Colossians chapter 2. Paul was very concerned about
the Church. He was away from it. He was in
prison, as you know. They were out in the world. He was concerned for their souls.
He's not, as I said last week, he wasn't inquiring about their
physical welfare. He was concerned for their souls.
And that should be our great concern more than anything. And he was concerned that the
people might be beguiled might be spoiled or, you know,
spoils of war. That word means when you go in
and you take something for yourself, you take it as your reward or something that doesn't belong
to you. It's spoils of war. He was concerned that Some people
might spoil the people, that is, beguile them in such a way
as to draw away disciples after, follow
somebody else and not follow Christ. Follow somebody else
and not follow Paul, who was following Christ. And Paul had a heart's concern
and love for the people. He really did. He was in prison. He was suffering because of it. It happens all the time. People
are beguiled. Paul said to the Corinthians,
he said, you suffer fools gladly. Listen to fools and follow them. Happens all the time. It's happening
now. It's listening to the philosophy
of man. Paul was concerned about them
being beguiled and being spoiled through the philosophy of man. What is philosophy? Well, it's
a fancy word for what man thinks. What man thinks. This is the
way I see it. And Scripture says that whatever
man thinks, is wrong. There is a way that seems right
to me. Every man does that which is
right in his own eyes. But it's wrong. The Lord says
it's wrong. The way ends destruction. And
Paul was concerned about the salvation of their soul. He wasn't
worried about their physical welfare, that if they believed
Christ, Their life ends and their troubles
end. He wasn't concerned about his
physical welfare. No. He said, I'm ready to depart.
He's concerned about the spiritual welfare, because if they depart
from the Lord, not only will they die physically,
but they'll die eternally. And their troubles just began.
Someone thinks, well, I'll just end my life here. But if you
don't know the Lord, your troubles have just begun and they will
never end. People think, I'll take my life
and my troubles will be over. No. So Paul began this by saying,
I wish you knew, I would you knew, verse 1, what great conflict
I have for you. Great fear of care. He knew. And then he went on to say, what
I want for you is that, verse 2, your hearts might be comforted
by the gospel. Not be afraid, not be unbelieving,
not full of doubt and fear and worry, but comfort. And knit
together in love. So bound together that you can't
leave each other. like a marriage, like a brother
and sister, brother and brother. And he said, I want you to have
full assurance of the understanding of this mystery of who God is.
He is God. God's not doing anything man
lets him do. That's no God. There's no God at all. controlled by or thwarted by
man. He said, I want you to have the
full assurance that God's God. The mystery of God. The Father.
God's our Father. God's the Father of His people.
Father. God's our Father. Father knows best. Father does
best. Our Father loves us. No father
could love a child more than I love my daughter. And you'd
say the same. You all would say the same. Would
you do anything to hurt them? Could you? No. Will you do everything
within your power that's good for them? How much more? Your Heavenly
Father. If we just know, if we just fully
understood, God is our Father. I never had a worry growing up.
I never had a worry. Never lost a night's sleep worried
about anything. Why? I had a good Father. I just
never worried. Well, our Heavenly Father is
No, no. He only knows the mystery of
God. He's a mystery to most. What does man think about God?
Well, the God that men call God, I don't need Him, I don't want
Him. God didn't want that to happen. I don't need a God like
that. That's man's philosophy of God,
isn't it? And Christ. The Savior, the one that came
down here, second Adam, covenant head, surety of the covenant.
Why'd he come here? To save his people. Did he do
it? Read Joseph Byron's article. Read it. Read it. You want to
bless him. Between Robin and I, it took
us three days to print that. Never mind. The Christ came. God sent our Savior down here. There's nothing going to happen
to us. But what He doesn't ordain, and it's all for our good and
His glory, and then our souls are going to go to be with Him
as happily ever after. And we're all going to say, it
was all good. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you. In whom were hid, there hid all
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. What do you want to know? What
do you need to know? You don't want to be wise? Well, don't
listen to the wisdom of this world. It's foolishness. Changes. Don't meddle with them
that are given to change. It's going to change. Today's
worldly wisdom is going to change tomorrow. Why? God will change
it. Just manipulate it. And now, this I say, verse 4,
as any man should beguile you with enticing word. that any
man should beguile you. The word beguile means to influence
by trickery, by flattery, to mislead, beguile. It means
to influence by trickery and mostly flattery. Now, Daniel,
the Lord And Daniel talks about the flatteries, that this evil
king will come in and flatter the people, flatter the people,
and he'll draw away lots of people after himself by flattering.
