Galatians 5:7-12

A little leavened, leavened the whole lump, and it says that in scripture here in Galatians.

There are dangers when individuals come and stand up and preach or teach or speak.

Falsehood, it must be opposed. Scripture does not give room for it.

Give us the strength, the courage, the wisdom, we pray, and as Jeff brings us this passage, in Jesus' name, amen.

Before you start. Yes. It's a very important announcement that needs to be made. Announcement time.

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You're 50 today. My brain still thinks I'm 55, but my body has made me quite aware that I am turning 80 today.

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Happy birthday, dear Mara. Happy birthday to you.

Until next time. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

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Elijah. Elijah, yes, when contending with the prophets of Baal, was very strong and even mocked them in their efforts to conjure up fire.

So there is a time and a place for strong rhetoric. It could be, and I think Martin Luther even acknowledged that, he went over the top sometimes.

There were times when he probably crossed the line. But there is a use for strong rhetoric.

Today, we're going to read a passage where Paul is addressing the false prophets who are leading the

Galatians into a theological heresy. And his insult at verse 12 is no less striking than what

Luther doles out. Paul was capable of this. How about Jesus? Was Jesus always meek and mild?

Anybody here ever read Matthew chapter 23? Yes, sir. Never move the rope and watch it work.

Yes. He'll call Herod a fox. He says, go tell that fox, which is kind of insulting.

Jesus, at times, would use strong rhetoric. It's not always the time to use strong rhetoric.

In children's ministry, when a child is acting up, Tim, do you ever result into Luther quotes?

No, but you have to get stern sometimes, though. You have to be stern. But you need to be careful not to be mean like Luther.

Upcoming vipers. What's that? Yeah. Upcoming vipers. Brutal vipers. That's one of my favorite ones from Jesus, yeah.

So the big point today is that when you're dealing with a false prophet, you have to recognize that this is not the time to coddle or appease.

But these must be met with direct resistance, sometimes even with the strongest terms.

Now, who of the sexes tend to be the more nurturing?

Men or women? Women. Who is made to be the ones to go to war, to be more aggressive?

Men. Men. So do you think that has anything to do with Titus 1 -9, where elders must refute those who contradict?

In other words, an elder must be willing to fight a heretic. Do you think that has something to do with the fact that elders should be men only?

Yes. Yes. What happens when a denomination begins to employ female elders?

Compromise. Compromise. Before long, right? And it usually begins with the compromise of female leadership itself.

That's usually the entry point where a denomination will say, well, we will have female elders, just not pastors.

Well, we will have female pastors, just not the senior pastor or the preaching pastor. Well, we will allow females to be the preachers.

And before long, what ends up happening is in that natural desire to include and to nurture, they include things that God would say, you must fight this.

So the natural instinct for men is to fight a threat to the family. The natural instinct of a woman is to nurture the family.

So God has made it a masculine role to do the fighting against heretics. So recognize that scripturally, elders are to be men.

I mean, it's clearly stated. I forbid a woman to teach or exercise authority over men.

Couldn't be any more clear, right? As 1 Timothy 2, verse 11 to 15, that whole passage, indicates.

But the idea here is there will be wolves that come in among you.

And you have to be willing to fight. And it's really the responsibility of the elders in the church to identify false teaching.

Could it be that there would even be some false teaching among elders? Sure. Even that happens as well.

And then the other elders would have to fight the elder. Because there are certain things worth fighting for.

Now, there's another error. And this is kind of the ditch in the other lane. And that is to fight and quarrel over things that should not be fought over.

Disputable matters, matters of opinion, things that are not gospel related. There's a warning against that.

Let me just quickly read this. You could turn there if you like. But it's at the end of Titus, chapter 3, verses 9 to 11.

Might as well I'll get there. It's an important passage. This is about being quarrelsome. A quarrelsome person is somebody who's looking for a fight.

They're willing to fight and battle for their every opinion and make everything a hill to die on.

Titus 3, verses 9 to 11. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law.

For they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.

Knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self -condemned.

Can we think of any examples of a foolish controversy, a genealogy, or a dissension, or a quarrel about the law?

In recent history, the last 25 years, what was the most ridiculously contentious congregational meeting about?

The screen. Well, the piano was, yeah, but the screen.

Should we paint, reflective paint, or have a pull -down screen? And it was a 50 -50 battle.

Oh my, how important. Yeah. That's the hill to die on.

We must have the pull -down screen. You know, it was ridiculous. Yeah.

Now, the tendency in our culture is to err in which direction? What's that?

In our church, we err in compromise. I think that if you were to go to most churches, they would really have a problem with only one thing, the bigot.

The person who thinks that their way is the only way. The person who is confrontational and aggressive, that's the person that they really don't want anything to do with.

But what you need to be is welcoming of all. So they would point to Titus 3 and call any, hey, if you're opposed to gay marriage, don't be so quarrelsome.

Why do you have to have your way? If you're opposed to the transitioning, quote unquote, transitioning of children, well, who are you to say?

God said so. There you go. And that's a hill to die on.

Yeah. You know, I was just thinking about this this week. My wife and I were talking about it. And I was reading where Israel, the judges, where the kings that made

Israel sin, and the sin of Jeroboam. Yep. But then it talked about the sin in Judah and the high place.

So you got to have the high places. Yes. The issue with the high places, they're two very different high places.

OK. The northern kingdom was like we could compare it to like the state church.

OK. The state. So when I was thinking about the state, the state either restricts you from doing what the mission that you believe is to be done, because you've got to stay within the confines.

Or the state will punish. But down in Israel, the high place, in Judah, it was a different kind of high place.

Yes. It was a high place that was set up by Solomon for his wives to go worship their

God. Yeah, he did. Yes. So I just throw that point out, because I'm not fully forming my thought on that.

But it's important to understand that, because these are the same dynamics we deal with when teaching.

But they're one and all. Yep. But knowing that they're one is one thing. But knowing, too, that you've got a guy like John Hagee who really, in some ways, can bring a lot of damage to the prophetic community.

Or you've got people that are moralistic that can bring damage to those who are trying to hold to.

It's a great point, Dominic. And one of the things about wisdom is knowing which battles should you fight.

What really does matter? And I think today we will get some light on that, because Paul clearly thinks that this is one of those hills to die on.

This is an issue. And the issue, of course, is because it touches the gospel. If someone comes along saying, well, you must be circumcised,

I could see people in the Jewish community saying, you know what? It'll help us reach more

Jews. Let's just go along with this. It doesn't seem like that big a deal. Maybe there's health benefits.

Come up with some reason to say, well, you know what? Let's include this. Let's let them have this one. It's not a hill worth dying on.

But that's not Paul's approach to this particular subject. So John, would you read it through for us once?

It's just verses 7 to 12. This is the shortest passage. Galatians 5, 7 to 12. This is the shortest passage you've taught us.

Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so, OK. There's a lot here. There's a lot. There's a lot here. You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view. And the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed.

I wish those who unsettled you would emasculate themselves. Wow. OK.

So let's pick up at verse 7. He begins by saying, you were running well.

Christians need to remember our first love, when we were running well.

Now, the Galatian beginning, the beginning of the Galatian church, was founded on the gospel. And at the beginning, there are two views as to how this

Galatian church was founded. One is the northern view, and the other is the southern view.

On Paul's first missionary journey, he only reached the southern parts of what some called

Galatia, the southern part of Galatia. And that would include Antioch, Poseidon, Antioch, Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, those four cities.

Some scholars think that this is the Galatian church he's addressing in the southern part of Turkey.

The northern view holds that during his second missionary journey, Paul actually traveled far north into Galatia and reached churches there.

And that's where the gospel would be preached. But if we're taking the southern view, which I think has become the majority view, that's also my view, that we're talking about these churches, remember how it started.

It was Paul himself who came there and was willing to preach the gospel.

And what happened to Paul at Lystra? Got stoned. Stoned and left for dead.

