2 Corinthians, 11:12-15
Jim Pool · Jun 5, 2005
2 Corinthians (2004-05), No. 48
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262327246203

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, so we're going to pick it up in chapter 11, and let's just read all the way starting in verse 1, and let's read down through 15, and we're going to pick it up this morning in 12, and we're going to trust the Lord to see if we can get through verse 15 here this morning. So, Bob, can I ask you to read it?

As which God ye could bear with me a little to my folly, and a deep hair with me, for I am jealous of you with godly jealousy. I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste urchin of Christ. But I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his craftiness, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

But he that cometh preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or he receive another spirit which you have not received. or another gospel which you have not accepted, you might well bear with him. For I suppose I was not wit behind the very cheapest apostles, but though I be rude in speech yet not in knowledge, though we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things. Have I committed an offense in abasing myself that you might be exalted because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely? Or have I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you service?

And when I was present with you and lacked I was chargeable to no man, for that which was lacking to me the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied. And in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself. As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me at this boasting in the regions of Achaia. Wherefore, because I love you not, God knoweth.

For what I do, that will I do, that I may cut off occasion from them that is our occasion, that in that which they glory they may be found even as we. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. Great.

Thank you, Bob. Appreciate that. Okay, so verse 12. We're going to pick it up here. He says, well what I am doing I will continue to do. And we made reference to that same statement in the end of verse 9. Has Bob read that? In the end of verse 9 it says, in everything I will keep myself from being a burden to you and will continue to do so.

So, he's not receiving money for his ministries, that he's sending his services there to the church in Corinth. And this is something that he's going to continue to do. This is not kind of a short-term type thing. He's going to continue on to do this. Mix mentioned that in verse 9, and so in verse 12 he starts out the same thing. But what I am doing, I will continue to do. Why?

So that I can cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting. So it's interesting to To think about this for a bit, the heart of the accusers or the false teachers was very deceitful and was tricky.

And Paul knew that. And so he doesn't want to give them any more opportunities to speak anything against him. I kind of want to look at this in two different ways. What they were doing is they were pointing out so-called faults of Paul in order to put them down and to promote themselves and to lead the believers astray. We've been seeing that very clearly in chapter 10 and we've also been seeing that very clearly here in chapter 11. So they also knew that if they could get Paul to take some money, see the philosophers, they were receiving money for their services and the other sophists and the different trades and occupations, they were receiving money for their services. So if they could get Paul to take money from the Corinth believers, this would take away one point in which Paul was different and so then they could use this to their advantage.

So Paul says, I don't want to give them any opportunity at all to try to gain an advantage or have a way to say anything negative against me. He says there, I want to cut off opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the matter about which they are boasting.

Does that make sense? He doesn't want to give them any grounds, any more opportunity. So, how about us? Paul doesn't want to give those guys any more of an opportunity to say anything against him. But how about us? We can trust the Lord not to give people the opportunity to speak anything evil of us.

I think this is a pretty important principle for us to be thinking about. Paul doesn't want to give these false accusers any more opportunity, and I think it's something that's important for us to consider as well, not to open up a door or give people the opportunity to say, for evil to be spoken of us as believers.

I think about that when it comes to my work situation. Most of the folks that I work with in my circle of those that are the area managers that come behind me, look at my work, most of those guys, to the best of my knowledge, they're not believers. I think they know who I am, they know where I stand. I want to have my work and my life be in such a way that there's no opportunity for them to speak evil of me. And then, what about you all? What about my neighbors? Things such as that.

So, let's look at a couple of these scriptures that I think draw our attention to what it is that Paul was wanting to communicate here. I think it's important for us to also pull out Romans in chapter 14. Now here he's talking about Christian liberty, but I think the principle goes across the board here. Romans chapter 14, and there in verse 16. Let's just start up a couple verses in verse 13.

Therefore, let us not judge one another any more, but rather determine this, not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy him with your food, him for whom Christ died. Therefore, do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil." Here's I think what we're really driving home at. at this point.

Was it an okay thing for Paul to accept money from the church in Corinth? We established that point last week, sure. You know, Paul had the right to receive money for his services in the ministry that he had in Corinth, sure. But he knew that it was best, for the time being, that he didn't receive it. So, let's not what is a good thing be something that is used to be spoken evil of. I think that's what we're seeing there in Corinthians. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. First Corinthians in chapter 10. And let's look at verse 28. We'll go down to the end of this chapter. First Corinthians 10, verse 28.

