One of the great failures in the generation leading up to the Flood is found in Genesis 6:5:

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. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

With the high population in the earth, much violence and wickedness abounded during the days of Noah. However, in this passage God acknowledged the greatest problem was the mind-set of men. You will observe that the wording of the above verse brings the individuality of this truth; that which prompted great wickedness in the earth was the fact that “every imagination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually.”

The Sethites had grown indifferent to their spiritual heritage; through marriage they had merged with the Cainite line. The abounding of wickedness was an outward manifestation of a deepening inner trend in mankind’s thought-life. The Sethites had put no restraint upon their natural inclinations; thoughts were only evil continually. As a man “thinketh in his heart,” so is he.

Such thoughts would have been checked if men had accepted the judging and correcting work of God’s Holy Spirit mentioned in Genesis 6:3. However, that work was consistently refused. As it was then, so it is today. We are at a crucial hour when the thought life of man is at its worst state in human history. What we see and what we hear coming forth from man’s hands, lips, and eyes in all aspects of life are the result of what he has been thinking. The thoughts of man are private and secret, until he begins manifesting them through his actions and words. Then they become public for the entire world to see and hear. As a result, they become visual and audible “food” for others to consume in their thought-life, taking them into deeper areas that they had not thought of before.

From Logic to Chaos

More than ever, we are in an age where the deepening of man’s sinful thought is ruling the world. This ever-descending mind-set claims to be establishing a human utopia void of God. The imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually. This word evil is not to be viewed simply as immoral; it literally means “to break in pieces, to make something of worth, worthless.” Corrupt thoughts, imaginations, and perversities concerning all Truth and God—this is the destructive force of man. What he thinks drives all he does. God has given immense powers to the mind of man. However, it will take a supernatural power to cause all mankind to be conformed to the corrupting powerful thought of a single man.

To what extent has our thinking been affected both in this country and around the world? How have we gone from logic to chaos in one generation? As Americans, we’ve come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified our parents’ generation: abortion-on-demand virtually up to the moment of birth, judges banning the Ten Commandments from public places, a national explosion of middle-school immorality, the slow starvation of the disabled, tens of thousands of homosexuals openly flouting the law and getting “married,” and online porn creating late-night addicts in millions of middle-class homes. At the same time, our courts have scrubbed American’s schoolrooms surgically clean of every vestige of the religion by which this nation’s birth was influenced, that of Christianity. Indeed, in fifty years we’ve gone from a nation unified by traditional Judeo-Christian values to one in which those same values are increasingly scorned, rejected, and demonized.

How has today’s generation become more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Our society over several decades has been deceived and remolded by some of the boldest and most brilliant marketing campaigns in modern history. A generation ago, in his perceptive best seller The Hidden Persuaders , Vance Packard explained how Madison Avenue was greedily using knowledge of mass manipulation gleaned from modern psychology and psychiatry to induce us to buy everything from cigarettes to cars and soap.

Today, however, it has gone beyond just the selling of soap. There are far more precious commodities being sold to us every day; namely, new beliefs and especially new “feelings” about things we formerly rejected. The plain truth is, within the space of our lifetimes, much of what Americans once almost universally abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped, and sold to us as though it had great value. By skillfully playing on our deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity, and tolerance, these marketers have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened and noble that which all previous generations since America’s founding regarded as grossly self-destructive—EVIL. In his book People of the Lie , Dr. M. Scott Peck reflects on what “evil” actually means:

It is a reflection of the enormous mystery of the subject that we do not have a generally accepted definition of evil. Yet in our hearts I think we all have some understanding of its nature. For the moment I can do no better than to heed my son, who, with the characteristic vision of eight-year-olds, explained simply, ‘Why, Daddy, evil is live spelled backward.’ Evil is in opposition to life. It is that which opposes the life force.

Peck also points out that people caught up with evil are liars, “deceiving others as they also build layer upon layer of self-deception.” The marketers of evil not only lie to us continually, and to themselves, but the purpose of their lies is to promote behavior and beliefs that oppose life.

