Part 1 of 5 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed And Edited For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.
Matthew, Chapter 4, Verses 1 through 4, Verse 1. I'll read you the whole thing first. "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, He was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Now I'm sure that most of us here have heard the traditional church teaching on this. Wait till you hear the real thing. The traditional church teaching is -- well, I've heard one preacher say I don't believe Satan drove Jesus up into the wilderness. Satan had no power over my God. Then I've heard other preachers say, yes, Satan drove Him up into the wilderness, and Satan tempted Him and tried to tempt Jesus to use His power for purposes that would benefit Jesus or for purposes that would not glorify God.
And I think it's a little different than that, so I'd like to share with you what the Lord gave me, never heard anything like this before. And I just ask that if anything offends you that you just pray about it. If you get offended, it's your emotions. Christ is not giving you revelation in your emotions. If you get offended, the chances are your carnal mind doesn't like it, so you owe it to yourself to keep an open mind and to pray. I don't think anyone here's going to have a problem, but these messages go all over. We're breaking a few traditions tonight.
Verse 1, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Wilderness, 2048, Strong's says that it means an uninhabited place, deprived of -- it can also mean deprived of aid and protection, and another potential or another definition appearing in Thayer's is a woman neglected by her husband because he has withheld himself from her. Now you may have heard me mention before that it's my belief that the wilderness is a scriptural name for the soul realm. The soul realm is one of the two heavens. There are two heavens available to man. One is the realm of the soul, or the unseen place where the mind dwells, and there is another mind available to men today; His name is Christ, and He is another heaven. So there are two heavens available to men today, and ultimately, in each man, those two heavens will appear and be bound together as if they were one. So I'm going to say the soul realm since there are two heavens, and I'm trying not to confuse anybody.
I'm talking about the soul realm, the spiritual aspect of man's mind, and we know that man's mind is in two parts, one part unconscious and one part conscious. And in our fallen condition, the name of the unconscious mind of fallen man is?
[INAUDIBLE]
Satan, OK.
[INAUDIBLE]
The unconscious mind, and the conscious mind of fallen man is? You just said it, the carnal mind, and that is the lower heaven, the heaven that exists in man without Christ. Man who has Christ has that same mind, but it's under subjection to Christ. And in the second heaven, in the heaven which is from God, the name of the unconscious mind is?
[?The Father?].
The Father. And the name of the conscious mind is Christ, amen. So the wilderness is the soul realm. Now the soul realm is made to be inhabited by a -- does anybody know?
[INAUDIBLE]
Not exactly, close but not exactly. The soul is made to be inhabited by a --
[?Mind?].
-- mind, yes. The soul must have a mind, or you will be a mindless soul. I often wonder if the condition known as autism is not a human baby born by some freak of nature without a mind. That question has entered into my mind. For your information, autistic -- they're usually children, but an adult can be autistic also. Most of the time, they're totally introverted, and there is no communication between them and their external surroundings. They don't talk. They don't relate to anyone, even to their parents. We see infantile autism. There's no communication whatsoever between the child and the parent. The child is totally within itself, and I've had this question in my heart for years. Is this a body with a soul in it that by some freak has been born without a mind? The Lord hasn't answered me yet.
So we find the living soul, which is our personality -- we are the many members of the living soul, and the part of the soul that's in us is our personality, and everybody on the face of the earth today has an individual personality. There are no two people who are exactly alike, even identical twins. Twins who are identical in their body have personalities which are different, and that is because the living soul is fallen, and because it is fallen, it is divided, so we are all different, doing our own thing, thinking our own thing, but every human being alive can have only one of two minds, either the carnal mind or Christ.
Now some of us are in the process or -- the process of transition from the carnal mind unto Christ, so we are double-minded and unstable in all our ways. The carnal man is more st- -- or can be more stable than the Christ his -- on the way to full stature. We have men in this world -- and when I say men I mean men and women. We have human beings in this world who are born in very strong, supportive, loving homes with intelligent, sensitive parents, and they're very successful in this world and very stable.
Ar- -- the Army is -- at least the officer corps of the Army, if not the enlisted men also -- I don't know for sure, but the officer corps are extremely self-confident, self-sufficient, stable men, a lot of -- most professionals, although not all of them, doctors, lawyers. They can really handle themselves there. They're on top of this world. Everything's going for them, and that's in the carnal mind. They're stable. They're emotionally strong. And then you get someone who's on his way to full stature, and he's slipping and sliding and flipping and flopping all over the place, and there are many people in the church world who are strong in their carnal mind. They're strong because of the way they were born and raised up, not that Christ gave them a miracle. They were born that way, and they frequently are condemning the Christian who was not born that way, who is on his way to full stature, who has two minds and is slipping and sliding and flopping back and forth between the two minds.
But the end of the story, or as [?at they?] -- as they say in Great Britain, at the end of the day, the double-minded son of God will be stable in Christ having received a miracle, the miracle of a new mind to overcome the mind they were born with, while the carnal person who is strong in his carnality will be flipping and flopping and slipping and sliding because when Christ appears in this world system, brethren, the carnal mind is going to start to wither. He has already started to wither, as a matter of fact. Is everybody following me?
So the wilderness symbolizes the soul realm, and I ask you to bear in mind as we go forward that in the soul realm, in this hour, there are two minds, Christ and the carnal mind, and there are two spirits, the Father and Satan. So we read in the Scripture that, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Well, what does that mean? Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness. I want to suggest to you that Jesus, who was very much a man and very much capable of relating to people on a human level, just as I am relating to you now -- I'm looking at your faces. I'm speaking to you. I'm communicating with you that this man Jesus was led up into a place that was spiritual. He was led up in His mind. He came out of the worldly kind of an encounter, and He went up into a spiritual place.
Now some of you here who are becoming spiritual may have experienced this. It's happened to me many times. Some people call it a trance. You leave this world. Your mind leaves this world, and you enter into a spiritual realm with all of your consciousness, and I want to suggest to you that this is what happened to Jesus.
Now the Scripture says that Satan led Him up into the spiritual realm of the soul. Now how could Satan be leading Jesus up? Well, first of all, let me remind you that the Scripture says Jesus. Jesus is the man. It doesn't say Satan led Christ up. It doesn't say Satan led Jesus who was the Christ up. The Scripture says Satan led Jesus up. Jesus, the man, whose mind was now Christ.
And, of course, I guess I should have told you this before I started. In Verse 3 -- at the end of Chapter 3, excuse me, we see Jesus having His experience with John the Baptist in the Jordan. And if you have listened to our series, "Jesus in the Jordan," you will have heard us teach that He was caught up to full stature at the same time that he was water baptized, so Jesus was a man, a natural man who had been serving God for years who had just been water baptized, baptized in the Holy Spirit and caught up to full stature. And, immediately, Satan led Him up into the spiritual realm of the soul.
And I want to suggest to you that the reason Satan had authority to do that was that Satan was still ruling in the soul of the man Jesus of Nazareth. Now, brethren, this is something that the whole church is confronted with today, and they're not facing it, but they're going to have to face it. You can have the mind of Christ in you. He can be in full stature, but until He unseats your existing head, it's not over. Do you hear what I'm saying? The fact that the mind of Christ is born in you is not the end of it. The fact that the mind of Christ is in full stature in you is not the end of it. He must unseat the sitting ruler of your soul. So what does that mean? If Christ is fully born in you, if the mind of Christ is fully born in you, the existing, prevailing, authority, ruler of your soul has his finger on his shoulder saying, come on, buddy, get your fists up because only one of us can stay here. It's war. Does anybody not know what I'm talking about? You think Satan's going to sit there and watch the mind of Christ rise to full stature in a member of humanity and say hi?
I want to suggest to you that Satan, who is the unconscious mind of the natural man and therefore present in Jesus of Nazareth who was a man and had everything that men have, but He had something in addition, the mind of Christ. Satan was in His mind, and when Jesus was caught up to full stature, what that means is the mind of Christ was born and caught up to a position of full spiritual maturity, and at that moment, I want to suggest to you, in the man, Jesus of Nazareth, there existed two sons, both of them at high noon. Can't last, brethren; only one could be on top, and one could be on the bottom. It won't last. It was just for a brief second.
Jesus stood up, and the second He stood up -- I don't know if it's the account in Matthew or not, but I know there are other accounts of the temptation where it says, "And immediately, the spirit driveth Jesus into the wilderness." Satan didn't waste a second. He said, come on up here, honey. We're going to deal with this right now. And I want to tell you that Satan didn't doubt for a second that he was going to kill that Christ. And why would he not doubt that he was going to kill that mind of Christ? Does anybody know why? Why was there not a doubt in his mind that he was going to kill it? Because he already did it. He did it at the time of the fall. He already did it once before.
Do you know anything about boxing, the world championship? He says, come on, come on, let's see You try. Let's see You take the title from me, come on. That's what he was saying to Him. You want to try again? I knocked You down so many thousands of years ago, and You've managed to stand up on Your feet before the bell hit 10, and You're back again. Well, come on. That's what he said to Him. Does anybody not know what I'm talking about? Did you ever wonder why the Scripture says, "And immediately the spirit," immediately? Satan wasn't going to let Him exist for one second.
So then Jesus was led up of the spirit. Well, you say, Sheila, I thought that was the Spirit of God. What do you mean that Satan led Him up into the wilderness? I thought God led Him up in the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Well, if you look at this Scripture in the Greek, the word spirit is not modified. I read the whole verse. The verse didn't modify it. I hope you remember my rules of modification. If there is no obvious indication what spirit it is, if the Scripture doesn't say the black spirit or the white spirit or the Spirit of God or the spirit of Satan, the word spirit is unmodified; it could be anybody's spirit. So it's easy when there's an adjective modifying the word spirit. If it said the Spirit of God, God would be modifying the word spirit. It would be easy, no such adjective. I read the whole verse. The verse didn't modify the word spirit. I read the whole series of verses. I read it in the Greek. I read it five times, and it was not clear. There was no indication whatsoever as to what spirit it was.
So I went into the corresponding account of this. I'm not even going by my notes today. It was in the -- in Mark. I'll tell you what it was. Mark, Chapter 1, Verse 12. Let me just -- I went way ahead of my notes. OK, here it is. I got it, OK. Mark, Chapter 1, Verse 12 says, "And immediately" -- here, we find it there, the word immediately, in Mark 1:12, "immediately the spirit driveth Him." Well, it sounds like we've got the same problem, but in the Greek, in Mark 1:12, we have a clue.
