This, as you know, as most of
you know, is an epistle or a letter to the church at Colossae. So
this is written to his people. This is written to believers,
those who were chosen by God, those who were redeemed by the
Lord Jesus Christ, those who are regenerated or made alive,
quickened by the Holy Spirit. That's what he says in verse
1. If ye then be risen with Christ. That is, quickened, raised. Raised with Christ. Dead, buried,
and raised with Christ. Seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection,
your mind, your heart on things above. things on the earth. Once again, you can't tell someone
who is dead in trespasses and sin, whose heart and mind is
dead to the things of God, set on worldly things. Romans 8 says
carnally minded. That is, thinking only of fleshly
things. They're dead. You can't tell
them to set their affection on things above. But this is written
to those who's been given a new heart, a new love for things
that are higher and nobler, the psalm says. He says, for you're
dead, verse 3, for you're dead and your life is hid with Christ
and God. We looked at that last week. I hope you were blessed as I
was. You're dead. You're crucified
with Christ and the world to you. You're dead to the applause
of the world, dead to the praise of the world, dead to the consuming
passions of the world? Dead. And your life is hid with
Christ and God. That's talking about the secrecy
of it. That is, there's this new creature
created in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ that the world can't
see, and we have a hard time seeing it. The secrecy of it.
He said, It doth not yet appear what we shall be. Beloved, now
are we the sons of God, John wrote. But it doth not yet appear
to us. or any other, what we shall be. But we know that when He appears,
we will be like Him. The secrecy of it. You're dead.
Your life is hid with Christ in God. That's the security of
it, the safety of it. Your past is under the blood. Your life is hid, that is, as
something that someone hides for protection in God with Christ. And verse 4 says, when Christ,
our life, shall appear. Christ, our life. Not a part
of our life. No. Our life. Someone who says
that, God is a big part of my life, I doubt very seriously
if they know who God is and who Christ is. Christ, our life. in whom we live and move and
have our being, not only our eternal life, but Paul said,
for me to live is Christ. That is, to win Christ, be found
in Him, to worship Him, to rejoice in Him, Christ our life. When
He shall appear, verse 4, and He shall appear, then shall ye
also appear with Him in glory. With Him in glory. and to behold
His glory. And that's what His people do
now, being prepared, being made meek, the Scripture says, to
be partakers with the saints in glory. And that's what we
shall do while with Him. Glorify Him. Behold His glory. And that's how you know His people
now. That's what they glory in now. Him and Him. Now right now,
verse 4 says, mortified therefore. You see, any time it says, therefore,
you go back and see what it's there for. This is continuing
something that went before it. Mortify, therefore. You're dead,
so mortify, therefore, your members. Read on. Your members which are
upon the earth in body. At fornication, he lists these
things that the body, that the flesh is guilty of and beset
with. fornication, uncleanness, inordinate
affection, evil concupiscence or unlawful desires, and covetousness
which is idolatry for which things sake." And another place he said,
don't let anyone fool you, but because of these things, the
wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience. These things.
But he said, for which things saith the wrath of God? The wrath
of God cometh on the children of disobedient. I just quoted
it. It was the next verse. So he
says, mortify therefore. Mortify therefore. Now this is
vital, and it's very difficult to understand, perhaps impossible,
and certainly impossible to convey. But this is something that really
is more experienced than explained. Mortify, therefore. You're dead. You're dead. Now go back to Romans
6. Romans chapter 6 goes in greater
depth about this thing of mortification of the members of the flesh.
To mortify means kill. That's exactly what it means.
