Part 5 of 5 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.
Well, praise the Lord. It's been a very spiritual day today. I want to do some praying before we start. For some reason, I've had the people in Nigeria on my heart all day. I never know what that means. I never know whether it's those people that need prayer or it's somebody that they symbolize, so I usually just pray.
Bless the brethren in Nigeria. We just rebuke the devourer and any attacks that might be coming upon them, and we speak life and blessing and strength unto them and hope and the peace of God. And we lend ourselves to them. We join with them in the spirit and believe with them that they shall overcome anything and everything that Satan can send against them and that the Lord shall be glorified in them and that they shall truly overcome in the name of Jesus. Thank you, Lord.
Well, I have a message for you tonight that -- are there any other prayer requests while we're praying. Anybody have a prayer request? OK. We'll just rebuke every spirit that is not of God, and we pray for the mercy of God to fall upon all of His people as we strive to overcome our afflictions, rebuke the devourer, and we rebuke every enemy afflicting any one of God's children in this ministry or outside of it. And we thank you Father because we know that You heard this prayer before we prayed it. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Well, I have a message for you tonight that I have been working very hard on for almost three days, actually, and I'm not really sure that I'm going to bring it. I have an exhortation on my heart that I would like to start with, and I'll just see. If the Lord takes me elsewhere, we'll do this Sunday. Otherwise, we'll go back to it. But I would like to start by defining incest for you. Let me just find my -- the Lord just gave me this. Bear with me for a second, please.
OK, I'd like to start by defining incest for you. Incest is a spirit. I know that the traditional definition of incest is a sexual union between blood relatives, but incest is a spirit, and it operates on spiritual levels. Also, you know about it; you just may never have heard it called incest before. Everybody knows that if somebody goes or has a relationship with a psychiatrist and that psychiatrist takes advantage of the fact that his patient is vulnerable, that his patient is dependent on him, that his patient may have some idolatry for him, that everybody that has any kind of morals at all knows that it is a violation of one's responsibility, of that psychiatrist's responsibility towards their patient, to encourage any kind of romantic feelings that that patient might have.
So we see, as we expand the definition of incest to cover spiritual and emotional issues, we find our definition of incest is the giving away of one's responsibility when it comes to romantic involvements between someone that has authority and someone that is under that authority. The godly romantic involvement is between two consenting adults. When you have one person in a stronger position and another person in a weaker position, it is as transgression, according to God's laws, and the spirit that's operating is incest. We see the same thing operating in a teacher in school, a college teacher with a student.
And what's happening in this nation today -- one of the terrible things that's happening in this nation today is that we see just about every one of God's rules being torn down, being made light of. It's all over the T.V. It's all over the movies. Every rule is being broken. When you see a 60-year-old man marrying a 20 or 25-year-old woman, brethren, this is a spirit of incest operating, and it's something operating in that man that he may have had enough restraints on to stop himself from getting involved with his own daughter, so he goes out and he gets another 25-year-old woman. It's a spirit of incest.
Now the reason the incest laws have been written on the books in this country and in every other Christian country is because even people who don't believe in God know that if you start having babies -- if close relatives -- if close physical relatives start having babies, that these babies have a very high chance of being born deformed. So I believe the laws were originally written on the books because, at one time, this was a Christian country, and the law of God says thou shalt not commit incest. But for people who don't believe in God or who don't honor His laws, they know, the medical profession knows that there's a much higher chance of having a deformed child when the parents are two close blood relatives than when they're not.
So we see in this hour the spirit of incest just running rampant all over this nation. You see them on the talk shows, on the T.V. shows. As I saw not too long ago, a 45-year-old woman married to a 16 or an 18-year-old boy. I can't even call him a man. He was still in high school, 16 years old, and she sat there on the T.V. show holding his hand, announcing that he was the head of her household. I -- you know, I don't mean to laugh at the individuals, but sometimes what people say is just ridiculous because to be the head of a household, you have to be qualified to be the head of the household. I wouldn't want anyone to appoint me president of this nation tomorrow because we'd probably crash inside of 24 hours. So for someone to appoint me president of this nation, they would have to be a very foolish person. So to say that a 16-year-old high school student is the head of your household because you have yielded to a spirit of incest and you would like to justify it, there's something ridiculous, and it needs to be exposed for what it is.
But I don't believe that many people have a revelation of what's happening in this country, is that the spirit of incest has gotten out from under God's restraints, and it's just having its way. People are just doing anything they want to do. So what is our definition of incest? Let me repeat it for you. Incest is an act of sexual union between two people -- and now it could be a spiritual sexual union. We have to know that everything that happens in this world is a type of what happens in the spiritual realm, so let's stay with the natural for the time being. Incest is an act of sexual union between two people who are not equally equipped to enter into this relationship. Incest is an act of sexual intercourse and a re- -- entering into a relationship between two people, one of which has authority over the other person, and whereby that person that has authority is taking advantage of the vulnerability of the person who's under them, the person who needs them, the person who idolizes them, the person who looks up to them, the person who trusts them. It is a transgression according to God's law.
Then we have spiritual incest, and we also have emotional incest. Let me go on with emotional incest because that doesn’t have to be religious. You know, all kinds of weird things are happening in this country today, and I have some very radical views. I'm going to get fried for this one, but I'm going to say it anyway. I do not believe in prostitution. I do not believe in it, but I know that there's a whole world full of people out there that are going to do whatever they want to do. And I would rather see -- in this country, I would rather see a man going to a prostitute than a man going out, playing on a woman's emotions, knowing that he's not emotionally involved and that the woman's being seduced and that the woman is emotionally involved, and having his fun and moving on. Now don't -- does anyone not know what I just said?
You know, in nations where women are locked up behind closed doors with padlocks put on it and they can't get out without their father or their brother, there's a big business in prostitution. OK, so what am I saying? I am saying that to go out and to enter into a relationship -- and now me- -- women do this as well as men. I'm not against any sex. This happens -- in this country, I -- maybe more women are doing it than the men. Emotional incest is getting involved in a relationship with somebody when you know that they really are interested in a depth of a relationship that you are not interested in, and you're doing it anyway, either for sexual motives or for emotional motives. It could be for emotional motives. You could be lonely.
It's going on all over this country today, sometimes men, sometimes women, saying to the member of the opposite sex, look, I really don't want to be involved, but I'm going to be your friend, and I'm going to go out with you, and we're going to hang out. And I'm telling you right now I have no serious intentions towards you, and then one year comes and one year goes, and somebody's hurt. Somebody's hurt. So that is emotional incest because -- how is it emotional incest? Listen, because the person who was really towards the other person with the hope of marriage or whatever they want -- they want a commitment from the other person. It doesn’t s- -- a lot of people don't want to get married today. But the person that is hoping for something more than the other person is willing to give them, that person is trusting you. That person is dependent in relationship to you, and you're no longer two equal adults, but you're one person that has control of the situation and the other person that is wanting something that you have already decided you have no intention of giving. This is emotional incest. It's not fair.
And we need to know in this society today that what the women's libbers are preaching is not true. Men are men, and women are women, and don't tell me that you're going to be friends and it's going to stay friends because it's not. It is just not true. Somebody's going to get hurt. So we have a lot of denial in this society today, people telling themselves all kinds of stories because they want what they want, what they want when they want it. And God does not look kindly upon using other people to satisfy our emotional needs.
Spiritual incest occurs on two levels. The first level is in our own mind when the spirit of Christ -- if you have Christ in you and that Christ is fornicating with your carnal mind, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- well, the Lord doesn't -- the Lord calls that adultery. It's adultery -- spiritual adultery. It's also incest. Christ in you is supposed to be joining with whom? With the spirit of God.
[INAUDIBLE]
No. Christ in you is supposed to be -- OK. I guess that wasn't a good question. Christ in you is supposed to be in union with the spirit of God. When Christ is in union with the carnal mind which is Satan, it's spiritual incest, and it's also adultery. Now we find that every sin known to man starts out in the realm of the spirit. Everything starts out in the realm of the spirit. Then it comes down into the emotional realm, and then it comes down into the physical realm.
And God's laws are to protect us. The problem that Christians have had over the centuries is that up until now, and even now it's not really happening except here, is that God didn't give explanations for His rules. He just said don't do it. He just said thou shalt not, and He never went off to tell you, well, if you do it, this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, and this going to happen, and this is going to happen, and you're going to keep on going right down the line, and five generations down the line is going to be a total disaster. He never told anybody that. He just said thou shalt not. So a lot of people today, in our so-called enlightened world, because to their carnal mind it doesn't make -- God's laws don't make any sense, they've stopped obeying them. So we have everybody doing everything, and the country's getting messed up real bad.
I'd like to give you a Scripture on all this. It's Genesis, Chapter 6, Verse 1, and it says, "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply upon the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."
