Colossians 2:18

Colossians chapter 2, beginning with verse 18, and reading through verse 19, our focus on verse 18. Let no man be gow you of your reward in a voluntary humility in worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. and not holding the head from which all the body by joints and bands, having nourishment ministered and knit together, increases, increaseth with the increase of God. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this morning. Many years, Johann Tetzel, a high-ranking Roman Catholic official, once made this startling statement, I have saved more souls by my indulgences than the apostle, meaning Peter, by his sermons. Tetzel actually taught that whatever crime you may have committed, all you had to do is pay well, and you would receive a pardon. And this indulgence would not only provide for sins you have committed, but sins that you may be disposed. to commit off in the future. Jesus spoke about the fact how hard it is for a rich man and to enter into the kingdom of God, but according to Tetzel, it’s very easy. You just buy your way into heaven. The rich have an advantage in that situation. I think Peter himself, however, would have said, thy money perish with thee because thou hast thought the gift of God may be purchased with money. Acts 818. Paul, having carefully laid out the truth concerning Christ in the way of salvation in Chapter 1, has addressed the problem of false teachers in Chapter 2. He has demonstrated that salvation is not to be sought through ceremonial regulations of the law, such as circumcision, such as dietary regulations, such as observance of special holy days. These things are mere shadows. but the substance really is of Christ. Our text provides further information about religious deceivers and why you should reject them in their teaching. Let me begin by saying this. You must be aware of religious deceivers. You have an illustration here. It seems to come from the Olympic Games. The word beguiled. This word is only used here in the New Testament. It is used of a judge or an umpire’s decision against a racer to rob him of his prize. You can picture Olympic Games and there are various races taking place. And these contests from many nations, the people have come, and they’ve sent runners. and a prize or a crown. King James has the word reward here. It’s held by the judge who determines who wins the race, who is the victor. But let’s say this judge acts unfairly. He defrauds the rightful winner of the prize. He cheats him out of it. Suppose it’s a, you know, a close finish. One of those neck and neck finishes. But he decides to give the prize to the winner that he favors over the one who actually, maybe just barely, but he actually won the race. And so he cheats someone out of it. It’s not uncommon in our day, especially when judging is more subjective with regard to gymnastics or figure skating for Olympic judges to cheat someone. out of the actual prize. We see that even in our own day. So this is the idea behind this word we go out. Now spiritually, saying you can be defrauded, if you would, of your prize. No, not that they which run and erase run all, but one receiveth the prize. So run that you may obtain. Now, as a professing Christian, you are portrayed, if you would, as an Olympic runner. You’re running a race throughout your time on this earth, and you must steadfastly endure, never abandon the faith until you have finished the course. You are running for an incorruptible crown, running in the way of God’s righteousness, expecting eventually to receive the prize or the reward of heaven. We look forward to that. However, these false teachers would like to defraud you out of the prize by turning you away from the true faith. And this is sort of the idea that comes through here with the word be gall. They want you to deny something maybe about the person of Christ as Godhead. Or they would substitute angels or saints in Christ’s place. Or by joining Moses in Christ’s place. so that salvation would somehow be of works and grace together. And this manner of professing Christian may be in danger of coming short of heavenly glory. You’ll always have to be alert as you go through this life. Satan has his tactics, and his tactics are to get you on the wrong path. Remember how Mr. Christian, as he’s following the narrow road, someone’s always trying to get them off the path. And that’s the way it is in the Christian life. Satan is trying to pull us away from the path that leads to eternal life, the narrow way. So spiritually, you may be defrauded of the prize that you seek if you would abandon the faith of Christ. So religious deceivers come along and they usurp God’s authority to determine what you should believe. Paul sees these false teachers making themselves judges. And they are just charging an office here of judge deceitfully, perversely. Romans 144 says, Who art thou that judges another man’s servant to his own master? He standeth their fault. It is solely God’s prerogative to decide the way of salvation and not anyone else. You are not answering. to these heretical teachers, you are answerable to God himself. In sacred