The Mind of Christ #1 - Power of the Mind - Dr. Eric Walsh

so i love health ministry and i love mission trips and i like all the things that the church does for the health evangelism and somehow but i couldn't connect between those ministry and our daily work and the lives and our men and help us to teach and also emphasize that our daily life could be a ministry too so to me this is really important for christian those who are following christ because that's what christ actually did he he taught and he preached and he healed and not separately he did everything together and another important thing about amen that we've appreciated is the networking the fact that we can network with others so that we can get new ideas for ministry and gain more resources yeah that's why we need to have more people to join our men so that we get more experience the more uh the people who can share with us and so that we can gain more knowledge and the experience to others well we want to welcome each one of you to this seminar and put on by the uh amen uh group here in uh micronesia so thankfully each one of you can join us this evening we have a very special guest speaker this evening dr eric walsh he will be speaking to us uh every day and we want to invite you to come nightly at 7 30 to the same site and same link to hear these inspiring messages dr walsh comes to us from the united states uh he is a family physician uh who has uh traveled extensively and spoken essentially around the world and they brought the word of life to to many of us and i know that uh you will be blessed uh by this this evening and uh let's go ahead and have a word of prayer as uh as we start our evening seminar father in heaven thank you so much for this evening and we can learn about your word and how to have the mind of christ whether you bless dr walsh as he brings us this message we pray this all in jesus name amen amen all right greetings everyone i'm glad to be with you all uh this morning for me and uh evening for you uh pray that all is uh good in guam i miss you guys and um definitely miss the weather we're getting about 14 inches of snow here today so definitely miss the tropical weather um we're going to get right into god's word um we're going to be dealing with the mind this week and specifically having the mind of christ um [Music] let me share the screen and um we are going to to talk about it uh um and deal even with some of the the science of what we've learned um about the mind so our scripture reading for this morning this evening for you guys it comes from numbers chapter 13. i'm going to read just verses 30 through 33 numbers 13 30 through 33 and it reads and caleb stealed the people before moses and said let us go up at once and possess it for we are well able to overcome it but the men that went up with him said we be not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of israel saying the land through which we have gone to search it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature and there we saw the giants the sons of anak which come of the giants and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers and so we were in their sight that last line is is very telling it says and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers and so we were in their sight our message for this evening is entitled the power of the mind the power of the mind let us pray father god we thank you for this opportunity to study your word we thank you father god for this opportunity to to fellowship together albeit virtual lord but i ask lord that you make me a nail upon the wall a rusty sorry nail lord and upon that nail lord i ask that you hang a portrait of jesus christ that eric walsh not be seen or heard instead father let us hear a word from the throne room of grace this is our prayer in jesus precious and holy name amen all right so let's get into this um one of my favorite stories in the bible is this one this is uh the story of the 12 spies you may be asking what does this have to do with the mind it has everything to do with the mind this is one of the stories in the bible where you see potentially that god's people could gain a great victory and move into where god wants them um but it is it is the mind and the influence of one mind over another mind that changes the course of history um forever for the children of israel in many ways so number chapter 13 verse 1 says and the lord spake unto moses saying send thou men that they may search the land of canaan which i give unto the children of israel of every tribe of the fathers shall you send a man everyone a ruler among them and so moses goes into the next few verses i won't share go into choosing these men uh the two men that stand out the most of course caleb and joshua remember that these are princes among the people these are supposed to be in essence the elite the strongest the most clear-minded of the men of the 12 tribes um and so the instruction is to send them as as if they're going to take this land these are the men who would um in each of the regions where the tribes would get land these are the men who would probably be leaders so they have a vested interest in this scouting report they have a vested interest in figuring out what this land looks like what does it have to offer and what obstacles would they face in taking this land because what you have to keep in mind as you go through the story is god has already promised them the land the land has already been promised it's their land it was promised that him all the way back in with abraham even before they went into captivity in egypt the land was promised to them so this isn't a scouting report this is like um this is like you know knowing um how a uh you know a football game is going to end before it starts they they were already told the end they simply had to go in and play the game that's all he had to do god already told him how it was going to end in verse 17 the bible says and moses sent them to spy out the land of canaan and said unto them get ye up this way southward and go up into the mountain and see the land what it is uh and the people that dwelleth there whether they be strong or weak few or many and what the land is that they dwell in whether it be good or bad and what cities they be that they dwell in whether in tents