For instance, in accord with our modern cultural mythology, most people believe that the “abortion rights” and “gay rights” movements were spontaneous grassroots uprisings of neglected or persecuted minorities wanting to breathe free. But America was actually sold on abortion, thanks to an audacious, calculated, and brazenly deceptive public relations plan that relied heavily on lies and fabrications, acknowledged by its leaders. At the same time giant corporations are strongly competing for America’s $150 billion teen market; they routinely infiltrate young people’s social groups with undercover “culture spies” to find out how better to lead children into ever more debauched forms of “authentic self-expression.” Along with this is the gay rights movement which transformed America’s former view of homosexuals as self-destructive deviants into their current status as victims and cultural heroes, following an in-depth, published plan laid out by professional Harvard-trained marketers.

How can this be happening in America? How does child molesting become “man-boy love”? How does crushing a baby’s skull and sucking out his brains become a “Constitutional right”? How does quoting the Bible become “hate speech”? How exactly is evil made to appear good, and good made to appear evil? How does America, which still boasts some seventy-percent Christian population, see fit to embrace what can only be called a culture of death, rather than a culture of life? What has traditionally been known as “temptation” (the art and science of making evil look attractive by appealing to the weaknesses in all of us that invite such deception) is now entering into dimensions of deception we could never have expected.

We know well how even our nation’s President has been forced upon this country through pervading lies and deceptions by a sympathetic media. Though probably one of the worst presidents we have ever known, he may easily be re-elected again this year, unless God intervenes. We are in the greatest climate for the rise of chaos. Since the 1960s, moral confusion and relativism have permeated the West and have made us ripe for all this deception, and more. We have come to the final hour (before the rise of Antichrist) of the great marketers of evil in this world. If we do not comprehend our own inherent weaknesses to deception, our fate and our family’s fate are already sealed.

The Need of a Spiritual Mind

What is the Mystery of God’s will amidst the rise of chaos in logic today? What is greatly needed in Christians this hour is to fervently seek God for a spiritual mind. The apostle Paul stated, “To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6). Though the mind is not the fountain (as God made the heart to be), it is a powerful part of man’s existence and is a critical key to what he truly is. It is evident in the day in which we live that the mind has become the major battlefield which Satan and his controlled world craves to capture; it is the major victory point which leads to the capturing of a person’s heart. It is that identity within man that Satan hath blinded of them which believe not, lest the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ should shine into them. It is by controlling the mind that the powers of darkness will be able to control man’s will, emotions, body, and his very self. It is amazing that the powers without are helpless to do anything directly unless they first have gained some ground within man; the mind is where that securing and persuading take place. It would be difficult to estimate how much of the world’s philosophy, ethics, knowledge, research, and science flows from the powers of darkness. However, we are certain that all arguments and proud obstacles against the knowledge of God are the fortresses of the enemy.

How close is man’s mind to the authorities of wickedness? The first sin of mankind was seeking the knowledge of good and evil. Throughout the Bible it seems that all communications between human and satanic forces occur in the realm of thought. In 1 Chronicles 21 we read of Satan’s provoking David to number the people through David’s thoughts. In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar’s pride about his kingdom was prompted and promoted by Satan himself. Evil surmisings are of the devil. Every temptation Satan presents or entices man with must be presented to his mind. Satan uses the flesh to ultimately conquer the spirit realm in pride. In all these temptations, the enemy creates some kind of thought by which to seduce man. We cannot separate temptation and thought. All temptations are offered us in the form of thoughts. The mind is so closely exposed to the powers of darkness that we need to learn how to guard the mind and its fruit, our thoughts.

In the face of satanic temptations, there must be an initial work of God to destroy Satan’s arguments. This initial work happens at the New Birth—God granting us repentance. The changing of the mind is to reverse the effects of our former state of mind. Man in his mind is at enmity with God; therefore, God must alter man’s mind if he would impart life to him.

Man must have a change of mind before he can have a change of heart, or a new heart. But after regeneration, following repentance, the believer’s mind is not totally liberated from the touch of Satan. As he worked through the mind in former days, so he works in like manner. In 2 Corinthians 11:3, Paul warned the Corinthians: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” As the Devil, the god of this world, blinded the minds of unbelievers, he can deceive the mind of the believers. The mind suffers the onslaught of the powers of darkness more than any other aspect of man. Satan through the serpent assailed Eve’s mind before her heart. Her heart was sinless, yet her mind was open for suggestion and doubt. It is in the mind where doubt and skepticism begin; where evil surmisings that pollute the heart begin; and where discouragement, depression, unbelief, and questionings begin. Ezekiel 11:5 declares, “And the Spirit of the LORD fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak; thus saith the LORD; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come into your mind, every one of them.”

