explanation was clear. However, these were anything but normal conditions. The Scriptures tell us the child was not the result of infidelity on Mary's part, but this is the work of the Holy Spirit and so the angel urges Joseph to take her unto himself to marry her and to name the child Jesus because he would save his people from their sins. So here we see how this betrothal period, how important it was and Paul is now drawing on this whole image of this betrothal period as he reflects on how he came to the Corinthians. And Paul is reminding them of his arrival and how he came preaching the gospel to the Corinthians and called them to trust in Christ. And as they believed in Jesus, they became part of the bride of Christ. And Paul sees himself, therefore, as the gospel preacher and the one that brought the truth to them, the one under whose preaching they came to Christ. He sees himself as like the father of the bride, the one who is to ensure the fidelity of the bride. for the one, the husband, that's going to come. So that when Jesus comes, Paul will in essence be able to present the bride to Christ. So he had this charge, he felt, to guard the bride, to protect and preserve her in order to present her to Christ in all purity at his coming. thinking about this betrothal picture and how Paul brings it into focus and involves that as an image to help instruct the Corinthians, we're just reminded how beautifully this betrothal picture declares to us the glorious news of the gospel. All who believe have something to understand and appreciate as we think about this betrothal period and about the nature of betrothal in general. We think about ourselves. If we are believing in Jesus, then we have been set apart to Him, we have been made a part of His bride, and we are betrothed to Him. And how did we get here? By nature every human being is a child of corruption, a vessel of impurity and infidelity by our sins. We in effect are a prostitute who has sold our soul to sin. But Jesus is like the Old Testament prophet Hosea. Hosea married a woman who became a prostitute and she was unfaithful to him and heaped up to herself multitudes of other lovers but in the end Hosea loved her and bought her back for himself. Even so, Christ came. to buy for himself his bride, to give his life as a ransom for an unfaithful bride, to have an unworthy bride to be the object of his lavish mercy. Born of the Virgin Mary, he lived a life in complete obedience to the will of the Father. He gave himself up for her on Calvary's cross as a substitute for the punishment she deserved and in order to make her pure and beautiful and spotless and altogether lovely for himself. And everyone who will repent of sin and trust in Jesus becomes a part of this lovely bride that Jesus is making ready for Himself. Betrothed to Him, to await His return, His coming to us to bring us home forever to be with Him there Some in this room, you're not attached to Christ, you're not a follower of Jesus, you don't care much about this whole thing of God that's becoming so much more prevalent in our world today. The people though who aren't brought into fellowship with Christ and aren't carried away with him as his bride are all going to be under eternal punishment in the outer darkness the picture that Jesus gives in his parable of the those who come into the wedding and then there are those who are shut out into the outer darkness where there is weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth the reality is if you if you're not united with Christ and declared by his death righteous and holy and acceptable to God then you're completely unholy and unacceptable to God And your sin requires divine punishment. And the pictures in the Scriptures that we have of punishment, the kind of punishment that is deserved by those, by sinners, all of us deserve this punishment. It is unspeakable punishment of eternal nature and torment. And so the options are pretty clear. Either become the bride of Jesus through faith in Him, a part of that bride, or either reject Him and forever be separated from Him even unto an eternal hell. And so the call that I have to put before you, even this morning, when we think about the beauty of this gospel, is if you are a believer, oh, how to rejoice in your groom and your husband that you've been betrothed to. And if you haven't come, then hear the call of him to you today saying, come. Come and leave the world and leave the entrapments and leave your rebellion against God to be forgiven of all of your iniquities and all your sins and having all that washed away and wiped away and be made pure in Him and have Him for your Lord and your King. There's no more obvious choice in all the world. And there is no more urgent choice in all the world than hearing this good news to latch hold of it and to latch hold of the one that it upholds to Jesus become His, to take up your cross daily and follow Him. But Paul here sees himself as the one who betrothed this church to Christ. He preached, He proclaimed the good news, and so He is earnestly jealous to be able to present this bride to Christ, faithful, when He comes. He is jealous with a jealousy from God. His jealousy, for example, is on behalf of God. He wants to fulfill the whole purpose and plan for which God has saved these people. and