Latest / Simply Christ Podcast / The Study of the Book of Colossians Part 5 - Simply Christ Podcast

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The Study of the Book of Colossians Part 5 - Simply Christ Podcast · Simply Christ Podcast

• 0:07
  Welcome back to the Simply Christ podcast hosted by Leon
• 0:10
  Martin, along with Aaron Keaton, Melvin Martin, Andrew Schrock
• 0:14
  and Dan Blatz. Let's get right to it.
• 0:18
  Welcome. Thanks for being on here
• 0:20
  tonight. Appreciate that and looking
• 0:23
  forward to another good study in the 1st chapter of Colossians.
• 0:30
  So yeah, like I always tell you, if you want to listen to
• 0:35
  previous episodes of this podcast webinar here you can
• 0:40
  find all the details out at our website, which is simply Christ
• 0:43
  Ministries. Google that or go to
• 0:45
  simplychristmin.com and you'll find the details there exciting.
• 0:52
  Really good study. I've been enjoying this and
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  talking with a lot of people that many contact with that are
• 0:59
  enjoying this as well. So like we said when we started,
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  this is a little short book, but here we are on episode 5 I think
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  and we're not out of the 1st chapter yet.
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  So it's jam packed full of jewels.
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  There's just a lot of good stuff about the Christian life in here
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  and really relevant to to us believers.
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  So anyway, I'll let Andrew Schrock open us up with the word
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  of prayer. All right, let's pray.
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  God, we thank you so much for your Son Jesus Christ and all
• 1:30
  that he did on our behalf to deliver us completely.
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  Thank you for that atonement. We don't have to do Cassillian
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  little offerings and little sacrifices and keep all these
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  certain days and follow all these traditions and laws that
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  were in in Leviticus and that are in the book of Numbers.
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  Just thank you so much for just kind of folding it all up and
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  dealing with the whole thing on the cross and bringing us a full
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  redemption. I just pray that we would do a
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  good job in presenting the gospel to exactly the way you
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  intended it and that we'd interpret these verses correctly
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  and that Jesus Christ would be fully preached based on the full
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  work that he has done and we wouldn't miss or undermine in
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  any way the work that he has done in Jesus name.
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  That's right. That's what we want, the truth.
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  Yeah. So we are reading and discussing
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  a letter that Paul wrote to the church, he says to the Saints
• 2:49
  and the faithful brethren in Colossae.
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  And he is instructing or giving us information about how that
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  the church operates. And is is very, I mean,
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  unusually to the point, probably for all's writings on this very,
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  very good stuff. So we were talking about how
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  that he is the head of the church.
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  He's the beginning, the first born from the dead.
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  And it he said in verse 19 that it pleased the Father that in
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  him Christ should dwell all should all fool us dwell having
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  made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile
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  all things unto himself by him. I say whether they be things in
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  earth and things in heaven, talking about how sufficient
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  that Christ is when when he writes about our Redeemer, he is
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  recognizing the fact that he is has done the job thoroughly and
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  completely having made peace through the blood of his cross.
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  I mean, that's as good as it's going to get right there.
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  It's not a piece that comes and goes with circumstances, but
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  it's a piece that we can believe and believe and receive.
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  Yes, exactly that. That's that's what happens
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  there. And so we're going to jump in in
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  verse 23, which says if and here's the first if and and he
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  it's I'm going to read 22 so that we know what the if is for
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  as the body of his flesh through that to present you holy and
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  unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.
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  And that is not the end of the sentence.
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  It keeps right on going If you continue in the faith grounded
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  and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel
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  which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature
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  which is under heaven whereof I Paul and made a minister.
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  So a little bit of wait on us here right in in a in a way,
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  anyway, I'll just let you go kick right into it Andrew and
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  tell us what your thoughts on verse 23.
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  Yeah, it's a verse that a lot of I feel like a lot of times we
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  try to dodge instead of just understanding what he's saying.
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  Sure thing. The work of Christ is complete.
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  It's, it gives us a sure hope. It's not a kind of salvation
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  that we're running around. Oh man, I hope, I hope I have it
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  or I hope that it's complete or I hope that it's all covered.
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  Pretty much everyone preaches that we're saved by faith,
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  putting our faith in Christ. And all that I think he's saying
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  here is keep doing that. Like just keep that up, putting
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  your faith in Christ. It's when you start putting your
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  faith in some other things and you start taking away from the
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  work of Christ and you start putting confidence and
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  philosophy and traditions and part maybe certain parts of the
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  law and stuff like that. He calls that moving away from
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  the faith. Now you can interpret that
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  however you want, I guess. I mean, I know that goes against
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  the idea of the fact that you can't lose your salvation and
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  all that, but I think the Bible is very consistent that we're
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  saved by faith and, and it tells us to keep believing, keep our
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  faith in that. And I think the whole life
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  journey here on this earth is a challenge and a battleground to
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  test us to see if we're going to stick with Christ.
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  Like the children of Israel, they didn't stick with God when
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  things got tough and they didn't enter in why?
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  Because of unbelief. So I think that and he tells us
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  those were examples so that we don't make that same mistake.
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  Now that sounds to me like Jesus Christ is the full victory, the
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  full gospel. He's our salvation, He's our
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  ticket. But if we move away from that
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  ticket, then that's called unbelief and we're also in
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  danger of not entering in. I know that's probably a lot of
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  people will disagree with that, but that's where I stand.
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  I think that like in first or second Timothy chapter 4, he
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  says many have departed from the faith.
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  So they were obviously in the faith with the departed from the
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  faith. And it it doesn't say it was
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  because they got they fell in the lust or temptation or some
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  kind of sin. It's the fact that they put
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  their faith in Sabbath keeping. They put their faith in certain
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  meats, not eating certain meats and certain holidays forbidding
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  the Mary and it it calls those doctrines of devils.
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  And that's the form by which we can depart from the faith.
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  And the reason I know that that's what he's talking about
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  here is if you jump ahead just a little bit, he'll tell us what
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  he's talking about. So he started out in in Chapter
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  1 saying that he wishes everyone would be filled with the wisdom
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  and the spiritual understanding and The Who who Christ is.
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  And then he gives us all that wisdom that we've been going
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  through the finished work of Christ and how complete it is
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  and what a thorough work he did. And then he then he kind of
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  tells us then right after he said he presents us holy, which
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  is amazing. He says if we keep, if we're not
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  moved away from that faith, then that's the case.
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  And then in chapter 2, verse four, he says, in this I say,
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  lest any man should beguile you with enticing words, and talks
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  again about being steadfast in your faith and not being moved
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  there in that in verse 5. But then he gives us a little
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  bit more clarification of what he means by that in verse 16
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  says, let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or
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  respect of a holiday of the new moon, of the Sabbath days which
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  are a shadow of things to come. But the bodies of Christ, let no
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  man beguile you. If we reward involuntary
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  humility and worshiping the Angel and treating those things
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  which he has not seen, they will be puffed up by his fleshly
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  mind, not holding the head by which divided by joints.
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  So the, the, the warning of the book of Colossians is that we
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  need to have spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding and
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  understand the completion of the work of Christ who don't start
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  working for it because in, in his mind and his spiritual
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  understanding of the gospel is if you start working for it,
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  you're no longer believing it. If you start doing some parts of
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  the law, then you're putting faith in something that you can
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  do and in some parts of the law and you're not resolved in the
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  finished work of Jesus Christ. And he says that is not a faith.
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  And if you want to debate whether that means that you're
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  losing your salvation or you're not losing your salvation, to me
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  that's besides the point. The point is that in order to go
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  to heaven, you have to put your faith and trust in the finished
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  work of Jesus Christ. Maybe I'll say some more to that
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  later. Yeah.
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  That's why I believe I agree with you, Andrew, that that's
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  the point that's being made here.
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  But Melvin, go ahead. Yeah, because if you look at,
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  you know, the verse ahead, you read the verse of 22 and you
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  know, he's just making a point of what our stance is in Christ.
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  And now he says if you continue in the faith grounded and
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  settled and be be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.
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  So there's like almost two different things here, but
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  they're all kind of in one. But he says if you continue the
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  faith grounded and settled faith in Christ and in Christ alone
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  and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.
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  That I think is another important point even for myself.
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  You know, we tend to get wrapped up in all these theologies and,
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  and philosophies and all these other things that we think is
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  more spiritual or whatever. And I'm not saying that those
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  things are necessarily all wrong, but Paul keeps reminding
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  the believers about, you know, the gospel about Jesus.
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  I mean, he did all the way through the book of Hebrews that
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  we just went through. And now he's doing it again in
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  Colossians, you know. And so it's just like he is
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  hammering it down that we cannot be moved away from the hope of
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  Jesus Christ in the hope of the gospel in Jesus Christ alone.
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  I mean I'm talking about just believing in Christ alone and
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  not in any works or or any other thing I like in what it says in
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  2nd Corinthians 11. I thought of this verse when I
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  read this verse it says 11/3 Second Corinthians 11/3.
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  But I fear lest by any means as the serpent begoud Eve through
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  the stability, so your mind should be corrupted from the
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  simplicity that is in Christ. I like that verse because it the
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  gospel of Jesus Christ is simple, right?
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  And so we tend to make things way too complicated.
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  Oftentimes it seems like in the body of Christ and in the
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  church. I you know, so there's the fact
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  about losing your salvation. I mean, obviously, how did you
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  come to faith in Christ? You believed the way I see it,
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  the only way that you can not be smooth or be moved away from
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  Jesus or not continue in the faith is to not believe or
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  unbelief and God is not going to allow that to happen like, you
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  know, just overnight or very quickly.
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  It's going to be a process and he's going to try and you know
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  when you back. However, that is possible
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  because we have the Holy Spirit in US.
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  And so he's not just going to let us walk away from our faith
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  in Christ, but it is, it is possible because there's a lot
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  of a lot of scriptures where but oftentimes I'll read another one
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  in Revelations 210 and then I'll stop.
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  It says in Revelations 210, Jesus is writing the letter to
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  the seven churches there. And he says this to one of the
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  churches. He says, fear none of these
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  things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast
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  some of you into prison, that you may be tried, and ye shall
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  have tribulation 10 days. Be thou faithful unto death, and
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  I will give thee a crown of life.
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  And then in verse 11, he says, He that hath an ear, let him
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  hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
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  He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
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  And so that kind of gives me. And I picture there, I guess,
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  that the, the church there is going to experience tribulation
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  for the gospel, for the sake of the gospel.
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  And he's encouraging them to be faithful unto death.
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  And I will give thee a crown of life.
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  And so it's just, there's many other verses as well, but it's
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  just, it's just encouraging, I guess to me would be the right
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  word. Maybe that's a kind of a weak
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  word to describe it, but it's encouraging for me that to be
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  able to keep in the keep focusing on Jesus and Jesus
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  alone and that's it. Like that's, that's all we need
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  to do, right? And so that's just, that's
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  pretty simple in my mind. Yeah, that's so good.
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  And I thought I had Dan there. I could hear him, but I couldn't
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  see him. But then he popped away here.
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  We'll give him a second to come back here.
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  I really would like to hear his thing on here.
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  And Andrew, I know you got some more that you wanted to say too.
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  But you know, we think about Andrew, you mentioned that, you
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  know, it's there's people debating whether, you know, it
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  would be a salvation issue or is it just an obedience issue here
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  that he's talking about, you know, if we continue or so
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  obviously the word, if that's a conditional word.
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  So he puts a condition on being holy, unblameable and
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  unreprovable. And I'm here to tell you it is a
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  salvation issue because the only way that you can be holy and
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  unblameable and unreprovable in the sight of an all knowing God
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  is to be redeemed by the blood of Christ.
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  There is no other way. So so I think it's clear it is a
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  salvation. However, I agree with what you
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  said, Mel, and I liked what you said there.
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  If you gain salvation by faith, you don't lose it by the absence
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  of works. You know what I mean?
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  That's right. It has to be, it has to be
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  unbelief. It has to be unfaith.
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  You have to be moved away from the faith.
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  You have to be moved away from believing that Christ is the Son
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  of God and that He died on the cross that you could leave.
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  You would have to renounce that, right?
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  I mean that, yeah. I mean, it's a two way street,
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  right? If you gain it one way, you'll
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  lose it the same way, right? I mean that just that that's
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  just logic though. I'm not reading that in the in
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  the words here. But I think the the text makes
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  it very clear because like I said, it's unblameable,
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  unreprovable in the sight of an unknowing God.
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  It is only because of what Christ did, not of your actions
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  for sure. Dan, are you on I?
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  I think I can hear you. Nope, I don't know if he can see
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  it or not but on the screen it says the webcam utility and
• 17:11
  there's a wire that is not plugged in so I don't know if he
• 17:14
  can see that or not. I think you need to plug in your
• 17:17
  webcam utility thing. Yeah, I thought.
• 17:21
  I thought maybe his camera's just not working, but I can't
• 17:24
  seem to pick him up. Andrew, did you have any other
• 17:26
  comments on that? Yeah, now I lost.
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  My trainer thought it was really good too.
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  I want I just wanted to point out one other thing of what he
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  says there about which was preached to every creature which
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  is under heaven whereof I Paul and made a minister.
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  I just think that's interesting as well that he makes a point
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  there that this gospel was preached to every creature, that
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  he was made a minister of that gospel.
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  And it just like makes a point that that he can make that point
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  about who Christ is because he was made a minister of the
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  gospel by Jesus. We know that by the book of Acts
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  on how he, he came to faith in Christ and had this Damascus
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  wrote a Damascus experience, you know, and got saved.
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  So. Yeah, I remember now what I was
• 18:25
  going to say. So there's people that make the
• 18:27
  argument that in order to get looser salvation, Jesus would
• 18:30
  have to you'd have to get uncrucified and you'd have to
• 18:34
  get you'd have to reverse the work of Christ in order to get
• 18:38
  on saved. But the reason I disagree with
• 18:42
  that is because we're safe by believing that work that has
• 18:45
  happened. Yeah, right.
