Good to be saved. If you have your Bibles we're going to begin. I think I'm going to go backwards. I want you to get this and I want to make sure I get to it. So we're going to be in several places this morning. I would like for you to take your Bibles and turn in them to 1 Thessalonians chapter number 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter number 5, as well as Genesis chapter number 2. 1 Thessalonians 5, Genesis chapter 2. In the beginning, when God created Adam, he breathed into the man the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul. He had a live body, a live soul, and a live spirit. All three parts of Adam were alive. Let me tell you something about the spirit of man. The spirit of man is dead. Now listen to this, Genesis chapter two, look with me in verse 16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day, in the very day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now God said in the very day. He didn't say next week, next year. The day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now when Adam did sin, something died. It wasn't his body. He lived to be 930 years old. It wasn't his soul because he still had intellect, he still had knowledge, he still had a will. So it wasn't his soul. The part of Adam that died on that day, on that very moment, I believe when he disobeyed at that very moment, the thing that died in Adam was his spirit. Interesting facts in Genesis chapter five. Flip over a couple of pages to Genesis chapter five and look with me in verse number one. Genesis chapter five and verse one. And this is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, And look at this, in the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created he them and blessed them and he called their name Adam. And in the day when they were created, Adam lived 130 years and begat a son, and listen to this, in his own likeness after his image, whose image? Adam's image. and calls his name Seth. Now Romans 5.12 says that for by one man, sin entered into the world. Adam was created in the image of God. Seth was created in the image of Adam. Although we are created in God's image, as a triune being, it is also true that we inherited Adam's likeness and being born at birth, we're born with a dead spirit. And if the Lord will, next time we'll talk a little bit more about that. But I want you to turn over in your Bibles now to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We're going to look at chapter 5 and verse 23. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 23. The reason I did the end first, I wanted you to get the part of Adam that died. A lot of people say, well, Adam ate that tree and he didn't die for 930 years. Well, his spirit died. It died at that very moment. I want you to see that. I want you to know that. Now, there's no possible way for me to finish this lesson this morning. I'm going to try and give you the highlights. I erased a lot of stuff and took a lot of stuff out. And I want to give you the highlights here. We're going to be talking about body, soul, and spirit, or created in His image. And I trust that this lesson might be helpful as we learn together what the Bible has to say about being created in God's image. We know from the Bible that God is a trinity. And we also know that we were created in His image. Now look with me, if you will, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 23 says, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So just as God is a trinity, we learn here that we are also made up of three parts. So let's pray before we get started. Father, we thank you for this time together. I pray that you'd help me to have the gift of teaching. And Lord, I pray that you'd empty me of self. Fill me with your spirit, because I need you this morning to help me. And may our hearts be open to the teaching of your word, and we'll thank you for all that you do in Jesus' name. Amen. There's four times in your King James Bible where somebody asks, what is man? Let me give you three references, and I'll read the fourth. Job chapter 7 and verse 17 ask the question, what is man? Job chapter 15 and verse 14 also ask the question, what is man? Psalm 144 verse 3 says we find this question, what is man? And Psalms chapter 8 verse 4 is a verse that you probably are more familiar with. And it says, what is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him? So here's the question. You're ahead of me. What is man? So what is man? You must realize this morning that science cannot answer that question. One of the things that we've heard over and over for the last couple of two or three years is trust the science. Now I'm thankful for technology. And I'm thankful for medical advances that science has helped us get to where we are. But there are times when one of the most dangerous things that you can do is to trust the science. Now, if you were to ask the average man on the street, what is man, he can't tell you. If you were to ask the politicians in Washington or the president, Don't ask him. What is man? They have no idea. If you ask the smartest academics in the world without the Bible, they would be just guessing. So we know that science does not know the answer to that question. The science says that man got here by evolving over millions of years with a big bang. You