Colossians 1:23 - Not Moved Away From The Hope, Pt. 6

All right, good, so great to see each of you here today, just the people God wanted here. And we have Devin Jones, and team now, I didn't catch your last name, but I'll get it, visiting with us today.

So glad to have you. And we met them in a big Dallas meeting our company did some weeks ago. And Devin and I have been communicating ever since because we met each other there and I was sort of taken with him.

He's such a great young man. And they're thinking about, they might move closer here so they can go to church with us for a good while. And we're excited about that. That would be fantastic. All right, good to see Bobby and Jalen with us today too, and all the rest of our family.

Review of Colossians 1:21-23 and Hebrews 3:6

Well, let's give you just a little bit of review and we'll get started this morning. You could turn with me to Philippians chapter, I'm sorry, Colossians chapter one, verse 21. And it's always good if you have two hands and you're trying to study the Bible because I got another verse I want you to be able to read quickly.

And that's Hebrews chapter three, verse six. So Colossians 121 and Hebrews 3, six. And this is just a review. So you guys kind of know what we've been talking about the last couple of Sundays and we hopefully finish this part up today, I hope.

We got started a little late though, so we might not. All right, so let me pray and then we'll start with the Colossians verse. Lord, thank you so much for the service already and the wonderful praises that we had this morning.

And we do praise you for who you are and all of your works. And we thank you for the many, many benefits you've given us as your children and the answered prayers recently. And thank you so much, Lord.

Now guide us as we study your word and keep us true to it in Jesus name, amen. All right, Colossians 121 says, and you that were sometime, in modern English, you might say once upon a time, you who were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind.

So this talks about how we were before salvation. It is a study that's not talked about by modern preachers. It's called the depravity of man. It starts in the book of Genesis and goes all the way through the Bible and shows that we're born into this world in a depraved state.

Our spirit is a dead kernel. Our eyes are blind to the truth and our ears cannot hear God. That's the state we entered this world in and all your babies and all my grandbabies came in the world that same way.

And you don't have to teach those babies to be bad. It comes with them. But you do have to train them to be good. And if you don't, you will create a serial killer quite likely, nowadays especially. So that's the depravity of man.

And you see it in the first part of the verse because it shows us what we were like before the Lord called us to himself and before we met him. And it says that we were once upon a time alienated. That means alienated from God because there are other verses that say that.

It says we were without God and without hope in the world. Now think about that. That's the state we were in, no hope of salvation. You know what that means is in the natural realm, there was nothing in and of yourself that could ever be saved or would even want to be saved.

The Bible says, there's none that seeketh God, not one. There you had no hope of salvation on your own. But isn't it wonderful that the Bible teaches salvation is the operation of God. And then he chases us and that the Holy Spirit, there will be a point in your life where he turns on your dead spirit and quickens it, opens your eyes and your ears and points you to Jesus and says, he's your shepherd.

He's got the food, you're a sheep and you're hungry. Right? Isn't that wonderful? So this has all of this in one verse. And at that point, when the Holy Spirit calls you like that, you are regenerated and it's something he does to you.

It is not something you do for God. If it were, you could lose it. If it were, you could just undo it and stop doing it and lose your salvation. And most of the world thinks that's how it works. All of the world religions are based on works.

And so many of the Christian denominations, you could name them, Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Methodist, Catholic. They also believe it is a works system. And they also believe you can lose your salvation, which is impossible.

It is impossible. But if you're truly saved, it's impossible. But why is it impossible? Because you didn't save yourself. It's so clear in scripture. So this is what it's talking about. God saved us. It says, and you that were once upon a time alienated and enemies of God in your mind, and by wicked works also by how you lived as well, yet now has he reconciled you to God is what that means.

There's your regeneration moment. It happens in time on your lifeline at a point when the Holy Spirit comes in and calls you. It's called the effectual calling. He wakes you up for the first time. He quickens you, which means brings you from death to life spiritually.

And in your mental state, your whole body, mind and soul, you're brought from death to life. I was in my car driving to work when that happened one day, when I was 24. But with all of us, it's a different time in a different way, but this is what it's talking about.