This mortal, this mortality. I'll put on immortality. It means
this death, this dying body, mortified therefore. Paul says
the exact same thing here in Romans 6, verse 8, but in more
detail. You have it? Romans 6, verses
8 through 11. Now, if we be dead with Christ... Now, I gave you the illustration
last week, the Scriptures gives it, of Noah going into that ark. And when he went into that ark,
he's saying, you can have this world. I want to walk with God. The Lord is going to destroy
this world. And so he, in effect, was dead to the world, and he
to the world. The world was dead to him and
he to the world. And when he went into that ark, everybody
thought he was a fool, an absolute fool. And Scripture says, so
are God's people, fools. For Christ's sake, the world
lives for this world. But we know it's a dying world,
full of dead things. Everything and everyone in it
is dead and dying, right? The things that are seen are
temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. They
don't die. The things of God, Christ. And so we, like Noah, When God,
by His grace, brings us to the Lord Jesus Christ, puts us in
Christ, the ark of safety, of salvation, we come to Him by
faith. We are in effect saying, the
world is a dying place. The Lord is going to destroy
it. I look for a city whose builder and maker is God. I want to walk
with God like Enoch walked with God. And one day he walked right
on into glory. So that's what it says there
in verse 8, if you be dead with Christ, that's what it means.
We believe that we shall also live with him. Those who die
in the faith don't actually die, they go on to be with the Lord. To live with him, life more abundant.
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, verse 9, dieth
no more, death hath no more dominion over him. and that he died, he
died unto sin once, being made sin for his people. In that he
liveth, he liveth unto God, likewise reckon ye also yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Read on, next verse. Let not
sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it
and the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members
as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, verse 4. It says
we are buried with Him by baptism, raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so also that we should also walk
in newness of life. Newness of life. So reckon yourselves
dead. Let not sin reign. Don't yield
to it. Now, the first thing, go back
to the text. No, stay right there. Stay right
there a minute. The first thing, Paul, establishes throughout
the whole book of Romans. It begins, Paul, a servant of
God, sold out to the gospel of God, separated on the gospel
of God, concerning his Son, Jesus Christ, declared to be the Son
of God with power and so on. And he goes on to talk about
men being dead in sin, Romans 1, Romans 2, Romans 3, and Adam
all died. Chapter 4, imputation of righteousness. Chapter 5, dead in sin. And it clearly establishes that
life comes through God, a miracle of God's sovereign mercy and
grace, through Jesus Christ. The forgiveness of sin is completely
by God, by Jesus Christ. justification in Christ alone,
how Christ is our righteousness. His blood paid the penalty of
our sin. The Holy Spirit quickens. Crucified
with Christ, put to death by the law, the penalty of sin was
carried out. He establishes that for just
on and on, several chapters, because this is vital. If we
do not look to Christ by faith for forgiveness of sin, if we
do not look to Christ for everything, and this is what Paul is going
to say in Colossians 3, He is all and in all, then we won't
look to Him for help with this struggle with sin. We must look
to Him completely for salvation in order to look to Him for mortification. An old writer named William Romaine
once said, and it's very good, listen carefully. He said, sin
must be pardoned in the conscience before it's mortified in the
heart and the life. Or else we'll try to fight it
with our own strength and flesh. In other words, if we don't see
our sin completely put away in and by the Lord Jesus Christ,
then we won't be looking to Him completely. And then we'll think
there's something we can do to make ourselves right with God.
Here, I'll give you an illustration. The rich young ruler, when he
came to the Lord, he said, What good thing must I do to inherit
eternal life? And the Lord said, You know the
law. He said, I shall have no other gods before thee and all
the law. And the rich young ruler actually
said this, all those things have I kept from my youth up. He may have thought he did, but
he didn't because God looks on the heart. He may have thought
he was like Saul of Tarsus, may have thought he was righteous
outwardly, but God looks on the heart. And so he thought that
he kept all of it. What do I lack yet? The first
thing we've got to see is we've broken every single law. Guilty
as charged. That's what the law says to them
that are under the law. Guilty. And we come to Christ
for forgiveness. And when we come to Christ for
forgiveness of sin, we see that forgiveness of sin, the pardon
of sin, being made free from sin, it's all completely in Jesus
Christ. So, he said this to the Galatians,
if you begin in the Spirit, are you going to be made perfect
by the flesh? Are we to come to Christ for justification and
go to Moses for sanctification? Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. It's
all in Him. In a word, what I'm trying to
say, and what Brother Romaine was saying, is that without him,
you can't do anything. You can't do anything. You can't
fight one temptation. You cannot fight one temptation
without him. Simon Peter is a good example
of this. He got all puffed up and self-righteous and said,
all of these may. The Lord said, you're going to
deny me three times. Oh no, not me. All of these may,
not me. Peter should have hit his knees
and said, Oh Lord, I don't want to deny you. Please have mercy
on me. Keep me by your grace. Keep me
from denying you. I can't keep myself. If you by
your grace keep me, I won't deny you. That's what he should have
said. Oh no, I won't. They may. I won't. Who did? A little maiden came along. Big,
tough, bold Peter. One little girl came along and
said, You're one of them. He reverted right back to a cursing
sailor. Without Him, we can do nothing.
