The Tyranny of the Soul — Devern Fromke

We thank Thee that Thou hast put the joy of the Lord and the song within our hearts. We thank Thee we come with expectancy this morning. We believe, Lord, that Thou wilt soot out a word to each heart.

I pray that even now, Lord, in this quiet moment, there will be that open response to Thee long within that says, O Lord, a fresh word from Thyself. We just believe Thee to do this, Lord. We thank Thee this morning that You know each one of us.

Sometimes we can't even put in words the deepest longing. We don't know ourselves what our needs are, but we pray this morning, Lord, that Thou will be pleased to speak, to open Thy word. Give us a clear sense of Thy anointing and Thy direction.

We give Thee the praise, but we ask it in Jesus' lovely name. Amen. Praise the Lord. Good to see you. Something we haven't seen for, what, last November we were here last about? And here we meet today for the first time?

Since earlier this morning I've been asking, Lord, what should we share? There's so many things that are helpful, so many things that are good. I remember Dr. Tozer saying years ago that if there was anything needed in this hour, it was a prophet.

I don't claim to be one. I'd sure like to, though. The thing that he said that was distinguishing about a prophet was this. He's not a man who just spoke truth, however good and helpful it might be. But he always spoke a word that was relevant to the moment, to the need.

And I think we all need that today, a word that's relevant to the need. How many truths are there in the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation that could bless us, could help us, quicken us, encourage us?

But you know a word in season, a word just for the moment, is the thing that our hearts cry for. And I believe that we are at some junctures in our going on with the Lord at various times when we're sort of treading water, and it just is so necessary that God give us a special word, a special word.

Lord, having said that, you'll have to do it. I think maybe we'll ask you to turn this morning to the Gospel of John, chapter 11. Very familiar portion. John, chapter 11. You recall in chapter 11, raising of Lazarus from the grave.

Jesus’ Delay and the Reality Beneath Religious Outwardness

We believe that Jesus loved to visit one place called Bethany. Bethany was a place where he found rest. A few furlongs out of Jerusalem, he would get away from the busy crowd. There he would find some rest apart from all of the activity.

I never understood this chapter. It seemed that at a certain point Jesus was almost cruel. He didn't act as I thought he should. Of course, he hasn't many times in the Scripture. He's puzzled me, and I've had to cry out, Lord, why is it, why is it that so often your action is so different from the way I would have reacted, I guess.

But here's a lesson this morning that I believe will help us move beyond the outward, the externalities of just being religious to get to what is the real heart and the reality. And I believe if this principle, even as we said last night where we were speaking on, Jesus said, when there were some things they couldn't understand, he said, I will have mercy and not sacrifice.

If you understand that, you get to the very core, the very heart of spiritual reality. You know, all you have to do is move around in ministry for a while. You see all that's going on today, and it would be almost easy to faint if you didn't know the heart, the very core, the very center of spiritual reality.

And that's what I'm concerned about these days. Lord, move us out of our forms, our outwardness, into the heart, the very reality of what you want. Somehow I believe that if I can accomplish that, we'll be able to go on other places.

God can fulfill and get in us what he really wants. Now the situation this morning, as we begin to read in chapter 11, chapter 1, 11, verse 1, Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary, and her sister Martha.

It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore his sister sent unto Jesus, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. When he heard he was sick, he rushed immediately to Bethany.

Are you reading? Wouldn't you? Huh? Somebody's sick, the phone rings, Hurry, my brother's sick. And on top of it, Jesus could heal everyone. How much more obligated. Do you follow me? I don't know how to say this, but I know that for years I wondered how Jesus could ever lay his head on a pillow and rest.

He could solve all the problems. He could heal. Well, Lord, if I could do that, I wouldn't. But you see, the Lord doesn't give that kind of power until people are ready for it. Power and purpose go together.

