Some Spiritual Distinctions

Greetings, my brother, my sister. I’m Brother Ed, and you’re listening to revivalnow.church. It’s a Christian blog, and I’m Brother Ed, your host. Today we’re going to continue some reading from the book Brighthood Saints. This chapter is entitled Some Spiritual Distinctions. The use of our 5 senses is made the basis of a fine argument by Saint Paul.

In showing the difference between the babe state and the perfect state in the life of faith. He says in Hebrews 5:14 that solid food, or strong meat, is for those who are perfect and who by the use of their senses can discern good and evil. That is, distinguish the difference between things carnal and things spiritual.

Just as an infant does not know how to use his 5 senses to the best advantage For lack of exercise. So an imperfect believer does not know how to exercise his inward spiritual senses to make proper distinctions in the spiritual life, and thereby often stumbles and gets into confusion.

We have 5 senses in our inner man upon which the Holy Spirit is to operate, just as truly as we have 5 senses in our bodies that come in contact with outward material things. Now, as a man can exercise sense of sight until he can measure distances with his eye

and discern objects at a distance to the astonishment of others, so the apostle teaches us we can exercise our inner senses so as to distinguish the things of God, what is true and what is false. What is of earth and what is of heaven, in such a marked degree as not to be duped by Satan or misled by false teachers.

There are so many things that we need to distinguish in our religious thinking if we want to walk in a plain path and in the clear light.

Number 1, we must learn the distinction between temptation and sin. Temptation is an appeal to any susceptibility of the body, or of the soul, to do that which is wrong. We have appetites and senses and susceptibilities in our bodies and minds which God has made as part of our being, and all these can be appealed to by objects or by ideals, for pleasure or self-gratification, in various ways.

And of course, every living creature must feel the force of such appeals. The angels, the holy Adam and the spotless Jesus, and the holiest of men can feel the appeals made to the various susceptibilities of their nature. This is the realm of temptation. Now, sin consists in an inward desire or inclination or choice to yield to these various suggestions in an unlawful way.

There may be temptations even producing pain or annoyance, and yet the inner spirit may have no thought of yielding, and no desire to do anything or to gratify any felt need in an unlawful way. Hence every Christian should discern between temptation and the choice of sin, or the committing of sin, or else he will be perplexed.

And often confused by the adversary into great darkness. This is number 2. Our inner sense must make a distinction between self-will and our self-personality. There are many people teaching the death of self in a foolish and unscriptural way, failing to see that self as a person— that is, I myself— is an immortal, ongoing individuality.

To exist forever, and that God will no more allow my personal self to be destroyed than he will allow the annihilation of all the universe. It is strange that these people who talk so much about death of self will not go by the Bible and teach death to self by sin, the complete purging from all depravity.

The Bible does not talk about self. But death to sin, death to the old man, cleansing from all unrighteousness. If you mean death to your self-will, your ambition, your pride, the love of having your own way, in that sense there is a death to self. But unless you distinguish between death to your self-will and the immortal existence of your personal self, which never can be destroyed, in which Jesus and the holy angels have, you will always be in a muddle in your religious experience.

We have in the city where I live 2 or 3 little companies that are teaching death to self and are always groaning and pining and working and fasting and making new rules how to attain the death of self, and all the while they are getting more narrow. More severe, more fanatical.

And the fact is, the old Adamic self, self-righteousness, and self-conceit are growing all the time until the religious experience they had years ago is all eaten up with self-righteousness. If such people would abandon every thought to Jesus, trust his cleansing blood, and seek nothing but lowly love and charity, They would soon find the true death to self-will, and also that their immortal individual selfhood could sweetly rest in Jesus and cooperate with Him in doing good.

Another important distinction is that concerning wandering thoughts. To practically distinguish between wandering thoughts and the deliberate and voluntary thinking of the mind. Human beings are constantly prone to go to extremes in everything, and especially in religious teaching, unless they are divinely illuminated and well-balanced in Bible doctrine. Many think that it is impossible for our minds to be brought into subjection to Christ, as Paul teaches, and others go to the opposite extreme and suppose it to be a sin to have any wandering thoughts or passing suggestions about evil things.

