Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Okay, so we're going to turn in our Bibles to Second Corinthians, chapter 11. And we're going to look at the first 15 verses here. And we're going to continue our journey with Paul as he's really trying to deal with a critical issue.
[00:00:15] And I'm going to just speak this morning on why evil needs to be exposed.
[00:00:21] How many know that's true? We have to uncover it and it has to be done in all of our lives. So I'm going to share a story. This happened nearly 40 years ago.
[00:00:31] One of the spiritual leaders in our church attended a two day event sponsored by a group that challenged the validity of his freedom and faith in Christ. And he got so taken by that that he was actually being told that he was not experiencing the totality of the Gospel and he needed to do certain things in order for that to occur in his life.
[00:00:54] And the approach basically was fear driven and moved him away from the freedom that is in Christ into a very legalistic bondage. And so I went to visit him and his wife, you know, hey, what's happening here?
[00:01:08] And they began to explain to me that we weren't preaching the full gospel. So I said, well, you tell me what the full gospel is. And as I began to listen, I began to realize that he was adding something to Christ. How many know that, you know, when you have Jesus, plus a bunch of other things you have to do, you're really taking away from what Jesus actually did. And I was deeply concerned and I was pointing this out to him. However, I was totally unable to persuade them that what they were now embracing was not a biblical position that believers have in Christ.
[00:01:43] I was perplexed by how rapidly they, they had turned away from the truth. That's the part that shocked me. You know, I was stunned. I was a young pastor, just, you know, relatively new as a minister of the gospel. And it just so happened I was preaching a series back then in the book of Colossians. And I came to this text in Colossians, chapter 2, verse 8, where it gave me a bit of an understanding of what really occurred there. And so it says there, see to it that no one takes you captive.
[00:02:13] And in my studies, that word captive could also be the word kidnapped. And I felt like this couple had been kidnapped, you know, by, you know, false teaching. It says, see that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceitful philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of the world rather than on Christ.
[00:02:35] In the new century version, it says, this be sure that no one leads you away with false and empty teachers teaching that is only human, which comes from the ruling spirits of the world and not from Christ. So now it's giving us a little insight here into where this teaching comes from, this ruling spirits of this world. Well, they're demonic spirits. And Paul talks about in the last days there'll be doctrines of demons and doctrines of demons means teachings that are really inspired by satanic powers and that are going to try to distort the gospel and lead believers from the truth. Wow, that sounds pretty challenging. Well, I think the strength of evil is in its deceptive nature.
[00:03:21] Paul is about to expose the insidious nature of what was transpiring and the underlying source of conflict and evil and divisiveness in the Corinthian church. You know that, you know, a lot of times we think it's always a superficial thing or it's a natural thing, but I think most of this stuff is underneath. There's a spiritual force that's activating these things. Something's going on underneath. We need to understand that outsiders had come into the life of the church. It taught a distortion of the gospel, which Paul now needed to address and then motivated out of a deep love and desire for the Corinthians to walk in holiness and purity. Paul as a spiritual father was jealous for his spiritual children in order to present them to Christ as a pure bride to Christ, their heavenly bridegroom. I don't know if you realize that that's exactly what happens in the Jewish situation. There's an arranged marriage and sometimes really at a young age, it's arranged. And then eventually there's the betrothal, which is like an engagement which is so binding that to break it you have to divorce the person. And then eventually in the ancient times, the groom to be would go to the father's house and add a room and then he would come back and get his bride. And so during that time, the father's responsibility was to make sure that his daughter remained chaste or pure. And so Paul is alluding to this imagery and stating that that was his concern as a spiritual father to present the church and as a pure bride before Jesus.
[00:05:02] But now some of the Corinthians have been tolerating these false teachers who are filled with self boasting and we'll see that. So we are now going to enter into a polemic or an approach that Paul feels reluctant to do. But because of their self aggrandizement of these false teachers, Paul states that he will use boasting in an ironic sense to depreciate the value of their message and their boasts. In other words, he's going to use the very thing they're doing. But Paul's going to boast in a totally different way. While they're boasting of their greatness, Paul's going to boast of his humility and his sufferings and sorrow. He's going to do the opposite. So that's what I mean by the irony of what he's doing. His desire in doing this is to warn them of the duplicity and danger that they were experiencing. And he was hoping to awaken them from the danger of the spiritual deception. So now he's going to expose these false messengers who are propagating, as he calls it, a false Jesus spirit and gospel. So we're going to examine his approach in dealing with this deception and discover why it's so critical that we expose evil even as it relates to us personally.