Power and God's. What is the answer? Well, I have to take you back and cover a little ground as we did last evening to get to the very heart of the matter. I do not believe that we can understand why Jesus moved with the calmness, the poise, the way he did, unless we realize what I like to call the tyranny of the soul that pulls and pulls and pulls.

The Human Spirit, Conscience, and Fellowship with God

Now remember, beloved, as we've been saying on other occasions when we've been with you, God has uniquely designed man with an empty room inside. It's our human spirit. He made our spirit for himself.

As a place he might come and dwell, I don't know why I keep insisting, but it seems like this innermost room that he's been made for himself can never find its fullness, its satisfaction, its completeness until it finds it in the Lord himself.

We are made for God. And he uniquely designed us with this innermost room, our spirit, we call it. I said last night, I'll go back over the ground again, that our spirit, the within, has been so designed that it can touch reality.

It can fellowship with God. I believe in the beginning when God created man in the garden, man's spirit was like an open door. That is, there was a part of his spirit that had an openness toward God. God communed.

He fellowshiped. He talked with Adam in the beginning. Adam's spirit then, this part that we're referring to, was like an open door in which there was contact made. You've heard of a little child in its innocence.

No restriction, no inhibitions. I'm often embarrassed. I'm sitting in a home and a little two-year-old girl run into something. You know what mommy just did? I say, no, don't tell me, sweetheart. You're asked to hear almost anything.

What is it? It's the innocence. It's the openness of a little child. One day when Adam and Eve sinned and they turned in their own way, this openness, after they took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, this openness changed.

There was an awareness that they had sinned. A consciousness that something had come in. I say this open way of innocence and openness. It turned. It changed. And we have conscience developing with knowledge.

C-O-N. With. Knowledge. Conscience came in. There was a knowing that they had wronged, that they were somehow no longer open to God. And this is why they began to clothe themselves in fig leaves, you see.

Drawing back. It's a movement from innocence to conscience as we speak of it in the Scripture. And so our spirit in its initial, as it was with Adam, open, honest, but now we put a door knob there, which means there's a door.

Closed. God designed, man, that there should not only be the openness before him, but there should be the capacity for fellowship. It says in the Scripture that God is spirit. And of our fellowshipping and our worshipping him is to be by our spirit.

Touching the Lord. Contacting him. A fellowship then through the spirit, the capacity within. Not only is there the capacity for the function for fellowship, but as we know, there is that power within man for intuition to know things directly.

I believe that in man, as God created the function within his spirit, this openness, this capacity to touch, to fellowship, to worship the spiritual, and then to know things in a direct way, God has designed this in man.

We need more and more to understand the functioning of our spirit if we are to understand the difference between outward things and spiritual reality. Now remember, when Adam sinned, and it's true for the whole human race now, the way by which God begins to restore and make possible fellowship is first of all that the blood is applied to our conscience.

This has become conscience. The consciousness of sin keeps man from boldness or access to God. And it is only by the precious blood that once again we can have boldness to come before him. Oh, how thankful we are then for the precious blood, which gives boldness.

I think this is pictured in many ways in the Old Testament. The conscience always is to be purged or sprinkled by blood. This gives boldness. Jesus said in Revelation 3 .20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If any man hear my voice and will open the door, I will come into him. And will what? Sup with him. I will fellowship with him, and he with me. This fellowship then is possible only because man through repentance opens the door and allows.

So what really happens when we are born again by the Spirit of God then is that repentance opens the door. We invite the Lord to come in. He sets up, as it were, a table of fellowship in our spirit. And then this intuition, this capacity to know things, which has become pretty dead, I believe that he lights the lamp of our intuition.

And thus it is we are able to discern. God is able to reveal. It says in Proverbs, you know, that the spirit of man is the what? It's the lamp of the Lord. I think man's inner lamp is pretty dull if there's any light at all.

It is only when we are born of the Spirit, quickened, you see, in our spirit, that God lights the lamp, and suddenly we come to know spiritual things. Why is it then when someone, you see, gets up from their knees, they have just come to trust the Lord Jesus, you say, what's happened?

