The Soul

Colossians 1:21-23

COL-163

Our subject is "Reconciliation of the Colossians," number eight, in Colossians 1:21-23.

I direct your attention, first of all, this evening, back to Colossians 1:21, the beginning of this new section of our study. In this verse, the apostle Paul reminds the Colossian Christians of their pre-salvation relationship to God. There he says, "And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds." Now, the reason he is bringing this up is because these same Christians now, who have been saved from this kind of a lifestyle can also fall back into it. They can go back to that again.

So, he reminds them of certain things which were true about them. First of all, they were formerly alienated, which means they were outside of the sphere of divine blessing. There was no favor of God upon them. They were completely out of harmony with God's character of absolute righteousness. And there was no way, where on their own efforts, they could get in tune with Him. Well, at least now they don't have to be alienated from God. They no longer have to be out of the sphere of His blessing. They are reconciled to His standard of absolute righteousness, so they can live accordingly. And that is what he wants to remind them of, because they can choose not to do that. It is a continuous estrangement that they had before they were saved. But now, at the point of salvation, all that has been changed. But the Christian life is constantly a life where we must be on guard against falling back into what we once were.

Furthermore, he said that they had been hostile to God in their pre-salvation days, which means that they were an enemy of God. They were in rebellion against God's authority. So, they were not subject to His plan for salvation, or His moral code for living, as is spelled out in Scripture. They were, furthermore, the friends of Satan. And if they were the friends of Satan, they were participants in this world system of life, all of which is designed to oppose God. The world doesn't like Christians, and it doesn't like the lifestyle of Christians. It very much finds an affinity for Satan, and all that he stands for. Should be part of that lifestyle and world system of Satan? He can be. But Paul says, "That's in your past, and that's where it should be."

Reality

Furthermore, he tells us that they had a mental frame of reference of human viewpoint. They are hostile toward God (His enemies), and they were this in mind. That means that their minds were simply devoid of any doctrinal principles. They were empty. They were unable to connect themselves with reality in their thinking as found in Scriptures. They were running through their lives, but they were out of touch with reality. That is the great hazard – the great occupational hazard of the Christian life all the time. The world causes us to lose our contact with reality. And suddenly, when the devil gets up, like the snake that he is, and bites us, and hurts us badly, we wonder: "How did that happen?" Well, it happens because we lose our sense of the real world as it exists out there under Satan's domination, and our being able to be trapped into it. The mind is a spiritual vacuum. So, it draws in the religion of Satan, and all the appeals of the world system.

Furthermore, it says that they were, in those pre-salvation days, guilty of practicing evil deeds. These were, of course, the expression of the lust pattern of the sin nature. The world system of Satan is characterized by ungodly conduct. It includes the evil of the works of salvation. They worship Satan through the use of their bodies in immoral acts. And the evil deeds are very dear to the people of Satan's world system.

One of these weeks, very soon, we're going to have a special Training Union session with Mr. Atkins, in which we're going to show you a film which brings together the issues that are involved with something that you may have been hearing about. And that is that a number of large denominational groups have banded together to call for their people to boycott all of the enterprises that have to deal with the Disney organization. That is because the Disney organization has now deliberately gone against everything that their founder had, and that everybody esteemed that organization for, as an entertainment medium that was suitable for the family, and wholesome to the core. Because they own ABC, Ellen Degenerate was on that particular program when she was going to (now, for a year, they kept building up that she was going to) come out of the closet and declare the role of homosexuality that she plays. She really is.

The writers wrote a program, and gave it to the chief executive officer, Mr. Eisner, and the board, and they rejected it. They said, "No, this program is not outright friendly to homosexuality." They were just sort of tolerant: "We want it to be really friendly to homosexuality." What did they mean? They meant that they wanted to be outright supportive of this evil, so that young people and older people could think, "Well, this is all right. Look at it. Here are the programs we watch, and we kids watch them, and we kids laugh at it.

