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.
On a human level jealousy can be such a destructive thing. ‘Green eyed monster’. Jealousy is an angry, strong, powerful emotion that refuses to tolerate a rival.
BUT God declares in the book of Exodus, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God." Exodus 20:5
All through the Scriptures there is this emphasis upon the jealousy of God.
There is a jealousy that is not a bad thing in scripture.
Human jealousy is based upon my emotion that you love what is best for me more than anything else.
God’s jealousy is that you love what is best for you more than anything else.
God is jealous that we will embrace or have a greater affection for the world or the flesh more than for He Himself and what He has for us.
Our jealousy is selfish but God’s jealous is for our best interest.
One man is jealous that a woman love him more than anyone else while another is jealous that a woman find what is best for her from all the choices she encounters.
A father of a bride is not jealous that she is finding another man other than himself but he is jealous for her to find the best man for her.
In Paul day one of the biggest moral concerns in a society was that a father keep his daughter pure for her groom on their wedding day. It was considered his responsibility. This is hard for us to imagine considering we have plummeted morally as a society in areas like this. There is hardly a TV show or movie made today that does not attack such a moral standard as this.
Even in immoral Corinth this was still understood.
As a father of two daughters I agree with one evangelist I heard some years ago. He felt the need to tell each boyfriend his daughter had, ‘Just so you know I am willing to go to jail if you do anything to harm her and murder is on the table’
There is a beautiful positive truth woven in this truth that Paul presents. In 1 Corinthians 6:11 Paul stated that in the church at Corinth ’such were some of you’ when he said there were those who had been, ‘adulterers, immoral people, homosexuals, thieves, drunkards, robbers’ and more and with regards to the church. How wonderful is the cleansing power of God from all those things that Paul now saw those in the church as ‘chaste virgins’.
THE TARGET SATAN ATTACKS:
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.
“But I am afraid that’.. Paul knew there was a ‘clear and present danger’ for those in the church. Satan works overtime when many of us think the game is over but for him it seems to have just begun. He doesn’t leave us alone after we get saved but begins a brand new and probably even more aggressive campaign against us.
‘As the serpent/satan deceived Eve’. Satan has not had to make too many adjustments to his strategies and tactics because men and women have been virtually the same from the beginning.
Some basic principles of Satan’s works against us:
1. He works deceptively. deceived Eve by his craftiness
Theologian Robert Deffinbaugh says: “Satan does not come to us as the arch-enemy of God, the ultimate evildoer. He comes disguised as an angel of light. He would rather look like Mother Theresa than Charles Manson. If the arch-enemy of God operates by deceit and disguise, why should we expect his underlings to be different from their master? They, too, come to us disguised as servants of righteousness, or as Jesus said, as ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing.’”
a) He is able to work against us as well by using the same basic but different approach.
b) He led Eve to defend her own rights in her relationship with God. Satan accused God of holding out on Eve or not wanting her to experience something she might enjoy or benefit from. Satan appeals to our PRIDE:
GENESIS 3:4-5 The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
2. He influences our minds: your minds will be led astray
a) The Bible tells us we are no longer have reprobate minds(Rom 1) but to be renewed in our minds(12:1). Satan want to deceptively lead us back to reprobation in our thinking.
He will use the pathways of our thoughts to get us to go that direction.
b) Eve, whom only knew death by faith, was led by Satan to believe in what she knew of life instead of what God told her to be true. You surely will not die!
c) Eve was also promised personal benefit (eyes opened…be like God,, ..know good and evil) if she obeyed the serpent rather than God.
d) Satan makes the same offer today by offering the world as the new fruit that we can take a bite out of. In the day we eat of it our eyes will open to new adventures and we will know and experience things that God says we shouldn’t.
We find out too late the fruit was spoiled.
Satan wasn’t asking Eve to become a drug addict or an alcoholic.
He didn’t want her to rob a bank or even to kill someone. What he wanted was her devotion to God. The things of the world will always target the same thing in our lives. It is not they themselves that are the end goal but the fact that they replace our something in our relationship with God.
3) This is SATAN’S TARGET: led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ
a) Where does the bride of Christ lose her purity? It is not by the filth of the things of this world but the loss of a simple and pure devotion to her Groom.
b) The things we get caught up in the world are just the red herring. Satan’s real goal is to make us lose our simple devotion to our Lord.
The word for ‘simplicity’ in Greek means something single as opposed to double. Satan is not against a ‘Jesus and’ or ‘Jesus plus’ faith. We just add Him onto our lives. What Satan fights is a life of pure devotion to Christ. Where everything revolves around our relationship to Him. Our choices, goals, conversations, agendas, relationships…
RAY STEDMAN: We often say that Christianity is not a creed, it is a relationship; it is living with a Person. That is the simplicity that is in Christ. The danger that we constantly face is that we get involved in the things about Christ and fail to live in a relationship with Christ.
THE TOOLS SATAN USES:
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.
Federal agents broke up counterfeiting ring in Los Angeles where high-tech printers were used to create over $5 million in fake bills. The bills were almost indistinguishable to the naked eye. The one thing that counterfeiters can’t copy is the special blend of paper used for our money. The formula for the paper is a closely guarded secret. That’s why cashiers use currency pens to make a mark on a bill. It’s all in the reaction of the special paper and the chemical in the marker.
