Historical Introduction to Colossians

Park Meadows Church

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Wow, that's great. That was a great quote from MacArthur. He might be the last great voice in this world before Jesus comes back as far as a conservative sound preacher with a large following.

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Who knows? We might be one of the young men in this room though that re -establish a large following with a great voice.

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We don't know, do we? We don't know the hour of his coming. We just kind of know that the trees are budding, right?

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I love the Sunday school lesson this morning, Dave. Very interesting about the enemy and how he crouches before he strikes, makes himself less visible, and then all of a sudden when he lurches he's all you can see and it's often too late, but not always.

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Really good. Great lesson. So if you guys haven't made it to 10 o 'clock adult Sunday school class, try to make it.

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It's really good and if you want to go to Charlotte's children's class, you could go there if you prefer.

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It's actually the best because of the students that happen to be there. It's the cutest, right?

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All right, good to see all of you. Benjamin, good to have you back in the crowd today. So good to see you and brother

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Raymond, you're back. You got all the cylinders hitting now, right?

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That's awesome and Sharon, we missed you and we know you were taking good care of him and thank you guys.

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Glad you're all back today. Good to see all of our online crowd as usual.

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Good to have you guys and let's turn to Colossians chapter one. We're in a new book, a new era for our church.

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We're actually learning about the book of Colossians. It's not the first time we've gone through it, but it's been a good while.

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I know Ben sent me a text last week and said listen to this and it was Otis teaching it when he first came to our church years ago and apparently he and our tag team preached it in the afternoon service for a while on Sunday afternoons, but that's been a long time ago.

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So it's interesting because I searched my laptop for sermons

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I'd preached years ago on it and couldn't find any, so I don't know what happened to those notes, but anyway.

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All right, well let's pray and we'll get started. Lord, thank you so much for this day to come and be together with you and with one another and to hear your word.

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Lord, we thank you for your word. Lord, without it we would not know you.

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We wouldn't know ourselves. We couldn't really know much of anything without your word and thank you that you've given it to us and teach it to us this morning by your grace.

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Amen. Well, we talked about Colossians chapter one verses one through nine more or less last

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Sunday morning and today we're going to actually do the introduction of the book which

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I didn't want to do last time because I actually wanted to get into the scripture a little bit and kind of introduce it through the first introductory verses last time.

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This time I'll give actually a historical introduction to where this place is and what it was like and what the people might have been like that Paul was preaching to and speaking to, writing to, but last time in verses one through nine we learned several things about this little passage which kind of opens up the door for the whole book.

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The first was we asked the question who is this entire book written to? It's written to only born -again

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Christians. It's not written to anybody else. It's not for the world. It's not for going out and witnessing, telling people this, what's in this book.

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This is for us. This is to make us grow. This is for God's people who are already in the family of God and it's very important to know that because that means that the promises that are in this book are not for everyone.

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They're for God's people. That's who the book's written to. Secondly, older and more mature leaders and Christians are supposed to be thankful and to pray for the younger ones.

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We learned that and then a third thing is this opened up something that I've talked about so much of my life in the pulpit for 40 years now and I call it symptoms of salvation.

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It's kind of like you have a cold. Several of us have one. I know Jeannie's fighting one off and we got several people that couldn't make it, but when you, you know, if you want to convince me you got a cold then you need to have a runny nose and itchy eyes and be sniffing a little bit like that and you know or I don't believe you have one, right?

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So those are the symptoms and so Christianity has the same thing. If a person is really truly born again there's some things that are in his life that weren't there before that and you can see them and hear them and so some of those symptoms were obviously faith in Jesus Christ which the person didn't have previous to that and that was a gift that the

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Holy Spirit had to give that person. He couldn't work it up from inside his own brain. It's not human belief that saves you.

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It's the faith of Christ that saves you which is a gift from Christ. Secondly, love of all saints.

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I mean that's one of the greatest marks of a Christian is that he loves other brothers and sisters and he treats them well.

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Kind, gentle -hearted, things like that. Patience and love shows up and then hope of heaven which is laid up for us.

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The Bible talks about that. There's hope in that person's heart. If you ask a true born again person where would you go if you die today?

