THEME: HOW TO BE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD  
LESSON: SEVEN
TOPIC:  Inward Voice and Inward Witness
TEXT:  Rom 8:14-16, John 16:13-15, Prov 20:27, Gal 5:16

MEMORY TRACK:  

By God’s grace, we took a further look at the importance of the inward witness and its crucial role in a successful Christian journey. We saw that the Lord does not want believers to be fleece-led, or to succumb to the various activities of the mind in leading of The Spirit. The Lord has great desire for everyone of His children to prosper in leading, because the Lamb himself wants to lead us to living fountains of waters. The Holy Ghost wants to lead and trains us till we can respond to the leading of God and the Lamb (Rev 7:17).

Man is a tripartite being by creation and formation

Man is a spirit, that has a soul and lives in a body. The spirit of man is called the inner man (Eph 3:16) The soul is called the inward man (Rom 7:22; 1Pet 3:3-5) and the body is called the outward man (2Cor 4:16).

The soul of man who is the middleman is divided primarily into 2. The heart which is the lower part of the soul which the scriptures also call “the belly” (John 7:38, Prov 20:27) and the upper part which is also called the mind (Phil 4:7; Heb 10:16).

The voice of our regenerated human spirit is called the Inward voice or the inner voice, and that of the Holy Ghost inside of us is called the Inward Witness or inner witness (Rom 8:16, Rom 9:1).

The voice of our inner man is a voice that the Lord can trust to use to guide us in our natural affairs. The spirit man was quickened and made alive with the spirit of the earth of the world to come. This has better quality of life than that of the present (Heb 2:5) The inward voice is what we call the still small voice (1Kings 19:11-13).

Man died and was thrown into a world of darkness, guided, directed, led by darkened information from his dead spirit (1Cor 12:1-2; Eph 2:1-3) God quickened the same man and gave him life (Christ life) in his spirit (Rom 8:10), made his spirit Christ by creation and began the work of formation on the purchased possession which is our soul and our body (2Cor 5:17, Gal 4:19) We became Gentiles by being led (1Cor 12:1) We would also be made righteous by leading (Rom 8:14, Gal 5:18) The voice of our spirit speaks to us constantly, for the purpose of doing the work done by creation in our spirit also in our soul.

The aim of leading is always for the formation of nature

This still small voice, which is the voice of our regenerated human spirit is in constant sync with the Holy Spirit, who also resides in our spirit. The voice of the Holy Spirit is more authoritative than the regenerated human spirit.

It is more assertive. It is not suggestive. It is more direct (Acts 13:1-4; Acts 8:29-30) The Holy Ghost said, not suggestively but direct and directional, for Barnabas and Saul (Paul) to be separated for the work which the Holy Ghost gave unto them.

The Conscience

This is a faculty in the soul which we would look at in some detail, not exhaustively. But would be helpful for a bit of understanding of this soulish faculty and how it can be made better.

Types of Conscience

  • 1Cor 8:7-10 Weak Conscience 
  • 1Tim 1:5,19 Good Conscience 
  • 1Tim 3:9; 2Tim 1:3 Pure Conscience
  • Titus 1:15 Defiled Conscience 
  • Heb 10: 22 Evil Conscience 
  • 1Tim 4:1-2 Seared Conscience/Dead Conscience 

The Conscience is a core integral part of the heart of the man’s soul (Rom 2:13-15). Every man both dead or alive in their spirit has a conscience, which is like a safety valve to prevent man’s quick descent into death and destruction. Any believer and unbeliever that successfully destroys the conscience has destroyed the man. 

The gospel is a great tool to move the conscience from just being weak, to good, to pure and to make it perfect. Where the conscience has been thoroughly exercised to be void (emptied) of offense towards man and towards God.

Conclusion 

In conclusion we are meant to train our souls (heart, mind, will, conscience) by being constantly subject to the life that our spirit now possesses. The more we live from our spirit, the more the faculties of our souls are being retrained also to become spiritual and to also possess life.