Verse 22, in the body of his flesh through death, this is how he saved us. He died in our place and paid the sin debt in full. But look what it says. He now will present you to for the Father, holy, unblameable, that means without blemish, and unreprovable, that means unable to be judged and punished by the Father in God's sight.

Now that is one of the greatest eternal security verses in the whole Bible. But what we've been talking about is in the very next verse, in verse 23, it says, if, now that seems strange to those of us who understand that once a person is truly saved, he can't lose it.

That seems strange. It says, if you continue in the faith grounded, settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, et cetera. Well, there's a parallel passage. So let me get you to turn to it now and mentioned it a while ago.

The Meaning of "If" in Colossians and Hebrews

Hebrews, what did I say? Chapter three, verse six. Yes. Parallel passage. And you know, one of the rules of Bible interpretation is that we ought to let the Bible interpret the Bible. So we'll look at another passage, see if it sheds light on this.

What we found out in the Colossians passage, and we spent a piece talking about it, is that word if is translated, that Greek word is translated in other verses in the New Testament to mean since, which is totally different than if.

And so that's interesting. So that means the same Greek word means both. So the only way you can tell which to put in there is through the context. So then we looked at the context in Colossians and it's all talking about how God saves us forever.

Now in Hebrews, we looked again to make doubly sure we're looking at this correctly. So look at this one. Hebrews 3, 6, but Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are, that just means God considers us like his house.

It says when we get saved, our body is the temple of the living God, doesn't it? So our body is his temple. So it's a house for God to live in. But who built the house? God, God built the house and then he lives in it.

That's what it's, it's an allegory, but this is what it's talking about. So Jesus Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are, but then look at the next word. If we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

Sounds, it sounds the same thing. Now, once again, that word if has been translated in various different ways. It could say, if you suppose, it can say since and different words like that. And we've talked about that, but really what I'm trying to do here is look at the context and see, does that give us any help?

What if we just leave it if, like the King James translators put it, is that okay too? It really is when you look at the context. So that's what we've been doing in this passage. Now, what we started doing a couple of Sundays ago is we asked this question, who is it that does fall away?

Because all of us have been in church and seen someone come up and give this glowing testimony of how they were and how God saved them and how they are now. And then nine months later, they're out at the beer joint, dancing with somebody else's wife and drinking and living for the devil.

And so what do people say? Well, they fell away, right? Well, is it true that people do fall away from church? It is true, isn't it? But the question is, some denominations will take that and see here is an example that you can lose your salvation which would defy every verse on that sheet of paper I gave you today, by the way, and many others I didn't put on there.

I don't know how many are on there. I didn't count them, but it's a bunch. I don't know, 20, 25. All those verses would have to be untrue if you could lose your salvation. So we've got to take a look at these verses.

We don't need to go change all 30 of those verses. They're simple and plain. And they plainly say, once you're truly saved, you can't lose it for a variety of reasons. But these two verses look like you could if you fell away.

And so we know people do fall away from church. And so those denominations that want to believe that Jesus' blood is not sufficient to save you is what they're saying, if you really think about it. And then they want to say, you can get saved again though.

And yet Hebrew chapter six says, no, if you fell away, you can never be saved again. See, they don't like to teach that one. So they have an inconsistency. All false teachers have inconsistencies that if you ask them enough questions, get them talking, they'll contradict themselves.

And so the problem is, what does it mean? It doesn't mean you can lose your salvation. What's it talking about? So what I did to help myself with these two passages is ask the question, okay, who is it that falls away?

So we've been talking about that. So let me give you a little help here in this very context of Hebrews chapter three. Look at the very next verse after verse six. And here's the problem. People that want to teach false doctrine, they will pull Hebrews 3 .6 and Colossians 1 .23 and just put them up on the screen and read them and then preach a whole sermon about how you can lose your salvation.

They don't want to look at the very next verse. They don't want to look at the chapter before it, the chapter after it, get the context. And that's why preachers preach topical sermons so they can make it say what they want to.

