Colossians 1:13 - We Have Been Translated

I am now the tech man. Soon I will take over the music department. You're in trouble now. And then Maddie forget it I'll be doing the solos. Now that was that was crazy y 'all. Can you even think about this okay out of all those channels we didn't know where it was coming from it was channel number six Satan's Channel.

Isn't that crazy? So anyway we found it today so that's good. We were able to have three mics operating at one time no FM radio so soon we'll be able to have 12 because we have a new mixer. It's just gonna take six months to read the instruction manual and figure out how to use that because it's digital.

I think it'll even memorize things like we can set your mic settings like you like them and you just hit a button and it's you know however you want it. Pretty cool. We'll see but we will not plug channel six into that one.

All right good to see all of you today and that was great music today. Thank you guys for doing that. Very very nice. We have a good house here today. Last Sunday was a little thin but today we look better especially this side you guys packed the pew great.

You win the prize today so you get to have dessert first. You guys need to work on it a little bit. We need Dave senior back. Can you work on that Dave and all right. Ron's holding up the rear back there.

He's a true Baptist. Thank you brother Ron. That's where I would be if I were preaching I'd be back there with you. I like to be able to escape when the preacher gets too hot you know what I mean like if he's preaching to me I like to be able to get out.

Colossians 1:13 and God’s Deliverance From Darkness

All right thank you Matt. We are all ready. Let's turn to Colossians chapter 1 and let me see where I want us to be here. So busy with the tech having to handle the tech today that I didn't move my pages to where we start today quite yet but I will do that very quickly here.

Okay so we're in Colossians chapter 1 verse 13b today. How about that the second part of the verse and so let's have a word of prayer and we'll get started. Lord thank you so much for helping us figure out the terribly distracting FM station coming through our system for so many months and it was so simple and yet difficult to find so thank you for helping us to find that today and Lord we ask you to rebuke Satan and the demonic forces bind them put a hurt on them if they try to come around us today and may your Holy Spirit have complete freedom as he always does really anyway and we ask it in Jesus name Amen.

All right so let's take a look at verse 13. We've been in the first half of it. It says the Father it's talking about God the Father but it's it's the whole Godhead God the Father Son Holy Spirit who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.

So we know that specifically verse 13 the who there refers to the Father because it talks about his Son Jesus and it's God the Father's plan before he created anything and Dave I'm gonna go listen I got some to hear some good parts of your Sunday school this morning.

I don't listen to the whole thing because it was fascinating and you stopped right at the good part for next time right. All right so I have to nudge Ben aside another Sunday at least. But anyway it's fantastic about how God has has orchestrated the universe in such a way that it speaks to every single person.

I loved it he Dave said every single language and there's no way to shut it up. It just shouts there is God but you got to get to your next verse to show how people will know God. Right. So I won't get too far ahead of you on that but but God the Father before he even put all that out there even before that he knew you as his own children.

Isn't that something. And all those who are still lost but they're sheepies. They're not goats. They're sheep. He knows them too. Of course he knows the goats but he doesn't know them like he knows us because the Bible word for know means an intimate loving knowledge of a family member.

That's just think of it that way a close family member. This very verse I mean this whole book is just I don't know how we get through it because every word is so amazingly important and every phrase in this in this book but here it just starts to show the same power that spoke everything that exists into existence is what spoke you into existence as a saved person because you were walking in darkness.

I was walking in darkness and all the sudden God rebirthed us and put a new man or woman in us and luckily this church knows the difference and put that new man in us and we awakened in light out of darkness just as he did the whole universe when that light shined in the darkness.

So let's look at this. So God the Father who delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Now that that word translated to me is is pretty fascinating.

We talked about all the darkness last time you know it refers to Satan and we gave all the not all of them but many of the names of Satan found in the Bible and those names are descriptive of things he things that are his character and all of that.

But that's who God the Father has delivered us from now. God the Father had a method for doing it. So God not only ordained who his children were and knew his children. And I loved what Otis says it was a it was a choice that he never had to make because he just it's just like you know your kids.