They say, well, I'm saved. How do you know? Well, I know because I know because I know. What is it? That's something your mind can figure out. It's your knower. What's your knower? What is your knower?

It's this quickening. His spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are a child of God. Beyond figuring out. So we say that in our spirit now, the conscience is cleansed. We come into fellowship. Our intuition, the lamp, so to speak, is lit.

All the preciousness and the privilege that we have of knowing this spiritual birth. You say, I wondered what it was. This is what it means to be born again. Born from above. I'm using a different approach to it.

Spiritually born. Anothen, the Greek word. His spirit joins my spirit. Born from above. Now the tragedy is this, as we're going to see in our lesson this morning. The great majority of people have never made much distinction between their spirit and their soul.

The Soul’s Dominance over the Spirit

The soul of man out here includes the mind and the emotions and the will. When God planned and designed man in the garden, I believe that the tree of life representing God's own uncreated life, the tree of life was to be for his spirit.

What tree did man take from? The tree of the knowledge. I used to always think it was the tree of good and evil, but it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And in partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he has developed his soul, his mind, his will, and his emotions.

And what's happened to the spirit? That room that should have received the life of God has become largely dead, dark, empty, shriveled up. Dr. Barnhouse used to say that man is like a three-story building, and the top story fell into the second.

And so far as most people are concerned, man's just a two-story building. He's a body and something inner. We know the difference. We know because our spirit has been quickened, made alive. His spirit witnesses with our spirit.

That which is born of the Spirit, you see, comes to have a spiritual being within. I believe we need to understand that when God comes to join our spirit, we are made something other, something totally different from what we were by creation.

He says in 1 Corinthians that man became a living soul. What does that mean? The soul was the dominant, functioning part of Adam. His spirit was needing something to be complete. Incomplete. You see, so many people, in even fundamental circles today, think that what man needs is forgiveness just to be brought back to God.

He needs forgiveness through the blood. He needs to be reconciled, but he needs something else. He needs a spiritual birth. He needs God's Spirit joining his own spirit. And when this happens, you see, the first Adam was made a living soul.

The last Adam, the Lord Jesus, came as a quickening spirit. And when his spirit joins my spirit, a new creation, a new species develops. What is it? Instead of my soul being the dominant part, now his spirit joining my spirit, the spirit is to become the leading part.

And it's to bring the whole of the soul into submission to our spirit. I believe that this is absolutely fundamental if we are going to know spiritual reality. So we're saying this morning that the tragedy in the religious world today is that people have developed their mind with doctrine, understanding about the Bible.

Sometimes they'll even feel very keenly in their emotions about things, and they'll held their fist and say, I'm going to be more spiritual. They try to touch contact. They try to make contact with God by their soul.

I did it for years. Held meetings in Youth for Christ up and down the West Coast. Thousands of people. And then one day, by God's wonderful grace, he broke in. Oh, what a change it brought to begin to realize that spiritual reality is not something of the soul.

It's of our spirit. It changed the whole outlook in ministry. Oh, I believe, brothers and sisters this morning, if God's people could somehow be awakened to see how much of their time, their life, their ministry, their energies are by the powers of the soul.

The soul can be so religious. It can get so activated for God. I think of so many meetings as meetings that just stoke the boiler. You know what I mean? You get all enthused. Stoke the boiler. Get everybody enthused.

How long does it last? Well, maybe till next Sunday, but usually hardly till Wednesday night. And you stoke up the boilers, get people enthused again. What is it? Their mind, their emotions. They say, I will do this.

One dear man told me, he said, we have committees for everything, including committee to keep the committees enthused. Now, the answer is this. The difference is this. Once the Holy Spirit begins to activate and bring our spirit, all incentives, spiritual motivation, I don't like to use the term, but God's way is to supply to our spirit day by day, which gives quickening.