[00:06:17] And I think that's really, really important. So let's take a look at the first way in dealing with false messengers leading to deception and evil. We have to present the truth. People have to experience the truth. We've got to give people an option. They got to begin to see that, you know, what they're hearing isn't necessarily true. And even though they may not respond to us in a right way, that doesn't matter. We still have a responsibility to present the truth. Truth, yes. I've just been interested and I've been just found very fascinating. I met a Jewish person who wrote a book on what it means to be a Jewish person after October 7, 2023, after what had happened. And so his whole premise is simply this. You know what? He's not suggesting that everything Israel ever did was right. That's not what his premise is. His premise is simply this.
[00:07:09] Regardless of how people respond, they need to hear the whole story and people need to decide for themselves. That's all he's saying. And I think that that's true. That's what we need to do. We need to present.
[00:07:19] You know, sometimes there's another side to the story. You know, remember Paul Harvey says, now the rest of the story. And I think sometimes we ought to hear the whole story. And how many know that when you hear one side, as Proverbs teaches us, it sounds right. And then we hear the other side and we go, now what? That sounds right too. And you know, sometimes we just don't hear the full story. And I think we have an obligation to give people the full story. And that's what Paul is about to do. I think we need to bring darkness into the light. Once evil is exposed, it's easier to address. Secrecy is one of the most powerful tools of evil, which creates a lot of self destruction in our own personal lives if we don't address it in our lives. Listen to what Proverbs tells us. Whoever conceals their sin does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. So here's what I would say to all of us. If we have things in our lives that are wrong and we're concealing it, I'm going to tell you something, it's just going to kill you. You know, you got to get it out in the open. You got to address the stuff, you got to deal with it. And it's sometimes painful, but it has to be done. And when we do it, and then we turn away from it, we find that God shows us mercy. How many want the mercy of God? That's me. I always want to live under the mercy of God. So we not only need to bring it to the light, but I think we need to turn our backs on it. You know, sometimes people bring it to the light, but they don't turn their back on it. We need to turn our backs on it. That's what it means. By renouncing it, we turn away and go in another direction. The truth actually brings freedom while falsehood leads to bondage in people's lives.
[00:08:57] The means by which these false teachers undermined the gospel was first by attacking Paul's credibility and secondly by challenging his message. And Paul is reluctant, but realizes that he needs to explain his life in order to protect the integrity of the Gospel. Therefore, he explains the reason for the foolishness of boasting regarding his own credibility. But as I've already pointed out, he's going to focus in on the things which he's endured.
[00:09:26] So we need to remember he had just previously said in chapter 10, the last verse, if we're going to boast, let us boast in the Lord. That's where our boasting should be.
[00:09:36] So let's take a look at what he's doing. He starts out this way. I hope you put up with me, with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me.
[00:09:49] In other words, they've been listening to a lot of nonsense for a long time, these false teachers. That's actually folly, what they're producing. I don't know if you realize that Especially in the Old Testament sense. You know, the wise and the fool and the New Testament writers bring that thought into play as well. You know, the person who's wise is the person who fears God. The person who's a fool is the person who's morally deficient. So these people have been, you know, spewing foolishness. Now Paul says, you know, I'm going to share a little bit that it's going to sound interesting in a little foolishness. In other words, put up with what I'm going to say to you because you've been putting up with a lot of foolishness for a long time.
[00:10:27] He goes on to say, I'm jealous for you, with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. We've already touched on that. But I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's gift cunning, your mind 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 spirit you received, or a different Gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. In other words, you have allowed these people to rob you by basically of the truth. That's what he's trying to get across to them. So the first reason for his boasting, the motivation for it, is his godly jealousy over them to present them as a pure virgin to Christ. Ken Hughes shares Paul's zeal in this. He says Paul's intense paternal zeal was fed by the true and present danger that the Corinthians might be led astray. And the bridal image just mentioned quite naturally brought to us mind the first human bride and how she was led astray by her deceiver. Well, he's all of our deceivers. When Eve fell, it was not because she was beaten into submission by Satan, but by his encircling her soul with sequential coils of deception as he promised Eve things he could not deliver.
