2 Corinthians 10:1-11:33 - False Teachers

Morning everybody. So today my title is Walking in

the Truth as we continue in Two Corinthians, and this is what

the apostle John wrote. He so he wrote, I have no

greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the

truth. Now, Christian parents have

great joy when they see their children walking in the truth.

If your children aren't yet Christians, don't give up on

them. Keep showing your faith with

them and showing your experience of God with them.

But the apostle John was like the apostle Paul.

They both had spiritual children that they'd led to the Lord who

become Christians. And five years later, Paul was

concerned about some of his spiritual children in Corinth

because there were false apostles who were entering the

church and spreading lies. And Paul was worried that his

spiritual children, the believers, were going to follow

these apostles and walk away from the truth.

So my message today is very topical.

Most of you are members of CCB and on the group, so I think you

know what I'm talking about this morning because of what happened

during last week. For those of you who aren't,

what happened during the week is that an unknown man and an

unknown woman claiming to be members of this church rang

individuals on the group inviting us.

Or at least this is a call we got, inviting us to attend a

prayer meeting on Tuesday at 10:00 PM.

Strange. And those who challenged the

callers, they the callers became offensive.

Sometimes we don't know who they were.

We don't know why they rank or how they got hold of the

numbers. And they pretended to be members

of the church and told lies. So this is very relevant to what

I'm going to be talking about this morning.

I believe it was a satanic attack, by the way.

You know, I believe it's causing some, it's caused distress to

some of us. I'm going to pray at the end as

well for, for us about lies in our lives.

So Paul wrote two Corinthians because of this problem of false

apostles and he mentions about these deceivers in some of the

earlier chapters in the book in the in in two Corinthians in

chapter 2, he said he he described himself as being a man

of sincerity, but he called these false apostles

unscrupulous merchants. 1 version colourfully describes

them and what they did like this.

They they said that they take God's word, water it down and

they then take it to the streets to sell it cheap.

Other versions call them hucksters or traders who preach

for personal profit and handle God's message as if it were

cheap. And so Paul compared his methods

with these deceitful workers. He said we use no hocus pocus,

no clever tricks, no dishonest manipulation of God's word.

He called them wealthy deceived. Well, he didn't call them

wealthy deceivers, but they were wealthy deceivers.

And he rejected the gospel of money, stating that Christ,

though he was rich for your sake, he became poor so that you

believers might by his poverty become rich.

And he's not talking here primarily about material wealth.

He's talking about spiritual riches about, as Jesus said,

about laying up treasures for for ourselves in heaven.

And in Chapter 9, which we had last week, thanks Skip, about

generous giving. Paul said this.

He said that one must give as he has decided in his heart, not

reluctantly or under compulsion. Interesting.

He says that because that's what was going on from these false

preachers, these false apostles. They were corrupt persuaders who

bullied believers into giving money.

So Paul describes the behaviour of these false apostles in

chapters 10, 11 and 12. Now don't worry, I'm not going

to read or try and talk about the whole of those 3 chapters.

So sorry. Before we get to that, I'm going

to talk about fake news. We've become familiar with that

term over the last few years. Fake news is when a person or an

organisation deliberately spreads false information.

And so we're going to have the great CCB fake news quiz now.

OK, so I'm going to show you a picture showing you the first

picture already. So some of you know the answer.

How is this picture connected to fake news?

And if you think you know your answer, put your hand up first

hand up gets the gets to answer. So what's this fake news about,

right? Yeah, it's the fact that 1000

Post Office workers were falsely accused of fraud, went all over

the newspapers, was popularised recently on ITV with Mr. Bates

versus the Post Office. It all happened 25 years ago,

and he's now Sir Alan Bates because he led the campaign to

bring it all out into the open, the lies that have been spread.

OK, So let me just get ready for the next one.

Number two, Question 2. How is this picture connected to

fake news again? It's 25 years ago.

Yeah, Kate, Kate, OK, Did you hear that?

Kate said that? And she actually said MMR.

She didn't just say MMR. She spelt that.

My second question was going to be, what is MMR standing for?

Measles, mumps, rubella. And there was a doctor called

Andrew Wakefield. He's in the picture here.

And he was doing research, but he believed that vaccines caused

autism. And he got a paper published in

The Lancet, which is actually the premier medical research

journal in this country. And he was shown to be a

fraudster. The paper was removed and he was

struck off the medical register. I think he's still doing this

stuff in America nowadays. OK, that's question two.

Well done. Good point for you, Kate.

And now let me just get ready for the next one.

This is A1 word answer. OK, what's this fake news COVID?

Oh, no problem there, right? Yeah, COVID has spread many lies

as a result of COVID. The idea that radio waves around

cell phone masts spread COVID. There was ATV evangelist in

America who claimed that his silver solution was a cure for

COVID. He got prosecuted over it and

found guilty of fraud. COVID led to lots of fake news

and on social media nowadays there's lots of fake news around

that and many people get deceived into reading fake news.

Especially now with AI, it's so much easier to get people

deceived in the physical world world, but it's very, very easy

to deceive them in the spiritual world.

And there's lots of spiritual deception taking place as well.

So what's the common word that we use to describe a person who

spreads fake news? That's one.

Yeah. Yeah.

Liar. You got.

Got it. Yeah.

Liar. A liar.

He Jesus called the devil a liar and the father of lies.

And Satan was the first created being to spread fake news.

He lied to Eve in the Garden of Eden and he's been spreading

lies ever since. So Paul prophesied to the church

in Ephesus about deceivers. He said I know that after my

departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not spurring

the flock, and from among your own selves will arise, arrive,

arise, men speaking twisted things to draw away disciples

after them. Many of you know that Libby and

I were in Zimbabwe for many years and we came across fake

money when we were there. In fact, the bank tellers were

taught how to recognise fake U.S. dollars.

They were trained to feel the dollar bill bills and hold them

up to the light to see the watermarks.

And after they they'd mastered the art of identifying real

notes, they didn't need to know about every single type of fake

that might come on board. All they needed to know was what

a genuine dollar bill really was and Paul used the same principle

when he was warning the Corinthians about false

apostles. The principle Paul was get to

know the genuine and you'll be able to recognise the facts.

If believers understood what a godly leader looked like, not

just looked, you understand, but was if they understand the

characteristics of godly leaders, then they'd be able to

recognise wolves who crept in disguised as sheep.

So Paul didn't go into great detail about these false

apostles in Two Corinthians. Instead, he describes, he

characterises genuine Christian leaders.

And he used his own calling, his own motivation and his own

behaviour to help the Corinthians understand the

difference between the fake and the true.

He described his calling, that is, that it came from God and

his spiritual experience, that that he'd shown signs and

wonders and in front of the Corinthians, and that these

proved his apostleship. He described his sufferings and

how God helped him to be perfected through his

weaknesses, how God gave him power, carried him through.

I will boast all the more, he wrote, all the more gladly of my

weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions

and calamities. For when I'm weak, then I'm

strong. And his boast is not about

himself. His boast is about God.

Through all this, and he talked about his servant hearted

ministry, Paul never abused the Corinthians.

He never demanded their money. Instead, he served them through

his sacrificial love. So I'm going to just try and

describe or try and compare how the fake and the true apostles

measured up. And I want to compare them using

Paul the apostle Paul as a model.

And the first item was about authority.

The false apostles considered themselves to be apostles

because of their worldly success, because they were

naturally gifted, and because they were forceful in their

personalities. They felt that these things

qualified them to be church leaders.

So they appoint themselves as apostles based on their

preaching ability and their outward appearances.

And they compared themselves all the time with other Christian

leaders and use themselves as a standard of perfection.

They bad mouthed Paul told the church that he was weak and that

he was a lousy preacher. They claimed that he wasn't a

true apostle and claimed that they were superior to him.

In fact, Paul uses in his book when he talk, when he describes

them, he calls them super apostles.

Not just apostles. He calls them super apostles

because they and, and this is sarcasm of the greatest order,

because they were exalting themselves.

And that this is what he wrote in Two Corinthians 10 with a

heavy degree of sarcasm. We wouldn't dare to say that we

are as wonderful as these other men who tell you how important

they are. He told the Corinthian church

that their existence, that their existence and the signs and

wonders that they'd observed were the proofs that he was an

apostle. Now, God doesn't just call

apostles. He doesn't just call pastors,

and he doesn't just call missionaries.

God has a call on every person's life.

Maybe it's God wants you to have a certain career, or he's going

to call on a job for you, or a ministry in the church or an

activity in the community. But knowing God's calling is

important and when God calls you to an area of life, he gives you

an anointing his Holy Spirit to equip you for that calling.

So I want to just raise the question in your in your minds

about what's my calling? What's the calling that God is

calling me to? Just have a think about that and

maybe talk to your friends or your family about it or ask God

to reveal His call for you. So let's move on to #2 which is

motivation. What was it that motivated these

false apostles in Corinth? It was self-interest.

They boasted about themselves all the time, about their

health, about their wealth, about their success.

But their main motivation was to gain followers who looked up to

them, who submitted to them. And their strongest motivation

was money. Getting their followers to give

them money was their main driving force.

And Paul's motivation was the complete opposite.

He didn't try to out boast the false apostles.

He wrote humbly about his spiritual experiences.

He spoke he reluctantly, he says several times.

He's only boasting reluctantly to share about his sufferings

and his weaknesses and his health problems and how God's

power has enabled him to endure and that he was supporting

himself. His motivation wasn't driven by

a desire to exploit his followers.

He just wanted to carry on building God's church.

That was his motivation. He said I will keep on doing

what I'm doing in order to cut the ground from under those who

want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the

things that they boast about. OK, so that's motivation.

What about behaviour? So Paul described this false

apostle behaviour like this. Such men are false apostles,

deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of

Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan

disguises himself as an Angel of light, so it's no surprise if

his servants also disguise themselves as servants of

righteousness. So they were pretending to be

apostles and deceiving people to follow them and disguising

themselves as servants of righteousness.

But there were really Lords of immorality.

And that's what Satan is. He disguised himself as a

righteous Angel of light. And the false apostles were just

like their spiritual father. They lied, they dominated, and

they exploited the followers, especially about money.

And Jude describes such people. He says that they are shepherds

feeding themselves and he condemned them for perverting

the grace of God into a licence for immorality.

And we'll see this, we'll see this later on.

But Paul was humble and he was sincere and he was loving and he

was servant hearted and the Corinas were like his spiritual

children. And he described himself as a

parent who was willing to spend and be spent for them.

He said, I seek not what is yours.

He wrote to them, I seek not what is yours, but you.

For children are not obligated to save up for their parents,

but parents for their children. Changing a bit, Nowadays parents

have to bail out the kids a lot of the time.

But anyway, that's OK, that's good.

But we hope that our children will look after us when we're

older. That's not always the case, is

it? So where are we?

So Peter wrote about these false teachers in his letter.

I put together 4 different translations of the same verse

here because I think it gives us a better understanding of the

character. Let me just read them.

These false teachers only want your money, so they will use you

by telling you lies. In their greed, these teachers

will exploit you with fabricated stories.

They will make up clever lies to get hold of your money.

They're only out for themselves. They'll say anything, anything

that sounds good to exploit you. So if that's a description of

the behaviour of these false apostles, let's look a little

bit at the teaching now. So the false apostles in cometh,

they were Jewish, we believe, and they probably held similar

beliefs to the Jewish believers who Paul mentions in Galatia and

who Paul met with in Jerusalem. And it's described in the book

of Acts. And these Jewish believers, they

belong to the Pharisee party, and they elevated their own

ideas and their own traditions above God's Word.

