The Grace System of Perception, No. 2

Colossians 1:3-8

COL-053

Once more we look in our Bibles to Colossians 1:3-8. Our subject is "Thanksgiving for the Colossians," segment number 31.

During the age of the church, God's primary basis of dealing with mankind is His grace. This is in direct contrast to the way it was under the Old Testament era of Judaism, when the Mosaic Law predominated, and people approached God on the basis of their works. Their efforts were never fully capable of doing anything but demonstrating their own deficiencies, and their own lack of capacity to achieve righteousness. They totally lacked the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to guide them, though they did have a great deal of instruction in the Word of God. In contrast to that age of the failure of man by all of his good intentions is the dramatic and wonderful age of grace, where God comes in and does it for us. God's kind favor bestowed lovingly on the undeserving leads to their salvation. There can come no true information by human reason – only the empty feeling of despair.

In the Dallas Morning News today, in commenting on the coming funeral service for George Burns, he observed when he was asked what he would do if there's an afterlife. And he said, "If I come back in a reincarnation, the first thing I'll do is try to find Gracie," his Irish Catholic wife. George Burns had a very close friend (a lady who was a Catholic), and she commented that whenever she would say to Mr. Burns that she was on her way to church, he would say, "Well, say hello to Jesus. You know, He's one of our boys."

So, I am afraid that George Burns, with 100 years of grace to get it straight, did not, to the very end, realize that Jesus said, "No man comes unto the Father except by Me." And the Scriptures declare that: "There is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved." And so George Burns, has in all likelihood, indeed, found his wife Gracie, and they both spend and look forward to the agonies of an eternity in the lake of fire.

Another article in the Dallas News today dealt with Carl Sagan, the great astronomer. Carl Sagan began a very interesting series on the cosmos on TV. He began by standing before the camera with the magnificent universe pictorially portrayed behind him. He looked into the camera and said, "In the beginning was the cosmos, and that's all that there was" – making a play, obviously, on the first verse of Genesis 1:1, that: "In the beginning God, created the heavens and the earth." So Mr. Professor Dr. Sagan had clearly made a declaration. He recently discovered that he has a deadly cancerous disease. This article written about him is entitled "In the Valley of the Shadow of Death," which is in the Parade insert of the Dallas Morning News, March 9th, 1996.

In this article, Dr. Sagan says, "I would love to believe that when I die, I will live again – that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. If there were life after death, I might, no matter when I die, satisfy most of these deep curiosities and longings. But if death is nothing more than an endless dream of sleep, this is a forlorn hope. Maybe this perspective has given me a little extra motivation to stay alive." And in the context he has just described the things he'd like to still find out about the universe. So, he would like to stay alive to do that.

He continues: "The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there is little good evidence (that is, Bible doctrinal stories). Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability to look death in the eye, and to be grateful every day for the brief, but magnificent, opportunity that life provides."

Then at the end of the article he concludes: "5,000 people prayed for me at an Easter service in a cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest church in Christendom. A Hindu priest described a large prayer vigil for me, held on banks of the Ganges. The Imam of North America told me about his prayers for my recovery. Many Christians and Jews wrote me to tell about theirs. While I do not think, if there is a God, His plan for me will be altered by prayer, I am more grateful than I can say to those, including so many whom I've never met, who have pulled for me during my illness.

"Many of them have asked me how it is possible to face death without the certainty of an afterlife. I can only say that it hasn't been a problem. With reservations about 'the feeble souls,' I share the view of a hero of mine: Albert Einstein. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I, nor would I want to, conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. Let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life, and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted strivings to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason (spelled with a capital 'R') that manifests itself in nature."

