Do Not Follow Minions of Satan Masquerading as Angels of Light
May 10, 2026
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Discussion Questions
What was the central problem in this passage, and how did Paul address it? How would you put it in your own words?
How is the culture in Corinth about power and influence and “the prosperous” life very similar to our American context? How is there an overlap with your workplace, friends, and family? What are the consequences of this?
Where do you see this view of the prosperous Christian life in the church?
What areas of your Christian suffering are you tempted to despise? What does Jesus say about taking up our crosses?
How does Jesus’s life explode the idea of the prosperity gospel? (Maybe before you can answer this question, you need to define that phrase first.) What is the gospel, and how does the gospel offer something better than mere worldly prosperity?
We can talk about the blight of false teachers. But what role do we have in cultivating spiritual taste buds for healthy food, not spiritual junk food? How can we help each other do this?
Scripture Reading
2 Corinthians 11:1-33
1 I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! 2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 3 But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. 5 Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. 6 Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things.
7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? 8 I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. 9 And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way.10 As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. 11 And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!
12 And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. 13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
16 I repeat, let no one think me foolish. But even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that I too may boast a little. 17 What I am saying with this boastful confidence, I say not as the Lord would but as a fool. 18 Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast. 19 For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! 20 For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. 21 To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that!
But whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32 At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.
I gave the sermon the title “Do Not Follow Minions of Satan Masquerading as Angels of Light.” Perhaps questions come to your mind when you hear that title.
The first question goes something like, Ahh, why do we have to talk about that on Mother’s Day? A fair question. I’ve been asking myself that many times over the last two weeks. I don’t have a good answer except that it’s sort of what happened with a snow day in February and a change of plans around Easter and here we are. Another question might be, And why does that need to be a sermon, like a full sermon? Who, you wonder, doesn’t already agree with that? Who is saying that we should follow minions of Satan masquerading as angels of light?
Of course not. But we need a sermon about not following minions of Satan masquerading as angels of light when we see the key idea is masquerading or disguising. There’s no bright, neon sign hanging over some bad pastor that says, “I will lead you astray.” Typically, the leading astray happens with a flattering whisper that says, “Did God really say?” and “You shall not surely die.”
Which means in Harrisburg, as in Corinth, as in everywhere, we’re replaying the central conflict in the Bible since Genesis 3. Which means we need a sermon about that. Which means we need God’s help. Let’s ask again in prayer for it.
“Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
I want to spend the first part of the sermon right here wrestling with this question of what led them astray. Then we’ll close, seeing how Paul tried to shock them back. So, what led them astray (and maybe us), and how Paul tried to shock them back to faith.
1. What led them astray?
To remind you of the context of this church plant in Corinth, it might be helpful to talk about our church plant. This summer we’ll get to partner together again. This summer we’ll be preaching a series with Midtown Church and Liberti Church, sharing pastors for eight weeks and preaching about seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. Many of you know that we planted Midtown by partnering with Liberti Church. We want to keep that partnership alive, as we hope to plant more churches in the coming years, potentially together. Just as Paul wanted to keep the relationship with Corinth alive.
In fact last week I visited Midtown on Sunday rather than being with you. It was a big Sunday for our church plant. For the last three years, a few leaders from the churches have been on what we’ve called the Midtown advisory team. Basically, together with pastors Ben and Greg, we’ve been a temporary pastor-elder team while they are a new church plant.
The good news is that last Sunday, they brought Michael Grenier and I, and others from the advisory team on stage and they stripped us of that title and fired us from that role. Well, not fired exactly. As Midtown installed its fourth pastor-elder, that triggered the dissolution of the advisory team, which is such a huge milestone for them—and for us. They are now more fully their own church, which is great.
You need to know that when pastor Ben had us on stage, he said the kindest things about you; he teared up, mentioning the sacrifices many of us made, sharing people and money so that they might thrive. They were so thankful. I was so thankful.
Now, I bring up the preaching and the partnership and church planting because it’s all stuff you should know and can praise God for. It also relates to our passage.
How would you feel if you came to know that, now that Midtown is more independent, a group of false prosperity teachers joined that congregation and began to pull Midtown astray from the true Jesus, the true Spirit, the true gospel? How would you feel if false teachers tried to take over that church and boast that they were the real pastors and leaders, the ones with the real good news? You’d feel worried. You’d feel concerned. You’d feel indignant. You’d take urgent steps to shock them back to faithfulness.
