Run for Your Life — Arlen L. Chitwood

That's like Tony's wife, Cheryl. She brings pillow to Bible studies when I go out there. She does it to antagonize me. Let me say this before we start. When I went to Australia, Mike came up here and then I went down there, and I was speaking over in Canberra, the capital, and we rented a room downtown and advertised the thing, and nobody showed just like here.

You advertise and kind of get the word out. No one showed over there except one guy. He came and he brought his pillow and he had on a pair of sweats, and the Buddhists that had that room the night before, he was a day late.

He was a Buddhist. But he stayed around to listen. He didn't get the message, but it's all right. He heard. You got it rolling okay. Let's have a word of prayer and we'll go ahead and get started. Our Father, we're thankful that you've allowed us to assemble.

We're thankful you brought everyone in safely on the trip in from Dripping Springs from down near Houston, gave us a safe trip in yesterday. We would ask as we open your word, you might richly bless, you might give us open minds, receptive hearts to receive that which your word has to say.

Genesis 19:17 and the Five-Part Message

It's in Christ's name, amen. In Genesis 19, 17, turn, we'll read a text. And I'll comment on it briefly. If you've read the verse of Scripture, you know where I'm going with it. I'm going to deliver five verses split up into five parts.

I'm going to deliver five messages, one on each part. And the messages will be very similar. They'll overlap, interlink any number of ways you want to put it. I'll be repeating things quite a bit. And the Scripture is set up that way.

If you start going through Scripture, you'll find that the Spirit moved men to write a certain section, and later on moved the same man or another individual, others, to write about the same thing. Then again, the same thing, but approaching it from different facets, different slants.

Repeating it enough times, He expects you to get the message, but so many don't. They wonder why they don't. Well, why they don't is why they don't read it. They don't understand how Scripture is put together and so forth.

I'll be talking about a number of those things as we work our way through. Genesis 19, 17, this is right in the middle of a story. I'm not going to comment much on the story right now of Abraham and Lot.

In the course of the messages, I'll go back and recap. In fact, we'll go all the way back to Genesis 1, but relative to Abraham and Lot, back to Genesis 13 and recap from there. But where we are is right before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And the angels are telling Lot, well, let's just read verse 17. And it came to pass when they, that is the angels, had brought them forth abroad that he said, Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain.

Escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. Now note your five parts. Escape for thy life, or you can say escape for your soul. It's the same word in the Hebrew text. Don't look back. Don't stay in the plain.

Where are you to go? What are you to look toward? Well, it tells you. Escape to the mountain. Symbolism used. A metaphor. What does a mountain signify? We'll get to that on down the way. And if you don't, what's going to happen?

It's very simple. You'll be consumed. The whole story of Scripture is set forth right here. If you want to deal with the saving of the soul, here it is. The whole story of the saving of the soul. Which direction are you to go?

How are you to look upon things? Put the blinders on. Don't look back. Look ahead. What are you to look ahead to? Any number of things. What will happen if you don't do this? Now, the Hebrew word nephesh and the Greek word psuche.

The same word in Hebrew or Greek, meaning the soul or the natural life. The word used here, that's why I translated either life as it's in the text or soul. It's the same word in the Greek, for example, that would be used in Matthew 16.

What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or his own life? Same word, Hebrew or Greek. Used a number of times this way throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament.

It means the same thing, Hebrew or Greek. It has to do with the natural life, the soul, the psuche. By the way, if you're pronouncing that in the Greek, you don't want to say psuche. You want to put a little ps on the front of it.

Psuche means fig tree. Psuche, that's soul. And nephesh, if you're taking notes, I'll spell that for you. It almost defies bringing Hebrew over into English because Hebrew doesn't have vowels. Vowels are inserted by man.

They call it the Masoretic text where they insert vowels so we can pronounce it. An Englishman can somewhat pronounce the Hebrew word through phonetics. But some letters in the Hebrew alphabet are not found in the English, so that's why I say it's sometimes difficult to transliterate in the sense of spelling a Hebrew word in English.

