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Serving the King with our Minds By Julian Bull

2 Cor 10-13

This is the second of three messages based on 2 Corinthians 10 to 13.
And all we are really able to do is to find three themes, one for each of the messages,
and have a look at that, pursue it and try to apply it to our lives.
This morning we're going to be comparing the two passages of scripture that we read.
We're going to try to put them side by side and contrast them and see what we might learn
about serving the King with our minds.
And you'll see how this relates to spiritual warfare.
Now so far we have tried to discover or to appreciate the significance of these last
half a dozen chapters of 2 Corinthians from 8 to 13.
And we have seen that really these chapters focus on two things which are extremely exciting
and interesting, especially to worldly men.
They don't look at these things, of course, the way 2 Corinthians looks at them,
but they're fascinated with both the whole issue of money and fascinated with the whole issue of power.
And that is what these chapters are really all about.
Chapters 8 and 9 are about the collection that was being made for the saints in Jerusalem,
about Christians and their giving, about serving the King through our giving.
Chapters 10 to 13 are all about how this servant of the Lord Jesus called Paul,
who was an apostle, a fair dinkum apostle, how he was now forced to defend
and in some sense to vindicate his apostleship.
He was forced to prove its authenticity.
He had to do this because there were some so-called super or super-eminent apostles,
some who were very dismissive of Paul and thought that he was rather a pathetic figure
and that they themselves were the ones who the Corinthians should be following.
And they had sown seeds of doubt and dissent in the minds of the Corinthian Christians.
And so Paul has come along now and he has to defend his apostleship.
He has to remind them that he is indeed the genuine article.
And we may think at times only in terms of earthly power.
We may only even think of earthly power when we discover or when we hear of power struggles going on
even in God's church because they do go on in God's church.
But we need to think along the lines of these two passages we read today,
which focus our attention on spiritual power and spiritual powers
and a power struggle on altogether a different level and to see how these things fit together.
There are some basic themes in these two passages of scripture
and I think they were fairly obvious to you even as we read them this morning.
For example, we can clearly understand that what's happened is that Paul is under attack.
It's not really quite as simple as that and it never is quite as simple as that,
but that's really what it amounts to.
Paul and his ministry, and it's very hard to separate these two things.
It really is that they have been saying such things as,
well, look at his letters. His letters are really impressive.
And when you read them and he's hundreds of miles away, you're very impressed.
And you get this picture in your mind of this spiritual giant,
but when you see him, what a letdown. What a letdown.
What a rather insignificant person he is when you behold him with your eye.
His letters are weighty. His preaching leaves a lot to be desired
when you compare it to the great orators that the Greeks so loved,
their style, their ability, then Paul leaves a great deal to be desired.
Now this is not just an attack on Paul's ministry.
This is an attack on Paul, on everything he stands for,
everything that he has been called to do and to be.
And often we find that these things become inseparable.
Often we find that it was true with the ministry of Jesus,
so it is true with the ministry of us. People want to attack Christ, they attack Christians.
People want to attack a ministry, they attack the minister.
This is a simple but very obvious and basic theme.
Of course the theme of these two passages is spiritual warfare, which is not new to this letter.
You may remember that this letter, 2 Corinthians, is the letter where,
in the second chapter in verse 11, in the context of forgiving and forgiveness,
the apostle has said to them now, we do not want you to be ignorant of Satan's devices.
We do not want you to be ignorant of Satan's devices.
This is the very same letter where in chapter 4 verse 4,
he has talked about the God of this world blinding the minds of the unbelievers
so that they may not believe in the gospel that he preaches.
So this is a theme all through the letter, a theme of spiritual warfare.
But this is a very interesting theme
and it's very important for us to consider these two passages and what they teach.
It's important because we need to think in a biblical way
as we look at the trials and the difficulties and the struggles of Christ's church.
And very often we find ourselves hearing of the difficulties of Christ's church
and perhaps it's being persecuted in another land,
perhaps it's a situation that we're aware of in our own country,
perhaps we just reach the point where we begin to throw up our hands in despair
and wonder at what is happening and what is going on in churches.