You and I might feel the same way Paul does in this passage. Note again what Paul tells them in the beginning, “For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (11:2).
Jealousy, of course, can be a bad thing when we have desires for things that we don’t have, when we are not content in the Lord. That’s not what divine jealousy is, though. Divine jealousy grows from pure love, love that wants the best for someone, love that wants the other person to be holy and faithful.
This is the idea behind Paul’s line, “I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” Paul is saying that their conversion to Christ was like a very serious wedding engagement. And as their spiritual father in the faith, he had a spiritual responsibility to see them remain faithful to Christ until the second coming, until the great wedding ceremony at the end of time (1 Cor. 4:15; 2 Cor. 6:13; 12:14 and Deut. 22:13–24; see 2 Cor. 6:14–7:1 and Rev. 19).
Paul’s use of the language of divine jealousy and fathers and husbands and wives relates to the ache involved in spiritual adultery. But spiritual adultery is not really the best term here. It’s not so much spiritual adultery that Paul worries about; it’s more like these false teachers are committing spiritual rape. And really, that is not good enough either. Paul is worried that these false teachers are committing something more like spiritual human trafficking because of the ongoing nature of the abuse. And Paul just about loses his mind. That’s why later in the passage he speaks of “talking like a madman” (v. 23).
And yet this passage is not so much an intervention directly with the false teachers. He would have words for them, be sure of that. Instead, this passage is more of an intervention with his children, these young Christians in a young church plant, so that they do not get seduced into a relationship that will lead them astray.
Now that we have all this context, let me re-read the first half of the passage, vv. 4–15.
4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. 5 Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. 6 Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge; indeed, in every way we have made this plain to you in all things. 7 Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I preached God’s gospel to you free of charge? 8 I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. 9 And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. 10 As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. 11 And why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do! 12 And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. 13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (2 Cor. 11:4–15)
The crux of the matter is that these super apostles can draw large crowds when they preach. They can command high speaking fees. They can get followers to hang on their every word. They are prosperous. They are thriving. They have money and all of that.
How does that lead this church astray? In their boasting they are teaching directly or indirectly that if you follow Jesus, you too can live a wonderful life of prosperity and boasting, just as they do.
This explains why they look so meanly upon Paul’s ministry. Paul doesn’t draw a salary from them. They twisted that action to mean that Paul couldn’t draw a salary from them because he wasn’t worthy of one. Paul raised money from others because he had to rob them, since he’s not a good speaker. He has to work a part-time job to make ends meet, and anyone who is a real apostle of God would always be moving up the ladder of success. Churches should always be growing in size and power, just like a real Christian’s prosperity and influence should always be growing, or something’s wrong with your faith, they says.
Paul renounces this in the strongest language, calling it another Jesus, another spirit, another gospel. Which is to say, not the real Jesus, not the real Spirit, not the real gospel.
How did the church respond to this false teaching, to this ungodly boasting? Surely they just blew it off. Surely, they could see right through this, couldn’t they? Can’t we?
That’s not what they were doing. They seemed to tolerate it. Which is strange, because these super apostles made their lives hard. We see this in v. 20, which says, “For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.” This is quite a discipleship program, isn’t it? You give us money, and we’ll rough you up a little, and then we’ll boast about it.
Why was this so compelling? I think there’s something in them and us that wants to believe that when we follow Jesus, we’ll always only move up the ladder of influence. If we’re faithful, we can have this transactional relationship with God, where we give him our devotion, and he gives us what we want. It’s a lie we often want to believe.
We see this same temptation from Satan all throughout the Bible. You’ll remember, perhaps, that in Genesis 3, which is the story of the fall into sin, the lie looked attractive. The phrase used is “a delight to the eyes.” I’ll read Genesis 3:6,
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Gen. 3:6).
This is always Satan’s way. In the Gospel accounts, we read of Satan’s temptations of Jesus. When Jesus was hungry, Satan said to him, “Just turn these stones into bread, Jesus. If God really loved you, he wouldn’t let you suffer. Just climb up this tall tower, and throw yourself down to show others that when God catches you, he’s saying that he will never ever let anything bad happen to you—that is, if he really loves you. But if you want, you can just fall down and worship me, and I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world, without any suffering, without any cross. You can have it now. If that’s delightful to your eye.”
This is one way we know the work of Satan. He appeals to our fleshly desires, saying, “You shall not surely die” and “Did God really say?”
