Colossians Lesson 13 Week 2
Colossians · Courtney Hemenway · Aug 3, 2014
Colossians (2014), No. 31
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926436186226

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, I got triggered a few weeks ago to do a little investigating because I had been asked some questions about some things. And so, you know, in the book of Colossians, we've been what I would call the Colossian era, or at least the danger of the era.

What is it? What was it? What is it? Two things. One was they were beginning to allow philosophy into their doctrine and asceticism Jewish practices. So because I got triggered by somebody to do a little research, I found out that that's going on today. So let's talk about what it is.

What would you think? Any of you aware of a very similar intrusion into Christianity that has been going on since the 90s? And one of the guys that's the guru of it is right here in Denver. Have you ever heard of the term contemplative spirituality? No. No? Where have you guys been? I have. You have? Contemplative prayer. Yeah. How about spiritual formation? Have you heard that term? Yes. Have you heard that term? So I started digging a little bit and I have spent some time and by no means am I an expert.

But I thought it'd be interesting for us to realize that even in 2014, here's a system that's in sneaking into Christianity is probably a good way to say it. That in essence is exactly what was going on with the Colossians. So contemplative spirituality can be defined as a belief system that uses ancient mystical practices to induce altered states of consciousness and is rooted in mysticism and the occult but often wrapped in Christian terminology.

The premise of contemplative spirituality is Pantheism, which is God is all, or Pantheist, God is in all. The common terms used for this movement is spiritual formation, the silence, the stillness, ancient wisdom, spiritual discipline, and lots of others. That's contemplative spirituality. issue is called spiritual formation and when I get to that it's going to be kind of interesting because it's so parallel to some of the stuff we teach that you could be easily fooled. Spiritual formation is a movement that has provided a platform and a channel through which contemplative prayer is entering the church. You find spiritual formation being used and in nearly every case you'll find contemplative spirituality.

It's the heartbeat of the spiritual formation movement. Those teaching spiritual formation believe that we cannot be deeper Christians without it. Are you confused yet or are you okay? Are you a practitioner of this song and dance? Well, I did do contemplative prayer years ago. It started, or it got its foothold in what is known as the Emerging Church. Everybody know what the Emerging Church is? The Emerging Church is all you guys that are old like me.

The generation after us decided we were too stodgy. And we fought about doctrine all the time and we had all these rigid things that we had to do and they weren't going to buy any of that so they were going to do their own thing. And doctrine didn't really matter. Whatever you believe is fine. So here comes this emerging church that really accepts most anything.

Probably my introduction to it was years ago, I was in a Bible study, I hadn't been a Christian for very long. I was single in those days, it shows you how long ago that is. We went to see the movie, Oh God. With George Burns. Have you ever seen that movie? Well, it's awful. But George Burns plays God, right? A Jewish comedian plays God. And so and who's who's played the kid that he was? John Denver plays the kid that under that knows God. So afterwards we get together and we're drinking cokes and talking about it. And these people in this room are trying to make a case that this is really spiritual. I've been a believer less than six months.

They said, you're crazy. And here's the line I got. What your theology is is fine for you. What my theology is is fine for me. That's the emergent church. That's the best way to describe it. You can believe whatever you want. So here's a platform. with that mentality, enter this contemplative prayer system and spiritual formation, guess what, fits right in. But the spiritual formation guys are well organized and so they take over.

You cannot find today, I couldn't find one Christian university or college that didn't have a program about this. Not one. What do you mean by program? Where they had at least one class teaching it. Mega churches, all of them are accepting this stuff. All of them. And not only accepting it, but promoting it. Most have degrees in it. Say that again. Most have degrees in spiritual formation, including Dallas and Moody. Yeah, they do.

Kind of cool, isn't it? The guys thought that we were just teaching stuff that isn't contemporary and isn't relative. Would you explain contemplative prayer exactly? It's the best way I understand it. Anybody here familiar with transcendental meditation? Yes. It's pretty much the same thing. It's to empty your mind and then let the spirit fill your mind with Christian thoughts.

