That's like Tony's wife, Cheryl, she brings pillow
to Bible studies when I go out there.
She does it to antagonize me.
I said, let me say this before we
start, I was speaking in, when I went
to Australia, Mike came up here and then
I went down there and I was speaking
over in Canberra, the capital, and we rented
a room downtown and advertised the thing and
nobody showed, just like here, you advertise and
kind of get the word out and no
one showed over there except one guy.
He came and he brought his pillow and
he had on a pair of sweats, and
the Buddhist that had that room the night
before, he was a day late, he was
a Buddhist.
But he stayed around to listen, he didn't
get the message, but it's all right, he
heard.
You got it rolling, okay, let's have a
word of prayer and we'll go ahead and
get started.
Our Father, we're thankful that you've allowed us
to assemble.
We're thankful you brought everyone in safely on
the trip in from Drippin Springs, from down
near Houston, gave us a safe trip in
yesterday.
We would ask as we open your word,
you might richly bless, you might give us
open minds, receptive hearts to receive that which
your word has to say, what's in Christ's
name, amen.
In Genesis 19, 17 turn, we'll read a
text and I'll comment on it briefly.
If you've read the verse of Scripture, you
know where I'm going with it.
I'm going to deliver five verses split up
into five parts.
I'm going to deliver five messages, one on
each part, and the messages will be very
similar.
They'll overlap, interlink any number of ways you
want to put it.
I'll be repeating things quite a bit, and
the Scripture is set up that way.
If you start going through Scripture, you'll find
that the Spirit moved men to write a
certain section, and later on moved the same
man or another individual, others, to write about
the same thing, and again the same thing,
but approaching it from different facets, different slants,
and repeating it enough times, He expects you
to get the message, but so many don't.
They wonder why they don't, and well, why
they don't is why they don't read it.
They don't understand how Scripture is put together
and so forth.
I'll be talking about a number of those
things as we work our way through.
Genesis 19, 17, this is right in the
middle of a story, and I'm not going
to comment much on the story right now
of Abraham and Lot.
In the course of the messages, I'll go
back and recap.
In fact, we'll go all the way back
to Genesis 1, but relative to Abraham and
Lot, back to Genesis 13 and recap from
there.
But where we are is right before the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the angels
are telling Lot, well, let's just read verse
17.
And it came to pass when they, that
is the angels, had brought them forth abroad
that he said, Escape for thy life, look
not behind thee, neither stay thou in all
the plain.
Escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
Now note your five parts.
Escape for thy life, or you can say
escape for your soul.
It's the same word in the Hebrew text.
Don't look back.
Don't stay in the plain.
Where are you to go?
What are you to look toward?
Well, it tells you.
Escape to the mountain.
Symbolism used.
A metaphor.
What does a mountain signify?
We'll get to that on down the way.
And if you don't, what's going to happen?
It's very simple.
You'll be consumed.
The whole story of Scripture is set forth
right here.
If you want to deal with the saving
of the soul, here it is.
The whole story of the saving of the
soul.
Which direction are you to go?
How are you to look upon things?
Put the blinders on.
Don't look back.
Look ahead.
What are you to look ahead to?
Any number of things.
What will happen if you don't do this?
Now, the Hebrew word nefesh and the Greek
word psuche, the same word in Hebrew or
Greek, meaning the soul or the natural life.
The word used here, that's why I translated
either life as it's in the text or
soul.
It's the same word in the Greek, for
example, that would be used in Matthew 16.
What shall it profit a man if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his
own soul or his own life?
Same word, Hebrew or Greek, used a number
of times this way throughout the Old Testament,
the New Testament, means the same thing, Hebrew
or Greek.
It has to do with the natural life,
the soul, psuche.
By the way, if you're pronouncing that in
the Greek, you don't want to say psuche.
You want to put a little ps on
the front of it.
Psuche means fig tree.
Psuche, that's soul.
And nefesh, if you're taking notes, I'll spell
that for you.
It almost defies bringing Hebrew over into English
because Hebrew doesn't have vowels.
And vowels are inserted by man.
They call it the Masoretic text where they
insert vowels so we can pronounce it.
