Video Transcript: Satan’s Main Aim

Now, I don't think if Satan didn't take over a city, he would run it that way forever. But I think Donald Barnhouse was onto something and that story comes from the beginning of a book by Mike Horton, a book titled Christ-less Christianity, and Mike Horton's book is very concerned that a good deal of evangelical Christianity is becoming less and less centered on Jesus Christ and His deeds, His Atonement, His resurrection, and more and more focused on just about everything you can imagine. Now it has been, in fact, not just a guess, but a reality that where Satan has been able to make great inroads, there have been some pretty impressive achievements and some pretty good cleaning up of things that were wrong. Take for example, his most successful invention. Islam made a positive difference for a lot of people. There were people who were worshipping a lot of different gods who were practicing many evil things, and they learned a lot of good behaviors. They gained enough cohesiveness as a people to take over a huge chunk of the World within a 100 years, and to have a civilization that was one of the most impressive on Earth. If you've ever been to Salt Lake City, it is not the pit of iniquity, and the sinkhole of all that is rotten. It is a beautiful city overall. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings splendidly that the temple there is fantastic, and overall, it is just a slice of what many of us dream America could be. And so when a good Mormon Glenn Beck holds a nationwide rally, we love that kind of civil religion. If only we could live in that kind of America all would be well. What if Dr. Barnhouse was right? What if we could have a really nice wholesome, no cussing, no drinking, everybody behaving more or less decently a good deal of the time? And to do all that without Jesus Christ? Would we miss him? 

I think it's worth thinking about. The fact is that according to scripture of Satan's main aim is to blind people. Scripture says in Second Corinthians four in their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. If you ever wondered what the gospel is, here is one valuable definition of it. It doesn't state everything plainly. But one definition of the gospel is it is the gospel of the glory of Christ. It is of the glory of Christ and Christ is the image of God. If you want to know God, you look at Christ and in Christ you see God's glory and the gospel displays Christ and displays His glory and all that he is, and anything less than that is not the gospel. And Paul says, For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as Your servants for Jesus sake. For God who said let light shine out of darkness when he made the world has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. What does God do? He shines in your hearts, to give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And what is Satan's main aim – to blind you. And to keep you from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of God, who of Christ who is the image of God. 

So we're going to be turning in our series on Colossians Colossians, one, verses 15 through 20. It's one of the great, great passages of the Bible, one of the clearest and highest and it's revelation of who Jesus Christ is and what he accomplishes. And as we look at that passage today, I want to look at it from a sort of a Screwtape angle or a Satan angle and look at various ways that Satan has tried to blind people to keep them from seeing the Christ revealed in this passage. And then in the next couple of weeks, we're going to dig more deeply into what the passage reveals about our Lord Jesus. Jim Martin, in his excellent sermon last week gave us a very quick overview of the passage already in setting apart Christ as Lord. 

We look at Jesus as revealed in this scripture. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or rulers or dominions or authorities all things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead so that everything he might be preeminent, first. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross, what a tremendous revelation of who Jesus is. 

And as we consider that this is what God reveals to his people, and this is Satan's number one priority to block from our vision. He is the image of the invisible God. He is God appearing among us. Jesus said, Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. If you see me, you know who God is and what God is like. What does Satan say? Well, an angel appeared to Muhammad and gave him various revelations. And Muhammad’s take and the Quran’s take is that Jesus is not God appearing among us. Jesus is a prominent prophet. He's kind of up there with Abraham and Moses and David. Not quite as high as Muhammad, but he's up there quite a ways. And he tells us some valuable things, but not not God. He is not God appearing among us and revealing God's image to us. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons was also begun with a revelation from an angel. And an angel appeared to Joseph Smith and allegedly gave him some writings and according to this revelation, there is no invisible God. God was visible, God the Father Elohim was bodily and through a bodily union with Mary produced Jesus. And so you have a God who is not quite God and Jesus who isn't quite God, and a God who was not invisible from eternity but was bodily, and you get a whole hodgepodge of things which deny what the Scripture says about Jesus Christ. Once again, as in the case of Islam, it was an angel. 

But don't forget what the Bible says in Galatians chapter one, where Paul says if even an angel came with another gospel, let him be anathema, condemned. Now, at a different level the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches were right about the identity of Jesus Christ as God. They were right, and still are right about the truth of the Trinity. And the doctrine of God is something that we owe to the heritage of the church throughout the generations. We can be grateful for that. But if Jesus is the image of the invisible God, we must be very careful about coming up with any other images. And we must be very careful about the notion that we can approach God more closely and better if we have the pictures that we come up with and the statues that we show reverence towards. It's not an error of the same magnitude as denying that Jesus is divine. And that he is the supreme revelation of God. But it is still an attempt to make an image besides the image that God has given us of himself in the face of Jesus Christ. And so we need to be satisfied with Jesus as God's image and as God's full revelation of Himself and be very cautious and indeed reject other attempts to relate to God through the pictures, icons, images, and so on. We come up with the word icon, by the way, is simply the Greek word in this text. He is the icon, the icon of the invisible God. Not one icon or one that got to make a whole bunch of icons of in order to relate to the invisible God. He is the icon of the invisible God, and so to know God and to relate to God and to worship God, you do it through Jesus Christ, the icon of the invisible God. 

And of course, there are other ways of messing with this truth and ways that if Satan kept blinders to it entirely, he will at least try to subtract and detract from who Jesus is. And one of those is just what's now kind of vaguely called spirituality and which has infected a good deal of what calls itself Christianity. My inner feelings are the best indicator of who God is. And sometimes Christians can fall into that trap and Satan can rob us of our assurance by telling us our inner feelings are the best indicator of God's attitude toward us. When your feelings are a mess, forget him and look at the image of God in the face of Jesus Christ. If you want to know God, if you wanna know his attitude toward you, you look at Jesus Christ on the cross, and you don't look at your digestion. And you don't look at the moods that come upon you because those are so fickle and so misleading, do not believe those things. It's the god of this age, trying to blind you, to the light of the gospel, the glory of God, in the face of Jesus. And so, if the Holy Spirit can work through our feelings, but the Holy Spirit works in our feelings, in directing them toward Jesus Christ, and moving us toward feelings of sorrow for sin, and desire for Jesus and delight in Jesus. Those are the Spirit given feelings. The feelings that come from the evil one are the kinds of feelings that get you stuck on yourself. And if they happen to be good feelings, you can be fooling yourself big time. If they're really really negative feelings, you can also be fooling yourself big time if you're letting those negative feelings speak louder than God's message of love broadcast from his cross. So Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Don't look anywhere else, to find out who God is or what his attitude is toward you. 

He's the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones rulers or dominions or authorities all things were created through Him, and for him. He is before all things. Take just that part of the statement. Arius was one of the earliest and most successful of heretics people who got it wrong about Jesus Christ. Arius taught that Christ was the first of God's creatures and he maybe he even did refer to this text and says he's the firstborn of all creation. What could be clearer? He's the first thing that was made. And Arius’s slogan was there was when he was not, there was a time when he didn't exist. That was his slogan in reference to the Son of God. Now there was a time when he had not yet become flesh in the person Jesus Christ. There was never a time when God the Son did not exist. And then if you just read the context, the very next thing it says, Firstborn of all creation, he made everything, so he's the creator. He's not the first creature, he's the creator. And when it says he's the firstborn of all creation means he's the firstborn overall creation, and that he's the one who has all the right of rule and inheritance. And as the incarnate Son of God, and as the main human, the second Adam in that sense, he's the firstborn of all creation. But as God the Son, he's not just a creature, all things were created through Him for him. 

For him - that means they were aimed toward him, they started with him, they end with him and their destiny is in him and he's before all things. In more recent times, Jehovah's Witnesses have taught something somewhat similar to Arius. Their teaching is that Jesus was the first of creatures before he became Jesus. He already existed as the first creature the Archangel Michael, and he was God's main instrument in creating the world. And then later on, he gave up his angel hood, his Michaelness, and became human. So he never was truly God. He was an archangel for a while now he's not an archangel either. He's just human. This is one more instance of how the god of this age blinds the minds of unbelievers so that they don't see the glory of God in the face of Christ. 

