Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from the book of 2 Corinthians
chapter 11. And the title of the message
is The Danger of Counterfeits. The Danger of Counterfeits. This
is in 2 Corinthians, Paul's second letter to the church at Corinth. I began this last week talking
about the simplicity that's in Christ that Paul wrote about
in verse 3. If you want to look at that again,
2 Corinthians 11 and verse 3. And here Paul writes, but I fear,
lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. And of course, as I said last
week, that's going back to the garden when Satan appeared to
Eve in the form of a servant. of a serpent, rather, and deceived
her. Then Adam came in and knew full
well what he was doing. He took sides with his wife and
with Satan against God, and the whole human family fell. He says,
so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity, the single
solitary message that's in Christ, salvation. by the grace of God,
all in Christ, salvation of the Lord. It's not of you, it's not
of me, it's all of Christ. And that's what we preach if
we preach the gospel, that it's all in Christ. Salvation is not
conditioned on you, it's not conditioned on me, it's all conditioned
on Christ, who is none other than God in human flesh without
sin, the God-man, And it's based upon that one single solitary
work that He did by Himself as He obeyed unto death, even the
death of the cross, to bring about the full, free, eternal
salvation of all His people. And they shall be saved. Now
that's the simplicity that's in Christ. It's all in Him. And
what had happened here, as I said last week, false preachers had
crept into the church at Corinth, as they always creep in. They
come in stealthily, the scripture says, like spies. And then they
seek to divert people away from this simplicity, the single message
in Christ, and get people to looking to other things, looking
to the world, looking to the church, mainly looking to themselves. Pull yourself up by your own
bootstraps, that kind of thing. Self-motivation, self-will, all
of that. But the Bible, that's a corruption,
that's a subtlety of Satan to get your mind off Christ. Over
in Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 2, it talks about running the
race, the Christian life, the Christian race, which is a race
of grace. And how do we run it? It says,
looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. And that's what it means, that
Christ, He began it, He fulfills it, and He will bring it to its
fruition. It's all in Him. And to live
by faith is to live your life looking to, resting in, clinging
to Christ for all wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
And so that's the message. But false preachers came in and
it says in verse four, now look at 2 Corinthians 11, four, I
mentioned this last week. For if he that cometh, talking
about preachers, preacheth another Jesus. Now if you didn't hear
this last week, I made this statement. There are two different Greek
words for the word another. One of them means another of
the same kind. John used that in John 16 when
he was talking about the Holy Spirit as a comforter. Christ told his disciples, I'm
going away, he's going to the cross, he's going unto the Father,
and he's going to send the comforter, he's another comforter, that's
what he says. And he's the Holy Spirit, he's
a comforter of the same kind of Christ because he is the third
person of the Godhead of the same nature, deity. That Christ is God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. But the word another, here's
another Greek word which means another of a different kind. Another Jesus. Not the same one
that I preached to you, Paul was saying, but a counterfeit. That's what he's talking about.
Now how do you know the difference between the true biblical Jesus
and all the counterfeits? Now there's only one, now think
about this. There's only one true biblical
Jesus. Not many. And this biblical Jesus
made this statement in John 14, six, and we can find similar
statements all over the biblical text. He said, I am the way,
I am the truth, I am the life, no man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. The true biblical Jesus. He said
in John 10, I am the door. There's only one door. There's
not many ways, there's not many truths, there's not many doors.
People today have fallen prey to the heresy of pluralism. And that's what, in other words,
if you're sitting there and listening to me, do you believe there are
many ways to God and that the Christian way is just one way? One of the many? That's pluralism. and that's deadly, that's heresy. Christ is the one way, he's the
one door, he's the one salvation. Peter preached that neither is
there salvation in any other, there's none other name given
amongst men whereby we must be saved. There's one God and one
mediator between God and men, the man, the God-man, Christ
Jesus. So if any person, preacher, comes
along, preaches another of a different kind, listen, he says, or if
they, in verse four, or if you receive another spirit, which
you have not received, an evil spirit, a legal spirit, or another
gospel, there's only one gospel. Paul dealt with this in Galatians
one. If they come preaching any other gospel than that which
we've preached unto you, let them be anathema. which you have
not accepted, you might well bear with me. Now, that word
him should be me. In the King James Version, they
put him, but it's an objective pronoun. It wasn't in the original.