Paul says, having received this efficiency, we don't faint. I know what it would be like to faint if I had to just live by the power of the what? The soul. How many of you know, as we were saying last night, I think it was, I've been speaking so many days in a row now, I don't know where I am.

How many of you know what it's like to look through a page, a chapter in your Bible? I know that. I won't read that. Yeah, I've read that too. Nothing new there. Read that. You go from page to page. What is it?

What is it? You're depending for spiritual quickening just in the realm of the mind, the soul. Oh, how blessed. How wonderful. When the Lord takes a portion that you really know pretty well. I mean, you think you do.

And suddenly he shines some light upon it. And something new, and something very fresh. This is the way of the Lord working in our spirit. If we do not have this supply continually, we faint. Well, having said all of this now, maybe we're ready to go to John 11 and see what really is involved when Jesus, in chapter 11, Jesus gets word that Lazarus is sick.

The Tyranny of Urgency, Fear, and Affections

Verse 4. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. When he had heard, therefore, that he was sick, he what?

He abode two days still in the same place where he was. Lord, why don't you rush to Lazarus? You know why? I'd like to call this lesson this morning the tyranny of the soul. The tyranny of the soul manifests itself in different ways.

There is first what we call the tyranny of the urgent. How many of you know what urgency is? Hurry now, hurry, hurry. Urgency on every hand. What Jesus knew was that because he was attuned to the Father in spirit, the Father was going to work something out for greater glory in this, that urgency, which is so much of the soul, this urgency, he knew his mind could fully grasp all their feelings, but urgency didn't dominate him.

Oh, I know a little what it's like to walk into my office and everything around me would jump out with urgency. Here's an unfinished book. Here are a dozen letters that need to be answered. All these things, and if you have anything of creativity within you and you're working on projects and all of it just cries out, hurry, hurry, hurry, get me done quickly.

The tyranny of the soul can sap your strength. It can rule and it can dominate. I copied down some months ago a statement from a man, I believe with some discernment. He said, your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important.

The urgent things that press in keep crowding out the important. Someday I'm going to read that good book. Someday I'm going to really study my Bible. But in the meantime, the phone rings, the neighbors come, all the urgency presses in.

What do I do? I get carried along in the stream like a little leaf with urgency, urgency. So he goes on to say, the problem is that the important thing rarely has to be done today or even this week. The urgent tasks are the one that yell for instant action.

They seem at the moment to be important and irresistible. So they devour our energy. That's where we were last night. Urgency pressing in. The tyranny of the soul. I don't think I need to labor this anymore.

We're kind of acquainted with it, aren't we? I think we know what I mean by urgency. And yet the loveliness of our lesson is this. Even though Jesus had a soul that was very sensitive to everything around, He did not walk with the soul ruling over Him.

His spirit was attuned. He abode two days here. And I tell you, you can't do that when someone you love is sick unless your spirit is attuned and you know that God has something else. Are you following me?

I do believe, brothers and sisters, that most of God's children get into the awful bind all the time because they have not learned the secret of reality with the Lord. Lord, I'm to be occupied with you, shut up with you, alive to you.

There's no other way. I think urgency gets worse. We were always saying, well, somehow I'll learn to get on top of it. Things will get better. Let me ask you, in the last five years, how many of you have found it's gotten any different?

It only gets worse because the soul gets more possessive and more sticky. It just gets to know more friends. It could only. You have to have God's way out. It has to be the Lord. Well, read on with me.

And after that, saith he to his disciples, let us go into Judea again. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again? Here's another tyranny. We won't spend any time with it.

It's a tyranny of fear. His friends are saying, Lord, don't you remember last time you were there they tried to stone you? And if you live in the soul life where they're dominating, fear grips. But Jesus didn't allow it.

There's no problem. It wasn't, it wasn't that outward circumstances. These things were dominating him. There's another, there's another tyranny of the soul besides the urgency and fear. And it is what we call the tyranny of affections.

We've already covered it. He whom thou lovest is sick. Oh, how emotional ties to people, to loved ones, how it will govern. I remember when our little boy was about two. We were down shopping someplace.

