The Mind Of Christ

Did you know that about ninety-nine-and-nine-tenths of the problems that confront people is because they have that same problem--they have a clinker in their thinkers? We laugh this off as not being important, but God sees the way people think as being very important.

Illus: We see this in the story of how God actually wiped out a whole civilization of people because of the way they thought. Look at Genesis 6:5. We read, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the THOUGHTS of his heart was only evil continually.”

The Bible tells us that before Christ raptures His church men will be as they were in the days of Noah. How were men then? Their thoughts were of “...ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY.” This is the way it is today.

Illus: Did you know that if people knew what evil thoughts were being thought about them as they walked down the street they probably would not walk down the streets. For example:

-YOU WOMEN - If you knew what some men thought about you as you walked down the street, you would be scared to walk down the streets. Some men have such evil minds that every time they look at a woman they undress her in their minds, and they lust after her. If you could take the lid off of their minds you would see it full of filth, as a filthy sewer.

-YOU YOUNG LADIES - That young man that goes from girl to girl and tells you everything you want to hear does not do that because he loves you. If you could only open his mind you would see his mind is like a dirty trash can and you would not let him come within ten feet of you.

-YOU MEN - If you could open the minds of some women and look in you would be shocked! Some women fill their minds with the garbage of the Hollywood slop operas, movies, and gossip magazines day after day. If you could lift the lid off of their minds, it would be like looking into a vile pit.

We all know there has always been evil in this world since the “fall,” but we also know it is constantly growing worse. Today it seems that this world in which we live has gone berserk. Why? For the same reason as back in Noah’s day. THEY DID WRONG because THEY THOUGHT WRONG. We must not forget, when Noah’s generation THOUGHT EVIL CONTINUALLY, no one could see the evil thoughts in people’s minds, BUT GOD COULD! And finally God saw the thoughts of people were so wicked He chose to destroy them!

Again, men today are thinking wrong. For example...

Illus: Many of our young people are piping into their minds some of the most vile and corrupt stuff imaginable. They listen to songs with lyrics that explicitly encouraged young people to involve themselves in drugs, the occult, homosexuality, suicide, etc. Why do you suppose teens become involved in such things? We do not need to guess. God tells us, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...”

We are told that the average teenager pipes this garbage into his mind at the rate of 10,500 hours between grades 1 and 12. That is only 500 hours less than they spend in the classroom from grades 1 to 12. People today wonder why young people are involved in such things as DRUGS, ALCOHOL, THE OCCULT, PREMARITAL SEX, ETC. It is because they give their minds to such things. Again, God’s Word is true -- Proverb 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...”

Illus: We are told that the average child, from grades 1 to 12, watches 22,000 hours of television, viewing 18,000 murders. That is over twice the time spent in class from grades 1 to 12, getting their basic education. Again, people wonder why children carry guns to school. They wonder why they shoot at each other as they drive down the streets! It is because what God says is true. The young people give their minds to those things -- “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...” People are raising a generation of children, allowing thousands of hours of some of the most ungodly things that could be pumped into the human brain, to be pumped into their brains. And we haven’t seen the worst yet! The evil thoughts in their minds will one day cease to be thoughts; they will become their deeds! “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he...”

Scripture teaches Christians that WE NEED THE MIND OF CHRIST. When the scripture says we are to have the mind of Christ, notice, we are not talking about the brain of Christ. There is a difference between having the mind and the brain of Christ! You nor I could ever have the intelligence of Christ, but we can have “the mind of Christ.”