You don't have to choose to pick your kids out of the crowd. It's a choice you don't have to make. You're gonna pick your kids first. Right. It's how it is. That's how God is. And so it's always been that way.

But God not only chose that but he also ordained the method by which he would pluck us out of darkness. And think about this you were born into a fallen lost race that was bound for hell because the Bible said the very first law that God ever said was the soul that sinneth it shall die.

The way he worded it was in the day that you eat the fruit thereof you shall die. But then all through the Bible in the Old Testament says the soul that sinneth it shall die. And you get in the New Testament says the wages of sin is what death.

So every single human being born into this world has been born into a lost race every single one. Because if you think about it Adam and Eve were not born they were created by God's hand. Right. And so but from there everything all the rest of them were born into a lost sinful race that had a character and a propensity to sin rather than to do good.

I mean if you think about it you don't have to teach your kids to do bad. Right. Like you don't have a paddle or whatever you use in your house to beat them so that they'll be bad. You you have to beat the bad out of them.

And I say that biblically the Bible says if you don't spank your children you will send them to hell. Well that's that's a pretty good responsibility verse. Wouldn't you say. So you you you you look at all this we're born into this fallen race that has a urge and a tendency to do the bad thing.

And even after we're saved if we don't walk with the new man in control you can't curb that all the time because the old man ain't fixed yet. So the whole key is to walk spirit-filled and recognize when you're not.

And that's hard. Sometimes it's after the fact unfortunately like you get mad at somebody or something and boom all of a look back. So I'm not sure I handled that like Jesus would. Right. So that is the continual thing we have to do.

So here we are a fallen race born into a dark fallen race that is is into a world that the little G God of the world is Satan. Right. The little G God of the world is Satan and he has built darkness into this world that we live in.

All you have to do is step outside the door of your house or this church and you walk into a world that's geared towards darkness. And the bigger the city you live in the more it's there. If you if you're like Lot and you want to live in a city you may end up like Lot and get too used to it.

If you want to be like Abraham live out in the country the farther close to that you can get the better. That's just Bible methodology. I'm telling you the truth. Okay so so here here we we see this amazing darkness that we're born into.

And then God the Father said but I have ordained that every single one of my sheep that I've known from before the foundation the world Ephesians 1 Romans 8 and the whole rest of the Bible every single one of those will be saved because I'm gonna put my shepherd in charge of him and his name is Jesus Christ.

And he said of them I will lose nothing. And by the way if he lost one he would have to answer to God. For that I listen I've done enough ranching to know. And you've heard me. If you've been here before you've heard me say this.

I grew up raising my grandpa's cows till I went to heaven till I went to college I ain't doing it till I get them. I'm done with them. I've got to do leasing land with cows. But they're not my cows. Okay.

Because I did that from the time I was about seven years old till I went to college. I liked it when I was a kid but I was sort of the shepherd of his cows. I don't know what you call the shepherd that does cows instead of sheep.

What is that a cattleman. I don't know but think of it as a shepherd. I had to take care of his cows. And sometimes his bulls would get loose. And guess who my grandfather held responsible for that the bull or me.

Why is it that almost every Christian denomination in this city today puts that responsibility on the sheep rather than on the shepherd. No if they don't repent and believe and walk right and get baptized all that there they're gonna end up in hell.

That sheep is just needs to be smarter than a sheep. Because sheep are stupid right in the animal world. So they got to be smart sheep and do everything right. So they can make it to heaven. And yet the Bible says if they don't make it to heaven Jesus has to answer for it.

Now think how different that is than what you heard growing up and what I heard growing up. But aren't you glad it's that way. Wouldn't you rather your soul be in the hands of a shepherd that has loved you before he made anything and known you everything about you inside and out before he made anything and he came to get you.

But see here's the thing not only did he predestined and foreordain and choose that you would be his. He chose the means. And guess what. The means has some responsibility included. It has the responsibility of us giving the gospel out to the world because they have to have two things to be saved from our viewpoint.

And it's reality just like God's viewpoints reality isn't it. Unless you want to say we're not real he said okay if you're real on his planet and you're his sheep you need to give the gospel out the best you can so people can hear it because that's the water of the word.

And then the Holy Spirit will come and call the sheep 100 of them he will call them on their spiritual birthday. And this is God's means by which he saves the sheep you see. So it includes this book which is real.

This is an amazing thing. If you hadn't figured that out yet you probably are not spending enough time figuring that out yet. But you need to get more and more into this book. It's amazing. But the means are the gospel and the Holy Spirit moving in on the sheep and calling them and opening their eyes where they see Jesus for who he is.

And then there's a responsibility element is once you see him you got to receive him. You got to say oh can I go with you. But guess what if he's irresistible what do you think you're gonna do if all of a sudden the Holy Spirit lets you know he's always been your daddy your father.

Or with Jesus so many relationships your brother maybe women can identify with this better. Your your bridegroom you know he's all these things your friend. And in a moment of time when the Holy Spirit lets you see that that's who he is you're gonna receive him.

And that's God's plan. Because he ain't losing one of you. And listen if you didn't Jesus would keep pursuing you with candy and flowers and taking you on dates and all this stuff. Till you did say yes.

Because that's his job. Isn't that nice to know. So who is it that delivered you and me from darkness. Us and the church. The Catholic Church the Bapto-Catholic Church the Methodo-Catholic Church the Presbyterian Oh Catholic Church.

Or was it Jesus. It's just God. So that's kind of where this starts. He has delivered us from the power of darkness. But let's look a little deeper into the method by which he did it. It said he translated us into the kingdom of his dear son.

How many of you have ever tried to translate a language to another language. Yeah Viviana does it all the time. It worked probably. Or where you go. I do it too. I just do it with my smartphone. Just I google it and I say okay Spanish to English.

Boom. And then I speak the English word and it goes whatever it says the Spanish word. So we can do that. But think about what it is to translate something. So Viviana give me the word for dessert. I like that.

It's my favorite word in Spanish. Polte. I can't even go there. What she said. Okay so so that to me like that does not even get me excited. But dessert does. Okay. Why is that. Because I don't understand that language.

But she just translated that it does it sound the same. No does it even close. No it's totally what different. And what else changed. Like what she changed it into something that other people could understand.

We you know that they can't understand the word dessert. Right. So think about the process of going from dessert to that. Okay sorry you guys out there can't hear her because I don't even trying it. So anyway I tried it once that was a disaster.

So so think about that. Because that's what God did to you. Now. Now let's let's go a little deeper into that though. It's pretty cool stuff. So he has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Now I understand we're using the English word translated.

We gotta look at the Greek right. But he delivered us from the power of darkness it says. And he translated us now we talked about the different ideas of power and and all of these different things. We talked about how Satan takes control of all this stuff.

And so let's stop and think about what translate means. If you just look at a good Webster's dictionary it can mean this it can mean. And the reason I'm looking at the English is because translates a pretty good definition for the Greek word.

For this it's just one of several different colors of meaning. But it's pretty good. So what does it mean to translate something. And I think you might find this interesting because you don't think of it this way.

Always. But one thing it means is to bear something to carry something. Isn't that interesting. Another thing is to remove something. Another thing it can mean is to change from one place state or form or appearance into another.

Well that kind of fits the language part. Doesn't it to change from one state form or appearance into a different state form or appearance. It can mean to transfer something from one place to another in the root meanings in Greek or closer to that it can mean to transform something from a lower state to a higher state a change to a different substance form or appearance.

That's that's pretty good. And that's just the English right. So when we when we think about it that's what he does to us now see like with me trying to translate from English to Spanish I have to use a translator like on my phone because I don't know the language.

And I want you to think about that. There's not a human being born into this lost race that knows the language of salvation not one. There's not a human being that's walking around lost right now whether they're a lost sheep or a lost goat because there's two different kinds of lost people or you can call them wheat and tares like a lost wheat versus a tear who's never gonna get saved.

But they're both lost at that point in time right. There's not a single lost person that knows how to translate himself into a saved person language. He cannot translate himself into a heavenly being because he is a satanically run machine.

The Bible says every single lost person is moved by Satan at his will. You can't translate yourself from that to someone who is moved by the Holy Spirit at his will. You can't. You don't have the equipment to do it all right.

