2nd Corinthians ā Wayne Barber/Part 40
By: Dr. Wayne Barber; ©2006 |
Iām not real good with titles but when I got into chapter 11, I realized that heās going to now take us into a real intense study on the āDanger of Spiritual Deception.ā |
The Heart of a true teacher ā Part 1 (2 Cor 11:1-3)
Today we start a brand new chapter. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 11. You know, I told you that I was going to call it āPoise in the Face of Persecutionā and would be the theme for the whole rest of the book. Well, I changed my mind. Iām not real good with titles but when I got into chapter 11, I realized that heās going to now take us into a real intense study on the āDanger of Spiritual Deception.ā And so I want to title this next series that weāre facing here in 2 Corinthians āThe Danger of Spiritual Deception.ā And today what I want to talk about is āThe Heart of a True Teacher.ā Weāre going to go through verse 3. Iāve tried to get to verse 6 and I canāt do it.
Youāre going to wonder why Iām only going to get to one point until I finish the message. Then youāll realize I couldnāt have gone any further. Let me get you into this. The heart of a true teacher of the Word is a precious thing to observe, and weāre going to see this in verses 1-12 before he actually gets into the aspects of false teachers and false apostles he talks about the aspects of his own life: a true teacher, a true apostle. Weāre going to see this lived out in Paulās life. A true teacher will preach and teach whether it be in the pulpit or wherever, a true teacher will preach and teach Godās Word at any expense to himself for the spiritual health of the body of Christ that he loves.
You see, the greatest enemy to Godās people is doctrinal deception. I think maybe I want to say that again. The greatest enemy to Godās people is doctrinal deception. Doctrine is so, so important. You see, once error gets into a personās mind then it becomes a stronghold that controls his behavior. This is what happened when we studied Galatians, remember? How they turned from living under the freedom of grace, under the bondage to the Law and Paul wrote to them, āO foolish Galatians,ā and what happened was it divided the whole church. There were factions everywhere. Why? Because of the change in their belief system; they began to think differently and they began to act differently.
This was what was going on when Paul warned the Colossians and they were facing the Gnostic heresy and he was saying, āPeople, please, Jesus is the treasure house of knowledge.ā All the beautiful things he says in Colossians. Christ in you is the hope of glory. This is what was going on with the Thessalonians. In 1 Thessalonians they didnāt know what happened to the body when it died. They understood the spirit went to be with the Lord. What happened to the body? And they were grieved over this. It was causing a lot of concern in the church and Paul had to write correcting that. In 2 Thessalonians they thought the day of the Lord had come, of all things. And so Paul had to straighten it out because believing wrongly had changed their behavior. This was the warning Paul gave to the church at Ephesus when he met with the Ephesian elders on the island of Militias and he says, āAs soon as Iām gone, woes are going to rise up among you.ā And heās talking about the false teachers and how theyāre going to pervert thinking and therefore the behavior of the church.
This was what was threatening the church of Corinth. And so the stronghold of thinking is so important. Thatās why truth, Godās Word, has to be preached and has to be taught. Godās Word is truth and when truth is preached it sets a person free; but false doctrine will cripple his life and put him into a bondage that is very hard, if it even can be broken. It cannot be broken outside of the Word of God.
Sin, no matter what shape or form that it takes, stems from a lie that a person has believed. And as we enter into chapter 11 we see the heart of our true teacher, the apostle Paul. Heās going to unveil himself before the church of Corinth. Paul begins by saying in verse 1, āI wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me.ā Now that phrase, āI wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishnessā needs to be understood in light of the context. Remember, context always rules. Thatās why I do so much review.
We have just seen in chapter 10 how the false apostles in Corinth and their followers walked according to the flesh. Now what does that mean? What is their behavior like? Their whole message was a lie and their lifestyle was all about the flesh and pleasing its needs. As a result there was no spiritual discernment at all. Remember, they looked on the outside; they didnāt look on the heart. They had no spiritual assurance whatsoever. They had to somehow assert themselves. They had no spiritual identity. They were so fake and so false that they had to tear Paul down to build themselves up. They commended themselves as apostles who had great credentials, but hereās the interesting thing: there was no spiritual life in them. All they taught, all they preached was death to the people. They bragged on the work that others had done as if it was their own. They boasted of themselves instead of boasting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Their whole life and their whole ministry was all about them. It wasnāt about Jesus.