[00:11:57] And I want to just say, you know, I had a little epiphany this week and I was thinking about it and I said it, and I said to some people, I believe that every human being desires God.
[00:12:07] Just that most people don't know what they desire.
[00:12:10] They don't really understand that underneath the desire that they have, it's actually a desire for God. But what happens is we end up, you know, going after something other than God. That becomes an idol. And idols always promise us but don't deliver.
[00:12:25] And so whatever we're pursuing, other than God, that's our idol.
[00:12:29] And it's designed to distort our lives. It's designed to move us away from the truth of the nature of who God is and how much God cares about us and wants to do on our behalf.
[00:12:41] So now, so it was with the betrothed Corinthian community as they were susceptible to Satan's cunning as he led them away from Christ into the promised, gave him more triumphant, victorious, prosperous Christianity, a Christianity that was dismissive of taking up the cross and weakness and suffering. I want to pause there for a minute. This is the problem, folks.
[00:13:09] We don't want to have to suffer.
[00:13:11] We don't want to have to deny ourselves.
[00:13:14] But can I just say what Jesus said to all of us? And he reminds us, unless you're willing to die for my sake, you won't be experiencing life.
[00:13:22] The Christian life is a life of self denial. It's a life that we die to ourselves.
[00:13:27] But here's the beautiful thing. It's an irony. The moment we do that, we find a different kind of life, a more dynamic, a more. It's a more wonderful, abundant, meaningful.
[00:13:42] You know, what is choking us sometimes is just our self centeredness and we don't even realize it.
[00:13:49] And so we end up being enticed by people who are preaching that you can just maximize yourself rather than teaching us to deny yourself. And I agree with Kent Hughes in this. He goes on to say, indeed, Satan was so cunning that he had convinced many of the Corinthians that it was Paul who was actually the cunning one?
[00:14:12] How many know that the wolves in the church that devour sheep do not howl and bare their teeth?
[00:14:17] They come in sheep's clothing, smiling, reciting scripture, full of understanding, promising something more than Christ. Isn't that interesting? And that's the way it happens. And when you're a pastor, you see that a lot of times people come in and, you know, I've had to confront some people, you know, because I recognize this person's got an agenda and it's not a healthy one.
[00:14:38] They're on their own frequency and it's actually, it's going to destroy people. And that's when you step in and say something.
[00:14:45] David Garland points out the culpability or responsibility that Eve had to bear for her own sin. Eve was not exonerated. In other words, she wasn't clear to blame her responsibility from her sin because she was taken in by the supreme trickster. And neither will the Corinthians be exonerated.
[00:15:04] It is not difficult to deceive those who wish to be deceived. Oh, we got to stop at that line because it's so true.
[00:15:11] Why does God allow deception? That's a great question.
[00:15:15] Because I think God's going to expose something in our lives that's the reason. We'll get there in a minute. Their desires already primed their own hearts to be disobedient. Eve was deceived by exciting the unholy feelings in her heart. The Corinthians perchance for error and illusions of grandeur, believing themselves to be kings who were already reigning. According to Paul. He says you guys are acting like kings. Made them easy marks for grandiloquent or extravagant language opponents who inject their poisonous notions.
[00:15:48] Secondly, the reason Paul is concerned is that they're embracing a distorted gospel. Not only is it going to people keep him from presenting them as a holy people to God, but it's distorting the gospel message that he knows is going to lead them astray.
[00:16:02] Again, let me quote David Garland. He says, what are the criteria for identifying that someone is preaching a false Jesus spirit and gospel as opposed to the genuine Jesus spirit and gospel? It's a great question. In other words, how do we know which is right? Let me think. That's an important question.
[00:16:21] Well, here's the answer for the Corinthians. The other Jesus is one that Paul didn't preach. And what did Paul preach? Christ crucified.
[00:16:30] Right. He said, I only want to preach Christ crucified and Jesus as Lord. Jesus as Lord requires humble submission and makes absolute moral demands.
[00:16:42] Any gospel that has no moral core fosters boasting and soft pedals. Sacrifice is not the gospel.
[00:16:50] How's that?
[00:16:52] Is that good? We all catching it good? Jesus not only gives his life for us, but he requires us to give everything to him, including our lives.
