Colossians 2:8

I direct your attention to Colossians chapter 2 and verse 8 for our text and study this morning. Beware, lest any man spoil you, through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this morning. There was a time when there was a man who wished to assassinate Martin Luther the reformer. And he was forewarned of them. the danger and someone even painted a portrait of the assassin who was going to try to stab him. So they had this little picture, or at least a smaller size picture that he could carry around with him and always be aware of this particular danger. So wherever he went, he took this portrait with him and watched out for the assassin and by taking precautions, Luther by God’s grace. was preserved and never stabbed. God knows that there are many religious deceivers in the world who would destroy your soul if that were possible. And God, in this text of Scripture, and really throughout this chapter, provides a portrait of them, so that you may beware of these types of individuals and they’re dangerous teachers. that you may spot them. Paul, having provided the true doctrine concerning the Lord Jesus Christ in chapter 1 and the first part of chapter 2, now focus your attention on those who are false teachers who would lead you astray or take you away from Christ and the salvation that is in Him. And this is what is a real and present. danger for the church today as well. There are many false teachers trying to draw, trying to draw you away from Jesus Christ as the sole source of salvation for your soul. Let me begin by saying this. You must beware of false teachers. He says here, you have a responsibility to be personally on guard. He begins in verse 8 with the word, beware. It is the duty of the pastor to instruct you in sound doctrine and to warn you of those who oppose the truth. And about how prevalent these false teachers are, as 1 John 4.1 tells us, beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God, because many false prophets are. are gone out into the world. Remember how Jesus warned the disciples, beware of the leaven or the doctrine of the Pharisees. Watch out for these teachers and what they say. Now, these types of warnings in Scripture, not only here, but elsewhere, we find are for your benefit that you may be discered. that you may separate the good teaching from that which is bad for your soul. I often say this, and I say it because I find myself dealing with people a lot, and perhaps you have the same problem. You must not be naive to think that everyone who teaches or says something about God or about Christ is a good teacher. or someone that you should listen to, or someone that you should look up to. You must weigh what they say. Nor must you think that if you are in a sound church, that you have the luxury, I’m not worrying about such things. For Paul even warns the Ephesian elders, even though they were sound at the time, there shall come in among you after I depart. grievous wolves not sparing the flock, that they would try to turn them away and harm the people of God. the Holy Spirit commends to you the prudence of the Bereans who, even when they heard Paul preach, searched the scriptures to see whether these things were so. some of you know I write a lot of my sermons while I’m doing dialysis at the clinic. and one of the nurses said to me this week, she said, well, did you get a lot done today as I was finishing up? I said, well, I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to get done, but I got a lot done. And we got to speaking about this. And I was talking about the responsibility and duty of the pastor and how that this is a weighty responsibility. And, um, and how. emphasizing to her that, you know, I tell people that they are to keep me accountable so that when I’m preaching, they ought to be seeing if it corresponds with the word of God. We should always be looking at the word of God to balance out what is heard, even in a church that you may think is sound. I’m not perfect, and neither is any other pastor perfect, where they couldn’t be pulled in the wrong direction. And so we all have a responsibility to watch out for one another. Nor must you imagine that a Christian book, that you’ve picked up that may be very popular, or even a Christian preacher that may be very popular among the masses, is always telling you the truth. Be careful. You know, if you went to an excellent restaurant and you were served a piece of meat, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t examine. and consider whether it’s good or bad or not. If that cut of meat didn’t smell right, if it gave off an odor, you might think, well, I don’t know about this. This doesn’t seem right. Or the color or the meat doesn’t seem right. Perhaps you might cut off a little piece and give it a little taste to see. But all you need to do is to sample it, to verify it as a bad piece of meat. You don’t have to eat the whole piece. You don’t have to eat the whole cut of beef. All you just sample it. And say, well, you know, this isn’t good. Some people think that they have to read through the whole bad book completely in order to make a judgment or to hear the pastor several times before they make a judgment of whether this guy is a heretic or not. Be discerning. Beware. You can judge things quite quickly at times that the meat you’re being fed is fit to eat. when I first went to seminary, and, you know, I went to an Armenian dispensational