things pertaining to the worship of God and the salvation of men, these men have no authority to be your judge. As we see, they’re not even honest judges. They are corrupt. And this is the point that he’s making. Paul strikes at this usurp the authority of these seducers. They cannot determine anything. about the true faith and religion because they don’t adhere to God’s truth and what God has said. To the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, is because there’s no light in them, as Isaiah A.20 tells us. You know, once Tsar Peter of Russia wished to marry a commoner named Catherine, but it was against royal protocol for him as royalty to marry a, commoner because Catherine was not of noble birth. So they took a private person and first converted him into her brother. And then they made him into a great lord by birth. In this manner, Catherine now was the sister of a great lord and she could marry Peter, the czar, and be his wife. In a similar way, these false teachers have made themselves, judges of men’s beliefs, when in fact they have no right to this, no title to this at all. Now, it’s interesting, you see this same idea in the Roman Catholic Church who claim this very power over men’s souls. Cardinal Gibbons said this, and if this is in blasphemy, When you hear what he said, you’ll see why the reformers were so stout on their solas. Here’s what he said. The scriptures alone cannot be a sufficient guide and rule of faith because they cannot at any time be within the reach of every inquirer, because they are not of themselves clear and intelligible, even in matters of the highest importance, and because they do not contain all the truth, necessary to salvation. Can you believe this kind of statement? So therefore, you see the church, some men get to tell you the true way of salvation because God’s word isn’t adequate. That’s why we ended up with Soloscriptora. The kind of statements like this that were brought out. Look at the titles that are given to the Pope. Have you ever consider the titles? He’s called Holy Father. This title was given by the Son of God. This title was given by the God, to God the Father in his high priestly prayer. The Pope is usurping that kind of divine title for himself and thrusting himself into God’s place. Call no man your father on earth for your one father who is in heaven, Jesus said Father. The Pope has no right to this title. No mortal man and sinful that should dare to take this title and steal the glory of God away? What other title does he have? Isn’t he called the Supreme Pontiff? A Latin derived title meaning the bridgemaker. It refers to one who sacrifice, offers sacrifices to placate the deity and so provides access to divine favor. In other words, the Pope as the bridgemaker, claims the role as mediator between God and man, and he steals. He stills, Christ’s authority. Christ’s place. There is only one mediator between God and man. It’s blasphemous to call himself the bridgemaker. He’s also called the vicar of Christ, isn’t he? That’s Latin, vicarious, means one who takes the place of another. A substitute. Who is taking the place of Christ? Again, the Pope steals a divine title that doesn’t belong to him. Jesus Christ made it clear who took his place when he left. I’m going to send you another comforner. It’s going to be the Holy Spirit. So here, think about this. The Pope in taking these titles takes the place of the Holy Trinity. He says he’s God the Father. He’s the Holy Father. No, that belongs to God the Father. He says he’s the Supreme Pontiff. No, that belongs God the Son. He is the vicar of Christ. No, no, that belongs to God the Holy Father. Spirit. Who gave him that right in position? So we must reject these claims to authority and not be deceived. My friends, these people cannot tell us the way of salvation. Only God can tell us the way of salvation. Never believe that any man has that right or that power. So you must be aware of religious deceivers. This is what is indicating to us. Now, you should know how religious deceivers operate. You find that they promote a false humility. He calls it a voluntary humility here. Voluntary, the word is fellow here. It means something brought about by one’s own decision or choice. It’s not derived from anything else. So the voluntary humility is a self-imposed, a self-made humility, a self-made humility, as opposed. to a God produced humility by the Spirit within us. True humility, of course, is a fruit of the Spirit, as Galatians 5 tells us. Not something comes from man’s nature. Humility is a meek and quiet spirit. It’s a branch of internal worship that we have. A willingness to think more highly of others than yourself. A willingness to ascribe all that you have and are to the grace of God. A willingness to to exalt Christ over yourself, like John the Baptist said, he must increase and I must decrease. A willingness to disclaim any personal righteousness and trust solely in the righteousness of Christ. A willingness to receive whatever God’s hand brings into your life with true grace. A willingness to submit God’s Word. And if any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, the