If you will turn back with me
to Colossians chapter 2. Last week we looked at the first
seven verses in this chapter in which we saw the concern and
the love the Apostle Paul expressed for this church and as many as
had not seen his face in the flesh. The church at Colossae
was like all of the Lord's churches. A Christian church, what is it?
What does the word church mean? Ekklesia, the Greek word ekklesia. It means a called out assembly. a called out assembly. And every church, every Christian
church is a church of comprised or which consists of men and
women, boys and girls who have been called out of darkness,
who have been called out of the kingdom of Satan. If you look
back to chapter one, and verses 12 and three of this letter,
He said, giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath
delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated
us into the kingdom of his dear son, or the son of his love,
as we see there in the margin. A Christian church, I believe
it was Martin Luther who said one time, A church, a Christian
church, is everywhere where the gospel is preached. If an assembly,
in an assembly, and there are many assemblies around the world
where the gospel is not preached, they're called churches, but
they're not Christian churches. They are just assemblies of people
who come together, many are social assemblies or various things. But a church, a Christian church,
is an assembly where the gospel, the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is preached in no uncertain terms. The gospel of Jesus Christ,
the gospel that saves sinners. the gospel, the message of Jesus
Christ, our Lord. Now, in looking at these next
verses, verses 8 through 13, I have three things I want to
point out, or three divisions of the message. First, a word
of caution. A word of caution. You notice
verse 8 begins with the word, beware. Beware. A word of caution. Beware of
what? A church receiving this letter
might read those words, beware. Beware of what? Beware of what? Well, he tells us, beware lest
any man spoil you. Lest any man spoil you. Now,
when the apostle chose to use the word spoil, he gives us a
picture of a sheepfold. A sheepfold and the walls of
the sheepfold are the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And if we allow false teachers
to come in and carry us away, carry us away from the fold,
carry us away from the truth, then that's how we are spoiled. Beware lest any man spoil you. beguiling you with enticing words,
as he had said just above this. You know, in 2 Corinthians to
the church at Carth he wrote, but I fear. And all of these
New Testament churches, these New Testament letters that the
Apostle Paul wrote, almost all of them were written because
of error, because of false teachers who came in to try to beguile
and deceive the believers. And Paul wrote to the church
at Corinth, he said, but I fear lest by any means as the serpent
beguiled Eve. We go back to Genesis chapter
three, don't we? How the serpent came in the garden
there when Adam and Eve were alone. and he beguiled Eve, he
deceived her. How? With enticing words. What
did he say? Yea, hath God said? Did God really say that? Is that
the word of God? Well, Paul said, but I fear lest
by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his satellity, so
your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ. Now that word simplicity there,
don't understand that like we usually understand the word simple.
It means the singleness, the singleness that is in Christ. And that's always the case. False
teachers try to come in and take you, take God's people, take
his sheep away from Christ, move them away from Christ in some
way. Now, Paul mentions three eras
here in this passage. Beware, what was Satan using? Well, first of all, he names
philosophy, philosophy. The literal meaning of the word
philosophy is the love of wisdom, the love of wisdom. And some
philosophy, no doubt there is good philosophy. But what Paul
is speaking of here is philosophy which is derived from human reasoning. And just thinking about things,
reasoning things in a person's mind, speculations. Speculations
such as, is there really a God? Is God real? about the mortality,
immortality rather of the soul. Does man have a soul that will
live on forever? Beware, Paul says, lest any man
spoil you through philosophy, the vain deceit of men. You know, Paul in 1 Corinthians
declared the world by wisdom knew not God. Plato and some
of the other Greek philosophers. He met some of them in Athens,
recorded in Acts chapter 17, when he was preaching there.
Remember, there were the Epicureans and there were the Stoics there,
philosophers. And they followed a certain philosophy,
but it was a philosophy that had come out of the reasoning
of their own brain, the brains of man. And Paul said in 1 Corinthians,
the world by wisdom knew not God. As I look at these three
things, what I see here is always the same, to take a person away
from the Word of God. Just like in the beginning, yea,
hath God said to our mother Eve and how he deceived her. These
are the ways that Satan works through man, these false teachers. So first of all, he warned them
about philosophy that is nothing more than the vain deceit of
men. You know, I read one of the philosophers,
I think it was Plato, who said, nothing can be produced from
nothing. Now why would he say that? Because
he argued that the world, the universe, is eternal. Because if there was nothing,
then nothing could be made out of nothing. Well, that may be
true for you and I, but not for God. God spoke the worlds into
existence, that which was nothing into everything that is made. But that's the kind of reasoning,
the false philosophy that we're talking about here. Anything
that would cause a person to turn away from the Word of God. And my heart goes out because
I see in our day, in my lifetime, how many churches, many denominations
used to hold to the Word of God and preach the Word of God, and
they've turned away from the Word of God. And they begin to
say, well, it's not really inspired of God, and they begin to choose
and pick what part they believe is inspired and what's not inspired. And we see what's happened here
in our country, don't we? Don't we see how the gospel is
not proclaimed in its clarity and in its power as it once was,
not in just a few, just a handful of churches, but in many churches
across the land. And the first step, as far as
I'm concerned, the first step in the wrong direction has been
turning away from the word of God. ceasing to believe that
this is the inspired, inerrant, God-breathed Word of God. We've got that in our hands.
And when we want to know about God, we don't look up into the
heavens. Yes, the heavens tell us there
is a God, but if we want to know God, the truth about God, we
better be looking in this book right here. Bain philosophy. And then the second thing he
mentions is The Traditions of Men. We know in the life of the
Lord Jesus Christ, when he was here in the flesh, at one time
at least, the Pharisees accused our Lord's disciples to him of
not following the tradition of the fathers. And the tradition
was when they came from the market, you know, they washed the pots
and pans, washed their arms up to the elbows, and I'm talking
about just good hygiene here. No, I mean, that's good to wash
your hands. We heard that a lot, didn't we,
a few years ago when COVID first came into this country. Wash your hands, wash your hands,
and that's good, but not if you believe that's gonna make you
acceptable to God. by some tradition that you follow,
that some men have come up with? And again, our Lord told those
people, He said, they rejected, now listen, the commandment of
God. Those that accused His disciples
to Him of not following the traditions of men, He told them, you reject
the commandment of God. What's the commandment of God?
The Word of God. The Word of God. You reject the
Word of God. One preacher that I read this
past week, he named a number of traditions that are being
taught in places of worship today where they have no foundation
in the Word of God. And he mentioned infant baptism,
for instance. infant baptism. You can read
from Genesis through to Revelation. You're never going to find that
in the Word of God. Baptism is for believers. That's all you can say. But most
of the denominations who began sprinkling or who continued sprinkling
when they came out of the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformation. It wasn't many years before their
teaching that sprinkling means regeneration and that a baby,
a child of a parent is taken down to the front of a church
and they put a little water on his head and make the sign of
the cross or however they do it and pronounce it. Baby is
now a member of the kingdom of God. You don't find that in the
word of God. You can look from cover to cover.
That's just a tradition, isn't it? And it's a false tradition.
And then he went on to name masses, the masses that are said, praying
for the dead, things of that nature, celebrating different
religious holidays like Easter and Christmas and these things.
You don't find those in the word of God, but tradition has come
in and it spoils people. It takes people away from the
truth, from the gospel of Christ. And then he named the last thing
here, the rudiments of the world. So we've got philosophy, Tradition
of man, the rudiments of the world. Now turn back a few pages
to Galatians. What does this mean, the rudiments
of the world? In Galatians chapter four, verses
eight and nine, Paul says in verse eight, how
be it then, when you knew not God, you did service unto them
which were by nature are no gods. You did service unto them which
by nature are no gods. But now, after that you have
known God, or rather, are known of God, how turn you again to
the weak and beggarly elements whereunto you desire again to
be in bondage. The word elements here in this
text is the same word which is translated rudiments, rudiments
in our text this morning, rudiments of the world. And it refers to
the ceremonies and the rites that were given in the law of
Moses. The Law of Moses, the certain
rights of washings and ceremonies. And Paul there in Galatians called
them weak, weak and beggarly things of the world. They're
weak in the sense they have no power to save. You could follow
every right, which no man can do. But if a person could follow
every right in the Law of Moses, he still wouldn't be saved. Why? Because those rites and those
ceremonies were pictures, were types, until the Lord Jesus Christ
came into this world and fulfilled those types. That's all they
were. They're weak and beggarly elements
of the world. And of course, in this context
here in Colossians, that's the thing that these false teachers
were always trying to get these new Christians, many of them
Gentiles, especially in this church here, well, that's good. What you've done, you've received
Christ, you've trusted in Christ, but now also you need to take
up these rudiments of the world. That is, you need to become,
really, Jews, come under the law of Moses. Beware, lest any man spoil you. Any man, beware, lest any man
take you away from looking to Christ. A couple of weeks ago on Grace
Gems, we were listening to it one morning, and Robert Murray
McShane was a man they were reading a little comment by, and he said,
for every one look you look at yourself, Look 10 times at Christ. 10 times. I'd say forget about looking
at yourself, period, and look always to Christ. But that's
what these false teachers were trying to do, to deceive the
believers in these churches, to take them away from looking
only to Christ and trusting in something that we do, that we've
got to add to. Now, my second part here is a
word of instruction. And I've just said this, hold
on to these four truths. You believers in the church there
at Colossi, you believers in the church here in Houston, Texas,
you hold on to these four truths. And one writer said, those things
he just mentioned were like poison. Now here comes the antidote.
Here comes the antidote. You hold on to these four truths. That's what I'm saying. First
of all, that Jesus Christ is fully God. The Lord Jesus Christ
is fully God. You see that in verse 9? For
in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now some see an answer to those
who would take these believers back to the rudiments of the
world, that is to that old law, as a tabernacle. That law that
was given to Moses, remember there was a tabernacle. And in
that tabernacle, there was a most holy place, the Ark of the Covenant,
the mercy seat, and between the two cherubims, that's where God
dwelt. And Paul is saying here, listen,
that was just a picture. Listen, the fullness of the Godhead
dwells bodily in Christ. not dwelling in a temple made
with hands, but when he came into this world, the body that
God prepared him was united to the Son of God, the eternal Son
of God, that he is fully God. Hold on to this. Don't be deceived
by any teaching that would cause you to think less of Christ,
that somehow God Almighty and then Christ. No, Christ is God. He is God. When I was preparing these notes,
I thought about various attributes of God. You know, there's some
attributes that writers say are communicable, and there's some
which are incommunicable. For instance, his attribute of
love. God is love. That's an attribute
which is communicable. He communicates that unto us. And we love him because he first
loved us. But there's some attributes of
God which are not ever, cannot be communicated to man. Let me show you what I mean.
First of all, eternity. God is eternal. No beginning,
no end. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
say? I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first
and the last. He has that attribute of eternality
because he is God. Another one is omnipotence, all
power. Without him was not anything
made that was made. All power is given unto me, both
in heaven and in earth. Only God is omnipotent. Christ
is omnipotent. Omniscience, that is, knowing
all things. Peter confessed, Lord, thou knowest
all things. Only God knows all things. Christ
knows all things. I'm thy presence. He's everywhere
present. What did he say to his disciples?
Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the
midst of them. Immutability, God doesn't change. And I'm so thankful, aren't you?
Jesus Christ is saying yesterday, today, and forever. And only God is to be worshiped,
to be honored. What did Thomas say? My Lord
and my God. And the Lord received that worship.
You see what I'm saying? What Paul said here? The fullness
of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ. He is fully God. And he said, he that honoreth
not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. If a person doesn't honor Christ,
he doesn't honor God. He doesn't. I don't care what
he confesses. If he does not confess that Jesus
Christ is God, he doesn't honor the Son. And in not honoring
the Son, he does not honor the Father. The second thing he said,
hold on to this. Hold on to that, first of all.
Jesus Christ, our Savior, is fully God. Number two, you are
complete in Him. Hold on to that. You are complete
in Him, in verse 10. It is though Paul is saying here,
don't you see, to these believers at Colossae, don't you see that
being in Him, you have no need for the philosophy of the Greeks
or the tradition of the Jews? In Him, you have that atonement
that you need. Oh, my friends, You need it,
I need it. We need an atonement for our
sins, to cover our sins, to take away our sins. You've got it
in Christ. You're complete in him. Not only
an atonement do we need, but a righteousness, a perfect righteousness
that God will accept. Don't you see? You have it in
Christ. You are complete in him. And you need a holiness. Without
holiness, no man shall see the Lord. And you have it in Christ. He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, that's holiness, and redemption. And notice in that verse again,
if you will, verse 10, and you are complete in him. Now notice,
which is the head of all principality and power. Now, if we are blessed
of God to go on, we're going to see that one of the errors
that was being taught here is that we should worship angels.
