2 Corinthians chapter 11. The letters to the Corinthians,
if we sort of hold them together, start with a wonderful declaration, don't
they? Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will
of God. and soften these our brother to the church of God
which is at Corinth to those who are sanctified in Christ
Jesus and called to be saints. And then this is one of the most
remarkable verses, isn't it? Words, with all who in every
place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs
and ours. And so as much as this letter
was directed to the Corinthians, we're in that verse, brothers
and sisters, are we not? To all, in every place, who call
on the name of the Lord. And yet the Corinthians lived
in a place and in a world of confusion. You read that first
chapter of the Corinthian letter and you see that even in those
very early days there was confusion in the church, isn't it? Some
follow Paul, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas. And
the big question is, that Paul is dealing with in these verses,
is that there is just one God and there is just one gospel. And there is confusion in this
world. When we think of the religions
of this world, we think of so many of them. We lived in the
land of India, which has been the breeding ground of new religions. Buddhism, Hinduism, how many
gods do they have in Hinduism? I don't know how they count them
all, but someone said they have 32 million gods in Hinduism. And Buddhism has two branches,
one of which says that there is no God, and another one that
says that there is just one God who is a creator. And the Baha'is
began in that part of the world, and they say that there are nine
different ways to God. We think of denominations, where
do they come from? All of these denominations in
the world, when we look out on it, we see it as confusing. No wonder the world thinks it's
just a mess of confusion and atheism or agnosticism or anything
else must seem right. It's just so confusing. I'd like us to look at this one
verse, these few simple words in verse 3 of chapter 11. I'd
like to read the whole chapter, but the title and topic of my
message is just those words, the simplicity that is in Christ. The simplicity. It means singleness,
oneness, plainness, simple and sweet. So the confusion is a
confusion that comes from men making a choice. The word heresy
is the word to choose. The truth is just plain and accepted,
but people choose all sorts of other paths. Let's read Paul's
concern at the end of this letter. And there is a great verse at
the end, a challenging verse, that says in verse 5 of chapter
13, Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know
yourselves that Christ Jesus is in you, unless indeed you
are disqualified? And the test that Paul has is
not a test of activities. It's a test of belief. Let's read chapter 11. Would
to God you would bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed
bear with me. For I am jealous over you with
a godly jealousy. For I have espoused you to one
husband that I might present you as a chaste virgin, a pure
virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means,
as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, through his cunning,
so your minds, mate, should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preaches
another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive another
spirit which you have not received, or another gospel which you have
not received, you might well bear with him. For I suppose
that I was not wit behind the very chiefest apostles, for though
I be rude in speech, common and untrained in that world, yet
not in knowledge, but we have been made thoroughly manifest
among you in all things. Have I committed an offence in
abasing myself that you might be exalted? Because I have preached
to you the gospel of God freely. I robbed other churches, taking
wages from them to do you service. But when I was present with you
and wanted, I was chargeable to no man. For that which was
lacking to me, the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied.
And in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome
unto you, and so will I keep myself. As the truth of Christ
is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the region
of Achaia. Wherefore, because I love you
not, God knows. But what I do, that I will do,
that I may cut off the occasion from them which desire occasion,
wherein they glory, that they may be found even as we. For
such, these ones bringing another gospel, are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves not transformed by God, transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore
it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their worth. Paul was a remarkable man, but
a man with the same feelings and emotions as us. But he was
a man driven by the grace of God. He feared for these Corinthians. He feared for them with a godly
fear. He had been promised by God that
men would arise from outside and inside the church to corrupt
it. But Paul, as much as he was treated
unjustly, unfairly and disrespectfully by these Corinthians, this led
him not to turn away from them, but to turn toward them and increase
his work for their welfare. You see, he continued as he had
began. Because God said to him in Acts
18, as Paul was suffering opposition and wondering why and what was
happening in Corinth, God says to him, I have many people in
this city. The grace of God moves God's
people above revenge and above resentment. and love compels
them and love motivates them. But Paul says he had a great
fear for these Corinthians. And the fear was, as he had seen
at this early time in his ministry, he had seen the subtlety of people
who claimed, as the Galatian false teachers did, they claimed
to come with the authority of the apostles in Jerusalem. And they had led people astray. He feared, he looked out on his
congregation of people that he cared deeply about and loved
deeply because of the Lord Jesus. He looked out on them as every
preacher does, knowing that before him are people who will, by some
means, be led astray from the simplicity that's in Christ. they will, as he goes on to say,
be beguiled. And how many means are there?
