2 Corinthians 10:1-6 (How to Destroy Arguments, Jeff Kliewer)

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Jesus, where else would we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have seen and we confess that you are the Christ. You are the Son of God. We come to you this morning desiring to hear your voice.

And we know we don't need to look to prophets or anyone masquerading as representing you. We need to look to your word to hear your voice. And so we pray this morning that you would speak to us through your word.

We pray that your word would come alive to us and we would recognize how we are transformed by it, that you would do a work in our hearts to change us from the inside out through your word.

We need your word.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. As I returned from visiting my parents last week, I was in the Tampa airport in the F terminal. And just before boarding my plane, I heard an announcement that a special passenger was arriving at gate 78.

And they asked everybody in the F terminal to go to gate 78 for this person to deplane. And they told us that he is one of 70 recipients who are still alive, recipients of the Medal of Honor. This is one of 70 living recipients of the Medal of Honor, which is the highest honor that the military can give.

As he came off the plane, all of the airport had gathered to cheer him on. And you could tell he was choked up by the moving moment. And he continued on and I took some pictures and got to see him. But only later came to find out who he was and what he had done.

His name was David Bellavia. And this year, President Trump awarded him.

The Medal of Honor.

He had done his work in the military in Fallujah during the Iraq War. And I think in 2004 is when his heroic effort took place. In Fallujah, he saw that Al-Qaeda had a stronghold, an enemy stronghold in a three-story house.

And this house filled with enemy soldiers had American soldiers pinned down. And so Bellavia, taking his rifle, his assault rifle, his knife in his pocket, and another soldier following behind him, entered that house where the other soldiers were, not knowing how many he would face, but knowing that the lives of his friends and brothers in arms depended on it.

He encountered two soldiers on the first floor and eliminated them and went up to the next floor and had to go into a dark room and won a battle there by hand, which is a horrible way to do battle, of course, as any war is horrible.

But then progressing on, he was able to take out the person who was doing the rocket launcher. And before long, he cleared the entire house by himself. The other soldiers had had to retreat. He cleared an entire house of an enemy stronghold.

When I saw him come off the plane, I was impressed and looking up his story. It's just amazing to see what it took for someone to destroy an enemy stronghold. But as I prepared the message this morning, I was reminded of seeing him.

Because you and I, most of us, are not called to go to a place like Fallujah. We'll never see battle. We'll never see physical war. And yet, there is a spiritual war raging around us all the time. The nature of that war is truth versus deception.

We are in a truth war. And all kinds of strongholds are holding the people of God and also enemies of God captive. Thoughts, opinions, ideas of who God is and what the gospel is come into the world and invade the hearts and minds of people.

And our war is one of truth, the proclamation of truth. The gospel is a proclaimed message. We are in a truth war. And it's just as intense as Fallujah, although we don't recognize it as such. I also noticed deplaning.

A few rows behind Belavia were two Satanists. Obvious by the way they dressed and by the pentagrams and different paraphernalia that they had on their bodies, these were Satanists. And I noticed the smirks on their faces as they watched the attention being given to the American war hero.

They walked with a pride in their step, smirking and scoffing. But it reminded me that there is an enemy and there is a deceptive force at work in these two individuals, but not only them. On that same plane, I'm sure there were 100 strongholds.

Deceptions of different natures, lies of the enemy being believed that keep people from the knowledge of the truth. The nature of our war is truth versus deception. And victories in the truth war are won in a particular way.

You see this morning, here's what we're doing. We are training for a truth war. If David Belavia went to Fallujah without training, he would not have known what to do. If he didn't have the equipment of his rifle, he would not have conquered in Jesus name.

By the way, as he went into that house, he heard Muslims praying to Allah. And he moved into that room, forgetting Bible verses, he's a born again Christian. He couldn't remember a Bible verse, so he just remembered to say, the power of Christ compels you.

I think that was from a movie or something. But moving forward, I think it was The Exorcist actually. But moving forward, in the power of Christ, he went and conquered. There are certain weaponry that we need.

And it's different than the natural warfare that people fight.

It's not physical.

We need truth weaponry. So that's what we're taking on this morning. Four elements. The first, personal integrity. The second, spiritual capacity. The third, scriptural ability. And the fourth, local church authority.

These are all in your notes. I see many of you scribbling. So it's all right there, you don't have to write it down. First, personal integrity. And we'll read six verses today. We're taking a smaller chunk, 2 Corinthians 10, verses one to six, and we'll break it down.

I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold towards you when I am away, I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.

For though we walk in the flesh,.

We are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete.

So let's locate ourselves now in the text. As we've been studying through 2 Corinthians, there are three major sections to the book of 2 Corinthians. The first seven chapters deal with Paul defending his ministry.

