So please blame him." Just a little while ago we read about a city that banned all handguns. People were arming themselves because of the growth of crime. And so the city fathers got together and demanded that everybody with a handgun surrender it. This past week a little town in Georgia The city fathers got together and enacted a law that every household must have a gun. And anybody who wanted to be exempted had to get an exemption from the city fathers. They were willing to exempt the handicapped. They were willing to exempt those who didn't want to carry a gun for or have a gun for religious reasons. But the law of that little Georgia town tonight says every household must have a gun. The reason is that the lives of people today are in graver danger, possibly, than they've ever been before. Crime is reaching proportions of such magnitude that even here in a place like Park of the Palms, occasionally we gather little ripples it's very hard for us to realize what's going on elsewhere but you know all you've got to do is just take a little trip south go visit some of the believers in Hollywood or Miami and see how their windows are barred and their doors are barred and how before they step out they set the burglar alarm and when they come in have got twenty-five seconds to deactivate it or else all their neighbours think they're getting robbed. It's a terrible day to be living in in that sense. And I suppose that people have never been surrounded by graver dangers than people are surrounded by today. And if that is true in an ordinary sense, it may well be even more true in a spiritual sense. because much of what we have is threatened today. Schaefer has raised a warning cry recently in his book entitled A Christian Manifesto that we have actually been allowing over the past thirty years humanism to take control in the nation so that everything Christian is being very, very seriously threatened. threatened. And he even goes as far as to say in his book that he doesn't think the day is far distant when believers, in order to enjoy the freedoms that the Constitution guarantees to them in religious things, will actually have to begin to become civilly disobedient. you ought to read that book. Unfortunately, Mr. Richards is out of it in the book room, and just when everything's twenty-five percent off. But get hold of a copy and read it. I think it will shake you. But if it's true that today things are more threatened than they've ever been, it is also true that there never has been a day when Christian things were not assailed, and when Christian things were not threatened. So we're going to look at that side of things in Colossians chapter two. We did read the first verse in this chapter because it belongs to our second section. That is, we were talking about the Lord Jesus, who is the sufficient one, being the means of membership in the church, and the strength of ministry in the church. Tonight we're going to see that he is the cure for mischief in the church, and that's where the threat to the church of God comes from. Let's read from verse four. Let me point out two phrases to you. Each one is repeated. Look at verse four, will you, and notice the little phrase, Lest any man. Now that belongs to a warning in that verse about that which threatens us. Look at verse eight and notice the same phrase, Lest any man, because what you have there is a second warning. And then the language changes. In verse sixteen, the verse begins, Let no man. And that's a third warning. We get that phrase once more at the beginning of verse eighteen, Let no man. So that our chapter very easily, we can see, hangs upon four pegs. And it's God's desire, the desire of the Spirit of God tonight. to shake us up a little, and to make us ask some questions about things that are happening around us. They happened in Paul's day. They are still existent today. Things that threaten that which is Christian. Things that can be a threat to us. Things that need to be recognized and to be withstood. Let's find out what they are. Verse four, and this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. Now if you'll glance at your outline, you'll find that I've called this a warning about oratory. Now it's very easy to be swept along and perhaps off one's feet. by a man who has good command of the language, a powerful means of illustration, who can talk in a very, very striking way so that your eyes open wide, and from time to time you'll catch your breath and to be deceived in your listening. So here is a warning about oratory, and we'll talk about it in a moment or two. Now look at verse eight. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. Now this we are calling, for obvious reasons, a warning about philosophy. I don't know what you know about philosophy. I may have mentioned to you about philosophy. the time when my wife, not very long ago, was talking to a lady about her children, and she said her son had graduated from college, and my wife, in order to be very sociable, said, what did he major in? Oh, he majored in philosophy, his mother said. Oh, said my wife, that's very interesting. What's he doing now? He's janitor in the school. So if you've made it in philosophy, there is something you can do. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. Again, we're going to come back to that one. Now the third one, verse sixteen, says this. Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of unholy day or of the new moon or of the Sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come. Let no man therefore judge you. Now this is a warning about legality. And there's a need for this warning to be sounded today. There are lots of people who want to bind us down to. Thou shalt, thou shalt not. Thou shalt, thou shalt not. When the Word of God says, If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. A warning about legality. And then in verse eighteen it says, 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. Now this we are calling a warning about heresy. And obviously worshipping of angels, among these other things, is certainly heretical. Now, if there was a need to sound these warnings in Paul's day, there is certainly, too, a need to sound them today. Now, I wonder how many of you regularly read the Reader's Digest. Would you raise your hand? Let me see. I used to get it, and I don't get it anymore, so please see I get your use copy. Not all of you. I wouldn't know what to do with them all. There's a little thing in Reader's Digest, and the very first thing I always used to turn to in my copies when I got it was this little feature called Improving Your Word Power. How many of you were acquainted with that? Well, that's what I'm going to do tonight. Look at the first word here in a bracket on your outline. Pleonasm. You never heard of that, did you? But that's precisely what Paul is talking about here, pleonism. Look at the next one. The word in the bracket is sophism. Now you may be a little more acquainted with that one, and that's a very interesting word. In fact, it was for the sake of that one that I included the others. The third one is asceticism, because along with legality, he talks about meat. and drink, respecting the holy days, the new moons, and Sabbath days, and so on, asceticism. And then finally there is mysticism, worshipping angels. And we all of us know what an upsurge in the involvement with the occult has taken place in the last three or four years. These warnings are very timely. Let's think about the first one. This I say lest any man should be guide you with enticing words. I don't know whether any of you ever listened to Dr. Schaefer on television. The man who has that all glass cathedral, T. Schaefer, isn't it? No. Schaefer. I knew it started with Schaefer. All right. So it's Schaefer. That's the man. I like to listen to him. Occasionally, he's an orator. He has good illustrations. Very theatrical, but easy to listen to. You know, there are lots of preachers who are good orators. But when they are through and you get your breath and you swallow hard, you say, wasn't he good? But what did he say? Lots of people go to church these days to hear orators, but they are never drawn one tiny bit closer to God. They never get to know what it is to have their sins forgiven. And it's speaking of such that God says, their leaders are blind, leaders of the blind, and they're altogether going to fall into the ditch. I don't know where you come from. But I rather think since you come to Park of the Palms, that when you're back home, you must be associated with a local church that preaches the Word of God, that preaches the Gospel, that ministers Christ. If you don't, get out. You have no right wasting your time putting up with simply a man who's a good preacher but has no message. if he doesn't tell you that you're a sinner, if he doesn't remind you that you need to be born again, if he doesn't tell you that it's only the blood of Christ that can save, you are wasting your time listening to him. Paul knew that there were men who talked this way, and more than that, they actually drew followings after themselves, but they had no ministry for God. You know, in England, years ago, I don't know whether they still do it. When a son couldn't make the grade at anything else, they put him into the ministry. It was always a sort of catch-all. That's what used to happen in generations past. Sad thing for the people who had to listen to them. Now, the Spirit of God does not unfold for us these warnings. He doesn't hold these four things up before us in Chapter Two. without saying there is an antidote. There is a cure. After all, this epistle is a Christological epistle. And have we not stated here that the Lord Jesus is the cure for mischief in the church? Now, orators who haven't the message of God are the cause of mischief in the church. Believers are deceived by them. and led astray by them, and certainly not helped by them. Now our first warning is followed by an exhortation, and it has to do with Christ. If you look at your outline, you'll find that the second warning is followed by an observation, and again, it has to do with Christ. The third one is followed by an explanation, And this, too, has to do with the Lord Jesus. And the last one is followed by an expectation. And once again, the Lord Jesus is at the centre of it. It is Christ and all Christ, because there is no cure for mischief in the church other than in him. And all of the time our attention is brought back to and focused upon the person of the Lord Jesus. Now, how am I going to escape this threat and danger, number one? Look at the exhortation in verse six. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. You've received him. If you walk in him as you received him, no orator is going to deceive you. No orator is going to lead you astray because God himself, to whom you'll be sensitive by his Spirit, will so direct you as to make you smell a rat as soon as ever you find yourself in this situation. It's so necessary for us as Christians to pray that God will make us sensitive, that God will keep us sensitive. And then God will say, you've got to do something yourself in order to remain sensitive. You've got to walk in Christ just as you receive him. Now, how did you receive the Lord Jesus? By working hard? No. By striving mightily? No. By praying earnestly? No. You did it simply by faith. And the Christian life, you know, is a walk of faith. It's a walk of moment by moment dependence upon the Lord Jesus. As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, and you did it by faith, so walk in him. That is by faith. somebody has said of faith, that faith steps out into the seeming void and finds the rock beneath. That's lovely. Faith steps out into the seeming void and finds the rock beneath. Whenever you put your foot out in faith, you have to be prepared for a... I was going to say a surprise. It shouldn't be a