And we often find ourselves asking, well what is behind all this, why is this happening?
Why can't Christians just get along?
Why can't they all get along wonderfully well if they have all these resources,
they believe in the same Savior, they have the same Bible,
they're indwelled by the same Spirit, they preach the same gospel,
why cannot they get along?
Why is there such a thing ever as power struggles?
And here of course is the answer.
The answer is spiritual warfare.
The answer is the reality of spiritual warfare.
And it's very, very important that Christians think about spiritual warfare
and they believe in it and believe in it with all their hearts
and believe in it to the point where they're very impressed about the reality of it.
And so we need to consider these two passages and find these basic themes.
Well in the first passage, basically what happens is spiritual warfare is described.
And it's described in a very clear and pretty simple way.
If you look at 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verses 3 to 7,
let me read the verses again, and immediately you read them.
You understand you're reading a description of spiritual warfare.
It may not be a complete or a total description,
but certainly that's what's being described.
Listen to what God says in these verses.
I'll just read verses 3, 4 and 5.
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war.
Now that's God's word.
We do not war according to the flesh.
Some may think war is inconsistent with Christianity.
Some may think war is inconsistent with spirituality.
It's not. Not at all.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,
but they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
casting down arguments,
and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
Now we read this passage, and immediately we start to read about war.
And we read about war and spiritual warfare in such a matter-of-fact way,
in such a way that we would conclude from the way we read it
that the apostle understands this is a recurring feature of Christian experience,
why he uses walk and war in almost the same breath.
We walk in the flesh.
We war not according to the flesh.
How often we consider that the Christian life is a walk,
and sometimes what a wonderful walk it is.
And a walk, what does it conjure up in your mind?
A walk. You say, let's go for a walk.
Let us walk.
It conjures in your mind rather pleasant thoughts,
rather pleasant ideas, rather easy ideas.
A walk, a walking with God.
A walk, a walking after the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the way the Christian life is described.
We're very used to hearing it described that way.
But right next to that, he also describes it as a war.
And to him it's no problem to describe in the same, almost in the same breath,
the Christian life as a walk and the Christian life as a war.
These are two quite different things.
But there are two things which essentially characterize Christian experience.
He'll get to the end of his life and as he looks back on his life in 2 Timothy 4 verse 7,
he is going to refer to the whole of his life as a fight.
He's going to come to the end of his life and he's going to say,
in reference to all his ministry and all his life,
I have fought a good fight.
I have finished the course.
And here he introduces this.
And he introduces it, please notice, it's in the present tense.
This is an ongoing recurring everyday feature of Christian experience according to the Bible.
Do you believe this?
Do you make allowances for this?
Is this the way you think when you wake up in the morning?
That just as today I will walk with the Lord and I must walk with the Lord,
so today I will war.
I will war against Satan and against all the spiritual forces of wickedness.
And so this is very interesting and most revealing and convicting.
Our common everyday realm of experience as Christians is to walk with the Lord
and to war and to fight against the devil.
But you see the point he's making about our war is this.
He's saying that our warfare is conducted in another realm.
Although we are here and we're in the flesh, we walk according to the flesh,
our warfare is conducted in another realm.
And this introduces this biblical teaching, this description in the Bible about spiritual warfare,
which if you think about it, it is really quite difficult to comprehend.
Let me remind you of another verse which describes it in Ephesians 6 verse 12.
He says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,
but against the principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this age,
against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Now it is not someone else who wrestles against these things.
It is not some disembodied spirit, not something apart from me or out of me that wrestles.
We wrestle, he says.
We, human beings, redeemed, born again believers, we wrestle.
But what do we wrestle against? He says against principalities and powers.
And the idea is that what we do makes a difference.
And we sort of, as if it were possible, we can fight across a dimension.
We can wager warfare across and into an altogether different realm.
And what we do in this realm makes a difference in the spiritual realm.
We can fight against the devil, but the devil seems to be in a totally different dimension to us.
Well he's not because we in a sense are spiritual.
And so this is how spiritual warfare is described.
The flesh, we are in the flesh, and the spiritual engage in this great warfare.
