Warning! Danger Ahead!

I’d like you to imagine for just
a moment that you’re traveling on a dark and windy road. And for good measure, let’s add
some precipitation to that scenario. Now the road is wet as well,
dark, windy, and okay, Let’s add this as well. You’re descending a large hill. Everything about that equation
says, slow down. And at just the right time, you
look up to see a very appropriate, very timely warning sign. Slow
down. Sharp curve ahead. Reduce speed
when roads are wet. Poor visibility. Something like
that. We know from experience now as
drivers when we see a yellow road sign posted, it is a warning
of potential danger ahead. Yellow signs are used for permanent
road hazards. Orange is for construction as
you know. They put these signs in yellow,
I’m told, because yellow is the first color that the eye sees. I don’t know how they measure
that. It immediately seizes our attention. The highway people
want us to see these signs. And disregarding that information
that they provide will almost certainly lead to disaster. A sharp curve, wet road, in the
dark. And at times, for really severe
conditions, they add yellow flashing lights as well. Now, imagine as well, for a moment,
that the people in charge of the highway safety decided to
just let drivers figure it out on their own, to learn from experience,
and to let drivers reap the consequences of not figuring things out quickly
enough. Kind of a deadly game of trial
and error, huh? That would be unthinkable, right?
It would not only be cruel, it would be criminal. Of course
the Highway Safety Department cares about people and they want
people to have the advantage of knowing immediately what lessons
they have learned over time from other drivers’ mistakes. And so it is with the Apostle
Paul. He knows that severe pitfalls lie ahead for the Colossian believers. False teaching that would erode
their faith in Christ, lead them astray, and undermine their gospel
testimony. Dabbling or imbibing in particular
teachings would lead to certain spiritual disaster. It would
be irresponsible if Paul were not to warn them of this potential. We would even call it ministerial
malpractice for Paul not to tell people of these dangers. And
so we come to the third point in our inspection of the fruit
of the gospel, the caution to be observed. As I said, this
is our third evaluation point. We’ve looked at two others already
here in chapter two of Colossians. If you would go ahead and begin
to turn to Colossians chapter two, we’re going to be here primarily
for a little bit. We’re approaching this passage
in light of Paul’s encouragement to young Timothy. that there
would certainly be a gospel harvest in time. Paul said it this way,
the hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his
share of the crops. Where there is sowing, planting,
there will also be reaping. There will be a gospel harvest. Just as in the world of agriculture,
so also in the realm of Christianity, there ought to be a harvest. And the crop, the crop that Paul
is concerned about, is that of Christianity. None other than
the flawless seeds of the gospel have been planted. Paul knows
that the seeds that have been sown are of the highest quality. There should be no genetically
modified fruit. There should be no hybrids. The
seeds of the gospel, Paul knows, produce only good fruit. And
he knows what the fruit of the gospel should look like. When there is a harvest. Not if. When there is the harvest,
the fruit must be inspected. And this is what Paul has turned
his attention to in chapter 2. Chapter 2 verses 4 through 23
present a very thorough treatment about inspecting the quality
of the gospel harvest. Our lives ought to reflect having
been touched by the gospel. And Paul approaches that important
process this way. Rather than himself inspecting
every piece of gospel fruit, every professing believer, he
instead assigns this very important duty to every believer. Not only
must apostles and shepherds evaluate the crop, But Paul says the individual
Christian must examine his or her own life as well. And so
he provides us with this short list of inspection points. Five in all here in Colossians,
five inspection standards for evaluating the fruit of the gospel. We are to examine ourselves in
light of these standards. And so we are to become fruit
inspectors, examining our lives in light of these standards. If you would, not as lengthy
a portion this morning, I just want to read from verse 4. We’ll
catch up on what we’ve already considered and we’ll course all
the way down through verse 12, where we will be for the next
several weeks. Verse 4, I say this so that no
one will delude you with persuasive argument. For even though I am
absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing
to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in
Christ. Therefore, as you have received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted
and now being built up in him and established in your faith,
just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude. See
to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty
deception, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary
principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For
in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in
him, you have been made complete. and he is the head over all rule
and authority. And in him you also were circumcised
with a circumcision made without hands in the removal of the body
of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Having been buried
with him in baptism in which you were also raised up with
him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the
dead. Now, as I said, we’ve already
considered the first two of these evaluation points, the standards
of measurement of gospel fruit. The first one is the discernment
to be exercised. We studied that in verses four
and five, that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.