And there's been a lot of controversy about this Scripture, as long as I've been in the church, as to what it means. And I've had varying opinions myself, but at this point, I'd like to share my opinion with you. There were two lines in the earth at the time [AUDIO CUTS OUT] -- OK, at the time that this account took place. There were the descendants of Cain and the descendants of Seth. The descendants of Cain, we found in other studies in this ministry, descended very rapidly. From the moment that God put Cain out of the garden, his descendants fell within four or five generations, fell down into a condition very similar, I believe, to where the human race is today. But, in any event -- I can't prove that, but in any event, I will say this, that Cain's descendants fell down to a place where the Scripture calls them the daughters of men.
You may recall the teaching here that spiritual sex is determined by the condition of your mind. When your mind is Christ, you are male. When your mind is carnal, you are female, for God's purposes. That's how the Scripture can say there's no male or female in Christ, meaning your body -- it makes no difference what your body is. There's no male or female human in Christ. It depends on what your mind is. That was how the Scripture can say a woman shall not teach a man, when any thinking person would have to realize that there must be something wrong with this Scripture because some men are retarded, and some women are brilliant in the Scriptures. So why would there be a prohibition from a brilliant educated woman in the Scriptures from tutoring some poor man that's barely on his feet?
Something's wrong, and it's caused a tremendous division in the church. We see a lot of very intelligent people saying, well, that Christianity, that is just a ridiculous religion. It just doesn't make any sense. The Bible was written by men, and it's just -- by Paul. He was a woman hater, and just scratch it off. And what gives power to this kind of thinking is the Christians who say that's right. A brilliantly educated woman in the Scriptures cannot minister to a retarded man. God said you can't do it.
So what am I saying? Let me say it again. Your sex, for purposes of spiritual things, is determined by your mind. If your mind is Christ, you are male. No matter what kind of a body you have, you're male. If your mind is carnal, no matter what kind of a body you have, you are female. Now don't go shutting off this message. This is for spiritual purposes. It has nothing to do with your wives. It has nothing to do with your family life. It has nothing to do with your job. It has nothing to do with the way you relate to other people in this world. But for purposes of spiritual ministry, for the purposes of teaching, for the purposes of manifesting Christ to the world, it has nothing to do with your body. It has to do with your mind. Is anybody confused over this?
We have to separate issues. I've been teaching that here for a long time. Every Scripture you read in this Bible, you have to ask yourself a whole series of questions. You have to say, who is the Scripture talking to, what group of people, at what time of their lives? Ever single instruction in this Scripture is not for you at every single moment of your life. There are some instructions in the Scripture that are appropriate for you now but were not appropriate for you 10 years ago. There are other Scriptures that were not appropriate or not related to you 10 years ago, nor are they related to you now, but they will be important for you 10 years from now.
Brethren, people don't stay the same. People grow. People change. And this book is an instruction or book of instructions for all kinds of people, all sexes, spiritual sex, physical sex, all age groups, husbands, wives, children, ministers. How could every instruction in this book be for everybody at every moment of their life? If you have any intelligence at all, you know this can't be true. Excuse me.
So when the Scripture speaks about the daughters of men, I want to suggest to you that it's speaking about human beings that have been begotten of a ma- -- of a physical man, born of a physical woman, but whose mind is carnal. So at the time that Chapter 6 of the Book of Genesis was a reality on the face of the earth, we're told there were daughters of men. And what does that mean? Cain's line had fallen out into spiritually female human beings. Also present on the earth at the same time were physical beings -- I don't know what they looked like in those days, to be honest with you. I suspect that Cain's descendants look something like us, but that's just an opinion. I can't prove it to you at all.
But Seth's descendants, I'm convinced, did not look anything like us at all. They were superior beings. They were still under the anointing of God. They were priests unto God. We know that Enoch walked with God, and he was not. It was before Abraham. It was before the Ten Commandments, but we know that they made sacrifice and that they had relationships with the living God. So the sons of God, I'm suggesting to you, were the offspring of Seth, whatever they look like, and they had an intense relationship with God, and relationship with God is in your mind.
But they turned their eyes towards the daughters of men. They were interested in physical activity, and they started entering into it, and God didn't call them to it, but they went, and they got involved. I want to tell you something. It's just like American soldiers landing on some little island where they go to war and they get involved with the women in the land. It happens wherever you go, any army. You invade the country and you conquer it, and the soldiers have the women or many of them, the same kind of thing. It was a weakness in the offspring of Seth, and they got involved with the carnal people that were on the earth at the s- -- at the time, the carnal women. And this is the beginning -- well, this is the beginning of incest. This is an ideal example of spiritual incest.
So the Lord wanted this exhortation tonight. I hoped that I've made it clear, that we all have a responsibility to God and to each other, to know who we are and what we're called to and what the Lord requires of us. And He expects us all to walk in holiness. He said, "Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy." Well, I guess I'm going to do this message tonight. We've had four messages on the temptation so far, and this is the fifth message. I expect it will be the last. It was a lot of work for me to do it, and it's a comparative study between the account of the temptation in Matthew and the account of the temptation in Luke. These comparative studies are very difficult. Every time I start one, I'm sorry that I started it, but I guess the Lord had me to do it.
So I'd like to make some brief comments on comparing the account in Matthew and the account in Luke. Seems that the tense of the verbs in the account of Matthew are present, and the overall tense of the verbs in Luke are past. And I prayed about that, and the only answer I have for you right now is that Matthew heard the account directly from Jesus and wrote it down, possibly, exactly as Jesus had related it to him, and therefore it was the present tense. And Luke, some of us might know, was not an apostle, but he was a medical doctor who heard about these great feats after they were completed, and he, being a man of letters, wrote them into a book, so for him it was past tense.
And another thing that I noticed as I did the comparative study was that in Matthew the carnal mind's approach to Jesus seemed to be one which would indicate that the carnal mind really didn't believe Jesus had the power to defeat Him. I don't believe the carnal mind believed it. How would I say that? Well, you know, if you're going to get into a contest with somebody, a contest of the minds, a contest of the wits, a contest of physical -- any kind of a physical contest, a wrestling match or any kind of athletic competition, if you really believe that that person doesn't have a chance against you, your attitude is very different than when you look at them as a genuine opponent. How would you act if you think someone doesn't have a chance against you? Well, you might laugh. You might mock. You might not take them seriously. You might play with them a little bit. This is the attitude that I perceived in Matthew, that the carnal mind was playing with Jesus. He was talking to Him like He was a simpleton, like he really didn't think He had any power.
But on the other hand, in the Book of Luke, according to that account, we find the carnal mind taking Jesus very seriously and not playing with Him but responding to Him and relating to Him as a recognized opponent, someo- -- what does that mean? It means that the carnal mind, at that point, was thinking, wow, this guy, Jesus, He just might be able to take me. I better get serious.
And as I did this comparative study, I saw that some of the wor- -- there were some words that -- or some ideas that were in Luke that were not in Matthew, some ideas that were in Matthew which were not in Luke. And although when you read the account in the King James, at first glance, it appears to be just a repetition in Luke from what we read in Matthew, there really were some significant differences, particular in the carnal mind's challenge to Jesus to make the stones bread.
So what we're going to do is just go down. I'm going to read you a few notes that I have on the differences, and then I'm going to, well, read you an Alternate Translation of the temptation that I've put together whereby I incorporated or I just wove together the two accounts to the best of my ability, and I personally find it very exciting. Anybody that wants a photocopy of the Alternate Translations can have it.
So [?we're going to be?] -- before I get into that though, we're going to start with just a few comments on the last message. I just have some comments and notes for you, and then we'll get into that comparative study, and at the end, I'll read you that Alternate Translation. It's very exciting. Well, maybe I'll read it to you first. Let me read it to you first, and then we'll go into it bit by bit.
"And the Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul to beget the mind of Christ in Him. So during this transition from death unto life, Jesus had two minds. Now Jesus the Christ intensely desired union with His soul, so He didn't fornicate with His carnal mind, and therefore His carnal mind lost its influence over the man Jesus. Then Satan caught Jesus' carnal mind up into the soul realm for a spiritual battle with the Christ, whom Satan was hoping the carnal mind would kill and sacrifice to Satan. Then the devil demonstrated that he still had the authority to fully manifest his carnal mind in Jesus' renewed soul."
"And the devil aggressively approached Jesus saying, if you're really the Son of God, let's see you make the Lord, which is engraved in my image, holy, and bring its many members into spiritual maturity in their present sin-filled condition. But Jesus, having completely forsaken His carnal needs and desires and craving dominion over the devil, overcame His carnal mind's suggestion and answered him saying, man cannot live in a soul which is either fully or partially in your image, but he can live in a many membered soul which is in the image of Christ."
