Nathan Lewis - The Mind of Christ - Class 2: The Problem with the Carnal Mind

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   We will now have two singing items, this mind and be not conformed. Amen. Good Lord. Have you now sing God, being of love and good? Be your whole mind, the right of our Lord, so let this light be in you. Amen. Amen.

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   have the might of Christ. Let us try to be as reverence and minded and evil in God be of God and hope. Be of what might the might of hope. So let this mind be in us. Let this mind be in you.

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   Be not conformed to this world, complete and transform by the renewing of your mind that he may prove what is our fruit, an acceptable and perfect will of God. we are one glory in Christ, we trust in hope and patience and trust, and serving each other in love and hope, not overcome by evil, but overcoming it is good.

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   out of out out out ! Bless you when we are oppressed, Feeding with us who weep and rejoicing with our love, Dedicating our service to God, Resenting our lives as a living sacrifice.

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   Be not conformed to this world, But be transformed by the renewing of your mind, That he may prove what is that good, And acceptable and perfect will of God, O be your God of this world. It is out.

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   2017, where our brother Nathan Lewis will be speaking to us on the subject of the mind of Christ. We welcome brother Nathan and sister Susanna and family from Christ Church New Zealand. We look forward to an encouraging week ahead to help us to be transformed by the renewing of the mind so that we may be able to show what the will of God is.

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   That which is acceptable and perfect in his plan and purpose for each and every one of us. As an introduction to our brother Nathan's talk, he has asked that we read from Romans chapter 7 and from verse 21 to chapter 8, verse 8. And brother Nana will lead us in this reading. Brother Nana.

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   I find in the law that when I will do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, roaring against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

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   O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who after the spirit, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

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    For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.

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    That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit.

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    For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life in peace. Because the carnal mind is empty against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Thanks very much Nana. I'd like to now call forward Nathan to speak to the subject of the problem, the carnal mind.

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    Nathan. Well, thanks Brother Tim, and good evening brothers and sisters and young people. Firstly, thank you very much for your generous hospitality, and generosity in having all of us over for the week, that we might share a week around God's word together. We're really looking forward to getting to know all of you better, so please don't be a stranger.

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    Come and say hi. Well, the mind of Christ. I've been thinking about this subject, the mind of Christ, for some time now. The challenges that face our brains, our thinking, our minds. And I'm really excited to be able to share some of those thoughts with you this week. And really looking forward to hearing what you have to think back in return, as we encourage each other to have the mind of our Lord Jesus Christ in us, as Paul says in his epistle to the Philippians.

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    I think brothers and sisters and young people, especially young people, there can be absolutely no doubt in our minds, can there, that we live in an age where more than any other time in the history of the world, we are bombarded by those things that enormously affect our minds. Our minds are under enormous pressure.

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    Like no time before us, incessant marketing, advertising, peer pressure, materialism, exponential rates of change, we can't get away from new updates. We live in a world that is desperately trying to conform us to its image. Through the news, the internet, Facebook, shopping malls, magazines, fashion, movies, anything, to conform us, to press us into its mold, to squeeze us into its pattern.

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    And we, I think, at least I should speak for myself, we're really struggling to resist. We, likewise, are desperately trying to conform our minds to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. But it's a challenging task. And so there has joined a titanic struggle for our minds. A jewel, if you like, between our Heavenly Father and the world.

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    Between things above and things on the earth. Between the word of God, which lives and abides forever, as the Apostle John puts it, and the world which passes away. And it's our precious, fragile, delicate minds that are in the middle of that titanic jewel. They're on the line, and we're all desperately holding on.

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    I mean, which of us, brothers and sisters, isn't struggling with manifesting the mind of Christ? In this age, I mean, I certainly am. We're struggling. So far from perfect. So we want to ask ourselves, as we start our look at this subject, how important is the subject of the mind of Christ? How important is it to us?

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    And I just want to use four New Testament references, which we won't look up, but which you'll know. Just to illustrate this point. You'll remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first and great commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's a summary of the whole law of Moses.

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    It's all about loving God with our mind. What about Philippians 2, which we will come to by and by. The essence of our life and the truth. Let this mind be in you. It's simple, as far as the Apostle Paul is concerned. Well, what about Hebrews chapter 10? Do you know, in Hebrews 10, Paul is going to quote from Jeremiah 31.

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    And he's going to remind the Hebrews that he's writing to of how God sacrificed the firstborn in Egypt to get Israel out of bondage. And he wrote the law of Moses on tables of stone. And it didn't work. They wouldn't change. And so our God, brothers and sisters, was prepared to sacrifice not Pharaoh's, but his own firstborn son.

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    To bring us out of spiritual bondage. And he did it that way so that he might write his law in our hearts. In our minds. He wants his law here. And he's prepared to offer his son to get his law into our minds. That's how important this subject is. And if it isn't clear enough, what about our reading tonight?

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    Romans chapter 8, verses 6 to 8. For to be carnally minded is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

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    It is absolutely vital. This is a subject that is the difference between life and death. And notice verse 8. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. That's exactly the same language, isn't it, as Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6. Without faith, it is impossible to please him. And here it is.

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    If you still have the mind of the flesh, if you never develop a spiritual mind, the mind of Christ, it's impossible to please him. It's just as essential as faith. So look at that list. How important is this subject? It's the purpose of the whole of God's law. It's the essence of the gospel.

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    It's the reason our Lord Jesus Christ died. And it's the singular difference between life and death. It doesn't get any more critical than this. Our lives and the truth are all about this subject. Our minds. How precious are our minds. Everything else that we have, even our bodies, decay. Our possessions gather dust.

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    They rust. They're bought. They're sold. They're stolen. But our minds are extremely precious. God can change our vile bodies in a moment of time. In the twinkling of his eye. But he won't change our minds. Just think about that for one moment. Our minds, brothers and sisters, are our gift to our Heavenly Father.

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    We get to offer a gift to him voluntarily. It's our minds. So precious. So delicate. You know, it says in Proverbs chapter 10 in verse 20 in the Revised Standard Version, the mind of the wicked is of little worth. And we might take by implication from that that the mind of the saint is extremely valuable to God.

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    This is a critical, critical subject in our lives of discipleship. So this subject this week that we're going to embark upon together is not a peripheral subject. Without wanting to minimize anything else that we talk about, the subject is not, did Jephthah sacrifice his daughter? What's the significance of the 153 fish? Was Moses and Elijah there with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration?

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    All these things might fascinate us, but they are, if you like, on the periphery. Developing the mind of Christ is not on the periphery. It is at the very center, the heart of the truth. It is the truth. This subject is also not an abstract subject. It's not just a lovely but lofty sounding phrase.

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    We all have to develop the mind of Christ. Like it's some mystical, intangible, abstract, unexplainable concept. No, brothers and sisters. It's a concrete destination. It's where all of us are heading inexorably by God's will. It has to be completely understandable. And lastly, this subject is not an optional one. It's not like an extracurricular topic for the brightest students amongst us.

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    It's not some difficult concept just for intellectual students or disciples like Brother Sam Martin. And the rest of us can just forget about this. This is essential for all of us. Without the mind of Christ, without the mind of our Lord in us, well, it's like being without faith. We cannot please God.

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    This is at the very core of who we are as Christ followers. So how do we plan to go through our week together? Well, there are a multitude of ways, as you probably have imagined in your own mind, as to how we might tackle such a daunting prospect as a subject like the mind of Christ.

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    So please, in advance, accept my apologies if the way we're going to deal with the subject this week is not how you would have personally dealt with it. But this is how I want to unfold our week together. We're going to start tonight with the carnal mind. The problem. We want to see how it's God's promise to replace that carnal mind with a spiritual mind by a process, which is our third class together, the renewing of our minds.

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    And God willing, inside the next 24 hours, we're going to have done all of those three, because tomorrow we're going to deal with study two by way of exhortation and study three. And then we get to relax and spread out the rest of our classes for the rest of the week and limp through the week, if you like.

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    We want to look at the central principle of the mind of Christ. What is it that is the central underpinning principle of the mind of Christ? Is it his humility? His love? His faith? What is it? What is it about the mind of Christ that we have to understand? Then we want to look at how we might best put that into practice.

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    And lastly, in our final exhortation, we want to see the power of these things to absolutely change our lives. So study one tonight is a little bit negative, and I maybe apologize a little bit for that in advance. It is the problem. And the rest of our week together is going to look really at the solution.

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    The solution that is to be found in the mind of the most lovely and amazing man that ever was. And our quest to be a little more like him. But before we get to the solution, we must start at the beginning, the foundation of the world. And tonight, our objective really is to realize the enormity, the complexity, the desperate nature of the problem that every single one of us has in our minds.

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    We all have to realize that we, as well as everyone out there in the world who we can clearly see are sick. We are all desperately sick. Critically and terminally ill. Blemished. Crippled. We all have a disability. It's called the carnal mind. And Brother Thomas called it a hideous deformity. It's not our fault.

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    We know that. It's our misfortune, not our crime. But we must know what it is. We must know how it works. See it for what it is and how it's sabotaging our spiritual lives. Because before we can strive after something that is infinitely greater, infinitely better, before we can ever be cured or healed or made whole, we must know our sickness.

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    So let's just spend five or few minutes just looking at things that we know very well from the foundation of the world. And I'd like you to come back to Genesis in chapter 1. Because the story of our minds is going to start here, the very first chapter of the Bible, at the beginning of creation.

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    Genesis 1 and verse 26. And God said, So it was always God's intention for man and woman to have dominion. It's there again in verse 28. It's the central idea of God making man in the first place. And in order that mankind might have dominion, they were given two things. Image and likeness.

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    And we know that image relates to physical form. Physically, we look like the angels. And likeness relates to our mental capacity. Here's what Brother Thomas says about likeness in Alpress Israel. While image then hath reference to form and shape, likeness hath regard to mental constitution or capacity. From the shape of his head as compared with other creatures, it is evident that man has a mental capacity that distinguishes him above them all.

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    Their likeness to him is faint. They can think, but their thoughts are only sensual. They have no moral sentiments or higher intellectual aspirations. Adam's mental capacity enabled him to comprehend and receive spiritual ideas, which moved him to veneration, hope, conscientiousness, etc. So likeness equals mental capacity. But it's not just an increased intelligence, is it?

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    It's not just like the scientists would have us believe we have a bigger brain. It's not that. Because we know from Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 7 that he's going to go on in Corinthians to explain or to translate image and likeness. Like this, when he says, for as much as man is the image and glory of God.

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    1 Corinthians 11 and verse 7. So by the time we get to 1 Corinthians 11, image and likeness has become image and glory. And glory is God's character. So it's not just more intelligence than other creatures, is it? It's not just a bigger brain. It's an ability to think and to emulate God's glory, his character, his mind.

