The Cure for Spiritual Delusion - Colossians 2:1-4

I would like to begin by making three preliminary statements before we look at our text today which will be Colossians 2:1-4.  You may want to write these down: 

First of all, based upon interdisciplinary considerations, the linguistic consideration provokes an examination of any attempt to introduce historical analysis.

Secondly, from an exegetical point of view the introduction of gnosticism drives us to consider the clarity of the sociological dimensions.

Finally, from a strictly theological viewpoint, a structural dynamic analysis orients the serious scholar toward undue reliance on derivative materials.

Now, just so you know, I did not make all that up.  Those non-thoughts are not original with me.  There is a link on our church website to another site by a guy named Steve Poling.  On his site he has a page entitled, Do-It-Yourself Impressive Theological Constructs. ¹  He has a chart with four columns of sentence fragments.  You can mix and match fragments from the different columns to come up with intelligent-sounding sentences that don’t actually mean anything.

Here’s another example: “One might say the underlying question adds considerable urgency to the unfortunate faux-pas of neo-orthodoxy.”  Or how about this one: “There can be no doubt that the meaning of major elements imposes smothering constraints upon excessive use of the 19th century frameworks.”

I would love to be able to talk randomly like that, just so I could watch people’s eyebrows wrinkle and see their pupils dilate.  “What is he talking about?”  And if you could talk long enough, some people might even begin think you’re really smart, which is the whole point: Do-It-Yourself IMPRESSIVE Theological Constructs.  They are harmless, and with some practice, they could be a lot of fun!

But not everyone who engages in theological jive talking is harmless.  Many are self-deceived and intentionally deceitful of others.  I could name names, but that would be a distraction at this point from where we’re going.  Look with me at Colossians 2:1-4.

1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.    

We looked at verse 4 last week very briefly, so I want to revisit it today in order that we might be wise and discerning regarding the things we read and listen to today that pass for Christian teaching.  One of the greatest afflictions of the Christian church is the pervasive lack of spiritual discernment.  Or another way of putting it is that Evangelicalism is, for the most part, spiritually naïve.  That is an extremely dangerous condition!  Several years ago, a politician referred to Evangelicals as “easily led”.  Many were offended by that statement, but he was right.  Lack of discernment is pandemic, which causes people to be easily led into spiritual delusion.

The word the ESV uses here in verse 4 is “delude”.  It means to cheat or deceive someone by false reasoning.  The statements I made earlier were not meant to actually delude anyone.  I did hope some of you would  think I’m a pretty smart guy.  But you know better than that, so I didn’t really fool anybody.

However, there are many in our world today who actively seek to deceive Christians into believing things that are false.  A couple of days ago, two nicely dressed young men wearing ties and nice haircuts stopped by my house.  The older of the two showed me a couple of Bible verses about how we should not worry about the state of the world, but rather we should trust in Jehovah to take care of us.  Then he offered me this neat little book, free of charge, entitled What Does the Bible Really Teach?  Well, I certainly want to know what the Bible really teaches, being a pastor and all, so I took the book.  I also took the book to protect other people from receiving it, and to use as an object lesson.   

The Watchtower Society did not become a global cult because they teach things that don’t make sense.  Much of what they teach DOES make sense.  For instance, how can God be three separate persons but only one God?  I don’t know.  Their reasoning makes sense.  I don’t understand the doctrine of the Trinity, but I am convinced the Bible teaches it and therefore it is true.

A lot of what they teach IS true and is plausible!  The Bible IS the word of God.  There really IS a day coming when God’s people will live in Paradise.  People are deluded, cheated, and deceived by the Jehovah’s Witnesses because they DO have plausible arguments, persuasive words, logical teachings. But they are in error because their doctrine is based upon their faulty interpretation of their Bible.  Even so, they are nice enough and convincing enough to beguile the spiritually naïve.  

I never quote the version of the Bible referred to as The Message.  The reason is because it seldom says what the Bible says.  But Eugene Peterson paraphrases Paul’s words in Colossians 2:4 like this: “I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or "the Secret."”  Now that doesn’t even remotely resemble the original text.  But it does get the spirit of Paul’s warning to the Colossians: Don’t let smooth-talking pseudo-theologians impress you with their impressive, logical, persuasive, doctrinal errors.

But how do you do that?  How do you protect yourself from false teachers with persuasive arguments designed to delude Christians into believing bad theology?  All of you know the answer to that question.  How do you protect yourself from doctrinal error?  By believing what the Bible says.  That is the correct answer.  

Next question: Are you actually protecting yourself and your family from doctrinal error?  It is one thing to say the Bible is true.  It is another thing to actually know what it says.  It’s like a cancer patient saying (and I understand I am now shooting myself in my own foot), “The cure for cancer is at The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center!  I know where the cure is!  I know the doctor!  His methods are proven to cure all types of cancer at any stage.  It’s wonderful that we now have a cure for that dreadful disease right down the road in Pittsburgh.”  

