Let us begin with a word of prayer.
Lord, we are grateful that we can come to the Head of the assembly this morning. We can come to the One who loves us and willingly gave His life for each one of us. We can come to this One who sits upon the throne at the right hand of God and reigns and rules over the affairs of men.
Lord, we come to Thee today because we know that, when we approach Your Word, we have to have hearing ears. Lord, we have to have hearts that can receive, and we have to have mouths that can speak as the oracles of God.
So we ask for that anointing this morning of the Holy Spirit, that we can both speak and hear what You have to say to us. Lord, I just pray that You will eliminate all that is just of Jerry Amon, and Lord, it will be You who speaks today. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Could we turn to the book of Hebrews? Hebrews 2:10.
For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
To bring many sons to glory. Our Lord Jesus Christ, of course, is the Captain of our salvation, and He was perfected through suffering, made a faithful High Priest to us, that He could fulfill this ministry of bringing many sons to glory.
When we think of bringing many sons to glory, we think that what this means to us is that the Lord will have to bring us to the place where we are matured in Jesus Christ, where our character and nature reflect that of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As individuals, we will remain with our individualism, but we will no longer be individualistic. We will carry the nature and character of Christ. This is God’s great purpose. It is in His heart.
We are not exactly sure, when we look upon ourselves and His creation, as to His thought—why He would want to bring so many sons to glory—other than this one thought: He was so pleased with His Son, so in love with His Son, that He had to manifest His character and fullness to all of creation. He needed a body beyond what our Lord Jesus was able to exhibit when He was on this earth.
We have been speaking of this matter of sonship for a number of times now. Basically, sonship is coming to the place in our lives where we take that initial step of sonship.
That step begins when we realize, as our Lord Jesus did at the age of twelve, that we have to be about our Father’s business. We have to take our place as sons in God’s work and in God’s house. We have to take that place of responsibility and be responsible.
It is more than just taking a place. It is a being. It is a doing. It is who we are as much as what we do. So we must become matured sons if God is to fulfill His purpose, that which He had on His heart from eternity past.
Now, this matter of sonship is not a light thing. Sometimes we as Christians say, “Well, I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, and I will go to a few worship meetings in my life, and when I really get in trouble, I will call on the Lord, and one day I will arrive at full maturity.”
Well, brothers and sisters, it ought to be evident that we will not arrive at full maturity if that is our attitude, if that is the way we approach our Christian life. It is something that we need to be very actively involved in, that we will become mature sons—those who can take part in the Father’s business.
Is this matter of sonship important? In Romans 8:19-21, it says that the whole creation is groaning and travailing, awaiting the manifestation of the sons of God.
Interesting. John the Baptist prepared the way for the Lord’s first coming. When you read that Scripture, that the whole earth is groaning and travailing, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, we would think it should say that the whole earth is in travail and groaning, waiting for the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But here in Romans it says it is awaiting the manifestation of the sons of God. Why? Well, this is a message I have for later, but I want to get across the importance of this matter of sonship.
The Lord had a vessel prepared to bring in the Lord Jesus Christ the first time to this earth, to be God’s Lamb. The King will come in.
The Lord will return the second time, and once again He is looking for a vessel to prepare for His return, to prepare the way. That is what this Scripture is talking about: sonship.
The whole creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God because, when that occurs, the Lord is on the way. Indeed, the whole creation will be set free from its bondage. So this matter of sonship is extremely important.
Let us go to Romans 8:14.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
So, sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.
First John 2:27.
And as for you, the anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in him.
The inward anointing will teach you.
Let us go to 1 Timothy 1:19. This is a charge to Timothy by Paul.
Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust from them made shipwreck concerning the faith:
Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I delivered unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.
They had put away faith because of a lack of a good conscience.
In the past, we have shared on this matter of sonship. I began with a challenge from the life of Joshua and Caleb and the maintaining of that spirit of sonship throughout our lives.
One of the real issues we see in Joshua’s life was that all his life he had to war against the flesh and the self-life in order that the life of Christ might prevail.
In Samuel, we spoke of consecration as being absolutely necessary to a life of growth as sons of God. We must have a consecrated life before the Lord.
Without consecration, brothers and sisters, we are basically living our lives on our own, in the way we want to. We are called to consecrate ourselves to the Lord, actually both morning and night. Basically, we should live a life of consecration before the Lord, giving our lives to Him.
“Lord, this is my life that I am going out with today. You lead me. You direct me. I am under Your direction and authority today. I give my heart to You, to serve You as You please.”
With David, we spoke of communion—also essential, absolutely essential, if we are to become mature sons. Communion with the Lord, fellowship with the Lord, just being before the Lord.
It is not a matter of asking for things, but simply being before the Lord and being able to fellowship with the Lord. That was the life of David, and we saw that out of David’s life of communion, he learned the secrets of God’s heart through communion.
Now we come to Daniel. I spoke last time on Daniel and how he purposed in his heart not to defile himself.
Brothers and sisters, if we are to be the sons of God, we cannot live a life that is defiling. We cannot be defiled, and we need to learn how to be before the Lord, how to purpose in our hearts not to defile ourselves.
It was a heart issue, this matter of purposing. It was not simply something said: “Okay, I know I need to do this, Lord, and so I purpose in my heart.” No, it was a real heart longing of Daniel that he not defile himself.
Now, where does that heart longing come from? I think we all have to ask the Lord to be merciful to us and put that in our hearts, that we will be those who long to be pure before Him and not defile ourselves with the ways of the world and the things of this world—with power, fame, and money.
All of these things can be legitimate to a certain point, but certainly they can be very defiling in our lives. We have to be very careful about that.
I cannot think of anything more defiling, brothers and sisters, than living our lives for ourselves and not for the Lord.
Last time I mentioned that, in this matter of purposing our hearts before the Lord not to defile ourselves, and in this matter of bringing many sons to glory, much of what we go through in this life—many things that we experience, many difficulties and trials that we run into—is because God is bringing us to that place of sonship, a full maturity in Jesus Christ.
Many things in your life that you wrestle with the Lord about, and you cannot explain, seem as though nothing good is coming out of that particular experience. But the Lord is working, brothers and sisters.
You have to be very assured that the Lord will achieve His purpose in your life, and that is to bring you to sonship. He will go about doing that, and that does mean that often we will be tried before the Lord.
The whole reason behind it is that the Lord has a purpose for your life, and He intends to bring you into Himself as a mature son in Christ.
Therefore, we cannot just live our lives as we want. Neither, when these issues and problems come upon us, can we simply say, “Well, okay, this is the Lord’s will for my life, and I will just take it as it comes and see what happens.”
It is not like that at all. We are called to be active and not passive in this matter of sonship. Every trial and every situation has a purpose behind it, and we need to be actively pursuing the Lord to find out His heart and His mind.
A brother last week mentioned to me, “Jerry, passive means we are dull and nonresponsive.” How is our life before the Lord? Is it basically a dull life that kind of goes along and hopes that somebody will share something, say something, or pray something that will get us fired up?
Or are we actively in the battle, looking to the Lord and saying, “Lord, draw me, and we will run after Thee”?
Being active means that we are alert and responsive. Remember, our Lord exhorted us that, when He returns, we should be found watching and praying—not just sitting around hoping that things will get better, or gritting our teeth to make it through.
The Word of God says the sons of God walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. Walking indicates activity, action, being actively involved, seeking the Spirit, following the Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, our spiritual sensitivity gets so easily lost, and we get lethargic in our Christian life. But the Lord would challenge us, I think, through this life of Daniel, that we need to be active and responsive in our life before the Lord.
Now, last time I shared about Daniel. A number of times the angel approached him and said, “Daniel, thou art greatly beloved.”
We all know the Lord loves us, but Daniel gave his heart so totally to the Lord, and he was such a righteous man that even the political people of his day could not bring any accusation against him as they tried to remove him from the position he held in that government.
Such a pure man, greatly beloved of the Lord.
Daniel’s name means, “God is my Judge.” In other words, he could live his life openly before the Lord. Daily, he allowed God to judge his life, to look upon his life, and to deal with Daniel that he might be pure for God.
We mentioned how God honored Daniel’s stand not to defile himself. Remember, he and his friends were given wisdom ten times greater than that of the greatest seers of their time. Daniel was greatly honored, and his friends were also made rulers.
Brothers and sisters, Daniel was such a great-hearted and righteous man, and yet he was not spared trials either.
Remember Daniel in the lions’ den. Remember that story? It almost seems like a fairy tale.
