Well, good morning, brothers.
Good morning.
Isn’t it wonderful to come before the Lord and worship Him, all in one voice, all in one heart, all in one spirit?
Let me begin by reminding you that our Lord greatly delights in you. Since He has loved you with an everlasting love, He has never begun to delight in you. He has always delighted in you, and He always will. Praise God. We are so thankful.
As we come to look in the Word of God, I want to remind my own heart, and I want to remind you again, that there is a principle of Bible study that is absolutely indispensable. That principle is total reliance on the Holy Spirit of God.
He has put a Bible teacher in your heart, put a Bible teacher in my heart, and it is the Holy Spirit of God. I would like to share a couple of verses before we actually share what is on my heart.
Matthew 6:28:
Observe how the lilies of the field grow;
They do not toil, nor do they spin.
He did not say, “Look at the lilies, that they grow.” He said, “Pay attention to how they grow. Look at the lilies, how they grow.” They do not toil, they do not spin, and so on.
In connection with that verse, I would like to share Song of Solomon 6:3. It has already been mentioned that this wonderful book is a picture of the Bridegroom-Lover and the bride.
He pastures His flock among the lilies.
Now put that together. Those who know and understand lily life have learned how the lily grows: by drinking in the rain, drinking in the sunshine, and drawing from the soil. That is how the lily grows.
And we have a whole garden of lilies. He feeds His flock among the lilies. You find someone who has understood how the lily grows, and there you will be fed. There you will be fed. He feeds His flock among the lilies.
So let us thank the Lord. He has done a wonderful thing. He has gathered together men who have had their eyes opened by the Lord Himself. Once again, He will feed us in these secret places.
Let us bow before the Lord.
Father, we thank You so much that we have had this privilege to be here, to praise Your name, to lift You up, and to recall how wonderful You are.
And now, Lord, as we come to this final session, we pray that if there are any loose ends in any heart, You would bring it all together and clinch the revelation of Christ in our hearts, that we might leave here walking in a wonderful union with Jesus.
We thank You that we can trust You for that. We give this session unto You in the matchless name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Tom and I want to thank all of you, and Family Ministries, for inviting us and for the privilege that we have had.
We know that this room is filled with godly men who have the same Holy Spirit, the same Bible, and the same Lord Jesus, and whose hearts are full of the revelation of Christ.
I know some men in this room who would be very thankful if they had the privilege that has fallen to Tom and me, to stand up here. I know your heart is full, and you have a Christ to share, and you would love that privilege. But in the will of God, at this time, it has fallen to us.
We do not think that we have more light than anybody in this room, or that we can express anything any better than anybody in this room. But we are so thankful for the privilege He has given us. It is a great honor.
I would include Tom, because I know his heart: we thank the Lord. And we thank you for allowing us to share what we have seen of Christ.
Now, as Tom shared last night, the war is over. Praise God. His bow is in the heavens.
And as Lex reminded us today, the Lord has taken a new posture, a new attitude—a one-time action, an everlasting attitude—that He would never again look at you or deal with you apart from His Son.
All of God’s dealings with you are through Jesus, and all of your dealings with Him are through Jesus. We praise God for that marvelous revelation.
Tom mentioned that this lesson today would be a maverick, standing on its own two feet. But it is connected in this: every message is our Lord Jesus Christ.
I have a burden on my heart, and I pray that the Lord would grace me to discharge it. Those of you who are bursting to take my place up here, sit tight. You know, the Lord arranges these things.
I know you are full, and I know you could share a revelation of Christ. Perhaps someday, or soon, or whenever, you will have that privilege.
We have a weekly Bible study. I say weekly, but it has not been that consistent if we have been on the road a little bit. We have been going through the book of 2 Corinthians together, and there is a passage in 2 Corinthians that has wonderfully gripped my heart.
There are a couple here who have been attending that Bible study, and some listening online, so you might hear again some of the things we shared when we were together. But I found much of the burden that God gave the Apostle Paul, and I found that God had begun to work that in my heart.
What I would like to do is get the text before you. Then I have several observations about the text that put it in the context of 2 Corinthians. After that, I would like to share what the Lord has laid on my heart. I pray that God will use it to wrap things up for us and close our gathering together.
The text is 2 Corinthians 11. If you have your Bibles and you like to follow along, please do; otherwise, you can listen. Second Corinthians 11:2–3:
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.But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
your minds will be led astray
from the simplicity and the purity of devotion to Christ.
I would like to share a little bit of my light on the simplicity and purity of devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Before we get into that, I would like to make a couple of observations that put this text in its context in 2 Corinthians.
The first observation is this: the Apostle Paul, by the providence of God, had a special relationship with the Christians at Corinth. Paul considered himself, by the will of God, to be the spiritual father of that fellowship.
Listen to 2 Corinthians 10:14:
We are not overextending ourselves, as if we did not reach to you,
for we were the first to come even as far as you in the gospel of Christ.
He said, “God used us. We were the first ones to reach you with the gospel.”
Then, in the passage from chapter 11, he carries out that same idea: he has been given the honor to be the spiritual father of that fellowship.
I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
your minds will be led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
He said, “I, as your spiritual father, betrothed you to our Lord Jesus.” God uses that as an illustration.
Remember, in those days—and still in many Oriental countries—marriages and weddings were arranged by the family. The father arranged the wedding. Even Samson had to go to his father and say, “Hey, get this thing going together here.”
I am glad I did not grow up in that culture, to be honest. One reason is that my parents were divorced when I was three years old, and the several wives my father had after my mother did not work out all that well. I cannot imagine the choice he would have made for me. I tremble to think about that.
Even Lillian’s parents, at the beginning, did not see me as the first choice for Lillian. They were brought up very strictly Lutheran, in a Lutheran church. When I came along, I was a threat in their minds. They thought I was going to take her from the Lutheran church, and they were encouraging her to go in another direction.
I am thankful that I was not in that culture, because the Lord gave me the most wonderful wife on the planet. I praise God for that.
But in Bible times, the parents arranged the marriage. Paul said, “Because I am your spiritual father, it has fallen to me to arrange the marriage.”
So he says in verse 2:
I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy;
I betrothed you to one husband,
that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.
Paul says, “As your spiritual father, I get to choose your husband, and I found a beauty. I found a great husband for you—a perfect Husband: the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul took every opportunity to encourage that wedded bliss and to bring them into union with the Bridegroom-Lover of their souls. That was his heart. That was his passion. That was his one desire: to see his daughter, the Corinthian church, united to that Husband, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In his mind, heart, and spirit, the Christian life was a romance. It was a picture of wedded bliss: being united to Christ and going off in that love.
But Paul became concerned—more than concerned. He began to burn with a jealous love because the relationship he had arranged, that union with Christ, was being threatened.
He said, “God has given me a godly jealousy.” When you see “godly,” that comes from “godlike.” It is a jealousy like God has.
The jealousy on the earth, when we talk about someone being jealous, comes from suspicion. It comes from selfishness. It is often accompanied by vindictiveness and anger.
But listen to Song of Solomon 8:6:
Put me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
jealousy is as severe as Sheol;
its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord.
Paul was consumed with the flame of the Lord. He had this love for them, and he saw that their relationship was threatened.
Exodus 20:5:
I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.
Exodus 34:14:
You shall not worship any other god,
for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Paul said, “I have a love like that—not jealousy like on the earth, but like God has.”
If you did a word study on the word jealousy, you would see definitions such as:
The history of the church in Corinth was that they had been infiltrated by what are actually called “super-apostles.” There was this conflict: “Paul is not an apostle. We are. You ought to listen to us.”
These teachers had come in, and they were trying to take over the fellowship.
Second Corinthians 11:4:
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—
Then he says, ironically, “You bear this beautifully.” They began to listen to another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel.
His father-heart began to burn with the flame of the Lord, with a jealous love. “I, as your father, betrothed you to one Husband.” One. He is to be your one and only.
Paul was looking, and he saw mixture. You know how mixture grieves God’s heart. We touched on that: mixture, how it grieves God’s heart. Paul became deeply concerned for these Christians.
So that is the first observation: Paul had a special relationship to this church because God had used him and his team to be the first to bring them the gospel. They were the spiritual parents.
Now, I realize that what was true of Paul is not true of me. In no way am I claiming that I am anybody’s spiritual father here.
