Colossians 2.8, beware lest any
man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition
of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. The first word of that verse,
beware. Beware, there is a danger. There is warning. And so let's
consider that. Why is there a warning? We know
that the elect of God can't be deceived. He's saying, beware
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. The
elect can't be deceived. Matthew 24 and verse 24, for
there shall arise false Christs and false prophets and shall
show great signs and wonders insomuch that if it were possible,
they shall deceive the very elect. And the clear message there is
it's not possible. The elect can't be deceived.
No matter what false deceiver comes, as subtle as he may be,
as almost true to the word of God as he may be, as deceptive
and skillfully evil as he may be, the elect can't be deceived. So if you're one of God's elect
children, you're not gonna be deceived unto damnation. You
might be averted from certain truths
for a moment. Your attention might be caught
for a second, but you can't be deceived unto damnation. So here's
the question then, how sure are you that you're one of the elect?
You ever think about that? How sure am I? How do you know? How do you know you're one of
the elect of God? If you are, you can't be deceived. So how do you know that? Be a
good thing to know, wouldn't it? Well, I remember when I first
believed on Christ. That's not good. That's not it. An experience won't save you.
An emotional response to the preaching is not a good hope. But I feel saved. People will
say that. I feel like this and that and
the other. The heart is deceitful above
all things. Your feelings are not a good
hope. Desperately wicked. Ah, but Chris, I know the right
doctrine. I know the right doctrine. But
if you understand all mysteries, and have not the love of Christ,
it's vain. Satan knows all the right doctrine
too. I believe Judas knew all the right doctrine, don't you
reckon? What's your confidence right
now? What is your confidence right
now? Well, here's what it looks like. If you have any, here's
what it looks like. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended. I do not count myself to have arrived. But this one thing I do. By the grace of God, by grace
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, here's what I do. I don't trust in an experience.
I don't look back. I don't look at my past. I don't
look at my character. I don't look at myself at all.
I don't look at my faith. Faith doesn't look at faith.
Faith looks to one object. Here's what I do. Forgetting
those things that are behind. Not only not thinking back to
an experience, but rejecting that as part of my hope at all. forgetting it. And Paul's past
was pretty good, wasn't it, religiously speaking. Forget it. Renounce it. Count it as done. And reaching forth unto those
things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You see the last part of our
verse in Colossians 2.8, look at the last part of our verse. What does Paul do? He's running
after Christ just as fast as he can, in his heart, in his
soul, in his spirit, in his mind, running after Christ. It's not
a physical thing, it's a heart. Your heart is pursuing the Son
of God. The problem in our text is not
doing that. You see that? Not after Christ. It's anything else but that. If your hope this morning is
anything but a continual, steadfast looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith, then you have no hope. It's that simple. You can distinguish between the
not hopes, and he does. But here is the summary of them
all. Denominations or causes or whatever
they are, not after Christ. Paul's warning is concerning
the danger of ever swerving aside from the person of Christ himself
as all of your salvation, all of your hope, all of your life. My hope and confidence right
now, this is what we must be able to say by the grace of God,
my hope and confidence right now is a person. And I know that
that almost sounds trite now that you've heard that so many
times, but think about that. My hope is somebody. Don't look
to your doctor. Well, I believe that's good.
But what's your hope? What's your confidence right
now before God? Beware. Beware lest it be anything
that's not after Christ. It's not my knowledge of the
person. but himself. It's not my faith in the person, but himself. It's not my faithfulness
to Christ. It's Christ. The word spoil here
in our text is not like when the milk goes bad. It's like
when you win a victory and you take the valuables of those you
defeated. It's a loss. It's a loss of everything. It's having your very soul taken
away. What might we be taken away from? What is it we're being taken
away from if we look aside, if we turn and be deceived by any
of the things mentioned in this verse? The last word of the verse. Christ, to be taken away from
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me say this,
no man can pluck one of Christ's out of his hand. But again, are
you in Christ's hand? Beware, beware. Don't have any confidence in
anything or anybody but him. This is not an appeal to your
resolve. And I want you to consider that.
This verse is not an appeal to your resolve. It is a reminder
that Christ is our refuge, our only refuge, our strong and mighty
tower against all foes and all of their weapons of deceit and
enticement. He is our safety from all danger.
