Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to Thee Generation podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen and I am podcasting from Green River, Wyoming, where my wife and I just finished a revival meeting. We have one more revival meeting before we train our team, and we're excited about our fall team. We have actually three veterans on the team, and we're excited about them joining us in Colorado to train. And then we'll be heading out for our first week in Cortez, Colorado.

And if you want to pray for us, you can find our website at warsf.org. And we'd appreciate so much your prayers for us, as we'll be out mostly in California and Arizona, uh, conducting War of Special Forces. And I think we finish in Orlando, Florida. So we get a long trip there and the Thanksgiving week to get back east. We're excited about it.

Also wanted to mention October seventh to ninth is Thee Generation Youth Summit at Falls Baptist Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. If you've never come, we certainly encourage you to consider coming. You say, well, man, I live a long way off. You know, let me encourage you to check plane tickets. Sometimes you can get a great price and you're able to come up with, uh, that flight.

And of course, our church would be glad to pick you up. Falls Baptist Church, you can certainly call in if you decide to fly. And, uh, they're even willing to go down to O'Hare Airport in Chicago and pick you up, but usually flying in Wednesday and flying out Saturday morning, uh, works well. Our conference starts on a Wednesday night, ends on a Friday night. And we of course, have many sessions and workshops.

And our burden is to see young people that really get a heart for your generation, to reach them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And of course, in that occurring, uh, many times young people need God's reviving work in their own heart. And those are our burdens. And if that resonates with you, we'd love to have you. Of course, it's a blast.

It's a lot of fun. We use the war theme. The Air Force, Marines, Army, Navy compete in four-way competition. A lot of the trademark Minutemen. The competition goes four ways and you've got to be in it to experience it, to believe it.

It's unbelievable. But, uh, we'd love to have you if you're able to come. And, uh, it's coming up. If you want more information, just go to TheeGeneration.org. And when you see the little word participate, click that and then you'll see the word attend.

And you can click that and you will find the information about Thee Generation Youth Summit. We'd love to see you there. Well, I want to just challenge you about something here. Uh, this, uh, this podcast, the, the Bible has a very interesting verse in James chapter number one, verse twenty one. It exhorts us to receive with meekness the engrafted word.

And here's the strange phrase which is able to save your souls. Now, at first glance, it might seem that it's talking about the initial salvation or salvation from sin and hell, but I don't believe it's talking about that. I believe as you study the context, it's talking about the Christian life or sanctification. Sometimes the word save and even the word salvation is used to talk about the Christian life. In other words, it's like this, friend, when you get saved from sin, you're saved from the penalty of sin.

That's what we often call salvation. But the Christian life is a process and it's being saved from the power of sin. And of course, when we die, we will be saved from the presence of sin. We call that in theology glorification. And so we're talking about that, that process from the moment you get saved to the moment you die.

In theology, we call it sanctification, but I'm going to call it here the saving of the soul. And, uh, you say, uh, you may not have thought about this, but, um, there are three immaterial parts of man. And I don't want to get too technical. You have your spirit and you have your soul, and you have your flesh. Now, the word flesh can mean a material flesh.

Paul said, I conferred not with flesh and blood. In other words, I didn't confer with human beings and talks about the corporeal body. But sometimes the word flesh is talking about something immaterial. It's that part of you which pulls you away from God. All of us have it.

The Bible says the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. And the list goes on. It's a bad list. And we know there's a part of us that tries to pull us away from God. Romans eight puts it this way the carnal mind is enmity against God.

It is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can be. The word carnal has the idea of fleshly. It's same word. And God is saying that your flesh can't obey God.

It's completely in opposition—enmity—to God. So your flesh is irredeemable. It's unsavable. You can't reform it. If you try to coddle it or reform it, it'll get you.

The Bible tells us there's one way to deal with the flesh. You've got to crucify it. I think that's why Paul said, I die daily because daily you've got to deal with your flesh. So that's on one side of you. And then on the other side of you, your spirit.

If you've been saved, your spirit has been saved. That's where the Holy Spirit is. You're in union. You're in Christ. Christ is in you.

