The Danger of Persuasive Speech

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me now to the book of Colossians chapter 2.
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The title of today's message is The Danger of Pervasive Speech.
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The Danger of, I'm sorry, Persuasive Speech.
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The Danger of Persuasive Speech.
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And I want to begin with a question and I was thinking about it all week, kind of thinking through how to make this illustration make sense.
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But have you ever had someone who tried to make a case for something and you knew that what they were saying was untrue, but yet their argument still sounded very reasonable? I hope so.
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I mean, I think we've all come into contact with people who had, for lack of a better term, a salesman quality, that they could give you an argument that even though you knew it was wrong on its face, even though you knew it was incorrect, they sounded so convinced themselves and their argument was so reasonable that you almost bought in to something that in your heart you knew just weren't so.
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Well that's going to be the subject of our message today as we look at the beginning of the second chapter of Colossians and Paul begins to get into the argument of the book.
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His first chapter, Paul's first chapter of Colossians was setting the stage for what we're going to be looking at in chapter 2 because in chapter 2 he's going to be dealing with the fact that there are people who are trying to impose upon the Colossian believers the idea that Christ is not sufficient.
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Christ needs to be added to and whether you add to Christ asceticism or whether you add to Christ ceremonialism or whether you add to Christ some form of dietary restriction or some other exercise of outward piety, that those are the things that are necessary and Christ himself is not enough.
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And so in chapter 1 Paul spends several verses and we spent several weeks here looking at the verses where Paul expresses the sufficiency and supremacy of Jesus.
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But now as we move into chapter 2 he's going to begin keying in on the major problems here at Colossae.
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And he's going to give us four, we're not going to look at all four today, but over the next several weeks we're going to be going through chapter 2 and the four things that he is going to say come in the form of no one statements.
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The first one is in verse 4, let no one delude you with plausible arguments.
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The next one comes in verse 8, he says let no one take you captive by philosophy.
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The next one comes in verse 16, he says let no one pass judgment on you.
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And he goes on to talk about what judgments they were passing, food and drinks and Sabbaths and things like that.
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And then finally in verse 18 he says let no one disqualify you.
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So those are the four areas that we're going to see in this chapter.
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Paul is addressing specifically those who would do these things and he's saying to the people of Colossae, let no one do these things to you.
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So with that on our minds we stand together and read God's word.
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We always stand to give due honor and reverence to the word of God, especially the word that we are going to study in our sermon.
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We're going to read verses 1 to 5 this morning.
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Paul writes, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face.
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That their hearts may be encouraged being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery which is Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
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I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.
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For though I am absent in body yet I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven I do thank you for having another moment to preach your word.
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I thank you for the folks who have come today to hear your word.
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I pray Lord as I do every time for the sake of these people, for the sake of your name and for the sake of my wretched soul.
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Lord keep me from error and I pray Lord that you would open the hearts of your people to hear and understand your truth.
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That your spirit would go out through the preaching of your word mixed with faith, edify, exhort, correct, admonish, instruct, teach, teach and Lord for those who do not know you.
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Lord whether they be young or old I pray Lord that they would come to know Christ and the beauty of the gospel through this message.
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And that they would fall under conviction of sin and by the power of the spirit be regenerated to life.
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And Lord I pray all of this knowing that these are things that only you have the power to do.
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So we give them to you in Jesus name.
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Amen.
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As was noted earlier I know that many of you today are visitors with us.
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Some of you this is your first time being with us and we are very grateful to have you.
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We are very grateful to have you as part of the body today.
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But one of the fun activities that we do here in our preaching is we preach verse by verse so you never visit when you are not in the middle of a series.
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You are never going to come in, very rarely are you going to come in and it is a one off message.
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So I want to go ahead and begin by saying if you are a visitor understand that you are on the 15th message in Colossians.
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We spent quite many weeks in the first chapter examining Paul's teaching on the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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So as we go into chapter 2 those who have been here sort of have a pre-existing context but those of you who are visitors don't.
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So understand that the context that we are in right now began back in verse 24 of chapter 1.
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Back in verse 24 of chapter 1 Paul began to discuss his sufferings in ministry and he began to talk about the toil that is part of his ministry.
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He uses the word agony, the Greek word there meaning something that is a struggle or a fight.