But the apostle Paul and the way he lived, the way he preached, the way he taught, was astonishingly different in contrast to these false teachers. He boasted in Christ alone. He didnāt point to himself; he always pointed to Christ. In fact, even if the people didnāt understand the difference, they could see it. They knew there was a difference in the two people, the false apostles and Paul. Paul refrained from commending himself. He said in verse 12, āFor we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.ā
Paul did not dare enter the arena of having to justify himself and his work based on the false standards of the false apostles. He said, āIām not going there.ā He did not dare speak of anything except that which God had said to him or that which God had ordered in his life. Do you realize, and we brought it out last time, make sure you understand, Paul had authority as an apostle. We donāt have apostles like Paul today. He had authority, not just over the Corinthian church but over all of the Gentile churches.
You see, Peter was given the apostolic authority over the circumcised, Israel, but Paul was given the apostolic authority over all of the Gentile world. In fact, if he were a fake apostle, which he was being accused of by these false apostles, there would be no Corinthian church. The fact that they existed showed that he was who he said he was. And Paulās heart was for the Corinthians, to see them separate themselves from the false teachers and the false doctrine that they were listening to and to grow up spiritually. āCome out of the nursery,ā he says in his first epistle to them. And he said, āI want you to become a base of mature believers so that from this base we can have a missions outreach to the whole world, the regions beyond you that have never heard the gospel of Christ.ā
But until they matured they could not become that base. Missions only can flow out of hearts that are living the message they want others to hear. Paulās heart was to see them come away and stand with him for the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul did not boast of himself; he only boasted of Christ. It says in verse 17 and 18, āBut he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord. For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.ā Paul only wanted Christ to commend him and he refused to commend himself.
āWayne, why are you going through this?ā Because you have to understand that about the apostle Paul to understand his statement in 11:1. This is why itās so difficult for him to do what heās about to do. Heās about to talk about himself. He doesnāt like to do that. He begins with the words, āI wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness.ā The word āwishā is an interesting word. Itās the word ophelon, and it means a wish, but itās like asking somebody to do something that is hard to do, itās difficult to do. Itās like a sigh: āOh that you would bear with me;ā or saying āwould that you would bear with me in a little foolishness.ā
The word āfoolishnessā is the word aphrosune, which means a lack of sense. Paul could hardly bring himself to do what heās about to do. He thinks itās foolish but he sees the need to do it. Heās got to show them the comparison of himself and the comparison of the false teachers. Itās very distasteful for him to do what heās about to do. And by the way, he does it several times in the next few chapters and every time he does it, he apologizes for it. He doesnāt like it because he doesnāt want to commend himself. He only wants Christ to commend him. But heās willing to sacrifice his own dignity here. Heās willing to suffer embarrassment here to do for the people what will help them, even though he feels uncomfortable in doing it.
I love this: Paulās identity was in Christ, it was not in who he was and it wasnāt his title, it wasnāt what he did, it was in Christ. Thatās a good thing for us to remember in the 21st century. My identity is not in being a pastor. My identity is not in my name. My identity is in Jesus Christ and so is yours. So whatever else is just fluff. But what my identity is, and what your identity is, we find it in the Lord. It was said of a great man, āHe never remembered his identity until others forgot it.ā Thatās the only time it came up. He didnāt live having to have people say that to him.
So he humbly asked, āWould you do what I feel foolish in asking of you? Bear with me. Indulge me if you would.ā āI wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me.ā He knew that they would, but he just felt foolish in asking them. Paul so loved the Corinthian believers. I hope you can see this. He was willing to say hard things to them, he was willing to embarrass himself to say this to them because he wanted to help them come back to truth, that truth might be the stronghold in their mind.
His heart really comes out in verse 2. He says, āFor I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.ā Now the word ājealousā there is the word zelos. It is a Greek word that actually describes a pot of water that is boiling. Itās about to boil over. Itās a lot of zeal in it. It can be a good word; it can be a bad word. If itās used in the wrong context it can be bad. Here itās good.
He adds to it, āwith a godly jealousy.ā There is a godly jealousy. Zelos, then in this context, seems to me to desire something for someone that you love so much with a zeal that is intense. Thatās a good word to use, āfor I betrothed you to one husband.ā This is his desire; heās beginning to frame what his heart is here: āfor I betrothed you to one husband.ā The word ābetrothedā in the phrase is the word harmozo. It was used of a father giving his daughter away in marriage. It could be understood in the context of Jewish marriage.
