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Beware Lest Any Man Spoil You

Bro. Mike Miller
(Posted 11/29/2004)

Colossians 2:8 "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

Father, thank you for the good day, and Lord, I've enjoyed the day, and it's been a blessing, and a help to me, and Lord, an encouragement to me. And I thank you for allowing us to be here with our friends and family. It feels just like family, and Lord, I thank you for that. I thank you for that great blessing of my life, and so Lord, I ask you tonight to bless the Word of God. Lord, you know we stand here, and I'm getting worse as I get older about having my thoughts collected, and able to get across with my tongue what I understand and what I know. It's hard for me to communicate it. So, Lord, Holy Spirit, I pray that you'd take the Word of God, and apply it, and make it understandable, that it might be a help, that it might rescue somebody from slipping off into the ditch, and being ruined. There are young people and children, as well as everybody else, Lord just help us, you know the need of every heart, and I pray you'd do the work that needs to be done, because without you, I know that we can do nothing. Lord, we love you. Thank you for your mercy and your kindness to us. In Jesus name, amen."

He said, "Beware, lest any man spoil you…" Do you know what it means to be spoiled? Think about that with me for a minute. We talk about spoiling children, and most people get this idea in their mind when you say that, "Well, what we're talking about here, is just giving them everything they want, and so they are just bratty little kids that are hateful and mean," and we think that's what spoiling is. Well, the word spoiled means "to be rendered useless," through injury or some other way. It means, "to corrupt, or to mar, or to cause to decay and perish." You know, I think we take too lightly that word about spoiling children. Spoiling them means ruining them, making them unfit for any use by God, or anybody else. You give them everything they want, you fail to discipline them, and they turn out to be a disaster for everybody, a burden for everybody, including you. So that's a heavy word, spoiled.

It also means, "to be stripped of all your possessions, and things of value," like in a war. You know, when a war is over, it talked about, they took the spoil. In other words, when the war ended, whoever won got everything the other guy had. You know why? Because they were usually all dead and didn't need it anyway. That's the way they used to fight wars. That's the way wars ought to still be fought. If we had grit and our senses about us, that's what we'd do. I don't believe in just slapping back and forth, and fighting like girls. That's where we're at in this world. You do not have any peace, the fighting goes on forever and ever that way. But when you fight to vanquish the enemy, there will be peace. I was thinking the other day, while I was listening to a guy talking about when he was in the war, about the atmosphere here in this country when the war ended. When they came home, they were telling about the atmosphere, and I was thinking about that. Some of you are old enough to remember. I wasn't here yet, but there was Victory, real victory! We won! We vanquished the enemy!

Back to being spoiled... He warns us here not to be spoiled. "…through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, and after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." It means to be deceived, or seduced, and drawn away from virtue to iniquity. Now, there is a danger of being messed up until you're of no use. We're in danger of being spoiled by the world, by listening to the world. It amazes me when I go to church, and look around at the worldliness in the church. If you preach for a few years, and look at people's faces, it doesn't take long and you can tell when somebody has been down this road. If they sit and watch television all the time, you can tell it when you preach to them. All you've got to do is just touch one or two subjects, and you'll see the disgust on their face, and they'll roll their eyes like, "this guy is an idiot, he doesn't know what he's talking about. The soap operas, and the news anchors, everybody on television told me different." That's the danger of that. That's the major input. And they say, "well, we turn it off when they cuss." Well it cussed anyway and you already heard it. "We don't allow any nakedness on it, and we don't allow all that." No, I don't believe that to start with, but that's not the real danger and peril that you're putting yourself and your family in when you pump that stuff in through the TV. It's the philosophy that they're putting into your mind. They're brainwashing you, and you don't even know it. By looking and listening to them, your resolve weakens. Your mind changes. What was an abomination to you, after you look at it one, two, three times, the edge is off of it. It just doesn't shock you anymore, and pretty soon you're passive toward it. Then not long after that, you accepting it. Spoiled through the philosophy of the world.

