We're here tonight with you all
and going through this study. It's been marvelous to see verse
by verse how Paul was just building upon and building upon the preeminence of Christ and of
God and salvation. The name of the message tonight
is Delivered, Rescued, Delivered. Rescued. Oh, I hope and pray
this will bring joy to our hearts and souls as we look at this
portion of Scripture. Let's read verse 12 and verse
14 along with 13. 13 is where we'll be, but let's
read the context of that. Verse 12, giving thanks unto
the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness
of sins." Oh, what a wonderful Scripture. Verse 13 we see here.
It just seems like we're hitting mountaintops here. Look at verse
13, and next week verse 14 will be another mountaintop. Verse
13, "...who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and
hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." What a wonderful,
wonderful verse we have here before us. And we see Paul continuing
to direct the Colossians. He's continuing to direct the
Colossians to the One, to the One who is the source of all
grace. And that's God the Father in Christ to us who believe. And here before us is a Scripture
that gives us reason to praise. To praise our God Almighty. And
to give all the praise to Him. And He is Almighty. He is absolutely
Sovereign. He is Sovereign in salvation
and He is Sovereign in all things. But when you put these three
verses together, we see His sovereignty and salvation. And we also see
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit at work. Because
the Father, verse 3, giving thanks unto the Father which hath made
us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light, who hath delivered us from this power of darkness and
translated us. That means to be born again.
We're taken from one place to the other, but we're born again
by the Holy Spirit of God. into the kingdom of His dear
Son and in Christ in whom we have redemption through His blood,
through the blood of Christ. The whole Trinity at action again
in the salvation of a sinner. Oh, what a wonderful Savior we
have. And these verses will fill us
with praise as we've seen our own inability as we've went through
this book. We've seen our own inability
and God's power, God's power at work in our lives who believe. Oh, it's marvelous. Last week
we looked at how the Father made us qualified or fit for heaven. He's made us fit for heaven.
That we might be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
and light. And that's only found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nowhere
else. Nowhere else. And may we just
marvel, may we just marvel over the fact that we who believe
are qualified and made fit for heaven. Sinners. It's marvelous. It's a wonderful salvation and
it's only in Christ and Him alone. What a Savior. What a wonderful
Savior. And may this fill us with praise
and adoration for our great King. Look at verse 13 now. Who hath
delivered us, and this is still connected to giving thanks unto
the Father which made us meet. He made us qualified to be partakers
of the inheritance of saints and light. And who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the
kingdom of his dear Son. He delivered us. He delivered
us from the power of darkness. And now sinners, whether they
believe it or not, They need to be rescued. They need to be rescued. And Paul here is speaking about
believers in Christ. That we've been delivered from
the power of darkness. Now the Greek word, the Greek
word underlying the word delivered means to rescue. We've been rescued
from the power of darkness. delivered from the power of darkness. God the Father delivered us out
of Satan's power. And the darkness we were in was
so dark that we were blinded. Turn, if you would, to 2 Corinthians
4. We were absolutely blind to the
things of God. We had no clue. Blinded. Look at 2 Corinthians, and this
was our state. This is the state of every human
being who comes into this earth. 2 Corinthians 4, verses 1-4, "...therefore
seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy..."
Oh, have we not received mercy? We've received mercy in Christ.
"...we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of disomny,
not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully,
but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every
man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost." in whom the God of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them." Blind. Blind to the gospel. Absolutely blind to the things
of God. We were crippled and lame. Crippled
and lame from the fallen Adam. We could not help ourselves.
Before the Lord saved us, we didn't think anything was wrong.
I know Brother Tim and I have had many talks about that. We
just thought we were just going on in our life, not even thinking
anything, not even caring about anything. Thinking everything's
just fine. And in one day, we're arrested
like Paul was, eh? Oh, oh, and we see ourselves
and what we are, but God has rescued us, delivered us from
the power of darkness. Isaiah 42, 16 says this, and
I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. I'll bring the blind by a way
that they knew not. We had no clue about that. I will lead them in paths they
have not known. Oh, it's marvelous. I will make
darkness light before them. Oh. And crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them
and not forsake them. He does all that for us and then
He never leaves us. Never. Isaiah 42, verse 16. What a wonderful verse. And think
of that verse. I'll bring the blind by the way
that they knew not. I'll lead them in paths that
they have not known. I'll make darkness light before them and
crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them.