Another denial that satan has used and continue because as I've said many times Satan believes in recycling. If it works once, he'll roll it around again, in a generation or two later and maybe a slightly different form or maybe in exactly the same form. And so he'll use that old error of Arius and come up with new ones. By the way, just keep in mind things like the Davinci Code, they say that the deity of Christ was invented in the early three hundreds of the Council of Nicaea. Read your Bible. You know, this was written within a generation of Jesus Christ as was in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the Word was God or he is the exact representation of God's being, as we see in Hebrews chapter one. So all of this was written within a generation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was not invented 300 years later. And so the whole approach of Arius, or the Jehovah's Witnesses in saying that he was some angelic creature, or the first thing that was made or the approach of others that he just a great prophet. Those are the later inventions. What was revealed right away through Jesus himself was before Abraham was I AM. He who has seen me, has seen the Father. 

Well moving on. Pantheism denies the light of God in Christ in different ways. It makes the whole universe impersonal, and it makes God the universe. Everything is God. And you get that in certain religions, such as Hinduism, or Buddhism, or you get it in popular entertainment like Pocahontas or avatar, that everything is God, and God is everything. The Scripture says, No, you don't look at a worm and try to figure out God. God made it, but it ain't God. If you want to know God, God is personal. And if you want to know who he is, or what he's like, you look at Jesus Christ, because he's the one who made everything, everything isn't him. He made it all. 

Another denial, and maybe the most successful in our time, at least in our kind of culture is naturalism. The idea that ultimate reality is impersonal and anything we take to be personal has evolved from less personal things and ultimately from chaos and from nothingness. And you say, how could anybody believe that nothing produced everything, or that deadness produced life or that non intelligence produced intelligence or that impersonality could somehow turn into personality. This is ridiculous. Remember your Bible. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the gospel of the glory of God, and the glory of Jesus Christ who is the image of God. 

The most important fight though not necessarily the only one in the whole area of evolution is not the age of the Earth, although I am a young earth creationist. The most important is what is ultimate reality. Is it impersonal or personal? What made everything, impersonal nothingness, or the personal creator, through His Son Jesus. That's where we discover that Christ is the firstborn of all creation. And naturalism is one of Satan's lies about that. And I raced through that and I want to zero in on it, saying that he created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. That kind of covers it. You know, if it's on Earth, or it's not on Earth, and in the heavenlies, if you can see it, he made it. If you can't see it, he made it. And then thrones, dominions, rulers or authorities are different titles of high ranking beings in the angel realm. 

Now, how does Satan deal with that in particular. One way is he tries to get people to worship those kinds of spirits. I've already mentioned some religions that had a supposed angel revelation, and they took that as revealing truth from God when in fact it was blinding them and leading them away from Jesus Christ. Another way is to simply get you to worship angels. In Colossians, apparently, there was someone trying to promote a teaching even to the Christians. He may not have been making much headway, but he was trying and that's one reason this letter was written. Because he was advocating worship of angels. It talks about that in Colossians chapter two and we'll hear more about it. I won't go into detail. Now. I'll just say he was trying to advocate worship of angels. We're just about done reading the book of Hebrews in our Bible reading plan. 

If you read that first chapter carefully, you'll see that he's showing the superiority of Jesus Christ to angels. And it's probably because he was running up against similar things, that the people in a letter to the Colossians were facing. The  worship of angels and spirit guides was being pushed. And so the answer was, you don't worship angels. Angels are ministering servants that Jesus Christ has created, and the good angels don't want to be worshipped. And the bad ones I really don't recommend them. And so he's the one who made all the rulers and dominions and powers and authorities, and you don't worship them. He made them. You worship Him. 