But is there gas in the car, and am I looking for my keys?  Do I leave the house and head west?  Do I make an appointment to see the doctor?  The cure for doctrinal delusion is not the Bible.  The cure for doctrinal delusion is IN the Bible.  The prevention and cure of the disease of spiritual delusion comes from actually reading, learning, and understanding the Bible, not just possessing it and having right ideas about it.  

If the good doctor writes out the prescription for the pills that will heal my cancer, and I walk down to the pharmacy and purchase the prescription, they put it in a little bag and staple the receipt to the bag, and I drive home and put the medication in the medicine cabinet, am I cured?  “Oh, this is wonderful!  I have in this little bag the cure for cancer!  I feel better already!”

You have to take the medicine.  You have to open the bottle and swallow the pills!  It is not enough to believe the Bible is the prevention and cure for false teaching.  You actually have to open it up and read it.  Coming here every week and hearing the Bible taught is helpful in that regard.  But are you a student, a disciple of Jesus Christ?  Do you actually study the Scriptures, or do you merely possess a copy and think highly of it?

You need to know that I’m not just trying to get you to read your Bibles more so you can say you read the Bible.  Don’t read the Scriptures just to feel better or to make me feel better about you being a well-behaved Christian.  Our lives are at stake.  We don’t study the Scriptures to prepare for Bible Jeopardy or to win trivia contests or arguments with Arminians over doctrine.  It is the acquisition of spiritual truth that delivers us from misery and even death.  We must be right in what we believe about God and man and sin and salvation and the Lord Jesus Christ.  We must rightly divide, we must accurately handle the word of truth.  To do otherwise is inherently dangerous.

Look with me at the book of Romans, chapter 16.
17 I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for (“keep your eye on” NASB) those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. 18 For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.  

It is naïve to say, “I believe the Bible” and think that is sufficient to protect you from smooth talkers whose goal is to delude you with plausible arguments.  Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims will tell you the Bible is true.  And “Bible-believing evangelicals” are easily led astray by such people because they don’t open the book and swallow the pills that inoculate us from error.  Are you part of that naïve crowd?  Truth is the cure for error, not merely the possession of it.  Do you actually know the truths of Scripture, or are you content to simply have it lying around the house?

Turn with me to 2 Peter, chapter 2.
1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Kids, do you know what the word “exploit” means?  “In their greed they will exploit you with false words.“ False teachers on Christian television say that if people will send them money, God will bless the people who send it.  They use Bible verses and twist the meaning of the words to make them say something the Bible doesn’t really say.  So (and now I’m going to name the names) people like Benny Hinn tell sick people to send him money.  He then promises those sick people that God will make them well, and God will give them much more money than they send to Benny Hinn.  That is a lie.  Benny Hinn exploits people by taking advantage of them to make himself rich.  Benny Hinn is a false teacher.  

The Bible has something to say about people like Benny Hinn and Gloria Copeland and Kenneth Copeland and T.D. Jakes and many others like them.  “Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”  People who pretend to be Christians and exploit people for their money will be judged by God.

Not all false teachers are easy to detect.  How do we recognize them?  How do we defend ourselves against such people?  By using the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.  Paul says in Ephesians that we have a spiritual weapon against lies which is the truth of God’s word, the Bible.

Now all good soldiers who carry swords have something they put their sword into called a sheath.  Let’s suppose you have an army of 10,000 good soldiers with sharp swords, and they go up against another army of 1,000 soldiers with sharp swords.  Who do you think will win the battle?  Probably the army of 10,000.  
But now suppose the army of 10,000 never pull their swords out of the sheath?  Suppose they said, “We are armed and dangerous because we all have razor-sharp swords at our sides, and we know how to use them!”, but they never actually draw their swords?  Who will win the battle?  The army of 1000.

It is not enough to possess a superior weapon.  It has to be used.  The Scriptures are like a 50 gazillion megaton, dilithium crystal-powered ray gun that can destroy ANYTHING.  But if you never turn it on!!???  What good is it?  Having the Bible is not the same as opening the Bible and knowing the Bible.  

So I ask you the question again,  Are you actually protecting yourself and your family from false teachers and doctrinal error?  Or are you simply armed to the teeth with the Bible, but not particularly dangerous because you don’t know how, or you just never use it?

Another question we might ask is, “How dangerous can it be to believe religious liars?”  Does the word “Jonestown” ring a bell?  In 1978, Rev. Jim Jones, a Communist, was responsible for “the largest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001.“  909 people died in a mass suicide because of loyalty to him and to Communism. ²  He was a false teacher.