[00:17:02] You know, I always say this, you know, it's so good. Look how good God is. He gives up everything for us. But then God requires everything from us, including our lives. Unless a person is willing to die, he cannot inherit the kingdom of God. So we have to give up everything.
[00:17:17] But when we give up everything, here's the paradox. I'm going to remind us. We get everything.
[00:17:21] So isn't that a funny way of thinking? But it's true. As I give up everything for God's kingdom, he gives me everything back in a different way. And it's a beautiful thing that begins to happen David Garland then explains what Paul means again by this other Jesus. Another Jesus refers to a different interpretation of Jesus that is not congruent with the facts of Jesus life and death. Paul emphasizes in chapter 13, verse 4 that Christ was crucified in weakness. Remember, these guys are talking about strength and glory and you know, they make it all sound. It's over here.
[00:17:59] And Paul is preaching a message of humility. I mean, think of what he says to the Philippians. Christ humbled himself, became obedient, even unto death.
[00:18:08] Therefore God highly exalted him. How many go? See, that's a totally different messaging and that's what he's trying to get across here.
[00:18:17] So he presents Jesus who suggests that the rivals now representing a Jesus who is not weak, suffering or humiliated, they may talk about Christ, but Christ crucified is not the heart of their gospel nor does it influence the way they live.
[00:18:32] So the Christian life is a fulfilling life. It's a life of freedom, but also a demanding life and a challenging life. It calls, as I've already said, I'm repeating myself here, but I think it's important. Death to self.
[00:18:45] We need to have a biblical understanding of who Jesus is, how we lived, how he died, how he was raised from the dead. We need to understand that God became flesh. Could you imagine how much he humbled himself?
[00:18:58] I don't think we have any idea how much Christ humbled himself. He's God. He had all power, all glory, all honor. He didn't need to do any of this, but he did.
[00:19:07] So he humbled himself and became flesh and died a horrific, humiliating death for us.
[00:19:14] This is the Jesus Paul is preaching. Our understanding must move past simply the knowledge of the facts to application so that this is how we live. Okay, so here's what I'm going to say. It's not, not enough to just assent to this truth. It needs to shape us.
[00:19:30] I was listening and I mentioned this earlier when I was talking to the worship team. I heard somebody share this week. It was really good. He said, how do you know when you've had an encounter with God? Okay, and they gave two tests. Number one, a lot of people think it's because I have an experience or have an emotion, I have feelings, I have something happening to me.
[00:19:54] It could or could not necessarily mean you've had an encounter with God. What about when I'm in the Word and I feel I have a revelation or a quickening in my spirit? Is this an encounter with God? It depends. And here's the answer, really simply, if it changes your life towards becoming more Christlike. You've had an encounter with God. It's the outcome that's what determines it. It's not just a feeling, an emotion or an intellectual understanding.
[00:20:20] It's interesting. William Barclay tells the story of a group of people at a dinner party who agreed that each one should recite something after the meal. And this is my point. A well known actor rose and with all the resources of elocution and dramatic art, recited the 23rd Psalm. He sat down to tremendous appraise.
[00:20:38] But then a man, a quiet man, followed him with his own recitation of the song. At first there were a few snickers, but by the time he had ended, his hearers had fallen into a stillness that was more eloquent than any applause. And when he sat down, the actor leaned across the table and said, sir, I know the psalm, but you know the shepherd.
[00:21:01] You see the difference?
[00:21:03] That's the part. Similarly, Paul's opponents may have spoken with great skill and ability, but. But Paul preached from personal conviction. He knew the real Christ. So let's take a look at the second way in dealing with false messengers is the example of our lives.
[00:21:20] Integrity of life speaks louder than simple words. How many know that's true?
[00:21:26] Your life is speaking. I can't hear what you're saying.
[00:21:29] Lifestyle amplifies our words. We in turn need to allow the gospel message then to shift shape our attitudes and our character. The power of the gospel is evident in the transformation of lives.
[00:21:43] So when we walk in integrity, it validates not only our lives, but the message and power of the gospel as well as exposes the falsity of people who live a sinful lifestyle and have reframed the gospel to justify their sins. How many know that's happening? A lot. What do people do? They reframe the gospel to fit their sinful lifestyle.
[00:22:04] This is a problem.
[00:22:07] There are people who are accommodating society because they're seeking worldly approval.
[00:22:14] Isn't that true?
[00:22:16] Listen, we need to be more courageous.