set them apart for His Son. This is, he calls, a divine jealousy, a godly jealousy. The kind of jealousy, therefore, that is right. A kind of jealousy that in and of itself is perfect and pure and acceptable, in fact, is altogether appropriate. It is demanded on behalf of Pauly Fields that he be jealous in this sense. Now, when we use the word jealous, of course, we usually think of fleshly, selfish envy. We want what belongs to someone else. We wish we had their stuff, their circumstances, their recognition, their affection, their fame. Jealousy is born out of love for self. But Paul is not using the word that way here. He is speaking of a godly jealousy. A jealousy that is only right for God to have and that it is completely right and holy for Him to have. It's impossible, if you think about it, for God to be jealous. I mean, for God to be jealous in a wrong way. It is perfectly right for God to be jealous, but it is impossible for God to be jealous in the way that we are. It's because of His nature, but it's also because of the nature of things. It's impossible for God to desire what belongs to another. It's all His. The reason that it's impossible for God to desire what belongs to another is because everything belongs to Him. The universe is His. He made it. He brought it into existence. Hence everything in the universe belongs to Him and He is worthy of it. He doesn't wish for anything that He should not have or that is not His because it's all His. And not only the stuff and the things of creation but the praise of creation and the worship and the affection of the world belong to Him. It is only right that he should receive glory and honor. It is only right that his name and only his name should be lifted up and exalted. It is only right that he should be loved, heart, soul, mind, strength. God is jealous. It is written in Exodus 20 verse 5. you shall not bow down to carved images, or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. In Exodus 34, 14 the Lord declares you shall worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God. And when God's people commit the adulterous act of worshiping idols, they arouse his jealousy. Psalm 78 verse 58 says, God's people provoked him to anger with their high places, they moved him to jealousy with their idols. So the jealousy of God is righteous. He is the only God there is. All others are false fakes and substitutes for Him and any homage given to them is what should be given to Him. It's never sullied. The jealousy of God is never sullied in the least. It's wrong when anyone is adored rather than God. It is wrong when anything is trusted rather than God. It is wrong when obedience is yielded to someone else, something else in disobedience. to God. It is right that God is loved with all our heart and soul and mind. This jealousy right here is what Paul says is filling his heart as he is writing to the Corinthians and thinking about their circumstances as he is about to say things He normally wouldn't say part of the reason he is going to go ahead and speak them here is because he is filled in his heart with a jealousy that is the jealousy of God. He is jealous for what belongs to God, to go to God. He is jealous for what belongs to Jesus Christ to go to Jesus Christ. Christ is worthy that the bride betrothed by Paul to Christ love him, that she serve him, and that she adore him with complete purity. Now one of the things for you and me as we think about Paul saying this about the people there in Corinth and talking about his jealousy and talking about this whole betrothal thing is that we need to think of ourselves, every Christian, everyone who has bowed the knee to Christ in faith and repentance, everyone who has taken up their cross and following Him, every Christian needs to see ourselves in this way as those who are betrothed to Christ. We have been pledged to Him. we have been set apart to him we are awaiting his return we are awaiting him to do what he said he would do when he said to his disciples behold in my father's house are many dwelling places I'm going to prepare a place for you and I will come back and receive you to myself and there you will be with me where I am He is the groom who is going to come and get his bride. We are waiting for Him to come and take us home. But we're not just waiting, not just doing nothing, until then we have a lot of work to do. I mean everybody's thinking about all you've got to do between now and the 25th of December, I imagine. At our house it's like a colossal, chaotic, when we look at all of the things that are going to happen in our family in the next three weeks, it's like Wow, how did this work out this way? Graduations and rehearsals and weddings and oh yeah Christmas and all that stuff and all these things that need to be accomplished. That is the way it is for us every day of our lives if we understand the end for which we're all looking. The return of Christ to be found as a beautiful bride, waiting and looking for His coming, purified, having sin trounced in our life, having the impurities removed, having a heart that is just steadfastly waiting and longing for Him. And that has been in an effort to tell the whole world about how great this husband is that she is joined to. How great a Savior he is and how they can come and be a part of