But if you're taking notes, the best you can do here is N-E-P-H-E-S-H. Nephesh, soul. And the Greek word is psuche, P-S-U-C-H-E. Greek lends itself quite a bit more to this type thing rather than Hebrew, though we try in Hebrew.

Let's put it that way. It has to do with the natural life, as I stated. Did man in the beginning was created from? What did God create man from? From the dust of the earth? Or did he perhaps take a lump of clay or a lump of earth and create man?

Well, almost all translations have dust. Man created from the dust of the ground. The Hebrew word can really be understood either way. And you're a better Hebrew linguist in the light of what God did.

They seem to want to prefer to think of it as God took a lump of earth, say a moist lump. Now, if that's exactly what he did, I don't know. You could think of it either way and stay within the framework of the meaning of the Hebrew word.

But that's immaterial. Man at this point after God created formed a man. He possessed only a body. In other words, let's say you have a man who dies today. He's in the casket. You're looking upon him.

You're looking upon only a body. There's no soul. There's no spirit. When God created man, that's a state in which man existed in a body only. It was a lifeless body. As, say, a man in a casket. You could compare the two to understand how man was following God's creation of man before, in Genesis 2 -7, before God breathed into man the breath of life.

Man as Body, Soul, and Spirit

Now, at this point, man became a living soul. He had life. Now, what would separate man from the animal kingdom? Animals have bodies. Animals have souls. Animals have natural life. When God breathed into man the breath of life, now bear in mind it's the Spirit of God breathing into man.

God is using His Spirit. The word spirit can be understood as it can be translated spirit. It can be translated breath. As soul can be translated life or soul. That is the word nefesh. I shouldn't have said soul.

The word nefesh or the word psuche. They're really the same. God breathed. How did the Spirit do this? It's really the Spirit Himself. It's imparting life to the man. The Hebrew word is nefesh in Genesis 2 -7.

God, through His Spirit, breathed into man the breath of life, and man became a living soul. The breath of God produced life. Man was now no longer a breathless body. He now possessed natural life, but notice something.

Man created in the image and likeness of God possessed far more than natural life. Man now possessed, note it's the Spirit breathing life in, and man now possessed not only natural, but spiritual life through the Spirit breathing in.

Now let me illustrate that by calling attention to this point. Animals have natural life, but there is no record in Scripture of God breathing into animals this life. Now this life has to come from God.

That's understood because there is no life apart from God and His breath. But again, it's only man in which God breathed into lifeless man the breath of life. Man became a living soul, but it would have to be that at this point in time, man became a triune being.

You can't really look at it any other way. And animals, not having been given life in this same respect, but still possessing natural life, would be body, soul, but man with this natural life would possess something above that which the animal kingdom would possess, and that is spiritual life.

You have Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Man created in the image and likeness of God must also be a trinity. Body, soul, and he must have spiritual life. If he didn't have spiritual life, he would have no connection with God because God is what?

God is spirit. This is something we were talking about earlier within, say, another frame of reference. Now when you move out of the, just very briefly, let me touch on one thing to show another form of life by way of comparison.

We have plants. Plants do not have natural life. The life is in the blood. Man and animals have blood. Now Leviticus 17, 11, the life is in the blood, or the soul is in the blood. It's the Hebrew word for a soul or a life, the word nefesh that we're looking at in this respect.

Giving man the breath of God, giving man natural life, but at the same time imparting to man spiritual life. Now plants, of course, are a different type of life. They have to have oxygen to exist, so I'm just going to point that out by way of passing.

We're not talking about natural life in the same respect with reference to animals. So the major difference between man and the animal kingdom is God's breath in relation to man. God breathing into man, really no record of God breathing into animals in the same respect.

Both have natural life, but only man spiritual life. Now here's where the great divide comes between, say, what the big debate is out there today. I noticed we stopped in Del Rio coming up to have breakfast.

That was yesterday morning. I picked up the San Antonio paper. I noticed they found the missing link. Well, there's no missing link out there to find. So I don't know what they found, and I don't really care what they found.

