Now, the church at Corinth was
being seduced by false preachers. And these young brethren, young
in the gospel, were much impressed when they perceived in these
men what they considered to be gifts of God. And in 2 Corinthians
chapter 11, Paul does something that's very unusual for Paul. He begins to discuss with them
in his letter, remind them of what he had done among them.
And this is unusual for Paul to do. 2 Corinthians 11 verse
1, he says, Would to God you could bear with me a little in
my folly. And indeed, bear with me, for
I am jealous over you with godly jealousy. For I have espoused
you to one husband, that I may present a chaste virgin to Christ."
Now, those who have been called by God's grace in Christ Jesus
have been espoused to one husband. It's Christ Jesus. the full provision
of everything you need spiritually? Is He the full provision and
provider of everything you need temporally? That's what a husband
does. And Paul says, I've espoused
you to one husband. Are we waiting as a bride adorned for her husband? that we might
be found a chaste virgin. What would we think about if
someone we knew, a son of ours, or a friend of ours, a groom,
was a groom, and he was waiting for his bride, let's say in the
church building, and she's coming down the aisle to him, And while
she's walking down the aisle all adorned in white, she's flirting
with some fellow in the crowd along the way, batting her eyes
at him and flirting with him along the way. Would you do that? Would I do
that? Whether the other fellow It's
our own gospel, our own wisdom, our own works, some watered down
gospel. Would we ever think of playing
the harlot by some false friend who's wanting to set us up with
his false husband, introduce us to another husband? Would
we even entertain the thought of hearing what he had to say?
Paul says here in verse 3, but I fear, lest by any means, lest
by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ Jesus. You know in the garden, God commanded
Adam and Eve to do one thing, believe Him. That's what He commanded
them to do, trust Him. God assured them both that in
the day that they stopped believing Him, they would surely die in
that day. Adam would remain in perfection. He would remain with everything
provided by God. He would remain with the joy
of full communion with God by simply trusting God. He didn't have to do a thing,
but just trust God, believe Him. The first bride Eve was seduced
into adultery in her heart by the most appealing, sincere,
sweet words that could be uttered. The serpent and his message made
that which God forbid to be pleasant to the eye. The serpent's message made that
which God forbid to be a tree to be desired to make one wise. And so she ate it. And she gave
to Adam and he ate. And thus all mankind was corrupted. All mankind was corrupted from
the simplicity, the singleness of the full, sufficient, all-sustaining
communion with God. Paul was fearful that the same
subtlety was being used to fool these babes at Corinth. How? How was it? Look at verse
4. For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus..." Uh-oh. They came in Acts 15 just saying
you've got to be circumcised. But now they're coming in the
name of Jesus. He said it's another Jesus whom
if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus whom we've not preached,
or if you receive another spirit which you have not received,
or another gospel which you've not accepted, you might well
bear with him. And Paul is saying to them, bear
with me and my folly, just a minute. Because these other fellows that
come with another gospel, with another Jesus, You're bearing
with their folly, so you might as well bear with mine. Now,
the brethren at Corinth considered themselves wise. They felt sure
that they could discern between the truth of God and a lie. You know, false prophets pick
up on that. They pick up on that. And they'll
flatter such carnality. They'll flatter that. They'll
make an appeal to everything that the flesh loves. These false
prophets were beguiling the Corinthians, tricking them, fooling them,
into thinking that they had grown in wisdom and really could discern
between the truth and a lie. And they were flattering them
into thinking they had grown beyond what the Apostle Paul
could teach them. But the Corinthians didn't know.