this bride as well. We have got so much work to do. This is the work of pursuing sanctification, growing in holiness and purity. Those of you who are a dating age, do you remember your first date? Doubtless, you young ladies spent more than a couple minutes getting dressed and all ready for that young man to come pick you up. And guys, you may not have spent the same amount of time, but I imagine you put more into it than usual, hair combed if never before, and perhaps some cologne as you never wore before. And this to say nothing of that wedding day, if you're married, if you've been married, the bride wants to be her absolute best, and so does the groom, and no small amount of time is spent in preparing for that event, that moment when she comes to the aisle, and that moment when the husband sees her, and that moment when they clasp hands and look into each other's eyes. The bride wants to be her absolute best. Every day between now and the return of Jesus is a day for us to pursue being ready to greet Him. We need to have a divine jealousy ourselves for being the pure bride who has been betrothed to Christ. We need to pursue purity in every square inch of who we are. And that means purity in mind. That means purity in belief. And that means purity in body. And that, by the way, something we need to say because of the society in which we live, that includes sexuality. Our culture is obsessed with sexuality. And it's desire, if you didn't already know this, right, it's desire is to normalize all sexual expression. Whatever you want to do, do it and it's right and the objective, everybody else should look upon you and affirm you whatever you do. That's just the way, in other words, this is the nature of sinners. We want to pursue what we want, and we want the world to tell us how good we are while we're doing it. Because the last thing that we want in the world is to stand before God or have any sense that we're guilty by just, you know, this is people's rationale for sin. I was born this way. Yeah, and that's true. We're born sinners. But that does not change the fact that God has given commands. That the God who made us has given commands. And He said, this is the way you ought to live. The essence of sin is saying, no God, not your way, my way. And if you won't tell me I'm okay, I'm going to go to the whole world and get the world to tell me I'm okay. Because we all want to do our thing. And we don't want this guilt stuff that comes with doing wrong and sinning. And so we live in a world like this. That's something that's pretty obvious to us. The problem is living in a world like this causes us to lower our sense and our understanding and our stance of what is it that God has said is right. And so sexuality has just been thrown out into the garbage pit. The perfect, beautiful, wonderful gift that God gave His being constantly abused and people who say that they're believers and Christians trounced it underfoot just as much as anybody else in our day and time. Refusing to see God's guidelines for the enjoyment of this precious gift. The Bible stands clear as ever. God's wonderful gift of sex is given by him to be enjoyed in the context of marriage. one man and one woman. Outside that context, sexual expression is immoral. Those who practice sexual immorality defy God, disobey God, and refuse to appreciate the gift the way that he gave it. And it is sin. It is wrong. And we must be jealous for purity. And we need to understand the seriousness about which the scriptures speak to this issue of sexuality. Because Paul declares no less than two times unequivocally that those who practice sexual immorality will not inherit the kingdom of God. That's how serious it is. Sexual immorality then displays such a defiant heart against God that it declares even of those who say they belong to him that in fact they do not. That's how serious this matter is. And so as a result, bringing this together with this understanding of betrothal and jealousy and purity and sanctification, we must be jealous therefore for the purity of the church. We must make clear God's teaching on sex and enforce it upon ourselves. In fact, submit to this in our hearts and lives and enjoy God's good gift. We need to pursue purity in every square inch of our lives. And that's just one area. I thought I needed to camp out on that because I can't remember the last time when I did. and living in a world where the devil is constantly saying everything's okay do what you want and it's every human being's obligation to affirm you in that we have to speak opposed to that we have to speak it clearly and we have to let it be known we are speaking not what we have invented for ourselves but what does the Bible say and so submitting and being zealous and jealous for ourselves as a bride means we need to be jealous for this thing of purity in body but also in our minds this means purity of thoughts it's not just what we do it's also what we think and our actions spring out of our thoughts we've got to guard the seedbed of our actions by cultivating pure meditations purity of thought means taking every one of these thoughts captive to obey Christ it reaches not only to imaginations but also to affirmations that is not only what we indulge in and think about in our minds in terms of circumstances and