Would you kindly turn in your Bibles to
the Epistle to the Colossians, and we return
today to the tremendously enriching theme of this
letter of St Paul's, taking up the thread
with verse twenty in chapter two.
Colossians chapter two and verse twenty.
We are going to read the passage that
goes from verse twenty in chapter two to
verse four in chapter three.
And I'll read it now from the New
International Version.
Since you died with Christ to the basic
principles of this world, why, as though you
still belong to it, do you submit to
its rules?
Do not handle, do not test, do not
touch.
These are all destined to perish with use,
because they are based on human commands and
teachings.
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom
in his resurrection, in his ascension, and ultimately
when he comes again in his glory.
Our subject this morning, then, is our union
with Christ.
Let me put it like this, without going
any further into it at this point.
A Christian is not simply a person who
has received the gift of everlasting life neatly
packed up in a package that you hold
and cling to until you get to heaven.
Eternal life is not a gift that God
gives which is separate from himself.
Eternal life is the gift that God gives
by linking us with himself in Christ.
So that every Christian is not just a
person who's received the gift from Christ.
Christ is his life.
He is in Christ.
She is in Christ.
And that is our subject this morning.
Two main things I would like us to
concentrate upon.
There's much more in this passage, but we
must confine ourselves to these two main thrusts.
We look, first of all, at the scope
of our union with Christ and then its
significance, in some measure, at any rate.
The scope of our union with Christ.
Now, in order to stress this, I want
you to look with me at these words
which describe that union of ours with our
Lord.
And I would like you to take special
note of these words.
In verse 20 of chapter 2, you, and
he's addressing all the believers, all the genuine
Christians in Colossae, and I would say on
the basis of that every Christian here in
Knox this morning, you may be mature, you
may be very immature.
You may have been walking with the Savior
for many years.
You may only recently have become a Christian.
Now, this is what Paul addresses, this is
how he addresses every Christian.
You died with Christ.
Now, you may not understand what it means,
but it's true of you, says Paul.
You died with Christ.
That's in verse 20.
Look at the first verse of chapter 3.
You have been raised with Christ.
Now, this may puzzle you as much as
the first, and you may not fully understand
and appreciate its significance.
Whether you do or not, it matters not.
It is true of the Christian.
You were raised in his resurrection, not raised
after him, nor certainly not before him, but
you were raised, says Paul, along with him,
in him.
Come to verse 3 of chapter 3.
Your life is now hidden with Christ in
God.
Christian, again, whether you fully understand what it
means or whether I fully understand what it
means is beside the point.
The apostle wants us to get it.
It is true of every Christian.
In a sense, our life is hidden with
Christ in God.
And then lastly, last but not least, in
verse 4, you will appear with him in
glory.
You will appear with him.
There is a day coming when he will
be glorified.
The glory of the incarnate, risen, ascended Son
of God will be manifested to the world.
You will be with him, in him, sharing
with him in the glory that is then
to be revealed.
Now, those four phrases give us the kind
of boundary line describing the scope of that
which is referred to here as our union
with Christ.
Let's spend a moment with the concept itself.
It may be familiar to some of us,
it may be strange to others, it may
be quite new indeed.
To say that Jesus Christ died instead of
us on Calvary's cross is true, and of
the very essence of the gospel.
Now, over recent months, we've been really going
out of our way to stress that.
The other side of Good Friday, the other
side of Easter, in our studies in the
prophet Isaiah, for example, this has been coming
out over and over and over again, how
the promised deliverer, the servant of the Lord,
the Messiah, was coming to bear the sins
of others instead of them.
He was wounded, says the prophet, for our
transgressions.
He was wounded for our iniquities.
There's a transposition of places here.
He takes our place.
When we come to the New Testament, the
same theme is brought forward, showing that He
takes our place in order that we may
take His place, that we may have the
righteousness of God which is in Him.
Christ died instead of us, that is true.