[00:22:20] We can't accommodate society.
[00:22:22] And what I mean by that is we need to live the right life and we need to stand up for the right stuff. And we need to. When you do that, you have to take the lumps that come with it. That's the part we don't like. But you know, God will be with us, you know, and certainly as we look at the examples in scriptures, we see that happening over and over again. Now Paul says he's not inferior to these quote unquote super Apostles.
[00:22:46] So why is Paul now boasting? He wants to assure the Corinthians that he isn't inferior to them with their distorted message. Later in the chapter, we're going to find that Paul does.
[00:22:56] Does not boast of his strengths. He's boasting of his weaknesses. But here, let's pick it up. I do not think I am in the least inferior to these super apostles. I may indeed be untrained as a speaker, but I do have knowledge.
[00:23:11] We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way. So now Paul is going to answer the two charges that have been basically leveled against him, that his speaking is inferior. And, and that, number two, that the charges that he doesn't charge, in other words, he doesn't collect money for the message, which his opponent's mind, in their mind suggests an inferiority of his message. Paul acknowledges, number one, that he's not a rhetoric riction. So in other words, I don't know if you know it. Rhetoric was a big thing in the Greek mindset. These people were eloquent, and they weren't concerned so much about the topic as they were about persuading.
[00:23:52] See, they were more concerned not so much about the substance of the message, but the method of conveying the message. That's what Paul is talking about here.
[00:24:02] So while they're focusing on style and method of delivery, Paul is focusing on substance in the message. And he says this in the first book of Corinthians, he said, for Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with the word, wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of his power. So Paul is saying, it's not about the delivery, it's about the message and its power, its intrinsic power when you're preaching Christ and him crucified.
[00:24:31] And so we can see, for Paul, his message pointed to Jesus. For the false teachers, their messages usually pointed to themselves and their experiences. Isn't that interesting? You know, sometimes I'm amazed. You know, you get a speaker and they start telling you all these stories about how great they are. And people, sometimes Christians just eat it up.
[00:24:52] And then you get somebody that comes along, they just teach the Bible and they're going, well, it's not as exciting.
[00:24:58] I'm going, I don't know about you folks, but as far as I'm concerned, I want to hear about Jesus.
[00:25:04] I want to hear about him. I want to understand God's word. That's what it's about. Paul. Paul's argument for not Receiving finances is very interesting. He says, 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? He said, I robbed other churches by receiving support from them so as to serve you. So it wasn't that Paul wasn't receiving funds from preaching, it was just that he wasn't receiving funds from this particular church for preaching. And in a little bit you'll see why. 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.
[00:25:42] 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 region of Acacia will stop this boasting of mine. Now the region of Acacia is the southern Greek area and that's where Corinth is.
[00:25:58] You're never going to be able to say I took money in order to communicate the gospel. So now we understand that that's part of the problem. But now I think we need to go back in time and understand where the Greeks were coming from in Corinth. This is, I think, where Ken Hughes explains why this was a big deal.
[00:26:15] See, in their day, traveling speakers and professional philosophers were accorded status by the fees they charged. Though it was thought to imply that the message. So in other words, if in fact a cheap fee was thought to imply that the message was not important, isn't that interesting?
[00:26:33] So here these guys are, and in some ways it's true today.
[00:26:38] Do you know that when let's say an ex president comes and speaks, do you know sometimes his fees can go up to $100,000 for one speaking event. How many kind of know that they get huge fees?
[00:26:52] You know, athletes get huge fees to be asked to speak at events. They get paid a lot of money to do it. I don't know if you guys realize this. This is what we're kind of talking about and this is where these guys heads were at. Therefore, Paul refused to accept money for his ministry in Corinth. It was now negatively interpreted to mean either one, an admission that his teaching was of low caliber, or two, that his message wasn't worth very much, or, or three, that he gave the gospel away because nobody would pay for it. Or four, I'm just giving you the interesting, huh? Or four, that it was not really. That he was not really an apostle. And to this, the fact that the super apostles charged for their renditions of the gospel and now you have the picture.
[00:27:35] What is fascinating is that Paul would receive funds from churches only when he had left and was in a new unreached sphere of ministry. Bringing the gospel to others. Now think about this. How humbling to realize that Paul said, I've received gifts from the more poverty stricken region of Macedonia in bringing the gospel to now the more financially affluent Corinthians.