And that is cheating. Well, look at the next verse, Hebrews chapter three, verse seven, wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith today, if you will hear his voice, now he's starting to quote the Old Testament in Exodus when the people of God were out in the wilderness.

And the Holy Spirit is reemphasizing this by allowing the author of Hebrew, the penman of Hebrews to talk about it again. And it says, harden not your hearts as in the day of provocation, which happened back in Exodus, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me and saw my works for 40 years, wherefore, I was grieved with that generation and said, look at this, they do always err in their heart and they have not known my ways.

That tells you who the people are that fall away. And we looked at other verses the last few Sundays about it too. So the first thing that I see about these kinds of people is they err in their heart.

When they read the Bible, they try to make it say what they want it to say. They don't let it talk to you. They don't let it tell you what it wants to tell you. They wanna make it say what they want it to say.

And they're more interested in winning an argument than they are in knowing the truth. And that's the kind of people that fall away eventually because genuine, quick Christians seek the truth, especially when they're more mature.

Babies don't, they wanna argue. I was that way. You know, when I made that list I just gave you, I was that way. I made that list so I could beat little Church of Christ ladies, beat them up on their front porch.

Because I'd go knock on their door and they're so sweet, they sit down with it. But let me show you, honey, how you can lose your salvation. You're wrong about that for two hours I'd sit and talk with them.

I cut my teeth on that. That's why I made the list, so I could win. And I didn't win many of those, by the way. Because they knew their Bible better than the Baptist knew them. And I was a Baptist back then.

So anyway, it was very fortunate for me that those things happened though. So these are people who err in their heart and they haven't really known God's ways. Dave was talking about that a lot in Sunday school today, about in your heart, knowing God's ways.

A person who knows that does not fall away because you can't know that naturally. And Matt, where did he go? Well, anyway, Matt, there he is. He's hiding behind Noah almost there. We need a little more light back in that corner.

It's kind of dark back there, I can't see. But anyway, he quoted a verse out of 1 Corinthians, I believe it was, that was fantastic about that, knowing God's ways and all of that. So the person that falls away is a person who errs in his heart because he doesn't wanna know the truth and he hasn't known God or his ways.

So that's the first thing that we saw about that. Now, I'm gonna jump forward to where I wanna start today. And let's go to John 5, verse 37. And a couple of other passages we studied last Sunday. There were a couple of passages.

I think we'll see them again today in a minute in the notes. But they said that it was talking about people that fall away and it says they fall away because of their unbelief. So that's another thing.

So they err in their Bible interpretation because they don't have the Holy Spirit helping them because they ain't saved yet, number one. Number two, they don't know God. And number three, they're unbelievers.

But you'll see that one again in a minute. But we did discuss it a little bit already. Now let's look at John 5, verse 37, chapter five of the book of John. Hello, come on in this house. I don't know how you get through those locked doors, but I'm proud of you for doing it.

He's got a key. You did somebody give you a key, right? We could give you a key, by the way. Keys to the kingdom. Keys to the kingdom, all right. I got it. Okay, so that's funny. They don't let me in when it's locked.

I have to figure out, I don't know how you do it. Anyway, all right. So let me put this over here. All right, let's look at it. John 5, verse 37. We are still talking about who are these people that fall away?

Unbelief, Legalism, and the Pharisees

Who are they? So John 5, verse 37, Jesus says, and the father himself, which hath sent me, Jesus speaking now, has borne witness of me. And now he talks to the kind of people who fall away. And a lot of times they're religious people.

I think last time we mentioned the Sadducees, didn't we? We said that because we saw a verse that talked about they err in their ways and they were Sadducees. Who does that represent nowadays? Well, back then a Sadducee was a person who didn't believe in any miracles.

So they were naturalists. So they're kind of like a lot of our scientific world today. Now, I'm a scientist in a way. I was pre-med two years, took lots of science, a lot of math, love science. True science never contradicts the scriptures, ever.