You know, Paul was steeped into the Jewish heritage. He was a Jew and he met Jesus on the Damascus Road. He understood Jewish culture and Jewish thinking. And the idea of us being the bride and Jesus being the Bridegroom is very natural to a person who understands Scripture. In Isaiah 54:5 God said to the prophet Isaiah, āFor your husband is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts; and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth.ā Isaiah 62:5, āFor as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.ā That comparison has been made many times in Scripture and so it was natural for Paul to use the metaphor of marriage and to think of the Corinthian church as the bride to the Bridegroom who is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Weāre part of that bride, by the way. Paul brings that out in other epistles. So at a Jewish wedding there were two people that were very important. They were called the friends of the bridegroom. Now one of them represented the bridegroom and one of them represented the bride. They had many duties. They acted as liaisons between the two because there was not to be a lot of contact between the two: the bride and the bridegroom. They carried invitations to the guests. But you know what their specific responsibility was? Their specific responsibility was guaranteeing the chastity of the bride so that she would be a pure virgin when she came to meet with her husband and to consummate that marriage.
Now this could be Paulās thought here and probably is. In the marriage of Jesus Christ and the Corinthian church, the future marriage, Paul is the friend of the bridegroom who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now itās his responsibility to guarantee the chastity of the bride, and heāll do everything he can do to keep the Corinthian church doctrinally pure and morally pure and a fit bride for the bridegroom for that wedding feast. Paul was their spiritual father with a heart to protect their purity as the bride of Christ.
Now the false teachers that came into play here, the false teachers were those adulterers who claimed themselves as apostles, who were out to destroy the purity of the bride of Christ, just like they are today. But Paul knew that even though they knew the Word of God, even enough to deceive the people, there was a difference in Paul. Paul knew the God of the Word. Thatās a big difference. They knew enough of the Word to confuse, but Paul knew the God of the Word. Not only did he know the Word of God, he knew the God of the Word. Paul had the upper hand. And thatās why heās doing what heās doing here in trying to help the Corinthian church be salvaged from the false doctrine that is invading their territory.
The story is told of a group of people dining out together and in that was a professional actor, sitting next to an older man. And at a certain time they asked the actor to stand up and give a speech. So he chose rather to quote Psalms 23 and he stood up and quoted it with great voice, with great oratory skills, with great professionalism. And when he finished, they all clapped. They had been entertained. He sat down beside the old man and asked the old man, āWould you like to do the same thing?ā And he said, āSure.ā He stood up and he finished and when he finished, though his voice had been shaky, less than professional, there was a hush. Nobody clapped when he sat down; just a holy hush. And the actor who was so professional and so good at what he did, looked at the old man and said, āSir, I know the Psalm, but you definitely know the Shepherd.ā That was the difference between Paul and the false teachers at Corinth.
As their spiritual father, as their spiritual shepherd, he cared about the church of Corinth and he wanted their freedom in Christ to remain pure. He wanted them, that day when we all go to the marriage supper of the Lamb, he wanted to be presented, he wanted to present them as a pure virgin and it means that in spiritual terms. Itās a doctrinal purity which means a morally pure life because what you think determines how you live.
Well, thatās a long introduction. Thatās why Iāve only gotten to one point today but I think itās necessary to understand the heartbeat of a true teacher of Godās Word. Why he will not compromise the Word of God. No matter what it cost him, and no matter what people think or like or donāt like, he will not do it. Heāll say the hard things when he needs to. Why? Heās trying to protect the church from spiritual adultery which will lead to that kind of behavior and will be an impure bride when theyāre presented to the Bridegroom.
A true teacher wants to protect Godās flock
Now look with me at Paulās heart, as weāve seen already, the way it beats. Letās just look some more now. What makes up a true teacher? Whatās the heart of a true teacher? Only one point: A true teacher, and weāve said it already, wants to protect Godās flock. You see, Jesus kept saying to Peter, āFeed My sheep, feed My sheep, tend My lambs.ā As a shepherd, a teacher will do three things that are very clear.