"And the carnal mind tried to confuse Him by saying, if you're really the Son of God, submit to my lordship because God has commanded that the living soul should be delivered over to the authority of Satan's angels to prevent her from escaping and to preserve her from the damaging effects of being fastened to Jesus Christ. But Jesus said to His carnal mind, it was prophesied from old that there would be a new mind revealed through the living soul one day, and that mind is here now, so you have no authority to test the living soul's new mind, which is Christ, your God, the one who owns you."
"And the devil manifests himself as the mind of Jesus' renewed soul to try to sacrifice Him again, this time declaring his authority over all of the human minds existing in that generation and his right to give them to Jesus by demonstrating his ability to control the peoples of the world. And Satan says to Jesus, I'll sacrifice my own offspring, the carnal mind, and engrave Your image in the minds of humanity, and You can possess all of which I just demonstrated that I own if You'll just give up your claims of lordship and acknowledge that I'm God."
"But at the same time that all this was happening, the man Jesus was influenced by the spirit of Christ to reject His carnal mind and choose holiness. And the mind of Christ, being born in the man Jesus, He was able to sacrifice His carnal mind up to the Father. Then Jesus says to Satan, get your carnal mind down under my Christ mind because the fact is that the very appearance of the mind of Christ in Me means that at the appointed time all of humanity shall acknowledge that I'm the Son of God, and they shall submit themselves to Me, and I shall appear in them."
"Then Jesus' carnal mind stopped challenging His Christ mind until the appointed time, and glory to God, it happened. The many members of humanity drew near to God and sacrificed their sin-filled souls when they were tempted by the carnal mind, and Christ cared for them and supplied and distributed the necessities of life to them."
Oh, I left something out. Oh, I guess I just had two pages of the same thing here. Well, you may have noticed, if you were listening to what I was reading, that what the temptation was all about was that there was a man; His name was Jesus of Nazareth. He started out in a very similar condition to that which we are in now. He was a man just like we are. He was born of a human woman. He had a carnal mind, and He also had a Christ mind, and there was a war going on inside of His head and inside of His emotions as to which mind would rule His life, His soul and His body. And His carnal mind wasn't fooling. He was lying to Him. He was cheating Him. He was confusing Him, and he was trying to get the Christ mind to give up its authority.
Now this message is very important for us because it's happening to us today. If Christ is not being formed in you, you have no power over the enemy. If Christ is being formed in you, you have a weapon, and I re- -- let me just read you the verse where I said that. "But at the same time that all of this testing was going on by Satan or by the car- -- Satan's carnal mind, the man Jesus was influenced by the spirit of Christ to reject His carnal mind and choose holiness. And because the mind of Christ was born in the man Jesus, He was able to sacrifice His carnal mind up to the Father." Brethren, we are in the hour where we are being challenged to sacrifice our carnal mind. We must not yield to him because every time we yield to him, he sacrifices Christ in us to Satan.
There was a couple of other points I wanted to comment on. Yes, I wanted to comment on this. "But Jesus, having completely forsaken His carnal needs and desires and craving dominion over the devil, overcame His carnal mind's suggestion." Brethren, if you have any hope of overcoming the carnal mind's suggestions, you must reject your carnal needs and desires because if you think that you have a right to have your carnal needs and desires satisfied, you are very likely to be deceived when the carnal mind whispers to you. Safety is in total submission to the will of God in your life. When you try to satisfy your own needs, you become your own god. It's spiritual adultery. You're guilty of spiritual adultery. You're guilty of idolatry, and you're guilty of incest, and you're very likely to be deceived.
If you are in a condition of weakness where your own natural desires are so strong that they're really hurting you and the spirit of Christ in you is moving to correct you when you are overtaken, you are a blessed person because, in this hour, I see the Lord letting many people just go. You've heard me say this before. He lets them go. So if you are in a position where you have a weakness but the Lord is right on top of you correcting that weakness, don't push against the pricks, brethren; you are beloved. Glory to God.
I'm going to try and preach this message. OK, we're going to start this message by reviewing and in some cases amplifying our Alternate Translations of Verse 1 from the previous messages. Remember that Matthew's account of the temptation reveals how Satan and the carnal mind reacted to Jesus' catching up, but that Luke's account reveals how Jehovah and Jesus reacted to it. Matthew tells us that the man Jesus was led up into a spiritual battle when Satan manifested his carnal mind in him and openly challenged Jesus the Christ over which mind was to be the Lord of the man Jesus. Luke, on the other hand, tells us that Jesus was led by the spirit of the Father not up but to a feast which was to be celebrated by the sacrifice of Jesus' carnal mind. As far as the Father was concerned, there was no battle, just a celebration. And another way to say that is, as far as the Lord is concerned -- as far as the Father is concerned, the victory is assured. He doesn't even look at the battle.
Now we touched on this when we did a message on Elijah a couple of meetings ago. Elijah was ranting, suicidal, filled with self pity, saying he couldn't make it, and the Father didn't even respond to him. He just said get thee up, Elijah. You left the field of battle too soon. You left it too soon. Go back. You haven't finished what I called you to do, and that's what we're talking about here. The Father doesn't see it as a battle. All he sees is the end result. He sees the victory.
In Matthew's gospel, Satan led Jesus up to be tested. Please, note that the verb is in the future tense because Satan couldn't test Jesus' Christ mind until He got up or until [AUDIO CUTS OUT] -- in Matthew's gospel, Satan led Jesus up to be tested. Please, note that the verb is in the future tense because Satan couldn't test Jesus' Christ mind until He got up or until He manifested the carnal mind up to where He was. Satan initiated the warfare as soon as he saw the Spirit of God invading his territory and expected that his carnal mind would defeat the Father's Christ for the second time. Does anybody remember when the carnal mind defeated the Christ the first time, anybody? Where was the Christ defeated by the carnal mind the first time.
In Adam.
In Adam at the time of the fall, correct, in righteous Adam at the time of the fall. In the interlinear translation of Luke's gospel, however, we're told that Jesus was not led up but into the spiritual realm of the soul by the spiritual forces of God which were influencing His mind, being tempted, in the present tense, or opposed by the devil as He went and overcoming him by consciously choosing to reject His carnal mind and yield to the mind of Christ. Brethren, Jesus is our example. He consciously made a decision to reject His carnal mind and choose Christ. Once you do that, even if you find yourself not strong enough to do what you desire to do, the power of God comes in and joins with you, but the Lord requires us to make that choice, to reject or carnal mind, to hate it like the enemy that it is and to choose holiness in Christ and s- -- complete submission to His will for our life. The -- such a decision brings the power of God into our life. Following after our own emotions and desires and seeking to bring them fulfillment in this lifetime can bring nothing but disaster, especially once God has called you, and it's the sin of rebellion and pride. It's very serious.
Mark's gospel tells us what action the Spirit of God took which resulted in Jesus' catching up. Remember, the male performs the action, and the female responds to that action. The Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul to beget the mind of Christ in Him.
Alternate Translations, Matthew 4:1 and Luke 4:1. We're doing a comparative study of the temptation here. Matthew 4:1, "Then Jesus" -- I'm sorry. "Then Satan caught Jesus' carnal mind up into the soul realm for a spiritual battle with the Christ, whom Satan was hoping the carnal mind would kill and sacrifice to Satan.
Luke 4:1, "But at the very same time, Jesus the Christ, who rejected His carnal mind and chose holiness by the strength of His perfected spirit, was led by the Spirit of God into the very same place to sacrifice His carnal mind up to the Father."
So we see in the temptation two opponents, each trying to kill each other, the carnal mind trying to kill Christ as a sacrifice to Satan and Christ killing the carnal mind as a sacrifice to the Father. Please, note that Luke 4:1 does not say what place that very same place is or what else happened in that very same place or who else was in the very same place. The only information we have is that Jesus was led into the very same place. Matthew 4:1, however, tells us that Jesus' carnal mind was caught up to the soul realm so that he could kill the Christ, and I suggest to you this is what that the phrase, the very same place, is talking about. So once again we see, in the harmony of the gospels, different information in the two accounts of the temptation. At first glance, they're saying exactly the same thing, but after a word-by-word study and comparison, we see that we have additional information by studying the two gospels and interweaving them with each other.
Now there is [AUDIO CUTS OUT] -- we touched on it in the last message. I'm going to amplify it tonight. I believe what I read to you in the last message was as follows. "And the true spirit forced himself into the spiritual realm of the soul." You might want to say, "And the true spirit forced himself into Jesus' soul," or, "And the Spirit of God forced Himself into Jesus' soul." Or we could even say, "And the Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul for the specific purpose of begetting the mind of Christ in Him."
The Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul. Brethren, it's what we're all waiting for, and He begot the mind of Christ in Him, the full birth of the mind of Christ. So we see that the information given in Mark's gospel should be stated first to be followed by the information in Matthew's gospel and then the information in Luke's gospel.
