Kingsport Sovereign Grace Church,
located at 905 Yadkin Street in Kingsport, Tennessee, would
like to invite you to listen to a message of sovereign grace
by their pastor, Gabe Stoniker. And now, Pastor Gabe Stoniker. I have a message that I would
like to bring to you this morning from 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Second Corinthians chapter 11
and our text is going to be verse three. Every time that I see
this verse, every time I come across this verse, I enter in
to what it is that God has called me to preach. I'm reminded of
it. This is a very important verse
of scripture to me. Every verse is important, but
every time I see this, it reminds me of what I need to preach,
what I've been called to preach, and what we all need to hear.
This is the one and only thing that sinners need to hear. The end of the verse says, the simplicity that is in Christ. The simplicity that is in Christ. My desire is that by the end
of this message, We will all understand what that means. We
will all understand what is the simplicity that is in Christ. Now at the beginning of the verse,
he said, but I fear. I fear that's where the sincerity
of true worship begins when men and women gather together in
a in a church assembly. There's a difference in just
being present. And worshiping. Worshiping God
in the heart, worshiping God from the soul. And true worship. Begins with fear, the urgency
of the gospel begins with fear. David and Solomon both said the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When God puts fear
in a sinner, fear toward God, that's the beginning of wisdom
and wisdom will teach that sinner what is the simplicity that's
in Christ. He said, but I fear he feared
for men and women's souls who are going to meet God. And I
do too. I do too. That's why I preach
this gospel. That's why I preach God's word. I fear the more that we all learn. About the true and living God
through his word, he reveals himself through his word. He
reveals who he is and how he is. through his word. And the more that we see his
absolute holiness and his absolute justice against sin, the more
that we learn of the fact that he's not the way we had him pictured
in our minds. Everybody has God pictured a
certain way in their mind. And we get into God's word and
realize he's not what I thought he was. He is a just God who,
in his own words, hates. That's strong language, isn't
it? He's a just God who will only do right. He'll only do
what's just and right. Justice. Justice will be served. And in his own words, he hates,
he punishes, and he kills. all workers of iniquity, all
sinners, he will deal with sin. And then the more we get into
this word and see that all we are is sin. When I look at this
word and realize when it convicts me and I realize I am nothing
but sin, I fear, I fear, I fear for every man and woman in this
world. And I fear for myself. The apostle Paul feared for himself. This is what he said in first
Corinthians chapter nine. He said, lest by any means when
I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast away. How terrible. How terrible. It's a wise thing
to fear. It's a very wise thing to fear.
At the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon said, here is the conclusion
of the whole matter. Fear God. That's what he said,
fear God, that fear of God. Men and women fear all kinds
of things, but that fear of God, Paul, the apostle Paul, knowing
something of who God really is, the one who holds the keys of
hell and death. Men and women naturally believe,
well, God doesn't want anybody to go to hell. God's trying to
keep everybody out of hell. He said in his own words in Revelation
1, you can read it. He said, I hold the keys of hell
and death. The one who said, I kill, I make
alive, I wound, I heal, I the Lord do all these things. The
one who said, I am God and beside me there is none else. The apostle
Paul fearing God and fearing men and women going to meet God
who are not ready to meet God. That's another thing men and
women naturally believe. Everybody believes they're ready
to go meet God. And outside of Christ, we're
not. We are not. But that fear is what brought
on the fear he mentions right here in verse three. He said,
but I fear. lest by any means as the serpent
beguiled Eve through his subtlety. So your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. He feared them being
lied to in what the world calls religious
matters. And so do I. So do I. I fear You and I both being lied
to. I fear that there are men on
television and there are men standing up in pulpits in churches
who are lying to people. I fear that. I fear that greatly. May God keep us in his truth. His truth is the only thing that
is safe for you and I. What a man thinks about the word
and man's opinions on the words. I fear all that. What did God
say? What did God record in his word? The apostle Paul said, Eve was
lied to. She was lied to. And he feared men and women being
lied to and then going to meet God. and being destroyed because
of it, I fear that. There's only one thing we can
go meet God with, and that's the truth. The one and only true
hope that men and women have, not a hope built on false lies,
the only hope there is, that hope is in the simplicity that's
in Christ. That one and only hope is in
the simplicity that's in Christ. Now, destruction began. with the first man and woman
on this earth. Destruction and corruption. He said, I fear you being corrupted.