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He should say I'm going to heaven. He shouldn't say well I might. He should say

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I'm going to heaven. Well how do you know? Because I'm in Christ. Jesus saved me and then the next thing is just fruit in general like the fruits of the

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Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long -suffering, things like that and then another thing that we noticed was that this person all all of a sudden has ears that can hear.

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I mean you don't understand all the Bible when you're first saved, do you? Even later you don't understand all of it.

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There are a few difficult passages that you might learn later but if you read a couple of pages you're going to find a lot of things in just two pages that you do understand.

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More things that you do than that you don't and so you learn that and you keep moving through the

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Bible and then when you read through the next year you might understand one or two of those things you did in the first time. That's just how it works but the point is you have ears that hear all of a sudden.

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You can understand when Jesus speaks to you through the Word of God. You can understand it and then the fourth thing is that all of a sudden it mentioned faithful elders such as Epaphras who is in this book at this church in Colossae but the fact that it mentioned him shows that these people all of a sudden are going to church because they wouldn't hear that pastor if they didn't go to church, would they?

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And so that's a symptom of a person that's saved. All of a sudden they like church whereas before that it was boring, they hated it, did not want to show up.

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That was me before I got saved. I did not want to go to church. My poor little grandmother was inviting me every

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Sunday and I'd tell her I'll think about it and I just wouldn't go most of the time.

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Every once in a while I'd go with her and when I did I hated it and then when I got saved at the age of 24 all of a sudden

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I wanted to go to church. It just changed. God changed me and so that's another symptom of salvation listed here in this book and then love, true genuine

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God -like love for other people is in the spirit as the scripture says.

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You can't have that if you're not born again and then it says for this cause also since the day that Paul heard about these

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Christians he never stopped praying for them and the main thing he prayed for was that they would have the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, those two things.

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So later I'm going to do the introduction so I won't get to this but I'm going to come back to that verse 9 where it talks about the knowledge of his will and wisdom and spiritual understanding next time.

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Well we may have a Christmas thing next time who knows but next time we get back into Colossians we'll talk about that.

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So that's kind of where we are and today I want to talk to you a little bit about the background of this place where this church was and we have to remember this church was in a home and there's no evidence there ever was a church building in this town back in the first century.

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It was a house church I don't know how big the house was maybe they had a barn in the backyard and it was in their barn

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I don't know I just know it was not a building built to have church in it was a church meeting in a house and so remember that the church is not the building the church is us and so that's kind of interesting fact of history.

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So I want to read to you a little bit from Matthew Henry it's one of the greatest old commentators the

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Matthew Henry Bible commentary it's great if you're a new Christian if you're thinking about well what would be a good commentary that's a really good one.

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I'm going to quote from a second one here in a minute that's probably even better for a new Christian or any Christian actually but this one is well known and very sound and here's what he says about this book he says and first he's going to sort of outline what the book talks about he says we have here number one the inscription as usual he's talking about the first two verses where Paul greets the church because he does it almost word for word the same way in every epistle so he doesn't spend much time on that and then number two he says we have

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Paul's thanksgiving to God for what he had heard about this church the fact that they had faith love and hope and that he had heard good things about them especially their love for one another that Paul had heard that and then the third thing is we have

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Paul's prayer for their knowledge fruitfulness and strength some of these things we talked about last

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Sunday and then the fourth thing is an admirable summary of the Christian doctrine concerning the operation of the

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Holy Spirit the person of the Redeemer the work of redemption and the preaching of it in the gospel and so he says the apostolic benediction is the same as usual grace be unto you and peace from God our

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Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ he wishes them grace and peace the free favor of God and all the blessed fruits of it every kind of spiritual blessing and that from God our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ jointly from both and distinctly from each as in the former epistles all right so that's kind of that's kind of beautiful language that's how he introduced it and then he did a commentary on every verse of the whole of the whole book of Colossians and then

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Dr. J. Vernon McGee how many of you ever have have heard or have his commentary yeah it's great if you don't have it you can buy it at several sets he used to preach through the

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Bible on the radio and probably you can still find it he's with the Lord now but he preached through the

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Bible on the radio and it was called then he then they put all of his teachings in a book a commentary called