And so angel worship. In those days, there was a whole system it later evolved into something called Gnosticism where they said there was a high Creator God. Although he didn't create bodies, don't get that wrong, bodies are bad, physical universe is bad, a bad being did all that. You know, there again, you see how Satan unites those things. The Bible says in the beginning, God created heavens in the earth. Gnosticism said, yeah, that was bad God who did all that? No, no, it's not and Jesus Christ is the one who did all that. And they would say, but there is a high god, and then we're down here, and we need to rise and keep rising higher and higher to become more and more spiritual and the way you do that is through different angel intermediaries and different ranks of beings, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, these are probably different titles they use for different rankings in the angel realm, in the spirit realm. And your job through secret knowledge and various practices is to work your way up through that realm and depend on those spirit guides and those spirit beings to help you do so. 

And Paul says there is one God and one go between who connects God and men, the man Christ Jesus, and you don't look elsewhere. Angel worship is out. A very common way that this has happened in societies throughout Asia and Africa and in North America and Europe, for that matter, too, is an emphasis on local spirits and on adoration of your ancestors. Big in Japan, as well veneration of the ancestors. And so you have in one way or another, this whole spirit realm, and it's not good enough to connect to the high god and the creator of it all because he's just a little too high. And he's got bigger things to think about anyway. And so you work with your more local spirits and your more local beings that you know are gonna matter in day to day life. If your ancestors were kicked out, they're gonna make life miserable for you, God's too busy to bother, but you got to keep those ancestors happy. And so we've always got to keep offering little things and gifts and sacrifices for them to keep those ancestors off your back and keep them from haunting your life and messing it up. 

And there are demons and there are spirits who control local territories. And if you want to succeed in life, you had better keep happy, the Spirit who controls the particular territory that you're living in. And there are particular patrons of certain kinds of life, and they will help you to succeed in those aspects of life. And so you better learn what it takes to keep your patrons spirits happy. This has been popular in folk religion in Asia and Africa, South America all over the place. And sometimes it tends to seep into Christianity. It seeped in big time when people were taught to pray to patron saints who have particular effectiveness in particular territories. The patron saint of this region or this country, the patron saint of this particular aspect of life is any of this sounding familiar. 

It's just folk religion, imported and dragged in to replace the gospel of Jesus Christ who is the image of God. And so there too, even when it comes into Christian churches, we have to be careful of devotion to the dead. A prayer to Mary or to saints the Bible never encourages. In fact, it condemns attempts to communicate with the dead even if they are the righteous dead. Because it is dangerous to try to get messages from the spirit realm. You will get them all right. But be careful what you ask for. Because it might not be the righteous that you were seeking. And even if it were in a best case scenario, you get what King Saul got. He did get Samuel for about five minutes to tell him he was cooked. You know, that's the best you can hope for is a real appearance by one of those righteous to tell you you're a goner, but otherwise you'll get a false appearance. But you do not try to contact the dead. You relate to God through Jesus Christ, and through the prayers of the living, not the dead. And so beware of anything that advocates of depending on spirits other than Jesus Christ himself. He's before all things and in Him all things hold together. Again, the god of this age has been blinding the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 

Deism is a system of thought with a pretty long pedigree by now which says, you know, let's face it, this evolution thing. It doesn't quite work, at least at the beginning. You've got to have somebody to set up the whole system in the first place. You got to have the whole set of rules and laws of the universe. Those things can't just pop into being. Come on, you know, get a clue. And so deist say somebody had to get it started and some great intelligence had to design it. And after he designed it and got it started, then he'd kind of let it fly by its own mechanical operations, and it just proceeded from there. And he doesn't mess with his universe anymore. He's left it to run on its own. That kind of worked conveniently. Because you can say, well, there are laws of the universe, and they're also moral laws and we ought to obey them, but don't have to worry about God meddling in your life. You don't have to worry too much about accountability either. God is there as the convenient and really smart person who got it going. 

