Most of you, again, I think there's
a couple of you that I didn't see when I was here before, but
it's been quite a while, so good to be able to be with you again.
I'm thankful always for the opportunity to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ
and to speak to his people. The Lord teaches us things that
this world does not know. And we live in a universe that not very many people understand
or have ever experienced. Salvation by grace alone is a
great privilege. Salvation into union with Christ
is a wonderful privilege. And even though we don't know
much about what we talk about, we try to learn, we study the
scriptures, we seek the face of God, and yet at the same time,
The more I read in the scriptures and the more I study to present
a message in occasions like this, the more I understand that the
infiniteness of Christ is such that I don't think an eternity
of time will be near long enough for us to know Him. We're just
going to rehearse and repeat a few things that I'm sure all
of us have read or studied or heard before. And that's what
we do. That's what believers do. We
just teach and preach Christ every time we get together and
we like it that way. We enjoy it that way. Because we're really
not interested, as most religionists are, we're really not here interested
in trying to attain knowledge or trying to amass a catalog
of religious ideas and doctrines and thoughts. We're not really
interested in that. All we want the doctrine for is because the
doctrine is the picture of Christ. All we want the scriptures for
is because the scriptures are the ones who point us to Christ.
So we're looking for Christ this morning. And I'm asking this
question in this morning's study. I'm asking, am I a too-natured
man or a double-minded man. The scriptures speak of both.
Before we start, let's ask the Lord to bless our thoughts together
this morning. Sovereign Father, we pray that
you would hear us today for Christ's sake. And we ask that you would
bless us together today and that we may be, through the Holy Spirit's
wonderful work, be made to sit together in heavenly places in
the spiritual realms with Christ Jesus where we're loaded down
with this flesh and we cannot get rid of it. And yet Lord,
we know that on another plane, we all sit here in separate places
in this building and yet we're one with one another and we're
one with Christ through the salvation that he has given us through
your spirit. Bless us today, Lord. What I
forget to say or what I say poorly, I pray that you will teach and
help give the sense and that you will cause us that we may
understand What a wonderful thing you've done for us in salvation. For it's in Christ's name we
pray. Amen. Now there have always been only
two kinds of people who make up the assemblies of God's church
on this earth. There are those who have two
natures. and then there are those who
are double-minded. Those are scriptural designations. Outwardly, it seems very difficult
to tell the difference sometimes, doesn't it? You can't tell a
believer by looking. You can look back all through
the scriptures back into the Old Testament and you can't tell
by looking. The two-natured person is one who has a new nature,
the Bible says, created after God in righteousness and true
holiness through union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, this
person still possesses the same old selfish, depraved nature, hating God, craving sin, the
same one we were born with which we inherited from Adam. This
two-natured person is as capable of sitting together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus as he or she is capable of engaging
in the same shameless depths of sin that King David descended
into. We know both ends of that spectrum.
We sure do. But as schizophrenic as that
may sound, a two-natured person Every saint of God knows what
I'm talking about. The situation is nonetheless
far worse for the double-minded person. Unlike the two-natured
person, this double-minded man or woman has but a single nature. One that can do nothing but sin.
A simple, depraved creature that craves nothing but sin. having
nothing else in their being to direct them otherwise except
perhaps the anxiety of public embarrassment or if they're religious
maybe a proud desire to appear to others as something they are
not. That's pretty much what most
folks refer to as morality. But in the double-minded man
there is no other voice to call them away from that consistent
voice pointing only to evil, or to contest the perpetual tide
of their sinful cravings, all they have is a single, fallen,
depraved nature which can do nothing but sin. I know what
that is. I think I'm probably addressing
some people who know what that is. Lived in these bodies a long
time, haven't we? And we know there's nothing in
them but sin. But before we talk about that, let's first briefly
review what the Bible teaches about this two-natured man. That's the one I'm interested
in. This person with two natures. This person is everything he
was born as, and at the same time, he or she is everything
that he was born again to be. He's made up of two diametrically
opposed natures that couldn't possibly be any more unlike.
One that craves only sin and cares nothing, nothing at all
for righteousness. And another that hungers and
thirsts after righteousness and would if it were possible never
sin again. If I took a show of hands on
that I think I'd see some. How often These beloved souls
cry out to God like Rebecca did when Jacob and Esau wrestled
within her womb when she said, if it be so, why am I thus? And I asked myself that question,
Mark, if God has saved you by his grace and revealed Christ
within you, why am I this way? Why am I this way? That is, if
you have graciously given me life in union with Christ, why
does this war continue to rage within me? And as God told Rebecca,
two manner of people shall be separated from your insides.