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  Right. That's what hinges on us having
• 18:49
  that is faith. And then if we all start putting
• 18:52
  our faith in something else, then we're no longer believing
• 18:56
  in that thing. If there's one bridge that
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  crosses the river that goes all the way across and we choose
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  another bridge that falls short, then we're on the wrong bridge
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  and you're not going to get across.
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  It's that simple. Like Jesus is the only bridge
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  that connects us completely. So that's the one thing.
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  And why does Paul warn us, write entire books warning us of all
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  the things that beguile us and spoil us and ruin us, destroy us
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  from the faith, move us away from the faith?
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  If it wasn't an issue, if it wasn't an issue, he would just
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  say, hey, if you believe once, then you're good.
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  Like, there's nothing that will move you away from it.
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  So we don't need any teaching on that.
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  I really believe we're saved by faith.
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  And some will continue in the faith until the end, and some
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  will, and some will enter in because they continue and others
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  will the the things of this world will choke out that little
• 19:55
  faith and they're going to just quit.
• 19:59
  Now I will leave space for the fact that there's a good chance
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  that if you're born again, you got the Spirit of God in you.
• 20:08
  You can start believing some other gospels and other ways and
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  still be saved. But it's the people that you're
• 20:13
  teaching that will not believe the gospel because you mix in
• 20:17
  those laws and works. That's a chance.
• 20:20
  That's a that's a possibility. You yourself might be saved, but
• 20:24
  you cannot preach part certain parts of the law and the gospel.
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  You can't believe both. It's impossible.
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  It's impossible believe that Jesus Christ fulfilled the law
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  and you are in him incomplete and then go back and also
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  believe the law. What I'm saying is like I told a
• 20:41
  Catholic, he says that he believes that Jesus Christ took
• 20:44
  our sins. Then I asked him why he goes to
• 20:46
  confession and he goes, what do you mean?
• 20:51
  And I was like, well, if you actually put your actions behind
• 20:55
  what you said that Jesus Christ took away your sins, you
• 20:58
  wouldn't be going to a priest or church to confess your sins.
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  You wouldn't know that Jesus took them already.
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  They can't believe both. So see how he moved away from
• 21:08
  the faith that quake like with his mouth.
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  He says he believes the gospel, but then he goes and tries to
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  get right with God. Well, if you believe the gospel,
• 21:18
  you know you're right with God. Jesus is what made you right
• 21:21
  with God. So that quake we are moved away
• 21:24
  from the faith and what he's going to say here.
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  If you if you're about holidays and Sabbath days and not
• 21:31
  touching this and not touching that new moon angels and all
• 21:35
  these things, then you're stepping away.
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  You're stepping away regardless of what you say.
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  You know the gospel, your fruit, your actions say otherwise, and
• 21:45
  you can't believe both. But good stuff, Dan, any
• 21:51
  comments on I think I got you now, I imagine I can hear you.
• 21:55
  Yeah, I'm here now, but I, I wasn't here to know where you
• 21:58
  guys are even at at this point. I had started late and then I
• 22:01
  had technical difficulties getting on SO.
• 22:04
  We're actually still in verse 23 just talking about, you know,
• 22:10
  the the fact that 23 the word, if there's a conditional word,
• 22:15
  you know, and that that it's obviously placing a condition on
• 22:18
  being holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his site.
• 22:22
  And I don't know if you have any thoughts that that you'd like to
• 22:26
  share on that at all? Yeah, I guess I probably you've
• 22:30
  already said this, but the the condition is not being blame,
• 22:35
  blameless and unreprovable. The condition is continuing to
• 22:39
  believe being grounded and settled and be not moved.
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  So it's never the condition is never perfection and holiness.
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  The condition is actually always recognizing that we lack
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  perfection and holiness and our only hope is Christ, perfection
• 22:53
  and holiness. So many people would like to
• 22:56
  make this condition on, on how well you've performed when it's
• 23:01
  actually almost the exact opposite.
• 23:02
  Of course, the gospel should motivate us and move us to do
• 23:06
  what is right and good and true and holy and all those things
• 23:09
  for sure. But when we believe the gospel,
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  what are we believing? We're believing that apart from
• 23:15
  Christ having become a man and took upon my sin and being
• 23:19
  crucified in my place, I would have no hope.
• 23:22
  And so don't ever move away from that hope that that is our only
• 23:25
  hope, right? So it's it's much less a
• 23:30
  condition about you have to perform a certain way.
• 23:34
  It's much more condition about continuing to trust in the only
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  true person, the only true one who made it available for us,
• 23:41
  right. Grounded and settled.
• 23:43
  Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard.
• 23:47
  You know, it's it is continuing to believe as I heard Andrew
• 23:51
  say. Yeah, for sure.
• 23:54
  I mean it says if, if you continue what good works
• 23:58
  continue in the faith. That's what that's what the
• 24:00
  condition is for sure. No, that's, that's really good,
• 24:03
  Dan. Thanks for clarifying that.
• 24:05
  Very good. And in Romans 4 it tells us
• 24:08
  about that. It says, What shall we say then?
• 24:10
  That Abraham, our fathers between your flesh is found.
• 24:13
  If Abraham were justified by works, he had to wear out the
• 24:16
  glory, but not before God. What sayeth the Scripture?
• 24:18
  Abraham believed God, he believed him, and it was counted
• 24:22
  to him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
• 24:24
  reward, not reckon of grace but of death.
• 24:26
  But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth
• 24:29
  the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
• 24:34
  And that is what we're not supposed to move away from.
• 24:38
  Like Dan. I thought of that verse when Dan
• 24:40
  was speaking. It's like it's the opposite of
• 24:42
  what people think. It's actually an exhortation to
• 24:45
  stop working and believe the gospel instead of working to
• 24:49
  prove that he believes the gospel.
• 24:52
  Yep. Good stuff.
• 24:54
  All right, verse 24, and I'm going to back up just a little
• 24:58
  bit because it sounds odd. Break it into there whereof I
• 25:02
  Paul and made a minister who now rejoice in my sufferings for you
• 25:08
  and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in
• 25:13
  my flesh for this body's sake, which is the church where of I
• 25:18
  am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is
• 25:23
  given to me for you to fulfill the word of God.
• 25:29
  Any comments on those two or any part of those two to me they go
• 25:33
  together kind of finish each other.
• 25:35
  They're at all Andrew. And we'll let Dan go first on
• 25:38
  this one since. Yeah, it doesn't matter.
• 25:42
  Doesn't matter. You got some thoughts either one
• 25:45
  of you. Doesn't matter.
• 25:48
  Yeah. So to tie it back to the
• 25:51
  Catholics again, this was not, as some Catholics suppose, that
• 25:56
  Jesus didn't complete the sufferings for the church and
• 26:00
  that Paul was trying to finish the work that Jesus hadn't
• 26:03
  completed. This is not Paul trying to make
• 26:06
  up what Christ missed. He's just filling up what he
• 26:11
  knows he has to suffer based on what Christ told him he would
• 26:15
  suffer. So Paul was told from the very
• 26:18
  beginning of his conversion that you will suffer many things for
• 26:21
  my name's sake. And he knew that whatever city
• 26:24
  he went into, he knew what troubles and difficulties
• 26:27
  awaited him there. And so he said, I rejoice in my
• 26:31
  sufferings for you to, to fill up that which is behind of the
• 26:35
  afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake.
• 26:40
  So Paul knew that his flesh was going to see a lot of
• 26:43
  difficulties and trials and persecutions so that he can
• 26:47
  preach the gospel so that the body of Christ would be saved,
• 26:50
  so that people would understand and know the gospel.
• 26:52
  And so when he says he's filling up the sufferings, he's not
• 26:55
  completing anything that Christ missed.
• 26:58
  He's simply saying I was, I was told that I would have to suffer
• 27:02
  many, many things for the church's sake and for Christ's
• 27:05
  sake. And I'm, I'm trying to fill up
• 27:08
  those things. I, I'm rejoicing in it because I
• 27:10
  know that this is what I was called to.
• 27:13
  In some ways it would almost seem easier, even if your life
• 27:17
  was a life of suffering to know this is what you're called to.
• 27:21
  Because sometimes we go through life and life gets really good
• 27:24
  and everything is fine and happy and well.
• 27:26
  And you're like, man, is this the right thing?
• 27:28
  Am I doing the right thing? I'm not sure.
• 27:29
  Well, life feels good, so I'm going to just keep right on.
• 27:32
  All knew that if he wasn't suffering, he wasn't being
• 27:35
  persecuted. He was probably out of the will
• 27:36
  of God. And he even says that all who
• 27:38
  live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
• 27:41
  So maybe we can take it to some degree for ourselves also.
• 27:45
  But Paul very specifically had a seemingly a list of places and
• 27:49
  things that he would have to go through for the body's sake for
• 27:54
  continuing the ministry that he was called to.
• 27:56
  So that's to me what I think he was referring to, much more so
• 27:59
  than the idea of filling up something that Christ missed.
• 28:05
  That's good. That's good.
• 28:06
  I never never heard it put that way.
• 28:09
  Any other thoughts on that Andrew or?
• 28:11
  Yeah, sorry, my my thoughts. I just lose my train of thought.
• 28:16
  That's why I just like, hey, Dan, you go first.
• 28:22
  I I like the fact that I saw Paul views the afflictions and
• 28:31
  the difficulty of ministering and the persecution.
• 28:34
  I mean, I want to see it in his lens where he views it as a it's
• 28:40
  a joy that's a joy to experience afflictions and suffer for the
• 28:48
  body's sake, which is the church.
• 28:51
  If he can go through difficult times and if he gets persecuted
• 28:55
  and gets beaten up and gets 39 stripes and all these things, if
• 28:59
  all that stuff happens, but the body of Christ is edified.
• 29:03
  If body of Christ gains wisdom and spiritual understanding
• 29:08
  about the dispensation of the body of Christ.
• 29:11
  And we're going to probably talk about the mystery of all that.
• 29:15
  And in the next verse that talks about the mystery, he says, if
• 29:19
  me coming out there and being this guy that the mystery's been
• 29:22
  revealed to, and I'm going to kind of bring in this new era,
• 29:27
  this new dispensation of grace to the Gentiles.
• 29:31
  You don't have to become a Jew to have your sins forgiven or be
• 29:34
  the part of the body of Christ to be a part of the Kingdom of
• 29:37
  God. I'm bringing this new thing in
• 29:39
  and I'm going to get persecuted like crazy.
• 29:42
  But if the body, that new body dispensation, grace era benefits
• 29:48
  from it, then it's my glory and my joy.
• 29:53
  Yeah. Good stuff, Melvin.
• 29:56
  Yeah, it is amazing that he talks about the afflictions of
• 30:00
  Christ and and he has joy in them.
• 30:03
  In Philippians 2 he says this. Paul says, holding forth the
• 30:08
  word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, but I have
• 30:12
  not run in vain, neither labored in vain.
• 30:15
  Yeah. And if I be offered upon the
• 30:17
  sacrifice and the service of your faith, I joy and rejoice
• 30:21
  with you all. And so I think Paul had a
• 30:26
  picture of the Kingdom, a different picture than most of
• 30:31
  us have, right? He, he says that I may rejoice
• 30:35
  in the day of Christ. So he's looking at his
• 30:38
  afflictions here as just something that is minor, a thing
• 30:44
  that he has to suffer so that he can spend eternity with the body
• 30:51
  and with Christ someday. And I think if we would if, and
• 30:56
  I'm talking to myself as much as anybody out there, I think if I
• 31:00
  would, and we would look at it in that through those lenses or
• 31:04
  through those eyes that this affliction that we suffer here.
• 31:10
  Like we like to be comfortable, like we do, like all of us do,
• 31:14
  right? We, we like when things are
• 31:16
  going well and we like when we don't have a whole lot of messy
• 31:21
  things happening in our life. But hey, this, what we have to
• 31:28
  realize is that this life here on this earth is, is just so
• 31:33
  small and so little compared to eternity.
• 31:36
  And if we keep that in mind, I think it, it would help us a lot
• 31:41
  to be able to be joyful in afflictions like Paul was.
• 31:46
  And I also want to point out one of the thing about he talks
• 31:50
  about the dispensation of God and he's going to explain that
• 31:56
  in the next couple verses. But that is just basically like
• 32:01
  you were saying, Andrew, the the gospel of Jesus and and putting
• 32:06
  our faith in Christ and in Christ and not in works or
• 32:09
  anything else. Yeah, yeah.
• 32:13
  That's good. That's good stuff.
• 32:14
  When you think about Paul, he wrote things like to the Jews.
• 32:19
  He was he said something about, you know, he'd rather die than
• 32:23
  than having them go without the gospel or whatever.
• 32:26
  Like he, he this was something and I don't know, like he, it
• 32:30
  seemed well, he says that that this the dispensation of God,
• 32:34
  which is given to me for you. So I think, you know, Paul was
• 32:41
  special in God's eyes, like he he got to him, got the gospel,
• 32:46
  got review revealed is the one that that spread that and that
• 32:51
  shared that from day one, he had a an unction or he knew things
• 32:57
  that that weren't wrote at that point.
• 33:00
  You know, we read the gospel that that he wrote to all these
• 33:03
  churches now, but he didn't have this to read at all.
• 33:07
  So he was definitely downloaded by God with this, this truth,
• 33:12
  and but he made it sure it was he was passionate about it.
• 33:14
  It was deep in his heart to to share this abroad for the other
• 33:19
  people to fulfill the word of God.
• 33:23
  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from
• 33:27
  generations, but now is made manifest to his Saints.
• 33:33
  I think this has been a little bit touched on already, but
• 33:38
  yeah, this this, this dispensation is not, was not
• 33:45
  available to those before it was hid away.
• 33:48
  It was. It was not accessible to that
• 33:51
  water. Andrew.
• 33:53
  Right. Yeah, to speak more plainly
• 34:00
  about it, the Kingdom of heaven is what Jesus Christ came and
• 34:05
  preached, but after he was crucified, he gave us the
• 34:08
  message of the Kingdom of God very openly to Paul.