and not forsake them. And then let's look at our verse
again in Colossians. Who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son. Has He not done that for we who believe? And notice also, Paul by inspiration
of the Holy Ghost here pens that it is the Father in verse 12
who has done this. That's another blow against the
false teachers. That's another blow against Gnosticism.
who said God was far off and withdrawn. No. We see that he's
active. He's active. He's loving. He's infallible. He has a personal
interest in the deliverance of every single one of his sheep. Oh, what a wonderful God. What
a merciful God. So Paul is writing to the believers
at Colossus and telling them that it's God the Father who's
done this for us. God has rescued us. And He's
delivered us, we who believe on Christ, from the power of
darkness. And it still continues to this
day. He still draws His sheep. He
still saves His sheep. And it will go until the covenant
is finished. Until the last sheep is saved. Turn, if you would, to John 3.
Now, the power of darkness spoken of here. Darkness in Scripture
is the image of sin or ignorance and falsehood. Look at John 3. And we're starting in verse 14,
and we'll go through to verse 21. And I wanted to do this because
it includes, I always like to read it in context that way.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God
sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through Him might be saved. If He left us all where
we were, we'd all be condemned. No, He chose to save the people.
Look at this, though. He that believeth on Him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation. Here it is. That light has come
into the world. Christ came into the world. And
men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were
evil. That's natural man. That's where
we were. We loved darkness before the
Lord saved us more than light. Now it's the opposite. We're
born again now. Oh, now we love the things of
God. We love the things of Christ. Man loves darkness, though, rather
than light. For everyone that doeth evil,
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved. What's one of the things that happens when
the Lord saves us? We see what we are. We see what we are before a holy
and righteous God. And we just bow down before Him.
God, be merciful to me, the sinner. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, and his deeds may be made manifest, that they were
wrought in God. Spurgeon gives an illustration
of how man loved darkness in sin rather than light, and I
like the way he put this. He says, I have sometimes thought
that sin might be compared to those serpents which fascinate
their prey. We've got a snake. What do they
do? They do that little... And they kind of hypnotize their
prey. Maybe some poor little animal.
The snake looks and looks. And the little creature, instead
of running, he's just locked. He's locked onto that serpent. He looks at those bright sparkling
eyes. The virgin goes on to say, till the poor hare or rabbit
or whatever it may be, instead of escaping, stands as though
it were a statue. And this is what sin does to
us. We're just enticed. I thought it was a great illustration,
right? And then the prey becomes perfectly
tranquil and fascinated with the glare of the serpent's eye.
And then in a moment, the snake darts out and devours its prey. That's
what sin does to us. The same thing. This was our
state. This was our state, but praise
be to God. He's delivered us from the power of darkness. We
who believe, He's delivered us from this. And think on this
and see if it does not give us cause to rejoice. We who believe
on Christ. We were prisoners of sin. We
were held captive. We were chained up under the
kingdom of darkness. And we didn't even know it. We talked about our freedom.
Oh, the freedom to make choices and our freedom to do these things.
You hear people say it all the time. Oh, my free will. And men
make choices all the time. They do. We do. But you're always
governed by your nature. If your nature's dead, you're
going to go off and do things that they with a dead nature
do. But if you're born again in the Spirit, you're going to
love Christ. We're still sinners, but sin
doesn't have the power it once had over us. So we talked about
our freedom all the while we had these chains all on us. We
boasted about all the things that we could do and we had no
ability to come to God. We boasted about our supposed
knowledge or wisdom of spiritual things, and we didn't know anything. We thought in our darkness that
we could do things to please God, all the while weaving our
own code of self-righteousness. In the darkness of sin, the darkness
of sin makes man careless. indifferent to the things of
Christ. And that was our state. That
was our state. Turn, if you would, to Romans
1. And this will give us a picture of the darkness we're in. And
then we're going to see the contrast. Then we're going to see the contrast.
Look at Romans 1, verses 21-32. Oh, this is a picture. Because that, verse 21, when
they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their
foolish hearts was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds
and four-footed beasts and creeping things. They bowed down to idols. Wherefore God also gave them
up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to
dishonor their bodies between themselves, who changed the truth
of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more
than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause
God gave them up to vile affections, for even their women did change
the natural use of into that which is against nature. And
likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of men, burned
in their lust one toward another, men with men, working that which
is unseemly, and receiving in themselves the recompense of
their error which was meat. And even as they did not like
to retain God in their knowledge, now this is where God just gives
a man over to himself, God gave them over to a reprobate mind
to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled
with all unrighteousness, fornification, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
full of envy, murder, deceit, or debate, deceit, malignity,
whispers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters,
inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding,
covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful,
who know in the judgment of God that they which commit such things
are worthy of death. Do not only do the same, but
have pleasure in them that do them. Sin. Do you see how sin
makes people indifferent? Indifferent. Careless. And we were wholly within the
power of sin at one time. We who believe, we were gripped
by it. helplessly bound up with no hope. John 3 says this, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the
Spirit is Spirit. So, man comes into this world
dead in trespasses and sins. Romans 8.7 says our minds were
enmity against God because the carnal mind is enmity against
God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. We were ensnared by the devil. We were ensnared by sin.
We are ensnared by the power of darkness. That man may recover themselves
of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his
will. 2 Timothy 2, verse 26. But praise be to God, He did
not leave us where we were. Oh, look what our scripture says. Our text proclaims this. And
remember, we're fallen in Adam, right? We come into this world
dead in trespasses and sins. But our Heavenly Father rescues
us. He delivers His people from that state. Look at our text.
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness? Oh, the darkness
we were in. But this verse before us, what
a wonderful, amazing work that God has done for us. And notice the verbiage here
also. Paul does not say, he hopes so, but it says who hath. It's a definite. He's done this
for his people. He has delivered us, beloved,
from the power of darkness. If indeed our trust is in Christ,
and in His finished work, and in His righteousness, Oh, then
He has delivered us. And it's not a matter of argument.
It's not up for debate. It's so. It's so. And it must be so for every soul
that is in Christ. He has delivered. He has delivered
us from the power of darkness and translated us into His own
kingdom. Oh, what a wonderful God. He
has all power. Every believer in Christ has
been delivered out of the power of darkness. Rescued from the
power of darkness by His strong arm, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, beloved. Only God has this
power. No one else. We have no power
or ability on our own, but God has this power. He has the power to deliver us
and deliver sinners from the power of darkness into the kingdom
of His dear Son. And rejoice, beloved of God,
He had delivered us. He had rescued us from the power
of darkness. It gives us reason to rejoice,
doesn't it? It gives us reason to rejoice. Let's look at our
verse again. Who had delivered us from the
power of darkness and had translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son. We've been rescued. And those
who have been rescued have been translated from the power of
darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. A quick note, last
week we looked at how, again, how the Father qualifies us.
Here we see how the Holy Spirit translates us. We're born again
of the Holy Spirit of God. And next week we'll see how the
Son redeems us. And how it translates us. God
makes us qualified and fit for heaven by drawing us out of our
corrupt state in which we were born, right? Dead in trespasses
and sins. Dead to the things of God. Dead
in sin. He translates us into the state
of grace called the kingdom of His dear Son. Romans 14 says
this, For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Oh, He does this by an
effectual regeneration. He's not trying. He does it. We're born again by the Holy
Spirit of God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. You
must be born again. You must be born again. Back to our text again in verse
13, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath
translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Oh, beloved,
he delivered us from the tyranny of the power of darkness. The
tyranny of it by his strong arm, by Christ, by the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he's transferred us and removed
us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
13. We'll look at two verses there. Matthew chapter 13, verses 10
and 11. And the disciples came and said
unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? Verse 10. And the disciples came and said
unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? Verse 11. He
answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them
it is not given. And go back to our text in Colossians
1.13 now. Who hath delivered us from the
power of darkness. Oh, it's given. It's given to
us. And think of this, this delivery.
We've been delivered. We've been rescued. What a magnificent
picture. What a magnificent description.
It shows our old life is a life under tyranny, under the power
of darkness. And darkness reigns there. And without divine deliverance,
there's no escape for us. Oh, but beloved, we have a God.