One of them is that heāll guard the sheep: the shepherd guards the sheep. A shepherd will guide the sheep and the shepherd with graze the sheep. He guards with Godās truth, he guides with Godās truth of the Word and he grazes with Godās truth, which is the Word. Now Paul makes a comparison in verse 3. Itās very interesting. He goes back to the Old Testament and he picks out Eve in the Garden of Eden and how she was deceived, seduced, by the devil himself. And he compares that on one side with the Corinthian church being the bride of Christ and the false teachers seeking to deceive them.
He says in verse 3, āBut I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.ā Thatās quite a mouthful and itāll take us the rest of the message to work it out. The word āafraidā in the phrase, āI am afraid,ā is the word phobeo. It means to ābecome fearfulā and it even has the idea of being terrified. Iām terrified. Now, the interesting thing is that itās in the middle voice. A lot of people miss this.
A middle voice in Greekāwe donāt have a middle voice in English and it needs to be explainedāthe middle voice has very similar action to it as the active voice. Iām doing something. But it also has a passive meaning with it. Itās like a deponent verb. Itās like a middle passive verb. But the middle voice always carries that idea. Yes, Iām afraid, but itās because of something. And Paul is saying, āI am afraid for you, I am terrified, but thereās a reason Iām terrified, because of what I know is going on in Corinth,ā as he was even writing that letter. It brought it out.
You see, Paul sees deception as a horrible thing. Now there was a legendāand understand when I say ālegendā I mean legend, and it wasnāt about Adamās sin and Eve being deceivedābut it was a legend that the Jews believed at the time Paul was writing this, and he could have been referring to, I donāt know, that said that Satan actually seduced Eve. There was a violation of her, physically, and Cain was the illegitimate child, the illicit child. Now some Jews chose to believe that. Paul didnāt believe that. However, if you look at the germ thought of that legend that someone violated an innocent one and as a result of violation there was a birth of illicit behavior, the apostle Paul to me could have been saying, āThese deceivers are like rapists, theyāre like violators and they want to come in on the bride of Christ and they want to infiltrate their minds.ā They want to impregnate them with wrong thoughts and they want to give birth to the illicit behavior so that the apostle Paul could not present the church as a pure virgin that day to the Bridegroom.
Pretty good thought. In fact, we donāt know, thatās just a thought that I threw out that was going on at that time. However, itās got a point to it. Itās a great illustration of what false doctrine is. Next time you catch yourself listening to it and think itās not bothering you, be real careful. Would you listen to somebody who wanted to violate you? I donāt think so. But you see what we do? We just let the world just continue to infiltrate our minds with that which is going to change our paradigm of thinking and as a result is going to change our behavior.
Well, whatever he had in mind, we do know that heās referring to the actual event of what happened in the Garden of Eden, of the fall of mankind in the sin of Adam. And he compares the fact that Eve was deceived by the serpent. Revelation 20:2 describes the serpent as the devil and Satan. It says, āAnd he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.ā Eve was led astray to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden.
Now her deception so affected Adam that he wasnāt deceived, he chose; because God had told him face to face, he chose to sin against Godās command which had caused all mankind to be born into sin. Just think about that for a second. What the deception of one human being, the cost of that to the rest that were born after. Eveās deception led Adam to sin and to the fall of all mankind. Romans 5:12 says, āTherefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.ā
The word ādeceivedā there in verse 3 is the word exapatao, which means to so deceive that it results in the change in oneās thinking which is radical and it changes their behavior. Thatās deception. You have to understand deception, folks. Itās not something you play with. Itās something you give your life to. In the end times when the antichrist is on this earth, heās going to deceive people and Iām talking about a true deception to where it changes the way you think and the way that you live.
I saw this on film. There was an experiment years ago in a classroom. The instructor got up and brought in an iron that youād iron clothes with, and in front of people plugged it into a wall socket and then turned the iron on in front of all the people that were there. And he sat it down. Then for the next 30 to 40 minutes he explained how hot an iron can get. He explained what would happen if you put the hot iron against the skin and how it would sizzle and all the different gory things that would happen if you left the iron on the skin. And then at the end of it he called up someone and he said, āCome here, I want to show you something.ā
The young man walked up, he said, āRoll your sleeves up.ā And he took the iron, immediately grabbed his arm and stuck it on his arm. Well, the class was horrified that a teacher would do that and the young man screamed in excruciating pain. And then the teacher calmed everybody down and he said, āNow I want to tell you something. That socket is a dead socket. This iron is not hot. This iron is cold.ā But the young man had been visibly affected. Why? Because of that which he falsely believed.