It's not something that interests me, but apparently now that they've found this, there will be a great deal of debate among the creation scientists who might get into it. I have no idea what they'll do.

They seek to want to defend the Bible. They want to defend that which needs no defense. Well, I perhaps shouldn't say anything about that group. I'll let it go. Let's not get into something that I don't like to knock other people.

There's some things about them I appreciate. There's some things about the way they do things I don't, but be that as it may. Now, soul and spirit, they're often thought of as synonymous. There's no way they can be synonymous.

Man is a trinity, not a di. He's a trichotomic being, not a dichotomic being. Animals are di. Man is tri. Again, the distinguishing difference. Now, the great divide, back to that, the, what do we have out there?

Designed by, I'm not sure how they're wording it, intelligent design. That's what I'm trying to think of. There's a great debate about intelligent design. That's kind of a middle-of-the-road way of approaching the matter that's not offensive to the evolutionists, and they don't want it offensive to the creationists, and they're trying to get out here in the middle somewhere.

Well, we're going to find out in the course of these studies there's really no middle of the road. It's either for or against. It's either in the plain or in the mountain. We'll get to that later. But, again, the great divide.

How can, now here's a question. I've somewhat stated all the preceding to get to this point. How can man, who is a trinity, evolve out of the animal kingdom, which is not a trinity? Where did man derive his spirit?

Animals do not have spirit. They have natural, they have bodies, and they have souls, a soul in the blood. They have blood. They have natural life. Man, body, soul, natural life, but man has something beyond the animal kingdom.

So here's your great divide, but we don't need this. I mean, why bother with it? I'm just calling attention to it by way of passing. We have scripture which tells us that God created man after his image, after his likeness, and we have before that the purpose of why God created man.

Let them have dominion. There's a reason man was brought into existence. When you talk about man's fall, man's restoration, you're talking about him being restored for the same reason that he was created, to have dominion.

The Image of God, Dominion, and the Saving of the Soul

The whole of scripture is a book about regality. Relative to God, the universe, this earth, the ruler over this earth, man brought into existence relative to regality, and later, the universe. And for some reason, people miss it.

I guess they miss it because they don't read it with an open mind. I don't know, but some of them seem to want to miss it along these lines. But I've just stated all of that to give you somewhat of an idea of where soul and spirit fit into this.

Before I leave this line of thought, let me call your attention to something about all of what I've been speaking about. Now, natural life. What is wrong with the natural life? Scripture makes quite a division between natural and spiritual.

For example, 1 Corinthians 2 .14. The natural, the soulical man. It's a word for soul there. The soulical man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. He can't know them.

They're spiritually discerned. Why can't the soulical man receive the things of the Spirit of God? What is there about the soulical man? Now, back that up behind the time man fell. God created man, a trinity, body, soul, and spirit to exist in that condition forever.

And there is nothing or there was nothing wrong with man in this soulical condition with a spirit that was in tune with God, so to speak. There was nothing wrong with soul prior to the fall. So what happened?

Well, what happened to man relative to his body? The soul is sometimes connected with flesh. Let's put it that way. What is the matter with flesh? You see flesh here. It's a little bit thin. I've lost some weight and so forth, but it's still flesh.

I see some arms here. They're not covered. But I do see one thing that's universal in this room, and that is everyone has a covering of some type on. Now, why do we have this covering on? Well, something has happened back down the way which would tell you what's wrong with flesh and why connected with the natural man, what the problem is, and the problem that didn't exist before the fall, and the problem that will not exist after things have been restored back as they were before the fall.

This is a direction all things are moving back toward the restoration. At the time of the fall, Adam and Eve lost something. There are two words used for naked in Genesis 2 and 3. The word that's used, that is in the Hebrew text, the word that's used in chapter 2 has to do with not necessarily complete nakedness.

It has to do with having, you could say, an inner garment but not an outer garment. The man is not fully clothed, but he's not completely naked either. In our modern way of thinking, we might say the man has on the inner wear, the underwear, but not the outer wear.