He loved guns. I remember when he spied a gun on the shelf and he looked up and he said, Daddy, buy me that gun. I said, Son, my parents, his grandparents always bought him far more guns than I thought he needed.

I said, Son, you have enough. He kind of walked away pouting, feeling hurt. About a minute later he came back and he looked up and he said, Daddy, if you really loved me, you'd buy that gun for me. You know what I mean by the tyranny of affections.

The tyranny of those you love, the pulling. He whom thou lovest is sick. Could I say to you this morning, we have to know in our relationships with others the cross that reaches in and cuts us loose from all these affections and ties.

If we don't, all of this will dominate and pull at us until we're victims all the time in the tyranny of our affections. And I know that when I begin to really love and begin to know people a little bit after the flesh, it's very easy to allow the sword to get a little dull.

Lord, I don't want to hurt so-and-so. After all, they're just growing. They're just a baby. You don't want to allow the sword to touch, to cut. And the reason we don't is because the servant of the Lord wields a two-edged sword.

I'll never let it cut this way unless I know the cutting this way. The very place I spare myself, I must spare you. You'll discover this with your children. A boy grows up and I know there are things he has to go through to become a man for God.

There are no shortcuts. He has to go through it. But I know the suffering of it. We like to spare. We'll spare if we can unless the two-edged sword... I was just wondering why. The two-edged sword, it cuts this way as well as this way.

It has to be. It's the work of the cross dealing with our soul life. So thank God. Thank God when he's beginning to do some in your life that you might have a ministry, a spiritual, releasing ministry to others.

We have these tyrannies of the soul, urgency, fear, affections. You never know how deep the cross will go into a life until it gets into some of these relationships with one another. How deep it has to go and how much affinity, how much inordinate affection the Scripture speaks of, how much of this there really is until God begins to put you right through the testing of it.

Thank God. He has a gentle knife, but it cuts. I'm so glad to be in his hands. He's the surgeon. It hurts, but it's necessary. It's the operation that we have to know and experience if God is going to bring us into continuing spiritual reality.

So I don't want the dark side. I look back and I say, thank you, Lord, for every operation. These things are removed where necessary. Thank you, Lord. The spiritual reality that comes by the operation and the working, it's so necessary.

And afterward, it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them that are being exercised thereby. Your heart can only rejoice while you're going through its grievance. But afterward, thank God, thank God.

Walking by Inner Light Rather Than External Circumstances

Well, I never understood for a long time why Jesus in verse 9 breaks in with something that seems so utterly doesn't fit the context here. It's like he's talking about one thing and he turns around and completely talks about something else.

It wasn't meaningful to me. In verse 9, Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. In other words, when you walk in the normal course of the day, you have the sun, it's outward light that keeps you from stumbling.

Thank God for outward light. It fulfills its place and purpose. But then he introduces something else. He says, verse 10,. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.

Now you help me. Lord, why did you switch the theme so drastically? Talking about this and suddenly he switches to talking about the outer light and the inner light. What is this? What does it mean? I'm not sure, but at least it's been a satisfying answer to me.

It seems as though the Lord is saying, the soul walks by its outer light, but the individual who knows the Lord has an inner light. Once we begin to have a transfer from walking by our soul to walking by the inner light that God begins to give, an individual goes through what has been called by the saints down through the years, the night of the soul.

Have you ever read about it? The night of the soul? What is it? It is when God takes us, as it were. You see, in our early days, as we are going on in our Christian experience, so much of it was dependence upon the soul.

But suddenly now, he's going to shift gears within us. And instead of walking by the light that's external, he's bringing us into a walk where our spirit attunes to his. You see, this is why we are called, when the light comes in, the children of light.

The children of light. What light was this? What light is this? Somebody says, it's all the light I get in my mind. I know a lot of people who can quote practically the whole Bible. But as far as I'm concerned, they're still stumbling.