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    It's the chance to think like him, to have a mind that can grasp eternal spiritual ideas. What a distinction from the beasts. To have dominion over our thoughts. We get to choose what we think about. The beasts don't get that choice. We get to choose what we think about. This was God's plan right from the very first chapter of the Bible.

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    To create a people who would think like him and have his mind. And fulfilling that capacity is going to be his quest of 7,000 years. And it was this ability, this ability to think like God, that should have enabled Adam and Eve to exercise dominion. Now we know what happened in Genesis 3.

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    The serpent deceived Eve. Sin entered the world. But just turn the page and look at this verse that we all know very well. Verse 15 of Genesis 3. There was going to be, as a result of the fall, enmity. The peace that existed in the garden was disrupted. Before, there were two people who previously had thought like God.

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    There was no strife. But now that harmony, that peace was violated. Now there were two wills. Two ways. Two distinct ways of thinking in the world for the very first time. God's mind. And the carnal mind. God's mind based upon his word and his instructions. And the carnal mind based on the serpent's reasoning of God's instructions.

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    One was truth and one was a lie. Now we know this well. These are first principles. But let's just go through this together. Genesis 3.15. A serpent and a woman and enmity between. There will also be enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. But we know, don't we, brothers and sisters, we're not talking about a gigantic struggle between woman folk and snakes.

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    We're talking about a different way of thinking. A battle of ideologies between those that believe the lie of the serpent, who was the father of that lie, and those who hold to the simplicity of the truth, as Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 3. The enmity is a different way of thinking.

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    Two different minds. Those that believe the truth, as Eve first expressed it, and those that believe the lie of the serpent. In Galatians 5 is going to say, The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary one to the other. We just read, enmity against God. There's a battle going on between different ways of thinking.

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    Now we know what this verse is talking about. There was going to come a man of the seed of the woman, a he who would crush the serpent's head. He would be temporarily bruised. It pleased Yahweh to bruise him. But Hebrews 2 says he would destroy him that had the power of death.

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    There was going to be a permanent crushing of the serpent thinking. We know, don't we, brothers and sisters, that we're all born as seed of the serpent. And when we're baptized, we go from being in Adam to being in Christ. We know this chart very well in our minds. This is our understanding of Genesis 3 and verse 15.

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    So now we ask, is our thinking cured? Is our thinking cured? Well, herein lies the problem. Baptism is only the start, isn't it, of being in Christ. Baptism doesn't mean for a second that we are free from the tentacles of the carnal mind. Do you know, in 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 1, Paul, he's writing to baptized members of the Corinthian ecclesia, says, I can't speak to you as spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ.

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    They might have been in Christ, but they were still carnal. They needed to grow up into Christ, as Ephesians 4 says. It's a process. So even though we might be constitutionally in Christ, counted as saints rather than sinners, being in him is not just being baptized. If only it was that simple. Being in him is being like him.

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    It's thinking like him. And whereas our baptism only lasts a few precious seconds, thinking like him is the effort of a lifetime. And so we still have the enmity of Genesis 3 in our minds. We've inherited from Adam and Eve a mind that is contrary to God. We have a serious, crippling disease that even the waters of baptism did not wash away.

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    Just, by the way, as the waters of Noah's flood did not cure it in the minds of Noah and his sons and their wives. We've got a mind that's not subject to the law of God. Neither can it be. It can't be changed. It can't be healed. It can't be cured. It can't be fixed.

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    It can never be rehabilitated. That's our problem. Do you know, in Isaiah 65 and verse 25, we have a beautiful picture of the kingdom. You'll know these words well. Animals lying down together. The wolf and the lamb lying down together. Feeding together. Completely unnatural. The lion is going to eat straw like the bullock.

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    All the animals docile. Gentle. Tamed. And dust shall be the serpent's meat. He ate dust in Genesis 3. And he's going to eat dust in the kingdom. He is absolutely unchanged. Cannot be rehabilitated. That's the carnal mind. This is our serious problem. It's powerful enough to destroy us. It's cunning enough to baffle us at every turn.

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    We can't trust it. We can't cure it. We can't educate it. We can't change it. It's the biggest problem that anyone's ever faced. And 99% of the population are blithely, willingly ignorant of its devastating power.

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    So what makes it so devastating? What is it about the human mind that is so destructive? How does such a little thing create such havoc? Well, I want to detour from the scriptures just for a few minutes. And I hope that you'll forgive me for doing this. And just look a little at the natural physiological makeup of our brains.

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    And I hope you'll find this helpful as we progress through our evening. As we look at what we're all up against. Here's a picture of our brain. This is what it looks like. This is a pretty basic, but I think a pretty well accepted, breakdown of the anatomy of our mind, the human brain.

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    First of all, at the bottom, we have the brain stem. It's described by the experts as the reptile brain. They describe it like that because they see that as the first part of the brain which evolved. And we obviously came from lizards or reptiles of some description in their minds. Then in the middle, right in the middle here, we have the mammal brain, the limbic system.

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    And then right around the top, 70% of our brain, we have the human brain, the neocortex. And what this breakup of the brain does is that it uses the characteristics of these different types of animals to loosely describe the differing functions of these different parts of the brain. This is what it looks like in reality.