The men who were trying to get Daniel out of his position—which was the highest in the land underneath the king—tricked the king into making a decree that counsel could be sought only from him. They knew Daniel would seek the Lord for his counsel.
It was discovered, of course. Daniel did not hide the fact that three times a day he would open his windows and pray. The king said, “Well, Daniel, I have to put you in the lions’ den.”
The Lord allowed Daniel to go into the lions’ den. I do not know if you have ever been in a lions’ den, brothers and sisters, but I think some of us have. We have been in that place where it seemed our lives would be devoured, where there was no hope, and where the roar of the lions was so great that we could hardly hear the voice of the Lord.
But the Lord closed the mouths of the lions. Remember, they found Daniel asleep among the lions. I mean, the lions were asleep. The Lord did that.
He honored Daniel because Daniel had purposed in his heart not to defile himself and was a righteous man by the grace of God. So he went through a fire. He went through that trial.
Then his three friends—remember, his three friends—would not bow down to the golden idol that King Nebuchadnezzar had made.
King Nebuchadnezzar was so furious that these men would not bow down to him that he said, “I want you to heat up the fire seven times beyond what the furnace is supposed to take.”
In fact, the heat was so great that the guards standing to throw the three men in were consumed by the fire themselves.
It says they were pushed and tumbled into the fire with their clothes on. They went into the fire. The point is that they had to go into the fire, brothers and sisters.
But a marvelous thing happened. The king looked into the fiery furnace and said, “Wait. I see a fourth man in the fire. He looks like a son of God.”
Of course, it was our Lord Jesus, the fourth man in the fire. Brothers and sisters, we should be encouraged. When the fires of hell attack our lives, there is a fourth man in the fire.
We should always remember the fourth man in the fire.
The king was so astonished that he said, “Bring them to me.” They came out of the fiery furnace, and there was not even the smell of smoke on their clothes. They were not singed at all.
It is amazing, is it not? They just stayed faithful to the Lord regardless of their circumstances. What a testimony.
God reigns and rules over the affairs of men. Even Nebuchadnezzar was humbled and honored the God of these three men.
How, brothers and sisters, is it possible to live such a life as this?
It is possible because you have the life of Christ dwelling in you.
The Word of God says that you are a new creation in Christ and that the Holy Spirit now dwells in your spirit. You have this inward life. The life of Christ is actually in you, and that is the life that needs to mature and grow in you. It is planted in us as a seed, and that spiritual life has to grow and mature.
Sometimes it takes fiery trials to solidify things. It is possible to live this kind of Christian life. It is possible to become mature sons of God because we have the life of Christ.
I think sometimes, when we get into situations in our lives, we give up. In a sense, it is all right to give up on yourself, but we should never give up on Christ. We should never give up on the life that is within you.
No matter how feeble or weak you feel as a Christian, the life of Christ is in you, and it has the same potential in you that was in Paul the apostle. Not that we are all called to be Paul, but that same life is there.
Because that life is there, because the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in your human spirit, you are able to commune with God and to know Him.
In knowing Him, our lives will be transformed. It is as we behold Christ that our lives are transformed. It is looking upon Him.
I cannot tell you how many times the Lord has had to say to me, “Jerry, you are looking in the wrong place.” I find myself looking inward. I find myself looking at other brothers and sisters. The Lord says, “Wait a minute. You are looking at the wrong thing. Look at Me. Focus on Me. That is how you will be transformed.”
There are some very basic things in becoming mature sons that we must learn and practice spiritually.
I have already spoken of this matter of consecration. We must live consecrated lives before the Lord. When we shared on the life of David, I shared much on this matter of communion.
What I want to move into today is this matter of exercising our spirits, being active in the spirit. The spirit has three basic functions: communion, this inward anointing or intuition, and thirdly, conscience.
These are the three parts, if you want to say, of our spirit. The human spirit has those three parts, and if you have accepted the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit is in your human spirit. It has these three functions: communion, intuition, and conscience.
We have spoken about communion already. So today, if the Lord is willing, I would like to share on this matter of the inward knowing, the intuitive part of the spirit, as well as the conscience.
We need to actively exercise these functions of the spirit, just as we have to exercise our bodies to gain strength and feed our bodies proper food to gain strength. We need to feed our spirits.
Communion, of course, is being able to directly communicate with God, to be able to fellowship with God.