Now in our own time, sociologist Christian Smith says that the de facto religion of America's young people, young adults, and perhaps their parents as well is what he labels MTD, moral therapeutic deism. God wants me to be nice. That's the moral part. God wants me to be happy. That's the therapeutic part. And deism, well, here's the part, he's a non-factor in the real world and in daily living. And so yeah, God's there. Niceness, you know, defined as not doing anything too nasty to hurt somebody else is a good idea. And God wants me to be happy. And the pursuit of happiness, what could be more godly than that? And we're going to find out how God can make us a little happier. And we're not going to let him mess around when we want to do our own thing. That's what Christian Smith says is. And he didn't just invent this. He did the largest studies of teenagers and young adults ever done in the United States and evaluated all those questionnaires very carefully and with the help of his team personally and with his team interviewed hundreds of people from a cross section of walks of life to say that this is the reigning religion in America today. Whatever we might like to say is the religion he says this is the real religion of it that I get from my interviews. They think God wants us to be nice to God wants to be happy, and God doesn't mess around too much with our day to day life. We don't need to bother with him too terribly much. 

And then there's another thing that I mentioned briefly earlier, civil religion. God taught, public displays of liking God. We really want to emphasize traditional values and in a sense those things are fine in their place. They are not going to replace Jesus Christ. They might be the glue that keeps the society together for a few years. Jesus Christ is the glue that holds the universe together. And these are the dangers deism, and our modern moral therapeutic deism or civil religion, we're trying to hold things together. And we're mistakenly thinking that our efforts and our traditions and our values are going to cut the mustard. And we forget that it is in him that we move and live and move and have our being. That he's the one who upholds the universe by the Word of His power, as it says in Hebrews one. That everything that exists would be gone like that, if Jesus Christ, were not keeping it there at every moment. 

That's what this text is saying. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. The deist might say, yeah, he's before all things, but not that he's still upholding it. That  he's a prayer answering God, that he is actively involved in his world in the lives of his people, and that he is upholding and directing everything even right now. He's the head of the body, the church. He's the head, nobody else and he doesn't have any stand ins. That's one of the errors that was made as the church developed over time. The bishop of Rome who at first was kind of a convener and one of the bishops who helped the other bishops direct them, after a while, began to call himself the Vicar of Christ and to declare his own infallibility when making pronouncements. Again, I'm not saying these things to offend people who may have come from Catholic background or who may still be Catholic. I'm saying it because Jesus Christ is the head of the body, the church, and he didn't say anybody else was going to be. Even those who would claim the Peter was the first head of the church in Jesus place. What happened to Peter in Galatians two. He was wrong. And so Paul stood up to his face and said, it is by the grace of God that were saved. And you should be eating with Gentiles, not shutting them out just to keep other people happy. 

I've been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me and the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Christ is the head and you are undermining the preeminence of Christ. If you take a pope over the whole church, or even at a local level, if you make a pastor the head of the congregation. That's one reason why the Bible reveals that a plurality of elders has to be appointed in any given place, rather than just one person running the show. Because there's dangerous even at the local level, that one person can be perceived as the head, the one that God speaks through and only he and he's the supreme authority in all things local. It's always dangerous to have any head identified as the one head except Jesus Christ. 

Well, we can talk about Catholics or supreme potentates as pastors, but there is another kind of danger and maybe more common danger in America today. In a lot of places, you guys aren't getting big danger of seeing me as the supreme all knowing person who's always right are you. Your danger is to think I'm just one more Bozo and your opinions as good as mine. And even if I'm speaking straight from the word after hours, and hours of study and prayer, you know, if you've got different opinion, that's your opinion, forget that guy upfront. That's the greater temptation in many American congregations today is to deny all authority whatsoever, even when it's the authority of God's word. I've heard people say, I know the Bible says that, but I still don't like it. Okay, consumerist, the customer is king. And don't give me too many bible quotes. I know what I want when I want it and you better deliver or I'm going somewhere else. And that's consumerism in the body of Christ. 

Then there's the individualist. Who needs the body? I can experience Jesus anywhere. I don't need a congregation. I don't need the church at all. And that's the denial that Christ is the head of the body. Because you're saying, I like to decapitate. I like to carry his head around in my pocket, but I don't want to relate to his body, the church. 