events but also the truths the bedrock truths that we affirm in our hearts and minds to be true that our heart is knit together with that we stand upon as upon a foundation and This purity of thought then involves affirming what is true and it means rejecting what is false. And this is the very direction in which Paul is headed as he continues in this verse moving from talking about this divine jealousy then to also talking about a legitimate fear that he has in regards to the Corinthians. Paul felt a strong responsibility in regard to the Corinthians because he had betrothed them to Christ. But he also experienced a fear that these Corinthians might be led astray from the purity of their devotion to him. And he was afraid that they might be led astray in the same way that Eve had been led astray by the serpent in the garden, in the same way that Eve had been deceived by the serpent. This was a legitimate fear for two reasons. 1. Paul knows the devil. And that's one reason why this is a legitimate fear and concern that he has. He knows the devil. He knows what the devil does. And so he's concerned about what the devil might do. And it's also a concern of his because he sees what's going on in Corinth and there is tolerance for the devil. There is tolerance in this church. They're so tolerant that they're accepting and welcoming of people who are not preaching the truth. And so he says, these two things come together to be a great concern to me and show me that this is why I'm concerned and why I have a legitimate fear, because you might become like a victim like Eve was in the garden. Yes, the devil is a real threat. The devil is a real threat to every human being in the whole wide world but he is certainly a threat that every Christian faces as well. He is a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He is a schemer. He is a deceiver and he is cunning. And so Paul says that he is afraid that the Corinthians might be led astray just as the devil led Eve astray in the garden. Now let's think back then to Genesis 3 for just a moment. It's amazing how many times we go back to those first chapters of the Bible. So much is there. In the third chapter we have this explanation of what happened on the day that humanity fell from innocence to sinfulness, from fellowship with God to antagonism against God. And what we see is a scheme of the devil that was successful. we need to understand as we think about the devil how he works and we see in Genesis 3 here is his game plan God's instruction was unmistakably clear one one instruction by which he gave Adam and Eve to live and of which he warned them if they didn't do this they would die and that was this Adam and Eve eat from any tree that is in the garden but one One is off limits. Everything else is not. And this is your life's command. Don't eat of that one tree, but everything else eat of. That's unmistakable clarity. But Satan, in his extreme cunningness, he starts with getting Eve to listen to some voice other than the voice of God and the voice of the man that God had put her in the garden with. What does he do? He speaks through a serpent. Now that would certainly excite the senses and get attention. A talking snake. You've got to turn and see what's going on here. And Eve began to listen. Satan spoke to her through a serpent. And even in the Garden of Eden the animals were not created to speak. So the next step then was for Satan to misrepresent what God had said in such a way as to raise suspicions about his goodness. Did God actually say, you can't eat of any of the trees in the garden? Well that was not what God said but this is a good way for Satan to come across because he is seen as the one who is really looking out for Eve's enjoyments. He's the one who has her best interest at heart. He wants her to have everything she's got coming to her. Did God actually say you can't? Of course, he said that's not what he said. He just gave us one tree that we can't eat of. But she's already on the hook. Because she's engaged in a conversation with one who is going to eat her alive. And she is reasoning with him on his level. He has gotten her trust because he proves to her that he wants what is good for her and sees somebody else out there that might possibly have kept something from her that wouldn't be for her well-being. So the woman was drawn into the conversation and then Satan gives this out and out lie Oh, we can eat of any of the trees, but if we eat of that one in the middle, we'll die. Oh, you will not die. God only knows. God only knows that when you eat of that tree, you'll be like Him. He is a rascal. That God is a rascal. He doesn't want you to be everything that He is. That is exactly Is this not the heart of Satan? He does consider God a rascal because God would not let Satan be God and that's why he's Satan. That's why he has a rebellious heart against God and that is what he wants us to think too. Only preventing you, God, this God is only preventing you from being all you can be and enjoying all you can enjoy. Eve was deceived. She believed the lie and got the head of the human race to join her in her sin. But how did this happen? The devil is a schemer. And here's his scheme. Get the woman's attention. He did that with a talking snake. Get the woman's ear. He did that with a question. Get