The intuitive part of our spirit is really to know God’s will, to know good from evil. That is what the intuitive part of our spirit is. That inward anointing tells us what is good and evil.
Therefore, it is telling us what the will of God is. In the matter of good and evil, if something is in the will of God, it is good. If it is outside the will of God, it is evil.
Many things that you may consider good, if they are outside the will of God, are evil. So, you see, we need to exercise ourselves with this intuitive knowledge.
Then, of course, there is the conscience. The conscience tells us what is right and wrong. Now, that is a little different from good and evil.
Right and wrong are pretty straightforward. It is either the right thing or the wrong thing. It is pretty black and white with the conscience.
Those are the three senses that need to be exercised if we are coming into sonship.
Our soul consists of will, mind, and emotion. Those are the functions of man’s soul. The spirit dwells within man’s soul.
The problem is that before you were converted, before you came to Jesus Christ, your soul was in charge of your life. The old man ruled through your soul, and its functions are will, mind, and emotion.
When we become Christians, we have to begin to learn to live by the spirit and not by the soul. We still have a soul—we should still have a soul—but that soul needs to be renewed in the light of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
In other words, the Holy Spirit should now be in control, and our souls should be subject to the spirit and not to the old way of life.
The anointing within. In 1 John 2:27, we read this morning:
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you.
Obey the teaching of the anointing.
In Hebrews 8:11, it says:
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them.
The youngest to the oldest can know the Lord. They can have this life of the Lord. It is an inward knowledge that comes from the life of the Lord within, not from the external. It comes directly from the Lord.
It is not a knowledge that you gain through your mind. It is a knowledge that comes through the spirit, and your mind helps you understand what the spirit is saying. This knowledge is different from what you have learned in books.
One example I can give you is personal. When I was a young boy, my mother taught me about God. Particularly when I got close to twelve—she was Methodist, and that is the age of accountability in the Methodist Church—she wanted me to be sure I was accountable.
She said, “Son, you need the Lord.” I really did not know the Lord. We had gone to some Protestant churches here and there as we traveled.
As a young man, I went to seventeen schools going through high school, so we traveled quite a bit and quite often. We never attended much of anything anywhere, frankly. Occasionally I would go to church, hear Bible stories, and have some people tell me about Jesus.
So I did have some mental understanding of the Lord. But actually, when I was around twelve, thank God, the Lord convicted me of my sin. He was able to convict me that I was a sinner.
I got on my knees before the Lord and asked for forgiveness. That is when the Lord met me. That is when I knew Him personally. That is when the life of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, came into my life and touched me.
Honestly, at that time, because of my lack of knowledge, I did not even know I was saved. But I was. The Lord had revealed Himself to me as my Savior. All I really knew at the time was that I knew my sins were forgiven. What a glorious day that was.
So I no longer just knew about the Lord. I had this inward knowing, intuitive knowing, that the Lord was indeed real and that I can honestly say, “God is my Father.”
Another example, just to help us get a feel for this intuitive knowledge, took place quite a few years ago. A young lady came to me concerned about her salvation.
She believed she had accepted the Lord as a child, but she was not sure of her salvation. She was really disturbed because some very defiling things had happened to her when she was a child.
She said, “I am just too defiled. I am too undeserving, too filthy for the Lord to be able to save me, Jerry. Yes, I did ask the Lord into my life, but I am just filthy. I just cannot believe that the Lord can love me.”
We talked for a while, and I spoke, of course, about the blood—that the blood cleanses us not only of the sins we committed, but also of the sins committed against us. That defilement was actually cleansed through the blood of Jesus Christ. All the past was gone.
Still, she struggled on. She said, “But, Jerry, I am so undeserving. I just cannot believe God can love me and that the Lord can love me. I just cannot accept that. I have really never done anything in my life to deserve His love.”
It was lunchtime, and we had been talking for quite a while. I had some fruit there, I think a banana and an apple, and I offered her a banana. I said, “Here, I know you are hungry. Would you like a piece of fruit?”
She said, “Yes, I would,” and she took the fruit. I looked at her for a moment and said, “Why did you take the fruit?”
She said, “Well, because you offered it to me.”
I said, “Well, tell me: do you deserve that piece of fruit? Did you do anything to deserve it from me?”
All of a sudden, the Holy Spirit just lit her up. I mean, He just touched her. Thank God, the Holy Spirit really enlightened her whole being. You could see it on her countenance.
She said, “Jerry, I am free. I am saved.”
I said, “Well, are you sure?”
She said, “Yes, I know.”
I said, “Well, how do you know?”
She said, “I just know.”
You see, it was an inward knowing that she had come to. The enemy had scrambled her because of things that had happened in her past. But on that day, thank God, the Holy Spirit moved in her life inwardly.
She knew inwardly, without a doubt, that she was the Lord’s and that He loved her. For her, it was a tremendous thing to know that God could love her.
That inward anointing, brothers and sisters—we need to exercise that inward anointing in our lives. It is a knowledge outside of what you learn in books.
Even when you read the Bible, you can simply gain a biblical knowledge. You need the inward anointing to teach you and to bring you into the reality of what is said in this Word.
The inward anointing, as far as guiding the Christian life and growing in the Christian life, touches upon knowing good and evil—what is good for your life and what is evil.
The reason I say that is there are some things that can be all right. They are not wrong in the sense that the conscience would tell you. Let me give another example.
I remember one time there was a sister who loved to sew. She really loved sewing. Her conscience did not bother her as she was sewing because it was not a wrong thing to do.
But inwardly, something touched her. Obviously, it was the Lord. She said, “Jerry, I am struggling here. It seems like the Lord is telling me I have to lay down sewing.”
In other words, it was the Lord speaking to her. Sewing had become an obsession to her, and in some way it was coming before the Lord. I did not know the details, but it was obvious in her life that it was getting in the way of her life with the Lord.
The Lord was asking her to lay it down. Later on, she was able to go back to some amount of sewing, but it was never the same as it was before. Before, it was almost an obsession to her.
Then the Lord spoke to her. It was that intuitive knowledge: “This is evil for you.” It is not that it is wrong, but it is evil. Do you see the difference?
It was the Lord’s will. He said, “You need to lay it down.” So the Lord revealed His will to her, which she obeyed, and she was really set free.
Later on, she could return to sewing and do it under the Lord’s direction, basically as a servant of the Lord. It was a marvelous thing in her life.
Brothers and sisters, we can be caught in this matter many times in our lives. I remember there was a brother who loved to fish. For many years, he loved to fish.
He struggled with this because the best time to fish was on Sunday. He was a dear brother in the Lord, and he wanted to fish. He just could not help but struggle with it, and occasionally he would miss the meeting.
So he came to us about this matter. Obviously, fishing in itself is not wrong, is it?
But intuitively, the Lord was telling him, “This thing is consuming your life. It is taking you away from Me, and you need to lay it down.”
Sadly and unfortunately, our brother could not do that and did not do it. He really missed, I think, a real blessing of the Lord. Eventually, he moved down to the shore where he could fish all the time.
All I am saying is that we have to be careful about that inward anointing. The enemy can take anything, even a legitimate thing, and it can get in the way of the Lord in your life.
So we have to be very careful. That is what this inward, intuitive anointing is about: learning from the Lord what is right, what is God’s will, what is evil, and what is good.
Now, interestingly enough, in the Garden of Eden there was the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We know that Adam and Eve chose to live by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In other words, they chose to live by their soul and, through reasoning, determine what was good for them and what was bad for them.
Unfortunately, living this way makes you the standard. It is whatever you think is good and whatever you think is evil that becomes the standard, not what God thinks is evil.
It is funny today: what the world calls evil is really good, and the things that are good, the world calls evil. Christianity, to many, is considered an evil thing today. If you carry the testimony of Christ, it is considered evil.
The tree of knowledge is based on what we can understand with our mind and conclude with our mind.
Let me try to make it a little clearer. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is based on what the world thinks is right and wrong, what the world thinks is good and evil. It is based on what society thinks is good and evil. It is based on what your parents told you was good and evil.
That is a human standard. It is a humanistic standard. It really comes down to humanism, I guess.
In this matter of learning the inward anointing, what if you are considering a new job, considering getting married, or considering retirement? These are the kinds of things in your life that you consider very big decisions.
You may say, “Brother, this is the decision I think I have made. What do you think?” The brother says, “Well, you should not do it. You just should not do it.” Based on that brother’s word, you do not do it.
Or there might be another time when you say, “Well, I am thinking about buying a house, brother. What do you think of that?” He says, “Yes, the interest rates are low. It is a good time to buy. Go ahead and buy it.”
Now, brothers and sisters, what you are doing there is getting your direction from man. That may be one of the finest Christian brothers you know, the most spiritual Christian brother you know.
But what you are doing is relying on that person’s wisdom, which may be good, while avoiding and neglecting dealing with God directly.
Instead of learning and sensing the inward anointing, we should ask, “Lord, what is the inward anointing saying about this? What do I sense from the Spirit? Have You given me a word out of Your Word concerning this matter?”
We need to be sensitive to that. We need to learn to do that.
When we go to our brother or sister, we are not looking for direction as much as we are looking for confirmation or correction. I hope we get the difference in those words. They are critical.
When we go to others for counsel—and we should—we need fellowship with one another because we do not always interpret what the Lord is saying to us correctly.
But we need to go in fellowship remembering that we are looking for confirmation or correction, but not direction, because direction comes from the inward anointing.
What can a brother or sister hope to offer you? He may say, “Brother, you told me about this, and inside, as you shared this with me, I just did not get an amen.” He may share some wisdom with you, but that brother also needs to be working from the inward anointing.
He may say, “The sensing I have is that something does not seem quite right here. I do not know what it is, but we need to pray about it.”
Or the brother may say, “Brother, as soon as you started sharing that, I felt the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and there is just an amen in my heart about that.”
That is confirmation. That is not direction.
In this matter of receiving counsel and fellowship, which we should, we should be looking for correction or confirmation, but not direction.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit will say something to you, and you begin to interpret that and think about what the Lord is trying to tell you. You say, “Oh, this has to be what it means. He wants me to go in this direction.”
Often the Lord is speaking, but we are just not interpreting it quite right.
That is why, in this matter of intuition and following the Lord, we are not perfect. Sometimes our soul-life interferes with the spirit.
Particularly when you are talking about jobs, family issues, or other great decisions you have to make, you get excited about things. You get stirred up, and your soul gets stirred up to the point that it can overwhelm the spirit.
Then you begin to interpret what your soul is saying as spirit.
So what do you do? Particularly if you feel really stirred up, impressed that you simply have to do something?
I have always said to people, my experience has been that when I feel as though I am being pressured from the outside—“I have to do this”—I need to stop and really go to the Lord. Often that pressure is not from the Lord.
The Lord does not tend to work that way. The Word of God is peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated. It needs to be coming from the inside, not the outside.
How do we deal with this matter of our soul getting stirred up when we are trying to deal spiritually with something? “Lord, I want to hear from You. I want to know Your will. Yet my own inclinations are this, and I just do not know why.”
That happens to all of us. In Hebrews 4:12, it says the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, dividing asunder soul and spirit.
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
There needs to be a separation there, and the Word of God can do that.
That word in Greek is rhema, which means a spoken word. In other words, you look in the Word and begin to seek, and the Lord may, through some verse or something, really speak to you.
It will make clear that this is what the Spirit is saying and not what your soul is saying. It will divide the two. It is the Word of God.
So we need fellowship to receive either confirmation or correction. We need the Word of God because often, if you go to the Word of God, you will find that what you are considering doing could actually be contrary to the written Word.
Then it becomes very obvious that you should not do it. But what you are really looking for is the Spirit Himself to divide between those two things.
When our soul gets stirred up in a matter, brothers and sisters, we need to calm ourselves down and go back to the Lord and say, “Lord, speak to me. I need to listen.”
One of the greatest examples in the Bible is Job. Poor Job wrestled for thirty-eight chapters, and his soul was so stirred up.
Honestly, Job became totally exhausted. His soul became exhausted in trying to deal with what had happened to him. Tragedy had struck, and he could not understand it.
“Lord, why have You done this? I have been a righteous man.” He went on and on. Then his three friends got involved, and they just made it worse. All the counsel he received was not helping; all he was getting was condemnation.
He became totally exhausted. I think it is interesting how the Lord spoke to him in a whirlwind.
I think it took that kind of attention-getter to get Job’s eyes back on the Lord. His eyes were so much on all the things that had happened to him, asking, “Why? Why? Why? Why?”
He got so involved in this issue of why that he could not see the Lord. So the Lord appeared to him in a whirlwind. Now, that would get your attention. It got Job’s attention, and the Lord spoke to him.
The Lord never did tell him why. You know that? If you read the Scripture, you will see that the Lord never told Job why he had gone through all he had gone through.