But if anyone should say to you... Again, we're talking about Christian liberty here. This is meat sacrificed to idols. Do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for conscience's sake. I mean not your own conscience, but the other man's. For why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I slander concerning that for which I give thanks?

Whether then you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense, either to the Jews, or to the Greeks, or to the Church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved. Notice here in verse 31. do all things for the glory of God.

And we've been talking about 2 Corinthians, that's the whole point here. The glory of God is woven throughout this whole book of 2 Corinthians. And the point is that God would be glorified, and that Paul would be able to edify these believers in Corinth, but he can't. Thus he has to come in and have some correction before he can edify them. So, he wants God to be glorified, and don't give any offense. Don't create any offense, whether it be to the Jews, or whether it be to the Greeks, or to the Church of God.

Again, I think that's what Paul was getting at. Also, I think it's a point for us to pay attention to and trust the Lord with. We're not being legalistic about it, but we're just trusting the Lord. As we're walking by faith, as Christ is living his life in and through us, we don't want to give anybody an opportunity for evil to be spoken of us. Any thoughts? Questions there?

This past week, two doors down from us, I noticed that there was a fire truck. And there was an ambulance and a police car. And they didn't come in with their sirens on or making a big racket or anything like that. So it was kind of, it was different. It was unusual as to what was going on. I walked outside and I spoke to the police officer and I said, you know, what's going on here?

And he said that this girl, it's a young couple, two doors down had eaten a bunch of pills, trying to kill herself. She said, fortunately, the police officer said, fortunately, she's throwing up. So she's, you know, paramedics were there and she's going to be okay. Well, I know them somewhat well, you know, neighbors, two doors down, young couple, no kids yet, they're in their mid-twenties, hopefully.

Again, talking about our interaction with unbelievers here. Hopefully through just short conversations on your way to the mailbox, both out at the same time working in the yard, they're able to see the life of Christ. I haven't done anything by God's grace which has given them the opportunity to think evil of me or for me to cause them to stumble or something like that. So I've been praying for them this week and thinking, boy, it would be nice if somehow through God's divine working, they might come and say, hey, you know what?

We're struggling. This has happened. And I don't even think that they know that I know. I walked out and talked to the police officer and came back into my home, and I don't think that they know that I know what happened. They were obviously pretty private about it. But that's the point. Hopefully, I haven't given them an offense in my neighborhood that would cause them to stumble.

And hopefully, we can interact and provide some help to them. So I think that's what's important. for us, as we interact with our co-workers, with our neighbors, with our friends, and Paul doesn't want to give offense, opportunity, and I don't think that we, I think it's important for us to be mindful about that as well. Alright, a couple other verses here you can look at, but we'll move on to verse 13.

So verse 13 it says, For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, distinguishing themselves as apostles of Christ. So, he gives a warning here and a protection for the Corinth believers and he describes these false apostles or these deceitful workers. He gives a warning and a protection in three different ways. First of all, he describes them as false apostles. For these men, These men are false apostles, these men are deceitful workers, and they are distinguishing themselves as apostles, or disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. So first of all, he says that they're false apostles or false teachers.

So let's look at 2 Peter describing these false apostles and false teachers. 2 Peter, and let's look at chapter 2. It's interesting that he uses these three different descriptions. I think he's trying to be very clear about these guys. He's trying to show the way these guys are coming in. He doesn't just use one term to describe these guys, but he uses three, making it very clear so that they'll be able to identify them and recognize them and pay attention to these false apostles here and deceitful workers.

Alright, 2nd Peter in chapter 2, ok 1-3, But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep." Describing these false teachers and these false prophets. I think Rachel said that the ladies covered this verse in the Ladies Bible Study, is that right? This past Tuesday, she came home and she was kind of talking through this verse here a little bit.

Denying the Master means denying that they're from Satan. In this case, but it's capitalized here. I don't get that. Even denying the Master, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Who bought them. Yeah, he's not who... I see. Yeah. Brought them in a redemption sense. That's right. Rather than brought them in a sense of sending them against the Lord. Right, yeah, who bought them. Yeah. That's right. Even denying the Master who bought them. That's right.

And back up and over and hold your place there in 2 Peter. But back to 2 Corinthians 11, verse 4, we talked about this. If one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted. See, I think that's Communicating the same thing there. Sure. Denying the Master. Yeah. Okay.

We'll get Colossians in chapter 2. This is a very interesting scripture here. Colossians chapter 2. You can let your place go in 2 Peter. I thought I was going to look at another one there, but we're not. Colossians chapter 2 and in verse 8. See to it.

