GOD’S SOVEREIGN THOUGHTS AND PURPOSES
Isaiah 14: 24 The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
We see three very important aspects of God in these verse:
1 – His sovereignty 2 – His Thoughts 3 – His Purposes of life
1 – His sovereignty
In Isaiah 14:24-32 Isaiah reveals to Judah God’s Sovereign control over the future of two of their great enemies.
First: The Fate of the Assyrian Empire 25-27
25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
-God allows evil empires of this world to exist.
-God sends missionaries into their midst to give them a chance to receive truth and deliverance and to build their nation on Christ.
-Sadly however most nations have rejected God’s messengers.
a- The Assyrian Empire began around 2000 BC. It grew and became a great power and a grievous foe of Israel between 800 and 612 B.C.
b-The Empire was a ruthless and godless empire.
c- When they invaded a nation, they tortured, mutilated and killed men and children and ravished the women.
d-The Assyria became a rod that God used to humble the proud hearts of His own people, Israel, in the days of Isaiah.
e- This prophecy was still future as God reveals Assyria’s downfall.
Within just five or ten years Israel was merciless defeated in 722 B.C. and many were killed and many were taken into captivity.
Assyria would then turn their vicious jaws upon Judah. Curses, accusations and threats were thrown at the people and great fear filled the hearts of all in Judah.
-The threats of death and desolation seemed to becoming a reality as the mighty and vicious Assyrian army surrounded the city of Jerusalem.
-The people watched as 185,000 Assyrian soldiers who did not know defeat, sharpened their swords and prepared their bows.
-When the frightening news came to King Hezekiah, king of Judah, he called for the people to fall upon their face in prayer and fasting.
-The people responded and that night while the Assyrians slept God sent His angel into their camp.
-The next morning when the sun arose 185,000 Assyrians soldiers laid dead upon the battle field in Israel, defeated by the power of prayer.
-They never rose to a national power again.
-This people are concentrated today mainly in the country of Armenia.
-They became a Christian nation in the third century.
First: The Fate of the Assyrians Empire
Second: The Future of the Philistines Empire 29-32
28 In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.
29 Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.
Palestina was the Philistines nation.
- Philistines moved into the promise land area sometime during Israel’s Egyptian captivity.
-They were always a thorn in the side of Israel. And they still are today.
-They were rejoicing over Israel’s defeat.
-The prophecy in verse 29 is that the serpent (deadly asp) that would critically wound the Philistines would be the Assyrians.
-And then 120 years later the cockatrice (Babylon) would come on the scene and destroy them as a nation.
-Then, out of Babylon came Satan’s masterful society- Babylon.
-Today his work is to unite all nations against Israel and annihilate them.
-The Philistines are the modern days Palestinians, yea a people with no nation but still a thorn in the side of Israel.
Now recall verse 24: 24 The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
(I – God’s Sovereign)
II - GOD’S THOUGHTS:
Turn to Psalms 139: 17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
God is watching you 24-7. He watches you 3600 seconds an hour and 86,400 seconds a day 31,536,000 seconds a year. Why?
-He cares for and loves you as a mother her first precious baby.
-He provides for you and He protects you as a father his child.
-He offers to you His very best in life and so woo’s you to Himself.
Now turn to Isaiah 55. Look at a 3-point outline:
1 –Respect Me -- 6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
God cried to Israel through His prophets to seek Him.
Today, He cries to mankind through His Holy Spirit to seek Him.
He says seek me while I may be found, for one day you won’t find me.
--Don’t wait too long. When you are young, often your heart is tender.
Any time He calls run to Him.
--The further you wonder from Him the fainter His voice is in your heart.
--It is He who has given you life and liberty and love.
To ignore God or to put God off is very disrespectful.
It is like Jesus knocking on your front door. You open it and see who it is and then slam the door in His face.
In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in and sup with him and he with me.”
The Christians has already opened his heart up to Jesus. Thank the Lord. But understand that this verse (Isaiah 55:6 is for God’s children.)
We are to seek Him, yea those things which are above.
What if we don’t preacher?
Then one day you will awake, like Israel to find yourself lost in the wilderness having drifted so far from God, you will have no idea which way to go for your eyes will be blind and your ears deaf.
- It is not God who is lost but you and sadly, to the demise and doom of your soul and family.
2 –Repent, turn around -- 7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Remember Isaiah is writing to Judah. God not only wants the lost to repent, He calls for His own to repent, yea to return to the purpose for which God made man.
He will then have mercy for He is more than willing to pardon.
3 – Respond to Me
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
-Man’s thoughts compared to God’s thoughts are very foolish.
-Man’s ways compared to God’s ways are quite opposite.
To reason within ourselves and among ourselves about how life should be will only bring about folly and futility.
One example was when man attempted to figure out how the world began without God’s text book the Bible. What did man come up with?
Evolution: Man decided there was nothing, and then there was something. That something was spinning, spinning, spinning and then it exploded. That was called the big bang. And out of this explosion –waa-laa – we have this extremely complicated Universe that just happened from an eruption of energy.
How foolish can one become to believe such a thing?
Another example is Salvation. Man has invented hundreds of ways to go to heaven but God says there is only ONE WAY.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, the life and no man cometh to the father but by me.”
III – GOD’S PURPOSE
In eternity pass before the Holy Trinity laid the foundation of the earth, yea before one cherub ever flutter his wings around the throne of Glory, God knew He would create man.
-Yea God knew He would create the angelic host.
-And He knew that Lucifer would sin and He knew that man would sin.
-God knew that He would have to wrap himself in human flesh and the Creator would die at the hands of His creation a cruel and inhumane death.
-Yet God in His love for man created man anyway. Why?
There are three parts to “Why?” and that tells you God’s purpose in your life.
1 - We find the first purpose of your life in the Garden:
-God has always had a plan and purpose for your life before the foundations of the world.
-We live in the most advanced time in human history with technology that boggles the human mind.
-Man has the capability to go farther into outer space than ever before as well in the depths of the sea.
-Yet 95% of the people on planet earth don’t know why they are here or their purpose in life.
Would you like to know?
God made you for the same reason he made Adam and Abraham, Judas and Herod, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, Ronald Reagan, George Washington and Ernest Hemingway and Edgar A. Poe.
We find that answer in Genesis and in First John 1: 3.
Turn to I John 1:3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
What did God make you for? He made you for FELLOWSHIP!
He made you to so you would daily take time to talk with Him and allow Him to talk to you.
Illustration: In the beginning when God created Adam and Eve, he walked with them in the cool of the day every day.
Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
--On this day when God came to the garden something was different. Adam and Eve weren’t where they should have been. They were hiding. Why were they hiding? They had sinned. Sin separates.
--The song writer wrote, “He was there all the time.”
And God is. It isn’t God who hides; it is man who hides from God.
--Sin will keep you from sweet daily fellowship.
One preacher said, “The Bible will keep you from sin and sin will keep you from the Bible.”
-Adam’s great sin was disobedience.
-The sin of disobedience threw the whole human race into sin.
Now God as them a question:
Genesis 3:9 And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
God knows everything so why would He ask Adam and Eve, “Where art thou?
He asks you the same question today. Where are you?
--Are you saved by Grace and in daily fellowship with the Lord?
Let me ask you four questions about Salvation:
A – Do you remember the day you first tasted of God’s love. John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
God loves you. Jesus loves you and He died for you. When I first met my future wife, I like her. I enjoyed being around her. And I liked her so much I ask her to marry me. After we got married our like to turned to love. And today we love each other more than we ever have.
Salvation is a love relationship, not a fear relationship.
B – Do you remember when you realized you were lost?
Romans 3:10 “As it is written there is none righteous, no not one.”
Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
You realized hell would be your lot for eternity and fear filled your soul
Now that is scary. A man is going to hell because he is a sinner. Satan tripped Grandpa Adam and Grandma Eve and since that day every child born of man has been doomed to hell.
C – Do you remember when you realized there was hope?
Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
God knew man would sin. God loved man. Sin cursed man.
Nobody could pardon man’s sin.
Then Jesus came and took man’s place by dying on a cross and going to hell for man.
Had you or I died and gone to hell we would still be there.
Jesus being who He was went to hell, took the keys of hell and death from Satan, set those in paradise free and ascended on high.
The way to Heaven is ONE WAY and that is through Jesus Christ.
But there is one more step to God’s Salvation…
D – Do you remember the day you humbled your heart and invited Jesus to be your Savior?
Turn to Romans 10:
Romans 2:4 the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Look at Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
God isn’t talking about inviting Jesus into your soul or your mind alone, but your heart.
Your heart represents you entire world that you live in. Your heart is all of you. It is your mind, will, emotions, body, soul, spirit.
Was there a day when you so believed that you call out to Jesus to come into your HEART?
--Did you do so because you loved Him and wanted to live for Him the rest of your life?
--How many of you remember that day when Christ turned a light on in your soul and the whole world looked different?
-Whether your prayer was verbal or in your heart, you must have had that day when you heard His knock, his convicting power.
-Then you understood how great things God has done, and you lovingly and willingly invited Jesus to be your very own Savior to walk with and talk with.
You say, well preacher, I didn’t do it that way. That is the only way.
2 - We find the second part of God’s purpose for our lives at the Cross:
There is not only Salvation at the cross but Love.
At the cross you fall in love with God.
I John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
As you understand God’s love so will you love.
That love makes you want to know more about Jesus Christ.
At the cross you discover Romans 12:28-29. 28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
God wants you to be conformed (that means to act like) His Son.
The second aspect of your purpose in life is to mature into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.
That is what Sunday school and Sunday night and Wednesday night and personal study is all about.
The more we know about Christ the more we resemble Him.
3 – The third aspect of God’s purpose for your life is seen in a Book.
Second Timothy 2; 2:1 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
God wants all of His children to become teachers of His word. He wants his word to dwell in our hearts so we will act and react because Christ lives in us. He wants us to become duplicates of Him in this dark world.
Remember God ask Adam and Eve, ”Where art thou?” Where are you spiritually?
Are you saved? Are you maturing? Are you drawing nearer?
Illustration:
In Oak Park, Illinois lived a devoted Christian, faithful to his church and a friend of evangelist D.L. Moody.
This man’s parents were evangelical missionaries. He had a son that he raised in Church and taught the Bible to. His name was Ernest.
Ernest Hemingway was a literary genius.
--Hemingway lived his life in a way that would be the envy of most lost people.
-Hemingway was known for his tough-guy image.
-He traveled to exotic places around the world whenever he chose.
-He was a big-game hunter, a bull-fighter, a man who could drink others under the table.
-He was married four times and lived his life seemingly without moral restraint or conscience.
It the latter years of his life Ernest wrote, “I live in a vacuum that is as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead, and there is no current to plug into.” What a startling statement.
-On one sunny Sunday morning in Idaho, Hemingway put a shotgun to his head and blew his brains out.
What happened?
He was a third generation child in a Christian family.
His youthful enthusiasm for Christianity soured as he had to make his decision about Christ in life.
He chose to seek to his fullness the world’s pleasure and he eventually rejected the faith in Christ that he once had tasted of.
Though raised in a Christian home, he never found the purpose for which he was given the gift of life.
Christian, live for the purpose God made you or live in vain.
Unsaved friend, come to Christ today and find God’s wonderful Salvation.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Survey of Bible
Colossians: TRIUMPHANT IN JESUS CHRIST
Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
History of Colosee:
Nearly 2,000 years ago in Asia Minor, which is today, Modern-day Turkey, was a small market town called Colosse.
The town was a mix of Phrygians, Greeks and Jews that made up a small bible believing church. We simply call it the Church of Colossians.
The whole area was stained with the scars of past volcanic activity. Within several years of Paul writing this letter, the town of Colosse would be destroyed by an earthquake.
We might have never heard of this place had Paul not penned the inspired words of God to this church at Colosse for the site has never been excavated.
The background for writing this letter:
The more one flounders in sin the more warped and bent that person becomes.
Satan has been on the rampage to destroy anything Godly for 6,000 years and his hatred for God and man has become more bitter than ever.
Though unseen to the human eye Satan reigns in the unseen world, governing over countless fallen angelic beings.
Some of these beings have unbelievable super powers.
Satan’s schemes are driven by his contempt and hatred for God.
As the god of this world and the father of lies, this intellectual genius is the one behind all false religions and philosophies and sin.
He not only has concocted the great lies of the universe such as atheism, Marxism, Babylonism, evolution and humanism but he has concocted the white religious lies that sow doubt in people’s heart then despair, then destruction and finally death.
As the master at mingling truth and error, He will appear three ways to man:
1 - To some people he will appear as an angel of light to captivate their attention by his beauty and miraculous power.
2 - To others he will terrify them with fear as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
3 - And still to others he will deceive them and topple them as a wise and subtle serpent.
When JESUS CHRIST came into the world, TRUTH came into the world.
What Jesus said was written in the Bible and is absolute truth by which man should live.
After Jesus’ victory over Satan, the Holy Spirit of God came to establish the Church of Jesus Christ on this earth, His bride.
The Spirit of God convicted men and converts those who receive Christ by faith.
This great light of God, the Church, was put on this earth as an instrument in God’s hand to keep the Evil One in check.
Given to the Church was the great power to combat and control Satan’s seat (Matthew 16:13-18).
The Church can do this through prayer, worship and righteousness.
A - When Israel was running the show Satan recognized the power available to them by God and thus, his goal was to compromise Israel. History reveals that he succeeded.
B - When Christ was on the earth Satan focused all his attention towards the doubt, denial, dispersion of Israel and the death of Christ.
He succeeded but unbeknown to him it was to his own defeat.
C - When the Church began Satan knew that this empire would be his ruin if he did not compromise it and stamp it out.
For 300 years he hurled great persecution at God’s church trying to destroy it but he failed.
Satan thought the church would be easy to conquer, for it was made up of ordinary people like you and me.
It was made up of carpenters and bakers and butchers and fisherman. Thank God that inside of these very ordinary people was the Spirit of the living God.
Their great power was the instrument of prayer that God gave them. Every time God’s people fell on their knees Satan’s kingdom shook.
For God gave to His Church the greatest power in the world. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you.”
Satan concluded that he could do only one thing to destroy the church. He had to compromise it if he was to corrupt it.
So he took religious people, not spirit filled, not blood washed, but religious people who had knowledge but not the Spirit of God.
They were kind and often loving people that kindly denied and distorted and debased New Testament truths.
They added to or they took away from Christ’s doctrines.
They attempted to get the focus of the church off Jesus Christ and on anything else (politics, social activity, clubs, games, money).
Folks we need to keep our focus on Christ, yea on “things above.”
We need to live for Christ and like Christ. We need to read His words daily and many times a day. We need to pray and pray and pray.
We need to keep our hearts clean and sins confessed minute by minute.
We need to keep a sweet moment by moment fellowship with our Lord and Savior.
NOW, in the Church of Colossians a group of men and women came in professing Christ. This church like many churches took them in with open arms only to discover later that something was seriously wrong.
