Well, we come back to Colossians
for the last time in this series, and I want to look this morning
at verses 2 to 6 of chapter 4. Chapter 4, verses 2 to 6. And
this will be the last message of what I think has been 20 odd
messages from this epistle altogether. Let's just read those verses.
Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving,
with all praying also for us, that God would open to us a door
of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also
in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that
you may know how you ought to answer every man. Remember the
message of this epistle right from the start, and all the epistles. It's that the Christian life
is a journey, as Bunyan pictured it in Pilgrim's Progress, it's
a journey from Vanity Fair, the Vanity Fair of this fallen world,
to the celestial city of heaven. It's a journey from the darkness
of spiritual blindness into the light of God, the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
It's a journey from a realm of sin and all that results from
it. Sin and pain and sorrow and death
to a state of eternal bliss. Eternal bliss in the many mansions
prepared by God for his people. And Paul has declared the certainty
of it accomplished. What is it that has accomplished
it? It's the mystery. Look at it. In chapter 1 and
verse 26, the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations,
but now is made manifest to his saints. It's the mystery of the
gospel of grace declared in this book. I remember when I first
came across Christianity, I mean I was christened as a baby in
the Church of England and was with all that nominal Church
of England Christianity. But then I came across Arminian
Christianity and I remember believing an Arminian gospel that somebody
had twisted my arm up my back to believe. But do you know something?
It troubled me. It troubled me for years after
that because I just couldn't see how it could work. I just
couldn't see how that so-called gospel could work until somebody
led me into the truth of the gospel of God in this book. That's
the gospel which is effectual. Effectual means it works. It
accomplishes the job. It does the job. It does the
job of what? Getting his people. from this realm of sin to eternal
glory and bliss. It does it. You can rest in it,
the full assurance of faith. And he's encouraged, throughout
this epistle, he's encouraged, having defined it, that mystery
hid from generations, but now made manifest, clear to his saints,
he's encouraged believers to stick to the narrow way to life. On that road, again, like Bunyan
pictured it, the narrow way to life, not the broad way that
leads to destruction. He encouraged them, in chapter
2, to give no quarter whatsoever to the deceptions of religion.
Religion, all around us, is the great enemy of truth, but give
no quarter to the deceptions of religion. And finally, in
chapters 3 and 4, to live and to behave and interact with others
in accordance with the salvation that we have discovered by believing
Christ, by looking always to Christ, to achieve it not by
constraint of law, but by the constraint of the love of Christ.
For it is the love of Christ that constrains his people. And
so the ministry of the word that Paul had given and others had
given, Epaphras had given, had taught these Colossians these
things in exactly the same way. Two thousand years ago nearly,
taught them in the same way as it does us today. And there was
constant reinforcement of the truth, leading to growth in grace
and knowledge. That's what Peter encourages
believers. The last verse of his second
epistle, grow in grace and knowledge, grow. to spiritual maturity,
in understanding to be men and not children. People who, what
is it? To progress, to grow in grace.
You know, it doesn't matter what your physical circumstances are.
Job was in the most dire physical circumstances. He had nothing
of the physical flesh, the frame, to give him any strength whatsoever. And yet he was able to say to
those so-called comforters, he said, I know that my Redeemer
lives. I know! I've got any doubts. I know my Redeemer liveth, and
that he shall stand at the latter day upon this earth. And the
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. That's the confidence of this
faith. That's the confidence of it. It is well with my soul.
I know that he has done all. It is finished. He stressed it
in his prayer. It is finished was what he said.
