The Carnal Mind and a New Mind
George Whitfield, the eighteenth century evangelist, was correct when he said, “If the unregenerate man could enter heaven, he would be so unhappy in heaven, that he would ask God to let him run down to he!! for shelter.”
How could the enemies of God sit down at the banquet of the Lamb of God?
Universalism wants us to bury our heads in the sand.
The carnal mind is enmity against God all the time. So why would such a person ever want to be in God’s holy presence? It is against everything God is for in His universe. It sets the world system and all it teaches in opposition to the LORD God.
The carnal mind is a “depraved spirit that is set on those things which are not proper” (Romans 1:28). How would you know one if you saw it? Romans 1:29-32 says, “Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."
It is a dreadful picture of human depravity. The apostle then declared, "Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things" (Romans 2:1-2).
There is a day coming when “God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus” (v. 16). It is not because we do not deserve it. The Bible testifies that we are all guilty. “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5-6).
After a detailed presentation of our sins against us in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul concludes, "But glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God" (Romans 2:10-11) "You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?" (Romans 2:23).
How many of us have not wished in the depths of our hearts, “Would to God these sins were not forbidden!” Spurgeon asked, “Who among us has not been so foolish as to desire that there were no God?”
But There is: