162 - Part 1
ROOTS OF DENIAL

This Message Has Been Transcribed And Edited For

Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By

The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.

 

 

But we're going to start off in Genesis 3. We're going to do a little research into the nature of the fall, for the specific purpose of bringing us to the condition that fallen man is in now. And we're going to look at the basic roots of the problems of man in this world, in this fallen condition, and try to get some understanding of it. And then we're going to touch on some basic principles of psychiatry, how it deals with the human problem, and we're going to touch on a little bit of Hinduism and Buddhism.

 

And what I hope to show you, what I hope to establish for you, is that any religion or group of people such as psychiatrists that have studied the condition of fallen man are pretty much in agreement as to what his problem is. Where they differ is how to deal with the problem. And I found it very fascinating when God gave me this message, because I see that great thinkers for thousands of years have identified the problem of fallen humanity but they use different terminology to express it.

 

And what God showed me is that we are so much in agreement as to what the problem is that even with regard to the answers, it's amazing. It's really amazing how much truth is in psychiatry and is in Hinduism and Buddhism. But of course it's mixed with the Paganism.

 

So what am I trying to tell you? I'm trying to tell you that the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ is in the earth. And I believe He's been in the earth for all time, trying to bring His Truth forth. And I hope, well I hope to give you, to enlighten you in many ways. But at the very least, I would be blessed if you would leave this room tonight, or after reviewing the message, with a better ability to minister to Hindus and to Buddhists and even to people who are Humanists that are all believers in the psychiatrists. Because remember, Paul said that he became all things to all men.

 

And I know I've told you this before, I'll say it again to you, I am of the opinion that religions that have been around for centuries are not all error. They're not all error. And if you go to people with a [sic] unfortunately too common Christian attitude and tell them, “You're a Hindu and, whatever the -- and Raman the C- -- the Hindu god is dead and Jesus is alive, and you're going to have to do it my way.” I'm sure you've all heard a preacher like that. "Buddha's dead. Jesus is alive," you know, "and you're wrong and we're all right." You're really not likely to get many converts.

 

What am I saying to you? At the risk of being egged, I'm telling you that there, that these religions are to be respected. And I'm also telling you that there's going to be a lot of Christians with egg on their face. Because there -- when Jesus appears -- because there is so much truth in these religions that when Jesus comes, these people are going to be coming like that, when the true doctrine comes out and they recognize it in their own teachings, they're not only going to recognize the true doctrine, they're going to see where they were OK up to a certain point, and then they went off, and they're going to make the correction, and they're going to be entering into the Kingdom before a lot of carnal Christians.

 

And basically, if I were to state one major error that crosses the board, it's this: that they don't understand that what's going to set us free is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything that has been outlined in psychiatry and Buddhism and Hinduism and Taoism and all of the eastern religions, they're trying to, you see, they have identified in many instances, in almost every instance I'm going to touch on, the people that have put this doctrine down has identified not only the problem but what man needs to do to overcome the problem.

 

What they don't understand is that they have failed to date to put their plan into practice because no matter how great their plan is, it cannot be done without the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. The spirit of man cannot implement the cure. No matter how well you train him, no matter how well you discipline him, no matter how well you teach him, the spirit of man cannot make the leap from fallen condition to reunification with the Supreme Source of the universe.

 

It takes the resurrected glorious Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what they're missing across the board. And I want to tell you that Christianity at large, except for a few pockets here and there, is one of the most immature groups of people in religion and philosophy. Now anyone that's listening to this message is ready to lay hold of what I just said and recrucify Jesus.

 

Let me tell you. Jesus was not immature. Jesus knew what He was talking about. Jesus was the personification of deliverance from our fallen condition. But for whatever His reason, the way things turned out was that He brought His glorious Truth to a group of people that were not particularly spiritually sophisticated. He didn't go to India to the Hindus. And Buddhism, by the way, originated in India too, and then eventually went to China and Japan. He didn't go there. He came to the people that were very spiritually ignorant. And He gave it to them. Isn't that just like the Lord? So we're going to have to grow up.

 

I'm convinced that the time is at hand, that all those who won't come willingly will be pushed out of the nest. And I believe that the Lord has His 7,000 in Christianity. They may have a lot of false doctrine, but they have His Spirit. Nothing, nothing can be accomplished in so far as our return to deity without His Spirit. We're just not going to make it out without His Spirit. And there are going to be some who have His Spirit who are spiritually immature and have very little knowledge, but they're going to make it because they have His Spirit.

 

But the most sophisticated, educated, disciplined person who is a spiritual person in his own fallen condition and that spirit is saying, is not going to make it. So it's a paradox. It looks like it shouldn't work. It looks like it's all wrong to the car- -- carnal mind. It looks like the spiritually sophisticate should enter in first, but it's not happening that way.

 

And that's why your pride will kill you. Jesus is not a man and He does not think like a man. And we will not enter in by our own power. So I pray that the Father help me bring this message forth. And I will tell you that the information on the eastern religions and on psychiatry that He gave me, I took out of a book called, "Sin and Madness: Studies in Narcissism," by Shirley Sugerman. It's a pretty technical textbook. If you want to try it, that's up to you, but it is quite technical. And what that title means to her, to Shirley Sugerman, is that man's condition or man's problem, "man's dilemma," as she puts it, to one group of people is called sin.

 

And she quotes a psychiatric writer, who is very well-known and who is studied by students of psychiatry, who bases all of his studies and information on the predicament of man in the Scripture. And he sees mental illness, although that's not his word, as a result of sin, sin being separation from God. And then she takes you to another time and another psychiatric writer who, if you really, now if you really examine what they're saying, is talking about the same set of conditions, although they each put their own names on it, and he doesn't call it sin, he calls it madness. He says, "You're crazy." One guy says you're a sinner, the other guy says you're crazy.

 

And then she goes into the eastern religions, where there's no condemnation at all. They don't say you're crazy and they don't say that you're a sinner. And we'll get into that when we get up to that, but they have their own explanation of man's predicament. And she even mentioned in this book about witches. She said, "At the time of the witch hunts, people practicing witchcraft would have been burned." This book was written in '76. She said, "Twenty-five years ago," so now it would be 35, 40 years ago, "if were a practicing witch," she's a college professor, she says, "I would have expelled you." "Now," she says, "we just send you to the psychiatrist."

 

In other words, what was an offense that would result in your death a couple of hundred years ago, now you're just sent to a psychiatrist. Man has not changed. The root problem of man has not changed, but how man deals with the problem has changed. And no matter how we mix it or twist it or turn it, man is suffering. Those that are doing the best in this world have their moments of suffering. Nobody is untouched by the pain of this realm. And everybody's looking for a way out. And there's only one way out, and that is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

And I encourage you to hear this word and to make it a part of yourself when you minister to people, because I have not heard this coming from any other ministry. And God taught it to me years ago. In the Scripture, the word name, the name of Jesus, it's talking about His Spirit. A name is a spirit. Now when you go to people and you say, "In the Name of Jesus, every demon has to flee."

 

People that are spiritual, that makes no sense to them, that I should say, "In the Name of Jesus, you must obey." But if the Spirit of Jesus dwells in me, and I'm speaking these words, because it's His Spirit in me speaking these words, in that Spirit is the authority that will bring to pass what I'm saying. People need to understand this. Some people will receive the carnal ministry, but, brethren, when Jesus appears, we are going to be dealing with some very spiritual people. And you have to know this. It's His Spirit.

 

We have to go to Hindus and Buddhists and not knock their religion, but seek for the common denominator. Seek for that which is in their religion that we too believe, so that we can get the message to them. There's truth in your religion but you cannot bring it to pass without the Spirit, the glorified Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the power source that will make what you're trying to accomplish come to pass.

 

And I can't prove this to you but it's what the Lord put in my heart, I believe that the Christian conversions over in India and in the- -- and other countries where Buddhism is practiced are by and large people who do not practice their religion. Just as in this country -- I can't tell you everybody because I don't know -- but most of the Jews that have been converted to Christianity were non-practicing Jews. There aren't many orthodox Jews that have become Christians.

 

There may be none except I don't feel free to say that because I don't know for sure. But every converted Jew that I've ever met has been a non-practicing Jew. They were really nothing in the sense of having no religion. They may have been Jewish by nationality, but they were not practicers of any religion. Which means they were up for grabs, and being bankrupt of a spiritual life, the Lord received them.

 

And I suggest to you that this is what happened in most cases where you will find a Hindu or a Buddhist conversion. Because when someone is deep into a spiritual religion, like Hinduism, Buddhism or Judaism, the message that's in the church today is not going to convert them. Not likely to convert them.

 

It's a message that's converting lost people, drug addicts, alcoholics, physically ill, mentally ill, desperate, desperate people that are groping. But it's not a message that's going to convert people with reasonably intelligent lives that are reasonably in order. It's not going to convert a person that really believes in their religion, unless of course God does an unusual miracle and touches them with His Spirit and brings them out. It's not likely.

 

So it's a paradox. We have the Spirit of God, and the message in the church today is very childish. So we're going to be ministering to Christians, we're going to be ministering to other spiritual religions, and we've got to meet them at the point of common denominator. "I agree with you totally on such and such a point. But look, here's where I differ from you. What do you think?" We're not going to get them by bashing them, brethren. And it doesn't glorify God. It doesn't glorify God to bash the people.

 

So I'm going to try and bring this forth and I'm going to start in Genesis 3, hoping to give you a little insight -- I forgot to put my mark- -- my stopwatch on -- hoping to give you a little more insight into the fall than you may have had to date. And we'll go through verses 1 through 5. I'm not giving you numbers of the words. I'm just giving you the translation that I chose from Gesenius. If you want to check it out for more information, I'll have to ask you to do it yourself.

 

OK. Genesis 3 -- Genesis 3:1, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, 'Yea, hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree on the garden?'" Isn't that what God said, that you won't eat of every tree of the garden? The word serpent stands for witchcraft. I suggest to you it was the witchcraft principle in the original creation known as Satan.

