The lesson this morning is found
in Colossians 1. Colossians 1, verses 12 through
20. And the subject of these verses
is giving thanks unto the Father. Now, if you're like most of us,
when you read these epistles, hurry up through the introduction
and try to get into the meat of the epistle. And you overlook
a lot that God has inspired this apostle to write. And in almost
every one of his epistles, he begins by giving thanks unto
the Father. You find it in every one of them.
Every one of them. These earthly relationships Over
the years, I've become convinced that these things are designed
by God, our Creator, to help us to know and understand something
about our relationship to Him and His relationship to Christ
in our salvation as our representative and as our federal head. Christ
is called in the scriptures, listen to this, He's our husband. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ loved the church. He's the husband of His bride,
the church, and Christ is sometimes called our elder brother. And then the first person of
the Godhead is called in the Scripture, the Father. God the
Father is set before us in the Scriptures as the wellspring. He is the wellspring of all spiritual
blessings. Listen to these Scriptures here
in James 1, verse 17. Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above. All of them. Every gift. We talk
about the gift of regeneration and the gift of faith being led
by the goodness of God to repentance, He giveth thee repentance. That's
what it says. By grace are you saved through
faith. It's the gift of God. Well, every
good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down,
now listen to this, from the Father of lights. All light,
all revelation, all goodness, all salvation, all these things,
they all come from the Father. They come from heaven, and their
wellspring is the Father, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning, the unchangeable God. And then in
Ephesians chapter 1, you all are familiar with this one. You
won't have to turn to it. But in Ephesians chapter 1, verse
3, He's called the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So
not only is He our Father, But He is our Father through His
relationship to the Son. He is the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, not in the sense of pure
deity, because Christ is equal with God in His
divinity. But what he's talking about here,
this is Christ in His appointments, in His incarnation as a man and
as the representative and covenant head of this people that God
has chosen to save. And in this sense, He is the
only begotten Son. You remember reading that? You
keep coming across, the only begotten Son? This is God's Son. And he goes on to tell us in
Ephesians 1, 3, that as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, He has blessed us, now listen to this, with all spiritual
blessings. They all come from Him. You remember
what I told you at the beginning? He is the wellspring. He's the
wellspring. I don't care what it is. If it's
regeneration by the Spirit down the road, Christ said, if I don't
ascend to the Father, He won't send the Spirit. You see what
I'm saying? All of these blessings, if you
trace them back, come from the Father. You can find over in
John chapter 6 where He said, murmur not among yourselves.
He said, no man, no man cometh unto Me except the Father draw
him. Well, the Father doesn't draw
men. The Holy Spirit draws men. But He is sent of the Father.
And He is sent specifically to draw. So He is the fountainhead of
all blessings. And then, listen to this, all
these blessings are according as He hath chosen us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. So you see that relationship
between the Father and the Son and the salvation of His people?
It flows through Christ. Just as a father of a home, my
children, it will be a pitiful one if they get one at all, but
if they get an inheritance, it won't be due to anything they
did. It will be due to something that I left them. I left them. And they will get it because
they are my children. My children. So in this sense,
we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. And then here in Colossians chapter
1 and verse 12, he said, giving thanks unto the Father which
hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light, or with the inheritance of the enlightened saints. Now
most professing Christians today are totally ignorant of the fact
that God the Father chose a people in Christ to manifest His glory
in their redemption through His Son. They're totally ignorant
of that. They don't even know what you're talking about. Election,
what's that? I didn't know anybody was running
for office. They're totally ignorant of election, what it means, what
He's talking about when He talks about election. But salvation
begins with the election of God. And this is what Paul now, he's
talking about our conversion here. He's talking about regeneration,
being made meat to become partakers of the inheritance of these enlightened
saints. And he's tracing that back to
the Father. Tracing it back to the Father.
Well, preacher, are you saying that if somebody wants to be
saved, God won't save them unless they're His elect? No, sir, that's
not what I'm saying. I'm saying that nobody in his
sinful condition will ever want to be saved. And he never would,
except God chose him and put him in Christ and appropriated
the means to make him willing in the day of his power. If he
has a want to, God gave it to him. That's just so. And when he does have a want
to, Paul said that's how he knew their election of God. Isn't
that right, in I Thessalonians 1? One of the blessings bestowed
on God's elect was the means of His salvation. In II Thessalonians,
you might want to turn over there and look at this. I quote this
all the time to you, but I want you to see it in the Scripture.
