Below is a transcribed message given
by Bro.
Ben Wanda, 3/3/13
Man’s Make Up
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God
your whole spirit and soul
and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. [1 Thessalonians 5:23]
The SPIRIT - “God
consciousness “
1 Corinthians 2:11
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of
man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit
of God.
The way we can know God and understand what he has to say is through
the spirit. It is also how we
communicate with each other. Our spirit
is where we take what is inside—what we know—and
then we are able to communicate that to others of ‘like’ spirit, i.e., speaking
what is inside us and sharing it, relaying it, to others. {Note, the
human spirit cannot “speak” or relate with a spirit that is within, say a dog
or cat, or some other animal. It must be
a spirit of ‘like kind.’}
1.
Memory
2.
Vocabulary
3.
Frame of reference (our way of thinking)
4.
Perception (the way of thinking through
something, working through problems)
The SOUL – “self consciousness”
The part of you that makes you special, makes you who you are, makes
you unique from everybody else.
1.
Heart
(…not the beating heart).
Rom10:10
For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
The heart is the mentality of your soul; the part that
‘thinks’ and is able to discern good and bad.
1 Kings3:9
Give therefore thy servant an
understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good
and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
2.
Conscience
(our norms and standards, what we consider right or wrong. It is different in everyone, dependent on
[Rom2:14; 1Cor8:7; 1Cor5] their system of right and wrong (being defiled)
Romans 2:14
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature
the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto
themselves:
1 Corinthians 8:7
Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge: for
some with conscience of the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto
an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.
3. Our Will…the part of you that decides
what you are going to do.
Galatians 5:16
This I say then, Walk in the
Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
You make a choice, with your will power,
your volition. We have that freedom. The
first few chapters of Genesis shows that man had a choice. We get to choose how we are going to conduct
ourselves. And, our will is affected by our
actions.
4.
Emotion…our
response.
The emotion is what comes out of our soul, and that
combined with what comes out is our spirit results in the actions of the
body. The way we are wired—the way God
had it planned—is that our soul would go
through the list: Understanding, knowing the information, thinking it through,
applying it to the heart; the will power; and then what comes out, the body
performs it for us. What is inside
(emotion) is performed (motions) by the body.
The BODY - world consciousness
Our body is that which we experience the world through our five senses.
1 John2:15
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
It is likened to an old car. We
don’t want it, but without it we can’t function. It connects us to this world and is the
vehicle for our spirit and soul. It is
also where our sin nature resides. The
sin nature is not in your soul, it is not in your spirit, it is in your body.
+++
The Effects of Sin and Salvation
on the Spirit, Soul and Body
Effect of Sin on the spirit
Ephesians
4:17
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye
henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind [to
be empty, to be void of anything],
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.
When the spirit is darkened or empty, it is not functioning properly;
it is ‘dead’, it is not functioning the way God intended…it is functionally
dead. The natural (unsaved) man is
not able to understand what God is doing; i.e., he not able to look through the
Bible and discern what it is saying and what it is really talking about.
Now you may say, ‘anyone can pick up a bible and start reading it, if
they know how to read.’ That is true,
but it also said ‘it is foolishness unto them.’ The first chapter of Corinthians shows what
the world’s wisdom thinks of it. Ephesians
4:17 shows the vanity of the human mind. Ephesians 2:2 talks about that spirit
of disobedience that is in them. The
spirit we have in our sin nature is void of any ‘God knowledge’ and the spirit
that works in us is the spirit of the prince
of the power of this world—worldly
wisdom. What we are born with is a functionally dead spirit and we can’t
discern spiritual things.
+++
Effect of Sin on the Soul
The heart is in your ‘soul’ and when we are born into this world in a
state of sin our heart is blind, our understanding darkened.
Rom1:21
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him
not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened.
Eph 4:18
Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
The thinking process of the dead spirit—that process of thinking that
comes from the spirit of this world, which is Satan—affects your conscience; it affects your soul; and it actually darkens
your heart.
(Example of vain imaginations is that of the Nazis thinking they were
advancing the evolution of the race but exterminating the Jews and that they
were a more genetically strong and that it was their job to eliminate everyone
because they were weaker than them. Because of this vain imagination they didn’t feel bad about what they were doing.)
+++
Effect of Sin on the Body
Depraved.
Romans7:18
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no
good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is
good I find not.
When we are in our old sin nature, our flesh has nothing good in it at all. Even so, we need it, we cannot function without
it. Not much more can be said then it
has nothing good in it.
+++
“Spirit, Soul, Body”
…that’s the way it’s supposed to function—in that particular order.
