Sunday Sermon: Deceitful Workmen (2 Corinthians 11:5-15)

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November 17, 2018

Pastor Gabriel Hughes preaches on 2 Corinthians 11:5-15, where the apostle Paul confronts the false teachers leading the flock of God astray. Visit fsbcjc.org for more info about our church.

00:15: You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabrielle Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.
00:22: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a
00:27: New Testament book. On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday.
00:33: Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the letters to the
00:39: Corinthians. This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe.
00:45: In honor of the word of the King, would you please stand. Second Corinthians chapter 11, beginning in verse 1.
00:55: I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness, Paul writes. Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
01:11: But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
01:24: For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one that we proclaimed, or if you received a different spirit from the one that you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one that you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
01:44: Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles.
01:50: Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge. Indeed, in every way, we have made this plain to you in all things.
02:01: Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached
02:08: God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you.
02:19: And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need, so I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way.
02:33: As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.
02:40: And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do.
02:46: And what I am doing, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission, they work on the same terms that we do.
03:00: Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
03:08: And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
03:24: Their end will correspond to their deeds. Let us pray.
03:32: Our great God and King, who reigns sovereign on His throne, you have searched the minds and hearts of every man.
03:43: And you search our minds and our hearts this morning. So I pray that there would be no wicked thing that has been raised up against the knowledge of God in our hearts.
03:55: But your Spirit fills our souls, that we might humble ourselves before the
04:01: Lord. We know that we are but wretched sinners, deserving of the wrath of God. And yet, in your divine love, you gave us your
04:10: Son, Jesus, who died for our sins and cleansed us from all unrighteousness, so that now having imputed to us
04:19: His righteousness, we have an alien righteousness, that which is not of ourselves, but has been given to us by God.
04:27: And so, Lord, I pray that taking hold of that righteousness and living in such a way in our lives as to be a reflection of Christ, that we would put to death in us every sinful way and every idea, concept, understanding, knowledge that would be contrary to what you have taught us in your
04:48: Word. May your truth and your Word reign in our lives.
04:56: And we pray and ask this in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated.
05:01: The first heartfelt conversation that I ever had with my children,
05:12: Annie was four years old. So, you can have heartfelt conversations with your kids even before that age, but it's a little difficult.
05:22: They don't really know how to be heartfelt except for, what do I need to do to get that snack
05:28: I want or watch the TV show that I want to watch? Their motivations are still pretty self -serving at that age, but it was when we were living in the parsonage here next door and I still remember the details so incredibly vividly as I was coming out of the restroom and Annie was standing there, four years old, sheepishly kind of playing with her hands and looking at me with painful, tearful eyes.
05:57: I hope I'm going to make it through this. And I stopped and I looked at her and I said, well,
06:04: Annie, what's wrong? And looking up to me with heartbreak, she said to me,
06:12: Daddy, how do I stop lying? Four years old.
06:21: She's asking these deep probing human questions that I want to ignore most of the time.
06:28: I don't want to admit the sinfulness that is in me that is prone to lie or reach for the dishonest answer or find the teacher that's going to tell me the thing that I want to hear.
06:40: But Annie, at the age of four, desired holiness. So what we did on the spot, right there in the hallway, we got down on the floor and talked the scriptures.
06:58: And I told Annie, sweetie, your daddy's a liar too. And the only purity that we get from the sinfulness that is in our hearts is the righteousness that is given to us in Jesus Christ.
07:15: By faith in Jesus, we are forgiven our sins and we are given his righteousness. And Jesus is described in the scriptures as the truth.
07:24: He is the way, the truth, and the life. And so if his word, his teaching, which is true, reigns in our hearts, then we will love the truth instead of clinging to the lie.
07:42: It's because of our sin that we love lies. And the devil loves to feed that aspect of us, to keep us in wretchedness and far from God, because as he continues to appease us with lies, we are not looking for the truth of God.
08:03: We read in Colossians chapter 2, Paul saying to the
08:09: Colossians, I want you to know how great a struggle that I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding of the knowledge of God's mystery, which is
08:30: Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
08:38: And Paul says, I say this to you in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.
08:46: So it's by being filled up with the truth that we're able to guard ourselves from the lies, not just that we would guard ourselves from lies that are being told to us, but also that we might fill our hearts with truth so that what comes from our mouths is truth and not lies.
09:10: Paul says, although I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
09:20: Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught abounding with thanksgiving.
09:33: Julie talking with the kids this morning about thanksgiving, being thankful. In chapter three,
09:40: Paul would go on to say, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body, and once again, be thankful.
