BEWARE OF MASQUERADERS

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 10, 2021 under 2021 |

Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; October 10, 2021 from 2 Corinthians 11:13-15

Theme: If Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, his ministers can also masquerade as ministers of righteousness.

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

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This morning, I’d like for us to revisit a passage we looked at a few weeks ago. It was found in 2 Corinthians 11.

The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the problem of false teachers who were bringing harmful doctrines into the church. They were corrupting the simple message of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone. They were even trying to add authority to their false doctrine by calling themselves ‘apostles’ and by boasting in their credentials, while at the same time seeking to discredit the apostle Paul.

Paul wrote about how he was ‘cutting off the opportunity’ of these false teachers by doing something they would not do. He ministered the gospel to the Corinthians free of charge. In verses 5-12, he said:

For I consider that I am not at all inferior to the most eminent apostles. Even though I am untrained in speech, yet I am not in knowledge. But we have been thoroughly manifested among you in all things. Did I commit sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge? I robbed other churches, taking wages from them to minister to you. And when I was present with you, and in need, I was a burden to no one, for what I lacked the brethren who came from Macedonia supplied. And in everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so I will keep myself. As the truth of Christ is in me, no one shall stop me from this boasting in the regions of Achaia. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows! But what I do, I will also continue to do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast (2 Corinthians 11:5-12).

When we looked at this passage a few weeks ago, the lesson we took away from it was that we should follow Paul’s example; and be willing to be humbled in the sight of this world, and sacrifice our own rights, in order to bring the gospel of salvation to the people who need it. He was willing to be humbled—even to the point of not being supported in his ministry—in order to protect the integrity of the gospel of Jesus from those who sought to corrupt it.

But what about those who sought to corrupt that gospel? What did Paul have to say about them? It’s then that we find these very serious words in verses 13-15;

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works (vv. 13-15).

These are not pleasant words. But they are very serious and necessary words about a very real danger. They teach us that we must be very careful who we listen to—both in the church and out in the surrounding world. They remind us how we can be deceived if we don’t watch out. They warn us that if Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, his ministers can also masquerade as ministers of righteousness.

We ignore this very serious warning to our own spiritual peril and loss.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; let’s talk for a moment about the person who stands in the background of this passage—that is, Satan himself. The Bible presents him as real. He is not—as some folks today like to say—merely the symbolic representation of evil. He certainly is that. But he’s not mythological or fictional. He’s a living and thinking and willful being who is as real as you or me.

The Lord Jesus treated him as real. The Bible tells us that Jesus was literally tempted by the devil in the wilderness. Jesus spoke to him and resisted his temptations as if he was a real person. And in addition to being real, he is very powerful; and very, very dangerous. The apostle Peter wrote about him and said,

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world (1 Peter 5:8-9).

The Bible tells us that he was a glorious angelic being—beautiful at the time of his creation. But the Bible also tells us that he is in rebellion against God his Creator. He fell because of his pride. The beginning of his rebellion is described for us in Isaiah 14; where the prophet writes;

“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart:

‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’

Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit” (Isaiah 14:12-15).

God has destined the devil to the eternal judgment of the lake of fire. And did you know, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that it is we who are appointed by God to be his judges? In some way that we don’t yet fully grasp, we who have believed on Jesus and who have been redeemed by His blood—and who are now destined to share in the eternal glory of Jesus—will be the judges of the devil and all his fallen angels on God’s great day of judgment.

I believe that it’s an irksome thing to the devil—irksome, in fact, beyond our ability to express or grasp—that we mere humans are destined for a glory that is immeasurably greater than that of the angels; and that God will—as it says in Romans 16:20—“crush Satan under your feet shortly”. It is an outrage to Satan’s pride that we puny little creatures can be redeemed from our sins, and will now one day be glorified above and beyond him, and will be appointed to serve as his judges. Everything in him fights against that prospect.

Now; think about this carefully. It’s only by our faith in the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we’re redeemed—that is, by our wholehearted belief in the good news that the Son of God has died on the cross for our sins and has been raised again for our righteousness in the sight of God. And so, while the devil hates all of humanity, he especially hates those of us who have believed on Jesus, and are redeemed by faith in the cross, and now proclaim the message of the cross to others. And for that reason, the devil has fought throughout the centuries with all his energies—and still fights even today—to corrupt and hinder and stop the spread of that gospel.

