2 Corinthians 11th chapter, and
like we do many times, let's pick up in the 17th verse of
the 10th chapter as Paul continues his thought. It says, But he
that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he that
commended himself is approved, but whom the Lord commended.
Would to God ye 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 you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
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. For if he that cometh preacheth
another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another
spirit which ye have not received, that is, as we have delivered
to you, or another gospel which ye have not accepted, ye might
well bear with them. For I suppose I was not a whip
behind the very chiefest apostles, But though I be rude in speech,
yet not in knowledge, but we have been thoroughly made manifest
among you in all things." Now, I'm going to stop right there.
We could go on and read the rest of that, but I wanted to consider
a little bit this morning basically about what he says here in verse
3. So your mind speaking to them
and desiring that they would not be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ. You could say that is the simplicity
of Christ. There is nothing to be gained,
humanly speaking, by preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified. if that's what you're preaching. There's no money in it. And it's not for gain. It's not
for any purpose. Because you see, if what he says
there in verse 17, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Now that's what the simplicity
of Christ is. that there's just one place to
glory. There's nothing attached to it. It's not Christ and some other
stuff. And this is what he goes on to
say to them. He says, if somebody comes preaching something to
you that I have not preached, then he's not preaching the truth.
What did Paul preach? He says, I've determined to know
one thing among you. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It is not about what you do.
It is not about what somebody else does. It is not about how
many tears you shed or what all goes on with you. It is about
what Christ has done. That is the message. And there
is no place for anybody to glory in it. And anybody that comes
with any other motive than to give all glory to Christ is come
for the wrong reason. Now, I think you have to kind
of read between the lines in some respects in the things that
Paul writes here in 2 Corinthians, well, in the first letter as
well, concerning these false apostles and those that came
among them stirring up trouble, because this began as soon as
there are And always where there are those who are preaching the
truth of Christ, there will be as well a multitude who may preach
Christ in a measure, but they will mix things with it. Now
if you look around, if you look at the denominational picture
of just in the United States, and of course, unfortunately,
all of this is really the whole world is infected with it, Think
of all the different sects and cults and denominations and things
of people who would say some things about Christ. I mean,
just about all of the major denominations in the United States that call
themselves Christians would pay at least lip service to the idea
that Christ died on the cross, and
that's going to benefit men, but most times it's if you do
something to kind of seal the deal. Well, Paul says, I didn't
come to you with anything like that. I came to you preaching
the simplicity that's in Christ. The gospel is a simple message. Now, it is not so simple that
the natural man will receive it, because the natural man hates
what Paul is talking about here. By nature, men do not love the
simplicity of Christ, because they want to do something,
don't they? I mean, we want to have something. I mean, we want to have our little
church. And we want it to somehow or
other be... We want to have something that
we can identify with and people can say, well look, there's so
and so and this is them and this is what they do. But brethren,
what Paul's preaching down here doesn't have anything to do with
any of that. Because what he's talking about is that it is Christ
and Christ alone. It's not Christ and great preachers. Now thanks be unto God that He
has sent preachers into the world to declare the gospel of Christ. But the gospel is not about preachers. You know, when a preacher has
finished preaching, And the thing that you remember about him was
how great his oration was, and how well entertained you were,
and how good it made you feel. Then he didn't preach what Paul
preached, because that's not about what it is. You see, the
message of the gospel is Christ. And when you hear somebody preach,
And if that's not the thing you remember, then they didn't come
preaching Christ and Him crucified. If you came away and said, well,
you know I need to start doing this, or I need to start doing
that. Well, I'm not saying there's not some stuff you need to be
doing, and you need to start doing, but that's not about what
Paul is talking about here, is it? Now there's plenty of things
that we are taught in the Scriptures that we should do. And that's
a good thing. There's exhortations that need
to be given. But what Paul is speaking about
here is that he's not worried about all that. He said the one
thing, he said that I want to be certain that you grasp that
you don't get carried off on these other tangents here, because
I don't want you to depart from the simplicity that's in Christ. Because he says, I fear lest
by any means as a serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so
your minds should be corrupted. Now, what did Satan do to Eve? He said, there's got to be more
to this than that, didn't he? The Lord said, you can eat anything
you want. Don't touch this tree. What did Satan say? Hey, it's
not just exactly like that. I mean, you could have a lot
more than what you've got. than just eating here in this
garden. I mean, you could be like God. Your troubles could be taken
away. Now, I would venture to say, and I don't mean this in
a mean way, but it's just the fact, Most preaching is done
in order so people can get rid of all their troubles. Oh, come
lay all your burdens down here, all your troubles. Well, listen,
I want to help you with your burdens. You know, we are to
bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
We are not against helping people with their burdens, but dear
brethren, the problem that men have It doesn't make any difference
what the specific instance of their problem is. The root cause
of all problems that men have is confined to a three-letter
word. And that word is S-I-N. Now, I've always been interested,
you know, as we go through the book there of Exodus, It says
that the children of Israel dwelt in the wilderness of sin. Now,
of course, it's speaking about the wilderness that surrounded
Mount Sinai, which Mount Sinai, of course, that's where the name
kind of comes from, but it's the wilderness of sin. But I've
always thought, as I read that, how apropos that is, because
that is the place that men wander around in. Now you've got a lot
of people that say, well, now here's how you can get out of
the wilderness of sin. And they stand up and smile a
big smile and jive people up and get everybody happy. And
they say, see, we told you that you'd feel better. And you do
feel better, don't you? Until you leave. And you come
back and you face the same old thing again and you see what
it is. Because dear brethren, the simplicity that is in Christ
is that Christ came to take care of the problem that men have. Now it is only as a man comes
to understand what his problem is that the problem can be solved. And so it's not. Christ did not
come to make your life easier. Although I will say this, I believe
this to be a true thing, that the man who's been given faith
in Christ and sees the answer that's given in the simplicity
of the gospel of Christ, his life is made easier in the realm
of what truth is. Now, he may have a multitude
of problems in this world that he has to deal with. And when
men look at me, I say, well, brother, you've got all kinds
of problems. What you need to do down here is go down here
and listen to old brother so-and-so, and he'll tell you how you can
send him some money, and God will open the windows of heaven
and pour it out to you. I mean, that's how your problems
need to get solved. See, all these things, and I
pick on that kind of stuff because it's easy. That's easy picking.
But to me, it baffles my mind on the one hand that people can
get sucked into that. But don't feel sorry for people. Why? Well, those people are looking
for that, are they not? I mean, just like when a man
goes down to the bar room and gets him a big old bottle of
whiskey and drinks until all his troubles go away, it's the
same thing. People go to church in many cases
because they just want to get some relief. Well, Paul said,
I'm not interested in that. He says, I'm not interested in
coming and telling you all the things that you would like to
hear. But he said, I fear one thing. And he said that is that
you would be deceived through the subtlety even as Satan came
and subtly deceived Eve. Now he deceived her. Now, you
know, you can't be deceived unless
you're blind or blinded. See, that's what deception is.
It is a blinding. Now, the Scripture says that
Eve was deceived. Adam was not deceived. Adam had
the greater sin than Eve did because Adam looked at what it
was and he knew better And he was not the weaker vessel, as
the Scripture describes Eve to be. And she was overcome, but
he was not. But the end result is the same
thing, because you see, sin knows no bounds, and sin infects men
from head to foot. And so there is but one remedy
for it, and it is found in Christ. And it is that which Christ performed. Now, he says something here that's
interesting. He said, Would to God you could
bear with me a little in my folly. Now what he's saying here is,
look, listen to me for a little. He says, you know, my heart and
my soul is given to you. And he said, you may think I'm
silly, I'm a doting old man. You might think I'm stupid, but
he said, bear with me just a little here, and I'm going to tell you
where my heart is. I'm going to tell you where I'm
coming from. Bear with me a little in my folly. And indeed, bear
with me. He says, because I'm jealous
for you. He said, the reason I've told
you all these things, the reason I've come to you, and the reason
that I continue, because I could just You know, Paul had plenty
to do, didn't he? I mean, there's a lot of places
Paul could have been, but he was concerned about the Corinthians.
And he said, bear with me a little, because he says, I'm jealous
over you. He says, I don't want somebody to come along and snatch
you away. I don't want somebody to take
you from me, speaking of himself, and he's speaking again in a
way that he wants them to understand that as one would love someone,
he says, I love you, I have a godly jealousy. But he says, I have
espoused you to one husband. that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ." Now, that's kind of a strange language on
the one hand, because it says, I have espoused you to Christ.
