Colossians Part 5

Well, I tell you, this man was in love with the Lord, and this man was centered on the Lord. He might not have been able to write well, but boy, he could sure center on the Lord. Actually, he wrote very well; he just wrote chaotically. I wish you’d have gone back over and done a second draft here; I’m just going to read it to you. I changed the order of this. Christ is the real, the reality as over against food and drink. Do you know what he’s saying to you here? Well, let’s say what he was saying to the Colossians. They will hear there are certain foods they should not eat, and they will tell you there are certain things they should not drink.

How many of you have ever been told it’s a sin to drink alcohol? Will you raise your hands, please? How many of you have never been told it was a sin to drink alcohol? Will you raise your hand? Where on earth have you been? Hiding in a cave. Now then, just for kicks, how many of you in the last 12 months have drunk something that had alcohol in it? Will you raise your hand? No true confessions going on, put your hands down. Should I stop for a moment? No. The world is full of people who will tell you what you should not eat. Do not eat pork; do not drink something. I’ll tell you all something; I’ll put you in the law right now. Almost every person in this room eats too much cheese. I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t eat cheese, but man, I have watched some of y’all put away cheese to the point that, have you ever heard of a coronary? Okay, maybe Puerto Ricans don’t have coronaries, but man, some of you eat a lot of cheese.

And festivals, these are actually periods of times to be observed. This is all Jewish, and new moons and the Sabbath. Brothers and sisters, I don’t know what the Seventh Day Adventists do with this, but long before the Jews came along, there was something real, and it was also not only real, but it was to come and be real. Before there was anything created in this universe, Jesus Christ was drink. Jesus Christ was food. He was the only food that existed. Jesus Christ was the only rest there was, and Jesus Christ was the only moon there was. And then one day, He who is the reality came in bodily form. And He announced, “I am the food. I am the drink. I am the Sabbath.” And here Paul reveals to us: He’s also the moon.

And I stood right over here. I remember very vividly, and I asked somebody, “What is that thing up in the sky that lights up the dark?” Which one of you was it? Do you remember? I think it was the first time in my life that anyone gave me the right answer the first time. I was expecting them to say that’s the moon, which is not true. But the answer was, you people are just smarter than other folks. The answer was that it is a picture of a shadow of the real moon. Do any of you remember that? You remember that? That Christ is the moon and the moon is Christ. What’s going on here?

Okay, Margarita, when is the last time you had some alcohol? Okay, we’ve had a complete breakdown here, folks. Let’s come back, I want you to see again Paul calling a church, not you, the individual, but a church. Church. There’s no way in this world that these things could have been observed, the festival could have been observed, unless it had been corporate.

Now, the food and drink could have been individual, but not the festival, and that’s not all. It would be almost impossible for some of the brothers and sisters to be observing the Sabbath, and some not. And Paul of Tarsus, you have no idea what a destructive pen he has here. Do you understand that he is destroying all Jewish festivals? He is destroying all laws and rules about anything you shouldn’t drink. He is doing away with everything that you cannot eat. And he is doing away with the Sabbath?

There are two great things in the Jewish religion. One is circumcision, and the other is the Sabbath. He just did away with circumcision, the picture of the flesh being done away with. And he has inaugurated the circumcision of Christ, which puts away the flesh of the church. Here he is doing away with the drink of the church, the food that the church should not eat, and festivals that the church may feel obligated to observe, and he has done away with the Sabbath, which a church might begin observing every Saturday. He has put it all away, and he has liberated the church.

Now, brothers and sisters, for that reason, I would admonish you as a body of believers to not get too tied up with rules and regulations. You think y’all pull free of this? Do you? Well, let me ask you. What do you usually do on Sunday morning? You have a brother’s meeting on Sunday night. Sunday afternoon is football, and have you ever had a brother’s meeting when some brother started tapping on his wrist and saying, “We’ve got to go.” Okay. So, you don’t have church on Sunday? Don’t you realize that Jesus Christ died and the Jewish people had the Saturday, but because the Lord rose on the Sunday, we’re supposed to observe Sunday? You don’t know that? Did you know that’s in the Bible? You didn’t know that was in the Bible? Sister, it’s not in the Bible. That is the gymnastics of men. We observe the same every day. Every day belongs to the Lord. Now, it takes a church to do that. I realize it’s individuals, but churches do these things.

Alright, let’s go on. These are the shadows of the one to come, even Christ. And now he’s still whittling away at this. He continues the admonition to stay away from religious things. Do not let any man act as your judge. I want you to take your pen if you’ve got one, and take that word “your” there and put PL. You know what that PL stands for? Plural. Therefore, do not let any man act as the judge of the church in regard to these shadows. Let him not keep on defrauding the church of the church’s prize by delighting in self-abasement in the worship of angels, taking his stand on things like visions that he’s seen, inflated in his own fleshly mind, and inflated for no good reason. Such a man is not holding to the head, and that head is Christ.

May the Lord Jesus Christ let me live and die and never put a church under law. Let me live and die cutting chains off of that girl. Let me never take away her prize. Let me never take away her freedom. And boy, do we need men who minister Christ and minister the gospel who never put that woman in bondage.

Now, I’m going to get on thin ice here. Has the church in Chicago here ever been in bondage? You say, you think? Was it an individual bondage, or was it a church bondage? It was first a church. Is that not true? Generally speaking, we are usually put in bondage as a body of believers, and just like it reads right here, “Let no man.” Now, this will happen to you individually, but brothers and sisters, it will happen to you as a church. Now then, let me ask you this, and this may never have happened to you. Have you ever had anybody come here and tell you, as a church, that you were to this or to that? That has not happened to you. And an outsider, you have never had that happen. Well, let me guarantee you it will. Well, you may not have even heard it because he couldn’t get in a position to be heard of leadership, but I don’t doubt someone said these people shouldn’t be something or other. Saints, trust me, the churches I work with have been blasted as churches for all sorts of things. And interestingly enough, I don’t know why people always think that we’re just standing, absolutely teetering on the age of gross churchwide immorality. Because we’re free? Who is more apt to sin? He who is free, or he who is in bondage? That’s the way I read my New Testament. The man in bondage is more apt to sin than the man who is free.

All right, beware of Greeks bearing chains. Beware of men bearing the law. What time is it? Are we in pretty good shape here? We’re in really good shape. All right, Hey, do you remember that you were sitting here thinking individually? Well, don’t do that. This is the New Testament; it was written to all of you.