You can probably thank the Lord for those whom God used in your life to bring you to the knowledge of the Son of God. I am not standing here like Paul and saying, “I am your spiritual father, and listen to me.” I am not saying that.
I am saying, “I am your spiritual friend, and I am your spiritual brother.”
Though I cannot claim what Paul was claiming, I can claim that God has begun to work the flame of the Lord in my heart—a jealousy when I see God’s people being led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus Christ.
The older I get, and as my health continues to fail, that flame seems to burn hotter and hotter as I meet with God’s children.
I confess, I am a monomaniac. I only have one message, and it is Him. It is Jesus. Praise the Lord.
He wants you to live in an unbroken union with the Lord Jesus. My heart burns when I see that some are turning away from that.
My heart today is not claiming any spiritual superiority. But as your brother in Christ, as a fellow Christian, as a member of the body, I have a flame in my heart that you should not be deceived and led away from the simplicity and pure devotion to Jesus.
It breaks my heart to see Christians running here, there, and everywhere, and that wonderful union is broken. I long for every brother in this room—and, if in the will of God some should ever listen through mechanical means, for every brother and sister—that they would know this union.
Let me make a second observation. Not only did Paul have a special relationship with the church of Corinth, but listen again to chapter 11, verse 3:
I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
your minds will be led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
I want to home in on those words: “As the serpent deceived Eve.”
In that light, I want to share 1 Timothy 2:14:
It was not Adam who was deceived,
but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.
I want to home in on the truth that Eve was deceived; Adam was not. Adam was a willful sinner. He chose to rebel against the Lord. He did it on purpose. But Eve was deceived.
God makes a huge point concerning Adam and Eve—who was deceived and who did it on purpose. Romans 5:12 says:
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world,
and death through sin,
and so death spread to all men,
because all sinned.
The reason I am calling attention to the word deceived is that I think the Corinthians get a bad rap. I think Peter gets a bad rap. I think Thomas gets a bad rap. I think Martha sometimes gets a bad rap. I think Jonah got a bad rap, and Gideon got a bad rap.
In other words, the way we look at things may not be the way they really are.
I think this precious fellowship of believers, because those who study the book have seen such problems in this church, has often been harshly judged. You remember, they were a motley group. They came out of a terrible background.
Listen again to 1 Corinthians 6:9–11:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived;
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
Such were some of you.
That is what the church was made of. All of that kind of people got together, and the Lord, in His mercy, gave them the gospel.
Then he adds:
But you were sanctified,
but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the Spirit of our God.
You were washed.
Is that not a great truth? Such were some of you, but you were washed.
That was the church. When you read 1 Corinthians, you see that they were into worldly wisdom, had divisions, and said, “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” and “I am of Cephas.” They had cliques, and they even made Jesus the head of a clique: “I am of Christ.”
They tolerated evil, took one another to court, had problems with questionable practices, and some got drunk at the Lord’s Table. They had problems with the resurrection and false doctrine.
Because of that, there is harsh judgment on them: “What a bunch of rebels. What a bunch of willful sinners, just like Adam.”
Except Paul looks at the Corinthians and says, “You are more like Eve.” I see all these problems, but it is not because your heart is not right.
I think the Corinthians had hungry hearts. I think they were led astray. I think they were deceived, like Eve was deceived.
If you take your eyes off Christ—our brother was talking about walking on the water and keeping your eyes on Christ—you take your eyes off Christ, and that is going to lead to cliques. It is going to lead to worldly wisdom, and it is going to lead to divisions.
I do not think this church is rightly judged when people simply say that they were against the Lord. I do not think they were against the Lord. Paul’s heart was burning hot in jealous love, with the flame of the Lord, because he saw there was deception going on.
That deception led to all kinds of problems. That is the second observation: these folks were listening to another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel, and they were being deceived.
I am not saying there were no rebellious people at Corinth, but they were dealt with differently. The immoral man was excommunicated and delivered unto Satan. Some who came unworthily and drunk were sick, and some went home. God dealt with them.
But I am saying that the majority of the Corinthian believers did not fail to deal with sin because they were encouraging it. They just said, “Who are we to deal with that? He has that in his life, but look at us. We are just going to let God deal with it.”