Now Matthew 4 says Jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness. Mark 1:12 says, "And immediately the spirit driveth Him." Now this Greek word translated him is in fact the Greek word translated him, but the form of it -- the -- in the Greek, there's more than one way to spell him. In English, we don't have that, but in the Greek, there's more than one way to spell him, and the form of the Greek word that means him in Mark 1:12 can also be translated, in the same place. And we had this same word in the same kind of hidden meaning when we did "Jesus in the Jordan," Part 2, and we analyzed a series of Scriptures that described Jesus' baptism in the water. And we found out that much more happened than Jesus being baptized in the water. And we fou- -- and this Greek word was used in the same way, in the same place, indicating that the Spirit of God and the human spirit of the man, Jesus, came into the same place and joined. Well, in this encounter in Mark 1, it's saying the spirit that was in the same place with Jesus. Well, what spirit is that? It's Satan, the spirit that was in His carnal mind.
There's one soul, brethren. I guess I didn't draw this too clearly for you. The man, Jesus, had one soul, and He now had two minds in that soul, and the contest for which soul was going to be ruler had begun. Now, at the moment that Jesus was caught up to full stature, the soul had a head, had a ruler, had a prince, and all of a sudden, there's two princes. Can't stay; there has to be a war. So if this mind is Christ, the Scripture says, "And immediately" -- let me give you the exact -- and immediately the spirit that's over here, Satan and the carnal mind, the spirit that's in the same place, the spirit that's in the same soul where Christ is driveth Him into the wilderness. So I maintain, and I declare to you that the spirit that led Jesus up into the wilderness, or we can say the spirit that challenged Jesus the minute that Christ appeared in His mind was Satan, and He was challenged. He was called up to fight. Any questions on that point? OK.
And immediately the spirit, which was in the same place or in the same soul as Jesus the Christ, is driving into the wilderness. The man, Jesus, was caught up to full stature by the Father, and immediately Satan manifested through Jesus' carnal mind, which is the devil, to challenge the mind of Christ. Now we just said that earlier His carnal mind is the devil. Did we talk about that before? No, I guess we didn't. We said that the carnal mind is the conscious mind of the fallen soul. The unconscious mind is Satan, and the carnal mind is the conscious mind. Another name for the carnal mind is the devil. Did you ever wonder why the Scripture talks about Satan and the devil? We're told, in the Book of Revelation, I think it's Chapter 12, I could be wrong, that old serpent, Satan, the devil. It's also in Chapter 20, I believe, of the Book of Revelation. They're always together. How come they're always together, Gog and Magog? They're a duality, brethren. They're always together, the unconscious and the conscious mind of fallen man, Satan and the devil.
You know, people can bear to hear that they have a carnal mind, but when you tell them that they're Satan and the devil, they get all upset. But I remind you, Jesus told the Pharisees that they were the offspring of the devil. We had a recent message where He called them Satan, the sons of Satan. He called the serpents. Satan is the serpent. And He told them that they were the children of the devil. Glory to God. The truth is going to set you free. We're it; we're the devil. We're bastards, but the Lord has adopted us. What more could we ask for, and what will you gain by denying your condition? And I remind you that the seraphim surrounding the throne of the Lord was serpents with wings, serpents that had been redeemed. We are mani- -- we are the serpents. We are the serpent's seed. We are his children, and he hates us. He kills his own children.
[INAUDIBLE]
Amen, amen. He insists, his own children.
[INAUDIBLE]
He starves his own children. He sacrifices his own children so that he can live. He is the epitome of evil, and he's our mind. Who are we? We are the -- we are this soul, and our spiritual reality is Eve, who is married to Satan, and our personality is this soul. He is the -- Satan is our husband, and the carnal mind is our so- -- is our daughter, actually; she's female.
Have you ever seen an oppressed woman? Have you ever seen it? I've seen it, years ago. I've seen it, an aunt of mine, a great aunt of mine. My father's uncle was a very domineering man, and, well, this was a long time ago. It was a different kind of society, and his wife died. And he went out, and he -- out into some country area, and he took himself a wife off of the farm. She didn't even know him. That's the way they did it in those days. I guess he gave her parents some money. And he took her into his house, and she cooked, and she shopped, and she cleaned. And in those days everything was from scratch. It was a full-time job. And she was terrified of him. She just did all of her work, and whatever he said, she did, and when he yelled, she jumped. There was peace in that house. She never opened up her mouth to him. I tell you the truth.
And he had a son. I guess I didn't tell you the whole story. His first wife ran away and left two or three children. I guess she couldn't bear it. I don't know. I'm not justifying leaving your husband and your children, but she le- -- she fled. She did it. So he took this woman into his house. She was as very sweet lady. She was always very nice to me. She was afraid to talk. But he had a son. Her husband had a son from the first marriage, and he was just like his father, very domineering. The -- he wasn't unkind. He wa- -- I don't want to misrepresent him or them. They were not unkind men. That was -- they were just very dominant, aggressive men. That's what they were, very hard.
So this little woman, her name was Anna, Aunt Anna. She was living in this house with this -- her husband and her son who was a grown man whose wife had thrown him out, so he came home. I mean, they must have been some- -- I -- something else to live with, and she was living in this house with these two dominant men, and she ran. They asked her for something, and she ran to get it. She was continuously running, and she was completely oppressed by them. So if you can understand what I'm saying or relate to it in any way, I have just given you the best definition I could of the condition that our human spirit is in. She is caught between her husband Satan and her offspring the carnal mind, and she's nothing but a servant in the house. Everybody following me? Jesus.
The man, Jesus, was caught up to full stature by the Father, and immediately Satan manifested through Jesus' carnal mind, which is the devil, to challenge the mind of Christ. And the Scripture says, then was Jesus led up of -- led up by the spirit of Satan into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Well, why is the devil the one that's tempting Jesus? Let me remind you of the teachings that came down in Daniel 8. Spirit conflicts with spirit, and mind conflicts with mind. A mind -- what is our definition of mind? A mind is the offspring of a union between a spirit and the living soul. So Satan is challenged by Jesus, and the carnal mind is challenged by Christ, Satan and Jesus, being the Father or the spirit, and Christ and the carnal mind being the Son. Well, one is a Son. We know the carnal mind is a female, but the two children are fighting, and the two fathers are fighting. Everybody OK?
And if you recall the teaching in Daniel 8, at the beginning of time when Satan wanted to overthrow righteous Adam who was ruling the living soul, he penetrated that soul and brought forth his mind. The mind of Satan is the carnal mind, and the carnal mind challenged the mind of the Father which was ruling the creation, named Adam. That's why Adam was righteous. The mind of the Father was ruling in him and through him, and just like I just described to you now about Jesus standing up in full stature, one day righteous Adam blinked, and there was another mind present. Satan had brought forth his own mind, and he challenged the existing immature mind of Christ, and he killed Him. So that's why the Scripture says Satan was the one that challenged Jesus, but the carnal mind was the one who would engage in the warfare with the Christ because mind wars against mind. Is everybody OK?
So we see in the -- in Jesus' temptation, a similar set of circumstances to those which existed in Eden at the time of the fall, with one significant difference. This time Christ was brought forth from seed, one very significant difference, and let me review that for you briefly. Righteous Adam, at the beginning of time, had a mind which had little, if any, experiences. Righteous Adam was not born as a baby; he was formed. The Father laid hold of the earth and forced it into the form of the creation which He called Adam. The man had little if he had any experiences at all, and I don't think he had any experience at all with evil.
And the Father said to him, if you eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall cease to be immortal. And although it doesn't say it in the Bible, what I perceive righteous Adam's response to be is, what is immortal? I wonder what immortal is. And when he was whispered to by the serpent -- when the creation whose name was Adam was whispered to by the serpent -- don't shut off [?all the?] message. I know what the Bible says about the serpent speaking to the woman. I'm going to make it very fast. I can't re-teach this whole thing. When the righteous creation by the name of Adam was whispered to by the serpent, the serpent being the unclean moral impurity in the creation, that whisper --
Now, remember, we're fallen. This was in a high spiritual realm. I don't know what he whispered to him, but I know what the equivalent would be down here. The serpent whispered to the man, and whatever he said stirred up his passions, and the passions of this creation had a name. Anybody know the names of his -- the name of his passions? What was the name of his wife?
[INAUDIBLE]
Eve, the woman. Is she not known for passion and for emotionalism? We're fallen. What we see today, it's just a type of what existed in the heavenlies. The uncleanness in the earth whispered to the man and stimulated his passions, and the man could have gone one of two ways. The mind of Christ could have kicked in and said, no way, or he could have yielded to his passion and said, why not? And I want to suggest to you that the immature Christ, immature because He had no experience with evil -- His Father had warned Him He would die and become a mortal, but He didn't know what that meant, yielded to His passions. He didn't resist with the mind of Christ; he yielded to his passions. And in that self-same moment that he yielded to his passions, for that moment, he became female. And before he could recover his right mind and stand up in his manhood again, the Scripture says, "The serpent said to the woman." In that moment he had become a woman because he was not in the rational mind of Christ, but he was in his emotions, and he got trapped there. The serpent took authority over him, and that was the end of him; he died. Is everybody OK?
We're going through the same thing today. Every one of us that has a mind of Christ and a carnal mind is confronted with this situation frequently if not every day. The uncleanness in our carnal mind whispers to us, seduces us to what? To lust, to hate, to sin in any measure, sin in the mind, to be envious, and we have a choice. Either we implement the mind of Christ which says, I rebuke you, Satan. Get thee behind me; I will not sin. Or if the mind of Christ is not strong enough in us at that moment and we yield to that envy or to that spirit of pride or whatever it is, in that split second that we have agreed with the moral uncleanness in our mind, we are female, and Satan kills us. Christ has to raise us from the dead again. In the event that the mind of Christ kicks in and says, no way, get thee behind me Satan, we are male.
In the realm of the spirit, sexuality has nothing whatsoever to do with your body. Paul says there is no male or female in Christ Jesus. Why? Because Christ Jesus is a -- He's a mind, and whatever body He's being -- whatever human body He's being revealed through, therefore, for spiritual purposes, is male, and when Christ Jesus is put down underfoot because that individual has agreed with their emotions or their carnal mind for that purpose and for that moment, that human being is female for spiritual purposes. Of course, in the natural, in your marriages, et cetera, you are what your body is. We're talking about spiritual things.
