00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
We're going to turn now to Second
Corinthians and we come to Chapter 11 tonight. And I intend for us to look together
at verses one through 15 in Second Corinthians, Chapter 11, and
then, Lord willing, next month when we come back, we will finish
out the remainder of the chapter. So let us read. together from
God's Holy Word. Oh, that you would bear with
me in a little folly. And indeed, you do bear with
me. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. For I
have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as
the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he
who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or
if you receive a different spirit which you have not received,
or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well
put up with it. For I consider that I am not
at all inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am untrained
in speech, yet I am not in knowledge. But we have been thoroughly manifested
among you in all things. Did I commit sin in humbling
myself that you might be exalted? Because I preached the gospel
of God to you free of charge, I robbed other churches, taking
wages from them to minister to you. And when I was present with
you in a need, I was a burden to no one, for what I lacked
the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied. And in everything I
kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will keep myself. As the truth of Christ is in
me, no one shall stop me from this boasting in the regions
of Achaia. Why? Because I do not love you. God knows. But what I do, I will
also continue to do, that I may cut off the opportunity from
those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are
in the things of which they boast. For such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself
transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no
great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into
ministers of righteousness whose end will be according to their
works. Thus far, the reading of God's
Holy Word. You may be seated. I believe it was yesterday in
our family worship, going through the book of 2 Thessalonians,
it suddenly struck me how in virtually all of Paul's letters
he addresses the subject of false teaching. Some more than others,
and especially in an epistle like 2 Corinthians, the idea
of false teaching and especially false apostles becomes prominent. And it is as though when we look
at the teaching of this apostle as a whole, his concern about
false teachers is a dominating theme. In other words, one of
the great things that Paul was concerned about, especially contemplating
the time when he would leave this earthly scene, is will the
church be protected from false doctrine? Well, here in this
part of the epistle, The apostle begins to take his opponents
head on. In other words, he's not mincing
words. He's coming directly to the opponents and those who want
to accept them. And he confronts them with very
direct language. Now, what's very important about
this text is we begin not simply to learn about how Paul dealt
with the church in the first century, but we learn about the
danger of false teaching in general. And especially we learn about
the deceptiveness of false teaching. And I believe as we approach
this text tonight, this is the one thing about false teachers
that is the most misunderstood and underestimated. I think if
we're honest with ourselves and we talk about false teaching,
especially if we're Christians, We think of somebody walking
into the doors of the church with a big plaque on their forehead
who says, I don't believe in the Bible or I deny the authority
of scripture. And yet at the same time, that's
not the nature of what we're talking about in our text. And
that's not the way that Satan attacks the church today. But
he does so through deceit and he does so with subtlety. And
the funny thing about being deceived is by very definition, the people
who are deceived don't know it. And that is exactly at the heart
of what Paul is talking about here. Now remember, he is talking
about the character of his apostolic ministry. But we also learn from
that, by his example, how the ministry of the church is to
operate in general, the types of concerns it should have, and
how it affects all of us as God's people. So the thing we're going
to consider from the text tonight is simply this, that the Christian
ministry must aim to protect the church from Satan's deception. And in essence, the thing that
ties together these first 15 verses is verse 3 and then verses
13 through 15, where it comes back to this idea of satanic
deception as though it's two bookends on the entire discussion
that he's setting forth here. I want to break this down actually
into five parts today and hopefully we'll go through each of them
briefly. But the first of these is Paul's care. The second is
this matter of satanic deception. Then the nature of Paul's teaching.
and then Paul's self-indication and then his confrontation of
these people. I know those aren't very catchy
and none of that will probably stick in your minds well at this
stage, but such is the nature of jumping into a text where,
as it were, it's as though we're overhearing a conversation in
the first century and getting into the middle of a dialogue
between Paul and his opponents. So, the first thing is his care.
that he sets forth, and he sets this forth particularly in verses
1 and 2. Now when he says, O that ye would
bear with me in a little folly, the folly that he is referring
to is basically a type of boasting. And we know Paul says elsewhere,
and perhaps we all know this intuitively, that as Christians
who trust in the mercy of God alone, who hope in Jesus Christ
and not in any good thing that we've done, boasting is excluded. It's excluded from the gospel.
