What the Word says
about sense knowledge

Gal.1:11-12 "For I make known to you, brethren, as touching the gospel which was preached by me, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through Revelation of Jesus Christ."

What I found in Paul's epistles first awakened me to this subject. I never fully understood his reference to the word "flesh" in Rom.8:1-12, until I saw that word "flesh" means “Senses”.

Take this as an illustration. For they that are after the flesh, mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit.

Now read it this way. "For they that are after the Senses have the mind of the Senses, but they that are after the spirit have the mind of the spirit,"

It is not speaking about the Holy Spirit. It is speaking about our spirit.

Seventh verse, "The mind of the flesh (that is the thinking that derives its evidences from the Senses) is enmity against God."

He does not mean the physical body as the physical body, but the physical body as holding the five channels through which knowledge comes to our intellect.

The body is the repository of the Five Senses through which all the knowledge of material things has come to our brain

1Cor.1:21, "For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom knew not God, seeing the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek after Sense Knowledge."

This is illuminating. Here is the knowledge of God, or Revelation Knowledge, over against Sense Knowledge of the world. It declares that this Sense Knowledge does not know God - cannot know God. This perfectly agrees with 1Cor.2:14, which reads, "Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them because they are spiritually understood." This is God's statement of fact.

Man has failed to get the knowledge of God, though he has given himself to study and searching through all the realms of nature. The philosopher has always been reverenced in every age.

We little appreciate what the true philosopher is. He is really a searcher after God, because he has failed to find satisfaction in anything else. He has never arrived at reality, the aim of all philosophers.

You cannot find reality anywhere outside of Jesus Christ. The old scientists were all God seekers, but Job tells us they cannot find God by searching. The scripture I just quoted tells us that Sense Knowledge cannot know the things of God. Sense perception fails utterly when it comes to divine things. Men who are not Born Again have no place in the pulpit, as teachers of Sunday School classes, or as teachers in our theological institutions, because they have nothing in themselves but Sense Knowledge.

Col. 2:2-8, "That they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden." This is where true Knowledge, true Wisdom heads up.

1Cor.1:26, "Behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after Sense Knowledge, not many mighty, not many noble, are called."

1Cor.2:2 throws light upon Paul's idea of the ministry. "For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." Paul had had the advantages of all the scholarship of his age; with his unusual intellect he had gathered much knowledge. But he said, "When I came to you, I laid aside my knowledge, and gave you what I had in Christ. And my speech and my preaching were not in the persuasive words of Sense Knowledge, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the Sense Knowledge of men, but in the ability of God."

Read carefully the next few verses and you see a contrast of the two kinds of knowledge. You can understand how Paul gave up Sense Knowledge for Revelation Knowledge. He tells us in 1Cor.2:9, "Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love Him." It is not wisdom and knowledge that has come through the eye or the ear, but it has come through Revelation.

10th verse, "But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit. But the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God."  Sense Knowledge cannot penetrate here.

The superior Knowledge which has come through Revelation takes its place. "But we received not the spirit of the world (or of this age) but the Spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things we speak, not in words of man's wisdom (or Sense Knowledge), but in words that the Spirit has given to us. For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are not intelligible to him." This is so suggestive. How it challenges us.

Now we can understand why a ministry that is ruled by Sense Knowledge cannot build faith in the hearts of the congregation. We can understand why Sense Knowledge does not believe in Revelation, does not believe in miracles, does not believe in the supernatural. A man may be a child of God and yet never have his mind renewed. He still lives in the realm of Sense Perception. He cannot know the things of God.

Sense Knowledge has closed the doors against the teaching of the Holy Spirit and Revelation. The only solution to this problem is the recognition of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which really means the Lordship of the Word. This Revelation is the mind of Christ that has been given to us, that we might know our own Father-God.

Only as we recognize the Lordship of this Word does the light of the Spirit dawn upon us. Discrediting evidence gained through the Senses is not an easy task. The more we study this subject the more vital it becomes.

We are to cast down the world mind and all its Knowledge and accept the Revelation of God in its place.  You cannot build faith as long as Sense Knowledge sits upon the throne of your reason.

As long as you listen to the reasoning derived from the Senses you will never believe the Word, you will never walk by faith, you will never see the triumphs of faith in your life. What Jesus said to Martha at the tomb of Lazarus fits this age in which we are living. When Jesus said, "Roll ye away the stone," Martha said, "Lord, he has been in the tomb four days. His body decayeth." Sense Knowledge held Martha.

Jesus said so tenderly to her, "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst, thou shouldest see the glory of God." Martha saw the glory of God, but I question if she appreciated it.

Take this case as an illustration.

Here is a woman healed of cancer. It was a hideous thing. God wrought a miracle before the people, and Sense Knowledge folks said, "Well, it might not have been a cancer." Another said, "Perhaps it was her time to get well anyway, just nature taking its course."

Sense Knowledge will not give God the credit. The only thing to do with Sense Knowledge is "to cast it down" and let Revelation Knowledge, the Word of God, take its place. One of the most vivid contrasts given to us in the Old Testament is found in Jer.17:5-8. "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, that maketh flesh his arm, whose heart departeth from Jehovah."

Let us read it this way, "Cursed is the man that trusteth in Sense Knowledge and maketh Sense Knowledge his strength, whose heart has departed from Jehovah." There you have the contrast. One leads us invariably away from God to trust in what man has done, and the other leads us to trust in the Lord.