And that's what this is a reminder of. And an appeal to those who
find hope anywhere else. How are we not spoiled? How is
it that we're not spoiled? The stronger comes, doesn't he?
Remember the strong man that spoils the house? The stronger
comes. and he takes over. He takes over. Listen to 2 Timothy 1.12. For the witch cause, I also suffer
these things. Nevertheless, Paul said, I'm
not ashamed for I know whom I have believed. Now remember Malachi
chapter three. These people were suffering.
They were being afflicted and they said, what's the point in
serving the Lord? It's the ones that hate God that are doing
just fine, and look at us. Paul said, I'm suffering all
these things, and he had a list, didn't he? He had a pretty good
list. Yet I'm not ashamed, for I know whom. I know whom I have
believed, and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep. Why are you not spoiled? "'cause I know whom. "'And I'm
convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt "'of his ability to keep
me.'" Is that you? Is that me? I've committed it
to him now. If Christ is not a sure hope,
then I'm in trouble. Can you say that? Can you say
that from your heart? Spoiled through philosophy. This
is an important point now. Philosophy literally is defined
in Strong's concordance of that Greek word. It means the love
of wisdom. The love of wisdom. And notice that Paul doesn't
say bad philosophy. just the love of wisdom. You've swerved aside. You've gone after that which
is not Christ for the love of wisdom. These are they that have
all the doctrines correct. Paul is not warning Buddhists
here. He's not warning Muslims. He's not warning people that
are so far from the truth of Christ that they're not even
close. He's warning people that would
tell you, of course I believe on Christ. Here's what I believe. I believe all of the, I believe,
I've got every T crossed and every I dotted. But Chris, isn't wisdom a good
thing? In and of itself, yes. But so many who are right on
doctrine love their rightness and not Christ. Who they are right about. Well, now you're just splitting
hairs, Chris. Well, maybe that's true. but
this is a hair that'll land you in hell faster than anything
right here. To love wisdom itself, to love your rightness and not
the one you're right about. Our verse says, as plain as day,
that you can be taken away from Christ, from hope, from life,
by going after wisdom, by going after rightness, and not after
Christ. You search the scriptures, for
in them you think you have life. Their philosophy was the scriptures.
That's a pretty good philosophy. And they trusted it. They trusted
their wisdom, their knowledge. They loved their wisdom. but
they are they which testify of me and you will not come to me
that you might have life. That's a hair worth splitting
right there. If you would rather argue about
doctrine or prove somebody wrong than
fellowship and delight in Christ with other believers, then you
are in a bad, bad place. I don't know anybody like that
here, but I know some people like that. Evidently, manifestly, they would
rather argue than rejoice. You know what philosophy is by
seeing what vain deceit is. The next thing is vain deceit.
This means that which is devoid of truth. The philosophy that
Paul's talking about is not devoid of truth. They searched the scriptures.
They were correct in their doctrine in many things. They leaned on
philosophies, which we're gonna talk about in a minute, but they didn't trust Christ.
They didn't look to Christ. who is the sum and substance
himself of all of God's doctrine, God's teaching. So there's philosophy, there's
the love of wisdom, and then there's that which is devoid
of truth. Both will cause you to miss Christ. Beware. Beware. What a vital lesson this is.
What a shocking, timely truth. By right or wrong, you may miss
Christ. You can be wrong and miss him.
You can be right and miss him. Calvinist or Arminian, So smart
you could split a hair from a mile away, or so dumb you don't know
what shape the earth is. It doesn't make any difference
if it's not after Christ. Religion is chock full of another
thing that he mentions here, tradition. The traditions of
men. I got to thinking about this
and you think about everything you see in religion with these
eyes, everything that's religious, everything. What would you say
is religious? A cross, a statue, stained glass
windows, cups of things and whatever it is, little round pieces of
bread and all of those things that are all the trappings of
religion, everything visible in religion. You know what it
is? It's a tradition. It's not in the script. None
of that's in the scriptures. No, not at all. Now, when they
use bread and wine, those symbols are in the scriptures, but the
Lord sat there and broke up a piece of bread. He didn't have this
little wafer that he said, and when he said, this is my body,
it actually turned into his actual flesh. That's a tradition of
men. Everything you see in religion
is a tradition of men. Beware. It's tradition with men to care
more about feeding the poor than worshiping the Son of God. Beware. A cause, a good cause, a worthy
cause, can take you away from Christ. It's happened before
our very eyes. Walking out is not after Christ. What does that have to do with
coming to the Son of God for mercy, for forgiveness of your
sin? What does that have to do with
trusting Him and His perfect, invincible, successful atonement
for sin? Walking to the front of a church.