And the elder, that old man of the flesh, shall serve the younger,
that newly created man of the spirit. And so it is with us. We are promised that the old
man of sin will not dominate, will not win over, will not have
the upper hand over the new man. created in righteousness and
true holiness. Listen to me as I read from Galatians
chapter 5. Paul writes to them and says,
for you were called upon the ground of freedom, only not the
freedom giving advantage to the flesh, not freedom to do whatever
I want to as a natural man. Now I say, walk in the Spirit. and the lust of the flesh you
will by no means fulfill. For the flesh lusts against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For these oppose each
other, so that you don't do whatever things it is that you desire."
Now here's the life of the two-natured man. I hope I'm looking at a
few this morning. Here's the life of the two-natured
man or woman. He never just outright embraces
sin. He's not able to just give himself
over to it, but neither is he ever free from its presence within. And so it will continue all the
days of our earthly existence. That's the life we live. Now,
what's the essence of these two natures? The Bible uses this
terminology to describe a saint of God, one who is simultaneously
a new man, a new man and at the same time an old man, the same
old man that I've always been. Now the old man is to be continuously
put off. The scriptures use a verb form
that always talks about putting off, putting off the old man. And the new man is to be continuously
put on. Putting on all day long, every
day. Lord make me a new man. Don't
let me be my old man. Make me the man that you've recreated
me to be. The action of both of these verbs
is such that the believers are constantly doing both. Putting
on and putting off. Those are the things that we
do as a believer. He never just embraces sin. He's
not able to just give himself over to it, but he's not free
from his presence either. Now, we're thankful this morning
that we are new creations, made so made so from nothing within
ourselves, made so through spiritual union with the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know, you can preach to people, you can teach people for years
on end. the gospel just as clearly as
it could ever be uttered. You can preach the solid truth
of salvation by grace alone in the Lord Jesus Christ and apart
from the Holy Spirit creating in that soul, in that person,
a new man, a new soul, another nature. You will have done nothing but
have educated them in some gospel truth. They might come out to
be folks who can remember the doctrines. They might be folks
who can talk about the doctrines. But all they have is one nature.
Thank God we are new creations. Made so through spiritual union
with Christ. And the result is a new creation
which can no sooner sin than the Lord Jesus Christ can. That
which God does is right. Everything he does is good, there
is no sin in it. I'm looking at a house full of
sinners this morning. But I hope I'm looking at a bunch
of sinners who have a nature that abhors sin just as much
as God Almighty. They have a nature that refuses
and rejects sin and hates sin just as much as the Lord Jesus
Christ. But don't be deceived on this point. Even though we
are new creations in Christ Jesus, we are simultaneously the same
old fallen man that can do nothing but sin. Listen to me, you might
want to read along with me in this, in Romans chapter 7. I
want to read a few verses there, Paul's summation of the life
of a two-natured man, Romans 7 verse 21. Paul writes, verse 21, I find
then the law, that is that invariable divine rule governing our existence
as believers, that desiring, longing, craving to do good,
evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God
in the inner man, in my new nature, but I see a different law in
my members, in my old nature, warring against the law of my
new mind and taking me captive by the law of sin which is in
my members. What a wretched man I am. I can't do what I want to do.
and I can't keep myself from doing what I don't want to do,
and he asked this question, who will rescue me from this dead
body, this body of death, this depraved nature within me? I get tickled sometimes listening
to features on TV and the radio that I might catch from time
to time where they talk about living the victorious Christian
life. That didn't quite sound like
it did. That didn't quite sound like it to me. I listen with
absolute unbelief and absolute just amazement that people talk
about how they got saved. I guess when they got the flu
they must have got saved. Sounds like something you catch,
doesn't it? They got saved and now everything's just fine. They
don't wrestle with anything. They don't deal with anything.
