Morning. If you would, let's
sing together from the Spiral Hymnal, hymn number 27, and we'll
stand to sing this one. ? Free from the law's great curse
? ? In Jesus we are free ? ? For Christ became a curse for us
? ? And died upon the tree ? ? The rituals of the law ? and all
the law's commands have been fulfilled in Christ the Lord,
established by His hands. No covenant with the law can
now with us exist. Complete in Christ we stand by
grace, both free and ever blessed. No more the dread of wrath. no more constrained by fear we
worship and we serve our God with gratitude and cheer in Jesus
we are free In Jesus we are free. Free from all sin and from all
guilt, we live in liberty. We'll join the happy song with
all the blood-bought throng and sing the praises of the Lamb
whose grace makes us His own. Be seated, please. Adam, did you pick that hymn? Adam's filling in for Tom at
the last minute. Cindy's mother had a stroke up
in New York and they flew up yesterday. And I wasn't sure
how in the Lord's good providence that hymn was chosen, but there
could not have been a more appropriate hymn for us to sing in light
of the passage of scripture we're about to look at. And Lord just
confirmed to my heart as we were singing that, how hopeful I am
that God has a word for us this morning from his word. So if
you'd like to open your Bibles with me to Colossians chapter
two, Colossians chapter two. free from the law's great curse. Scripture says, cursed is everyone
that hangeth upon a tree. The Lord Jesus Christ received
the full curse of God's wrath when as our substitute, he bore
all the sins of all of his people in his body upon that tree and
put them away by the sacrifice of himself once and for all,
free. Liberty. Stand fast, my brethren,
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. That's exactly what
this passage of scripture is about this morning. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on our time together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for the liberty that you have given to your people in
thy dear Son. We thank you, Lord, that where
the Spirit of God is, there is liberty, and oh, how hopeful
we are that you would be pleased this morning to send your Holy
Spirit in power, that you would enlighten the eyes of our understanding,
that you would give faith to our hearts and souls and enable
us to Hang all the hopes of our salvation and rest all of our
immortal soul on thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank
you for being pleased to bruise him for our offenses. Lord, we
thank you for your word. Make it effectual. powerful, sharper than any two-edged
sword. Speak, Lord, to our hearts. Father, we pray for Cindy and
Tom and ask, Lord, that you'd give them grace in this time
of need and, Lord, give them safe travels and, Lord, encourage
them in Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen. Colossians chapter two. Colossians
chapter two. We'll begin reading in verse
13. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of
your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven
you all trespasses? What more comforting truth is
there for a sinner than to have God say, and this is God's word,
to have God say to you, being dead with Christ, being crucified
with Christ, being risen with Christ, for Christ's sake, you
are forgiven, forgiven all your trespasses, all of them. Everything
you've ever done, everything you are, everything you ever
will do, what you fail to do, forgiven, put away. Oh, if God
be for me, who can be against me? What a sinner wants and needs
more than anything else is to have God say, your sins are forgiven
you. God cannot forgive without satisfying
his justice. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did on Calvary's cross. God is not some sort of
doting grandfather in heaven that pats us on the head and
says, you know, all is well because I love you. God is a holy God
and God has a justice that must be satisfied. And that's exactly
what the Lord Jesus did when he went to Calvary's cross. He
bore the full wrath of God's justice. And God saw the travail
of his soul. And God said, I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied. And faith is satisfied
with Christ. Forgiveness. Oh, that's our hope. That is our hope. Look at verse
14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing
it to the cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers, he
made a show of them openly, triumphing over them, and the marginal reading
for in it is in himself. So he did this in himself. Verse 16, let no man therefore
judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of a holy day or
of new moon or of Sabbath days, which are a shadow of the things
to come, but the body is of Christ. Let no man beguile you of your
reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding
into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by
his fleshly mind, and not holding the head, from which all the
body, by joints and bands having nourishment, ministered and knit
together, increaseth with the increase of God. Wherefore, If
you be dead with Christ, if when Christ died, I died, if I was
in Him, if you be dead with Christ from
the rudiments of the world, why as though living in the world
are you subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle
not, which are to perish with the using after the commandments
and doctrines," take notice of that word, doctrines of men,
which things are indeed a show of wisdom in will worship and
humility and neglecting of the body, not in any honor. And that word satisfying is the
word restrain. So all of these things, have
a show of righteousness, but they in no way restrain the flesh. They don't restrain the flesh.
