I invite you to turn with me
this morning to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. It is my desire, my hope, and my prayer to God on your
behalf that when I stand before you on any given day, that the
Lord will enable me to set before you the gospel of God's redeeming
grace in the person and work of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's my desire. That's what
I pray for. I know and have been convinced
for some time now that to preach Christ in the glory of His person and to preach Him in the purpose
of God, to preach Him in His appointments of God, in the sufficiency
of His work, in His incarnation as a man,
the God-man, is to preach the whole counsel of God. If I am to stand before you as
a people, and give an account to God in that day for the ministry
that He's given me, this is what I need to do. This is the only
way I can preach to you. The whole counsel of God is to
preach to you Him in whom the whole counsel of God abides,
the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in the book of Colossians,
I'm going to give you some quotes from it as we go, It says in
chapter 2, in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Whatever it is that the sinner
needs to know of the living God and of the will of this God,
of the power of this God, of the holiness of this God, the
justice of this God, how this God feels toward sinners, how
this God can be approached and how He cannot be approached.
Anything, all these mysteries of wisdom and knowledge, they
are all in Him. All in Him. Everything you need
to know, in Him. Study Him. In Him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. Now, if feeling and sensation
is what you seek for, there are places you can go get that. They're
around. They're here. You don't have
to look very far. Music, and marching, and clapping
of the hands, and testimonies, and experiences, and swaying
of the body, and shouting, and running the aisles. You can find
that. It's everywhere. If your appetite's in the mysterious,
there's churches out there who can give it to you. Future prophecies,
and end times, and dispensational events. And they get out their
graphs and their teleprompters and all those things and unravel
all the deep mysteries of the future. If intellectualism's
your forte, there's places out there for that, too. Places where
you can go and eat till you fill. They can explain everything,
define everything. They're expert linguists. They've
got an answer for every question. If you're intellectual, you can
find a spot. They're out there. They can feed
you. If ceremonialism appeals to you,
there's many places to go. They've got something special
every week. Something special. A new ceremony, a new thing that
they go about. I believe sometimes when I look
that their pomp and pageantry exceeds that of the priesthood
of Israel. I watch them on TV when they go through all these
things. They got altars and altar boys and candles and stained
glass windows and special robes and dress and a ceremony for
coming in and a ceremony for going out and a ceremony for
everything in between. So if ceremonialism is what appeals
to you, there are places out there that can feed you. Or maybe it's emotionalism. Maybe
that's what They got just what you need. They got professional
musicians. They hire music directors, professional
musicians, entertainers, Hollywood-type evangelists, high-profile motivational
speakers. They can stand before you and
just hang you right on the edge with every word. Boy, you got
your hand clenched and you're going to go out and win the world
the next day. This is the kind of people I
call getter done type of people. That's what they are. They get
up there and getter done. And they're preaching. It produces what the churches
who hire them want. It produces activity. And it
gets results. But there's only one place that
you can go and hear the truth. And that's wherever God puts
His candle. That's it. That's it. God sets His people, He sets
His ministers in His church, in His world. He puts His candle
there in a community. He puts His candle there. Sometimes
just one in a whole state. Sometimes just one in a whole
country. And He'll put that light of His
candle, that man, that preacher, He puts him right there. And
when He's done with it, puts the candle out. And that's it. That's it. There's no hearing
there anymore. I'll show you that. There was
four men whose ministry spanned nearly 50 years each in London,
England, who stood there and preached. And at the end of that
time, God put the light out. And you can go there now and
you won't hear anything that you won't hear down on any corner. There's just one place you can
go and learn the truth, and that's where God puts His hand. In 1
Corinthians 1, verse 21, He said, For after that in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's what
God said. I already know what men say,
and I know what men and women tell me who hear what I preach.