And then got back up and went back in the city. He went on to Derbe, started the church there, returned back to each of the cities where he had been, and appointed elders.

In those early days, the days of small beginnings, they were willing to suffer for the gospel.

People were being stoned and left for dead. And surely the persecution continued after he left, because it says in Acts 14, he warned them that through much suffering they will have to enter the kingdom of God.

They started in suffering for the sake of the name, and Paul never required the things that are now fascinating them.

He did not tell the Galatians they needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. He told them they needed to believe in Christ.

And Christ was all they had and all they knew, and Christ was enough. That's all they wanted, that's all they had.

They loved the Lord Jesus Christ, and he reminds them of this when he says in verse seven, you were running well.

Now, someone in the church began to preach a destructive, damnable heresy.

John, could you read the second part of verse seven? Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

Do you think Paul knows the answer to that question? Is it rhetorical, or is he asking? No, I think he's got a good idea of what's going on.

I think he knows, he probably knows some names. He's probably heard. He's wanting them to think about it.

He might or might not know. That's not material. But what he's doing in this verse is he's saying, who are we talking about here?

Who's saying something different than what I originally taught you? Judaizers. Yeah, and it is this group of Judaizers.

It's probably the same group that came up claiming to have come from James and Jerusalem, because this is 48

AD. It's just before the Jerusalem Council. So it's probably the same troublemakers that are going everywhere teaching the churches the

Judaized gospel, which according to Paul is no gospel at all. It doesn't save. You can't be saved by this gospel.

So in verse seven, who hindered you from obeying the truth? Here, there are flesh and blood human enemies that need to be identified.

And the who is meant to conjure up in their mind, or I shouldn't say conjure, but to paint a picture in their mind of a particular person, a face.

Who is saying this? Because that person might be the most lovable person in the church.

What's the definition of rhetorical? A rhetorical question is one that you, just food for thought.

It's not. It's not an obvious question to answer. Yeah, it's not expecting an answer.

There is no option. There's one answer. Everybody knows it's the one answer. Yeah, well said.

What he said. What all I'm saying though is he wants to identify a person, but here's the problem.

Very often, the wolf is wearing sheep's clothing.

This might be the person who greets everybody after church, the most friendly, the guy who's most liked in the church.

He might have the best personality and be really good on so many things.

He might talk about the trinity. He might talk about substitutionary atonement, the resurrection.

But Paul wants you to see his face, who hindered you from obeying the truth because this person is saying you have to do something.

You have to do these particular works in order to earn salvation. And it's only one thing. It seems so harmless.

Circumcision, but you're gonna see. Paul is gonna hit this with the fury of a WWE wrestler.

He's gonna come at this hard and aggressive with rhetoric, with trash talk, almost like Luther.

He is going to treat this as an enemy, not something to be coddled, not something to be nurtured, not agree to disagree.

Notice how aggressive Paul is going to be. But here, he wants you to identify a person. Matthew 7,

I believe it's verse 7 where it talks about the wolves in sheep's clothing. No, that's asking you, give me, verse 15.

Tim, would you read that for us? Matthew 7, 15. Matthew 7, 15.

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

The outward versus the inward. The external appearance versus what's really happening.

I saw an entire church collapse underneath that. When the wolf came in?

What was the nature of that wolf's teaching that you're referring to? Because I don't know who you're talking about. The nature of the wolf's teaching?

Yeah, what was he saying? It was a sheep. It was a sheep. And essentially, it had to do with a new pastor.

Okay. He was undercutting me. And behind his back, a lot of constant.

Undermining the pastor behind his back, talking to everybody about him. Yes, yes. And got him fired.

Successfully got him out. Yes, she did. Oh yeah, almost ruined his life. That happens.

I thought he was gonna die in front of me. Wow. When? He was so, he was so.

I was just completely overwhelmed by grief. He was devastated. And I'm this steady. He doesn't quite, even though he's pastored another church, it's a very large one.

Very successful pastor. Yeah, but. They lost the jam, they really did.

And it was just because the new pastor came in and he didn't do two things and he did one thing.