 

Now the serpent was more subtle. The word more is not in the Hebrew text. The word subtle in Gesenius can be translated as revealed, as revealed. And what I am suggesting to you the Scripture is saying at this point is that the witchcraft principle in the unproven creation was revealed when she spoke. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made." Those English words are then any, more subtle than any. Strange as it may seem, brethren, it can be translated stream of water, stream of water. Stream of water.

 

Beast means a living thing. The field, we may remember from our number 18 series, is an uncultivated area. There's one word field, another word ground, another word earth, they all mean a shade of a different meaning and the word field is uncultivated earth. This is the creation, at the very beginning. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." And this Hebrew word translated made means to produce by labor. And I remind you that before God made the creation, He first created the building blocks of the creation, or He created the atoms of the universe. A-T-O-M-S, atoms. And then out of the substance that He created, He formed or He made or He produced by labor the creation.

 

And he said, and the serpent said unto the woman. The word said means to bring to light. He said something that revealed something to the woman that she didn't know before. What did he reveal to her? That he was present. She didn't even know he was there. "And he said to the woman." Woman merely means female. I remind you that the Scripture does not say Eve at this point and that the woman was the creation's fertile part, just as the womb is the fertile part of a human woman. It was the man and his wife and his wife was his fertile part was within him.

 

Now this is real interesting. "Yea, have God said." This Hebrew word translated yea, I'm even giving you the number on this one. It says 641 in the Interlinear. It's not in Strong's. If you look it up in Strong's, there's no number listed. If you look it up in Green's Interlinear, the number is wrong. It's not 641. It should be 637. I found it by comparing the Hebrew letters. Sometimes I spend very long periods of time because I'm not really an expert in the Hebrew language. But I track these things down without numbers. It takes me a very long time sometimes. The correct number should be for the Hebrew word translated yea is Strong's 637 and it can be translated fertile. And I'm suggesting to you that the Scripture is not saying, let me read it to you, "And the Lord said unto the woman, yea," the Scripture is saying, "and He said unto the woman fertile." And He said unto the fertile woman. And the word said can be translated commanded.

 

So I have a note for you. Let me read it here. I don't want to not give you the whole presentation. The Interlinear text reveals that there are two Hebrew words that are translated into the one English word yea in the King James translation. These words are translated in the Interlinear text, these two Hebrew words are translated it is that so, or isn't that so. This Hebrew word, it's pronounced key, is not translated in the King James, but is translated that in the Interlinear text. The Hebrew word key has no number in the Interlinear text but I found it listed under 3588 in Gesenius.

 

So there's -- what am I saying? I'm saying that there's a Hebrew word that can be translated that. It doesn't appear in the King James. It does appear in the Interlinear text but not in the position that I'm going to put it in. And the word every and this -- I've mentioned to you before -- this word every means the whole of, the whole of. So where the King James translator says "you shall not- -- you shall eat of every tree of the garden," giving the impression that there are many trees in the garden. What the Scripture is really saying is that there's one tree and you shall eat of the whole of the tree, of the whole tree, as if I were to say to you, you can eat the whole apple, but don't eat just the apple pits.

 

You can eat of the whole tree. There was only one tree in the garden, despite popular belief. There was only one tree in the garden and it was the tree of -- anybody know?

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

It was the tree of life.

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

No, it was the tree of life. It was the tree of life. But inside of the tree there was something that was a part of the tree, just like apple pits are a part of the apple.

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

Hmm?

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

Yeah. The tree of good and evil. It was inside. But it was just one tree. Remember there was a two-horned ram? This was the witchcraft principle. Satan. It was inside of the tree of life. It was harmless. It was totally under the control of righteous Adam. And I remind you we found out in Daniel 8 that this witchcraft principle lusted to be out from under the authority of righteous Adam. And lusted and lusted and lusted until it appeared in the earth separately. So the garden of Eden was not a garden with many trees. I prayed about this for years, brethren. There was one tree in the garden of Eden. And in the midst was something that wasn't really a complete tree. It was something that was not meant to exist by itself.

 

And we've seen this in Daniel 8 and this is another witness to it in the Scripture. In Daniel 8, that which was not meant to exist by itself materialized in the earth as a goat. And where there was a ram, a two-horned ram, we then had a two-horned ram and a goat and the goat destroyed the ram. And here we see that we had one tree in the garden. And we're going to find out as we go on that that element within that one tree that was not made to exist apart, was separated, manifested, seduced the creation. And the next thing we hear was that Adam was hiding behind the trees, plural, in the garden. There was one tree and then there was two. So the word every can be translated the whole tree. [AUDIO CUTS OUT] and that's what God was saying. "Eat of the whole tree."

 

You know, there's a big move in this country today to eat partial foods. Eat the egg white and throw the egg yolk away. I want to tell you, I don't follow any of that advice from our scientists. And this is before I ever knew that this was in the Scripture. I just had it in my heart, eat whole foods. Eat the whole food. God had even shown me that chicken parts are not desirable, that if you read the lit- -- the nutritional literature, there are different vitamins in different parts of the chicken. And we need the whole broad spectrum. One time have a leg. The next time have a wing. The next time have a breast. There's different vitamins in different parts of the bird. Eat the whole bird. Eat a broad spectrum of vegetables. Don't eat part and throw the other part away. Eat the whole food. And I remind you of the example of the apple. That there is cyanide present in apple pits. And I remember when there was a scare. The scientists were telling people, "Don't eat apples. Or be sure that you throw the apple pits away." Some people like to chew the apple seeds. Well the cyanide in the apple pit is bound. It's harmless because it's joined to other elements.

 

Satan, the witchcraft element in the tree, was harmless so long as she was one with the tree of life. Death and destruction is in separation from God, and death and destruction is in separation from that person that God joins you to, and death and destruction is separation from that place that God puts you in.

 

So I have a quick Alternate Translation for you of Genesis 3:1. "And the serpent was revealed as a spiritual presence in the uncultivated earth, which the Lord God had formed out of the elements which He created. And he said to the fertile woman, 'Yea, the Lord has said that you shall not eat of the whole tree of the garden.'"

 

Now if you go back to Genesis 2 -- I was working with a different bible and I lost my place -- verse 16. Genesis 2:16, "And the Lord God commanded the man saying, 'Of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat.'" Of every tree or of the whole tree of the garden. So Satan lied. He said to Eve, "God said you shouldn't eat of the whole tree." But God said you should eat of the whole tree. So Eve answers him, or the woman, I shouldn't say Eve, the woman answers him, "And the woman said unto the serpent, 'We may [AUDIO CUTS OUT] of the tree [AUDIO CUTS OUT]." Tell you later on, it's not plural by the way.

 

If you're wondering, if you're wondering or looking for another witness as to the validity of this statement about there being one tree in the garden, if you look it up in the Hebrew, the word is singular. The tree of the garden. It's singular. The tree of the garden. OK. So Eve knew that Satan was not telling the truth. But of course, he confused her, the woman. Satan confused her. He said the exact opposite of what God said, with almost the exact same words. He just added the word not in.

 

"And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the one who is the fruit of the tree of the garden.'" Now I see I didn't put down any of the details here, but that was what I got when I did, when I did the Interlinear. "And the woman said unto the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees.'" But when I looked up all of those Hebrew words in the Interlinear... now let me remind you.

 

In the Hebrew language, a lot of these words, like I'm saying here, the one of, the way they appear in the Hebrew language is that they're just a prefix before the word. Do you know what a prefix is? Yeah, like, if the word is for you, it'd say before. It's just like a single Hebrew letter that appears before the word but makes this difference. So I've going into Gesenius in each and every one of these cases and I've looked up the Hebrew letter that was a prefix. And I -- this is what I found out on this instance. That the- -- that this prefix which was ignored by the translators, because it made no sense to them, what it was really saying was, "And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the one who is the fruit of the tree of the garden.'" And who is the fruit of the tree? Jesus Christ. Amen. Right. So it made no sense to the King James translators or to the Interlinear translators. So this is what I'm doing. God puts it on my heart that it, that I should go in and look up all these letters and this is what I got out of it.

 

Genesis 3:3, "But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God had said, 'Ye shall not eat of it. Neither shall ye touch it lest you die.'" Now I point out to you that there were two different fruits. This fact is not obvious in the King James. But we're talking about the fruit of the tree. Of what tree? The fruit of the tree of life? And then we're talking about the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the tree of life. You know, I used to read this years ago and I would say, well, God said they could eat of the fruit of the tree and then... but why would the tree of the knowledge of good and evil be in the midst of the garden. I would think the tree of life should be in the midst of the garden. And I just left it alone, but it bothered me for years. Because if you're really honest, it doesn't make sense.

 

So this is what the Scripture is saying. First of all, it wasn't an actual tree. It was a spiritual tree and I remind you that in the Scripture, trees typify men. So we had a man, a superior spiritual being that God called the man. It didn't look like we look today, nor did it look like a tree out in your backyard. But for symbolic purposes, God called him a tree. And in this creation, God was appearing and there was an imputed formation of Christ. It was the tree of life, but it was a spiritual thing. It wasn't a tree like out in your backyard.

 

And in the midst of this tree was a witchcraft principle that was present in the earth when the earth was joined with the spirit of life that was breathed into it. So if you have in your mind a vision of a glorious garden with a garden tree in the middle of it, I ask you to please ask the Lord to help you to wipe that out, because that's what we tell the children, brethren. So there was a spiritual creation that didn't look like us. And it was dwelling in a spiritual environment that we've studied on recent messages, Heaven and Earth, and one or two messages in the Daniel 8 series. A fetus was formed when the Father joined with the man that he made, an imputed Christ. And that fetus, when it was formed, came forth in a spiritual amniotic sac or a spiritual environment called Eden. And the Lord said to the creation that was an unstable creation, and I'll go over that in a minute. He said to the man and to the woman that was his fertile part -- and let me remind you that verse 1 is the only verse which makes the point that the woman was fertile. Every other time, in the subsequent verses where the Scripture speaks about the woman, it doesn't say that she was fertile. Why is it important that the woman was fertile? Because if she wasn't fertile, it really wouldn't have made much difference if she ate of the tree, of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden. God was warning her, "You're fertile. If you partake of the witchcraft principle of the creation, you're going to materialize in a deformed condition." That's what God was saying to the creation. So it's important to know that she was fertile. God doesn't tell you she was fertile for no reason.