This is the problem – that now, even with something like Disney, parents have to be on guard. Don't ever let your son or daughter do anything to make themselves act, or look, or dress, or smell, or do anything that is like the evil people that are in the entertainment industry.

So, I think you're going to find this a very informative video because they have brought it together in an excellent way. And we'll give you a real life example of what it is to be engaged in evil deeds.

The Bible

Now, this pre-salvation lifestyle was entirely the result of one thing, fundamentally, and that is that the Bible was not viewed as the Word of God. The Bible does not speak the mind of God. Therefore, the Bible is not authoritative. Therefore, you don't have to listen to the Bible. This is one of the things that's constantly pounded away at you in the world system of Satan. The system is always undermining the Word of God. And what you have to be on guard against, constantly, is to get caught up in that in that trivializing of what the Bible is. The Scripture claims for itself to have been God-breathed. The Bible claims that its very words are alive and active. That tells you that the words in the Bible are not like words that you'll find in every other book. They're the same words, but when they're in the Bible they now have behind them the power of God. Therefore, that's why it's important to read the Bible; to study it; and, to treat it with the utmost respect and obedience. This pre-salvation lifestyle is entirely the result of not viewing the Bible for what it is – the Word of God.

Therefore, people ignore the Bible, and they substitute the opinions of men. And that is what, as we have been studying, has created the monstrous Roman Catholic system of religion which uses the name of Christ to take people into the lake of fire. Roman Catholicism teaches a false plan of salvation, contradicting the grace plan that is found in the Bible. So, you have, with this conglomeration, the doctrine of purgatory; the doctrine of the treasury of merit; and, the doctrine of indulgences. And all of that is the result of not being bound by the Bible only as the source of information from God. None of these things are in Scripture. And any verses, as we showed you this morning, that are that are given in support of these things are totally misinterpreted in the context of what is there.

Any lack of subjection to the Bible as God's voice is a danger the Christians face each day in terms of how they live out their life span. And I remind you again of one of the great theological principles in the book of Job, of which there are many. This book was written 500 years before Genesis was written. One principle from the book of Job is that you have an allotted life span. You have so many months, and that's it. And the question we must face is: how am I going to use it up? When it's gone, it's gone. It can count for all eternity, or you can trivialize it, and blow it off, like some sailor on a drunken binge after payday, so that afterwards there's nothing left.

What is required of us, as Christians, is that we begin fitting our lives, and our Christian service, and our church fellowship into our life service for God – not fitting the things of God into whatever niches and openings we can find in our life in the world system. That is the wrong priority. But it is so easy to do. And one of the ways you'll find yourself justifying it, is that you're going to try telling yourself that you're actually going to change the world. You're actually going to make an influence for good in Satan's world society; in its institutions; and, in his organizations. No, you won't. And if it is, it'll be a trivial thing compared to the great things that you could do with those months of your life allotted to you, were they put into the service of God in fulfilling your mission. But grace allows you to blow it if you want to do that.

However, the truth of the matter is that believers do not affect the institution of our societies, and certainly not in our day. When our country was made up of people who believed the Bible, and a majority number of Christians – that is why our country was influenced. It is completely detached from Scripture. And Christians are the minority, and we don't have that influence. So, you can use up your life in those institutions, but it is far better to put them in terms of the internal things that God has for you.

God's plan, and one's personal mission, are so often not the primary pursuit in life of those of us who are citizens of heaven – those of us who are strangers and pilgrims on earth. We are the members of the royal family of God, the church, who are to be the heavenly ambassadors to the court of Satan's world. Instead, we've become part of the court.

As the Jews once used to use the phrase, before they had Jerusalem back in their control and power – they would end the Passover celebration feast, and the father would say, "Next year in Jerusalem." You and I ought to celebrate every day, and say, "Next year in the new Jerusalem." That's where our eyes should be focused. Then we won't get all tangled up in the world system: "Only one life will soon be passed; only what's done for Christ will last."

