The Human Mind and The Nature Of Man (Part 1)

tonight listen tonight we start something tonight in our wife series we'll just scratch the surface this evening we're gonna be going through this for weeks and so I'm gonna ask something of you I'm gonna ask you reach out to the community of friends that you might know that could benefit from where we're going and these next Wednesday nights and we're gonna be talking about this is what it's going to be regarding the Weiss series we are now cracking open what the word of God has to say to us regarding the human mind our minds what does that encompass everything about us we're gonna be studying what the Bible has to say about the human mind what is it how does it work how does how do I relate to the world around me everything is going to tie back to our mind what about mental issues what about thought life what about remembrance what about recollection what about pain what about the prison that every one of us live in to some degree if we're not careful regarding what our mind has stored in it regarding sin our past abuses guilt shame our minds can our minds be repaired can they be redeemed can they be renewed the Bible is going to tell us the person that you are in your personality how does your mind and your personality coalesce with each other what's the relationship there how do we bring our thoughts under control is it possible can God change my mind and what about the the very word that is the literally the first word of the gospel it's quite shocking the first word of the gospel is not good news the first word of the gospel is god loves you the first word of the gospel is not those words the first word of the gospel is the word meta Noah did you know that Noah is the mind meta is think again meta think twice think it over rethink metanoia metanoia it's the word repent in English it means to think again we're gonna be looking at these deep things and I hope that every Wednesday night that we'll have a time to experience God's healing in our lives with our minds listen because our times abbreviated but we're gonna have a good time tonight still it's fine we've got half an hour to go through this and I got a little surprise for you I think it's a surprise I think you'll love it but I'm gonna ask you to put your thinking caps on before that but I ask you to take some notes if you would tonight and I'm gonna be I'm gonna take the opportunity to make this the introductory message of our study on the human mind and the nature of man as we look into the whys series and mark these verses down if you would second Peter chapter 1 verse 7 2nd Peter 1 excuse me 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 says for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind friends listen I need all of you tonight to participate I need you to commit this verse even if it's just the reference to some piece of paper and the mark may be the margin of your Bible or write it on your hand and ink or something I'm not kidding go ahead and do it and I'm in my by the way as I'm giving you these verses I'm very keenly cautious and aware of something regarding about regarding the topic and how sensitive it is regarding the human mind I do not want to say to you just read your Bible well do I want you to read your Bible of course I want you to read your Bible but I'm not going to say oh just read your but you have a problem read your Bible you have an issue read your Bible I understand but listen I want to say to you tonight that it is my prayer that as we go through this series that there'll be a verse or something that you might just write down and it may not get you but it might get you next week it may not get you now but it might get you in three weeks you might pick it up someday I don't know if it's tomorrow or ten years from now and you'll come across diverse in it and it's gonna snap and the lights gonna come on and you will experience the power of his word that is supernatural that will invade your mind and win you over and transform you is it possible listen the news is lit up right now the news is lit up right now and I never thought people would be so upset about salvation but it's highly possible that Kanye West is born again and the world is upset they look how is that possible how could God possibly forgive him the most vile crude this is from coming from the Christian community I didn't bat an eye I don't know it by the way I don't know anything about him I just find out who he who he is I've never heard of a song of his in my life still happens I'm just telling you I guess he's something and he got saved I guess he was really bad and now he loves Jesus and I guess I saw in the news the other day he was on a flight and just was not shy about Jesus being his Lord and Savior and Wow so here's what we need to pray that look he's a big target when we need to pray for him and I love some pastors great I guess it was great Lori was on the news and defending them Greg Laurie said people need to shut up and listen because the church is I say the church Christians are attacking Kanye West's conversion and the and the world is attacking it because they lost one of their own and my Bible tells me angels rejoice in heaven when someone changes their mind about Jesus Christ so that's awesome but at some point in time no doubt about it a verse must have gotten to him that's how it happens I first got to me a verse got to you but so I'm not just giving you verses these are supernatural powers given to us by God it's called the Bible Genesis chapter 1 verse 31 Genesis 1:31 says then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good very good says God and then finally in the introduction as Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 where there the Bible tells us and the Lord God formed a man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils and man that is Adam became a living soul or a living living being he's in an amazing that man had been formed in his his physics were completely intact his physique was there man was laying in the dust our of our I should say upon the dust having been made out of dust man is laying there but he didn't have life until God breathed into him the breath of life listen I don't want to get weird but listen that man was laying in the dirt being made out of dirt and in some way I'm exaggerating right now intentionally are you watching are you with me at some point perhaps if we take it literally God leaned over in such a way that he breathed into Adam's nostrils the Bible says like CPR God breathed into Adam and his lungs than