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Deal
with Flesh
Carnality
Deliverance from
The
story is told of Handley Page
a pioneer in aviation
who once landed in an
isolated area during his travels. Unknown to him
a rat got aboard the plane
there. On the next leg of the flight
Page heard the sickening sound of
gnawing. Suspecting it was a rodent
his heart began to pound as he visualized
the serious damage that could be done to the fragile mechanisms that controlled
his plane and the difficulty of repairs because of the lack of skilled labor and
materials in the area.
What
could he do? He remembered hearing that a rat cannot survive at high altitudes
so he pulled back on the stick. The airplane climbed higher and higher until
Page found it difficult to breathe. He listened intently and finally sighed
with relief. The gnawing had stopped. When he arrived at his destination
he
found the rat lying dead behind the cockpit!
Oftentimes
we
God’s children
are plagued by sin that gnaws at our life simply because we
are living at too low a spiritual level. To see sin defeated in our lives
requires that we move up—away from the world—to a higher level where the things
of this world cannot survive. ──
Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
While my wife and I were shopping at a
mall kiosk
a shapely young woman in a short
form-fitting dress strolled by.
My eyes followed her.
Without looking up from the item she
was examining
my wife asked
"Was it worth the trouble you're in?"
Drew Anderson (Tucson
AZ)
Reader's
Digest.
Mr. Spurgeon once made a parable. He
said
"There was once a tyrant who summoned one of his subjects into his
presence
and ordered him to make a chain. The poor blacksmith -- that was his
occupation -- had to go to work and forge the chain. When it was done
he
brought it into the presence of the tyrant
and was ordered to take it away and
make it twice the length. He brought it again to the tyrant
and again he was
ordered to double it. Back he came when he had obeyed the order
and the tyrant
looked at it
and then commanded the servants to bind the man hand and foot
with the chain he had made and cast him into prison.
"That is what the devil does with
men
" Mr. Spurgeon said. "He makes them forge their own chain
and
then binds them hand and foot with it
and casts them into outer
darkness."
My friends
that is just what
drunkards
gamblers
blasphemers -- that is just what every sinner is doing.
But thank God
we can tell them of a deliverer. The Son of God has power to
break every one of their fetters if they will only come to Him.
Moody's Anecdotes
pp. 48-49.
My wife told me one day that she had
just come from a friend's house where one of the children
a little boy
had
been cutting something with a knife
and it had slipped upward and put out his
eye
and his mother was afraid of his losing the other. Of course
after that
my wife was careful that our little boy
two years old
shouldn't get the
scissors
or anything by which he could harm himself. But prohibit a child from
having any particular thing
and he's sure to have it; so one day our little
fellow got hold of the scissors. His sister seeing what he had
and knowing the
law
tried to take the scissors from him
but the more she tried the more he
clung to them. All at once she remembered that he liked oranges
and that there
was one in the next room. Away she went and back she came: "Willie
would
you like an orange?"
The scissors were dropped
and he
clutched the orange. God sometimes takes away the scissors
but He gives us an
orange. Get both your feet into the narrow way; it leads to life and joy; its
ways are ways of pleasantness
and all its paths are peace. It is the way of
victory
of peace; no gloom there; all light.
Moody's Anecdotes
p. 30.
I've learned that if you give a pig
and a boy everything they want
you'll get a good pig and a bad boy.
Jackson Brown
Jr.
Live and Learn
and Pass it On.
Thomas Costain's history
The Three
Edwards
described the life of Raynald Ill
a fourteenth-century duke in
what is now Belgium. Grossly overweight
Raynald was commonly called by his
Latin nickname
Crassus
which means "fat."
After a violent quarrel
Raynald's
younger brother Edward led a successful revolt against him. Edward captured
Raynald but did not kill him. Instead
he built a room around Raynald in the
Nieuwkerk castle and promised him he could regain his title and property as
soon as he was able to leave the room.
This would not have been difficult for
most people since the room had several windows and a door of near-normal size
and none was locked or barred. The problem was Raynald's size. To regain his
freedom
he needed to lose weight. But Edward knew his older brother
and each
day he sent a variety of delicious foods. Instead of dieting his way out of
prison
Raynald grew fatter.
When Duke Edward was accused of
cruelty
he had a ready answer: "My brother is not a prisoner. He may
leave when he so wills." Raynald stayed in that room for ten years and
wasn't released until after Edward died in battle. By then his health was so
ruined he died within a year. . . a prisoner of his own appetite.
Dave Wilkenson.
Lust is not the result of an
overactive sex drive; it is not a biological phenomenon or the by-product of
our glands. If it were
then it could be satisfied with a sexual experience
like a glass of water quenches thirst or a good meal satisfies appetite. But
the more we attempt to appease our lust
the more demanding it becomes. There
is simply not enough erotica in the world to satisfy lust's insatiable
appetite. When we deny our lustful obsessions
we are not repressing a
legitimate drive. We are putting to death an aberration. Lust is to the gift of
sex what cancer is to a normal cell. Therefore
we deny it
not in order to
become sexless saints
but in order to be fully alive to God
which includes
the full and uninhibited expression of our sexual being within the God-given
context of marriage.