But there is, as the Bible says, science falsely so-called and it will contradict the scripture. But, you know, the thing about it is, I love what Brother Otis used to say, God wrote two books. He wrote the Bible and he wrote nature.

You know, he made nature and it's like a book too. And they never contradict when they're true. So these Sadducees don't believe in any miracles. They don't believe there's even a heaven that you go to.

They didn't believe in the resurrection. And yet they were religious leaders of Israel along with the Pharisees. So there's one group of people that fall away is people that come to church for a while for whatever their reason is, but they don't really believe God does anything.

They don't even know if he's there. And so they're unbelievers. That's one form of an unbeliever. Now look at this one. Jesus is now speaking to the Pharisees. That's the other group. And they are the Bible scholars.

They claim to believe everything. God parted the Red Sea. God does this, God does that. And yet Jesus told them, yeah, you think your salvation is in the Old Testament and yet it speaks of me and you don't believe in me.

Abraham knew me, but you don't believe in me. And so since you don't believe the one God sent, you don't know God. So here you have a group of people that don't know God's ways. Listen, the Abrahamic covenant preceded Moses by 400 years.

And they pretend they don't remember that because they love the law so much. You know why they liked it? Same reason churchy people do nowadays. They will make a list of rules that you can't keep and they try to keep it better.

So they're better than you and I are. They're more spiritual because they keep a set of rules. That's called legalism. And the Pharisees were the inventors of it, okay? So this is who Jesus is talking to now.

And this is another kind of person that will eventually fall away because I guarantee you one thing, you can't keep the 10 commandments. Because Jesus said, oh no, no, it doesn't mean if you commit adultery.

No, it means if you look at a woman and lust after her, you've committed adultery already. Oh no, it doesn't mean if you kill someone, it means if you hate someone in your heart, you've killed them already.

You can't keep that law. And so when you know that and you try church for a while and you keep failing, you can't even stop your sin habits, you just quit. So you see, that's a person who does not know God's ways because God's ways, 400 years before the law was the covenant of Abraham, which Dave also talked about.

It's like he read my notes this morning, or I read yours, maybe that's what I did. But they don't understand it. It's grace, it's not law, it's grace. And then law is given to us and all human beings all across the world.

It's written right now for the lost because the lost who don't have Christ need the law. Your society would be a wreck if it weren't based on the law of God. And the laws of United States were based on the laws of this book.

So it's for lost people to show them that they need a savior. Jesus, most of the Beatitudes, if you read them, they don't sound right. They're not like what we live by today, but you gotta remember that was prior to Pentecost.

The church age had not begun. He was in the Old Testament age. What was he showing the Jews he preached to? 5 ,000 people or however many on that hill. He was showing them, you can't do this without me.

You can't keep the law. So now Jesus is talking to these people who are experts at keeping the law. And look what he says. You have neither heard God's voice. Okay, he says the father himself, he bears witness of me, Jesus said.

But he said, you have neither heard God's voice at any time nor seen his shape. And you have not his word abiding in your heart. For whom he sent him, ye believe not. So Jesus looked at these religious leaders and said a couple of things.

Number one, you've never heard the voice of God because you don't have ears that hear. How many times did Jesus say, he that has ears, let him hear. That's somebody, it's like a million, right? Someone, was that you Dave?

Dave comes up after my sermon last week because I said, how many millions of times did Jesus say, he that has ears, let him hear. He comes up after the sermon says, eight times is all it's mentioned. But if you don't exaggerate a little bit, you're not a preacher.

Okay, so you can't preach. But anyway, so, but this is what he's saying. Like they don't have ears to hear. They're born with a dead spirit, blind eyes, deaf ears. They're still lost. These people are still lost.

They can't hear the voice of God when it speaks. Jesus was all of the fullness of the Godhead in a body standing in front of them speaking and they couldn't hear it. They couldn't hear it with understanding is what the Greek word means.

It doesn't just mean the striking of the ear. It means to hear it and understand it. They couldn't do it. And also they didn't have God's word abiding in them. Here they are scholars of the Old Testament, but God's word is not living in their heart.

