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The Steps into Spiritual Darkness
RO143-02© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1988)
We are studying Romans 11:7-10. Our subject is "The Divine Hardening," and this is segment number four.
A man recently told me of a lady whom he met, who years ago had attended Berean Church. She did not recognize him at first, though he recognized her. When she found
out who he was, she said, "Oh yes, Berean Memorial Church," and she wondered whether he was still attending. He, in turn, asked her if she was still at the Bible
church to which she and her husband had gone. At that point, the lady told him that he better sit down before she tells him where she and her family now attend church.
He didn't sit down, but he wished later that he had. She told him, "We are now all Roman Catholics." She and her husband and her son attend a Roman Catholic Church.
I have been in touch with this family over the years, and have observed their odyssey from biblical Christianity (in which indeed I do believe they found salvation) to,
gradually, their descent into Roman Catholicism, which is an occult, an amalgamation of Christianity and Babylonian paganism. They went, in fact, from the exaltation
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the way to heaven, to the exaltation of the virgin Mary as the way to God. All of the satanic doctrines of the Babylonian mystery religions,
which we have studied in detail in our series on the book of the Revelation, and which those of you who have chosen to attend are well-versed, so that you have a frame
of reference with that instruction of the most dramatic things that are happening on the religious scene in the world today.
The Roman Catholic Church
The Roman Catholic Church is gearing up to take over in full blossom form the harlot church enterprise that is described in Revelation 17. Out of the Babylonian mystery
religions, there was brought into Christianity (amalgamated mixed – with Christianity under the auspices of the Roman government), the Mass – this non-bloody
sacrifice of Christ again on the altars of the Roman Catholic Churches, and which many Christians mistakenly believe is a variation of the Lord's Supper; the practice of
infant baptism, which came right out of Semiramis and Tammuz's system and Nimrod's system in Babylon; and, the concept of purgatory, which was instituted under the
auspices of Gregory I. And I've heard a very prominent evangelist who has an institution built to his memory, who portrays a great banner to Gregory I, as one of the
all-time great purveyors of the gospel of salvation. This is the man who put together the concept of purgatory because there was no sense of security for a Roman
Catholic, on the works system of salvation. That came out of the Babylonian system. They also held onto the system of a priesthood between you and God to be able to get
to God – a clergy. That came right out of the Babylonian system. The confessional came out of the Babylonian system into Roman Catholicism.
Also, of course, there is the mother goddess, with the infant child in her arms. That came right out of the Babylonian mystery religion. That was the core of the
Babylonian system – the worship of the mother goddess and the infant son. All over the ancient world, archaeologists have found thousands of little images of a
mother holding a child before there ever was any one like the virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus. I stood in the British Museum, at one time, in a section that dealt with
these findings, and there I saw a perfect little image of a goddess. And you could tell she was a goddess, cradling the child. I looked at the card, and it had come from
the ancient past long before the arrival of the Son of God.
The Roman Catholics have created a harlot religion. And this family, very smugly, and very proudly, says, "We have arrived at the epitome. In our spiritual, religious
odyssey, we are now Roman Catholics." They are blinded in their reversionism, not realizing that they have gone down all the time. This is a classic example of what I've
tried to teach you many times – that people who are growing spiritually downward, think that they're going up. Reversionism reverses your sense of values, and what
is happening in your life.
However, this kind of a spiritual degeneration could only happen in Christians whose souls have become calloused and spiritually darkened through their negative volition
to the doctrines of Scripture. They are not learning the Word of God and they're not obeying it, because when you are learning the Word of God, and you are obeying it,
you have spiritual enlightenment that protects you from that kind of devastating spiritual degeneration.
In Psalm 119:105, we read, "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light onto my path." You saw our Pioneer Girls this morning giving the Pioneer Girls' salute. That's
what they were doing. They were demonstrating this verse: "Your Word," and they put their hand up: "Is a lamp unto my feet," and they point down to their feet: "Your Word
is a lamp unto my feet, and a light onto my path," and they express the open palm to the path that they're walking before them. That's what the Pioneer Girls' salute is
all about. And, of course, it is the Word of God that enlightens our path. If you don't have that, you're walking in darkness.