doctrines contained in scripture, he’s proud, and knows nothing. The humble person accepts what God’s word says. Now, in contrast to this, this is what Scripture talks about when it talks about humility. In contrast to this, voluntary humility is artificial. It’s fake. It’s an appearance only. It’s not a humility related to what God commands, Scripture tells us about, but a humanly devised way to appear, appear lowly and humble. Remember how Jesus talked about the Pharisees distorting their face when they fasted so that people would see that, you know, how much they’re suffering, you know, by their fasting? Jesus said, hey, you wash your face, you don’t, you know, you know what your head, you don’t make it appear that you’re fast. But, see, they do that. Whether we put ashes on our foreheads or whatever we do in our, you know, these are all acts of, you know, outward acts that we want to show our humility. But they’re artificial. They’re artificial. Now, you see an example of this false humility in the worship of angels. As he talks about here, the worship of angels. You say, how does this fit into this humility thing? Well, Paul describes the nature of counterfeit worship here by telling us that the teachers were imposing on the church angel worship. And the idea is you were wrong to think you can worship God directly, or that you can just go through Christ as the mediator. That’s a proud thought, you see. You are unworthy to worship God or pray to him directly. You’ve got to go through an angel instead. You should show humility. Use the angels as mediators between you and God. Some of this is related to pagan ideas that certainly were imported into the church. Platonic philosophy. Some of the early Gnostics had this. However, the Jews, after their Babylonian captivity, if you read their writings, Gil tells us, they talked a lot about it. angels. And they promoted the worship of angels. The Jews did adore and worship angels as mediators and intercessors. And you can see that in their prayer books. One of the statements is this. O ye, ye angels of mercies or merciful angels, ministers are the most high, entreat now the face of God for good. Or they say three times, let J.Hack keep us. Let J.Hack keep us. Let J.Hak deliver us. Let Jahak help us. Jayhack was the name of an angel that was supposed to be taking care of men. They had another one, Sandalfon, who was, one was appointed over the prayers of the righteous and so forth. Now you say, you come along here and you read this and you say, well, yeah, but who’s doing this today? I got news for you. It’s still going on, and the worship of angels is still real. there’s a high interest in angels, even in our secular society. You look at holiday cards, magazine covers, even Hollywood movies. There’s something about angels. What they may not real, but people may not realize, and I didn’t even realize this until I got into this a little deeper, is that the Roman Catholic Church actually teaches the worship of angels. Here’s what they say in their Catholic encyclopedia. veneration is given to angels because of their dignity, relation to God, and excellence of nature, and petition is made to them because they minister to God, Mary and May, God and Mary, and may, if God wills, minister to man. In the liturgy, angels are memorialized on October to 2nd, the feast of the guardian angels. The three angels mentioned are Michael, Raphael and Gabriel. Now, I talked to one of the nurses as a real, the DCI Clinic was really dedicated to going to Catholic Church. And she had never heard of this before. But they actually, they have so many special days. And I guess some of them are not what they call mandatory holidays. But this, they do have one here in October. We just had one for the guardian angels. And so here we have, there’s still something that is being done. It’s interesting to note that all idol worship that takes place ultimately is worship of angels, only it’s demonic forces, not scripture tells us, the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice the devils and not to God. So the gods of the heathen are based upon human imagination, and what happens is demons sort of take up resonance with them. And then they do some type of miraculous event, and people fear that particular idol because of these particular miracles or miraculous events. And so they end up sometimes, very unwittingly, but worshiping demonic forces, but angels. So ultimately, when you think about any of the miraculous things connected with the idols of various churches, Roman Catholics, you know, they have all kinds of things associated with their idols, this is the danger involved in these kinds of things. But ultimately, worship is limited. Either you are worshipping the true God, or you are worshipping the true God, or you know, you’re worshipping Satan. This is really what it comes down to. Jesus, remember, had to rebuke Satan who wanted Jesus to worship Him, saying, it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. That applies to the angels too here. You don’t God, we don’t worship angels. We worship the Lord God. John is rebuked by a holy angel for