Spiritual Life #17 The Dividing of the Soul and the Spirit

The Dividing of the Soul and the Spirit

Loved ones, I will share just for about 20 minutes and then have a little time for questions. And what we should do is pray that the Holy Spirit would guide us, because as I myself try to teach these truths, God makes me realize how much I need them in my own life. And that’s good that we sense that’s the situation but, I want you to see then that we need the Holy Spirit therefore to teach us all; that none of us can teach the other really about these things. So let’s pray.

Holy Spirit, will you be kind to teach us tonight so that we will each one understand. Holy Spirit, we would ask you to take us beyond what any human being can teach us and you impress the truths in our own spirits so that we may not only gather knowledge this evening but may receive life and may be able to express it during the coming days to others. We ask this for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Loved ones, what we’re going to try and talk about this evening is the dividing of the soul from the spirit. A lot of us have joked about the division of soul and spirit over the years because I’ve been flogging it to death for about seven or eight years now. But, I think that many of us are coming into sufficient maturity spiritually to see how vital it really is. And what a lifetime experience it is, this dividing of the soul from the spirit and really how important it is to have the soul divided from the spirit if we’re going to minister Jesus’ life at all.

And I would just point out to you a chapter in 1 Corinthians that I think we looked at very briefly once before. 1 Corinthians 3 it is and Paul is talking about his own ministry and that’s what we’re really talking about when we’re discussing the importance of having the soul divided from the spirit. 1 Corinthians 3:10, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.”

Now, the work that Jesus’ spirit is able to do through you in your own life in building people into Jesus himself, the kind of work that you do, will be determined by the degree to which your soul is under the control of your spirit. So you can get all kinds of Christian works going today but much of them are wood, hay, or stubble. That is, they are loved ones whose conversions do not last. Or if the conversions seem to last there is no fruit flowing from the converts. And then there is the other kind of work that is done by people whose souls are governed by their spirits and that is the kind of work that is likened to precious stones and it is solid work that remains. It consists of members of the body of Jesus who bear fruit and are ongoing and advancing in Jesus and in victory.

And really loved ones, it’s the same for all of us in this room. The kind of work that we’re producing is determined by the extent to which our souls are governed by our spirits and to the extent to which they’re still being governed by the habits they learned from the body. And I would just remind you that that is the problem we have. The soul is like a little man that has been governed by this huge body for years and this little Irishman here was dead at the very beginning. The great body governed the soul and determined what the soul would experience. And the soul, you remember, those of us who have been together at least during these teachings since September, the soul consists of the psychological part of us: the mind, emotions, and the will.

And that’s the situation with the natural man. That is the man or woman who knows nothing about God. That’s how their personality works. Their spirit is dead so there is nothing coming from there at all and their body utterly governs their soul. And I could give you easy examples but the great majority of people today are utterly dominated by their need for food, shelter, and clothing and most of the three and a half billion minds in our world tomorrow morning will be concentrating on how to get more food, more shelter, or more clothing, that’s it. Their minds will be utterly dominated by the needs of their bodies and the tragedy is that millions of loved ones, our dear brothers and sisters, will never live any differently from that. That is tragic.

There are millions that will never live any differently from that. They’ll live and they’ll die after 70 to 75 years of life with the body governing the soul and their mind little better than the mind of a little animal just trying to get more food, more shelter, more clothing. That’s what we mean loved ones by saying that the body, in most people, governs the soul. Now, there comes a time you remember, when the spirit is born of God and it begins to send out some directions to the soul. But yet, the body is the most important force still in the personality. And so the spirit tries to send out a little life but actually the body still dominates. And that is the situation in a carnal person, you remember.

It’s the situation in a person who cries out Romans 7:15, “The good that I would I cannot do and the evil I hate is what I do.” And in that situation even though the spirit is alive and the person is born of God, yet they still live their life by the power of the body. That is, when they’re too tired they don’t get up to pray. The Spirit is urging them to get up and pray but the body says, “No, no, you’ve the right to rest and you need to rest.” And they are governed utterly by the domination of food and their desire for food. So the Holy Spirit will prompt them to do something but their desire for food will utterly govern them. That’s why, if you don’t mind me saying it brothers and I suppose sisters too, we have trouble with the whole sex situation in that area. Because, we’re utterly dominated by our bodies, the body is still the big thing in our lives and what the body wants it must get irrespective of what the Spirit wants. And in that way, the soul is still under the domination of the body and there is really nothing of spiritual life coming out from the spirit through to the world. And that’s the situation with the carnal person.