We cannot mortify or put to death one single... That's all we're
saying. And we look to Christ for all. We can't resist the least. Go
back to Colossians 3. In Colossians 3, mortify your
member. Reckon yourselves dead to sin. In that sense, your mind, your
heart set on things above, not on things of the earth. Realize
that these are dead things, dead and dying things. And why devote
your life and your time to dead things? Mortify your members
with the affections and lusts thereof." You know, we're all plagued by
sins, aren't we? These things here. We're plagued
by all of these things still. That's how you know that there
are two men, there are two natures, two persons within you. In fact, I was going to have
you look at Romans 6 a little more, but for the sake of time,
He talks about when before you had pleasure in the things that
you don't pursue now, don't like, and you had no pleasure in the
things that you find pleasure in now, that is, spiritual things. Because before, there was only
one nature. An old man that loved sin and
the flesh and the world and had no conflict with it, in fact,
lived for it. Dread and trespass, dead to God,
dead to the things of God. But God, rich in mercy, quickened
me, made this new creature, created in the image of Christ. Now there
are two people dwelling in the same old body. Paul said in Romans
7, who shall deliver me from this body of death, this body
that's dying, that's decaying and dying, this body that feeds
on flesh, this body that still struggles with sin? Who shall deliver me? There's
the key. Who shall deliver me? Who shall
deliver me? And all of you who know that
chapter, Romans 7, love it because he expresses a feeling of your
heart. When he said, the things that I would, I do not. The things
that I would not, that's what I do. He said, I find this law
warring in my memory. He said, how to do that which
is right, I find not. I don't know how. So I'm not
telling you today how to mortify your memory. I wish I could give you a secret,
but I found out the secret, and I now no longer have any trouble
with it. Why would he be telling us this if we didn't struggle
with it? For the first thing, and the
chief thing is, look to Christ. Is that good advice? My pastor of 60 years, I wish
he were teaching this. That's it. Look to Christ. Consider
yourselves dead with him. Died to this world. Died to sin. But liveth unto God. And we died
with Him. Died with Him. So he says these
things in verse 5 that we struggle with. The wrath of God, verse
6, comes on the children of disobedient. In 1 Corinthians 6, go over there
real quickly. 1 Corinthians 6. This is what
I was trying to quote a while ago. Corinthians 6. You know, they accused the Apostle
Paul who preached sovereign grace, who preached the doctrine of
God's sovereign grace. Salvation completely, 100 percent
by the grace of God. Justification completely, solely
in Christ alone. And they accused him of really
being antinomian. They said, well, let's just sin,
that grace may abound. He said, God forbid. God forbid. That's what he said in Romans
6. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
How shall we? Christ died because of sin. Why
would we want to go back to that? That put our Lord on the cross.