It's excluded from our own selves. We can't boast in anything we've
done. If we boast at all, we boast
in Jesus Christ and all that he's accomplished for us. And
yet, Paul engages in a form of boasting in this particular passage. And we'll explain what that is
in just a minute and why he's doing But at the outset, essentially
what you're confronted with is this. The situation is he is
addressing a group of false teachers, a group, if you use biblical
language, of fools, if you will. Have you ever wondered, in reading
the book of Proverbs, when you come across chapter 26, that
in two verses side by side, on the one hand we're told, do not
answer a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him.
And then immediately, without pause, without taking a breath,
the next sentence says, answer a fool according to his folly,
lest he be wise in his own opinion. So, which is it? Don't answer
him according to his folly or answer him according to his folly?
Well, the overall picture is that when you're dealing with
a foolish person, and a foolish person is defined in Scripture
as one who does not fear the Lord, there's danger on both
sides. You come to them on their own
grounds on their own terms you might end up being like them
and that wouldn't be a good thing for your own soul. But on the
other hand as the fool is boasting in his pride we can't allow that
either. So answer him according to his folly deal with him expose
the folly lest he be wise in his own opinion. And so you see
the danger on both sides. But the two proverbs really balancing
each other out. Well, this is essentially what
Paul is being dragged into almost unwillingly in this particular
situation. Remember back in chapter two,
these false epistles apparently were, I'm sorry, the false teachers
were apparently sending epistles or letters to commend themselves
before they even came to the church. And these people, as
we saw in chapter 10, are those who measure themselves by themselves. Well I'm a better teacher than
Paul. So therefore you should like
me better than Paul is essentially the type of thing that they were
saying. They're comparing themselves with others in the church and
other human beings rather than measuring themselves by the righteous
standard of God. And essentially this is the situation
that Paul finds himself in. These people are fools. They're
judging by earthly means, and when he says, and by the way,
I should say this at the outset, at this point onward in 2 Corinthians,
the Apostle Paul's writing is laden with sarcasm. It's almost
oozing out of every verse through the rest of the epistle, and
it's a very impassioned speech. And it begins here. Oh, that
you would bear with me in a little folly. Well, the folly he's talking
about Is you want me to prove my credentials? Fine. That's
what I'm going to do. And initially what he's saying
is this is not my normal way of operation. I don't want to
commend myself. I don't want to boast about my
achievements as an apostle. I don't want to have to prove
myself to a church that I planted. But now he comes ironically and
says, oh, that you would bear with me with a little folly. as I seek to prove my credentials."
Now, the last part of the verse, the New King James, which I read,
says, indeed, you do bear with me, implying that they're already
doing that. I think it's better to read the
original as a command. In other words, oh, that you
would bear with me, so do it. Bear with me while I'm about
to instruct you on my conduct and my credentials as an apostle
of Jesus Christ. Now, in verse 2, he gives the
reason why he's proceeding in this fashion. You see, think
about the picture. This is a man who, in some sense,
doesn't like defending himself, does not enjoy trying to prove
himself before others, and yet he recognizes that there's a
serious problem going on here that must be addressed. I always
think of the evangelist George Whitefield in the 19th century.
And essentially, Whitfield was slandered everywhere he went. And his policy was not to defend
himself. But you see, there came a point
in his ministry where people associated the man and the message
together. And you see, as they slandered
the man himself, then they began to slander the gospel as well.
And you see, this is the same situation that Paul finds himself
in. It's not simply his own reputation, but the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And he hints at this in verse two. I am jealous for you with
a godly jealousy. Usually, jealousy is something
that we have a negative connotation for. I will say at the outset,
there's a difference between jealousy and envy. Jealousy is simply wanting something
that somebody else has. Envy is wanting to harm them
because they have it. And you see, when we talk about
jealousy, there can be a jealousy that is good and a jealousy that
is bad. For instance, in the Old Testament,
if a husband had strong evidence that his wife was committing
adultery, he was jealous, and rightfully so. And he was vindicated
in that jealousy. You see, he wanted something
that somebody else had, namely the faithfulness of his wife.