Carl Sagan speaks about reason in nature – a mindless reason. So much for a highly intelligent, highly educated man. And he may Albert Einstein, but I can guarantee you that Albert Einstein, as a Jew who rejected Jesus Christ, and who questioned any existence of deity, if he could hear what Sagan has just said and written here, is screaming from the holding pen of Hades: "Carl, Carl we're wrong. We were wrong, Carl." And he is reproducing again the experience of Lazarus and the rich men who screams out and wants to tell his five brothers that they were all wrong; that the Bible is true; that there is a God; and, that there is an authority. And when the poor rich man wanted some relief from his agony with just a drop of cool water on his tongue, and when he found he couldn't have that, he said: "Then please, father Abraham, send Lazarus back alive from the grave. Send him back to my brothers, and tell them what has happened; where I am; what kind of a place this is; and, that it is true."

And what an interesting comment Abraham had. Abraham said, "They have Moses and the prophets (that is, they have the Old Testament Scriptures). If they will not believe the Bible; they will not believe even if somebody were to rise from the dead." And if you doubt that, just please remember that there was another Lazarus who had two sisters, Mary, and Martha, and he died. And after several days, Jesus raised him from the dead, and it was clearly an act of God. It was clearly a miraculous work. And it clearly confirmed that Jesus was everything that He claimed to be as a God-Man. And when He raised that Lazarus from the dead, the Jewish leaders (the political and religious authorities) had a meeting, and said, "We must kill Him." That is when they decided, the Scripture says, to put Jesus to death: "Otherwise, the people will follow Him.

What were they saying? His evidence is incontrovertible. And so is the evidence of a Bible, with its prophetic declarations, inevitably fulfilled in detail – never missed for one second. Young people and adults, don't ever forget that that's the kind of a Bible that you have. Don't ever let anybody bring you any question upon the authenticity of the Bible as the expression of the Word of God.

Our hearts go out to George Burns. His condition is terrible. Our hearts go out to Carl Sagan. His is about to become horrendous. Man, by his reason, cannot come to the truth. It takes the revelation of God in Scripture to do that.

Well, God's favor has been graciously showered upon His church saints in super blessings now, and rewards in heaven for service to Him. So, there are both sides of the picture. This is what the grace of God does. It gives us the information we need to be saved and to head for heaven. And once we're saved, it gives us the information we need to live a life that conquers the old sin nature, and enables us to rise to our nobility in the family of God.

The Grace System of Perception

The Belt of Truth

Consider yourself fortunate that you're here today by the grace of God, because most people in the Christian life are totally ignorant of this. We have pointed out to you that the first two elements that make this possible is, first of all, a completed Bible. We have now a completed standard, or as we say a "canon" C A N O N of Scripture. The canon of Scripture means the rule or the standard. Sometimes we refer to it in that language. No more is to be added to this canon of Scripture. The standard and the scriptures are completed. The Bible content, we pointed out, came from God by His breathing it into the mentality of the men who wrote the Bible. And then God the Holy Spirit guided these men to record what had been revealed to them in the exact words of God without error.

The fulfilled, long-range prophecies that are in Scripture prove the supernatural origin of the Bible. And because it is verbally inspired, it must be literally interpreted and literally believed.

The Local Church

The second element is the establishment of the local church. This is a visible portion of the universal church, which is the body of Christ. It began on the day of Pentecost. The mission of the local church is to proclaim and teach doctrine to enable believers to grow into spiritual maturity.

The Pastor-Teacher

The Priesthood of the Believer

Privacy

1 Peter 2:9 points that out to us: "But you (that is, Christians) are a chosen race, a royal priesthood." We Christians are a royal priesthood. One of the greatest doctrines recovered by the Protestant Reformation was that the Roman Catholic Church had deceive mankind by trying to imitate the Old Testament specialty line of priesthood, so that some people were priests, and some people were layette. The Reformers, as they read the Word of God, realized that that is not true. That has been changed in the age of the church, where every believer is his own priest. If you want to approach God, you don't come to some priest. If you want to contact God, you don't come to me, or any other preacher. You don't go to some spiritual giant to get to God, whatever that means. What you are is a priest of God, and you face God on your own. Each Christian personally and privately is to handle his life before the Lord. This preserves the freedom of your volition. And that's essential for learning spiritual truths. You have to be free because that's what grace means. Grace means free. Grace means making your own choice. Grace means sitting here in this congregation being instructed, and in the privacy of your own mind, saying, "Amen," or "Baloney." You will be positive or negative to what you are taught.

