Weakness and Power

Second Corinthians 13. Just the first four verses tonight. St. Corinthians 13.1.

This is the third time I'm coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. I told you before and foretell you as if I were present the second time. And being absent now, I write to them which heretofore have sinned. And to all other that if I come again, I will not spare.

Since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you it is not weak, but is mighty in you. For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.

Let's pray. Father, thank you again for all your many blessings, Lord, bringing us together, giving us your word and giving us an understanding, Lord, and I pray tonight for more understanding, more faith, more trust in you, more love for you. Bless your word to our hearts and cause us to grow in your grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Lord, be with those who are sick and those who are traveling, and bless them wherever they are tonight. Thank you for all your many, many blessings. In Christ's name we pray, amen.

Now when Paul mentions these three times that he had come unto them, they consist of his actual personal visit to Corinth once already, and these two epistles that he had written to them. He came to them in word and by letter, twice counting this one, and then once he had been there physically. And he considers these three comings to you to be in fulfillment of the law that required that two or three witnesses must establish every word, every incident, before legal action can be taken against the person witnessed against, that it must be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses. And it's not that Paul, I thought, well, that seems to be stretching the law a little bit, if Paul is all three of the witnesses, but I don't believe that's what he's saying. He wrote letters to them and came to them on the occasion of hearing of how they were doing and realizing the need. to come to them by letter and in person. Each time he came to them, he had different information from others that were there in Corinth at the church that what he feared was taking place. was taking place.

In 1 Corinthians 1.11, if you'd switch back over there with me, since it's just a few pages, 1 Corinthians 1, I said 11, it's 1.11. 1 Corinthians 1.11.

Here's your two or three witnesses right here. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you, and that may seem like a small thing, there being contentions among you, but if you read the context of that chapter, the contentions were from them saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, and he said, you're acting like lost people. It was a serious contention, not just a squabble of some kind. And then look at 1 Corinthians 5. So in that instance, some of the witnesses, the two or three witnesses, were the house of Chloe. And in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 1, he writes to them, it is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as it is not so much named among the Gentiles."

So he was hearing from witnesses and he wrote these letters. This is the first chapter where he says, it's been declared unto me of you that there are contentions. So he's introducing the letter saying, given that as one of the reasons he's writing the letter, that there was contentions. When he talks about the two or three witnesses, he is referring to the letters, but it wasn't just Paul. It was people who were there in the church reporting to him things that were happening there. So that's the mouth of two or three witnesses.

And also, the law in that same vein speaks of the first and second admonition. That was Jewish law. that there would be two admonitions before further action was taken. And you see that in our text as well coming up in a little bit. Let's look at verse two. I told you brethren and foretell you as if I were present the second time. And being absent now, I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that if I come again, I will not spare."

So he's coming to them the second time, and he's admonishing them at least twice in person, because it is written, because in Titus 3.10 it says, a man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition, reject. There's a next step here. Once they've been witnessed to be guilty of these things by two or three witnesses and admonished at least twice, a man that is inheritic after the first and second admonition, the next thing is rejection. And as Paul puts it in another place that we're going to read in a minute, delivering them over to Satan, that their soul might be saved.

So, let me read it again though, because I want to read verse 11 of that Titus 3.10. A man that is inheritic after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself, his own words, his own rejection of truth, his rejection of rebuke, he's condemned himself. And so that's the way of things, and God's way of things in the church is to give leeway. How long-suffering he is, his way is to give space to repent. It's got to be well-established that this is going on, and even then, there's two admonitions.

You come two times to them, and we've read these recently, these scriptures regarding this, where if a man hears your admonition and realizes what he's doing and corrects himself and repents, then you've saved your brother. You've saved a brother. In other words, he's still your brother. You've saved the fellowship of the Lord together and all of that. But the Lord is long-suffering and he would have us be long-suffering. That's a lesson for us in this. He gave them more than enough space to rethink what they were doing. And as we talked about last time, we're talking about some terrible things here.

The fornication mentioned among them, the boasting in men, in different preachers rather than in the Christ that sent them. And then, of course, the issue that he's most presently dealing with is the fact that many of them didn't like Paul. His personality or his bodily presence, the way he spoke, wasn't good enough for them. And so they bickered and defamed him over it and caused problems in the church, trying to draw away others, as they always do. But even when rebuke or worse than rebuke is necessary, the motive in God's church is the good of the offender as well. As long-suffering as he is, it's still not a bitter and vindictive thing when a man is rejected.

