Thank you very much for your very good letter, which clearly shows that you are happy in Christ Jesus.

The Spirit gives life—the flesh profits nothing. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. A person who has the Spirit of God has nothing in secret that he is trying to hide; so everything can be brought out into the light. When we walk in this light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin. Who is he who condemns; it is Christ who has died—yes, much more, He has risen.

I hear you had an encounter with someone who wanted to “set you straight.” Most likely, he was one of the “ten thousand.” The apostle writes, “You might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers . . . .” But the point is that grace is to teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts—not these ten thousand instructors.

You also wrote about the people you were together with. You said that they were worldly, but that you found great joy in preaching the Word to them. We can’t make rules about this. “All things are lawful for me . . . but I will not be brought under the power of any,” the apostle writes. If any of these ungodly people invite you to dinner, then go and eat whatever is set before you, without questioning your conscience. But this is the point: We serve the law of God with our minds and the law of sin with our flesh. However, the ungodly serve the law of sin with their mind and with their flesh; that’s the difference.

If, like the apostle, we can say with absolute certainty: “For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death to death, and to the other the aroma of life to life. And who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:15-16)—if we are truly sufficient for these things, we can enter the worst slums and kings’ palaces, because we are like a fire in dry straw.

But if a person is weak and has a tendency to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, the best thing they can do is to separate themselves from them as quickly as possible. After all, what accord has Christ with Belial, God with the world, or unbelief with faith? 2 Cor. 6:14-17. Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.” Our mind and the mind of the world are diametrically opposed. The world has the mind of the flesh, which is death, but we have the mind of the Spirit, which is life and peace. We need to purge out the old leaven and become a new lump. So let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Touch pitch, and it will stick to you; touch fire, and you will get burned; touch sin, and you will feel its sting. We have great freedom in Christ, but under no circumstances should it be used as an occasion for the flesh. “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”

Let us never seek the broad ways. Let us never try to see how far we can stretch toward the world with our arms and legs and still be a Christian! Such people’s hearts and minds are turned toward the world and the fleshpots of Egypt, and they will succeed in attaining what they eagerly desire and pursue. But let us earnestly desire God’s wisdom and power and those things which are above, and let us forget the things that are in the world. “I could wish you were cold or hot,” says the Lord. “So then, because you are lukewarm . . . I will spew you out of My mouth.” A halfway commitment is useless; it just turns us into religious “slaves” resembling pillars of salt that have lost their strength. Cold or hot! No one can play the hypocrite before God. He has eyes like flames of fire. All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. He desires nothing of the ungodly. He is not served by men’s hands as though He needed something. He Himself gives life and breath to all.

If we want to be servants of the Lord, we must speak as the Word of the Lord, which is first living, and secondly sharp—sharper than any two-edged sword. It isn’t blunt or dull; it pierces even to the division of joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

It appears from your last letter that you want to keep your worldly friends and still abide in Christ. But let me tell you, dear Aksel: You will have to win them, or they will win you. Countless numbers of people have tried to unite God and the world, but it has always failed and has brought destruction on those who have tried. If you are happy in Christ, don’t sell your birthright for a stew of lentils like Esau did. Later he sought with tears to regain it, but in vain. If you want to be as healthy and strong as a young lion and jump like a fattened calf, then flee from the world and its glory, and preach to your friends in a way that makes them either take to their heels or melt at your fiery words.

I can’t help but speak the way I do. May God give you insight and the revelation of the Spirit so you can understand His mysteries, which are totally foreign to the wise and prudent of this world. The truth is not supposed to conform to us; we must conform to the truth. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. Christ is the truth—the way and the life; He surpasses all knowledge. If we open ourselves to lies, lies will be our portion. If we acknowledge the truth, truth will be our portion.

Wisdom will lead us into fire and water. The truth is radical and ruthless against our life in this world. Neither did God spare His Son.

Please read Luke 11 from verse 37. Jesus dined with one of the Pharisees, yet look how He took them to task! A meal did not make Him a slave to His hosts.

Acts 6:10 says about Stephen, “And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.” In Acts 7:57 they stopped their ears and ran at him with one accord. Stephen was well suited to preach to the world, because no one could resist him. That’s why they hated him. Stephen was a tremendous stumbling block.

Abraham sat in the counsels of God. He protested when God wanted to destroy Sodom, and God heeded his words. Lot was righteous, too, but God couldn’t speak to him as He could to Abraham. It is the same today. It is possible to give ourselves to God so completely and unreservedly that we are allowed to sit in His intimate counsels. To be there is enjoyable. There we receive insight and understanding of things. We are not uncertain in our affairs; we are absolutely certain and can speak with absolute certainty. We believe, therefore we speak. If a person is uncertain, they speak with uncertainty. But faith is the full assurance of things not seen. It is not a vague kind of assurance.

How wonderful that you can now see clearly that we have to serve the law of God with our minds and the law of sin with our flesh. Paul thanked God for this fact. It is a strange thing, but in this way our own boasting will always be excluded, and God’s constant grace will chasten us. We need not be ignorant of these things, even though they are hidden from most people. They don’t dare believe it—pure cowardice. It does take a certain amount of daring to believe it. Norway’s freedom was gained by a sudden coup. Likewise, we gain freedom in Christ by sudden coups. Break every form of union and every connection with the world. They try to impose conditions. Take no heed to them. Satan is crushed, and the condition is to believe it.

Please greet the family. I hope Ludvig comes soon. It is so common to want to work, but the point is this: It is God who works in you both to will and to do; our work according to the outward man is futile—only folly.

I talked to Captain Kielland a few days ago, and again today. He said he couldn’t stand people who are constantly talking about God. He felt we should keep that for our private prayer closet. I replied that it would be a strange way of going out into all the world and making disciples of all nations if we all just crawled into our prayer closets. He bit his tongue and held his peace. Today he thought he had something on me, and I was summoned to his office, but it was just nonsense; he just wanted to be the one who was in the right; so I let him be, as he only understands the natural things, not the spiritual. I talk a lot with Paymaster-in-Chief Sande about these things, since I work in his office during the day. Today I read Luke 11 to him, where Jesus was a dinner guest, and he laughed heartily.

Write soon. It is such a joy to hear from you.

Yours,