However, the reason we call ourselves Berean Memorial Church is in memory of the people of the city of Berea to whom Paul preached, and who were characterized by two things for which we memorialize them. They received the Word of God willingly, and then they searched the Scriptures daily to see if the things that Paul taught them were so. They did not have a completed Scripture. They had only the Old Testament, but that Scripture confirmed to them that what he was saying about Jesus was exactly what the Old Testament said about Him, and that what his preaching was conveying was true. And they realized that the changes had come, and he had an expanded revelation from God.

Now, no Christian deserves this kind of respectful treatment from God. The old sin nature has expressions that are so embarrassing that it's very nice to be able to keep them privately in your own mind. People in a public church service should not be embarrassed. We should not ask you to raise your hands. We should not ask you to wear a tag as a visitor. We should not plague you later by sending you a welcome letter. We should have good manners towards you, as the people in the service should have good manners toward us. And it's okay if you get hopping mad, and you vibrate beyond your level of capacity, and if you want to get up and walk out.

A few months ago, a man had started visiting and attending Berean Church. And we didn't really get to know a great deal about him. One Sunday morning, as I was presenting my flawless in-depth, high-quality presentation of the Word of God, flawlessly presenting everything in complete truth and perfection, I said something, and suddenly, he stood up. The only time I ever saw a person stand up like that was when I saw a man sit down on a chair that somebody had put a tack on. It was in high school, and some mean kid had put the tack on it. It was a chemistry teacher, and he popped off the chair and hit the ceiling. It wasn't very funny. But this man just bounced out of his chair. Then he stepped back behind the row at the back, and stood there looking for a moment, and I just thought his muscles were sore and he was stretching. Sometimes people just get sore muscles, and they get back there, and they relax a little bit, and they stretch a little. And suddenly he turned, and determinately walked out the door. And we've never seen him since. I'm very distressed that I can't remember what I said. And we tried to think. Somebody else saw him, and I said, "What was I talking about at that time? But something was said that just distressed him to no end. And he did the wrong thing. He did not take time to consider that perhaps he was wrong, and what he was hearing was, for the first time, an opportunity to get himself squared away.

However, your privacy should be respected because you are your own priest. Now, this is a very serious responsibility. You have to deal with God about your problems; your weaknesses; your attitudes; and, your sins. You don't go to some counselor who will try to take over your volition, and tell you what to do. The Word of God is the counseling that we give you. And your pastor-teacher is a proper advisor for you to consult if you need to consult someone.

Now, all physical provisions have been made by a God of grace for you to go negative to the Word if you want to. Do you realize that? You've walked in here, and you've brought your brain with you. All the little gray cells up there are all alive and kicking. You have oxygen that you're taking in. In fact, we have a special oxygen machine that sends in purified oxygen so that you are very alert. And you have the food energy that is coursing through your body. The enchiladas and the Chihuahuas are all creating all kinds of energy within you now, so that you have the capacity to use your brain and to think. And you can say, "No." You can say, "I will not believe that." But that is the nature of priesthood.

However, never forget that you will also account for your priesthood at the Judgment Seat of Christ. You will account there for what you did (for all the instruction in the Word of God that you had), and what you chose to turn your back upon. 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, "For we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ." This judgment takes place immediately after the rapture of the church, when we're all caught up to heaven to meet Christ in the air. That each one may be recompensed (given a reward) for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad."

1 Corinthians 3 expounds upon that – that some people will receive rewards, and others will suffer great loss for what they could have had. At the Judgment Seat of Christ, your evaluation will be relative to your integrity based on the standards of the Bible. You'll be judged for how you acted as a Christian. You will also be judged for the degree to which you have fulfilled your life's mission in God's service. To the degree to which, whatever else you did in life, you never forgot that the mission comes first – that mission for which you were born, and that particular service to God for which you were born. All the money you may make, and all the efforts you put in making money, is only to do one thing: to be able to function in your spiritual gifts (to be able to execute your mission).