can't trust the science. Did you know that science says that a baby in the mother's womb is not a human being? You can kill it without it being called murder. You cannot trust the science. Did you know that science says that the greatest danger to mankind is climate change? Some believe that we can literally control the climate if you quit using all that hairspray and driving in big SUVs. and you know who you are. You cannot trust the science. Science will tell you that if you're not satisfied with your gender that you're born with, that you can pick another one. You cannot trust the science. It seems like the simplest question about life cannot be answered by the science or by this world. How can we answer such a question? Well, I'm glad you asked. We have to turn to the Word of God. Psalms 139 verse 14 says, I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. Man is not just an animal. Man is made in the very image of God, and that, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, boys and girls, is why Satan works so hard to destroy God's greatest creation. Now we know that God is a trinity, 1 John 5, verse 7 says, and there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And in the image of God, man is also a tripartite being, a three-part being. We have a body, we have a soul, and we have a spirit as we just read in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 23. Here's what we do. And I'm thankful some of you did this this morning. We focus most of our energy on the body. Thank you. Glad you didn't wake up and come straight to church. But let me say this about that. Do you realize that your body is not the most valuable part of you? That is why Jesus said in Matthew 16 verse 26, for what is a man profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? It is a very foolish thing to spend all of your focus, all of your energy, all of your time on the body and neglect your soul and your spirit. Now, we've all heard this verse. Listen as I read Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12. You know this verse well. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, And of the joints and marrow, now that's joints and marrow describes your body. And is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Now, so we see that the soul and spirit can be divided. And they can be divided also from the joints and the marrow or the body. The division of the soul and the spirit have to be addressed later in another lesson. Many non-believers believe that the soul and spirit are one and the same thing. That's because they don't read their Bible. That's because they don't know what the Bible says about body, soul, and spirit. There's no need to separate the soul and the spirit if they're both one and the same. But the Bible says here, they can be separated. Now, the soul is different than the spirit, and the spirit is not the soul, and neither is the body. And the Bible teaches us that we are three distinct parts. Genesis 1, verse 26 says, And God said, Let us make man in our after our likeness. Now this verse is not telling us that there is more than one God, it does not say that and the gods said, it says and God said. Now when God created man from dust, he made man in the same image as himself. God has three parts, therefore man has three parts. The soul of man coincides with God the Father. The spirit of man coincides with God the Holy Spirit, of course. And the body of man coincides with God the Son. Now, I'm going to chase a rabbit here for just a second. God can do things that you and I as human cannot do. Don't put him in that box. Okay, don't do it. Because he made us like him, but he's way different than we are. Just want you to know that. Listen as I read 1 Corinthians, see that wasn't too bad of a rabbit. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16 says, know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. I'm thankful for that this morning. We've all read about the Jewish temple of the Old Testament and here in the New Testament we have a picture of we as God's temple. Here we can see the Bible teaches that we are the temple of God and our body represents the outer court of the temple. Our soul represents the holy place. Our spirit represents a type of the holy of holies. This is where man communes with God, our spirit with his spirit, and the holy of holies. John chapter 4 verse 24, God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Now, there are all kind of analogies that we can give, but one might serve as good as another, but I'm going to give you the one that helped me the most. And some of you have heard this already, so if you have, just say, ooh, that's good. But anyway, I'm going to try to clarify this if I may. I'm going to use a football that I forgot to bring as an example. A football has three parts to it. There's the outer pig skin, and that is our fleshly body. Then just on the inside of that skin, there's the inner tube, just on the inside. Right on the inside of the skin, everybody knows about the inner tube. And inside that bladder, that tube, it is filled with air, and that air represents our spirit. Let's talk just a minute about the body, and then we'll unpack this a little bit as we go along. Your body, my body, is what connects with the world around us. The body is what