Why? Everything that is necessary, for his believing people to attain
that state of eternal glory he has accomplished. And so, he's
gone through the letter, and he comes to his final greetings. And I love this. You know, we're
not gonna get a special message out of it, but I love this because
it's real people. These were real people nearly
2,000 years ago, and now they're in glory. They're in glory, as
are you and I, if we're in Christ, seated in heavenly places in
him. Their experience of this life has gone, is ended, but
they're there with him now. They were partakers, these people. Nearly 2,000 years ago, they
were partakers of what Paul said to Titus was the common faith. There's all sorts of faiths that
are wrong, but the common faith of this book, to the law and
to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them. But the
common faith, the gospel of God, the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, it's the faith, as Jude says, that was once delivered
to the saints. And we share that same faith
that Aristarchus and Marcus and Barnabas. I won't say Demas,
as I said, because we know from 2 Timothy that Demas had left
me. Frailty of the flesh. But we share that faith. We believe
the same thing. We contend for the exact same
faith once delivered to the saints. We believe that doctrine of effectual
salvation as they did. And that is the reason why, I
mean, it's lovely to see so many here this morning, but that's
the reason why, relatively speaking, we're so isolated. We could have
a great big building full of many, many people if all we would
do is water down this message to that which everybody thinks,
oh, that's all right, I can cope with that, I can put up with
that. But this is the message of the truth of the gospel. Anyway,
before Paul closes, he gives a call for prayer and the call
for prudence in the life in this world. So I've got three points
and the first two will take up most of the time. Continue in
prayer and then pray for gospel prosperity and then walk in wisdom
regarding the world all around. So continue in prayer, look at
verse two, continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving. What is prayer? What is prayer? It's people on earth talking
to God in heaven. And he says, watch in the same
with thanksgiving. Watch, observing the world all
around, the environment in which we live. in a spirit of prayer
to God, acknowledging, aware, conscious that God is over all. God is the one who rules. God
is the one who upholds all things by the word of the power of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He is that God who is over all.
We're watching in that spirit of knowing He's in control of
everything and giving thanks to Him. You know, one of the
big indictments against the world for its unbelief in Romans chapter
1 is that they weren't thankful. They weren't thankful to God.
The world around us hates God, despises God, is not thankful.
We're always hearing about prayer. Something happens and the political
leaders all say, oh, our prayers are with the such and such a
thing. Do you know, all that sort of political prayer, I'm
afraid it's nothing other than idolatry. It isn't to the God
who is the one revealed in the Bible. But the prayer of God's
children His believing people, the church of his elect, is to
the sovereign God who has saved them and called them with an
holy calling. It's to the one true God, the
one who is the creator, the one, I think I already said it, Hebrews
1 verse 3, he upholds all things by the word of the power of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We pray to the God who we know,
as Paul said to the Athenians, is the one in whom we live. and
we move and we have our being. We know that in Him alone is
life. Nowhere else. In Him is life. You live because of Him only. Political powers? Oh, the world
is so obsessed with what's Russia going to do next, what's China
going to do next, what's Donald Trump going to do next. Political
powers? Financial supremos? The super-rich
of this world? Do you know, however powerful
they think they are, they are nothing compared to him. They're
like the small dust of the balance. It just will blow away in a puff
of breeze. They're nothing to him. Rather,
it is God. You say, who controls what goes
in this world? Vladimir Putin? No, no, no, no,
no. Let me remind you of Revelation
chapter 6. You know, there are the four horses of the apocalypse
that are called forth. The white horse, the red horse,
the black horse, and the pale horse. They are symbolical of
everything that happens in this world. The gospel is preached.
Wars take place. There's appalling Polarization
of wealth from the obscenely rich, can I put it that way,
to the most abjectly poor. And death grabs every single
one of us eventually. But who sends all those four?
Who sends those horses? It's God. It's God who calls
forth those four horses. It's He that does that. Why does
He do that? to frustrate Satan's kingdom,
which is this world. He does it to frustrate the kingdom
of Satan. He is in control of all things
and he is unchangeable. Our God doesn't change. I am
the Lord and I change not, he says in Malachi. I am the Lord
and I change not, therefore you're not consumed, you sons of Jacob.