All these things that religious men do, do not satisfy the honoring of
restraining the flesh. Now, we see this message in many of
the epistles that the Lord gives us through the hand of the Apostle
Paul. What was happening was that Paul
would be sent of God to a place to preach the gospel of God's
free grace and the finished work of Christ. And then after he
left, men which we refer to as Judaizers, would come in behind
him and they would present this message. Now these were, these
were men who grew up under Judaism. As a Jew, they would have begun
memorizing scripture from the time they could have began to
speak. They would have attended the ceremonies of Judaism before
they had any memory of them. So all their lives these Jews
were practicing Old Testament Judaism. And they would come
in behind the Apostle Paul and they would say this, the Jesus
of Nazareth that Paul presented to you is in fact the Messiah. We believe that. We believe that he is the Christ.
And we believe that there can be no salvation apart from him. He is necessary for your salvation,
but he's not sufficient. He's not sufficient. In addition
to what he accomplished, You have to go back and you have
to keep the dietary laws of the Old Testament. That's why he
talks about whether you don't let no man judge you about meat
or drink, what you eat or drink. So these Jews were insisting
that you keep the dietary laws. They were insisting that you
go back and practice Old Testament circumcision. They were insisting
that in order to be a Christian, not only you had to believe in
Jesus, but you had to be obedient to all the Sabbath laws and rules
and regulations. These men who knew the Bible,
and I remind you that at this time there was no New Testament.
So the only scriptures that the church had was the Old Testament
scriptures. And these Jews, you can see how
they would come in to a Gentile congregation and intimidate the
Gentile congregation because these Jews knew the Bible and
the Gentiles grew up pagan and they didn't have any idea what
God had said in his word. And so the Gentiles now were conflicted. They were confused. Is salvation
by grace? Alone? By Christ alone? Or is there something else that
we must do in order to be saved? These Judaizers were in fact not trusting in
Christ for their salvation. For if you add anything to what
the Lord Jesus Christ has already accomplished, then that's what
you're trusting in. So why would they want to persuade
the Gentiles to follow the Old Testament laws, rules and regulations,
ordinances, which the Bible calls shadows of those things which
are to come. to bolster their own assurance. You see, if I
can get you to believe what I believe, and if I can get you to practice
what I'm practicing, then that gives me a better assurance of
my own salvation. Now, we don't have a problem with
Judaizers today. Not in the gospel church, do
we? Would we tolerate for a moment
someone who would come into this assembly and say, the Christ
that Greg has been preaching to you is true, but there's more
to it than that. You have to go back and be circumcised
and keep these dietary laws and the Sabbath laws. You wouldn't
tolerate that for a minute, would you? You wouldn't submit to that. You wouldn't be subject to their
intimidation. We could apply this to all forms
of modern-day, false, free-will, man-made, works religion. And it does. It applies to the
Christianity of today. Christianity of today has no
different. They would say that Jesus is
necessary for salvation, that he died, and that he rose again
from the dead, and that he ascended into glory, and that he's coming
again, and he is the son of God, and he's the fullness of the
Godhead bodily, but something you got to do. There's a prayer
you got to pray. There's work you got to perform.