If there is someone here this morning who
doesn't know the peace that comes from trusting
Him as such, trusting His finished work, let
me at this very stage in our morning
worship urge you, with all the power at
my disposal, do not let this day come
to a close.
Don't let this service come to a close.
Therefore, you say to Him, Jesus, I trust
you.
I believe you took my sin on Calvary's
cross and took my place, and I trust
you and you only as my Savior.
True as that is, however, it's not the
whole truth, and part of the truth is
not to be equated with the whole truth.
Jesus Christ, who died instead of us, also
died as our representative, and this is a
slightly different thought.
Related, different.
Jesus died in such a way that it
can be legitimately said that we who own
Him as Savior and Lord died with Him
and actually died in Him.
Now this kind of togetherness, this kind of
union of anybody with Jesus Christ is difficult
to teach.
Difficult perhaps because we are not sufficiently learned
in biblical terminology and in biblical images.
If we were the better educated in Scripture,
it would be easier to teach.
So what I want to do this morning
is to confine myself at this point to
two biblical passages, two biblical pictures, which help
us understand what this means.
The first is the picture of Adam as
portrayed by the Apostle Paul, for example, in
the second half of Romans chapter 5 and
in 1 Corinthians 15.
As far as the Bible is concerned, there
are two men who stand apart from all
other men.
Adam, the first man, the first Adam, and
Jesus of Nazareth, the last Adam.
And all other men, says one of the
old Puritans, are dangling onto their loins.
Everybody is either under and in the first
Adam, and in Adam all died.
Or you are in the last Adam, and
in the last Adam all will be made
alive.
And this is the great divide as far
as Scripture is concerned.
It's not your social status, it's not the
kind of school you went to, it's not
the kind of accent that you have or
try to hide, it's none of these things.
It's not the kind of clothes you wear,
it is this.
Are you in Adam?
Or have you been brought out of the
Adamic stem so that you are henceforth a
man or a woman in Christ?
But you see the point.
Adam was not an ordinary man, he was
in a limited sense, but he was extraordinary
in this.
The whole human race was originally in him.
He was a representative of the rest, so
that when he sinned, all sinned.
When he died, all died.
When he was condemned, all were condemned.
In Adam, all died.
He was the federal head of the race.
He was a representative.
In the same sense, Jesus is not simply
an ordinary individual.
He's the federal head of a new race.
He's a new and a last Adam for
mankind.
And you may be transferred from the one
Adamic stock, you may be extricated by the
grace of God, and you may be infused
into the stock of the new Israel, the
people of the Lord Jesus Christ, his redeemed,
his ecclesia, and you may be a member
of the bride of Christ.
And he is the head of his church.
He is the king of his kingdom.
This world is divided in that way.
Now this is a lot to say to
us.
If you're a Christian man and woman, don't
take much notice of other distinctions, because they're
very insignificant at best.
The suit I wear, the way I speak,
and other idiosyncrasies that belong to all of
us, you know, let's see them in their
perspective.
The one thing that we ought to be
looking for is this, is he, is she
a man or a woman in Christ?
If not, let's seek to bring him, bring
her from Adam into Christ.
You can only do that by preaching the
gospel and praying.
Now that is one picture of what it
means to be in Christ, represented by him
in everything that he did and does and
will do.
The other picture in the Old Testament is
even more compelling and even more helpful.
When on the day of atonement in ancient
Israel, for example, the high priest had gone
through the previous aspects of the cultus and
came to the point where he was going
to make atonement for the sins of the
nation.
You remember, he was dressed in a certain
garb and across his chest on the ephod,
he had the names of the 12 tribes
of Israel across his chest.
Also on his shoulders here, the same 12
tribes.
And then he takes the blood of the
sacrifice of atonement and he moves within the
veil and he comes to the holy of
the holies and he sprinkles the mercy seat.
