Lesson 9 - The Sense-Ruled Mind
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THE UNRENEWED MIND is always waging war against unbelief, ever praying for faith but never arriving; always talking unbelief yet struggling to get faith; ever confessing failure, but at the same time confessing faith in the Word and denying it in actions; trying to believe, yet never acting on the Word.
James 1:5-7 describes this type of spiritual infant in Christ: “But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him.”
Wisdom really belongs to you. The adult believer unconsciously turns to 1st Corinthians 1:30, where Jesus is made unto us wisdom; but the babe in Christ, the undeveloped believer, has not yet learned the secret of trusting the Word. He feels that he must do something in order to enjoy his privileges in Christ.
The sixth verse describes him: “But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting, for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed; for let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
This sense-ruled mind is the companion of a recreated spirit, but the mind has never been renewed, so there is no real fellowship between the recreated spirit and the mind that is in contact with the world and largely ruled by it.
This believer does not know anything about Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenlies in Christ.”
Here the believer is blessed with every spiritual blessing – wisdom, Divine ability, strength, love, and every other thing that is necessary to make the believer’s life beautiful, helpful and victorious.
The Two Confessions of the Double-Minded
1st Kings 18:21 gives us a graphic description of that kind of a believer: “And Elijah came near unto all the people and said, ‘How long go ye limping between the two sides? If Jehovah be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ And the people answered him not a word.”
Elijah was confronted with the problem of dealing with double-minded men. In the modem Christian church, we have the same problem.
John 20:24-29 gives us a picture of the sense-ruled Thomas. You remember that after the Resurrection, Jesus had appeared to a number of the disciples. Thomas had not been with them and he cried, “Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
He was a sense knowledge believer. He had to see in order to believe. His senses had to be satisfied. He could not take the Word of God independent of his senses.
We are confronted continually with that type of believer. It may be someone reading this for the first time.
Now God in His great grace came down into the realm of the senses in the person of Christ. Then Christ arose from the dead and appeared among the disciples – let them see Him, hear Him, and feel Him.
1st John 1:1-3, “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”
You notice that, “that which we have seen and heard we are telling you,” is sense knowledge evidence. That was all right in the early church. During the first fifteen years, the early church lived very largely in the realm of sense knowledge faith. Many today that cannot believe beyond what their senses tell them.
God let them see signs and wonders on the Day of Pentecost because they were babes, just newborn. They knew nothing of the finished work of Christ. None of them believed or knew about His substitutionary work. That was to come later through the Pauline Revelation.
Galatians 5:18 gives us a very graphic picture of the senses and of the spirit: “But I say, walk by the spirit (that is not the Holy Spirit… that is the recreated spirit) and ye shall not fulfill the desires of the senses.”
This scripture will be of infinite value to you, for the senses war against the recreated spirit, and the recreated spirit is warring against the senses.
“For these are contrary to each other that you might not do what you would.”
The word, “flesh,” should have been translated, “senses.” Then we could have understood it. You see, the five senses – seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting – are all physical doors that lead to the brain. I know a thing is sweet because I tasted it. I know a thing is fragrant because I smelled it. I know it is hard because I struck it. What we call the sins of the flesh are sins of the senses. They are sins connected with the physical body, and this body of ours is the laboratory where we have learned all we know of secular knowledge.
The eighteenth verse goes further: “But if you are led by the recreated spirit you are not under the law.”
The Mosaic covenant had to do only with the senses. The new law that Jesus gave in John 13:34,35 has to do altogether with our recreated spirits. 34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
So Paul continues, in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the senses are manifest.” And he gives a long list of them. We are all familiar with it.
The battle that we fight in our daily walk is with our senses. I want the thing that I see. I may want to drink it. I may want to eat it. I may want to feel it. My spirit must govern my senses. My mind must be so renewed by knowing the Word and acting on the Word that I can easily conquer my senses.
Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God which is your spiritual service, and be not fashioned according to this age, but be ye transfigured by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is the good, and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Here He is asking that our senses be turned over to Him.
You see, our bodies are really our universities, are our technical schools. How do I know anything about metallurgy except through the senses? How do I know anything about mechanics except through the senses?
If a man is totally blind, he cannot be a mechanic. If you go a step beyond that and rob him of his hearing, now he is locked up to his senses of taste, smell and feeling because sight and hearing are gone. Suppose you go a step beyond that, and be is paralyzed so that he has no feeling in his body. Now he is helpless. You see how utterly we are dependent on our senses, and how all the knowledge we have comes through the senses.
The New Kind of Knowledge
We have a new kind of knowledge – Revelation knowledge. It is spiritual knowledge. It is knowledge that has come to us through the recreated spirit by acting on the Word and living in it.