• 34:14
  And that is the message that is probably the most despised in
• 34:20
  the world today. There's a lot of professing
• 34:24
  Christians that they just really can't stomach Paul's epistles
• 34:29
  and the reason why is because they don't understand the
• 34:33
  dispensation. They don't understand the grace
• 34:36
  period and the the difference between the Kingdom of heaven
• 34:42
  and the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of heaven is clearly
• 34:45
  by works with the assistance of Jesus Christ, which is the
• 34:50
  gospel that most churches preach that they think is the gospel.
• 34:54
  But the gospel of Jesus Christ that was revealed to Paul that
• 34:59
  was hit from the world because it had to be hit because if
• 35:04
  Satan and the Princess of this world would have known the
• 35:07
  effects of the gospel that it's going to go to everybody, true
• 35:10
  or Gentile. That middle wall is going to be
• 35:12
  broken down and there's going to be grace and forgiveness to
• 35:16
  anyone. And upon all that would call on
• 35:18
  his name everybody. He wouldn't have crucified the
• 35:21
  Lord of glory. And that is absolutely amazing.
• 35:25
  To get a little bit more context of this whole thing is in
• 35:29
  Ephesians chapter 3. He says for this 'cause I Paul
• 35:33
  the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles not to the Jews.
• 35:37
  Jesus Christ said he came for the his own house, the Jews, the
• 35:41
  Gentiles his his people and when Gentiles would come, it was
• 35:46
  difficult for them to get ministered to by God.
• 35:49
  He said he didn't come for the dogs.
• 35:51
  He came for, you know, the children of God.
• 35:54
  But then you know he kept it secret like that of what his
• 35:58
  full plan was. And then he revealed it to Paul
• 36:01
  because if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God
• 36:04
  who has just given me to you word with the there's the word
• 36:08
  dispensation again of grace of the grace of God, which is given
• 36:12
  him so that he can give it to us.
• 36:15
  How that by revelation he Christ made known to Paul the mystery,
• 36:20
  as I wrote a four and few words, whereby when you read, you may
• 36:24
  understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in
• 36:28
  other ages, any other times was not made known to the sons of
• 36:33
  men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets
• 36:39
  by the Spirit. That what is the mystery?
• 36:43
  That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same
• 36:47
  body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.
• 36:55
  That's good, that's good news for the Gentiles.
• 36:59
  And then he talks about it again in First Corinthians 2 where he
• 37:06
  says by a turn with the that you know nothing except Christ and
• 37:10
  him crucified down in verse 6 likes to verse 5 that your faith
• 37:16
  should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
• 37:18
  Be it we speak the wisdom, the word wisdom again among them
• 37:22
  that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world nor of the
• 37:26
  Prince of this world that come to not, but we speak the wisdom
• 37:28
  of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom of wisdom which
• 37:32
  God ordained before the world unto our glory.
• 37:36
  It was already ordained, which none of the Princess of this
• 37:40
  world knew, or had they known it, they would not have
• 37:44
  crucified the Lord of glory. So how cool is it that God
• 37:49
  waited to reveal such a glorious gospel that was so good that it
• 37:53
  wouldn't have come to to fruition if He would have not
• 37:57
  hid it from the Princess of this world.
• 37:59
  He had to protect it and he had to make Satan do the greatest
• 38:04
  mistake and that was to kill the Lord of glory that just ushered
• 38:08
  in the whole world by faith in Christ Jesus open the door to
• 38:12
  everyone and Satan did not know that that's what it's going to
• 38:15
  do. So when he rose from the dead,
• 38:17
  Satan was like, oh crap. So it it's just so cool and we
• 38:24
  need to embrace that. It's a new thing and God showed
• 38:27
  it to Peter. He, the four corners, came down
• 38:31
  with all the unclean food and God had to show it to him over
• 38:35
  and over and over. But I'm telling you, Paul took
• 38:37
  it and he ran with it. Peter struggled with it later,
• 38:40
  so I'm thankful for Paul. Yeah, for sure, Melvin.
• 38:49
  Yeah, I mean, obviously Paul, Paul is all in on this, on this
• 38:52
  thing because he he says there it says according to the
• 38:56
  dispensation of God, which is given to me for you to fulfill
• 39:02
  the word of God. So I mean, obviously God had a
• 39:06
  plan for Paul and he did. We can read that all the way
• 39:09
  from where he came in the picture in the book of Acts
• 39:12
  until Revelations. But Paul, Paul was giving this
• 39:19
  minister of this mystery of the gospel to fulfill the word of
• 39:24
  God. And that's a that's a, I know
• 39:28
  that's kind of controversial probably to some people, but in
• 39:32
  Ephesians 6, he says this thinking about the dispensation
• 39:36
  of God. You touched a little bit Andrew
• 39:38
  about, you know, the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of God.
• 39:41
  So the Kingdom of heaven is obviously an earthly Kingdom.
• 39:45
  And like you, like you said, it's, you know, it's involves
• 39:50
  works and Christ in together and it's an earthly Kingdom and the
• 39:56
  Kingdom of God or the dispensation of God is a
• 39:59
  spiritual Kingdom because he says in Ephesians 6/19, he says
• 40:05
  praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit
• 40:10
  and watching thereon too with all perseverance and
• 40:13
  supplication for this for All Saints.
• 40:16
  So he says that praying always with all prayer, and he involves
• 40:20
  the Spirit there. And As for me?
• 40:23
  That utterance may given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly
• 40:28
  to make no one the mystery of the gospel.
• 40:31
  And so you know if you and there's many more verses that we
• 40:35
  could touch on on this mystery of the gospel involving Paul.
• 40:39
  But it's just so amazing how this mystery is now made
• 40:45
  manifest, is made, revealed, is brought out to the Saints, to
• 40:52
  us, to you and I, the body of Christ.
• 40:55
  And that is an awesome thing. And I don't know why we want to
• 41:00
  try and, you know, get works involved in this thing.
• 41:03
  But we do, you know, and other things other than just simply
• 41:07
  the gospel of Christ and the faith in Christ alone.
• 41:10
  Amen. Damn.
• 41:15
  Yeah, more of the same, I think, as probably what I'll end up
• 41:18
  saying. For the most part, I would have
• 41:20
  some questions about the King of Heaven having works involved
• 41:25
  with salvation, but that's another topic for another time.
• 41:29
  But the to think that Moses, the meekest man in all the world
• 41:36
  that spoke with God face to face, knew God personally, had
• 41:40
  God vouch for him, had his face shining like a light where
• 41:44
  people didn't dare look upon him for the glory that he had about
• 41:47
  him. And David who reigned over the
• 41:50
  nation of Israel like none other.
• 41:52
  He had power and riches and and sway on this world like nobody
• 41:57
  has had since. And Joseph, who looks like he
• 42:00
  was almost completely blameless throughout his days, and he rose
• 42:04
  to power in Egypt and he studied the Scriptures and he knew very
• 42:07
  well what Israel was supposed to be doing, and Elijah and Isaiah
• 42:11
  and so on and so forth. All these men who knew God well
• 42:15
  and who knew the promises and who knew the law, who knew all
• 42:19
  that God had in store for the people or seemingly knew, could
• 42:23
  not see what you and I see. They they prophesied of it, then
• 42:28
  they would search the scriptures that they had written according
• 42:30
  to Peter to see what manner of time and what what exactly they
• 42:34
  were referring to when they prophesied these things.
• 42:37
  But now it is revealed to us Gentile people, not even
• 42:42
  originally of the covenant. We now as the Saints of God in
• 42:47
  this dispensation have the glory of God being revealed to us in a
• 42:52
  way that God kept secret to everybody else.
• 42:56
  Even all the Jews of Jesus's day and Paul's day, they rejected
• 43:00
  the message and now faith is going out to the nations.
• 43:04
  In Romans chapter 1, Paul opens his letter and he talks about
• 43:08
  how Christ was declared to be the Son of God with power
• 43:11
  according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection
• 43:14
  from the dead. And then verse 5, verse 5 of
• 43:16
  chapter 1, he says, By whom we have received grace and
• 43:21
  apostleship. What for?
• 43:24
  For obedience to the faith among the nations.
• 43:27
  For his name, among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ?
• 43:34
  To think that God was keeping a big secret, that he had a plan
• 43:38
  that Elijah, Moses, Daniel and David could not understand or
• 43:41
  had not fully discovered, that he's now spreading out in the
• 43:45
  nations and we get to participate in it.
• 43:47
  We, we ought to be living on cloud 9 quite literally all the
• 43:50
  time. For what great things have been
• 43:53
  revealed to us. Amen.
• 43:56
  Yeah, it should excite us and it and it does to a believer, I
• 43:59
  believe, to realize what you just said then, that we know
• 44:03
  things that those great men of God didn't because he revealed
• 44:08
  them to Paul and through him to us.
• 44:13
  Such a such a gift. I forgot to mention that I think
• 44:17
  it's very significant. So I talked to a lot of people
• 44:22
  that really have a problem with the Word of God and they said
• 44:25
  it's so full of contradictions. And the truth is that it's not.
• 44:31
  The problem is, is they're not following the dispensations.
• 44:34
  They're not following the story. You have to read the Bible from
• 44:38
  the beginning to the end to follow the story and just read
• 44:41
  it like a history book. And then it all falls into place
• 44:45
  when you just jump in the middle of a book and then say, oh, it's
• 44:47
  contradicting. It's because you didn't read the
• 44:49
  whole book, but you don't believe the whole book and the
• 44:52
  way it was going. So Jesus Christ came to set up
• 44:56
  the Kingdom of heaven, an earthly Kingdom.
• 44:58
  He got crucified then that ushered in the dispensation of
• 45:03
  grace. When he got crucified, Satan
• 45:06
  fell into God's trap because he kept it a secret.
• 45:12
  Christ, they killed it, which was exactly what we needed.
• 45:15
  And what's the plan before the foundation of the world?
• 45:18
  It just Satan end up fulfilling God's plan that brought
• 45:22
  salvation to us. So now we understand that we
• 45:26
  cannot try to make the book of Matthew match the Gospel
• 45:31
  message. The problem is people are trying
• 45:34
  to believe the book of Matthew Gospel and the book, the book of
• 45:39
  Romans. It does not work.
• 45:41
  And there's full reason for people saying there's a
• 45:43
  contradiction, while most people don't want to say with their out
• 45:47
  loud that it's a contradiction. So they just say, well, it's God
• 45:51
  is so mysterious and we just can't understand the full, you
• 45:54
  know, the thing of God, you know, God says not I have seen
• 45:58
  that I ear have heard, but it's what, what we will be what will
• 46:04
  be revealed. But he says now it is revealed.
• 46:07
  I always thought that's talking about heaven.
• 46:09
  No, it's now revealed. Now we can hear and see what
• 46:14
  this was that Christ did when he died in Rose again.
• 46:18
  So we're no longer trying to believe 2 dispensations that are
• 46:22
  completely different or very different.
• 46:24
  So that's big. That's a big deal.
• 46:28
  Yeah. That we need, yeah.
• 46:30
  I don't. We divide the word of God.
• 46:33
  I don't I don't know that you can understand the the Bible
• 46:37
  very good if you don't realize that there's a difference
• 46:40
  between like the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of God is
• 46:43
  part of it, but more specifically, the different
• 46:46
  dispensations, because they they're vastly different.
• 46:49
  They're not even remotely the same.
• 46:52
  So that that is I like what Dan touched.
• 46:56
  You know, the the fact that this, that the those, those like
• 47:02
  Joseph, all those people that knew God that were called a
• 47:05
  friend of God, like David was, they knew everything about God,
• 47:10
  probably that any human could have at the time.
• 47:13
  And, you know, they obviously read whatever, you know,
• 47:16
  scriptures that they had at the time.
• 47:19
  And yet they didn't see this, they they couldn't understand,
• 47:21
  they couldn't see this, this dispensation that we're in.
• 47:24
  That's that's why I don't place a lot of energy in eschatology
• 47:29
  for me, you know, study of end times.
• 47:32
  It's interesting, yes, but I don't think that we can see once
• 47:36
  we get there, we'll be like, man, I'd have never figured that
• 47:40
  out. You know, some of it we can, you
• 47:43
  know, some of it it says, you know, comfort one another with
• 47:45
  these words or whatever. There's things that are that are
• 47:47
  kind of made know, just like it was back in the old times, too,
• 47:51
  about the gospel. They knew there was something
• 47:53
  common, they just didn't know what it was going to look like.
• 47:55
  And so that's why I'm not going to get tied up in a knot about
• 47:58
  some of this eschatology that people get all sorts over.
• 48:02
  And to me, it's like, well, it's kind of a secondary issue.
• 48:06
  Yeah, let's do one more verse, I guess. 10 minutes.
• 48:11
  Yeah. To whom God would make known
• 48:14
  what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
• 48:19
  Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory.
• 48:23
  And this is the to whom is the Saints God would make known what
• 48:30
  is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles,
• 48:33
  which is Christ in you. The hope of glory.
• 48:36
  This this is this is crazy like for somebody that doesn't
• 48:41
  understand this dispensation of grace that we're in.
• 48:46
  He's making the claim that this is Christ in you that is part of
• 48:52
  this dispensation that yeah, you wouldn't have heard that before,
• 48:55
  of course. So brand new dispensation here.
• 48:58
  But anyway, Andrew, any thoughts on 27?
• 49:01
  Yeah, he just keeps pounding it over and over.
• 49:03
  He's still not done talking about this glorious mystery that
• 49:06
  has revealed to him and how that this gospel is so readily
• 49:10
  available. Just actually it is the time for
• 49:12
  the Gentiles. I mean, it's just kind of like
• 49:15
  in Romans 11, he says God actually put the Jews aside for
• 49:20
  a while. He's going to grab them in
• 49:22
  later, but he's like right now it's Gentile time and so and he
• 49:27
  says it's rich and it's glorious and it and you need to know it.