That no one takes you captive through philosophy, empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. I find that to be very interesting. That no one would take you captive. It says, pay attention that no one takes you captive. Pay attention that these false apostles aren't taking you captive. Through this, through this, through this, through this, rather than according to Christ. So what do we want to be taken captive by? Christ. See? I think these Corinth believers originally were taken captive by Christ, but now, we talked about it before, they're beginning to be swayed and taken captive by these other things.

Okay, the second way that he describes this group of people is as deceitful workers. It carries with it the idea of deceitful, of luring or snaring. Let's look at Romans in chapter 16. I think it will help us to see this a little more clearly. Romans 16 and verse 18. We lured into error, or being snared into a wrong way.

It says, For such men are slaves, not of our Lord, but of their own appetites, and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting." Smooth and flattering speech. They lure or snare these people into error, and they're not following the way of the Lord any longer.

And then the third group, the third way they're described is as disguising, or the KJV uses the word transforming, themselves as apostles of light. And this word, disguising, is actually used in the next two verses as well. If we go back to our main text of chapter 11, 2 Corinthians, these men are disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. In verse 14 we see that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and Satan's servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

So, it's an hourly change of appearance, is what it is that we're putting on the front. They're saying they have hourly made themselves to look like something that they are not. They're making themselves to look like, trying to make themselves to look like authentic apostles of Christ, such as Paul and the other apostles, but really they're not. They're disguising themselves to be something that they are not. So, they're described as three ways. False apostles, deceitful workers, and disguising themselves as apostles of Christ, but they're really not.

Putting on a front. Putting on a show, in a sense. This will obviously offend these false teachers. Sure. So he's not taking his, don't make offense of anyone, don't give anyone a reason to be offended, That's true. That's true. Just as far as open-minded people who aren't attacking him. Right. That's right. Right. Does that make sense?

What we talked about earlier, not causing an offense if people are not giving anybody a reason to stumble or to be offended by what we might say or what we might do. I think what Bill's pointing out is that Paul isn't worried about that right here. Because what he is saying, these false teachers are going to find offensive.

Sure. Yeah. I think when it comes to where error is being taught and where people are being led astray, we need to speak the truth. We need to speak the truth in love and not worry about if those people are offended or not. But I think in the context of being cautious about not offending people would be those in the proximity that we might have the opportunity to minister to or with.

Yeah, that's a good point. Does that make sense? Yeah. I was kind of thinking along the same line. I guess you thought because we live down by the Air Force Academy and we follow that pretty closely that we're almost seeing a trend these days in the other direction.

And I think these verses are very clearly teaching that we don't want to offend weaker brothers who are believers. I see nothing in anything that's been written here that we thought. We as believers have to be worried about offending non-believers. Right, right. I'm with you.

It's really bothering me about what I read in the paper, especially the Air Force Academy with this cadet that just listed a bunch of quotations, a few of which came from scripture, and suddenly that's the most terrible thing that ever happened that could happen to quote scripture.

And I think in this particular case, We as believers should be offending people with God's Word. If they're offended by it, so be it. But I don't think there's any teaching here whatsoever that we should live our lives in a way as not to offend unbelievers. I think we very often should and will continue to offend our believers.

And I don't think we should feel, and that's what I guess is bothering about all the press right now, is suddenly this whole thing of religious persecution on the Air Force Academy has gone from believers being persecuted by non-believers to now the belief, in essence, is that the believers are persecuting non-believers.

The whole table is completely turned around. I just can't help but think of that reading these verses about feminism. Right, right, right. And I was thinking how the world system is its own religion, and it's just fine for them to impose their quotations and their belief system on us. In fact, if we don't accept it, we are lambasted again.

But in your daily walk, if you, I mean, if you just, you know, I was at an airport, someone sneezed who was down there, and I just said, bless you, kind of as something that I do. And you would not believe how I was lambasted by the daughter of the person that was sitting there, because the woman thanked me for doing that. And her daughter, then they had this conversation that went on about, why did you thank her for blessing you? Do you understand what that means? We live in a foreign land. Yeah, yeah, that's right. How did that happen? How did we come to that? Where a simple thing in your daily life can be all of a sudden, you are... I was like being demonized. You should have heard the conversation that was going on in the phone. I just want to, as a reminder, indicate that we're citizens of a different time.

We have to maintain that atmosphere. And if we don't want we to offend, we want the cross to offend. And sometimes it's sometimes hard to distinguish whether the cross is truly offending or our own arrogance is offending. The Holy Spirit can only judge that.