Philosophy is the explanation of the reason of things. You have a philosophy. You say, "that's a big word," well it's a big word for me too, but it's there. You have your ideas about the reasons for things. Philosophy starts with questions, such as: What? Why? How? Those are some of the first words little children start using when their reasoning starts developing. "Why?" All little kids do that, don't they? You can say, "because I said so," but that doesn't solve it. That doesn't answer their question, they want to know why. That's in us, and God put it in there. It's not something bad to ask, "Why?" He wants us to understand. But if you go to the wrong place to get an answer, and you're going to get messed up, you're going to get spoiled. "How did I get here, and what am I doing here, and where am I going?" That's what all the scientists are about, but it's all changed in our day, and what they're really about is trying to disprove God. That's why they're going to Mars. Did you ever think about that. I think it's fascinating, but all they're concerned about is trying to find some kind of bug, or creature, and they think that would prove that God didn't make this world. They think that will prove that the Bible doesn't mean anything. That's the purpose of all of that. It really is their purpose, and they're so full of nonsense when it comes to explaining things. I read the other day where they said they found a dinosaur in China, and it was asleep. Well, it died fast, because it was asleep, all curled up. They said they knew one thing for sure, it died fast. Well, they were right about that, the flood happened fast. They said it was so clear, the way it was laying proved that the birds had evolved from the dinosaurs, they were the ancestors of the birds we have now. How foolish can you get? "…professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." They deny God, they go to the wrong places to find answers to their questions. You say, "everybody wonders about that stuff." Well there are answers, but you're not going to find them in the universities, you're not going to find it there. You're not going to find it on the Discovery Channel, or anywhere else on television. They are not going to tell you the truth. The first thing out of their mouth is going to be to deny God, and to try to convince you that God didn't have anything to do with it, it just happened. The Bible says, "… the Heavens are going to pass away with a loud noise," see the "big bang" is true, but they've got it on the wrong end of the scale. It's going to happen one of these days, but they're looking at it the wrong way.

Philosophy is a system of beliefs, or a set of views about certain subjects, and you can divide it into three things: Number 1: Theology- things that pertain to God. Everybody has their ideas about God, don't they? You ask anybody you want to and they'll tell you right now what they think of God, what they think He's like. Most of the time, it's just something they've made up in their own foolish mind, according to their sin. Everybody has an idea about God. They tell you what they think He's like. They have opinions about what's right and wrong, and the Bible, and everything. Well, they come to those conclusions from somewhere. They asked questions, they studied, they read books, they did something, or they watched television to get their answers. That's where most people get their information.

Physics is another area. That's just everything to do with nature, and creation. People look at it, and they make up their mind about how it came to pass, and how it got here. One guy will look at a rock, and say, "ooh, it's billions of years old, that rock has probably been laying there billions of years! Wow!" And the next guy will say, "It's just a rock, don't get so worked up about it, it's just a rock." But everybody has their ideas about all this. You know, Darwin looked at a monkey and said, "hey, that looks like my Uncle John," he came to some false conclusions, and he passed them on, and a bunch of people swallowed it, and said, "yeah!"

So the whole world is messed up, and a lot of so-called Christians believe that everything just came about. They believe in theistic evolution, that it just happened, or evolved, but God created it and started it. Did you know that James Dobson believes that everything started with the big bang, and then from there it just evolved, but God put everything there for the Big Bang. I don't believe that, I don't believe that's the way it happened, that's not what the Bible says. It says that He spoke everything into existence, He created everything by the word of His power. He said in the last days, they're going to come, and they're going to deny that, the scoffers are, that's the thing they're going to deny. They are going to be willingly ignorant that "…that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water..." They're going to be ignorant of that. They've been spoiled through the philosophy of the world. That's why it's no good to send kids off to the public school, because that's what they're going to learn there, along with a bunch of other rotten stuff.

