Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Colossians. Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter
2. We're looking at verses 1 through 3
this morning. And the title of the message
is, The Preacher's Conflict and the Church's Unity. The preacher's
conflict. Paul says this in verse 1, For
I would have you know what great conflict I have for you, and
for them at Laodicea, and for as many as not seen my face in
the flesh, that your hearts might be comforted, being knit together
in love. and unto all riches of the full
assurance of understanding to the acknowledgement of the mystery
of God and of the Father and of Christ in whom are hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. These things I want us to see
this morning. First of all, the conflict of
the preacher. Paul says, I have great conflict. I want you to know my conflict
for you. My conflict for you. And then,
I want us to see that his conflict was for the unity of the church. Whatever was conflicting the
Apostle Paul for the church, it was for this purpose that
your hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love unto
all the riches of full assurance of understanding, acknowledgement
of the mystery of God, and Jesus Christ, in whom all the riches
are hidden all the riches, treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now,
what is this conflict? What is this struggle that the
apostle has? This struggle and conflict of Paul is the struggle
of every preacher of the gospel. The struggle and labor is that
the saints should be united in heart by Jesus Christ. And this is how it is done. How is the church united? How is the church comforted?
My heart for you, believers in Christ, is that your love would
be so much one. That you would be in union with
one another. That your hearts would beat together. That's my hope. That's my desire. Is that you love one another.
And how is this that we come together in unity? It is only
through the preaching of the gospel. Only through the gospel
of Jesus Christ are we to become one in Him. We to be in union. And this is what he calls in
chapter 1, verse 26, the mystery, the mystery which hath been hid
from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to the saints. We who preach, we preach the
mysteries of God's free grace in this sovereign election of
His church. We declare what was known only
to God before the world began. That He chose some of Adam's
fallen race to salvation. We declare that He would save
them by putting them into union with His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. We preach and we declare it was
always God's purpose and decree that Jesus would come into the
world as a man, obtain eternal righteousness and redemption
for His people. And this He did when He came
into the world. This is what we preach. We have
preached something that was known to God only to God from the beginning. We declare that Jesus Christ
is risen from the dead and He did redeem His people from their
sins. And they are redeemed from all
of their iniquities. And we now declare that Jesus
has risen to the throne of glory and sent His Holy Spirit into
the world to give life and faith to the elect. So that now, so
that none of them, none of them should be lost. And we preach
that the Holy Spirit always is victorious in giving life to
the dead unbelieving sinner by His sovereign power. And this
most surely he will keep every one of his elect grounded and
settled in the faith of this gospel." Now true believers,
we know the gospel we preach. We know that this gospel that
I just declared to you, this gospel of God's grace, that God
in eternity purposed, decreed that some of Adam's race should
be saved. He gave them to His Son, purposed
His Son should save them. The Holy Spirit is now poured
out into this world and He shall save His people. This is the
gospel. There is no other gospel but
this one. This is the gospel, and every one of them will come
to Him in faith and repentance, and He will keep them to the
end. We know and preach this gospel, but this gospel that
I've just declared to you, do you not know how great it is
that you understand that? If you understand that, if you
believe that, if you know that in your heart, do you realize
what a great privilege that is? Because this gospel is not known
to everyone. Matter of fact, Paul calls it
what? A mystery. A mystery. This mystery. It was hid to so
many of Adam's race. And it is revealed to us. The
mystery. Consider this. You believer,
you weep over your depravity, do you not? Yes. But do you know that the revelation
of our depravity is part of the mystery? The mystery is that
we were depraved. We didn't know it until God revealed
it to us. The mystery of man's depravity
is revealed to our hearts, which is a complete and utter ruin
of us by nature. The Scripture comes to us. And
it says, none is righteous, no, not one. There's none that understandeth,
there's none that seeketh after God. The gospel is a mystery. Except God reveal this to you. Look back in your text and see
that in verse 26, this mystery of the gospel which was hid from
ages and generations, who is it revealed to? But now is made
manifest to His saints. Well, who are they? To whom God
would make it known. That's who they are. To whomsoever
God would make it known. Has God made it known to you?
The mystery of Christ? That in Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily? That in Him are the fullness
of salvation? That is a mystery to the world. But it's made known to us. It's
made known to us. True believers. We know this. We know this, that God had to
reveal this to us. This was not something common
to man. I want you to see this in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians
chapter 2. Now, the apostle here, in 1 Corinthians 2 and verses
2-13, it says the apostle here shows us the struggle and conflict
of a preacher's heart which is to declare and not determine
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ. Look at that
in verse 2. He said, when he came to him, he said, for I determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To present this gospel is the
conflict of every preacher. This is our heart's desire, is
to not to know anything save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To preach nothing to you but
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And notice, Paul did this on
purpose. He determined not to know anything
among them. Save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This morning I was reading an
article about, I get this email, I get several, but I clicked
on this one. The message this morning in another
place is what about, what about ghosts? How to, how to, what is it, receive a conflict,
how to deal with conflict. That's another one that they
want to preach on. Yeah, how to make your house
a better home. That's something they preach
on. But I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. This is my conflict. It's always
against the flesh that I must struggle. But I must come to
this conclusion every time I preach to preach Christ and Him crucified. He preached not the wisdom of
man. All those other things that tickle
the ears of men. I'm not here to tickle your ears.
I'm not here to entertain you. I'm not an entertainer. I'm here
to do one thing. Declare the gospel. Preach the
gospel. I'm not here to debate the gospel.
I'm here to declare the gospel. That's what preachers do. That's
what we're called to do. And he said this, in verse 6. How be it? We speak wisdom, not
man's wisdom, verse 5. We don't speak man's wisdom,
verse 6. We speak the wisdom among them that are perfect,
yet not the wisdom of the world nor the princes of the world
that come to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God
in what? A mystery, a hidden wisdom of
God, which God ordained before the world unto our glory. And none of the princes of the
world knew it. If they did, they wouldn't have crucified Christ.
I hath not seen, heard, neither entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for them that love them. But
how do we know it? God hath revealed them unto us
by His Spirit. See, this is how we know the
gospel. This is how you know the gospel. Only if God has revealed it to
you. That's it. There's no other way.
Try as you may. Do what you will. The only way
is that God reveal it. That's it. I can make it as simple,
and I desire to make this gospel as simple as I possibly can. But I know this, you will never
understand it. You will never know it, except
God Himself reveal it. That's it. That's how I know
it. I don't know this by my knowledge, by my earthly wisdom. I know
this because the Spirit revealed it to me, and you know it because
the Spirit revealed it to you. And Paul says, we know and preach
the wisdom of God in a mystery, which God ordained before the
world began. Now, who knew of this wisdom
before the world began? Only God. He was alone, wasn't
he? Before anything was created, who was there? It was only God.
And so God knew this gospel. But I'll tell you this, even
after that, nobody knew it. Even after creation. Have you
considered that? That Adam in all his perfect
holiness knew nothing of redemption. He knew nothing of it. In his
perfect sinless nature, he knew nothing of God's redemptive plan. And surely he didn't know anything
about it after he sinned. Until when? God came to Adam
and revealed it to him. That's the only way. Even so
it is with us. God reveals it to us. In verse
12 he says, Now we have received not the Spirit of the world,
but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God. And this is our conflict. I want you to know the conflict,
the labor to preach these things, this mystery of God's free grace
towards sinners in Christ. And notice he says this in verse
13. These things we speak, not in
the words of man's wisdom teach, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. And how does the Holy Ghost teach?
He compares spiritual things with spiritual things. Spiritual
things. Spiritual things with spiritual. As preachers, we preach what
we know and have experienced by the teaching of the Spirit
of God. And all we know and experience
are only those things revealed to us in the Word of God. You see, I'm going to tell you
what I know and what I've experienced. But how do I know what I know
and experience are right? Because you may know and you
may experience something else. So how do we know? Well, we must
compare spiritual things with spiritual. This book is spiritual. Now, if you look at this book
carnally, you're not going to get much out of it. If you want
to study Israel's history and the wars and the kings and you
want to study all of that and find out a lot about Jewish people,
Jewish culture, that kind of thing, you want to find out about
law and things like that, this book is spiritual. And therefore,
I must compare what I know and what I've experienced with this
book, and if it doesn't check, I need to get rid of it. Whatever
I've known, whatever I've experienced, if it is not compared with this
book, if it does not measure up to this book, it must be discarded. It must be gotten rid of. Now,
the Word of God is spiritual. You remember when Jesus talked
to those Jews. He was talking in words that
were kind of carnal. He was giving them physical illustrations. He said, except a man eat my
flesh and drink my blood, you can't have life. He that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood shall not taste death. And you
know what they got? They got mad. You know why? Because
they only saw those words as carnal, earthly. They thought he was talking about
cannibalism. They thought he meant his literal
flesh and his literal blood. And I tell you, some churches
still even practice such horrible things as to believe that the
wine and the bread become the body and blood of Christ. That's
foolishness because our Lord said these words in John 6, these
words that I speak unto you, they are what? Spirit and truth. You don't see now that the Word
of God is spiritual. Spiritual. The Word of God is the only source
of spiritual and eternal truth by which sinners are saved, God
is revealed, and by which we check all of our experience,
comparing spiritual things with the spiritual Word of God. And
if we were to only preach or walk after our experiences, we
would surely be in danger of being deceived. There are people preaching according
to their experiences only. Now, if I come up here and just
tell you what I've experienced this week, what good would that do you if
it is not grounded in this book? What good? Wouldn't do you any
good at all. Because your experience may be
different than mine. And what's to say your experience
or my experience is better or worse? See, then it becomes opinion. I'm not here to offer opinion. I'm here to lay out fact. To
lay out fact. Some people preach according
to their emotions or because they experienced some miracle,
seen some vision, dreamed some dream. They base all their doctrine
and salvation then on that experience. Preacher, I had a dream one time.