Some of you remember the Heaven’s Gate cult.  Heaven's Gate members believed that the planet Earth was about to be recycled, and that the only chance to survive was to leave it immediately.  The group believed in several paths for a person to leave the Earth and survive before the "recycling", one of which was hating this world strongly enough: "It is also possible that part of our test of faith is our hating this world, even our flesh body, to the extent to be willing to leave it without any proof of the Next Level's existence".  [Thirty-nine] of the group members . . . were found dead in a rented mansion in . . . Rancho Santa Fe, California, on March 26, 1997.  They were found lying neatly in their own bunk beds, with their faces and torsos covered by a square, purple cloth. Each member carried a five dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets. All 39 were dressed in identical black shirts and sweat pants, brand new black-and-white Nike athletic shoes, and armband patches reading Heaven's Gate Away Team.  The group's end coincided with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp.” ³

So does it really matter that much what religious views people hold?  Aren’t all religious views equally valid?  There is one very interesting belief that the people in Jonestown and the people in the Heaven’s Gate Cult held in common: they believed the next life was better than life here in this world.  I believe that too!  Do you believe that?  Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in a future Paradise.  Mormons believe the faithful get their own planets.  

Many religions teach reincarnation, a progression (hopefully, but not necessarily) of lives, of births and deaths and rebirths, until one finally reaches perfection and Nirvana.  Is that true?  If it is true, then we ought to believe it.  Whatever the truth is, that is what we need.  

“This doctrine is a central tenet within the majority of Indian religious traditions, such as Hinduism (including Yoga, Vaishnavism, and Shaivism) and Jainism.  Many modern Neopagans also believe in reincarnation as do some New Age movements, along with followers of Spiritism, practitioners of certain African traditions, and students of esoteric philosophies such as Kabbalah, and Gnostic and Esoteric Christianity.” ⁴  Oh.  So there are “Christians” who believe in reincarnation.

There always has been, since the Garden of Eden, and there always will be until the end of the world, deceivers and false teachers whose purpose is to gather followers to themselves and to prevent people from becoming followers of Jesus Christ.  It is the goal of the Father of lies and of liars, Satan, to foster doubt and unbelief towards God and His word.  It has been that way ever since the serpent spoke to Eve, and it will be that way until the Lord Jesus puts all His enemies under His feet.  Now either that is true and the Bible is true, or I am a liar and the Bible is an incredibly successful and powerful fake.

The only defense against falsehood is truth.  And obviously, we believe the Scriptures are that truth.  Why do we believe that?  Because of all my plausible arguments?  Because Momma and Daddy believed it?  Because we had an out-of-body experience?  Because if we don’t believe it we could be tortured and killed by those who do?

One reason why we believe the Bible is true because Jesus Christ really did rise from the dead.  That is not someone’s opinion, and it isn’t a fable.  It was an event in history that actually took place and was attested to by hundreds of witnesses.  That is compelling evidence for the truthfulness of the entire Bible.  

Secondly, we believe the Bible is true because it makes sense.  Admittedly, there are many fantastic stories in the Scriptures that cause us to wonder.  A world-wide flood?  I have some questions about that whole thing.  Creation in six days?  Wow.  That is hard for some people to accept, and I understand that.  But we are talking about a God that is omnipotent.  If you are omnipotent, then none of these things are a problem.  Nothing is a problem when you’re omnipotent!

The real reason we believe these things are true and other religions are false is because of the reality of regeneration, or the new birth.  The genuine Christian knows the Bible is true because it was the message of the Gospel that granted them life from the dead.  And we know that is a totally subjective reason for believing the Bible.  Even so, it is a real and compelling reason to believe the Bible is the Word of God, the truth.

In this book, we have the truth given to us by God Himself.  That is a pretty wild claim.  But this is where we stand.  And we believe that whatever contradicts this book is false.  Everything must be weighed against the teachings of the Scriptures.  That is Paul’s struggle for the Colossians, to inform them, and to equip them against those who would seek to discredit the Person of Jesus Christ and His work of redemption upon the cross.     

Jesus Christ really was sent from God.  He really is everything the Bible says He is.  He is our Creator and our Redeemer.  He is the Savior of all who believe.  It is through Him alone that we are granted eternal life.  It is by His death alone that the wrath of God against our sin is satisfied.  It is by His life that we have hope for eternity.  It is by His work that we are made children of God.  It is by the grace of God through Jesus Christ that we are saved.

“I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.  For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. ”    

Don’t be naïve.  Don’t fall for those smooth talkers with their impressive theological constructs. Let’s be sure we make use of what we have been given for the spiritual battle against deception: The truth of the Word of God.

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1. http://steve.poling.info/theofun.html  Thanks, Steve!
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown_massacre
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_(cult)
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation  “Esoteric Christianity is a term which refers to an ensemble of spiritual currents which regard Christianity as a mystery religion, and profess the existence and possession of certain esoteric doctrines or practices, hidden from the public but accessible only to a narrow circle of "enlightened", "initiated", or highly educated people.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_Christianity)