Well, isn't that false religion? Isn't that what's going on? God
of this world is behind it. Satan's seat, Satan's beguiling
trickery is through flattery. God loves you so much. He needs
you. That's flattering, isn't it?
He believes in you. You know, I've actually read
that God believes in you. I've read that on the signs and
bulletin boards of so-called churches. Can you believe that
it would be so twisted? God depends on you. It's the
exact opposite. 2 Corinthians 11. This is the second time the word
beguiled is used. But the first time, you know
where the first time beguiled is used? Back in Genesis chapter
3. Genesis 3, where the Lord said
to the woman, who was beguiled? The woman. And our Lord said to her, What
is this thou hast done? And she said, The serpent beguiled
me. Beguiled me. Tricked me. He misled
me. Why didn't you listen to your
husband? He flattered me. He said, I won't
die. He said, I'll be like God. God of this world. Look at 2
Corinthians 11. Would to God you would bear with
me a little in my folly. And he goes on, his folly, you
know, the world calls preaching foolishness. Preachers foolish. Most of them are, granted, most
of them are. And this is where he said, I'm
going to defend myself here, I'm going to defend, he said,
I'm going to speak like a fool, they defend themselves, and I'm
going to have to He suffered fools gladly, he said that. And
he said, I fear, verse 2, I'm jealous over you with a godly
jealousy. Godly jealousy. He wasn't counting
heads and money. He was concerned for their souls,
wasn't he? Wasn't he? How you know is he suffered for
the truth. Just pare down the gospel, just
take away the offense, and you'll have a crowd full of people and
lots of money coming in. And you can't build enough buildings
to hold them. No, he suffered for it. He said,
first, I espouse you to one husband. As one, I want you to be married
to him. A chaste virgin decried, I fear
less by any means as a serpent beguiled Eve, verse 3, through
his subtlety. So your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. And he went on to say,
someone comes preaching another Jesus we've not preached, another
spirit. You do well to bear with me. You need to hear what I'm saying
now. The simplicity that is in Christ,
another Jesus. Now this started 2,000 years
ago. Go back to our, well, no, stay right there just one second.
2 Corinthians 11. This started 2,000 years ago. Paul said another Jesus. You
know, even back then, you mean back then, a false gospel started John said, even now there are
many antichrists. Our Lord said, many false prophets shall arise
and deceive many. Look at verse 13 here in 2 Corinthians
11. It says in verse 13, such are
false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
apostles of Christ. No marvel, Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light. It's no great thing if his ministers
transform into ministers of righteousness. Well, how do you know? How can
you? You try them. How? By this right
here. This right here. There are some
in the Corinthian church, now you can go back to Colossians
2, there were some in the Corinthian church that were deceived, that
were beguiled by these false, impressed by them. Apparently
they were using enticing words and persuasible
words of man's wisdom, and they were impressed by them and followed
them. The Galatian church, he wrote
to the Galatian church. He said, I marvel at you so soon
removed from the gospel to another gospel. I can't believe you'd
fall for that. Well, if God doesn't hold us
up, we'll fall for anything. He did. He's talking about simplicity
in Christ. What he's talking about is salvation
is in Christ alone. That there's one Lord, one faith,
one hope. He is the Lord and Savior. Now,
this is a subtle deception that Satan started in the Garden.
And he started by questioning God's Word. Now, here's what
Satan did in the Garden. Does it really say that? Let's get another version of
this. Let's print another version of
it. Do you know how many perversions
of Scripture there are? And some of them are close. The New King James Version. It's corrupt. Subtle deception. Hath God said—let's
put a little question mark on it. It's a gray area there. Hath
God really said it's a gray area? God's truth is not yea and nay. It's yes. This is the way it
is. No gray area. It's black and
white. It's clear to him to understand. He said that in Proverbs 8, my
words are not wreathed or covered or hidden. But plain,
for him to understand. That's what God said. Then he said, you won't die.