An Englishman can somewhat pronounce the Hebrew word
through phonetics.
But some letters in the Hebrew alphabet are
not found in the English, so that's why
I say it's sometimes difficult to transliterate in
the sense of spelling a Hebrew word in
English.
But if you're taking notes, the best you
can do here is n-e-p-h
-e-s-h, nefesh, soul.
And the Greek word is psuche, p-s
-u-c-h-e.
Greek lends itself quite a bit more to
this type thing rather than Hebrew, though we
try in Hebrew.
Let's put it that way.
Now, it has to do with the natural
life, as I stated.
Man in the beginning was created from...
What did God create man from?
From the dust of the earth?
Or did he perhaps take a lump of
clay or a lump of earth and create
man?
Well, almost all translations have dust.
Man created from the dust of the ground.
The Hebrew word can really be understood either
way.
And your better Hebrew linguists, in the light
of what God did, they seem to want
to prefer to think of it as God
took a lump of earth, say a moist
lump.
Now, if that's exactly what he did, I
don't know.
You could think of it either way and
stay within the framework of the meaning of
the Hebrew word.
But that's immaterial.
Man at this point, after God created, formed
man, he possessed only a body.
In other words, let's say you have a
man who dies today.
He's in the casket.
You're looking upon him.
You're looking upon only a body.
There's no soul.
There's no spirit.
When God created man, that's a state in
which man existed in a body only.
It was a lifeless body.
As, say, a man in a casket, you
could compare the two to understand how man
was following God's creation of man before, in
Genesis 2-7, before God breathed into man
the breath of life.
Now, at this point, man became a living
soul.
He had life.
Now, what would separate man from the animal
kingdom?
Animals have bodies.
Animals have souls.
Animals have natural life.
When God breathed into man the breath of
life, now, bear in mind, it's the Spirit
of God breathing into man.
God is using His Spirit.
The word Spirit can be understood as it
can be translated Spirit.
It can be translated breath.
As soul can be translated life or soul.
That is the word nefesh.
I shouldn't have said soul.
The word nefesh or the word psuche.
They're really the same.
God breathed.
How did the Spirit do this?
It's really the Spirit Himself.
It's imparting life to the man.
The Hebrew word is nefesh in Genesis 2
-7.
God, through His Spirit, breathed into man the
breath of life, and man became a living
soul.
The breath of God produced life.
Man was now no longer a breathless body.
He now possessed natural life, but notice something.
Man created in the image and likeness of
God possessed far more than natural life.
Man now possessed, note it's the Spirit breathing
life in.
And man now possessed not only natural, but
spiritual life through the Spirit breathing in.
Now let me illustrate that by calling attention
to this point.
Animals have natural life, but there is no
record in Scripture of God breathing into animals
this life.
Now this life has to come from God.
That's understood because there is no life apart
from God and His breath.
But again, it's only man in which God
breathed into lifeless man the breath of life.
Man became a living soul, but it would
have to be that at this point in
time, man became a triune being.
You can't really look at it any other
way.
And animals, not having been given life in
this same respect, but still possessing natural life,
would be body, soul.
But man with this natural life would possess
something above that which the animal kingdom would
possess, and that is spiritual life.
You have Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Man created in the image and likeness of
God must also be a trinity.
Body, soul, and he must have spiritual life.
If he didn't have spiritual life, he would
have no connection with God because God is
what?
God is spirit.
This is something we were talking about earlier
within, say, another frame of reference.
Now when you move out of the, just
very briefly, let me touch on one thing
to show another form of life by way
of comparison.
We have plants.
Plants do not have natural life.
The life is in the blood.
Man and animals have blood.
Now Leviticus 17, 11, the life is in
the blood, or the soul is in the
blood.
It's the Hebrew word for a soul or
a life, the word nefesh that we're looking
at in this respect.
Giving man the breath of God, giving man
natural life, but at the same time imparting
to man spiritual life.
Now plants, of course, a different type of
life.
They have to have oxygen to exist, so
I'm just going to point that out by
way of passing.
We're not talking about natural life in the
same respect with reference to animals.
So the major difference between man and the
animal kingdom is God's breath in relation to
man.