The more I read, the more interesting it got to me because one of the founders of this lived in the 1600s. Guess what his name is? Ignatius Loyola. Guess what he started? The Jesuits. He had this 30 day long contemplative spirituality program that he put together in the 1600s. And I'm going to Jesuit schools all my life, and I've been to all kinds of Jesuit retreats, three and four days. I never went to one of these 30-day deals. It would have scared me to death.

But they get going in this thing, and the contemporary Catholics that are in there is a guy named Thomas Merton. So what's happening here? You're supposed to sit In TM, as best as I understand TM, you go and learn how to do it. They give you this little thing called a mantra. And you repeat the mantra over and over and over again until you enter into an altered state. Now wait a minute. I'm talking about TM. You're not talking about contemplative prayer now. Not yet. Okay.

I have colleagues, friends of mine, that have been meditating for years. take some Christian terminology and move it over according to Dallas Willard and Foster. You do the same thing only you repeat a Christian word or phrase over and over again to empty your mind so that a spirit will come and fill your mind with supposedly Christian stuff. The idea is that you are entering into a higher spiritual state than you were before and you are mentally leaving the planet and moving into The outer atmosphere where God exists. The problem with that is that it's unbiblical to start with. The guy in Denver has a group. Richard Foster is his name. And he has a group, I'll spell it for you, it's R-E-N-O-V-A-R-E. How would you pronounce it? Renovare? Renovare? Renovare, yeah.

And it's his organization and he's the pioneer of contemplative spirituality. And he wrote a book called The Celebration of Discipline. Oh dear. This is where I went wrong. Published in 1978. Yeah, that was a good year. In February 2008, Christianity Today ran a story about evangelicals recent embrace of. And here's how they pronounced or they described medieval Roman Catholic mysticism entitled The Future Lies in the Past. The article views Foster as one who continues to guide the movement. Foster's journey inward Christianity today says it's unbiblical and dangerous, etc. Now what I wanted to boil down to is talk a little bit about, I wrote some paragraphs, I quoted Dallas Willard.

Here's what got me going on this. My niece is going to go to Westmont College as a freshman this year. Westmont College is supposedly a Christian school in Santa Barbara, California. So I'm looking on their website and this Dallas Willard's name comes up. And I'd heard about him before but I didn't know about him. So I started investigating this guy. And they have an auditorium with his name on it there. This guy is a philosopher from the University of Southern California.

He's a philosopher in the philosophy department and he is the one that has been the real promoter of this program called contemplative prayer or spiritual formation. Now spiritual formation is a really interesting term when you get into it so bear with me a little bit as I lead us into it and when I get there hopefully you're going to see how parallel it is to what we talk about.

Here's what he says, I'm hoping that you now have these two ideas vital. Impulsive will, where you simply choose what you desire and the reflective will, where instead of just doing what you want, you choose to do what's good and especially as Christians, what is good under God. So he's taken our will and he's put two labels on it, impulsive and reflective. And then he says, now I have to add a third one.

This is called the embodied will. The embodied will is where one of the other two has sunk down into your body to such an extent that it automatically does what's dictated to it. And this is the standard situation for most human beings. Here's the biblical illustration he gives is the Apostle Peter.

He exercised his embodied will. He didn't reflect on the situation and then decided to do what he did, which is deny Christ. When he was presented by the mayor or whoever it was and said, aren't you one of his disciples? And he said, no, I'm not. So, Dallas Willard says, well what that is, is what we call the embodied will.

His impulsive will has gotten so deep into his body that he's going to respond the same way every time. Okay? It's like my dog. Hold a treat, he responds the same way every time. If you got the picture, I hope now you can see very clearly what it means to have been spiritually formed in Christ. For spiritual formation in Christ transforms your embodied will. Is it starting to sound familiar? No? It transforms your embodied will so that what comes out of you automatically are the words and deeds of Christ.