They didn't realize that they themselves were but babes in
Christ. They didn't know that. Their false gospel, the false
gospel that those men came with, fed the flesh of the Corinthians
so that without even realizing it, that old nature that's in
the believer, that's yet with us still, that we war against
on a daily basis, they were feeding not the inner man, they were
feeding that outer man. They were feeding that fleshly
man and strengthening that fleshly man so that he was prevailing.
with them against the inner man. And these brethren were allured,
seduced, not with crazy outlandish things, but with things that
sounded truthful, beguiled, taken advantage of because they weren't
being fed the bread from heaven. We're far too apt to think too
highly of ourselves. We're far too apt to think that
we've got things pretty well figured out. That we've come
to a place where we understand this Gospel so well, we can't
possibly be deceived. Back in 1 Corinthians 3.18, Paul
said, let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth
to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may
be wise." The foolishness of man or the wisdom of man is foolishness
with God. He takes the wise in their own
craftiness. Paul said over in 1 Corinthians
8, if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing
yet as he ought to know. Learning is good, very good. It's very good if it exalts Christ
in our hearts and abases us. Brings us not to trust in ourselves,
but to trust Christ. But you know this, the best learning,
the best study, everything that we learn through
this gospel, is made so much more than a doctrine when God
brings us to experience it in our life by His grace. That's when it becomes much more
than a doctrine and becomes real. This thing becomes life then.
Brother Hyman, you've studied in medical school and you've
got all the book learning. He went through years of school. But if you ask him, I guarantee
you'll say it's not anything compared to what you have now
by experience. That's why you, when I was up
there at Columbia, I saw all those interns walking around,
following back behind the doctors and learning something by some
hands-on experience. Who would you rather have operate
on you? Somebody that's done it a while
or somebody that just learned how to do it in a book? I want
somebody that's experienced it. Well, that's how we learn things
is by experience. But they were flirting with strangers
is what they were doing. And they didn't realize they
were doing this. They were like a bride adorned for her husband,
flirting with a stranger. That's exactly what they were
doing. And you think of how offensive
that would be toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, it was also
a slight to Paul, who had labored so to preach the gospel to Him,
who loved Him, and yet Christ loved Him. Last night, we were in 1 Corinthians. And I recommended to the folks,
I said, go through 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians and read of
all the things that Paul dealt with with the brethren at Corinth. I told the folks last night,
folks want to say, we think our church is most like one of the
New Testament churches, one of the early churches. Well, here's
one of them. Had incest among them. They were
taking one another to the law. They were arguing over who was
the greatest among them. They were abusing the Lord's
table. They were arguing over who had the most spiritual gifts
instead of glorying in the One who gives them. Just over and
over and over. But read those things. Then go
back and read the first chapter of the first letter He wrote
to them and see how He addresses them. sanctified in Christ Jesus. Saints. He told them, all things
are yours. All things are yours. He made
it his business to expose the cunning craftiness of these false
prophets to them, to expose their cunningly devised fables, to
expose their traditions of men, all to show his beloved brethren
that they were being tricked. And since his brethren were glorying
in the flesh, Paul decides the best way to wake them up is to
meet them right where they are. And so he starts reminding them
of his own ways in the flesh. Now, I'm going to just go through
tonight kind of an overview of chapter 11 and a little bit of
chapter 12, but it's not going to take as long as that might
seem. I'm going to take a large bulk of scripture at a time.