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 5, 3. Right after where we just read in verse 3, 1 Corinthians 5, 3, For I, verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed. Because again, he had more than two or three witnesses, established this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you were gathered together in my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such in one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."

Now, This should be very rare, but we're going to speculate a little bit about that, and I always want to say clearly that that's what I'm doing. It's unclear to people what he means by delivering someone to Satan, their body, to Satan, here's what I think it is. I think that they're already in the grip of Satan, and that's what they've been proving by their behavior, that they're in the grip of Satan, and that Paul is just saying, all right, I've admonished you, I've listened to your case, and the story's against you, and I've admonished you twice, and now you just go on and do what you think is right, but you're not doing it here. And so that, in a sense, is delivering their body unto Satan, that their soul might be saved, that they might eventually come to the end of themselves again, in their own heart and mind, and come back to the gospel. If they need Christ, if they truly know Him, then they will come back. The thing about that is delivering them unto Satan, that their body may be destroyed by whatever ridiculous thing that they're in the middle of at the time, and that's not just their physical body, but that the temporal person might indeed suffer the bad consequences that sin inevitably brings, but that eventually their soul might be saved. Well, how would it be better for their soul to avoid them, to shun them, to keep them away from the gospel?

This is an extreme case now, because 99 times out of 100, that's not true. But when somebody is so adamant in their rebellion against God to allow them to come and pretend to worship is worse than shunning them, because you're encouraging their sin.

You're saying, it's fine. You can worship God and be one of us and be among the brethren and be part of the church or the body of Christ and all this, and just be absolutely a tyrant against everything good and everything that God says. No, that's not good for your soul. What's good for your soul is for somebody to say, that's enough. That's enough. It's going to be Christ or you, just like it was in the beginning, and we're going to find out who it is. So that's the saving of the soul. That's the way I'm seeing this.

And there again, we don't know specifically if he had some kind of apostolic power to declare someone reprobate. I don't see that anywhere else in the scripture. So I believe it's to just let them go their way. And their body will suffer for it, their mind, their everything. You know, a believer especially, they're not gonna prosper in this world without hearing the gospel.

They're not gonna, and we may be so caught up in our sin that we might wanna find out. And Paul said, go find out. I believe that's the delivering unto Satan. But even then, the goal, the purpose of Paul there is that they might come back to their senses, that the Lord would bring them back from that.

They're sure not going to repent if you indulge their sin and act like it's not a big deal to defy God right in his very presence where he meets with his people. That can never be tolerated and the scriptures are very clear on that. That's not speculation. So, And here's the main point I wanted to make. Those who are puffed up with knowledge, you remember Paul also wrote to the Corinthians that knowledge puffeth up. They were very smart. They were studious people. And they were gifted in doctrine. He said that in another place.

But knowledge without love is just going to puff you up. It's just going to give you the I know more than you attitude without love. But love buildeth up. will cause you to grow in the grace of the Savior. Whereas just not knowledge is just gonna puff you up, it's gonna make you proud. And those who are puffed up with knowledge in the scriptures and in our experience, they're quick, without the love of Christ, they're quick to consign a person to hell for a word.

Just quick, just like you're a heretic. You don't believe that, you know, that this, you know, T should be crossed this way. just something that's made up, it may not even be in the Word of God. Oh, you don't believe the way we do on that? You're a heretic.

The Bible does not teach that. It does not teach that. It teaches patience, long-suffering, let it go as long as you can, admonish, talk to them, try to to show them by the scripture their error, and even when it comes time to reject them, do so with the purpose in your heart that their soul might be saved, that God would have mercy on them by these means, by this discipline, even by this separation. So it just doesn't teach that. The Bible just doesn't teach us just writing people off immediately when they don't agree with our doctrine.

That's just not scriptural. Now, if somebody is preaching false doctrine, that's another matter. Or somebody that's not a preacher is still preaching false doctrine. That's also another matter. We can see, we can read that part of the scripture too. But even a heretic gets two admonitions before you say goodbye, there's the door. That's not the way it happens in my experience with people who are puffed up without the love of Christ in their heart. They know a lot, but they don't love.

Paul says here, I've told you before, and he had. He said, I've told you before, in verse two, I told you before." And he had very thoroughly and specifically in the book of 1 Corinthians in his first letter to them. And now he's warning them again. And so the thing had been established by two or three witnesses and two admonitions given.