Thatās the way deception works, like that. It is so real in your mind that it becomes real in your experience. The devil was so convincing to Eve that he was able to lead her to question Godās Word and as a result to disobey Godās command. He disguised himself as a serpent. I donāt know what a serpent looked like before the fall, I know they crawled after the fall. Somebody said, āWhat does it look like?ā I donāt know. I wasnāt there. When we get to heaven Iāll ask and find out, but I donāt know what it looked like. Evidently it was pretty presentable and it talked. I just get a kick out of thinking what it might look like.
But the serpent came to her, and it was the devil disguised as a serpent and talking to her. You see, God had given Adam a specific command. Hereās the serpent disguising himself trying to get her away from that which God had said. And a specific command was Genesis 2:16-17, āAnd the Lord God commanded the man, saying, āFrom any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.āā Well, the devil deceives Eve and causes her to question Godās Word.
Some say that maybe Adam failed to tell her what God had told him, and if itās typical of most men itās probably right. We donāt know that for sure, thatās just a great way of looking at it. But at any rate, in Genesis 3:1-6, this is what heās referencing. Heās comparing now the serpent deceiving Eve with the false teachers deceiving the bride of Christ at Corinth. Look at this, verse 1, āNow the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, āIndeed, has God said, āYou shall not eat from any tree of the gardenā?ā And the woman said to the serpent, āFrom the fruit of the tress of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which in the middle of the garden, God has said, āYou shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.āāā
Now God didnāt say anything about touching it. He just said donāt eat from it. But thatās okay, sheās close enough. āAnd the serpent said to the woman, āYou surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.āā Now thereās an aspect of truth to that. When they did they immediately saw what evil was about. They didnāt know what it was about before and now they saw each otherās nakedness and you know the story goes downhill from there. The devil only tells truth or partial truth when it serves his purpose. āWhen the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise,ā you know the devil only has three parts of a game plan, āshe took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate,ā deliberately, under no deception ate. And that was the sin that cast them out of the garden and that was the sin of Adam of which weāre all born into when weāre born into this world.
So Paul was referring to this as we continue in verse 3. And look at the consequences of a personās deception. Look how far it goes. No man is an island. You donāt do anything by yourself. When you sin and I sin it always affects others in some way, shape, or form. The false apostles had deceived the Corinthians to question Paulās apostleship and thus the instructions he had given to them. Do you realize we donāt have apostles like Paul today? Paul was writing the New Testament as he pinned these epistles to these churches under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. In our day to question the authority of an apostle, you canāt do that because you donāt have any. But what it would be like today would be questioning the very Word of God that the prophets and the apostles gave to us.
When we start questioning, āDid God really say that?ā āWell, you have to look at it this way.ā āWell, actually,ā¦ā immediately it sets up in your mind that this Book is not your authority and from that point on your behavior is going to fall down and grow decrepit as a result.
Well, the word ācraftiness,ā āhe deceived Eve by his craftinessā in verse 3, is the word panourgia, which means āto be crafty, cunning, shrewd.ā A crafty person like the false apostles of Corinth will use any means. You know these false teachers that came in a seduced the minds, they didnāt do it overnight. It was a slow thing; it was alluring and a wooing and getting them to listen to them and like them and etc. But its end was to deceive.
The other day we had huddle time. We have that once a month for our staff. For the devotion Terry brought some fishing lures. He said, āListen, you know what these lures are for? Theyāre deceivers and their purpose is to catch a fish thatās too stupid to know the difference.ā And you know, there were different kinds of lure, there were different colors, different shapes, because you know not every fish is fooled by the same lure. Because everybody has a weakness, itās a little bit different, and youāve got to match the hatch with the catch. But youāve got to match the two together.
I thought, man, that is exactly whatās going on in 2 Corinthians 11. They knew how to get to these people. I guarantee you they knew how to do it. False doctrine is nothing but lures to bait oneās fleshly appetite with the goal to trap it, to catch it and to bring death. But its danger is that when false doctrine is believed, here is what we have to look at from chapter 10, it establishes strongholds in oneās mind. And those strongholds will determine how a person thinks, how he reacts, how he behaves. Thatās the danger. The more I listen to the false things of the world and not to the true things of Godās Word, the more I become like the world because thatās what Iām listening to. Thatās whatās determining how I think. And Paul says, āCanāt you see it?ā
Remember the context of chapter 10, we talked about strongholds and how it changes the behavior, but the whole key is not the behavior. Thatās symptomatic; itās where a person is coming from that causes him to behave the way he behaves. So in Corinth the devil, the old serpent himself, disguised himself as an apostle. He didnāt come in as a serpent talking to Eve. He came in as an apostle and sought to deceive the believers who would listen.