Adam yielded to his emotions and was killed by the serpent, and it's taking all these thousands of years for the Father to raise the creation from the dead. Those of us who are in the process of being raised from the dead are having a similar experience to that which righteous Adam had. Although, the Scripture says we have not sinned after the similitude of Adam. What does that mean? Adam had everything he needed to say no [AUDIO CUTS OUT] -- are fallen, and most of the time -- well, d- -- I shouldn't say most of the time, depending on our life and the family line curses and how we were raised and brought up, we frequently, genuinely do not have the strength to say no. Jesus knows, and unless Jesus has told you about somebody else, you don't know because you cannot recognize something like this with your carnal mind. Jesus knows who could've not been overcome, who could've resisted and didn't and who really, no matter how hard they tried, could not have overcome. So you better be careful who you're condemning, and I've been preaching it -- that here for a long time.
It looks the same, you see. Being overcome looks the same as backsliding, but it's not the same. You backslide when you had what you needed to overcome and you didn't fight hard enough, but you're overcome when you fight with everything that you've got and he's just too strong for you. Who? Satan is too strong for you. So we see, in this hour, a Christ that is having many experiences. Now when the Father says to him or when a -- the Lord speaks through a preacher and says to him, if you eat of that Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, if you agree with that whisper of that serpent in your mind, you're going to lost the Christ that's in you if you do it habitually. If you yield to your carnal mind habitually without fighting this war, you can abort. The carnal mind that's being formed in you can die. You must fight this war. So hopefully you know what I'm talking about, but if you don't, you've got a human preacher that you could to talk to that, if you really would like to understand it, you have every possibility and hope of understanding it.
So we see many human beings today in whom Christ is being raised from the dead with experience. Adam -- righteous Adam at the beginning of time can be -- is described in Daniel 8 as a fully mature ram. A ram is a male sheep. It would be as if to say a 25-year-old man just appeared in front of us. He had the body of a 25-year-old man. He wasn't grown up from a little baby. He never knew the love of a mother and a father. He didn’t have any table manners. He didn't have -- know how to read. He didn't know how to write. He didn't know how to use a telephone, couldn't drive a car, couldn't hold a job, had none of the skills that you attain through growing up. He was just a physically mature man. He wouldn't last very long in this world. You would have no concept at all of how to get food or keep himself warm or protect himself. That was what righteous Adam at the beginning of time was likened to.
But in this hour, Christ is growing up from seed. He's growing up in you and me, and we are people who were born as infants. We had parents or guardians to take care of us, to teach us how to talk, how to communicate, how to read, how to write, how to survive in this world, how to work, how to bathe ourselves. And then you're having instruction on a spiritual level through preachers like me. You're being trained up. Righteous Adam at the beginning of time was not trained up
So in Jesus of Nazareth we see a mind of Christ that had been in the Hebrew Scriptures for years, that had had a multitude of spiritual experiences I'm sure, which the Father gave Him. He was instructed by the rabbis. He was instructed socially. He was brought up from seed. And we're told in other Scriptures that -- excuse me, that the Jesus who was the Lamb of God at the back of the Book of Revelation, if you look that word up in the Greek, that Greek word translated Lamb, He's less than one year old. He's not a ram. He's a baby lamb. After He overcomes and has all those crowns on His head, He's first a baby lamb.
So all of us that are in this war, we're waging war frequently, in not every day, and Jesus is right here with us teaching us how to overcome, teaching us spiritual things, teaching us, teaching us, teaching us, and we're going to take every victory over Satan. And if we lose one, well, we'll just go over again, just pick ourselves up and try it again. And every victory that we take over Satan and the carnal mind, Christ in us is getting stronger, and there's going to be a process of overcoming, and eventually we will destroy our carnal mind. And this time the carnal mind will not be able to defeat us because we have Jesus; we have His spirit, and we have all of our training, and we're all being entwined together, and the carnal mind will not be able to do it again. He will not be able to kill Christ again. How do I know? The Book -- in the Book of Romans, we're told, "Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more." It cannot happen again. We're being raised from the dead, and we're going to stay alive.
So we see in the -- in Jesus' temptation, a similar set of circumstances to those which existed in Eden at the time of the fall with this one significant difference. This time Christ was brought forth from seed, I don't know whether Satan understood that or not. But even if he did understand it, and I don't know, he still didn't believe it. He may have heard it. I don't know, but he didn't believe it because he didn't wait one second to challenge Jesus. And I want to tell you that that's the way it should be, you know. As you become bold in Christ, when God shows you something, when He shows you [?and righteous?unrighteous?] and His spirit moves upon you, you should challenge that sin. If you feel that the Lord is directing you towards it, you shouldn't hesitate to challenge that sin. You have to overthrow your enemies as quickly as possible, and your enemies are spiritual. Take the offensive. Satan took the offensive with Jesus. The man just came up out of the water.
You know, when I was in Nigeria, that first week that I was there the warfare was intense, and Satan always came to me at night. He didn't bother me too much during the day. As soon as I closed my eyes, he was all over me for that first week. It was very trying, and one of the encounters was unbelievable. I don't think I can really convey to you what I experienced, but this incredibly powerful entity came to me in my sleep, and I had -- I didn't realize it at the time, but there was this young boy, and I am spiritually male. I guess I'm aro- -- the boy was around 12 or 13 years old. I guess that's how God sees me, 12 or 13 years old. I know I'm not in full stature. And I was lying down, and I was trying to get up, and I was complaining. And I knew that it meant, that in the spirit, I was complaining against Satan. I was rebuking him, but I was a young boy, and he was -- I can't convey to you how strong this monster was, and he came over, and he whacked me and knocked me right down. But I didn't stop -- my mouth didn't stop going. I didn't stop complaining, and I was down for a couple of days, but the Lord brought me up. I'll never forget it. It was awesome.
And I wasn't -- I didn't realize that that young boy was me until a couple of days later. The Lord showed it to me in the fullness of that dream. I didn't tell you the whole thing. He showed it to me in the Scripture. I didn't even know it was there, and then I knew that it was me and that he had really punched me hard. I cannot convey to you how strong he was, and I said, my God, that was no demon. That was Satan himself came to me in that dream. Satan's on the offensive. And once we enter into Christ -- please, don't do this if you're not sure it's Christ. Once we know that we're really walking in the spirit and serving Christ and in this state of warfare, and if you're sure it's God, don't waste a second. Call that sin right on the line. Take the offensive. That's what Satan does.
So, brethren, I'm suggesting to you that Satan challenged Jesus for dominion over His soul as soon as Jesus stood up and that Satan was the initiator of the spiritual battle which the church world calls the temptation. Hallelujah.
"Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness," or then was Jesus led up by Satan into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. This word tempted is Strong's 3985. It means to try whether a thing can be done or to try one's character. And I want to suggest to you that the carnal mind was saying to that mind of Christ, I don't believe you're what You say You are. I don't believe You're going to defeat me. I'm going to cream You. So he came to tempt Him. He came to test Him. He wanted to see if everything he had heard about that mind of Christ was for real, and maybe he did hear that that mind was brought forth from seed and was capable of defeating him, but there's certainly no indication of any kind of fear whatsoever. He just called Him right out, and he said, well, let's see. Let's see, boy. Glory to God.
This word, led up, and Jes- -- "Then was Jesus led up." The Greek word that's translated, led up, is Strong's 321, and it means to bring to a higher place, to bring forth one who has been detained in prison. Now that all fits in. You know that Jesus was imprisoned in His carnal mind, and His human spirit came out and was caught up and joi- -- into Christ and joined with Christ, but there's another translation of that word in Acts 7:41. This word translated, led up, is used to describe a sacrifice to an idol, and it's used in that context because the sacrifice is lifted up on the altar. And you may recall from our series in Daniel 8 that the Scripture describes the carnal mind's destruction of Christ as a sacrifice to his God. The carnal mind sacrificed Christ to his god, Satan, and he was coming back. That's what -- I'm going to use this word, led up, in the same way the G- -- he was le- -- Satan led Him up, and Jesus was led up by the spirit of Satan. He was led up to a place where the devil could sacrifice Him to Satan for a second time.
I'm suggesting to you then that Satan caught Jesus up into a spiritual battle with the carnal mind fully intending that the carnal mind should destroy Christ in the same manner as he did at the time of the fall. Satan had the authority to catch Jesus up into the realm of the spirit because although a mature mind of Christ was appearing in Jesus, that mind had not yet unseated the mind which was still occupying and ruling over the living soul. And we see this concept in Revelation, Chapter 20, Verse 4, "And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus." The souls of them that were beheaded. I want to suggest to you that when Christ won this battle of the temptation, His soul was beheaded. He cut the carnal mind -- well, He cut him out. He removed the carnal mind from his position of headship over the man Jesus of Nazareth, put him down, subjected him unto the Christ, and Christ became the ruling mind in the man, Jesus of Nazareth.
And I want to tell anyone in the church world that's hearing this message and believing that false doctrine out there that you just have to believe this message, and you're entering in. You have received a lie. Even if you get as far as having the mind of Christ formed in you, He will not ascend to full stature until He puts down the existing authority. You cannot attain to this thing without a war, and the war is spiritual, and it's in your mind. Both Christ and the carnal mind are in your mind, both giving you suggestions, both talking to you, both saying I am God. And your prayers, day and night, should be, Lord, give me the wherewithal to distinguish between Christ and the carnal mind because you cannot fight this war if you can't tell who's talking to you. And if you're not fighting the war, your head is the carnal mind. You have not been beheaded. Glory to God.
Alternate Translation, Matthew, Chapter 4, Verse 1, "Then Satan caught Jesus up into the soul realm so that the carnal mind could engage Him in a spiritual battle which would kill the newly born mind of Christ and offer Him up as a sacrifice to Satan."
Verse 2, "And when He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, He was afterward an hungered." Having fasted is Strong's 3522. This word does mean fast. You may have heard my teaching on fasting, my comments on it. I'll just review it for you. In -- under the Old Covenant -- well, I shouldn't even say that. The Jews are known for fasting from food. On their hi- -- holy days, they fast from food, but even under the Old Covenant, the prophets speak about different kinds of fasts. They speak about a fast of righteousness. They speak -- it's certainly Isaiah. I can't remember which chapter it is right now. They speak about fasting from evil. The prophet -- even the Lord says through the prophet that He's tired of their sacrifices. He wants righteousness, that the true religion is ministry to the orphan and to the widow and helping people.