Verse 130 adds this: "The entrance of Your Words give light that give understanding unto the simple." It is the entrance of the Word of God into your mentality, and your
reception to it, that gives you spiritual enlightenment, so that you have understanding, instead of being a dummy. What a wonderful, wonderful provision of our God.
So, this family made a gradual degeneration. And I know that it was the product. They went, incidentally (you might be interested to know) from a Bible oriented church
structure to a liturgical church structure, where they go through ceremonies by the numbers. They have the altars, and they have the robes. Then they degenerated into
the charismatic movement, and from that into the Roman Catholic movement. And it was a progression that was as logical as night must follow day. It was practically
inevitable. It was the product of people talking to people, and ignoring the Word of God. So, they have ended up in an occult system of Roman Catholicism.
Perhaps you watched the program on Fatima in Portugal, back at the beginning of this century – the three children who received an image of the virgin Mary, and the
great crowd who stood there on the sacred site where the virgin appeared in Fatima, and saw the sun dancing in the sky. I mean, they weren't crazy. They saw it happen.
They saw the power of Satan demonstrated. They have these shrines that are dedicated to the virgin Mary. There's a great one in Lourdes, France. And I read of a priest
who had come out of the Roman Catholic system, who was a Jesuit, who was telling about how the system is an occult system. It was from the time that Loyola put it
together. It was calling upon the powers of the spirit world, and the darkness that is willing to lend its capacities to those who are willing to be deceived. He said,
I stood there at Lourdes, and they have a little pool in which those who are ill and have ailments enter into. And I saw a man who had part of his leg missing. He got
into that pond, and I stood there, and I watched the glob of flesh develop on the end of that stump of that leg, and gradually move down, and grow out, until the full
foot was there again.
If you don't think the devil and his agents can perform miracles, you don't know what's going on. And if you don't think that the devil and his agents are having a
field day in the charismatic movement with the miracles, you don't know what's going on.
Now, how are we going to protect ourselves from this kind of fantastic delusion? It is no small thing that an hour program should be given at prime time on television
last week, to the whole subject of the miracle of Fatima. It is the Roman Catholic Church gearing up to become the powerful universal church body that the Bible has
predicted. Many of you, who have your head screwed on; are concerned about prophecy; and, you're interested in it, because it is the most illuminating guideline we have
today. So, we are not just going about our sweet little Christian lives, doing our own thing, and within what we think makes us happy, while the world is coming apart,
as the profit of old said, because the people lack the vision that only the Word of God can give them.
Well, we've been studying here about the Jewish people in Romans 11. And Paul has pointed out to us that they became hardened in their souls toward the doctrine of
salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Consequently, their minds are in total spiritual darkness, and they go about creating a plan of salvation, of securing
righteousness by means of their good works and their morality. God rejects this relative righteousness which they've created, and thus, practically all Jews, upon death,
go into Hades and eternal suffering.
The Steps into Spiritual Darkness
We turned over to Ephesians 4 last time, to show you the steps into darkness of a soul – these steps by which a soul becomes calloused toward God. We found, in
verse 17-19, the steps for this. Number one was a negative attitude to Bible doctrine truths. They are negative by not attending church; negative by attending church;
and, refusing to listen to what you have heard – to believe it, and to a bigger step. Number two was that this creates a condition where the mind is devoid of
divine viewpoint principles, and thus creates a mental vacuum. Number three was that their understanding is darkened by a human viewpoint, which is sucked into this
mental vacuum from the world around, and from satanic concepts. Step number four was that the soul becomes alienated from any kind of a godly lifestyle. Step number
five, Paul points out, is that the mind then is totally under the control of human viewpoint. It is blacked out. Step number six was that the soul becomes, then,
hardened, or calloused, against God, and against all of His divine viewpoints. Step number seven results in indulgence (in vile sensuality of all kinds), and an eagerness
to do those evil things.
King David
Now, under this condition in the soul (this condition of callousness toward God) there simply can be no godly living nor growth in spiritual maturity. King David was the
man who was the apple of God's eye – the man who was after God's own heart. He decided that he was going to play fast and loose with someone else's wife. He entered
into adultery, and had to murder the husband to get him out of the way, when suddenly a baby was on the way. For one year, Psalm 51 tells us how David refused to say,
"What I did was wrong." And that's all God wanted him to do. He said, David, you've sinned against Me, and you've got to straighten it out with Me." Finally, David said,
I went to him and said, "God, I was stupid. It was wrong. It was sinful." And what did God do? God said, "David, now you're applying doctrine to the situation. You have
come and made the confession that I've taught you that you should make. You have now come to be restored – the only place you can be restored." God, pick David up.
And He said, "Let's brush you off. Now, here's the way I want you to go. Here's my next instruction to you." And David became the spiritual leader of Israel for the next
25 years in his finest hour.
Out of that terrible tragedy, and that very sinful situation, for which there was no justification, came one of the all-time great rulers of Israel, King Solomon. He was
born to David and Bathsheba. This is what God does because He is a God of grace. When He cleans up a life that is willing to come to Him, and apply doctrine to the
error. This is the God who does the same thing with all those mental attitude sins that nobody else sees, but which are indulged internally, and which the book of James
says, "The worst sins before God are those that are in the mind that nobody can see – the sins of envy; greed; vindictiveness; lust; and, covetousness – all
of these terrible things that nobody can. They're the worst," James says, because when they are there, and they're permitted to grow, they will express themselves
outwardly. But if you stop it internally, it will never get outside. And if you stop it internally, it'll do a whole lot less damage. The circle of impact will be far
less than when you let the thing grow and break out. And it will break up. Let it grow, and it will express itself outwardly.
So, the old fundamentalism, that takes its self-righteous robe, and draws its robes around it, and loves to talk about its integrity, can only say that to people who
are ignorant of doctrine and do not know James' principle of mental attitude sins as being the worst since with God, because they are the seed that creates everything
else. A spiritually hardened soul is prone to all kinds of sensual sins, and all kinds of temporal desires which you should not be pursuing. The Christian in spiritual
reversionism eagerly pursues the attractions of Satan's world without any compunction. The callouses built up on one's soul, however, must then also be removed if the
believer is to return to spiritual understanding, and to divine blessing.
So, that's where we have come this morning. However, before we proceed into how to remove the hardness in the soul against God, we have to do something else. And it is
not done just because you say, "OK, Lord, I'm going to come back to you, I'm going to be obedient." You can't remove a callous on your body that way. It takes time for
the thing to peel off. But you do take actions to stop the further hardening. And the result is that it does reverse itself.
The Soul
To begin with, I've had some questions about the soul. I skipped all that because I thought we understood that, and most of you do. But perhaps a few basic points would
remind us of what it is that we're talking about that gets into trouble – that leads us into disaster in our lives temporarily and eternally. Where did the soul
come from? Genesis 1:26 tells us about that: "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image.'" "Let us make" is the Hebrew word "asah." The word "asah" means to make
something out of something else. It is not like the word for "create." "Asah" means that God said, "Let's make something out of something that already exists." What was
He talking about? He was talking about the image of God. The Godhead said to one another (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), "What We are (the way we are constructed in our
being), let us make a human being who will reflect what We are. He will be in Our image, but of course, he will be finite. He will not have Our infinite capacities. But
let's make someone like ourselves" – totally different from the animals that God had made, which were not like God, but: "Someone like ourselves."
As a matter of fact, very specifically, God said, "Let us make man in Our image." The word "image" is the Hebrew word "tselem." The Hebrew word "tselem" means a shadow.
The idea is: "Let's make a reflection of Ourselves." What God was going to make in the way of a man was not going to be a photograph, an actual physical appearance of
what God looks like. This is the Mormon error. Mormons say that God is physical, and that man has been made in God's physical image. The soul of man reflects the
essence, or the personality of God.