Then there comes a time, you remember, when that domination of the body is crucified with Christ and at least the body sinks down to a more normal size but the soul then begins to take over. And still the spirit is small compared with the soul and the soul begins to feed its old habits into the spirit. So now the body is no longer dominating but the soul is. The soul has set up habits of operating that are due to its close connection to the body and it still operates that way. It utterly overrules the spirit and it completely at times disturbs the spirit.

In other words, for years the body has said to the soul, “Clunk, I’m being hit. Hit them back.” So the soul hits back. So the old body for years has sent the spear there and the soul has sent the spear right back. And even though the body is no longer doing that, the soul is used to that kind of activity, “Somebody hits me I hit them back.” The little spirit is saying, “Could you just cool it a little and wait?” But, the old soul is so used to it that it just keeps striking back.

Now the example of that you remember was in Mark 14:46. Here the desire of Peter (because you can see in another gospel it was in fact Peter that was involved in this instance) is utterly dedicated to Jesus and wants only Jesus’ glory. And so there’s no question you see of wanting self’s glory as it was back there. Peter wants Jesus’ glory but you see what happens in Mark 14:46, “And they,” you remember the people who came to arrest Jesus, “Laid hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear.” So it was the soulish habit whipping right out and striking right back. And that’s what we mean when we talk about a soulish person.

It’s a person whose spirit is still being utterly dominated by the habits that the soul has got when it was once linked closely to the body. In other words, their lives are still governed by the soul, by the habits and the precedents that the soul has set up. Now, one of the affects of this of course is that because there is no division between the soul and the spirit, and because the soul is still the bigger of the two and the stronger, the soul manages to pass its disturbances on through to the spirit. So Peter was alright while his spirit was quietly set upon Jesus with his eyes and Jesus said, “Walk towards me.” And Peter walked towards him and he was in complete peace. But then his soul began to receive information from outside and began to hear the lapping of the waves and feel the wetness of the water at his feet and immediately that happened he lost the peace in his spirit and he began to sink as his spirit eyes came off Jesus.

And that’s what happens to us when we’re soulish Christians. We may be utterly clear of selfish will, we may be utterly committed to Jesus’ glory but our soul is still working in the old ways it used to. That’s why we can go in to the office on Monday morning and we can have no desire but to glorify Jesus and we can have no desire but to love those dear ones in the office -- but they get going on an argument and our soul is not dominated by our spirit. It is instead still working from the memory of what it used to do with the body, and all that bickering and that conflict comes in through our ears, comes in through our soul, and there is no division between our soul and spirit and it passes all that chaos into our spirits.

And our spirit, even though it is utterly at home with Jesus, even though there is no sin in our lives, yet our spirit becomes restless and disturbed. And of course, in that situation, we have no peaceful base therefore from which to minister to those loved ones. And actually, often if you notice, we end up just responding just the same as the rest. And have you noticed that you can get lost at times in political discussions in the office? Have you noticed that? In your own mind you’re absolutely settled that the kingdom of this world is not the kingdom of our Lord and of our Christ. And you are utterly satisfied that in a way whatever Jimmy Carter does and whatever the administration do, yet the victory in this world is dependent on God’s kingdom and not the kingdom of men. And yet people began to discuss politics in the office and your soul goes out after what it hears through its ears and without responding to your spirit at all, without even consulting this dear little spirit within you, your great soul responds immediately to what they’re saying and before you know it you’re in the midst of the argument.

And have you noticed also that at times in the middle of the argument you try and balance yourself. You kind of say, “Wait, wait, I shouldn’t be saying these things, I shouldn’t be involved in this.” But there’s no quiet base within from which to gather your forces together and from which to get some information from God. And so in the midst of that chaotic situation you don’t initiate at all, you simply respond.

And that’s one of the big weaknesses loved ones, if you are soulish. You find yourself constantly responding, responding. And so someone comes to you and asks you a question, one of those silly old intellectual questions that isn’t their problem at all and deep down in your spirit somehow you sense something else about their lives that enables you to know that their problem really is a moral problem with God. But, somehow the soul will not listen to the spirit, it is utterly dominated by what’s coming through the years and so you respond to the intellectual question and you get involved in a conversation that really doesn’t go anywhere. Or if you are able to answer their intellectual questions you don’t sense that you’ve helped them in any way and you leave them with a feeling deep down that there was something else you should have dealt with but somehow you can’t hear, you can’t hear. And it’s because your soul is not used to listening to your spirit.

