477: Seven-Fold Prayer of Paul for Us – Lesson 3 Part 1 Book 40

THROUGH THE BIBLE WITH LES FELDICK
LESSON 3 * PART 1 * BOOK 40
SEVEN-FOLD PRAYER OF PAUL FOR US
I always like to give a few words of introduction before we start a new book, as we call them. Remember that Colossians is also one of the prison epistles. This is another one of the epistles of Paul that was written while he was in prison in Rome. And it’s in that category of letters that is a jump up, doctrinally, from his introductory letters of Romans, Galatians and the Corinthians. And as soon as we get into these prison epistles of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians it’s just higher ground. It’s deeper water. And these are elements of the faith that I’m afraid too many people are just glossing over or are not paying any attention to, but it’s paramount if we really want to get into the depths of the Word of God, we have to do a study of these prison epistles.

Ephesians, if you remember, was just almost totally doctrinal. Our position, where are we as a believer in the body of Christ. Well, what does that mean? Well, it’s a position. It’s something that the Old Testament believer knew nothing of. We are in the Body and are connected to Christ, the Head. Even though He’s in glory and we’re still on earth, there’s still that connection. And so Ephesians brings that out. And then Philippians had to bring about the fact that even though and we may be going through trials and temptations and tribulations, we have every reason in the world to rejoice. Rejoice, the apostle Paul says, in spite of our circumstances.

And now Colossians is written primarily to warn the Colossi believers, as well as us today, of things that can so easily make inroads into our belief or faith. Now you might say that you didn’t know that Paul dealt with any false teaching in Colossians. Yes, he does. He deals with two facets. One of them was atheticism. Now most people, I think, probably hear the word and don’t really understand what it means. Atheticism was that teaching that you had to put down all the desires of the flesh. And it all had to do with “you can’t do this” and “you can’t do that” and “you can’t enjoy this” and “you can’t enjoy that”. In fact, I think that some of the early church monks and the monastery type of people would just literally put themselves through misery for that very reason, that they were not to enjoy a single day of life. And hoping thereby to gain favor with God. You’ve probably heard of the hair shirt, where they would just wear that shirt with the hair next to their skin and just be miserable. Well, they thought by so doing they were pleasing God.

And then on the other hand you had these people who were trying to convince the early church believers that there was more to it than what Paul had given them. And that you had to get in and get understanding of the angelic powers and some of these things that we would say today were the New Age movement and so forth. And we’re up against the same things. In fact, I guess I’ll let you read the two verses where that’s brought out the most clearly. It’s over in Colossians chapter 2 and verse 8 and then the other concept is over in verse 16. And so the whole little book of Colossians revolves around these two warnings. And it’s just appropriate today as it was when Paul wrote it. So let’s look at chapter 2 and verse 8. This is just an introduction and then we’ll got back to the first chapter.

Colossians 2:8

“Beware (that’s a word of warning.) lest any man spoil through philosophy and vain deceit, (that where it comes in that “you can’t do this or that” and “you’ve got to put yourself down and keep your appetites under control”) after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, (not God’s word that they’re following, but man-made devices) and not after Christ.”

Now let’s go over to verse 16 and here we have this warning not to get caught up in these things that we do to, again in the flesh, merit favor with God.

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days;”

What does that mean? Don’t get hung up on what day of the week you worship. You’d be surprised how many letters and phone calls we get from the television audience that say, “Aren’t we supposed to be keeping the Sabbath?” You see, here is a warning in verse 16. Don’t get hung up on those things. I always answer with one stock answer and that is that we’re not under Law. Law demanded Sabbath worship, seventh day Sabbath. We’re not under anything like that. And so here is the warning. Don’t get hung up on some of these things as to what you eat or drink or a holyday or a new moon or Sabbath days. Now look at verse 18. And this is another warning.

“Let no man beguile you (or deceive you) of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels,…”

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