I don't care about your dreams. I had a dream too. I ate a bunch
of chocolate the other night and I had a bad dream. So what? That has nothing to
do with anything. Your dreams and your visions
mean nothing except they be tested in the Word of God. Except they be in line with the
Holy Scripture. It doesn't mean anything. Matter
of fact, if you have a vision or a dream, I've seen, you've
heard people tell, well, the end of the world is coming. I
had a vision. And the end of the world is coming. And then
they say, okay, such and such a time, and then it comes, and
nothing happened. Do you know what happened to
them in the Old Testament? They would be stoned to death
as a false prophet. They would be killed. And I tell you, anybody that
just testifies of their dreams and visions, but is not grounded
and settled in the Word of God, then they are a liar. They're
false witnesses. It is our conflict then to study
and to prove what we know and experience by God's Word constantly. Oh, what a struggle it is that we as your pastors would
not be false witnesses. I want to show you this. Go over
to Jeremiah chapter 23. The Lord is describing here false witnesses. What is a false witness? And how does God feel about false
witnesses? He tells us. I don't even have
to guess. Jeremiah chapter 23, look at
first at verse 1 and 2. Woe be unto the pastors that
destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord
God of Israel Against the pastors that feed my people you have
scattered my flock and driven them away and Have not visited
them behold. I will visit you upon you the
evil of your doing saith the Lord God here he's denouncing
false prophets He denounces them and tells them He is against
them, and yet in spite of them, regardless of them, verse 3,
I will gather the remnant of My flock from all countries that
I have driven them. And I will bring them again to
their folds, and they shall be fruitful and increased. And I
will set up shepherds over them that shall feed them, and they
shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking,
saith the Lord. He said, in spite of these false
teachers, God says, I'll raise up shepherds. I'll raise up my
men that I call to preach my gospel and they shall feed my
people. Not like those false preachers.
What do we feed you? Well, we feed you with the Word
of God and not our dreams. We feed you not with our visions,
but the Word of God that endureth forever. Therefore, all our experiences
must be founded upon the Word, yet God declares of these false
prophets, look now in verse 30. He said, Therefore, behold, I
am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words,
every one from his neighbor. These false preachers, these
false preachers, They steal God's Word. They use God's Word, but
they don't preach what God's people preach. What are God's
men to preach? If you go back to verse 5, you
can see what God's men are to preach. He said, Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, I will raise up David, unto David a
righteous branch, and he shall be king and reign and prosper
and shall execute judgment and justice. In His days, Judas shall
be saved and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is the name
whereby He shall be called, the Lord, our righteousness. So what
is the message of God's men? Jesus Christ the King. Jesus
Christ who reigns. Jesus Christ who is all our righteousness,
wisdom, sanctification, and redemption. Jesus Christ is who we preach. And what we preach is, He shall
save Judah. That's what we preach. He shall
save His people from their sins. This is our message. Even Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Jesus Christ and Him risen. So
then, how do you separate the false from the true? In verse 26, He says this, How long shall this be in the
heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they prophesied the
seed of their own heart, which think to cause my people to forget
my name by their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbor
as the fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. The prophet
that hath a dream, let him tell the dream. And listen, he that
hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. So you can tell
the difference. Who's preaching what? Am I preaching
opinion or am I preaching the word of God? That's how you distinguish
between the true and the false. Who's preaching what? And the false preachers, they
preach their dreams. They preach their dreams, but
notice, as I said in verse 30, how do they do it? They do it
deceitfully. You see, they don't come right
out and tell you, well, I'm a false preacher. I'm a false preacher. I want you to hear me anyway.
