Passage
[Romans 8:12-16]
“So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh [13] for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. [14] For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. [15] For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” [16] The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,”
Introduction
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
In 1 Corinthians 13:11, the apostle Paul wrote the following to the members of the Corinthian church.
“When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.”
Here, being a child refers to living on this earth with a physical body.
Comparing this time with the time when we will have the spiritual body and live in the heavenly kingdom in spiritual realm, the words and thoughts that we have now are at the level of a child.
Flesh and spirit are so different.
Also, while we live on this earth, to the extent to which we cultivate our heart into spirit we will have different levels of how clearly we understand and think.
Even children will be different in their words and thinking at different stages, such as being an infant, a toddler, and an elementary school student. Likewise, the words and thinking are different according to the measure of faith.
What kinds of thoughts, words, and deeds do you have-
Are you like infants who just cry and who cannot even communicate with others well-
Or, are you like more grown-up children who understand the words of God the Father and obey them-
Romans 8:8 says, “and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
We cannot obey the words of God to the extent that we have fleshly thoughts.
We cannot help but act like a naughty child who does not understand his parents’ heart.
Therefore, I hope you will demolish all your fleshly thoughts and become children who are fully grown in faith and who obey the voice of the Holy Spirit.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will always sense the expression of love that God the Father is showing to you and continue your lives with thanks.
Main
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the eighth session of the voice and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
As long as we have fleshly thoughts, we cannot clearly hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
It’s because the fleshly thoughts will block the voice of the Holy Spirit.
We will hear the voice of Satan to the extent that we have fleshly thoughts.
So, we first have to realize what kinds of fleshly thoughts we have and demolish them.
Though there are differences among individuals, still the fleshly thoughts can be categorized according to the measure of faith.
In the last session, I talked about the first level of fleshly thoughts, which hinder us from believing in God.
It is the most basic level of fleshly thoughts that we have to break down to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.
These fleshly thoughts usually derive from the worldly knowledge and theories.
Many people in the world do not believe in God because of such fleshly thoughts.
There are also people who go to church but do not have the faith to receive salvation yet. These people also have this category of fleshly thoughts.
That is why 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,”
God knocks on the door of the thoughts of every individual through those who preach the gospel.
But so many people think the knowledge of this world is noble and of value, but consider the knowledge of the Lord, the gospel, as foolishness.
They even think you are foolish or you are telling a lie when you preach the gospel to them.
When the gospel does not agree with their knowledge and theories they will not accept the facts as facts.
I was also one of those who would not accept the gospel.
While I was on my sickbed, my sister had pity on me and preached the gospel to me from time to time.
She was telling me God would heal my diseases if I went to church.
But being on my sick bed, I would reply to her with stubbornness saying, “Men are going to the moon in space-crafts, so where is God- Show Him to me if He lives!”
However, I couldn’t refuse her asking a favor of me to guide her on her way to a church, so we went to a meeting of Sr. Deaconess Shin Ae Hyeon.
But since that day, I became a completely different person.
I used to be an atheist, but I became a preacher who would preach the living God anywhere.
It’s because the moment I knelt in a church God healed me of all my diseases that had tortured me for 7 years.
I met the living God.
Since then, as I was learning the word of God, I became so afraid when I had the thought, “I could have gone the way of death because of my knowledge and pride!”
I didn’t know what to do when I thought, “What would have happened to me if I had not met God-“
The reason why I have been accomplishing this ministry of God’s power without ceasing is because I experienced such an amazing miracle myself.
2 Corinthians 10:4 says, “. . . for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” As written, I realized that only the spiritual weapon, the power of the Holy Spirit, can be the divine instrument to demolish all knowledge, theories, and thoughts of this world.
With this faith, when I let the people see the signs and wonders along with the preaching of the word of God, people’s thoughts were demolished.
Even those who had very rigid thoughts of this worldly knowledge were changed.
You received so much grace through this past summer’s retreats.
You surely must have felt the spiritual space seeing the swarms of dragonflies flying down from around the sun, and you must have felt the love of God the Father seeing those friendly dragonflies.
It’s the hottest time of the year, but God gave us such cool weather.
Also, He gives us fullness of Spirit by showing us various clouds, rainbows, and moving of the stars.
Some experience divine healings while listening to the messages or during their prayers, and some of them receive the desires of their heart.
If these things do not take place, there is no reason for so many people from other countries to come all the way to Korea to participate in the summer retreat.
Even when new believers come, their fleshly thoughts have been destroyed. They have now received faith.
Also, many church members’ self-righteousness and frameworks have been shattered and their faith has grown and matured.
I think many of you used to say “Where is God- Show Him to me!”
But when you had various life problems, you must have felt so helpless and powerless, and felt that the knowledge of this world is useless.
That is why you sought God and met Him.
If you open your heart, when your heart is poor, then the Holy Spirit comes into your heart.
From that time on, He is always with us and leads us to the way of prosperity.
But how good it would be if just by seeing the power and divine nature contained in all things of the universe and just by hearing the love of the cross of our Lord we could open the door of our thoughts and hearts before we encounter various life problems!
I hope all of you will demolish all these meaningless and useless fleshly thoughts.
In doing so, I hope that you will gain true wisdom by the guidance of the Holy Spirit and lead a blessed life.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the next level of fleshly thoughts are the ones that hinder us from obeying the word of God.
If we break the fleshly thoughts of the first level, namely the fleshly thoughts that hinder us from believing in God, could we clearly hear the Holy Spirit’s voice-
No. It just means we have accepted the Holy Spirit in us by demolishing the first level fleshly thoughts.
The Holy Spirit has just come into our hearts at this point.