So although I am not denying that the -- under the Old Covenant the Jews primarily fasted from food, I want to suggest to you that the New Covenant fast is a spiritual fast from everything that's soulish to the fullest extent that you are able to do it. Now not many people can give up everything of the soul realm. That's why we find this soulish fast -- it's in the prophets, but the Hebrew children didn't very much participate in it because the Old Covenant was a carnal covenant. They weren't able to give up their sins. They -- the provision to help them to give up their sins was not available, and the name of that provision is Christ. So the Jews did mostly fast from what gave them pleasure. They fasted from food, but in this covenant, if you want to fast from food, I'm not telling you not to do it. If you think -- some people say fasting is good for your body. Some people say that fasting from food helps them be more spiritual and understand the Scriptures better. Well, that's OK. You could do that, but bear in mind that ultimately -- or the ultimate fast is to completely cease from things that please our soul, not only food but things that please our soul.
Now don't get into any religious rut because of what I'm telling you. You cannot withdraw from all of the pleasures of this world unless Christ is simultaneously being formed in you. You -- no human being could bear it. No human being can give up all the pleasures of this world unless something is given to replace it. So if you do it by your own will, you're going to be -- you're going to have nothing, and you're going to be a very unhappy, possibly disgruntled person. Don't do that. But as the Lord takes things away from you, release them, and He'll give you the things of His spirit in their place, little by little as He leads and directs you. If you do it as a religious work, there's no increase in Christ. If you do it as a religious work, you will not be forcing God to give you spiritual gifts. You can't force Him. He's going to give them to you in accordance with His plan for you, so if you give up soulish pleasures before He takes them from you, there's no spiritual gain, and you're just torturing yourself. Does everybody understand me? Now of course you're supposed to -- you're not supposed to sin. Glory to God.
If you want a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, get married. It's allowed. You have to get married. Well, it's the truth. It's allowed. You have to get married. Don't not get married as a religious work. If you pray for a husband or a wife and God hasn't given you one, then look to God for your satisfaction in life. Maybe He's -- either He doesn't have a mate for you now, or He's training to be satisfied in the realm of the spirit or to receive satisfaction in your mind as opposed to other forms of satisfaction. I don't know. Ask Him what He has for you. He's not doing the same thing to everybody. Glory to God.
"And when He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, He was afterward an hungered." 40 days and 40 nights, we find that phrase or that expression in the Scriptures in a few place. The first place we see it is in Genesis 7:12. "And the rain was upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights," and I'd like to remind you that this is speaking about the flood and that when the rain began, or just before the rain began, the earth was in one age, and when the rain ended, the earth was in a new age, and that 40 days and 40 nights seemed to separate the age before the flood from the age after the flood. And I want to suggest to you that this expression, 40 days and 40 nights, is doing just that. It's indicating that the old has ended and something new has begun.
Let me give you two more Scriptures indicating that. Exodus, Chapter 24, Verse 18, "And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount 40 days and 40 nights." And I'd like to remind you, when he came down, he brought with him the Ten Commandments, the beginning of a new age of righteousness which we call the Old Covenant. Deuteronomy, Chapter 9, Verse 25, "Thus I fell down before the Lord 40 days and 40 nights, as I fell down at the first; because the Lord said He would destroy you." This is Moses speaking again, and he fell down for 40 days and 40 nights asking God to change His mind and not kill the Hebrew children. So before this 40 days and 40 nights, death was pronounced upon the Hebrew children, and after the 40 days and 40 nights, they lived. A change, a significant change took place. Is everybody following me?
I Kings, Chapter 19, Verse 8, "And Elijah arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat 40 days and 50 nights unto Horeb the mount of God." And if you choose to follow that in the Scriptures, you'll find out that Elijah had just been used mightily of God to kill the prophets of Baal, and this was a time of radical change for Israel. Elijah had stood on the mount and said, everyone, I'm going to show you who's the true -- who is the true God. Who are you going to serve? It was a radical change in the history of Israel. 40 days and 40 nights, something has come to an end, and something new is beginning.
So what is coming to an end, and what is beginning when it comes to Jesus? And when Jesus had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, He was hungry, and the church world tells you, well, He fasted from food, and He was pretty hungry, so Satan tried to trick Him into making bread out of the stones. I don't think so, brethren. Let me give you another thought that you can pray about. I'm suggesting to you that Jesus fasted from the thoughts and emotions of the soul realm, which He was brought up into, so completely that He became a new man. The 40 day and the 40 night fast is indicating the transition that the man, Jesus, took from being a carnal man in Israel to a -- to Jesus the Christ the Son of God, a 40 day fast in which He completely gave up all forms of sustenance that's afforded in this world.
And we know that He didn't even have to eat. He said He had meat that no one knows of. He moved from the old man into the new man. That's what that's talking about. And he hungered. I'm going to hope to show you in a couple of minutes what he hungered for, and that word is lusted for, craved for. I want to tell you He craved for dominion over His soul. And I want to tell you that I'm experiencing that. I crave dominion over my own life with such a measure, sometimes I start jumping up and down, and the Lord has to tell me to be quiet. I want it, and I want it bad. I want dominion over this carnal mind. I'm tired of him doing what he does to me. I want dominion over my life, and I want to suggest to you that that's what Jesus was hungering for. He had given up that soul life, and now He wanted His inheritance. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights; He left His old man behind, and He became the new man.
So the Scripture says, "And He fasted 40 days and 40 nights, and He was afterward an hungered." This Greek word translated afterward, Strong's 5305, it means the latter or that which comes after, and I want to suggest to you that that means the new man. He fasted 40 days and 40 nights, and the one that came after hungered. He gave up that soul life; He gave up that soul man. Christ came to preeminence, was fully manifested, and Christ was hungering for the dominion that was His inheritance, and He wanted it with a passion.
The interlinear reads, "And having fasted days 40 and nights 40, afterwards He hungered, and coming near Him, the tempter said." So I'm suggesting to you that Jesus completely rejected His carnal mind and carnal emotions which can be described as His old man and that afterward or the latter one or that new one or the inner man, the mind of Christ, a hungered or craved for something. Well, what did He crave for? The letter of this word said that Jesus wanted food, but in another place, Jesus says, I have food that you know not of. I'm suggesting to you then that Jesus passionately desired dominion over and union with His soul which was presently dominated by Satan's carnal mind.
Alternate Translation, Matthew, Chapter 4, Verse 2, "And Jesus, having completely forsaken His carnal needs and desires, craved dominion over His soul."
Verse 3, "And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones by made bread." The Greek word translated tempter, it's the same Greek word that's translated tempt earlier. It's the devil. The devil is the one who came to test or to challenge Jesus, to see if he was the real thing.
The Greek word translated, came near to Him, is Strong's 4334. Well, it says came to Him. I'm sorry, and the tempter came to Him, Strong's 4334. It can also be translated to come near. Thayer's Greek Lexicon says that this word is used to express the priests of God offering up the sacrifices. The Scripture says they come near to God by offering up a sacrifice. When they -- when the Levitical priests offer the sacrifice, they come near to God. Sacrifice brings you close to God, and I want to tell you that the devil came close or near to the Christ with the full intention of offering Him to his god, and that's the second witness, in three short verses, that the carnal mind fully intended to kill the Christ and to break His bones and boil Him for an offering unto Satan, which he had already done once at the beginning of time. Once again then, I suggest to you that it was the carnal mind's full intention to offer up Christ as a sacrifice to Satan for the second time.
"And Jesus, having completely forsaken His carnal needs" -- I'm sorry that's the wrong verse.
Verse 3, "And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Well, I want to suggest to you that that's not an accurate translation of the Greek. The interlinear reads, "Say that stones these loaves may become." Now the interlinear says loaves, but that's the same word as bread. Let me say it for you using the word bread. "And he said to Him, Say that stones these loaves may become." Can you hear it? Say that these stones may become bread, not that the -- wait a minute. Not that the stones should become bread but that the bread should become stones. Let me read it for you again. "Say that stones these loaves may become." Say that these loaves may becomes stones. Say that this bread may become stone.
Now the King James translators couldn't make any sense of this at all, so they reversed it, but I read it in the interlinear. I have two different interlinears. It says the same thing in both of them. "Say that stones these loaves may become." The devil said to Jesus make these breads stones. Now does anyone remember what stone typifies in the Scripture? We talked about that a lot. Anybody remember? What does a stone symbolize in the Scripture? Spirit. Jesus has two titles. He's both the rock and the stone depending on the context of the Scripture. When Jesus is called the stone, it's referring to Him as the cornerstone or the foundation stone of the body of Christ, and we all know that He's the jagged rock. Stone typifies spirit. Satan said to Jesus make these breads or these loaves spirit, OK. I got your curiosity up, right?
Let's find out what he's talking about. I have some Scriptures for you on bread. Romans 11:16, Paul speaking, "For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches." Let me comment on that. First of all, the word loaves, it appears many times in the King James. Week now that Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes. It's the same Greek word that's translated bread. Loaves and bread are both derived from the same Greek word, and it means just that, bread. Now Paul here is talking about a lump. The word -- the Greek word translated lump is Strong's 5445, and it means to mix liquid with a solid. Well, that's what we do when we make bread. We mix solid flour with liquid, either milk or water, and I want to suggest to you that -- I'll read you some more Scriptures that -- it's pretty clear to me that Paul is speaking about a lump of bread.
So you might ask, well, why is Paul so mysterious? Why doesn't he just call it bread? And I want to suggest to you that what Paul is saying here is that this lump that he's talking about is the living soul; it's the living soul. And he's -- the reason he won't call it bread is that Jesus is the bread. Jesus is the bread who came down from heaven. He will not put this fallen living soul under the same name as our glorious Lord, so he's saying it's just a lump, and when the mind of -- that's carnal is going through it, I'm not going to call it bread. It's only bread when the mind of Christ is being revealed through it. This soul is only bread when Christ is being revealed through it, and I'm going to read you another couple of Scriptures where it's pretty obvious to me that Paul is saying this soul -- it can either be with sin, or it can be without sin.
Let me read you the Scriptures, and then I'll talk about it a little more. I Corinthians 5, Verses 6 through 7, "Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?" A little sin in one man can ruin your whole soul and body. It can ruin the family. It can ruin the church. It can ruin the community. It can ruin the country. "Purge out therefore the old leaven," and leaven is that which makes -- now, listen, leaven is that which makes the bread rise. Does anybody have a problem with that? Leaven is that which makes the bread rise. What makes the living soul rise? When the mind comes forth in it, it increases. So he says purge out the old leaven. Purge out that which increased the living soul in the fall, and give the new leaven Christ. Is anybody not understanding me? Let me read it again.
