What The Thief Comes To Steal From Your Life. Series

The picture presented in these verses is that of a father giving away his bride. Paul has already called himself their father (1Cor.4:15), he has arranged the marriage with the groom.

Paul is concerned that the Corinthians will stray and not be the proper kind of bride by the time they come face to face with the Bridegroom.

Satan has been constantly at work in Paul’s absence to deceive the church in Corinth and lead them in the direction of impurity.

JAMES 4:4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

There is a danger of allowing the world to capture our affections. The danger is that we find ourselves in a passive war with God. We don’t even know that we have made ourselves His enemy.

What is one of the most clear evidences that we have become a friend of the world and an enemy of God’s purposes? James says it can be seen in our prayer life. James 4:4 follows an earlier verse about prayer: We can pray hostile prayers to God and not even know it.

JAMES 4:2-3……..You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

I have decided that I do not like this verse: It states that my selfish, self-centered prayer life can be like missiles fired at the kingdom of God. ‘God give me this, God do this for me, God be my servant, God do my bidding….”

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray how different is it that Jesus began with…

MATT 6:9-10 "Pray, then, in this way: ’Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. ’Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.

Most of our prayers begin with, ‘Hallowed be my name, my kingdom come, my will be done’. James says that is an act of war against the kingdom of God.

In MARK 8 Peter rebuked Jesus for speaking of dying to which Jesus spoke to Peter saying, ‘Get thee behind me Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’. He then summed His other disciples and the crowds and made His famous statement, ‘If anyone wishes to follow Me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me’.

James then makes a statement in 4:5 that rings very similar to Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 11:2

JAMES 4:5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose : "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"?

God has a jealousy for something to be a reality in our lives. It is what makes us a proper bride for the Bridegroom.

1 I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.

3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

4 For 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, you bear this beautifully.

Three things to think about when we consider Satan’s attack upon the spiritual purity in our lives.

THE TREASURE SATAN WANTS:

1 I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.

Paul, like the father of a bride, was concerned that his bride be right for her groom on their wedding day.

We are ‘betrothed’ to one husband, Jesus, and we should be concerned that the tests we face in this world do not leave us with both spot and wrinkle. If Satan cannot make you lost he can work hard to make you impure for the day you meet your Bridegroom.

Your purity is a treasure to Satan. Even though Paul thought it might sound foolish he expressed a ‘godly jealousy’ for the believers in Corinth. He had a jealousy for their purity before Christ. He knew they lived and walked in the midst of a very corrupt culture and he prayed for their spiritual safety.