Corruption began through the subtle lies of false religion. This is a very, very important
thing for us to understand. This is so critical. Destruction
and corruption began through the lies of false religion. That's how it all started. False
religion claims to be the fix to the problem. They say, come
on in here and we'll fix your problem. In reality, false religion
is what caused the problem. It all began with false religion. Man fell in false religion. Man was corrupted through false
religion. And let me go ahead and say this
while we're on this subject right here. Any assembly of believers Any congregation who, who preaches
and believes and trusts and is clinging to the actual word of
God, the gospel of God, the gospel that God has declared in his
word, not their opinions on the word, not men who stand up and
say, well, I know it says that, but let me tell you really what
that means. If it says that, that's what
it means. God doesn't write with guile. God does not write with
trickery. God wrote exactly what he meant
to say. He said, even a babe can understand
this. He said, Father, you've hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and you've revealed them to babes.
So any group of people, any person, who is clinging to the truth
of God's word, not a man's opinion on it and not a tradition that
has been passed down and passed down and say, well, I know that's
really not what the word, it's not in agreement with the word,
but that's what we've been doing and we're going to keep doing
it. None of that. Any person who is clinging to the truth
of God's word, we see it in his word. If it goes against what
I believe, then it's time to change what I believe. Any person
who does that is not in false religion. That person's in Christ. That person is in Christ. The
very last thing that I want to be in and the very last thing
I want you to be in is false religion. Don't just pick a church
on the corner and go there. In the book of Hebrews, it says,
try the spirits. That means try the preachers,
whether they are of God. How can we know? Check the word.
Is the man preaching the word of God? If not, it's false religion
and it'll only lead us to absolute destruction. So the last thing
that I want us to be in is in false religion. The truth is
in Jesus Christ. Salvation is in Christ. It's not in do's and don'ts and
morality or anything else. It's in Christ. Salvation is
in Christ. There's a big difference. There's
a life and death difference in false religion. Do's and don'ts
and morality. And I just want to say that I
love morality. I love the commandments of God's
word. So did David. He said, I love your law. But
I cannot do the law, not to the fullest that God requires, not
to the perfection God requires. If my hope is in me doing the
law, I have no hope. So there's a big difference in
false religion, the works of false religion. and the truth
that is in Christ Jesus. All that those things do is they
corrupt our minds from the simplicity that is in Christ. Now, let me
show you what I mean by all this. I'm telling you that destruction
came through false religion. Let me show you what I mean.
Go with me over to Genesis chapter three. If you have a Bible there,
turn with me. I believe you will enjoy seeing
this for yourself. Genesis chapter three, verse
one says, now the serpent, the adversary, the devil, the serpent
was more subtle. He was more subtle. Most people
think of him as being not subtle at all. Just the complete opposite
of God. God is this way and he's that
way. God is in the church and he's in the bar. That's not so. That's not so. Verse one says,
now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field,
which the Lord God had made. God made all things, everything.
And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, you shall not
eat of every tree of the garden. This is how he deceived her.
And we need to really pay attention to this. You hear men stand up
and they say, now, God says we better check. We better check. He deceived her. He corrupted
her by saying, God says. that you can eat of every tree
in the garden. The end of verse one, he said, yea, hath God said,
you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Didn't God say that? That's what
he asked her. Didn't God say that? What did
God say? What did God actually say? Well,
look with me at chapter two, verse 16. It says, and the Lord
God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden,
thou mayest freely eat. God did say that. He said, didn't
God say this? Yes. God did say that. Now here's where the subtlety
comes in and this is where you and I need to be very careful.
That's only half of what God said. That's only half the truth
and half the truth is a whole lie. Usually error comes not
in what men say, in what they don't say. And as you are listening to a
man preach, if you hear him say some good things, I hear people
say that all the time. Well, no, he doesn't have everything
just right, but he says a lot of good things. That's false
religion. It's a dangerous place to be,
get out. Find you a place, find you a man that God has called
to preach his word. Verse by verse, line upon line,
find a man who will tell you the truth of God's word. This is the other half of what
God said, verse 17. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. That's what
God said. Eve knew what God said. Eve had
been taught the truth. Back in chapter 3 verse 2, the
woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the
trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in
the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither
shall you touch it, lest you die. Now, the knowledge of good
and evil. What is the knowledge of good
and evil? What is the knowledge of good
and evil? Knowing what's right and knowing
what is wrong. What is that? That's the law. That's the law. The law will
post a speed limit sign. You drive down the road and the
law will post a speed limit sign. And what that sign means is if
you travel this speed or below, it's good. Above this speed is
evil. You travel this or below and
you won't be punished. If you go above this, you will
be punished. The knowledge of good and evil
is the do's and the don'ts of the law. God said, do not lay
hold of the law. Do not lay hold of the law and
try to add it to the life I've given you. That's what he told
them. The day you do that, he said,
you're going to die. You're going to spiritually die.
You're trying to obey the law in order to be saved. We'll only
harm you. In chapter one, verse 31, it
says, God saw that everything he made, God saw everything that
he had made and behold, it was very good. That's what God said.