And everything that he does, every act that
he does, he does on behalf of a
countless number of people, the 12 tribes whose
names are on his shoulder, over his heart
and upon his mind.
Now, our Lord Jesus Christ has his name
as the names of his people written on
his heart.
He represents his Israel.
He is the head of a new race.
And he represented his people when he died
upon the cross, when he rose on the
morning of the third day, when he ascended
into heaven, into the mysterious inner sanctuary of
the divine presence.
He represents the whole of his people there.
And when he will come again in glory,
all his people will be caught up to
be with him and they will share in
the great apocalypse, the great unveiling of the
great declaration of his glory.
Now, that's what it is in principle, some
of the consequences.
Now, let me just spell out in a
little more detail what Paul tells the Colossians
here.
He tells them that four things follow from
our union with Christ.
I'm deliberately repeating some of the things I've
just said because I would like us to
get this picture very clearly.
Some of us need comfort.
There are some of us who are young
Christians and we don't have real assurance in
our hearts.
There are some of us who crave for
the kind of assurance that is not dependent
upon outward circumstances.
And we find that we're all right when
we're in certain company, but when we're in
another kind of company, we don't know where
we are.
I suggest to you that this great doctrine
of our union with Christ is part of
the divine answer to your need.
So, let's get it.
One, those in Christ have died with Christ
to the basic principles of this world.
Now, that's verse 20.
I'm quoting from verse 20, NIV.
Those who are in Christ have actually died
with him to the basic principles of this
world.
So now you see we've got we've got
a second ingredient coming in here.
Christ died instead of us, but we died
with him and we died with him to
a third ingredient to something.
We died to something so that whatever it
is does not have its normal effect upon
us.
Here it is this.
We died with Christ to the basic principles
of this world.
Now, this is one of those places of
difficulty in preaching honestly, because there is a
word here and frankly no one knows exactly
what flavor it has.
It can have one or two flavors.
In some of your Bibles, for example, the
translation is in the RSV, died to the
elemental spirits of the universe.
In the King James, the rudiments of this
world.
In the NIV, basic principles of this world.
The word stachia is a simple word and
it can mean either.
One thing is quite clear, later on in
the history of the New Testament, it certainly
did come to stand for spirit forms, spirit
beings.
Some people believed that there were spirits inhabiting
the stars and so forth, and they use
this word to describe those spirits, but apparently
at this stage, at this stage in history,
the name had not been thus used.
And it is significant that when Paul speaks
of Satan or when he speaks of principalities
and powers, he never uses this word.
I therefore take it in its much simpler
sense, meaning this, the elemental things or the
elementary things, the ABC, if you like.
Well, then what does it come to mean?
It comes to mean this.
Those that have died with Christ have died
to the ABC of this world.
Well, you say, what does that mean?
It means this.
If you've died with Christ, you've died to
the basic principles of worldliness and of life
in this world without reference to God and
his Son.
You see, there is a philosophy that is
worldly.
It is this worldly.
And whether you're a Canadian or a Turk
or whatever, or an Irishman or a Welshman
for all that, just because you're not born
again to date, these basic principles dominate your
life.
You're in Adam, you see, where whatever your
nationality, whatever your background, and as a man
or a woman in Adam, there are certain
basic principles.
Things that you can touch with a hand
are the real things to you.
And the things of this present world, they
come into the center of life and they
give meaning to you and so forth.
This is the elementary principle upon which life
in this world is lived by men who
know not a second birth.
But now, if you've died in Christ, you
have died to the world's point of view,
to the world's way of thinking, to the
world's approach, to the world's absence of principles
rather than presence.
And I suggest to you that here is
a very real challenge for us this morning
as we examine our allegedly Christian profession.
Have you died to the way the world
looks at things?
Is the spirit of the world, is the
mouse of the world, is the mind of
the world the ruling factor in your life
and mine?
Or have I so died with Christ that
my attitude is rather his than that of
the world?
Secondly, those in Christ have not only died
with him, but chapter 3 verse 1, have
been raised with Christ to an interest in
things above and beyond this present earthly scene.
Now you see, this is the counterpart.
If you're in Christ, you died with him
to the basic principles of their life, the
life of unregenerate men in this world.
Okay.
But that's not the end of it.
Your life is not a negation.
If you're a Christian, your life is a
positive factor.
You have been raised again.
You've come to life again.
You've been regenerate.
You're born again.
And you're born again into an awareness of
a different sphere altogether.
And you're aware of the existence of an
altogether new dimension that even the most cultured,
philosophically-minded, unregenerate man knows nothing at all
about.
And it is purely because you have been
raised from the dead in Christ, the outflow,
the impact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ
upon you has been to raise you from
the dead.
God has become real to you.
Prayer has become real to you.
Worship has become real to you.
I trust even the ministry of angels have
become real to you.
The things of God, the things of eternity,
have now assumed meaning.
Now I must hurry.
Thirdly, those in Christ are now hidden with
Christ in God.
What Paul means to say here is that
those who are in Christ have ascended with
him into the mystery of heaven, into the
presence of God, where we cannot understand everything.
However much our Lord Jesus Christ has revealed
to us, our capacity to receive what he
has revealed is limited because of our humanity.
So that at best we can only now
see through a glass darkly.
Then only shall we see face to face
when he comes again.
And so Paul puts it like this.
We are hidden with Christ in God.
I can't tell you any more about it
because you wouldn't understand it even if I
talked about it.
But here is a new area, a new
life, a new vantage point.
And in Christ we have ascended already.
And then lastly, those who are in Christ
will appear with him in glory when he
returns and his glory is exhibited.
Here are two things then that are absolutely
vital for you and for me to know
this morning.
One, that Jesus Christ died, rose and ascended
and is seated at God's right hand.
And if you say you're interested in knowing
the truth, you cannot afford to leave the
days go by without sincerely seeking to know
from the legitimate sources and the authorized sources
of such knowledge whether this be so.
Is he risen who was crucified on the
tree?
Is he ascended to the right hand of
the Father?
Have we any reason to believe that?
That's the first question.
But the first, the second is this.
Am I in him?
Has the fact of his death on the
cross and resurrection from the tomb and ascension
to the right hand and his honor and
authority there, has this had such an impact
upon me that I no longer live according
to the principles of this world but I
can be commanded as we will be now,
as we shall see, to set my heart
and set my mind upon things above?
Where Christ is seated at the right hand
of God.
We have a mission to do in the
world, the New Testament makes that clear, but
we are to exercise it as men and
women whose hearts are set not on this
world but elsewhere.
Where Christ is.
Now that brings me to the second and
I promise you I'm not going to be
as long this morning.
Can I just point you to the second
main theme here?
The significance of our union with Christ.
It's far-reaching.
Here there are two things only, two main
things that one can mention.
One, those in Christ have died with him
to the basic principles of this world and
on the light of that, on the basis
of that fact, Paul utters certain commands.
One, those in Christ have died with him
to the basic principles of this world and
on the light of that, on the basis
of that fact, Paul utters certain commands.
Let's look at them.
Now look at verse 20.
Paul's basic supposition in writing to the Colossians
is this, if you died with Christ to
the basic principles of the world, now we've
referred to that.
I don't need to say any more about
it but this is the basic supposition.
If you really are in Christ, if you
really are a Christian, you died to the
world's way of thinking, right?
That's the basic supposition.
Next thing is this, Paul's challenging question.
Verses 20 and 21, the second half of
verse 20 through 21.
Why then, asks Paul, as though you still
belonged to it, to the world, do you
submit to its rules?
What rules?
Well, he answers, do not handle, do not
taste, do not touch.
What's he getting at?
Some of the Colossians were influenced by the
false teaching that was being preached there and
seem to have fallen prey to the notion
that the way of salvation necessitated a kind
of asceticism.