The pastor, Ep’ a phras, was a tremendous man who loved the Lord but when he was confronted with the intellectual Gnostics and their philosophies it made his head swim. He didn’t know what to do.
Had the philosophy been raw paganism, Epaphras could have dealt with it. *Paganism related to those who worshiped false gods, demon spirits and many gods, statues and images.
Had it the philosophy been obsolete Judaism, again he could have dealt with it. *Judaism was the worship of the Old Testament feast, ceremonies and circumcision which was now dead.
But, the Gnostics mixed truth and error so subtly that Epaphras needed help and guidance and wisdom.
He went to Rome to where the Apostle Paul was in jail and shared his heart with this wise old man.
Paul in turn sought God’s face and sent a letter back to the Church. God gave the apostle wisdom to unravel this confusing tangled web of error and truth weaved by the Gnostics.
In this letter Paul would tell the people what they should be doing. He admonished them to seek eternal things. And he exposes the errors of the Gnostics that was destroying the church.
I - Let’s commence with the errors of the Gnostics:
To understand better the little book of Colossians it is important that we first understand Gnosticism.
In their pride the Gnostics claimed to “Improve” on Christianity.
Let’s examine the five major errors of Gnosticism:
1 - Intellectualism 2:8-10
They claimed to know more and have greater insight to scriptures.
They added to Christianity in many different ways, thus Paul writes…
8 Beware lest any man spoil (corrupt) you through philosophy (intellectualism) and vain deceit (pride), after the tradition (customs, practices) of men, after the rudiments (ground rules) of the world, and not after Christ.
They subtlety through Philosophy (intellectualism) and deceit (falsehoods) told the Christians at Colosse they needed to bring the Old Testaments traditions and New Testaments teachings together.
They said…
1 - “Since Jesus was Jewish and came from the Jews bloodline to the Jewish nation, we must mix Judaism with Christianity to fully please God and have salvation.”
2 – “They needed to accept the writings of the Talmud and the Apocrypha mixed with Greek culture to understand fully what Christianity is all about.”
3 - They should worship the feast days, the fast days, the new moons, the holydays, etc.
We that know the Scriptures know the Scriptures teach that we are not to go back to the Old Testament ways. They were all shadows of the Christ who came. (The Book of Hebrews)
Paul tells us in Hebrews 5:12-14 that the traditions are for babes that drink milk. Now, it is time for the Church to eat meat.
Col 2: 9 For in him (Jesus) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
We are complete in Christ. We are to worship Jesus. We are not to empty our houses of leaven, build booths and have Jewish ceremonies.
Application today: Many who have their PhD’s boast that those who still believe in Christ’s deity or the inspiration of the scriptures or who hold to the old KJV is just ignorant. Well that is nothing new. The critics and the Pharisees will always be with us.
2 – Ritualism - 2:11-13
The Gnostics majored on circumcision for Salvation. This was just one of their rituals.
We know that is false today, but it was a major practice of the Gnostics and of many who tried to mix Judaism with Christianity in the first century.
Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, (spiritual, not physical) in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Judaism gave birth to Christianity as an acorn gives birth to a mighty Oak. We don’t sit under the shade and admire the acorn; we sit under the shade of the Oak and admire its beauty and strength.
3 - Legalism 2:14-17
They added to grace. They said you must 1) keep the feast, 2) the law, 3) the ceremonies, 4) eat according to the dietary laws and 5) keep the sabbath to be saved and to be right with God.
But Paul writes…
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
When Jesus died on the cross he took all those old ways and rituals of Judaism and nailed them to the cross, never to be practiced by Christians again.
They are to never practice the sin offering or the meal offering or the peace offering. They are never to offer the sacrifices. They are to never practice the feast. It has been nailed to the cross.
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Paul reveals a tremendous truth in verse 15. When Jesus defeated Satan, he dragged him openly in the heavens in front of his demonic cohorts revealing to them that Satan is defeated and Jesus is victorious.
Then Paul says…16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
That is clear enough if you are saved. The Gnostics said, “We are more spiritual than you because we practice the feast and we keep the Sabbaths and we observe certain Old Testament holydays and you don’t.
Paul was saying the old ways were a shadow that picture Christ. Therefore, quit living in the shadows and live in the Light.
4 - Mysticism 2:18-19
18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Another false teaching of the Gnostics was to worship angels and to seek the supernatural.
Today religions including some within the realm of Christendom pray to and worship angels or dead men, called saints.
Other mystic religions include Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Christian Science, Catholic, Scientology, Masonry, Reincarnation, and Mormonism. (Be careful Christian not to buy, pray to or believe that angel jewelry will some how protect you.”
5 - Asceticism, 2:20-23.
Asceticism is the discipline of repressing lust.
It says, no meat, no marriage, no wine, and no sex.
It is obviously taught in Catholicism as the priests are forbidden to marry and to eat meats on certain days. (They leave the wine part out. And we must wonder about the sex-part).
When “mother Teresa” was given a motel to house the poor, she tore out the carpet and threw away anything beautiful. She was an ascetic.
They think if it is comfortable it is wrong. Many avoid comfortable and modern clothing because they consider it to worldly.
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
I’ve heard preachers preach against wearing a red dress. My wife has one and I love it.
I’ve heard them say, “Don’t wear anything will frills. Don’t wear jewelry or make up, it is worldly.
I’ve heard some preach against the type of underwear people wear. That is silly. I’ve heard some say women shouldn’t wear sandals or show their toe in church. The Bible never says anything like that. It is ascetic.
Friend if what you wear is modest and if your make-up is modest and if you truly wear it for God’s glory don’t worry about what people say. They are ascetic.
Now when you read Colossians you will understand why Paul wrote this letter and why the Holy Spirit leads him to say exactly what he says.
II – Let’s Continue with the Exhortation to the Colossians.
OUTLINE:
I – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRIST 1:15-29
In the first 14 verses Paul exalts God and at the same time exposes many falsehoods of the Gnostics. Paul reveals the deity, death and demands of Christ.
He praise the Lord… 1:3 …Give thanks to God … for our Lord Jesus Christ, v 4 and show …Faith and love… think about 5 …the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, and the…love in the Spirit.
He pronounces to them… 10 …Walk worthy of the Lord and … in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
And be… 11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
And… 12 Giving thanks unto the Father,… 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Thus Paul makes it clear in the introduction of this letter that we are to rejoice in our free Salvation through the blood of Christ and not according to the teachings of the Gnostics.
A. Paul brings out the Deity of Christ (15-19)
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
The Greek is saying, “When you see Jesus, you see God.” It is saying that Christ is Immanuel. Yea, God became flesh and dwelt among man.
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, and for him:
God created the world. Jesus created the world. How can that be? It is called “Trinity.”
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
He always has been and He always will be. He is creator and God. The Gnostics are hating this preaching.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
And then Paul ends by saying Jesus is the head and the Church is His body. We submit to Christ, not dead ordinances and man-made doctrines.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
The reason Paul majors on the deity of Christ is because the Gnostics did not believe in His deity. They believed that the body was sinful but the spirit was sinless. Thus, Christ could not have had a physical body. Any person or organized religious group that denies that Jesus is God is false.
Therefore, they concluded that any sin of the flesh is justified because God made us like He made us and we may fulfilled all of our fleshly desires.
That is what many religion people believe today. They believe “my spirit is saved,” therefore I may live to please my flesh. That philosophy is satanic and it will send a person to hell.
B. Paul brings out the Death of Christ (20-22)
20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
Paul makes it clear that we are saved, reconciled, made holy and blameless because of what Jesus did and that alone.
Man can add nothing to their salvation. Jesus paid it all! Can’t you see those Gnostics sitting in the service cringing at the preaching and getting more angry with every word?
C. Paul brings out the Demands of Christ 23-29
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Study, learn, grow, and mature so when you stand before Christ you will stand with honor and dignity for the one who died for you. Be a faithful soldier of the cross.
II – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CULTS 2: 1-23
A. We are to experience doctrine 2:1-7
Paul says I know of the conflict you are going through therefore… V 6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
You were saved by grace through faith and you should walk by His daily grace by faith. Don’t get caught up in Gnosticism. Serve by love.
B. We are to expose deceit 2:8-23 Refer to pages 2-5.
III – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN 3:1-4:6
A. Our Sight 3:1-4
Seek Christ - 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
True satisfaction in life is found in everyone’s soul who truly seeks to know the ways and will of Christ in their life.
You see, living for eternal things bring great security to a man’s soul. The reason there is so much fear today in this world is most people are living for self, to please self. They want this and that and therefore they live for this and that and when they lose their health or wealth or friends they are miserable because none of those things are eternal.
Live for the eternal and the joy of the Lord will fill your soul.
Set your Affections - 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Who is to be worshipped, honored, bowed to and given first place in our lives? Exodus 20:1-3 – God! Remember God will honor those who honor Him.
Steadfast - 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When you are dead to your self, nobody can hurt you, nobody can hinder you, nobody can stop you from living a life for the Lord. We only get hurt when our flesh is controlling our spirit rather than our spirit controlling our flesh.
Secure - 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
If you are only looking for love and joy and peace and purpose in this world you will be a sad and lonely person. True love and peace comes from above. It comes from a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ. If verses 1-3 is true in our lives, we will greatly desire our Lord’s appearance.
B. Our Steps 3:5-4:6
1 – Personal life 3:5-14
Paul preaches we should die to the flesh and live in the Spirit.
Paul stresses that fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: is still sinful and should be shunned by the believer. He continues to name sins that are not to be displayed by the Christian… anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 12 Put on … holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
2 – Spiritual Life 3:15-17
What will happen to someone who dies to self and lives for Christ?
a. God’s peace will flood your heart: 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
b. You will begin to sing and praise the Lord: 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
3 – Domestic Life 3:18-21
Your home life will become wonderful. Love will be discovered. Children will become obedient. How? Why? When? When Christians quit living after the teachings of the world and start living according to Jesus Christ.
18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
20 Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
4 – Business Life 3:22-4:1
Employees treat the employers with respect and visa versa. As you learn Christ you begin to understand why you have the job you have. You work to please Jesus and not your boss (22-24). Employers treat your employees justly. Treat them as Christ would treat them.
22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:
23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
24 Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
4:1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
5 – Secular Life 4:2-6
2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
The Christian’s spiritual life and secular life of a Christian should go hand in hand.
The Christian is not to live one life at church and another at work or on the weekend. That is Gnosticism.
That is willful sin. It is not Christianity.
Your talk at church should be your talk at home and you walk at church on Sunday should be your walk during the week.
Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
History of Colosee:
Nearly 2,000 years ago in Asia Minor, which is today, Modern-day Turkey, was a small market town called Colosse.
The town was a mix of Phrygians, Greeks and Jews that made up a small bible believing church. We simply call it the Church of Colossians.
The whole area was stained with the scars of past volcanic activity. Within several years of Paul writing this letter, the town of Colosse would be destroyed by an earthquake.
We might have never heard of this place had Paul not penned the inspired words of God to this church at Colosse for the site has never been excavated.
The background for writing this letter:
The more one flounders in sin the more warped and bent that person becomes.
Satan has been on the rampage to destroy anything Godly for 6,000 years and his hatred for God and man has become more bitter than ever.
Though unseen to the human eye Satan reigns in the unseen world, governing over countless fallen angelic beings.
Some of these beings have unbelievable super powers.
Satan’s schemes are driven by his contempt and hatred for God.
As the god of this world and the father of lies, this intellectual genius is the one behind all false religions and philosophies and sin.
He not only has concocted the great lies of the universe such as atheism, Marxism, Babylonism, evolution and humanism but he has concocted the white religious lies that sow doubt in people’s heart then despair, then destruction and finally death.
As the master at mingling truth and error, He will appear three ways to man:
1 - To some people he will appear as an angel of light to captivate their attention by his beauty and miraculous power.
2 - To others he will terrify them with fear as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
3 - And still to others he will deceive them and topple them as a wise and subtle serpent.
When JESUS CHRIST came into the world, TRUTH came into the world.
What Jesus said was written in the Bible and is absolute truth by which man should live.
After Jesus’ victory over Satan, the Holy Spirit of God came to establish the Church of Jesus Christ on this earth, His bride.
The Spirit of God convicted men and converts those who receive Christ by faith.
This great light of God, the Church, was put on this earth as an instrument in God’s hand to keep the Evil One in check.
Given to the Church was the great power to combat and control Satan’s seat (Matthew 16:13-18).
The Church can do this through prayer, worship and righteousness.
A - When Israel was running the show Satan recognized the power available to them by God and thus, his goal was to compromise Israel. History reveals that he succeeded.
B - When Christ was on the earth Satan focused all his attention towards the doubt, denial, dispersion of Israel and the death of Christ.
He succeeded but unbeknown to him it was to his own defeat.
C - When the Church began Satan knew that this empire would be his ruin if he did not compromise it and stamp it out.
For 300 years he hurled great persecution at God’s church trying to destroy it but he failed.
Satan thought the church would be easy to conquer, for it was made up of ordinary people like you and me.
It was made up of carpenters and bakers and butchers and fisherman. Thank God that inside of these very ordinary people was the Spirit of the living God.
Their great power was the instrument of prayer that God gave them. Every time God’s people fell on their knees Satan’s kingdom shook.
For God gave to His Church the greatest power in the world. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you.”
Satan concluded that he could do only one thing to destroy the church. He had to compromise it if he was to corrupt it.
So he took religious people, not spirit filled, not blood washed, but religious people who had knowledge but not the Spirit of God.
They were kind and often loving people that kindly denied and distorted and debased New Testament truths.
They added to or they took away from Christ’s doctrines.
They attempted to get the focus of the church off Jesus Christ and on anything else (politics, social activity, clubs, games, money).
Folks we need to keep our focus on Christ, yea on “things above.”
We need to live for Christ and like Christ. We need to read His words daily and many times a day. We need to pray and pray and pray.
We need to keep our hearts clean and sins confessed minute by minute.
We need to keep a sweet moment by moment fellowship with our Lord and Savior.
NOW, in the Church of Colossians a group of men and women came in professing Christ. This church like many churches took them in with open arms only to discover later that something was seriously wrong.
The pastor, Ep’ a phras, was a tremendous man who loved the Lord but when he was confronted with the intellectual Gnostics and their philosophies it made his head swim. He didn’t know what to do.
Had the philosophy been raw paganism, Epaphras could have dealt with it. *Paganism related to those who worshiped false gods, demon spirits and many gods, statues and images.
Had it the philosophy been obsolete Judaism, again he could have dealt with it. *Judaism was the worship of the Old Testament feast, ceremonies and circumcision which was now dead.
But, the Gnostics mixed truth and error so subtly that Epaphras needed help and guidance and wisdom.
He went to Rome to where the Apostle Paul was in jail and shared his heart with this wise old man.