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It was used in the idea of the arena to battle, to struggle, to strive and he uses this as a picture of ministry.
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And so as he goes into chapter 2 we realize that that context has not stopped.
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The chapter divisions in your Bible were not put there by Paul.
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They were not inspired by the Holy Spirit.
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They were added many centuries later and then the verse divisions even hundreds of years after that.
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So we need to understand that context doesn't stop just because the chapter stops.
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And the context of Paul's teaching here began back in 24 as he began to talk about the struggle and he continues on to talk about the struggle in chapter 2.
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But we do see in a sense a shift in his teaching because he is beginning to drive his argument toward the problem and again we have said for a while now that the problem he is fighting is this problem within the Colossian church of people who say that Christ is not enough.
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Now there are those who believe that Paul was battling the Gnostics and there are entire commentaries that have been written to say that Colossians is an apologetic against early Gnosticism.
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I am not as convinced of that position because as we read through we do see some language that could have been Gnostic language but we also see language that seems as if he is dealing possibly with the Judaizers as well which were a band of people who were trying to reinforce Jewish custom in the church.
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And we also see some Greek philosophy coming out and we see worship of angels coming out.
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We see all kinds of different things.
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So what I am convinced of is not that Gnosticism is the only problem but it is part of a larger problem which we would call syncretism.
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And syncretism is the idea that all beliefs come together under one banner and everyone's beliefs are affirmed and everyone's convictions are believed and you can have it your way and I can have it my way and we all sort of come together under one roof and there is no truth.
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It sounds a lot like today doesn't it? It really does.
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That is the modern idea where Christianity becomes like Burger King where you can have it your way.
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That joke would have nailed 20 years ago.
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So anyway we are looking at Paul dealing with this problem and we are going to outline today's message.
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I don't have any kind of creative outline.
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I don't have four alliterated points.
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I am a Baptist but not that Baptist.
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We are going to look at four things.
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We are going to say number one, what is Paul concerned about? Number two, what Paul desires for his hearers? Number three we are going to say what is Paul warning about in this passage? And then number four we are going to see how Paul encourages them in relation to that warning.
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So that is the outline for today's message.
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Let's just get right into the text.
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The first thing we are going to look at is who Paul is concerned about.
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Again looking at verse 1.
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Paul says for I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and all who have not seen me face to face.
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Now again the word struggle there is that same word agony.
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The Greek word agona and it is where we get our word agony.
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In the King James version of the Bible it says conflict.
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Now some see this as simply Paul saying I am working hard for you.
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Like I struggle, I work hard for you and some translations even translate it as that.
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I am working hard for you.
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But it is important to remember the context of the book is that Paul is writing this letter from prison.
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So there is a good chance that what he is addressing in this word agony is he is saying to his hearers I want you to know how great a struggle, how great a fight, how great an agony I have for you.
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I am doing what I am doing for you.
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I am suffering for you.
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I am suffering as Christ on behalf of Christ as Paul says in chapter 1.
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I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ which we explained what that meant.
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That does not mean that Christ's atonement was lacking but rather Paul is saying I am suffering as Christ.
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I am suffering as Christ would suffer.
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And if Christ were here they would punish him but since Christ is not here they are punishing me and I am now struggling.
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I am now fighting.
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I am now battling on your behalf.
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But notice who he is concerned about.
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He is concerned for the Colossians but he also says he is concerned for the Laodiceans.
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Now we know about the church of Laodicea.
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Most of us who are grown up in church, been around the Bible and maybe been in Sunday school.
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We know about the Laodiceans because they are one of the seven churches that are written to in the book of Revelation.
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When you read the book of Revelation there are seven churches.
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The church of Sardis, the church of Philadelphia and the church of Laodicea are some of those churches that are written to there in the first three chapters of the book of Revelation.
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And so Paul mentions this church but he mentions it because of where it is located in relation to Colossae.
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We have in this part of the world which right now would be what back then was called Asia or Asia Minor.
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Now we would call it modern day Turkey, that area of the world and there was what was known as the Lycus River Valley.
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And in the Lycus River Valley there were three cities.
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All three cities had churches.
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There was the city of Hierapolis, there was the city of Laodicea and there was the city of Colossae.
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And they all sort of made like a three pointed star around this Lycus River and in this valley.