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Through the Bible Commentary by J. Vernon McGee and he talks like this he sounds like an old

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Texas boy but he's a PhD and a brilliant man and he he doesn't talk about his education ever he's not somebody who uh flaunted that fact

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I was reading something that he said about himself the other day he said that when he got his first church and he was preaching as a young man right out of seminary with a

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PhD and some old deacon came up to him and say J. Vernon you just can be yourself when you preach you don't have to impress us with your doctorate degree and he said man it it touched his heart and he said from that day

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I never he said I never try to be anything but just myself and just talk plain to people and when you hear him on the radio you'll hear that that is a fact but here's some of the things he said about the book of Colossians this book brings

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Christ down to where we live right down to the nitty -gritty where the rubber meets the road that's where we need and want a fresh understanding of who

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Jesus is you get all you need in Christ this is something that's very important for us to see you get all that you need in the person of Jesus Christ you don't need philosophy you don't need theology you don't need anything but Jesus that's what his point is there then he said this

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Jesus is the image of the invisible God that's found in Colossians 1 15 in him there is no darkness at all 1

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John 15 night turns to day when Jesus walks into the room pretty nice language then the author of this epistle is the apostle

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Paul as stated in the first verse the epistle to the

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Colossians is one of the prison epistles which are so called because they were written by Paul when he was hanging on a dungeon wall and think when you think about that and the joy that Paul had and he would often break out into hymns while he's hanging on a dungeon wall it kind of makes our problems seem better when we go through them but it's one of the prison epistles which

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Paul wrote while he was in prison in Rome the prison epistles include

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Ephesians Philippians and Colossians and the very personal epistle to Philemon and the year was about AD 62 when this book was written so um it's not it's not one of the oldest books in the

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New Testament but it's written later with regard to all the other books it's written on the later side of the books that were written in the

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New Testament four messengers left Rome unobserved and I'm going to quote

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McGee again four messengers left Rome unobserved but they each carried a very valuable document he's picturing people that carried documents from the prison in Rome after Paul wrote them people who carried them to the churches because Paul was still in prison someone else had to carry the letter to and deliver the letters so four messengers left

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Rome unobserved but they each carried a very valuable document Tychicus was carrying the epistle of the

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Ephesians over to the over to Ephesus where he was the pastor or the leader of that church

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Epaphroditus was carrying the epistle of the Philippians as he was the pastor in Philippi and Epaphras was carrying the epistle of the

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Colossians which is the one we're studying today apparently he was the leader of the church at Colossae Onesimus was carrying the epistle of Philemon and Philemon was his master and Onesimus was a slave who had run away and was returning to his master bringing this book with him isn't that something these four are companion epistles and together have been called the anatomy of christianity or the anatomy of the church we can see that the subject of these epistles cover all aspects of the christian faith

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Ephesians written around 60 to 62 AD is about the body of believers called the church of which

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Christ is the head Colossians written around 62 AD directs our attention to the head of the body which is

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Christ so Ephesians talks a lot about us the Christians but this book we're studying talks about the head it picked

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Ephesians pictures the church as a body right with different members and so Ephesians talks about that but Colossians talks about the head of the body which is

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Christ it directs our attentions to the head of the body Christ the body itself is secondary in the book of Colossians Christ is the theme he is the center of the circle around which all

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Christian living revolves Colossians emphasizes the fact that Christ is the fullness of God and then you have

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Philippians which was written sometime between 60 and 62 it shows the church walking here on earth

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Christians living and Christian living is the theme of Philippians it is the periphery of the circle of which

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Christ is the center Philippians emphasizes the gnosis kenosis which is

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Christ becoming a servant or manifest in the world and then there's

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Philemon which gives us Christianity in action we would say it is where the rubber meets the road you can see

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I'm using that phrase a lot or in that day as it was the sandals touching the

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Roman road it demonstrates Christianity worked out in a pagan society we can see why these four documents have been called the anatomy of the church they belong together to make a whole

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J. Vernon McGee if you want to talk about the city itself

