To be carnally minded is death. What does it mean to be carnally minded? The word carnal is about the flesh. You can focus on the flesh in two ways. One is giving yourself over to its impulses like lust or anger; however, the other is more like empiricism. You use the flesh in a foundation for knowledge rather than the Word and the Spirit.  The fleshly mind is about, well, the flesh; getting knowledge from the 5 senses and feelings. Romans 8 contrasts this with “spiritual minded.” Jesus said to Peter, “flesh and blood did not reveal this, but My Father.” This is a similar contrast. Flesh is contrasted with divine revelation for knowledge.

The bible gives an infallible testimony that observation is mistaken, and so it is trash and garbage as a source for knowledge. Thus, to use any observation as a dual starting point for knowledge with scripture is worthy of excommunication and rejection.  However, beyond this, the bible puts a special contrast to the bible as an epistemology vs using the flesh. Whenever the bible says anything and you are presented with a different knowledge produced by your observations, sensations or feelings, you have two choices. One is to be spiritual, or spiritually minded and believe the Word. The other is to be fleshly minded and believe what you observe, see or feel.

Most Christians seem to be completely sold out to being fleshly minded. It does not matter how many times Jesus teaches, “if you have faith and ask, then you get what you ask,” including healing, they will say, “I don’t see this.” Their worldview is flesh foundational. Their minds are carnally dominated. Their authority is their eyes, and not the word. They are total perverts when it comes to knowledge and worldview. They are the worst type of spiritual whores.

They might condemn someone looking at porn, but they are humping on fleshly knowledge so hard, they would make girls working the red-light district blush in envy. “She lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey’s and emissions like those of a horse,” Ezekiel 23:20 NLT. When these knowledge perverts see, feel and observe, they get a hardon as big as a donkey, and then orgasm so much, a stallion would get jealous. Hearing Jesus say, “we get, what we ask in faith,” keeps them mentally limp. Reading the bible say that by Jesus’ stripes we are healed, makes their carnal minds flabby. Finding James saying, “the prayer of faith will heal the sick,” is like splashing cold water on their fleshly thoughts. But as soon as their flesh does not see prayers answered or their flesh don’t observe the sick healed by prayer, their pants bulge as if a pornstar just asked them out on a date.

those who trust in what they can see, touch, or feel are “cheating” on divine revelation with the flesh. They are the nastiest sort of worldview whores. They are committing the ultimate epistemological infidelity.

Knowledge is a worldview issue. Knowledge determines everything about your worldview. If any two worldviews have different foundations of knowledge, then they are two different worldviews. They will see and interact with reality differently.  To have it based on fleshly observations and sensations is a anti-biblical worldview, because the bible only endorses itself as the only source of knowledge, and condemns observations as mistaken.

It’s a complete worldview overhaul, far worse than any other sin in scope because it challenges the very foundation of faith.

I say this to state how much bigger of a mistake it is to be fleshly minded on the topic of knowledge as compared to fleshly minded on the narrow subject of something like porn or prostitutes. This is not to excuse sins of lust, but to only point out the scope of such sins. Paul says, to the Corinthians, if you are misbehaving sexually, then get married. He still considered them God’s elect. They needed correction and a new positive focus, but they were still Christians.

However, to take the bible as the only source or knowledge and exchange it with fleshly based knowledge is to exchange your entire Christian worldview.  With sins of lust, it is just one part of the worldview you are struggling with. The bible tells us lust is a powerful force and so warns us about it, because it will be a tripping point for even Christians. However, flesh knowledge is the entire worldview itself.

It is not that this is the unforgivable sin, but a true born-from-above mind would never exchange Word knowledge for flesh knowledge. Satan asked God for Peter’s faith. Satan wanted the whole thing to fail. But we know the story, it was a momentary trip, but not an utter fall. Thus, there can be momentary trips, but God sovereignly will not lead our faith or worldview to utterly fall. God will not allow His elect to exchange revelation knowledge for observation knowledge. Just as God caused Peter to get up and get strong in faith so that he said, “What I have, I give, get up and walk,” God will cause an elect to get up and stop getting horny over fleshly observation as a source of knowledge.

The Christian who will not repent of this, after repeated attempts are to be mocked, excommunicated and abandoned.  Maybe after Satan destroys their flesh, they will stop using it as a source of knowledge.