>You take things
into your spirit by the way of your five senses;
>you understand and discern it with your heart which is in your soul, and your conscience
works through it; then by your will, choose
what you are going to do and the [e]motions work out/produce…
> the actions
through your body).
But, is that the way it works in this world? No.
For instance, if driving and someone cuts another off, do they think stuff through, or do they go right
to the body (and then produce a knee-jerk reaction)? Or right to the emotion? Do
they process it with their spirit and
soul, and then the body?
No. It more than likely goes
right to the body and the emotions kick in without thinking it through. Consequently, they live their lives based on
their emotions and based on their body.
Their will is enslaved to their
passion. People will say (or you hear it
on TV): I’m doing what feels right to me, or this is what comes natural to me, this is the way it is, I feel it’s
the right thing. That’s not how we
are to function! We’re not to take our
emotions and base our knowledge and understanding off that—rather, it’s the
other way around. We’re supposed to
have this knowledge/understanding and then emotions are to respond to that.
So, in the sin nature that we have where the spirit is dead, the soul
darkened and the body depraved, we are in a bad state. Basically, everything is working opposite the
way it is designed to work.
Salvation: How do you get saved?
All right, so you’re a sinner.
You need a Savior, but your spirit is dead and you can’t spiritually
discern the things of God. So, how in
the world do you get saved? What does Romans say?
Romans 3:11
There is none that understandeth, there is none
that seeketh after God.
“I don’t know who God is, I can’t
know him because my spirit is dead and I can’t even seek after him.” So, how do you even get saved?
Well, first of all, it’s not about us seeking after God, but God
seeking after us because he loves us so much.
He made a way for us to get saved.
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he
know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So there you see the spirit can’t understand God, it can’t receive the
things of God. If you can’t receive the
things of the Spirit of God, how can you get saved? (Notice, this focuses on the spirit not
being able to understand…and that is because it is “dead,” i.e., not
functioning in the capacity it was created to function in.)
Romans 10:10
For with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Again, where’s the heart? In the soul!
So, how do you get saved? By the
heart ‘believing.’
Romans 10:17
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word
of God.
Faith comes when you hear the
word of God, i.e., you believe it “in
your heart.” You don’t believe it in your mind. I understand a lot of stuff in my mind. I understand how people can believe in
Evolution, that out of nothing came something:
you have a pool of organisms which are nothing but something came of it
and now we have this creation. That
doesn’t mean I believe it. So, it’s not
with our spirit that we are going to get salvation, but in our heart where we
believe and we get saved.
+++
Now that we are saved, there are changes that take place with our
spirit, soul and body. All three are
drastically affected.
The Spirit…
Titus 3:5
Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but
according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and
renewing of the Holy Ghost;
When we get saved, our spirit is “regenerated.” We are now given life
to what was once a ‘dead’ spirit where we could not communicate God, we are not
sealed with the Holy Spirit, baptized into Christ, we are identified with him
and are given life there. So when you
read in 1 Corinthians 2 about the ‘spiritual things’ now we have the ability to
discern the spiritual things of God. Also,
the spirit is going to be where the “new nature” resides, whereas the body is
where sin resides. It is by and through
our spirit which is now alive to Christ that the issues of life are to be
handled.
The Soul…
2 Corinthians 4:4-6
In whom the god of this world [The “god of this
world” is who? Satan. We’re not living in the millennium, Jesus
Christ hasn’t come yet. Some people
think this but that is not the case.] hath blinded
the minds [again, where’s the mind? It’s in the spirit; the memory, the
vocabulary, frame of reference, etc.] of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image
of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus
the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out
of darkness, hath shined in our hearts [where’s the heart? In the soul.], to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.
So Satan is doing his job, he’s trying to keep the spirit dark. He’s trying to keep the spirit blinded from
knowing anything, keeping us in the dark.
But God has it designed that when the light of his word shines into your
soul you are now able to ‘receive’ it—that light has power to “shine.” Two things
happen when that light comes into the soul: when someone preaches the gospel to
you and your soul sees that light, your heart has the choice to believe it or
not believe it. What happens when
someone doesn’t believe it? What happened to Pharoah? What does it say happened to his heart. It was hardened, right?
Proverbs 29:1
He, that being often
reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that
without remedy.
Exodus 8:15; 8:32
But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he
hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said.
And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also,
neither would he let the people go.
You (your soul) can see that
light and you can believe it or reject it.
If you reject (don’t receive God’s word) you just get hardened
more. It gets harder and harder to
believe it because of your own pride.