There's some things you need to abstain from in order to,
in order to prove, in order to accomplish the salvation. That
is the message that confuses the truth of the gospel to so
many today. And we could give all of our
attention to that false gospel and leave here this morning saying
with that Pharisee, God, I thank thee that I'm not like other
men. Or, or we could see that this Judaizer
lives within each of us. It is our old man. I've titled
this message, The Judaizer Within. We're much more concerned about
the Pharisee in here than the one out there. What is it that causes you, child
of God, to find so much hope and comfort and encouragement
when you hear the gospel of God's free grace? Is it not because
there's something in you that all week has been causing you
to try to find your comfort and your hope and your salvation
somewhere outside of Christ? Is that not so? And that old man is like those
Old Testament Jews. He's been practicing sin from
before he can remember. He is a sinner by nature. I mentioned
this Wednesday night, I'll say it again this morning. This is
how we come into this world. Sinners. We commit acts of sin
because we are by nature sinners. We don't become sinners because
we commit acts of sin. And the only real difference
in the manifestation of sin between one man and another is not the
nature of the man. It is the restraint of God. Think about that. Why did God put you in a position
where you had certain influences and certain restraints in your
life that other men didn't have? Why? You see, You see, the sinful
nature in you and in me is just as capable of the most wicked
act as anybody would be had it not been for the restraining
grace of God. And the only thing that makes
one sinner differ from another is God's restraining grace, not
the nature of man. Boy, is there anything that gives
to our Lord more glory than that? Do you believe that? Do you believe
that if the Lord had not restrained you and put you in certain situations
and guarded you from certain things, that you're capable of
the most wicked act that anyone has ever done? Somebody said,
well, that's not me. I'm not, that's not. Well, and
you don't understand what a sinner is. The sinner is what we are. And we give to Him all the glory
for, and this continues. The only thing that's going to
keep me in the future from committing great acts of sin and shaming
the Lord's glory is God's restraining grace. Lord, you've got to keep
me. You've got to restrain me. You've
got to, isn't that what the Lord said when he said, when you pray,
pray like this. Lord, forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us and keep us from the
evil one. That's the literal interpretation
of that prayer. Keep us from the evil one. Lord, put a hedge
around us. Is there nothing that I'm, not
capable of apart from your restraining grace. So this old man that you
and I live with, this man of sin, the one we were born with,
is still denying the sufficiency of Christ. He's still looking
to something that we do and something that we don't do and some law-keeping
as the hope of our salvation. There is a self-righteous, pharisaical
lawmonger in every one of us. Always wanting to add something
to the finished work of Christ. Always trying to find his hope
and his comfort and his peace outside of the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Always calling us away from the
glory of Christ. This is why, child of God, you
are relieved and you are comforted to hear the gospel. because once
again, you are reminded that salvation is of the Lord completely,
completely. For the child of God, this is
a lifelong struggle. We carry this body of sin with
us until the grave. For the unbeliever, It's not
a struggle. You see, this is the accuser
of the brethren. That's the devil. What does he
use to accuse us with? Does he not use the law of God?
Does he not use the scripture? Does he not say, this is what
God's law says. And if you didn't think that
way and act that way and do those things, you know, maybe you could
be saved. So he's taking us back to the
law. The unbeliever is held captive by Satan and is
continually trying to earn his favor with God and his approval
before God and the hope of his salvation by his law keeping.
That's what the unbeliever does, those who don't know Christ.
So if this is a problem that the unbeliever has as well as
the believer, then the gospel is the same message for both.
Is it not? You see, we don't preach one
message for the believer and another message for the unbeliever.
It's the same message. It's the same message. Christ
is all. He's in all. And it's the message that the
believer needs. It's the message that the unbeliever
needs. Look at verse 14. blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us. The law is always contrary to
us. It stands in judgment of us. The law cannot encourage us.
The law cannot save us. The law cannot help us. The law
condemns us as guilty. It demands exact punishment.
It is uncompromising. It has no loopholes. It has no
appeals. It has no exceptions. The law
is against us. The law must be satisfied. The law must be kept. You have
never, ever for one moment been able to keep one part of God's
law. And so if we have to stand before
God, being judged by His law, the law is going to have one
word, guilty. Guilty. The law is contrary to us. Verse 15. Well, he took it out
of the way. He nailed it to the cross. And having spoiled principalities
and powers. Now, who are these principalities
and powers? These are the principalities
and powers of the devil. We fight not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities and powers, spiritual powers
in high places. This is a spiritual battle that
every believer experiences. As they struggle with their own
sin, as they struggle with the accusations of the devil, as
they struggle with their need for salvation. It's a spiritual battle. He spoiled them. He destroyed
them. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 12 says
the Lord will give him the spoils of his battle. And that's exactly
what he did. The spoils of his battle was
the accomplishment of a law, the putting away of sin, the
destruction of Satan. The prince of this world has
been judged. He's been judged. And he made a show of them openly,
triumphing over them in himself. He triumphed over the devil in
himself. Look at verse 16. Let no man
therefore judge you. Let not your old man judge you. Let not the Judaizer judge you
that is without and the one that is within. Let not the man of
sin, Satan himself, judge you. You're free. Don't be put under the law. Let no man therefore judge you
and meet or in drink, or in respect of a holiday, or a new moon,
or Sabbath days. You see how these Judaizers are
saying, you know, these are the Old Testament laws, you have
to keep them. Which are a shadow of the things
to come, but the body is of Christ. Now a shadow has no substance.
