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I was in Chicago this week for a conference for two days and brought home a souvenir right

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down to my throat, a bad cold.

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So I'm going to use this mic this morning in case I have to cough, I can save your ears

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from listening to that.

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Whenever we have a special event here, things get all moved around.

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And one of the things that we have misplaced is the clock for our service this morning.

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Now I would ask some of you to be a timekeeper, but I'm not sure I can trust with that.

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We looked all over the platform before the service to see if we could find it.

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And as I was sitting here in the front chair, I see something hiding right underneath this

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green plant over here.

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I found some time.

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Look at that.

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And I'm going to have to quit on time.

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I'm going to ask you to open your Bible with me to Colossians chapter 2.

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I believe the complacency is the most dangerous condition of the human soul.

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I think it's more dangerous than denial or blasphemy.

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Complacency is the most dangerous condition of the human soul.

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To be self-satisfied in a mistaken religion is really the devil's anesthesia.

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We have thousands of people who are going to places of worship this morning, most of

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them with the title church on them.

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But in those places they are not hearing the word of God, many of them.

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And yet the people who are going to those houses of worship are very complacent and

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think that everything is okay.

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And what I'm saying to you is that that is the most dangerous condition of the human

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soul, to be complacent in a faith that is wrong.

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You see an admitted pagan makes no pretense of a religious belief and often is easier

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to persuade to come to Christ because of his need than the one who is self-righteous and

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content in a false religious system.

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Religious works can act like an inoculation, giving a person enough of a spiritual experience

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to prevent him from getting the real thing.

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And it's extremely dangerous.

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I'm referring to these sorts of beliefs as self-made religion this morning.

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Self-made religion is fabricated out of one's own ideas about God or about life or the

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future or it's based upon another person's concoction of theology, philosophy and ethics.

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But ultimately self-made religion finds its source in the powers of darkness.

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Colossians 2 and verse 8 suggests that the elemental spirits or what it says in my translation,

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the elementary principles of the world, originate systems of religion and rules and beliefs

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that lead men away from the knowledge of true salvation in Jesus Christ.

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These cosmic spirits, which is what I believe that language refers to, these fallen angels,

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these demons, encourage self-made religion.

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But someone says, well aren't these people sincere though, even though what they have

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learned to believe is wrong, aren't they sincere?

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And the answer is yes, many of them are.

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But sincerity is not the test of whether beliefs are right or whether those beliefs are adequate

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to make a person acceptable to God.

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Sincerity is not enough.

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Neither is popularity.

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You don't find out what the truth is by taking a vote on it or a poll.

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Ancestry is not enough.

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It is not enough to say, well I believe what I believe because my parents or my grandparents

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have believed it.

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If what they believed is wrong, it's still wrong for you too.

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Experience is not an adequate test, for one can have a genuine experience and it not be

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an experience that flows out of truth.

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The only test as to whether a belief system is true is whether it is based upon Jesus

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Christ, the character of His person and the sufficiency of His saving work on the cross

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of Calvary.

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Jesus Christ stands as the judge of all man-made religion, for He alone is appointed by God

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to be the mediator between God and humanity.

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And so my basic thesis this morning is this, that Jesus Christ is supreme.

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He is exalted above all self-made religion.

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Whenever you examine a man-made, self-made religion, you will inevitably find that there

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is a deficiency regarding their opinion of Christ.

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Either in some respect to who He is or what He did on the cross, they will fall short.

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Paul in this text before us today helps us understand the contrast between true biblical

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religion and self-made religion.

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For example in verses 16 and 17, we see this, that self-made religion may involve the shadows,

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but it deprecates or depreciates or devalues the Son, S-O-N.

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Therefore, says the apostle, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or

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in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day, things which are a mere shadow

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of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

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Paul is illustrating to us here that there may be elements of truth in human religions,

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but human religions do not connect with the living Christ, the only Savior of the world.

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They may appear on the surface to be biblical, they may use biblical terms, but if you look

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closely at how they define the terms or how they're using the language, you will find

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error.

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And he gives us an example of this cult that was undermining the church and Colossi.