Paul had to deal with that. It was a spiritual thing, but they were off track. I think deception is the problem dealt with here.
I hope there is nobody in this room who is rebellious, closed to Christ, and has said no to the will of God. I do not think you would be here if that were your heart attitude.
But there is a possibility that, as the serpent deceived Eve, any one of us could be led astray from the simplicity and pure devotion to Jesus Christ. We need to look at that.
May God help us as we continue. I want to make one more general observation. Not only does Paul have a special relationship with this group, and not only is he dealing with deception, but my third observation comes from verse 3: “As the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness.”
It is the reference to the serpent. You know who the serpent is. The serpent, of course, is the enemy. Once you start there, you can spend the rest of the time considering everything written about the enemy and his tactics.
I do not want to do that, but I want to mention two things that tie into this deception.
The first is that the enemy, Satan, has only one bull’s-eye. I cannot say he has only one target, but he has only one bull’s-eye. Every time he attacks, this is what he is attacking.
It is mentioned in 2 Corinthians 10:4–5, where it deals with spiritual warfare:
The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh,
but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
We are destroying speculations
and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God,
and we are taking every thought captive
to the obedience of Christ.
Every part of that verse can be taken apart and meditated upon. It is all rich. But that expression—“every lofty thing set up against the knowledge of God”—that is the bull’s-eye.
Satan hates the knowledge of God. He hates the knowledge of God.
Sometimes we think Satan is shooting randomly everywhere. “Old Satan is out trying to stop our building program, trying to stop this or that, attacking our health, attacking our schedule, attacking our families, attacking our ministry.”
Only if it is connected to the knowledge of God. That is what he is concerned about. He hates the knowledge of God, and he hates it with an infernal hatred.
Brothers, the enemy does not want you to know Jesus. He does not. That is his bull’s-eye every time.
Really, he hates Christ, but he cannot get to Him. So he goes for His children. If I wanted to hurt you, I could try to hurt you, or I could touch your children. If I touch your children, I have hurt you—probably worse than if I tried to hurt you directly.
Satan’s target is against the knowledge of God. All those who are going forward in the knowledge of God need to be protected by the One who is born of God, and He will protect.
I think most of you brothers are familiar with how the word know is used in the Bible.
In our text, in chapter 11, we are talking about marriage: “I betrothed you to one husband.” Satan hates the knowledge of God. How are those tied together?
Listen to Genesis 4:1:
Now the man had relations with his wife Eve,
and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.
The King James Version says, “Adam knew Eve, and she conceived.” That is knowledge. That is what he hates. He hates that relationship that leads to fruit. He hates the knowledge of God.
Genesis 4:25 says:
Adam had relations again with his wife,
and she gave birth to a son, Seth.
Adam knew his wife.
The book of Hosea is a great book on marriage. Right in the heart of that book, we have Hosea 6:3:
So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.
In that context, it is speaking about knowing the Lord in all the intimacies of the marriage bond, in all the intimacies of the marriage tie. Press on to know the Lord intimately.
His going forth is as certain as the dawn, and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.
Satan’s single target is the knowledge of God.
Let me take you one step further. What is his single weapon? You say he has many weapons, but really he only has one weapon.
Another name for him is Lucifer. You are familiar with the name Lucifer: the light-bearer, the one who bears light, son of the morning. When Venus rises as the morning star, that is called Lucifer—the light-bearer.
When Paul talks about Satan in 2 Corinthians 11, he says Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
I have been hearing a lot of the expression “fake news.” Maybe you have heard that. Fake news.
Well, he is an angel of light—fake light. It is not real light. It is fake light, but he masquerades as an angel of light.
His one target is the knowledge of God, and his one weapon is light—knowledge, but the wrong kind, of course.
Let us get to the heart of it. He is going after Eve.
Second Corinthians 11:3:
I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
your minds will be led away from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
As Satan deceived Eve, I would like to ask: how did he do that?
Paul was afraid that the same way he did it then, he would do it to the Corinthians. My heart says that the same way he did it then is how he always does it.
I want every brother here to leave in the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. If you want to end the conference, that is a way to leave the conference. That is what I want.
So I need to take you back about six thousand years—or however many years you put in there—all the way to the Garden of Eden.
