Chapter 2
OUR ENEMY #1
Our enemy #1 has been a true mystery to most of the Church, cleverly hiding in our souls. You can find its existence and its hiding place in Rom. 7:21 and I gave it the name – GOOD FLESH! THIS GOOD FLESH IS THE “GOOD” PART OF OUR SELF… WHILE OUR SELF IS THE ENEMY OF GOD!
GOOD FLESH IS A LAW whereby EVIL is present when we try to do GOOD! This law is completely illogical since evil should be present when we try to do something BAD or EVIL, not something GOOD. True? So, our logic doesn’t lead to the truth of God.
Now, why am I presenting this good flesh as our enemy #1? Because in the true Church of Jesus Christ, no one tries to do anything evil or bad, yet, evil is present there continually! Why? Because GOOD FLESH IS HIDING IN THE SELF OF EVERY BELIEVER, starting from the leadership down to the last member of the congregation sitting in the last pew or chair in the sanctuary! Now, how can this good flesh be so well hidden? Because nobody is noticing it! Nobody in his wildest dreams would imagine or believe that all believers are carrying in their human goodness a reservoir of evil and thus sinfulness, which must also be destroyed before we are made perfect!
Well, we can start with the Lord showing us a minister of a congregation. He preaches or teaches from the Bible and the congregation is listening, even making notes or nodding their heads in approval. Is anything wrong with it? Nothing, you would say. All this activity would be considered desirable and clean in every man’s eyes. True? But is it also how the Lord looks at it? NO!
The first verse in the Word of God which could be linked with this “LAW OF GOOD FLESH” AND APPLIES TO US ALL is found in the Book of Proverbs (Pr. 16:2). This Word of God warns us of this law of good flesh saying the following:
“ALL THE WAYS OF A MAN ARE CLEAN IN HIS OWN EYES;” And THEN the Word seems to stop us for a moment and continues declaring the following mystery:
“…BUT the Lord…”
Have we ever paused and considered this BUT in our Christian life and activity? NEVER! The Word continues declaring something of a mystery:
“BUT THE LORD WEIGHETH (discerns, judges, assesses, verifies) THE SPIRITS.”
THE LORD ALWAYS JUDGES and verifies in what spirits we are doing, whatever we are doing on our “clean ways”. In what spirits we are thinking, whatever we are thinking on our “clean ways”. In what spirits we are planning, desiring or intending to do something good on our “clean ways”, in what spirits we are preaching on our “clean ways”. Why do we not care for this Word of God? Because whenever we are trying to do all these good activities, good plans, good intentions, good works – WE NEVER CARE FOR OR DISCERN THE SPIRITS IN US! BUT THE LORD DOES!
Though we are born-again by the Holy Spirit we never START living in Him, thinking in Him, acting in Him, speaking in Him, teaching in Him, preaching in Him, walking in Him or doing anything in Him right from our new birthday! True? The vast majority of believers do not start doing anything in Him even until they die! And they never know it! Why? Nobody tells them since nobody seems to know!
WHATSOEVER WE ARE DOING OR TRYING TO DO, THINKING OR PLANNING OR INTENDING OR SPEAKING OR PREACHING OR TEACHING OR PRAYING OR FASTING OR GIVING GIFTS OR DOING ANY WORKS “FOR THE LORD” OR FOR THE BRETHREN, AND WE DO IT FROM OUR GOOD FLESH – EVIL SHALL BE ALWAYS PRESENT! AND IN THE EYES OF THE LORD, EVIL IS ALWAYS ASSOCIATED WITH SINNING! THERE IS A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE WHEN WE ARE DOING SOMETHING FOR GOD FROM US OR FROM GOD THROUGH US! IS IT SOMETHING FROM OUR SELF OR SOMETHING FROM HIS SELF?
GOOD FLESH IS NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT; IT IS STILL FLESH, SINFUL AND EVIL THOUGH OUTWARDLY IT MAY APPEAR GOOD, BUT EVIL IS ALWAYS WITH IT BECAUSE IT IS IN IT!
Can you distinguish your GOOD FLESH from the HOLY SPIRIT? Can you distinguish whether your good intentions are from your soul or from His Spirit? Not if you are a carnal believer. Can you also distinguish whether you are carnal or spiritual? If you are carnal, you cannot, it is impossible. Carnal believers do not and cannot see themselves in what spirits they live and act.