But first of all, concerning Paul's gospel, look at 2 Corinthians
11 verse 5. He says, for I suppose I was
not a wit behind the very chiefest apostles. But though I be rude
in speech, yet not in knowledge, but we have been throughly made
manifest among you in all things. Now the brethren at Corinth,
perhaps the false prophets as well, were saying of Paul that
his letters were weighty and powerful. Now you realize that
in these two letters that we have preserved in the inspired
word of God that Paul primarily writes in these two letters correcting
them in matters of carnal things. That's primarily what he's speaking
about. And he's dealing with the very first elementary principles
of repentance from dead works, of ceasing from glorying in men,
of from trusting in the arm of the flesh, from fornication,
from incest, from taking the brethren to law, from arguing
over these gifts and abusing the Lord's table and all of those
things. And those things, these wise brethren, called weighty
and powerful. The flesh delights to hear of
what we should do and what we should not do. The flesh loves to focus on those
things. Stay with the elementary principles. If we can focus on those things,
we don't get the stronger meat. We don't move on to the stronger
meat. We can stay babes. We just stay
babes, immature babes. The strong meat, brethren, the
strong meat are the glorious attributes of our God. His holy, His holiness, The fact
that He is long-suffering. The fact that His love has no
bearing on anything in you or in me. That His love is totally
outside of sinners. It's of Him alone. that His justice
must be satisfied because He is holy and yet because He is
merciful, He in wisdom, infinite wisdom, in His Son declares,
manifests His righteousness, His wisdom in that He is just
and the justifier. Those things are the strong means. and we go on to learn about the
glorious mysteries of things like how he used a whole nation,
raised them up, named them, gave them a word from him, all his
oracles, all for the purpose of teaching his elect people
out of every nation how it is that he's able to save to the
uttermost. Those are, that's strong me.
Strong meets learning more of the person of Christ Jesus. That
He's God's own Son. And that He was formed in the
womb of a virgin. That He came into this earth
where we are. Dwelt among us. Walked where
we walked. Touched with all the feelings
of our infirmities. Yet without sin. No sin. how He could be God, perfect
all God and all man, perfect all man in one person, in one
body, and just in His glorious person. How we see the mediator,
how we see Him bringing together God and man just in His person,
in the character of Him being God and man. We see what He came
to do. Strong meat has to do with redemption
accomplished. It has to do with how that God
made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. Strong meat is how God gives
His children what they want. What they really truly want in
the inner man. Even when they're flesh, in their
flesh, they're asking for things that they don't really want.
And that's something we just... Scott and I were talking about
that on the way back from Pennsylvania last night. That's something
that you can declare it, you can proclaim it, but you can't... It's just like every other spiritual
blessing, you just can't bring it home to the heart till God
just reveals it. Lord will and I might hopefully
have a message for that or something like that for you here soon.
That's strong meat. We never grow weary. We never
grow weary of preaching or reaching into this treasure chest and
pulling out one of these unsearchable riches and just looking it over
real good and just admiring it and rejoicing in it. and just
rejoicing in it. We don't get weary of that. We
never get tired of that. But false religion, false prophets
regard the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified as the elementary
things and esteems the basic principles as the strong meat.
You know how I know that? Because without the Spirit of
God, we're backwards. And that's just as backwards
as anything can be. backwards We got Christ. We understand that we got to
five points. We got them now. We know that
doctrine now. We're moving on to better things Leaving the mysterious glorious
things and moving on to the elementary thing Well those at Corinth said his
letters are weighty and powerful but now watch this when Paul
was present in Corinth and He said this, look over in 1 Corinthians,
hold your place here, but look over in 1 Corinthians chapter
1, when he was with them at Corinth. He said, you're familiar with
this, but let me read this. He said, when I came to you,
came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto
you the testimony of God." And we know what he meant over there
in the first chapter. He said, not with the wisdom of words,
lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. He said,
I didn't come to you declaring this gospel in a way to take
out the offense of the cross. And he said, for I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But regarding the way that he
preached to them, when he preached Christ and crucified to them,
They regarded those carnal things he was correcting in his letters
as weighty and powerful, but when he preached to them, they
said his bodily presence is weak and his speech is contemptible.