09:53: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness, once again, in your hearts to God.
10:09: And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
10:15: Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
10:23: So we have this theme over and over again of the knowledge of God found in Christ Jesus, which must reign in our hearts and produces itself with thanksgiving.
10:38: We show that the promise and the knowledge of God is true in our hearts when we are abounding with thanksgiving.
10:49: So we come back to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. And just as Paul said to the Colossians, he said to them,
10:56: I want you to know how great a struggle that I have for you, Paul also talks about his struggle for the
11:02: Corinthians in this chapter pretty deeply. As we go further into the chapter, which we didn't look at in our reading this morning, but as we go further into the chapter,
11:11: Paul will talk about the constant unrest that he has in his heart as he is praying for those who have heard the gospel.
11:18: He prays that they hold fast to the gospel, that it wasn't just a fleeting opinion that they had for a moment, but that they would truly be saved in the knowledge of God and continue to grow in it, that their conversion was genuine, not a flash in the pan, not an emotional experience that they had, but that they truly believe the truth and it reigns in their hearts.
11:40: So he says, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
11:54: We read these passages last week, and one of the things that struck me just last night actually as I was going back over this passage again was
12:02: Paul's presentation of the Corinthians to Christ as a pure virgin, because the
12:09: Corinthians were not pure. We're not talking about Paul coming to a pious people that were already walking in some sort of,
12:18: I mean, maybe an earthly sense of righteousness, but they were still basically good people, right? There were all kinds of filthy sins that were rampant in Corinth, this place where the temple of Aphrodite stood.
12:32: And to go into that temple, you would be sacrificing to a goddess of love with all manner of impurity and those sacrifices.
12:42: I won't let your imaginations run too wild with what that might have looked like. In 1
12:47: Corinthians chapter 6, Paul said this of the Corinthians, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
12:57: Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you."
13:16: So they walked in those same filthy sins that are so prevalent and done in the daylight in our culture right now.
13:29: Such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified.
13:36: You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Washed how?
13:43: By the truth. The Spirit of God filling up the hearts of the
13:48: Corinthians with the truth of the gospel. So washed pure that they are presented as pure virgins to Christ.
14:01: As though no stain or blemish or wrinkle had ever been marked upon their hearts.
14:09: But as though they had always been pure. My friends, that is the totality of the righteousness that we receive in Christ.
14:20: The depth of the forgiveness that we have when we follow Jesus. The love that he has shown to us by his atoning sacrifice on the cross.
14:31: His blood was so pure and his sacrifice so righteous that when we are forgiven by Christ, it's as if we never did anything sinful at all.
14:46: That's the grace that God gives to us in Christ. So forgiven of our sins that we are able to stand before a holy
14:57: God as righteous. As a pastor, when I have counseled couples prior to marriage, one of the things every single counseling session
15:07: I've ever had with a couple that is looking to get married, I have said to that expectant groom that your bride is guilty of nothing.
15:23: And when on that day she comes down the aisle dressed in white, the reason why the bride dresses in white is because she is being presented to the groom as pure.
15:35: There is no sin in her past that you hold against her. You are beginning this day brand new.
15:45: A husband and a wife together, one flesh in Christ Jesus.
15:51: And so we are presented to Christ that same way. When the gospel, when the
15:57: Holy Spirit fills our hearts and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. My brothers and sisters, you are truly cleansed of all unrighteousness.
16:07: There is no sin in your past and you know what they are.
16:16: None of that separates you from God anymore.
16:22: For God has cleansed you of all unrighteousness with the gift of his
16:30: Son, Jesus Christ. You are presented to Christ pure. But Paul goes on to say, verse 3,
16:40: But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
16:50: So we have been presented pure, purified to Christ. And we must remain pure in our thinking, in our behavior.
17:00: Again, Romans 12, 1, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice unto the Lord. 1 Corinthians 6, which I mentioned last week, which talks about our bodies being a temple of the
17:08: Holy Spirit. And so we must be purified even in our bodies. We must have a pure devotion to Christ.
17:15: We were presented to him as pure. Don't stain what has been made pure. And what is
17:21: Paul specifically talking about here? Being led astray with lies. Believing the lie rather than the truth.
17:32: Verse 4, If someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one that we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one that you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
17:47: These false teachers have come in teaching exactly that. A different Jesus. A different spirit.
17:54: A different gospel. And you're putting up with it. Do these things have the power to save you?
18:01: Do they have the power to purify you and make you right before God? They don't! Matter of fact, they're going to have the opposite effect if you continue to cling to this false teaching.