It's Paul saying, bear with me. In other words, you side with
me against them because I'm preaching the true Christ. Well, how do
we know the difference between the biblical Jesus at all the
counterfeits. There's only one biblical Jesus,
but there are many counterfeits. Christ said that in Matthew 24
when he was talking about the end of days. He said, they'll
come saying, here's Jesus, there's Jesus, I'm Jesus, I'm the Messiah.
See, they'll come saying all these different things, pointing
you in every direction. He said, but don't listen to
them, don't follow them, don't believe them. But now here's
something that ought to make you perk up your ears. He said some of them will be
so close to the truth that if it were possible, they could
deceive the very elect. Now who are the elect? Well,
that's God's children. That's true believers, sinners
saved by grace, chosen before the foundation of the world in
Christ. redeemed, fell in Adam, but redeemed by the blood of
Christ and who are born again by the Spirit and brought to
faith in Christ, the true Christ, the true biblical Jesus. Now,
we all start out ignorant and in unbelief, fooled, but if you're
one of God's elect, you won't remain that way throughout life.
At some point in time, you will be brought under the true gospel
And by the power of the Spirit, you will be brought to see and
know and understand and believe in and rest in and cling to the
true biblical Jesus, who is the Lord our righteousness. And that's
what he's saying. But in the last days, Satan will
be busy deceiving the world with counterfeits. Now, let me show
you this. Look across the page there. to
verse 13. And he says, well, look at verse
12. Now, he went on talking about
false preachers and defending himself, which he didn't want
to do. But look at 2 Corinthians 11, 12. He says, but what I do,
that I will do, that I may cut off occasion from them which
desire occasion, that wherein they glory They may be found
even as we. In other words, he's talking
about false preachers there who are trying to get glory for themselves
and not be humbled. You see, and that's what I tell
people. We're all, listen, we all have
pride. That's even believers, and we
have to fight that pride. I have to fight that pride. And
I tell people this way, and this is the way I truly see it. It's
like the psalmist in Psalm 130 in verse three. He made this
statement. He said, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? Now that includes me. Right now,
this moment as I'm preaching to you, if the Lord would impute
or mark iniquities against me, I wouldn't stand because I'm
a sinner. And my preaching does not make me any less of a sinner. You see, my preaching does not
make me righteous. And I'm telling you, if God were
to judge me right now based upon my best efforts to keep the law
and to be good, I wouldn't stand. I'm a sinner saved by grace,
and that's it. But now these false preachers
in 2 Corinthians and who invaded these churches stealthily, they
wanted people to glory in them and glory in themselves. And
Paul says, no, I don't wanna give you occasion to do that.
And so he says in verse 13, now look at 2 Corinthians 11, 13.
He says, for such are false apostles, false apostles, deceitful workers,
See, these aren't men who come into your church with horns and
a tail and fangs and pitchforks. These are people who are admired
and looked up, they have a charisma about them. And he says they're
deceptive workers. And listen to what he says, transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. They're the transformers. Now, what does that mean? Well,
it means they can temporarily, and that's what this means, the
tense of the verb, they can temporarily speak right things. They can
say a lot of right things and claim to be messengers of Christ
and claim to believe the Bible. and preach the Bible. This is
how Satan subtly does this. These are not men who stand up
in pulpits and say, well, shut your Bibles, we don't believe
that, or we don't believe in God. They're not people who are
openly immoral or promoting immorality. These are people who are disguised
under the guise of truth. And sometimes it's truth mixed
with error. Sometimes it's 50% truth, 50%
error. Sometimes it's 98% truth, 2%
error. You say, boy, this is really
cutting to the edge, isn't it? I had an old preacher one time
tell me, he says, you know, rat poison is 98% good food, but
it's deadly. And so I hear people say, well,
they don't preach it like you do, or they don't preach this,
that, and that, that, and the other, but they say enough. Well,
look at what he says again, verse 13, for such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ. And that is a temporary transformation. They can't stay with them. You
may hear a good message one time, but they can't stay there. And
you know why? Because their heart is not in
it. That's not where their heart is. It's like a man who preached
for many months, and his message was geared toward looking within
yourself to find peace, looking within yourself to find righteousness. Somebody went to him and said,
don't you think we ought to look to Christ for peace and for righteousness? And he said, oh yeah, and he
may have preached a couple messages, but pretty soon he went right
back to looking to self, looking within yourself. What's wrong?