I mean, this world we live in, remember, this is a temporary address for us. We're from a different place. Our citizenship's in heaven. And so, I think that that helps me a lot, because then I don't have to worry about the world system. I'm called to heaven by the way I live, I think. We make mistakes along the way. I mean, there's no question about that. Right.

So the cross offends, right? The gospel offends. And anyone who is in the light offends. Okay, sure. People who are not in the light, they sense that you are a different person. And that offends them. But I don't think we can go through our daily walk worrying about being politically correct every second because we are offending, or our life, or the Lord through us is offending. I think we have to be neutral. It's a life marker. That's right. It's a life. It's who we are.

The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. They're going to find it to be offensive. And at the same time, I think that we as believers need to... that we're just being mindful. That we're not... I'm not doing things in the flesh, walking in the flesh, in my neighborhood, that people know that I'm a believer, and it's going to give them the opportunity for evil to be spoken of me.

I'm sure the message of the cross is going to offend. The preaching of the cross is going to be foolishness for those that are perishing. But let's not do things in the flesh that are going to cause people to be turned off. You've got a house full of unbelievers coming tonight.

Trust the Lord that your engagement in the lab has been one that hasn't given them an opportunity to not listen to what you have to say. I guess that's the practicality of what we're saying here. You never really can help anyone. You never can help them along. You can't really lead them along in the way of truth if you have not won their heart. Or if you have a pen, of course, in that regard, you can't really have an end with them to get the gospel out.

So that idea of keeping your dog off of their yard might be a good value. Sure. And it's been said, you know, Christians are the biggest hindrance to Christianity. I think that makes the point quite well. The works testify to who you are. Sure. I'll show you my faith by my work, that's right. Every time.

This girl who ate all these pills a couple of nights ago last week, it was Monday night, she was probably out Memorial Day, partying hard, she had an argument with her husband, ate these pills. Well, a couple of weeks ago they were putting in a new tree in their front yard and I asked if they had a bag of mulch and they said no. I was talking to her husband, Jimmy, and so I said, hey, I got an extra bag of mulch in my garage.

Would you like to have it? And they said, oh, well, I think they were kind of taken back that somebody would offer to give them something. That's kind of a strange concept in today's culture. And so I said, hey, so I went and I broke out my bag of mulch and I just gave it to them. And so Kelly, the girl that ate a bunch of pillows, she said, hey, do you want us to pay you for that bag of mulch? I said, no, it's not a big deal. I forgot how much the bag of mulch cost. What I could have done was remembered, oh, the bag of mulch was $8.

You know, let me charge them $11 and I'm going to make $3. Okay? That would have given them an opportunity. Yeah. I think that's what we're – anyway, that's what I was driving at. Maybe they'll remember that, and we'll be able to see the life of Christ, I hope. It is. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, verse 14.

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds." So the false apostles disguise themselves as apostles of Christ. We saw that at the end of verse 13. And now we see that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it's no wonder that these guys disguise themselves as apostles of Christ, because Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

Let's go back to John 8. I think it helps us to... This is interesting. He talks here a little bit about Satan. And we don't want to go off into a huge study of Satan. Often we don't study that very much. Those who took the Major Biopians class, there was two chapters on that. On Satan and his personality and some of his characteristics and things.

But John 8, 44. says you are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie he speaks from his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies.

So this is kind of the way we see it laid out. We talked it through just a minute ago. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Satan is their father. The Judaizers, the unbelievers there, so therefore no wonder or no marvel as the KJV makes it that they are disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. That's kind of the natural flow that we see there. So, Satan does not usually operate the way of the pitchfork and horns, you know, sometimes that's kind of the mindset of people, you know, maybe particularly kids, you know, they see these pictures of Satan with a pitchfork and horns, but that's most of the time not the way that he operates.

He disguises himself to be what he really isn't. You know, transforming I think is the word that the KJV word he uses there. And he disguises other things to be what they really are not. Here's two examples for you. He can make what is good look bad, spanking our children, correcting, disciplining your children. That's a good thing.

But what is the world? What is Satan? He's the ruler of the world. What has happened? That's become taboo. He can't even do it anymore. And so he can make what is bad look good. An example there. is simply abortion. It's a bad thing, but the world is a good thing. And so this idea of transforming or of disguising himself as an angel of light is something that he himself does and he also does that with other things within the world.