And he expects that we will just understand this and he speaks as if it's a matter of fact,
a commonly understood and accepted part of our Christian experience.
He tells us that we have weapons.
And you'll notice this in verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 10.
We have weapons, the weapons of our warfare.
He refers us to their effectiveness and that they are divinely powerful.
We could think of Ephesians 6 where there's a whole list of the armor of God and mention of weapons.
We have weapons with which to fight this warfare.
We have the sword of the spirit.
And this is important to understand that our weapons are spiritual.
We ourselves are subject to the laws and limitations of the flesh.
We cannot wage a spiritual war with fleshly weapons.
It's a nonsense to talk like that.
We are frail earthen vessels, he says.
We're just human beings.
And so we have to understand if we're going to wage a spiritual warfare we need suitable weapons.
Do you remember David, to illustrate this, do you remember David?
And he went out to fight the Philistine Goliath.
And King Saul says to him, well look, why don't you wear my armor?
It's a fantastic suit of armor.
It must have been marvelous, I'm sure it was.
But it was no good to David.
Do you remember David tried it on?
It was not the thing that was suitable to the fight he was going to.
It would only have encumbered him.
It wasn't armor that was suitable, it wasn't a suitable weapon.
The suitable weapons turned out to be his slingshot, his stones, his ability to move unimpeded by the armor.
We must have suitable weapons.
Perhaps you have read and you remember reading in the second part of Pilgrim's Progress
about a character called Valiant for Truth.
And the pilgrim meets Valiant for Truth and is fascinated by this tremendously impressive sword
that Valiant for Truth owns and has.
And the Christian pilgrim admires it and then wants to look at it and hold it
and he's given the opportunity to feel it and to take it in his hand and to hold it.
And he's very impressed when he takes it in his hand.
And he says to Valiant for Truth, this is a right Jerusalem blade.
And Valiant for Truth, Bunyan says, responds by saying, yes indeed.
With this a man may venture upon an angel and it will cut bone and flesh and sinew.
And you see the point that Bunyan is making is how effective and suitable the sword of the spirit is for spiritual warfare.
How effective spiritual weapons are against the angels of wickedness, the angels of darkness, the fallen angel Lucifer.
But what happens so often is we're tempted to resort to secularized weapons.
I have this problem in the church perhaps we think.
The way to deal with it is to simply really exercise our thought power carefully.
Devise some strategy.
Or perhaps human strength.
Perhaps human wisdom.
Perhaps human weapons.
But they're all no good when it comes to spiritual warfare.
They're no good.
They're no good at all.
What we need are spiritual weapons and so he points this out to them.
The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but they're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.
And here he identifies the targets.
And this is where it begins to become extremely interesting and revealing for us.
And makes us think accurately and clearly about spiritual warfare.
Because you'll notice in verse 5 and at the end of verse 4 he tells us what the weapons are for.
The weapons are for certain targets.
They're designed for certain objectives.
To achieve, to accomplish certain ends.
For example, pulling down strongholds.
He's borrowing images from the warfare of his day.
Where an army would go and it would besiege a city.
And it would perhaps pull down the wall. Smash down the wall.
Or starve it.
And then break through the wall into the stronghold.
And plunder the stronghold.
So he's borrowing these images.
But this is the way he applies it in verse 5.
Casting down arguments.
How many of us think of spiritual warfare in terms of the use of our weapons being used against arguments?
Speculations is another way it's been translated.
Every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.
Bringing every thought into captivity to Christ.
What are these strongholds?
The simple point he's making is this.
These strongholds are in the realm of men's intellect.
They're in the realm of men's thinking and will and wisdom.
It's very important to understand this.
This is how he has spoken in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4.
What has the devil done to men?
He has blinded their mind.
In here, this is where the warfare goes on.
These are the targets.
This is what the gospel and the devil are waging war for.
Control of men's minds.
Control of your thinking.
That's what spiritual warfare is all about.
It's about how you think.
It's about men's minds.
Speculations would be a good translation.
What are speculations?
Speculations are mere unproven theories.
That's what speculations are.
What these false apostles are going around trading in reasonings
would be another way to translate it.
