With me once again to Colossians
chapter 3. This is our last service in the
year 2017. This is the last message that
I will preach in this year of our Lord, 2017. This past week
I struggled to come to the place that I thought I should be tonight.
I had two texts of scripture, especially in other parts of
the Bible, that I looked at and prayed over. But I came back
to this. Three words. Three words. Christ is all. Christ is all. What a wealth,
what a mine, a gold mine, a spiritual gold mine is in those three words,
Christ is all. If God would be pleased to teach
each and every one of us again and maybe for the first time
tonight, the truth of these words, Christ is all. You know these words, you see
them again if you look in verse 11 toward the end, Christ is
all. They're written, inspired words of the Apostle Paul, written
in this part of the letter, which is considered to be the practical
part of the letter. as is common with Paul's letters. The first part of the letter
is usually referred to as the doctrinal and the last part the
practical. And in this practical section
where the Apostle says that we have put off the old man with
his deeds and have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of him that created him where there is neither Greek
nor Jew, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor
free, but Christ is all and in all. The knowledge in those three
words When the time comes that you
and I are lying upon our deathbed, if God gives us consciousness,
those three words, what is contained in those three words will mean
more to us than all of our learning in every other field. Christ
is all. I have four areas tonight that
I want us to think about. There are many more. I mean,
that subject is tremendous. But four areas tonight to consider
the truth. Christ is all. First of all,
Christ is all in the message of the Bible. Sixty-six books. Sixty-six inspired books in the
Bible, in the Word of God. And Christ is all in the message
of the Bible. You know, when our Lord was here
in the flesh, he warned people who are called lawyers. They weren't lawyers like we
think of today, but they were men who studied the scripture.
That's all they did. That was their occupation, to
study the Old Testament scriptures. And our Lord told them that they
had taken away the key of knowledge. They wouldn't go in themselves,
and they hindered others from entering in. They had taken away,
these religious, learned, studied men had taken away the key of
knowledge. And what I'm saying tonight from
the Word of God is that Christ is the key to the Scriptures. Christ is all. Men come to the Word of God,
you know this is so, and they seek for this, that, and the
other, this doctrine, that doctrine, or the other. And they pass over
what is the message of the Bible. Christ is all. Remember we heard
years ago, someone made this statement, I've repeated it,
several times, I don't always admit it's not original, but
it's not. But this is a hymn book. It's
all about hymn. Christ is all. Look with me,
if you will, in Luke chapter 24, just a moment. Luke chapter 24 and verse 44. And he said unto them, that is
the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples, these are the words
which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all
things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses. Notice how the Old Testament
is divided into these three sections. The Law of Moses, the Prophets,
and the Psalms concerning me. Concerning me. All things were
written concerning me. No matter if it's a law with
its many types and pictures. All things. Christ is all. No matter if it's the history,
books of the Scripture, the wisdom books, the prophetical books
of the Old Testament, Christ is all. This is what the Word
of God declares. This is the truth of the Scripture. The key to the Word of God is
Christ. The Old Testament, now think
about this, the Old Testament proclaims And it proclaims this
immediately after Adam sinned, after Adam fell. And when he
fell, remember, we too, in him, we fell, we sinned in our head,
Adam. But just immediately after Adam
sinned, the message came, someone is coming. Someone is coming. The revelation or the truth about
this someone is progressive as you go through the Word of God,
through the Old Testament. No doubt about that. First of
all, the seed of the woman. He's coming. And He will bruise
the head of the serpent. He will be the deliverer of the
seed of the woman. Yes, the seed of the woman. And
then we go on A few chapters and we find that in Abraham shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed. And that is given
again to his son Isaac and to his son Jacob. And then Jacob
comes along and blessing his 12 children, speaks of Judah
and tells us that he will come from the tribe of Judah. And
then we come along and we find out that he's going to be the
son of David. And then we read on and we find
out he's going to be born in Bethlehem. And we read on. There's someone who is coming
and he will suddenly come to his temple. You see the progressive
revelation through the law the wisdom books, and the prophets. But all together, speaking of
Christ, someone is coming. Then we come to the four gospels.