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    This is a cross-section of an actual brain. The reptile brain, the mammal brain, and the human brain. I think all of you can readily appreciate that whilst we might hold a lengthy conversation with a human, we probably wouldn't do that with a horse. Human brains are different to mammal brains. And whilst we might feed a horse or a mammal with oats or apples from our hand, well, we probably wouldn't do that with a crocodile.

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    A human, a horse, and a crocodile are clearly different animals with different characteristics. And in the same way, these different sections of our brains have different responses, which are not unlike those three types of animals. So what we want to do for a few minutes is just come to grips with these three sections of our brain and see if we can identify some warning signs for us as to how the carnal mind might work.

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    Let's look first at the reptile brain. It's right down the bottom here at the back of our neck. The basal ganglia, brain stem, and cerebellum. This is what it does. It controls our aggression, our dominance. These are very basic things, aren't they? Hunger, feeding, temperature control, sexuality, mating, exploration, and control of territory.

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    That's what our reptile brain in the back here does. It's all about feeding, fighting, and fleeing. Very basic. It's really, if you like, an instinctive brain. It's the reptilian brain in our heads. It's what Brother Thomas calls propensities. The second part of our brain, as we said, is this middle part, which is really the limbic system, the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala.

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    It's all about nurturing young, caring, being thoughtful, having good memories, social cooperation. It's associated with pain or pleasure, protection, and basic learning. It's really the center of our brain where we remember things and we store our emotions. It's our emotional brain, and it's what Brother Thomas calls our intellect. And lastly, around the top of our brain, we have the human brain.

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    It's the neocortex. It's our gray matter. This is where we think. This is where we talk. We create words and ideas, abstract concepts. We perceive things. We plan. We reason logically. We make good decisions. This is where we have foresight, hindsight, and insight in this top thinking part of our brain. This is where we reason, plan, worry, and invent.

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    This is the analytical part of our brain, and it's what Brother Thomas calls moral sentiments. So to summarize, we have these three parts. The instinctive reptile brain. It's about fighting, self-defense, basic preservation. Then we have the emotional mammal brain, which is about our memories and emotions. And lastly, we have our analytical human brain, which is really about logical reasoning and decision-making.

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    Now, actually, if you come to Psalm 42, you can see all of these three parts of our human brain here in the psalm, which is quite interesting. And since we're talking about it, I thought we might just illustrate that together. Psalm 42. The three parts of our human brain. Now, Psalm 42 is connected to Psalm 43, and it seems to have been written by an exiled Levite cast out of the northern kingdom at the idolatrous time of Jeroboam, who is described in Psalm 43 and verse 1 as that deceitful and unjust man.

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    And this exiled Levite cast out of the northern tribes is clearly upset. Very upset in Psalm 42. But do you know one of the most amazing things about our human minds is that we can almost objectively step outside of our own heads and analyze our thinking. Now, you think about how there's no way animals can do this.

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    But we can do this. We can not only think, but we can be aware of what we think. We not only get upset, but we can wonder why our minds are getting upset. And look how the son of Korah does this. Look at the three parts of the human brain here in Psalm 42.

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    Verse 7. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts. All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Verse 9. I will say unto God, my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? This man feels overwhelmed. Anxious. He's totally destabilized.

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    And his instinctive brain, his reptile brain, is feeling threatened. He's wanting to make himself safe. He begins to doubt God. He starts to accuse God of forgetfulness. Verse 9. This is the reptilian part of the brain that instinctively wants to protect itself. Then we see verse 11. Why art thou cast down, O my soul?

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    And why art thou disquieted within me? Here is the thinking brain at the top asking the emotional brain in the middle, Why? Why are we so upset? Why do I feel like this? What's happening? Why do I feel so emotional about these things? And finally, as he allows his thinking brain to take control, he can direct his own thoughts into paths of confidence, assurance, peace.

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    Verse 11. Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God. So there it is in the scriptures. There it is in the scriptures. The three parts of the carnal mind. And what you're looking at here is actually a cross section or a dissection of the devil.

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    You never thought he'd look like that, did you? There he is. The cross section of the carnal mind. These three parts. So to recap from Genesis, where are we? Well, God's purpose for us was to have dominion over the animal kingdom. But we lost that dominion when Eve believed the lie of a reptile.

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    And ever since that day, we have greatly struggled with the reptilian part of our thinking. That part that controls pleasure and self. We've conquered every animal. We've put them in zoos. We've hunted many of them to extinction. But there's one we cannot tame. We can't conquer. We can't subdue it. Our own reptilian brain.

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    Our serpent-like thinking. Now maybe you know the problem with our brain. But let me tell you. The problem really is with how our brains work in real time. When we're confronted with a problem, there's a huge discrepancy between how fast the different parts of our brains work. And here's how it happens. Our reptilian brain, or instinctive brain down here, is lightning fast.

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    It's capable of reacting in two milliseconds. When there's a problem, just like that, it's made its decision. Instinctively, in the blink of an eye, our reptilian brain has tried the case and decided in favor of ourselves. But you see, our analytical brain up here, where we make our best decisions, where we make more sensitive, thoughtful, selfless decisions, is way, way, way slower.

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    It has some major handicaps. It takes almost a whole second before it even starts working. So the instinctive brain down here is able to react 500 times before our thinking brain gets a chance to make one decision. When it activates, it still takes 200 milliseconds before it can respond, or about 100 times slower than the reptilian brain.