His heart was not in Christ. looking to Christ. Now look at
verse 14. He says, and no marble. Now what
he means by that is this should not amaze you. For Satan himself
is transformed into an angel of light. Satan himself makes
this temporary transformation into an angel of light. My friend,
most people are very unfamiliar with the works of Satan. Look
back at 2 Corinthians chapter four with me. Most people, when
they think of satanic work, they think of demon possession as
is portrayed in the movies, like horror movies and things like
that. But my friend, let me tell you something, demon possession
can be a false preacher standing behind a pulpit preaching a false
Jesus. Or they think about somebody
who spends their times with the world in the brothels and in
the bars and in the drug dens. And they say, well, that's satanic
work. Well, that's just, you know what that is? That's just
fallen, depraved, human nature. That's what that is. But what
about Satan? Well, look at 2 Corinthians chapter
four and verse three. Listen to this. Paul writes,
by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he says, but if our gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Look at verse four. In whom the God of this world,
that's Satan. He's called the God of this world
because he's got some control over the fallen world. He's not
in complete control. He's not a demigod or an anti-god
or the equal, opposite of God, he's just a fallen angel. In whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. Now my friend, there's the work
of Satan. Satan's goal is to have people
in a false refuge or a false profession of religion, looking
to themselves, looking to a counterfeit Christ, being deceived, subtle,
deceptive. That's what Satan's goal is.
How can we combat that? Well, look at 2 Corinthians 4
and verse 5. Listen to what Paul says. For
we preach not ourselves. Now that's what he's saying.
If you want to see the deceptive, subtle, transformational work
of Satan exposed, don't go where they preach yourself. Preach
ourselves. It's all centered on man. Humanistic
religion. Salvation conditioned on man
and not on Christ. He said, we preach not ourselves
but Christ Jesus the Lord. There's that simplicity of Christ.
and ourselves, your servants for Jesus' sake. I'm just a servant.
Don't look to me. Don't look to the servant. Look
to the master for salvation. You see what I'm saying? Don't
look to the preacher. He's just the signpost. We point to Christ. That's what
John the Baptist said. I'm not the Messiah. I'm not
your savior. I'm not even worthy to untie
his shoelaces. Look unto Christ. Look unto him
and be ye saved all the ends of the earth. And so he says
in verse six, now look, here's how God in his power delivers
people from the deceptive power of Satan. Verse six, for God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, the same God
who created this world, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face,
that's the person. of Jesus Christ. He'll point
you to Christ. Go back to 2 Corinthians 11.