Paul’s initial concern is not unrelated to the point that we’ll
consider this morning. We’ll come back to that. The
second examination point is the steadfastness to be maintained. That was in verses six and seven.
We studied this last week, where Paul says, as you have received
Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him. This too is related to
Paul’s third evaluation point. Steadfastness in Christ is both
motivation and the result of the exercise of caution, as we
will see. And so, as we come to Paul’s
third point of inspection, the caution to be observed, verses
8 through 12, you’ll note that this is a lengthy section. It’s
second in length only to Paul’s fifth point. And so we, in order
that we can give proper attention to the Lord’s table, We will
only look at one verse, verse eight this morning. And I’ve
already forecasted for you the nature of this point. It concerns
the caution to be observed. We are supposed to be cautious
individuals as believers. We are supposed to be watchful
and not naive and foolish. Paul wants to make clear the
nature of this caution. And so he provides us with much
detail regarding his concerns just in this one little verse. Let’s go back to verse eight,
if we could. where Paul is going to provide
us the details of the caution that is to be observed. The details
of this caution. And the first thing that he tells
us is the warning of spiritual abduction. You’ve got it on a
yellow sign, flashing lights, that there is a real concern
here. Paul says it this way, see to
it that no one takes you captive. The first thing you have to observe
here is that this is not Paul here issuing a general caution. Heads up, be careful, warning. It’s very specific. He’s warning
his readers, his dear Colossian believers, he’s warning them
about false teachers. Paul returns to the concern,
as we’ve already pointed out, the concern that he immediately
expressed in verse four. That’s the outset of his discussion
here. And his caution there is that
someone might delude them with a persuasive argument. It’s the
same basic concern that he has here. But here in verse eight,
his alarm is very specific. See to it that no one takes you
captive. And that caution alone should
secure their attention and ours. To be taken captive? Short of
death itself, there is arguably no greater fear than to be seized
from our peaceful existence, kidnapped, taken against our
will by the whims of another. Whether it’s an individual or
a foreign army, to be taken captive is a horrifying thought. This is precisely Paul’s concern.
A solemn caution against being taken captive. This is the only
time in the Bible that this rare Greek word is used. And though rare, the meaning
is very clear. It referred to being carried
off as a captive by an invading army. That’s how the word was
typically used. Oftentimes in war, a conquering
force would come in and take captives with the intent of taking
them home to make them slaves. The word could also have been
used of a kidnapper, or an adult napper, someone who captures
another person. Well, the form of the verb here
is, technically speaking, a future indicative. It tells us not that
this had already taken place, but that it was a distinct possibility. There were people that would
likely be taken captive. The arguments of these false
teachers were so slick, the false teaching was so beguiling, the
proponents so persistent that the possibility of someone being
taken in by these teachings was very great. The sentence expresses
almost an imminence to this tragedy. It’s right at the door. Nevertheless,
there was a built-in protective feature. Paul speaks of it at
the head of the sentence. See to it, he says. Those words
issue an urgent awareness, don’t they? Jesus used these very words
in Luke 21, eight. See to it that you are not misled. The writer of Hebrews uses these
words as well. In 312, he writes with all seriousness,
take care, brethren, that there be not in any one of you an evil,
unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. What
a serious exhortation. The writer of Hebrews uses the
same words again in 1225, see to it that you do not refuse
him who is speaking, namely God. For if those did not escape when
they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape
who turn away from him from heaven. The Apostle John also uses these
words. Watch yourselves that you do
not lose what we have accomplished. All of these are serious warnings.
Watch, beware, warning, take heed, be extremely cautious,
see to it. There’s no time to be naive as
a Christian. The child of God must be vigilant
to watch for such attempted kidnappings of our person, lest we be taken
away and held captive. It’s a very effective warning.