And of course, while that’s the case do you see you will never achieve anything worthwhile for God. Because, unless the Spirit’s guidance from within you can pass through your soul, and through your body and out to the world, God’s spirit is never going to be able to touch the world -- because the ways of his spirit are utterly different from the soulish ways we have of dealing with things. Now, that’s plain if you look at some of the miracles in the Old Testament. Joshua 6:1-7, “Now Jericho was shut up from within and from without because of the people of Israel; none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said to Joshua, ‘See, I have given into your hand Jericho, with its king and mighty men of valor.’” And the first move always of the Spirit is absolute faith that God has already done the thing you see, “’See, I have given into your hand…

You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; and on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets. And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all of the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him.’” And if old Josh, you see, was a soulish person he would say, “Ah-ha, really? You believe that?”

He would because no one would believe that walking around city walls six or seven times and blowing rams’ horns are going to bring the walls down. Nobody would believe that. And do you see, that’s the problem we get ourselves into. When you don’t train your soul to be governed by your spirit then you can’t hear the Spirit’s directions. Or, if you ever do hear them they seem to you so ridiculous because your mind is still going on the old basis of the body information and the old mind is working on the old principles. And do you realize that your soul and my soul has been trained the way all the other 3.5 billion souls have been trained to live in this world without God? Do you realize that?

Our souls are trained to live in this world without God. That’s right. That’s why when somebody is criticizing us in the office, our soul doesn’t have any sense that there’s anyone to defend us but ourselves so it immediately responds by criticizing them or trying to insert seeds of distrust in them into the ears of our friends. We behave like little animals who have no God to defend them at all so our soul is continually operating like that. Now, brothers and sisters that’s a big thing to face -- that your soul does not operate the way your spirit does. Your mind is an unrenewed mind, it operates on the old basis and the old basis were founded on the assumption that there is no God to take care of you and so your mind operates in an unrenewed way all the time. So it’s very unfitted to hear the directions that the Spirit gives which are given to renewed minds.

So do you see that the Spirit will always seem to be giving you stupid directions unless you begin to bring your soul under the control of your spirit. That’s why some of us at the very beginning of walking in the Spirit can’t make sense of God’s directions. We think, “Oh, that’s ridiculous.” And then older saints that have been on the way for years, we tell them what the Spirit seems to have said and we tell them, “Isn’t that ridiculous?” And they say, “No. That’s the way God always works.” And it’s because their soul has begun to come under the control of the Spirit and their minds understand and sees the sense of the Spirit’s directions.

But you see, again and again if we’re soulish we come to a Jericho situation. The Holy Spirit tells us, “No, say nothing to your mum. Say nothing to your mum. I know she doesn’t understand why you think you should marry this person. I know your dad doesn’t understand why you think you should go out in this career, I know that. But, say nothing to them. Pray, just share quietly with them. Don’t argue with them, just pray.” But our mind rebels against that and turns back to its previous history of experiences and says, “No, no, if my mind doesn’t engage with their mind and I don’t persuade them that I am right then they’ll never agree.” And the Spirit says, “No, no, the Father is sending angels to them and sending me into their spirit. And if you would back off and don’t crowd them and just pray for them and love them and surrender the thing into my hands I’ll work in them.”

But, the mind so often rejects that kind of wisdom because it is used to living by the body’s directions on the basis that there is no God to defend us. And so you’ll find the soul constantly finding difficulty with directions such as Joshua received in Jericho. And that means of course, brothers and sisters, that the soul actually never can be used to minister Jesus’ life, you see. Because actually, what happens to most of us, even who are filled with the Spirit, is our soul will not listen to our spirit and it instead passes on human wisdom and wordly wisdom and that is why so many of us see so little fruit for our ministry. Because, we’re passing on just wordly human wisdom, we’re not passing on directions from the Spirit.

Now, there’s another example loved ones, that shows this plainly in Judges 7. And you remember the Midianites were moving against the Hebrews. Judges 7:2, “The LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, ‘My own hand has delivered me.’” And you might be interested in the numbers; we can check them up in a moment -- but there were 135,000 Midianites -- and Gideon, whom God told him he had too many, had 32,000. And God said, “No, no, you have too many -- because if you win with that number you may think that it’s your own soulish power that has won the day.”

And so in Verse 3, “Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home.’ And Gideon tested them; 22,000 returned, and 10,000 remained.” So Gideon was left with 10,000 to fight against this 135,000. “And the LORD said to Gideon, ‘The people are still too many; take them down to the water and I will test them for you.’” And of course you remember that God reduced the number to 300.