would have filled up his heart would have started beating there was no life in that clay until God put it in please mark this down in that moment there was the consciousness of man imparted once and for all and for the first time his apparatus was not only breathing and blood pumping but he had a consciousness what do you mean he had a soul in that moment he became a living what he became a living being some of your translations say a living soul what does that mean we're gonna be looking at that by the way Church we cannot know anything a right or correctly about ourselves unless we first begin to know what we can about the nature of God God is from where we came from do you understand that so no he came from Earth yeah God made us listen our origin is in God as humans so it would be normal for you tonight to ask but wait does God exist that's a good question does God exist how can I know if God exists what does he like might be a question some people struggle over this I get it if if Jack you want to tell me that God exists and that God breathed life into us and our consciousness which is a mystery to still tonight science cannot tell us why man is a a this self-aware conscious being it's a mystery where is it where is our consciousness we know that it's not lodged in any recess or area of the brain the brain is a tool that consciousness uses that that's it for a minute that ought to freak you out kind of like electrical wire does the electricity go inside of the wire or on top of the wire does it dance across the wire or does it flow through the wire is what is is one of the great challenges of the early science community is how does electricity actually go down the wire well this is a big stumper regarding man's consciousness his soul the soul ality of man where is that there's no fatty little tissue there's not a there's not something behind the spleen it's not somewhere in the brain it's not between the skull and I'll submit you tonight that it's the hand of God in the creation of man I'm going somewhere with this regarding your mind we want to lay the foundation because the one that gave you your mind is the only one who can actually heal your mind and I know I'm going to be treading on some sensitive areas I want to make something I want to make this very clear our culture I'm gonna does I'm gonna get in trouble either way when our culture decided to go the distance without God we lost a great ability we lost the ability to look into in to work with man's totality mankind when I say man ladies I'm talking about mankind I'm not being macho gender insensitive here I'm talking about mankind when we said no no we're gonna focus on this area of man listen we're gonna focus on his psychology you you cannot accurately help someone if that's where you stopped your treatment is psychology listen man as a body soul and spirit says the Bible if the end all is psychology then you are denying the existence of the spirit of the man in other words man can only be healed so far if you limit yourself to a man or mankind being body and soul soul the word soul comes from the Greek su ke where we get the word psychology the words of the soul or the words of the mind or the study of the mind God says you are a body soul and spirit number one body it's material obviously soul immaterial spirit in material even more so but you and I live life focusing on the material and and somewhat on the immaterial soul or mind but when someone's going to treat you regarding this area and they leave out this spirit they can only heal you so far you understand that our culture today leans on psychology as though it is the ivory tower shrine of the healing of man not so unless psychology and by the way I listen don't fault me for this I'm gonna Christians Christian leaders pastors ministry Christians should pay some good attention to psychology in the context of the Bible being the standard judge of psychology to say oh we don't get involved in psychology is to say we don't get involved in how the working of the mind is that's dumb what we want to be careful about is understanding psychobabble is nuts that psychology being the end-all is nuts nuts I mean I'm not saying nuts like nuts I'm saying no pun intended man is much more than that do keep that in mind and so as we look at this you're gonna be challenged with and I would think if you're new to this the working of the mind you're asking me to look to God to heal my mind you ask me to believe in God how do I even begin pastor as I'm listening tonight or driving right now or whatever I'm at whenever you do hear this when there's so much evil in the world and I understand that how can you expect me to believe in a God of love when there's so much hate in the world I get that just will you consider this for a moment in our introduction our minds because of what is called in the Bible the fall of mankind the fall of man man's sinful nature our minds don't work right not what not in fact you know what here's the amazing thing the person listening right now who says will speak for yourself my mind works perfectly fine you are actually the most messed up person in the room no I'm serious if you think that Oh everybody's messed up but me you are the most messed up one isn't it funny more on that in a moment but here's the deal you can't know if if evil exists this is impossible for you to make that judgment you can't make a judgment call that evil exists unless you know what's good oh it's I can't believe in God there's so much evil in the world I could come back to you and say I have to believe in God because there's so much good in the world friend is it all evil no it just feels like it there's a whole lot of good out there where does the good come from how is it that we you and I in our minds know intuitively it's implanted within us I submit that it's the consciousness given to us by God that from the earliest beginnings no matter where you're at in any culture in the universe throughout human history you know what's right you know what's wrong the Bible says that God has written that law upon the human heart remember that so tonight we just scratched the surface with this if you'd write it down the human mind what is it to be human what is it to be human what does that mean keep this in mind mark it down if you would we are unrivaled in the universe as a human just think when you look at all of what the universe contains we are unrivaled in complexity as a human being what goes listen what goes on in your mind is absolutely more technical and more advanced than the orbital mechanics of astrophysics