surprise, but it so often is, because God always rewards faith. But remember, if before you take a step, you've got to be assured of this, and you've got to be assured of that, and you've got to be assured of the other, there are lots of Christians, and they make no progress, because all the time they are scared, they might make a mistake. There's a very wise adage which says, the man who never made a mistake never made any. if in faith and if in good faith you take a step believing it to be the will of God. Should you make a mistake, God will overrule it because he reads your heart and he knows what your concerns are. And if you're concerned about the glory of God, then you don't have to fear taking that step. But the Christian life is a life of faith. And if you're not walking by faith, your Christian life has come to a standstill and you're becoming spiritually stunted. You've got to take the step by faith. And you know, if you read in the Word of God, the lives of men like the Apostle Paul and so on, you will find that God has a principle. When he indicates the step to be taken, the step of faith to be taken, if you balk at that step, And you say, Lord, I don't think I'm ready for that. Please show me the next one. God doesn't work that way. You take the step he indicates, or else you come to a full stop until it's taken. As many a believer has suddenly come face to face in the word of God with the truth of baptism. He says to himself, I'm afraid of water. Or else he says... I can't imagine in front of all those people going under the water, well, no, I think maybe I'm going to just leave this. You know, the moment God shows to you that the very next step for you as a believer to take is to be baptized in confession of the Lord Jesus, you don't take that step. You can know that you stop at that point because God refuses to show you the next step. It's got to be one... step at a time, God's step and a step by faith. So that's the cure in Christ for danger number one. Now look at danger number two. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit. Philosophy. Sophism. If you will, if you possess a copy of Roger's Thesaurus, if you'd like to find out what Sophism is, just turn to that little volume and read it. This is what he says about Sophism. Fallacy, hair splitting, clap trap. And that's what philosophy comes from. Can I give you an example of it? First I was a polywag beginning to begin. Then I was a slimy toad with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey up a banyan tree. Then I was a doctor with a big DD. A polywag a slimy toad, a monkey, then a man glory be to nothing for this godless plant. That's not science, you know. Science doesn't have anything to do with origin. True science has nothing to do with that which it cannot demonstrate. I know that this parades of science, but it never has been anything more than philosophy. And philosophy is the expression of sophism. And sophism is fallacy, hair-splitting, and clap-trap. I think of another word, sophisticate. Lots of people want to be sophisticated. Don't have that kind of an ambition. Because it also has its root in sophism. And do you know what sophism is? It's fallacy, hair splitting, and claptrap. Now you don't want anything to do with that? No. Believers are meant to be uncomplicated and simple folk and not sophisticated. And who would want anything to do with fallacy, etc. ? Beware, lest any man spoil you with philosophy. You know it's happening in our colleges. It really is. I'll tell you something else. It's happening in some of our Bible colleges. Here's a young fellow who goes off to Bible college, if you please. The very first thing he does when he gets in the class is listen to his professor say, as he draws himself up to his full height, now I know what your parents taught you, but you are going to be taught to think for yourself. We're going to open the windows, we're going to throw all this stuff outside, and you're going to start thinking for yourself. And here he is, a man who couldn't, is not worthy to lick the boots of the fathers of many of these students, who brought them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, taught them to live godly lives, and to revere the Word of God, for what it is, the Word of God, to never question it, but to accept it, and even Bible school professors sometimes casting doubt upon the Word of God. They are stooping to philosophers. You find these kids come home after their first year in college, and, my, they open their mouths, and such a language comes out in its highfalutin, and it's, well, it's obviously very philosophical. They're just spouting what their professors have taught them, and the price they've paid in some instances is their faith and their simple trust in the living God. I can remember a day when I went to school as a result of a complaint to me on the part of my daughter. She'd been put into an advanced English class and she showed me a book one day that she was required to read. She said, Daddy, I'd like you to read some of these passages. Read page so and so and so and page so and so and page so and page so and so. I don't want to read this kind of stuff. I read it. and I was up at school the next day. Her principal said to me, please don't take her out of that class. The ordinary English class is no challenge to her. If she's going to learn she needs the advanced English class, I said she does not need tripe like this. He said, Mr. Woodhouse, let us face it. These young people, they come into contact with these things. They come into contact with this kind of language. This is the world they live in. I said, my daughter doesn't come into contact with this kind of thing in the home or among her friends because she chooses the right kind of friends. Mr. Woodhouse, please don't take her out of the class. She needs it in order to advance in English. I said, I'm weighing my words when I say this. I would rather have my daughter... grow up to be an ignoramus than have her mind polluted by the kind of literature that you insist on putting into her hands. This is my last word. Take her out of that class. And they took her out of that class. And you know what? She got through college, all right. It didn't do her one little bit of damage. I was glad she was distressed about it. I was glad she didn't want to be involved with it. And I certainly felt that God would make up to her any kind of literary loss that she might incur. In fact, I don't believe that she did incur any. Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy, and in its linked with vain deceit, the rudiments of the world, and it says it's not after Christ. Now again, there's an antidote for this. Take a look at verse ten, will you? And once again, the reference is to the Lord Jesus. Ye are complete in him. Now that's an observation. If you're complete in him, why do you need to add anything to yourself by means of fallacy and hair splitting and clap track? Ye are complete in him. There isn't anything that you need that is not found in Christ, and whatever can be branded as not being after Christ have nothing to do with it. That's the word here. It's possible to be spoiled through philosophy and vain deceit. And that word spoiled has a two-fold meaning. It means marred, spoiled in the sense of being marred, And it means spoiled in the sense of being made a spoil of being robbed. And philosophy and vain deceit and the rudiments of men can do this to the believer. But the antidote lies in realizing all that I want is in Jesus. He satisfies. Joy he supplies. Life would be worthless without him for all things in Jesus. I find. Ye are complete in him. That's the observation. And therein lies the antidote. Look at the third one. Verse sixteen, let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come. Now here's a warning about legality. Let no man judge you. I often wonder how Seventh-day Adventists gets over this one. Let no man judge you concerning meat, or drink, or in respect of the Sabbath, and so on. This must be a tough text for the SDA to get over, since he makes certain demands in the area of meat, and drink, and Sabbath days, and holy days. You know, legality is a very deadening thing. Oh, many of us have had our experience with legalizers in the past. Men who tried to rob us of our liberty and freedom by saying, you mustn't do this, and you mustn't do that, and you mustn't do the other. Do you ladies remember when... You used to fasten on a pendant with trembling fingers because some men insisted on telling you it's a sin to wear jewelry. Do you remember what used to happen about lipstick in days gone by? Do you remember how men used to waste the saints' time by preaching in order to bring them into bondage to legalism? Now, mind you, let me immediately hasten to add We as believers have a very bad habit of swinging to the extreme. And it's possible to go from this position of lack of freedom through legality to a very loose kind of Christian living. Accepting anything, going along with anything. I believe the one is as nauseous to God as the other. I believe that God again wants us to choose a moderate path so that we do not allow men to put shackles on us, but we realize that while all things are lawful, all things are not expedient. All things are lawful, but all things profit not. I'm quoting the Apostle Paul again. See how beautifully balanced he is? Don't have anything to do with these legalizers, he says, but on the other hand... don't imagine that because the sun's made you free you can do what you like in fact Paul said if meat causes my brother to offend I will eat no meat as long as I live I have the power to do it I have the right to do it I have the freedom to do it but if it's going to stumble my brother then I'm not going to do it this is what Paul meant when he said all things are lawful but all things are not expedient and every one of us as believers has to from time to time face up to the fact I can do this, it is quite lawful for me to do this, if I do this thing I'll not be sinning. And yet, if I do it, then this will happen or that may happen and if these things are going to happen I don't want to be guilty of bringing them about and so although I could do this and it's normal for me to do that as a believer I want my life to be more disciplined and therefore I'm going to refrain from these things don't let any man bring you into bondage through legality but do remember that before the way you live, moment by moment, you're answerable to God. When Cain said indignantly, you remember having slain his brother, now he's standing before God, and God says to him, Where is Abel? Remember what his reply was? Am I my brother's keeper? God doesn't say, No, you're not, because every man is his brother's keeper. No man liveth to himself, the word of God. It says, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. But it's one thing to have some other man say to me, look, you can't do this. You can't do that. You cannot do the other. It's another thing to have the Spirit of God say to me, you may do it, but if you do, there'll be consequences. You have a choice to make. Make the choice. I can remember when my daughter... Somebody said to me the other night, I thought you only had a daughter because you only seemed to talk about your daughter. Now I talked about my son, one of them the other nights. You remember, show and tell. So I'm just equalizing now. But I remember when there was a certain thing coming up at school and she came to me and she said, Dad, what shall I do? I said, I'm not going to tell you what to do. You've got to make your own mind up. Of course, you know how I will feel if you do this thing. But she said, there you go. Now, how can I possibly do it when you say that to me? Well, the choice is yours. You know, we do know. The Spirit of God has a way of communicating to us. And when we refuse to do what lawfully we might do, because of the consequences and the effect upon somebody else, God honors that. And God blesses that. That's not being bound or being legal. It's being sensitive and pleasing God. Now there's a warning about heresy, and I have just three minutes here. I don't need to say much about it because it is self-explanatory. But before we go to it, what about the antidote for legality? Now here is an explanation. In verse seventeen, the body is of Christ. The body is of Christ. Now that's the antidote for legality. It is also the guide in doing or not doing. What we do affects the body. The body is of Christ. Don't allow yourself to be bound, but do remember, you are your brother's keeper. And once again you see it is Christ. who is the cure for that kind of mischief. Finally 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, and not holding the head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases with the increase of God. Heresy. a worshipping of angels. Voluntary humility or a show of humility. If you will read these things very carefully, you will find undoubtedly penance comes into this picture. I remember being in Montreal and watching dozens, literally, of men and women, going up the long steps of the church, is it the church of some boat prey or, yes, thank you, some man to boat prey, bore long steps, going up on their knees, no mat, and saying a prayer on every step, and some of them reaching the top with bleeding knees, and an assurance that they had pleased God by their penance. But it was a misplaced assurance. That kind of thing accrues no merit before God, because it's trying to add to a work that the Lord Jesus has completely accomplished. Also here is that matter of the occult. intruding into those things which he hath not seen. I'll never forget, literally, the chill that went up my spine, or maybe down my spine. I'm not quite sure which. When one day I walked into a supermarket and saw for sale on one of the shelves a Ouija board. In a supermarket. I don't need to tell you about the occult. And I don't need to tell you how the signs of the last days are abundant all the way around us, especially in this connection. Why we have those who are literally devil-worshippers, and we are importing them day after day. You go to Miami and see the river that flows through the city there. It has now become a polluted river. Do you know why? Because Haitians who come as refugees to this country, they have their voodoo rights on the side of the river, and they cast the entrails, heads, and so on, a beast that they slay during their voodoo incantation into the river, and there's nothing the city fathers will do about it because it's a religious observance. And voodoo, of course, is intruding into those unseen things that we have no business to tamper with. Now, I don't expect you to get involved with voodoo, but, you know, there are believers sometimes who are so brash that they will sort of tinker with a thing like a Ouija board. They will tinker with a thing like a seance without realizing the grave dangers to which they are exposing themselves. I believe that increasingly we've got to raise the warning about the occult, because things are happening so subtly around us. We're hearing about white witches, as well as black witches. We're hearing about the good that there is in spiritism, as well as hearing about the bad. You make up your mind as a believer that you have no part with this. I remember being in a boat, in the middle of a lake, with a young man at camp he was the son of one of our commended workers and as we were rowing out into the lake he wanted to talk to me that's why we were getting away at his insistence from everybody else and you know he pulled from his pocket across It was a special kind of cross, with a special kind of chain. And he told me this has become the director of my life. He had become deeply involved with the occult, and he said, Today, what you said this morning suddenly made me realize what danger I'm in. We prayed together. I believe God cleansed him and restored him. and in my drawer at home I have that cross and that chain I had a long debate with myself as to whether I should destroy it I still have it but I have it because it reminds me of a tremendous triumph that the Lord Jesus gained over Satan that day but I still shake a little when I look at it because I know the power that that object wielded in the life of that young man used as it was by evil spirits. Our time has gone. I mustn't go any further. But you know, there's an expectation that follows this. And again, it revolves around the person of the Lord Jesus. It's from the beginning of chapter three. It says here, Set your affection on things above. That's the antidote and the cure for the mischief. of heresy. If you love the Lord Jesus and your heart is set on things above, you're not going to be deceived by things on the earth and you're not going to be shaken by that for which Satan and demons are responsible. These are the warnings. Christ is the cure for the mischief. Let's think about the exhortation and the observation. Let's think about the expectation God intends us to have our hearts fixed upon Him. When we do, we are totally and absolutely safe. Shall we pray? Our Father, we realize that we are very vulnerable. We are so human. There are many things that attract us. There are many things that appeal to us. There are many things that fascinate us. And Satan is so cunning, he knows what these are. He has minions that can help him to drag us off into bypass meadow and to ruin us spiritually. We ask that we might not only be aware of the dangers that surround us, but that we might realize the truth of the Scripture which says, Let he that think of he standeth, take heed lest he fall. Grant that we might never be foolish enough to turn our eyes away from the Lord Jesus and expect still to make a success of our spiritual lives. We ask this very earnestly, Lord Jesus, in my precious name. Amen.