But Job was set free and doubly blessed. So the why is really up to the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, this matter of dividing soul and spirit is critical. That relates to Romans 12:1-2.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
It is an interesting process: dividing soul and spirit down to the joints and marrow. Romans 12 tells us to make ourselves a living sacrifice.
What does that mean? Brothers and sisters, when we get into these intense times before the Lord, we need to put ourselves on the altar and let the Holy Spirit do that dividing work.
But you have to willingly do that. The picture in Romans 12 is the actual cutting up of the sacrificial lamb by the priest, dividing that lamb into parts.
They say in the Old Testament that when they divided up that lamb, they did it with such proficient precision that they could put that lamb back together and you would never know it had been cut.
That is the kind of cutting that the Holy Spirit can do. In these kinds of situations, you have to cast yourself on the altar and really look to the Lord to divide soul and spirit.
As children, we start out basically being intuitive. Even little children move in their own lives based on intuition, not so much on what they have learned, because they have not learned a lot at that point.
But as we grow older, we begin to lean more and more on reasoning—the reasoning man. Reasoning becomes a substitute for intuitive knowledge, and that is the point I want to make.
Brothers, particularly brothers, I want to say this to us. We are taught reasoning. Reasoning seems to be one of our more characteristic parts, while sisters tend to be more intuitive and brothers are more on the reasoning line.
But brothers, we need to learn the intuitive knowledge from the Lord and not just lean on our reasoning. We must learn to live by the anointing within.
Secondly, we need to maintain a good conscience before the Lord. Intuition is knowing God’s will—good and evil. Conscience is dealing with right and wrong.
Before you accept Jesus Christ, your human spirit is dead toward God. It cannot communicate with God. It cannot perform the function that it was created for. Therefore, it is dead toward God.
In Ephesians 2:1, it says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. You were not physically dead, but you were dead toward God. Your human spirit could not commune with God.
But that does not mean that the human spirit was obliterated. It was dead toward God, but it still functioned.
Even before you become a Christian, the human spirit is still functioning. In fact, it can commune with the spirit world. That is why we have some today who commune with spirits. Unfortunately, they are evil spirits.
So that capacity is there within the human spirit.
Now, conscience is a part of the spirit. But before it is touched by God, by the Holy Spirit, it is a guilty conscience, or an evil conscience.
What do I mean by that? Remember, when Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God. That is what an evil conscience is. It causes you to hide from God.
What we try to do before we become Christians is to appease this guilty conscience. There is something inside, almost in every man, that tells him he is not right with God.
Many ignore that. But others take the route of trying to appease this guilty conscience. They do things. That is how all the religions of the world have developed: there is a consciousness that there is a God.
Because it is a guilty conscience, it wants to get that weight of guilt off. So it tries to appease God through different sacrifices and religious practices.
That is why all the religions in the world have developed: to appease and silence the voice of a guilty conscience. They do this mostly either by performing good works or through some kind of sacrifice that they make.
The problem is that our conscience is subject to the customs of the world in which we live. The conscience of an unbelieving person is guided by the habits that person has been used to from youth.
Whatever parents taught them as right and wrong, that becomes right and wrong to them. Often it is society that sets that standard of right and wrong for the conscience of the unbeliever.
Recently there was this issue about the Sunday blue laws in the state of Virginia. Remember how Congress inadvertently reinstated the blue law? You all know what that is—a blue law.
In other words, no businesses could be open on Sundays. Now, I grew up as a child when that was normal throughout the whole United States. Nobody opened their business on Sunday.
I do not know for sure, but I have to believe that very early on, going way back to our heritage and our great-great-great-grandparents who really believed in the Lord, it was an attempt to honor the Lord that they would not do business on Sunday because they wanted to honor the Lord’s Day.
Eventually, frankly, that became tradition. It became something that was expected and had nothing to do with Christianity. It just became something you did. You simply did not work on Sunday, and the law was enacted.
Eventually, of course, the ways of the world changed. Society changed, and men no longer desired to honor God. They did away with what was called the Sunday blue law. That was society’s standard.
Even today, my mother does not want to do any kind of business on Sunday. She does not want to write checks on Sunday. She will not do anything on Sunday that has any form of business in it.
These kinds of things show how society influences the conscience of the unbeliever. Eventually, you figure out a way to appease your conscience.