When the soul receives this light it is now able to ‘function’ and have
the capacity it was designed to have.
Ephesians 1:13,
17-19
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of
truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed [where’s
that “believing” taking place? It is taking place in your soul (Romans 10:10…” For with the heart (soul) man believeth unto righteousness; and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation.”],
ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: [Remember
1 Kings 3? What was it that Solomon
asked for? Wisdom and knowledge!] The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that
ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the
glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of
his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty
power,
What Solomon asked for (wisdom and knowledge), we have the capacity to
obtain now. God has given us his Holy
Spirit and then he gives us his word, whereas we can now understand. Our eyes are opened and we are able to take
in that doctrine, that knowledge and understanding.
The soul can take the information from the spirit (the memory) and can
store it and start to utilize it through its heart, its will, its conscience
and emotions.
The Body…
Again, the bad news is you still have your body; you are not getting
away from your body. But, when you get
saved there is still something that happened to the ‘body of sin’ when Christ
died on the cross—he crucified it.
Romans 6
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.
Where before when we were sinners, our wills were enslaved to our
emotions and to our body; we were living through our body and we had no choice
because that was all we knew and our spirit was darkened. We didn’t know the things of God that we
should have. But now our old sin nature,
although we still have it, because we still have this body (and that is where sin
resides), it does not rule us anymore. We
no longer have to yield our members to it; we are not under its control. We now
have the ability to be free from that.
So, now that you have salvation, you are regenerated, your soul has
received light and your “old man” is crucified with Christ, you are no longer
under the slavery of the sin nature.
+++
Sanctification
We were all sanctified when we were saved, i.e., sealed with the Holy
Spirit, baptized spiritually, and sanctified.
Eph 1:13
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of
truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye
were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Romans 6:3; 15:16
Know ye not, that so many
of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the
Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles
might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.
But on the earth right now, there is progressive sanctification that
goes on in us; and we are all at different levels and rates. Our sanctification is a process as, where we
had been living in the backward state of ‘body, soul, spirit,’ we progressively
learn to live as we were meant to live, that it is ‘spirit, soul, body.’ We now
have to change that old thinking process we were born into and—depending on
when you got saved—a lot a lot of bad habits.
If you got saved when you were 5 years old, you are a little better off;
but if you got saved when you were 60, you probably have developed some pretty
bad habits. This is the issue of where
you progressively start to sanctify yourself and cleanse yourself, and get it in
(learn) the right order (i.e., ‘spirit, soul, body,’ not the other way
around).
Galatians 5:16
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil
the lust of the flesh.
2 Timothy 2:15
Study to shew thyself
approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth.
+++
Again, the natural man can’t receive
the things of the Spirit, but natural man can hear the word of God in his heart (soul) and believe so that he can
then be saved. Once you are saved, you
are what scripture calls a ‘babe’.
1 Corinthians 3:1-2
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,
but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with
milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet
now are ye able.
So, even though they now have the spiritual capacity to understand what
God has for them, they aren’t at that level yet where they can understand it.
They are still ‘babes in Christ’, they are still carnally-minded; they are
still functioning in the old way.
Galatians 4:19
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until
Christ be formed in you,
‘Little children’ (babes in Christ)…their spiritual maturity level is
“ground zero” and what Paul wants to see in them is “Christ be formed in
you.” So, we all need to go through this
process of maturity. We see this today
in Christianity, people that have been saved for years and yet they are still
babes in Christ. I grew up some of my
life charismatic and in a charismatic church you spend an hour to two hours on
hymns and singing for praise and worship.
What’s that? It is a lot of
‘emotions’ of the soul, and the body is being fed with it and responding to it;
hence, it is a stirring up of emotions and resulting ‘experience.’ But…
Romans 1:17;
Galatians 3:11
…The just shall live by faith.
…not moved by mere feelings and experiences. If you are doing religion, your works are a result of motions of the body, not
out of motivations of the spirit and soul.
You (self) are trying to perform through “you” and not through the
spirit.
Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
So, even as a saved individual if you are a babe in Christ, there is
the potential you are going to keep doing things the same way as when you were
unsaved. You need to grow to the point
where Christ is formed ‘in you.’
The Mechanics of Sanctification
Step 1: in the spirit
we need to start changing our frame of reference, our vocabulary, the way we
think about stuff. You need to be built
up in Sound doctrine [1 Timothy 1:10; 2 Timothy 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1].
Ephesians 4:22-24
That ye put off concerning the former conversation [what
is conversation? That is your ‘manner of life’, the way you conduct yourself] the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful
lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind (your
spirit); And
that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and
true holiness.