makes you world conscious. It is the fleshly home of the soul and the spirit. We come in contact with this world through five senses. You have, and you probably learned this in school, sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. The Bible tells us that this body came from dust, and the body is going to return to dust. We all understand that this part of man is easy to understand because we can all see it. We've fellowshiped this morning. We've hugged one another. We've shaken hands. We know about the body. The body is easy to understand. What about the soul? What does the Bible say about the soul of man? Since the body is what makes you world conscious, the soul is what makes you self-conscious. Now the soul is the medium that stands between the body. If this could represent the body, this is the soul, this is the spirit. The soul is the medium that stands between the body and the spirit. And God has given your soul some additional senses. Your intellect, your mind resides in the soul. Emotions exist in the soul. Your will lives in the soul. By our mind and our intellect, we have wisdom, we have knowledge, we have understanding. All that's in the soul. Your emotion is sometimes called heart in the Bible. Not our physical heart, but our emotions are how we feel about things. I love you with all my heart. Of course you do. If you cry at a funeral, it comes from the soul. If you rejoice at a birthday party, it comes from the soul. Here's a couple of examples where Jesus said in Matthew 26, 38, my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Or you can say my heart is broken. That's your soul. My heart is overjoyed. That's your soul. Then there's your will. This is where you make your choices and your decisions. When the soul makes the choice to do something, the body has to be willing to go along. For instance, if you wake up this morning and you say, I think I'm going to read my Bible today. Your flesh might say, no, no you ain't. Or you might see somebody as you're walking through the mall and say, I'm going to hand a track out to them and invite them to church. You say that in your soul and your body says, not so fast. That might be embarrassing. You don't want to embarrass me. I don't want you to embarrass me. That wouldn't be good. I'm telling you right now, it's got to be, it's got to work together. So somebody's soul says, you know, if you want to give them a track, you got to go get your body to be talked into it. So there's. There's a great thing if you can submit your will to God's will. However, God's will, He gives you freedom to make choices on your own. You had the freedom to choose this morning whether you wanted to come to church or not. You had the freedom this week to choose whether you wanted to read your Bible or witness to somebody or not. He gives us the will to do so. This all comes from the soul. Now there's a story in Revelation 6 that talks about the souls under the altar. These are martyred saints, and it is amazing to me all of the things that the soul can do being separated from the body. For instance, now this is not the hill I want to dial. This is tomiology. But if I could remove my soul from my body and stand it right here, I believe you would recognize me. I believe you would. Now, that's just what I think. And the Godhead is able to do that. He can separate body, soul, and spirit if he chooses to do so. We can't do that. We will do it one day when we die. What's going to happen? Our soul and our spirit are going to be separated from the body, and we're still going to be alive. So we know it can be done. Because why? Because the Bible says so. And so I'm going to let you read Revelation 6 for homework, and you can notice all the things the soul can do without the body. Another very familiar passage is in Luke chapter 16. And we'll describe conversations between Abraham and the rich man in hell. And it's a familiar story, but it's amazing all of the things that the soul could experience without the body. And so remember our statement we made earlier, our body is not the most valuable part of us. We most definitely need to prepare to meet our God. We need to be prepared to meet God. We have a body that one day is going to be planted in the ground, and one day this body and the souls all are going to be reunited one day. We have a soul that will forever live in heaven or hell, depending on what you've done with Christ, we have a spirit that will return to God who gave it. The body makes us world-conscious through our senses. The soul makes us self-conscious through our intellect, through our emotion, through our will. The spirit is what makes you God-conscious. Now, your spirit is a very important part of us that we probably rarely ever think about. When made alive or quickened, the Bible calls it quickened, our spirit is the part that connects to God. The Bible likens the spirit of man to wind or to breath. Let's look at Genesis 2-7, I'll read this just for time. And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground, that's body, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, that's spirit, and man became a living soul. So we have body, soul, and spirit. In John chapter 3, we have Nicodemus and the Lord talking about the new birth. In John chapter 3, verse 6, it says, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit, capital S, is Spirit. Marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth thou. Here's the sound of the trumpet. Thou canst not tell from whence it cometh, whether it goeth. And so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. And in verse 6, it tells us that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Our first birth, we got a body. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. That second birth is where our spirit was infused or made alive or quickened, if you will, by the God of heaven, the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit makes us a new man in Christ. Do you know what part of you gets saved when you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? You know what part of you gets saved? Your spirit. And in verse 8, we read and equate the Holy Spirit as unto wind. It's like wind. Here's another familiar verse we've all read many times. After Christ's ascension back up into heaven, he sent us the comforter. In Acts 2, verse 2 says, There came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled the house where they were sitting. And in Ezekiel 37, we have a story about some dry bones coming to life. Now realize what this is in reference to, but the word picture here is so powerful. Notice who God told Ezekiel to prophesy to. He didn't tell him to prophesy to the bones. He said unto me, prophesy unto the wind, Ezekiel 37 verse nine. Son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. Ain't that something? Now, that sounds a lot like Genesis 2, verse 7, doesn't it? And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Then down in verse 14, God speaks to this again. Let me just state plainly. I'm about out of time. Without breath, we die. Every breathing soul on this planet is breathing because God gave them breath. I'll tell you, you ain't got breath. You ain't going to be. I was standing by my mama's bed when she died. And I watched as her oxygen level dropped dramatically. Normal would be 98 to 100. Got those little things you put on your finger? We had one on her. And I watched that oxygen drop. It went below 50 to 47, 46, 44, and all of a sudden nothing. And she had a pacemaker, tried to bring her heart back. But you know what? God took her breath, and she was no more. She was ushered into the portals of glory, never to suffer again. God is putting breath into them so that they can become living souls, these bones, and here the spirit is like wind. So man is a body. He's got a body of flesh. He's a soul. The real you will live on eternally. Man has a spirit. God, it goes back to God who gave it. Now watch this quickly. Satan will always work from the outside in. What Satan does is to use the things of this world to entice your soul to sin. Love not the world, that's why it's so important. Now in contrast, God always likes to work from the inside out. And God, when he moves upon a man's spirit, the Bible says in Ephesians 2, verse 1, and you hath he quickened, made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins." Now he's not talking about your body coming to life. He ain't making that body come to life. It's already living. He's not bringing your soul to life. You've got knowledge, you've got a choice, you've got a will. He's quickening your spirit. He's bringing your spirit to life. Romans 8, 16 says, I'm thankful for that witness this morning. 1 Corinthians 3, 16, we've already quoted this, And the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other, that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13 says, "...in whom also after that ye believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of..." Thank God I'm sealed today. I'm telling you, I'm sealed. I cannot be lost. I can't go to hell. I don't have a reservation. I'm telling you, I'm not going. I'm sealed. Here's a trick question. It came up this week. If a man is saved, knows he's going to heaven, and he commits murder, is he still going to heaven? The answer, in case you're wondering, is yes, he's still going to heaven. You know why? He's sealed. Should he have done that? I don't know any of the circumstances, but there's a lot of people that believe you can lose it. What if a man commits adultery and he knows he's saved? Is he going to heaven? Yes, he's going to heaven. Why? Because he's sealed. There's a part of you that the devil cannot get to, and that's your spirit. And if I had time, I would unpack that this morning. That's a whole other lesson. But I want to tell you, there's a part of you he can't touch. You know what he can touch? He can touch these eyes. He can put stuff, you might be, you know, trolling through Facebook and all of a sudden some ads pop up. Well, where in the world did that come from? I know where it came from. Somebody's trying to work on your eye gate. He's always trying to work on your ear gate. You know why? He wants to entice you through your flesh to sin, but there's a part of you cannot sin. I'm thankful for that spirit this morning, and I'm thankful that it's sealed by the special promise that we have from God, and we're out of time. Father, we thank you for the word. I pray that you'd bless the lesson this morning. Use us to be a blessing, I pray, and bless the service to come, and we'll praise you in all that you do, in Jesus' name, amen.