That's not after Christ. That's a tradition of men. Repeating
pre-written prayers is not according to Christ. when Simon cried,
Lord, save me. Nobody had to write that down
and say, repeat after me. None of these things has any
place in the worship of God because it's not after Christ. Confessing your sins to a pervert. What does that have to do with
worshiping the Son of God? The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a king that made a marriage for his son. What does counting
a bead or singing Ave Maria have to do with honoring God's son? The rudiments or elements of
this world. You know, some religious big
shot said recently, I heard him say it, the reason the church
doesn't have any impact on the world is that the world has had
such an impact on the church. That's not it at all. That's
not it. You've missed it. You have no
clue what you're talking about. That man's problem is the word
church doesn't mean what he thinks it means. What they call church
is the world. In the word of God, that is the
world. Don't be deceived about that,
Paul said. And I say, by God's grace, don't
be taken away by that. I've seen people taken away by
causes, that they're doing so much good. I had somebody, I
went to preach somewhere one time, and one of the men of the
church came up to me and said, you know, what's wrong with our
church? I'm like, no, that's the first time I've ever been
here. We just don't do it, we don't do anything. I said, well,
does your pastor preach the gospel? Well, yeah, he preaches the gospel.
Do you worship Christ? Well, yeah, we worship. We get
together and worship. What do you want to do? What
do you want to do? What is it you want to do? You
want to have a choir? You want to have visitation?
You want to knock on people's doors and ask them if they want
to go to heaven or not? If somebody doesn't have any interest in
the gospel, You know what the Lord said? Let them alone. Find
somebody, if somebody has an interest in the gospel, thank
God for that. Beware lest you be taken away.
Now, I've seen people taken away by the carriers of this world.
just the normal everyday concerns of this world. Well, I gotta
do this and I gotta do, no, you don't. No, you don't. What you've got to do is honor
the Lord Jesus Christ. You've got to do that. Everything
else is expendable. It really is. Don't be deceived. Beware. It's the cares of the world,
you remember, that choke out the word. That just means the
concerns of this world. That's what it means. Earthly
concerns. The way I've seen people grow
disinterested because it was doctrine that they loved and
not Christ. With my own eyes. Beware. There are religious empires built
on the knowledge of doctrine. And there's no Christ in any
of it. You want me to name names? Religious empires. There's no Christ in any of it,
not in the books that they write, not in the seminars that they
hold, not in the world tours that they do, not in the newsletters
they send out. There's no Christ. It's not after
Christ. And this is the sum of it all,
not after Christ. It doesn't matter what it is
after if it's not him. to point out the range and distinctions
of their error, at least in general terms, which the scripture does
do, but it all can be and is summed up by the fact that it's
anti-Christ. No matter how much they use his
name, no matter how many pictures of him they have up, it's anti-Christ. The joy and the glory of the
substitutionary in my place, effectual, it gets the job done,
atonement of Christ. The joy and glory of that is
not that I'm smarter than an Armenian. The joy and the glory of that
is that I'm uncondemnable before the very presence of the holy
God of the universe because Christ shed his precious blood for my
sins. And I have no desire to argue
by the grace of God with those who think that Christ died for
every sinner. I don't wanna argue with anybody
about that. What I do wanna do and I have great desire to do
is to rejoice with those who by his sovereign grace understand that it is enough that Jesus
died and that he died for me. That's it. It's not that he died
and then I reacted to that a certain way. It is enough. It is finished. that he died
for me. And I want, as God is gracious to attend,
to preach that glorious gospel of the invincible power of Christ's
precious blood to every sinner who will listen.
I want sinners to know that if Jesus Christ will, he can make
you clean. I want to tell of Him. I want
to preach the Son of God Himself. And what He did for sinners,
what He did is save them. He didn't come to make an offer.