"And the Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul to beget the mind of Christ in Him. Then Satan caught Jesus' carnal mind up into the soul realm for a spiritual battle with the Christ, whom Satan was hoping the carnal mind would kill and sacrifice to Satan. But at the same time, Jesus the Christ, who rejected His carnal mind and chose holiness by the strength of His perfected spirit, was led by the Spirit of God into the very same place to sacrifice His carnal mind up to the Father.
Please, note that the Spirit of God was not born but that the mind of Christ was begotten of that Spirit, which Spirit became the God in the midst of that mind. Brethren, when a spirit joins with a soul in a spiritual sexual intercourse, there is an offspring; a mind is born. And the male spirit that joined with the female soul becomes the god of that mind. The Spirit of God has always existed, but a mind, whether it be the carnal mind or the mind of Christ, must be begotten of a spirit, which is male, and born of a soul, which is female. The spirit which begets the mind becomes the god of that mind. The specific name of the Spirit of God which indicates that He is functioning as the God of the mind of Christ is the spirit of Christ.
Now if you look at your Bibles, you know, it would be hard for you to do now, but we're doing a comparative study. So Matthew 4:1 says, "The was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." To get the same idea from Luke, we have to take Verse 1 and one phrase from Verse 2, and that's what we're going to do because we're comparing what sounds like the same thing in the two different gospels. In Matthew it's one ver- -- it's Verse 1, and in Luke it's Verse 1 plus a phrase from Verse 2, so that's what we're going to do.
And I'm going to read you the King James now so you could see what we're working with. Matthew 4:1, "The was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Luke 4, Verse 1 plus one phrase from Verse 2, "And Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted of the devil."
Now there is another phrase in Luke 4 that I didn't include in this. It's the first words that appear in Luke 4:1, and I left it out because I was making a point here, but I will include it in the Alternate Translation. Luke 4:1, "But at the same time, Jesus the Christ, who had rejected His carnal mind and chosen holiness by the strength of His perfected spirit, was led by the Spirit of God into the very same place to sacrifice His carnal mind up to the Father."
Now for our amplified translation, I'm going to change the phrase "the strength of His perfected spirit" to "the mind of Christ." "The strength of His perfected spirit," we're going to make it "the mind of Christ." What we're doing here when we amplify a ph- -- a verse, we're trying to put it in easily understandable, everyday English. And the reason I'll give you four -- possibly two, three or four different translations is that if I jumped right into the amplified translation, you would look at me and say, what, are you kidding? How did you get this out of that? So I take it a step at a time so that it's possible to see how I got here. OK.
"The strength of His perfected spirit," we're changing it to "the mind of Christ," and the phrase "the Spirit of God" we're going to change to "the spirit of Christ," and I'll tell you why. Let me remind you that the word spirit in Luke 4:1 is not modified. After investigation, we determined that the word God would correctly modify the word spirit -- after investigation, we made a judgment that this was the Spirit of God and not the spirit of Satan. That's what we discovered, but now, in this amplification, we're choosing a specific administration of the Spirit of God, and the spirit of Christ is the administration of the Spirit of God which appears with His Christ.
Luke 4:1, amplified, "But at the same time, Jesus, who rejected His carnal mind and chose holiness because the mind of Christ had been fully born in Him, was influenced by the spirit of Christ to go into the very same place to sacrifice His carnal mind up to the Father."
Brethren, this message is so important because it's what the sons of God are going through now. We must reject our carnal mind and chose holiness. I honestly don't know to what degree Jesus went through this crisis called the temptation before His encounter with John the Baptist at Jordan. I honestly don't know. What I do know is that Jesus knew what was going to be happening to Him. He knew that He was going to be water baptized, baptized in the Holy Spirit and caught up to full stature. He was praying for it as we discovered in our series, "Jesus in the Jordan."
And I do know that those of us in whom Christ is being formed and those of us who are called to full stature are engaged in this warfare called the temptation to some measure. I honestly don't have any more information as to what measure of it we're engaged in and who's engaged in what. I don't know. The only thing I know, pretty much for sure, is my engagement, and it's been vicious. My encounter, my warfare with the carnal mind has been nothing less than vicious. It's been very similar to what we're reading about here except that to this day I don't have the power that Jesus had. So what I don't know is whether -- and I present myself as an example to you. I declare to you that I'm engaged in this warfare and that there has to be other people in the church that are called to this warfare. I cannot be the only one. There has to be other people.
And so I set myself out as an example to you. I've been overcoming my carnal mind for years, and I get stronger, and I get stronger, and I get stronger. The challenges are intense. The temptation is intense, but the victory is glorious, and if you have Christ, it's doable. It's possible if you have Christ. All things are possible with Christ. So what I'm trying to say is that, having been engaged in this warfare for all of these years, I honestly don't know if at the appropriate time I'm going to find myself caught up in one tremendous battle with the carnal mind, greater than anything I've ever experienced, that could be likened to the temptation. I honestly don't know. But it seems to me, at this time, that this warfare, this temptation, this overcoming is just an ongoing process, and then one day -- just one day there's going to be one big conflict, and as the Scripture says, Satan shall depart from me. I believe it. It's got to happen.
So we need to know this. We need to know that we have an enemy, and he's in our own mind, and he's in our own emotions. And that if Christ is called to us, this is not just a question of wanting a lollipop or wanting a piece of candy or wanting something that's going to make you feel good. If you have gotten so far in the Lord that Christ is being formed in you, if the Lord has made an investment in you to the point that you have entered into this warfare, Christ is not fooling with you any more than Satan is fooling with you. He wants the use of your mind and your body, and there is a point of no return.
We have all kinds of people dancing around the church. I was one of them. My pastor made an altar call. He said, you want to enter into the Feast of Tabernacles? Come on up. I went charging up to the altar, and I was jumping up and down saying, Jesus, don't forget me. Take me, Lord. If I had any idea what was waiting for me, I honestly don't know if I would have prayed that prayer. My whole point is, no matter whether you pray that prayer with knowledge or without knowledge, if somewhere in your life you have prayed with meaning, Jesus, take me, and He has taken you, there is no place that you can run to get away from Him because He has an investment in you, and He fully intends to appear in you. You can go the easy way, or you can go the hard way.
As I said earlier, there are a lot of people in this hour that He's letting go, but there are some people that there's no place you could run to because He's got to appear in somebody. Our Lord and savior, our God of this creation has made a judgment that He shall appear, and He is appearing in men, and it is a painful thing to have the living God appear in you. It's painful. I don't hear anybody else preaching this, man, but I'm telling you the truth. It is painful. But once you've got that baby inside of you, there's nothing to do but birth it. There's no place to run. You can't get up off that labor table and fly anywhere in the world. Just get the baby out. There's no place to go. OK.
In Matthew 4:1, we translated the phrase, which we're adding from Luke 4:2 -- the phrase we're taking from Luke 4:2 is "being tempted of the devil," and we translated that in Matthew as to try whether a thing can be done, whether or not a thing can be done or to try one's character. Now the Greek words translated "tempted of the devil" are the same, both in Matthew and in Luke, so we're just going to keep that same translation. In the Gospel of Luke, we're going to add the phrase "to try one's character" in our translation, to try one's character, as well as the identities of the one who is doing the trying and the one who is being tried, and we're going to add those words after the phrase in the very same place.
This is what it sounds like. This is an Alternate Translation of Luke 4, Verse 1 and part of 2. "But at the same time, the man Jesus, who rejected His carnal mind and chose holiness because the mind of Christ had been fully born in Him, was inflected by the spirit of Christ to go into the very same place where His carnal mind was trying to sacrifice Christ to Satan and sacrifice His carnal mind to the Father."
The two of them were in the same place, carnal mind and Christ in the same place. What place was that? The mind of the man Jesus, and they were trying to kill each other. Brethren, if Christ is being formed in you, you've got two minds, and guess what, they're trying to kill each other. And you have a free will. You have a will, and if you don't line that will up with Christ, it will take a miracle to get you through. However, if you're so far gone in your pregnancy that the Christ has made a judgment to not let you go, He's going to give you that miracle. It's much less painful to be on the side of the liberator than on the side of the criminal.
So now we're going to amplify the phrase, "in the very same place." We're going to change it to "the spiritual realm of the soul" or the "soul realm" or we could even say "Jesus' mind."
Here's the verse again, Amplified version, Lord 4:1 and part of 2. "But at the same time, the man Jesus who rejected His carnal mind and chose holiness because of the mind of Christ had been -- because the mind of Christ had been fully born in Him, was influenced by the spirit of Christ to manifest as the Christ mind and sacrifice His carnal mind, who was trying to sacrifice to Satan, up to the Father."
Brethren, we have got to sacrifice our carnal mind. He's got to die, and you don't kill him by feeding him what we would like to have. You kill him by starving him to death. You kill him by rebelling against him, by disobeying him and by cleaving unto and obeying the Father.