Did they have a problem with how he enunciated language? Did they have a problem with
how he spoke? They had a problem with who it
was he was preaching. That's what the old nature despises. And these brethren, though they
were brethren, they were puffed up in their flesh and considering
those carnal things as powerful and weighty, but the gospel of
Christ was contemptible. The speech,
he just, and it wasn't even so much that what he was saying
as they were just looking on fleshly appearances. And he said
there in 1 Corinthians 3, 1, he said, and I, brethren, couldn't
speak unto you as unto spiritual. I came determined to know nothing
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and I couldn't
speak to you spiritual, strong meat, but as unto carnal, even
as unto babes in Christ, I fed you with milk and not with meat,
for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet now are
you able." This tells us plainly, brethren, that it wasn't that
those false prophets weren't using the name of Christ. That's
not what was going on. They were coming, promoting touch
not, taste not, handle not. They were focusing on the elementary
things that the believer knows are the first basic principles,
repentance from dead works, repentance from those things that are sinful,
and moving on into the glorious knowledge of our Redeemer. But
he said in 2 Corinthians 11, 6, but though I be rude in speech,
yet not in knowledge. You know, I got one of the best
compliments that I've gotten. One of the best compliments that
I've gotten. Somebody said this about my gospel. They said, I don't see a great difference
in what he preaches than in what everybody else preaches. But
they said, this one difference I do see. He don't care who he
offends, and he's rude in his preaching. What a compliment. What a compliment. What a compliment. It wasn't meant to be one, but
that's a compliment. Now, concerning Paul's manner,
look at 2 Corinthians 11.6. Look at the middle, or the second
half of that verse. He said, "...but we have been
throughly made manifest among you in all things. Have I committed
an offense in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because
I preached to you the gospel of God freely?" Paul made himself
unnoticeable. That's what he endeavored to
do as he preached the gospel to them, was to make himself
unnoticeable. He was so much constrained by
Christ, so much convinced that their salvation was totally in
the hands of the all-powerful Christ Jesus, the King of glory,
that he made it a point to make his own qualifications invisible
to them. That's what he endeavored to
do. He said back there of those others, I think a few chapters
back, he said, they come with recommendations. They come with
epistles commending them. He said, do we need to do that?
Do we need to come that way too? You've got to have credentials.
Can you not hear the message in the Gospel we're preaching?
Calvin said, he had of his own accord made a surrender of his
own greatness that they might become great through his abasement. I like that. I like that. Now,
concerning financial support from them, Paul dealt very wisely. Watch this, verse 8. I robbed
other churches, and he uses that word robbed because that's what
these other fellows were doing to them, or robbing them. But
he says, I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you
service. And 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've 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 regions of Achaia.
Now, you think about this. Corinth was a wealthy city. It was a capital city, Attica. And yet those in Macedonia paid
the wages that the carnal flesh of these beloved brethren in
Corinth wouldn't allow them to pay themselves so that the gospel
of their salvation could come to them freely. Do we ever see
Christ in that? Some other brethren paid the
wages that they themselves could not pay because of that carnal
flesh. Wouldn't let them do it. Just
like you and I couldn't pay anything. We couldn't do anything to please
God to pay the sin debt that we were under. And yet Christ
Jesus came and paid the wages that we could not pay, that the
Gospel might be ministered unto us absolutely free. And he knew this, he knew that
those false prophets, as cunning and as crafty and as deceitful
as they were, he knew that even when Paul didn't take charges
from them, he knew that what they would say is, well, if he
loved you, If Paul really loved you, he wouldn't rob you of that
great blessing of providing a gift for him. If he really loved you,
he wouldn't do that. Paul said in verse 11, wherefore? Why didn't I take a gift from
you? Because I love you not? Is that why I didn't? Is that what you've heard? Is
that what you think in your own hearts that I don't love you?
That's why I didn't? He said, God knoweth, but what I do, that
I will do. And here's why. That I may cut
off occasion from them which desire occasion. That wherein
they glory, they may be found even as we. You see, the false
prophets took wages from the Corinthians. They did that. Nothing wrong with that. Paul
took wages from the Macedonian brethren, but the reason he didn't
from the Corinthian brethren is because he was aware of this
craftiness, this subtlety, lest by any means you be deceived.
He was aware of this and this is wisdom right here. He knew
that They took these wages and this was one area that it was
evident to everybody that Paul excelled them. And they knew
Paul excelled them in this because these false prophets were taking
wages and Paul didn't. They waited for an occasion.
