Verse 4, 2 Corinthians 11, For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, and you remember the context of this, Paul is exhorting these believers in all through chapter 10, warned them about false preachers and others who had come behind Paul and had now tried to discredit Paul. comparing themselves among themselves and comparing themselves with Paul and saying he's weak, his bodily presence is weak.

He doesn't have the charisma and the rhetoric and the eloquence that we have. He's not blessed of the Lord. He doesn't get numbers. He doesn't, you know, all the things that religion still thinks about the true church of Christ. But here he's, of course, in that same context saying that these ones that have come and troubled you, they're preaching another Jesus. And we have not preached. If you receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another gospel which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him.

Let's talk first about this verse and what it shows is at stake. in the matter of why Paul used such strong language in chapter 10, and why he uses what he calls folly in this chapter, in boasting of himself as he put, or in defending himself. But look at verse one. Again, chapter 11, would to God you could bear with me a little in my folly, and indeed bear with me. So this is the folly in verse four here, this is the folly he's talking about, defending himself. And in verse 10, or verse five, we see that Paul is defending himself, But this is why he felt it necessary to commit this folly because of what's at stake. Souls are hanging in the balance.

Another Jesus can't save you. Another Jesus can't redeem sinners. He can try. He can make it available, but he can't redeem. Another Jesus is a soul-damning prospect. So we're not talking about two paths to heaven. We're talking about somebody preaching anti-Christ, false Christ.

So we see what's at stake in this, and that's important to understand. Look with me at Galatians 1. Turn, please, to Galatians 1. Paul, that our text says they come preaching another Jesus, and this is what he dealt with also with the church at Galatians.

Galatians 1.6, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, But there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. That's exactly what's going on in Corinth. The same thing. That happens everywhere the gospel is preached. There may be direct conflict. There may be someone within the actual church, like there was in Corinth and apparently in Galatia.

Or there may be some, they just like to you know, pop off from whatever corner of the world they're in, you know. In the age of the Internet and social media, they love to weigh in. People that have no business even talking about things they don't know anything about, they love to weigh in on it. That's true in spiritual matters.

But look at it, another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. That's the same language in our text. He said, if they come preaching another Jesus, if they come. As we said before, verse 9, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

For do I now persuade men or God? You see how that question right there helps us understand something about the other gospel? It's a gospel that persuades men. It's a gospel that men like to hear. It's a gospel that entices and flatters the flesh. Do I yet seek to persuade men or God? Do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. Men are not impressed or swayed by the truth of Christ unless God reveals it to them.

But the first reaction of the flesh to the true gospel is obstinance. It's opposition, it's rejection. It doesn't allow you to be God, and gods like to be gods. But this is why someone would preach another Jesus, another gospel, because any gospel that is not the gospel of Christ is more palatable to men. The offense of the cross is removed from another gospel, another Jesus.

Christ's sovereignty is taken away. You see, that's the problem that they had with him. When he said, you'll see me next time, sitting on the right hand of the majesty on high, he says, then they spit on him. Then they did spit because they despised the sovereign Christ of the Bible.

Everything's up to man. People love to hear that. That's the other gospel. Paul said, I'm not interested in persuading men. I'm not interested in getting men to come down and do something for God. We seek to please God in the preaching of his gospel and he'll save sinners. And it won't be a farce, it'll be true and real.

So now I believe this bear with in our text here in verse four. harkens back to the bear with in verse one because it sounds funny and people have speculated all kinds of things about let's read our verse again verse four for if he that cometh preacheth 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 accepted you might bear well with and him is in italics and it's the same meaning bear with that's in verse one So I humbly suggest that him there should be replaced with a me. If somebody comes preaching another false Christ, he's asked them already to bear with me in my folly. And if somebody comes preaching a false Christ, you might well bear with me.

You might well This is not who you believed on. This is not who you embraced. In other words, if you truly have embraced the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not going to hear them. You will bear with me in my folly. You will understand why I'm saying what I'm saying. So I believe that's the right way. Otherwise, it doesn't really make any sense. Why would you bear with somebody that's preaching a false gospel if you're a believer? You won't. You will not.

So he's not saying bear with him. He's saying you might well bear with me as he started out in verse one saying, bear with me. And if this person has come preaching heresy, you'll recognize it and you might well bear with me. You're gonna bear with me. You're gonna understand that I don't normally talk this way. But we've got to expose these people, these devils. We've got to expose them. So I believe that's what he's talking about there.

And Paul is saying, in effect here, if this false gospel, if this false apostle preaches a Jesus whom you have not embraced, and that's the word there, I don't see the word accepted really in the Bible with regard to sinners accepting God. This is the word embrace. This is the woman with the issue of blood pressing through the throng of people in order to just grab the hem of his garment. This is those who fall at his feet all through the scriptures and embrace him, fall in love with him, find him to be their perfect and complete Savior, and embrace Him in their heart. So that's the word there, embrace.

And he's saying, if you truly, you might understand my concern and my willingness to remind you of who I am and who I preach, who sent me, and you'd bear with me for Christ's sake, if you have truly embraced the Lord Jesus. Whoever among this church had truly embraced Christ certainly would bear with the Apostle Paul in this. We understand what he's saying, and I believe what we say about the next verse will shed some light on the way he's saying it that I think is important. You don't love the Lord Jesus Christ except he's loved you first. and those he loves, he's not gonna let them go. He said, you'll bear with me. You might well bear with me in this if you've embraced the Savior. It's glorious to embrace him, but our eternal security is his embracing of us. It's his power and his love for us that we rest in. We rest in him. But look at verse five.

Here's the folly he's talking about. It sounds foolish for a man of God whom the Lord has put in the dust to speak well of himself. But you'll see a little bit about that here. He said, I was not a wit behind the very chiefest apostles. I suppose I was not. That's a pretty soft way of saying that.

But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge, He wanted them to understand, look, we're nobodies. We're nothing. We're earthen vessels, but there's a treasure. There's a treasure that the Lord puts in earthen vessels. And he said, I'm not rude in knowledge.

You might not be impressed with my language that I use, but we ought to dead sure be impressed with the truth of God, and we will be if the Lord reveals it to us. It's him and his word, his gospel, the hope that's in him for sinners that impacts his people, not the preacher. But we have been throughly made manifest among you in all things. You see why he would say that when false preachers had come in and tried to turn their hearts away from the Apostle Paul and away from the Christ that he preached.

He says these things that aren't fair. He said, this was a cult before we got here. You know what they're saying because they're saying it now. They're saying it now. But this is what Paul is referring to as his folly, as also in verse one, he calls it folly there.

And in verse 17, look at verse 17 with me, that which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. And in verse 21, I speak as concerning reproach, as though we had been weak, howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, I speak foolishly, I am bold also. And in verse 23, are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, I am more. And in chapter 12 verse 1, it is not expedient for me, doubtless to glory, I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. There again, he's warning, he's hedging all of this language of his. Look at chapter 12 verse 11, I am become a fool in glorying, you have compelled me.

The whole situation here and the fact that some are actually listening to these false prophets, you've compelled me to speak about it, to defend myself because they're trying to discredit me. But as an apostle of Jesus Christ, it's unmistakable that he was and he said, you've compelled me to do this for I ought to have been commended of you For in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing. See, being a chief apostle or a preacher of the gospel has nothing to do with you being something. It has to do with what God is doing.

And so that's what he's trying to point out. And all along the way, he said, I speak as a fool. I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be glorying like this. But I feel compelled. You've compelled me to do it. How many times did he say that throughout this discourse? That's important.

He speaks of his own qualifications merely to point out how foolish it is for some to fall for the sweet lies of somebody with no qualifications whatsoever. If somebody comes along saying the earth is flat or some equally absurd nonsense in matters concerning the gospel, such as how important it is to be a super lapsarian, Or while one word in the Bible should be used to fabricate a doctrine, it might be interesting to get their answer. If you've never been taught the gospel, what makes you an authority?