So so in this illustration we're using Viviana represents the Holy Spirit because she has the ability to she translated that without any phone. Didn't you. I mean you just knew how to do it but I played the role of a human.

Okay because I didn't know how to do it so she had to do it for me. This is how salvation works. And yet almost every church in the city of course Canada today almost without exception I know one out on the edge of going towards Waco that believes like we do.

I met the gentleman once he's awesome looking preacher young preacher but he understands salvation all right. But all the other churches all think that if you just raise your hand after a sermon you get up and come down here that I can sit here and show you something to pray so that you can translate yourself into a completely different human being.

That is as idiotic as any conception that any humanist ever concocted out of his brain and nothing else his brain plus nothing. So let's let's go deeper into this and see why. All right. So as we look at this it's kind of interesting because later we're gonna get down to verse 21 here in chapter 1 and look what it says.

We're headed towards that he's verse 13 is the one that says he's translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. Verse 21 says in you that were sometime or you could say once upon a time you guys that are saved.

Now once upon a time you were alienated you were enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet now has he reconciled you to God that we're gonna get to that later. But see it shows you where we were. We were aliens like we weren't part of God's kingdom.

We were not part of God's family. If God's family were strung out you know across course the cannon everyone in course cannon was saved and this was God's family and some UFO flew in and landed and got out.

That would be us before we were saying we'd be like aliens. Totally look at us say wow why are they green have three eyeballs and you know a funny pointy head and little skinny arms like they don't ever lift weights.

That's what aliens look. Right. And big I big O eyes. Why do they look like that. Because they're different. They've got to be changed before they go look like God's kids. So this is this is where we're headed towards the verse 21.

So this word delivered in the Greek when it says God has delivered us from the power of darkness it is a word that means rescued and it you know I love it. When we talk about salvation you say I got saved.

I'd rather you say I got delivered because it's closer to the meaning you didn't just like get fixed where all the sudden you're not going to hell. That that's not what salvation it is. That's one part kind of an important part I would say but not only that but you got delivered while you're here you are a delivered person.

You have been delivered from the power of darkness. While you are here you never have to sin. But as brother rocky would say but you probably will. But you never have to sin. You could go hours days weeks or months without ever sinning once you have that power.

Because it's not your power your flesh can't do it but your new man can and will. Your new man will never sin put him in control. Why don't you do an experiment this week. See how many hours or days you could go without one single sinful thought or sinful act by letting your new man.

Not by trying to do good or bad or not doing bad or quitting this or that but just by walking with Jesus. Just say okay I'm gonna walk with you this minute. I'm gonna walk I'm hold my hand Jesus next minute next hour.

See how far you can go. Because that's how it works now. He has delivered us. Then it says he translated us. And that's kind of where we are today. Now this Greek word methis stay me means to transfer from one place to another.

Or it means to carry away or transport from one place to another. I mean the Rapture is a beautiful picture of it when even your body gets saved it gets pulled out of the grave and as it comes out it is it is changed into a perfect body.

Or if you're still walking around on the earth when the Rapture happens which you well could be especially probably all of us could be. You don't say the younger people but probably all of us will be here when that happens you'll get changed in the air.

So so we have this translation. That's a beautiful picture of this translation but it means to be carried away or transported or to exchange. And one interesting word that this has been translated into in English is the word seduce.

The word translate to seduce. Now think about that just for a minute. And I don't want you to think of it in the in the negative sinful sense but think of it in the true meaning of the word is to woo someone and give them enough positive reasons to come your direction and do what you want them to do.

So you think about you when you were still lost in Jesus through his Holy Spirit and through the Word of God and through other Christians through your mama maybe your dad preachers all these different ways that he woos you to come to him in in the physical realm in the my in the area of your mind and your soul and eventually your spirit when he saves you and all of this is going on too.

So there is a sense of seduction where Jesus seduces us and makes himself appear to be so amazingly more wonderful than the world system in our own self who's been the God of our life. And he shows us what a better God he would be what a better Lord he would be what a better friend he would be than even our own rotten soul.

