Telling the Truth

Jill Briscoe: Today on Telling the Truth, Stuart Briscoe brings us a message called, When We Are Being Compromised. It's from his series Knowing God Personally, which is all about how the difficult times in your life can bring you closer to God and strengthen your faith.

So many people read their Bible, go to church, serve on mission trips, and go through the motions. Yet, still struggle to find God. Jill Briscoe has a surprising and deeply encouraging answer to this dilemma, which she shares in her three-message series titled Finding God.

The Finding God series is our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. And if you're able to make your gift monthly, we'll also send you a special Telling the Truth travel mug to remind you, God is always with you. So request your resources when you give today, 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org.

Now, here's Stuart with today's message called, When We Are Being Compromised.

Stuart Briscoe: I have a confession to make. Now that I have your attention, the confession I have to make is that we come now to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. And I have never, in my years of preaching, attempted to preach from this passage.

That in and of itself is not particularly momentous because there are many passages of scripture I have not attempted to preach from. What makes this different is that the reason I have not attempted to preach from this particular passage is that when I was a kid, raised in England, I heard this passage so often, I got so sick and tired of it, I decided I would never inflict it on anyone else.

However, I think I've matured ever so slightly and I've certainly taken the trouble to read this passage and study it rather carefully, and I'm very, very excited about sharing this with you today. Now, if that isn't the greatest introduction to a sermon you ever heard, I can't imagine what would be.

Let me read to you from 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 14. "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?"

"For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will live with them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you for I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

"Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." You say, well, it doesn't look all that bad to me, what was the problem?

I want you to notice particularly verse 17 where it says, "Therefore, come out from them and be separate," says the Lord. The problem I had as a kid growing up in the particular family and assembly of believers to which I belonged was that they majored on the doctrine of separation.

They quite rightly understood that believers have a unique relationship with the living God, and that unique relationship should be demonstrated in unique lifestyles. They also recognized quite rightly that the environment in which we live is not always compatible with a lifestyle of holiness and of commitment to the Lord. And therefore, they handled that by saying, "We must be separated from much of what goes on around us."

Now, I would not have any argument with that at all. I think there's a very solid case that can be made for that from scripture. It was the extent to which it was taken that was the problem. It was the degree of separation that was needed that I used to struggle with.

You say, well, how separated were you? Well, I'm glad you asked that. Let me give you an example. My father struggled, wrestled, agonized over whether to have a radio in our home. You say, what? Yes, he struggled whether to have a radio in our home. He felt that most of the material that was coming over the airways, and I'm talking about the 30s now and the 40s.

Most of the material that was coming over the airways in those days had no business intruding into the thinking of a Christian family. And therefore, he felt it was most inappropriate. Now, I remember coming home one day and to my utter amazement discovering a radio in our home. This did make life a little easier for me because I'd had to sneak out and listen to the radio in my friend's house.

The reason my father gave for actually having a radio in the end, and he would very carefully sit us down and explain to us, was this. The war was on at the time, there would be important news coming through about the progress of the war. It was quite possible that there would be serious announcements and of course, the major speeches of Winston Churchill were those, without which everybody wanted to listen to, and therefore, for that reason and that reason alone, he allowed a radio into our home. Separation.

I wonder how he'd cope with cable television. Well, perhaps a more important question is how do you cope with it? Did it ever occur to you that there might be things that you quite naturally take into your thinking, quite naturally take into your home, quite naturally take into your lifestyle, that if you really sat down and thought them through, you'd say there is no compatibility between this and that which I profess?

I'm not suggesting for a moment that we should adhere to the extent of separation, which in my opinion degenerated into isolation, as far as those believers were concerned. But I would suggest to you that perhaps one of the necessary things for a contemporary Christian to address is this. What does it mean when it says, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers"?

The Apostle Paul, having made this statement, and it is a statement of a general principle, then begins to underline it, undergird it by asking five rhetorical questions. But before I get into that, let me just point out how I want to proceed with this particular section of scripture. You'll notice that there are three specific sections, and I'm sure that will come as a great surprise to most of you.

But what we're going to do at the end of each section is we're going to pause and pray about it, rather than just wait till the end. The first section has to do with the general principle, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers," and the substantiation of that principle. The second section has to do with a unique perspective, where he points out that we are the temple of the living God. And the third section concludes with a specific proposition, "Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God."

This is a very, very heavy, serious, important passage of scripture. Now, if it is true that there are some believers who would take so seriously the negative effect and the negative impact of secular society on their Christianity, that they will take their separation to a position of isolation where their whole lifestyle seems to be predicated on the idea of, "We've got a nasty world out there, we've got to protect ourselves from it."

It would be equally true to say that at the opposite extreme, there are those who seem so utterly casual about lifestyle and morality and ethics, that one would have to say with deep chagrin that occasionally one would have grave difficulty differentiating between the believer and the unbeliever in our culture today. And quite frankly, there are those who would give statistical evidence for this. For instance, statistically it has been shown that there's no discernible difference in the moral standards between believers and unbelievers when it comes to cheating on income tax.