18:11: So Paul is, in a sense, saying to them, don't put up with it. And as I mentioned to you last week, as this letter is being read to the
18:21: Corinthians, those false teachers are there. They're even sitting among them, hearing
18:27: Paul talk about them, and calling out before these Corinthians, they are liars.
18:34: And they will lead you into the synagogue of Satan rather than the righteousness of Christ.
18:43: Indeed, Paul says, verses 5 and 6, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super -apostles.
18:53: And that's the way that he labels them. Very tongue -in -cheek, very sarcastically, because they're not actually apostles at all.
18:59: They're apostles of the devil rather than apostles of Christ. But he says, I'm not in the least inferior to these guys.
19:06: And remember the way he started the chapter. I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Because he's going to go on to boast about himself, which he doesn't want to do, and he wished that he did not have to do it.
19:18: But because they're listening to these false teachers, he feels like, now I have to qualify myself before you so that you will know
19:25: I am a true apostle of Christ, and these men are not. So, I am not the least bit inferior to these guys.
19:36: Even though the Corinthians think the super -apostles are better because they talk better, they have a better cadence, they're more charismatic, they have that flashy
19:45: Joel Osteen smile, they've written books like Your Best Life Now, and they have a big golden globe on stage when they talk.
19:54: And so I'm going to listen to these guys because they just say, oh boy, I love what they say.
19:59: They don't only sound good when they say it, but they say the things I want to hear. And Paul says, you are looking on the outside, and you're making a judgment by what you see on the outside and what you hear that is appeasing to your flesh, and so you think they're greater than I am.
20:19: But I'm not in the least bit inferior to these guys. That is Paul's very humble way of saying,
20:25: I'm a way better apostle than they are. And goes on to say, verse 6, even if I am unskilled in speaking, remember chapter 10, verse 10, his letters are weighty and strong in the things that he writes, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech is of no account.
20:44: So if we knew the Apostle Paul in person, as convicting as his letters are, we wouldn't have thought that he was anything all that great.
20:52: And I say this with all measure of humility, you would have said, Pastor Gabe, you're a better speaker than this guy. And he's the
20:58: Apostle Paul. But Paul is saying, even if I am unskilled in speaking,
21:04: I'm not so in knowledge. Yeah, I wouldn't have dared go toe -to -toe with the Apostle Paul.
21:10: Indeed, in every way, we have made this plain to you in all things.
21:16: Even before the Apostle Paul came to know the gospel of Christ, he was probably one of the smartest men on the planet.
21:26: Dumb by godly standards, but by human standards, was pinnacle in terms of an understanding of the law of God, its teaching, and its application.
21:36: He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. And the Apostle Paul, though he was indeed incredibly wise in an understanding of God's law, knew nothing, which he even says in Philippians chapter 3,
21:47: I counted all of that as rubbish for the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
21:53: At the start of his previous letter to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, he says something similar,
22:00: I came to you knowing nothing except to preach Christ and Him crucified. So Paul could easily slaughter these guys in knowledge.
22:09: And he says, in every way, we've even made this plain to you in all things. You know who I am. And so his story is known to the
22:17: Corinthians, yet they're continuing to follow these false guys. Paul goes on in verse 7 to say, did
22:23: I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted?
22:31: What does Paul mean by that? Well, when he was there in Corinth, he worked. He was there for a year and a half, and he labored.
22:38: He was a tent maker by trade. Him and Priscilla and Aquila, they all kind of did this together. They made tents, made tents, mended tents.
22:46: That was his job. That was how he made a living. So he would spend his days doing that, and then he would go in the synagogue and teach, and he's making disciples and preaching the gospel in Corinth all the while.
22:58: So he does not burden the Corinthians with anything. They don't have to pay his wages. They don't have to provide for his living.
23:05: He's doing that on his own so that he may spend the rest of the time that he's there for that year and a half preaching the gospel and building up these
23:13: Christians who have come to the knowledge of God. And he says, Did I sin in humbling myself in this way?
23:19: Would it have been better for you if I had boasted like these super apostle guys did? I humbled myself that you may be exalted.
23:27: Exalted how? In the knowledge of Christ. Exalted with Christ to the heavenly places, as we're told about in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4.
23:39: I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. Now, he didn't literally rob those churches.
23:46: But Paul is making a comparison here. Since I didn't charge you for teaching the gospel, and yet I've gone to other churches where they have provided for my way of life, it's as though I robbed them so that I could serve you.