It is a fact that Jesus can save from all sin, both inward and outward, and by His Spirit so pervade our minds that we can be kept from all voluntary evil thinking, from knowingly entertaining evil thoughts, and from having any cherish for evil suggestions, so that our deliberate thoughts, so far as our will is concerned, are upright and according to God’s Word.

And like Job, we can eschew or hate evil thoughts. This is the way the Apostle declares that the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, can keep our hearts and minds. Now, on the other hand, it is impossible for the holiest person on earth to prevent suggestions of evil from coming to the mind.

Or the involuntary wandering of the thoughts, because our thoughts are largely mechanical and intimately connected with the nerves, the beating of the pulse, the temperature of the blood, and the physical state of the body. There is a species of consumption that always makes the victim full of hope and buoyant expectation of long life.

Even to within a few hours of death, which is a scientific fact. Then there are diseases of other organs in the body that fill the mind with uncontrollable sadness and depression, which no amount of holiness can dispel. These are positive scientific facts. Then again, our thoughts are largely governed by the laws of association of ideals.

That is, the seeing of a certain thing Or the hearing of something will instantly suggest something else. It may be years past, and that suggestion will involuntarily suggest something else. And in less than 1 second, these automatic thoughts in the mind, with lightning rapidity, will have gone over a great mental territory before the willpower has time to act and to fix the thoughts on something more profitable.

Now there are people trying to stretch their power to such an extent as never to have wandering thoughts, and are trying to live angelic lives in mortal bodies. And thus they break the sweetness of soul rest by measuring themselves by an ideal law instead of the Gospel law of perfect love.

It is important to make a distinction between the flesh on our bones And having the flesh in the mind and heart. This is number 4. Right here is the sandbar on which thousands run aground and wreck their experience because they will not discern between the physical flesh which forms our bodies and the moral flesh which pollutes the mind and heart.

So many will argue that because we have flesh in our bodies, we can never be saved from fleshly desires and impurities. The Apostle Paul uses the word flesh in both sentences, but he is the only inspired writer that uses the word flesh in a theological sense to signify sinful passions in the heart and mind.

He says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God, and then adds, but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, addressing purified believers. Now anyone knows that the people he addressed were living in their bodies and had flesh on their bones, and that their flesh still retained all of the senses and appetites belonging to the body.

But all fleshly hankering for improper pleasures had been purged out of their desires, and out of their intentions, and out of their voluntary thinking, so that their spiritual lives were free from sinful passions and fleshly affections. It is amazing that so many Christians are so dull in their perceptions as to be unable to discern between thus having the flesh in your body And not having the desire of the flesh in your hearts and minds.

Complete salvation from the flesh is to have a heart that does not desire any bodily pleasure except what is in harmony with God’s Word, and to entertain no thoughts of fleshly pleasure with relish in the mind. This is the only way to live in perfect peace, when the mind entertains no willing purpose or intent of fleshly evil.

Of course, people will deny this pure and restful state of heart and mind if they are slaves of sin, or if they have an old theology which demands that you must have some sin in you just because you have a human body. Ask God by the Holy Spirit to enable you to make this distinction between having the flesh on your body and the flesh in your desires, and it will help You a long stride on your journey in the Christian life.

Number 5, another distinction is to see the difference between matters of individual conscience and matters well-defined by the laws of God. There’s a whole world in Christian life known as casuistry, that is, questions of conscience, including those matters which are not definitely settled by the Bible, but which each Christian must settle for himself by his common sense and by his individual conviction and by the circumstances of his life.

Paul mentions these points in connection with matters of taste, of eating various foods and going into various kinds of society. They also include matters of dress, of domestic life, of fasting, of personal discipline, of private judgment. Of certain vocations, of individual vows, and many things which are not definitely settled by the Word of God.

The great Mr. Wesley would likely bind it on us to rise at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, but the Bible legislates on no such thing. There are some people that ought not to eat meat, but Paul expressly says that to make that a religious doctrine is the teaching of devils.