It's only right here. And they got it wrong here. You know why? Because they wanted to make it say what they wanted it to say. They weren't seeking truth. They couldn't hear God's voice in the word that they were studying.

So they didn't have the word in their heart. These are the kind of people that fall away today. Now, you know, you think about it. I don't want to pick on my Church of Christ brothers and sisters too much, but when they set up their whole church where you have to do five things to get saved and then you could lose it.

And then you got to do those five things again to get it back, which Hebrews 6 says is impossible. And you set everything up on works. Then wouldn't it be more likely that your congregation would tend to have people that fall away pretty quick because they figure out they can't do it.

So they just quit coming. So naturally they believe you can lose your salvation. They start at the wrong place. So one lie leads to another. Pentecostal is the same way. Methodist is the same way. Catholic is the same way.

It's sad, but it's true. I'm just telling you the truth. They're not in here, so I'm not picking on them. I'm just gossiping about them. Search the scriptures, Jesus said, for in them you think you have eternal life.

And they are they that speak of me. Wow, that's powerful, isn't it? I got goosebumps on that one. And you will not come to me that you might have life. So they go about being religious and eventually they fall away because they're not real.

So it's clear then that those who do not hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope until the end, those are the Sadducees and the Pharisees of the world today. The book of Hebrews is written to guess who?

The Hebrews. It was written to Jewish believers in the first century. And they always had Gentiles in the congregation. So who wrote this book is writing it to a group of Jews and Gentiles. And there's three kinds of Jews in the room and there's three kinds of Gentiles in the room.

There's lost goats, which are people who will never be saved. There's lost sheep, who are people that run with the goats until they get saved. And then there's saved sheep. And so when you speak to a crowd like that, which I don't get that opportunity except at tradeway meetings where I know I've got lost people in the crowd too.

Church this little, I kind of know everybody except the visitors. I'm not sure about them, but I'm checking them out. No, I'm kidding, I'm messing with you. But in a small church, it's not so much that way.

In a big church, I mean, by that, I mean over say 150 or more, you're gonna have some lost people in the congregation. So when you preach, you're aware of that and your sermon is a little different. You put some gospel in there on purpose.

And when it's like this, you just put meat in there and you teach the believers so that they can do what they're supposed to do to be salt and light in the world, right? But when you got a big crowd, you got to put a little bit of gospel in there every Sunday, which is okay.

You don't have to do the whole sermon though. A lot of churches make that mistake on that subject. But anyway, he's got these kind of three people, the folks that this letter was written to have those three people in the room listening, lost goats, lost sheep and saved sheep.

And so he knows that and God knows it. And so it's written. And that is a good reason to put that little word if in that verse we looked at, if you hold out to the end because if you've got lost people sitting in there pretending they're sheep, which they do, and you just act, well, once saved, always saved.

And that's all you teach. Then they'll go live for the devil. I grew up in a church like that. When I was a teenager, I didn't even believe I wasn't saved yet because I watched what those same kids in Sunday school were doing on Friday night, Saturday night.

And it wasn't Christian. So I would just thought, well, none of it's real. Well, fortunately for me, the Holy Spirit called to me in my car when I was 24 and saved me anyway. It's kind of good to know we can't mess up God's plan.

Church can't mess it up because Jesus said, no one comes to me unless the father draws him and out of them, I'll lose nothing. So we can't mess it up, but we sure don't want to try to mess it up, do we?

We want to try to tell the truth. So here you got these three kinds of folks in the room. And now let me get you to turn to Mark chapter four, verse five. I don't know if you can go as fast. I'm trying to make up a little time because I started late.

The Parable of the Soils and Temporary Faith

Mark four, five, and some fell on the stony ground where it had not much earth. And immediately it sprang up, talking about the seeds, sprang up because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it scorched these seeds.

And because it had no root, it withered away. Now that is a parable that talks about four different kinds of human hearts that the gospel hits when we preach it. The one that's called the good soil is what you are.