A shadow only gives the form of what it is casting a shadow
from. If we put a spotlight on a chair
and cast a shadow from that chair here on the platform, no one
would be able to sit on that shadow. The shadow is but a form
of the substance of the chair. And so it is with these Old Testament
ordinances. They were a shadow pointing to
the substance. The substance is Christ. The
body is Christ. Christ is my salvation. His obedience. His glorious person. His substitution. He stands in
my stead. You know, and I would say To
you who may not have a lot of understanding of the history
or stories of the Bible, it would
be shameful to me to do to you what the Judaizers were doing,
to somehow intimidate you into thinking that before you can
be saved, you've got to have a a better understanding of the
Bible. These Gentiles had no clue. They came out of a completely
pagan world. The Word of God had never gone
outside of Israel. The Bible's got one message.
The Bible's not a series of stories, or the Bible's not a series of
theology, or of doctrine, or of History, Bible has one message. The Lord Jesus Christ said in
the volume of the book, it is written of me. It's written of
me. And beginning with Moses and
the Psalms and the prophets, he expounded unto them those
things concerning himself. It is a book of Christ. It's
all about Him. He's the substance. He's the substance. This is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. Having a... Having a understanding and a
knowledge of the Bible is not salvation. Having a knowledge
of Christ is. who He is and what He's done. And then, you see, we understand
the Bible from Christ. We don't somehow get to Christ
through our understanding. We grow in knowledge of Christ. grow into salvation because we've
achieved some sort of knowledge of the Bible. You get that, right? You see that. There's no substance in the shadow.
The body, the body is Christ. Who he is and what he accomplished. I love what, what was it, was
it, I don't know if it was Bunyan or one of the old hymn writers
towards the end of his death. He said, I'm an old man. He said,
I used to know a lot of things. He said, but I've forgotten most
things that I ever knew. He said, but two things I know
for sure. Two things I know for sure. I'm
a great sinner and Christ is a great savior. Now, my friend
and my brother, that's the only two things you need to know.
I am a great sinner. And Christ is a great savior.
He is the body. Everything else is but a shadow. And if we try to be saved by
holding on to the shadow, it'd be just like trying to sit in
the shadow of a chair. It won't hold you. It won't hold
you. And how many people go through
their religious life trying to accumulate a whole storehouse
of shadows and don't have the substance, they don't have the
body. That's what the Lord is saying to these ignorant, scripturally,
biblically ignorant Gentiles. He's saying, don't be intimidated
by those Judaizers. Child of God, don't be intimidated
by that Pharisee within you. Don't be intimidated by the accuser
of the brethren. Don't be intimidated by that
Judaizer who says to you, you need to know more and you need
to do more in order to be saved. Don't do that. They're just,
all they're doing is piling up a bunch of shadows. You have the body, the substance
is Christ. Verse 18, let no man beguile
you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels.
Oh, how, how pious religious people can be, and how pious
we can be when we begin to start to pretend that somehow our salvation
is determined by, you know, by our law keeping. Oh, how pious
and self-righteous we can be. True humility gives all glory
to Christ. It doesn't parade itself as a
humble person. True humility is aware of one
thing. If you're a humble person, you know what you're aware of
mostly about yourself? How proud you are. That's it. You heard about the guy that
won the badge for being the most humble person in the church that
had to take it away because he wore it. You know, I mean, isn't
that the way people are? Isn't that the way we can be?
You know, I just want everybody to know how humble I am. If you're
humble, you're aware of one thing about yourself, how self-righteous
and proud you are. Let no men beguile you of your
reward in a voluntary humility in worshiping of angels, intruding
into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed
up in their fleshly minds. Is this not the Judaizer in you? that would vainly puff you up
in a fleshly mind, pretending to intrude into things that you've
never seen before. Instead of just being satisfied
with the simplicity of Christ. The simplicity of who He is. The Son of God. The sovereign,
successful Savior of sinners. and not holding the head, from which all the body by joints
and bands have nourishment, ministered, and knit together, increased
with the increase of God." You cut the head off a body,
is one hand going to be boasting in its ability over another? Or, no, that hand, every part
of that body becomes useless as soon as you decapitate it.