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Colossae the ruins of this town are still there and they stand in what are called the gates of Phrygia and Colossae is the same area where Laodicea and some other areas like that are so you read about Laodicea in the book of Revelation and there are some ruins of the city but there are no ruins of any church so there's no evidence there ever was a church in Colossae it was in a house it was a house church the church at Colossae met in the home of Philemon and I doubt that there ever was a church building there

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J. Vernon McGee says a great civilization and a great population were in that area it was more or less the door to the orient from the east to the west it was called the gates of Phrygia here the east and the west met here is where the

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Roman empire attempted to tame the east to tame the east and to bring it under Roman subjugation

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Colossae was a great fortress city as were Laodicea Philadelphia and Sardis and Thyatira and Pergamum which were all written about in the book of Revelation if you remember that all of these were fortress cities in in that area but by the time

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Paul the apostle came along the danger had been relieved because the

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Roman empire was pretty much in charge of the world at that time so even though they were fortress cities they weren't really that worried of being you know attacked because Rome controlled them it did very strong at this time and when

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Jesus was born into the world the power of Rome was at its peak the Roman empire was the strongest it would ever be and from the point of Jesus's life to the point when

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Pilate did the wrong thing the power of the Roman empire declined from that point until it disappeared from the earth but at this time

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Rome was at its peak and so they didn't have to worry about being attacked but they were still fortress cities as a result the people had lapsed into paganism and gross immorality so you think about the life cycle of a civilization

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Rome at this time was at the part where they no longer had to fight for what they had they're no longer poor they're rich they they're not afraid of anyone they are the superpower and so now they're just sitting around and living in gross immorality and in a pagan world without God not needing

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God in their own mind and this is the place where this church was that Paul ministered to now it kind of wants you kind of makes you kind of think about where is

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America in its cycle at this moment being the superpower of the world as Rome was in that time the entire city used

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Roman currency at this time the entire world uses U .S. dollars at that time everybody in the world had to speak

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Latin some still spoke Greek but a lot spoke Latin and at this time in the world everyone speaks

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English if you go to Europe they know at least two languages they know their language in English and so you have to wonder where is

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America today at this time in its life is it at a time of paganism where the young people want to go out and get tattoos like pagans used to and Christians didn't used to but now the

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Christians are doing it is it a time of gross immorality where it's kind of okay to do just about anything and kind of seems like where America is right now to me as far as the record is concerned

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Paul never visited the city of Colossae there's no evidence that he actually walked into that town and preached to these people in person but he was the founder of the church and I'll explain how that happened in a moment but he sent them this letter and it may not be the letter but it's the one that is part of our scripture even though Paul was never in the city of Colossae he was the founder of the church there

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Epaphras was the leader of that church most likely the elder and he may have actually been the direct founder but Paul founded the church at Colossae and here's why he was the founder in very much the same way that he was the founder of the church at Rome he touched multitudes of people in the

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Roman Empire who later gravitated to Rome and formed the church there so more than likely it was people that Paul's life and ministry had touched that gravitated or moved to Colossae and started the church there it's probably some of his disciples or disciples of his disciples

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Paul may have visited Laodicea and believers may have come from there to Colossae but convert from Paul's ministry in Ephesus very definitely could have come to Colossae to form the nucleus of the church at Colossae Colossae is located just 75 miles east of Ephesus Paul spent three years of ministry in Ephesus two of them teaching in the school of Tyrannus remember that so he spent

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Paul probably spent as much time in Ephesus as anywhere just discipling people and so disciples from that church went out into different other churches that are mentioned in the

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Bible and helped start those churches and that's probably what happened at Colossae and that's why

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Paul is considered the father of the church at Colossae even though Paphras was the pastor who probably actually opened the doors to the home and started inviting people in first there was tremendous civilization in this area the culture of the area it was no longer centered in Greece which had pretty much deteriorated along with their philosophy and culture by this time but the

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Greek culture was very still much alive in Asia Minor the area known as Turkey today it was this area that Paul did his greatest work along with his co -workers and by that I mean this area around Colossae there were with him

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John Mark Barnabas Silas Timothy and apparently some other apostles we know that the apostle