What are the things that come into our minds? The mind was included in the Great Commandment—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” We are to love God with the mind as well as with the heart and soul. The Bible also makes a clear distinction in Romans 8 between the carnal mind and the spiritual mind. The Scriptures plead with us about what we need to do to help us with our minds: 1 Peter 1:13—Gird up the loins of the mind; Romans 12:2—Be transformed by the renewing of your mind; 1 Peter 4:1—Arm ourselves with the same mind; Philippians 2:5—Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus; Romans 14:5—Be fully persuaded in our mind; 2 Thess. 2:2—Be not soon shaken in mind; Hebrews 12:3—Lest ye be wearied and faint in mind.

Yes, the Scriptures call to us to protect the mind as a Christian. We must remember: a battle is raging for the control of man’s soul. The mind is always receiving thoughts from both without and within. These thoughts become our personal thoughts when we commence to dwell upon them. Second Corinthians 10:3–6 reveals to us that the key to a victorious life is right thinking even in an age when chaos and evil rule the logic of mankind.

I have come to believe that the precious work and continued working of sanctification is the critical key of the Atonement for the mind. It becomes that provision for the mind in thought that must be maintained. In Romans 7:23 Paul reveals to us, “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” The carnal mind brings death to the believer; the spiritual mind brings life and peace.

The Danger of a Passive Mind

The Christian in our generation cannot afford to have a passive mind. What is a passive mind? It is a mind inactive with meditation on God. This passivity is evident when unclean, blasphemous, and confusing thoughts easily and continually are injected from without. Though a passive mind may decide to reject these thoughts, it is powerless to stop them, or alter the trend of habitual thinking. A passive mind is a perpetual motion machine, regardless of whether it willfully opposes such thoughts. First Timothy 4:1 takes on a fresh meaning in this context: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits,” that is, through thoughts to the mind.

A passive mind is also noted when a child is not able to learn. Often this is due to a lack of concentration, a difficulty in thinking right thoughts, or a captivity to wandering thoughts. James 1:8 states that the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Through all of this the mind then comes under bondage, a death. It is seen in vacillations from belief to unbelief, when a person at one moment says, “I can,” and then at the next moment, “I can’t,” or “I want to” one moment, and “I don’t want to” another moment.

Conclusion

We must pray for the power of Christ to help our minds. Such verses as Ephesians 4:17, 18, 22, 23, and Romans 8:5, 6 speak to us about this need. Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:17 to “take the helmet of salvation”; the mind needs to be saved. In 1 Peter 4:1 we read of the need of sanctification. Many lose the battle of the heart initially in the mind. I must find the Mystery of the Will of God for my mind in this age given to chaotic logic.

A spiritual mind is needed not only to face this age but also to live above this age. A spiritual mind is both born in a crisis and cultivated through habits of spiritual reading and prayer, setting our minds on things above and not on things on the earth.

What are some of the evidences of a Spiritual mind?

1. The spiritual mind is apt to learning the things of God. It is having an appetite for the things of God and His Word. It is a keen appreciation for the points in truth that are incomprehensible to the natural mind. It is the taking in of truth from sermons, hymns, and providence. Many Christians do not see, yet the Spiritual mind of others is quick to discern.
2. “Strength” is another mark of a spiritual mind. It is a mind that takes hold on truth with tremendous vigor and is serious in its thinking of God. This mind means business for God and is not lazy with God. As a child will fight for a plaything and let a kingdom slip from his hand, the unspiritual mind will magnify a religious toy and let a crown and a place of honor in the Kingdom of Christ go neglected. This mind of strength will have continual daily thinking on God.
3. A spiritual mind is quick to finely discriminate truth and error. Such a mind receives Holy Spirit insight; it is not a slow process of reasoning. Such a mind is ready and receptive to the Spirit.
4. A spiritual mind is a source of physical vigor. A mind in regular conversation with God is as a thick mantle wrapped around the soul from the noise, bustle, and trifles of life. Isaiah 26:3 states, “Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” Such a mind becomes a secret pavilion: it quiets the nerves, chastens our fears, invigorates the will, and sweetens the affections. It conducts us to life and peace.

In these days when chaos rules the thinking of man and governments, may we know the mystery of His will in having the mind of Christ.