Ethics is the third thing. Do you remember when Bill Clinton was elected President, and he said, "This is going to be the most ethical administration in history"? Do you remember that? He did say that. What did he mean? He meant, "We're going to be right, we're going to do things right, we're not going to do anything wrong." Add that to the list of lies. Ethics means moral issues, what's right and wrong. You've got a philosophy. Every person has a philosophy about what's right and wrong. Everybody doesn't agree on what's right and wrong. It shouldn't be that way, because we've got a book that tells us. We've got a God that lives in us. He's there to lead us into all truth, so there shouldn't be any confusion. The only reason for confusion would be that some folks have their ear tuned to the world instead of to the Word of God, and they're getting their philosophy and making up their mind about these things from that information instead of from the Bible. So the world has it's own explanations and views on these things, and they're almost always in conflict with the Word of God. Almost always the world is going to be one way, and God is going to be the other way. Their answer is going to conflict with the Word of God, and the philosophies of the world are not designed to lead to righteousness, are they? Do you know what their answers are to AIDS, and all the problems such as immorality? Education. It doesn't work, does it? No, it's a heart problem. It's a moral problem, and you're not going to fix it with pills. And you're not going to fix it with books, or anything like that. You're going to have to fix it in the heart. There's only one that can do that, and that is God - through His Word. The world doesn't formulate their ideas to help people live right, they always lead them to evil.

This evolution thing, what does it lead to? I read where they said that Hitler was really a true evolutionist, he really did believe that men were nothing more than animals. That's why he made belts, and lampshades, and wallets and other stuff out of their hide. They were no more than an animal. That kind of philosophy, that kind of understanding about how everything came to be, that's why they act like animals. That's why if I'm no more than a rock, or a piece of slime, then I'm not going to be inspired to do any better than a dog, or a hog, am I? No! But the Bible teaches us to look up. And we're looking up to a Heavenly Father that is high and holy, and much more than we are. And we're offered the power to become the sons of God through Christ. There's a whole lot of difference in that philosophy. One leads to righteousness, one leads you up, and the other just leads you downward into despair, and filth, and rottenness, and evil.

Their ideas of God are not in agreement with the revelation that we have of Him in the Bible. The Bible tells us what God is like, but people say, "you mean to tell me God told Saul to go there and kill all of those Amalekites? And kill everything that breathed? Babies?" Yes, He sure did! "Women?" Yes, that's what He said. "Even the animals?" "Well, I just don't believe in a God like that!" Well, they've been listening to something else that spoiled them. Now they can't accept what the Bible says about God, because they have a preconceived idea of God. They are spoiled. How did they get spoiled? Through the philosophy of the world - listening to the wrong voices.

You better be careful who you listen to. You better be careful who your children listen to. You better be diligent who they listen to. Their ideas about nature are all wrong. They are warped and mixed up, because they try to explain everything while excluding God, who created it all. Their ideas about moral right and wrong are depraved, because they are sinners, and sinners are depraved because of their sin. It makes them crazy, they don't think right anymore. Their thinking is influenced by their sin. Tell me how in the world that a woman could reason that it's right to kill her baby. How can you even think such a thing? One politician said, "we're all God's children." That isn't what Jesus said. He told that bunch of Pharisees, "Your father is the devil and you are children of the devil." Not everyone is a child of God. How can somebody come up with that kind of thinking? I read the other day there was a woman in Florida who was a prostitute, and she was using Roe v. Wade to defend herself. She said a woman's body was hers and she could do what she wanted to with it. Now what are they going to do? That's the law. "How can you tell me I can't be a prostitute and at the same time tell me I have a right to kill a baby because it has "invaded" my body?" I also read that there's a woman campaigning, and saying we better not let this election go the wrong way, because if it does then rape will be legal, for women to be violated. She is using that same reasoning, that if they can stop her from killing that baby, then women don't have any control over their bodies. Yes, they do have control of their bodies! They don't have to go out and act like an alley cat. That's the way it is. They say, "well, what about those cases of rape and incest, etc?" Simple! They shouldn't kill the baby, they should kill the rapist. Kill that guy, don't kill the poor innocent baby, the baby isn't the guilty one.

They're kind of messed up in their philosophy, wouldn't you say? The way they think, it's kind of crazy. I see it in church everywhere. I talk to people who say they're Christians, say they believe the Bible, and you'll get the worst nonsense out of them that you ever heard in your life. I know immediately where it comes from. I've had people that I've preached to, that swell up at me over any little thing that I'd say. I'd say something not even realizing that I said it, just preaching the Truth, the Bible, the way it says things. And they get mad. Well, they had heard different on Oprah Winfrey. They've been watching that trash and she had influenced their mind. They watch that junk and they get in their mind the things they hear, such as: "they don't have the right to push you around, everybody's their own boss, and you've got a right to think for yourself…." No preacher is going to tell them anything. God Himself isn't going to tell them anything. They know all they need to know - they think. They try to take care of all the sin, and the wrong, and the guilt. They try to do away with it, without anything to do with the blood of Christ.