God breathing into man, really no record of
God breathing into animals in the same respect.
Both have natural life, but only man spiritual
life.
Now here's where the great divide comes between,
say, what the big debate is out there
today.
I noticed we stopped in Del Rio coming
up to have breakfast.
That was yesterday morning.
I picked up the San Antonio paper.
I noticed they found the missing link.
Well, there's no missing link out there to
find.
So I don't know what they found, and
I don't really care what they found.
It's not something that interests me, but apparently
now that they found this, there'll be a
great deal of debate among the creation scientists
might get into it.
I have no idea what they'll do.
They seek to want to defend the Bible.
They want to defend that which needs no
defense.
Well, I perhaps shouldn't say anything about that
group.
I'll let it go.
Let's not get into something that I don't
like to knock other people.
There's some things about them I appreciate.
There's some things about the way they do
things I don't, but be that as it
may.
Now, soul and spirit, they're often thought of
as synonymous.
There's no way they can be synonymous.
Man is a trinity, not a di.
He's a trichotomic being, not a dichotomic being.
Animals are di.
Man is tri.
Again, the distinguishing difference.
Now, the great divide, back to that, the,
what do we have out there?
Designed by, I'm not sure how they're wording
it, intelligent design.
That's what I'm trying to think of.
There's a great debate about intelligent design.
That's kind of a middle-of-the-road
way of approaching the matter that's not offensive
to the evolutionists, and they don't want it
offensive to the creationists, and they're trying to
get out here in the middle somewhere.
Well, we're going to find out in the
course of these studies there's really no middle
of the road.
It's either for or against.
It's either in the plain or in the
mountain.
We'll get to that later.
But, again, the great divide.
How can, now here's a question.
I've somewhat stated all the preceding to get
to this point.
How can man, who is a trinity, evolve
out of the animal kingdom, which is not
a trinity?
Where did man derive his spirit?
Animals do not have spirit.
They have natural, they have bodies, and they
have souls, a soul in the blood.
They have blood.
They have natural life.
Man, body, soul, natural life, but man has
something beyond the animal kingdom.
So here's your great divide, but we don't
need this.
I mean, why bother with it?
I'm just calling attention to it by way
of passing.
We have scripture which tells us that God
created man after his image, after his likeness,
and we have before that the purpose of
why God created man.
Let them have dominion.
There's a reason man was brought into existence.
When you talk about man's fall, man's restoration,
you're talking about him being restored for the
same reason that he was created, to have
dominion.
The whole of scripture is a book about
regality.
Relative to God, the universe, this earth, the
ruler over this earth, man brought into existence
relative to regality and later, the universe.
And for some reason, people miss it.
I guess they miss it because they don't
read it with an open mind.
I don't know, but some of them seem
to want to miss it along these lines.
But I just stated all of that to
give you somewhat of an idea of where
soul and spirit fit into this.
Before I leave this line of thought, let
me call your attention to something about all
of what I've been speaking about.
Now, natural life.
What is wrong with the natural life?
Scripture makes quite a division between natural and
spiritual.
For example, 1 Corinthians 2.14. The natural,
the soulical man.
It's a word for soul there.
The soulical man does not receive the things
of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him.
He can't know them.
They're spiritually discerned.
Why can't the soulical man receive the things
of the Spirit of God?
What is there about the soulical man?
Now, back that up behind the time man
fell.
God created man, a trinity, body, soul, and
spirit to exist in that condition forever.
And there is nothing or there was nothing
wrong with man in this soulical condition with
a spirit that was in tune with God,
so to speak.
There was nothing wrong with soul prior to
the fall.
So what happened?
Well, what happened to man relative to his
body?
The soul is sometimes connected with flesh.
Let's put it that way.
What is the matter with flesh?
You see flesh here.
It's a little bit thin.
I've lost some weight and so forth, but
it's still flesh.
I see some arms here.
They're not covered.
But I do see one thing that's universal
in this room, and that is everyone has
a covering of some type on.
Now, why do we have this covering on?
Well, something has happened back down the way
which would tell you what's wrong with flesh
and why connected with the natural man, what
the problem is, and the problem that didn't
exist before the fall, and the problem that
will not exist after things have been restored
back as they were before the fall.