[INAUDIBLE]
Right. "Purge out therefore the old leaven," or the carnal mind, "that ye may be a new lump," and what he's saying to you is just what I'm preaching here. There's only one soul. When the carnal mind is being revealed through it, you're the old man, or the soul is dead, or you're the outer man. And when Christ is being revealed through the very same soul, you're the new man; you're alive. The soul is alive. It's the same soul which changes in accordance with the mind that's being revealed through it. Is everybody OK? "Purge out therefore the old leaven," or the carnal mind, "that ye may be a new soul, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." As you purge out the old leaven, you become unleavened and a new lump.
So Verse 7 is saying that the old lump or the living soul in its present fallen condition can be made new by purging out the sin by the seed of Christ which is now available to the creation. Did I make that clear? "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened," as you are cleaned out. "For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." Now that Christ is available to us, we have the weapon to purge out the carnal mind. So we see that this living soul is old or new depending on that mind which is being revealed through it. When the carnal mind is being expressed through the carnal mind, it is the old -- it is old or the old man, and when Christ is being expressed through the living soul, it is new or then new man.
I'm suggesting to you that the carnal mind did what Paul wouldn't do. Paul would not call the living soul, which was expressing Satan's spirit, bread. He was saying to Jesus -- and now Satan was saying to Jesus, if You're really the Son of God, make the living soul, in its present sinful condition, stones, or make the living soul, in its present sinful condition, spirit. Let me see You mature this living soul to spiritual maturity without demanding the purging of sin. That's what he said to Him. He utterly provoked Him. He said, well, if you're the Son of God and You have all this power, let's see You spiritualize or bring to spiritual maturity the many members of this living soul without going through this whole thing of the judgment, of purging them from sin, of killing me. That's what he was saying to Him.
And I want to tell you that he's saying it today through a whole company of preaches. They're out there preaching to thousands of believers that you will attain to spiritual maturity without purging out this old leaven. Excuse me. Satan's preaching it right through them. Some of them are saying there's no Satan or devil or demons. Some of them are admitting there's a Satan and a devil, but he's just your lower nature. Ignore him. I've heard some of the preach be kind to him; no one's loved him for a long time. I want to tell you he's got to die and that you will not attain to spiritual maturity until Christ in you subjects your carnal mind through a painful process of judgment. And if you're hearing this message and it's being taught to you that you could attain to all of the promises that are being preached without judging your carnal mind and going through this painful process of subjecting him, you have received the lie of Satan that's right in the Bible for you to see and hear if you have ears to hear and eyes to see.
[INAUDIBLE]
Satan was provoking Jesus and saying to him if You're what You say You are, let's see You bring the many members of the living soul to spiritual maturity without this painful process of judging and destroying or without this painful process of purging out the sin. And, of course, purging out the sin is the death of the carnal mind, and it's being preached today that you could do it. You're going to ascend automatically; that's what they're preaching. Believe this message, and you will ascend to spiritual maturity. Don't worry about sin. That's all gone in Christ. It's under the blood. It has nothing to do with you.
[?So we can just?] die and go to heaven.
Amen. It's the same message, you know. The carnal church is preaching just wait and die to go to heaven, and the king- -- this element of the kingdom church is preaching, no, you don't have to die. You're going to have it here, but it's just going to happen one day. You're going to wake up, and you're going to be in spiritual maturity. Don’t worry about it. Just study your revelation and do your thing, and don't worry about that darkness over there. He'll go away. Honey, he going to kill you. If you don't attack him, he's going to come up behind you and whack you and kill you. I tell you the truth.
After hearing how this is being preached, if Satan challenged Jesus in full stature, the way I just presented it to you, do you think for a second that when he sees Christ being formed in you and He's just an itty bitty, you think that Satan in you is going to wait until Christ is in full stature to challenge you? He's after you from the second the seed engrafts, and he's not fooling.
I remember some very lovely young lady, liked her very much. She was running around this church quoting Isaiah, either Chapter 40 or Chapter 44. I'm not sure which one it was. "My warfare is accomplished." The war's over, hallelujah. They were singing songs about it, and I was sitting there in the service saying, Lord, there must be something wrong with me. My war isn't over. I have problems every day. What's wrong with me? The war is over. Remember that song [?he had?]? He wrote a whole song on it. The war is over.
[INAUDIBLE]
What? He didn't write it?
[INAUDIBLE]
I thought he wrote it.
[INAUDIBLE]
Something like that, yeah.
It is finished.
It is finished. This war isn't over. It's just begun. When Jesus ascended on high and poured out of His spirit on all flesh, it -- the war has just begun. And the Lord just recently let us do that Scripture in Isaiah on the message called, "Subject of Vanity," and it does say that but not in the way it was being preached. What the prophet was saying was you tell that carnal mind that it's all over.
[INAUDIBLE]
What that means is that the minute you start to fight, the victory is assured, not that there's no battle. It's all over. When the job is finished, it's all over. God, help us. Help us, Lord, help us. We need help.
So Satan was challenging Jesus to spiritualize humanity or bring humanity to spiritual maturity without dissolving the carnal mind and putting Satan underfoot, or we can say without purging out their sins because the purging out of the sins will dissolve the carnal mind and put Satan underfoot. And, you know, there are human beings that would respond to something like that, so the devil was finding out that Jesus wasn't human. But do you know that there are people who will do something that they know are destructive to them when someone comes and challenges them like that, that they have so much pride that they would do it?
I know, years ago, when I still had a secular job, I was working for a very cruel man. And it was really a setup for me. He had just left his wife who had become a born-again Christian, and he couldn't bear living with her. And then he found out that I was a born-again Christian, and he just couldn't -- I never said a word to him. He just couldn't stand being around me. And they made a Christmas party one year, and I didn't drink, and he was so offended that I didn't drink that he -- on the top of his lungs, he went around announcing that Sheila must be an alcoholic, something like that, someth- -- I don't remember exactly. It was a long time ago, but it was specifi- -- his remarks were specifically designed to provoke me into doing what I didn't want to do. He was going around telling everybody that I must have been an alcoholic. And I looked him right in the eye, and I said, yeah, you're right. Do you hear what I'm saying?
[?Yes?].
There are some people that would be manipulated by a statement like that. See, and my immediate reaction is how ridiculous. Satan [?said to?had to?] Jesus why don't you mature your creation with -- while they’re in their sins? But there are men who would respond to that and do something that would be self-destructive because of pride.
Alternate Translation, Matthew, Chapter 4, Verse 3, "And when the devil came to Jesus to destroy Him and sacrifice Him to Satan, he said to Jesus, if you're really the Son of God, let's see you bring the many members of the living soul to spiritual maturity in their present sin-filled condition."
That's an excellent comment.
I was saying that's [?the very?] thing, that if He had brought them into maturity in their present simple condition, then they would be forever or eternally in a sinful condition, which would be Hell.
That's excellent, and we have discussed that on other messages, saying that it was the mercy of God that drive the man out of the Garden of Eden because in his fallen condition, if God had permitted him to remain in the Garden of Eden [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
-- and the only way you get it erased is to have the mark or the mind of Christ written upon you. We have some duplicating equipment in this ministry, and as the message goes on to the duplicated tape, any existing message on that tape is erased. If you dub a tape, you can dub onto a tape with a message on it. That message is removed and replaced with the new master. That's what's happening to us. We were all born with the mark of Cain or the mark of the carnal mind or the mark of the beast, and it will be erased from our soul and our spirit. What? The mark of the beast will be erased from our soul and our spirit as the mark of God is engraved upon our soul and our spirit.
So this word, to write, it means to engrave. "Man shall not live by bread alone." The Greek word translated alone means to be separate and apart from, and the word -- the Greek word translated live is zoe. Now I know on other messages I've talked about the Greek words translated life. We, in our present condition, do not have life. We have existence. Jesus Christ of Nazareth now has life. He has been raised from the dead. We are dead. We have an existence. We have an existence that began after we died. Death is separation from God, so to be alive, we must be completely reunited with God. We are in the process of being raised from the dead, but everybody in the earth, except Jesus, is dead. So this word zoe, it means life, so Jesus is saying, but it is written, you cannot live. He's not talking about this existence. He's saying you cannot have the life of God by bread alone.
So that -- and that which is alone -- I already commented the word alone means separate and apart. That which is separated from God, I remind you, is the living soul. Not on bread alone, not on the soul which is separated from God. Do you remember, in a past verse, we established that the bread is talking about the living soul? Satan challenged Jesus. Let's see You make this living soul -- or let's see You bring this living soul into spiritual maturity. Do you remember? We just established that the bread is typifying the living soul. Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven, OK. So Satan is saying not on bread alone, not on the soul which is separated from God, not on the soul which is separated. You can't live only -- you can't live in the soul that's separated from God. You can't have genuine life. You cannot experience the genuine life of Christ in a soul that's separated from God. Everybody OK?
"It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone." It is written, not on bread alone shall live man. It -- and now, listen, what I'm going to do here. It has been written, not on bread alone. As I looked in the Greek, there is no problem at all moving that word not. Now listen to this. It has been written, not on bread alone. We could just as easily say it has not been written on bread alone shall man live. Did you hear what I did? I moved the negative. It has been written, not on bread alone. I made it, it has not been written on bread alone shall man live. It has not been written on the soul which is alone shall man live. It has not been written on the soul that's separated from God shall man live. It has not been written on the soul which has been separated from God will live man.
OK, now the word written, I'm changing it to engraving. It has not been engraved on the soul which has been separated from God. It has not been written on the soul which is separated from God. Something hasn’t been written on the soul which is separated from God. It has not been engraved on the soul without spirit. The soul that has not been engraved with the Spirit of God will not live. I know it's a very difficult verse. It's what God gave me.