It's very good. That is what God tells his people
right now, today. That's what he's saying right
now, today. His word says in Christ, you're complete. That's what he says. In Christ,
you're complete. You are absolutely complete in
him. But the adversary, the corrupter
of men and women's souls, the author of false religion, he
said in chapter three, verse four, the serpent said unto the
woman, you shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the
day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and you
shall be as God's knowing good and evil. He said to her, if
you lay hold of that law, you lay hold of that law and you
add that to yourself, you will become even better than you are
right now. Is that not what men tell people
from pulpits? You obey the do's and the don'ts
of the law and you can become more acceptable to God. You can
become more sanctified before him. You will become more holy
in his eyes. The adversary told her and men
are standing up telling others, you're not quite as perfect as
you can be. You're not quite as perfect as
God says you are. You can make yourself more perfect. That's the lie of false religion.
That is the lie of false religion. Hath God not said? That's what
he said. That's what men say. Doesn't
God say? You can get yourself to a place through all your holy
works and all your holy deeds where you don't even need God.
You can be as good as God on your own. You can do this. You
have the power to do this. You can save yourself. That's the lie of false religion. And that lie makes me so afraid.
It's a very common message. And it makes me so afraid. God
has said in the day that you stand before me holding the deeds
of the law as your hope to enter into heaven, thou shalt surely
die. Now I know that you are a sinner
before God. And the reason I know that is
because I am a sinner before God. We are all sinners before
God. In 1 John 1, it says, if a man
says he has no sin, he makes God a liar because God has said,
all have sinned. All right, we are all sinners.
And if we try to regain his favor, if we try to regain acceptance,
through obeying the law. If we think that the answer to
our problem is in straightening up and flying right, turning
over a new leaf, going back and righting all of our wrongs, knowing
and doing good instead of doing evil, if that's what we believe
will commend us to God and fix the record of our sin, That's
what we take to Him, and if that's our hope, we are going to die
in our sins. We're gonna die in our sins.
If we try to fix it, we're gonna die in our sins. If we try to
do anything, we're gonna die in our sins. That brings us to
the only hope we have. All right. This is the only hope
that a sinner has before God. There is one way of escaping
the destruction of God's wrath against sin. Once it's on a record,
it cannot be just wiped off. It doesn't just fall off. Once
it's there, it's there. And there's only one way that
leads to forgiveness and acceptance and eternal life. Back in our
text, in 2 Corinthians 11, it says in verse 3, but I fear,
lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety,
so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. Simplicity means singularity,
it means one, single, one. There's one way, one truth, one
life. And that one way, truth, and
life is in Jesus Christ. It's in the blood of Jesus Christ. Romans 3 tells us it is not through
the deeds of the law. It is not through the deeds of
the law. And I say again, I love God's law. I love his commandments. Oh, I wish I could keep them.
You see, God demands perfection in them, not only in deed, but
in mind and in heart. And you and I both know we've
broken every commandment in here in the mind. He said, do not
kill. And then he said, if you get
angry with somebody, that's murder. Oh, we've all broken that. So it's not possible that we
can keep the deeds of his law. It's not possible. It takes the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to cover the sins of his people. That's the only thing that will
wash away our sins. Nothing but the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. God chose some sinners. He chose to take those sinners
and take their sin and put them in Christ. Their sin was pressed
into him. He bore their sin in His own
body and He stood before God bearing their sin. And God judged
every one of them in Christ. This is the simplicity that is
in Christ. Our only hope is that God put
us in Christ. And when God shed His blood on
the cross, He shed that blood on us. Our only hope is that
we are in the blood of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5 verse
21 says, God hath made him to be sin for us. God made Christ to be sin for
us. He took our place. The one who
knew no sin, Christ never committed one sin. He was the perfect spotless
lamb. But God made him to be sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. Perfection, total redemption. And this is how we can know that
God did that for us. To everyone God did it for, he
sends faith to believe the truth of his word, not the lies of
false religion. the truth he has revealed in
his word about who he is, who we are, what Christ fully accomplished,
and that he is our only hope. And he'll make every one of his
people cry out for mercy in Christ. They will all see this singularity. They will all see this simplicity. I must be found in him. I must
be found in him. This is my only hope. Oh, may
God put us in the blood of Christ. May we be found in him. That's
my prayer. And if God has given you faith
to believe his truth on this, cry out to him for mercy. Lord,
have mercy on our souls. Till next week, may the Lord
bless his word to our hearts. You have been listening to a
message by Gabe Stoniker, pastor of Kingsport Sovereign Grace
Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. If you would like a copy of this
message, or to hear other messages of sovereign grace, log on to
our website at ksgctn.org. If you would like to come and
worship with us, our service times are Sunday morning Bible
study at 10 o'clock a.m., worship at 1045 a.m., and 6 o'clock p.m.,
Wednesday evening at 730 p.m. Please tune in next week for
another message of God's free and sovereign grace.