[00:28:00] How many kind of go, that's kind of a slap in the face, oh, I'm taking this money from the poor people to speak to you very affluent people.
[00:28:07] How many think that, you know, he's kind of in a backhanded way telling them, hey, listen, now why is he doing that? I think the gospel strikes at the heart of human pride and self sufficiency and dependency.
[00:28:20] Paul now states that his sacrifices that were made was because of his love for them. But in sharing his approach to ministry, he's revealing the motivation of his bringing the gospel, but also in that sense exposing the false motivations, which was financial gain of these false messengers. They were in it for the money.
[00:28:40] Paul wasn't.
[00:28:43] You know, I'm going to say something shocking, but I'm convinced and this is, I'm not going to judge anybody. Everybody's going to stand before God. We're all servants of Christ.
[00:28:53] But if people are in the ministry to make money, that's the wrong motivation and you're going to be in trouble one day before God. We shouldn't be doing that. Okay, now Paul says it here, why? Because I do not love you. God knows I do. And I will keep on doing what I'm 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. So Paul says, I'm undercutting these guys. That's why I'm telling you these things. Well, let's look at the third reason mentioned that we want to basically address evil, how to deal with it as exposing their lies and their lifestyle. So Paul's not going to come right to the heart of it. The key to exposing evil is to address the false message, the motivation and the lifestyle of the messengers. The reason is in order to discredit their message, which now Paul sees as leading these Corinthians away from the truth. And that's going to bring condemnation into their lives. So he's going to expand, expose the source of their message. Here it comes, verses 13 to 15 for such people are false apostles, deceitful workers masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder for Satan Himself masquerades as an angel of light.
[00:30:12] It is not surprising then if his servants also go masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
[00:30:20] Scott Heffelman explains the language Paul uses here to expose these apostles. Apostles, the verb translated masquerading here signifies an idea to change the form, to transform, to change or disguise oneself into something. It is best taken here to signify disguising oneself. These guys are wearing a mask. He's saying they're pretending to be something they're not. The opponents are deceitful workers in that though false or pseudo apostles. They're to pretending pretending to be the genuine article. But they're fakes.
[00:30:53] You know, you know how many know that if you have a fake thing, you probably or you're duplicating or trying to deceive people. There's probably a genuine thing. So Paul is the genuine thing. These guys are the fake things and he's trying to expose them. The nature of deception is when people pretend to be something they're not. Not how many go, that's hypocrisy. That's exactly right.
[00:31:21] You're masquerading.
[00:31:23] In other words, we're actually living a lie.
[00:31:26] Linda Belville explains Paul's statement is sobering. Church leaders can seem genuine in appearance and profession, yet in actuality be Satan's minions.
[00:31:36] How one sees through the outward guise to the inner truth is not stated.
[00:31:43] But it is clear to Paul that the Corinthian intruders have disguised themselves in this fashion. The charge is a serious one.
[00:31:49] If the Corinthian intruders really are Satan's servants, they're not just merely Paul's opponents, but also enemies of Christ.
[00:31:57] That's pretty strong.
[00:31:59] Paul is making the argument here from the greater to the lesser. If Satan can deceive people, which he certainly did, and we saw the example of of Eve and I think some of us in this room says there's been a few moments I've been deceived.
[00:32:11] So he's a deceiver with his false promise in the garden coming as a message quote to enlighten. That's always a term in the cults. We're here to enlighten you.
[00:32:22] There's a lot of people trying to enlighten us, but it's a distortion of the truth. We need to be on our guard. You know, they're just coming to enlighten the Corinthians. They're simply replicating their master, Satan. Paul now states emphatically that their reward will be according to their actions, their lives, simply leading people astray and into bondage. And a severe and eternal judgment will fall on these false messengers.
[00:32:56] The importance of calling out evil and is deception. Deception is critical for the well being of God's people. Jesus warned that deception is part of the challenges that we will face in all of our lives. That's why this message is important.
[00:33:10] Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 24. He's talking about the days ahead. Okay, now I want you to know something about biblical language. In the last days.
[00:33:19] Started on the day of Pentecost now, but we've been living in the last days for a long time.
[00:33:25] But maybe we're in the twilight of the last days, I don't know. But I'm just going to say this. This is what Jesus tells us about the future. He says it this way, in those days, if those days had not been cut short, no one would survive.