Paul in turn sought God’s face and sent a letter back to the Church. God gave the apostle wisdom to unravel this confusing tangled web of error and truth weaved by the Gnostics.
In this letter Paul would tell the people what they should be doing. He admonished them to seek eternal things. And he exposes the errors of the Gnostics that was destroying the church.
I - Let’s commence with the errors of the Gnostics:
To understand better the little book of Colossians it is important that we first understand Gnosticism.
In their pride the Gnostics claimed to “Improve” on Christianity.
Let’s examine the five major errors of Gnosticism:
1 - Intellectualism 2:8-10
They claimed to know more and have greater insight to scriptures.
They added to Christianity in many different ways, thus Paul writes…
8 Beware lest any man spoil (corrupt) you through philosophy (intellectualism) and vain deceit (pride), after the tradition (customs, practices) of men, after the rudiments (ground rules) of the world, and not after Christ.
They subtlety through Philosophy (intellectualism) and deceit (falsehoods) told the Christians at Colosse they needed to bring the Old Testaments traditions and New Testaments teachings together.
They said…
1 - “Since Jesus was Jewish and came from the Jews bloodline to the Jewish nation, we must mix Judaism with Christianity to fully please God and have salvation.”
2 – “They needed to accept the writings of the Talmud and the Apocrypha mixed with Greek culture to understand fully what Christianity is all about.”
3 - They should worship the feast days, the fast days, the new moons, the holydays, etc.
We that know the Scriptures know the Scriptures teach that we are not to go back to the Old Testament ways. They were all shadows of the Christ who came. (The Book of Hebrews)
Paul tells us in Hebrews 5:12-14 that the traditions are for babes that drink milk. Now, it is time for the Church to eat meat.
Col 2: 9 For in him (Jesus) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
We are complete in Christ. We are to worship Jesus. We are not to empty our houses of leaven, build booths and have Jewish ceremonies.
Application today: Many who have their PhD’s boast that those who still believe in Christ’s deity or the inspiration of the scriptures or who hold to the old KJV is just ignorant. Well that is nothing new. The critics and the Pharisees will always be with us.
2 – Ritualism - 2:11-13
The Gnostics majored on circumcision for Salvation. This was just one of their rituals.
We know that is false today, but it was a major practice of the Gnostics and of many who tried to mix Judaism with Christianity in the first century.
Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, (spiritual, not physical) in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Judaism gave birth to Christianity as an acorn gives birth to a mighty Oak. We don’t sit under the shade and admire the acorn; we sit under the shade of the Oak and admire its beauty and strength.
3 - Legalism 2:14-17
They added to grace. They said you must 1) keep the feast, 2) the law, 3) the ceremonies, 4) eat according to the dietary laws and 5) keep the sabbath to be saved and to be right with God.
But Paul writes…
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
When Jesus died on the cross he took all those old ways and rituals of Judaism and nailed them to the cross, never to be practiced by Christians again.
They are to never practice the sin offering or the meal offering or the peace offering. They are never to offer the sacrifices. They are to never practice the feast. It has been nailed to the cross.
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Paul reveals a tremendous truth in verse 15. When Jesus defeated Satan, he dragged him openly in the heavens in front of his demonic cohorts revealing to them that Satan is defeated and Jesus is victorious.
Then Paul says…16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
That is clear enough if you are saved. The Gnostics said, “We are more spiritual than you because we practice the feast and we keep the Sabbaths and we observe certain Old Testament holydays and you don’t.
Paul was saying the old ways were a shadow that picture Christ. Therefore, quit living in the shadows and live in the Light.
4 - Mysticism 2:18-19
18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Another false teaching of the Gnostics was to worship angels and to seek the supernatural.
Today religions including some within the realm of Christendom pray to and worship angels or dead men, called saints.
Other mystic religions include Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Christian Science, Catholic, Scientology, Masonry, Reincarnation, and Mormonism. (Be careful Christian not to buy, pray to or believe that angel jewelry will some how protect you.”
5 - Asceticism, 2:20-23.
Asceticism is the discipline of repressing lust.
It says, no meat, no marriage, no wine, and no sex.
It is obviously taught in Catholicism as the priests are forbidden to marry and to eat meats on certain days. (They leave the wine part out. And we must wonder about the sex-part).
When “mother Teresa” was given a motel to house the poor, she tore out the carpet and threw away anything beautiful. She was an ascetic.
They think if it is comfortable it is wrong. Many avoid comfortable and modern clothing because they consider it to worldly.
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
I’ve heard preachers preach against wearing a red dress. My wife has one and I love it.
I’ve heard them say, “Don’t wear anything will frills. Don’t wear jewelry or make up, it is worldly.
I’ve heard some preach against the type of underwear people wear. That is silly. I’ve heard some say women shouldn’t wear sandals or show their toe in church. The Bible never says anything like that. It is ascetic.
Friend if what you wear is modest and if your make-up is modest and if you truly wear it for God’s glory don’t worry about what people say. They are ascetic.
Now when you read Colossians you will understand why Paul wrote this letter and why the Holy Spirit leads him to say exactly what he says.
II – Let’s Continue with the Exhortation to the Colossians.
OUTLINE:
I – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRIST 1:15-29
In the first 14 verses Paul exalts God and at the same time exposes many falsehoods of the Gnostics. Paul reveals the deity, death and demands of Christ.
He praise the Lord… 1:3 …Give thanks to God … for our Lord Jesus Christ, v 4 and show …Faith and love… think about 5 …the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, and the…love in the Spirit.
He pronounces to them… 10 …Walk worthy of the Lord and … in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
And be… 11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
And… 12 Giving thanks unto the Father,… 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Thus Paul makes it clear in the introduction of this letter that we are to rejoice in our free Salvation through the blood of Christ and not according to the teachings of the Gnostics.
A. Paul brings out the Deity of Christ (15-19)
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
The Greek is saying, “When you see Jesus, you see God.” It is saying that Christ is Immanuel. Yea, God became flesh and dwelt among man.
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, and for him:
God created the world. Jesus created the world. How can that be? It is called “Trinity.”
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
He always has been and He always will be. He is creator and God. The Gnostics are hating this preaching.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
And then Paul ends by saying Jesus is the head and the Church is His body. We submit to Christ, not dead ordinances and man-made doctrines.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
The reason Paul majors on the deity of Christ is because the Gnostics did not believe in His deity. They believed that the body was sinful but the spirit was sinless. Thus, Christ could not have had a physical body. Any person or organized religious group that denies that Jesus is God is false.
Therefore, they concluded that any sin of the flesh is justified because God made us like He made us and we may fulfilled all of our fleshly desires.
That is what many religion people believe today. They believe “my spirit is saved,” therefore I may live to please my flesh. That philosophy is satanic and it will send a person to hell.
B. Paul brings out the Death of Christ (20-22)
20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
Paul makes it clear that we are saved, reconciled, made holy and blameless because of what Jesus did and that alone.
Man can add nothing to their salvation. Jesus paid it all! Can’t you see those Gnostics sitting in the service cringing at the preaching and getting more angry with every word?
C. Paul brings out the Demands of Christ 23-29
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Study, learn, grow, and mature so when you stand before Christ you will stand with honor and dignity for the one who died for you. Be a faithful soldier of the cross.
II – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CULTS 2: 1-23
A. We are to experience doctrine 2:1-7
Paul says I know of the conflict you are going through therefore… V 6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
You were saved by grace through faith and you should walk by His daily grace by faith. Don’t get caught up in Gnosticism. Serve by love.
B. We are to expose deceit 2:8-23 Refer to pages 2-5.
III – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN 3:1-4:6
A. Our Sight 3:1-4
Seek Christ - 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
True satisfaction in life is found in everyone’s soul who truly seeks to know the ways and will of Christ in their life.
You see, living for eternal things bring great security to a man’s soul. The reason there is so much fear today in this world is most people are living for self, to please self. They want this and that and therefore they live for this and that and when they lose their health or wealth or friends they are miserable because none of those things are eternal.
Live for the eternal and the joy of the Lord will fill your soul.
Set your Affections - 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Who is to be worshipped, honored, bowed to and given first place in our lives? Exodus 20:1-3 – God! Remember God will honor those who honor Him.
Steadfast - 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When you are dead to your self, nobody can hurt you, nobody can hinder you, nobody can stop you from living a life for the Lord. We only get hurt when our flesh is controlling our spirit rather than our spirit controlling our flesh.
Secure - 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
If you are only looking for love and joy and peace and purpose in this world you will be a sad and lonely person. True love and peace comes from above. It comes from a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ. If verses 1-3 is true in our lives, we will greatly desire our Lord’s appearance.
B. Our Steps 3:5-4:6
1 – Personal life 3:5-14
Paul preaches we should die to the flesh and live in the Spirit.
Paul stresses that fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: is still sinful and should be shunned by the believer. He continues to name sins that are not to be displayed by the Christian… anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 12 Put on … holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
2 – Spiritual Life 3:15-17
What will happen to someone who dies to self and lives for Christ?
a. God’s peace will flood your heart: 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
b. You will begin to sing and praise the Lord: 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
3 – Domestic Life 3:18-21
Your home life will become wonderful. Love will be discovered. Children will become obedient. How? Why? When? When Christians quit living after the teachings of the world and start living according to Jesus Christ.
18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
20 Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
4 – Business Life 3:22-4:1
Employees treat the employers with respect and visa versa. As you learn Christ you begin to understand why you have the job you have. You work to please Jesus and not your boss (22-24). Employers treat your employees justly. Treat them as Christ would treat them.
22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:
23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
24 Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
4:1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
5 – Secular Life 4:2-6
2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
The Christian’s spiritual life and secular life of a Christian should go hand in hand.
The Christian is not to live one life at church and another at work or on the weekend. That is Gnosticism.
That is willful sin. It is not Christianity.
Your talk at church should be your talk at home and you walk at church on Sunday should be your walk during the week.
Survey of Bible
Colossians: TRIUMPHANT IN JESUS CHRIST
Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
History of Colosee:
Nearly 2,000 years ago in Asia Minor, which is today, Modern-day Turkey, was a small market town called Colosse.
The town was a mix of Phrygians, Greeks and Jews that made up a small bible believing church. We simply call it the Church of Colossians.
The whole area was stained with the scars of past volcanic activity. Within several years of Paul writing this letter, the town of Colosse would be destroyed by an earthquake.
We might have never heard of this place had Paul not penned the inspired words of God to this church at Colosse for the site has never been excavated.
The background for writing this letter:
The more one flounders in sin the more warped and bent that person becomes.
Satan has been on the rampage to destroy anything Godly for 6,000 years and his hatred for God and man has become more bitter than ever.
Though unseen to the human eye Satan reigns in the unseen world, governing over countless fallen angelic beings.
Some of these beings have unbelievable super powers.
Satan’s schemes are driven by his contempt and hatred for God.
As the god of this world and the father of lies, this intellectual genius is the one behind all false religions and philosophies and sin.
He not only has concocted the great lies of the universe such as atheism, Marxism, Babylonism, evolution and humanism but he has concocted the white religious lies that sow doubt in people’s heart then despair, then destruction and finally death.
As the master at mingling truth and error, He will appear three ways to man:
1 - To some people he will appear as an angel of light to captivate their attention by his beauty and miraculous power.
2 - To others he will terrify them with fear as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
3 - And still to others he will deceive them and topple them as a wise and subtle serpent.
When JESUS CHRIST came into the world, TRUTH came into the world.
What Jesus said was written in the Bible and is absolute truth by which man should live.
After Jesus’ victory over Satan, the Holy Spirit of God came to establish the Church of Jesus Christ on this earth, His bride.
The Spirit of God convicted men and converts those who receive Christ by faith.
This great light of God, the Church, was put on this earth as an instrument in God’s hand to keep the Evil One in check.
Given to the Church was the great power to combat and control Satan’s seat (Matthew 16:13-18).
The Church can do this through prayer, worship and righteousness.
A - When Israel was running the show Satan recognized the power available to them by God and thus, his goal was to compromise Israel. History reveals that he succeeded.
B - When Christ was on the earth Satan focused all his attention towards the doubt, denial, dispersion of Israel and the death of Christ.
He succeeded but unbeknown to him it was to his own defeat.
C - When the Church began Satan knew that this empire would be his ruin if he did not compromise it and stamp it out.
For 300 years he hurled great persecution at God’s church trying to destroy it but he failed.
Satan thought the church would be easy to conquer, for it was made up of ordinary people like you and me.
It was made up of carpenters and bakers and butchers and fisherman. Thank God that inside of these very ordinary people was the Spirit of the living God.
Their great power was the instrument of prayer that God gave them. Every time God’s people fell on their knees Satan’s kingdom shook.
For God gave to His Church the greatest power in the world. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you.”
Satan concluded that he could do only one thing to destroy the church. He had to compromise it if he was to corrupt it.
So he took religious people, not spirit filled, not blood washed, but religious people who had knowledge but not the Spirit of God.
They were kind and often loving people that kindly denied and distorted and debased New Testament truths.
They added to or they took away from Christ’s doctrines.
They attempted to get the focus of the church off Jesus Christ and on anything else (politics, social activity, clubs, games, money).
Folks we need to keep our focus on Christ, yea on “things above.”
We need to live for Christ and like Christ. We need to read His words daily and many times a day. We need to pray and pray and pray.
We need to keep our hearts clean and sins confessed minute by minute.
We need to keep a sweet moment by moment fellowship with our Lord and Savior.
NOW, in the Church of Colossians a group of men and women came in professing Christ. This church like many churches took them in with open arms only to discover later that something was seriously wrong.
The pastor, Ep’ a phras, was a tremendous man who loved the Lord but when he was confronted with the intellectual Gnostics and their philosophies it made his head swim. He didn’t know what to do.
Had the philosophy been raw paganism, Epaphras could have dealt with it. *Paganism related to those who worshiped false gods, demon spirits and many gods, statues and images.
Had it the philosophy been obsolete Judaism, again he could have dealt with it. *Judaism was the worship of the Old Testament feast, ceremonies and circumcision which was now dead.
But, the Gnostics mixed truth and error so subtly that Epaphras needed help and guidance and wisdom.
He went to Rome to where the Apostle Paul was in jail and shared his heart with this wise old man.
Paul in turn sought God’s face and sent a letter back to the Church. God gave the apostle wisdom to unravel this confusing tangled web of error and truth weaved by the Gnostics.
In this letter Paul would tell the people what they should be doing. He admonished them to seek eternal things. And he exposes the errors of the Gnostics that was destroying the church.
I - Let’s commence with the errors of the Gnostics:
To understand better the little book of Colossians it is important that we first understand Gnosticism.
In their pride the Gnostics claimed to “Improve” on Christianity.
Let’s examine the five major errors of Gnosticism:
1 - Intellectualism 2:8-10
They claimed to know more and have greater insight to scriptures.
They added to Christianity in many different ways, thus Paul writes…
8 Beware lest any man spoil (corrupt) you through philosophy (intellectualism) and vain deceit (pride), after the tradition (customs, practices) of men, after the rudiments (ground rules) of the world, and not after Christ.