Now, do you see that that doesn’t make any sense to our human minds? And we like to think, “Well, thank goodness that that was Gideon. He had special anointing from God so that he could tackle this. Thank goodness that I’ll never have to…” Stop right there because you will; you will have to do exactly that repeatedly in your lifetime. Repeatedly God will bring you into situations where he will ask you to go forth with his power and his grace alone.

And what happens of course with most of us is we either don’t go forward with him or we go forward with the soulish power and we exercise that soulish power of ours -- the power of our minds, and the power of our emotions, and the power of our wills. And we end up of course not achieving what God wanted us to achieve at all. In fact, we hardly pass ourselves. We just get through the experience and say, “Well, thank God that it was so short and that it’s over and that I can learn again for next time.”

But brothers and sisters, it’s God’s will for us to begin to bring our souls under the control of our spirits. And it’s God’s will for us not to speak from our souls out and that’s what we’re always doing. We’re speaking from our souls out both as husbands and wives, as brothers and sisters in the body, as friends and colleagues, we’re responding from our souls out. In other words, people are not touching our spirits at all. They simply get as deep as our souls. That’s what they hit, they hit the soul level and the response they’re getting is a soulish response.

Now God’s Spirit is completely fresh. And you see that’s what happened in the beginning in the Garden of Eden, it was beautiful. Adam got up and God said, “The orange tree is over there and orange juice is there -- just get some. And then I’ll show you where to get the rest of your food. There’s another fruit tree over here, I’ll show you where to get it. Then, after you finish breakfast I’ll show you what you ought to do today.” Then he would finish breakfast and God would say, “Now, you see that river over there? Now, it has to be diverted and I want you to do that.” So he diverted it.

And then Adam would say, “Now Lord, what’s going to happen then when the floods come?” And God said, “I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you what to do when that comes.” And so the floods came and God told him what to do about the river. But then Adam began to get a little independent and began to note down the things that God had told him to do and he began to list the precedents, and the laws, and the regulations, and the rules for governing the world and that’s what our souls are full of. Your mind, and my emotions, and our wills are filled with precedence, and laws, and rules, and regulations so that we’re little creatures that have just reflex responses that keep popping up.

Somebody presses one button; a little reflex response pops out. That’s what we mean by soulishness. And that loved ones, is what will prevent God’s Spirit ever dealing with us. Now, what has to happen is the powers of that soul have to be broken. They are strong and so you have to have the breaking of those soulish powers. And before that you have to be aware of those soulish powers so there has to be a revelation so that you know when you are responding in a soulish way and when you are responding in a spiritual way.

Now some of us thought, “Ah, number one is easy. To discover soulishness I simply have to sing a song,” and I won’t make you suffer but, “Sing a song and then look in and say, ‘Did I sing that in my soul or in my spirit?’” And that’s what many of us have thought: that all we have to do is introspect and we can tell whether we’re acting from our souls or acting from our spirits. And I don’t want to bore you with it because I have shared it with some of you before, but do you see that there is only one thing that can introspect, and that’s your mind.

And so what you do when you introspect is you are still in the realm of the soul. For the simple reason that the spirit is a deeper kind of life than your soul and so if you introspect with the power of the soul you can never introspect deeper than the soul itself. And so there is one answer that you must always come up with when you introspect to see if you’re soulish – and that is that you’re soulish. That’s always what you’ll come up with.

If you ever look in and engage in introspection -- which is really a sin for Christians, introspection is a sin because there’s one dear Person that will show you, the Holy Spirit will lead you into all truth -- not your own introspection. But, when you introspect to see if you’re soulish you’ll come up invariably with the answer, “I’m soulish.” So that’s obviously not the way to do it.

Loved ones, there is only one way that God has shown us and that is Hebrews 4:12. And you remember that we’ve shared it before, Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” That, by the way, is one of the verses that makes it clear that we’re wrong when we think of the soul and the spirit as being the same. They are obviously very different because the Bible even talks about the division of soul and spirit.

And you see it’s the word of God, for the word of God is living. That is, it’s alive. And it’s the word of God, not the word of God even that is written, though God uses that also, but it’s the living word of God. The word of God is living -- that’s the “rhema”, the word that the Holy Spirit sends into your spirit at a moment. Just so you know, because I want to be honest, the moment I said “Josh”, [referring to Joshua in the scripture earlier] the Holy Spirit convicted me right away. There’s no point making a big song about it but it’s good to be honest. The Holy Spirit said, “That’s soulish; just don’t do that. That brings God’s dignified word into disrespect.” Now, you know that. You know moments when you say a thing and the Holy Spirit immediately, the “rhema” from God, the word of God is alive and it’s active in you and it’s sharp and it cuts into you and says, “No, that’s soulishness.”