He's come. He's come. He's fulfilled all
those promises, all those types, all those pictures. You remember
the story of Cinderella? Let's see if I can remember it.
If I remember right, she had to leave the palace before 12
o'clock. And she was making her way out
of the palace, and she left one of her slippers, glass slippers.
And the prince was so enamored with her, he searched all through
his kingdom to find who that slipper would fit. And he finally
found Cinderella. All of the prophecies, all of
the types, if you think of them as that slipper of glass, they
all fit perfectly. Jesus Christ, our Lord. He's
come. Think of this prophecy. I looked
at this this past week. But a thousand years before the
Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, and 600 years before crucifixion
was even invented. Before we have any word about
crucifixion as a means of death. A thousand years before the crucifixion,
600 years before it was invented, David, this Old Testament Saint
David, as a prophet, He declared the scene of the cross. You read
Psalm 22 and it's almost as though you're reading after the fact.
And yet it was a prophecy given all of those years before. And
he wrote and said, for dogs, that is Gentiles, have surrounded
me. The assembly of the wicked have
enclosed me. Now listen, they pierced my hands
and my feet. That's in Psalm 22, 16. Was that
coincidental? Was that luck? Of course not. Someone who was promised to come
has come. And that's just one of many prophecies
that we could mention. And then we come to the, what
am I saying? I'm saying in the scriptures, the Word of God,
the Bible, Christ is all. And we come to the letters of
the New Testament, and the message is, someone's coming again. He's coming again. The New Testament
letters, they declare unto us that He ascended up on high.
I've read before that Rome, of course, was the civil power at
that time. And when their generals would
go out and conquer a country, and bring spoils back that there
would be a parade when he came to Rome. And he would have behind
him the dignitaries of those countries or provinces that he
had captured plus all the spoils. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
he ascended on high and he led captivity captive. You say, who
does that refer to? Well, it refers, first of all,
that He was victorious over Satan, our greatest enemy, our arch
enemy, a real being, my friends, not some bugaboo. No, no, a real being. And if
you're here tonight without Christ, let me tell you this, He'll do
everything He can to see your soul in hell. He's a real being. Christ conquered him. To deliver
one of his captives, the strong man, first of all, had to be
bound. And Christ conquered him. And
there was this matter of sin. Oh, that's a big thing, isn't
it? Sin. Christ had to deal with that.
He had to satisfy God's law. He had to satisfy God's justice
on behalf of his people. He did. How do you know that? Because he came out of that grave. He came out of that grave, not
only Satan and sin, but death. Death is the last enemy that
shall be destroyed. But he's taken the sting out
of it for us, hasn't he? We still are afraid of death,
if we'll just be honest. None of us are looking forward
to going through that valley of the shadow of death. But listen,
the sting of death has been taken away. For the believer, it's
just a passageway into the presence of God. Why? Because Christ is
all. Christ is all. He's going to
come again. Some people, they like to talk
about the Antichrist. I really believe some preachers
preach more about the Antichrist than they do the Lord Jesus Christ.
Some people like to talk about National Israel. They spend all
their time dealing with National Israel. Some people, their hobby
horse that they love to ride is that Millennium, a thousand
years of peace sometime in the future. or whatever it is. But my friends, when I think
about Christ coming again, Christ is all. He's the one I'm looking
for. He's the one I want to see. Christ
is all. Number two, Christ is all in
the salvation of sinners. I said Christ is all in the Bible,
the message of the Bible, Christ is all in the salvation of sinners.