You won't die. Wasn't the scripture saying Adam
will all die? It doesn't say that. Die and
you shall die. God said that. Beguiling and religion is God's
not God, man's not dead. You have free will. You'll be
like God. This is where it all started,
back in the garden. And in the world, philosophy
of man. People live like they're going
to live forever, don't they? And people, if you come up with
something new, something to eat or something to take, And get
some expert to tell them, people living a long time because they're
doing it. You'll be a multi-millionaire overnight. Suffer fools gladly. What they call snake oil. They've
been selling snake oil since, again, how long has a man lived?
Same. Same. Oh no, no preach, you were
living, me interrupted living 72 years now. Oh, really? Well, isn't that what God said?
Three score and ten, maybe four score. Maybe. Why? Because your
days are determined and none of your months with the Lord.
Your bounds are set and you cannot pass. And God said, I kill, I
make light. I'm the one, God said. We'll give glory to anything
and anyone. We'll believe anything and anyone but God. Don't be
that way. Don't fall for anything. Don't
do it. Fall at Christ's feet. That's
what we need to talk about. You won't die. Isn't it ironic
that men are telling us now, you're all going to die. If you don't do something, you're
all going to die. You know what the hell I'm here to tell you,
believer? You're never going to die. Would you? And I didn't say that. Jesus
Christ said it, Karen. He said, He that liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Do you believe that? What are
you worried about then? The world said, you're going
to die. Everybody's going to die. Yeah, we are. Who's going to kill us? God is. When? When he says so. But those that live and believe
in Jesus Christ are never going to die. Never! Why do you holler? Because this needs to be shouted
from the rooftop. You won't die. Enticing words,
alluring words, pleasing words. Listen to me. Whatever is pleasing
to the flesh is wrong. It's a lie. Whatever is pleasing
to the flesh is a lie. This goes for Arminianism, and
it goes for Antinomianism. Arminianism says God needs you,
God can't do anything without you, it's flattering and all
that. Antinomianism says just trust Christ, it doesn't matter
how you do it. That's not right either. That's too pleasing to
the flesh. My flesh wants to do it. No. We need to mortify this flesh. Let's get mortified of us. Well, Paul said in verse 5, he
was thankful. He said, I'm absent in the flesh,
yet I'm with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order
and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. Paul was thankful
that most, that most were steadfast in the faith, and I am too. I'm
still looking at the faces of men that are steadfast in the
faith. Now, you remember chapter 1, verse 23, it says, if he's
going to present you holy, unblameable, unapprovable, if you continue
in the faith, grounded and settled, be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. What's that mean? It means what
it says. If you don't leave your only hope, your only help, Forsake
not the assembly of yourselves together, as the manner of some
is, but exhort one another so much more as you see the day
approach. For if we sin, we offer that."
What's that mean? We do what we want to do. We
go where we want to go. We do what we need to do. We believe what we want to believe.
We do. Don't we? Don't we? Do you really need Jesus Christ?
Do you need this? Do you love his kingdom? Do you
love his people? It will be known. It's going
to be known. It's being known. And Paul was
so thankful that some weren't steadfast. Most were steadfast. Grounded and settled. That means
unmoved. Unchanged. Settled. Not disturbed. Not upset. Uninfluenced. One time Paul said, but no man
bothered me. You know what they're saying,
Paul? Shouldn't bother them. Don't
you want to be like that? I trust the Lord. I believe the
Lord. I can't bother me what they say. Don't you want to be
like that? Steadfast. Hold him fast. Rooted. Rooted. Knit together. I'm not going to leave you. I'm
not going to leave you. Don't you want to be a faithful
man like that? I'm not going to leave you. I'll
be right here, like our Lord. He says in verse 6, As you have
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. As you have received
Christ Jesus the Lord, now no man can receive nothing except
it be given him from above. As many as received him were
born of God. You know that. It's not accepting, it's receiving.
Receive the gift of faith according to his mighty power, of obtaining
like precious faith. You receive Christ, Christ the
Messiah. Second Adam from our prophet,
our priest, our king. Did you listen to the radio program
this morning? Do you believe he's the Christ?
Oh, without a doubt. There's not a doubt in my head
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God, the God of man,
Jesus, Savior. Did he come here to save his
people? Did he save his people from what?
Everything. Everything, the penalty of sin, the curse of
the law, the power of sin, sin will not have dominion over you.