Now, he didn't really mean that in the strictest sense of the
word. It's not that Paul could in any way espouse someone to
Christ, could he? Now, what is an espousal? An
espousal is basically an engagement, is it not? And of course in those
times, and of course in the times previous to that, if someone
was usually espoused to someone, that is they were promised to
someone at a very young age, and then at the time when they
got of age, they were married to that person. So someone might
be espoused to another person when they were five years old. and that the marriage would take
place later on. And he says, I have espoused
you to Christ. He says, I have come along in
the preaching of the gospel as the Lord has worked in you through
the light that He has given you, and He has called you unto Himself. And so that's what he's speaking
here about the espousal. He's saying, taught you the truth
of God and God has caused you to believe it. Now one thing
is certain, if we speak a minute on this subject of the espousal
of the people of God to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when did this
espousal take place? Now some would say that it takes
place when a man believes, but the reality is that the espousal
of the Bride of Christ to Christ took place before the foundation
of the world. The Lord Jesus Christ, this is
the simplicity of the Gospel. Now this is the part of the Gospel
that men don't like. But this is the truth of God.
If you look in the Word of God, this is found from the beginning
to the end. that the people of God were espoused
to Christ before the world was ever created. And Christ came
into the world in order to save those who were espoused to Him. They belonged to Him. He loved
them with an everlasting love. They were chosen in Him. They
belonged to Him. When did that begin? I can't
tell you. The Scripture just says, "...before
the foundation of the world." So everything that has to do
with the world is created and done with that in mind. And so
it is that Paul says here. Now, he's not speaking about
that espousal. What he's speaking to them about
is, "...as they have come to believe the truth of God as He
has preached it to them." Is that clock right? Wow! Well, bear with me just
a minute. Now, they've been espoused, we have
been, that the bride of Christ has been espoused to Christ from
before the foundation of the world. Now, the simplicity of
the gospel is that Christ came into the world to save those
people, and He has accomplished that. Now that's pretty simple,
isn't it? I mean, it's not really complicated. What gets complicated is when
men say stuff like, well, God loves everybody in the world
just as much as He loves the next one. And He is going to
give every man a chance to be saved. And Christ has come and
He's paid this nebulous price for sin, and it didn't really
take any sin away, but what it did do was make sin's payment
available to you. What you've got to do is send
in the rebate coupon, see, and get it sent back to you because
you've got to do something in order to get it. See, we have
sales all the time at the store, and they give these rebate coupons.
Now, they know that most people aren't going to send them rebate
coupons in. So they can get the benefit of saying, you're going
to get this five dollars, and people think, man, that's great,
we're going to get the five dollars, when in reality they're not going
to get the five dollars, because they're not going to send it
in. But that's kind of the way that the non-simplistic gospel
is. It has a rebate coupon that you've
got to send in. Christ did it. It's on sale. You can get it for this price,
but you've got to do something to get it. But you see the simplicity of
the gospel is that Christ did it, and that He calls His people
unto Himself. Now who is it that is going to
be saved? It is going to be the people that were espoused to
Christ. And who are they going to be?
They are going to be the people that desire to know Christ. Why? Because He sent His Spirit into
the world to call them. and to cause them to desire it.
And there is not going to be a man who stands in the judgment
and is cast away from the presence of the Lord who will be able
to say, Lord, I sought you with all my heart, but you cast me
away. Because it does not happen like
that. Those who are a spouse to Christ come to Christ. When
he calls, he said, how do we know it? He said, I know my sheep. He says, I called them by name. And he said, they follow me,
and another shepherd will they not follow. The people of Christ
follow Christ. Now that's just as simple as
it can be. And we don't have time to keep going here. But brethren, you know, a man who
is given the burden of declaring the truth of God, the worst thing
I can think of that could happen would be if I or anyone else
should come along and pervert the truth of God and you should
believe it. That just sends chills up and
down my spine to think that that would be the case. That's what
Paul is saying here. He said, I don't want it to happen. And he says, I'm going to weep
and I'm going to pray and I'm going to cry and I'm going to
do everything within my power to show you and warn you that
there are indeed those who will corrupt the simplicity of the
gospel of Christ. May the Lord help us and give
us minds and hearts that are not corrupted. Now, I know this. I know it is a true thing, and
that is that God's people will indeed endure to the end And
He will bring them unto Himself. Because He is the Savior. He's
not the trier. He's not the hoper. Christ never
hoped anything. He never tried anything. You
know, people say, have you ever heard anybody say, and you've
said it and I've said it, well, God's trying to teach you something. Well, let me tell you, God doesn't
ever try to teach you something. He teaches you things. Because
whatever He teaches you, you will know it. He will bring it
to your mind. And you won't be able to forget
it, even if you wanted to. May the Lord give us grace that
we might be taught of Him.