Now we never get to the point where we can stop thinking about our responses. We will always have to reflect. We will always have desires that we should not act upon. There's nothing wrong with the desires in themselves. It's when they become our masters that the wrong comes, which is the common circumstances in human life.

Kind of what's he talking about? Free will. What else? He's talking about this idea of spiritual transformation. Somehow it's a program that will conform you to Christ or form you like Christ. Do we talk about those kinds of things? We sure do. We'll distinguish in a minute. So let me tell you, Christian spiritual formation is a process through which the embodied or reflective will takes on the character of Christ's will.

It is the process through which, and you know Galatians 4.19, Christ is formed in you and in me. Think of Paul's magnificent statement, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Not faith in, but faith of. Hear what he's doing there? He took the object away and he's saying it's Christ's faith, not yours. I have taken his faith into me. I am now being inwardly the person that Christ has called me to be, and thus inward faith is now spread throughout my social embodied self. It's like cloning. Yeah, kind of. Like what? Like cloning.

There's nothing about the cross, there's nothing about identification, there's nothing about position and the other thing there's nothing about, what he has done is he has taken, are we to be conformed to the image of Christ? So the question is how is that going to get done? And how does the spirit do it? How does he do it? He shows us Christ. He shows us Christ. What's the verse?

2nd Corinthians 3.18, Beholding is in a mirror, which is the word, the glory of the Lord, his glory. We, with unveiled face, we are transformed from glory to glory into his very image, even as by the Spirit of God. Right? Christ talked about that too. He said he's going to take the things that are mine.

Romans 8.28 gives you what God's purpose in your life is, to conform you to the image of Christ. Listen to how Dallas Willard does it. It's pretty slick.

Now, if the vision of this glorious kind of life is there, so you've got to have a vision, the next step is intention. I must decide that I will live that kind of life. And then finally, and this is the area of what we call spiritual disciplines, undertaken in the effort to actually obey Christ, we have a method. So what I have to do is to find the ways or the method through which I can build my confidence in God's goodness and break the power of habit in me of cursing back. Note the wonderful words of the old hymn, he breaks the power of cancelled sin and sets the prisoner free. Pretty slick. Canceled sin still has people in bondage. It says it cancelled doesn't mean that you're done with it.

To be done with it requires a method that may involve counseling, certainly involves the ministry of the word and certainly involves worship. We're pretty good at these practices, but the ones that look more Catholic, like solitude silence and so on, we're not so good with those. And usually I find that they deal with the areas where our deepest problem lies.

Do you see what he's doing? He's taking what the purpose of God is to conform us to Christ and he's got a method now. He's got a system whereby he doesn't say you're going to be conformed to the image of Christ but that you are going to, you have to have confidence in God's goodness Oh, I can't, where was it? You have a vision of the glorious life that you want to live. So it's all about doing and not being. Is that Dallas Willard you're talking about? Yes. I'm quoting him. Now, didn't he have a church somewhere around in this area? No, it's Richard Foster that has this. Renovary or whatever that is.

You know, and we shake our head and say, well gee, I don't have to be concerned about that. Yeah, you do. Because you're going to run into this almost everywhere you go now. And people are going to say, well I know what you're talking about. We're talking about the same thing. No, we're not. No, we're not.

You have to enter into this altered state, which is spiritual contemplative prayer, and then you'll grow and begin to act and do as Christ would act and do. Doesn't that lead to self-righteousness? It's a legal type thing. It does. Well, sure it does.

Yeah, because there's no cross here. There's no issue dealing with the old man. There's just one guy he's dealing with and he's trying to make the old man acceptable to God by going through this method. What did we call this method? Sanctification. It kind of is like that, with a whole lot of Eastern mysticism thrown in as part of the program. That's exactly what it is. So if a guy comes up to you and says, well yeah, we're all supposed to be conformed or transformed into the image of Christ, and I've got a method, and you think, oh really, let's talk to this guy. You're going to find out he's not talking about the same thing you are. He's not talking identification. What did they call this? What was the problem with the philosophy back then when the book of Colossians was written? What do we call the danger?