There are just a multitude of means, aren't there? The traditions
of men, the philosophy of men, the wisdom of men, the great
intelligence and learning of men, the works of men, the worth
of men. We are a religious creature. We love religion and we love
all of those things that Satan has put in us. You see, he goes
on to talk about, as the serpent beguiled Eve. It's good for us
to spend a goodly amount of time meditating on Genesis 3. It reveals
to us who we are in our flesh. It reveals to us what we will
continue to be in our flesh, apart from the grace of God. The reason Satan is so, so successful
is that the ground that he works with, this flesh of man, has
been so beautifully woven in his imagination and in the reality
of our lives to be a perfectly fertile ground. Let's just look
at Genesis 3 again. Now the serpent was more cunning
than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And here
are his words, aren't there? Has God indeed said? Did God really say? His first attack is on the very
Word of God. Has God indeed said? you shall not eat of every tree
in the garden. And the woman said to the serpent,
we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said,
you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. The very doubting of God's word
had led her to add to God's word. God said nothing about touching
this tree. Then the serpent said to the
woman, you will not surely die. Once he has marginalized the
word of God, then he can directly contradict the Word of God. And then he brings this most
subtle and dangerous. He actually attacks the very
character of God. She lived in this remarkable
environment where God said over and over again, He created this
and it was good and good and good and finally he creates man
and he says it is very good the creation of a reflection of the
character of God in verse 5 the serpent says to Eve God is withholding
good from you. For God knows that in the day
you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like
God. You will now have a throne. You will now have a throne on
which you can sit. You have a throne in which you
will know good and evil. You will now be the one who decides
good and evil. So when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and
the tree desirable for making one wise, she took of its fruit
and ate. And she also gave some to her
husband with her, and they ate. Then the eyes of both of them
were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed
fig leaf together and made themselves covering, now before each other
and before God. They do by their own works have
to cover themselves. And when God approaches, As they
heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from
the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden,
then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? And so he said, I heard your
voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and
I hid myself. You see, mankind, in all of his
religious activities, says, take and eat. In our day, do and live. It was good for food. It looked pleasant to the eyes. It was desirable for making one
wise. It was good for the mind. As
John says of it in 1 John 2, it's the lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And where did it come
from? It came from Satan. The poison of Satan became the
poison of our own hearts. In Isaiah 14.12 we have a description
of Satan. how you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground,
you who weakened the nations, for you said in your heart, I
will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God, I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on
the farther sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds, I will be like the most That's the religion of man. That's the religion that lives
in the flesh of all of us. lest somehow, by any of those
means, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your
minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ
Jesus. The simplicity is the simple
act of believing God, depending wholly upon Him, And this was
what Satan led Eve to turn away from. Take and eat, do and live,
do this and you will live. What subtlety, what craftiness,
what cunning. And it's exactly the same today,
is it not? that the simplicity of trusting
the Lord Jesus is insufficient. In simple terms, it's supposing
and presenting to people that the Lord Jesus, in His person,
His work and His shed blood, are but the creation of a possibility,
the creation of a potential, and that our faith, our sincerity,
our repentance, our anything you like to add to it, must be
added to make the work of the Lord Jesus effectual. You see, it now begins with man
rather than it beginning with God. These men do today as they
did in Corinth. They teach their hearers that
their faith their sincere endeavours in obedience, their sorrows for
occasional departures, the Lord will accept. And because of their
activities, he will then bestow on them grace and mercy through
Christ Jesus. That man can do something. What is going on in the religion
around the world today? Go up the road. Man is trying
to do something, and if he does it in this way, under this priest,
with this teaching, God will then do something. We can get
God to act. They have a thing here each year,
don't they, called Shelhaven Awakening. We can all get together
and if we make enough of the right noise and enough of us
are united together, we can get God to wake up and do something
in Shelhaven. When did he go to sleep, brothers
and sisters? When was he asleep? When does
he need waking up? As if man, by his activities,
is going to move God. God is the mover. It's the simplicity. All this
man-made religion, all of it, is just a corruption of the simplicity
that's in Christ Jesus. Man adds those two words, doesn't
he? Jesus and, or your works but,
or God's sovereignty but, Again and again, how many conversations
have you had where people say, it's all very well to talk about
the absolute sovereignty of God, but it's all very well to talk
about this wonderful, sin-atoning, redeeming work of the Lord Jesus,
but it's just simple. I pray that
God would cause us to have just a simple, single, plain view
of God. Only He can make it plain. That doesn't mean that it doesn't
have great and deep and wonderful and profound things in it. But we don't need to know all
of the complications to know the beauty of it. I don't know
how they make electricity in any real way. I don't even know
how they get it through the wires in a proper way. But I do know
that when my tired old body hops into my beautiful warm bed, that
electric blanket has done something very beautiful. And I lie there
I lie there, I know Simon Bell doesn't like it, but I lie there