The world's just great. They're just great. They're always
doing good and thinking good thoughts and never say what they
should not have said. And they're always doing what
they're supposed to do. And I'm thinking, I don't know anything about that
life. I know absolutely nothing about that existence. Paul says,
who will rescue me? I'm glad to be associated in
that category with him. Who will rescue me from this
man that I am? Who will save me from this despicable
creature that I am? Thoughts I don't want to think,
say things I don't want to say. I go places I don't want to go
and do things I don't want to do. who will rescue me from this
dead body, this depraved nature within me. Thanks to God, through
Jesus Christ our Lord. This is not something you can
do by walking an aisle. This is not something you can
do by studying the Bible. This is not something you can
do by getting a degree down at the theological seminary. This
is not something you and I can do. This is something that's
got to be done to us and in us by a much higher power than you
and I. So then Paul says, I myself with the mind, in my new mind,
the mind I share with Christ, the mind of Christ, I serve the
law of God. And I do. I do. I love His word. I love His law. I love the truth
of the gospel. I'd stay there all the time if
I could. But just like Paul, he says on the other hand, with
the flesh, with my human nature that I inherited from Adam. I served the law of sin. It does
nothing but. It does nothing but. And you
know to pretend, as most religionists do, to pretend that somehow,
what's that little thing they say, in every way, every day
and in every way I'm getting better and better? Really? I don't know what that feels
like. I don't have a clue about what that feels like. It seems
like every day in every way I'm getting worse and worse. No. On the other hand we, by the
grace of God, with the flesh we serve the law of sin. Now
all believers, all true believers are two-natured people. That
means we have an old man which will not and cannot be improved. Let me read you a few verses
that Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans chapter 7. He says, I find then this rule of life,
he's not talking about the Old Testament law, he's talking about
a fact of life. I find then the law that when
I will do good, whenever I want to do the right thing, When I
will do good, I find that evil is present with me. Never done
a pure thing in my life. Not before the Lord saved me,
nor after. Never had a pure thought in my
entire 60 years. I've never had a pure thought.
Don't know what that's like. I've never had it. He says, here's
where I live, for I delight in the law of God according to the
inner man. But I see a different law in my members, in my natural
man, my body. Warring against the law of my
mind and taking me captive by the law of sin which is in my
members. I am a wretched man, he says. I won't take a show of hands
but if I took a show of hands I'm thinking I'd see several
wretched men and women in this building. Don't you just hate
yourself? Don't you just wish you could
be rid of you and have nothing more to do with the person that
was born in that body? Well, we find ourselves just
the same place where Paul found himself and he cries out to God
and he says, who will deliver me from this dead body? Thanks to God. through Jesus
Christ our Lord he is able to deliver us so then I myself on
the one hand serve the law of God that is in my new man and
on the other with the flesh the law of sin we have an old man
which cannot be improved and we also thank God have a
new man which cannot be diminished. Apart from that grace of receiving
and being made a new man in Christ Jesus, we'd be no more than religionists. We would just have some high
ideals and we would try to develop some better practices and better
lifestyles and it's worthless. It's worthless. There's as much
sin in your good works as there is in your bad works. That's
just the truth. There's as much sin in your good
thoughts as there are in your bad thoughts. You just aren't
aware of them, I'm sure. But there it is right there.
But thank God we have a new man. This is something that we didn't
do for ourselves. This is something we didn't come up with. We didn't
develop this through study or prayer or through penance or
acts of our own. This is not something that we
did. It's not something we could ever do. Paul writes to the Ephesians
and he says, be putting off, it's a continuous action verb,
he says this is the way we live, we're just continually pushing
back, we're continually putting off as regards your former conduct. Be continually putting off that
old man. No, no Mark. Shut up Mark. Don't listen to yourself Mark.
No, we're continually putting off the old man. And that old
man is being corrupted. Always being corrupted according
to its deceitful lusts. Oh, but look what he says. And
be being renewed. It's a continuous action verb.
I like this passage, these passages that talk about this because
it shows that this is not something you did back in 1952. This is
not even something you did yesterday. This is something that I'm doing
now. I was doing it when I got up this morning and I'll be doing
it when I leave here today. Be continually, be being renewed. That's a tense that says this
is not something I do, but this is something that he does to
me. May the Lord be continually renewing
my mind. continually renewing my will,
continually renewing everything about me and making it such that
it conforms to the image of Christ. I don't know how to do that.
I really don't. I don't know how to make Mark
do right. I don't know how to make him think right. He'll start
to think right and next thing you know he's thinking other
stuff. It's just the way he is. He's just a miserable wretch.