following. on his knees before him and in a sense worshiping, and he said, don’t stand up in the book of Revelation. The worship of angels undermines Christ’s role as mediator between God and man. The writer of Hebrews gives various proofs of why Christ is greater than all the angels. He has a more excellent name. He’s Lord and Savior. None of the angels have that titles, those titles. He is the son of the son. of God, they’re mere creatures. Angels worship Christ. Remember at his birth, even, we’re told that they worshipped him. And angels were created by Christ himself. Since God only is the object of worship, we shouldn’t be honoring a worshiping angels at all. Finally, angel worship undermines your right to come boldly to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ. It is is a layer between you and Christ that does not exist according to Scripture. It has an appearance of humility. You could say, well, you know, I can’t really go to God directly. But that’s false. That’s voluntary humility. That’s a false humility. Christ says he’s the sole meteor. He tells us to come boldly before his throne. Therefore, any time we bring the angels into this and start praying to them and so forth. It’s a violation of the First Commandment. We’re violating the fact that we should only be worshipping the Lord God. So you should know how these religious deceivers operate. Thirdly, you should not respect religious deceivers. You should realize their doctrine arises from ignorance, he tells us here. They’re intruding into those things which he hath not seen. My friends, nothing should be received as part of worshiped. a part of worship impressed upon you where the mind of the Lord is not fully known and thoroughly understood. The worship of angels is solely based on carnal reasoning. You don’t find any of it in the Word of God. How little knowledge human beings have of the nature, the qualities, the works, and the duties of angels. What do we know about them? Very little. The Bible doesn’t tell us a whole lot about it, them? Who has seen all the things of the invisible realm? Are you going to be forced to believe and to worship according to the fruits of someone’s own fancy and imagination without us, saith the Lord? Religious deceivers think too highly of themselves, and they think somehow, rather, that nothing pertaining to religion religion should be outside their realm, that somehow they can come up with all these ideas. If it’s not in Scripture, my friends, we have to abandon it. We have to say this is not true. Scripture clearly teaches God alone is to be worshipped, not any type of creature. You know, when Christian and hopeful are with the shepherds enjoying the delights of the delectable mountains, they are shown a fearsome sight. Because while they’re up on this mountain, they are brought to a place called the Hill of Air. And there’s this steep cliff on the one side of the mountain. Christian hopeful are told the look over and down. And down at the bottom of the cliff, they see dashed to pieces several men. The shepherds explain the meaning of this. Have you not heard of hymenis, or hymenis, Armenius, and Felidus, as concerning the faith of the resurrection of the dead? Those you see lie dashed in pieces at the bottom of the mountain are they. And they have continued to this day, unburied as you see, for an example to others, to take heed how they clamber too high, or how they come too near the brink of the mountain. The point is, those who enjoy the benefits of knowing the gospel must be careful that air does not cause, them to go over the cliff, so to speak. And they turn away to their own eternal ruin and fall to their death, so to this speak. So you should realize their doctrine here arises from ignorance, and then he says you should realize their doctrine arises from pride. They’re vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, we read. A fleshly mind is the mind of a natural man, who is not enlightened by the Holy Spirit. You become puffed up when you have a high opinion of your own gifts and ability. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. There are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them. And so what does the natural man, what is he able to tell us about the true faith? People love and extoled doctrines springing from their own fleshly minds, proudly imagine such nonsense has been revealed to them by God. What they don’t want to admit is that our doctrines are contrary to what the Spirit has revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and therefore they are to be rejected. Well, the Roman Catholic official, Johann Tetzel, believed he saved more men by his indulgences than the Apostle did by his sermons. Religious, deceivers are everywhere, and therefore you must be on your guard. They are going to try to take you off the true path, defraud you of heaven. So you should know how they work. They promote a false humility, and they are certainly building doctrine based upon their ignorance and their pride. Paul says don’t have anything to do with this. Don’t get involved and buy into this at all. Let us close with a word of prayer.