The Structure of the Soul

Now, the road to the reversionism, that all of us are open to, is what Paul is talking about there in Colossians 1:21. That is reverting back to the old lifestyle. And this is a great vulnerability to the souls of all of us. So, this evening, I want to review with you the structure of the soul, because this is where you are vulnerable with Satan. You have to understand where it is that the devil is going to get at you. He's going to get at you at three qualities with which God has structured you, to make you a living soul. It is the soul that is the object of everything that Satan does in his attack against us.

1. The Mentality

   First of all, part number one of the soul is the mentality. There is, first of all, the mentality of the soul. This is taught us, for example, in Luke 12:19: "And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease. Eat, drink, and be merry.'" Here's the rich man. He had so much prosperity that he had to build a bigger barn. And then he said, "After I get that barn built, I am going to make an intelligent statement to the mentality of my soul." And he said, "You have goods for plenty of years. Now you can take your ease. The only problem was that he found out that he didn't have any years left in which to enjoy that. So, he was giving the mentality of his soul a bad message and a false message. But there is something within a human being that can grasp intelligible concepts.

   The Mind

   This is also indicated in Acts 15:24: "Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction had disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls." There was some information coming to the gentile Christians which was unsettling their souls. What was it that was being unsettled in them? It was something that gave them capacity to understand intelligible conversation and intelligible ideas. It was the mentality of the soul that was being disturbed. Words convey thoughts, and there is something in man that can grasp words. That's the mind.

   The Perceptive Side of the Mind

   Now, the mind, as we have shown you before – we may think of the mind as a whole, and the mentality of the soul basically has two functions. We can divide it in half. One function we call the perceptive side. That's the side of the mind in which we learn things. We learn spiritual things there via the grace system of perception. We learn reading and writing and arithmetic there. We have a capacity for taking information into our souls. It is the mind where that information comes, and we have an awareness of ourselves. And when the soul dies, this is what leaves it. The body dies because the soul is separated from it. When that happens, the body no longer has any awareness that its mentality is gone. Therefore, it has no self-awareness. This is the place where we take in knowledge – the perceptive side.

   The Directive Side of the Mind

   Then there is also the directive side capacity of the mentality of the soul. This is where decisions are made. Proverbs 23:7: "As a man thinks, so is he. That's the way he acts. He takes information into the perceptive side. He's faced with a situation, and bingo! It gives, it gives him direction. It gives them the information, and he acts accordingly. Now if all you have is human viewpoint, you can see what's going to happen to that soul, because it's getting bad information in the mind.

   Now without getting into it, in spiritual things, the information that is here in the perceptive mind that you have said "Amen" to, and have responded with positive volition is stored down here in your human spirit. Then it cycles up to the directive side of the mind. And that's why you have the mind of God to guide you. That's the beautiful part of the system. You don't have to be floating out there with a mind that is detached from reality. The reality of doctrine is constantly flowing up to your thinking. As long as you're in temporal fellowship. And you have in that mind storage of information, and storage of past experiences so that you have a basis upon which to think and to make decisions.

2. The Volition

   The second feature that makes up the soul is the volition. This is taught us in Acts 3:23: "And it shall be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people:" "The soul that does not heed." What does that mean? That means that it has made a decision not to obey. It has deliberately chosen a negative volition situation.

   Animal Instinct

   So, everybody not only has the capacity to learn things, and to think and to act accordingly, he also has the capacity to choose, rather than to work like an animal from instinct. A bird makes the nest. He does it by instinct. He never says to his birdie wife, Lady Bird: "That nest was sure drafty last year. Let's make a better one for the kids this year. I'm going to get the dirt over here. That's better stuff that they have. They have a lot of clay over there. We're going to put this thing together, and we're going to make a better nest. No, they make the same stupid, drafty nest, and Lady Bird has to kick up all of the heat to keep the eggs warm and so on. They just act by instinct.