But this is what God said. It pleased Him. That's what pleases
God. The Lord Jesus Christ, who could
raise the dead and cleanse the lepers and give sight to the
blind, who could do anything He wanted to do. He made the
world. Without Him was not anything
made that was made. He's the Creator. He's God in
human flesh. He could do anything He wanted
to do. And when it comes to evangelizing the world, do you know what he
did? He picked out a handful of men. Isn't that what it says? And anointed them and sent them
out to preach. Isn't that something? Reckon
why he done it that way? Huh? Because it pleased him. That's what it says. It pleased
him. And those men, those handful
of men, they were confirmed of God as Christ Himself was confirmed
with miracles and wonders and signs. And through Him and being
inspired of the Holy Spirit of God, they finished what we now
call our Bible. They finished the New Testament.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Apostle Paul, Peter, Jude,
these men wrote by divine inspiration and gave us what we now have,
the full canon of Scripture. And their message, now listen
to me, their message to this lost and religious world was
Christ and Him crucified. Now I've read their works and
I know what they preach. They preach Christ. They preach
Christ. Paul told the philosophers at
Corinth that when he came to them, he came determining to
know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
He wouldn't tell them anything else. He could. Paul was an intellectual. Paul could stand there, talk
to them about their poets and talk to them about their philosophers.
But he said, I determined not to know anything when I came
to you. He told them, he said, if my
gospel's hid, it's hid to the lost, in whom the God of this
world hath blinded their minds, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ should shine unto them. And I've come to know
by the Spirit of God that I have nothing to say to lost sinners
except to tell them how God saves sinners in Christ. I don't have
anything else. I don't know anything else. I've
not experienced anything else. You know, when He sent those
wounds, He healed. When He sent them back to their
family, He didn't tell them, go back there and... He said,
you go back there now and you start unraveling all the deep...
No. He said, you go back there and
tell them what I did for you. You tell them what I did for
you. And if I'm going to tell you what He did for me, I'm going
to have to preach Christ, because it was all Christ. In the ministry of the New Testament
Church, in the common faith of all of its members, in the fellowship
of all God's saints, and in the attitude and conduct of His saints
in this world, Christ is all. Christ is all. Now that's what
it says over here in Colossians chapter 3. It says down in verse 11, In verse 10 he said, "...he hath
put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him." Talking about Christ. "...where
there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. But Christ is all and in
all." Ain't that what that says? Christ is all. In so much as this new man is
concerned, in so much as he's been clothed, in so much as he's
been created, in so much as he worships God, Christ is all. And he's in all. That's what
he needs to know. That's what he rejoices in. Christ is all. Everything else
is a dream. Everything else is of the flesh
and of Satan that is cursed of God. Christ is all. He is all
in God's everlasting purpose of grace. Ephesians 1 verse 4
says God chose us in Christ. He blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ according as He has
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. He has predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. He's all in
these eternal counsels of God, in the eternal purpose of God,
that purpose of grace. And then secondly, He's all in
the creation and the preservation of the world. Christ is all. We like to talk about, what is
it they call it now? They say the world is going to
be destroyed. It's going to heat up. And all
the ice is going to melt and the world's going to drown. And
before that, we're going to all get blown up by nuclear weapons. And before that, I guess we're
going to float off the square end of the earth and fall off
into eternity. I don't know. Scientists are
always coming up with something that's going to destroy the world.
This world's not going anywhere until God collects all his elect. And then he's going to burn it
up. That's how it's going to end. He's going to burn it up.
