False Apostles - Part 1

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's Word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

Turn in your Bibles to 2nd Corinthians chapter 11. 2nd Corinthians chapter 11.

The church of Jesus Christ from its earliest days has had to contend with false prophets and false apostles.

For our scripture reading this morning, we heard the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the

Mount where he warned his followers by saying, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

I've said it before that the subject of false prophets and false teachers, this is a major theme not only in the

New Testament, but it is a major theme throughout all of the Bible.

In fact, most of the New Testament epistles were written in part because of false teachers who are trying to corrupt the faith.

And because of their error, an apostle, a true apostle, or one of their associates would have to write to warn the churches about those who preached, as Paul put it, another

Jesus. Well, things have not changed. In the

Bible, there are two main threats. One, on the one hand, was the Judaizers.

They were legalists. They misused God's law. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you had the antinomians who practiced license, who wanted to do away with God's law.

Basically, their attitude was, once you're a Christian, you're saved. You can go out and do whatever you want.

And there were, of course, other early heresies that attacked the person and work of Christ.

And this has continued right up until the modern day. So, something to look out for.

All false teachers share this in common. They either attack the person and work of Christ, and or they mishandle

God's law. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 4, Paul speaks of those who preach another

Jesus and a different gospel. And just to impress upon you the relevance of all of this, in the past couple hundred years, many false prophets and false apostles have risen up.

In the early 1800s, Joseph Smith, the founder of the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints, also known as the

Mormons, he preached another Jesus. The Christ of Mormonism teaches that Jesus is not

God. They say he is a God. He's the spirit brother of Lucifer and son of Heavenly Father, who they call

Elohim, who they believe was once a sinful man living on another planet.

And no, I'm not making this up. I wish I was. But they say that God was once a sinful man living on another planet.

And through the rites and rituals of Mormonism, men can become gods, the

God of your own planet someday. So Joseph Smith was a false prophet.

And the Mormon apostles today in Salt Lake City, they are false apostles.

So that's the early 1900s, or excuse me, the early 1800s.

And then in the late 1800s, another man named Charles Taze Russell, who denied the deity of Christ, founded the

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. This group became known as the

Jehovah's Witnesses. Incidentally, both Charles Taze Russell and Joseph Smith were driven in their denial of the biblical teaching on hell.

They wanted a religion with no hell. There's a lot of people who want a religion with no judgment or no hell.

So they came up with their own twisted version of Christianity. The Mormons, of course, they have their own

Bible, quote -unquote, in the Book of Mormon. And then the Jehovah's Witnesses have their own corrupted version of the scriptures called the

New World Translation, which basically changes key texts to fit with who they think

Jesus really is, which they say he is the Archangel Michael. My friends, that's another

Jesus, and they preach a different gospel. Then there were the female false prophets of the 19th century,

Ellen G. White, the founder of the Seventh -day Adventists, and Mary Baker Eddy, who is the founder of Christian science.

Christian science denies the reality of sin and sickness, has been referred to as the grape nuts religion.

You know grape nuts, a good cereal, but they're not grape and they're not nuts.

Well, Christian science is neither Christian nor is it scientific.

But in all seriousness, this subject is at the utmost importance.

And somebody might say, yeah, but all of this you're talking about was a long time ago, but these groups are still around.

They are still making converts, and many of you have had them knock on your front door.

And admittedly, these are some of the more clear examples and more extreme examples of known false prophets.

But understand this, false teachers, false prophets, they are in local churches everywhere.

And they never admitted, a false teacher is never gonna come up to you and says, hi, my name's

Joe, I'm a false teacher. They're not going to do that. So my friends, the things that we are reading about in the scripture, they are happening right now.

Nothing has changed, only the details. The spiritual war continues.

And the only way we can contend for the truth is if we recognize what's going on.

So the spiritual warfare that we are in continues, and it will continue until Christ returns.

So that's the introduction. Now let's get into the text of 2nd

Corinthians chapter 11, because this should be very real to all of us.

Let's look at this, starting in verse 1. Paul says, oh that you would bear with me in a little folly.