So if he doesn't change and he's supreme over everything, why
do we pray? Why do we pray? Why do we talk
to God from earth? Are we trying to twist God's
arm, as it were, to do things differently, the way we want
them and not the way he'd already ordained them to be? Are we trying
to change the mind of God? Well, the answer's an emphatic
no, no. We pray because he bids his people
to pray to him. When you think about our God,
our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, only
one God, yet manifest in three persons, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. And when the Son laid aside the
glory of heaven and the glory he shared with the Father and
the Spirit in heaven. When he laid that aside, for
a little while made lower than the angels, to take on him the
flesh of his brethren, of his children, to be made like his
brethren, to take on this flesh and blood, yet without sin. When
he did that and he came to this earth, the man in whom we read
in this epistle, in chapter 2 and verse 9, that in him dwelt the
fullness of the deity bodily, Can you get your head around
these things? Because I certainly can't. I'm speaking them, but
I can't get my head around these things. He in whom dwelt the
fullness of the Godhead bodily, while he was a man on earth,
he prayed to his Father in heaven. Is that not a reason for us to
pray? Is that not a reason for his people to pray? Don't let
ideas Glorious ideas of supreme sovereignty and unchangeability
deter us from praying. He calls us to pray to him. He
won't change his will, he cannot, but he calls us to pray to him.
He hears the prayers of his people. In Proverbs 15, and you could
quote dozens of other scriptures, but it says of our God, he heareth
the prayer of the righteous. Ah, there is none righteous,
no, not one. So who's he talking about? He's
talking about those whom he has made the righteousness of God
in Christ. In the Lord Jesus Christ who
has made the sin of his people, he has made his people the righteousness
of God in him. And those people, when they pray,
he hears the prayer of the righteous. But for what shall we pray? I
know at least two, maybe three or four of you that are here
can remember maybe 20 years ago, And we were in a service that
we didn't really want to be in and there was a false preacher
preaching and he was preaching about prayer. And he said, this
is one of the things he said, and they'll confirm it. He prayed
for a swimming pool and God arranged it that his accommodation changed
and he ended up in a house with a swimming pool. And his answer,
prayer works. If it worked for me and I prayed
for a swimming pool and I got a swimming pool, then pray for
a swimming pool. No, that's trivial. No, it's this. Whatsoever ye
shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you according
to the will of God. According to the revealed will
of God. How do we know the will of God? It's in his word. It's
in his word. Don't despair though. Don't be
put off that you don't know his will perfectly. Don't despair
because look, he tells us this. He tells us that he knows our
frame. He knows that we are dust. We're
just made from the dust of the earth. He knows our frame. It
says, this I find one of the most comforting things when it
comes to prayer, and I know I'm going to get it wrong, but he's
touched with the feeling of our infirmities. I find that such
a comfort. Our God, who is sovereign and
unchangeable, who knows the thoughts that he thinks to us. He knows
the thoughts that he thinks to us, and those thoughts are nothing
other than good for his people. I know the thoughts that I think
to you, thoughts not of evil, but of good, to give you an expected
end, to bring you to that glorious state at the end. He knows our
situation, and he knows what he wants to do with us, and he's
touched while we live here in these sinful bodies on this earth
with a feeling of our infirmities. Do you know as well, As Jesus was a man, in him dwelt
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He knew the will of God, he knew
the will of the Father. But he became for a little while
lower than the angels. You know when he came to that
garden of Gethsemane on the night before he was crucified, and
he, as a man, I found this the most profound thing, he asked
his Father, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine, be done. An amazing revelation of the
true humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the revealed
will of God? We saw it right at the start
weeks ago in verse 9 of chapter 1. For this cause we also, since
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to desire
that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will in
all wisdom and spiritual understanding. What is that will? It's to bring
all of his people to eternal glory. Jesus said it to the Jews
who were questioning him. What should we do to do the will
of God? And he said, this is it, believe on him whom he said.
And then later on in that same passage in John 6, he said, this
is the will of my father, that of all he has given me, of all
the people before the beginning of time, that the father gave
to the son, in sovereign grace, that all that he gave to him,
of them he should lose not one, but he should bring every last
one of them to glory. That's the will of the father.
Pray in accord with that. He brings his people to eternal
glory by whatever path through this world he sees fit, because
whatever things crop up along the way, he says, he causes all
things to work together for good to those that love God, who are
the called according to his purpose. He causes all things, all things,
all things. I know at times it's hard to
get your head around that. It's hard to believe it, but
it's the truth. He causes all things to work together for good
to those that love God and are called according to his purpose.