• 49:31
  He says I would to whom God would make no one.
• 49:35
  What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
• 49:38
  Gentiles? We do well to know this and to
• 49:41
  have understanding, spiritual wisdom and understanding of the
• 49:45
  of this. Again, he's still building up
• 49:48
  his case so that he can go in later and say, look, because of
• 49:51
  all the things that I've just talked about, all this wisdom,
• 49:55
  all the spiritual understanding, this dispensation, the mystery,
• 49:58
  the whole 9 yards is so that it says this stuff is what I'm
• 50:03
  saying. Beguile by tradition.
• 50:06
  The wisdom and law minded people that don't understand this
• 50:10
  dispensation of grace, that it has nothing to do with
• 50:13
  circumcision, has nothing to do with holidays, new moons,
• 50:16
  Sabbath days, none of that. It says This is why I say this.
• 50:21
  So do you understand? So you know this.
• 50:23
  And I think we, I think we need to know it and a lot of us
• 50:26
  don't. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:29
  We really should be talking about verse 28 right with this.
• 50:32
  That's that's the point that he's making there.
• 50:34
  But Melvin on 27th. Yeah, it's just it's so
• 50:39
  beautiful that we can actually be make knowing what is the
• 50:45
  richest and the glory of this mystery of this mystery of the
• 50:49
  gospel among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you.
• 50:54
  It's like so there's verses my other computer died.
• 50:59
  So I I'm kind of lost without my sword searcher.
• 51:02
  But there's other scriptures that are talking about, you
• 51:08
  know, Christ in you and what and, and how we can have the
• 51:12
  power of Christ because of Christ in US and, and all those
• 51:17
  things. And people tend to like camp on
• 51:22
  that or just focus on that. And that is good and that is
• 51:28
  awesome. But what he's trying to point
• 51:31
  out here in Colossians so far up to this point is he's just
• 51:35
  driving home about Christ and what what Christ means to us and
• 51:41
  what he has done for us and what we our position is in Christ.
• 51:46
  And he's going to continue doing that through the rest of of
• 51:50
  Colossians. And to me it is kind of simple,
• 51:54
  right? Again, it's Paul is trying to
• 51:57
  say, look, it's just simply Christ and and I why can't we
• 52:01
  get that right? And, and obviously they couldn't
• 52:04
  get that at that time because that's what he keeps driving
• 52:07
  home, which is Christ in you the hope of glory.
• 52:11
  It's just that simple. So.
• 52:14
  Yeah, easy. Damn.
• 52:19
  Yeah, not, not only, you know, if you were to go through the
• 52:22
  list of things that he's already said about us in this chapter,
• 52:26
  not only did he die for his sinners, not only did he
• 52:30
  translate us from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of his
• 52:32
  dear Son. Not only are we now presented to
• 52:36
  God the Father as holy and unblameable and unruh provable
• 52:39
  in God's sight through Christ's work, but he wants to reveal to
• 52:43
  us now what the great riches he has toward us.
• 52:47
  You know, like above and beyond. What are you talking about here,
• 52:50
  Lord? Like you've already told me that
• 52:52
  I'm, I'm, I'm one with you, that I'm translated into your
• 52:55
  Kingdom, that all my sins are forgiven.
• 52:57
  And he says now that he wants to make known to us the glory of
• 53:02
  this great mystery. So better than getting to
• 53:05
  heaven, better than living forever, better than great,
• 53:09
  great riches and wealth and honor and all of that.
• 53:13
  Christ will be in you. He, He will know you, you will
• 53:16
  know him. He will walk with you, He will
• 53:19
  be inside of you. He wants to know you personally.
• 53:23
  What is this great mystery that He wants to reveal to us?
• 53:27
  That Christ is in you, and that is the only hope of glory that
• 53:31
  you have. That that ought to be a living,
• 53:33
  abiding hope. We have been begotten again unto
• 53:36
  a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
• 53:39
  from the dead, right? The idea that God would come to
• 53:43
  the world, to earth, is foreign to all other religions.
• 53:46
  And even the Jews were shocked by this concept that God would
• 53:50
  show up in human form. But that God would now choose to
• 53:54
  live inside of dirty, evil born enemies, gentile people, is
• 54:01
  pretty shocking. It's it's should, it should
• 54:04
  throw us into a frenzy sometimes to think about this.
• 54:08
  Like how, how would God choose this?
• 54:10
  This is the great mystery that God is going to do something
• 54:13
  different. He's not going to give us a list
• 54:15
  of commands and say, go to that building, offer sacrifices, do
• 54:18
  such and such. He said, rather, I'm going to
• 54:20
  come and I'm going to live inside of you and I'm going to
• 54:23
  be in you. I'm going to be with you all the
• 54:25
  time. The Old Testament Tabernacle
• 54:27
  foreshadowed that God is going to Tabernacle with man.
• 54:31
  He pitched his tent in the midst of Israel, but he is now
• 54:35
  personally made his home inside of you, inside of me.
• 54:38
  And this is our hope of glory, that the seed of eternal life is
• 54:42
  inside of us. Now I believe the gospel and
• 54:46
  what Christ has done and give God gives his Spirit to me and
• 54:50
  that hope is what gives me the motivation to go on until the
• 54:55
  end. And in Ephesians chapter 3, I
• 54:57
  think some of you already quoted this already, but he says in
• 55:00
  chapter he's there's a lot that builds up to it.
• 55:02
  But in chapter 3 verse 10, he says to the intent that now
• 55:07
  under the principalities and powers and heavenly places might
• 55:09
  be known by the church. The manifold wisdom of God
• 55:13
  according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ
• 55:16
  Jesus our Lord. So he's doing a work now in such
• 55:21
  like, almost like the wrong people.
• 55:24
  And yet this is how he's chosen to reveal himself not only to
• 55:27
  the world, but even the principalities and powers of of
• 55:30
  this in the spiritual realm that we can't see.
• 55:34
  They're caught off guard by what God is doing and God's revealing
• 55:38
  his wisdom to them through you and me.
• 55:40
  So this is as good as it gets, folks.
• 55:43
  I mean, we're going to one day see him face to face and I can
• 55:46
  only imagine that will be much better yet.
• 55:48
  But if he's now in US, it's that's quite a strong hope of
• 55:53
  glory, I would say. Amen.
• 55:57
  That that is, that is, that is incredible that we get to that.
• 56:02
  We get to experience that actually, yeah.
• 56:05
  It's real life, more glory as it is.
• 56:07
  If you want a little more glory about it, you want to experience
• 56:09
  some more glory and appreciation for it.
• 56:12
  Reed Leviticus and read numbers where they were at the Mount
• 56:18
  Sinai and I think they already was actually.
• 56:22
  They were already in the wilderness.
• 56:23
  It was just before they got bitten by the snakes.
• 56:25
  He got on giving them extensive ministering laws and sacrifice
• 56:32
  and all that stuff. I bet at that point in time, the
• 56:37
  children, Israel could have heard about it.
• 56:38
  Someone that's going to come and make one offering and perfect
• 56:41
  them forever, they say. I'll take that, yeah.
• 56:47
  Well, and if you think about it, the the in the Old Testament,
• 56:51
  you know that the prophet spoke the word of God or God spoke to
• 56:56
  the prophets and then his prophet spoke to the people.
• 57:00
  And then for what was it 400 years, from the time up to
• 57:04
  Christ, God was silent, like no prophets are speaking and the
• 57:09
  people were longing to hear from God.
• 57:12
  And now here we are in the dispensation of God and we have
• 57:16
  Christ in us. Like with US247365 That should
• 57:22
  be, you know, like, I don't know, that's just like you were
• 57:25
  saying that that's the best and we should be rejoicing in that.
• 57:28
  And so. Yeah, Emmanuel, God with us.
• 57:33
  Isn't that what that word means? Yeah, that's right.
• 57:37
  Yeah, that's so good. And we're going to hear get into
• 57:40
  this next week and I'll just finish with this here.
• 57:43
  But couple times Melvin mentioned, I think Andrew did
• 57:45
  too about, you know, why are we why are we drawn away?
• 57:49
  I mean, this is such good news. Why would we be tempted to leave
• 57:53
  this and and try to somehow make it better or whatever.
• 57:57
  And I really think and it's going to talk about this.
• 57:59
  But like it says, beware less than a man spoil you through
• 58:02
  philosophy and mainly see it here in a little bit.
• 58:03
  We got to talk about that and but there's always in me, I'm
• 58:08
  just talking about myself for a second.
• 58:10
  In me, there's always a desire to look holy and righteous to
• 58:15
  those around me. And that is a very, very real
• 58:19
  thing that is going to draw us. Just it's going to keep like it
• 58:24
  like a wind against the building.
• 58:25
  It's just going to keep that constant pressure there for you
• 58:29
  to start doing things that enhance your image, which is
• 58:34
  going to draw you away from this simple thing.
• 58:35
  So if there's if there's anything that I'd like for
• 58:39
  people to hear that are listening to, this is the simple
• 58:42
  gospel that we are hearing about hearing Colossians in this
• 58:46
  letter that Paul wrote to this church is stay with it.
• 58:51
  This is the gospel and it is sufficient.
• 58:54
  Don't go looking for other stuff to spice it up because I mean,
• 58:58
  I'm telling you, the spice is all in the text here.
• 59:00
  It's it's right here. Just what what Dan was talking a
• 59:04
  bit a minute ago. So God, Christ is enough more
• 59:12
  than he know, you know, you can almost say in a way.
• 59:14
  So anyway, brothers, thanks for being on here tonight.
• 59:18
  I appreciate your time and and effort in this guests.
• 59:23
  I appreciate you guys being on here as well, of course.
• 59:26
  And like always, you can see previous episodes of this at the
• 59:31
  website Simply Christ Ministries.
• 59:33
  You can Google that and see that it's been a good study.
• 59:36
  Next week, same time, same place.
• 59:38
  God bless you guys. Have a good week.
• 59:39
  Thank you. Welcome back to the Simply
• 1:00:04
  Christ podcast hosted by Leon Martin, along with Aaron Keaton,
• 1:00:08
  Melvin Martin, Andrew Schrock and Dan Blatz.
• 1:00:11
  Let's get right to it. Welcome.
• 1:00:14
  Thanks for being on here tonight.
• 1:00:16
  Appreciate that and looking forward to another a good study
• 1:00:21
  in the 1st chapter of Colossians.
• 1:00:26
  So yeah, like I always tell you, if you want to listen to
• 1:00:30
  previous episodes of this podcast webinar here, you can
• 1:00:35
  find all the details out at our website, which is simply Christ
• 1:00:38
  Ministries. Google that or go to
• 1:00:40
  simplychristmin.com and you'll find the details there exciting.
• 1:00:47
  Really good study. I've been enjoying this and
• 1:00:50
  talking with a lot of people that may contact with that are
• 1:00:54
  enjoying this as well. So like we said when we started,
• 1:00:58
  this is a little short book, but here we are on episode 5 I think
• 1:01:03
  and we're not out of the 1st chapter yet.
• 1:01:05
  So it's jam packed full of jewels.
• 1:01:08
  There's just a lot of good stuff about the Christian life in here
• 1:01:12
  and really relevant to to us believers.
• 1:01:14
  So anyway, I'll let Andrew Schrock open us up with the word
• 1:01:18
  of prayer. All right, let's pray God, we
• 1:01:20
  thank you so much for your Son Jesus Christ and all that he did
• 1:01:27
  on our behalf to deliver us completely.
• 1:01:30
  Thank you for that atonement. We don't have to do Cassilian
• 1:01:34
  little offerings and little sacrifices and keep all these
• 1:01:39
  certain days and follow all these traditions and laws that
• 1:01:45
  were in in Leviticus and that are in the Book of Numbers.
• 1:01:51
  Just thank you so much for just kind of folding it all up and
• 1:01:56
  dealing with the whole thing on the cross and bringing us a full
• 1:01:59
  redemption. I just pray that we would do a
• 1:02:02
  good job in presenting the gospel to exactly the way you
• 1:02:06
  intended it and that we'd interpret these verses correctly
• 1:02:10
  and that Jesus Christ would be fully preached based on the full
• 1:02:15
  work that he has done and we wouldn't miss or undermine in
• 1:02:19
  any way the work that he has done in Jesus name.
• 1:02:23
  That's right. That's what we want, the truth.
• 1:02:29
  Yeah. So we are reading and discussing
• 1:02:34
  a letter that Paul wrote to the church, he says to the Saints
• 1:02:44
  and the faithful brethren in colossi.
• 1:02:47
  And he is instructing or giving us information about how that
• 1:02:56
  the church operates. And is is very, I mean,
• 1:03:03
  unusually to the point, probably for all's writings on this very,
• 1:03:09
  very good stuff. So we were talking about how
• 1:03:13
  that he is the head of the church.
• 1:03:15
  He's the beginning, the first born from the dead.
• 1:03:20
  And it he said in verse 19 that it pleased the Father that in
• 1:03:24
  him Christ should dwell all should all fool us dwell having
• 1:03:31
  made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile
• 1:03:36
  all things unto himself by him. I say, whether they be things in
• 1:03:41
  earth and things in heaven, talking about how sufficient
• 1:03:49
  that Christ is, when when he writes about our Redeemer, he is
• 1:03:53
  recognizing the fact that he is has done the job thoroughly and
• 1:03:58
  completely having made peace through the blood of his cross.
• 1:04:01
  I mean, that's as good as it's going to get right there.
• 1:04:05
  It's not a piece that comes and goes with circumstances, but
• 1:04:08
  it's a piece that we can believe and believe and receive.
• 1:04:13
  Yes, exactly that. That's that's what happens
• 1:04:15
  there. And so we're going to jump in in
• 1:04:19
  verse 23, which says if and here's the first if and and it's
• 1:04:27
  I'm going to read 22 so that we know what the if is for as the
• 1:04:31
  body of his flesh through that to present you holy and
• 1:04:35
  unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.
