It's all in your mind. It's all in
your mind. That is the putdown statement made by people who do not believe in any world beyond the physically present world
that we can all see and touch.
It's just in your imagination. it's pretend.
It's not real. It's all just---in your mind.
Yes, it definately is, all just in your mind. But your mind
is a very real thing. Your mind is the control room of your soul. There is a lot of activity in there.
The things you touch with your mind are just as real as the
things you touch with your hands.
From the very beginning of human history,every ethnic group,
every culture, every religion, has expressed the universal knowledge, from deep in the soul of man,that this life is not all
there is.
There is a spiritual universe that the human eye can't
see, the human hand can't touch, but the human mind is accutely aware of it. The physical hand can't touch an
angel from heaven. But the mind of every artist since the world began has known how to paint one.
The physical eye can't see a demon from Hell. But the mind of every artist since the world began, has known
how to paint one.
This generation is the first generation from the beginning
of man that has turned against all the evidence to the contrary and declared that it's not really real. it's all just superstion.
Imagination.
We should understand something about our imagination.
If a thing exists in our imagination, it does exist, somewhere in the universe. The things we touch in our minds really do
exist.
Our physical world is made up of molecules. and atoms, and
sub-atomic particles, all held together by the power of God.
There is a table of elements in the physical world---the
basic building blocks of the world that we see. What about the world that we do not see with our eyes?
What is it made of?
First, let's find out what God is made of.
Deuteronomy 4;24 tells us, our God is a consuming fire.
Genesis 1;26 says, let us make man in our image. He
made our bodies of the dust of the ground. But what did He make our souls out of?
When He first breathed life into the man He'd made, what
was that breath made of?
If he is a consuming fire, and our souls are made to be in
His image, then our souls must be made of fire.
You challenge, we can't even see our souls. In
the physical world, there is an element called hydrogen. hydrogen can be on fire, and the flame is invisible.
It's there. Your eyes just can't see it. Unless you take it to a very dark place.
The prophet Jeremiah described the word of the Lord as "like
a fire, shut up in my bones."
We always describe our intense emotions as a burning. we
use expressions like burning desire, burning ambition, burning hatred, hot under the collar.
Is there a table of elements in the moral, spiritual universe,
that tells us the basic building blocks of what God's fire is made of? We find it in Ephesians 5;9.
The fruit of the Spirit of God is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, goodness, faith. All of these fruits of the Spirit of God are building blocks of the spiritual,
moral, universe that we touch with our minds. God made our souls an image of himself. If His existance
burns with the elemental moral fires of love, joy, peace, goodness, faith, then our souls should be burning with these same
fires.
To be in the image of God, we have to be made of the
same stuff He is made of. But something is wrong. Galatians 5;9 lists the works of the flesh. Adultery,
fornication, idolatry, witchcraft, anger, murder. These transgressions of God's law spring from the basic, elemental
fires of Hell that oppose the the elements of God, that we call the seven deadly sins. Lust, wrath, pride, greed,
sloth, gluttony, envy.
Jesus said, you can't see the wind. But you can
certainly see what it does. From a soft summer breeze, to an F4 hurricane, you can see the effect of the power
of the wind. No one in his right mind would say the wind does not exist.
We can't take two centimeters of mercy, and put them
on a laboratory slide. But we know that mercy exists, and is a very powerful moral force.
We can't draw blood from a man's veins, and isolate under
a microscope the force of anger. But from cruel words to murder, we all see what the moral fire of anger can do.
Lust causes men to destroy their families with betrayal.
Pride is the root of unbelief and unthankfulness.
We can't reach into a barrel and pick up a handful
of love, and hold it in our palm. We can't reach into a bucket and pick up a fistful of hate, and squeeze it thru
our fingers.
But our entire lives are governed by the invisible, but very
real, power of these moral forces. These moral forces burn in our souls, and express themselves in our minds.
Our souls are made of these spiritual, moral firres.
We can't get thru this life without our minds becoming a battleground between two opposing kinds of fire. We have
even seen this dilemma illustrated in cartoons, where the character is drawn with a little angel on one shoulder, speaking
into one ear, and a little devil on the other shoulder, speaking into the other ear. That cartoon is very profound.