Thou shalt call his name Jesus, the angel said, for he shall
save his people from their sins. In the word of God, sin is pictured
in several different ways. It's pictured like a disease,
sin is. It's pictured like a disease. And the disease that God chose
out of all the thousands, maybe millions of diseases known to
man, God chose one called leprosy. There's several marks when I
think about leprosy as a picture of sin. One mark of leprosy is
there's a stench. There's a stench because the
flesh is decaying, though the person is alive. And there's
a stench associated with this disease. So I think about that
scripture in Psalm 14, where the Bible says, God looked down
out of heaven. And this is his assessment. This
is what he saw. Not that he needed to look. He
knows everything. But just to confirmed us the
surety of what we're reading here. They're all gone aside. A-L-L. They are all, maybe one
escaped. Maybe one of Adam's race escaped
the fall. No, no. They're all gone aside. They're all together become filthy. And you look that word up in
the margin and it is stinking. God doesn't have a nose, but
God is pictured as smelling. As a sweet savor, the sacrifice
of Christ is a sweet savor unto the Lord. But I tell you, mankind,
man, is a stench because of his sin in the nostrils of God. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. Another mark that was true of
leprosy is it was incurable. It was incurable to the medicine
of man. And even today, when leprosy
is treated, I don't know if there is actually a cure, but when
it is treated, the treatment is a mixture of various compounds. There's not one medicine that
treats leprosy. But there is one medicine, one
physician that treats sin successfully. Christ is all. Christ is all. In scripture,
sin is pictured not only like a disease, but it's pictured
to be like filth. There's that picture in the book
of Ezekiel of putting some bones and, you know, I guess they still
have flesh on them, maybe some, and put them in that big pot
and started boiling and that scum, you know what I'm talking
about, that scum comes up to the top. A picture of sin, the
filthiness of sin. Christ is all. in cleansing a
person from the filth of sin, that is, in being washed in his
precious blood. In Scripture, sin is not only
pictured like a disease or like filth, but it's also pictured
like missing the mark. Missing the mark. Now, I don't
know if this is politically correct or not, but when I was growing
up, a target That centerpiece, I learned it was called a bullseye.
I may be offending the bulls tonight, I don't know. But that's
what you aim for, right? When you aim and pull the trigger
on your rifle, you're aiming for that bullseye, that very
centerpiece. And the bullseye, if you please,
that we shoot for, It's the glory of God. But all of us by nature,
we come short. We come short. We don't hit the
bullseye. All of our attempts at righteousness,
we always come short. So much so that the scripture
says that all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. God will accept no less than
perfect righteousness. Christ is all. Where are you going to get that
perfect righteousness? You say, well, I'm going to join
the church. Well, that might be good, but you're not going
to get that perfect righteousness by joining the church. Well,
I'm going to be baptized. I'm going to be sprinkled, or
I'm going to go on. I'm going to do it right. I'm going to
be immersed. And that is baptism, no doubt about it. But that will
not give you a righteousness that God will accept. Christ
is all. He's all. There is therefore
now no condemnation to every person in this building tonight.
Though what I've said about sin is true of us all. Yet in Christ
there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Christ is all. His name is Jehovah
Tiskanu, isn't it? The Lord our righteousness. Christ is all. He's all our righteousness. He's all our sanctification.
He's all our redemption. Number three, Christ is all in
our lives as Christians in this world. If you look in Colossians
again in chapter 2 and verses 6 and 7, the Apostle says, as
you, Colossians 2 verse 6, as you have therefore received Christ
Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. We are to walk in Christ, being
saved by the grace of God, our conversation, our walk in this
world. We are to walk, now notice, as
we receive the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let me ask you something. When you received Him, you knew,
you knew this, He had to provide all of salvation. When you received
Him, you knew that, if you're saved tonight. When you received
Christ, you knew you didn't have two pennies to rub together in
your pocket to satisfy God. As our Lord told that parable,
when they both had nothing to buy, He frankly forgave them
all. That's the way we are to walk,
as we have received Him. When we received Him, we knew
that we had nothing to contribute. We had nothing to give. When
we received Him, and maybe you're here tonight, praise God if you
are, to receive Christ even while I'm preaching, I know this about
you, you are poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Poor in spirit, having
nothing to pay. But notice he didn't stop there.