 

OK. Let's try and go on with this. And the woman -- well let me just comment on the fact that the creation was an unstable atom, A-T-O-M. We've gone over this several times before, so I'll just go over it quickly. The atom, the basic building block of creation, is God's plan for creation. We see that it appears in our solar system, which is a sun with many planets orbiting around the sun. And we have found out that each individual is a spiritual cosmos or a spiritual solar system. And our spiritual sun is the spirit that rules in us, hopefully it's Christ. And the other elements of our spiritual being are gra- -- are circulating or orbiting around Him. And then we have found out that everything in this planet, if you break it down to its smallest building block, is an atom that has the same plan, the same diagram. It has a center or a nucleus and it has orbits around it. And just like our earth orbits around the sun, there are, you can say, small planets in each orbit, orbiting around the nucleus of the smallest building block of creation. And these microscopic planets have a name. They're called electrons.

 

So God has used the same plan. Wherever you look, you see His plan of a sun, orbits around the sun, and bodies in those orbits circulating around the sun. So the original creation was an atom. And when I say that it was incomplete, I mean that it had a nucleus, it had a center, it had orbits around it. And it was in a spiritual condition which was capable of change. The atom looked like this. I'm doing this very sketchily. The atom of the creation looked like this, but it was capable, under certain circumstances, of changing. It was not yet completed to the point where it was permanent, where no matter what happened to it, it would not change.

 

Now those of us that know a little bit about science, know that most atoms are changeable when heat is applied to them. Most atoms are changeable when heat is applied to them. So the atom of the creation was in unstable form, an unstable form. Which means that it was changeable. So God said to the man, "If you partake of the witchcraft principle in the creation, you're going to throw this atom out of whack. Changes are going to occur in the nucleus. Changes are going to occur in the electrons. And you're no longer going to be in right standing with God. But you shall surely die to your immortality. And you shall become a natural man, subject to the environment instead of a God that has authority over the environment."

 

"And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the one who is the fruit of the tree of the garden.'" Genesis 3, "But the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, 'Ye shall not eat of it. Neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.'" So the woman, she knew. She knew what God said.

 

And I want to say something radical to you here. I want to give you a suggestion. Pray about it. This woman that the serpent was speaking to, I don't believe it was Eve. And let me tell you why. Remember the principle of changing sexual roles. The creation was male because there was an imputed Christ present in him. He was male to the whole creation. He had dominion over the entire earth and everything in it. But was he male in relationship to God? He was female in relationship to God. He was God's wife. God had every intention of joining with the man and bringing forth the glorious creation. Anybody have a problem with that? Well I want to suggest to you that there is a subtle message in the Scripture that is saying when the serpent approached the creation, when the serpent, the witchcraft principle, exalted itself as an individual and whispered to righteous Adam, he whispered as a man. And Adam responded as a woman. And the Scripture says the woman. Let me say it again.

 

Remember, when there was a two-horned ram and then all of a sudden, there was a goat. And the Scripture in Daniel 8 says, "He was a he-goat." When the witchcraft principle manifested, it exalted itself out of its female position and took on a male role. And because that serpent, that witchcraft principle, exalted itself to spirit, it brought the creation down to a female position in that interaction. Does anyone not know what I'm talking about? We all have changing sexual roles. If you're keeping your sexual role spiritual, if you're a woman, you're in submission to your husband, but you're a male to your children. If you're a captain in the army, you're in submission to your general. With spiritual sexuality, you are the female in relationship to your general, but you are a male in relationship to the lieutenant. That witchcraft principle manifested in the creation with a witchcraft strength, and in that conversation, took dominion over the man, bringing him down to a female role. And I do not believe that Adams' womb spoke to the serpent. The witchcraft principle in the man spoke to the man. His unconscious mind rose up and took dominion over him. And that is expressed in the Scripture.

 

How do I know he took dominion over him? Because the Scripture says the serpent was talking to a woman. See this is why the Scripture says there really is no such thing as an equal partnership. No two people are totally equal. In every relationship, and in each encounter within a relationship, one person is dominant and one person is passive. You can have two dominant people. You can have two extremely dominant men, but in any one given conversation, if everybody's honest, one is more dominant than the other. And not with any implication of homosexuality here if any men are listening to this message, please hear what I'm saying, talking about spiritual things. For that encounter, for that situation, one of you is spiritually male and the other is spiritually female. And if you are in a relationship where God has ordained this, if it's two virile men, one the father and one the son, the son is [AUDIO CUTS OUT] the son is female in relationship to the father. And it's godly. And there's no defilement in it. But if you're a man and you're in submission to your son, brother, you better get ahead- -- get yourself before God and get yourself strengthened because there's defilement in it.

 

So there was one creation and he had a fertile part. But that's not what Genesis 3 is talking about. Genesis 3 is showing us through spiritual symbology that the witchcraft principle of the creation rose up and took a dominant position over the man, making him a woman. Anybody have a problem with this? God help us. God help us to get this word out. How are they going to receive this word? Nothing short of a miracle. It's got to take a miracle. Glory to God.

 

OK. We're still in Genesis 3. "But the fruit of the tree, Eve -- not Eve, I'm sorry -- the woman, which is Adam, in submission to the serpent says, trying to defend himself now, Adam tried to defend himself, he said to the serpent, "Oh, no. God didn't say that I shouldn't eat of the whole of the tree. He said that I could eat of the fruit of the, what are you saying, the fruit of the tree of the garden. God said I could do that. But He said the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, He said, you better not do it. Because if you do it, you're going to die." He repeated God's commandment accurately to the serpent. And I remind you, the serpent did not repeat God's commandment accurately to fallen Adam, who was fallen in his mind at the moment. And even in this -- or maybe I shouldn't say he was fallen in his mind. He was struggling. And even in this position, where he was brought into submission by the dominance of the serpent, he still said to the serpent, "No, God didn't say that. God said I can eat of the fruit of the whole tree. But I cannot eat of the fruit of the partial tree. I can eat a Christ, but I cannot eat of Satan or his carnal mind." He knew the answer.

 

So let me just give you a few words here. The word of can be translated because of. The word the midst, meaning the middle of the thing, so called from its being divided. This Hebrew word translated the midst is called the middle of a thing. And the reason they get this translation is because it's talking about something that has been divided. And it's talking about a particular part of something that's been divided. So God said you can eat of the fruit of the whole tree, which is Christ, and the serpent s- -- but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said you shall not eat of it. In the midst of the garden. The word in can be translated within and the word midst means that the partial tree. You shall not eat of it. The Hebrew word tr- -- there is one Hebrew word translated of it in the King James. It has no number, but I located it under number, Strong's number 4482. And what it means is that part of it. If you look in that number under Strong's you'll see that it clearly means not just of it but of that part of it. So what the Scripture is saying, you shall not eat of that part of the tree, which is the separated tree. "Neither shall ye touch it." The Hebrew word translated neither means especially don't touch. And this word touch is the same Hebrew word that is translated touch in Daniel 8. You may recall, we found out that it could be translated sexual intercourse, and we used it that way in Daniel 8. So God says don't eat of the tree and especially don't touch it, lest you're going to die. This word lest means unless and the Hebrew word translated die, it says right in Gesenius, that it simply means mortality. God was not telling the man that you're going to cease to be. What He said to him was, you will cease to be immortal. You will cease to be a god.

 

The man was a god. He was in right standing. He was righteous Adam. He had an imputed Christ. He was a god. But God has said that ye may not eat the fruit of the part of the tree which is within the divided garden. And you should be especially careful not to have intercourse with him, lest you die to your immortality and become a natural man. Now the Scripture says not to eat nor to have intercourse. And you may recall I've spoken to you about this Bible principle before. Whenever God speaks about two different things, referring to the same idea, always look for spirit and soul, spirit and soul. I'm going to suggest to you that the reason there are two words there is that God was speaking to the two parts of the creation, the man and his fertile part. He said to righteous Adam, don't eat. And he said to his fertile part, Eve, don't have intercourse with the tree that is separated from the tree of life.

 

Genesis 3:4, "And the serpent said to the woman, 'You shall surely not die." You shall not surely die. You shall surely not die. Well he told the truth. They didn't cease to be. When somebody says something to you, be very careful that the two of you have the same definition of the word, or you may be agreeing to something that you wouldn't never agree to. Get your definitions straight. It's really important, brethren. I'll talk about that a little more further on.

 

Genesis 3:5, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good from evil." The Hebrew word translated eyes can be translated fountain. I want to tell you, for years I've been looking at that Hebrew word and I've been saying, how could this word eye be translated fountain? And I finally understand it. Because when there is a superior mind present, brethren, and He looks out through the eyes of the creation, the physica- -- the visible world is formed. So the eye was a fountain. It was that through which spirit appearing in this visible world is expressed. A fountain. There's also another naming for the word fountain. We find it used, and we know that Jesus is the fountain of life. Isn't that one of His titles? He's the fountain of life. It's an expression of life in the visible world. But we also find, especially in Leviticus and in the Mosaic law, we find the expression with regard to a menstruous woman, of the fountain of her blood. The fountain of her blood is referring to a woman's menstrual cycle.