One more time, "But at the same time, the man Jesus was influenced by the spirit of Christ to reject His carnal mind and choose holiness." You've got to choose holiness "And the mind of Christ was begotten in the man Jesus, and Christ sacrificed His carnal mind up to the Father." If you think that you're going to stand up in full stature while you're making a league with your carnal mind and calling your carnal mind your brother and loving him and being nice to him, you're mistaken.
Now here's the harmony of the three gospels on the concept of Jesus' catching up. "And the Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul to beget the mind of Christ in Him. Then Satan caught Jesus' carnal mind up into the soul realm for a spiritual battle with the Christ, whom Satan was hoping the carnal mind would kill and sacrifice to Satan. But at the same time, the man Jesus was influenced by the spirit of holiness, and the mind of Christ was begotten in the man Jesus, and Christ sacrificed His carnal mind up to the Father."
He did it; He killed him. But before He killed him, he made an active choice. He chose holiness. Luke 4:2 -- now when we do Luke 4:2, there's going to be a few words missing from it because we took those words and made them apart of Luke 1 -- Luke 4:1, so what we have left is, "40 days, and in those days, He did eat nothing, and when they were ended, He afterward hungered." Or we could say, "And in those 40 days, He did eat nothing, and when they were ended, He afterward hungered."
Alternate Translation, Luke 4:2, "And in the time of transition" -- that's the 40 days if you remember the teaching. When we did this study in Matthew, we did a whole study proving that the phrase, 40 days and 40 nights, indicated a transition from one age to another.
"And in the time of transition, when the man Jesus had two minds, he ate nothing of the carnal mind, and the carnal mind being ended, Jesus intensely desired the things of God's Spirit."
Now listen to this. "At the time of transition, when the man Jesus had two minds, he ate nothing of the carnal mind." He fasted from His carnal mind. He fasted from His emotions. He fasted from His carnal desires. He resisted them. He did not agree with them. He did not partake of them, and the result of it was that the carnal mind came to an end, and when the carnal mind came to an end, Jesus intensely desired the things of God's Spirit.
Do you know how many people tell me they don't desire the things of God's Spirit? They don't desire them. They can't desire them. They don't want them. Your problem, brethren, is your carnal mind. You have a very strong carnal mind, but when that carnal mind comes to an end, you too will desire the things of God's spirit, and if the Lord has chosen that you will be one who will desire the things of His spirit, He is already in the process of killing your carnal mind. How does He kill your carnal mind? He doesn't feed it. He doesn't satisfy it. He doesn't meet its cravings. He denies it everything at once, and until it dies, you can be in a lot of pain. If you find yourself in a position where much of what gives you pleasure has been taken away from you, it just may be the Lord who took it away, and the Lord does take things away if He's crushing and killing and bringing to an end your carnal mind. He will take anything and everything away from you that He deems necessary to do it.
Amplified translation, Luke 4:2, "And during the transition from death unto life, Jesus had two minds but didn't fornicate with His carnal mind. He did not fornicate with His carnal mind, and His carnal mind lost its influence over Jesus' soul, and Jesus the Christ intensely desired union with His soul."
See there's a problem with Jesus the Chri- -- with the Christ joining with your soul while your carnal mind is joined to it. Jesus did not fornicate with His carnal mind. The result of that was that His carnal mind lost influence over Him, and when His carnal mind lost influence over Him, His desires were the desires of God, that He should join with His soul and be the mind of it.
In Matthew 4:2, we translated the phrase "and afterward He hungered" as "and Jesus craved dominion over His soul." Luke 4:2, however, has the additional phrase "and when they were ended" indicating that the influence of Jesus' carnal mind ended, and then He craved that which followed. Brethren, if you don't crave the things of God, it's because your carnal mind is totally occupying your mind or partially occupying your mind. He's got to die, and he's dying through starvation. He's dying through lack of satisfaction.
Matthew 4:2, "And Jesus, having completely forsaken His carnal needs and desires, craved dominion over His soul." I found that the content of Matthew 4:2 and Luke 4:2 were the same except for the additional information in Luke 4:2 that we just talked about, and that is that the carnal mind came to an end. So we're going to use the more complete Alternate Translation of Luke 4:2.
And we now have the harmony of the gospels for Verse 1. "And the Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul to beget the mind of Christ in Him. Then Satan caught Jesus' carnal mind up into the soul realm for a spiritual battle with the Christ, whom Satan was hoping the carnal mind would kill and sacrifice to Satan."
Luke 4:1, "But at the same time, the man Jesus was influenced by the spirit of Christ to reject His carnal mind and chose holiness, and the mind of Christ being born in the man Jesus, the Christ -- and the man, Jesus the Christ, sacrificed His carnal mind up to the Father. And during the transition from death unto life, Jesus had two minds, but He didn't fornicate with His carnal mind, and His carnal mind lost its influence over Jesus' soul, and Jesus the Christ intensely desired union with His soul."
OK, now I'm going to go on and do what I told you about earlier. I'm just going to make some brief comments on the rest of the verses which give us an account of the temptation. We're comparing now Matthew 4:3 to Luke 4:3. "And when the tempter came to Him, He said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." That was Matthew 4:3, and we found out in a past message that what -- Satan through his carnal mind was really saying to Christ was if You're really the Son of God, let's see You perfect this creation while it still has sin in it. Why do Your people have to go through all this pain? Why do they have to be purged from sin? Why do they have to have all this problem? Why don't you just catch them up just as they are? Why don't you just rapture them and stop torturing them? And found out that Jesus' answer to the carnal mind was I can't do it. I can't do it because the living soul, whose mind is carnal, dies, and in order for the living soul to be alive -- there's only one way it could be alive, and that is to have Christ for its mind. So I cannot give life to a soul whose mind is death.
Do you know that there are certain things that God can't do? Do you know some believers, they take a Scripture like, "All things are possible with Christ," and they would take offense to what I just said, but there are some things that God cannot do because His own righteousness would not permit Him to do it. God would not bring forth a human being half man and half female. Why? It's not the right thing to do. It doesn't mean that He's not capable of doing it if He wants to, but it's not the right thing to do. It's not righteous. God gives gifts to many people, but there are some people He will not give a gift to or a certain particular kind of gift. Why? It's not righteous. God won't bless you in certain areas unless you repent. Why? Because it's not righteous. He's not likely to give you what you ask for if there's unconfessed and unrepented of sin in that area. Why? Because His righteousness won't let Him do it. So there are things that God cannot do, but it's only His own righteousness that has authority over His behavior, if you could put it that way.
So in Luke 4:3, we see the devil saying, if you're the Son of God, command this stone, that it be made bread. Now, in Matthew, the word stones is plural. In Luke, the word stone is singular, and I found out that it really means something completely different. I just told you what the carnal mind was saying in Matthew, and in Luke, we find the carnal mind saying -- if you study it in the interlinear, the carnal mind is saying this stone, me. Saying, make this stone, make me bread. I want to exist. I don't want to be dismantled. I want to continue to exist in this living soul. Make me righteous. And if you remember the teaching from the last message, Jesus is the bread, the living bread, that comes down from heaven, and it -- the word bread is speaking about the soul which has life. Jesus is the soul which ha- -- the soul of -- the man Jesus is the soul man which has life, and we -- when we studied this in a previous message, we found out that the soul does not have life is not called bread, but the soul that does not have life is called a lump. Paul calls it a lump. He says, "Purge the leaven out of the lump."
So we see the carnal mind -- the devil and the carnal mind are one in the same, if anyone doesn't know that, saying unto the Son of God, in the Gospel of Luke, why can't You make me holy? Why can't you let me live forever? And Jesus' -- and he was saying to Him, if you want to carry it a little further, he was saying to Him, if You're the Son of God and You can do anything You want, make me righteous by union with You. Join with me. Make a league with me. We see that expression throughout the Scriptures. Make a league with me. Be my brother. We'll do it together. Your image will be engraved on some of the members of the living soul, and my image will be engraved on other members of the living soul. We'll have a mixture. Some people will have the mind of Christ, and some people will have the carnal mind, and this way we could both be happy.
At this point, I want to suggest to you that the carnal mind had given up trying to sacrifice the Christ and was trying to make a league with Him, and we see this. This is very common in the Scripture when there is a warfare going on, and you might want to look for it in I Kings 20, Verses 31 to 34. It's the account of King Ben-Hadad. He could not defeat the King of Israel, so he came to him, and he said let's be friends. I'll return all the territory that I took from you. I'll give everything back that I took. Let's just be friends. And this is what the carnal mind was saying to Jesus. I know I can't get -- I'm not succeeding in sacrificing You, so let's join together in an unholy union, and we'll find out what Jesus said a little further down.
