WWUTT 1727 Test Yourself to See If You’re In the Faith (2 Corinthians 13:5-10)

In 2 Corinthians 13 .5, Paul says test yourselves to see if you are in the faith.

Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you fail the test, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. For He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wtt .com. Once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of 2 Corinthians, closing in on the end of this book.

I'm in chapter 13. I'm going to start reading in verse 5, and we'll go through verse 10 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. This is the Word of the Lord, through the Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth.

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test.

But I hope that you will recognize that we ourselves do not fail the test.

Now we pray to God that you do no wrong, not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear unapproved.

For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong.

This we also pray for, that you be restored. For this reason

I am writing these things while absent, so that when present, I need not use severity in accordance with the authority which the

Lord gave me, for building up, and not for tearing down. And then we'll get to that last, finally, tomorrow, verses 11 through 14.

Let's come back to verse 5 here, where Paul says to them, Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith.

Now the emphasis on this sentence is on yourselves and you.

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. He wants the

Corinthians to examine themselves. Paul doesn't actually need to prove his apostleship.

He does not need to prove that he has been sent by the Lord Jesus Christ. He certainly doesn't need to prove it again.

It's already been proven among them once. As he said previously in chapter 12, verse 12,

The Corinthians should be able to tell who the true teachers are and who the false teachers are.

Many of them are following after these most eminent apostles, as Paul sarcastically referred to them in chapter 11.

They're going after the false apostles, the messengers of Satan, rather than those who have actually been sent by Christ.

So Paul says, I've been put in this position to have to prove myself to you again.

And he boasts in himself. He says, I do so as a madman. It's foolish of me to do this.

But if this is the kind of voice that you're going to listen to, then I'm going to do it for your sake, for your benefit.

That's why Paul boasts not to benefit himself, but so the Corinthians would know the truth and follow in the truth.

And so he says, now turning the tables, right? He says to them, test yourselves.

He's given everything that he needs to give. Affectionately has done this so that they would know the truth, that they would turn away from the false teachers and follow in the truth.

He has laid himself out before them. He has made himself vulnerable to them, as he has already given so much.

When you look at the way that he lays out his boasting in chapter 11, which is really boasting in his weakness, he goes through all the different persecutions that he has endured for the sake of the gospel.

When you read about that, it's so autobiographical. There are things we learn there about Paul that we don't even read about in the book of Acts.

Some of that that he mentions does line up with what we read about in Acts, but there's more details even there than we get from the book of Acts.

So Paul endured so much for the gospel, gave himself so that many others could know the truth and believe.

Whereas these false teachers, they're taking from the Corinthians. They're not giving themselves for the

Corinthians. They're taking their money and they're making themselves rich. And the Corinthians are getting nothing out of it.

Instead, what they will get is hell. They will follow these false teachers to their own destruction, which is why now

Paul flips the script and says, Test yourselves. You've heard from me.

I've laid out my case. Now examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith.

Examine yourselves, or do you not recognize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? In other words, after all this examination and testing, would you look in yourselves and see that I'm not actually a follower of Christ?

That the Christ that's proclaimed by these false apostles, it's a false Christ. And they discover,

I don't actually believe in the Jesus that Paul proclaims, who is the true Christ, for Paul has been sent by that Christ.

And so Paul says, look inside yourselves. And when I say look inside yourselves,

I don't mean in the Disney way. I mean, look inside to see, is what you are following, is what you are believing according to the word of God that was given to you?

The true word that comes from a true apostle of Jesus Christ. If you don't recognize in yourselves that you are following Christ, then you fail the test.

Unless, indeed, you fail the test. Paul says there at the end of verse 5, and then saying about himself, though he so affectionately laid out his resume for the

Corinthians, detailing for them again everything he has gone through on their behalf, for building them up, as he says toward the end of the letter.

Even after laying all that out, he says in verse 6, I hope that you will realize that we ourselves do not fail the test.

You should have known this before Paul sent the letter to them. They should have known that.

But now affectionately for the sake of their eternal souls, he has laid himself out for them.

And has shown himself to be a true follower of Christ. Truly having given himself for their sake.

Not taking from them, but giving himself for them, so that they would know the truth and be saved.

We don't have to prove ourselves, Paul says. We're secure with Christ. And I hope you realize that, he says to them.

Examine yourselves to see if you pass the test. Why does

God allow there to be false teachers in the church? Clearly there were false teachers in the church in Paul's day.

And Paul said there would be. He told Timothy that in the last days there will be false teachers.