The interesting thing is that a very moral person, though not a Christian, will not feel guilty because that person is living up to the standard society has set. So there is no sense of guilt.
Then we have the other extreme. There are murderers whom we know have no guilt. Their conscience has become totally seared toward God—so seared that all they can think of is evil.
So the conscience of an unbeliever is very unreliable.
But praise God, one day the Holy Spirit was able to touch your conscience and show you that you needed Christ. That was the only way out.
It was not appeasement that you needed. You needed a Savior. You needed salvation, not appeasement.
God is not looking for appeasement, brothers and sisters. He is looking for those who will humble themselves and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
When the Holy Spirit touches your conscience and convicts you of sin, when He convicts you as a believer that you have sinned against God, our response should be to immediately repent.
In Hebrews, it says, “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.” In other words, when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ, we accept His blood. All of our sins have been forgiven.
We spoke of that in worship this morning. We have a cleansed conscience for the first time in our lives. But we know as Christians that we do sin even after we have accepted Christ.
So what do we do? Immediately when we sin, the Holy Spirit will touch your conscience and say, “That is right,” or, “That is wrong.” He may touch you before you do it and say, “That is right,” or, “That is wrong.”
If you obey your conscience, then your conscience will be strengthened. The conscience of your spirit will be strengthened, and you will become more sensitive to the Lord’s voice.
However, if you decide not to listen to your conscience, the voice that speaks to you gets quieter and quieter and quieter. It may get to the point where you can barely hear your conscience speaking.
Then it is very hard for the Holy Spirit to convict you of sin because for so long you have rejected the voice of your conscience.
The good thing for the Christian, brothers and sisters, is that the conscience is now subject to the Holy Spirit and is part of your spirit.
It really tells you how the Lord feels about what you have done and what you are about to do—whether it is good or bad.
So, brothers and sisters, we need to start utilizing these functions of our spirit: communion, the inward anointing, and conscience.
If we neglect them, I will tell you what we do. When we neglect our conscience, we begin to turn back to reason.
We begin to reason, “Well, I hear this voice, but I really think this is best for me.” That is what reasoning does.
In 1 Timothy 1:19, it says:
Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust from them made shipwreck concerning the faith.
So with Hymenaeus and Alexander, we see the danger of ignoring our conscience, brothers and sisters. It can actually destroy our faith.
Just one little illustration, and I will end with that, to clarify the anointing and the conscience.
The anointing is like a ship on the sea. It is going in a direction, and the anointing will say, “Okay, this is the right direction,” or, “This is the wrong direction for you.”
The conscience says, “This action is right or wrong.”
If you do not listen, the boat runs upon a rock and puts a hole in it. In other words, not listening to our conscience, brothers and sisters, actually puts a little hole in our boat, and it begins to leak.
The next time you do not listen to conscience, another little hole comes in your boat, and it begins to leak. But in this case, instead of something leaking in, it is leaking out.
What is it? It is our faith.
Is it not hard to believe and have faith when our conscience is guilty? Is it not difficult to pray when you have a guilty conscience? Is it not difficult to worship when you have a guilty conscience? Is it not difficult to fellowship with brothers and sisters when you have a guilty conscience?
Your faith leaks out. So our conscience is very important. We need to keep a clear conscience before the Lord.
That is done by, as soon as the conscience speaks, going to the Lord and saying, “Lord, forgive me. I take Your blood for that.” Then it is cleared up.
So the life with the Lord is, in a sense, simple. It consists of communion—this fellowship with the Lord, loving the Lord, showing affection for the Lord, and allowing Him to show His affection to you.
It consists of the inward anointing, the voice that speaks of God’s will. What is God’s will for your life? Is this good or evil for you?
Then there is the conscience. It says, “This is right or wrong.”
Lord, we come to Thee today. We are thankful that we have examples such as Daniel, Lord, who was so righteous, who purposed in his heart, and who had such a clear conscience before You all his life.
Lord, we thank You that You have given us the Holy Spirit to dwell in our spirit. Lord, our spirit is now alive to God, that we can commune with You and fellowship with You, that we can hear Your voice for direction as well as correction.
Lord, we worship Thee. We thank Thee. We honor Thee. Lord, give us the grace to allow the Spirit to divide soul and spirit.
Lord, give us the grace to put ourselves on the altar that we might truly know Your will. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.