What Does a Person Consist of?
What does a person consist of? That's what we're talking about. A dog is not a person. Now, the dog is very friendly, and a dog has certain qualities. But he is not truly
a personality; even though a dog has a mind; a dog has emotions; and, a dog has a will. But what is missing is the other quality that God gave, which gave the contact
with him, which was the living human spirit. That, a dog does not have.
So, God said, "Let us make man as a reflection of Ourselves." That means "after our pattern." So, all of mankind has been patterned after the Trinity in that all the
Trinity has the same essence. So, we say there is one God. But the Trinity is made up of distinct persons. So, all we in the human race have the same kind of souls.
We all had the same essence. We have a soul that is capable of thinking, emoting, and deciding. But we are all individuals separate people.
Man's Soul
So, man's soul was made by God after the pattern of God's immaterial nature. God is a spirit, John 4:24 tells us. The Mormons are in great error when they say that God
is a human being of flesh and bone such as we are. And I asked the Mormons about this, at Salt Lake City one time. In one of their great libraries, they had some ladies
who were answering questions. I say, "Do you have a problem with the fact that you tell us that God is a physical human being?" The lady said, "That's right." I said,
"Yet the Bible says that God is a spirit. The point of that verse is that He is not flesh. Do you find a problem with that?" She says, "You know, that's a good question.
I'm going to have to check on that." Indeed, it is a good question. We have been made after God's material being. God is not flesh and bones as we are.
So, the soul is not material, but it is real. It can be defined only by its characteristics. "After our image" is the Hebrew word "demuth." And "demuth" means that we
are made in the same kind of pattern that God is made of, in His immaterial being. We are separate persons. We have the same soul.
Genesis 1:27 tells us, "So God created man." And here we come to another important Hebrew word – one that perhaps you're acquainted with. The word create is the
Hebrew word "bara." The word "bara" means that one moment there is nothing; God speaks; and, His word creates something. It is out of nothing that God brings something
into being. We know that God did not make the body of man out of nothing. Here again, the Bible uses, very carefully, in the Hebrew language, the word that says, "God
made man out of something else." We know that he made them out of the dirt of the ground that God had previously spoken into existence. Here we're told that there's
something about man that was just talked into existence – and that is his soul and spirit. After the Godhead had a conference: "We're going to create a human being.
He will reflect Our kind of being," and then they made the shape of the man externally out of the dirt of the ground, and then, by an act of God's Word, They created a
human soul and a human spirit. Both men and women were given this human soul and human spirit. Genesis 1:27 said that: "We were made in the image of God, male and
female."
So, the immaterial part of man's being is this soul and spirit. It is the soul and spirit of man which are the real person. It is the soul which never dies. The spirit
dies. What Adam sinned, his human spirit died. It is the spirit which is brought back to life when we are regenerated. That's what regeneration means. It's to have your
human spirit brought back to life again when you trust in Christ as Savior.
Genesis 2:7 tells us that God prepared what he was doing by creating a body for this soul to live in. Genesis 2:7 says, "And the Lord formed man of the dust of the
ground." And here is another one that is interesting Hebrew words "ytser." "Ytser" is a word you would use if you're going to make a pot out of clay, or if you were
going to make a little image out of clay. "Ytser" is exactly what God did. He took the dirt, and He formed the body of a man. Then He breathed into him an act of
creation. He "bara" (He spoke) soul life into man. He did this by breathing into him.
So, the life of man now became real. The soul never dies. It is the soul that gives us the capacity to have fellowship with people. We have fellowship with people
through our minds; through our emotions; and, through our will. But it is our human spirit that gives us capacity to have fellowship with God. And it is our physical
body, with its five senses, that enables us to have fellowship with the world around us. So, here was a perfect structure: man made as a special creature with a spirit,
soul, and body. And all of this was so that we could be like God in a limited way.
Now, it is this soul that God has created, with its mind; its emotion; and it's will that are the areas that become hardened toward God. Here is where the callouses
build up. So, between you and God, he cannot get through. He cannot get to your mind; your emotions; or, your will, because you're hardened toward Him. How do we know
this?