You'll see here I gave a long list of scriptures referring to Satan for the sake of time. I'm not going to go through Again, we're not going to do a study right now of Satan, but I thought, being that the text here is talking about it, that it would be... It's interesting that he mentions Satan twice within these 15 verses. Up in verse 3, he says, I'm afraid lest as a serpent deceive thee by his craftiness. And then down in verse 14, he talks about Satan as well. So, there's definitely some parallel here amongst the false apostles, those false teachers, and Satan and how they are influencing him to share a wrong message and to deceive their other father, the devil.

Yeah. Masquerading. Okay. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Does everybody hear Doug's comment? OK. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. Something that you really is not. Let's talk about this just for a minute. I don't want to get. I just think it's. applicable for us talking about Satan disguising himself as the Angel of Light. How does that affect believers? Again, I don't think we talk about Satan very much. I don't think we study Satan very much. And let's just take this opportunity just for a little while to engage just a little bit. Because it says Satan is masquerading or transforming or disguising himself as the Angel of Light.

So what are Man's three enemies? Have you guys ever thought about what are Man's three enemies? World, flesh, and the devil. Okay. Man has three main enemies. It's the world, it's the flesh, and it's the devil. Exactly right. So, the world refers to the world system which is dominated by satanic principles such as deceit, greed, ambition, selfishness, sinful pleasure, and so it's no wonder that the Lord says in 1 John 2, verse 15, love not the world. And someone described the world a couple of minutes ago as just that. It's this world system, it's this cultural system that is along those lines. It's the American way of life. Yeah, sure. It's so easy to get sucked into this world system. Yeah, we won't, again, we won't go any farther there.

Vine's definition of the flesh, which I think is a great definition of the flesh, there's lots of different definitions of the flesh, if we were to define the flesh for us. Vine describes it as this, the human nature deprived of the Spirit of God and dominated by sin. I think that is probably one of the best definitions that I have come up with. The nature of man, void of the Spirit of God, not only void of that, but it is dominated by something else, and it's dominated by sin. So that's a great definition, I think.

And then we talked about the devil, John 8, verse 44, all those other verses that were just quickly mentioned there. So those are your main three enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. So let's ask this question. In terms of the internal enemy, or an external enemy, Are the world, the flesh, and the devil internal or external enemies? Does that make sense? Is the world an internal or is the world an external enemy? Is Satan an internal or an external enemy? Is the flesh an internal enemy or external enemy? Flesh is internal. How about the world? How about Satan? Bob?

A great verse here is Mark 7.15. It says there's nothing from outside of man that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile him. What was that reference again?

Mark 7.15.

Mark 7.15. Note that down.

Yeah, that's great. I mean, that verse became light to me when thinking about the way I tried to protect my kids in the school systems we chose to some extent. I'm not saying that was a wrong decision. All I'm saying is, you know, what defiles a man is what's internal, right? And then the external has influence over that. That's right. I mean, no matter how much you protect a child, he or she is going to be exposed to war around them. And how that influences the internal is really what's going on. Yeah.

Okay, so we said that the world and the devil are external enemies that we wrestle, we struggle with, and that the flesh is an internal enemy that we wrestle and struggle with. So in this text, we're seeing here that Satan disguises himself as the angel of light. So, if the world is going to influence me, how is he going to influence me? Through the flesh.

Exactly right. So, Satan, who we see here, disguises himself as an angel of light, how is Satan going to influence me? Through the flesh. Exactly right. So, the question then is, how do we have victory over the world and the devil? And through the flesh. and the flesh. It's through our co-crucifixion with Christ.

So here we see that Satan is disguising himself as an angel of light. He's an external enemy. If he is going to influence me, he has to influence me through the flesh. So we maintain victory over Satan, who disguises himself as an angel of light, through the cross. Because at the cross, the sin nature has been rendered powerless.

So if the avenue through which Satan can influence me has been rendered powerless, there's the victory over the world and also over Satan. Does that make sense? Just a brief kind of touch on how we can maintain that victory. You can look up those verses there on your own.

Galatians 6.14, move my parentheses out there past the Galatians reference, talks about how the world has been crucified unto us and I unto the world.

What a great verse. talking about having freedom from the influence of this world system. In 2 Thessalonians, Colossians 2, it talks about how the principalities of this world have been disarmed, talking about Satan there as well. And a great quote by C.A. Coates says that the forgiven man is on altogether new ground with the Father. He is on the ground of grace which is given to us through Jesus Christ, who is full of grace and truth.