These preachers came into Colossae and they said
to the young Christians, yes it's all right
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it's
all right to go on with the kind
of things you've started, but now there's always
something better, there's always something bigger.
Don't miss this something bigger.
This is what it is.
You must live the ascetic life.
And of course you will realize this generally,
this generally has its most potent appeal to
those who are set on doing the best
and living the highest kind of life, but
perhaps without adequate knowledge.
Well now, the way to live this high
life is this, just don't touch, just don't
eat, just don't drink, don't taste, don't handle,
and so forth.
So the serious thing that they're saying to
Christians is this, you must be so separated
from the world that you don't handle.
Now our Lord Jesus Christ of course taught
the doctrine of separation, but his doctrine of
separation is quite a different one.
Take for example just an illustration when he
said you are the salt of the earth.
Now the salt has got to be different
from the society which is putrefying or it
does no good, but the salt does no
good either unless it's in contact with what
it is meant to give savor to or
to stop from putrefying.
There must be a connection, you must rub
the salt into the meat.
You see, there's a wonderful balance in the
doctrine of sanctification in the New Testament.
It is not complete ostracization, it's not running
out of the world and turning your backs
upon the crowds.
Jesus wept over the multitudes as he wept
over individuals and he went after them.
We cannot say in the name of Jesus
that we've been sent to live apart, but
these folk, this was their cliche.
Don't touch, don't handle, don't eat, don't drink,
don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.
Now Paul has already had a lot to
say about worldly philosophy and worldly teaching and
that's exactly what he's getting at here.
He would lump this kind of teaching in,
you see, with a philosophy of, and underline
these two words, this world.
Whether it comes from the philosopher, qua philosopher,
or whether it comes from the theologian, it
makes no difference.
It's something of this world, it's the teaching
of this world.
No, no, says Paul, it's no good.
That will not save you.
Neither will it sanctify the saved.
This is not God's way.
There may be things that we should keep
away from, but that is not a basic
principle in life.
We do not live by a negative, but
by a positive.
Then you have Paul's acid condemnation of the
kind of things that were said and taught
by these people.
If there were ceremonial features of the divine
revelation in the Old Testament that had to
pass away with the coming of Christ, as
of course there were, the washing of hands
and of pots and the various ceremonial offerings,
they came to an end with Christ.
Now they were divine in origin.
God ordained them, but he ordained them only
for a period.
The period had come in Christ when even
these should pass away.
How much more, then, he's telling the Colossians,
how much more should you not listen to
the dictates of men?
It may sound all right, and he goes
on to say the wisdom of the new
teaching was apparently evident, but he adds such
regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, but
only an appearance.
The worship demanded by the new teachers was
merely will-worship.
This is something that I've often wanted to
preach on and have not found courage.
Will-worship.
And if I did find courage to do
so, I would want to say that a
very large percentage of our worship in the
20th century is nothing other than will-worship.
By that, I mean this.
By that, Paul means this.
We are not concerned simply to worship God
as he requires to be worshiped according to
his word and by his spirit, but we
are keen to be moving according to the
trends of the times.
What are they doing in the United States?
Or what are they doing in this place
or that?
What do the leaders in this college or
that college?
What do the leaders in ecclesiology tell us?
What do the specialists say?
And every little church is dancing to the
tune of specialists.
Listen, my friend, there is nothing which is
more tragic than evangelically-minded men will-worshiping
an almighty God, offering the kind of worship
that they determine they should give rather than
that he determines he will have.
Will-worship.
Of course, it's very old.
It's a matter of taste.
You have it in the Old Testament.
You remember that day when Moses went up
the mountain and the children of Israel turned
to Aaron and said, come on, Aaron, make
us a calf, a golden calf.
An image of the God of our Father
is that we can worship it.
And dear old Aaron didn't have enough backbone
in him to say no.
And they got their golden calf by majority
vote.
This is why you see democracy in a
church of fallen sinners is not the principle
of the Bible.
There are always more people in a congregation
that are immature than are mature.
And the church of God should always be
guided by men who are seen to be
mature enough to give it leadership and to
encourage others to follow because something is biblical.
When you go back into the Old Testament,
you find this in many, many places.
Cain started it, perhaps.
Nabod and Abihu and King Saul, they had
a lot to do with it.
They had their own brand of will-worship,
worshiping God in a way we think he'd
like to be worshiped or in a way
we would like to worship him.
That's not the way.
Paul says, look, he says, they have their
ideas how to worship God.
It's all will-worship.
It's not been revealed.
And what is not according to the book,
let it be anathemas as Paul.
That's the implication.
The apparent humility of these agents of heresy
was only knee-deep or skin-deep, I
should say, because Paul castigates it as a
false humility.
It wasn't real.
And he has much more to say about
them.
Let me come to the last thing that
I can say this morning.
Those in Christ have been crucified with him
to the basic principles of this world, even
as it relates to religion, perhaps especially as
it relates to religion.
But those in Christ have been risen with
him to the privileges and prospects of another
world, a new world, and an eternal world.
Chapter 3, verses 1 to 4.
Now Paul's point of departure here is again
very similar to what it was in the
other passage.
Since then you have been raised with Christ.
He's taking this for granted.
You're really a man or a woman in
Christ.
All right.
Then you're raised with men and women around
you have seen the evidence of the new
life in you.
You've come out from the dead.
You live.
You're alive to God through his son.
All right.
Now the pathway of duty.
The apostle in these four verses addresses every
quickened sinner in Colossae with two commands, two
main commands, and there are many things dangling
to them and follow from them.
Here they are.
First of all, seek those things which are
above, or that's the King James version, the
NIV, set your hearts on things above where
Christ is seated at the right hand of
God.
Now let's get it.
The Greek says seek.
That's the main word.
The NIV translates it set your heart upon.
Why?
For this reason, because right in the heart
of the word, there is the notion of
seeking it, not, not, not carelessly or haphazardly,
but seeking it with all my heart in
it.
You see, there's a seeking and a seeking.
And what Paul is saying to the, to
the, to the Colossians and to us is
this.
If you're risen with Christ, there are certain
things that you should be after with all
your heart, set your heart on it.
A Christian is not primarily a person who
lives a negative life, but a positive life.
He aims at a positive achievement.
He's seeking, seriously seeking, consistently seeking the things
that are above rather than the things that
belong to this world.
The second Pauline command is in verse two,
set your minds on things above, not on
things on earth or earthly things.
Now important as it is to seek these
things that are above, seek them with our
heart, says Paul, oh, how, what a remarkable
teacher he was.
It's not enough just simply to be involved
in the activity of searching after these things,
running after them, as it were, pursuing them.
Look, he says, set your minds upon them.
Think of them.
What occupies your mind?
As a man thinketh in his mind, in
his heart, so he is.
How long can you contemplate God and his
son and his glory and his throne and
his heaven and his people and his mercy
and his providence?
Now I know there are many people who
claim to be Christian, but they cannot take
more than a thimble full of religion.
It must be given in such small doses
once a week and that for only a
little while, they can't bear more of it.
And as far as they're concerned, it's all
a close chop until the week has gone
and they come back a thimble full more.
God have mercy upon us.
Set your heart upon it, says Paul.
If you're risen from the dead, if you're
crucified with Christ and you're a new man
and you're in Christ, then the Christ life
in you is a life which will delight
in the things of the Father, in the
things that are above, in the will of
God, in the worship of God, in the
work of God.
This is your focus, you see, if you
claim any real fellowship with Jesus Christ.
We use the word, but if we are
really sharing his life, our hearts should be
set on things above so that we can
think about.
