Please turn to 1 Timothy 4. We will read from verses 8 through 10.
Exercise thyself unto godliness:
for bodily exercise is profitable for a little; but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come.
Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation.
For to this end we labor and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe.
Now turn to 2 Corinthians 4. We will begin with verse 7 and read through verse 18.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves;
we are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair;
pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed;
always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written, I believed, and therefore did I speak; we also believe, and therefore also we speak;
knowing that He that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus, and shall present us with you.
For all things are for your sakes, that the grace, being multiplied through the many, may cause the thanksgiving to abound unto the glory of God.
Wherefore we faint not: but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.
For our light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Please turn also to the Gospel according to John, chapter 12. We will read from verses 24 through 26.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me, him will the Father honor.
The word life here is soul-life. Later in the passage, the life spoken of is zoe, God’s divine life.
Dear Lord, we do want to thank Thee for gathering us together again this day. Every time we gather in Thy name, we are assured that Thy presence is with us.
Dear Lord, we treasure nothing more than Thy own presence. Will You please manifest Thyself to each and every one of us? Open our hearts, that we may see Thee. Open our eyes, that we may see Thee. Open our ears, that we may hear Thee.
That is our desire. Will You not fill us this day and bring us into all that Thou hast ordained for us, that Thou mayest be glorified? We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Thank God for gathering us together again this day. I hope that we all remember the theme that God has given us for this time. We are talking about spiritual exercise.
This is something that we should not only hear about; actually, we are all involved in it. Every one of us must do it. Nobody can exercise for you.
So I hope, dear brothers and sisters, that we are here in the gymnasium, ready to exercise. You know, when you are exercising, you must apply yourself. You must do it constantly. You must do it according to rule. And you must relax.
If you do not relax, you cannot exercise. So I hope, dear brothers and sisters, relax. Let the Spirit of God do His work.
We have mentioned that the one basic and fundamental exercise is consecration, because this is the door to all spiritual exercises.
Consecration is not only a door, but it is a way. Consecration is something that we need to exercise daily. You cannot say, “Five years ago, I consecrated myself.” That does not work.
You have to consecrate morning and evening. It is like the burnt offering: the fire of the burnt offering never goes out.
Consecration is something that deepens all the time. Add to your consecration. Not only is there the daily burnt offering, but when they came to a new moon, they added something to it; when they came to the festivals, more was added.
This is the way of consecration. We should be on the altar all the time, all of us, all of oneself. This is the basis of all spiritual exercise.
Then we mentioned something about the dividing of soul and spirit. After we believe in the Lord Jesus, the dead spirit within us has been quickened into life, and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in our spirit.
The Holy Spirit, who dwells in our spirit, is the life of our spirit. But we mentioned before: who dwells in our soul?
We know that self—our fallen nature, our Adam—dwells in our soul. Within ourselves there are two different lives. In your spirit there is the divine life; in your soul you still have your fallen human life.
There are two different lives in two different areas. According to your inward feeling, you want to please God; but according to your outward feeling, you want to please yourself.
That is the reason why, as believers, you begin to experience this civil war within yourself. It is a very important thing in our Christian life that we understand the dividing of the soul and the spirit, because its result is far-reaching.
The strategy of the enemy of God is to boost your soul. This is his ancient strategy, and he is still practicing it.
In the Garden of Eden, he tempted Eve’s soul. He wanted Eve’s soul to grow so that she might become independent of God. But behind it all, if Eve should do that, she would fall into Satan’s hand.
The strategy of the enemy is always to kill your spirit and boost your soul. We find that this happened in the Garden of Eden: the spirit was dead, and the soul was very, very much alive.
From Adam onward, all who are born of Adam have the nature of Adam. That is why you find that people in this world live by their soul-life and have no spirit-life.
They have no contact with God. They are self-centered, self-conscious, and everything is self.
Unfortunately, we find that even God’s people forget that they have a new spirit and that the Holy Spirit dwells in their spirit.
The church teaches that you have only soul and body. The church even teaches that there is no difference between soul and spirit.
When you look at Christianity today, the teachings and practices are all centered on how to boost the soul-life instead of spiritual life.
But God’s strategy is just the opposite. The desire in the heart of God is for our spirit to be in ascendancy, and for our soul to be subject, so that we may live a dependent life upon God and live a life with God.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we need to understand the strategy of God and the strategy of the enemy. The dividing of the soul and spirit is extremely important.
That is the reason why we emphasize that the next exercise is the dividing of soul and spirit. Now, I actually find in the Word of God that the way the soul and spirit can be divided is not by our own introspection.
It is not by our own analysis. If we analyze ourselves, the very analyzing is of the soul. So we fall into soul-life.
How, then, can the soul and spirit be divided? Where is the exercise? Here you need to relax. If you are tense, you will never be able to see the dividing of the soul and spirit.
Unfortunately, good Christians are often tense Christians. They want to please God. They want to live the spiritual life. So they constantly ask, “Is it of the soul, or is it of the spirit? Is it of God, or is it of myself?”
You become very intense. You become nervous. Nervous Christians are good Christians.
Now, brothers and sisters, how can the soul and the spirit be divided? Do you remember that you are a sacrifice offered on the altar?
A sacrifice is not supposed to be restless. So all you need to do is lie on the altar quietly: “Lord, here am I. Through and through, I am Yours. You have to divide my soul and spirit.”
If you really rest in the Lord and look up to Christ, you will find that the Holy Spirit will quicken the Word of God. He will show you what is of the soul and what is of the spirit.
Now, we would like to go further in this exercise. Dividing gives us a sense of the difference between soul and spirit, but dividing does not mean that the soul is broken and the spirit is released.
So this morning we would like to continue with our spiritual exercise. We will consider the matter of the breaking of the outward man and the release of the spirit.
You remember Hebrews 4. When the Word of God speaks of the dividing of soul and spirit, it says that the Word of God is like a sharp two-edged sword, penetrating and dividing soul and spirit, as it divides the bones and the marrow.
The relationship of bone and marrow is the relationship of soul and spirit. The bone serves as the shelter of the marrow. So the spirit is within the soul.
The soul is like a shell, and the spirit is the content. The bones are the structure, and the marrow is the life.
You will find that our spirit is imprisoned in the soul. Oftentimes our spirit cannot be released because it is confined by the soul.
Within my heart, I am willing, but I find that I am bound. I cannot do what I want to do. I do what I do not want to do, because our soul is so strong and our spirit is so weak.
So, brothers and sisters, the problem here is that your soul has to be broken. But do not misunderstand: the breaking of the soul does not mean the annihilation of the soul.
If the soul is annihilated, the person is gone. The soul as an organ is still there; it is to be purified. But the life within the soul has to die.
That life within the soul has to be changed. Instead of “I” in the soul, it has to be displaced by Christ in my soul.
Formerly, it is I who use all the faculties of my soul. Who thinks? I think. Who feels? I feel. Who decides? I decide.
You find that it is the I-life that is using my soul. It is a fallen life. No wonder that to will is with me, but to do good is not in me.
Brothers and sisters, where does Christ dwell in your life? He has to come out and sit on the throne of your soul. He must displace the “I” in your soul.
He will be in charge of your soul. He will use your feelings. He will use your mind. He will use your volition. Everything that comes out will represent Christ and not you.
That is metamorphosis. This is transformation. We are being transformed and conformed to the image of Christ.
This is something that is going on at present. This is the salvation of the soul. The salvation of the spirit is in the past; we already have it. The salvation of the soul is now—that transformation. The salvation of the body is resurrection.
So, brothers and sisters, do you know that there is a salvation going on every day in your life?
For the spirit-life to be released, so that you may live a spiritual life and have spiritual service and spiritual worship, you have to go through this process of the breaking of the outward man and the release of the spirit.
In order that we may understand this, the Bible uses two illustrations. One is in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7:
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
Notice that the treasure here is singular, but the vessels are plural. Why is it so? Because the earthen vessel represents us. If you read on, you will find that it refers to our outward man.
You can see this in 2 Corinthians 4:16:
Wherefore we faint not: but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.
Here you find another two terms used to represent soul and spirit. The outward man refers to our soul. We are opaque; we are not very clear. We are not transparent.
Earth is everywhere. All of us are just earthen vessels. Do you agree that you are an earthen vessel? We think about ourselves as alabaster flasks.
You remember Mary. She came to the Lord with an alabaster flask, and within the flask there was a pound of pure nard, very expensive ointment.
She had preserved this for her marriage. This was her treasure. But she was so touched by the Lord and so grateful to Him for calling her brother back to life.