The fabric of his deceptive garments was made up of luring fleshly characteristics such as professional polish. I guarantee you if he lived today heād have Power Point, hi-def screen, heād have all the tools. Heād have everything to wow, to lure the people and disarm them. He had worldly credentials, had all the rĆ©sumĆ©s you needed, impressive rĆ©sumĆ©s, honey-tongued speech, but every bit of it was just to impress the people who were so gullible they didnāt know the difference, into believing a lie. He wanted to seduce the bride of Christ and make them impure before the Bridegroom.
They were good at their deception, folks. And many had already bought into it hook, line, and sinker, and the apostle Paul is trying to warn the rest. Verse 3, āBut I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.ā What a mouthful. The word āmindsā here could be several words, but itās the word noema, and it refers to the part of the mind that gives us the ability to understand, to perceive, so that your understanding of what the Christian life really is, that your perception of a single-minded devotion to Christ would somehow be led astray. And you donāt see it like you used to see it.
The word āsimplicityā itself is the Greek word haplotes, which means āa single-mindedness.ā A single focus, not a double-mindedness; deception leads oneās understanding away from the simplicity of devotion to Christ. How important this is to all of us. The word āpurityā is the word hagnotes, and itās the word that means āsincerityā and it has a lot to do with the body and its pure way in which it lives in this world. Do you see how wrong thinking leads a personās whole understanding of excitement about Jesus and focus upon Him and His Word off the track?
Let me ask you this question: how many of you have been there in your Christian walk when you started listening, not paying attention to Godās Word and all of a sudden that fervor and that excitement to walk with Him, that joy of waking up every morning and knowing that Heās your life, the joy of being in His Word and the revelation He only brings to you when youāre there emptied of self wanting to hear Him, and He just pulls you away from to where your Christian life just gets cold and mechanical and itās not real anymore? Anybody besides me been there in your Christian walk? You see what heās saying?
Itās incredible if we would just think it out. Itās simple. If a personās got a problem, āI donāt know about church anymore,ā well, what in the world led you off the path? Whereās that excitement you used to have to share Christ with somebody? Whereās that excitement you used to have to get into the Word? What happened to you? And you can easily find out. Something led you astray. Something messed up your understanding that itās the only way to live the Christian life. Jesus, if Heās not Lord of all, then Heās not Lord at all in your life.
And people just donāt get it. They think thatās radical. If you want radical, go back and study the Gospels. Thatās radical. Jesus preached the hard things. They walked away and never would return to hear Him again. You see, Christianity is not this game we play; itās the life that we live. And itās moment by moment. Is it perfection? No! Itās predictability; and the more you know when youāre wrong, you come back to where you departed. When you shoot across the road and thereās no cars coming, you go back to where you departed and you deal with it. Thatās the Christian life. You always can know when youāre out here in left field or right field because Jesus is just not as meaningful to you and His Word not authoritative enough in your life anymore. Something has led you astray.
Well, the word for ādevotionā there is not in the Greek text. Itās implied. Purity towards, I mean, itās all there; he just adds devotion to help you keep the continuity of thought. You say, āIām struggling with what youāre saying. Put it together for me in simple terms that I can understand it.ā Iām going to try. I may miss it, but Iām going to try. Letās go back to what I said a moment ago. Someone says, āI donāt feel as closes to the Lord as I once did.ā Well, what or who led you astray? What has taken Christās place that used to satisfy you in your heart?
What has disturbed your devotion only to Christ? Where have you sought satisfaction apart from Him? See, this is where a lot of religions mess up. Weāre not a religion, weāre a relationship, but they think itās all in the church. No, sir, itās in Christ. And you canāt ever find it outside of Him. Someone says, āI love the message of grace because now I can do anything I want to and itās okay.ā Who has led you astray? Grace does not mean the freedom to do as you please. Where in the world does it come from? Grace is the power in Jesus Christ that lives within us to do as we should. Who has led you astray?