From a pastoral perspective, he's trying to win back the hearts of a rebellious church. Many people at Corinth have rejected his authority, and he is in the hot seat. And so he makes many arguments, not from his strength and ability, but often from his weakness, from his suffering, from the marks of his apostleship and what he has suffered for the sake of Christ.

Then moving into the second section of the book, chapters eight and nine, having won back, he says that he recognizes at the end of chapter seven, I rejoice because I have complete confidence in you, having won back the church in his mind.

Through the teaching and also through the messenger Titus, who's come with the good news to tell him that the church now accepts your authority again, having won them back, he can move on and take an offering.

He can take an offering from a people that are with him in the ministry. So chapters eight and nine are about inspiring sacrificial giving for the poor saints in Jerusalem. And now we move into the last four chapters and the final section of the book.

And here, Paul is aware that although the church at large has accepted his authority, there surely remains some rebellious false prophets. So you know what time it is, don't you? Time for the gloves to come off.

The last four chapters of 2 Corinthians are warfare. And this is how we learn to do war because we see the model of the apostle in fighting for the truth. He is to put down the false prophets in order that the truth will prevail in Corinth.

The war he's fighting is for the sake of the truth,.

For the sake of the gospel.

And so the first thing that you need, how do you destroy arguments? How do you fight in a truth war? Number one, you need personal integrity. The last thing that we need in the church are loud mouths contradicted by the lives that we live.

The last thing that we need is hypocrisy. Only those who are walking in the truth should be speaking and representing the gospel and that should be all of us. Notice three words to begin the 10th chapter.

I, Paul, myself. Me, myself, and I. Why would he begin this section with that particular construction? Isn't it enough to say I or just Paul or myself, but I, Paul, myself, entreat you. Notice later in the verse, he shows us why he is identifying himself that way.

I, who am humble when face to face with you, but bold towards you when I am away. Surely he is quoting the criticism of his opposers. He is being accused in a personal attack of being a hypocrite, of being a coward.

Paul's letters are weighty, but face to face, he's rather gentle. And so Paul says, in the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I write to you. He's writing now, he's writing meekly and gently, and yet that includes war.

So notice in verse one, I, who am humble when face to face, the charge is, Paul, he's a gentle guy.

When you're around him,.

But when he's safely at a distance writing letters, not having to look somebody in the eye, that's when you see the aggressive Paul, the bold Paul. And Paul says, no, I, Paul, myself. In other words, who you see me to be is who you're gonna get on paper and who I'll be in person.

There's only one Paul. See, Paul can speak the truth boldly because he is integrated as one person. He's not bifurcated, divided into two personalities. He's not one person on Sunday morning and another person at the job site when he's making tents.

Who you see is who you get. There is only one Paul. He calls himself, I, Paul, myself, because he's one integrated person. And that's the first and most important point. We need to walk in integrity in order to win truth wars, to destroy arguments.

But notice, the attacks that the enemy brings in the truth war are not fair. They don't refute Paul's theology at this point. They personally attack his character. And expect this, brothers and sisters, the degree to which you become vocal, preaching Christ and refuting error is the degree that you will be attacked personally.

Jesus told us this. In Matthew 5, 11, it says, they will utter all kinds of evil against you.

Because of me, on my account.

It's a personal attack. When you step out in the truth war, you better be walking in integrity because every enemy of the gospel is looking for you to fall. They are looking for you to trip so they can say, ah, the hypocrite, Christians are hypocrites.

They cannot refute the truth of the scripture. They cannot deny that Jesus is the Christ, not face to face with you, brother and sister, because you have the sword and they don't. Who would wanna go to war with someone who has a sword when you don't?

Would David Bellevue rush into enemy territory without a weapon?

Never.

But the enemy is the one who is truly disarmed. There was no power in the name of Allah when Bellevue was praying to his Christ. The true God is with us and we have the weapons of the warfare. So since they cannot fight you sword to sword, clashing swords in the scripture with you, they will attack you with slurs and lies, saying all kinds of things against you.

Toughen up to be ready for that. Be ready, because the scripture says we should expect this, Matthew 5, 11, and it happened right here to Paul. Second, spiritual capacity. This is not merely a human battle.

As great as it was that a war hero went and took territory for America, this is something more important and greater than that. This is a spiritual war with eternal consequence hanging in the balance.

Verses three and four, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

You see, the comparison here is between flesh and walking in the spirit. And it doesn't mean a Christian who's either spirit-filled at the moment or someone who's kind of becoming fleshly in their behavior.

No, the difference here is between mere humanness and to have the spirit of God, to be something more than human, to be fully human and yet a child of the living God and a jar of clay that holds the treasure that shows that the all-surpassing power comes from God and not from you.

The difference here is according to the flesh or in the flesh or of the flesh verses two, three, and four, in each case, the idea is a mere human encounter. And that is how the world thinks of us. They think we're like them, merely human in the sense that all we have to argue with is our rhetoric and our credentials and our abilities as speakers.