Gnosticism. What did Gnosticism tell us or try to convince us of? Matter was evil. Matter is evil and there are different states of spirituality. Guess what? That's exactly what this guy preaches. Are they saying matter is evil? No, they're not saying that.

But they are saying levels of spirituality depending on how deep you get into this contemplative praying. And you're right, it's a self spirituality improvement society. using methods other than law. But then at the end of Foster's book and also at the end of Willard's book, they gave you the rules. They tell you what to do, how often and when to pray and how to pray. Yielding and all these other nice Christian terms. Last paragraph.

So we have to find the ways, this is Dallas Willard, we have to find the ways of taking our body into solitude and silence, into service as well as worship, into prayer as well as into study. And we have to plan our lives around the objective of filling the vision that our intention has set before us.

Isn't that just smooth as it can be? It's like beware of false prophets and how easily people can sneak in all this other crap. If this guy walked in this church and started laying this down in his language, we'd listen for a while. Sounds good, doesn't it? That briefly is how spiritual formation in Christ, listen to the language, how spiritual formation in Christ is done. Vision, intention and method in that order. And this way we succeed.

And here's what he quotes, Romans 6.13. Yielding yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God. It can be done. It can be yours. It can be mine. And we can give it to other people. If in the fellowship of Christ we offer them the vision, exemplifying and help them with the intention.

Now you say, well gee, I've never heard of this stuff, it's not a big deal. I challenge you, just get on the web this week, go to any Christian university and just write in spiritual formation and see what comes up. I mean any of them. do the same thing with the megachurches, any of them, and they have a program for this stuff. My mind is weird, I was reading this and I was thinking about how did they get in the church There's an old, old, and you know this rock and roll song, they snuck in through the bathroom window. That's how they got in. They came in the back door.

Mike, I was reading, I think it was in Harry Ironside's commentary, and what you're saying reminds me of what Justin Marger wrote. What century did he live in? A second or third. spirits are abroad in the world, and the credentials they display are splendid gifts of mind, eloquence, and logic. Christian, look carefully and ask for the print of the nails." Oh, wow. What was his name? Ironside. Harry Ironside. But this is a quote from Justin Martyr. Justin Martyr.

How do you spell that? So, any questions? I don't know if it was all there. Yeah, where were you when I needed you? I was right here all the time. Yeah, but look, I did, I was talking to Roy. I said I want to ask this question because I don't want it recorded, but it will be anyway. Write it down. I could do that.

Do you think this is the only church that teaches the truth? No. Well, in my experience so far, it's been I would say that we're in a minority category of people who seek to teach the truth. We don't always 100% and that's fine. You can challenge us anytime you want. You should never take what I say or Courtney says and say well Mike said or Courtney said. No, you better open up your Bible and see if we're telling the truth as best we understand. But we do live in a fairly aggressive apostasy age. We really do.

And it's pretty subtle. It's pretty subtle. Any questions? Courtney is still awake, so he gets to come up. Rats, I was just going to teach you this new thing I heard this week about spiritual formation. It's kind of interesting, we got talking about this and how it applies. You think a lot of the things that happened and what Paul was addressing is just for that time period. It's amazing how many of these things continue through thousands of years.

I keep thinking when Paul is telling about grace and should we sin now, should we sin more? Should we do that? We're now under grace. Should we sin more? We have a lot of people, when you start teaching about grace, that's one of the first things. Should I sin now because I'm under grace? I can do anything I want? Paul addressed that. What did he say? May it never be.

But we still have those same things going on today. A lot of the things that he was addressing, strangely enough, still we address today. And when we got talking about this, it was how very, very similar what the Colossians were going through at this time, or what Paul was addressing, you can see today. And we got talking about all this, and that's why we had Mike do that, is that, again, you think this only as Paul was addressing the Colossians and their issues.

Well, it transcends all, from there to now, and you have to be leery of that. I have one of my long nights on the well, so I've been up for a few days. Let me see, I think we just finished question number three on chapter two, lesson thirteen, So, question four.

Why is the list in verse 16 a shadow of things to come? What is coming? And verse 16 says, Therefore, no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink, or in respect to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath day, things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. So what is the shadow of what is to come?

What does that refer to? Only the shadow knows. That's really good. Things which are a mere shadow of what's to come. What is to come? What is the things to come? Worst things. Worst things? Christ. Vast polar difference. Bad things versus Christ. Bad things. No, I'm just asking. Who said bad? I did. Nita. Yeah. Bad things. So bad things are going to come? I'm sure tribulation is down the road somewhere. Is that what they're talking about here, you think? Things are bad now, but hold on, they're going to get worse. That's kind of like now. You know, I think of all the time we got talking about this, too, when you think about, you know, I think, you know, it seems like the Lord's just preparing to come back. But, you know, when you think through the annals of time, you know, you're in the middle of World War II. I bet a lot of people think you're right in the middle of World War II. This is the end. God the Father is the only one who knows the time.

I think of everything going on right now and I keep thinking it's got to be the time he's coming back. Anyway, a couple of comments. Actually, the rituals of the law were pictures of Christ. They were just pictures. So now that they have the real thing, which is Christ, then they have the reality. Okay. Any other thoughts somebody else had? Same thing. Yeah.

So it wasn't a thing of things to come that are horrible things, the tribulation, all those things. And actually if you think about that, is the church going to be here for the tribulation? No. No. So, the shadow of what is to come. The answer is given at the end of the sentence, or that verse. Things which are mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

So, Cheryl said, we have these rituals, we have these festivals, we have lots of law, all the things. What was that pointing to? Christ. And I forget, what's the, is it Galatians 3, 23, whatever it is, about, I may be totally off. It's how the law was a tutor. A lot of people who are law based and think the Ten Commandments are the great things, and they always quote that verse, that the law is a tutor to lead us to Christ. But what does the very next verse say? Now that Christ is here, we have no longer a need for the tutor, the law. So they always shut it up at the first one. We got the Ten Commandments are things we have to hang on to. Again, the law and everything was pointing us to Christ. And these shadow of things were to point us to what?

The substance belongs to Christ. I was looking at a lot of things from William Kelly on this one too. As to eating and drinking ordinances relative to the year, month, and week, and the apostle takes particular care to speak not merely of a feast or a new moon, but of Sabbaths. Remember that these things are but prefigure the body or substantial good found really and only in Christ.

So the shadow was something that was just a mere shadow. You can't see the full figure. And the full figure is Christ. So these were all shadows, things that pointed or were only found totally in Christ. So the Jew had the shadow and he will have things to come by the grace of God under the new covenant by and by. We are given the substance of Christ now.

It is a question here of Jewish days. The Lord's Day has nothing to do with Judaism. It is not only apart from, but in contrast with that system. So again, what do we have now versus what the Jews had in the law and all the customs and festivals and all that? We have Christ right now.

Shadow and substance. We'll get into it in the next question. Question five. Explain the difference between a shadow and the real thing. That kind of gets at the gist of all this. So what's the shadow? Well, a shadow has no value. Oh, that's good. I like that. Okay.

Shadow versus real. Just on that. What is the difference between... What's a shadow? It's a vague outline of what a real thing is. Yes. Vague outline of what a figure is. And I think... So I didn't go to Zodiates at first, Wanda. I went to Webster instead.

Interesting definition for the noun. partial darkness in a space from which light rays are cut off." The other one, the definition of the verse is better, to represent faintly or vaguely. I think that's a pretty good definition for shadow versus real, to represent faintly or vaguely. So faintly, Christ is represented in all these festivals and all the Jewish traditions and all those different things, vaguely, faintly, but it's not the real thing. Carol?

I think it's important that the shadow is not detailed and it's not substantive. Yeah, you know, represent faintly or, although I can make some really neat figures with the shadows, you can do very crisp and clear. No, it's only a vague representation. So it isn't 100% real, whatever you see in the shadow. Well, one thing I thought of is that you don't really have the shadow without the real.

Exactly. You have the figure that is creating the shadow. And that's what I was going to get at. In order to have the shadow, you have to have the real thing. Because you can't have a shadow without You know, a shadow of my body against this wall. You can't have that shadow without the real thing being there. So, again, faintly versus the real thing. Okay? I did go... So now Christ is the shadow, so... Christ is the real thing. Christ is the real thing. Yeah. And the shadow is still Christ, isn't it?

Well, it's a figure of it, or faintly represented by that. So what they're saying here is all these things that you see in the area and you're trying to go back to, remember what they're trying to mix, Jewish legalism with Oriental mysticism and philosophy, all those things. They're trying to go back. They're going to try and mix a little bit of this, you know, the festivals, the moon. You can't eat that. Remember what we went through last week? You can't eat that. And remember, you're supposed to have, you know, you can't do Sabbath day. You can't do this. You can't do that. They're all the, they're mixing it back in.

But those were mere shadows of, you know, of Christ to come, which was, did Christ fulfill the law? No, he didn't. Well, he fulfilled the law. He did. Yeah, he fulfilled the law. So he was the real thing. I mean, he was the one that is, I think there was a great, what Marilyn said, you can't have the shadow without the real thing. So the shadow of things to come is based on Christ, the real thing, which we have. Well how did he fulfill the law? In that he was perfect? He was perfect and what? He died.

A couple of verses, Hebrews 8.5. He served unto an example and a shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle for, see he said he that you make all things according to the pattern shown to you in the mount. So he's making the tabernacle representative of what he's seen in the heavenly, so that's the shadow.

Hebrews 10.1, which I have both of those, which were next. Yeah, it's a shadow of things to come brought out anywhere else. And that was it in Hebrews 8, 4 and 5. Again, what Mike just read.

Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve a copy or a shadow of heavenly things, just as Moses warned by God. when he was about to erect the tabernacle. For see, he says, that you will make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain. So again, the pattern, this is the copy or the shadow based on the true identity. Or the pattern, this is for the tabernacle.

But also in Hebrews 10.1, for the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make perfect those who draw near.

Again, since it's only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of things, it's not the real thing. And again, the good part of this verse is, can never by the same sacrifice which is offered continually, this is the shadow, year by year, It can't make them perfect. The shadow is not the one that... which we'll get into a little bit later. Did the law ever save anyone? No. So, the shadow, the law, versus the real thing. Again, the thought of the shadow being what's to come, but the perfect is the real thing.

I think one of the things that I think is true that I learned a long time ago is you look at the law, 613, and there's no way that we can do those things the way the Jewish folks tried to do that and no one could do it. And it points into Christ and grace, identification and everything else because The law is impossible to keep. The Christ living through you is the real thing. All these laws that are impossible to keep. So you are forced to not look at this law system as useless. And it points you to the real answer. Yeah, because you cannot. That's what this verse says. Basically, who's been saved by the law? Nobody.

Another way to look at it is the law, the shadow is two-dimensional. You can see it, but you can't touch it, you can't interact with it, and the reality is three-dimensional. You can see it, you can interact with it, you can learn about it. You know, I think it goes back to kind of what Marilyn was saying, too. You don't have the shadow without the real thing. And the real thing is even, I mean, it casts, as Webster says, a vain or vague outline of what the real thing is. You could say that the shadow is death and the real thing is life.

Yeah. You know, I was going back even with the law. What's the verse, too, the verse that basically, you know, what was the purpose of the law? So we would know what we're doing wrong? To make a state our incapabilities. Our lost state. And actually the law was meant to incite sin.