   People

   But people make decisions. They have a capacity of volition. Now, the devil is going to hit you in your mind, and he's going to hit you in your volition, because when you sit in church, your mentality takes in the instruction in the Word of God. And everything that Satan and his demons can do is hitting against you saying, "No, no, no. Don't take that seriously." If we teach you a moral principle, well, think it over. There are a lot of people that don't agree with that. Now you're out of touch with reality in your mind, because the Bible is not the supreme voice of God to you. If the Bible says that something is wrong, then it's wrong. All of this discussion that we have about homosexuality and lesbianism in our country today never brings up the fact that God has spoken on this subject.

   This morning on "Meet the Press," they had only one guest for the whole program: President Clinton. I heard part of it. I never heard Tim Russert ask him, while he asked about moral questions: he never asked him such things as, "Does it bother you that you are so supportive of homosexuality when God, in the Bible, completely condemns it?" And I'm wondering, "Why are you discussing this with the head of this nation, who is supportive of an abomination, and has undermined and destroyed the effectiveness of the American military establishment by imposing this upon the institution of the military? What is it that doesn't make you uncomfortable that God condemns this?"

   There's no question about this. God tore to shreds and put to ashes the whole city of Sodom and Gomorrah over it. But nobody ever brings that up. It's not that they don't know it, though. It's not that he doesn't know it. It's negative addition to what God has said. The Bible is blown off.

   So young people, pay attention carefully. This is an important service – to know how you're made as a human being, and where Satan is going to seek to put scars on your life. And you make choices, and God's order is for your will to be governed by the mentality. You don't choose willy-nilly. What you choose will always be determined by the frame of reference of your mind. And if that frame of reference is human viewpoint, your will is going to go very negative to the things of God.

3. Emotions

   Personality

   There's a third factor that constitutes the soul, and that's the emotions. The reason we have this is because these are three facets that form a personality. This is the real you. And the soul was made in the image of God. And this is what God, as a personality is. God also is mind and volition and emotions. Man does have an emotional quality in him.

   For example, in the Song of Solomon 1:7: "Tell me, oh you whom my soul loves. Where do you pasture your flock? Where do you make it lie down at noon? For why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your compassions? Tell me, O you, whom my soul loves." This is what was said of Jonathan toward his friend David. He loved him as his own soul. To say that: "I love this person as I do myself" is the highest esteem and the highest care. I have nothing but enthusiastic emotions.

   The quality of emotions is also shown in John 12:27: "Now My soul has become troubled. And what shall I say?" This is Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Now My soul has become troubled. And what shall I say, Father? Save Me from this hour. But for this purpose I came to this hour." Here the Lord Jesus Christ, in His humanity is saying that there is some quality in him that is highly emotional, and he feels under a great emotion of being troubled, on the verge of His crucifixion.

   2 Peter 2:8 also indicates this: "For by what he saw." This is speaking of Lot. Lot was one of those who wanted to be part of the civil organization. He wanted to be in the forefront of civic leadership. He wanted to be in the political system and the political activities. So, he sat in the gate, which is where the political and the civil rulers conducted court. Here he goes to Sodom and Gomorrah, and becomes part of the system.

   Now, everybody knows very clearly that this was indeed what the world system meant. It was very clear in Sodom and Gomorrah. And it was a gross system, but it was no worse than it is today. It's just that we kid ourselves that the people we associate with are good old boys – not really what they really are. There are people who have mentalities that are not under the control of God; emotions out of not under the control of God; and, volitions that are not under the control of God, because they are totally devoid of doctrinal principles.

   Well, here the enthusiasm (the emotional devotion) of Lot is expressed in 2 Peter 2:8. And the result was: verse 7 says that this righteous man was oppressed by the sensual conduct of these unprincipled men. It made him cringe. It made his stomach turn – what he was seeing them do, because he knew that what they did was a great abomination, meaning a great loathing to God in their homosexuality.