So pray in accord with the revealed will of God, as he did with David. God puts it in his people's hearts
to pray. In 2 Samuel chapter 7 and verse
27, David found it in his heart to pray. David found it in his
heart to pray. Who put it in his heart for David
to pray? God put it in his heart for David
to pray. Can't God do his will? Without
his people praying? Of course he can. Of course he
can. Turn to Ezekiel 36, or you can
just listen to me read it out. But in Ezekiel 36 and verse 37,
there's all sorts of things that God is saying he will do with
his people. And it says in verse 37, thus
saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the
house of Israel to do it for them. I'm going to do it for
them, but I'll be inquired of by the house of Israel to do
it for them. I will increase them with men
like a flock. God will do what He has purpose
to do, but he will have his people pray to him for it. We pray that
he will greatly increase his people and bring us all to that
end, to that kingdom coming of our God. But he will do it by
his people praying. Open doors, bring them in, cause
them to hear. So living in an awareness of
God's overarching presence and praying often, praying often,
you know, short requests. Jesus spoke about the hypocritical
long prayers of the Pharisees. He said, don't pray like that.
They're showing off. They're just showing off prayers.
They're hypocritical. Short requests. Make your requests
known. Don't be like the people that think they will be heard
for their much speaking. Short requests. I love the account
of Nehemiah. And he's in fear and trembling
before the great Ahasuerus, I think it was. And, you know, if you
blinked your eye at the wrong time, Ahasuerus would arrange
for your head to be removed from your body. So he's in great fear
and trembling. And he prayed to his God, and
he's the cupbearer, and he's going to serve the wine to the
king. And he daren't look sad, because the king will have his
head chopped off there and then. He's in that present, and what
does he do? What does he do? He can't get down on his knees
and pray. He's just about to serve the king with his wine,
and what does he do? He sends a prayer up to heaven. Lord, help me.
Lord, help me. Open this man's heart. Show him
what he needs to tell me to do. Short requests, not hypocritical
long prayers. It says in Ecclesiastes 5 and
verse 2, when you come into the presence of God, know where you
are and know what you are and get down off your high horse
and let your words be few. but making requests to God for
one another, for one another, pleading with God. We know about
the circumstances that our brethren are in, in different situations,
and so we plead with God. He knows the feelings of our
infirmities, but we plead with him. We say, we know this might
not be right, but you understand, Lord, the feelings of my infirmities,
and I pray that you will grant this. We cry to him. We thank
him for what he's done. We commune with him. Isn't it
a blessing? You know, we, as believers, we
encounter trials. Sometimes you think things are
just going so well, you haven't had any trials at all. Well,
God is preparing you, and a trial will come along. What a blessing,
our trials. They're not, They're not bad
things, they're a blessing, because why? They drive the people of
God to pray to him. So then, in verses three and
four, Paul says, with all praying also for us, that God would open
to us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ,
for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest as
I ought to speak. Just remember, just for a moment,
who was this Paul the Apostle? He was Saul of Tarsus. What was
the purpose of Saul of Tarsus in the early church? It was to
destroy it. It was to go out of his way to
destroy it, to capture those that believed the gospel of Jesus
Christ, and to put them in prison and even have them killed. He
was vehement in his opposition to it and yet here he is in the
last couple of years of his life in Rome under house arrest or
in prison or whatever form it took. But he couldn't go where
he wanted and there he is writing these epistles and he's still
desiring that God would open a door for him to preach the
gospel. That God would order local affairs
to facilitate Paul's preaching of the gospel. Why was that the
prayer he specifically asked for? It's because the will of
God is the triumph of his kingdom. And the triumph of his kingdom
is brought about by the gathering of the multitude out of this
world, the multitude that he chose in Christ before the beginning
of time. He chose them in Christ before
the beginning of time, and when God came down from glory, made
a little lower than the angels for a little while, He came in
the flesh of His people, of His brethren, for the purpose of
redeeming them from the curse of the law, of paying the penalty
for their sin debt, of shedding His precious blood, that they
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He redeemed them
in time, and He will surely take them to be with Him forever.