Colossians 1:9
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not
cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge
of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
What we need to do now with all that knowledge stored up in our minds
which was according to the old sin nature (the way we perceived things, the way
we worked through problems and situations) must now all be kicked out and it
all needs to be renewed now in and with the word of God. Verse 9 says ‘be filled with the knowledge of his will,’
so now it’s all about him/his word to us today.
It’s about what does he want us to do, what is it that he expects us to
have in our spirit? His word teaches us
these things.
So, our spirit needs to replace that old wisdom with God’s wisdom.
Step 2:
Ephesians 3:16-19
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory,
to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and
grounded in love, May be able to
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and
height; And to know the love of
Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fulness of God.
Colossians 3:16a
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…
So now it is the issue of being strengthened. How do you, from the spirit, take that Sound
doctrine that you are storing up and transfer it down to your soul now?
Colossians 2:2
That their hearts might be comforted, [“heart”
aka soul. “Comfort”: fortify,
strengthen, built up…but, with what?... ] being knit
together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to
the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of
Christ;
The issue is “acknowledgement.”
I talked earlier about Evolution; I know
how that works, how they think that process goes. But, I don’t acknowledge that to be true.
To acknowledge it is to “own it”
and make it you own. That part of you
that is ‘you’ is your soul. So when you
take in that doctrine in your spirit as you are read and study through the word
of God, you start to understand the spiritual things of God. As you do, you will come across something and
it will click. It is when you take by faith
and accept that to be true—just as you did when you got saved, you believed in your heart, it then transfers
over to your soul. That is how it gets
to your soul—when you own it, when you see it and acknowledge (own) it.
Romans 6 says “know ye” (verse 3) and later it says “reckon” (verse
11). Reckoning is not only do you
‘know’ it, but you have the faith that it has the power to work and do what it
says, and you accept that and “own it.” That
is what reckoning is. This is what
happens when you read, believe and accept the doctrine. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s not just head knowledge. “Knowledge puffeth up.”
There is more than just knowing
the bible and memorizing the verse,
but it is taking it and understanding God’s will and purpose and plan for us
today; accepting that as truth and then living our lives based on that
truth. Faith is not a blind into the dark.
We have confidence in what we are doing and what we are believing. That all falls in line with the soul, and you
can see how that affects your will, your conscience and your emotions.
This is the process by which Christ is formed in us [Galatians
4:19]. We take in the word, we take it
for what it is by faith in our soul, and we accept it.
+++
By the way, what happens if you are taking in spiritual things from the
word of God and you are not rightly dividing—not taking in and being grounded
and built up in Pauline dispensational truth?
2 Timothy 2:15
Study …rightly dividing
the word of truth.
What does the word say about the Galatians?
Galatians 3:3
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now
made perfect [mature] by the flesh?
If you don’t do it according to the way God tells you to do it, it is
not going to work the right way. You
have to do it his way…not our way. The
issue of the will is that we have to choose what we are going to do and we have
to decide we are going to serve God and not ourselves. But, that isn’t to say God’s not part of
it.
Philippians 2:13
For it is God which worketh in you both to will
and to do of his good pleasure.
It is still God in us that gives us that ‘will’ power to do it. It is still him working in us; we are not
some big deal now that we have this new soul and new spirit.
+++
To summarize thus far, we start taking in the doctrine in the spirit
and understanding it. We get built up when
we ‘reckon’ it in our soul by owning it, making it part of our lives, believing
it is so by faith.
Our Walk
When you are a new believer and you read through Romans, you see the
progression we are supposed to take. You
learn how we start: knowing we are
sinners; then how we are saved; then we understand Christ’s love; then we
understand how to conquer sin; we learn about death and the law; and then
understand how to utilize the Spirit.
It’s not until chapter 12 that we start to learn about our service, our
walk.
Again, emotion is a function of the soul and the ‘emotion’ is what motivates
us…activates our body. Our body is the
‘vehicle’ whereby we perform out ‘good works.’
Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Titus 3:8
This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou
affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to
maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.
Note, it’s not until Romans 12 that issue of our service—our good works
in Christ—is brought up.
Romans 12:1
I beseech you therefore [after
understanding the information in chapters 1-11],
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
With the understanding and motivation we have in our spirit and our
soul {Christ, in us},
we can now function and {choose
to} make our bodies accomplish the Sound, Pauline doctrine which is inside
of us. That is right in line with the
issue of “what is God doing in the world today?” Is that ‘motivation’ according to what’s on
the outside or what’s on the inside? The
inside! The issue is the ‘heart,’ what
you have on the inside coming out.