And it's going to happen in a fraction of a second. That's what He says. Christ is all in the creation
and preservation of this world. Listen to Colossians 1.16. These
are all verses which lead up to my text. That's why I'm reading
these things to you. In Colossians 1.16 it said, for
by Him, talking about Christ, were all things created. that
are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether
they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before
all things, and by Him all things consist. That means all things
are preserved, held together by Him. He made them. He designed
them. They are for Him. And John, He
preserves them. He preserves. Christ is all in
the eternal counsels of God. He's all in the creation and
preservation of the world. And He's all in the accomplishing
of the redemption of His elect. There is no righteousness except
the righteousness that was wrought out by the obedience of the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is no righteousness beside
that. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. Now, he's not a saved man if
he's going about ignorantly like Israel was, trying to establish
their own righteousness. Paul prayed for them and said,
they need to be saved. That man's still going about,
going about, going about, trying to produce a righteousness, trying
to gain favor with God, trying to, what do they call that, progressive
sanctification? He's trying to go along and get
a little better and a little better and a little better. There's
no righteousness except the righteousness of Christ. He's all. He's all in the accomplishing
of the redemption of His elect. He's our righteousness. And God
sees His elect clothed in the righteousness of Christ. They
have His garments on. God sees His elect justified
by the life and death of His Son. Christ, our substitute,
stood before the holy bar of God, bearing our guilt, bearing
our shame, bearing our sins before a holy God. And He died for our
sins, it says, according to the Scriptures. And He was buried
and rose from the dead according to the Scriptures. And then I
know this, Christ is all as far as the sovereign rule of God
over this world unto judgment. He's all. I don't know how much
you think about this every day, but perhaps it's These things
that came our way, personally, that causes me to think about
them. But nobody comes or goes without His authority. Did you
know that? Nobody comes or goes without
He says so. In John 14, verse 6, He said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by Me. In Romans 14, 7 it said, None
of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. Whether
we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto
the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or
die, we are the Lord's. All your comings and goings are
of Him. He is the supreme authority over
all things, over providence, over those things which arrange
your life and put you in situations, who can restrain you from sin
or turn you loose in it. It is all in His hand. There
is no living and there is no dying apart from Him. He is the
Lord. We sit around most of our lives, I know I did, thinking
to myself about doing something for the Lord, or what am I going
to do for the Lord. It's not what I'm going to do
for Him, it's what He can do for me. What's my Lord going
to do with me? Not what I'm going to do with
Him, what's He going to do with me? He's the Lord. He's the Lord. And he's all in this thing of
the sovereign rule of God over this world. There's a man seated at the right
hand of God, who for the sole purpose of saving a people given
to him of the Father, has the right and the power to order
the very providence that affords him the opportunity to come to
Christ. He sits at the right hand of
God. for that very reason, for that
very purpose. He establishes kingdoms and destroys
them. He sets up men and brings them
down. And He does all these things
to call out and to preserve His elect for the glory of His great
name. In all the eternal councils,
in creation, in the accomplishments of redemption, in the government
of this world and in His church, Christ is all. It says in Colossians
1.19, after stating these things, he said, for it pleased the Father,
it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. In all things, it says in Colossians
1.18, in all things the Father hath given Him the preeminence. If we have time, I'd like to
give you three things concerning this preeminence, which the father
was pleased to give to his son on our behalf. These are very simple points.
I was looking through a book. I recently found a book that's
escaped me over the years. I'd never seen it before. It's
a book written by Benjamin Keech on types and metaphors of the
Old Testament. It's an old book, been out of
print. Well, they recently put it back into print. And Don was
showing it to me. He said, I ain't opened this
thing in 20 years. He got it down, and I threw him
through there, and I saw about four things. And I said, well,
I want that book. Where do I have to go to get
it? What do we got to do? So I went back to Brother Larry
Brown's house, and he got it for me on a disk, and I put it
on my computer. And then I got home, got online,
and found it and got it. Got it to the house. I was just
thumbing through it, you know, how you do a new book. And I
ran on this scripture over here in Colossians, Christ is all.
And he had these three. This book doesn't have sermons.
It just has outlines. It just has just a brief. He just points out. Here's a
type. He'll point out one, two, three,
four things about it. And he goes on to the next thing,
you know, points out two or three things, goes on. This whole book
is just that. But I looked at this, and man,
what he had to say in those three little brief points up there
just went straight home to me. And I'm going to give them to
you this morning. And the first of these is this, that Christ
is all from the Father. From the Father. See, this is
who we have to deal with. We have to deal with God. God
is absolute. God is always called upon in
the Scripture as the Father. We call upon Him the Father.
He's the Father. That's God. God is revealed in
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's God, but He's God come into
the flesh. So Christ, when we're talking
about these things of salvation and talking to men about judgment,
all these things have to do between you and the Father. They have
to do between you and God. And so I want to know how is
these things, what relation do these things have with the Father?
That's what I need to find out. It's not what men say about Him.
It's what God says. And Christ is all from the Father. He said, I came down from heaven
not to do my own will, but the will of the Father which sent
me. He's from the Father. He came from the Father. He didn't
come to do His own will. He didn't sit up there and say,
well, I think the Father's a little too strict. That's how men set
the Father apart. They call Him the Old Testament
God, they call Christ the New Testament God, and they try to
separate God. Christ, He's not separate from
God, He's from God. And He's all from God. He said, I come down from heaven,
not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And
this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which
He hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again
at the last day. Why would I read such a thing?
Because I'm trying to tell you that the Father has nothing else
to say except what He says in His Son. He speaks in these last
days. In the old times, He spoke through
the prophets. He spoke through them. In these
last days, He's spoken unto us by His Son. And we'll hear His
Son or go to hell. He's all from the Father. And
the Father has nothing else to say. Nothing else to give, nothing
else to reveal, nothing else to manifest who He is or His
intentions and His will. The Son of God. In John 1, verse
12, it said, "...the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,
and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father." He is from the Father, and He is full of grace
and truth. To know Christ is to know the
Father. To worship Christ is to worship
the Father. To love Christ is to love the
Father. He said, I and the Father are
one. That's what made them Jews so
mad. I and the Father are one. I tell you, sometimes you can
read of Christ and His humanity. And I read in there of a man
named John who laid his head on his breast. Or I read in there
of this man, this man called Jesus, who claimed to be the
Christ. I read of him in the Scriptures.
And it says at the funeral of one of his beloved, he wept. He wept. He cared. He prayed. He loved those who
walked with him. He walked with them, Winston.
He ate with them. He conversed with them. The way
you and I talk, he talked. Back and forth, they talked.
He sat down. John had a glass of wine with
his... They called him a wine-bibber and a gluttonous man because
he sat and ate with publicans and sinners. Can you vision you doing that
with a father? There ain't no way. No way you
can get that vision in your head. That's why He sent His Son so
you could. I and the Father are one. One. Jesus Christ is the manifestation
of the Father's love. God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son. How do I know the Father loves
me? Because He gave His Son. That's how. He said, I have mercy and not
sacrifice. Jesus Christ is the manifestation
of the Father's mercy. I have mercy and not sacrifice,
for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God's willingness to save
seeking sinners. Listen to this here in John chapter
6. I read this verse 39 to you a little while ago. He said,
This is the will of God, that of all which He hath given me
I should lose nothing, but I will raise it up again the last day.