The moment they heard Paul took wages from those Corinthians,
now then those false brethren could use Paul as an example
and say, now you see, he gets wages too. You ought to be giving
us more wages. And they could extort them more
than they were extorting them already. That's wisdom by Paul. He saw that and he said, I'm
not going to take anything from you for that reason. I'm not
going to give them an occasion. He said, but rather, If they
want a glory that they're like the messengers of God, let them
do the same thing. Let them do the same thing then.
If they want to be equal to us, tell them to drop the income
and go to working with their own hands and preach this gospel.
You know why they wouldn't do it? They wouldn't do it because
that's the only reason they were in it. It was for that reason. For filthy lucre. Robbing them.
Try the Spirit's brethren. Gospel preachers, God's preachers
desire not your goods, they desire you. They desire you. The false prophets flattered
those Corinthians so they could get gain. Now, verse 13, he says,
for such are false prophets deceitful workers, 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 the ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.
Their God is their belly. They speak of earthly things.
They will perish with the earth. God's saints want you to glory,
not in them, but in Christ. You won't hear them. Paul keeps
over and over here saying, forgive me for glorying. Forgive me for
glorying. I don't mean the glory in my
flesh, Paul says. But look here at verse 16. I
say again, let no man think me a fool. Don't think I'm a fool
for saying all this to you. If otherwise, if you do think
I am, yet as a fool, receive me. Hear what I'm saying to you. that I may boast myself a little.
That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it
were foolishly in this confidence of boasting." Paul is speaking
after the Lord in his correction he's given him, but the way in
which he's done things, this is not his usual custom of doing
things. But you'll find God's messengers
don't spend time talking about themselves. But since these other
false prophets did, Paul said, well now, let me just a minute
remind you of my ways in the Lord. Now, verse 18, he says,
for this reason, seeing that many glory after the flesh, he
said, I'll glory also just for a little while here. Now, thirdly,
the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Look here in verse
19. He said, for ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves
are wise. They thought themselves wise.
And he says, and you suffer fools. You'll receive them. And he says
what the fleshly reasoning of men considers to be wisdom. Look
at this, verse 20. For you suffer if a man bring
you into bondage. A man teaching them that they
can cut away the filth of their flesh by the observance of the
law. And that's equal in our day with
morality preaching. Same thing. Exact same thing.
Not an iota of a difference in it. They bound them to abstain
from meats and drinks and to observe days and months and times
and years. And the false prophets taught
their own human doctrines, their own traditions, their own tenets,
their own laws, their own rules. Verse 20. He says, For you suffer
if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself,
if a man smite you on the face. They weren't literally smiting
them on the face, but they were continually uncovering their
sin, bringing up their shortcomings, exalting themselves over these
brethren, slapping them as it was with reproach. Not to teach them that there's
no good thing in them, but to exalt them into thinking that
there is some good thing in them and that they can fix it themselves. The false prophets did the same
in their belittling of God's true messengers. Look at this
right here now, verse 21. I speak as concerning reproach
as though we had been weak. The false prophet accused the
apostles of being weak too. You know what they said to him?
You know what their accusation was against Paul? He spends far too much time in
the doctrine of Christ and not enough time exerting his authority
and correcting men and using his authority to do what we do
by our authority. That's exactly what they were
saying about Paul. Paul wasn't bringing them into
bondage. He was declaring to them they are no longer under
the rule of law, but under the rule of Christ Jesus. He was
declaring the glorious promises that are all theirs in Christ
Jesus. Finished salvation. A finished redemption. Accomplished
by Christ Jesus. Those are the promises by which
Christ builds up the inner man, strengthens the inner man, grows
the inner man in faith, grows him in knowledge, grows him in
understanding of his assurance so that he's persuaded that God
is able. He won't turn from the left to
the right. You know how you fall in love with somebody? You fall
in love with somebody by seeing them all the time, by being in
their company all the time, by hearing about them all the time,
by smelling them, by watching everything they do. And that's
how you fall in love with somebody. And that's what happens through
the gospel that declares his works, and his beauty, and the
comeliness of his person, and the comeliness of his character,
and the willingness of his sacrifice, and all that he accomplished
for his people. That's how you fall in love with
somebody. Because Paul wrote and gave them
time to think on these things, rather than coming to them with
a rod and treating them shamefully, the false prophets consider Paul
inferior to them and not worthy to be mentioned with them. Look
at the next verse. Howbeit, whereinsoever any is
bold. I speak foolishly. I'm bold also, Paul says. He wasn't slacking this thing.