This is a direction all things are moving
back toward the restoration.
At the time of the fall, Adam and
Eve lost something.
There are two words used for naked in
Genesis 2 and 3.
The word that's used, that is in the
Hebrew text, the word that's used in chapter
2 has to do with not necessarily complete
nakedness.
It has to do with having, you could
say, an inner garment but not an outer
garment.
The man is not fully clothed, but he's
not completely naked either.
In our modern way of thinking, we might
say the man has on the inner wear,
the underwear, but not the outer wear.
Now, man lost this inner covering, this covering
that he had at the time of the
fall.
In Genesis 3, attention called to man's nakedness
again, a different Hebrew word is used, and
it has to do with total nakedness.
No covering at all, inner or outer.
Now, man before the fall had an inner
covering, and he created to rule and reign,
awaiting outer garments which had to do with
regal garments.
What happened before the fall, man ensuathed in
glory, awaiting regal garments, the outer garment, for
the purpose for which he was created, that
is, to realize the purpose for which he
was created.
But man, being caused to fall, lost the
covering of glory.
Now he was in no position to wear
the outer garment, and this is the great
secret about, in fact, it'll answer the question
in Genesis 3, as to why man tried
to replace the covering with fig leaves, or
man tried to clothe himself with fig leaves.
He was trying to replace something that he
had lost, which God rejected.
God provided a covering, a slaying of animals,
a covering of skins, but it was not
the covering of glory.
Here's your beginning restoration, to bring man back
into the position which he occupied before the
fall, in order that he might wear regal
garments.
Now, I've said all that to say this.
The natural, it's totally different before the fall
than today, and it will be totally different
again once God has brought man as he
is today, back into a restored position.
Body, soul, and spirit can exist together at
that time.
But today, it's as in Genesis 16, I
believe.
Now this is one thing that fascinated Wilson
years ago, and he called it to my
attention.
And it's found in Andrew Juke's book on
types in Genesis, dealing with Hagar.
And she's found with Ishmael out near, I
believe it's near a spring.
And she is told to return to her
mistress and submit herself to Sarah.
Now here's the picture today.
The natural is to be submissive to the
spiritual.
Flesh is to be submissive to spirit.
The spirit is to be the controlling factor,
not the flesh.
And like I say, Wilson got hold of
this ideology, and he called it to my
attention one day.
That was when Andrew Juke's book was not
available at all.
He had an old copy from maybe 1900.
I picked it up out of his library.
I pulled it out of one of his
shelves.
I had never seen a copy of it.
And he watched me.
He kept his eye on me until I
put that book back in, because he couldn't
replace it.
And he didn't want to let the book
get out of his sight.
But the book has since been reprinted, and
it's probably readily available today.
I recommend it to people that want a
book on Genesis dealing with types.
It's a little bit different than A.W.
Pink's book.
It doesn't deal with types in the sense
of premillennial, dispensational.
It deals with Genesis from a totally different
slant.
But bear something in mind.
All Scripture has one primary interpretation.
And invariably, secondary applications.
It seems that Juke kind of intermixes the
two.
And he stays away from premillennial and dispensational
interpretation, but he still has a gold mine
dealing with some, say, secondary applications and many
primary among the secondary.
So let's leave it at that.
I just wanted to call your attention to
the natural, spiritual, along the lines of the
way it was at one time, the way
it is today, the way it will be
at one point out ahead.
You're in Genesis 19.
I haven't had you turn anywhere yet.
Let's make a turn right now.
Turn to 1 Corinthians 11.
There's a verse of Scripture that I somewhat
didn't know what to do with until I
just let it say what it says, and
then I realized what to do with it.
And that's an interesting concept if you'll just
take Scripture what it says and understand it
in the light of other Scripture.
You usually won't have near the problem with
it that you will have if you don't
do, don't understand or look at Scripture in
that respect.
It's in 1 Corinthians 11.32. Well, let's
read verse 31 to give us a little
context.
For if we would judge ourselves, we should
not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are chastened
of the Lord, that we should not be
condemned with the world.