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    So it starts the race seconds after the starter's gun, and it can only crawl at a snail's pace. While this instinctive brain is making hundreds of decisions, it's barely making one. It's way behind. And if you thought that was a disadvantage, it gets worse. Because our reptilian brain, when it feels threatened, it starts to monopolize the blood flow to our brain.

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    It literally steals the blood from our analytical brain and feeds it to our reptilian brain so that we can initiate those well-known fight-and-flight reactions. Then, as our instinctive reptilian brain goes into overdrive, we get shallow, fast breathing. The blood is all sent to the muscles so that we can run or fight, and our thinking brain is starved of even more oxygen.

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    So oftentimes, we have an analytical brain, the part that constitutes 70% of our brain, but which needs a rich supply of nutrients and oxygen to work, and it's not getting anything. There is literally no thinking going on. There is only the reptilian brain running rampant. In fact, you can't even think, even if you want to.

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    The reptilian brain is getting ahead of the human brain, hijacking the nutrients and the oxygen. Now, that might seem a little scientific. We call that proneness to sin. Proneness to sin. And we can see this in ourselves. Just imagine, for a moment, that someone races into this room and says something very insulting and threatening just to you, and they're very physically threatening.

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    You might feel unsafe, and your reptilian brain is going to fire up instantaneously. Our instinctive reaction is to lash out, defend ourselves, throw a punch, maybe, if you're a man. My wife says, I'm not like that at all. I just pray. All right. Well, for me, anyway, for most of us, if we instinctively react, we're going to do something like that, defend ourselves.

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    If we wait a second or two or three, our emotional reaction kicks in, and we might yell or get angry. And then, lastly, our analytical reaction, which may come minutes or maybe even days later, is to realize that maybe it wasn't as bad as what we initially thought, and we apologize for yelling.

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    So what happened? Our thinking brain just got hijacked. It needs time, and it needs nutrients and oxygen, and it got nothing. And we were powerless to respond. And so we responded a little more like an animal. We lashed out, we got angry, bitter, upset, we said things we regretted. You ever felt the power of these things happening in your minds?

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    What about road rage? Someone swerves in front of you, in the traffic, into our territory, or at least what we think is our territory, because we own the road. It's our rightful place. And so we feel aggressive, angry, we honk, or we drive obnoxiously in return. It's the carnal mind. What about something as basic as hunger?

95. 45:08

    Food can stimulate the pleasure center in our brain. If you're a man, you'll know this very well. You may have just eaten. In fact, you may be full. But when you smell the potato top pies, in the supper room, you eat. What about the prospect of power, dominance, control, earning big dollars? It stimulates greed in our reptilian brain, and we do irrational things.

96. 45:35

    Like we buy a lotto ticket. Or we invest in some crazy scheme. We take absurd risks. We're not really thinking. How about obsession with self-image? You know, advertisers know how to stimulate self-loathing in us. Anxiety. Jealousy. They advertise products by using attractive people who are wearing and holding those products. And our reptilian brain responds in two milliseconds.

97. 46:06

    With jealousy. We want to be like them. In fact, we want to be better than them. We're deceived into thinking that if we buy that perfume or that car, we will be just as attractive, just as successful as the people in the advertising. And our brain is deceived in a moment of time.

98. 46:23

    And next thing, our thinking brain is shutting down, and we're spending hundreds of dollars on crazy stuff like anti-wrinkle creams or plastic surgery. How does this happen? Because our thinking brain can't respond. Do you know, when this runs to extremes, this crazy carnal thinking leads to what we call addiction. We can be addicted to many, many things.

99. 46:50

    Alcohol. Drugs. Lust. Work. Food. Anger. Self-image. Resentment. Checking our emails or our phone. Dependency. All of those are harmful. But here's how it works. This is, if you like, the anatomy of addiction. Our emotional brain in the middle is actually very loosely connected with reality. It's where we get sudden memories or deja vu.

100. 47:32

     It's a totally unreliable part of our brain. It's our feelings. Why is it so unreliable? Well, feelings aren't facts for a start, but here's why it's unreliable. Because it's either swayed by our analytical human brain above or our emotional brain below. And if, by our experiences and our families and the way our lives have lived, our emotional brain in the middle is mostly affected by our analytical brain above, well, we tend to be cold, heartless, impervious, impervious to pain or pleasure, ruthlessly efficient, but no empathy whatsoever.

101. 48:17

     But, if our emotional brain in the middle is mostly connected with our instincts below, we are susceptible to being addicted. because every time we combine emotions with something pleasurable, which is really a lust of some description, our amygdala in the midbrain floods with dopamine, a pleasure chemical, it shuts down our neocortex, and it burns a nice memory on our brain, and we want to go there again.

102. 48:49

     It's called addiction. And if any of you are sitting there feeling a little bit uncomfortable that we're talking about addiction, let me assure every single one of you, all of us are addicted to ourselves. And we might not do this process with some of the things that we might be thinking of, but we will be doing it with something.

103. 49:16

     This is how our brains work. We are addicted to ourselves. Let me just take an example for you that might be a little bit out of our experience. Gambling. If we think about it properly, all of us will know, won't we, that casinos don't exist unless ultimately they always win and make money.

104. 49:40

     And we know that gambling is scripturally wrong. And it's an irresponsible use of the family pay packet. But if you allow a little bit of greed back here to mix with a little bit of ambition and it combines with an amazing dopamine high of winning money you've never earned, our neocortex shuts down and we put another coin in the pokey machine.