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They drew upon some of the Old Testament concepts, such as the rules that God laid down for the

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Jews regarding food, there were many of them, and drink, there were not so many of those.

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They incorporated into their man-made cult, their religion, some of the Old Testament

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festivals, those were the annual feasts of the Lord that God set up in ancient Israel.

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They drew into their belief system the monthly observances of the new moon, and even the

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weekly observance of the Sabbath.

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You see, and all of these things would perhaps cause one to think that they were biblical,

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that what they were promoting was right.

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But the apostle says, look, all of these things had their place at one time, but actually

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those things were shadows in the Old Testament.

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You know, a shadow doesn't exist by itself, does it?

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If you see a shadow, you know that there's some object or some body that is projecting

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that shadow.

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And Paul says all of those things, those regulations regarding food and drink and the annual, monthly

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and weekly observances, all of those were shadows of the substance, of the person, of

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Jesus Christ.

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They all pointed to him.

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He is the image behind those shadows.

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He's the one who cast those shadows pictured in the Old Testament rules.

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He's the fulfillment of what was foreshadowed in the Old Testament.

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And so he says, why go back to the shadows when you already have the substance in Jesus

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Christ?

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And the point I'm drawing from this is the self-made religion may involve the shadows,

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but it always devalues the sun.

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There are contemporary religions that likewise include bits and pieces of truth or incorporate

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rituals that hint at the truth, which are like shadows in a certain respect.

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But these contemporary religions fail to proclaim the genuine gospel of Jesus Christ.

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I think, for example, of one cult that says it believes in the Bible, it preaches from

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the Bible, it draws upon the Bible, and yet it adds to the Bible the keeping of the Sabbath.

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And they say that you must worship on the Sabbath, and if you don't, you're the anti-Christ.

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Did you know that you are considered anti-Christ by them because you worship on the day of

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the resurrection, the first day of the week?

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You see, they are incorporating the shadow and failing to understand the significance

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of the sun.

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Who's the fulfillment of the Sabbath?

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I think, for example, of the Roman Catholic Mass, which incorporates similar elements

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to what we use, bread and wine in their case.

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We use grape juice.

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Well, those are the elements that are biblical.

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And yet, when you look closely at what they say about the Mass, they say that those elements

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are actually changed literally into the body and the blood of Jesus, and that you must

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eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus in order to receive grace from God.

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They teach that offering up the Mass on Sunday is offering up the body and the blood of Jesus

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Christ afresh and anew every week or every time a Mass is offered.

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That's false.

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That's false.

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So, you see, there's a ritual there that has truth behind it, but there's incorporated

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with it error.

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That's what I'm saying.

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The self-made religion involves things that are familiar.

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It involves the shadows.

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But self-made religion will always devalue the Son of God.

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I think of some of the fundamentalist churches that are legalists who add rule keeping to

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faith to the point that they depreciate and miss the wonders of God's grace.

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I grew up in a church that was in that direction.

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It wasn't as extreme as some churches.

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But there are some fundamentalist churches that are cultic.

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And in my opinion, the problem is that they are involved in shadows.

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They are involved in things that are man-made.

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And they depreciate Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross of Calvary.

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You see, true religion is all about Jesus Christ.

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It comes from Him.

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It fixes on Him.

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It points to Him.

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It exalts Him.

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It relinquishes the shadows for the reality of the Son of God.

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True religion ultimately is a personal relationship or a union with Jesus Christ that results

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from faith, not rule keeping, not by going back to the shadows and participating in them,

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but by focusing on Jesus Christ the Son.

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The second thing I want to say this morning is that self-made religion may offer spiritual

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experiences, but it will not engender spiritual growth.

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Self-made religion may offer spiritual experiences, but it will not engender spiritual growth.

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Look at verse 18.

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Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship

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of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen inflated without cause by his fleshly

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mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the entire body being supplied and held

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together by the joints and ligaments grows with a growth which is from God.

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The false teachers of Colossi offered spiritual experiences to those believers to persuade

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them to follow them, but these experiences were not of Christ.

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They offered self-abasement, a false kind of humility which was artificial and external.

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It was only a perversion of the genuine Christ-like humility.

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It was an outward show of humility that was not genuine, and it was apparently especially

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tied together with their worship of angels.

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These Colossi heretics were encouraging communion with the angels.

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One could not commune directly with God, they said, because God is pure spirit and we're

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part flesh.

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This goes back to their dualism that I talked about last week.

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So they said, we've got to go through the angels, we've got to worship angels, and so

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they made contact with spiritual beings as part of their cult.

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These spiritual beings deceived them and attracted attention to themselves, which is what evil

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spirits always want to do, to deceive and to get attention and worship for themselves.

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So you see, this cult was involved in experiences people were having.

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I mean, they made contact in the spiritual world that was genuine, but it was the dark

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side, they just didn't realize it.

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Furthermore, they had new and sensational insights and revelations that they claimed

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were from God.

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They took their stand on visions they had seen.

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And so they said, well sure, there's Paul and all of that, but hey, we've got a later

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word from God.

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We've got something that God said to us.

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And so they took their stand on those visions.

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They had experiences, but those experiences would not engender spiritual growth because

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they were cut off from the head.

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They were not holding fast to the head, which is Jesus Christ.

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Paul warns about these heretics.

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He says that the body grows because it's united to Jesus Christ.

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It grows with a growth that is from God.

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Spiritual maturity, you see, comes from a genuine connection with Christ and fellowship

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with Him as our life source, not from spiritual experiences such as these cultists were promoting.

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I want to say to you today that we need to be aware of those who promote various kinds

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of spiritual experiences that claim to be something more that you need as a believer.

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My friend in Jesus Christ, you have all you need.

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You need nothing more.

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And yet there are many people, and they're on television, and you see books in Christian

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bookstores written by them that are heresy, that say you have to have something more.

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You need this new experience.

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You need something additional to what you have in Christ.

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These self-made religions offer spiritual experiences, but those experiences will not

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lead to spiritual growth.

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It only comes when one is genuinely united to Jesus Christ in communion with Him.

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The third thing I want to see in our text is this.

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The self-made religion may foster external confirmation, but it will not affect internal

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transformation.

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False religions may get a person to change on the outside, but false religions cannot

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affect internal change.

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The Colossian heresy promoted asceticism, which is a notion that one can reach a higher

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spiritual state through rigorous self-discipline and physical self-denial.

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Notice what he says in verse 20.

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If you've died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were

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living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as, do not handle, do not

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taste, do not touch?

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He's quoting here the cultists who were saying to these Colossian believers, don't handle

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that, don't taste that, don't touch that, which all refer to things destined to perish

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with the using, in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men.

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These are matters which have to be sure the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion

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and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly

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indulgence.

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Let me repeat, self-made religion may foster external confirmation, but it will not affect

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internal transformation.

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Now, this asceticism apparently derived from the dualistic philosophy again.

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They said the body is evil, therefore we need to deny the body, we need to punish the body.

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Curtis Vaughan says, for ascetics, the body is a thing to be buffeted and punished, a

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thing to be treated like an enemy.

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They see the body as evil and conclude that the way to holiness is to deny all the body's

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desires, refuse its appetites, and cut its needs down to an irreducible minimum.

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Don't do this, don't do that.

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This is the source of monasticism, of monasteries and monks who go to these isolated places

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and deny their bodies.

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This is the source of the Catholic teaching that priests must not marry.

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Peter was married, at least he had a mother-in-law, why would you have a mother-in-law if you

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weren't married?

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Why go through all that pain if you're not going to be married?

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You know I'm kidding.

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So they're not following Peter's example.

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You see it goes back to the same kind of error that Paul was pointing out in the call to

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Colossae.

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That you get more spiritual, you're more holy if you deny the body, asceticism.

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These are man-made rules.

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And Paul says these rules deal with matters that are only temporary and they're insignificant.

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Now to be sure these kinds of rules can produce an external conformity.

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There may be an outward show, an appearance of spirituality, but he says they don't do

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any good in changing the heart.

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The flesh is still the flesh.

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They don't affect an internal change of the heart.

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Rules cannot control the flesh.

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Only the genuine activity of the Spirit of God in us can deal with the flesh and change

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our character to be like Jesus Christ.

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So the key here is not a religion with rules, but a relationship with Jesus Christ.

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The living Christ producing change from the inside out.

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Let me again quote Curtis Vaughan in the Expositors Bible Commentary.

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He says Christianity is not a religion of prescriptions, but a living relationship with

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Jesus Christ.

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This of course does not mean that once we are in Christ everything is permissible.

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That would amount to moral and spiritual anarchy.

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A thing contrary to the very nature of the new life in Christ.

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It does mean that the controls of the Christian life spring from within.

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That's the point.

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Now in this paragraph, as Paul concludes really his exposure of the false teaching of this

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cult, he gives two warnings to the church.

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These follow after the one in verse 8 where he says, see to it that no one takes you kidnapped

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or captive through human thinking and reasoning.

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First of all in verse 16 he says, let no one act as your judge.

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In other words, don't allow someone to take you to task for not keeping their rules, for

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not following their religious system, or for having their experiences.

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Have you ever had that experience?

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Boy, I have.

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And I know that many of you have too.

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You get jumped on because you've not had what they have.

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Because you haven't experienced what they've experienced.

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Because you're not following their rules.

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And the apostle says here, don't get upset by that.

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He says don't accept false guilt.

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Don't be tempted to desert your biblical faith.

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That some religious leader or some college professor or some talk show host or some visitor

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at your door tempts you to leave what you learned in Christ.

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Don't do that.

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Don't let anyone take you to task because of what you believe.

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And when Paul says don't let anyone act as your judge, this does not mean of course that

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there's no basis for judgment or correction in the body of Christ.

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We are to admonish one another.

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We are to warn one another.

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We're to correct one another based upon the word of God.

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But what he's talking about here is man-made religion.

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He says don't be tempted to leave what you have in Jesus Christ and follow after some

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person who comes along and says look, you don't have enough yet.

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Secondly, we see the warning in verse 18, let no one keep defrauding you.

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Apparently that was happening from Paul's perspective.

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And so he says don't let it keep going on.

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Don't be robbed of your prize.

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What does Paul mean here by this?

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Well one writer puts it this way.

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This is Norm Geisler.

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Those who turn believers from the reality in Christ to the shadow of the law disqualify

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them for the prize.

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That is they rob believers of their spiritual rewards.

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As a judge disqualifies those who turn the wrong way in a race, so believers who turn

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from faithfully following Christ will be robbed of their rewards from him.

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That's the point.

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And so keep your eye on the prize, the reward at the judgment seat of Christ for being faithful,

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for standing true, for keeping on in your belief.

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And don't allow anyone to defraud or to rob you of what is yours at the judgment seat.

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My friend, faith in Jesus Christ is not a negative, legalistic religion.

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Faith in Jesus Christ is a vital, life-transforming, positive relationship with him.

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The apostle says we died with him.

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He's going to go on to say next that we've been raised with him in life.

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And therefore set your affection on things above.

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Now listen, if you're here today and you're involved in a man-made religion and your faith

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is not in the Lord Jesus Christ, you need to turn today to him.

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Leave those things that are the shadows and come to the substance, come to the Son of

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God and trust him.

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And if you're a Christian living in a world as we are that is filled with all kinds of

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error and false teaching from many directions, stay in the word of God, stay in fellowship

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with the Lord Jesus Christ and don't allow yourself to be taken off course and don't

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be robbed of your prize at the judgment seat of Christ.

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Keep believing what you know to be the truth, however reasonable the false teacher sounds.

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However enticing the experience seems to be, understand that in Jesus Christ you have it

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all.

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You don't need anything more.

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Let's pray.

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Father, today may our hearts rejoice in this truth as it's found in the text of Colossians

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2 and may we see Jesus as our all in all.

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And I pray that you will make us wise against the popular false teachings that are in our

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world.

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Oh Lord, I pray that none of us will lose our prize.

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I pray that none of us will listen to someone who comes along and takes us to task because

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we haven't followed what they want to say.

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Help us to see that Jesus Christ is supreme, exalted above all human religion.

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In His name we pray, amen.