Where'd these people come from? Where'd they come from? Did the Lord confirm them like he did the Apostle Paul? From heaven. He confirmed him from heaven. Some might sit under the gospel, satisfied for years, and then go off the deep end, but that's not common. Typically, if one of these Antichrist false doctrine self-promoters ever sat under the gospel at all, they were nothing but trouble when they did. Ask them who their pastor was or is if they come like this.

The word rude is unlearned or common. It doesn't mean he was being rude to anybody. Some might take it that way because he was blunt. He was blunt about the truth. But he's talking about unlearned and common. He spoke this way deliberately. Paul was very well educated. He didn't speak the way he did because he couldn't speak any other way.

First Corinthians 2.1, And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. Because why not? Why not? Why didn't he come? Isn't it more persuasive to use eloquent language?

No, here's the thing. I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. All that other stuff, the charisma with which they speak and the big display that they put on, you know, the show that they put on and all that and the entertainment and jumping around, motivating people to get in on it, you know, and the high, you know, high emotion, religion, and all that, it takes away from Christ and who He is and what He did. If you determine to know Him, that stuff's got to go. That's what Paul said here. The reason that I'm not interested in any of that foolishness, or interested in having a Doctor of Theology degree, I came not with wisdom, with man's wisdom, Why I'm not interested in any of that is that has nothing to do with Christ and who He is and what He did. Christ revealed Himself to me, quite literally, in Paul's case.

And so what's the point of all this other stuff? We're not seeking to please or impress men. We come to do what God sent us to do, what God's Son sent us to do. And we want to please Him who has chosen us to be His soldier. That's it. That's it. And the other can't creep into it at all. It can never be about that, even in small part. It can't be about that because of the determination not to know anything save the person of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. When Paul got up before and spoke about religious Jewish matters, I suspect he wasn't nervous at all. But when the Son of God sends you with something to say, he said, I came to you trembling. I came to you with my knees knocking together in fear and weakness. I'm not sufficient for these things. I'm not sufficient for these things. There are things I could stand up and talk to you about that I know something about because I've studied it and all that, but study though I might.

And there's never any feeling of sufficiency at all when it comes to preaching the gospel. That's just the truth. We don't know anything yet as we ought to know, but if God gives us a glimmer every once in a while, And it's not a complicated, it's not like, oh, we've got to attain to some deep, dark, no, no, no. If he gives us a glimmer of the ABCs of Christ, it'll change us forever. It'll change us forever, and that's what we're hoping for.

I don't want to be like I am, do you? I want to be changed from faith to faith, because I don't want to be selfish like I am anymore. I don't want to be self-righteous. I don't want to be proud. By God's grace, there's a part of me that does, or I wouldn't be.

But by His grace, the new me in Christ, Christ in me, the spirit that dwelleth within us, we long to be more like Him, more like Him. It was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men. that you literally would not be impressed by me, by my IQ or whatever, but in the power of God. You know what the power of God is? The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. to them that believe. Paul makes this distinction because the false preacher did come with flowing eloquent rhetoric. That's how they did come.

And that's why he specifically said, I've got no use for that. When you're focused on Christ, all that's got to go. The flesh is impressed with all that, but not believers, not God's sheep. He said, feed my sheep, not attract the goats. When there's no real substance to a message, then it has to be delivered with great false passion and playing on emotions and subtle and crafty persuasion. When there's no substance to it, there's got to be a lot of form. There's got to be a lot of outward form. Playing on emotions rather than pulling down self-righteous strongholds. You see, that won't win you any popularity contests.

When you assault somebody's high tower in defense of their self-righteousness, Paul said, we're in the business of the pulling down of strongholds. People are hidden in their strongholds of self-righteousness, their religion, their decisions they've made, but they're hiding from God. They think they're blessed of God, but they're hiding in their strongholds from God. Paul said, we gotta tear them down. We gotta tear them down. And we're not interested in making people feel good about themselves, but we command all sinners everywhere to repent, because that's what God does.

That's his word. Not popular, but necessary. He said weak, I'm weak. I'm rude, common, unlearned in speech. Deliberately. Deliberately. Not in a fake way. But just abandoning all human wisdom. It's just as natural as it can be to be rude in speech. when souls are at stake. You got to be blunt. You got to just tell the truth unvarnished.

But he said, yet not in knowledge. If you're hungry for truth and righteousness, if you hunger and thirst after the righteousness that's in Christ alone, Religious rhetoric, religious rhetoric is not gonna cut it for you. If you want to know, the word know is key, not in knowledge, not in knowledge. If you wanna know who God is, if you wanna know who you are, If you want to have knowledge concerning how God saves sinners, if you want to have knowledge of the Savior, whom to know is life eternal and His glory, listen to the man who's not trying to impress you, who has nothing for your flesh, but who studies the Word of God and is gifted of God to tell forth plainly, simply, rudely, bluntly, without ulterior motives at all. the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and what he did for sinners. And then he says, I'm throughly manifest unto you in all things, nothing whatsoever to hide. You know, false preachers have something to hide, because they know they're not telling the truth.

They know somewhere. They've blinded themselves. What is the scripture called? They're seared with a hot iron. They're seared off against the truth. They've put up defenses against it. They've convinced themselves in some sense that the truth is not fair and all the things they say about it, that God loves everybody and that Christ died for everybody. They've convinced themselves to a certain extent of that, but somewhere they know. Because God called him on it, didn't he? He said, when you knew who I was, you glorified me not as God. You glorified me not as God. God. God doesn't try. God doesn't leave things up to angels or men. God doesn't strive. God doesn't trick. He doesn't entice. He doesn't woo, like the Holy Spirit is wooing you. No, he's not. When the Holy Spirit gets ready to do something with you, it'll be at done. It'll get done. Nothing to hide.

The gospel preacher doesn't support his message with hand-picked scripture out of context. The scripture is his message. Verse by verse by verse. I don't come to you with a topic and then say, I've got all this scripture to support it. Let's go here and there and yawn to support my thesis. That's not preaching the gospel. He is manifest. The preacher is manifest by the word of God. God said plainly, if he speaks not according to the word of this prophecy, it's because there's no light in him. You can't hide that. Not from God's sheep. You can't hide that. He said, I've been manifest for you.

You know who I am. You know who sent me. You know what I've been through. You know what, which is what he's going to talk about in the next chapter quite a bit. You know how the Lord's used me. You know who you believed. You know the Christ that you received. Somebody comes preaching somebody else. And you'll understand why I'm speaking the way I do, because there are some who are deceived, clearly, in this church. But he said, we're openly manifest by the word of God itself, as a minister of Jesus Christ. Hence the word knowledge. He doesn't use tactics that are attractive to the flesh, but he knows what he's talking about.

And that's easily verifiable from the gospel, from the word itself. like the Bereans who went home and searched the scriptures to see whether these things be so. That's all of the Lord's people. It just happens to mention that about the Bereans. But if you truly are lost and needing the Savior, if you truly hunger and thirst after Him like the little deer pants after the water brooks, then you're going to search the scripture.

You're going to know for yourself. You're not going to trust any man. It's good to hear from a man whom God has sent, but we need to know the scriptures ourselves. One of the great ways that we do is we see verifiably that God's preacher preaches the knowledge of God, not opinions, not nitpicking this and that out of context. He knows what he's talking about. By God's grace, he knows. He knows.

We read 1 Corinthians 1 through 5 a while ago, speaking of Paul saying, I didn't come with enticing words, but preaching Christ alone, that the excellency may be of God and not of us, that your trust wouldn't be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Now let's read the rest of that passage, verse 6 on. Turn with me there, please. 1 Corinthians 2. I'll read the rest of that thought.

1 Corinthians 2.6.

Now he was saying we didn't come with the wisdom of man or excellency of speech. How be it? We speak wisdom among them that are perfect, that are mature in the God we speak. We speak wisdom to those that want to hear wisdom. Those who know the Lord. We speak wisdom to anybody that's willing to listen to it.

Yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nothing. They come to nothing. You say, oh, but false religion is very prosperous. Based on whose definition of prosperity? If God says they're nothing, what are they? It comes to nothing.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory, which none of the princes, none of the big shots of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.