He corrected them. He admonished them. He rebuked
them with loving kindness as a father, His children, as a
shepherd of the sheep, as a steward of the Gospel, faithful to the
Gospel, faithful to the Christ who sent Him as an ambassador.
Faithfully He did these things. But He didn't do it like they
did it. He did it through the Gospel. He did it through the
preaching of Christ in him crucified. He said, Are they Hebrew? So
am I. Are they Israelite? So am I. Are they the seed of
Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of
Christ? I speak as a fool, he says. I
am more. in labors more abundant, in stripes
above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths often. Of the Jews, five times received
I forty stripes, save one. Three times was I beaten with
rods. Once was I stoned. Three times
I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day have I been
in the deep. in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils
of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by
the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness,
in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness,
in painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst,
in fastings often, in cold, in nakedness. And besides those
things there without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care
of all the churches. Who is weak and I'm not weak?
Who's offended and I burn not? If I must need glory, I'll glory
of the things which concern mine infirmities. The God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed forevermore, knoweth
that I lie not. In Damascus, the governor, under
Aretas the king, kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison
desirous to apprehend me, and through a window in a basket
was I let down by the wall and escaped in his hand. None of
those prophets that came to Corinth with their gospel were suffering
that. Suffering anything like what Paul suffered. Why? Because
with wisdom of words they had taken the offense of the cross
out by talking up human nature and talking up what man could
do and putting the work in man's hand. And these babes thought
that was wisdom. They thought that was wise. Think how many more people these
people could reach by preaching that gospel. That's got to be
wise to be able to go forth like that and attract many more people
with a less offensive gospel. Utter foolishness. Utter idolatry. Utter foolishness those prophets
came with. And Paul went on there to talk
about how he was caught up into the third heaven in chapter 12.
This man had been with Christ. This man had seen Christ. This man had seen the glory of
God in the face of Christ Jesus. I want to tell you this, and
I'll close. When we see what Paul endured
as he proclaimed the gospel of Christ, we see everything that
he went through, everywhere he went, the difference in his day
and ours wasn't that there wasn't false prophets abounding. The
difference in his day and ours was, is men could inflict punishment
on him bodily and kill him and get away with it. And yet by
the Spirit of God's grace, he went forth in the face of such
opposition and preached Christ and Him crucified in plainness
of speech with such clarity that you didn't have to scratch your
head and wonder, what does he mean? Now, if that was the case in
a day of such opposition, you can be sure that in this day,
when we live in a nation with freedom of religion, where the
worst you're going to find is a tongue lashing, or somebody
withdrawing their membership from the congregation, or somebody
slandering you a little bit with a little bit of backbiting, When
that's the most you're going to receive from anybody in this
nation, you can be sure that by the Spirit of God's grace,
you're not going to have to wonder if the man that is preaching
is preaching the truth or if he's mincing words. The last
message you heard him preach, the first message you heard him
preach, and every message in between you heard him preach,
declares man is, in his sin nature, damned, doomed, and depraved
for, unless God has mercy on him, he can't do one thing. That
it's not by anything that he does, it's by the Spirit of God
making him alive and drawing him so that he cannot turn away,
but he is altogether willing by the total beauty of Christ
that has died for him, that he wants to cast himself lock, stock,
and barrel on the faith of Christ. because God chose him, God put
him in Christ, God loved him from eternity freely, God gave
him to his son as a gift, his son bought him with his own blood,
his son will have his purchased possession and he must be saved. He must be called out because
God's not willing that one for whom His Son died should perish.
And if God's not willing, there's never been anything in the history
of time, even before time, that God willed that He didn't bring
to pass. Never. Never, never. And if God's
preachers are preaching to a bunch of school children, or they're
preaching to a mixed congregation of denominations, or they're
lecturing in some form, no matter what the engagement is, you're
not going to have to wonder what they believe. You're not going
to have to wonder one iota if God has to keep His people. You're going to hear them talk
about urging sinners to repentance and faith, calling on them to
repentance and faith. You're going to hear them urging
believers to walk honorably before God. You're going to hear them
urging believers to persevere in the faith, and you're going
to hear them at the same time declaring that it is an utter
impossibility for them to do so, for them to shut them up
to Christ, to cast all their care on Christ, that He might
keep them by His power. And you're not going to have
to wonder about it. You will not have to wonder about
it. And if you hear somebody and you have to go, was he saying, elected a people
was he saying that Man becomes one of God's elect by exercising
something in himself You won't have to ask that question You're
just not gonna have to ask it. You're just not gonna have to
ask it well brethren, I want you to try the spirits Try the
spirits. That's real simple. It's real
simple Just listen And if God's given you some discernment, listen.
And what you hear, compare it to what this book says. You have
God's word right here. Compare it to this book. If it's
an invention of man, if it's a tradition of men, if it's something
somebody's come up with on their own, and it's not in this book
right here, walk away from it. Ignore it. John said, Beloved,
believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they
are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the
world. And this is the second thing, don't turn from Christ
Jesus. Don't turn from Him. His will,
the whole counsel of God, the whole counsel of God. Paul said to the Ephesians, he
spent three years with them and he declared to them the whole
counsel of God. I guarantee you from the first
message Paul preached to the last message he preached, he
was declaring in every message he preached the whole counsel
of God. He told them, when I came to
you, I was determined not to know anything among you save
the whole counsel of God. Jesus Christ and him crucified. His will and testament is in
Christ Jesus. God's will and testament is in
Christ Jesus. His predestinating of His people is in Christ Jesus.
Complete perfection and acceptance with God is in Christ Jesus.
Every word of daily instruction is to turn us from the things
below to set our affection on Christ reigning on His throne
in power. We are kept by the power of God.
All fruits of righteousness are by Jesus Christ. All things to
come that are freely given to us of God are by and in and are
Christ Jesus. heaven's glory. It's going to
be the eternal glorification of His well-beloved Son. The
whole counsel of God is Christ Jesus. It's in Christ Jesus.
It gets its glory from Christ Jesus and it redounds into the
glory of Christ Jesus. Everything. So Paul says, I'm
jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you a chaste virgin to Christ." You
know, he's telling them the same thing that he said in another
place when he wrote to them, and he said, having these promises,
Having these promises, not yes and no, not yay and maybe, not
well, I kind of think he's saying it's of God, I kind of think
he's saying it's yes, and amen in Christ Jesus, and having these
promises. He said, purify yourself, come
out from among, wash your hands of that mess that has any off
sound, it's hitting a bad note. I can't stand to listen to music
that's out of tune, can you? He said, well, quit listening
to it. Come out from it and go. If he's given us messengers after
his own heart, pastors after his own heart, heed them. There's
plenty of good ones to hear to have to fool around with fellows
you can't understand whether they're saying the truth, a lie, or yay,
or maybe, or yay, or nay. And they're just gifts. Enjoy
the gifts he's given Enjoy him how thankful we are for the blessing
that God would give us his word faithfully I'm thankful. I'm so thankful. All right