They taught. This is a quote from the book of

Acts, chapter 15. It is necessary to circumcise

Acts 15 · chapter mention

Gentiles and order them to keep the law of Moses.

And that's probably what the false apostles in Glacier and in

Corinth were saying as well. And by doing this, they were

rejecting the gospel of grace that God had revealed to Paul

and to the other apostles, the other true apostles.

And Paul calls these deceivers, he calls them Satan's servants

and that their their description, their deception and

compared their their deception to Satan's deception of Eve in

the Garden of Eden. He described their teaching

covers like this. This is what he says about the

false teaching. 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. So the Corinthians had heard the

gospel that Paul breached. They believed it.

They trusted it and they'd received the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit had come into the hearts like we were talking

about earlier in the service. But afterwards, after they were

born again, they heard the false apostles.

They heard the preaching, and the preaching was about a

different Jesus. Don't know what aspect of it

was, but Jesus maybe just that he was a good man, I don't know.

But their preaching wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit.

It was inspired by the spirit of this world and the beliefs

accepted this different teaching about Jesus and they were

deceived into into accepting a different gospel and they became

more like slaves, the disciples of these false apostles of

people that Paul called fools. He uses sarcasm again here.

He said for you put up with fools gladly since you

yourselves are wise. And I think he's speaking very

sarcastically here. You buried if someone enslaves

you or devours you. These deceived believers

consider themselves now to be so wise because of the teaching

they've accepted. But Cole considered them to be

slaves, slaves to strict religious laws and subjects of

powerful men Who he, who, who, who figuratively ate them for

dinner that they were devouring these believers.

So what is the pure gospel? It's a gospel of grace.

It's a gospel of Christ's apostles taught.

And this is just a a short summary, that Jesus died for our

sins and was raised from the dead.

Secondly, that salvation comes only by God's grace through

faith. And faith is when a person puts

their trust in Jesus Christ to be their Saviour only through

faith. And after a person believes

faith leads to good works that God recognises, good works by

themselves never lead to salvation.

Not the law, not giving money. Salvation is never the result of

our human obedience to the law. It's always God's gift.

It's always grace. So ever since Pentecost, Satan

has been trying to distort this gospel of grace.

And Jesus spoke about this. He told a parable, the parable

of the wheat and the weeds, as an illustration of how Satan

does it. We know his methods.

God's revealed it to us. So here's the story.

A farmer owned a wheat field and one day his enemy sowed seeds in

the farmers field. And in this in this parable, the

wheat's a picture of believers, but not just believers, it's a

picture of God's truth. And the weeds are not just a

picture of fake believers, they're a picture of false

teaching. And the enemy who's doing the

sowing is Satan. And the main lesson of this

parable is that outwardly the wheat and the weeds can look the

same. And the application of this for

us is that firstly, in our churches we have unbelievers as

well as believers. There are unbelievers who look

like Christians and you can't tell the difference from at the

outside at the moment. One day that difference will be

made clear, but you can't tell the difference.

And secondly, that God recruits false teachers to infiltrate

churches and spread lies. False teachers who twist Bible

verses so that they sound like the truth, so that we can't

distinguish easily between truth and fake news.

Fake lies. Well, not fatal lies, but lies.

Just lies. OK, Yeah, so we come to this.

So false teachers are like the weeds that the enemy planted

among the weak, among the wheat. And in recent years, the

prosperity gospel has sprung up in churches throughout the

world, just like the weeds started during the 1950's, the

modern rendition of the prosperity gospel.

Pentecostal preachers in the United States started to spread

this prosperity gospel and it spread rapidly in Latin America,

in Asia, and all over Africa as well.

And I can vouch for that, aided by religious TV channels and

nowadays social media. Lots of this on social media

nowadays. And the core message of the

prosperity gospel is that God desires all believers to have

material wealth and physical health.

