A man had a fine canary whose song was unusually beautiful. During the summer, it seemed a shame to keep the bird inside the house all the time. So the owner placed the cage in a nearby tree for the bird to enjoy the sunshine and the fresh air.
Many sparrows frequented the tree and were attracted to the cage. At first the canary was frightened, but soon enjoyed his companions. But gradually and almost imperceptibly he lost the sweetness of the song. By the end of the summer his "singing" was little more than the twitter of the sparrows. Spending his summer in the wrong environment caused the canary to lose his finest song (Jerry Lock, “Church Music World,” Nov./Dec. 1985, Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 4; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s what happens to believers if they spend too much time in the wrong environment. They lose their song. They lose the joy of their salvation.
So, how do you keep from losing your song? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 2 Corinthians 6, 2 Corinthians 6, where the Apostle Paul addresses a group of believers in danger of losing their song.
2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
That is, do not attempt to work together in ministry with those who are unbelievers. Or do not become partners with those who do not believe (Louw & Nida).
Deuteronomy 22:10 says, “You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.” And that’s the picture Paul paints here when he talks about being unequally yoked. A large ox and a smaller donkey cannot work together in the same yoke. It would make both of them miserable.
So, if you want to keep from losing your song, then keep from forming partnerships with people who do not love Jesus like you do. Now, you can apply this to marriage or to business partnerships, but specifically, in the context of 2 Corinthians 6, God is saying…
SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM FALSE TEACHERS.
Detach yourself from any association with preachers who don’t believe the Bible. Distance yourself from those whose teaching differs from what the Bible teaches.
The Corinthian believers were turning their hearts away from Paul, who had led them to Christ, to teachers with a different gospel (vs.13).
In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul gets very explicit. There he says, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough” (2 Corinthians 11:2-4).
The Corinthians believers were rejecting the gospel for another gospel, which was no gospel at all. They were tuning from the gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. They were turning from that to a works-based gospel, which condemns all who believe it (Galatians 1:6-9), because no one can ever do enough to earn acceptance with God.
Please, don’t you do the same thing. Continue to live your life in dependence upon Christ, trusting Him alone for a right standing with God, and distance yourself from anyone who teaches you otherwise.
Benny Hinn’s nephew, Costi Hinn, was confident of his relationship with the Lord. He traveled the world in a private jet and enjoyed all the luxuries that money could buy. He believed he was serving Jesus Christ and as a result was enjoying the abundant life He promised. The only problem—he wasn’t preaching the true Gospel. Costi Hinn writes:
Growing up in the Hinn family our lifestyle was lavish and our version of the gospel was big business. God’s goal was not to set us free from sin but to make us rich. We lived in a 10,000-square-foot mansion, drove two Mercedes Benz vehicles, vacationed in exotic destinations, and shopped at the most expensive stores. We were abundantly blessed.
Doubts would surface. What about unsuccessful healing attempts? I learned that it was the sick person’s fault for doubting God. Why did many of our prophecies contradict the Bible? Despite the questions, I trusted my family because we were so successful. Millions packed stadiums annually to hear my uncle. We healed the sick, performed miracles, rubbed elbows with celebrities, and got incredibly wealthy. God must be on our side!
After graduating college, I met my wife, Christyne. I had no idea that God would use her in bringing about my salvation. In fact, my family and I were nervous because she didn’t speak in tongues. We set out to fix that problem by having her attend one of Benny’s crusades, but nothing happened.
Then one day she pointed to a verse I had never seen: 1 Corinthians 12:30 (“Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues?”). I was shaken to the core. There it was plain as day—not everybody has to speak in tongues. Soon, the domino e¬ffect began. Other longstanding beliefs were failing the biblical test. No longer did I believe that God’s purpose was to make me happy, healthy, and wealthy. Instead, I saw that he wanted me to live for him regardless of what I could get from him.
While struggling to strike out into ministry, I received a call from a pastor friend, offering me a part-time youth pastor position. One of my first preaching assignments was John 5:1–17—the healing at Bethesda. The passage showed that Jesus healed (only) one man out of a multitude, the man didn’t know who Jesus was, and the man was healed instantly! This left three treasured beliefs in tatters.
I wept bitterly over my participation in greedy ministry manipulation and my life of false teaching and beliefs, and I thanked God for his mercy and grace through Jesus Christ. I am thankful that my wife was willing to question my insistence on speaking in tongues and that my pastor loved me enough to disciple me out of prosperity gospel confusion (Costi Hinn, “Riches I Heed Not,” Christianity Today, October, 2017, pp. 103-104; www.PreachingToday.com).
The prosperity gospel is one of the greatest perversions of the gospel today. God’s purpose is not to make you happy, healthy, and wealthy. His purpose is to make you holy as you live your life in dependence upon Christ (2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 4:3).
Please, don’t fall for the prosperity gospel or any other perversion of the gospel. Stop listening to such preachers like Benny Hinn, Joel Osteen, or Joyce Meyers, who teach a false gospel.
Separate yourself from false teachers. Don’t be unequally yoked with such unbelievers. Why?
2 Corinthians 6:14-16a Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? (ESV)
Separate yourself from false teachers, because 1st of all, as believers in Christ….
YOU ARE RIGHTEOUS BEFORE GOD.
Your identity in Christ clashes with those who reject Christ. Who you are as believers cannot work with who they are as lawless, dark, satanic, unbelieving idolaters.
Several years ago (1995), an earthquake in Kobe, Japan, occurred when two plates on a fault line fifteen miles offshore suddenly shifted against each other. Those plates violently lurched six to ten feet in opposite directions. The result was the worst Japanese earthquake in decades (since 1923). Thousands died. More than 46,000 buildings lay in ruins. And one-fifth of the city's population was left instantly homeless (Time magazine, 1/22/95; David Farnum, Rochester, New York. Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 3; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s what happens when believers form alliances with unbelievers or false teachers. Two groups of people committed to each other, but going in different directions, can only lead to trouble and ruin.
So separate yourself from false teachers, because 1st, as believers in Christ, you are righteous before God. Then 2nd, as believers in Christ…
YOU ARE THE RESIDENCE OF GOD.
You are His holy temple in which His Holy Spirit dwells. God makes His home in you!
2 Corinthians 6:16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (ESV).
Paul is talking about the church as a corporate body of believers. Notice, the pronouns are plural—we, them, their, and they. He is not talking about individual believers, but believers as a whole. Paul took God’s promise to Israel as a nation (Leviticus 26:11-12) and applied it to the church.
In Ephesians 2, Paul said to believers in Christ, “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).
Then in 1 Corinthians 3, Paul said to the Corinthian believers, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians. 3:16).
The church is God’s temple in whom God’s Spriit dwells. That’s why she should separate herself from unholy, false teachers.
Karl Barth, the famous theologian, was on a streetcar one day in Basel, Switzerland, where he lectured. A tourist to the city climbed on and sat down next to Barth. The two men started chatting with each other.
“Are you new to the city?” Barth inquired.
“Yes,” said the tourist.
“Is there anything you would particularly like to see in this city?” asked Barth.
“Yes,” the tourist said, “I'd love to meet the famous theologian, Karl Barth. Do you know him?”
Barth replied, “Well as a matter of fact, I do. I give him a shave every morning.”
The tourist got off the streetcar quite delighted. He went back to his hotel saying to himself, “I met Karl Barth's barber today” (John Ross, Surrey, England, Leadership, Vol. 8, no. 4’ www.PreachingToday.com).
How often do we sit next to other believers in this place, sing with them, and sometimes eat with them, yet fail to notice that God is right here with us. To be sure, He dwells in every individual believer (1 Cor. 6:19-20), but He also dwells among us when we come together.
So don’t defile His temple with false teaching. Separate yourself from false teachers, because 1st, as believers in Christ you are righteous before God. 2nd, as believers in Christ, you are the residence of God. And 3rd, as believers in Christ…
YOU HAVE A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
You are children of God! For God calls you His sons and daughters.
2 Corinthians 6:17-18 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty” (ESV).
God told Israel in Isaiah 52:11 to leave the nation that will hold them captive for 70 years, i.e., the nation of Babylon. “Go out from their midst and be separate from them,” God says, for “I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me.” This is a reference to Isaiah 43:6, in which God says, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth.”
God tells Israel to leave their captivity, because they are his children. In the same way, God tells believers today to leave their captivity to false teachers, because believers from all ages are His sons and daughters.
The Bible says in John 1:12, “But to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
When you put your trust in Christ as your Savior, God gives you the right to call yourself His son or daughter. That not only implies a special, intimate relationship with God. It also implies that you are a king in God’s kingdom, because in Bible days kings were called “sons of God” (2 Samuel 7:14: Psalm 2:7). So leave your captivity to false teachers and act like the people you are—sons and daughters of God, kings in His kingdom.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tim Harris ran a restaurant for five years (2010-2015) that he called Tim's Place. Tim is a young man with Down syndrome who started his business in 2010 with help from his dad. There, for five years, six days a week, Tim greeted each customer at the door, calling his restaurant “the world's friendliest restaurant.”