At this point in my ministry, more than 30 years now, I can
look back and I can see with faces and names many heartbreaking
casualties of war who were captured and carried off, held captive,
even still. I’ve known many who began to
dabble in seemingly innocuous conversations, a small booklet,
listening to some speaker, whether on radio or recording or internet. What began as an innocent curiosity,
a harmless academic interaction, eventually became their calling
away from Christ. And I’ve seen a capitulation
into such errors in nearly every facet of theology and doctrine.
I’m not talking about honest differences of opinion, differing
perspectives on genuinely maintained convictions, of which there are
many. I’m referring here to heretical
positions that carry people away. They carry people away from fellowship.
They carry people away from the church. They carry people away
from Christ. In my ministry life, I’ve known
people who fell into error regarding the nature of our Savior. They
would either seek to add to who Christ is or to take away from
who he is. I’ve known people who fall into
the pit of atheism itself, that they somehow arrive at the point
where they don’t even believe that God exists. I’ve worked
with people who began at first to criticize the church. And
I’m not talking particularly about this church necessarily,
but Christ’s greater church. They began to have disdain for
Christ’s church on earth. And it began with a criticism
of her that led them to leave her forever. With regard to eschatology,
end times, that always cooks up a debate, doesn’t it? I’ve
observed extremes at both ends. Hyper this and hyper that. Which
only leaves these individuals restless and irreconcilable. I’ve lamented so many who got
sideways over some element of the gospel, or more specifically,
some element of the doctrine of salvation, where what began
as a tension, an area of discomfort for them personally, became their
exit point from Christianity itself. If that’s the way it
is, I don’t want any part of it. Right along with that is
the very foundational element of theology, anthropology, the
doctrine of man or the doctrine of humanity. And I will just
say that a weak and faulty view of our sinful nature makes people
ultimately to scorn Christianity itself. Well, All that to say,
these things, Christ plus or Christ minus, faith plus works,
a questioning of God’s existence, a denial of the effects of the
fall of Adam and Eve, the durability of the gifts of the Spirit, radical
perspectives of Christ’s return, rejection of the doctrine of
justification by faith, all of these and so many more have become
the point of departure for many. Many professing believers have
fallen by the wayside. And it all begins with a book,
or a seminar, or a video, or some persuasive voice to lead
promising young believers away from the purity and simplicity
of Jesus Christ. They’re taken captive. How urgent
should our warning be to others with such inclinations? These
departures from the faith leave us wondering, how could this
happen? How could he go astray? How could
she walk away from the faith? How could a professing believer
ultimately come to the place where they abandon the Savior
entirely? Paul’s second detail of the caution
to be observed tells us. In the details of the
caution to be observed, we see not only the warning of spiritual
abduction, but the methods of spiritual abduction. See to it
that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty
deception. Those are the means. Now in the
remainder of this single verse, Paul uses two noteworthy prepositions. And you remember a preposition.
If you can fit it in this blank, it’s a preposition. Snoopy jumped
blank his doghouse. Over, through, under, beside.
A preposition is a word that indicates the association between
words or phrases. And as such, a prepositional
phrase is not the main part of a sentence, just as we see it
here. But it does provide the reader
important additional information about the other elements of the
sentence. And as I said, Paul uses two different prepositions
to complete his warning here in verse 8. In the middle of
verse 8, he uses the preposition dia. It’s translated there through. Good translation. Through philosophy
and empty deception. We’ll come back to that in just
a moment. The second preposition is kata. Translated as according
to, and it’s used three times in the remainder of this sentence.
Why am I telling you all of this? I’m sure you’re wondering. Simple. Both of these prepositions
speak of the means of being taken captive. How does this happen?
But the information that they provide is very different. Paul
cautions against being taken captive through philosophy according
to the traditions of men. Both of those prepositional phrases
speak of the means or the manner by which we are seized. Now I
could do the same basic thing to you with language. If I told
you that I was going to jump in my truck and take I-25 to
Wyoming, is the truck the means to Wyoming? Or is I-25 the means
to Wyoming? It’s both. And so it is here. The means of being taken captive
is through philosophy and empty deception. And the means of philosophy
of empty deception is the tradition of men and these elementary principles. All right, grammar lesson is
over for the day, or at least for now. With that, let’s look
at the primary means of being taken captive, the vehicle, if
you will. Paul says that these teachers
of error employ two related means, philosophy and empty deception.