He doesn’t care about what it looks like on the outside if it doesn’t
have that genuine heart on the inside.
This is how you start living with that intelligent application of grace
in your life—where you take grace and you take what you know and you start
applying to every part of your life. So
when something comes up and you are on the highway and someone cuts you off,
you don’t jump right to your emotions.
What do you do? You start with a
verse…you ask yourself what does the doctrine say: “What saith the scripture?” Then you count THAT to be so, and then you
apply it to [the motions of] your body and you don’t get all crazy and honk and
get upset.
2 Timothy 3:16
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine [that which is taken into our spirit], for reproof [the building up of your understanding], for correction [of your conscience, understanding
what is right and wrong, getting you in line with the proper viewpoint], for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may
be perfect, throughly furnished [that is
when what is inside of us is coming out—we’ve taken in the doctrine and living
according to it] unto all good works [that which
takes place by the motions of the body].
You see how this process works?
It starts in the spirit,
transfers to the soul through faith
and then, with the will—with that new
understanding in God’s will and purpose—you can now act it out (by way of the body) the right (righteous) way.
Another way to look at is: You
have facts coming in (to the spirit),
receiving it by faith (and getting it into the soul), and then the fruits (good
works) by the motion of the body Facts,
faith, fruit. In that order, it’s not
going to work any other way.
In closing…
The reason I’m teaching on this is that really helped me to understand
this stuff. I understood about the Romans
12 and Colossians 3 about renewing the mind and that you get that new man and
take off the old man, put on the new man, but when you really understand the
mechanics and the difference between your spirit, your soul and your body, it
will help you like it helped me in that if you’re having a problem making this
work—and we all do—there are times when we struggle and have an issue and try
to work through it and we get
frustrated: why isn’t this
working!? Hopefully, this will help
pinpoint the problem, that being: it’s not being transferred to the spirit
from the soul or maybe it’s my will,
or my heart, or maybe my emotion. I’m hoping this will help you get through
that.
Also, it really helps when you are witnessing to people or even when
dealing with other saved people. For
example, you don’t go to the doctor and
say, Doctor, I’m not feeling good.
And, he then says, Okay, I’m going to
start you off on some antibiotics and some steroids…” Is that how the doctor works? Did he ask you what was wrong yet? What would a doctor actually do? He’d
start gathering all the facts. He’d take
your heart rate, he’d take your temperature and ask some questions. Well, that’s the way it works when we talk to
a about spiritual matters. We need to
ask some questions to see where they
are, saved or unsaved and if saved then ask questions to ascertain where they
are in their spiritual maturity. We
don’t just beat him over the head with the bible.
Let me ask you this. If you are
talking to an unsaved person and the first thing you bring up to him is What do you think about the King James
version issue? Do you believe it is the written word of God? If that person is unsaved, spiritually, what
do you think they are thinking about?
Either they have no clue what the KJV means or, even if they do, the
spirit of an unsaved man thinks it is foolishness! You are going to go nowhere if you do
that. And, I have done that before. When I was preparing for this I thought of a
couple of times where I was talking to a guy and I tried to reason with him
about some of the stuff he was talking about.
What I was saying was right but it made no sense to him and it wasn’t
going to help at all. So, we need to have
that mentality when we talk to someone.
If they are unsaved, what’s the first issue? Get that lightened soul! What’s that
light? The glorious gospel! The power of God unto salvation [Romans
1:16]. That’s the first step. You don’t have to beat them over the head
with a bunch of other stuff. First get
them saved.
The same with thing with saved people.
If we are talking with saved people and see that they are living ‘in the
body’ or they live in their emotions and they let their emotions run their
life, we need to make sure we are equipped to give them the proper doctrine
that they need. We need to be sure what we
are giving them for their spirit to take in is what will help them so they can
take it into their soul. You are not
going to be able to force that on somebody.
But, what we give them in the spirit is important and we need to make
sure we are responsible by giving them the right doctrine.
Ephesians 4:13
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fulness of Christ:
That is what we are shooting for…the perfect man that is throughly
furnished, that has the correct thinking process in their spirit where they
take in the doctrine and then by faith apply it in their soul, believing it in
their heart. That can then affect their
conscience in the way they view things and view matters in life then willing it to be so…that is, choosing to
have their emotions be based off that and those actions working out through
their body. This is how God works in us,
purifying us through our willingness to submit wholly (spirit, soul and body)
“unto himself.”
Titus 2:14
Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all
iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