Peter said in 2 Peter 3, in the last days there will come scoffers with their scoffing. So in a certain sense, the existence of false teachers in the church is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

The Bible says there will be false teachers. And so there are false teachers proving the Bible to be true.

But why would God allow that? Just as there were false teachers back then, so there are false teachers today.

And I could even name some of them for you. Stephen Furtick, who recently claimed,

I am God Almighty. T .D. Jakes, who denies the Trinity. He believes rather God can manifest himself as Father or Son or Holy Spirit.

Joyce Meyer, who has falsely claimed that you can speak to your bank account and money will just automatically appear in your bank account.

John Gray has said the same thing and he will make false prophecies even in the middle of his sermons, promising things to his audience that the

Bible does not promise. Ken Copeland, Mr. I'm going to blow away COVID -19, which he never actually did.

He just spit all over the place. Todd White, who goes out on the street and does his little street con claiming to heal people.

He's never healed a person in his life. Bill Johnson, the pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, who will manipulate and con people in his church, claiming that the

Holy Spirit has appeared with this gold dust falling from the ceiling. Oh, look, the Holy Spirit is among us.

It's somebody pouring gold glitter in the air ducts. That's not actually the

Holy Spirit. Beth Moore, who just like John Gray, has also promised things that the

Bible does not promise. She's an egalitarian mystic, claiming the Lord speaks things to her that you will not find in Scripture.

And therefore, the things that she teaches are every bit as authoritative as the Bible itself.

If you were to disagree with her, you would be disagreeing with the Bible. Rick Warren, whose purpose -driven nonsense has led the church astray for years into pragmatism, away from the gospel and more into appeasing or tickling the ears of the masses.

And really, when it comes down to it, that is something that Paul said false teachers would do, right?

2 Timothy 4 .3, For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.

People go after those false teachers because the false teachers tell them what it is that they want to hear, and that's why it is that they listen to them in the first place.

So why does God even allow this to happen to his church? Why are false teachers coming into the church?

There are two reasons for false teachers, and we get this from Scripture. Number one, for testing.

And number two, for judgment. So here, Paul is referencing the testing aspect.

Are you really in the truth? Are you following after what the

Lord God has said through his true prophets and apostles?

Or are you going after false teachers? And as I mentioned yesterday, as Paul said in his previous letter, he said, there must be factions among you so that those who are genuine may be revealed.

Those who truly believe, who follow along in the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, they are going to turn from false teachers to the truth.

Jesus said in John 8 and in John 10 that my sheep know my voice and they follow me, and the voice of a stranger they will not follow.

So those who are the true sheep of Jesus Christ will follow true teachers and not false teachers.

Those who are following the false teachers, it may very well be to their own destruction. You know, every once in a while we can get fooled.

We can listen to somebody and think that they are speaking truly from the Bible and we think what they're saying is great and then come to find that what they were saying was actually lies, half -truths, which are lies.

They're just kind of twisting it just enough to make it sound like it's right. It's almost right, but it wasn't really the truth that comes from the

Bible. So does that mean in that moment that we were listening to that false teacher and we were convinced they were a true teacher, does that mean if we had died in that moment we would be condemned and go to hell?

By the grace of God, no. There are times we're going to have a lapse in judgment.

We're going to listen to a teacher we shouldn't be listening to. And by the grace of God, we're not going to be condemned for that.

Now, that doesn't give you an excuse to listen to whoever it is that you want to listen to. I will admit I listen to true teachers and false teachers on purpose, but I have a different reason for doing so.

I can tell the difference between the true and the false. I'll listen to the false teacher because I want to know what else is being taught out there that I need to warn my congregation about or maybe make another what video on it or something like that.

So for that reason, I'll listen to true and false teachers. I don't have false teachers, though, in the majority of my diet.

Most of my listening is true teachers. The podcast that I listen to, you know, I listen to RefNet a lot, the

Reformation Network, which is just kind of like an online streaming site. Nothing but good teaching coming from RefNet.

So there are going to be occasions where out of poor judgment, poor discernment, whatever the reason, we might go after some kind of a false teacher.

But those teachers are still there to be a test, to see whether we truly love Christ or we're going after the passions of our flesh.

Consider what Moses said or what the Lord said to Israel through Moses in Deuteronomy 13.

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you saying, let us walk after other gods whom you have not known and let us serve them.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for Yahweh your

God is testing you to find out if you love Yahweh your

God with all your heart and with all your soul. Do you love

God or do you love your flesh? Do you love the things of this world? The teachers that are in our lives are going to be a test for us in that sense.