And listen to this comment by P.E. Hughes in his commentary on 2 Corinthians.
He says these are the strongholds whereby the unbelieving mind
seeks to fortify itself against the truths of human depravity and divine grace.
These are the strongholds, the mind, the thinking, the speculation.
Battle for control of the mind.
The intellect, the motives.
Romans 1, you can think about Romans 1 verses 18 to 22.
Again, if you're a keen fan of John Bunyan,
perhaps you have read The Holy War.
You know about the warfare for the city of Mansoul.
You know about the gates that there were in the walls of that city.
Certain gates.
And the whole impression you get is that the intellect
is where the warfare is being engaged and waged.
This is what he's saying here.
You're thinking. You're thinking.
Corinthians have been led astray by false teaching.
Their minds have been influenced by what these super or these eminent apostles have said.
And they have been led astray.
And the question is, Christian, do you think like a Christian?
Do you think Christianly?
Because this is where the battle is being waged.
Whether it's the education system today,
or whether it's the media, whether it's the magazines and the newspapers,
or whether it's the programs that have been into your living room.
The whole approach is to your mind.
It is to get access to your mind, to impart certain information,
certain values to your mind.
Do you remember 1 Corinthians 15, 33?
A very important verse.
It comes in the context of teaching about the resurrection.
Do not be deceived.
Evil communication corrupts good manners or good morals.
Evil communication corrupts good morals.
Young people, have you ever understood why mum and dad are concerned about the videos you watch?
Have you ever understood why mum and dad are concerned about the movies that you go and see?
Have you ever understood why mum and dad are concerned about the magazines that you read?
It is because mum and dad understand, if they're Christians and they understand spiritual warfare,
that there's a battle being fought for your mind and for their mind.
For control, for influence, for input into your mind.
The devil's not silly.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
He wants men to give up their understanding and their wisdom and allow him to control it.
Surely this is one of the reasons why it is important to study the Bible.
This is one of the reasons why it's important to pray.
This is one of the reasons why it's important for families to read the Bible.
Consider it.
You may live all week and be bombarded all week in your minds with the ungodly rubbish of this world,
with things that are running diametrically against the Gospel.
What opportunities are they given to you to redress that balance?
Two services on a Sunday, a Bible study, Bible reading, family Bible reading, Sunday school.
And often we find if we're diligent in these things, we're really only treading water.
We often find that we're very diligent, we have to be so diligent,
and we're only just keeping, as it were, our heads above water.
There's this great tide of ungodly communication.
And it's all part of spiritual warfare.
And we have to be discerning about this.
Well, from this he goes into the next passage to display spiritual warfare,
or what I've called spiritual warfare displayed.
So he's mentioned the war, the weapons and the targets,
and now spiritual warfare is displayed in 2 Corinthians 11 verses 13 to 15.
He begins to talk directly about these false apostles.
And he doesn't mince his words when he speaks about them.
He calls them false apostles, deceitful workers, ministers of Satan, ministers of Satan.
And as we read through these few verses in 2 Corinthians 11,
we really have to ask ourselves, well, who is the enemy?
Who is the enemy?
It's important to ask this because Christians, often if they're not careful,
begin to focus on the human instruments of satanic warfare.
And begin to think about men as the enemy.
And forget to think about the devil as the enemy.
Think about that person, that evil person, that wicked person.
And forget that the devil is the enemy.
People are not the enemy.
Beyond them is the devil.
These false apostles are not the enemy.
Paul understands they're simply ministers of Satan, servants of Satan.
Satan's servants, not God.
They pass themselves off as apostles of Christ and servants of righteousness.
But they are false apostles.
And so he begins to point out that in this display of spiritual warfare that is taking place in 2 Corinthians,
there is more than one level.
There are these men, sure, but there is the devil behind the men.
Isn't this a frightening prospect that men can be, and sometimes unwittingly, can become instruments of Satan?
Who would ever want to be an instrument of Satan?
Here are these men, these false apostles, and this is how he speaks of them.
Ministers, ministers of Satan.
What a thing to say.
And sometimes what happens is we begin to focus on people who we think are the enemies.