I Thessalonians 2, verse 13. You find here another prayer
of Paul concerning the Father. He said, but we are bound to
give thanks always to God for you. Anytime he uses that word
God, he is talking about God the Father. For you, brethren, beloved of
the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. He chose us to salvation. He didn't choose us to the possibility
of being saved. He chose us to salvation. And appropriated the means. It's
by sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. That's
how God purposed and designed the salvation of a sinner. It
comes through Christ. It comes by faith. And it comes
through the preaching of the gospel. And this is what Paul is talking
about when he gives thanks to the Father for making us meet
to be partakers. It is the portion of our inheritance. In Ephesians 1.14, he calls it
the earnest of our salvation. The promised pledge of it to
be brought to faith in Christ and received from the Spirit
of God the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. In Acts chapter
26, Paul stood before King Agrippa and was telling him about his
calling, telling him how the Lord saved him on the road to
Damascus. And then he began to talk to
him about his call to the ministry of which these men were disputing.
And here is what the Lord told him. He was sent to open blind
eyes. In Acts chapter 26. Sent to open
blind eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the
power of Satan unto God. Now listen to this. That they
might receive forgiveness of sin. and inheritance among them
which are sanctified or set apart by faith that is in Christ. And
then look back here at our text. Who hath delivered us? Verse
13. from the power of darkness. We're talking about being made
meat now to receive this inheritance, to be enlightened of God, to
be born of God, to actually lay hold and have the earnest of
our inheritance in us, given to us, a new nature. A new nature. Something this
world doesn't have. The ability to perceive who God
is. The ability to understand through
all the rigmarole that goes on in this world, to be able to
understand and perceive the truth of God. We are talking about
being made meat to be partakers. And here is the first part of
that being made meat, here in verse 13, "...who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom
of His dear Son." What is the power of darkness? What's he
talking about here? Is he talking about sinless perfection?
If he is, I missed it. I don't have it. That's not what
he's talking about here. What's he talking about here,
the power of darkness? Well, first and foremost, it's
Satan himself. Satan himself. He's the prince
of darkness. That's what the Scripture calls
him. And he and the other demon spirits are called the rulers
of the darkness by the apostles. They are the rulers of the darkness
of this world. And the Scriptures tell us he
has reserved both he and his demon spirit in chains of darkness
unto the judgment of the day of Christ. Now listen to me. Every unregenerate man, woman,
and child is said to walk according to the prince of the power of
the air. You read about it in Ephesians
chapter 2 verse 2. They walk according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, their children of wrath even as others. And then secondly, this darkness
refers to the ignorance of unregenerate men. It's darkness. Darkness, darkness, darkness.
All you have to do is talk to them. They are filled with darkness. Weren't you when God called you?
Enlightened you? Weren't you full of darkness?
Sure you were. Talking about the ignorant. None
that understandeth. Isn't that what Scripture said?
You know what He is talking about there in Romans chapter 3? Being
under sin. That is what He is talking about.
Being under sin. That unregenerate man is filled
with darkness. Ignorant of God's righteousness
and going about to establish a righteousness of his own. Ignorant
of God's judgments, both of the old world in the days of Noah
and that judgment that awaits. You can read about it over there
in the book of Peter. He tells you that this they are
ignorant of. Well, why are they ignorant of
it? Because they are filled with darkness. Filled with darkness. In Ephesians chapter 4 verse
18, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that's in them because of the
blindness of their heart." Darkness. And then thirdly, this darkness
is brought upon men by false religion. Paul said, if our gospel
be hid, it's hid to the lost, in whom The God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them." Darkness. Darkness. He blinds their mind.
The darkness of religion blinds men to the truth about God. And
how does it do it? Because it represents to them
another God, more appealing to their flesh than the God of the
Bible. another spirit more appealing
to man's ignorance, and another Jesus more suitable to his nature. You know, we used to go to church
years ago, and some of you may laugh at this, and some of you
are going to say amen. I remember that. I remember that.
But we used to go to church, and they'd have a real good song
service or something, or somebody give a testimony and just really
touch your heart with it. And we'd come home and say, boy,
wasn't the Spirit of God there tonight? No, He wasn't. He sure wasn't. He wasn't anywhere
near that. But that's what happens. See,
it blinds. They blind men with things that appeal to their nature. And another Jesus more suitable
to His nature. This darkness is called by our
Lord a light of darkness. You ever read that in the Scripture?