That's what Christ said to him. And someday the prayer will say,
Lord, Christ Jesus the Lord. Now is he Lord or not? He said
all power is given unto thee in heaven and earth. He said,
I run this universe. Everything in it. Yeah, here's
your hater number. He's the Lord. Now that's what
you heard when you first heard this God thing. You heard of
a sovereign God. All right, this was some of these
20, 30, 40 years ago, didn't you? That God is sovereign. Do you still believe that? Oh, but what? But God. But God is still sovereign. Oh,
but this is unprecedented. No, it's not. That means that
something hasn't happened before. Preceded it. No, there's nothing
new under the sun. You know how many things like
this have gone off since the beginning of time? You know how
many? Huh? Back in the 1940s, Great Britain was being bombed
every day. Bombed. Fallen. Buildings falling. You're talking
about fear. What would you do? What would
you do? You don't trust the government? You don't trust the Lord? Would
you quit worshiping God? He'd worship you now. Hopefully,
he'd worship you more than ever. You'd hope there'd be one building
not bombed, the building we meet in. As you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, now more than ever, walk in Him. Walk by faith in
Him. Trust Him. Trust Him. That's the next message, the
whole message. Psalm 36. Trust the Lord. Trust the Lord.
Rest in Him. Walk in Him by faith. Walk in
Him. Walk in Him. Trust in Him. Yea,
though I walk through the valley, remember, He's the Lord, Jehovah. Rah-ah, our shepherd. Yay! Remember that? Yay! Though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Now what? Can
you say this? No evil, I fear no evil. Why? Psalm 91 says, No evil shall
befall you. Did it say that? Yeah, but what?
But preacher, don't button me. God said that. Why? Because Jehovah-Rah-ah, the Lord,
is always with us. In His hands. Our breath is in His hands. I have a dear sister on a ventilator
in Alabama. A dear sister, known her all
my life. Her breath is in God's hands. But she's seven years old. She's
seven. You'll have something. Sooner
or later. Hmm? Sooner or later. Maybe that's
over. Huh? You said it to yourself.
It's time. Something. You'll have something.
Who determines something? God does. Right? He's Lord. Look at verse 7. It
says, rooted. It builds up in him. Rooted. Rooted. There was an old tree
in my dad's front yard. And some of you may have done
this. I cut that old tree. It wasn't very big. It wasn't
about that big around. I cut it down. And the stump
left enough stump there, you know, so I could get my truck,
tie my truck to it. And I've got a Cummings. I couldn't
budget that. I thought, I'm going to jerk
the rear end out of my truck. I could not get that with this
big old truck I got. I couldn't get it out of there.
Why? The root. Evidently, that tree had a root
so deep that you're not going to move it. You're not going
to move it. It's still there, Kevin. It's
still there. I had to cut it down next to
the ground, you know, it's still there. Wow. Root! Unmoved. And that's in my dad's front
yard. Well, there's an old woman in the house. She ain't moved either. Rooted the root of the matters
in her. I got to tell you something funny. You know, you heard her
breathing, it's real bad. And she's 96, okay? A while back she said, I don't
have any business getting out. She don't have any business getting
out like this. I said, why, what's wrong? She said, my hair, I can't
do a thing with it. I wasn't worried about the virus. My hair, I can't get out like
this. Ninety-six years. When are we going to trust Him? Rooted. Built up. Built up. Growing in grace. Growing in faith. The older I
get, the stronger I want to get in faith. If I get treated, stumped,
you ain't going to move Him. He believes what he did from
day one, thank God. It says in verse 7, established
in the faith. Established in the faith. This
old faith has been around for years. This is the faith of Abraham.
What is faith? Faith is acting against what
you see. Faith is moving completely against
human reason. Now, trust in philosophy. Philosophy
is human reason. I had someone tell me recently,
they said, God expects us to use some good common sense. I
said, God expects us to walk by faith. We don't walk by common
sense. We don't walk by human reason.
We don't trust our own understanding. We don't lean to our own understanding.
Sense. What is sense? The sight is sense. Hearing is a sense. We don't
walk by sight. We don't trust what we see. We
don't trust what we hear. Who do we trust? God. Unseen
God. The world says that's Buddhism.
No, it's faith. It's wisdom. We walk by faith, not sight. Abraham. Abraham, you're going
to have a son. I'm going to give you a son. But I'm 100 years
old, that can't happen. Trust me, I'm going to give you
a son. Well, he went 15 years, no son. And his wife said, we've got
to do something. Maybe God meant, it's not what
you think God meant, God meant what he said. Maybe God meant
that we should use means. So, you go into Hagar. Well, that sounds good, Abraham
said. But what did it cause him trouble? Abraham could just wait. If he'd
just wait. God said, trust me. He said,
I'm going to do that. established in the faith. Let me enclose him. One more
thing. Look at this. Verse 7. I meant
to get on down here, but we've got to spend a lot of time on
verses 9 and 10. Fullness and complete in him.
But verse 7 says we need to be rooted, built up, established
in the faith as we've been taught from the beginning. Nothing's
changed. God had changed. Man had changed. Abounding, look at this, abounding
therein with thanksgiving. We need to abound with thanksgiving. Perhaps the real reason why we
don't have much joy and peace or even faith is because if we
don't trust the Lord, If we're not more thankful, we'll
murmur and complain. And you know what God will do?
He'll leave us alone. He'll hide us better. Like He
did the children of Israel. And they were just full of trouble. Because they murmured. It says
they murmured in their tents. A husband and wife would get
together and talk about it. Husband and wife would get together,
private, and talk in private. Was it private? Were they talking
in private? God hear your prayer. That's
who they should have been mindful of. God forgive me. I murmured and complained about
God, about everything, when I ought to be thankful. Here's why we
ought to abound in thanksgiving. We know this. You and I know
this. We know it in our head. We ought to be more thankful. The thing that should mark us
more than anything else is thankful people. Thank you. Thank you.
Why? We all know in our heads that
it's of the Lord's mercies we're not concerned. Why? Because His
compassions. He had compassion on us. He said,
I'm not going to kill that old boy. I'm going to reveal myself
to him. He's Ephraim. If I left him alone,
he'd go to his idols. If I left him alone, he'd leave
me tomorrow. But I'm not going to give him up. Why? Because
I'm God, not a man. I'm going to pour out my grace
and my mercy on him. I'm going to reveal myself to
him. I'm not going to give him up. I'm not going to let him
alone to himself or her. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to save them with an
everlasting salvation. And they're going to thank me.
Oh, they're going to thank me. To high heaven they're going
to thank me for not leaving them alone because my compassion is
a fatal knot. They're new every morning. If they weren't, I would fall
tomorrow morning. tonight, all the way, and never
come back, never give God another thought. My flesh wants to. My flesh wants to leave. But
God. But God. Let me just read you
something in closing. 1 Peter 5. Look at this. 1 Peter
5. Turn there with me quickly. It
made me want to preach on this chapter. Everything I read makes
me want to preach on this chapter. But 1 Peter 5, oh how I love
this. Love, love, love this. Verse
7, cast all your care upon him. He cares for you. All your worries,
all your fears. Be sober, be vigilant. Wake up. Watch your adversary, the devil's
roaring lion, walk with the bout, seeking whom he may devour. Resist,
steadfast in the faith. How's that? Trust the Lord. He'll
beguile you. He'll trick you. He'll cause
you to fall away. He'll cause you to listen to
anybody who beguiles you. Resisting. The same afflictions, the very same afflictions are
accomplished in your brethren. They're all going through the
same thing. That song we sing, some through
the water, some through the flood. No, no, no, no. All through the
water, all through the flood, all through the fire, and all
through the blood. That's the way we need to be
singing it. All of them going through the
same thing. Read Hebrews 11. All that's through the Red Sea. It's accomplished. It's accomplished. They're in
the world, verse 10. But the God of all grace, look
at this, verse 10. This was our memory verse that
was one week. He's called us unto his eternal
glory by Christ Jesus after you've suffered a battle. Make you perfect. Establish it. Strengthen it.
Settle it. Oh, to him be glory and dominion
forever and ever. Amen. He says Silas says hello.
His faithful brother Churchit. Verse 13, the church at Kingsport
says hello. And verse 14, now greet one another.
Now hug up one another. Kiss one another. Take advice. It might be the last time you
do. And we're going to look at it
for another 30 or 40 minutes. Shall we? Okay.