So; you and I are in the midst of a tremendous battle. The Lord Jesus Himself said that the eternal fire was “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41); so, it’s not enough to say that it’s a life-or-death battle. It’s really a battle by the mightiest and most malevolent created beings in the universe to avoid the unending torment of the lake of fire forever. We can see the intensity of this battle described for us in Revelation 12; where the apostle John is shown a vision in the heavens and writes;

And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time” (Revelation 12:7-12).

How does the devil fight to stop the gospel from spreading—and to prevent it from redeeming more people who will be his judges? One way is by persecution. The devil has been the principal source of all persecution against the people of God throughout the centuries. He seeks even today to silence Christians from believing and preaching the gospel; and he seeks to do so through oppression and by the threat of death. But as God’s word tells us in Revelation 12:11, the followers of Jesus overcome the devil “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death”.

But wherever oppression and persecution from the devil fail to stop the spread of the gospel, the devil then switches to another method. He seeks to ruin the life-transforming power of the gospel by distorting it, and corrupting it, and turning people away from it by contaminating the church and its message with false teachers. That’s what was happening in Paul’s time to the church in Corinth. That’s what’s happening in many places all around us today.

And that’s why we need very much to hear Paul’s warning.

* * * * * * * * * *

Because of the hatred that the devil has for the gospel—as well as for those who are redeemed by it—the clearest way to identify that someone is being an instrument of the devil is by the fact that they draw people away from the cross of Jesus Christ.

Such false teachers can do this through some very seemingly good but deceptive things. They can do this by teaching people that they can earn righteousness before God through their good works or through conforming to religious rituals—instead of through trusting the work of Jesus on the cross. They can do this by teaching people how they can ‘better themselves’ or obtain ‘prosperity’ by a spirituality—but always apart from a humble, self-denying dependency upon Jesus. They can do it by getting people involved in social improvement programs or political movements that seem to promise a ‘heaven on earth’—but that, in reality, draw people further and further away from the personal, life-changing power of the gospel.

Paul set the plumb-line for us when he wrote these words about his own preaching ministry in 2 Corinthians 5:14-21;

For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:14-21).

That’s the message of a true minister of Jesus Christ. And any message that pretends to be from God, but that draws us away from a simple faith in the cross of Jesus, is a message that is coming from a ‘minister of the devil’.

* * * * * * * * * *

So then; with all of that in mind, let’s look once again at 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, and at what the apostle Paul tells us about the false teachers who were plaguing the Corinthian church.

First, he tells us about …

1. THEIR TRUE NATURE.

In verse 13, he says, “For such are false apostles …” In the original language, the word “apostle” basically means “a sent one”. They were trying to persuade the Corinthians to doubt Paul’s apostolic authority. They were saying that his letters seem strong and powerful; but that his actual presence was weak and that his speaking style was contemptible. They, on the other hand, presented themselves as educated and entertaining and enlightened. They presented themselves as true ‘apostles’—that is, true ‘sent ones’; suggesting that they came with true authority from the leaders in Jerusalem, or that they were the ones who were truly sent from God.

Paul was warning the Corinthian believers that these self-proclaimed apostles weren’t what they said they were. In fact, it appears that he created a word to describe them—a word that appears nowhere else in the New Testament or in any other piece of ancient literature: pseudoapostoloi, that is “false apostles ”. And he adds another name to them; that they were “deceitful workers”. Because they were false apostles, whatever works they brought about through their supposed ministry were the products of “deceitful workers”. They were not doing the good that they claimed to be doing, because it was leading people further and further away from a simple trust in the cross of Jesus.

Many years ago—relatively early in my Christian life—I was working as a freelance graphic designer. My pastor at that time knew of someone who needed some work done. This man was creating a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program using the teachings of Jesus. I was very interested in this; so, at my pastor’s suggestion, I went to meet with him.

The first thing that struck me about this man, though, was his foul language. People today—sadly—use a lot of foul language in front of complete strangers; but not so much back then. This bothered me a great deal. But then, he explained that he wanted to hire me to create some diagrams and graphics for him to help people get free from their drug and alcohol addictions through the teachings of Jesus. And he explained that he would be seeking to do this without the teaching about Jesus. “I don’t want to get people caught up in all that esoteric Christian baggage,” he explained. That’s how he referred to the Bible’s teaching about Jesus.