A light of darkness. Listen to this in Matthew 6,
verse 23. Our Lord said, but if thine eye
be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore
the light that be in thee, talking about your understanding, be
darkness, how great is that darkness? If
what you think to be light is really darkness, if those things
by which you judge what I say, And what other men say is darkness. How great is that darkness? It
turns everything. It turns the light of conscience
into darkness. It turns the light of creation
into darkness. It turns the gospel into darkness. If the light that be in thee
be darkness, how great is that darkness. Deliverance from the
power of darkness is deliverance from the lying ways and deceit
of Satan. Our Lord said, the strong man
armed keeps his house, keeps his goods and peace until a stronger
than he comes upon him and he takes over his house. That's
what has to happen. And when he does, he delivers
us from the power of Satan. He delivers us. It comes by way
of truth. Our Lord said, you shall know
the truth and the truth shall set you free. I know people talking
about being free who've never heard the truth. They've heard
lies. And yet talk about being set
free. You can't be set free by lies. That's not what he said. He said, you shall know the truth,
and the truth shall set you free. And then notice this. This deliverance
from the power of darkness is to be shown the truth about religion,
the religion of this world, and the God they worship. It's in exposing him and exposing
his ways, exposing all those things of darkness, that then
we begin to come and see something of the truth of God in the Word
of God. And then here in our text, this
deliverance is called a translation. Why? You ever just wonder about
words sometimes you read in there? What in the world is he talking
about translated into the Kingdom of God? Seems to be a strange
term to me. But it's not really. The word
translate in the old English means two things. First of all,
it means to make something known. To make it known. A man stands
up here and he's jabbering away in Spanish. I went down to visit
Walter one time. We got off at the airport, and
one of Walter Gruber's favorite things is to hide behind one
of them big columns at the airport and see how you react when you're
in a country where you can't understand anything that they're
saying. And it's strange. It's really strange. You're standing
there. You can't understand one word they're telling you. You
can't ask where to go. You can't, you know, you have
to go find somebody that can speak the same language you do.
And that's the first thing this word translate means, is to make
something known so that an individual can understand it. John said
this, he said, and we know that the Son of God has come and given
us an understanding that we might know Him that's true. That which we've never known,
that which we could never understand, that great mystery that's been
hidden from the princes of this world, He makes known through
His Son. Makes it known. And then secondly,
translation means to move from one place to another. By an act
of divine power and grace, we are delivered from the power
of darkness and brought into the kingdom of His dear Son. By a divine act of regeneration,
we see ourselves being freed from the womb. to serve in the
other. Paul put it this way in Ephesians. He said, we're no more foreigners
and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household
of God. Fellow citizens with the saints,
partakers of their benefits and blessings, heirs together of
the grace of God. Translated from the rule of one
to the rule of another. And then look here in verse 14, "...in whom we have redemption
through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. All those sanctified
by God the Father, chosen in Christ, represented in Christ,
substituted by Christ, made provision for in Christ, are redeemed in
their Redeemer." They have redemption. That's what the Scripture said.
You have redemption. You're not looking for redemption.
You have it. You have it if you believe on
Him. You have redemption. Now listen, the forgiveness of
sins. He always adds that when He uses
that term. To be redeemed means all debts
are settled. Everything we owed paid for.
All paid for. Christ satisfied divine justice. Christ honored and exalted the
law. Christ bore our sins in His own
body on the tree and obtained, listen to that word, obtained
eternal redemption for us. The king into whose kingdom God
has translated us is the king of redemption. Those who are
called of God, represented by the Spirit, translated by faith
into the kingdom of God's dear Son, have redemption. They have it. It's theirs. It's made known to them, but
it's theirs by faith. Now listen to me for just a minute.
Redemption has to do with God's eternal purpose of grace. And so when Christ came and accomplished
our redemption, the Scripture said He obtained eternal redemption. We were blessed with this redemption
according to the design and purpose of God before the world was. And therefore, He calls it eternal
redemption. Now, it wasn't actually accomplished
until Christ came and died on the cross. But it was accepted
of God and treated as though it were already accomplished
before the world began. And so all those Old Testament
saints before Christ came and died were justified. Isn't that
what it says about Abraham? He was justified. Well, now wait
a minute. In the book of Romans, it said
he was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification. But he wasn't raised when Abraham
was. Yeah, he was. In the purpose of God, he was.