   You Cannot Think with your Emotions

   However, in verse 8, he says, "For by what he saw and heard, that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day-after-day with their lawless deeds." This was emotion. The soul has emotions. These are the feelings. These are your personal attitudes. Again, what you must understand (learn this tonight): what controls your soul? It's anything that controls your volition – your mind. If your mind and its values do not control what you feel, and your attitudes, your emotions will run amuck. You cannot think with your emotions.

   The charismatics will laugh in your face. They will ridicule you for that statement, because they think that that's how they find what's real and true with God – how they feel about things. They actually think that they can think with their emotions. You can't think with your will, and you can't think with your emotions. And the only thing that will control your will and your emotions is your mind. Now, that mind is either under the control of the sin nature, or it's under the control of the Holy Spirit, in the case of Christians who are in temporal fellowship. Why in the world do some Christians enter such horrendous sins – even those who know better, and who have been taught better? It is because their mind has gone negative to a principle of the Word of God, and the Bible is not viewed as a supreme authority.

   Therefore, they come to an opportunity of doing something very sinful. They know that God has condemned it, but they go along with it. They choose to do that. That's the frame of reference of their mind. Therefore, the emotions act that way, and they make the choices for evil.

   This is why the apostle is saying, "That's the way you people once were. You are just alienated from God. You hated Him. You treated Him as your enemy, and you had nothing to do but to see how much evil you could produce. The old Adamic nature, resulting in the fall in Adam, has produced within us a sin nature. Many Scriptures refer to that. We won't take time to read them. But you can read this in Matthew 15:19, Psalm 58:2-5, Ezekiel 18:4, Romans 8:3-4, and Ephesians 4:22. All of these declare to us that we have a sin nature. That sin nature wants to substitute in a Christian for the Holy Spirit. But that sin nature is capable of producing human good. That's why Christians get off in the things of this world society. They think they're doing some good, but it's human good, and it's not going to achieve anything in the long run. It's a lot of fun at the moment, but a wasted life. What the sin nature does is simply distorts all the facets of your soul. And what it produces, God rejects. God doesn't want any human good tainted by the sin nature.

   The unbeliever is completely controlled by the sin nature. And in the Christian, the sin nature is constantly trying to take over from the Holy Spirit. So, what is the soul? It is the mentality; it is the volition; and, it is the emotions. And those are the three things that Satan and his world system constantly pound away at you for. That is the thing where they will bring you down. Let your mind get out of control of God's divine viewpoint, and you'll be brought down, because when the human viewpoint takes over, then your volition will go for evil deeds and your emotions will run amuck, and lead you astray. If divine viewpoint is in charge of your mind, then you will act with great dignity. Your volition will choose your life with God; His purpose; and, His mission for you. You will act as a citizen of heaven, and you won't find your heart being drawn to the world's system and participation with it.

   On the other hand, if your mind is also controlled by divine viewpoint, then your emotions will bring you dignity. It won't cause you to be embarrassed. It won't bring shame into your life. You'll be a person that can stand tall and straight.

   It does no good to tell young people to do right, because most of them don't know what right is. And everything around them has confused what is right and what is wrong. But they have to know, first of all, where they are vulnerable to the system of Satan. That is the mind; that is the volition; and, that is the emotions.

Now, the origin of the soul is also important. Where did this thing come from? Genesis 1:26: "Then God said, 'Let us (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. And let them rule over the fish of the sea; over the birds of the sky; over the cattle; over all the earth; and, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. The Hebrew word for "Let us make" important here, to tell us what we're dealing with specifically. It's the Hebrew word "asah." "Asah" is a word which means to make something out of something else. Man's soul was made out of the image of God. Isn't that interesting?