He didn't preach like the previous pastor. And that's always a problem.

But his wife was extremely involved and wanted to be extremely involved in the church with the women.

Yeah. And the outreach of the church. And they couldn't stand it.

In fact, one of the people in the final meeting said, I just want my little church back.

Oh. That church was probably. Yeah. It was a wonderful ministry going on. And now it's a synagogue.

It was a blubber. So it was lost to the kingdom. It's a synagogue.

Turned into a synagogue of Satan. It's now a synagogue. Oh, it's very sad. Well, thank you for sharing that story. We need to be aware that these threats will come against the church.

So in Acts chapter 20, we don't, we can turn there, we can turn there. Acts 20.

Can I read 16? 28 to 30. Yes, please. 16, we might want to know too. You will recognize them by their fruits.

Yeah. And that's how you recognize them. Not by appearance only. Right. Because if they look like sheep, you're going to think it's a sheep.

But if you look for the fruit, then you're going to see. Yeah. And that especially, I think, is the fruit of the spirit there.

You should see in them love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. Be careful with that sometimes.

Because I know a guy said he was an elder and a deacon at a church and he never read the Bible because he was too busy working.

And I said, that's who they select. We're the wise elders. Yeah. Yeah. But eventually it will come out though.

It will. The fruit will manifest in time. Yep. You'll know it. You'll kind of see the result of their life in ministry in many ways.

So in Acts 20, verses 28 to 30. John, could I call on you to read that for us?

This is when Paul calls the Ephesian elders to the shore because he's going to say goodbye.

He knows he's never going to see their face again. And he gives them final instructions. We'll just read 28 to 30.

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood, not sparing the flock.

And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to drive away the disciples after them.

Wow. What a warning. Remember the church is blood bought. The precious blood of the lamb.

The most valuable thing in all of creation, actually his life in the blood, poured out for the church.

The enemy is targeting that church. And the enemy will sow seeds into the church.

And what's so striking about these verses is it will come in among you, verse 30, will arise among your own selves, from among your own selves.

That means it could have been a couple of those guys sitting on the beach listening to that exhortation. Isn't that amazing?

If anybody preaches a different gospel, Paul even says, if I ever preach to you a different gospel, let it be a curse.

The gospel is the standard and Paul will not move an inch from that. And he warns them, there will be people attacking this gospel of grace.

Grace, grace, grace. This is the point of the letter. It's the gospel of grace.

It's not by works. We must guard this so jealously. Back to Galatians 5 .8.

And John, if you would read that for us. This persuasion is not from him who calls you.

What does he mean by this persuasion? Like the

Judaizers. Yes. In order to be saved. Yep. Do you think that the

Judaizing gospel teacher is persuasive or do you think he's an idiot? He's persuasive.

Yeah. He's made in, right? Think he's intelligent? How about well -spoken?

You think he can really turn a phrase? Yeah. That's the scary thing here is he will look and that's the point about the sheep's clothing.

He'll look moral and kind and like one of you and really sound right until he preaches something against the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that's the ideology, the persuasion. When it says this persuasion is not from him who calls you.

This ideology, this way of thinking, this persuasion. These are opposed to God's message.

So if it didn't come from God who called you to the faith, where did this thing come from?

To the spirit. The father of lies. The father of lies. The pit of hell. Paul is saying this is satanic.

And that's why Paul takes it head on. He's fighting a spiritual war.

He's going to war. He's not playing games. He's not having a little classroom debate.

He's not a seminary student sitting out on the lawn debating Calvinism and Arminianism and trying to sort out the fine points of theology.

As valuable as that is, that's not what this is. This is demonic, satanic attack against the gospel.

And it doesn't come from him who calls you. Comes from Satan. First Timothy 4 .1 will call these teachings of demons.

Second Corinthians 10, four and five will regard these as strongholds of the mind.

We are to take captive, that's in your notes for later. Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.

Because these persuasions, these ideologies, they're demonic in nature. Teachings of demons.