The bitterness creeps into the Christian life.
The bitterness begins to twist and sour the soul and the spiritual life.
It begins to become that cynicism, that venom, that animosity.
And so often it's aimed purely at the first level.
Purely at these people who we perceive in our understanding are servants of Satan.
And we forget the second level.
We forget the devil himself.
He is behind and above and at the back of and beyond all of these human instruments.
Of course the Lord Jesus never made that mistake.
He always clearly identified Satan.
Well what is the main point?
The main point of this passage and this teaching about the display of spiritual warfare.
The main point comes through in the way he describes how they masquerade.
He describes how that they actually transform themselves, not just into something else,
but into the very opposite of what they are.
They are ministers of Satan. They transform themselves into apostles of Christ.
We should not be surprised at this he says because the devil has been doing this all his life.
He's an evil, vile, pernicious, dark and wicked being.
He transforms himself into an angel of light.
Now as he begins to speak like this we begin to understand the crucial thing about spiritual warfare.
And it's this, that when we are a Christian our warfare is not with evil in the abstract.
Our warfare is not with evil in the abstract.
Evil is not just some force that's floating around out there somewhere.
Let's shut the doors and keep it out of the church. It's out there somewhere.
It's pervading. Some disembodied evil force. There it is.
Where is it?
Evil has a human face.
This is what he's saying.
Evil has a human face in the church in Corinth.
That's what he's saying.
We do not war against evil in the abstract. We think like this.
He's saying we war against a personal, highly intelligent devil.
Highly intelligent.
Have we appreciated this fact about the devil?
He is highly intelligent.
In the words of Francis Schaeffer, he plays chess against us.
That's his life's work.
He plays chess against us.
You have to be intelligent to play chess.
The devil is very intelligent.
He plots and plans every move. He knows your every weakness.
He disguises himself. He beguiles. He masquerades.
He never appears in a way that makes him instantly recognizable as Satan.
What a silly thing for him to do.
What a ridiculous and foolish thing for him to do.
And for us to think that he would do that. How silly we are if we think that way.
That he's going to appear in such a way that I'm instantly going to recognize him.
What happened in this church was, men walked into this church.
And the believers in the church said, ministers of righteousness.
Apostles of Christ are visiting us.
Servants of righteousness have come amongst us.
And Paul's saying, don't be silly. They're masquerading.
God exposes the devil.
I'll just remind you of one description in John 8 and verse 44.
The Lord Jesus took every opportunity.
He says to people on one occasion, you are of your father, the devil.
Notice he doesn't stop at the first level.
He doesn't stop merely at the people.
He says, you are of your father, the devil.
And the desires of the father you want to do.
He was a murderer from the beginning.
He does not stand in truth, because there's 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. The father of lying.
Masquerading.
He uses the word twice in 2 Corinthians 11 in verse 13.
It's what the devil, what the apostles, these false apostles do, and it's what the devil does.
He masquerades as an angel of light, they masquerade as apostles of Christ.
The very same word used to describe both of them.
And it's very interesting to note that there are this, with these false apostles,
there is this teaching about their apparent righteous external.
They are described as servants of righteousness, ministers of righteousness.
But he says, their end will be according to their works.
Did you notice that?
They transform themselves into ministers of righteousness,
but their end will be according to their works.
Well if their end is according to their works, and their works are righteousness,
why isn't it that they've got a righteous end?
Because God knows the motivations of men's hearts.
Because these are the Judaizers who have come and appealed
and said the Gospel Plus, these are the legalists.
And they're saying righteousness is important and it's defined in this way.
And they are apparently servants of righteousness,
but God is looking at what's going on on another level in their hearts and in their lives.
And God deals with them according to that.
What a revealing thing.
Now what is the application to finish off with?
The application is that there is only one safe place.
The application is that we be frightened by the reality of spiritual warfare.
That we begin to think of it as real.
That we begin to think of it as extremely dangerous.
That we begin to think of it as something which is part and parcel of Christian experience.
Because then we may begin to be motivated and moved.
To recognize and to appreciate the only safe place.
And the only safe place the Bible knows of when it comes to spiritual warfare is to be in Christ.