Because our own rotten soul will cause us to kill ourselves. We will eat too much we will drink too much we will party too much. We will do things that we flat no cause disease and even some diseases that kill us.

Right. And he has to pull us out of all that. So that that little idea is captured in this Greek word is also I think that's kind of interesting. It comes from a root word though that means to stand and it has a little prefix in the Greek meta which means amid like amidst something.

So the real root meaning of this where he translates is he himself stood in the midst of us. He himself stood inside of me and awakened me when I was in that car going to work that day when I got saved same with you whenever that happened and wherever you were he himself stood in the midst of you.

And he awakened you and revealed himself to you and seduced you away from the world to himself and translated you and transported you from a lost dark world and soul and self into the kingdom of light the kingdom of his dear son where the light shines forever in such a resplendent light that if any man looked at it today it would kill you.

That's that's the kingdom that you're part of now because he did the translating. And you can't do that to yourself. I can't say that enough. I'll say it the rest of my life. Every preacher in all of history that I've read they always in whatever their generation is they had a major fight they had to fight false the major false doctrine that they fought against.

And boy they talk about it a lot. And in my lifetime I hate to say it Katie's not here. So I'll say it one of them is tough. Is the false tongues movement in the fake healing movement in all of that. But do you know what the other one is.

And this is sad enough. The other one is a false doctrine of salvation a false gospel that is not the gospel. And Paul said yeah there's other spirits you know there's other Jesus's and there's other gospels he said but not really there's really only one true of each of those.

And I swear you know a false system of salvation that is purely a man made is what I have battled against most of my life in preaching and writing and talking to people. And and when you tell people they go huh what are you saying.

What you're saying is confusing. Brother David what you're saying doesn't make any sense. Brother David's because you've been listening to fake preachers most of your life telling you stuff that they learned in seminary.

That's not even in this book. I bet brother Otis and I moved removed about 200 words and phrases from our lives over a 13-year period that we used to teach because we heard some other preachers say it and we couldn't even find it in the Bible.

So we got rid of it. Maybe not 200 but at least a hundred. We all need to be doing that. But the truth is this plan of salvation is so different than your neighbor thinks it is that if you told them the truth right now they would think you were part of a cult.

And yet if you lived 150 years ago almost every group understood this no matter what the name on the denomination except maybe the Roman Catholics. But if you went back far enough even they understood it at the time of Augustine 300 AD the Roman Catholic Church.

Augustine himself understood salvation by grace. He understood it was not by works. He understood that you could not lose your salvation. He's a Roman Catholic. So every denomination moves in a cycle away from godliness and God in control around toward humanism and man in control.

The Catholics were the first one to go through the cycle unfortunately. But the Baptists maybe were the last and we're there now. The Baptists are there now. I'm and I love I love the Baptist history.

I've studied that more than any other church history. It's rich but I can't go with a false gospel. I don't care what name you put on the side. Sorry about that. But anyway look look at how God says it really happens.

God comes into the life of dark lost deaf blind dead people and translates them into a language of heaven. And he no person man woman boy or girl has the equipment to translate themselves into the other language.

No church can do that for them. No no sign on the on the church you know name on the church sign. Can do that for anyone. No faith here slapping you on the forehead and saying loose can translate you into the kingdom of light.

Only God can do that all right. So verse 14. Let's look at that. You know what though I'm not done with translate. What time is it. Yeah I'm not. I'm not done with translate. So let's let's look at this for a minute.

Let me get you to let's totally change mode. Let me get you to turn to first Corinthians 13 to tell me when you got it. Because I like you to see God's Word not just listen to me. And I do like you to be looking at the God's Word part.

I'm looking at rather than searching other stuff while I'm talking. How do I know you do that. Because I do that when Dave's talking. But I'm working on that Dave I'm working on not doing that. Oh brother what a hypocrite.

Okay. So anyway you do it to Dave. I know all right first Corinthians 13 to look at this because here's what's what's interesting about it. The same Greek word for translate is found in this verse but it's given a different English word but it's the same Greek word.

So whatever this thing is where God takes us out of this kingdom of darkness and translates us into the kingdom of light is in this verse and I'll let you find it when we get to it is the word remove.

