Gooding, David: 6 - The True Wisdom and the False

In our second session by reading from Colossians, this time from chapter two. Chapter two, verse one: for I would have you know how greatly I strive for you and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. This I say, that no one d- may delude you with persuasiveness of speech. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ. As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and builded up in him, and established in your faith, even as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Take heed, lest there shall be any one that makes spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power. Well, now once more, let us look at our chart of the thought flow of the epistle so that we can take our bearings. And we arrive now at the central part of the letter, and we find that in its first paragraph, movement two, first paragraph, Paul introduces a theme that is to run through the whole of this part of the epistle. He says that in Christ, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. Now, in the first movement, we noticed that the initial theme was hope, and it went through all three paragraphs of that first movement. We shall now find that this theme of wisdom and knowledge, once it's introduced, runs through all these three paragraphs. Let's just see that, uh, laid out for us here. Mentions of wisdom in this second section, this second movement. Paragraph Paragraph ver- chapter two, verse three: in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. Apologies for the Greek, the Greek for wisdom, as anybody knows, is Sophia, Sophie in English, if you like the name, uh, Sophia, and I put it there so that you shall see the connection when now you come to paragraph two, uh, chapter two, verse eight. See that no one leads you away like spoil through his philosophy. And as you know, philosophy, uh, is basically a Greek word and means a love of wisdom, a love of Sophia. His philosophy and empty deceit. And then in paragraph three, chapter two, verses twenty three, which things have an appearance, an outward show of wisdom, but in fact they lack any, uh, uh, value against the, uh, flesh. So then wisdom it is that is going to, um, dominate this second movement. And as we see, it is a question of a contrast between the true wisdom and the true knowledge and the false and bogus wisdom. Let's think together, therefore, what wisdom is exactly. Wisdom and knowledge are often bracketed together, but they're not necessarily, are they, the same thing. Knowledge is knowing certain information. Wisdom concerns itself with the proper and best use of means and methods. What would be the wise thing to do, we say? What would be a wise answer to give? Now, this is what we want to achieve. How would we go about it? And, uh, somebody suggests some method of going about it, and the other person replies, well, no, I don't think that would be wise to do it that way. Wisdom concerns itself with choice of means and methods in order to achieve a desired result. And that homemade definition can do us as well as any other in this circumstance. For this paragraph, like this movement, like the rest of the epistle, is concerned with the great matter of spiritual progress. As we have just heard, uh, those processes necessary to present every man, everyone mature, perfect, full grown in Christ. Well, if that's the goal, what, uh, methods are the right methods to use in developing spiritual progress in our lives and in the lives of the others? We surely shall need wisdom, can't we, to know how to do that. And now we are alerted to the fact that when it comes to recipes for the development of spiritual life, some recipes, some methods, some means are wise because they are God-given means, God-given methods. They come with the very wisdom of God's tactics and strategy behind them. And some means and methods are not wise. Some of them, in fact, are positively harmful. And here Paul is going to do two things, therefore. He's going to discuss with us the wisdom of God's tactics and strategies in our salvation, and it will have our hearts rejoicing, at least if we're sensitive at all, a contemplation of the wisdom of God. All of us, I suspect, delight to contemplate the love of God, and why shouldn't we? We shall never get to the bottom or the top of it, let alone the breadth and the length. But there are moments when the Holy Spirit calls us to contemplate not merely the love of God, but the wisdom of God. You will recall, won't you, the chapters nine, ten, and eleven in Romans, and you say to me, yes, we do. We had a Bible reading on them the other day, and we nearly tore each other's hair out because there were the Calvinists on the one side and the Arminians on the other, and what a to do and a set two we had. Oh, I say I'm sorry to hear that. And you went home a little bit disgusted and down in the mouth, did you really? Ah. Well, that's not how Paul felt when he finished writing those chapters, is it? For as Paul contemplated God's way with Jew and Gentile, and the marvel of God's love in determining to save all he can possibly save, and the means and methods he has used and will yet use to the conversions of Israel, the conversion of Israel as a whole, and the multitude of blessing that shall yet come upon mankind. Paul felt his heart dissolved in the profoundest worship of the wisdom of God. All the depth, he said, of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Who has been his counselor? Where did he get the advice from to know how to act so marvelously wisely and with such effect? And the answer is, of course, no one was his counselor. Got it from nowhere, but in himself, for he is the only wise God. All that God's Holy Spirit would use these humble moments now to impress upon our minds the positive wonder and glory and riches of the way God has gone about saving us. The way God goes about sanctifying us, that we might worship God not only for our salvation, but for his wisdom in the ways that he has used and uses. And when we have seen something of the wisdom of God, then we shall listen to Paul warning us about other recipes that are not wise. If we, uh, allow ourselves to be deceived by them, that is precisely what will happen. Look at verse four: this I say that no one delude you. And verse 8, take heed lest anybody make spoil of you. And verse sixteen: let no man judge you. And verse