Now, man lost this inner covering, this covering that he had at the time of the fall. In Genesis 3, attention called to man's nakedness again. A different Hebrew word is used, and it has to do with total nakedness.

No covering at all, inner or outer. Now, man before the fall had an inner covering, and he created to rule and reign, awaiting outer garments which had to do with regal garments. What happened before the fall, man enswathed in glory, awaiting regal garments, the outer garment for the purpose for which he was created, that is, to realize the purpose for which he was created.

But man, being caused to fall, lost the covering of glory. Now he was in no position to wear the outer garment, and this is the great secret about, in fact, it'll answer the question in Genesis 3 as to why man tried to replace the covering with fig leaves, or man tried to clothe himself with fig leaves.

He was trying to replace something that he had lost which God rejected. God provided a covering, a slaying of animals, a covering of skins, but it was not the covering of glory. Here's your beginning restoration to bring man back into the position which he occupied before the fall in order that he might wear regal garments.

Now, I've said all that to say this. The natural, it's totally different before the fall than today, and it will be totally different again once God has brought man as he is today back into a restored position.

Body, soul, and spirit can exist together at that time, but today it's as in Genesis 16, I believe. Now this is one thing that fascinated Wilson years ago, and he called it to my attention, and it's found in Andrew Juke's book on types in Genesis dealing with Hagar, and she's found with Ishmael out near, I believe it's near a spring, and she is told to return to her mistress and submit herself to Sarah.

Now here's the picture today. The natural is to be submissive to the spiritual. Flesh is to be submissive to spirit. The spirit is to be the controlling factor, not the flesh. And like I say, Wilson got hold of this ideology, and he called it to my attention one day.

That was when Andrew Juke's book was not available at all. He had an old copy from maybe 1900. I picked it up out of his shelf. His library, I pulled it out of one of his shelves. I had never seen a copy of it.

And he watched me. He kept his eye on me until I put that book back in because he couldn't replace it, and he didn't want to let the book get out of his sight. But the book has since been reprinted, and it's probably readily available today.

I recommend it to people that want a book on Genesis dealing with types. It's a little bit different than A .W. Pink's book. It doesn't deal with types in the sense of premillennial, dispensational. It deals with Genesis from a totally different slant.

But bear something in mind. All Scripture has one primary interpretation, and invariably secondary applications. It seems that Juke kind of intermixes the two, and he stays away from premillennial and dispensational interpretation, but it still has a gold mine dealing with some, say, secondary applications and many primary among the secondary.

So let's leave it at that. I just wanted to call your attention to the natural, spiritual, along the lines of the way it was at one time, the way it is today, the way it will be at one point out ahead.

1 Corinthians 11: Judgment, Chastening, and the World

You're in Genesis 19. I haven't had you turn anywhere yet. Let's make a turn right now. Turn to 1 Corinthians 11. There's a verse of Scripture that I somewhat didn't know what to do with until I just let it say what it says, and then I realized what to do with it.

That's an interesting concept if you'll just take Scripture what it says and understand it in the light of other Scripture. You usually won't have near the problem with it that you will have if you don't do, don't understand or look at Scripture in that respect.

It's in 1 Corinthians 11 .32. Well, let's read verse 31 to give us a little context. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.

Now, what troubled me about that was that I knew the world was on the way out. There's only one direction the world is going, and that is it's going down. The world is going to be destroyed. The world is going to perish to make for the coming world.

And I guess that would be taken out of Herbert Armstrong's The World Tomorrow, but be that as it may, that's a program back in the 60s, 70s. Actually, Herbert Armstrong had some good things to say here and there.

He called his program The World Tomorrow. We're not talking about any of his ideology, but there's a world coming out ahead, the Messianic era, the age out ahead. But to be condemned with the world, I guess what troubled me was that I knew the world was going to be destroyed.

The world is associated with the unsaved. How can saved man be so condemned or so destroyed? Well, we find the answer to that within the framework of what we're studying, and that is Abraham and Lot, which we'll get into.