The world is kind of in a mess, isn't it? Lawlessness reigns. They're trying to make laws to control everything, and they don't want God's law. The Ten Commandments is an abomination to the world. Well, isn't that what the Bible says? That the righteous are an abomination to the wicked? And the wicked are an abomination to the righteous? We don't get along with them, because we don't see things the same way. They don't want God's simple Ten Commandments, so they've got books, and books, and books. We pay those jokers to sit up there and get drunk, and be immoral, and make more laws for us to follow. They've got books, and books, and they'll make a law, and say, "Now, this is what everybody has to obey." Well, then it messes up something else, so they've got to run over here and make a dozen new laws to cover that. Men just get in more of a mess trying to fix all these problems themselves instead of just submitting to God. You can't live by rules, and rules, and rules. Men cannot govern themselves without God. They can't do it, it's a mess. If we listen to the world's philosophies, we're in danger of being spoiled, ruined and rendered useless, and corrupted, and drawn away from virtue into iniquity.

They are determined that we're going to listen to their philosophies. They are going to make us listen, aren't they? Isn't that the battle that's going on? They are determined to force us to listen to their philosophies, that's what all the hate crime things are about. Have you ever noticed that it's only Christians who are the problem here? A sodomite can get up, and they can attack churches - they do it all the time. They did it again awhile back, and nothing was done to them. They can spit on and deface a church, they can harass the people going in and out, but they tell me that a preacher can't stand in the pulpit and say it's wrong, or read Romans 1, or anything in the law of God that says it's an abomination, or he's guilty of a hate crime. Canada is about to put them in jail, if they haven't already. In Europe a preacher DID go to jail recently, because he preached against that sin. They mean for us to listen and accept what they believe about it. They're going to influence us one way or another.

I just don't go along with that. I believe the church belongs to God. I believe that the men of God ought to do just what those priests did when Uziah went into the temple and said, "I'll do this, boys, step back." And they said, "You're not going to do it King, you're not qualified for this." He said, "Oh, yes I am," and they said, "Oh, no you aren't." They hauled him out, king or not, and put him out of the house of God. They've got no right to those things, and they've got no right controlling the preacher. I don't believe they will control any real man of God that's called of God. I don't believe he'll back up and say, "Well, I couldn't do it, because they said I couldn't say it…."

They're determined that we're going to listen, and all the media, and the educational system, and even the churches are pouring forth the philosophy of the world. They sure are! A preacher said the other night, "The purpose driven life…," that's the big deal, the big rave, everybody is all exited about that. I don't know much about it at all because I don't follow after things like that. But anything that all the world goes after, there isn't any use in me following after it, because I know it's wrong. But this preacher said, "…they go their forty days, and do all they do, and come out as worldly as they were before they went into it," so it can't be of God. He's right! It's nothing but psychology, and mind games, and mind over matter, and all that junk. It's the same as Norman Vincent Peal and all that, it's just mind stuff, foolishness. It's not spiritual, it's not obedience to God. It's not just trusting the truth, and believing the truth. It's you taking control and doing things. You do this - and this will happen. That's the way witchcraft and stuff works, isn't it? It's just little magical formulas. If you do this, and this, and this…this is what happens. Well, serving God and being a spiritual Christian is more than that. It's not just a recipe that you can concoct and make certain things happen. They're pouring forth this philosophy of the world, and we're exposed to it in everything we see and hear.

You can't get any kind of Sunday school literature without getting the worldly dress, the worldly attitude. They're saying more than you think with those pictures and drawings. We would use Sunday school literature just for the little kids, and we ordered it from the only place I knew that used the King James Version. We get mail that advertises that stuff, and they will show a "Christian" family on the front page. Well, mama's hair is not long, and she's got her pants on. Daddy is the little wimp, with his shorts on, setting beside her or behind her. The children are there, they look like unisex critters, and they don't even look like children. And they are saying more, much more with that! They are contradicting everything about God's way. And let me remind you, that is why God destroyed the world in Noah's day. He said, "they have corrupted my way. All flesh has corrupted my way…" They had turned away from God's order, and God's way for doing things, and that's why God drowned them all. He destroyed the world, and here we are, right back in the same condition again.

That philosophy of the world is coming into all the churches. Now Sunday school is a big party. I see them, they just eat, and drink, and be merry, that's what they do in Sunday school. They think they have the answers for all that is wrong in the world, and a solution to every problem. You've been hearing all the politicians in this election. I'll be glad when it's over, I get sick of hearing lies and junk. They've got an answer for every problem. Did you see where one of the guys running said if so and so is elected president, "…people like Christopher Reeves will get up out of that wheel chair and walk, we're going to take care of all these diseases like Parkinson's, and all of these." You don't believe that, do you? Isn't that foolishness? They think they've got the answer to every problem, they'll tell you that. And pity the poor soul who would believe such junk from any politician that makes such crazy, wild promises. By the way, you can go to the communist party's website and see who they are for, try that. Just get on the Internet and type in cpusa.org, and see who they're supporting. Are you on their side? They think they have the answers for all that's wrong in the world.

We're under pressure from family. Do any of you every get under pressure from your family to just hedge a little bit, and not be so stubborn? Do you get under pressure from your family to accept things that you know are wrong? It's a constant pressure, isn't it? Constant pressure on you to just give a little bit, don't be so hard, don't be so stubborn. But right is right, and wrong is wrong, and you just cannot back up! It pays not to back up. You've got to be loving and kind, you don't have to be mean and ugly about everything, but you stand your ground when you're right, and when you know your are standing with God. You better stand with God, or there is no hope.

We're under pressure at work and from friends, and even so-called Christian brethren. Kind of like this meeting - do you think that preachers don't feel pressure to just let it slide and say, "what difference does it make"? I know that's what a lot of folks sitting in the pew say, "Well, I don't see what the issue is, I just don't see why this is so important. Why can't they just preach about Heaven, and preach salvation, and preach some good things to tickle our intellect? Why do they have to just pick, pick, pick on that?" It would be a lot easier as far as we're concerned to just let it slide. But I was thinking the other day, if the church as a whole had been in the mess it is right now twenty-eight years ago, I never would have gotten saved. It took more than what I see now to get ME saved. So I look at the young people that come into church, and there's no power, and the gospel is watered down to where it doesn't have any kind of power to deliver them, and the preacher will start preaching good, and then he'll just wipe out and erase it all before he gets done. I think, "OH, why don't you just tell them like it is, and hold your ground?" It is important! We're under pressure to give in. I'd have a lot more friends right now that are preachers if I'd just not stood so firmly on some things. There are quite a few people that won't even talk to me, and if they do it's something ugly. They used to call me Brother, and say they loved me, but not now. So, you think it's not tempting for us to just let it slide? That pressure is on all of us as Christians. It's on all of us to give. Christian brethren will put it on you too. Pressure to accept the worldly explanations, and reasons about God, nature, and morality, in spite of what the Bible says. Don't give in to the pressure.

We're in danger of being spoiled by vain deceit. That's what He said in the verse also. Besides the philosophies, there is vain deceit. That just means just plain and simple lies. Have you ever been lied to? It's really bad, when somebody is lying to you, and you know they are lying - that's bad. It's also bad when somebody is lying to you, and you DON'T know they are lying to you. And there's a lot at stake and at risk when you believe their lie. Don't be taken, don't be ruined by vain deceit - lies, outright lies. I kind of believe there might be a few people in this country now who might suspect that Dan Rather would lie to them. Do you reckon? A lot of people wouldn't have believed that a few weeks ago. A guy told me the other day that he was arguing with someone at work about politics and they said, "Well, it was on the news, and the news can't lie." He said, "What are you talking about, man? Haven't you been watching or hearing anything?" They will lie - they will! How rotten! How wicked it is for somebody in that position, with that influence, with that many ears listening to them, to lie and deceive them! To make them go along with them on their rotten agenda. Rotten! Rotten! It ruins people! You can be ruined, you can be spoiled! You can be messed up when you're lied to by the world. And you better believe they will lie to you. That television will lie to you. You go to school, and they will lie to you. Those books and newspapers will lie! They WILL lie to you!

