2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
As I promised yesterday, we will begin today’s message by looking at what we learn about the lost from revisiting EPH 2: 1-3. We do this as we examine what God has to say about the question: Should we believe Satan’s lies? “In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins. At that time you followed the world’s evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God. Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God’s anger.” Pastor Avery T. Willis in his second MasterLife text, “The Disciple’s Personality,” helps us to have a better understanding of just what is meant by living according to one’s natural desires. Let me share some of what he said with you. GN 2: 7 tells us that the first human being became a living soul when God breathed into him the breath of life. The words for “soul” in the Scriptures generally mean “life” or “the total self.” Sometimes the word for soul means “heart” or “the seat of the will, desires, and affection, the inner human being.” The soul’s ability to think, will, and feel provides additional evidence that human beings are created in the image of God. These three elements-mind, will, and emotions-help form your distinctive personality. Pastor Avery goes on to define your spirit as what allows you to communicate directly with God. Sometimes psychologists use the word, “psyche,” to describe one’s soul, the inner human seat of will, desires, and affection. One’s flesh, on the other hand, is his outer person-sometimes referring to his physical body with all its appetites and sometimes referring symbolically to one’s lower nature. This is the human capacity to sin and follow Satan instead of God.
In the natural person, one ruled by his flesh, God and Satan can both influence the person. It is easier for this person to relate to Satan, so he often does. Because the door to his soul is still open to Satan, and his flesh has not been crucified with Christ, this person is vulnerable to Satan’s lies and willing to sin. He takes the easy way out. He is also self centered. The person living a lifestyle of sin is one who is interested in the question: what’s in it for me? above everything else. When he lives in sin long enough, he closes the door to his spirit, so that that Holy Spirit is denied entrance. What this person perceives through his senses is all that matters to him. Faith is non-existent. 1 COR 2: 14 applies to him. “Whoever does not have the Spirit cannot receive the gifts that come from God’s Spirit. Such a person really does not understand them: they are foolishness to him, because their value can only be judged on a spiritual basis.” A person guided by the desires of his flesh can only leave his life of sin if he is willing to let the Holy Spirit open the door to his spirit and enter his personality. Then he is born again, as Christ described to Nicodemus that night this leading Pharisee secretly visited Him on his roof [JN 3: 1-21]. The natural person, if he refuses the Holy Spirit’s entrance into his personality, must suffer the consequences that God has made clear through Paul in RO 6: 23. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words, the only fate for a lifestyle of sin for which there has been no repentance is condemnation. These people are destined to suffer God’s wrath.
When we look carefully at what happened in the Garden of Eden, we can see Satan’s tactics with greater clarity. First we know something about what God created there from GN 2: 7-9. “Then the Lord God took some soil from the ground and formed a man out of it; He breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there He put the man He had formed. He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit. In the middle of the garden stood the tree that gives life and the tree that give knowledge of what is good and what is evil.” Later in GN 3: 1-3, we are allowed to know that a conversation took place between the cunning serpent and Eve in which Eve told him that they were allowed to eat the fruit from any tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent’s dirty work begins with his assertion that Adam and Eve don’t have to worry about God’s restriction here, because it was simply God’s way of keeping them from being like Him. Sadly for us all, Eve and later Adam believed this lie bringing them to commit the original sin. They were being ruled by their natural desires rather than any faith and obedience to God. Because of the original sin, we are all born in sin, but our loving Abba has given us a way out. It is up to us to choose to exercise this option. God, Who is omniscient [all-knowing] had to have known this would happen, which is why He had a plan in place before the creation of the world to send His Son to die on the cross for mankind. Then, they could have the choice not to sin if they were willing to have their flesh “crucified” with Christ by repenting and coming to faith. So, Satan’s tactics are to tell lies, hope mankind will believe them, and to set up the condition where sin will spread to every person on earth. We must see them for what they are, the tactics of a loser!
PRAYER: O Lord, You are so gracious to us, even through we don’t deserve it. We were born in sin, but through Christ’s Atonement, You have given us a way out of it. In HE 10: 10, You have told us, “Because Jesus Christ did what God wanted Him to do, we are all purified from sin by the offering that He made of His own body once and for all.” HE 10: 14, “With one sacrifice, then, He has made perfect forever those who are purified from sin.” These truths are vital to our the finding way out (from being lost and headed for sure condemnation) that You have given us through Your generosity, grace, and compassion. We praise You for that and pledge to walk through that “narrow gate that leads to a hard path” [MT 7: 13-14]. You have given us Scriptures like 1 COR 2: 14 and EPH 2: 1-3 to cause us to understand better the crucial nature of making that choice and also to help us recognize when a person is giving into to Satan’s temptation and lies. We offer You utmost thanks for giving believers the same power You used to raise Christ from death to life to fend off Satan’s attacks [EPH 1: 18-20]. Only a Deity Who loves His children would exercise His power to enable them to be born again in the Spirit, so that Your Spirit could fill their vessels, replacing ill-conceived human agendas. We acknowledge Your sovereignty, supremacy, power, and love in deepest gratitude and humility. We bow before You in confession of our sin, in deepest reverence for You, and with the prayer that You will use us as instruments to bring the lost to where the Holy Spirit can bring life-giving faith to them. We want to join You in Your work and experience You through obedience to Your commands. These things we say in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.
There is more to say about what is found in GN 2-3 that serves as useful “combat intelligence” about the lost who are under Satan’s power and how God can use His power to bring some of them to saving faith. That will be the subject of tomorrow’s message. We will look at some of Satan’s motivations too. Our Lord God loves us more that we ever deserve or understand. He teaches us what He knows we need to know to defend ourselves and go out on the attack against the enemy. His desire for us is victory in Christ’s name which leads to eternal life. There is no evil in him, as there is in the adversary. God is both righteous and patient. He offers us refuge and strength, so profound as to confuse and thwart Satan when we have the courage, faith, and obedience to use it. That is one more way that He demonstrates His love for us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn