What I do, Paul says, that will I do. When Paul says, I'm going to continue to do what I do, he's referring back to verses 7 through 11. So let's read them, please. He said, I have I committed an offense and abasing myself that you might be exalted. What he means by abasing himself is just being plain Jane, just being meat and potatoes, you know, boring compared to the flashy false prophets and all their rhetoric.

Have I done the wrong thing because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely? The gospel doesn't come with whistles and bells. It comes with warnings and with joy, with certainty with a sure hope in Christ. It comes with singleness, such that if you don't have any interest in the Lord Jesus, you're not going to have any interest in the gospel or the one that preaches it. You're not going to be interested. It's so singular in that, that there's just nothing in addition to that to like for the flesh to grab hold of.

He said, 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 supply. In all things, I have kept myself from being burdensome to 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. In other words, he's saying nobody's going to be able to accuse me of being a money-hungry fraud, because I'm not going to take anything from you. And that's what he's saying here, that what I do, that will I do. I'm not going to change in that.

And we know that, I forget exactly where it is, which letter it is, but Paul made tents. He worked with his own hands to support himself at times. Here he had funds from Macedonia that he was able to use. Or yeah, they supplied what his expenses were. But whatever the case, and it was, I'm sure, because of the certain situation there, and maybe he saw going in that he was gonna be accused of that somehow or another, and so he completely avoided any any smell of smoke with regard to that.

And he said, I'm going to continue to do that. They were looking for occasion to slander Paul, these false prophets, but also they were looking for occasion to enrich themselves in their so-called ministry. Because look what he said. I will do what I have been doing.

That I may cut off occasion from them which desire occasion. I'm not going to give them an excuse to fleece you by doing that myself. I'm not going to set the standard of taking money so that they can take it even farther and do you disservice. I'm going to avoid it like the plague so that they have no excuse in their evil regarding this.

They desire occasion. I'm not going to give it to them. that we're in the glory which is in money they may be found even as we in other words they're going to have to they're either going to have to give a good reason why uh... they need all your money or they're going to have to shut up and go home he's saying well we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute but he's saying i'm gonna just keep doing what i'm doing paul by preaching freely the gospel was cutting off their occasion He refused to give them occasion.

And I love this word in the original because it means base of operations from which to make an attack. Matter with which or incentive to undertake something. It's given them a reason. It's given them an excuse. It's given them a base of operations from which to operate in their exploitation of you.

If I take money from you, then they'll say, well, even Paul, the apostle, you know, the great apostle takes, you know, so, and of course they would take it way further. He would take what he needed and they would take whatever they needed to have two vacation homes. And just like they do now, there's no difference. There's no difference. We don't have to wonder what was going on back then. Religion hasn't changed. Man's nature hasn't changed. Antichrist hasn't changed. It's exactly what they're doing now.

They come in like a Joel Osteen. He's, you know, I guess the most famous one that everybody, even people that don't know anything, know he's a, he's got some people hypnotized though, don't they? He's got a bunch of people hypnotized somehow or another, but he doesn't say anything. Nobody there has the slightest idea how God saves a sinner, and yet it's money, money, money, money, money.

So, you don't have to speculate. We know exactly what was going on. They glory in that. That's what they glory in. And I like that definition, base of operation. Don't give them a leg to stand on in this. If Paul had taken money, then they would use that as an occasion, or it would give them an excuse to do it. They would have a base of operations from which to fulfill their only purpose in doing what they were doing, money.

The last part of the verse is the flip side of what we just said, that wherein they glory, and think about this, wherein they glory is the other God. Everybody has a God. And everybody glories in that God, and there ain't but two. Our Lord Jesus told us what they were, God and mammon, personal gain, which boils down to self. They glory in the flesh. He said that in Galatians. They glorify in your flesh, but God forbid that I should glory, save in what Christ did and who he is and his precious blood.

You might sit there and think, well, there are other things that insincere preachers are motivated by besides just the money. But if you think about all of them and make a list, you'll find that the common thread in all of them is personal glory, of which money is the universal symbol. Money is also a blessing from God to be used for His glory. So it's not the money that's the problem, it's the fallen heart, the depraved heart of man that's the problem. Only God can give a heart that says, not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto that name give glory. God gives that heart.

Now Paul is saying that if he took money, they would have a reason, but Paul not taking money, he hoped, would force them not to be able to, not to be able to pull the wool over people's eyes. In other words, to be even as we. So a verse that's a little bit mysterious, maybe, is really very simple. And ultimately, he hoped that they would not be able to glory in gain, that they would not be able to make merchandise of this church in Corinth, and so they would move on and fleece somebody that they could get away with fleecing, not the people of God.