Basically, believers will be as big a cheat as unbelievers in this area. It has been shown that there's little discernible difference between the attitude of believers and unbelievers when it comes to lying about what they're bringing through customs, in order to avoid customs taxes. It seems to be regarded by unbelievers and believers alike that if you can cheat the government, that's all right.

It is a well-established fact that there's no discernible difference between the incidence of divorce between believers and unbelievers now. And so one would have to say that at one extreme, there's a great danger of believers lapsing into a separation that degenerates into isolation, whereas on the other extreme, there's a very real possibility of people being so casual about this, that they are totally identified with the society around them and demonstrate no distinctiveness at all.

Jill Briscoe: More powerful teaching from the Briscoes is headed your way. So, don't go anywhere. We've made a wide array of resources and content available to you online for free at tellingthetruth.org and on the Telling the Truth app. There, you can listen, read, and watch powerful teaching from Stuart and Jill on relevant topics like the sovereignty of God, the importance of the church, and how to grow closer with Jesus Christ. You can also request this month's featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world. Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Now, let's rejoin the program as Stuart continues his message, When We Are Being Compromised.

Stuart Briscoe: Let's look at the general principle that Paul enunciates for us here. And it is as follows, that identification of believers with unbelievers on an intimate basis so that no distinctiveness is left is not acceptable. Now, Paul uses the expression, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers," probably quoting the Old Testament.

The Old Testament was, of course, all about God's special relationship with the children of Israel. The children of Israel were called to be a unique people living among the surrounding cultures in a way that was distinctively different. They did this by doing things that other cultures didn't do, and by refusing to do things that were perfectly normative among other cultures. And the laws and the regulations for this kind of lifestyle were contained in the ancient books of the Old Testament such as the book of Leviticus.

Now, you probably haven't read that for light reading for some time. If you've never read it, you will find it on the cleanest pages of your Old Testament. One of the interesting laws in the book of Leviticus was that the farmers of Israel were flatly forbidden, they were not allowed to yoke a donkey and an ox together so that they would pull a plow together.

They were just not allowed to do it. Neither were they allowed to mate two different kinds of animals. So that, for instance, you can mate a donkey and a horse, you'll finish up with a mule, but you can't mate that with anything else. It just won't work. Now, various people have come up with various theories as to why they were not allowed to do this.

Some have said, "Well, if you have a little donkey and a big old ox, you'll have a disproportionate load." And that was not right. Or some have said, "If you've got a powerful ox and a weak donkey, then you can't pull it in a straight line, so it wouldn't work." That may or may not be the case. The simple fact of the matter is, God forbade his chosen people to do things that were perfectly normative in the culture around them. They were to be separate.

Now, Paul takes this idea and he says, "The yoking up of an unbeliever with a believer to such an extent that there is a complete identification between the two is unacceptable." Now, before you switch me off altogether at this point, let me hasten to add that there are balancing truths that we will get to in just a moment or two. But let's take seriously what he's saying here.

Look at the five rhetorical questions that he asks. "What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? Or what harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?" Now, we could put all these rhetorical questions in contemporary terms.

What do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Righteousness and lawlessness have in common? It's simply saying moral standards vary. There are some people who will adopt a moral standard in their lives and it will be based on the righteousness of God. Other people will say, who cares what God says? I don't care what God says. I'm a law unto myself. Lawlessness.

Now, if you get one person who says, "I will establish a system of values based on the righteousness of God," and the other person says, "I will establish a system of values based on total lawlessness and disregard for what God says," you're going to finish up with two entirely different moral standards. Now, how in the world can you have a compatible relationship between people who have mutually incompatible moral standards? You can't.

And so the Apostle Paul says, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers because moral standards vary." "What fellowship can light have with darkness?" Well, obviously, when light comes, darkness disappears, where dark comes, light disappears. We see this happen every 24 hours. They are mutually incompatible. But when Paul uses the expression light and dark, he is referring in a very specific sense to spiritual experience.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, he says, "In the same way that God commanded light to shine out of darkness, so he has allowed the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ to shine into our hearts." Let's face it, there are some people who live in utter spiritual darkness. They have no sense of spiritual realities at all. They have no sensitivity to eternal dimensions of experience at all.

They don't think in terms of eternity, they don't think in terms of spirituality. They live in what the Bible calls spiritual darkness. But when persons are touched by the Gospel, they see the light. They begin to think in terms of eternity. They begin to think in terms of deity. They begin to understand in a new sense their humanity. And when this begins to happen, guess what? The whole of their lives are changed.

And the Apostle Paul says, "What fellowship can light have with darkness?" When there is a radical experience called conversion, when a person's life is turned through 180 degrees, then you cannot find two people walking in opposite directions having an intimacy of relationship. It just won't work. That's what he's saying.

"What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?" Belial is another word for Satan. What possible relationship on an intimate basis can there be between a person who acknowledges Christ as Savior and Lord and a person who actually lives his life as if Satan is in control? You say, well, come on, just a minute. I know lots and lots of nice people and I wouldn't say for a minute that Satan was in control of their lives.