And he was right to be jealous. And so we would be in such a
situation as well. Well, this is why God is jealous. God is a jealous God. God loves the worship of his
people. He hates the idolatry that his
people fall into. And therefore, he says in the
very surface of the second commandment, I am a jealous God. The Lord
your God is a jealous God. You see, the Lord enters into
a special relationship with his people, and he guards that relationship
as it were, as though it were his most precious possession.
And he's jealous over that relationship. So what Paul is saying here is
I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy. What he really means
is a God like jealousy. The jealousy I have for your
faithfulness as a church is actually mirroring God's attitude towards
you. It's a godly jealousy. And the reason for the jealousy
now is I betrothed you to one husband that I may present you
a chaste virgin to Christ. Engagements in the Old Testament
and the New Testament were not quite the same as they are today. Somebody was engaged in the first
century the only way to break that engagement was to go to
the court and have a divorce. We tend not to view engagement
that seriously but that was the culture that was the time and
there's even some warrant for that to some extent in the Old
Testament. But this is the imagery that Paul is picking up on here.
Now, let's let's put the picture together of what he's actually
doing. I came to you. I preached the gospel of Jesus
Christ to you. You embrace Jesus Christ. But
now these false teachers have come and you've embraced them
instead. And now you're forcing me to prove my credentials as
an apostle. Well, I'm jealous over you because
God is a jealous God. And I have been the one who has
engaged you to Jesus Christ. And the image here, there's many
suggestions, but the image here is probably that of a father
giving his daughter away in marriage. And Paul is essentially saying,
this is my relationship to you. When you believed in Jesus Christ,
it was like I was the father taking you as though you were
my daughter and engaging you to Jesus Christ. And you see,
in some sense, he's really describing the Christian life as we live
it right now. If you're a Christian today and
you're trusting in Jesus Christ, you are in your engagement period.
You're in a binding relationship with Jesus Christ. It is no accident,
therefore, that entering into heaven is described as the great
marriage supper of the Lamb. You see, right now we're engaged.
but were to be married on that last day. And so, as Jesus Christ
is the husband and the Lord of the church, the one who cares
for her, the one who died for her, the one who sanctifies her,
we are in that great time of engagement. And of course, that
means that as Christians, we must be anticipating the consummation
of that engagement. Sometimes we are so wrapped up
in the things of this world and in our time in this life that
we act as though the worst thing possible is to depart this world
to be with Jesus Christ. Though death, though all of the
thoughts that we face in connection to that are difficult for each
of us, let us remember this is the engagement period. Can you
imagine a bride saying, well, I'm engaged to be married to
this man? I love him. I want to spend the
rest of my life with him, but never wanting to consummate the
marriage, never wanting to have the ceremony. Well, see, Paul
has this big picture in view, saying you're engaged to Jesus
Christ and you must be chaste. And notice chaste here, interestingly,
doesn't mean living the right way, but believing the right
way. Paul's not denying that holiness and personal obedience
to Jesus Christ is necessary. But here, there is a type of
adultery that is theological. And you see, sometimes we make
a division between the way we think and the way we feel and
the way we act that the Apostle Paul didn't understand at all.
He saw this as all one thing. You see, they could be adulterous
spouses to Christ just as much by receiving false teaching as
they could by living ungodly lives. So, this is the first
thing that the Apostle sets before us here. And, of course, as we
come to the supper today, is this not what we are reflecting
upon? That we are engaged to Jesus Christ as his church? We're anticipating at the supper
today the day when we will sit with him and drink of it anew
in the kingdom of God, when we shall sup together at the great
wedding feast of the Lamb with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
all the saints who have worshiped from the foundation of the world.
And in a sense, the Lord's Supper is embodying the cause of Paul's
jealousy. And verse 2. So here is this
care, here is this concern. The second thing is the deception
that Paul is concerned about in verses 3 through 4. And notice
what he says, I fear, lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by
his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. The idea here is that Paul knows
his enemy, and he wants God's people to know the enemy as well.