The two terms really ought not be separated. The second one
explains the first. It’s a philosophy which is, in
the end, empty and deceitful. It does not deliver what it promises. Now, Paul isn’t against philosophy
itself. Philosophy is literally the love
of wisdom. Not a bad thing, inherently.
As such, it is the favorite pastime of mankind, trying to figure
out who we are, why we exist, what is the point of it all.
And in Paul’s day, there were many schools of Greek philosophy,
Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic, and so on. Likewise, among the Jewish
people, there were philosophical schools, Pharisees, Essenes,
Sadducees. Philosophy. It’s not wrong to
wonder what the answers to life’s questions are. Remember Acts
17, Paul deals with exactly this situation. He comes across the
statue to an unknown God, remember? Nothing but philosophical conjecture. We have all these other statues,
Zeus and Hermes and all the rest, but just in case we missed one,
let’s build a statue to him too. Well, Paul, seizes hold of that
and uses it as an opportunity to preach the gospel. Let me
tell you about this supposed unknown God. He is the God who
made the world and all the things in it, and he has fixed a day
in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man
whom he has appointed, Jesus Christ, having furnished proof
to all men by raising him from the dead. That’s the truth. Anything else is speculation,
philosophy. Paul’s concern is with this so-called
philosophy, speculation and conjecture, that jumps its tracks and begins
to promote what they believe as an absolute ideology, as truth. But when wondering, turns to
dogmatic instruction, then it is promoting error. And that’s
a very fine line. Paul says that teaching that
is not derived from and centered upon Christ is empty. This emptiness of which Paul
speaks, empty deception, is like a handful of vapor. It’s vain
nothingness. And Paul uses this word elsewhere,
empty, vain. He uses this elsewhere to urge
Timothy to avoid worldly and empty chatter. It’s worthless. It’s unprofitable. It doesn’t
gain anything. He tells the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians
15, 14, that if Christ has not been raised in our preaching
and their faith, is in vain, empty, pointless, worthless.
In the parallel letter of Ephesians 6, there’s almost a mirror image
of this verse. In 5.6 of that letter, Paul says,
let no one deceive you with empty words. Vain, worthless. In the case of these false teachers,
there’s simply nothing beneficial to what they say. There’s no
substance or truth to what they say. Instead, it’s slight of
hand. It looks good. It sounds good.
It’s very amazingly presented. But it’s not truth. And it’s
error that would lead individuals and harm the very church itself. Paul already cautioned his readers
of this in verse four, as I mentioned, that no one will delude you with
persuasive argument. Remember? One writer characterized
that persuasive argument as a tissue of airy fragments. Isn’t that
graphic? There’s really nothing to it.
There’s no substance to what these false teachers present,
and the word here in verse 8 is deceitful. And for Paul, he reserves
this word for only the worst kind of damnable heresies. This is the kind of nonsense
that takes people astray. It takes people to hell. In Ephesians 4.22, he uses the
word to speak of the lusts of deceit. In 2 Thessalonians 2.10,
he uses it again to speak of the deception of wickedness. The writer of Hebrews tells his
readers to encourage one another, lest anyone among them be hardened
by the deceitfulness of sin. That is the vehicle of leading
people astray, taking them captive. It is this philosophy of empty
deception, trickery, verbal sleight of hand. Well, that leads us
to the third consideration that Paul gives us, not only the warning
of spiritual abduction, the methods of spiritual abduction, but thirdly,
the means of spiritual abduction. See to it that no one takes you
captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to
the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles
of the world, and not according to Christ. Paul is still speaking
loosely about the means of being taken captive. captive spiritually. And in these two additional prepositional
phrases, he’s describing the nature of philosophy of empty
deception. What’s it like? Where did it
come from? What drives it? And the first
thing that Paul tells us here is that it is according to the
tradition of men. Paul has yet to really identify
in this letter. He never really does. exactly
what the false teaching was. He only gives us some features
of it. But there was a kind of false
teaching that was very prevalent in Colossae. And if we were to
name it, we would miss the plentiful false teaching that is so prevalent
in our own day. Whatever this false teaching
was, it was man-made. This was homegrown, homemade,
homespun doctrine and theology. In other words, it wasn’t derived
from scripture. It didn’t come from the Bible.