"But He answered and said, It is engraved, the man that is engraved" -- well, I can't do it that way. I can't do it. This -- I gave it to you the best way that I could. Word-by-word I changed each word. The soul that is not engraved with the spirit of God can't live. Man shall not be able to live in a soul which is not engraved by the spirit of God. You can't live in a soul that's not engraved by the spirit of God, "but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
Now this -- there are three Greek words that are translated word. We had this on a recent message. This Greek word is rhema, and it's referring to doctrine or the instruction of God. And the mouth of God, I want to suggest to you is Christ. We also had this on a recent message. There's the mouth of the beast, which is the carnal mind, and the mouth of God is Christ. I am -- in this message, I am the mouth of God. He is speaking through my mouth right now. If this is in fact Christ coming out of my mind and speaking through my mouth, I am the mouth of God. Every word that I say that is out of the mind of Christ, in that word, I am the mouth of God, and the same is true of you. God has a mouth. A spi- -- how does a spirit have a mouth? He speaks through a man.
"But every doctrine or instruction that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Man shall not be able to live in a soul which is not engraved by the spirit of God, but he needs every instruction that comes out of the mouth of God. We can't live without His instruction, and you won't have instruction unless your soul is engrave by His spirit. Why can't we live without His instruction? Because a soul that doesn't have the instruction of God is criminal, and criminals cannot enter into life. You cannot enter into the life of God without being instructed by God.
"But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," but by the whole doctrine that comes out of or through Christ. But the soul shall be able to live in one which is engraved by the instruction proceeding through Christ. But he shall be able to live in a soul which is engraved upon by the instruction proceeding through Christ. But man shall be able to live in a soul which is engraved by the mind of Christ.
So we have Verse 4, which is translated in the King James, "But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Christ." And our amplified translation is, "Man cannot live in a soul which is engraved by the carnal mind, but he shall be able to live in one which is engraved by the mind of Christ."
Glory to God. I'll take this translation. I like this one better. I don't know about you, but personally, I find a big contradiction between Jesus saying I have bread that ye know not of and Jesus having a big battle with Satan over what He's going to eat. That doesn't even make any sense. It's not consistent. I'll take this one. Glory to God.
Recap, Matthew 4, Verses 1 through 4, "Then Satan caught Jesus up into the soul realm so that the carnal mind could engage Him in a spiritual battle which would kill the newly born mind of Christ and offer Him up as a sacrifice to Satan. And Jesus, having completely forsaken His carnal needs and desired, craved dominion over His soul. And when the devil came to Jesus to destroy Him and sacrifice Him to Satan, he said to Jesus, if you are really the Son of God, let's see you bring the many members of the living soul into spiritual maturity in their present sin-filled condition. But Jesus answered and said, man cannot live in a soul which is engraved by the carnal mind, but he shall be able to live in one which is engraved by the mind of Christ."
And I would like to point out to you how calmly Jesus answered Satan in his own mind. I can perceive a peace in that answer. Jesus didn't rail against the carnal mind. He didn't insult the carnal mind. He answered him with truth. The carnal mind was evil towards Him and said to Him, why don't you do something that's ungodly? And all that Jesus did was answer him with kindness. May -- I guess this is a spiritual discernment, but I perceive kindness and peace saying to this wild, ravening beast, well, I can't do that, carnal mind. I can't bring the living soul to spiritual maturity when it's still in its sins because the living soul can't live in that condition. He just answered him.
And I want you to know that God's been trying to train me to do that for several years. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I fail. Sometimes people ask me questions that really would like to drive me to distraction, and I know that the Lord's instruction to me is to answer them in the manner that I have just described to you, with peace, with calmness, with a matter of fact spirit; just answer the question. No matter how stupid the question is, no matter how dumb the question is, if it's the 50th time they've asked you, if someone asks you a question, the instruction of the Lord to me is answer the question. And as I said, sometimes I succeed in that very spirit, and sometimes I don't, but I'm trying.
So I -- what am I saying to you? Is that you are if you are the one that's being asked and you're being asked because the person expects you to have the answer in Christ, then for that purpose or for that moment, you are Christ, and the person asking you, depending on what they're asking you, they're the carnal mind. And we have no precedent in the Scripture whatsoever to rail against them, embarrass them, accuse them, insult them or put them down in any way. Just answer the question. If you want to be a son of God, you have to be a teacher. The whole fivefold ministry is in Christ. Just answer the question. You might want to bite your finger, but just answer the question.
I saw a preacher once. I really thought he was very funny, you know. And the way he expressed being fru- -- sometimes the ministry can be very frustrating, you know. And I saw him -- I almost said performing. He was preaching in a big church on a big stage. I guess he was performing, and every time sometimes frustrating happened to him, he was making a big joke about it, you know. He would just jump up and down and stamp his feet, but it was really funny the way he did it, you know. He would say excuse me, go around the corner and stamp his feet and come back out and answer their question very calmly, you know.
And I remember doing that to you. Right after I had seen him -- I don't know if it was you. Right after I had seen him, somebody was telling me that they were going away to Bible school somewhere, and I had been trying to -- I don't know whether it was you or not, but trying to tell them for a long time that this is the Bible school, right here. It doesn't have a building, and it doesn't have formal classrooms, but this is the bi school. And I just stood there in my house, and I stamped my feet, and I turned around. I said, I think this is the Bible that you're supposed to go to. Just answer the question. That is our Lord's instruction. Just convey the information, no reason to get off on your carnal mind. It's something to strive for. It's good. It's a good thing to do. Any questions? No questions tonight. Any questions on anything? Give that man a microphone.
You spent the whole afternoon gathering all of this knowledge in Matthew, just those four verses?
Mm-hmm.
And how long did it take you? The whole -- from the morning to the afternoon or from the afternoon?
This took about four -- between four and five hours. This was a short one. Actually, I had some of the information I had done several months ago. It probably would have taken me a lot longer.
Question, Satan was still ruling in the soul of Jesus. That's why Satan could take Jesus up into the wilderness, but He was in full stature. I thought when a person was in full stature that the carnal mind was totally under dominion and could not make you do anything.
Well, I may -- this is a new concept to me, and I may not have phrased it exactly correctly. Jesus -- the way I did express it later on in the message, you may recall, was that the mind of Christ had been fully born in Him, but I guess I would have to say that you're not truly in full stature until that fully-born mind of Christ has unseated and replaced the carnal mind. So what - Jesus, at that point, was in a condition where the mind of Christ had been fully born, but it had not yet unseated and replaced the carnal mind.
So this is the new thing, that He had the mind of Christ fully born in Him now, but He wasn't in full stature.
After the temptation, He was.
I see, but not after the water baptism.
Not after the water baptism. At the water baptism, the mind of Christ was fully born in Him, and after the temptation, which happened immediately after the water baptism, He defeated the carnal mind and displaced him.
I see. It makes a lot of sense.
And I believe that that happened while He was still in Jordan. If you look at the way it's written here in the Book of Matthew, we're told -- well, he tempts Him in a couple of other areas, and then Jesus said, "Get thee hence, Satan," and then the devil leaveth Him, and then in Verse 12, it says, "Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison," so I believe that this whole account of Chapter 4, Verse 1 through 4, happened before He left the area of the Jordan. It was a spiritual experience that was a part of the whole water baptism. I have no idea how long it took. And then He just went away from Jordan in full stature.
I'm confused by the terms the birth of Christ and the maturing of Christ. You say, in the Book of Revelation, Jesus is considered a Lamb, in other words, not brought to full maturity.
No, He wasn't brought to full maturity. Full maturity is only in the glorification. There are three stages to resurrection. Full stature is the first stage of the resurrection, and we're told in the Book of Revelation that after the first stage of the resurrection had been attained to, Jesus was a lambkin of not more than one year old, and there were two more stages of the resurrection. In the first stage of the resurrection, the mind of Christ is fully born, but that mind of Christ has to quicken His soul, has to give life to His soul and bring deliverance to His body, so He wasn't fully mature after the -- in the back of the Book of Revelation.
We speak here about being a young child in Christ. Does that mean that -- it can't possibly mean that we've come to a place that Christ attained to.
No, let me get -- let me continue to -- I didn’t answer that question properly. Let me say something more. In the back of the Book of Revelation, we are not talking about Jesus of Nazareth. The Christ on the White Horse with the many crowns on His head that appears at the back of the Book of Revelation is the second generation of Christ. It's -- that's not Jesus of Nazareth, OK. So the Christ at the back of the Book of Revelation is the second generation of Christ, typified by the many crowns comi- -- probably coming to full stature. I haven't really studied it in depth, but the Lord just told me to tell you that. I just got that from Him now. I didn't know it myself, OK, so that's the second generation of Christ as only one year old. OK, Jesus of Nazareth is now glorified. He is in full maturity in His glorified condition.
OK, so -- and then as I started to say to have the mind of Christ fully born in you is to have a mind that is fully mature, but the soul has to be made alive because the soul is dead, and this body has to be dealt with. Do you're not in full maturity until all aspects of your being has been dealt with. Now another name for the glorified Christ is the Ancient of Days. When we did the Daniel 7 series, we found out that the Ancient of Days which appears in Daniel 7 is one who is spiritual mature enough to live without a body. See, Jesus of Nazareth needed His body. Before the crucifixion, He needed His body. There's no Scripture indicating that He took other forms or any such -- or other bodies or any such thing before the resurrection, before the crucifixion and the resurrection. So this may sound like a strange thing to some people. Whoever's listening to this message, I ask you to just pray about it.
But there is an evolution of maturity. Jesus clearly stated the Father is greater than I, so there is a greater and a lesser manifestation of godhood. And I know that when I first heard that, it even shocked me, but I know -- when I stopped to think about it, I know that it must be true. Jesus said the Father is greater than I, and He was the Son of God, so there's an evolution of godhood. What God has revealed to us so far is three stages of it. First, the mind of Christ is born in you. Then your soul is -- which is dead, is given life. Then that soul is circumcised, the circumcision of the mind, the circumcision of the soul without hands. And then the glorification, which deals with this body. So there is an ev- -- there -- from the point that a man becomes God, there is room for growth. And it's -- I mean, if you honestly think about it, it's just got to be true. Jesus could do things after the resurrection that He couldn't do before the resurre- -- or that He didn't do before the resurrection. It's just -- you know, it's just true. Did I answer your question? You forgot what your question was.
I guess I'm a little dense, but I still haven't got it in my mind, the moment in time of the full mind of Christ.
I didn't understand your question.
The moment in time when the full mind of Christ came forth, what it means for Christ and what it means -- what it meant for Jesus and what it means for us.
The full mind of Christ came forth at the water baptism of Jesus, and when that -- OK? And then that mind had an encounter with the carnal mind, who was the existing principality in the soul, and defeated him, sometime immediately after the baptism.
When this mind of Christ comes forth, there's going to be full knowledge?