the woman's trust. He did that with appearing to be more concerned about her well-being than God. And get the woman's mind. Give her a lie and then you've got the woman's heart. This is the scheme he's going to follow with the church. This is Paul saying to the Corinthians, I fear for you lest you be deceived as Eve was deceived. The devil lures and then he lies. And the way to believing his lies starts as simply as giving him your ear, listening to him. Peter says that the way to resist the devil is to be firm in your faith, fully assured of the truth, that you've got to be anchored in that. You don't carry on conversations with liars whose desire is to pull you away from that. Being firm in the truth and refusing to believe the lies are the way that we resist. and remain steadfast. The only way not to be deceived is to know the truth and be committed to the truth and run when you hear lies. Speak the truth. Paul was a legitimate fear because of the nature of the devil. It is also a legitimate fear because of the tolerance of the Corinthian believers. Look what he says in verse 4. And here's why I'm concerned, because I know who the devil is and I know what you're doing. And here's what you're doing. If someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel than the one you accepted, then you're putting up with it readily enough. You're giving an ear to these people. You are tolerating them. They were listening. That's the first step. That's what Eve did at first. if she only had not turned aside by the show, a talking snake, and then being lured in and start reasoning with the talking snake. So Paul sees the Corinthians moving down this road that's going to result in them committing the same mistake, the same rebellion that Eve did because they've already started on the slippery slope. They're tolerant with those not preaching the truth. And you know I just started thinking about the talking snake and you know there was so much attention to what in Corinth? Impressions. There was so much attention in Corinth to how good a show you could put on. Remember all the things that these teachers are saying about Paul, he doesn't speak well, he's not artsy, he's not compelling, he's a weakling, he's always got trouble. Now compare that with us. We got slick tongues. We entertain with the way we talk. And we're exciting. And look, these people don't dislike us the way they don't like Paul. Come follow us. We're of Jesus too. Not the same Jesus, but... We're followers of Jesus. You don't listen to what people say when they say that. Everybody in the world that wants you to think they're OK is going to say, I follow Jesus. I believe the Bible. How many churches you could go? Do you believe the Bible? Oh, yes, we believe the Bible in this place, the parts that we like. You know, there's more to it than what is professed. but they came across with this great show to get attention and they got attention and now they've got the ear and they are ready to bite. They're ready for the results of the devil's work to be accomplished. The devil is coming, cunning, and people are gullible. And the fear that we might fall is a legitimate one. Therefore, we must be alert, must be careful, must be sober, must be vigilant. Guard your life. Guard your heart. Guard your head. Know the truth. Be sure of it. And don't ever stop having enough. Always hunger for more. You'll never exhaust all you need to know or all there is to know or all the joys and the beauties of the truth in this life. We want to exhaust them for all eternity. So know it. Pursue it. And no matter how impressive they might be, do not put up with those who preach a different Jesus. Do not put up with those who preach a different spirit, a different gospel. Just to be clear, what is that? We are talking about Jesus who is the God-man. He is not a God, He is the God. He died in such a way that His death satisfies the justice of God for the sins of human beings. He didn't die to buy us from the devil. He didn't die to show us that by sacrificing ourselves a little bit we can all help one another. He died to pay what the justice of God demands for rebellion against God. And he never sinned or he couldn't do it. That's the Jesus we preach. Jesus who is still alive and reigning at the right hand of the Father and who is going to return to get his bride. And this gospel that we preach, there is one gospel. It is a gospel of putting no hope in anything but Jesus. It is a gospel that says your works only condemn you. Your best works, make a list of them. They are garbage in the sight of God. You have no hope in yourself. You are a sinner. Justification, being declared righteous in God fully depends upon the work of Jesus. And how you get connected with Jesus is you turn away and you renounce and you deny yourself and all your works. And like Paul, you count them to be garbage and you latch on to Jesus. He alone is your hope and your strength and you have no reason to brag to the world or anybody else, certainly not to God about anything you've done. Your only boast is in Christ. Now, if people preach some gospel other than that, some way that you merit God's favor, some way that your works kick in and make you worthy, they've missed it. This is what the devil speaks. and he speaks it in many different ways. He's a