I'm not necessarily going to answer that in so many words right now, but you'll see all different facets of this during the study through the course of the five messages on Genesis 19 -17. Now, here's one thing that is certain.

The present world is going to be destroyed, as surely as the cities of the plain in Genesis 19 were destroyed, pointing to the cities of the plain portray or typify this present world system. The world is on a collision course.

It cannot be avoided. It cannot be averted. You can go out and try to patch up the world. You can do what you want with it. It's not going to change the course of predetermined history out ahead. That which God has stated will happen.

Christians Must Not Settle in the Present World

Now, calling attention to something that Wilson would say every once in a while, let me go back to use one of his illustrations. He would say something like this, that if the present movement among many Christians in the world trying to patch up this world were used by the Israelites under Moses, he said what they would have done after they had crossed through the Red Sea headed for Sinai, he said they would have stopped and began to plant gardens, landscape the desert, plant flowers, so forth, and settle down at that point.

And that's what so many have. He used Hannah's prophetic prayer talking about a dunghill. He talked about if they had done then what Christians are doing today, they would decorate, perfume the dunghill, seeking to make something of that which was going to be destroyed.

No, the Israelites were called out of Egypt to inherit a land out ahead of them. God would establish a theocracy within that land. The nations would be ruled by, blessed through Israel. And Christians have a calling, a heavenly calling along the same lines.

They're not to settle down in this world. Pass through the Red Sea. They're to move on toward their calling. So don't get all caught up in this present world. It's on the way out. Now, a predetermined destiny, in 1 John 2, for example, love not the world, and neither the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. All that's in the world, it goes on to talk about, is to pass away. 2 Peter 3, you find the same thing. The world is going... I'll tell you, turn to 2 Peter 3, because I want to show you something out of that section.

Let's just read a few verses. There's an interesting verse toward the end of 2 Peter that I want to call to your attention. 2 Peter 3, pick up in verse 10. Let's read a few verses. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Now, the day of the Lord begins at the beginning of the millennium. It has to do with the 1 ,000-year millennial reign of Christ. The day of God begins following that. It's talking about a destruction at the end of the millennium.

Verse 11, seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation in godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein...

Now, that's a little bit bad on the translation. I know some of you have a New American Standard. I'm not sure how it reads. But it's not in the day of God that the destruction will occur. It's at the end of the day of the Lord, within the day of the Lord.

It really should read, because of which, that is, the destruction rather than wherein, the coming of the day of God because of which. And we've already previously read that it will occur within the day of the Lord.

The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved. The elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, which will come into existence following the Messianic era, following the day of the Lord.

This moves into the day of God. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found in him in peace without spot and blameless, and account... Now, here's the verse I wanted to get to.

I've read all that to get to verse 15. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul, also according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you, as also in some of his epistles...

Did any of you get what I misread? In a few of his epistles. Not really. I checked the Greek text to make sure that it was all. And it is all. As also in all of his epistles. That begins with Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, right on up.

Some want to include Hebrews. There's internal evidence that Paul didn't write Hebrews. Paul wrote part of the New Testament in all his epistles, all the epistles he wrote for a long time. I believe that Romans was the one epistle which Paul didn't write to deal with these things.

That is, to deal with what we're studying about the saving of the soul. For a long time, I felt that Romans was the one epistle written to tell us how to be saved. That is, salvation by grace through faith.

Well, Romans is written to tell us how to be saved, but the salvation has to do with something beyond salvation by grace through faith. It has to do with the salvation in verse 15. That the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation.

It has to do with the saving of the soul. I like something Ruel Vellema in the Netherlands had to say about Romans. He said, the more I read Romans, the more I'm convinced that Romans has to do with the deepest teaching on the salvation of the soul in the New Testament.

And that may very well be true for the simple reason that so many Christians have no concept of what Romans is all about, and they try to read salvation by grace and either saved or lost into all parts of the book of Romans.

And they become all confused. And I believe it's when I first turned out the book on the salvation of the soul in the early 80s, I made this distinction between Romans and Hebrews. I made another distinction between James and some of Paul's epistles.

