The Discernment Research Group wishes each one of our readers a blessed new year.
We live in perilous times. Times which call for a sound mind. The following is an excerpt from a sermon by J.C. Philpot, preached in 1857, and pertinent to today. For an added blessing follow the link at the bottom:
We are often reproached with being fanatics, enthusiasts, and people of a wild imagination, carried and led away by airy flights, without any sobriety of judgments or soundness of mind. I consider that no charge was ever more false or more misdirected. I consider that those of us who know the truth of God by divine teaching are eminently people of a sound mind eminently free from superstition, fanaticism, enthusiasm, or wild imaginations and delusive fancies. I never had sounder mind in my life than I have at this moment, and I am sure my religion has not made my mind unsound. It has made my mind sound naturally as well as spiritually, for it has cured me of a thousand airy fancies and wild ambitious desires, and given me sobriety in natural things as well as in spiritual.
To possess, then, the spirit of a “sound mind” is to have a sound judgment in the things of God– not to be drawn aside by every passing opinion– not to be allured by every novel doctrine– not to be charmed by every fresh device of the wicked one– not to be caught by every one of his flesh-pleasing snares; but to have that sobriety of judgment and holy wisdom in the things of God, with that fixedness of heart upon the Lord Jesus, and that solid experience of his Spirit and grace, as shall keep us from errors and delusions on the right hand and on the left.
Unless we have this spiritual sobriety, this ripe and matured judgment, and this firm establishment in the truth of God, we are almost sure to be drawn aside into some error or other. Satan will somehow deceive us as an angel of light. He will impose upon us some of his heresies and present them to our minds with such plausibility that they shall appear to be in accordance with the scriptures; he will puff us up with pride and presumption; he will draw us off the firm and safe ground of spiritual experience, to entangle us in a maze of confusion and error; he will beguile our minds with some of his subtle deceits, and lead us off that foundation which God has laid in Zion, and upon which all his saints have ever stood; and by working upon our Pharisaical or Antinomian mind, withdraw us away from the glorious truths that all the preachers of righteousness have ever taught. If we have not the spirit of a sound mind, we shall mistake a false experience for a true one– natural feelings for spiritual– the workings of pride and self-righteousness for the workings of the Spirit of God– and the deceits of the devil for the teachings of the Holy Spirit.
But where there is a sound mind– and that there ever will be, more or less, where there is spiritual light, divine life, gracious feeling, and a conscience made tender by God’s fear– there will be a sound faith, a sound hope, a sound love, a sound repentance, and a sound work of grace upon the heart from first to last. To have a sound mind is to have a mind deeply imbued and vitally impregnated with the truth of God; and as that truth is the only really solid and enduring substance under the sun, it follows that those who know it experimentally for themselves are the only people really possessed of soundness of mind; for they only take right and sound views of all things and all events, natural and spiritual, and have, as the apostle says, “the mind of Christ.”
The material above was excerpted from: “The Spirit of Power, of Love, and of a Sound Mind,” Preached at North Street Chapel, Stamford, on Oct. 4, 1857, by J. C. Philpot, and based on the following Scripture: “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7. To read this sermon in its entirety visit: http://www.gracegems.org/Philpot/spirit_of_power.htm
The Truth:
“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If you continue in My word, then are you My Disciples indeed; And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32)