105. 50:09

     That is how it happens. It is a natural reaction for the emotions of the carnal mind to be controlled by the instincts like this. We are hardwired to be like this. And so our mind forms memories based on instincts and feeling good rather than what's right. And over time it burns pathways for evil.

106. 50:35

     It is an immensely powerful combination. And if you, if we are like this we need help. We need help. In that moment our thinking brain has simply shut down. And later once the money and the dopamine high is gone we feel terrible. We're overcome by guilt and remorse. We wonder how we ever did that.

107. 51:01

     I just wasn't thinking we say. And it's true. Our carnal mind will take over if we give it half a second. And do you know the scary thing brothers and sisters? Researchers say that the instinctive and emotional brains perform up to 95% of all of our functions. That means we're only getting a chance to use this thinking brain 5% of the time.

108. 51:32

     I hope that's a lot more with us but that's what they say. This is our problem. Our conflict. Every day. It's a civilized insanity. It's what a brother brother Islip Collier calls having a brainstorm. Having a storm inside our heads. It's the carnal mind. The brain has hijacked and sabotaged itself. It's true isn't it what Isaiah said.

109. 51:58

     Our ways are not his ways. and our thoughts are definitely not his thoughts. He that trusts in his own heart is a fool. Proverbs 28 and verse 26. Now I want to be absolutely clear about one thing. What we're not saying is that the carnal mind is just a chemical reaction. Nor are we saying that the carnal mind can be overcome if we just give the thinking brain a little bit more time a little bit more oxygen.

110. 52:35

     We will be able to overcome our minds and override our own craziness. It's not true. But it is definitely part of the picture. We have a major major problem brothers and sisters. We are physiologically naturally hardwired to just think about ourselves. overwhelmingly so. You know 2 Timothy 3 says we're lovers of ourselves and lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.

111. 53:09

     Do you know how strong the carnal mind is? Do you know how strong it is? To be carnally minded is death. Do you know in 1953 Peter Milner and James Olds both neuroscientists at the McGill University in Montreal, Canada did an experiment with rats. You may have heard of it. They put little electrodes into the pleasure centre of the rats brains and they taught them by pushing on this little lever here they can stimulate the pleasure centre in their brains with a little electrical current.

112. 53:46

     Do you know what happened? These rats didn't do anything else. They ignored food. They didn't drink. They didn't sleep. They didn't mate. They pushed that lever until they were dead of exhaustion and or starvation. That, brothers and sisters, is the power of the carnal mind. It is insatiable. we can never satisfy ourselves.

113. 54:24

     But you just say, well that's just rats. Of course, they're animals. I wonder whether this looks just remotely similar. CNN in 2015 reported that a Taiwanese man died after playing video games for three days straight without stopping to eat or drink or sleep. I mean, who does that? Who in their right mind does that?

114. 55:04

     And incredibly, do you know what the article went on to say? He's the second person this month to die like this. people eat, drink alcohol, do drugs, base jump, play video games to excess until they die. Brothers and sisters, every day. this is the carnal mind that all of us have, running people's lives to the edge of oblivion.

115. 55:33

     Without God, it is just an endless, fruitless search for pleasure, entertainment, indulgence, trying to fill a hole, satisfy a need that only our Heavenly Father can fill and satisfy. Left unattended, left unconfronted, unchallenged, it just grows in strength and skill until our minds are just like Nebuchadnezzar's in Daniel chapter 5 and verse 20, his mind was hardened in pride.

116. 56:05

     And when we have a mind that's hardened, it is very, very difficult to change. So let's get back to the scriptures and ask ourselves, what does a hardened, carnal mind look like? Let's draw a portrait of the carnal mind from the scriptures. I'd like you to start in Ephesians chapter 4.

117. 56:30

     We're just going to skip through a few quotes, we won't look up very many of them at all, but here's just a portrait of the carnal mind from the scriptures. Listen to these words, Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 17.

118. 56:46

     This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

119. 57:18

     there's so many attributes there, isn't there, of horribleness in the carnal mind. But here's the first. It alienates us and isolates us from God. You'll remember Isaiah 59, we are separated from our sins. We get separated from God, from others, from ourselves, as it says here, alienated from the life of God. we get separated from life, to the point where, as Colossians 1 verse 21 says, we are enemies in our minds.

120. 57:52

     Do you know that Ezekiel in chapter 23 talks four times in that chapter, verses 17 and 18, 27 and 28, about Israel being alienated in their minds. And if you go there to Ezekiel 23 and you look in the margin, it says disjointed or disconnected. disconnected. This is what the carnal mind does to us, brothers and sisters.

121. 58:15

     We are disconnected. Have you ever sat in this hall amongst hundreds of brothers and sisters who you love, who are part of your family, who share the hope of the kingdom and felt alone,

122. 58:31

     isolated, like you don't want to talk to anyone, go home early? Well, I hate to tell you, but that's the carnal mind. It alienates and isolates us from God, from ourselves, from others, from life. This is a portrait of the carnal mind. We're hardened and proud. We've already seen Daniel 5, Nebuchadnezzar, his mind was hardened in pride.

123. 58:57

     Colossians 2 says in the Revised Standard Version, puffed up, puffed up, without reason by our sensuous minds, filled with pride, bloated with our self-importance, defiled and impure. Titus 1, verse 15 says, Unto the pure, all things are pure, but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but even their mind and their conscience is defiled.