• 1:04:39
  And that is not the end of the sentence.
• 1:04:41
  It keeps right on going if you continue in the faith grounded
• 1:04:46
  and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel
• 1:04:50
  which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature
• 1:04:55
  which is under heaven whereof I Paul and made a minister.
• 1:05:01
  So a little bit of weight on us here right in in a in a way.
• 1:05:09
  Anyway, I'll just let you go kick right into it Andrew, and
• 1:05:13
  tell us what your thoughts on verse 23.
• 1:05:16
  Yeah, it's a verse that a lot of, I feel like a lot of times
• 1:05:21
  we try to dodge instead of just understanding what he's saying.
• 1:05:28
  The work of Christ is complete. It's, it gives us a sure hope.
• 1:05:34
  It's not a kind of salvation that we're running around.
• 1:05:37
  Oh man, I hope, I hope I have it or I hope that it's complete or
• 1:05:42
  I hope that it's all covered. Pretty much everyone preaches
• 1:05:48
  that we're saved by faith, putting our faith in Christ.
• 1:05:52
  And all that I think he's saying here is keep doing that.
• 1:05:56
  Like just keep that up, putting your faith in Christ.
• 1:06:01
  It's when you start putting your faith in some other things and
• 1:06:04
  you start taking away from the work of Christ and you start
• 1:06:06
  putting confidence and philosophy and traditions and
• 1:06:10
  part maybe certain parts of the law and stuff like that.
• 1:06:13
  He calls that moving away from the faith.
• 1:06:16
  Now you can interpret that however you want, I guess.
• 1:06:19
  I mean, I know that goes against the idea of the fact that you
• 1:06:22
  can't lose your salvation and all that, but I think the Bible
• 1:06:25
  is very consistent that we're saved by faith and, and it tells
• 1:06:32
  us to keep believing, keep our faith in that.
• 1:06:34
  And I think the whole life journey here on this earth is a
• 1:06:38
  challenge and a battleground to test us to see if we're going to
• 1:06:43
  stick with Christ. Like the children of Israel,
• 1:06:46
  they didn't stick with God when things got tough and they didn't
• 1:06:49
  enter in why? Because of unbelief.
• 1:06:52
  So I think that, and he tells us those were examples so that we
• 1:06:57
  don't make that same mistake. Now that sounds to me like Jesus
• 1:07:02
  Christ is the full victory, the full gospel.
• 1:07:05
  He is our salvation, He's our ticket.
• 1:07:08
  But if we move away from that ticket, then that's called
• 1:07:12
  unbelief and we're also in danger of not entering in.
• 1:07:15
  I know that's probably a lot of people will disagree with that,
• 1:07:19
  but that's where I stand. I think that like in First or
• 1:07:25
  Second Timothy chapter 4, he says many have departed from the
• 1:07:28
  faith. So they were obviously in the
• 1:07:30
  faith with the departed from the faith.
• 1:07:32
  And it, it doesn't say it was because they got they fell in
• 1:07:36
  the lust or temptation or some kind of sin.
• 1:07:40
  It's the fact that they put their faith in Sabbath keeping.
• 1:07:42
  They put their faith in certain meats, not eating certain meats
• 1:07:45
  and certain holidays forbidding the merry and it, it calls those
• 1:07:49
  doctrines of devils. And that's the form by which we
• 1:07:53
  can depart from the faith. And the reason I know that
• 1:07:58
  that's what he's talking about here is if you jump ahead just a
• 1:08:01
  little bit, he'll tell us what he's talking about.
• 1:08:06
  So he started out in in chapter 1 saying that he wishes everyone
• 1:08:12
  would be filled with the wisdom and the spiritual understanding
• 1:08:14
  and who who Christ is. And then he gives us all that
• 1:08:17
  wisdom that we've been going through the finished work of
• 1:08:19
  Christ and how complete it is and what a thorough work he did.
• 1:08:24
  And then he then he kind of tells us then right after you
• 1:08:29
  said he presents us holy, which is amazing.
• 1:08:33
  He says, if we keep, if we're not moved away from that faith,
• 1:08:37
  then that's the case. And then in chapter 2, verse
• 1:08:41
  four, he says, in this I say, lest any man should beguile you
• 1:08:45
  with enticing words and talks again about being steadfast in
• 1:08:51
  your faith and not being moved there in that in verse 5.
• 1:08:54
  But then he gives us a little bit more clarification of what
• 1:08:59
  he means by that in verse 16 says, let no man therefore judge
• 1:09:04
  you and meat or and drink on respect of a holiday, of the new
• 1:09:06
  moon, of the Sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come.
• 1:09:09
  But the bodies of Christ, Let no man beguile you.
• 1:09:12
  If we reward involuntary humility and worshiping the
• 1:09:14
  Angel and treating those things which he has not seen, they be
• 1:09:17
  puffed up by his fleshly mind, not holding the head by which
• 1:09:21
  divided by joints. So the, the, the warning of the
• 1:09:26
  book of Colossians is that we need to have spiritual wisdom
• 1:09:30
  and spiritual understanding and understand the completion of the
• 1:09:34
  work of Christ who don't start working for it.
• 1:09:37
  Because in, in his mind and his spiritual understanding of the
• 1:09:42
  gospel is if you start working for it, you're no longer
• 1:09:44
  believing it. If you start doing some parts of
• 1:09:48
  the law, then you're putting faith in something that you can
• 1:09:51
  do and in some parts of the law and you're not resolved in the
• 1:09:54
  finished work of Jesus Christ. And he says that is not a faith.
• 1:09:59
  And if you want to debate whether that means that you're
• 1:10:02
  losing your salvation or you're not losing your salvation, to me
• 1:10:07
  that's besides the point. The point is that in order to go
• 1:10:10
  to heaven, you have to put your faith and trust in the finished
• 1:10:13
  work of Jesus Christ. Maybe I'll say some more to that
• 1:10:15
  later. Yeah.
• 1:10:18
  That's why I believe I agree with you, Andrew, that that's
• 1:10:21
  the point that's being made here.
• 1:10:22
  But Melvin, go ahead. Yeah, because if you look at,
• 1:10:27
  you know, the verse ahead, you read the verse of 22 and you
• 1:10:31
  know, he's just making a point of what our stance is in Christ.
• 1:10:35
  And now he says if you continue in the faith of grounded and
• 1:10:41
  settled and be be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.
• 1:10:46
  So there's like almost two different things here, but
• 1:10:49
  they're all kind of in one. But he says if you continue the
• 1:10:52
  faith grounded and settled, faith in Christ and in Christ
• 1:10:56
  alone, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel.
• 1:10:59
  That I think is another important point, even for
• 1:11:04
  myself. You know, we tend to get wrapped
• 1:11:08
  up in all these theologies and, and philosophies and all these
• 1:11:14
  other things that we think is more spiritual or whatever.
• 1:11:18
  And I'm not saying that those things are necessarily all
• 1:11:20
  wrong, but Paul keeps reminding the believers about, you know,
• 1:11:26
  the gospel about Jesus. I mean, he did all the way
• 1:11:29
  through the book of Hebrews that we just went through.
• 1:11:32
  And now he's doing in a can in Colossians, you know, And so
• 1:11:35
  it's just like he is hammering it down that we cannot be moved
• 1:11:42
  away from the hope of Jesus Christ in the hope of the gospel
• 1:11:46
  in Jesus Christ alone. I mean I'm talking about just
• 1:11:49
  believing in Christ alone and not in any works or or any other
• 1:11:53
  thing I like in what it says in 2nd Corinthians 11.
• 1:11:58
  I thought of this verse when I read this verse it says 11/3
• 1:12:03
  Second Corinthians 11/3. But I fear lest by any means as
• 1:12:07
  the serpent begoud Eve through the stability, so your mind
• 1:12:11
  should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
• 1:12:15
  I like that verse because if the gospel of Jesus Christ is
• 1:12:22
  simple, right and so we tend to make things way too complicated.
• 1:12:27
  Oftentimes it seems like in the body of Christ and in the
• 1:12:32
  church. I you know, so there's the fact
• 1:12:36
  about losing your salvation. I mean, obviously how did you
• 1:12:41
  come to faith in Christ? You believed the way I see it,
• 1:12:46
  the only way that you can not be smooth or be moved away from
• 1:12:51
  Jesus or not continue in the faith is to not believe or
• 1:12:56
  unbelief and God is not going to allow that to happen like, you
• 1:13:01
  know, just overnight or very quickly.
• 1:13:04
  It's going to be a process and he's going to try and you know
• 1:13:09
  when you back. However, that is possible
• 1:13:12
  because we have the Holy Spirit in US.
• 1:13:14
  And so he's not just going to let us walk away from our faith
• 1:13:19
  in Christ, but it is, it is possible because there's a lot
• 1:13:22
  of a lot of scriptures where but oftentimes I'll read another one
• 1:13:28
  in Revelations 210 and then I'll stop.
• 1:13:30
  It says in Revelations 210, Jesus is writing the letter to
• 1:13:34
  the seven churches there. And he says this to one of the
• 1:13:38
  churches. He says, fear none of these
• 1:13:40
  things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast
• 1:13:44
  some of you into prison, that you may be tried, and ye shall
• 1:13:48
  have tribulation 10 days. Be thou faithful unto death, and
• 1:13:53
  I will give thee a crown of life.
• 1:13:56
  And then in verse 11 he says, He that hath an ear, let him hear
• 1:14:00
  what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
• 1:14:02
  He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
• 1:14:07
  And so that kind of gives me an IA picture there.
• 1:14:10
  I guess that the, the church there is going to experience
• 1:14:18
  tribulation for the gospel, for the sake of the gospel.
• 1:14:22
  And he's encouraging them to be faithful unto death.
• 1:14:25
  And I will give thee a crown of life.
• 1:14:28
  And so it's just there's many other verses as well, but it's
• 1:14:34
  just, it's just encouraging, I guess to me would be the right
• 1:14:39
  word. Maybe that's a kind of a weak
• 1:14:41
  word to describe it, but it's encouraging for me that to be
• 1:14:46
  able to keep in the keep focusing on Jesus and Jesus
• 1:14:52
  alone and that's it. Like that's, that's all we need
• 1:14:56
  to do, right? And so that's just, that's
• 1:15:00
  pretty simple in my mind. Yeah, that's so good.
• 1:15:04
  And I thought I had Dan there. I could hear him, but I couldn't
• 1:15:09
  see him. But then he popped away here.
• 1:15:12
  We'll give him a second to come back here.
• 1:15:14
  I really would like to hear his thing on here.
• 1:15:17
  And Andrew, I know you got some more that you wanted to say too.
• 1:15:19
  But you know, we think about Andrew, you mentioned that, you
• 1:15:24
  know, it's there's people debating whether, you know, it
• 1:15:27
  would be a salvation issue or is it just an obedience issue here
• 1:15:32
  that he's talking about, you know, if we continue or so
• 1:15:35
  obviously the word, if that's a conditional word.
• 1:15:37
  So he puts a condition on being holy, unblameable and
• 1:15:43
  unreprovable. And I'm here to tell you it is a
• 1:15:46
  salvation issue because the only way that you can be holy and
• 1:15:52
  unblameable and unreprovable in the sight of an all knowing God
• 1:15:56
  is to be redeemed by the blood of Christ.
• 1:15:58
  There is no other way. So so I think it's clear it is a
• 1:16:02
  salvation. However, I agree with what you
• 1:16:06
  said, Mel, and I liked what you said there.
• 1:16:09
  If you gain salvation by faith, you don't lose it by the absence
• 1:16:14
  of works. You know what I mean?
• 1:16:16
  That's right. It has to be, it has to be
• 1:16:18
  unbelief. It has to be unfaith.
• 1:16:19
  You have to be moved away from the faith.
• 1:16:22
  You have to be moved away from believing that Christ is the Son
• 1:16:26
  of God and that He died on the cross that you could leave.
• 1:16:29
  You would have to renounce that, right?
• 1:16:31
  I mean that, yeah. I mean, it's a two way street,
• 1:16:33
  right? If you gain it one way, you'll
• 1:16:35
  lose it the same way, right? I mean that just that that's
• 1:16:37
  just logic though. I'm not reading that in the in
• 1:16:39
  the words here. But I think the the text makes
• 1:16:43
  it very clear because like I said, it's unblameable,
• 1:16:48
  unreprovable in the sight of an unknowing God.
• 1:16:50
  It is only because of what Christ did, not of your actions
• 1:16:54
  for sure. Dan, are you on?
• 1:16:57
  I think I can hear you. Nope, I don't know if he can see
• 1:17:03
  it or not but on the screen it says the webcam utility and
• 1:17:07
  there's a wire that is not plugged in so I don't know if he
• 1:17:09
  can see that or not. I think you need to plug in your
• 1:17:12
  webcam utility thing. Yeah, I thought.
• 1:17:16
  I thought maybe his camera's just not working, but I can't
• 1:17:19
  seem to pick him up. Andrew, did you have any other
• 1:17:21
  comments on that? Yeah, now I lost my train of
• 1:17:27
  thought. It was really good too.
• 1:17:32
  I want I just wanted to point out one other thing of what he
• 1:17:35
  says there about which was preached to every creature which
• 1:17:38
  is under heaven whereof I Paul and made him minister.
• 1:17:42
  I just think that's interesting as well that he makes a point
• 1:17:44
  there that this gospel was preached to every creature, that
• 1:17:51
  he was made a minister of that gospel.
• 1:17:54
  And it just like makes a point that that he can make that point
• 1:18:00
  about who Christ is because he was made a minister of the
• 1:18:04
  gospel by Jesus. We know that by the book of Acts
• 1:18:08
  on how he, he came to faith in Christ and had this Damascus
• 1:18:12
  wrote a Damascus experience, you know, and got saved.