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And Hierapolis and Laodicea were the larger cities and Colossae was the smaller city.
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And Paul's writing this letter to the Colossians but he mentions to them that as I write this to you understand that you're on my heart but so are they.
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And you say well why in the world does he mention this? Well later in the book he's going to tell us that he actually wrote them a letter as well.
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And we're going to talk about that later in the series of lessons about what that book may actually be.
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I don't know if you know this but in your Bible you can't open to the book of Laodicea.
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There's no letter in your Bible that's got that title.
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So what is he talking about? Is there a missing book of the Bible or is that related to another book and we're going to talk about that when we get there.
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But the point of the matter is Paul is concerned about the Colossians and he's concerned about the surrounding areas and he says something about them that's important for us to understand.
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He says those who have not seen me face to face.
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Now that's the ESV translation.
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The Greek actually agrees more with the King James Version.
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I was writing for the Amen from Mike Smith.
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But it actually says who have not seen my face in the flesh.
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The word sarx is the word for flesh and that's the word that's used there.
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Who have not seen my face in the flesh.
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Paul is making the point that I've never visited Colossae.
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I have never visited Laodicea.
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These churches had been planted we believe most likely by a man named Epaphras who Paul mentions earlier in the book.
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And these churches were grandchildren of Paul.
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Because you imagine the churches that he founds those are like his children and then those children go out and produce more children and those children sort of become like spiritual grandchildren to Paul.
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And Paul is concerned with them because the ministry that he's doing is multiplying exponentially.
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And he says though I've never seen you face to face I struggle on your behalf.
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I care about you.
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I love you even though I don't know you face to face.
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Now very quickly by way of application something to just consider from that for our own lives is the idea is that the church is bigger than us.
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Oftentimes we get so fascinated and concerned about what's going on here.
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And that makes sense because this is what's in our immediate world view.
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This is what's in our immediate purview rather.
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You all are here every week.
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You're the ones that I'm ministering to.
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But I ought not forget that I ought to also be praying for the other churches that are preaching the gospel in this area.
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We should be thankful for Aaron Bell's church in Yulee and David Bradshir's church in Yulee and for Set Free.
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And we should be thankful for Shane Waters and we should be thankful for all of the churches in the area that are preaching the gospel.
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And we should be praying for them as many of them are praying for us.
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Many who you've never seen face to face.
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But even more so every week we come together and pray and we pray for Scott Phillips.
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Scott Phillips is going to the heart of the jungle in Indonesia and he's meeting people that we will never see this side of eternity.
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And yet we pray for them.
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And so in this there is a short and quick application as it do we understand the church is bigger than just this body.
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And do we concern ourselves with the greater body of Christ around the world and we should.
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Should we care? Yes we should and we should do all we can to reach those people with the gospel and that's why we send out missionaries and do what we do.
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So this is who Paul is concerned about.
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He's concerned about the Colossians.
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He's concerned about the Laodiceans.
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He's concerned about these churches these grandchildren and the faith that he has not seen face to face.
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And then he begins in verse 2 to talk about his desire for them.
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He doesn't just say that he's struggling on their behalf or that he's concerned for them but he has a desire for these churches.
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He says that their hearts may be encouraged that they be knit together in love and that they reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery which is Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
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Now we see three things three sub points in this passage verses 2 and 3 and what we see here are the goals that Paul has for these churches.
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The purpose is what Paul is addressing and I want to just point out there is a there's a small word in the Greek language it's the word henna and we have what are called henna clauses.
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And a henna clause is any time the word henna comes up it's often for the purpose of showing us what the purpose of something is.
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And we actually see two of those in this passage.
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We see one in verse 2 and then one in verse 4 and I'm going to talk about verse 4 in just a moment.
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But in verse 2 he's saying I struggle for you.
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I struggle for all of you for the purpose that's where the henna comes in for the purpose of three things.
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Number one that you would continue in the faith.
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He says I want you to be encouraged.
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The word encouraged there is very important because it's telling us that Paul wants them to continue on in the faith.
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That's what encouragement means.
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In fact it comes from the word and many of you may know this word.
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It comes from the word the root of pericletos.
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Pericletos is the word that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit in the book of John when he says I'm going to go away and I'm going to send you some people the old southern way was the periclete.