In a 2013 episode of NPR's Storycorps, Tim says, “I wanted to own a restaurant ever since I was a kid. That was my dream.” When he was in high school, Tim decided he wanted to go to college. So in 2004, he moved about three hours away to study food service, office skills, and restaurant hosting at Eastern New Mexico University.
After graduation, Tim lived in his own apartment within walking distance of his restaurant. Every day, when customers come into the restaurant, Tim says, “They just melt into my arms for a hug.” The hugs are tallied on a digital counter on the wall, which in 2013 displayed more than 33,000 hugs.
On the episode Tim asks his dad, “How does it feel having a son with a disability?” His dad replies, “You know, Tim, when you were born I was filled with a lot of doubts about whether I could be a good enough dad to be your dad. And many years later now, I'm so happy to have you in my life. I'm very, very proud of you and what you've become.”
“Dad, you are the most loving dad ever. And Mom, too,” Tim says. “You guys are my superheroes. And having you in my life… that makes me special” (NPR Staff, “A 'Good Enough Dad' and His Special Son,” NPR Storycorps, 3-15-13; www.PreachingToday.com).
Despite your disability, your Heavenly Father is very proud of what you have become in Christ, and your relationship with Him makes you special. Please, don’t disparage that relationship by enslaving yourself to false teachers, who tell you you have to earn God’s love.
Separate yourself from false teachers, because as believers in Christ, you are righteous before God, you are the residence of God, and you have a special relationship with God. Please, for these reasons…
SEPARATE YOURSELF OUT OF REVERENCE FOR GOD.
Out of respect for the Lord, cleanse yourself from the defilement of false teaching. In the fear of God, pay attention to the truth, which will complete your progress towards holiness.
2 Corinthians 7:1 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God (ESV).
False teaching defiles both the body and the spirit. It enslaves your whole self to sin, inside and out. On the other hand, “The truth will set you free,” Jesus said (John 8:32). It will set you free from bondage to sin and put you on the path to holy living.
On January 28, 1945, as World War II was grinding to a close, 121 elite Army Rangers liberated over 500 POWs, mostly Americans, from a Japanese prisoner of war camp near Cabanatuan in the Philippines.
The prisoners, many of whom were survivors of the infamous Bataan death march, were in awful condition, physically and emotionally. Before the Rangers arrived, the primary Japanese guard unit had left the camp because of Japan's massive retreat from the Philippines. The new situation was precarious. Japanese troops were still around and in the camp, but they kept their distance from the prisoners. The men of Cabanatuan didn't quite know what to make of their new freedom—if freedom was in fact what it was. And then, without warning, the American Rangers swept upon the camp in furious force.
But one of one of the most interesting facets of the story was the reaction of many of the prisoners. They were so defeated, diseased, and familiar with deceit that many needed to be convinced they were actually free. Was it a trick? A trap? Was this real? One prisoner, Captain Bert Bank, struggling with blindness caused by a vitamin deficiency, couldn't clearly make out his would-be rescuers. He refused to budge. Finally, a soldier walked up to him, tugged his arm, and said, "What's wrong with you? Don't you want to be free?" Bank, from Alabama, recognized the familiar southern accent of his questioner. A smile formed on his lips, and he willingly and thankfully began his journey to freedom.
Finally, well away from what had been, for years, the site of an ongoing, horrific assault on their humanity, the newly freed prisoners began their march home. In the description of one prisoner, contrasting it with the Bataan nightmare years earlier, “It was a long, slow, steady march… but this was a life march, a march of freedom” (Matt Heard, Life with a Capital L, Multnomah, 2014, pp. 80-81; www.PreachingToday.com).
In the same way, your march of freedom begins when you believe the truth—You are free in Christ! By His death on the cross, He has set you free from sin and death. Please, disregard the lies of false teachers, who only want to keep you in bondage, and depend on the truth of God’s Word.
If you want to keep from losing your song, separate yourself from false teachers, because as believers in Christ, you are righteous before God, you are the residence of God, and you have a special relationship with God. So out of reverence for God, let the truth set you free to complete your progress towards holiness.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great 19th Century British preacher put it well when he said, “Nothing makes a man so virtuous as belief of the truth, [but] a lying doctrine will soon beget a lying practice. [For] a man cannot have an erroneous belief without by-and-by having an erroneous life (Charles Haddon Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Vol.1; www.PreachingToday.com).
My dear friends, please, believe the truth and avoid a lying life.