So, now your priesthood has to be taken very seriously. You cannot treat it with indifference or with contempt, for while you may approach God directly, and you may approach His throne of grace in prayer, and you don't have to go through anybody. At the same time, you will account to Him directly for what you did with that splendid open-door access to Him. And yet, this is essential to have your own priesthood for you to be able to capitalize upon God's grace in your life.

The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

However, you need another provision. There is the permanent indwelling of every Christian by the Holy Spirit. That may seem an understandably commonplace thing to us, but please remember that, in the Old Testament, no saint (no believer) was ever permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Sometimes people were indwelt by the Holy Spirit temporarily. Those men who built the temple – they needed construction skills in a maximum degree. They were indwelt by the Holy Spirit while they were doing the construction work. When the temple was filled, the Holy Spirit left them. He gave them enabling power on a periodic basis. Do you realize what this means? It means that you have enabling power to be a magnificent person, and to be a person who preserves your life for the best that God will give you. You can be a person who doesn't have to look like a tree that has had a limb cut off, and you have a big scar that finally scabs over. But every time you look at it, you remember what was there, and what didn't have to be, and what might have been.

John 14:17: "That is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him (or know Him). But you know Him because He abides in you – because He abides with you, and will be in you." Here the Lord Jesus, in verse 16, says that He is going to send another Helper, so that He may be with us forever." This Helper would replace Jesus Christ. This Helper could not come until Christ is ascended to heaven. Jesus went back to heaven 40 days after His resurrection. And the Holy Spirit came ten days later on the day of Pentecost. And when He came, He baptized all the believers into that new body called the church. At the same moment, He filled them, and came to and indwell them with Himself, using their bodies as His temple. And He came to be our helper forever. So, this Scripture tells us that we have a permanent abiding of the Holy Spirit: "He may be with you forever."

We may add to this 1 Corinthians 6:19: "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in you, Whom you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you have been bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body." So, here we are told that not only is the Holy Spirit permanently indwelling us, in order for us to be able to capitalize on the grace of God, but that He is with us permanently – always indwelling our bodies, at the good times and at the bad times. And don't forget that Satan has access to beat us up. That's why prayer is so important – to ask for God's protecting hand. We live in a world of evil people. We live in a world of people who are deceitful, and not the least among them are Christians, because those are the ones you don't expect to be deceitful. And those are the ones who Satan uses, because these people (in their carnality) can hurt you a great deal.

Now, today, who in the world among us deserves this kind of an expression of the grace of God, God, the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is permanently indwelling us. He does not dwell in the temple anymore, as He did in the Old Testament – in the Holy of Holies. He does not dwell in this magnificent cathedral in which we have gathered tonight. And when the last Christian has left this room, and the code is punched into the security alarm, and the door is closed, the Holy Spirit will be gone out of this room. But He's here right now, for He is here in the form of the indwelling of all of you.

The Holy Spirit is the one who makes the grace system of perception work successfully. He is the ultimate teacher of all spiritual phenomenon. That's what makes up the belt of truth. And He is always present to give us understanding. That is His job. 1 John 2:27 says, "And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him (the anointing of the Holy Spirit – the indwelling) abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you." But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him." Now, before you can be taught, you do have to have information, don't you? You don't need somebody with some kind of a trickery to be able to help you to learn. You do need somebody in the form of a pastor-teacher to give you the information in an understandable way from the Scripture, and especially based upon its original languages. But when it comes to accepting and understanding that, only God the Holy Spirit can help you to understand these things. Some of the things of the Word of God are very deep. The apostle Peter observed that some of the things that the apostle Peter was teaching about the church were things which were hard to understand, and hard to receive. And what he meant to say was that they were very deep things. They were not easily understood. But the Spirit of God enables you, whatever your IQ is, if you are open to the truth, to be able to grasp these deep things. He is the teacher.