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Now maybe you know what I'm talking about.
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People talk about the periclete.
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Well the periclete is the Greek word for the Holy Spirit that Jesus uses.
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But it's translation really is the idea of someone who comes alongside to help.
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The word kaleo is the root.
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The prefix is para which means to be beside something.
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We think of like parallel.
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And Jesus says there's one who's coming alongside you to give you help.
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There's one coming alongside you to give you strength and to encourage you to continue going forward.
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And that's what Paul says here.
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He says my goal for you is that your hearts would keep going.
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Is there ever a temptation to give up and stop and go the other direction? All the time.
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We've addressed this earlier in the book how Paul's concern for them is that they would abandon the faith.
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That they would get caught up in false teaching and false doctrine and that they would go another direction.
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And Paul says my goal for you is that you would be encouraged.
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That you would keep going.
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That you would understand the Spirit within you is driving you towards the goal of the upward call of Jesus Christ.
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That is what it means to be encouraged.
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And the second thing he says first is that they be encouraged to continue.
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The second thing is that they would be unified in love.
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The word that ESV uses here is the word knit together.
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He says that you be being knit together in love.
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And the point that Paul is making here is that this continued faith that he's calling them to, this continued faith that is the goal is continuing by coming together in unity and moving together forward.
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It's not something you do all by yourself.
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I've said so many times, and I don't want to take too long of an excursus with this, but I've said many times that the most dangerous place a Christian can be is all by themselves.
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You need the body of Christ to continue to encourage you to move forward.
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And there's no such thing in the Bible as a successful lone wolf Christian.
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There's no place where you see someone that doesn't have the body that is being successful.
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When Paul went places, what did he do? He planted churches.
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When people say, oh, I don't think the church was God's purpose.
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That was the very purpose that Paul went from city to city to city to plant churches, to raise up leaders, to raise up servants, and to raise up people who would minister to one another in the gifts of the Spirit.
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So being knit together, the word there could be translated welded together.
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To be welded together in love is the purpose of the church.
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And so how are we to be encouraged to go forward? We do it together, not alone.
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Not alone.
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No lone wolf Christianity.
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And finally, the third thing is that they develop conviction.
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Notice what he says.
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He says, their hearts may be encouraged being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and of the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ.
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The word there for, the word assurance there is where we get the idea of the word conviction.
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You ever said that about someone? Boy, I think that person has a lot of conviction.
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What did you mean by that? You meant that that person was assured of what they believed.
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They were confident in what they believed.
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They have conviction about what they believe.
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Well, Paul is saying that's a good thing, and that's something we should all be striving for.
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No one is perfect, and none of us have perfect knowledge.
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Okay, I was waiting for the most humble man in the room to say amen.
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We don't have perfect knowledge, but we're striving for that knowledge.
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We're striving for that wisdom.
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We're striving for growth and understanding so that we can have conviction.
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What is our conviction according to this passage? He says, the full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ.
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I'm going to tell you something.
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You can be convicted about a lot of things, and you can be convicted about things that aren't even right, but what matters is where your convictions lie regarding Christ.
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Notice he says that we are to reach the full assurance of the understanding of the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ.
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He says that this, going into verse 3, it says, in him are hidden.
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That word there is kind of a cool word, apokryptos, and it means it's where we get the word crypt.
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It means something that's hidden underneath something or concealed.
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That's where we put like a dead body in a crypt, because it's concealed.
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This is out of that.
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It's apokryptos It's the idea of something that was hidden in him, and what's hidden in Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
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Now here I do want to say something about something I mentioned earlier.
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I mentioned earlier that there are those who think that Paul is addressing the Gnostics, and I do think, as I said, that there are some places in Colossians where he may be directly speaking to some of the Gnostic teachings.
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If so, this would be one of those places, because what the Gnostics taught was that, and the word Gnostic comes from the word gnosis, which means knowledge.
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They taught that coming into a relationship with Christ, a genuine relationship with God, rather, required a special hidden knowledge, a special secret knowledge that only they had the ability to give, and only they had the ability to distribute.
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So just like many cults, and that's what it was, the first century, second century cult, like many cults, they aroused people's desires by promising them some kind of hidden, special, secret knowledge.
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Come and learn from us, and you'll learn all the secrets of the Bible.
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You ever heard somebody say that? You see the people selling their wares on television and on the Internet? Buy my program, and you'll learn all the secrets that your Bible teacher won't tell you.
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And that's what I think Paul, in a sense, is addressing here, because he's saying this is the real truth of the matter, that God's mystery is Christ, and in Him are all the knowledge and wisdom that you need.
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So again, he's addressing the sufficiency of Christ.
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If you think that there is something outside of Christ that is necessary for you to be wise and knowledgeable about salvation, then you have missed the point, because in Him are hidden all the fullness of wisdom and knowledge.
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And to know salvation means to know Christ, and to not have Christ is to not have salvation at all.
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So we see here Paul's desire for them, that they continue in the faith, that they be unified in love, and that they develop conviction, and that their conviction be in Christ.
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I want to show you one quick verse, very quickly.
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Just hold your finger where you are and run down to verse 23.
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Same chapter.
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Now we're going to preach on this in a few weeks, but just pointing out where we're going, because he begins to address specifically his enemies and those who are teaching falsehoods.
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And notice what he says in verse 23.
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These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
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So what's Paul saying in verse 23? They look wise.
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They look like they have wisdom.
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They look like they're teaching the truth.
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And it looks like it has value.
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And that's the danger.
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Because we would say all of the treasures, and the word treasure there, back in verse 3, the word treasure there is the word thesaurus, where we get the word for our book, we call it thesaurus.
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You know that's a treasury of words.
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Paul says all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ.
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And there are other things out there that look like they're wise.
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They look like they're knowledge.
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They look like they're truth.
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They look very enticing.
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But if they take you away from Christ, they're damnable, not good.
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And that brings us to verse 4.
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All of that was leading to the sermon.
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That was all introduction.
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Verse 4 is the key, because all that's leading up to verse 4.
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In verse 4 he says this, I say this in order that, and this is another one of those Hinnok clauses, a purpose clause.
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I said that to say this.
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Here's the purpose of what I just said.
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All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ.
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I say that for this purpose, that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.
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That no one may delude you with plausible arguments.
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The word plausible here means persuasive speech.
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Persuasive speech.
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It's literally the idea of the art of persuasion.
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You understand persuasion is an art, right? There are people who make their lives persuading people to do things that maybe they didn't want to do, but at the time they were talked into it by a persuasive person.
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If you've ever been to a car dealership and you've sat across the way from a man who persuaded you to spend just a little bit more than you intended and to buy a little bit more than you could afford, and you knew going in what you could afford and what you had, but yet he persuaded you that, well, if you'll just have one less coffee every day, then you'll have that extra $5 a day and that extra $300 a month won't be so bad.
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It sounds pretty persuasive if you see a big shiny car and he's trying to talk you into it.
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And that's the idea of this word persuasive speech.
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And I want to point out something.
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Being persuasive is not necessarily bad because we're told in 2 Corinthians 5 that we're supposed to persuade men of the gospel, right? And people say, wait a minute, you're Reformed.
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How can you dare say that you're supposed to persuade men? Well, I can say it because the Bible says it.
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I'm not beholden to my system.
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I'm beholden to the scriptures.
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Keep that in mind, my dear fellow Calvinists, that we are beholden to the text.
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And so Paul tells us that we do persuade men, understanding that it is God speaking through us and it's the word being implanted by the power of the Spirit.
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All that's working together.
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But yes, we use persuasive speech.
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We do.
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But there is also a place where it's dangerous.
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And persuasive speech can be deadly dangerous when a man uses language that sounds right.
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And it may be 80% right.
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It may be 90%.
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It may be 99% right.
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But like the old Southern Baptist preacher used to say, if I were holding up a glass of water and I put in just one drop of poison, you still wouldn't drink it, right? Because one drop of poison is still dangerous, right? And so men will persuade in all kinds of ways.
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And one of the ways that they do is by giving half-truths, partial points.
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Now, I said this.
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I want to read what Paul says in three different translations.
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I don't normally look at all the different translations while we're preaching, but I want you to hear the way it's said in different ones because I think if we're not getting the idea of what the plausible persuasive argument is, maybe it'll help.
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The King James Version says, I say this, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
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First of all, the word beguile is kind of cool, but also the word enticing.