24:01: And you are taking advantage of those churches that have provided for me so that I might be able to come and preach the gospel to you.
24:09: Verse 9, When I was with you and was in need, I didn't burden anyone. For the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs, so I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way.
24:25: As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.
24:32: And why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do. This is why
24:39: Paul is boasting. He's boasting because of love that he has for the Corinthians, that they would listen to truth instead of being led astray by the lies, by the liars and the false teachers.
24:52: My wife and I are very grateful at how this church takes care of us, me and my family.
25:00: We are so grateful. I would not even be able to put it into words. This past month was
25:05: Pastor Appreciation Month. I made no mention of it whatsoever. But some of you knew that, and you had bought gifts for me and my family, and I thought that was great.
25:15: But there was a part of me that felt like, I think that during Pastor Appreciation Month, I need to be showing my appreciation to you because of how you have provided for me and my family.
25:25: You, this church, makes it possible for me to dedicate my life to the teaching of the knowledge of God and His gospel.
25:34: That's what I dedicate my life to. And so you have allowed me to make that a living. Because this church takes such good care of us,
25:42: I do the videos and the online ministry and all of that for free. I don't ever want to charge for that, even though I could be making extra money on the side.
25:55: It's an opportunity for me to use that gift, which this church has lifted up and encouraged in me, so that the gospel might spread to many other places.
26:06: And my friends, I want you to know, because you are part of this work. It's my voice that's on the podcast, but you are part of the work that has gone out to over 100 countries on planet
26:18: Earth, where people are sending us emails and saying, thank you for the teaching that you provide for free every day.
26:27: And I can offer it for free because my church has provided for our every need, and then some.
26:35: And so there's not a reason for me to have to make this a thing where I can store up wealth for myself, because that's not what
26:43: God has called me to. He's not called me to get rich off of teaching the gospel, so that I may proclaim the message that gives life, that rescues from death, that forgives sin.
26:59: And all of that is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul is saying, I came to you preaching it free of charge.
27:07: Other churches were providing for me. You're taking advantage of them, because now you're not listening to the apostle who was sent by Christ, and instead you're listening to these other guys who appeal to your flesh.
27:22: Paul goes on in verse 12, what I am doing I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boast admission, they work on the same terms as we do.
27:34: They're trying to tell you that they have the same message, they've been appointed by the same
27:40: Christ that I've been appointed by, but they are liars. Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
27:52: In his previous letter in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 8, Paul, in the previous seven verses, had given a list of succession of those whom the gospel had been given to, who actually saw an appearance of Jesus Christ.
28:09: And that included the half -brother of Christ, James, all the other apostles, and over 500 brothers between Christ's resurrection from the grave and his ascension into heaven.
28:20: And then after Christ's ascension, it's in verse 8, 1 Corinthians 15, 8, where Paul says,
28:36: And what does he mean by that? Because he was the one that didn't bum around with Christ. He wasn't there during his earthly ministry.
28:43: And, in fact, even worse than that, Paul was putting Christians to death for believing the gospel.
28:50: And yet Christ called him out of that to become someone who would give his own life for the teaching of the gospel.
28:59: Paul says, I'm the least of these guys. I'm the least worthy to be called an apostle. But when he says there that Christ appeared to him, he says,
29:15: I mean to make this plain to you, my friends, Christ will appear to no other until his return, and he will be seen, as it says in Matthew 24, as visible as lightning.
29:29: Everyone on earth will see him. I just had a conversation with a young man this past week.
29:36: At the end of BLT, he came up to me and he said, What's your opinion about Mormonism? And I said,
29:43: Well, Joseph Smith was a false prophet. And then I explained to him why.
29:49: Because Jesus said in Matthew 24, there's going to be those who are going to tell you, Look, here is the
29:54: Christ, and don't listen to them. They're going to say, Look, there he is in the wilderness. Don't go out.
30:00: Look, here he is in the inner rooms. Don't go in. For as lightning is as visible in the east from the west, so will be the coming of the
30:10: Son of Man. And I said to this young man, Jesus will not appear again until his second coming.
30:15: Yet Joseph Smith claims that Christ himself appeared to him and said,
30:22: Don't believe the Baptists, don't believe the Methodists, and don't believe the Presbyterians. They're all corrupt.
30:28: It was those three denominations specifically that Jesus said to Joseph Smith, Don't listen to any of them.
30:33: And gave him a New Testament, a new New Testament, which is what we now have as the
30:42: Book of Mormon, through the angel Moroni, gold plates, the whole bit, the whole mythology there in Mormonism.