And if you hear someone preaching that God wants you to

be comfortable and wealthy, they're preaching the prosperity

gospel. It's not the teaching of Christ.

Christ, who told us to pick up a cross and follow him, and to lay

it not treasures on earth, but treasures in heaven.

So the prosperity gospel has idolatry at its core.

It's a gospel of money. It directs people to worship

God, not for who he is, but for what he can do for me.

And it treats God like a cosmic vending machine.

It shifts the focus away from Christ suffering, away from

salvation by grace through faith.

And instead it focuses on me, my wealth, my health, and my

happiness. And it may sound appealing, it's

a modern day perversion of the gospel.

It's the 21st century version of a 1st century heresy, a false

gospel that Jesus, Paul, Peter, Jude all describe in the New

Testament. And the mechanism for the

prosperity gospel to work is the Word of Faith.

Now we believe in the word and we believe in faith.

But let me try and describe very briefly what they false gospel

preachers base the doctrine on of prosperity, which is Word of

Faith. They teach that in order to

obtain wealth and healing from God, followers must, and you've

probably heard this phrase, followers must name it and claim

it. They teach that God desires

believers to be prosperous, and they say that you can blame

these blessings by declaring that you already have the

blessing, like healing of money as if you've already received

it. Now there's some verses in the

Bible that say this as well, but it's a way that this is

interpreted and put into practise that matters not.

The texts that Jesus spoke about, Jesus spoke about this.

They say that believing this Word of Faith unlocks God, God's

promises, and that followers are encouraged to speak positive

declarations like I am healed, I am wealthy as if they've already

happened, using the power of the words, the Word of Faith, to

bring them into a reality. It's mine over matter stuff.

Prosperity. The prosperity gospel may sound

like it's biblical and didn't Jesus ask to say this?

Jesus said ask and it will be given to you.

He said unto now you've asked nothing in my name.

Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full Jesus.

But Jesus taught his disciples also to pray.

Our Father who art in heaven give us this day Our Daily

Bread. There's a difference between

asking God because of how gracious and merciful he is, and

demanding from God what is our divine right.

And there is another doctrine, the little God's false doctrine,

which says that we have got divine rights, we are little

gods. There's a world of difference

between letting your requests be made known to God through prayer

and Thanksgiving. Philippians 4/6 and demanding

material inheritance from God. Jesus said I'm come that they

might have life and they might have it more abundantly.

An abundant life here isn't so much about material and wealth

and physical well-being. It's about the gift.

This is how Jesus interpreted. It's about the gift of eternal

life. And false teachers have made-up

a lie that believers can use their faith to demand prosperity

from God. I believe, OK, I want to come to

another doctrine associated very often used with the prosperity

gospel. Well, it's called the seed faith

doctrine. It was first taught in 1947 by

ATV evangelist called Oral Roberts in America.

And the teaching is a twisted interpretation of a verse in two

Quintus 9. This verse in indeed teaches

that there is a blessing from God that accompanies generous

giving. But this verse is twisted.

Oral Roberts twisted the meaning of this verse to benefit

himself. He preached that money given to

the ministry. His ministry acted as a seed

that God would then multiply and give you back the prophet.

He gave you a gift back. It was known as giving to get.

It's a false belief. Copeland explained this giving

to get principle in this way. Listen this it's based on a

verse that Jesus said about giving up your house or your

family for God and will. It will lead you to do God give

you back a hundredfold and Copeland used Jesus statement

and he he built on to this prosperity teaching the seed

faith doctrine. He said this give her $10 and

receive $1000. Give $1000 and you'll receive

$100,000. It's a good deal, he said.

And it's estimated that she and he, Kenneth Copeland, are now

worth half a billion # million, half a million, half a billion

dollars. And thousands of other

prosperity preachers have followed the same false teaching

and are using it to benefit themselves.

So many people in Pentecostal churches and evangelical

churches are being drawn into this heretical teaching.

So 1000 Protestant churchgoers in the United States were asked

if they agreed with this statement.