 

So let's see what this is really talking about here. "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, that your eyes shall be opened." Eyes can be translated fountain. The fountain of her blood means a woman's menstrual cycle. The Hebrew word which is Strong's 3676 is present but untranslated, next to the Hebrew word translated fountain. Strong's 3676, it's present in the Interlinear but untranslated and it appears after the Hebrew word translated fountain. Strong's 3676 means a throne. So we have here the fountain of her throne. The King James translators were so confused, they just didn't translate the word. The fountain of the throne. So as a reference, I give you the fountain of her blood, meaning a woman's menstrual cycle. The word throne in the Scripture, it can mean soul. We had that a lot in the book of Revelation. The Father is sitting on the soul or the- -- on His throne, which is the glorified soul of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is sitting on the throne of Christ Jesus and the throne is our heart.

 

I suggest to you then, and pray about it, that the expression the fountain of his throne means Satan's reproductive force, which is also a heart. His reproductive force which is also the heart, his heart. When the Father joins with us to produce His Christ, is He not joining with our heart. He's joining with our heart. And more specifically, our human spirit within our heart. The fountain of His throne, fountain typifying the flow of His spirit, Jesus is the fountain of life. The fountain, this is the flow of the spirit of the witchcraft principle in the creation. Throne meaning heart, the spiritual essence of the heart of the witchcraft principle that was within the tree of life. Everybody OK?

 

Because God knows that in the day you eat of it, your reproductive force shall be opened and you shall become as gods who are acquainted with both good and evil. In the day that you partake of the witchcraft principle of the tree, you shall conceive. What it says here, the reproductive force shall be opened and you shall become acquainted with the good as well as the evil. And I'm suggesting to you that the good is the Father and the evil is Satan. Not just good and evil in general, but the good one is the Father and the evil one is Satan. Remember, in Jesus' prayer in John 17, He said, "I pray that you keep them from the evil." He meant Satan himself. The evil one. And the good one. You can have a relationship with Satan himself as well Jehovah.

 

Now Satan made it sound like God was jealous. But we know that the Lord was just trying to protect His creation from this experience. Remember also that Adam and his wife within him was already acquainted with the Father and therefore was already a god. Now this is another interesting point that we've always heard it preached that Satan was promising Adam that he would be a god. Brethren, Adam already was a god. Are we not told in the psalms, "Ye are gods but you shall die like men." Well if God says to the fallen man that has his law, "Ye are gods," surely the righteous Adam was a god.

 

So first when I studied this, I said, oh Satan was lying to him. But no, then I went further. The Lord showed me, no Satan wasn't lying to him. What he was saying was, "Now you're a god that knows the Father. But you'll be a god that knows the Father as well as Satan." And he made it sound like it was an increase. And he made it sound like God was jealous and didn't want Adam to have the experience of Satan as well as the Father. But Adam was already a god. That was why when the Father said, "If you partake of this tree, you shall die to your immortality. You shall die to your godhood and become a natural man." And Satan was saying, "You will become a god. In the physical world system you will become a god over my world," Satan was saying. Adam, righteous Adam, was a god in Jehovah's world. He was a god over the visible, spiritual earth. He had a relationship with the good one. Satan was saying, "In the day that you have intercourse with me, you will be a god over the visible physical world, over which I am the prince of the power of the air." He didn't mention whether or not he would be immortal. Now remember, God said to Adam, "If you partake of the tree that's in the midst of the garden, if you partake of the tree that is separated from the garden, you shall die to your immortality." And Satan said to Adam, you shall surely not die."

 

So they were talking about two different things. The Father said, "You will die to your immortality." And Satan was saying, "You shall not cease to be." And we've spoken about this before, that man, to the rest of this world, is a god. Man to the animal kingdom is a god. Any spiritual level that is above an existing level is a god to that level. Brethren, when you have a dog that lives with you, you are a god to that dog. You provide his food, his perfec- -- his affection. You provide all of his needs. We have dominion. Why? Because of the mind that is superior to the animal world. We have in these civilized countries, not civilized but the industrialized countries, we have taken dominion over almost every force of nature, with the exception of disease, and we've had some measure of dominion over that. But we know that we can't take total dominion over it because God is cursing the fallen man through that disease.

 

But you hear what I'm saying? God said, "You shall die to your immortality, to your dominion that I have given you that is arising out of My life." And Satan said, "You shall not cease to be, but you shall be gods, the kind of god that arises out of your union with me." So Satan, he really didn't lie, he was subtle. He twisted the meanings of what he said. He used the same words that God used, but he meant something else.

 

So let me just read you my note in case I left something out here. Remember also that Adam and his wife within him was already acquainted with the Father and therefore was already a god. Did not the Father say in Genesis 3 that if Adam and the woman ate the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden they would die to their immortality? And does not immortality make one a god? I'm suggesting to you that Adam, his wife and Satan already knew that Adam was a god, that Satan was not promising to make him a god but was saying that in the days that your eyes are opened, you shall no longer be a god who knows only good. But you shall be a god who knows good as well as evil. I'm suggesting further that Satan was saying to Adam that in heaven, you have a relationship only with the good or with the Father. But in the earth, you shall have a relationship with the evil, with Satan, as well as the Father. And Satan was suggesting that the Father was denying Adam and his wife something desirable that would be in addition to what he already had.

 

And don't we see this in our relationships today, especially with our children. We try to protect them and they accuse us of denying them pleasure. This whole scenario that happened at the beginning of time is continuously being played out in the lives of men.

 

I'd like to just take a moment to give you some comments on the tactics of the serpent. Please note, the first thing she does is cause you to question what God said. "The Lord said don't eat of the whole tree." God didn't say that. And you start thinking, did God really say that, don't eat of the whole tree? She uses the same words as God, but applies different definitions to them. "Ye shall not surely die." Well we still have an existence. We were not completely destroyed, but we died to immortality. So Satan didn't lie. We did not fall into nonbeing. But we died to immortality. When you're talking to someone, get your- -- make sure you're talking about the same thing, brethren. It's really important. Only destruction can result if you're having a conversation with your husband, with your wife, with your children, with your employer. It's really important that you're talking about the same thing. Because if you're not, you might as well be talking a foreign language. How could you possibly resolve a problem if you're not in agreement upon your definitions?

 

I want to tell you, I worked for attorneys for many years. And the first thing they do when they start putting down the terms of an agreement involving millions of dollars sometimes, the first thing at the top of the page, definitions. Big bold heading, definitions. And they define every term that they're going to be using in the contract. It's really important for everybody's sake. [INAUDIBLE]. So heaven is union in mind with God alone, which union causes a safe environment to materialize in the visible earth. And when I first started preaching that heaven was in the mind, a lot of people misunderstood me. They thought I was saying heaven is not a real place. Heaven is a real place. It is the product of a mind that is in right standing with God. It is a visible place. If it's Christ, it's a spiritual, visible place that materializes when all of God's conditions are met. But you must have a resurrected mind to cause it to materialize. And I suggest to you that heaven will begin to appear when the mind of Christ is permanently and consistently revealed in the earth. I believe it could have been done through the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth. But He gave up HIs life so that the second generation of Christ could come forth. For heaven to materialize, it- -- there must be a permanent presence of the mind of Christ in the earth. And Jesus went away. And He's back now but He's inside of us. So until He overcomes in us as He came in the man, Jesus Chr- -- overcame in the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth, there will not be a permanent unwavering presence of the mind of Christ. When the firstfruits stand up in full stature, we will begin to see heaven revealed in the earth. I don't know how long it's going to take to convert the whole earth. I don't know. But if it takes a long time, there's only one reason. If it takes a thousand years, brethren, there's only one reason. And that is if God did it any faster, He would kill us. That's the only reason. God is able. We are mortal. We break. We could be destroyed. These bodies can be destroyed. So heaven is union in mind with God alone, which union causes a safe environment to materialize in the spiritual earth, in the visible, spiritual earth.

 

Hell exists on three levels, brethren. One, union in mind with Satan alone. There are some people that exist in the pit. Their bodies are here on this earth,. Usually, to be in mind with Satan alone, you're in a mental institution. I've heard incredible things go on there. People levitate. They're raped by -- they're spiritually raped by spiritual forces within continuously. And they're on the same earth that we're on. And that I would say is union in mind with Satan alone.

 

Then we have union in mind with Satan as well as a simultaneous relationship with Christ. Now, brethren, this is one of the hard words of this ministry. Unless you're standing in full stature, you have an intimate relationship with Satan. He has brought you into this world. Christ is the invading force that is taking you back from him, by bringing forth His life in you. But you have an intimate relationship with Satan if you're not in full stature, and Christ were to leave you, you would not die. Well you would not die physically. If Christ is in you and not in full stature and your heart was punctured, you would die. Unless God sovereignly gives you a miracle, when Christ is not in full stature, He is not mature enough to sustain your soul in your body. And you have a continuous relationship with Satan. When Christ comes into your life, you have a relationship with Christ as well. Now let me remind you, that to have a relationship with Christ is to have a relationship with His Spirit. And His Spirit is present in the earth in many forms. Christ is righteousness, brethren. Christ is righteousness. And we have people all over the world involved in all forms of pagan religion who, because Christ is present even in the fallen creation, have it within their mind because it's been carried down from generation to generation, they have a social structure that fulfills the law of God. Honor your parents and live long on the earth. Take care of your children. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. There are societies that don- -- that never even heard of Christ that follow these laws. So if you're in that condition or for the man that's in that condition, they have a relationship with Christ besides their relationship with Satan. Excuse me. They have a relationship with Christ besides their union of mind with Satan. And the difference is that their union of mind with Satan is sustaining them in this world. It's physically sustaining them. The relationship with Christ is keeping them sane. But the source of their existence in this world, originally Satan.

 

And then the third level of hell is union in mind with both Satan and Christ and that is the people in whom the imparted anointing is manifesting. They don’t just have a relationship with Christ, there is a union of mind with Christ. James calls this person the devil-minded man.