30:49: But this young man said to me, Well, Jesus did appear again. He appeared in the
30:54: Americas, and then he appeared to Joseph Smith. And I said, Then you are speaking contrary to what Christ himself said in the
31:00: Bible. And then this was his response, But the Bible's been changed. My friends, if that's your response to whatever we have in the pages of Scripture, you can believe anything.
31:13: The Bible's changed. It's not the same thing it was written as. Somebody changed it in that span of time. Well, history proves that it hasn't been changed.
31:21: In fact, we have somewhere to the effect of 99 .8 % accuracy, an understanding of exactly what was said through the prophets and the apostles.
31:30: A couple of years ago, I was preaching through Essential Doctrines of the Christian Faith. It was not last fall, but the fall before, so 2016.
31:38: And one of the things that came about while we were going through that series, while we were talking about essential doctrines that all
31:47: Christians must believe, and one of those essential doctrines is we must believe that the Bible is the Word of God. That's essential to the
31:53: Christian faith. And while we were going through that, there was a discovery that made the news.
31:58: It was a scroll of the Book of Leviticus that dated back to the first century.
32:05: But a couple hundred years ago, it had been burned in a fire, and so as just a kind of a rolled -up pile of ash, you could barely even touch it, or it would crumble into nothing.
32:16: So we knew that the scroll was that old because of parts of it that had been preserved, but you couldn't unroll it because you would destroy everything that was in the scroll.
32:24: So for the longest time, it was just a relic that we had. We know it's from the first century, but we can't read it, until technology caught up with that discovery.
32:31: And we were able to, through x -rays and all this other kind of stuff, unroll the scroll virtually and read what was actually on the inside without having to touch the document.
32:45: And you know what we found when that scroll was unrolled using computers and the technology that we have today?
32:51: We found exactly the Book of Leviticus that you have in your Bible. Word for word, exactly the same.
32:58: 2 ,000 years old, and it wasn't any different. This is the
33:03: Word of God preserved. And God has spoken through His prophets and apostles to deliver what
33:10: He meant for mankind to understand of His will. It's right here in the Bible. As Justin Peters has said, do you want to hear
33:17: God speak? Read the Bible. Do you want to hear Him speak to you out loud?
33:24: Read the Bible out loud. This is the
33:29: Word of God. And yet once we want to deviate from this, once we want to say it's been changed, or once we want to say, this guy is legitimately as much an apostle as these guys who wrote the
33:42: New Testament for us, then you can believe absolutely anything. Even what you're proclaiming as truth is not truth because there is no truth.
33:50: You can just make up your own truth. But Paul is appealing to the
33:56: Corinthians on the basis of the truth. The guys that you're listening to are false apostles.
34:02: They are deceitful workmen. They are disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even
34:08: Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
34:18: Their end will correspond to their deeds. Jesus warned about false teachers in the
34:24: Sermon on the Mount, they will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inside they are ravenous wolves.
34:30: And the very next statement Jesus makes is, you will know them by their fruit. What are they doing?
34:38: What do you see in their deeds? What are the effects of their words? Does it line up with what
34:44: Christ said? Or are they deceivers? The point that I made last week in the way that I opened and closed the sermon is helping you to understand that lies destroy.
34:59: They kill people. And it's not just that lies lead to damnation, although that's certainly the worst thing, but stress, anxiety, hopelessness, the feelings of angst, of depression that we experience, a lot of that is because we're believing lies instead of believing the truth.
35:24: Now that's not to say that there should be no such thing as a depressed Christian. Well, there's certainly going to be depressed
35:31: Christians. You know why? Because we live in this sinful, fallen world and we're longing for heaven.
35:38: So there is a certain sense in which we are going to feel some sort of depression as we struggle through life, as we watch family members die, as we struggle with illness even in our own body, as we go through the aches and pains of a daily grind.
35:52: Any of these things are going to cause us stress. But we do not stress in hopelessness, for we know, as Paul says in Romans 8, that the glories that await us do not even compare to the struggles that we are going through now.
36:09: And so we endure with hope, knowing that we're going to be delivered from this world into the eternal, imperishable kingdom of God.
36:17: And it is the truth of Jesus Christ that delivers us from this world into that kingdom, whereas the lies continue to destroy people more and more than they are being destroyed now.
36:30: I mentioned Jonathan Edwards earlier. Jonathan Edwards said that this life is the only hell a
36:38: Christian will ever know. No, this life is the only heaven an unbeliever will ever know.