In the 13th verse of chapter 1, We read this, this is what
he's done, this is what he's accomplished by him coming, by
the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's delivered
his people from the power of darkness, from the power of Satan,
from the blindness caused by the God of this world who's blinded
the minds of those who don't believe. delivered us from the
power of darkness, and he's translated his people into the kingdom of
the son of his love, as it says there. How has he done it? How
has he done it? Are you a believer today? How
did he do it for you? Answer, you heard preaching.
you heard preaching. You might not have audibly heard
it, but you might have read it in a book. You might have read
a preached sermon in a book, but it's by preaching. Because
he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 21 that it is by
the foolishness of preaching that it pleased God to save those
who believe. Why foolishness? Because the
world around thinks it's foolish, thinks it's stupid. It's a message
that the world thinks is nonsense, makes no sense. The foolishness
of preaching, as the world sees it, but it's by that means that
it pleased God to save those who believe. God's people are
born into this world in a state of being dead in sin, dead in
trespasses and sins. And that continues as we grow
and as we mature until God orders the path of each of his people
to be crossed by a preacher. Look at Romans chapter 10. Let
me just remind you of these verses from verse 13. 13 down to 15,
just these few. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. There's a clear declaration,
isn't it, in scripture? What should I do to be saved?
The Philippian jailer asked of Paul. What should I do to be
saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Call upon the Lord Jesus
Christ. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. But how then shall they call
on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they
believe in him of whom they've not heard? If they haven't heard,
how shall they believe what they haven't heard? And how shall
they call on that one? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except
they be sent? They must be sent of the Spirit
of God. As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. You know, when Paul and the others
preached in Acts chapter 13, the Jews didn't want to hear
it, so he said, I'm going to the Gentiles. And he preached
to the Gentiles, and many of them were delighted with this.
And as he preached, it says, those that were ordained to eternal
life believed. Those that were God's people
came out of that darkness, translated out of the darkness of Satan's
kingdom, into the glorious light of the kingdom of God. But you
see, Satan opposes. Satan puts barriers in the way.
Satan opposes. If you read Revelation chapter
12, he persecutes the church. He persecutes the church. He,
in verse 15 of chapter 12, he sends out a flood of water to
the woman. The woman symbolizes the church.
And what's this flood of water? It's not to drown the woman,
it's to sweep her off her feet. and to carry her out of her wilderness
separation from the world back into conformity with the world.
That's the doing of Satan. In verse 17 of chapter 12 of
Revelation, he makes war with the woman, he makes war with
the... Satan hates the gospel of grace and the gospel that
the church of Christ preaches, and he tries to stop it. And
obstacles are put in the way, doors are closed, but God is
in control of all things. In Revelation 3, Again, Revelation,
verses seven and eight. And to the angel of the church
in Philadelphia write, these things says he that is holy,
he that is true, he that has the key of David. Remember that
from earlier on in the Isaiah reading, the key of David? He
that openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth.
This is our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our God manifest. He's
the one who opens doors for his truth to go. He's the one who
closes doors. He says, I know thy works. Behold,
I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it. Isn't that amazing? I have set
before thee an open door. And all the forces of this world,
no man, no man can shut it. And the forces of Satan, no man
can shut it. For God is in control of all
of these things. He opens doors. He closes doors. He closed the door for Paul to
continue preaching in Asia, as we read in Acts chapter 16. He
closed a door to open another door into Europe. The man from
Macedonia, the vision of the man from Macedonia. Paul found
that at Ephesus, it says in 1 Corinthians 16 verse 9, he was writing from
Ephesus and he says, God has opened to me a great door and
effectual. In spite of many adversaries,
there were lots opposing him, but they couldn't oppose God,
who had opened a mighty door at Ephesus. In 2 Corinthians
2, verse 12, it says that the Lord opened a door for him to
preach Christ's gospel at Troas. That place came up in the Acts
16 reading. But not just doors of location,
of physical place, but doors of people's hearts to believe.