Now, here’s the interesting thing. At that moment you can’t really do anything to correct that. You can’t actually do anything to correct that at that moment. You simply have to say, “Holy Spirit thank you. Dear word of God thank you for revealing that for me. Thank you for making me aware of that. Now, Holy Spirit will you give me Holy Spirit memory so that as I walk through the experiences of tomorrow, and of today, and of the next day I am aware of that.” And then what happens is we do the same thing two or three days later, or maybe a week later and we go through the same thing and we say, “Holy Spirit, will you bring it to my memory?”

Now, could I share this with you? If you take the other route and you say, “I better be careful least I do it again.” But, if you say, “Never abbreviate the names of biblical leaders.” And I put that down in my dairy, do you see that there’s no longer any life in that? I’m coming under law and regulation and I’m actually just as soulish except I’m just avoiding the problem now by soulishness. So there is no life that comes through because what the Holy Spirit is getting at is something in me, something in me connected up with humor and connected up with you. He’s getting at something deeper in me than just the actual error that was made at that moment.

And so it is with you, when you respond harshly to a loved one at home, or you try criticism to correct something, or in the office you try sarcasm to expose something to someone. The Holy Spirit is not actually caught up with that problem itself. It’s not that expression of sarcasm that is the problem, it’s something in you that makes you think by the power of your own soul you can bring God’s will into this earth. It’s something to do with the pride of your soul. It’s something to do with your trust in your own strength and your own powers and the Holy Spirit is trying to get at that.

So that’s why loved ones, when the Holy Spirit reveals something to you, the word of God comes and is living and active and exposes something to you, you can do nothing but say, “Holy Spirit thank you and will you bring me your memory and make me aware of it?” And the blessed Holy Spirit is so good that he’ll let us come to the situation again and show us it again. And gradually, it begins to be ground into us until the Holy Spirit begins to reveal to us whatever is the particular soulishness or soulish strength that he’s trying to expose. And then, the only way to deal with that soulish strength is through these experiences.

And you get the teaching of that in 2 Corinthians and we’ve looked at it before but it might be good to look at it. 2 Corinthians 4:10, “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” Now, that’s the daily cross, you see. “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” Now how does that come about? Oh, Verse 8, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

God brings us into breaking experiences to break those soulish powers. There are all kinds. At times they’re experiences of defeat or embarrassment. At times they are experiences that we just cannot handle and we find that the soulish powers are not sufficient to handle them. At times they are just experiences of downright defeat, or the Holy Spirit allows us to come into depression to show us that the soulishness in us is still preoccupied with outward things.

One of the great marks of soulishness is self concern and self consciousness and a preoccupation with our own personal experience. And you know there is a great deal of soulishness in that sense among Christians, a preoccupation with our own experience. And the Holy Spirit will allow you to get so wrapped up in your own experience that you fall into depression; that is a breaking experience that he will continue to bring upon you again, and again. If you ever feel depression and it’s not from sin, and you should first of all ask, “Holy Spirit is there sin in my life?” But if it’s not from sin, then the Holy Spirit is trying to show you that in some way your soul is still taking in information from outside, it’s still looking forward to little experiences.

And some of us still live off drugs -- you know we do. We live from Friday-to-Friday, weekend-to-weekend, we live for the next little thrill and the Holy Spirit has to break that soulishness by allowing us to come into sad, sad experiences that bring us into utter depression. Now, do you see that when the soul is absolutely divided from the spirit you can pass through the most hideous experiences and there is a constant joy and peace. And it isn’t because you are like the Buddhist -- you are indifferent to the pain that your loved ones are feeling or that others are feeling -- but it is because even though you sense that as Jesus wept over Lazarus yet there is in your spirit a quiet peace because you have learned to live only from one source, from Jesus and the Father.

And it’s interesting, when you learn to live from that source alone, nothing outside affects the peace within. But, you’re able to empathize with it and you’re able to do more, you’re able to feed out positive life from God to it. But if you haven’t that experience, the Holy Spirit will bring you into breaking experiences -- loved ones who will die, financial troubles yourself; especially if you think, and so many of us think this, “If I could only get to the place where I was financially stable. If I could only get to the place where I could make the things balance. If I could only get to that place I would be able to be free from anxiety.”