They subtlety through Philosophy (intellectualism) and deceit (falsehoods) told the Christians at Colosse they needed to bring the Old Testaments traditions and New Testaments teachings together.
They said…
1 - “Since Jesus was Jewish and came from the Jews bloodline to the Jewish nation, we must mix Judaism with Christianity to fully please God and have salvation.”
2 – “They needed to accept the writings of the Talmud and the Apocrypha mixed with Greek culture to understand fully what Christianity is all about.”
3 - They should worship the feast days, the fast days, the new moons, the holydays, etc.
We that know the Scriptures know the Scriptures teach that we are not to go back to the Old Testament ways. They were all shadows of the Christ who came. (The Book of Hebrews)
Paul tells us in Hebrews 5:12-14 that the traditions are for babes that drink milk. Now, it is time for the Church to eat meat.
Col 2: 9 For in him (Jesus) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
We are complete in Christ. We are to worship Jesus. We are not to empty our houses of leaven, build booths and have Jewish ceremonies.
Application today: Many who have their PhD’s boast that those who still believe in Christ’s deity or the inspiration of the scriptures or who hold to the old KJV is just ignorant. Well that is nothing new. The critics and the Pharisees will always be with us.
2 – Ritualism - 2:11-13
The Gnostics majored on circumcision for Salvation. This was just one of their rituals.
We know that is false today, but it was a major practice of the Gnostics and of many who tried to mix Judaism with Christianity in the first century.
Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, (spiritual, not physical) in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Judaism gave birth to Christianity as an acorn gives birth to a mighty Oak. We don’t sit under the shade and admire the acorn; we sit under the shade of the Oak and admire its beauty and strength.
3 - Legalism 2:14-17
They added to grace. They said you must 1) keep the feast, 2) the law, 3) the ceremonies, 4) eat according to the dietary laws and 5) keep the sabbath to be saved and to be right with God.
But Paul writes…
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
When Jesus died on the cross he took all those old ways and rituals of Judaism and nailed them to the cross, never to be practiced by Christians again.
They are to never practice the sin offering or the meal offering or the peace offering. They are never to offer the sacrifices. They are to never practice the feast. It has been nailed to the cross.
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Paul reveals a tremendous truth in verse 15. When Jesus defeated Satan, he dragged him openly in the heavens in front of his demonic cohorts revealing to them that Satan is defeated and Jesus is victorious.
Then Paul says…16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
That is clear enough if you are saved. The Gnostics said, “We are more spiritual than you because we practice the feast and we keep the Sabbaths and we observe certain Old Testament holydays and you don’t.
Paul was saying the old ways were a shadow that picture Christ. Therefore, quit living in the shadows and live in the Light.
4 - Mysticism 2:18-19
18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Another false teaching of the Gnostics was to worship angels and to seek the supernatural.
Today religions including some within the realm of Christendom pray to and worship angels or dead men, called saints.
Other mystic religions include Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Christian Science, Catholic, Scientology, Masonry, Reincarnation, and Mormonism. (Be careful Christian not to buy, pray to or believe that angel jewelry will some how protect you.”
5 - Asceticism, 2:20-23.
Asceticism is the discipline of repressing lust.
It says, no meat, no marriage, no wine, and no sex.
It is obviously taught in Catholicism as the priests are forbidden to marry and to eat meats on certain days. (They leave the wine part out. And we must wonder about the sex-part).
When “mother Teresa” was given a motel to house the poor, she tore out the carpet and threw away anything beautiful. She was an ascetic.
They think if it is comfortable it is wrong. Many avoid comfortable and modern clothing because they consider it to worldly.
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
I’ve heard preachers preach against wearing a red dress. My wife has one and I love it.
I’ve heard them say, “Don’t wear anything will frills. Don’t wear jewelry or make up, it is worldly.
I’ve heard some preach against the type of underwear people wear. That is silly. I’ve heard some say women shouldn’t wear sandals or show their toe in church. The Bible never says anything like that. It is ascetic.
Friend if what you wear is modest and if your make-up is modest and if you truly wear it for God’s glory don’t worry about what people say. They are ascetic.
Now when you read Colossians you will understand why Paul wrote this letter and why the Holy Spirit leads him to say exactly what he says.
II – Let’s Continue with the Exhortation to the Colossians.
OUTLINE:
I – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRIST 1:15-29
In the first 14 verses Paul exalts God and at the same time exposes many falsehoods of the Gnostics. Paul reveals the deity, death and demands of Christ.
He praise the Lord… 1:3 …Give thanks to God … for our Lord Jesus Christ, v 4 and show …Faith and love… think about 5 …the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, and the…love in the Spirit.
He pronounces to them… 10 …Walk worthy of the Lord and … in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
And be… 11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
And… 12 Giving thanks unto the Father,… 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Thus Paul makes it clear in the introduction of this letter that we are to rejoice in our free Salvation through the blood of Christ and not according to the teachings of the Gnostics.
A. Paul brings out the Deity of Christ (15-19)
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
The Greek is saying, “When you see Jesus, you see God.” It is saying that Christ is Immanuel. Yea, God became flesh and dwelt among man.
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, and for him:
God created the world. Jesus created the world. How can that be? It is called “Trinity.”
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
He always has been and He always will be. He is creator and God. The Gnostics are hating this preaching.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
And then Paul ends by saying Jesus is the head and the Church is His body. We submit to Christ, not dead ordinances and man-made doctrines.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
The reason Paul majors on the deity of Christ is because the Gnostics did not believe in His deity. They believed that the body was sinful but the spirit was sinless. Thus, Christ could not have had a physical body. Any person or organized religious group that denies that Jesus is God is false.
Therefore, they concluded that any sin of the flesh is justified because God made us like He made us and we may fulfilled all of our fleshly desires.
That is what many religion people believe today. They believe “my spirit is saved,” therefore I may live to please my flesh. That philosophy is satanic and it will send a person to hell.
B. Paul brings out the Death of Christ (20-22)
20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
Paul makes it clear that we are saved, reconciled, made holy and blameless because of what Jesus did and that alone.
Man can add nothing to their salvation. Jesus paid it all! Can’t you see those Gnostics sitting in the service cringing at the preaching and getting more angry with every word?
C. Paul brings out the Demands of Christ 23-29
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Study, learn, grow, and mature so when you stand before Christ you will stand with honor and dignity for the one who died for you. Be a faithful soldier of the cross.
II – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CULTS 2: 1-23
A. We are to experience doctrine 2:1-7
Paul says I know of the conflict you are going through therefore… V 6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
You were saved by grace through faith and you should walk by His daily grace by faith. Don’t get caught up in Gnosticism. Serve by love.
B. We are to expose deceit 2:8-23 Refer to pages 2-5.
III – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN 3:1-4:6
A. Our Sight 3:1-4
Seek Christ - 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
True satisfaction in life is found in everyone’s soul who truly seeks to know the ways and will of Christ in their life.
You see, living for eternal things bring great security to a man’s soul. The reason there is so much fear today in this world is most people are living for self, to please self. They want this and that and therefore they live for this and that and when they lose their health or wealth or friends they are miserable because none of those things are eternal.
Live for the eternal and the joy of the Lord will fill your soul.
Set your Affections - 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Who is to be worshipped, honored, bowed to and given first place in our lives? Exodus 20:1-3 – God! Remember God will honor those who honor Him.
Steadfast - 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When you are dead to your self, nobody can hurt you, nobody can hinder you, nobody can stop you from living a life for the Lord. We only get hurt when our flesh is controlling our spirit rather than our spirit controlling our flesh.
Secure - 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
If you are only looking for love and joy and peace and purpose in this world you will be a sad and lonely person. True love and peace comes from above. It comes from a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ. If verses 1-3 is true in our lives, we will greatly desire our Lord’s appearance.
B. Our Steps 3:5-4:6
1 – Personal life 3:5-14
Paul preaches we should die to the flesh and live in the Spirit.
Paul stresses that fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: is still sinful and should be shunned by the believer. He continues to name sins that are not to be displayed by the Christian… anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 12 Put on … holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
2 – Spiritual Life 3:15-17
What will happen to someone who dies to self and lives for Christ?
a. God’s peace will flood your heart: 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
b. You will begin to sing and praise the Lord: 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
3 – Domestic Life 3:18-21
Your home life will become wonderful. Love will be discovered. Children will become obedient. How? Why? When? When Christians quit living after the teachings of the world and start living according to Jesus Christ.
18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
20 Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
4 – Business Life 3:22-4:1
Employees treat the employers with respect and visa versa. As you learn Christ you begin to understand why you have the job you have. You work to please Jesus and not your boss (22-24). Employers treat your employees justly. Treat them as Christ would treat them.
22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:
23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
24 Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
4:1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
5 – Secular Life 4:2-6
2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
The Christian’s spiritual life and secular life of a Christian should go hand in hand.
The Christian is not to live one life at church and another at work or on the weekend. That is Gnosticism.
That is willful sin. It is not Christianity.
Your talk at church should be your talk at home and you walk at church on Sunday should be your walk during the week.
Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
History of Colosee:
Nearly 2,000 years ago in Asia Minor, which is today, Modern-day Turkey, was a small market town called Colosse.
The town was a mix of Phrygians, Greeks and Jews that made up a small bible believing church. We simply call it the Church of Colossians.
The whole area was stained with the scars of past volcanic activity. Within several years of Paul writing this letter, the town of Colosse would be destroyed by an earthquake.
We might have never heard of this place had Paul not penned the inspired words of God to this church at Colosse for the site has never been excavated.
The background for writing this letter:
The more one flounders in sin the more warped and bent that person becomes.
Satan has been on the rampage to destroy anything Godly for 6,000 years and his hatred for God and man has become more bitter than ever.
Though unseen to the human eye Satan reigns in the unseen world, governing over countless fallen angelic beings.
Some of these beings have unbelievable super powers.
Satan’s schemes are driven by his contempt and hatred for God.
As the god of this world and the father of lies, this intellectual genius is the one behind all false religions and philosophies and sin.
He not only has concocted the great lies of the universe such as atheism, Marxism, Babylonism, evolution and humanism but he has concocted the white religious lies that sow doubt in people’s heart then despair, then destruction and finally death.
As the master at mingling truth and error, He will appear three ways to man:
1 - To some people he will appear as an angel of light to captivate their attention by his beauty and miraculous power.
2 - To others he will terrify them with fear as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
3 - And still to others he will deceive them and topple them as a wise and subtle serpent.
When JESUS CHRIST came into the world, TRUTH came into the world.
What Jesus said was written in the Bible and is absolute truth by which man should live.
After Jesus’ victory over Satan, the Holy Spirit of God came to establish the Church of Jesus Christ on this earth, His bride.
The Spirit of God convicted men and converts those who receive Christ by faith.
This great light of God, the Church, was put on this earth as an instrument in God’s hand to keep the Evil One in check.
Given to the Church was the great power to combat and control Satan’s seat (Matthew 16:13-18).
The Church can do this through prayer, worship and righteousness.
A - When Israel was running the show Satan recognized the power available to them by God and thus, his goal was to compromise Israel. History reveals that he succeeded.
B - When Christ was on the earth Satan focused all his attention towards the doubt, denial, dispersion of Israel and the death of Christ.
He succeeded but unbeknown to him it was to his own defeat.
C - When the Church began Satan knew that this empire would be his ruin if he did not compromise it and stamp it out.
For 300 years he hurled great persecution at God’s church trying to destroy it but he failed.
Satan thought the church would be easy to conquer, for it was made up of ordinary people like you and me.
It was made up of carpenters and bakers and butchers and fisherman. Thank God that inside of these very ordinary people was the Spirit of the living God.
Their great power was the instrument of prayer that God gave them. Every time God’s people fell on their knees Satan’s kingdom shook.
For God gave to His Church the greatest power in the world. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you.”
Satan concluded that he could do only one thing to destroy the church. He had to compromise it if he was to corrupt it.
So he took religious people, not spirit filled, not blood washed, but religious people who had knowledge but not the Spirit of God.
They were kind and often loving people that kindly denied and distorted and debased New Testament truths.
They added to or they took away from Christ’s doctrines.
They attempted to get the focus of the church off Jesus Christ and on anything else (politics, social activity, clubs, games, money).
Folks we need to keep our focus on Christ, yea on “things above.”
We need to live for Christ and like Christ. We need to read His words daily and many times a day. We need to pray and pray and pray.
We need to keep our hearts clean and sins confessed minute by minute.
We need to keep a sweet moment by moment fellowship with our Lord and Savior.
NOW, in the Church of Colossians a group of men and women came in professing Christ. This church like many churches took them in with open arms only to discover later that something was seriously wrong.
The pastor, Ep’ a phras, was a tremendous man who loved the Lord but when he was confronted with the intellectual Gnostics and their philosophies it made his head swim. He didn’t know what to do.
Had the philosophy been raw paganism, Epaphras could have dealt with it. *Paganism related to those who worshiped false gods, demon spirits and many gods, statues and images.
Had it the philosophy been obsolete Judaism, again he could have dealt with it. *Judaism was the worship of the Old Testament feast, ceremonies and circumcision which was now dead.
But, the Gnostics mixed truth and error so subtly that Epaphras needed help and guidance and wisdom.
He went to Rome to where the Apostle Paul was in jail and shared his heart with this wise old man.
Paul in turn sought God’s face and sent a letter back to the Church. God gave the apostle wisdom to unravel this confusing tangled web of error and truth weaved by the Gnostics.
In this letter Paul would tell the people what they should be doing. He admonished them to seek eternal things. And he exposes the errors of the Gnostics that was destroying the church.
I - Let’s commence with the errors of the Gnostics:
To understand better the little book of Colossians it is important that we first understand Gnosticism.
In their pride the Gnostics claimed to “Improve” on Christianity.
Let’s examine the five major errors of Gnosticism:
1 - Intellectualism 2:8-10
They claimed to know more and have greater insight to scriptures.
They added to Christianity in many different ways, thus Paul writes…
8 Beware lest any man spoil (corrupt) you through philosophy (intellectualism) and vain deceit (pride), after the tradition (customs, practices) of men, after the rudiments (ground rules) of the world, and not after Christ.
They subtlety through Philosophy (intellectualism) and deceit (falsehoods) told the Christians at Colosse they needed to bring the Old Testaments traditions and New Testaments teachings together.
They said…
1 - “Since Jesus was Jewish and came from the Jews bloodline to the Jewish nation, we must mix Judaism with Christianity to fully please God and have salvation.”
2 – “They needed to accept the writings of the Talmud and the Apocrypha mixed with Greek culture to understand fully what Christianity is all about.”
3 - They should worship the feast days, the fast days, the new moons, the holydays, etc.
We that know the Scriptures know the Scriptures teach that we are not to go back to the Old Testament ways. They were all shadows of the Christ who came. (The Book of Hebrews)
Paul tells us in Hebrews 5:12-14 that the traditions are for babes that drink milk. Now, it is time for the Church to eat meat.
Col 2: 9 For in him (Jesus) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
We are complete in Christ. We are to worship Jesus. We are not to empty our houses of leaven, build booths and have Jewish ceremonies.
Application today: Many who have their PhD’s boast that those who still believe in Christ’s deity or the inspiration of the scriptures or who hold to the old KJV is just ignorant. Well that is nothing new. The critics and the Pharisees will always be with us.
2 – Ritualism - 2:11-13
The Gnostics majored on circumcision for Salvation. This was just one of their rituals.
We know that is false today, but it was a major practice of the Gnostics and of many who tried to mix Judaism with Christianity in the first century.
Col 2:11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, (spiritual, not physical) in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Judaism gave birth to Christianity as an acorn gives birth to a mighty Oak. We don’t sit under the shade and admire the acorn; we sit under the shade of the Oak and admire its beauty and strength.
3 - Legalism 2:14-17
They added to grace. They said you must 1) keep the feast, 2) the law, 3) the ceremonies, 4) eat according to the dietary laws and 5) keep the sabbath to be saved and to be right with God.
But Paul writes…
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
When Jesus died on the cross he took all those old ways and rituals of Judaism and nailed them to the cross, never to be practiced by Christians again.
They are to never practice the sin offering or the meal offering or the peace offering. They are never to offer the sacrifices. They are to never practice the feast. It has been nailed to the cross.
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Paul reveals a tremendous truth in verse 15. When Jesus defeated Satan, he dragged him openly in the heavens in front of his demonic cohorts revealing to them that Satan is defeated and Jesus is victorious.
Then Paul says…16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
That is clear enough if you are saved. The Gnostics said, “We are more spiritual than you because we practice the feast and we keep the Sabbaths and we observe certain Old Testament holydays and you don’t.
Paul was saying the old ways were a shadow that picture Christ. Therefore, quit living in the shadows and live in the Light.
4 - Mysticism 2:18-19
18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Another false teaching of the Gnostics was to worship angels and to seek the supernatural.
Today religions including some within the realm of Christendom pray to and worship angels or dead men, called saints.
Other mystic religions include Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Christian Science, Catholic, Scientology, Masonry, Reincarnation, and Mormonism. (Be careful Christian not to buy, pray to or believe that angel jewelry will some how protect you.”
5 - Asceticism, 2:20-23.
Asceticism is the discipline of repressing lust.
It says, no meat, no marriage, no wine, and no sex.
It is obviously taught in Catholicism as the priests are forbidden to marry and to eat meats on certain days. (They leave the wine part out. And we must wonder about the sex-part).
When “mother Teresa” was given a motel to house the poor, she tore out the carpet and threw away anything beautiful. She was an ascetic.
They think if it is comfortable it is wrong. Many avoid comfortable and modern clothing because they consider it to worldly.
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
I’ve heard preachers preach against wearing a red dress. My wife has one and I love it.
I’ve heard them say, “Don’t wear anything will frills. Don’t wear jewelry or make up, it is worldly.
I’ve heard some preach against the type of underwear people wear. That is silly. I’ve heard some say women shouldn’t wear sandals or show their toe in church. The Bible never says anything like that. It is ascetic.
Friend if what you wear is modest and if your make-up is modest and if you truly wear it for God’s glory don’t worry about what people say. They are ascetic.
Now when you read Colossians you will understand why Paul wrote this letter and why the Holy Spirit leads him to say exactly what he says.
II – Let’s Continue with the Exhortation to the Colossians.
OUTLINE:
I – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRIST 1:15-29
In the first 14 verses Paul exalts God and at the same time exposes many falsehoods of the Gnostics. Paul reveals the deity, death and demands of Christ.
He praise the Lord… 1:3 …Give thanks to God … for our Lord Jesus Christ, v 4 and show …Faith and love… think about 5 …the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, and the…love in the Spirit.
He pronounces to them… 10 …Walk worthy of the Lord and … in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
And be… 11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
And… 12 Giving thanks unto the Father,… 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Thus Paul makes it clear in the introduction of this letter that we are to rejoice in our free Salvation through the blood of Christ and not according to the teachings of the Gnostics.
A. Paul brings out the Deity of Christ (15-19)
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
The Greek is saying, “When you see Jesus, you see God.” It is saying that Christ is Immanuel. Yea, God became flesh and dwelt among man.
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, and for him:
God created the world. Jesus created the world. How can that be? It is called “Trinity.”
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
He always has been and He always will be. He is creator and God. The Gnostics are hating this preaching.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
And then Paul ends by saying Jesus is the head and the Church is His body. We submit to Christ, not dead ordinances and man-made doctrines.
19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;
The reason Paul majors on the deity of Christ is because the Gnostics did not believe in His deity. They believed that the body was sinful but the spirit was sinless. Thus, Christ could not have had a physical body. Any person or organized religious group that denies that Jesus is God is false.
Therefore, they concluded that any sin of the flesh is justified because God made us like He made us and we may fulfilled all of our fleshly desires.
That is what many religion people believe today. They believe “my spirit is saved,” therefore I may live to please my flesh. That philosophy is satanic and it will send a person to hell.
B. Paul brings out the Death of Christ (20-22)
20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
Paul makes it clear that we are saved, reconciled, made holy and blameless because of what Jesus did and that alone.
Man can add nothing to their salvation. Jesus paid it all! Can’t you see those Gnostics sitting in the service cringing at the preaching and getting more angry with every word?
C. Paul brings out the Demands of Christ 23-29
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
Study, learn, grow, and mature so when you stand before Christ you will stand with honor and dignity for the one who died for you. Be a faithful soldier of the cross.
II – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CULTS 2: 1-23
A. We are to experience doctrine 2:1-7
Paul says I know of the conflict you are going through therefore… V 6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:
7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
You were saved by grace through faith and you should walk by His daily grace by faith. Don’t get caught up in Gnosticism. Serve by love.
B. We are to expose deceit 2:8-23 Refer to pages 2-5.
III – THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN 3:1-4:6
A. Our Sight 3:1-4
Seek Christ - 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
True satisfaction in life is found in everyone’s soul who truly seeks to know the ways and will of Christ in their life.
You see, living for eternal things bring great security to a man’s soul. The reason there is so much fear today in this world is most people are living for self, to please self. They want this and that and therefore they live for this and that and when they lose their health or wealth or friends they are miserable because none of those things are eternal.
Live for the eternal and the joy of the Lord will fill your soul.
Set your Affections - 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Who is to be worshipped, honored, bowed to and given first place in our lives? Exodus 20:1-3 – God! Remember God will honor those who honor Him.
Steadfast - 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When you are dead to your self, nobody can hurt you, nobody can hinder you, nobody can stop you from living a life for the Lord. We only get hurt when our flesh is controlling our spirit rather than our spirit controlling our flesh.
Secure - 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
If you are only looking for love and joy and peace and purpose in this world you will be a sad and lonely person. True love and peace comes from above. It comes from a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ. If verses 1-3 is true in our lives, we will greatly desire our Lord’s appearance.
B. Our Steps 3:5-4:6
1 – Personal life 3:5-14
Paul preaches we should die to the flesh and live in the Spirit.
Paul stresses that fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: is still sinful and should be shunned by the believer. He continues to name sins that are not to be displayed by the Christian… anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 12 Put on … holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
2 – Spiritual Life 3:15-17
What will happen to someone who dies to self and lives for Christ?
a. God’s peace will flood your heart: 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
b. You will begin to sing and praise the Lord: 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
3 – Domestic Life 3:18-21
Your home life will become wonderful. Love will be discovered. Children will become obedient. How? Why? When? When Christians quit living after the teachings of the world and start living according to Jesus Christ.
18 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
20 Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.
21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
4 – Business Life 3:22-4:1
Employees treat the employers with respect and visa versa. As you learn Christ you begin to understand why you have the job you have. You work to please Jesus and not your boss (22-24). Employers treat your employees justly. Treat them as Christ would treat them.
22 Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:
23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
24 Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
4:1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.
5 – Secular Life 4:2-6
2 Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
3 Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds:
4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.
5 Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.
6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
The Christian’s spiritual life and secular life of a Christian should go hand in hand.
The Christian is not to live one life at church and another at work or on the weekend. That is Gnosticism.
That is willful sin. It is not Christianity.
Your talk at church should be your talk at home and you walk at church on Sunday should be your walk during the week.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Biblical Health
THE PARABLE OF THE BREAD
“And a man took wheat from the field and made he bread but men came and took away two parts of the wheat and the bread bred worms and it stank.” RBS
In the book of John, chapter six, a great multitude had gathered to hear Jesus teach in Tiberias, Galilee.
By the end of the day the group of 5,000 men plus women and children were very hungry. Jesus performed a great miracle. He took a boy’s five loaves and two fish and fed this great multitude.
Jesus saw that the crowd wanted to take Him by force and make Him their king so he departed alone to a private place. The disciples boarded their boat and sailed across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum.
That night a storm arose on the sea and thrust fear in the hearts of the disciples. As they were battling for shore they looked and saw an amazing sight. Jesus was walking on the water. They cried out to Him for help and they found themselves safely on the other shore.
The next morning when the crowds in Tiberias could not find Jesus, they headed to Capernaum to find Him. When they did they ask Him a question. Read John 6:28…
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
The American Heritage Dictionary says it means to have firm faith.
The America Version translation translated the word believe as believe, commit, commit to, commit unto, to commit one’s trust to.
The entomology of belive means to hold dear to, to desire.
Dr. Kenneth Wuest, a well known Greek scholar, also holds to the word “believe” as a word of commitment.
30 They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
*35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
Why would the Lord say this? These folks traveled over the sea of Tiberias just to see Jesus. Yes! But their motives were impure. They came to get. Their motive was selfish. They were looking at the very Bread of Life and did not know it.
37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
The Jews got to murmuring and then Jesus responds in verse 47:
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
48 I am that bread of life.
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
We are to reproduce the life Christ lived in His flesh into our lives. We are to propagate His very life. And we can as we feast on Him.
To understand the powerful meaning of this phrase that Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life” you must understand what true “bread” is.
1 – The manna that came down from heaven for the nation of Israel in the wilderness was supernatural bread that contained all the protein, vitamins, minerals and amino acids your body needs to live for on every day.
2 – That bread was to be gathered, cooked and eaten daily. If it was left over till the next day it bred worms. The reason for this was so the Israelites would daily depend on God.
Numbers 11: 7 And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium.
8 And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.
3 – If they did not daily gather and eat the bread, they would first grow weak, the sickly, then they would die.
4 – The process took time but it was absolutely necessarily for ones health and survival among all the diseases of life.
-The process of making bread was true at one time in nearly every household in America.
*Whenever governments or organizations took over bread making, the value and vitality of bread diminished greatly.
The minerals, vitamins, proteins and nutrition needed for the essential growth of the human body were depleted. (Analogy – In churches across the world, people sit in the pew and believe everything the preacher says without studying God’s word on their own. Is it dangerous? The biggest congregation in America with a nation-wide TV ministry has a preacher that publicly admits he will not preach on sin or hell or fornication or hypocrisy or anything that might make people feel bad. He will never mention repentance. He preaches less than ½ the Bible and the people evidently love it.
How is Bread made?
A – Gather the ingredients: whole wheat flour, water, oil, honey and salt, yeast. Whole wheat berries contain 25 minerals and vitamins.
God’s word is all of this to the Christian.
-Jesus is the true bread. He contains all the spiritual fruits we need.
-The water of God’s word is for cleansing.
-The oil pictures the Holy Spirit.
-The honey pictures God’s sweetness.
-The salt pictures God are preservation power against corruption.
B - Mix the ingredients together. It is absolutely a must that we teach and preach and believe the whole council of God. To separate the Bible and to choose not to believe one thing and decided to believe another is to conclude a false idea of Jesus Christ.
C – Form dough into loaves: Christians that love Jesus act like Christians that love Jesus. They talk alike and walk alike, and act alike, just like all loaves of bread though they may be a little different in size, all looks the same. They look like loaves of bread.
(Today with the philosophy of the days of the Judges in the Church, yea the leaven, “every man is doing what he believes is right in his own eyes.” People say, “I am a Christian but I am going to dress like a rock star to reach young people or I am going to use the language and modern punk talk to reach people for Jesus or I am going to live like them to reach them.” Those poor deluded folk have believed one of Satan’s deceptive lies. How sad and how foolish.
D. Let the dough rise. This process takes putting the bread in the oven at 150 degrees for a period of time. The yeast makes the bread rise. Though yeast is often spoken of as evil in the bible. Yeast has hidden nutritious properties especially the B-vitamins that are very nutritious.
You must understanding that as you mix the ingredients of God’s word in your life, you will be placed in the fires and trials of life. That is what makes you rise above the fake bread in the world.
E. Bake the bread. Now that you have proven yourself true God turns the heat up to 350 degrees. The real “Bread of Life” must go through the trials of life if you are to come out as gold.
Now, - you can enjoy the fruit of your labor. That bread is the most nutritious food on the planet.
When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” it referred to the whole wheat bread that was produced for so many years.
-Whole wheat berry is a trinity. It is made up of, the fiber, the starch or endosperm and the germ.
Man has never been content. Though the whole wheat berry is the very best man has for thousands of years attempted to make bread lighter and whiter.
-3,000 years ago the Egyptians attempted to do so. It is written on the walls within pyramids.
-330 B.C. the Greeks sifted the flour to get rid of the bran so their bread could be lighter.
-Rome did the same, extracting the bran. Rome began giving bread away to keep the masses from rioting, yea free distribution. It is called social services.
Isaiah (28:27-29) tells how the whole wheat is to be milled and produced. Isaiah reveals if it is milled wrongly the wheat will be bruised, thus destroying the healthy vitamins in the bread.
The people still sought for whiter bread. The Romans began adding a chalk to color the bread white. This chalk proved to very harmful to the digestion of the Romans.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century alum was used to make flour whiter. Doctors protested warning of side affects of alum. Finally they quit adding alum. By the nineteenth century things changed.
In 1874 the steel rolling mills were introduced in America. The grain was crushed rather than ground. The germ and bran were flattened and sifted out leaving on the starch. The dream of bread becoming whiter was at our fingertips.
The millers began to use variety of bleaching gents which oxidized the pigment of bread. For years millers in the United States used a chemical called nitrogen tri-chloride.
When this agent was tested on dog food, within two weeks, the animals began to suffer from “running fits” of which some died a violet death. That has been banned now in the United States.
Nitrogen trichloride was no longer allowed to bleach flour. The Food and Drug administration allow the millers to use chlorine dioxide, which is a more powerful bleaching agent that nitrogen tri-chloride.
• If your children seem uncontrollable, try taking them off of white bread, white flour, white sugar and sodas. Fifty per-cent of your children’s behavior may be related to their diet. The other fifty percent is related to how you raise them.