That distinction doesn't exist. That is, say James has to do with the saving of the soul, and it was Romans and James and Romans and Hebrews. Now that I recall, those were the books I was using to point out a distinction that does not exist.

And that is, I was trying to say that Romans had to do with the salvation of the spirit, the salvation we presently possess, and Hebrews and James had to do with the saving of the soul. Now that is not correct.

I had to change that in the revised edition of the salvation of the soul. All of them have to do with different facets of the same thing, the saving of the soul. Now an interesting thing about the wrong concept I had in that book, and the reason I left it alone for so long knowing that it was wrong, a number of people wrote and told me that they were able to grasp what I was talking about through this distinction.

In other words, they were able to grasp a correct concept through a wrong concept. That's not a good idea to do that. I eventually wised up and changed it, and I want them now to grasp a correct concept through, that is, a correct teaching through a correct concept or a correct teaching through a correct teaching, not having it incorrect on one end or the other.

But I've read that out of 2 Peter to show what it has to say about Paul's epistles. Now, getting back to escape what? See, Lot and his family were told to escape for their souls, escape for their lives, get out of the plain.

The very fact that it has been revealed in the Word, that is, the very fact that you have these types set forth, let's put it that way, guarantees that it will occur in the antitype, and we have type after type after type.

I'll go back and show you some types in Genesis 1 through 11 relative to this matter in the course of these studies. Now, a person can either experience destruction with this world, as the verse in 1 Corinthians 11 has to say, or he can experience salvation.

Now, the destruction doesn't have to do with eternal destruction as a salvation. It doesn't have to do with eternal salvation. We're not talking about eternal verities. I went out on the Internet the other day to see how some people were handling my book, Salvation of the Soul.

There's a website somewhere out there, there's probably more than one, where the person has excerpts up from my book, The Saving of the Soul, and has people writing in to comment on these excerpts. Well, that's not a good idea to put something up outside of context, especially what people that are writing in have no concept about.

But it's interesting to read some of the comments, because those commenting are looking upon Scripture only in one respect, saved or unsaved, heaven or hell. And they comment, the guy seems to be saying that we can be half-saved and still go to heaven.

Things along that line, you know. Well, I'm not saying that. But their limited concept of what is being said, that's what they're deriving from it. Now, Scripture only reveals two positions, just like saved or lost.

Salvation or Destruction: No Middle Ground

There's no position between saved and lost. Turn to Matthew 12 .30. Take a look at how the Lord words this. Matthew 12 .30, He that is not with me is against me. He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

A very similar verse in Luke 11 .23, if you're taking notes. Now, it's either one or the other. There is no middle ground between the two. It's either salvation, as in 1 Thessalonians 5 .9, God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation.

Well, so many want to interpret that as wrath has to do with the tribulation, and He's appointed us to escape the tribulation through rapture. It has nothing to do with that. The context is not dealing with that.

The context is dealing with the subject that we're talking about. It's dealing with the subject out of Genesis 18 and 19. It's dealing with the subject out of 1 Corinthians 11 that we read. Destruction with this present world.

The world is going down. You can either experience wrath, or you can experience salvation. It's talking to saved people, not unsaved people. It's either life or death. In Romans 8 .13, if you live after the flesh, you will die.

But if you through the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live. See, there's no middle ground. It's one or the other. In Matthew 16, whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever will lose his life, for my sake, will find it.

Saving of the life has to do with living for self, living out in the world, and you'll be destroyed with the world. You will lose your life. But if you live for the Lord, if you follow what is stated in Genesis 19 .17, look out ahead to the mountain, run for your life, run for your soul.

That is, run the race of the faith in a proper manner. That's what this whole study is about. Running the race of the faith. Looking out ahead. Not looking back. Not staying in the plain. Escape to the mountain.

If you run the race in the proper manner set forth, you will lose your life now, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die. It abides alone. But if it dies, it will bring forth much fruit. You must lose your life now to gain your life out ahead.