What we have in our souls that constitutes our minds and our relations and our emotions – this invisible quality within us is a total reflection of what God is Himself as Spirit. Our souls were made out of what God Himself is. Can you see how far we are elevated above the animal world, and why evolution is so gross? This is why people act like dogs and pigs. It's because someone has convinced them that they've been made out the same thing as animals, without an immaterial spirit and soul. But that's not so for us. We have been "asah." Our souls have been made out of something that already existed: namely, the soul of God.

Furthermore, the passage says, "We are made in His image." That, again, is illuminating. This is the Hebrew word "tselem." And this word means a shadow or an image: "Make man in the shadow of God, so that he reflects what God is."

Mormonism

Now, this doesn't mean an exact image like a photograph or the head of a person on a coin. Man does not physically look like God. Would Satan ever try to teach that yet? Yep. Where does he teach that? In Mormonism. In Mormonism, God is a man, and he became a god; and, you are a man (you are a human being), and you will become a God if you follow the Mormon system. But what they're speaking of here, in "the likeness of God," means that it reflects. The soul reflects the essence of God's personality, in the fact that God has a mind; a will; and, a volition.

So, we have, in our spirit, been made in the image of God, with a spiritual nature. That's why you never die. The spirit part never dies. And we are made after the pattern of God Himself.

Genesis 1:27 says, "Make him in Our image and after Our likeness. That is another important word. Let's show you that one. This is the word "tsmuth." The word "tsmuth" means "a model" or "a pattern." Mankind has been patterned. We were made in the "image" of God, and we are spirit beings. And we are made in the "likeness" of God, and that we are a trinity. We all have the same souls in the human race. Everybody's soul is the same. But we are each a distinct person, even as the members of the Trinity have one essence, yet they are three distinct individuals. So, all members of the Godhead are one essence, but they have separate personalities. So, we are in the likeness of God such that we all have the same souls in the human race. But we are each individual personalities. So, man's soul is made out of the pattern of God's immaterial nature. God is a Spirit (John 4:24).

The soul can only be defined by its characteristics. It is immaterial, but it is real. In Genesis 1:27, it says, "And God created man." Here is one of the times in the Genesis passage that it uses the word "created." The word "created" kooks like this in the Hebrew: "bara." Now, "bara" means "to make out or nothing." That's the spoken Word of God. So, man's soul was the result of an act of divine creation. He made the soul of man, a spirit being (like God is), and He made him in a tripartite nature as the Trinity is: Spirit; soul; and, body. All of us have the same soul, but we have three parts to us. The soul was created in the shadow of God's personality, and that is reflected in our souls, which have a mind; a will; and, emotions.

Also, He made them male and female. So, that means that men and women both have souls. That's why men like soul food, and women usually like it even better. The soul is you – not your body. And a girl may say to you, "Do you like me for my body, or do you want to really know my soul? She has a point, because that's the first thing you need to find out. You need to get acquainted with somebody's soul before you get married to that person.

Now, the body comes in, in Genesis 2:7: "And the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breaths (plural) of life, and man became a living. He breathed into Him spirit life and soul life. This again, is a good word. In the Hebrew, it's the word "yatsar." And "Yatsar" means "formed." It's the word that you use of somebody taking a piece of clay and forming a pot out of it. It is referring to the formation of the human body, by God, from the earth. He put together the ground, and He formed the human body, with all of its intricate parts. And then He got down, and He breathed soul life and spirit life into him, and man became a living being. The life that man received, then, has the immaterial part of the soul, and the immaterial part of the spirit.

With the soul, we have our contact with human beings – with our minds and our wills and our emotions. That's why you get acquainted with people in God's proper order relative to marriage. You go from the spirit – you have spiritual compatibility. Then you go to the soul. That's when you're engaged to a person. Now, there's more intimacy. This is intimacy on the mind and the emotions and the volition level. Then, the Bible puts the last thing – the body. The spirit, soul, and body is the way the apostle Paul puts it. And that's the last stage of intimacy.

