Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen and I’m broadcasting from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, which happens to be my home. And I’m just home for a few days in between finishing our tour and heading out to ministry this summer.

Certainly have a busy summer. Looking forward to it, and I believe God is going to do some great things, and we certainly would appreciate your prayers. I know Brother Bosler, myself and those others of us with Minuteman Ministries would appreciate your prayers.

God’s doing some great things. We’re certainly burdened to continue to see all that God wants to to do, to be done. I want to challenge you with something, friend, because you have an enemy.

We all know we have an enemy, Satan. We often kind of think about that. We know he’s a liar and we know that he is do does everything he can to discourage us, destroy us, and and to neutralize us and our effectiveness for Christ.

But there’s another enemy I want you to think about tonight. And that is, if I could put it in these terms, it’s yourself. Was Thomas Brooks, a preacher of old, who said, oh, Lord, deliver me from that evil man myself.

And that is true. Friends within us, there’s a part of us that is always trying to draw us down, pull us away from God. And the Bible, it’s often called the flesh.

Now, when we think of English, we think the flesh could just be flesh and blood. But often in the Bible, although it can mean just flesh and blood. It’s talking about that part of you that is selfish, that part of you that always makes the wrong decision, that tries to pull you away from God.

There’s a verse of scripture, two verses I’d like to highlight for a moment here. Verse sixteen of Galatians five says this. I say, then walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Then it says, followed by this verse for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that she would. Now that’s an interesting verse, isn’t it?

Now it starts with the fact if you walk in the spirit, you’re not going to fulfill the lust of the flesh. We’ll come back to that. But it points out that you’re in a battle.

The flesh lusts. Or desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. There’s a battle inside of you if you’re saved.

The moment you got saved, the Holy Spirit moved in and regenerated. Your spirit made it alive. At that point, the flesh dominated you.

You were in the flesh. Flesh dominated you. That’s that’s the way you lived.

But when you got saved, the Holy Spirit regenerated you. There were new desires and a battle began. Began between the Holy Spirit and your flesh.

And you might say, well, you know the Bible says so that you can’t do the things that you would. Well, let me just encourage you that in the in the Greek language is in the subjunctive mood, which simply means the idea is that you may not do the things that you would.

In other words, it’s not saying that there’s that that because of this flesh spirit battle, you’re never going to be able to do what you really ought to do. It’s not saying that. It’s saying that there’s the possibility, there is the possibility that you won’t do what you ought to do because the flesh is so strong.

If you succumb to it and you let it call the shots, then you won’t be able to be able to do what God wants you to do. So it’s not saying that it has to be done. It’s saying it’s a possibility, but it’s a possibility.

None of us want to occur. Why? Because, friends, the Holy Spirit lives in you.

You don’t have to be defeated. You don’t have to let that flesh win out. Now, obviously, when you and I follow the flesh, feed the flesh, do what the flesh wants to do.