He didn't come to make something available to you. He came to
save sinners. That's a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save somebody. to save sinners, even the worst
one that ever lived. Christ crucified is not all God
could do. And then he left the salvation
part up to you. Christ crucified is salvation. Beware. Beware. He didn't come to make
salvation possible. He didn't come to make sinners
savable. He didn't come to make redemption available. He came to obtain eternal redemption
for his elect by the sacrifice of himself,
and he accomplished their salvation when he died. When we say that salvation is
a person, we're saying that God chose a
people in Christ before the foundation of the world. Election is a person. Ephesians 1.4. When we say salvation's a person,
we're saying that God sent his son His only begotten well-beloved
Son, the Lord Jesus, to redeem those whom he chose in Christ. John 6, 37 through 39. Should we turn to those? Look at John 6 with me, please. This is what we're saying now
when we say salvation's a person. Not just a catchphrase. Not just
a jab at false religion. That's not what it is. John 6, 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. There's no uncertainty in that.
There's no availability, there's no contingencies. We're talking about God. We're
not talking about a plan of salvation. We're talking about God accomplishing
salvation by his son and his precious blood. For I came down
from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that
sent me, and this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that
of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing. but should
raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of
him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth
on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. That's two perspectives of the
same group. Those that the Father gave to
his Son in the eternal covenant of grace are those who are given
faith by the Holy Spirit and see him and come to him and cast
their souls upon him. And he said, I'm not gonna lose
any of them. I'm gonna raise all of them up at the last day.
No contingencies, no what ifs, no it's up to you, none of that. That's not after Christ. When we say That the gospel is a person,
that salvation is a person. We're saying that the gospel
is Christ himself. Luke 2, 9 through 11, you don't
need to turn to that one. Listen, Luke 2, 9 through 11.
The angels appeared. And they said, glory to God in
the highest. We come bearing good tidings
of great joy. You know what that means? Gospel.
We come with the gospel. You know what it is? Unto you
is born this day in the city of David a savior. The gospel's
a person. The gospel's a person. It's not
your system of beliefs. We're saying that the gospel
message, when we say salvation's a person, we're saying that the
gospel message has come to Christ. believe on Christ, bow to Christ,
call on Christ, Romans 10, 13. We're saying, when we say that
salvation is a person, we're saying that the eternal security
of all of Christ's sheep is Him. No man shall be able to pluck
them out of my hand. To go from saved to lost would
be to be plucked from the very hand of God's Son. Salvation
in its perseverance, in the preservation of your soul is a person. Salvation
in eternity, in electing love is a person, from start to finish. Salvation is Christ Himself,
and so we sing of Him. We preach Him. We come together
because Christ has promised to meet with us. Is that not so? We pray in the name of Christ.
We do show forth the death of Christ until He come in the ordinances
that He gave us. We remember Christ by His grace. And by His grace, we worship,
we trust Christ. We rest in Christ, we find our
comfort. Is that part of why you come?
Because your soul is weary in this world. How can we not grow
weary in this world in our very souls? And we come to find rest
in the Son of God who sits on the throne for our good. We find our peace. and our joy
in the Lord Jesus Christ, our security. Safe though the worlds may crumble,
I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord only,
makest me to dwell in safety. Our sustenance. I'm that bread
that came down from heaven, he said, wherever a man may eat
thereof. and never hunger again. So when something is not after
Christ, it tends to stick out, doesn't it? Thank God for that. It tends to stick out here. But because of the weakness of
our flesh, the Spirit truly is willing but our flesh is so weak. And so we're told, beware, beware. Because of the subtlety of the
enemy, it's so close, isn't it? It's so close. They'll argue
for 10 days in a row, all day for 10 days, defending the glory
of Christ and not know who he is. It's so close, isn't it? It's
so close to glory in your wisdom rather than Christ who is the
wisdom of God. Because of the subtlety of the
enemy, it says beware. Because of what's at stake, it says beware. Beware of that which is not after,
not according to Christ. Not according to who he is. To
say now that salvation's up to you, that he did his best now,
that's not according to who he is. Not according to what he did,
to what he accomplished on Calvary. To say here's what you need to
do to be saved is not according to what he did. It's finished. Not according to what he said. To say that man has a free will
and that salvation is determined by the free will of man is not
according to what he said. He said it's not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth. but of God that showeth mercy. Beware. You know how you beware? Look to Him. Again, it's not an appeal to
your devotion or your mental acuity. It's a reminder
of who your hope is. That's the way we beware, is by not counting ourself to
have apprehended, but pressing toward the mark. It's the very
prize of the high calling of God, and it's in his son. Lord, keep us close. Keep us
close. Let's pray.