The little kernel, you do know when you, you know what, I bet you guys, I bet you guys on the back row, next to back row there, I bet you've never been in church in Dallas where there was a cow on the prayer list.

You missed it, didn't you? We had a cow on the prayer request this morning. You heard it, probably never heard that before. This is a country-fied church. We had members that lost their baby. It was a prize calf and it died and they were sad to put it on the prayer list.

Anyway, so there's some good things about living in the country. But when that seed hits the soil, did you know that unless that seed is dried, if you don't dry seeds so that they're dead, they will never come up.

You knew that, right? Okay, it's a picture. It's an allegory that Jesus created on purpose to show us about salvation in our own hearts. So this picture is a seed that hits a rocky area where the soil is only about this thick.

And maybe it sprinkles a little rain and that thing comes up quickly because there's not much soil for it to go through. And when the sun comes out, it just dies immediately because it has no root because the roots couldn't go down, they hit a rock.

They couldn't go down. And the root represents who in the Bible? Who is the root of Jesse? Jesus. So this picture is a group of people who you might think lost their salvation because they left church after nine months.

But did they lose their salvation? Did they ever have the root? No. And Jesus is very plain when he teaches the allegory. So there's so many, when you ask who are these people that fall away, they're unbelievers.

They're not believers. All right. Verse 38 in Hebrews chapter 10, very important. Am I burning the food? Might be. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 38, very important. And it's actually verse 39 that's the most important because this talks about two kinds of people.

It talks about a person. Listen to me carefully. A person who has a mental pep rally and talks themselves into believing that they believe. I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. And the church tells them where you're saved then because the modern church doesn't even have the true gospel anymore.

It teaches people they're saved by a little prayer formula. Dear Jesus, come to my heart and save me, amen. Well, I'm not saying, I mean, most of you did pray something like that. That doesn't mean you're not saved.

So don't get me wrong. But you don't get saved by religious things such as prayer formulas. All right. So in verse 38, it's gonna talk about a person like that who did that for whatever reason, maybe because a preacher told them to and they're sitting in church with you, but they're not really saved because they prayed a prayer formula.

The Holy Spirit didn't call them. He didn't turn them on. He didn't regenerate them. They're just religious. And then nine months later, they quit. But verse 39 is talking about you and me, people who are genuine believers who have the Lord in our heart.

Remember last week, last Sunday, what we ended with? It's on your sheet that I turned out to you today. It's so beautiful and so simple in 1 John 5. Listen to me. He that has the Son has life. And he that has not the Son of God has not life.

That's it. Well, there are a lot of people that think they're saved by thinking something or praying something, but they don't have Jesus in their heart. So let's look at it. That's verse 38. Now, the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, that's what we call falling away, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

Whose soul? God's soul. He's the author of every book in the Bible. The humans are just the penman. God's soul has no pleasure in a person who draws back or falls away. So it proves there are people that fall away, but does it prove that there are people that lose their salvation?

Look at verse 39. But we, now you have to go read a lot of the chapters of Hebrew to figure out who we is. You might even have to go back to Hebrew chapter one, verse one, two, and three, and figure out that this is written to believers.

Most of the New Testament's written to believers, not the lost world. Most of it's to believers. So that's the we. But we, in other words, we true believers who have Jesus in our hearts and the Holy Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are the sons of God.

Those we, but we are not of them that draw back unto perdition. That's a word for hell. But we are of them that believe to the saving of the soul. So that tells me there are two kinds of belief and two kinds of people.

There's a mental pep rally, fleshly humanistic belief, like I believe in the Dallas Cowboys, because they exist. That's spiritual, though, sorry. It's not carnal, that's spiritual. I believe in them. I hope they win today.

In fact, I got TV right here. I think they've started. No, they haven't started yet. So, okay, I believe in the Cowboys, but that doesn't make you a fan because people in Washington, D .C. believe in the Cowboys too because they have to play against them, but they don't like them.

But then there's people when you say, I believe in the Cowboys, it means I think they're gonna win the Super Bowl this year, which I don't believe in them like that, but that's more like the kind of belief.