You understand that the mind cannot be renewed by the study of the Word. There must be a continual practice of the Word. The Word must live in me so that it becomes part of me. Just as my blood is a part of me, just as my muscles are a part of me, the Word must become a part of my very being.
Romans 8:1-3 gives us a contrast, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”
Why? “For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and of death.”
The Ten Commandments were the law of sin and of death. The law had to do with spiritually dead men. The recreated man, this New Man in Christ, has a new law, which is the law of the spirit of life.
That is love. He is governed by love. The other man is governed by fear. If you will read carefully the Old Testament, you will find that God says again and again, “There is no fear of Jehovah before you.” He does not say “love.”
Malachi 3:16, “Then they that fear Jehovah spake one to another.”
And in the fourth chapter, the second verse, “And unto you that fear My Name.”
And in 1:6, He says, “Where is My fear unto you, Oh ye priests that despise My Name?”
The Law of Moses begat fear in spiritually dead men. The law of the New Covenant begets love and faith and confidence in the New Creation. So the law of the spirit of life is the law of love.
Romans 8:6-9, “For the mind of the senses is death, but the mind of the recreated spirit is life and peace because the mind of the senses is enmity against God (that is the reason that it is death), for it is not subject to the law of God (as is the new law of love); neither, indeed, can be; so they that are in the senses cannot please God (that is, they that are ruled and governed by the senses cannot please God). But ye are not ruled by the senses, but ye are ruled by the recreated spirit if so be that the spirit of God dwelleth in you.”
Then He says the most remarkable thing, “If a man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
In other words, if he is not ruled by the Spirit that dominated Jesus – Holy Spirit – he does not have a part with Him. That spirit was love. That Spirit drove Jesus to the cross, and no man that does not walk in love and live the love life and who is not governed by love has any knowledge of the things of the New Creation.
You want evidence for it?
1st John 4:7, 8, “Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.”
The New Creation is a love creation, and the man that is not born again can’t understand this love life.
1st Corinthians 2:14, “Now the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.”
And in 2:12, “But we receive not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
And you cannot know the things that are freely given to us of the Father until you are recreated and the law of the New Creation becomes a part of your very being. That law of love becomes instinctive in you so that you do it just as a hungry man eats, as a thirsty man drinks. So, you live the love life.
The Darkness of the Sense-Ruled Mind
1st John 2:9-11, “He that saith he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother is in the light and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.”
Here is the condition of the believer whose mind has never been renewed. He is walking according to the senses.
John 8:12 is utterly unknown to him, “I am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life.”
The light of life is love. God is light. In Him is no darkness at all because God is love. We love now; we have received the love nature, and love is to dominate us. When it does, the mind becomes renewed, comes into harmony with the recreated spirit.
Sense knowledge governs the babe in Christ, the undeveloped one. The Word governs the recreated man whose mind is renewed. He walks in love.
The New Creation
The New Creation man is described in Ephesians 3:20, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think according to the power (or ability) that worketh in us.”
It is the ability of God that is at work in the New Creation, building into him the love nature of the Father, the wisdom of Jesus, the grace and beauty of the Man of Galilee.
In our daily walk, the Holy Spirit is building into us a fearless confidence in the Word. We require no physical evidence to prove that we are healed. When He says, “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases,” that settles it for us, for we are governed by the Word – not by the five senses.
When He tells us in 1st Peter 5:7, “Casting all your anxiety upon Him for He careth for you,” with loving joy we throw off our burdens upon the Lord as one lays down a heavy load from his shoulder. We say, “Thank you, Father, for bearing this load. Thank you for carrying it for me.” Anxiety has stopped and we rest with quiet confidence in that living Word.
You see, this renewed mind understands John 15:7, “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples.”
A disciple means a student – one that sits at the feet of a master. So He says, “If my words are a part of your daily life so that you are acting them and living them, then you will be able to ask what you will.”
You see, the renewed mind realizes that John 15:5 is absolutely true, “I am the Vine and you are the fruit-bearing part of Me. I am seated up here at the Father’s right hand, meeting your every need, and you are down there on the earth bearing love fruit in your ministry of helping men and women.”
QUESTIONS
1. Why is there no fellowship between the unrenewed mind and the recreated spirit?
2. What are the two confessions of the double-minded man?
3. Why is the Old Covenant law called the law of the senses?
4. What should be the relation between the senses and the renewed mind of an adult Christian?
5. Explain Romans 12:1.
6. What is the difference between “Sense Knowledge” and “Revelation Knowledge”?
7. What was the nature of the Spirit that dominated Christ?
8. What is the work of the Spirit in the walk of the New Creation?
9. What are some of the advantages of prayer for the New Creation?
10. Explain John 15:5 in the light of the ministry of the New Creation.
James 1:5-7 describes this type of spiritual infant in Christ: “But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him.”
