Colossians Part 5

For Christ the head, from Christ the head, and now He comes back to one of those wonderful enjoinings of you, admonitions of you, as a people, to remember the only source you have of life. He’s done it by talking about your salvation; he’s done it by talking to you about the glory of Christ. Now he’s going to talk to you about it by showing you the process by which Christ brings life to the body.

Lucy, are you awake? How many fingers am I holding up, Lucy? He’s constantly admonishing the church in Colossae to remember the head. Now he is going to explain to us the process. From Christ, the head, the entire body… Now what is the body? The body is also Christ. From Christ, the head, to Christ, the body. From Christ, the head, the entire body, which is being supplied and held together by joints and ligaments, grows up with growth which comes from God.

God has given to His Son His life and His Spirit. The Son has given to the bride, the woman, this new creature; He has given that same life and that same spirit. There then flows down from Christ the head supply and nutrients for all the rest of that which is Christ, the body. Therefore, the body that is Christ is dependent upon the head that is Christ because all the food and all the drink and all the nutrition and all the nurture come from Christ, the head. And that’s all you need to know, except to know that these ligaments and veins, and Paul didn’t know a whole lot about anatomy and bands. All these things flow from the head and nurture the entire body.

Now, brother, I want to ask you a question. The next time the church is low, what does the church need to do? Find a new way to explore Jesus Christ. I’m not telling you to dance around the room and holler louder. I’m not telling you too fast. I’m saying to you, He is infinite in His variety, find Christ.

Now, brothers, it actually is your responsibility to do this. Did you know that? It’s your responsibility to make sure that when the church is low, to find a new way to discover your Christ, your Lord, without the law. That is no small task. If you’re really, really in bad shape, call on me. But Gene, you’re going to be dead here pretty soon. I’ll leave some brothers; call on some brothers. If they come in here and start giving you something old, throw them out. Tell them to come back in two years when they’ve grown up. I’m serious, I think if you throw them out, it might make them wake up. I actually, long-term, have a great deal of confidence in these brothers. Short term, I ain’t got no confidence in them whatsoever. They’re going to have to go out and make the same mistakes all the rest of us did.

You can simply switch what you’re doing and find another avenue to know the Lord, and sometimes they’re very, very simple. It can be to just take a period of time off, and write new songs or learn new songs. Now, I’m going to get into something that’s not here, but I have spoken on it, and then we’re going to come to the end of chapter 2.

There is the constant burden I have in the church for the fact that she is beautiful, and sometimes she is really gorgeous, and this attracts brothers and sisters who don’t know zip, and they are like a moth attracted to light; they just come. When the light bulb goes off, that moth doesn’t know what to do. And the Christians who come among us haven’t read a book, probably never will. Haven’t listened to any tapes, probably never will, and have had absolutely no revelation from the Lord. Some of these people hang around for a few years finally get some insights. But boy, when you go through a dry spell, more signs go up in front of lawns for sale. More rider trucks and U-Haul trucks appear, and people start leaving. That’s all right. I’m not criticizing them. But I want you to know something. Jesus Christ is the author of dry spells, and I’ll even give you a definition of a dry spell. Christ is a dry spell; Christ is a wet spell, is He not? Have you not glorified in His presence and taken a bath in His Holy Spirit and gloried in the fact that He was with you? But have you ever gloried in a dry spell? Dry spells come from His hand, the sovereign hand of God. And you know what you learn in a dry spell? You learn whether or not you’re worshiping Jesus Christ or Santa Claus.

You find out where your heart is. Now, that’s not true just of you, the individual; that’s true of a church. Brothers and sisters, a church should be able to batten down the hatches and go through a dry spell. Sometimes they simply come; if you’ll hang tough long enough, the Lord Jesus Christ will come back. He never left. He is a test on you. Well, what about pain and suffering? I think maybe pain and suffering are also Christ, and they are again, I don’t like to use the word test, I really don’t, but I can tell you one thing, those dry spells are a weeding out process, they are a weeder-outer processor. I don’t have any more to say to that except I want you to try to remember that if you will, that we’re not here just for the good times, and I will confess to you that Jesus Christ won you. He’s not fair. He won you during a wet spell when the torrents of rain were falling on you. Wasn’t that mean of Him? You understand? I don’t mean that, but wasn’t that sneaky? Win your heart over when everything is glorious, and He didn’t even tell you there was a dry spell coming.

Brothers and sisters, they come to the church. They come to individuals, but they come to the church. They’re probably cures for most of them. I tell you quite frankly, I don’t know a cure for the church in Atlanta right now. I mean by that, there’s a cure. But when you get down to nine people, you’ve been hit as hard as they have. You just go straight through it, and you don’t try to go to Toronto to get revived or start dancing in the middle of the room. You just go straight through it, and you come out on the other side. By the way, there was some real healing for the sisters from Atlanta by means of the other churches. I watched churches heal, heal a church. They have gone back home with real hope in their hearts. Thank God for that. Isn’t that the riches of Jesus Christ? Okay, we’ll come here now to the end.

We know where we get our nutrition from Christ, the head. Are you living in the world? And he’s back to the laws again. He had one little reprieve here for us, did he not? When he told us how the church is nurtured, and now he’s saying that the following is not nutrition. Do you submit yourselves to decrees such as do not handle, do not taste, and do not touch? Man, this guy is so brave. This guy has got so much audacity. Do you know that Gentiles in those days were people without moral restraint? They had no Old Testament; they had no Ten Commandments. Those people were immoral; they were sinners. Here, they’ve only been saved for two or three years, and the guy who led them to the Lord is just a young kid named Ephapras, and he bets on Jesus.

I wish you were a room full of preachers. I’d say to you, brothers, why in the world don’t you bet on Jesus? Why do you preach to your people, don’t do this and don’t do that? Why don’t you tell them they’re free to do it and then bet on Jesus Christ?

I have never seen a church increase in its sinfulness because it was told it was free from all law. For those of you who are on tape, I want you to know that I have preached an audacious gospel. I want you to know that I have never seen a body of believers increase their sinful acts when they were told they could do anything. In fact, I have seen it drop as a church. There are always one or two people who take their license to sin. I’m so glad we find those people in such moments.