She wanted to do something for the Lord. What could she do? She took her most precious treasure, with a pound of pure nard, and came to the Lord.
She did not merely open it up and drop a few drops. She came to the Lord and broke the alabaster flask.
This is the breaking of the outward man and the release of the spirit.
Unfortunately, even though we are but earthen vessels, we consider ourselves as alabaster flasks. We want to preserve ourselves. We are not willing to break ourselves.
Because we want to preserve ourselves, the treasure—the light of the treasure—cannot come forth.
What is the treasure? In all the earthen vessels there is only one treasure. He is our treasure.
If I had a treasure, would I put it in an earthen vessel? No. That is the wonder of God’s work. God puts His most precious treasure into the lowest, humblest vessel.
Why does God do that? Did you ever thank God that He should put Christ into such a humble, worthless person as I am?
He does it because He wants the radiancy of the glory of God to be manifested. But He is imprisoned within us.
You remember what our Lord said: “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”
Our Lord Jesus had a human soul just as we have. His soul was not contaminated. His feeling was pure. His thinking was pure. His volition was pure.
Yet He felt that He was being imprisoned. He wanted to be released, and the release came through the cross. There you find that He was broken, and His life was released.
The Lord shows us that we are earthen vessels. The earthen vessel has to crack; it has to be broken, so that the light of the treasure, the radiancy of the glory of God, may come forth.
The death of Jesus has the power of putting everything to death. Paul said, “The dying of Jesus worketh in me,” so that my soul-life may be broken and the life of Christ may be manifested in me.
Death works in us, but life in you. That is the way of ministry.
Here you find that the outward man is decaying, but the inward man is renewed day by day. That is the breaking of the outward man.
There is another illustration, in John 12. You remember the story that happened during the last visit of our Lord Jesus to Jerusalem.
He had His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The whole world was now after Him. Even the Gentiles, the Greeks, wanted to see Jesus.
Humanly speaking, this was the most glorious time of our Lord Jesus’ life. Strangely, when Philip and Andrew came to the Lord and said, “Some Greeks want to see You,” our Lord Jesus said, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.”
When He said that the Son of Man should be glorified, His meaning was the opposite of what the world says. In the heart of our Lord Jesus, He was speaking of the cross. That was the time of His being glorified.
Therefore He said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.”
Our Lord Jesus is the grain of wheat. Before He fell into the ground, there was no wheat on earth. We are all merely the fruit of His life.
He fell into the ground; that speaks of His incarnation. But He came to die. If it dies, it bears much fruit.
Then the Lord began to explain it. He said, “He that loveth his life shall lose it.” This applies not only to Himself, but to all of us.
If anyone loves his soul-life, he is like a grain of wheat that will not die. Put the grain of wheat on the table; after a thousand years, it is still that grain.
There is life within, but outwardly there is a shell to protect it and preserve it. But as long as the shell is not decayed, the life within will not be released.
If the outward man is not broken, then the inward man cannot be released. If we keep our shell, we love our soul-life, and we will lose it.
Your soul-life is so alive. We love it. We preserve it. We defend it. Unless we hate this soul-life, we will not be able to save it.
In other words, not only will your soul be saved, but the divine life will be released.
And the Lord said, “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be.” This is where the Lord is; this is where you should be.
“If anyone serves Me, him will the Father honor.” So, dear brothers and sisters, we can see the necessity of the breaking of the outward man.
Now we call it a spiritual exercise. Can you break your outward man? Nobody can. This is a work by the Holy Spirit.
Again, you find that consecration is the foundation. If you are consecrated, you are willing to go this way. Then the Holy Spirit will work.
The work of the Holy Spirit for the breaking of the outward man and the release of the spirit is twofold:
The enlightenment of the Holy Spirit is within; the discipline of the Holy Spirit is without. The Lord uses these two ways to bring us into the breaking of the outward man.
We have already said that it is the Holy Spirit who uses the Word of God to divide the soul and the spirit. But He is not only to divide; He is to break it.
What is the use of dividing if it is not broken? Thank God, He has shed some light upon us. So we begin to see what is of the soul and what is of the spirit.
But we need further light. Throughout our Christian life, we need the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
We have no new revelation outside of the revealed Word of God, because all the revelation has been completed in this Book. But that does not mean that we have no revelation.