You have heard me describe from time to time—or some of you have—that the Old Testament is the New Testament. The only difference is that the Old Testament is truth in the seed, and the New Testament is fully developed.
If you throw the Gospels in there, you would have the seed, the bud, and the fully developed form when you come to the Epistles.
The seed is thrilling. That is why I love the Old Testament, because it is in story form. You have redemptive history. You can follow the history of Israel and get one Romans 6 truth, or something like that. But it is all there.
Because we are going back so far, to the Garden of Eden, the seed is really small. It is hard to look at an acorn and say, “I see the oak in there, that great oak tree.” It is there, but you cannot see it.
You look at a pumpkin seed and say, “I am not sure I really see the pumpkin in there,” but it is in there. It is in the seed.
I do not know if you have ever seen a gladiolus bulb, but I do not know anything quite as ugly as a gladiolus bulb. Yet the gladiolus is so different from the seed.
What I am going to do—and I hope you will bear with me—you might think I am making too much of one single word or one little expression. You might say, “I do not see that there.”
I am dealing with the seed. Give me a break, brothers. I am dealing with a seed, and I am asking you to make room, because what I have done is work backwards.
I had to go to the full blossom and then take it back and ask, “Do I see that in the seed?” I see it in a word; I see it in a phrase.
If you do not see it, at least do this for me: run to the full balance of Scripture and to the fully developed form, because the things I will share are surely Bible things. I think I see them in the seed.
If you think I am reading something in or spiritualizing, just be patient with me.
How was Eve deceived? Paul was afraid that it was going to happen again.
Genesis 3:1:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had made.
And he said to the woman,
“Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
The first thing I want you to know is that Satan’s first communication—his word—was, “Has God said?” Satan attacks the Word of God. The deception begins with the Word of God.
If I just said to you, holding up the Book, “You can expect Satan to attack the Word of God,” that is a completed canon. It has sixty-six books in the Word of God.
Thanks to Cardinal Hugo and some others, there are 1,189 chapters in that Word of God. For those who think they know, they have counted 773,692 words. I did not check it out.
But the point is: more than three-quarters of a million words. If I say, “We need not to be deceived because Satan attacks the Word of God,” then you would need to be aware of more than three-quarters of a million words to make sure he is not attacking you.
That would be a little confusing with a Bible that big.
But brothers, if the Bible were smaller—much smaller—if it were one chapter, it might be easier to see. Or if it were a paragraph, and then Satan attacked it, I might be able to take the paragraph and say, “What did he do?” I could see it.
If it were just a sentence, it would be a lot easier to see.
So what I would like to do is show you the Bible when it was just a sentence, because that is all Eve had. She had the Word of God, and it was a sentence. Then we will look at how Satan attacked that sentence.
Genesis 2:16–17:
The Lord God commanded the man, saying,
“From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
That was her Bible. That was the Word from God to Eve. But Satan took hold of that sentence, and I want to show you what happened.
When God gave it, He said, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat.”
When Eve quoted the same sentence to Satan, to the serpent, she dropped a couple of words. She dropped the word any—“From any tree you can eat”—and she dropped the word freely.
“From any tree you can eat freely,” said God.
God has a liberal heart, and He says you can eat from any tree freely.
If I gave you permission to come to my garden and said, “Help yourself”—well, that is not going to work, because I do not have a garden. Tom is a gardener. He is a garden.
If Tom said, “Come to my garden and help yourself,” you might take him up on it, but I think you would be shy. You might take a couple of tomatoes and a couple of cucumbers, or something.
But if Tom said, “I want you to take anything out of my garden, and please do it freely,” then you would bring your truck in and back it up to the garden. It makes a difference.
Satan said, “If you are going to understand, what you need is light, because all you have now is life. You can substitute light for life, and you need some light. God is keeping light from you.”
If you are going to understand God’s heart, you have to drop grace. When you drop freely, you drop grace.
That was his first attack on the Bible: drop grace. “From any tree you can freely eat.”
I hope you brothers know how freely becomes part of the gospel message. I am going to read some verses without comment.