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John became the pastor at Ephesus later on Asia Minor was a great cultural center but it was all the center of heathenism paganism and the mystery religions and that right there is very important for us to understand the background of the city in which this letter this church was that this letter was written to this mystery relate these mystery religions that were in the area and I'm praying about whether I might play a portion of an audio very short part of it to you next

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Sunday or not Christmas time but after that next time we get back into this just to give you an idea of something that is 2 ,000 years old which it speaks of here the mystery religions is very much alive today even with some people that we know and have walked with and they think it's new and they're saying you know the

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Lord has shown us something new and we're sharing it with our brothers and sisters and it's very old it's 2 ,000 years old at least it's older than that because it came from satan so it's however old satan is which we don't know how old that is we know it's more than 8 ,000 years old right so these philosophies that were taught in this area call the mystery religions are attempt people are attempting to bring those into Christianity right now in this generation in America trying to merge it together as if Christianity has always had this in it which it has not in fact it spoke against it in fact this book will speak against it but other writings of Paul spoke against it quite often and it's just right now we'll just call it mystery religions mystical teachings that are not found in scripture but people say it's just has just as much authority because they say it comes from the spirit now it's interesting to me they never call him the holy spirit they say it comes from the spirit the spirit taught me this or I transported into heaven and the spirit taught me this and then when you try to say well that's not in the bible show me that and I said well yes

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John was transported into heaven and saw and wrote the book of revelation

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Paul was transported into heaven and saw things and wrote things people in the old testament but here's what they missed those were apostles and there are no apostles today they're all in heaven now the very things you have to do to be an apostle which are listed in scripture for us a list of I don't know five six seven things that you had to have done in order to be an apostle one of them was you had to have walked physically with Jesus on the earth and that's not possible today so there are no apostles and that's the big mistake these people make but they are seduced by unclean spirits who feign and act as if they're the holy spirit and teach them things so that they'll come back and corrupt the church that's what false prophets have always done go home and read the book of jude tonight it's just one page you can read it and it talks about these kinds of people but what they invariably do is they bring in what they call mystery religions or mystical things and uh so it's very sad

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I mean the Roman Catholic churches had major problems with that being brought into it and the protestants left because of it and they said we will only allow this book to be our sole authority not something that you think some mystical angel told you to tell us and yet now

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I may play part of it I don't know if Charlotte will let me we'll see I usually ask her should

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I play something like this and she'll say I don't think so and then I don't do it but we'll decide but anyway there it is they take this spiritual enlightenment that they get from someone they call the spirit and here's your bible and they put it higher than the bible it's more important than the bible and the bible in fact is quite boring without this stuff and it's always and they think it's new but here jay bernard mcgee is talking about it from a historical viewpoint existing 2 ,000 years ago in this area where the church of colossi was in fact it was the center of paganism and mystery religions mcgee says there was already abroad that which is known as gnosticism and that by the way the gnostics were the first heresy that the church ever had to battle 2 ,000 years ago it's called gnosticism you can study it you could google it and read all about it nowadays

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I before we had google um you know I studied all these different philosophical false philosophies and teachings just in studying theology but you know the first thing

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I ever heard about was gnosticism because it came first in the life of the church 2 ,000 years ago and yet it's rising up today and the people bring it think it's new you know why because they didn't study church history they don't study much they're pretty ignorant of the bible and church history but they think they're smart in fact they think they have gifts that you'll never have and I pray that they're right so um there was let's see okay so you had this heresy known as gnosticism the first heresy of the church

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McGee says there were many forms of gnosticism and in Colossae there were the

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Essenes you hear of the Essene monks right and um are they the ones that preserved the

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Dead Sea Scrolls Dave Ben isn't that right you guys Dead Sea Scrolls were preserved by the

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Essene monks am I right or did I have the name wrong we can check it out uh someone out there will probably send you a chat and say yep that's it or nope you got it wrong but anyway uh this was a group of monk type people who wanted to separate themselves from the world and they taught gnosticism which is a mystery religion and and so uh

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McGee brings this out he says in Colossae the Essenes were one particular group that taught that form their form of gnosticism there are three points of identification about that particular group who taught their form of gnosticism the first is that they had an exclusive spirit now if you have any friends that are charismatic or Pentecostal and think that they can speak with unknown tongues and don't think for a minute that they can't they can but it's not coming from the