• 1:18:16
  So. Yeah, I remember now what I was
• 1:18:20
  going to say. So there's people that make the
• 1:18:22
  argument that in order to get looser salvation, Jesus would
• 1:18:25
  have to you'd have to get uncrucified and you'd have to
• 1:18:29
  get you'd have to reverse the work of Christ in order to get
• 1:18:34
  on saved. But the reason I disagree with
• 1:18:37
  that is because we're safe by believing that work that has
• 1:18:40
  happened. Yeah, right.
• 1:18:42
  Right. That's what hinges on us having
• 1:18:44
  that is faith. And then if we all start putting
• 1:18:47
  our faith in something else, then we're no longer believing
• 1:18:51
  in that thing. If there's one bridge that
• 1:18:54
  crosses the river that goes all the way across and we choose
• 1:18:58
  another bridge that falls short, then we're on the wrong bridge
• 1:19:02
  and you're not going to get across.
• 1:19:04
  It's that simple. Like Jesus is the only bridge
• 1:19:08
  that connects us completely. So that's the one thing.
• 1:19:12
  And why does Paul warn us, write entire books warning us of all
• 1:19:18
  the things that beguile us and spoil us and ruin us, destroy us
• 1:19:22
  from the faith, move us away from the faith?
• 1:19:24
  If it wasn't an issue, if it wasn't an issue, he would just
• 1:19:28
  say, hey, if you believe once, then you're good.
• 1:19:30
  Like there's nothing that will move you away from it.
• 1:19:32
  So we don't need any teaching on that.
• 1:19:36
  I really believe we're saved by faith.
• 1:19:38
  And some will continue in the faith until the end, and some
• 1:19:42
  won't. And some will enter in because
• 1:19:46
  they continue and others will the the things of this world
• 1:19:49
  will choke out that little faith and they're going to just quit.
• 1:19:55
  Now. I will leave space for the fact
• 1:19:58
  that there's a good chance that if you're born again, you got
• 1:20:01
  the Spirit of God in you. You can start believing some
• 1:20:05
  other gospels and other ways and still be saved.
• 1:20:07
  But it's the people that you're teaching that will not believe
• 1:20:11
  the gospel because you mix in those laws and works.
• 1:20:14
  That's a chance. That's a that's a possibility.
• 1:20:17
  You yourself might be saved, but you cannot preach part certain
• 1:20:22
  parts of the law and the gospel. You can't believe both.
• 1:20:25
  It's impossible. It's impossible believe that
• 1:20:27
  Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and you are in him incomplete,
• 1:20:32
  and then go back and also believe the law.
• 1:20:34
  What I'm saying is like I told a Catholic, he says that he
• 1:20:38
  believes that Jesus Christ took our sins.
• 1:20:40
  Then I asked him why he goes to confession and he goes, what do
• 1:20:45
  you mean? And I was like, well, if you
• 1:20:48
  actually put your actions behind what you said, that Jesus Christ
• 1:20:52
  took away your sins, you wouldn't be going to a priest or
• 1:20:55
  church to confess your sins. You wouldn't know that Jesus
• 1:20:58
  took them already. They can't believe both.
• 1:21:02
  So see how he moved away from the faith that quick, like with
• 1:21:07
  his mouth, he says he believes the gospel, but then he goes and
• 1:21:10
  tries to get right with God. Well, if you believe the gospel,
• 1:21:14
  you know you're right with God. Jesus is what made you right
• 1:21:16
  with God. So that quake, we are moved away
• 1:21:20
  from the faith and what he's going to say here, if you if
• 1:21:24
  you're about holidays and Sabbath days and not touching
• 1:21:27
  this and not touching that new moon, angels and all these
• 1:21:31
  things, then you're stepping away.
• 1:21:33
  You're stepping away regardless of what you say.
• 1:21:36
  You know the gospel, your fruit, your actions say otherwise and
• 1:21:40
  you can't believe both. But.
• 1:21:44
  It's tough. Dan, any comments on I think I
• 1:21:47
  got you now, I imagine I can hear you.
• 1:21:50
  Yeah, I'm here now, but I, I wasn't here to know where you
• 1:21:54
  guys are even at at this point. I had started late and then I
• 1:21:57
  had technical difficulties getting on SO.
• 1:21:59
  We're actually still in verse 23 just talking about, you know,
• 1:22:05
  the the fact that 23 the word, if there's a conditional word,
• 1:22:10
  you know, and that that it's obviously placing a condition on
• 1:22:13
  being holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his site.
• 1:22:17
  And I don't know if you have any thoughts that that you'd like to
• 1:22:21
  share on that at all? Yeah, I guess I probably you've
• 1:22:26
  already said this, but the the condition is not being blame,
• 1:22:31
  blameless and unreprovable. The condition is continuing to
• 1:22:34
  believe being grounded and settled and be not moved.
• 1:22:37
  So it's never the condition is never perfection and holiness.
• 1:22:42
  The condition is actually always recognizing that we lack
• 1:22:45
  perfection and holiness and our only hope is Christ, perfection
• 1:22:48
  and holiness. So many people would like to
• 1:22:51
  make this condition on, on how well you've performed when it's
• 1:22:56
  actually almost the exact opposite.
• 1:22:58
  Of course, the gospel should motivate us and move us to do
• 1:23:02
  what is right and good and true and holy and all those things
• 1:23:05
  for sure. But when we believe the gospel,
• 1:23:08
  what are we believing? We're believing that apart from
• 1:23:11
  Christ having become a man and took upon my sin and being
• 1:23:15
  crucified in my place, I would have no hope.
• 1:23:17
  And so don't ever move away from that hope that that is our only
• 1:23:20
  hope, right? So it's it's much less a
• 1:23:25
  condition about you have to perform a certain way.
• 1:23:29
  It's much more condition about continuing to trust in the only
• 1:23:33
  true person, the only true one who made it available for us,
• 1:23:37
  right. Grounded and settled.
• 1:23:38
  Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard.
• 1:23:43
  You know, it's it is continuing to believe as I heard Andrew
• 1:23:47
  say. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:23:49
  I mean it says if, if you continue what good works
• 1:23:53
  continue in the faith. That's what that's what the
• 1:23:56
  condition is for sure. No, that's, that's really good,
• 1:23:58
  Dan. Thanks for clarifying that.
• 1:24:01
  Very good. And in Romans 4 it tells us
• 1:24:03
  about that. It says, What shall we say then?
• 1:24:06
  That Abraham, our fathers between your flesh is found.
• 1:24:08
  If Abraham were justified by works, he had to wear out the
• 1:24:11
  glory, but not before God. What saith the Scripture?
• 1:24:14
  Abraham believed God, he believed him, and it was counted
• 1:24:17
  to him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
• 1:24:19
  reward, not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
• 1:24:22
  But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifyeth
• 1:24:25
  the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
• 1:24:29
  And that is what we're not supposed to move away from.
• 1:24:33
  Like Dan. I thought of that verse when Dan
• 1:24:35
  was speaking. It's like it's the opposite of
• 1:24:38
  what people think. It's actually an exhortation to
• 1:24:41
  stop working and believe the gospel instead of working to
• 1:24:44
  prove that he believes the gospel.
• 1:24:47
  Yep. Good stuff.
• 1:24:49
  All right, verse 24, and I'm going to back up just a little
• 1:24:54
  bit because it sounds odd. Break it into there.
• 1:24:57
  Whereof. I, Paul, and made a minister who
• 1:25:00
  now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is
• 1:25:05
  behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for this
• 1:25:10
  body's sake, which is the church whereof I am made a minister
• 1:25:15
  according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for
• 1:25:20
  you to fulfill the word of God. Any comments on those two or any
• 1:25:26
  part of those two to me they go together, kind of finish each
• 1:25:30
  other there at all. Andrew.
• 1:25:32
  And we'll let Dan go first on this one since.
• 1:25:36
  Yeah, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.
• 1:25:39
  You got some thoughts, either one of you?
• 1:25:41
  Doesn't matter. Yeah.
• 1:25:43
  So to tie it back to the Catholics again, this was not,
• 1:25:48
  as some Catholics suppose, that Jesus didn't complete the
• 1:25:53
  sufferings for the Church and that Paul was trying to finish
• 1:25:57
  the work that Jesus hadn't completed.
• 1:26:00
  This is not Paul trying to make up what Christ missed.
• 1:26:04
  He's just filling up what he knows.
• 1:26:07
  He has to suffer based on what Christ told him he would suffer.
• 1:26:12
  So Paul was told from the very beginning of his conversion that
• 1:26:15
  you will suffer many things for my name's sake and he knew that
• 1:26:19
  whatever city he went into, he knew what troubles and
• 1:26:22
  difficulties awaited him there. And so he said, I rejoice in my
• 1:26:26
  sufferings for you to to fill up that which is behind of the
• 1:26:30
  afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake.
• 1:26:35
  So Paul knew that his flesh was going to see a lot of
• 1:26:38
  difficulties and trials and persecutions so that he can
• 1:26:42
  preach the gospel so that the body of Christ would be saved so
• 1:26:45
  that people would understand and know the gospel.
• 1:26:47
  And so when he says he's filling up the sufferings, he's not
• 1:26:51
  completing anything that Christ missed.
• 1:26:53
  He's simply saying, I was, I was told that I would have to suffer
• 1:26:57
  many, many things for the church's sake and for Christ's
• 1:27:00
  sake. And I'm, I'm trying to fill up
• 1:27:03
  those things. I, I'm rejoicing in it because I
• 1:27:06
  know that this is what I was called to.
• 1:27:08
  In some ways it would almost seem easier even if your life
• 1:27:12
  was a life of suffering to know this is what you're called to
• 1:27:16
  because sometimes we go through life and life gets really good
• 1:27:19
  and everything is fine and happy and well and you're like, man,
• 1:27:22
  is this the right thing? Am I doing the right thing?
• 1:27:24
  I'm not sure. Well, life feels good, so I'm
• 1:27:26
  going to just keep right on all knew that if he wasn't
• 1:27:29
  suffering, he wasn't being persecuted.
• 1:27:31
  He was probably out of the will of God.
• 1:27:33
  And he even says that all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall
• 1:27:36
  suffer persecution. So maybe we can take it to some
• 1:27:38
  degree for ourselves also. But Paul very specifically had a
• 1:27:43
  seemingly a list of places and things that he would have to go
• 1:27:46
  through for the body's sake, for continuing the ministry that he
• 1:27:51
  was called to. So that's to me what I think he
• 1:27:53
  was referring to, much more so than the idea of filling up
• 1:27:57
  something that Christ missed. That's good.
• 1:28:01
  That's good. I never never heard it put that
• 1:28:03
  way. Any other thoughts on that
• 1:28:06
  Andrew or? Yeah, sorry my my thoughts.
• 1:28:10
  I just lose my train of thought. That's why I just like, hey,
• 1:28:13
  Dan, you go first. I, I like the fact that I saw
• 1:28:22
  how Paul views the afflictions and the difficulty of
• 1:28:27
  ministering and the persecution. I mean, I want to see it in his
• 1:28:32
  lens where he views it is it's a joy.
• 1:28:39
  It's a joy to experience afflictions and suffer for the
• 1:28:43
  body's sake, which is the church.
• 1:28:46
  If he can go through difficult times and if he gets persecuted
• 1:28:50
  and gets beaten up and gets 39 stripes and all these things, if
• 1:28:55
  all that stuff happens. But the body of Christ is
• 1:28:57
  edified. If body of Christ gains wisdom
• 1:29:02
  and spiritual understanding about the dispensation of the
• 1:29:05
  body of Christ. And we're going to probably talk
• 1:29:08
  about the mystery of all that. And in the next verse that talks
• 1:29:12
  about the mystery, he says, if me coming out there and being
• 1:29:16
  this guy that the mystery has been revealed to, and I'm going
• 1:29:19
  to kind of bring in this new era, this new dispensation of
• 1:29:24
  grace to the Gentiles. You don't have to become a Jew
• 1:29:27
  to have your sins forgiven there.
• 1:29:29
  Be the part of the body of Christ to be a part of the
• 1:29:32
  Kingdom of God. I'm bringing this new thing in
• 1:29:35
  and I'm going to get persecuted like crazy, but if the body that
• 1:29:39
  new body dispensation grace era benefits from it, then it's my
• 1:29:45
  glory and my joy. Yeah.
• 1:29:49
  Good stuff, Melvin. Yeah, it is amazing that he
• 1:29:54
  talks about the afflictions of Christ and and he has joy in
• 1:29:57
  them. In Philippians 2 he says this.
• 1:30:01
  Paul says, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice
• 1:30:05
  in day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored
• 1:30:09
  in vain. Yeah.
• 1:30:11
  And if I be offered upon the sacrifice and the service of
• 1:30:14
  your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.
• 1:30:18
  And so I think Paul had a picture of the Kingdom, a
• 1:30:25
  different picture than most of us have, right.
• 1:30:27
  He he says that I may rejoice in the day of Christ.
• 1:30:32
  So he's looking at his afflictions here as just
• 1:30:35
  something that is minor, a thing that he has to suffer so that he
• 1:30:43
  can spend eternity with the body and with Christ someday.
• 1:30:48
  And I think if we would if, and I'm talking to myself as much as
• 1:30:53
  anybody out there, I think if I would and we would look at it in
• 1:30:57
  that through those lenses or through those eyes that this
• 1:31:03
  affliction that we suffer here, like we like to be comfortable,
• 1:31:08
  like we do like all of us do right.
• 1:31:10
  We, we like when things are going well and we like when we
• 1:31:13
  don't have a whole lot of messy things happening in our life.
• 1:31:19
  But hey, this, what we have to realize is that this life here
• 1:31:25
  on this earth is, is just so small and so little compared to
• 1:31:31
  eternity. And if we keep that in mind, I
• 1:31:35
  think it it would help us a lot to be able to be joyful in
• 1:31:39
  afflictions like Paul was. And I also want to point out one
• 1:31:44
  of the thing about he talks about the dispensation of God
• 1:31:48
  and he's going to explain that in the next couple verses.
• 1:31:53
  But that is just basically like you were saying, Andrew, the the
• 1:31:59
  gospel of Jesus and and putting our faith in Christ and in
• 1:32:03
  Christ and not in works or anything else.