seminary at the time. Hal Lindsay was really big at the time in the late 60s, early 70s, and he had his book, you know, the late great planet Earth. And then he had another book. It was called Satan is alive and well on planet Earth. And I picked up this book, and I started reading. And in the first chapter, as he was talking about Satan, and I’m listening in, you know, trying to follow him, he made this statement, he said, in this book, God took a calculated risk when he created Satan. Now, I wasn’t really astute, theoretically, at the time, but I thought, man, man, that sounds terrible. What kind of God, he takes a, God doesn’t take calculated risk. I shut the book, and that was far. as I was concerned, that was the end of that book. I didn’t have to go any further. There are books I’ve read the, somebody who’s given me books already, I read the chapter titles, and they were so blasphemous against the truth, I didn’t have to read the book. I could tell by the chapter titles, the book was bad. So don’t poison yourself. Be on guard and cast aside what is false teaching. Beware. Now, the danger to which you were exposed is found in the second phrase here, beware, lest any man spoil you. Now, the word spoil here is a term that’s often used in military operations. It’s taking spoils of war. It’s to capture or to take away goods, possessions, and so forth, the people. You remember the Amalekites attacked Zicklag when Dave and his men were away, and they took all the women, the children, and all the goods, and hauled everything. off. They took spoils of war. So the danger is that these false teachers would lead you captive, bring you into bondage to their teaching, enslave you to them. Jesus called false teachers, thieves and robbers, because they take men prey. They lead captive sheep as spoils. Now, the scripture often uses this type of language. Look with me at second Peter chapter 2 verses 18 to 21. Peter deals with false teachers here. And he deals with those who claim that they’re teaching the truth, but their wells without water. They don’t have any real substance to their teaching. But when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness, those who were clean escaped from them who live in air. they capture you, they allure you. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption. For of whom a man is overcome of the same he has brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and they are entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse, with them than the beginning, for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered under them. False teachers would like to turn you away from the truth concerning Christ and the salvation that is in him, and they lure you. They bring you into bondage to their teaching, and to the way of thinking, and the danger, of course, is that you are drawn away from the real truth of salvation, and you are in a situation where your soul is in grave danger. Look at 2 Timothy, if you would with me, also chapter 3 in verse 6. 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 6. For of this sort, are they which creep into houses and lead captive, silly women, laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts. Now, these women are undiscerning. They’re easy marks for false prophet, is what he’s saying here. They welcome these smooth talkers because the religion that these people teach allows you to remain in sin and enjoy sinful desires. So it pleased them to continue listening and to follow all. these people. So they sit in rapt attention. They learn from these false teachers and they admire them and they follow them. But they’re taken captive. They’re swept away by them. They’re brought under the control of these religious impostors. And then if you would, just a couple pages over, look at Titus chapter 1, verses 10 and 11, where there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped. who subvert whole houses teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake. They subvert, they overthrow, they conquer these houses. These deceivers are able to overpower those who profess to be followers of Christ so that they abandon Christ and are brought under their power and control. Sadly, it’s not merely one or two persons here, but whole households. So when the head of the household is swept away by false teaching, often the whole family then is affected by this. So these false teachers come along. They’re like pipers that would like to pull people away, anyone that will listen to their music. So if you desire to escape bondage, then you have to be in guard against these false teachers. You must beware of false teachers. Secondly, this morning, Let’s look at the way false teachers seduce you. And we see that here in our text. And the first thing he says here, it’s by the vain deceit of human philosophy. Now, the word philosophy simply means the love or pursuit of wisdom. Now, Christians ought to be interested in wisdom. You know, the Proverbs talks about seeking wisdom and so forth. It’s of great value. value is not Christ the wisdom of God according to 1.4 1.24. So all philosophy in and of itself isn’t bad. But Paul clarifies this by saying what he means is false and vain philosophy. Christian philosophy is found in scripture. In other words, it is divinely revealed wisdom. That’s what we should love and follow. However, human philosophy is that, which is created by human beings and is deceitful and