or in strongholds and what is what the land is whether it be fat or lean whether there be wood therein or not and be of good courage and bring of the fruit of the land now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes this tells you that one moses and the children of israel did not remember the land from which they left they were going back in and obviously much had changed in the hundreds of years that they had been in egypt they were going in to simply say this is the situation this is critical they were to figure out the situation without drawing a conclusion about possibility why because they had already been told the outcome what is interesting is that moses tells them to be of good courage clearly this was a dangerous mission only 12 men were going to go into a whole nation uh we're going to talk about how far they had to travel in a second 12 men and they were to to go into this nation and uh figure out what it is that was going on in this nation and how safe it would be for them to try and take um this country now it was the time of the first grape so they were supposed to bring back some fruit um it was a brilliant idea for them to figure this out so verse 21 says so they went up and searched the land from the wilderness of zinn unto rehab as men came to hammeth and they ascended by the south and came unto hebron where ahiman and talmah the children of anak were now hebron was built seven years before zoan in egypt so it's giving you it's giving them a historical reference zone being one of the places the children of israel um were familiar with in egypt um and one of the things that it does here is it gives you the introduction of the children of attic um giving you an understanding of who it is that they would be facing because this was a big part of the charge that was given them and verse 23 says uh and and they came unto the brook of eskel and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes and they bare it between two upon a staff and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs the place was called the brook escal because of the cluster of grapes esco basically means like a cluster um which the children of israel cut down from thence and they returned from searching of the land after 40 days their mission is successful they find that the land is full of fruit um so they don't just bring back grapes they bring pomegranate they bring back figs these are foods that would sustain them um it speaks i think even to our health message which we'll talk more about later on in the week that they were there scouting out to make sure that they would have the sustenance they need they don't there's no mention of of animals to eat or anything like that it is it is that the land is rich with fruit um and a variety of fruits as you look at just the difference between a pomegranate a fig um and grapes it's it gives you that there's a there's diversity of fruits it is a rich land the grapes are so the the clusters so bountiful that if two men have to carry it whenever the last time you went to the grocery store and two people had to carry out the grapes out of the grocery store um and they were there for 40 days now this is where it gets interesting in my opinion they were there for 40 days the bible gives us uh some insight into what 40 days means and uh 40 days is all over the bible and i don't want to get into make this into like numerology but it's it's an interesting thing um during the flood it rained for 40 days and 40 nights um moses was in um in the wilderness attending flocks for 40 days for 40 years um he went to sinai for 40 days and 40 nights um uh you know when you look at the of course this story of samson the the philistines controlled israel for 40 years before samson rose up goliath taunted saul's army for 40 days before david arrived and elijah fled from jezebel 40 days of course jesus himself fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the new testament after the resurrection he waited 40 days before the ascension so there's something about 40 days or the number 40 i should say that is actually quite significant so it s it symbolizes a time of trial and testing um and they had to do a lot in 40 days and let me submit to you that some of us are in our a 40-day period in a sense i would argue that in many ways 2020 was like one of these 40-year 40-day 40-year period it was a rough rough year and i can't imagine actually being on guam and with all of the lockdowns and shutdowns maybe it was better there than here but it was it was it was really challenging and um so there's a lot of people and we'll talk more about this as we go through the week who believe that this pandemic was punishment they think god was punishing the world i've been saying since the beginning of the pandemic in my messages that in fact this was not a punishment this was a warning this was god showing us let me tell you something we have put so much trust in man so much trust in governments uh so much trust even in the signs of the day um you know they've rolled out the vaccine i don't know who if how much they're vaccinating there i've been vaccinated i'm not against the vaccine i'll say that up front um but none of these all of this is is to show you that what we have placed our trust in what we think is automatically going to solve problems is not automatically going to solve problems the mighty nation the united states here in not far from where i live in new york um i live in connecticut new york the next you know the city city's just down the road [Music] they were using plastic garbage bags early in this thing in the hospitals to try and protect the nurses we didn't have enough ppe um we had no concept of how to even treat this um something interesting happened is again it was like a 40-day test of our nation uh people began to turn on each other racial tensions increased during this year political divide widened and i i said this in a sermon a couple months back that we are on the brink of almost a civil war and literally we saw the capital building stormed as if there was i mean just a bizarre time period and even as the vaccine rolled out and hopes begin to rise that we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel i don't know if if it's as shocking to you as it was to me that all of a sudden the variants