Little-hearted and narrow-minded Christians will take a mere trifle or a foolish scruple and magnify it into a mountain of religious legislation and condemn other people for not conforming to their whims or the private matters of their own conscience. Many weak Christians make laws on Christian holiness that are beyond the Bible, and at the same time they will go right on breaking the great law of perfect love.

and charity for their brethren. The laws laid down in the Ten Commandments, in the Sermon on the Mount, in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, in the 12th chapter of Romans, and scores of other passages, are ample enough and clear enough for countless millions to live by. And every true saint will live according to these words.

But outside of the definite teaching of Scripture, God allows His people individual liberty on non-essentials. Where the apostle says, let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. There are many kinds of slavery in this world, and among the most galling is where the narrow-minded people make themselves slaves to their own holiness and wear a tight jacket that prevents free breathing, manufactured out of some trifle which they magnify above the law of perfect love.

Popery consists in trying to make other people wear your conscience, and condemning them for not doing it.

Hence you must distinguish between the law of God in the Bible,

and the law of a private conscience,

which you make yourself. Please remember that a man’s conscience is no guide to a holy life. Unless that conscience is illuminated by the Scripture. For the conscience wrongly educated will sanction all sorts of foolishness, as well as the direst of crimes. We frequently meet people who think they are intelligent, and yet who have no discernment between salvation and reward.

This is number 6. To be saved is one thing, but to be rewarded is quite another. So do not confound these 2 things in your religion. The Bible shows a strong demarcation between being saved by faith and being rewarded according to our works. We are justified by faith and sanctified by faith and overcome the world by faith.

And Paul says we receive the promise of the Spirit by faith and we walk by faith. On the other hand, every passage in the Bible concerning rewards is, is in connection with our good works. Our obedience, our fidelity to a covenant, and our perseverance. Over and over, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, we read, everyone shall be recompensed, or rewarded, according as his deeds shall be.

Some time ago, I met 3 church members, one a Presbyterian, one Episcopalian, and one a Methodist, who insisted that every man who was saved in heaven would get the same reward. I tried to show them the Scripture teaching of salvation by faith, and that all rewards were according to our works, but I could not convince them.

I may say, however, that none of them could testify to the new birth, and hence had not the divine light in their minds. Being saved will admit us into heaven, but the degree of reward will mark our rank in heaven. The dying thief was saved, but will doubtless have no reward, or if he does, it will be nothing to compare with the rewards of St.

Paul. Salvation will whiten our robe, but the size and weight and brilliancy of that robe will depend on the good works. We get salvation now, for this is the day of salvation, but our rewards will be received At the Second Coming of Christ. Number 7, at this time when the gifts of the Holy Spirit are being so largely restored to believers, we need to keep in our minds the clear distinction between the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.

The distinction is very plain in the Epistles to the Corinthians. The Holy Spirit is the gift of the Father to believers, especially the fully consecrated and purified believers. But on the other hand, the various gifts of the Spirit are distributed and imparted by the Holy Spirit himself to various believers according to his sovereign will.

The gift of the Spirit is one, but the gifts of the Spirit are 9, as mentioned in the 12th chapter of 1 Corinthians. The gift of the Spirit is to abide forever, but the various gifts of the Spirit are temporary It may be given at one time and held back at another time, and Paul says that these gifts will sooner or later all pass away, for there will be no need of them in the glorified saints.

Again, there is only one Holy Spirit, and when the Father, through Christ, gives the Spirit, He gives that one Holy Spirit to each full believer. But the gifts of the Spirit are different and multiplied, and all of those gifts are never given to any one believer. Except it may be in the case of the apostles.

For Paul himself says that to one is given one gift and to another a different gift, and that the gifts are distributed to different members of the body of Christ as it pleases God. Hence the importance of seeing the distinction between the one everlasting gift of the Holy Spirit and the diversified And temporary gifts of the Spirit for our earthly service in this life.

A father may give his daughter a piano, one great gift for life, but out of that one piano there may come forth many notes of music, multiplied tunes, some sad, some joyful, some slow and some rapid, some for the wedding march and some for the funeral dirge. But these multiplied tunes come from the one piano.

This illustrates the Father’s gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the multiplied tunes are gifts that may proceed from the one Comforter. These are some of the distinctions that we need to make in our religious thinking, and by having, as Paul says, our inner senses exercised to discern both good and evil.