2 Corinthians 11:13-15

2 Corinthians 11:13-15  For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.  Their end will be what their actions deserve.

Mark 4:15  Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 

In the above passage, Paul is attacking the Satanic spirit embedded in these false prophets.  These false teachers were confusing the message of grace and stealing the purity of the gospel from the Corinthian church.  Paul refers to Satan as the great deceiver, the great schemer; he will do anything to lead men away from the "Good News."  Satan does not want the light of Christ do flourish in the hearts of men.  One of his best schemes to distract men from the message of grace and mercy in Christ is religion.  Many times, people who ply the trade of  religion do masquerade as angels of light.  They claim to bring light and life, but instead they bring bondage and death.  They play to man's innate self-willed attitude.  This self-willed religious attitude usually wishes to garner God's approval by obeying lifestyle strictures or the letter of the law.  

This spirit tends to say, "Just give me the rules and I will follow them.  You don't have to worry God, I can find righteousness on my own if I know the way.  Just give me the rules and then watch me follow and fulfill those rules.  I will show you that I can rule myself; you don't even have to be involved."  However, if the Old Testament teaches us anything, it teaches us that man is a natural lawbreaker.  Man's basic, sinful tendency is to violate laws, even good laws.   Man's sinful, lawbreaking nature will always surface regardless of how good the rules are (as any one of you can attest to about speeding laws).  Man is a natural lawbreaker; the Bible says everyone has gone his OWN WAY.  

We see religious men throughout the world captivated by this philosophy of pleasing God through their own efforts.  They will even deprive themselves of the amenities of life to please the God they serve.  We even see them beating their own bodies, hurting and cutting their bodies to achieve some sacred goal.  Man's basic stubborn will is to show God that he can please him through his own efforts.  Man desires to prove that he doesn't need grace--he just needs a divine road map to rescue himself from himself.  Show me the way and I WILL DO IT.  But even the angels knew man's fallen nature would never be redeemed through his own efforts.  There had to be another plan to deliver this trapped, degenerate man from himself.  

The Bible reveals that Christ and the cross is that plan.  He alone has the power to release people from their sins, to make mankind right with God.  So Christ came to "SAVE" mankind.  He came to redeem the unredeemable.  In the Corinthian church, Paul was battling with many different spirits, some very carnal spirits: sexual sins, deceitfulness, and the like, but the spirit of Judaism (following the Law to be righteous) was probably the most potentially damaging one of them all.  So Paul was very forthright in dealing with these false prophets.  We must always recognize that because we are IN CHRIST, we are IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, we ARE HIDDEN IN HIM.  There we are safe, secure, and free.