begin to appear and now they're talking about variants that the vaccines may not work for so modern and fires are already working on booster shots a time of trial why because god gives us these periods he allows moses to sit in the wilderness for 40 years he allows the children of israel to march in the wilderness for 40 years he allows the spies to be where they are for 40 for 40 days of christ to fast for 40 days these are times of trial and testing designed to draw us closer to god what the spies should have been during their 40-day voyage in and out of of the promised land they should have been claiming the land for god they should have been walking the land and thanking god in advance for what he was going to do it was a test and some of you are being tested i don't know what you're going through i don't know what difficulties you have but the god of the universe allows trials to mold character that's the first lesson of the mind that we'll talk about the mind is not a fixed organ we used to think that when um you know you come into adolescence about a time you're 24 25 the brain can no longer be changed in fact um when i was studying biology in college they said that by the time a child is six or seven years old their character is set for the rest of their life that's what they they used to teach now we know that this is absolutely not true there is a plasticity to the mind and it can be changed and molded um and and with the right circumstances god can change the mind if it wasn't for that we would be in trouble because spoiler alert for the weak the mind of christ is the character of christ the mind of christ is to have a um a mindset that is the same mindset as christ so that you behave like christ behave you speak like christ spoke you treat people like he did and so tests and trials are designed when you look at the life of peter or paul the trials that they went through made them who they were in christ jesus so i want to submit to you that during this time of trial that the world is in ask yourself the question have you submitted your mind to being changed to the way christ would want it to be have you be have you allowed the difficulties of this last almost year now i mean literally it was about march of last year so we're just a few weeks away from when this whole thing started have you what have you spent the year doing we the church has worried that globally churches in general but our denomination as well they're very worried about what happens when everything opens back up the pastor the church where i spoke we still do church in person here in connecticut because i we've done pretty good with the with the um pandemic um of course there are limitations and so forth but the pastor of the terrorist will get we were talking about this this last sabbath what happens after this he said listen the elderly are going to happily all come back to church um they're going to be excited he said but i'm very worried the young people may not come back they haven't been to church some of them haven't been to church in almost a year will they come back this is a time of testing listen if a pandemic is enough to drive you away from god what would the time of trouble do if this is all it took to for people to stop going to church and to give up on god what happens when we are being uh ridiculed and maligned for what we believe will you be able to stand up it is a time of testing and a time of trial so one of the other interesting things about the story is my one of my favorite people in all the bible is joshua i think this guy is stalwart he you know he moses is like the great um you know leader and he has to fill his shoes joshua does a phenomenal job quite frankly um and it all starts right here numbers 13 and verse 16 says these are the names of the men which moses sent out just by the land if they gave all the names caleb you know the other ones and it says and moses called oshaya the son of nun jehoshawa and the oshaya means salvation but jehoshapha or joshua means jehovah is salvation you have to ask yourself the question why does moses change his name so salvation seems like a pretty good name to me but he changes his name in the greek joshua is then translated as jesus so joshua's name means jehovah is salvation it is he who jesus himself is named after in essence um is his the name the first name of of joshua is oshaya and oshaya means salvation but what i think moses was trying to do as he as he saw the potential in joshua he changed his name to because names represent character this is why god writes his name in the foreheads of the believers in the book of revelation this is why the seal of god goes in the forehead we're going to talk more about that in a second but the name represents character and when joshua was going he he basically stamped joshua with the name that god is our salvation every time listen to this every time one of the other 11 caleb and the other 10 spoke to joshua they were reminded of who would deliver them in the um to deliver the land they were walking through to them so it wasn't they didn't say hey oshaya salvation all right let's turn right here o'shea salve no it was jehovah is salvation let's go this way jehovah is salvation joshua became a living breathing embodiment and reminder that god would deliver them the land by his name so they had no excuse to question where they were going so let's look at a little bit of the history um there's the dead sea area here um they went from the south the scripture says from the desert of zinn they went all the way up to arid hebron all the way up to bethel they traveled 150 miles in 40 days so they were moving i mean they didn't have a toyota to do this with they were they were they were walking on foot maybe they had some camels but they traveled 150 miles in about 40 days um and had to come all the way back you can see the visual image here of them carrying the grapes and the figs and the pomegranates um listen if they you know these guys the the rest of the the people of god were out in the wilderness can you imagine they brought back these grapes people were probably lining up to try and taste some of these grapes and pomegranates and figs it was in this essence it was such a successful uh trip um when they came back and they had these things to show that the land was