Don't believe everything you see on television, or everything you read in a book or in a newspaper. I see it all the time where I live, it's just a little town in the country, and everybody knows what goes on. There's a newspaper every week, and there will be something going on about every week, and they'll put it in the paper. I know what happened, and the paper will have it all wrong, they'll have the names wrong, the place wrong, and they'll tell it for the truth. And everybody reads that and says, "Well, that's the way it happened, because that's what the paper says." Did you ever tell somebody something and they say, "Well, the paper said this…"? I've seen it so many times. Don't believe everything.

The Bible is the only thing you can really believe, and put all your confidence in. You can read it, and believe it, and rest at night , safe and sound with no problem and no doubt. You don't have to wonder. Everything that comes out of this rotten world you better question. You better not just swallow it hook, line, and sinker. More often we're lied to by the world and they mix just enough truth in with it to make us swallow it. That's the devil's work - that's the way he works. Or it's just misinformation, or wrong information. I don't want to go into details on this, but don't you get sick of hearing the way everything is twisted and distorted in the news, and how they will say something that has a little truth in it, but they'll twist it so that it just makes someone look so bad. It will make the opponent look bad, or it will make Christianity look bad. Every time there's some rotten junk that goes on in a Baptist church, you'll hear about it in the news, and they'll paint it up as bad as they can, won't they? They are rotten! They are under the control of the god of this world. He's a liar, and the father of it. He's a murderer and that's the way he's been from the beginning, and he's controlling them. They will say things that we want to hear in order to get us listening, then they'll slip in the deceit. That's the way the righteous are seduced and spoiled by the world.

We're in real danger of being spoiled by the traditions of men. That's the last thing in the rudiments of the world. Two more things here. He said the pressure is on to go along with the "…traditions of men…," just because that's the way it's been done for so long. It's that way in the church too. There's a lot of things in churches, that just because it's been done for a long time doesn't mean it ought to be done. If it's not in the Bible, ditch it for all I care. It's traditions of men, and they don't mean anything. They're not the most important things and they can spoil you.

I heard someone say recently, the reason they went to a certain church was because they're grandparents were buried in the graveyard there, and they could never go anywhere else. That's pitiful, they can go visit the graveyard, and put flowers on the grave. They don't have to go to church there just because their grandparents' bodies are laying out there in the ground. They aren't there, just their bodies. Many people are Catholic because their parents and grandparents were Catholic. It's traditions of men. There was a woman in Mexico who was a very good woman, she would do anything for us. She was kind. She was a nice lady, but she was a Catholic. You could take the Bible and show her things in there, and then ask her, "Don't you see that priest is lying to you?" and she'd say, "Yes." I'd say, "Then why don't you get out of that church?" She'd say, "You just don't understand, my grandma was in the Catholic church, my great-grandma, all my people all the way back were Catholics, and I can't, I just couldn't…." They are bound by traditions - spoiled. She can see the truth, she can understand the truth, but she is not going to obey it because of traditions of men. You're warned not to do that here in this Scripture. We have had to separate. I got saved years ago, and it separated me from my family, and it separated me from my old friends. It didn't take long, it was just like cutting off a switch. And it wasn't because I did it, they just didn't want anything to do with me, unless they could come and make fun of me, or unless they could come and insult me and talk about me for what I was doing, and what I was believing. They'd say I was in a cult, and I was brainwashed, and all kinds of stuff like that. They didn't want anything to do with me. They wanted me to be like them, and they put the pressure on. They'd say, "we're having a reunion, don't invite him." That doesn't feel too good when the family has a reunion and you find out everybody is invited except you. You know what they're doing? They're putting the pressure on you, saying, "You be like us, or else…you're out." So people find it a lot easier to play religion by following traditions than to be born again and start following Christ.

Do you know what traditions are? They are oral opinions and beliefs, or practices that are passed from one generation to the next. Therefore they are easily twisted and changed to fit the way they want them to be, these traditions of men. Since they're not written down, they're just there. The Word of God is eternal, and written down, it doesn't change. I've got a bunch of relatives, and they are the same bunch that gave me a hard time when I got right with God twenty-eight years ago and started serving God. They ostracized me. They used to come to my house all the time. The day that I committed myself to God, they didn't come back anymore. Now it's been all these years, and Dad got saved about ten years after me, so they ostracized him too.