• 1:32:07
  Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good stuff.
• 1:32:10
  And you think about Paul, he wrote things like to the Jews,
• 1:32:14
  He was he said something about, you know, he'd rather die than
• 1:32:19
  than having them go without the gospel or whatever.
• 1:32:22
  Like he, he, this was something and I don't know, like he, it
• 1:32:26
  seemed well, he says that that this the dispensation of God,
• 1:32:30
  which is given to me for you. So I think, you know, Paul was
• 1:32:36
  special in God's eyes. Like he, he got to him, got the
• 1:32:41
  gospel, got review revealed. He's the one that that spread
• 1:32:46
  that and that shared that from day one, he had a an unction or
• 1:32:50
  he knew things that that were wrote at that point.
• 1:32:55
  You know, we read the gospel that that he wrote to all these
• 1:32:58
  churches now, but he didn't have this to read at all.
• 1:33:02
  So he was definitely downloaded by God with this this truth, and
• 1:33:07
  but he made it sure it was he was passionate about it.
• 1:33:10
  It was deep in his heart to to share this abroad for the other
• 1:33:14
  people to fulfill the Word of God.
• 1:33:18
  Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from
• 1:33:22
  generations, but now is made manifest to his Saints.
• 1:33:28
  I think this has been a little bit touched on already, but
• 1:33:33
  yeah, this this, this dispensation is not, was not
• 1:33:40
  available to those before it was hid away.
• 1:33:43
  It was. It was not accessible to that
• 1:33:46
  water. Andrew, right?
• 1:33:49
  Yeah, to speak more plainly about it, the Kingdom of heaven
• 1:33:59
  is what Jesus Christ came and preached, but after he was
• 1:34:01
  crucified, he gave us the message of the Kingdom of God
• 1:34:06
  very openly to Paul. And that is the message that is
• 1:34:11
  probably the most despised in the world today.
• 1:34:17
  There's a lot of professing Christians that they just really
• 1:34:21
  can't stomach false epistles. And the reason why is because
• 1:34:28
  they don't understand the dispensation.
• 1:34:30
  They don't understand the grace Prius and the the difference
• 1:34:36
  between the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of God.
• 1:34:38
  The Kingdom of heaven is clearly by works with the assistance of
• 1:34:43
  Jesus Christ, which is the gospel that most churches preach
• 1:34:48
  that they think is the gospel. But the gospel of Jesus Christ
• 1:34:52
  that was revealed to Paul that was hit from the world because
• 1:34:57
  it had to be hit because if Satan and the Princess of this
• 1:35:01
  world would have known the effects of the gospel that it's
• 1:35:03
  going to go to everybody chew or Gentile.
• 1:35:06
  That middle wall is going to be broken down and there's going to
• 1:35:10
  be grace and forgiveness to anyone and upon all that would
• 1:35:13
  call on his name everybody. He wouldn't have crucified the
• 1:35:16
  Lord of glory. And that is absolutely amazing.
• 1:35:21
  To get a little bit more context of this whole thing is in
• 1:35:24
  Ephesians chapter 3. He says for this 'cause I Paul
• 1:35:28
  the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles not to the Jews.
• 1:35:33
  Jesus Christ said he came for the his own house, the Jews, the
• 1:35:37
  Gentile his his people and when Gentiles would come, it was
• 1:35:42
  difficult for them to get ministered to by God.
• 1:35:44
  He said he didn't come for the dogs and he came for, you know,
• 1:35:48
  the children of God. But then you know he kept it
• 1:35:52
  secret like that of what his full plan was.
• 1:35:54
  And then he revealed it to Paul, because if you have heard of the
• 1:35:58
  dispensation of the grace of God, who has just given me to
• 1:36:01
  you word with the there's the word dispensation again of grace
• 1:36:05
  of the grace of God, which is given him so that he can give it
• 1:36:09
  to us. How that by revelation he Christ
• 1:36:13
  made known to Paul the mystery as I wrote afore and few words
• 1:36:18
  whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the
• 1:36:22
  mystery of Christ, which in other ages any other times was
• 1:36:27
  not made known to the sons of man, as it is now revealed unto
• 1:36:32
  his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
• 1:36:37
  That what is the mystery that the Gentiles should be fellow
• 1:36:40
  heirs. And if the same body and
• 1:36:43
  partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel, that's
• 1:36:51
  good, that's good news for the Gentiles.
• 1:36:55
  And then he talks about it again in first Corinthians 2 where he
• 1:37:01
  says by a turn with the that you know nothing except Christ and
• 1:37:05
  him crucified down in verse 6 likes to verse 5 that your
• 1:37:11
  faiths you're not standing the wisdom of men, but in the power
• 1:37:13
  of God. Be it we speak the wisdom, the
• 1:37:16
  word wisdom again among them that are perfect, yet not the
• 1:37:20
  wisdom of this world nor of the Prince of this world that come
• 1:37:22
  to not, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the
• 1:37:26
  hidden wisdom of wisdom which God ordained before the world
• 1:37:30
  unto our glory. It was already ordained, which
• 1:37:34
  none of the Princess of this world knew, or had they known
• 1:37:38
  it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
• 1:37:42
  So how cool is it that God waited to reveal such a glorious
• 1:37:46
  gospel that was so good that it wouldn't have come to to
• 1:37:51
  fruition if He would have not hid it from the Princess of this
• 1:37:54
  world. He had to protect it and he had
• 1:37:57
  to make Satan do the greatest mistake, and that was to kill
• 1:38:00
  the Lord of glory that just ushered in the whole world by
• 1:38:05
  faith in Christ Jesus, open the door to everyone.
• 1:38:08
  And Satan did not know that that's what it's going to do.
• 1:38:11
  So when he rose from the dead, Satan was like, Oh crap.
• 1:38:14
  So it it's just so cool and we need to embrace that.
• 1:38:21
  It's a new thing. And God showed it to Peter.
• 1:38:24
  The Four Corners came down with all that unclean food and God
• 1:38:29
  had to show it to him over and over and over.
• 1:38:31
  But I'm telling you, Paul took it and he ran with it.
• 1:38:34
  Peter struggled with it later, so I'm thankful for Paul.
• 1:38:40
  Yeah. For sure, Melvin.
• 1:38:44
  Yeah. I mean, obviously Paul, Paul is
• 1:38:46
  all in on this, on this thing because he he says there, it
• 1:38:50
  says according to the dispensation of God, which is
• 1:38:54
  given to me for you to fulfill the word of God.
• 1:38:58
  So I mean, obviously God had a plan for Paul and he did.
• 1:39:03
  We can read that all the way from where he came in the
• 1:39:06
  picture in the book of Acts until Revelations.
• 1:39:09
  But Paul Paul was giving this minister of this mystery of the
• 1:39:17
  gospel to fulfill the word of God, and that's a that's AI know
• 1:39:23
  that's kind of controversial probably to some people.
• 1:39:26
  But in Ephesians 6, he says this thinking about the dispensation
• 1:39:32
  of God. You touched a little bit Andrew
• 1:39:33
  about, you know, the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of God.
• 1:39:37
  So the Kingdom of heaven is obviously an earthly Kingdom.
• 1:39:40
  And like you, like you said, it's you know, it's involves
• 1:39:46
  works and Christ in together and it's an earthly Kingdom and the
• 1:39:51
  Kingdom of God or the dispensation of God is a
• 1:39:55
  spiritual Kingdom because he says in Ephesians 6/19, he says
• 1:40:01
  praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit
• 1:40:05
  and watching there on to with all perseverance and
• 1:40:08
  supplication for this for All Saints.
• 1:40:11
  So he says. That praying always with all
• 1:40:15
  prayer and he involves the spirit there and As for me that
• 1:40:19
  utterance may given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to
• 1:40:24
  make knowing the mystery of the gospel.
• 1:40:27
  And so, you know, if you and there's many more verses that we
• 1:40:31
  could touch on on this mystery of the gospel involving Paul,
• 1:40:35
  but it's just so amazing how this mystery is now made
• 1:40:41
  manifest, is made, revealed, is brought out to the Saints, to
• 1:40:47
  us, to you and I, the body of Christ.
• 1:40:50
  And that is an awesome thing. And I don't know why we want to
• 1:40:55
  try and, you know, get works involved in this thing, but we
• 1:40:59
  do, you know, and other things other than just simply the
• 1:41:02
  gospel of Christ and the faith in Christ.
• 1:41:05
  Love. Amen.
• 1:41:08
  Damn. Yeah, more of the same, I think,
• 1:41:12
  as probably what I'll end up saying.
• 1:41:14
  For the most part, I would have some questions about the King of
• 1:41:18
  Heaven having works involved with salvation, but that's
• 1:41:22
  another topic for another time. But the to think that Moses, the
• 1:41:29
  meekest man in all the world that spoke with God face to
• 1:41:32
  face, knew God personally, had God vouch for him, had his face
• 1:41:38
  shining like a light where people didn't dare look upon him
• 1:41:41
  for the glory that he had about him.
• 1:41:43
  And David who reigned over the nation of Israel like none
• 1:41:47
  other. He had power and riches and and
• 1:41:50
  sway on this world like nobody has had since.
• 1:41:54
  And Joseph, who looks like he was almost completely blameless
• 1:41:58
  throughout his days, and he rose to power in Egypt and he studied
• 1:42:01
  the Scriptures and he knew very well what Israel was supposed to
• 1:42:04
  be doing, and Elijah and Isaiah and so on and so forth.
• 1:42:08
  All these men who knew God well and who knew the promises and
• 1:42:12
  who knew the law, who knew all that God had in store for the
• 1:42:16
  people or seemingly knew, could not see what you and I see.
• 1:42:21
  They they prophesied of it, then they would search the scriptures
• 1:42:24
  that they had written according to Peter to see what manner of
• 1:42:28
  time and what what exactly they were referring to when they
• 1:42:31
  prophesied these things. But now it is revealed to us
• 1:42:35
  Gentile people, not even originally of the covenant.
• 1:42:40
  We now as the Saints of God in this dispensation have the glory
• 1:42:46
  of God being revealed to us in a way that God kept secret to
• 1:42:51
  everybody else. Even all the Jews of Jesus's day
• 1:42:53
  and Paul's day, they rejected the message and now faith is
• 1:42:58
  going out to the nations. In Romans chapter 1, Paul opens
• 1:43:02
  his letter and he talks about how Christ was declared to be
• 1:43:05
  the Son of God with power according to the spirit of
• 1:43:07
  holiness by the resurrection from the dead.
• 1:43:10
  And then verse 5, verse 5 of chapter 1, he says, By whom we
• 1:43:15
  have received grace and apostleship.
• 1:43:18
  What for? For obedience to the faith among
• 1:43:22
  the nations. For his name, among whom are ye
• 1:43:26
  also the called of Jesus Christ? To think that God was keeping a
• 1:43:31
  big secret, that he had a plan that Elijah, Moses, Daniel and
• 1:43:35
  David could not understand or had not fully discovered, that
• 1:43:38
  he's now spreading out in the nations and we get to
• 1:43:41
  participate in it. We, we ought to be living on
• 1:43:44
  cloud 9 quite literally all the time.
• 1:43:47
  For what great things have been revealed to us.
• 1:43:49
  Amen. Yeah, it should excite us and it
• 1:43:53
  and it does to a believer, I believe, to realize what you
• 1:43:56
  just said then, that we know things that those great men of
• 1:44:01
  God didn't because he revealed them to Paul and through him to
• 1:44:07
  us. Such a such a gift.
• 1:44:11
  I forgot to mention that I think it's very significant.
• 1:44:14
  So I talked to a lot of people that really have a problem with
• 1:44:20
  the Word of God and they said it's so full of contradictions.
• 1:44:24
  And the truth is that it's not. The problem is, is they're not
• 1:44:28
  following the dispensations. They're not following the story.
• 1:44:32
  You have to read the Bible from the beginning to the end to
• 1:44:35
  follow the story and just read it like a history book.
• 1:44:38
  And then it all falls into place when you just jump in the middle
• 1:44:41
  of a book and then say, oh, it's contradicting.
• 1:44:44
  It's because you didn't read the whole book or you don't believe
• 1:44:47
  the whole book and the way it was going.
• 1:44:48
  So Jesus Christ came to set up the Kingdom of heaven, an
• 1:44:52
  earthly Kingdom. He got crucified then that
• 1:44:56
  ushered in the dispensation of grace.
• 1:44:59
  When he got crucified, Satan fell into God's trap because he
• 1:45:05
  kept it a secret. Christ, they killed it, which
• 1:45:09
  was exactly what we needed. And what's the plan before the
• 1:45:12
  foundation of the world? It just Satan end up fulfilling
• 1:45:16
  God's plan that brought salvation to us.
• 1:45:19
  So now we understand that we cannot try to make the book of
• 1:45:24
  Matthew match the Gospel message.
• 1:45:28
  The problem is people are trying to believe the book of Matthew
• 1:45:31
  Gospel and the book, the book of Romans.
• 1:45:35
  It does not work. And there's full reason for
• 1:45:38
  people saying there's a contradiction, while most people
• 1:45:41
  don't want to say with their out loud that it's a contradiction.
• 1:45:44
  So they just say, well, it's God is so mysterious and we just
• 1:45:48
  can't understand the full, you know, the thing of God, you
• 1:45:51
  know, God says not I have seen that I ear have heard, but it's
• 1:45:56
  what, what we will be what will be revealed.
• 1:46:01
  But he says now it is revealed. I always thought that's talking
• 1:46:04
  about heaven. No, it's now revealed.
• 1:46:07
  Now we can hear and see what this was that Christ did when he
• 1:46:12
  died in Rose again. So we're no longer trying to
• 1:46:15
  believe 2 dispensations that are completely different or very
• 1:46:19
  different. So that's big.
• 1:46:22
  That's a big deal, yeah. That we need, yeah.
• 1:46:25
  I don't. We divide the word of God.