good for what they wanted now um so we go on numbers 13 we jump towards more the end of the chapter verse 26 13 26 says and they went and came to moses and to aaron and to all the congregation of the children of israel unto the wilderness of quran to qadesh and brought back word unto them and unto all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land and they told him and said we came unto the land whether thou sentest us and surely it flows with milk and honey and this is the fruit of it now the the flowing milk and honey i've heard it described that they it was such a rich land that even the cows were so well fed that when they walked the the utters the milk would just squirt out i've heard preachers say that the honey the honeycombs the beehives are so rich the honey just dripped from it um so it literally was like milk and honey flowed in the land but it's it's symbolism of a land of plenty and bounty the idea of milk and honey and they said in this this is the fruit of it so they showed them the fruit that they got from the land in verse 28 nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land and of course nevertheless is like the word but i heard a preacher say once when you see but or nevertheless in the bible uh what the what they're trying to say is forget what you just heard what's important is what's about to come so they basically say yeah the land is good but the people are strong that dwell in the land and the cities are walled and very great and moreover we saw the children of anak there the amalekites dwell in the land of the south the hittites and the jebusites and the amorites dwell in the mountain the canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast of jordan they go from telling them of the bounties of the land the fruits of the land and they get to this nevertheless nevertheless it doesn't matter how good the fruit is the people are strong the sons the children of anak which were giants i was going to give you a whole thing about the giants are there a lot of people who tie this giants back to the sons of god and the daughters of men and try and say i mean i've heard people you know in other denominations said these are half angel half human beings none of that is biblically accurate or true these were possibly some people who still had some of the genetic size from before the flood is the way i see it they were bigger probably for much bigger people goliath being um you know similar to them but you know their people were are bigger to this day you know and you could probably if people were clumped together some more than they are today you'd see some folk that seemed like giants but they were they were painting a terrible picture each of these tribes were mentioned because they had they had the folklore the message that they were terrible fighting people but when they start to give this negative message notice what caleb does caleb jumps in the bible says he steal the people before moses and said let us go up at once and possess it for we are well able to overcome it here is where we begin to see the power of the mind church one group 10 people says oh it's doom and gloom and it gets worse but one man sees it differently what is the difference the difference isn't the the environment they saw the exact same place they saw the exact same people they they carried back the exact same fruit but one mind sees things completely different than everyone else this is the crux of christianity christianity and them having the mind of christ is being able to see the world from a biblical worldview which means you never lose hope having a biblical worldview means that no matter how bad the world gets and sometimes adventist you hear folk it's a lot of doom and gloom and the mark of the beast and these things happen let me tell you something if you i just interviewed on a podcast a gentleman who did 18 years in prison i went to oakwood with him um he's raised an adventist went to adventist academy 18 years in prison for capital murder he was not supposed to ever step out of prison so his testimony is very powerful as to how god works him through the prison system for 18 years you know what he says he says during the 18 years he was in prison he was happy the entire time and people ask him how is that possible he says that what he discovered in prison is if you are in the presence of god there is joy always it literally doesn't matter where you are if you are in god's presence even in the dungeon so this is how the martyrs during the dark ages and in the early years of christianity this is how they would sing hymns even as they were being burned at the stake the the circumstances do not change does not change your connection to god don't miss this if you're going to be a christian you cannot be happy when and joyful only when things are going good because that means you separate yourself from god's presence when things are going bad it means you allow doubt to come in he says in the present that's why philippians 4 paul says rejoice in the lord always and again i say rejoice it doesn't matter what situation paul got in he was rejoicing in the lord he was in prison in a dungeon in the inner room and paul and silas sang hymns the spirit of prophecy tells us that the other inmates in that prison couldn't believe that from that inner room one of the worst rooms in the prison songs of praise and prayers came out they couldn't believe it if you are in a situation where you are always downtrodden always upset always miserable always unhappy ask yourself how much time are you spending in the presence of the lord because where when you're in the presence of the lord you will find joy no matter what's going on so that's what caleb did caleb was like listen i saw everything they saw but don't worry about it we should go today we can go now and take the very land because we are able to overcome it verse 31 it gets worse but the men that went up with him said we are not able to to go up against the people for they are stronger than we and they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of israel saying the land through which we have gone to search it is a land that eats up the inhabitants thereof and all the people that we saw in it are men of of a great statue so clearly they begin to embellish a minute ago it was full