Somebody has that verse, I can't remember where, is it Romans? Romans 7, yeah. It says 16, 18, somewhere in there. Where basically, when you think about the law, and I always love people, well you got to stick to the law, 10 Commandments, stay to the law. What does it say? The law was meant to basically enrage sin. How could Paul say regarding the law he was blameless? That he was blameless in Christ? No, he didn't say that. He's talking about his Jewish past. At times, at times, not all the time. At times he was blameless. He didn't say at times. That means he's another perfect human being.

Well, that's what it looks like to me and it's always stuck in my thought. I think those verses aren't those in reference to basically he was the Pharisee's Pharisee, that he was, you know, he was a guy who He was the guy who knew the law inside and out. Part of the law is sacrifice for your sins. He kept the sacrifice. That means he was not perfect. That means he did sin. Right, but I think the blameless on the law was I think he was the Pharisee's Pharisee, that he was the guy, and he uses it in contrast. You know, I was the guy who was the one persecuting the church. I was the guy who was doing... I was the guy who was the Pharisee's Pharisee.

I knew the law inside and out. And I think that's in reference... I don't know exactly that verse, but I think if I remember the context of that, that's really where that comes from. That he was explaining kind of the... Hey, if anybody should be of the law, I'm the guy. And yet he's the one who preaches Christ. So...

So, my favorite question, what is the deal with angels? Angels, angels. I want you to know. Are you going off on a tangent? No, just so that we wouldn't have error. He corrected it. Yes, he did send it out. I've learned a new one. All right, so what is the deal with angels? My Bible says, don't puff yourself up with angels, because you haven't seen them. It says, don't puff yourself up with a fleshly mind. So if you see them, you're okay? Well, you haven't seen them. Don't pay homage to them.

We're going to get to that. Yep. Any others on, what about angels? I couldn't hear her, but they're trying to... go to angels as mediators between them and God. And worship. They didn't feel they were adequate or too sinful or they needed some kind of an intermediary. Yeah, and they were beginning to deal with angels and worship angels and, you know, trying to get in. Totally wrong. Yeah.

1 Timothy 2.5, there's only one mediator. There are a lot of different things we'll get into on some of these verses. So, any others on angels that you came up with? So what's the deal with angels? They're a distraction from the real thing. Interesting. Yeah. And they have less power and create less... Give me the word. There must be a word for this. Angle. You know you can worship an angel and it's not the same as giving your life to Christ. It's not consuming. It doesn't demand total devotion. So are we to commit ourselves to angels?

It's easy for people to do, they say, you know, and they wear angels around on their clothes or whatever, you know, and draw these beautiful pictures of what they think they could be like, even though they didn't read what they were like. And it's just an easy sort of semi-religious thing. Okay. I'm trying to think of... So, well, I'll get to the question. Remember what Paul is addressing at Colossae.

They were having false teaching, syncretism, Jewish legal system, and Greek philosophy, verses 11 and 16. That was some of the specifics related to some of the Jewish legal issues. What you can and can't eat, festivals, observes, and circumcision, all those different things.

Now Paul is addressing the worship of angels in verse 18. We move on to verse 18 where it says, Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels. taking a stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the entire body being supplied, and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with the growth which is from God." So, does Paul or any scripture state that we are to worship angels?

No. Never. You're right, I was just checking. No, you're not supposed to. If we look at Revelation 19.10, Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, Do not do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God." Don't do that. Don't do that. That's going with my granddaughter. Don't do that. Don't do that. Also Revelation 22, 8 and 9.

I, John, and the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, Don't do that. I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren, the prophet, and of those who heed the words of this book. Worship God." Again, John, boom, sees the angel. He's down worshiping. What's the first thing he said? Don't do that. Who are you supposed to worship? God. Okay?

Epihole states it this way, angels have been purposely hidden from our eyes lest we should give them the place that belongs to God. They are amongst the things not seen. There would be worshippers that are puffed up by the mind of their flesh. Kind of what Monique had said. And then Kelly also says, it is the setting aside of Christ who is ahead of all and so above angels. Christ is the one who determined our relationship before God and for all of our need with God. We have Christ, the Great High Priest.