The apprehension of the taking hold of this puts the soul beyond the reach of the oppression and of the harassing of the devil." There again, our position in Christ is fixed. It's unchangeable. It's unmovable. We're in Christ. The avenues through which he would desire to affect us and influence us has been rendered powerless. Therefore, we're on an altogether new ground, the ground of grace.

Any thoughts about that? Margaret? Yeah, you know, I was just thinking, and reading that, how, you know, you talk to a lot of believers, and they just put way too much emphasis on the power of Satan. Sure, that's right. Because if you're a believer, and you really reckon yourself in Christ, Satan's already been dealt with. That's right. The power over you is no power. That's right. But as soon as we focus on him, And that's, I mean, that's the big lie. That's right. That's right. He has no power. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody hear that? Hear Margaret's comment? You guys might have heard the example as well, that how do FBI agents that work with identifying counterfeit bills, how do they learn to do that? Study the real thing. Exactly right.

So, the issue isn't to become occupied with Satan, so that we can learn how to have victory over Satan, but it's to be occupied with Christ, so that we'll learn more of our position, of our identification, our relationship with Christ. He's already defeated. Defeated at the cross, mentioned way back in Genesis in chapter 3. You mean we can't say Satan made me do it? No. I'm sorry, say that again, Gene. Yeah. Sure. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Because we're ultimately responsible. We can't pass the buck to the world. We can't pass the buck to Satan. The flesh is really the bottom line. So you can't blame it on anybody else.

Alright, the last verse, verse 15 says, Therefore it is not surprising that if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds, or to their works, I think, as the KJV mentions it here. So it's interesting that these men are actually servants or ministers of Satan. And we could take a whole week and study that. The 2nd Peter passage brought that same thing out.

So Rachel and I were sitting at home talking, what does that mean? That these guys are actually ministers of Satan. Rachel posed this question to me. I don't have the answer. I told her that. What people today are involved in the ministry and they're deceiving people and they're actually ministers of Satan? I don't know. That's something that would need a lot of looking at and a lot of studying. It appears that they're doing good things. but they're deceiving people, thus they're ministers of Satan.

Wow, that's powerful stuff. I want to be careful, you know. But, you know, Steve? I've been sitting here mumbling over the question this whole period through this class because, I mean, where do you draw the line? Where is somebody just mistaken and where are they deceiving? Because there's an awful lot of strange doctrine out there.

Well, we certainly can start with the cults. Sure. Deny the deity of Christ. Don't you think also, too, it has to do with what the Word says about you don't take anything away from the Word, nor do you add anything? That's right, that's right. So those two things, that's sort of my watermark. If those things are being done, it's one thing to not understand identification and be legal, and all of those things. Those are, you know, I think that's an ignorance of the word. But when you start adding or taking away the word in your teaching, then that is deceit. That's a good start. And that's what the word says.

I mean, I'm sure there could be other things, but those are my, what I would say. Everybody here catch Margaret's comment? That was good. Bob? But they did get into the era of Galatians 1, right? Sure. What is that other gospel? It's a gospel of law, right?

Right, and he says, I wish you were accursed. Sure. That's kind of a common kind of scenario to discuss. Yeah, and he says the same thing here. They're to be accursed, right? People who teach another gospel, specifically a gospel of law, are to be accursed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got plenty of places like this meeting this morning where in fact the legal aspects of Christianity are really paramount.

They may not be recognized. Is that ignorance or is that purposeful? I mean, there's no way only the Lord knows. That's right, that's right. You know, this class is supposed to end in September, I think, or the end of September. And we may get done before that, we may not. The Lord knows. But if we have a few weeks where there's some gaps between when we finish and the end of September, maybe there's some of these questions we can flesh out a little bit more. That's why I bring that up.

This would be one that we might want to flesh out. So these false apostles are bringing false righteousness. Righteousness that is according to works, or righteousness that is simply according to man's effort, not the righteousness of God, which comes by faith alone. And their end is going to be according to their works or their deeds, and their works are of the flesh, we know that, which is death, and thus that will be their end. I think that's kind of what he's driving at here. Okay, Bob picks it up next, right?

Is that right? Okay, hopefully this is... I've enjoyed this section of 15 verses. Hopefully it's been helpful for you as well. So, let's pray. Father, thank you for our time. Thanks for your Word, which obviously is just rich and it's deep and it's just fun to be able to dig and to explore and to look into what your meaning of it is. Thanks for your Holy Spirit who does lead us and guide us into all truth. We're so thankful for that. We're thankful that he also brings things to our remembrance this afternoon and this week as we go about our daily lives. Be with Vern the rest of the service here this morning. In your name we pray. Amen.