No, that's not how they do it. They're very deceitful. And so
God says of these false prophets, they do something. They steal
my word. They steal it. They use my name, they quote
my book, and they twist it to promote their dreams and false
doctrines. They use it to promote their
own glory. Listen, the best way to illustrate
that is the free will works religion of our day. That is the pinnacle
of people who steal the Word of God. They use the Word of
God. They say Jesus is Lord. They confess that He was crucified,
that He was risen again. And yet we know by their message
that they only steal it and use it to promote the sovereignty
of man, the glory of man. They promote a false God who
in no way resembles the God of Holy Scripture. I like what Pink said about this.
He said, the God of modern freewill works religion no more resembles
the supreme sovereign of holy writ than does a flickering candle
the glory of the noonday sun. The God who is talked about in
the average pulpit, spoken in the ordinary Sunday school, mentioned
in most religious literature is a figment of human imagination. An invention of an over-emotional
sentimentality. The heathen outside Christendom
form gods of wood and stone, while millions in Christendom
manufacture a god of their own carnal minds. What is that but
dream? A god of their own dream. That's
it. Of their own imagination. Such a God as the God of universal
love and universal atonement does not exist. A God of universal love and universal
atonement does not exist. Now surely God is long-suffering
with men. Matter of fact, he says that
in Romans 9, he's long-suffering with the vessels of wrath fitted
for destruction. He's long-suffering with them.
But he never loved them as he loved the elect vessels of mercy
prepared unto glory. For he said this, God said this,
and I want you to pay attention, listen, God said, for Jacob Have
I loved? But Esau, have I hated? Does that sound like a God of universal
love? No, it sounds like a God of particular love. A God who
loves His people with an everlasting love. I tell you, Jesus Christ, the
Jesus Christ of modern religion says that He died for everyone
without exception. That He died for all men. And
all man has to do is make a decision. All you got to do is make a choice. Jesus redeemed you, but you got
to make it right. You've got to grab hold of Him. Otherwise, His redemption is
void. Christ does not exist. It is
a figment of man's imagination. It is not in accordance with
the book. It should be cast out. Christ Jesus surely died for
His people. He surely died for all those
that the Father gave Him. He said this in John 6, All the
Father gave me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again
at the last day. You see, we struggle. We have a conflict. We have a
conflict to declare unto you the true God of heaven. Woe unto
me if I preach not the gospel. Jesus Christ is a successful
Savior who redeemed His people. We preach the truth of God's
Word And we know this to be true.
I know this to be true because of the experience of grace in
my heart. I know this to be true. I know this to be true because
of the power of the Holy Spirit that is given to me. This is not only the word on
a page anymore. But rather, it is the Word of
God written in my heart. You see, when I preach of Jesus
Christ, I want you to know this. I know whom I believed. I know Him. You who believe Him,
you know Him. And when you hear of Him, what
does your heart say? I know Him. I know Him. I know my Savior
is victorious. I know my Savior hath redeemed
me. I know Him who sits on the throne
of glory. I know Him. Why do you know Him? Because the Spirit revealed it
to you. That's how. That's how you know
it. A work of grace is on your heart. Now, I know this. I know
my depravity. Don't you? I know that. That's not just a doctrine. That's
reality to me. I really struggle with sin. I
really do. I know what it is. I know my
depravity because the Spirit of God has exposed me. I know
the holiness of God because the holiness of God has been revealed
to me. I like this. You know, I often
say in Isaiah chapter 64 and verse 6, we say this, that our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags. That's scripture. We get a hold of that. But you
know how the apostle learned that? Because he first said,
oh, that God would come down as he did upon the mountain.
In other words, displaying His holiness. How do you know you're
a sinner except you see the holiness of God? How do you know the holiness
of God except He revealed that to you? You don't. You can't.
It's a mystery. It's a mystery to some of you.
Not to me. That hidden mystery is now revealed
to me by the Spirit of God. And now, I've not only had it
in my mind, but I also have it in my heart. Do you have it in
your heart? I do. I know this, that Jesus
Christ is all my salvation. I know that. I know Him. Have you ever had a man stand
up and try to tell you about another Christ? Boy, I tell you
what, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. When they sit there
and tell you about another Christ who died for all men without
exception, I have no idea who that is. I have no clue. I know
Christ died for His people. I know He's victorious. I know
He's successful. Now that Savior I know. The other
one I don't know. And so this is what happens when
we preach the gospel is that we identify with these things. Why do you think I tell you the
same things? Because these things excite the
Spirit. These things are taught to us
of God. And they are in our very hearts. And we know them to be true and
right. That by His Christ's obedience
in death, He has forever removed my sin. I know that Daniel 9,
24 is exactly right. He has brought in an everlasting
righteousness. He has finished the transgression.