Isn't that true? And so it is with the Body of
Christ. We have an essential union with
Him. Without Him we're nothing. Nothing. Wherefore, if you be dead with
Christ from the rudiments of the world, why is though through
living and though living in the world, you're making yourself
subject to ordinances? Why would you be subject to these
things? Why would you be subjected to these things? Why would you
have your hope taken away from you? And why would you, and yet
we do, we do. The Judaizer within us would
rob us of our hope and our comfort and our peace by By pointing us back to the law. Touch not, taste not, handle
not. Which are to perish with the
using after the commandments and doctrines of men. Now I mentioned
when I read this the first time to take notice of the word doctrines. The word doctrine means teaching. And it is a good word in the
Bible. The doctrine of Christ. Let me
show you the clearest place. 2 John, if you'll turn with me
to that little epistle in the back of your New Testament, 2
John. Look at verse 9 in 2 John. Whosoever
transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine, singular, of
Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son, the teaching of
Christ, who is the head, who is the body, who is the substance
of all those shadows. If there come any unto you and
bring not the doctrine, this doctrine, this doctrine, the
doctrine of Christ, receive him not into your house, neither
bid him Godspeed." So, doctrine is a good thing. Scripture speaks often of sound
doctrine, and that all scripture is God breathed and is profitable
for doctrine and for reproof and for correction and for the
instruction of righteousness to the man of God that he may
be thoroughly furnished unto all good works. So doctrine's
a good thing. Unless you've hung the hopes
of your salvation on a doctrine rather than on a person. You see, you can articulate the
doctrine of total depravity and not have been made totally depraved. You can articulate the doctrine
of election and not have any hope in salvation or in Christ. And men do that, don't they?
We're all, this is what the Judaizer in us would do. It's what he
would do in me, it's what he would do in you. Well, I got
a handle on that doctrine, so that must be, I mean, I know
something other people don't know, so that must be I'm saved. No. The doctrine of Christ always
points to Christ. The person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But in our text, it says doctrines. And every time in the Bible,
the word doctrine is made plural, it is not the doctrine of Christ. Okay? Matthew chapter 15, the
Lord warns us, teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men. The
Lord says, be careful, these Pharisees, this Judaizer within
you is going to teach as a commandment of God, the doctrines of men. In first Timothy chapter four,
the Lord tells us giving heed to seducing spirits. And you see these spirits are
very seducing, aren't they? They would get us to be proud
and comfortable and pious and very seducing. And the Lord says,
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 9 the
Lord warns warns us of being carried away with divers and
which word it is different different and strange doctrines so when
the word doctrine is used in the Bible in a plural sense it's
either the doctrines of devils or strange doctrines or doctrines
of men It's not the doctrine of Christ. Verse 22 in our text, which are
to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines
of men. Perhaps you can look back at a time where
you took comfort in the doctrines of grace. You Had the tulip down, you knew
what total depravity and irresistible grace and limited atonement and
unconditional election and perseverance of the saints was all about.
And you were Calvinist and you have the doctrines of grace. Oh, how deceptful, how deceiving
that can be. You can have the doctrines of
grace and not have the doctrine of grace. You see, there's only
one doctrine. We don't refer to these precious
truths and they are precious. Total depravity, irresistible
grace, unconditional election, limited atonement. I got those
backwards. Perseverance of the saints. I
mean, those are precious truths to us. But they all stand or fall together. Yeah, I hear people say, well,
you know, I, I believe all the doctrines of grace, except for,
and they'll pick one out. And the one they don't believe
is the first one. Total depravity. God ever makes you to be a sinner,
the rest of it just, it just all fits together, doesn't it?
All fits together. There's one doctrine. One doctrine
is the doctrine of Christ. And it stands or falls together.
We don't say, well, you know, we've got these doctrines and
they've got those doctrines and our doctrine's a little different
than their doctrine. No. We have one doctrine. He
is the head of the body. He is the substance. He is the
purpose of all of these things. And He is our hope. He is our
hope. We've rested. our immortal soul
on Him as the Son of God and as the successful Savior of sinners. And we dare not add to or take
away from Him anything. Child of God, you struggle with
that Judaizer. You do, don't you? That's why
the gospel is such a comfort to you. And you have to rewind
it again and again and again. And Christ is all. And then you're
able to take a breath and sit, not in
the shadow, but in the substance. Unbeliever, stranger to God's
grace, Don't look to your law-keeping. Don't look to anything you've
done. Don't look to a decision you've made, or work that you've
performed, or some law you think you've kept as the hope of your
salvation. It is a shadow. A shadow. Amen. All right. That's as true as it is. This is the truth.