If we love God, we're going to go after those teachers that will point us to Christ. But if we're just wanting teachers that will give us what we want to hear or what we want to have, then we're going to go after those teachers that are going to scratch our itching ears, just as Paul talked about there in 2nd

Timothy chapter 4. So then in this way, if you don't pass the test, false teachers become a judgment.

So once again, God allows false teaching for two reasons for testing and for judgment.

Those that do not pass the test, so the teachers that they go after are not of God.

They teach away from the gospel. It doesn't pour out from the gospel of Jesus Christ, as I quoted yesterday from 1st

Timothy chapter 6. It's not teaching that accords with godliness, produces in you godliness.

If you're going after those false teachers, then those false teachers become a judgment to you.

That's exactly the statement there in 2nd Timothy 4 as well. They accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

They want the teachers that will give them what their flesh wants. Consider what

Paul says about the man of lawlessness in 2nd Timothy 2, or those that go after the spirit of lawlessness.

Paul says the following. For this reason, God sends upon them a deluding influence, so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness.

So they go after the false teacher to come into judgment, because they did not love the truth anyway.

They did not want to do what is righteous. They wanted the desires of their flesh.

They desired what the flesh wanted. And so therefore God sends them a teacher to give them exactly that.

Because they didn't love the truth. So they're going to go after the lie, and ultimately come to destruction.

This is the reason why God allows false teachers. For testing, and for judgment.

And here, Paul is setting before them the test. Test yourselves. Do you pass the test?

These false teachers that have been sent to you, they're a test to you. Are you going to pass the test?

Turn from false teaching to the true teachers? Or are you going to continue in the way of those false teachers, and ultimately come to judgment?

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Verse 7,

Paul says, Now we pray to God that you do no wrong. Not that we ourselves may appear approved, but that you may do what is right, even though we may appear unapproved.

Ultimately, what Paul wants for the Corinthians is that they walk in godliness. Maybe they never come around to believing that Paul is as great as an apostle, as they need to think of him as.

But at least they're not following after these most eminent apostles to their own destruction. Turn away from those false teachers.

Paul is saying, I don't care if you're impressed with me or not. He just wants them to walk in what is right.

Even though, he says, verse 7, even though we may appear unapproved. Paul is not trying to win a popularity contest.

He just wants the Corinthians to walk in the truth. This is such a humble approach to this, and I want to have that kind of maturity in my own ministry as well.

Consider what Paul said to the Philippians. Philippians 1, beginning in verse 12, he says,

Now I want you to know, brothers, that my circumstances, he's writing this from prison, or he's in chains in Rome.

He says, I want you to know that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my chains in Christ have become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brothers, having become confident in the

Lord, because of my chains, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.

Some, he says, some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill.

The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim

Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me affliction in my chains.

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this

I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice. You know, there are teachers out there that I don't fully agree with, and I wish they would not be teaching the things that they're teaching.

I wish they didn't have the motivations that they had, maybe to use their platform to make themselves great.

They're going to have to stand before God on that day, but I am at least thankful that they are proclaiming the gospel of Christ, so that others may hear the truth and be convicted of their sin, and so be saved.

And Paul is basically laying that out here with the Corinthians as well. I don't care if you don't think that I'm someone great.

I just want you to know the truth and walk in it. Verse 8.

For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth. That's the true apostles.

We're not against truth. We're for the truth, and we're for you. Paul was saying to the

Corinthians. Verse 9. For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak, but you are strong. This we also pray for, that you be restored.

For this reason I am writing these things while absent, so that when present I need not use severity in accordance with the authority which the

Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down. I don't want to come and punish you because of the sins you're walking in or the false teachers that you are going after.

I don't want to do that. I'm telling you this now to build you up, not to tear you down, so that the

Corinthians would turn from false teachers back to the truth, and so live and grow in godliness.

And my friends, may we examine ourselves day by day, renewing our minds, as it says in Romans 12 too, that we may know the gospel and grow in it, that we may know holiness, growing in godliness day by day, until that day that we appear with Christ in glory.

Heavenly Father, thank you for these words today, and I pray that they are convicting to our hearts, that we would examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith, not going after those teachers who proclaim falsely, who teach what is contrary to the gospel, but we desire that which exalts the

Lord Christ, so that we may grow in this and become more Christ -like in our own

Christian walk. Forgive us our sin, and lead us in paths of righteousness, for your name's sake.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .tt .com. Thank you for listening, and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word… when we understand the text.