rejoicing. Just rejoicing. That's the way
of our God. If we can understand God, our
God is too small. If we can manipulate our God,
He's too little. Our God is big. And there is
just a simplicity, isn't there, in the character of God. The
everlasting love of God the Father for the Church in Christ. For God so loved the world that
He gave His only forgotten Son. The everlasting love of God the
Son for the Church. We can read about it in Ephesians
5. It's a beautiful, beautiful picture, isn't it? Husbands, love your wives just
as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he
might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by
the word. Did he do it? Did he create a
possibility? It never says in this book that
he tried. He tried as long as you'll do
something. the everlasting and amazing love
of God the Holy Spirit for this Church, this Bride of Christ,
loved by God the Father, given to God the Son, owned by the
Son as His own, and this Holy Spirit comes, because of the
kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according
to His mercy He saved us through the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out abundantly
on us. through Jesus Christ our Saviour. But having been justified, finished
and done, brothers and sisters, by His grace, we should become
heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Why do we keep talking about
what God did in eternity? Why must We keep talking about
what God did in eternity. Why do the letters in the New
Testament talk about what God did in eternity? Because all
of what happens in time is but the unfolding of what God did
in eternity. It's God's amazing activity. this amazing love that he has
shown us. And he wants it to be understood
in such simple terms, which is why in 2 Corinthians 11 he says,
the picture is of marriage, the most common and hopefully best
understood relationship in this world. He says, I'm jealous for
you with a godly jealousy for I have betrothed you to one husband
that I might present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. It just is a simple, it is meant
to be as simple as this beautiful marriage picture that we see
throughout the scriptures. simple and plain. In fact, the scriptures say,
it is so easily understood that a wayfaring man, men though fools,
shall not err in it. You need great learning. You need great subtlety to actually
complicate something which the scriptures make so beautiful. And this marriage is a picture
of Christ's marriage to His Church. She is betrothed, promised to
Him for this purpose, that Paul wants her presented as a pure
virgin. The Son of God, our great Redeemer,
espoused, betrothed, promised the Church to Himself. in a union, a covenant that cannot
be broken. He calls himself a husband to
her. In Hosea 2, he talks about this
betrothal. I will betroth you to me forever.
Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness in justice, in loving-kindness
and mercy, in His righteousness, His justice, His loving-kindness
and His mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness
and you shall know the Lord." Those who are betrothed will
know the Lord with everlasting love Our great God, willed into
being the Church of God. Before He willed into being this
creation, the Church was chosen. The Church was given to the Lord
Jesus. At that very moment, before there
was anything to call a universe, He became the Head. the husband
of the church. The church became the body, the
bride of Christ. And she was betrothed, she was
promised to him. And here lies all of the blessings
that you and I and any believer will ever receive in this world. You see, the wonder of what God
did in eternity is a reminder to us that this unfolding of
His plans and purposes doesn't change that love. Did Adam's
fall affect God's love for His people? He loved us with an everlasting
love. Will our falls? The Scriptures
say that we come forth from a mother's womb speaking lies. We need no encouragement to sin. In fact, we love it. We drink it down like water. It's our bread and butter. Does it change God's love? for us. It can't change God's
love for us. The things that happen in time
are but the unfolding of what God did in eternity. Our backslidings,
our fallings don't affect God's love for us. He communicates
this love. He communicates this grace. by
reminding us again and again of the wonders of our Saviour. And He says, like in Jeremiah
3.14, In return, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for
I am married to you. And then He promises her, I will
take you from the city. One from a city, two from a family,
and I will bring you to Zion. God will do it. What was ours in eternity cannot
be lost in time, not in Adam's fall, not in our constant sins,
not the world, not the devil, nothing. No one can separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. All our security,
all of our strength is in Him, His power, His grace, His love. And in time, there will be a
time of love where God will come and we will feel the weight and
the consequences of our sin. And we will, when we see Jesus
at that time, when we meet Him in conversion and regeneration,
we will see the power of that redeeming love. That redeeming
love that took our Saviour to the cross, and He defeated Satan,
honoured God's law, and we who were saved from eternity are
manifestly saved by the Lord Jesus. See in the scriptures it's fascinating
that the word doctrine When it's referring to Christ, it's always
a singular word. It's just the doctrine of Christ. Paul preached one doctrine. The
apostles preached one doctrine. They keep saying, hold on to
this pattern of sound words, this doctrine of Christ. Whenever
doctrine trines, with an S on the end of it, a plural is used,
it's always a reference to man's activities, the doctrines of
demons and the doctrines of men. And the simplicity of the doctrine
of Christ is that if you add anything to it, if you add anything
to it, This water is pure and it's beautiful and enjoyable
for me to drink. If I added one tiny drop of arsenic
in there, it would no longer be pure. But what pollutes it? It's just the poison that causes
it no longer to be pure water. No wonder the scriptures call
it yeast. Coles told us of stories of him having yeast in a batch
of dough and putting the wrong amount of yeast in or doing something
and it grows and it grows and it grows and you come back the
next morning as Coles told us and you find this extraordinary
thing that has grown in your kitchen. God says it's yeast. A little bit that you can hardly
see goes into the batch of dough and what does it do? The whole
batch of dough is polluted. It's the doctrine of Christ.