Spiritually speaking, your spirit has been regenerated. I believe that's what the Bible says when it talks about the new man created in righteousness and true holiness. And your your spirit's been regenerated. And we've talked about, I think that some. That part of you is in union with Jesus Christ.

So in some sense, spiritually speaking, you're seated at the right hand. Ephesians one and two teaches that that we've been raised up together with him in the heavenlies. And that's where he blesses us with all spiritual blessings. So right now, in a certain sense, spiritually speaking, uh, we're in Christ. Christ is in us.

And we are seated at the right hand in Jesus Christ. So the Spirit's in good shape. Some people have put it this way, the spirit has been saved, but the soul is being saved. Okay. Now why does the soul need to be saved?

Well, the soul is your humanity. Some people have defined it. Your mind, your will, and your emotions. And that's not a bad definition. But the soul has different different aspects.

In a certain sense, it's your life principle. It's your humanity. It's who you are. One Bible teacher I talked to says you are a soul. In other words, that's that's that's who you are.

You're a soul. And so it's a, it includes your inclinations, your dispositions, your desires, your propensities—all are a part of your soul. And, um, the Bible, that's, that's your humanity. So that part of you can grow spiritually and it should grow spiritually. And that's where spiritual growth occurs.

And, um, and a certain sense before you get saved, after you get saved, your soul is your humanity. So your, a lot of your desires are the same. Obviously sinful desires should be dealt with. But you know, if somebody likes coffee before they get saved, they usually do afterwards if they're a sports fan before, usually they are afterwards. In other words, it's our humanity and the Bible says it needs to be delivered.

What does it need to be delivered from? Really good question. What does your soul need need to be delivered from? So what I'm going to deal with in this podcast is what do you need to be delivered from? And the next podcast, I'm going to deal with that verse.

What does it mean that receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls because that's talking about the deliverance, but you're not going to be delivered unless you know what you need to be delivered from. And the passage of Scripture tells us earlier in the passage, you're probably familiar with it. We find the exhortation, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” God uses the picture of a double minded man as a wave. Now say, preacher, what does that have to do with my soul being saved? It's the word double minded. In the Greek, the word for soul is the word psuchē.

That's where we get the English word psychology. And so double minded actually has the idea of double souled. Of course, a part of your soul is your mind. Okay. So a double souled man is unstable in all his ways.

So what is a double souled man? What is he? Well, the Bible says he's the kind that doesn't ask in faith. In other words, he's got a faith problem. He's like a wave driven with the wind and tossed.

In other words, external circumstances cause him to doubt God. He believes God. He doubts God. He believes God. He doubts God.

He believes God. He doubts God. Let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. Now what causes us to be on that, uh, instability or that emotional roller coaster? Well, the soul has five senses, or the body has five senses, but the five senses deliver to the soul data, sensory data.

And as a result of that, external data causes your soul, if you're not careful to be unstable. Now, most of you understand what a wave is like. I remember several years ago, I was on a waverunner with my daughter Stephanie, and we were down at the Ten Thousand Islands. When you were in the islands, it was like the water was like glass. But we decided to go out in the Gulf.

Probably not a good idea for an inexperienced wave runner guy. And we got out there. The waves weren't really high, but they were about three feet. And so I learned you couldn't hit them head on and you couldn't hit them sideways—they'd tip you. So you had to go over at an angle.

But you know, you'd be up, down, up, down. And there was an instability to it. And sometimes it was a little unnerving. And that's what happens to somebody who's double souled. They believe God, doubt God, believe God.

There's no stability. Why? Because their faith is wavering. Because of all this external data, the sensory data is causing them to believe and doubt. And they often doubt.

And I think of of Elijah. After that great victory on Mount Carmel, he received the letter from Queen Jezebel basically saying, I'm going to kill you in twenty four hours. And I don't think any of us would have not had initial fear with a with some kind of communication from a powerful person like that. But what did Elijah do with that? He let it affect him in a negative way, and he ran when he shouldn't have run because he went down there south in Israel.