124. 59:28

     More about that in our class tomorrow. It makes us angry and hostile. We lead disagreeable lives. No one can satisfy us. Nothing can satisfy us. No one's good enough. We're given to excess and greed. It's there where we just read in Ephesians 4 to work all uncleanness with greediness. It doesn't matter how much money, how much fame, how much power we get.

125. 59:58

     It's never enough. Never enough. Insatiable. We keep pressing the lever until we're dead. It's chasing after wind. It's progressively corrupted from the truth. I just want to look at these three references very quickly and just illustrate how this happens. If you've got 2 Corinthians 3, it's back just a few pages. 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 3 says this, But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

126. 1:00:43

     What does the carnal mind say? It says, Well, I know you think that what God says to be obedient is kind of simple and clear, but it's kind of not that simple. It's a little more complicated. complicated. Isn't that what the serpent said to Eve? The simplicity of Christ was complicated. This is the start of the carnal mind.

127. 1:01:13

     It says, You know what? There's actually more than one truth. In the words of Donald Trump, there are alternative facts. It's the carnal mind. 1 Timothy in chapter 6. It starts by making things a little more complicated. Then 1 Timothy 6 says, verse 5, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds who are destitute of the truth.

128. 1:01:40

     So we start off by saying, Well, the truth's not as simple, it's complicated. Then we end up being destitute of the truth. We don't know what the truth is. It's gone. And then we turn the page to 2 Timothy in chapter 3. verse 8, Now as Janes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth.

129. 1:02:02

     Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith. We start out making the truth a little more complicated. It's not so simple. Then we're destitute of the truth. And finally, we resist the truth. Unchecked, the carnal mind does not stay idle. It doesn't stay still. It gets progressively worse. We become more and more entrenched in our behavior.

130. 1:02:28

     More proud, more greedy, more lustful, more resentful, more, more, whatever it is. Progressively corrupted. I'm sure you've seen it in others, even if we find it difficult to see in ourselves.

131. 1:02:44

     Blinded and deceived. Blinded in their minds, it says in Corinthians. We're willing to find fault in everybody else, but unwilling to examine ourselves. At times, we're totally self-deceived. I can see this in my children. Absolutely self-deluded. Can't see it. Vain and empty. Back in Ephesians 4, in the vanity of their minds. Do you know we have thousands of cemeteries, brothers and sisters around the world, full of long-gone people who once lived vibrant, important lives.

132. 1:03:27

     Without God, it is breathtakingly empty. We're consumed by doubts and anxiousness. We leave lives of fear, anxiety, worry. We fret over things that are beyond our control. We're over-anxious about our finances, our job security, our lovability. Luke 12, verse 29, says in the margin, live not in careful suspense, but we do.

133. 1:03:56

     Spiteful and cruel, we love to indulge in a little sarcasm or jealousy or humor-veiled hate. We're forgetful and unmindful. We can't live in the present. We're so obsessed about anything but the present. The present's too painful. So we think about the past and the future so that the present is never treasured, never enjoyed, never savored.

134. 1:04:24

     We're so concerned about other things, so overburdened. We forget about the simple things in life, the important things, the daily Bible readings. Ah, yes, you're just hopping into bed when you think about the daily Bible readings. unstable and easily shaken. We lead lives where we feel unsettled, restless, we're never ever content, we're never at peace, we're always searching, always searching.

135. 1:04:59

     This is a portrait of the carnal mind. This is a portrait of ourselves before God entered our lives. We've all felt like this, isolated, angry, greedy, blind to ourselves, wracked with fears and doubts, mean-spirited, restless, and there's one thing that characterizes the carnal mind, it only ever leads to death, for to be carnally minded is death.

136. 1:05:31

     Look at it, brothers and sisters, look at it, it is horrible. I mean, honestly, who wants this? Do you know, especially when we're young, we look out and the world looks so sparkly, and full of temptations and opportunities, but would you leave the truth, brothers and sisters, for this? Would you leave what we have to get this?

137. 1:05:59

     Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 17, the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. who can know it? There's no mistaking the Bible's estimate of what unenlightened human nature is like. We are desperately ill, we're powerless to help ourselves, and unaffected by our loving Heavenly Father, we will get progressively worse and worse and worse until we're dead.

138. 1:06:31

     It's a dreadful self-portrait. it's the picture of how God sees us standing by ourselves. That's what we all look like, brothers and sisters. And Jeremiah is moved to exclaim in wonder, who can know it?

139. 1:06:53

     Well, actually, our Heavenly Father knows, and it's not all without hope. I know your minds, he says. I know the things that come into your minds. Every one of them, I know. Proverbs 21, the sacrifice of the wicked is abomination. How much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind? Our Heavenly Father knows when we come here Sunday by Sunday whether we come with a wicked mind or no.

140. 1:07:25

     What about Gog? It shall come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind. And thou shalt think an evil thought. Do you know, our Heavenly Father knows what Gog's going to think thousands of years in advance. Of course he knows our problem. Of course he does. And he has the answer.

141. 1:07:44

     He has the solution that eludes every psychologist. The help that is missing from every self-help book. The cure to the disease that wracks our minds. The solution to the enmity, the battle. The daily struggle in our minds. Our Heavenly Father has the answer. I'd like you to come to Mark in chapter 9.

142. 1:08:11

     Because in each study, even though we're not going to examine Christ's mind out of stories in the Gospels per se, I do want to touch down in the Gospels and in each study just to see the point we're trying to make in the presence of Christ himself. Now, in Mark chapter 9, one of the multitude comes in verse 17 and answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son which hath a dumb spirit, some unknown man, representative of all of us.