vain. Nor should human philosophy here be restricted to the Greek philosophers like Plato or Aristotle or something like that. Josephus, the Jewish historian, said the Jews had three sects of philosophy. The Aesenes, the Pharisees, and the Pharisees. He looked at those. as philosophies that were taught. It doesn’t matter whether this philosophy is secular or religious. If it’s merely human philosophy, it must not be followed because it’s not the truth. Remember, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. He can’t know them. So anything that comes from a human being and a corrupt human nature cannot be correct. and therefore our faith must not rest in those kind of things. Truth cannot originate from within the mind of man. It has to be revealed from God. Man may profess to be wise, but scripture indicates in reality he’s a fool. The wise man is the one who has had his mind enlightened by God. God gave you the power of reason, but But you have to start with the proper principles. Paul reasoned with people, but he did so out of the scriptures. We can reason from the scriptures. We can use God’s truth. But just human reasoning, in and of itself, is not the truth. Have you ever bought a bag of potato chips from a vending? Now, judging by the appearance of the bag, you think the thing is loaded with potato chips. It’s all puffed up. However, when the bag is opened, it’s mainly air that’s in there, and not too many chips. It’s an empty deception. This is the way all human philosophy is. It’s an empty deception. It makes you think it’s great, but really it’s not. It really doesn’t have substance to it. For example, philosophers have devised this basic axiom out of nothing, nothing can be made. Now, this teaching is accepted as brilliant, but if you really get down to it, it undermines the faith. The Neo-Orthodox Landon Gilke wrote in his book, The Maker of Heaven and Earth, he wrote this. Creation from Nothing seemed to many intelligent Christians, as well as the secularist, generally, to be one of those early mythological notions which had no real value or validity for a modern man. And now, it’s too wise to believe that you could create something out of nothing. That’s human philosophy. Now, by this kind of human philosophy, of course, people conclude then against God being the creator of the world. What says the scriptures? Do not the scriptures say, by faith we understand that the world, were framed by the word of God, made out of nothing, so that the things which are seen are not made of the things which do appear. There was no pre-existent material when God created the world. So this axiom, brilliant as people think it is, is not a true axiom. How can it be? Jesus once said to the Sadducees, you do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. And we would say the same thing with this human philosophy. You don’t know the scriptures and you don’t know the power of God. Can human philosophy even come to a clear agreement as to how the world came into being? No. Here, the simplest believer, the simplest believer, he doesn’t have to have any higher learning, can come to the Word of God and by faith believe God’s revelation. and he’s wiser than all these people with all these degrees in philosophy or in science or whatever the case may be. And insist upon, thus saith the Lord, never allow yourself to be dragged into a human philosophy situation where it’s all about philosophy. By the vain deceit of human philosophy, people are seduced. Don’t be seduced by that, he says. The second thing he says, Don’t be seduced by the promotion of the traditions of men. Now, the word tradition is something passed down or handed down, in this case from other men. There are, in scripture, there’s a scripture speaks about biblical traditions, such as you find in 2, Thessalonians 215. These are practices taught by the apostles for the church to follow. But all of these are based on divine revelation. For example, in the Lord’s Supper, for I have received to the Lord that which I delivered unto you. That is, we go to the Lord’s Supper, we do it because Christ established it. Paul was given revelation concerning it. He taught the church to do it. That is a biblical tradition. That’s fine. But what we’re looking at here is human tradition. God, declared in vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines for doctrines the commandments of men. When human inventions and precepts are made the rule in God’s worship, God utterly rejects it. He says, in vain, do you worship me? Doctrine is to be drawn exclusively from the word of God. We’re not to add to his words lest he reprove us. and we be found liars, as the scripture indicates. Remember Paul, prior to his conversion, stated that the Jewish religion in which he was engaged in, he was exceedingly zealous of the traditions of the fathers, he tells us. He knew all about human tradition. He knew all about the Jewish lawyers, if you would, or those who were the legal experts and all the extra things they taught. regarding the law of God. The Jews place great value on religious traditions. Listen to some of these statements. Way dearer of the words of the elders than the words of the prophets. Think about that moment. The teaching of human elders is weightier than what we find in Scripture? Under the prophets? How about this? My son, attend to the words of the scribes more than the words of the law. How about that? Everyone that transgresses the