And so he warns that the next phase of dealing with disruptive sin in the church was fixing to be applied. We're fixing to go to the next stage here. I will not spare. He said, we're going to stage three or whichever stage it is. And I say disruptive sin, dealing with disruptive sin in the church.

Every time somebody sins, it's not an occasion to rake them over the coals and call them before the church and make a big stink about it. We wouldn't have time to ever preach if that's the business we were in. And we don't get in a little box somewhere and have people tell all the bad stuff that they did. I don't want to hear that. By the way, I could probably beat you. I would trump every bit of it. So what's the point of hearing yours? Yours is probably boring compared to mine.

It's religious, heretical, man wanting to be God. They even absolve you of your sins, they say. Can you imagine what corner of hell is reserved for somebody like that? And it would be us if not for God's grace. You talk about you shall be as God still ringing in their ears for some pervert to sit there and say, I absolve you of your sins. No, even the enemies of Christ said, who can forgive sins but God only?

They don't say that anymore, that he's warning them here again. So disruptive sin, you know what I'm talking about. If you're sitting there blatantly defying God in front of God and men in the church, it's got to be dealt with, whether it's doctrinally or physically or whatever way. Paul dealt with fornication. He dealt with the pride of of giving glory to man and not Christ. And he dealt with these things of defaming Paul in his gospel because they had personal issues with him. That don't cut it at God's church.

Reject. Deliver unto Satan. And there's other places in the scriptures, people have dropped dead when an apostle knew they were lying. They were lying about something that you would think Ananias and Sapphira. It was Simon Peter in that case. But the Lord struck them dead right there. That's after the Lord had died and risen again and gone back to glory. That was in these last days. God struck them dead for their deception, for their pride, their hypocrisy. and claiming to be big, you know, donors to the church, and then they withheld what they said that they would give. And so all these different things are dealt with, and the scripture says, reject, deliver unto Satan, shun them, avoid them, separate yourselves from them. It's all through the New Testament.

And Paul says here, I will not spare. When I come to you, I fear and I suspect that there will be still a blatant lack of repentance over this stuff, and there's not going to be any more time given. There's no more back and forth on this. I will not spare it. It's gone far enough.

So that's pretty clear, I think, in verse two. Verse three, since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you is not weak, but is mighty in you." So he said, if it comes to that, and he exercises his apostolic authority and cleans house, then I'm not gonna be the weakling that you think I am. I'm not gonna be the born to be mild person that you think I am. you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, well, you may just get that proof.

He's going to kill two birds with one stone here. He's going to discipline those that require it in the way that God has laid out so that the church, the church was in turmoil. Some are saying Paul is an idiot, we don't want him to even come back, we don't want anything to do with him, and clearly some were not that way, and we see that in our text too. We'll point that out in a minute. that there were some who weren't of that mind, so Paul hadn't given up on them, but he's going to kill two birds with one stone.

They would have their proof of his apostleship, and the necessary discipline would be enforced also. Christ speaking in Paul. Think about that. Seek ye a proof of Christ speaking in me. That's the solution to everything Paul understands. He understands that. That's the absolute solution to everything. Paul might well appear weak to them, and he was fine with that, but the word of Christ is not weak. The word of Christ is mighty.

The preaching of the gospel does not guarantee no trouble in the church, but it is the only thing that will keep down trouble. To whatever degree trouble is kept down in the church, it's the gospel that reproves, rebukes, gives instruction in righteousness. Not Paul. Although Paul was the instrument here of the preaching of the gospel, the gospel does that.

Christ speaking in me, he says. That's what keeps the church a church. And that's what will restore a church. when there's need for restoration in that church, for revival. So to whatever degree trouble is going to be kept down, and when there is trouble, it's the only thing that's going to correct it. The gospel, not bickering, not arguing about it, not, you know, your side of the story and my side, although sometimes that needs to come out so we understand what's going on, but it's going to be the gospel now, it's going to be Christ. If we don't love one another for Christ's sake, we are not going to love one another. You mark it down. You look at this world, you look at the so-called churches of this world. There's going to be jealousy and pride. There's going to be bickering. There's going to be division.

There's going to be everything in the world that's anti-love. unless we love one another for Christ's sake, unless we are the family of God and we see in each other our brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul understood this now, and all of his defending of himself is to that end, that the gospel would be confirmed unto them again, because that was, we saw last time, that was his concern, is that the gospel is being maligned here. It's not him, he said, it's not me personally that I'm worried about winning a popularity contest, but I'm speaking the words of eternal life here, and if you won't hear me, that's the problem, is that you won't hear God, not that you won't hear me. And just like God told Moses, he said, these people don't have a problem with you, Moses.

They have a problem with me. And that's always the case. When people have a problem with the message, they will come up with personal reasons to hate the messenger. Mark it down. Watch it happen. Remember how many times it's happened in our lifetimes. And beware. Be ready for it. Be watching for it in your own heart. when you hear it whispered among others.

But that gospel, Paul in preaching Christ and determining to know nothing else but Christ, is what made him appear weak to them. He wasn't about all the religious things that excite the flesh. And so their flesh wasn't excited. It's the very gospel that he preached that made him appear weak, but that gospel that he was preaching was and is the power of God unto salvation.

That's why this is worth dealing with. That's why Paul was dealing with it. Turn with me please to 2 Corinthians 10. Verse one. And I hope we're seeing the lessons for us in this. This is not just a history lesson and we're studying the church at Corinth and what all went on there. No, no. No, we're studying our own hearts and who Christ is to his people or not, depending on his mercy. 2 Corinthians 10 1.

Now I, Paul, myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence embase among you, but being absent and bold toward you. But I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence wherewith I think to be bold against some which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.

There were those that discredited him and he said, I don't want to come and have to deal with that. I want to deal with it by letter, and you see why Paul was bold in letter but weak in presence, because nobody expects to be entertained by a letter, right?

You're reading it and his letter was literally God's Word being written down by a human hand, and that was powerful. But when they saw him, when they saw the package, they weren't impressed with it. So that's why that was the case, but it's because the gospel that he preached was disagreeable to them.

It's why they would even need to be impressed in the flesh. If they loved the message, they wouldn't need to be impressed in the flesh. But I beseech you, let's see, verse three, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."

Now, let's analyze for a minute what he said there. You might read of the severity of these problems in the Corinthian church and say, man, I don't think that was even a church. It's time to give up on those folks. I mean, look at the horrible things. Incest was mentioned. To despair that they're even a church at all.

But Paul trusted as we must trust in the church of the Lord here, that the word of Christ was powerful and sharp and could pierce through the strongholds of our pride and our rebellion and bring down our exaltation of self. And look again what accomplishes that. He's talking about the casting down your pride, your rebellion that was going on in that church.

This is chapter 10, this is two chapters before our text. And he's saying the gospel we preach, we beseech you by the gentleness of Christ. And through the preaching of that gospel, that gospel is able to cast down your prideful self. And we don't war after the flesh.

It looks like, according to the flesh, this is a hopeless situation, but that's not the battle. The battle is a spiritual one. casting down imaginations, whatever they were coming up with in their minds as contrary to the Word of God, every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God. So Paul was giving them through apostleship and preaching the gospel the knowledge of God. That wasn't enough for them. But the Word of God can fix that. It does fix that, as God is pleased. How does it fix it? by bringing into captivity every thought, every thought you think, to what? The obedience or submission to Christ.

All of the pride, all of the Well, I was, you know, I was converted under Barnabas. I was converted under Paul. I was converted under Apollos and all that fleshly nonsense where Paul said, it sounds like you don't even know the Lord, saying stuff like that. Brought down to where?

Submission to Christ. Looking to Christ is the answer to that. If the knowledge of God doesn't convince you and you exalt your own thoughts against the knowledge of God, what fixes that? Look into Christ, bringing your thoughts into captivity to submission to the Lord Jesus himself.

That's what the gospel does. It points you to Christ, it shuts you up to Christ, it exalts Christ, it reveals Christ, and every answer to every problem is solved that way. All trusted, and we must trust, that the word of God is powerful. The word of Christ is sharper than any two-edged sword. and we'll bring down our strongholds, we'll destroy our pride and rebellion, bring down our exaltation of self. Only by pride cometh contention. Did you forget that one yet? and calls us to look again at what accomplishes that bringing down, that setting straight, that fixing of the problems. It's being submissive to Christ, His word, His will, His way.

Every thought. The minute we have a thought in our head that's in rebellion to Christ and His word, cast it off. May God give us the grace to cast it off. I don't care how much sense it makes. I don't care how much it defends our feelings, you know, and all that. I don't care how good it makes you feel. Cast it off.

It's Christ who has saved us. It's Christ who keeps us. It's Christ that we worship. And Christ is the answer to every problem, every question worth asking. Verse four in closing, for though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. He lives because he's God. He was killed, and yet you killed the Prince of Life, but he's alive. How can that be? Because he's God. He said, nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down on myself, and when I get good and ready, I take it up again. That's what that just said.

