Colossians 3 vs 1 - 17 - Corps Night - 1984

L. Craig Martindale, Victor Paul Wierwille

Colossians 3:1-17 May 23, 1984 Chapter three we're into tonight. And I think this chapter is very appropriate. It goes right along with those preparatory remarks from Rev. Craig Martindale and Dr. Wierwille. I'd like to go back to chapter two again, in verse 18, just to remind you, because I thought about this this week as we were into our discussions here at International Headquarters. It says, in the literal according to usage... because that word "not" is not in there and the word "intruding" was to speculate about. It was used of the mystery religions where they would get into those things that they had seen, their visionary experiences. And I think sometimes people, even in the ministry, (they shouldn't), it happens more so in other parts of Christendom, base what they believe on experience and on what they see, their visions, rather than on the integrity of God's Word. And of course this verse said: Colossians 2:18: (Literal) Do not allow yourself to be disqualified from the competition and cheated of your reward by those who take pleasure in self-abasement and the bondage of the religious worship of angels, speculating about their own visionary experiences, with vainly inflated, carnal egos. If we cannot find in God's Word, what we believe, what we confess, then it just isn't true. What we believe has to be found in God's Word. It's the integrity of the Word that our ministry is built on, not some visionary experience that I've had or Dr. Wierwille or Rev. Martindale, or Howard Allen or Don Wierwille or someone else. It's the integrity of the Word. And yet, from time to time, we'll hear of someone in a leadership position even, who has a certain visionary experience or he's seen this thing by his experiences and so on. And he tries to put things together and before you know it, people are way off on tangents. Some things that happened two, three, four years ago are still having thunderings in this day and time, still having effect upon people's lives, because