The Bible tells us that these are the elements that compose the soul. Very briefly, the soul has a mentality. Luke 12:19 illustrates this. The man who was rich had
everything in the world. He said, "I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have much goods laid up for many years. Take your ease. Eat, drink and be merry." What is he
telling us in that statement? He's telling us that I can talk to my soul, and it will understand. It has a mentality. I will tell my soul to lean back, and to enjoy
what I have secured.
In Acts 15:24, we again have mentality attached to the soul: "For as much as we have heard that certain who went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting
your souls." How do they subvert your souls? With words, and with both doctrine. How could they do that? Well, because the soul can understand. You are sitting inside
that body there. And we look at you through the windows of your eyes, and we see you on the inside there. You are able to understand what we are telling you. Words
convey thoughts. It is the soul of man that can receive that.
The Mind
Now, we'll not get into the fact, as we have previously shown you, that the mind of the soul is able to learn things. We call that the perceptive function. The mind
of the soul is also able to make decisions, and we call that the directed function of the mind. So, these two capacities together enable the mind to take in the
information of God's Word. Processing it properly through the human spirit. It comes up to the mind to control the soul. In God's order, it is the mentality of the
soul which is to tell your emotions how they should feel. It is the mentality which is to tell your will what to do. In the marriage relationship, it is the husband
who is the head, and who controls the family; the wife; and, the children. He is the decision maker. In God's order, the mentality of the soul is the male role. The
emotions and the will are responders as females to the mind.
The Emotions
Now, what happens when you get somebody, who is blanked out here, as we've been studying; blackened in the mind; can't think like that at all; you don't care about God;
and, totally indifferent to God – how are they going to act? They're going to act on the basis of the emotions. The emotions come in and take over. Women by nature
are more inclined to act on how they feel about things.
You invite somebody over to dinner. The wife has worked very hard. She prepared a wonderful roast. The guests sit down and they begin eating a meal and the man says,
"Where did you get this roast?" The husband says, "At Green Bird's Meat Market." The wife says, "Why? What's wrong with it?" He acted in a mental way. She got emotional
right away about the roast. There is her natural way.
There is nothing wrong with being emotional, except you have to have it under control of the mind. And that's no good unless that mind is filled with the Word of God,
so that it is an enlightened mentality. Then your emotions will not go berserk. You'll not run around trying to accomplish, and trying to have feelings and emotions
about things that are out of line. You will not be going around getting all hot and bothered over other people's problems that you shouldn't be part of anyhow. You
will then not be trying to direct your will through your emotions because your emotions can't think. In the soul, it is only the mind that can think. This is what we
are fighting in the human race. People whose minds do not control the soul, and people whose minds do not direct their emotions, and do not direct their decision –
minds which are the mind of Christ through the Word of God.
The Will
So, the Bible tells us, first of all, that part of the soul is the mind. Secondly, it tells us that there is also the will (volition) in the soul. We have a couple of
verses to establish that. Psalm 119:167, for example, directs us to that bit of information: "My soul has kept your testimonies, and I love them exceedingly." My soul
has kept your testimonies. He's talking about the Word of God. What does that tell you about the soul? The soul has kept it. That means: "My soul decided to obey the
Word of God." In fact, notice that he also throws in: "And I love them exceedingly," which tells us also that emotion is there in the soul.
Acts 3:23: "And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people." What does that mean: "Hear the prophet?"
You decide to obey. You make a decision of the will. Volition is part of the soul. It is the capacity to choose rather than to be acting on instinct like an animal. All
of your choices are determined by what you believe. Your choices – if they are not the result of what you believe, they will be a result of your emotions going
amok. God's orders for the will to be governed by the mind, not the emotions.
However, the Bible also tells us that another element of the soul is indeed the emotions. Song of Solomon 1:7: "Tell me, O you, who my soul loves." Here, it is speaking
to his beloved. Solomon says, "Tell me, O you, who my soul loves – where your feet is, where you make your flock to rest at noon," and so on. But there very
clearly, love is attached to the soul. It is an element of the soul.