of the entire universes that are out there you're more complex that's a Mamet mathematical fact that is a a religious statement do you understand that it's a religion forget religion get it out of it it's a scientific fact that the human mind is still today more unexplored and knowable than our known universe we are mysteries housed within ourselves why because I submit to you tonight that the God who can heal us all is the God that made us and by his creative powers you are as amazing as you are it's just that you and I have been beaten down by all kinds of thoughts and feelings and things to realize or to think that we are somehow miss fitted junks and God not only doesn't want anything to do with this but that maybe he even made me to be a mistake and that is just absolutely false he made you intentionally he made you with purpose and listen yes we understand how if messed up and fallen and we are because the Bible tells us we've been brought into a fallen world but church family listen up it will not always be this way there is actual Redemption fully coming there is resurrection there is eternity there is a heaven that God has for us and it is the absolute full restoration of all things God will take us back as it were before Adams fall and the mind the the mind of who you're going to be will be a mind the Bible says like Christ Wow God is going to be doing an amazing thing the Bible tells us that in first Thessalonians 5:23 a verse that you've known before it says that now may the God of all peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ God has made you and I a little miniature Trinity body soul and spirit but you are according to the Bible Psalm 139 138 and 139 that declares to us and I paraphrase that we are fearfully and wonderfully made when we talk about the body we talk about the body obviously the material side of who you and I are and how we relate to one another the physical existence of who we are by the way listen this is kind of a shocker we've put so much emphasis on the body but you know our bodies were given to us by God to be the vehicle by which we express the soul and the spirit of who we are we lean so heavily on the physical part but it's the soul in the spirit part that the body this and it's the body is animated by the soul and spirit part your body is not who you are it's what you use to express who you are but without God we we focus on the body and we neglect the other you see well what's what is the soul as I said it's the mind it's that immaterial part of us but it is the thinking it is the the thought processes of who we are the mind the Bible tells us that God wants to renew our minds as you know that we'll get to that scripture in the future God says in the Bible I want to renew your minds by the way he gives the prescription for that there's one prescription for the renewing of your mind it's the Word of God the Bible it's amazing you see I don't believe it just so just stay with this for a few weeks and then the spirit the spirit of who you are this is an amazing name because before you're born again you're spiritually dead before you're born again you're spiritually dead you're living you're eating you're doing life but you don't know you're dead and like Kanye West I pray at some point in time something happened and there was a spark and he began to thank God thoughts and he began to question and wonder and he walks into that little church up there in LA or wherever that is a Calabasas and wants to hear them hear about the Bible that's how it happens in life that's how it happens with us that's how we are quickened or made alive the Bible tells us in 1st Corinthians chapter 2 verse 16 for who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him what do we think the answer to that is nobody can know the mind of the Lord what's interesting listen that verse goes on to say but we have the mind of Christ look at it with me everybody what on earth can this possibly mean for who has known the mind of the Lord that we may instruct him that and that question demands an absolute no one knows the mind of the Lord no one you can't know his mind he only allows you and I to know what he reveals to us and what he has revealed to us is in the listen hard copy of his mind and what he's wanted to be revealed to us that's it we're gonna learn more about God in eternity forever but thank God and thanks be to God this word here the Bible will not contradict nor will eternity contradict this word of what is eternity what is his nature guys can you put the back up in the screen for a second look at this but we have the mind of Christ can you just look at that for a moment is that amazing what does it mean it means this no one can know the mind of the Lord but we have listened follow it but we have access its access to the mind of Christ the mind of Christ the will of God again what is it it's the word it's the Word of God I'm gonna give you a quote here in a moment and then I want to show you something and it's I think it's gonna be exciting I hope so it's like oh it's exciting to you but let me let me um read this to you this is a personal letter and has to do about the mind this is a personal letter comment from CS Lewis to a friend of his and think about the mind because the mind is the area where you create you create your morality you create your morality now you have the natural law given to you by God there is a fundamental reality reality although morality that you and I have but then we add to that or we diminish from it by our mind what do you allow in your mind you were given a morality that says for example it's wrong to do this and so whatever it is yet you violate that conviction in your mind and you do that thing and you know you're doing the wrong thing inside you know what's wrong you do it but the more you do it whatever it is the less sting is in your mind isn't it it doesn't sting so bad and if you keep doing it if all of a sudden you're not even feeling bad about it anymore what has happened you have conditioned your mind and you have changed your reality you have divorced yourself from the conviction of God and you are going now with your own conviction on how you're going to do this and so this is where you get this statement from people that they'll say something like well you know what that's your truth and you just do your truth I'll do my truth you do your truth it comes from this humanistic philosophy of you create your morality and it's very dangerous because what you allow is what you wind up becoming like in other words the gods that you worship so to