Do you believe this? If you do not, it does not change the Law of our good flesh. The Lord wants you to ponder and see and understand and believe the following.
When you witness a person stealing, lying, beating, murdering or bullying someone, drunken, doing immoral things, scolding, cursing, swearing, abusing or robbing anyone, committing perjury, causing damages to persons or to property, witnessing falsely, deceiving, etc., do you not say that the person is doing evil and bad things and is sinning against God? You do say that, and you are right.
When you witness an evangelist, pastor, teacher or preacher to preach from the Bible, do you also say that the person is doing evil or bad things or sinning against God? Never! Why? Because you cannot believe that such a thing is possible. But the Lord says: YES, IT IS. That person may be doing evil inwardly in the spiritual world, not outwardly in the intellectual world of his soul or in the physical world of his body. This evil cannot be seen and distinguished by our natural senses, but only by spiritual senses.
The ministers that may belong to the above paragraph may be just “ordinary carnal believers”, who are spiritually dead, and thus they minister “death” with “their truth”, but not life with God’s truth. They may also be “servants of Satan” transformed to the ministers of righteousness! (2Cor. 11:13-15) Whether they are the first or the second group, they may cause similar damages; they bring death to the children of God. And most of the children of God do not recognize, do not distinguish, do not discern such ministers of death! But if they do not, they themselves are becoming more and more dead desiring “dead spiritual food” and becoming addicted to it. They lose taste for the Life of Christ and with it the desire for the living food. True?
A typical example of this truth is found in the Word of God (Mt. 22:2-8) where a “certain King” (The Father) made a marriage for His Son (Jesus Christ) and sent His servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding – and they would NOT come! They preferred their farm or business to the Wedding of the Son of God. Stupendous! They had no taste for the heavenly food, but rather for the dunghill of their farm. You say, it must take an idiot to refuse to come to the Marriage Supper of the Son of God. Well, you are right! But do you realize that the King sent His servants to call born-again believers? No pagan was ever called and bidden to that Wedding! So, now you might be able to believe that a born-again believer may not only be wicked, but also an idiot.
With pain in my heart I have to say that there are many such believers and there are such ones among them that nobody will help anymore. They received not the love of the truth that they might be (or continue to be) saved after their redemption (Heb. 6:1-6// 2Pet. 2:20-22). God Himself will send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness (2Thes. 2:10-12) and had and kept their evil heart of unbelief (Heb. 3:12).
What is causing believers to fall into condemnation, to even lose their own salvation? THEIR GOOD FLESH! They continue assessing themselves as good and righteous and any “contrary” thought or word from a true servant of God is immediately rejected from their deceived minds. They would NEVER ADMIT that they could be wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. Nobody is telling them this truth – yet, the Lord is! – For the past two thousand years! (Rev. 3:17) They keep enlarging their self-deception for many years, so now it is so great that they are unable to believe any truth about themselves! They never strove to find and then enter in at the straight gate and walk on the narrow way. They have been comfortable to walk on the broad way to destruction. And after years, when they finally “woke up” and decided to enter in at the straight gate, they found out that they were NOT ABLE! (Mt. 7:13, 14// Lk. 13:24)
Concerning the carnal ministers, Brother Watchman Nee, a truly great servant of the Lord from China, on page 86 of his book: “The Messenger of the Cross[1]” says the following:
“In seeking truth, many come with a wrong motive. If they are not seeking to satisfy their own lust for knowing, they are preparing messages (or writing books) to teach others. Their basic motive is to solve mental difficulties and not to cultivate their own spiritual life. Since such is their intention, they feel comforted if they are able, in the end, to understand. For they can now teach others (they believe). Clearly, they are not seeking for spiritual reality.”
And on page 135 of the same book he continues:
“If… we try to edify saints on the strength of our knowledge of the Bible and our excellent speech, in God’s eyes we will be SINNING WHILE PREACHING!
The meaning of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is none other than being active OUTSIDE OF GOD, seeking what is good according to one’s own thought…”
The above is closely connected with our natural life and clearly shows the activities of our “good flesh” and how it sins against God whether we see and believe it or not.
What is the difference between the “carnal ministers” and the “servants of Satan” transformed into ministers of righteousness? The “servants of Satan” purposely and actively derail you from truth into deception; they also satisfy the desires of your natural life thus increasing the spiritual death in you. The “carnal ministers” are in effect doing a similar thing, but are generally unaware that they may be deceiving you with “their truth” as opposed to the Truth of God and thus feeding you with death and not life. Carnality in their souls is the ground from which Satan can work unhindered and undisclosed.
The GREATEST DECEPTION coming from such carnal ministers is the fact that they often preach or teach either an undiluted lie or a truth diluted with lie – partial truth – which is disconnected and isolated from all the other corresponding and interdependent truths in the Scripture about the topic preached. All such corresponding and interdependent truths together give the whole truth about any particular topic and thus also provide the way, how to apply and live that whole truth effectively and successfully in one’s earthly life.
This whole truth then also represents the spiritual reality about any Scriptural topic as it stands before God and as it is understood by God and not by man and his limited logic. A typical brief example is in Mt. 4:6-7. Carnal ministers never seem to consider the fact that every partial truth is always followed by “It is written again…” to make it a whole truth. One such partial truth doctrine is “once saved, forever saved” supported by some “logical” verses from the Bible. YET, the whole truth for this topic incorporates many other truths from the same Bible, which stand in sharp contradiction to this intellectual doctrine thus making it a very dangerous lie. Why? Because, “It is written again…” in Rev. 3:5, Heb. 6:4-6, Jn. 15:6, etc. (see also bottom of p.114)!
Every such intellectual partial truth, though supported by some Bible verses, becomes a “color dream” and a dangerous lie since it is always useless, deeply deceiving and totally ineffective. It cannot change the believer’s spirit and thus transform him into the Image of Christ, which is THE Final Purpose and Will of Our Father (Rom. 8:29). But if any believer believes such “partial truth doctrines” of men, they may change his destiny from Heaven to Hell.
This above truth is confirmed in the mouth of three witnesses, one from China, one from Canada and the third Witness is from Heaven, who speaks through His Word quite clearly. And He also speaks quite clearly through His Apostle Paul.
I do wonder whether there would be a servant of the Lord who would consider himself comparable to or even greater than Apostle Paul. I doubt that; such pride would definitely bring him to shame in front of all his fellow servants and brethren. But Apostle Paul, this great servant of God in the New Testament, admitted to the whole world that there was nothing good dwelling in him, that is, in his flesh! (Rom. 7:18a) I have yet to meet a minister of the Word of God who would freely and in truth admit the same thing. You see, a carnal mind always tries to find something good in our humanity and use it to “serve the Lord” or to help other people.
It will probably never occur to our mind and heart that there is nothing good in us, in our natural being. Neither will it ever occur to our mind or heart that, in fact, in our natural being WE ARE NOTHING (Gal. 6:3). That the only valuable part in us is the Holy Spirit (if we are born-again), what He worked into us and how he renewed us and transformed us! THAT IS ALL! Can you believe it? I’m not asking whether you can imagine it or understand it or admit it. I’m asking whether you can believe it… because God says so!
I tell you a simple truth: I am not sure whether under the current situation and spiritual conditions in His Church, the believers in His Church are willing to even read and consider anything, which is not comfortable to their sinful nature. That includes most of the leadership of the Church, which is proud and inaccessible and does not want to be “bothered” by writings that do not fit their own plans, desires, feelings, reasonings and intentions.
I am not sure whether I will find any person in today’s Church, who will read and believe and understand what the Lord is giving to us in this book. But then, a simple question may be asked: Why then am I even writing this book?
My truthful reply is this: God knows! He Alone knows why He was sending His prophets to His people of Israel speaking unto them His words knowing that they will not listen, and calling unto them knowing that they will not answer! (Jer. 7:24-27) Man would never do such an “illogical” thing, but God is not a man. His thoughts and His ways are much higher than ours (Is. 55:8,9). If only one believer will see and believe and be transformed and become a true Overcomer, and thus a true Bride of Christ and a true son of God (Rev. 21:7), then it was worth writing this book!
* * *
To be continued next week in chapter 3 – part 1
brother Hanola
…