And so he defends himself in that respect. Verse 9 of 1 Corinthians
6, verse 9 says, No ye not. that the unrighteous shall not
inherit the kingdom of God, be not deceived. Neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates, nor abusers
of themselves with mankind," that's homosexual, thieves, covetous,
drunkards, or foul, or extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of
God. That's very plain, isn't it? The tense there is errs,
continual, living in it. Thank God God forgives idolaters,
because covetousness is idolatry. Thank God He forgives sin. All
manner of sin shall be forgiven, Scripture says. Thank God, because
all of us are guilty of all those things, if not in action, in
thought. Only by the grace of God we have
committed all those things, if we haven't. All right? But this
is talking about those who continue to live therein. That's what
he said in another passage. How shall we that are dead live
any longer therein? God's people are convicted about
these things and repent of these things. Turn from them. Such,
verse 11, such were some of you. And he said that in Romans 6.
And you lived in these things, lived for them, lived in them,
found nothing wrong with it, found everything you wanted in
it. Not anymore. Not no more. You wash, you sanctify,
set apart, justified. See that? In the name of the
Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful
unto me. All things are not expedient,
profitable. All things are lawful, but I will not be brought unto
the power of any. See that? That's what he's saying.
And go back to Colossians 3. So he says, Don't let any man
deceive you because of these things. And now in our present
generation, this present, Scripture says in the last days perilous
times shall come. Things are just going to get
worse and worse and worse. More and more evil and wicked
like in the days of Noah when God looked down and it says man's
thoughts, the imagination of his heart was only evil continually. The earth had corrupted his way.
The earth was full of violence. And God said, it repented him,
he made man. He said, I'm going to destroy him from the face
of the earth. And our Lord said, as in the days of Noah, so shall
the coming of the Son of Man be. It's going to be just such
a widespread, openly wicked and vile play. Scripture says he's
delivering us from this present evil world. God doesn't love
this world. He's going to destroy this world. That's not the love of God, that's
the anger and the wrath of God against sin. And yes, sinners,
you can't separate the two. Let no man deceive you. This
is a dire warning, isn't it, against these things to his people
who have ears to hear. Noah being warned, moved with
fear. Lot's warned, and the Lord being
merciful, pulled him out. And the reason our society is
like it is, Romans 1 explains it clearly, doesn't it? Because
God's Word is not being proclaimed, such as these verses, which clearly
told us, oh no, God doesn't save someone in sin. He saves them
from it. Let no man deceive you. Oh, the
more necessary now. These, you know, preachers, false
preachers have preached such a permissive God, a God who will
not punish sin, a God who loves everybody without exception,
no matter how wicked and vile they are. God just loves them
anyway. Telling everybody God loves you, which is a lie. And
so people say, well, what the heck? If He loves me, let's just
go on. When I get ready to die, Accept
him and everything will be just all right, won't it? No, sir. So he says, let no man deceive
you. Verse 7 of Colossians 3 said, in which time you also walked
in them. You see that? That's an ongoing
thing. A lifestyle. Walked in them. When you lived
in them. But now that's not all. Here
it is, verse 8. Now put off all these too. Oh
my, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth. My, my. Who can do that? What's more, without Him you
can do nothing. Who can put away anger? Who can
put away wrath? You know, I'll just confess it. There was something boiling up
in me toward somebody. I was getting so angry with that
person. And I thought, oh my, Lord, help
me. I don't want to be that way.
So who can put off these things? Who can put away these things? No man. Without Him, we can do
nothing. So we call upon Him, Lord, help
me. Help me. Save me or I perish. Save me from these things or
I perish. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy. Filthy communication out of your
mouth. Talking about a new creature.
Verse 9. Lying up to one another. Seeing
you put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new
man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. The old man and the new man.
And we're going to talk about that a little more later on.
Put off. Put on. Put off. Put on. Have
you ever been put off by somebody? In other words, you're trying
to get a hold of them and they won't answer you? I said this
before. That's the bad thing about caller
ID. You call somebody and you know they've got it. And that
ain't answering the phone. You think, well, hopefully they've
got the phone off. If not, they're putting me off.
They don't want to talk to me. Put off the old man. Put on the
new. We'll talk a little more about
that next Sunday. All right.