We are fighting a spiritual war. Here in Mount Laurel, oh yeah, Joe. I have a tendency to see everything black and white like this.

Yeah. And I'm really convicted. But it's hard in this culture to give grace and to even, when people are so aggressive, how do we navigate that?

Yeah, how do you fight the good fight without yourself becoming toxic? Yeah, that'd be it.

Yeah, I think it's by staying focused on who the enemy is. And that's why Paul in the beginning here, and actually we'll get to that in verse 10.

That's my main point about verse 10. Let me hold that thought until then. We'll get to it in just a minute. Verse nine,

John, if you would. A little leaven leavens the whole lung. What's Paul's argument here?

Only takes one to start it. Yep. To start that fire, it could consume the entire forest.

Yeah. I can guarantee you that if I were to see that seed that was planted in that other church begin in this church,

I would wreak havoc on this Bible. Never, ever let that happen to a church again, or to you guys.

Yes. Well, let's go to verse 10 then, to answer Joe's question and pick back off of that. Because the answer is to identify the false teacher, the one who actually is a wolf, and make sure that that person is directly engaged.

To confront. Yeah. But to realize that people who are being influenced are not the enemy.

Notice how Paul does it. This is so important. Because there's a difference here, Joe, between people who are starting to be persuaded or they're on the fence.

They don't know they're sheep. They're being led by someone. And you can't come in aggressive against a sheep.

Right. You come aggressive against a wolf. So, John, can you read verse 10?

The whole thing in the first half. You can read the whole verse. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view.

And the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is. Okay, do you see what

Paul does here? I love this. He suddenly, after talking aggressively about this persuasion doesn't come from God, essentially saying it's satanic, it's leaven that's gonna spread to the whole lump.

Then he turns and says, I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view.

That's not aggressive, is it? That's actually affirming. That's gentle.

That's encouraging. And Paul is that way. It never, like, Paul has this reputation of being really hard.

But I've never read anything more loving than Paul's introduction sections to each of his epistles.

How he talks to the Philippians. Who talks like that? How he speaks to those in the churches.

He's a very loving man. And here he is building them up. I have confidence. He's positive.

He hasn't himself become toxic. He's not raging against everybody in the church.

He's directing, now look how he transitions this right in the middle of the sentence. I have, yeah. There is a, there's an exhortation in the first half of that too.

Go. I have confidence in the Lord you will take no other view implies that you are fully versed in the true view.

So you don't just sit back in letting things happen.

Being immersed in this is what helps you recognize that one little deviation to the passage.

That's right. That's where the sheep start. By the time we got into this mess, it was too late.

Too late. The lies had spread like yeast and bread. A little leaven leavens the whole line.

So halfway through verse 10, look at the distinction. And the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.

This calls for great discernment. For a pastor, for an elder, to recognize a false teacher in the church, you better be right, first of all.

You better not be like straining out gnats and swallowing a camel. This better be a gospel issue that you're addressing.

But if something is a true threat to the body of Christ, you have to identify that and address it.

Better be right. Because Paul says this person will bear the penalty, whoever he is. Yeah.

It will happen. I don't think that, I really don't think he's talking about at the hands of men.

No, God's vengeance. Although I do think Paul will deal directly with false teachers.

What did he do to Elemis the magician? He says, you're blind. He directly addressed it.

Yeah, let's see. It's just, it's the sheep. Yes. Those sheep were moved en masse, as it were, by a seed that was planted, and by a bad seed that was planted.

Whether they were of the faith before or not, they've embraced it.

Now that seed needs to be proven as false, and the new seed needs to be fertilized, as it were.

Yeah. It does involve marking the false teacher.

So it's like a branding. You have to brand someone as a false teacher. It's a drastic thing to do, but you have to do it.

We didn't know who this person was. That's the problem. Okay, thank you. It's going through the female circles, and the men of the church had no idea.

Right. What was going on. It was under the current, yeah. So in Romans 16, 17,

Janet, would you mind reading that? I'll give you a second to find it. The point is, and this actually refers particularly to the kind of teacher that Bob's talking about, the one who sows division, undermining church leadership, things like that.

That is a kind of false teacher. Paul is dealing more with a theological heretic in Galatians, but Romans 16, 17 is one who sows division.

That person needs to be marked. Mark and avoid, it says. So Janet, when you're ready,

Romans 16, 17. Now, early, brother, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them.

Yeah. Note, another translation says mark. So you need to mark and avoid false teachers.

What about turn away? Mine says turn away. Turn away, yeah, it's a translation difference there. Yeah, the ESV says the same thing.

Has that same idea, just remove. Let me look up. I know it didn't say mark or note, but I've got an

ESV right here. 16, 17.

Watch out. Oh, that's a good one. Watch out, note, mark, yeah. Jeff, I think, too, that a lot of caution has to be discerned, as you syndicated, in identifying this.

Yes. Because, like I said, I mentioned, like, you know, I remember

Jimmy, I go back to Jimmy Swaggart and Robbie Zach and all these people through all these times, and I remember, oh, touch not the anointed of God, and then you had

T .V. Jakes and you had that whole gang, that whole name and claim and stuff, gospel. And then you also had, then you had, touch not the anointed of God, and you had

David Platt. Right. I mean, this gets to be very careful, because David Platt actually not only divided the church, but the people in the church left, and I always use that as an analogy.

Who were, well, we talk about apostasies as a strong word, but who were in error, the ones who left or were told to leave because they targeted them, or David Platt and his new pastor who stayed?

Yeah, it's a great, so Mike Kelsey and Platt, that's, for those who aren't familiar with the story, they began to introduce social justice rhetoric and the book divided by faith, which is truly heretical at the root, because it undermines aspects that are core to the gospel.

So I think that that was right to mark and avoid at that point, and sadly, he still has not repented of that, and what ended up happening is the church, it was

Lon Solomon's church, 15 ,000 people. By the time Platt's introduction of social justice, it was 6 ,000 people, it was half the church, was gone, because that's what happens, it causes division, and that's the nature of social justice, it's meant to divide.

Well, color of skin, there's oppressor and victim, and so now you've created this wedge that separates people.

They use doctrine, they use doctrine to, they use doctrine to say, you are the heretic, you are a heretic, you are a heretic.

They did. So they ran people out. They ran people, anybody that would oppose the leadership, they ran out, and they would say, look, you're not following Titus 3, you're being divisive, and so be out of here, yeah.

Where did Lon Solomon land on that, was he with, or? He was not a social justice guy, but he had given the church.

Because I love Lon Solomon. Yeah. I used to listen to him on the radio. Yeah, and I think he still does some kind of teaching

So throughout even recent church experience, the attacks, and this is all,

St. Taten is these, he's the author of all lies. He's not omniscient, but he's relentless.

He's used different attacks. One of them that he used, what was this, 15, 20 years ago, started out with a good thing, morphed into a disastrous thing.

Started out with what was called the emerging dialogue, and that was the discussion that churches have often become a little bubble of protection, and we need to be giving the gospel to our neighborhoods and stuff like that.

So the emerging dialogue started out with saying, don't just come to church and make that your sanctuary of safe place.

Come here, get fed, get prepared, and then go out into the world and preach the gospel. And that was the emerging dialogue.

It was a good thing. Became the emergent church, where churches now did everything they could to get the community in, did not say anything that would offend them.

They didn't even preach the gospel. They just got the churches full of people so that we get people into the church.

And the emergent church, which came out of the emerging dialogue, became

Satan's ability to make the churches emasculated. And I would argue that the founders of that emerging dialogue were wolves in the beginning.

And they knew it was gonna happen. No, I knew. Besides, I don't think Driscoll was as much, but I think most of that was corrupt from the beginning.

But there are things that can be taught that sound scriptural and good, but we gotta be wise and identify them.

They might have used it in, and it sounds okay at the beginning, and then you realize it's post -modernism. Yes, Dan. You know,

I wish everybody could be in this room. I'm thinking of my mother and my stepfather.