The Filling of the Holy Spirit

Spirituality

This condition of being filled with the spirit is what we mean by the word spirituality in Scripture. It's a condition of spirituality which is required so that you can grasp the belt of truth. You cannot learn doctrine unless you are filled with the Spirit. This is the inner circle of temporal fellowship of our diagram that most of you are well acquainted with. The filling of the Holy Spirit – how do I get that? You get that through the confession of your known sins (1 John 1:9). You have sinned in some way. You have grieved the Holy Spirit by violating the moral code. You have quenched the Holy Spirit by refusing to do something that He has burdened your heart to do. You have failed to walk by means of the guidance of the Holy Spirit as He shines His spotlight on the doctrine stored in your human spirit to guide you in daily situations. The result is that you're out of the inner circle. You're still saved, but you're no longer in the guidance circuit of the Spirit of God.

You admit that you are wrong. 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." That means that we pop back into that position of spirituality where our prayers go to heaven, and our lives are under control of God instead of the sin nature. There is no possible spiritual progress without the filling of the Holy Spirit? And who of us deserves that kind of a marvelous position provision? None of us. It is a grace act of God.

Now, the demon angels know that this is a big problem. That is because a Christian who is filled with the Spirit (who is under the control of the Holy Spirit) is someone they cannot touch. Satan cannot touch a Christian who is in that inner circle of fellowship with God the Father. That Christian is absolutely secure. That Christian cannot step out of line. He cannot do anything wrong, except when he chooses to be negative toward the Spirit of God. That's when it all comes down.

Therefore, the demon angels try to convince you that you have a spirituality by pseudo spiritualities. These things are steeped in pride. And there's where we come in with the false things such as our practice in the charismatic movement today. People get up and speak gibberish, and pretend that they're speaking in tongues. People claim that they have a great insight with God, and who are bringing people into a high-pitched emotional experience. One of the recent things that's been going on in the charismatic circles is holy laughter. They get into a group of people like a group like this today, and somebody kicks off with something funny, and then they start saying something funny, and another person says something funny, and then people start imitating one another, laughing, until they're rolling around on the floors, completely convulsing in laughter. And this is called getting near God – spirituality. Well, I won't burden you with all the nonsense that Satan and his demons come up with.

No One is Sinless

However, Christians who never confessed their sins, and who are therefore out of touch with God the Holy Spirit, go about smugly viewing themselves as responsible Christians. They are opinionated authorities. Please remember that no one is sinless. Please remember there are no degrees of sin with God. Just watch the fire in the eyes of one of these people who does not understand the filling of the Holy Spirit – the fire in their eyes when they have the hot and heavy antagonism towards somebody because that person has been guilty of some kind of a terrible sin. And you suggest to them that, "Well, that is a terrible sin, but in God's site, it's no worse than those mental attitude sins – those sins of the mind." And then watch how those eyes will flash at you when you say such a thing, because suddenly that person realizes that you have stripped that individual of his superiority. Here's a terrible sin this person has done. It is public knowledge. How much worse is that sin within of vindictiveness; of hatred; of envy; of greed; and, of all the subtleties that the human old sin nature is capable of? How much worse is that before God in His eyes? It is just as equally bad?

Isn't it interesting that the thing that Jesus stressed was mental attitude sins? What did Jesus say? He said that mental attitude sins are where the overt sin begins. Jesus said that hatred is the same thing as murder, and when it goes far enough to its fruition, you'll externally commit murder. It begins with an internal attitude of sin. Where does sexual immorality begin? Jesus says, it begins with internal lust of the mind. And when that is tolerated, it will bear fruition overtly in sexual immorality.

