Don’t Be Fooled: Hold Fast the Word

Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.” Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. (1 Corinthians 15:33-34)

The company you habitually keep is either going to build you up in the faith, or tear you down. The issue at hand in 1 Corinthians 15 was the resurrection of the dead:

Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. (v. 12-14)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the keystone to the Christian faith. Paul goes on to explain the necessity and importance of the resurrection and demonstrate its truth.

But there were some among the believers at Corinth who taught that there is no resurrection, and perhaps suggesting that it was not really the message that Paul and the apostles were bringing. If that was so, Paul asked, then “why do we stand in jeopardy every hour” for the sake of the gospel (v. 30): “If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’” (v. 31).

This false teaching, if left unchecked, would have sucked the life out of the Corinthian church, leaving them in despair. But like see many other life-sucking situations they were allowing to continue in the church, the believers allowed themselves to be lulled to sleep.

That is what happens when you hang out with a faithless crowd — they nip away at your faith until you are filled with doubt and finally sink into unbelief. Don’t be fooled, Paul says. Then he offers the antidote:

WAKE UP!!!

The Greek word for “awake” means to rouse up, as out of a deep sleep or drunken stupor.

Wake up! Sober up! Pull your head out!

“Awake to righteousness.” Return to what is right. Don’t let your faith be corrupted; eaten away by rot; rusted away by neglect. You have people among you who don’t even know God, and you are letting them influence your faith and pull you away. Don’t let them lead you astray — get out of there!

Picture Paul waving the “smelling salts” under their noses, preaching to them about the gospel, for that is how he began this section, reminding them of the truth they were in deep danger of forgetting:

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:1-3)

Who are the people you allow to have influence in your life. Do they build you up in faith, or do they fill you up with doubt. Don’t let yourself be lulled away, but get a firm hold of the gospel of Jesus Christ (faith come by hearing the Word of God), and let yourself be renewed and strengthened.

Don’t Be Fooled: Inheriting the Kingdom

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 homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

This is not an exhaustive list; the apostle Paul expands on it in some of his other letters:

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:19-21)

But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. (Ephesians 5:3-5)

Paul summed it all up pretty well in Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The Greek word for “sin,” hamartano, and means to “miss the mark.” Think of an archery event in which you win the prize for hitting the bullseye. To sin is to miss the bullseye.

But Paul not only said that we have all missed the bullseye, but we have also fallen short — we’ve missed the target altogether! God created us to share in His glory, to experience and enjoy all the goodness that is in Him, but we have fallen far short of that.

None of the things Paul listed have any place in the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God is all about the glory of God, all these things fall far short of that glory. God is all about life and light, but the things on Paul’s list bring only death and darkness. God is love, but the things on the list demonstrate nothing more than selfishness. They are lacking in love for God and one’s neighbor.

Bummer.

But there is a solution. No one has to remain this way. For in 1 Corinthians 6:11, Paul is quick to add, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

• We can be washed (made clean).
• We can be sanctified (set apart to experience God’s glory).
• We can be justified (declared righteous).
  

Now, we cannot wash ourselves — but we can be washed. We cannot sanctify ourselves — but we can sanctified. We cannot justify ourselves — but we can be justified. How does this happen? Through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul addresses this in another letter:

For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7)

Because of what Jesus Christ has done for us, and through faith in Him, God makes us new—gives us a new birth—by the Holy Spirit. Jesus does not come short of the glory of God, and in Him, neither do we, for we are new creations in Him.

When we receive the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes into us to bring forth the same fruit He brought forth in Christ: “For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

This is what you and I were created for, to experience the life of Christ, the fruit of the Spirit, and the glory of God. This is what the kingdom of God is all about.

Don’t Be Fooled: Understanding Sowing and Reaping

Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. (Galatians 6:7-8)

“God is not mocked.” Paul is speaking of an immutable principle: Whatever you sow is what you will reap. God established that at the very beginning, when He created plants and animals each to reproduce after their own kind, and told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. God also reaffirmed this same principle to Noah when He promised, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). It is true in the natural realm; it is just as true in the spiritual realm. Do not treat it lightly!

