Dr. Michael D. Halsey
THE MANNHEIM STEAMROLLER
Colossians 1: 1-2
INTRODUCTION
Having just returned from Dallas, it's interesting what getting a
doctoral degree does for you. Since I walked across the stage at the graduation
in Dallas in front of 2,000 friends, relatives and complete strangers, I've had
several deep thoughts. But for the life of me, I can't remember any of them.
After the graduation ceremonies, with my diploma firmly in hand, we drove
to San Antonio on Sunday. While there, we got to go to the Alamo, but I didn't
know until this trip how rude curators can be. I particularly didn't like the
one who told me to put my diploma up and quit bothering people.
Then last Wednesday, night, I preached at Cornerstone Bible Church in
Lubbock, Texas. After the dinner at the church and after the sermon, which was
the first time I was introduced as "Dr. Mike Halsey," (and I had to
admit it has a nice ring to it), this man comes up to me and says, "I have
this pain in my leg. What should I do?" You have to understand that this is
a West Texas attempt at humor. So I told him, "Take two Psalm 100s and call
me in the morning."
It was at that Wednesday night service that I had the privilege of
baptizing my 80-year-old mother by immersion. Before I did, she asked if she
could give her testimony to the congregation and I felt bad afterwards because
her testimony was a lot better than my sermon I'd just given.
It was a perfect 8 days that couldn't have been any better. In addition
to all that I mentioned, I got to meet with my favorite pastor-friend in Lubbock
and many, many old friends who were all very interested in hearing all about
County Line Church.
It'd be great, wouldn't it, if we could all have week after week after
week like I've just had. But we don't, do we? We have Texas high points and
Alabama valleys.
So it was with the Apostle Paul. He's under house arrest in Rome and it's
60 to 62 A. D. It looks like Satan's finally got the God's greatest missionary,
theologian, and evangelist right where he wants him-immobile (Acts 28:30). Now
while there, Paul preached and taught, but it wasn't like having him going all
over the place turning the world upside down. So Satan's got him
contained……or has he?…………..
You can't stop God. He's the Mannheim steamroller. Just when you think
you've got Him all boxed up and tamed, He breaks out like mercury. He's like
trying to hold water laced with mercury. And what this Mannheim Steamroller is
going to do in that rented house will start the steamroller moving on a course
that hasn't stopped for 1,940 years.
This is so great. Let me set the scene for you. There's this little punk,
nobody-could-care-less village. Sort of the Slippery Rock of the ancient world.
It used to be something, but they moved the interstate, and it dried up. It's
Hooterville to Ephesus and Laodicea which are just up the road apiece. There's
this little nothing church whose Sunday morning worship service met in a phone
booth every Sunday. They've got a preacher you never heard of, Pastor Epaphras.
Hardly a household name.
This pastor has his hands full because he woke up one morning and found
out that his little church was under attack from a blitzkrieg by some false
teachers that were speaking at seminars all over Colosse.
What they were teaching in Colosse would, in one generation, produce a
"climate of thought as widespread as the evolutionary theory is
today," (R. E. O. White).
It's to his credit that this pastor realized how serious this false
teaching was. He knew it was something he couldn't overlook like the stuff Paul
told Timothy to ignore in I Timothy 4:7. This grenade was all wrapped up in a
shiny package and Satan was lobbing it all over the place in Colosse.
What happens next is tremendous. You can't stop God the Mannheim
Steamroller. He has Paul start dictating a letter to this little tiny church
that's under attack. There are NO unimportant churches in God's sight. And as
Paul's secretary starts writing all this down, God is setting in motion a
Mannheim Steamroller of a book that's been a blessing for 1, 940 years. Satan
thinks that he's got Paul in a box canyon, ambushed, but in reality, you can't
stop God.
This letter will become the greatest cult-busting argument of all time, a
book that'll show that Christ is all-sufficient. It'll show that inside the
shiny package of the cults are things as valuable as leper's bandages.
But don't think that the Colossian package wasn't cleverly wrapped. Satan
isn't stupid. This package has elements that appeal to many of us in this
auditorium.
COMPARTMENT ONE:
CEREMONIES
There's something that gets me every time. I'm a sucker for it. I love
it. I love pomp. I'm fond of circumstance. I like impressive all-out ceremonies.
I like to watch the Royal Guard; I like to watch the changing of the Royal Guard
at Buckingham Palace. The Dallas graduation ceremony was impressive. It was pomp
and circumstance. Cap and gown. (Only MY gown was different. Doctoral gowns are
distinctive-three black raised stripes on each black sleeve. Doctoral hoods are
different and one receives his hood as he stands in front of 2,000 people and a
professor, the head of the department, puts it around your neck. The ceremony
says that the others already wear their hoods, but the few doctors get theirs
put on right up in front of admiring thousands. I love the music, the
procession, and the fact that the doctors sit in a different place than the
other degrees. I like it when I see the great assembly in England each year all
standing and listening to a great singer sing, "Rule Britannia, Britannia
Rules the Waves" and at each chorus, they all join in. I love the ceremony.