speak those gods will certainly endorse and and allow what you want to do you'll surround yourself with the gods that allow you to do what you want to do so be careful with this CS Lewis writes we must learn by experience to avoid either trains of thought or social situations which for us not necessarily for everyone lead to temptations like mortaring motoring driving a car in England don't wait to the last moment before you put on the brakes but put them on gently and quietly while the danger is still a good way off you hear that that's exercising a morality and a discernment that is wise that is rightly using the minds some people's minds cannot work this way it's not that it could not it's that they allowed their minds to be changed or coerced or convinced and they have no judgment they have no understanding they have no they've they've departed so to speak that train left the station in their thinking and you wonder how do people become serial killers how do people become so cold and callous because they didn't put the brakes on ahead of time they kept crashing into the wall as it were until they didn't feel it anymore the mind how do we condition how do we repair our minds I want to show you this video will probably come close to ending at the end of this this is you get you got a pic pay attention I need all you take a deep breath and get ready to listen to this this is a this is an excerpt out of mere Christianity it's good for you you got to listen you gotta listen hard but to help you along there's a there's cartooning to this but don't let the cartooning fool you this is deep stuff but think of it in how it relates to your mind and your thinking so guys let's dim the lights let's take a look at this mere christianity by CS lewis what lies behind the moral law let us sum up what we have reached so far in the case of stones and trees and things of that sort what we call the laws of nature may not be anything except a way of speaking when you say that nature is governed by certain laws this may only mean that Nature does in fact behave in a certain way the so called laws may not be anything real anything above and beyond the actual facts which we observe but in the case of man we saw that this will not do the law of human nature or of right and wrong must be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behavior in this case besides the actual facts you have something else a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey I now want to consider what this tells us about the universe we live in ever since men were able to think they have been wondering what this universe really is and how it came to be there and very roughly two views have been held first there is what is called the materialist view people who take that view think that matter and space just happened to exist and always have existed nobody knows why and that the matter behaving in certain fixed ways has just happened by a sort of fluke to produce creatures like ourselves who were able to think by one chance in a thousand something hit our son and made it produce the planets and buy another thousandth chance the chemicals necessary for life and the right temperature occurred on one of these planets and so some of the matter on this earth came alive and then by a very long series of chances the living creatures developed into things like us the other view is the religious view according to it what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know that is to say it is conscious and has purposes and prefers one thing to another and on this view it made the universe partly for purposes we do not know but partly at any rate in order to produce creatures like itself I mean like itself to the extent of having minds please do not think that one of these views was held a long time ago and that the other has gradually taken its place wherever there have been thinking men both views turn up and note this - you cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense science works by experiments it watches how things behave every scientific statement in the long run however complicated it looks really means something like I pointed the telescope to such-and-such a part of the sky at 2:20 a.m. on January the 15th and saw so-and-so or I put some of this stuff in a pot and heated it to such in such a temperature and it did so and so do not think I'm saying anything against science I'm only saying what its job is and the more scientific a man is the more I believe he would agree with me that this is the job of science and a very useful and necessary job it is - but why anything comes to be there at all and whether there is anything behind the things science observes something of a different kind this is not a scientific question if there is something behind then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way the statement that there is any such thing and the statement that there is no such thing are neither of them statements that science can make and real scientists do not usually make them it is usually the journalists and popular novelists who have picked up a few odds and ends of half-baked science from textbooks who go in for them after all it is really a matter of common sense supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe is it not plain that the questions why is there a universe why does it go on as it does has it any meaning would remain just as they were now the position would be quite hopeless but for this there is one thing and only one in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation that one thing is man we do not merely observe men we are men in this case we have so to speak inside information we are in the know and because of that we know that men find themselves under a moral law which they did not make and cannot quite forget even when they try and which they know they ought to obey notice the following point anyone studying man from the outside as we study electricity or cabbages not knowing our language and consequently not able to get any inside knowledge from us but merely observing what we did would never get the slightest evidence that we had this moral law how could he for his observations would only show what we did and the moral law is about what we ought to do in the same way if there were anything above or behind the observed facts in the case of stones or the weather we by studying them from outside could never hope to discover it the position of the question then is like this we want to know whether the universe simply happens to be what it is for no reason or whether there is