Beware of Man’s Traditions

The early apostles constantly warned of false doctrines being taught to the new Christians. Since past is prologue and since there is nothing new under the sun, their warnings are valid for us in these last days.

A great deception was already sweeping through the little congregations scattered over the Mediterranean world. Paul is warning the Colossians. Walk in Christ the way you have been taught by His true teachers. And don’t be spoiled by men “through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2: 6-8).

What were they teaching? What were these “traditions of men” that were obviously false and spiritually injurious to young Christians? What was this worldly thinking that is so deceiving?

In other words, those who believe man’s traditions about Christ will try to deceive you concerning the Savior. Beware of them, Paul is saying. All these seemingly innocuous platitudes about Christ will have “grand” intentions, but they will hurt the hearers. Beware.

Then in the next verse,  Paul counters the deceptive traditions that they were teaching. “For in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (v. 9). Huh? At first glance, this does not seem to go with the previous three verses, but it has everything to do with them. For man’s philosophy and traditions are the opposite of the truth found in this verse.

First, the man Christ Jesus (Yahshua) had dwelling in Him the fullness of the Godhead. That means that the Father Yahweh dwelt fully in Christ. The Spirit dwelt fully in Christ. But man’s tradition teaches that Christ was only one person out of the three of the Tri-une God. They do not teach that Yahweh dwelt and walked around in the man Christ, even though He constantly told bystanders that it was the Father within Him that was doing the miracles.

“And you are complete in Christ, which is the head of all principality and power” (v. 10). Man’s tradition teaches that we need a priest to intercede for us and saints to pray to, that we need a church house and elders and a pastor and ceremonies and candles and tithes and offerings, et al.

And man’s traditions don’t teach that baptism is more than an outward show that you are joining the church. They don’t teach you that he that is “baptized into Christ is baptized into His death. “We are buried with Christ by baptism” so that our old sinful heart and spirit “might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Col. 2: 11-12; Rom. 6: 1-12).

The churches say you have to be baptized to show obedience to Christ. But they don’t have the spiritual depth to explain that the old sinful self is cut out without man’s hands by faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The old sin guilt and desire to sin is cut out of our spirit and is replaced by a portion of His Spirit, resulting in a miracle heart transplant!

Sadly, in fact, man’s traditions teach just the opposite. They teach, You are a sinner saved by grace, and you will always be a sinner. And they say this with pride. But the apostles taught that you can in Him be free from sin (I John 3: 9).
Man’s teachings say that you cannot grow spiritually to eventually be like Christ. Their teachings, in a word, stunt a Christian’s growth like a seedling in the garden wilts under a sunless sky and brackish water.

These are some of the traditions of men that Paul warns us of. We must beware in order to grow up unto Him. For they will deceive and beguile and spoil the wonderful future that God has for those who believe His promises to us.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

 

 

Gay Marriage–A Stench in God’s Nostrils

The Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage fulfills perfectly this passage: “Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Man’s secular governments have rejected the King of glory. They say, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” Consequently, they do what they think is right and do not consult God their Creator as to His thoughts on marriage (Judges 21: 25; Lk 19: 14).

Yet, they say that Christ was a great teacher. But they will not obey His teachings. Those in favor of gay marriage are judging the issue from their own vantage point. But mankind’s morality comes from God’s viewpoint.

Christ’s Teaching on Marriage

Christ told the corrupted Pharisees, “Have you not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh?”

You secular progressives out there, have you not read in Genesis where “God created man in His own image…male and female created He them” (Gen. 1: 27). That bears repeating. Man was created by God in God’s own image. God fashioned man as a male-female joining. This is a likeness of God and His wife, Wisdom.

Proverbs admonishes, “My son, hear the instruction of thy Father, and forsake not the law of thy Mother (1: 8). Our spiritual Mother is Wisdom, which is the “fear of Yahweh (the LORD). “Fear” is reverential awe of God. And Yahweh possessed our Mother Wisdom “in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was…I was by Him…and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him” (Prov. 8: 22-30).

This is our spiritual Mother speaking to us.  Wisdom is crying out to us to turn away from the evil and to cleave to that which is good. When we are in reverential awe of the great Creator Father, then we will “hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate” (Prov. 8: 13).