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You see, one of the things that's being put forward in Colossae is that Christ is not enough.
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You can do things for yourself.
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You can exercise asceticism or angel worship or practicing these Old Testament rituals and these things.
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You can do some things for yourself.
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And if there's one thing we like to do as a human species is we like to have credit.
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We like to do things for ourselves.
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We like to be able to say, I did that myself.
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And so it's enticing.
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It's a desirous thing.
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The Contemporary English Version says this, I tell you these things to keep you from being fooled by fancy talk.
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Now, that's the exact opposite of King James, right? But it's the idea of some people just talk fancy.
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Some people just have a way of convincing us with their words.
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And I love the English language.
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And as a communicator, I try to always find creative ways to share things and to make my words have impact.
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So I'm not saying it's wrong, again, to be persuasive.
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But again, if you're persuading someone into error, if you're leading them into danger, then you are a dangerous person because you're persuasively leading them to error with your fancy talk.
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And the New English Translation says this, and this is where I'm going to get to with my board here, I say this that no one will deceive you through arguments that sound reasonable.
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And the reason why I brought that one up is because this is what the cults do, is they present arguments that on their face sound very reasonable.
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And you understand that an argument, and by the way, this is sort of a debate thing, an argument can be valid and not be true.
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What does that mean? Here's what it means.
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If you give premises that lead to a conclusion, that's a valid argument.
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But if the premises themselves are not true, the argument's not true.
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Here's how that works.
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Mike is a man, and all men are male.
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Yes, that's still true.
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Mike is a man, all men are male, therefore Mike is male.
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It's called a deductive argument.
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If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C.
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Mike is a man, all men are male, therefore Mike is male.
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That is a reasonable, logical, and true argument.
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But if I said all men wear Nike shoes, and Mike is a man, all men wear Nike shoes, therefore Mike wears Nike shoes.
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They're Vans, I know they're Vans.
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The argument is valid.
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All men wear Nike shoes, Mike is a man, therefore Mike wears Nike shoes.
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The argument's valid because the premises add up to the conclusion.
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But it's not true.
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It's not sound, because the premises are not true.
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Now you may think I'm just being fancy with my words here, but this is how those people who, the boys on the 10-speed ching-ching who come up on Saturday morning dressed with their elder shirt on and want to talk to you about Joseph Smith, they will make arguments that sound reasonable, but they're not.
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They're based on faulty premises.
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Here's one, just out of thinking.
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Jesus can't be God because Jesus prayed.
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Have you ever heard that? Maybe you even thought that.
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We can't believe that Jesus is God because Jesus prayed to God, therefore Jesus is not God.
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That is a logical argument if you deny the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, which says we have one God who eternally exists in three persons, and those three persons are co-eternal, co-existent, and yet distinguishable from one another to the point that they can have a relationship within the Trinity.
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And therefore one can speak to the other, and Jesus can pray without forfeiting His divinity.
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But you see it takes longer to tell the truth than it does to give the error.
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As they say, a lie will make its way around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.
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And sometimes it takes 30 minutes to correct a 5-second lie.
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So that's another problem with reasonable speech.
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People will come in with reasonable speech, but the problem is it's not reasonable.
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It's not biblical.
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It's not true.
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But it sounds good.
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Here's another one.
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Jesus commanded obedience, so we can't be saved by faith alone.
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I mean we teach justification by faith alone and not of works, lest any man should boast, right? Somebody says, but wait a minute.
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You believe Jesus commanded obedience.
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If you believe Jesus commanded obedience, you can't believe in justification by faith alone.
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Yes, you can because you've gotten it out of order.
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Obedience is the result of salvation, not the cause.
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And if you believe that obedience is the cause of your salvation, you are still in a works-based cult and you need to get out of that and you need to fall under the weight of the gospel and understand that nothing that you have done has brought you to salvation.
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Christ alone has given you the gift of life, and out of that comes your good works, not because of that.
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You understand the persuasive arguments of cults and false teachers always sounds reasonable until it is challenged.
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As the Proverbs says, every man sounds right until someone comes along to do what? To challenge or correct that person.
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Paul says, do not be taken captive by plausible arguments.
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Don't let it happen.
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How do you do that? Go back up to the verses right before.