Very, went to church every Sunday, but they turned on that TV. Now they got to hear

The Wolf. Yeah. Just as she closed it. Yep, yep. A lot of people fit that bill.

I had to argue with my mother. Yeah. About the good seed and the bad seed, and where the good prophet was and where the wolf was.

They were so convinced what they heard on TV was the way to do it. Not only my mother and stepfather, but all the other people, there were thousands that tuned into that and listened to that and went down that road.

I agree with you, Stan. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. So many are led astray by televangelist preachers.

They just start watching, thinking, hey, it's a Christian channel. Gotta be fine. But it's a wolf you're listening to. Beautiful. All right,

I'm gonna finish this up. Verse 11 and 12. But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am

I still being persecuted? Paul uses his suffering as a reason that he can be trusted.

The false apostles, many of the super apostles in 2 Corinthians, they paraded their wealth and their eloquence as the reason you should trust them.

And in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul says, I've been stoned and left for dead. I've been shipwrecked.

I've been five times received the 40 lashes minus one. Everywhere I go, I'm beaten by the

Jewish people. Why do you think that is? Well, here's the answer. When you're over the target, you come into the enemy's fire.

If you are suffering persecution, hey, church, when we bought land and we consecrated that to the

Lord, and some people came and implanted spikes in our road to pop all of our tires, that's a sign that we're over the target.

The enemy's threatened with us taking ground, okay? That same week, somebody cut our volleyball nets and popped our basketballs, and whoever this enemy was a few years ago, that's a sign that we're over the target.

We're taking ground. Persecution is, to Paul, something that you should look at as validation.

But these false prophets are into health and wealth, and very often on TV, it's the opposite indicator.

Next, what's that? Expect the persecution. Those who do the will of God will be persecuted.

We should expect persecution. And also, we look at that as elders with regard to our own denomination, that to be branded as a troublemaker and to be rejected without even ever being listened to or no debate over the actual substance, we take that as we're over the target.

We're actually addressing something that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, they would be willing to sit down and debate the truth.

In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. What's so offensive about the cross?

It tells you that you contribute nothing to your own salvation except your sin.

And the religious person who thinks they're righteous is so offended by that, that their religion is nothing, it accomplishes nothing, they have no righteousness, nothing good.

The offense of the cross is precisely the gospel itself. You bring nothing to the table but your own sin.

It's Christ and his righteousness, so your circumcision adds nothing.

And then lastly, verse 12. Notice how strongly Paul punctuates this argument.

I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves.

Now, that's a very harsh comment there, but it's not random, it's not out of left field.

What are they teaching? You must be circumcised to be saved. And Paul is saying to them, oh yeah, is that what you think?

I wish you'd cut the whole thing off. Go emasculate yourself. That's strong rhetoric.

But what he's doing there is he's actually using that strategically for a point.

He's mocking them, he's showing the folly of it all, how ridiculous it is. You think that this ritual act is going to contribute to the saving of your soul?

And he's using strong rhetoric. There will be times as Christians, and it needs to be, we talk about this on Tearing Down High Places.

I think last week we brought this up for just a moment. There is a time and a place.

It can't be like our modus operandi. Like Luther started to cross the line. Like every book had just rhetorical flair where he's calling people pigs and dogs, and it's just over the top.

Paul isn't over the top here, but he is strong. And sometimes he employs rhetoric, mocking, sarcasm.

Sarcasm can be a very strong tool in your arsenal, but to be used at times like this for a gospel purpose against a true enemy of the gospel.

Hey, why don't we close in prayer, and then we'll have a little bit of time if I notice there's a lot of people with some more questions and comments.

John, would you close us? Lord God, you are the author of all things. You are the

God who loves, but yet you are a God who is holy. Sin has entered into the human race, and you have provided the solution through the blood of your son.

This is the teaching that we stand by, and this is the truth. And anything that's added to it that means we add to our salvation needs to be called out for what it is.

I pray, Father, that we would have wisdom that would be wise in identifying, encouraged to stand against it for your glory, not for ours.