"The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.” I Corinthians 15:45-49 NAS
This scripture correctly speaks of two ways of living, two different men — of a heavenly man and an earthly man. Each of these states of life function within its own understanding and conceptions, with ideas and mindsets that bear the life image they represent. The scripture describes the condition of earthly minded men as a condition God calls foolishness . The earthly minded man is subject to "dwelling in a troubled sea of wicked humanity."
"But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Isaiah 57:20
"And I perceived a wild beast ascending out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on its horn ten diadems, and on its heads blasphemous names." Revelation 13:1
The desire of any blasphemous man is to influence others about what is truth. They devour other men’s good intentions toward God, nourishing themselves with beastly powers that criticize and accuse. Natural minded men exalt themselves over all that is known of God. They do not practice godliness and make up the great SEA of humanity where everyone has gone his own way to survive the same as other animals do. Being “beastly,” they think little of killing, stealing, lying, and cheating. consider earthly gain is their goal. They know little of God’s Spirit, being led by Him, or of spiritual ways. Earthly minded men are beastly minded! The ways of God are higher:
“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55: 8-9 NIV
Heavenly minded people receive the word of God, causing their inner spirit to be quickened and become awakened to God’s reality. We are joined to God’s Spirit and receive correct conceptions of spiritual and earthly things. To know God from within releases us from wrong earthly conceptions. Knowing God the Father releases us from mere head knowledge so that we know God’s judgments are just and true.
God the Father makes us see what is right and what is wrong from HIS viewpoint. He gives inner understanding that takes greater care for others. He grants love toward other humans that has originated out of a great desire for freedom, freedom from the beastly nature that has ruled man so much— that “first man” Adam. This frees us from being found within the “troubled sea of humanity.”
The “second man” is the Lord from heaven and it is possible to become like this Man. Jesus is “heavenly minded,” having “higher thoughts” that He conveys within our inner being. We, having been quickened by His Spirit, are coming to ABIDE with Him. A new reality comes to abide within us! The Son of God is formed within us through believing His words. A spirit is sent to open our hearts to a society of just people in a celestial realm. They are governed by RIGHTEOUSNESS, PEACE, AND JOY.
The Holy Spirit has accomplished the will of our heavenly Father when we are brought to peace, being at peace while fulfilling life’s righteous requirements. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from all sin and all death, so we know the truth of our heavenly Father. The Word of God is carried by heavenly minded soldiers wielding the sword of God’s Spirit. Their program is LOVING ONE ANOTHER WITHOUT CURSING. It’s an Abrahamic blessing that is promised to yet bless ALL of earth’s struggling families.
“I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom.” Daniel 7:21 NAS
"Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One; His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him. At this point the revelation ended. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts were greatly alarming me and my face grew pale, but I kept the matter to myself." Daniel 7:27-28 NAS
The BEAST NATURE is waging a war that is still lurking in the members of apostate church systems where men interrupt scriptural things with natural carnal mindedness. None should deny that devious notions are found in church teachings that keep division and strife alive in the candlestick churches. Its members are assured a portion of heaven in the future that escapes hell’s fire, while unbeleivers are to burn there forever. Yet correct faith in fiery circumstances that God allows works out a weight of glory that breaks the power of death working in our life. We take special heed to Paul’s teachings about the conditions believing men pass through:
“For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” Romans 7:15-18 NAS
Two states of life are present. On one hand, our inner spiritual man is serving the law of Life. We are renewed each day from above so that a form of righteousness is formed within, as something we DO. It becomes the ruling force within us, a POWER IN OUR INWARD LIFE. His power causes us to be strong, fearless, heavenly minded, truly knowing those things quickened in spirit.
We are growing into the mind of Christ! Oneness is found in Christ. He has a true church where Christ is not divided. We are being released from inner bonds to death and decay, free from every beastly abuse. Failure to break the yokes of our beastly nature will hinder our way up God’s highway to Zion. This heavenly Jerusalem is filled with peace, love and the sure mind of Christ, filled with knowing what comes from our heavenly Father.
The sevenfold Spirit of God is coming from above, causing us to do justly and to love righteousness. Our inner man finds heaven’s righteousness is now our inner state in both living and walking through our life’s affairs. Communion is being connected to the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, now making us free of man’s beastly captivity:
“…the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2
No other law releases us from earthly, soulish, beastly thinking sufficiently to liberate us from dark depressed thinking! In times of war, men fight other men to maintain their way of life as nations. In times of peace, they fight with one another, one party against the other. Throwing mud, they criticize, condemn, strive, abuse, detest, impeach, and hate one another until some common hatred or common outside fear unites them again as a nation. They only stand together if that fear and hatred last.
Patriotism is a worldly way of thinking that holds men to honor earthly governments. At America’s roots was a beastly instinct for territorial domination. The nations today are herded into peoples with armies, navies, and air forces — the teeth, and claws of their clan. In times of war men will give their lifeblood for their nation's government. In times of peace, they will resent sending every tax dollar to that same government, wanting to keep every dollar they possibly can, for their country is not the thing in which they are truly most interested.
Worldly minded men work greedily for gain, for selfish advantage. They fight for partisan agendas, for power, yet power corrupts beastly minded men to always be working for SELFISH interests! Corporate Americans will step on everybody to get to the top, to exercise power at the top of the corporate ladder. That is what matters the most to them.
Human desires such as these are common traits of the beastly minded nature of men and women. People working in worldly systems are inhaling and inevitably exhaling the atmosphere of false earthly values. The deceptions conceived in these earthly minded people have soaked the world in false carnal intellect and marked the religious with the beastly mark of the fallen. The beastly systems of worldly-minded men bombard our senses— through the eye-gate, the ear-gate, and the mind-gate — with lies and errors about the origin of life, the meaning of life, the purpose of life, the nature of God, the destiny of man, what is true, righteous, sinful, wrong judgment, and thousands of other things.
Beastly values bombard mankind with insinuations, imitations, counterfeits that fill the consciousness of the weak with false values, dishonesty, desire for worldly gain. Those lacking wisdom from above are lewd and fools that rejoice in wicked ways of living life. Beastly values of men are certainly bombarding us American consumers with corruption that is impure. Wrong lifestyles being portrayed as acceptable lifestyles, making jokes of what is right, and glorifying what is wrong:
"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes And clever in their own sight! Woe to those who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant men in mixing strong drink, who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away the rights of the ones who are in the right!" Isaiah 5:20 -23 NAS
Darkness still rules worldly minded men who do not find peace ruling in economic, social, or political rallies, who fight for expression in editorial pages of newspapers, for a few seconds on television screens, movie theaters, or to control school classrooms. Psychiatrists and psychologists have expressed their thoughts, their ideas, their impressions, their opinions, their views, their beliefs, their convictions, but it stems from a natural basis of circumstances that individuals confront.
Scholars of all sorts pass out their judgments, giving their educated evaluations, their drawn conclusions about what’s right and wrong, but our educated governors have failed to really alleviate man’s suffering. The people on this planet are in pain, pain that pierces the heart! Now HUMANITY IS CONFUSED AS TO WHAT THE TRUTH REALLY IS:
“And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?’ There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.” Revelation 13:3-10
What confusion rules mankind! So many voices telling of their hopes and aspirations, their dreams, and expectations. We can turn the dial of a radio or flip the channels of the television and find hundreds of different voices telling us what we should do. How do people ever sort it all out? Americans are always and in all places bombarded at the eye-gate, the ear-gate, and the mind-gate to meet reception with affection for every natural, earthly minded idea available.
Yet God’s mercy and his sovereign grace grants INNER POWER that rescues us believers from the slights of men that lead to confusion. We see light thru the darkness! The SPIRIT OF TRUTH abides within us. We are born to a heavenly condition that grows to be acceptable in the beloved Son’s kingdom. Our Father writes His name within us, to join us to a people, the people He tabernacles within.