And the Holy Spirit knows that that is an absolute lie. And he knows that if you do get to the place of financial security there will be something else that will disturb your peace because the tragedy is not the balance in the bank account, the tragedy is that your soul depends for its peace not on the Spirit and its relationship with the Father and the Son but with everything being right on the outside. Therefore, the Holy Spirit will allow you to come into financial chaos until you learn bit by bit to see that the only peace in this world has to come from within and that the soul has to stop being preoccupied with outside things. Because if it’s preoccupied with good things that happen it will just be ready to be preoccupied with the bad things that happen.

And so often the Holy Spirit will bring you into situations. Oh, do you know that summer is beautiful but it brings problems with it because we all become more preoccupied with the outside. And we spend a lot of time out at the lakes and out doing things and letting the world of nature give us a kind of a joy. And so often we’re not getting the joy from the Father, we’re not looking up and saying, “Lord, what wonderful water you have made. Thank you, thank you for your beauty that is better than this water. This water is cool to my body but you are cooler to my whole being.” But we don’t take that approach to nature but we live off the nature itself.

And many of us have great trouble with soulishness. Some of the guys like to think it’s just because the girls are dressing differently and we have more trouble but it’s a general problem. It’s a general problem that all of us face when we begin to be preoccupied again with the outside. Now of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the outside. Saint Francis of Assisi loved the outside because it was his Father’s world; it was his Father’s possessions. Every flower he touched he sensed the love of his Father coming through to him and so it was the Father and the Spirit that gave him the joy even though he touched the leaf of the flower or the plant.

So you can enjoy music, you can enjoy the outside world as long as it is all the time your spirit sensing the Father who made these things. But if you live, loved ones, as a drug addict on outside things coming through your body into your soul, the Holy Spirit will continue to bring you into breaking experiences. He may take all those things away from you; He will do anything in order to bring you into a freedom from these soulish powers.

Now, there’s no question that the only way that this will come about is if you ask. Unless you ask the Holy Spirit to bring you into freedom from those soulish powers and to enable your soul to come under the control of your spirit you will never experience any of this and of course, you can prevent it happening. Because you see, self-will can be in control and self-will can reject the whole teaching, can reject everything that God is trying to do with you and can run from it. The only thing is, you’ll run back into self and run back eventually into hell if you keep running in that direction.

There is really only one way to go and that is to ask the Holy Spirit, “Holy Spirit, will you bring me into a daily working of Jesus’ cross on the powers of my soul so that there is nothing of self left. And so that I am not only doing God’s will, but I am doing God’s will in God’s way so that the glory is coming all to him. And I’m doing God’s will by God’s power and not by my power so that it will not be my own hand that is glorified but God only.” And such are those that the Father calls to serve him and such the disciples that Jesus needs in these days and such I pray that he’ll make us. The world desperately needs men and women who are so dead to themselves and so dead to their own powers and abilities that people will see only Jesus. Really.

I don’t think we should take questions tonight, loved ones; we’ll have questions next day. I think we should just pray. Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, we sense that your heart yearns for pure men and women who are not trying to take the things of God for themselves, or to take glory for themselves. Oh Lord, we apologize when we see our self and we see our self powers and Lord we don’t want to use them and yet we know only you can break us. So blessed Holy Spirit, will you bring that dear word of God to us at the very moment when we are in the midst of soulishness -- using our own human wisdom instead of God’s -- and will you reveal it to us?

And then Holy Spirit will you continue to reveal it, and reveal it, and reveal it again, and again until we see deep down the particular soulish streak that is in us. And then will you bring us into whatever breaking experiences are needed? And blessed Spirit we know we are not asking for something lightly here. We know these things will be so heavy upon us that we won’t connect them with this prayer. In the middle of them we’ll wonder, “Why is God doing this to me?” Holy Spirit, we know that if we pray this prayer you will answer it in good faith and you will be real in your answer in order to free us from the chains of our souls and so we ask you to do that.

And I would pray Holy Spirit that in the midst of my brothers and sisters crying in pain you will whisper to them, “This is what you prayed for.” And then that you will break these soulish powers of ours so that our souls will be beautiful servants of our spirits and will begin to operate the way they were meant to originally -- passing on through our bodies and to the world of people the blessed life that is coming through our spirits from God. Lord we pray these things for your glory. Now the grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us now and throughout this coming week. Amen.