And the training of hearing and obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit will begin after we accept the Holy Spirit in our heart.
Before we receive the Lord as our Savior, we previously heard the voice of Satan that works through our thoughts.
So, we cannot clearly hear the voice of the Holy Spirit or obey it completely at the moment we accept the Lord.
We want to obey the commands that tell us to do, not do, keep, or cast away certain things, but the fleshly thoughts hinder us from obeying them.
Of course, there are some new believers who are able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit and obey the word of God when they are full of the Spirit.
When you first accept the Lord and repent of all sins, your heart is refreshed and you become happy.
You can feel the love of God the Father deep in your heart. At these moments, you do not use your own thoughts, but obey the word in the Bible and the sermons you hear.
It’s because in those moments you are full of the Spirit and you control the fleshly thoughts.
So, you are guided by the Holy Spirit, and you receive answers to your prayers.
But many believers lose this first love. They lose the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Once they lose the fullness, they go back to the state where they cannot control their fleshly thoughts.
From this point, they can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit only as much as the truth that is cultivated in their heart.
Now, let us look into the first level of faith, which is the level right after accepting the Lord.
In the first level of faith, they have more untruths than truths in their heart, so they tend to not live by the word of God.
For example, even though they hear that they will receive spiritual and material blessings if they keep the Lord’s Day holy, they cannot really keep it.
They consider it difficult to keep the Lord’s Day holy, thinking they have to work to earn more money or they have to take a rest.
But for those who keep the Lord’s Day holy, this kind of thought is childish thought. It is fleshly thought.
Those who experience the joy and peace of keeping the Lord’s Day holy will not have such thoughts. They will just keep it.
Likewise, in the first level of faith, they still have the knowledge that they gained in the world.
They don’t have much knowledge of the word of God or the willpower to follow it.
But the second level of faith is different. They know the truth to some extent, and they also try to follow it.
In the second level of faith, they try to obey the word of God, compared to the first level of faith.
But they cannot live by the word of God obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit all the time. They sometimes follow the voice of Satan.
Many times they do not obey being blocked by their fleshly thoughts.
For example, God tells us not to pass judgment on our neighbors.
James 4:12 says, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor-“
Only God knows the heart of men.
Therefore, we should never judge others just by seeing the outer appearances.
In the second level of faith, they try to live by the word, so they think they should not pass judgment or condemnation on others.
But in reality, many times they cannot do as they thought.
For example, they hear some news that is not so good about a certain person. They hear that his actions and behavior are not acceptable.
They might hear many kinds of things, but the important thing is they must not go on beyond hearing.
But they want to hear even more. They begin to wonder it could really be true.
They themselves haven’t seen the person actually do anything wrong, but they just think it could be possible because they heard it from others.
Furthermore, they spread what they heard without even clarifying the information.
They even add their own feelings and imagination to it.
But they still think they did not pass judgment. They just think they are talking about the facts.
They may even think they are discerning with the truth.
But these people are not able to look into their own heart because of the fleshly thoughts they have.
In fact, they look at others with evil and have misunderstandings because they have evil in themselves.
Also, they easily pass judgment and condemnation on others because they have hatred in them.
Those who are good in heart will look at others with a good heart.
Even though others talk about a certain person in an unfavorable way, they do not just accept and believe it.
Because they love that soul, they hope that such a rumor is not true.
Just think about the parents. Because they love their children, they do not want to believe when they hear bad news about their children.
Even though the news is true, they first think, “It cannot be true. My child is a good child!”
Above all, we have to realize that judgment and condemnation comes from arrogance.
Those who are humble cannot easily pass judgment on others.
From the heart they consider others better than themselves. They would not even consider passing judgment on others because they fear God.
Some people pass judgment on the sermons, too.
They think, “The pastor is talking about me right here.” They misunderstand thinking that the pastor is singling them out and embarrassing them through the sermon.
But why would I have personal feelings against certain people and try to embarrass them-
It’s just that they have resentment within their own fleshly thoughts.
Also, some people think like, “This is for that person” during the sermon.
They conclude that it is for a certain person and talk about it with others, too.
All these things derive from fleshly thoughts.
It may seem to be small things, but in God’s sight, these are not at all small things.
It is a pity that they judge others with their fleshly thoughts, but they do not realize their evil at all.
Therefore, we always have to try to realize our fleshly thoughts, and we have to remove them as soon as we find them.
In the next session, I will talk about the fleshly thoughts that hinder us from obeying the word of God.
Conclusion
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is said that the flow of spirit and the flow of flesh will be divided more clearly until the Lord comes back.
The spirit will flow into spirit, and the flesh into flesh more and more quickly.
In this situation, it is the fleshly thoughts that put you into the flow of flesh.
Especially, if you judge yourself thinking you are flesh anyway and if you give up on yourself, it is same as guiding yourself to the cliff’s edge.
Just like a waterfall that flows off the edge of the cliff, it causes you to fall into increasingly more flesh.
It is Satan that makes you think like this through your fleshly thoughts.
The reason why fleshly people feel they are left out is this.
Therefore, if you think like, “I can’t do it. It’s too late for me,” then just realize that it is not the voice of the Holy Spirit and it is not your own thoughts, but it is the voice of Satan.
The Holy Spirit is saying, “It is not too late. I will help you!”
He is giving out His hands saying, “Repent and turn around. Let us go the way of life and peace with Me!”
Just say ‘Yes’ and ‘Amen’ to this voice of the Holy Spirit!
If you hold His hands and obey His voice, then you can ride on the flow of spirit.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will quickly pass through the 1st, 2nd, 3rd kingdoms of heaven, and reach New Jerusalem being on the rapid flow of spirit.
[Amen]