 

Recap: Genesis 1:1-5. "And the serpent was revealed as a spiritual presence in the uncultivated earth which the Lord God had formed out of the elements which He created. And he said to the fertile woman, 'Yea, the Lord has said that you shall not eat of the whole tree of the garden.' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the one who is the fruit of the tree of the garden. But God has said, 'You may not eat the fruit of the part of the tree which is within the divided garden. And you should be especially careful not to have intercourse with him, lest you die to your immortality and become a natural man.' And the serpent said to the woman, 'You shall not surely die. Because God knows that in the day you eat of it, your reproductive force shall be opened and you shall become as gods who are acquainted with both Christ and Satan.'"

 

OK. Not that they weren't a god before and they're going to be a god now. He was a god that was acquainted just with Jehovah and now is going to be a god that's acquainted with Jehovah and Satan.

 

I'd like to make some comments now. I'm not going to do the whole thing. I'm just going to comment on verses 7, 8 and 10. Verse 7, "And the eyes of them were both opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." I'd like to point out to you the first manifestation of the fall was that the man decided to defend himself. Now before the fall, Christ was his defense. The first thing he did was make his own defense. And if you look up those words in the Hebrew -- I did this years ago and I didn't understand it -- they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. The Hebrew translated aprons means armament. They literally put armor around themselves. And I suggest to you that that armor was around their mind not around their sexual parts. I don't believe they had human bodies as we know them today at that time. They armed their mind. And they armed themselves with the carnal mind, which we have found out in recent studies particular in, in particular in the 78 series that the carnal mind is the weapon of Satan in the earth and that Christ is the weapon of Jehovah in the earth. So the first thing they did after they fell, was that they made themselves their own defenses.

 

Verse 8, "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden." Brethren, I prayed about this for years. Couldn't figure this out. How could you hide behind the trees from God? Brethren, let me remind you we touched on it earlier, a tree is a type of a man in the Scripture. And I'm going to suggest to you that the way Adam and his wife hid from God behind a tree was that they were hiding behind the tree of the partial of the divided garden. They had wrapped themselves in the carnal mind. Remember a recent message, Amos 6, that God's going to come to you and He's going to yell "Is anyone in there with you behind your physical body and behind your carnal mind? Is Christ in there?" Why does God have to call out to you and say, "Is Christ in there?" Because when you look at a fallen man, you can't tell who's in there. I flipped past, I had the TV on the other night and I was just flipping past the different stations. And I caught a quick clip of a horror show. And someone was holding this cute little baby about six months old. And their eyes were all glowing, supposed to be a demon inside the baby. I want to tell you something, brethren. That's not real. That's not real. Most people, when you come to them, you don't know whether they're Christ or they're the carnal mind. We're told that when Peter and Paul walked down the street that people were healed. Well maybe people were healed, but I don't think that happened every time they walked down the street every single time. And even if it did, I don't find anything in the Scripture that says that the shadow that emanated from them, which was the Spirit of Christ, was visible to people walking down the street. You know these pictures that they make of Jesus and they make Him look like some kind of a freak because they're trying to make Him look holy. Brethren, Jesus looked just like us. There's not a doubt in my mind that He looked absolutely human. Only when the Spirit of Christ is within you will you be able to discern Christ in another man. It's by spiritual discernment. Their eyes don't look weird, whether they have a demon or whether it's Christ. Your eyes don't look weird, brethren. That's the whole point. The Jews stumbled at Christ's flesh. He looked like a man. Peter and Paul, they looked like men. That's the whole point of this whole thing. We can't tell who anybody is but by the discernment of the Lord, spiritual discernment. So they were hiding behind the trees. First of all, the tree of life had now separated out into two trees. And they were wrapped themselves around with aprons, which was the carnal mind. And they didn't look like they looked the last time God had spoken to them. They had become deformed. That's why God said, "Where are you?" Because they didn't look the same. And they were hiding behind the trees of the divided garden.

 

Now all this is leading up to the condition that man's in today. He has defensed himself and he's now- -- he's not up front anymore. He's not transparent. He's hidden. The average man is hidden. His true self is not available to anyone that wants to see. So they were hidden behind their new personality, the carnal mind. The overriding characteristic of fallen man, brethren, is pride, that personality that's not of Christ.

 

Verse 10, "And he said, 'I heard that voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." So we see in fallen man, he's defended himself. He's hiding behind a personality that's not really him and he's afraid. I want to put that on the board for you. Fallen man. He's self-defensed. He's hiding behind a false personality. What is a false personality? A personality that's not Christ. We are Christ. We're Christ. A lot of us don't know, but we're Christ. Anything in our personality that reflects otherwise is a part of a false personality that is interfering with the development of Christ in our life. So fallen man is self-defensed. He's hiding behind a false personality. And he is afraid. That fear may be in his unconscious mind, but he is afraid. Fear is the second overriding characteristic of man. Pride is the first and in case you were wondering, that self-defense category is- -- that's pride, that self-defense isn't pride.

 

OK. Now I'm going to try and bring this part of the message forth. I pray that the Lord help me. I'm going to do the best I can. We had a message not too long ago when we mentioned narcissism. And we said that narcissism was selfishness. Now we find out as I did this study that narcissism is another word for pride. Narcissism is another word for pride or self-worship. And we find out that this is characteristic of fallen man. It's not to the same degree in everybody. It's more so in some people than others. With some people, it extends to a point where it becomes pathological or it becomes a disease. The person cannot function in their life. But everybody, no matter how well adjusted they appear, has these characteristics, except for Jesus Christ of Nazareth because we're all fallen. Jesus, please help me bring this forth. It's so interesting. Thank you, Father. Now in our fallen condition, we can be either in heaven or hell. I touched on it a little bit earlier. Everybody has their trials in this life. But some people have pretty decent lives. I don't think anyone could deny that. Some people have pretty good lives. With just a minimum of trouble, they're basically happy. And some people are really bound up. We're having a plague across this nation today of compulsive disorder, alcoholism, drug addiction. This is all rooted in a pathological narcissism, pride operating to such a degree in the individual that it's literally killing them.

 

Now let me first speak about the person that's in heaven in earth, what we might call the well-adjusted person. How does he deal with his pride that he's functioning? Well this seems to be the basic issue as it's explained by psychiatric literature. I'm going to briefly ta- -- tell you the words that they use, but then I'm going to switch over to the words that we use because you're familiar to hearing that from me. And I found in the psychiatric literature that there is a discussion of what we would call the human spirit and the personality that is not Christ. Depending on the psychia- -- psychiatric writer, they call it the it and the other. And what they're really saying is that each person or each self has two parts to it. And in a situation where destruction comes forth, those two parts separate and work against one another.

 

And as I read the literature, what- -- there's not a doubt in my mind what they were talking about was the human spirit and the soul, and the two were really one. But there's a separation and that separation comes forth. Originally, the personality rises because the personality rises up to defend the human spirit. But in that attempt to defend itself, destroys it. And the overriding theme of this book is that ev- -- just about everyone that has done deep studies in religion and psychology knows that this is the end result of defending oneself. It is destruction. You don't achieve what you set out to achieve. And she says all the religions of the world. including psychiatry, know this. Yet it's the human tendency to defend oneself. So I need instruction not to yield to pride. And that's usually the job of religion. In our society today it's the job of psychiatry or humanism. But the whole world knows. Anyone with any wisdom or experience knows that if you yield to pride, you will surely destroy yourself.

 

And the myth of Narcissus, which is a Greek myth, proves that point. We may have touched on it on the other message. Reminds you that Narcissus was a beautiful youth and he would not love any of the women that came looking for him. He was desired by the young women of his day. And the myth reveals that the reason he was so hard-hearted towards them was that he wou- -- that he knew that love would make him vulnerable. And he would not risk being hurt. He would not let down that wall. And eventually he found himself totally alone, not trusting anybody. And then one day, he found a lake or a pond. And he looked into the pond and saw his reflection and fell in love with his reflection.

 

Now the symbology of this is that he rejected all of the warm loving offers that he had and he finally, his fear of being hurt resulted in him falling in love with the wrong choice. He didn't know it was his reflection. Now this is a psychological principle that we see in the w- -- in our country today. It's very common among young people today. They're afraid and they're afraid and they're afraid. And they don't take this one and they don't take that one. And when they finally take the step, it's someone that absolutely devastates them. I've seen it happen time and time again. There's an ungodly mechanism operating in their unconscious mind. And they're trying to defend themselves from potential hurt. They're not giving it to God. And when they're finally attracted to somebody, it's a just very destructive thing. So Narcissus fell in love with his own image. But every time he reached out for it and he touched the water, the image disappeared.

 

So we find in our society today many people longing for a love object that they can never attain. We see many young women in love with married men today, longing for someone else's husband. It's more common with women than it is with men, although I've seen it with men. Never satisfied, never peaceful. They give up their whole opportunity to have a life and a marriage and a children, longing for something they can never have. So why would someone do something like this? What is the unconscious root that is bringing us to this condition in this nation. And I’m suggesting to you that it's pride that is reaching a point of pathology in this nation.

 

Because we've separated ourselves from God down here in hell. Not only are we separated from a God in a relationship that would bring us to full stature, but down here in hell, we have separated ourselves from God. And are separating ourselves from God and are falling into a deeper and deeper depths of hell. So as the author of this book says, pride is proven by every religion and discipline ever formulated knows that pride will destroy you.

 

Now let me just read you some of these definitions that I took out of the book. The two overriding characteristics of pride: self-idolatry, self-idolatry, love of oneself. But not necessarily in the way that we would think of it, that wha- -- we're so great that there's none like us. It's a love of self that arises out of rejection and fear and a sense of worthlessness. We love ourselves because we are so afraid if we are loved by others or if we open ourselves to others that we'll be destroyed. So the first sign of it is self-love in a negative sense.