Also, isn't it interesting that the two things that He picked, to illustrate that principle of mental attitude sins, were the two sins of one of the all-time great saints – a man after God's own heart: King David? Isn't that interesting? These two sins were: the sin of adultery; and, the sin of murder. In Israel, both those were, under the theocracy, capital crimes to be punished by death. But God's grace had the authority to make a sovereign choice difference in the case of King David. David was stubborn for one year. He wouldn't confess. And finally, he admitted that he was wrong. He wrote that magnificent psalm, and confessed how the psychological agony that he experienced; how the distance from God; how his body was coming apart; and, how he was all distraught. And finally, he admitted that what he had done was wrong. And now God brings him back by full confession, and He forgives him. David has 25 more years of life. They proved to be the most magnificent years as King of Israel. And we remember him and honor him to this day.

When Mrs. Danish and I visited Israel, we were brought into a place that was called David's tomb. And they always put the word "traditional" in front of it, because they're never sure that this was it. But there was this sarcophagus covered with a cloth. And in Hebrew word it said "David melek." And then it said two other words, and I didn't know what those words were. I knew that "David melek" meant "King David." So, I asked our guide what the other two Hebrew words meant, and he said, "May he live forever:" "King David, may he live forever." And indeed he does as a very famous and a favorite of God. Was he forgiven? He was absolutely forgiven. And once more, the Spirit of God was able to guide this great man.

I say this to you because I have experienced people who very stubbornly said, "Don't tell us about the Old Testament." And yet what does the Word of God tell us, except that the Old Testament was given for our learning, so that we would know how to do things? The argument is that only what the New Testament teaches counts. Well, in the New Testament, Jesus taught this very thing – that the filling of the Holy Spirit brings everything back and makes everything right. Will there be consequences? Yes, sometimes there are. Will there be discipline? Yes, sometimes there is. But once you confess, the discipline becomes blessing. And once you confess, God begins to straighten out.

The same principle of mental attitude sins being worse than overt sins, because that's where the overt sins begins, is in James 1:14-15. James says, having pointed out that God never tempts a person, only the devil does: "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lusts;" that is, his old sin nature lust patterns. James 1:15 says, "Then, when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin (an overt external sin), and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death." In an unbeliever, that's eternal separation from God. In a believer, that sin brings the break of his spiritual fellowship with God. When you are separated from God in temporal fellowship, that's spiritual death. That's a death in your temporal fellowship.

So, here it is very clear that it begins with the mental attitude sin. And when that mental attitude sin is indulged, it is will conceive and give birth to an overt act of sin, and that will bring you into a position of death in your relationship to God. What I'm driving at is that no sin will disqualify you ever from returning to full-time Christian service for God. And don't forget that all of you are called to full-time Christian service – not just those who are missionaries or pastors or ministers. We are all called to full-time Christian service. You never raise your hand or come down an aisle, and say, "I'm coming to full-time Christian service." You're already in there. And when you do sin, that interrupts your service, but God will restore you. And it is an act of unmitigated, insulting blasphemy to God to suggest that somebody can commit some kind of a sin that is so terrible that God can never forgive and use that person again. That is simply not true. But the priesthood of the believer and the filling of the Holy Spirit give you access to full restoration at any time.

A Living Human Spirit

The next thing that God has provided for this system to work is a living human spirit. Everybody is spiritually dead at the time of birth. You have a body that's alive, and you have a soul that's alive, but your spirit is dead. But at the point of salvation, your human spirit is brought to life. 1 Corinthians 2:12: "Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit (small 's' – human spirit) which is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God:" "That we might know the things which are given to us by God," because it is the human spirit, which is your point of contact with God, that the Word of God (the principles of doctrine) are stored.

Job recognized this in Job 32:8, when he says, "But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding." To the spirit of man comes understanding of spiritual things from the breath of the Almighty. The New Testament refers to that as "God=breathed;" that is, doctrinal information.

Now, this is an essential point of contact with God for you to be able to learn doctrine. And who of us deserves that kind of a wonderful arrangement. With a human spirit, you can contact God to understand anything of a spiritual nature.