God Created Us in This Image–In the Likeness of Himself and Wisdom

Christ continues His teaching on marriage. God in the beginning made them male and female, which is the likeness of our Father and our Mother, Wisdom. “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh….What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” Mankind was to emulate God’s spiritual relationship with our Mother Wisdom (Mt. 19: 4-6).

God has joined together in His likeness only male and female. Not male and male. Not female and female. This is God’s vantage point. This is how He sees it. He created it this way. Gay marriage is an attack on the very heart of God. That is the reason it is so sinful in God’s eyes.

Woe Unto the Pastors Who Lead the Sheep Astray

Those who support homosexual marriage are wringing the nose of God–especially churchianity’s pastors and priests.  They are burning fetid incense. In Christ’s stead they perform gay weddings, which is totally against Christ’s teachings. And now the secular governments of man give political backing to such a stinking affront.

For all this, I fear that a sword is coming on the land. That sword will be permitted by Yahweh Himself. The men of Sodom wanted to have sex with the two angels visiting Lot. Lot told them, “Do not so wickedly…I have two daughters which have not known man; let me bring them out unto you, and do to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing.” The sodomites rushed upon them, and the two angels had to blind them in order to deliver Lot and his family from them. After getting clear of the city, “the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire…” The stench of homosexuality wafted no more, being extinguished by the sulfurous cataclysm that enveloped them (Genesis 19: 1-24).

Judgment is coming upon our nation who has turned away from God, like the children of Israel did in olden times. The things that happened to them are written down to admonish us. When they sinned against Him, He permitted oppression to come upon them.

His judgement may be an economic collapse of the US dollar. Perhaps it will be a war, an asteroid, an earthquake, civil unrest, or all of the above. But this Supreme Court decision is a stench in God’s nostrils. And when He comes to the end of His patience with the evil inclinations of His people, severe judgement will come.

We as a nation and world must repent. But I know that all of us who stand up against this abomination–our words will be rejected, as He foretold. “If they rejected Me, they will reject you.”

Yet, He also said that a remnant will respond and the rest were blinded. We who see, then, must brace ourselves for the rocky days of judgement that shall come. We must examine ourselves and “strengthen the things that remain” to be done.

President Obama has already taken the words “under God” out of the pledge. The gay marriage ruling by the Supreme Court has in effect replaced those words with “against God.”

 

 

Is Christ Divided?

Obviously  not.  And neither are the true members of His spiritual body, the church.  Yet, in Christendom divisions abound, as they did in Paul’s day.

“We are the true church,” say the Roman Catholics.  “No, we are,” say the Baptists.  “We are the Church of Christ!”  “No, we are following Luther.”  “We are following Wesley.”

Please.  2,600 different denominations, each with a different take on Christ.  Divisions abound.  And they all claim to be following the words of the Bible, yet many do not obey its words: “I beseech you…that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you…that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Corinthians 1: 10).

The same mind.  Whose mind?  The mind of Christ.  Since Christ is not divided, then those who really have His Spirit will not be divided either.  “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom 8: 9).  If we are His, then we will have His Spirit.  And if we have His Spirit, we will have His mind, and we will not be divided.

Because of the divisions, Paul said that he would have to teach them the basics: the preaching of the cross.  This is what is lacking in Christianity today.  They have not been taught that they must surrender their own egos to the death of the cross.  They must identify their sin with the dying Christ who took upon Him the sin of the world that day at Calvary.

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.  For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom 6: 6-7).   The old heart dies with Christ, and then He gives us a new heart by faith in His resurrection.  If we can believe that Christ was raised from the dead, can we not also believe that His Spirit is now raised up in us, thus freeing us from sin and sinning?

If all Christians had this experience of deliverance from sin and sinning, then the divisions would evaporate.  We would all join hands in grateful fellowship, sharing His Spirit among us.  For “there is one body, and one Spirit” (Eph. 4: 4).  That one body is Christ’s one body of believers, which have His Spirit.

And that Spirit only comes into us after we believe that our old self  has died on the cross, and then believe that He has been raised up again in us!  That will get rid of all the divisions.   Kenneth Wayne Hancock