In verse 40 he said, And this is the will of Him that sent
me. We are talking about understanding, perceiving the will of the Father
in the salvation of seeking sinners. And Christ is all. That's the
only place you're going to find the willingness of God, is to
look to Christ. This is the will of Him who sent
me, that everyone which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him,
sees Him as God is sitting forth, and sees Him as the way, the
truth, and the life, sees Him as God's supreme authority and
ruler, bows to Him as Lord, they see Him, and they believe on
Him. Everyone that seeth the Son and
believeth on Him may have everlasting life. Who is that? That's everyone who believes
on Him. What if they ain't God's elect? Nobody but God's elect
is going to believe on Him. Well, how do they know they're
God's elect? Because they believe on Him. They believe on Him. And they can have everlasting
life, and I'll raise them up at the last day. God makes known
the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He's
purposed in Himself, that in His own time and in His own way
and by His own means, He'll gather together all things which He
put in Christ. In Christ. He's all from the
Father. And then secondly, He's all to
the Father. We're talking about things coming
from the Father, a knowledge of God, the redemption of God,
the Son of God, the knowledge of God, all those things coming
from the Father. Christ is all in those things. But He's all in things to the
Father. Now we're talking about things
coming to the Father. To the Father. He's all concerning
the way to the Father. He said, I am the way. I'm telling you, we complicate
things. I'm surprised sometimes anybody
understands what I'm saying. I complicate things. He said,
I'm the way. I am the way. He could have sat
there for days talking to, who was it, Thomas that he was talking
to? Or Philip? Thomas. Talking to Thomas. I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the
Father but by man. I'm the way. Nobody's coming
to God apart from Christ. Nobody. He said in John 3.35,
the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his
hand. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. He tells
us over in Matthew, no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. He tells Philip,
have you been so long time with me, Philip? Have you not seen
the Father? There is coming a day in which
all Adam's sons, in the revelations it says, it
calls them the small and the great, will come and stand before
God. They'll stand before the Father. And all of this God before which
we'll stand, everything about Him that can be known is manifest
in Jesus Christ. He's the express image of God.
In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead. When it comes
to Approaching God in worship or approaching God in prayer.
All of those things. Christ is all. We can't come
in there by our own merit. I see men stand proud in the
pulpit, eyes wide open. They'd be preaching along, all
of a sudden they'd start talking to him like he's their best friend.
Start talking to the father. I've only got one right to come
into his court. And that's through the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's it. There is no coming
to Him in prayer apart from Christ. There's no coming to Him in worship
apart from Christ. He's all in those things to the
Father. And then thirdly, He's all with
the Father. John tells us, in the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was with God in His counsels,
and with God in His character, and with God in His glory, and
with God in all of His eternal purposes of grace. He's all with
God. Jesus Christ is not the way around
the law. This is what men try to do when
they stand in the pulpit. They talk about getting around
the law. They talk about getting around justice. Talk about climbing
up over the sheepfold wall to get to the sheep. Jesus Christ is not the way around
the law. He's not the way around God's
justice or around God's righteousness. He's not a bypass that leads
around God's anger and hatred for sin. He's with God. That's what we need to come to
understand. He's with God. The way He saves sinners is consistent
with the character of God. When I talk about not compromising
the character of God, that's what I'm talking about. I'm simply
saying that God is God. Those things which make him God
are his attributes, his justice, his holiness, his righteousness,
his sovereignty, all those things. He's not going to compromise
those things to save anybody. He's God. He's God. And Christ is with God in all
things. Christ saves sinners as He satisfies
God. God has to be satisfied. It says in Isaiah, He shall see
the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. Huh? God's satisfied. The just God
cannot be justifier unless He can be just when He does it.
He must be just. His offended law must be honored.
His justice must be satisfied. His righteousness established.
Well, what are you saying, preacher? I'm saying ain't nobody going
to be saved by compromising the holy character of God. It ain't
going to happen. The only way of favor and acceptance
is to be reconciled to God. to be brought into agreement
with God. And this reconciliation, as I
see it, is a threefold work. First, He reconciles us to God
by doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He gives us
a righteousness, and He dies for our sins. He atones for our
sins. We can't do that. Can't do that. He provides for us a perfect
obedience, a perfect righteousness. And that might seem like a minor
point of doctrine to you, but I assure you that it's not. That's
the controversy. That's one of the biggest controversies
that stands before the churches over this country. Israel wandered
around in their rebellious ignorance attempting to produce a righteousness
for themselves. The wise and the prudent found
the imputed righteousness of Christ to be foolishness. That's
what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1. And as near as I can tell
from my own experience and what I see on TV, that's exactly what
religion is doing today. They're going about ignorantly
trying to produce their own righteousness. And then secondly, he reconciles
us by giving us an understanding of his reconciliation. When we
talk about reconciling sinners, we're talking about reconciling
men to the reconciliation of God. That's what we're talking
about doing. You have to reconcile them to the reconciliation. You
got to say, no, God don't save sinners because they walk down
an aisle and accept Jesus as the personal Savior. He saves
sinners in Christ. He saves sinners by providing
them with a righteousness and by taking away their sins through
the blood of His cross. Now, just when I thought I'd heard
everything, I heard something else. We got this little dog from one
of these rescue places, and the ladies brought it down,
and they found out I was a minister. And she started telling me about
her church and stuff, and I didn't say nothing. I just let her go.