Wisdom really belongs to you. The adult believer unconsciously turns to 1st Corinthians 1:30, where Jesus is made unto us wisdom; but the babe in Christ, the undeveloped believer, has not yet learned the secret of trusting the Word. He feels that he must do something in order to enjoy his privileges in Christ.
The sixth verse describes him: “But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting, for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed; for let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
This sense-ruled mind is the companion of a recreated spirit, but the mind has never been renewed, so there is no real fellowship between the recreated spirit and the mind that is in contact with the world and largely ruled by it.
This believer does not know anything about Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenlies in Christ.”
Here the believer is blessed with every spiritual blessing – wisdom, Divine ability, strength, love, and every other thing that is necessary to make the believer’s life beautiful, helpful and victorious.
The Two Confessions of the Double-Minded
1st Kings 18:21 gives us a graphic description of that kind of a believer: “And Elijah came near unto all the people and said, ‘How long go ye limping between the two sides? If Jehovah be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.’ And the people answered him not a word.”
Elijah was confronted with the problem of dealing with double-minded men. In the modem Christian church, we have the same problem.
John 20:24-29 gives us a picture of the sense-ruled Thomas. You remember that after the Resurrection, Jesus had appeared to a number of the disciples. Thomas had not been with them and he cried, “Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
He was a sense knowledge believer. He had to see in order to believe. His senses had to be satisfied. He could not take the Word of God independent of his senses.
We are confronted continually with that type of believer. It may be someone reading this for the first time.
Now God in His great grace came down into the realm of the senses in the person of Christ. Then Christ arose from the dead and appeared among the disciples – let them see Him, hear Him, and feel Him.
1st John 1:1-3, “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us: yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”
You notice that, “that which we have seen and heard we are telling you,” is sense knowledge evidence. That was all right in the early church. During the first fifteen years, the early church lived very largely in the realm of sense knowledge faith. Many today that cannot believe beyond what their senses tell them.
God let them see signs and wonders on the Day of Pentecost because they were babes, just newborn. They knew nothing of the finished work of Christ. None of them believed or knew about His substitutionary work. That was to come later through the Pauline Revelation.
Galatians 5:18 gives us a very graphic picture of the senses and of the spirit: “But I say, walk by the spirit (that is not the Holy Spirit… that is the recreated spirit) and ye shall not fulfill the desires of the senses.”
This scripture will be of infinite value to you, for the senses war against the recreated spirit, and the recreated spirit is warring against the senses.
“For these are contrary to each other that you might not do what you would.”
The word, “flesh,” should have been translated, “senses.” Then we could have understood it. You see, the five senses – seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting – are all physical doors that lead to the brain. I know a thing is sweet because I tasted it. I know a thing is fragrant because I smelled it. I know it is hard because I struck it. What we call the sins of the flesh are sins of the senses. They are sins connected with the physical body, and this body of ours is the laboratory where we have learned all we know of secular knowledge.
The eighteenth verse goes further: “But if you are led by the recreated spirit you are not under the law.”
The Mosaic covenant had to do only with the senses. The new law that Jesus gave in John 13:34,35 has to do altogether with our recreated spirits. 34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
So Paul continues, in Galatians 5:19, “Now the works of the senses are manifest.” And he gives a long list of them. We are all familiar with it.
The battle that we fight in our daily walk is with our senses. I want the thing that I see. I may want to drink it. I may want to eat it. I may want to feel it. My spirit must govern my senses. My mind must be so renewed by knowing the Word and acting on the Word that I can easily conquer my senses.
Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God which is your spiritual service, and be not fashioned according to this age, but be ye transfigured by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is the good, and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Here He is asking that our senses be turned over to Him.
You see, our bodies are really our universities, are our technical schools. How do I know anything about metallurgy except through the senses? How do I know anything about mechanics except through the senses?
If a man is totally blind, he cannot be a mechanic. If you go a step beyond that and rob him of his hearing, now he is locked up to his senses of taste, smell and feeling because sight and hearing are gone. Suppose you go a step beyond that, and be is paralyzed so that he has no feeling in his body. Now he is helpless. You see how utterly we are dependent on our senses, and how all the knowledge we have comes through the senses.
The New Kind of Knowledge
We have a new kind of knowledge – Revelation knowledge. It is spiritual knowledge. It is knowledge that has come to us through the recreated spirit by acting on the Word and living in it.
