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Colossians chapter 2 and verse 9.
For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bottling, and you are complete in Him which is the head of all principality and power, in whom also He are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, and putting off the flesh of the sins of the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God.
Who hath raised him from the dead?
In you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath He quickened, together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances, that was contrary to us.
Was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.
And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in it. 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. But the body is of Christ.
Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which you have 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.
Wherefore if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why is the living in the world? Are you subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle not, which are all to perish with using after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Which things have indeed a show of wisdom and will, worship and humility and neglecting of the body, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh.
There are two very important principles.
And there's a portion of the picture and the chapter before, and that is the the Lord Jesus.
As part of faith, God has Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not complete without us. Look at the 18th verse of the previous chapter and he is the head of the body.
Well, a person isn't complete. The head isn't connected to the body. So we are the body and he's the head. He's not complete without us in the verse that we have just read.
Verse 10 and ye are complete in Him. Now there's the converse, there's the opposite. We're not complete with Him.
As children of God born again.
Now the head is in heaven, and Colossians not, we're not seated there yet within, that's in Ephesians. But the hedge is up in heaven because the body is down here. But he sees us now as connected. So we need to be looking up to the head in every way. Without Him we are not complete.
And we need him every minute of our life.
Directed the human body when I get a a something when I get a cut in my finger, my finger doesn't tell my other hand to to ask my feet to walk and get a Band-Aid and put it on. But all my finger does is send a signal to my head to my brain. I got a pain and the head tells the rest of my body what to do so.
We need to remember that we need to bring everything to Him and get our instruction from not complete with Him. We needed to operate minute by minute in our life.
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To work with you to remember that this is a part of the mystery that was spoken of in verse 26 of the first chapter. That even the mystery which have been hidden from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to the state. These things were hidden. The fact that Christ is the head of the body and to the Church.
His, his body, it was a hidden from, in Pine Pass from the, uh, Jews. That was something that was revealed. And uh, the apostle Paul was particularly given to the apostle Paul to reveal what that mystery was so that we would be able to enjoy it. So it may manifest and reveal to us here. So we're not complete without the head and the head is not complete without us.
That's a very important point that you're mentioning brother too. Uh, thinking of a Ephesians chapter 3.
Verse nine and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hid in God.
It was never revealed until the Lord Jesus came, went to the cross, went back to glory and the Holy Spirit comes down and it's just so beautiful to think it was hitting God who created all things by Jesus Christ to the intent that now unto principalities and powers in the heavenly places might be known by the church or the assembly, the manifold wisdom of God, the all various.
Glorious wisdom of God so.
What a what a revelation is then, as we think that God has revealed this glorious mystery to us, that Christ is in US. We're in Christ for all eternity.
It's not really a a mystery to us now. It was that, as you say, which is hidden from God. But we have been let in now to the secret. The secret has been revealed.
The apostle Paul got it and he never saw the Lord Jesus on this earth as a man, but the Lord Jesus chose that man who is the chief of sinners and he has been said he revealed to him that secret. There is lot from the past eternity and in Ephesians 3 it says and by made known to the others through the Spirit, and here it's now all the apostles.
All committed to Timothy and he said to Timothy, the things which thou hast heard of me amongst many witness witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also. Are there some Timothy's here this afternoon? We can't be apostle calls, but we can be Timothy, and he's passing on in those four steps Christ, Paul, Timothy.
To teach others, and they would teach us. And here we are, 1995, learning what the apostle received from Christ and the glory, a mysterious secret. Oh, let's walk in the glute of that secret, not trying to get as close to the world as we can, keep as far away from it as we can, and so to be in the enjoyment of these things.
So he is ahead of all principality and power. And we turn to the first chapter. We see He has delivered us from the authority of darkness.
So we really see who is ahead of that historic, that power. That's what the Lord said to Pilate when he said, uh, you have no authority, but what is giving you from above? He acknowledged pilot's civil authority, but he was the one who had granted the pilots that authority As soon as he walked through this world, his leaders said we're called to obedience. We're not called the disobedience. The principle of the world, one of the rudiments of the world is civil disobedience there against violence because it hurts man.
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But they're not against disobedience because.
God called us to obedience to the world, sees nothing wrong with disobedience, but says.
Children of faith were called to the obedience of the Christ. And so when umm, Peter was, and uh, they were forbidden to preach, he said men ought to obey God rather than man. So if I tell my child to leave the room and somebody puts out their hands, don't go out and my child goes out, he's not being disobedient. He's obeying the proper authority that is his father. And so I just mentioned that here because he is now the head of all principality and power.
And in the address to the Church of Philadelphia, he says he has the keys of David, which he, he doesn't think he's going to happen, but he has them now. And so he, uh, well, he has assumed that position in earthly power on earth. That is the assembly. We can realize that now he has the keys of David. That is the keys of earthly government now. And so we don't need to go asking, uh, the Prime Minister for Christian privileges because.
The one who holds the keys of David is in our midst.
Is that the thought in Ephesians one? Uh, verse 22?
Where at the end of the verse, uh, Speaking of the defendant, Christ says that put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church. Umm.
Season 122 So that it's fairly commonly known amongst Christians that Christ is the head of the church. But it seems to me there's a broader thing that you just described and that is that he's head over, over all things, all principality and power. And he is in that capacity of wealth, uh, a man in whom is strength, a great one on high. And he's that to the church. So that's an added, uh, majesty or glory of Christ that he is towards us.
I don't know if I'm going to say that there are 4 spheres.
Of authority, first of all, there is God-given government and the government passed laws and the people of the country, they obey the law. But suppose there is some unjust injustice there? Well, the courts are, uh, appealed to and the court proves that the government didn't have a right law. So they changed the law a little bit, but they do have recourse.
Now the second thing is I, I boss and I.
Boy, these are things that are in the scriptures and in Ephesians and Colossians. There are masters and there are service. So we have boxes in, uh, our, uh, work for a boss and the boss tells us what to do and we, we do that. But suppose the boss tells us to do something that we don't really think it's right. We do right. We have recourse. Now. The third are the parents or the father particularly.
A father in the home has the authority, God-given authority, to rule his family in obedience. But suppose the father does things that are not quite or orders somebody to do something not right or unfair or really cruel. There's a recourse, but the 4th one is the assembly, and there is no recourse beyond that.
The assembly as the authority from the head, who is the head of the assembly, Not the Lord of the assembly. He's the Lord of individuals, but he's the head of the assembly. There is no recourse. We don't have any choices. I haven't put it that way. Old Testament, yes, choices, but never in the new. It's I'm either obedient or I'm disobedient. And so we don't have choices. It doesn't give us choices because I would make a mistake and I if I made a choice at any time.
He is there and we submit and obey through the assembly and it's very important for us to realize that authority of the assembly. I'd like to point out the two scriptures that fear this note in Ephesians chapter 6, I notice the order. This is a practical consequence, I believe of the British. You're mentioning groups. It says children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right.
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Honor thy father and mother.
Which is the first commandment?
Now the world's order is honored by father and mother God, honorable parents and obeyed them. But the commandments to the children to obey them comes first, and then the commandments on and the parents comes afterwards. And I believe that to preserve us from thinking, well, I don't have to honor them if they're not honorable, I don't have to obey them. And he said, uh, and then the word is to the father to provoke them not to wrap. And then you'll notice that it mentions to the servants who made your masters according to the flesh.
And uh, then, then there is a word, uh, to the masters afterwards. So I don't obey my master if he's, uh, he's uh, a threatening man if he disobey my master if he's a threatening man, because the polls need to obey him from before the exhortation to the master.
And I think this is illustrated also practically in health Epistle to Philemon. And it's interesting that Paul takes up the question of head shift to the Colossians, the headship of Christ over the church in Colossians. But in Philemon he takes up that in the other spirit that you were mentioning, and that is the headship of Philemon as a master. And this relationship actually resist existed because of the fall, because here was a masters place. God didn't intend men to be bond servants or slaves.
And yet God, we see in the epistles of Philemon how Paul not is in a fossil, but as the bondsman is the servant of Jesus Christ, maintains that relationship even though it is a result of failure. And so he sends Philemon back to her own estimates, back to Philemon, and he says, without my mind they would do nothing. And so the apostle does not intrude into the order of Philemon's home to set something right.
Though Philemon was in debt to the apostle Paul and though he was an apostle, and so I believe that those 2GO together because Philemon I believe was from Colossi, perhaps from landed Sia, but there's abundant evidence that he was from Colossians. So Paul is maintaining the headship of finding his own home, a relationship that was a really a result of of the fall and of sorrow that he should have his play. And he sends an estimate back to him. He says without timeline, I would do nothing.
And we see the Lord doing that too. We've had that pointed out to us often in Harry and Martha's home, and we see that the Lord never intruded into that natural order. So.
And we've been taught that, uh, this phrase price is ahead of this home is not scriptural, that the father is the head of the home. The head of every woman is the man.
And, uh, often we take up with these things to say, well, I only follow Jesus. That means I don't have to listen to my brethren in the assembly. I don't have to, you know, we, we tried to get out from underneath what God has established and we see how carefully he maintains that each one of us.
Uh, men particularly bothers, We experience these four as, uh, conditions every day. In other words, a man, he goes to work, so he's under the authority of the boss. So the boss tells him what to do. So that submission to one on the way home, he's driving home. So he's subjected to the government, the government says.
40 mile an hour zone, uh, obey that. That's the government. And so he obeys that when he goes home, he becomes, he's the father there and the children are subject to him. So the three there but on the Lord's day.
He goes into the assembly and there is the final authority, and it is so important, isn't it, for us to realize that.
Loving Head of the Assembly through whom we submit.
Perhaps something that should be spent about that too, because I mentioned that birth that, uh, a man was not to shave off the hair between his eyes for the dead. And I believe there's another one in his spiritual sense. It's the man in the home and in the assembly too. And his position is that a man is not put on that which pertaineth to a woman.
And that is that there is a time called into the Corinthians quiche like man. And uh, if that work, you put in a position of responsibility.
If you abdicate that responsibility, your boss will remove you from that. And if I go home and I advocate that responsibility?
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As head of my home or in the assembly of the brother, uh, or if the elders at Ephesus, as they did, they really neglected the responsibility as elders to watch over the flock of God, then, uh, then there will be sorrowful consequences for that.
And so there is a place for submission in a man, as with, uh, with Samson, that, uh, his long hair was a speak of was really an unnatural thing, womanly submission. But as in the sphere in which God has placed it, we have to occupy that spirit faithfully.
And it's hard because in the world you'll go to work and they don't like to tell anybody to do to do anything anymore. They form a committee and ask you what you want to do. And it's all kind of this rudiment of the world, this worldly confusion. And we may get caught up in that. And they say, well, that's the way we do things that work. But we need to speak diligently to be subject to those in authority over us because they may be our bosses may be active and willing participants in this confusion, so to speak. And.
Surrendering their authorities is always uh.
Uh, we're under them. There's one other verse in connection with this that, uh, was helpful to me that a brother pointed out.
He's with ensuring the Lord, marveled his face.
He said he wasn't worthy that the Lord should come under his house and he said just speak the word. And this is the reasoning, divine reasoning that this ensuring you. She said I being a man under authority and with authority and the way that we learn to properly exercise authority in the home or in the assembly is by being under it.
And I think we understand in a natural sense when we've had an abusive thought, it's been generally somebody who's never ever been subject to anybody. And when we get abused it in that way, it's because we haven't been sub in subjection ourselves. I being a mutton man under authority and with authority, he understood authority and he had faith in connection with the Lord.
Here you see that very, very, very good people like to.
Speak against the government that they did this wrong. They did that wrong. But the Lord says he pushed the basis of men in the government and in authority at work in that. And the reason that for that is that that doesn't give us any reason to to be able to talk back to them. The Lord put them there and where to accept them.
So this is a circumcision made without Judaism. They were circumcised. It was an outward thing, and there could be really no faith in connection with it at all, with an outward mark. But this is the circumcision.
That's made without hands to putting off the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
Until the believer has an entirely different set of motives than the world. But remember when I was a teacher's college that said they had this values clarification, and in it they asked people to come up at the front of the class. These were prospective teachers, and to explain.
Why, they did something and two Christians were called up to the front and one said, well, I would never do that because it's forbidden by the tenants of mine religious group. And he names his evangelical religious group. And the professor said, you know, we have to respect people's religious opinion.
And he said we ought not to violate those. He could understand that that was the rudiments of the world, an outward saying, a rule. But then a young lady was there, and she was put in a position she really didn't want to be in, but she didn't even lift her head. And she said I wouldn't do such a thing because it would be dishonouring to Christ.
And he said I was so embarrassed for her, He said. He said everybody was embarrassed. They got up on the left, 300 of them, without saying a word. He didn't understand the motive like that. But I believe that they were really brought into the presence of God by her comments.
And uh, he was recounting this and was kind of interesting because I don't want to get some stories, but towards the end of the class, I asked him, I said, was that not a good reason for asking? And he kind of blushes in his 10 minutes towards the end of the class, he blushed, He closed his book and he left and everybody and other hundred left the classroom doing the same thing. But if you say I don't do that because I'm brethren, people will understand that they think it's a little odd, but to let, but to really the circumcision of the crisis to do something to please the Lord the world knows nothing about.
00:25:23
It.