36:50: As bad as this life can be, it gets worse for the unbeliever, but for the
37:01: Christian we hold on with hope. And it should be that understanding also that causes us to take the gospel to those who are believing lies, so that they would hear the truth and be saved.
37:14: And it doesn't mean that life gets better, but whatever they go through in this life, they now have hope, because once this life is over,
37:23: I'm with God in glory, and nothing can touch me. The false teachers look attractive, just as Satan looks attractive, disguised as himself as an angel of light, because he once was an angel.
37:35: So it's no surprise if his servants, Satanists, who Paul is calling these super -apostles, they also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
37:46: Their end will correspond to their deeds. Jesus once again saying, you will know them by their fruit.
37:53: And what kind of fruit they produce is deadly fruit, and that's exactly going to be their end, death, unless they repent and follow
38:02: Christ. I tell you, just as there was forgiveness for you when you heard the gospel and you turned from sin and believed, there is also forgiveness for the false teacher.
38:12: So I pray they also repent, and they would also believe. There was an article that was written a couple of years ago by Tim Challies.
38:20: It was called, Seven Deadly Doctrines. And I put these seven false teachers to look out for in your bulletin.
38:26: If you look inside your bulletin, it's the right side of the inside flap. And Challies kind of presented seven kinds of false teachers that are very common in the church today.
38:43: So we're not just talking about those liars that are out in the world. We talked about them a little bit last week. Anybody who is speaking contrary to the knowledge of God is a liar.
38:52: But these men will even present themselves as apostles. And yet what they are teaching is deception, not truth.
39:01: So what is the first kind of false teacher that we look out for? It is the heretic. And these are those who deny essential doctrines of saving faith.
39:12: What is heresy? The easiest understanding of heresy is any kind of teaching that would be contrary to the saving message of the gospel.
39:21: If it compromises the person and holiness and righteousness of Christ or the
39:27: Father or the Holy Spirit and the work that they do in salvation. Any teaching that is contrary to that, that would be heresy.
39:35: One of the oldest heresies in the history of the church is what's called Arianism. And it's the idea that Jesus Christ was created rather than eternal with God the
39:46: Father. Has no beginning and no end, just as the Father has no beginning and no end. This is something, by the way, that Mormonism is guilty of,
39:53: Arianism. They believe that Jesus Christ was literally born of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.
40:02: In the Jehovah's Witnesses, also adherence to Arianism, they believe Jesus Christ is the
40:07: Archangel Michael who was created by God. The survey that I had told you about a few weeks ago, the state of theology survey that's put out by Ligonier Ministries every two years, the first question that I presented to you in that survey that was asked was, is
40:26: Jesus the first and greatest created being by God? And more than half of professing
40:33: Christians in America said yes. More than half of professing Christians in America believe that Jesus is the greatest created being of God.
40:46: More than half of Christians believe heresy. So the heretic is the one who comes with destructive information.
40:57: That would be contrary to the knowledge of God. 2 Peter 2 .1, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the
41:10: Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. You might ask yourself, why are there false teachers like Smiling Joel?
41:19: Why does God allow there to be these guys who lead people astray and have these massive churches that are the size of sports arenas?
41:29: And the reason is because the Bible says there are going to be. Why are there false teachers?
41:35: Because the Bible says there will be false teachers. And false teachers are a judgment. They are given to those who in their hearts want to believe the lie instead of the truth.
41:48: And so when a person follows a false teacher, they just expose the darkness that was already there, the lies that they were already believing before this guy came along and said, this is from God, and it really wasn't.
42:02: The next kind of false teacher, number two, the prophet, or more specifically, the false prophet.
42:09: This is a person who claims to have been given a gift by God to speak fresh revelation outside of what the
42:17: Bible says. This is almost every televangelist. God is speaking to me right now.
42:24: And there's a woman out there, I know, there's a woman who's struggling right now with a brain tumor.
42:30: And God is saying to me, if you just put your offering in the envelope, an offering of $200 right now in that envelope, and you send it to this address at the bottom of your screen,
42:39: He will heal you of that disease. That's what the televangelists do. And they believe that God has revealed some sort of knowledge to them you can't find in the
42:48: Bible. And they'll even straight up say, God is going to be revealing things you will not find in the pages of Scripture.
42:56: Mike Bickle, who teaches just two hours down the road from us in Kansas City at the International House of Prayer, has said exactly that.
43:03: He has taught his congregation that God is going to bring about new apostles in the present age that are even greater apostles than the apostles who gave us the
43:12: New Testament. Can anyone say super apostle? And he has said they are going to teach and reveal things you will not be able to find in Scripture.