You understand that the mind cannot be renewed by the study of the Word. There must be a continual practice of the Word. The Word must live in me so that it becomes part of me. Just as my blood is a part of me, just as my muscles are a part of me, the Word must become a part of my very being.
Romans 8:1-3 gives us a contrast, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”
Why? “For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and of death.”
The Ten Commandments were the law of sin and of death. The law had to do with spiritually dead men. The recreated man, this New Man in Christ, has a new law, which is the law of the spirit of life.
That is love. He is governed by love. The other man is governed by fear. If you will read carefully the Old Testament, you will find that God says again and again, “There is no fear of Jehovah before you.” He does not say “love.”
Malachi 3:16, “Then they that fear Jehovah spake one to another.”
And in the fourth chapter, the second verse, “And unto you that fear My Name.”
And in 1:6, He says, “Where is My fear unto you, Oh ye priests that despise My Name?”
The Law of Moses begat fear in spiritually dead men. The law of the New Covenant begets love and faith and confidence in the New Creation. So the law of the spirit of life is the law of love.
Romans 8:6-9, “For the mind of the senses is death, but the mind of the recreated spirit is life and peace because the mind of the senses is enmity against God (that is the reason that it is death), for it is not subject to the law of God (as is the new law of love); neither, indeed, can be; so they that are in the senses cannot please God (that is, they that are ruled and governed by the senses cannot please God). But ye are not ruled by the senses, but ye are ruled by the recreated spirit if so be that the spirit of God dwelleth in you.”
Then He says the most remarkable thing, “If a man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”
In other words, if he is not ruled by the Spirit that dominated Jesus – Holy Spirit – he does not have a part with Him. That spirit was love. That Spirit drove Jesus to the cross, and no man that does not walk in love and live the love life and who is not governed by love has any knowledge of the things of the New Creation.
You want evidence for it?
1st John 4:7, 8, “Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love.”
The New Creation is a love creation, and the man that is not born again can’t understand this love life.
1st Corinthians 2:14, “Now the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.”
And in 2:12, “But we receive not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
And you cannot know the things that are freely given to us of the Father until you are recreated and the law of the New Creation becomes a part of your very being. That law of love becomes instinctive in you so that you do it just as a hungry man eats, as a thirsty man drinks. So, you live the love life.
The Darkness of the Sense-Ruled Mind
1st John 2:9-11, “He that saith he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother is in the light and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.”
Here is the condition of the believer whose mind has never been renewed. He is walking according to the senses.
John 8:12 is utterly unknown to him, “I am the light of the world. He that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life.”
The light of life is love. God is light. In Him is no darkness at all because God is love. We love now; we have received the love nature, and love is to dominate us. When it does, the mind becomes renewed, comes into harmony with the recreated spirit.
Sense knowledge governs the babe in Christ, the undeveloped one. The Word governs the recreated man whose mind is renewed. He walks in love.
The New Creation
The New Creation man is described in Ephesians 3:20, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think according to the power (or ability) that worketh in us.”
It is the ability of God that is at work in the New Creation, building into him the love nature of the Father, the wisdom of Jesus, the grace and beauty of the Man of Galilee.
In our daily walk, the Holy Spirit is building into us a fearless confidence in the Word. We require no physical evidence to prove that we are healed. When He says, “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases,” that settles it for us, for we are governed by the Word – not by the five senses.
When He tells us in 1st Peter 5:7, “Casting all your anxiety upon Him for He careth for you,” with loving joy we throw off our burdens upon the Lord as one lays down a heavy load from his shoulder. We say, “Thank you, Father, for bearing this load. Thank you for carrying it for me.” Anxiety has stopped and we rest with quiet confidence in that living Word.
You see, this renewed mind understands John 15:7, “If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples.”
A disciple means a student – one that sits at the feet of a master. So He says, “If my words are a part of your daily life so that you are acting them and living them, then you will be able to ask what you will.”
You see, the renewed mind realizes that John 15:5 is absolutely true, “I am the Vine and you are the fruit-bearing part of Me. I am seated up here at the Father’s right hand, meeting your every need, and you are down there on the earth bearing love fruit in your ministry of helping men and women.”
QUESTIONS
1. Why is there no fellowship between the unrenewed mind and the recreated spirit?
2. What are the two confessions of the double-minded man?
3. Why is the Old Covenant law called the law of the senses?
4. What should be the relation between the senses and the renewed mind of an adult Christian?
5. Explain Romans 12:1.
6. What is the difference between “Sense Knowledge” and “Revelation Knowledge”?
7. What was the nature of the Spirit that dominated Christ?
8. What is the work of the Spirit in the walk of the New Creation?
9. What are some of the advantages of prayer for the New Creation?
10. Explain John 15:5 in the light of the ministry of the New Creation.