So he said, we do what we do. What I do, that's what I'm gonna do. Those who know God preach the gospel and they keep on preaching the gospel. And the answer to everything is preaching the gospel. What if this happens in your church? Preach the gospel. What if that happens? What if this comes up? Preach the gospel. Christ is the answer to every question worth asking. We keep preaching undeterred by others, undeterred by slander and lies, discouragements. Paul said we're discouraged, we're downcast, but we're not destroyed. We're discouraged, but we're not defeated.

Paul could just as easily, think about this, Paul could just as easily, but for God's grace, seen this the whole other way around. They're taking a bunch of money from these people. Why can't I? Could not Paul have used the occasion of these false preachers taking money from the church to justify himself taking money from the church? And he didn't need justification to be supported by them. The scriptures are clear on that. The workman is worthy of his hire. But the reason that Paul didn't take money to not be burdensome to them.

He could have easily abandoned that, seeing that some in the church were clearly receptive to being fleeced. He could have said, wow, I'm missing out on that. You know, it makes people, you know why people are willing to be fleeced? because it makes them feel like they've earned favor with God when they give money. That's why these false preachers in that day and this are able to get away with this.

People love it. They love to be cheated. They love to be defrauded because it makes them feel better about themselves. They don't know they're being defrauded, but they love to give. Look at the so-called churches that they gather together in. They're happy to finance all of that. But Paul, instead of finding occasion in this for himself to gain, he thought instead to cut off their occasion by taking nothing for himself in this certain situation.

And again, now this is how God equips his people for the ministry, his messengers and his people in the ministry of being a witness. He gives them a new heart that desires only a base of operations from which to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. We just want an occasion to bring glory to him because look what he's done for us. And one of the things he's done for us is give us that desire that we just don't have by nature. We're going to glorify this flesh and glory in the flesh and the things of the flesh. Knowing who God is, we will refuse to glorify him as God. And we'll glory in this flesh unless God has mercy on our souls.

So it's beautiful to see this in Christ's apostle here. what might have been occasion for him to glory in his flesh, he rather desired to cut off occasion for others to do so. Verse 13, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves Notice that, remember how we talk about there's no volunteers in Christ's ministry.

Nobody comes up. You know, when somebody did do that and they said, I'll follow you, I'll serve you, I'll be your disciple. He said, go home. I don't even have a place to lay my head. You don't want this. And then he went and picked somebody and said, is that what he did for you? Did he pick you out or did you pick him up?

They transformed themselves into the Apostles of Christ. Apostle means sent. Sent one. A sent messenger. Who sent them? That's why I told you the other day, if somebody wants to pop off and be smarty pants and argue doctrine with you, ask them who their pastor is. Where'd they come from? What are they talking about? Where did you get it from? False apostles is one word. For such are false apostles. It's one word in the original, but it's made up of two root words. Lying messenger. Lying messenger. Very simple. It's not complicated.

If God said, life is in my son, God said, hear my son, believe on my son, there's life in my son, and only he that hath the son hath life. And we get up in the pulpit and say, life is in Jesus Christ, and only those in Christ Jesus have life, we're a true messenger of God, we just said what God said. If God said life and salvation are only in my son, and you get up and say God loves everybody, you're a lying messenger. You haven't said what God said. You come with a message, but it's a lie. It's a bald-faced lie. Not complicated. And I harp on these.

If God said salvation is not of him that willeth, nor of him that striveth, but of God that showeth mercy, salvation is initiated by God. He is salvation and he initiates it in the heart of a sinner. It's not because you will it. It's not because you do something for it. It's by the mercy of God Almighty who said, I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. And you get up and say, it's all up to you. God's done all he can do, and it's up to your free will now. Then you're a lying messenger.

Time to call it out. You know, we're just letting life float by, aren't we? And I know it's hard to find a base of operations to be heard in this world. But my goodness. Look what's going on. How do we do something about it? I don't know. People are being deceived and I harp on these two lies in particular, you've noticed probably in my messages over and over.

God loves everybody and Christ died to save everybody. It's up to, it's all up to you, you know. I harp on these things because the difference between life and death is who Christ is, who God is. And if it's all up to you, that means you're God. If it's up to him and his will and his work, then he's God. It's black and white.

Satan took and perverted the word of God in the Garden of Eden in what way? What did he, what was his method? He did what he said what he said and did what he did to convince Adam and Eve that despite what God said, despite what he said, it's all up to you. And Satan is still telling the same lies. He's still telling them.

God loves everybody as a perversion of God's word. Satan perverted the word of God in the garden, and he still is. Hath God said that he only loved a few, that he only loved his elect? God loves everybody. That's not fair to say that he only loves some. He hasn't changed. How blind can we be? So he perverted the Word of God in such a way as to convince sinners that everything is up to them. And he's still doing that.

If God loves His sheep, and they and only they shall never perish, then it's not up to you. And guess what? It's not up to you. The difference between salvation and reprobation is the love of God in Christ. That love cannot be prostituted to include everybody. Love, true love, is always distinguishing. You remember that simple illustration? I don't sign my letters to Vicki, I love women. I sign them, I love you.

