The Mind Of Christ

Illus: If you are an insurance salesman and you drive up to a home that has a large sign on the gate of the fence that says, “Beware of bad dog”, you can not blame the owner if this vicious dog tries to eat your leg off before you get to the car.

Life is filled with many things to BEWARE of!!!

Illus: Did you hear about this fellow that came home from work one day to find that his vicious dog had his neighbor's pet rabbit in his mouth. The rabbit is dead and the guy panics.

He thinks the neighbors are going to hate him forever, so he takes the dirty, chewed up rabbit into the house and gives it a bath, blow dries its fur and puts the rabbit back into the cage at the neighbor's house, hoping they will think it died of natural causes. A few days later, the neighbor is outside and asks the guy, “Did you hear that Fluffy died?” The guy stammers and says, “Um...no...um...what happened?”. The neighbor replies, “We just found him dead in his cage one day, but the weird thing is that the day after we buried him, we went outside and discovered that someone dug him up, gave him a bath, and put him back into the cage. There are some real sick people out there!”

We all know there are some bad dogs out there that we need to BEWARE OF, but also there are some two legged creatures that God’s Word talks about. Colossians 2:8, warns, “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.”

Look at the word “Spoil” this speaks of something going bad.

Illus: You can put a lovely bowl of fruit on the table, but if it stays there a LONG TIME, it will begin to spoil. And Satan, day after day, is trying to “Spoil” us.

Let me show you two things that will keep Satan from doing that to us.

I. STAY IN THE WORD

The only way we can protect ourselves from Satan is to STAY IN THE WORD OF GOD. Paul list two ways that Satan attacks us, look at verse 8:

(1) THROUGH PHILOSOPHY

Our philosophy is what we believe.

Illus: It is like the Democratic party and the Republican party, they have two different philosophies that motivate them:

• The Democrats believe in big government. Let Uncle Sam take care of us.

• The Republicans believe in small government. Do not take the bulk of our income in taxes, leave us alone and we can take care of ourselves.

These are the two basic philosophies that motivate many Americans to vote the way they do.

But there are two different philosophies that divide the SAVED FOLKS from the LOST FOLKS.

• The UNSAVED man is motivated by the philosophy of this world. The lost man does not think for himself, he allows the world in which he lives to determine WHAT HE THINKS, WHERE HE GOES, HOW HE LIVES, WHAT HE WATCHES, and WHAT HE READS - ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE DETERMINED BY THE WORLD IN WHICH HE LIVES!

• The SAVED man is motivated by what the Bible teaches. It tells him WHAT TO THINK, WHERE TO GO, HOW TO LIVE, WHAT TO WATCH, AND WHAT TO READ.

As Christians, we are trying to CONVERT the lost world to live according to the Word of God, and the lost men of this world are trying just as hard to convert us to their way of living. Paul said as Christians we need to BEWARE of this! They want to take the PHILOSOPHY this WORLD teaches and SPOIL us! They are trying to take us as their “Captives”.

HOW DO THEY GO ABOUT DOING THIS?

(2) THROUGH VAIN DECEIT

If you listen to something enough, you will soon begin to believe it. THAT IS CALLED BRAINWASHING.

Once a person has become brainwashed, they no longer see things as they once did, their mind is now all messed up! They now can not see any danger to fear.

Illus: A woman had just purchased a new sports car and was out for a drive, when she accidentally cut off a truck driver. He motioned for her to pull over. When she did, he got out of his truck and pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket. He drew a circle on the side of the road and angrily said, “Stand in that circle and DON'T MOVE!”

• He then went to her car and cut up her leather seats. When he turned around she had a slight grin on her face.

• So he said, “Oh you think that's funny? Watch this!” He gets a baseball bat out of his truck and breaks every window in her car. When he turns and looks at her she has a smile on her face.