[00:33:38] But for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened.
[00:33:41] At that time, if anyone says to you, look, here is the Messiah, or there he is, do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and they're going to perform great signs and wonders to deceive if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you ahead of time. So Jesus is warning us. How many think it might be important to pay attention to Jesus?
[00:34:06] Anybody think, you know, if Jesus is warning me, I better listen to what he's saying. He's saying, hey, up ahead here there's going to be, you know, it's like traveling down a path or a road, you know. You know, we have signs on the road and every once in a while, how many have ever driven a road you've never been on before and you're not acquainted with the road and there's a sign up ahead, so slow down to a really ridiculously low speed. And you think, well, why should I do that? I'm moving along at a good clip here.
[00:34:31] Well, let me tell you something, it's a warning, pay attention.
[00:34:36] So how many go, you know what, I've never been on this road before. I'm just going to slow down. You know, I was up in Arizona here this past year and there was a. I went up, way up. I forget where I went to, but there was the windiest road I'd been on for a long time. And I'm going to tell you, it was just like cutbacks and all kinds of stuff. And I'm thinking, you know, I was telling you, slow down to this, slow down to That I was slowing down because it was a lot of fast turns. And I was just thinking to myself, we need warnings in life.
[00:35:06] You know, some people say, I just want encouragements, Pastor. Well, I like encouragements too. But sometimes a warning is a good thing to have too, because it'll keep me from wrecking my car, killing myself.
[00:35:17] There's always been people who distort God's message. How many know that's true? The Bible calls them false prophets. And God, here's the question. So God allows false prophets. Ever ask yourself the question, why does God even let these guys exist? You ever thought about that? Why does he even let it happen?
[00:35:34] The answer is real simple to test the condition of our own hearts. Do we want the truth or do we want to believe a lie?
[00:35:41] It's really. It's a test for us. We need to understand that. Look at Deuteronomy 13 talks about that.
[00:35:48] How will we handle this warning in our lives?
[00:35:52] You know, God, there's a part in each one of us that we're blind to. Some things. It's true of all of us. And God's aware and he sometimes exposes stuff inside of our lives. And we go, oh, well, I didn't know that was there. Got to address that, right? God wants to cleanse our hearts, so we'll have a healthy and we'll have godly desires. How will we handle it in our life? Will we respond to God's warnings?
[00:36:15] So listen to what Paul writes here, and I think we're going to close with these scriptures here in Second Thessalonians, he said, the coming of the lawless one will be in accordance to how Satan works. How does he work?
[00:36:29] He will use all sorts of display of power through signs and wonders that serve what?
[00:36:36] The lie.
[00:36:38] So Satan is the father of lies. His language is lies. He's the father of all lies.
[00:36:47] That's his language.
[00:36:48] Do we speak the language of Satan or do we speak the language of God, which is the language of truth?
[00:36:55] And then it says, now these signs that he's doing is actually to serve a lie. The lie in all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are. What?
[00:37:06] What are people?
[00:37:07] If you're being deceived, what is happening to you?
[00:37:10] You're perishing.
[00:37:12] You're actually going in the wrong direction. Okay? They perish because of what?
[00:37:17] What's the reason why people are perishing today?
[00:37:21] They refuse to do something. And what's that?
[00:37:24] To love the truth and so be saved.
[00:37:28] People are refusing to love the truth.
[00:37:34] Can I Say something. Be a lover of truth.
[00:37:37] Be a lover of truth.
[00:37:40] But who is the truth?
[00:37:42] Jesus said I'm the way, I'm the truth.
[00:37:47] The life truth is a person. Follow Jesus, just keep following Jesus. He's the truth.
[00:37:54] Because they refuse to love the truth. And the Bible says and so be saved.
[00:38:01] So one of the problems with sin is its very nature is deception.
[00:38:09] For this reason God sends them. For this reason God sends them what?
[00:38:15] The non lovers of truth. God sends them a what?
[00:38:19] Powerful delusions. He uses Satan. He's using Satan. Okay, why? So that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. Do you know why people don't want to embrace the truth? Because they want to stay in wickedness. They want to delight in it. They want to justify it. They don't want to turn from it, they don't want to repent from it. They want to stay in it.
[00:38:45] You know, I've dealt with people for a long time now. I can tell you these scripture verses are very, very powerful. It's true. So why do people perish?
