FAITHFUL TO OUR BETROTHAL

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on September 19, 2021 under 2021 |

Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; September 19, 2021 from 2 Corinthians 11:1-4

Theme: We must be on guard, lest we be led away from faithfulness to the One to whom we are betrothed.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, before we look together at our passage in 2 Corinthians 11, I want to tell you about a coming day. Our passage makes reference to it. And as redeemed human beings, it is going to be our happiest and most blessed day. It will be a day in which all of creation will share in the joy with us. And though it’s not declared to us just when that day will come, we who are in Christ are as sure and certain for it as if we were already there.

The best way to think of that coming day—the way, in fact, that the Bible presents it to us—is as our glorious wedding day.

I’ve had the privilege of officiating at many weddings. The wedding day of a couple is a happy day not only for them; but also for all who love them. And here’s the amazing thing that we wouldn’t have known unless the Bible had declared it to us: those happy weddings, that we have all been a part of at one time or another, are meant by God to serve as a faint picture of the infinitely more glorious wedding day that is yet ahead for us. The apostle Paul put it this way in Ephesians 5;

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27).

We, as the church of the redeemed, are the bride. The Lord Jesus, our wonderful Redeemer, is our glorious bridegroom. The wedding date will be at the time of our Lord’s second coming. The heavenly Father has called us out from our sin, and has washed us clean in the blood of His Son in order to present us to Him as His bride on that day. And the Holy Spirit is working lovingly and faithfully—even now—to prepare us for it.

Revelation 19:6-9 tells us about what a blessed day that will be; and of how the heavenly realms will rejoice on it. It says;

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God” (Revelation 19:6-9).

That wedding day is not for everyone. Only those who have placed their faith in Jesus, and who have been redeemed by His blood, are going to be presented as the bride. But if we have placed our faith in Jesus and are redeemed by His blood, we can be sure that we will be there. God Himself is able to preserve us and protect us for that day. As it says in Jude 24-25;

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen (Jude 24-25).

There is no human way for us, right now, to fully express or fully grasp the joy that will be ours—and all the joy that will also belong to our Lord—on that glorious wedding day. But dear brothers and sisters in Christ; it is coming. We will absolutely be there in literal, resurrected, bodily presence. Our Savior—our glorious Bridegroom—will make sure of it!

And we ought to be doing all that we can right now to live faithfully in anticipation of that coming day, and to let nothing into our lives that will give us any reason for sorrow or shame or regret—abiding faithfully in Him; and living right now for the inexpressible joy we will experience then;

that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming (1 John 2:28b).

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; the reason I have taken the time to remind you of this coming day is that it’s a theme that’s in the background of this morning’s passage. A concern for our readiness for that day was what motivated the apostle Paul to write what he wrote to the Corinthian church.

You see; the Corinthian believers were being deceived and misled by false teachers who had made their way into the church family. Those false teachers were trying to draw the Christians away from a simple and pure faith in the sacrifice that Jesus made for them on the cross. Those were phony apostles who were doing this; and they were doing it—in part—by discrediting the apostle Paul who had first brought that message to the Corinthians, and then by elevating themselves on the basis of their own supposed credentials.

Paul loved the Corinthians so much—and was so concerned to protect their readiness for that coming ‘wedding day’—that he did something that he would have preferred not to do. He boasted in his own authority and credentials as an apostle of Jesus Christ. He felt foolish about doing such a thing; but he was compelled by necessity to do it. He did it out of love for the Corinthian believers—in order to protect the gospel that God had given him to preach for their salvation.

The ‘boasting’ section of his letter goes from 2 Corinthians 11 all the way to the middle of Chapter 12. And he began it with the words of our passage—found in 11:1-4:

Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it! (2 Corinthians 11:1-4).

What a needed word of warning this gives to you and me, dear brothers and sisters! That coming ‘wedding day’ is yet ahead for us; and we are sure and certain of it. But we’re living in the here-and-now—at the time of our preparation for that day. We are the bride of Christ, preparing for our wedding day in the midst of a dark and fallen world that threatens the integrity of our preparation. We don’t want to appear before our Bridegroom on our wedding day with any regrets.

And so, as these words show us, we must be on guard, lest we be led away from faithfulness to the One to whom we are betrothed.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; look carefully at how Paul began. He began in verse 1 by making an appeal to the Corinthians. He said, “Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—” That’s what he thought of the thing that he was about to do—this whole thing of ‘boasting’ in his own authority and apostolic calling. He considered doing so to be a kind of ‘folly’. He thought of it as a sincerely distasteful and regretful thing to have to do. At the end of it all in fact—in 2 Corinthians 12:11-12—he wrote;

I have become a fool in boasting; you have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you; for in nothing was I behind the most eminent apostles, though I am nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds (12:11-12).