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I said this to say this.
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What did he say before? Unity in the spirit, be encouraged, all these things.
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That's what the church is here for.
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Are you saying the church never gets it wrong? No, we do get it wrong, but together we correct one another.
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You understand that as preaching the word of God, I offer myself up to your correction every time I stand behind this pulpit.
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I do.
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I offer myself up to your emails, to your conversations, to come and talk to me about the word.
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As does Brother Mike, as does Brother Andy, as does any man who stands behind this pulpit, because no man here has it all figured out.
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None of us are perfect, and if you are incorrectable, you're incorrigible.
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If you cannot be corrected by the word, you lack Christian maturity.
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That is absolutely true.
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To be mature means that we welcome wise counsel, and we welcome correction.
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It ain't always easy.
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It's tough being corrected, especially when you realize, well, next week I got to tell them everything I said was wrong.
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That has happened a few times.
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Not everything, but there have been a few times where I've stood in the pulpit and I said, you know what, last week I said something, and I went too far this direction, or I went into a ditch over here, or a ditch over here, and I want to correct that, because if for the life of me, if God has placed your souls under our care, then we should care about your souls, and not seek to just entice you or beguile you with some type of persuasive speech, but to know that what we're saying is actually correct, and be willing to be corrected by the word of God.
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Well, we got to get to the end here, so let's look at verse 5.
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Paul warns them in verse 4, I say this, and no one may delude you with reasonable arguments.
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Verse 5, he says, for though I am absent in the body, yet I am present with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
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Now, the reason why I wanted to get to verse 5 is because verse 4, though I think is the crux here, verse 5, Paul reestablishes one important point, and that is that there are those in Colossae who are holding firm to the truth.
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This is not a church that has abandoned the truth.
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This is a church, and he uses two terms here.
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He uses the term good order and firmness.
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Both of those in the Greek language are actually terms that are derived out of the military, which essentially means that they have not broken rank.
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They are standing as one against an intruding army.
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So Paul is commending them.
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He's telling them what you've got to do.
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You've got to continue to do this.
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If you've got these people who are coming in, if you've got these people who are coming and trying to beguile you with persuasive talk, you've got to stand in good order and in the firmness of your faith in Christ.
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Stand together.
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Stand for the truth.
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Stand against the wiles of the devil is what Paul is saying here, and he says, and I can't be with you, but I'm with you in spirit.
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Now, I think that can be easily misunderstood, so let me clarify this.
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We often say to people who are somewhere that we can't be, I can't be with you, but I'm with you in spirit, and what it means in a colloquial way is I'm with you in my mind.
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I'm with you, and I'm there for you in prayer.
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My mom will always say this, and I love my mom.
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She's going to hear this because she listens online.
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My mom will always say, kiss the babies for me, and I'm like, well, what's that going to do? I know what she means.
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Kiss them and say, this is from Grandma.
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But I always think, me kissing them, you come kiss them.
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Kiss the babies for me, and that is fine.
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That's sweet, and I love my mom.
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But, I should not put a but on the end of that.
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I love my mom.
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But Paul is saying more than that, because when Paul says I'm with you in spirit, what he's actually referring to is the unity in the spirit that we all have as the body of Christ.
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Paul is not just saying, I wish I were there, or if I could be there, I would be there.
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No, Paul is saying, I can't be there in the body, but as I've written in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, which he wouldn't have said it that way, but as it is written, for in one spirit, we have all been baptized into one body.
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Amen? We are part of one body, and therefore, when I know my brothers and sisters are suffering in Iraq, or they're suffering in Saudi Arabia, or they're suffering in China, or they're suffering somewhere else, I'm not with them, and I'm not suffering physically.
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But as the body of Christ hurts, we all hurt.
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Paul says that if the foot is in pain, the whole body feels it.
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And therefore, when we see the pictures coming out of communist China, where churches are being mistreated, and Christians are being persecuted, we can say, I am there in spirit, because the body of Christ, of which I am a part, is in pain, and I'm able to get down on my knees and pray for that part even though I'm not there.
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So it's more than just a sympathy.
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It's a reality.
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We are, as Christians, part of the same spiritual body.
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Now, I want to close with this.
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Our focus today, again, was on standing against those who would try to delude us with plausible arguments.
