Last Worship summary:
Now carry that thought a little further. When we had the mind of Satan and he was ruling, we said we would not do those evil things, but just those were done. Who did it? ["Sin that dwelleth in us,"] We said we will do so and so. We did not. Who kept us from it? ["Satan."] But now in Christ we are free from him: we have the other mind. We say we will do that. Who does it? ["Christ."] While in the natural mind we refuse and who does it? ["Satan."] And when in the mind of Christ we choose and who does it? ["Christ."] Is that so? [It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do, of His good pleasure
"For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" What is the condition of the man who has only the natural mind? ["Wretched,"] Yes, and in captivity. And the more intense the hatred of the evil the more wretched the condition, because there is no deliverance from it in anything the man can do for himself. Well, then, who shall deliver? "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit."
Now Romans 8:6, 7: "For to be carnally minded is death." What is the condition of that man who has only the natural mind? ["Dead,"] "But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. The carnal mind, which is the natural mind, is" AT enmity with God ["No. IS enmity against God?"] No, it is not at enmity with God, but it, itself is enmity. It "is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God," until the man is changed? [ "Neither indeed can be."] Can't be? Cannot God make that mind subject to His law? ["No."] Now, can't the Lord make that mind that is in you and me--the natural mind--can't He make that subject to His law? ["No."] What is that mind? It is enmity against God. Cannot the Lord make that which is enmity against Him--can't He make it love for Him? ["No."]
There is the point: If it were AT enmity, then it might be reconciled, because the thing that would make it at enmity would be the source of the trouble. And therefore, take away the source of the trouble, and then the thing that is at enmity would be reconciled. WE are AT enmity, but when He takes the enmity away, WE are RECONCILED to God. In this matter of the carnal mind though, there is nothing between; it is the thing itself. That is the root.
Then it cannot be subject to the law of God. The only thing that can be done with it, is to destroy it, uproot it, banish it, annihilate it. Whose mind is it? ["Satan's,"] It is the mind of character, the mind of self, and that is of Satan. Well then, what can a man do in the way of righteousness? What can be done in him, even, in the way of righteousness, until that other mind is there? [ "Nothing."] Well, that is the mind that is in all mankind. Now let us see how this carnal mind, this natural man, works in the matter of righteousness in the matter of justification.
Romans, first chapter, tells us this, verses 20-22: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without an excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Who was the first inhabitant of this world that professed to follow wisdom at the suggestion of self, at the suggestion of Satan? Eve. She was the first one that reached out after wisdom in this way. What did she get? ["Foolishness,"] She became a fool. And we are all there. Who leads the natural mind? Satan. Who works at it? Satan. Then when those that he is speaking of here, had gone away from God, became fools; "and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things"--that is heathendom.
Fifteenth chapter of Gibbons' Decline and fall of the Roman Empire, paragraph 17; he says of the heathen in the inquiry after the immortality of the soul:
"In the sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their imagination, and their imagination had been prompted by their vanity."
Mark it, Reason of what kind of a mind? ["the carnal mind,"] Guided by the imagination of what kind of a mind? ["The lustful mind,"] And the imagination motivated by the vanity of what kind of a mind, ["The carnal mind."] Is not that exactly the mind of Satan? Vanity the root of the inquiry, and self the root of the pride, this is the best comment upon that verse of Scripture you will find in this world. I read on:
When they viewed with complacency the extent of their own mental powers, when they exercised the various faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most profound speculations, or the most important labors, and when they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into future ages, far beyond the bonds of death and of the grave; they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the field or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity, they entertained the sincerest admiration, could be limited to a spot of earth and to a few years of duration.
What is that but the description of Satan's career when he started? His cause motivated by his imagination; his imagination guided by his arrogance, and viewing with self-satisfaction the measure of his own mental powers; the desire for fame further than that of God, and unwilling to allow that a person for whose dignity, he entertained the sincerest admiration could be properly limited to a subordinate place in the universe of God. Is not this an exact description of mankind in a heathen condition, written by a philosopher, looking only at the question from man's side of it? Could there be a clearer description of the working of Satan in his original career?
Well, what then?
With this favorable prepossession, they called to their aid the science, or rather the language, of philosophy of the mind. They soon discovered that as none of the properties of matter will apply to the operations of the mind, the human soul must consequently, be a subject individual from the body, pure, simple and inner, weak of separation, and inclined of a much higher degree of virtue and happiness after the release from its material prison. From these misleading and noble principles, the scholars who trod in the footsteps of Plato derived a very excessive conclusion, since they declared not only the future eternal life, but the past eternity of the human soul, which they were too clever to consider as a portion of the infinite and self-existing spirit, which pervades and sustains the universe.
What is that but the mind of Satan? Self-existing, like God, Equal with God. What is that then but the action in man of that very mind which in Lucifer in heaven, aspired to be equal with God, The mind that would exalt the self to equality with God. This is the normal mind. That is the mind that is natural in every man in the world. That is the mind of Satan. And that is the working of this natural mind in open, bold heathenism. Then does not every such one need another mind--even the mind of Jesus Christ that thought it not a thing to be caught upon to be equal with God, but emptied Himself? Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him.
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