And the enemy, of course, is Satan. And we can make too much
of Satan, we can make too little of Satan, can't we? We can make
too much of him as though we may treat him sometimes as though
he's some real rival to God. There's a good God and a bad
God. Well, that's not how it is whatsoever. There's no contest
between God and Satan. Jesus will cast Satan into the
lake of fire by speaking a word. So this battle is really no contest
at all. And yet at the same time, we
can make too little of him. Because you see, does it not
change the way that we think about things when we wake up
every morning and realize that there is someone, someone we
may not see, someone we may not know, may not have been aware
of his personal presence or any of the fallen angels. Remember,
Satan's not omnipresent either. And yet he's trying to deceive
us. That there's someone trying to actively deceive you every
day that you live. And I believe simply failing
to recognize this principle stood at the heart of the Corinthians
problem and it often stands at the heart of ours. This is why
we don't recognize the subtlety of false teaching. Now, he uses
the explicit illustration of Eve and if you think back to
Genesis, what happened? Well, Satan doesn't immediately
come out and tell Adam and Eve, God's a liar and you need to
stop believing him and believe me instead. Well, in effect,
that's what he said by the end of the process. But he begins
by asking a question. Has God really said, don't eat
all the trees of the garden? Is that really what he said?
And as he begins to question God's word and question God's
instruction to her, Slowly step by step she falls into the deception
until at the end He's got her convinced that God is really
withholding something good from her You see God really doesn't
want you to enter into this knowledge that he has and he's privy to
something special And he knows that that the day you eat of
the tree you'll be like him and your eyes will be opened And
you see he really does come into outright lying at the end But
it is a gradual process and gradual deception that leads them astray. And this is all important for
us to consider. The deception that comes into
the church by false teaching is rarely open. Most of the time, and I'll say
more about this in a minute, most of the time the way false
teaching comes in is by people speaking our language, saying
the same things that we're saying, but then redefining every single
term. I remember vividly one time there
was a young woman that I knew in a youth group in California,
and she had gone on a trip to Italy, and I hadn't seen her
for about a year. And she came back and said how
wonderful it was. And the whole time she was there,
she visited and she worshiped in the Roman Catholic Church.
And my first response was, well, they deny the gospel. They don't
believe that we're saved through Jesus Christ only. They don't
believe we're justified by faith embracing Christ alone. She said,
no, no, no, I know that's what they used to believe, but you
see, They said, we're saved by grace alone. That's what they
told me, we're saved by grace alone. And my response is, do
you realize that Roman Catholicism has always said that? Hasn't
changed at all. But they've redefined the terms. Hopefully we say grace, what
we mean is that we're absolutely helpless apart from Jesus Christ. If God looks upon me in my sins,
I will perish instantaneously and there is no question of standing
before the sight of God. And grace in that broad sense
is Jesus Christ obeying where I could not. Dying where I should
have died. Suffering wrath where I deserved
it. Being raised from the dead when
I should fester in the grave. being exalted to the right hand
of His Father in heaven and making me and you as Christians co-heirs
with Christ when we deserve to inherit Satan's punishment, body
and soul forever in hell. And you see, grace means that
we come and we can't do anything else than cast ourselves into
His arms. We embrace Him by faith because
we don't have any works to rest upon. But do you see in this
other scheme, when they say we're saved by grace alone, they mean
something far different. It's not Christ doing all of
those things, it's really the Holy Spirit working in my heart.
The Holy Spirit enabling me to do the good works I need to do
to be saved. The Holy Spirit enabling me to
have enough goodness and enough merit that if I just live by
faith, in that, then somehow I will stand before God. If I've
fallen short, I may suffer temporarily in purgatory, but eventually
reach the end goal. That's what they mean by grace
alone. Is that what we mean? But you see, how would this friend
of mine, how would any of us ever fall into such a thing if
Satan did not come using the same exact language? This is
most deceptive. In lands where Christianity is
prominent. When everybody thinks they are
a Christian. And this is more dangerous than
ever. I don't mean this to shake anybody up and in any unnecessary
way, but the fact is, unless you are resting upon Jesus Christ
and him alone and his gospel. and not in your works, not in
the work of the Spirit that's enabling you to do anything good,
not hoping that somehow God is going to balance the scales and
you're going to come out on the right side, but embracing Jesus
Christ as He's offered to you in the Gospel. Are you doing
so? Have you come to know this Lord
and this Savior, Jesus Christ? Have you embraced Him by faith?
And you see, Paul is afraid. That's exactly what he preached
to these people. And everything that I've said
to you, I could quote proof texts from Paul's own letters. This
was his gospel. And yet he's afraid. Lest somehow,
as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds may
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ. Well, contrast this, on the other
hand, to drive us back to Jesus Christ, to Christ's own temptation. Was Satan any less subtle with
Jesus in the wilderness than he was with Adam and Eve in the
garden? You see, with Jesus in the wilderness, he even came
quoting scripture. Throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple
because Psalm 91 says God will give his angels to watch over
you and you won't dash your foot upon the stone. Let's put that
to the test. How much do you really believe
the Bible? He was dead wrong. He misunderstood the entire significance
of that passage and he abused it and he knew what he was doing.
Not every false teacher knows what they're doing. But you see,
there is still this satanic deception behind it. Now, notice how he
makes this even more powerful in verse four. And I realize
now we're not going to get through the whole text. We're probably
going to stop halfway. If he who comes and preaches another
Jesus whom we have not preached or if you receive a different
spirit, and that should be spirit with capital S. This is a reference
to the Holy Spirit, which you have not received or a different
gospel, which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.
You see what the false teachers are doing. They're preaching
Jesus. They're preaching the work of
the spirit, they're preaching a gospel, they're at least using
the word. They're claiming all of these
things. That was just not a bleak picture. Somebody can come into
the church, be a teacher in the church, preach a Jesus, preach
a spirit and preach a gospel and be completely false. Sometimes
are we not too ready to say That if someone simply names the name
of Christ, then all is well. We don't need to ask any further
questions whatsoever. Well, they say they believe in
Jesus. They say they believe in the work of the Spirit. They
say they're preaching the gospel. And yet, here Paul's saying that,
and notice, this is Paul's teaching under the inspiration of the
Spirit. This is not me trying to be mean to people out there
and trying to pick on other churches. And that's not what I want you
to take away from this at all. This is Paul saying, Satan is
the agent behind these people who are preaching Jesus and the
Holy Spirit and claiming to preach the Gospel. And yet, Satan still
is standing behind it. Does that not strike you? There's a line in Lord of the Rings, if I can risk
using an illustration from Lord of the Rings, but you have a
point where one of the characters is talking about Aragorn has
come and they're wondering whether he's come there to help them
or not. And one of the characters, I don't remember which one, says,
well, I think if he was an enemy, he would look fairer and feel
fouler than he does. Well, that's exactly what's happening
here. These people look great. They're naming Christ, they're
preaching the spirit, they're claiming to preach the gospel.
But it's foul. It's satanic at its heart. And you see, this means that
as God's people, we need to be discerning. We need to be able
to search the scriptures. We need to pray. that the Spirit
would accompany us when we open the Bible. We need to study the
history of the church. We need to study those who have
gone before us. We need to pray for those who
proclaim the word, not only here in this church, but to the ends
of the earth. Because you see, the purpose
of teachers in the church is the exact opposite of what these
people are doing. Now, perhaps if we just go into
the next part and then we'll stop there. We get something
of a picture of what this looks like and what's going on. Notice
what he says in verses five and six. I consider that I am not
at all inferior to the most eminent apostles. You see, when he says
the most eminent apostles, there's an ironic phrase here, it's literally
super apostles. This is probably a derogatory
term that the false teachers were using for Jesus's twelve
apostles. In other words, they think they're
so great over there, those super apostles. We're just as good
as they are. We want to be accepted in the
same way that they are. And that's essentially what they
were doing in Corinth. They were coming in. And so Paul
says, look, I consider that I'm not at all inferior to Peter
and James and John and all the rest. You see, when he contrasts
himself to the false apostles later in the text, he's a lot
less kind in his words for them. He doesn't want to be classed
with those people in any sense whatsoever, but these people,
he says, no, no, no, I am in this category. I belong to this
group. I'm one of the twelve. And you
see, as one of the twelve is essentially saying that I have
the same commissioned authority as these other people. Just as
John wrote Holy Scripture under the divine inspiration of the
Spirit, so his words are the word of God, that's the group
I belong to. I'm not inferior to those people,
even though I'm untrained in speech and not in knowledge.
But we have been thoroughly manifested among you in all things. And
there's really a hint that two charges brought against him here.
They're charging him of being inferior in his preaching. And inferior in his knowledge.
But they're really saying is, and this is usually how false
teaching comes into the church. People will come in and say something
like this. It's not so much that all these other people got this
wrong, but I've got something else we need to hear, something
else we need to add, something else we need to consider beyond
what you've already believed and what you've already taught.
Now, I don't mean to deny that as Christians, we need to grow
in the faith and we need to grow in our understanding of the Bible
and our knowledge of the Lord. But we don't add doctrines to
what the scripture teaches. And somehow, sometimes this is
the best way to negate the truth itself. Well, the other thing
is the externals. Notice again, there's stress
on the external form. These people are really stressing
form over content. And Paul is saying, OK, I can
see that. I'm untrained in speech now.
If you're at all familiar with Paul's letters, you may immediately
recognize that Paul was a brilliant man. No doubt he was under the
inspiration of the Spirit, but the Spirit preserves the personalities
of the authors. There is a rigid, logical mind
and presentation in Paul that is different than John and Peter. They're all equally inspired,
all equally God's Word. But you clearly see Paul had
great rhetorical skill and great skill at arguing. And he uses
that throughout his epistle. This whole epistle is an exercise
in this very thing. So what does he mean then when
he says, I'm untrained in speech? Well, what he probably means
is I'm not trained in Greek rhetoric. Remember, Paul spoke Hebrew.
He spoke Greek as well. He wrote in Greek. But he wasn't
trained like the philosophers of the day. And in the philosophy
of the time, many of the philosophers stress form over everything.
Presentation is everything. And in a certain sense, that's
how our modern society works as well with advertising and
all the other things we're inundated with. How it's presented catches
us and influences us and shapes us even more than the content
of what is said. And sometimes we don't even realize
it. Now, Paul is not saying here, that somehow preachers shouldn't
seek to speak well. I think Paul exemplifies the
exact opposite in his own writings. But what he is saying is this
is not the primary element. Fine, I don't have your training,
but that's not the primary thing that counts. The primary thing
that counts is what I am saying. And so when we talk about false
teaching, it's not only the subtlety of it that we must be aware of.
But it is the fact that usually the stress falls upon the external
form. I've heard people say they walk
away from a sermon from a certain preacher and make a comment like
this, that I could listen to him talk about buttering toast
and just be enraptured with everything he's saying all day. Well, that's
not necessarily a blight against that preacher. He may just be
a good speaker, maybe engaging, maybe interesting. But sometimes
is that not the case? that because someone is polished,
because they come across in just the right way, we think they
have to know what they're talking about. It doesn't have to simply
be teaching. It could be a college professor.
They've got PhD next to their name. They speak with an authoritative
voice. They sound like they know what
they're talking about. They could say something absolutely ridiculous
and convince everybody they know what they're talking about. Well, essentially, that's what's
happening here in Corinth, and this is the thing that Paul is
combating. So you see the elements put here.
When we think about ourselves as Christians, the first thing
we must think about is we are espoused to Jesus Christ. This
means we must be pure, pure in doctrine as well as in life. This means we must study the
scriptures. We must study the scriptures on our knees. You
must search out the mind and the will of God. as best as he
enables you from his word. You must benefit from the church
and from the teachers that he's appointed, from the literature
of the church as well. And yet, at the same time, you
must actively recognize that your greatest loyalty is to Christ,
your husband, who has a jealousy over you and who has charged
his ministers to have a godly jealousy for your soul. And that
means whatever anyone presents to you, regardless of how good
it sounds, how good the speaker is, how polished he may be, this
is the first thing you must come back to. Ask yourself, is this
promoting my chastity to the Lord Jesus Christ? Is this in
line with the Gospel that I've heard from Him in His Word? Is this drawing me near to Him
in fellowship, in communion, Is this drawing me to the Lord
Jesus Christ as the only standard for truth and righteousness?