I believe so, yes, full knowledge.
Then why wouldn't it be considered a mature mind?
The mind is mature, but the whole man wasn't mature. His body was -- he was in a fallen body. His body wasn't mature. This is not a mature body. This is Satan's body. It's an immature body, even when it's well, in the most perfect health. It's the body of Jesus' immaturity. This is not the body that the Ancient of Days lives in. OK?
I'm dense, and I'm going to work on it.
OK.
[CROSSTALK]
Well, give it some time. You're getting a lot here. Do you have a question? Anybody else? Don't worry about it. Don't anybody worry about it. If there's anything you don't understand, the primary thing that you should be looking to accomplish by submitting to this ministry is that Christ should be formed in you. When He's formed in you, you'll understand everything. Don't do it from the outside in. Don't worry about the understanding. Just keep it before the Lord in prayer, asking Him that Christ be formed in you, and He is the eyes of your understanding, so when Christ is formed in you, you will understand. Don't worry about it.
Jesus was born -- when He was conceived in the womb, He had the seed of God --
Yes.
-- correct?
He had the seed of God.
OK, so He never had a dead Christ then?
A dead Christ? Yes, He did have a dead Christ.
He did?
He did have a dead Christ. He was born with the seed of the Father, OK, which could be similar to -- it's not the same thing as what we have in the Holy Spirit. He was born a natural baby with the potential for Christ to develop in Him, and that Christ in Him was raised from the dead by the seed of the Father.
So He was not born with the spirit of Christ?
I don't believe so. That's my opinion. Oh, I hear them screaming, oh. I don't believe so, no.
So when -- at what point did He get the spirit of Christ?
At the water baptism.
He got the spirit of Christ at the water baptism --
I believe so.
-- and in 40 days He went into full stature?
I don't believe it was 40 days. I think that that expression 40 days and 40 nights is just an expression saying that He went from being the old man to being the new man. I don't know how long it took. You see, I wouldn't expect the Scripture to be clear about how long it took, and I'll tell you why, because in other messages -- I can't recall any examples for you right now. But it's pretty clear to me, in the Scripture, that Jesus was just the first of many brethren. Christ is still being raised. Christ is still being raised from the dead. Jesus was just the first cell that He was raised in, so it's taking, so far, 2,000 years. It's still happening.
OK, the -- when the Holy Spirit is in our heart and conception happens, we get the spirit of Christ, right?
No. I may have taught you that, but the Lord just told me otherwise today. Sorry, people. When Christ is conceived in our heart, we get the spirit that's in heaven, the spirit in heaven. It's in one of these -- we did -- in "Jesus in the Jordan," we did the account of the water baptism in the Four Gospels. In one of those Gospels, it speaks about the spirit from heaven. That's what you get. When the mind of Christ comes to you, it is the spirit of heaven. It is -- becomes the spirit of Christ when the mind of God is intertwined with the carnal mind.
Do you remember the teaching on the kingdom of God as opposed to the kingdom of the two heavens? Remember that teaching? Do you remember that message? When you have the mind of God alone and you have the kingdom of God in your mind but it hasn't yet taken dominion over your carnal mind, the spirit and the mind of Christ is the spirit of heaven, but when the mind -- when the kingdom of God captures your carnal mind and binds it up and they're functioning as one mind, then it becomes the spirit of Christ. So we have the Holy Spirit. I was just studying it today. I knew the Lord told it to me for some reason. The spirit -- the human spirit, which is the dead Christ, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of heaven and the spirit of Christ. That's the progression.
So what is the spirit of heaven?
The spirit of heaven is the administration of the Father that is found in the mind of Christ that is not bound -- that has not yet bound up the carnal mind.
But I thought once the carnal mind is bound up it's no longer the spirit of Christ but it's the mind of Christ.
No. Mi- -- no, no. There's a spirit in the mind. There's always a s- -- the mind is the con- -- is in the conscious realm, and every mind has a s- -- a ruling spirit, which is the unconscious mind.
S- --
Here, let me put it on the board for you.
What did you say this -- that this [INAUDIBLE] administration of the Father [INAUDIBLE] through Jesus?
No. Let me put it on the board for you. Every man starts out with a human spirit, and we have the Holy Spirit. Does anybody remember who the Holy Spirit is?
The seed of the Father.
OK, it's the seed of the Father, and it's also the glorified Jesus Christ. It's the seed. He can be likened to a male sperm going forth to fertilize a woman, the seed of the Father, and He's also the glorifi- -- Jesus is the seed. He's the glorified Jesus Christ. Then we have the spirit of heaven, and the spirit of heaven appears when this Holy Spirit fertilizes this human spirit and the mind of Christ is conceived. The spirit in that mind of Christ is called the spirit of heaven. Then we have -- the spirit of Christ is the spirit which is in the two heavens when they're joined. This mind of Christ is the kingdom of God. Do you remember that? Remember that, that the mind of Christ is the kingdom of God?
I thought it was the kingdom of heaven.
No. The mind of Christ is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of the two heavens is the mind of Christ joined together that has completely bound up the carnal mind, and now the --
The finished work --
The finished work.
-- is the [?heavens?]?
Is the kingdom of the two heavens, and the spirit ruling in the kingdom of the two heavens is the spirit of Christ. The spirit ruling in the mind of Christ that has not yet bound up the kingdom of heaven is the spirit of heaven, and the Holy Spirit is the seed. And the difference between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of Christ is the difference between a man's seed when it's still in his body and a full-grown son.
The spirit of heaven. What did you say earlier? The spirit of heaven is the administration of the Father through what?
That's in the mind of Christ that is not yet become one with the carnal mind.
[?On the?] second one, [INAUDIBLE] glorified [INAUDIBLE] very end?
Glorified Jesus Christ. It's the seed; Jesus is the seed. The spirit of heaven appears in the kingdom of God or the mind of Christ. If Christ is being formed in you, you have the spirit of heaven in you. On the occasion and for the moment, if it's happening at all, that the mind of Christ in you is taking dominion over your carnal mind, we may see the spirit of Christ flickering. But the Scripture says if that spirit that raised from the dead dwell in you, He will raise your mortal body. It's not the Holy Spirit, or we'd be raised from the dead, you know. Now if the kingdom of God is being formed in you and you have this spirit of heaven, it can't be the spirit of heaven either because we'd be raised from the dead. So the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, we don't have it yet, or we'd be raised from the dead. The spirit of Christ, the spirit that is found in the mind of God that has bound up the carnal mind and made it one. You don't understand what I'm talking about?
I am so dense in this area.
OK.
[CROSSTALK] definition sheet or something that I have to really study.
Well, if you can ask me a question, I'll try to answer it. Otherwise, do not worry about it.
[?OK?].
OK. Don't worry about it. I think you're doing very well, Mary. You have asked some excellent questions. You've got a real grasp of the message. If you don't understand this, I wouldn't worry about it at all, but I pray that God help you. Let me just pray for you.
I just tear down all blockages in the name of Jesus. All walls come down. Come down in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and may the eyes of her understanding be opened in the name of Jesus, amen.
It just felt like a water fountain just [INAUDIBLE]
Praise God.
[INAUDIBLE]
Did I answer your question? Do you understand?
I understand better. You're -- it's what you're --
OK.
You're adding in a -- there's another step.
There's another step that -- yeah, there's another step. Natural Israel had the spirit of heaven. You see, natural Israel didn't have the Holy Spirit, first of all, because Jesus Christ wasn't glorified, second of all, because Jesus Christ is the seed that has the capability of bringing forth a mature Christ. Natural Israel didn't have that. They didn't have what it took to bring forth a mature Christ. Natural Israel was like the ram in Daniel 8. God just came to them. He gave them spiritual authority. They had miracles, miracle-working powers. The prophets prophesied without making one mistake. They had much more of a manifestation of God in their lives than the church has today. Any honest person would say that that's true. So the -- and they didn't have the Holy Spirit, and if they had the spirit of Christ, they'd be raised from the dead because if that spirit that dwelled in you rai- -- that raised [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- Christ from the dead dwells in you, you'd be raised from the dead, so they couldn't have had the spirit of Christ, and they couldn't have had the Holy Spirit. They had the spirit of heaven.
[INAUDIBLE]
They had -- let me just -- let me say this [?one more time?]. they had the mind of God. They had the kingdom of God. They had a mind of Christ that did not come forth from seed, but it was the mind of Christ, and the spirit in it was the spirit of heaven. Yes, ma'am? Just, please --
[CROSSTALK]
-- put it on the message.
How can you have a mind of Christ without the base being the spirit of Christ though? How can you have a mind without the spirit being the base? You know what I mean?
But the spirit is the base. It's just a less mature -- the spirit of heaven is a less mature base than the spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christ is the double portion.
How do you have the mind of Christ without the spirit of Christ though? I'm sorry. I just don't understand this.
I'll try one more time, and then we'll have -- I'll pray for you. Let me pray for you. I'll try one more time, and then we'll have to let it go for another time. Maybe God will speak to you, OK. Can you come forward a little? Father, in the name of Jesus, I just tear down walls. I break down the power of resistance. I just rip off all debris from her mind, Father, and I pray that You open the eyes of her understanding in the name of Jesus, amen.
OK, what we're talking about here is just -- we're talking about different administrations of the spirit. I think what I hear you saying is how can you have the mind of Christ without a spirit? But there is no mind of Christ without a spirit. There's a spirit there. It's just a less mature spirit than the spirit that raised Christ from the dead. It's a stage -- it's an evolution of maturity. It starts with the seed of God, which is the Holy Spirit, OK. Then the next stage of maturity is that Christ is conceived, Christ conceived, an immature Christ. He's likened to the Christ that was at the beginning -- the spirit -- I'm sorry. He's likened to the Christ, the immature Christ, that existed in Eden, and the spirit in Him is the spirit of heaven because He's an immature Christ, immature Christ conceived.
And then the next stage is mature Christ, and in mature Christ, the name of the spirit is the spirit of Christ, and that's the fully-grown man. You don't understand it?
Yeah, I kind of see what you're saying.
One spirit, many administrations.
The spirit of heaven [INAUDIBLE] administration of God, it's something that's coming from the Father?
It's the spirit of the Father in different forms, just like --
So it is different? It's not His seed. It's [INAUDIBLE] -- it's not His seed. It's not in the human spirit of the person?
Christ is conceived.
And Christ is conceived, so where do these thoughts come? From the spirit of heaven?