Now; as best I could understand to do so in my young Christian faith, I told him that what he wanted to do was not possible. The teachings of Jesus couldn’t be separated from Jesus Himself. People weren’t saved by Jesus’ teachings. They were saved by Him; and His teachings were bound up in who He was and what He did on the cross. I was laughed at for saying this. And when he stressed his point further to me with some more foul language, I excused myself from the conversation and left. I went back later on to my pastor and told him that I thought I’d just had my first encounter with a false teacher.

And indeed I had. Most false teachers may be far less obvious than that one was. But they always prove that they are not sent from God—and that even their seemingly good works are deceitful—in pretty much the same way. They set before people a spiritual program of self-improvement and healing and prosperity apart from an obedient dependency and faith upon the crucified Lord Jesus.

And dear brothers and sisters; beware of that kind of thing. Think of it! That’s how Satan deceived Eve in the garden!

Another thing that Paul pointed out about the false teachers he was dealing with was …

2. THEIR DECEITFUL TRANSFORMATION.

Paul went on to say in verse 13 that these false apostles and deceitful workers were “transforming themselves into apostles of Christ”. Paul uses a remarkable word here. In fact, he uses it three times in this passage. In the original language, it’s metaschāmatizō. And you can almost figure out what Paul means by it when you know that this is a word that’s made out of two words put together. The first word meta means ‘along side’ or ‘with’. And the second word schāma is the word from which we get the English word “scheme”; and it speaks of the outward form of a thing. So, this word—here translated “transform”—means ‘to appear to be something in the outward form without changing the actual essence’. I think the best way to understand it is as ‘masquerading’ as something or someone.

That’s what these false teachers were doing. They were “masquerading” as apostles of Christ—but they were not the real thing. Paul was not masquerading. He was genuinely called by the Lord Jesus as an apostle. The Corinthians knew this. The signs of a true apostle were accomplished among them through him. As he wrote and told them in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10;

But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things (2 Corinthians 6:4-10).

These false apostles didn’t possess any of those things as the true essence of who they were. They only masqueraded themselves on the outside.

And where did they get that from? Paul goes on to declare the one who was …

3. THEIR ULTIMATE EXAMPLE.

In verses 14-15, Paul wrote about these false teachers who transform themselves into apostles of Christ; “And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness …” They masquerade after the pattern of the greatest masquerader of all—the devil.

The devil doesn’t have to masquerade as an angel, of course. He already is one—although he is a fallen one. Rather, he masquerades as an angel “of light”. He pretends to be on the side of godliness and righteousness and enlightenment; but the whole time long, he is all about rebellion and wickedness and deceit. So then, it’s no wonder if his ‘ministers’—whom he uses to accomplish his deceptions—do the same thing; and masquerade as ministers of righteousness as they lead people away from the righteousness that can only come through faith in the crucified Savior. Jesus once said this to the religious leaders of His day who were misleading the people:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

The devil masquerades as something he’s not. So it’s no surprise that his ministers also masquerade themselves as something they’re not.

And finally, look at what Paul says about …

4. THEIR FINAL JUDGMENT.

Paul puts it in a pretty straightforward way: “whose end will be according to their works.” They turn people away from the cross of Jesus; and try to teach them to rely on their own works of righteousness. And because of this, they won’t be judged before God on the basis of what they pretended to be. They will be judged on the basis of what they did. If they prefer to trust their own works rather than trust in Christ, then it will be by their works that they will be judged.

This is horrifying. And it reminds me of what it says in Revelation 20:12—at the time of the Great White Throne Judgment;

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books (Revelation 20:12).

It will be at that time that they will be cast into the lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angles. What a horrible end to those who lead people away from the cross! What a horrible end for those who are masqueraders along with the devil!

* * * * * * * * * * *

As I was thinking of this passage, it was a temptation to me to try to make a list of what kinds of things might define a false teacher—one of these ‘masqueraders’. But in the end, I thought it would be a better idea to stress what it is that we should do to avoid being deceived by them. And that can be safely boiled down to one thing. It’s to make absolutely sure that we have placed our faith in what Jesus has done for us on the cross—and keep it there!

Depend upon Jesus for your righteousness before God—and not on any of your good deeds or religious works. Cling to the cross of Jesus; and do not let anyone draw you away from Him. With all that is in you, make absolutely sure that you can truthfully say what the apostle Paul said in Galatians 2:20;

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Galatians 2:20).

Do that, dear brothers and sisters; and you cannot be fooled by the masqueraders.

EA