43:21: Jesse Duplantis has straight up said, what I'm saying to you, you won't find in the Bible. It's kind of like,
43:29: I'm admitting to you right now, I'm a liar. But people continue to clamor for his words.
43:35: Why? Because they believe that Jesse Duplantis is teaching me something I can't find anywhere else.
43:41: So they stay hinging on Jesse's words and continue to drop the money in that envelope for that new big supreme jet he's trying to buy right now.
43:51: This is the false prophet. 1 John 4 .1, which is a verse I quoted to you last week as well.
43:57: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
44:08: Oh, I misnumbered here. Number three, the charlatan. It says one, two, two. He's in a tie with the false prophet.
44:15: Number three, the charlatan. The charlatan uses Christianity as a means of personal enrichment.
44:21: Now, when Tim Challies was writing about this in his article, he was talking about how basically the false teacher who is the charlatan uses
44:29: Christianity to make himself rich. He prospers himself off of teaching the gospel.
44:35: And that's certainly the case with anyone who we might identify as a charlatan. But I would say that this goes a little bit further.
44:43: It's not just that he's benefiting himself with what he teaches. It's also that he teaches you that you can become rich by being a
44:55: Christian. And maybe it's not even that. Maybe he doesn't even give the promise of money.
45:02: Maybe by personal enrichment, what he tells you by being a Christian is that you can have that next job promotion, or you will have your debts taken care of, or you will have a happier marriage, or you will find satisfaction in whatever.
45:20: You'll get all the stuff in your job you want to get. You'll have all the stuff that you wanted to possess.
45:28: You will even have personal recognition among those people around you whom you want to recognize.
45:34: God will give you those things if you just do X. That's what the charlatan teaches.
45:40: I believe right now that we have those social justice preachers in the pulpit right now who are saying that through Christianity there should be this social justice change happening in our nation.
45:52: If more Christians are not jumping on the social justice bandwagon, then they're doing something contrary to the gospel.
45:57: I believe those men are charlatans. What they're promising is personal enrichment, that society will just get better if you just join the fight.
46:11: And yet we are told in 2 Timothy 6, 3 through 5, that such a person has an unhealthy craving for controversy, and they imagine that godliness is a means of gain rather than sacrifice.
46:23: The number fourth kind of false teacher is the abuser.
46:29: That's pretty self -explanatory. This is a person who uses his position of authority in leadership to take advantage of other people.
46:39: Last week I told you about a preacher who's suing another Christian because this other
46:45: Christian said something about him online, on the internet. He said, this guy's a false teacher.
46:52: Watch out for him. So this pastor is taking that person to court, even though 1 Corinthians 6 discourages such things and says, why not just be defrauded?
47:00: Why not be wronged? And yet brother goes against brother in court, and this in front of unbelievers.
47:06: I say this to your shame. And rather than be wronged, the pastor is taking the believer to court.
47:14: This is a person who is an abuser. He's abusing his position of authority, and as a megachurch pastor, using the resources that are at his disposal to abuse someone else.
47:27: Both Peter and Jude warn about this in 2 Peter 2 and in Jude's letter. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed.
47:37: Mark Driscoll is another man who was an abuser. Abused people in his church and made a shipwreck of his ministry because he took advantage of others with the power that he had.
47:52: Number five, the divider. What kind of person is the divider? He sows seeds of discord, causing division among brothers, which the
48:01: Bible says God hates. Proverbs 6, six things God hates, seven, that's an abomination to him.
48:08: And that seventh thing that's an abomination to God is one who sows discord among brothers.
48:14: Paul says in Titus 3, 11 that such a person is warped and sinful. He is self -condemned.
48:20: And it's unfortunate, but we've had such persons even in this church before who were attempting to sow discord among brothers, and they succeeded to some degree as it caused people in this church to see that kind of division that was being sown, and they left, either because they did not want to see that kind of thing happening in the church or because they actually believed what was being sown by these dividers.
48:47: Number six, there's the tickler. And very simply, that comes from 2 Timothy 4, 3 through 4, where it says that people have itching ears, and so then you have the tickler, the false teacher, who comes along to scratch those itching ears.
49:02: The tickler does not teach God's instructions but only what man wants to hear. He's an appeaser.
49:08: He preaches pragmatism. He promises you things that God says that you're destined to have what's called the attractional church in America today.
49:22: This is the tickler. This is the person who gives people what they want to hear.