And she said, you might think this is funny, but I read my
dog the plan of salvation, and the Lord saved him, and now I
know I'm going to meet him in heaven. So happy, that's what
it... Brethren, dogs aren't in trouble.
It wasn't by one dog that sin entered into the world, it was
by one man. Man's who's in trouble, not the dog, not the beast, not
the horses and the cattle and all this. God will restore them
one of these days, but I'm telling you this, man's in trouble. Man has to be redeemed. You want
to read somebody playing, read it to him. He's the one who don't
know. He's the one ignorant. And I
was sitting listening to her talk about things that it's apparent
to you just as I read it to you. I mean, as I told it to you,
it's apparent to you that she was ignorant of God. And there's
thousands, maybe not to that extent, but there's thousands
around, and they're ignorant of God's righteousness. They're
ignorant of how God saves sinners. That's what it is. It's to reconcile
men. Here's the reconciliation. God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. Now,
He said, I commit this ministry to you, and you go preach to
them. You go preach to them. And then thirdly, this reconciliation
will not be complete until at last we're given a new body and
sin be utterly removed from our being. He's going to take sin
clear out of the question. He's going to raise these bodies
from the dead. Sin is going to be gone completely. Not the thought of sin, not the
desires of sin, not the lust of sin. Gone. Gone. Their sins and iniquities,
I remember no more. But in that day, in that day,
you'll be like Him. You'll be like Him. What am I saying? I'm saying
that I have nothing else to say to you but Christ. Christ is
all. Christ is all. Look to Him. Rest in Him. Rejoice
in Him. Study Him. Worship in Him. We don't even get in trouble
until we start thinking otherwise, do we? Get thinking about this
and that, and I don't pray enough, and I don't read enough. Well,
sure you don't. If you read 24-7, you couldn't read enough. If
you studied 24-7, you couldn't study enough. But if you could,
you'd really be in trouble, because now you've got a righteousness
in it. Christ is all. Let's just forget
these other things and look to Him. And in looking to Him, this
is what it says, every man that has this hope in himself, purifies
himself. That's how we're purified, John.
We look to Him. And in thanksgiving and gratitude
and love for Him, you're purified in that. Your whole life changes. Your attitude changes. Your motives
change. All of these things change and
you're purified in a sense by this knowledge and looking to
Christ. But we get off on these little issues, boy, and then
we start setting standards and we start cutting people out.
It's nothing but a mess. That's all it is. That's all
it is. We preach Christ. And preaching Christ is all.
The whole counsel of God. We preach Him. And in doing that,
we please Him. He pleases God. Our Father, we thank You for
Your Word. Thank You for the inspiration
of Your Spirit who preserved these things, who caused these
men to think on these things, and experience these things,
and preach these things to us. We thank You for a source that
we can go to and look and prove what we hear and see what You
see. And we thank You for Your Spirit
that opens our hearts and minds and conquers these wills and
brings us into submission to You. Bless now the rest of this
day, our fellowship, and the Lord's table as we take it. Father, we love You. We thank
you for all things. Receive now our thanksgiving
for Christ's sake. Amen. No, let's pass it out to the
table. We'll do that. Jesse, you and Russell want to
come pass this out.