eighteen, let no man rob you. And verse twenty uh, says, why do you subject yourselves? Don't let anybody reduce you to slavery and to subjection, for it is precisely the result that false methods of holiness will have in our lives. They will deceive and make spoil and judge us and rob us and enslave us. God preserve us. So then, if we would be preserved from wrong methods and be held to the right, wise methods of God in developing holiness, then once more we shall have to listen to Paul. And so in this first paragraph in chapter two, he now explains why he spent so much time at the end of chapter one talking about his striving for us. For surely we are included. He strives for you at Colossae and for them at Laodicea, and as, uh, uh, for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh. And that must include us, mustn't it? Just think of it, my brother. It's a long while ago now, Paul sitting in prison, when he lifted his hand to sign the letter, the chain dangled, and he said, remember my chain, won't you? I don't like writing letters. I don't know about you, perhaps you're probably good at it. But tired, imprisoned, he took the opportunity to write a letter. It not only, uh, saved, in a practical sense, the Colossians in their spiritual development, but here we are this morning reading it. He had a concern for us who haven't seen his face in the fresh. And if we listen to him, he tells us the reason why he has told us about his striving for us. One, verse two, the positive reason. Their hearts may be comforted, that they, being knit together in love and unto all riches, are the full assurance of the understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden. We must listen to him, because it's listening to him that we shall find encouragement in our spiritual development, and we shall there find a secret of unity amongst the Lord's people, uh, they being knit together in love, and it is reading him and listening to him that our hearts will eventually be filled with all riches of full assurance. There will come into our lives a sense of wealth, of riches, of treasure, and it will give us a tremendous assurance, and with it encouragement. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm one of the weaker sort that Paul talks of in his letters, and when it comes to making spiritual progress, you know, I easily get, uh, mm, discouraged. Well, perhaps you would if you had to start so far back as I had to start. You see? Yes. You want to do what's right, you want to go on with the Lord, you want to conquer certain weaknesses and defects in your life, and you take it to the Lord, and you strive, and you pray, and you determine that you're going to be different and better, and so forth and so on. And how many times do you have to come back defeated, and you feel you're getting nowhere fast? And what happens then? Why, you get discouraged. Yes. And then you begin to feel like giving up. And then if you're not very careful, you get disillusioned. You say, is this thing true anyway, or is this the preachers, like they often do, exaggerating? Like to know how the preacher gets on in his own life anyway. See, he preaches the theory with great gusto, but how does it work? That's the thing. And then, little by little, you come to get depleted in your spiritual energies, and you feel poverty stricken. And the whole thing is like trying to make bricks without straw. I was talking to a good man, and let him be nameless. He won't mind my saying it. Devoted to the Lord like few I have known. And now, after twenty years, he says to me, David, it's like slavery. When do I earn a time off? Always being told I got to devote twenty four hours a day, thirty six hours a day, seven days a week, and eight days to the Lord. When do I earn a little time off? Ah. Dear man of God, actually. But so been belabored with exhortations to be devoted that it's become like a slavery, like making bricks without straw. It can happen. And folks get disillusioned. And Paul comes along and says to us, if we're in that state, like he said to the mariners on the boat that was about to go down into the depths of the Mediterranean, gentlemen, you ought to have listened to me. Oh, if you're going to make progress in the Christian life, listen to Paul. What will he do? He'll start by encouraging you. Why encourage? Well, listen to him, as we just heard. You've got the Lord in you. You say I haven't made many p- much progress. Well, now let me repeat. If you're a believer, and in spite of that, the Lord is in you. The hope of glory. Oh, don't forget it. You consider the, um, resources you have, and let them encourage your heart. And oh, let them bring a certain wealth into your life, a sense of the glory of what God has done. For in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. Oh, forget just for the moment, if it isn't wicked to say, your strong desire to make progress. Allow yourself to sit down and take the lid off this box and delve into the treasure. It is, you see, as if I may use a humble parable, and, uh, may I be forgiven. But suppose you were out to one of these, uh, famine-stricken lands and you saw the need of the people, and you said to themselves, poor dear folks, they are so weak. How will they get to the center for the distribution of the food? All they've got is, uh, donkeys and the women carrying it on their heads and things. You say, I know what, I'll get them a Range Rover. So back you come to Belfast, and you buy a Range Rover, and you charter a short skyvan, and here the thing is, and you eventually arrive in the middle of these dear folks. The thing lands and out rolls the Range Rover. You'll say, now, my good chief man, you the chief here, righto old chap, now this is for you, do you see? And you can use this to go and fetch the, uh, wheat, and that will make it easier for you, see. And off you fly and come back in a year. Where's the Range Rover? Can't see it anywhere. How do you get on, Mr. Chief, with that Range Rover? No, he said, that was a great disappointment, really. Thing was so heavy. You'll see. What you say, what do you mean it was so heavy? Well, all that weight, tons and tons of it, and we pushed and we pulled and we put the donkeys on the front, but, you know, we're weak. We're not like you Westerners who are strong and have ten meals a day. We only have a little food and we're weak, and we, we made matters ten thousand times worse trying to