• If they are hungry give them an apple, a piece of fruit, a piece of whole wheat bread with real butter and honey.
I personally believe that kids are not hyperactive or have ADHD actually need proper foods and a reality check with proper discipline.
Note: 95% of chlorine dioxide is used on bleaching wood pulp into white paper.
It is so potent that you can not transport it in containers on the roadways of America. It is used in city water plants to make your water pure and it is used to bleach your bread white today.
When the wheat berry is put through the steel rolling mills 98% of manganese, 80% of iron, 75% of magnesium, 70 % of phosphorus, and 50 - 65% of copper, calcium and the potassium minerals are removed. (This depletes your immune system)
80% of thiamine, 75% of niacin, 65% of riboflavin of vitamins are removed.
When you buy bread that says, “enriched with vitamins” it means that they have removed the 25 vitamins and minerals and the protein that is in the germ and fiber and they have sprayed 4 or 8 minerals into the starch.
Let me stop here a minute and say. As the millers have done to whole wheat bread, what so many ministers have done to the preaching of Jesus today. They have taken away repentance, true commitment and conviction and they preach a tip-toe through the tulips salvation and sin is filing our hearts and homes and churches more and more.
Jesus is everything you need for spiritual health. He will heal your heart and He will heal your home. If your heart and home is in disarray, you aren’t eating right spiritually.
“The bread of life” may not be the bread you are partaking of. You take Jesus at face value or Whole Wheat value into your life.
But, if you are serving the modern day “Jesus” that the world as crushed and reformed; and thrown out the principles and power of His ability to change your life, you will carry your spiritually diseased heart and home to the grave.
Ps 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
Ps 119: 10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Ps 119: 69 The proud have forged a lie against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.
I Thess 5: 23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What if we don’t eat whole wheat bread?”
What if we don’t wholly surrender to Jesus?
Dr. Denis Burkitt, a former missionary doctor to Africa, now in London, England won world acclaim for two feats of medical detection:
A – He played a major role in uncovering the causes and pioneering the cure for a form of cancer in children.
B – He became a key figure in confirming the link between man and the “killer diseases” in America today.
1 – He discovered that a high fiber diet with whole wheat bread with the 25 minerals, vitamins, amino acids and protein is absolutely essential for the prevention of western diseases.
Jesus said pray, Matt 6:11 “Give us this day our daily bread.”
2 – He discovered when bread is neglected disease occur.
John 6:50, “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.”
Neglecting bread is not an immediate death. It is a slow, expensive, agnonizing death that takes twenty to forty years. Whereas 30% of cancer is caused by tobacco, 35% is caused by an improper diet. (NCI, National Cancer Institute)
Before the twentieth century with sulfanilamide’s and antibiotics we reduced our risk of common diseases in this country two ways.
A – Building up a resistance to disease by nutrition
B – Immunization (this is man-made and can be dangerous)
Contrary to common belief, whole wheat bread and potatoes (carbohydrates) do not add fat to people, it is the sugars and fats people eat that do so.
3 – He discovered high fiber diets reduce constipation. “Well preacher this is a first. I never thought we would be talking about constipation in Church.” Lack of proper regularity (or releasing waste from your body) breeds many physical diseases. Spiritually speaking we hae a lot of constipated Christians that won’t get rid of their sin and grudges and anger and envy and strife. They are as miserable spiritually as someone who has not done his job in a week or a month.
Listen to some of the diseases physically and make spiritual applications:
A - Dr. Burkitt said, “Fifty years ago in Africa in a 600 bed hospital, two patience a year would have appendicitis. In the United States there would be two a day in that same size hospital. When Africans began eating like Americans the disease grew more common.
B – Dr. Burkitt said, “In the twenty years I was in Africa I never saw a patient with a diverticular disease because of their high fiber diet.”
In America do you know what doctors do when a person has a diverticular disease? He gives them a low fiber diet. Just the opposite is needed. (A diverticular disease deals with protrusions and pouches of the lining wall of the intestines. Bleeding first occurs from one stool and cancer can form as well.
C – A third disease that comes from lack of whole wheat bread is a hiatal hernia. This is when the stomach is pushed upward out of the abdomen and into the thoracic cavity. In North America 1 in 4 adults are affected with this. In Africa 1 in a 1,000 is affected.
A sign of this is heartburn. To reduce all three of these disease in your body eat whole wheat bread. (Not the type in the grocery store but from a bakery that properly grinds the whole wheat berry. (Store bought whole wheat is either easy old or only has 10% of the whole wheat berry. (True whole wheat bread will lose it potency in 72 hours).
4 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Hemorrhoids are due to the lack of fiber in one’s diet.” They are not uncontrollable or hereditary. They are caused from lack of fiber. Medical stats say that half of the populations of U.S. will suffer from hemorrhoids.
5 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Daily bread reduces the risk of varicose veins.” A survey among America ladies in different community settings showed one in two with varicose veins. In New Guinea a survey of 800 women found one with varicose veins.
Varicose veins have nothing to do with pregnancies. In India they have more children per family than American women and yet more men in India have varicose veins then the women. It has to do with one’s diet.
6 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Daily bread reduces diabetes.” There are no cases of diabetes among the African bushmen because of a high fiber diet.
There is a genetic factor with diabetes but there is a stronger dietetic factor.
7 – “Daily bread decreases obesity.” A traditional diet consist of mainly starch and fiber (potatoes and bread, beans, oats, barley, and a little fat, sugar and salt.
But the western diet is mostly fats, sugars, salts and less starch and fiber. Dr. Burkitt said he never found a community who developed obesity problems until after they reduced carbohydrates. It isn’t breads and potatoes that increase our weight but the fats in meats and chips and deserts and processed foods along with so much sugar that causes obesity.
*This past week in the Greensboro paper (Feb, 2008) an article by a medical association said that obesity will be the major cause of cancer over the next few years, more than diet or tobacco.
Olaf Mickelsen, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Michigan State university took a group of overweight young men and they were to consume twelve slices of whole weed bread a day in additional to whatever else they ate. They were advised to minimize their consumption of high-calorie foods like doughnuts and to avoid alcohol. In eight weeks the men lost an average of 19.4 pounds.
8 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Daily bread eliminates large bowel cancer and gallstones.”
Proverbs 23:1,3 “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler… be not desirious of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.”
Doctors did not understand the importance of the tonsils forty years ago, now they know they are important immunological organs.
In the case of whole wheat bread with its fiber and vitamins, if you want to be healthy eat healthy.
Spiritually: It takes time and discipline to eat right physically.
It also takes time and discipline to eat right spiritually.
Are you concerned about your physical well being?
Are you concerned about your spiritual well being?
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”
John 6: 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
BIBLE FOODS FOR LIFE
For your spiritual well being I beg of you to eat of God’s word daily. Eat as much as you can and take time to let it rise in your soul.
In this same way for your physical well being eat healthy: Below is a list of Bible foods that will bring you healing.
Keep in mind if you are to be healthy you must eliminate those foods the world has compromised and eat God’s way.
Apples Song of Solomon 2:5 “Stay me with flagons (raisins) , comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.”
Barley (wheat, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olive oil, honey, bread)
Deuteronomy 8:7-9
7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;
8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;
9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness,
Beans Ezekiel 4:9 “Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. “
2 Samuel 17:28-29 “Brought beds, and basins, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentiles, and parched pulse,
29 And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.”
Bread Ezekiel 4:9 “Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.”
Dairy (yogurt, milk, honey) Isaiah 7:15, 22 “He will eat curds (Yogurt) and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. 22) And because of the abundance of the milk they give, he will have curds to eat. All who remain in the land will eat curds and honey.”
Figs (raisins, bread, water) 1 Samuel 30:11-12 “And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink water;
12 And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins: and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him: for he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights.”
Fish Leviticus 11:9-12 “These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you. Deuteronomy 14:9 / Luke 24:42-43
Fruit Ezekiel 47:12 “And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”
Garlic Numbers 11:5 “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:”
Grains Ezekiel 4:9 “Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.”
Grapes Numbers 13:23 “And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs.”
Herbs Genesis 1:11-12 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
Honey Genesis 43:11 “And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds:”
Meat Genesis 9:3 “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Melon Numbers 11:5 “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:”
Milk Exodus 3:8 “And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”
Isaiah 7:22 “And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.”
Nuts Genesis 43:11 “And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds:”
Olives 2 Kings 18:32 “Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The LORD will deliver us.” James 5:14
Onions Numbers 11:5 “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:”
Pomegranates Deuteronomy 8:8 “A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;”
Spices Exodus 30:23 “Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels,” Genesis 43:11
Vegetables Daniel 1:12-17 Numbers 11:5 Ezekiel 4:9 Genesis 1:11 Genesis 1:29
Wheat Jeremiah 41:8 Ezekiel 4:9
Yogurt (curds) 2 Samuel 17:28-29
“And a man took wheat from the field and made he bread but men came and took away two parts of the wheat and the bread bred worms and it stank.” RBS
In the book of John, chapter six, a great multitude had gathered to hear Jesus teach in Tiberias, Galilee.
By the end of the day the group of 5,000 men plus women and children were very hungry. Jesus performed a great miracle. He took a boy’s five loaves and two fish and fed this great multitude.
Jesus saw that the crowd wanted to take Him by force and make Him their king so he departed alone to a private place. The disciples boarded their boat and sailed across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum.
That night a storm arose on the sea and thrust fear in the hearts of the disciples. As they were battling for shore they looked and saw an amazing sight. Jesus was walking on the water. They cried out to Him for help and they found themselves safely on the other shore.
The next morning when the crowds in Tiberias could not find Jesus, they headed to Capernaum to find Him. When they did they ask Him a question. Read John 6:28…
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
The American Heritage Dictionary says it means to have firm faith.
The America Version translation translated the word believe as believe, commit, commit to, commit unto, to commit one’s trust to.
The entomology of belive means to hold dear to, to desire.
Dr. Kenneth Wuest, a well known Greek scholar, also holds to the word “believe” as a word of commitment.
30 They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?
31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
*35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.
Why would the Lord say this? These folks traveled over the sea of Tiberias just to see Jesus. Yes! But their motives were impure. They came to get. Their motive was selfish. They were looking at the very Bread of Life and did not know it.
37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
The Jews got to murmuring and then Jesus responds in verse 47:
47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
48 I am that bread of life.
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
We are to reproduce the life Christ lived in His flesh into our lives. We are to propagate His very life. And we can as we feast on Him.
To understand the powerful meaning of this phrase that Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life” you must understand what true “bread” is.
1 – The manna that came down from heaven for the nation of Israel in the wilderness was supernatural bread that contained all the protein, vitamins, minerals and amino acids your body needs to live for on every day.
2 – That bread was to be gathered, cooked and eaten daily. If it was left over till the next day it bred worms. The reason for this was so the Israelites would daily depend on God.
Numbers 11: 7 And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium.
8 And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.
3 – If they did not daily gather and eat the bread, they would first grow weak, the sickly, then they would die.
4 – The process took time but it was absolutely necessarily for ones health and survival among all the diseases of life.
-The process of making bread was true at one time in nearly every household in America.
*Whenever governments or organizations took over bread making, the value and vitality of bread diminished greatly.
The minerals, vitamins, proteins and nutrition needed for the essential growth of the human body were depleted. (Analogy – In churches across the world, people sit in the pew and believe everything the preacher says without studying God’s word on their own. Is it dangerous? The biggest congregation in America with a nation-wide TV ministry has a preacher that publicly admits he will not preach on sin or hell or fornication or hypocrisy or anything that might make people feel bad. He will never mention repentance. He preaches less than ½ the Bible and the people evidently love it.
How is Bread made?
A – Gather the ingredients: whole wheat flour, water, oil, honey and salt, yeast. Whole wheat berries contain 25 minerals and vitamins.
God’s word is all of this to the Christian.
-Jesus is the true bread. He contains all the spiritual fruits we need.
-The water of God’s word is for cleansing.
-The oil pictures the Holy Spirit.
-The honey pictures God’s sweetness.
-The salt pictures God are preservation power against corruption.
B - Mix the ingredients together. It is absolutely a must that we teach and preach and believe the whole council of God. To separate the Bible and to choose not to believe one thing and decided to believe another is to conclude a false idea of Jesus Christ.
C – Form dough into loaves: Christians that love Jesus act like Christians that love Jesus. They talk alike and walk alike, and act alike, just like all loaves of bread though they may be a little different in size, all looks the same. They look like loaves of bread.
(Today with the philosophy of the days of the Judges in the Church, yea the leaven, “every man is doing what he believes is right in his own eyes.” People say, “I am a Christian but I am going to dress like a rock star to reach young people or I am going to use the language and modern punk talk to reach people for Jesus or I am going to live like them to reach them.” Those poor deluded folk have believed one of Satan’s deceptive lies. How sad and how foolish.
D. Let the dough rise. This process takes putting the bread in the oven at 150 degrees for a period of time. The yeast makes the bread rise. Though yeast is often spoken of as evil in the bible. Yeast has hidden nutritious properties especially the B-vitamins that are very nutritious.
You must understanding that as you mix the ingredients of God’s word in your life, you will be placed in the fires and trials of life. That is what makes you rise above the fake bread in the world.
E. Bake the bread. Now that you have proven yourself true God turns the heat up to 350 degrees. The real “Bread of Life” must go through the trials of life if you are to come out as gold.
Now, - you can enjoy the fruit of your labor. That bread is the most nutritious food on the planet.
When Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” it referred to the whole wheat bread that was produced for so many years.
-Whole wheat berry is a trinity. It is made up of, the fiber, the starch or endosperm and the germ.
Man has never been content. Though the whole wheat berry is the very best man has for thousands of years attempted to make bread lighter and whiter.
-3,000 years ago the Egyptians attempted to do so. It is written on the walls within pyramids.
-330 B.C. the Greeks sifted the flour to get rid of the bran so their bread could be lighter.
-Rome did the same, extracting the bran. Rome began giving bread away to keep the masses from rioting, yea free distribution. It is called social services.
Isaiah (28:27-29) tells how the whole wheat is to be milled and produced. Isaiah reveals if it is milled wrongly the wheat will be bruised, thus destroying the healthy vitamins in the bread.
The people still sought for whiter bread. The Romans began adding a chalk to color the bread white. This chalk proved to very harmful to the digestion of the Romans.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century alum was used to make flour whiter. Doctors protested warning of side affects of alum. Finally they quit adding alum. By the nineteenth century things changed.
In 1874 the steel rolling mills were introduced in America. The grain was crushed rather than ground. The germ and bran were flattened and sifted out leaving on the starch. The dream of bread becoming whiter was at our fingertips.
The millers began to use variety of bleaching gents which oxidized the pigment of bread. For years millers in the United States used a chemical called nitrogen tri-chloride.
When this agent was tested on dog food, within two weeks, the animals began to suffer from “running fits” of which some died a violet death. That has been banned now in the United States.
Nitrogen trichloride was no longer allowed to bleach flour. The Food and Drug administration allow the millers to use chlorine dioxide, which is a more powerful bleaching agent that nitrogen tri-chloride.
• If your children seem uncontrollable, try taking them off of white bread, white flour, white sugar and sodas. Fifty per-cent of your children’s behavior may be related to their diet. The other fifty percent is related to how you raise them.
• If they are hungry give them an apple, a piece of fruit, a piece of whole wheat bread with real butter and honey.
I personally believe that kids are not hyperactive or have ADHD actually need proper foods and a reality check with proper discipline.
Note: 95% of chlorine dioxide is used on bleaching wood pulp into white paper.
It is so potent that you can not transport it in containers on the roadways of America. It is used in city water plants to make your water pure and it is used to bleach your bread white today.
When the wheat berry is put through the steel rolling mills 98% of manganese, 80% of iron, 75% of magnesium, 70 % of phosphorus, and 50 - 65% of copper, calcium and the potassium minerals are removed. (This depletes your immune system)
80% of thiamine, 75% of niacin, 65% of riboflavin of vitamins are removed.
When you buy bread that says, “enriched with vitamins” it means that they have removed the 25 vitamins and minerals and the protein that is in the germ and fiber and they have sprayed 4 or 8 minerals into the starch.
Let me stop here a minute and say. As the millers have done to whole wheat bread, what so many ministers have done to the preaching of Jesus today. They have taken away repentance, true commitment and conviction and they preach a tip-toe through the tulips salvation and sin is filing our hearts and homes and churches more and more.
Jesus is everything you need for spiritual health. He will heal your heart and He will heal your home. If your heart and home is in disarray, you aren’t eating right spiritually.
“The bread of life” may not be the bread you are partaking of. You take Jesus at face value or Whole Wheat value into your life.
But, if you are serving the modern day “Jesus” that the world as crushed and reformed; and thrown out the principles and power of His ability to change your life, you will carry your spiritually diseased heart and home to the grave.
Ps 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
Ps 119: 10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Ps 119: 69 The proud have forged a lie against me: but I will keep thy precepts with my whole heart.
I Thess 5: 23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What if we don’t eat whole wheat bread?”
What if we don’t wholly surrender to Jesus?
Dr. Denis Burkitt, a former missionary doctor to Africa, now in London, England won world acclaim for two feats of medical detection:
A – He played a major role in uncovering the causes and pioneering the cure for a form of cancer in children.
B – He became a key figure in confirming the link between man and the “killer diseases” in America today.
1 – He discovered that a high fiber diet with whole wheat bread with the 25 minerals, vitamins, amino acids and protein is absolutely essential for the prevention of western diseases.
Jesus said pray, Matt 6:11 “Give us this day our daily bread.”
2 – He discovered when bread is neglected disease occur.
John 6:50, “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.”
Neglecting bread is not an immediate death. It is a slow, expensive, agnonizing death that takes twenty to forty years. Whereas 30% of cancer is caused by tobacco, 35% is caused by an improper diet. (NCI, National Cancer Institute)
Before the twentieth century with sulfanilamide’s and antibiotics we reduced our risk of common diseases in this country two ways.
A – Building up a resistance to disease by nutrition
B – Immunization (this is man-made and can be dangerous)
Contrary to common belief, whole wheat bread and potatoes (carbohydrates) do not add fat to people, it is the sugars and fats people eat that do so.
3 – He discovered high fiber diets reduce constipation. “Well preacher this is a first. I never thought we would be talking about constipation in Church.” Lack of proper regularity (or releasing waste from your body) breeds many physical diseases. Spiritually speaking we hae a lot of constipated Christians that won’t get rid of their sin and grudges and anger and envy and strife. They are as miserable spiritually as someone who has not done his job in a week or a month.
Listen to some of the diseases physically and make spiritual applications:
A - Dr. Burkitt said, “Fifty years ago in Africa in a 600 bed hospital, two patience a year would have appendicitis. In the United States there would be two a day in that same size hospital. When Africans began eating like Americans the disease grew more common.
B – Dr. Burkitt said, “In the twenty years I was in Africa I never saw a patient with a diverticular disease because of their high fiber diet.”
In America do you know what doctors do when a person has a diverticular disease? He gives them a low fiber diet. Just the opposite is needed. (A diverticular disease deals with protrusions and pouches of the lining wall of the intestines. Bleeding first occurs from one stool and cancer can form as well.
C – A third disease that comes from lack of whole wheat bread is a hiatal hernia. This is when the stomach is pushed upward out of the abdomen and into the thoracic cavity. In North America 1 in 4 adults are affected with this. In Africa 1 in a 1,000 is affected.
A sign of this is heartburn. To reduce all three of these disease in your body eat whole wheat bread. (Not the type in the grocery store but from a bakery that properly grinds the whole wheat berry. (Store bought whole wheat is either easy old or only has 10% of the whole wheat berry. (True whole wheat bread will lose it potency in 72 hours).
4 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Hemorrhoids are due to the lack of fiber in one’s diet.” They are not uncontrollable or hereditary. They are caused from lack of fiber. Medical stats say that half of the populations of U.S. will suffer from hemorrhoids.
5 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Daily bread reduces the risk of varicose veins.” A survey among America ladies in different community settings showed one in two with varicose veins. In New Guinea a survey of 800 women found one with varicose veins.
Varicose veins have nothing to do with pregnancies. In India they have more children per family than American women and yet more men in India have varicose veins then the women. It has to do with one’s diet.
6 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Daily bread reduces diabetes.” There are no cases of diabetes among the African bushmen because of a high fiber diet.
There is a genetic factor with diabetes but there is a stronger dietetic factor.
7 – “Daily bread decreases obesity.” A traditional diet consist of mainly starch and fiber (potatoes and bread, beans, oats, barley, and a little fat, sugar and salt.
But the western diet is mostly fats, sugars, salts and less starch and fiber. Dr. Burkitt said he never found a community who developed obesity problems until after they reduced carbohydrates. It isn’t breads and potatoes that increase our weight but the fats in meats and chips and deserts and processed foods along with so much sugar that causes obesity.
*This past week in the Greensboro paper (Feb, 2008) an article by a medical association said that obesity will be the major cause of cancer over the next few years, more than diet or tobacco.
Olaf Mickelsen, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Michigan State university took a group of overweight young men and they were to consume twelve slices of whole weed bread a day in additional to whatever else they ate. They were advised to minimize their consumption of high-calorie foods like doughnuts and to avoid alcohol. In eight weeks the men lost an average of 19.4 pounds.
8 – Dr. Burkitt says, “Daily bread eliminates large bowel cancer and gallstones.”
Proverbs 23:1,3 “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler… be not desirious of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.”
Doctors did not understand the importance of the tonsils forty years ago, now they know they are important immunological organs.
In the case of whole wheat bread with its fiber and vitamins, if you want to be healthy eat healthy.
Spiritually: It takes time and discipline to eat right physically.
It also takes time and discipline to eat right spiritually.
Are you concerned about your physical well being?
Are you concerned about your spiritual well being?
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”
John 6: 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
BIBLE FOODS FOR LIFE
For your spiritual well being I beg of you to eat of God’s word daily. Eat as much as you can and take time to let it rise in your soul.
In this same way for your physical well being eat healthy: Below is a list of Bible foods that will bring you healing.
Keep in mind if you are to be healthy you must eliminate those foods the world has compromised and eat God’s way.
Apples Song of Solomon 2:5 “Stay me with flagons (raisins) , comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.”
Barley (wheat, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olive oil, honey, bread)
Deuteronomy 8:7-9
7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;
8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;
9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness,
Beans Ezekiel 4:9 “Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. “
2 Samuel 17:28-29 “Brought beds, and basins, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentiles, and parched pulse,
29 And honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.”
Bread Ezekiel 4:9 “Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.”
Dairy (yogurt, milk, honey) Isaiah 7:15, 22 “He will eat curds (Yogurt) and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right. 22) And because of the abundance of the milk they give, he will have curds to eat. All who remain in the land will eat curds and honey.”
Figs (raisins, bread, water) 1 Samuel 30:11-12 “And they found an Egyptian in the field, and brought him to David, and gave him bread, and he did eat; and they made him drink water;
12 And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins: and when he had eaten, his spirit came again to him: for he had eaten no bread, nor drunk any water, three days and three nights.”
Fish Leviticus 11:9-12 “These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you. Deuteronomy 14:9 / Luke 24:42-43
Fruit Ezekiel 47:12 “And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”
Garlic Numbers 11:5 “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:”
Grains Ezekiel 4:9 “Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.”
Grapes Numbers 13:23 “And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs.”
Herbs Genesis 1:11-12 “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
Honey Genesis 43:11 “And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds:”
Meat Genesis 9:3 “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
Melon Numbers 11:5 “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:”
Milk Exodus 3:8 “And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.”
Isaiah 7:22 “And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.”
Nuts Genesis 43:11 “And their father Israel said unto them, If it must be so now, do this; take of the best fruits in the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, nuts, and almonds:”
Olives 2 Kings 18:32 “Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die: and hearken not unto Hezekiah, when he persuadeth you, saying, The LORD will deliver us.” James 5:14
Onions Numbers 11:5 “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:”
Pomegranates Deuteronomy 8:8 “A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;”
Spices Exodus 30:23 “Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels,” Genesis 43:11
Vegetables Daniel 1:12-17 Numbers 11:5 Ezekiel 4:9 Genesis 1:11 Genesis 1:29
Wheat Jeremiah 41:8 Ezekiel 4:9
Yogurt (curds) 2 Samuel 17:28-29
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Parables of the Lord
THE PARABLES OF THE SOWER
In Matthew 1-9 the king was revealed. In Matthew 10-16 the king was resisted. In Matthew 17-27 the king was rejected. At this time when Jesus gives the parables, he has been resisted and would soon be rejected.
Before we look at this parable and others, understand that a crisis in Israel’s history had arrived.
First, understand it is “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). When Israel fell to the Assyrians and Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar, they loss their political superiority over the nations. “The time of the Gentiles” began.
Today the entire world is in Gentile hands. This period will end with the final destruction of the antichrist, when Jesus Christ returns at the battle of Armageddon. It is then He will set up the millennial kingdom which will be centered in Jerusalem.
Second, it is the “fullness of the Gentiles.” (Romans 11:25). This reveals Israel’s loss of religious superiority over the nations. The “fullness of the Gentiles” began at Pentecost and will end at the rapture.
For 2,000 years before Pentecost, when God had anything to say, He said it for the most part to a Jew and in the Hebrew language.
Now custodianship of God’s truth is entrusted to the spiritual Church, which is predominantly Gentile in character.
After Pentecost when God spoke, He spoke in the most part in Greek and through the Church.
After the Rapture God will restore the religious authority again to the Jews and after the Lord’s return at the end of the apocalypse He will restore the political authority to the Jews.
Because the Jews had resisted and rejected their King, all plans for the immediate visible manifestation of the kingdom were postponed.
So, who are these parables for? They are for us today.
-They show how things are developing now in the King’s absence.
-They reveal God’s secret plans and purposes for our age.
-They reveal His will, ways and works in the dispensation of Grace.
The parable of the sower reveals a lapse in time as in sowing seed.
There is seedtime, a waiting, and a harvest.
The field you notice is different. It is no longer Israel. It is the world.
The Lord would explain the parables to the disciples but blindness would be Israel’s lot.
13:1 The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
2 And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
Sandwiched in-between the giving and the explanation of the Parable of the Sower is the reason Jesus spoke in parables.
Matthew 13: 9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
“You” represents the disciples or believers. “Them” speaks of Israel.
12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Because the disciples had faith, their faith was increased. Because they walk in the light, more light was given them. Because they believed truth, more truth as added to their hearts.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Jesus spoke in parables to reveal truths to the righteous that their hearts might rejoice in time and eternity.
At the same time the Nation of Israel as a whole heard Jesus’ parables but their hearts were hard and their minds were dark. Their only reason for trying to learn what Jesus taught was to critique and criticize and mock Jesus’ words. After all they had already blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
You have heard that trials will make you bitter or better. With Israel’s lost of superiority political you would think they would be humble and cry out to God, but no, their hearts were hard and their minds were darken.
16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
Jesus says to the disciples count yourselves blessed to have the teaching that I am giving you for you are very special.
To understand the parable you must understand about the:
1 – SOWER; 2 – SOIL; 3 – SEED.
1 – Sower – The sower was Jesus Christ. Today the sower is all born again believers who walk in truth and continue to preach this Book.
Example: John the Baptist prepared the soil. Jesus sowed the seed and the disciples reaped the harvest. That happens in churches, communities and nations.
Notice that nothing is really said about the sower. Why? – It isn’t the sower that is important but the Seed.
2 – Seed – The seed is evidently the Word of God. There is nothing better and the only thing that can bring forth life in a lost soul and hope in a wicked world is the word of God.
When God’s Word is shared with others it has the capability of bring forth eternal life and a thousand blessings here and now.
No philosophy of man will give eternal life. Only God’s Word.
Illustration: James Chalmers set sale for cannibal isles. He was greatly loved as a man of God in Britain. When news came back to Britain that he had been eaten by cannibals the people were shocked. Many did not want to believe such a thing happened to a man of God who gave his life for the Lord and whom they loved so.
Yet for those who would visit New Guinea over the next many years would discover 130 mission stations. They would find thousands of converted souls. They would discover that those men who were once men-eaters and who had tattooed on their breast men they had killed, now had been converted to Jesus Christ and would sit quietly at the Lord’s table partaking of communion because their hearts had been regenerated by the seed of God’s word.
3 – Soil – But remember the soil has everything to do with how that seed is grown.
The Soil:
The Lord concentrates, in this parable of the sower, on the soil. So you may understand the different kinds of soil and the different kinds of hearts people have. That is the purpose of this parable.
Thus, we see those who receive the truth of the Word of God… and
Those who receive it only partially or reject it altogether.
You might say there are productive soils and there are problem soils.
1 – The Waywardness of some 13: 18-19
13:4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
13:18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
A – This is the heart of a person who superficially receives your witness. I mean that they are gracious and maybe even kind to you as you share with them their need of Jesus Christ.
But, their response “no thank you.”
Some sit in church week after week, lost, going to hell and seemingly, they don’t care. They would rather be working, making money, playing a game, wishing they were with a friend, than to think on and worship Jesus Christ and have their sins forgiven.
B – The Word is Satanically removed. The “wicked one” represents demons that control that man’s mind; demons that makes him despise Christ, salvation and eternal life; demons that fills his mind with rebellion and lust and sin.
Demons of pride that make that man say, “I don’t believe that.” “I will get to heaven my way.” I don’t have to repent.” “I don’t’ have to profess Christ before men.” No, I am Ok just like I am.”
