Saint Paul is Coming to Town!
2 Corinthians 12:13-21
http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/SaintPaulComingTown.html
Paul is ready to return and face the folks at Corinth. But will they be ready for him? He represented spiritual authority, but would they accept his God-given authority? God has many good gifts for His children, and His way is to pass them along using His ordained chain of command.
For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong. Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children [2Cor. 12:13-14].
Paul, you see, was their spiritual father. He had led them to Christ and had founded the church of Corinth. He didn't want to burden them, he wanted to bless them. He wasn't seeking to take from them, but to give to them.
And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved [2Cor. 12:15].
Paul says, "The more I love you, the less I am loved in return." It sounds like a complaint, doesn't it? But the Spirit of God insisted that he not tell about what he had seen in heaven but that he tell about his sufferings and disappointments down here.
Sadly, the entitlement mindset is still alive and well in the church today. The attitude is, "What have you done for me lately?" We get spoiled, and accustomed to others doing for us and we take them for granted saying, "That's your job!" instead of truly appreciating them.
But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile [2Cor. 12:16].
Oh, notice this. He says, "I wasn't after what you have, I was after you; I wanted to win you for Christ." Isn't that what the Lord Jesus had told His apostles? He said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matt. 4:19) -- and He didn't say that every fish they caught would have a gold piece in its mouth! He made them fishers of men -- that is the emphasis.
Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you? I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? walked we not in the same spirit? walked we not in the same steps? [2Cor. 12:17-18].
Paul didn't use clever methods; he preached the Word of God in simplicity. He didn't send other men along after him to make a gain out of the Corinthians.
Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? we speak before God in Christ: but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying. For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults [2Cor. 12:19-20].
These are the things Paul expected to find in the church when he would get there. They expected a great deal of Paul. Paul expected a great deal of them. But what would he find? There would be debates and arguing.
I have been in the ministry for 20 years, and I am now to the place where I am in no mood for debate unless it has the chance of being fruitful. Occasionally I get long letters from some who follow us online and want to debate a doctrine or a statement I've made. For the most part I say, go on with your viewpoint and pray for me so that, if I am wrong, I will be led to the truth by the Spirit of God. You will not convince me with a long letter, because, frankly, I don't have the patience to read it. Someone may say that I am very bigoted and narrow-minded. Well, maybe I am, but I just don't believe that arguing and debating accomplish anything. Our business is to get out the Word of God, and I am not attempting to debate anything. I teach the Word as I come to it as I teach through the Bible.
The contemporary church is filled with the things Paul mentions here -- debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, and backbitings.
"Have you heard about So-and-So?"
"No, I haven't heard."
"Well, I want to tell you."
Then they say some pretty mean things about a certain individual. And there are the whisperings. Someone has said that some people will believe anything if it is whispered to them.
Then there is that word swellings. I have often wondered what Paul meant. Probably the best explanation is the one I heard Dr. H. A. Ironside give. He said this reminded him of a frog sitting on the bank of a creek or a pond all swelled up. He looks twice as big as he would ordinarily be. Then what happens? You throw a rock at him and, believe me, he becomes little again and goes right down into the water. Probably the best word that we have to describe "swellings" would be our word pompous. There are some pompous Christians, and sometimes they are the very ones who so clearly recognize it in others. For this reason I take pause and consider myself soberly and in humility, lest I be one of them.
"Tumults" are troubles in the church. Little cliques get together and they cause trouble. They circulate opinions and that sort of thing. That causes a tumult.
And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed [2Cor. 12:21].
Corinth was a vile city. It was known as a sin center throughout the Roman Empire. It was the Las Vegas and Sodom and any other sinful city that you want to put with it all rolled into one. It was the place people went to sin. It is true that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Yet it caused the people of Corinth to look lightly upon these sinful things.
This does not present an attractive picture of the church, does it? I'm sure that as we have gone through this epistle you have thought, The local church in Corinth certainly was not a very good church. That is true. Not only was it true of that church, but it is also true of many of our churches today.
Let's stop to look at this for a moment. Suppose the Lord took the church out of the world right now. What would happen if He removed all true believers who are in the world? We believe that the Great Tribulation would then begin. A part of the contribution to the Great Tribulation will be the absence of the church. The church today is the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and the Holy Spirit indwells the church today.
Is the world getting better or worse? Some people say that the church hasn't improved the world because the world is worse now than it was nineteen hundred years ago. I disagree with that. I know it says in 2 Timothy 3:13, "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived," but that doesn't say the world is getting worse; it says that evil men will wax worse and worse. I think this means they will get worse in their lifetime and then another generation will come on.
The world is a little better today than it was over nineteen hundred years ago because at that time the world committed a sin which would have been an unpardonable sin had not the Lord Jesus said, "...Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do..." (Luke 23:34). They crucified the Son of God. I recognize that the world today by its rejection of Jesus Christ is crucifying Him afresh. The greatest sin in all the world is the rejection of Christ. The world of each generation has been guilty of that. The Lord Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit would come, He would convict the world of sin, "Of sin, because they believe not on me" (John 16:9). There are many sins which are bad, but the worst sin of all is the rejection of Jesus Christ. The greatest crime that was ever committed on this earth was the murder of the Son of God nearly 2,000 years ago. The world today is still just as corrupt, just as vile, just as mean, and just as wicked as it was then.
I will say that the world today is a better place to have a home than it was then. We can live more comfortably. There are a great many things which make life easier and better than it was. However, we need to understand very clearly that it was never the purpose of the church to plant flowers in the world any more than it was Israel's business to plant flowers in the wilderness. They were pilgrims passing through it and they had a message and a witness. This also has been the purpose of the church down through the ages.
Also, unto whom much is given is much required. We have so much technology, convenience, and tools at our disposal and we do so little w/ so much. In this way we do wax worse and worse. Back then they reached their world on foot and by a kind of snail mail that would make today's bankrupt postal service look first class!
The church is a group of people who ought to be holy unto God, ought to be living for God. I wish I could point to the church at large and say it is doing that and how wonderful it is. Its failure in this area is one of the reasons the present interest in the Word of God has in many instances bypassed the local church. It is too busy with its internal problems. Yet that does not destroy the fact that the church is that group which is loved by the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave Himself for it that He might wash it, that He might cleanse it, and that He might make each believer acceptable to God. Although we are far from what we should be, we should be moving in that direction.
So here in Paul's Corinthian epistles we have an insight into a church which was in the worst city of the Roman Empire, and how bad it was! I don't like to hear it said that the church does not in any way affect the world around it. It may look as if it has very little effect, and yet, then as now, if that group of godly people were to be removed from this world, the world would be much worse.
http://gbcdecatur.org/sermons/SaintPaulComingTown.html