It came out of some guy’s head. He made it up. Now, almost always in Paul’s
letters, tradition is spoken of as an unequivocally good thing. Listen carefully. He tells the
Galatians first, prior to his conversion, that he was extremely
zealous for his ancestral traditions. He doesn’t disparage it. He just
says that he held fast to those things. Beyond that, in 2 Thessalonians
2.15, he urged the Thessalonians to hold to the traditions. the foundations of their faith,
that’s how he’s using this phrase, that they were taught these traditions. And because there were those
among them who were not living according to these traditions,
the foundations of their faith, the Corinthians, on the other
hand, were holding fast to the traditions, the foundations of
their faith. And so what Paul is doing here
is contrasting not tradition versus anti-tradition, the foundations
of our faith. He’s simply challenging the source
of such foundational teaching. And Paul’s teaching, the foundations
of Christianity, was based solely on the divinely given message. The teaching of these false teachers,
Paul challenges, was based not on the sure and eternal word
of God, but rather on the capricious and self-serving ideas of men. And that is what rendered it
worthless, man-made doctrines. Paul describes philosophy and
empty deception further when he says that it was according
to the elementary principles of the world. Those two words, elementary principles,
translate but one Greek word, and that word was originally
used to speak of the basics, the ABCs, if you will. It was
the language of the primary school, the most basic elements of learning,
reading, writing, and arithmetic. Paul says that teachers that
teach anything other than salvation by Jesus Christ are redirecting
people back to the basics. You gotta earn your salvation.
You gotta do this, you gotta do that. Back to the idea of
works-based righteousness, whereby they pay for their salvation. When Paul characterizes these
teachers as teaching according to the elementary principles
of the world, he’s expressing a distinct contempt for their
efforts. This was wrong. Now listen, if
I were to name names, if I were to give you 10 names of teachers
to whom you should not listen, there would be 100 more that you would assume I was tacitly
endorsing, simply because I didn’t mention them. The same thing
on the positive end of that equation. I might give you 10 good, trustworthy
teachers, and if I mention 10, I leave out hundreds more. There have always been good books
in print, good books, very bad books. We become the evaluators
of those books through scripture. If what they say, whether on
tape or in print, is not derived from scripture, if it doesn’t
ring true with the Bible, get rid of the book. This proliferation of YouTube
teachers is a relatively new phenomenon, about 10 to 15 years
old. 20 plus years ago, it was Christian
radio that we were dealing with, and then tapes, and then all
the rest of media, podcasts and such. My caution has always been,
know the man. If you don’t know the man, Submit
yourself very slowly, very tentatively to his teaching. I remember some 20 years ago
in rapid succession, one after the other, a number of these
very popular radio teachers fell morally. People were stunned. They were stunned because they
didn’t know the man. But they had gulped down so much
of his teaching. Know the man, then hear his teaching. Paul closes with a much-anticipated
contrast here. Over against the empty, basic,
worldly teaching that was being pandered, there was the sure
foundation of the instruction, look at this, according to Christ. It was the simple gospel of faith
alone in Christ alone for salvation. Nothing added, nothing removed. Paul says that Jesus Christ is
the sum and substance of the gospel. Remember this, even from
this one letter, Jesus Christ is preeminent over all creation. He is the head of the church.
He is the one in whom all the Father’s fullness dwells. He
is the one in whom all the treasures are of wisdom and knowledge. And as we noted last Lord’s Day,
we received not just teaching, about Christ, not just information
or truths about Christ at our conversion. We received Christ
Jesus the Lord in our conversion to Christ, so that any empty
philosophy or supposed religion that teaches anything else, it
is not according to Christ. It isn’t simply that they leave
out teaching about Jesus Christ, they do away with Him entirely. Any religious teaching that does
not have Jesus Christ as the central and supreme theme is
not derived from Christ’s Word, and it does not honor Him as
our only Lord and Savior. It directs people away from,
not toward, Jesus Christ. Would you humble yourself before
him?