liar, so he doesn't care whether there's consistency or not. He's not trying to make sense. He just produces lies. He loves the world that has embraced a you know, your truth is your truth and whatever you believe is true for you, then it's true. He loves a culture that thinks like that because that's right up his alley. And he just keeps on putting out more lies and more lies and more lies, always trying to bring people away from the truth. And so we must realize the danger of Satan. And we must realize that he is going to keep on doing it. And we've got to get ourselves anchored in the truth. And be zealous, be jealous, and be vigilant, and be sober. In fact, when you behold something that excites the senses in an attempt to convince you that something is true, particularly when some gospel-related something appeals to the flesh, then put up your guard. Raise your suspicions. You see, everything that Paul says to the Corinthians, yeah, I'm not much, but you know, why did God put the gospel in somebody like me? Because He wants to show how great He is. Not how great I am. It's not about me. When people start promoting self, then raise your suspicions and get ready. And when they begin to suggest satisfaction in some path other than the one prescribed by God, run. Run and run. Flee. Why are there so many religions in the world? Why are there so many groups that claim to be Christian and yet believe, and some of them believe some of the same things, but they're fundamentally different on who Jesus is and what the gospel is. Why? Because of the liar, Satan. In fact, Paul tells, when he's writing Timothy, he calls these doctrines of demons. False teachings are doctrines promoted in the root by demonic demons. This is the Satan and his minions, that's what they want to do. Produce lies. That's why there's so many differences out there. The father of lies is doing his same old tricks. He's the promoter of half-truths and partially right beliefs in essence that steer people away from pure devotion to Christ. We cannot be tolerant of the devil. We cannot bear with the devil. We've got to be clear on what is true and what is of essential importance. You know, the gospel of our culture today is the gospel of tolerance, right? We can all get together if we just tolerate one another, right? Living in a society that preaches tolerance means if you stand for something that you're going to be called a bigot. Christians are accused of bigotry. If you stand for a moral principle, the politically correct in this world are going to call you a bigot. They will say that if you do not affirm someone, then you do not like them. You are prejudiced against them. True followers of Christ are not to be bigots. We should love sinners. After all, who are we? True followers of Christ are saved by grace, and grace is our identity. We are inherently better than no one. but the grace by which we have been saved has a peculiar identity we have been betrothed to one Lord Jesus Christ as we have believed a peculiar gospel which calls for a peculiar life one that won't please the world but the one that will please God and we must be jealous with a godly jealousy and we must be intolerant not bigoted and not hateful but lovingly intolerant of the devil's lies. So what am I saying that you should do when somebody comes along preaching them? Love them. If you don't do anything else, pray for them. Don't yell at them. Don't be mean and hostile. They are no different than you were before you came to Christ. seek that they might come to Jesus give them the gospel and give it to them again and again and again don't get caught up as we've said this morning with all these different people want to take you on a little bunny trip look it's about Jesus and the salvation He died to give and that fact that it is saved by grace through faith let's stand there boldly, confidently, firmly and intolerant to everything that rivals those truths. Let's pray. Our Father and our God we thank you Lord for the concern that Paul had for the Corinthians. His sense of betrothal and his sense of jealousy and his sense that they were on the verge of falling because they weren't being sensitive to the devil and how he works. Please help us Lord to be on the one hand conscious of our betrothal to Jesus, those of us who are believers who are part of His church, His bride. Thank you for the fact that you promised yourself to us. Thank you for the fact that you're coming back to get us. And Lord, we need your help as we try to get ready for that day when we'll meet you. Help us to seek purity in all things in body and mind and spirit and soul and actions and priorities and attitudes. and help us Lord help us to to be diligent in our pursuit of truth and being wary of the evil one who wants nothing other than to pull us away from that one thing. so glorify yourself we pray and help us and those in our midst today who don't know Christ help them to understand the cosmic battle that's going on they're either going to go to one side or the other and that they need to come to Jesus today right where they are Lord open their eyes and take the veil away bring them to yourself to be part of the glorious bride that you have cleansed that you are washing that you are purifying and preparing for that day we pray it in Jesus name amen