Your only hope is to sit and listen to a preacher who points
you to Christ and not to yourself, or not to himself, or not looking,
but look to Christ for all salvation, for all righteousness, for all
forgiveness, for all redemption, all eternal life and glory. It's
his righteousness alone, the merits of his obedience unto
death to secure the salvation of his people. And look back
at verse 15. This is 2 Corinthians 11 verse
15. He says, therefore it is no great
thing if Satan's ministers also be transformed as ministers of
righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. They claim to be ministers of
righteousness. They claim to be preaching Christ's
righteousness. But they're transformers and
they are deceptive. So what are we talking about
here? We're talking about counter, we're talking about false prophets,
false preachers, preaching a counterfeit gospel, pointing sinners to a
counterfeit Christ. Now, look over in the book of
2 John. You know John wrote three, he
wrote John, the apostle John was used of God to write the
gospel of John and the book of Revelation, but he was also used
of God to write three short letters, 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. Look at the second epistle of
John. going back from Revelation about
two books. Second John, it's a real short
epistle, just 13 verses. And in this chapter, in this
book, this letter, the apostle John was led by the Holy Spirit
to talk about not having fellowship with false believers, false preachers. And what was the basis of that
separation? Well, he says in verse nine of
2 John, 2 John nine, he says, whosoever transgresseth. Now, the word transgress there
is a common word for sin, which means going too far. It means
crossing the line, that kind of thing. It means going beyond
the standard. And what does he mean, whosoever
crosses the line and goes beyond the standard? Look at verse nine,
whosoever transgresseth and abideth or continue not in the doctrine
of Christ hath not God. Their crossing the line and going
too far and going beyond the standard is not continuing in
the doctrine of Christ. And the doctrine of Christ there
is the same as that simplicity that's in Christ. They have not
God. They're not in fellowship with
God. They're not under the leadership of God. They're in rebellion
and unbelief and darkness. They're following the path of
Satan, the broad road that leads to destruction. And he says in
verse nine, he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath
both the father and the son. And verse 10 says, if there come
any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, this doctrine of Christ,
receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. That
means you do not have religious fellowship with him. Verse 11,
for he that biddeth him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds. So those who bring not the doctrine
of Christ, they're spreading evil deeds. Now, they may be
reading the Ten Commandments to you. and telling you to keep
them in order to attain righteousness. That's evil deeds because Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it.
Now you see the subtlety and the deception that's going on
here? That's what Paul back in 2 Corinthians 11 was talking
about. These are transformed into ministers
of life. Now, he tells us there, that
any who abide not in the doctrine of Christ have not God. Wouldn't
that show us that we better get into the Word of God and find
out what the doctrine of Christ is exactly? Well, John describes
it plainly in 1 John. He describes it plainly in the
Gospel of John. Paul describes it. But let me
simplify it for you. It comes down to two basic truths
concerning these questions. Who is Jesus Christ? And number
two, what did he accomplish for his people when he died on the
cross? That's the doctrine of Christ. You can parse that in
different ways. Some people, they'll say it this
way. Who is Jesus Christ? Why did he come to the world?
What did he do? Where is he now? Those are good
questions too. They are all the doctrine of
Christ. Well, who is Jesus Christ? Well, the Bible tells us. He
is God manifest in the flesh. but without sin. And the reason
I say that is because many times there are people, well, many
times in the scripture, the word flesh is a metaphor for sin. Sinful desires, sinful thoughts,
sinful motives, that's the flesh. And the reason it's called the
flesh is because those sinful desires and motives and thoughts
operate through these fleshly human bodies. And so it's called
the flesh. But Christ had a human body,
but it was without sin. He had no sin, he knew no sin,
he was never corrupted or contaminated by sin. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians
5 21 that he was made sin, but how was he made sin? That's only
by the imputation of the sins of God's elect to him. That's a legal matter. That's
like having a debt charged to your account. You see, the debt
of the sins of his people was charged to his account, but their
sins did not corrupt him, did not contaminate him. All through
his human life on earth, as God-man, he had no sinful thoughts, he
had no sinful motives, he had no sinful desires or goals. It was always perfection. And
that was Him. Now that's His person, God in
human flesh. What did He accomplish on the cross for His people?
He accomplished their salvation and ensured that they would be
saved. He didn't make salvation possible
if you would let Him. or if you would agree with him,
or if you would seal the deal. He didn't die for those who perish,
no sir. His death is a propitiation for
their sins. That means it's a sin-bearing
sacrifice that brought satisfaction. That's the doctrine of Christ.
I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's
word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. 317-07. Contact us by
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today and may the Lord be with you.