He has put away my sin and iniquity forever by the sacrifice of Himself. I know that to be true. I know
that His one sacrifice for sin has forever removed my guilt. And we believe and preach and
know Jesus Christ is triumphant. I know and believe on Christ
even because of the free grace of God given me in a new heart. Do you know that? Do you know
anything about a new nature? I do. I know something about
a new nature. Why? I have one. I have one. And you know what it does? It's
constantly opposed to the old one. And they're always fighting
one against the other. Isn't that what the scripture
says? The spirit lusts against the flesh and the flesh against
the spirit. And these two are contrary one to another. So you
cannot do what you want. What I want to do, I want to
be righteous. And though I know that in this body, I cannot be.
A struggle. It's a struggle. I know most
people use it as an excuse. I don't. I use it, I know it
is. It's a struggle for me. I desire, I truly desire to be
righteous. And know this, this body just
drags me to the earth. I experience that. And I tell you what, I'm not
alone. God's Word is full of it. Paul said, In my flesh dwelleth
what? No good thing. For to will is
present with me, but how to perform that I find not. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. Oh, what a word that is to my
heart. I know I was dead in sin, but
now I'm alive. Have you ever been dead? I mean
totally. Well, no preacher. I've not been
dead now. I've been good. I've had some
good thing Yeah, I'm a sinner, but I I've not ever been totally
dead in sin. Well, then you're not alive See only the dead need life You never been dead you don't
need life I know I was dead and I know
I'm alive and I know it wasn't by my will but by the will of
God well preacher I had my will and I had my say well then you're
not you're just dead you're still dead if it's by your will you're
still dead you see we who have been born
again know this it was not by the will of man nor the will
of the flesh but of God see I know that You know that. And so this
mystery that we struggle to preach to you, that is our conflict
constantly, daily, I struggle that you should know and believe
the gospel of Jesus Christ alone. That's my heart's desire. And
what is the result then of this? Go back to your text. What is
the result of Paul's conflict? The result of his conflict is
this, that their hearts might be knit together in love unto
all the riches of full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement
of the mystery of the Father, of God, and of the Father, and
of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I labored to declare to you Christ
that I know. And I tell you this, I don't
dare tell you what I don't know. I'm not here to speculate. I'm
here to tell you what I know. I'm here to tell you what God
says. And those two better be the same.
They should always be the same. What I know and what this book
says should be the same. And what does this do? It unites
believers together. It causes us to be knit together. What is the bond that holds us
together? It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the gospel of Christ that
your hearts might be knit together in love. First of all, love for
Christ. Love for Christ. Believer, it is my heart's desire
that you set everything else aside and set your affections
on Him. When I preach Christ to you,
I want your affections to be set on Him. Not on me, so much
as Him. I want you to hear His voice.
If you just love me apart from loving Him, that won't last long.
I'm just not that nice a person. You're just not going to like
me. But I'm telling you what, if you love Him, you can love
me. If you set your affection on
Him, out of that abundance of love, you would overflow with
love toward one another. And this is our heart's desire,
because we are sinners saved by grace, are we not? Are we
not still prone to every sin? And I tell you, we should take
all diligence to love one another. All diligence. Paul said that we would endeavor
Endeavor. That means strive. Endeavor to
keep the unity in the bond of peace. or by the bond of peace. You know what that word bond
is? Ligament. Just like your bones are held
together by the ligament, that you should endeavor to keep that
ligament. What is the ligament? It is the
Word of God. It is the Spirit of God that
keeps us and binds us together, that our hearts beat for this
one gospel. I know this, that if you come
here, that's the only thing you want to hear. And you know, when
I come here, it's the only thing I want to preach. You see, we
have a mutual benediction. We have a mutual relationship.
I must preach Christ, and you must hear Christ. Not out of
legalism, but out of love. I must preach Him out of love.
You must hear Him out of love. And in this, we're knit. Now,
believers, I've seen some churches that I really, they were knit. And it doesn't take much to cause disunity. Does it? I've seen churches split over
some small, insignificant things. What can keep us from such things? only the preaching of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. It's by this bond we're knit
together. And out of this flow all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Christ. Three words. Three words will keep us together.
Christ is all. Christ is all. It is my conflict
to always preach Christ is all. And it should always be your
conflict to hear Christ is all. And by this we are bound by the
same Spirit of God who taught you and he taught me. We've known this mystery only
because he taught us, revealed it to us. And that we should
act like it. We shouldn't be proud. This is
all of grace, isn't it? All of it. That's my heart's
desire. I pray that God will bless it.