That's the word in English here. So let's read it. It says. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and I don't have love.

I am nothing. You see that word remove talking about removing a mountain. The Apostle Paul used that allegory because he was taught this by Jesus. So let me get you to turn to Mark the book of Mark chapter 11 verse 22.

This is where Paul got this idea. He heard I don't know that he heard Jesus. You know when he was teaching his other apostles to Paul was lost as a goose. But later he spent the better part of three years with Jesus in the wilderness in the Arabian Desert as Jesus Christ taught him in person after Jesus had ascended into heaven.

That's what you call a visitation from God. And it is what qualified Paul to be an apostle. But one of the things. But so Jesus I'm sure taught Paul this since he had not heard him teach it while he was with the other apostles.

And here it is. Look at Mark chapter 11 verse 22 and Jesus answering said unto them have faith in God. Now you'd have to know the context to know why it says. He answered because you can't just start there like you got to go up to the verses above.

See what kind of question is he answering. Well here was the question. He had sent his apostles and disciples out and he gave them power apostolic power by the way that you do not have and won't have in the church age.

But but this was prior to the church age because church age didn't start till Pentecost. So Jesus and the Apostles lived in the Old Testament economy not New Testament. So he sent them out and he gave them apostolic and prophetic powers and said I want you to go out and heal people and raise people from the dead in my name and then come back and tell them the gospel by the way tell them the gospel of the kingdom and then come back to me.

So they did now can you imagine would that be. How many of you like if you could have been there and done that. Yeah I have had dreams where this building had 3 ,000 people in these pews. Lots maybe a thousand.

But it looked like 3 ,000 right here in this church. And I showed up that I didn't have my sermon ready. Which I don't know if you've ever seen a time like that. Right. Never. Because I've always got way more sermon than you can handle ready.

But that day in my dream I did not have anything ready and here's the crowd showed up for the first time ever. And I was so upset because I didn't have a sermon ready. I'm scared. I'm trying to think what can I preach.

Surely I know something. And I just went blank. Can you imagine that. And so all of a sudden though I walked down and I walked down this very aisle and I started looking at people that needed to be healing and I laid my hand on their head and I healed their physical ailments.

I have never felt better in my life. And then I woke up. But I mean wouldn't it be something. Well okay we do not have that power. You know what we do have is called the power of prayer. We do not walk by sight.

So I don't get to touch you and watch an arm grow out or a shoulder be located properly. I can't touch you and do that anymore. But what I can do is pray for you and watch God work in your life. So I don't get to live by sight.

I have to live by what faith. Faith is something you can't see. It's it's the unseen power of God and the unseen world. Like brother Myron has said so many times it's more real than this stuff because this will be long gone and that will exist forever.

It's more real. But that's the realm we walk in. That's why I know this charismatic stuff is wrong. It is not biblical. There's nothing about it. That's biblical. It's very seductive. Very. They'll use Bible verses to try to prove it.

But they're always out of context. Anyway I didn't mean to get into Katie's favorite topic again. But I did. But but where was I lost my place. Oh but but think about this. What if you could. What if you could touch people in healing.

So imagine if you were in this group of people and Jesus sent you out that day would that be something. So they went out and they came across a demoniac a man who was filled with a number of demons. And by the way if that was true 2 ,000 years ago it still happens today.

Okay demons can't die. There's still as many of them on the earth as there were in Jesus day. And they laid hands on this man and they cast. They said in the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of this man.

And that demon did not come out of that man and looked at them like I'm gonna kill you if you hang around here. And they probably fled and they come back to Jesus after pretty much a day of victory. Except for that and the only thing they could talk about was that they said Jesus there was this person and he was filled with demons and we cast.

The team tried to cast the demons out and they would not come out of him. How did we fail. And that's the context of this verse where we're starting. And Jesus the first thing he said before he got to verse 22 was he said all right.

Matt you know what I think it's actually after. I think it's verse 25 at the end of this little story because he looked at him and he said this kind cometh not out but by prayer and fasting. So that demon was on the higher hierarchy of the demons.