words of the scribes is guilty of death. Are we going to put human teaching on the same level or even above that of the scriptures? And yet we see that is often the case. What does the scriptures tell us about this? Look at Matthew chapter 15 with me, if you would. We’ll see some examples of this. Look at the first two verses here of Matthew chapter 15. then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Now, you notice they call it a trespass here. You know, this was to them a sin. The Jews taught that you were spiritually defiled, rendered odious to God by eating without first washing your hands. So the Jewish leadership condemn Christ’s disciples for violating this dogma. Whose who eats bread without washing of hands is as if he lay with a whore, one of their rabbis said. One of their other rabbis said this. He that blessed food with defowed hands is guilty of death. These are the kind of teachings that the Jews had. Now, Scripture never said this. Jesus rightly pointed out. It’s not eating with unwashed hands that defiles you. It’s an unclean heart is your problem. And he emphasizes that. Look at Matthew chapter 5 in verse 43 with me, if you would. Here’s another example. 543 of Matthew. Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. Now the first part of this Jewish dogma is taken from scripture, Leviticus 1918. We should have heard. love our neighbor. That’s good and right. But the second part of the dogma is the tradition that was added. But hate your enemy. This is the Jewish teachers. You have heard that it hath been said. He’s not saying this came from scripture. He said, this is what’s being taught you by the scribes and the Pharisees. This is a tradition allowed for and even demanded the hating of enemies. And it limited your name. to your friends. Thus a friend is to be loved, an enemy is to be hated. Here’s what they said. Every disciple of a wise man who does not revenge, keep as a serpent enmity in his heart, is no disciple of a wise man. This undermines God’s word. Remember how Jesus taught who your neighbor was. Anybody you run into is in need is your neighbor. as he clearly told in the parable or the story of the Good Samaritan. But see, they undermined it by this tradition. Let’s look at one more. Look at Matthew chapter 12. Just the first two verses. Matthew 12, 1, 2. At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn and his disciples were hungered and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. But when the disciples saw it, they said, unto him, behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day. Here are the disciples of Christ who are traveling on the Sabbath. They were hungry. They grew faint. They decided they would eat some of the food in a grain field that they passed by, or a cornfield. And they removed the husk or the chaff from the grain or the corn, and they ate it. The law allowed you to do that. You weren’t supposed to be taking a basket in there and taking anything out. but you could take something to eat if you went past the field. However, since it was the Sabbath day, the Pharisees condemned the disciples because they were working. And according to the Pharisees and their teachers, plucking corn to eat was the same as reaping a field at harvest time. So it was of the same category. And so this was classified as serval work. Here’s what they said. He that reaped. on the Sabbath day ever so little is guilty and is punishable by death. Though the Jews develop all sorts of these regulations regarding the Sabbath, even where you could spit on the Sabbath day was regulated. So you know, you’re even something as minute as that was all regulated. On and on we could go. But you see some examples of this, where human teaching is placed on the level, or even above that which the scripture teaches. Now, just to take one example from our modern situation today, look at the doctrine of Mary in the Roman Catholic Church. You see an example of tradition built into a doctrine that is a mainstay now of the church. Slowly but surely, Mary has been exalted to the point of becoming the first of the church. The first thing of the first thing. fourth person of the Holy Trinity. First, we read about an immaculate conception of Mary, 1854, so that now she has a virgin birth like Christ and can be sinless. A bodily assumption of Mary in 1950. That she’s assumed taken up into heaven. Sort of like Christ. And then we have Mary as co-redemptrix and co-mediator. in our present day. As Pope Benedict, the 15th said, Mary suffered with Christ and nearly died with him when he died. Thus, she may rightly be said to have redeemed the human race with Christ. Can you imagine this? This is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, all these important doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church have no scriptural basis. There’s no scriptural basis. It is human. tradition, but it’s elevated, and it undermines the work of Christ. And Christ is the only Savior. And Christ is the only mediator, and so forth. To the law and to the testimony, to Scripture, if they speak not according to this word, there is no light in them. And so we have to look at these things and say, wait a minute, this is wrong. The third thing he mentions here, as how we can be pulled away or lured away is by he returned to the ceremonies and services of the Mosaic Law for justification. After the rudiments of the world, he says here back in our text. After the rudiments of the world. Here’s the third thing that he mentions. Well, some prefer to refer this to the idolatrous worship, the sun moved, and the stars, and so forth. Actually, I don’t think that is correct. You’ll notice. from Galatians chapter 3 or chapter 4 in verses 1 to 3, this seems to refer to the law of God and particularly the ceremony or elementary aspects of the law of God. Let me direct your attention to Galatians chapter 4 and verses 1 to 3. Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all, but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman made under the law. So he’s saying in the Old Testament, they were under the elements here of the world, or the rudiments of the world. This phrase here, the rudiments of the elementary things, has to do with the ABCs. The things you would teach children. And here we have them actually, in Galatians, the Old Testament people are portrayed as being children as far as knowledge and God, training them up until they got of age. In the New Testament when Christ comes, we come of age and have fuller knowledge of these things. The rudiments, the ABCs. And the world, of course, is those things that are material or earthly. They would illustrate the spiritual truths or spiritual reality. They would illustrate the spiritual and here we have all these ceremonies, the carnal ceremonies of the Mosaic law. He’ll be dealing with these things like circumcision and the food diets and so forth, and he’ll be dealing with them later in this chapter. And we’ll talk about these things. But what does Paul say? That these things are a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ as he tells us in later in this chapter so that it’s all really portraying the work of Christ and we’ll get to that. Now the ceremonial law is good and useful if we use it rightfully. If we understand that these things point you to Christ but the Judaizers taught the keeping of the law was necessary for you to be justified in the eyes of God. Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses or the law of God, you cannot be. Just not saved, they said. So these false teachers missed the fact that Jesus Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to those who believe. And the Jews taught that no circumcised persons go to hell, but all are saved, and they taught that God rejects uncircumcised persons and brings them down to hell. So there you are. If you’re circumcised, you’re in. If you’re not circumcised, you’re out. Is it as simple as that? Is that the teaching of Scripture? So what you find here is a twisting of scripture by these false teachers undermining the doctrine of faith in Christ alone. Now this is very prevalent, even in our day today, in the new age or the new perspective on Paul, where they put faith and works together in order for justification. It’s the same thing they were doing back in Paul’s death. So, we have to be on guard against this on the doctrine of justification. I guess the Roman Catholic Church is probably the most guilty of returning to the rudimentary elements or things of the world in their legalistic approach. But we see it even in the different reformed groups even today. So we have to be aware. You live in glass house, you have to be careful. We throw bricks. We have to remember there are other, you know, in our group that are our associations, that we say, wait a minute, what were you doing here? And we see a great apostasy in many cases in this regard. So this is the way false teachers will seduce you. Now, why false teachers must be strongly rejected is found in the last phrase of our text, and that is, and not after Christ. All these things are not after Christ. In other words, They’re not after the doctrine made known by Christ or revealed by the apostles of Christ who have been taught by the Spirit of Christ. Since all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ alone, all vain philosophy, all human traditions, all these worldly rudiments, must be now utterly rejected. Christ in his gospel, the revelation found in Scripture, are to be your standard of doctrine. and worship. So all these false teachings, based upon human traditions and human philosophy and carnal means of seeking justification, draw your mind away from Christ, is what he says. Remember we study in chapter 1, verse 16, that everything was created for Christ? Everything should point to Christ. And yet they are trying to draw your mind away from Christ, he says. Don’t let that happen. The doctrine of Jesus Christ is holy, spiritually, and heavenly. Whereas these traditions, these legal ceremonies are carnal and earthly, choose you this day whom you will serve. Are you going to serve human philosophy? Are you going to follow after just religious traditions? Are you going to be involved in legal observances for your justification? Or are we going to cast a law? all this aside and say, I have Christ, and that’s all I need. This is where Paul’s going. This is the direction he’s taking us as we look at this rest of this chapter. And I want us to be focused on that, because he’s going to expand this thought as we go through the rest of this chapter. Luther had a portrait of the man who wished to assassinate him, so he was on his guard. Now you have a portrait of these false teachers, so Paul says, be on your guard. Beware. Beware of these kind of people. people cling to Christ. That’s the key. Let us close with a word of prayer.