Our God through Jesus Christ our Lord. These powers of darkness
spoken of, they are forced to yield their prey. They're forced
to yield their prey and see their captives released by a power
that is far greater than theirs. Oh. They have to release their captives. He set us free, didn't He? God has translated us, those
who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and those who have been
born again by the Holy Spirit of God into the kingdom of His
dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We were once in darkness, but
now we live in the light that is Jesus Christ our Lord. We once did not see our sin,
Now in the light of the Gospel, in the light of the Gospel we
see our Savior and we see what it cost for Him to redeem us
from our sins. We once had no understanding
of God, none. We had no understanding of who
He was. But now in the light of the gospel
we see who God is. That He's a holy God. And He's
a just God. And that He's sovereign and He's
magnificent. And He's a Savior. Savior of
His people. We were once slaves to sin. But
the power of sin has now been broken. Now we're still sinners. But it doesn't have the power
over us it once had. The control that once had over
us has been broken. We once had no desire for the
things of God. Or spiritual things, but now
that we're born again by the Holy Spirit, we hunger and thirst
after righteousness. And that's only found where?
Only in Christ. Nowhere else. What a magnificent
work the Lord has done. A work that we could never do
and he does it all. We were once dead in trespasses
and sins, lost and without hope, hopeless. I've talked to my daughter
before and I said, you know, I've kind of noticed that in
your generation, in your generation that there's no hope. There's no hope. And she said,
yeah, there's not. We have a hope. We have an inheritance that faded
not away. A hope that's anchored in Christ. A hope that we did not have at
one time. Oh, what a deliverance. We have
a hope in Christ. And we who were dead are made
alive. We who were hopeless now have
a hope. We who were dead in trespasses
and sin now have eternal life. And it's all because of what
he's done. It's all because of what he's
done. This is divine deliverance. A deliverance, like I say, we
could never deliver ourselves, but our scripture here declares,
who hath delivered us, who hath rescued us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now
I'm found, was blind, but now I see. It's amazing grace. And it's all His work. Salvation,
I know we keep saying this, and we will keep saying this, salvation
is of the Lord. It's all His doing. Oh, and it's
marvelous. It's absolutely marvelous. Turn
over to 2 Corinthians, or I mean Colossians chapter 2. I want
to look at a little portion of scripture. Colossians chapter 2. Starting in verse 10. And ye are complete in Him, which
is the head of all principality and power, in whom also ye are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, and put not
the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, wherein
also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of
God, who hath raised Him from the dead. The same One spoken
of in our text who had been delivered, who had been rescued. And you,
being dead in your sins, in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
hath He quickened. Oh, you're born again by the
Holy Spirit. Together with Him, heaven has forgiven you all trespasses. Blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us,
and took it out of His way, nailing it to His cross. And then it
says, in heaven-spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of
them openly, triumphing over them in it. Now that, triumphing
over them, as the Romans would do a triumph, whenever they won
a huge battle, they would have what's called a triumph. And
they would bring They would bring the soldiers that they had captured
in chains. It was like a parade. And they
would parade. They first would come, these
soldiers. They're now slaves in chains. And they would be
taken to be executed later on. And they would come just chained
up. Chained up. And in back would
come pictures of all the, of the, they would come with what
we would call a float, but they pulled them along. And they had
pictures on the sides depicting the battle. And then chosen legions,
chosen or chosen portions of the legions which fought valiantly
in whatever battle they were in had the honor of walking along
too. and then would come the general,
Caesar or whichever general, and they would be given a golden
laurel and they would be in a chariot and people would just be going
crazy. Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ
triumphed, triumphed at the cross over all the powers of darkness.
Crushed them. Crushed them. And he triumphantly
entered into heaven. Triumphed. It's finished. And He rose again
and He's seated at the right hand of the Father with power. And He reigns. And we see this,
in heaven spoiled prince of powers and powers, He made a show of
them openly, triumphing over the minutes. And then tie that
in with our scripture. Tie that in with that, who had
delivered us from the power of darkness. Oh, what power he has. He's a sovereign, almighty God. who have delivered us from the
power of darkness and have translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son. Every single man and woman in Christ has been liberated.
They've been set free. Set free. Translated into the
kingdom of His dear Son. And we rejoice in that triumph,
right? In the triumph that Christ did.
He did it all. We rejoice. The triumph which our Lord Jesus
Christ achieved upon the cross, paying our sin debt full. Our sins were imputed to Him,
and His righteousness is imputed to us. And He paid every single
thing that God the Father demanded for all His people upon that
cross. And He cried, it's finished.
He triumphed. He's a successful Savior. And we're closed with this Scripture.
I'll read it in Ephesians 5.8. For ye were sometimes darkness.
And think of our text. For ye were sometimes darkness,
but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light.
Oh, may we just rejoice in this wonderful salvation we have.
Hallelujah. What a Savior.