Sermon Tone Analysis

We do not have to live very long to know that it is easy to fool people, and that it is very easy to be fooled ourselves.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, the great preacher and writer, used to illustrate this by telling of a practical joke which he and his teenaged friends played on some unsuspecting passersby in a large city.

His group stood on a busy street corner and stared intently into the air.

One of them pointed, while another said (loudly enough to be overheard), “It is not.”

A third friend argued, “It is so!”

At this, one or two people stopped and began to look up in the same direction as Barnhouse and his friends.

As the argument grew more heated, others stopped to gaze fixedly at the point his group discussed.

Then, one by one, Barnhouse and his friends quietly slipped out of the crowd and gathered a few yards away to watch the results.

By this time, some fifteen people were looking into the air.

The crowd changed as new passersby came along and joined the group and those who had been staring longest left.

Twenty minutes later several people were still looking upward.

Several others had gone off to the side and were leaning against a building, looking up for something that was not there and never had been.

About his childhood trick, Barnhouse observed:

That little incident is a good illustration of all the earth-born religions.

People talk about having faith; they tell you to look in a direction where there is absolutely nothing.

Some people are so desperately in need of seeing something that they will look till they are almost blind, yet they never catch a glimpse of anything real.

Sometimes we can be so desperate for our sin, that we will look everywhere and anywhere to find justification for it.

We will look to where there is nothing hoping to find something.

And we will believe what we know to be a lie just because they are saying what we wanna hear.

We believe what anyone will say as long as it is plausible and gives us a lie that we can believe.

Remember what Mr. Miagi said to the Karate kid… “lie becomes truth only if someone wants to believe it.”

I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine about a certain prosperity gospel teacher we were going over a certain point and I said to him, you know that it is not true.

Its deceptive.

He said I know, I just like believing that it is true even though I know it is not.

I helps me get up in the morning.

But the bad thing about this… the empty philosophies that promise hope when there is no hope at all, is actually like being locked in a cage.

When you find that you want to get out you can’t … there is is reason for this.

Let’s find out why...

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

Human Tradition

The Elementals

Not of Christ

The Slavery

Spirit of Liberty

The first thing we will look at today is the empty philosophy that comes from human tradition.

Second, the empty philosophy that comes from elemental spirits.

Third, we we will see how the empty philosophy is not at all form Christ. Fourth, we will see how getting caught is a slavery and it is hard to get out of.

Finally, we will see that for Christians today we can rejoice because whom the son has set free is free indeed.

Thesis: Though sin, the pattern of this world, and the false teachers of this world cause us to be caught and enslaved to its philosophy, it is the truth of scripture and the power of the Spirit of liberty that will set us free in Christ to live and move and have our being rejoicing in Christ and Christ alone.

I. Human Tradition

- What comes from the mind of men.

A. Remember that Paul and Timothy are writing to the Colossians to encourage them to hold on to the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ and to no be deceived by the false teachers to depart from what they have been taught.

And there is a threat.

And we need to see this today.

There is a threat to Christo-centric living.

And it is called false teaching.

B. It is the false teaching of the false teachers out there that will rip you from true Christo-centric living or being “in Christ.”

If we are gonna continue to live in Christ, we need to hold onto the authentic teaching about Christ and his Lordship that we had already received from the scriptures.

C. What you are hearing in this world is called philosophies and empty deceit.

The first thing Paul makes is that it is deceit.

It is not true but there is a high sounding convincing aspect to it.

The NLT calls it high sounding nonsense.

It sounds great.

Really great.

You will hear things from those who have a large platform.

Those who have the highest of degrees.

Those who have much deep and profound brain things inside of their heads.

And what Paul and Timothy are saying is that these things, as high and smart as they may sound, are actually nonsense.

Did you ever watch the show on how the universe came to be, by Stephen Hawking?

D. It is nonsense.

It is meant to be deceiving.

And these philosophies and deceptions are followed by three prepositions… using the same preposition kata … The empty deceit comes from the mind of man.

This clearly carries the accusation that Jesus instilled on the Pharisees that they did not rely on the word of God but on their own traditions.

The thing that is being seen as high and lofty being handed down from one person to another is actually human in origin.

What you have been taught about Christ comes from God and everything else is from the mind of man.

Dr. Douglas Moo writes, What is clear is that the description is pejorative: the “philosophy” is the product of mere human speculation and does not put its adherents in touch with divine truth.

E. This is why it is important to make sure what we are taking in and learning is truly from the scriptures and the rightly divided scriptures.

Because it is the very word of God and don’t we want to believe what God says and not what man is telling us?

F. Mankind is very good at figuring out human motivation especially when it comes to desire.

Remember I have a minor in psychology.

I learned that retail companies hire psychologists to help them train their sales people.

If companies can learn more about human behavior and what motivates us, we can better tap into that to urge them to buy our product, vote for me, or even come to my church or give money to my ministry.

G. Mankind is very good at getting us to believe what it teaches.

The world will even use religion as a means to make money.

But of course we don’t think that they are wrong because we are deceived.

That is the problem.

But if you think thats it… no way.

II.

The Elementals

- The elemental spirits or demons.

A. It seems to be compounded of the general evolution of the greek stoicheia which essentially began as referring to the basic elements of the world… earth wind fire and water.

Evolving to the spirits over these elements.

The earth god, the wind god, the fire god and the water god.

And even in hellenistic jewish circles we see the application to spiritual powers.

Either way, all together, it seems that Paul is talking about philosophies and empty deceit that come from the mind of men and here basically demons.

B. In other words, the philosophy was demon controlled.

They were wanting to bring the Colossians back to the bondage that they were in before Christ.

C.

Many of the false teachers of today will accuse those who opposed their teaching as being influenced by demons.

But here we see the apostle Paul accusing those who do not teach the truth about Christ, who depreciate his supremacy, and who downgrade His sufficiency, as those who teach what is controlled by demons.

The elemental spirits.

But here is the deepest cutting part of the verse today.

III.

Not of Christ

- The most demeaning thing about what they teach.

A. They are teaching doctrines and philosophies that do not depend on Christ.

This is the big picture accusation of what it means to teach that there is anything at all remotely helpful to life and godliness that do not depend on Christ.

They are teaching that Christ and His Gospel is not enough and if that is the case then they are teaching what is opposite of what Christ has taught.

B. Everything in Christianity depends on Christ.

This is why we are soooo adamant about making sure that Christ is preached every single Sunday.