It’s a bedrock principle: Whatever you, that is what you will reap.” In his second letter to the Corinthian believes, Paul brought out this accompanying principle: “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6). Not only do you reap what you sow, but also according to how you sow. You will also reap more than you sow. Jesus said,

Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measure back to you. (Luke 6:38)

“Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” will be either a blessing or a curse for you — it all depends on what you sow. There’s really only two directions you can go with this: You can sow to the flesh, or you can sow to the Spirit. Here’s how Paul lays it out:

• He who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption.
• He who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.

Sowing to the flesh is thinking that everything we say and do, and how we spend and invest our money is about us. It has no lasting value and results only in a harvest of corruption, decay and a ruined life.

Sowing to the Spirit, on the other hand, is realizing that everything we say and do, and how we spend and invest our money is all about God. It has eternal value and that harvest of a life that is rich and full.

Sowing to the flesh is like a thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy. Sowing to the Spirit is lining up with Jesus, the good shepherd who comes to give us life more abundantly (John 10:10).

Earlier in his letter to the Galatians, Paul made this comparison between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit:

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told in the time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we life in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Galatians 5:19-25)

Don’t be fooled. Everything you say and do will either bring life and light, or death and darkness into your world. Choose carefully what will you sow.

Don't Be Fooled: Understanding the Source of Good

Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. (James 1:16-18)

“Do not be deceived,” James says. The Greek verb for “deceived” is the same word Jesus used when He told the Sadducees, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29).

Deception is a trick of the devil played upon a willing heart. He does not want you to know the Scriptures or the power of God. He will be happy enough for you to fill your head with religious theories, but he does not want you to have a personal experience of the Word of God at work in your heart or the power of God at work in your life, for that is death to his plans and destruction to his works. So he tries to lead you astray in your thinking.

Like Jesus, James identifies how it is possible to be deceived about the power of God and the Scriptures. “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”

This is about the manifestation of God’s power. Everything that is good, mature and complete comes from above, from our Father in heaven. God is not the source of evil, but only of good. Many Christians, however, have been deceived into thinking that God sends diseases upon people or causes bad things to happen to them — to punish them, get them to repent, teach them a lesson, humble them, etc.

But that is simply not so. Nothing evil comes from heaven. There are no diseases there waiting to be unleashed upon the earth. There are no car crashes or any other tragic accidents there. God is the Father of lights, not the Father of darkness. But we know who is the father darkness—the same one who is the father of lies — and we have been delivered from his power into the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13). Anything that is lacking, anything that is not mature and complete, anything that is not good—it does not come from our Father in heaven, but ultimately traces back to the evil one, in whom there is nothing but darkness.

Do not be mistaken. Anything the attributes evil to our Father in heaven is a deception.

James goes on is this same passage to comment upon the Word of God: “Of His own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”

God did not send His Word — neither His the Scriptures not the Living Word, Jesus Christ—into the world to condemn you, but to save you and deliver you from the works of the devil: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse here through the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26).

In context, James has been addressing specifically the question of being tempted to do evil. His point is that such temptation does not and cannot come from God, for He is the giver of all good things.

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and entices. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)

James makes a comparison of sources by noting what each “brings forth” (the Greek verb is apokueo). Temptation to evil “brings forth” (apokueo) death. But the Word of God is the word of truth, whose purpose is to “bring us forth” (apokueo), “that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures,” that is, reflecting the glory of His goodness.

Any idea that God is out to condemn you, destroy you or do you harm in any way is mistaken — a lie of the devil. The devil is the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy. But Jesus is the Good Shepherd who has come that you might have life and have it in abundance (John 10:10)

Don't Be Fooled: Understanding the Scriptures and the Power of God

You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)

The Sadducees thought they had Jesus stumped. A liberal sect among the Jews, they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, and they thought that had a way to refute it from the Scriptures (though they did not accept all the Scriptures, only the books of Moses).

The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, saying: “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.” (Matthew 22:23-28)

That is when Jesus answered them and said, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Then He explained why the Sadducees misunderstood both the Scriptures and the power of God:

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:30-32)

That shut down the Sadducees’ argument. Though they might have accepted the God was able to raise the dead, they did not believe that raising the dead was actually part of His plan. They strayed from the truth concerning the power of God. They erred in their understanding of the Scriptures because they failed to see that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And God said to Moses, in the only Scriptures the Sadducees did accept, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” though Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had long since passed off the scene (Exodus 3:6, 15). So the Sadducees did not even really know the only Scriptures they professed to believe. They had no faith, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17), and they had not really heard what the Word was saying.