 

And the second sign of it is what one of the psychiatric writers calls self-encapsulation. Self-encapsulation. We defend ourselves. The personality splits off from our true self, the human spirit, and builds a fortress around it to try to stop it from being hurt, but ultimately suffocates it and destroys itself. Turning inward is destructive. Man cannot survive turning inward. The only answer to man's plight is to turn outward and upward to God. And the principle that's coming forth here is that our human spirit, the human spirit that is born of every human being, has the potential to be Christ. And in an age where it's not the season for Christ to appear in us, our human spirit is everything in us that is creative. So even in an age where it's not time to return to the Father, the human spirit in every human being has the potential to be everything that God would permit us to be while we're still in this condition. But our personality has surrounded her and put a wall around her, supposedly to protect her, but has achieved the exact opposite, has stopped her from developing, has stopped her from being all that she could be. And she's locked behind this wall. Freud calls it the stone wall, that up until recently was untreatable by psychiatry. Freud said he wouldn't touch it. Nothing he could do for people that were so shut up by their own personalities that nothing could get in there from the outside and touch them.

 

So we have self-idolatry and self-encapsulation, or self-defense, results in self-destruction. To the unconscious mind of the fallen man, there is a fate worse than death and it is against this fate that we seek to defend ourselves. And what is this fate? It is a fear of loving and not being loved back. It is a fear of being left in this world in a condition of lovelessness, in a condition of detachment. It's an unconscious fear that became resident in man, I suggest to you, from the time of the fall. And it is so terrifying that it's described as the fear of a fate that is worse than death, existing in this world unloved, rejected, worthless, insecure. It is such a dreadful thing to the human being that the personality surrounds itself and protects itself, depending on the relationship that the individual has with parents in early life that is the extent to which this will occur. Now obviously the child that is loved and accepted and has every need met is going to grow up with a minimum of this defense. The psychiatric literature calls it transparent. If you have a healthy personality you are transparent. That means that your personality is not locking your human spirit up so that nobody could see what’s in it, but what you truly are shines through for all to see.

 

Now also in the unconscious mind is this -- for the person that’s damaged, now, is not only this dread of not being loved and of being detached and rejected, but great anger enters into the person’s heart at rejection from the cradle, so to speak. And because we’re all fallen most -- almost everybody today was rejected, everybody’s all messed -- rejection sets in at a very young age, and with that rejection, great anger.

 

Anger that the psychiatric literature describes as rage. And if you know anything about the alcoholic personality, or the compulsive personality, that we see a plague of in our society today there is great rage associated with it, but some people act out this rage and it’s a destructive force in their life because you can’t go around beating people up. But many others repress it, and if you speak to them they will deny that they’re even angry, but there’s a rage burning in their heart and they’re covering it up. The rage is in their human spirit and their personality is defending it.

 

So we see also there is a fear of expressing this rage in a socially unacceptable way. Everybody wants to be socially acceptable. No one chooses to be socially unacceptable and thrown out of social meetings. No one in their right mind would desire that. So we’re dealing with people that are defending themselves against loving and not being loved back, or not even having an opportunity to love, and are also defending themselves against the possibility of their rage overflowing out of them and causing them possibly to be rejected, or causing them trouble in their life.

 

And how do they protect themselves against this? They build that stone wall around themselves and nobody can see through it. They’re not transparent; they’re shut up, and the only thing that people outside can see is what the psychiatric literature calls a false personality. It really isn’t them. It’s expressed as the differential between behavior and experience. If I’m feeling great rage -- this is very common, I meet people like this all the time. They’re experiencing great rage and they’ll look me right in the eye and say well it was nice seeing you. And I’ll go to them and I’ll say, don’t you want to talk about this? You’re mad at me, let’s talk about it. Oh, I’m not mad at you; you’re imagining it.

 

Now sometimes they know that they’re mad at you and they refuse to speak about it. Sometimes they really don’t know they’re mad at you, depending on how much they’re into this repression, they don’t really know that they’re mad at you. Now we have a problem if this is us. If anyone that’s hearing this message can relate to this, this is unhealthy, because the day is going to come that you’re going to kill your own spirit because you’re going to have her all shut up.

 

And the answer to these problems, on this human level, is communication. And on a spiritual level, the answer to the problem is to ascend above our human personality. And I suggest to you that that can only happen in Christ. We’ll find out in Hinduism and Buddhism that there are people in this world that enter into severe disciplines, physical and mental disciplines, that deal with their human personality and liberate their human spirit to a certain point, but there’s no eternal life in it.

 

They may achieve some peace in this lifetime, but if it’s not the spirit of Christ, it won’t go beyond that. And sometimes there are negative manifestations to it. But the truth is, I know I was in deliverance and I heard a lot about how you get demons from doing yogi and all that, and I’m not telling anyone to go out and do yoga, but what I am saying to you is that there are people in this earth today that practice Hinduism and they really have a measure of peace. I don’t see them overflowing with demons.

 

Now I know that demons are operating there, but what I’m saying is, somehow it works for them. But there’s no -- it works for them for the now, but there’s no eternal life in it. Is anyone misunderstanding what I’m saying? OK.

 

I want to read you some of these definitions here. So everybody’s born with a fear that the psychiatric literature describes as dread, of the fate worse than death, loving and not being loved, or not even having an opportunity to love, or not being able to control our rage. And our defense is self-worship.

 

Self-worship is a defensive maneuver against the realization that we have been rejected and find ourselves without love. And of the murderous rage, which results from admitting that we’re in that condition, there is a terror that comes from a hope for love and a failure to achieve it.

 

Now with most people, this is in their unconscious mind, and this is the root, brethren, of denial. This is the root of denial. Why? Because if we confess to ourselves, if we let our eyes be open and we really look into our heart and we see that this is true of us, the fear is that we will die. If we confess to ourselves that we have been rejected and that we have not achieved love in our life, whether it was our parent that rejected us or whether it was a lover that rejected us or whether we’re disappointed in our marriage, whatever it is, if we face it, the fear in our unconscious mind is we will just fold up and die from the pain. Which isn’t true, by the way. It’s not true. But that’s what our unconscious mind believes and therefore we convince ourselves to not even recognize the disappointment in our heart.

 

And we find women walking around with black eyes telling us how wonderful their husband is. And that, of course, is an extreme example. See, that, it seems to me, would be easier to recognize that there’s a failure there, but we have millions of people in everyday life that have been hurt, that have been wounded, that have been disappointed, that cannot face their own heartbreak because in their unconscious mind. They’re afraid that if they face it they’ll never survive it, and it’s a lie.

 

So in their attempt to defend themselves, in their attempt to defend their true self, which is their human spirit, their personality divides and separates from the human spirit; builds a wall around it in trying to defend it -- why? Because if there’s a lie in the mind that the human spirit’s going to die, and then your body will just die, and your life will be over. Builds that wall around it, and that wall is a false personality of -- isn’t everything wonderful? Praise the Lord, man! How are you today? And they slap hands and give me five and everything’s wonderful, until one day they break. Some of them break, some of them don’t.

 

And the truth is that even though it will be painful, if you will just look at the truth -- God has placed in our human spirit an ability not only to survive, but to come out of this bondage of the false personality, this bondage of denial, and come forth in Christ and give us a new, positive, rewarding experience in this life. And what’s really interesting -- a lot of religious Christians aren’t going to like to hear this, but I’m telling you the truth, you can do it outside of Christ.

 

See, our human spirit is that which is left of the bones of Christ. It is that part of us which is deity. Fallen, but deity. It has the potential to achieve, to create, to be everything positive that a human can be if given its head. But you see this monster has risen up in our soul thinking it’s defending us; has trapped the human spirit in many instances. It just -- leave it, and she’s just dying from despair. And I want to tell you that there are many methods in the earth today that can free her and give the person a literal rebirth in this world, but there’s no eternal life involved in it. All you religious Christians out there, I’m sorry if I’m offending you, but this rebirth out of a severe bondage can result from psychotherapy. This rebirth out of a severe bondage can be accomplished through Hinduism and through Buddhism. Sometimes it happens, if you get a miracle and you’re -- when you’re that bound up, to meet a well-adjusted person that will love you enough to bring you out of your bondage.

 

God has placed many good things in this fallen earth, but Christ is the only spirit that will abide forever. That doesn’t mean everything else is no good, and we’re going to find out that the religions of the world, including psychotherapy, have techniques that bring this to pass and they even call it what we call it. We call it the new birth, amen. They call it -- I found it right here in the psychiatric literature, they call it a rebirth. They talk about rebirthing. Bringing forth a spiritual birth.

 

 And what it is, is the liberation of the human spirit. And I ask you, is that not what Christ is doing with us? Is that not what we’ve taught here? That when the Holy Spirit comes to us he heads right for our human spirit. Is that not what I’ve taught you here? Joins with her, forms Christ in her, and Christ has the strength to break out through the carnal mind where the human spirit alone has been too weak to break out of this fortress that surrounds her. Out of a self-defense that has turned upon itself and instead of saving her life, is killing her. Where she can’t break free when the Holy Spirit joins with her and Christ comes forth, He is strong enough to break out.

 

But there are religions of the world, and there’s psychotherapy, that do it work with a different technique, but I want to tell you, their techniques aren’t so different from Jesus. It’s quite amazing. Brethren, I’ve been saying it for years, spiritual is spiritual is spiritual. The only difference is what spirit you’re using. And if a psychotherapist sits down with a client and ministers to that client, it is his spirit reaching out to that person.

 

Now, of course, it’s the fallen spirit if the man doesn’t have Christ, I know it’s the spirit of Satan, but there is -- this is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and good is done, on occasion, with that spirit. And the only difference is that when you get it from another source, it’s just for this lifetime. When you get it from Jesus it’s eternal life, and it will touch your whole family. It will change your whole family, everyone that comes into your life.

 

It will break curses on your family for generations, and it will put blessings on your family line for 2,000 generations. We have to know -- we have to be able to tell people this, brethren. People that are going to come to us and say what is it with this Christianity? I got the same result from such and such. We have to know the answers for them. Someone came to me, not too long ago, and said, “Why should I go to church?” My neighbor down the street is never home, her kids aren’t cared for and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Everything’s wonderful in her life. She’s a harlot. I’m in church every Sunday. This is wrong with my life. That’s wrong with my life. My husband keeps losing his job. Why should I go to church? And I told her, for your children and for your grandchildren and for your great-grandchildren, and for the blessings that are going to be on them for 2,000 generations. And she just looked at me, no one ever told her that before. Brethren, we’ve got to know the answers. It’s really important. The church is only going so far as it stands now. We’ve got to have these answers.