push that thing and pull it. Bad enough when it was empty. When we got it loaded, it was impossible. You say, my good man, I don't understand this. Um, don't you realize there's an engine in it? You say, what do you mean, engine? So you go to the thing and you undo the bonnet and you say, look, there's engine. Well, he said, we have, but that heavy stuff there, that's part of the trouble. We thought about cutting it out, one of the, you know, to make the thing lighter. So you haven't understood. No wonder your progress is slow and you got discouraged. Do you think I'd have given you a thing like that to make your life more difficult? And then you demonstrate what this, what he thinks is heavy bit of iron is. It's an engine. All the potential. It was there all the time. Oh, my dear fellow believers, how often we can be stupid, if at least if you're like me, and think that God's way of sanctification is a slavery like Pharaoh imposed on the Egyptians, and I need to sit down and take the bonnet open. You say you're not going to preach Paul, are you? All that heavy theology. Oh, well, perhaps that's our trouble. We think it's heavy theology, don't we, Romans and Ephesians and Colossians, and we want something lighter. Oh, friend, it's only heavy in the sense it's heavy with glory and heavy with potential and heavy with riches. Listen to Paul, so that you come to see the tremendous wealth of this mystery, for in him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden, and you are filled- fulfilled in Him. We should make more progress sometimes if we learn to sit down and take the lid off what we've already been given. When we find the riches that are in Christ, you know, it will lead to unity. Sometimes our recipes divide Christian from Christian. That's a sad thing, isn't it? Christ unites. And all the assurance it gives. You'll see basic to all true progress. There is necessary, I nearly said psychologically necessary, confidence, assurance. It is possible if we lose sight of these great riches that in the end we get so d- so disgusted with our failures as Christians that we come to doubt our veritable salvation, you know. And when doubt like that enters in, it saps all strength for spiritual progress. Oh, if you have care for anybody, anybody's soul, do like Paul, see to it that you lead them to full assurance, and do your best to fill their lives with a sense of the wealth of the riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. You say, why is the thing hidden? Why are the riches hidden? Why aren't they obvious? Well, an answer to that would be found in one Corinthians two. They're hidden from the world, of course. Wisdom that none of the princes of this world knew, as otherwise they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for us who love him. Don't say that that's a description of heaven, that's a description of now. For God has revealed these things to us by his spirit. They're hidden to the world, and they remain hidden to the unspiritual believer. But God has given us his spirit. You may think Paul is heavy writing. There is a Holy Spirit available, you know, to interpret, to make it real, to give us understanding. For we have in God's word and in this scheme of salvation the very mind of Christ. These are the positive reasons, then, why we should listen to Paul. The negative reasons are, uh, that, uh, we must be careful against false rec- recipes. This I say that no one may delude you. That is verse, uh, uh, 4. And again in verse eight, take heed that there shall be anyone that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain Vain deceit. deceit. You see, it is possible for people to delude us with clever speaking, very entertaining speakers, but watch out that none of them take you from what Paul says, won't you? On his own account, he says he's not very good speaker. Yes. But it is if you know, uh, you uh, uh, had a friend and you wanted to show your friend your love and kindness, and you bought them a, a, a, a bowl, see, and uh, gave it to them in a box. And uh, when you left, they undid the box, and in this box, uh, from the local gift shop, there was this bowl thing, sort of a dullish brown, little tinge of blue in it. You say, that's a funny looking bowl. Well, out of respect for my friend, I'll put it on the sideboard. And then someone else came to your house and they said, what's this old thing here, this funny old brown thing? You say, well, that's a bowl given to me by a friend of mine, so I put it there. I don't see much in it myself. No, he says, you know, I mean, these things have gone out of fashion, you'll see. I tell you what, uh, you want to go down to Marks and Spencer's, and they've got some beautiful bowls, you know, with nice pink flowers on the side and only cost you seven pounds. So down you go and you get your seven pounds bowl out of Marks and Spencer's, and you take the old brown thing and put it out in the garden, grow tulips in it. And then, uh, uh, you come back. And what is this, this bowl? Uh, they said, well, we didn't like it very much, and a friend of mine, he said he knew a better thing than that, and he got, got me to get one from Marks and Spencer's. You say, where's the original bowl I gave you? Well, it's out in the garden, but in tulips in it. You didn't know what that bowl was. That's a Ming Dynasty bowl. That's worth a hundred thousand! Take care that nobody rob you. What Paul is putting before us is a Christ in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. Don't let anybody rob you of it with these cheap recipes for spiritual progress. Paul isn't campaigning against philosophy as a method of thinking. Philosophy is a very good thing. It teaches to use logic, to examine the truthfulness of our statements. He's talking here about theosophy, with all its theories of the universe and angels and, uh, demiurgs and all that kind of thing, into the detail of which we do not now have time to go. Let that come another occasion. Let's just get hold of the big contrast. His philosophy, says Paul, is after, uh, men, the tra- after the tradition of men. At his very best, what would it be compared with our blessed Lord, in whom all the fullness of deity resides bodily? Then let's listen to Paul and make sure that nobody, by his persuasive speech, takes us away from the vast treasure in Christ and gets us going after his man-made theories and philosophies. And now to our studies.