Paul mentions a tri-fecta of counterfits that Satan uses to attack the simplicity of our faith. Preach another Jesus…receive a different spirit…receive a different gospel
All the way back to the time of Paul Satan has used false teachers to come in and try to HIJACK the true church.
One of the duties of the friends of the Bridegroom was to protect the bride from those who would threaten her purity.
1) ANOTHER JESUS
a) Everyone who uses the name Jesus isn’t necessarily talking about the same Jesus. A false teacher will talk about Jesus and often sound very biblical.
False teachers will often do much more for their false Jesus’ than those who know the true Jesus.
b) Who are these other Jesus’? Mormon Jesus: spirit brother of Lucifer who became the devil…firstborn of our father god who once was like we are now. One whose plan was chosen.
JW Jesus: Michael the archangel…created by God….
Muslim Jesus: Believe more right about Jesus than a liberal Christian) virgin born, prophet of God second to Muhammad, did miracles but did not die on the cross but was replaced by another who died in His place.
Eastern religions Jesus; Enlightened one to show us the way to reach peace within ourselves such as Krishna, Buddha and the Maharishi’s.
c) WHO IS JESUS? Virgin born Son of God…fully God and fully man… the promised Messiah who fulfilled prophecy….taught the truths of God…..lived a perfect sinless life….died in our place on the cross as a ransom for our sins and became the propitiation or satisfaction to God for us.
2) A DIFFERENT SPIRIT
a) There are many who pretend to have miracles or spiritual experiences.
Just like the magicians of Egypt they claim to be equal to others who represent God.
b) Jesus will say on the day of judgment to many who did things such as preach in his name, cast out demons and do miracles, ‘I never knew you’. ‘You never had anything to do with Me’.
c) The world is filled with and the Bible speaks often of a spirit other than the workings of God’s Spirit in our midst. Something spiritual does not mean something Godly.
1/3 of the original angels are really bad news for us. Satan is the worst news.
Mormons talk about a ‘burning in the bosom’. Oprah talks about her spiritual experiences with a different definition of Jesus. Places in Asia and Africa have more ‘spiritual’ experiences than we could imagine. Not every spirit is from God.
All of our past three presidents have made statements calling Islam a ‘religion of peace’: If someone asked me if Christianity and Islam were of the same spirit I could not imagine any ground where I could say yes. There is a different spirit at work.
A different spirit is a spirit of works, a spirit of hate, a spirit of greed, a spirit of self or even a spirit of ‘what’s in it for me’.
Christianity is a spirit of humility and surrender based upon the realization of our depravity and lostness and the hopelessness we have outside of God’s remedy in giving us His Son to deliver us.
Cults usually lure people in by 3 methods:
[1] Deprogramming – “All of your past teachings were wrong”. parents, teachers, church
[2] Programming – They seek to alter your mind so they can control your will.
[3] Reprogramming – Intensive teaching or indoctrination. A whole new structure.
3) A DIFFERENT GOSPEL
There are many variations that have departed from the one true gospel.
Joel Olsteen is well known and supposed icon for Christianity today. Most do not know that Olsteen preaches a different gospel from that of the New Testament. According an Easter message by Olsteen, mentioned in the book Christianity in Crisis, Olsteen does not believe that Jesus paid for our sins by His death on the cross. Olsteen believes Jesus went to hell and grabbed the keys of death and dragged the devil around by his hair all over hell. He then says that Jesus came back topside and encountered Mary outside the tomb. He told her not to touch Him because He had his ‘holy blood’ all over Him. He then went up to heaven and presented that blood for to God and returned to earth in time to present Himself to the disciples telling Thomas to touch Him and see that He was not a spirit. This has nothing to do with the presentation of the gospel in the New Testament other than uses similar names and peoples.
Galatians 1:6-9 …there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any [man] preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
a) All the other gospels in the world have the same message: WORKS
They all teach in their own way that our acceptance by God is based upon certain types of works we do instead of the one act He did for us on the cross.
Does it offer Salvation as a free gift of God, purchased at the cross by Christ & available w/o works, based on His death & bodily Resurrection?
b) I am afraid the gospel of our day is the gospel of ‘Let’s get along’. ‘Let focus on something other than that old book that keeps making us fight about things. Let’s just sing and sing and forget there is anything to fight about’.
Even though we won’t fight about doctrine anymore you can be sure Satan will and is: If there is a doctrine Satan hates the most it is: we are justified by faith & not by works; That our redemption is by the blood of Jesus and that it is the free grace of God that makes a man right with Him & not our own works.
Swiss theologian, Karl Barth is recognized as one of the great minds of the Twentieth Century. He was visiting a seminary once and during a Q &A session he was asked, “What is the greatest theological thought that has ever crossed your mind?” They all expected some complicated answer, but Karl Barth said, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Sometimes the BEST truth is the most simple truth.
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
Christianity is not Rocket Science:
1. Satan would like to COMPLICATE it: Lead us away from the simple call upon us to recognize God for who He is and to worship Him. To understand who we are in are sin and embrace His offer of forgiveness provided through what Christ has done for us.
2. Satan would like to COMPROMISE it: Cause us to lose our primary devotion to Jesus Christ and from a life live for His glory. Using the things of this world to draw us away Satan will attempt to lead us to waste a lifetime by missing God’s plan for our lives.