That is the only safe place.
Of course there are many, many different variations on that in the Bible.
At times we're exhorted to be in the Word of God, in the written Word.
That is the safe place.
You may remember that verse in Isaiah 8 verses 19 to 20.
Some are saying let's consult the spiritists, let's consult the mediums.
He says why should we consult the dead on behalf of the living to the Word and to the testimony?
If they, these other people, do not speak according to the Word and the testimony, it is because they have no light in them.
But basically it comes down to this.
The only safe place is to be in Christ.
But being in Christ is dealt with in a variety of ways.
In the New Testament.
And one of the ways that is emphasized most clearly in 2 Corinthians is to turn that around.
And to talk about Christ being in you.
And you may remember when John is writing in the first letter of John chapter 4 verse 4.
Touching on this very subject of spiritual warfare and the antichrists who have gone out.
He says greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
So the only safe place according to the Bible is to be in Christ.
But to be also understanding that Christ is in me.
Christ is in me.
If I am not in Christ then I am at the mercy of the devil.
There is only one who is stronger than the devil and it's not me and it's not you.
Please abandon that idea.
Even when the apostle speaks to us in Ephesians 6 he says be strong in the strength of the law.
It's a tremendous folly to think that we are strong enough for the devil.
We are not.
Christ in me, me in Christ.
Think of it from the devil's perspective.
Think of it from the devil's perspective.
He truly knows of a Christian.
Here is someone who is in Christ.
Here is someone in whom Christ lives.
Do we know it as clearly as we should?
Do we remember it as often as we should?
Do we live in the light of it?
Has it dawned upon us?
When I venture to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and find myself caught up in the whirlwind of spiritual warfare.
Do I understand clearly that I am in Christ and Christ is in me?
Do I remind the devil of that?
Do I appropriate and apply that teaching?
What will happen to the devil if I tell him Christ is in me and I am in Christ?
What a marvelous and fantastic truth.
What an amazing definition of a Christian.
What an amazing statement about our security.
What confidence and health and strength and assurance it can give us.
To know that I am in Christ and Christ is in me.
My dear friends, when it comes to spiritual warfare, what we must do is to think biblically.
The battle is for the minds of men.
The battle is for the thinking of Christians.
If the devil can get Christians to think in the way most people today think, he will.
We need to serve God through our minds and we cannot serve God through our minds without being engaged in spiritual warfare.
The only way we can be engaged in spiritual warfare effectively is by understanding our weapons, the targets,
understanding the tactics of the enemy and by making sure that we are in Christ and Christ is in us.
Is that true of you? Is that true of you today? Whoever you are, whoever you are here,
could you stand before God and say, God your son lives in me.
Your son lives in me and I live in him.
Do you remember what happened to John Wesley?
He was on his way to Georgia in the southern states of America to be a missionary.
He was not even a Christian. He wasn't even converted. He was a servant of righteousness.
But he wasn't a Christian.
There were some genuine Christians on the ship, some Moravian brethren missionaries.
And one of them asked him a question which was a turning point in his life.
Do you believe Jesus Christ is your Saviour, John Wesley?
His response was, I believe Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world.
That is not what I asked, said the missionary. Do you believe he has saved you?
And John Wesley couldn't answer.
He got back to London and he was walking down the street and went in and heard a man reading the preface to Luther's commentary on the book of Romans and he was converted.
But it was that question on the boat about personally appropriating Jesus Christ.
Is Christ in you? And are you in Christ?
That's the most basic and fundamental step in spiritual warfare and serving God with our minds. Let us pray.
Now Heavenly Father we thank you for the great security and strength and protection we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank you Father for our promise that greater is he that is in the Christian, that is the Lord Jesus Christ indwelling the believer.
Greater is he who is in us than he that is in the world.
Father forgive us for the times when foolishly we have embarked upon living for you and serving you with hardly a thought about spiritual warfare.
Without even bothering to take up the armour of God.
And Lord we've learned a lesson at times when we've come home wounded, when we've been tricked and deceived and beguiled.
Father we pray you may teach us and help us. In Jesus' name. Amen.