So we see, in the account of Matthew, the carnal mind is -- well, let me point this out to you. I mentioned it earlier. Let me say it again. In the account of Matthew, we see the carnal mind approaching Jesus very much as a man would approach a woman. He was not taking Him seriously at all, was playing with Him, making suggestions to Him, trying to and thinking that he could influence Jesus without a real out-and-out warfare. Just -- you know, just make a suggestion to this guy. You know, He's really not too swift. The carnal mind was thinking I have such authority over this man. I'm so far over this man, over this mind. I'm so far beyond Him, it's not even a fair match, so I'm just going to make some suggestion to Him, and my mind control is going to tip Him right over. He's just going to do what I want to do.
And as we pointed out in a past message, Jesus' response to the carnal mind in the Book of Matthew was to answer his question. Brethren, I want to tell you that if Christ was being formed in you, you are going to experience everything that we're talking about here. And the carnal mind is going to be speaking not only out of your own carnal mind but out of other people's carnal minds. They're going to be coming to you. They're going to be seducing you. They're going to be manipulating you. They're going to be conning you. They're going to be making suggestion to you. And I want to tell you, brethren, that you, as the son of God, are responsible to not fall prey to their sin. God will deal with them as and when He deals with them, but the person with the most mature authority is the one that is responsible to hold the line.
We had an exhortation about incest before this message started. Brethren, sometimes little girls are very seductive. If some 15-year-old girl who doesn't know what she's doing, or maybe she does know what she's doing, goes up to her uncle and starts zigzagging and wig-wagging all around the room, that does not make it legitimate for her 25 or 35-year-old uncle to say, well, she was asking for it. It's the adult's responsibility to say this is sin, and I don't care what that little girl's doing. I will not sin against my God. The person with the highest authority is responsible for what happens.
So we see, in the account of Matthew, that Jesus was just -- His response to this seduction, to this suggestion, is to just speak the truth, and, brethren, that is what we are to do when we who are in authority are confronted with younger disciples that may know or may not know what they're doing. They may -- it doesn't matter whether they know or don't know what they're doing. When they suggest something to you that is ungodly, we have an example in this Scripture as to what to do. We say no, and we tell them why. We tell them the truth. No, I cannot perfect this living soul while it's in sin because God has made a law, and He has said that for the living soul to live, the mind in it must be Christ.
But then we look at the Book of Luke, and we see that the living soul is not making suggestions over here. In the Book of Luke, the living soul is challenging Jesus the Christ as one would challenge another man. He's taking him seriously in the Book of Luke. He's not trying to make suggestions to Him, but he's challenging Him outright. And we'll see somewhere, when I get to the Scripture, that he's forcing himself on to the man Jesus whose mind is Christ. And once again, he's saying to Him, make me bread. Make me a living soul that is alive. Make me truly a living soul, and Jesus said, no, can't make a league with you. It's not God's way that half of the people should have a mind of Christ and the other half of the people should have your mind. You have got to die.
And I'm not going to get in -- I'm not going to really take too much time on this, but if you study the tenses in the comparative study, you see that the tense used here in the Book of Matthew is one that's translated -- the carnal mind is saying, if you are the Son of God, let's see if these people may not become -- is it possible? Can they become, might they become sons of God without purging the sin out? It's a suggestion. Don't you think it's possible? But when we get into the Book of Luke, the carnal mind is giving a command, and he's saying make this stone me. Make this stone bread. Let's see you do it, bully, bully. Let's see you do it. He's bullying Him.
Verse 4, "But He answered and said" -- "But Jesus 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." And I just told you what that means, and we did that in another message. Jesus said, can't do it, man. The only soul that's going to be alive is the one that's going to have the mind of Christ.
And with regard to the carnal mind's bullying technique to make Jesus make a league with him -- I already gave you that one also. I'll just read you my note. The carnal mind was saying, let's share the creation. I'll engrave a few, and you'll engrave a few. We'll all engrave together. But Jesus said, man cannot live in a soul engraved by the carnal mind, but he can live in a soul engraved by the many membered word of God. That's the 42nd generation. So He's saying -- Jesus said to the carnal mind, it's not possible for you and Me to share the many membered living soul, but there will be a many membered living soul, but every one of them will have My mind in them.
And one thing I would like to point out to you here, in the King James account of Luke 4:4, it says, "And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written." This Greek word translated saying, it's a different Greek word than all the other Greek words translated saying, and this is Strong's 3004. It means to cause to lie down, and I want to suggest to you that Jesus responded to the carnal mind's bullying with an authoritative response that made him lie down. Now let me say this again. To suggestions, Jesus answers with the truth. To bullying, He responds with authority. He made Satan lie down. He knocked him down. Satan was bullying Him, trying to force Him, trying to press his way in, and Jesus knocked him down.
Now Christ responds to whatever's coming at Him. If the person that's sinning is sinning gently and without knowing what they're doing, Christ will just explain the truth to them. But if the person who is sinning is attacking the person in whom Christ is manifesting, Christ will respond with a strong, authoritative maneuver. So if you want to know why someone manifesting Christ is hard on you and soft on someone else, take a look at your behavior. There is such a thing as cause and effect. You will be responded to in direct proportion to your own behavior and attitude, and that's just a law that's in the world. That's not just in the church.
Going on, and there is a word here that's translated in Pell. I don't know what I did with it, but I'm not -- I don't want to make this too detailed, but I do have -- I have looked up all the words, and there is a word somewhere -- I seem to have lost it, which indicates that the carnal mind tried to force Jesus to be -- enter into a league with him.
Moving on to Matthew 4:5, "Then the devil taketh him up into the" [AUDIO CUTS OUT] -- account in Luke is in Verse 9, and once again, we see the word in Matthew is taketh. He taketh Him up, and it means that the carnal mind joined himself to Jesus' soul or manifested. Yet, in Luke, the word is brought Him to Jerusalem. And that Greek word translated brought is Strong's #71, and it means to impel. That's the word. It means -- that's -- it means to impel, that the carnal mind was forcing himself upon Jesus.
Now in Matthew, it says the devil taketh Him to the holy city, and we found out that the holy city is Jesus' soul, which is now holy because Christ is the mind of it. But in Luke 4:9, it doesn't say the holy city. It says Jerusalem, and it doesn't say whether it's New Jerusalem, which is holy, or Old Jerusalem, which is corrupt. So I want to suggest to you that in the -- in Luke's account, the carnal mind has actually risen up and taken authority over the Christ, and at that point, the soul is no longer holy, so the Scripture calls it Jerusalem. And I believe that this happened, that even though the mind of Christ was fully born in the man Jesus, while this battle was going on, at one point, the carnal mind did jump up higher than Christ, but we see that Christ knocked him right back down. But at that one moment, the Scripture indicates that this happened by not calling the soul of Jesus the holy city but merely Jerusalem.
So we see in Matthew that the devil joins himself to Jesus' holy soul by taking authority over Him. Now, brethren, you're going to find this. If you're a son in training, you are going to find people's carnal minds taking authority -- trying to take authority all over the place. The Lord does not want you to be angry at these people. First of all, most of them don't know what they're doing, but even more important than that, you have the authority, and you are required to not let them take authority over you. You must learn how to deal with their ungodly ways and their ungodly minds. That's what this training for sonship is all about. It had nothing to do with the person. God's going to bring a slew of people against you. They're all going to try to take authority over you.
You must learn how to not be overtaken, and you must learn how to not be overtaken in a godly manner. You're not allowed to sin against these people. You're here to be trained in how to do it. So if you get mad at the people who are trying to take authority over you, you're just spinning your wheels; you're utterly wasting God's purposes in your life. But the rule stands. The one in whom Christ is being formed is the one that is responsible for what happen. If you're overtaken, you are the one that must be repent. You, a son of God, were overtaken. Jesus is not condemning you, but if you are overtaken, you've got to confess it and repent and pick yourself up and start all over again. There's no glory to God in your blaming or condemning the person who tri- -- who tempted you, no glory to God in it at all. It's senseless.
So we see in Matthew that the devil joins himself to Jesus' holy soul by taking authority over him. I'm suggesting to you that the carnal mind's not taking Jesus' manhood serious, but he treats Him as a woman, and the devil tries to control Jesus' soul by using mind control to take authority. And what does that mean? The devil tried to get Jesus to agree to his lordship. [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
-- the Gospel of Luke, we see repeated again that the word brought, "he brought Him to Jerusalem," is a word that means to impel, and what that means, after I studied this -- what that means to me is that the carnal mind manifested in Jesus' soul. Now imagine this, one soul that's a personality, two minds trying to manifest fully at one time. Brethren, that's like insanity for the person that it's happening to. Can you imagine this? So we see that Jesus was the one that had authority over the soul. How do I know that? The Scripture says the soul was holy, and despite this fact, Jesus' carnal mind forced his way into manifestation and temporarily was manifesting through Jesus' soul. How do I know that? The Scripture no longer calls His soul holy -- the holy city but calls it Jerusalem, so the Christ was temporarily knocked out.