of fruit and pomegranates and the spirit of prophecy alan white points out that they had to begin to almost up their aunties of their of how negative it was so they begin to like embellish because could they could a land that eats up his inhabitants at the same time sustained giants it doesn't even make sense right either one or the other is true right but they they're they are so frozen in fear and we're going to talk about fear in the mind here in a second that when they they want to make sure and here's what's important church that their fair is infectious they want to make sure that they are not the only ones afraid they want to make sure everyone is and let me tell you i've seen churches come apart at the seams because a handful of people are able to spread the contagion of fear just a handful of people can say that what what this thing that we have set out to do is impossible it will never happen and a few naysayers can convince the whole church to not try to do what god wants them to do so you can't listen to the naysayers they get even worse and all the land eats up the people and clara doesn't eat up the people because you just told us all these people live there and they're big and strong so the land clearly doesn't do that in verse 33 and there we saw the giants the sons of anak which came uh of the giants and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers so we were in their sight this is one of the most powerful statements in the bible of doubt it is it is literally um the way that many of us see ourselves why so many don't reach the potential that god has for them because they make this mistake they create for themselves a grasshopper mentality we're talking about the power of the mind um and you've got to be careful what you think and what you speak into existence um you cannot have a grasshopper mentality the grasshopper mentality makes you see yourself uh as smaller than you are less capable than you are in fact i took this uh from a great um uh of site on the website on the web um i i i was reading another devotional on this um and they said here a grasshopper mentality first a grasshopper mentality causes us to lose proper perspective by comparing ourselves with others this is a big mistake that a lot of christians do you should not compare yourself with others and here's what happens when you compare yourself the two things happen when we compare ourselves with others we typically fall into one of two ditches we either think too highly of ourselves by finding others we judge less than ourselves or we think too lowly of ourselves by finding others we judge higher than ourselves if you have a grasshopper mentality you are constantly looking to compare yourself with others but the second part of this to me is even even more powerful the second part of it a grasshopper mentality causes us to lose proper perspective by assuming false ideas about what others think of us this is dangerous thinking clearly the sons of anak and the other tribes had no opinion of these people in fact they actually do have an opinion of them it is the opposite opinion of what the 12 the the 10 are telling them um later on they're going to run into rahab um in jericho and rahab is going to tell them that in fact they were afraid of the children of israel 40 40 years years later when they finally entered the land they find out the whole time that they were in the wilderness walking around in circles the people in canaan were afraid of them and i want to submit this to you as christians sometimes we are afraid um of what people think of us we worry what people think of us what is most important is that we keep the perspective and ask the question what does god think of us we are heading into a time when trial is going to come on the people of god and i hope you can see from what's going on in the world that this can happen um you know i i can't say i agree with um a lot of the tweets of the of the former president or of other folk but when you start to see um you know people shutting down things because they simply disagree because they disagree with them and then maybe maybe this is justifiable but later on they'll say you know what what you guys teach it's too exclusive you teach that the only way to to god is through jesus christ if you tweet something like that we're going to shut you down i mean literally as time goes on um they will there will be the ability to silence people of god because the biblical worldview is under attack many of you know my story i can tell you uh the los angeles times wrote an editorial about me and they said that there are two reasons that dr eric walsh should never hold a scientific position in the united states this is the second largest newspaper in america one of the largest newspapers in the world and in this editorial the the lady who wrote it said number one i should that i should never hold a scientific position because number one i believe that god created the world she said simply based on the fact that i believe god created the world i should never hold a scientific position uh in the in the united states is that crazy most of the great scientists believe god created world you go through history that was number one the second thing she said is she said in this editorial she said i should never hold a scientific position because in one of my messages i say um uh that i do not want my children to wish upon a star i want them to pray to the living god and the los angeles times took took that out of context put it in the paper and basically said um he hates disney because you know disney says when you wish upon a star makes no difference who you are because when you wish upon a star your dreams come true and she said listen you know he hates this now in southern california where i was um you know there is royalty and the royalty is minnie and mickey mouse um you know so if you if it seems like you come against disney uh p you know you get into big trouble but i stand by what i said i don't want my children and i don't want the people of god wishing on stars stars have no power in fact the scripture tells me the stars are fallen angels um so if you're wishing on a star what are you really telling your child to to pray to or to wish to right but what i'm telling you is that if you don't if you are going into these