And  there's maybe a subtler danger. And you know, this is one that I might veer toward when I'm not cautious. We can be doctrinalists who can ruled by truths and principles or propositions, and we come up with a system and who really needs a living Christ. We get our system set up, we get our teachers and calculators and people who get other people to think that way too. And we treat Christ as though he's the originator of a system of propositions and not the living head of the church who right now reigns over us and who we need to relate to personally. One of the dangers of this approach is you become a master at the study of theology and research and your prayer life is almost Zippo. Because you don't spend much time relating to the living head. You're too busy figuring out the precepts and principles and revelations and propositions. Now again, that's not the huge danger of everybody in America. A lot of us are anti intellectual. We don't even know what the Bible teaches. We're anti doctrinal, but for some of us, you know, who are more doctrinally oriented, we can do it that way and not have a living relationship to the living head. 

He's the beginning, the firstborn son from the dead that in everything he might be preeminent. How does the god of this age blind people to this reality, to this light. One that really gained a lot of steam in the 18 or 1900s was Protestant liberalism. A theological kind of liberalism that said God has to be identified with a feeling of dependence that you have. But don't pay attention to the actual facts revealed in the Bible, because God is a matter of an inner way of relating. And Jesus might live within your heart but he does not live in his body reigning from heaven. Jesus did not rise from the dead. As Rudolf Bultmann, a great German intellectual and theologian put it, since the invention of the wireless we cannot believe in resurrection and the invention of the radio shows that we can't believe the resurrection. His point was, you know, if you live in a real scientific, technological age, who can believe all that stuff anymore. But he still claim to be a Christian theologian. 

Now, that's obviously a denial of the light of the gospel of glory of Christ who is the image of God. Because the supreme glory that was proclaimed the Gospel, that Paul went around proclaiming is, he's risen. Are, we're still in our sins, if he's not risen. Our preaching is useless if he's not risen. He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, and any denial that He rose physically from the dead and that he reigns in that glorified body is a lie of Satan. 

Another one that would deny this overall teaching would be easy believism and consumerism. Here I'm talking about the phrase that in everything he might be preeminent. They might not be denying the resurrection. But preeminent, first, reigning overall? Easy believism says, hey, I want to get forgiven. I want to go to heaven, and I want to do my own thing. And so I believe. I believe that I'm forgiven. I believe that I'm going to heaven and that saves me. Jesus says, If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you know, then you can ask whatever you will and it will given you. Jesus says, If you don't remain me, you're like a branch that's thrown away and withers and such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned. Does that sound encouraging? To say that if you don't stay connected to Jesus Christ as your ruler, and if you're not bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life, you're gathered up, thrown in the fire and burned? But  easy believism does not accept Jesus as the glory of God who reigns in our lives. But simply as that little life insurance policy that we hope we can tuck away once, keep in our pocket till we need it again, in the meantime, forget about him. That is not the Christian gospel, and it's again a lie of Satan. 

And then there's consumerism. Of course we live in a great consumer society. What I want from church is, well an excellent set of programs for the children. Or if you're on the other side of the spectrum, what I want is family integrated church. But first thing we look at in a church. Does it match this or that of our idea of what a church ought to be like? Or I want a church that really welcomes contemporary things in contemporary music. I don't wanna get stuck in past centuries. And so that's what I'm looking for. And another one says, oh, I want one with a deep heritage and that values history that has some dignity in its music and appreciate the organ and the piano and singing in parts and I can I will make the list any longer than that. There you can add to that list till the cows come home. And some of those might be good things to have in a church. Is Jesus Christ preeminent in that church? That's the only question that matters until you've answered it. All the other ones do not matter one bit. If you have a nice family integrated church. 

Everybody's always talked about their families and trying to raise their kids right and encouraging each other in that and so on, so forth. Jesus kind of is a footnote. You should be out of that church, you should be out of this church, if it that's what it becomes. Jesus Christ is preeminent or it's not a church anymore, and it's candlestick should be removed. That's what this text is saying. That the Church is Christ’s or it is nothing. Christianity is Christ. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. I won't go into detail here. Again, Judaism denied that the fullness of God dwelt km Jesus Christ. Ariunism denied that. Islam Muslims denied that, the Unitarians denied that, the deist denied that, Jehovah’s witnesses denied that, the Mormons did. Jesus is not God's fullness united with the human nature. And the consumerist, well, Jesus is nice, but there's lot of other things I need to be fulfilled too. He's not really the fullness. 

Now in Colossians two, Paul says, I don't want you to be deceived by philosophy, or empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him, the fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority. You have been filled in him. If you are unsatisfied in your spiritual life, be very careful about looking for various things to fill you up, and the various gimmicks that churches and religionists can offer. The fullness is to be found in Christ and then the other kinds of forms is a phony and fake and it will not satisfy. And so as consumers in the consumer society, we need to be very careful satan to not use this as a way of blinding us to the fullness of Christ, that all fullness of God has been pleased to dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 

I didn't consult with Doug on picking the hymn of the month. And I won't scold him for picking this one because if I had consulted with him, I couldn't pick a better one than that one for what we're going to be preaching on this month from Colossians. Because Jesus Christ and His my faith looks up to thee that lamb of Calvary Savior divine. That's what God has revealed. He's reconciled us to himself and not just us, but everything, all of creation. Man was to be the head of the physical creation in this world. And when we fell, it messed everything up down here. God is gonna bring it all together again. And he's gonna bring us together in harmony again, with the angel realm and with His holy angels, and in his new creation, the angels, the archangels, the people, the animals, the plants, everything will be in the harmony that he originally designed for it. He's reconciling everything and he did it through a particular person at a particular point in history, at a particular place on a particular thing, two chunks of wood crossed. That's where he makes peace. 

What is the god of this age say? Well, in the Quran, and in Muslim tradition says Jesus didn't die at all. He was just taken straight to heaven as a great prophet of God approved. And so he didn't die, He did not atone for the sins of the world. He does not reconcile all things to himself. You can take care of yourself by doing what is right and what is commanded in the Quran. So that's a denial of Jesus to save. The legalist throughout history have said we got to save ourselves. We've got to earn our way into God's favor. We've got to remove the barriers that exist between us and God. And the scripture says Jesus bridges the gap. Jesus removes the barriers. Jesus is the one who brings us together with God. The Torah, oh, it says reconciliation, who needs that? The pluralist, pluralism is another way of saying there are a lot of different approaches, and they all lead to God. There are different perceptions of God, but they are all equally helpful, and we do not need to be reconciled to God. God is already at work in each one of us, has already welcomed each one of us and whatever path we're on is going to work just fine. That's a denial that Jesus Christ is the one way to God as He claimed. And the Universalist is most pluralist are of course universalist. Universalist just says, all people are saved even if they don't count on the cross of Christ for their salvation. It's not what the scripture says. It says that Christ is the one through whom all things are reconciled, and it's through the blood of his cross and through nothing else that we can be reconciled to God. 

So I've given you this passage, and I've shown you know, in with more details maybe that you wanted to hear how the god of this age blinds the minds of the unbeliever and also even where people do know Christ as Savior still tries to subtract wherever he can and chip away at it, even in genuine Christian churches with with accurate Christian doctrine of God. The evil ones still gonna try to do as much as you can to rob glory from Christ and rob joy and fullness from us. The god of this age blinds the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. But what does God do? God who said, Let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. That's the point of this sermon. That's the point of the upcoming ones. I hope it's the point of every sermon ever preached here, is to show you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 

Hey, you think that I'm not preaching enough about what we've been reading during the week? I'll give you a little dose because that's all we've been reading about during the week. We just finished the book of Exodus. In the Exodus God said, I am who I am. Jesus said I've done these things so that you will realize that I am. And Jesus had those 7 I am sayings in the Gospel of John. The Lamb of God was slain and his blood spilled in Exodus to save them from the destroyer. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Bible says that repeatedly. The Israelites received manna from heaven. Jesus said, Hey, your forefathers received bread from heaven and they still died. I am the living bread that has come down from heaven. I am the bread of life, whoever believes in me will not hunger. Jesus said, I am the living water. Whoever comes to me will never be thirsty again. The Israelites drank water from a rock that living water is Jesus Christ. In fact, though, the New Testament goes so far as to say that even the rock was Christ. It says there was a rock following them around and that rock was Christ. There's the Shekinah cloud of glory that guides them wherever they go. And Jesus is that Shekinah cloud of God's brilliance and glory. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling, he tented among us. He was the Shekinah glory among us. We read Psalm 22, 23, 24 this week. Psalm 22, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? They have pierced my hands and my feet. My tongue clings to the roof of my mouth and I'm dry and thirsty. They mock me and say, Hey, God likes him. Let God rescue him if he likes him, They gamble for my clothes. That's what we've read in Psalm 22 this week. 1000 years before it all happen to Jesus Christ. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. Jesus says in John 10, I am the good shepherd. Psalm 24, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all who live in it. For he founded it on the season, established it on the waters. He created all things. He has to be preeminent in everything because the earth is the Lord's the Lord Jesus Christ, and everything in it. 