On the contrary, we need to live constantly under revelation. That is to say, the Holy Spirit has to enlighten His Word and make it living and operative in our lives.
Maybe I will use Watchman Nee’s experience as an illustration. After he was saved, he really loved the Lord. He spent much time reading the Word of God, and he began to serve God.
For several years, he was disturbed before God because he had heard the so-called Keswick teaching. As Paul said, our old man was crucified with Christ; therefore, we are delivered from the power of sin.
He tried to reckon himself dead with Christ and alive unto God. But the more he reckoned himself dead with Christ, the more alive he became.
So he sought the Lord. He prayed. He read the Word. Nothing happened. He was not delivered from the power of sin.
But one day, while he was in his room studying the Word, suddenly light came to him.
“When Christ died, I died.” What? Christ died two thousand years ago. How could I die when He died two thousand years ago?
Suddenly the Lord showed him: “Because you are in Christ. Because you are in Him, when He died, you died.”
Suddenly, light broke forth, and he was immediately released. He ran down to the kitchen, met a brother, and said, “Brother, do you know that I died?”
Have you been trying to reckon yourself as dead? The more you reckon, the more alive you become. You need the enlightenment.
Thank God for the Bible, but the letter kills. We need the Holy Spirit to shed His light upon us. When the light comes, it not only divides; it kills.
Usually, the work of the Holy Spirit in breaking your outward man will touch your prominent part.
When you are walking and hit a wall, which part of your body hits first? The part that projects out. Our soul is like that.
In every soul there is special projection. This is your strong point; this is your strength. Unless the Holy Spirit touches that, it is not broken.
But when that is touched, you are broken. Some people are very clever, and unless their cleverness is touched by the Holy Spirit, their soul is not broken.
That is why we need to seek the Lord that He will shine upon us as a searchlight, searching every part of our soul, dividing it, killing it, and breaking it.
The strongest point in Job’s life was righteousness—self-righteousness. Until that was broken by a vision, a revelation of the majesty of God, he was not broken.
When he saw the Lord, he repented.
The Lord sometimes uses light to break the outward man, and other times He uses what we call the discipline of the Holy Spirit. He will arrange our circumstances.
You know, I often say that those who are redeemed, God loves so much that He will arrange everything for us. For a believer, there is nothing called chance. Everything is arranged by our God.
Even the hairs of our head have been numbered. This morning, when you comb your hair and hair number ten thousand and one falls down, God knows it, though you do not. That is the love of God.
He knows exactly what is best for you. So He will arrange your environment to break your outward man.
The best example is Jacob. You know Jacob the supplanter—how he could maneuver and plan, and he always came out on top.
He had to flee for his life, and he was away from home for twenty years. Then he met his match: Laban was as tricky as he was. They maneuvered against each other.
He seemed always to come out on top, but he got into an impossible situation. He had to flee again.
You remember Genesis 32. He was all alone. Even the angel could not overcome him. Do you know how strong you are? Do I know how strong my soul is?
Then the angel touched his thigh. You know, the most important point is the thigh. The angel touched his thigh, and he was crippled.
You know what happened? He hung upon the angel: “Bless me; otherwise, I cannot live anymore.”
The angel said, “What is your name?” “Jacob.” “Now you shall be called Israel”—a prince of God.
Brothers and sisters, God used the environment to break Jacob. From then on Jacob walked with a limp. He was not perfect yet, but he was crippled.
Finally, in his old age, before the greatest king in the world, he leaned upon his rod, a shepherd’s staff. This is the breaking and the release of the spirit.
God uses these two ways, and these two work together. God, according to His wisdom, works differently with each one.
Do not try to be like other people, because everyone is special to Him. He deals with each of us in a special way. He knows the shape of our soul.
Our soul has a shape, just as the body has a shape. No two souls are exactly alike. This is how special we are.
The shape of our soul is our temperament. Some people are naturally slow; some people are naturally quick. Some people are born introverted; some are naturally active and outgoing; some are very reserved.
There is nothing wrong with that. That is your shape. God will deal with you according to that.
So our experiences are different. Some people’s experiences are very drastic. Some people experience the Lord’s dealing slowly, slowly, slowly.
Thank God, the result is the same: the breaking of the outward man and the release of the spirit.
May the Lord lead us in this spiritual exercise.
Dear Lord, we do commit these scattered words into Your hand. Make them living and operative.