The Dangers of Spiritual Life 369
Additional DangersOther hazards lie in the way of following the spirit besides Satan’s
counterfeits and his attacks. Often our soul will fabricate or sense
something which urges us to take action. Christians must never
forget that not all senses emerge from the spirit, for the body, the
soul, and the spirit each has its own senses. It is highly important not
to interpret soulical or physical senses as the intuition of the spirit.
God’s children should learn daily in experience what is and what is
not genuine intuition. How very easy for us, once perceiving the
importance of following the intuition, to overlook the fact that senses
exist in other parts of the being besides in the spirit. Actually
spiritual life is neither so complicated nor so easy as people usually
imagine.
Here then are two causes for alarm: first, the peril of mistaking
other senses to be the spirit’s intuition; and second, the danger of
misunderstanding the meaning of intuition. We meet these two
hazards every day. Hence the teaching of the Holy Scriptures is quite
essential. To confirm whether or not we are moved by, and walk in,
the Holy Spirit, we must see if any given thing harmonizes with the
teaching of the Bible. The Holy Spirit never moves the prophets of
old to write in one way and then move us today in another way. It is
categorically impossible for the Holy Spirit to have instructed people
of yesteryear what they ought not to do and yet tell us in our day that
we must do these very same things. What we receive in the spirit’s
intuition needs to be certified by the teaching of God’s Word. To
follow intuition alone and not in conjunction with the Scriptures will
undeniably lead us into error. The revelation of the Holy Spirit
sensed by our spirit must coincide with the revelation of the Holy
Spirit in Scripture.
Since our flesh is continuously active, we must be ever vigilant
against its intrusion into our keeping the teaching of the Holy
Scriptures. We know the Bible discloses the mind of the Holy Spirit;