last days with a grasshopper mentality you are not going to be able to stand what is about to come upon us and it is just the beginning and much of what we talked about when i was a kid um you know prophetically that seems so far-fetched i am watching it come to fruition the the prophetic the prophecies are being fulfilled we are seeing a switch in the world we'll talk more about it as the week goes on we are seeing the second catholic president a supreme court that seven out of nine um are catholic and why do i say that well because it's the first jesuit pope and here the united states for the first time uh all three branches of government can have allegiance to rome just like they have allegiance to america and its constitution so what happens if there's a conflict well wait and see it is prophesied that a conflict will come if you have a grasshopper's mentality when that conflict comes you will not be able to stand you will receive the mark of the beast in your hand remember the seal of god you can only get in your forehead we're going to talk more about the seal of god here in a second but the mark of the beast can get in your forehead or your hand because they're going to be somewhat a grasshopper mentality who are going to be like the 10 and simply say you know what i'm just going to follow because i'd rather be safe than to challenge anything i'd rather stay safe i'd rather not face the giants so i'm just going to follow along and even though they know better they're going to receive the marker beast in their hand you don't want to grasshopper mentality going into the last days numbers 14 when the people heard this remember their job their goal was to was to make the fear infectious numbers 14 and all the congregation lifted up their voice and cried and the people wept that night and the children of israel murmured against moses and against aaron and the whole congregation said unto them would god that we would have we had died in the land of egypt or would god we had died in the wilderness i mean these people are crazy all they've heard is a story two separate reports and their response is ah we should have died that is a grasshopper's mentality the fear they're so afraid that they're they're complaining against moses and verse three and wherefore hath the lord brought us unto this land to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should be afraid they even threw their kids in oh man you brought us out here to kill our children to have these people kill our children wouldn't it be better they say for us to return to egypt if you are not able to be bold in the lord in your thinking remember this is all about the power of mind if you're not able to be bold to the lord in your thinking you will always want to retreat to egypt what does egypt represent in revelation what does it represent even in the old testament it represents sin so if you're not strong in your mind you will naturally retreat back to your old life back to your old ways proverbs 18 this is the power of the mind as as it is in scripture proverbs 18 and verse 21 says death and life are in the power of the tongue and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof i love the way that reason the king james version but every now and again i use the amplified version because they give a bit of a built-in commentary look what the amplified version of the bible says of proverbs 18 21 it says death and life are in the power of the tongue look at this and those who love it and indulge it will eat its fruit and bear the consequences of their words the the way that um in the hebrew i heard one one preacher say this once on this verse in the hebrew it's as if when you when you when you read this life and death is in the power of the tongue and the hebrew seems to connote that um it says if a hand goes out and forms what you said that is the power of the mind there i was reading some studies from some psychological journals and and there was an old study where they took um they took um groups of 20 young men and they had one practice their free throw shots i used to play a lot of basketball or with dr robinson's son and those guys when i was over there in guam 20 free throws another group of 20 was to just imagine them just just just visualize themselves shooting free throws and shooting them well and another group that did nothing of course the group that did nothing regressed the group that practiced free throws every day they got better but the group that just just visualize themselves shooting the free throws they still got better even though they never touched the basketball that is the power of the mind when david goes to faith face goliath david has already seen his victory over the giant before he faces the giant david doesn't even care what the guy looks like david already understands victory is his when we speak so i know when i was in guam we had we you know we were the you know there was a new church building bought and we were we want to build a new clinic let me just be plain somebody's got to speak the word of life into these projects somebody's got to believe bigger than what seems possible because if you keep speaking it's impossible it will be impossible if that's what you speak that's what will happen life and death is in the power of the tongue and for many ministries and missions we do not gain what god would have us to have because we keep speaking the language of the ten spies rather than the language of the two spies are porpoises and chimpanzees and their frontal lobe is 13 of their brain the human frontal lobe is 33 of the brain a full third of the brain's frontal lobe i believe this is why we obviously became rational i'll show you what it does but i believe this also has a lot to do with why and how we can worship this is where the holy spirit can literally dwell the kind of glory of god falls and a very neurochemical system uh in the brain attaches to god this way so here's what some of the functions of the frontal lobe are it reasoning is number one uh planning language long-term memory impulse control problem solving emotion judgment motor function initiation even social sexual behavior if frontal lobe is diseased if it has not been been worked upon you talk later on in the week about um drugs and alcohol and its effect on the mind music and entertainment this is the part of the mind that the devil is after this is what he wants because this is where the decision to serve god is made and it is like as i said earlier the front is like um the most holy place in the sanctuary because this is the holy place um you can lay this out and line up the bible with the rest of the body but when you look here there's a mercy seat this memory in the budding rod of aaron there's um and in a manner the ten commandments is like your conscience um the kind of glory of god falls the holy spirit can prick you and move on you because this is the part of the brain while that happens um 1 18 says uh come let us um come let us reason together says the lord though your sins be a scholar they should be white as no the libya is crimson they shall be like whoa what happens in the front of you reason with god there this is where you you come to the point where i'm a sinner i'm in need of a savior it all happens in the frontal lobe the devil wants your frontal lobe and there are a lot of ways you try to get we're going to talk about it all week all the different ways the devil tries to control your mind and how god tries to gain control of your mind and when god is in control of your mind how different we are so it must be protected we'll talk more about as the week goes on but one of the ways the devil gets control of the frontal lobe is fear itself and he will use the fight-or-flight response when i was a kid that you know to this day i'm still someone who doesn't really like dogs or trust dogs because when i grew up and they and i grew up and people didn't have dogs like in california they carry around bags and fed them little candy treats and had diamond collars on them a dog when i was growing up had one purpose it was it was protection it was the security system of somebody's yard so if it got loose it chased us if we just messed around and wound up in somebody's yard the dog came after us so we learned to run from dogs a lot and there is a fight-or-flight response that god had to put into place after sin but there was no reason for the fight-or-flight response before sin but after this thing would have needed a fight or flight response because after sin mosquitoes began to sting adam and eve after sin the snake began to bite the lion began to devour the land the world was a different place man needed an adrenaline response a cortisol response um the word for the natural changes to keep things the same is something called allostasis and this there's huge changes that happen to us quickly those 10 spies or functioning in a fight-or-flight mindset there's a fight-or-flight mindset of the sympathetic nervous symptom the parasympathetic nervous system gives you um a rest and digest state of being so those are the two ways that you can be and we'll talk more about that in a second but when you are chronically stressed really that's where things really happen negatively chronic stress ultimately affects your memory it drives bad appetite we'll talk more about that during the week it decreases our ability to reason in fact chronic stress can cause the frontal lobe to shrink did you hear that if you're chronically stressed so you're not absolutely so looking at the ten spies and the children of israel they had come to a lot of stress they were slaves they you know gone through the red sea they've been chased by pharaoh they were out in the desert or in a new place it was very stressful but god didn't send them into stress without signs the red sea did open that that was a pretty pretty big sign the ten plagues fell on egypt and they were liberated but what happens when you allow stress to control you don't don't miss this church and fear to control you is it's more difficult for you to remember what god has done for you because your memory becomes selective to choose the thoughts that remind you of your danger rather than pointing you in the direction of safety chronic stress does that um and you don't think straight you don't reason well you you know all these things begin to happen but ii timothy 1 7 addresses this paul says to timothy in his second epistle to him for god has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind notice that god shows you that the opposite of fear is holy ghost power it is god's love and it is a sound mind folk don't have a sound mind often is because they are functioning in fear if they cannot experience god's love is because they are functioning in fear and this is what those spies are doing proverbs 23 and verse 7 says for as he thinketh in his heart so is he if all you're worried about is how terrible things are and how uh uh how horrible things are that's what you're gonna that's what you're gonna literally make your world to be that way even in the darkest conditions you've gotta look for the light of god you've gotta uh you've gotta find god's light because if you start thinking it you will become what you think um and everybody talks extensively about that but so what is it what is the science saying well um there's a ton of literature that is saying listen this is your brain on prayer and meditation you're saying that prayer and meditation actually thickens the frontal lobe makes it stronger and more rich why prayer is a way to move from fight or flight to rest and digest prayer is a way to be to remember who is actually in control and to leave things at the foot of the cross jesus says listen take my yoke upon you and learn of me he says my yoke is easy and my burden is light he says take that and i'll take what you've got when you pray to christ and of course their meditation often is eastern religion but let me tell you something if they're saying this about um eastern religion type meditation what happens when we meditate on the word of god how much more powerful is that meditation how much more effective is it when you are let me tell you what one of the things that i do i i recite bible promises in fact even in my prayer when i'm about to pray for folk i claim bible promises first lord you said that nothing is impossible for you lord you said that many are the afflictions of the righteous but that you deliver us uh out of them all i claim i pray the promise i remind god as it were now that he needs reminding i remind god of what he said he was gonna do this isn't