However, what often happens? It's all reversed. And I noticed somebody recently pointed out, that in the Declaration of Independence, we are told that what the writers (the forming fathers) were seeking to secure for us is: life; liberty; and, the pursuit of happiness. But in our day, that's been changed. Did you notice? First its pursuit of happiness. Then its liberty. And then its life. Life suddenly became last, whereas, in the Declaration, it was: "First of all, I want to protect your life." That is why they kill babies today, because the last thing is that first you have to have life. Then you have freedom. That's the next thing to preserve – not equality, but freedom. And then you can have the pursuit of material things – happiness. They originally had the words that indicated property (or something of that nature), and then they crossed that out, and they said the pursuit of happiness rather than the pursuit of property. But that's what they meant by that.

So, what do we do today? We go: first of all, we want material things, for everybody. That's the first thing in our society. Whatever we have to do to protect the material things. Then comes freedom. But if we have to give up some freedom to have material securities (to be on welfare or something), we'll give up some of our freedom. And if our freedom is interrupted by an unborn baby, that's an irritation and a nuisance to us, then we'll kill the baby. It doesn't matter. It's all because they reverse it. That's on a human level. If you do the same thing with the way God has made us, you end up with the same satanic deception. It's not "body; soul; and, spirit." It's "spirit; soul; and, body." And that's how you must deal with everybody in the human race.

It is the human soul, with its various facets, that has the ability to breathe in doctrine, and to breathe out God's divine viewpoint. And when you understand, as you should tonight, now, how we are made in our souls, you can understand how we have a mentality that enables us to breathe in doctrine. And we have volition and emotions that enable us to breathe out that divine viewpoint.

Psalms 42:1 says, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants Thee, O God." Now, our souls can be terribly polluted so they cannot function on the Word of God. Negative volition does something to the facets of your soul such that, if it's permitted to continue, it becomes a horrendous tragedy. It builds up spiritual callouses – hardness on the soul. And what that does is it clogs up the breathing of the soul so that it cannot breathe out divine viewpoint toward God and toward man. Anybody who has had a cold and a clogged nose knows how distressing that is on a human level, or these people with emphysema. What a distressing situation it is on a human level when you cannot breathe in and out. On the spiritual level, it's the same result. On a human level (on the physical level) you can die from a condition where you cannot breathe in and out. In fact, as a doctor myself, I have concluded this medical fact that you may not be aware of. And that is that the whole human race dies from only one thing. Did you realize that? Everybody dies from one thing: asphyxiation. They stop breathing. Various things cause that, but the only thing they die from is not breathing. If your soul cannot breathe, what do you think is going to happen to your spiritual life?

Well, the Christian's life is his point of contact with God. He has to breathe in the Word of God, and he has to have a soul which is capable of breathing out toward God, and toward man, so that he will be a person of dignity; of purpose; and, of significance in life.

Now, with that background, we're going to go to another passage of Scripture next time where the apostle Paul talks about the same thing that he has in Colossians 1:21, on the basis of the nature of the human soul. But he expands it in greater detail. And there, he will lead us step-by-step from where you, as a prince or princess of God, can degenerate into a common hound dog, and your whole life can be frittered away. Please join us next time.

Dear Father, we thank You for the fact that the Word of God helps us to understand ourselves. How great it is to know that we have been made in Your image. We are spirit beings. And we had been made in the likeness of God. We have three parts to us: our human spirits; our souls; and, our bodies. And all of us, sharing the same soul, yet have these three distinct qualities, and they function through our minds; through our volition; and, through our emotions. That is where we are vulnerable. And we pray that this week we'll be conscious of this, whatever our age level, and we'll be very much on guard not to let Satan get at those three qualities of our souls, because that's where we can be crashed by the system of the world about us. We are something special because Christ has died for us, and we have been redeemed and reconciled to God's standard of absolute righteousness. Now help us to live out our lives in a way that is compatible with that standing, and with the purpose for which we were conceived. Please bless these offerings, which we bring to Thee. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for being with us this evening.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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