We know the truth of God because of his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. If I preach the truth to you, it's the Spirit of God. It's the manifestation of His power, not of my wisdom. I don't have any, but He has power, and the gospel is His power unto salvation. The Spirit did that. The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. So who gets the glory there? It's the Spirit.

For what man knoweth the things of men? I've never really seen this verse like I did earlier today. Look at verse 11. For what man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of man which is in him? In other words, you might write a book about me, but you don't know me. You know things about me. Who can know a man except the spirit of the man himself?

Even we don't know ourselves when it comes to our sin. If we did, we would utterly despair, probably, knowing how weak our faith is. So God spares us that. But we don't know each other, do we? We don't know each other. I like what I know about you. But we just don't. I mean, that's right from the script.

The spirit of the man which is in it, even so the things of God. How can I know anything about God unless God is in me? Unless the spirit of God knows who God is and therefore I do because he dwelleth in me. God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit. Verse 10, for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. So we know God in the same sense that we know ourselves. It's not the same degree, but in the same sense, because God dwells within us.

Isn't that just wonderful, I guess? I don't know what other word to use. We know who God is because He dwells within us, because of His Spirit that teaches us. It's that intimate. His Spirit dwelling within me is that intimate. We're so united with Him that we know what only He can know.

I mean, I knew what it was saying before, but I didn't know what it was saying. Does that make any sense? Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know. This goes back to what Paul said in our text.

I'm rude in speech, guilty, but not in knowledge. Not in knowledge, don't ever think that, because the Lord hath revealed to us We've received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit, which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given unto us of God.

You don't earn that. You don't, you don't, it's not that we don't strive to know more, but our striving is vain unless he just freely gives it to us. He's got to give me a message for you. He's got to do that or there won't be any message for you. There'll be no comfort, there'll be no refuge, there'll be no encouragement in Christ unless it's given, freely given to me and freely given to you by God Almighty. Simple. Simple message, but deep, the deep things of God. The truth of Christ's sovereign saving power is simple. It's as simple as God is on the throne and he doeth all things according to his will and nobody can stop him or question him. But it's as deep, it's unfathomable truth. Think how deep the truth of that is. If we realized that all the time, we would not be what we are. We would not be who we are. We would not think the way we do. We would not act like we do. We would not doubt. We would not fear if we knew he was on the throne.

Somebody, I think it was John Owen that said, we would be a lot more at peace if we could hear Christ in the next room interceding for us before God. And then he said this, he is interceding for us. We're such creatures of sense, though, aren't we? We're so bound to this flesh. By the grace of God and his spirit within us, we know who God is. What rich blessing there is. We know the glory of the fact that he sits on the throne. There's no rebellion. anymore. We've laid down our arms and we say, not under us, O Lord, but not under us, but under thy name be all glory and praise.

Paul was criticized and discredited because of how simple and learned and common his language was. That's what qualified him to be a preacher. That's what God did for him that made him such a servant. The gospel preacher is as simple as his message. Simple but deep, the mystery of the gospel, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The simplicity which is in Christ is the unsearchable riches that are in Christ. And the simple gospel preacher is as simple as his message. God calls the simple to preach to his simple ones, to preach his simplicity.

They discredited him, discredited Paul for it, and they used the weakness of the messenger in order to crucify the Savior for it. They rejected Christ the Lord for another Jesus. Paul was just as weak as they said he was, but the Lord Jesus Christ is just as glorious as Paul said he was. And much more so than we can ever express, the very glory of God shined and still shines in his face.

Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 5. 2 Corinthians 4, 5. For we preach not ourselves. We don't promote ourselves. We don't preach in such a way that we're exalted in any way.

But we preach Christ Jesus, the Lord, and we're just your servants. We're just performing a service for our master, for you, for you. We're all in one another's servants. And ourselves, your servants, for his sake, for his sake, for his glory, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge, not in knowledge, not in knowledge. We're not rude, we're not unlearned in knowledge. He gave us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, rude in speech. But knowing God, what a great blessing that is. May we all be common and unlearned with regard to anything else. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Amen. Let's pray.