You like ceremonies?
The Colossian error had ceremonies, rituals from the Old
Testament that they said, "If you do these things, it'll improve your
relationship to God." Do this set of works, get in on these ceremonies, and
join us in all this pomp and circumstance.
COMPARTMENT TWO: MYSTERIES
There's something else I like. I like to watch "Unsolved
Mysteries" on TV. Robert Stack stands there and he can make chills go up
and down my spine as he starts talking about this mysterious stranger who just
appeared and then some strange things happened. Or he tells about how
mysteriously somebody just disappeared one day and nobody has seen him since. We
like mysteries. This compartment has an element of mystery. "Hey, wanna be
touched by an angel? We got angels, angels who'll control your life. Glamorous,
wonderful, beautiful, mysterious angels that can help you get to God.”
COMPARTMENT THREE: INTELLECT
It's really something to watch actors and actresses rehearse at a dress
rehearsal. What makes it interesting is you get to see the collision of egos
that goes on. A dress rehearsal is like taking a handful of marbles and throwing
them around and watch them collide into each other. I was watching one rehearse
a massive monologue. Good grief. He had memorized page after page. He did this
willingly. But ask some people in our churches to memorize I John 1:9 and they
say, "Oh, I just can't." This one actor must have memorized the
equivalent of half the book of Romans. It was massive. Anyway, at one point,
he's on stage going through this forever monologue and doing a great job and I
was admiring him and all of a sudden he stops and says, "I've got to have
the spotlight on me! I can't do this without a spotlight!" Now, I don't
know why this is, but apparently he could think better if he had the spotlight.
How typical that is! I thought, "Hey, this guy would make a great
member of some of our churches." We want the spotlight, don't we? We love
it! That's another thing that made this package so interesting: it offered a
secret knowledge that it said that only a certain elite group could have. And it
said that this special elite could then have salvation. This compartment made
you feel so special because YOU had this knowledge. You knew the
"secrets" and few others did. This secret knowledge put the spotlight
on you.
It's something, isn't it, how much like a puffer-fish we become when we
get the spotlight. I heard on the news a few months ago that whenever Barbara
Streisand is performing in Las Vegas that, from time to time they have to
transport her from place to place in the hotel/casino in an open golf cart. But
she demands that someone go ahead of the court warning people: "Do not look
at Barbara Streisand. Do not look at Barbara Streisand."
Step right up. We've got this secret knowledge that makes you special. It
was an appeal to the intellect.
Pastor Epaphras realized that this package was a virus that if it got
entrenched in the church, it would destroy it. So, he goes to Paul for help.
Paul begins the book by stating that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ
(verse 1). This is his authority by which he'll refute this Colossian error. He
writes to the believers in the church as he says "Grace and peace to
you."
If there's to be grace in a church, if there's to be peace, the elements
of the Colossian error must be non-existent. There's no grace and peace in
focusing on angels, in ceremonial legalism, and in intellectualism.
God is the author and
ultimate source of grace and peace. He says that grace and peace come through
Christ. You know what peace is? Peace is my driving back from Texas. Normally
when I drive for hours at a stretch, I may, every once in awhile have one deep
thought. When I do, I get to thinking about it and don't always watch the
speedometer. Then I see a Mississippi highway patrol car up head and he has his
radar gun out. I have a loss of peace. I get a very deep pain in the pit of my
stomach.
But this time there was peace in
my driving home from Texas because I learned to set the cruise control. So I set
it for exactly one mile below the speed limit. I drove for hour after hour in
peace. That's what peace is. Peace is an inner confidence. It wasn't a
confidence in my foot at the proper weight on the accelerator. It was a
confidence in the cruise control.
That's what Paul is going to say in this book:
It's not ceremonies; it's Christ! It's not angels; it's Christ! It's not
the philosophy of a secret knowledge! It's Christ!
So what?
But this satanic package isn't a grenade that exploded in the Colossian
dust two thousand years ago and it’s shards aren’t felt today. It's still
exploding. Religion offers ceremonies, the new age offers angels, and
universities, books and speakers offer philosophies. Are you depending on some
religious ceremony or Christ? Are you in with new-age angels or is it Christ?
Are you going by some man's opinions or Christ? I want to invite you to consider
the fact that Christ is all-sufficient. It's through believing in His death on
the cross, that it was sufficient to pay for your sins; it's
through understanding that His resurrection was a real physical one three days
later. I invite you to believe today