Now, brethren, listen to me. This Christ was in full stature, and He was temporarily knocked out. If you are not in full stature, you should expect to be knocked out. Don't overreact to it. Don't condemn yourself. Don't go into any deep depressions over it. You just took a right clip to the jaw, that's all, no big deal. Get up, and get back on the horse. And if you're having trouble getting up and getting back on the horse, brethren, I tell you with all humility, your problem is pride. So you goofed, so what? Get back up on the horse. The war's still on.
The devil forces himself into the m- -- into manifestation in Jesus' soul. In Luke, the devil meets Jesus as a serious opponent. The devil is no longer playing but forces himself into Jesus' soul. For the time that the carnal mind is taking authority over Jesus, the Scripture no longer says the holy city but merely says Jerusalem. OK, let's go on here.
This is the second half of Matthew 4:6, "And saith unto Him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee." In both Matthew and Luke, the Greek word translated thyself, meaning yourself -- if you look it up in the Greek, you'll see that the word distinctly means a male person, so we see the carnal mind acknowledging the Christ m- -- acknowledging a male mind. He's acknowledging a male mind. But in Matthew, he doesn't acknowledge Christ's authority. He acknowledges that He's male, but he's confrtont- -- he's dealing with Him as another male. He's not acknowledging that this male has authority over him.
In the Book of Luke, we see the devil is acknowledging Jesus' masculinity as well as His authority, and I'll show you how he's acknowledging His authority. We're dealing with the words -- we're still in Luke 4:10, "to keep thee." [UNINTELLIGIBLE] Let me read you this again. "For it is written, he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee." These words -- this phrase, "keep thee," is Strong's 1314. It means preserve. It means supernatural protection, and it means to prevent from escaping. So we see this phrase, "to keep thee," -- it's not present in Matthew. It's just present in Luke, and it's an ad- -- it's additional information. We found out when we did this study in Matthew that the carnal mind was saying to Jesus the Christ, the l- -- the Father has given the living soul to Satan and his angles for safekeeping, and therefore they belong to me. They are my property, the carnal mind was saying. And Jesus said to him, there's a new writing on the soul. There's a new mind in the soul now, and you have to let it go. It's no longer your job.
So we -- but we see, in the account in Luke, an extra phrase where the devil -- where the carnal mind is telling Jesus, God gave me the living soul to keep it from escaping. Now back in Matthew, we were also told that God gave the devil the living soul to keep it from being joined to the Christ, which was a lie. When we studied that , we found out it was a perversion and a twisting of the Psalm that was being quoted. And now in Luke, we see the carnal mind saying the same thing. We were given the living soul to protect it from being joined to Christ, which is a lie, and to keep it from escaping. Brethren, I want to tell you this carnal mind would rather kill your physical body than see your mind escape from him. He is a computer gone crazy. He was given this living soul for safekeeping until Christ came to take it back. He was to keep us from being completely wiped out until the what, anybody?
[INAUDIBLE]
Until the judgment which will restore us unto godliness and holiness. He was not to keep us or protect us from escaping. He was not to keep us from escaping or to protect us from being joined to Christ. Now listen to the workings of the carnal mind. We were given to him, and we were given to him for safekeeping, that we should not be totally wiped out until the judgment. Satan starts with a truth, and then he twists it. It was true. God gave us to him for safekeeping, but as to the motive for that safekeeping, the carnal mind, the carnal mind was completely messed up. And if you've been studying with us for a while, you may know that we're heavily into motives in this ministry, heavily into motives, and without fail the carnal mind will midjudge the motive of someone who's moving in Christ. It's automatic. The only one who will truly judge righteously as to the motive of someone manifesting Christ is another person who has themselves Christ for a mind.
So the devil will not let his prisoners go when the one who imprisoned them calls for their return, and Jesus teaches on this exact idea in Matthew 21 in the parable about the servant who would not turn the fruit over to the owner of the vineyard. Luke says the devil is given charge over the living soul to keep her from escaping and to keep her from being joined to Christ, my goodness. We're on the second half of Matthew 4:5. "And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash they foot against a stone." The word "at any time" is not in the Greek. Everything else is the same in Luke as it is in Matthew, so we'll go on. Matthew 4:7 -- I know that I didn't seem to find -- I didn't find the word that indicates that Jesus' -- that the carnal mind acknowledged Jesus' authority as well as masculinity. I may come to it later on. I have a note for myself, see below, but I don't see it, so we'll see if I get to it.
Matthew 4:7 compares to Luke 4:12, "Jesus said unto him It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." "Jesus said unto him," and that Greek word can be translated himself. I'd just like to point out to you something I've mentioned before, that Jesus considers the carnal mind Himself. He considers us, the creation, humanity -- He considers us Himself. We found many Scriptures like that. We are Him, but we are a part of Him that has illegally separated from Him. It would be as if our arm had the ability to walk away from our body, and we would spend the next 2,000 or more years trying to find our arm back because we're armless. Jesus and the creation and humanity, we are one. We are illegally separated from Him in our minds.
"He shall give his angels charge concerning thee," and in Luke it says, "He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee." If you're the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here, for it's been written that I will give the angels command to preserve You. I was just reading from the interlinear. Well, as I study this in the Greek, where the Scripture says throw yourself down from here, the Greek indicates that the dev- -- oh, here it is. The Greek indicates that the devil is acknowledging Jesus' authority by saying to Him, throw Yourself down, indicating that Jesus the Christ is higher than the carnal mind, and the carnal mind is saying, if You're really the Son of God, throw Yourself down and worship me. So that's the indication, according to the Greek words, that the carnal mind was acknowledging Jesus' authority.
OK, I'm just skipping along here because all of them Scriptures now, as I pass them, as I compare Matthew to Luke, they're all saying the same thing. So now we arrive at Matthew 4:7, OK. Jesus' answer is there's a new mind in the living soul, and, once again, Jesus' response to the ungodly suggestion is to speak the truth. I don't know. I think I may have had something in the wrong place there, so I'm just going to go on.
"Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth Him all the kingdoms of the world." Show means to expose to the eyes, and, once again, we see in the word takes up -- in Matthew the devil is manifesting in the living soul, joining himself to it, but in the account in Luke, the devil is taking himself up to a higher place for the purpose of sacrificing Christ. So, once again, we see the account in Matthew, that the carnal mind is not taking Jesus very seriously, but in Luke, he's taking Him seriously as a male opponent and challenging Him unto the death. "And he showed him all the kingdoms of the world." In Matthew, it says world. It's the Greek word cosmos. In Luke, it's a different Greek word. It's 3625, and it's a word that's translated the habitable world. The devil expresses himself through Jesus' holy soul, just evidencing that he owns all of humanity.
I feel like I've lost you all. I just have another couple of pages. I'm just going to finish it out for the message. I know this was a very difficult study, so try and bear with me. We're in Luke now. "And Satan leading the devil up into Jesus' holy soul to sacrifice Him. Satan demonstrated his possession of the minds and the human souls which were existing in the many membered living soul of that generation." In a moment of time is speaking about the point of time or the many individuals that are alive in this generation. That's what he was talking about.
And then in Luke, the devil said to Jesus, all this power will I give You, and the glory of them. And in Matthew 4:8, he says he'll give Him all the kingdoms and the glory of them. Jesus. And in Luke, the words -- there are additional words in Luke. He says, "For that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it." So the devil is claiming that this is his soul, and he can give it to whoever he wants to give it to, and he's offering it to Jesus if Jesus will just fall down and say that Satan is God. Now you may remember the teaching from a previous message, that Satan was willing to sacrifice his own carnal mind. And he said to Jesus the Christ, You can engrave your image on the whole living soul. I'll let you do it if You'll just acknowledge that I'm God. Now, of course, that's an irrational statement because for Christ to be engraved in the living soul, the God must -- the God in the midst of the people must be the Father. So we see insanity arising in Satan's mind here. He doesn’t even know what he's talking about. He's promising things he can't deliver and probably believing everything that he's saying. And there's a measure of insanity in carnality. Compared to the wholeness in Christ, there is a measure of insanity in carnality.
So we're pretty much finished up here. Let me just make one or two more comments. That's right, the devil, here in Luke, he's saying that he has the authority to do whatever he wants with this living soul. And, of course, the kingdom are the minds of men, and the glory of the kingdoms are the image that's engraved on that mind. The glory -- there is a negative gory. We talked about that, I believe, in the Book of Habakkuk. The glory is the image that's engraved in the mind. There is an image engraved in the mind, and there is an image engraved in the soul. So the devil is speaking about the kingdoms of this world, and we found in another message that the kingdoms are the minds of this world, and the glory of those kingdoms is that -- it's speaking about the image which is engraved in that mind.