He was crucified through weakness. He made himself weak. He submitted himself into the hands of wicked men. He was weak in appearance. The perception of those at the cross was almost exclusively one of weakness and defeat. But he's risen by God's power and he sits on the throne. But look, he makes a comparison here. We also are weak in him. Again, it was the gospel that he preached that made him distasteful to those in the church that were hypocrites. We're weak in Him. We're weak because of Him, for His sake.

If you just preach Christ, nobody's going to want to hear you. Unless God does a miraculous work in their heart, they're not going to want to hear you. And God deliberately chose the type of people that nobody wants to hear. Because it's not a popularity content, we're not making Jesus famous. He's calling out His people from this world, His sheep, His elect from this world.

So we're weak in Him, we're despised, we're rejected, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. That toward you is key here, because He's not just saying, My reputation may be absolute dirt, but I'm alive by the power of God, and so I don't care about that." No, more than that, he's saying, I'm alive by the power of God toward you. He said all along, this is about you. It's not about my reputation.

This is about the edification of the church, the teaching of the church, the correction of the sin in the church for your sakes. So he draws a comparison here, not comparing himself to Christ in any inappropriate way. We'd be foolish to do that, but in this one regard, he makes a comparison.

You know, most, if not just about everybody at the cross, they couldn't look at Calvary and see a king. They couldn't look to the cross and see a conqueror. They didn't see a victory won hanging on that wood. They didn't see the very Son of God. To all appearances, the Lord Jesus was defeated, weak, overcome. He was a failure. And that's how people see us. How many did you have, you know, last time? About 20, 15 or 20. Well, according to this world, that's not success. That's not religious success. He was a failure.

But in reality, nobody was taking his life from him. He was laying it down of himself. This was a death that he accomplished, he told the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration. A death that was accomplished by him. He was suffering the wrath of God for his elect. He came to this earth for that very purpose. He was accomplishing his purpose of grace in redeeming the people that God had given him from the foundation of the world. The greatest victory ever won. You couldn't look at that cross and see that unless God gave you eyes of faith.

In like manner, those who preach Christ crucified are not impressive in the flesh. They're not dynamic. They're not wise according to the flesh and what the world calls wisdom. They don't belong to the cult of personality. But by God's grace and design, Paul said, we preach the wisdom of God in a mystery. We preach the power of God. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. When God gives somebody faith in Christ, by that means, we preach the words of eternal life. Nobody wants to hear that because we're nothing, we're failures, we're nobody.

But those who know the Lord Jesus would say, where else would we go? Those who mocked and scoffed at the cross, they did so for one reason, simply because they did not know who it was on that middle cross. And those who mock and scoff and reject the gospel that we preach do so for the same reason. If they knew him, It'd be a different story. Elijah mocked false religion, and they mock us, till at that cross there was one who mocked, and scoffed, and cursed, and then didn't.

By the Holy Spirit of mercy, He realized who Christ is. And his words changed. They changed a lot. They changed from scoffing and ridicule and mockery to, this man is innocent. We're getting what we deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong. How did he know that? Same way you do. How did he know that this is the immaculate Christ? Why wasn't he saying like everybody else, at the very least he's guilty of rebellion against the government, at the very least?

No, this man hath done nothing amiss. And think about that, the word amiss. He hasn't even gotten off the path a little bit. He could have said, this man hasn't done anything terrible. He hadn't done anything to deserve this kind of punishment. No, no, he hasn't done anything amiss. What made his words change? He said he's innocent.

And he called him the Lord and said, Lord, remember me. Your next stop is the throne of glory. Remember me there. All of the change regarded who that is on that cross. And also, according to the gracious will and eternal covenant of God, as the gospel of this mighty Savior is preached, God reveals himself to sinners. Some who enter without interest will leave rejoicing. And the difference is the same as with the thief and the centurion. who came there one way to that cross, but in the end said, truly, this is the son of God.

What did he understand? What did he realize? Who that is. Faith is given by God to see God in the person of his son. To those who know the Savior this evening, I say what the Lord said to the blind man in John 9. If you know the Savior, I can say this about you with full confidence. Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that speaketh with thee. You wouldn't be here just to hear me.

Paul said in verse four that Christ was crucified but lives and reigns because he's God. And those who come to know the Lord Jesus will crucify this flesh and yet live in his power also because he's God. God give us grace to praise him forever for it starting now. Starting now, let's pray.

Weakness and Power

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Weakness and Power

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