I've noticed since Mr. Mooney has been staying
with us this week, he has a sister
in hospital.
He's been thinking about her and whenever we've
been meeting for prayer, he's made reference to
her each time he's prayed.
Why does he do that?
Well, I can answer the question.
He loves her.
They belong together.
And because they belong and love one another,
he thinks of her.
Of course he does.
My friend, do you belong to Christ?
Do you belong to him?
Really belong?
Are you in touch?
Do you know this life union is the
spirit of Jesus in you?
Set your affection on things above, not things
beneath.
Let your heart and your mind be settled
upon him and out of that area of
settlement in him, let him show you the
world in its need.
I know if there is someone here this
morning who loves the social gospel, at this
point you would love to stand up and
say to me, my man, you're really out
of touch with things.
The thing to do today is to get
right out of our churches, go down the
streets and look for people that have need
of this and need of that and just
get our hands dirty.
Yes, there is a place for that.
Of course there is.
And some of us will have to get
our hands dirty and feel responsibility for men
and women that have need.
But I'll tell you where we're going to
have the command and the grace and the
vision to carry out the enterprise.
When our hearts and our minds are set
on things above and we see the earth
from the vantage point of fellowship with God
upon his throne, there are multitudes of men
and women, they only see the world from
standing level.
To see the world as God sees it
is a prerequisite of doing for the world
what God wants done for the world and
that is Christian service.
I conclude then, you and I are faced
with a somewhat similar alternative today as these
Colossians of old.
There is always some new religion on the
loom, some new book coming out of the
press, some new emphasis as to the way
we should preach, as to the way we
should teach, as to the way we should
run our churches.
Every facet of the Christian life and Christian
service is being challenged.
Add this notion to it.
Introduce this aspect to it.
Some of them are good and some are
certainly better than others, but let us be
quite clear where we are to stand.
We are to stand in the light of
the revelation that God has given, that we
may give back to him not what we
think he wants of us, but what he
has asked of us.
That we offer him not what we think
in our folly or call it our wisdom
he ought to have, but what he in
his word has said I will have of
my people.
I wasn't primarily speaking to the children about
Sinbad this morning.
Children will forgive me, I'm sure.
Perhaps you won't.
I think you will.
I want you to see Sinbad going down
in his boat towards that magnetic rock and
suddenly the power of that magnet works.
Even though it's all imaginary, everything that kept
the boat together was sucked out.
Every screw, every clamp, every nail, everything that
a magnet would draw.
I tell you this world is a magnet
of that order that will suck out of
your soul everything you learn in the word
of God and in the house of God
unless you guard your souls consciously and deliberately
by the disciplines which scripture requires.
Should it happen, my friend, that you and
I are not careful not only to hear
the word but to heed the word that
we have heard and to obey it.
What will happen is this.
We shall go out into the storm and
we shall run into a storm of sexual
temptation or a storm of another kind of
temptation that perhaps wouldn't touch others, wouldn't touch
those who are subject to sexual temptation and
this magnetic rock will cause all the things
that hold our boat together to be sucked
out and we just fall to pieces and
like Sinbad's boat we go down and down.
But ours is a savior who is risen
from the dead and if you not only
hear his word but heed it and obey
it and by his grace trust him he
is a God who is able to save
to the uttermost those that come to God
by him seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for us even in the face of
the magnetic storms of the 20th century, of
magnetic rocks of the 20th century.
Let us pray.
God our Father, we thank you for being
able to come aside into your house on
the Lord's day and hear your word and
receive it and that it is offered to
us to obey it and to live by
its precepts that it may not only serve
us in good stead at the end of
life but throughout our earthly pilgrimage and keep
us intact and keep us in peace and
keep us sailing the high seas on your
business, on your work until you bring us
to the shore of our heavenly destiny.
Blessed God and Father hear us as we
acknowledge our sins and as we seek for
grace to place ourselves afresh at your disposal
to obey your word and serve your will
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.