And so does God. Again, I repeat this often because the whole world is going to hell believing that they will go to heaven because they decided to. They'll go to heaven thinking that their God faith is not of works, lest any man should boast. And if you stand before God boasting of your works and what you've done, what you did for him, the decision you made for him, he has immortalized in his word, the promise that he will say to you, depart from me. I never knew you. You can count on it. Don't be surprised by it. Don't be taken off guard if you made a decision and you did something for him rather than him doing something for you that he says to you as he promised, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, because everything you do is iniquity. Your best decision you ever made is sin. It's not gonna cut it before God. Our righteousness is Christ alone, or we don't have any. You have God's sincere promise that he will drop you straight into hell if you boast before him of what you did to be saved.

And what is religion's message? What you have to do to be saved. That's their message. Their message is walk an aisle instead of submit to Christ right where you are. Submit to Christ as your only righteousness before God. Their message is to make a decision instead of look to the Lamb of God When God says, hear my son, it's not time to say, well, boy, I've got a decision to make. It's time to look to Christ alone and be saved all the ends of the earth. Their message is Lord, I will instead of Lord, if you will. Very simple.

They transform themselves into an angel of light. They falsely claim to be messengers. And that's the next verse. Satan himself has transformed himself into an angel of light. It's something that they did. They are apostles because they made themselves apostles. Even their religious standing, their, what's the word I'm looking for, their credentials are self-made. And they use parts of the Bible to fool people into thinking that they are messengers of righteousness, angels of light. They love to quote, God so loved the world but they run from the parable of the good seed like it's the plague.

They love to use the prayer of Jabez, but they have no use for the Lord's high priestly prayer in John 17, where he said, I don't pray for this world. I intercede for those that you've given me, for they are thine and thine are mine. In a sense, they're transformed into an angel of light, as I said, verse 14, but God said, if they speak not according to the word of this prophecy, it's because how much light is in them?

None. They make theirselves to have light. They make themselves seem to have light, but there's no light in them because they don't, they're lying messengers, not true ones. And the light that they lack is quite simply the light of the world, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the light that they lack. It's not wisdom that they lack. It's not understanding, earthly speaking. It's not an IQ that they lack.

It's Christ. He is the key to all of Scripture. He is God's message. The Scriptures say one thing. We preach Christ and what He did on the cross, and those two things are inseparable. What He did is who He is, and who He is is defined by what He did. He's the Savior.

You can't say, I'm the Savior, unless you saved somebody. The so-called Savior of this religious world hasn't saved anybody. Did He? Did He actually save anybody? You know what they call being saved? Is you coming down here and doing something. Now, you're saved. No, no. What about God? Has He saved anybody?

The light is simply the Lord Jesus Christ to speak according to the word of this prophecy And that's just the standard set in Isaiah 820 to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word is because there's no light in them. They can transform them into whatever they want to themselves, but there's no light in them. People may call them a messenger of light, but there's no light in them if they don't deliver the clear, true, plain gospel of God's son and his power to save. Those who preach that do have light in them, what do they preach? We preach Christ. I'm determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ. Christ and what he did for his elect. And the message, what's our message?

Come. The Spirit and the bride say come. And those that hear, Say come and let him that's thirsty come. Come where? To the Lord Jesus Christ. There is one messenger of light, one angel of light. And he sends his messengers to testify of him and all those who seek their own gain.

They have to transform themselves into something that they call light. They're not what they seem to be. And the difference between those who have light in them and those who don't is the light himself, Christ. And you might say, well, no, the difference in them is they don't believe in election, and you do. Election is in Christ. God's purpose of electing love and grace in Christ is the touchstone of the very glory of God's Son. I know it's a cuss word in most so-called churches, but that's the very touchstone of God's glory. Would I say that if it wasn't in the Scripture? The Lord Jesus Christ had just said in his high priestly prayer in John 17 that he was representing his sheep, not this world, As he went to Calvary, that was the message of his prayer part of it.

And you know what another part of it was? Father, the hour has come, glorify. Glorify. He said, I'm come to give myself for my sheep, for the elect, not this world, but those whom you've given me. And what is part and parcel to that, Lord? Glorify now thy Son, that thy Son may also glorify thee.

The hour has come for God's glory to shine from Calvary, and the person of his Son in his face shines the very glory of God in him who is the very express image of God's glory said, I'll have mercy on whom I will. He said, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me and I give my life for the sheep and they shall never perish. And as our Lord Jesus went and was betrayed to be Mistreated in just about every way you can think of and to be crucified. He said now is the son of man glorified Now And all that the Apostle Paul is dealing with in this chapter and the one before it and the one after Is out of jealousy for that glory Jealousy for that glory you talk about grace for a sinner to be willing to spend and be spent for the glory of the Master. That's grace. We don't have that in us apart from grace. Not for a second. And may our base of operations always be a place from which to glorify the Son of God. Let's pray.