And in Acts chapter 14 and verse 27 we read that God had opened
the door of faith unto the Gentiles. It had only been for Jews and
proselytes before that, but he opened the door of faith to the
Gentiles. And in Acts 16 verse 14, as we
read, God opened the door of that lady's heart. Her name was
Lydia. She was a maker of purple in
Philippi. And she was a godly woman. She was seeking God, but she
didn't know the truth. And Paul and Silas came, and
Paul preached the gospel. and it says, the Holy Spirit,
God, open the door of Lydia's heart. Paul asks for prayer that
God would, as it says here in verse three, open unto us a door
of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ. Open a door of utterance
to give them situations in which to speak. Give them situations
in which to speak. In Acts chapter 28, the last
two verses of the Acts of the Apostles, We read this in verse
30, Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house and received
all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching
those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence,
no man forbidding him. Why? Because although he was
under house arrest in Rome, he was probably at this stage in
his last two years of life on this earth. He was about to go
before Nero for the second time, and there his sentence of death
would be pronounced, and that would be the end of the life
of Paul. But for these two whole years, The Lord opened a door
of utterance for him, and he was able to preach the kingdom
of God, teaching those things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ
to all that came in unto him. There was free course for people
to come and go. And what else did he do in those two years?
He wrote Colossians and other epistles. And so today, the door
of utterance, God opened a door 2,000 years ago to Paul to preach
the gospel to us today, 2,000 years later. Isn't that amazing?
the wonderful hand of God in all of these things. A door was
opened to preach, but many claim to preach. To preach what? There's an awful lot of preaching
goes on, round and about. To preach what? In verse three
it says this, to speak the mystery of Christ. And we saw it already
in verse 26 of chapter one. The mystery which has been hid
from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his
saints. Oh, you say, oh, it's only known
to those really holy people that the Pope is pronounced to be
saints. No, I've told you time and time again, When the Bible
talks about saints, it talks about set-apart ones. It talks
about those who believe the gospel by the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit, the coming and putting of a new man inside. They are
saints. They're set apart from this world.
They're saints by simply this fact. Not what they've done,
not what miracles they've performed, but simply this, they have believed
on the Lord Jesus Christ. The jailer in Philippi and all
his household who believed and were baptised were saints. That's
what saints are. And he makes this manifest to
his saints. In John 15, verse 15, Jesus says,
I call you no longer servants, but I call you my friends. And
I've told you so many times before, but learn it. What do friends
do? What's the mark of a friend?
A friend tells you their secrets. A friend shares intimate knowledge
with you. Our God, our God, in the person
of his son, the word of God, has shared with us the most intimate
secrets of heaven. He's made that mystery manifest
to his saints. And what is that mystery? What
is it? It's to declare and to proclaim and to make manifest
the gospel of God. The true gospel of God alone. Not religion's gospel. That's
no gospel at all. Read Galatians chapter 1, where
he talks about those that preach a gospel that isn't the gospel
at all. It's no gospel at all. The gospel declared in scripture
is the biblical gospel. I dare to say that's why we called
this church, Biblical Gospel Church, for that, because we
want our gospel to come from this book and this book alone.
It's God's sovereign choice of a definite multitude of sinners
before time to be saved. to be taken to glory. It's the
gospel that declares the covenant that was made between the persons
of the triune Godhead, to make that multitude chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world, to make them meet, to
make them fit, to make them qualified for God's kingdom. And how did
he do it? How did he do it? By the faith of God. of Jesus
Christ. Again, we've gone over this so
many times. It's what Christ did. It's not what you do believing. It's what He did. It's what He
did when He faithfully performed the will of His Father to come
and to take the sins of His people and to bear them on the cross
of Calvary. not my will but thine be done and he bore that sin
and he paid for it with his life for the life is in the blood
and he shed his blood the blood of the Lamb of God which all
those Old Testament lambs had pointed to our Passover lamb
Christ our Passover lamb is sacrificed for us as the substitute of his
people in the place of his people and having done that and having
stood at the bar of the justice of God with those sins and having
had those sins the sentence pronounced upon them the soul that sins
it shall die and he bore that penalty and he paid that penalty
and having paid the penalty to the full He was acquitted from
that court of divine justice. And when he was acquitted from
that court of divine justice, how do we know he was acquitted?