What thoughts?
From the mind, the thoughts from the mind.
Christ is the mind.
Right.
Immature --
These thoughts are the mind of Christ.
Right.
These thoughts have to have a spirit base.
Right.
And they're coming from the Father.
They're coming from the Father. When the Father is in His immature Christ, He's called the spirit of heaven. When the Father's in the mature Christ, His name changes to the spirit of Christ, but it's all the Father. The seed is the Father. The spirit in the immature Christ is the Father.
So then He shoots off to His own spirit when He's fulfilled?
It's not His own spirit. It's all the same spirit in different stages of maturity.
Christ in His maturity --
It's all the same spirit.
-- is the spirit of Christ.
Is the spirit of Christ. Christ in His immaturity is the spirit of heaven. The seed, which will eventually become Christ, is the Holy Spirit, but it's all the Father. It's all the Father in different stages of maturity. Just like Jesus is the Son of God and the Father was greater than He. Jesus said I and the Father are one. Why are you laughing? You don't understand it?
It doesn't have to do with that at all, [?just something else?].
OK.
I heard what you said.
OK. I'm sure God will quicken it to you.
I think you already answered my question. I couldn't understand how you said Jesus is the seed, and yet He was born with a fertilized seed.
Well, Jesus, the man, Jesus of Nazareth, excuse me, was born with the seed of the Father, but by the end of His life, He had been raised from the dead and glorified, and now that glorified Jesus is the seed. It's an evolution of the godhead, first generation of Christ, second generation of Christ. There's a whole evolution of the godhead. Look, let me put it on the board for you this way. Jesus, the man, Jesus, the Christ, our Lord Jesus, the glorified Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus glorified, second generation of Christ.
[INAUDIBLE]
Second generation of Christ, that's us.
[INAUDIBLE]
Second generation of Christ in His immaturity, second generation of Christ in maturity.
[INAUDIBLE]
Does that help you at all? OK.
[INAUDIBLE]
Jesus, the man, Jesus, the Christ, our Lord Jesus glorified, and now us, the second generation of Christ, and with us you can say the second generation of Christ in its immaturity and the second generation of Christ in its maturity, an evolution of the godhead.
[INAUDIBLE]
Sure.
[INAUDIBLE] I don't know if this is a silly question, but where does heaven come in? How do you get the spirit of heaven? Why is it called heaven?
Why is it called heaven? Because the mind of God is heaven. The kingdom of God is -- the mind of God is heaven. Heaven is in the mind of Christ, OK, so it's the spirit that's in the heaven. OK, there's two heavens. It's Christ and the carnal mind, each mind has a spirit, and that's what God called it. God called it heaven. Your mind is heaven. Christ -- the Christ mind in you is heaven, and the carnal mind in you is the second heaven, which is right now inhabited by a criminal s- [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
-- [INAUDIBLE] is either heaven or Hell depending on the spirit that's ruling in it, so the carnal mind, in this hour, is living an exis- -- has an existence apart from God, and it's therefore Hell, but when Christ brings that carnal mind into subjection and the two minds are functioning as one mind, it becomes the kingdom of the two heavens. What was Hell will become a part of heaven. Does -- do you understand that? OK. Anybody else?
Let me show you that on the board. At the beginning of time, when God first made the creation, we had a soul. His name was --
[?Adam?] [INAUDIBLE]
Adam. And we're told that there were two spiritual laws or two spiritual principles in this soul. One was good, and one was evil. We have a whole series of messages on it, Romans 6 and Romans 7, the law of sin and death and the law of life. And in this soul -- God put a mind in this soul, and the name of the mind was Christ, so the name of the soul was Adam, but the name of the mind was Christ. Now also in this soul was another spiritual law, and the name of that spiritual law was Satan. And God said to Adam, you are the man, and Satan is the woman, and you are to rule over her, and you are to be as one mind. You are to think as one mind. That was God's instruction to righteous Adam, whose mind was Christ, but something went wrong, and Satan got out from under Christ's authority and came out over here and started having her own existence. So now that which appeared as one, Satan under the authority of Christ, for all eyes to see, it was just one mind, but now there was two.
And the way the Scripture e- -- describes this in Daniel, Chapter 8 is that there was a ram, and then all of a sudden, there was -- besides the ram, there was also a goat, a he-goat, and the he-goat attacked the ram. Well, when Satan started on her own life, she attacked Christ, and the creation was divided. So what was one heaven, one multiple heaven, the kingdom of the two heavens functioning as one, now became two different heavens. Well, this died for all intents and purposes. And now as we [?receive?] -- as we see the living soul being restored, we see people like us having an immature mind of Christ and having a carnal mind in which Satan dwells, but they're not in accord. They're not in agreement. They're thinking separately, and there's a struggle going on. So the mind of Christ is called the kingdom of God, and at such time as this mind of Christ takes authority over Satan again, the name will change to the kingdom of the two heavens, the two heavens under one spiritual authority, Christ.
Now is the Father considered another heaven, or is that --
No. The Father's not a heaven. Heaven is something that exists in the soul realm. Heaven or Hell is the mind which is in the soul. Heaven or Hell is a mind, and every mind has a spirit that rules over it, so heaven is the kingdom of God, the place where the Father dwells; it's a mind. Only one soul, and either mind can be dwelling in it, sometimes both minds. So, you see, before the mind of Christ binds up your carnal mind, the condition that we're in right now is that we have the kingdom of God. It may be immature. It's in an immature condition, but if Christ is being formed in you, you have the kingdom of God, and you also have -- do you know what it's called? The kingdom of what?
Darkness.
The kingdom of darkness, and you're a double-minded man because a kingdom is a mind, so you're a double-minded man. You have two minds, and at such time as the kingdom of God completely subjects this kingdom of darkness, your mind is now called the kingdom of the two heavens, and this kingdom of darkness is considered a second heaven. But in this hour, that which was light has become darkness, but when it comes back under the dominion of Christ and they think as one mind, your mind will be called the kingdom of the two heavens. While the kingdom of darkness still has an existence of its own, Christ in you is called the kingdom of God. And when Christ succeeds and completely subjects the kingdom of darkness, the name -- His spiritual power increases, and the name of the Father or the maturity level of the Father dwelling in this kingdom changes from the spirit of heaven to the spirit of Christ. And once that spirit is strong enough to bind up the kingdom of darkness, you now have dwelling in you the spirit that has the power to raise you from the dead.
[INAUDIBLE] and darkness, talking about that?
Tha- -- I think that's pretty much what he was talking about. He was saying if you have the mind of Christ, it's not enough. If you -- this is what he was saying. If the mind of Christ dwells in you but your carnal mind has a -- is up here on top -- if you have the kingdom of darkness and you have the mind of Christ but He's tread underfoot, he said then your light is darkness. What good is having the -- that's not the kingdom of Christ. I meant the kingdom of God. What good is having the kingdom of God within you if the kingdom of darkness is doing all your thinking for you? Then your light is darkness.
But to get the kingdom of God and start thinking through it, there has -- there's going to have to be a warfare against this kingdom of darkness. If you're not fighting, if you are not in the war, you better believe the kingdom of darkness is your mind because I tell you the truth. Christ is not ruling in your mind without a continuous, ongoing warfare. You win a few, and you lose a few, and the only thing that matters is that you get forward. If you take five steps forward and four steps backward, you're ahead. You can't win them all. You've got to have some down days, can't be any condemnation on you for it. It has to be because if it wasn't, you'd be in full stature. If you won every single battle, you'd be in full stature, and this is why there is now no more condemnation in Christ Jesus because the Lord knows that we're in the battle to reverse this.
Let me give you an interesting tidbit of information. Do you remember reading in the Book of Acts where it was said, those apostles out there, they are the men who turn the world upside down. Want to know what that means? I always used to wonder about that. They turned their world upside down. It was the kingdom of darkness on top --
[INAUDIBLE]
-- and they got the kingdom of God, and they turned it around. They put the kingdom of God on top, and they put the kingdom of darkness down. They turned their world and their mind upside down.
[INAUDIBLE]
Hallelujah. I issued to say what does that mean they turned the world upside down? They turned their world upside down. The world in their mind, they turned it upside down.
But they didn't come into full stature? That didn't mean that.
That particular Scripture didn't mean that.
OK.
It was talking about dominion.
All right.
If it's 80 percent the kingdom of God and 20 percent the kingdom of darkness, you've turned your world upside down.
[INAUDIBLE]
But -- no, it's turned the -- no. That's not true.
[INAUDIBLE]
No. If you are living a life where the kingdom of darkness was predominating and now the kingdom of God is predominating, you have reversed your condition, and you have turned your world upside down. That's what it means. It's about to happen to you very, very shortly. Your world is about to get turned upside down. Praise God. Not -- and that doesn't mean that you won't have any off days or bad days, but it means that the kingdom of God is predominating in your life. That means even if you go down you can get back up again. You don't go down for months and years at a time, and you're just in a much, much strong position, and then you're really in a position to start to kill this thing. You can't start to kill it until you get on top of it. You've got to get some authority over it. You've got to turn the tables. If you're getting beat every day your li- -- of your life, if you're getting beat, getting beat, getting beat, you've got to start taking a few victories. And when you start taking those victories, you've turned your world upside down, turned the tables. You've heard that expression, didn't you? Turn the tables. You stop being in a -- you stop being a victim, and you start being an aggressor. That's what it means. Turn everything upside down.
[INAUDIBLE]
Amen. I was a victim, and I've become quite an aggressor. I -- not -- that doesn't mean I don't go down. I do go down, but it doesn't happen too often, and when I do go down, I get up pretty fast, and I get up faster and faster and faster, and I go down less and less and less, but my world has definitely been turned upside down. I was being destroyed.
[?By those?] forces.
Amen.
[INAUDIBLE]
[?June?], is that similar to a Scripture in Isaiah where the world is upside-down?
I'm not familiar with that Scripture.
I don't remember what Scripture it was.
And anything in the Old Testament, I'd really have to look at the Hebrew. I can't --
[CROSSTALK]
I don't know what it means. Praise God.
[INAUDIBLE] talking today about [?leaven?].
Please put it --
[CROSSTALK]
Oh, was he really? He was talking to you about leaven? That has to do with this message.
A little leaven destroyed the whole lump, a little bit of sin.
Yeah, destroys everything, amen.
09/01/14 Transcribed by VerbalFusion
09/17/14 1stEdit CAS/BP