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Holy Spirit and the first thing they always tell me is you can't tell me it's not real because you know

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I've experienced it and the first thing I tell them is I'm not telling you it's not real I believe it's very real and but the source is not the

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Holy Spirit and I know that from Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 and many other places that I've studied for over 40 years including church history it's not real it's not from the

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Holy Spirit it's from a different spirit very important or it's a learned response that you just learned in church when they taught you how to do it and you don't have to teach a spiritual gift so that's another fallacy they teach people spiritual gifts you don't teach spiritual gifts

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God just gives them but anyway uh so when you have these kinds of people they have a an exclusive spirit and by that I mean they think they're higher than you and that they have gifts you don't have and that they'll talk with you but underlying in their discussion is they're smirking at you because you ain't got it you you just don't like you might not even be saved if you can't speak in tongues that sort of thing and they have this uh spirit of superiority and they cover it up with fake humility and they talk softer and they're kinder than you are and you start getting a little upset your adrenaline flowing because you don't like false doctrine and you start almost looking mean compared to them they're so sweet and that is this spirit of exclusivity which occurred 2 ,000 years ago among the

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Essenes this is not new ladies and gentlemen there were the they these people considered themselves to be the aristocrats of wisdom because they get these secret words of wisdom from God that no one else gets you can't get it with your bible it's got to be

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God told me this and I need to tell you because you don't know it yet it is a spirit of of aristocratic wisdom they felt that they were the people the people they had knowledge in a jug

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Jay Vernon McGee says I like his old Texas way of talking right rubber meets the road and they got knowledge in a jug they got knowledge in a jug and held the stopper in there with their hand they only let it out if you ask for it then they'll tell you what

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God told him to tell you I always tell them I don't want to know what God told you to tell me thank you very much

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I don't want to know it if I have a dream by the way I want to forget it before I wake up and you pretty much dream every night so pray and ask the

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Lord to help you not remember your dreams they are not ever from God just mark it down David Mitchell said your dreams are not from God okay and if you want to talk to me about that it's going to take like 15 hours so we can meet in my study you know or we can start to study at lunch but if you disagree with me give me 15 hours and we'll go through church history and everything in the

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Bible about it and we'll see what the Bible says but God does not speak through dreams now like he used to in the

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Old Testament and he says it in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 if the Holy Spirit says he doesn't do it and you think he does who's lying or who's deceived do you think the

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Holy Spirit's deceived like he said I'm not going to do that but he was deceived he actually is going to do it he didn't know he was going to do it or is the

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Holy Spirit omniscient he knows all things you see my point it's not real don't don't you people everywhere say oh

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I had a dream and boy I think the Lord's speaking to me and there are books written on it um I've got a document

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Dave you'd probably like to see this um I wouldn't consider heresy you'd like to see it it's called interpretation of dreams

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I don't remember who sent it to me some charismatic friend of mine sent it to me and I saved it

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I haven't read it but I did save it it's many pages long so those kinds of things if you were to name basically what

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Hebrews 1 1 says is God used to speak in time past as he spoke through the prophets as he used to speak through the prophets he no longer speaks that way now he speaks through his word through Jesus Christ and so if you just ask yourself okay if he no longer speaks to us like he spoke through the prophets let's name the ways they spoke and he no longer does that the first one is what would they have dreams right then they might be wide awake sitting by a river and have a vision

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I don't remember any ecstatic utterances they had handwriting on the wall sometimes it was in a foreign language so maybe that counts how else would

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God burning bush voice from heaven an audible voice are not ways

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God spoke to them through the prophets can you think of another who can name another visions visions dreams dreams interpretations everything that you can name he no longer speaks that way

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Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 says that now either the Holy Spirit lied to us or didn't understand the future or he got it right and people are faking those things today it's not it can't be in between they're either fakes

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I'm not listen I've met fakes that were sincerely convinced they weren't fakes though haven't you so I'm not saying they're not good people

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I've met most of those people are sweeter than the people in this room because when we take a stand on truth we don't look real sweet so they're sweeter than us they're kinder than us outwardly and that's the way these