He rose from the dead. He was raised for our justification. And all of his people were acquitted
in him. I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and I know I shall stand. Why do I know so clearly? I know
because of what he has accomplished. He saved his people from their
sins. You know why he was called Jesus?
Call his name Jesus, said the angel to Joseph. Call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And nobody
else. Beware of false Christs. Jesus
told us to beware of false Christs. It's all around. False Christs.
Beware of false Christs. If the Christ of the religion
that you think is a jolly good, close Christianity, and we can
put up with this, but Their Christ makes it possible for anyone
to be saved. That's not Christ. Christ has
saved his people from their sins. He has saved to the uttermost.
It's the one true gospel that is a stumbling block to religious
folks. And it's a stumbling block for
that very reason I just said. They want it to be that they
can call the tune, that they can say this, that and the other,
who can be saved and who can't be saved. But God says who it
is. That's a stumbling block to religious
folks and it's foolishness to the world in general. Why is
it foolishness to the world in general? Because as Paul tells
us in 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of God, for they're foolishness to him,
neither can he know them. Why are they foolishness to him?
Why can't he know them? Because they're spiritually discerned. You must have spiritual discernment.
Who gives spiritual discernment? God and him alone. You say, I
haven't got it. I know. Do you want it? What
does he say? Seek, and ye shall find. Knock,
and the door shall be opened to you. You say you're contradicting
yourself. I'm not. I'm trying to be consistent with
this book. If you desire to know God, then
knock, and the door shall be opened. Seek, and ye shall find.
This gospel is the one, this gospel. It's the gospel that
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 2. He was determined to
know nothing other than Jesus Christ and him crucified. He
had no other message. You say, that's a bit narrow,
isn't it? That's going to get boring if you're preaching the same thing
over and over again. He told the elders of Ephesus
on the beach at Miletus sometime later that in Acts 20 and verse
27, that what he had preached was all the counsel of God. Because all the counsel of God
is this, Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ and him
crucified. You know, what's the doctrine
you need to know? What did Happy Jack say? I know
I'm always mentioning him. I'm a poor sinner and nothing
at all. But Jesus Christ is my all in all, him and him alone.
He is the only one Paul was determined to preach and that's who we are
determined to preach, God enabling us. So please pray. He prayed,
asked them to pray for him, that God would open a door for him
there. And God evidently did open a
wide door for him there. But that God would open doors
for us here, wherever we are. We're in ones and twos, scattered
around the country in different places. but that God would open
doors because we pray not to the God who is weak and feeble
and can't do anything if the political leaders don't let him,
but to the God who controls all things. We pray to him that he
would open doors wherever the gospel is faithfully preached.
And so then, just very briefly, to the final exhortation, walk
in wisdom regarding the world. In verses five and six, walk
in wisdom to them outside. Live in gospel wisdom in sight
of unbelievers. Jesus said, I send you out as
sheep amongst wolves. He says, You go out as sheep
amongst wolves, but you've got to be wise as serpents in this
world and gentle as doves. That's it. Think on it. Meditate
on that. Make the most of your time here. Redeem the time. Make
the most of your time in the furtherance of God's kingdom
and interact graciously. He says you're the salt of the
earth, seasoned with salt. You are the salt of the earth,
he said in the Sermon on the Mount. What does that do? It
limits corruption. It limits bacterial decay. It's
good for preserving meat and stopping it from going rotten.
It's that picture of stopping the corruption. You're resisting
the corruption of the earth. And do it all with grace in the
heart and grace in the speech. Always ready to give an answer.
Like Peter said, be always ready to give an answer to anyone who
asks you. about the hope that's in you.
Why do you believe that? Because Christ has done everything
for me. The rest of the epistle, down
to verse 18, the rest is a lovely testament to the faith of real
people living nearly 2,000 years ago, who were interacting and
living the life of faith in this world that so opposed them. People
who lived believing the gospel we believed, but are now in glory,
beholding the Lamb. Amen.