The statement is this. To receive material blessings

from God, I have to do something for God.

In 2017, about 1/4 of them said that was true.

Five years later, about 1/2 of them said that that was true and

there were some other things. But basically it's it's this,

this is a slide showing that prosperity gospel is

infiltrating Pentecostal churches and evangelical

churches around the world. This is what the director who

carried out this, this research, his organisation very, very

solid. He said in the last five years,

four more churchgoers are reflecting prosperity gospel

teachings, including the heretical belief that material

blessings are earned from God. That is not the gospel of grace.

That is the gospel of works. It's the gospel of works, not by

works, lest any man should boast.

And it's especially prevalent amongst young people and amongst

the least educated church goers. So don't get us deceived by it

or associated false teachings. There's another doctrine of the

man of God doctrine that teaches subjection through heavy

shepherding by men who are we are to call them our spiritual

fathers. I won't go into that, but these

heresies are increasing and they will continue to grow as they

have been growing until Jesus comes going to scripture.

So I want to just land us now. So how to avoid false teaching?

First way is test the spirits. John urged believers not to

believe every spirit, but to test the spirits to see whether

they are from God, because it might be a lie from Satan and

his servants. And the best way of testing is

by knowing Scripture, checking the teachers out, and checking

their teachings out against the Bible.

And Paul preached this to the Bereans.

He said they received the word that Paul had preached.

So Paul had preached the word and they received it with all

eagerness. They'd never heard of God's

grace before, so they checked it out, checked out Scripture and

confirmed that what he was saying was true.

So don't just accept what preachers say, even if he says

it's an apostle. Check it out yourself or ask a

leader if you're not sure. Secondly, don't go by outward

appearances. Check character.

Check the character of those who are preaching or those who are

teaching. Beware of those who make

spiritual boasts. Don't be swayed by the stories

of experiences that they've had of God, of God revealing stuff

to them. New doctrines especially, or the

signs and wonders follow godly leaders.

Check out whether they are humble, whether they serve

others, whether they don't seek their own personal game.

I think this is my last slide. Beware of prosperity preachers

and also beware of prosperity preach preacher followers as

well. Paul spoke about the followers

here in this verse, but he warned about people when he was

writing to Timothy. He warned Timothy about people

who were depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining

that godliness is a means of gain.

That's the keyword. Godliness isn't a means of gain,

not materially. He's talking about material

gain, not spiritual gain. And this is how the message

translates One Timothy 6. He says if anyone teaches a

different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of

our Lord Jesus Christ, the words result in constant friction

between people of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the

truth and who think that godliness is a means to

financial gain. So he's talking about the impact

of this teaching on churches That causes division.

It causes constant friction between people of corrupt mind.

Be careful to the teachers that you listen to.

Many of those who on TBN and the God Channel and many who are on

YouTube are prosperity gospel teachers.

Some of those big name preachers like TD Jakes and Joyce Meyer

have now renounced some prosperity teaching.

But it's wise to be careful about what they preach because

millions of people are being robbed of the truth and now

think that godliness is a way of financial gain.

Prosperity teachings produce envy, strike malicious talk and

evil suspicion. I want to just pray for us right

now. Let's just pray.

Yeah. Heavenly Father, we want to

thank you for your word, Lord, thank you for the your spirit

that you give us to understand your word.

And we just recognise through your word that we live in a a

world which is dominated by Satan and that his lies run

through this world every day. Lord, thank you that you've

given us the weapons of our warfare, which is spiritual to

pulling down struggles. And right now, Lord, I want to

pray that you will, if we've got any strongholds, any lies in our

minds or in our lives, I pray Lord, that you will reveal that

to us and help us to pull down those spiritual strongholds.

Lord. And Lord, if we, if we've been

also concerned about not just concerned, but disturbed by what

happened this week on the what's up side, Lord, I pray that

you'll give us your peace and please watch over us and protect

us, Lord, in Jesus name we pray.