You read the book of Hebrews, Jesus is greater if you need to summarize it. That'll do. And here's just couple slides from past sermon. I'm not gonna deliver the whole sermon. Jesus is a greater revelation than any of the previous prophets or anything else God had revealed. Jesus Christ is greater than the angels. You've been reading his books, I'll just remind you we've been reading. He's greater than Moses. He's greater than the rest that was previously available. The rest of the promised land or the rest of the Sabbath. He is our Sabbath. He is our Promised Land. He's a greater priest than the old order of the priests of Aaron. He's a greater tabernacle. He's the founder of a greater covenant than the first covenant. He's a greater sacrifice than any animal - bull or goat or sheep that was ever offered. Because his sacrifice once for all reconciles people to God. It's a greater era for faith than the old era. The old heroes of faith, receive the fullness only together with us in the revelation of Christ. He gives a greater city and a greater mountain that you come to. He gives greater insights and trials. And Hebrews 13, which we're gonna read this week says we have a greater meal and a greater altar than they had. And so it says, you know, look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of your faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. That's Hebrews near the end of it. Here's Hebrews at the beginning, which sounds so much like what we've been studying this morning long ago, and many times and in various ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, all things were created for him, whom he appointed the air of all things through whom he also created the world. Our text says, you know, through Him, all things were created. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. He is the image of the invisible God, and He upholds the universe by the Word of His power. In him all things are held together. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 

Every point that I was just preaching about from Colossians one is here in Hebrews chapter one. Something similar in John one. In the beginning was the Word the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. Without Him was not anything made, that has been made. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory as the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth. No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known. He's the image of the invisible God. And he's the only way you see God. 

Well, so much for the notion that all of this stuff was invented 300 years after Jesus, the whole idea is laughable if people would read say the Bible instead of the Davinci Code, or any of the other pile of books that come from fiction writers these days. But behind all that fiction, remember who is the source of lies? He's been a liar from the beginning. And he's the father of lies. He's been a murderer from the beginning. And so where his lies are accepted, they bring death. Where God's truth is accepted and we see the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, it brings life. 

So I invite you to join with me. This will be our confession of faith today. But just read with me again this passage for today. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or rulers or dominions or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things and in Him all things hold together, and he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything he might be preeminent, For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 

We praise you, Lord Jesus, you are supreme. Above all we want learn to make you preeminent in all things. And of course, we don't make you preeminent. You already are, but we pray that we may recognize your preeminence and honor, that preeminence, that first ness, that supremacy and in worshipping You as supreme, may we find you sufficient for all our needs, and for all our yearnings and for all that you have made us to be. We praise you as our Creator as the one who sustains and gives life at every moment. We praise you as the great Redeemer and reconciler who makes all things well through the blood of the cross. Lord, we know that this can be seen only because God shone his light into our hearts. And we pray, Lord, that if there are any here who have not yet seen that light and fallen in love, and and been entranced by the majesty and splendor of Christ, that you will shine your light into their hearts even this morning that you will take away the blinders that Satan has imposed. And we pray that same for many who are not in this building, but in our world. Lord, we know that Satan is busy trying to hide what you have revealed and blind people's eyes to the light you have shown in Christ. We pray that you will even today drive back the work of the evil one, advance the light of the world and cause him to shine and many more hearts today as your gospel is proclaimed all around the world. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.