If you add anything to it, you no longer have the doctrine of
Christ. We have, I trust, a simple doctrine. a simple doctrine that talks
of His glory as God before this world began. It's a simple doctrine
that says that God chose us in Him before the foundation of
the world. We are justified by His righteousness,
that we stand before God on that great day, wholly spotless, with
no guilt, and no shame, and no need for a covering like Adam
and Eve. We're covered by Him, redeemed
by Him, redeemed by His blood, called by Him. We have a simple
reason, I hope, for the forgiveness of our sins. When He says to
the Corinthians, to test themselves, to examine themselves, to see
if they're in the faith. He's really saying to them, are
you holding on to the Jesus that I've preached to you? Are you
holding on to His person and His work? Or have you been beguiled
by these men that look impressive? by these traditions and by this
wisdom that seems so successful and so big and gives us things
that our flesh can cling to. We have a simple reason, a single
reason, an only reason, a plain reason, for the forgiveness of
our sins, just as God in Christ Jesus forgave you. We have a simple, a single reason
for not being condemned. It's Christ that died for us. We have a simple, Single, plain
reason for all the blessings that God gives us. Turn to Romans
8 and just read a few of these verses. A simple reason for forgiveness. A simple reason for not being
condemned, Romans 8.33. a simple reason for all the blessings. He who did not spare his own
son, but delivered him up for us all, all of us Christians,
believers, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Satan says, take and do and you
will have. God says, rest and receive and
look in faith and you will be filled. We have a simple reason
for being saved. It's the grace of God. We are
saved by grace and not of ourselves and not of works. We have a simple
ground of assurance. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Are you a sinner? Only God makes
real sinners. People talk about their sins
as if they're bragging about them. Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners. We have a simple ground for our
faith. looking unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of faith. We keep looking unto Jesus. Even our sins cause us to look
unto Jesus. We have a simple motive for serving
Him, His glory. We have a simple desire, as Paul
talks about in Philippians 3, to win Christ and to be found
in Him. We have a simple, simple aim
at the end of our lives, according to the Psalm 1715. As for me,
I will see your face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake
in your likeness. A simple hope in the future. And we have a simple hope regarding
that judgment day of God. Do you look forward to meeting
God in judgment? Do you look to that day where
you will stand before the infinite holy God of this world. Look forward to that day with
boldness and with confidence. Never once do we hear of God's
children being fearful of the day of judgment in this volume. They go to that day according
to John because love has been perfected
among us, 1 John 4, 17, that we may on that day have boldness,
confidence, assurance in that day of judgment, a day of terror
for so many. And why do we have that boldness
and that confidence? John goes on to say why. Because
as He is, so are we in this world. It's simply, brothers and sisters,
all about the Lord Jesus. Christ is all. All you have. all we could ever have. Paul
talks to these people about another Jesus. Is there another Jesus
more lovely, more divine, more majestic, more powerful to save,
more accessible for sinners? more able to save the souls that
are committed into His hands. Another spirit, another spirit
more effective in bringing life from the dead, more effective
in showing us the Lord Jesus, more wonderful in bringing to
us and bringing to life the Word of God and the promises of God. Is there another spirit? This
world has many of them. Is there better good news? Is there better good news than
Jesus has done it all? He's done it all. There was a
pastor who was asked some time ago by a person who was troubled
about their soul. And she said, if all I have is
Christ, is that enough? And he wisely replied to her,
it is. It is all you've got. He is all his people have. Let's pray.