As soon as the word of God falls on that man’s heart, those demons that he has received into his life inwardly or outwardly remove the very seed thought and before he gets on the highway he is talking about football, baseball, money, and things in this world.
Thus, some hearts are so wayward, that they may never come to Christ. The word wayward means disobedient, unruly, rebellious, defiant, and contrary. “No Results” (An intellectual belief)
2 – The Weakness of Some (13:20-21)
5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
The “Stony places” is a shallow layer of soil atop a lawyer of rocks.
Seeds dropped here will spring up immediately. But it has no roots and it has no moisture and soon the sun scorches the sprouts and it dies.
It pictures one who has little knowledge of true repentance and belief but are enthusiastic, overjoyed and moved emotionally by a powerful message. They are stirred or convinced to make a decision but there is no root or foundation because there is very little understanding of Salvation.
As soon as some one mocks them or criticizes them they give up on their religion. (A fleshly belief)
The Bible says for a believer, “Great peace have they that love thy law and nothing shall offend them.” Psalms 119:165
For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Romans 10:11
High pressure evangelism often produces this kind of shallow conversion. Professions of faith are sought for in many churches so preachers can boast of their professions that year but are they still in the church worshipping God two and three years later.
People who respond to the gospel on this level have awakened souls but not regenerated spirits.
For they lack the “Fruit of the Spirit.”
They are not sheep that follow but goats that must be forced to do anything for God. “No Roots”
3 – The Worldliness of Some 13:22
7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them
22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
The Thorny soil represents the worldliness of some people.
They show initial promise, but no lasting results.
The Thorny soil is part of the curse of mankind ( Genesis 3:18).
Spiritual life is chocked out because of three thorns:
1 – The cares of this world
2 – The deceitfulness of riches
3 – The lust of other things ( Mark 4:19)
1- The Cares of this world refers to problems in life. Every Christian must realize that it rains on the just and the unjust.
Tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes it the homes of believers and unbelievers.
Sickness and cancer and death fall on pagan and Christian.
Christians are not exempt from problems. But we do have advantages because God is our refuge and strength, our very present help in time of trouble (Ps 46:10).
Jesus is our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:11-16).
“All things work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28)
2 – The Deceitfulness of riches refers to the prosperities of life.
It is one of the most lust after sins of the world. People want to be rich. But, wealth can be as much as a snare as poverty and even more deadly.
The devil will often say, “Compromise now so you can serve God in the future.” “Compromise Bible convictions, compromise your family, compromise your worship and you can have more time later to serve God.” Only that future period never comes.
Don’t live for earthy riches, it will bury your spiritual riches.
3 – The lusts of other things. A lazyboy recliner, a favorite TV program and a bag of popcorn on Sunday evening instead of Church is one example of the lust for things.
It refer to the a thousand pleasures in life that takes a person away from God. Pleasure seekers will never be satisfied. The Bible reminds us that the flesh is never satisfied.
Having described the problem soils the Lord turns His attention to the productive soil.
Now, I know you ask, Who is saved in these four soils and who is lost.
Are three saved and one lost or is one saved and three lost. Or do we divide them up 2 and 2? Many great Theologians have opinions. But rather than focus on who might be what, why not focus on the type of heart , yea soil, God wants you to have. (A soulish belief)
4 – The Willingness of Some 13:8,23
8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold
23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Good soil is not hard and dry. It is lose and yielded. It is moist with the water of God’s word. The rocks of sin have been removed.
It receives the seed readily, willingly, eagerly and gladly.
And soon, within weeks you see foliage coming forth.
A genuine conversion is evident by fruit.
1 --The greatest aspect is that spiritual fruit is love.
The person becomes patience, kind and humble
They find themselves content with the life God has given them.
Forgiveness and compassion flows from their lives.
Worship and joy and many other good attributes develop.
A Christian loves God’s word. It is sweet to the taste.
A Christian enjoys praise to the Lord. It is a lovely fragrance.
A Christian loves to fellowship with other Christians. It is pleasant.
2 --Another great and attractive fruit is joy.
God’s people should be the happiest people in the world.
The promise of heaven should flood our sol with pleasure.
The thought of what Christ has done for us should thrill us.
The daily provision of God should make us glad.
But, fruit doesn’t stop there.
Our love and joy for the Lord will make us faithful to God. It will so move us that we will want our children saved and our friends saved.
The fruit of love and joy will make us pray for and witness to our lost family and friends.
-The very fact that we are saved changes us. We no longer produce the thorns of this world.
-Our hearts are no longer hard as rock to the teachings of God’s Words.
-Our eyes have been enlightened and we seek to be more like Jesus Christ
So in this world, don’t expect everybody to react to you by receiving Christ, for hearts are hard, eyes are blind and minds are full of thorns.
But, your heart and mind should be full of God’s fruit. Is it?
Christians will produce fruit. Some will produce 100 fold and some will produce 30 fold but they will produce.
Their will be Christ-like attributes in their lives.
If there is no fruit – there is no conversion according to the parable.
In Matthew 1-9 the king was revealed. In Matthew 10-16 the king was resisted. In Matthew 17-27 the king was rejected. At this time when Jesus gives the parables, he has been resisted and would soon be rejected.
Before we look at this parable and others, understand that a crisis in Israel’s history had arrived.
First, understand it is “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24). When Israel fell to the Assyrians and Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar, they loss their political superiority over the nations. “The time of the Gentiles” began.
Today the entire world is in Gentile hands. This period will end with the final destruction of the antichrist, when Jesus Christ returns at the battle of Armageddon. It is then He will set up the millennial kingdom which will be centered in Jerusalem.
Second, it is the “fullness of the Gentiles.” (Romans 11:25). This reveals Israel’s loss of religious superiority over the nations. The “fullness of the Gentiles” began at Pentecost and will end at the rapture.
For 2,000 years before Pentecost, when God had anything to say, He said it for the most part to a Jew and in the Hebrew language.
Now custodianship of God’s truth is entrusted to the spiritual Church, which is predominantly Gentile in character.
After Pentecost when God spoke, He spoke in the most part in Greek and through the Church.
After the Rapture God will restore the religious authority again to the Jews and after the Lord’s return at the end of the apocalypse He will restore the political authority to the Jews.
Because the Jews had resisted and rejected their King, all plans for the immediate visible manifestation of the kingdom were postponed.
So, who are these parables for? They are for us today.
-They show how things are developing now in the King’s absence.
-They reveal God’s secret plans and purposes for our age.
-They reveal His will, ways and works in the dispensation of Grace.
The parable of the sower reveals a lapse in time as in sowing seed.
There is seedtime, a waiting, and a harvest.
The field you notice is different. It is no longer Israel. It is the world.
The Lord would explain the parables to the disciples but blindness would be Israel’s lot.
13:1 The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
2 And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
Sandwiched in-between the giving and the explanation of the Parable of the Sower is the reason Jesus spoke in parables.
Matthew 13: 9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
“You” represents the disciples or believers. “Them” speaks of Israel.
12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Because the disciples had faith, their faith was increased. Because they walk in the light, more light was given them. Because they believed truth, more truth as added to their hearts.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Jesus spoke in parables to reveal truths to the righteous that their hearts might rejoice in time and eternity.
At the same time the Nation of Israel as a whole heard Jesus’ parables but their hearts were hard and their minds were dark. Their only reason for trying to learn what Jesus taught was to critique and criticize and mock Jesus’ words. After all they had already blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
You have heard that trials will make you bitter or better. With Israel’s lost of superiority political you would think they would be humble and cry out to God, but no, their hearts were hard and their minds were darken.
16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.
17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
Jesus says to the disciples count yourselves blessed to have the teaching that I am giving you for you are very special.
To understand the parable you must understand about the:
1 – SOWER; 2 – SOIL; 3 – SEED.
1 – Sower – The sower was Jesus Christ. Today the sower is all born again believers who walk in truth and continue to preach this Book.
Example: John the Baptist prepared the soil. Jesus sowed the seed and the disciples reaped the harvest. That happens in churches, communities and nations.
Notice that nothing is really said about the sower. Why? – It isn’t the sower that is important but the Seed.
2 – Seed – The seed is evidently the Word of God. There is nothing better and the only thing that can bring forth life in a lost soul and hope in a wicked world is the word of God.
When God’s Word is shared with others it has the capability of bring forth eternal life and a thousand blessings here and now.
No philosophy of man will give eternal life. Only God’s Word.
Illustration: James Chalmers set sale for cannibal isles. He was greatly loved as a man of God in Britain. When news came back to Britain that he had been eaten by cannibals the people were shocked. Many did not want to believe such a thing happened to a man of God who gave his life for the Lord and whom they loved so.
Yet for those who would visit New Guinea over the next many years would discover 130 mission stations. They would find thousands of converted souls. They would discover that those men who were once men-eaters and who had tattooed on their breast men they had killed, now had been converted to Jesus Christ and would sit quietly at the Lord’s table partaking of communion because their hearts had been regenerated by the seed of God’s word.
3 – Soil – But remember the soil has everything to do with how that seed is grown.
The Soil:
The Lord concentrates, in this parable of the sower, on the soil. So you may understand the different kinds of soil and the different kinds of hearts people have. That is the purpose of this parable.
Thus, we see those who receive the truth of the Word of God… and
Those who receive it only partially or reject it altogether.
You might say there are productive soils and there are problem soils.
1 – The Waywardness of some 13: 18-19
13:4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
13:18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
A – This is the heart of a person who superficially receives your witness. I mean that they are gracious and maybe even kind to you as you share with them their need of Jesus Christ.
But, their response “no thank you.”
Some sit in church week after week, lost, going to hell and seemingly, they don’t care. They would rather be working, making money, playing a game, wishing they were with a friend, than to think on and worship Jesus Christ and have their sins forgiven.
B – The Word is Satanically removed. The “wicked one” represents demons that control that man’s mind; demons that makes him despise Christ, salvation and eternal life; demons that fills his mind with rebellion and lust and sin.
Demons of pride that make that man say, “I don’t believe that.” “I will get to heaven my way.” I don’t have to repent.” “I don’t’ have to profess Christ before men.” No, I am Ok just like I am.”
As soon as the word of God falls on that man’s heart, those demons that he has received into his life inwardly or outwardly remove the very seed thought and before he gets on the highway he is talking about football, baseball, money, and things in this world.
Thus, some hearts are so wayward, that they may never come to Christ. The word wayward means disobedient, unruly, rebellious, defiant, and contrary. “No Results” (An intellectual belief)
2 – The Weakness of Some (13:20-21)
5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
The “Stony places” is a shallow layer of soil atop a lawyer of rocks.
Seeds dropped here will spring up immediately. But it has no roots and it has no moisture and soon the sun scorches the sprouts and it dies.
It pictures one who has little knowledge of true repentance and belief but are enthusiastic, overjoyed and moved emotionally by a powerful message. They are stirred or convinced to make a decision but there is no root or foundation because there is very little understanding of Salvation.
As soon as some one mocks them or criticizes them they give up on their religion. (A fleshly belief)
The Bible says for a believer, “Great peace have they that love thy law and nothing shall offend them.” Psalms 119:165
For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Romans 10:11
High pressure evangelism often produces this kind of shallow conversion. Professions of faith are sought for in many churches so preachers can boast of their professions that year but are they still in the church worshipping God two and three years later.
People who respond to the gospel on this level have awakened souls but not regenerated spirits.
For they lack the “Fruit of the Spirit.”
They are not sheep that follow but goats that must be forced to do anything for God. “No Roots”
3 – The Worldliness of Some 13:22
7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them
22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
The Thorny soil represents the worldliness of some people.
They show initial promise, but no lasting results.
The Thorny soil is part of the curse of mankind ( Genesis 3:18).
Spiritual life is chocked out because of three thorns:
1 – The cares of this world
2 – The deceitfulness of riches
3 – The lust of other things ( Mark 4:19)
1- The Cares of this world refers to problems in life. Every Christian must realize that it rains on the just and the unjust.
Tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes it the homes of believers and unbelievers.
Sickness and cancer and death fall on pagan and Christian.
Christians are not exempt from problems. But we do have advantages because God is our refuge and strength, our very present help in time of trouble (Ps 46:10).
Jesus is our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:11-16).
“All things work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28)
2 – The Deceitfulness of riches refers to the prosperities of life.
It is one of the most lust after sins of the world. People want to be rich. But, wealth can be as much as a snare as poverty and even more deadly.
The devil will often say, “Compromise now so you can serve God in the future.” “Compromise Bible convictions, compromise your family, compromise your worship and you can have more time later to serve God.” Only that future period never comes.
Don’t live for earthy riches, it will bury your spiritual riches.
3 – The lusts of other things. A lazyboy recliner, a favorite TV program and a bag of popcorn on Sunday evening instead of Church is one example of the lust for things.
It refer to the a thousand pleasures in life that takes a person away from God. Pleasure seekers will never be satisfied. The Bible reminds us that the flesh is never satisfied.
Having described the problem soils the Lord turns His attention to the productive soil.
Now, I know you ask, Who is saved in these four soils and who is lost.
Are three saved and one lost or is one saved and three lost. Or do we divide them up 2 and 2? Many great Theologians have opinions. But rather than focus on who might be what, why not focus on the type of heart , yea soil, God wants you to have. (A soulish belief)
4 – The Willingness of Some 13:8,23
8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold
23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Good soil is not hard and dry. It is lose and yielded. It is moist with the water of God’s word. The rocks of sin have been removed.
It receives the seed readily, willingly, eagerly and gladly.
And soon, within weeks you see foliage coming forth.
A genuine conversion is evident by fruit.
1 --The greatest aspect is that spiritual fruit is love.
The person becomes patience, kind and humble
They find themselves content with the life God has given them.
Forgiveness and compassion flows from their lives.
Worship and joy and many other good attributes develop.
A Christian loves God’s word. It is sweet to the taste.
A Christian enjoys praise to the Lord. It is a lovely fragrance.
A Christian loves to fellowship with other Christians. It is pleasant.
2 --Another great and attractive fruit is joy.
God’s people should be the happiest people in the world.
The promise of heaven should flood our sol with pleasure.
The thought of what Christ has done for us should thrill us.
The daily provision of God should make us glad.
But, fruit doesn’t stop there.
Our love and joy for the Lord will make us faithful to God. It will so move us that we will want our children saved and our friends saved.
The fruit of love and joy will make us pray for and witness to our lost family and friends.
-The very fact that we are saved changes us. We no longer produce the thorns of this world.
-Our hearts are no longer hard as rock to the teachings of God’s Words.
-Our eyes have been enlightened and we seek to be more like Jesus Christ
So in this world, don’t expect everybody to react to you by receiving Christ, for hearts are hard, eyes are blind and minds are full of thorns.
But, your heart and mind should be full of God’s fruit. Is it?
Christians will produce fruit. Some will produce 100 fold and some will produce 30 fold but they will produce.
Their will be Christ-like attributes in their lives.
If there is no fruit – there is no conversion according to the parable.
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