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Essenes were they were had an exclusive spirit they were the aristocrats of wisdom they understood stuff no one else could possibly understand and they felt that they were the people and had the knowledge in a jug and put a stopper on it as J Verne McGee said they felt they had the monopoly of all wisdom as a result they considered themselves super duper in knowledge and thought they thought that they more than any of the apostles knew isn't that interesting the

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Essenes were wiser than the apostles of Jesus Christ Paul will issue them a warning in the first chapter of Colossians we'll see that later and because he was battling them when he wrote this little book that we're studying number two the second thing about the

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Essenes so they were not only had this exclusive spirit of knowing more than anyone else secondly they held speculative tenets on creation on the creation of the universe they speculated on how the universe got here rather than believing the six -day creation taught in the word of God so they had the old testament but they didn't accept that and they speculated on ways they thought the world came into creation they taught that God did not create the universe directly but created a creature who in turn created another creature until one finally created the physical universe now these people if I play this video for you

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I will make the kids go out of the room but if I play this video for you you will see them talking about and giving names of creatures that are not in the bible so where did they come up with these and how do they know their name

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I don't know but anyway the same thing that the Gnostics have done 2 ,000 years ago it's nothing nothing new it comes from Satan comes from demons doctrines of demons as Paul called it and um creature created a creature another creature until one finally created the physical universe

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Christ was considered by these people to be a creature not the creator now who who can you name that believes that way today the

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Jehovah's Witnesses the Mormons and these people that I'm talking about if they keep listening to those spirits rather than reading the scriptures they're going to believe something weird like that that Jesus probably was not really the creator he probably was created they'll come to believe that eventually because they'll be led down this road of lies by these lying spirits that they're allowing to enter their bodies and their minds until one finally created the physical universe

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Christ was considered a creature in this long series of creations this was known in pantheistic

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Greek philosophy as the the demur is how

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I used to pronounce it it's spelled d -e -m -i -u -r -g -e the demurge

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I've read about it it's creepy to me even to say the word but this was the name that the pagan teachers in Greek in the

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Greek world talked about this spiritualism that that these people had picked up in Paul's day

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Paul refutes this in Colossians chapter 1 15 through 19 and chapter 2 verse 18 so we're going to be getting to Paul dealing with these false teachings which will be very helpful for us because we have friends that are teaching it our former friends

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I would say who are teaching this right now on YouTube around the world and they've they've attempted to try to copy our trade way system as well and teach stock trading while they're teaching this garbage nor luckily they don't mention our name because they could but they don't and I don't want to be associated with that at all the third thing these

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Essenes did another identifying mark of this group was their ethical practice of asceticism and unrestrained licentiousness now that is a very strange thing because if you study what asceticism means it's kind of like being a monk where you withdraw from the world and appear to be super spiritual you dress different you act different you talk with a nice little spiritual talk you just sound you just sound so much more spiritual than everyone else and you talk different you don't hang out with the world you withdraw from the world so they had that but the weird thing is they also had unrestrained licentiousness which isn't so weird to me as I have observed in my lifetime religious groups is that when

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I see people who are one of two things either they're legalistic highly legalistic like the fundamental independent baptist group was that Charlotte and I were in when we started this church because we were young and didn't know better but I mean we didn't know what legalism was the

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Lord brought us out of that thankfully and got rid of the pastor who started the church didn't get rid of him he's still in California preaching but anyway you know what

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I have noted and by and by the way that pastor went off with an organist and you know was an adulterer and then got back with his wife and now he's preaching again so what

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I have observed and he wasn't that way when we were around him at all as far as we can tell he wasn't that way but he was after he left here and what

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I've noticed is people that are caught up in legalism where they got all these rules that they're going to put on people in the church how you got to dress how you got to talk where you can go where you can't go where you can have a tv or one or two or none where you can go into a movie house how you have to cut your hair if you're a lady whether you wear pants or not all these kinds of rules is eventually you will see adulterous activity among those people fornication and adultery well so I don't find it now by the way this is a fact of history in the some of the thickest church history books in my study

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I've read these books years years ago and I refer to them from time to time now but if you look at the history of so -called uprisings of tongue speaking which haven't happened much in the 2000 year history of the church because they ceased sometime prior to the canonization of scripture 325