And who's going to thwart God? Who's going to stand in his way? Who's going to keep him from
accomplishing that which he's purposed? You see what I'm saying?
Men jump all up and down. Oh, you can't say that. You can't
talk about eternal justification. Well, sure you can. Everything
God does is eternal. He is eternal. He just does things
in time so we can perceive of Him and see Him. This redemption, what do I know
about it? I know this in particular. It
is the redemption of God's elect, and this redemption is accomplished
It's done. When Christ cried, it's finished,
He spoke those words as they concerned the redemption that
He came to accomplish. That's what He's talking about
there. He ain't talking about His sufferings were finished,
although they were. He's talking about that eternal
redemption for which He came. It's finished. And all of the
sins of all God's elect have been paid for and put away forever. All right. How do we know if
we are one for whom Christ died? Are you listening? John 6, 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Isn't that what he said there? All that the Father giveth me,
all those For whom Christ died, all those God chose in eternity,
every last one of them will come to Christ. Come to Christ. And him that cometh, I will in
no wise cast out. All of God's elect are called
to faith in Christ, called by the irresistible calling of the
Holy Ghost, drawn by the Father, taught by the Father, and given
ears to hear and eyes to see. He that believeth on the Son,
he said, hath everlasting life. And the only thing separating
you from this redemption in Christ is unbelief. That's right. Unbelief. Faith is the seal of
divine inheritance. Believers are sealed with the
Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of their inheritance.
And all who believe have redemption in Christ, the forgiveness of
sin. Listen to how Paul describes
Him in verse 15. He's the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature. In Hebrews 1, verse 3, it said
He's the brightness of the Father's glory and express image of His
person. All that He was, and all that
He did, and all that He said, God is. Now think about this. God is, God did, and God said. Because God was manifest in the
flesh. Everything that man said, everything
that man did, everything that man was. You think about this. God did. God was and God said. How will God deal with men? Study
the Son. Study the Son. He is the God-man. No man knoweth the Father save
the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal. And He is the firstborn
of every creature. See that there in Colossians
1? He's the firstborn. This one in whom we have redemption,
this eternal Son of God, through whom we're blessed of the Father
with all spiritual blessings. He's the firstborn of every creature. Christ is first and then creation. You see what he's telling us
here? This whole thing, there wouldn't be a creation except
God's purpose to show His glory through the redemption of a people
He chose in Christ. And that's what He's telling
us here. This One through whom He's going to show His glory
through our redemption is the firstborn of creation of every
creature. His King has always been King. Verse 16, for by Him were all
things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible
and invisible. Whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him. Now listen, and for Him. And
He's before all things, and by Him all things can sit. And what
these verses tell us is that Christ is the reason for all
creation and all providence. John insists on this in his Gospel,
saying that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God, and all things were made by Him, and without Him
was not anything made that was made. He is the firstborn. of all creation. And this King
into whose kingdom we've been translated did not evolve into
this kingdom. He's been King forever. He was
King before the foundation of the world. He's the King of creation
and He's the King of providence and He's the King of salvation.
He's God's mediatorial King and as such rules all things, sustains
all things for the salvation of God's elect. Now let me hurry,
verse 18. And He, this One who is all things,
preeminent in creation and preeminent in providence, this One who is
before all things, the reason for all things, the Creator of
all things, He's the Head of the body, the Church, who is
the beginning. He's the Head who is the beginning.
the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have
the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell." When I think back on the Jesus,
I was taught to pity that poor, defeated reformer who was always
forced to settle for something he didn't want. I look back on
that now and just laugh. I just laugh. I don't know what
else to do. It's so ridiculous. That image that I had in my mind
in that day, that I had from the darkness that I'd been taught
since I was just a little boy, it's just totally ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. And here
I'm told the very opposite. He's the King of Glory. He's the Eternal King. He's the
Creator. He's the reason for creation.
He's the power behind all these things. And nothing more manifests
the darkness of man's nature than his willful rejection to
bow to the King of Glory. God will in His day make a public
laughing stock out of every man who will not bow to His Son.
And even now He does it. Makes them a laughing stock through
some of the foolishness that they do. May God be pleased to
teach us this today. Who our king is, he's the king
of glory.