Romans 3:24:
Being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:32:
He who did not spare His own Son,
but delivered Him over for us all,
how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
First Corinthians 2:12:
We have received, not the spirit of the world,
but the Spirit who is from God,
so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
Revelation 21:6:
He said to me, “It is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
I will give to the one who thirsts
from the spring of the water of life freely.”
Revelation 22:17:
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let the one who hears say, “Come.”
And let the one who is thirsty come;
let the one who wishes take the water of life freely.
Hosea 14:4:
I will heal their apostasy;
I will love them freely.
What a precious truth that is. It would be hard to love a life partner freely if there had been unfaithfulness, but God can do it. Praise God for that.
Matthew 10:8:
Freely you received, freely give.
Galatians 5:1:
It was for freedom that Christ set us free;
therefore keep standing firm
and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.
Assurance, victory, rest, forgiveness, and security—it is all freely given to us, brothers, in the rainbow covenant, because God is dealing with us in Christ Jesus.
Satan, in effect, was saying to Eve, “Do not take God too seriously. He is a great God. He is a holy God. You have to be reverent. You cannot come that boldly. You have to come gingerly and tenderly and walk on eggshells.”
That is the first thing Satan did. He attacked the Word of God, and Eve dropped freely.
But then he did something else. She not only dropped freely, but she added something to that one sentence.
Genesis 2:17 says:
From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.
That is how it came from God. But when she quoted it to Satan, she made this change. Genesis 3:3:
From the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden,
God has said, “You shall not eat from it or touch it,
or you will die.”
God never said, “Do not touch it.”
You say, “Oh, come on, that is just one little word.” It is in the seed. Again, give me a break.
Do you know what she did? Brothers, listen. She dropped grace, and she added law. That is what she did.
That is his deception, and that is how he gets us. He leads us from the simplicity and purity of Christ by attacking the precious Word of God.
God was saying, “You have life. You have enough.” Satan says, “No, you need light. You cannot be that presumptuous. You cannot come with all that liberty and freedom. You have to come carefully before God.”
“God is stern, so you had better add rules and regulations and spiritual disciplines. You have to do this, that, and the other thing.”
Brothers, I am jealous with a jealousy like God has for you, that the serpent will not lead you astray and deceive you as he deceived Eve.
Do not ever drop grace. Do not ever add law. Jesus is enough.
Genesis 2:17:
From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.
Satan says, “You shall not surely die.”
You know the meaning of death, right? Literally, it is separation. That is what death is.
What is the opposite of death? If death is separation, what is the opposite? Union.
“In the day you eat, you will surely die.” You say, “Well, Adam lived a lot of years after that. He did not die.” Yes, he did. The union was broken.
That is what they lost in the garden. They lost life. They had life. You cannot die if you do not have life. They had union.
God said, “The day you dare to substitute light for life, you have broken the union.”
Every division that has ever taken place among the people of God has taken place over light. We hear about church divisions, and every division has taken place over light.
“I do not see it that way. I see it this way.” “Oh, you believe in pre-trib? I am post-trib. We cannot…” And off they go.
“You believe in spiritual gifts? I do not believe in spiritual gifts.” “You believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit? I do not. I cannot go along with that.”
When I was a puppy—that is, before God opened my eyes—for a lot of years, from 1967 to 1975, I thought I could be a pastor of a church. So I pastored this church. I feel sorry for them, but anyway.
When you are in that position, you have to deal with all kinds of stuff. I will never forget one meeting until the day I die, because our church split.
What caused the split? You hate it when God’s people split.
I am not afraid of division. God has used division through the years. His church has multiplied through division. But divisiveness is different from division.
Our church split over seashells.
We needed to have our driveway paved. We could buy gravel, or a local fish company offered to bring us, for nothing, all the fish shells. We could use them as gravel, but it would smell like fish for about five days.
We could pay the money, or we could use the shells. The church split.
There were tears. There was yelling. There was screaming. There was division. One man cursed—over seashells. And I was the proud pastor of that congregation.
Do not let Satan deceive you, because he wants to take you to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He says, “What you need is light—fake light. What you need is light.”
You do not need light. You have life, and you have it in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Eve had union with the Lord. Satan deceived her by saying, “You need light. He is not enough. He is hiding something. You need more.”
“What you need to do is drop grace and add law, and then you will be okay.”