Now, what troubled me about that was that
I knew the world was on the way
out.
There's only one direction the world is going,
and that is it's going down.
The world is going to be destroyed.
The world is going to perish to make
for the coming world.
And I guess that would be taken out
of Herbert Armstrong's The World Tomorrow, but be
that as it may, that's a program back
in the 60s, 70s.
Actually, Herbert Armstrong had some good things to
say here and there.
He called his program The World Tomorrow.
We're not talking about any of his ideology,
but there's a world coming out ahead, the
messianic era, the age out ahead.
But to be condemned with the world, I
guess what troubled me was that I knew
the world was going to be destroyed.
The world is associated with the unsaved.
How can saved man be so condemned or
so destroyed?
Well, we find the answer to that within
the framework of what we're studying, and that
is Abraham and Lot, which we'll get into.
I'm not necessarily going to answer that in
so many words right now, but you'll see
all different facets of this during the study
through the course of the five messages on
Genesis 19, 17.
Now, here's one thing that is certain.
The present world is going to be destroyed,
as surely as the cities of the plain
in Genesis 19 were destroyed, pointing to the
cities of the plain portray or typify this
present world system.
The world is on a collision course.
It cannot be avoided.
It cannot be averted.
You can go out and try to patch
up the world.
You can do what you want with it.
It's not going to change the course of
predetermined history out ahead.
That which God has stated will happen.
Now, calling attention to something that Wilson would
say every once in a while, let me
go back to use one of his illustrations.
He would say something like this, that if
the present movement among many Christians in the
world trying to patch up this world were
used by the Israelites under Moses, he said
what they would have done after they had
crossed through the Red Sea, headed for Sinai,
he said they would have stopped and began
to plant gardens, landscape the desert, plant flowers,
so forth, and settle down at that point.
And that's what so many have.
He used Hannah's prophetic prayer, talking about a
dunghill.
He talked about if they had done then
what Christians are doing today, they would decorate,
perfume the dunghill, seeking to make something of
that which was going to be destroyed.
No, the Israelites were called out of Egypt
to inherit a land out ahead of them.
God would establish a theocracy within that land.
The nations would be ruled by, blessed through
Israel.
And Christians have a calling, a heavenly calling
along the same lines.
They're not to settle down in this world.
Pass through the Red Sea.
They're to move on toward their calling.
So don't get all caught up in this
present world.
It's on the way out.
Now, a predetermined destiny.
In 1 John 2, for example, love not
the world, and neither the things that are
in the world.
If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him.
All that's in the world, it goes on
to talk about, is to pass away.
2 Peter 3, you find the same thing.
The world is going.
I'll tell you, turn to 2 Peter 3,
because I want to show you something out
of that section.
Let's just read a few verses.
There's an interesting verse toward the end of
2 Peter that I want to call to
your attention.
2 Peter 3, pick up in verse 10.
Let's read a few verses.
But the day of the Lord will come
as a thief in the night, in the
which the heavens shall pass away with a
great noise.
The elements shall melt with fervent heat.
The earth also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up.
Now, the day of the Lord begins at
the beginning of the millennium.
It has to do with the 1,000
-year millennial reign of Christ.
The day of God begins following that.
It's talking about a destruction at the end
of the millennium.
Verse 11, seeing that all these things shall
be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye
to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
looking for and hastening unto the coming of
the day of God, wherein, now that's a
little bit bad on the translation.
I know some of you have a New
American Standard.
I'm not sure how it reads.
But it's not in the day of God
that the destruction will occur.
It's at the end of the day of
the Lord, within the day of the Lord.
It really should read, because of which, that
is the destruction, rather than wherein, the coming
of the day of God because of which.
And we've already previously read that it will
occur within the day of the Lord.
The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved.
The elements shall melt with fervent heat.
Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for
new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,
which will come into existence following the Messianic
era, following the day of the Lord.
This moves into the day of God.
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such
things, be diligent that you may be found
in him in peace without spot and blameless,
and account, now here's the verse I wanted
to get to.
I've read all that to get to verse
15.
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord
is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul,
also according to the wisdom given unto him,
hath written unto you, as also in some
of his epistles.
Did any of you get what I misread?