But brothers and sisters, that's not our weaponry at all. So what is the weaponry? The Bible Knowledge Commentary, I think, does the best job and says it refers to the proclamation of all of the word of God and to prayer, our spiritual weapons.

Matthew Henry saw it as the doctrines of the gospel. But the idea here is it's something more than what the world has. Paul says these false apostles, when they see me come, they're just seeing me as the stuttering, not so eloquent preacher man.

They don't know what power is behind me. Remember, Paul is filled with the spirit of the living God. Paul is not going to deal with these people in a merely human way. This is not going to be an argument face-to-face between two equals and the bigger, stronger man will win.

There is something that Paul has that the world doesn't have, and these lying prophets need to recognize that before he comes. He's giving them about a two-and-a-half-month warning by sending this letter to make a decision whether they want to stand.

In fact, if you look at verse two again, I miss saying this point. In verse two, he says, I beg of you that I don't have to show myself harsh. You see, he's putting the ball in their court. He doesn't want to fight.

He doesn't delight in warfare. He would rather see them repent and come to a knowledge of the truth. His spirit is not contentious. He would rather not fight. He has genuine meekness and gentleness. And so third, if we have personal integrity, we are who we say we are, we're living in the light as he is in the light, if we have spiritual capacity, that is, we have been born again, the spirit of the living God is in us, we have his word and we have prayer, these spiritual weapons, there's another element of armor, of weaponry that we need, and that is the word of God.

Not just to have a Bible, you can carry a Bible with you, the book, but to know what it says, to have spent so much time in the scriptures, aware of what the teaching is, that when the liar comes who brings scripture to the table, you're able to refute the lies and the twisting of the scripture that he brings with him.

So verse five, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Notice what we're fighting. We're not fighting flesh and blood, we're not fighting against bullets and swords, we're fighting against arguments and opinions and thoughts.

This is what is called strongholds in verse four, clarifying what we destroy, we destroy strongholds, so we destroy arguments. This is the nature of our war and it requires scriptural ability, that's why we're here studying the word today, to gain scriptural ability, the truth war, it's a war is arguments, opinions against the knowledge of God.

So let's compare the opinions of man with the word of God. There's an inclusive pastor with a polished tongue who says you always need to be nice and accepting, accepting of all things. That's the highest value, acceptance of all.

But Jesus in Matthew 7, 15 says, beware of false prophets, they come to you in sheep's clothing. And when Jesus himself addresses Pharisees who were liars and false teachers in Matthew 23, he calls them a brood of vipers.

Jesus himself doesn't meet the polished pastor's standard of gentleness and respect. There is a time for harsh language, according to Jesus in Matthew 23. At Union Seminary, there's a professor leading his students to pray and confess to plants, confessing to plants for harming the environment.

And that is the worship service that they conducted. And they teach at Union Seminary that everything is just a matter of private interpretation. You have your interpretation of one verse, I have a different interpretation of the same verse and nobody can impose their interpretation on another or say that one is better.

But Jesus in Mark 12, verses 24 to 27 was confronted with a lying Sadducee who came and said, there is no resurrection. A doctrinal statement that there is no resurrection. And to prove the point, this lying Sadducee says, what if there's a man who has a wife and he dies and his brother marries her and then he dies and his brother marries her and he dies.

And so it goes for seven times over, whose wife would she be if there was a resurrection? They have their interpretation, right? Or does Jesus say, you err because you do not know the scripture or the power of God.

And basing his argument on the tense of a verb, he proves them wrong from the scriptures. God is not the God of Abraham who is now dead. He says, but he is the God, he says, I am the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, not the God of the dead, but of the living.

And that was Jesus's argument to refute the lying Sadducee. You see the point? In this culture in which we live, the society, the opinion, if you look here at verse five, the opinion, the lofty opinion of man is that truth is relative and interpretations are relative to the person.

But that's not how Jesus deals with the scripture, is it? In fighting the enemy in Luke chapter four, what does he say? It is written, it is written, it is written. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me, John 18 verse 37.

So Jesus does not accept this postmodern definition of truth. We're in a truth war and we need from the scriptures to be able to refute every lie of the enemy. And so in your notes, I've given you one passage or verse from every book of the New Testament, except Philemon.

Why did I do that? Because these passages call us to fight in the truth war. And I want you to go and look many of those up, memorize some of them, be able to wield those scriptures as a sword. This is how you fight error.

And as I got to thinking, the only book that I didn't see an apologetic argument in was the book of Philemon. But if you think about it, it was Philemon where Paul says to receive Onesimus as a brother.

And that seed of truth planted in Philemon is what led to the toppling of slavery in our culture. The slave, he is our brother. And Onesimus became the pastor of Philemon. And so that book itself has kernels of truth that have fought in the truth war.