And this is where you and I must always begin. Too often we begin
in the practical side. I remember I don't want to and
I'll say this here with the application I'm struggling with. How do I
be specific? How do I illustrate this so that
you understand the principles Paul's setting forth without
necessarily being offensive or singling out certain groups or
making your mind turn to people you may know. But if I can use
just one historical example, there's the evangelist in the
19th century, Charles Grandison Finney. And people look to Finney,
and I've heard men tell me that he was responsible for the conversion
of over 500,000 sinners to Jesus Christ. Preaching Christ. Preaching Spirit. Preaching Gospel. And all of
these people came to embrace Christ by the Spirit, to lay
hold of the Gospel. Is that not wonderful? He said,
well, I've read some of Finney's theology. And he didn't believe that we're
dead in our sins. He didn't believe that we died
in Adam. He said it's impossible. Impossible for Jesus Christ to
keep the law on my behalf. That I cannot have the righteousness
of Jesus Christ, the best I can get from Jesus Christ is he forgives
everything I've done in the past, but now I'm on my own. And make
it worse, he says, then now if I'm going to be saved, I've stopped
sinning today. Well, that was the condition
God placed upon us, which of you in this room, including myself,
would enter into the gates of heaven. Every single one of us
would perish without hope whatsoever. Clearly, this man preached an
entirely different gospel. And yet to this day in evangelical
churches, he is heralded as a great hero of the Christian faith.
I don't want to be judgmental, but I'm not sure the man's in
heaven at all. Not if he believed what he taught,
God alone knows the heart, but I don't see how you could possibly
deny the gospel more clearly. Do you see what's happened? We
look at the results, we look at the people coming in, we look
at the crowds coming to hear the Polish speech speaker and
we never ask the question, what does he believe? And then when
someone figures it out, then we turn around and say, you've
got to be reading that wrong. How could all these people be
following somebody who's teaching something so wrong? Because it
was already happening in the first century. And that's exactly
what Paul was confronting here and exactly what we must confront
today. We must not be judgmental. We
must not be harsh towards others. We must not look to find fault.
But brothers and sisters, be aware of Satan's devices. We are so woefully ignorant of
him. And sometimes I think we run
into spiritual warfare thinking, here am I. Born again. Maybe
I've been a Christian for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And somehow
I'm going to outwit one who has been tempting sinners and leading
them to hell for several thousand years. It's not going to happen. So, dear friends, cling to Christ. He will never lead you astray.
Cling to Christ and the Lord's Supper tonight. Cling to Christ
in His promises. Cling to the Lord Jesus Christ
who is Himself the gospel. And anything that would divert
us from Him, from union with His person, communion with Him
in His work, is a false gospel no matter how good it sounds,
no matter what terms it uses. And we must remember these principles. I trust as you come to the supper
tonight, you come looking to the Lord and Savior Christ and
to him alone. Let us close the prayer. Almighty
Lord, we recognize that we are hopeless without you. We ask
you, our blessed God and Savior, to forgive us of all of our sins.
We plead with you that we would not be led astray into error
And we thank you that you have promised us the presence of the
Holy Spirit, that he prevents us from falling away, that he
leads us in the truth as you've revealed it in scripture. And
we pray that we would all rest upon Jesus Christ and him alone. And indeed, Lord, that we would
define Christianity and define our faith and our hope by scripture
only and not by anything else that is going on around us. And
we ask this in Christ's matchless name. Amen.
Deceptiveness of False Teaching (1)
Series 2 Corinthians
| Sermon ID | 22712114989 |
| Duration | 45:34 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | 2 Corinthians 11:1-15 |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.