In a few of his epistles.
Not really.
I checked the Greek text to make sure
that it was all, and it is all.
As also in all of his epistles.
That begins with Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, right on
up.
Some want to include Hebrews.
There's internal evidence that Paul didn't write Hebrews.
Paul wrote part of the New Testament in
all his epistles.
All the epistles he wrote for a long
time.
I believe that Romans was the one epistle
which Paul didn't write to deal with these
things.
That is, to deal with what we're studying
about the saving of the soul.
For a long time, I felt that Romans
was the one epistle written to tell us
how to be saved.
That is, salvation by grace through faith.
Well, Romans is written to tell us how
to be saved, but the salvation has to
do with something beyond salvation by grace through
faith.
It has to do with the salvation in
verse 15.
That the long-suffering of our Lord is
salvation.
It has to do with the saving of
the soul.
I like something Ruel Vellema in the Netherlands
had to say about Romans.
He said, the more I read Romans, the
more I'm convinced that Romans has to do
with the deepest teaching on the salvation of
the soul in the New Testament.
And that may very well be true for
the simple reason that so many Christians have
no concept of what Romans is all about,
and they try to read salvation by grace
and either saved or lost into all parts
of the book of Romans.
And they become all confused.
And I believe it's when I first turned
out the book on the salvation of the
soul in the early 80s, I made this
distinction between Romans and Hebrews.
I made another distinction between James and some
of Paul's epistles.
That distinction doesn't exist.
That is, say James has to do with
the saving of the soul and Romans would
have to do, it was Romans and James
and Romans and Hebrews.
Now that I recall, those were the books
I was using to point out a distinction
that does not exist.
And that is, I was trying to say
that Romans had to do with the salvation
of the spirit, the salvation we presently possess,
and Hebrews and James had to do with
the saving of the soul.
Now that is not correct.
I had to change that in the revised
edition of the salvation of the soul.
All of them have to do with different
facets of the same thing, the saving of
the soul.
Now an interesting thing about the wrong concept
I had in that book, and the reason
I left it alone for so long knowing
that it was wrong, a number of people
wrote and told me that they were able
to grasp what I was talking about through
this distinction.
In other words, they were able to grasp
a correct concept through a wrong concept.
That's not a good idea to do that.
I eventually wised up and changed it, and
I want them now to grasp a correct
concept through, that is, a correct teaching through
a correct concept or a correct teaching through
a correct teaching, not having it incorrect on
one end or the other.
But I've read that out of 2 Peter
to show what it has to say about
Paul's epistles.
Now getting back to escape what?
See, Lot and his family were told to
escape for their souls, escape for their lives,
get out of the plain.
The very fact that it has been revealed
in the Word, that is the very fact
that you have these types set forth, let's
put it that way, guarantees that it will
occur in the antitype, and we have type
after type after type.
I'll go back and show you some types
in Genesis 1-11 relative to this matter
in the course of these studies.
Now a person can either experience destruction with
this world, as the verse in 1 Corinthians
11 has to say, or he can experience
salvation.
Now the destruction doesn't have to do with
eternal destruction as a salvation.
It doesn't have to do with eternal salvation.
We're not talking about eternal verities.
I went out on the internet the other
day to see how some people were handling
my book, Salvation of the Soul.
There's a website somewhere out there, there's probably
more than one, where the person has excerpts
up from my book, The Saving of the
Soul, and has people writing in to comment
on these excerpts.
Well, that's not a good idea to put
something up outside of context, especially what people
that are writing in have no concept about.
But it's interesting to read some of the
comments because those commenting are looking upon Scripture
only in one respect, saved or unsaved, heaven
or hell.
And they comment, the guy seems to be
saying that we can be half saved and
still go to heaven.
Things along that line, you know.
Well, I'm not saying that.
But their limited concept of what is being
said, that's what they're deriving from it.
Now, Scripture only reveals two positions, just like
saved or lost.
There's no position between saved and lost.
Turn to Matthew 12.30. Take a look
at how the Lord words this.
Matthew 12.30, He that is not with
me is against me.
He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
A very similar verse in Luke 11.23,
if you're taking notes.