Is that not what you get in the Colossians chapter 3 and verse 22, That principle there that servants obey in all things your master according to flesh, Not with my service as men, pleasers, but in singleness of heart fearing God. That's his order, isn't it? The order in the home should be with singleness of heart fearing God, ordering the assembly, the same thing, uh, order in our work.
Same thing gone. The principle is the same singleness of heart, hearing God take our complaints. You know from the Lord that all right now in Genesis 16, watching your slings, $50 by my interest is treating me very hardly. Uh, I can't serve any longer.
No, what those things are there in the 16th chapter of Genesis returns to lawmakers and submit by adults on their hands. There was a proper authority for those there wasn't Canadian properly at the time is Hagar was still on the left to submit, wasn't it?
Oh, OK.
Well, first was a little bit farther. Not only have we died with Christ, that is what Jordan is. A picture of the Red Sea is a picture of Christ's death for us. They saw the water right on either side, but when they crossed the Jordan, they didn't see the water. It was the way back up, almost a mile away.
And so the difference between the two is.
It's not the position only of my having died with crisis, but it is my realizing. I emphasize that. It's my realizing that I have guys with growth. My life shows whether I realize it or not. I can literally say it. We can all easily say it, but are we acting, living as if we have died to the world?
With Jesus on the cross, at least at that time, not within exactly. Do I realize that if I do well in in the in a prophetic way, or at least in the illustration, we've crossed the Jordan, but it's the realizing that they all crossed the Jordan. But do I realize that So it's not only death, but it's very the person is very.
Down they go. Their body goes into the ground and the earth is piled on top of it. They're buried.
That's our position now.
We should really be out of sight.
People often speak of baptism as a testimony of an outward sign of inward work and so on, but you know, in a actual medium and so on. But it's hard to see. Nobody ever asked to be buried, to take a dead person and you buried them. And that is really why the commanders to the baptizer, because, uh, and it's really not as it really is a sign of death.
The person did and you're not expecting anything more of this person. Do you expect any more life out of that body wouldn't bury it. And that's really the point. We get all wrapped up in ourselves even in baptism and it really becomes the opposite to what of which is really a testimony and that is the fact that Christ died so.
Then we also realize that he was raised from the dead. So now we have been raised.
And a whole new life.
Fred, you can't even sin in your new life, can you?
Epistle of John tells us that our new life I can't sin. Am I living that new life?
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I was too, uh, just going on to the first person somehow verse 12 tells us buried with him in baptism, wherein ye also are written with him through the face of the operation of God, with God, with ****** from the dead.
But it's lovely, isn't it, in verse 13? And you being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened.
Together with him.
Having forgiven you all, because marvelous truth isn't it, that this is all done now in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, That you being dead in your sins, the uncircumcision of your Christ, have seen quicken or made alive together with Him. Having forgiven you all though it's beautiful to know that that blessed One who went to that Christ.
Bore the judgment for us and put in the tomb. Raised again the third day.
Send it back. It was right and all the work has been done by him and now is given to us and attributed to us too.
The difference between these adhesions and collections and this connection is this is kind of an illustration of it.
Facts is a picture of our coming out.
Like Exodus and then Philippians is a picture like.
Uh, numbers.
The wilderness journey.
Then they come to the Jordan and they cross the Jordan, but Colossians is like having crossed the Jordan, but just sitting on the bank on the West Bank. You often hear about the West Bank. Uh, Colossians is like sitting on the West Bank, but Ephesians is having taken the whole country.
And that's what the difference is in Colossians, or at least in the adhesion second chapter, we are seated.
Not with Christ, but in Christ already in heaven. That's the way Ephesians sees it, the whole possession now of it now of this truth or as Colossians is always looking forward to. Sometimes people don't quite get what the Colossians is about, but if we see that there is that energy required to go on and.
To take possession. And so there as it were, Israel sitting on the West Bank in the land, but not having possessed it. That's Ephesians truth.
I believe that 14 first is greatly misunderstood because many believers believe in what happened when Christ died on the cross. With that he got rid of the law, and really what he did was he got rid of me, so to speak, if I may put it that way, and that Pamela's been written as the law did. Or am I instead?
Of the to the believers, as you said earlier, this for instance, possession of a light now that cannot stand.
So it doesn't want the liar to steal. And so before I was saved, I wanted to do those things and it was against me. Everything that I wanted to do, there was a law against it.
And uh, and so the what you wanted to plow my field? And they said, well, what, what's wrong with plowing fields? The word of God says the plowing of the wicked is sin, plowing another man's field without acknowledging it. And so nothing, even the good things that I did, all my righteousness was this all the righteousness is a filthy rags. Is that nothing that we could do? And the law was entirely against us. And so we felt that. But when he was nailed to the cross.
We received a new light and that new light, the lights and the things are going well. It's not against us anymore. We open the Word of God, the pages of the Word of God, and it's light for our pathway, it's light for our houses until we find instruction and help there. And all those types of shadows in the Old Testament, all that instruction is not against us anymore, but it's to help us. These principles. Therefore, the Word of God is no longer against us.
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He was delivered for a student class of people.
There could be certain occurs all right and used having forgiven you all trespasses. My first fourteen. It says the ordinance was placed against us. It also seems like it's addressable. The cautions of Gentiles in the verse 13 and referring to Jews in verse 14, but the orphan is being against the Jews. So that means so really the Gentiles were never under the law.
They were the sample and the fields. We bought the 1St SO.
Well, we know too that Galantians were they were umm.
Using, uh, using their knowledge, seeking wisdom and philosophy and, and learning. There was a lot of intellectualism there. And I was just thinking too in verse 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinance. So really your obligation. We had an obligation. Man has an obligation before God to listen to what he has to say. And that blessed one, the Lord Jesus wiped it all away on the cross. More as this murder said, it's more than just the law, but it's.
Man putting himself under obligations that he's not able to keep, so he says, blotting out the obligation of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us. As man goes on with that reason mind, he only winds up with his reason in the lost eternity and he loses it all. And so here he says contrary to us and took it out of the way, kneeling into his cross. So the blessed Savior did not only die for my sins, but he died for all my.
Own thoughts and ways and and all that, It's all done away in the work of Christ and the crosses blotted out completely. So it's good to remember that, isn't it?
My brother was talking to somebody at work and he told him to read the Bible.
Why would I want to read that book? Because everything I want to do is if I can't do and everything I don't want to do, it tells me to do it.
But you know, you get a mask and you completely turn them around.
So it's now no longer, you know, it becomes our meat and we don't even get a child doesn't lie because the Bible says you shouldn't. I mean, it's there for our instruction, but you know, the child of God is the child of light now.
So we spoil the principalities and powers that kind of wrecks things, if I may put it that way, or even, uh, all of these things because, uh, the way of Commission and obedience to God is.
Is a password shining light, and the devil has no power over it. Some somebody obedience.
To get into a pathway of disobedience and we have problems, but uh, we're in the pathway of faith and we've got the, the powers and the authorities will kind of spoil us.
The, uh, child of God now being involved by the Spirit of God has been said that, uh, the, he's motivated now by a new, he has a different, he has different views, different thoughts. And his motivation, if he's walking in the Spirit of God is contrary to all the ways of the world and he goes in directions that he would never go in, in his natural state. So it's good to remember that, isn't it? So it's all.
When when one gets saved involved by the Spirit of God?
He's in a he's in a position where he can walk contrary to everything that his world professors to be the right place. We know it's all wrong, but the Spirit of God is the one that was motivates us to do that. Apart from that, we can't we just go along with the clerk of the world, which is always downward.
And I said just a word and bachelor for younger ones and in in connection with these principles because we're just allowed to just say, oh, I just can't understand. Well, the Lord Jesus when he was here, he said the Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in need.
00:40:17
That means that.
Satan couldn't see anything in the Lord that he could attack him on. And so Satan was never able to touch the Lord Jesus. But we might say, well, yes, but we're different. Well, just take a minute to turn to the first Epistle of John.
Chapter. The last chapter of First Epistle of John, chapter 5. Now take this to ourselves. John's got at least the Epistle of John, the First Epistle of John, chapter 5, the last chapter, and the 18th verse.
And we can put ourselves right in here. Now in this verse, we know that whosoever is born of God.
Thin enough. In other words, we have a life now that cannot sin at the physician. Now here comes responsibility.
But he that is begotten of God, that every believer in this room who is a believer in the Lord Jesus.
Keeps himself, keeps himself. You and I need to keep ourselves. And what does it say? And.
The wicked one touches him or her not.
We keep ourselves. I don't need to ask the Lord to keep me. He says we have a life that cannot sin. He that heaps himself, He's the young ones here, each one of us. We were older as well. If we keep ourselves from the world, Satan, the same Satan and the Lord couldn't find anything in the Lord. He won't be able to find things in me if I keep myself pure from all the things that are in this world.
And Satan can't touch me. So this is a wonderful assurance and an encouragement that it is possible to go on in this way. This isn't impossible. He says Satan won't be able to touch us. I just say that as an encouragement to everyone of us, to we're we're kept by the power of God, Yes, positionally, but now he says we can keep ourselves and that wicked one doesn't touch us.
So we can go from these meetings with that confidence that we keep ourselves, the very younger ones. Keep your people away from people that don't love the Lord. People away from them often ask the young people in the Nova Solution Gospel tent. Sometimes they would come back the next year and we wouldn't see them again and so I'd go and visit them. I asked them, what do you think? What would you say is the cause of your not being interested anymore?
And they'd always answer the same way. My friends. My friends.
You know, they need to keep away from those ones that don't go on with the law and that is what is keeping ourselves.
And now that your friends, are they sorry? I'm sorry, I said. They're not, not your friends. Are they going to take you away from the Lord?
I think there's four nodes in this that you were talking about, brother. We know, uh, who's ever born of God's in that lot, the 19th person, we know that we are going 20th, 1St and we know that the summit is covered and on them that we may know of him, but it's true and so on. Well, we don't think we know what authority of God, don't we?
Depression Products.
I didn't mean to take you away from the chapter.
That's how he spoils it by getting us involved in things we don't know, and that's really the next person. He gets involved in things because it's what management is to Christianity. And instead of going on in the simplicity of Christ is that he gets involved in these things. There are shadows and and the voluntary humility, submitting to ordinances and so on, but really we're not a God or institute of the Lord.
And so it brings within the ******* and so it starts with over ritualism and then we find this rationalism getting down in the 18th 1St post, a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, improving into those things that you have not seen.
00:45:04
Vainly popped up and has questioned mine. It's a little bit like a boy checking out his father's top dresser more, if I may put it that way. There are things that the father wants the son to know, and there are things that really are none of the child's business.
And there are things that we read in Corinthians that are given for us to know by spirit, but we may use our minds to probe into things that are not given for us to know.
And, uh, there are many things, the glass coverage that's we've talked about revelation, revelation of the mystery that's an uncovering of things and occult is something that God has covered up. And so man, if we know that, uh, God close to men by the stars and so on, and the old Old Testament God has covered that up. Now that's not the way that God is revealed. And there are certain things that God is covered up. And if we get intruding into those things, we get into difficulty.
And outside of the pathway of faith.
And it's not that we shot not just a laugh when people talk about that, maybe people at work will speak of these things, you know, and it's like somebody groping around in a dark room and they know that there are things that are there. And the world on the one hand will say, oh, it's all a farce, There's nothing to it. And the others say, well, yes, these things are real of this other world. But, uh, we ought to just realize that it's that God has closed the door to that room when we're not to go into it.
That's the real secret and not to just disregard it as something, uh, a charlatan phenomenon necessarily, but it's really an intruding into things that, that God has not given us to know about. That's Deuteronomy chapter 29 and 29, isn't it? Uh, the secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed along us into our children forever, that we may do all the words that this law. So we have things that are given to us. They're giving us to us by the Spirit of God.
For the edification of the spiritual man. And what we find is, uh, that the man that, uh, carnally minded wants something to satisfy the flesh. And so it gives up that which God has revealed. And instead of enjoying it, those things in our school, So things that are revealed, uh, we call and try to find something else. So, uh, what he really is, uh, bringing out here, uh, is that humility and worshipping of angels intruding into those things which he has not seen vainly popped up by his fleshly minds.
Those things we ought to be careful because the fear of God directs our hearts to Christ, exalts Christ before our eyes. And so if we go and we look for things that would exalt and, uh, pop up the flesh in his mind, they don't edify us, uh, and, uh, build us up and see, have our eyes, our spiritual eyes focused on Christ. So we ought to recognize those things that are secret things that we ought not to delve into. Those things that are revealed, we ought to be thanked for They're revealed to us by the Spirit of God.
Uh, thing of that verse, I just forgot where it was. My eye affected my heart. And it's true, isn't it? Uh, looking at, at outward things, it, it has an effect upon us. And uh, thinking again, just, uh, going back to this, uh, verse 16. Let no man therefore judge you in need.
Orange drink, or in respect of the holy day, or a new moon or a Saturday. What are all these pieces of the outless things? Aren't they the man? Because they occupy for these things and be called a very religious man?
You heard that, and I have too. Oh, he's so religious. But it's an outward thing, isn't it? But notice what it says then, which are a shadow in verse 17, a shadow of things to come. They're only a shadow because some of these things are going to take place in the Millennium. Remember, they're going back to some of these things. Some of these things will be prevalent in the millennial reign. Umm, but he says here there are only a shadow of things to come. But the body is a Christ. You're a part of that body.
So it's quite a thing to see that, isn't it?
00:50:00
We didn't mention that these things are freaking in amongst us. There's a warning here, what's, uh, written as a warning to the Colossians. But the Spirit of God, I believe, would warn us today. He says let no man therefore judgment need or drink or a drink or in such a holy day we see, uh, among in Christendom, the keeping of Easter holidays.
Of the.
Ought not to be sold. We, uh, ought to remember the Lord Jesus and his death. The Lord's Day should mean something to us. But, uh, those days that are kept in Christendom and in the religious world, we ought to be very careful to be separate from it.
The 19th first really takes this up because how do we preserve faith? The world has a system of feasts and holidays by which they hope to preserve faith. That is, they say, is to remember the birth of Christ or to remember the death of Christ. And so they have festivals and pageants and so on to try to perpetuate fish. But that's not a means by which God has determined that faith should be maintained.
It's what we have in the 1930s that the whole not holding the heads from which all of the body and joints and bands having nourished and ministered and knit together.
Increases with the increase in cost. That is the head of the church. He has his instruments and it means by which to maintain faith. And what we're doing right now is that means he told Colossians to, uh, to read the epistle in the assembly and to read the epistle that was at Laodicea. And that's the way the means by which God has chosen to maintain faith and the preaching of the gospel is not by carnal means that we use the way that the world would use by, I don't wanna speak in a negative way, but the world has its means of communicating.
Uh, certain things, but the way that God has chosen to communicate faith is by the preaching. And so I just say this to encourage us because perhaps we feel we're not being relevant or we're really not communicating with the modern generation. But the way by which God has chosen to communicate the gospel, the way by which he's chosen to nourish the body is by the preaching of the word and the maintaining of the word of God continuing to steadfast in the apostle doctrine.
So our hearts are very easily distracted by these things. To get off into some other method by which to do this, then it's not the way of God.
And the solution, sorry, uh, interesting that he mentions here in verse, uh, if you call attention to verse 19 and not holding the head, what does this mean?
Holding the head, esteeming Christ that is following on the Knoll, the one who is the head being attached to him that says not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together.
Now this term has been used in earlier in this chapter, very interesting verse, verse, uh, two, that their hearts might be comforted being knit together. He mentions this twice over being knit together. And I'm sure that they need the sisters that do any knitting know what happens when you, when you begin to knit you, you in trying all these things together and they become one, they become a part of that one piece. And I think it's beautiful to see how God uses that whole word knit, knit together here.
In love and then he says in our verse 19, uh, uh, having and uh, by not, not holding the head from which the body by joint and band, having nourishment ministered and knit together increases in the increase of God. This is his desire. His whole desire is to build us up and to cause us to be holding that head, esteeming Christ as the one who is above it all and the one the only one who can not only.
Not only save us, but care for us. For every step of our journey, we need to be realized that we'd be knit together. Instead of having, uh, dispersions and divisions, we should be knit together and in enjoying the person in Christ himself.
This would teach us, wouldn't it, that we're really, uh, receiving nourishment down from Christ, the head of the Church to our brethren.
00:55:07
And going in and out amongst our brethren is, uh, is something very needful.
For us all, and we suffer the extent that we don't have that in our practical life and in the assembly. And at times I think it's, uh, I might just say it's important to remember this, especially in our day, because as things get weaker and weaker, it's easy to, uh, to disdain or to look down upon, uh, the assembly and it's weakened character that is the assembly as a testimony, especially, uh, where I live, we're down to very small numbers.
And, uh, and we might look at that and say, what do we think?
But the assembly is really in a practical sense, what's nourished us, uh, from down from Christ. And I often think of that verse, I think it's in Proverbs, uh, where it says not to despise thy mother when she is old. And the testimony is, uh, is like our mother in a sense. It's, it's been a source of comfort and nourishing for us. And, uh, when it gets old, we ought not to despise it, but give it more special care. And that's an exercise to it.
So at times, especially, uh, I suppose when we're younger and if we have an active mind, a sense of idealism, uh, we may read ministry or read the word itself and then go out Tuesday night to the reading meeting and say how different and get dissatisfied and upset. But God has ordered, He's set up in the body as it leads him. And he knows how to order our circumstances so that we're around just the ones we need to be around. And we need to, uh, submit to that and have confidence that he knows what he's doing.
And that in weakness, he'll provide for us. And, uh, as the apostle Paul said, uh, when I'm weak, then am I strong? I gotta fight that way. So again, we might read ministry or re listen to tapes the former days, which is an enjoyable thing to do, but it's not a replacement for, uh, the Spirit of God working actively in our lives to our brethren. Ephesians chapter 4. There's another verse that I think bears out the same thought, uh, in verse 16.
For the sense to read back in verse 15.
Speaking or holding the truth, and love may grow up once in Him at all things, which is the head, even Christ. And this is the verse I was thinking about the 16 first, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplier, according to the effectual working in the measure of every party, make an increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. So in a sense, we we really only learn what we learn and how what we have from the Lord.
So that Paul wrote Timothy and said, consider what I say, the Lord gives the understanding in all things. But Timothy learned in another sense from Paul. And uh, Paul was a needful joint of supply in the body and administered nourishment down. And Timothy, as someone mentioned earlier, was responsible to to pass on the nourishment like a joint event himself further on down the line. But this is an interesting expression edifying of itself in love and umm.
We trust that's what we're experiencing.
Uh, the privilege of that this afternoon. So it's not good to, to be, as some of us maybe have been tempted to be and go off by ourselves and say, oh, I can read better ministry at home than what I get in the local assembly. It's good to read good ministry, but it's no replacement for what we get actively by whatever and whatever weakness by the ones and the Lord has surrounded us with where we are today. That is a needful thing. I'd just like to add to that, that both the, these verses in Colossians and also the ones that are just being read to us and, and Ephesians, you'll notice that.
The joints, our joints of supply, in other words, the bones have contact with the other bones of the body. But the joints seem to be the oil, as it were, that feeds this bone, feeds that part of the body. Well, sometimes we need to remember that at least all the time. We need to remember this, our relationship with each other. Are we abrasive?
Do we act as if there was no oil between the joints and squeaking and so on? Well, I believe this is a word for us all, our contact with each other. Is it the love of Christ that constrains us? Or are we rubbing them others the wrong way? We're spoiling our ministry if we do.
The thing here is, uh, in Colossians is a little bit even broader than what we have in, in Ephesians because they're, the ascended Christ is giving gifts in the church. But as you say, I, perhaps I go to an assembly where there's no gift for very little gift. And yet there's still what I need to apply there. The Lord will see to it. The Lord is there himself.
01:00:20
And so I believe that that uh may go to a perhaps being reduced to very great weakness, two or three.
And yet there's what is needed there for me, it supplies unless all things that contribute to life and godliness and.
So we may say, well, there's no gifts there, but the Lord is there.
You say, well, there's no elders in my offender. He's the Ancient of Days. He's there and there's no teachers there. Well, you read the Word of God, all of the teacher. Maybe you could read the word of God in the assembly and not even comment on it. If you're going to receive what you need and the conditions in which the Lord wants you to be to receive us. Maybe if we were in a larger assembly where there was great gifts, maybe in the day in which we've been living that we've been reduced to not very much give a very little evident gift, but the Lord placed within these circumstances.
And if we're subject to experience, to be able to give what's needed.
That's beautiful thought that meal. I, I know of a little gathering that's very stable. Umm, and, uh, in visiting there and we, we realized that there was not much gift there, but they went on together, uh, and happily. And, uh, when, when I came, I didn't feel there was any gift yet. But, uh, however, uh, they were identified now, uh, it's interesting there in Ephesians, this isn't it. Don't get the, we get there. There are gifts given of, uh, like that is from an ascended head.
Definitely gives to the whole body of Christ.
But there's also, as those verses were read to us, there's, there's the, there's the joints in the bands that, uh, nourish one another. And we're, we're nourished by the complements of our freedom, aren't we? We're encouraged and edified and built up just to see them. Perhaps that reason that's, that's to me, that's a edification. It's more than just doesn't have to be a special gift because as you point out.
God is always there. The Apostle Paul in the epilepsy in Philippi, he couldn't be with them. But I'm saying he said the largest radio, he'll always be there.
Romans 125, I think it is. It says that I might impart them to use some spiritual gift. Well, it's nice to come to the meetings and have a little gift for some of the folks and we can come and if we're enjoying something during the week, say it in the meeting.
And that's embarking a spiritual gift to somebody else. Just maybe some sister needs that very little word of encouragement. That's what we need, brother. We don't shouldn't be just depending on one or two, but we should be bringing a little gifts ourselves and that nourishes the whole body.
#70 in the appendix.
We sing in the realms of the blast, that country so bright and so fair, glorious mansions of rest of what must be there in #70 and the appendix.