The human spirit acts in the believer as a storage reservoir of spiritual truth. This reservoir is called "the belt of truth." Now, all of the teaching of the pastor-teacher in the local church is aimed at the human spirit. And that is what God the Holy Spirit teaches. I give you the information and explanation from the Word of God. Then it is the Holy Spirit who illuminates it to your understanding. That's why you can grasp it. And when you understand it and accept it, it is stored into your human spirit. And the result is that you develop a belt of truth (Ephesians 6:14) as you fill this human spirit with doctrinal information.

With this setup, your soul is capable of functioning on the Word of God. The belt of truth, as Bible doctrine in the human spirit, will guide your soul relative to your mind; your will; and, your emotions. Your soul takes in divine viewpoint from the human spirit, and expresses it toward God and toward man. The soul gives guidance to the acts of the body according to the divine viewpoint of the belt of truth. You will not use your body sinfully when this system is working. You can't do it. When this system is working, you'll not do things that violate the code of God with your mind or the members of your body. The belt of truth gives you a frame of reference so that you can understand the world and its viewpoint as being satanic. It gives you a conscience that is filled with God's standards and God's values. And it gives you divine viewpoint in the mentality of your soul.

If you're out of temporal fellowship and into carnality because of having grieved, or quenched, or not walking by means of the Holy Spirit, this whole marvelous system the grace system of perception is short-circuited and the devil wins.

Let me tie this together for you. It look something like this. You are spirit, soul, and body. The human soul is within the human body. This represents you as a human being. Within your soul, there are three facets. That's what makes up the soul. You have a mind; you have emotions (there's an old sin nature in there); and, you have volition. Your volition can be positive, or your volition can be negative. You also have a human spirit. This human spirit is made up of reservoir compartments in which categories of truth are stored.

Now let's put this in a little different way. If you come to church, you're instructed in doctrine. Your mind can perceive things, and your mind can decide things. One of the ways of thinking about this is the perceptive mind and the directive mind. The perceptive mind is described in the Scriptures by the Greek word "gnosis" which means "knowledge." This is what you use when you go to school. You learn reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and all those things with your "gnosis" information to your perceptive mind. That's where your IQ resides. Those of you that have a better perceptive mind are able to learn more effectively. But what you learn then pops over to the other side, to your directive mind, and that's where you use these natural areas of truth.

However, come spiritual truth, such as you've been receiving today, you will sit here, and you will listen, and your perceptive mind will pick up that information because you are filled with the Spirit, and God the Holy Spirit is explaining this to you and making it clear. Now, at that point all you have is "gnosis." But if you say, "Amen," here's an act of faith, and down comes that information, and pops into your human spirit. And you have what is translated sometimes in your scriptures as "full knowledge," because the word is different. It's "epignosis." "Gnosis" is just plain information, but "epignosis" is "full knowledge." It's knowledge that you have accepted. That knowledge you will not lose. And if your preacher teaches you something that is false, you'll pick it up in the perceptive mind, and even if you accept it, it won't go anywhere. The Spirit of God will not transfer false doctrine down into your human spirit.

Now, here are these compartments of information coming and being accumulated. Along comes a problem in your life. You need some direction. You have accumulated a divine viewpoint. You have divine frame of reference. You have a conscience that's filled with information so that you know right from wrong. Your conscience will not guide you. It'll only tell you if there are rights and wrong, but what those are, you have to get from the Word of God. Then you have a conscience that'll work right.

So, up comes this information. God the Holy Spirit pinpoints a doctrine, and without you doing anything (hardly thinking – any effort), it pops into your directive mind, and says, "Do this." Somebody invites you to an act of immorality. And, if you are in the inner circle of temporal fellowship; you are walking by means of the Holy Spirit and, you are filled with the Spirit. That information of what God thinks about that is going to come ramming right up into your mind. And there will come the power to say, as with Joseph to Potiphar's wife, "No." You will know exactly what to do. You won't even have to think about it, providing you've been taught previously the word of information.

Now, if you need some information down here and it's not there, you have nothing. There's nothing for the Spirit of God to guide you. You can go ahead and sit on a mountaintop in your white robe all you want to, and meditate to try to get near God, but you're not going to get anything. It has to come from doctrine.

So, here you have a problem. And God has given you the information. This is what you should do. You can do two things. First, you can follow the line that says, "I'm going to go positive." So, you hit the positive button of your volition, and (bingo!) out comes divine good actions. That's it. But you may also decide, "No, I'm going to go negative." And so what happens is that the old sin nature kicks up negative information to you, and the result is that when you hit the negative button, out comes human good action. There are two things that make up human good. Remember what they are? Sins and human good. They both are evil in God's sight, because they come from the old sin nature.

So, here you are listening to the guidance of the old sin nature to your mind, and you'll follow that to be negative, and (bingo!), you go. Somebody comes along and wants to invite you to do something that is immoral, you will listen to the Spirit of God, if you're in temporal fellowship. But if you're out of it, you'll listen to the old sin nature. And the old sin nature will kick up to you the thing that you should not do. He will give you Satan's human viewpoint. And so you'll say, "No" to the Word of God, and out will come the evil action. This will also affect temporal things and spiritual things. Your response to the information from your human spirit will affect temporal things.

God will trust you with material wealth. He will bless you in financial ways if you are positive to His word. And if you are positive to His Word, He will also bless you in spiritual things. You will be enabled to serve God in a way that will store huge rewards that you will enjoy in heaven forever. Do you see how important it is to know doctrine? Don't tell your children to do right. That's stupid. They're not built to do right. They're built to do wrong. But you say, "I don't care what it is that you have as a problem. When we have an opportunity to gather with the saints to study the Word of God, that's where we are going to be." And they will grow up with a great respect for the Word of God. And when they understand how this system works, they will be fearful of not being in church to be able to keep up this human spirit in an active relationship with God. To lose temporally – what a stupid thing that would be; when, instead, they can be prospered in material and earthly things. What a stupid thing it would be to lose out spiritually when they can have a deep and wonderful walk with God.

So, it's knowing the Word of God, and it is saying "yes" or "no," and the results are fantastic either way you go. But you have to decide tonight whether you want to listen to the old sin nature, or whether you want to listen to the Spirit of God within you. If you want to listen to the old sin nature, you can go ahead and do that. If you want to listen to the Spirit of God, you better have doctrine in your human spirit, and positive volition to the Word of God. And you have to stay active. You cannot go on yesterday's blessing. You cannot live on yesterday's food. You must continually feed upon the Word of God. That's why the book of Hebrew says, "Don't make the mistake that so many people have made, and gotten into great trouble." Israel was an example of this: "Do not neglect the gathering of yourselves together for the study of the Word of God when the Word of God is preached." When the time comes for the saints to take advantage of this system that God has provided, do not fail to use it.

The Grace System of Perception

Here is the system. The elements are this:

1. The Completed Bible

2. The local church, as a feeding and training station by the HICEE technique of preaching.

3. The personal priesthood of every believer.

4. The indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to make it work.

5. The filling of the Holy Spirit – the stay, through confession, in the inner circle of temporal fellowship.

6. A living human spirit in which all of the Word of God can be stored.

In this way, there will be guidance for your mind there will be guidance for your emotions; and, there will be guidance for your will. That's the other thing that we must not forget. What we're talking about is guiding your mind to think right; guiding your emotions not to run amuck, but to act right; and, by guiding your volition to go positive. Who does that? It's the Holy Spirit through the Word of God that makes that possible. The reason people go crazy, who are Christians, is because the mind has no control over the emotions, and it has no control over the volition, because it has no control of the Holy Spirit by the guidance of the Word of God. If you let that get out of hand, everything goes down the tube.

Now, there's one other factor – the actual procedure (the actual mechanics) of using the system. Today you have learned the elements that make it possible. Now, using of the system – that is the final step of understanding the truth of the grace of God, and we shall look at that next time.

God our Father, we thank you for this day we spent with You. . . .

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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