a power behind it that makes it what it is since that power if it exists would be not one of the observed facts but a reality which makes them no mere observation of the facts can find it there is only one case in which we can know whether there is anything more namely our own case and in that one case we find there is or put it the other way around if there was a controlling power outside the universe it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house the only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way and that is just what we do find inside ourselves surely this ought to arouse our suspicions in the only case where you can expect to get an answer the answer turns out to be yes and in the other cases where you do not get an answer you see why you do not suppose someone asked me when I see a man in a blue uniform going down the street leaving little paper packets at each house why I suppose that they contain letters I should reply because whenever he leaves a similar little packet for me I find it does contain a letter and if he then objected but you've never seen all these letters which you think the other people are getting I should say of course not and I shouldn't expect to because they're not addressed to me I'm explaining the packets I'm not allowed to open by the ones I am allowed to open it is the same about this question the only packet I am allowed to open is man when I do especially when I open that particular man called myself I find that I do not exist on my own that I am under a law that some body or some thing wants me to behave in a certain way I do not of course think that if I could get inside a stone or a tree I should find exactly the same thing just as I do not think all the other people in the street get the same letters as I I should expect for instance to find that the stone had to obey the law of gravity that whereas the sender of the letters merely tells me to obey the law of my human nature he compels the stone to obey the laws of its stony nature but I should expect to find that there was so to speak a sender of letters in both cases a power behind the facts a director a guide do not think I'm going faster than I really am I am not yet within a hundred miles of the God of Christian theology all I have got to is a something which is directing the universe and which appears in me as a law urging me to do right and making me feel responsible and uncomfortable when I do wrong I think we have to assume it is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know because after all the only other thing we know is matter and you can hardly imagine a bit of matter giving instructions but of course it need not be very like a mind still less like a person in the next talk we shall see if we can find out anything more about it but one word of warning there has been a great deal of Softsoap talked about God for the last hundred years that is not what I am offering you can cut all that out note in order to keep this section short enough when it was given on the air I mentioned only the materialist view and the religious view but to be complete I ought to mention the in-between view called life force philosophy or creative evolution or emergent evolution the wittiest expositions of it come in the works of Bernard Shaw but the most profound ones in those of Bergson people who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on this planet evolved from the lowest forms to man were not due to chance but to the striving or purposiveness of a life force when people say this we must ask them whether by life force they mean something with a mind or not if they do then a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection is rarely a god and their view is the side entacle with the religious if they do not then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind strives or has purposes this seems to me fatal to their view one reason why many people find creative evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences when you're feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest if on the other hand you want to do something rather shabby the life force being only a blind force with no morals and no mind will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children the life force is a sort of tame God you can switch it on when you want but it will not bother you all the thrills of religion and none of the cost is the life force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen Wow did you get morality when the mind is gone morality is lessened let's end with this Lois is witnessing if you've ever read that book he's it's going to take him chapters to get to the revelation of God in Christ Jesus let's end with this Jesus Christ came into this world in flesh in skin because that's not what God is it's what you are remember when he talked about God being more like a mind remember what I said earlier about where do you find your consciousness where do you pinpoint it what you and I are in little in Reverse as it were you and I are predominantly fixated on physicalness we have our soul we have our spirit to be born again is to be spirit alive no longer physically living for the flesh God who is spirit remember he's in his nature in material the Bible says God his spirit he came here in the flesh so that we could relate to him so so to speak he could take us back some day to where he is that realm is a spirit realm he's asking you to consider for example what Lois put forward is all of this an accident a very comfortable a very convenient accident or is it purposeful your mind is purposeful it's not an accident it's overwhelming factual the case so in the weeks ahead we're going to be looking at God's powers and God's ability to heal our thinking and by God's grace I'm praying that the Lord gives us victory in areas that maybe perhaps we've never had victory in okay thanks for watching real life YouTube channel and if this message has been a blessing to you then just click the subscribe button because we'd love to keep you up to date on what we're teaching on and what's coming next and if you'd like to help us increase our reach and getting out these messages to a greater audience then you can help support us by becoming a partner by simply clicking on the link in the description box below so listen we want to thank you for helping us get the word of God out to the ends of the earth

Channel: Real Life with Jack Hibbs

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Length: 44min 34sec (2674 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 31 2019