• 1:46:29
  I don't I don't know that you can understand the the Bible
• 1:46:33
  very good if you don't realize that there's a difference
• 1:46:36
  between like the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of God is
• 1:46:38
  part of it, but more specifically, the different
• 1:46:41
  dispensations, because they they're vastly different.
• 1:46:45
  They're not even remotely the same.
• 1:46:47
  So that that is I like what Dan touched.
• 1:46:52
  You know, the the fact that this, that the those, those like
• 1:46:57
  Joseph, all those people that knew God that were called a
• 1:47:00
  friend of God, like David was, they knew everything about God,
• 1:47:05
  probably that any human could have at the time.
• 1:47:09
  And, you know, they obviously read whatever, you know,
• 1:47:11
  scriptures that they had at the time.
• 1:47:14
  And yet they didn't see this, they they couldn't understand,
• 1:47:17
  they couldn't see this, this dispensation that we're in.
• 1:47:20
  That's that's why I don't place a lot of energy in eschatology
• 1:47:25
  for me, you know, study of end times.
• 1:47:27
  It's interesting, yes, but I don't think that we can see once
• 1:47:32
  we get there, we'll be like, man, I'd have never figured that
• 1:47:35
  out. You know, some of it we can, you
• 1:47:38
  know, some of it it says, you know, comfort one another with
• 1:47:40
  these words or whatever. There's things that are that are
• 1:47:42
  kind of made known just like it was back in the old times, too,
• 1:47:47
  about the gospel. They knew there was something
• 1:47:48
  common, they just didn't know what it was going to look like.
• 1:47:51
  And so that's why I'm not going to get tied up in a knot about
• 1:47:53
  some of this eschatology that people get all sorts over.
• 1:47:57
  And to me, it's like, well, it's kind of a secondary issue.
• 1:48:01
  Yeah. Let's do one more verse, I
• 1:48:06
  guess. 10 minutes. Yeah.
• 1:48:07
  To whom God would make known, what is the riches of the glory
• 1:48:12
  of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
• 1:48:16
  you, the hope of glory. And this is the to whom is the
• 1:48:21
  Saints God would make known what is the riches of the glory of
• 1:48:27
  this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you.
• 1:48:29
  The hope of glory. This this is this is crazy like
• 1:48:34
  for somebody that doesn't understand this dispensation of
• 1:48:39
  grace that we're in. He's making the claim that this
• 1:48:44
  is Christ in you that is part of this dispensation that yeah, you
• 1:48:49
  wouldn't have heard that before, of course.
• 1:48:51
  So brand new dispensation here. But anyway, Andrew, any thoughts
• 1:48:55
  on 27? Yeah, he just keeps pounding it
• 1:48:58
  over and over. He's still not done talking
• 1:49:00
  about this glorious mystery that has revealed to him and how that
• 1:49:03
  this gospel is so readily available.
• 1:49:05
  Just actually it is the time for the Gentiles.
• 1:49:09
  I mean, it's just kind of like in Romans 11, he says God
• 1:49:13
  actually put the Jews aside for a while.
• 1:49:16
  He's going to graft him in later.
• 1:49:17
  But he's like, right now it's Gentile time.
• 1:49:20
  And so, and he says it's rich and it's glorious and if and you
• 1:49:26
  need to know it, he says, I would to whom God would make no
• 1:49:30
  one. What is the riches of the glory
• 1:49:32
  of this mystery among the Gentiles?
• 1:49:34
  We do well to know this and to have understanding, spiritual
• 1:49:38
  wisdom and understanding of the of this.
• 1:49:41
  Again, he's still building up his case so that he can go in
• 1:49:45
  later and say, look, because of all the things that I've just
• 1:49:48
  talked about, all this wisdom, all the spiritual understanding,
• 1:49:52
  this dispensation, the mystery, the whole 9 yards.
• 1:49:55
  It's so that it says this stuff is what I'm saying.
• 1:49:59
  So you're not beguile by tradition, the wisdom and law
• 1:50:03
  minded people that don't understand this dispensation of
• 1:50:06
  grace, that it has nothing to do with circumcision, has nothing
• 1:50:09
  to do with holidays, new moons, Sabbath days, none of that.
• 1:50:13
  It says This is why I say this. So do you understand?
• 1:50:17
  So you know this and I think we, I think we need to know it and a
• 1:50:21
  lot of us don't. Yeah, yeah, we.
• 1:50:24
  Really should be talking about verse 28 right with this.
• 1:50:27
  That's that's the point that he's making there.
• 1:50:29
  But Melvin on 27. Yeah, it's just it's so
• 1:50:34
  beautiful that we can actually be make knowing what is the
• 1:50:40
  richest and the glory of this mystery of this mystery of the
• 1:50:44
  gospel among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you.
• 1:50:49
  It's like so there's verses my other computer died.
• 1:50:54
  So I, I'm kind of lost without my sword searcher, but there's
• 1:50:58
  other scriptures that are talking about, you know, Christ
• 1:51:04
  in you and what, and, and how we can have the power of Christ
• 1:51:09
  because of Christ in US and, and all those things.
• 1:51:12
  And people tend to like camp on that or just focus on that and
• 1:51:21
  that is good and that is awesome.
• 1:51:24
  But what he's trying to point out here in Colossians so far up
• 1:51:29
  to this point is he's just driving home about Christ and
• 1:51:33
  what what Christ means to us and what he has done for us and what
• 1:51:39
  we, our position is in Christ. And he's going to continue doing
• 1:51:43
  that through the rest of of Colossians.
• 1:51:47
  And to me it is kind of simple, right?
• 1:51:49
  Again, it's Paul is trying to say, look, it's just simply
• 1:51:54
  Christ and and I why can't we get that right?
• 1:51:57
  And, and obviously they couldn't get that at that time because
• 1:52:01
  that's what he keeps driving home, which is Christ in you the
• 1:52:06
  hope of glory. It's just that simple.
• 1:52:08
  So. Yeah, easy.
• 1:52:12
  Damn. Yeah, not, not only, you know,
• 1:52:17
  if you were to go through the list of things that he's already
• 1:52:19
  said about us in this chapter, not only did he die for his
• 1:52:24
  sinners, not only did he translate us from the Kingdom of
• 1:52:26
  darkness into the Kingdom of his dear Son.
• 1:52:29
  Not only are we now presented to God the Father as holy and
• 1:52:33
  unblameable and unreprovable in God's sight through Christ's
• 1:52:36
  work, but he wants to reveal to us now what the great riches he
• 1:52:41
  has toward us. You know, like above and beyond.
• 1:52:44
  What are you talking about here, Lord?
• 1:52:46
  Like you've already told me that I'm, I'm, I'm one with you, that
• 1:52:49
  I'm translated into your Kingdom, that all my sins are
• 1:52:52
  forgiven. And he says now that he wants to
• 1:52:55
  make known to us the glory of this great mystery.
• 1:52:59
  So better than getting to heaven, better than living
• 1:53:03
  forever, better than great, great riches and wealth and
• 1:53:06
  honor and all of that. Christ will be in you.
• 1:53:10
  He, He will know you, you will know him.
• 1:53:13
  He will walk with you, He will be inside of you.
• 1:53:16
  He wants to know you personally. What is this great mystery that
• 1:53:20
  He wants to reveal to us? That Christ is in you, and that
• 1:53:25
  is the only hope of glory that you have, that that ought to be
• 1:53:28
  a living, abiding hope. We have been begotten again unto
• 1:53:31
  a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
• 1:53:35
  from the dead, right? The idea that God would come to
• 1:53:38
  the world, to earth, is foreign to all other religions and even
• 1:53:42
  the Jews were shocked by this concept that God would show up
• 1:53:46
  in human form. But that God would now choose to
• 1:53:49
  live inside of dirty, evil born enemies, Gentile people, is
• 1:53:56
  pretty shocking. It's it's should, it should
• 1:53:59
  throw us into a frenzy sometimes to think about this.
• 1:54:03
  Like how, how would God choose this?
• 1:54:06
  This is the great mystery that God is going to do something
• 1:54:08
  different. He's not going to give us a list
• 1:54:10
  of commands and say, go to that building, offer sacrifices, do
• 1:54:14
  such and such. He said, rather I'm going to
• 1:54:16
  come and I'm going to live inside of you and I'm going to
• 1:54:18
  be in you. I'm going to be with you all the
• 1:54:20
  time. The Old Testament Tabernacle
• 1:54:22
  foreshadowed that God is going to Tabernacle with man.
• 1:54:27
  He pitched his tent in the midst of Israel, but he is now
• 1:54:30
  personally made his home inside of you, inside of me.
• 1:54:34
  And this is our hope of glory, that the seed of eternal life is
• 1:54:38
  inside of us. Now I believe the gospel and
• 1:54:41
  what Christ has done and give God gives his Spirit to me and
• 1:54:45
  that hope is what gives me the motivation to go on until the
• 1:54:50
  end. And in Ephesians chapter 3, I
• 1:54:52
  think some of you already quoted this already, but he says in
• 1:54:55
  chapter he's there's a lot that builds up to it.
• 1:54:58
  But in chapter 3 verse 10, he says to the intent that now
• 1:55:02
  under the principalities and powers and heavenly places might
• 1:55:05
  be known by the church. The manifold wisdom of God
• 1:55:09
  according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ
• 1:55:12
  Jesus our Lord. So he's doing a work now in such
• 1:55:17
  like, almost like the wrong people.
• 1:55:19
  And yet this is how he's chosen to reveal himself not only to
• 1:55:22
  the world, but even the principalities and powers of of
• 1:55:25
  this in the spiritual realm that we can't see.
• 1:55:29
  They're caught off guard by what God is doing and God's revealing
• 1:55:33
  his wisdom to them through you and me.
• 1:55:36
  So this is as good as it gets, folks.
• 1:55:38
  I mean, we're going to one day see him face to face and I can
• 1:55:42
  only imagine that will be much better yet.
• 1:55:43
  But if he's now in US, it's that's quite a strong hope of
• 1:55:49
  glory, I would say. That that is, that is, that is
• 1:55:55
  incredible that we get to that. We get to experience that,
• 1:55:59
  actually, yeah. It's real life, more glory as it
• 1:56:02
  is. If you want a little more glory
• 1:56:04
  about it, you want to experience some more glory and appreciation
• 1:56:06
  for it, read Leviticus and read Numbers where they were at the
• 1:56:13
  Mount Sinai, and I think they already was actually.
• 1:56:17
  They were already in the wilderness.
• 1:56:18
  It was just before they got bitten by the snakes.
• 1:56:21
  He got on giving them extensive ministering laws and sacrifice
• 1:56:27
  and all that stuff. I bet at that point in time, the
• 1:56:32
  children, Israel, could have heard about it.
• 1:56:34
  Someone that's going to come and make one offering and perfect
• 1:56:36
  them forever, they say. I'll take that.
• 1:56:41
  Yeah. Well, if you think about it the
• 1:56:44
  the in the Old Testament, you know that the prophet spoke the
• 1:56:50
  word of God or God spoke to the prophets and then his prophet
• 1:56:54
  spoke to the people. And then for what was it 400
• 1:56:57
  years? From the time up to Christ, God
• 1:57:01
  was silent, like no prophets are speaking and the people were
• 1:57:05
  longing to hear from God. And now here we are in the
• 1:57:09
  dispensation of God and we have Christ in us.
• 1:57:13
  Like with US247365 That should be, you know, like, I don't
• 1:57:19
  know, that's just like you were saying that that's the best and
• 1:57:22
  we should be rejoicing in that. And so.
• 1:57:26
  Yeah, Emmanuel, God with us. Isn't that what that word means?
• 1:57:30
  That's right. Yeah.
• 1:57:32
  That's so good. And we're going to hear get into
• 1:57:35
  this next week and I'll just finish with this here.
• 1:57:38
  But couple times Melvin mentioned, I think Andrew did
• 1:57:41
  too about, you know, why are we why are we drawn away?
• 1:57:45
  I mean, this is such good news. Why would we be tempted to leave
• 1:57:48
  this and and try to somehow make it better or whatever.
• 1:57:52
  And I really think and it's going to talk about this.
• 1:57:54
  But like it says, beware or less than a man spoil you through
• 1:57:57
  philosophy and mainly see it here in a little bit.
• 1:57:59
  We got to talk about that and but there's always in me, I'm
• 1:58:03
  just talking about myself for a second.
• 1:58:06
  In me, there's always a desire to look holy and righteous to
• 1:58:11
  those around me. And that is a very, very real
• 1:58:15
  thing that is going to draw us. Just it's going to keep like it
• 1:58:19
  like a wind against the building.
• 1:58:21
  It's just going to keep that constant pressure there for you
• 1:58:24
  to start doing things that enhance your image, which is
• 1:58:29
  going to draw you away from this simple thing.
• 1:58:31
  So if there's if there's anything that I'd like for
• 1:58:34
  people to hear that are listening to, this is the simple
• 1:58:38
  gospel that we are hearing about hearing Colossians in this
• 1:58:41
  letter that Paul wrote to this church is stay with it.
• 1:58:46
  This is the gospel and it is sufficient.
• 1:58:50
  Don't go looking for other stuff to spice it up because I mean,
• 1:58:53
  I'm telling you, the spice is all in the text here.
• 1:58:56
  It's it's right here. Just what what Dan was talking a
• 1:58:59
  bit a minute ago. So God, Christ is enough more
• 1:59:07
  than he know, you know, you can almost say in a way.
• 1:59:09
  So anyway, brothers, thanks for being on here tonight.
• 1:59:13
  I appreciate your time and and effort in this guests.
• 1:59:18
  I appreciate you guys being on here as well, of course.
• 1:59:21
  And like always, you can see previous episodes of this at the
• 1:59:26
  website Simply Christ Ministries.
• 1:59:28
  You can Google that and see that it's been a good study.
• 1:59:31
  Next week, same time, same place.
• 1:59:33
  God bless you guys. Have a good week.
• 1:59:35
  Thank you.