 

So let’s go on. So, because of this unconscious dread of being unloved, of never achieving love, of rejection, of feelings of worthlessness, insecurity and rage, the natural man, or the fallen man, turns inward. Self-absorption is then a strategy for survival in the face of this condition, but it’s a strategy that inevitably fails as all religions and traditions warn us.

 

We insulate ourselves against this condition and also against our recognizing it. We protect ourselves so well in many instances that we have no idea this is going on in our unconscious mind. And it looks to us like our life is great, but inside our human spirit is just in despair. And relating this to Christianity for someone who was in that condition, when Christ comes and says I want to get in there; I want that which is mine, and what is of Christ in us, He wants that part of us which is Him. He wants contact with the human spirit. Our personality, or our carnal mind, won’t let Him in.

 

So we see this problem in Christ as well as in every other area of life. We see people, we come to them with the message of the Gospel time and time again, and they just can’t -- it just doesn’t click with them. Well, what’s wrong? What’s wrong? Why isn’t it clicking? Brethren, the spirit that you come in, and I’m not insulting you it’s happened to me too, this spirit that you come in is not strong enough to penetrate the defense of that person who has a strong wall around themselves. That are so self-absorbed, they’re so concerned with themselves, that they will not let anyone touch that human spirit, even someone who’s come to save their life.

 

Self-worship seeks to mask and disguise this condition. This fate worse than death about which we have wanted to know nothing. We don’t want to admit that we’re afraid. Pride is man’s universal defense against recognition of his abandonment. Pride, or self-love, is a condition of self, curved in upon itself. Now in the health personality we’re reaching outward. We’re reaching outward. Reaching to others. Reaching to God. But pride is a condition where we reach inward, and we will eventually kill ourselves.

 

We are helplessly absorbed with ourselves, and this absorption binds us to our fallen condition. Now remember the recent teachings here, that Jesus is calling us inward to the realm of His spirit, and our attention, or our focus, of things in the earth bind us to the earth. It’s as if the spirit of God is saying come in to the things of the spirit, that’s where eternal life is the kingdom of God is within, and we have our emotions, or our heart, so anchored out here in the earth that we can’t go. Jesus said where your treasure is, that’s where your heart’s going to be.

 

In these instances, with people in this condition, frequently, believe themselves to be seeking love when actually it’s death that they’re embracing. It’s not true. I knew someone once who had these conditions and a psychiatrist had said to them do you want to get married? And she said, “Oh, yes I want to get married. Everybody wants to get married.” And the way the psychiatrist dealt with it was that he laughed at her.

 

You see, when someone is so defense that they believe their own lies one of the ways, if not the only way, to reach them is what they call an indirect attack. You see? Now this psychiatrist knew that this person had grown up in a very dysfunctional home, and the thought of marriage was horrible to her. The thought of being in that same kind of condition that her parents were in was a nightmare to her, and he laughed at her because if he had said to her, now you know that’s not true. If he had taken the direct approach, she would’ve fought with him to her death saying, no you don’t know what you’re talking about. Direct approach will never work with denial. But he -- it wasn’t a vicious laugh, it was like a loving laugh. So it went into her mind that he didn’t believe it. The question went into her mind.

 

Psychiatric literature calls it scaling the wall. There’s no way to tear that wall down. In cases like this it’s just too strong, but he scaled the wall. He went over it. He put another idea in her head, it’s called indirect communication. And I want to suggest to you that that is what Jesus did when he spoke in parables. He went to the Pharisees and He said to them, “I’ll tell you the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And what did they say to Him? What are you talking about you’ll tell us the truth? Our father is Abraham, you’re going to teach us? We are not holy born of fornication, and you’re going to teach us?

 

So He talked to them in parables, and in a couple of those parables, after He relates those parables in a couple of places, the scripture says, “And the Pharisees rose up to kill him, and He disappeared among the midst of them.” They knew that He was talking about them. When He spoke directly to them, they didn’t receive the seed. They bounced if off. They bounced it off. It didn’t do them any good. But when He used an indirect approach, even though they were enraged, they heard it. The seed went into their mind.

 

I thought it very interesting when I read the psychiatric literature and they talk about this great psychiatric writer that discovered this indirect approach, Jesus did it 2,000 years ago. Actually He did it more than 2,000 years ago, He did it with the old covenant too. Didn’t the prophet come to David and tell him the story about this sinful man, and David said, “Well I’m going to punish him. Who was it?” And it was David. So Jesus knew all about this technique thousands of years ago.

 

But praise the Lord, everybody doesn’t read the Bible, and I thank God for psychiatry that the mercy of God is present to people that don’t read the Bible. In this hour God is not calling everybody.

 

So as I told you earlier, in Freud’s day he said there was no help for people that were so self-defensed; that had a stone wall around them, but now we have some modern psychiatric methods that Jesus told us about thousands of years ago that are being used in therapy. And preaching in itself is an indirect approach. Some people, you come right up to them and they’ll say no it’s not true, and they’ll fight you to the death, but if they’re sitting in a church meeting and God anoints the ministered to bring forth the word that they need to hear and the Holy Spirit [?quittance?] it to them, that’s how the Lord’s dealing with you.

 

And that’s one of the reasons why it’s important to be in church. I heard it again from someone on the phone just the other day, God is just dealing with the individual today. I don’t have to go to church. Well in some cases God calls you out, but you should really make sure that it’s God. The reason people don’t want to go to church in many, many instances is that they just want to do their own thing. They don’t want to hear a message that may cause them some distress.

 

And I want to put this in right here before I forget to put it in. I do a lot of talking about how painful the judgment is and I want to put this on the message that any process that’s going to bring growth in your life is going to be painful. Psychoanalysis is painful. Breaking out of that wall that your false personality has built around yourself is painful. Change is painful. Growth is painful. If you’re just a small child growing up, growing up is painful. Everybody that knows about life knows that. So if I’ve caused you any distress by saying it’s painful I’m sorry, but I’m not going to lie to you. Life is painful. And this is not fair to the people in the church to tell them that there’s no pain that you’re just going to fly away one night. It’s not fair to them. No pain, no gain. No pain, no gain.

 

So it’s not so much that you run from the church, because the tribulation is painful. If you want to improve your life, if you want to come out of the problems that you grew up with, if you want to come out from under what’s binding you, it’s going to be painful. Any method that you use is going to be painful. But if you go with Christ you have age abiding results, benefits that go upon your whole family, and you also have the love of God.

 

And I remind you that all of the problems of fallen man arise from being rejected in some measure at a very young age. Except for some very rare, very blessed people. Everybody’s got something. Why? Because our parents aren’t perfect. But in Christ, we have the love of Christ. You go to a psychiatrist you might have someone that cares about you, but he’s just a man. Your therapy ends and he goes his way and you go yours.

 

Out of all of the rel- -- well I haven’t studied all of the religions, but as I said I did some research on Hinduism and Buddhism. I didn’t read anything on Taoism. I didn’t read anything in those religions about the love of God. So we have the love of God offered to us to replace that which we may have been denied, because our parents did the best they could and it wasn’t good enough for us. So Christ is highly preferable.

 

And I remind you that Paul went to the synagogue and he debated with the Jews, and even if you read it in the book of Hebrews he says well Christ is preferable in every way. And he goes on and he explains to them why Christ is preferable. He debated with them. He didn’t threaten them with hell and damnation. Look, brethren, this way is better than Taoism. It’s better than Hinduism. It’s better than Buddhism. It’s better than psychiatry, because the blessings are for your whole family of descendants. Because you have God to love you in the place of the parents that failed you. It’s better in every way. Halleluiah, glory to God.

 

So the last thing I said was that people in this condition will frequently believe that they are seeking love, but it just never works out for them. Maybe there’s something operating in your unconscious mind that’s making you attracted to a relationship that will never work out. Maybe there’s something operating there. If you’re already in Christ, brethren, pray about it. We have access to the throne of God. If that is your problem, the Lord will break the curse and bring you forth -- bring your human spirit forth in a rebirth through the wall of your false self, or your carnal mind, and bring you forth in glory and in His image. He’ll break it.

 

So I have some comments here on Narcissus. I started to tell you about him. He fell in love with his image, he wouldn’t love anybody because he was afraid of being hurt. He was afraid of if he let himself be made vulnerable he would be hurt. And finally he let himself fall in love and he fell in love with his own image, which is a type of a lover who could never be apprehended. He finally fell in love with someone that wouldn’t love him, or that couldn’t love him. That’s the type of our spiritual roots.

 

Narcissus presents us with a deep look inside of ourselves which shows the highest degree of detachment, inaccessibility and self-sufficiency. These are the signs of someone that’s afflicted with this condition. They’re so afraid -- they are so afraid that if they love they’ll lose it, or that if they love they won’t be loved in return, or if they make themselves vulnerable they’ll never attain to it. They’re so afraid that they don’t even let themselves try, and these are the signs of somebody like that. They’re detached; you can’t get close to them. They’re inaccessible. I’m not sure what the difference between -- well, OK. Detachment, I see. Detachment means that they don’t hook up with close relationships. Inaccessibility means you can’t get close to them, and they’re usually very self-sufficient people.

 

And we find a lot of -- now there’s nothing wrong with being self-sufficient. The question is what is your self-sufficiency rooted in? If your self-sufficiency is rooted in something valid, if it’s rooted in a healthy inner-core, well then you’re OK. Jesus would say if you’re rooted in the rock, or if you built your house of brick, you’re OK. But there are many people out there that are self-sufficient and their house is built on sand, and when the trials of life come they find that they really have no foundation, and they fall down and they fall apart. This is the -- this is how people have nervous breakdowns, because their self-sufficiency has no foundation. And what I’m telling you is that it’s phony. What I’m saying is that it’s false. And when the trial comes it’s not going to stand.