It is vitally important for us to know both the Scriptures and power of God. It is not enough to know just one or the other. If we know the Scriptures, but not the power of God, then our knowledge of the Scriptures will be dry and unfruitful. If we know the power of God, but not the Scriptures, then we will be vulnerable to the deceiving miracles and false doctrines of the devil.

There are many Christians today who believe that the time of God’s miracles have ceased. They are called, and even call themselves, “Cessationists.” There are also others who, while they do not wish to present themselves as cessationist, for all practical purposes, they are cessationists nonetheless. They will allow that God may, perhaps, under very unusual circumstances, still do miracles today, but such things are few and far between, and usually not something they have ever seen, heard of, or experienced for themselves. They don’t want to be found denying the power of God, but by their theology and traditions, they keep it tightly bound and under wraps.

The truth is, if we don’t know the power of God, it is probably because we don’t really know the Scriptures. For the Scriptures continually testify about the power of God, from Genesis to Revelation, and from Beginning to End.

The Scriptures and the power of God are both manifestations of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures are given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21) and cannot truly be understood apart from Him (1 Corinthians 10-16). The Holy Spirit is also the Spirit of Power. It was by the anointing of the Holy Spirit that Jesus performed all His miracles on earth (Acts 10:38), and He promised His disciples, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8).

As you read the Scriptures, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal them to you in your inner man, so that they do not just become information, but revelation to you. Ask Him also to fill you to overflowing with His life-changing power. When the Word of God and the Holy Spirit are at work in you, you will be transformed by the power of God, and you will become a world-changer.

Because Some Are Trying to Deceive You

These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. ( 1 John 2:26)

John offers another reason for writing: Because some are trying to deceive you. This goes along with his earlier reason: Because you know the truth.Paul, like John, also warns us that there is a spirit of deception at work:

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age had blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

There are those who try to bring something that sounds very good, but ultimately denies that Jesus is the Son of God who came in the flesh. The beginning stages of Gnosticism, in John’s day, represents such a teaching. It presented Jesus as divine — which is true — but they denied His humanity.

Ironically, there are many philosophers of religion today who celebrate the Gnostic view as a sophisticated form of Christianity. The so-called Jesus Seminar, of recent years, represents such a proclivity. For example, they wished to promote the gnostic Gospel of Thomas as the “Fifth Gospel,” as if it had some sort of canonical or sem-canonical status. It does not and never has. There are various other groups about who try to separate the “Christ of faith” from the “Jesus of history,” seeking to drive a wedge between the divinity and humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That denies the very basis of our salvation. The truth is that Jesus Christ is able to redeem us and reconcile us to God precisely because He is both fully human as well as fully divine.

There are many other forms of error that center on the nature of Jesus Christ. But John declares, “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23).

It is never enough to know the truth simply as a proposition. We must know the truth as a person, the person of Jesus Christ, who said of Himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

So the testimony John brings is one the comes from personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ:

That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of Life—this lie was manifested, and we have see, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you. (1 John 1:1-3)

This is that testimony John preached all along, the same testimony his Christian readers heard and believed from the beginning of their faith. It was not just a proposition they received, but a person. It was not a religion they had entered into, but a relationship. They were born from above by the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit not only birthed them, but actually lived in them.

Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. (1 John 2:24-26)

It is this abiding relationship that will aid them in discerning deception and standing strong in the truth. For it comes with the anointing of the Holy Spirit:

But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all thing, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. (1 John 2:27)

This is what Jesus promised His disciples on the night of the “Last Supper.”

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12-15)

It is very important to recognize that there are those who would deceive us. For there is no life in a lie, only dead religion. But if you have received the Lord Jesus Christ, you have entered into a vibrant, personal relationship with God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — full of light and life. Don’t let it be obscured by deceptions, but let the Holy Spirit take the things of Jesus — the things that come from the Father — and reveal them to you. Then you will be filled with a joy that remains.