And the Lord said, what doest thou here, Elijah? And clearly he had gotten out of the will of God. And we we can that can happen to us, too. And Elijah, of course, was a man of like passions. And we're grateful.

The Bible teaches us that that he had a soul too. And a soul can be affected by a flat tire. A soul can be affected by not getting a job. Soul can be affected when some friend turns on you. A soul can be affected.

When somebody says something mean your soul is affected. When circumstances go awry or you have a disappointment, or you don't get a starting position on the team. Whatever our soul takes in this external data, it's what we do with it. The temptation's not wrong. It's what we do with the temptation.

I don't believe it was wrong for Elijah to have initial fear when he got that communication, but he allowed that temptation to cause him to go out of the will of God, and he allowed it to get him to a place where he was doubting God, no longer trusting God for, for deliverance and for victory, which he saw just a day before there on Mount Carmel. Just remarkable. So, um, so we understand that that's a double minded man. Now, what happens when we doubt God, often we get angry, don't we? You ever gotten angry?

Somebody said something unkind to you. Somebody provoked you. Something happened you didn't, like. Get a flat tire. Uh, get get a disappointment.

Don't get a position on the team. Maybe don't get a job that you applied, thought you ought to get. And there could be so many applications here. But sometimes we get angry, and sometimes we get discouraged, but sometimes we get angry. But a few verses later, I believe God answers this the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

And I will tell you, friends, generally speaking, our problem is not righteous indignation. Most of the time it is wrath that comes from unbelief. And that the Bible says will never work righteousness. And sometimes what happens when we get hurt or we get angry or we get unbelieving, we can get angry, but we can actually turn to the wrong places to cope. That's where people go.

Drugs, alcohol, looking at filth on the internet, uh, cutting, uh, eating disorders, Other coping mechanisms people go to, what are they trying to do? They're angry. They're hurt. They're trying to deal with that. They don't like the feelings that they're experiencing.

And so they're trying to cope with them and obviously going to the wrong place. And I've done whole messages on that. But the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. So when we doubt God and then have a tendency to get angry, maybe somebody says something unkind, maybe something happens at home that's tough. And instead of trusting God, we doubt God, we get upset.

Then it doesn't work. The righteousness of God, it doesn't help us grow. And that's why our soul needs to be saved. It needs to be delivered constantly, being delivered from unbelief. Why?

Because we're we're living in a sensory world. And many times, if we're not careful, we believe God. When we feel like, oh, we see God working, but sometimes we don't see God working. And so what do we do? We doubt God.

It kind of reminds me one of Israel's finest moments when they were walking around Jericho. Uh, God told them, okay, walk. On the seventh day there, walk around seven times and then, uh, shout. You know, I think their finest moment was when they shouted because at that moment, they didn't see anything. There were no cracks in the wall.

There were no earth tremors. There was nothing in the sensory that was going to give them any idea those walls were coming down. All they had, if I can say that tongue in cheek was the Word of God. But that was enough. And they shouted.

And of course the walls come down. We know the rest of the story. In that case, they didn't allow the external data, the sensory elements, to cause them to doubt God. Friends, that's how we live the Christian life. But I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit right now.

I'm just trying to diagnose the problem. Do you find yourself, uh, unstable? Do you find yourself driven with the wind and tossed, affected by external circumstances, affected by the winds of life and you find yourself believing God, doubting God, believing God, doubting God. Find yourself getting angry at times, getting frustrated, maybe taking it out on siblings, or saying disrespectful things that you shouldn't do. Your parents.

You find yourself in that condition. Well, next podcast we're going to talk about, well, how do you how do you see your soul delivered from this? And of course, verse twenty one, chapter one is the answer. I would encourage you to meditate on it, memorize it, because we're going to deal with that verse, uh, how to, how to save your soul from what? Being double souled.

Yeah. Up, down believing God, doubting God. Let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. We want to be delivered from that friend, and God wants to deliver you. So we'll look forward to next time talking about that.

In the meantime, be encouraged and let's continue to live a Christian life. Surrender to Jesus Christ, depending upon him and trusting him and praising him that he is indeed working in our lives.