«　WEEK 5　DAY 2　»

　　Matt. 16:23- 25 But He turned and said to Peter, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.

　　Throughout history the church has not been damaged mainly by Judaism or Gnosticism; it has been damaged mainly by the self. Martin Luther once said that although he was afraid of the pope, he was more afraid of the stronger pope, the self, within his own heart. Nothing damages and frustrates the building up of the church more than the self. Self is the embodiment of the soul, which is expressed through the mind. Thus the self, the soul, and the mind are three-in-one. Behind these three is Satan, who manipulates the self in order to damage the church life. We all need to heed this word for ourselves. (CWWL, 1978, vol. 1, “The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building of the Church,” p. 71)

　　We need to receive the mercy of the Lord to regard all the saints as our brothers and sisters but none as our friends. For the Lord's building in the church life, everything natural must be extracted. There should be no natural affection, relationship, or feeling. Rather, we all must be fearful of natural affection and shun it. Whenever a brother loves me in a naturally affectionate way, I am frightened. That is the time for me to exercise the key to deny the self. I will lock myself and avoid that brother's affection. Whenever you discover that you are feeding a brother's self and that he is feeding yours, you must use the key to lock the gate of the self. If you do not lock up the self, Satan will come out through the door of the self. (CWWL, 1978, vol. 1, “The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building of the Church,” p. 73)

　　In Genesis 3:1b [Satan] asked the woman, “Did God really say, You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” This was a question put into Eve's mind, and this question stirred up her doubting mind. This is a strong point that we have to stress. Satan would always approach people by touching their doubting mind. Here Satan questioned something concerning God, and this questioning, no doubt, aroused the mind of Eve.

　　After Satan came to touch the female mind, he caused the human mind to doubt God's word (v. 4)....This means that the poison of the serpent got into her mind, because the word of Satan got into her. When the word gets in, the person gets in. Thus, the human mind was poisoned, contaminated.

　　Satan also stirred up the human emotion to dislike God. This is proved by verse 5, where Satan said to Eve, “God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.” This word was a word of evil, stirring up Eve's emotion to dislike God. Eve probably felt that God had kept some good thing from her. This is the subtlety of the enemy to poison the human emotion.

　　Satan seduced the human will to choose the tree of knowledge. After Satan's word in verse 5, verse 6 says, “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make oneself wise, she took of its fruit and ate.” This is the seducing of the human will to make a decision to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

　　At this point, Satan had contaminated the entire human soul: the mind, the emotion, and the will. The mind was poisoned, the emotion was poisoned, and the will was poisoned; thus, the entire soul was contaminated. (CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Basic Lessons on Life,” pp. 497-498)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1978, vol. 1, “The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building of the Church,” ch. 3; CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Basic Lessons on Life,” lsn. 4