Richard Exley
quoted in Homemade
Vol. 13
No. 9
September
1989.
Radio personality Paul Harvey tells
the story of how an Eskimo kills a wolf. The account is grisly
yet it offers
fresh insight into the consuming
self-destructive nature of sin.
"First
the Eskimo coats his
knife blade with animal blood and allows it to freeze. Then he adds another
layer of blood
and another
until the blade is completely concealed by frozen
blood.
"Next
the hunter fixes his knife
in the ground with the blade up. When a wolf follows his sensitive nose to the
source of the scent and discovers the bait
he licks it
tasting the fresh
frozen blood. He begins to lick faster
more and more vigorously
lapping the
blade until the keen edge is bare. Feverishly now
harder and harder the wolf
licks the blade in the arctic night. So great becomes his craving for blood
that the wolf does not notice the razor-sharp sting of the naked blade on his
own tongue
nor does he recognize the instant at which his insatiable thirst is
being satisfied by his OWN warm blood. His carnivorous appetite just craves
more--until the dawn finds him dead in the snow!"
It is a fearful thing that people can
be "consumed by their own lusts." Only God's grace keeps us from the
wolf's fate.
Chris T. Zwingelberg.
John Mason Brown was a drama critic
and speaker well known for his witty and informative lectures on theatrical
topics. One of his first important appearances as a lecturer was at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brown was pleased
but also rather nervous
and his
nerves were not helped when he noticed by the light of the slide projector that
someone was copying his every gesture. After a time he broke off his lecture
and announced with great dignity that if anyone was not enjoying the talk
he
was free to leave. Nobody did
and the mimicking continued. It was another 10
minutes before Brown realized that the mimic was his own shadow!
Was Brown's shadow real? Of course.
Does a shadow have the power to control a person's actions? Of course not. It
can only mimic us. But in Brown's case
his shadow did take control
momentarily. Why? Because he allowed himself to be so distracted --
"addicted
" if you will - by it that he completely forgot what he was
supposed to be about. That's a pretty good description of the sin nature we
carry within us as redeemed people. It can cause havoc
even though it has been
made powerless by our identification with Christ.
Today in the Word
May 17
1992.
What is meant by "the
flesh"? Dr. W.G. Scroggie detected ten shades of meaning used in the
Bible. In nine of the ten
there is no ethical or theological content. But the
tenth
which is the one Paul mainly employs
does have such significance. The
flesh may be defined as "man's fallen anture as under the power of
sin." It is the evil principle in man's nature
the traitor within who is
in league with the attackers without. The flesh provides the tinder on which
the devil's temptations can kindle.
J.O. Sanders
Enjoying Intimacy
with God
Moody.
"Paul's meaning is not that the
flesh
with its affections and lusts
is no longer present at all with those
that have become Christians
but that a walk in the flesh should not any longer
exist in the case of Christians. A walk in the Spirit might be rightly expected
of believers. This is only possible for those who have crucified the flesh. The
word is not slain
but crucified. It is a task of the Christian to be
accomplished only by continual effort (Colossians 3:5).
"In 'crucified'
however
the
simple slaying is not the main idea
but the condemning
giving sentence
surrendering to infamous death. This has necessarily taken place in becoming
Christ's. Fellowship with Christ involves a crucifixion of the flesh for the
very reason that it is fellowship with Christ's death on the cross.
"Christ indeed has only suffered
what people have deserved on account of their sinful flesh. Whoever
appropriates to himself Christ's death upon the cross regards the flesh to
himself no longer. For him
in Christ's death
the flesh has been
crucified."
Daily Walk
May 7
1992.
What is carnality? According to the
Greek dictionary
it means to have the nature and characteristics of the flesh
(or more simply
it means "fleshly"). What
then
is the flesh?
Sometimes it refers to the whole material part of man (1 Corinthians 15:39;
Hebrews 5:7)
and based on this meaning
carnal sometimes relates to material
things like money (Romans 15:27) or to the opposite of our weapons of spiritual
warfare (2 Corinthians 10:4). But the word flesh also has a metaphorical sense
when it refers to our disposition to sin and to oppose or omit God in our
lives. The flesh is characterized by works that include lusts and passions
(Galatians 5:19-24; I John 2:16); it can enslave (Romans 7:25); and in it is
nothing good (Romans 7:18). Based on this meaning of the word flesh
to be
carnal means to be characterized by things that belong to the unsaved life
(Ephesians 2:3).
Charles Ryrie
So Great Salvation
Victor Books
1989
pp. 59-60.
The flesh is a built-in law of
failure
making it impossible for the natural man to please or serve God. It is
a compulsive inner force inherited from man's fall
which expresses itself in
general and specific rebellion against God and His righteousness. The flesh can
never be reformed or improved. The only hope for escape from the law of the
flesh is its total execution and replacement by a new life in the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Mark Bubeck
The Adversary
Moody Press
p. 28.