And indeed, you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy.

For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.

And that was the problem the church at Corinth was putting up with it.

And many churches today are putting up with false teachers.

Now I've pointed out in the past few weeks that Paul in chapters 10, 11, now he is directing his words more at the false teachers, those who have been deceived by them.

Those who were listening to them and were maybe even loyal to some of the false teachers.

And Paul, you know this is very clear to us, they should have listened to Paul. This isn't any mystery to us today, but they were confused obviously, some of them.

So Paul begins the chapter by saying, just bear with me. You know it might sound like I'm boasting in my defense, but you need to hear this.

I won you to the Lord and now I'm concerned. In the New Testament, the church is depicted as the bride of Christ.

So the Lord expects fidelity. Paul expects the church to remain faithful to the bridegroom, and some of them were not faithful, therefore there's this jealousy.

If it's another Jesus that they are following, a

Jesus who did not rise from the dead, if it's another Jesus who isn't God and human flesh, if it's another gospel of salvation by faith plus works, if that's what the false apostles were teaching and preaching and leading people, what were they leading them into?

A type of spiritual adultery. Paul fears that not only have individuals been led astray, but that the church in general was tolerating all of this.

So you have on the one hand the ministry of the Apostle Paul, and then you have the ministry of the false apostles.

Who should the church listen to? To us it's so clear, you listen to the Apostle Paul of course, but obviously some people didn't see it that way.

It wasn't that clear to them. We have the benefit of hindsight. We can step back and look at this objectively, but you know when you're in the middle of it, it's not as easy.

Especially when you have friends or family members who are listening to the false teachers or they look favorably among or upon the false teachers.

Paul makes reference to Eve being deceived by the serpent. Do you remember what

God said? God said this to Adam, so Eve would have heard it secondhand. But God said in the garden to Adam, he said, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.

And then one day the serpent comes along and says to Eve, has

God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? It's like, well no, that's not what

God said. But the question is phrased in such a way that it makes you stop and think about it.

What did God say? And by then Eve is in a conversation with the devil, wondering, did

I have that right? And then she repeats to the devil what God said. And she's correct. She knows what

God said, but you remember she adds a little something to it. Well that's how Satan works.

He is subtle. Satan is clever. He's crafty. He doesn't come right out and say initially that God's word is not true or don't listen to God.

Satan's servants don't come right out and tell you that the Bible isn't true. Don't listen to God.

Do evil. That's not the way that it works. They want to get you into a dialogue.

Satan wants to get people, as he did with Eve, into a dialogue. You see, he gets you questioning things.

And the devil and his ministers are not going to come out with their real agenda until they already have their hooks in you.

I had mentioned some of the cults that come knocking on your door. They don't start out with what they really think.

They don't tell you their true beliefs that God was a sinful man living on a planet near the star

Kolob. They don't tell you that. They want to tell you about Jesus. They want to tell you about God's love.

You see, many of the things that they say are correct. They're just a little different.

Even the mainline apostate denominations and the liberal churches typically won't come right out and tell you that we don't believe the

Bible. The Bible is not true. They won't come right out, even though many of them, if not most, believe this, that Jesus was not born of a virgin.

They're probably not going to tell you that initially. Just think about that.

If Jesus wasn't born of a virgin, who's his father? Do you realize what that means about Mary?

Do you realize what that makes Jesus? Not going to say the word.

The nice way of saying it is that he is illegitimate, which is exactly what his enemies said about him.

So you see the seriousness of this. So the false teachers, they come out and they will use flowery language and they'll want to talk to you about things they think you'll agree with them on.

Well, what did Jesus warn about false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing?

What does that mean? They appear to be Christians. They are able to convince people of that because many, if not most of the things they say are true.

Although they will use much of the same terminology, they just redefine it. So that's another trick that you have to watch out for.

But much of what they say is true. A false teacher can't tell 100 % lies.

95 % of what they say may be true. It's the 5 % that you have to worry about. Thanks for listening.

I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornett Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, morriscornettchurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, with the grace of God be with you.