Now, it's either one or the other.
There is no middle ground between the two.
It's either salvation, as in 1 Thessalonians 5
.9, God has not appointed us to wrath,
but to obtain salvation.
Well, so many want to interpret that as
wrath has to do with the tribulation, and
He's appointed us to escape the tribulation through
rapture.
It has nothing to do with that.
The context is not dealing with that.
The context is dealing with a subject that
we're talking about.
It's dealing with a subject out of Genesis
18 and 19.
It's dealing with a subject out of 1
Corinthians 11 that we read.
Destruction with this present world.
The world is going down.
You can either experience wrath, or you can
experience salvation.
It's talking to saved people, not unsaved people.
It's either life or death.
In Romans 8.13, if you live after
the flesh, you will die.
But if you through the Spirit do put
to death the deeds of the flesh, you
will live.
See, there's no middle ground.
It's one or the other.
In Matthew 16, whosoever will save his life
shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his
life for my sake will find it.
Saving of the life has to do with
living for self, living out in the world,
and you'll be destroyed with the world.
You will lose your life.
But if you live for the Lord, if
you follow what is stated in Genesis 19
.17, look out ahead to the mountain, run
for your life, run for your soul.
That is, run the race of the faith
in a proper manner.
That's what this whole study is about.
Running the race of the faith.
Looking out ahead.
Not looking back.
Not staying in the plain.
Escape to the mountain.
If you run the race in the proper
manner set forth, you will lose your life
now, except a corn of wheat fall into
the ground and die.
It abides alone.
But if it dies, it will bring forth
much fruit.
You must lose your life now to gain
your life out ahead.
There's no middle ground.
Again, it's one or the other.
You're either living for self or you're living
for the Lord.
You can't straddle the fence.
There's no place between the two.
Now back to Genesis 19.
Let me talk about that a little bit,
and we'll go ahead and somewhat bring this
to a close and pick it up in
our next study.
This is the subject at hand.
Run for your life.
Run for your soul.
Now, you don't get out and take off
running and run at top speed.
If you do, you're not going to get
very far out in the distance.
But you can set a pace that you
can follow.
Set your pace.
Keep your eye on the goal.
Don't exhaust yourself.
That is, don't burn out.
But set your pace in accord after a
fashion that you can finish the race.
And let me put it this way.
A newborn Christian can't run very fast.
He can't run very far.
He needs indoctrination in the Word.
But the more you study this Word, the
more you get this Word ingrained, the more
you're going to understand how to properly pace
yourself, how to ignore what others have to
say.
Listen to the Lord.
Don't listen to these other people.
Most of them don't know what they're talking
about.
It's the Lord's Word.
Follow what He has to say.
Run the race in the direction that He
has or after the fashion that He has
stated.
And you'll end up at the proper goal.
Now, the inverse of that which occurs today
will be the reality or will occur out
ahead.
That is, again, back to Matthew 16.
If you save your life now, you're going
to lose it out ahead.
If you lose your life now, you're going
to save it out ahead.
I recall years ago, someone out of an
evangelistic organization.
I won't name the organization, but if I
did name it, you would recognize it immediately.
But one of their lead men, he had
a position in the organization and also influential
out in the world, seeking to reach those
out in the world.
He made this statement, and I've always somewhat
kept it in the back of my mind.
I knew it was wrong at the time,
and it's evident why it's wrong.
This man said, I have the best of
both worlds.
You can't have the best of both worlds.
You can't have the best of this world
and the coming world.
That's what he was talking about.
You're going to have to die to self
now if you want to live in the
coming world.
If you want the best of this world,
you're going to forfeit the coming world.
And I'll close with a statement along this
line.
It is either the present world or the
coming world.
It is either destruction with Lot and the
cities of the plain, or it is deliverance
with Abraham out on the mountain.
And we'll pick up at this point in
the next study in a little while.
Our Father, we're thankful that You've allowed us
to look into Your Word, to contemplate these
things, think on these things.
I would ask that You might illumine our
minds, take Your Word and plant it within
us as we study and graft it within
us.
Might we understand it, live in accord with
that which Your Word has to say.
For it's in Christ's name, amen.