Look in the text, Colossians 2. We are to walk As you have
therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in Him. As you received Him, you were
needy. You had nothing to give. You had to receive everything
from Him. You are never going to advance
beyond that. Not in yourself. But notice,
rooted. He doesn't stop there when he
says we are to walk even as we have received him, but he says
we are to be rooted in him. The word rooted reminds me of
how roots, roots of a plant, they go down, they spread out,
and they're doing that on purpose, right? To get water, to get food. We are to be rooted in Christ. In order to grow spiritually,
in order to bring forth fruit unto God, we must be rooted in
Him. Christ is all. In Ephesians 4 and verse 15,
Paul says, growing up into Him in all things. But he didn't
stop there either, did he? Rooted in Him, he goes on to
say that we must be built up in Him. Built up in Him. Christ is all. He's the foundation
of our faith. And to build upon any other foundation
as we go through life as God's children, To build on any other
foundation is to build on wood, hay, and stubble. Christ, we
must be rooted and built upon Him. And then thirdly, we are
to be established in the faith, and established in the faith. Now it is through the study of
His word As we study God's word, as we read his word, as we see
and are reminded over and over and over again that Christ is
all. This stabilizes us. This is what
establishes us. Christ is all. We need the Lord
Jesus Christ as much tonight. If you say, well, I know the
Lord, I've been saved now for some time, for some years. What
I'm saying is, we need him, you need him tonight just as much
as you did when you first came to Christ. You need him just
as much tonight, maybe more so. At least you recognize more so
your need. that Christ is all. I've tried to live, you might
say, and I might say this, I've tried to live this Christian
life and I failed time after time after time. And yes, and
we will continue to fail as long as we try to live this life and
not live drawing strength and grace from the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is all. One other thing,
turn with me to Revelation. So I said Christ is all in the
scripture, Christ is all in the salvation of a sinner, Christ
is all in our lives as Christians as we go through this world.
And number four in Revelation 5, Christ is all as the sinner
of heaven's worship. What do you think they're doing
tonight in heaven? No one needs to preach to them,
Christ is all. I tell you, they know. You know
too, don't you? I trust the Lord's taught us
that. But Christ is all as the center of heaven's worship. Beginning
in verse eight, John says, when he had taken
the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down
before the Lamb. having every one of them harps
and golden vows full of odors, which are the prayers of saints.
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book
and to open the seals thereof, that is to reign. He's worthy
to reign and rule, to take the book of God's counsels, God's
providence, God's predestination, he's worthy to take that book
and open the seals. He sits upon the throne of God
tonight and reigns to open the seals thereof for
thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of
every kindred and tongue and people and nation and has made us under our God
kings and priests. We're priests tonight, aren't
we? A priest has to have a sacrifice.
The sacrifices that we bring is the fruit of our lips, even
praise under our God. We've been made kings. We reign. We rule, we reign with Him. And we shall reign on the earth.
And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about
the throne, and the beast, and the elders. And the number of
them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. Oh, I love that, don't you? A
number later in the book of Revelation, John sees a number that no man
could number. I don't want to be part of those
people that believe us four no more, do you? God's got his people
all over this world. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But God has his people, yay,
thousands, millions of people. Those that he's chosen, those
that Christ has redeemed, and those who are assured to enjoy
God in heaven throughout eternity. The number of them was 10,000
times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud
voice, worthy, Christ is all, worthy is the lamb that was slain
to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor
and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in
heaven and on the earth and under the earth And such as are in
the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing
and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon
the throne. Christ is all, and unto the Lamb
forever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen.
And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him
that liveth forever and ever. God, teach us. Teach us again. Write it upon our hearts. Christ
is all. There are so many things that
call for our attention and so many things that demand our attention. So many things as responsible
people we must do. But let's never outgrow this
great truth. Christ is all. He's all. If you know Him tonight,
you know God, and you know everlasting life, for it's all in Him. Well, we're going to sing a hymn,
the Lord willing. And when we stand to sing, some
of the ladies may want to go back. Not all of you. You don't
all have to go back there. We need some help in here singing.
Just a few of you, maybe. But you know, and everyone, I
assume everyone knows this, but everyone is invited to remain
and to eat. There's plenty of food back there,
like I said. I thought when I came around
here, this place would be jam-packed, just judging by the food. But
there's plenty for everyone. And I know it's good. We had
a visitor this morning.