 

This form of pride brings us to a condition of self-encapsulation. That’s being shut up, that we’ve been talking about. We shut ourselves up, or away from the world. Narcissus   related to no one other than himself. And again, we do this because of an unconscious fear of total destruction. Freud spoke of the stone wall of narcissism as an untreatable condition, but today we already talked about it, there is some help. The threat of annihilation is one’s original fear, and the person that has that lives on in dread of being [?an in flight?], we’re really running away from our self. Our human spirit, that in us which is left of Christ, is fleeing from the carnal-mind because of fear of destruction and there is present despair.

 

Don’t look at people with smiles on people’s faces, they may be real but they may not, and this is where the sermon is going to be very important when we go to minister to people. And we have this in our studies in the book of Revelation. There is one chapter -- if you’re interested I can find it for you I don’t have it for you now, where the scripture clearly states that Jesus is going in and He’s going to unmask everybody, and He talked about all the different categories of people that are hiding their true feelings.

 

 And one of the categories is because of witchcraft and mind control. All of this false personality that they put out there that there’s -- that everything’s wonderful when it’s not, that they’re strong when they’re weak, that they’re happy when they’re sad. The healthy personality is transparent. Now that doesn’t mean you have to be self-pitying or babbling all the time, but the healthy tran- -- the healthy personality is transparent. You’ve got to find that line. No one’s supposed to be in self-pity, but we have the exact opposite in the church. People putting people in bondage, saying that you have to be putting on this big show. You’ve got to find the line. You’ve got to find the line. You can’t be inflicting yourself on people. If you’re having a hard time, you know, you can’t be inflicting yourself on people, but there may be a time that you may want to listen to somebody, they may want to get it off their chest, there’s nothing wrong with that.

 

So I want to talk about the double bind. According to the psychiatric literature it is possible for one person to literally drive another person crazy. It really is possible. And the way they do this is what is called the double bind. And it usually results -- when this happens to a child it usually results in schizophrenia. So here we see a basic cause of schizophrenia, and that will happen usually with a parent giving unspoken messages to the child.

 

For example -- I’m giving you an extreme example. Children are very sensitive, you know, they understand a lot of things, and frequently when parents are in denial the children know what’s going on, but because the parents are denying it the children think they’re going crazy. For example, an extreme example, a mother says to her child I love you sweetheart. She turns around and she whacks her. The child says to himself, my mother just said she loved me, comes over and whacks her again. Puts -- makes the child confused.

 

So what am I saying? We have parents who are in denial, in whose mind experience has separated from their behavior. Now the parent thinks they love the child, the parent is in denial. They don’t know that they have a problem. Did you ever hear of the left-handed compliment? Well darling, you look so pretty today, but I really don’t like that dress that you’re wearing. Why don’t you put on the blue one? The child knows they’re being manipulated. I just love that dress, darling, but I like the other one better. The child knows what you’ve done. You have spoken the words that say you love the dress, but you have given a non-verbal message that says you don’t like the dress.

 

Now you don’t become schizophrenic because this happens to you one day, we’re talking about a parent who is in denial, that doesn’t know what they’re doing, whose experience frequently is separated -- what they’re feeling is separated from their behavior, and it makes a child, or maybe a husband or a wife, think that they’re losing their mind. And according to the psychiatric literature there’s usually a third factor present, and that factor is an unstated rule that we will not verbally mention that there’s anything strange going on in this family.

 

I knew a young girl once, she never had a friend for very long, and she told me once that every time she would have a friend for a year or more, her parents would start finding fault with her friend. They didn’t like this about her, they didn’t like that about her, and the girl would give up the friend. And then the mother would say to the girl, why don’t you ever keep a friend? It’s called the double bind.

 

Now people that do this -- see, you have to -- you can only be doing this to someone that you’re intimate with, either a parent to a child or possibly a husband to a wife or a wife to a husband. Have to be in the family. There has to be intimacy for you to really hurt somebody with this. And for a person to become schizophrenic as a result of it, usually, it has to be a person with authority doing it to a person that doesn’t have authority. Usually a child.

 

And then if the child says to the parent, well mom this never -- this is not likely to happen, this is by way of example. Well mom you, you know, I don’t have any friends because every time I have a friend, you know, you don’t like them. And the mother says, how dare you say that about your mother? I never told you I didn’t like that friend. What’s the matter with you? And it can literally make a child mentally ill if this goes on for many years. So denial, we see in some instances, can be destructive to the family. Can be very destructive to the family. And that’s the double bind.

 

Now with regard to getting help from a human spirit that imprisoned, this is accomplished by a rebirth. A rebirth. Literally being born again into a newness of life and opportunity right here in the earth. But to do this, before we are born again, we have to die. We have to die to the old way of thinking. We have to die to all of the lies in our mind. We have to die to the illusions that we grew up with in our family. And I was really blessed as I was reading this book because one of the methods that they recommend is what the Lord showed me years ago.

 

Actually I have to give God the credit because thoughts don’t come out of the blue, and this came to me before I ever knew the Lord. I know He was with me for many years before I ever came to the Lord, and I will tell you I won’t play your game. If I perceive that you’re game -- whoever you are, I’m not talking to anyone here -- that you’re game is ungodly, it does not matter to me if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I won’t play. If you’re going to get mad at me and try to get me into a fight, I won’t play your game. I’ll bless you, and I’ll walk away if I can do it. I have success a lot of the time. Sometimes I lose it. I won’t play your game. If you tell me that you don’t like my friend, I won’t give up my friend for that reason. I won’t play your game.

 

Now that’s almost impossible for a child to do, but that’s the exact expression that the psychiatric literature uses, and God told me that many years ago, so that really blessed me. I won’t play your sick game, whoever you are. I won’t get mad at you, Lord willing. This is my ideal; sometimes I blow it. I won’t get mad at you, and if the opportunity presents itself, I’ll try to talk to you about it, but I won’t play your game.

 

So we see a rule, the beginning of coming out of this entrapment of your human spirit is becoming helpless. What does that mean? You have to stop defending yourself because defending yourself is killing yourself. And we have to find out that it’s a lie that if you stop defending yourself that you’re going to die, it’s a lie. If you bring these defenses down you’re true self, your human spirit, is going to escape from the jail that you have imposed upon yourself. So it is a dying to the existence of entrapment, and you go through a transition period before you enter into your new life where you’re totally helpless. And I’ve told you that’s what I’m going through now. That’s what I’m going through now. I’m going through it in Christ. He stripped me of everything. In many instances I am very powerless because I’m dying to everything that I was. And I look forward to my new birth, whether that new birth be in full stature or that new birth be to an improved existence right here in the earth. I look forward to it.

 

So with regard to this unhappy situation in families, the book says to break out from within the fantasy of the family system may be an act of suicide. Let me talk about this for a minute. God’s been ministering this to me recently. When one comes out of a family where there are emotional problems, which is almost every family today, there is such a thing as a family group mind.

 

So if you come to Christ, or however it comes to pass in your life, you start to realize that there are ungodly thoughts circulating in your family. You come to a realization that your whole family -- and I’m not making them criminals, hear what I’m saying. You just discover something ungodly in your family. They’re critical; they gossip, whatever they do, and you decide that you don’t want to be that way. You are not just fighting this quality in your own mind, but you’re taking on the family group mind, which on an unconscious level is going to recognize what you’re doing and rise up against you.

 

And I want to tell you that I know people that have gone through this, and this I have -- I’m quoting you from the book. She says, “It may be an act of suicide.” Meaning that when you try to fight the system, the family system, you are facing the risk of defeat or even madness depending on the degree of witchcraft in the family group mind. You are taking on some battle. You could fail; people that are weak could fail. You see them in the mental institutions. But in Christ all things are possible.

 

Some of us in the church have come out of some very ungodly families. Mental illness, witchcraft, control, severe control, ungodly perverted thinking that there’s -- they’ve tried to foster on their children, that they’ve demanded that you think what they’re saying ungodly perverted thinking. That’s witchcraft, and mental illness. You try to fight against that you’ve got some battle on your hands. Even if you move out of the household, it’s a spiritual thing. There is a group family mind, and you’re trying to withdraw from it.

 

It’s as if you’re a part of an atom. Remember I had the diagram of the atom on the board before? And you are an electron in one of those orbits, and you’re trying to pull out. It’s like trying to go into outer space and you’re working against gravity. Especially if you’re coming from a family where you’re the first one that the Lord has called you, takes a very strong person. Remember, Christ gives you the power, but He lets you get hit. Takes a very strong person.

 

So if you find yourself ministering to somebody that’s trying to break away in their mind from some very ungodly family qualities, be very careful that you don’t condemn them if they’re moving a little more slowly than you did when you tried to break away. Be very careful, because this is no easy thing. It’s likened to taking off in a spaceship and going against gravity.

 

So remember to be compassionate and understanding at all times. Jesus knows how fast they can go. This thing could really hurt them mentally, so let Jesus direct the whole battle. Remember, everybody’s got their own story. Some people have it worse than you did, some people have it better than you did, but every ministry has to be custom designed to the individual person. Go before the Lord and ask Him how He wants you to minister to this person. Ask Him what they need. Ask Him how you could help them -- specialized treatment for that person. If you push him too hard, you can hurt somebody if you’re counseling. It’s a very, very responsible position to be in, to counsel people.

 

So I want to read you this note. So this process of what? Of breaking away from a highly demonized family entails a hazardous conte- --

 

7/24/14 – Transcribed by VerbalFusion

8/6/14 – 1st Edit CAS/BP

 

 

 

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Pastor Vitale's Bio

Sheila R. Vitale is the founding teacher and pastor of Living Epistles Ministries and Christ-Centered Kabbalah. In that capacity, she expounds upon the Torah (Scripture) and teaches Scripture through a unique Judeo-Christian lens.

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