Book of Colossians - Ch. 1, Vs. 1-2 (11-15-1998)

Park Meadows Church

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Raise it a little more, one, a little bit more.

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I have to hear myself, or I don't. OK, it's good to be with you this morning.

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It's good to see you all here. I do not know all your names. And that might be fortunate for you, because I have a tendency to ask you questions.

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Some preliminary remarks as we get started. For next week,

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I would like for you to spend this week, as you think of it, in your everyday life, whatever that is, whether it's in school or whether it's in work.

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But I'd like for you to bring next week an example of Jesus Christ as you have found him in your everyday work.

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Look for him in nature. Look for an illustration. Look for something that will teach us a lesson.

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Let me give you an example. Every road in Texas leads to Dallas.

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Every scripture in the Bible leads to Jesus Christ. Our purpose and job is to find that road in every scripture and study it, because Christ is in everything.

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You will learn this also, that everything to be valued has a compensating power.

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Nothing in nature is barren. Everything has a power within it.

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Now, I'm not going to explain that any further. I just want you to think about that. We will find that a man can go to heaven without health, without wealth, without honor, without learning, even without friends.

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But he cannot go to heaven without Jesus Christ. Very few people can immediately discern right and wrong or that which has value to it and that which does not have value to it.

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I want us to learn how to make decisions for ourself. It's sad, but it's true that the multitude of people just follow the example of other people.

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Do nothing because someone else does it. Do nothing because someone else has told you to do such and such.

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Whatever you do, do it because you're convicted. That's the right thing to do. Now, one other thought

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I had this morning as I was winding up the study, it has very little to do with Colossians.

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By the way, we're going to start the book of Colossians. So I wrote this down.

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To live with saints above, that'll be glory. But Brother David, to live with some below that I know, that's a different story.

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Now, if you will come over to the first chapter and the first verse of the book of Colossians.

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Colossi, the town, is in Asia Minor. Its government was democratic.

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About a year after this letter was written, it was destroyed by an earthquake about 1 ,800 years ago.

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This letter, which was written by Paul, was carried by Epaphras to the church at Colossi.

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This church at Colossi never had a building. Did you realize that the

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Christian way, as it was called then, for the first 300 years never had a building of its own in which to meet?

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It met in homes. Now, I believe that it's going to end up back in homes.

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The true church. Christ is the theme of this letter.

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He is the head of the church. There was, at that time, a group known as the

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Essenes. They had a strange belief.

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It was a cult. Even though they called themselves Christians, they thought that they were the only ones that had access to the spirit of God.

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Unfortunately, that same false thinking still prevails today.

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They believed that God created a creature that created a creature that created another creature that created another creature until finally one of them created

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Jesus Christ. There is a very, very prominent religion in the

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Northwest part of this country that believes the same thing today. So they thought that Christ was only one of these creatures.

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They also taught, and I'm telling you this because it's the background of the letter and we'll understand better why

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Paul makes some of the statements that he does, but they also taught that if it feels good, do it because there's nothing wrong with it.

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Now, let me ask you the first question. Can man stop God's work?

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Somebody say no. OK. Can he prolong it?

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No. God is sovereign. You're going to hear that a lot in this class.

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One of the most important bases of your theology and Christian life is to understand sovereignty of God.

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Now, something else that you must understand. How is it that a lost person that the

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Bible tells us hates God? Now, I know we grew up in a society where we didn't openly hate

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God, but there's a scripture that tells us that the carnal mind is against God.

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So this question comes. How can a person that is not saved, is not looking to be saved, doesn't want to be saved, may come to church but they really didn't come to get saved, how is it that a person like that can believe then that he needs to be saved?

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Turn to the book of Philippians, if you will, please. To the first chapter.

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Philippians 1, verse 29.

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Richard, would you read that to me? All right.

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Now, you need to read that at least once every day. It has been given to you not only to believe.

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So there we have the key to the whole thing. You could not believe under salvation unless that belief was given to you, because the carnal man is dead in trespasses and sins.

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So something has to change. And God, in His sovereignty, gave you at the right time in your life this belief.

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Then all of a sudden, you wanted Christ. Now, go right on over in Philippians to the second chapter and the 13th verse.

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Richard, read that one. So we see we had nothing to do with it.

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It's God that works in us, both to will, that is to want to do

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His good pleasure, and to do His good pleasure. He does it all, folks.

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We have nothing to do with it, although it's presented to us in a way that it seems like I made the decision.

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But you really didn't. You are elect. You are chosen of God.

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Now, we'll come now to the first verse. Paul.

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We're all familiar with Paul. His former name was Saul. But I want you to understand at his birth, he had both names,

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Saul and Paul. It was a custom at that time for the boys, the boy babies, to be given both a

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Hebrew name and a, in this case, Gentile name,

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Saul and Paul. And I like the fact that Paul signed each one of his letters at the very beginning.

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Now, my wife recognizes all of the handwriting of everybody that writes us, but Richard, I don't.

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So since I can't read like I used to because of the loss of an eye, she will read the letters to me.

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I have never told her that even when I could see real well, I couldn't read some of their writing. Anyhow, she'll start reading without telling me who's talking.

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So I have to ask her. But you notice Paul puts his name right to front. I wish that had become the custom in this country.

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Paul, in other words, I am Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timotheus, our brother.

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This is the one that is writing the letter. And by the way, that reminds me of a rule of study.

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Always know three things. Who is it that's speaking? Now, we know it's the

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Holy Spirit speaking, but I'm talking about the one that's penning the letter, writing the letter. Who is it that's speaking?

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What is the subject under discussion? And to whom is he speaking?

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Know those three things. It'll help you understand. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

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Someone give me a definition of the word apostle. Beg your pardon?

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Follower. Well, that's more like a disciple, a student following.

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All right. A follower and teacher. We have a word in our government that corresponds exactly with the word apostle.

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What? An ambassador. Now, think about an ambassador or an apostle.

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They're the one and the same. We use apostle in the scripture. The government uses the word ambassador.

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When an ambassador is sent to a country, other than this country, he carries with him full power of the government of the country that sent him.

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He is a representative of our government in that country. It is as though our government were there.

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So, Paul has the very same position. He is a commissioned, sent ambassador of Jesus Christ.

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He was commissioned to go. He was ordained to go. He carries with him full power for what he says.

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It is as though Christ himself is speaking. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

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All of it by the will of God. Hold that and turn to the book of Daniel, to the fourth chapter.

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Richard, when you find it, read that to me. It's 435. Boy, you talk about putting us in our place.

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We are as though nothing in influencing God. He does his will.

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He does not have to answer to a Baptist committee someplace. You know, I heard the other day that a

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Baptist committee, the work of a Baptist committee turned out to be, oh,

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I've lost it. Tell all of them. By a

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Baptist committee. A camel is a horse put together by a Baptist committee. That's about as effective as they are.

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All right. Paul did not have to go before a committee. God doesn't have to report to a committee.

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He answers to himself and himself only. And the Bible tells us in several places, no one can question

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God and say, what is it you think you're doing? Now you can, but it's to no avail.

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God is sovereign. His will is absolute and he never changes.

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All right. He is an apostle by the will of God.

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God willed this to happen. God does make decisions like you and I do because he's not a man.

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He did not look at several different plans for the creation and then pick the best one.

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That's what you and I would do. He simply wills and it happens.

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Beg your pardon? That's right. It is his will. By the way, he's in Ephesians 1, 4, he says,

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I chose you long before there was ever any creation whatsoever. We're told in Romans that by the disobedience of one, namely

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Adam, many were made to be sinners. Well, if someone was made to be a sinner, means they were not a sinner.

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Then by the obedience of one, Jesus Christ, many were made righteous. I don't have that scripture in front of me, but the key word is many.

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It did not say all. Now, all have sinned. That's true. So by the will of God, you have belonged to him forever.

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Now, June, in the realm of God, when did forever start?

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Okay. When did forever start, somebody?

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What is eternity? Forever. In both directions.

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Like your wedding ring, it has no beginning or no ending. So that tells me that we are to attach our love to that which had no beginning and has no ending.

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Anything else will vanish. So by the will of God, it was his will that we're here today.

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It's his will that everything occur as it does. Now, don't ask me to explain everything because I cannot.

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But I know that nothing occurs except by the will of God. Don't get bogged down in the

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Oklahoma City bombing or anything else. We have examples in the scripture far worse than that, and God decreed that it would occur.

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Nothing happens except he has decreed it to happen. And we cannot question him.

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He hasn't told us ahead of time what's going to happen. All right. He is an apostle, an ambassador if you want to, and it is by the will of God, not by his will, not by his mother's will, not by the disciple's will, not by a committee, not by any denomination.

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He didn't just decide on his own that he wanted to do this. In fact, he didn't want to do some of the things he did.

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But all of this is by the will of God. Apply that to your own life every day.

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You are who you are, and you are where you are by the will of God. Let me make another statement that just comes to mind.

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You know, we worry and study so much about what should

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I do or what should I be doing. What is the purpose of my life?

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Am I doing what I should be doing? Remember this, especially you young people, whatever is in front of you to do is ordained of God that you handle it.

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Nothing will come that you cannot handle. So it would behoove each one of us to do the very best we know how with whatever we have, wherever we are right now.

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If you do the very best you know how, and I'm talking about in the will of God, not what you think, but what you know to be right, you will not make a mistake because you did the very best you knew.

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Now tomorrow you might discover that yesterday I could have done it different, but that doesn't make yesterday a mistake.

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It would today. So do the very best you know how in everything.

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Now he's going to tell us to who he is writing. He says to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colossae, grace be unto you and peace from God our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. There's only two kinds of people in this world.

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Can you name them? Saved and unsaved.

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That's right. I like to think of it as saints and aints. You either are or you are not.

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Now he will notify you. Our salvation experience is simply a notification of God that you now have the knowledge that you are his since we were his long before the creation of the world, and he's known where we are all of the time, and it is according to his will when you find out.

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And he notified you at some time in your life that you belong to him.

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From that time on you're responsible unto him. So now he's writing to the church at Colossae.

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They have a problem, and it's not all that much different than churches of today.

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The world is creeping in. The only way...

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Well, let me back up. Have you ever seen a counterfeit $4 bill? Richard hasn't.

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Has anybody else? Why? What? There isn't a $4 bill.

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What? Wouldn't fool anybody. So, for it to be a counterfeit, it means that there is a real one.

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Christ, in all of his organization on earth, beginning with Adam, was first.

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Satan, then, all he can do is mimic or copy what Christ has. Satan can generate nothing of his own except sin.

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He will always try to get you to do what he wants in the event that God has sent to you.

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Example, you go to the grocery store, and your basket is loaded, and you're paying the cash register, and the cashier gives you back too much money.

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What do you do? Well, you know what you should do. I know what you should have done.

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Satan uses that event to try to get you to disobey

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God. Remember, everything is from God. Every event in our life.

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Our life is nothing but a school. And everything that comes to us every day, every hour, is a test.

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Because it's from God. He doesn't tempt us. He sends us a test. Now, they gave you back too much money.

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I would hope that the very first thought you have, not the second, but the first, is that you want to correct it.

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Satan is saying, put it in your pocket. They got insurance. It's just a little bit. They'll never miss it. So what?

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If you stop and think about it, and you consider doing that, you've already sinned. So, check yourself.

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That's a good check that you can make. What was my first thought? And I hope it's always to do what

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God wants us to do. The church had a problem. The world was creeping in.

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Fellowship with God. Talking about these saints. Fellowship with God through faith makes saints.

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Fellowship with God through faith makes saints.

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Fellowship with one another makes brethren in Christ.

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As we have fellowship one with another. And let's be sure we understand fellowship.

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What does the word fellowship mean? Somebody just say something.

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Gathering together. Gathering together. All right. What else?

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All right. It means a common denominator of discussion.

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A common subject shared between you and someone else. In this case, it's fellowship with the brethren.

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Now, have you ever been to a good old Baptist? Well, I better stay off of that.

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Have you ever been to an associational meeting and get slapped on the back and laugh and joke and tell you how good a guy they are?

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And how was the wheat crop this year? And what do you think the weather is going to do?

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And come on, let's have some more fellowship. That's not fellowship. Fellowship is discussing the same subject with each other.

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The saints, those who are saved, it means a holy person. Now, understand,

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I hope you understand, maybe I'm taking too much for granted, but we all must understand that we have two natures.

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We have the old nature with which we were born. We have the new nature, which is the new life.

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Now, God separated, the Lord separated us from our old nature when he died on the cross.

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It was his death that broke that bond -servant relationship, and we'll get to bond -servant sometime soon.

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But his death broke that relationship. Now, we're dead to the old nature, but it's not dead to us.

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Now, why did God leave that old nature in us? Since that is not us.

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The real you is this born -again part. The real you is where the

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Holy Spirit dwells. You are a spiritual person. You're in a carnal body, but the real you is spiritual.

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Why did God leave that old nature? It seems to me it just causes trouble. All right,

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I've watched my wife over the years with her flowers. It's getting close to the time when she'll begin to move them inside.

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And then next spring, she'll begin at the right time to move them back outside.

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And she doesn't do it just all of a sudden. They've been inside, protected from the wind, from nature, the roughness of nature, and they have grown tender and would be easily destroyed if put out in a march wind or anything like that.

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Satan does what he's supposed to be doing as he aggravates, as he tempts, as he tries to get us to do certain things, and it's that old nature that causes us to grow.

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If it were not for Satan, we wouldn't be worth much. I hope you understand

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I'm not promoting Satan. I don't have to. God wants us to grow.

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That's what this life is for. It's a school. You'll be in school all your life. Someday you'll graduate, some of us sooner than others.

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And what you learn while you're here will be used in the next life. The reason

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I know that is that we all go to school now. Some of you have gone to school a long time.

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Some are just beginning. But everything you learn while you're in this school, not the biblical school, but as you learn mathematics and geology and all of this other, all of that is but to teach you for the life that you...

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My mind that I needed, I knew how to talk. Well, I find out now that you really need to know your verbs or you'll never understand the

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Bible. But we're schooled to function the rest of our life.

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We're in a school created by God for that very purpose.

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We are to grow more and more and more like Christ. And we'll graduate.

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And what you have learned in this life will be usable in the next life. Please don't ask me to explain the next life because I cannot.

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I haven't been there. I have not talked to anybody that's made the trip. So it'll be a new experience for all of us.

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I just know it's beyond my wildest imagination as to what it will be.

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These saints, these holy people, every believer in his heart, the

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Bible was written to who? You're almost right.

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It's written to you. The Bible is written to the saints. It deals with his people.

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He does not... Now, it mentions the world and it talks about the world, but it was written to us and not to the world.

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And our time's just almost up. The reason that a non -believer cannot read the

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Bible and understand it is because it wasn't written to them. Until you were saved, it wasn't written to you.

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Did you ever hear anybody say, even a Christian once in a while says, I can read that and it doesn't mean anything to me.

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I can't understand any of it. Well, if you're a Christian, you have the author residing within you, the

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Holy Spirit. You can never understand any of it on your own.

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You can study it forever. Now, you can study the Sears Roebuck catalog.

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Now, I guess it doesn't exist anymore. I just dated myself, but that's all right.

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I was born around 1900 sometime. You can study that catalog and know every bit of it,

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Richard. You can commit it to memory. You could understand every bit of detail that they've put out.

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You can't do that with the Bible. In the world, you have to believe before you understand.

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No, you have to understand before you can believe it. As you go to school, you have to understand this problem and the way it works before you can believe it.

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In the Christian life, in the Scripture, you have to believe it before you can ever understand it.

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You have to believe this is the Word of God. It's not a bunch of fables.

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It's not written by people that were not being guided by the

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Holy Spirit. Isn't it amazing that over all of the years that the writing covers and the people that were used to write it, that there's not one contradiction?

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Man couldn't do that. Also, another reason we know, Brother Waller, that it was not written by man, then man would have left out some of the most awful scenes that are in there.

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Well, we're going to stop with verse 2. And the next time I get to speak to you, we'll start with verse 3.

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Are there any questions? Any thoughts? Anybody have anything to say?

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Anybody have nothing to say? Richard, dismiss us, would you please?