But in spite of how he felt about it, he nevertheless did it. He even added graciously, “and indeed you do bear with me.” And it wasn’t illegitimate boasting at all; because everything he said was true. He did it in order to overcome the deceitful boasts of the false teachers. And the reason he felt compelled to do this was because of ‘jealousy’. It was not a sinful kind of jealousy that was focused on himself. Rather, it was a godly kind of jealousy—a zeal from a godly motive—that was concerned for the integrity of the Corinthian Christians. It was the kind of jealousy that a ‘father-of-the-bride’ should have for the total devotion of his daughter to the man he was giving her to in marriage. In verse 2, he wrote, “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”

And this reminds you and me, dear brothers and sisters, of an important truth; that …

1. WE HAVE BEEN BETROTHED TO ONE HUSBAND—JESUS CHRIST.

“Betrothal” is a word we don’t hear very often in our culture. But the idea is very familiar. It’s related to the old word ‘troth’, which means ‘a solemn pledge or promise of faithfulness’. And so, a ‘betrothal’ is a formal engagement or a promise of marriage. It was so definite a covenant of promise that it was considered binding—only to be formally finalized a year or so later in the wedding ceremony itself.

In a betrothal, the responsibility for the preservation of the purity of the bride fell upon her father. He watched over her and protected her so that—on that wedding day—he could present her to her bridegroom as a pure virgin woman. And in the passage we’re considering this morning, the apostle Paul placed the Corinthian believers in the role of the bride, and himself as the father who arranged their betrothal and sought their purity.

The Corinthians might have wondered how it was that Paul could assume that responsibility. What gave him the right to betroth them as if he were their father? And he answered that question back in 1 Corinthians 4:14-15; when he wrote some hard things to them and told them;

I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel (1 Corinthians 4:14-15).

He was the one who first brought the gospel to them—not those false teachers. He was the one who led them to faith in Jesus and, as it were, became their spiritual father. It was his right to betroth them to Jesus Christ; and it was his responsibility to protect them in that betrothal. No wonder he was jealous for them with a godly jealousy. He wanted them to remain a chaste bride for their glorious bridegroom.

And that’s a reminder to you and me; dear brothers and sisters. We’re not just common, everyday ‘nobodies’ in this world. We’re someone very special—someone very sacred—someone destined for unspeakable glory. We’ve been betrothed to King Jesus as His promised bride!

Our wedding day is coming soon! We ought to jealously preserve and protect our purity and devotion to Him in anticipation of that coming day.

* * * * * * * * * *

And it’s especially important that we do so, considering the dark and fallen world in which we live. All around us are many pitfalls and detours. And there is also a fierce enemy who wishes to destroy us and spoil the wedding.

That leads us to another thing that the apostle Paul tells us. We are betrothed to Jesus …

2. BUT WE CAN BE LEAD ASTRAY FROM OUR FAITHFULNESS TO HIM.

Paul said that he had betrothed the Corinthian believers to ‘one husband’ so that he may present them as a chaste virgin to Christ; and then added in verse 3, “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

Think back to that story of our first parents in the Garden of Eden. Think back to our first mother, Eve. It’s my belief that we will meet her in heaven. And I look forward to listening to her tell the stories of the perfect world in which she and Adam lived. But no doubt, she’ll also tell us the story of how she was deceived into sin, and of how her sin brought ruin upon all of the human race. (I’m glad that God promised that the Redeemer would come through her; aren’t you?)

How was she deceived? Genesis 3:1-6 tells us about it. Verses 1-3 tells us;

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die’”(Genesis 3:1).

And do you see how the devil—in the form of a serpent—began the deception? He began by manipulating the word of God in such a way as to bring unbalanced attention to the one thing God said not to do. God had given Adam and Eve great freedom in His created paradise. They could eat of any other tree in all the habitable earth that they wished … except one. The devil called the woman’s attention—not to the freedom she had—but to the prohibition God gave. That, so often, is the way he works.

And then, the devil dared to call God’s word about that one prohibition into question:

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (vv. 4-5).

The Lord Jesus once said that the devil is “a liar and the father of it”. And he certainly is, isn’t he? He dared to put the thought into Eve’s mind that God was not being honest with her—that He was not being fair with her—that He was holding out on her. And when she looked at the fruit of that tree, the sinful passions that the devil raised up in her did the rest of the work.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate (v. 6).

She gave way to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the sinful pride of life. And the apostle Paul was very concerned that the bride that he had betrothed to Jesus might also be led away from faithfulness to him, in that same sort of way, through the false teachers that were deceiving them.

Look carefully at the later half of verse 3. He said that he was afraid that their “minds may be corrupted from the simplicity”—or as some translations have it, “the simplicity and purity”—“that is in Christ” It’s a wonderful truth that is being implied to us in those words. In the original language, it really speaks of the “simplicity unto Christ” or the “simplicity with a view to Christ”. Paul is speaking of the simple and sincerely pure way in which you and I are brought into salvation by God’s grace through Jesus Christ. There are no rituals that you and I need to follow. There are no ceremonies or religious rites that we have to observe. We don’t have to work our way up a long ladder of ‘good deeds’, or obtain a ‘secret knowledge’ that can only be given by special teachers, or follow a complicated path through a long chain of intermediaries. It is wondrously and wonderfully simple. As John 3:16 puts it;

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16);

or as it says in Acts 16:31;

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved …”

That is all that is required in order to be saved. That’s all that is necessary to be able to enter into a saving relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ and to have eternal life. And if we have Jesus Christ, we have everything we need for life and godliness.