It is too simple. It is too dangerous to be free.
Satan suggested that God says all you need is Him. But you do not want to be presumptuous. He is the Almighty God. You have to be careful. Is He really enough?
“I think you need to make sure you get up early in the morning and study your Bible, memorize Scripture, read through in a year, hand out tracts, have a program, be here, be there. Have you done your meditation? Do you understand how to meditate? What is prayer? Have you fasted? What is it to fast? Do you tithe? You have to tithe. You have to give to missions. You have to support missions. You have to do this, and you have to do that.”
Dropping grace and adding law.
Brothers, I know I am not introducing you to this truth. I know you know it, and most of you know it better than I know it. But light is not life.
He wants us to have life.
Second Corinthians 11:3:
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.
Brothers, we are about to close our gathering together, and I pray that we would leave with that purity.
Truth is simple because it is a Person. It is not academic. It is a Person, and His name is Jesus.
As you received Christ, so walk in Him. It will never get harder than the first moment you trusted in the Lord. It is simple.
The word simplicity here means undivided. Paul was afraid that there would not be this undivided attention to the Lord.
Satan does not care. In fact, he would encourage you to make Jesus prominent in your life. He wants Jesus to be prominent.
But prominent is one among many. Prominent is in the priority list. Even if you put Him on top: first there is Jesus, then there is family, then there is the church family, then there is my job, then there are my finances, then underneath that there is my social life. You have this priority list.
Jesus is not on a list. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the whole list. He is the First and the Last. He is the whole list. He is the Beginning and the End. He is the whole list.
He does not want to be prominent. He wants to be preeminent. Preeminent is one and only.
I have a jealous love for you, brothers, that Jesus would not merely be one among many. I do not want you to be led away from the simplicity. It is Christ. It is Him. It is only Him.
Is it too much to say that all you need is Jesus?
Live and love Jesus. That is what it is all about. That is the Christian life: live and love Jesus.
Satan says, “No, you are responsible. You are teachers. You are leaders. You have to know your duties. You have to know your responsibilities. You have to know your place. You have to teach them how to do this, that, and the other thing.”
“We have to study end times. We have to study angels. We have to study warfare. We have to study gifts. We have to study discipleship.”
We have to stop. Live and love Jesus.
Simplicity. Everything Eve had before she fell—the simplicity, the undivided attention—Jesus wants to be your one and only.
As we get ready to close, I want to take 2 Corinthians. There is a wonderful doxology at the end, and I want to leave you with that benediction.
Second Corinthians 13:14:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with you all.
I think this is one of the more famous benedictions. I want to leave you with that benediction, but I do not want to pronounce it.
You know, “We are going to pronounce the benediction.” Where in the world did that come from? Probably from the meaning of the word, which is to wish you a good blessing or something.
I cannot pronounce anything over you, and you cannot pronounce anything over me. This is not some Irish blessing: “May the wind do whatever it does.” It is not that.
Benedictions are not something to pronounce at the end of a sermon. Many of them end with the word Amen. They are prayers. They are prayers.
Learn to pray the benedictions. There are twenty-two benedictions in the New Testament. Look them up. Make them a matter of your prayer life. It is a marvelous prayer.
My prayer for you, Tom’s prayer for you, and the prayer of Family Ministries for you is that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, that the love of God the Father be with you, and that the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen.
Let us pray.
Father, thank You for Your precious Word. Not what we think it might mean, but all that You know that simplicity and pure devotion to Christ means—work that in our hearts, we pray.
We ask for Your protection, that we would never be deceived from that simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus Christ. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you, both.
Brothers, we have time. We need to consider what our brothers have said, consider all that has been said this week. The Lord has spoken, not only through the worship, but through the fellowship and the bread.
May the Lord attach that to us.
Lord, yes, we need Your Holy Spirit to apply this Word to our hearts. Change the language that was used into the language that we individually understand, that our relationship with You—or that You would make it available to us individually—that we could appropriate it into our lives.
May it do the work for which You sent it. You do not send a word for no reason. You send a word that it would have purpose, that it would accomplish its purpose.
All I can say is that I agree with that purpose, even as I try to understand. Lord, Your Holy Spirit brings the understanding.