Lesson for May 12, 2024
The Fragmented Life
Lesson 2
Isaiah 14:13-14, “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to Heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”
Satan’s arrogance caused his disobedience to God, and the rebellion of one-third of the angelic host who followed him. Therefore, arrogance is the original sin of the Angelic Conflict and arrogance was the motivation for Adam’s and Eve’s original sins in the Garden of Eden. When a believer chooses to live under the policies of Satan’s world system, their spiritual life becomes a fragmented mess, which begins in the same manner that it began for Satan – arrogance.
All arrogance starts with thinking, moves into motivation, and from there moves into decisions and actions. Arrogance is a complex of mental attitude sins, which have their foundation in the basic concept of the “sin of pride.” Pride has both a negative and a positive connotation. The negative connotation of pride is arrogance. The positive connotation of pride is self-satisfaction. Arrogance is defined as unreasonable conceit, preoccupation with self, rejection of authority, vanity, self-justification, an inflated concept of self, and the exaggeration of one’s own self-importance.
Some people spend their entire lives comparing themselves to others. Arrogance is not only exaggerated conceit, but is a total preoccupation with self, which divorces believers from the realities of life. Believers in Jesus Christ have been given the ability to see things as they really are and avoid the “head-in-the-sand” attitude, by means of the knowledge and application of accurate Bible doctrine.
Arrogance is the most basic motivational sin of human life. It is the foundation for all sins, human good, evil, and both moral and immoral degeneracy.
Arrogance fragments our spiritual lives and divorces us from the realities of life. Arrogant thinking often results in irrationality, resulting in psychotic, neurotic, and psychopathic behavior. Arrogance produces the wide emotional swings from self-righteousness to self-pity. Therefore, arrogance is unstable, inconsistent, and can never find reality. Arrogance is easily deceived by flattery. Arrogance emphasizes self and people to the exclusion of emphasizing God. A believer in a fragmented system of arrogance fails to see the reality of their own instability and inconsistency and its impact on others, by being preoccupied with self.
Arrogance is like the pin in a grenade. You pull the pin of the grenade with your own volition. The sin nature cannot make you sin; it is a source of temptation. The sin nature has an area of strength and an area of weakness. You are tempted from your area of weakness, not from your area of strength. The sin nature also has two opposing trends – legalism and lawlessness. The sin nature is the source of temptation; volition is the source of sin. Being tempted is not a sin. Only when our free will succumbs to temptation is there sin and potential fragmentation of the spiritual life.
II Timothy 3:1-5 is the story of the fragmented life. “For persons [including believers] will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power [the omnipotence of God]; avoid such people.”
Every believer is a potential walking “grenade.” The pin of the grenade is the arrogance complex. We pull the pin by a lifestyle of jealousy, bitterness, hatred, resentment, implacability, vindictiveness, self-pity, self-righteous arrogance, guilt, motivational revenge, functional revenge, conspiracy, slander, maligning, gossip, etc.
A believer whose life is fragmented fails to use their two power options from God. They deny the power of God by continuously living in Satan’s world system. Some of these believers may “talk the talk” but they fail to “walk the walk” (holding to a form of godliness). By living in accordance with Satan’s world system, these believers are denying the power of God that resides within them.
“Pulling the pin in the grenade” can be a conscious decision to rebel against God and His Word or a gradual slide into a state of reversionism through neglect of your spiritual life. Either way, your spiritual life is going to be destroyed and your life is going to be one of guilt and regret accompanied by self-induced misery and divine discipline. Some or all of the characteristics listed in II Timothy 3:1-5 will begin to manifest themselves in your life as the retreat into reversionism worsens.
As the slide continues, the reversionistic believer is continually distracted by the details of life. The pleasures of life, relationships with others, or a drive for success are put before God, His plan, and/or His Word. As the spiritual nature is starved of Bible doctrine and the sin nature is fed human viewpoint, this believer sinks deeper into the quagmire of reversionism.
In a frantic search for happiness, which for believers can be found only from the God’s plan for their life, the reversionsist acts out whatever their particular trend of the sin nature happens to be. They may become legalistic, attempting to force their idea of spirituality upon all in their periphery. Carried to its fullest extent, legalism results in pseudo-spirituality by works, trying to reform the devil’s world through Christian activist, or emotionalism, all of which are evil. Others with a different trend of the sin nature, may involve themselves in various types of debauchery. Neither of these reversionistic trends produces the happiness which they are seeking; they are led instead into a life of self-induced misery.
As the reversionist moves further away from God, their conscience becomes more and more seared, their norms and standards revert to human viewpoint, and the scar tissue of their soul begins to build. Capacity for sharing the happiness of God is replaced with the temporary happiness of the world system: money, power, social status, entertainment, and material possessions. When these things are lost, the reversionist is left with nothing to “make them happy.” What a person thought was going to bring them lasting happiness only brought them delusion, heartache, frustration, discouragement, and even depression. (I Timothy 4:2)
Turning to emotion, which was never designed by God to control the soul, but as a response mechanism, the reversionist further revolts. This emotional revolt, whether knowingly or in ignorance, continues to reject God’s authority, resulting in mental instability and mental imbalance.
A life ruled by emotion can never please God. When emotion is allowed to take over, Divine Viewpoint Thinking and application of doctrine are impossible. The slide into reversionism continues as “experience” (usually an emotional one) replaces the truth of God’s Word. Having turned their back on God and His grace policies, the reversionist forgets their source of blessing. They bring upon themselves many forms of agony and distress from living in Satan’s world system and from divine discipline from their Heavenly Father. However, there is always hope for a believer to recover from a state of reversionism and a fragmented life.
Hebrews 12:11, “For the moment, all (divine) discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained (have learned) by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness (recovery of the spiritual life).”