Colossians Part 5 – Freedom From Religion and Law | Colossians 2 Teaching

Brothers and sisters, there is nothing you cannot handle, nothing you cannot taste, and nothing you cannot touch, period. And don’t listen to men who tell you can’t. But Gene, what about I’ve already been through this with you. Go ahead and commit adultery. Your wife’s going to leave you, maybe shoot you. Go ahead and get drunk; they’re going to throw you in the clink. Go ahead and steal, and we will come visit you on Saturday afternoons. They have their own built-in punishments; they have their own built-in punishments, and besides that, you’re a Christian. Jesus Christ lives in you. You go do what you want to and pay the penalty, brother, but you’re free to do it.

I don’t know how I can get any further out in left field than that. But most of all, do you know what you’re free from? You’re free from the law. And you’re free from men who tell you, you can’t do this, you’re a Christian. You can’t do that, you’re a Christian. And you can say to him, I can do anything, I’m a Christian. I hope you have some resuscitation equipment with you when you tell him that, because he’s going to faint dead away.

I stand for grace, I believe in Jesus Christ, and I trust you. The very instincts of your Christian nature, and because you have an indwelling Lord and indwelling Holy Spirit that you understand and know. The issue here is not; do not touch and do not taste the issue here is a man. The issue here is the person who tells you these things. Brothers and sisters, don’t listen to men who tell you that you can’t do this, this, and this. You tell them yes, you can, you’re not going to maybe, but you can. But the main issue is just don’t get in bondage to men.

You think I ought to release this tape? Have you died with Christ to the elemental principles? Principles that are destined to perish when you eat them and drink them? Do not touch, do not taste, and yet when you eat it, it perishes. These are not principles at all, saints. Are you submitting to the commandments and teachings of men? Here again, the issue is men who tell you that you must do these things or not do these things. And now I will simply close by saying to you, brothers and sisters, it’s true within our own nature that all of these things sound reasonable. And that’s why I said we have to be on guard the rest of our life. It always sounds reasonable.

Some of the brothers and sisters in one of the churches went somewhere and heard a man talk on becoming intercessors. I know the sermon; it’s been around for nearly 200 years. Hannah was an intercessor, and she got Samuel, who did this, that, and the other, and we need to be intercessors. I didn’t respond to that, Hannah was an intercessor, Hannah was an intercessor. Nowhere does it say I have to be an intercessor. Hannah was an intercessor. The church has intercessors. Beta Sheirich was an intercessor; I am the fruit of Beta Sheirich’s intercession, but I am not an intercessor. I am a troublemaker.

Why should I make you be an intercessor when I know good and well that most of you sometimes in your life are going to drop it? And is that not true? Is that not true? If there is someone in this room who feels called by God to be an intercessor, then I would say to you, I cannot think of a greater calling on this earth. Pray for us and pray for me. Pray for me two things: that doors might open for the mystery, and pray for me that I might have the wisdom of Christ to know how to go through that door and to preach that mystery. I got that out of the book of Colossians.

And church, from time to time, will you pray for me? And pray for me that doors will open. Pray for me that I will have strength, and pray that I will have wisdom. And pray that I will be able to present that mystery so that men and women will respond to the gospel, who is Christ. But to tell an entire church she should be an intercessor sounds wonderful. But when it’s stripped of its character, it comes stripped of its outer nature. It comes down to religion. Why don’t we all become evangelists? Why don’t we all become church planters? None of us can do all of these things. It is within the body that some of these things are produced, and some of them we never get.

Till this hour, I have never had the privilege of having a sister who is a full-time Christian worker. I hope to see that before I die, but so far, I have not. But there are other things I have seen that nobody else has seen, and that is in the sovereign hand of God. Anything that a man proclaims to this body of believers about do not touch, do not this, do not anything else, really looks good, but a lot of it is religion.

Now I have a word for the church. Church, you have got good sense. You have acquired spiritual wisdom. You might not have always had it, but boy, you bit on a piece of stone, lost all your teeth, and you figured out that a stone is not bread. And in these years that we’ve been together, and before that, both, you have touched your Lord, and you have learned some things.

I speak to you as a body; you know the difference between religion and Christ. You know the difference between high-sounding things that sound wonderful, that end up not being the Lord. I address you in the wisdom of the church. I am not asking you to not do these things. I am telling you, rest in the fact that you have this wisdom of the Lord.

Now, if I have any admonishment for you, it is that you will not depend just on singing to touch the Lord. That you will not just do plays to touch the Lord, and not just Bible study, and not just prayer, or not just anything, but that you personally, nonetheless, as an individual, touch the Lord. And do you know what I gave you the other day? I mean, this morning I said to start off with one, then I said get with two, and then go to four, and then go to eight. Do you know what I called on you to do? I called on you as a church to touch the Lord, not in a meeting, and to come together and stand in Christ. And there’s nothing I’d rather hear than hearing a sister speak words that have no reference to herself. To hear a sister pray as the bride, to hear a brother speak words as though they were from the Lord.

That’s not my point. My point is, sisters and brothers, all the knowledge and wisdom you need are in Christ, all the riches are in Christ. The nutrition the church always has, flowing down, flows down from Christ, and I’m just telling you what Paul Tarsus told you. And I am free now to leave by having said to you as a church, these are your riches. And I admonish you to begin becoming more conscious that you’re a limb and the church is fantastic and in wondrous shape, and don’t be looking at yourself so much, just say, Lord, that was just a limb, but the church is doing great.