If I may put it to you this way, dear brothers and sisters; whenever anyone comes to you with a complicated list of things you need to do in order to be right with God and to have a fulfilled life, you can tell right away that they’re lying. Paul was jealous to protect the purity of the faith of his brothers and sisters in Christ, and to not let them be deceived and drawn away from the “simplicity that is unto Christ”.

That’s a great warning to you and me. May it be that we are never deceived—like our first mother Eve was deceived—from the simplicity of faith in the cross of Jesus. We need to be kept from such deception in order to preserve ourselves for our glorious wedding day.

* * * * * * * * * *

So then; we have been betrothed to one husband—and that’s Jesus Christ. But we need to remember that we can be easily deceived and led away from faithfulness to Him. And that brings us, finally, to one more thing we need to learn from Paul’s words: that …

3. WE MUST THEREFORE PROTECT OUR FAITHFULNESS BY KEEPING ON OUR GUARD.

Paul was very concerned that the Corinthian Christians were not keeping on their guard against deception. He was very concerned that they were gullible; and were easy prey to the false teachers who were trying to sway them. In verse 4, he told them, “For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!”

I suspect that this described the kinds of ways that the false teachers were seeking to mislead the Corinthian Christians. For example, Paul spoke of how someone might preach “another Jesus” whom the apostles had not preached. There have been many—and there are many today—who do that. They speak of Jesus. They use His name. They pull stories about Him from out of the Bible. But they present Him as someone essentially different from what the apostles said about Him. They deny that He is the eternal Son of God—the third Person of the Trinity—who, in a point of time, without setting aside any of His deity, took full human nature to Himself and died on the cross for us. They may say that He was a great moral Teacher or that He was an insightful spiritual Leader who shows us the pathway to spirituality. But they deny that He is fully God and fully man, with two natures in one Person—unmixed and unmingled—forever. And we must beware of any teaching that denies these things. The apostle John put it this way:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world (1 John 4:1-3).

Strong words! But the protection of our integrity as the bride of Christ is worth it. We must be careful who we listen to!

Paul also spoke of how someone might bring “a different spirit which you have not received …” And it’s my opinion that the word ‘spirit’ here is being used as a way of describing ‘a wind of teaching’ or a ‘philosophy’ or a new kind of ‘spiritual interpretation’ of things—a lot like how John spoke of ‘a spirit’ (that is, a form of teaching) that confesses something untrue about Jesus; or ‘the spirit of the Antichrist’ which they were told was coming. It wouldn’t just be a kind of teaching only, though. Clearly, it would have the spiritual activity of the devil himself behind it. We must beware of anyone who presents a ‘new kind of Christianity’ or a ‘new vision of Jesus’ or a ‘new path to spiritual enlightenment’. When it comes to the Christian faith, what is ‘new’ is not necessarily true; and what is ‘true’ is not necessarily new. The apostle Paul put it this way in 2 Timothy 3:14-15;

But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:14-15).

How important it is that we protect our purity as the bride of Christ by staying on the ‘old paths’ set for us in His trustworthy word!

Finally, Paul spoke of those who preach “a different gospel which you have not accepted …” The word ‘gospel’, in the original language, means ‘the proclamation of good news’. When Paul came to the Corinthians long ago, he proclaimed to them ‘the gospel’—the good news of who Jesus is and what He has done for us; and of how we are saved—not by our good works or by our religious rituals—but only by faith in His cross. Paul said that he came to them with the determination not to know anything else among them but ‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified’. But as we read on in 2 Corinthians, we find that these false teachers were preaching a message of salvation through ‘good works’ and ‘religious rituals’. And a message of salvation by such things is not only not ‘the good news’ from God; but it’s not ‘good news’ at all! In the Book of Galatians, Paul wrote to some Christians who were falling for such a message; and he spoke in very strong terms to them. In Galatians 1:6-9, he told them;

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-9).

So then; Paul was very concerned that the Corinthians were being gullible; and that they would easily fall for someone who comes along to proclaim ‘another Jesus’ to them, or ‘another spiritual teaching’, or ‘another gospel’. They ‘might well put up with it’, as he said. And he didn’t want that to happen. He didn’t want them to be easily and foolishly led astray from their divine Bridegroom by the flirtations of someone or something else—and thus suffer loss and regret on the wedding day.

Let’s not let that happen to us either.

* * * * * * * * * *

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; let’s always keep the coming wedding day before our eyes. Let’s remember that we are destined to be presented to Jesus Christ as a glorious bride—without spot or wrinkle or blemish—to His eternal delight and our eternal joy. Let’s love our Bridegroom so much—and love the day of our wedding so earnestly—that we will never let anything draw us away from a simple and singular faith in Him.

As the apostle John put it in 1 John 2:2-3;

Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).

On that coming day, we will be very, very glad that we were faithful to our betrothal!

EA