John 12:27 indicates that the facet of the soul is the emotions. There, Jesus says, "Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say, Father? Save Me from this hour, but
for this cause I came unto this hour." Jesus Christ is in agony, about to take upon Him the sins of the world. He is telling the Father, "My soul is really in distress."
That's an emotion. So, the soul is capable of emotion.
Then there is one more example in 2 Peter 2:4: "For that righteous man, dwelling among them (speaking of Lot, dwelling in the homosexual cities of Sodom and Gomorrah)
– that righteous man dwelling among them, and seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds." Lot was obsessed by the
perversions that he observed in Sodom and Gomorrah. His soul was emoting over what he saw. So, the emotions are part of the soul. It is again to be controlled by the
mentality, because the emotions of the soul cannot think. They have no content.
The Effect of Salvation on the Soul
So, this was the problem with the Jews. These elements of their souls (these facets of their souls) were completely hardened toward God. Consequently, they were not
able to respond to the gospel when they heard it. Here's the effect of salvation on the soul. The effect on the mentality is that the unsaved person, who is aware of
himself, rejects his pride and his self-pity. And his self-awareness becomes conscious of Jesus Christ. Since the unbeliever, however, has no living human spirit,
which is our point of contact with God, there is no way that you can go to an unsaved person, and say, "I want to give you the gospel, and I want to tell you how to
go to heaven," because you've got nothing to talk to. He has no living human spirit by which to grasp something that has to do with God. This is the point at which God
the Holy Spirit comes in and does one thing for the unbeliever. The Bible tells us that He convicts that unbeliever. He brings him under conviction. He alerts him to
his condition, and what is ahead of him without Christ. So, the Spirit of God overrides the dead human spirit, and gives the information, so the person has the capacity
to decide to accept. The Holy Spirit brings that person under conviction. John 16:8 tells us that. And then He leads him to accept.
Now, for this reason, Satan is always trying to override this illumination of the Spirit of God that the human soul needs for the mind to be able to respond –
to believe the gospel. So, in 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, we read, "But if our gospel be hidden, it is hidden to them that are lost, in the God of this age has blinded the
minds." He has not blinded what? He has not blinded their emotions, and He has not blinded their well. He has blinded the mentality of the soul of them who believe
not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
So, it is Satan who knows exactly where to go. God the Holy Spirit is going to aim for the mentality of the soul to give an understanding of the gospel. The devil
comes in, and he shoots right for that same mentality, to try to override that, and to darken the capacity to grasp what is at stake. The effects of the gospel is that
the mind of the soul is illuminated on the volition. The unsaved person makes the choice to reject all of his dead idols, and all the things he was trusting in. And he
goes positive toward faith in Jesus Christ. That's a non-meritorious act. It is agreeing to the fact that God is telling the truth. A person who will not respond is the
person who is riding on rationalism. This gospel doesn't make sense to him. Or he's riding on empiricism: "I don't see any proof for the soul, or for the existence of
God," and so on. But negative evolution will then create that vacuum that draws in the darkness that the Jews suffered from. Finally, the effect of the gospel on the
emotions is that it creates an enormous sense of appreciation and relief that God has solved the problem. We then are grateful, and we respond to the living God.
Now, that is the thing we're talking about. This is the part of us that gets into trouble. And we need, on a daily basis, to be extremely sensitive to what is happening
to our minds; to our emotions; and, to our will, relative to their being responsive to God. And above all, we need to be sure that the Word of God, on a daily basis, is
taken into our minds to flush out the darkness, and to give us the illumination so that our souls are like a proper husband who is calling the plays in his family, and
is taking the responsibilities that God has placed upon him. He's guiding the family in the decisions that they're making, and in the attitudes (the emotions) which they
accept as legitimate.