Thus putting angels in this place is a double dishonor to Christ. Such a speculator was vainly puffed up by the mind of his flesh. It might be plausible, but it injured not only the soul enjoyment of Christ, but his nature and glory to indulge in thoughts of the kind.

Remember the Colossian church, he's addressing them. They are starting to worship, put in place, focus on angels. Paul never says to do that. Actually, verse 18 fits in with this whole thing I was talking about because if you engage in this contemplative prayer, what you're really doing is you're allowing yourself to be fooled with a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels.

Because who do you think the spirits are that show up to take over your mind? Not the good ones. There are two basic groups of angels, you know, the saved and the lost ones. And because this system is designed to keep you from Christ, the angels that show up or the spirits that show up are not the good ones. Right.

You know, actually, when you're going through all that, if you listen to what Mike was saying, you know, just... now we're saying the same thing. What were all the... what was the... If you sum it up in one or two words, what was the focus of all that contemplative prayer and spiritual formation? You may have We's Eyes and what we have to do and I have to do and I, I, I, I, I, I, I. It's all self-focused.

And that's when you start listening to this stuff. That's what I typically, and I think we've talked about that. If a teacher is focusing on themselves or their method or something other than Christ, begin to question that. Because if they're not pointing to Christ in what you have to do, or follow me, Be very cautious of those. And as Mike was describing that, all I heard was, I, we, have to, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. So start looking at that and you'll find that, that that's the focus. And you'll know that they've gone off track.

Because, what is the purpose of the Holy Spirit? To guide. Comfort. Point us to Christ. So when a guy's up there teaching about I, we, I, who, I have to do, our method, we have to do all this stuff. You know, and, you know, a brief thing. You know, before I was here, and I'll tell you, when I first came here, I got to tell you, I thought this was great Kool-Aid day. We're all doing this, and I'm like, why are we the only ones doing this? Are we going to end up drinking Kool-Aid in the jungle together? I'm serious, because I thought, this is so different than what I had been taught.

And I've been in the Brethren Church for 20 years, where this all started. And I come here and it was like, it all started to click. All the gears came together. All the verses came together. And it suddenly made sense. And I really wondered what was going on. I mean, I seriously thought, I mean, this is really weird. Why isn't this being taught? And the brethren teachers that I'm now finding are in the brethren church. They don't teach that anymore.

Just from a personal standpoint, when the scripture comes together, you'll begin to see how it all fits together. There aren't these little offshoots of things you have to do or whatever. the scripture fits incredibly well. And when we started into the identification truths, it all began to make sense. Verses that didn't make sense before, now made sense. When in a perspective that we have been placed into Christ, it is not I that live, but Christ lived in me. I'm a new creation in Christ. Romans 6, you have been crucified. What?

Just read it. And all these things started to come together, and I thought, man, this is really weird. But as you do it, you go against scripture, and you see it's the truth. We're not the only people who say this, but there's a vast majority out there, and I was getting at, go to the bookstores and see how many books are about identification, or how many books are the next program. of how to accomplish. Willard and all those guys have all this stuff. You know, the new program, the next program.

And I fell into that for years. J.I. Packer, Knowing God. There are all these other things that came in, but they weren't focusing on Christ. So, didn't we have the second bell? Alright, we will start on question seven, not next week because it's the camping week. So we're going to do it in two weeks. So next week we only have the second service. Alright, let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time again. We thank you for every time we fellowship together in your word. We just thank you for the truth that you have left us. And again, just the truth that points us to Christ. We realize that that is the purpose of the Holy Spirit indwelling us, is to point us to Christ and to glorify you, Father. And it is a teaching that goes astray from that. We know that that is false teaching. And we just, again, weigh everything that we hear against Your Word.

So, Father, just let us be wise in looking at Your Word and, again, relying on the Holy Spirit to guide us and point us to Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, Father, we do pray for Vern coming up in the next service. Just, again, that he'll bring us a word accurately and prepare our hearts to receive it. So we just thank you for this time in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.