When Jesus told his disciples he was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die, one of his disciples said that Jesus should never do that, that such a favored child of God should never suffer. Jesus looked at him and said, “Get behind me, Satan” (Matt. 16:23). It’s not that the disciple was Satan, but it’s that Satan was twisting desires for comfort and power into a kind of false gospel. The point for us is that the false gospel often looks pleasing to our eyes.
Maybe you just need to hear that if your life does not look like a shiny, prosperous Christian life, a life of sacrifice for others and hardship, it might not be because you’re unfaithful, but because you are faithful.
2. How does Paul try to shock us back to faith?
Into this context, Paul takes a drastic intervention to shock us back. Let me read some of his words, starting in v. 21 and reading through the end of the chapter.
But whatever anyone else dares to boast of—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast of that. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. 24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. 29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? 30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32 At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands. (2 Cor. 11:21b–33)
This is a strange back-and-forth between Paul’s boasting and the boasting of the false apostles. It’s sort of like the false teachers look at him and say, “Hey, Paul, anything you can do, we can do better!” And Paul looks at them confused. And they say, “We can make a lot of money.” Paul looks around and goes, “I can take a beating.” Then they say, “We can preach to large crowds!” Paul says, “I got lowered in a basket.”
And that’s the funny one to me. In all the suffering, the beatings, all the physical pain, there is this odd story right at the end of the chapter from early in his ministry about being lowered away. The study Bible I often consult had a note that this is a striking example of Paul’s suffering. And at first I thought, Really? Does he need a striking example after that other list? It seems more striking that the stones struck his head and then God raised him from the dead.
But then I understood what is so shocking. Into a culture of power and influence and pride and traditional boasting and climbing the ladders of success, he says my Christian ministry is so humiliating that I had to be lowered in a basket. I didn’t arrive in a helicopter or a limo or with bodyguards. I got lowered in a basket.
In other places where Paul is instructing pastors and churches, he tells us that pastors should be paid and that they are worthy of honor (1 Tim. 5). So Paul knew he should have been paid. But because their hearts were so prone to love money and status and this vision of prosperous thriving, he made a strategic sacrifice and instead chose to offer the gospel to them free of charge. Just so there was no misunderstanding, he offered the gospel free of charge to reflect what the gospel really is: good news that comes free of charge.
Basically, he took the shocking approach that his preaching about Jesus and ministry about Jesus would look like the real Jesus. Paul wanted his ministry to look like the ministry of the Good Shepherd.
Listen to the description of Jesus’s sacrificial ministry in his own words. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”(John 10:7–11). Paul wanted his shepherding ministry to look like the good shepherd.
This is the ministry that Jesus has for you. When you were lost, when you were far from him, when you had no spiritual money to buy spiritual favor, God freely gave. Jesus sacrificed his life so that we might have life. That is the real Jesus, the real good news.
And Paul wants his life to look like that. And we should too.
When I think about Mother’s Day, there’s a line from a movie that always comes to my mind. You’ll laugh when I tell you, but I’ll tell you anyway. When I think about mothers, I think about a line from a Jason Bourne movie—yes, I do mean the government assassin movie starring Matt Damon. I know, I know. Let me tell you I’m not a mother without saying I’m not a mother, right? Anyway, there’s a scene where one assassin is chasing another assassin. As one of them gets wounded, and he looks at Jason Bourne in this honest moment, and says, “Look at what they make you give.”
I think about that line, and I think about Mother’s Day. Mother’s you’re not assassins, at least I hope. But you give and give and give.
It can be easy in our low moments to resent this giving. Your body gets taken over by others. Your time gets taken over. Your life for the life of others. I would guess in low moments, those times when Paul wasn’t thinking rightly, he resented his suffering. I’m sure at some point during one of those beatings or stonings or shipwrecks or whatever, he wondered if all that sacrifice was worth it. But when he was thinking rightly, as he is in this chapter, he would have said what I hope we can say: that he’d gladly be made nothing, that Christ would be made more.
These would be impossible realities to live if we didn’t also believe that the Christian life is actually a supernatural life. When we become Christians, God actually changes the spiritual taste buds of our hearts so that we see beauty in the sacrifice of Jesus, when we would have only seen folly.
This is how Paul wants to shock us back to faithfulness and reject the lie. He wants to continue to put before us the goodness of sacrifice for others so that we don’t grow weary. And so that we remember this is how God demonstrates his love for us: while we were sinners, Christ died.
I’ll invite the music team forward so we can have a time of response through singing. Let’s pray.
“Dear Heavenly Father. . .”