So, when the callouses build up, that thing has to be cleaned up. And that's where Ephesians 4:20, I'm happy to say, leads back into enlightenment. This is how to
reverse the terrible process. It says, "But you have not so learned Christ." All solutions, I remind you, for our spiritual problems must come through the Word of God,
or they are false delusions and not solutions. The mistake is often made of bypassing the learning of doctrine in meeting a person's spiritual breakdown. If a person
descends into gross sexual immorality, what is the solution? To berate him? To appeal to him? To try to call upon him that to take some other course of action is better.
None of that is of any value. That's a psychological approach that gets a temporary reaction and a temporary solution. You've got to go back to the Word of God and say,
"Friend, here is the mind of Christ. Here is the doctrine that applies to what you have done. Here's your way back. Here is the return."
So, this is the solution for all spiritual breakdown. It is getting back to the Word of God. If you have a breakdown physically in your body from malnutrition, because
you haven't been eating right, what's the solution? Get out there and have exercise. Start jogging. Get your bulwark together, and squeeze that thing back and forth.
It's lots of fun to stand in front of a mirror and squeeze that thing all over. It makes you really feel good, if you don't look too close. But anyhow, you're working
the old reflex muscles, and working away. But you're dying of malnutrition. Is that going to help? No. What's the solution? You go back to food. You start feeding the
body.
Proposed Solutions
So, when you get into these terrible spiritual breakdowns as a result of these calluses on the soul, what's the solution? Well, you go back to the Word of God. Any
other solution is a psychological delusion, and there's plenty of that. You go out to the counselors, even the Christian counselors, and they're going to give you the
psychological goop to help you meet that immediate situation. And you go out there maybe, at the moment, feeling pretty good, but you'll break down. It's not going to
last. It is doctrine put back into the mind, so that you function on that principle, that brings you back up out of the dust. And your hustling around in religious
activities, and everything else, is not going to help. Christians are led astray by proposed solutions, which are temporary relief, because they're based again upon an
emotional orientation.
This is the problem with the charismatics. The charismatics do not really care what a person does. They do not even care if what the person does is what people would
say is grossly sinful. They will have objections about it, and it's against their theology. But the average charismatic won't be disturbed over that if you keep coming
and giving him exciting experiences – if you give him experiences and emotional highs. That's what he wants, and that's what he will go for.
Now, the Word of God says that that is not the way to solve the terrible problems that come into your life when sin is there. The apostle Paul, in verse 20, said, "But
you," and he's referring to believers who are positive to the Word of God – Christians here who do not have the condition of calluses on their soul described in
verses 17-19. He says, "But you people have not so learned Christ." And the word "learned" is the Greek word "manthano." The word "manthano" here refers to having been
instructed. You have not arrived at your place of spiritual well-being by going through the process of having calluses on your soul. This is not how you learned Christ.
And what he means is how you came to a maturity in the Lord. You came through it because there was a teacher of the Word of God who taught by the HICEE method. You have
come to a certain point where you have the capacity to walk with God. A positive addition to the Word of God will prevent you from building callouses on the soul, and
degenerating into the corrupted condition that people who have calluses on the soul inevitably go to.
Bible Doctrine
He said. "You have not, in that condition of callousness, that is not." And it's the strong "not:" "ou". That's not the condition under which you learn, and under which
you came to walk with Christ. And it's the Christ, the particular Lord of the church whose mind is recorded for us in Scripture. Bible doctrine, I remind you, is
the mind of Christ.
I am sick and tired of people going around telling me of what the Lord is telling them. 1 Corinthians 2:16, says, "For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may
instruct Him. But we have the mind of Christ." Who knows the mind of Christ? We, who have learned it through the Word of God. The big mouth technique of the discussion
groups does not bring you the mind of Christ. It is the HICEE gifted pastor-teacher, through the Word of God, that is capable of illuminating and opening up to you the
understanding of what is going on.
So, the first point, is Paul says, "You people who are walking with the Lord, I want you to know, first of all, you did not arrive at that with a darkened mentality and
callouses on the soul.
Then he goes on and says, "If that is your condition, here's how we peel it back off." And we will go with that next time.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1988
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