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AD but even before that they ceased because if you read chrysostom who wrote a commentary on corinthians he said

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I don't know what this means here in corinthians where it's talking about tongue speaking because he said it doesn't happen anymore now think about that that was like 270

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AD so that's how long ago it didn't even exist but when you read church history books it goes back that far it goes all the way back to the apostles when you read church history books textbooks on it but as they come forward they say these things did cease that time but it will word it like but there were a few spurious uprisings of tongue speaking in different churches in different places in the world always accompanied by bad doctrine and adulterous situations or something like that I'm kind of paraphrasing it but that's what the church history books say about it so so not only are legalists having a problem with immorality but charismatic teachings and Pentecostal type people who are really into whatever this spirit is is teaching them these things that God says he doesn't do anymore can easily move into the body and tempt the persons to have immoral acts with each other and it gets in the newspapers and everybody knows about it

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I mean I remember when I was a young man Jimmy Swagger got caught and he was one of the big teaching about faith healing and tongue speaking and and he got caught with a stack of Playboy magazines in his car and they confronted him with they knew that he went in with prostitutes and he said yeah but I never

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I never touch him I just look at him and he was teaching the Bible biggest

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Bible teacher when we were young adults and teaching tongue speaking faith healing and all of this so start out in this country by a woman preacher which the

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Bible forbids by the way the crux of the situation is when they say that they still have apostles which the

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Bible says they don't and they say they still have prophets which the Bible says they have ceased Paul said prophecies will cease and they did and I can tell you when and where in history they ceased but if you open yourself to believing those things still exist then any spirit can come to you and say well you're a prophet let me teach you this you can teach these other people and then this is where it starts in your life so beware of that just stick with the scripture it'll guide you away from these things but you you know what they do they do the same thing they've done for 2 ,000 years as soon as they get into these things and on this little video if I played it you will see subtly that they mock they mock the authority of the

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Bible gave me goosebumps just thinking about it well you know may

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God judge them so they taught that God okay so you see this stuff about weird things about the creation and that Jesus himself was not

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God but rather a created being no that's been a lot of Jehovah's Witness and Mormon teaching and others and then the third thing was this mark of asceticism along with unrestrained licentiousness licentiousness is a big word old

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English word in the King James it just means sexual immorality in a big fashion where it just kind of takes over the person and this is how these people work that has not changed if you just observe you will see that that is the case and then when someone does call them out on it they say well you're judgmental and you know what

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I have actually witnessed strong Southern Baptists because that's what I grew up preachers on TV preachers who got caught in adultery and guess where they ended up who who do you think held out loving forgiving arms to them the

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Pentecostals and Charismatics and they ended up moving into that group and then started teaching that stuff like years later so it goes hand in hand together and you will see that as McGee says they got the asceticism from the influence of the

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Greek Stoics and the unrestrained licentiousness they got that from the influence of the

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Greek Epicureanism and so you had these two Greek philosophies that those two things come from and Paul refutes this in this book of Colossians and we'll get to it and see that let's see what time it is so asceticism most common ascetic practices included fasting complete sexual abstinence which is kind of interesting when you think about it like being a monk and not having any women around or like the

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Roman Catholic priest not allowed to marry and what do they have problems with because of that well don't name it but you can imagine and so that you know they feign holiness and won't even have a wife and yet God himself said it's not good that the man should live alone did he not but they know better and so they feign these things so they usually will include fasting complete sexual abstinence self -imposed poverty day there's a good one for you to talk about in tradeway sleep deprivation do you know why they do that because it makes it easier for demonic activity to take place when you're sleep deprived and secluding oneself in the wilderness so that's one part of gnosticism that they took part in but then they move into this licentiousness because they're walking with demons and demons are called unclean spirits and so that leads then to this epicureanism and this was founded 300 years before Jesus was born this

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Greek philosophy an ancient school of philosophy founded in Athens by a philosopher named

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Epicurus and the school rejected determinism and advocated hedonism in other words pleasure is the highest good any kind of pleasure is the highest good but of a restrained kind which is kind of strange so they they would only do these unclean things in certain ways that their religion laid out that was okay like for instance when