Well, these principalities and powers, If that refers to angels,
and I think it does, Christ is their head. He's the Lord of
lords and King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would
we need some inferior being when we have him who is all things,
King of kings and Lord of lords? And then third, hold on to this,
you that trust in Christ. Now remember, these were Gentiles,
many of them, most of them, I believe, in the church. You've been circumcised. Now, look back to Acts chapter
15. This is the one thing that these Judaizers always used to
deceive and take away Gentile believers from the truth. Here
in Acts chapter 15, verse one, And certain men which came down
from Judea taught the brethren and said, except you be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. You believe in Christ, you trust
in him, you say you're complete in him, oh no, oh no. You've
got to be circumcised. And in Galatians, Paul tells
us that if a person is circumcised, then he becomes debtor to the
whole law, to do the whole law. The Lord Jesus Christ was circumcised
according to the law at eight days, so he put himself under
his law, really. He put himself under his law
that he might redeem us from the curse of the law. Paul's telling these Gentile
believers that in Christ, if you've been born of the Spirit
of God, what was circumcision? Well, it was a type. It was a
type of the new birth, cutting away of the flesh. It's a type
of the new birth, and if a person believes in Christ, he's been
born of the Spirit of God. He's been circumcised, not with
hands, but by the Spirit of God, being given a new nature. In
the new birth, he's been circumcised. Now, Brother Henry Mahan pointed
this out about circumcision. I wanted to include this. He
mentioned these two things in the law. that God gave concerning
the Passover, no one who was uncircumcised could eat the Passover. You couldn't eat the Passover
if you were uncircumcised. Believers, we've been circumcised
in our hearts, the new birth, and we are welcome to the Lord's
table. The Passover, Christ, our Passover,
a sacrifice for us. And then Henry pointed this out
too. that a person was not named until they were circumcised on
the eighth day. We see that about John the Baptist,
remember. So if you've been born of the
spirit of God and believe in Christ, you have a new name,
sons of God, sons and daughters of God. Now here's the fourth
thing to hold on to. In his faith, if you look in
verse 12, I'm sorry. Buried with him in baptism
wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the
operation of God. Again, we are reminded that the
faith that is saving faith is a faith that God gives. It's
a faith of the operation of God. Now I know, listen, if you were
to ask, I'd say 90% of men who stand in the pulpit
and preach, do all men have faith? Most every one of them would
say yes. Yes. And all men do have a certain
type of faith, no doubt about it. You sit down in that chair,
you have faith, that chair's gonna hold you up. But saving
faith is a faith that God gives a person. It is of the operation
of God. There was a time we didn't believe,
we didn't know. We didn't know who Christ was
and we didn't believe in him. But when we heard the truth We
were born of the Spirit of God. We believe, we trust in Christ. And when we do, we see that in baptism, he mentions
baptism here, is a picture of Christ taking our sins in his
own body on the tree. This is the reason sprinkling
can never be, this is one reason, sprinkling can never be baptism. Never convinced me of that, at
least. Why? Because it must show that we
were buried. And you don't bury a person by
sprinkling a few handfuls of dirt on that person. No, when
you bury a person, you put him down under. And the Lord Jesus
Christ took our sins in his own body on the tree, and he carried
them with him to the tomb. But when he came out, yes, he
came out, but our sins, they stayed there. They stayed there. And we see that in baptism. God-given faith sees that. Well, last of all, a third, a
word about God's power. Notice in verse 13, he said,
and you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, hath he quickened together with him. The power of God, in Ephesians,
Paul tells us the same power. Now, think about this. Here's
this body, the body of Christ, laying there in the tomb. Been
there from Friday now to Sunday morning. Don't you think it's gonna take
some power for that body to rise and walk out of that grave? Don't
you? Gonna take some power, right?
The same power, Paul said, the same power to raise Christ from
the dead is necessary to save a sinner. Why? Because we too
are dead Not physically, but spiritually, spiritually separated
from God, dead in trespasses and sins. And it's going to take
the power of God, the power of God to raise us from the dead,
to save us. People say, I'd like to see a
miracle. Listen, if you're saved today, just look in the mirror.
Just look in the mirror, my friends. You are a miracle. You believe
in Jesus. You believe that he is God. You believe that he conquered
death. He rose from the grave. You've committed yourself unto
him, come what may. You trust in him and him only
for your salvation. You are a miracle. God put forth
his power to raise you from the dead. One last thing, notice
there in verse 13 at the end, having forgiven you all trespasses. When God forgives, he doesn't
halfway forgive, does he? All trespasses. You say, you
mean my sins that I committed? I mean your sins you committed
before, The sins you commit today, yes, sins of ignorance and other
kinds of sin, and the sins that you will commit, they're all
forgiven. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. Amen? That's what David said. I pray the Lord would bless these
words to all of us here this morning.