And I'm not speaking in a discouraging way of God's word. Not at all. Thank God for those who are rich in the word. But oh, thank God for those who know the light that comes to our spirit to be children of light.

Back during the days when England was going through its awful dark hour, and probably would have experienced what the French Revolution brought to France. They say that England escaped the awfulness of it because of George Fox and how it went right straight through the nobility within England.

You read the story of George Fox. Do you know what he called it all the way through? The experience that these folks had? They called it the inner light. We today have come to speak of it as the new birth.

There are various terms that have been used. New life, new birth. But there was something of a real quickening of inner light that came. Well, I believe that what Jesus is saying to them probably could not be understood until and unless they would know what it would be to know and experience that which comes to a child of God, the inner light.

You walk by the sun, walk by outward light, you don't stumble. But if a man walks in the dark, and I believe he'll have to interpret it for us, he stumbles because there is no what? Light in him. I got a real good illustration of this the other day.

Someone was sitting by me. I remember out in Seattle, I guess. Getting ready for a trip back to Minneapolis. And suddenly, as we sat at the airport, there was sort of a blinking of lights and everything.

The person nudged me and said, we're transferring from outward energy to internal source. I said, thank you, Lord. That's that blinking, that dark night for a moment. You know what I mean. This is what really happens when a light for years has been walking by the external light.

The plane was plugged in to the airport. But suddenly, it's got to be released if it's going to take off. You follow? And so all the generators have switched to operating by the internal power. And I sat there and I thought, Lord, this is why people don't take off.

They can't take off. It's still plugged into what? External, not here. If God could bring us to see that supply, the resource that we have by His Spirit to our spirit. Well, don't take off too far, but if you know what I mean, I'm speaking of that supply which God gives to our spirit.

We read on. After that, he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit, Jesus spake of his death, but they thought that he had spoken of taking a rest in sleep.

Then said Jesus unto them, Plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I'm glad. I'm glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go that we may die with him.

He's feeling pretty strong in the soul now. I mean, sympathies. Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off, and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother.

Martha, Mary, and the Tyranny of Closed Conceptions

Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him, but Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. I want you to notice now, Martha is well taught. She's thoroughly orthodox. She knows all of the teaching, that there is a last resurrection. She's a good fundamentalist.

I say that kindly. She's well taught. She knows her Bible. The trouble is, when Jesus speaks, Martha said unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. I know that, Lord.

I'll give you a chapter and verse for it. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

Believest thou this? And we have a little controversy that's going to go on. Yea, Lord, I believe that. He shall rise in the resurrection at the last. Hallelujah. I believe the Bible. Believest thou this?

What is the this? It brings it into the now. Who is he that stands as the resurrection and the life right before her? It's a tyranny of closed conceptions that's very difficult to deal with. And I've got to be very careful here because thank God for all that we've been taught.

Thank God for all the conceptions up here. Thank God. We must have them. But isn't it a tragedy when a life says, I believe that. It's always pressing it off into what? That. The future. That. That. And he who is the life himself stands right there.

And he confronts us right now with the openness, the honesty, the immediacy of a fellowship. Believest thou this? This? How many of you have watched in your own life how many times when the Lord would confront you with the nowness, the immediacy of a thing?

Say, someday, yes, Lord, I believe that. Someday I'm going to really have victory. Someday, Lord. Someday. Someday. Manana. They say in the South. And it could be this morning right here. That someone who has always been living in the future or way in the past is such a proneness to do this.

Someday the children will all be raised and I'll have more time. Someday it will be better. Someday. Going to have real victory. Someday. No, you won't. This. What is it? I believe, beloved. I believe that God can press us into something of the experiencing of the now, right now.

With God. With God. He doesn't divide it into past, present and future. He looks down the corridor and it's now. And I just somehow believe over and over again, the Lord shuts me up to say, here, this morning, right now, enter into the reality of that experiencing of victory or whatever is involved, right now, the life supply that's available.