[00:38:54] Because they refuse to love the truth and be saved.
[00:38:59] One of the problems of sin is that its very nature is deceptiveness. And it's generally facilitated in the human heart. Because. Because our desire is to suppress the truth. People today don't want to know the truth.
[00:39:11] You know, why do we have cancel culture?
[00:39:14] Don't tell me the truth. I don't want to hear it.
[00:39:18] I want everybody to think like me. I want to be able to justify my wickedness.
[00:39:24] I'm just calling it out and what I'm saying is true. That's what's happening.
[00:39:31] Let us pray that we are alert and diligent as we have been admonished by John to test the spirits to see whether they be from God. Let's stand.
[00:39:44] So you know, I love preaching fun sermons. I love preaching encouraging sermons. This is not one of those type of sermons. This is a warning sermon.
[00:39:55] But you know, whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.
[00:40:00] Let us take it to heart.
[00:40:02] How many here say I'm a lover of truth?
[00:40:06] I love the truth.
[00:40:08] I'm not interested in being sucked in, duped, deceived. I'm not interested in justifying my bad behavior. I'm interested in God changing my bad behavior. I want to conform my life. I want to be transformed. I want to be like Christ. I want to keep walking in the truth. I want. I want to walk in the light as he is in the light. And then as I do that, the blood of Jesus Christ does what? It cleanses me. You know, a lot of times we're doing stuff we shouldn't be doing. We're not even mindful of it sometimes. But he's cleansing us because we are a lover of the truth.
[00:40:38] So let us pray. Let us pray this morning.
[00:40:42] By God's grace, he will keep us.
[00:40:46] By God's grace, he will reveal to us the distorted things that come along.
[00:40:55] I believe that you don't have to be a scholar to pick it out. You just have to be walking with God. And the Holy Spirit inside of you is going to say, something's not right with this.
[00:41:06] Now, I may not be able to articulate it. I may not be able to go in and figure out what's wrong with it. But something's wrong here, and I don't know what it is.
[00:41:15] Maybe I need to talk to somebody else. They can point it out for me what the problem is. But something's not lining up here.
[00:41:23] We're going to live in. We're living in an age, folks. I'm saying to you this way. There's so much media coverage, there's so much communication. We've never.
[00:41:32] We're living in a saturated communication time. Let me say that's true.
[00:41:37] And the. The opportunity for deception is never been higher.
[00:41:42] So we have to be lovers of the truth. Now, I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray for us today that we will be that. So, Father, right now I ask that you would help each one of us to be lovers of you, to be lovers of the true Jesus, to be lovers of the good news about Jesus, to be lovers of the life that you promised us. It's a beautiful life, but yes, it is a life that doesn't just promise, you know, we're going to get rich or we're always going to be healthy. No, it doesn't promise that we can ask for those things.
[00:42:18] But that doesn't mean that you have to give us those things. It means simply this, that whatever you want and whatever you know, we need to make us more like you. You're going to bring into our lives, and sometimes you're going to allow challenges and hardship and difficulty. You're going to allow these things into our life not because you don't love us. It's because you do love us.
[00:42:42] You're not just going to, you know, spoil us rotten and destroy us.
[00:42:47] You're not going to just create a culture of entitlement.
[00:42:54] You're going to create a culture of trust.
[00:42:56] We're going to learn to trust you in the no matter what we experience in life, even when we don't understand what's going on in our lives, even like Job says, though you slay me, I will trust you. We want to be those kind of believers that we're, you know, we're following youg and loving youg, and we love the truth and we love who youo are, Lord, and we love what yout're doing in our lives because we know that we are changing.
[00:43:21] We're changing because we're forsaking some things that we know are wrong, and we're turning our backs on those things. And we're turning to you and we're asking for help to grow and develop and to be used of you in a more profound and powerful way and to be more fruitful and more effective.
[00:43:37] And I pray today, even as I have this congregation standing before me and those that are listening, I pray for a deeper sense of urgency, that we will understand that we have a calling that comes from above and that you have something in store for us, our lives. And you have an assignment for us. And I pray, like the apostle Paul, that we will be faithful right to the end, that we will finish the course. We will fight the good fight, and we will keep the faith. We will keep the faith to the end.
[00:44:06] And we will be used by you, Lord, to affect transformation in our society. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, Amen. God bless you as you leave.