49:28: As I was talking about the attractional church in Bible study this past Thursday night, when the attractional church began, how this started was churches were promising people things to come to church.
49:41: Like, if you come to church, we'll give you this. And then they would do a bait -and -switch. So they'd come to church, and maybe they would get that thing, or maybe they wouldn't at all.
49:48: And instead, they got you in the door, so now, ha -ha, we're going to teach you the gospel. That was the way it started.
49:54: But then people are coming, and they're realizing, oh, this is a con. This is a bait -and -switch. We're lying to people to get them through the door.
50:01: So we actually have to give them what we're promising we're going to give them. And so then they would come in the church, and they would get everything that they were promised that they were going to get.
50:09: And then, now here's the gospel. But people were uncomfortable with the gospel. Well, these teachers are telling me
50:15: I'm a sinner. I'm going to go to hell. If I don't repent of my sin and follow Jesus, I don't want to hear a message like that, so they wouldn't come back.
50:22: And so now the attractional church guys were going, okay, now we're losing them. Even though we're giving them what they want, what do we need to do?
50:27: Well, we need to actually promise the message that we're promising them outside of church. And so then they were coming into church.
50:33: They were getting all the stuff that the attractional church was promising them, plus we're not going to give you the gospel anymore because that made you uncomfortable, and you were leaving when we were doing that.
50:42: So now the attractional churches became a place where the gospel is no longer even being preached.
50:50: Now, they will tell you that it is, and they will even point to places like, look, we said this here.
50:57: That's the gospel. Right, but you can find another quote where they say exactly the opposite. They just piecemeal things together to try to cover for the fact that their very strategy omits the gospel from that kind of evangelism.
51:13: That's the tickler. They scratch itching ears. And those people who just want to hear what they want to hear, they accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.
51:25: And the last kind of false teacher that Challies warns about is the one called the speculator.
51:33: The speculator is obsessed with novelty, originality, or speculation.
51:40: Now, when Challies wrote his article, he said the most common kind of false teacher in the church is the heretic.
51:47: I actually think the most common kind of false teacher, at least as far as America is concerned, is the speculator.
51:55: Because this is the majority of teachers out there. They don't teach what the Bible says, or they may even read the
52:02: Bible, but they kind of morph it into what they want it to say. So they're obsessed with novelty, originality, and speculation.
52:09: Even though Paul warned Timothy, this is the way his first letter to Timothy starts.
52:15: Don't let anyone teach any different doctrine, which leads to speculations.
52:21: 1 Timothy 1 .6, these have wandered away into vain discussion.
52:27: And Hebrews 13 .9 tells us, Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings.
52:37: The pastor wants you to believe that he's somebody that has something to tell you that you can't find anywhere else.
52:44: And even though he may not exactly say that, he will delve into these speculations and things like that because he wants you to believe that he's witty or sharp or has something that's better than you can get from any other pastor.
53:00: I'm not the only one who's teaching you the truth, but I will tell you that finding the truth preached in church is difficult.
53:11: And one of the things I dread the most about somebody who goes from here to somewhere else, like we're going to be saying goodbye to the
53:18: Dunn's in six or seven weeks or so, just as we've said farewell to so many other military families whom
53:25: God pulls out of this place and moves to another location. One of the things that I dread about that is not just that I'm losing a friend, but that you guys would find a good church wherever you go next.
53:38: You find solid teachers and a good bunch of believers who love
53:44: God's Word and are growing according to this knowledge. There's not a teacher that reigns over the rest of the church that everybody kind of hinges upon and we have to do everything that this guy says.
53:56: Everybody together is following the Word, and we're growing together in the knowledge of God.
54:02: That would be my desire for you. And with the Apostle Paul, I share this plea.
54:08: I wish that you'd bear with me in a little foolishness. I have labored for you.
54:15: So likewise, you know that when I study my Bible, I grow every time
54:21: I open this. But I also do this for your benefit, for it is what
54:27: God has called me to, feed His sheep, and we are fed with the
54:33: Word of God. Everything else in the world that is contrary to the knowledge of God is poison, and it kills people, and it leads them to despair.
54:44: But we have the hope of this promise, that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish, but have everlasting life.
54:54: Amen, my brother. Amen. And the weak are the same under His blood
57:33: For empty hand it all must come
57:39: To receive His endless love So let all condemnation cease
57:49: Let guilt have no more claim
58:20: Condemnation cease Let guilt have no more claim
58:28: For the
58:35: Lamb was slain
58:47: And the Lamb was raised
58:54: Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.
59:00: For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.
59:06: On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.