it about me that's why joshua's name has changed jehovah is salvation it was a constant promise reminder every time they called joshua they were reminded of the promises they were without excuse so when you pray look at us as a prayer and meditation are highly effective in lowering our reactivity traumatic and negative events you need to heal from bad things that have happened to you pray meditate on the promises of god praying meditation get us away from fight or flight mode is this is why one of the principles that i'm learning as a physician the most important principle of our health message is trust in god when we do new start and one of the t's is trusting god the longer i practice medicine the more i realize that even when people change their diet start to exercise get their sleep drink their water if they do not learn to trust in god they will never fully escape disease because you will live in a state of stress which is very unhealthy as we're going to talk about during this week first john 4 18 gives you a point it says there is no fear in love we're talking about that what is that opposite of fear we think it's faith love is is what seems to be the anecdote to fear it says there is no fear in love perfect love casts out fear because fear hath torment look at this last time he that pharah is not made perfect in love so why is this important because you need faith abraham had faith but you know what abraham also had he had a love relationship with god the creator in fact the bible says and and moses believe and sorry and abraham believed god the bible says he was and he was credited with righteousness he got credit for righteousness he wouldn't show for another 15 20 years with isaac on the mount he did not show that when he when he had um when he had ishmael with hagar but he was given credit for it in advance why the bible says he believed god and one verse says and he became the friend of god let me tell you something if you want a healthy mind be friends with the creator of the universe education on white page 225 says the world does not so much need men of great intellect as of noble character it needs men in whom ability is controlled by steadfast principle that is the power of the mind i was i don't believe i was the smartest guy in medical school or in college but i can tell you that if you when in medical school we made sure to study the word before we we we studied the medicine we kept the sabbath faithfully we tried to be there were only a few of us adventists at the university of miami and we tried to do those things and god did the rest because god is more concerned with the development of your character than with your acquisition of degrees or money or anything like that reviewing harold april 16 1889 says thinking for yourself if you allow another this is speaking out of the the the the the people allowed to tend to to think for them if you allow another to do your thinking for you you will have crippled energies and contracted abilities did you hear that you can't let other people think for you there are many whose intellects are dwarfed because they can find them to dwell upon commonplace subjects you you should wrestle with problems of thought that require the exercise of the best powers of your mind we're going to talk about social media later this week i mean put this up again this is what is happening to the minds of young people as they allow influencers on social media to think for them numbers 14 verse 5 then moses and aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of israel moses and aaron go to bat for them in numbers 14 6-7 says and joshua the son of nun and caleb the son of jefuna which were of them that searched the land rent their clothes and they spake unto all the company of the children of israel saying the land which we pass through to search it is an exceeding good land they try to give a good word on the land if the lord delight in us then he will bring us into this land and give us a give it us a land which flows with milk and harmony look at what i say only this is what fair and lacking faith in god does only rebel not ye against the lord neither fear ye the people of the land for they are bred for us their defense is departed from them and the lord is with us fear them not if you ever are in a situation where you're worried read numbers 14 9 take this bible promise do not be afraid when jeremiah was going into ministry in jeremiah chapter one in the book of jeremiah you know god says in fear not their faces because he knew that he was gonna be persecuted for before for telling the truth when the false prophets were telling lies numbers 14 verse 10 but all the congregation bade stone them with stones and the glory of the lord appeared in the table of the congregation before all the children of israel god had to literally stop them from stoning joshua and gable and caleb that's how bad it got yet they stood firm to the truth that god could deliver and this is the last slide uh from the spaulding and megan collection page 240 um from the lng white estate says some may say if we believe the bible why does not the lord work miracles for us he will if we let him when a human mind is allowed to come under the control of god the mind will reveal the miracle working power of god the power of the mind in action is like the miracle working power of god he will if we let him we have to believe and as we go through this week we're going to talk a lot about belief in the power of mind i look forward to it let's pray and close out this session um i will see you same time tomorrow father god we thank you for this opportunity to study the mind the power of the mind and lord the importance of faith i pray lord we would all have this mind in us that was also in christ jesus and we'd have the faith of jesus not just faith in jesus help us to be believing and strong to develop our minds and characters to be like jesus this is our prayer in jesus precious and holy name amen you

Channel: AMEN Guam-Micronesia

Views: 1,440

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: adventist medical evangelism network, power of the mind, mental health, mental performance, adventist, health, frontal lobe, decision making

Id: itEXQ4XKzg4

Length: 57min 8sec (3428 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 01 2021