Someone says, āI donāt have to confess sin. Iām already forgiven.ā Who has led you astray? First John 1:9 says, āIf you confess your sins Heās faithful and just to forgive you of all unrighteousness.ā Thatās in the present tense, not in the aorist as if that was a salvation verse. But he said to continue to confess, continue to confess. Well, the forgiveness is already there but the key that unlocks the door and lets you experience that forgiveness in your daily walk and be cleansed by His blood is by the willingness to confess it. āLord, I agree with You. You told me if I obeyed my flesh Iād be in this mess. You are right and Iām sick of it and I want to repent of it.ā
And you know what? God is the greatest psychologist if I can use that carefully. You understand my thinking. Because He knows how much we need to confess sin because He wants to continually remind us of how desperate we are for Him to do in our life what we cannot do. And every time I confess my sin, I agree with Him one more time. Lord, it is depraved, it is sick, and it is getting worse. Itāll lie to a game warden knowing all the truth that it knows.
Well, someone sings, āYou are worthy, oh Lord,ā and it sounds so good in church and everybody claps. We walk out those doors and all week long we donāt give God the time of day and we donāt give His Word the time of day. Who has led you astray? āI surrender all.ā Right. Many of us today have been deceived, havenāt we? Weāve lost the joy of our salvation. Someone asked Vance Havner, āWhatās wrong with the church today.ā His response: āWeāve lost the wonder of our salvation.ā
Is that right? Why? Because weāve been deceived. Why is it that people would run out of a church that preaches the Word of God? Why would they leave? Because people donāt want to have their thinking changed, which is going to change the way they live. John 3:19-20, āThe light has come into the world; people will not come into the light because they donāt want their deeds to be exposed.ā āAā is here: oh God, Iām desperate. āBā is here: I want the joy in my life; I want to enjoy you. But in between A and B is a cross, and nobody seems to be willing to tell the people the bad news. Itās good, but itās bad. Youāve got to die in order to enjoy whatās on the other side.
Who has led us astray? Church is just not fun enough for me anymore. Oh, my friend, you get filled up with Jesus, walk into this church, and joy will fill this place. Fun, entertainment, thatās not the church. Listen, weāve got some teachers here that I tell you what, if God takes me home to heaven one day, you could put any of them right here in this pulpit. Why? Because they love God and love His Word and theyāre just as committed as I am standing right here. You know why? Because we donāt want people to think wrongly because itās going to end up causing them to live wrongly. Thatās what bad doctrine does. Itās a seduction, itās a violation of a spiritual mindset of an individual and it bursts a wrong lifestyle in the long run.
Where are you today in your devotion only to Christ? Just like it was when you got saved; you had no question about it, you knew. Where has it gone today? A true teacher wants to protect the flock with Godās Word from being deceived no matter what it costs him and no matter what embarrassment he has to go through. He doesnāt want them to be led astray from their single-minded devotion to Christ.
Well, a false teacher is scary. A false teacher doesnāt tell you the whole message at the same time. He eases it in. Iām not preaching from 2 Peter or Genesis 3. There are a lot of things I could have said that I havenāt said. Iām just trying to get us out of 2 Corinthians which is where we are. But a false teacher will come in and put error right beside the truth and you donāt know it because heās so polished and everybody loves the way he says it rather than listening to what heās saying. And after awhile he puts a little more error and a little less truth and after awhile a whole lot more error and after awhile it is all error. But thereās spiritual death, not in the sense of eternal spiritual death but a spiritual dying of a congregation when they donāt hear Godās Word. It starves them to death when you donāt give them that.
An old farmer had a mule, and that mule ate oats. And the farmer was buying the oats and finally one day he said, āThese oats are getting too high priced.ā He looked at the dry oat and said it looked like a piece of sawdust. So he started getting some sawdust and heād put just a little bit at a time. Several weeks went by. After awhile it was more sawdust that it was oats. And finally one day it was all sawdust. And that mule came in starving to death, ate and ate and ate. āLook, saved me all that money. Heās still doing good.ā The mule finished eating, looked at the farmer miserably, and fell over dead.
I canāt forgive my brother? Whoās led you astray? Iāve got some gripes. Whoās led you astray? Why are you behaving like youāre behaving. Something has gotten in here and changed the way you think. And thatās the way it happens. The only solution, verse by verse, word for word, Godās Word will disarm error. Itāll get the sawdust out back to where itās pure oats. And thatās what salvages the church any day, but particularly in our day.
[ā¦] Read Part 40 [ā¦]