Friday, September 16, 2016
THE BATTLE FOR THE MIND (continued)
4. The unregenerate mind the stronghold of Satan.
The stronghold of the mind of man is therefore the strategic centre of the “war” with the “god of this age”, because it is primarily through the mind that he holds his captives in his power, and through the mind of those captives transmits his:
(1) Poison into the minds of others, and his
(2) Plans and schemes for arousing those souls to active rebellion against God.
The mind of the Christian is also the strategic centre of the “war on the saints” which Satan wages with ceaseless and fiendish skill. And for this reason the mind is the vehicle for the Spirit of God, dwelling in the spirit of the believer, to transmit to others the truth of God, which alone can remove the deceptions of Satan which fill the minds of all who are in the darkness of nature.
If the Holy Spirit is dwelling in the regenerate spirit have you considered the question of His outlet? If it were only by speech you would be an oracle! But there are no “oracles” on earth now. The “oracles of God” are the Scriptures. The Word of God is being displaced not only by the Higher Critics, but by many of God’s own people by their taking supernatural “revelations” as being of equal authority with the written Scriptures. There are wrecked lives because they have turned from the Word of God to what they call direct revelation. There is a direct revelation by God the Holy Ghost illuminating the Word of God, and putting it into the spirit, but not apart from the Scriptures.
5. The Holy Spirit and the mind of the believer.
If the mind is the vehicle of the Spirit it is absolutely necessary that the Spirit of God should have full possession of it, with every “rebellious thought” brought into captivity to Christ. The Holy Spirit, dwelling in the spirit, needs the mind as a channel for expression, but it may be so blocked up, and filled with other things that He is unable to transmit all He desires to do. A “blocked” mind means the spirit unexpressed, and a spirit unexpressed is a stoppage of the outflow of the Spirit of God to others.
6. The mind of the Christian not fully delivered.
This explains why numbers of God’s children are unable to hold the truth of God which they hear, or to apply it to their lives, or express it to others. The mind has never been fully delivered from the grip of the enemy. Shall I put it crudely, and say that many get new “hearts”, but they keep their old “heads!” They do not realize that unless the hold of the adversary, which he has through the fallen nature of man, is removed from the mind, he has a position of vantage in the life of the believer, for attack and for hindrance in active service. How many there are who have “minds” that never “think a thing out”.
Devoted children of God, with hearts full of love, but “minds” full of all kinds of mixture – minds that have not been renewed and delivered from the interference of the enemy. Consequently they have a strange lack of spiritual perception. They may get “flashes of light”, and follow the “flash” – which often like a will-o’-the-wisp leads them astray – but they are not intelligent in their spiritual vision. They do not know that God is able, not only to deliver the mind from the enemy’s grip but also to renew it, so that it becomes as clear as crystal, with “every rebellious thought brought into captivity.”
We have seen that one reason why the liberation of the mind is so important is because it is the vehicle of the spirit. Has it never struck you how extraordinary it is that the children of God can hear so much, and express so little? If you will ask one and the other to intelligently transmit something of what they have heard, they cannot do it. They have listened to volumes of truth for years, and yet they have no power to transmit, and help a soul in need. And many of these hearers will tell you that they have received a Baptism of the Spirit! The reason for this lies in the unrenewed mind. They may truly have received the Holy Spirit, but speaking reverently, He is “locked up” in the spirit, and cannot get through the blocked channel of the mind. One reason is that many children of God do not soak themselves, so to speak, in God’s thoughts.
They think that to read a text in the morning is enough, and so they do not get the mind fully renewed. All the working of the old mind is enmity against God, and that is why you find people prejudiced over truth. Whenever you find a man prejudiced over some truth he does not understand, it always means that there is some activity of the old mind. The mind is like a seed plot. We do not realize what we are taking in, or sowing in the ground for future use. If you only make a remark about some person you have sown a seed, and if it is a critical thought, it is there ready to blaze into a “prejudice” at the first opportunity.
All this is so true that it is easy to see now why the Apostle describes the “mind” as a stronghold which has to be taken for Christ, and brought into subjection to Him. It may not have occurred to us that much which we have looked upon as “natural” disability in the use of our minds is to some extent the work of the enemy, who pours into the mind which has never been fully taken out of his power, his own visions, thoughts, ideas and ways.
…to be continued.
Recovered In Christ 