It illustrates the reality that these fires are not unconscious forces of nature. They come from the fire of God
or the fire of the devil.
Angels are aware of themselves.
Demons are self-aware, thinking, plotting, hate-filled personalities. Fallen angels, whose original nature
was turned inside out when they became demons. I know that idea gives you the shivers, but it's true anyway.
All of the things that God forbids, all of the thou shalt nots, are God's warning to his creation, to avoid the evil, immoral,
destructive fires that come from hell. When the Lord, in Deuteronomy 18, forbid things like devination,
enchantments, magic, witchcraft, and fortune-telling, it was because all of these activities bring about a contact of the
human mind with a self-aware, thinking, malevolent mind that burns in Hell.
It's a very dangerous thing to allow the devil to put ideas
in your mind, and do your thinking for you.
When Jesus met the Gadarean demoniac, what did the man mean,
"my name is legion, for we are many"? He meant that there were thousands of evil fires inside of him, tearing his mind
to pieces. He lived in a graveyard, and ran around naked.
Whenever someone would chain him, he would break the
chains. The powers in him were real, even tho they couldn't be seen with the physical eye. When the
fires of Hell came out of the man, they traveled angrily thru the air, and forced their heat into a herd of pigs.
The pigs went immediately insane, and stampeded down
a hill into a lake, and drowned.
No one could see the demons themselves, but they certainly
saw what they did to the man, and what they did to the pigs.
You maybe think that demonic activity is only found in third
world countries, where there is ignorance and superstition. we have psychiatry to explain the dark places of the mind.
But psychiatry can only poke around in those dark places,
and learn a little about what is going on in there.
But it can't drive the dark places away.
Only the light of Jesus Christ can do that. Playing with the devil has become this generation's favorite amusement.
Our children have saturated their minds with the monstrously ugly evil adventures of Harry Potter.
Playing with the devil is not cute and it is not a game.
You try it, and you will wind up with a lot more than you bargained for. You will wind up with a chain around
your mind you will not be able to move.
Back in the 70's, one young man chose, on purpose, to invite
the fires of hell into his mind. the devil dragged him to hell's sub-basement. The devil so completely took over his
mind that he couldn't think his own thoughts any more at all. He had to think the thoughts the devil gave him to think. he
had to do the things the devil put in his mind to do.
Read the testimony of David Berkowitz on page "Son of Hope"
on this site.
He became one of the world's most famous and despised serial
killers. Because he thought he could play games with the devil.
It took the very real power of Jesus Christ to drive the
very real power of the devil out of David's mind. Judge Robert Alexander, a former prison guard, wrote of his
experience with David Berkowitz. He describes him as being out of control, full of satanic torment. Full
of absolute evil. Hardened prison guards couldn't look into his face without feeling the cold dark evil of Hell
that was in his mind and came out of his eyes. The guards took to calling him "berserkowitz".
The dark powers of Hell were real in David's mind, and they really held him captive. He could not break the very
real, although invisible, chains that the devil had put in his mind. But Jesus Christ is also real.
His power is real. His redemption is real. He is the only one with the power to break the devil's
chains. Although he couldn't free himself, David still had the power to make the choice to call on the one
who does have the power to break the devil's chains. He cried to Jesus. Please help me. Forgive
me. I'm tired of being what I am. Jesus forgave the sin that He Himself had taken the punishment
for. He drove out the dark things and brought to David's mind his own fires of peace and love and joy.
Your own choice between right and wrong, good and evil, the
devil's destruction vs. the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, may not be as dramatic as those of a notorious serial killer.
But they are just as important to the eternal
rest of your soul. This life is given to us as a time of choosing. making choices is a function of being alive.
Once you are dead, you lose that ability. The consciousness that is you, is still conscious, and is still you.
But now you are stuck. You are what you will be forever, because of the choices you made with your mind while
your mind was still able to make choices.
The good news of Christ's redemption is that you can
be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That is what repentance means. Let this mind be in you
that is in Jesus Christ. The power of the new birth that Jesus promised will bring its light and peace to
the deep corners of your soul. But it begins when you see yourself in need.
When you become willing to make the choice to change
your mind.
Then you will be able to pray. Lord
help me. Forgive me. Give me a mind to understand just who Jesus Christ really is.