The rudiments of the world as opposed to Christ: they are a real danger to us. You know what the rudiments of the world are? It's just, the way things are done. "In Him are hid at all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge…," therefore we don't start with the world's ideas, even on basic things. When I got saved, it was a whole new world. Every thought was brought into obedience of Christ. He's able to do that, and that's what He did. My mind started working differently, I started thinking different. I think differently now about everything I look at.

There was a lady that came in our store, she had her husband with her, and he said he was a Christian. She attacked him right off, and she said, "Anytime something comes up, he has to bring his religion into it!" He wouldn't defend himself, so I defended him. I said, "Well, you don't understand what real Christianity is. You've got your "religion" and it's a thing that you've got over on the side, but God changed my mind, and everything about me, and everything that I see, everything that I think about, I see God in everything. Everything that I believe, God has something to do with it. So we can't even stand here and talk without my mind knowing that God's there, He's a part, He's not excluded, everything has to be in agreement with God. So, we're not going to be able to talk about anything if you say I can't bring my religion into it. It's not religion, it's my whole mind, my whole life, my whole being, in Him we live and move and have our being."

So you don't even start with the world's knowledge. You start with God. "In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom, and knowledge…" You start out understanding things with the rudiments, those are the basic things. They're the first principles, or the first things learned of the world. Then you'll reject Christ as a source of all wisdom and knowledge. Did you get that? We were talking about something the other day, it was still dark, and here goes a school bus. They are getting them early now, and younger. They are taking three-year-olds to school now. They want them there so they can get them from the beginning, and get the rudiments of the world in them from the beginning. They're going to be spoiled if the world gets them, and the world gets to put their philosophy in them first, they're ruined. They don't have any business taking three year old children from their mama, and hauling them off for some "who knows what." If we take the world's mindset on these things, we're in big danger of being ruined.

Do you remember Billy Mitchell saying, "If there's such a thing as a worldly Christian, then there has to be a heavenly devil"? There's no such thing, it can't be! You can't have it both ways! "Beware lest any man spoil you through the philosophy…of the world, through vain deceit, through the rudiments of the world, and through the tradition of men." Don't accept it. I wish I could get across to you what I really see there. When you preach, you look at people, and you can tell where they're getting their information. You can tell what has the greatest influence on their life, and on their mind. You get that in you, and you resist the Word of God. Isn't the church in a mess because people resist the Word of God? People need to be receptive to the Word of God and obedient to the Word of God. We're so busy, and so preoccupied, and people's ears are fine tuned to the world, but out of tune with God's Word. They never look into it, never look for their answers in the Bible. They never try to find the reasons for things in the Bible, they listen to the world, to the songs of fools. What a shame! Don't do that! I pray that each one of you would look to God for answers, and for your reasons for believing what you believe about everything.

God is not something you put in a little box and put off to the side. No! He's everything! Everything you do ought to include God. He ought to be the head of everything you do. He ought to be the leader in everything you do. You shouldn't do anything without saying, "…if the Lord will." You shouldn't try to understand anything without God's help. He should come first.

Let's pray. "Father, thank you for the time tonight, and Lord, thank you for the Word of God. I pray that it would be heard, and obeyed. I pray that it would be a help and a blessing to somebody here. I know it's true! I know these things are right. I know that too many people listen to the world, and it's philosophy, and it's ideas, and my, what an abomination it is to you, for sure. And anybody that really walks with God, it's so clear to see in our day, what a dark world we're living in. There's a great difference in the world's philosophy and ideas and what we're taught in the Bible. Lord, help us to be obedient. Lord, once again, we ask you to meet with us through the week here, and help us in this meeting. I pray that folks would come and that they'd be helped, and that they'd see the importance of rightly understanding the Word of God, and teaching it right. Oh, it's the difference between having hope, and not having any hope. It's the difference between some of the children growing up living for God, ending up in Heaven one day, or having their lives just destroyed and wiped out, and ending up in hell. It's so important, Lord help us to get that. I pray you'd work in the rest of the service and you'd have your way. Lord, I love you, thank you for your help. In Jesus name, Amen."

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