May the Lord bless us that we may know what it means to be
continually being By the grace sheer grace of God and the power
of his almighty spirit that we might be being continually renewed
in the spirit of our mind and putting on Putting on the new
man created according to God in righteousness and true holiness
So here's their life we live Teenager creatures. Can't get
rid of either one of them. We're stuck with ourselves. In
both cases, we're stuck with ourselves. But continually going
through this world, putting on the new man and putting off the
old. He is also, we are, as believers,
we are also a new creation. Just as we were made sinners
by the choice of another, Adam fixed that for us, likewise we
are made righteous by the choice of another. The Lord Jesus is
the only one that can fix that for us. Paul wrote to the Romans
and said, so therefore, as through the offense As through one offense
unto all men and the condemnation, that's what Adam did. So also,
here's what I like, there's a mirror that looks the other way. So
also through one righteous act, unto all men. And when he's talking
about all men, he's not talking about all men inclusive. You
have to understand that the day in which Paul lived, he was talking
about the fact that people back then thought God was only going
to save Jews. And he uses that term, all men, to say, no, he's
saving some Gentiles too. I'm glad for that. Glad for that. So when he says all men, he's
talking about all kinds of men, not just Jewish men. God's saving
sinners from every kindred, tribe, nation, tongue, and people, even
hillbillies from eastern Kentucky. No. As
through the disobedience of the one man, the many were constituted
sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, the
many will be constituted righteous. I think I'm speaking to people
who know the truth. Who know that if we're sitting
here, standing here saved today, it was not because of anything
we did. Not because of something we learned. Not because of a
new leaf we turned over. Not because of some Bible that
we picked up along the way. We are made new creations only
one way. through union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. That is our only hope. When he makes me a new creature,
I change. I do. My thoughts did change. My desires
changed. I've got a new man that does
not want to be who I am. And I hate, I do, I could actually
say with the scriptures, I abhor myself. But thank God, I am a
new creation. Paul wrote also to the Corinthians
And said, if anyone is in Christ, that's an awful lot to hang on
one little two letter word in. If anyone is in Christ, united
with Christ, hidden in Christ, so joined together with Christ
that God sees no difference between us. If anyone is in Christ, he
is a new creation. The old things passed away. There's
nothing of the old man in the new man. This is not a mingling
together of two different things that one I was born with and
one God gave me. There's no mixing of it. I'm
just a two-natured man. They're both quite well and alive
in me as well. No. In that new creation, the
old things passed away. Nothing of me, nothing of Adam,
nothing of the things of my former religion. Behold they have all
become new. Now, that's the two natured man. Let's speak briefly about the
double minded man. James writes about this person
that the scriptures refer to as the double-minded man. It's
actually literally the two-souled man is what it's translated from. James writes and says a two-souled
man That man is unstable in all his ways. He tries to act like
a new man in Christ Jesus, but he's just putting on a show.
He's watching behaviors. He's listening to how other people
pray. He's watching what they do and trying to imitate that.
No, that's just an old man trying to act like a new man. Cannot
be done. No, this two-souled man is always
just putting on a show. He can't impersonate a believer,
not really, or keep himself in character for very long without
showing his true nature. A double-minded person is a sinner
trying to act like one of God's elect. Can you elect yourself
to salvation? No. No. Can you plead and beg
your way into salvation? No. We're saved for only one
reason. We're saved by the grace of God
for Christ's sake. If Christ died for you, if Christ
shed his blood for you, he'll come to you one day in the power
of the Holy Spirit and join himself to you. He always claims his
own. But we can't say that about everybody in this world, can
we? The scriptures won't let us. Christ didn't die for, it
says he died for all men, but it's not that he died for all
men inclusive. You know, if that were true,
there would be a soul in hell this morning. There wouldn't
be a soul in hell right now if Christ died for all. What kind
of a God? How could you call God righteous
and holy and just and he sends people to hell that Christ died
for? It's never happened. It's never
happened. No. No, a double-minded person
is a sinner just trying to act like one of God's elect. In reality,
he's nothing but a lost sinner. And when he's in religious mode,
he's no more than a pretender trying to find peace through
impersonating a believer. Now let me wind this up. The
two-natured person is a creation of God. You and I have no hand
in this. We experience it. I believe I'm
talking to some people who have been made new creations in Christ
Jesus, but what do you do to get that way? No, it's not of
us. God takes a sinner with a fallen
nature, dead in trespasses and sins, void of spiritual life,
and creates in him or her a new holy nature. How's that happen? by uniting us with the one who
has that new holy nature, the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul puts
it this way in Ephesians, for we are the product of him. We are his workmanship. We're what he made. We're the
product of the Lord Jesus Christ, created. That takes it out of
my hands. created. I thought I made some
pretty good creations in my past and found out I was imitating
somebody else's stuff. No. We are His product. His production. His handiwork. His creation. Created in Christ. That means created in union with
Christ unto good works. Which God prepared beforehand.
in order that we walk in them. Though the new man has both his
new nature of righteousness as well as his old sinful nature,
he's as truly holy. He is as truly holy as the Christ
with whom we've been made one. God's determination to leave
our sinful nature intact while we're here on this world in no
way diminishes the reality of our new holy nature. You can't
tell by looking, but that don't mean it's not there. Thank God
for that. We may fall into sin, and we
do. But our new nature will not allow us to justify our actions. Have you ever felt good about
it, believer? When you sin, have you ever felt good about it?
You would. You would if you didn't have
a new man. in union with the Lord Jesus
Christ, you'd feel good about your sinful stuff. Now, we may
fall into sin, but our new nature will not allow us to justify
our actions or to continue in our evil ways. Oh, what a grace
God has given us by joining us to His Son. The double-minded
man, on the other hand, shares only a sinful, depraved nature
with that two-natured man. That's the only one they have
in common. They've got a fallen nature together. The rest is
just religious put on. Beyond the sinful nature, the
two-natured man and the double-minded man share nothing in common. A double-minded person then is
merely a religionist. That is the best description
I can think of. He's just a religious sinner. One who pretends to be
born of God, but is actually just a religious unbeliever. He goes to church. Since the
double-minded man has received no work of God's grace, possesses
no new righteous nature, and has not been born again of the
Spirit of God, he's nothing more or less than just an impersonator. He's a religious imposter. He
says he's been saved by the grace of God. I've got family, I've
got relatives, that that's their verbal testimony, that they've
been saved by the grace of God. And yet, when you listen to what
they believed, and the Christ they say saved them, there's
no salvation in it. It's a false God and a false
Christ. Oh my! One must be born again in the
Spirit of God, otherwise we're just a religious imposter. The
psalmist put it this way, they speak vanity. Vanity. Vanity has a religious element
in it. They speak vanity every one with his neighbor and with
flattering lips and with a double heart they speak. I'm hoping
you're like me that you've not been hanging around with religious
people for quite a few years. But I'll tell you what it is.
It's just a mutual self-promotion fest is what it is. They tell
each other all the time how good they are, what wonderful things
they do and how kind and loving and generous and just wonderful
people. You know why they do that? Because
they have no hope. The person has no hope, has no
security, has no calm, has no rest in the Savior. And so they
keep on working. And they keep on doing good things.
And they do it always in a posture and in a position and in a place
where somebody can see them. Because they need to hear about
it. You're doing good. You're doing good, son. You're
doing good. Yeah, you're doing good all the time. They speak every one vanity with
his neighbor. And with flattering lips and
with a double heart do they speak. They can fellowship with the
saints as easily as they can. With false religious they just
love everybody. They can recite the truth and
distort the truth with equal liberty. They can say amen in
the congregation of the righteous and agree with equal sincerity
with false prophets. No wonder James wrote that they're
unstable in everything they do. There are two good things about
being a two-natured man. I hate my flesh. I hate my old
man. I long to be free from him. He's
not worth living. But there are two good things
about being this way instead of being a one-natured religious
hypocrite. One is that we have not been
left to ourselves to find our way to God by our own efforts,
make up some doctrine that makes us feel good or listen to some
preacher that makes me feel religious. And the other is that very soon
we will have only one nature and this old man of flesh will
be gone. And I look forward to that day. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for gathering
us together today. And I pray this morning, oh Lord
what a gracious thing it would be if in this place, at this
hour, I'm speaking to nothing but two natured people. Those who are just as they were
born as, and those who are just as they will be in glory as holy
as the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Lord, I pray that if there is
someone here today upon whom you have placed your glory and
your grace in the ages of eternity past, someone upon whom you have
placed your love and predestinating grace, Lord, I pray that today
You would be pleased to make them a two-natured being. For
the glory of our Savior and for His love. For it's in His name
we pray. Amen.