So every book in the New Testament is involved in this war. And guys, we need to sharpen our sword to be able to wield it in the battle against people like Geno Jennings, who says that you must be baptized in Jesus name only and come out speaking in tongues that there is no Trinity, that Jesus is only receiving the spirit of the Father in the mode of God, but was not God from all eternity.

1 John 4 speaks to that, as do many other scriptures, Judaizing the gospel. How would we debate that? How would we fight that? By the scriptures, that's our sword. And many other false prophets have gone out into the world.

We must be sharp in the scriptures to contend for the gospel. Well, somebody is going to say, how about we just not be negative and fight against what other people say? Why don't we just stay positive and only celebrate salvation and love?

Jude said in the third verse that he was eager to write to them concerning their common salvation, but he knew it was necessary to write to them to contend for the faith that was once and for all handed down to the saints.

Like Paul, we don't want to fight. We want to focus only on love and only on our common salvation that we as Christians enjoy, but to be faithful to the gospel, we must contend for the truth of God. We must.

Jude was compelled to do that, and so are we. So finally, the fourth point quickly, just one last verse. It says being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. The fourth element that we need is membership in a local church because in order to wield the kind of authority that Paul is referring to here in verse six, being ready to punish every disobedience, there has to be a jurisdiction within which that authority operates.

What is Paul saying here? He's not saying that the false prophets are going down in a boxing ring. He's saying if they continue in their false teaching, they will be excommunicated from the church, and that's why in the last part of the verse, when your obedience is complete, this depends on the local church receiving and maintaining Paul's authority.

As the apostle, he has authority over that church, but if this church rebels and leaves the gospel, no longer abiding in the apostolic teaching, they will accept the false prophets rather than the true apostle.

So there's a local church authority that contends for the truth. We saw this earlier in the book in chapter two when Paul says the decision reached by the majority is sufficient for them. In other words, in dealing with a church discipline issue, the majority of people came together and disciplined the rebellious person.

When that person repented, Paul says now restore him into fellowship, receive him back into the communion, back into the membership of the church. In this day and age, there is not just one church at Corinth and one in Mount Laurel.

There are many churches in every town. Some of them true and some of them false. In order for a church to operate biblically in these parameters, being ready to punish every disobedience, it's important to have a local church membership.

There needs to be a membership in order to do what the apostle says here, to punish every disobedience. That refers to church discipline. So there's the apologetic for that. And that's why it's part of the truth war to be in and involved with and even a member of a local church.

So in closing, four things today that we see from Paul. Number one, personal integrity. To be who you are all the time, not bifurcated, not hypocritical, but to remain in the word, growing as a disciple in the truth so that you have a ground upon which to stand.

Number two, spiritual capacity. This war in which we're fighting, fighting for a war for your own children, for your own parents. Don't think this war is fought in the flesh. You can't just convince them with fine sounding arguments.

You need to be praying and asking God to do in their heart what you can't do.

Spiritual capacity.

Be filled with the spirit. Call on the living God in prayer and proclaim his word. And that brings us to the third thing, scriptural ability. How do you destroy arguments? You destroy arguments the way Jesus did and Paul did and John and Peter and Jude, the authors of scripture.

They fought with the sword of the spirit, the word of God. And this last point about church membership, be involved in the body because this is what is really relevant. The body of Christ. We are the eternal ones, the children of the living God.

And together as a body, we stand upon the truth and our witness is not just an individualized, private opinion. When we proclaim the scriptures through our statement of faith, through the preaching of the word,.

On the internet,.

In Bible studies, everywhere we go,.

We go as a body.

This is what we proclaim. We proclaim Christ and him crucified. And we do that as a body, not as individuals. We stand as cornerstone upon Christ, the only wise. But we stand together, built as living stones, as one body.

The temple rising upon that cornerstone. So this is how we destroy arguments. This is how we fight in the truth war. So worship team, if you'll come up and brothers and sisters, I want you to remember David Bellavia and the other 69 recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

If America needs valiant soldiers like this to fight enemies in a hostile world, how much more do we need 70 men and women in this building today to rise up and truly fight in the truth war? Who will take that war to their school?

And you might be the only one and you must take on an entire school of hostile forces where the enemy is holding a stronghold, yet you could be the one that clears that in the name of Jesus. To your workplace, to your neighborhood, we need soldiers for the truth.

The time has long passed for cowardly men and women. The time has come for men and women of God to rise up and fight in the truth war.

Amen, let's pray.

So Father, we thank you for Paul's example and I pray that we can say with Paul, we destroy arguments. Not because we love to fight, not because we love the drama, but because we love the truth and we love our Christ and we herald you, Jesus, the son of the living God.

Empower us for the truth war. Make us strong. Make us also men and women of integrity, not hypocritical, walking in the light. Thank you, Lord, again for your word this morning. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Let's stand and worship.