The Human Spirit and Carnal Flesh
By Dean Gilchrist NZ
The new birth is the true baptism of the Holy Ghost in the soul of man which comes by, and through the revealed word for the age. It is He, the very Person of the word coming into you and making him self known to you personally. Christ cannot be known or received out side of what his word reveals him to be, this is why it is called a word birth, we are born again by the revelation of the word of God in our soul and not by an emotion of the word in our human spirit, I PETER 1:23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
It is not enough to just believe the message of the hour by a metal acknowledgement of your human spirit reasoning out and agreeing with the word in a logical way, this is a good start, but it will take the Holy Ghost birth in the soul realm to cause a man to truly believe in the word for his age.
The ‘revelation’ of Jesus Christ and who he is in the day in which you live in is what the entire church and body of Christ is built on, that is why the importance of revelation by the Spirit to a true believer can never be over emphasized. It is this revelation of the word of God that is so needed in this end time as it is this that is to control the spirit and body realms of a person as a dove is cleansed from the inside out, our works on the outside expresses our faith (Revelation) on the inside.
When a person is first born again by the revelation of the word for their age it is important to understand that it is ‘a new birth’, they become a spiritual ‘babe’ in Christ and then they have to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord, this takes time as in natural growth, here a little and there a little, and you can not expect a spiritual babe to have the strength, wisdom, and knowledge of an adult believer; he or she has to grow into adulthood through the process of trials and testings because character and maturity is produced in the sufferings and struggles of life.
The Holy Ghost is a gift promised to us after repentance and water baptism (Receive ye the gift of the Holy Ghost: ACTS 2:38) but character is not a gift, it is a victory, and it can only be procured through the suffering of testings and trials.
I PETER 5:10 But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.
It is very necessary for the young believer to understand that The Holy Ghost baptism of fire that burns all doubts against the word of God out of a man’s soul does not remove the weaknesses of his human spirit or the temptations of his carnal flesh, please let me repeat that, the Holy Spirit abiding in a person’s soul does not take away their human spirit of memory, imagination, conscience, human affection, and reasoning, nor the fallen desires of the flesh, we still have the capacity to be tempted in these realms, and our human spirit will still ‘try’ and make us reason and doubt the word.
The apostle Paul told us that whenever he wanted to do good, evil was present, a constant battle was going on within himself, this is where the white dog and the black dog that Brother Branham tells us about comes into effect, and this is where babes in Christ sometimes get confused in thinking that once they receive the Holy Ghost every human temptation is automatically gone, this is far from the case as God allows these things in order for us to gain the victory of character by becoming overcomers.
Your biggest enemy is not the brother in the other church or some evil thing of the world, it is your self, yes you, it is your human spirit and carnal flesh (the ten spies with the evil reports) that causes the biggest part of your troubles, and God in his wisdom allows it for your good.
II CORINTHIANS 4:17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
King David was filled with the spirit of God, he was a man after God’s own heart, and yet he failed when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, he gave in to his human spirit of sensual lust and the carnal desires of his flesh. Yet from the blackness of David’s sin God revealed his own nature and character of mercy and grace to David. This is the same principle of how God is working with us if we could only but see it. It is in our human weaknesses that God reveals his grace love and mercy to us in a personally way, this produces within us a depth of appreciation and love toward God that could never be established any other way. The Christ like Character that God so desires for us can only be procured through the struggles, failures, sufferings, and victories that He in his wisdom has predestinated to us in order to bring the revelation and character of himself to perfection within us.
I CORINTHIANS 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Therefore with meekness may we accept that all the trials and struggles that we endure in this life, regardless of how chaotic and confusing they may seem, are all foreknown and allowed by God for the one purpose of our character development and perfection. King David paid dearly for his transgression, and likewise if we stray from the path of the word we will also pay as God is no respecter of persons, yet through it all God is using the darkness and weakness our human spirit and carnal flesh as a tool in his hand to mould us and shape us into the image that he has purposed for us.
Greater is the revealed word of the hour that is in your soul than he that is in the world of your human spirit and carnal flesh.
My prayer is that we would allow the inner man of faith to have full dominion in our lives, for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. ROMANS 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.