No, and I would hesitate to say that as well. Except for one thing. You remember when the Lord spoke to Peter on one occasion? He told Peter that he was going to go up to Jerusalem, and there he would suffer and be crucified and on the third day, he would rise again. And Peter began to rebuke him. And Jesus' response to that rebuke was, "Get behind me, Satan."

Now, why in the world did Jesus call Peter Satan? All he was doing was trying to protect Jesus. He was being a sincere, well-meaning person. I think the answer to that question is this. The work of Satan historically has been to hinder the work of God. And it is possible for well-meaning people in spiritual ignorance, in a well-meaning, earnest, sincere way, hinder the work of God.

Now, if you've got somebody who has spiritual insight, who understands something of the will of God, and they have an intimate relationship with somebody who hasn't a clue about it, then it's perfectly obvious that there's going to be a fundamental incompatibility there. So the Apostle Paul says, "Don't yoke the two together." We cannot have a total identification between the believer and the unbeliever, there is a fundamental difference between the two.

It goes on to say this, "What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?" In Corinth in the first century, Paul had moved in and he presented the Gospel to an utterly godless society. They hadn't a clue about God, they hadn't a clue about the righteousness of God. They hadn't a clue about repentance. They didn't understand sin from a divine perspective.

They lived at a certain level. Some people got the message and immediately their lives were transformed. And you'd no trouble at all recognizing the believer from the unbeliever. They were very, very different. It's much more difficult in our culture at the present time. We have at least 200, possibly a little more than 200 years Christian history in America.

That does not mean I agree with these people who say that America was a Christian nation. It never was and it never will be. But it does mean that there was a very profound Christian influence in the beginnings of this republic. Not only that, there are still vestiges of a profound Christian influence here. There is sort of a low-grade belief in most people's lives, even where there is no interest whatsoever in worship, no interest in sacrificial service, no assurance of salvation, no acknowledgment of the Lordship of Christ.

Jill Briscoe: Stuart, remind us again what the Apostle Paul means when he says, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers."

Stuart Briscoe: I was raised in a Christian community where this particular expression, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers," was quoted constantly. And so what it really meant was that my experience of life was decidedly limited because my contacts with, my relationships with people who were not believers were very, very limited indeed. In other words, they were kept to a basic minimum.

Now, obviously, I needed to go to school and there were unbelievers in school and I had to be in class with them, so there's no escaping from that. But as far as developing friendships with them, even as far as playing on the same rugby teams as them, that was frowned upon. Now, the Apostle Paul balances this statement out by saying, "Look, it isn't that you don't have any contact with unbelievers." To do that, he said, "You'd have to go out of this world."

No. What it means is this, that we've got to recognize that a person who is a follower of Jesus has a fundamentally different approach to life than the person who is not a follower of Jesus. Therefore, be very, very careful about the depth of attachment to them because you're actually marching to two entirely different drummers.

Jill Briscoe: Is it possible, Stuart, to have a healthy relationship with someone who doesn't have the same biblical standards we do?

Stuart Briscoe: This is a good question. Is it possible to have a healthy relationship with someone who doesn't have the same biblical standards as we do? Well, let me put it to you this way. If you were, if you were walking along a road one day and suddenly there's a crash and a car catches on fire, and you rush over to help rescue the person and somebody else rushes over from the other direction and together you cooperate in pulling that person from the burning car.

Would you check on their approach to biblical standards? Would you, before you cooperate with them, would you make sure that they have the same view on eschatology that you have? Well, of course you wouldn't. All right. Well, then back up from that. Are there other areas in which you could cooperate with people, you could have a healthy relationship with them in certain dimensions of their life? And the answer is, of course you could, because we operate at many, many different levels.

The big issue is, in the deepest, most intimate relationships to which we are called, then is it possible to have one person totally committed to the Lord and the other not committed to the Lord and have a healthy relationship? And I would say, at best, it would be very, very difficult, and at worst, it could result in you finishing up deserting your commitment to the Lord or living in constant conflict. And that neither of those is advisable.

Jill Briscoe: Thanks for being with us today here on Telling the Truth. We pray today's message encouraged you and helped you experience life in Christ. So many people read their Bible, go to church, serve on mission trips, and go through the motions, yet still struggle to find God. Jill Briscoe has a surprising and deeply encouraging answer to this dilemma, which she shares in her three-message series, Finding God.

In this inspiring series, you'll discover how you can stop spending so much energy on finding God and let him find you. By slowing down and putting yourself deliberately in his presence, you'll recognize that he's already there, waiting for you. You'll be uplifted as Jill explains how God worked in the lives of men and women in the Old Testament and how he works in your life too, even when you don't see him and feel his presence.

The Finding God series is our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. And if you're able to make your gift monthly, we'll also send you a special Telling the Truth travel mug to remind you that God is always with you. So request your resources when you give today, 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for joining us today, and be sure to come back next time with Stuart and Jill Briscoe here on Telling the Truth. We'll see you then.