So what Satan wants is for Jesus to just fall down and worship him. That's what he wants, and this is what Jesus sa- -- and he pro- -- and he's saying to Jesus, I'll give you all the minds, and I'll let You engrave your nature on the minds of all the men of this world if You'll just acknowledge me as God. Submit to me, and I'll give You all this thing. And Jesus said to him, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, which is Me," Jesus was saying, "and only Him shall you serve." And we see the same thing being said in Luke, and now the last verse, Matthew 4:11, "Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold angels came and ministered to Him. And, of course, we worked that up on a previous message
And we find a different ending in Luke 4:13, which says, "And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from Jesus for a season." The Greek word translated ended means completed. The Greek word translated departed means to stop vexing, and the word season means a fixed time. "And the devil having completed the temptation, stopped vexing Jesus until the fixed time." What is the fixed time? I suggest to you that the fixed time is the temptation of the second generation of Christ. Now Satan was not killed. He just departed from Jesus until the set time, the set time for the temptation of the second generation of Christ, and, brethren, that time is now. And if Christ is in you and if Christ is in the process of ascending in your mind, Satan is right there as he ascends, tapping Him on the shoulder, saying come on, buddy, get on the boxing gloves because I'm not letting You in here. And I remind you that the way Jesus overcame was twofold. He chose -- He actively chose holiness, and then He put that choice into action by the power of the Spirit of God, which was in the Christ that was begotten in Him.
Now I did mention earlier that there are some people that the Lord is taking against their will. So that I don't sound like I'm contradicting myself, let me put this comment on the message. If you do not choose holiness, if left to your own devices you would choose the ways of this world and you would choose to satisfy your carnal mind and your emotions and your lusts but Jesus is taking you against your will, the way He's doing it is to break your will. And He will take things away from you, and He will crush your will. He will utterly cause failure to come upon the desires that are generated by lust and carnality, if He's called you against your will. Now don't anyone write me or call me up and tell me they know 1,500 people that He's not doing this to. He hasn't take- -- chosen to take them against their will. But if He's called you and He's determined to not let you go and you won't come, you can expect to find your world getting smaller and smaller as He crushes you into the mold that He wants you into. And He will put a rod across your back, and He will break your will, and there's no place in the world that you can run to get away from it. Check out Jonah.
I would like to read to you now just an ending, the Alternate Translation of the temptation. I have interwoven the translations of Matthew's account of the temptation and Luke's account of the temptation. I've put them all together, plus one verse from Mark, Mark 1:12, and I'd like to read this to you. I think it's very exciting.
"And the Spirit of God forced Himself into the man Jesus' soul to beget the mind of Christ in Him. So during the transition from death unto life, Jesus had two minds. Now Jesus the Christ intensely desired union with His soul, so He didn't fornicate with His carnal mind, and His carnal mind lost its influence over the man Jesus. Then Satan caught Jesus' carnal mind up into the soul realm for a spiritual battle with the Christ, whom Satan was hoping the carnal mind would kill and sacrifice to Satan. Then the devil demonstrated that he still had the authority to fully manifest his carnal mind in Jesus' renewed soul."
"And the devil aggressively approached Jesus saying" -- brethren, if you're in this position. If Christ is being formed in you, the devil is aggressively approaching you, and he's talking to you. And he said to Jesus, "If you're really the Son of God, let's see you make the Lord, which is engraved in my image, holy, and bring its many members into spiritual maturity in their present sin-filled condition. But Jesus, having completely forsaken His carnal needs and desires and craving dominion over the devil, overcame His carnal mind's suggestion and answered him by saying, man cannot live in a soul which is either fully or partially in your image, but he can live in a many membered soul which is in the image of Christ."
"And the carnal mind tried to confuse Jesus by saying, if you're really the Son of God, submit to my lordship because God has commanded that the living soul should be delivered over to the authority of Satan's angels to prevent her from escaping and to preserve her from dama- -- from the damaging effects of being fastened to Jesus Christ. But Jesus said to His carnal mind, it was prophesied from old that there would be a new mind revealed through the living soul one day, and that mind is here now. You have no authority, therefore, to test the living soul's new mind, which is Christ, your God, the one who owns you."
"And the devil manifests himself as the mind of Jesus' renewed soul to try to sacrifice Him again, this time declaring his authority over all of the human minds existing in that generation and his right to give them to Jesus by demonstrating his ability to control the peoples of the world." Your carnal mind wants to control you brethren. "And Satan says to Jesus, I'll sacrifice my own offspring, the carnal mind, and engrave Your image in the minds of humanity, and You can possess all of which I just demonstrated that I own if You'll just give up your claims of lordship and acknowledge that I'm God."
Brethren, Satan is saying this to you. He's saying he's going to give you happiness. He's going to give you joy. He's going to fulfill all of your needs and your wants and desires if you'll just renounce Christ and say that he's the Son of God. But I want to tell you that Satan is a liar, and if you're happy at all, it won't last very long because Satan cannot sustain your happiness, especially when you've been called by Christ. And if you believe his lies, you're a scriptural fool, and you need a rod across your back. That's what the Lord said. It's not what I said.
"But at the same time that all this was happening, the man Jesus was influenced by the spirit of Christ to reject His carnal mind and choose holiness. And the mind of Christ, being born in the man Jesus, He was able to sacrifice His carnal mind up to the Father. And then Jesus says to Satan, get your carnal mind down under my Christ mind because the fact is that the very appearance of the mind of Christ in Me means that at the appointed time all of humanity shall acknowledge that I'm the Son of God, and they shall submit themselves to Me, and I shall appear in them."
"And then Jesus' carnal mind stopped challenging His Christ mind until the appointed time, and glory to God, it happened. The many members of humanity drew near to God and sacrificed their sin-filled souls when they were tempted by the carnal mind, and Christ cared for them and supplied and distributed the necessities of life to them."
You see, after you sacrifice your carnal mind, Christ cares for you and supplies and distributes the necessities of life to you. And I would mention that there's one other aspect of this warfare before we're in full stature, and that is Satan's mind control convincing you that you're not even a son. I know many who have walked away from a high calling in God because they could not perceive what they were called to, and God let them go. I have several people in mind right now. God let them go, and some people that perceive what they're called to in certain areas, they just cannot accept their sonship. You can't be half and half, brethren. You can't be half engraved with Christ and half engraved with the carnal mind. That was the devil's suggestion to Jesus. You can't have a league with your carnal mind. You've got to be one or the other. You can't be a hybrid. The Lord says don't mix your seed. You've got to be one or the other, brethren. And if you're called to high things in Christ, don't turn back. Remember Lot's wife; she turned to a pillar of salt. No good thing can come out of it. Glory to God.
Well, that was a very difficult message. I hope you got something out of it. I worked on it for three days. The Scriptures are just so exciting. I think I would like to -- if the Lord lets me, I'd like to just print up that Alternate Translation and send it out. It's absolutely glorious. These Scriptures are absolutely glorious. Brethren, you are in bondage to your emotions. You are in bondage to your lusts. You are in bondage to your needs. Jesus has come to give you liberty, and He's come to give you life, and He's going to do it for a whole creation that doesn't want Him, for a whole creation that hates Him, that despises Him, that lies about Him and doesn't want His salvation. He's going to do it for you all anyway, and I expect to live to see the day.
And I thank you, Lord, for what You're doing, for people that don't appreciate You, that don't even like You and that don't want anything to do with You. I thank You on behalf of them all, and I ask You to forgive their sins, Father, because they surely don't know what they're doing. It's just foolish. Break the rod across their back, Lord, across the back of the church and across the back of the whole world. Do whatever You have to do, Lord, because Your word says that that rod breaking across their back is a sign that You love them, and I sure want it on my back if I need it, and I thank You for it. I thank You for giving us life, Lord, even when we don't want it. And I bless You. I thank You for everything You've put in my life. I thank you for every opportunity for -- to overcome that You've given me. I thank you for everything that You've taught me, for everything that I've learned ,and I thank You for bringing me to where I am now. And I look forward to a continuous, ongoing increase in wisdom and knowledge and understanding and in overcoming of my carnal mind. And I look forward to the day, Lord, that I'll be in heaven and not in Hell
And I thank You, Lord, for Your purpose in my life and Your guidance in my life and Your -- for protect- -- for Your protection in my life and for correcting me when I go off Lord. I thank You for it. And I wouldn't want it any other way. I bless You, Lord, and I ask that You just have mercy on a world that is insane, spiritually insane, spinning out of control, doing whatever they want. Thank You for safety. Thank You that there's light in Goshen, Lord, when all this is happening. I bless You, Father. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me in my terrible life, and I thank You for letting me serve. In the name of Jesus, amen.
Any questions tonight?
09/01/14 Transcribed by VerbalFusion
09/17/14 1stEdit CAS/BP
