The theme of this sermon is Minds That Turn Away From God. Certainly before you are saved and even after you are saved, your mind can turn away from God. the Bible shows us what kinds of minds turn away from God.
In Matt 22:36-38, when Jesus quoted the “great commandment in the law” he said that, in addition to loving the Lord with all your heart and soul, you must love him with all your mind. He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God… with all thy mind.” This is very important to understand. When you don’t love God with all of your mind, you can be convinced to turn away from God. The following minds turn away from God. When you love God with all thy mind, you are protected from a:
Fleshly mind – Col 2:18 – Eph 2:3 fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and of the mind; Eph 4:17 … Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. Col 1:21 Alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. In our fallen state, our minds are naturally alienated from God by sin. You must resist the temptation to follow your fleshly mind. When you love God with all your mind, you don’t give in to your fleshly mind.
Defiled mind – Titus 1:15 defiled by impurity and exposure to defiling influences. You must be very careful, even from childhood, to protect your mind and the mind of your children from defiling influences. A Korean girl’s mind was defiled by watching a pornographic movie. She said, “On that day, I lost my innocence.” When you love God with all your mind, you will protect your mind from impure images and thoughts.
Corrupt mind – 2 Cor 11:3 corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, corrupted by deceitful workers and false apostles working for the devil. Religions corrupt the minds of their followers by making them think they are children of God by keeping the commands of the religion. For instance, children who are baptized as babies aren’t children of God. Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t children of God. When you love God with all your mind, you protect your mind from the corrupting influences of religion.
In 1 Tim 6:5, we read about men destitute of the truth and in 2 Tim 3:8, men who resist the truth. Teachers destitute of the truth and who resist the truth have used the theory of evolution to corrupt the minds of many young people. Evolution is not science. It is an alternative to creation in explaining our origin. It is the natural explanation versus the supernatural explanation. Notice these problems. The fossil record supposedly shows fossils of the simplest organisms found in the oldest rocks and fossils of the more complex organisms found in the newest rocks. However there are no fossils of the transitional forms. There is no observable scientific evidence for macro evolution. The law of biogenesis shows that living organisms must come from living organisms. Living organisms do not come from inanimate objects. Spontaneous generation has never been observed. The formation of a new species by any mechanism has never been observed. Further, there is no scientific evidence for the transition from invertebrates to vertebrates. The second law of thermodynamics – the law of increasing entropy – shows that all systems tend toward disorganization and decreased complexity. Natural selection cannot generate order. The most influential evolutionists are dogmatic atheists. See http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences4.html and https://www.icr.org/home/resources/resources_tracts_scientificcaseagainstevolution/.
When you love God with all your mind, you will turn away from any religion, philosophy, or vain deceit intended to corrupt your mind.
Reprobate mind – Rom 1:28 – God gives men over to a reprobate mind when they are not thankful and do not like to retain God in their knowledge. You can see the sins the people with a reprobate mind get into in Rom 1:29-31. When you love God with all of your mind, you will be thankful and glorify him and God will protect your mind from becoming reprobate.
Blinded mind – 2 Cor 4:4 [2 Cor 3:14] – when men refuse to believe the words of God, the devil blinds their mind in unbelief so that they cannot see the light of the glorious gospel. When you love God with all your mind, you will believe what he said and the devil can’t blind your mind.
Conclusion: You must love God with all your mind to protect your mind from being turned away from God. When you love God, you love his words. And his words show you your need to be born again. When you are born again, you have a spiritual mind, the mind of Christ, and then you can understand all that God has revealed of himself to you. Then you will begin to love him more and more each day.