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kathleen1
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 6-The Necessity of Renouncing this World

6- The Necessity of Renouncing the World
BH Clendennen


When people are convicted of sin, when they hear the gospel preached and there is a conviction of sin, at that moment they see sin like God sees sin. They understand that sin is worthy of death. But yet, they still love sin so much they are constantly falling back into it. They can't see why God would put such a penalty on sin when it seems to be such a pleasure to their lives. That comes with conviction. But with repentance, their comes the same feeling about sin as God has-that is a hatred for that which cost Christ Calvary. It becomes then a reality. With repentance we understand what sin is and so we can understand why this world must be renounced.

2Co 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
2Co 6:18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Now further, we have seen the original dignity and glory of man's creation and state in paradise and the terrible change that the fall brought upon him. We dealt with this in earlier lessons, but for you that were not with us, we saw in that fall man lost the image and life of God. That was a terrible change that took place in his life. In that loss of the image of God, inwardly he took on the nature of demons, and outwardly, the nature of a beast. He become an altogether different human than God made him in the first place, living after his soul, after his own desires, and not after God. That took place in the fall when man fell. Now from a divine and heavenly creature, man was so changed as to inwardly take on the nature of the devil, outwardly, the nature of the beast. He was a slave to the outward world, living at all uncertainties amidst the pain, fear and sorrows, until his body is forced to be removed from our sight and buried in the ground. Now from this short view of man what he's fallen from and into, we may now see in the strongest light the absolute necessity of the doctrines which call us as saints of God to renounce this world, the enemy of God. We are called to deny the passions and inclinations of flesh and blood. Now the world and us in the state in which God first created the world and us, there would be some foundation for the question what are these things for if not to be enjoyed? Why do we have these passions and inclinations if they are not to be gratified? Now that is what you run into when you begin to deal with man about being born again and walking with God.

Now all such questions are answered as soon as we are made to see the first state of things has been altered, altogether changed. We were not created to live in a world as it is now. Paradise was our first state, where we should have stood in divine strength and ability, insensible of any evil from an outward nature. But sin, man's fall, man's rebellion against God destroyed this first state of things. It destroyed the divine light in the soul and removed paradise from off the earth. Man was cast out of paradise and came as a malefactor in to this outward world to be punished and scourged by the all dividing, warring elements of nature. By his falling into the outward world, it got the same power over him as over the beast, which are its proper inhabitants. The world as it is now is the proper habitation of the beast. But in the fall, that same world got absolute power over man. Man, having fallen under the dominion of the outward world, it continues to breathe its own corrupt nature into him, feeds him with the husks of swine, and proposes such pleasures to him as to make him unwilling to regain his divine life.

As soon as this is known to be the condition of man, having fallen from the life of God under the dominion of the world, all the renouncing, self denying doctrines of the Bible appear to have the utmost reason and necessity in them. Then it appears to be as much our happiness to deny the tempers and inclinations of the flesh and to be delivered from the power of its pleasures over us as to be delivered from death and hell. When we are truly acquainted with the nature of our fall, we are forced to admit that this world has only the nature of a hospital where people are because they are disturbed and no happiness is sought for but being healed and made fit to leave this world. That's the only thing that can make any sense to men and women. To further show that I have not stated man's first dignity too high, it is evident from the Scripture account. It's a fundamental truth of Christianity that man was created in paradise for a life suitable to paradise. Paradise is a divine habitation and is still existent where it was at first, though not visible to the eye which only sees the light of the sun. It's not visible to man therefore he cannot enter that. That's what Jesus meant when He said to Nicodemus except you be born again you cannot see the kingdom or paradise of God Almighty. See, paradise is a habitation of such who have attained their nature, born again from above and received a nature suited for paradise. That's what happens when a human is born again.

Now, our Savior through a miracle of love promised to be with the thief on the cross. You remember that story. You remember me when You come into Your kingdom, he said, and Jesus promised to be with the thief that day in paradise. It was in that paradise that Jesus promised to remember the thief. Now, since this is the truth that can't be denied it must be equally true before man sinned he must have lived in such a paradise that kept everything in the outward world under him. In such a paradise, neither fire nor water nor any other element could have the least power over that man. If fire, the most powerful of the elements had no power to touch his body in any hurtful manner or cause any pain to that body, it must be granted that paradise covered and governed the power and elements in the outward world. Man in paradise had absolute power over the elements, including fire. That's what man fell from in the life of God.

That being true, it is therefore undeniable that man in his present state is under the power of the elements, capable of receiving pain from and evil from them. That man before the fall, lived in this world insensible to and incapable of any evil from that world. He was superior to all elements. That's plain because of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That tells us man in his original state had no knowledge of good and evil, we are made to understand the outward elements could not affect his state or make any impression on that man. This tells us in no uncertain words that man before eating of the tree of good and evil was above the nature of this world and the outward world had no power to operate on him or give him any sense of feeling of what was good and evil. Now that fact that it was the intention of God that man continue to be Lord over all temporal nature from the prohibition given him not to eat of the tree of knowledge. Because God had a place for that man, that is the reason God told him. Man was not content with his happy superiority above the evil and good of outward nature. His imagination helped by the devil longed to look in and feel the secret workings of the powers of that outward nature, which was his happiness and paradise to be insensible of. He never was aware in paradise of what that world was.

When God commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil He actually said don't fall into the outward world, under the influence of the elements, but keep your state in paradise. When man partook of the forbidden fruit, he brought into his body the nature of the outward world, came under the dominion of its elements. It was not merely the eating of the forbidden fruit but it was his refusing to be what God created him to be. It was his express and open, voluntary act indeed by which he chose to fall into the outward world we find ourselves in. Therefore, it was not the mere eating of the fruit that brought Adam's misery, but it was the eating of the fruit as his chosen means of entering into this world. It was not that God in his anger for man eating of the wrong tree that God turned man out of paradise into a world cursed by that sin. Man freely and voluntarily chose against the will and command of God to be in the world to be in the world in its cursed state unblessed by paradise. Man chose to enter into its sensibility and feeling of its good and evil which is directly choosing to be where paradise is not. Nothing in paradise can be touched or hurt by anything of the outward world. Therefore the first state of man was a state of such glory and prerogatives as we've stated. His fall was a fall into and under the power of this outward world. By Adam's sin, the image of the Holy trinity was broken in such a manner that the birth of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit was no longer in that man or in that nature. Man losing the nature of God took on as his inward nature the very nature of Satan himself and outwardly the nature of the beast. Therefore, in a great mystery of love, the eternal Son of God united Himself to our fallen nature to recover and restore all that was lost. That's what happens in the new birth, there is a restoration of that divine nature. It's the very life of God. Now our choice is to walk after the Spirit not the flesh. The Bible plainly says there is therefore now no condemnation to them who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. That's Romans 8:1.
Now when it's known our fall consisted of losing the image of God's Son in our soul and the proceeding forth of the Holy Spirit we understand we can only be saved by the eternal Son of God. Being a good man, a good Hindu, a good Muslim, won't save you, being a good fleshly Christian won't save you, you must be born again. We can only be saved by God's Son taking our nature on Him and so uniting it with Him so that His life, or birth, might again rise in us as it was in the beginning, in paradise. You understand man can't even see this world except he be born again from above. A new creature comes in with new faculties capable of seeing what the natural man can't see. This alone is the pathway to God.

I talk to people all the time, they are church people. You ask them when they became a Christian, and they say, "I've always been a Christian, I was raised a Christian, mom and dad are Christians." No. Everything produces after its own kind by this life. Just because your mother and dad were Christians, you must be born again from above and that birth from above restores the image that was lost in the fall of man, that is the image of God's Son is restored. There is a perfecting and growth and progressiveness of that.

The Bible says in Eph 4:24 we have been created in righteousness and true holiness. We are a new creation of God. It isn't making the old better. The old died with Christ. Paul said I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me. That is the state of a Christian. Now when we are first born again, truly born again, then this life becoming our life, our desires change. A desire for God and the things of God. It's not a matter of having to go to church but it's a desire to be where God is. There is a progressive growth of this. The desire of that human is perfected at birth but it's a lifetime of sanctification, learning to walk in the Spirit of God, it is a lifetime. But perfection is the desire. If we allow the Spirit to fill us and possess us then our desire is toward God, there is a hunger for God just like there was a hunger for the things of the world before we became this new creation. Have you been born again? Are you a church member that believes somehow, somehow it will work out that you'll be a Christian? It won't happen. This is the way. A new birth from above, the new man with the desire for the spiritual. Hunger for the things of God. Is that how it is with you? If not, this is the time. You were created to live in the presence of God-that's paradise. But in the fall, God drove man from that presence and put a flaming sword at that gate. Said your kind can never come back. You must be born again. Why don't you just kneel in the privacy of wherever you are and ask God to save you? God bless you.


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Kathleen

 2009/9/19 7:54Profile
Nellie
Member



Joined: 2004/4/5
Posts: 952


 Re: 6-The Necessity of Renouncing this World

May we all take this Word and apply it to our hearts and lives, by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
May we walk in the Spirit, so we do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
God Bless all.
Nellie

 2009/9/19 9:26Profile





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