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So I would ask you to think about this question.
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How can you, as an individual brother or sister in Christ, how can you be better equipped to stand against those who would try to lead you into error? What are some of the practical ways that you, as a Christian, we've already talked about being a part of the body, but let me tell you something about that.
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There's more to being part of the body than just showing up here on Sunday.
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We should be actively engaged in individual discipleship, one with another.
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It's often been said, and I think it's basically true, that we should all have a Paul, we should all have a Barnabas, and we should all have a Timothy.
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And what that means is if you think about Paul was Timothy's mentor, Barnabas was Paul's partner, and Timothy was Paul's student.
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And if we all in our lives have someone that is our disciple or someone mentoring us, and we have someone that we're walking with, and then we have someone that we're teaching.
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If all of us were participating in that type of discipleship, how different would it be? I mean, what would happen in this body if we all were engaged with one another like that? It doesn't mean everybody's got to be everybody's best friend.
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There's a bunch of us, and by God's grace there's more of us now than there has been.
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But if we're all engaged with others, we can be the church, discipling and being discipled, and growing in our faith.
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So again, the most dangerous thing we can do is be by ourselves.
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And I want to end with a story, and it's something I didn't even...
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This morning this came to me.
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I received an article this morning from a friend, so I printed it out.
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It's not even in my notes.
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And this article is about one of the most well-known, and I would argue one of the most well-respected theologians of the last hundred years.
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He's been gone now for many, many years.
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And I'm not going to say his name because I have not had the time to thoroughly investigate everything that's written here, and I do not want to in any way incorrectly state anything about him.
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But based upon what I've read, it seems pretty clear.
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This man was a well-known theologian.
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If I said his name, most of the room would know him.
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Wrote on theology, and was a brilliant theologian, even though I would disagree with him on many things.
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Well, it has come to light since his passing that he lived much of his life with a live-in mistress that his wife did not want there, which should go without saying, but just to be clear, it wasn't like a sister-wife situation.
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There was a live-in mistress who was once his secretary and became his love interest, and he moved her into the home.
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Now, this is a man whose theological knowledge was second to none in his age.
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So what did he do? He convinced himself that it was God's will.
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I want to read.
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It says this, and I'm not going to say his name.
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It said he would even go so far as to justify his sin theologically.
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At one point he says to his mistress, quote, it cannot just be the devil's work.
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It must have some meaning and a right to live that we know I will only talk about me, that I love you, and do not see any chance to stop this.
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He's talking to his mistress.
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I don't see any way that this can stop, and he goes on to say, thus I stand before the eyes of God without being able to escape from him in one way or the other.
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You see, he convinced himself.
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He used persuasive speech on himself.
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This is where I'm at.
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There can't be another way.
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Therefore, this must be what God wants for me.
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You see, persuasive speech can even be something you use on yourself if you lie to yourself knowing what's right, but you want something else to be true.
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Beloved, the Word is our standard, not our sinful hearts.
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The Word has to be the standard.
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So when someone brings you a falsehood, by what standard? The Word.
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Not my heart, not your heart, not our vain intellects, but the Word of God must be our standard.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your Word.
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I thank you for your truth.
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I pray even now, Lord, that you would write these truths upon our heart, and if I have erred, Lord, that you would erase those from our mind.
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I pray, Lord, especially that we would not be beguiled by reasonable-sounding arguments, but, Lord, that we would come under submission to the Word of God and be led to all truth by it, that we would not entertain falsehoods, but that we would be moved to the truth, coming together as the body of Christ, being instructed, corrected, edified, all from your Word.
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Lord, I pray for our church.
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I pray especially, Lord, for anyone in this room who maybe finds themselves today in a place where they don't know where they stand, where they stand spiritually, where they stand in their heart, where they stand before you.
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Lord, if there are those here who do not know the Gospel, may they know today that the Gospel is that we are all sinners, but Christ came to save sinners, and that every sinner that puts their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved.
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And I pray, Lord, if there are those today who do not know Him, that by the power of the Spirit that they would come to a place of repentance of sin and faith in your Son.
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And, Lord, for the believers in this room, I pray that they be edified, instructed, and encouraged to continue to walk together, to, as this text says, to stand firm together, hold the faith together.
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In Jesus' name, amen.