143. 1:08:47

     All mankind, he brings his son to Jesus and he's afflicted with terrible epilepsy, a disease as we know where the mind loses all control of itself. Does that sound familiar? And look what happens in this story, verse 20, and they brought him unto him and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tear him and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming and he asked his father, how long is it ago since this came unto him?

144. 1:09:16

     And he said, of a child. This is a problem of nature, not nurture. He's been born with this affliction. This is a picture of the carnal mind in all its awfulness. His mind is completely unstable. He's groveling in the dust. He's got serpent thinking and look what it does. Verse 22, oft times it has cast him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him.

145. 1:09:46

     The carnal mind is trying to destroy him. There is no self control and no peace. And the father says, but if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us. The father is involved in his son's agony. Have compassion on us. We all have the same problem. We're tormented with a mind that's intent on destroying ourselves, on destroying us and we cannot escape.

146. 1:10:21

     And look at the Lord's response. Here is his compassion for our plight. Do you know, the father says, if you can do anything, and Jesus said unto him, verse 23, if thou canst believe, I can do all things, says Christ, this is the offer of our Lord, to solve the problem that we cannot solve, to cure a mind that's intent on killing us, and the father knew it.

147. 1:10:58

     I believe, help thou my unbelief. Do you know, when it comes to our heavenly father, we might believe in him. Do you know, James chapter 2 in verse 19 says, the demons also believe and tremble. We might believe in him, but brothers and sisters, do we believe him? That there is a power out there that is bigger and stronger and deeper and wider and longer and broader and more powerful than our minds.

148. 1:11:33

     The minds that are intent on destroying us. This is our challenge. Do you know, I'm amazed when we look at the incredible complexity of our minds that anyone can ever think we evolved? Now, some people look at life and come to the conclusion that our carnal minds are the pinnacle of evolution. Just think of that portrait that we looked at before.

149. 1:12:05

     It's awful. This is what Brother Collier says in his book, The Guiding Light. We yearn for communion with something higher than ourselves. We have ideals that make our attainment seem contemptible and sometimes even disgusting. How strange it would be if creatures that evolved themselves out of shapeless slime should, along with a need for the food that had nourished them, develop a spiritual hunger for something that never existed and could never exist.

150. 1:12:47

     How strange if they should have their own bestial instincts, evolve ideals that make them miserable because the animal desires continually prevent attainment. How strange indeed. But we know, brothers and sisters, that inside of each one of us is the spiritual hunger for something better. Because our loving Heavenly Father put it there. We're all crying out from the depths of our souls for something better than the carnal mind.

151. 1:13:17

     We're all like that Father who knew instinctively there's got to be something, someone that can help our desperate plight. We all yearn for communion with Him. Solomon puts it this way in Ecclesiastes 3, He has set eternity in our hearts. We're all looking for a solution to this problem. And only God has the solution.

152. 1:13:41

     I'd like you to come to Ephesians chapter 2 in conclusion. Only God has the solution. Ephesians 2 in verse 1. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, God.

153. 1:14:22

     Among whom also, we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Our nature means that we just automatically fulfill the passions of our mind. Our thinking is hardwired to oppose God.

154. 1:14:50

     And notice Paul's emphasis, among whom also we all had our conversation. We are all infected. But God knows our weakness. He made us. And he has the answer, verse 12, that at that time, ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, without God in the world.

155. 1:15:17

     And now, in Christ Jesus, ye who are sometimes alienated, isolated, afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity of Genesis 3, even as the law, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God and one body by the cross, having slain the enmity of Genesis chapter 3 thereby, came and preached peace to you which were afar off, alienated, isolated, and to them that were nigh.

156. 1:16:13

     He's solved the enmity, brothers and sisters, he's solved the fighting, he's won the battle, and he promises us victory one day, in the complete sense. No more fighting, no more battles, peace, verse 14, peace, verse 15, peace, verse 17, and peace is not just the absence of strife, it's the serenity of being one with God, reconciled, the promise of an absolute end to the battle, it won't start again, this is the opposite of enmity, the epilepsy of our minds will one day be cured, but do you know, brothers and sisters, he offers us a measure of victory, even now, this peace is not just all in the future, in the kingdom, because verse 14 says, he is our peace, present tense, so despite our problems and our natures, we need to be ever so thankful, brothers and sisters, that we have not been left to dread the inevitable implosion that is our carnal mind, we've been called to what Paul calls in Philippians 4 and verse 7, in Rotherham's version, the peace of God which rises above every mind, what a wonderful expression and what a wonderful thought, I want to leave you tonight with these words from Jeremiah, not only did he say the heart of man is desperately sick, who can know it, but our heavenly father knows our thoughts, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith Yahweh, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end, do you know the ESV says, plans for welfare, not calamity, to give you a future and a hope, we might have minds, brothers and sisters, that are

157. 1:18:35

     dead set against God, but his mind is only for our good, our welfare, our rescue, we've been offered the solution to the one thing that is driving every other human being crazy, we have God's solution to the carnal mind, it's our nobler portion, it's our hope, our heavenly father's antidote, it's called the spiritual mind, and it's life and peace, and it's this amazing gift, this promise that we want to consider and relish tomorrow, by way of exhortation, God willing.

158. 1:19:18

     Amen.